Actually I appear to be more then I am since I never close my browser I believe.

to be on more too

This is ridiculous...Draugnar is just rambling on at this point....as Jamiet said, he's not even a Developer, so he can't lambast the system in the way that he does.

@Meepmeep, as a software engineer for 20 years, and a manager of software engineers responsible for reviewing resumes and interviewing Developers, I can say with about 95% certainty that Draug is a developer. The reason? No one who pretends to be a developer would EVER use VB as a way to convince people that can code ... (vb slam ;-). Only people who have had actually had to use it would ever consider mentioning it.

As far as contributing to the site ... I've never done so either, I've programmed for a living for the last 20 years, when I'm not working, I want to play games and piss people off, I don't want to program. I very much appreciate those who do contribute to the site with their development skills, bit I don't think algorithms are what they need so your offer to help with that is a little uninformed. Write me some psuedocode for a sorting algorithm without looking it up and is be willing to bet you'd come up with selection or bubble. Those are logically sound sorting algorithms, but a real SE would know they are inefficient (O(N^2)) and would have to look up, then implement quicksort (O(NlnN)).

And besides, this site is written in php, and everyone knows php is for fun and C++ is for money (php slam ;-)

Full disclosure: I've done projects in both VB and php, but neither of them are on my resume. (cv for you Europeans)

I wonder about the ratio of developers to normal people who enjoy Diplomacy. I'm one of the former as well, and I've noticed quite a few others on here (plus naturally, those who claim to be DEV and who will write the algorithm in the pseudocodes).

So is it something about being a developer that gives one a penchant for Diplomacy, or the other way around?

I'm curious about the different personalities of people who play as well, which will be the focus of Zultar and I's upcoming "study".

Are you guys going to use something like the Meyers-Briggs personality types or something else.

I think it just makes you ever so slightly more likely to find a hidden jewel of the internet like this one.

@jmo - I fear you may have revealed too much about 'The Study'.
will it have a clandestine codename that begins with the word 'operation......'

I'm just watching a film 'Missing in Action', can't work out if the Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean guy chopped Chuck Norris willy/balls off when he had him hanging by a rope, will we ever know the truth?

@jmo ... You're a.hell of a mod, I've never said otherwise ... But your grammar ... ?

Pet peave: when people think that the rule for "I" vs "me" is whether another person is involved.

I's is not even a word! The rule is take the other person out of the sentence, construct it with you being the only person, then add the other person back in.

will be the focus of Zultar and I's upcoming "study".

Should be

will be the focus of Zultar's and my upcoming "study".

Your welcome. ;-)

"Clearly your parents failed to raise you up properly."

Your parents failed to teach you any good insults, sheesh.

If he replies it is proof positive I'm not muted. :-)

"your welcome"

...

@ghug ... Nice! Well deserved in a grammar critique, but I blame my phone for your vs you're. Not the same as the me vs I thing. Still +1 for keeping me honest.

Well, if you're going to excuse yourself for that one, I've gotta ask about the misspelling of "peeve" and the overuse of ellipses.

I's dot and tee's cross are the subject of a well known idiom.

Just saying that i's is a word.

You're welcome.

Over ... Use? Not me ...

Actually, I'm glad you pointed that out. It could be a tell in anon games. I'll try curb that ... Dammit!

And misspellings have always plagued me. I rarely even try anymore. My phone is a mixed blessing on that one, half the time its Autocorrecting with the right spelling, but the other half it's throwing the wrong word in ... That being said (drink), it doesn't invalidate my I vs me comment.

It is actually "i"s dotted and "t"s crossed. So no, I's is not a word and if it were, the way it was used before was incorreft becauwe posessive pronouns do not get apostrophes, only contractioms do. Its is posessive for instance while it's is a contraction for it is.

Draugnar - the "i" in my sentence does not refer to the pronoun 'I'. The dot on top of an 'i' is possessed by the 'i', grammatically speaking. So sentences such as 'The i's dot is missing' is perfectly correct. You may use quotation marks around letters like "i" and "t" if that's your style, But writing say 'The tee's cross is wobbly' is also correct.

http://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Idioms/D/dot_the_i_s_and_cross_the_t_s_281.htm

Just to ram home the point...

The Chicago Manual of Style, one of the more widely used style guides in the United States, says:

"Capital letters used as words, numerals used as nouns, and abbreviations usually form the plural by adding s. To aid comprehension, lowercase letters form the plural with an apostrophe and an s. So: Dikkens with two Ks, but mind your p's and q's. (And always CDs, unless you're talking about something the CD owns.)"

Which means I's is still not proper as it would be dot your Is (or dot your i's) not dot your I's. Epic. Fucking. Fail. (Epic because you tried to insist you were right and proved yourself wrong :-) )

Since this thread took a linguistic turn, could you state your positions on the usage of indefinite articles "a/an" in technical documentation? I think pieces like manuals should be as brief and clear and possible and indefinite articles prolong the sentences unneccessarily (especially when they lead the sentence) while not bringing any more clarity into them. So I try to omit these. My stance towards "the" is more ambivalent.

Lol Draugnar - Look at my sentences.

I's dot and tee's cross are the subject of a well known idiom.

and

The i's dot is missing.

In the first sentence the "i" is capitalised because it starts a sentence. I cant write, "Is dot and tee's cross are the subject of a well known idiom." because it becomes confusing to the reader. The only way of writing it clearly is the way I have written it. In the second sentence I have used a lowercase "i".

In grammar conveying meaning is everything.

Out of interest if you heard someone say "I's dot and tee's cross are the subject of a well known idiom." How would you write it down verbatim?

I can't believe we have people on this forum less popular than me, no wonder we don't have more players, webdip is going to the dogs !!

The reason webDip doesn't have more players is the mods do a good job of preventing user-multiplication. User accounts would procreate much more without them around.

Now, about those indefinite articles...

I disagree. Your own style guide says to use just the s when the letter I is upper case. So it should be Is dot and tees (which not being a letter should not be apostropheed anyhow) cross. tee is singular and tees is plural t is singular and t's is plural. See that difference?

This is fun!

@uly - Provide an example of what you mean? Or should Is say... Provide example of what you mean. Sounds like Charlie Chan or Peter Seller's as Sidney Wang, one of the detectives in Murder by Death (1976). It just doesn't flow without the "an" and it is only three more characters to type.