[Tutor] How to post: Was Re: The Charms of Gmail

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 12:59:15PM +0000, Mark Lawrence wrote:

> I entirely agree.  I'll offer to supply the cotton wool, baby oil, bibs 
> and nappies that we can wrap the newbies up in 

"Wrap the newbies up in"? Who taught you to speak English? And what's 
with the two spaces after a full stop? It's not 1955 anymore, get with 
the program.

(See how annoying it is to have the substance of your post completely 
ignored while trivial incidentals are picked on? Are you now even a 
*tiny* bit moved to use a single space after full stops?)


> as we don't want to offend them.

It's not about *offending* them. It's about being a tedious, shrill 
nagger that makes the whole environment unpleasant for everybody, not 
just the newbies. If you can give advice without being unpleasant and a 
nag, please do so. Would you rather be "right", and ignored, or 
effective?


> I mean if we do offend them, they might desert us for 
> places such as stackoverflow, where they can read top voted answers that 
> are completely wrong.

I keep hearing people say this about StackOverflow, but whenever I 
google on a question I find plenty of good answers there. Yes, I see 
some pretty wrong or silly or ignorant answers, but not as the top-voted 
answer. Can you show me some of these top-voted but wrong answers?


-- 
Steven