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                            EDITORIAL
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                   Don't get keyboard crazy
                      By Bj”rn Felten
                 First published 21 Jan 2002

When on the streets in a car, you've probably encountered what's often
referred to as street crazy. This is what people so easily get, when
something happens. Someone bumps into your car, and suddenly you can
find yourself in a highly animated discussion with the other driver,
that often can develop into a nasty situation with violent, and, even,
in countries where there's a handgun in every glove compartment, fatal
results.

   How come then, that if you bump into that same person, walking on
the pavement (that's sidewalk to some of you), there almost never
develops a case of pavement craziness? In just a split second both
parties resolve the potential conflict, and all is well.

   The simple explanation is body language. When you accidentally bump
into someone, you know exactly what to do with your face, shoulders,
arms and the rest of the body, to immediately apologise. And the
amazing thing is, that this language seems to be highly universal. It
works in London, Paris and Berlin as well as in Tokyo, New York and
Rio de Janeiro.

   But when you sit tucked away in a car, with only your face showing,
and sometimes not even that, behind shining or even dark windscreens,
you don't have access to this powerful language. At best, all you have
is the finger, and that's not the best way to start a discussion...

   Now take our means of communication, here in Fidonet, the written
word. Ask any good actor to read a couple of lines, taken out of a
greater context, and he'll tell you it's impossible to know how to
read them. They can be read in a thousand different ways, giving them
a thousand different meanings.

   This is what we're up against, when we read mail, echo- as well as
netmail. We see the written words, but without the proper body
language to go with those words, and without being able to hear the
writer saying them in the way they were intended (high, low, funny,
serious, fast, slow etc.) we lack probably 90% of the information
needed to fully understand the message.

   So why are we then so fast to reply to those words, in the way many
do: with invectives, insults and other bashings? Well, to the best
of my experience, it's often people with the most incredible
experience of participating in mostly sysop echoes (I think those
echoes are the worst ones in this respect) that are the worst
offenders. Maybe they are so used to almost every message being an
attack on them personally, that they automatically jump to the worst
conclusion?

   The remedy is of course, to try to have sysops meeting in person,
where they can make full use of their body language and voices. After
such a SupCon or whatever, things have always cooled down considerably
among the participants. That's a proven fact. So let's all join in on
a wish for more SupCon's to the people!


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