Ego?
Alas, it appears another newbie threw a tanty because he/she didn’t like having to interact with other people according to basic behavioral norms.
I really don’t understand how this attitude is so common today — I can’t imagine it is only that poor behavior is so uniformly accepted everywhere.
It is one of the things that turns me most off to online interactions with others.
It really is very frustrating to spend time trying to help someone (often with the goal of also helping others with similar problems), only to have that someone spit in your face.
Really.
It is crass narcissism to do things like:
• Thanks for the help! Now I’ll delete my original post so I’m the only one to ever benefit from the question.
• Hey! That thing you said was wrong was exactly the answer I was looking for! Easy C+/B- here I come!
• Um, do my homework for me. What? No? MASS DELETE / RAGE QUIT.
• Hey stupids, I don’t give a schnizzle for etiquette or societal norms like asking nicely or being grateful for stuff, YOU OWE ME YUR HELP/KNOWLEDGE/STUFF!
• I need an answer NOW! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! (What? That’t rude?) SPAM AGAIN (with a different post/username so maybe I someone will give me what I want this time)!
This kind of self-centered thinking is endemic. How do people survive with such entitlement? Do they have friends (≠ associates who hang with you)? Do they keep them (for more than a semester)?
Do some of you work with people like that? How do you manage the toxicity?
I’ve been posting on cplusplus.com for over a decade! And I can’t tell you how many of the good forum regulars have at times grown tired enough of it to go away — a good number of them permanently. People I respect and like, like Zaita and helios, and Grey Wolf.*
*Non-comprehensive list here, please don’t think I dislike you if I haven’t listed your name. And I am aware that some of you still post...
I don’t think people are necessarily supposed to be all smiles and happiness all the time, but the core contributor at least wants to help (= understand and learn). Getting mistreated for one’s efforts makes that a whole lot more difficult for people, even those typically unfazed by it get their fill now and then.
Having regular (full-time) internet again is nice. I get to post. And read. And hopefully help. But now I remember why I wasn’t too bothered when I lost internet a few months ago.
How do you deal with it?
I really don’t understand how this attitude is so common today — I can’t imagine it is only that poor behavior is so uniformly accepted everywhere.
It is one of the things that turns me most off to online interactions with others.
It really is very frustrating to spend time trying to help someone (often with the goal of also helping others with similar problems), only to have that someone spit in your face.
Really.
It is crass narcissism to do things like:
• Thanks for the help! Now I’ll delete my original post so I’m the only one to ever benefit from the question.
• Hey! That thing you said was wrong was exactly the answer I was looking for! Easy C+/B- here I come!
• Um, do my homework for me. What? No? MASS DELETE / RAGE QUIT.
• Hey stupids, I don’t give a schnizzle for etiquette or societal norms like asking nicely or being grateful for stuff, YOU OWE ME YUR HELP/KNOWLEDGE/STUFF!
• I need an answer NOW! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM! (What? That’t rude?) SPAM AGAIN (with a different post/username so maybe I someone will give me what I want this time)!
This kind of self-centered thinking is endemic. How do people survive with such entitlement? Do they have friends (≠ associates who hang with you)? Do they keep them (for more than a semester)?
Do some of you work with people like that? How do you manage the toxicity?
I’ve been posting on cplusplus.com for over a decade! And I can’t tell you how many of the good forum regulars have at times grown tired enough of it to go away — a good number of them permanently. People I respect and like, like Zaita and helios, and Grey Wolf.*
*Non-comprehensive list here, please don’t think I dislike you if I haven’t listed your name. And I am aware that some of you still post...
I don’t think people are necessarily supposed to be all smiles and happiness all the time, but the core contributor at least wants to help (= understand and learn). Getting mistreated for one’s efforts makes that a whole lot more difficult for people, even those typically unfazed by it get their fill now and then.
Having regular (full-time) internet again is nice. I get to post. And read. And hopefully help. But now I remember why I wasn’t too bothered when I lost internet a few months ago.
How do you deal with it?
closed account (z05DSL3A)
One of the impressions I get is that the education systems are partly to blame for the bad attitudes to learning. By this I mean that often it seems that people have to do programming and have to get good marks to keep their average up. They don't want to learn it, possibly resent having to waste time on it and just want to get through it.
Antisocial-media like Twitter also normalises the pissy nature of online interaction (I feel a lot better after closing my count).
How do you deal with it?
At the moment I'm trying to get back into the right frame of mind to offer help here...as in the past I have not dealt with it in a heath way, getting angry and frustrated.
Antisocial-media like Twitter also normalises the pissy nature of online interaction (I feel a lot better after closing my count).
How do you deal with it?
At the moment I'm trying to get back into the right frame of mind to offer help here...as in the past I have not dealt with it in a heath way, getting angry and frustrated.
Heh, yeah, you know how many times I’ve had a fit and mouthed off. I am glad to see you back, though.
I grew up in a particularly good education system (NJ, Cherry Hill), and it hasn’t been until I’ve really lived other places that I have come to really fear for people’s education.
Right now I am really concerned about the level of education my daughter is getting. Where we were before (UT, Spanish Fork) she was learning time and sound recognition and arithmetic in first grade and doing well. Where we are now (NM, Albuquerque), in second grade, I think she has reverted to pre-first levels.
I’m actually considering home-schooling her, but I don’t know if that would really be the right thing to do.
But I can say, having worked in the public school system for years, that children typically come and go with these attitudes, and I’ve been unable to change them much. (Maybe influenced a couple of kids for the better, but I was just one teacher — until I had enough of the Principal’s pissy attitude and took a break. Again, too much work for the grief and bad pay. I didn’t even try in Utah; teachers don’t even make poverty-level wages there.)
I might agree with you in high-education levels, though. There is an awful lot of pressure to pass, even if it means cheating/lying/stealing/etc. But again, my wife tells me I’m not normal: I went to school to learn. Grades came second.
I grew up in a particularly good education system (NJ, Cherry Hill), and it hasn’t been until I’ve really lived other places that I have come to really fear for people’s education.
Right now I am really concerned about the level of education my daughter is getting. Where we were before (UT, Spanish Fork) she was learning time and sound recognition and arithmetic in first grade and doing well. Where we are now (NM, Albuquerque), in second grade, I think she has reverted to pre-first levels.
I’m actually considering home-schooling her, but I don’t know if that would really be the right thing to do.
But I can say, having worked in the public school system for years, that children typically come and go with these attitudes, and I’ve been unable to change them much. (Maybe influenced a couple of kids for the better, but I was just one teacher — until I had enough of the Principal’s pissy attitude and took a break. Again, too much work for the grief and bad pay. I didn’t even try in Utah; teachers don’t even make poverty-level wages there.)
I might agree with you in high-education levels, though. There is an awful lot of pressure to pass, even if it means cheating/lying/stealing/etc. But again, my wife tells me I’m not normal: I went to school to learn. Grades came second.
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| Hey stupids, I don’t give a schnizzle for etiquette or societal norms like asking nicely or being grateful for stuff, YOU OWE ME YUR HELP/KNOWLEDGE/STUFF! |
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/general/246072/2/#msg1088253 (the drama started around here)
| How do people survive with such entitlement? Do they have friends (≠ associates who hang with you)? Do they keep them (for more than a semester)? |
| And I can’t tell you how many of the good forum regulars have at times grown tired enough of it to go away — a good number of them permanently. People I respect and like, like Zaita and helios, and Grey Wolf. |
| How do you deal with it? |
But once in a while it still makes me mad when I spend a lot of effort helping someone and then they just blank the OP. When that happens it helps to deconceptualize the situation. I.e. consider that it's all just you pushing buttons and staring at blinking lights; ultimately the outcome doesn't matter much, unless you let it affect you.
| I’m actually considering home-schooling her, but I don’t know if that would really be the right thing to do. |
closed account (z05DSL3A)
I'm just mooching at the moment but hoping to sort myself out to post here more often.
I wasn't making a comment on the quality of peoples education in general, just the 'pressure to pass' part, even in subjects that may not be 'needed'. I don't know how prevalent this is but I have talked to people that were in that position...got abuse for refusing to do the work for them.
The UK education system is far from perfect but at least you are allowed to fail in some areas. I had to learn German but spent my time doing other subjects.
I do find people to be more aggressive and rude online, I now don't bother trying to engage with them or just reply with sarcasm...then ignore them. (sarcasm can be a natural response from me, part of being British)
I wasn't making a comment on the quality of peoples education in general, just the 'pressure to pass' part, even in subjects that may not be 'needed'. I don't know how prevalent this is but I have talked to people that were in that position...got abuse for refusing to do the work for them.
The UK education system is far from perfect but at least you are allowed to fail in some areas. I had to learn German but spent my time doing other subjects.
I do find people to be more aggressive and rude online, I now don't bother trying to engage with them or just reply with sarcasm...then ignore them. (sarcasm can be a natural response from me, part of being British)
Glad to see you back. I've definitely at times have gotten too flustered by some people's way of asking for help, so I've tried to be chill in the past couple weeks about that, I just won't reply if they aren't putting in effort.
Though sometimes I'm just not knowledgeable enough to help. For example, those CodeChef questions -- they seem pretty complicated especially for a beginner. Some of them seem like they require some pretty advanced math, not the kind of stuff I learned in Calculus or Linear Algebra. And while I think it would be a good learning experience to try to solve them, I just never felt like wasting time on them knowing it's just for some competition.
People like Handy Andy are very patient with some users that I would have just ignored. :)
Of course, we know why most erase their first post (trying to delete their e-trail for school), but yeah it certainly rubs you the wrong way when they do it... and the other points you mentioned are just inexcusable.
Hmm, not at work, no. I'm not sure how the type of behavior you mention can really translate into work. Granted, I definitely ask my co-workers with more experience about parts of the code that I'm unsure about, but it's always cordial. In college, there definitely have been some people that I didn't talk to once the semester was over, but most just because we didn't have any interests in common besides the classwork. I agree with Grey Wolf that it's more about being online; you know, how they say the majority of communication can be non-verbal, but we can't look at other people's faces on a forum (nor would I want to).
Make a judgement about a post and don't put the time into the ones that you don't think will be fruitful. If their program is huge and has a whole menu and everything, but their actual issue is still small in scope, I'll often just write a standalone program for them to run, and if they're smart they should be able to integrate it into their main program.
Though sometimes I'm just not knowledgeable enough to help. For example, those CodeChef questions -- they seem pretty complicated especially for a beginner. Some of them seem like they require some pretty advanced math, not the kind of stuff I learned in Calculus or Linear Algebra. And while I think it would be a good learning experience to try to solve them, I just never felt like wasting time on them knowing it's just for some competition.
People like Handy Andy are very patient with some users that I would have just ignored. :)
Of course, we know why most erase their first post (trying to delete their e-trail for school), but yeah it certainly rubs you the wrong way when they do it... and the other points you mentioned are just inexcusable.
| Do some of you work with people like that? |
| How do you deal with it? |
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I've never seen a proper "troll" in this forum, I've only heard of some 'spoonlicker' (don't even know what he did) in an old thread in this forum. So I was quite surprised, also because it seems this forum needs no moderation at all!
But there are really horrible people in the internet who entertain themselves by causing troubles. They're the kind that would work tirelessly to make a thousand accounts or evade bans that they've already gotten. And since this forum doesn't have a "team of moderators" or whatever, I think it would really be dreadful to have such a person here.
I've only used gaming forums before and there seems to be at least one person on every forum who fell under that category of being a hardcore troll. It's just amazing how much time they have.
So I think we're "lucky" that the only disloyal forumers we get are people trying to get their homework done or people who erupt like lava and leave the forum.
The good thing is: they leave.
I think people in my generation take for granted how useful the internet is. So they mostly use it for posting pictures of how "swag" they are. And goofing off.
In short I expect even more trolls and disloyal forumers because
(1) We're used to using the internet for goofing off so we have that casual attitude. Some people legitimately can't write a proper conversation.
(2) Even more people are going to have access to the internet.
How to deal with it? Don't take notice of people you're convinced only want to misuse the forum. Yes there will be students who are going to misuse this forum, which is bad, but we can't do anything about it.
If you're convinced they just want their homework done, don't give them full answers, make them solve it by giving hints.
You don't have to be patient with newbies who don't post properly. There are some people who are legitimately interested in learning. They will give proper titles; give specific problems; ask specific questions.
But there are really horrible people in the internet who entertain themselves by causing troubles. They're the kind that would work tirelessly to make a thousand accounts or evade bans that they've already gotten. And since this forum doesn't have a "team of moderators" or whatever, I think it would really be dreadful to have such a person here.
I've only used gaming forums before and there seems to be at least one person on every forum who fell under that category of being a hardcore troll. It's just amazing how much time they have.
So I think we're "lucky" that the only disloyal forumers we get are people trying to get their homework done or people who erupt like lava and leave the forum.
The good thing is: they leave.
I think people in my generation take for granted how useful the internet is. So they mostly use it for posting pictures of how "swag" they are. And goofing off.
In short I expect even more trolls and disloyal forumers because
(1) We're used to using the internet for goofing off so we have that casual attitude. Some people legitimately can't write a proper conversation.
(2) Even more people are going to have access to the internet.
How to deal with it? Don't take notice of people you're convinced only want to misuse the forum. Yes there will be students who are going to misuse this forum, which is bad, but we can't do anything about it.
If you're convinced they just want their homework done, don't give them full answers, make them solve it by giving hints.
You don't have to be patient with newbies who don't post properly. There are some people who are legitimately interested in learning. They will give proper titles; give specific problems; ask specific questions.
Honestly? I just don't. I only answer questions that I feel like the asker has put in a good amount of effort into and I also don't have to spend a lot of effort at solving. I also haven't programmed in C++ in a...long time actually now. Like 4 years at least!
Maybe I am just cynical but I don't put in too much help for people that I don't think deserve it. And my standards are pretty high online...offline I am much more helpful, and I guess that might explain why people are more entitled online; they expect that they will get the answer because in school they can just ask questions and eventually the teacher(s) will hand them the answer.
Maybe I am just cynical but I don't put in too much help for people that I don't think deserve it. And my standards are pretty high online...offline I am much more helpful, and I guess that might explain why people are more entitled online; they expect that they will get the answer because in school they can just ask questions and eventually the teacher(s) will hand them the answer.
| ganado wrote: |
|---|
| People like Handy Andy are very patient with some users that I would have just ignored. :) |
I have to second that: Handy Andy takes on threads that I look at and think "that code is going to be a real pain to sort out", and, in many cases, he shows a supreme amount of patience in dragging something decent out of the OP. Should be a teacher!
I get irritated by original-post deletions and mark the OP down as not to bother with in future, but otherwise I tend to go for topics that interest me or might prove useful in the future. I also read quite a lot of other posts for my own education: it's not as if anyone ever formally taught me C++ and some regular posters write some extremely good explanations.
It's a forum. We can choose to visit it or not. There's plenty of problems with education systems ... but my experience is that it's not usually the students or the front-line teachers that are the problem.
I have to say I like everything lastchance just wrote. He said it all better than I could.
So...
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/250105/
I had to restrain myself from posting something like:
BTW, I’m not saying anything about lastchance posting a solution. I’m about to go and do the same thing on a week-old thread.
https://xkcd.com/903/
http://www.cplusplus.com/forum/beginner/250105/
I had to restrain myself from posting something like:
| I hope you enjoy your un-earned B+ ...And I hope never to work with you. |
BTW, I’m not saying anything about lastchance posting a solution. I’m about to go and do the same thing on a week-old thread.
https://xkcd.com/903/
I'm sorry to say this Duthomhas, but I don't agree with that at all.
Not every student is lazy and unattentive. Some just need guidance. So it would be very wrong to assume that every student who enters this forum asking how to solve a particular question is asking for the answer and doesn't want to solve it themselves.
The person in your link never "asked for the answer". He might have just been stuck and wanted some hints. He even said that he had worked out the iterative version, just was stuck with how to do it recursively. You have to be very liberal with how you interpret sentences written by random people on the internet, because everybody writes differently.
In fact some people just copy/paste questions, but it only takes really patient people to reply to those threads, but the point is that the person who copy/pasted the question could also have the potential of just wanting guidance rather than being lazy and asking for the answer.
Of course it's just my point of view. I'm not debating or whatever.
Not every student is lazy and unattentive. Some just need guidance. So it would be very wrong to assume that every student who enters this forum asking how to solve a particular question is asking for the answer and doesn't want to solve it themselves.
The person in your link never "asked for the answer". He might have just been stuck and wanted some hints. He even said that he had worked out the iterative version, just was stuck with how to do it recursively. You have to be very liberal with how you interpret sentences written by random people on the internet, because everybody writes differently.
In fact some people just copy/paste questions, but it only takes really patient people to reply to those threads, but the point is that the person who copy/pasted the question could also have the potential of just wanting guidance rather than being lazy and asking for the answer.
Of course it's just my point of view. I'm not debating or whatever.
I'll agree with you on what you've said, Grime.
I've noticed quite often that my lower classmates (especially freshmen) tend ask questions in a odd way. They don't use the correct term and often use weird terms to describe a certain situation. It also doesn't help that their professors may also be horrible at teaching. I myself have a few professors in the CS department that are awful at teaching despite being extremely brilliant. Most scenarios I'll have when helping out a fellow peer go something like this:
And then this is where I have to provide examples and explain to them in the simplest terms possible because most of the times if I just let them search on how to do C to achieve B, they'll just end up beating themselves in the head because now they have to learn D and the endless cycle of student suffering continues.
| You have to be very liberal with how you interpret sentences written by random people on the internet, because everybody writes differently. |
I've noticed quite often that my lower classmates (especially freshmen) tend ask questions in a odd way. They don't use the correct term and often use weird terms to describe a certain situation. It also doesn't help that their professors may also be horrible at teaching. I myself have a few professors in the CS department that are awful at teaching despite being extremely brilliant. Most scenarios I'll have when helping out a fellow peer go something like this:
| Peer: I don't know how to achieve A. Me: Just use B. Peer: Yeah, Dr. Foobar mentioned it, but no one understood what he was talking about. Me: Oh. In that case, to use B, you just do C. Peer: What is C and how do I do it? |
And then this is where I have to provide examples and explain to them in the simplest terms possible because most of the times if I just let them search on how to do C to achieve B, they'll just end up beating themselves in the head because now they have to learn D and the endless cycle of student suffering continues.
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You’re wrong.
If the OP was making any effort at all, he would have posted something (anything) more than “I have to make a recursive function of polynomial of hermit”. (And years of experience with this, posting generalizations about what you did to solve the problem is the same as lying — but giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming he did actually solve it with iterative programming, where is the effort to make it recursive? Where is the problem he had with it? What are the specific issues he needs help with? Where’s the iterative function to make recursive? Anything?)
tl;dr: post proof or shut up.
People who are honest say things like, “I’m lost and I have no clue where to start”, even if they post no code, or they post details of their problem (even minimal ones) and say (paraphrasing), “this is where I’m stuck.”
People who want an easy pass do no more than what OP did: an unimaginative title (“help me”) and a do-it-for-me statement of their problem. They often don’t even follow the social norm of bothering to actually ask a question.
An honest one would be, “Would someone write this for me?”
Or, as many posters really think: “Would someone do enough of this for me that I can follow along easily and fill in some obvious blanks and get a passing grade?”
Be careful of mixing true assertions with unconnected conclusions. You say
True. (I think it true of most students. At least, I hope it is.)
Non-sequitur. <Not all students are lazy> does not lead to any fact about the assumptions I make.
True. Neither did he ask anything at all.
Conjecture. As he didn’t say either way, we really cannot conclude that that was what he was thinking. (We can certainly hope so, and hope that that is what draws people here.)
True.
No he didn’t. Again, you’re drawing a conclusion based on your own thoughts.
I’ve had a very expensive education on understanding what people write. That doesn’t make me infallible, but it does give me a significant foot up. Hence my typical difficulty putting up with other people’s crap on the interwebs.
Skipping more conjecture, let us consider how to interpret statements that people make.
If the OP was making any effort at all, he would have posted something (anything) more than “I have to make a recursive function of polynomial of hermit”. (And years of experience with this, posting generalizations about what you did to solve the problem is the same as lying — but giving the benefit of the doubt, assuming he did actually solve it with iterative programming, where is the effort to make it recursive? Where is the problem he had with it? What are the specific issues he needs help with? Where’s the iterative function to make recursive? Anything?)
tl;dr: post proof or shut up.
People who are honest say things like, “I’m lost and I have no clue where to start”, even if they post no code, or they post details of their problem (even minimal ones) and say (paraphrasing), “this is where I’m stuck.”
People who want an easy pass do no more than what OP did: an unimaginative title (“help me”) and a do-it-for-me statement of their problem. They often don’t even follow the social norm of bothering to actually ask a question.
An honest one would be, “Would someone write this for me?”
Or, as many posters really think: “Would someone do enough of this for me that I can follow along easily and fill in some obvious blanks and get a passing grade?”
Be careful of mixing true assertions with unconnected conclusions. You say
| Not every student is lazy and unattentive. Some just need guidance. |
| So it would be very wrong to assume that every student who enters this forum asking how to solve a particular question is asking for the answer and doesn't want to solve it themselves. |
| The person in your link never "asked for the answer". |
| He might have just been stuck and wanted some hints. |
| He even said that he had worked out the iterative version, |
| just was stuck with how to do it recursively. |
| You have to be very liberal with how you interpret sentences written by random people on the internet, because everybody writes differently. |
Skipping more conjecture, let us consider how to interpret statements that people make.
(continued)
In real life, people follow patterns of engagement. For example, if a guy stops in front of your house every day, and starts getting a cup of coffee at the same cafe as you do at the same time you do every day, and you start getting flowers delivered to your doorstep once a week, I can be “very liberal” and say
Unfortunately, in real life people who do that are rarely, if ever, simply too shy to ask a date. You’re being stalked. And, frankly, you are also in physical danger.
It isn’t “liberal” to ignore the hard data that hundreds of thousands of women go through this every year in the US alone, nor the hard data that most of those women eventually experience some kind of unwanted confrontation with the individual.
But we, as a society, refuse to believe it happens at all, or that the stalker is anything but a confused guy who can’t take a hint/is socially inept/mentally handicapped/insert excuse here.
In fact, I’d say that you are applying the word “liberal” to the wrong end of the conjecture. It is liberal to seriously entertain ideas that don’t square with the facts, or to put thoughts and motives into peoples minds that do not correlate with their behavior.
It’s okay, though. We as a society are trained (brainwashed) to ignore correlations between cause and behavior. Which is why you always read the newspaper stories about the neighbor who says, “We never saw this coming; He was such a nice boy” or the parents who say, “Little Jimmy never did anything like this. He was happy watching Pokemon on his computer and playing Minecraft all day. He did have weird friends, though. Maybe it’s their fault, influencing him like this.”
All that shows is that the people supposedly closest to Jimmy didn’t know anything about him. Ask the friends. “Yeah, Jimmy, he was so full of sh--. He started stalking this girl he thought was pretty. He hated her, thought she considered herself too good for him. And she doesn’t even know he exists! Man, you should have heard what he said he was going to do to her. No one believed us when we said anything, though.”
Now, before anyone gets stupid and thinks I am equating murder with posting, I’m not. I am drawing a connection between observed behavior and motivation, and I am also positing to your mind the (true) idea that incorrect/ignored/editorialized observations do not represent external motivations, but your own.
Behavior is always, always, always, always predicated on a source motive. And the correlations between motive and behavior are never random. In fact, they are so recognizable that entire companies exist to monitor behavior and apply it for all kinds of things: such as delivering “sponsored content” on Google searches or the ads you see at the top of this forum, or tailoring a product toward customers, and yes, preventing assassinations.
Motives for actual help (to learn/understand) produce very different posts than motives for help (to simply pass a grade/get past an assignment/with as little effort as possible). In fact, that is a prime motive shaping the behavior evidenced by a poster, and you see it bleeding into just about every interaction you have with them: minimal effort. Minimal effort in titling a post, minimal effort in writing a post, minimal effort in asking questions, minimal effort in responding to requests for clarification, minimal effort in all counts — even to the point of saying “thanks for the easy answer” instead of “thanks, I still don’t quite understand it, but I’ll study it to see how it works.”
Beware again: I have not said that ALL posters evidencing low effort are lazy and just want an easy pass. All kinds of things could be happening. Extra homework due yesterday, boyfriend/girlfriend problems, parents divorcing, kids getting sick/hurt/jailed/clingy, tree fell on the house, computer problems, arthritis acting up, etc.
What I am saying is that it falls into the “easy help” pattern, which, should I be failing Calc and Eng Lit and have to turn in a dumb program to compute the Fibonacci series, that would qualify as asking for easy help on a homework forum.
So sorry, not going to get a free pass from me. I am sorry about the fallen tree. If I live nearby, I’ll come help you clean it up. But I won’t absolve you of any requirement to actually learn the material.
And I don’t believe in the learn-by-studying-work-others-did-that-I-used-to-pass method, because it’s lying.
tl;dr: You can believe what you want. I reserve the right to be a prick.
PS. If you actually read that wall of text, kudos. I hope you learned something. I also recommend you take some university courses in cognitive behavior and sociology — they are a good starting point for understanding this kind of stuff. Also, some advanced courses in literature and world literature, especially if they take the effort to teach why a thing was written a certain way and what is meant by the text, and especially, interpreting the texts in as many correct ways as possible.
/end rant
In real life, people follow patterns of engagement. For example, if a guy stops in front of your house every day, and starts getting a cup of coffee at the same cafe as you do at the same time you do every day, and you start getting flowers delivered to your doorstep once a week, I can be “very liberal” and say
| Gee, this guy is just too shy/nervous to say ‘Hi’ and ask for a date. |
Unfortunately, in real life people who do that are rarely, if ever, simply too shy to ask a date. You’re being stalked. And, frankly, you are also in physical danger.
It isn’t “liberal” to ignore the hard data that hundreds of thousands of women go through this every year in the US alone, nor the hard data that most of those women eventually experience some kind of unwanted confrontation with the individual.
But we, as a society, refuse to believe it happens at all, or that the stalker is anything but a confused guy who can’t take a hint/is socially inept/mentally handicapped/insert excuse here.
In fact, I’d say that you are applying the word “liberal” to the wrong end of the conjecture. It is liberal to seriously entertain ideas that don’t square with the facts, or to put thoughts and motives into peoples minds that do not correlate with their behavior.
It’s okay, though. We as a society are trained (brainwashed) to ignore correlations between cause and behavior. Which is why you always read the newspaper stories about the neighbor who says, “We never saw this coming; He was such a nice boy” or the parents who say, “Little Jimmy never did anything like this. He was happy watching Pokemon on his computer and playing Minecraft all day. He did have weird friends, though. Maybe it’s their fault, influencing him like this.”
All that shows is that the people supposedly closest to Jimmy didn’t know anything about him. Ask the friends. “Yeah, Jimmy, he was so full of sh--. He started stalking this girl he thought was pretty. He hated her, thought she considered herself too good for him. And she doesn’t even know he exists! Man, you should have heard what he said he was going to do to her. No one believed us when we said anything, though.”
Now, before anyone gets stupid and thinks I am equating murder with posting, I’m not. I am drawing a connection between observed behavior and motivation, and I am also positing to your mind the (true) idea that incorrect/ignored/editorialized observations do not represent external motivations, but your own.
Behavior is always, always, always, always predicated on a source motive. And the correlations between motive and behavior are never random. In fact, they are so recognizable that entire companies exist to monitor behavior and apply it for all kinds of things: such as delivering “sponsored content” on Google searches or the ads you see at the top of this forum, or tailoring a product toward customers, and yes, preventing assassinations.
Motives for actual help (to learn/understand) produce very different posts than motives for help (to simply pass a grade/get past an assignment/with as little effort as possible). In fact, that is a prime motive shaping the behavior evidenced by a poster, and you see it bleeding into just about every interaction you have with them: minimal effort. Minimal effort in titling a post, minimal effort in writing a post, minimal effort in asking questions, minimal effort in responding to requests for clarification, minimal effort in all counts — even to the point of saying “thanks for the easy answer” instead of “thanks, I still don’t quite understand it, but I’ll study it to see how it works.”
Beware again: I have not said that ALL posters evidencing low effort are lazy and just want an easy pass. All kinds of things could be happening. Extra homework due yesterday, boyfriend/girlfriend problems, parents divorcing, kids getting sick/hurt/jailed/clingy, tree fell on the house, computer problems, arthritis acting up, etc.
What I am saying is that it falls into the “easy help” pattern, which, should I be failing Calc and Eng Lit and have to turn in a dumb program to compute the Fibonacci series, that would qualify as asking for easy help on a homework forum.
So sorry, not going to get a free pass from me. I am sorry about the fallen tree. If I live nearby, I’ll come help you clean it up. But I won’t absolve you of any requirement to actually learn the material.
And I don’t believe in the learn-by-studying-work-others-did-that-I-used-to-pass method, because it’s lying.
tl;dr: You can believe what you want. I reserve the right to be a prick.
PS. If you actually read that wall of text, kudos. I hope you learned something. I also recommend you take some university courses in cognitive behavior and sociology — they are a good starting point for understanding this kind of stuff. Also, some advanced courses in literature and world literature, especially if they take the effort to teach why a thing was written a certain way and what is meant by the text, and especially, interpreting the texts in as many correct ways as possible.
/end rant
@fiji885
You are kind of proving my point. You recognize the odd patterns and what they really mean, and have recognized a common pattern by which you can help students past their odd questions.
You also, I’m sure, recognize when someone is just playing you to do their work, right? You experience this in terms of their not seeking to understand what you are telling them, no matter how simple, and instead constantly asking for repeated help with basic stuff that they should pick up after two or three examples. In short, you know when they’re just trying to get you to write working code so they can tweak the variable names.
Easy enough when you’ve basically given them the code, and they don’t recognize it as such, but keep asking you.
When I was young, I would ask my father the meanings of various words. At about eleven, he directed me to the bookshelf and said: “there’s the dictionary”. It kept me from asking the meaning of the same word once a week, and actually learning and retaining the meanings of all kinds of words.
No, he wasn’t being a jerk. He taught me something about how to learn. Effortless answers mean nothing. Making an effort to understand makes all the difference. Bad professors, poor curriculae, all these things may contribute to difficulty, but ultimately, a student who wants to learn must make some effort, and no matter how poor the education, something will be learned — least of which is how to learn.
BTW, there was an interesting article about how people express themselves a short while back, which illustrates some of my points:
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161028-native-english-speakers-are-the-worlds-worst-communicators
You are kind of proving my point. You recognize the odd patterns and what they really mean, and have recognized a common pattern by which you can help students past their odd questions.
You also, I’m sure, recognize when someone is just playing you to do their work, right? You experience this in terms of their not seeking to understand what you are telling them, no matter how simple, and instead constantly asking for repeated help with basic stuff that they should pick up after two or three examples. In short, you know when they’re just trying to get you to write working code so they can tweak the variable names.
Easy enough when you’ve basically given them the code, and they don’t recognize it as such, but keep asking you.
When I was young, I would ask my father the meanings of various words. At about eleven, he directed me to the bookshelf and said: “there’s the dictionary”. It kept me from asking the meaning of the same word once a week, and actually learning and retaining the meanings of all kinds of words.
No, he wasn’t being a jerk. He taught me something about how to learn. Effortless answers mean nothing. Making an effort to understand makes all the difference. Bad professors, poor curriculae, all these things may contribute to difficulty, but ultimately, a student who wants to learn must make some effort, and no matter how poor the education, something will be learned — least of which is how to learn.
BTW, there was an interesting article about how people express themselves a short while back, which illustrates some of my points:
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161028-native-english-speakers-are-the-worlds-worst-communicators
Damn I didn't anticipate that to be so long when I started reading.. Anyways,
Consider that man entering the same cafe at the same time as you (like you had mentioned).
-> There might be at least a 0.0000000005% chance that he wants to murder you
-> There might be at least a 0.000000005% chance that he wants to take you out on a date.
-> There might be at least a 0.00000001% chance that this world is fake and everything around you is a simulation.
Because the man never held a knife to your face or held a rose to your face, you can't conclude anything. You could have an upper hand at knowing whether he loves you or whether he is a serial killer if you knew him from being your childhood crush.
In our case with the random person posting a thread, we don't know anything about them (apart from previous posts) to conclude whether they just want free homework solution or they want to work on it themselves.
Since we don't have that upper hand the post could really mean anything, it could be asking for help, asking for homework solutions or even asking for hand in marriage.
So we shouldn't assume even if with 90% of chance from previous observations and learnings of patterns that somebody has no hope for potential. Just like how in real life you need hard evidence to convince a jury.
Often times, the homework given to students need to have been discussed exactly in class. They could have explained syntax of looping constructs and conditionals and given homework to take input from the user and stop input when a negative number is read.
For problems like that, people who are "intelligent" or "experienced" might write it off in a few seconds. But what about somebody who has just started learning, understands every concept, but doesn't understand how to solve the question? Trying wouldn't help that person because they simply doesn't know how it must be done, but with little guidance, they could also solve it.
Take the example of our guy in the link, he probably learnt about recursion and was asked that problem. He might have spent a lot of time trying to understand how to do it with recursion, but maybe quite simply he didn't know just how to solve it.
Now it is true, and I will agree, that he could have phrased it like "I spent a lot of time trying to solve this but wasn't able to, can somebody please give me a small hint", but not everybody in reality writes that way, though they might have meant that.
Even greeting people in real life, everybody has their own damn way. Some people bow, some fold hands, some people kiss (on cheek), some people hug, some people say "hello" and there are an infinite number of ways in which people greet with words.
Or maybe that person who posted the thread might have thought that it was obvious that he was looking for hints, since some programming forums STRICTLY don't allow "solving homework". So if the person is used to using such forums, he might have thought that this forum also has similar rules.
Consider that man entering the same cafe at the same time as you (like you had mentioned).
-> There might be at least a 0.0000000005% chance that he wants to murder you
-> There might be at least a 0.000000005% chance that he wants to take you out on a date.
-> There might be at least a 0.00000001% chance that this world is fake and everything around you is a simulation.
Because the man never held a knife to your face or held a rose to your face, you can't conclude anything. You could have an upper hand at knowing whether he loves you or whether he is a serial killer if you knew him from being your childhood crush.
In our case with the random person posting a thread, we don't know anything about them (apart from previous posts) to conclude whether they just want free homework solution or they want to work on it themselves.
Since we don't have that upper hand the post could really mean anything, it could be asking for help, asking for homework solutions or even asking for hand in marriage.
So we shouldn't assume even if with 90% of chance from previous observations and learnings of patterns that somebody has no hope for potential. Just like how in real life you need hard evidence to convince a jury.
Often times, the homework given to students need to have been discussed exactly in class. They could have explained syntax of looping constructs and conditionals and given homework to take input from the user and stop input when a negative number is read.
For problems like that, people who are "intelligent" or "experienced" might write it off in a few seconds. But what about somebody who has just started learning, understands every concept, but doesn't understand how to solve the question? Trying wouldn't help that person because they simply doesn't know how it must be done, but with little guidance, they could also solve it.
Take the example of our guy in the link, he probably learnt about recursion and was asked that problem. He might have spent a lot of time trying to understand how to do it with recursion, but maybe quite simply he didn't know just how to solve it.
Now it is true, and I will agree, that he could have phrased it like "I spent a lot of time trying to solve this but wasn't able to, can somebody please give me a small hint", but not everybody in reality writes that way, though they might have meant that.
Even greeting people in real life, everybody has their own damn way. Some people bow, some fold hands, some people kiss (on cheek), some people hug, some people say "hello" and there are an infinite number of ways in which people greet with words.
Or maybe that person who posted the thread might have thought that it was obvious that he was looking for hints, since some programming forums STRICTLY don't allow "solving homework". So if the person is used to using such forums, he might have thought that this forum also has similar rules.
Duoas:
Doesn't that contradict your assertion? If those people didn't really know Jimmy, then what exactly did they ignore? All of a sudden Jimmy is on the news being accused of some crime they just now found out about, and they're understandably shocked and/or incredulous.
On the other hand, the people who did know him and saw him every day are not shocked at all. If people are trained to ignore those correlations, then shouldn't Jimmy's friend say something like "yeah, Jimmy was being a little bit creppy about some girl, but I don't think that has anything to do with this. I still think he's being wrongly accused"?
Grime:
Complete nonsense. Humans are successful because we have culture, which allows us to learn from others' experiences. If someone behaves like a stalker we don't need to know anything else about them in particular to know that they're dangerous, because we know what stalking leads to from other cases.
If you want to give people the maximum benefit of the doubt even when confronted with your own past experience you're free to do so, but do know that that's how you get taken advantage of. Also remember that the time you spend helping one person is time you didn't spend helping another person, Maybe consider if, probabilistically, it wouldn't be better spent on someone who doesn't need so much BOTD.
| We as a society are trained (brainwashed) to ignore correlations between cause and behavior. [...] All that shows is that the people supposedly closest to Jimmy didn’t know anything about him. |
On the other hand, the people who did know him and saw him every day are not shocked at all. If people are trained to ignore those correlations, then shouldn't Jimmy's friend say something like "yeah, Jimmy was being a little bit creppy about some girl, but I don't think that has anything to do with this. I still think he's being wrongly accused"?
Grime:
| -> There might be at least a 0.0000000005% chance that he wants to murder you -> There might be at least a 0.000000005% chance that he wants to take you out on a date. -> There might be at least a 0.00000001% chance that this world is fake and everything around you is a simulation. Because the man never held a knife to your face or held a rose to your face, you can't conclude anything. You could have an upper hand at knowing whether he loves you or whether he is a serial killer if you knew him from being your childhood crush. |
If you want to give people the maximum benefit of the doubt even when confronted with your own past experience you're free to do so, but do know that that's how you get taken advantage of. Also remember that the time you spend helping one person is time you didn't spend helping another person, Maybe consider if, probabilistically, it wouldn't be better spent on someone who doesn't need so much BOTD.
No my point was that there are possibilities that a person can be a stalker/shy guy/dinosaur, you should not assume that they are either.
Regardless of whether they are a stalker or a shy person, you will not allow them into your home. But you may offer to help them when they're too old to cross the road on their own, part of an accident etc.
If somebody makes a post asking help in a question, never comes a time where you give them the answer (like how you would not let anybody into your home in the analogy). But you would offer them advice on how to solve the question.
There is no trend that all serial killers (lazy student) ask a question in the same manner, they could have different backgrounds, some might not even speak english. So you must not assume that one is a serial killer because he speaks arabic or said "bomb" (therefore can't assume one is a lazy student unless proven).
If that person is a shy guy (person who legitimately wants to learn), they will take the hint and try to work with it, and if they weren't able to then they would tell what they failed at. If they were a serial killer (lazy student wanting just the answer), they would ask for a solution even after being given hints/advice.
At the end of the day it's up to you to interpret posts on the internet, but it would be fair to not assume that everybody is a serial killer.
And about time not being spent properly, maybe it won't be spent helping the particular person in question, but thanks to the magic of web crawlers like Google, maybe somebody else will end up being helped someday.
In short don't mark somebody as potential-less unless proven so with tangible evidence. That doesn't mean you HAVE to reply to everybody, you can avoid any person you want to avoid.
Regardless of whether they are a stalker or a shy person, you will not allow them into your home. But you may offer to help them when they're too old to cross the road on their own, part of an accident etc.
If somebody makes a post asking help in a question, never comes a time where you give them the answer (like how you would not let anybody into your home in the analogy). But you would offer them advice on how to solve the question.
There is no trend that all serial killers (lazy student) ask a question in the same manner, they could have different backgrounds, some might not even speak english. So you must not assume that one is a serial killer because he speaks arabic or said "bomb" (therefore can't assume one is a lazy student unless proven).
If that person is a shy guy (person who legitimately wants to learn), they will take the hint and try to work with it, and if they weren't able to then they would tell what they failed at. If they were a serial killer (lazy student wanting just the answer), they would ask for a solution even after being given hints/advice.
At the end of the day it's up to you to interpret posts on the internet, but it would be fair to not assume that everybody is a serial killer.
And about time not being spent properly, maybe it won't be spent helping the particular person in question, but thanks to the magic of web crawlers like Google, maybe somebody else will end up being helped someday.
In short don't mark somebody as potential-less unless proven so with tangible evidence. That doesn't mean you HAVE to reply to everybody, you can avoid any person you want to avoid.
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| "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you're a consultant." -Scott Adams |
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| Grime wrote: |
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| In short don't mark somebody as potential-less unless proven so with tangible evidence. |
Yes, it is not good to judge people on the first thing they post on a forum but only a fool would ignore years of experience of dealing with such people.