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Sebastian Pipping posted on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:33:25 +0200 as excerpted: |
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> On 06/16/10 21:40, Roy Bamford wrote: |
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>> As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as terse |
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>> and to the point, completely lacking in tone. |
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> |
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> interesting. Looking at the sentence |
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> |
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> "When did you point this out to devrel?" |
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> |
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> I would like to say that while it's not impolite per se it's implicitly |
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> saying "You _have to_ point this out to dev rel" in my ears. [...] |
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> In contrast asking |
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> |
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> "Have you pointed this out to DevRel? What was their reaction?" |
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> |
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> does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me. |
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Thanks for the concrete example, and yes, I agree. |
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I've become aware of two issues I personally have, in this regard. |
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1) I (normally) instinctively interpret statements in the positive, |
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subconsciously rewriting statements of the first form into the second as I |
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read them, because I assume people have the best intentions until it is |
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demonstrated otherwise. Yet this process is not without cost in |
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subconscious processing time and thus in stress, and while I couldn't |
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point out why without deliberately deconstructing the post as you did, I'm |
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left with a vague unease about the post, which only becomes apparent when |
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pointed out, as here, or over time, as other posts accumulate and I |
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evaluate the poster as less friendly than I might, still without |
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consciously understanding why. |
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You explain my unease. If I assume others are like me, perhaps I've |
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pointed out why they too, wouldn't have pointed to this post as |
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unfriendly, yet agree with your point now that you have. |
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2) I often overcompensate in an attempt to make my point clear, with |
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"verbiage out the yin-yang", but in reality, often obscuring it due to |
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simple "verbiage overgrowth". (Point 1 shrunk by more than half after |
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four rewrites.) This exasperates some to the point of killfiling, tho |
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I've enough "thanks for the explanation" replies from others over the |
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years to know "it's what works" for others. |
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Some seem to have an instinctive fear of verbiage, contracting |
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communications to their most precise possible while retaining literal |
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meaning, without understanding the effect this has on implied meaning. |
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Thus, example #2 gets contracted into #1, and the more sensitive read into |
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it an offense when none was intended. |
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> I remember a guy of the German Unix User Group (GUUG) saying something |
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> like |
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> |
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> "Communication is always oriented at the receiver". |
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Wise man. |
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> Applying that to tone and avoiding mis-interpretation the sender has the |
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> power (and arguably the responsiblity) to sounds as friendly as needed |
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> to be sure it will not be understood as unfriendly. In a way there's |
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> always a way to be friendlier - _without_ faking anything. |
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But that takes three times the effort and twice the words. Example #2 |
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above is, after all, almost twice the size of #1. |
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-- |
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Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. |
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"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- |
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and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman |