Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Tone in Gentoo

[Roy Bamford <neddyseagoon@gentoo.org>]

On 2010.06.16 23:33, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Roy,
> 
> 
> On 06/16/10 21:40, Roy Bamford wrote:
> > As a native English speaker (from England) I view Jers reply as
> terse 
> > and to the point, completely lacking in tone.
> 
> interesting.  Looking at the sentence
> 
>   "When did you point this out to devrel?"
> 
> I would like to say that while it's not impolite per se it's
> implicitly
> saying "You _have to_ point this out to dev rel" in my ears.  A more
> or
> less word-by-word translation to German ("Wann hast du das gegenüber
> DevRel angesprochen?") would make perfect sense and carry the same
> problem so I assume it's not an English language thing.  In contrast
> asking
> 
>   "Have you pointed this out to DevRel?  What was their reaction?"
> 
> does not seem to have this mis-hearing problem, at least not to me.
>
Hmm - thats interesting, I subconsciously read the two questions into 
the one posted. I accept you point. Its something I am likely to write 
myself without thinking about it too much too.   
> 
> I remember a guy of the German Unix User Group (GUUG) saying 
> something
> like
> 
>   "Communication is always oriented at the receiver".
> 
Communication is a two way process. On other more immediate
media, that's reinforced as the "receiver" often asks questions to 
clarify the intent of the communication. That does not seem to happen 
as much in email so misunderstandings are more frequent and more 
damaging as they take longer to resolve.

> Applying that to tone and avoiding mis-interpretation the sender has
> the
> power (and arguably the responsiblity) to sounds as friendly as 
> needed
> to be sure it will not be understood as unfriendly.  In a way there's
> always a way to be friendlier - _without_ faking anything.
>
Hmm - its quite possible to give offence without intending to. The 
receiver also has the power and responsibility to clarify the intent of 
the communication before concluding that it was intended in any 
particular manner. 

> Best,
> 
> 
> 
> Sebastian
> 
> 
> 

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
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