Re: [libreoffice-website] General appeal on communication style (was: Re: Litmus to remove form the main site)

David,

please bear with me as I am not an native English speaker, so therefore 
I might pick the wrong expression or idiom from time to time. 

My mail is intended to disclose possible issues of mutual 
misunderstanding. Of course, maybe I'm somtimes exaggerating a bit but 
look at it as a caricature. My goal in the end is to speak in favor of 
a - let's say - smooth way of collaborative communication. 

On Tuesday 26 April 2011 12:47, David Nelson wrote:

> Any points of 
> view I have posted have been perfectly rational and sensible.

Hopefully, in a minute you will be able to recognize that people could 
have a different perception of your post and action. 


> And I 
> am certainly not engaged in any "personal struggle" with Sophie or
> anyone else. :-D

Hm. So my perception is - or at least might be - rather different from 
yours. Let me show you my thinking, so you can follow it's rationale 
and thus possibly understand the different perceptions. 


> Would you maybe like to post links to ML posts supporting what you
> say? Your words seem to be at odds with the true facts...

Let's concentrate at this[1] thread, I just numbered the successive 
incidents resp. mails in temporal/thread order.

0) Pre-condition (fact): Someone (assumably you, but does not matter who 
for this meta-considerations) has put the Litmus link on the website. 
So now, it is there.

1) Sophie finds the link and requests to remove it. She gives some 
explanations for her request. How I read her mail:
Fact: "There is a Litmus link on the website."
Reasonning: "The link is wrong as it impairs work at the moment" (or 
similar).
Appeal: "Please remove it."
Self-reveal: "I'm feeling in charge for Litmus on the one hand, and for 
informing the community about it on the other. And I'm a constructive 
community member and I'm taking care for good collaboration, too. I 
therefore want the link to be removed it but cannot do it myself" (or 
don't want to or what ever)
What she tells (me) about her relationship to the community: "I care for 
you as a community, and I have substantial knowledge in this matter. 
Now, I'm asking for technical help in a community of equals."

2) K-J removes the link (presumably he accepts Sophie's reasonning) and 
writes a response mail.
New Fact: ("Wrong") link is removed.
Self-reveal: "I'm feeling in charge for the website and I am a 
constructive & collaborative community member, therefore I'm taking the 
task. I'm helping another member."
Relationship "We are a collaborative community of domain experts"
Appeal: "Please correct me if I've missunderstood something, otherwise 
please approve my action"

3) You re-install the link without reasonning.
Fact: Link is visible again.
Reasonning: - none given -
Self-reveal: "I think, the link is ok." but also: "I do not need to 
argue, I just (can) act" 
Relationship (maybe a bit caricaturized): "I am the boss, and you are 
just unimportant: what is done by the community does not bother me. I 
am acting from a superior position. At least, my position is superior 
to Sophie's and K-J's, so I can revert their actions without giving 
further arguments." 
Appeal: "Please accept my superior position and stop acting against me"

So from this (my) perception, your behavior does not appear to support 
the "common goal" first and foremost. It rather appears mainly intended 
to regulate mastery, the "who is in the driver's seat" question. At 
least in my eyes, acting in this way does not look rational, neither 
sensible. It looks like a pure interpersonal action, revenge, bashing, 
fight, whatever you like to call it. 

Hopefully, you can follow my cartoonish explanations and see that it 
could give rise to my interpretation as interpersonal issue. Or at 
least as communicational problem.

> Or shall we just cut this thread short? I'm personally bored with
> this kind of thing. ;-)

I know it's annoying but it can be helpful to clear things from time to 
time. If it does not help, we can leave it, of course. But I personally 
want to (at least) make one "real" attempt to try to reveal problems 
and to direct communication into fruitful collaboration again. 

Nino


[1] 
http://nabble.documentfoundation.org/Litmus-to-remove-form-the-main-site-tt2864506.html

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