On 02/10/2013 05:56 PM, WhoCares wrote: > FYI:
This thread was turned into a useless exchange of "no it isn't - yes it is!" nonsense by one post: An anonymous post from "WhoCares," a sock puppet post made through a web interface to evade detection. Let's disassemble that post. "The GIMP is considered anacronistic and difficult to use." What? "Anachronistic" means "misplaced in time." In the present context, this is an argument that is impossible to refute because it is a meaningless noise. Propagandists call this misuse of language a "Buzzword." Note that it is repeated later in the same post. One may ask, WHO is it that considers the GIMP "anachrnoistic and difficult to use"? Is this the consensus of some vast, invisible Silent Majority? Or maybe God? Propagandists call this technique "Bandwagon", arguing a point by suggesting that "everybody else" already agrees with it. "I work with a middle aged systems architect whom considered learning to use GIMP one of the most difficult parts of building his software." Propagandists call this an "Appeal to Authority." An older systems architect would be a Godlike authority in the Universe of the computer illiterate. The troll's assertion may be true in this case: A systems architect would have a substantial learning curve with ANY image editor the first time he tried to use one, like (for instance) a brain surgeon using an iPhone for the first time. "I've been using (and programming) computers since the mid eighties." More "Appeal to Aurhority", adding weight to criticisms that amount to "The GIMP is ugly and its developers dress it funny." But in his first (and only other) post to the list, "WhoCares" complained that he was unable to cope with a window too tall for his monitor display - STUCK like a first time PC user who knows zip point zero about how user interfaces work. "If that's not obvious (even after hundreds of discussion threads), there's nothing I can do to help." The Troll only wants to help. But sadly, despite his heroic efforts to straighten us out, we refuse to see reason. I almost responded to the troll post from "WhoCares," but I caught myself in time. Y'all have no idea how cluttered up this list would be if I did not habitually ask myself, "Does the post I am about to write contribute anything useful?" Maybe this post qualifies. Maybe. :o) Steve _______________________________________________ gimp-user-list mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gimp-user-list
