Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request, and Chinese Wikipedia again)

[Robert Brockway]

On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:

> As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me

It's been 13 years this month for me.  I think perception of online 
discussions does change when you've hung out online for a long period of 
time.

> pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of
> reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit
> a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund
> goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in
> public, your fund goes down.

Yes well put.

My company keeps a list of resumes for contractors we'll subcontract work 
to.  I have deleted resumes because of poor attitudes I've seen people 
display on mailing lists.  I think a lot of people underestimate how their 
words impact how other perceives them.

For the record I've been ignoring the Quenya thread so I have no idea how 
much or little flaming has been going on.

My advice when people get to hung up on a thread in email:

1.  Relax.

2.  Having the last say does not impart any sort of legitimacy to an
     argument.

3.  Accept that others will have different opinions.

4.  Accept that many people will not change their minds even when
     presented with sound logic.

5.  There is every likelihood that open mailing list archives will be
     retained indefinitely.  One day our great great grand children are
     going to be able read what we wrote online.  They will have
     unprecedented ability to understand their ancestors.  I wonder what
     they will think of us.

6.  Understand that many terrible things are going on in this
     world.  Consider diverting some of that energy to helping others.

Cheers,
 	Rob

-- 
Robert Brockway B.Sc.
Senior Technical Consultant, OpenTrend Solutions Ltd.
Phone: 416-669-3073 Email: rbrockway at opentrend.net http://www.opentrend.net
OpenTrend Solutions: Reliable, secure solutions to real world problems.
Contributing Member of Software in the Public Interest (http://www.spi-inc.org)