the steampunk populace

[Dr cornelius quack]

typical steampunk... where do the go when theyre online....

They say there are no stupid questions, but...

(Ya know, between the endless college student surveys, Something Awful incursions, periodic ridicule in lame-ass web comics, hot topic nubes, and general curious tourists, one wonders how long the community as a whole is going to remain as open and question-friendly as it has been.  This decline may in fact already be underway.   How, where'd that "elitism" thread go?)

I intend to be open and question friendly in perpetuity, so long as the questions stem from genuine interest or come from someone who is making an effort.

In this case, the persons first post jumps straight in with a market survey, there haven't been any other posts elsewhere and the poster does not appear to have been back to check on any answers.

If I'm doing them a disservice then I will modify my response.

Till then.......

[Rockula]

OK, I've long suspected that about half of the perceived predilection of some goth folks to tell non-goth folks about how they are a Vampire from the 14th century in charge of this and that coven or whatever was a self-amusing way of giving the questioning tourist more to chew on than they wanted to bite off, until they just go away.

I wonder what our equivalent would be?

I suppose it would need to be lengthy and complicated description of some new, shiny thing that is being concocted in your workshop. Perhaps diagrams (circuit and otherwise) would be in order. Nothing like a complicated technical answer to weed out the casual observer.

But surely 'weeding out the casual observer' is elitist in the extreme? Should we not be trying to engage these people and showing them the way?
 Weeding out the obnoxious, only here to upset the applecart, deride and ridicule us type folk...now that's something I could go with.

[Aviatrix Abernathy]

OK, I've long suspected that about half of the perceived predilection of some goth folks to tell non-goth folks about how they are a Vampire from the 14th century in charge of this and that coven or whatever was a self-amusing way of giving the questioning tourist more to chew on than they wanted to bite off, until they just go away.

I wonder what our equivalent would be?

I suppose it would need to be lengthy and complicated description of some new, shiny thing that is being concocted in your workshop. Perhaps diagrams (circuit and otherwise) would be in order. Nothing like a complicated technical answer to weed out the casual observer.

But surely 'weeding out the casual observer' is elitist in the extreme? Should we not be trying to engage these people and showing them the way?
 Weeding out the obnoxious, only here to upset the applecart, deride and ridicule us type folk...now that's something I could go with.

My appologies if it came off that way. I was meaning more in the direction of the same vein as the telling someone you are a 14th century vampire. Perhaps "casual observer" is a poor phrase choice. I am speaking more of the obnoxious type that you mentioned.

[OldProfessorBear]

Ah, yer all wrong.

The correct answer is:

n, for all possible values of n

[Dr cornelius quack]

Ah, yer all wrong.

The correct answer is:

n, for all possible values of n

Since when did we limit ourselves to the possible?

[OldProfessorBear]

Seriously, though, despite a fascination with the retro as far back as I can recall (well over 50 years), and despite my love for what I now know to be Steampunk fiction since long before anyone had tried to name it, once I discovered this place for the second time -- the first was but a passing glance after seeing various Steampunk works on Makezine, etc. -- and being unable to stay away, I spent a long time studying what was going on here before I even asked my first questions. And then I spent a long time trying to make sense of the answers.

The totality of it is such that it is not amenable to simple analysis of any kind.

[OldProfessorBear]

Ah, yer all wrong.

The correct answer is:

n, for all possible values of n

Since when did we limit ourselves to the possible?

Excellent point!

I sit corrected!

[Utini420]

OK, I've long suspected that about half of the perceived predilection of some goth folks to tell non-goth folks about how they are a Vampire from the 14th century in charge of this and that coven or whatever was a self-amusing way of giving the questioning tourist more to chew on than they wanted to bite off, until they just go away.

I wonder what our equivalent would be?

I suppose it would need to be lengthy and complicated description of some new, shiny thing that is being concocted in your workshop. Perhaps diagrams (circuit and otherwise) would be in order. Nothing like a complicated technical answer to weed out the casual observer.

But surely 'weeding out the casual observer' is elitist in the extreme?

Abernathy, doing that wouldn't be an act...

Rockula, I appreciate the point you are making and realize that this shows some of my own biases, but yes it is elitist and no that's not a bad thing.  I've little to no use for tourists in my life, and far too little time to squander it giving another vanilla an explanation that will only be greeted with the quizzical, "Why would you do that?" look; or, even worse, the uber-lame, "You must have a lot of free time!" 

I DO NOT mean that we should push away people who are interested in participating.  It is the folks who want to use us as a source of their own amusement who can take a hike.