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On 9/7/19 6:15 PM, Matthew Kerwin wrote:
Tone is not "metadata", at least as I've ever seen the term used.
"Tone" is either deliberately a layer of the actual content of
communications (if intended by the sender), or interpretation by a
reader that is not the literal meaning of the words, and may not
have been intended by the sender. The latter is inherently
subjective. The same words are not interpreted in the same way
by every reader, and different readers can sometimes interpret the
same phrase in diametrically opposite ways.
I'm surprised that you and others seem to think it is easy for a
sender to anticipate how their message will be read. Last I knew, the IETF list had tens of thousands of recipients.
(Granted, that was a long time ago, so my information may be
outdated.) Different readers will naturally react to the same
message in different ways. Asking every sender to anticipate the
spectrum of reactions from every recipient and write their message
to avoid all potential of adversely affecting the listeners'
emotional states, seems much less effective than expecting
recipients to consider that writers who come from a wide spectrum
of backgrounds are going to think and speak differently from one
another. As you point out, these are not mutually exclusive. There is a
need for due care on the part of both the author and the
readers. But it's not like there's some simple set of rules that
an author can follow to avoid creating distracting emotional
states on a reader's part. One reader may interpret a terse message as an insult, especially
if the reader sees that message as being directed at them and
expected to have a conversation on the topic. Another reader may
be grateful that the message was easy to read or that a lengthy
conversation didn't ensue. There probably are concrete writing suggestions that could be
made that would be helpful. But "tone" means whatever a reader
wants it to mean, or is predisposed to think it means
(deliberately or not), based on that reader's culture, education,
conditioning, and experiences. The same is true for
"professional", "polite", and any of several other vague
descriptions. A big concern I have is with the idea that it's the sender's
fault if the sender accidentally pushed some reader's buttons.
While there are some buttons that are widely shared among humans,
there are many that are not. Add to this the fact that criticizing people's "tone" is a very
common way of attacking people and/or ideas for political gain.
That makes vague demands about "tone" extremely dangerous.
The normal process of developing ideas on a mailing list is to
repeatedly rephrase until there's an improvement in agreement, or
at least improved understanding of the differences, or until it
appears that no further good can be accomplished. The value to
any recipient is also subjective, and a recipient's interpretation
may say more about the recipient than about the sender. But sure, at any point in a conversation a sender might do well
to ask "is this particular message adding value?" Different
people might answer in different ways.
The mere hint of a threat of policing or enforcement, of
something that is completely subjective, is frightening. Keith
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