[H-GEN] Etiquette [was: IP Traffic Stats]

[Greg Black]

On 2004-06-05, James Mills wrote:

> I find it an insult to be told that I have been impolite or rude, as has
> been done now the 2nd time on this list. I am simply not capable of
> doing tasks that I could quite easily do before.

This must be unpleasant for you, but it's not something that you
should take to heart.  One of the basic problems with impersonal
communication mechanisms like mailing lists is that people don't
know each other and don't know about the individual difficulties
that other people may have to deal with.

There are two[1] ways around this.  You can develop a thick skin
and just learn not to be bothered by remarks that you don't
like.  That's not a bad solution and it's my preferred approach.
No matter who you are, there will be people out there who will
dislike you and who will choose to be abusive to you from the
safety of the dark rooms where they lurk with their computers.
Nothing you can do about that, so it's best to just ignore it.

Another approach is to remind people that you have a handicap so
that they'll know that your requests are not as unreasonable as
they would be if they had been made by somebody without such a
handicap.  You can do this in a couple of ways.  If it's only
rarely that you might be inclined to ask something out of the
ordinary, you could just add a suitable explanatory sentence to
your message.  Or, if you'd find yourself doing that so often
that it would become a chore, you could just get your email
client to add a suitable one-line disclaimer at the bottom of
all your messages.

The thing is, even if you do mention your particular problem
from time to time in messages to a list, people will forget and
there will be people who didn't even see those other messages.
So, if you want people to know, then every relevant message has
to carry the information.  Or, as I suggested above, you can
just develop a thick skin.

Cheers, Greg

[1] There is, of course, a third way: don't use mailing lists;
    but that would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater
    and so I don't offer it as a serious alternative.
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