Are the posted questions getting worse?

  • On the free rice thing, I tried a few of the level 60 words, and while they weren't ones I would ever bother using, like "jugulum", and "kainga", I knew more of them than I didn't. Had to guess on a few.

    Turns out it gives you the correct answer, and then asks the question again in a few turns, so it's pretty easy.

    I did check Snopes to see what they had to say about the site and the game, and it's apparently legit, so I'll have to play more.

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • RBarryYoung (7/6/2009)


    GSquared (7/6/2009)


    RBarryYoung (7/3/2009)


    RBarryYoung (7/3/2009)


    ...

    And most of all, that people would say, or describe themselves as doing, something obnoxious or offensive and when they got called on it instead of admitting it and apologizing, they would start equivocating and claim that "that wasn't what I meant" when it was pretty darn clear that that was exactly what they meant...

    Hmm, I missed a golden opportunity to try and get one past Gus here because the correct word isn't "equivocation", but rather one of my favorite words, the almost extinct "amphibology" (or sometimes "amphiboly"). But since amphibology has almost disappeared from the language, people use "equivocation" instead.

    But if Gus (or anybody else), knew what amphibology meant before I explained it (above) or without having to look it up, I'll definitely be impressed. 😀

    Haven't seen it used in years, but it's one of those that's so easy to figure out from the derivation that it doesn't take any effort.

    Doesn't mean the same thing as "equivocate". An amphibologous statement has ambiguous meaning, but not necessarily an intent to mislead, while equivocation includes that intent. Thus, actually, I think the use of "equivocating" in the first bit quoted above is more precise.

    The more common synonym for "amphibologous" is simply "ambiguous", but there isn't a single-word identity-meaning for "amphibology" that I'm aware of.

    Actually there is, but its slang: "fib". And amphibology was, indeed used just like equivocation is used today (to mean intentionally misdirection through ambiguous statements), that's where the word "fib" came from. The only difference is that, technically, "equivocation" only applies to single words, not whole statements, like amphibology.

    Do you have a reference for that? I can't find anything that specific about it. (You made me curious, but that's easy to do. Heck, I once licked a live electrical cord to see what it would feel like.)

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    BTW, it's good to be back, and I have no idea what happened in this thread, but it certainly has a lot more posts.

    Time to switch to bigint? 😀

    Gaby________________________________________________________________"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." - Albert Einstein

  • We're a long way from needing bigint, but if anything were to get that large, this would be it.

  • Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    We're a long way from needing bigint, but if anything were to get that large, this would be it.

    Is this the longest thread you've seen anywhere on any type of forum, technical or not?

    Gaby________________________________________________________________"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." - Albert Einstein

  • Gaby Abed (7/6/2009)


    Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    We're a long way from needing bigint, but if anything were to get that large, this would be it.

    Is this the longest thread you've seen anywhere on any type of forum, technical or not?

    Not even close.

    You should see some of the threads on World of Warcraft forums. All it takes is some class losing an ability, and you'll get tens of thousands of posts in the first hour. They'll all say the same thing, and most of them will look like they were written by people who can't spell "VW", but who know four-letter-words that US marines aren't aware of.

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • GSquared (7/6/2009)


    Gaby Abed (7/6/2009)


    Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    We're a long way from needing bigint, but if anything were to get that large, this would be it.

    Is this the longest thread you've seen anywhere on any type of forum, technical or not?

    Not even close.

    You should see some of the threads on World of Warcraft forums. All it takes is some class losing an ability, and you'll get tens of thousands of posts in the first hour. They'll all say the same thing, and most of them will look like they were written by people who can't spell "VW", but who know four-letter-words that US marines aren't aware of.

    Really? We're almost 6460 at this point, can't imagine how much whining can occur.

    I can just imagine it, Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decides to decouple Query Analyzer from all SQL Server editions and offer it as a paid add-on, except for enterprise which has it all. Listen to all the howling that would occur.

    Gaby________________________________________________________________"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not." - Albert Einstein

  • Gaby Abed (7/6/2009)


    GSquared (7/6/2009)


    Gaby Abed (7/6/2009)


    Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    We're a long way from needing bigint, but if anything were to get that large, this would be it.

    Is this the longest thread you've seen anywhere on any type of forum, technical or not?

    Not even close.

    You should see some of the threads on World of Warcraft forums. All it takes is some class losing an ability, and you'll get tens of thousands of posts in the first hour. They'll all say the same thing, and most of them will look like they were written by people who can't spell "VW", but who know four-letter-words that US marines aren't aware of.

    Really? We're almost 6460 at this point, can't imagine how much whining can occur.

    I can just imagine it, Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decides to decouple Query Analyzer from all SQL Server editions and offer it as a paid add-on, except for enterprise which has it all. Listen to all the howling that would occur.

    Yeah, compared to some of the whining threads on World of Warcraft Forums (or City of Heroes/City of Villains Forums of which I have knowledge), The Thread is a snippet of conversation. All it takes is to break or fix something in the game that people liked or were exploiting and the number of posts will explode in a matter of hours.

    -- Kit

  • Gaby Abed (7/6/2009)


    GSquared (7/6/2009)


    Gaby Abed (7/6/2009)


    Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    We're a long way from needing bigint, but if anything were to get that large, this would be it.

    Is this the longest thread you've seen anywhere on any type of forum, technical or not?

    Not even close.

    You should see some of the threads on World of Warcraft forums. All it takes is some class losing an ability, and you'll get tens of thousands of posts in the first hour. They'll all say the same thing, and most of them will look like they were written by people who can't spell "VW", but who know four-letter-words that US marines aren't aware of.

    Really? We're almost 6460 at this point, can't imagine how much whining can occur.

    I can just imagine it, Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, decides to decouple Query Analyzer from all SQL Server editions and offer it as a paid add-on, except for enterprise which has it all. Listen to all the howling that would occur.

    Take a look at the discussions of some of the Question of the Day entries that have had real or perceived errors. You'll see a couple of hundred entries in just a few hours.

    Let's say you "nerf" a class that 1-million people play. 1% of the players decide to complain about it on the first day. That's 10,000 posts. Another 1% complain about it over the following week. Now we're at 20,000 posts. If 1% of those posts generate replies (it's probably closer to 10%), and the ones that do generate replies generate an average of five replies each, that's another 1,000 posts. And that's just the first week.

    The numbers are larger than that. And that example doesn't take into account trolls posting just to make noise, and so on. But, even lowballing the estimates like crazy, you're looking at 21,000 posts in one week, because of one piece of a patch to the game. That kind of traffic happens on some of these boards a few times a year, on a variety of subjects. And some of those threads go on for months, or never die.

    The Thread is a pipsqueek compared to those. The difference is, the content of The Thread is pretty universally significantly more intelligent and meaningful. We don't have tens of thousands of posts that all just say, "you suck!!!1one!!" in a large variety of ways. Nor do we have more tens of thousands of replies that say, "no, u suxor! adn ur momm do 2! hahahahahahah!!" That, unfortunately, covers most of the kind of threads I'm talking about here, on the game forums. (Posts like that last one will inevitably be followed by further replies. Check out "We Didn't Start the Flame War" on CollegeHumor.com, www.collegehumor.com/video:1907543. WARNING: Linked page plays music and video on launch, and some content of that site is not-safe-for-work.)

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

  • Steve Jones - Editor (7/6/2009)


    BTW, it's good to be back, and I have no idea what happened in this thread, but it certainly has a lot more posts.

    Welcome back. A lot of it was either language-based or Barry catching up 🙂

  • I don't think any further responses are necessary here, but here is an "interesting" omg moment.

  • GSquared (7/6/2009)


    We don't have tens of thousands of posts that all just say, "you suck!!!1one!!" in a large variety of ways. Nor do we have more tens of thousands of replies that say, "no, u suxor! adn ur momm do 2! hahahahahahah!!" That, unfortunately, covers most of the kind of threads I'm talking about here, on the game forums.

    And we don't have hundreds of threads that start

    "Yr stoopid M$. Yr updats rooning SQL. Im quitting!!!!!11111!!!!!!!"

    The online game I play gets at least 5-10 of those threads after every update and they run to thousands of posts. People threatening to quit it the update isn't 'fixed' the way they want it immediately.

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Yr stoopid M$. Yr updats rooning SQL. Im quitting!!!!!11111!!!!!!!

    🙂

  • Paul White (7/6/2009)


    Yr stoopid M$. Yr updats rooning SQL. Im quitting!!!!!11111!!!!!!!

    🙂

    k thx bye

    Gail Shaw
    Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
    SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

    We walk in the dark places no others will enter
    We stand on the bridge and no one may pass
  • Paul White (7/6/2009)


    Yr stoopid M$. Yr updats rooning SQL. Im quitting!!!!!11111!!!!!!!

    🙂

    go ahead quit u luzer!! we pwz ur datebas anywhay! hahahahhahaha-lol-rofl!!

    - Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
    Property of The Thread

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon

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