note
tye
<readmore><p>
Yes, there are perils to attaching emotion to text-only communications. If
one forms an attachment to a certain impression of a particular emotional
profile, then one is unlikely to perceive emotions that contradict that bias
because text sucks at <em>accurately</em> conveying emotions. Especially if
one internalizes bad impressions and lets them fester.
</p><blockquote><i>
Your response was "</i>tye does not recall seeing any poll suggestions from
Arunbear<i>". You know fully well that there was no shortage of poll
suggestions. There was no reason for me to make a new poll suggestion it
would have just gone into storage along with all the others. My question was
a prelude to offering to help with posting polls since that is what was not
happening. But you chose to have a go at me instead of having a useful
discussion.
</i></blockquote><p>
You chose to interpret my statement (which you don't dispute the accuracy of)
as "having a go at you" and so you chose to not have a discussion at all.
You complain that I didn't read your mind and understand that you were trying
to help. While you tried to read my mind and found some malice which wasn't
actually there. If you want to complain about poor quality of communication
over a text-only medium, then perhaps you should actually try to put more of
your communication into text (the mind reading isn't working too well for
you in either direction at least in my case, from what I can tell).
</p><blockquote><i>
You know fully well that there was no shortage of poll suggestions.
</i></blockquote><p>
No, you've read my mind incorrectly yet again. What I "knew" was that there
was obviously a real shortage in poll suggesions <em>that inspired</em> any
of the [pollsters]/[gods] to actually promote one to being a poll. What I
perceived was that a ton of old and new suggestions had been turned into
polls at a rate faster than new suggestions were coming in (but I also mostly
dismiss incomplete poll suggestions where somebody posts an idea for a poll
or parts of a poll but doesn't bother to actually do the work to finish
writing the poll, which I believe is the hard part -- as I've written nodes
about so I won't explain further here) and that the few-and-far-between
suggestions (that I'd noticed in the time before your comment) I found quite
uninteresting and the several other people who had actually demonstrated the
willingness to promote other people's poll suggestions certainly hadn't been
inspired either (though I didn't presume to know what prevented their
inspiration; I find that lots of possibilities are easy for me to imagine).
</p><p>
But, although you know that I enjoy expending extra effort to be uncivil, I
did not actually reply to each poll suggestion to note "that sucks" or "I
don't find this suggestion worthy of promoting to a poll" (though I have
replied to several poll suggestions to offer more civil, helpful criticism
than that). If people are enjoying the polls that you have been promoting of
late, that is great, and I thank you. My reaction has been primarily "meh",
which is, of course, fine; it is quite clear that there have been polls that
I quite enjoyed that some quite disliked. That is why the system works best
when there are several people picking polls that they feel are worth
promoting. Just like our "moderation" "system" -- nodes get approved when
somebody finds them appropriate even though many may not perceive what makes
them appropriate (to some).
</p><blockquote><i>
There was no reason for me to make a new poll suggestion
</i></blockquote><p>
Wrong. If you had bothered to actually communicate your desire to help
(other than psychically) such as wanting to join [pollsters], then I would
have still pointed to your lack of contributed poll suggestions. When the
then-moderator of the rec.humor.funny newsgroup was looking for a replacement,
the primary prerequisite was somebody who had already demonstrated the ability
to post a joke that got accepted to that newsgroup. Previously when this
subject came up, the conversation quickly progressed to me suggesting that
others post poll suggestions and, if they post ones that are well liked,
they might become members of [pollsters] (if they so desire). I find that the
promotion to privileged groups works better when the one requesting promotion
can demonstrate their worth at the related responsibilities.
</p><p>
But you chose to leave the conversation. And I guess I was supposed to read
your mind and realize that your "departure" was due to your feelings having
been hurt? Just like you know to read my mind and know that when the situation
is reversed that I'm "ignoring you" (because I'm smarter than you and I don't
have to answer to anybody).
</p><blockquote><i>
Then there was a time when you created a bogus consideration and as it was
being voted on you remarked "</i>Heh. So few passed the intelligence test.<i>"
</i></blockquote><p>
That is a reference to an old answering machine joke. Somebody set their
recorded greeting to "The following is an intelligence test" (which is then
followed by the standard, obligatory "beep"). Would you pass that test? Do
you consider yourself a stupid person? If you answer 'yes' to the second
question, then you might also be offended by the experience (or you might be
accepting of your own assessment of your stupidity).
</p><p>
I'd probably not pass that test completely. And I've certainly said of such
failures in the past "That was stupid" (of me). No, I don't consider myself
a stupid person. I don't consider most people I converse with to be stupid
people either. But I, like most people I've met, do no shortage of stupid
things. So if you choose to take offense at actions being alluded to as
being "stupid", then you will likely continue to be offended by things I
say (because people including me aren't going to stop doing stupid things,
I'm not going to stop noticing some of them, and I will still sometimes
comment on some of the ones I notice).
</p><p>
I recall (vaguely) alluding to that joke twice. Once with a node that somebody
else had posted that got considered and once with a joke node that I posted
anonymously that got considered. But when you post a laundry list of vague
descriptions of past evils many from months ago, I wouldn't find it shocking
if my recollection of some of them (including this one (or two?)) was flawed.
Actually, I think it was more than a year ago. I guess your grudge has been
festering for a very long time indeed.
</p><p>
So, after all of this time, this is the worst you've come up with? Wow, I'm
quite impressed with how civil my lower limit is over such a time range.
Have I told you that you were stupid? Have I even attributed an action
to you and called that action stupid? I'm not perfect and I sometimes get
annoyed and I'm not always as polite as I might like to be, so I wouldn't be
surprised if I'd identified a specific action attributed to you and called
that "stupid" even though I realize that doing so would be somewhat rude (not
as rude as calling you "stupid", or as doing any number of things that are
all-too-common in an internet "flame").
</p><p>
Wait. Did you vote on (one of) the consideration(s) in a way that I might have
been characterizing as "failure to pass the intelligence test"? So I may have
hinted that an action that had not been attributed to you might be a failure
to pass an intelligence test. Have you ever taken an IQ exam? Did you get
every single question right? If so, why are you so sensitive about being
called stupid? If not, were offended when you were told that you hadn't
passed all of the tests of your intelligence that had been included in the
exam? Did you tell the person who told you these results that they were being
uncivil? Did they boggle at you in response? Did you publicly announce your
personal laundry list of past incidents where you also found them to have been
uncivil? Did you then pat yourself on the back for you excellent example of
civil behavior?
</p><blockquote><i>
Your response was not only unhelpful but also particularly insulting as I had
already stated that I didn't understand the what that link was meant for.
</i></blockquote><p>
What? Because you don't currently understand something, there is no way
that you will ever understand it unless somebody delivers "the answer" to you?
I don't actually presume that you are that stupid. My expectation is that
you are intelligent and are capable of learning things through research
and even realizing new things via just further comtemplation. Perhaps you
were assuming that I had "the answer" and just refused to give it to you?
</p><p>
Consider a fictional CB "conversation" that seems fairly typical of PerlMonks
to me: "I don't see any reason for Perl to have [undef]" "If you look the
wrong places, you won't see what you are looking for" "What is the purpose of
[undef]?" <crickets />.
</p><p>
You get better answers on PerlMonks if you give better information. "Show
us what you've already tried". There is a small chance that I actually did
have an easy answer to whatever your question was and I didn't feel like
throwing you a fish because it seemed like something you should be able to
fish for easily enough yourself. More likely, I didn't have "the answer".
In either case, demonstrating what you had already done (or were now doing)
to try to understand the link would have made it more likely that I would
have found something helpful yet simple enough to make it worth trying to
convey via the CB.
</p><p>
You often get lousy answers at PerlMonks when you simply declare defeat
without <em>demonstrating</em> any real effort. You'll also often be
disappointed if you call out a specific person to answer your question.
If you still want to know what the link is for, you might want to ask in
the appropriate wiki (and you might want to provide some clues to help
others figure out why you don't understand the purpose and because such also
demonstrate your effort).
</p><blockquote><i>
On the other hand you remarked last week that "</i>I wanted to smack Josh and
Dave because ...<i>" ..., so it may be that you are abusive to people at work
too (but some how I doubt that because people in the workplace have a certain
amount of legal protection from bullying and harassment).
</i></blockquote><p>
Well, I'm glad I didn't say "I wanted to kill..." because I guess then you'd
be informing me that it is usually illegal to murder coworkers. "I wanted to
kill" indicates rather strong annoyance. I rarely get annoyed to that level,
especially at work. "I wanted to smack" is an indication of something very
mild. But it is nice to know that your imaginings are not just limited to
thoughts and feelings that you want to put into my head.
</p><blockquote><i>
Why do you have a lower standard for relating to colleagues at Perlmonks
compared to work?
</i></blockquote><p>
Do you collect years of anecdotes about coworkers and then publically post
them at work?
</p><blockquote><i>
Do you think (as your "intelligence test" remark suggests) that you are
better than everyone else?
</i></blockquote><p>
Actually, most of the things you have complained about are in part due to the
fact that I expect others to be intelligent and resourceful and I realize
that there is almost nothing that I am the sole source for answers about.
</p><blockquote><i>
Or does being chief administrator (hence
accountable to nobody) give you some kind of licence to be abusive?
</i></blockquote><p>
Hey, what happened to my headdress? I'm not sure where you got the idea
that I'm "chief administrator". [vroom] and many others certainly predate
me. Many others have no less "rank" or privileges than me. So the only
reason I would be "chief" would be simply because I'm still doing some
small amount of "administrating" after all of these years and/or because
I do more "administrating" than other [gods]. (I'm not claiming that I
do more "administrating" than other [gods], just trying to guess what your
perception is based on.) But neither of those possible perceptions means
that I somehow outrank all others and lord my singular position (of still
being here and occasionally doing something) over all of the peons that I
chortle at abusing.
</p><p>
Actually, what is most freeing as regards to my current position at PerlMonks
is that I am not the "only" of anything. That and the fact that I tried
to take administrating PerlMonks seriously and I actually have better results
all around since I've given that up.
</p><p>
I answer to lots of people. I'm not sure I <em>have</em> to answer to any of
them. So does your timidness to deal with perceived slights when they
happen and with whom they happened make you feel you have license to collect
your laundry list of perceived wrongs and post them in public? Of course,
I'm not accountable to you so I'm not sure why you are even trying.
</p><p>
BTW, I'm almost never involved in a "conversation" in the CB. I'm almost
never "in the CB". This is part of why I almost never say "hi" nor announce
my departure. The pace of the CB almost never reaches a point where it
becomes the primary object of my attention, much less the only one. What
would be rude and unprofessional of me at work would be to respond to
a question with "You'll have to ask me later. I wrote a sentence 6 minutes
ago and after the first 3 of the minutes since then, somebody responded
to that sentence. And now that I've finished my 6 minutes of doing several
different work tasks, I've looked back and noticed this reply and I must
now continue the 'conversation' that I started."
</p><p>
So if I write something in the CB, it is usually terse and one-off. Perhaps a
solitary response to some things that were said over the previous 60 minutes
(or perhaps something even less part of a "conversation"). But I have every
expectation that I will be unable to respond to any responses that it might
itself generate. I will certainly try to check back within the next 60
minutes so that I can at least see such responses. I am often able to respond
within the next 500 seconds before the responses scroll off. Often I am not.
</p><p>
So such a communication mechanism (with its strict limitation on length
of utterance and even count of utterances that are practical) often doesn't
fit well with being "sufficiently observing or befitting accepted social
usages" of more typical communications. And my own penchant for dry humor,
terseness, obliqueness, puns, obscurity, etc. doesn't move my communication
style in the CB closer to what you might consider "civil" and certainly can often be perceived as "condescending".
</p><p>
I consider the majority of viewers of the CB to be quite intelligent and
don't consider my own insights on just about <em>any</em> topic to be
uniquely relevant over the insights others may consider worth sharing.
So if I don't have anything particularly insightful to share (and nothing
I find humourous), I likely won't say anything, waiting to see if something
more worth saying occurs to me. If no other utterances appear in the CB,
then that is likely the end of the "discussion".
</p></readmore><p>
Anyway, that is way more than enough on this topic.
</p>
<div class="pmsig"><div class="pmsig-22609"><p align="right">
- [tye]<tt> </tt>
</p></div></div>
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