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Jun. 7th, 2009 02:34 pmThe edits that I made during my stewardship of the rec.puzzles FAQ had one over-arching theme. The document that I inherited was quite ordinary by Usenet standards, being largely about how to quickly become familiar with the posting culture of the community and avoid what over the long term were a fairly predictable series of faux pas. For a newsgroup based on puzzles, this tended to a large part to be a catalog of popular elementary brainteasers that were not to be discussed on the group.
Once the FAQ became my responsibility and I took the time to reflect on it, it struck me that this attitude was unjust. Sure, some people posted the problems because they were clueless asshats who couldn't be bothered to read the backlog before jumping in with their own contributions, but there were others who genuinely didn't know the answer to the questions, and to them the FAQ was just the first half of a puzzle book when they were ready for the damned spoiler. My revelation was that if these were frequently asked questions and I was the FAQ maintainer, then it was my job to answer them. Over time with plenty of feedback, I devised concise formulations of the questions and answers that would be satisfactory to both the neophyte and the pedant that they wouldn't feel the need to ask after reading the FAQ.
And the result was highly satisfying. I had expected that there would be fewer threads on the verboten subjects, and there were. But I had not expected that those threads that did pop up would be shorter and friendlier, and they were. The reason for this is that we no longer had a neophyte trying to answer the question and doing it in such a poor manner than people felt the need to post their own corrections and then the merry-go-round was back up to full speed. A brief, well-written answer in a clearly marked place that represented the consensus of the community was a valuable treasure. It has always struck me that the late 1990's saw a significant drop-off in the popular analysis of the "Monty Hall Paradox" as a fight between two equally compelling but different conclusions, and in my more prideful moments I wonder whether I played a role in testifying that the correct solution was more intuitive than the wrong one.
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I bring up this story because a small part of me dies every time I see Buzzword Bingo applied to discussion of controversial subjects online. Sure, I get that stupid people are so stupid that they say twenty-four stupid things. They are mockable, and it is easy and crowd-pleasing to mock them. But I challenge you, as one who has been there, to see if you agree with me that there is a deeper pleasure in spending those few hours impersonally addressing twenty-four misunderstandings and establishing that as a bedrock of your community's sentiment that both your critics and allies can reference more quickly than they can debate.
Once the FAQ became my responsibility and I took the time to reflect on it, it struck me that this attitude was unjust. Sure, some people posted the problems because they were clueless asshats who couldn't be bothered to read the backlog before jumping in with their own contributions, but there were others who genuinely didn't know the answer to the questions, and to them the FAQ was just the first half of a puzzle book when they were ready for the damned spoiler. My revelation was that if these were frequently asked questions and I was the FAQ maintainer, then it was my job to answer them. Over time with plenty of feedback, I devised concise formulations of the questions and answers that would be satisfactory to both the neophyte and the pedant that they wouldn't feel the need to ask after reading the FAQ.
And the result was highly satisfying. I had expected that there would be fewer threads on the verboten subjects, and there were. But I had not expected that those threads that did pop up would be shorter and friendlier, and they were. The reason for this is that we no longer had a neophyte trying to answer the question and doing it in such a poor manner than people felt the need to post their own corrections and then the merry-go-round was back up to full speed. A brief, well-written answer in a clearly marked place that represented the consensus of the community was a valuable treasure. It has always struck me that the late 1990's saw a significant drop-off in the popular analysis of the "Monty Hall Paradox" as a fight between two equally compelling but different conclusions, and in my more prideful moments I wonder whether I played a role in testifying that the correct solution was more intuitive than the wrong one.
--------------
I bring up this story because a small part of me dies every time I see Buzzword Bingo applied to discussion of controversial subjects online. Sure, I get that stupid people are so stupid that they say twenty-four stupid things. They are mockable, and it is easy and crowd-pleasing to mock them. But I challenge you, as one who has been there, to see if you agree with me that there is a deeper pleasure in spending those few hours impersonally addressing twenty-four misunderstandings and establishing that as a bedrock of your community's sentiment that both your critics and allies can reference more quickly than they can debate.
