Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 22:30:45 11/19/00
Go up one level in this thread
On November 20, 2000 at 00:38:43, Robert Hyatt wrote: >1. The email was sent before my post. > >2. The thread kept going. I posted my "stop it" post at the front of the >thread to attract attention, rather than to confuse things by posting it past >the point where the thread had branched. There were several immediate follow- >ups to Thorstens nonsensical first post. If I had added my "stop" to the end >of one of those, it would have (IMHO) been confusing... stop the sub-thread >or stop the whole thread. > >3. The chronology went like this: > > (a) email to stop > > (b) STOP NOW post that you are pointing at. > > (c) a couple of other STOP NOW posts a day or two later. > >Mentally (a) and (b) happened close enough together than I didn't stop to >think that no one had seen (a). When I posted the second STOP NOW post, >I did consider this and added the off-topic explanation. > >In _any_ case, I would think it would be intuitively obvious to the most >casual of observers as to what I meant. The post was off topic. If your >dog craps in my yard, with me watching, and I say "stop that". I think you >would figure out what I meant. I wouldn't have to say "stop that dog from >crapping in my front yard." The "crap" would be pretty obvious. We are not mind readers. If you want to say, "Stop posting that, it is off-topic", you should say, "Stop posting that, it is off-topic", and not "Stop posting that, you don't know what you are talking about." If you had understood what Jeroen posted in response, you would have realized that he was objecting to the reason you gave, not to the fact that you told Thorsten to stop. >Politics is also pretty obvious. If someone says "you stupid sumbitch, >can't you read?" I would simply say "warning: shut up now." I would not >feel it necessary to add "you can't curse like that here..." Somethings I >consider _obvious_. I expect most (Jeroen included) to figure out what I >was responding to, and _why_. It was not confusing, IMHO. Particularly >after there were already posts demanding that the thread be deleted. Not to >mention moderator and personal email demanding the same thing. > >I suppose that if I _must_ live in a world where everything is taken so >literally, with no thought being devoted to "what is going on here?" then >I can live with that, and spell things out like I used to do when my kids >were 3 years old. I had hoped that CCC was a bit beyond the 3-year-old >comprehension level. Or, as I _really_ suspect, some _want_ to misinterpret >something, in order to make a small wave here or there. Bob: Stop posting that, you don't know what you are talking about. Others: Bob, that post was off-topic, and shouldn't have been posted, but you shouldn't tell people not to post just because you think they don't know what they are talking about. Bob: I don't know why you are bothered, it was an off-topic post. Others: You told him not to talk about it because he didn't know what he was talking about. You should have told him that it was off-topic. Bob: I didn't tell him he didn't know what he was talking about. I told him it was off-topic. Don't *you* think it was off-topic? Others: No, you told him to stop because he didn't know what he was talking about, not because it was off-topic. Bob: Of course I told him it was off-topic. Can't you read? Others: Bob, here is what happened. [ summary of entire thread, post by post ] Bob: I also sent email. You might be right if I hadn't sent email. Others: What does email have to do with it? Bob: I'm talking to three year olds. Do I have to spell it out? And you think that *we* are the ones who have a communication problem? Bob, the above sounds like a ludicrous account of what actually happened, but it's not that ludicrous, it's just a not very charitable accounting of what actually happened. http://www.icdchess.com/forums/1/message.shtml?139458 Just go back to that post, step forward, and skip through a few posts with no real content, and you get the above, more or less. >I'd be willing to bet on the following two things: > >(1) everybody reading or seeing the thread _knew_ it was off topic and was >going to draw moderator attention; Of course everyone knew it was off-topic. >(2) everybody reading my response knew _exactly_ what it meant. And why it >said "STOP NOW". I think people can be excused for becoming confused when you tell someone to stop because they don't know what they are talking about, if what you meant to say is that the post was off-topic. There have been a few times when you have discussed politics, and I have a pretty good idea what yours are. And everyone knows that when a political discussion happens, you get pretty fired up. If you want an example, and it can serve as an example, rather than as the root of a fifty-post war, take the death penalty. Everyone who responded in this thread knows your views on the death penalty, and knows how you argue them. Regarding the election thing, there are some people who want to say we are a bunch of dumb shits because of this election thing, and everyone knows that you don't agree with that. The concern that I saw expressed here was that you might be cutting the discussion because you didn't agree with someone's position. I don't think you did that, but perhaps others can be forgiven for having concerns about this, since you all but said that's what you were doing, very clearly, and with little hope for alternate interpretation? >Everything is just about the detail of "is the crap brown, or is it dark-brown?" >Doesn't matter to me... it all stinks the same. And everything Thorsten had to >say in this thread was one color of crap or another. That it was off-topic is undeniable. That it's crap is a matter of opinion. It may be possible to say that an educated and unprejudiced person must conclude that it's crap. But one would hope that simply spouting crap here is not a reason for deleting stuff, as long as it's on-topic crap. If it's off-topic, it doesn't matter if it's crap or not. This has some up in the past, regarding the MChess killer book controversy a couple of years ago. Vincent said something about this, and a moderator proposed that his post be deleted, since the moderator was of the opinion that what Vincent said provably false (in the moderator's opinion). Another moderator agreed with that, right in the board, and I screamed really loud. I don't know if the stuff was deleted, but I've tried to find it a couple of times, and I can't find it in the archives. bruce bruce
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.