szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) (12/27/90)
In article <9785@as0c.sei.cmu.edu> smp@sei.cmu.edu (Stan Przybylinski) writes: >One of my colleagues at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Dr. >Jane Siegel, did her PhD dissertation on the topic of electronic >communication, working with Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, who have made >a name for themselves in this area. Their work includes empirical >evidence that people are much more forthright electronically than they >ever would be face-to-face. One paper on this work is included in the >book "Computer Supported Cooperative Work", edited by Irene Grief. It took a PhD dissertation to figure this out? Anybody who has read Marx, Dickens, Twain, Erasmus, Wolfe, or any of thousands of other good authors knows that people can be far more forthright with the written word from a distance than the spoken word face-to-face, and that this "flaming" is often more truthful and effective than face-to-face encounters. I can get more good information from the net or a library in a day than from TV, radio, or face-to-face encounters in a year. When writing from a distance, people can speak their minds. Their thoughts, though not acceptable in face-to-face conversation, or communicable as sound or image, just might be the truth. >I know from personal experience that I have been abused on bboards, >threatened with physical harm by people who had no business doing so, >given our differences in physical stature (according to people who know >both parties). Have you gone into hiding, like Rushdie? Perhaps your flames weren't hot enough... :-) Anger over the written word is often an emotional problem of the reader, not the writer. A good dose of Mark Twain's letters should cure the problem. :-) >.... >It also doesn't help on the net that most of the people drawn to >computer work are there because they lack social skills to begin with. >;-) And most of the e-mail & bboard phobics lack in literacy skills. ;-) BTW, if "netiquette" is not a social skill, I don't know what is. Those who have never tried electronic communication may not be aware of what a "social skill" really is. One social skill that must be learned, is that other people have points of view that are not only different, but *threatening*, to your own. In turn, your opinions may be threatening to others. There is nothing wrong with this. Your beliefs need not be hidden behind a facade, as happens with face-to-face conversation. Not everybody in the world is a bosom buddy, but you can still have a meaningful conversation with them. The person who cannot do this lacks in social skills. -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com Embrace Change... Keep the Values... Hold Dear the Laughter...
bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) (12/28/90)
As someone who has used "the nets" for over a decade I agree that
there's something seriously amiss in these analyses. Nick Szabo's
points about the power of the written word and the apparent longing
for non-threatening interaction (even where that interaction becomes
less valuable) are well taken.
People see this behavior, tack the word "rude" on it, remember that
"rude" is a no-no, and proceed to propose cures...whoa! Let's step
back to definitions and descriptions.
A lot of what people label "rude" is in the eye of the beholder.
I remember once one of my employees received a complaint about some
software he had installed, from another system admin (not my employee,
but not exactly a "civilian" either.) The complaint was rather
accusatory in tone, I guess some change in the mail system had caused
problems on his system. I knew my employee and predictably he
apologized and said he'd back out those changes (which, in fact, were
quite important to a lot of users.)
I pointed out, rather careful to be courteous, that this other guy's
mailer problems were due to long-standing problems with the system he
managed, which we had pointed out before. And which we even had
offered to help him fix. But that this had become a real problem, as
either way some large group of people were going to suffer. Could the
fixes to his system possibly be moved up in priority, a lot?
I had posted that reply in the evening. I came in the next day and his
boss's boss's boss, who was my boss, asked me to stop by his office.
What unraveled was a morning apparently a morning filled with angry
tears from this guy about how I had abused him with this e-mail. I was
wrong, that was that, and I had better figure out a way to smooth
things out.
What?
I had the message (I quickly found out none of these management
geniuses had asked to see the message in question.) We pulled it up on
the screen.
"Hmm, I guess you're about to tell me that he had no reason to react
like that to this message, right?"
"Right, it looks fairly innocuous to me, there it is, you read it,
what do you think? I haven't lost my mind have I?"
"I agree, it looks pretty tame, but he...there must be some reason,
some context we don't have here?"
"Here were the other messages..."
"Uh, hmmm, looks like pretty typical crap, what sparked this...?"
"I dunno, I'll speak to him, but gee..."
So I spoke to him, he was *really* shaken. I bet to this day he talks
about this horrible experience. It was wierd.
I've seen this kind of thing elsewhere, not usually that dramatic, but
someone seeing something, some emotional intensity, some accusation or
threat, in a fairly innocuous e-mail message, that just wasn't there.
That, to me, is far more interesting. And might well be the problem.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLDkenn@intrbas.uucp (Kenneth G. Goutal) (01/03/91)
In article <BZS.90Dec28005909@world.std.com> bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes: > >People see this behavior, tack the word "rude" on it, remember that >"rude" is a no-no, and proceed to propose cures...whoa! Let's step >back to definitions and descriptions. > >A lot of what people label "rude" is in the eye of the beholder. Yah. I'm certainly a lot more easily offended than a lot of people. The fact that *anybody* is more easily offended than anyone else implies that at least part of the phenomenon is on the part of the offendee. Not all of it, however. While I'm quick to jump to the defense of what I see as normal behaviour on the net, that's not to excuse truly rude behaviour, on the net or off. Just because someone is more easily offended than the offender, or anyone else, does not automatically mean that it's all their own fault for being offended. Your tale of the innocuous message being blown out of proportion is common enough. Actually, I'm surprised that it's not *more* common. >I've seen this kind of thing elsewhere, not usually that dramatic, but >someone seeing something, some emotional intensity, some accusation or >threat, in a fairly innocuous e-mail message, that just wasn't there. My experience exactly. >That, to me, is far more interesting. To me as well. >And might well be the problem. I wonder if what happens is that the reader, lacking clues to emotional content, infers hostility just from the lack of explicit warmth. This could be similar to how a radical right-winger sees a moderate as a flaming liberal, or how a radical left-winger sees a moderate as a fascist. Or again, how to a western ear, a 'typical' (stereotypical?) Japanese pronunciation of the letters 'l' and 'r' always sound backwards, when in fact they are being pronounced the same -- the neutral sound comes across to the hearer as wrong either way. Perhaps there are people who confuse the fact of someone being live and in person with that someone being friendly. Perhaps some people are projecting their own (unconcious) hostilities onto the otherwise neutral and innocent lines of incoming text. When you read news or mail messages from someone you've never met, whose voice do you hear? Your own? Whose emotions do you hear? BTW, I for one think that this is an appropriate discussion for this newsgroup because the issue of how people interact differently via computer vs how they interact face-to-face (or voice-to-voice, or ...) must be addressed in the design of software, or at least accounted for in any attempt to use software as part of group efforts. -- Kenn Goutal ...!linus!intrbas!kenn ...!uunet!intrbas!kenn
selmer@hpcuhc.cup.hp.com (Steve Elmer) (01/11/91)
Another possible interpretation of the "innocuous" e-mail seems more probable to me. The "victim" of the "abuse" reacted as he would to the spoken word - i.e. he ran to his superior with accusations against "the other guy" to hide his own inadequacy at doing his job. If the communication had been verbal, the ploy would have been credible since there would not be any PROOF available as to who said what. After all, it (almost?) worked even with the proof. Some people are too shrewd for your own good... Steve Elmer - looking for wheels within wheels