Not promotion. Recommendation.
They mean essentially the same thing.
And I see the distiction and disagree.
Then you need to clean your glasses. You're liable to crash your
vehicle or trip down the stairs with them in their present state!
It was on-topic and helpfull. I would be pleased to get such a response
if I had a question.
Yeah, and some people are into whips and chains and all that jazz.
Did you have an actual point to make, or are you just disagreeing with
me for the sake of being disagreeable, as seems to be the national
pastime these days?
I do buy books, but I also read them online (my company has deals with
services that make books readable on the web), or even borrow them
from the library. Just because a book can be bought, it doesn't mean
that it's the only way to get to read it.
Not even when the only answer provided to the OP is a Buy Now! page at
Amazon.com?
Tell me what objection you have to referencing the Java Tutorial, or
mentioning at the very least that the link in your post is not to the
actual information the OP is looking for but merely to an order form
where he can get it sent to him but only for a fee?
Sure. But if someone said "I'm so thirsty", and you responded with
"Try Coca-Cola. I use it and like it.", then it's not necessarily
advertising. If you do have a commercial interest in getting people
to buy the product, then it is advertisment. If you don't, then it's
just recommendation.
It's hardly comparable. Everyone knows that water is available in the
developed world and where not free is very cheap. Budget-conscious
people will pour a glass from the kitchen tap rather than spend on
your say-so. The OP in this case may not have been aware of
java.sun.com's "water" that might be able to quench his thirst as well
and more cheaply, at least in this instance, and his potential
ignorance was carefully preserved by, judging from previous incidents
and various observations of mine, deliberate policy on the part of a
susbet of the newsgroup regulars. What purpose is served by this
policy, if I may ask?
He said so.
<URL:news:
[email protected]>
And you'll just take his word as Gospel? How charitable of you. My
standards of proof are a bit higher, though, than "someone somewhere
in the world said it's true so it has to be true".
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Someone starting
a new thread to tell us about the greatness of some site is under
greater suspision of being an agent of that site. Especially if they
are new and the owner of the site is not easily determined,
Someone posting to tell us about the greatness of some site is under
greater suspicion (note spelling) than someone posting to tell us
about the greatness of some book? Now why should that be?
And when was the last time that the owner of any site was easily
determined? You're lucky these days if a site has a working web form
for submitting feedback, that generates responses of any sort, even
titled "From: (e-mail address removed) Subject: Inquiry
#4583DF4CA676FB19 (DO NOT REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE)". If they have a
working "webmaster@" address you're really lucky, and can actually ask
"What's your name?" in an email directed there. Don't know how likely
you are to get a response, let alone a truthful one, especially if the
operator *does* have something to hide.
That leaves things like whois records, which tend to show that a site
is owned by some holding company or another with some street address
or PO box in some random American city, and gives some random 1-800
numbers (if you're lucky) or long distance ones for technical contact
etc.; these of course lead to a nice five-by-nine cell in their voice
jail, from which there's no escape.
Finding out who actually runs the company probably is best done by a
private eye. There'll be incorporation documents, probably mostly not
online, but requiring visiting the city of incorporation to find
courthouse archives there. Physically. Out of those pop some names on
some boards of directors but who knows where the real power lies? (Or
the real money.) Most likely pointer-chasing ensues with a corporate
shell game involving companies incorporated in hundreds of towns and
cities in all fifty states. Hope you've got a few zillion air miles
saved up! Next comes figuring out who seems to have their finger in
every one of those pies, probably by subpoenaing SEC filings and the
like. That means cooking up some random excuse and suing the company
you *think* is the "mother ship" on some pretext and seeing what turns
up during discovery. And on and on it goes, and where it stops no-one
knows...
In this case, the reference came as part of a plausible response to
someone elses question, by a poster that has been with us for quite a
while.
Circumstances matter.
The circumstances that matter to me are those of the OP asking the
question. In this case we know, or can reasonably guess, the
following:
* Probably a student.
* Therefore probably on a tight budget at least for now.
* Does not know a whole lot about Java yet and so may well not know
about Sun's Java tutorial.
* Most likely lacks ESP, and therefore cannot tell at a glance that a
link someone posts points to an ad instead of to a free answer.
Uh-oh. The post doesn't look so helpful now, does it! Indeed, it may
have unfortunate or misleading consequences given the likely state of
the OP's a) finances and b) knowledge of alternative sources of Java
information.
All they may know at the end is that a) they can get Java information
here and b) they can get concurrency-specific information over there
somewhere, but only for a steep fee. They may also guess from their
few data points that c) the only information they will get here will
be pointers to where they can buy the *real* information they seek,
and conclude that they have no choice but to pony up a wad.
Ouchies.
I challenge the OP to answer the following questions truthfully,
honestly, and quickly:
1. Why didn't you give any real help to the OP at all, directly in
your own words?
2. Why didn't you mention in the posting that you were suggesting a
pay-only source of information?
3. Why didn't you mention Sun's excellent Java tutorial and perhaps
other alternative sources of relevant information?
Someone looking for a student loan office (whatever that is) is
probably not in a position to buy a new expensive car. In this case,
the original poster gave no indications in any direction.
I.e., the example is a strawman.
No, it's not. There's a reason I mentioned the thing having GPS
navigation and maps.
Ok. I'm not disputing it.
Then we're agreed: no more purely-commercial-product-recommending
posts, particularly "stealth" ones that don't make it clear (*before*
clicking any links!) that they aren't providing anything you can use
without paying through the nose first.
Good.
Moving on now...
And yet it was disputed immediately, and nobody else have given support
to it.
That's because you're a bunch of assholes that a) dispute every word
out of my mouth for no other reason than that I'm the one who said it
and b) use nefarious tactics to silence your opponents in debates from
time to time (and there is ample evidence, in Google's archive of this
group for starters, for both of the claims that I just made).
There is no such requirement. Anybody can recommend any help or
soultion that they care to, whether commercial or not.
Can, physically, yes. Should, morally, no. Recommending something more
expensive than someone needs is dishonest. Not disclosing that a link
you're posting is to content on the other side of a registerwall or
paywall or similarly is dishonest. It's lying by omission.
If it is a commercial solution, then saying so is a good idea.
Agreed!
There is *no* requirement that people recommending something that
costs money should also do anything else.
Legal? No. Technical? No. Moral? Damn straight there is.
I would prefer the answer.
But does that make it the best response? Should you give a man a fish,
or teach him to fish?
Both. And don't charge him extortionate amounts either. If you merely
teach him to fish, he starves before he's able to catch any. If you
merely give him a fish, he remains a charity case.
In this instance, you can point him to at least two fishing schools,
one of which doesn't charge tuition, and you can also give him a fish.
The post I initially objected to pointed him to the more expensive of
the two schools and did nothing else. How helpful.
Some questions don't have simple answers. Recommending a good book on
the general subject might seem the best way to give the questioner
the background information necessary to even understand the correct
answer.
The OP doesn't have all relevant information, however. Knowing of free
sources of information helps. Knowing even what to expect when he
clicks a link, in advance, helps.
There we go then.
However, I would not require that anybody giving recommendations
must do any more than what they care to do. If you had to post
a complete list of alternatives or nothing at all, you would get
a lot of "nothing at all".
How about loosening the requirement to "an as-cheap-as-possible
option, modulo that there may be some you yourself don't know about,
should be included"?
If you feel one recommendation should be acompagnied by another
recommendation, e.g., for a free alternative, *you* should post it.
And I did, but who knows how long the thread was in the state where
the only answer was the disingenuous bait-and-switch post?
(Here's the answer to your question! (flips page) Buy it now for the
LOW, LOW price of $49.99! Free shipping only until Tuesday! CALL
NOW!!! said:
I would prefer the ones you can personally recommend. Don't pad the
list with something else, especially if it's just something you have
looked up in the phonebook for your answer to be "complete".
I'd much rather have *one* genuine deep-felt recommendation than
several indifferent references.
I assume you also want to be told up-front what these cost? And thus
saved the bother of wasting time following anything up if the price is
too high? And at least that there ARE cheaper ones, if not told about
any specific one of them? And how cheap these're known to go?
The best answer I can give. If I can recommend a commercial solution,
because I have had good experience with it, then it's a good answer.
If I don't know of a free alternative, I obviously shouldn't write
about it.
If you know that at least one exists, isn't this worth mentioning?
Shouldn't your post be up front about any recommendation that isn't
free, when it's not an automatic given? Indeed, about any
recommendation that is "luxury priced" i.e. high range for the type of
goods? (For info that means anything that isn't zero, including "zero,
but registration is required to view the page". Same for software,
including registration or especially special software - that might
harbor spyware or worse - being required for downloading. For cars,
anything up to maybe $25,000 in the way of new cars seems reasonable.
If it's more like $40-50,000 or even higher I'd want that mentioned up
front.)
If I thought it mattered, I'd take it into consideration. In a forum
like this, where I don't write for just one person, I'd probably also
include answers not directly suited for the person I'm responding to.
If it's likely that none of your answers ARE directly suited for the
OP it's another matter, however.
Pointing to a book should be sufficient for people to know that it's a
physical object that can cost money to acquire.
Yes, but the post I objected to did not say it was pointing to a book:
I suggest you read Java Concurrency In Practice <http://
www.javaconcurrencyinpractice.com/>. It teaches you everything you
should know before attempting to create multi-threaded programs.
It provided a tidbit or two of relevant information, then said that.
The word "book" appears nowhere in it.
Imagine the troublesome section had instead said:
I suggest you read Sun's Java Tutorial <http://
java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/essential/concurrency/>. It
teaches you everything you should know before attempting to
create multi-threaded programs.
We'll ignore the question of whether you agree with the last sentence
when it refers to the Java Tutorial as irrelevant.
The paragraph is formatted essentially identically, with only a name
and a URL having been substituted with different ones.
The original referred to a pay-only source of information,
specifically a book.
The rewritten version provides one-click satisfaction: a passel of
detailed information about Java concurrency basics you can dive right
into with no mess, no fuss, no payments, no hoop-jumping or
registration, no credit card, no nothing, just a working net
connection, something the OP demonstrably had at the time.
It follows that the paragraph's structure and content provides no way
to tell at a glance whether what it refers to is a free or a pay
resource, absent specific prior knowledge of either title's price tag.
In short, someone who hasn't heard of either before asked to guess
whether either of them points to something that is useless without
paying money is going to throw their hands in the air, or take a
random guess and, in all likelihood, get it wrong.
The post was ambiguous, and, arguably, deceptive, since the default
price for information on the internet is zero.
What's your evidence for drawing this conclusion?
They posted a question to CLJP. A sizable fraction of such are
demonstrably homework assignments. The most likely source for any
given question is a Java student of some sort or another. And students
are well known not to generally have much disposable cash on hand.
I bet a lot of the questions in this group is related to work,
not study, and not because other ways of getting answers aren't
available, but because they aren't necessarily as quick or of as
good quality.
This question was clearly from a rank n00b to Java. Such a person is
not asking a work-related question, unless Java position hiring
standards have REALLY dropped in recent years. Most likely they are a
student, and failing that, a hobbyist. One is unlikely to have the
money; the other is unlikely to have the inclination to sink a bunch
into their hobby when they're used to finding free information on the
net.
(Ok, checking his posting ip address does lead to a .edu address, so
it's a fair guess. Such a check is not something people can be
expected to go through before answering though.)
See above. The check you did merely confirms that my guess was
accurate; and that indicates that my reasoning is sound.
Also, whereas a random responder might not be expected to do such a
check, perhaps a responder who specifically intends to respond by
endorsing a pricey commercial solution and doing little else *should*
be. It could be common courtesy; the same way you wouldn't waste
everyone's time recommending a Mercedes-Benz to a young couple with
low-end white-collar jobs and a home mortgage to worry about, plus a
baby on the way, if they asked for car brand recommendations. A
serviceable and sturdy sedan by some reputable East Asian manufacturer
priced in the $20-30,000 range is a much more sensible recommendation
in that case. Knowing your audience when recommending things that cost
money is essential. Particularly in the case that you ARE getting
kickbacks for referrals that buy, in some fashion, as you stand
to gain more with well-targeted recommendations (right market
demographic in terms of price sensitivity as well as what they need
product-wise) than with poorly-targeted ones (recommending a
refrigerator to an Inuit chief, or recommending a Mercedes-Benz to a
young couple living paycheque to paycheque).
Don't call me names, don't insult me.
Then stop being rude and argumentative in every response you make to
my posts.
Then tell them about it. It's as easy as that.
What about the time between the post recommending a commercial product
and my post? The only way to address that period of time is to deter
making commercial-only recommendations with unmentioned existence of
cheaper alternatives (that do actually exist!) in the first place.
I would very much like to hear where the hostility or nastiness is.
In repetitively disagreeing with me solely for the sake of
disagreement, of course, and after I've repeatedly explained why I'm
right and you're wrong on this issue, which you seem finally to be
conceding may be true.
