stackoverflow and c.l.py

[Westley Martínez]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 09:58:32AM +1000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> memilanuk wrote:
> 
> > On 09/14/2011 05:47 AM, Chris Angelico wrote:
> >> The SNR here isn't bad either. Most of the spam gets filtered out, and
> >> even stuff like Ranting Rick posts can be of some amusement when it's
> >> a slow day...
> > 
> > I subscribe to the list via Gmane, and if 'most of the spam' gets
> > filtered out, I'd hate to see how much gets submitted as I still see 2-5
> > minimum blatant spam per day on here.
> 
> 2-5 spam posts is nothing. (Well, I know any spam is too much spam, but
> still.) Since nearly all of it is obvious, it's easy to filter out of your
> mail client, news client, or if all else fails, your attention. The hard
> ones to ignore are the ones that look like they might be legitimate, but
> fortunately most spammers are too lazy or stupid to bother with even the
> most feeble disguise.
> 
> Either way, I don't consider half a dozen spam posts a day to be anything
> more than a minor distraction.
> 
> Commercial spam is annoying, but otherwise harmless because it is so easy to
> filter. What's really the problem is crackpots, trollers and griefers,
> because there is a terrible temptation to engage them in debate: "someone
> is wrong on the Internet!". If you want to see a news group gone bad, go to
> something like sci.math. You can't move for the cranks "disproving"
> Cantor's Diagonal Theorem and Special Relativity and proving that 10**603
> is the One True Actual Infinity (I'm not making that last one up!).
> 
> 
> 

This is really what I love and hate about the internet.  It's full of
people who argue for the sake of venting their internal frustrations.
How many discussions comparing declarative and imperative programming
languages have you seen on the web?  They are everywhere.  Really,
there's no point to these discussions, just use what you like, but it's
still fun to read and think.  This goes into all kinds of subjects.
That said, this post is somewhat of a rant and may spur debate.  It is
what it is, no matter where you are, the internet is just a natural
breeder of this kind of thing.