Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:29:25
Message-Id: 1276802953.2335.2@NeddySeagoon
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo by Sebastian Pipping
1 On 2010.06.16 23:33, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
2 > Roy,
3 >
4 >
5 > On 06/16/10 21:40, Roy Bamford wrote:
6 > > As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as
7 > terse
8 > > and to the point, completely lacking in tone.
9 >
10 > interesting. Looking at the sentence
11 >
12 > "When did you point this out to devrel?"
13 >
14 > I would like to say that while it's not impolite per se it's
15 > implicitly
16 > saying "You _have to_ point this out to dev rel" in my ears. A more
17 > or
18 > less word-by-word translation to German ("Wann hast du das gegenüber
19 > DevRel angesprochen?") would make perfect sense and carry the same
20 > problem so I assume it's not an English language thing. In contrast
21 > asking
22 >
23 > "Have you pointed this out to DevRel? What was their reaction?"
24 >
25 > does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me.
26 >
27 Hmm - thats interesting, I subconsciously read the two questions into
28 the one posted. I accept you point. Its something I am likely to write
29 myself without thinking about it too much too.
30 >
31 > I remember a guy of the German Unix User Group (GUUG) saying
32 > something
33 > like
34 >
35 > "Communication is always oriented at the receiver".
36 >
37 Communication is a two way process. On other more immediate
38 media, that's reinforced as the "receiver" often asks questions to
39 clarify the intent of the communication. That does not seem to happen
40 as much in email so misunderstandings are more frequent and more
41 damaging as they take longer to resolve.
42
43 > Applying that to tone and avoiding mis-interpretation the sender has
44 > the
45 > power (and arguably the responsiblity) to sounds as friendly as
46 > needed
47 > to be sure it will not be understood as unfriendly. In a way there's
48 > always a way to be friendlier - _without_ faking anything.
49 >
50 Hmm - its quite possible to give offence without intending to. The
51 receiver also has the power and responsibility to clarify the intent of
52 the communication before concluding that it was intended in any
53 particular manner.
54
55 > Best,
56 >
57 >
58 >
59 > Sebastian
60 >
61 >
62 >
63
64 --
65 Regards,
66
67 Roy Bamford
68 (Neddyseagoon) a member of
69 gentoo-ops
70 forum-mods
71 trustees

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo Jeroen Roovers <jer@g.o>