Makes my blood boil

Tromking

It's a bit of hobby horse of mine, but lost in this debate is the impact of public service pension reform to recruitment and retention. As well as keeping the public finances under control the Government has the responsibility to reward the right people to perform vital tasks the average privateer would balk at.
There is a balance to be struck with pension reform and from my viewpoint Gideon has 'ballsed it up' big time. Those advocating a scorched earth policy re. public service pensions don't know the half of it and probably will be the first to drip about our rubbish public services when it all goes pear-shaped.

saver861

Any ideas what the longest post is on these forums??

Just curious don't ya know ....

Andy_L

saver861 wrote: »

Any ideas what the longest post is on these forums??

Just curious don't ya know ....

Disappointingly you can't search by size :-(

bigadaj

Tromking wrote: »

It's a bit of hobby horse of mine, but lost in this debate is the impact of public service pension reform to recruitment and retention. As well as keeping the public finances under control the Government has the responsibility to reward the right people to perform vital tasks the average privateer would balk at.
There is a balance to be struck with pension reform and from my viewpoint Gideon has 'ballsed it up' big time. Those advocating a scorched earth policy re. public service pensions don't know the half of it and probably will be the first to drip about our rubbish public services when it all goes pear-shaped.

Take your point but it's truly shocking the ignorance of many public sector staff of the true value of the pensions they are accumulating, which makes you question they are retained. There's a cash flow advantage to teh government in offering pensions rather than salary but many staff would take the money now.

I attended an interview for a role recently, the pension benefits on a care scheme were worth around £16k per year but weren't even touched upon. I actually raised this having reviewed it before the meeting, and the management/HR woman at the interview didn't seem to be aware of this benefit and certainly had no idea of how much better that would be than virtually anything available in the private sector, well over double my last private sector job though the latter had a higher base salary.

Malthusian

saver861 wrote:

Any ideas what the longest post is on these forums??

Just curious don't ya know ....

Andy_L wrote:

Disappointingly you can't search by size :-(

Since you can't search by size, I had a go at finding the longest ever post on MSE by copying and pasting the list of the 100 most common English words into the search bar - on the basis that the more of them appear, the longer the post is likely to be. Obviously this got no hits, so I then searched fewer and fewer words until I got a hit.

This gave me nine posts, from which I think we have a clear winner with this essay on "Deindividuation" in 2011 at an astonishing 3,610 words.

Know too that chat rooms, comment threads and message boards are perfect breeding grounds for deindividuality. The more anonymity a user is allowed, the more powerful the effect of being protected by the group. The tone and tenor of the conversations therein and the meatspace ramications of their collective efforts will reflect the cues provided by the website.
Deindividuation pervades virtual worlds, and the results are mixed. Download “Second Life” and take a stroll. Sooner or later you’ll end up in a sex dungeon. Play any game on Xbox Live, and someone will eventually claim to have carnal knowledge of your mother. You can thank anonymity and deindividuation for both. The comments under a Youtube video may make you weep for the species, but just click over to the entry on the humanzee in Wikipedia for restoration. It is consistent with the world outside the machine. The same force which built and maintained concentration camps also pushed soldiers onto Omaha Beach.
If you want to promote deindividuation for a good cause either in the analog world or a digital one, help people in your group feel safe from judgment and provide prosocial cues. If instead you want to discourage deindividuation in yourself and others, you must eliminate anonymity and avoid dehumanizing labels. The more you feel personal accountability, the more restraint you will show.

[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]However, this is arguably cheating [FONT=&quot]as th[/FONT][/FONT]e essay has been copied and pasted from another site.

[FONT=&quot]Therefore [FONT=&quot]my best guess f[/FONT]or [FONT=&quot]the longest post on MSE [FONT=&quot]which was actually written by a member[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=&quot]is [FONT=&quot]post [FONT=&quot]number 13,587 [/FONT][/FONT]in "5 [FONT=&quot]OS [FONT=&quot]([/FONT]Old-Style [FONT=&quot]Moneysaving[FONT=&quot])[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] Pleasures in your Day Today part 2", at an impressive[FONT=&quot] 2,377 words.

[FONT="][FONT="]
[/FONT][/FONT]My grandfather’s clock was too large for the shelf,
So it stood ninety years on the floor’,
– since 1750 actually, if family legend is to be believed, so make that, ‘….stood 261 years on the floor’. Passed down through generations it has ticked and tocked through Napoleonic wars, world wars and the sinking of the Titanic. She has tolled the hours, years, decades and centuries, solid and dependable.
It was said that great grandfather kept his muzzle-loading gun inside it. It has no brass face, no rising suns and moons or clockwork ships tossed on mechanical seas as in grander examples, just flowers and a gaudy bird, species indeterminate, flirting its enamel tail; its case is honest English oak. It used to record the date but that piece of the mechanism died a century ago so now it just tells roughly the time. Many a houseguest has reported through gritted teeth how its merry chime drew to his attention the passing hours. It loses a minute each day and has other idiosyncrasies. The hands do not care to be moved backwards past the hour, the catch that secures its oaken door has a knack. Only the master of the house is allowed to wind it up and there is a special way of keeping the number of chimes aligned to the hour indicated by the hands. When ‘himself’ is away the pendulum is left in repose. She is a beloved but eccentric member of the family, round her head a crown of old holly, saved from previous Christmases when the house was full of people, laughter and love. It is a symbiotic arrangement; we look after her and she tells us the approximate time and bestows companionship. She is the heartbeat of the house so that when she stops we know it.
Thus it was one morning when coming downstairs I knew something was amiss. The
old girl had fallen silent. Cue the old clock mender, for rarely do you encounter a young one. I have known three in my time, two of them ‘gone from us’ but the current incumbent very much extant.

[/FONT][/FONT]

(I am not making fun of the poster, it is really quite good in a melancholy sort of way.)

[FONT=&quot]For reference, Bowlhead and [FONT=&quot]Agarnett's last posts were [FONT=&quot]a mere ~[/FONT]1,000 words each (not counting [FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]quot[FONT=&quot]es).

[FONT=&quot]Now, obviously this isn't a [FONT=&quot]very rigorous methodology [FONT=&quot]as [FONT=&quot]there could well be a 4,000 word post somewhere on MSE [FONT=&quot]which managed not to use the [/FONT]word "hand", [FONT=&quot]which my search would have missed. So [FONT=&quot]can anyone do better than [/FONT][FONT=&quot]2,377 words?[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

[Deleted User]

Andy_L wrote: »

Disappointingly you can't search by size :-(

There HAS TO BE a joke in there somewhere :rotfl: .

WR

[Deleted User]

Malthusian wrote: »

Since you can't search by size, I had a go at finding the longest ever post on MSE by copying and pasting the list of the 100 most common English words into the search bar - on the basis that the more of them appear, the longer the post is likely to be. Obviously this got no hits, so I then searched fewer and fewer words until I got a hit.

This gave me nine posts, from which I think we have a clear winner with this essay on "Deindividuation" in 2011 at an astonishing 3,610 words.
[FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]However, this is arguably cheating [FONT=&quot]as th[/FONT][/FONT]e essay has been copied and pasted from another site.

[FONT=&quot]Therefore [FONT=&quot]my best guess f[/FONT]or [FONT=&quot]the longest post on MSE [FONT=&quot]which was actually written by a member[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] [FONT=&quot]is [FONT=&quot]post [FONT=&quot]number 13,587 [/FONT][/FONT]in "5 [FONT=&quot]OS [FONT=&quot]([/FONT]Old-Style [FONT=&quot]Moneysaving[FONT=&quot])[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT] Pleasures in your Day Today part 2", at an impressive[FONT=&quot] 2,377 words.
[/FONT][/FONT]

(I am not making fun of the poster, it is really quite good in a melancholy sort of way.)

[FONT=&quot]For reference, Bowlhead and [FONT=&quot]Agarnett's last posts were [FONT=&quot]a mere ~[/FONT]1,000 words each (not counting [FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]quot[FONT=&quot]es).

[FONT=&quot]Now, obviously this isn't a [FONT=&quot]very rigorous methodology [FONT=&quot]as [FONT=&quot]there could well be a 4,000 word post somewhere on MSE [FONT=&quot]which managed not to use the [/FONT]word "hand", [FONT=&quot]which my search would have missed. So [FONT=&quot]can anyone do better than [/FONT][FONT=&quot]2,377 words?[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]

A 1000 word post is no indication of quality. Someone could do a 5000 word post about the elves living in a diamond-filled cavern under their garden shed.

WR

Malthusian

I didn't say it was, someone asked what the longest post on MSE was and I had a go at answering the question. By "do better than" I meant "can anyone do better at finding a very long post".

[Deleted User]

Malthusian wrote: »

I didn't say it was, someone asked what the longest post on MSE was and I had a go at answering the question. By "do better than" I meant "can anyone do better at finding a very long post".

Ahhhh, sorry! I thought there was a suggestion that the length of a certain poster's contributions in some way suggested that they had merit.

WR

Tromking

bigadaj wrote: »

Take your point but it's truly shocking the ignorance of many public sector staff of the true value of the pensions they are accumulating, which makes you question they are retained. There's a cash flow advantage to teh government in offering pensions rather than salary but many staff would take the money now.

An ignorance perhaps only matched by private sector employees who coming close to their own retirement have realised that others may have made better choices re. theirs. Faux concern about the affordability of public service pensions only serve to mask their poor life choices.