I will agree to a certain point.
I don't mind sharing info but like most I don't want to give them the exact rock or hole.

But here is something else to think about.

If a guy goes out and scouts out a river and talks to locals and spends time really learning the river but not fishing it. So one day he and his buddy goes to this river he has been scouting out and has good luck. While they are there they see only 2 other guys.

So now these two guys have found a hole in this river that is hardly fished(as far as they know) and continues to come here on a weekly basis.

One day they show up and see 4 or 5 guys fishing this hole. They are polite to them and just fish along side of them but not crowding them or interupting there fishing. As the 2 buddys fish one of them over hears the group of guys make a comment " I remember when this was a quiet place and it was just us who knew about this place. Another guy says to them it's the internet and all the stupid magazines out there giving away our secret hole, I wish they would learn to find there own river and stop mooching off others."

The 2 guys don't say a word and do there own thing. That night one of the guys logs on to his favorite web site and starts his reading.
A certain post catches his eyes so he clicks it on and reads it. It is about how they are sick and tired of people showing up at there secret hole and wish these people would stop crowding there once peaceful hole. he rants and raves about how these guys probly got the info fron the net or some magazine and there pissed.

The guy reading this post can't believe what he just read, no one told them about this hole he scouted out and was not givin a freebie. So he jumps down the guys throat and replys back saying all kinds of nasty things and how he found the hole and he did not get any info from any web site or magazine other then the WSF&G rules book. They continue to argue.
In the end they find out the guys post was about some other river and involving different people. The other guy says sorry and made a mistake.

So when you do all the work and put in hours of you own time to scout a rive rand suddenly you are getting chewed out by the old timers and hearing comments like this was a secret hole before you guys showed up, just remember they once had to find this hole and I am sure some one at one time complained about them.

So if a new guy shows up a a hole you thought was a secret how do you know if he got the info from the web or chat sites or he did his own hard work ? Especially if he does not say anything.

This is just a thought , or more of a ramble maybe not even really related to this topic.
But I think we all have been in a situation like this at some point in out fishing days, maybe.