Did I win this one?
 

I queried something Marcus du Sautoy said in his highly entertaining and instructive book on prime numbers.

Bob's response was "Don't read popular books".

Me: "OK then. I'll stick to unpopular ones".

David

PS In case you are doubting my veracity, even Raymond Chandler couldn't make this one up.

[QUOTE=Fusion_power;284511]My grandfather and I argued a topic for over 20 years before finally agreeing that the problem did not exist any more.
DarJones[/QUOTE]

God?
Or respect for your elders?

David

[QUOTE=xilman;283344]So much fun in so little time. Thread re-opened.

Sorry Jason, but I respectfully disagree. Yes, some people here have been obnoxious to an entirely excessive degree but I believe they should be given an opportunity to apologise. They know who they are.

Some people have been obnoxious to an entirely tolerable degree (but this is the Soapbox, which is why their obnoxicity is tolerable). They also know who they are. For instance, I've been called a hypocrite and would like to see a clarification of and/or justification for that remark.

Paul[/QUOTE]

I believe that you have acted hypocritically because you seem to tolerate
posts from others that would get me banned. Another admin locked
this thread. But you found the repeated taunts sufficiently Ok to re-open it.

I quote you: "some people here have been obnoxious to an entirely excessive degree"

Yet these people have not been banned. This is a &*!*## DOUBLE
STANDARD.

Davieddy has been repeatedly posting taunts and insults. Yet I do not
see him being banned. Indeed. In a post that originated elsewhere
but know appears in the "useless posts by davar55...." thread, davieddy
said:

"Hope you got my PM.

What you deleted took quite a bit of thought.

Is your mental age>2? "

to Tom Womack. The last comment would definitely get me banned.
You are a moderator. Why have you not banned him? He posted
[b]repeated[/b] taunts in that same thread.

I think the problem is that the moderating system is, necessarily imperfect...it's human, after all, not mathematics....notice that even the moderators disagree on closing this thread!

As I suggested before, you SHOULD hold yourself to a higher standard, but I'm betting my copy of "Counterexamples in Topology" you aren't capable...and davieddy has gotten himself banned for short periods, too....

[QUOTE=Christenson;285156]I think the problem is that the moderating system is, necessarily imperfect...it's human, after all, not mathematics....notice that even the moderators disagree on closing this thread!

As I suggested before, you SHOULD hold yourself to a higher standard, but I'm betting my copy of "Counterexamples in Topology" you aren't capable...and davieddy has gotten himself banned for short periods, too....[/QUOTE]

It's not just the system. Some (perhaps quite a few) posters seem to
go out of their way to take offense even when none is given/intended.
They look for reasons to be offended or find ways to deliberately interpret things in the worst possible way. This is a common phenomenon on the .net

It might also be the (incredibly hard-to-convey) tone. Everyone knows the davieddy generally doesn't have anything serious to contribute, and 95%+ of his posts aren't. So anything he posts... is generally ignored? It's kind of like the difference between the teacher and the student who just can't pay attention to anything in the classroom. He fills that role, and so we instinctively care less about what he says, whereas if the teacher says that, he'll get in trouble with the principal.

To put it slightly differently, you come across much more mature, so we expect you to act more so (not trying to knock on davieddy here, it's just this stuff is very hard on the internet). I think that's what Christenson is trying to say.

I had a lot of trouble putting this to words (I am, afterall, a STEM major, not English), so if it doesn't make sense or seems insulting, I'm sorry, that was not my intent.

Edit: Whoops, cross post. Pretend this comes straight after Christenson.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;285153]I believe that you have acted hypocritically because you seem to tolerate posts from others that would get me banned.[/QUOTE]

I don't think you quite understand why you were banned; I did give an explanation at [url]http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=278932&postcount=71[/url].

[QUOTE] Another admin locked this thread. But you found the repeated taunts sufficiently Ok to re-open it.
[/QUOTE]

I would be wary of accusing Paul of acting in bad faith; he said that he opened the thread in order to give people who'd been acting unreasonably a chance to apologise, and some of them did.

[quote] (from davieddy)"Hope you got my PM.

What you deleted took quite a bit of thought.

Is your mental age>2? "

to Tom Womack. The last comment would definitely get me banned.[/QUOTE]

I assure you that it wouldn't, at least not by me, and I doubt that I come across to the other moderators as so fragile a creature that they would ban you to save my feelings. It [b]would[/b] make me rather worried about you, since it's completely out of character for you.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;285157]It's not just the system. Some (perhaps quite a few) posters seem to go out of their way to take offense even when none is given/intended.
They look for reasons to be offended or find ways to deliberately interpret things in the worst possible way. This is a common phenomenon on the .net[/QUOTE]

This is true, but I've found that it is often possible to write messages to people you don't know from Adam in such a way that they are difficult to take as offensive ... I think it's a skill that I learned painfully when TAing first-year linear algebra for a class of 75 prospective engineers who could not, after four weeks of lectures, reliably distinguish a matrix from a warthog given a copy of Golub & van Loan and a bag of warthog food.

[QUOTE=fivemack;285167] Golub & van Loan .[/QUOTE]

Good book!

If you want your own subforum where you can delete and edit ALL posts and threads just let us know. You can have complete control.

We are very serious. We think it would be an asset to the forum as a whole.

:cool:

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;285153]I believe that you have acted hypocritically because you seem to tolerate
posts from others that would get me banned. Another admin locked
this thread. But you found the repeated taunts sufficiently Ok to re-open it.

I quote you: "some people here have been obnoxious to an entirely excessive degree"

Yet these people have not been banned. This is a &*!*## DOUBLE
STANDARD.

Davieddy has been repeatedly posting taunts and insults. Yet I do not
see him being banned. Indeed. In a post that originated elsewhere
but know appears in the "useless posts by davar55...." thread, davieddy
said:

"Hope you got my PM.

What you deleted took quite a bit of thought.

Is your mental age>2? "

to Tom Womack. The last comment would definitely get me banned.
You are a moderator. Why have you not banned him? He posted
[B]repeated[/B] taunts in that same thread.[/QUOTE]

Do you understand the difference between ">" and "<" ?

The trouble with trying to interpret the "useless posts" thread is that either the context is lost, as Dubslow has just moaned about via PM, or written (if you could call it that) by the likes of the late lamented cmd.

Lighten up folks, and try to make your insults a bit more personal in future.

Or this penguin will ram his remote control straight up your Khyber.

David