EVERY user, please read this thread NOW

I'll try to be nicer!

But seriously, well put PatsFan.

Sometimes I hesitate to post for that reason. I am by no means an expert in all areas of DL but I am a little knowledgeable in some. I have learned a lot from this forum and I would like to see "small number respondents" posting more and non-respondents posting. The purpose of this forum is share information, however, when respondents are insulted or grilled, it does just the opposite: respondents become reluctant to post and share their personal knowledge and information.

 

Here's my suggestions:

1. Never post gratuitous insults. That's seriously uncool and it shouldn't happen. And don't try to "have fun" at somebody else's expense.

I realize that when somebody tries to promote what we believe is a degree mill, something needs to be said. But criticism is better directed at issues and institutions than at people. We should try to be as persuasive as we possibly can while avoiding ego battles.

If we vilify our opponents, then we essentially surrender any chance of persuading them. Our goal should be to bring people around to seeing things our way. We can't put people into positions where agreement with us represents surrender and humiliation. That's self-defeating and it's terrible rhetoric.

And we really should try to avoid insulting other people just because we perceive them as bogeymen, conservatives or liberals, as the case may be.

2. Don't hold grudges. Everyone hears rude or hurtful things from time to time. That's the human condition. But for god's sake don't lovingly embrace your resentments.

Think about it: When somebody says something hurtful and uncalled for, the words come and go in an instant. If the words ruin your day, then the injury is something that you are doing to yourself. It's kind of an emotional allergic reaction, where it's your own inappropriate responses that are hurting you.

Maybe sometimes it's a good idea to take a short vacation. Don't participate here for a few days. Do something else with the time. Regain some perspective. That's not a defeat and you shouldn't see it as such. Nobody's driving you off. You are acting on your own initiative to calm and center yourself so that you don't become anybody else's emotional plaything.

If people remain imperturbable amid all the foolishness and just make good persuasive posts, they win (in more ways than one).

I'm not claiming any particular success in doing this stuff. I'm just suggesting that these are good precepts on discussion boards.

 

What exactly is "human nature"?

I run several bulletin boards and forums. The most useful, most active have a membership who share a livelyhood or a goal, and the least useful, most active are diffusely focused.

The most flamers and trolls are on lists that do not make their politeness rules very explicit, and are open posting, and not really moderatable, e.g. listserv. There may be something to the comment that extreme frustration arises from attempting to defend the indefensible. People who know what they know and know where the precedent lies are very difficult to bait.

The comment about "It is human nature to _fill in whatever you wish here_" is explaining away rather than being descriptive. There are some cultures where whatever you mentally included in the foregoing quote is not obtained, so, I posit, there is very little that is really human nature, as in behaviour patterns pertaining to all humans. List behaviour is based in the perceived cultural requirements. List memberships are practically a subculture of their own. I have a short article about list personae at NetworkDefense.biz
if you are interested. I am gratuitously studying list behaviour and would be interested in comments pertaining to this topic. When I say gratuitously, I mean that I am not being paid to do it and at the moment it is for my own amusement and edification.

The least active, most useful lists are essentially order sites for products so you only see comments when somebody feels they need clarification or elaboration of stated product info.

The least active, least useful sites are really more like ezines with talkback function.

Wolf Halton

 

Re: What exactly is "human nature"?

Reminds of that site with descriptions and cartoon representations of the various respondent types.

 

Since this forum is about DL, one key aspect of success and beneficial collaboration on the net is etiquette (or netiquette??).

Over the time i've taken DL classes, i realised that those who lack diplomacy on the net on how they approach issues have a hard time getting along with their online classmates and eventually lose out on the benefits that they'd have otherwise enjoyed if only they were nice.

 

I think netiquette is a learned thing. I also think there might be a learning-style issue underlying, and probably this underlying issue drives whether people will be interested in DL at all.

This is just a matrix model, and I am not saying it is true.

2 types of people I have seen in my classes.
Integrator personality - people who attempt to associate and integrate new information into their old data set. These people are good at figuring out how the new info might make their old data easier to work with. These folks receive data easily and edit which parts of it they want to keep.

Isolator personality - people who attempt to learn each class or item as if it is a stand-alone component which they can keep or discard in its entirety and in no other way. These folks tend to personify their old data sets and "defend them against attack" by new ideas.

Then there are 2 ways of handling novelty. Hate fear and distrust novelty OR embrace, love and enjoy novelty. Wilson & Shea's Neophobe and Neophile.

an isolationist neophobe is sure they are right; does not look at new things critically but emotionally; and tends to take others' posts personally. Considers learning (especially in others) dangerous.

an isolationist neophile is always right and tends to look for new input which vindicates their old data; tends toward wanting to use the most familiar tool in all situations (to a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail); tends to appropriate the other side's argument and show how it proves the isolationist's point. Considers learning a necessary step toward a previously decided goal.

an integrator neophobe is not sure he is right, and tends to avoid commenting in case somebody finds out they are not right. Does not defend their "truth" well and is easily infected with new ideas. Feels like they need protection from new ideas. Finds learning scary.

an integrator neophile is not nearly as concerned about whether their old data is right as she is with whether it is correct. She actively seeks out data which contradicts her own and is not protective of her old data. Tends to make intuitive leaps in the classroom and finds learning fun.

This matrix appears to neatly explain why only about 25% of American adults finishes college. I do not think the correlation is anything close to 100% but it was fun to write it out.

 

There must be something about the psychology of internet communication that emboldens some people to say things that they would never have the gazongas to say face to face. Like maybe the fact the people can't reach through the computer and punch them out ... even if they are behaving like jerks.

 

Couldn't agree with you more wolfman about the 2 classes of people.

I think this classification is also driven by the 2 types of learners in a class. The freshmen, with no job experience or outside world knowldge of what's going on and the adult learners - everyone else employed currently and in the past.

I fall into the latter with the Integrator personality. I find myself weighting each and every lesson, subject, and class assignment based on "what's in it for me? how is it going to affect wha i did before? how's it going to make life easier in my profession? how useful is it? If i feel it's of no intellectual value, i give it just the weight it deserves.

Unlike in my younger days where i strived to learn and absorb evrything because i thought everyting the teachers said was important, experience proved to be the best teacher.

Once you graduate and enter the job market and realise what you know is nothing but a small dot, that's when you start questioning why you were in school all these years. You soon realise the need to be more practical in learning - weaving garbage and saving your bytes for the important knowledge, the one that will really earn you the job!

 

Rolen
That's right, there is a apprentice/journeyman/master aspect to the matrix as well, but it may work in reverse of how you are stating it.

You know what you know (you have been in the world of work and you are not a dewey-eyed newbie)
and there are things you don't know, but you know that you don't know them (I don't know how to program in C#)
but the part where we all get messed up is the large body of knowledge that we don't know, and we don't know that we don't know it.

The more you think you know about a subject, the less open to new information in that area, because you already know what works best. You already know.

If you were not as sucessful as you like, and are going back to school to get trained in a new and different job, you have to be terrible careful that you don't take your old learned bad habits into the new career. That leads to a kind of victimhood of ones own imagination.

People who enter each new list and find nothing but #ssh*les there are not all that different from people who get married over and over to abusive spouses. The only constant is them, and the expectations they bring to the relationship(s). Troll and flame people all think it is the other guys who are screwed up. "I am the height of decency and propriety but these idiots refuse to accept reality."

 

How do some posts get placed in the wrong thread?

 

You can't be serious?

With statements such as "Bing and richtx are blowing smoke up your ass, and couldn't punch their way out of a truly IT-related paper sack" to name just one unchecked statement coming from certain crotchety old curmudgeon, I wonder how serious you really ar in cleaning up the place dear "moderator"?
Do have another handle called DesElm by chance?