Let me share some things I look at when trying to determine if a "trip report" is truthful or not.
And BTW I don't go around questioning all reports and I think I only challenged three reports in the main area of "Baja Nomad" since I been a member
of this site.
I look to see if a report is timely, believing if something happens to somebody, they will probably report it right away, instead of waiting weeks,
months, or years later to report it.
I look at the members who are reporting the alleged incident. I ask, do they have a track record on the forum, do they come off truthful, do they
have respect from other forum members? I look to see if they make posts that are agenda based, and I want to know if they are promoting something, or
are they just ugly Americans, that are always looking to put Mexico in a bad light.
Obviously with newbies, with no track record on a forum, I distrust them more than I do regular members, because I know nothing about them, and find
it odd, they come to a forum with a fantastic story when they only been a member for a few days, although I don't discount their report out of hand,
but I will scrutinized their report more carefully than a known forum or Facebook member.
With second hand reports, I basically say, nice report, but it's a second hand report, and I have no way to try to judge the validly of the report,
and this is probably the reason courts treats second hand reports as 'hearsay" and usually don't allow it into evidence.
Third hand reports, forget them, because by the time you hear about it, most of the actual facts of the story will be changed, forgotten, or made up.
It still might be an interesting story and have some truth to it, but a third hand report, is nothing but a third hand report, and should be treated
as anecdotal evidence, or a good story.
Then I look at the report itself.
I want to know if there are things in the report that seems way over-the-top. I want to know if the report, asks you to suspend beliefs of known
physical laws.
I also look for odd things in the report, and ask myself, " would a reasonable person( victim) act like that.
Hell, I even look at the behavior, at the bad guys in the report, and ask myself, would a bad guy, mugger, thief, or scam artist really do that. Even
the bad guys are somewhat predictable.
These are just some of the things I look at when trying to determine if a report is truthful or not, and no, I don't have pencil and paper, checking
things off, as I'm reading a incident report, but for sure, I see red flags right away, and sometimes I can't help myself, but share those feelings I
have with others.
I'm also a contrarian in life, if the herd is going one way, I will go the opposite way, because herd behavior is almost always wrong.
[Edited on 2-14-2016 by JoeJustJoe] |