Subject:
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Re: Constructive criticism vs. sugar coating
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Fri, 18 Apr 2003 17:07:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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2776 times
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Hi Mike -
In lugnet.general, Mike Rayhawk writes:
> (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.)
Well, I'm not offended by any of it :-) I think it's all good stuff moving
the discussion forward.
> 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.
LOL!
> 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.
I'm not offended in the least. I've long known that, ever since starting to
LEGOfest even way back to 1999. I think that in the past, I've been moreso
on the nerdy end of the spectrum, but chilled out a bit in recent years. I
know what it's like to be one, and I know what it's like to look at em from
someone who is no longer, at least IMO.
I want to see the LEGO community accessible to all types of people. Hence my
comments in a later part of this thread on computer literacy and the
user-friendliness of community sites like LUGNET.
Nevertheless, it's one of those things people can't say too loud without
feeling non-PC. In fact, I've toned down many of my real feelings throughout
this thread, so as not to make too much of a ruckus. I do feel strongly that
nerds/geeks have a sense of superiority about them, and that anyone should
be expected to follow the web instructions/run the linux commands/appreciate
the same humor/etc they do, and if they *don't*, well maybe they don't
belong here anyways. I _loathe_ that sentiment. It is not constructive to
evangelizing the LEGO hobby or the online community.
(at the same time, we're not babysitters. I can't tell you how many times
I've wanted to reply to LDraw help emails with "RTFM, [1]" but I hold myself
back and offer a polite response)
> > 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.
LOL again :-) Arrogant as it may be, I do believe text-only communication
(or text and limited ascii art for smilies/frownies, sarcasm markup, etc) is
more intelligent than the stuff from emoticon boards. That said, text is no
substitude for face-to-face or even voice interactions, and many of the
disagreements and even flamewars experienced online would be averted were
this an in-person community versus an online one.
> 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.
I can't disagree there. But, since we don't have the personal, face to face
contact, those other methods of communicating can't take place here.
> 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.
So can text smilies :^P
> 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.
Not inherently, perhaps, but less intelligent communciation is an almost
omnipresent side effect of having emoticions at one's disposal.
> 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.
Sure.
> > 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.
I think there's much better ways to call out a whiner, rather than
personally attacking 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.
For clarity - did you think my post specifically, because it came from me,
implied a community endorsement? Would anyone else posting the same words
bring out the same feelings in you?
> (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.)
Understandable.
What I wanted to "hear, hear" more than anything in Nick's post was this:
"Personal attacks should NOT be condoned in what is
supposed to be a family community!" I strongly felt Tom's reply was an
unwarranted personal attack. There's other blunt, but non-personal ways to
call out a whiner.
That said, I'm for telling whiners to grow up. Just in a civil manner.
Civility can be blunt, but I think his post was intentionally mean. That's
not to say I'm writing Tom off, but that I was seriously disappointed with
his response to Nick. I agree with Tom's feelings in spirit, when he cared
to explain them further, but, I don't agree with how he conducted himself in
the first place.
> > 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.
I can't disagree.
> > 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.
Maybe so. I don't think vitirol is necessary to cure that, though.
Bluntness, sure, meanness, no.
> > 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.
I wonder why we get whiners? I imagine it's cause the rest of our society
prefers coddling people over being blunt and real with them. That's another
discussion/debate alltogether though.
-Tim
[1] Read The Farkin' Manual
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Constructive criticism vs. sugar coating
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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 (...) (22 years ago, 18-Apr-03, to lugnet.general)
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