Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 16:23:11 10/06/00
Go up one level in this thread
On October 06, 2000 at 13:22:19, Peter Davison wrote: >This board tries to define itself in three ways. First it calls itself by a name >that suggests what is and what isn't appropriate. Then it has an elected group >of moderators who are supposed to maintain some kind of on-topic control >function. Thirdly groups of posters develop their own ideas of what is and what >isn't, and will 'propagandise' as to what goes and what doesn't. > >You also have a time element involved. The Internet has grown fast, computer >chess groups have changed from being full of enthusiasts, commercials and so on, >to attracting younger, less 'specialist' people. The density of people you might >argue are slightly nuts has increased. The density of people who want to publish >Fritz or Chessmaster internal toin-cossing tounaments has increased. > >Effectively, you've moved from 'specialist fanatics' to 'specialist fanatics >plus Joe Public'. This results (please refrain from the snobbery flames) in a >dumbing-down, a general intellectual downgrading. And, I think, it is this >general downgrading, which you sensibly refrain from explicitly stating, which >concerns you. No, I'm not an elitist, and I don't concern myself with overall quality of discussion except as is related to the quality of my own discussion. I figure that if I were to think that too many posts are stupid, the obvious solution is to write smart posts, rather than complaining about it as others have. >Let's call it the pesky end-users and kids syndrome. > >Now, if I'm right about the view, and I'm sure you'll be disagreeing by now, >this viewpoint will probably not be in favour of groups here who *want* pesky >end-users and kids. End-users provide a marketplace, as do kids, a little. >Retailers, publishers, commercial programmers, crafty programmers all want this >group. Well, they want to use this group. Programmers like you, who don't depend >on sales or uploads, want, I suspect, in the final resort, to talk high level >with other experts. You're happy to do some teaching function to serious >beginners, but you get irritated by what you perceive of as nonsense, like the >CM tournaments. > >I think your irritation is reasonable and genuine. If the forum was taken >completely, as it has been at times, by nonsense posts, then the smart ones will >quit (as many have already done). Nonsense then begets more nonsense. I'm bugged by one variety of post, not usually because of the content or frequency of the posts, but rather because the titles attract my attention rather than evidencing themselves as posts that, given my variety of interests, I should ignore. A couple of years ago I made a comment about product support posts appearing on this board. I was bothered by them and felt that such specific questions should be asked of the manufacturer rather than being asked here. Many people blasted me on that point, including Steve, for whom questions asked here are not asked on his 1-800 line, and at least one other use who said that they wanted to see what trouble others were having, in order to predict what kinds of trouble they would be having. This was fine with me, and I admit my mistake. Over time this kind of thing has become more and more common. There are many threads that I don't read at all, there are topics that I ignore completely, and there are regular posters who I have very little contact with this. None of this involves any issues that I'm feeling particularly militant about. But it is possible for a user to write on-topic posts that I think the general CCC population would find annoying. Someone did a game here between two computers, and I found that thread extremely annoying. I can also imagine that someone posting an hourly diary of their computer chess development efforts would also become annoying very quickly. Perhaps there are some free speech issues, but this needs to be balanced against the rights of the rest of us not to be bombarded with a constant stream of drivel. >So, given the various differing requirements of the various differing interest >groups here, what do you propose? > >Leave it as it is, but keep whingeing about the pesky ones? > >Make a select exclusive group of experts? > >Break up into specific interest groups? > >Make an expert write, end-user read only forum? > >Pack up and go home? > >Make more rules, make them explicit and enforce them? > >Anything else? People should take it upon themselves to write interesting posts, and realize that practical bandwidth is not quite infinite. If someone wants to say something to one specific person, and of likely interest to only that one person, it is better to use email. If there is a small group of people who want to have a high-volume long-duration conversation on a topic that would interest only themselves, same deal. bruce
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