On Mon, May 16, 2005 at 09:30:36AM -0700, Shel Belinkoff wrote: > > You present yourself as a true believer, the keeper of the flame. > Your way is the right way, others are idiots. > > Shel
How delightfully ironic. Shel criticising somebody else for being (or, at least, appearing to be) overly-prescriptive. Actually, there's a lot of truth in what Shel said. If you go by the on-line appearances, you'd have thought that Shel and I, for example, would be at daggers drawn. But we're quite capable of sitting down in a group, amongst other photographers, and amiably sharing a beer or two; usenet dicussion groups are by no means a substitute for real life encounters. It's the nature of the medium, of course - a reply or followup to a posting will single out those areas of disagreement, and amplify them disproportionately. It's rare to see more than a simple "I agree" in response to other parts of a post, and even that small concession rarely shows up. In a face-to-face discussion there would have been non-verbal feedback to make that clear; nodding, a quiet "uh-huh", or just body english.
