Off-topic threads

[E. Robert Tisdale]

I notice the real reason for not posting "off-topic" here is that the
result will be a long thread on whether the matter is off-topic or not
-- caused by the very people who claim that
they don't want to see off-topic discussions
posting off-topic messages complaining about the lack of topicality!

Please don't respond to off-topic questions or other off-topic posts.
If you can't ignore them, please use your kill file.
Please don't respond to off-topic cops.
If you can't ignore them, please use your kill file.
The comp.lang.c newsgroup is *not* moderated.
No one has authority to censor contributors.

It is pointless
to admonish a new subscriber for posting an off-topic question.
If you think that a post is off-topic,
you have the right to express your opinion
and attempt to convince other subscribers to ignore it
but you will probably be more effective
if you simply ignore it yourself.
Off-topic posts are *not* a problem.
We can simply ignore them.
It is the responses to off-topic posts that are a problem.
You can verify this observation with a simple survey
of the comp.lang.c archives.

Subscribers to the comp.lang.c newsgroup are *not* omnipotent --
they are just "know-it-alls".
Debate over off-topic questions are usually *not* helpful.
It is almost always better to re-direct off-topic questions
to more appropriate forums where there are real experts.

Messages saying *PLONK* are also off-topic,
but the complainers seem to post those a lot as well.

If all of the people who currently complain about lack of topicality
stopped posting, the result would be a marked decrease in 'noise'.

I agree.
Most of these complaints don't help subscribers make up their minds
about what is topical and what is not topical.
The best way to discourage off-topic posts is simply to ignore them.

If they wish, they could send email to a person posting off-topic
explaining their error, pointing them to the FAQ or whatever,
and if they really want
they could then fight those battles as much as they like out of the group.

Or someone could RFD a group c.l.c.topicality to discuss those things.

(Making a post just to say "*PLONK*" or "You're in my killfile" is
extremely childinsh and does nothing to improve the level of discussion.
I thought this was supposed to be a group for intelligent people,
not schoolchildren going "Na-na-na-na-na-can't-hear-you".
If you want to use a killfile to remove posts
from people whose posts you don't wish to receive,
please do so -- I do so myself, in many groups,
it keeps my blood pressure down -- but keep it to yourself.)

According to the Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing

http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/

plonk

<networking, abuse> (Possibly influenced by British slang "plonk" for
cheap booze, or "plonker" for someone behaving stupidly; usually written
"*plonk*") The sound a newbie makes as he falls to the bottom of a kill
file. While this term originated in the Usenet newsgroup talk.bizarre,
by 1994 it was widespread on Usenet and mailing lists as a form of
public ridicule.

Another theory is that it is an acronym for "Person with Little Or No
Knowledge".


Plonkers are trolls.
There is no reason to tell other subscribers that you are going to
"killfile" them except to evoke an emotional response from them.
These trolls never use killfiles.

If you are going to "killfile" someone, please do it quietly.
We don't want to hear about it. My personal feeling is that
comp.lang.c would be a much better newsgroup
if more subscribers used their killfiles.

 

[Chris Croughton]

If all of the people who currently complain about lack of topicality
stopped posting, the result would be a marked decrease in 'noise'.

[...]

I seriously doubt that. I strongly suspect that the result would be
an increase in off-topic posts, since comp.lang.c would become the
place to go for answers to any questions that are even vaguely related
to C.

No, it wouldn't because there would be no answers to the OT posts.
Those who posted such questions would soon get tired of getting no
response, and the newsgroup would become known as a place where only
on-topic posts were relevant.

I understand that something like this happened to comp.lang.c++ some
years ago, and it took a long time for that newsgroup to recover. I
don't read comp.lang.c++ regularly; perhaps someone who does (or did
at the time) can provide more details.

I don't know what happened there, did the regulars keep answering the OT
posts?

The ideal response to an off-topic post is a single brief followup
pointing out that it's off-topic. If possible, it's also nice to
suggest what a more appropriate newsgroup might be, but we can't
always know that. Since Usenet is asynchronous, we often get a number
of such followups, which can seem like we're ganging up on the
original poster, even though we're not.

Yes, there are synchronicity problems. However, three or four short
posts just saying "this is off-topic here, please see the FAQ at <>" and
possibly mentioning a couple of more useful newsgroups would not be a
problem.

Long topicality threads often result when the original poster
complains that the rest of us are being rude; such complaints are not
always entirely unjustified, but they're rarely constructive.

It's the responses to these which result in the noise. If someone won't
take "not wanted here" (expressed politely) as an answer, ignore them
(killfile them if you want) and don't rise to the bait.

Chris C

 

[Chris Croughton]

You are wrong about the results. Perhaps I've been around usenet
longer than you, although I am not nearly as old a hand as some.

I've been around for over 12 years, and seen many groups with problems
with "off-topic" posters. I've never seen one where bickering between
the regulars every time someone posts off-topic has helped.

Another reply alluded to the problems that comp.lang.c++ has some
years ago, but the poster said he was not a regular reader of that
group and hoped someone else could supply the details.

I was reading and posting in comp.lang.c++ 7 or 8 years ago when it
was completely flooded with Visual C++/Windows API posts. The C++
language was in the final stages of having its original ANSI/ISO
International Standard issued, yet the posts about the language proper
constituted less than 25% of the total, actually around 10% IIRC.

Let me guess, the regulars were responding to the OT posts?

It finally took a concerted effort by a group of dedicated regulars to
clean up the group, to become the useful resource that it is today.

Hmm, I've looked in that group (I'm a C++ programmer as well as a C
programmer). It's not very 'clean'...

Over the years, other groups that I enjoyed have been totally
destroyed, never to recover, by the clueless, the rude, the ignorant,
and the arrogant.

Indeed. Many of them in my experience because they encouraged trolls by
responding to them.

Some people feel that they own the Internet and usenet, and notions
such as topicality or even good manners are not part of their mind
set. It often takes repeated applications of the hammer to pound the
nail all the way home.

Many of those being some of the 'regulars' who think that they 'own' the
newsgroup.

Actually, plonking by long tradition is topical in any group, and it
does server some purpose. Figuring out the potential benefits is left
as an exercise for the reader.

One is that the plonker shows themselves as a person who wants to be
seen to be "doing something". By the time it gets to that stage anyone
with any sense will have killfiled the plonkee silently if they were
worth killfiling.

There are some technical groups, comp.lang.c and comp.lang.c++ among
them, that provide excellent free advice from some of the most
knowledgeable programmers in their respective languages in the world.
These groups are incredibly valuable resources because of those
knowledgeable regulars.

One of the first casualties of a group gone out of control is usually
the loss of many of the best of those regulars. When most of the
content is off-topic drivel not pertinent to the subject they are
willing to share their expertise on, they leave. Even when groups are
cleaned up, some never return.

Indeed. When some of those people are themselves responsible for the
mess...

And, of course, your own post is itself off-topic. While discussions
of topicality are topical, discussions about what to do about
off-topic posts really are not. And it will spawn a thread of its
own.

Funny, I made a comment about the irony of a post about being off-topic
itself being off-topic and others have said that it was not off-topic.
Perhaps there needs to be a standard about it...

Chris C

 

[AA]

According to the Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing

http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/

plonk

<networking, abuse> (Possibly influenced by British slang "plonk" for
cheap booze, or "plonker" for someone behaving stupidly; usually written
"*plonk*") The sound a newbie makes as he falls to the bottom of a kill
file. While this term originated in the Usenet newsgroup talk.bizarre, by
1994 it was widespread on Usenet and mailing lists as a form of public
ridicule.

Another theory is that it is an acronym for "Person with Little Or No
Knowledge".

All this time, I thought "plonk" stood for "Person Leaving Our Newsgroup
into Killfile"...

 

[Christopher Benson-Manica]

One is that the plonker shows themselves as a person who wants to be
seen to be "doing something". By the time it gets to that stage anyone
with any sense will have killfiled the plonkee silently if they were
worth killfiling.

I disagree - I value the opinion of certain regulars concerning the
plonkability of certain posters

 

[Alan Balmer]

I notice the real reason for not posting "off-topic" here is that the
result will be a long thread on whether the matter is off-topic or not
-- caused by the very people who claim that they don't want to see
off-topic discussions posting off-topic messages complaining about the
lack of topicality!

No, topicality is always topical.

Messages saying *PLONK* are also off-topic, but the
complainers sem to post those a lot as well.

Generally only once per plonkee ;-) I always tell someone when they
are being plonked, so that they know that further messages will not
get a reply from me even if specifically directed.

If all of the people who currently complain about lack of topicality
stopped posting, the result would be a marked decrease in 'noise'.

No, the eventual result would be a huge *increase* in noise. Check out
other groups which do not enforce topicality.

 

[Alan Balmer]

No, it wouldn't because there would be no answers to the OT posts.

An assumption disproved by the example in hand.

 

[Keith Thompson]

On Sun, 02 Jan 2005 22:09:26 GMT, Keith Thompson


Yes, there are synchronicity problems. However, three or four short
posts just saying "this is off-topic here, please see the FAQ at <>" and
possibly mentioning a couple of more useful newsgroups would not be a
problem.
Agreed.


It's the responses to these which result in the noise. If someone won't
take "not wanted here" (expressed politely) as an answer, ignore them
(killfile them if you want) and don't rise to the bait.

I think we're actually approaching agreement.

Here's what I think tends to lead to the interminable topicalty
threads:

1. Some random user posts an off-topic question.

2. Multiple regulars post followups saying that it's off-topic,
possibly suggesting a better forum.

3. The random user whines that we're being rude (after all, his
question is about a C program, or maybe C#, and anybody who thinks
it's off-topic should just ignore it).

4. The regulars pile on and explain at length to the random user that
he's wrong, that his question really is off-topic, and so forth.

5. Hilarity ensues.

Step 1 is unavoidable in an unmoderated newsgroup; there's an endless
supply of random users, and some of them are genuine idiots.

Step 2 is entirely appropriate, in my opinion, though some such
responses can be too lengthy or unnecessarily rude. (If the question
in step 1 is sufficiently stupid, rudeness may seem justified, but I
suggest that it's not constructive.) Don't get creative, just post a
quick response and move on -- or stand back and let someone else do
so. (It would be nice if we could appoint one person to do this, but
I'm not volunteering and I don't expect anyone else to do so.)

Step 3, again, is unavoidable, given the endless supply of random
users.

Step 4 is the one we may be able to do something about. It's tempting
to engage these people in an argument, but it's seldom going to do any
good. There are several web pages that explain the topicality
conventions of this newsgroup; the URLs of those web pages are the
only explanation that's needed. If the random user comes back and
complains, the only required response is something like, "We've
already explained this; here are the URLs again.". If a couple of
iterations of this don't help, the random user should just be ignored.
(The problem is that this requires unanimous agreement, which can be
difficult to acheive.)

The more determined idiots and trolls are going to continue posting
until they get bored and go away. The faster we can bore them, the
less noise we'll have to put up with.

 

[CBFalconer]

I disagree - I value the opinion of certain regulars concerning
the plonkability of certain posters

I consider PLONK announcements worthwhile in that they a) tell the
plonkee he is off base and about to be ignored by a possibly large
segment of the readership and b) encourages others to plonk, thus
implementing a).

 

[E. Robert Tisdale]

No, topicality is always topical.

Perhaps,
but there is seldom any discussion of topicality in comp.lang.c
Most subscribers have very similar opinions
about what is topical and what is not.
The only appropriate (and effective) action subscribers can take
against off-topic questions is to ignore them.
The comp.lang.c newsgroup has no need of self-appointed
off-topic cops who attempt to enforce their personal notions
about topicality by abusing and harassing people
who inadvertently post off-topic questions.

Topicality is *not* an excuse for trolling.

 

[alex]

Perhaps,
but there is seldom any discussion of topicality in comp.lang.c
Most subscribers have very similar opinions
about what is topical and what is not.
The only appropriate (and effective) action subscribers can take
against off-topic questions is to ignore them.
The comp.lang.c newsgroup has no need of self-appointed
off-topic cops who attempt to enforce their personal notions
about topicality by abusing and harassing people
who inadvertently post off-topic questions.

Topicality is *not* an excuse for trolling.

I agree!

Ahmen!

 

[pete]

By convention, discussions of topicality are considered topical.

It's a self evident fact.
If topicality is untopical, then any complaints about
posts on topicality must also be off topic.

I think alex may have been joking.

 

[Derrick Coetzee]

If all of the people who currently complain about lack of topicality
stopped posting, the result would be a marked decrease in 'noise'.

I'll refrain from noting that your thread is itself off-topic, or that
your objection was probably also made in alt.sex in 1984, and instead
point out that most people with decent newsreaders are presented threads
in a view that allows them to summarily ignore an entire thread once
they've lost interest in it.

With reasonable Internet connections, a small additional overhead of
messages in OT threads won't impact download time much.

Public off-topic alerts help readers who can't tell for themselves avoid
wasting time on an OT thread, while embarassing the OP enough that they
won't do it again (although on a first offense I think this is too harsh
a punishment).

Besides that, it's just grown to be part of the very old Usenet culture.
While I do believe newbies should receive a kinder treatment, and I do
understand your frustration, a stone that large can only be shifted, not
knocked over.

 

[Mark McIntyre]

I think alex may have been joking.

Nope, he was trolling. See passim over the last week or so...