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Recently I was subject to or part of some major disagreements and discussions online. This is partly due to the rapid spread of my SEO 2.0 ideas. People just can’t ignore them anymore. While I am in Internet publishing for ten years now and have done basically everything, written about every topic, tried every medium and contributed to multiple publications and communities doing it I encounter still the same problems.
Partly they stem from the Internet itself and it’s alienation but a large part of it is people lacking basic social skills. This is astonishing as most people I discuss with are grown ups and often respectable business people. During my first years online I still assumed that me being a newbie or still very young people treated me accordingly. By now I realized that it’s not my fault, I’m 33 years old and have a solid background of 10 years as an Internet specialist. So now I perceive rudeness as what it is.
Of course I’m not perfect myself, I still get angry when people make remarks or voice “opinions” that are anti-democratic, racist, sexist, demeaning and the like. Basically in real life they wouldn’t do it facing me. Phillip of Google Blogoscoped just reprimanded me a few days ago for insulting people who denounce free speech.
Nonetheless I want to talk about real discussions here, not flame wars.
Disagreement is the foundation of evolving ideas.
Where everybody agrees everything has come to halt. It’s a standstill. This can’t be the goal. The goal is to move on and get better.
So I collected 15 basic rules of disagreeing with style, an art which is not very widely spread on the Net right now it seems. If you disagree:
- Disagree with opinions and ideas, not persons
- Explain what you disagree with and why instead of sulking like a 5 year old kid or crying “no” again and again
- Be polite, just because you think your opponent is wrong does not mean she or he is an idiot or something
- Disagree directly where the discussion takes place, do not discredit someone behind hers or his back in a place you think you got more support by your online buddies
- If you’re angry do not send a reply but wait until the next day, if you’re only agitated reply right away
- Do not write a two liner in a reply to a full-fledged analysis or thorough article, take your time to read it thoroughly and to formulate a reply
- Do not engage in a mob action just because adding some remarks in the slipstream of others feels so much safer
- Read the article which started the discussion in the first place, do not just react to the third follow up
- Do not pretend to be objective, only God is, people are only capable of being subjective, do not use phrases like “it’s generally known”
- Do not assume that customs from your hometown or country apply to the rest of the world
- Overlook misspellings of your opponent and concentrate on the points she or he made, especially if you discuss with non-native speakers of English
- Use your real name and link to your website to establish authority
- Do not question the authority of your opponent by citing things she or he did or said out of the context of the disagreement, unless she or he is an axe murderer
- Question your opinion. Remember it applies to your own experience while your opponent has probably another understanding of the subject than you have based on hers or his experience, just because you didn’t do or see it yet does not mean it does not exist or it’s not true
- Do not try to convince somebody by relying on tradition “we always do that” or the majority “everybody knows that”, new ideas are never main stream at the beginning
That said I welcome you to disagree with me in a civilized manner. Just because we disagree we do not have to go to war. I do not think that the spirit of the Bush administration has been adopted by the US public which is my main audience based on my Google Analytics stats. What the Iranians can, many of them read my blog too, you can too.
This thing has 16 Comments
Yeah, this should be a place of healthy discussion. After all, we are here to learn about each others techniques in bringing in traffic. Contrary opinion should not be treated like burning witches on the stake.
I’d have to disagree with a couple points that you said.
Actually I don’t, I find a big problem with people disagreeing and starting arguments is that they often hide behind anonymity. When people don’t say who they are they aren’t worried about the consequences of what they say.
Great post.
Great article, I would add, “re-read the article a few times before you formulate a reply.” Very often we only see what we want to see on the first pass and then see what was really said on the second or third.
This is a great article, and I agree 100% with everything…
but, still… Sometimes I am going to get mad and while i hope it doesn’t show up in a reply it probably does. (like in real life)
so, I’m wondering what would be so wrong with just everybody letting it all hang out and honest with what they feel instead of chewing on the “mad” and trying to produce “nice”
Maybe they should have “honesty day” and see if the number of heart attacks and suicides don’t decrease??
100% right on the money Tad! What a great idea for a post! Cudos.
I strongly disagree with most of what you have written here. Sharp opinion and emotion are entirely appropriate for human beings, and when they are expressed with wit and accuracy so much the better.
An ad hominem attack by a truly perceptive person is worth a thousand diplomatic disagreements.
What is offensive is not a lack of social skills in intelligent people, but a lack of intelligence in ordinary people. An idiot who misses the point while filling the air with platitudes and being reasonable is every bit as bad as some teenager typing “pownd” in all capital letters.
I would say instead “Be ashamed of your ignorance and work like hell to cover it up by reading as much of other peoples wisdom as you can find, and then speak clearly and passionately from your heart.”
If you need a list of rules to keep from making an ass of yourself maybe you should just get out more.
James
david: In fact if this here was a forum you would be moderaor.
Adam: I’ve noticed that too. People are afraid to voice their opinions when they’re not anonymous.
bob: I think it comes down to the question if your are dishonest when you refrain from being angry. As I said I think there are many cases where you getting angry is the only logical reaction. On the other hand rage makes you err, so you can’t trust yourself anymore in many cases.
Thanks Jeff: That’s one of my survival techniques, get inspired by anything, defeat, anger, loss.
Thanks James, good point. I’m with you regarding emotion. Of course it’s part of being human, probably the most important one.
Nonetheless you’re not a complete human being online. You’re just a few lines of text. You will most often fail to show positive emotions like love or compassion as the medium itself is the message here.
The Internet itself is inhuman as it disconnects you from other human beings and limits you to a two dimensional screen. Thus expressing anger, carelessness, distance is easy while you can’t show emotions associated with being close. They are expressed by touching others or smiling.
Of course real physical anger also fails. In real life you would end up beaten up after the first or second flame.
People are losing the skill of diplomacy. Writing a successful retort is more than just slinging some mud at your opponent. To be truly successful, you need to craft a well thought out message.
There is no excuse for making an ad hominem attack, unless the person is saying something that goes beyond to bounds of decency. Ad hominem attacks are a sign of ignorance. It says to me that you are not intelligent enough to form a persuasive, reasoned argument.
When writing persuasively and online, remember that your goal should be to influence you readers, not amuse yourself. Otherwise, just keep your opinion to yourself.
This article is close to how to do copywriting.
Maybe it should be taken into consideration.
I agree.
But the people who need this article will probably not bother reading it, while those reading it are probably already careful of how they behave online.
I have a blog called “Raves and Rants”. I made it in response to our homeowners association as a place for people to have freedom to speak their views and to share information. What actually happened though was something so vicious and ugly that it split the neighborhood instead of uniting them. I thought that giving people a platform for First Amendment Rights was a good thing, but by people using anonymity it was a train wreck waiting to happen.
I had to pull some entries and comments because of the abusive way people were treating each other. The reason I am posting this is because I read your 15 rules of disagreeing and think it should give people some kind of parameter for posting onto my blog. I’d like to give Raves and Rants another try. I put it on an entry with a link back to this page. If that is a problem, I will remove it. If not, thank you. I hope it helps to return some common sense and civility to our community.
Point number 5 is something I now force myself to do. Some time ago, in my fury about a post, I belted out a response (all the while stamping my feet and saying horrible words - sort of like number 2) and hit submit…
Big mistake - huge.
A week later, someone told me to search Goog under my name, and wow -there was my rant, my whinge. How dopey did I feel?
If for no other reason than self preservation - choose words well when you wish to disagree. Especially when it is a subject you are passionate about - wait a little while…
Sadly, as JFB points out, the people that know this stuff are reading these types of posts, and those who don’t - aren’t. So if you haven’t stumbled this, please do!
Better yet, do a summary on your blog and point to this–spread the word. With more voices more ears will be reached.
After all, isn’t that what the blogosphere is about?
Tad, I have to admit that I sometimes find your style a little over the top, but I really respect what you said here. I completely agree that we need to learn to be able to debate ideas (and it’s alright if that gets heated sometimes) without attacking people.
I would disagree with the “Use your real name” part. I don’t think that matters. Other than that, it’s a great list.
Thank you all for your reaction disregarding whether you agree or not. I feel encouraged to do more self-improvement posts like this in the future.
Of course you can edit, re-use and spread this guidelines!
Awesome! This is something I can really put into action.
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[…] sucks, meat is murder, you dirty bastards stink! I guess you get thrown out immediately. If you disagree, do it politely, with style after at least reading what this site is about. Of course I will delete trolls who […]
[…] meat is murder, you dirty bastards stink! I guess such a person gets thrown out immediately. If you disagree, do it politely, with style after at least reading what this site is about. Of course I will delete trolls who […]