[Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29

[Sue Gardner]

(Sorry for top-posting: Blackberry.)

I just want to add a brief note supporting what William's saying.  Yes -- it definitely takes more time to respond to angry or hostile-seeming mails.  Trust gets impaired, and so the respondent spends time trying to figure out whether the person's really angry, or just curt... maybe asking other people if they have any insight.... and then framing a very careful reply and rereading it for tone before hitting send.  Essentially, it's just easier and faster to have open conversation if the tone is constructive all round.

So yes: hostility costs money.  One answer to that is F2F meetings.  Spending in-person time together definitely builds trust and friendliness. Once we know each other as human beings, online interactions are faster, easier, with less friction.

I for example have now met Thomas Dalton in person three or four times, which is good. I like him much more now than I used to :-)

Thanks,
Sue

-----Original Message-----
From: William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:23:13 
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29

On 04/30/2010 05:37 PM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 1 May 2010 01:32, William Pietri<william at scissor.com>  wrote:
>    
>> You should keep in mind that it definitely takes me more time and more
>> energy to deal with non-nice requests.
>>      
> Really? How does me adding more words to my emails save you time?
>    

It's not the quantity of words, but the choice of them.

When I am dealing with a polite message, I can write a quick reply. With 
a prickly one, I have to do more drafts, so I can get past my first 
reaction, a mainly negative one, and produce something positive in tone 
and substance. I also need more time between messages, so that my 
irritation in one doesn't slop over onto some undeserving correspondent.

As long as we're on the topic of etiquette, I find it frustrating when 
people pick out one particular bit to reply to and ignore the broader 
point. I add that only because I'm not sure if this was part of your 
intentional policy against niceness, or a more accidental sort.

Hoping that is useful,

William


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