the orchid board is dead

[AnonYMouse]

Since we've veered off topic...

To be honest, I often sigh and don't post.

I try to respond according to what is presented. It isn't all about the level of orchid experience but communication (punctuation and paragraphs, spelling sometimes count), age, language and personality; some people are touchy, some people are "I me mine", and some people are just jerks. Some people just want a simple answer to complex problems (teasing info out of a n00b becomes tedious fast).

Sometimes I see a post and won't read it (solid large block of text) and sigh.

I mostly stay away from the advanced and scientific sections because some of it isn't either (tetchy people's posts), some of it is over my head, most of it doesn't concern how I grow things. There are some interesting readings, tho.

And I wait for the page load and go do something else and come back to a timeout error and sigh.

Back to OP's topic.

I think they felt dissed.

[jkofferdahl]

Originally Posted by AnonYMouse

Since we've veered off topic...

To be honest, I often sigh and don't post.

I try to respond according to what is presented. It isn't all about the level of orchid experience but communication (punctuation and paragraphs, spelling sometimes count), age, language and personality; some people are touchy, some people are "I me mine", and some people are just jerks. Some people just want a simple answer to complex problems (teasing info out of a n00b becomes tedious fast).

Sometimes I see a post and won't read it (solid large block of text) and sigh.

I mostly stay away from the advanced and scientific sections because some of it isn't either (tetchy people's posts), some of it is over my head, most of it doesn't concern how I grow things. There are some interesting readings, tho.

And I wait for the page load and go do something else and come back to a timeout error and sigh.

Back to OP's topic.

I think they felt dissed.

I love so much of this post! In fact, I wish I'd written it.

While my writing on these posts may not be overly literate I at least try to post so that my words make sense gramatically, and so that the intent of my posts are clear. Ppl who post in runon sentences w/no punctuation n text-message spllng and stringing tgthr unrelated phrases bcse its easier to be inane illegible incomprehensible that to rmembr those stupid rules some mean tchr drilled into ur head in skool... you get my point. If a poster wants a response, said poster owes it to those reading the post to write, if not grammatically and punctuationally correct, in at least readable sentences. With two degrees in English I suppose I am predisposed to such thoughts, but I think that the ability to simply communicate in writing is becoming a lost art. Without it, it can be very difficult to express a thought, and equally difficult for a reader to understand the thought. I therefore also skip posts and posters where the communicative ability is sorely lacking. They hurt my brain to read, and at my age I need to maintain my brain's health as best I can; I've used up a lot of brain cells at this point. If others wish to look at this as a form of intellectual snobbery, well, fine.

There is a post elsewhere on the OB about building a greenhouse. (And I am using this as an example but not as a snipe at the OP there.) The OP most likely knows nothing about greenhouses, and very little about the wide range of needs among orchid genera. As you say, drawing enough from him to even consider the possibility of addressing his wants was extremely difficult. In my work as a reference librarian I encounter questions like this frequently, especially from students, and have learned how to ask questions and draw out the person's real needs, but most often what I discover is the the asker really has only a vague idea of what they are asking for to begin with. In an online forum it's exceedingly difficult to do an "interview" with a poster to really understand what they need.

However, even in the most difficult and vague of questions or obvious newbie nature of the poster, I think it's important to try to address the OP's needs (given a modicum of ability to communicate on their part). I would rather recognize a person's possible lack of information and experience and therefore both try to help and encourage them than to short them and thus possibly turn them away from our delightful hobby. So yeah, I think that it's possible that there have been some newbies who have felt dissed.