[FRIAM] A public letter to Nick, cc: any that write here

[Eric Charles]

I mean... if we are digressing anyway....

The question is what the function would be of addressing someone at the
start of a message posted to a list. Right? I think Glen is correct that
most past functions such an address would serve, associated with a private
and personal letter to an individual, are either rendered neutral in a
context such as this, or are actively counterproductive (or, misleading to
the point that they detract from the interaction more than they add).
However, there could still be some good reasons for it.

I (think I) use it for two distinct purposes:

   1. If I am replying to a thread after many people are already saying
   things, I may use an initial address in an effort to make it clearer which
   prior response I am now replying to. This thread here is held together well
   enough that does not seem necessary. Does that succeed at helping others
   navigate the larger discussion? I don't know. When others do it, I think it
   helps me.
   2. If I am specifically trying to call someone out on something. On
   twitter or The Book of Face, you would do that with a tag, but in email it
   still isn't easy. Something in that notion seems similar to the notion of a
   "public letter." Like, I could just email Nick and tell him why I think
   he's somehow gone awry, but in the context of an active, broader discussion
   it *sometimes *seems helpful to have that note-to-Nick be public. Like
   an aside in a conversation intentionally made loud enough for others to
   hear, because it is actually relevant to them. I'm more open to the idea
   that my thoughts on this are vulnerable, because I'm not as certain whether
   or not it helps me when others do this.

Taken together, those purposes are akin to a Congressman taking the mic and
starting "I would like to respond to the Gentlewoman from Nebraska" - he is
talking to all of us, but also wants to mark out that what he is saying is
specifically in response to what she said - and if 15 other Congresspeople
spoken in between her turn and his, that marking off is potentially very
helpful.

<echarles at american.edu>


On Mon, Feb 15, 2021 at 3:09 PM uǝlƃ ↙↙↙ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:

> As a kid, we had a version of soccer called "hackball". There were really
> no rules except "Don't purposefully hurt people." Each of us had multiple
> instances of hurting each other. Broken bones were not rare. There was a
> lot of blood. Scoring was pretty ill-defined. Etc.
>
> To us, it was a lot of fun. But to an onlooker, it was nonsense. [⛧] Each
> new person brought their own baggage to the "game". But I'm using scare
> quotes because they're necessary.
>
> A tennis game performed for an audience is a game. Our ...
> collaboratively, dynamically, lazily defined "soccer" was nothing like a
> game. There really was no winner or any kind of concept of "success". If
> your posts to this list (or anywhere) are *intended* to be a game, you need
> a way to enforce the rules. You need a moderator/referee. Until/unless you
> get that, your performative game of tennis is *nothing* like these
> conversations.
>
>
> [⛧] To head off a false inference, we had a handful of girls who would
> play. So it wasn't the merely physical aggression of males.
>
> On 2/15/21 11:56 AM, thompnickson2 at gmail.com wrote:
> > When two tennis players slash it out for the cup they are playing against
> > one another.  But they are playing for us.  Why can't that be a kind of
> > conversation?
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
>
> - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. .
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6  bit.ly/virtualfriam
> un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20210215/8c0c5436/attachment.html>