I agree with you, Charles. These fallacies are quite transparent. And it is too bad that much good effort and input to the Wikipedia initiative can be lost due to those who feel it is their to be "forthright" (wiggle word) rather than helpful. There is nothing wrong with being helpful. There is everything wrong with a nasty officious edge. Even the Rutgers coach behaviors was finally seen as unacceptable and he sure wasn't as "forthright" as some editors.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:44 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16 April 2013 02:07, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Incivility is difficult to deal with.
That may be the case; but it's not for the reasons usually given.
One of the reasons is because there is a school of thought that a certain level of frankness and brusqueness is necessary in a place like Wikipedia. The trouble with that is that people draw the line in different places, partly due to cultural differences, partly due to personal levels of what they will accept.
Yes, well, one of the "differences" is between people who think that what they find acceptable should constitute a universal standard; and those who realise this is no way to set universal standards.
Some people also treat this as a matter of principle, rather than as one of being nice. The way I would describe it (though you really need to find an exponent of this view to describe it properly, as I don't support this view myself) is that it is more honest to say what you really think in simple language, than to dissemble and use careful and diplomatic language to essentially say the same thing. I favour the latter approach until a certain tipping point is reached, and will then be more frank myself.
Excessive frankness usually does nothing for relationships. "To be frank" usually prefaces something that can usefully be omitted.
I can see the point people are making when they say that being more forthright earlier on and consistently on a matter of principle is better, but the end result tends to be the same. Hurt feelings all round for those who don't get that viewpoint, and those who have a tendency towards the more brusque approach sometimes (not always) being baited by those who like winding people up. The other effect, most damagingly of all, is that the 'community' (which is a localised, nebulous entity that is in flux at the best of times and varies depending on location and timing) ends up polarised over the issue.
So you get periodic flare-ups, exacerbated by the nature of online communications (the lack of body language to and verbal tone) and the lack of empathy for others that some who are drawn to Wikipedia exhibit.
The point being that those who actually use incivility as a wedge to divide the community are quite well aware of that, and this is what needs to be stamped out as disruption, not intermittent breakdowns of the civility code.
I saw a recent study suggesting, alarmingly, that online many people find angry language and comment relatively persuasive; presumably because they assume it is sincere, and assume that sincerity has something to do with being right. I find this much more worrying than the traditional "lack of affect" argument, because you'd assume over time people would adapt to that (have we not adapted to the phone?)
I think there are probably a couple of serious fallacies being allowed to dominate this discussion, still.
Charles
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Hi Kathleen,
If you don't mind, please maintain the threading of the posts. Each time you change the subject line it creates a new thread, which makes it harder for people to follow the conversation (both in e-mail, and in threaded view via gmane etc.).
~Nathan
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 9:20 AM, Kathleen McCook klmccook@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with you, Charles. These fallacies are quite transparent. And it is too bad that much good effort and input to the Wikipedia initiative can be lost due to those who feel it is their to be "forthright" (wiggle word) rather than helpful. There is nothing wrong with being helpful. There is everything wrong with a nasty officious edge. Even the Rutgers coach behaviors was finally seen as unacceptable and he sure wasn't as "forthright" as some editors.
On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 7:44 AM, Charles Matthews < charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16 April 2013 02:07, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
Incivility is difficult to deal with.
That may be the case; but it's not for the reasons usually given.
One of the reasons is because there is a school of thought that a certain level of frankness and brusqueness is necessary in a place like Wikipedia. The trouble with that is that people draw the line in different places, partly due to cultural differences, partly due to personal levels of what they will accept.
Yes, well, one of the "differences" is between people who think that what they find acceptable should constitute a universal standard; and those who realise this is no way to set universal standards.
Some people also treat this as a matter of principle, rather than as one of being nice. The way I would describe it (though you really need to find an exponent of this view to describe it properly, as I don't support this view myself) is that it is more honest to say what you really think in simple language, than to dissemble and use careful and diplomatic language to essentially say the same thing. I favour the latter approach until a certain tipping point is reached, and will then be more frank myself.
Excessive frankness usually does nothing for relationships. "To be frank" usually prefaces something that can usefully be omitted.
I can see the point people are making when they say that being more forthright earlier on and consistently on a matter of principle is better, but the end result tends to be the same. Hurt feelings all round for those who don't get that viewpoint, and those who have a tendency towards the more brusque approach sometimes (not always) being baited by those who like winding people up. The other effect, most damagingly of all, is that the 'community' (which is a localised, nebulous entity that is in flux at the best of times and varies depending on location and timing) ends up polarised over the issue.
So you get periodic flare-ups, exacerbated by the nature of online communications (the lack of body language to and verbal tone) and the lack of empathy for others that some who are drawn to Wikipedia exhibit.
The point being that those who actually use incivility as a wedge to divide the community are quite well aware of that, and this is what needs to be stamped out as disruption, not intermittent breakdowns of the civility code.
I saw a recent study suggesting, alarmingly, that online many people find angry language and comment relatively persuasive; presumably because they assume it is sincere, and assume that sincerity has something to do with being right. I find this much more worrying than the traditional "lack of affect" argument, because you'd assume over time people would adapt to that (have we not adapted to the phone?)
I think there are probably a couple of serious fallacies being allowed to dominate this discussion, still.
Charles
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Hi Nathan and Kathleen,
On Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:31:05 -0400 Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Kathleen,
If you don't mind, please maintain the threading of the posts. Each time you change the subject line it creates a new thread, which makes it harder for people to follow the conversation (both in e-mail, and in threaded view via gmane etc.).
~Nathan
I agree with your sentiments. This is one of the major offences I have with GMail.com which makes the user-experience of people using E-mail worse - not only for the people using it, but for everyone. Another thing I find it to offend me is that it hides the signatures (which it often interprets as a much larger part of the message due to some bugs) behind a fold, and as a result people don't read what I have placed in my signature which also includes a warning to always reply to the list, or explicitly mention that they are doing that and that trips them.
Google -= <infinity /> and https://duckduckgo.com/ and https://www.projectwonderful.com/ for the win (and for great justice).
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
[SNIPPED]
On 16 April 2013 14:20, Kathleen McCook klmccook@gmail.com wrote
I agree with you, Charles. These fallacies are quite transparent. And it is too bad that much good effort and input to the Wikipedia initiative can be lost due to those who feel it is their to be "forthright" (wiggle word) rather than helpful. There is nothing wrong with being helpful. There is everything wrong with a nasty officious edge.
To be clear, I don't engage in these debates to diminish the community. I come in as a "policy wonk" if I feel the policy involved is being misread, too close to the letter. That's not the trouble here.
Charles