Decorum needs to be raised.

[John Summerfield]

Dean S. Messing wrote:
> Thomas Cameron wrote:
> : On Thu, 2008-01-03 at 19:18 -0800, Leslie Satenstein wrote:
> : > I have been in IT for 40 years, and in that time I learned a lesson or
> : > two.
> : 
> : <snip most excellent observations and advice>
> : 
> : I don't actually buy into this, but it an interesting take on
> : communications with really bright people:
> : 
> : http://www.mit.edu/~jcb/tact.html
> : 
> : Again, I don't think there is any excuse for not at least starting out
> : being nice - I believe in the whole "do unto others as you'd have them
> : do unto you" thing.  But it is an interesting point of view.
> 
> Thanks for the "tact filter" link!  I think the author his hit on a
> little piece of wisdom here.
> 
> But he may have missed one type of person: the person who (for
> whatever reason) has no "tact filter" at all.  Thus much of what he
> says is offensive to normal people (and he has no sense that it is)
> and much he hears from normal people (no matter how tactfully spoken)
> is offensive to him.  I known a few people like this.

 From my reading, that's the nerd.

> 
> Dean
> 

I was going to say, "Assume I'm a nerd." Then I decided, in email, it's 
better to assume everyone's a nerd. You can't hear the inflexion in my 
voice or see the twinkle in my eye as I say this.


Even worse in international fora such as this, where we come from many 
different cultures. I offended an American once by describing him as 
penurious, but an Australian in the same financial position would most 
certainly have agreed with me.

And all this monkey business in cricket has me completely flummoxed.

Of course, sometimes people _are_ deliberately offensive but even then 
it might be no more than an expression of frustration.

And the use of "you" to mean "you the individual" and "the group of 
people you represent," with no necessary clue as to which is meant does 
not help.



-- 

Cheers
John

-- spambait
1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu  Z1aaaaaaa at coco.merseine.nu
-- Advice
http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

You cannot reply off-list:-)