(Uh-oh -- did I just violate the "No Straw Men Rule" that was discussed a few pages ago?)
Dandy
To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequivalent proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.[1][2]
I don't think you swapped propositions on us here. Unless it's a misstatement of the idea of 'Forum Rules' in the first place.
Perhaps the point of having rules isn't to wag fingers or quash diversity of opinion, (although I can certainly see how that might happen) but to encourage folks to act on their best selves, and when something does go 'sour' to have an explicit set of rules to refer to when trying to account for that sickening feeling. It beats - 'we just don't like
you' any day of the week in my opinion.
And of course, if we had forum-specific guidelines, some of us would be able to violate them without causing any flap, through deft humor and other likability tricks, while others of us would still have trouble finding a place to blow one's nose. Social skills help in all areas of life - I know that I get away with some questionable stuff because I care and people generally can tell that I care.
I don't think that this is going to ever be a place that treats people kindly who repeatedly come to every conversation 'confidently knowing that I am right' unless they are pretty good at hiding that attitude. The fact that you can joke about it counts in your favor, but I am hoping that we are moving, as a group, towards, "Miller's Law" instead:
Miller's Law can refer to two different principles.
[edit]In communication
Miller's law, part of his theory of communication, was formulated by George Miller, Princeton Professor and psychologist.
It instructs us to suspend judgment about what someone is saying so we can first understand them without imbuing their message with our own personal interpretations.
The law states: "To understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of."[1] [2]
The point is not to blindly accept what people say, but to do a better of job listening for understanding. "Imagining what it could be true of" is another way of saying to consider the consequences of the truth, but to also think about what must be true for the speaker's "truth" to make sense.
Or as (help! - who was that?) said: Here we answer not the question that was asked, but the question that the poster meant to ask.
Thanks Dandy, for giving me a terrific opening to bring up 'Miller's Law' - almost like you are being my Staw Man - I've been looking for a way to work it into the conversation.
I also like the way you put
This DITD forum seems to have an incredible assortment of backgrounds, and yet we've all found our way here for the common purpose of hoping to better understand the care and feeding of our very own giftie.
And I think this statement belongs prominently in our 'statement of purpose'
I think it's also true that often we do do a good job of self-moderating. If we do get dedicated mods, I hope we make it a tradition to use those roles constructively.
Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, �Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to adjudicate for us like all the nations.�
I guess we aren't the first group to want or fear authority to excersize judgement. It may not be a thing that groups need, but it surely is a thing that many in groups want.
I think that there are a lot of humans walking around believing that all who disagree are wrong, but I think on a board aimed at Gifties, that there is a special twist on this....who wouldn't have preferred to go all through school with tons of opportunities to be disagreed with by peers who were wiser than we? Even teacher who told us that we were wrong, often we found to be ....wrong. I think that this leaves us isolated in a way that isn't good. Yes, some of us are born with this position as default, but I think that even those folks benefit by repeated exposure to wiser than us peers.
Love and More Love,
Grinity
