I think you just hit the nail directly on the head.
Well, I’m off to bed.
Duck Duck, for what it’s worth you pretty much answered the questions I needed answers to, and I whether I agree with them or not (in terms of correct course of action or whathave you, what am I a fucking lawyer? Sheesh :D)and you’ve heard my piece, and I really have no desire to pile on or push the issue.
If you truly feel that I was saying I don’t like your “whole lifestyle”, then I apologize for that sincerely, for I was not. In fact, I tried very hard not to say anything about you as a person outside the boards, mainly because I don’t know you outside the boards, and you must be a good gal, corn fed, since you’re from Illinois.
Yes, there was snarkiness in this OP, and it’s because I was fed up. So I ranted, but I also was trying my best to rant in a manner that I found had helped ME to learn a bit about myself. (and one thing I learned right off is that I take people’s reactions to me on this board a bit too personally and too seriously.).
From what it looks like plenty of people value your presence on the boards…and plenty of people have valid and smartly presented criticism. I hope that once you get over the hurt, you may revisit your thoughts. (And now I sound like a congregational pastor).
Anyway…good night all.
What a strange day.
Does that mean that time I called her a princess in GD puts me on your shit list? 
(And I meant it!)
Well, if you just Googled…
OW!
How about “Junior Mod Young Pioneer,” in honor of **Chumpsky’s ** Soviet Union thread?
Seriously, there’s been a lot of truth in this thread, and a lot of ugliness, and a fair amount of overlap between the two. It does seem like a lot of people around here are grumpier than usual lately. (And after reading this thread, I realize why my unrelated searches have been crashing today!) Can’t everyone just kiss and make up?
As for the OP: sometimes googling is useful, and sometimes it isn’t. In my field of expertise, immigration law, there is a HUGE amount of contradictory and incorrect crap out there on the Web. Some of it is even posted by INS, or by others who should know better. And sometimes the incorrect or misleading stuff is written articulately enough that for the uninitiated, it may sound like the whole story. About 98% of all the newspaper articles and TV bits I see on immigration law and policy are either flat-out wrong, or have left out some highly relevant aspect which would entirely change the POV of the piece. So many points of immigration law and policy are so controversial that even among the best and most experienced practitioners, there is no one correct answer to many questions. (Even within my office, or when I worked in Immigration Court, you should see it when two senior attorneys are at each other’s throats over a point of law!) That’s why we have appeals courts.
Google can provide facts, and sometimes they’re even accurate. And sometimes, when the facts are accurate, an intelligent person can draw correct conclusions from them. But then there are the judgement calls. It takes an experienced and knowledgeable person in many fields to be able to judge the relative merit of sources, or to extrapolate from a set of facts by relying on an extensive knowledge base acquired through years of experience, trial, and error.
Personally, I find it handy when someone with the time and the inclination invests the time to dig up the basics, as in the Soviet Union thread. Yeah, I could have posted that stuff and quite a lot more, and I might have even gone to some of the same places for the info (since they are the most accessible ones, and they’re in English). But I must confess that since I am frequently posting from work, and I do actually have work to do on occasion, I can’t generally invest that amount of time. So it’s very handy when someone steps in and does it for me.
But that said, not everything is out there on the Web. Some of it is in books, and people’s brains, and all kinds of other places; the stuff that’s on the Web is disproportionately sound-bite types of analysis, unless you want to dig through some honking huge .pdf files of statistical or policy analysis. (It’s also disproportionately newer info; if you want to find analysis from books written more than 10 years or so ago, unnless you can find it in someone’s literature review, you’re probably going to need a trip to the library.) If solid research could be done that quickly on the Internet, then damn, my thesis would have been much less painful to research and defend!
Anyway, I love you all! Group hug! Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite!
Just popping in to say that I think this thread holds the record for posters not involved in the OP taking shots at other posters not involved in the OP.
And having posted myself, I’m sure the thread will now die.
No thanks are necessary.
Buddha knows I tried to read this entire thread. I didn’t. Sue me. But it made me think of a post I did months back. Actually it was lost in the last board hack. I managed to find it through BoardReader (ironically pointed out by DDG).
(and now for more ironic DDG-like link posting)
It had to do with this site. I opined about inclusions of new Flame Warriors …
… well, just read on.
Or don’t. I don’t care.
Also regarding the other big upheaval on the board (that I’m too lazy to actually make another post in) – Satan should clearly not be unbanned because that burrito with the “stupid” sauce he fed me at El Burrito Loco damn near killed me. We shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of behavior.
But the vanilla egg-cream was kind of tasty.
In fact, I did google “BottledBlondJeanie.” Since she’s a lawyer in Dallas, I figured maybe I know her in real life. You get only one result, and the “Unofficial SDMB Picture Pages” is down. Fortunately, it’s still Google cached, though I had to refresh four or five times to get the pic. Unfortunately, her she wiped out her face on the photo, and I don’t especially recognize any of the other bits of her anatomy. Oh well, worth the experiment.
Fshew . . . I’m late to this thread, and I honestly hope it’s blown over, mostly.
Just to be clear, I am DDG’s lapdog. I will not pretend to be otherwise. Many’s the time when I was doing my best to battle ignorance, and ignorance was getting the better of me, and ye, verily, I did despair, but then Duck Duck Goose appeared. Patience and a calm mein were her mighty shield, and Google was her lightning-fast spear, and side by side we fought. The tide was turned, and ignorance was sent packing.
So I am flattered and pleased to be included in DDG’s list of Google-using GQ-answers. As someone said (I’m terribly sorry not to give credit, but I tried looking back through the thread and I can’t find the post) there are a number of ways to use Google in GQ, for example: to provide an authoritative cite, to supplement one’s expertise, to try to find the answer for one’s self, or to answer a question that the OP just shoulda Googled instead of posting. I think it’s useful to have experienced search-engineers around. And the thing is, a Google answer doesn’t prevent an expert from stepping in to post an expansion or, as is sometimes needed, a correction. And if it happens that there isn’t an expert available to answer the question, some links and some pieced-together info is better than no answer at all.
I just gotta say, I hope to hell I never end up in a situation where my entire posting history is on trial. I’ve had my share of fuck-ups, gaffes, and moments of pig-headedness, that’s for sure, and it’d be a nightmare to see it all paraded in front of everyone. I hope if I ever get pitted like this, I don’t make DDG’s mistake (sorry, Ducks, I calls 'em like I sees 'em) and demand that kind of scrutiny in a moment of passion. I don’t think anyone would look good under the microscope.
DDG, I love ya, you know that, but it does seem like you’re a bit touchy these days. I thought your reply to Joe Cool’s snarkiness was not inappropriate–but it was less than I’ve come to expect from you. Sorry about that, but it’s tough being a paragon, isn’t it? 
I’ve always admired how calm and restrained you are, and sought to emulate your example, so it pains me to see you fly off the handle. We all go through rough patches, though, and please I don’t think any less of you.
I’ve also seen just a few too many posts from ya lately where it looks like the intent is to smother people with cites. It’s tempting, I know, when you know you’re right, but it isn’t the best way to settle the argument. Quality over quanitity, you know? Just some (hopefully) constructive criticism.
I won’t address the “junior mod” thing, 'cause I don’t really know the sitch, there, but, I dunno, it always seems like a bad idea to bash heads with Coldie. Defending yourself in a pit thread is the worst. It causes you to lose all prespective and lash out when it’s not warranted, maybe, sometimes?
I think maybe I’ve been in the place you are right now, and what’s helped me is to take a break. After the jitters wear off, it’s actually kind of pleasant to go without reading the board for a couple of weeks. Sometimes you just get to emotionally involved in it all, and you need some distance. YMMV.
If you wanna talk, or rant, anything, please don’t hesitate to send me an email.
Good night Eva Luna
Sweet Dreams
'Night John Boy.
Wow! A double Doper meltdown, I never thought I’d see the day when two damn fine posters went at it. It’s a shame, really it is. The two of you ought to know better. It was pointless on both your parts to get involved in this. This board would be a far, far, darker and duller place if the two of you weren’t exactly like you are. Instead of celebrating that, the two of you decide to rip one another multiple new assholes. Yeah, DDG does use google alot, big, fat, hairy, motherfuckin’, ass rapin’ gerbil deal. There are worse crimes, ya know? And DDG, you should have left it at “Bite me.” Not because I think that you overreacted, but because it didn’t cool things down. I hope that the two of you wake up in the morning, realize you were both wrong and come back here and admit it.
Amazing how a person’s memory can play tricks on them. What actually happened in that thread was somewhat different. Someone asked if the story was true. You Googled around, couldn’t find it, and declared on that basis that it was obviously a racist canard, not even debatable, along with some further ridicule. Then another poster, BobT chimed in, who apparently had a copy of that issue of Life magazine, and he confirmed that it was a true story. It was several days later that you announced that you had been to the library and gave your official confirmation to Bob’s post.
I couldn’t find the post anywhere on this board – I believe it is lost in he crash - but remember it quite distinctly. And here it is, cached on boardreader.
Not completely central to this tread, obviously, but interesting nonetheless. Both for the illustration of how people’s memories distort events they were involved in, and for the mistake of relying on Google searches (more specifically, the inability to find something on the web) as a definitive argument.
You know, I had a scathing, angry reply all typed and set to go for you, but I really don’t want to jump into a pile-on. I know how shitty that can be, having been the subject of a few of them. And I apologize for coming to the thread just as it’s winding down and everybody is getting happy again. I hope not to ruin that.
So instead, I’m trying to be a kinder, gentler Joe Cool, rather than saving it up for my reinstatement application letter after I’m banned.
I’ve had some serious personal dislike with you in the past, and I’ll try to outline why, and see if maybe the problem is me, rather than just jumping in with the insults.
I was impressed at one point with your ability to come up with somewhat relevant links on Google that I wasn’t able to find on Altavista. But then I realized that the trick was that Google is a better search engine, not that you have superior searching skills. So on the plus side, I am grateful to you for turning me on to Google.
But, as many people have already said, just laying on the links is rarely helpful. More likely, it would help to put the information into some kind of context, add some of your own thoughts, etc. Reading your posts is like reading a bibliography: Sometimes informative, sure, but usually I prefer to read the book. And that means having something to say about the information you post. And it does get annoying. Really.
That’s minor.
The bigger issue is that you do tend to act like you have some special authority on the board. The way I ripped into you in the other thread is an offshoot of two things: Your totally inappropriate response to a slightly snippy comment, combined with the the way you post that sounds so condescending and acting as if you are actually in charge.
You want to help newbies? Great, that’s a noble cause. But remember that I’ve been on this board for a long damn time, even if not as long as you, and I don’t need helpful tips on what’s appropriate to be posted. Also, PLEASE try to have more to say than “Google says…” or doing the moderators’ jobs for them. I hate reading a thread in Comments on [Cecil’s Columns|Staff Reports] and seeing half of the 20 posts made up of “junior mods” (for lack of a better word, not because I mean the insult) saying “Maybe you should include a link.” Have you perhaps noticed that regardless of how many people post with “an assist,” Arnold still EVERY TIME posts his little bit, complete with the link and some witty humor? That’s his job. Not yours. If you know what column somebody is posting about, comment on the OP. Let the mods do their jobs. Don’t mother the board and the posters. It’s not always appreciated, and in some cases (mine), it’s downright annoying. When I called you the “Mother Hen” in the other thread, I fully meant it as an insult, but now I’m trying to explain that it’s not a widely appreciated attitude. I already have a mother, and I’m not in the market for more.
Anyway, now that I’ve said what I have to say, I’ll sit back and wait for the intense storm of insults that I’m sure is on the way and try not to respond in kind. I’ll also hope that maybe we can actually talk about what I said instead of just hating each other. I’m serious about that kinder, gentler thing. Maybe we can get off of the wrong foot that you and I have been dancing on for quite some time, and be nice to each other for a change.
Joe Cool
By the way, I know I’ve been an ass to you in the past. It doesn’t go only one way. Sorry.
Honestly, Joe, and with all respect, I think the problem is with you–in large part at any rate.
You choose to dislike her. You choose to view her posts as condescending, mothering, or “junior modding.”
You choose to be annoyed.
(Realize, I’m not addressing you alone, but myself as well, and most everyone else here.)
Is it possible to simply let it go and not let it bother you?
Overgeneralising again Joe_Cool?
Random thoughts:
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I always miss out on every multi-page trainwreck thread until about page 5+. I suck.
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Something that another poster here does regularly, repeatedly and incessantly annoys jarbabyj (and a few others raises hand), and she decided to make a quite reserved Pit thread about it. Any insinuation that what jarbabyj did is inappropriate is ludicrous. If it’s inappropriate, what’s The Pit for? Get rid of it.
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All you “please, please make it stop!” posters realize you don’t have to read Pit threads, right? Grow thicker skin, or something.
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The idea that the populace here, no doubt made up of hundreds of people who know the Internet forwards, backwards and sideways, don’t know how to do a Google search is amusing.
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Stating that perhaps someone can become a little more diversified than being the SDMB Google Czar = an attack on their lifestyle? Step away from the computer.
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The carpet bombing of Google-spewed links in every GQ thread does often lead to insights into answers to a question. It also quite often doesn’t answer the question in full. And in a few instances I can recall, DDG’s tone almost seems to want to stifle conversation. Yeah, we want questions answered. And some of us actually like people’s anecdotes, off-shoot questions, etc. Perhaps I have an incorrect impression, but you often seem to “suck the joy” out of threads with your tsk-tsking of people like a mother hen and a general projection of an attitude that “Google said this; that settles it.”
People actually get to the point where they think, “OK, DDG’s done her thing. Now then. Where were we?”
That said, it’s quite obviously (and oddly) “her thing,” and she has every right to do it. Just as I have every right to criticize it, in the appropriate forum. And she has every right to tell me I’m full of shit. And so on.
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If “mod wannabe” is an incorrect characterization, it’s surprising that several people have expressed it. Including mods, in so many words.
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Characterizing this thread as a “pile-on” is a head-scratcher, in that the comments by DDG’s fans outnumber her critics by a healthy margin, by my count.
“by my count”
you counted the replies???
talk about ‘time to step away from the computer’
d & r
Amend that to, “by my completely-in-my-head-and-not-actually-done count.”
Youuuu…