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dingus
Sep 1, 2004, 3:31 PM
Post #101 of 105
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Registered: Dec 16, 2002
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Some things I hope you all consider as you move your debate about the beginners forum more into the action stage.
1. I think people best learn in an open environment that encourages dialogue. As I think back over my own career as a student, I have flourished under teachers and instructors who were secure enough to engage their students in DISCUSSIONS. These teachers, and they are the ones most of us remember years after they have crossed our paths, they know the answers just like the petty dictators do. They just have the courage and the teaching convictions to understand that not all students arrive at wisdom via the same path. Some of us have to talk our way to undertanding and if you folks are honest about it, most of us learn best that way. Open dialogue, not stepped upon by irritable experts who tire of noobs asking the same questions as the crop from last year. Said experts are WAY OUT OF LINE feeling this way toward beginners. Shame on them!
2. We are a group of peers. This isn't boot camp and none of us are beholden to any of you, for anything really. So don't go all Drill Instructor on us! We are your peers, albeit with less experience. You have no right to lord it over us and you are showing some character faults to even attempt it. Stop trying to control the discussions of free thinking adults voluntarily pursuing a free spirit sport. We climbers don't like being told what to do, what to think OR WHAT TO SAY!!!!1111 Even Beginners! When will you ever get it through your heads, you have no right to control the conversation of others!
3. Beesty points out repeatedly, and honesty demands attention, that it is not an unreasonable expectation to answer beginner questions in a nice tone with accurate information. Nasty, sarcastic remarks, inaccurate information and bullying behavior rightly should get flamed. That beesty relies upon the same tactics as those it criticizes to do that flaming merely confirms that beesty is human, and fallen, like the rest of us. Doesn't mean its central theme is wrong. I too have felt the wrath of beesty and while I would never admit to enjoy getting flammed, and I certainy defended myself, I also freely admit that beesty's comments toward me had their desired effect (or one of them anyway), I became more aware of the beginners forum in general and had to admit it was generally OK to be nice to boobs, I mean noobs (it's OK to be nice to boobs too, I assure you!). What a concept, eh? Don't throw out that notion just cause you don't like beesty. Personal contribution, that's the ticket!
4. Go ahead and form your expert's panel. There are inherent problems though... where do you put them? Who are the experts and what is their expertise? Will these experts tender questions from all the forums? Are you gonna subdivide the experts into the various genre's to reflect the forum structure?
Here's my take: accept any expert who wants to volunteer. Don't write a bunch of code or create control systems that simulate equality and or fairness in terms of that selection process. No ridiculous voting or weighing. We all know those devices are meant to shield the experts from their own bad behavior anyway. They are the programmers way of getting around human personalities and they stip the humanity right out of the exchange. The expert should willingly post their credentials somewhere, so average folks can have a sense from whence that expertise comes. Said experts shold really resist the temptation to be expert in all things. Too many times we see an 'ask the expert' comment on drape colors or the best stick shift, because someone asked and they feel compelled to be a know it all. YOU'RE NOT... a KNOW IT ALL! Have the grace to recruit 'experts for a day' to answer questions out of your depth, or you have no intellectual courage at all. In fact, if a bouldering expert even attempts to answer say an aid question, that expert should be laughed at and flamed! She would be doing the very same thing the experts panel is supposed to cure (which it won't anyway, noobs ask noob questions, period). Just let people ask the 'expert of their choice.' So even though JT was being facteous, an ASK JT512 forum, or an ASK CURT forum, or an ASK X panel, may actually make some sense. Let the self appointed experts stand on their own. The value of their contributions will quickly out through the post count.
5. I asked before, what is the purpose of the Beginners Forum. I would hazard a guess that it is not to entertain the experts with ever new and interesting questions. I rejected that notion from jt512, the 'purpose of the forums' and I urge everyone else to avoid the tyranny of entertaining jt512 and his fellow dissatisified experts. I don't think the forum should be about them, AT ALL. I frankly don't care that Curt or jt512 or anyone else dislikes repetitive questions. Too freaking bad!!!111
To me, a Beginner's Forum should be a place where open questions are encouraged, where no noob question is deemed too stupid for the light of day, where discussions are used to GUIDE our new brethren toward underdstanding, not goose stepping toward University. WE ARE PEERS! We are not your disciples! Get it????? When you go into the Beginners Forum, you should do so as a teacher, not a dictator. Shutting down a thread because it was worded wrongly, the thing that set me off initially, is an especially egregious foul. It says in no uncertain terms, 'your question is stupid!" While that may be OK in the aid forum, or at rec.climbing, I would submit that it is a rotten thing to do in the beginners forum here, where climber by climber, one by one, you should be GUIDING them toward wisdom, not herding them.
So leave the Beginners Forum alone and resist the temptation to control the conversations. PARTICIPATE but understand your role as teacher and guide. If you find yourself feeling dirtied by rubbing shoulders with the unwashed masses, instead of truncating the threads and locking out dissent, perhaps you should instead take a time out and go somewhere else till you are more accomodating of the needs of beginners.
PEERS. These people are your peers. They are not your disciples and you have no cause to whack them with internet sticks.
Cheers
DMT
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squish
Sep 1, 2004, 7:10 PM
Post #102 of 105
(4860 views)
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Registered: Sep 2, 2003
Posts: 470
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In reply to: Just let people ask the 'expert of their choice.' So even though JT was being facteous, an ASK JT512 forum, or an ASK CURT forum, or an ASK X panel, may actually make some sense. Let the self appointed experts stand on their own.
I miss Dr. Piton.
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the_fury
Sep 1, 2004, 7:44 PM
Post #103 of 105
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Registered: Aug 23, 2004
Posts: 36
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In reply to: you have no cause to whack them with internet sticks.
Stick?
*ears perk up*
did someone say stick?
C'mon throw the stick.
throw it
throw it throw it throw it throw it
*wags tail hopefully*
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dingus
Sep 1, 2004, 7:59 PM
Post #104 of 105
(4860 views)
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Registered: Dec 16, 2002
Posts: 17398
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And I'm gonna get that little dog too!
WWW
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philbox
Moderator
Sep 1, 2004, 9:15 PM
Post #105 of 105
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Registered: Jun 27, 2002
Posts: 13105
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Phil feigns throwing stick and watches Fury run off and stop with a bewidered look on its face, Where`s the stick, I`m sure it got thrown out here somewhere, says the Fury.
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