My counter-proposal is that we need maximal community to draw out the best of the intellect.

But you can have organization. As long as this particular post is, it's a well-composed and organized post. So you have the ability to do it.

If it's hard to express what you mean clearly, perhaps you should let it rest in your mind longer before posting. Let the ideas work themselves towards clarity before filling the screen with words. Not only will your ideas be better, but they will be more concise and you will lose fewer people.

Also, the bolded is the sort of statement that makes you come across as arrogant. In your very next sentence, you complain about your limited time. You're not the only one. Why do we all have the responsibility for putting time into figuring out what you're trying to say, but you don't have the responsibility of putting time into figuring out what you're going to say?

Is there a problem with coming back to a conversation the next day?

Science also doesn't work by word vomit. If you submit a paper, you take the time to type it up and organize your thoughts. And then people judge you on the quality of both your ideas and your presentation. They send it back, and then they make you do it again if it's not very good.

Edit: Do you send your collaborators rambling, off-topic emails that don't answer the questions they've asked? Maybe you should try to think of this more in that type of context.

Here's an important point. Who is the post for? Is a post primarily for your own value or for the value of others? If it's primarily for the value of others, then you ought to take the time to prepare in a way that is of value for others.

If you're too busy to post something today, then wait until tomorrow to post. Or type it up in a word document and comb through it later when you have the time.

Your argument doesn't seem to comport to the reality of the situation.

Again, this comes off as very arrogant. You don't have the time to slow down, but blame us for not putting the time in because of the face pace of modern life.

Perhaps this is because there aren't problems with length or style when others post.

In general, you're creating your own self-contradiction. Your approach is ill-conceived for the goals you have.

(1) doesn't work because your long posts don't actually help the discussion. They create a hindrance to it.

(2) is what blogs are for.

(3) is a quite conjectural and possibly a misreading of the data.

(4) is fine, but see #1.

(5) is again an arrogant approach. You are only thinking about the time you are wasting, and not the time that other people are wasting. If 10 minutes to think through a post and organize it means that it takes 10 fewer minutes to read and understand, imagine how much time is saved globally when all those people in #3 don't have to spend the extra 10 minutes to figure out what you're saying.

I don't think "proper editing" (as if you're going all the way to submission) is what anyone is asking of you.

Again, you sound extremely arrogant here.

I appreciate the extension and accept. I don't hate you. I just hate the way you post.

If it's not about you, then please think more about how to post to help others, and less about how to post to help yourself.

I accept your apology and accept that you don't intend arrogance. However, you still come across arrogantly in many ways. I urge you to consider the collective weight of people trying to tell you to post better as a strong indication that, even though you might disagree, you would be better off to change your posting habits.

Hi Masque.

You have made your protest, I hope you will deem it sufficent and remain. Few will appreciate just what you did for Bruce but we know, and it was real, unlike so much of the abuse and trolling that goes on at 2+2.

Good community cannot be imposed on us lot, it's not a modding issue. We have to do it for ourselves by appreciating all of us with all our quirks, recognising the difference between friendly banter and mean-spirited abuse and standing up to those who want to destroy rather than build any community. I'm not putting Aaron or some others in that class although I think they are very mistaken about you being particulary arrogant.

Also shorter posts would be appreciated I need to be fed in smaller chunks.

How'd I miss this? Drop me a PM next time Chez you old lime. Welcome back Bruce and Masque!

Aaron W. i seriously do not think you understand how impossibly hard it is to not post your ideas because you need to organize them better and then think it over and post later and then edit many times etc as you suggested. Seriously do you imagine me working for 2+2 here as a job or what? If i have ideas now i will organize them locally as well as i can fast and then post them now and it's over in a few minutes to 20-30 usually if a big post. I may forget later or not do it. Is that better? Sometimes i even get excited about sharing them because they are good ones, they wouldnt have existed without the OPs asking their questions and will create activity and feedback leading to more because of other good thinkers. What a better way to show respect to the thread, its creator and the community?

I cant spend more time because i have to think about many other problems every day. What you need is a dedicated educator. I am not that. I try to be creative thinker that can also be an educator if the other side is patient and willing to put some work and cooperate.


Please go back to the thread that created the last few incidents and tell me exactly why i deserved all this abuse given that i offered so much content to the problem and i realized the problem in a much more general manner that enabled us to see it as optimization in path selection in race car turns and then i provided the mathematical framework for studying it for general paths moreover how hard it is to get closed form results.

Would we have arrived at any of this if i hadnt been posting so much detail?

Not only i explained properly the simple case, i also made it clear that the general problem was very interesting for all of us to consider. So instead of you guys being glad i put all the work i get the insults and nastiness that followed. What was the point to hurt those that help the forum with content that likely nobody else would have provided there if we had taken the easy centripetal answer path? And Zeno let that happen without any suggestions for civility. Exactly how hard is it to do it all better? I put a ton of work in it and will get this treatment and i will continue to post there? Why? Who protects the principle of it all? What are suggestions and 24h bans for to put trolling to freeze? Reread what you all had to say and tell me exactly for what purpose in that specific thread!

See how the thread evolved after the insults took place. Where did it go by the way in terms of math and physics?

If you will forgive me discussing our PM exchange, I said I didn't doubt your sincerity. I retracted the criticisms I had of you because arguing with you is like arguing with a freight train, and this petty topic can soon become labyrinthine. Unlike some others, I have no problem with scrolling past the parts of your posts which do not seem to be worth reading. The charge that your sheer intensity is overwhelming and alienating to others is a serious one, however, and I would ask you to keep that in mind.

I most certainly appreciate you doing that although that freight train thing is not something that offers any comfort in the retraction being a genuine one and that matters to me.

I want to understand what exactly is alienating also. I am available to talk to anyone that asks me something about what i post with sincerity. I react very well to civilized disagreements and dont take at all any offense if the other side is serious and not trolling. I value the ideas others provide to solve problems, i read very carefully their solutions, i treat them with respect and invite interactions with them on the problem we talk about, keeping nobody at distance by being for example obsessively strict on the way they "play the game".

I let others have their own style as long as it's not abusive and even when it is rude and abusive i will not exactly react bad right away and offer multiple chances instead. I never look down at people and i appreciate when they share information i can learn from and never insult anyone on their education or ever claimed authority over anything as substitute for actual original thoughts, arguments or calculations, etc. In my thoughts and behavior i place no bounds in anyone's greatness and potential.

This is not a competition for volume either or any intellectual exhibitionism. I can say ten things and you can say one that is very well thought and original that can top the ten i did in potency. I am capable to understand beauty when i see it and it dont have to be the author of it. In particular your honesty, dislike of hypocrisy and search for substance in things and economy of expression is something i value.

See, if you were sincerely sorry, you'd put some effort into changing your style and not bombarding the forum with train-of-thought word salad that everyone finds annoying.

No, you're going to keep doing what you always do despite your friends Zeno and Bruce telling you not to.

I also find annoying the simplistic blanket terms people use like walls of text and word salad without getting the necessity for content. I find it very insulting and i will never yield to people that want to be insulting on purpose as long as i get 2 more in private messages that have good things to say and as long as i gain something from the process and the threads do too at my judgement. Your insult is a lot more annoying than not reading me. Not to care for the thread's ideas is more insulting to me. What a comparison.

Where would the thread i last posted in SMP be without my posts? At the simplistic a2=r2/r1*a1 level?

Zeno and Bruce advise me to be more compact and i agree with them but they are not telling me to do that if it comes at the expense of ideas. I explained why that is not as easily done as imagined when you care to be understood and cover many ideas at the same time and you do not have endless amount of time for it.

This post is legitimately just "I'm going to keep posting like this as long as **I** get something from the process" and "where would SMP be without me?". Then this:

Everyone else manages it. You are one of the most astonishingly narcissistic posters I have ever encountered. Everything is presented in terms of how important your posts are, how little time you have and what PMs you get as a result of your posts. If you really want to convey ideas, start thinking about what is easiest for the people reading your posts. I frequently think about posts for hours in my free time before actually writing them.

It's possible you are autistic or something and not capable of imagining how your posts appear to others, in which case this entire thread is cruel. I don't know how to approach this other than to tell the truth though.

Golden post.

Welcome back, Bruce!

No, you won't.

You need to stop the bullying, Aaron.

I will not let you drive out masque again.

What is your opinion on IDA?

I'd suggest you spread your ideas over more posts as the thread develops. It overwhelms us when you pack them in so densely and in practice that is at the expense of the ideas.

It's a bit like giving a six hour college lecture. It may have all the ideas but they're going to be much better understood over a course of six 1 hour lectures. In an interactive environment it's even harder for us if every time we pick a bit and discuss it it gets a similarly long response.

I can do the splitting, if it's that difficult. Read anywhere, maybe five rows, it has quality. Leave him alone. He has learned all there is to learn for now.

Now WE have to learn.

I have an academic friend IRL who is extremely verbose, has an out of synch schedule which regularly sees him working throughout the night, has a diet restricted almost exclusively to fast food, wears ill-fitting clothes that look like he bought them 20 years ago in a jumble sale, normally carries several carrier bags of information around with him, understands computing on a deep level but is incapable of dealing with modern conveniences such as mobile phones and home internet access, has rarely if ever published an original thought but is world class at assimilating new math/science ideas, and apparently has made a fortune trading currency self-taught.

His verbosity (all footnotes and disclaimers) can certainly be tiresome at times, although less so once one has accepted it is part of communicating with him. I have known him a long time and I have no doubt that his intentions are pure and honourable. A unique individual, a true academic, and I'm not sure how relevant it is to speak of him having the capacity for change.

I'm sure that how he is has alienated a lot of people from him and that he is missing out on the majority of living as a social animal. It doesn't appear to bother him, I doubt that there is anything I can do to change that, and it's not my problem anyway.

Let's not talk about Masque here but it's an important subject. Many dont fit into a narrow view of the social norm and the fact some seek so hard to ostracize anyone who doesn't is not at all to their credit. Posters have 'come out' as having aspergers but they really shouldn't have to. One of the great things about 2+2 imo has been the way it accomodates a wide range of often highly intelligent people. We dont all have to be the same, we are all individuals (except for BTM obviously).

I hope he appreciates it in the spirit it's intended. It's not an attack and im nit exctly in a position to criticse anones posting style.

It's hard because one of the good things about 2+2 is also that it doesn't tolerate nonsensical discourse. Here is a post of masque's from the politard forum:

This is just drivel, just rambling nonsense. That's what any honest assessment of the post should say. Any assessment that doesn't say that diminishes 2+2, in my view.

I mean, one helpful hint is to realize twoplustwo isn't a job for pretty much everyone here. That's why we don't communicate in novel form.

Whatever, people can just skip over wall de text if they so choose so its not a big deal. But its pretty funny to complain about time constraints on 2+2, talk up the value of your content, get upset if people don't exactly capture the meaning/content of your 10,000 word post, and then continue to post missives.

I'm keeping this abstract, this discussion cannot be about individuals.

In general it is hard - many things are hard but they dont get resolved by pretending they are easy. There are two competing aims which are a) to address bad posting and b) to welcome a wide range of people

It's my view that we do our best by trying to recognise when we go too far in a) so that it becomes abusive and harmful. This is a judgement call that depends on the people involved and the group dynamic. Going too far with b) may be a mistake as well but it's a far better mistake to make and when the posts are pushing acceptability then it should be over to the rules and the mods to decide.

You might be annoyed and insulted, but that's not really the point. I'm not here to coddle your emotions. My desire is to live within reality as much as possible. Your posts are truly a word salad and walls of text. And much of the content is disjoint and unrelated.

This bolded is the sort of needy behavior that in real life makes people not want to be friends. You sit around and feel mopey and look for others to come and affirm that you're not the problem.

The underlined is what makes you sound arrogant.

This, too, is arrogant.

Simply because something is not easy does not also mean that it's not worth doing.

According to him, he was never driven off and that he was merely in active protest.

I don't have one.

Aaron, just let your obsession with masque go.

Break yourself free.

If Bruce says he's good, he's good enough.

Is bloviation an art or a science?

I have been a mere gongoozler of this thread, but now feel obliged to state that that is reasonably and understandably written as a course of action he may long to happen, however unlikely most would believe it could ever become much of a reality.

Coming from Northern Ireland, I have lived through seeing a divided community committing atrociously violent attacks against the other where it can be argued that it was only because of external parties virtually forcing the two sides to sit at tables together to debate their differences that that this has been turned to a lasting, albeit somewhat fragile, peace, headed by people still with widely different political aspirations, but who at least argue their points without the use of bombs and bullets.