Seems our Ifish BB is going thru a little flaming in a number of posts recently. This is of course common to BB forums of any kind; and with passionate fishermen with strong opinions we are going to be prone to occassional heated debate in threads. Especially during an historic and debated Pres. election, and less than ideal water and fish conditions prevailing this season so far. UsIfishers,
, can get a bit grumpy and short in this scenario. This normalicy doesn't have to be such a negative thing. In fact, with proper communcation guidelines and some suggestions and remedies to improve our understanding of how a person is actually trying to come across, things will improve greatly, and debates can be a positive thing. ... With good timing, one of our members e-mailed me this eyeopener yesterday .....
"In light of what
is taking place on the board, like the Cataraft/Duct tape and the Umpqua
small mouth and now some long time IFishers are questioning the deleting of
the post on Catarafts, its getting a little crazy. Maybe we sometimes read
too much into a thread. I just recently took a class on Working with People.
The largest challenge and biggest problem is communication. And guess what, 80% of how
we communicate is not through what we say, but our body language, tone and
fluctuation in our voice. Too bad we can't write this in our post". ...
His last sentence is a key for internet BB communication. Writing and reading posts as really intended is downright difficult at times. We only have the written word, along with a few smilies (which in misuse or overuse can lose their capacity to inflect meaning into our words). To a lesser degree we also get to know member's personality types, thus can better understand what they are saying; and importanly can be helped to decipher whether a person's post is lighthearted to kidding around, or is a serious contention needing to be addressed by reply. But personality developement can still be misread sometimes. I think we should come up with suggestions here about how we can improve communication; both for giving and interpreting posts. ...
I will start with a good suggestion given me by Gregg (Hookset), and try to come up with one also (maybe more after I get a few winks of sleep). ...
Gregg - When you either don't fully understand a post, or more importanly are offended by a post, before you react with an angry reply, instead reply with a question asking for clarification of what the offending person has said; "did you mean to say this or say that", because if it is "this, I am a bit offended by it; will you clarify what you a mean in another reply post please". That way the poster has the option of correcting a misunderstanding or explaining their reasons for a stance taken.
RT - Less usage and more accurate usage of 'smilies'. I think I may use too many? I know some members do, and sometimes the choice of smilie doesn't match their actual demeanor. The most prominent one is the green grin face. I have seen it used to emphasize a joke, to tease, or even for an 'in your face' grin point. We need to decide what each smilie is going to interpret, using the BB descriptions of them for a starting point, and try to use them appropriately and consistently. This especialy applies to the post demeanor smilie to start with outside the message box. If you have a smile or grin on there, don't turn it into a negative flame post. That way when there is a marginal post people will know that it's an intended lighthearted jest, not a flame. Same principle within messages; use after sentence or after paragraph smilies properly for much better communication. We don't have that "80% of communication factors" to use in posts, so we need to make the best use of the tools which we do have. ...
Members, please post your feedback and suggestions within this thread. Thanks much! - RT
Improving Communication Skills for a Happier BB
whitewaterbill
Yes, that's right, the sexiest ****'n fishermen (I said ****'n, I surely hope no one finds offense to that, if you do, then don't rent The Shogun of Harlem) slayed the fish again. I am telling you folks, a camera is the lucky charm. No camera = no fish. Camera = fish. I haven't been skunked fishing with my lil bro all year. Although I was out fishing for winter steelies and caught the silvers. A fish is a fish when it comes to fishing for the anadromous species in my book. Well back to my "break" Elvis has left the building.
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