How do you see politeness of this sort as hurting discussion here?
One example: I had a strong negative reaction to this advice:
Consider correcting someone privately while praising them publicly. This combination has been observed to engender loyalty and good feelings throughout history.
My reasons:
I dislike receiving feedback which has been distorted by the desire to “engender loyalty and good feelings”. Such feedback is worse than worthless since the recipient wastes time analyzing the motivation and discarding the feedback, rather than analyzing the feedback and updating on it.
If I make a mistake, which is corrected publicly, and the correction receives 9 upvotes, I fix the mistake, thank the corrector, and I’m done. If instead, the correction is private, I have to read 10 PMs and respond with 10 thank you notes.
The advice referred to “correction” rather than “disagreement”. That is good, because in a community like this one, disagreement should always be public rather than private. The trouble is that in many cases, what was originally thought to be a disagreement turns into a correction and what was originally thought to be a correction turns out to be a disagreement. It seems best to make almost everything public. Even lurkers can gain something in a public forum. You don’t have to play to win.
The advise offered by the OP strikes me as generally good in a typical corporate or academic environment, but quite frequently wrong in an environment like LessWrong. One the other hand, I know that our “direct and unvarnished” style sometimes drives away newcomers who could contribute a lot to our community.
I’m perplexed. Is there a way for us to become more polite without becoming fawning and insincere? It is a tough balancing act, but it may be worthwhile to give it a try.
A suggestion: use polite words in order to help your communication be received.
Strunk & White were on the money: “Omit needless words.”
However, I think it’s clear from the examples given that polite words are not necessarily noise—if they help the communication be received, rather than deprecated or even ignored, then they are important to the communication and should be considered part of it.
Your objection appears to be to application of a specific rule in a specific situation. This means, of course that one needs to adjust one’s communication style to the situation. This takes work, but that doesn’t mean it’s optional to success.
If it’s redundant, it’s redundant in the good computers and communications sense of “makes the signal more likely to get through.” I submit that this is actually quite important.
(If you look through my comments, you’ll see I post-edit almost all of them. I take care not to change the meaning (that would be extremely socially rude) - but I frequently dash off something, realise it’s brash enough it may affect it being received, and go back and fix it. Impolite words hamper communication, and IME just because nerds say they prefer unvarnished communication does not mean they like receiving it rather than feeling free to send it. So I consider it “adding signal.” I continue to take pride in being a good writer with an excellent turn of phrase, despite the evidence I need to think more before hitting “comment” …)
I agree with much of what you say here and in your linked suggestion. I particularly endorse your suggestion that if politeness “greases the way” to the understanding of a message, then it is an integral part of the message.
However, I still believe that there is some value in “pushing on the envelope”, in doing one’s bit toward shifting societal norms in the direction of greater honesty and less ego massage.
One example: I had a strong negative reaction to this advice:
My reasons:
I dislike receiving feedback which has been distorted by the desire to “engender loyalty and good feelings”. Such feedback is worse than worthless since the recipient wastes time analyzing the motivation and discarding the feedback, rather than analyzing the feedback and updating on it.
If I make a mistake, which is corrected publicly, and the correction receives 9 upvotes, I fix the mistake, thank the corrector, and I’m done. If instead, the correction is private, I have to read 10 PMs and respond with 10 thank you notes.
The advice referred to “correction” rather than “disagreement”. That is good, because in a community like this one, disagreement should always be public rather than private. The trouble is that in many cases, what was originally thought to be a disagreement turns into a correction and what was originally thought to be a correction turns out to be a disagreement. It seems best to make almost everything public. Even lurkers can gain something in a public forum. You don’t have to play to win.
The advise offered by the OP strikes me as generally good in a typical corporate or academic environment, but quite frequently wrong in an environment like LessWrong. One the other hand, I know that our “direct and unvarnished” style sometimes drives away newcomers who could contribute a lot to our community.
I’m perplexed. Is there a way for us to become more polite without becoming fawning and insincere? It is a tough balancing act, but it may be worthwhile to give it a try.
A suggestion: use polite words in order to help your communication be received.
Strunk & White were on the money: “Omit needless words.”
However, I think it’s clear from the examples given that polite words are not necessarily noise—if they help the communication be received, rather than deprecated or even ignored, then they are important to the communication and should be considered part of it.
Your objection appears to be to application of a specific rule in a specific situation. This means, of course that one needs to adjust one’s communication style to the situation. This takes work, but that doesn’t mean it’s optional to success.
If it’s redundant, it’s redundant in the good computers and communications sense of “makes the signal more likely to get through.” I submit that this is actually quite important.
(If you look through my comments, you’ll see I post-edit almost all of them. I take care not to change the meaning (that would be extremely socially rude) - but I frequently dash off something, realise it’s brash enough it may affect it being received, and go back and fix it. Impolite words hamper communication, and IME just because nerds say they prefer unvarnished communication does not mean they like receiving it rather than feeling free to send it. So I consider it “adding signal.” I continue to take pride in being a good writer with an excellent turn of phrase, despite the evidence I need to think more before hitting “comment” …)
I agree with much of what you say here and in your linked suggestion. I particularly endorse your suggestion that if politeness “greases the way” to the understanding of a message, then it is an integral part of the message.
However, I still believe that there is some value in “pushing on the envelope”, in doing one’s bit toward shifting societal norms in the direction of greater honesty and less ego massage.