but if you don't know what you're doing you're better off just buying a coin you like and holding and forgetting about it for months/years.
It's very difficult to completely forget about whatever asset you invest in when you're highly involved in that specific market. One way or another, you will always end up finding out what the price is doing. If you can't just leave your investment aside without touching it, and especially if you don't know what you're doing, then you're better off not investing at all. Blindly trading or investing always ends up with losses in the long term.
I see what you mean, if you're asking the question whether to trade or hold, then you're the sort of person who will end up checking the price anyway. But there are other people who just buy bitcoin and then check back a couple of times a year. I know people who do this. But I suppose with alts it's different, especially if they're smaller more volatile alts that could just turn to $0.