Re: offline courtesy among list members [late and long]

[Dick Margulis <margulis -at- fiam -dot- net>]

Sorry to revisit a thread several days late, but I've been away and am 
just catching up.

FIRST, to Hannah and anyone else I've helped who has not taken the time 
to write me a thank you note, detailed or otherwise: I wasn't expecting 
one and am always pleasantly surprised when I get one. Often someone 
asks a simple how-to question on the list that has been discussed to 
death and I just dash off a quick off-list how-to response, with no 
social niceties in my reply, to solve the immediate problem for the 
person without wasting list bandwidth or a lot of my own time. In any 
case, I don't interpret the lack of a thank you as rude. This isn't 
about feelings; it's about getting the job done; and I assume you were 
pressed for time in the first place, or you wouldn't have written your 
urgent plea for help to the list.

SECOND (not to Hannah, but to the list in general), I think there is a 
larger issue that does need to be addressed regarding offline courtesy.

Most off-list exchanges go well. But periodically the original poster 
misinterprets my comments and goes off on me--typically accusing me of 
having a bad relationship with my mother, among other things. I am 
always taken aback by these vituperative communications because they are 
invariably in response to what I thought was a friendly, neutral 
(sometimes jocular) response to something posted to the list.

I know from correspondence with some others, that I'm not the only one 
who receives this vitriol; and I conclude, of course, that the person 
sending it has some sort of problem that I'm not involved in. 
Nonetheless, these emails are upsetting.

What I would ask of people who send such mail is that you think twice 
before doing so. Yes, I know that most of you do so from behind a cloak 
of anonymity (so much for the democratic principle of standing up to be 
counted); so the consequences to you may be minimal.* But I would like 
to ask you to follow a process:

1. Please reread the mail you are responding to. Consider whether you 
may have misinterpreted the content or the tone. Consider whether you 
are projecting on the author some trait of personality you dislike in a 
different person altogether that is not present in this person.

2. Please think about whether you are responding as a "reasonable 
person" would respond (in quotes because it is a legal concept, not 
because I think you are an unreasonable person).

3. Ask youself why I, or some other correspondent, would presume to 
criticize you as a person based on a question you posed to the list. At 
least consider the possibility that we are only responding to what you 
wrote and not to the person who wrote it.

4. Determine if what you are writing would be an acceptable posting to 
the list. If not, don't send it privately, either.

5. Finally, please conform to the courtesy of replying off-list to 
messages received off-list. It is improper, to say the least, to respond 
on-list to private correspondence.


* Anecdote concerning how you can hurt yourself more than you realize: 
One new list member posted something that I thought a more experienced 
member would not have posted. I advised this person off-list, politely 
and gently I thought, that it would have been better to have approached 
the situation a bit differently. This new member proceeded to call me 
all sorts of names and to demand that I never correspond privately 
again, promising to kill-file my name in any case. Subsequent to that 
incident, the same new member has posted any number of questions to the 
list (in some cases inappropriately, IMHO) and continued to whine 
publicly when these difficult questions did not receive prompt, 
thoroughly researched responses. In some cases they were questions I 
might have been able to shed light on, but I have chosen not to bother. 
The private discourtesy to me has resulted in the member's receiving 
less apt advice than might have been available otherwise.


Dick Margulis


Hannah Bissell wrote: