sparr: (Default)

 

Read more... )


Do you, person who blocked or exiled me for arguing with you in the early 2010s, still hold the beliefs that I was arguing against? If so, have you noticed that almost everyone who supported your development of that belief has changed course, that almost everyone around you is supporting the positions I argued for a decade ago? Or, if not, have you considered apologizing?

(This is a rewrite and elaboration on a private post I made about two years ago.)

Analogy: If you switch your fandom from American Football to Soccer, are you willing and able to set aside at least some of your past conclusions about soccer fans who tried to convince you to switch?

sparr: (Default)
A missing component of almost all discussion and research I've seen on the use of emoji is the mapping of text (names, keywords, emoticons) to emoji on different platforms.

On some platforms ":)" is translated to "🙂 Slightly Smiling Face" and ":D" to "😀 Grinning Face". On other platforms they both go to the same emoji, one or the other.

On Discord and Slack, ":pray:" is the canonical name for "🙏 Person with Folded Hands". However on both you can use ":thanks:" to search and find that emoji, while also finding "🫂 People Hugging" on both and the not-a-real-emoji "Thank You!" image on Slack.

There are many other examples of these phenomena. I've never found any source that even documents these mappings and relationships, let alone discussion or research that accounts for this. I'd love to see emojipedia or a similar site include this information on their emoji entries.

This idea percolates in my head from time to time. This specific post was prompted by seeing a graph about the use of "😂 Face with Tears of Joy" and "😭 Loudly Crying Face" over time (one increasing, the other decreasing). I think it was meant to show a change in overall happiness and sentiment across emoji users. I suspect that somewhere there are platforms changing the default/only results when trying to search for "cry" or "tear" emojis, and that is part of the cause, but not recognized as a factor in the research.

If you know where to find data on this topic, such as the keyword lists that Discord and Slack use to turn :thanks: into :pray:, or the full list of emoticon->emoji mappings for some popular platform(s), I'd love some links!

EDIT: A helpful friend pointed me toward one piece of this puzzle. The Unicode Common Locale Data Repository includes an Annotations section, which provides tags / terms / keywords associated with many emoji. E.G. 🙏 "folded hands" has English Annotations of "| ask | hand | please | pray | thanks", and this is why ":thanks:" on Discord and Slack get you the "folded hands" emoji (which they canonicalize as ":pray:"). These annotations get updated every year or two, and exist in many languages with different amounts of coverage of the whole emoji space. Here's the current version for "Romance" languages: https://www.unicode.org/cldr/cldr-aux/charts/37/annotations/romance.html
sparr: (Default)
I recently posted a comic strip in which two people get in an argument to the death over whether “on accident” or “by accident” is the appropriate phrase to use. I tagged my wife in what I intended to be a humorous post, because we are on opposite sides of this particular dialectal divide, having grown up about a thousand miles apart. This led to three people responding to say the argument in the comic is representative of my behavior in general, using words like “stickler”, “pedantry”, and “pointless”. Those people are my wife, a friendly acquaintance, and one of my more active detractors. While it’s possible one or more of them are an outlier, the distribution of this small sample suggests to me that this impression could be widespread. I’ve tried to address this in the middle of various discussions in the past, but this turn of events suggests it deserves its own top level post.

A fundamental distinction between the comic and most of the time I spend arguing about vaguely similar aspects of communication is whether or not there is an inaccurate reasonable alternate interpretation for a listener to apply to a message. The comic strip is an example of the “not” category; to the people who grew up with “on accident”, “by accident” doesn’t have another meaning in their dialect, and vice versa. The other phrase is new to them when someone from the other side uses it. They are almost certain to interpret it correctly, with the most likely failure mode being recognizing that they don’t understand it. There is virtually no chance of the listener getting a message other than the one the speaker intended, and so no unintended and/or inappropriate harm can come of those alternative messages being received. After you’ve learned that some other people, or a specific other person, use the other phrasing, there’s no significant reason other than social conformity for you to try to change dialect to match them.

Then there’s the opposite category, where there is such an interpretation. Consider a word like “coke”. Forget the beverage/drug distinction, context can almost always sort that one out. I’m talking about the “coke vs soda” debate in US culture for the last century, which you should google and be aware of if you aren’t already. The first time you tell someone you want a coke and you get back a can of Sprite you’ll probably be momentarily confused. When someone asks you for an “orange coke” and you bring them an Orange Vanilla Coca Cola there will probably be a round of humorous clarification. Like before, there is little to no harm here, possibly some laughing and unlikely any crying. Unlike before, miscommunication did happen, someone received and believed and relied on messages other than the ones the sender tried to send. Fortunately the cost of that reliance was low. Once you know about this distinction, and especially if you know a particular person is on the other side, there’s some small value to be gained by adjusting your speech to fit what you think their interpretations will be.

Finally, there’s a less discrete but more important distinction, a subset of that second category where the harms grow almost without limit. A laugh and a lost can of soda is inconsequential. Losing a partner, a house, a job, a life... physical harm of the sort people remember forever... financial harm measured in weeks or months of salary rather than pocket change... societal impact across tens to thousands of people... not so much. When you know about one of these distinctions, it becomes of potentially paramount importance to avoid this phenomenon when you can. Further, I feel morally compelled to attempt to reduce the frequency of those miscommunications and their consequences in the society around me.

That is where I focus my effort. Of course we can all engage in a few seconds or minutes of good natured ribbing over something like coke/soda, on/by purpose, etc, and I do that sometimes too, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a significant factor in people’s dislike of me. When you see me spending a hundred or a thousand hours trying to convince people not to use certain phrasing for certain meanings, I am trying to prevent large amounts of significant harm. When you say “consent violation”, even though you can point to definitions of “consent” and “violation” that encompass the scenario you’re describing (such as pushing your way out of a crowded subway car), that is not a relevant response to my concern that other people are going to predictably reasonably consistently misinterpret your statement as meaning the other things that phrase means in our shared dialect and language. If someone reading this says “racism” or “sexism” to a random other person in the US, there’s a pretty good chance that person thinks the word means something different, significantly enough so to cause problems if and when the statement is acted upon. In the long run, across many such instances, those misinterpretations are going to cause significant harm, lead to physical injuries, and ruin lives. If you refuse to recognize these consequences of your choices and adjust your behavior accordingly, that makes the consequences your responsibility. That is what I am usually fighting against, and it has nothing to do with pedantry.

If you disagree with, or don’t see, the distinctions I’ve drawn between these categories, I’d like to talk about that here. If you think what I’ve described here doesn’t match my behavior, ditto. If you ever see me responding to an “on accident” or “coke” situation in the way I’ve said here that I reserve for things like “consent” and “racism”, please point it out to me. I did once have someone point out where they thought I was overreacting and I thought I was having a traditional “what is a sandwich” sort of friendly debate, which was very enlightening.
sparr: (Default)
"One of his biggest demons is his sex monster. His desire for erotic connection tends to get him into trouble. A lot. Folxs have posted their experiences with that side of him. For such an empathetic creature, he sure has a hard time understanding if he should keep going in intimate situations."
 
Take a moment and let your imagination wander, brainstorm some things you think that quote might be about. Really, I'd like you to stop here for at least 10 seconds before reading further and see what you can come up with.
 
Read more... )
sparr: (Default)
There are two groups of people that present me with an awkward dilemma. I think both groups are misbehaving, but I can't address either of them without the other believing I am harming them.
 
Group 1: "It's inappropriate for you to quote things people say without their permission or where they might not expect it or be upset by it, even if you don't name them or give any information with which a reader of the quote might reasonably narrow down the source of the quote to one person."
 
Group 2: "I believe the position you're arguing against is a straw man, because you can't or won't give me any or enough real examples of people defending it. Based on this belief, I am going to label you a bad actor, because the harm of your tactics outweighs the zero benefit of defeating that nonexistent position."
 
I would appreciate advice on tackling this dilemma.
sparr: (Default)
"Nobody I know fails at communication as often as you"
"Who fails to communicate to someone more often, you or her?"
"You fail to communicate your meaning 80% of the time"
"Almost every time I see you trying to communicate to someone, you are failing"
 
I get a lot of flak for deficiencies in my communication style and ability. I also get a lot of accusations that, in general, I am [very] bad at communication, [much] worse than other [typical or specific] people. All of the quotes above are amalgamations and paraphrases of real things people have said to me. Most of them refer to [their perception of] the frequency of my failure to communicate an idea or concept to someone.
 
I explain this phenomenon in three ways:
 
1. I attempt to communicate, at all, more things and more often than most people.
 
2. I attempt to communicate specific things and topics that most people would avoid attempting for reasons unrelated to communication skill (e.g. taboo, awkward, shy, illegal, etc).
 
3. I continue attempting long after most people would give up out of frustration or exhaustion.
 
None of these things indicate a deficiency in my communication skills, and I think these things account for almost all of the negative observations people make about my communication skills relative to the average or to a typical/normal person.
 
If you think I am a worse communicator than Pat, consider the following scenarios:
 
1. I try twice as often as Pat, so you see me fail twice as often as Pat, even if our level of skill is equal.
 
2. I talk about things Pat refuses to talk about, so on those topics you see me fail infinitely more often than Pat, even if my skill level is much higher, even if I were the best communicator in the world.
 
3. I try twice as long as Pat, so for a topic on which we both fail, you will see my failure twice as often/much, even if our skill is equal. Further, even for things I communicate successfully and Pat does not, you will have more opportunity to encounter my attempt in the middle where it appears unsuccessful up to that point, similar in effect to #1.
 
If it helps, ask yourself whether you would prefer someone succeed 90% of the time, or they not try at all. Most of the arguments I hear about my own communication failures would align with wanting the best communicator in the world to not try at all, lest they inevitably fail even once.
 
Of course, there are also arguments to be made about the relative value of failure vs success, and about my ability as the recipient of communication, but I'll save those for another post. This post is specifically about whether conclusions can be reached about my communication skill based on observations of communication failure from me to someone else.
sparr: (Default)
One potential goal of communication is to move a factual idea from your head to my head, something about the state of the world.
 
A different goal of communication is to implant a feeling in my mind, making me feel happy or angry or sad or worried.
 
Often, these two goals are compatible, and capable speakers/writers can accomplish both more often than the average person.
 
When you prioritize the second goal, specifically for negative emotions, at the expense of the first, you engage in "weaponization of language". That is, using words to propagate emotions regardless of how inapplicable their meaning might be to the given situation.
 
If there are people who are helped by emotions being attached to those words, you are hurting them. If there are people helped by effective communication of the ideas connected to those words or connected to the words that would better convey the idea you have in mind, you are hurting them.
 
Examples... )
 
More recent less common example: "misgendering". When you use this word you know that you are evoking emotions associated with someone using "she"/"woman" to refer to a transgender man, or vice versa, or increasingly now using gendered words to refer to a nonbinary/genderneutral person. Most people do not think that "e" and "they" and "ze" are different genders, just different words for referring to nb/gn-ness. Using "misgendering" to refer to the situation where I use "they" instead of "ze" is detrimental to all future discussion about issues around gender and pronouns, and devalues the pain and struggle of transgender individuals who are frequently actually misgendered.
 

If you don't want to cause those outcomes, you should refrain from engaging in this behavior. 
sparr: (Default)
screenshot of wiki paragraph describing Facebook posts and privacy settings

Day 1 of setting up my new wiki is done. Mostly configuration and template stuff so far, but I’m finally starting to dip my toes in the water of actually creating content.
 
If anyone out there is interested in helping catalog ways people communicate, including social networks and chat rooms and dating sites and parliamentary procedure, and the features that make them similar and different, hit me up.
 
sparr: (Default)
After at least a decade of wanting it to exist, I am finally taking a crack at starting a wiki to document all the various ways people engage in organized communication. The format will be similar to TVTropes/AllTheTropes, with pages for different sites and apps and formats, and then pages for the various features and traits.
 
The "Facebook" page will describe Facebook, and contain links to pages like "Activity feed" "Posts with comments" "Single level comment nesting" "Direct messaging" "Group messaging" "Public posts" "Web site" "Mobile site" "Mobile app" etc. The "IRC" page will describe IRC, and contain links to "Chat rooms" "Direct messaging" "Federated" "Text based" "Open Protocol" etc. There will also be pages for non-digital formats like parliamentary procedure, election caucus, etc. Each of the pages like "Activity feed" "Chat rooms" "Direct messaging" "Queue for attention" "Moderated" "Time limited" will describe that trait/feature, list some of its pros and cons and other features that are alternatives (public vs private posts, open vs closed protocol, free vs paid vs freemium, posts vs comments vs nested comments vs tumblr-reblog, etc), and list some/all of the sites/apps/formats/etc that implement that feature.
 
Obviously all of this is just a draft concept that could change before it's finished. I am not advertising the site yet, because it is currently empty. If you would like early access to help figure out the structure/nomenclature or to provide content, let me know. Mediawiki experts and people who have used a lot of different and competing IM systems or forums or social media platforms are especially welcome.
 
You are also encouraged to submit suggestions in comments here, especially regarding nomenclature. What is a one or two word name for the category that includes Facebook and IRC and parliamentary procedure and a forum and a physical bulletin board? My initial idea is "Format" or "Medium" (which is going to make Medium:Medium an excellent page name), but I bet there's a better way to phrase it. What should we call the category that I described above as "trait" or "feature"? What types of content should this wiki have that I haven't even thought of yet?
sparr: (Default)

After announcing or discussing my recent resolution to use other social networks and communication channels more often, people keep asking me this question. I am often momentarily dumbstruck, not knowing where to start. My general assumption is that people know at least some or most of the problematic (or even terrible) things about Facebook but choose to use it anyway because it is convenient. Of course, for people who get most of their news from Facebook, I guess I should not be surprised that they have missed a lot of important negative news about Facebook. And for people who mostly or even only use Facebook for online communication, I am not surprised they are blind to its failings. With that in mind, here is a list of reasons to rely on Facebook at least a little bit less than you do now:

Read more... )
sparr: (cellular automata)
You: "Murder is bad because the sky is blue."
Me: "What you just said is wrong."
You: "Why do you think murder is good?"
Me: ...

You: "Murder is bad because the sky is orange."
Me: "The sky is not orange."
You: "Why do you think murder is good?"
Me: ...

These two examples represent a fundamental failure of communication that I'm trying to figure out how to address when and where it happens, without confusing people further. It took me a long time to figure out that a lot of people can't tell the difference between me contradicting their argument or premise and me contradicting their conclusion. Since that dawned on me, I've only ever managed to successfully navigate this conversational space by accident. Starting from "Murder is bad because the sky is [blue/orange]", how do I get to a position where you understand the following things:

1) I agree with you that the sky is blue / I disagree with you that the sky is orange.

2) I agree with you that murder is bad.

3) The statements I have made that do not include the word "murder" are not about murder

Anecdotally, I can report that simply breaking the statement apart into those components does not have the desired effect. If anything, using more words in such a straightforward way makes things worse. Actually naming the logical fallacy being employed, more so. So, I am looking for different words to use.
sparr: (cellular automata)
I get this a lot. I'm engaged in a heated discussion, perhaps even an argument, on the internet. Not a pointless discussion, but one with real world consequences. The topic might be consent, or safety, or event planning and policies. Something that people have strong opinions about, even when those opinions aren't necessarily well thought out. I'll have a position in this discussion that I'm trying to promote or defend, and someone else will be contradicting, refuting, or attacking that position. At some point, the conversation will shift. One or more people will stop (if they had started) discussing the topic, and start making comments about how I communicate. I will get called counterproductive, disruptive, confrontational, etc.

Read more... )

Finally, in both cases, and more in line with the (1) point that I quoted above... If you believe you have a better approach to achieving a goal that we both believe is good, you can sidestep any need to convince me otherwise by simply implementing your own approach. Alternately, you could convince someone else to implement it, someone who isn't already committed to a differnet approach. The fact that we are having this conversation tells me that either you aren't able or willing to implement your own solution, which hints at some hidden cost or requirement that you aren't considering in pushing that solution on me, or that your solution doesn't actually achieve the goals in question. If those two things weren't true, you would have already solved the problem, and I'd never have started down the path of trying to solve it myself. This response applies at every level of meta related to most such issues. It applies to actually solving the core problem. It applies to eliminating uncomfortable discussions about the problem. It applies to discussing how to eliminate uncomfortable discussions about the problem.

So, as long as you aren't willing to explain to me how my approach is net-bad, or willing to get yourself or others to implement your better approach, we're just going to continue disagreeing about the appropriateness of me using a maybe-not-optimal approach to achieving positive goals.
sparr: (cellular automata)
I want to invite people over to play board games frequently but irregularly and on short notice. This could extend to movies or dinner plans, but for now it's just board games. I want to invite 10-30 people, so that hopefully 1-5 people show up. I do not have a good way to accomplish this.

I can use a FB Group. I can Post to that Group's Wall. FB will make sure most members of the group never see the post.

I can use a FB Group. I can create an Event in that Group, and Invite people to that Event. FB seems to also filter those invites from some people (which is news to me), and I don't think most of my friends use FB event invites in a real-time manner.

I can post to my own FB Wall. More people will see that than the Group Wall method, but it will also reach up to a thousand people who don't care, and it may be delayed in reaching people.

I can tag people in my FB Wall post. This reaches people more quickly, but is also tedious and manual, and is still visible to a thousand people who don't care.

I can filter that FB Wall post to a list. This solves some of those problems, but not the delay and FB filter shenanigans issues.

I can create an email list. My primary objection to this is that I do not think that most of my friends use email for realtime communication. This particular kind of invitation expires after an hour or three, and that's more quickly than most people check their email, I think.

I can send individual IMs and FB messages. This is, by far, the most *effective* solution, but it also requires the most work (although a third party IM client might be able to fix this) and would lead to more people opting out as the notifications became too frequent.

I can send group IM/SMS/FB messages. This is unacceptable because of the forced-reply-all and opt-out nature of those messaging systems. People seem to almost universally hate these systems.

Help? Feedback? Suggestions?

Profile

sparr: (Default)
Clarence "Sparr" Risher

February 2025

S M T W T F S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16 171819202122
232425262728 

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 8th, 2025 04:12 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios