English teacher? I did Standard English for HSC and went crap in that actually. Haha. Anyway, I'll let you win on your birthday.. lol. Better not be today :/
Now the premise behind your argument is that because you don't view any of this as 'real', then nothing of use or truth can be detracted from it. My overall rebuttle is that that's not a valid conclusion. I don't see how lacking human contact and empathy results in significantly lower useful posts. You're right, I don't give a shit about most people on this forum, and I agree that most people don't. But like I said in my previous post, I don't see the relevance of this. One reason for that is because we don't need an emphatic environment to give relevant advice.
Let's have a look at a typical thread:
Define Person A as threadstarter.
Person A: "omg my bf did this and this and blah blah wat do i do??"
When people answer (not talking about trolls here), they will try to give reasonable advice straight down from what they think. They don't particularly care about Person A, of course not.. but that isn't relevant. When they are presented with an issue of another forumite whom they don't give a shit about personally, they will try to resolve the situation anyhow digging out their input on the situation, with the situation in mind. They don't have to care about the person.
Here's the brainclogger for ya, I would argue that for blunt advice giving.. it can be even BETTER to lack physical human contact. Due to the internet medium's nature on social psychology, of course we all feel more inclined to post more honest opinions without worrying about ramifications resulting from posting such. For example, if your best friend asked about something sensitive.. empathy and sensitivity comes into play and a good friend may bend the truth such that accurate advice is given, but the whole truth isn't told as to prevent emotional damage (and hence preventing strain and tension on the friendship; one potential ramification under the circumstances like I suggested before).
So people don't care about the other person's feelings (which is a bad thing in your viewpoint).. and what I'm saying is that it can actually be a good thing. They don't care about the other person's feelings, so they can totally roam free when it comes to giving advice. They can tell it as it is completely.
As for the assertion that generally forumites use the forum as an excuse to blabber on about themselves, I disagree. Some do it, sure.. but remember alot of threads here ASK for it. It's in the context of many threads to do so. But let's assume you to be completely correct and that everyone blabbers on about themselves, that still doesn't detract much value from their posts.
Let's have Person A start a thread asking for advice again.
Situation where people don't blabber on about themselves: 'You should *insert verb here*'
Situation where people blabber on about themselves: 'Well this happened to me too blah blah'.. which is fine, because threadstarter is still getting the same advice.. i.e what people who have replied actually did in the situation or would do. Sure, they're blabbering on about themselves, but the advice is obviously there, just expressed differently. Hence my original conclusion that this issue is hardly relevant.