Please drop this thread

Sun Apr 9 10:50:55 EDT 2006

Lynn,

> Hi kids,
> The argument has gone on too long.

Note that I don't know of any argument. I didn't read the list.  
Simply because I am not interested in endlessly arguing with Richard  
and I know too well how much Richard likes to lock himself in endless  
arguments.

But I am interested in discussing what follows. More importantly I am  
interested in seeing runrev reassure me with respect to what has  
happened recently on the list.

The comments I made don't concern directly runrev products. They  
concerned the excessive policing that some users allow themselves to  
do on this list. They concerned the fact that this policing sometimes  
went a bit too far, these users allowing them to do what shouldn't be  
allowed on a well moderated list. They concerned the fact that  
because of these ever present "misconception correction", endless end- 
splitting too often replace what had was intended to be productive  
result-minded discussions. They concerned the fact that my experience  
has been that collaborative work has often importantly suffered from  
this, and this has negatively impacted on the provision of better  
resources to the community.

If this is  not something that should be discussed here, where should  
it be discussed?

Is the reason it cannot be discussed on this list only the fact that  
Richard choosed to make an argument of this. Is it that it is not  
possible to discuss *ANYTHING* on this list without Richard taking  
part in it and transform the discussion into an argument?

Only counting the users who made more than 3 posts to the list. 1 of  
your user is responsible for 4.2% of the posts on the list. 2.9% of  
your users (11) are responsible for about 33% of the traffic on the  
list. 5.7% of users (22) are responsible for about 50% of the traffic  
on the list. 16.4% (63) are responsible for 75% of the traffic. 34.8%  
(134) are responsible for 90% of the posts. Is this a community list  
or a list for Jim and his 21 *friends* (correction, 19, Xavier is not  
a friend of Jim and others anymore, and Eric hasn't been seen on the  
list for some time).

So Lynn, where can users like me who don't always agree with what  
"key dignitaries" say and do go to discuss our ideas. Apparently, not  
on this list. So where?

I react here on the "hi kids". I said things that were meant to be  
important (at least for me). Apparently, I have worded them in a way  
that got you write "hi kids" rather than act responsibly to protect  
the users of this list from abusive comments.

Lynn, I  am very interested in hearing the suggestions you have to  
make to find a solution to this conundrum. I am not interested in  
continuing this thread (I didn't even read the replies), publicly or  
privately. But I am not interested either in seeing multiplications  
of inappropriate if not unfair user's treatment as I have seen  
lately. The argument will stop provided that the problem that causes  
these arguments will stop. I wrote an email to try to explain the  
problem and get the cause of the arguments to stop. But the only form  
of comment I have on these problems is "hi kids". So let's try  
explain again the problem that is nagging the user I am.

I have no difficulty to understand how users who make criticisms can  
create difficult to manage stress for persons who depend on runrev's  
products for their commercial survival. It seems that we do have high  
levels of stress and anxiety in the community.  But fear and anxiety  
need to be handled in other ways than by fighting back.

But I was alarmed to see an answer to some post on the list where  
some wrong doing of a user got denounced in an area *completely*  
unrelated to the post or to runrev, was in my view, off limit of fair  
treatment  of a fellow user.

Sure, this was not out of any intention of unfair treatment. This was  
out of a reaction to criticisms. The thing, is that there will always  
be criticisms. The more valid the criticism, the more stressful it is  
for persons who would prefer not to see too many criticisms on this  
list. Still, whatever the level of anxiety and fear we can come to  
suffer, we should never allow ourselves to treat persons who trigger  
this fear to be treated unfairly. Whatever the level, we should never  
allow ourselves to believe that the wrong doing that others may have  
done us authorize us to endorse a uniform of police officer and start  
to make the law ourselves.  Yes, I know, there were nice smileys in  
your post, you never tried to do treat anybody unfairly... I voiced  
my concern because my understanding is that, independently of  your  
intentions, your comment was off limit. And this has happened at  
least 4 times with at least 4 different persons over the last 4  
months and if this goes on, this could end up causing crises very  
difficult to get out off.

Now, once we have acknowledge that criticisms will always be made,  
what we have to think about is how can we handle these criticisms in  
a way that *benefit* us rather than cause a spiraling increase of the  
tension.

The runrev team gave us a very satisfactory answer... please make any  
problem known to the support services, via bugzilla, via the easier  
to use revzilla, via support at runrev.com if any of the former is too  
complex to use. For having tried this way recently, I can tell that I  
received back precise references to the bugzilla that had been  
created, so I can keep track of the progress being made. This is no  
less than what I can come to expect as customer. It would be even  
better in a few weeks time to see the time we may have spent filling  
bugs report rewarded with an even better product... only patience  
would tell. This won't clearly happen overnight.

Now the question is what can we do on this mailing list to adopt an  
attitude that doesn't contribute to increase the stress of both  
unhappy users and the stress of users who strongly depend on runrev's  
products for their commercial endeavour, while we wait for the next  
version?

Putting a lid over a saucepan full of boiling water is clearly not  
the solution. We have to do our best to reduce the ambient anxiety  
rather than increase it.

It seems to me the response is simple. Avoid to have persons with  
**completely opposite** concerns discuss these concerns on the list  
in the hope to reach an agreement. It is naive to expect that you can  
end up "agree" when what category A users expect is sometimes the  
exact opposite of what category B users expect. There is no need to  
"minimize" any criticism made on this list. Just assume that no user  
write lightly a criticism against the product he would like to  
thrive. This usually reflects a concern of him that needs to be  
addressed. Telling him his concern is not valid is not an answer that  
will appease him in any ways. By experience, a more efficient  
approach is to try to understand where he comes from and what  
"anxieties" his criticisms reveal and try to minimize these anxieties  
rather than to dismiss the validity of his concerns.

Best is also to avoid to attack any person who makes criticisms  
against runrev products... we will then avoid to give them reasons to  
answer back and have discussions degenerate. Let's just invite any  
person who signal a problem to fill a bugzilla, a revzilla, or  
contact the support, **without** any patronizing or judgment being  
made on their ability to establish what is a bug that is worth  
reporting, what is or not a valid criticism against current runrev's  
product, what is an adequate level of service and what is not,  
*without* any judgement being made on them at all.

This way, less time has to be spent on this list discussing issues  
that are out of our control. More time can be spent discussing issues  
that are under our control, as a community of users, like the  
creation of better tools and resources, user-contributed.

I am not interested in continuing this thread (I didn't even read the  
replies), publicly or privately. What I am interested in is  
discussing with persons who are, like me, interested in spending more  
time on this list working as a community to work on the creation of  
better tools and resources, openly available. Feel free to comment on  
this: http://codes.widged.com/?q=node/658 (library of file processing  
functions), or ask me to be made a moderator on the codes cms so to  
be authorized to post your own code there.

And, yes, Richard, I am interested in the contribution you have to  
bring there and I am interested in taking part in the ROSE project of  
an open source editor in rev that you proposed (http:// 
groups.yahoo.com/group/revInterop/message/403) and help us formalize  
ideas some of us have on component writing and components  
interoperability in revolution? Mark Wieder's proposal for event's  
handling -- http://codes.widged.com/?q=node/642 already got some  
trackbacks "this is very good" ;-). Looks promising.

But the reason I gave some indicator of Richard's activity on this  
list is that even if that's what I want to do. I cannot do it,  
practically. I tried to make Richard aware that for this to happen,  
we need to start to spend more time taking actions... less correction  
one another's "misconceptions". The reason I reacted was not to be  
nasty on Richard. The reason I reacted is because my understanding is  
that collaborative work in this community tend to be compromised by  
the habit some "key dignitaries" on this list have to comment and  
often *correct* any "misconception" expressed against runrev (or the  
personal religion of some persons on the list). This kind of  
"misconception correction" that we see too often on this list is  
causing crises that have a negative impact for *everybody* involved.

I would greatly prefer if the following code of conduct was adopted  
on this list:
Let's direct criticisms of runrev's products where they can be used  
productively: runrev support. Let's use more of our time to develop  
better resources within the community.

Everybody, Richard included would benefit of this.  So, why is it  
that inviting "key dignitaries" to more tightly follow that code of  
conduct falls in the category of childish arguments?

Marielle

------------------------------------------------------------------------ 
--------
Marielle Lange (PhD),  Psycholinguist

Alternative emails: mlange at blueyonder.co.uk,

Homepage                                                            
http://homepages.widged.com/mlange/
Easy access to lexical databases                    http:// 
lexicall.widged.com/
Supporting Education Technologists              http:// 
revolution.widged.com/wiki/