You don’t have to be a student of American history to know about the Donner party.
In the 1840s, this group of around 90 people had heard about the wonders of California and decided to travel west to seek their fortune.
Rather than following the rutted road of the hundreds of settlers before them, they took an unproven shortcut given by a person who had not actually made the trip he proposed and therefore had no business in directing others to go that way. None of the Donner party had traveled the route before, either, so they had no experience or knowledge to measure the shortcut against.
As a direct result of taking the disastrous advice about the shortcut, most of the party didn’t live to tell the tale. Those who did live endured unimaginable and grisly hardships in camp.
People today have heard about the gold rush in audiobooks, leading many to decide to become a narrator. While mistakes in audiobook narration don’t carry such severe consequences, they do have repercussions. Therefore, narrators participating in online forums need to be careful about the advice they give and take.