On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 12:02:57AM -0400, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
On Mon, 8 May 2006, Chris McCormick wrote:
On Sun, May 07, 2006 at 03:53:53AM -0400, Mathieu Bouchard wrote:
Why is the mailing-list so inefficient? What can be done to improve the mailing-list? Are there affective issues? If so, we might need a Simple Hug Transfer Protocol.
Don't you find that you learn a lot at conferences? I reckon that there is no better search engine than asking a question of an expert, face to face.
If this were really the case, teleconferences would be the super craze just about right now. But anyway: I'm not arguing that conferences are
Teleconferencing doesn't have an established pattern of usage in the same way that conferences do. There is lots of different software and the set up is often complicated. One must agree on protocols, and have the right hardware, bandwidth etc. etc. Add to this the fact that most people are busy, and don't have a lot of time to teleconference with just anyone, and you have the solution as to why teleconferences aren't the super craze.
[Normal]conferencing fills the gap. Experts make time for conferences whilst they might not make time to talk to someone personally. Maybe you have had different experiences, but being able to speak to famous hackers and artists about their software and techniques in person has always been way more valuable to me in terms of information gained per unit effort, than emailing them.
Besides, it's much more pleasurable.
useless, and even if people really learn a lot more at conferences, it doesn't mean that mailing-list interaction can't be improved. So do you have suggestions for more efficient mailing-list interactions?
No, sorry. I think mailing-list interactions are fine for what we use them for. In any case they're something that evolve and are not engineered explicitly, so even if we came up with efficient mailing list interaction protocols, probably nobody would follow them unless they were particularly fun or compelling. That said, you are welcome to try - I am not disrespecting your idea at all, I just don't have anything useful to contribute to it.
How about a non-verbal markup language? (Isn't the niche that smileys were made to fill?)
I guess it could work - smileys do. Sometimes reading tags like "<irony>" ruins the irony though. Maybe that's a good thing because it makes us all talk as directly as possible in order to minimise confusion. What are your thoughts on a non verbal markup language aside from emoticons?
This is simply because of the bandwidth involved. The speed at which you can hone your request using conversation, body language, etc, is much more efficient than IRC, mailing lists, or any other computer based communications medium that we currently use.
How do you say "Intel/AMD isn't going to abandon SSE any day now and it's not an excuse that you can give to me" using bodylanguage in a way that my interlocutor will understand that he can't BS me on this? Cause if bodylanguage can't do that for me, then I don't think it's so great ;-)
I find it's more useful to ask questions than direct statements at people who know more than me. In my experience body language occurs subconciously to indicate a non-hostile attitude which puts the other person's mind into a relaxed state and makes them more likely to provide you with useful information. For example, saying "your opinion is totally flawed, professor." with a quirky smile on your face is a bit different than saying it with a creased forehead and an angry confrontational face. Same thing with voice intonations as in the case of sarcasm. Because we all know how super easy it is to detect sarcasm in email. ;)
And when I say "bodylanguage", I consider that grabbing someone by the necktie is sort of cheating.
Heh!
Best,
Chris.
chris@mccormick.cx http://mccormick.cx