ADMIN: Think about this

["Eric J. Ray" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>]

Please think about this.
Eric


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Revised 31 July 1998


THE INAPPROPRIATE POSTING SCENARIO

(Listowner's Note: The "thanks" notations are for the
contributions to the scenario, not pointed digs at
people who committed these infractions.)

     THE SCENARIO
  You are in a large lecture hall full of people in your profession.
  Included in the audience are students, educators, professionals. 
  You cannot make out their faces, but they could reasonably 
  include your employers or potential employers, your coworkers, 
  and the ever-present violently obsessive technical writing 
  groupies.

  Most of the audience members sit quietly as one member at a time 
  gets up, walks to the podium, and shares information or advice or
  asks questions. Some of it is rich and detailed, some cursory but
  helpful, some trivial but relevant in a roundabout way.  Somewhere
  in this stream of information, someone expresses an opinion or 
  gives a piece of advice that you feel obligated to respond to.

  You get out of your seat and walk to the front of the room, 
  everyone's eyes upon you. ...

	(Listowner's note: At this point, the paths may diverge. 
	 Some of the following unfortunate cases have been played
	 out over the past few years.)

   A) You approach the podium, clear your throat, and say "Me,
      too."   You are greeted with a combination of quizzical, 
      patronizing smirks and incredulous silence.

   B) You relate that really good joke about Microsoft and operating
      systems that you overheard at the restaurant last night. Some
      laugh. Some wonder why you just now heard it. Many wonder why 
      you'd use their chance to discuss technical communication to
      tell a old joke. 

   C) You take your turn at the microphone to clarify a point. One 
      of the previous speakers had mentioned, in the context of 
      developing and using context-sensitive, interactive help files,
      that they used MS Word v3.0. Obviously, that's incorrect,
      therefore
      you clarify that they MUST have used a different version because
      that one didn't even exist. Not only that, but the incompetence
      of anyone who could make such a mistake is certainly astounding.
      It only takes you about 10 minutes to impress upon everyone that
      you know far better than the speaker what versions of Word
      exist.
      (You don't make any points about the issue at hand, but your 
      audience has already made their assumptions about your knowledge
      in that area.)

   D) "Does anyone know how much the cheapest Internet service
      provider in Kansas costs?"

   E) You replay the entire videotape of the MS Word v3.0 speaker, 
      including the introduction, the walk to the podium, and the walk 
      back to a seat. The quality isn't all that hot, but it's
      important
      to make sure everyone knows the context in which you speak. 12 
      minutes later, you point out that there is in fact a version of 
      MS Word v3.0 and you had used it once, briefly, but didn't like 
      it much and would always choose Frame. Furthermore,  anyone who 
      uses any version of Word is a certifiable idiot and if your
      company
      or clients require Word, you should quit and find a real
      company.
      You return to your seat satisfied about your demonstrated TW 
      proficiency and wonder about the copy of "How to Win Friends and
      Influence People" that ended up on your chair. (Thanks to Jim
      Barton
      for the initial suggestion and Arlen Walker for the quibble.)

   F) You take your chance at the podium to publicly mock the 
      pronunciation and diction of the three speakers before you, not
      to
      mention their poor spelling on overheads. As you return to your 
      seat, someone passes you a note pointing out that one of the
      three
      is hard of hearing, one is not a native speaker of English, and 
      that many people in the world don't see a problem with spelling 
      "defense" as "defence". Whoops! Oh, well, you think, they'll get 
      over it. 

   G) You walk up to the podium and say "I'm glad you all 
      finally stopped talking about that subject, because you were
      wasting everyone's time. I'm so relieved we're not discussing it
      any more." (Thanks to Tracy Boyington for this one.)

   H) You reach the microphone and say the exact same thing that all 8 
      people before you have said because you didn't bother to listen
      to them. (Thanks to Chris Boehm.)

   I) You piously denounce the majority of subjects that have 
      been discussed thus far as irrelevant to the original 
      scope of the conference, berate the conference organizers 
      for allowing such irrelevancies to be introduced into the 
      dialogue, and announce that you will leave the auditorium 
      if discussion of such issues continues. 

   J) You complain that the seminar does not provide a wide enough 
      scope for discussion of your particular interests (which may 
      be of only cursory interest to a minority of people attending 
      the conference), accuse the conference organizers of promoting 
      censorship, and ask if anyone knows of another conference 
      organized by nonfacists. (Thanks to Bill Burns for these last
      2.)

   K) You try to leave the auditorium, but forget how, so instead of
      looking for exit signs or asking the usher, you go to the front
      and ask everybody. (Thanks to Lorin C. Ledger for this one.)

  As you walk back to your seat, you try to make out the faces around
  you.   (Thanks to Lisa Higgins for the original scenario)

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A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and 
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe.  http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

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