What to do! What to think!

 

Analysis

Periodically I run into issues with forums and social webs.  I find that knowing what to do and how to approach these sticky issues is critical to Internet survival

I find that communicating can be difficult especially when nuanced. On the ‘net’ we have no body language or facial expressions to clarify nuanced communiqués. (Maybe video blogs and forums can help).

The human mind and history are designed around verbal and written communication.  With verbal communication over audio media we have the support of inflection and personality in the communication.  In person we have all of the audio enhancements along with visuals; especially facial.  We know from new science that facial expressions are used to disambiguate verbal communication. None of this is available in a web forum or a text based blog or social chat room.

Texting has led to the use of small anagrams and mnemonics that help the texters to clarify and simplify the communication.  This usage is very sub-culture specific and has not become well enough generalized for dense use on classic forums.

In forums and blogs I see that many members can only see a very narrow range of interpretation of a subtly nuanced statement or post.  This can happen easily because of language and culture differences.  That is easy to understand and is one level of challenge to effective communication.  The other thing that seems to color the interpretation is the mood or attitude of the reader.

In a book or a novel a skilled author takes time to set the readers mood and expectations to a state that allows the author to “paint” the picture that they want the reader to see.  Web authors are seldom skilled writers although many blog authors are extremely skilled journalists.  Forum members are also restricted by the shortness of the response and the lack of discipline of the subject matter – this is a common issue because of the public nature of the Internet'.

I could go on with a more lengthy and in-depth analysis but I won’t. I think you can see where I am pointing his.

What to do?

In reaction to the above I am trying to understand how best to write posts in public forums.  I have read through pages of rules and suggestions but they do not do any more than place restrictions and cause posters to become frustrated causing most to just ignore these rules.

It seems that setting a state of mind that can address an audience of highly anonymous readers would be helpful.  Once we have our approach we should be able to write posts that create the least amount of confusion and yet can be other than dry and boring technical drivel.

How to write an interesting -- both to myself and the reader – forum post that is technical, addresses the personality and post of the original post (OP) and does not require extensive decoding because of the non-technical components.

What to think?

I am currently working out how to think when posting.  It seems to me that my state of mind needs to be set so that it factors inmost of what I know about how people react to statements that are terse and without any good social and personal clues.  This is very hard since humor does not translate well across cultural boundaries yet humor is one of the best tone-setters I know of.

Some questions:

1. How to indicate a light attitude?
2. How to show disdain at the purpose of the OP?
3. How to respond to personal attacks?
4. How to aggressively technically disagree with a post?
5. …. more….