Well, initially I was going to compliment x-boy on the wise choice of responding to the illustrious Ms. Bodoni with tact and restraint. As they say, one does not fling feces at a goddess, particularly in her own temple, a lesson even this neutron-star-dense individual seems to have managed to absorb. But then I see that Mr. Wiggin, as usual, has hit the proverbial nail on the hammer, or whatever it is, and I shake my head in chagrin.
There’s a certain number of words that are necessary - a quota to be reached, if you will - before your posts begin to make any sense. Note my first post regarding “communication”. If you do not express yourself well enough, you do not “communicate”… on a message board, you must make sure that you express yourself clearly. Usually this makes brevity a hindrance, as it leaves room for mistranslation and misinterpretation.
It was a fair question. However, one problem, which you seem to have acknowledged, is that you did not make the question clear. You left lots and lots of room for doubt and error on the part of the reader. Remember, it is YOUR job to make us understand your words… it isn’t our job to try to guess at the meaning of your posts (this was hammered into me whilst I was getting flamed a long time ago… I learned well from the experience).
The OTHER problem which you’re still missing is that you are reacting very very badly to the criticism you receive due to your mistake. Do not reject criticism. It provides lots of helpful insight, and, if you allow it to, it can impart experience that will teach you how to become a well-rounded poster and a better communicator.
You seem to hold your audience in very low esteem. Since you didn’t give people ANY material to work with - too many loose ends, too many ways to interpret your post - it wasn’t the sort of material that would spark discussion or debate, or much of anything at all aside from a string of guessing and non sequitors.
Two things:
[ol][li]Lynn - Thanks.[/li][li]x-boy - in regard to your comment [/li][quote]
if somebody like Monty presents themselves for an argument, I am willing to accomodate them. I quite enjoy a good argument. But only if its a good one where both sides make good points.
[/quote]
[ul][]I did not present myself for an argument, I merely indicated why your so-called argument is devoid of fact.[]Your being willing to accommodate someone in an argument does not equal your being capable of debating someone.[]Nor does your enjoying an argument equal your being able to engage in a good debate.[]We have yet to see you make any valid, let alone good points.[/ul][/ol]
Oh, thanks also to Crunchy, Ender, and Spoof.
You go to hell! You go to hell and you die! 
Now is someone says it twice more, he’ll show up.
xanakis,
In my brief time here I’ve always made it a point to avoid being on a trainwreck thread. I simply don’t like my name being associated with something that went terribly wrong.
But I’m on this train now because I liked the tank thread you created in General Questions. It was a fun read. I got to learn all types of things from folks on the board that were actual tankers. In your opening post you admited that you weren’t sure right up front. You never pretended to be anything that you weren’t and your question was easily understood. That thread entertained me, so I have hopes of you going on to produce more threads like it. So I’m here to give you some advice, and I know advice is never easy to take. But don’t think about it as “I’m telling you this cause I’m smarter than you.” Cause I don’t mean it that way. I’ve just hung around on these boards for a while now and I know how it works.
Up ahead in the distance you can see oblivion. That’s where you and this thread are headed right now. This is a one way trip. Having Lynn and Coldfire mad at you is the equivelent of being threatened by a pair of dragons while you’re only holding a toothpick. Now if you don’t want to stay here, that’s fine. Their power only applies here. There are plenty of other message boards in the world. But if you do want to stay here I suggest you apologize to them. Whether you want to admit it or not, your actions have antagonzied them. You are trying to defend an unclear thread in Great Debates. I read it. I didn’t get it. No one else did either. Continuing to challenge the mods on this issue is just putting ketchup on your head.
None of the posters in this thread are that difficult to get along with. You will find that a simple, “I’m sorry. I will try to make better posts in the future.” Will get you a lot of credit here.
In the future:
When you make a post try to be as clear as possible. Don’t worry about the length so much. This is an entirely written medium. All we have to go on is what we can read. It can be very difficult to convey your thoughts clearly onto a message board. While you may actually be a great fellow to meet in person, if you are not clear when you post, you will be misunderstood here.
Before you post, search for the answer on your own. A good thread is one that requires some discussion. If you post “What is the speed of light?” it’s going to be a short thread. Any answer that can be gleemed with a search engine isn’t going to make people think much. Also remember to search the board for various threads that might apply to your topic. Be sure to set the search engine to search the appropriate forum. I’ve search the wrong forum more times than I want to contemplate. Never make unfounded assumptions in a post.
Don’t try so hard. Sometimes I’ll go for a week without making a post simply because I don’t really have anything to contribute. I can go a month between starting a new thread. My post count is rather low, but my ratio of good posts to crap posts is pretty good because I think hard before I hit submit. I never pick a fight I’m not ready for. I never support a position I don’t have some evidence for. And when I lose a point in an arguement, I always admit it.
Well, I jumping off this train. I hope you find the brakes.
Given this information, it made me wonder what the OP in this thread might have looked like before xanakis pared down his verbosity. By some miracle, there appeared on my monitor the original, unexpurgated version. I now share it with you, edited portions italicized
[quote]
Ive got another complaint,it’s my hobby, may I be permitted to ask it? Please, may I ask my complaint?
It concerns a thread of mine titled “Is this a stupid question?” in GD.*I know that most of you knew the answer when you saw who the OP was.*This thread has been closed and yet I was trying to ask a genuine question ie: at what point does a question become an unreasonable one? and at what point do I become an insufferable boor?.Of course i could have come right out and asked these things, but then I would have nothing to complain about.
Are all questions equally valid? If not, what are the criteria for deciding that a question has crossed the boundary into “stupid” territory? How much of my bullshit will you tolerate?
These were the kind of issues I was hoping to open up and therefore, I would say, a valid topic of conversation in GD.I mean, come on, I thought it was the most clever thing I had ever seen and I would be immediately praised throughout the boards for my erudition and wit! Wouldnt you agree?
I apologise if my style of putting this question in some way offended you but, I assure you, no offence was intended.
Says what, manny?
Oh, you mean “Cybmmmmph . . .”
No, it wasn’t cute at all. He just made up a load of bullshit and posted it as if it were fact. This is entirely inappropriate in GQ. The only reason I responded to his fabrications politely instead ripping him the new asshole he deserved was because it was in GQ, and because I (reasonably, though apparently incorrectly) assumed he was 14 years old. Having to refute such blatant nonsense is a waste of my (and others) time, as well as bandwidth. I will be a lot less restrained if he pulls that kind of crap again.
He only stated his opinion and admitted that he had just “made it up”. I never got the impression that he was trying to pass this off as fact.
When I originally joined this message board I thought that people were supposed to post factual evidence for all their claims but the majority of posts contain personal opinions, facetious remarks unconnected to the thread, criticisms of the semantics of other posts and insults directed to other posters. Is Xanakis really worse??
Pennylane, The GQ and GD threads are not for posting personal opinions or remarks unconnected to the thread itself, nor are these threads suited for insults. GQ is for exactly that, asking and answering general questions, like “Why is the sky blue?” Great Debates is for just that, debates. If you want an opinion you should post in IMHO or even sometimes MPSIMS. The Pit is for flaming and ranting. These are all described on the main board page.
From what I’ve been reading, Xanakis is confusing these things, and not following the basic rules. He is also posting threads that have no meaning whatsoever, which has been mentioned in this thread already. That’s why he is worse, and thats why people get angry with him.
Xanakis’s primary problem is that he doesn’t understand the word “no”. When he’s asked not to do something, he whines about it. When a thread gets closed, he whines about it. When people explain to him WHY such actions were taken, he whines about it.
I should also point out that the Admins hate it when someone spends the majority of their time on the Boards just to whine.
You have a point about the General Questions thread, the posts there seem to be a lot more educated and xanakis’ post really didn’t make any sense at all. But the Great Debates thread is just like any of the others and sometimes worse (people tend to get more enraged by issues such as abortion than by the weirdness of xanakis). One guy started a thread claiming that the moon-landing pictures were faked. There are now four pages of posts filled with insults and obscenities directed at this guy. Not one person claimed to share this guy’s belief that the moon landings were faked. Not that they should have, but it made me wonder why a hundred different people felt the need to add their own personal refutations. The hundredth person didn’t stop to think that maybe the ninety-nine who came before him had already managed to successfully suppress the faked-moon-landing movement on this message board?
You’re kidding right? You really don’t see the difference between a question mark and all the other open threads in GD? I’ll make it simple (although if you didn’t get it before, you’ll probably miss it this time too):
You cannot debate, discuss, or otherwsie converse about “?” The OP consisted wholly of “?” What is there to debate? If you include the thread title Then you have “Is this a stupid question?” and that is all to go on. He presented no argument or any point of view to discuss. Even with the thread title added in, you are left with a yes or no question and nowhere to go from there. And leave all of xanakis’s bullshit arguments from this thread out of it, at the time the only thing given to discuss was a question mark.
**
At least he made an argument and stated his position, the first step of a debate. Xanakis did nothing to clue anyone in on what he was thinking. His words in this thread do not count, as this came after the fact.
**
And the events of that thread are relevant to xanakis’s idiocy in what way? As repetitive as the posts may be, they are still debating the OP.
I think you missed my point this time; I said that I didn’t understand Xanakis’ question either so I’m not defending it. I was just saying that the Great Debates thread isn’t really as serious as the General Questions thread. I didn’t mean that Xanakis’ post should have been on the Great Debates thread instead!! (Although what if somehow several hundred people were sucked into this discussion? I mean, how many people have to be interested in something for it to be considered a “Great Debate”?)
And as for the moon landing post, I was just using it as an example of how frivolous the Great Debates thread actually is.
I’m sorry about the irrelevance. I was just referring to something someone had mentioned in the post before.
And can I just say that, without realising it, you are now all having exactly the discussion I was looking for when I posted the original OP.
So that proves it was a valid question, doesn’t it?
(ducks for cover)
That’s because, in this OP, you actually had words and sentences.
wring wrote:
Don’t be too sure of that; you never know who is reading the contents of a public message board. 