Exit, pursued by Redditors

I find it interesting that many students are aghast when I tell them that whilst I don’t do Facebook, I DO spend some time on Reddit.

Usually, it’s the more sensible ones who register the most shock.  It’s not the horror of having someone as old as their dad (increasingly I seem to be older, actually), trying to be ‘down with the kids’ – they seem more worried that I’m entering the big cat enclosure in the zoo wearing one of those outfits that seem to be made entirely of slices of bacon …

Nevertheless, there do appear to be a few ‘subs’ – I think that’s the word, he says, tongue-firmly-in-cheek, that are more civilised than others.

Except …

It probably goes without saying that I’ve been known to visit the Shakespeare Sub.  It’s not busy.  Nor is it especially controversial.  BUT it is prey to people posting for homework help – despite not one but two notices asking users not to, if they are not regular contributors.  Here are my nominations for the worst offenders:

GOLD – the ones who get snotty when you suggest they do their own HW, and refer them to the notices

SILVER – those who blatantly admit to just wanting HW help, often not even posting please (or thank you if someone chips in)

BRONZE – students who try to disguise the fact that it’s HW.  “Hey guys.  Can you settle an argument I was having down the pub?”  Admittedly, you get 5.4 for attempting some guile.

Either way.  If it was a HW help sub, it would say so.  Some users think that if we help you with your HW you will develop a love of Shakespeare and his works.  I have two words for that approach.  The second is ‘shit’.  If you want to bring along ideas of your own to discuss, you might get somewhere, otherwise, my response is always going to be the same 16 lines of iambic pentameter …

Nice try, originator of this thread!

Were’t thou a tragic hero, as of old,

Whose fine nobility was clouded o’er

By fatal flaw – seemingly trivial –

And yet the cause of thy deadly downfall,

A guess I’d make thy flaw was indolence.

Or like the bold Hotspur from days of yore,

Mayhap thou bit’st thy thumb each time thou read’st

Not once, but twice that thou should not enquire

Here if, were truth be told, thou has’t no taste

For our Bard’s words, and simply, subtly, seeks

The smoothest path to glory yet unearned.

Why think’st thou that the rules do not apply

To one of such nobility as thee?

Zounds! Take thy petition some other board,

Where thou may find more gullible accord.

[Exit, pursued by Redditors]