Team,
First, I am reading once a day and finding a number of people who have
posted over the suggested 3-per-day limit. All of us are here because we
want to participate, but not all of us are able to devote the whole day to
it. I understand your enthusiasm, but please try to be concise and sum up
what you mean.
I think another good reason to limit total posts per day is that it gets
more people involved rather than ping-ponging the same argument between two
people and forcing everyone else to play catch-up. If you are not keeping
to the guideline, please at least keep to the spirit of the guideline...
one effective way to do this is to DISCUSS rather than ARGUE.
To me, that means, if you're posting a message that says nothing except
"No, You're Wrong", either take the time to say what YOU believe is right,
or don't post. It's easy to tear up someone else's argument and say "I
disagree" and not put your own ideas out there for scrutiny. It's much
more productive if you can say what you think and what you believe instead
of just saying "no you're wrong".
Discuss rather than Argue also means to try and find areas where you DO
agree. A working group is hard work. If someone else has used a
generalization, or some other kludge like "always" or "never", try to read
into it and understand the point that they are making. Even if you
disagree with the point, saying that you understand the point helps. (Or,
if you're not sure what someone meant, ask :)
> Yes, but can you be certain that's how they're configured?
> You're either forgetting or ignoring those who use PDA-based MUAs,
You have failed to demonstrate that the configuration you describe
You're forgetting that employees and and do leave the building in which
You are simply hypothecating the existence of communities
You don't believe people exist that send mail while mobile? Fine,
You're simply confused.
Here is another tactic I can suggest that might provide discussion with
less argument. I would suggest to try more "I" statements and less "You"
statements. Try to use these as much as possible:
I Think
I Feel
I Believe
Anyway, there are a lot of suggestions here, hopefully some of them will be
useful. I think the most important thing I can suggest is to be
constructive. Don't just disagree, find something to agree on, or
something to ask about, or just state your own
thoughts/beliefs/ideas/opinions as clearly as you can.
Thanks,
gregc
--
Greg Connor <gconnor(_at_)nekodojo(_dot_)org>