Date: Fri, 02 Oct 1998 20:28:40 -0700 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: dmorrisn <dmorrisn@u.washington.edu>, Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, James Love <love@cptech.org>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Device Drivers for Linux and Intel's annoucement Message-ID: <10999.907385320@time.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 02 Oct 1998 20:48:17 MDT." <4.1.19981002204214.0420a940@mail.lariat.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
> If you're unwilling to make the obvious and trivial mental connections > required to comprehend the information I presented in my message, it's > not MY problem. It's interesting that you should say something like this, because I myself was just puzzling over the great disparity between your recent postings on the mailing lists (or your usenet contributions) and your print advocacy. When you're writing for the likes of Sm@rt Reseller, for example, you seem to understand just fine where the right balance between passion and logic lies and you generally make a pretty convincing argument which manages both to be readable and to convey the information you're trying to impart to the reader. As a body of communication, what you've done for print journalism has been just fine and is to be commended. When it's time to go home to your PC, however, you apparently drop your logic cap into a desk drawer and lock the door, off to give the more passionate side of your nature a turn in the uninhibited disco lights of various public mailing lists. Unsubstantiated claims and general invective fly like emotional harpoons, and you exhibit none of the usual care which distinguishes your press work in actually trying convince the reader through meaningful argument. It's all "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!" [with apologies to "Network"]. Such a presentation style is as unfortunate as it is ineffective, and if you're trying to "sell" any idea to a bunch of mailing list readers it's truly no different than trying to sell the readers of Sm@rt Reseller on something (like FreeBSD). In both cases you have a semi-skeptical audience who's ready to be won over by convincing argument, and someone just mindlessly venting his spleen over something is not likely to fill the bill unless they're also capable of being highly amusing about it (e.g. they're Dennis Miller, Dave Barry or P.J. O'Rourke). As a journalist, you also already know full well that it's part of every communicator's responsibility to communicate *effectively*, not to immediately blame the audience for their inability to convey an argument, and for every audience there is also an appropriate style. If you're standing in front of 10,000 brownshirts at a Nurenberg rally, for example, then it's probably a reasonable thing to shout passionately and maybe spray a little spittle from time to time. If you're addressing the International Brotherhood of Accountants, on the other hand, then I don't think that sort of presentation style would go over all that well. A goofy example, to be sure, but I think the point remains: If it's your intention to communicate anything more substantive than "if you see one of my messages, hit delete to avoid the heat" then I'd say that you are failing to do so. Given that I already know you're more than capable of communicating more effectively than this, it is also a highly avoidable failure. I am willing to be convinced that we can do better with the resources currently available, but not by arguments which esteem passion over logic. - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?10999.907385320>