Re: OT - Best way to handle dbdebunk

From: Marshall Spight <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com>
Date: 15 Feb 2006 08:27:25 -0800
Message-ID: <1140020845.886832.10640_at_g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>


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. Not everyone can be a Jan Hidders or a Vadim Tropashko. Michael Jordon by himself does not a basketball team make.

> When I returned here, I saw self-promoting ignorants
> engaged in public acts of mental masturbation (as always), and one or
> two people trying to make the best of a bad situation.

I encourage you to join the latter group! (Not that I consider the situation particularly bad. Is it much better in any other context, do you think?)

> 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.

> Given the extremely low signal to noise ratio, it seems doubly
> disingenuous to suggest one may not point others toward the signal.

I encourage you to point others towards the signal. You'll be more effective in doing so if you do it in a way that is within the bounds of polite discourse. Consider how marginalized Fabian Pascal is; without his very-low-traffic website, no one would have heard of him at all. This has nothing to do with his ideas and everything to do with his appalling rudeness.

Marshall Received on Wed Feb 15 2006 - 17:27:25 CET

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