Re: "Life On Umbriel" - Spectacular, Recently Published Fantasy/Adventure Novel

"Joann Zimmerman" <jzimm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:MPG.1e63d3acfc4bb873989bdd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
In article <11vk12ld1um4k2c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, wswears@xxxxxxx says...
Dan Goodman wrote:
Note that this usually requires not telling people they're wrong on a
particular point. Elsewhere, I've had someone say that it was
unrealistic to have anti-capitalist socialists going into business,
which I had in a story. One of the people who said this was a
libertarian who worked for a government agency. I kept my mouth shut.


Dan,

The person you're berating said a book was good, with some enthusiasm.
You told him flatly, and with no explanation or finesse, that he was
wrong. He apologized well, you came back with a superior attitude and a
lecture. Maybe I missed something here, but it looks as though you
could take a lesson from yourself, man.

What you missed was the operation of the rasfc self-protection mechanism
(TM). Somebody we've never heard of before shows up, says "Hi, this book
is the greatest thing since sliced bread and I wrote it!" It is
difficult sometimes to tell the difference between over-enthusiastic
self-promotion, trolling, confusion about what the group does, and
blatant advertising.

Dan's original response (not quoted here) was roughly the group standard
for such manifestations.

Yes; it's the follow-ups where things get ugly.

The main differences between this guy and the usual "buy my book" clueless
ad are, first, that he came back to check responses, second that he came
back not once, but twice -- and the second time, acknowledged overreaction
to the first response. I find myself caught in the middle; on the one hand,
I do tend to agree with Bill that the original poster's apology deserved
better (especially after Dan's second response); OTOH, following the link
indicates that this is basically a self-promoted POD book, not a request for
feedback or even an enthusiastic recommendation-for-discussion, which means
the original post really doesn't belong here (and as Joann said, Dan's
original response is pretty much SOP for that sort of thing...not least
because it's rare for the ad-poster to ever check back to see what people's
reactions were).

Patricia C. Wrede


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Life On Umbriel" - Spectacular, Recently Published Fantasy/Adventure Novel
    ... Patricia C. Wrede wrote: ... Dan's original response was roughly the group standard ... The main differences between this guy and the usual "buy my book" clueless ad are, first, that he came back to check responses, second that he came back not once, but twice -- and the second time, acknowledged overreaction to the first response. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Using HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse
    ... when an HTTP 4xx or 5xx status is returned. ... variable to WebException.Response - the original response. ... a request to http://someaddress/someresource. ...
    (microsoft.public.dotnet.framework)
  • Re: Ultimate debunking of Cantors Theory
    ... Getting back to this original response, ... The most basic infinite set, it seems to me, is the set ... I can't refute that, ...
    (sci.math)
  • Re: (OT) Lets see if...
    ... You're original response to my original post was three lines total. ... commercial port shipping lease deal as president Bush and his ... these ports are gateways into our country and many Republicans from Frist on down are "riled up" and highly concerned about this issue. ...
    (rec.radio.shortwave)
  • Re: Who is to Blame for the Katrina SNAFU?
    ... >> Mayor Nagin was in charge of the first response, ... >> and it does not seem unreasonable to say that the first response is the ... Our federal response might be slow, ... >> incompetent, corrupt, and Democrats. ...
    (alt.politics)
Loading