On Wed, 21 Mar 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I've a tendancy to not-answer unless I am absolutely certain I
> know the answer, or there's not been an answer for 12 hours or so.
>
> So if the guys don't have those hesitations, and other women do
> the same thing I do... that's why it seems to be guys answering.
>
>
> Can anyone explain to me why I do that?
>
IANAP (i am not a psychoanalyst, but)... that was always the advice
given to newbies on usenet FAQs. i.e., "naive newbie, if you see
a question you know the answer to, you will get all excited because
you finally know one and you will hurriedly post an answer. but everyone else
will know the answer too, because it must be easy or you wouldn't know
the answer, naive newbie. therefore, please don't post unless you are
damn well sure nobody else knows the answer, because you are just clogging
bandwidth and looking silly, naive newbie."
so i think that's part of it. i used to find myself doing that all the
time even on the non-tech discussion lists i'm on. someone will post
a comment and i'll think, "gee, they don't see this particualar point." then
i'll think "wow, it's so obvious, if i point it out, perhaps people will
see my post as trivial." it took me awhile to get used to the fact
that other people really truly don't have the same material in their heads
as i do, and what might seem obvious to me probably isn't something they've
thought of... otherwise, they would have brought it up themselves.
as to not posting unless you are sure... i've seen many flames on
usenet of people who tried to volunteer something but they weren't sure and
it turned out to be wrong; the risk certainly becomes intimidating.
it usually goes like this:
person 1: question
person 2: "i'm not sure, but i think you might try..."
person 3: "that's wrong!!! why do you feel you have to write something
if you don't know the answer??? just sit back and wait for somebody
that *does* know the answer to post! you are clogging bandwidth with
your wrong post!"
obviously that attitude isn't tolerated here, but i think we're so
conditioned toward "i'll get slapped if i say the wrong thing, and
everyone will think i'm an idiot" that we do it habitually anyway.
-@
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