A principle for online discussion
2009-04-11 / 11:57 / dave
…Are you assuming malice or incompetence where none might exist?
Chris Winters, Bitter Discourse Indeed
Occasionally, and often related to language wars or Zed Shaw, the internet realizes that there is a stunning lack of online decency. A backlash occurs. In one of these exchanges I read a blog post–the source of which I’ve unfortunately forgotten–that crystallized my opinion: practice the principle of charity.
PS: Speaking of bitter discourse and moral codes, I highly recommend Doubt.
> practice the principle of charity.
Hear, hear. I spend a little bit of time on Oracle’s technical fora, where there is a wide disparity in both knowledge level and English-language facility among participants. The communications channel is thus nearly always lossy, at times to a great degree. Things I often remind myself when posting, or considering others’ posts:
1) It’s very likely I don’t fully understand the user’s question.
2) It’s at least possible that the user will not fully understand my response
3) There are a wide variety of cultural norms regarding the line between “blunt/direct/forthright” and “purposefully rude/dismissive,” exacerbated by the realities of language barriers, relative anonymity, and the fact that the demographic is largely composed of *ahem* geeks that don’t optimize for “teh social.”
To ameliorate these complications, I try to exercise patience, give lots of benefit of the doubt, overexplain, use liberal smileys (which I’m sure annoys some folks, but hey), and not post when underslept, overcaffeinated, or otherwise twitchy. ;-)
Thanks for the link to Chris’ blog, BTW. Reminded me to add it to my feeds.
Regards,
John P.
Those sound like similarly well-reasoned and far more explanatory considerations for online discussion.
I’ve realized that I’m often more patient and reasoned in online discussion than in person. It’s probably because the asynchronicity gives me more time to think but I’d like to hope that it’s because I consider online discussion more authentic than real life.
[...] a quiet populace. It was to reinforce that we are all flawed people with flawed opinions and that the principle of charity also applies [...]