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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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