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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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cyberspace communication *is really different in that:
- there is no visible, emotional feedback loop, and
- there can be significant, sometimes critical delay in response
(this can allow a harmlessly meant comment to fester beyond recognition, comprehension or repair)
so in cyberspace, if you want to talk one-on-one, you should have some idea of the "persona" that you're communicating with, unless you're just going to chat. and if you want to join a multi-way discussion you should have some notion of what I've called the "dialectic of the board".
but in another way, it's not all that different. consider how a person has to mold himself to fit into any social setting, be it formal or informal; if you don't feel confortable with a conversation you just listen or you walk away. it doesn't usually pay to jump in with a viewpoint or attitude that runs contrary to the group flow; that's a sure way to be excluded before you've even had a chance. or, if the discussion is completely contrary to your way of thinking, you probably don't want to be part of that group anyway -- and the chances of reforming the whole group to your way....
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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>are not the basic principles the same
In the end they probably are.
It might simply be that this is a comparatively new thing for many people. We've been talking to each other for millenia, we've been writing for a little less time, talking on the phone for a relatively short time and communicating on-line for a miniscule amount to time.
It takes time for people to internalise the method of communication and at any one time there will be people in a group with a wide variety of experience. It will take time to become more sophisticated at analysing the feedback that exists. From my own experience of my parents use of the telephone, it took nearly a generation for the ability to make full use of the telephone for seamless conversation to become widespread. Take up of on-line communication is significatly faster but we are still in the very early stages.
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Carpal Tunnel
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are not the principles the same?
Yes, the principles are the same. Application of the principles can be drastically different from venue to venue. It is easy to use the term principles when what is meant is application of principles. If the time lag between originally introducing a subject and responding to a response to the initial introduction is great enough, we sometimes forget what we said in the first place and get side-tracked by the misunderstanding implicit in the response.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Agreed: Faldage is making an important and valid distinction between principles and application thereof.
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Carpal Tunnel
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and I would suggest that cyberspace is *vastly different than the telephone; to wit, how often have you picked up the telephone and started chatting with a whole bunch of complete strangers?!
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Carpal Tunnel
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tsuwm, I wonder if your last paragraph above could cause someone to mis-read Rule 3 as saying, in effect, "What is, is how it will be, and if you don't like it, tough." To clarify, I repeat that as you already noted, t the gloss on the rule indicates a different meaning: "Get a sense of how the people who are already there act. Then go ahead and participate."
And of course this is tempered by the other rules -- I'd think particular emphasis would fall on the rules that come first. Rules 1 and 2 (and extracts from the gloss):
"Rule 1: Remember the human Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you. Imagine how you'd feel if you were in the other person's shoes. Stand up for yourself, but try not to hurt people's feelings.
Remember the Prime Directive of Netiquette: Those are real people out there. Would you say it to the person's face? If the answer is no, rewrite and reread.
Rule 2: Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life Perhaps because people sometimes forget that there's a human being on the other side of the computer, some people think that a lower standard of ethics or personal behavior is acceptable in cyberspace. The confusion may be understandable, but these people are mistaken. Standards of behavior may be different in some areas of cyberspace, but they are not lower than in real life."
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Keiva,
Do unto others as you'd have others do unto you.
What an excellent principle that is. One of my favourite names from fiction is Mrs Do-as-you-would-be-done-by from, I think, Charles Kingsley's "The Water Babies", a sad Victorian children's morality tale that I remember very little of now. Not even certain if she was one of the good guys, but she sounds as though she was from her name. But the name and the principle it embodies has stuck in my mind all these years.
That has to be a rule for life.
dxb
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Yes, Ken, thanks for that.......good sentiments.....good people.
dxb
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