It was four pages of fairly diplomatic replies to an idea that was more cartoon than plausible. Makes it hard to accept the notion that we were some how unkind.
We tried subtle and it didn't work.
I wanted to check and read again 57 replies that responded directly to artis' proposal, rather than something else.
By my subjective criteria:
30 posts identified a specific concern. I forgot to count how many of them were related to the core purpose of artis' proposal, which is to reduce motion in a seaway. I am pretty sure it was a minority.
10 posts were some variant of "this is the worst idea ever", only one of which pointed to a specific concern.
8 posts requested more information.
8 posts suggested alternative solutions. I forgot to count how many did only that.
8 posts suggested that seasickness is not a problem worth solving by design. One of them proposed getting a different wife.
5 posts contained personal attacks. 4 of them contained nothing else, 1 of them also declared the design the worst ever. None identified a specific concern. They attracted more Likes than criticism.
Whether that should count as diplomatic on the internet depends on what fora you frequent. I remember nothing that looked subtle to me.
I didn't count how many of the specific concerns artis responded to. I think it was most, it might have been all. He agreed with some objections, he has not abandoned the core idea, but has promised at least two stages of model tests before he decides whether the idea is worth building at full scale. I share the opinion that the model tests will indicate this concept is not worth building at full scale, but I don't get where the notion comes from that artis was totally unresponsive.
What's better, pointing out a phenomenally flawed idea with slightly less than four pages of kid gloves? Or letting the op start burning bead on a floating steel coffin/dead head?
If you want to set this up as a set of discrete choices, then he had four:
1) Declare he had been persuaded to give up on this idea based on arguments alone, without any empirical data.
2) Continue to engage with this thread, despite inevitably diminishing returns because the easily identifiable flaws had been identified early on.
3) Build the first model and get some empirical data.
4) Start welding up the full scale boat.
From what artis wrote in this thread, we can exclude 4), and his absence excludes 2). So either he has given up or he is designing or building a model, or still trying to decide between those two. If the only thing that satisfies is that OP admits the error of his ways, it might still happen if he tests a model and it behaves as we predicted, but that public mea culpa seems less likely the more he is portrayed as ungrateful for not already having admitted his guilt.
