renner@uiucdcs.UUCP (renner ) (02/27/84)
#R:ihuxl:-92700:uiucdcs:29200104:000:1913 uiucdcs!renner Feb 26 20:13:00 1984 /***** uiucdcs:net.politics / ihuxl!pvp / 7:25 pm Feb 23, 1984 */ > This response causes me to think about a problem we've been > having in net.politics discussions on various topics lately. > Namely, how do you respond to an article which makes absolutely > no sense whatsoever? This is an interesting question. I submit that Phil Polli isn't in a very good position to ask it. I have copies of everything he posted on the (hopefully dead) world hunger discussion; the first half-dozen articles were remarkably sense-free. > One type of response is to write a fairly lengthy article pointing out > all the errors in the article, and giving references and quotations to > refute it... A second type of response is to point out that the author > is an ignorant idiot... A third alternative is to simply ignore the > article. A fourth type of response is to write a personal attack against the author, calling him a "disgrace to the human race" and comparing his morals with those of Stalin and Idi Amin. A fifth type of response is to set up a straw-man argument, attribute it to your opponent, and then tear it apart. These were Polli's favorites in the hunger discussion. > I've noticed that a significant fraction of the idiot articles seem > to come through uiucdcs. It's gotta be the notes interface. *We* write sensible articles, but notes(1) turns our stuff into gibberish. Seriously, though, I don't think the noise-to-sense ratio of the articles posted from U of Illinois is any different than that of the net as a whole. For example, Scott Preece (uicsl!preece) routinely writes good stuff, although not so much to net.politics. U of I writes a lot of stuff, about 5% of the net total, and so there is bound to be some garbage, but I've always thought that most of the real looney-tune articles came from other sites. Scott Renner {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!renner