[Ansteorra] Disputes in a mailing list

Tim McDaniel tmcd at panix.com
Sat Nov 3 14:52:59 PDT 2012


Prompted by the recent kerfluffle about fund raising on this list,
I've been thinking about the issue of disputes, arguments,
disagreements, whatnot, that arise from a mailing list.

Anyone who is deeply in the SCA is likely to get into a dispute.  They
should go to the SCA Governing Documents via sca.org to go to
http://sca.org/docs/ , clicking on Governing Documents of the SCA, Inc
to get to http://sca.org/docs/pdf/govdocs.pdf  It's not just Corpora.
There's a great article in there, "Appendix A: Suggested Channels for
Complaint and Appeal".  The starting page number in the PDF is 41.  It
has a lot of great advice -- not orders, but advice.  Along with
advice to keep it in perspective, there's also advice to deal with the
chain of response starting with the person themselves, including
"2. Write to the person you're having difficulty with."

Yet I thought it appropriate to reply to the list.  I think the key is
"the person you're having difficulty with."  I want to emphasize that
I have no problem with Sir William Cameron deBlakstan himself, the
kingdom Web minister.  Regardless of whether he was acting of his own
mere motion or under direction, he was working in an official capacity
to fix a perceived problem.  When I finally read him correctly
(*blush*), I agreed with the policy (though not with some details of
the justification).

I think the key is "the person" versus "the issue".  If a policy or
general principle is put into a public venue, I think it reasonable to
discuss it there
- if it's of general interest, as opposed to a specific case of
   interest just to a few people
- in a relatively calm way, without insult
- focusing on the general facts and conclusions, and their
   implications, not on people
If any of those considerations go down, then it's time to pull back
from the forum.

In contrast, on a mailing list I'm on, someone just posted
accidentally a complaint about a particular person's actions.  Had it
not been accidental, I would have replied that it was not right for a
public forum.

Danyell de Lincoln
-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com



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