Melina Sedo & Detlef Engel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > ... I was quite surprised by > the personal attacks and complaints to my DJing article, ...
"Pat Petronio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: > It has been very interesting to observe the reactions to Melina's essay on > DJing. Unfortunately, it became a "tradition" of sorts for flames and put-downs to start appearing on Tango-L a few years ago. Seemed harmless at first since they were usually accompanied by something useful. More on this in a bit, but it was interesting that I happened to see a thread on "Rudeness in Tango" from back in 2003. (As I mentioned in a previous post, I was working on the archives and decided to start with 2003, and since this thread was in early January of the year, it happened to catch my eye.) The phenomenon being addressed in this 2003 thread was more on the dance floor than on the list, but the parallels were interesting anyway. Here are some excerpts--you can see the whole thread starting at http://www.tango-l.com/archives/Tango-L/msg00120.html (and help me debug the 2003 digest in the process :-) remembering that the search box on the top is not implemented yet). luda_r1 <luda_r1 @YAHOO.COM>: > Subject: [TANGO-L] Tango and rudeness > Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 08:57:28 -0800 > I have been told by some of my friends, and have > experienced it first hand, that tango seems to attract > some of the rudest people in the world. I have NEVER > run into such rude behavior in any other social > situation. Why is it that the tango scene tolerates > it? Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG> in a related thread: > Subject: [TANGO-L] Tango and friendliness > Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:26:59 -0600 > In traveling and dancing tango, Susan and I have been given very warm > welcomes by the tango communities in most cities we have visited. We have > found tango dancers worldwide to be enthusiastic about meeting and > greeting tango dancers that happen to be traveling. We have been hugged > with friendliness by strangers, picked up at our hotel and driven to tango > parties, taken to dinner, and been invited to stay in the homes of tango > dancers. I cannot think of greater friendliness. (I like to think that > we are similarly friendly in Texas.) > > Yes, we have also encountered occasional rudeness at milongas in our own > city and in others, but when one compares the little rudeness we have > encountered with the genuine open hearts and friendliness of the people we > have met through tango, it seems as though the glass is well more than > half full. I'd like to believe the latter view as well, and the optimist in me will in fact do so. There's no question that things have changed in the 5 years since these posts were written. As Tango has grown, and as the communities have become larger with more of them (which is a good thing), some "global community intimacy" has died naturally along with it. Everyone in Tango no longer knows (almost) everyone else in Tango, but it is still true that other than in a handful of large Tango cities, a Tango dance traveller will still be recognized (and usually welcomed) as a stranger. This cannot be said of salsa and swing communities (which yes, may be friendlier in some senses as claimed in other posts in the aforementioned thread, but lack that global community sense). Returning to the subject of Tango-L, the unchecked rudeness on Tango-L basically led to a phenomenon where many of the civil majority either stopped posting (many unsubscribed during the peak of this phenomenon), because naturally they didn't like being attacked personally, or watered down their postings to the point that there was nothing that could be disagreed with, which of course made the posts less interesting. This left the rude people dishing out and exchanging insults, and good posts by the thicker-skinned people, who were willing to put up with them (or able to ignore them). But this unfortunately still deprived the list members of good commentary by those who were turned off by the flames or reluctant to post because of them. Even "newbie" questions by beginning dancers (which may have been asked and answered a dozen times before) often leads to good followups and discussion that was catalyzed by a seemingly innocuous or even mundane question, and newcomers should be the ones who are made to feel the most welcomed, and not driven away by intimidation or rudeness. So several months ago, I started enforcing the "no flames" rules. Most of the small handful of those responsible adjusted willingly (mostly they just wanted to be able to "respond in kind" and if there was no flame to respond to in like vein, they were able to stay on topic). A few (an insignificant percentage of the list membership) did not and may choose not to contribute to the list any more if they cannot do so on their terms, but the damage they were doing outweighed their occasional contributions. So while I cannot promise that the list is 100% "flame"-safe, I would encourage those who have been reluctant to post in the past for this reason to go ahead and do so now if you wish, as such disruptive behaviour IS being acted upon more actively now. Certainly, you should not expect that your opinions will not be disagreed with--they almost certainly WILL be by someone (and SHOULD be, as that's what usually leads to interesting discourse), but you should expect this disagreement to be on your *opinion* and not spill over into "ad hominem" attacks on you (or your intelligence or personality or dance ability or whatever). I'll end with another "2003 quote" from Luda (who was quoted earlier): > If tango is supposed to be a metaphor for life, as > some people believe, then it would explain some of > this weird behavior. Maybe. If you're a nice person in > real life, it will show up in tango. And if you're an > SOB in real life, that will show up in tango, too. Tangazos, Shahrukh _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
