Re: What does group consider to be "on topic"?
On 20120719_091920, Andrei POPESCU wrote:
> On Mi, 18 iul 12, 14:47:16, Camaleón wrote:
> > On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 02:18:00 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
> >
> > > On Tue, Jul 17, 2012 at 07:57:11PM +0000, Camaleón wrote:
> > >> On Wed, 18 Jul 2012 05:06:28 +1200, Chris Bannister wrote:
> > >> > Oh, right! like if you turn your hazard lights on in your car you can
> > >> > park anywhere you like. :(
> > >>
> > >> Well, exactly... that's what an OT flag is for: you are saying "hey,
> > >> people, something happens here but I don't know what, watch out!"
> > >
> > > As an aside, I was referring to people parking anywhere they like and
> > > thinking it is ok to do so if they turn their hazard lights on, not in
> > > the genuine case of "watch out! something happens here" An accident, or
> > > **genuine** hazzzzard.
> >
> > There are times when you have an unmanageable/mechanical problem with you
> > car that forces you to park in the first place you find/can. Of course,
> > these situations are an exception and do not happen often so the rest of
> > the drivers have to be a bit patient.
>
> You are missing the point: Chris is talking about people that would be
> able to make it to the next parking place or even repair garage, but
> chose to stop in the middle of the road asking other traffic
> participants about his problem (which they may not know anything about).
>
> The least they could do would be to try not disturbing the traffic :(
The analogy to stopping in the midst of heavy traffic on a highway is
misplaced. On a highway, as one drives by, one can see much about the
situation that matters. For instance, a station wagon with a young
matron driver and six kids all younger than seven years is very
different than seven teenagers standing near a minivan, or a pickup
towing a trailer loaded with motorcycles. But on the internet, one has
none of this. Here, we are talking a hypotheticals, and each of us
fills in the blanks with our own guess as to what is 'probably' the
situation. Probability is in quotes to indicate that there is no
believeable way that one could actually know a value for a correctly
defined probability. It is, by analogy, like speaking about the poor
and their motivations for not having a job (assuming that they don't
have a job). One projects onto the situation all sorts of extra 'facts'
that justify a judgement where no such facts can be inferred from the
actual information that one has.
Not every analogy is helpful. Most are not. This comment should have
been placed somewhere else in this discussion tree, but I had deleted
the tree yesterday as being uninteresting.
HTH to all.
Peace.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@mesanetworks.net
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