Re: So, You Want To Make Text Art?

JRO wrote:
> Veronica Karlsson wrote:
> >
> > This is still Bad Advice. People in different countries may be using all
> > sorts of weird equipment. E.g. I see the following characters on my
> > keyboard:  �����������������������������   (and maybe a few more bad
> > ones...). It's better to simply show the list of characters one should
> > use:
> >
> > | 32 SP | 33  ! | 34  " | 35  # | 36  $ | 37  % | 38  & | 39  ' |
<snip>
> And then bothered to give a value explanation for all of them, perhaps going into
> bios-mapping, ect..

This aaa version of this rant is apparently not quite as nasty as the
one you sent me in email. I quit reading *that* one after the first
paragraph...

>     People with a passing or budding interest in ascii art, don't want that.
> They don't need that.

I agree that they might not *want* it, but not that they might not
*need* it. E.g. when I first started posting to aaa I used the �
character a lot. It's on my keyboard...

> 99% of them have standard, ascii keyboards.

You said 90% in the email... Do you have any evidence for either of
those figures or did you just invent them? A Swedish "standard keyboard"
contains the letters ���.

Lets see what Joan's link list says:

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/2695/links.htm

Personal Exhibits

Joris Bellenger       French keyboard?
Armando Franzao       Portugese keyboard?
Veronica Karlsson     Swedish keyboard.
Maija                 Finnish keyboard?
Dariusz Sieradzki     Polish keyboard?
Valery Silivanov      Russian keyboard?
Lennert Stock         Dutch keyboard?
Theo van Eck          Dutch keyboard?
Hayley Jane Wakenshaw Dutch keyboard?

(That's just the ones I know where they live, and who have homepages.)

Seems like more than 1% of that list to me...

> So sorry you don't, but maybe I can send you $20, so you can buy one.

I can get one for free in Ludd's junk corner. Around here they're
considered worthless, since they don't have ���.

> You can keep your
> Swedish keyboard, for posting unlats to alt.geek-troll, but don't expect me
> to give a hoot. If anyone has a foreign-language keyboard, they can write me
> and ask for help, and I'll be more than happy to see what I can do.

Huh? You do realise that YOU are the one with the "foreign-language"
keyboard, right?  ;-)

>     Folks who come around, new (to ascii) are only interested in the absolute
> basic, how-to kind of information. They don't want some dry, tekky, dull, rude
> faq stuck in their face.

So, write one that isn't "dry, tekky, dull and rude". So far I'm quite
happy with Matthew Thomas' FAQ.

> That stuff is useless, to the new (at ascii) person
> who comes along, and wants some help on how you make an ascii text art picture.
> You might take a good, long look at that junk, and then imagine you are totally
> new to ascii art, and posted a simple question like "How do I make ascii"?...

I read Bob Allison's FAQ before posting here (in 1995). I don't remember
having any problem with that. I knew I should read the FAQ for the group
before posting away. I read it. I posted. I did a bunch of the usual
newbie errors. I got better. Somehow the information has to be presented
to the newbies. If you feel that you can do it better, please do so and
quit whining. Saying "just use the characters on your keyboard" is Bad
Advice, and you should expect to be criticised for it, because it's just
plain wrong.

> ...For a response, someone DIRECTED you to "go to this link, and read this",
> and maybe your interest overcomes such a crass reply, and you do. Then you are
> confronted with the dullest thing you have ever seen, written as if you were some
> kind of idiot for not knowing it in the first place.

Nobody _directed_ me to read the FAQ. I knew I should read it. I went
out and found it for myself. BEFORE posting. MONTHS before posting.
Maybe the document is dull, maybe it is written to be understandable to
everybody, including those less intelligent than me. So much more reason
to read it, instead of posting things that are "bad" in some way, and
thus proving to everybody that I'm too stupid to understand the
information in this "very dull" but quite simple document.

>     Some of those faqs for this newsgroup bear no resemblance at all, to the
> "purpose" of this newsgroup. Hell, they're even downright rude, in places.

Please be more specific.

> I've
> yet to see one that really answers the basic questions folks really have, in an
> entertaining manner. The only people who seem to like those things are the ones
> who don't need to read them, anyway.

Why does it have to be "entertaining"? Of course, I can't speak for
everybody, but isn't a slightly "dull" but correct document better than
one that is "entertaining" and contains "advice" such as "just use the
characters you can find on your keyboard"?

>     Point in case: you toss those things at beginners (... at ascii) - they don't
> come back. They don't repost "Great info! Thanks"!... No, they go away, assuming
> something else, entirely - This is an unfriendly, unhelpful newsgroup.

I have directed quite a few newbies to the FAQ. Here are some quotes
from replies to some of those:

"Thank you for your message."  ale...@asu.edu
"thanx heaps for the info... very helpful..." 
cel...@mypaNOSPAMd.com
"thank you"  cho...@aol.com
"Thank you Veronica fro the mail about ascii-art." 
e.N...@free.fr
"Ok, thank you for your information!"  dan...@hetNOSPAMnet.nl
"Thanks. I enjoyed the figlet server a lot!"  fgr...@skynet.be
"hello thanks for you mail , i love ascii art"  gue...@cNOSPAMtv.es
etc.

Negative comments? Well, there have been a couple of "But, but, but, I'm
no newbie!?!" (all of which have accepted the obvious reply: "Oops.
Sorry."). Also, there was one who was pissed off because his email
address had been forged (cyb...@cyberdude.com).

As for "they don't come back". If that was true, there would be almost
no new regulars to this group since July 1999.

>     For years, I have worked behind the scenes, in email, to prove otherwise. Almost
> universally, the people I have encouraged agree about one thing: The Faqs Were Of
> No Help. The ultimate litmus test of that, is clear... People I have encouraged
> come back, or they go on to make text art on their web pages, in their email, or
> even on IRC. People you give your "Sets of Rules" and advice to, LEAVE....

This is quite amazing. My experience is almost the opposite.

>      Which has always made me wonder...Microsoft declared "The Death Of Ascii", and
> "An End To Ascii Art Signatures", a couple of years ago, followed by the release of
> OutlookExpress 5. Possibly, somebody with a little standing at that software giant
> posted a request to this newsgroup. And YOU answered.

???

More likely, it works everywhere, so it doesn't serve their purpose
(taking over the world...) and so it must be killed. If you repeat
something often enough it might actually come true... So far I see no
sign of ascii art dying.

>     You see, you've never considered the one thing that IS important, on this silly
> little newsgroup - the reason people make or like ascii art. It's really very simple.
> It's just for fun. Yeah, that's right - FUN... "A pleasant or enjoyable diversion."
> When I give someone starter advice for ascii art, my advice is to the point,
> demonstrative, readable, and never condescending. And it does one other thing - it
> works.

You really do have a hard time coping with the fact that people like
your ascii art better than your pen-and-paper art (i.e. your "real"
art), right? You always talk about ascii art as something that is bad,
something that is so simple, even ridiculous, it's "beneath you". If I
was a newbie I would probably find that attitude more offensive than the
"dullness" of the FAQ. If it's so bad, why do you still do it? If it's
so bad, why do you go to the trouble of getting a Deja account to work
around the limitations of your ISP's news server? (It's very nice that
you do. People here, including me, like your stuff, and like to see it
without "file://" garbage in it.) I just don't see why you're so
negative about it. My mother is the same way, "ascii art sucks!", "it's
not REAL", and yet her emails to me are filled with ascii doodles...

>     Don't believe me? Ask around.

???


-- 
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