[thelist] One blowhard, hundreds of cubic feet of hot air

Madhu Menon webguru at vsnl.net
Wed Jan 23 19:28:36 CST 2002


At 03:24 AM 1/23/2002, Shirley wrote:
> >Disagreement is fine; it's how we learn. Rudeness is not fine, it's
> >counterproductive.
> >
> >joel (spinhead)
>
>To underline the importance of HOW we approach responses, Madhu Menon wrote
>a great post to his weblog just a day or two ago (that I liked so much that
>I also blogged at my own weblog)

>Avoiding personal conflict on mailing lists
><http://madman.weblogs.com/2002/01/22>

*Madhu blushes*

Well, some people here know that I originally posted that on another list ;)

Like Joel wrote, disagreement is expected. Argue vehemently in favour of 
your position if you wish, but don't attack the person opposing it. Calling 
someone a "blowhard" doesn't get you anywhere. I'll give you a few reasons 
to avoid any character assessments:

1) You probably know very little about the person, his experience, and 
expertise. This doesn't put you in a position to make judgements. And of 
course, it's just not polite.

2) When you go calling people names, what happens is the opposite of what 
you'd like. Instead of focusing on your arguments, people (especially the 
target of your ire) pay attention to your rudeness. Suddenly, people care 
more about defending themselves than debating web development issues with 
you. That's not what we want here.

3) Other list members don't forget rude conduct easily. The next time you 
ask for help, you could find yourself getting the silent treatment from 
list members. They're also less likely to take your opinions seriously. Is 
that what you want? I don't think so.


When people ask questions on this list like "why is my page alignment 
screwed?", we don't laugh at them for their HTML skills. We try and help 
them out -- and the same should apply for all other debates here as well.

If you're firing off an email in anger, don't be hasty. Save the email, put 
it aside for an hour, and read it again once you've calmed down. Then 
delete all the nasty stuff and stick to the facts. Press Send. It works.

Thank you for actually taking the time to read this. Can you tell I'm just 
catching up on thelist mail? ;)

Regards,

Madhu
(just one of several friendly evolt.org admins :)


<<<   *   >>>
Madhu Menon
User Experience Consultant
e-mail: webguru at vsnl.net

Weblog: http://madman.weblogs.com






More information about the thelist mailing list