pne
Member
Title says it all, really:
What's a "Crayonista", and why are they called that?
What's a "Crayonista", and why are they called that?
Crayonista, n. One who performs strategic transport planning with a box of coloured crayons, using them to draw lines on a map, without thinking through the implications.
Isn't that a description of London Overground planners? Albeit a box of crayons were all but the orange one are lost?
Sooner or later LO is going to need some easier way to differentiate individual routes. I mean, it does work now, but you could probably say that about a lot of the tube network too!
I believe the term 'crayonista' was started off by people commenting in the London Reconnections blog, to mean someone who thinks drawing a coloured line on a map is all it takes to build a new line, be it tube, LO or NR, or changing the colour of a line, implying it will instantly solve all possible problems.
The general problem I get is that far too much gets thrown in as "crayoning". It's, as you put it, a blog - and the comment section, at that. That's not a government whitepaper, not a quango report, not a private costed business case, it's a blog. Unless you're the sort of person who responds to your partner's suggestion one morning that you should go down to into town and do some shopping by expecting a fully-costed business case with a thorough feasibility study costing each transport mode (including the all-important do-nothing case!), then to expect so on here for every idea is just as unrealistic and silly. We are all people having a discussion about a shared interest, as if sitting down the pub. As part of that you might make a casual suggestion as a point of interest just to hear what other people think of it (i.e. the throw-away musings I mentioned previous), even if just to see it immediately shot down. That is very, very different to immediately jumping to providing diagrams, service patterns, etc for whatever random idea pops into your head down to street level. It's fine to go into depth if requested, but it should be as the discussion flows. I also do a lot of research to make sure what I suggest is not obviously silly. We can't all have access to exhaustive statistics and documentation, that's part of the joy of having these discussions as you can become more informed. Being told to shut up and sit in the corner quietly because the grown ups are talking is not constructive to education, and that to me is the danger of over-zealous moderation. You learn by asking questions. That is the general policy I adopt when discussing things.
They get some knowledgeable commenters, certainly, but I get the impression that one or two miserable old goats complained enough about people discussing things they weren't interested in that they instituted the current moderation policy. :/
How long has the suffix "-ista" been applied in common usage in English and which was the first English word to carry this particular suffix?
You don't have to be an 'old goat' to be frustrated by the same people forever going on flights of fancy that clearly don't make any practical or financial sense, the moderation on LR is a breath of fresh air IMO.
I assume it started with the Sandinistas, so when was that? 1980s?
According to Wikipedia, Barista came from the Italian word for bartender. I thought Fashionista came before that.It's a common ending in Spanish, pretty much equivelent to "-ist" in English. But I guess it found its way into common English usage by way of "barista" which is close enough to "barrister" for some to find it vaguely amusing.
How long has the suffix "-ista" been applied in common usage in English and which was the first English word to carry this particular suffix?
Barista, the means by which cafés try to suggest that making a cup of coffee requires the level of skill and training usually only required by brain surgeons or fighter pilots, and hence used to justify charging extortionate prices for a cappuccino...
You don't have to be an 'old goat' to be frustrated by the same people forever going on flights of fancy that clearly don't make any practical or financial sense, the moderation on LR is a breath of fresh air IMO.
Barista, the means by which cafés try to suggest that making a cup of coffee requires the level of skill and training usually only required by brain surgeons or fighter pilots, and hence used to justify charging extortionate prices for a cappuccino...
DarloRich:2078404 said:You don't have to be an 'old goat' to be frustrated by the same people forever going on flights of fancy that clearly don't make any practical or financial sense, the moderation on LR is a breath of fresh air IMO.
agreed - in reference to the post at #10 by Mr JRT - there are many on this site who could do with such a dose of harsh honesty.
The irony...
agreed - in reference to the post at #10 by Mr JRT - there are many on this site who could do with such a dose of harsh honesty.
There seem to be plenty of people on this forum willing to parrot the status quo on this forum when it comes to the costs of projects etc. Lets not forget that our wholly inadequate means of assessing such schemes has seen two in situ railway lines paved over into busways, so I don't think the transport planners have any business being condescending with the public.
In what way are the means of assessment inadequate, and what evidence do you have that busways weren't the right decision? (I'm not defending the decision, just pointing out that a process isn't wrong just because it gives an answer you don't like).
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The busways were chosen for one reason and one reason only. They were thought to be cheap.
I've never yet heard of a campaign or movement (outside of the imagination of Transport Watch) backed by local people and businesses to have a busway put in instead of a rail link.
Scotland shows that in parts of the country that have democratic accountability, towns choose a railway connection.
If this was londonreconnections, the above comment would have been struck out as off-topic and/or crayonista*. You can make your own minds up about whether that would be a good thing.
*unless perhaps crayonista comments are always on-topic in a topic about crayonistas?