Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Managing the Common House

[Lyle Scheer (wonko]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: RIPEMD160

O3C11N6G wrote:
> No emotionalism, no inferring more into my words than appears on the page, 
> no references to inappropriate "tone" whatever that means.

This is the challenge, or you might call it a "problem" in e-mail.  Face
to face communication includes facial and verbal cues that add
dimensions to communication that e-mail and written text do not have.

The problem being that most people try to insert an emotional tone into
e-mail when reading it, since it is otherwise lacking.

Unlike what Norm is attempting, most people have emotions in the
background of whatever they are communicating.

A good writer writes in a way that the emotion behind it is unambiguous.

A good reader of e-mail reads with the knowledge that they may be
inserting their own bias.

As an attempt to be unambiguous, I am not attempting to chide or correct
anyone, or make anyone wrong, but instead inform and enlighten all
readers so that they might be more aware of this affect and not get
caught up in something made up.

I would note that I initially read into Norm's e-mail on common house
usage that he seemed annoyed at his community's use of their common
house, and that he was perhaps looking for validation that this approach
was not "correct" in some way.

I suggest to Norm that if he sees a trend in what other people read into
his words, that perhaps he should consider modifying his wording to
reduce the possibility of this reading, especially if this is not what
he intends, and to all others to take heed.

- - Lyle
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (Darwin)

iD8DBQFHHjBQ00lQLawESXoRA/8EAKCTV7nx0ELxQt/JokT8+eiLTHmyLACgjLZC
Zmru51KRGo2CVRT63cie4fo=
=hrRt
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----