Goodbye.
Dr. Roger Rabbit
>What hostility everyone exhibits here!! I was warned about this by
>the computer-type that set this up for me. He explains the mail problem as
>follows (I understand none of this because I'm not a hacker):
>
I know. This place has got to be the most dismal example of rudeness and
inhmanity known to man. One of the problems with electronic communication
is that you aren't looking the other person in the face and things that
we take for granted like vocal intonation and facial expression just
isn't there. A colleague of mine wrote his dissertation on just that
topic. ("Behavioral Patterns in Electronic Relationships", PHd dissertation,
A. Forkner, 1987, UCLA)
I personally have been fascinated by the total removal of inhibitions
to verbally abuse others that has been exhibited on USENET. USENET does
have its many good attributes, but this is NOT one of them. I am firmly
convinced the the government has the axe poised to kill it (at least the
prevent it from being carried on the govt. funded NSFNet) and this kind
of behavior does not help a bit. What scares me is the possibility that
this kind of behavior will carry over into real life as more and more
people become "tube literate". It would really be scary if we had a
bunch of "Joe English"'s running around insulting people and starting
riots and the like.
>To the fellow who posts the episode credits - keep it up, and to
>"Dr. Rabbit", call me at that number that I sent to you via e-mail
>and we'll see about getting together. To the rest of you - Ciao.
>
Will do. (To the rest of the net: Sorry - he doesn't have an e-mail
address yet).
>Oh, and no one that I know has approached me and asked about USENET, so
>the person who claims that I said that I didn't know anything about
>USENET is fibbing.
>
Some people on the net are consummate liars - don't let it get you
down.
Take Care,
R.A. Rabbit
--
>>> BAN: Nuclear Power, US Intervention in South America, Toxic Waste
>>> (Including dip) Trash Incinerators, Nuclear Weapons, Poverty,
>>> Racism, Sexism, Specieism, etc... Write to: Toons for a Better World,
>>> 2001 Yatza St., Toontown, CA 90128 E-MAIL: rab...@buster.ddmi.com
Kenn Goutal
<^_^>
I keep seeing this thesis -- people are more rude on the net than in
'real life' and that this is so because they don't have to physically
face the people to whom they write -- over and over again. About once
a year somebody writes an article about it in /Newsweek/ or /WSJ/ or
someplace, and they usually quote some scholarly work such as the one
your colleague wrote.
I have been on the net since pretty nearly the beginning, and I don't buy it.
I certainly agree that there are rude people on the net.
What I don't buy is that it's peculiar to the net.
There are rude people -- violently rude people -- everywhere.
I find a lot of them on the highways, of course, where the conditions
of relative anonymity and lack of accountability exist
as cited w/r/t the net.
But I also find them in stores, at work, in church, on the sidewalk,
on the phone, ...
I don't think you need to worry about the rude people on the net
escaping into the real world and inciting riots etc. They already have!
Or rather, more accurately, there are already people in the real world
who are violently rude and incite riots or murder or whatever.
I think that rudeness is more widespread, more widely tolerated, and
more violent than it used to be. I don't necessarily mean over the
sweep of history, but like in our lifetimes. There has always been
murder, but people didn't routinely murder each other for throwing
snowballs, as happens today. People didn't routinely yell "F--- you!!!"
at each other on the sidewalk just for imagined slights. People said
"hello" to each other on the streets, apologized for making mistakes,
etc.
Hard to say why this is true, of course. It's all very complicated.
There are many factors that have cause this to become more true over
time, and they all feed on each other. Increasing violence in the
real world begets a market for it in the media, which in turn gives
the impression that it is more tolerated, which in turn encourages more
violence. That's just one little cycle.
It's bound to spill over into the net.
I think part of what happens is that people confuse cause and effect.
They see that the net itself is new and the rudeness is new,
and so when they get on the net for the first time, they think that
the rudeness is unique to the net, and that something about the net
causes it. I think it's just that we've all gotten used to it already
in other parts of our lives, and don't notice it there.
There is also a phenomenon of perceived density of violence that is
inherent in mass media. It's true but less so for print media,
especially in the old days when it took days or months for the printed
word to make the rounds of the world. In the early days of electronic
media, things still often took the time of a plane trip to get from
one part of the globe to another. Nowadays, the entire violence of
the planet is concentrated by high bandwidth and fast transmission
such that each one of us experiences the whole planet's violence as
if it were our own. Yah, yah, of course I'm not *literally* being
carbombed in Beirut, or hustled off to Siberia, or starved in Ethiopia,
or held hostage in any one of a zillion middle-eastern countries.
But I'm *near* it! I hear about -- see, in living color and full motion
-- all these things that formerly I had to live near just to hear about.
So it is with the net. It used to be we only had to put up with
the rudeness generated by the few letters we exchanged with friends,
or maybe the occasional graffitus along the side of the road on a rock,
or among the people with whom we interacted at the store or wherever.
Now we jump on the net, and suddenly we are receiving communications
from a much larger community of people, with the requisite percentage
of them that are rude. And rudeness often expresses itself in speaking
when politeness expresses itself in remaining quiet. So, necessarily,
a higher percentage of what we see on the net is indeed rude.
This is not to say that the dynamics of the net does not, of itself,
induce some certain about of rudeness that would otherwise remain
unexpressed. But I'd figure on that factor accounting for maybe
less than 5%, more like 1%, of the rudeness that people attribute
to the net.
-- Kenn Goutal
Interbase Software Corporation
209 Burlington Road
Bedford MA 01730
617.275.3222
...!linus!intrbas!kenn
...!uunet!intrbas!kenn
Kent Paul Dolan
> Real technical discussions again instead of net political BS; will
> wonders never cease!
I spoke too soon. I'll try again in a month.
;-(
Kent, the man from xanth.
<xant...@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xant...@well.sf.ca.us>
mathew
> In article <1990Dec16.1...@wbgate.wb.com> s...@max.wb.com
> >What hostility everyone exhibits here!! I was warned about this by
> >the computer-type that set this up for me. He explains the mail problem as
> >follows (I understand none of this because I'm not a hacker):
>
> I know. This place has got to be the most dismal example of rudeness and
> inhmanity known to man. One of the problems with electronic communication
> is that you aren't looking the other person in the face and things that
> we take for granted like vocal intonation and facial expression just
>
> I personally have been fascinated by the total removal of inhibitions
It's not purely a Usenet phenomenon; it's a problem encountered on
many bulletin boards. I know a number of people who have a
Jekyll-and-Hyde existence; in real life, they are polite and friendly
(even a little shy), but on bulletin boards they are opinionated,
intolerant and frequently rude.
I've talked to such people, and they often say that they have
difficulty visualizing that they are interacting with a real person.
Question: What can we do to solve the problem? Has anyone researched
solutions?
One possibility which springs to mind is that the discussion software
should display a picture of the author alongside each reply. Would
people find it easier to 'connect' if given such a visual cue?
Another possibility is that the problem is one of mindsets. My first
introduction to electronic discussion systems was at the age of
twelve, when I started writing one :-) It did get used a little, and
was a great place for me to try out ideas...
Perhaps those who are introduced to Usenet (and similar systems) at an
early age will adjust to it more readily, in the same way that younger
people are more able to adjust to the tones of electronic music whilst
older listeners dislike them because they are so unfamiliar. Maybe
sociopathic behaviour on Usenet will peak and then diminish as new
generations of users arrive.
> I am firmly
> convinced the the government has the axe poised to kill it (at least the
> prevent it from being carried on the govt. funded NSFNet) and this kind
> of behavior does not help a bit.
Imminent death of the net predicted! Panic panic panic! :-)
> What scares me is the possibility that
> this kind of behavior will carry over into real life as more and more
> people become "tube literate". It would really be scary if we had a
> bunch of "Joe English"'s running around insulting people and starting
> riots and the like.
Never been to New York?
Er, seriously though, I think it's more likely that real life will start
to impinge upon Usenet. Once the net is an everyday thing that people are
comfortable using, their behaviour will (I think) begin to change for the
better.
> >To the fellow who posts the episode credits - keep it up, and to
> >"Dr. Rabbit", call me at that number that I sent to you via e-mail
> >and we'll see about getting together. To the rest of you - Ciao.
Personally, I can't believe that the real Steven Spielberg would give
up so easily, nor that he would be willing to dismiss thousands of
net readers simply because a few people flamed him in an alt group.
> >Oh, and no one that I know has approached me and asked about USENET, so
> >the person who claims that I said that I didn't know anything about
> >USENET is fibbing.
>
> Some people on the net are consummate liars - don't let it get you
> down.
Many people in real life are liars, too. Many people in real life are
hostile and ill-mannered. That's not a good reason for trying to
abandon real life.
> Take Care,
> R.A. Rabbit
> >>> BAN: Nuclear Power, US Intervention in South America, Toxic Waste
> >>> (Including dip) Trash Incinerators, Nuclear Weapons, Poverty,
> >>> Racism, Sexism, Specieism, etc... Write to: Toons for a Better World,
> >>> 2001 Yatza St., Toontown, CA 90128 E-MAIL: rab...@buster.ddmi.com
Yeah. Love the "Followup-To: misc.test" in the header. Tres amusant.
mathew.
--
Mantis Consultants, Unit 56, St. John's Innovation Centre, Cambridge. CB4 4WS.
mat...@mantis.co.uk \\ "CP/M is to metric as cockroaches are to a Timex watch"
ukc!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew -------------------\\ - boo...@catnip.berkeley.ca.us
Stan Przybylinski
Jane Siegel, did her PhD dissertation on the topic of electronic
communication, working with Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, who have made
a name for themselves in this area. Their work includes empirical
evidence that people are much more forthright electronically than they
ever would be face-to-face. One paper on this work is included in the
book "Computer Supported Cooperative Work", edited by Irene Grief.
I know from personal experience that I have been abused on bboards,
threatened with physical harm by people who had no business doing so,
given our differences in physical stature (according to people who know
both parties).
People who are developing electronic support for group meetings are
using this to their advantage to pull ideas from group participants that
might never come or be accepted if the sources were known.
It also doens't help on the net that most of the people drawn to
computer work are there because they lack social skills to begin with.
;-)
--
*---------------------------------------*-------------------------------
-----*
*Stan Przybylinski (Prez-ba-lin-ski) *These views do not represent those
*
*Software Engineering Institute *of Carnegie Mellon, the SEI, the *
*Carnegie Mellon University *DoD or possibly even the author. *
*Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 * *
*s...@sei.cmu.edu (412) 268-6371 *All the fits, that's news to print.*
*---------------------------------------*-------------------------------
-----*
Lee Moore
has decided that they cause trouble and that they take up too many resources.
That haven't offered any proof of the latter claim because the tools
to monitor our mail system doesn't exist. (The Xerox mail system
is very diffuse and hard to monitor.) The net may not be dieing here
but all the fun parts are.
Lee
not that Usenet is not widespread in Xerox and therefore is not covered
by this edict.
--
Lee Moore -- Xerox Webster Research Center -- +1 716 422 2496
UUCP: {allegra, cornell, decvax, rutgers}!rochester!rocksanne!lee
Arpa Internet: Moore....@Xerox.Com
Nick Szabo
>In article <1990Dec16.1...@wbgate.wb.com> s...@max.wb.com (Steven Spielberg) writes:
>>What hostility everyone exhibits here!! I was warned about this by
>>the computer-type that set this up for me. He explains the mail problem as
>>follows (I understand none of this because I'm not a hacker):
>>
>
>I know. This place has got to be the most dismal example of rudeness and
>inhmanity known to man. One of the problems with electronic communication
>is that you aren't looking the other person in the face and things that
>we take for granted like vocal intonation and facial expression just
>isn't there. A colleague of mine wrote his dissertation on just that
>topic. ("Behavioral Patterns in Electronic Relationships", PHd dissertation,
>A. Forkner, 1987, UCLA)
There is nothing new here. People have been writing letters since
the post-Renassaince spread of literacy (and before). During some
periods, writers went out of their way to say things like "your humble
servant" to placate the reader if there was offense. At other times,
people wrote flames and just expected that was what letters were like.
Ever read Mark Twain's letters? I have never seen a flame on the net
to match Mark Twain's. Ditto for Voltaire, Swift, Erasmus, and many other
letter-writers who have added immensely to our culture.
If anything, people on the net go out of their way to change phrasing
and even drop whole subjects, to avoid offending people. This is even
more true in the business arena, where e-mail is part of the everyday
relationship. People who use the "Mark Twain mode" in e-mail have
been known to be fired, demoted, etc. because they made the mistake of
using an at-a-distance literary style to attack the guy in the next
cubicle! :-) BTW, I am not referring merely to flaming, which is often
harmless, but the distribution of any information which is embarassing
to some of the readers. The latter often gets the writer in more
trouble than flaming, in my experience. On the other hand, it is one
of the biggest benefits of the net (and of the written word in general)
to be able to state the truth even when it is embarassing. This is
rarely done face-to-face.
>I personally have been fascinated by the total removal of inhibitions
>to verbally abuse others that has been exhibited on USENET.
I have been fascinated by the opposite -- that in some newsgroups
cliques form in which the people personally know each other, and
are thereby less likely to flame or even politely disagree with each
other, while still flaming those they have not met. Because news does
not communicate much emotion (unless one is a *very* skilled writer), a
night at the pub is worth much more than pages of news articles in forming
and cementing a relationship. "A beer is worth a thousand words" (you
heard it here first! ;-)
>USENET does
>have its many good attributes, but this is NOT one of them.
I humbly disagree. I think it is a wonderful thing to have a forum
where people can "attack at a distance" without all the emotional baggage
and posturing that goes along with a face-to-face conversation. The
truth is often embarassing, and the net is often the only place to tell it.
>I am firmly
>convinced the the government has the axe poised to kill it (at least the
>prevent it from being carried on the govt. funded NSFNet) and this kind
>of behavior does not help a bit. What scares me is the possibility that
>this kind of behavior will carry over into real life as more and more
>people become "tube literate". It would really be scary if we had a
>bunch of "Joe English"'s running around insulting people and starting
>riots and the like.
IMHO, the emotional manipulations of TV "sound bites" do a lot more
to encourage irrational opinions and rioting than the net. The net
has the potential of bringing people with wildly different points of
view, all over the world, into at least a modicum of mutual intellectual
understanding.
--
Nick Szabo sz...@sequent.com
Embrace Change... Keep the Values... Hold Dear the Laughter...
Nick Szabo
>
>I keep seeing this thesis -- people are more rude on the net than in
>'real life' and that this is so because they don't have to physically
>face the people to whom they write -- over and over again. About once
>a year somebody writes an article about it in /Newsweek/ or /WSJ/ or
>someplace, and they usually quote some scholarly work such as the one
>your colleague wrote.
>
>I have been on the net since pretty nearly the beginning, and I don't buy it.
>I certainly agree that there are rude people on the net.
>What I don't buy is that it's peculiar to the net.
I agree. It is a splendid spectacle, these psychologists telling
Oprah and the world about how electronic communications cause "abnormal
behavior" (with the implication that it is subtly harmful, like VDT
radiation :-) Their definition of "normal", of course, comes from their
limited world of studying face-to-face relationships. I propose that
these folks have been too busy watching TV, with its emotionally soothing
violins and laugh tracks, and haven't cracked open enough good books.
They don't realize that people have been flaming, insulting, and otherwise
embarrassing each other with the written word for thousands of years,
and that most of our culture is based on this.
Science was born with the written word. Galileo embarassed the Catholic
Church by writing down what he saw in his telescope. Face-to-face, under
the awesome emotional spectacle of the Pope, he recanted, denying what he
had seen with his own eyes. But the printing press had been invented so it
didn't matter. Scientists thereafter used primarily writing to communicate
the truths of the world they had observed, regardless of who was offended.
Many other cultural revolutions were stimulated by writing. Luther and
Calvin flamed the Church and started printing native-language Bibles,
thereby establishing Protestantism. Jefferson and Paine flamed King George,
giving birth to the United States. Marx flamed capitalism (and I mean
*flamed*, read the stuff!), winning over for a few years most of our planet
to his viewpoint -- long after he was dead. Most recently, Salmon Rushdie
flamed Islam, thereby obtaining a death warrant from the Ayatollah.
The written word has been and continues to be a valuable means of
expression-at-a-distance which can deliver information practically
impossible to communicate in a face-to-face or video-channel encounter.
Those who recoil at the written word, and insist on touchie-feelie,
shallow communications, feel threatened now that e-mail and news have
arisen to counter the trend towards sound and video.
So sorry for sensitives. Sound and video often carry more emotional
baggage than necessary (what net-literates refer to as a low signal-noise
ratio). E-mail is becoming such an integral part of many organizations,
due to its queueing and high information/bandwidth ratio, that written
literacy, as opposed to the "body language literacy" popular in previous
years, is now re-emerging as the predominant business skill. That puts
psychologists out of business and writers back in business. Which is
the way a healthy culture should work.
Nick Szabo
>One of my colleagues at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Dr.
>Jane Siegel, did her PhD dissertation on the topic of electronic
>communication, working with Lee Sproull and Sara Kiesler, who have made
>a name for themselves in this area. Their work includes empirical
>evidence that people are much more forthright electronically than they
>ever would be face-to-face. One paper on this work is included in the
>book "Computer Supported Cooperative Work", edited by Irene Grief.
It took a PhD dissertation to figure this out? Anybody who has read Marx,
Dickens, Twain, Erasmus, Wolfe, or any of thousands of other good authors
knows that people can be far more forthright with the written word from
a distance than the spoken word face-to-face, and that this "flaming" is
often more truthful and effective than face-to-face encounters. I can get
more good information from the net or a library in a day than from TV,
radio, or face-to-face encounters in a year. When writing from a
distance, people can speak their minds. Their thoughts, though
not acceptable in face-to-face conversation, or communicable as sound
or image, just might be the truth.
>I know from personal experience that I have been abused on bboards,
>threatened with physical harm by people who had no business doing so,
>given our differences in physical stature (according to people who know
>both parties).
Have you gone into hiding, like Rushdie? Perhaps your flames weren't
hot enough... :-) Anger over the written word is often an emotional
problem of the reader, not the writer. A good dose of Mark Twain's
letters should cure the problem. :-)
>....
>It also doesn't help on the net that most of the people drawn to
>computer work are there because they lack social skills to begin with.
>;-)
And most of the e-mail & bboard phobics lack in literacy skills.
;-)
BTW, if "netiquette" is not a social skill, I don't know what is.
Those who have never tried electronic communication may not be
aware of what a "social skill" really is. One social skill that must
be learned, is that other people have points of view that are not only
different, but *threatening*, to your own. In turn, your opinions may
be threatening to others. There is nothing wrong with this. Your beliefs
need not be hidden behind a facade, as happens with face-to-face conversation.
Not everybody in the world is a bosom buddy, but you can still have a
meaningful conversation with them. The person who cannot do this lacks in
social skills.
Barry Shein
As someone who has used "the nets" for over a decade I agree that
there's something seriously amiss in these analyses. Nick Szabo's
points about the power of the written word and the apparent longing
for non-threatening interaction (even where that interaction becomes
less valuable) are well taken.
People see this behavior, tack the word "rude" on it, remember that
"rude" is a no-no, and proceed to propose cures...whoa! Let's step
back to definitions and descriptions.
A lot of what people label "rude" is in the eye of the beholder.
I remember once one of my employees received a complaint about some
software he had installed, from another system admin (not my employee,
but not exactly a "civilian" either.) The complaint was rather
accusatory in tone, I guess some change in the mail system had caused
problems on his system. I knew my employee and predictably he
apologized and said he'd back out those changes (which, in fact, were
quite important to a lot of users.)
I pointed out, rather careful to be courteous, that this other guy's
mailer problems were due to long-standing problems with the system he
managed, which we had pointed out before. And which we even had
offered to help him fix. But that this had become a real problem, as
either way some large group of people were going to suffer. Could the
fixes to his system possibly be moved up in priority, a lot?
I had posted that reply in the evening. I came in the next day and his
boss's boss's boss, who was my boss, asked me to stop by his office.
What unraveled was a morning apparently a morning filled with angry
tears from this guy about how I had abused him with this e-mail. I was
wrong, that was that, and I had better figure out a way to smooth
things out.
What?
I had the message (I quickly found out none of these management
geniuses had asked to see the message in question.) We pulled it up on
the screen.
"Hmm, I guess you're about to tell me that he had no reason to react
like that to this message, right?"
"Right, it looks fairly innocuous to me, there it is, you read it,
what do you think? I haven't lost my mind have I?"
"I agree, it looks pretty tame, but he...there must be some reason,
some context we don't have here?"
"Here were the other messages..."
"Uh, hmmm, looks like pretty typical crap, what sparked this...?"
"I dunno, I'll speak to him, but gee..."
So I spoke to him, he was *really* shaken. I bet to this day he talks
about this horrible experience. It was wierd.
I've seen this kind of thing elsewhere, not usually that dramatic, but
someone seeing something, some emotional intensity, some accusation or
threat, in a fairly innocuous e-mail message, that just wasn't there.
That, to me, is far more interesting. And might well be the problem.
--
-Barry Shein
Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | b...@world.std.com
Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD
Kenneth G. Goutal
>Those who recoil at the written word, and insist on touchie-feelie,
>shallow communications, feel threatened now that e-mail and news have
>arisen to counter the trend towards sound and video.
Careful! Touchie-feelie can be shallow, but isn't necessarily so.
Similarly, I've seen tons of traffic on the net that was quite shallow.
>So sorry for sensitives.
I hope you mean that. Actually, I hope they think you do. ;-)
>Sound and video often carry more emotional
>baggage than necessary (what net-literates refer to as a low signal-noise
>ratio). E-mail is becoming such an integral part of many organizations,
>due to its queueing and high information/bandwidth ratio, that written
>literacy, as opposed to the "body language literacy" popular in previous
>years, is now re-emerging as the predominant business skill. That puts
>psychologists out of business and writers back in business. Which is
>the way a healthy culture should work.
Don't get your hopes up. I thought this too, until I realized that as
network bandwidth goes up, work, fluff, and other goodies will expand
to fill it. On the one hand, people will start sending more diagrams
charts, pictures, what-have-you expressed as bitmaps or PostScript or
whatever, which will increase the information content enormously. At
the same time, people will start sending pictures of themselves, or
sending voice, or even full-motion video, over the net. Heck, using
UUCP for voice mail isn't technically outrageous even now. As connectivity
goes up (as I am convinced that it will), real-time text, graphics, voice,
and finally video will become more commonplace. And folks like me,
who *depend* on the time delays in the current environment, will be the
losers. Similarly, those who *depend* on the potentially low body-
language ratio will also lose.
-- Kenn Goutal
...!linus!intrbas!kenn
...!uunet!intrbas!kenn
Kenneth G. Goutal
>
>People see this behavior, tack the word "rude" on it, remember that
>"rude" is a no-no, and proceed to propose cures...whoa! Let's step
>back to definitions and descriptions.
>
>A lot of what people label "rude" is in the eye of the beholder.
Yah. I'm certainly a lot more easily offended than a lot of people.
The fact that *anybody* is more easily offended than anyone else
implies that at least part of the phenomenon is on the part of the offendee.
Not all of it, however. While I'm quick to jump to the defense of
what I see as normal behaviour on the net, that's not to excuse truly
rude behaviour, on the net or off. Just because someone is more easily
offended than the offender, or anyone else, does not automatically mean
that it's all their own fault for being offended.
Your tale of the innocuous message being blown out of proportion
is common enough. Actually, I'm surprised that it's not *more* common.
>I've seen this kind of thing elsewhere, not usually that dramatic, but
>someone seeing something, some emotional intensity, some accusation or
>threat, in a fairly innocuous e-mail message, that just wasn't there.
My experience exactly.
>That, to me, is far more interesting.
To me as well.
>And might well be the problem.
I wonder if what happens is that the reader, lacking clues to emotional
content, infers hostility just from the lack of explicit warmth.
This could be similar to how a radical right-winger sees a moderate as
a flaming liberal, or how a radical left-winger sees a moderate as a
fascist. Or again, how to a western ear, a 'typical' (stereotypical?)
Japanese pronunciation of the letters 'l' and 'r' always sound backwards,
when in fact they are being pronounced the same -- the neutral sound
comes across to the hearer as wrong either way.
Perhaps there are people who confuse the fact of someone being live and
in person with that someone being friendly.
Perhaps some people are projecting their own (unconcious) hostilities
onto the otherwise neutral and innocent lines of incoming text.
When you read news or mail messages from someone you've never met,
whose voice do you hear? Your own? Whose emotions do you hear?
BTW, I for one think that this is an appropriate discussion for this
newsgroup because the issue of how people interact differently via
computer vs how they interact face-to-face (or voice-to-voice, or ...)
must be addressed in the design of software, or at least accounted
for in any attempt to use software as part of group efforts.
Dave Gillett
>There is nothing new here. People have been writing letters since
>the post-Renassaince spread of literacy (and before). During some
>periods, writers went out of their way to say things like "your humble
>servant" to placate the reader if there was offense. At other times,
>people wrote flames and just expected that was what letters were like.
One of the first major uses of the printing press, in Europe, was a
massive flame war between Luther and his friends and various Catholic
theologians. Flame wars are at least as old as print, and are probably
a necessary side-effect of literacy.
(Literacy is, of course, virtually a prerequisite for democracy. The
poster that Nick was responding to commented about rumours of a government
move to kill the net, and this would be entirely in keeping with the
general assault on literacy being waged by the government and its
backers.... Follow-ups to alt.conspiracy?)
Dave
Mark Shepherd
caz...@mbunix.mitre.org thinks that someone should start a discussion
on the use of software in a workgroup environment, CASE, software
management, common software, what is groupware, X-windows, etc. What are
you waiting for?
Nick Szabo thinks that the emotional content of sound and video is
often shallow and unnecessary. In a purely technical discussion this
can be true, however it is arguable that the most important group
interactions (which is what groupware is all about) are the ones dealing
with personal (i.e. emotional) rather than technical issues. I would
even go further and say that long-term, real-world electronic collaboration
is only possible with media that can adequately carry the emotional
content.
Mark Shepherd
...!boulder.colorado.edu!agcsun!marks
Steve Elmer
to me. The "victim" of the "abuse" reacted as he would to the spoken word -
i.e. he ran to his superior with accusations against "the other guy" to hide
his own inadequacy at doing his job. If the communication had been verbal,
the ploy would have been credible since there would not be any PROOF available
as to who said what. After all, it (almost?) worked even with the proof.
Some people are too shrewd for your own good...
Steve Elmer - looking for wheels within wheels
Nick Szabo
>Nick Szabo thinks that the emotional content of sound and video is
>often shallow and unnecessary. In a purely technical discussion this
>can be true, however it is arguable that the most important group
>interactions (which is what groupware is all about) are the ones dealing
>with personal (i.e. emotional) rather than technical issues.
So argue (ie provide some evidence). For this newsgroup, I think most
of the audience is technically oriented, and interested in groupware
to facilitate the discussion of technical topics. Also, I am not
convinced that sound and video are better for emotional issues than
print. They can communicate more emotional data, yes, but that is not
necessarily a good thing. An example is Galileo, who recanted what he
had seen with his own eyes, after he had to meet the pope face-to-face.
Emotional interaction is ad hominem and gets in the way of finding the
truth or achieving technical goals. In some fields (eg sales) emotional
interaction is foremost (not necessarily a good thing either, esp.
technical sales, but sadly true). In those cases sound and video could
be used (although IMHO society would not really benefit). However I
don't think there are very may salespeople reading this thread.
>I would
>even go further and say that long-term, real-world electronic collaboration
>is only possible with media that can adequately carry the emotional
>content.
History disagrees. The print media has been carrying on long-term,
real-world collaboration for hundreds of years. It is largely
responsible for post-Renassaince scientific collaboration: Newton "I have
stood on the shoulders of giants". UseNet has now speeded up the ability
to colloborate via electronic text, and real-time groupware could do this
even more. Technical graphics would also be a big win. But I see little
need for sound and video.
Der Grouch
a reply (even though I'm going to largely disagree with Nick).
In article <20...@crg5.UUCP> sz...@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
I think most of the audience is technically oriented, and interested in
groupware to facilitate the discussion of technical topics.
I think that's an unwarranted overgeneralization. People are interested in
groupware for all kinds of reasons; facilitation of technical topics is a
relatively small part of the field.
Also, I am not convinced that sound and video are better for emotional
issues than print. They can communicate more emotional data, yes, but
that is not necessarily a good thing. [Galileo example deleted.]
Emotional interaction is ad hominem and gets in the way of finding the
truth or achieving technical goals.
This is a typical rationalist overgeneralization. You will find that even
supposedly logical and rational persons benefit from emotional content to
communication. For example, how do you know which of your coworkers'
objections are the most serious? You read their body language, hear their
tone of voice, etc. This is as true for any technical example you care to
bring forward as it is for the sales interactions you disparage.
Even when the outcome is not entirely desirable in global terms, the
conveyance of emotional content can be extremely helpful. EG: in an
historical sense, Galileo recanting may not have been the "right" thing to
do, but it probably kept the pope from killing Galileo - definitely a
benefit to him! Without the emotional content, Galileo might have been
misled into thinking that the pope's objections were less serious, and thus
hastened his own demise.
[...] I see little need for sound and video.
Really? You have an impoverished view of communication. How do you know
I'm not mad at you for being such an imbecile? How do you know I haven't
separately sent you the last 200 years of research/philosophy on
communication so that you can see the error of your ways? Realistically,
you don't. What you're doing is interpolating a huge amount of data from
the words I've typed. If you had that data available directly you'd be able
to make better judgements and interpretations; even an extreme rationalist
such as yourself should be able to see the advantage of that!
--
--Alan Wexelblat phone: (508)294-7485
Bull Worldwide Information Systems internet: w...@pws.bull.com
"Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people."
Nick Szabo
> [I write]
> ...Emotional interaction is ad hominem and gets in the way of finding the
> truth or achieving technical goals.
>
>This is a typical rationalist overgeneralization. You will find that even
>supposedly logical and rational persons benefit from emotional content to
>communication. For example, how do you know which of your coworkers'
>objections are the most serious? You read their body language, hear their
>tone of voice, etc. This is as true for any technical example you care to
>bring forward as it is for the sales interactions you disparage.
For a technical discussion, I find the most serious objections by
looking at the most serious evidence put forward to support those objections.
If by "serious" you mean which coworker does not *like* the proposal
emotionally, it may be of interest to certain parties to communicate that
emotion, but it is not in the interest of the group as a whole and will
lead to a political rather than technical solution. Furthermore, the
emotional communication diverts attention from the technical communication,
leading to even poorer results.
>Even when the outcome is not entirely desirable in global terms, the
>conveyance of emotional content can be extremely helpful....
Yes, it may be in the best political interests of certain parties to
communicate emotions -- especially those like the Pope who make a career
out of it. But it is not in the best interests of a group with technical
objectives.
>EG: in an
>historical sense, Galileo recanting may not have been the "right" thing to
>do, but it probably kept the pope from killing Galileo - definitely a
>benefit to him! ...
The Pope would not have killed Galileo, making a martyr of a man who was
published all over Europe, and whose martyrdom could be proven merely by
looking through a telescope and making some deductions. Also, the
technical community and orgnazations relying on technology would have
benifitted (which is the issue at hand; I have no doubt that TV preachers
et. al. benefit from sound and video).
>
> [...] I see little need for sound and video.
>
>Really? You have an impoverished view of communication. How do you know
>I'm not mad at you for being such an imbecile?
I am interested in discussing the facts and uses of groupware, not a silly
contest to see who can get the most red in the face. If you want to
start a newsgroup alt.flame.pictures so people can frown at each other
across the continents, be my guest. Feel free to add sound & video when
bandwidth becomes available. But I won't susbscribe, for the same reason
I watch little TV -- the signal/noise ratio (where signal is information
of interest and use to me) would be extremely low.
>How do you know I haven't
>separately sent you the last 200 years of research/philosophy on
>communication so that you can see the error of your ways?
Because, like me, you don't know most of it. I know a relatively fair
amount, and while it tells me that many people *want* to communicate
emotions for various reasons, many others do not, and those that do not
(eg scientists) have had a more beneficial impact on organizations and
society than those who have. I conclude that those organizations that
waste their engineer's time on emotional communication will go out of
business at the hands of those organizations that give their engineers
tools to enhance their ability to work as a team on technical projects.
>Realistically,
>you don't. What you're doing is interpolating a huge amount of data from
>the words I've typed. If you had that data available directly you'd be able
>to make better judgements and interpretations; even an extreme rationalist
>such as yourself should be able to see the advantage of that!
Hate to tell you, but most of the research of which you speak is
*written down* not in sound or video.
Der Grouch
probably be my last post in this thread. (Not that I don't find the topic
interesting...)
In article <20...@crg5.UUCP> sz...@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) writes:
For a technical discussion, I find the most serious objections by
looking at the most serious evidence put forward to support those
objections.
Oh, piffle! You do no such thing. You look at the objections brought,
listen to the tone of voice used to present them, evaluate that against the
history you have of technical, social and personal interaction with the
person making the objection, then you form an opinion as to the
"seriousness" of the evidence. *Then* you weight the seriousness.
If by "serious" you mean which coworker does not *like* the proposal
emotionally, it may be of interest to certain parties to communicate that
emotion, but it is not in the interest of the group as a whole and will
lead to a political rather than technical solution. Furthermore, the
emotional communication diverts attention from the technical communication,
leading to even poorer results.
Depends on what you consider a "poor" result. You appear to believe that
there is the One Great Truth out there and your Job is to Discover it. This
kind of idiocy came into fashion with the Victorians; I rather thought we'd
gotten over it.
In the real world, the politico-social process is *extremely important* even
in the Discovery of Truths (like physics, which we may suppose to be an
approximation of the real world). In more fuzzy areas like building
computer products (which I naively assume you do), that process becomes even
more important.
[I'm certainly not going to argue here about what the Pope would or would
not have done.]
I am interested in discussing the facts and uses of groupware, not a silly
contest to see who can get the most red in the face.
You missed my point; perhaps if you'd seen my gestures you'd have gotten it.
Let me say it again: you are, at this moment, interpolating a huge amount of
information that has been stripped out of the bare text I must send you.
You have to hope that you get most of it right or you end up over- or
underreacting. Perhaps you interpolate an angry tone of voice and decide
this discussion is not worth your time, so you ignore my posting(s) and miss
out on an interesting topic.
The point of all that is to say that rather than leaving it to guesswork to
fill in this missing information, we would all benefit from having the
"real" raw data there to analyze or ignore as we chose.
[...] that many people *want* to communicate
emotions for various reasons, many others do not, and those that do not
(eg scientists) have had a more beneficial impact on organizations and
society than those who have. I conclude that those organizations that
waste their engineer's time on emotional communication will go out of
business at the hands of those organizations that give their engineers
tools to enhance their ability to work as a team on technical projects.
If that's what you think, remind me not to work for any company you own!
Not that I don't want the tools, of course I do. I just want to work for a
boss who realizes that things like reputation and image do more for a
company's success than strict technical regalia. (To anticipate the obvious
reply, yes I know even the best image houses can't live forever on
vaporware. But they die eventually because their images get tarnished. The
point remains the same.)
Oh, and you're right about my not being an expert in this field. But I do
know a fair bit about it. I suggest you pick up a book on the philosophy of
language; any good text will teach you the difference between syntax,
semantics, and pragmatics. Then look at the work of, oh let's pick someone
relevant to this newsgroup: Horst Rittel (whose work on IBIS got Conklin et
al started on gIBIS, rIBIS et seq).
Hate to tell you, but most of the research of which you speak is
*written down* not in sound or video.
Yes, and a bloody shame too! Chomsky, for example, is a mediocre writer at
times, but can be a terrific speaker. I understood some of his ideas *much*
better after I attended one of his lectures and saw his diagrams and
sketches. Or try to imagine how well you'd understand fractals if you'd
never seen a Mandelbrot or Julia set rendered. Self-similarity is much
better demonstrated by allowing a user to zoom in a section of such a
rendering than it is by any number of words.
Nick Szabo
> For a technical discussion, I find the most serious objections by
> looking at the most serious evidence put forward to support those
> objections.
>
>Oh, piffle! You do no such thing. You look at the objections brought,
>listen to the tone of voice used to present them, evaluate that against the
>history you have of technical, social and personal interaction with the
>person making the objection, then you form an opinion as to the
>"seriousness" of the evidence. *Then* you weight the seriousness.
Oh piffle! I recognize tone of voice, history of personal and social
interaction, and other emotions for what they are: typically irrelevent
to the technical matter at hand. I can and have exchanged large amounts
of technical information (in e-mail, news, source-code control, and bug
tracking groupware) without ever having met the person or had any sort
of emotional interaction. Similarly, I can read scientific journals,
judging them on technical merit without knowing or caring one whit about
the emotions of the person when the were writing the paper. If in fact
I know the person, I usually go into "filter emotions" mode so that I
can exchange the information needed without noise. I save my emotions
for non-technical social occasions where they are appropriate.
> ...it may be of interest to certain parties to communicate that
> emotion, but it is not in the interest of the group as a whole and will
> lead to a political rather than technical solution. Furthermore, the
> emotional communication diverts attention from the technical communication,
> leading to even poorer results.
>
>Depends on what you consider a "poor" result. You appear to believe that
>there is the One Great Truth out there and your Job is to Discover it. This
>kind of idiocy came into fashion with the Victorians; I rather thought we'd
>gotten over it.
"Idiocy"? Thank you for providing more evidence that shows how emotions
get in the way of technical communications. Now for some facts: when I
debug code there are correct and incorrect solutions. This is also true
(albeit statistically instead of logically) for other forms of engineering
and hard science.
>In the real world, the politico-social process is *extremely important* even
>in the Discovery of Truths (like physics, which we may suppose to be an
>approximation of the real world). In more fuzzy areas like building
>computer products (which I naively assume you do), that process becomes even
>more important.
Assuming that this is true (you again provide no evidence), "extremely
important" != "productive". I have consistently found in my career
that my and my fellow's emotions and technical communications do not
benificially mix.
> I am interested in discussing the facts and uses of groupware, not a silly
> contest to see who can get the most red in the face.
>
>You missed my point; perhaps if you'd seen my gestures you'd have gotten it.
I want to see evidence, not hand-waving. :-)
>Let me say it again: you are, at this moment, interpolating a huge amount of
>information that has been stripped out of the bare text I must send you.
>You have to hope that you get most of it right or you end up over- or
>underreacting.
I am not "reacting" to your post, I am thinking about it.
>Perhaps you interpolate an angry tone of voice and decide
>this discussion is not worth your time, so you ignore my posting(s) and miss
>out on an interesting topic.
I don't know for sure what your "tone of voice" is, nor do I care. I am
looking for facts that support your position -- examples of emotional
groupware being used to enhance the productivity of a technical project.
>The point of all that is to say that rather than leaving it to guesswork to
>fill in this missing information, we would all benefit from having the
>"real" raw data there to analyze or ignore as we chose.
Your gestures and tone of voice would just distract me: that is not
the information I need. Whether you are being serious, angry, silly,
sad, or whatever doesn't tell me anything about whether you are right.
>....
> Hate to tell you, but most of the research of which you speak is
> *written down* not in sound or video.
>
>Yes, and a bloody shame too! Chomsky, for example, is a mediocre writer at
>times, but can be a terrific speaker. I understood some of his ideas *much*
>better after I attended one of his lectures and saw his diagrams and
>sketches. Or try to imagine how well you'd understand fractals if you'd
>never seen a Mandelbrot or Julia set rendered. Self-similarity is much
>better demonstrated by allowing a user to zoom in a section of such a
>rendering than it is by any number of words.
Thank you for some examples. However, these are examples of technical
graphics, not sound or video. I agree that technical graphics are
important for many applications. This has little to do with communicating
emotions.
Kenneth G. Goutal
Background: I probably come down more on the rationalist end of the scale.
I *want* to agree with Nick, because I agree with many of the premises
that he states or implies. On the other hand, I don't want to,
because he annoys the h--- out of me, because of the assaultive emotional
content with which his messages (in this thread) are fraught,
despite his assertions that emotional baggage is bad for arriving
at good solutions.
I much prefer reading, say, Alan's messages because they are much more
neutral in tone, despite his assertions that emotional content is
important and that this medium strips out huge amounts of emotional content.
On the other hand, it's Alan's msg (to which this is a direct followup)
that prompts me point out that *neither* of you (or anyone else in this
thread) is providing *raw* facts (in Alan's words) for the rest of us
to use.
Nick, you're arguing as emotionally and fluffily as anyone else around
here. Alan, you've done no better. Perhaps you could be excused because
your platform is that emotional content is better. However, you cut
your own feet out from under yourself by invoking the need for "raw
facts" that are lost because we keep only written records rather than
sound, video, etc. (at least up until lately).
Keep smiling, both of you, no harm done nor intended...
I'm not going to present any good raw data here either.
By raw data, what I would hope to see would be actual studies,
numbers, graphs, etc showing emotional/rational content of communications
and the results that ensued.
I feel the need to interject that there's a red herring in here...
I'm confused about how it came about, or who introduced the notion,
but there seems to have arisen in this thread the idea that *anything*
that isn't text is emotional, and subject to the argument at hand.
I disagree. I think graphs, charts, even full-resolution pictures
could constitute "raw data" for the purposes at hand, and could and
should be communicated via e-mail, e-news, or any other groupware.
It would (or at least could) still be contributing only to the technical
content of the communications.
On the other hand, emotional content can be conveyed in words, written
or otherwise, as I indicated in the first couple of paragraphs of this
message; or in ASCII-only non-text, as the crude "emoticons" that have
been in widespread use in this medium (but not in this newsgroup!!!!!?)
for many years; or in detailed, hi-resolution, frequently-updated
emoticons; or in the tone of voice and facial expressions in full-
motion video with sound.
So, part of what I would wish for would be increased bandwidth so as
to accomodate graphics and perhaps even sound and video, but that
somehow discussions could be carried on in a rational way, regardless
of the medium.
I *have not* read any studies of this stuff, nor have I conducted any,
so perhaps by my own dictum I should stay out of this discussion.
Having given that caveat, I will sally forth with the following:
I think that one of the features of a piece of groupware that contributes
to rational results is a built-in *memory* of what's been communicated so
far, so as to at least help avoid degenerating to "You said X!" "No I
didn't!" "Yes you did!" "I did not!" and so forth. Where the system
has a memory, the participants can, at least, go back and *check* what
was "said". I think that the lack of this features is a weakness I see
in e-news as implemented on UUCP et al, and a strength of more centralized
systems such as CoSy and Participate (tm's as appropriate).
A second thing I think is true is that it would be bad (by which I mean
"unfruitful") to have a system which did not *allow* for free-form
contribution as we have it here, but I think that it is equally bad
to have a system which does not *facilitate* more structured forms
of communication that make it easier to avoid emotional traps.
But now I've rambled more than I wanted.
Take heart, Nick, Alan, and the rest...
I continue to believe that this is a worthwhile thread,
and quite relevant to the discussion of groupware.
I think it would be more worthwhile if (a) the contributors made their
contributions with higher fact/fancy, rational/emotional ratios; or
(b) the software supported fruitful discussion better; or
(c) both of the above.
David Dick
..discussion of desire for experimental data on emotional content, etc, etc
elided..
>On the other hand, emotional content can be conveyed in words, written
>or otherwise, as I indicated in the first couple of paragraphs of this
>message; or in ASCII-only non-text, as the crude "emoticons" that have
>been in widespread use in this medium (but not in this newsgroup!!!!!?)
>for many years; or in detailed, hi-resolution, frequently-updated
>emoticons; or in the tone of voice and facial expressions in full-
>motion video with sound.
Of course emotional content can be carried by normal text! Read
any good novels lately? The problem is that cramming emotional
content into text is very time-consuming--good writing is *hard*.
My image of it is of packing and repacking a suitcase until everything
you want to take fits.
There seems to be an assumption that conveying emotion can be
made easier by making the bandwidth larger. That helps to some
extent but I would like to remind everyone that a few people are
much better conversationalists than the rest of us, even when we
all have "full" bandwidth.
And we sometimes have inappropriate or embarassing emotions that
we don't want to convey (e.g., this is sure boring, but I better
continue to listen). Maybe rather than the picture on/off switch
for our future videophone-equivalents we'll need a bandwidth slide
switch (text on one end, full senses on the other end), depending
on how revealing we want to be :-)
David Dick
Software Innovations, Inc. [the Software Moving Company (sm)]
Dr. Luther's Assistant
Even net.pundits were baffled when sz...@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo) wrote:
>Furthermore, the
>emotional communication diverts attention from the technical communication,
>leading to even poorer results.
I don't think that's _necessarily_ true. Given a purely technical
subject, I would rather hear a talk given by a skilled orator than
one delivered in a monotone -- even if the words were exactly the same.
In some cases, the emotional communication can help to focus attention
rather than divert it.
>Yes, it may be in the best political interests of certain parties to
>communicate emotions -- especially those like the Pope who make a career
>out of it. But it is not in the best interests of a group with technical
>objectives.
My question in response is: how many groups are there with _purely_
technical objectives? I am inclined to say "very few". Certainly
some sort of "political interests" have affected the objectives of
every group I've been affiliated with.
>I conclude that those organizations that
>waste their engineer's time on emotional communication will go out of
>business at the hands of those organizations that give their engineers
>tools to enhance their ability to work as a team on technical projects.
I can't agree with this. In the type of software development I do,
people's reactions to the program are very important -- whether those
reactions are technical (it doesn't help me to do this task) or emotional
(yecch! it's ugly!). I'd much rather get that sort of emotional
feedback during the design phase, rather than from customers...
-- Stewart
--
"The old stereotypes must be lost
that peace and knowledge and love are soft."
-- Blastmaster KRS-ONE
/* uunet!sco!stewarte -or- stew...@sco.COM -or- Stewart Evans */
Kenneth G. Goutal
In article <1991Jan24....@siia.mv.com> d...@siia.mv.com (David Dick) writes:
>
>Of course emotional content can be carried by normal text! Read
>any good novels lately? The problem is that cramming emotional
>content into text is very time-consuming--good writing is *hard*.
Agreed. That's why the use of more bandwidth to convey audio and video
is such a popular idea. "Everybody knows" that just being oneself is
much easier than writing.
>There seems to be an assumption that conveying emotion can be
>made easier by making the bandwidth larger.
See above.
>That helps to some
>extent but I would like to remind everyone that a few people are
>much better conversationalists than the rest of us, even when we
>all have "full" bandwidth.
Ah! Now *there's* the rub!!!!!
I was going to bring this up in a separate message immediately after
my previous one, but forgot, so I'm glad you brought this up.
For some of us, the use of that extra bandwidth will be a handicap,
not a benefit! There are any number of reasons -- vocal qualities
(harsh voice, nasal voice, difficult accent, amusing accent, speech
impediment), physical appearance (age, sex, race or color, facial
disfigurement), anomalies in body language (nervous tic, perpetual
frown, blank stare when concentrating) -- all can contribute to
conveying the *wrong* emotional content.
>And we sometimes have inappropriate or embarassing emotions that
>we don't want to convey (e.g., this is sure boring, but I better
>continue to listen).
Indeed.
>Maybe rather than the picture on/off switch
>for our future videophone-equivalents we'll need a bandwidth slide
>switch (text on one end, full senses on the other end), depending
>on how revealing we want to be :-)
Of course, in text we can hide all these things in the low bandwidth.
Or, if we are skilled writers, we can pretend to emotions that we
don't really have.
I foresee a time when full audio/video is the norm, and
a. turning down the bandwidth as Dave suggested will be considered
an admission of hiding something;
b. faked representations will become common; and
c. the richer you are, the more convincing your faked representations
can be.
At the moment, the crudeness of our software (text only)
and the limitations of our hardware (low bandwidth)
tend to be equalizers, giving those of us with any combination of
the limitations I mentioned above the chance to present our views
on an equal footing with those without those limitations.
Those of us who wish to be convincing by dint of logic, or at least
the appeal of our *ideas* find this especially beneficial.
This is sort of half-way in the direction of (as I percieve it)
Nick's goal of having the strength of the facts speak for themselves.
Of course, the current situation *does* place a premium on being able
to *write*. Those of us who write well fare better in this medium
than those who don't. This is sometimes just as unfortunate as the
situation where those who are mellifluous, or beautiful, or powerful
fare better than those who aren't.
Another time, we can discuss the advantages and disadvantages to
various people of the *delay* in this medium, and how different
people will have the advantage as connectivity and bandwidth move
us more in the direction of real-time interactions vs the current
'batched' interactions.
David Dick
>Of course, in text we can hide all these [revealing] things
>in the low bandwidth.
>Or, if we are skilled writers, we can pretend to emotions that we
>don't really have.
>I foresee a time when full audio/video is the norm, and
> a. turning down the bandwidth as Dave suggested will be considered
> an admission of hiding something;
> b. faked representations will become common; and
> c. the richer you are, the more convincing your faked representations
> can be.
There is an interesting exploration of some of the implications of
a politics of openness (non-secrecy) in the SF book "Earth" by David Brin.
"Representations" or simulated personalities to handle
incoming voice interactions are popular in SF (some of Heechee series
by F. Pohl come to mind).
These simulated interations are reminiscent of current day interactions
between word processing mailing list programs used to flood legislators
with mail and legislators with mail handling systems for sending back
automated responses.
I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this automatic mail handling
now, while it's relatively easy (i.e., text-only).
>At the moment, the crudeness of our software (text only)
>and the limitations of our hardware (low bandwidth)
>tend to be equalizers, giving those of us with any combination of
>the limitations I mentioned above the chance to present our views
>on an equal footing with those without those limitations.
Actually, I think part of it is just the same sort of advantage
the "nerds" in any technology have until use becomes widespread.
That is, early users who learn how to use a technology despite
any kind of coarseness have a headstart.
>Of course, the current situation *does* place a premium on being able
>to *write*. Those of us who write well fare better in this medium
>than those who don't. This is sometimes just as unfortunate as the
>situation where those who are mellifluous, or beautiful, or powerful
>fare better than those who aren't.
A topical note: there seems to be a resurgence of letter-writing
because of the Gulf War, especially after the influence of the
letters in the PBS series "The Civil War".
Mark The Nose Knows Feit
sharing X clients among systems connected over the Internet, and some
of the same problems regarding person-to-person communications came up.
What I think is being missed here is that these type of tools are not
intended to completely handle _all_ communications among the
participants. The package I developed provides communications for the
tools only, but not the participants. That's to be taken care of
elsewhere. The test bed for this mess is supposed to be a network of
conference rooms in North Carolina equipped with full video
teleconferencing (the conventional variety, no computers involved) and
a ring of T1 lines connecting the workstations, of which there is one
per room.
That type of setup provides a good environment for collaboration.
It's going to be a long time before we can put _everything_ on the
machines, since our networks don't have the bandwidth just yet.
Soon enough, though.
--
- Mark
................................. .................................
: Mark A. Feit : Internet: fe...@cs.odu.edu :
: ODU Computer Science - BSCS '90 : UUCP: aplcen!wb3ffv!nose!mark :
: - (Fill in an employer here.) - : "Beat Iraq: SLAM SADDAM" :
................................. .................................
"Programming is 10% science, 25% ingenuity and 65% getting the
ingenuity to work with the science."
Dr. Orville R. Weyrich
>
>>Nick Szabo thinks that the emotional content of sound and video is
>>often shallow and unnecessary. In a purely technical discussion this
>>can be true, however it is arguable that the most important group
>>interactions (which is what groupware is all about) are the ones dealing
>>with personal (i.e. emotional) rather than technical issues.
>
>So argue (ie provide some evidence). For this newsgroup, I think most
>of the audience is technically oriented, and interested in groupware
>to facilitate the discussion of technical topics. Also, I am not
>convinced that sound and video are better for emotional issues than
>print. They can communicate more emotional data, yes, but that is not
>necessarily a good thing. An example is Galileo, who recanted what he
>
I have recently been listening to an audio-tape program entitled
"The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense". One of the points made
in this tape series is that the written word does not normally
carry any indication of stress, and that emotional [abusive]
content is often related to abnormal stress. (Consider the difference
between "When do you want it done?" and "When do YOU want it done?").
IMHO, eliminating these subliminal channels is a GOOD THING, and
more often facilitates group interaction than not.
------------------------------ ******************************
Orville R. Weyrich, Jr., Ph.D. Certified Systems Professional
uucp: uunet!weyrich!orville Weyrich Computer Consulting
voice: (602) 391-0821 POB 5782, Scottsdale, AZ 85261
fax: (602) 391-0023 (Yes! I'm available)
------------------------------ ******************************
Dr. Orville R. Weyrich
>> [I write]
>> ...Emotional interaction is ad hominem and gets in the way of finding the
>> truth or achieving technical goals.
>>
>>This is a typical rationalist overgeneralization. You will find that even
>>supposedly logical and rational persons benefit from emotional content to
>>communication. For example, how do you know which of your coworkers'
>>objections are the most serious? You read their body language, hear their
>>tone of voice, etc. This is as true for any technical example you care to
>>bring forward as it is for the sales interactions you disparage.
>
>For a technical discussion, I find the most serious objections by
>looking at the most serious evidence put forward to support those objections.
>If by "serious" you mean which coworker does not *like* the proposal
>emotionally, it may be of interest to certain parties to communicate that
>emotion, but it is not in the interest of the group as a whole and will
>lead to a political rather than technical solution. Furthermore, the
>emotional communication diverts attention from the technical communication,
>leading to even poorer results.
This discussion brings several points to [my] mind:
1) Technologically superior solutions can be scuttled by politics,
so the politics must be taken into account in a successful solution.
2) Making non-explicit communications explicit benefits a group
discussion, especially in an inter-cultural environment.
3) Forcing communications into a writtten mode has the beneficial
effect of encouraging people to be explicit (c.f. smiley faces).
4) Some persons have difficulty with the verbal mode of communication,
and have difficulty functioning in such an environment. How can
a group accomodate/benefit from such persons?
Scott Henninger
>
> 2) Making non-explicit communications explicit benefits a group
> discussion, especially in an inter-cultural environment.
This is another commonly held assumption steeped in the rationalist
tradition. Is there any evidence for this conjecture, other than our
intuitions (which fail us more often than we may want to believe)?
> I have recently been listening to an audio-tape program entitled
> "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense". One of the points made
> in this tape series is that the written word does not normally
> carry any indication of stress, and that emotional [abusive]
> content is often related to abnormal stress. (Consider the
> difference between "When do you want it done?" and "When do YOU
> want it > done?").
>
> IMHO, eliminating these subliminal channels is a GOOD THING, and
> more often facilitates group interaction than not.
I may be misunderstanding the message, but isn't this a contradiction?
You say in the first paragraph that natural communication (note, NOT
natural language) is more than words, then you claim that taking part of
the communication medium away leads to better communication. How can
this be?
Smiley faces are a good example of informal written communication
mediums trying to bring these natural mediums back into the
conversations. Without them, much of the communication would be taken
far too seriously, losing the intended humor or irony.
By the way, I don't think intonation is in any way subliminal. It may
be implicit, as opposed to explicit, but it is certainly consciously
processed.
--
-- Scott
sco...@boulder.colorado.edu
Richard Wexelblat
>
>By the way, I don't think intonation is in any way subliminal. It may
>be implicit, as opposed to explicit, but it is certainly consciously
>processed.
It's called prosody and is an intrinsic part of human communication.
--
--Dick Wexelblat (r...@ida.org) 703 845 6601
Can you accept an out of state sanity check?
bill killam
>
> I have recently been listening to an audio-tape program entitled
>
>
> IMHO, eliminating these subliminal channels is a GOOD THING, and
> more often facilitates group interaction than not.
>
Most of the research read regarding group problems via computer witten channels
indicates that the reduction of the subliminal channels does not faciliate
group interaction, and, in fact, makes group problem solving a more timely
task. The research I know of relates to written communication across a computer
terminal, and there are several mitigating factors why computer use may be the
culprate in this case. Does anyone know of research into group problem
solving via written communication that does not invlove the computer?
BTW, IMO there is evidence on both sides of the argument regarding group
interacton without the subliminal channels. Group may take longer to reach a
complusion (perhaps indicating that the lack of additonal information is
detrimental to the group process), but their conclusion are more likely to
differ from the initial position of the group (perhaps indicating that the
group is able to explore the issue better). To imply that the lack of
the subliminal channels equates to a lack of emotional content, as it has been
linked before, I beleive is incorrect. The disinhibition (flaming) that is
present during these session indicates that the emotional content is more
bluntly expressed if not increased.
Bill Killam
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