[Sigia-l] Five questions about the future of this community

[Polansky, Adam]

I am decidedly not new to the list and even though I've been relatively quiet of late, I still have certain paternal feelings about the health of this forum.

I think both John & Howard get to the real point.

You can't do a whole lot about other people.  What you can do is manage yourself.  Someone can only pick a fight if they get a response.  Granted, when someone pushes your buttons in a public forum, you feel compelled to respond.  Maybe there's some visceral reward from handing out a verbal pimp-slap just as publicly.  

Let me ask this:  Have you ever seen anyone reel and recant on a list from the bloody nose you think you're giving them? Nope!  You just keep it going.  

We all know who the characters are and some have worse signal-to-noise ratios than others. 
Some might think they're doing a public service by attacking everything.  
There are others who feel they are benefiting from that public service just as there are some who don't.  
There are those whose passion out-runs their logic or good manners but passion is what makes a community thrive. 
It's unfortunate that some folks have established a reputation that results in others marginalizing them out-of-hand.  That way, few notice when they have a material contribution.  They do themselves a dis-service.  We can ask them to try and work and play well with others but we can't make them.

That said, there is no excuse for personal attacks, derision or the name calling that kids digress into when the real arguments are spent.  That's the last phase of the argument before the punching starts and since you can't do that, the argument goes on until someone gets tired or exasperated and we all get to watch you eat our bandwidth.  The thing that makes it possible for anyone to weigh-in to a discussion and respond to every response ad nauseum is also the thing makes it possible to avoid it. 

Delete, ignore, re-direct.  If you're on a good thread and someone wants to pick a fight (as opposed to rational opposition), treat it as you would the back-ground chatter from a small child.  Ignore it and keep talking to the grown-ups.

Adam Polansky
Sr. Information Architect  ::  Customer Experience
Travelocity.com
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