R
Roedy Green
Horsefeathers. You have plenty of time to write 30 lines chastising
them. Finding the question would take much less time.
Horsefeathers. You have plenty of time to write 30 lines chastising
them. Finding the question would take much less time.
R
Roedy Green
I think you are referring to Professor Khalid Mughal at the university
of Bergen in Norway. See
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/certification.html
for links to where you can buy his book.
A
Andrew Thompson
Arne said:
The ratio of questions to persons able to answer them,
(combined with/leading to) the time that the potential
responders will devote to any post.
'scan' My point is that often the message is not so
much *read* but glanced at, or scanned.
Why *should* that be a problem?
If any person does not understand something I (you
or anyone) say, they might reply with a message to
the effect..
"What did you mean when you said ... ?"
Of course, it would help to add a question mark to
that, in case I *miss* *it* when *scanning* the
text to make a reply.
OK - sure. I, (you, 'them') might chime in to the
thread to ask the OP to clarify their cryptic question
as well. Yeah, we might, or we might just skip
directly on to the next post..
If it is in the OP's interest to post here, it seems
it is also in the OP's best interest to..
- read all answers carefully, and (search/)ask when
they do not understand anything that is written.
- ensure it is as easy as practical for people
to help them, so the potentioal helpers do not
move directly on to the next post.
You might notice there is a certain disparity between
the effort I am suggesting from the OP, as opposed to
the effort they might (or might not) get back from the
members of the group, but as far as I see it, that is
just the way of things. Live with it or not, but if you
want maximum chance of answers, it is well worth
putting in the extra effort.
And again, I stress. I am not 'telling' anyone that
they 'have to' do. If anyone heard my suggestions
and replied ..
"understand what you are saying - and 'no'."
..then fine - I hope that strategy works for them.
L
Lew
Andrew said:
I don't.
B
Ben Phillips
Roedy said:
Not to mention he must have already done so in order to post the 30-line
reply.
Someone earlier mentioned a lack of question marks as a problem when
scanning. I just assume mangled syntax is equivalent to a question mark
-- I never see poor English in the experts' postings here; only in those
of supplicants, so poor English is a reliable indicator of someone with
a question rather than an answer. Unless it's actually a spam instead,
but those are easily recognized on sight, by and large.
Be that as it may, though, I see an awful lot of off-topic posts here
lately. I don't post much but I lurk, and there was that huge
modernization of emacs thread, followed by a lull, then a huge sprawl of
multiple big threads that went off on tangents related to copyright and
then there was some sort of huge flamewar, another lull, and now a
resurgence. This on top of a steady background of spams and grammar flames.
It seems a great many of the regulars here don't worry too much about
the local signal-to-noise ratio, since they are avid participators in
all of it, up to and including the spam (by posting replies to spams,
and in at least one recent case, replies to phantom spams that I never
even saw).
Perhaps it is better to implore people to post less off-topic stuff in
general than to post fewer grammar flames in particular.
That said, I shall endeavor to limit further off-topic posts by myself,
so don't expect to see any more of me in this thread.