[WikiEN-l] What is happening to the community

[Thomas Dalton]

On 06/03/2008, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske at googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 12:26 AM, Screamer <scream at datascreamer.com> wrote:
>  >
>  > Matthew Brown wrote:
>  >  > On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 4:20 PM, Screamer <scream at datascreamer.com> wrote:
>  >  >
>  >  >> Steven Walling wrote:
>  >  >>
>  >  >>> In complete seriousness, just shut up and get back to work on the
>  >  >>> encyclopedia.
>  >  >>>
>  >  >>  Wow.  That was kind of harsh, even by my standard.  Even *i* would not
>  >  >>  tell someone to "shut up" and get back to work.
>  >  >>
>  >  >
>  >  > I think Steven was meaning this generically; 'you' meant all of us,
>  >  > not singling out SV.
>  >  >
>  >  > -Matt
>  >  >
>  >  Oh, then I retract.  I need to more vitamin E, to thicken the skin.  :)
>
> You should have Assumed Good Faith ;-)

It's no joke, he really should have. I think this is one of our
biggest problems - people go looking to be offended, and so they are
offended. When communicating in a text format you don't have tone of
voice and body language to help you interpret someone's meaning, so
messages such as that one can be ambiguous. It it therefore vital to
assume good faith. If someone is actually trying to offend you,
they'll go out of their way to make sure you know it. If there's any
doubt, you can be pretty sure if wasn't intended to offend.