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

[Lyle_Kantrovich at cargill.com]

Jody,

You've some good points, although I don't think it's the "check the 
archives" message that's the focus here.  Most of this discussion is 
about tone, and I would agree that tone is very hard to gauge in email.  
I like your point about reading as though the person was trying to be a 
mentor.  If we assume the best in people, we'll see less "bad" than we 
thought we saw before.  Of course, it also helps if posters try to write 
as though they are mentoring the recipient.  We can all learn from each 
other.

A few days back, I took some time and actually dug into the list 
archives looking for evidence of people being crass, rude, trolls, etc.  
Surprisingly, I found a lot less than I thought I'd find.  This was a 
Good Thing.  It showed me that we're not really dealing with "trolls".  
It also showed me that there is a lot of good healthy discussion going 
on.  For the record, I DID find a number of examples of messages that 
were clearly detrimental to the list (IMNSHO).  I'd initially intended 
on posting them or sending to the posters off-list to say "look here 
this proves you're wrong"...but then I realized that wasn't going to 
help the list, so I censored myself. :)

In my mind, we've said about as much as can be said on this topic (but 
I'm willing to be proven wrong).  If you want to know what people's 
*actual* behavior was in the past - see the archives, but give people a 
chance to change.  It seems to me now is the time to put ideas into 
action.  I believe we've decided (as much as possible) to not have 
moderation, to try and adjust our own personal posting, to not be afraid 
to call "BS" for what it appears to be, to take personal issues and 
affronts off-list, and in general to try and make this a better list.

Now that we've talked about how the list should operate for over a week, 
maybe we can talk a bit more about IA.  :)

Anyone got ideas on how to compare site search engines? See my earlier 
post.

<group hug (but not *too friendly* of a hug -- I don't want anyone to 
get the wrong idea)>

Regards,

Lyle

----
Lyle Kantrovich
User Experience Architect

Croc O' Lyle - Personal Commentary on usability, information 
architecture and design.
http://crocolyle.blogspot.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: JHankinson at girlscouts.org [mailto:JHankinson at girlscouts.org]
Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 1:21 PM
To: Sigia-l at asis.org
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Five questions about the future of this community

<snip>

I'll even venture out on a limb to say most of the tone "challenges" are 
in
the mind of the reader. Some time back, I started to read each post as 
if
the person was a mentor. Not just the hokey, 'we're all peers,' but the
voice of someone who genuinely cares. It may seem like rose colored 
glasses,
but it worked and the edginess that is being discussed is not nearly as
apparent to me. Now when I get the chance to read the list, it's like a
refuge from the politics of my job.

<snip>