# Dex, we're very unclear **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 16, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855 "2006-02-16T19:50:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/101 "2006-02-20T05:29:10Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > IRL, I just mostly ignore ignoramuses like **Biffy**. Too much damned trouble to set them straight, and **they’re never properly grateful, anyway**. My Bolding Mods, it looks like you can close that thread about how arrogant engineers are. We’ve found the most arrogant profession, and it’s Metrics! I wonder what **pseudo** (heh!) would consider proper gratitude? Do you think if he gave his version of reading that line here, we could get by with bowing and scraping, or would it have to extend to full bootlicking? I can say right now, as bated as my breath is for his lofty wisdom, a rimjob is out of the question! ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/102 "2006-02-20T08:06:40Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > You mean the part about my head being too high up for you to smack, or the part about my need to get over myself? Like I said, I can’t begin to imagine an appropriate response to any of your incoherent ranting. I tried simply to respond to the parts that made any sense to me at all. Which, as you noted, was about 10% of your post, give or take 10%. Howbout, you dishonest prick–I can’t believe I’m taking the bait to repeat myself–the part where I point out that the reason for this perfect storm is that you deflected the discussion from being about scansion to being about Biffy? ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/103 "2006-02-20T08:12:10Z")
> [@Martin Hyde](#): > > Good, now that you’ve admitted that I see no reason for the rest of your post. You aren’t allowed to be snarky in CS. CS isn’t a place that is accepting of pompous assholism directed at other posters. If you were capable of reading and comprehending the CS rules you’d be aware that you’re held to a higher standard than in most other forums. The rules post goes a good bit further than just strictly saying no personal insults, it says you have to display _good manners_. > > In what world is being snarky good manners? Even if it’s justified it is still bad manners. > > The SDMB is one of the most rules-heavy and moderated message boards I’ve ever been on. It is chafing at times, but if you’re going to be a member of the forums it’s something you have to properly deal with or you will ultimately start down on the path of getting banned. You choose to be here, if you don’t like the rules you can leave and from reading through this thread I don’t think that would upset a single person here. > > What you would have responded better to honestly shouldn’t enter Dex’s equation. I don’t know what measure of treatment you think you deserve when you break the rules, but you certainly don’t get to choose the manner in which the moderators decide how to deal with your bad manners which constitute a violation of CS rules. > > There also is no “seemed” about it, you started it. It doesn’t matter that Biffy was wrong you don’t get to direct bad manners towards other posters in CS. You did that. Prior to that, no one in the thread had made remotely disparaging comments about another poster, you did. > > Again, I hope you’re aware that coming from someone who doesn’t understand good manners in a forum where that is the mandated policy this is quite a piece of irony. You obviously don’t know what is or is not needlessly harsh, or you never would have started the fight that you started. > > This misconception does not exist. The rules of CS openly state that _most_ of the issues in CS won’t have factual answers, the usage of the word most accepts that some of the issues will be factual in nature. > > Well, in the SDMB the mods get to determine what crosses the line, and almost every poster agrees with them. > > If you don’t want to provide a lot of detail that is fine, that is your choice. Be aware that no one on this forum will take you seriously if you assert you are right and refuse to give proof of the matter. If you wish to be held as an expert on something here at the SDMB that is something you can only earn by repeatedly showing your expertise. If you truly are what would be considered an “expert” in the real world, you could offer that as proof and it would probably result in you being considered an expert here. But aside from doing that, the only way most posters will come to regard any other poster as an “expert” in a given field is through seeing it themselves. And since you’ve both refused to support your status as expert with real life qualifications and via demonstrating expert-level knowledge here on the SDMB, don’t ever expect to be accepted as an expert. > > Just like in a court, you can’t claim you’re an expert-witness and expect people to just accept that because you call yourself one. > > Actually I think most people know that metrics can be quite precise. I’m also quite certain you must not know much about the SDMB if you think anyone will just accept anyone’s “word” on anything. > > No indulgence for you, sorry. > > More evidence of the kind of stuff that will actually make it less likely anyone will give two cents as to what you’re saying. This is more fluff with no substance, anyone can claim to be anything. You can offer proof via actively demonstrating high-level knowledge or qualifications aside from just your claims at qualifications. > > I’m also aware the thread developed a little bit after this post as I read the entire thread before posting. But this post in particular was so egregious in nature I had to reply to it in the manner it deserved. I have to go kill myself because I agree with ever word Martin Hyde wrote here. Tell the truth, Martin; you cribbed this from my previous long post, right? Right? ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/104 "2006-02-20T11:38:08Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Nah. I’d need to write a book, or a long chapter of a book at the dead minimum, just to begin to articulate what **Biffy** was getting wrong, and a modicum of sound principles he’d need to accept to start getting it right. Bullshit. Biffy wrote his version of the meter this way: > [@Biffy the Elephant Shrew](#): > > “Or **like** stout **Cor** tez **when** with **ea** gle **eye** [ul] > [/ul] …” If you had had any intention to enlighten, you could have simply rewritten the line with the correct (in your judgment) syllables bolded, perhaps prefaced by “I believe that the line should be stressed as follows:”. If correcting the error (if in fact there was one) would require a dissertation, perhaps, as others have suggested, the error is not so worthy of summary condemnation. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/105 "2006-02-20T12:18:23Z")
> [@burundi](#): > > Why should I, when you don’t care to? If you’d simply linked to this previous discussion of metrics instead of being an insulting ass about it, you wouldn’t have gotten a mod smackdown. :smack: A late confession, but this was me, not the calm and ever-polite **burundi**. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/106 "2006-02-20T13:11:04Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > IRL, I just mostly ignore ignoramuses like **Biffy**. Too much damned trouble to set them straight, and they’re never properly grateful, anyway. So the best response IRL is to extend their ignorance by simply shutting up, which is a skill that I’ve mastered thoroughly IRL. Also IRL I get paid quite well to dispense knowledge, so on those rare occasions when I come across assertions of ignorance like **Biffy** ’s, it’s most economical to walk away, or write an “F” in the gradebook, or whatever the appropriate response would be. As I condescendingly told him, people learn when they’re ready to learn. No sense investing too much energy trying to teach a pig to sing. You do realize that you are coming across as an arrogant bastard, right? Kind of scary to think that you are paid to teach since you seem so unwilling to teach anyone anything. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/107 "2006-02-20T13:56:56Z")
> [@](#): > > No sense investing too much energy trying to teach a pig to sing. You know, I missed this somehow. Had I seen it, I wouldn’t have bothered to respond earlier. After all, no sense investing too much energy etc. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/108 "2006-02-20T14:53:34Z")
> [@C K Dexter Haven](#): > > You choose to read it as an insult and condescending, then I apologize for you not being able to read my tone. I remember THE HOBBIT where “Good morning!” can mean everything from a cheerful greeting to a curt dismissal. All depends on tone. > > However, I think this is basically back-pedalling. Your OP starting this thread doesn’t mention my tone. Thank you for briefly acknowledging that your tone was capable of being misunderstood. I did read your imperatives and kindergarten-teacherly tone as unnecessarily inflammatory, but I see how you could just have well have been trying for “jocular,” rather than “officious.” If you look again at the last line of my my OP, though, **Dex** , where I request your assistance in understanding where I went wrong, to wit: “I’d appreciate any elucidation to your official moderator’s warning you might add, since I view my options now as simply never again correcting anyone in Cafe Society, or risking your terrible wrath,” I think you’ll see my objections to your tone coming through quite clearly. I make it plain that, as I thought, I had been “warned” by a moderator acting in his official capacity ( **Giraffe** has since informed me that I mistook your jocular “order” for an official “warning”), and my concern about “your terrible wrath” plainly derives from your tone, which, again, I had mistaken the intended lightheartedness of. You’re quite mistaken in making my concerns about your tone a late addendum to the OP. And not to get silly about all this, **Dex** , though it may be far too late to avoid grotesque silliness here, but if your last post was seriously following my advice about the futility of teaching pigs to sing, then are you endorsing my stance to **Biffy**? I would think not. But if you’re using my pig-singing metaphor to justify your not answering my OP at all, isn’t that just being as snarky in addressing my faults as I was in addressing **Biffy** ’s? I don’t object in the least to your having a little fun with me here, to the delight of the jeering crowd, but it does seem strange to me ultimately to be committing the same grievous error of bad manners, snarkiness, condescension, etc. in an effort to expunge the same. I realize this is the Pit and not CS, but I would think it would be a clearer display of your point about snarkiness if you could make it while avoiding revelling in it at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Crotalus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crotalus/32/41_2.png) [@Crotalus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crotalus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/109 "2006-02-20T15:27:33Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > \…though it may be far too late to avoid grotesque silliness here…\ Yep. Far too late. About four days too late. You’re now in my silliness hall of fame. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/110 "2006-02-20T15:35:23Z")
**pseudotriton ruber ruber** , what is it that you think you’re accomplishing here? You were snarky in CS, you and another poster were told to knock it off. Simple, not worth commenting on, and would have undoubtedly have been completely forgotten by everyone involved within, oh, ten minutes of the thread dropping of the front page. Yet you keep droning on and on and on and on … This wall of words you put up must be very intimidating to your usual crowd, because it is becoming quite clear that you are getting more and more exasperated that this is not going your way. Let me give you another little hint you will no doubt ignore: More is not better. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/111 "2006-02-20T15:42:06Z")
> [@burundi](#): > > Why should I, when you don’t care to? If you’d simply linked to this previous discussion of metrics instead of being an insulting ass about it, you wouldn’t have gotten a mod smackdown. > > I’ve already posted my understanding of it in this thread. Near as I know, it’s accurate. If you’ve got a problem with it, and if you tell me in specific and civil terms what problem you have with it, I’ll listen and evaluate with an open mind whether I consider you to be correct. You probably know more about the subject than I do. > > “Probably” is the key word. I’ve previously seen crazed cretins on the Straight Dope claiming expertise in areas that it’s clear they know nothing about. So far, you’ve done nothing to distinguish yourself from these CC’s. > > No, I’m not going to beg you humbly with big puppy-dog eyes to give your hallowed and much-esteemed opinion. But I’ll dismiss you as a pompous blowhard if you don’t. And so, I suspect, will most other posters. > > Daniel Good idea, Daniel. Sommetimes the most obvious suggestions come from others, even others who are being needlessly difficult and sarcastic. Look at [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=258728&highlight=scansion) thread, where I think I’m being quite civil to someone asking about metrics in a civil tone himself. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/112 "2006-02-20T15:45:07Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > **pseudotriton ruber ruber** , what is it that you think you’re accomplishing here? > > You were snarky in CS, you and another poster were told to knock it off. Simple, not worth commenting on, and would have undoubtedly have been completely forgotten by everyone involved within, oh, ten minutes of the thread dropping of the front page. > > Yet you keep droning on and on and on and on … > > This wall of words you put up must be very intimidating to your usual crowd, because it is becoming quite clear that you are getting more and more exasperated that this is not going your way. Let me give you another little hint you will no doubt ignore: More is not better. Why is it that you keep opening this thread? Am I somehow forcing you to read that which is distasteful to you? As to your question about what I think I’m accomplishing in this interminable thread, I am making friends and winning converts over to my side. It’s just going a little more slowly than I had first expected. ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/113 "2006-02-20T16:05:58Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Why is it that you keep opening this thread? It is rather entertaining. Not your comments, so much, but the universal reaction to your comments. In case you’ve missed it, everyone seems to be convinced you’ve made a mountain out of a molehill. > [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Am I somehow forcing you to read that which is distasteful to you? No, you’re not. But I appreciate your concern. > [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > As to your question about what I think I’m accomplishing in this interminable thread, I am making friends and winning converts over to my side. It’s just going a little more slowly than I had first expected. Well, it’s good to see you’ve got a sense of humor about all this. Perhaps I’ve misjudged you. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/114 "2006-02-20T16:13:34Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Look at [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=258728&highlight=scansion) thread, where I think I’m being quite civil to someone asking about metrics in a civil tone himself. Excellent example of you disproving your own point. From your post: > [@](#): > > Often poets cheat, forcing a syllable to be stressed (because of where it’s placed in a line)–actually, pop song writers cheat a lot, and poets more rarely, but it happens with decent poets once a while too. And yet you get pissy when someone reads a line with strict IP stress because it “doesn’t make sense.” It’s also hilarious that you had one course in scansion and you think that makes you an expert: > [@](#): > > Scansion (as far as I recall from grad school when I actually took a course called “Meter and Scansion”) ---
**Author:** ![KSO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@KSO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KSO)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/115 "2006-02-20T16:35:58Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > As to your question about what I think I’m accomplishing in this interminable thread, I am making friends and winning converts over to my side. Actually, it’s more along the lines of [this](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00021LMX6/sr=8-1/qid=1140453262/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-1853983-0190404?%5Fencoding=UTF8). ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/116 "2006-02-20T16:39:13Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Excellent example of you disproving your own point. From your post: > > And yet you get pissy when someone reads a line with strict IP stress because it “doesn’t make sense.” > > It’s also hilarious that you had one course in scansion and you think that makes you an expert: I don’t think I’ve ever said that there was only one way–mine–of scanning lines, but there are intelligent and unintelligent approaches to scansion. I’m no expert in scansion–I rarely even work in verse anymore, and never followed through in specializing in quantification beyond grad school. But in discussions on the SDMB, I haven’t come across any posters who persuaded me that, in that one tiny field, their understanding dwarfs mine, either. It’s only by the absence of experts on the SDMB, as far as I can tell, that I consider myself relatively expert here, and I’m happy to share my expertise, such as it is, with my fellow Dopers, if they would like me to. That one measly course in grad school, specifically in “Meter and Scansion,” is one more course than almost anyone else has (of course, meter and scansion came up in many other graduate courses, and I’ve written several papers, some published in scholarly journals, applying the knowledge of metrics I acquired in that course.) Now, the guy who taught that course was someone I (and the academic world generally) considers an expert in meter. This guy has published several scholarly books on the subject, and intimately knows metrical principles of Old English and Latin and some Greek, giving him tremendous advancement way beyond my piddling accomplishments in the field, and he seemed impressed with my work, and agreed to advise my dissertation, so my graduate study is perhaps not as negligible an achievement as you seem to imply. Quite frankly, I expect that I’ve pissed people off in this thread so thoroughly, that if I were to demonstrate that I’ve been awarded a new Nobel Prize in metrics created specifically for me, your reaction would be to sneeringly ask why getting this recognition took me so long. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/117 "2006-02-20T17:37:58Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Quite frankly, I expect that I’ve pissed people off in this thread so thoroughly, that if I were to demonstrate that I’ve been awarded a new Nobel Prize in metrics created specifically for me, your reaction would be to sneeringly ask why getting this recognition took me so long. No: were you to demonstrate that, we’d say that Jesus Lord Almighty Himself shouldn’t be a dick in Cafe Society. I just read your link, and I’d like to ask: among folks who read his explanation and [mine](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7111878&postcount=16) (note that it got a correction in [this post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7111898&postcount=18)), which do y’all find to be more helpful? **PRR** , you can join in, too. You’ve now demonstrated that you have some knowledge of scansion and meter–this is more than you’d demonstrated previously in this thread or the other one. That’s good. Youv’e not demonstrated that you can use this knowledge to teach people effectively. That’s bad. And if you can’t teach people effectively, you need to question why your knowledge would be worth a squirrel dropping to anyone on the Internet. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/118 "2006-02-20T17:40:27Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > Nah. I’d need to write a book, or a long chapter of a book at the dead minimum, just to begin to articulate what **Biffy** was getting wrong, and a modicum of sound principles he’d need to accept to start getting it right. You’ve practically already written a book or two discussing your oh-so-massive credentials, and appended several more volumes as you ducked the question and whined about Dex slapping you on the wrist. So why not go ahead and give us the Reader’s Digest version on metrics? Not that I’ll read it, but at least it’ll show that you have some knowledge of what you’re talking about, instead of ducking for cover in a Macy’s Parade of straw men. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/119 "2006-02-20T17:43:04Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > Youv’e not demonstrated that you can use this knowledge to teach people effectively. That’s bad. > Daniel That’s hardly fair, Daniel, to measure my effectiveness in teaching by the use of a thread in which I was trying my damnedest to avoid doing any teaching whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855/120 "2006-02-20T17:55:21Z")
> [@pseudotriton ruber ruber](#): > > That’s hardly fair, Daniel, to measure my effectiveness in teaching by the use of a thread in which I was trying my damnedest to avoid doing any teaching whatsoever. Then that brings us back to the other question: why would all your book learning be worth a squirrel turd to us if you’re not going to use it to fight our ignorance? It’s fine if you don’t want to teach, as long as you don’t insult. It’s fine if you do want to teach, as long as you don’t insult. If you don’t want to teach, then nobody is going to give a shit about the credentials you claim. If you do want to teach, then they may be of very minor interest to somebody–but still your pedagogical skills, combined with your **demonstrated knowledge** of the topic, will take priority over any credentials you claim. Daniel [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dex-were-very-unclear/344855.md?page=7)