list slowdown

António Marques · 19 Aug 2010, 01:31 · from 2010-August.txt.gz

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From: entonio at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Ant=F3nio_Marques?=)
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:31:28 +0100
Subject: (urth) list slowdown
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On 19 August 2010 00:22, Mark Millman <markjmillman at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm interested in results, rather than discussion, on this point.  It
> seems that many topics are discussed at length without progress--for
> example, many hypotheses delivered here do not seem to get refined
> even by extensive discussion--and I do not intend that this issue
> should provide another example.


I think this nails it in the head. Imo some of the participants here have
little regard for the subject matter of the list.

I'd especially like it if people here learned to distinguish two quite
different situations:

- Theory A BEGS question X, and someone points out that the answer to X is
likely to invalidate A.
Fine. Useful. May shoot down A or make it better if an alternate explanation
is found.

- Theory B PROVIDES answer Z to question Y, and someone says that the answer
could be W instead.
Wrong. Useless. Doesn't shoot down B because it doesn't invalidate Z and B
doesn't depend on Y anyway. Serves no purpose at all than idle chatter
because of course there could always be a ton of answers to Y, that's not
what's under discussion.

With such a complex prime matter, discussions can go on forever and never
advance an inch. I personally LOATHE discussion for the sake of discussion,
specially because it almost always means people don't take the trouble of
understanding what it's all about, only caring to have a seemingly clever
word to say. But hey, that's me.
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