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Reply With QuoteNot just you - have a look here.Originally Posted by Gav
David "FAQ boy" James
Yes
No
I skim through them
I didn't even read the title of this thread
Even when I read an interesting thread, when someone posts a very long reply, I tend to ignore it because I can't be bothered.
Is it just me?
Not just you - have a look here.
David "FAQ boy" James
Too long, I couldn't be 4rsed to read it.
If someone hasnt bothered to put in paragraphs or lots of spaces then i find it hard to concentrate, especially because i know someone will have taken the good bits out and quoted them later in the thread.
It depends on the poster, what they're talking about, what they say in the first paragraph or so, and how they lay-out their reply.
Recently I came across a few people proposing that emails should be limited to at most 5 sentences. Not a bad idea – and one that works quite well in a lot of cases on forums too.
Here's a couple of links...
How to Change the World: The Effective Emailer
Sentenc.es - A Disciplined Way To Deal With Email
Let your mind go and your body will follow. – Steve Martin, LA Story
If it is a long post, I check the forum poster, as like writers I find certain ones dull and tedious and others like fletch etc fun to read, so I have my favs and others forget it.
No, I don't tend to bother. Don't have enough time to read huge posts.
it depends - if its a long post from Stewart38 I'd be suicidal by the end of it
No.
I think it depends on the content or the poster. If they haven't grabbed me in the first few lines I'll probably skip the rest. When I'm interested in a subject and they go into detail I'll read it. If it's a long, but funny post I'll read it too. If it's someone who I know quite well I'll read it.
No hard and fast rule for me.
The youth of today with their 10 second attention sp
Agree, it depends a lot on who it is, and if they have put in paragraphs breaking it up in sensible sections.
If you only are able to log on for 10 mins, then you have to be really selective in what threads and posts you read. But I'd guess that for those who don't want to read longer posts its more about lack of patience, than lack of time.
Emails are different, the forum is a discussion, its for sharing feelings, ideas, and experiences with other people who have enough in common to know what you are talking about, but enough variety to have a discussion about it.
Emails are for communicating - business emails especially - and you want to get straight to the point.
I wonder if the people who can't be bothered with long posts also 'switch off' when having a conversation if the person talks for more than a few sentences?
Have to read them. How else am I going to trash their argument?
With a lot more practice.Have to read them. How else am I going to trash their argument?
Some areas are more appropriate for long posts than others - for example, where you may be trying to communicate complex concepts. So, the more technical dance sections, and some of the political-dicsussion stuff, get long replies.
But:Absolutely - I'll always read everything from Davids F or B, Amir, or Franck, for example.
Ah, wishful thinking! Totally in character, IIMSS.With a lot more practice.
Probaby because I wrote itToo long, I couldn't be 4rsed to read it.
Depends on the subject and the author - most technical posts I will read in their entirity, most 'social' posts I will skim/skip.
It may also be usefull to point out this bit from the FAQ as well:
If you click the "QUOTE" button to the bottom right of a post, the standard reply editor will open, with the whole post quoted for you. For more advanced use of quotes within your post, you can:
- Only quote a bit of text
Just delete the text you don't want. Try not to take stuff out of context and when doing this, you may want to use ~snip~ or ... to indicate that text has been removed. Please, do not quote all of a long post again in your reply: trim it down to a few relevant lines - assume people have already read it.
~snip~
Ive never done a 'long post' sure ive cut and pasted stuff of the net to prove im right etc so it might appear long etc
Several years ago I made the assertion on this forum that evangelicals should "think Christianly" about their work and fields of study. I also claimed that we are merely fooling ourselves if we believe that we can approach our vocations with a sense of religious neutrality. Naturally, some people were skeptical. Even those who agreed with my general point did not see, for example, how there could be a particularly Christian view to hard subjects like mathematics.
While I certainly understand their hesitation, I do in fact believe there is a Christian view of mathematics. Indeed, I believe that there is a distinctly Christian view of everything.
The reason this idea seems so foreign (if not downright absurd) is that most of our theories about the world have only a minimal pragmatic affect on how we actually live our lives. Both my neighbor and I, for example, may get sunburned even if we different beliefs about the sun. The fact that I think it is a ball of nuclear plasma while he believes that it is pulled across the sky in a chariot driven by the Greek god Helios doesn't change the fact that we both have to use sunscreen. It is only when we move beneath the surface concepts ("The sun is hot.") to deeper levels of explanation ("What is the sun?") that our religious beliefs come into play.
Even the concept that 1 + 1 = 2, which almost all people agree with on a surface level, has different meanings based on what theories are proposed as answers. These theories, claims philosopher Roy Clouser, show that going more deeply into the concept of 1 + 1 = 2 reveals important differences in the ways it is understood, and that these differences are due to the divinity beliefs they presuppose.
But before we can see why this is true, let's review what constitutes a religious belief.
A belief is a religious belief, says Clouser, provided that (1) It is a belief in something(s) or other as divine, or (2) It is a belief concerning how humans come to stand in relation to the divine. The divine, according to Clouser, is whatever is "just there." He contends that self-existence is the defining characteristic of divinity, so that the control of theories by a belief about what is self-existent is the same as control by a divinity belief and thus amounts to religious control of all theories.
Whether we refer to it as being self-existent, uncaused, radically independent, etc., it is the point beyond which nothing else can be reduced. Unless we posit an infinite regress of dependent existences, we must ultimately arrive at an entity that fits the criteria for the divine.
Different traditions, religions, and belief systems may disagree about what or who has divine status, or whether such an ontological concept should be considered a "religious belief." But what they all agree upon is that something has such a status. A theist, for instance, will say that the divine is God while a materialist will claim that matter is what fills the category of divine. Therefore, if we examine our concepts in enough detail, we discover that at a deeper level we're not agreeing on what the object is that we're talking about. Our explanations and theories about things will vary depending on what is presupposed as the ultimate explainer. And the ultimate explainer can only be the reality that has divine status.
Returning to our example, we find that the meaning of 1 + 1 = 2 is dependent on how we answer certain questions, such as: What do "1" or "2" or "+" or "=" stand for? What are those things? Are they abstract or must they have a physical existence? And how do we know that 1 + 1 = 2 is true? How do we attain that knowledge?
Let's look at the answers proposed by four philosophers throughout history:
Leibnitz's view -- When Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, an inventor of the calculus, was asked by one of his students, "Why is one and one always two, and how do we know this?" Leibnitz replied, "One and one equals two is an eternal, immutable truth that would be so whether or not there were things to count or people to count them." Numbers, numerical relationships, and mathematical laws (such as the law of addition) exist in this abstract realm and are independent of any physical existence. In Leibnitz's view, numbers are real things that exist in a dimension outside of the physical realm and would exist even if no human existed to recognize them.
Russell's view -- Bertrand Russell took a position diametrically opposed to Leibnitz. Russell believed it was absurd to think that there is another dimension with all the numbers in it and claimed that math was essentially nothing more than a short cut way of writing logic. In Russell's view, logical classes and logical laws -- rather than numbers and numerical relationships -- are the real things that exist in a dimension outside of the physical realm.
Mill's view -- John Stuart Mill took a third position that denied the extra-dimensional existence of numbers and logic. Mill believed that all that we can know to exist are our own sensations -- what we can see, taste, hear, and smell. And while we may take for granted that the objects we see, taste, hear, and smell exist independently of us, we cannot know even this. Mill claims that 1 and 2 and + stand for sensations, not abstract numbers or logical classes. Because they are merely sensations, 1 + 1 has the potential to equal 5, 345, or even 1,596. Such outcomes may be unlikely but, according to Mill, they are not impossible.
Dewey's view -- The American philosopher John Dewey took another radical position, implying that the signs 1 + 1 = 2 do not really stand for anything but are merely useful tools that we invent to do certain types of work. Asking whether 1 + 1 = 2 is true would be as nonsensical as asking if a hammer is true. Tools are neither true nor false; they simply do some jobs and not others. What exists is the physical world and humans (biological entities) that are capable of inventing and using such mathematical tools.
For each of these four philosophers what was considered to be divine ("just there") had a significant impact on how they answered the questions about the nature of the simple equation. For Leibnitz it was mathematical abstractions; for Russell it was logic; for Mill is was sensations; and for Dewey it was the physical/biological world. On the surface we might be able to claim that all four men understood the equation in the same way. But as we moved deeper we found their religious beliefs radically altered the conceptual understanding of 1 + 1 = 2.
What all of the explanations have in common, what all non-theistic views share, is a tendency to produce theories that are reductionist -- the theory claims to have found the part of the world that everything else is either identical with or depends on. This is why the Christian view on math, science, and everything else must ultimately differ from theories predicated on other religious beliefs.
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