[KCDXC] Aired out

Wed, 18 Dec 2002 01:22:45 -0600

Tom, thanks for your posts. You have no reason to apologize..I know your
intent has been to encourage activity in what seemed to be an apathetic and
listless club. You've been really successful - I've haven't seen such
enthusiasm from the membership in years. And the participation in the last
two contests has been tremendous! I love the 'contest sign up' and all the
score reporting and hearing how the contest went at all our qth's.
    I'm sure you didn't mean to s..t...i...r up a big hassle, but reflector
responses are reknowned for getting out of hand quickly. We all try to be a
little more clever than the last comment. What begins as innocent humor can
get mean-spirited in a hurry...Sometimes we should just hit the delete key
before we continue with the resonses.
    Everyone in this club enjoys humor. However, email and other forms of
written communications are  *very* difficult ways of expressing ourselves
humorous emotion. Really good humor is often quite close to reality. To be
conveyed and received and interpreted successfully, humor needs the personal
touch impossible to transmit with the printed word alone. The listener who
is getting jabbed (intended as friendly, I'm sure) needs to see the facial
expressions of the speaker, or, at the very least, the expression and tone
of his voice to understand. Little smiley icons don't come close to helping.
For example, a comment I saw about 'Where were Quantrill's Raiders when you
needed them?' conjured up images of murderous outlaws killing innocent women
and children and burning the fruit of other peoples lives' work. In that
context its not funny at all! Had it been remarked in person, like at a club
meeting, in context with our joking, and seeing the smiling expression of
the speaker, it would be more acceptable.
    Email reflector sparks sure seem to turn to flames quickly. Its just the
nature of the beast. We see it on many of the reflectors. The time we have
to read and respond to an email message is many times longer than the time
we have to respond during a real life conversation among friends. An email
reflector doesn't replace a meeting, or even a club repeater. I feel we
really need to keep this in mind when we try to poke fun via email.
    By the way, I don't claim to have come up with these theories about
written humor. You find references to it in many 'Introduction to the
Internet/Email' and 'Email etiquette' articles.
    Don't sit on the sidelines - We appreciate your thought and hard work!
73 Bill vbu (Now I'm going to bed - Aired out too!)
Next chapter tomorrow: My thoughts on what the reflector is for.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Baugh" <[email protected]>
To: "KCDXC reflector" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2002 7:40 PM
Subject: [KCDXC] Aired out

I'm going to bed after this last comment. I hadn't read all the additional
posts after Bill's request for me (and all) to lighten up.
I'm not sure if this club enjoys humor or not, if it's sense of humor is
appropriate for all audiences.
Due to lack of activity in the early months of the contest season, I made a
strong effort through the only avenue we have (or adequately use) to
communicate, this reflector. The activity level increased not only on the
reflector.. but also on the air and for that I am happy. I'm not sure what
gets certain people's drawers in a wad.
We found out that AA0MZ has a sense of humor (some like it and some don't).
When he called me "Tommy Boy" I didn't jump up and holler.. he didn't mean
anything by it.
Some people who are saying others should not post non-amateur radio post
have some of the most blatent (sp) examples of the very thing they say they
don't want.
After two years in this club, I'm still not sure what it stands for.
But one thing which I have tried to bring to the club is an openess and
inviting atmosphere for new people.
I've obviously come up against some opposition to that. I'm not sure why.
I think I'll go back to sitting by the sidelines. Sometimes when you take a
risk you get burned. I sure recognize that!

All aired out,
Goodnight.

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