Fully agree. Please dont jump and get hyped about any coin, because of some strangers in the internet. Take time and do plant of research and, before you start trowing many on any coin.
I guess the main question I would have now is, where would I go to do a non biased research on the coin I want to look further into? It seems impossible to do this, especially with all of the information about cryptos being on the internet. What made you feel strongly about Monero in the first place? What makes you feel even more strongly about Monero now? I want to see for my self, but I would have no idea where to start.
A good start is doing what I'm doing...
Reviewing the latest source code file by file, line by line.
Works better for people with a technical background. phishead has stated he doesn't have that. What is the alternative then?
Well i'm not trying to say that people should learn to read code, but it would help to address his concern of getting an unbiased view of a coin.
Google is here so anyone can teach themselves to do just about anything. There are even youtube videos on simple coding.
I guess it depends on how much one wants to understand how something works.
For example my double blade riding lawn mower recently broke the main belt.
I didn't say to myself, "I dont work on lawn mowers". I did a bit of research and found out how to change the belt effectively and in a timely way.
The internet is powerful if whomever wants to embrace it takes it and runs with it.
Heck if I didn't know how to cook, I would google it as well and take tips from people who are good at cooking.
The best way is to just start...somewhere.