[SI-LIST] Re: SI FAQ (frequently asked questions) document. (do we need one???)
- From: "Michael E. Vrbanac" <vrbanacm@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Raymond.Anderson@xxxxxxx, si-list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 13 Mar 2004 02:53:57 -0600
Ray,
Good idea. Wrong forum.... You would be requiring us to have
"answers". <grin>
The best we could do is a "FOO". <grin>
(stepping back and having a laugh about making a FAQ.... and doing it the
wrong way...
here's a fictitious message between two fellows called H. and B.)
H.
That FAQ idea of yours would be requiring us to have "answers". That's a
problem but
I think I've got an idea.
To have answers, we would be required to have facts first. I haven't seen
a lot of those
lately. We only have opinions now... but we do have a lot of
those! Thousands and
thousands!
How about a FOO? (frequently offered opinions) Well, I guess FAQ sounds
more official
and authoritative instead of FOO. Of course, to get around this, we could
just call our
opinions "facts" and pretend we have answers. That's it.
We would have a problem, though. If we had facts, then we would need
consensus to make
it stick. We have very little of that. What consensus we do have is
usually found within
certain circles but its certainly not broadly based. So I guess we would
need a "committee"
to decide whether a certain "opinion/fact" would be allowed to appear in
the FAQ. They
might not get anything done, though. You know how committees are. But I
guess its
better than getting a couple of "rascals" in there and telling folks to do
things a way we
don't agree with. We'll have to work on this one.
The other thing we can do when we don't like an "opinion/fact", we can all
just use
that "show me the data" trick. That'll stop that sort of stuff. Yeah, I
know its an age-old
logical fallacy called an "ad ignorantum" argument but the trick
works. Those poor guys
can't show the data because they'll be afraid of losing their jobs if they
do. There's also a
few of those "whippersnappers" out there that just might have some data we
could use so
we could sucker them into giving it to us so we don't have to do any work
ourselves. The
ones that refuse to do it will be embarrassed and never bother us
again. And the folks
that don't have any data all, they won't bother us either. So if anyone
challenges us,
we just say "show me the data" and we win. That's another way to make
opinions "facts".
The other thing we can do to make our opinions as facts is to claim
something was
computer simulated. You and I both know that a simulation is only an
interpretation
of reality, something as subject to error as our own opinions (but we won't
tell anyone
about that). Just the other day, I saw that a fellow had done a simulation
and he
had a conclusion that we liked. Now we won't tell everyone that the
conclusion was
wrong because he didn't simulate the effect of doing the thing
correctly. The point is
that we don't like the practice so we'll leave it alone and it'll become
fact by default
because it was computer simulated. If anyone figures it out, we'll just
deny we knew
anything about it. So from that we can add another one of our opinions, to
the FAQ.
Well, there are those troublesome folks who have done things in a way we
don't like but
somehow they got it to work really well and it made us look stupid. We
don't understand
how it works but since it makes us look bad and goes against what we like
to say, we
need to make certain remarks that don't directly name the folks but make
everyone think
the way they did it doesn't work. Just make indirect references to where
they worked or
a particular thing they do isn't a very smart thing to do, and ridicule
works great here, if
needed, and it'll work. They can't prove anything one way or the other so
our opinions
will become fact again and we have more stuff to put in the FAQ.
Facts as answers to questions? We're running short of those. Our opinions
will have to
do.
Sincerely,
B.
-------------------
Good idea. Wrong forum... . unless we are talking about a FOO.
Regards,
Michael E. Vrbanac
At 09:10 AM 3/12/2004 -0800, you wrote:
>I'm pretty certain that most list users have noticed that many of the
>same questions are being posed and answered over and over again. There
>are always people new to SI/EMC and/or the list who haven't benefited
>from the past discussions and who haven't had the inclination to paw
>through the accumulated gigabytes of past list traffic to search for an
>answer.
>
>It has been mentioned in the past, and has recently reoccured to me that
>perhaps a SI FAQ that would be available on the www.si-list.org web site
>would be a generally useful thing.
>
>I personally don't have the bandwidth to put one together at this time,
>but was wondering if any of the list members might be interested in
>taking on or becoming involved in this extracurricular activity.
>Perhaps someone could coordinate the project and others could contribute
>concise write-ups on various topics based on either their own knowledge
>or on past postings. As is evidenced by the spirited discussion that
>take place on the list, some topics don't have a single simple answer,
>but have good arguments (frequently conflicting) from various
>viewpoints. The FAQ could address those topics by presenting the various
>viewpoints rather than declaring there is only one single answer.
>
>There are a lot of ways this could be started if anyone feels like
>getting involved in such an effort. Maybe if a list of common
>questions/topics were put together and posted to the list those who have
>knowledge of specific areas could volunteer to write up those areas. The
>coordinator/manager then could compile/format the various topics into a
>FAQ document.
>
>Anyway, I thought I'd toss the concept out to the list for comments and
>discussion to determine what the general feeling on the subject of an SI
>FAQ is and to see if there are any members willing to become involved in
>one way or another.
>
>-Ray Anderson
> Sun Microsystems Inc.
> (si-list admin)
>
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