On Sat, 11 Dec 2004, Derek Smithies wrote:
After some time to reflect on this, and some time to discuss with colleagues, I wonder if someone on the list could explain why some feel it is ok to flame someone.
This is an amazingly universal phenomena leading to such immutable laws of the internet universe as... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
The origin of the problem is fairly well known. Email lacks a large number of subtle voice and body language cues that transmit the intent, especially important when humour or sarcasm is used.
Furthermore the pecking order / social standing cues are missing. Thus communications can easily be perceived to having crossed up the pecking order hierarchies, thus immediately giving offense.
Email lacks the physical danger cues, (Heavy breathing, clenched fists, white knuckles, taut lips, scowl...), so people fail to back off until they have _really_ given offense Good and Proper.
The author is writing from the comfort and relaxed atmosphere of his/her office/home, where social formalities of meetings amongst strangers are eased. Thus his mental context is "relaxed, informal", the recipients context is, "What a bloody impolite bastard!"
Email is also multicultural, permitting cultural differences to create misunderstandings, without the usual visual clues (steam being emitted from ears) that offense has been given.
The Dilbert Principle applies, "People are stupid". You, me, Einstein, we are all stupid.
If you don't believe me, analyze how often flame wars arise from people typing what they didn't mean, or people reading meaning that wasn't written.
Sometimes I'm amazed we ever understand each other.
The fact is, mostly we don't.
We merely think we do.
And since most chit-chat really doesn't matter, the lack of understanding is rarely tested and has no impact.
Most misunderstandings are allowed to fly by unnoticed, or under the polite, unvocalized mental heading, "So-and-so is a bit of a idiot."
We assume an enormous amount of shared context in our communication. This is simply the way communication evolved. Human communication evolve amongst members of primitive extended family "clan's" communicating in daily life. Most of the information content is carried by implicit references to shared context.
Without implicit references to shared context, our miserable .txt scribblings would communicate almost nothing.
Unfortunately, since we are no longer in a primitive clan society, but in a global email society, the shared context is slim.
In some ways the global media monoculture has created an alternate shared context, but it is shallow and mostly inapplicable. (eg. We all share the context involving "Janet Jackson", but that information is no use at all, except as an example of empty shared context!)
So here we are communicated via .txt messages, with most of the message referring implicitly to shared context, which we probably don't really share.
Little wonder that the messages often go awry.
John Carter Phone : (64)(3) 358 6639 Tait Electronics Fax : (64)(3) 359 4632 PO Box 1645 Christchurch Email : [EMAIL PROTECTED] New Zealand
The universe is absolutely plastered with the dashed lines exactly one space long.
