No point in anyone reading my reply interspersed below, not about science... (just hard not having the last word)
On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 12:45 AM, Horace Heffner <[email protected]>wrote: > > On Jun 27, 2009, at 10:39 PM, Horace Heffner wrote: > > Intentionally or not, the combined effect of posting irrelevant material >> on a thread and then calling out an individual to comment on it is less like >> that of a compliment than it is like a troll. >> > > > On Jun 28, 2009, at 12:35 AM, John Berry wrote: > > >> Not the intention. >> Also trolling for what, an intelligent conversation on topic for the list >> and related at least somewhat to the thread. >> Yes, I was hopping not to be totally ignored so I pushed a little. >> > > So it *was* intentional. It was intentional to see if you could input you valued opinion. > > > I had previously given up on this list and posting in general but have >> decided that maybe rather than not posting I should push to get a >> conversation started, there is a wealth of off topic conversations. >> > > You intentionally interrupted an on topic thread. There *was* a > conversation started. The above excuse is no justification for a hijacking > then. I didn't intend to hijack. I wasn't looking for an excuse to post the idea. The thread reminded me of a related problem. Conversations regularly wander, call me lazy if you want but it wasn't an attempt to "Hijack". Now once I got zero replies i did push for a reply that was still not an attempt to hijack. > > > > Just takes more work to get people to reply to potentially useful >> conversation as I think you said in another thread. >> > > Useful to whom? If you post and no one replies then that's a pretty good > indicator that no one at that moment in time is interested in contributing > or has time to contribute to discussion on that particular subject or post. > However, you can still take away the satisfaction of your having > contributed information or ideas you think are useful. > > It is one thing to contribute and another to make demands. Demanding time > from others, especially specifically identified others who are not > interested, to discuss subjects in which you have an interest, is not too > far removed from demanding experimental time. Dude, I am impressed by your knowledge of electrodynamics and I don't know if anyone else on this list has your level of understanding of the subject. Once you said that your were busy I said I accepted that, now that doesn't stop me from being curious about the paper of yours you pointed me to but honestly if you didn't want to waste time then maybe you'd drop all of the above which seems to take up more time. > Bill Beaty addressed that subject pretty well: > > On Jun 24, 2009, at 6:40 PM, William Beaty wrote: > > Honestly seeking help is not the "FREENRG-L NEWBIE" problem. Imagining >> that others might be interested in your work, that's not the problem. >> >> When looking for help, do you believe you're *entitled* to others' time >> and energy; and everyone should drop their own unimportant useless little >> projects and instead work on yours? Do you see your own projects as >> staggaringly important, so important that all other projects are worthless >> in comparison? If someone refuses to let you usurp their time, do you >> respond with personal attacks? >> >> This seemed to be attitude of many who joined freenrg-L and immediately >> started trolling for people to do their experiments for them. It was some >> kind of weird narcissim disease. It seems to be common in our community. >> > > > The fact people will ignore difficult subjects, like electromagnetic > theory, to discuss easy to post on subjects that are mostly a matter of > opinion or simple facts (like politics as related to energy) that might be > borderline off topic should not be taken personally. It's just human nature > to post on what's easy. I was initially taking it personally but finally realized you made a good point. It is a shame that with emails there isn't some kind of silent "I appreciated this post" feature. > > Before posting in a manner designed to push people on the list it may be > worthwhile to consider this definition of "troll": > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll > > "In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, > inflammatory, irrelevant, or off-topic messages in an online community, such > as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of > provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt > normal on-topic discussion." Well I was posting on topic and non controversial with the hopes of sparking an intelligent debate. I don't think anyone could possibly consider my post to fit that definition. > > > Pushing can have the opposite of the intended effect. Yes, sure it's not preferred. But as I see it if you don't get a reply you can either gracefully give up. Or less gracefully push for a response. Neither are great options.
