# Pick which of these three elements is or should be highest priority **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 17, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291 "2016-03-17T17:38:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/41 "2016-03-20T11:48:20Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Then please make up one that is important to you. I did in my first reply. Two out of the three serious poll choices were not applicable. > [@Knorf](#): > > Kindly cease what can now only be described as thread-shitting. > [@Knorf](#): > > Or, bitch about my not providing context in this thread. Whichever. Which is it? I’m being critical of this thread because it deserves criticism. It’s lazy in thought and execution and I would have challenged it similarly in a real life conversation. Your poll choices don’t fit anything. Good, fast and cheap, pick two. Everyone knows that saying. Quantity, quality and punctuality? It’s not even coherent and your “fuck you if you don’t like it” attitude in the OP didn’t predispose me to cut you any slack. Craft better threads, or none at all. Or keep bitching about the criticism you get when you post meaningless tripe. Whichever. Don’t like my opinion? > [@Knorf](#): > > Deal with it. I didn’t shit in your thread. You did that yourself before anyone else got here. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/42 "2016-03-20T12:58:08Z")
> [@epolo](#): > > Gun to my head? I’m probably most worried about quantity…of bullets. More than one would be superfluous, so I guess the quantity metric there would be zero v. nonzero number of bullets. Which of course reminds me of [Bored of the Rings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings): “…but pity stayed his hand. _It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets_, he thought, as he went back up the tunnel…” ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/43 "2016-03-20T13:17:58Z")
> [@Jake\_Jones](#): > > In other words, the entire conversation is meaningless without context. I couldn’t agree more. I disagree - there are plenty of cases where developing an abstract guiding principle is possible and productive - this could easily be one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/44 "2016-03-20T17:54:42Z")
> [@Jake\_Jones](#): > > I’m being critical of this thread because it deserves criticism. > > \ > > Craft better threads, or none at all. Or keep bitching about the criticism you get when you post meaningless tripe. Whichever. > > \ > > I didn’t shit in your thread. You did that yourself before anyone else got here. I disagree. You are most definitely threadshitting at this point. You’re instructed to take it elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/45 "2016-03-20T18:46:50Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I disagree - there are plenty of cases where developing an abstract guiding principle is possible and productive - this could easily be one of them. Sure, and the 77 posters who answered one of the three answers apparently were able to grasp the abstract as presented and make a choice. It really doesn’t seem that difficult to understand. ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/46 "2016-03-21T15:59:50Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Or, bitch about my not providing context in this thread. I have been made to regret having said this. What gets me, though, is that is just IMHO, a forum on the Straight Dope Message Board, on the freakin’ Internet. It’s not a professional, scientific poll in a respected journal. It’s not a fucking graduate seminar. It’s not even the SDMB Great Debates. 😛 Can not people (especially a certain someone) see it was meant to spur on light-hearted, but hopefully interesting conversation? For Og’s sake, one of the options is “Mmmmm…free goo…”! (Thank you, Homer Simpson.) Does that connote dour seriousness? Anyway, I did indeed try this out as a conversation-starter on some friends and colleagues in real life, with success, in that it did indeed lead in interesting directions, both in terms of seeing whether people thought about the terms in a generic or abstract sense, or whether they needed to imagine a context. None of my friends or colleagues, strangely enough, were moved to apoplexy by the lack of context. So yes, I was curious as to what conversations it might lead to here. Obviously, I miscalculated the level of pretension and elitism favored by certain posters. Be that as it may, I have found the answers here interesting, also that an overwhelmingly majority of respondents have thus far favored “quality” over the other elements. I have found it interesting also to see whether I myself think of these elements in abstract terms. I do indeed. And I prefer to to prioritize “quality” as a generality, and most of the time in specific contexts as well. Thus for me, the topic is not meaningless without context. But even if it is so for others, I would argue that the pursuit of meaninglessness can be a most enjoyable past time. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![stillownedbysetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/41988e/32.png) [@stillownedbysetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stillownedbysetters)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2016, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/47 "2016-03-21T16:02:55Z")
I am personally a bit anal about being punctual, but I have never defined others by whether or not they are willing to be punctual. Quantity is only as valuable as quality makes it. So quality for me - all the way. ---
**Author:** ![notquitekarpov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@notquitekarpov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notquitekarpov)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2016, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/48 "2016-03-22T17:36:29Z")
Punctual - as in “when promised” has to be the most important. Obviously it has also to be good enough (not gold plated not with unspecified extra quality - just what I need as a minimum and no more) and in the ordered quantity (although that may be worked around if we have enough to be going on with now) but if it doesn’t arrive then all that is worthless. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/49 "2016-03-24T03:57:20Z")
Quality, then quantity, then punctuality. Punctuality is pointless if you aren’t doing something. Quantity is useless if what you are doing is crap. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/50 "2016-03-24T12:50:58Z")
> [@Knorf](#): > > Prioritizing one element does not necessarily imply other elements are worthless. Yeah, I was hoping to vote for molybdenum. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2016, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291/51 "2016-03-24T13:38:35Z")
Being a quality auditor, I picked quality. In quality management, by definition, punctuality and correct quantities are elements of quality. So I used that definition to get everything I wanted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pick-which-of-these-three-elements-is-or-should-be-highest-priority/749291.md?page=2)