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This is highly contextual. One community I find myself going to on occasion is the archlinux IRC channel. Manners are very much not their highest priority. Whil

by bigj0n 7y ago

This is highly contextual. One community I find myself going to on occasion is the archlinux IRC channel. Manners are very much not their highest priority. While they dont go out of their way to be mean, they dont really do it to be kind either. But the result is a channel that is a very effective means of support when the documentation or wiki doesnt have what you need. Communication is a game of compromise. Sometimes it makes sense to compromise on clarity or brevity to be nice. But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. The author mentioned Bezos' grandmother being hurt when he mentioned she smoked away 9 years of her life. Is it really Bezos' manners that hurt her feelings? I would imagine that that realization hits hard and does damage on it's own. I think it would be very hard to get that message hard without it hurting. You can attempt to veil the message and lessen the impact, or distract from it somehow- but now you've impacted the integrity of the message.

calcifer 7y ago
> But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. That's begging the question. You take it is a given that when solving a problem clarity and kindness are mutually exclusive, but you've provided no evidence to support that.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  What if that problem is "convince your grandma to quit smoking"? It seems that telling grandma she's been smoking away 9 years of her life is somehow "unkind", and yet we all do very similar things as a society, such as putting disgusting images on grandma's cigarette packages, with clear warnings that smoking is a very serious health hazard - and very few people seem to take issue with this or find it unkind.
  - irrespective 7y ago
    Fine. Both are bad. What's your point?
    - yabadabadoes 7y ago
      I think it's a good point that these "ends justify the means approach" arguments and ultimatums are fully sanctioned by society irregardless of evidence that those who don't change their behavior end up more self destructive, etc thanks to the additional hostility.
- bigj0n 7y ago
  Theyre not mutually exclusive. Human communication is impossible to get perfect. You have to strike a balance between a bunch of priorities. I could write an essay on this topic, but nobody would read it. Thus I sacrifice clarity for brevity, and make a comment that can be read in a minute. If I highly prioritized kindness and told you how much I respected your viewpoint and appreciate your taking the time to engage with me- that would naturally require a number of words. Which means I either make my comment longer- which reduces engagement, or I shorten the meat of the argument- which reduces clarity. So you can see how these different priorities can come at cost of one another. While I'd like to find the ideal sentence every time I communicate that sacrifices nothing- I just dont have the communication skills to do so.
  - calcifer 7y ago
    > If I highly prioritized kindness and told you how much I respected your viewpoint and appreciate your taking the time to engage with me... ... you would be patronizing me, not showing me kindness.
    - antepodius 7y ago
      When kindness transitions into patronisation depends on the listener. There are people for whom all kindness in speech is patronising.
Carpetsmoker 7y ago
> Communication is a game of compromise. Sometimes it makes sense to compromise on clarity or brevity to be nice. But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. I am not convinced that this friction exists. Often times things can be rephrased quite easily, e.g. "you're just plain wrong" can be "I don't think that's correct" or "I feel this may be mistaken". These examples are simple, but in my own writing I've never noticed an example where I wanted to be clear, but wasn't able to do so while still being nice. It is true that truly constructive comments are much harder to write, since they take significantly more effort: you need to carefully read the original article, think about it, maybe do a bit of additional research, etc, whereas a quick "this is just wrong because [X]" after reading the title is much easier.
- bigj0n 7y ago
  > significantly more effort Which often takes time. And limits engagement. The maintainers of pacman have a limited amount of energy they're willing to spend on free support- I'm happy for then to save effort wherever they can. I wont argue that if you can be kind while sacrificing absolutely nothing else- absolutely be kind. But anybody who has ever played a competitive sport or even team lifted a couch knows that sometimes barking an order is the best way of doing things- and you just have to have somewhat thick skin. To live in a world where the perfect message always exists would be great. We dont live in that world.
  - fapjacks 7y ago
    Or, for example, on a battlefield.
    - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
      Yeah, developing open source software is exactly like war
      - fapjacks 7y ago
        Shift the goalposts some more. The post I replied to made a point and gave an example. I added another example.
1996 7y ago
> Is it really Bezos' manners that hurt her feelings? I would imagine that that realization hits hard and does damage on it's own. How do you get people to stop self destruct? In the end you give up and just become cold. I have sick relatives who dug their own graves. Not my responsability.
jlokier 7y ago
> But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. For those problems, it is also a priority to induce the clearest thinking, cognitive capability, and relevant memory possible from all parties. Anything that adds cognitive load to the other parties will not help - and "clear, tell it like it is" speech with no awareness of social consequence is often rather ineffective as a way to access clear thinking from everyone in the room. Brains just don't appear to work like that.
- FeepingCreature 7y ago
  Speech isn't free (as in effort) either though. There is an overhead cost to the person talking, and reducing that is just as valid as reducing the burden on the listener.

by bigj0n 7y ago

calcifer 7y ago

> But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. That's begging the question. You take it is a given that when solving a problem clarity and kindness are mutually exclusive, but you've provided no evidence to support that.

zozbot234 7y ago
What if that problem is "convince your grandma to quit smoking"? It seems that telling grandma she's been smoking away 9 years of her life is somehow "unkind", and yet we all do very similar things as a society, such as putting disgusting images on grandma's cigarette packages, with clear warnings that smoking is a very serious health hazard - and very few people seem to take issue with this or find it unkind.
- irrespective 7y ago
  Fine. Both are bad. What's your point?
  - yabadabadoes 7y ago
    I think it's a good point that these "ends justify the means approach" arguments and ultimatums are fully sanctioned by society irregardless of evidence that those who don't change their behavior end up more self destructive, etc thanks to the additional hostility.
bigj0n 7y ago
Theyre not mutually exclusive. Human communication is impossible to get perfect. You have to strike a balance between a bunch of priorities. I could write an essay on this topic, but nobody would read it. Thus I sacrifice clarity for brevity, and make a comment that can be read in a minute. If I highly prioritized kindness and told you how much I respected your viewpoint and appreciate your taking the time to engage with me- that would naturally require a number of words. Which means I either make my comment longer- which reduces engagement, or I shorten the meat of the argument- which reduces clarity. So you can see how these different priorities can come at cost of one another. While I'd like to find the ideal sentence every time I communicate that sacrifices nothing- I just dont have the communication skills to do so.
- calcifer 7y ago
  > If I highly prioritized kindness and told you how much I respected your viewpoint and appreciate your taking the time to engage with me... ... you would be patronizing me, not showing me kindness.
  - antepodius 7y ago
    When kindness transitions into patronisation depends on the listener. There are people for whom all kindness in speech is patronising.

Carpetsmoker 7y ago

> Communication is a game of compromise. Sometimes it makes sense to compromise on clarity or brevity to be nice. But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. I am not convinced that this friction exists. Often times things can be rephrased quite easily, e.g. "you're just plain wrong" can be "I don't think that's correct" or "I feel this may be mistaken". These examples are simple, but in my own writing I've never noticed an example where I wanted to be clear, but wasn't able to do so while still being nice. It is true that truly constructive comments are much harder to write, since they take significantly more effort: you need to carefully read the original article, think about it, maybe do a bit of additional research, etc, whereas a quick "this is just wrong because [X]" after reading the title is much easier.

bigj0n 7y ago
> significantly more effort Which often takes time. And limits engagement. The maintainers of pacman have a limited amount of energy they're willing to spend on free support- I'm happy for then to save effort wherever they can. I wont argue that if you can be kind while sacrificing absolutely nothing else- absolutely be kind. But anybody who has ever played a competitive sport or even team lifted a couch knows that sometimes barking an order is the best way of doing things- and you just have to have somewhat thick skin. To live in a world where the perfect message always exists would be great. We dont live in that world.
- fapjacks 7y ago
  Or, for example, on a battlefield.
  - Carpetsmoker 7y ago
    Yeah, developing open source software is exactly like war
    - fapjacks 7y ago
      Shift the goalposts some more. The post I replied to made a point and gave an example. I added another example.

1996 7y ago

> Is it really Bezos' manners that hurt her feelings? I would imagine that that realization hits hard and does damage on it's own. How do you get people to stop self destruct? In the end you give up and just become cold. I have sick relatives who dug their own graves. Not my responsability.

jlokier 7y ago

> But when your goal is to solve difficult, material problems- it can be beneficial to prioritize clarity over all else. For those problems, it is also a priority to induce the clearest thinking, cognitive capability, and relevant memory possible from all parties. Anything that adds cognitive load to the other parties will not help - and "clear, tell it like it is" speech with no awareness of social consequence is often rather ineffective as a way to access clear thinking from everyone in the room. Brains just don't appear to work like that.

FeepingCreature 7y ago
Speech isn't free (as in effort) either though. There is an overhead cost to the person talking, and reducing that is just as valid as reducing the burden on the listener.