[WinMac] The power of this medium?
Phil Sutton(phils[at]sbinet.com)
Thu, 14 Oct 1999 09:02:30 -0500
Dear friends,
The recent flurry of insults has been very disturbing to me and I just want
to offer a few observations.
First I am not a computer system expert by any stretch of the imagination. I
am a person who has used the Mac to make my job more efficient. I am a lone
Mac person in a Unix soon to be Windows NT system; so I have joined this
forum to gain insight into the workings of such mixed systems.
I have received help from many of you and find that you all for the most
part have been kind and courteous. Dan especially was helpful. However, this
is a medium of quick communication and we often don't set our messages aside
to proof and make sure this is what we wanted to say in the first place.
Sometimes we fail to express our true intentions of the message and readers
may infer the wrong spirit of the message. They then react in a way that
seems often to start a chain reaction of ill will.
Also, this is faceless communication which in its anonymity lends power that
can be abused. Some who have fired me may have found it more difficult had
they had my physical body standing in front of them. My point is this power
has to be governed as if you were in the person's presence with the others
of us standing there as well.
Being insulting can come quite easily on this medium. We should be careful
that it can come out at any moment. We all have done it and it should be
nothing that we are proud of doing.
Please let's try to temper our thoughts and provide information in as
altruistic a spirit as possible.
We are here to help each other.
Respectfully,
Phil S.
--
Phil Sutton
Extension Educator - ANR
Purdue Cooperative Extension - St. Joseph Co.
227 West Jefferson Street Room 604 County/City Bldg.
South Bend IN 46601-1870 Phone: 219-235-9604
EMail: phil@stjoseph.ces.purdue.edu
The power of this medium?
Dear friends,
The recent flurry of insults has been very disturbing to me and I just want to offer a few observations.
First I am not a computer system expert by any stretch of the imagination. I am a person who has used the Mac to make my job more efficient. I am a lone Mac person in a Unix soon to be Windows NT system; so I have joined this forum to gain insight into the workings of such mixed systems.
I have received help from many of you and find that you all for the most part have been kind and courteous. Dan especially was helpful. However, this is a medium of quick communication and we often don't set our messages aside to proof and make sure this is what we wanted to say in the first place. Sometimes we fail to express our true intentions of the message and readers may infer the wrong spirit of the message. They then react in a way that seems often to start a chain reaction of ill will.
Also, this is faceless communication which in its anonymity lends power that can be abused. Some who have fired me may have found it more difficult had they had my physical body standing in front of them. My point is this power has to be governed as if you were in the person's presence with the others of us standing there as well.
Being insulting can come quite easily on this medium. We should be careful that it can come out at any moment. We all have done it and it should be nothing that we are proud of doing.
Please let's try to temper our thoughts and provide information in as altruistic a spirit as possible.
We are here to help each other.
Respectfully,
Phil S.
--
Phil Sutton
Extension Educator - ANR
Purdue Cooperative Extension - St. Joseph Co.
227 West Jefferson Street Room 604 County/City Bldg.
South Bend IN 46601-1870 Phone: 219-235-9604
EMail: phil@stjoseph.ces.purdue.edu
*** Windows-MacintoshOS Cooperation List ***
FAQ: http://www.darryl.com/winmacfaq/
Archive: http://www.darryl.com/winmac/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2
on Thu Oct 14 1999 - 08:07:25 PDT
|