Urgent Help Needed!!!!!

His 'complete disregard for manners' consisted of 6 abbreviations. And while I agree his English was thoughtless, I think trashing him the way everyone has is even more thoughtless. Instead of calling his actions deplorable, and ridiculing him with bad imitations, perhaps it would have been better manners to politely ask him to rephrase his question, and help him only once his English was satisfactory.

I'm a student as well, which may be why his post didn't offend me as it has some. But if he was out to 'butcher' the English language as has been accused, he could have done far far worse (simply refer to the bad imitations). I don't claim to know much about languages, but these abbreviations that have got everyone worked up are becoming more and more mainstream. And when one spends a lot of time informally communicating on the internet, it is understandable that speaking in this fashion wouldn't immediately register as offensive. Given the effort the OP went to in constructing his post (not a simple "help plx!!!11!one"), a gentle request for him to fix his English would have been sufficient IMO.

Mr. John Bass,

As this is a thinly veiled reference to my last post, I am going to treat it as directed at me, personnally. My response is almost certainly ill advised, as I fear you are going to demonstrate to me and a lot of other witnesses very shortly. Einstein's definition of insanity applies to me directly, for as I write, I do so with the expectation of a different result than all of those that have come before me by acknowledging, and not agreeing with, you.

Your post was actually almost funny. You got the format of the question and answer right, so either you know the reference, or you allowed google to be your friend and got bored before actually learning anything. Unfortunately, it once again demonstrates that you don't quite understand. You were able to focus in on a detail and understand it well enough to make the joke, but you have in the post, like many of your other posts, completely missed the bigger picture.

The bigger picture is this: you are a guest in this community. If you actually understood the underlying concept about which you made your joke, you would have been behaving much better leading up to this. As a guest in any community proper etiquette is that as the community defines it, not that as the guest does.

Mark Twain's "Innocents Abroad" is my reading suggestion for you this week. It is the first account of what many today have come to call the "ugly american". (as I am American, I am entitled to go here, flame away) The amusement comes from the characters going to far away lands and expecting it to be like where they came from and complaining about it not being so. Like many fellow americans that I have experienced abroad, your behavior in this group reminds me very much of this book. You come here, as a guest in this foreign land, and you expect our community to bow to your demands.

We as a community ask that people make an effort to write in proper english, making a best effort to use proper spelling and grammar, be considerate of others, keep commercial postings to a minimum, etc. We have invested (many far more than I) in keeping this the community that we have wanted it to become. This community existed for ten years before you got here.

You proudly profess that you like to play the role of devil's advocate in your posts. But you seem to lack sufficient understanding of the underlying concepts to do this effectively, i.e. your argument that insisting on formal spelling and grammar (as best as any poster is able) is exclusionary to those who don't have english as a first language. Slang and idiomatic language is what comes last before fluency is achieved. If anything, insisting on the minimization of slang and abbreviations helps those who might have to use dictionaries and other translation aids greatly. Try putting your "techno speak", as you like to call it, through babelfish, and see what kind of crap comes out the other side.

Many of us in this forum know each other personnally. My company, Ray's, and a number of others', that participate here, are all in the Alliance partnership with Xilinx. The cumulative experience here is huge. We will defend our turf from those that do not show it the respect we ask for.

Ray's posts are always informative and well thought through. Last time I spoke with Ray on the telephone I was teasing him about having free time on his hands, that he must have been between projects. He asked how I knew. I replied, simple, whenever you have the time for a handfull of posts in an afternoon, I know it is a safe time to call and say hello.

The funny thing about this is when I see that you have the time to post almost 300 times in this group in 60 days, I have to wonder if you have any idea just how much time it is going to take you to complete your ground breaking work in reconfigurable computing. If you did, you would be spending this time actually working on this, or whatever you actually get paid to do, rather than trying to convince us just how smart and benevolent you are.

Not only do you lack the bigger picture understanding with much of the subject material that you chose to write on, you also seem to lack an understanding of who you are actually communicating with. So when you, as you did this afternoon, rip someone like Ray a new one, it sends an even more significant message: you not only don't have enough respect for this forum, you don't know enough about the subject matter to know who some of the strongest minds in the field are.

I have read as you have been given sensible information by many in this group that reflects years of practical experience with FPGAs, silicon fabrication and test, partial reconfiguration and place and route, and stood back in utter disbelief as you couldn't be bothered to digest this information and allow it to sculpt your view in the least. You simply defend your original view, or one that is simply contrary to the masses, and keep arguing.

Mr. John Bass, fpga_toys, you are what is wrong with our community. Welcome to my witch trial. This forum existed for ten years before you got here, and it will exist for many more after you get bored and leave to torment another community.

Actually, as you seem to be a rather intelligent individual, that might be able to become a member of this community I respectfully ask that you drop the devil's advocate role and leave it for those that have spent more time in our community and more than a few days in our industry. You might actually discover that what you want to do with reconfigurable computing is possible in ways that you have not imagined. You have been so busy going off on the ways that this is not possible given the current framework of the tools, the licensing, the evil vendors that focus on embedded markets, blah, blah, blah... you have missed the bigger picture that what you want to do is a whole lot more similar to the current use of the devices than you realize.

Xilinx wants to sell chips. Xilinx has all kinds of programs that help outside companies that are consumers of Xilinx chips or offer companion products or services that help sell its chips. Xilinx refers to the three hundred or so companies in the Alliance partnership as the "xilinx eco-system". Xilinx has a venture fund that was created to fund this eco-system, and it is huge. At least a half dozen presidents of companies in this eco-system, and at least as many influential people at Xilinx frequent this group.

Just a suggestion, it will probably require less time as the devil's advocate, and less time evangelizing, to actually get any positive attention from those that could help you if they wanted to.

This post is the extent of the help that I am likely to offer you, as you have royally pissed me off. Maybe some of the others will eventually be more charitable.

Regards, Erik.

Then feel free to take the discussion off to some IRC system where it is appropriate. The standard in this group is English - not some sort of teenage SMS gibberish.

That's simply not true. The nature and intent of the post is to make people feel unwelcome when writing illegible contractions (the prejudice being against the style of writing rather than the writer). A very large part of that is because this group is international, with lots of non-native English speakers. For a native speaker like me, such contractions are are an eyesore and detract from the legibility of the post - for many non-native speakers, they are simply illegible.

and the rest of you with half-broken keyboards:

I agree with the other posts here. Your English is not "cool". It is very annoying. If you want people to help you with your homework, you better ask nicely. I dont want to answer questions from students who sound like 12 year old kids on Counter Strike chats

I am not a native English speaker, its not even my second or third language. But I can still see how this is really pissing off people who are speaking proper English.

Just look how many" leet speak" posts that get real answers here. If you still cant read between these lines, then you are probably too dumb for EE anyway.

regards, me

Erik,

You to are a guest here, as is every other poster and reader.

Sending the poster an email suggesting a behavior is one thing. Objecting to the tech speak is another. The lynching party that developed however went far beyond that, and that is what was a gross failure in this forum.

The arguement for kings english was based in maners, and presented with hypocrisy.

The lynching party took the maners banner, and then trolls with inflamatory name calling claims like "we feel offended by his imbecile spelling". I agree "Actually language is very important!" but it needs to be used with culturally time honored respect ... rather than berate younger posters with trolling like "If you prefer to use infantile spelling as it seems many recent younger posters do".

I prefer civil butchering of our languange, far above perfectly constructed sentences laced with insults and attacks. When it comes to maners .... the first is at least very polite, and the second anything but. My mother did teach me that.

One poster claims ... "Netiquete may have gone away in many groups, but it survives pretty well in most of the technical groups that you posted to that have any content value."

I disagree. The concept of civil disagreement has been lost. What remains, are the personal attacks and name calling when the failure to articulate a rational debate is lost. We are not ever going to be of one opinion. We need to "agree to disagree" without these constant personal attacks.

Anyone remember him? Deja vu?

How could I forget?

The problem with trolls like Tisdale is that they don't realise they are trolls. Everyone else must be educated! My way is the only way, even though I have a minority viewpoin that isn't relevant to the other newsgroup users!

I'm sure it relates to some childhood trauma. (joke)

Blergh.

Allan

Actually, I posted to the head article simply because it wasn't directed at any one person. But you certainly choose to make it personal.

The bigger picture is that YOU have never owned this forum, nor have you ever been elected to speak for this forum. I was not the only poster to object to the lack of respect of others actions and view points regarding this matter. Your diatribe here in the form of direct personal attacks is nothing more than classic trolling, by assuming that you speak for the community in it's entirety, which has been clearly demonstrated as false.

And if that was truely your intent, that posters be considerate of others, and commercial posting kept to minimum, then your angst should be at yourselves, as the worst offenders in consideration are those that mistakenly think they own it. YOU, John_H, Peter, Austin, and several others, regulary insult anyone that dares to disagree with you. In fact, each of you when challenged, ask people to leave, just to protect your kingdom.

So anyone that doesn't bow before you is unwelcome .... I didn't see that anywhere in the description of this groups founding principles, or any usenet group since inception two and a half decades ago when I first started participating on usenet.

Actually Ray's posts were not. I actually called him this afternoon and we talked a while, and at the end of that talk I think we are on the same page, or reasonably close.

The long and the short of it, we agree that all the major things I see as RC needs are lacking, and there currently isn't any plan to provide them, nor is their any simple short term solution path. But I'll let you talk with Ray yourself.

If the experts can stop handwaving about what has failed in the past, and start being objective about solution paths to explore, then maybe your advise would be worth something. But people that whine about those that are trying to forge past previous failures, really are just obstructionists. NOT mentors.

Stongest minds? I don't see you providing constructive advise toward solutions, I just see you having a tantrum because someone else is trying what others have failed at. I'm not the brightest kid on the block, but an I'm persistant.

You do not deserve RESPECT when you freely trash others ... RESPECT is earned, not bought, demanded, coerced, or extorted as you attempt. Respect comes when you can learn to show respect at ALL times, with patience and empathy. That YOU, Peter, John_H, and others just demand it, is your falacy in your own self image as gods.

I chose the word bigot for a reason:

Bigot \Big"ot\, n. [F. bigot a bigot or hypocrite

1. A hypocrite; esp., a superstitious hypocrite. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]
2. A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion. [1913 Webster]

Note the "intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own", as you, Peter, John_H and others demand that your views are the one and only acceptable view in this forum.

As you lack the capacity to discuss others view point, and simply demand that they accept yours. You lack the ability to discuss issues, you demand yours. You lack the ability to even debate issues on the merits of each others view points, as when you feel threatened, it's an all out session of ridicule and personal attack.

Get over yourself.

Sensible? get real. I've been told what doesn't work, as fact, not a discussion point of why with consideration that maybe things have since changed, and today there is a solution, that didn't exist 5 years go, or 20 years ago, when the last failure occured.

I'm equally at that point. For reconfigurable computing .... IE using FPGAs as computing engines for arbitrary programs and netlists .... nearly everything is broken. There is NO discussion about getting this fixed, or pointers to things that would provide fast dynamic place and route on Xilinx FPGAs today ... NOR tomarrow.

I'm sure that each of you have very valid reasons for wanting expensive zero defect FPGA's. That doesn't give you the right to start insulting me and argueing why my vision of RC with defect management isn't right for my application. In fact, the posters here have a lot of lame execuses why that is bad for me, but NO ONE has objectively constructed a clear case for why it would be bad for FPGA based computers.

No Eric, YOU and your fellow self proclaimed GODS are what is wrong with OUR community, as it is NOT YOURS. And you are right ... it is a witch trial, just as flawed as every other witch trial in history. And this forum will most likely exist long after YOU are gone.

The right to post here is NOT subject to your permission.

You don't even have a clue.

That is great .... They also currently want to put many in the trash, because of an out dated zero defect policy. I don't think that you speak for Xilinx, but you sure seem to claim to.

Your Royality worked himself into a frenzy because this is an open forum, and not subject to your rule.

When you and your cronies learn that it is NOT your right to call others imbecile, infantile, fools, and the other many insults here, and you start actually being constructive, rather than intentionally distructive, then you might, just might once again earn the right and respect as a peer, in a peer forum.

Till then, I WILL stay here and challenge your flagrant assertion you are the GODS of this forum, each and every time you violate another poster RIGHT to be treated fairly and respectifuly with your arrogant self proclaim right to dis others here as you please.

If you wish to be a bigot, and irrationally force your views on others without the right of discussion or free and open debate, then I will continue to remind you just what a bigot is. I will remind you of what and who the real imbecile is here.

After reading the thread I went back and re-read the original post.

My suscpicion now is that the strong reactions were not really triggered by the "tech speak" alone (which was as you point out quite minor) but by the combination of fairly ignorant usage of the synthesis tool coupled with a style of writing that similarly can at times give an impression of ignorance.

Two hypothetical posts each making one of these transgressions probably would have gotten different replies. For example, a post with the same amount of tech speak that showed a knowledge of the subject and asked a straightforward, interesting question would probably have been answered. And a well written post from an obvious beginner to the effect of "I made a really complicated behavioural design and my computer ran out of memory" might also have elicited helpfull advice.

but in combination, the two individually forgivable "offenses" were too much for some...

I agree. The standard in-person, is to walk away. Not start a fight with insults, and rally a lynch mob.