[Sigia-l] C'mon. This should be simple.

[Russ Unger]

Like a lot of folks, I've kept my yap shut about all of this, but I have
to wonder something now.

I wonder why it is that with all of us together, different worlds and
personalities and professions aside, continue to bring about debate and
discussion, but don't propose any solutions that could be easily
implemented.  I've seen a lot of "heavy hitting" ideas that seem as if
the implementation would take quite a bit for a simple email list, I've
seen piss and vinegar and I've seen rhetorical questions that don't make
much progress, as well, regardless of how thought provoking they've
been.

So, I'll pose something, because I've somehow managed to work with
people who find situations like the one recently encountered that's
sparked so much live debate on the list.

For starters, I think we all agree that the "list owners" should not
have to babysit a bunch of adults who should know how to get along.
I've absolutely hated being in a management situation where that was the
case, and almost always the situation was easily alleviated with some
simple ground rules put into place--ground rules that force people to
communicate with each other.

The first thing that pops into my mind is so simple that I'm surprised
it's not a "rule" of the list to begin with--and maybe it is and I'm
unaware.  If you've got an issue with someone--anyone--on the list and
the response they pose, email them directly off-list and attempt to
clarify the points that seem to cause issue.  If, after that direct
conversation, you still feel that you're being singled out, beat up on,
treated abusively, then take your paper trail to those moderator folks
and address it with them.  If they don't want to handle those issues,
then perhaps there is someone who will.

If, on the other hand, you cannot address the person off-list in a civil
manner to work through the issue (because we all know that we don't need
a lot of flame noise on the list), then you should consider whether or
not you want to be on the list at all.

Isn't it really something that should be that easy?  I've emailed people
off-list before and asked similar questions and received the clarity and
the understanding--as well as gotten a better feel for personalities
since there's simply not an emoticon for every damn thing each of us
would like to imply with our nonverbal communication skills.

The reality is this:  We should all be adults and we should all act and
behave like adults.  We should all be able to handle tough situations
and people who throw out some direct, sometimes fierce comments--after
all, we've all worked for clients and we all know that there's not a one
of them who doesn't shoot out something ridiculous that we have to find
a way to manage.  This is simply an email list and there's a lot of
noise that happens because it would appear that situations aren't always
handled directly.  Certainly, I do not know as to whether or not
anyone's attempted to handle things directly or not, but it seems to be
the simplest of solutions.

Perhaps one of the most important issues is to take a hard look at what
you've written, as well, and see if there's any way that what you wrote
could have been misconstrued.

Email lists, like voicemails and answering machines, are really easy to
flex your muscle on. I just can't imagine that there's any need for that
here.