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Peter Alfke
Guest
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 Posted:
Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:25 pm Post subject:
Whither common courtesy ? |
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I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
How would you react if somebody you had never seen before just barged
into your home or office and asked for a favor, without introducing
himself or explaining the reason for his question ?
Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
Peter Alfke |
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Symon
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Jan 04, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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Peter,
I couldn't agree more. I can understand a spoof email address to deter spam,
but why would it hurt to use your real name, and explain the reasons behind
the query. Oh wait, perhaps if I was a student trying to cheat my way to a
qualification, I'd use a pseudonym, to avoid detection.
I'm not sure that newsgroups are fostering the death of civility, maybe
they're just festering in their own deaths. I noticed comp.dsp has just been
through a bad patch too, I've given up reading most of it.
Symon. (Although my real name is Luxury Yacht)
"Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:1104863148.865070.96790@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
How would you react if somebody you had never seen before just barged
into your home or office and asked for a favor, without introducing
himself or explaining the reason for his question ?
Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
Peter Alfke
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Kolja Sulimma
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 1:14 am Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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There were times when the internet, and usenet in particular, was used
mainly be an academic elite. You could expect most people you meet there
to be reasonably smart and cautious.
Today with hundreds of millions of internet users we will encounter more
and more people who are less polite, more greedy, or just plain stupid.
If we let ourself get annoyed to much by these we only hurt ourself
because the useful posts get less.
Try too keep up a high spirit despite of the annoyances and ignore them.
The other alternative would be a more closed community. Either moderated
or with membership levels. I do not believe that would work out to well.
Kolja Sulimm
Peter Alfke wrote:
| Quote: | I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
How would you react if somebody you had never seen before just barged
into your home or office and asked for a favor, without introducing
himself or explaining the reason for his question ?
Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
Peter Alfke
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nospam
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 6:48 am Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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"Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
How would you react if somebody you had never seen before just barged
into your home or office and asked for a favor, without introducing
himself or explaining the reason for his question ?
|
How would you react if they offered help and favours in the same manner?
I have always regarded usenet as pretty impersonal. As you probably noticed
from my other recent posts I am more concerned about the general health of
usenet than civility levels.
| Quote: | Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
|
Damn, another post from Google asking a question ;) |
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Bob
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:00 am Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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"Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote in message
news:1104863148.865070.96790@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
How would you react if somebody you had never seen before just barged
into your home or office and asked for a favor, without introducing
himself or explaining the reason for his question ?
Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
Peter Alfke
|
Peter,
There may be cases where anonymity is important. Someone asking particular
questions (or giving particular answers) may clue a competitor in on what
that person/company is doing.
Anonymity and civility are two separate issues.
People can be impolite, in newsgroups, the same way that they can be when
driving their cars. Would you push someone out of a line in a store? Of
course not. Yet, cutting someone off, on the road, is commonplace. The cloak
of a 4000 lb car, or a computer's screen, is a tempting excuse for some
people to be rude.
I'm not a religious person, but the "do unto others..." motto works well,
for me.
You are a gentleman, Peter -- on the internet and in person, too.
Bob (not my real name) |
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Peter Alfke
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:00 am Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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Well, I am an optimist, and I believe that most people are decent, but
some are just uneducated. If we point out their misbehavior, we can
eliminate many of these problems.
Few people like to behave like an insensitive idiot, especially once
they got their sins pointed out to them.
I will never post anonymously, I will just leave the company name out
of this, when the posting is my personal voice and has little or
nothing to do with Xilinx.
As far as I am concerned, a fake identity is even better (and
friendlier) than none.
Many of us want to keep this newsgroup functioning, with a pleasant and
polite tone of voice. It has been that way for many years, and I have
enjoyed it.
Peter Alfke |
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Jonathan Bromley
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:48 pm Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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On 4 Jan 2005 10:25:48 -0800, "Peter Alfke" <peter@xilinx.com> wrote:
| Quote: | I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
|
So do I. However, it's also fair to point out that courtesy and
other nuances are hard to do at all, and yet harder to do well,
when you're working in a second language as so many posters are.
Perhaps anonymity provides a way to side-step that problem, and
perhaps we should instead measure courtesy by the
appropriateness and inherent interest of the problems offered.
It's also worth remembering that conventions of courtesy and
urbanity are fairly uniform across most of Europe, and at
least mutually recognisable across the Atlantic, whereas
I suspect things are markedly different on the Pacific rim.
Peter is a European who's been long-term resident in the USA
and can be courteous in at least three languages; I'm an
old-fashioned Brit whose attempts at courtesy often are taken
for pomposity in the USA, and whose civility stretches to
only one and a half languages. I'm in a poor position to
complain.
--
Jonathan Bromley, Consultant
DOULOS - Developing Design Know-how
VHDL, Verilog, SystemC, Perl, Tcl/Tk, Verification, Project Services
Doulos Ltd. Church Hatch, 22 Market Place, Ringwood, BH24 1AW, UK
Tel: +44 (0)1425 471223 mail:jonathan.bromley@doulos.com
Fax: +44 (0)1425 471573 Web: http://www.doulos.com
The contents of this message may contain personal views which
are not the views of Doulos Ltd., unless specifically stated. |
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Josep Durán
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 5:14 pm Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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| Quote: | Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
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I am not going to comment about newsgroups in general,
but I know for sure what 'comp.arch.fpga' is fostering.
I have been reading the group for a few years, and I have
learnt a lot of things that would have been impossible to
learn without the group.
I am no longer a beginner, but I am far away from the point
I can contribute with anything useful. Actually I am afraid I will
never reach that point, the group is always way ahead.
Politeness, civility should be of concern to all of us, not related
to this group I think, but to this world we are building (or we are
allowing others to build)
Beleive me, I have teenager children :)
The previous comments about the first-second-etc language and
social conventions are well to the point.
Josep Duran |
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remoterecon
Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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Peter Alfke wrote:
| Quote: | Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
Peter Alfke
|
Hi Peter,
I agree with all that has been posted here. I find that society as a
whole is traversing down this path; not just the newsgroups. This
feeling of entitlement these days, where everyone should, "help me
because I deserve it" is extremely annoying. Demanding help and
requesting it are two very different animals.
That being said, I must say that I can't tell you how much I
appreciate your level of professionalism and willingness to help. On
many occasions, your thorough answers to other posters (be it ignorant
/ insolent / or otherwise) have answered my questions as well.
Many thanks from an engineer out in here in New Hampshire USA.
Warmest regards,
Ian. (yes, my real name) |
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Guest
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| Posted:
Wed Jan 05, 2005 8:42 pm Post subject:
Re: Whither common courtesy ? |
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For what it's worth, this group seems much more polite (and
informative) than many I read.
I'm not a big fan of public rudeness, but there is something important
about the empowerment of anonymity that allows people to say things
they might not otherwise say. I have been on the receiving end of rude
posts, but at least I don't have to guess how they feel!
I'm reminded of the bar car on a train trip to Mardi Gras. There was a
mask that folks passed around and whoever put it on did a show for the
car. Some of the quietest folks had pretty wild acts! Without the
mask, how would we see the show?
Chris
Peter Alfke wrote:
| Quote: | I find it amazing and disturbing that people have the audacity to ask
for help and favors from this newsgroup, without giving their name,
their affiliation, or at least the reason for their question.
How would you react if somebody you had never seen before just barged
into your home or office and asked for a favor, without introducing
himself or explaining the reason for his question ?
Many of us love to help and explain, but I do not like to be taken
advantage of in a totally impersonal way...
Are newsgroups fostering the death of civility ?
Peter Alfke |
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