ON THE LISTS

by Bob Finn

Bob Finn

I've been troubled lately by the tone of the nasw-x mailing lists, so instead of summarizing recent threads, I'd like to use this column to discuss the subject of courteous behavior on the lists.

I've noticed a tendency for some arguments to become uncomfortably vehement and personal. Other arguments seem to last long after they've stopped providing light, leaving exhausted readers only with heat.

The nasw-x lists should be used for cordial discussions among professionals, similar to those one would hear around an office water cooler or at a professional seminar. They are not intended to be adversarial proceedings such as one might find in a court of law or at a hostile press conference.

While it is permissible to argue with another's point of view, I think participants should restrict their criticisms to the other person's ideas and should not attack them personally. I'm reminded of the old 60 Minutes segment "Point-Counterpoint," and especially the Saturday Night Live parody of that segment. Jane Curtin would present her point of view and her opponent (was it Dan Ackroyd?) would preface his remarks by saying, "Jane, you ignorant slut, . . ." We don't need this style of argument on the lists.

Another thing I'm noticing is a reluctance to let go of an argument. Some people apparently believe that their opponents have not understood their points sufficiently, so they repeat them, and restate them, and repeat them again. Maybe sometimes one's opponent truly doesn't understand. This time I'm reminded of a quote that's attributed to W.C. Fields: "If at first you don't succeed, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it."

I worked at Caltech at a time when Murray Gell-Mann and the late Richard Feynman, both Nobel Prize-winning physicists, were in residence. The fun-loving Feynman had just published a best-selling book called Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. Now Gell-Mann is a very different person from Feynman. Gell-Mann is a know-it-all who really does know it all, for example, he speaks many languages fluently and his friends tell stories about how he would go to ethnic restaurants and correct the waiter's pronunciation of menu items. Gell-Mann was also famous for his habit of correcting a person's pronunciation of his or her own name. The joke around campus was that if Gell-Mann wrote a book its title would be, "You're Right Again, Murray."

My wife, Joanne, and I find ourselves using this phrase often, if we have a difference of opinion, and one of us is proved right.

The world, as most of us know, is not black and white. It's shades of grey, and every color of the rainbow, and it's full of texture too. The moral of this digression is this: once the arguments on all sides of an issue have been fully explored, there's no point in going over them again. Instead, it would be better if the opponents would simply agree to disagree.

Finally, there's a saying on listservs and Usenet newsgroups that sometimes applies to the nasw-x mailing lists. "Don't feed the trolls." In Internet lingo, trolls are people who post offensive or especially argumentative messages specifically to provoke a flame war. A troll is the kind of person who would post a message like, "Hey, that Hitler was a great guy," to a mailing list devoted to Jewish issues. Trolls get their jollies by watching the resulting flame war.

"Don't feed the trolls" means that list members should refrain from responding to the outrageous statements of individuals whose clear intent is to provoke an argument. "Don't feed the trolls" implies that our angry responses are like food to such people, and by not giving them what they want, we'll starve them out. If you feel you must respond to an argumentative message, state your position once, marshal all your evidence in a single message, and leave it at that. The troll will certainly attempt to prolong the argument, but you don't have to cooperate.

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Bob Finn administers NASW's Web site and e-mail lists at nasw.org. His e-mail address is cybrarian@nasw.org.