15-Apr-79 12:05:25-PST,4969;000000000001 Mail-from: MIT-MC rcvd at 9-Apr-79 1514-PST Date: 9 Apr 1979 1438-PST Sender: DRXAL-HDA at OFFICE-1 Subject: MSGGROUP#1004 METHICS and the Fast Draw From: WILLIAM G. MARTIN To: msggroup at MIT-MC Message-ID: <[OFFICE-1] 9-Apr-79 14:38:55.DRXAL-HDA> Redistributed-To: DANIEL at OF1, JBROWN at MIT-MC Redistributed-By: STEFFERUD at USC-ISI (connected to MSGGROUP) Redistributed-Date: 10 Apr 1979 I, too, add my request to be included in the METHICS mailing list-- put me on as ROUNDS at Office-1, which is where I will be shortly, after some directory reshuffling takes place. I love to be on mailing lists, unlike those who resent having many messages, no matter what they are about. (I get more USPS mail at home than anyone else on the street, and a lot at the office, too. The more stuff that comes in, the better. Now, if I only had enough time to read it...) Regarding the analysis of the Msggroup communication that has recently been discussed, it seems to me that we see the same effects in Msggroup exchanges that we see in any communications medium. As response time shortens, reactions become more visceral. Compare mail exchanges with phone calls; because you have instant feedback, and a compulsion to say SOMETHING, the same exchange over the phone can get much more heated than the more drawn-out written exchange, even if the contents began equally. The automatic forwarder system shortens response times. Instead of reflecting (perhaps even unconsciously) over some time after you send out a comment or statement, you see someone's response much sooner, and being still caught up in the mood of the moment, if that response is critical, it is the same as if someone says "You're wrong!" in a conversation. The instinctive response is hostility. If you wait a day to hear "You're wrong!", it has nowhere near the same impact. There is even a good chance that you will respond "You may be right" after pondering the issue; of course, you may be even more fully convinced of your correctness and have more arguments in your favor by then, too. Depends if you were right in the first place or not. Anyway, imposing a time lag will also reduce the pleasure inspired by favorable responses--there is that to serve as a compensating benefit. This doesn't mean, though, that we should delay the transmission of Msggroup mail just to avoid the possibility of annoyances; even less does it mean that we should impose the onerous editing tasks on Stef that caused the delays in the past. After all, I seem to have always heard that electronic mail is an informal medium, which serves to replace telephone calls, for example, instead of formal mail exchanges, though it may well reduce the need for the latter. In informal communication, we all flare up now and then. The unique problem we have here is that the medium strips away all the other clues that are communicated in other modes of transmission. In a phone call, the tone of voice means nearly as much as the words spoken; in face-to-face conversation, the tone, the gestures, the facial expressions, and the general body attitude convey large portions of the messages transmitted and the way they are interpreted. Here, all we see are words on paper or a screen, and not even handwritten at that! What might be said banteringly becomes spiteful and snide when written, without the lightening of effect provided by a smile and a light, cheery tone of voice. We are left with an edited version of what was meant, and the editing removes what may be more important than what remains. The net result is communication by letter at (almost) telephonic speed. All the connotations of written material we have internalized since childhood come into play in structuring our response to a letter-- written material must be right, its official, its legally binding, etc. It is very hard to transform our tolerance of what may be (strictly speaking) offensive in informal communication, especially when moderated by non-verbal effects, to a tolerance of the same material when we see it in writing. The answer may be hard to implement; we have to change the way we view these exchanges. Force ourselves to see them as the informal chatting they really are, not as a formal offering and criticism thereof. The hard part in this approach is to take into account the fact that these are recorded for posterity. It is like you knew that your phone was tapped, and everything you said was being taken down. Even if you had nothing to conceal from the tapper, you would still change what you said because of that. Yet, as Stef has said, it is worthwhile that all of Msggroup's exchanges have been recorded for future analysis--that is a benefit, not a defect. I don't know the answer to this; we may well have to just put up with a little flaming for the sake of the roast it cooks. Will Martin 15-Apr-79 12:05:26-PST,1142;000000000000 Mail-from: MIT-MC rcvd at 12-Apr-79 1740-PST Date: 12 APR 1979 1736-PST From: MACKENZIE at USC-ECL Subject: MSGGROUP#1015 METHICS and the Fast Draw(cont'd) To: ~drxal-hda at OFFICE-1 cc: msggroup at MIT-MC, malasky at PARC-MAXC In regard to your message a few days ago concerning the loss of meaning in this medium: I am new here, and thus hesitate to comment, but I too have suffered from the lack of tone, gestures, facial expressions etc. May I suggest the beginning of a solution? Perhaps we could extend the set of punctuation we use, i.e: If I wish to indicate that a particular sentence is meant with tongue-in-cheek, I would write it so: "Of course you know I agree with all the current administration's policies -)." The "-)" indicates tongue-in-cheek. This idea is not mine, but stolen from a Reader's Digest article I read long ago on a completly different subject. I'm sure there are many other, better ways to improve our punctuation. Any comments? Kevin ------- 15-Apr-79 12:05:26-PST,2473;000000000000 Mail-from: MIT-MC rcvd at 12-Apr-79 1900-PST From: Grm at Rand-Unix Date: 12 Apr 1979 at 1850-PST To: mackenzie at Usc-Ecl cc: Grm at Rand-Unix, msggroup at Mit-Mc From the tty of: Gary R. Martins .:. Subject: MSGGROUP#1016 Text-ural Tricks .:. Kevin - I cannot resist a quick-draw reply to your note on METHICS &c; please do not be offended if I fail to address your more favored issues squarely. Your suggestion -- for auxiliary notation to express the author's attitudes etc. in text -- is naive but not stupid. George B. Shaw, whose skill with English is beyond dispute, spent lots of time and money on foolish schemes to 'improve' the spelling of English; i.e., to tighten the mapping from text to sounds (without ever fully appreciating the implicit disaster of further loosening other vital mappings -- historical, etymological, etc.). He was very naive, but hardly stupid. Your proposal suggests new technological devices to improve written communication. My own observations of the problem suggest a different, less romantic, approach: more skillful use of the existing technology. Are the standard devices of written English not capable of conveying even the most subtle attitudes and postures ? In the hands of the masters, it is an exquisite instrument of expression. Does Bill Shakespeare leave us, for a moment, in doubt as to Marc Antony's real feelings about Brutus -- even as his words display praise and admiration ? When Othello mourns his lack of erudition, his meagre rhetorical skills, the very speech itself contradicts his unwarranted modesty. All this without the benefit of such pragmatical punctuation as you have suggested. But from the hands of clods we must expect cloddish text -- opaque, ambiguous, meandering like the thinking it so mercilessly depicts. Those who will not learn to use this instrument well cannot be saved by an expanded alphabet; they will only afflict us with expanded gibberish, as untrustworthy and inconsequential as their current product. (I doubt that even the so-called Reader's Digest has adopted any such notational shift.) The Danish comedian Victor Borge used to punctuate his speech with odd whistles and clicks to denote the extra apparatus (parentheses etc.) available to the writer but not, conventionally, to the speaker. While funny in short doses, it somehow never caught on! Gary