AIOT: American Idol for OT??

[John -]

I'm still a newbie at Debian (I started when Woody was in Testing),
and I owe a lot both to this list, and also to several of the OT
activists, one of whom gave me invaluable help off-list when I first
posted here. And I surely approve of folks taking an active part in
arguing about matters controversial.

Still, the continuing rant has become a plague. When I CTRL-d these
threads, I wonder what I missed, and whether somebody lapsed and
included genuine content. But when I read them, I am dismayed by the
lack of depth and information, the blind ideology, and the adolescent
self-assertion.

I even wonder whether, as a political scientist (trained in political
theory/political philsophy and international politics) retired from a
good department at a respectable university, I may owe something back
to this list. So here's my proposal:

Will others join me in playing Simon Cowell in treating OT postings
like auditions on American Idol?  Specifically: cut the performance
short at the _first_ error or stupidity or other flaw, and then make
just one helpful comment on the merits that points the way to a better
grasp of the topic, should anyone want that.

Perhaps if enough of us did responded in this fashion -- perhaps we
should mark our responses AIOT so that they would be easy to avoid --
perhaps one of two goods would result: Either folks would just quit
it, or at least the quality of argument might improve?

Realistically, this proposal of mine might just make things worse, so
I am hereby consulting to see what others think of it.

--
JohnRChamplin@...
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GPG key 1024D/99421A63 2005-01-05
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gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv-keys 99421A63

[Florian Kulzer-2]

On Fri, Mar 09, 2007 at 16:54:12 -0500, John - wrote:

> I'm still a newbie at Debian (I started when Woody was in Testing),
> and I owe a lot both to this list, and also to several of the OT
> activists, one of whom gave me invaluable help off-list when I first
> posted here. And I surely approve of folks taking an active part in
> arguing about matters controversial.
>
> Still, the continuing rant has become a plague. When I CTRL-d these
> threads, I wonder what I missed, and whether somebody lapsed and
> included genuine content. But when I read them, I am dismayed by the
> lack of depth and information, the blind ideology, and the adolescent
> self-assertion.
>
> I even wonder whether, as a political scientist (trained in political
> theory/political philsophy and international politics) retired from a
> good department at a respectable university, I may owe something back
> to this list. So here's my proposal:
>
> Will others join me in playing Simon Cowell in treating OT postings
> like auditions on American Idol?  Specifically: cut the performance
> short at the _first_ error or stupidity or other flaw, and then make
> just one helpful comment on the merits that points the way to a better
> grasp of the topic, should anyone want that.
>
> Perhaps if enough of us did responded in this fashion -- perhaps we
> should mark our responses AIOT so that they would be easy to avoid --
> perhaps one of two goods would result: Either folks would just quit
> it, or at least the quality of argument might improve?
>
> Realistically, this proposal of mine might just make things worse, so
> I am hereby consulting to see what others think of it.

As a scientist employed at a respectable Photonics institute, I think
that you should be careful not to stand too close to Steven Colbert,
because the two of you might otherwise pair-annihilate in a burst of
gamma radiation.

--
Regards,
          Florian


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[Paul Johnson]

John - wrote:

> Will others join me in playing Simon Cowell in treating OT postings
> like auditions on American Idol?

Let's not sink to new lows by thinking American Idol should be a role model
for anyone, anything, anywhere, at any time...



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