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The internet has made defensive writers of us all

pchiusano.github.io

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Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#21

Post by munificent »

jbob2000 wrote: post #4

Context is really important in communication. When speaking with someone face to face, you pick up on vocal intonations and body language to give you context to their speech. As well, knowing someone personally gives context to what they are saying. On the internet, you have none of those things, only text. I think we are hitting a wall with our written languages because they can't adequately communicate context. Emo…

I like your point that context and audience are the problem, but I don't think it's an issue with text as much as it is the web. If I give you a hand-written note, I know exactly who is reading it (at least at first, how many embarrassing stories involve a note that ended up in the wrong hands?) and I can presume that in my writing.

But when I write a blog post on the web, it's stapled to a bulletin board that has the eyes of the entire world. I have no idea who will read it today, tomorrow, or years from now. I don't know who will take pieces of it out of context and repost them elsewhere.

It is honestly scary. I was going through some old posts of mine a while back and felt like they were funnier and a more brave. Several years have slowly but surely toned me down, often for the worse.

I have to constantly remind myself to be courageous in my writing. I have to remember to focus on how the right reader will experience it, and tune out the wrong ones.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#22

Post by [deleted] »

kornish wrote: post #13

A great quote from the article: "The defensive writing style also encourages another sort of ugliness, which is that “avoiding saying something wrong” becomes a primary focus of the writing, rather than communicating or exploring ideas which the author might himself be unsure of." One thing that's great about Gwern Branwen's writing is that Gwern's essays are accompanied by a "belief tag". That tag gives the ability…

[deleted]

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#24

Post by jsprogrammer »

WalterBright wrote: post #5

One of the common methods people use to attack posts with ideas they don't agree with is to take the prose literally. This is much like the "work to rule" form of protest that unions use, and the "letter of the law" rather than the spirit of it, and of course all those "zero tolerance" policies.

One approach to resolving this would be to not make statements that are literally not true and to correct statements that are literally not true to not be literally not true.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#25

Post by itp »

krisdol wrote: post #10
kiba wrote: post #3

I dunno, man. I write defensively as a default and consequentially nitpick every argument made for a position. On the other hand, I am not adverse to changing my mind on a flip of a good argument. If I get offended or defensive, it means that my beliefs aren't as ironclad as I thought. There are some areas that I pretty much don't pay attention though. Anything concerning creationism, global warming denialism, pro-sm…

The article's message is that non-defensive writing traditionally presumed the author's openness to (in your case) changing their mind, and that today we have all become defensive writers because there is now an expectation that someone will use nitpicks about inconsequential points to discredit the entire piece.

> today we have all become defensive writers because there is now an expectation that someone will use nitpicks about inconsequential points to discredit the entire piece.

Even such inconsequential things as, for example, pointing out the parent's incorrect choice of "adverse" instead of "averse," which has no bearing on the argument.

There's almost always a mistake, overgeneralization, or convenient shortcut in anything a person says. Holding people to an impossible standard just adds stress all around.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#26

Post by delecti »

kelukelugames wrote: post #11
erichmond wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, if you live in the states, you are likely correct to feel that way. I haven't had many racial incidents in the tech workplace, but I have had enough to understand that it definitely could be held against you in the long term.

I wrote a few sentences about gender equality at my last job for the company blog. Some people didn't like it so they escalated it to the CTO without contacting me. As a result, the editor who approved my piece was super stressed and apologetic. She quit a few months later. I wasn't surprised. They wanted me to add the word "more" to the title of the second point. Which makes sense, but that's literally a one minute…

> Sorry for going behind your back. I didn't realize you were going to find out

So really "Sorry you found out I went behind your back".

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#27

Post by proksoup »

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #15
kornish wrote: post #13

A great quote from the article: "The defensive writing style also encourages another sort of ugliness, which is that “avoiding saying something wrong” becomes a primary focus of the writing, rather than communicating or exploring ideas which the author might himself be unsure of." One thing that's great about Gwern Branwen's writing is that Gwern's essays are accompanied by a "belief tag". That tag gives the ability…

It's one of the surprising side-effects of the Internet that anything whatsoever you might say in a public forum can potentially offend someone, somewhere, somehow.

I recently watched Slavoj Zizek speak about how political correctness is a more complete totalitarianism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tndXr-oQxxA

I am optimistic the video has some relevance to this discussion.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#28

Post by jonathaneunice »

As an analyst, I perfected the art of defensive writing. We had to. Everyone has a vested interest in everything you say. Every way that situations were described, every opinion of what approaches or technologies will/won't work, every product rating, every everything. If not a financial vested interest, then an affinity interest. In the editorial process, we often talked about "hardening" or "bulletproofing" the writing so it could withstand the slings and arrows of relentless criticism.

Re: The internet has made defensive writers of us all

#30

Post by puredemo »

kelukelugames wrote: post #6

I feel compelled to write about race issues because I am a person of color. The issues directly impact my life. But I'm afraid because readers might be pissed off enough to get me fired. :/

Excuse my ignorance but do Asians "count" as people of color? I thought that usually referred to Latinos and African Americans?

I know that university admissions PoC don't include Asians, in fact most admissions standards are stacked against them.

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