You're flitting around on Grex. While doing whatever it is that you do
here, you receive a message from a user in distress. (For some strange
unearthly reason, either an attack of friendliness or simple neglectful-
ness, your messages are on.) The user is rather clueless as to what
s/he/it can do on Grex. Before responding to the user, you take a quick
look at their .plan, and find something that makes you leery of the
newbie. It occurs to you that you could misdirect this newuser, sending it
into a spiral of confusion, or possibly direct it to do something that is
a "no-no". You could also simply ignore this user, and s/he/it might go
away forever out of frustration. 

Do you reply to the message?

47 responses total.

Yes, if I'm not too busy, and I help.  This happens frequently, so I'm
speaking form experience.

If I were competent enough in Grex-type stuff (which I'm not) i
for this to happen, I would send him a message referring him to
the stuff that is supposed to help new users.  As it is, probably
he would give up on me before I figured out how to reply!
(I leave my permissions on so that davel can call me from work
to say "I'm leaving now.  Do you know what time it is?" or
suchlike, and he knows that he probably will have to prompt me
on how to initiate the reply process)

If I had time, I'd try to help.  Probably even if I didn't.  (Um, Carson, why
would I check the person's .plan before deciding whether to help?  That just
adds to the interruption.)  If I was very crunched on time, I'd say, "Sorry,
I'm in a real hurry at the moment.  Try    write help".  (Or am I to suppose
that some nefarious person has added me to that list?)

What kind of thing is it I'm supposed to be leery of?  Am I worrying that
if I sound friendly this person will pester me forever? or that this person
is trying to get me to help crack root in some obscure way?  (In that case
I might well do one of the things you suggested, I suppose.)

 I am a Helper. I don't read plans and then decide whether or not to
help, I just help, or point the person to a source for the answer and 
be done with it.That's what is meant by being a helper. 

   WITHOUT CONDITION OR RESPECT OF PERSON!

This has, of course happened before... I always try to find
time to help them, no matter what their .plan says.

It would depend on what in their .plan I was leery of.  If under "interests"
the first thing they listed was "women" I don't think I'd talk to them.  I
can't see myself deliberately misleading them, simply because my own newbie
experience was painful enough even though everyone I talked to was nice to
me and helpful.  If they wrote while I was in the middle of something 
important, I'd ignore them without bothering to read their .plan.  
It would depend on what in their .plan bothered me, but in most cases I'd
probably just ignore them.

My perms are *always* off mostly because I don't trust what
I'd do in such situations. ;-)

I'd help.  It's neither my business nor my right to decide who should and
shouldn't be on Grex.

   Re #6:  Sara, I find it disturbing that you would discriminate against
someone based solely on the fact that they said they were interested in
women.  Because that's all it is, after all; the heading says "interests",
not "obsessions."
   I've read your response in that other item where you said that men have
drooled on you over ntalk, and I agree that that might be unpleasant (I
have to be subjunctive since it's never happened to me).  But it's not the
case that every man who is interested in women is rude.

When somebody lists women as a main interest, maybe even the only thing
they are interested in, there is a very strong implication that they are,
um... more interested in women than some women would want them to be.

I don't think that's fair at all.  When I read that in someone's plan, I put
it down to honesty, not lasciviousness.  To assume that being interested in
women makes one automatically a jerk is uncalled for.

If it were in a very long list of interests, I don't think I would think
much of it.  It's when it's the only interest, or one of a very few. 
Considering the amount of time I spend on my primary interest, and the
implication when somebody says that that it's women in general and not a
specific woman, it makes me wonder a bit.

well, i almost put it in my plan.  are you going to avoid me, scg?

Hmm... And you have a short list of interests there too...  I guess that
leaves me with three options:
- figure that I've met you anyway, and you're ok, so I can overlook it in
your case
- decide that it's ok since you didn't put it in your .plan
- change my position on the issue entirely

Sara doesn't seem to be avoiding you either.

I guess I agree with you, Steve, that if it were the only interest I would
be a little bit cautious.  I wouldn't refuse to help, though.

I certainly wouldn't refuse to help, and I would figure that I was
probably safe because they weren't interested in me that way, but if I
were female I might get worried.

 I'm interested in women as well, but I don't have a screaming urge to
advertise it, and contrary to popular belief, I am not a jerk. I just
avoid making overt sexual overtones on the net, for that is not acceptable
in my book. I don't care if you are a man, or a woman. If you ask me for
help, you will get the same exact treatment. And if I don't know, a
nice reference to somebody who does. period.

I don't know of any popular belief that you're a jerk, Jim.
8-{)>

 but the common belief is that ALL men are jerks, according to
a good friend of mine who happens to be of the female persuation, and
who is also a free press reporter.

set topic=original

(If I were in that situation, I wouldn't mind helping out. I usually only
ignore messages if it's no one I know and if it's a "null" message [if the
user doesn't bother to send anything beyond the "Message from..."
attention-getter].)

(how do you send something beyond the "message from..."?  Or do you just
mean starting to type before the other person has responded, which is
generally a no no?

(No-no or not, some people do it.)

(yet if they do the no-no, I feel myself strangely compelled to respond.)

set topic=drift

(Sorry, Carson, but I haven't been here lately, and I need an opportunity to
defend myself.)

        Wow.  I had no idea I'd be creating such a heated debate.  That
certainly wasn't my intention, and I'm sorry if I offended anyone.  Now, where
to start?

        Omni, I don't know you, but I certainly don't think you are a jerk.
There are men who are jerks, but the majority of them are not.  Only a few
grexers, of either sex, are jerks.  However, I have had conversations with
a few who are, and I would like to avoid that sort of conversation in the
future, if possible.  If I unjustly stereotype a few nice guys who happen to
be interested in women in the process, well, all I can say is I'm sorry.

        A person's .plan is often other grexers' first introduction to them.
What a person puts in their .plan is what *they choose* to let other grexers
know about them.  They have to expect that people will probably use this 
information in forming their impressions of that person.  I don't mean judging
them, just getting a better idea of who they are.  And if my first impression
of someone is somethign that makes me uncomfortable or angry, then yes, I will
probably avoid them.

        Not all men who are interested in women are rude.  I have male friends
who are interested in women, and vice versa.  However, I interpreted "interest"
in this context to mean something more similar to "hobbies" than "things you
find interesting."  There are quite a few things in this world I find
interesng, but when people ask "what are you interested in?" I generally assume
they  mean "What do you do in your spare time?" or "what do you do for fun?" 
And, yes, I take offense at being considered a hobby.  I make no apologies for 
this.  Men who think the female gender is there solely for their own 
entertainment (and I don't think that includes anyone in this item) are, in  my
opinion, jerks.

        I'm glad you let me know how you felt, aruba, and everybody else.  I
respect your arguments and found them interesting (should I mention that in 
my .plan?)  I'm afraid you're not going to change my mind, however.  Call me
close-minded if you like, but I have what I feel are valid reasons for feeling
the way I do, and even if you disagree, please remember that I have as much 
right to my opinion as you do to yours.

        Sorry to go on so long, but I wanted to clarify what I said earlier;
hopefully now you understand better why I feel the way I do.  In any case, 
I'm not trying to start this debate over again.  If you still strongly 
disagree with me, I'm perfectly willing to listen, but otherwise I'm done
ranting and raving.  I've said my say, and I don't want to see this item
taken over by this argument.  By all means respond, but if it gets too bad
we should probably continue elsewhere.  Thanks.

set topic=original?

(wow)

I'd like to know exactly what those no-no's are that newbies aren't 
supposed to get involved with.  Is that like hanging out with the 
wrong cyber-crowd?  (:

(When you write or chat somebody, you're supposed to wait for them to
respond before saying anything.  This is so that you will have the minimum
possible disruptive effect if they are working on something else and don't
want to have unrelated words coming accross their screen)

wow!  Go Sara!

loginid:aa8ij
Name: Roger the Shrubber                         In Real Life: Jim Reuter

First logged onto Grex: 22:57 on April 2 1992 on /dev/tty03 at 1200
Currently using antique Apple Macintosh 512Ke or IBM PC XT class
depending on my mood.

Occuption:
 Writing scripts for cancelled television shows
 Part-time squid inspector
 Shrubber 

Hobbies:
Amatuer Radio (guess what my callsign is)
Computers 
Collecting obscure fonts for my ancient Macintosh
Distance throwing unwanted fruitcakes
Packratting

Computers that I have:
Macintosh 512KE 
IBM XT
Heath H-89 
Babbage Difference Engine

How I found out about Grex:
Mike Webster and Steve Andre






  Sara, looking at my .plan, would you respond to me if I buzzed you
for help?
   Certainly my .plan is not serious, I wrote it for comic effect because
I am a character, and I guess that I will always be one.;)

Um, Jim, it's obviously been a long time since I finger'd you.  Have you
*really* changed your call sign to "omni" too?  That's pretty cryptic now.

 My ham call is aa8ij. I need to write a new plan.

 I decided that my ham call should only be heard or seen on the ham bands.

New .plan in a few days.

If some random person wrote me, I wouldn't read their .plan before responding.
And if I did read yours, omni, certainly I'd respond.  I mean, I'd want to
ask you what you inspected the squids for, if nothing else. :)
OTOH, since my messages are currently off (not for that reason) I don't thin
it's very likely that I'd respond to you.
This was supposed to be a *hypothetical* question, you know.  I don't think
it's likely to occur exactly that way in reality.

That's a pretty cool .plan!  I'll have to edit mine, it's not nearly weird
enough to reflect my character.  ;)

This response has been erased.

(this is one of the better responses I've seen all day.)

This response has been erased.

how about "all conf"?

I had to look up this item again because I recently noticed a .plan belonging 
to a female Grexer which listed "MEN" as every third (or so) interest.  I
got a kick out of that.

should I ask? ;)

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss