Subject:
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Re: Constructive criticism vs. sugar coating
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 18 Apr 2003 15:59:17 GMT
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(Speaking of sugar coating... After reading through this post again I can
see that there's bits in here to offend probably every single person who
reads it. What can I say? I can only advise the casual reader that if you
find yourself strongly offended then you're taking me a lot more seriously
than I deserve.)
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In lugnet.general, Tim Courtney writes:
> People communicated emotions just fine, and still do, without the need for
> emoticons. It's a good thing LUGNET provides an outlet to those who want
> communication where words speak for themselves, and there's no frills on the
> side.
Well like I said, I'm not real fond of emoticons either, I'm just saying
there are certain things you can communicate with ascii text and certain
things you can't. At the risk of being completely tactless, I've noticed
that a certain minority of the Lugnetters I've met are only able to
communicate on an ascii level, even in person. I can remember a number of
conversations that would have been greatly facilitated if I'd just thought
to bring a couple of signboards with basic emoticons on them, so that I'd
have something to hold up when even the most blatant nonverbal cues were
just not being received.
I'm getting off-subject, but I think that Lugnet by nature tends to attract
people a little further towards the autistic end of the spectrum than your
average population sample, because you have to be into both Lego and the
internet to end up here; it's a combination of two powerful nerd influences.
One of the hallmarks of the functional autistic is that they have a very
difficult time imagining any form of communication other than explicit
words. As such, it may be that Lugnet's text-only format is ideally suited
to the mentality of the stereotypical AFOL.
I hope nobody's offended by me saying that we're all a bunch of nerds in
here, but I'm assuming that everybody already knows. Doesn't matter how
cool you are on the outside world, once you're in this community you're a
nerd and there's no getting around it.
> That said, I'm not totally understanding your last sentence. I feel strongly
> that having text only as a medium promotes intelligent conversation.
Well if your definition of 'intelligent conversation' is 'rational
discussion,' then sure. I was going to concede that text-only messages tend
to be more intelligent than the stuff you see on the emoticon boards, but I
get piles and piles of e-mails from addresses ending in "@aol.com" that
prove that people can be twits in any medium.
In a more esoteric sense, rational discussion engages such a small portion
of the brain that I hesitate to hold it as an ideal of 'intelligent
conversation.' Just taking hold of someone's hand introduces levels of
depth and nuance to a conversation that text can't touch. And there are
plenty of conversations where a good solid kiss or a good solid haymaker are
infinitely more intelligent conversational options than even the most
brilliant verbiage. Taking that long drawn-out ordeal with Matt Moulton as
an example, that conversation would have gotten a hell of a lot more
intelligent a hell of a lot faster if one or two of us had had responses
other than text at our displosal.
Emoticons when well-used can reintroduce the emotional content of a
conversation that in person you'd normally pick up from facial expressions
or body language. They give people the option of making themselves more
'present' in a conversation without having to make themselves the subject of
the conversation. I don't see how that aspect of communication is
inherently less intelligent than the more cerebral world of text.
Again, don't get the wrong idea, I really do loathe emoticons and, by
admittedly unfair association, the people who use them. I'm just not going
to claim that that makes me smarter than them.
> We've seen a couple negative incidents in the past couple weeks, too. There
> was the point where Tom Stangl very bluntly chastised Nick Crocco for
> complaining that no one cared about his creations (due to a lack of
> response).
>
> In the first incident, individuals were upset at Tom for his harshness,
> while they didn't totally accept Nick's apparently whiny attitude. Nick
> admitted fault, Tom persisted with his claim.
That was actually the incident that threw me into enough of a spin to post
to this discussion. Basically, I totally agreed with Tom's position, though
actually saying so would have been as politically incorrect and ill-advised
as Tom's post was in the first place. And from offline conversations I know
that more than a couple of people had exactly the same reaction to Nick's
post that Tom and I did, and about the same reaction to his
morally-high-handed 'admission of fault' as well. Tom's posts were
definitely very much appreciated even while we all agreed that they were
horribly inappropriate nad no sane person would have thought it was a good
idea to post them.
Now I don't have anything against Nick personally, he seems like a perfectly
nice guy with a perfectly nice site. It didn't seem like there was anything
in that conversation even worth worrying about, just two guys each taking a
string of events a little more personally than they should have, the kind of
thing that works itself out after both of the involved parties have had a
chance to blow off some steam. The only point at which it became a strongly
negative experience for me, believe it or not, was when you "hear hear"ed
Nick's "your comment isn't appreciated by anyone," changing it from simple
bickering between two guys to suddenly being a community endorsement of the
censorship of negative opinions. (That was just gut-reaction though, I'm a
little sensitive about people claiming moral superiority to tell other
people their opinions aren't valid, and so I originally saw the exchange in
only those terms.)
> Neither of these incidents were really positive things, but both were
> arguably growing pains in the community. Not saying they shouldn't have
> happened - cause in a community you get the good and the bad, the positive
> and the negative.
And this is really the crux of my argument, that negative experiences aren't
some kind of unfortunate and unavoidable side effect of growth, but in fact
are a crucial catalyst for growth to occur. Without internal conflicts and
external threats a community is robbed of opportunities to find its sense of
'self;' stresses are necessary for a community to measure itself against so
it can mature and define its qualities and values. Same as for individual
people.
> He is known for writing blunt posts which several have been offended
> by.
Which happen to be exactly the kind of posts I like best. People are too
easily offended around here.
> The chastisement I have participated in [4] and have witnessed was for the
> betterment of the whole of the community.
In my opinion, the betterment of the whole of the community would be better
served by chastizing the whiners than by chastizing the people who tell the
whiners that they're whiners. Obviously that's not the prevailing opinion
on LUGNET, and probably if confronted I'd have to admit (eventually) that
it's not even the correct opinion, so good thing I'm not in charge.
> Note, I said the future of the 'LEGO community,' not the future of the
> 'LUGNET community.' Of course, the LUGNET community will exist primarily
> online :-)
Yeah, I caught the distinction, I was just saying that LUGNET is probably
the *only* part of the community that will exist primarily online (ignoring
other 'lugnet-like' communities like FBTB). All the important stuff will
take place offline for the simple reason that you can't share the experience
of the physical Brick over a modem.
> [1] Frownies(R) are a registered trademark of Despair, Inc.
> http://www.despair.com/demotivators/frownonthis.html
LOL
- Mike
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Message has 4 Replies:
 | | Re: Constructive criticism vs. sugar coating
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| Quoting Mike Rayhawk <rayhawk@artcenter.edu>: [snipped everywhere] (...) Why didn't this ever occur to me?! I might have to print some up and keep them in my wallet! Man! Year's wasted! Now if only I could come up with some sort of easy format "joke (...) (21 years ago, 18-Apr-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Obnoxious over-reaction vs. sugar coating
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| (...) It gets worse: Lego, computer message boards, gaming. The last is damning! No emoticons to soften that. Happy? (which comes off as snippy for those who don't realize I'm a long-time gamer, which illustrates the problems with the written word) (...) (21 years ago, 18-Apr-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Constructive criticism vs. sugar coating
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| Hi Mike - (...) Well, I'm not offended by any of it :-) I think it's all good stuff moving the discussion forward. (...) LOL! (...) I'm not offended in the least. I've long known that, ever since starting to LEGOfest even way back to 1999. I think (...) (21 years ago, 18-Apr-03, to lugnet.general)
| | | Re: Constructive criticism vs. sugar coating
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| (...) Yay, great, a Believer!... (...) Hrm, uh, er, maybe not... (...) Yay, he Believes again!... (...) Nevermind, he's degenerated into calling me insane... NOTE: ;-) END NOTE. I'm politically incorrect, but progressive (I consider Political (...) (21 years ago, 19-Apr-03, to lugnet.general)
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