On 9/2/15 5:34 PM, Rowan Collins wrote:> On 02/09/2015 20:44, Tom Worster
wrote:
In other words, ~> will end my career. Thanks :P
I know this line is just hyperbole, but it does rather sum up the tone
of the rest of your e-mail. I'm honestly not sure how you expect anyone
to respond.
The unspoken rules of civility make some people suppress negative
reactions to the proposal. In this case it was even implied, as you point
out, that dissenting opinion is unwelcome. But I don't think such
constraints are entirely fair so I gave my opinion. In partial deference
to decorum, I tried to dress it up in humor, making clear from the start
that I am a grumpy old curmudgeon. As such, I'd be surprised if anyone
would waste their time arguing with what I wrote and or risk their
reputation by agreeing with me.
So, to your point, I don't expect a response.
Scrolling further down, my eye lit on the last line of the e-mail you
replied to:Hoping for constructive feedback,
BobThat struck me as rather a contrast.
Yes. And Bob's hope was realistic -- he got plenty. I expect he can take a
bit of the other too.
PS I think you've muddled Stas with Anthony.
Yes, looks like I did. I don't get email from this list, I read it via the
news server in Thunderbird, and got thoroughly confused with its threading
together with the inconsistent quoting and attribution.
My apologies to Anthony.
Tom
Tom Worster wrote on 03/09/2015 15:46:
The unspoken rules of civility make some people suppress negative
reactions to the proposal. In this case it was even implied, as you point
out, that dissenting opinion is unwelcome. But I don't think such
constraints are entirely fair so I gave my opinion.
A constructive criticism can still be a dissenting opinion, it just
needs to be aimed at moving the conversation forward, not dismissing it
out of hand.
If you want to say "I think this proposal is a bad idea because X, and
none of the variations mentioned fix this fundamental problem in my
opinion", that's a constructive point. Ideally, you might say "if
somebody can come up with a way to Y, then I might be happier with the
proposal", but if there's no such Y then fair enough.
To be fair, what you wrote was reasonably civil, and maybe I
over-reacted. It just seemed a bit long on hyperbole and short on actual
reasoning.
As such, I'd be surprised if anyone
would waste their time arguing with what I wrote and or risk their
reputation by agreeing with me.
This seems to be rather a self-defeating stance: "I think this is a bad
idea, everyone's going to ignore me, but I'll say it anyway". Why not
instead try to say it in a way that would make people more likely to see
it from your point of view? They might not come round to your point of
view, but at least they'd have weighed your arguments.
Anyway, too much meta-discussion, let's get back to the discussion. I
hope I didn't cause any offence by reacting in the way that I did. :)
Regards,
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]