FW: Processing Password Questions

[Fairlight]

On Thu, Dec 29, 2005 at 12:10:53PM -0500, after drawing runes in goat's blood,
Nancy Palmquist cast forth these immortal, mystical words:
> 
> I realize you are feeling a little annoyed.  But I find this response 
> very rude.

Your interpretation.

> The reason these get assigned incorrectly is people do not know they did 
> it.  There is a choice on the menu.  They choose it for some reason - 
> did not understand what it did, or thought it did something else or just 
> hit a wrong key (I like the cat on the keyboard option myself).  In 

THANK YOU for making my point for me:  USER ERROR.

I believe I already said that.

> The discussion was to illuminate the use, function and pitfalls.  I am 
> sure it is entirely outside your experience when due to ignorance or 
> curiosity something happens you do not expect.

I either 1) don't futz with something that I'm not familiar with, 2) I read
up on it in advance so I -do- know WTH I'm going to be doing, or 3) if I
really and truly screwed up, I track down the cause and make damned sure I
never do it again.  Option 3 is a last resort fallback position.  

> I interact with many programmers and when they do not understand a 
> feature it is usually avoided.  That does not mean they could not find 
> it useful, they just don't understand the correct function or use of the 
> feature.

Sure.  Some dingbat at university scared me into believing NFS was major
black majik voodoo.  I avoided it for another five years before I needed
it, read the docs, and said, "Jesus, this is so bloody trivial, why the
hell did they say it was hard?!"  Actually -reading- TFM generally helps
alleviate a lot of avoidance and misunderstandings.  I mean, it's all there
somewhere, in black and white (or the current screen colours).

> So I clearly resent your implication that people that posted questions 
> about the feature "don't know enough to figure it out for themselves". 
> That was the entire point of the discussion.  Bob's request for a vote 
> in no way clarifes the issue just the general use of the responders of 
> the features.  What was certainly helpful to the poster was the 
> reason(s) each voter had for their preference.

Apparently I snipped too quickly, Jay misattributed (doubtful), or
someone's mailer didn't bother with an attirbution.  I'd have sworn that
you were the one that called for the vote.  I stand corrected.

> So instead of trying to restrict discussion, sit on your hands, when all 
> you want to say is stop posting to the list.  You are not responsible 
> for how a discussion unfolds and can delete any message or ignore any 
> thread that you are finding particularly redundant.

Pot.  Kettle.  'nuff said.

> I had my say on this.

Nancy, you give good advice.  You should listen to yourself more often.  :)

mark->