Re: [FRIAM] The impact of snark on reproducibility

[Steve Smith]

glen e. p. ropella wrote: Thus spake Steve Smith circa 12/26/2008 01:10 PM: I don't think I've heard this term ("Snarky") used in "forever"... but sadly/strangely/wonderfully, it does describe Doug's style of humor. Knowing Doug pretty well and being on the Snarky end of his humor from time to time (always well deserved and returned, I must add) I can understand how the extra row of kinked barbs along the shaft of his snarky lampoons can gouge and dig if you don't already have some scarred over lacerations (shaped to fit) to turn them aside. But it's not a matter of scar tissue! It's a matter of clarity, precision, and accuracy of communication. With the advent of remote (superset of "online") communication, we are faced with a lack of natural/intuitive context for much of our communications. Absolutely.   Familiarity with the subject (Doug in this case) makes it easier to read/interpret the subtle signals. As a 30 year veteran of online communities, I find this to be one of the most ill-understood phenomena.   We get so comfortable in the community that we lose track of how low-fidelity the communication can be...  the fact that you recognized Doug's comment *as* Snarky and named it so was a big win for the conversation.   In the same vein as the argument about well-established "mathematical" (more accurately termed "analytically tractable") models versus agent-based (more accurately termed "combinatorial") models, our communication _used_ to come with more context than it does in these modern days. Yes.  And we are often among "strangers".   I doubt I've met more than 50 of the 300+? folks on this list.   I suspect up to half of the list are almost perfect lurkers... not a peep.  With the Bandersnatch and the Boojum Snark always on the prowl, I can understand why! Because Steve knows Doug pretty well, that context is present and the snarkiness doesn't _prevent_ clear communication. In fact, it probably enhances it. Precisely.   That was, in fact, the sort of point I was trying to make.   But for those of us who don't know Doug pretty well, snarkiness _degrades_ communication. It's like a non-English speaking Chinese person watching episodes of Saturday Night Live in order to learn English. Sarcasm, sardonicism, irony, and inside jokes rely on a well-accepted context with well-known infrastructure. Agreed, though I think in group communication/collaboration, this is one of the mysteries. I believe that a group becomes effective *as a group* in some proportion to the number and sophistication of "inside stories" it develops.   How does one develop those?   I grew up in a small family who lived rurally.  I probably had played with no more than a dozen children my age by the time I went to grade school, and then only in brief bits. My wife is oldest of 8.   The combinatorics of 8 siblings (not to mention parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) is staggering and leads to a richness (for better and worse) that I never imagined.   I both resent and envy that complexity as I can't quite break in...  or better yet, I am included only so much as I build shared experiences (and therefore inside stories) with them.   It is hard to do so, as an "outsider", and I am not much of a follower, so the paradox is on me as to how much time/energy/patience I put into participating in their Reindeer Games.   I suspect variations of this are rampant among Outlaw (my code phrase for In-Law) culture. Online communities such as the WELL have marked their transition into "true" community when they have their first wedding and their first funeral.  I think it took several years and thousands of members to reach that status (in their own collective mind). This group might be better served marking the same by their first "bionic man" and their first Nobel prize.  (for all I know we have a Nobel Luareate lurking in our midst!). Indeed, when that infrastructure is present, it allows the conversants to explore very subtle and sophisticated conceptual constructs. But when that infrastructure is absent, it fosters miscommunication and whatever particular psychological artifacts that may ensue from miscommunication. Yes, I think that is why Nick? offered up a half-joking notation for how serious someone was being in their statements were intended to be taken here.   A sort of shared pidgen language (Pidgen cultures, indicated mostly by their language are fascinating hotbeds of innovation and creativity) if you will. The same is true of scientific reproducibility in publications. Those who rely too strongly on a common foundation produce irreproducible crap. Yet those who attempt to expound on everything to facilitate reproduction lose their reader in useless detail (thereby producing irreproducible crap). The trick is to develop a conversational style that is a soft mix of exploitable common context and welcoming hooks into that context for those who don't have it. Yes, and I'm impressed with the number of folks here who actually land somewhere close enough to the ridge dividing one abyss from the other! Of course, there are those who don't care about, or even purposefully oppose, clear communication. [grin] One mode of this that you might not be taking into account is "the Trickster".   Most (all?) cultures have a disruptive element/character in their mythology whose role is to disrupt the standard patterns.   A random heating factor in  the annealing process, or injecting noise into a gradient descent algorithm to escape local minima.   I don't always appreciate/value the Trickster.   Doug is often playing "Trickster" opposite Owen's role as "Prometheus"? - Steve

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