up vote 2 down vote favorite

Well pretty much as the title states, I was wondering if it's ok to ask about the code of conduct in the gym.

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Can you be more specific about what it is you want to ask? – Matt Chan♦ Jun 26 '12 at 1:47
well I can just tell you my specific story. There was this one guy squating in way that would surly blow out his knees. I went over to him to try to save his knees, and he made me regret that fast, to the point that I thought I had done something wrong. Which got me thinking; did I do something that inst accepted in gyms? Is it frowned upon to give other people advise that may help prevent injury? – Calvin Jun 26 '12 at 2:35
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I think your question about what you did and the reason why it played out the way it did is a little harder to answer (since we can only speculate) than asking what to do approach someone or how to make a suggestion. Your specific situation actually just struck me (it reminded me of a comment I made a long time ago) that your question was already asked. – Matt Chan♦ Jun 28 '12 at 18:03
If you want to do some reading, this blog post by Ramit Sethi turned in my feeds recently. There are some good comments on that post specifically (and also some silly ones). His blog is about being rich (which doesn't necessarily mean money), but one of the points he emphasizes is behavioral change. That's probably a more interesting question (though maybe not for Fitness) and the underlying problem you want to tackle for the person performing a technique improperly. – Matt Chan♦ Jun 28 '12 at 18:07

4 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

Etiquette is such a subjective beast. There is no official source that tells me what is acceptable and what isn't in a gym or in any social setting. The answer varies from culture to culture, club to club, and even from person to person.

There are some clubs where doing X may be looked down upon and other clubs where participating in that same behavior is simply overlooked, which implies that it's unofficially acceptable.

For example, some clubs require you to wipe down the equipment when you're done, some don't. In some clubs, people are more respectful and just clean up after themselves because that's how they were raised, and in some clubs people just do whatever they want, regardless of what "rules" are listed on paper.

It seems that this particular topic would just encourage a lot of discussion, something SE sites aren't designed for.

That's not to say that expanding the scope is a bad thing or that your points aren't valid, it's just that in this particular case, questions about etiquette just don't seem like they would be a good fit for a network dedicated to being an objective resource of knowledge in the form of answers to actual problems you face.

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Some subjectivity is okay, but it depends. The only related question I can remember related to this topic is one about showering. – Matt Chan♦ Jun 26 '12 at 2:50
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Someone once said subjectivity in questions is okay, but it's the answers that I'd be most concerned about. Subjective answers can be dangerous. With that said, it could work out here, depending on how disciplined this community is about insisting on applying the "back it up" rule to help suppress discussion. (Which seems to be something that I recall seeing a lot of). – jmort253 Jun 26 '12 at 2:57
up vote 2 down vote

I think such question could be ok, and if anything, we should decide on a case-by-case basis, not make a blanket rule. I agree with jmort253 that the answers will be subjective (whether due to culture, habit or rules), but the community can still up-vote what makes sense and down-vote silly policies. Programmers.SE is also very subjective, and no one complains about that.

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eg. the shower in gym question Matt mentioned is a fine question, imho. – VPeric Jun 28 '12 at 11:23
The Workplace is also pretty subjective too but has a lot of questions regarding etiquette. I haven't dug too deeply around that site, but you could probably extrapolate some general trends that would apply to a wide variety of situations but not be a universal rule. – Matt Chan♦ Jun 28 '12 at 17:58
up vote 1 down vote

http://www.exrx.net/ExInfo/Etiquette.html

They feel ettiquette is something that can be generally outlined, and they even address Calvin's question. And as they say, "ExRx.net is a recommended resource in ACSM's Resource Manual for Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Prescription, 5th ed." so it can't be argued that they're not a valid source.

Calvin can ask his question, and someone can link to ExRx, quoting the relevant bit. How does that not fit into Fitness.SE?

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up vote -4 down vote

I'd vote yes. Restrictions on keeping things on topic, and locking "off topic" questions ended up killing RPG SE, maybe it's still around but I bailed out on it a long time ago because it was far to restrictive and prevented getting useful information.

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and almost all the questions are about d20 products, with a few other ones sprinkled in because they drove anyone with other interests away. – Robin Ashe Jun 26 '12 at 2:38
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Well, then if you have a problem with RPG.SE, the Fitness Meta is not the place to complain about it. – Matt Chan♦ Jun 26 '12 at 2:45
My problem with RPG.SE has to do with the constraints stackexchange puts on topics that are suited fine to stuff like programming but not suited to other topics. RPGs was one topic where it didn't work to keep things so narrowly focused, and I believe fitness is another one. – Robin Ashe Jun 26 '12 at 2:48

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