Dave Smith wrote:
I think this phenomenon happens because it's easy in an email to trim
away things you don't want to respond to, and focus only on the part of
the email that you disagree with. It's easy to believe that someone
disagrees with you 100% because they chose to respond to the 1% of what
you said that they disagreed with, even if that 1% was totally
tangential to your main point (which the responder may *did* agree with,
but you'd never know). I'm not sure if I like or dislike this because
frankly, it'd be a boring list if everyone just responded with "me too".
However, I do think it encourages argument and nit picking rather than
good old-fashioned discussion.
What are your thoughts?
This is a key difference between blogs and mailing lists. When blogs
first started appearing on the net, I thought they were hardly different
from email. Only when I started my own blog did I see the difference:
people stayed on topic in comment threads. I think this is because
there is always has editorial control. There is also a limit to the
editorial control because too much exercise of power drives readers away.
OTOH, sometimes I just need friends, help, an opportunity to help, or a
distraction, so I go to mailing lists. :-)
Shane
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