Re: Discussion meta-comment

+1 to your observation. And FWIW, I hesitated for 30 minutes literally before sending this message, deciding to say very little lest I get pulled into some philosophical debate myself :)

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 12, 2011, at 12:10 PM, Hugh Glaser <hg@ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:

> A recent thread included discussion of how to reply to postings. 
> 
> For what it's worth, I don't agree that the best way to reply to a posting about doing something in one system is to say:
> "Well this is how I do it in my system."
> 
> At its best, it is hard to understand what the respondent means, because it entails (at least for the original poster who is looking for feedback on their system) working out what the respondent's system view is implicitly, using terms that the respondent finds comfortable, but are often alien to the poster.
> At its worst, the original message is completely lost, as the thread simply moves to a discussion of the respondent's system.
> 
> It is far better if respondents try to communicate with the poster by addressing the post directly, using the poster's terms wherever they can.
> And it should certainly be acceptable to give the poster feedback, including comments that may seem negative as well as positive, without having another implementation or solution in your pocket.
> 
> I, as well as others I know, find the culture that has developed on this list of responses saying "Well this is how I do it" alienating, and thus sometimes a barrier to posting and genuine responses, and so actually stifles discussion.
> 
> Happy to be told I am wrong, or in a tiny minority, without hearing any proposals for better solutions. :-)
> 
> Hugh

Received on Tuesday, 12 April 2011 21:00:22 UTC