Lengthy Threads -- Oh the horror!

[Ashley Christine]

[I am on a passionate splurge today. Sorry.] Seriously read this.

I do not understand why when people open a thread and see that it is more than a few words/sentances long, they give up.

The long threads are generally the ones with the most meaning. Everyone seems to get discouraged by long thoughtful threads. I just feel like they are the important ones to read.

I guess this goes back to the lazy-ness. But if you look around it seems to me that there are more reply's to random things, games, chit-chat, whatever. But when you see a thread that is lengthy there are not many replies at all.

[read below because I didnt want this to look lengthy. But I did have more to say. and yes I realize I shuda put it up here. but then I wouldnt be given a chance by many]

[Ashley Christine]

So basically what I was trying to get out in the above is--

Dont run away from lengthy threads. Yes they may take you a minute to read. But you could learn an important life lesson or just something useful.

And I am fairly sure if you are on here going through posts [and are anything like me], that you are just randomly looking at posts and not doing anything tooo important. So it couldnt hurt to take a minute out of your day to read.

But you dont have to. Its just my suggestion. I know I learn alot.


Oh yeah, my main reason for this is because in a chat with FIRSTers. They kinda laughed at me for making a long post and said people wouldnt read it because it was lengthy. And that kinda upset me. I know its late... but I just mean in general people seem to run away.

[phrontist]

It's the audience.

Engineers have no time for this low bandwidth, long, droning, "liberal arts" style drivel. Give me tables, figures, formulas, algorithms, methodology specifications! I don't want to read your 30 page diatribe on the importance of balance between the "Recognition" and "Inspiration" aspects of competitive robotics! If I wanted to sit around and talk about things instead of accomplishing something I would have majored in literary criticism and gone on to a throughly unproductive career as a lawyer or a U.N. delegate!

[nehalita]

Originally Posted by phrontist

It's the audience.

Engineers have no time for this low bandwidth, long, droning, "liberal arts" style drivel. Give me tables, figures, formulas, algorithms, methodology specifications! I don't want to read your 30 page diatribe on the importance of balance between the "Recognition" and "Inspiration" aspects of competitive robotics!

I understand that is an opinion but it is a very strong one. Can passion be explained in a table? Is it even logical to "summarize" how a person feels about a topic?

Originally Posted by phrontist

If I wanted to sit around and talk about things instead of accomplishing something I would have majored in literary criticism and gone on to a throughly unproductive career as a lawyer or a U.N. delegate!

Now that is stepping on the line. Unproductive? Politics is very important to our country whether I, you, or anyone else likes it. It affects how we live and function. Just because it isn't your forte, doesn't mean it's not important or unproductive.

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by nehalita

I understand that is an opinion but it is a very strong one. Can passion be explained in a table? Is it even logical to "summarize" how a person feels about a topic?

Now that is stepping on the line. Unproductive? Politics is very important to our country whether I, you, or anyone else likes it. It affects how we live and function. Just because it isn't your forte, doesn't mean it's not important or unproductive.

Sorry, that might not have come out too clearly, my tounge was firmly lodged in my cheek. But I'm in a funny mood tonight, I figure I'll argue with you anyway. I see greater inherent value in pursuits that are not defined in terms of the petty actions of other people (politics, journalism, etc.). I believe the $10 dollar word I'm looking for is anthropocentricity. Essentially, if you dedicate your life to an anthropocentric feild, you are limiting the scope of your understanding. Science and math transcend these trifling things like humanity and living things, and allow you to experience your wonderful, flash-in-the-pan life to it's fullest, and to realize it's total absurdity.

[Arefin Bari]

Originally Posted by phrontist

Sorry, that might not have come out too clearly, my tounge was firmly lodged in my cheek.

Originally Posted by phrontist

It's the audience.

Engineers have no time for this low bandwidth, long, droning, "liberal arts" style drivel. Give me tables, figures, formulas, algorithms, methodology specifications! I don't want to read your 30 page diatribe on the importance of balance between the "Recognition" and "Inspiration" aspects of competitive robotics!

Let me try to explain it to you. I think you do know that Engineers have a passion. You will be surprised to see how many engineers and mentors are on the forum at 2 in the morning and 6 in the morning, reading all these long threads. A lot of times Engineers do have to write reports or tutorials (that are 30 pages) for the company they work for or a product they are manufacturing. Have you seen any reports before that was made by an engineer? Yes, there are lot of tables, figures, formulas, algorithms, methodology specifications, at the same time there are explanations if that report was to go outside the company. The only time they use just tables and formulas are when they are communicating between teams (I can be TOTALLY wrong on this one, but I am just posting from my knowledge, my uncle is an electrical engineer, I have been in his office several times and seen the way he works in a team as well as his reports he made for other divisions). I think I have a mind that works like an engineer. I like to work with tables, somethings that are organized and not something that is 20 pages long. But I do like to read when it's meaningful and worth it.

Engineers (wannabes) do have a passion...

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Arefin Bari

Let me try to explain it to you.

You know, something engineers seem to lack is a sense of humor, but hey, when would they ever need that?

Let me make this perfectly clear:

I'm often joking. No, really. Humor. Believe it or not, I'm not in the slighest bit serious at times. I'm silly willy-nilly. Absolutely zany.

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by phrontist

I'm often joking. No, really. Humor. Believe it or not, I'm not in the slighest bit serious at times. I'm silly willy-nilly. Absolutely zany.

Is my non-engineering sense picking up sarcasam? hmmm, i need to analyze it more.

But yes Ashley has brought up quite a valid point, looks like this is the week of lengthy posts. I thought this is summer and we are supposed to be on vacation? As in taking a break from everything. Well I guess some people have school starting up, meanwhile I'll enjoy the 20 days and 21 hours i have left. But one more word of advice for everyone:

Ladies and Gentlemen of Chiefdelphi Forums, take a break, we got a long season coming soon. Did I mention its gonna be the best season ever?

[Jessica Boucher]

Well, there is some truth in that it's the audience. But not the CD audience - the audience in general.

It's been proven that the average web surfer spends seconds looking at a website before they move on or decide to keep reading. Newspapers use a term called "above the fold" or "below the fold": referring to the fold in the newspaper - the most important stuff is put above the fold so that when it's seen in the newsstand the headlines attract your attention. This stuff happens all the time.

Yes, lengthy posts are sometimes skipped over because of length and....well, in the end it's the reader's loss if they don't want to read it. But there are ways to add a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

• Formatting is your friend! We have all these neat tags on the forums, we might as well put them to good use. Use bold to accentuate what you're trying to say in a really long post, and more likely than not even if the body is long but the bolding is still at the part of the screen where you don't have to scroll, it will be read.
• Break up the post. Not only with the enter key, but adding lists make your post seem easier to swallow.

And, if you're a reader and you want to catch up on a long thread, in the "Thread Tools" box there is "Subscribe to thread" - subscribe to the long ones so that you don't have to dig for them later! You can set your settings so that you're not recieving emails every time someone replies to the thread as well.

[Adam Y.]

Some pre-Internet wisdom I was taught long ago:
--Your paragraphs should be from 3 to 10 sentences long (my 9th grade English teacher)
--"Telegraph talk" is the inability to communicate with sentences longer than 10 words (I don't remember where I heard this one)

Pre-internet wisdom??? I believe that almost all of my books on building a website say the same exact thing. People will almost always look over anything that appears to be very long.

[tiffany34990]

ha i think we all are in an agreement.. you can learn a lot from long posts and all..

just have to be devil advocate for a sec.. short is sweet right lol... but then yea bigger is better techincally...

but when it comes to post...say what you have to say... read what you want of course...but sometimes if you have that time..read it all... like everyone else has send you never know what you will learn..

i try not to be sitting on cd reading everything b/c well i'll never get my studying done but when i can i read everything. it's good to learn. as my grandma says.. the more knowledge you have the better person you are and the more you can do and well nobody can every take your knowledge away from you

[Chase]

Sorry, you lost me at "passionate splurge."

[Ryan M.]

Originally Posted by phrontist

anthropocentricity

Oh crap... lengthy word.

Sorry, Ashley, I tried to fight it... now, to make this less of a thread hijack.

Yes, lengthy, wordy, long, drawn out, blathering threads and posts can be insightful, but really... who has time for that sort of thing? () When I manage to get on ChiefDelphi, it's usually for only a couple of minutes. If a thread has more than a few book-length replies, I subscribe to the thread, but I don't read more than the first post or two. From there, I just read the new posts and old posts as I can.

Argh... having trouble concentrating on my post while listening to the Linux Link Tech Show.

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by phrontist

It's the audience.

Engineers have no time for this low bandwidth, long, droning, "liberal arts" style drivel. Give me tables, figures, formulas, algorithms, methodology specifications! I don't want to read your 30 page diatribe on the importance of balance between the "Recognition" and "Inspiration" aspects of competitive robotics! If I wanted to sit around and talk about things instead of accomplishing something I would have majored in literary criticism and gone on to a throughly unproductive career as a lawyer or a U.N. delegate!

Yet the quote in your signature is from one of those "lengthy" threads... so apparently you read it... oh and one of the "engineers" started that thread... Im sure he reads it... and oh, Im an engineer... I read it... I dont see the weight to your argument

The best "engineers" are the ones who can effectively communicate their points and discoveries... without "liberal arts" engineers are nothing but useless computers with no communication skils.

And Ashley, You are on a roll

And Jessica, perfect addition to this thread... I cant stand a post when it is a page full of solid words with no punctuation and no capitalization... that blows up my brain (and is what will make me skip a post).

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

Yet the quote in your signature is from one of those "lengthy" threads... so apparently you read it... oh and one of the "engineers" started that thread... Im sure he reads it... and oh, Im an engineer... I read it... I dont see the weight to your argument

JOKING! Argh, I wasn't aware humor had fallen out of style! Maybe I'm just bad at it...

Of course I don't believe that any non-hard-science profession is worthless. I was attempting to parody, by taking to an extreme, the attitude I see in a lot of "nerdy" types.