Time for me to say a fair word despite all those mean stuffs I've said to him all the time.
First of all I think we must all say no matter how we see him, we should still recognize his talents. He's actually rather smart and knowledgeable, because there's no way he could've survived exchanges and debates between Engineer like this or anyone else for the matter, in a sustained manner, aside from ridiculous persistence and tremendous amount of knowledge. We all know he goes off-topics a lot, but honestly, I think this is a symptom that many people who are very knowledgeable in one field tend to share:
- In real life I do that a lot as well(you guys probably recognize my bad habit too in this forum already with my long-winded responses often), and I considered myself as the type with a lot of ideas. I often pull up psychological theories and international studies concepts to power my ideas
- My professor (Ralph Mistleberger if you ever are into learning more about sleeping circadian rhythms or you have sleeping problems) is also a very knowledgeable, respectable man, and he's conducted years of researches in his devoted topic. Very nice and makes very humorous jokes and comments when he talked about random experiences and stuffs, but when it comes to explaining something simple in his field of expertise, he goes off-topic by talking about massive amounts of research results from the many studies he's done before. He then shows you graphs that you'd think is a really screwed-up barcode, speak in jargons (free-running, innate, oscillinator..) If you didn't have coffee, enough sleep, or aren't particularly trying to focus, you'd end up wandering off into your own fantasy and sleep, which happens always. Why I say that is because once he gives us his lecture notes, his notes are so easy to understand, it deciphered everything he's saying like subtitles to all the stuffs he's said. Once you understand or have a background to what he's talking about, everything makes sense. So why did he do it? I'd think it's because he's got too much knowledge in that area, and often as they see everything intertwined, they can't get to the point without bringing something up first.
It's highly possible he could've had some valid arguments and ideas, but when you shrouded your idea in your own information without making clear of what you're trying to say, no one would understand, so it's pointless.
Etiquette-wise, he's able to maintain proper behaviors without resorting to ad hominem that we are often guilty of. That's something he does deserve some credit for. Furthermore, I must admit, I'd learned a great amount just simply watching their heated exchanges. I can't always tell who's right immediately, but I definitely say I'd learned a lot.
Finally however, one thing that is not excusable would be that he shot himself in the foot by posting it in here. We ALL WANT this thread to be pretty much a J20NN (J-20 News Network), with all the latest relevant updates and news to the J-20 and its development. Lite discussions are welcomed. However sadly he never grasped his understanding that because this thread is, and hence the audience, therefore we don't want no discovery premiere on aerodynamics that goes on forever. If he had started off in that other thread, I'm sure those of us who are bored and are interested in learning and debating would go into that thread and follow on the discussions.
Overall he's a brilliant guy, but just doesn't know how to "socialize" in a more relaxed manner and lacking understanding and skills of the "social environment" he's in. Despite everything, I'd say he did provide to this forum with a massive amount of knowledge of alternative viewpoints. He deserves to be credited for his contributions, despite how we may disagree or misunderstand, or simply not understand him. I'd say his alternative viewpoints are very valuable, and actually balances this forum otherwise.
I can say that overall this forum is very well-maintained in terms with the massive amounts of discussions that go through. We haven't really suffer from any serious bloodbaths because the rule of law is really well-maintained (consider mp.net and such where it's anarchy), but we tend to have a significant pro-China bias. Despite the bias, when it comes to Chinese military hardware, we fare pretty good already, and I won't feel we are too bias when discussing equipment(politic-wise it's another story). Even then, we should try and accept people who see things differently, and I'd say Mig is one of the few who's a moderate already otherwise, so learning from someone who can be seen as critical toward J-20 at times, actually exercises our brain, and is actually healthy for the forum. (consider groupthink as a serious phenomenon in most other forums.)
