civil discussion on fedora lists

[Reindl Harald]

Am 18.10.2014 um 23:07 schrieb Simo Sorce:
> On Sat, 18 Oct 2014 22:51:52 +0200
> Reindl Harald <h.reindl at thelounge.net> wrote:
>>> They do not say something like:
>>>    "Sorry , I did not understand, can you repeat ?"
>>
>> the say "bitte?" like "please" in english (one single word) but for
>> sure not "I'm not sure I understand the point you are making.
>> Particularly, I don't see how __________ follows. Can you explain
>> that in more depth?" - nowehere, never in real life
>
> I am sure you are smart enough to understand that Matthew was
> suggesting a different approach and not necessarily the exact wording
> to use. Yes they may say 'sorry?' in person when the exchange is
> direct, immediate and the context makes it clear they are saying sorry
> because they did not understand. Unfortunately that is never the case
> via email. You need a couple more words if you want to be sure to
> convey the right meaning as tone, facial expression, and other signals
> our bodies transmit in a live conversation do not work via email.

one possible solution

the much easier one would be realize that email is just short, no 
face-to-face and in doubt not meant as attack and so no take every 
single word serious

you say "email needs more explanation"
i say "no, email needs just not take anything personal"

with my way communication is *much more* efficient

just don't seek an attack and you are done most of the time

>>> And instead say:
>>>   "You are a moron that doesn't know how to speak GTFO now!"
>>
>> nobody said anything like that in the whole thread the OP referred to
>> and nobody neends to pack "WTF are you talking about" in a paragraph
>> with 50 lines to be as polite as possible
>>
>> read the last interview of Linus and you maybe understand what i am
>> talking about - packing the relevant information in 100 lines of
>> pseudo-code to be polite, friendly and the best human in the world
>> don't help anybody
>>
>> people not taking every single word personal in a technical dicussion
>> would help everyone because the noise/information ratio would be much
>> more appropriate
>
> I am sure you do not like impoliteness more than anyone else, you just
> fail to understand different people have different sensibilities and
> not everybody likes harsh language.

frankly i have no problem with impoliteness

in doubt i *prefer* impoliteness instead burry facts in a lot of words

> Politeness do not require vagueness or extensive explanations, you can
> be polite and short at the same time.

in your native language maybe

> However a little bit of politeness does wonders for *interpersonal*
> communications, we are not insensible robots but humans.

that's the point

so take words as "from a human" and not feel attacked whereever you see 
a chnace to do so and anything could be fine

> Linus has some very good qualities as an engineer, but I wouldn't take
> a lesson in effective communication from him.

in context of technical discussions you should do so

a lot of stuff about politeness would not be needed and if he would be 
that wrong frankly this mailing-list and Fedora would not exist at all

> People resolve to harsh words, expletives and confrontation when they
> are *bad* at communications. You can dress it up and rationalize it as
> being direct and effective, but that doesn't make it true

that may be true - *but* i prefer people with knowledge *but not* good 
at communications over the ones good at communications but missing 
knowledge and relevant content

if somebody seeks for "communications" and "politeness" maybe a 
technical forum is just the wrong place

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