Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[jm59@prism.gatech.edu (John M. Mills)]

mrbunny@mail.zynet.co.uk writes:

[..]
>Having posted a request to assist my  computer studies (See simple
>student problem). I have been e-mailed to tell me that I have made an
>"inconsiderate mistake" and that if this news group was open to
>students there would be many thousands of postings every day, making
>the newsgroup inoperable. I have many objections to this argument, as
>follows:
[.. eliding Mark's well placed comments, ..]

Basic_Student_Advocacy is new Soapbox(hearsay_evidence);
with Basic_Student_Advocacy;
use Basic_Student_Advocacy;

package body Ventilation is

begin

I have long been bemused by CLA correspondents' tendency to leap on basic
language questions, particularly those which might be related to class
assignments, as inappropriate, and generally suggesting that such posts
are an attempt to "get something for nothing," to the detriment of the
educational process, and a potential dilution of the serious content of
the group.  There is even a FAQ on it!

My Net experience has been that posts and responses are a good way to
get answers to common but confusing questions which plague many beginners
in areas from programming to sports, and a rather poor place to follow
reasoned, abstract, academic discussions.

I think that more bandwidth could be freed by summarily diverting the
language flame wars to the appropriate [!] *.advocacy newsgroups than is
ever likely to be burned up by low-level mechanical language questions.

If CLA readers are so offended by encountering introductory-level
questions, split the group as has been done for other groups, isolating
basic and tutorial questions from more specialized and/or complex ones.
Castigating posters of elementary questions and impugning their motives
is a pretty funny form of advocacy.

If students can "cheat" on their classwork by asking questions on the net
perhaps the intellectual content of the classes needs a bit of beefing up
and the mechanical content a bit of reduction to pre-programmed materials.
However, I do not believe that students are generally being shortchanged
in this manner -- I rather think that rumors of the supposed damage to their
classroom experience are, as Mark Twain said about reports of his death,
"greatly exaggerated."

end Ventilation;

-- 
John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills@gtri.gatech.edu
   Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834
        Phone contacts: 404.894.0151 (voice), 404.894.6258 (FAX)
            "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Simulations"