Re: Venus issues
- From: brian@xxxxxxx (Brian Tung)
- Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 13:33:57 -0800 (PST)
AstroApp wrote:
Some comments recently appended to my last long statement, by Brian
Tung and W. H. Greer, seem to me to be highly accurate and
informative.
But I'd like to remind others that the original poster who asked a
question about Venus is a BEGINNER.
Yes, of course. But I thought that on the whole, the posts agreed that
there wasn't much to see on Venus. Some of them made suggestions for
gleaning some fleeting detail from the view. And the post was made to
SAA, so that even if the original poster can't make use of the proposed
techniques (and that's not certain), surely *someone* can. That is, in
my opinion, one of the major strengths of SAA--the broad variety of
interests, skill sets, and experience levels that constitute its
readership.
And that readership is who is being addressed in these posts. Yes, the
question was asked by the original poster, but ultimately, we all get
to benefit from the thread. For instance, there used to be a lot more
optical experts posting on SAA--Roland Christen, Tom Back, Bratislav,
etc. Many of them, though not all, have since moved on to different
things. But while they were active here, I always enjoyed reading about
some aspect of optics that was new to me, even if the post that started
the thread was just asking what the comet-like shape of stars near the
edge of field was. And, some of the responses simply answered the
question straightforwardly. To me, that's a good thing, and one aspect
I miss about the "old" SAA.
The usual thing observed here by me, over the years, is that a
beginner asks a pretty clear and obvious question that has a simple
answer, but the response often given is highly obscure. People dredge
up all kinds of arcane possibilities that SOMEBODY, SOMEWHERE has once
explored by means of the most advanced techniques imaginable.
Since SAA is unmoderated, I think the solution to this is not to
discourage arcane, recherche responses (which I think come up a bit
less than you think they do), but to post simple, straightforward
responses ourselves.
[big snip]
Now, I am fully expectant that NOBODY ELSE will agree with me in the
slightest bit; and that almost everybody will take great offense. It
is par for the course, and this realization has tended to discourage
me from posting here.
You sound frustrated with what occasionally happens on the newsgroup,
and I sympathize, but I think this is pretty unfair to the vast majority
of SAA. How can one disagree with this, even in a reasoned way, without
being prejudged contentious and argumentative by this broad stroke? How
can one claim that a broad range of depth in responses is a good thing,
without seeming to join the oppressive masses?
The truth, I think, is that most readers *do* agree generally with what
you say--that beginner questions should get at least some beginner
answers--and that most readers have not taken offense at all. That a
few trolling posters suggest otherwise shouldn't carry much weight; you
don't have to believe or listen to a word they say.
--
Brian Tung <brian@xxxxxxx>
The Astronomy Corner at http://astro.isi.edu/
Unofficial C5+ Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/c5plus/
The PleiadAtlas Home Page at http://astro.isi.edu/pleiadatlas/
My Own Personal FAQ (SAA) at http://astro.isi.edu/reference/faq.html
.
- References:
- Venus issues
- From: Steve & Lizzie
- Re: Venus issues
- From: AstroApp
- Re: Venus issues
- From: AstroApp
- Venus issues
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