| Re: This attitude of yours Message #14 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 28 Feb 2007, 6:58 p.m., in response to message #13 by Thor Lansen
Hi again, Thor:
Thor posted:
"There was a vote and your side lost. No, that was not good enough for you. I remember you made a convoluted
and nonsense argument about symmetry and blah blah blah"
I honestly don't actually think that it is a problem of "sides" and of winning or losing. I saw it more as a politeness thing, were we are all together in this forum politely sharing a hobby and something is done by some people that upsets others. It is thus not a problem of number, because in a polite environment if an 80% majority, say, are doing something that annoys a 20% minority, if there's something that can reasonably be done to avoid this it should be attempted, out of politeness if nothing else. In many countries there are laws to protect minorities, else they would always be subject to majorities no matter how just their claims could be.
In this case of eBay postings, the problem was an excessive amount at the time, mostly of very temporary things or centered in very specific sellers that, as Karl Schneider has said in a number of occassions, are not of lasting value whatsoever, because of their intrinsic in-built obsolescence, yet they were cluttering the forum to the point where it was actually difficult to find other threads thinly interspersed inbetween, and worse, these obsolete and/or inconsequential eBay threads do actually end up in the Archives, from whence they get eventually burned in the DVDs which Mr. Hicks kindly provides, and then it is simply a tremendous waste of space and potential.
If some solution could be found to avoid annoying the minority while preventing these threads to clutter the forum and end in the DVDs, it seemed reasonable to attempt to find it and see if it worked.
That's my point of view, and I stand by it, even if it is never actually realized. I don't think it is a nonsensical point of view, it makes perfect sense to me from a polite and practical stand.
"So, yes you do want to ban eBay topics, Gileno's postings are 99.99% eBay stuff that he finds so, in essence, you want him out."
That doesn't follow, and I want noone out because, just to begin with, I'm not the one to decide who stays and who goes, that's Mr. Hicks prerrogative. I certainly found somewhat tiring Gileno's continual one-line desperate requests for help, without ever even introducing himself or his problem, or telling whether he had made any attempts at finding the information by himself, etc, just the one-line, exclamation-ridden plea.
Can you actually imagine that you attend some HP-fan meeting (like the HPCC ones, for instance), and there's some fellow there which continually gets to you (and everyone else for that matter) yelling "HELP, PLEASE!!!", right out, without saying much more, then the next time he yells again at you "I NEED THIS MANUAL!!!", etc. etc ? I hope you get the point. How long do you think you would stand this situation without asking him to behave in a more polite manner, to address you properly, and to explain a little more about his problem and his attempts ? Either that, or else you'd rather avoid him.
Same here. The mere fact that this is a written medium doesn't mean we should disregard all social politeness, rather we can and do engage in polite conversation, like you and me right now. If someone is desperately (so it seems) asking for help, the very least you would expect is for him to do so politely, not having him pester everyone continuously with his unpolite help requests.
I think that if someone doesn't behave, it's actually proper to let him know, respectfully, that he should change his attitude and warn him of the consequences if he doesn't. If said person is mature enough, he will think about it and might eventually take the hint. Or else, he can go wild, enter childish mode, make a pitiable ruckus, feel deeply offended, and leave. I think this isn't what you would expect of an articulate, mature person.
"I do not know if you feel superior or not, but your posting came out that way."
I'm sorry if it seemed that way, but let me assure you that this is not the case. I do have a strong attitude towards life and must confess that I don't suffer fools gladly, but I've always been the kind of person who loves giving and sharing whatever I feel seems worthy of it and which can be useful to others. Else, do you think I would spend so much time doing challenges, articles, posts, when I'm busy 24 hours around the clock and have wife and daughter to educate ? But I am as I am, some people do like me, some people do hate me, but that's everyone's experience in this world.
"Finally, if you look at the end of my first posting, I said: "I have not contributed (or very little) and yes I have the same privilege to post as you and
Gileno and anybody else has." So, there it is."
Yes, I noticed. My sentence was addressed to your other rethorical question, the one with the "right" in it.
"PS: What I said about your "challenges" was to make a point and not true, I hope you continue posting them."
Thank you very much. I'll do my best to try and keep them interesting and as little obnoxious as possible for those people that don't appreciate them. I sincerely do try to make them didactic in nature, and the many solutions for a great variety of HP models provided by forum contributors might actually be useful for other people trying to learn and understand programming techniques. A good, working example is usually much more useful and enlightening than several dense pages in a Reference Manual.
Thanks again for your comments and
Best regards from V.
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