On Sun, Feb 15, 2004 at 05:46:09PM -0600, Julia Thompson wrote: > But being in-your-face on an e-mail list doesn't work well, either.
Sometimes it does. At least as well as... > If I make 50 posts in a 6-month period that touch on X, and someone > is opposed to my position on X, there's a better chance that I'll at > least get that person to think about their own position, if not modify > it a bit, than if I write one post saying that their position on X is > wrong, offensive or intolerable. ...which very rarely happens. In fact, if you hadn't said it happened to you, I'd say it never happens. What were you talking about that had an email thread that went for 6 months? > That sort of thing has worked on *me*, at least in getting me to > think about my position. And I've had my positioned changed at least > somewhat as a result. But your contention appeared to be that your way is ALWAYS better. Saying that it worked once on you is hardly strong evidence. I've seen many examples on this email list and others where the subtle approach is just ignored or lost in the noise. Many of the threads that get the most responses are the "noisy" ones. In fact, one of the people arguing the same as you, Dan M., has been prone to get involved in obnoxious threads at least as often as the reserved threads over the past year. Now, you might argue that getting responses isn't the same as changing minds. True. The loud approach doesn't have a high success rate. But getting little or no response to a reserved post probably does have a strong correlation with people not really thinking about it. And I've seen this happen a lot. So the success rate is likely to be even lower in with the reserved approach. In practice, it surely depends mostly on the person or people who are the intended audience. I think that both approaches may be successful depending on the person and circumstances. For example, even before I read your post I would have said the reserved approach would be more successful on you (Julia). Alas, not everyone is like Julia! ;-) -- Erik Reuter http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
