Re: OT - Best way to handle dbdebunk

Bob Badour wrote:
> Marshall Spight wrote:
>

>> Bob Badour wrote:
>>
>>> Marshall Spight wrote:
>>>
>>> Your suggestion would have more merit if the group actually discussed
>>> any real theory.
>>
>>
>>
>> Sometimes real theory is discussed and sometimes it isn't. We had
>> a rockin' good thread a while back on a paper Vadim wrote called
>> "Relational Algebra as Distributive Lattice." I am still digesting
>> the implications. Not every experience can be a peak one.

>>> When well over 90% of the content of the group is nonsense posted by
>>> self-promoting ignorants who are unable to respond to substantive
>>> critique, it seems disingenuous to suggest one may not point that out.
>>
>>
>> I think it is perfectly acceptable to point out when you think some
>> idea or another is nonsense. Critiquing someone's character is
>> unnecessary if you actually refute their arguments.

To the extent that I'm not (at least not always) one of the ignorants, I must agree. It must be a drag for the experts to have to endlessly point out the non-sequiturs and refute all the contradictory language that emanates from predicatable sources but I think if you are expert, you have a duty to do that on society's behalf.

Personally, I can accept insults/ad hominems if I truly believe the respondent is head-and-shoulders more competent than I am in the subject at hand. I think when one goes public in anything, one must expect this because it seems a natural condition that no amount of theory can undo, ego and emotion are always lurking.

Sometimes the OP's persist. When that happens I even agree that one way to try to stop the propagation of some of these silly hobby horses, eg. to distract their self-absorption, is via insult which has a chance of giving them pause to entertain more productive themes. This has happened to me and although it made me angry at the time, there were cases where it caused me to learn something and those made up for the times it didn't. I used to work with a guy who was constantly going behind my back. Not being witty enough to come up with clever insults, the only way I could minimize this was to spew him with profanity in public view about twice a year. This worked with him because nobody had ever talked that way to him before. I was a little ashamed of myself for doing that but not as embarrassed as I was by some of my other deeds and all in all I think it was worth it for the organization's sake.

Of course, I ran a risk (unemployment) for doing that whereas there's not much personal risk doing it on a newsgroup. This group is pretty tame when it come to the insults - some others are full of death threats. But when the insult doesn't give pause to the OP and he doesn't have the manners to see that his attitude isn't generally welcome a bigger problem shows up. For me, it's all the same problem / natural condition as we see in western world politics, the problem isn't the number of inadequate politicians rather the great mass who vote for the egotists/noise-makers/attention-getters/time-wasters who don't give a hoot about the subject at hand. The masses are just as much at fault by keeping these threads alive.

If these OP's are ignored, I am confident they will eventually go away.   Even if I'm wrong about that, the '90%' noise will get quieter. Sometimes an expert's silence can be deafening. In the end it's their decision to stay mute.

I feel better now,
pc

ps: I realize this very post is actually 'noise'. I've seen a few private news groups where one must be accepted in to participate. The kind I like is be one where one needs permission to post but everybody in the world can read. Before the internet, that kind of elitism was a perfect set-up for propaganda machines, for example, IBM's. It doesn't seem so risky now. Received on Wed Feb 15 2006 - 19:25:42 CET