fpgroups.com: A raw chat room is now available

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 12:23 PM
Subject: Re: fpgroups.com: A raw chat room is now available


> On Fri, Sep 07, 2007 at 06:07:53AM -0700, fp at casabellagallery.com may or
> may not have proven themselves an utter git by pronouncing:
>>
>> > "Do you want polite, or do you want sincere?"  --Unknown
>>
>> Sincere is good, I do not have a problem with being sincere.
>
> Good, since I have a hard time being polite while being sincere--at least
> from the recipient's point of view.  It's not like I set out to be rude.
> People just don't handle very well the fact that I don't sugarcoat things.

It's understandable not to want to "sugar coat" things. It takes effort. 
sometimes considerable effort, and it's overhead robbing time and thought 
from the real work at hand. I find it's worth it.

Several of my friends claim to have varying degrees of something called 
Asperger's Syndrome.
The symptoms are basically that you say whatever you think with no 
concession (they claim actually no awareness) of the social ramifications.

Perhaps I have touch of Asperger's myself in that I have a hard time being 
understanding about this and all I really think is "No, this Asperger's 
sounds like a bs excuse for being an asshole. I reject it. No excuses, stop 
being a dink or stop expecting anyone else to treat you with any respect. 
Your brain works, you can add 2 + 2, you have no excuse for not realizing 
the results of things you say and how you say them. Yes, sometimes it 
requires a little effort and thinking before saying. Well Waahhh."

Except... I _think_ that. I usually don't _say_ that without sufficient 
reason or outside of just the right context. Because, 2 + 2, this isn't hard 
math, I value them as friends. Specifically, I value them more than I value 
my opinion of how they should talk. If once in a while the topic comes up in 
conversation where my opinion was actually solicited, I usually say it 
truthfully, and yet even then I find it's possible to be honest and sincere 
without being callous. The reason it's called consideration, is because 
that's all it involves, considering a little. When is that ever not worth 
doing? Why should it be not worth doing in this context?

For the record, I agree with every one of your technical points. Not just 
that they sounded sensible to me, but as a long time user of many chat 
interfaces myself, I know the points were all dead-on and there's really no 
room for argument or interpretation. This stuff was all figured out long 
ago.

Perhaps you were more helpful than me by saying anything, in whatever 
unpalatable form, vs nothing.

Then again, what I said (nothing) was really the truest response at least in 
my case. It reflects my no-special-interest, positive or negative. It sounds 
nice enough, and except for one potential issue I have no reason to 
discourage it, So I haven't said anything negative. But:
* Johns chat room already exists so for me there is no market for another 
one.
* jhimport/jhexport already exists so for me there is no market for another 
one. (being free is nice, but is it comparable to JH's?) Plus I just write 
my own all the time anyways. If I want an interactive autogenerator I can 
write that too.
* The mail list already exists, so for me there is no market for a newsgroup 
or web forum.

etc etc.. so, to me, so far, it's a solution to a problem that I don't have 
and I have no special positive thing to say either.

The one potential harm is that because our community is so small there is 
actually some harm in redundant options because it may dilute the already 
too-small resource.

The product (the site) will thrive or stagnate on it's own merits and the 
best thing Jose could do, if he wants those merits to imrove and increase, 
is take every single thing you've said as gospel.

But what is your motivation for saying anything in the first place? If it 
was to be ignored or contested for invalid non-technical reasons, then you 
did perfectly. If it was to provide useful feedback that will get at least 
considered, let alone acted upon, then it's worth your while to consider 
what flavor of pill to deliver the medecine in. It doesn't have to be pure 
sugar any more than it has to be rotten eggs.

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
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