FWIW when I was learning I didn't base my decisions on "clout" but if what the person was saying resonated with me.
That's how we ended up with some folks using Miracle-Gro in "hydroponic" substrates a few years ago on the advice of someone with unshakeable confidence in their method (and who also made grandiose and unverifiable claims of extensive growing experience). There have been plenty of other interesting ideas about growing presented here that were clearly unencumbered by practical experience but that sounded pretty reasonable to anyone similarly unencumbered.
The way the Miracle-Gro approach was described resonated with anyone who had grown plants before, and made its own kind of sense so long as nobody looked too closely at the differences between how plants and fungi grow and obtain their nutrients. But nobody I know of uses fertilizer to grow mushrooms "hydroponically" off of abrasive dish pads these days.
Longevity, on the other hand, is about the only thing left that can't be faked (it's a substrain of clout). and if someone lasts a long time in a context like this they probably weren't giving out bunk advice the whole time since they tend to get banned or crowd-source corrected.
Edited by TVCasualty, 13 February 2021 - 07:08 PM.
