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> I don't know if you were a subscriber then, but a few months ago,
> there were many messages about how this list tended to be less
> tolerant, and more prone to barbequing posters, than most other
> listservs. I actually didn't think it was all that bad until I
> started reading those posts.
And Arlen Walker wrote in response:
>That's a topic (techwr-l flames too much) that comes up periodically, and
>though you're welcome to your opinion on it, I think it's bunk.
That last sentence I wrote, that's NOT what I meant to say AT ALL. Man,
did I screw that up!!
I did not then, and do not now, think that this list is prone to flame
wars. I've actually seen people get REALLY fried on other lists. I have
yet to see anyone genuinely get barbequed on this listserv. It's pretty
tame compared some others.
What I meant to say, and let's hope I get it right this time, is that I
never noticed a tendency toward excess heat--I just never paid any
attention because I didn't have any reason to. The posts claiming that
techwr-l flames a lot encouraged me to pay attention. I did, and I didn't
see what I would've called an increased tendency to flame fellow posters.
There were some list members several months ago that started to get very
impatient with seeing the same threads rear their ugly heads over and over
again, mostly because (as I recall) we had a lot of newbies join over a
short period of time and they didn't know to check the archive. But, I
don't recall anyone getting toasted, though I believe that several people
took umbrage at some of the things that were written.
This *lack* of evidence that techwr-l is a flame-prone list is what
prompted me to state my case about task- vs people-oriented individuals in
the first place. To reiterate: Techwr-l is not flame-prone, not in my
opinion (and Arlen's too, evidently). What I think I see happening is
simply some predominantly task-oriented individuals coming across as highly
critical, maybe even intolerant, to some predominantly people-oriented
individuals because these two types of social styles have very different
ways of expressing themselves.
I hope I've made my position clear this time. I obviously didn't last
time; I should've been more careful.
Don Robertson "Obstacles are those frightening
drobertson -at- nm-us -dot- campus -dot- mci -dot- net things you see when you take your
eyes off the goal." - Unknown
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