Re: When a discussion goes bad...
On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 02:39:21PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> wrote [quoted with permission]:
> > [...] I kept repeating same argument, which X
> > refused to accept. Each time I repeated, I raised my voice a bit,
>
> Just an aside for future reference: unless the other person is hard of
> hearing, I can't see that approach ending well. If one can't explain
> it any way that the other person will accept, then I think there comes
> a point when one should reply:
>
> 1/ "let's see what Joe thinks" - involve someone who understands your
> view, who will hopefully feed back to you more reasonably if the other
> person has a valid point;
>
> 2/ "the solution must do Y" - challenge them directly to produce a
> solution which meets your criteria; and/or
>
> 3/ "I'm here, so I win" - pull rank, then shut up and endure the flames.
>
> Anyone got another way out?
4/ "I think you mean <foo>. Correct?"
Basically, IME this kind of thing usually happens because one side of
the argument thinks the other doesn't understand their point. By
explicitly stating what you understood, you either prove that you
did, in fact, understand what they meant (which gives you some extra
credit; since if you still disagree even after understanding what
they mean, that means you've thought of something they haven't
thought of), or you prove that you did not understand what they
meant, and you need to have them explain it differently to you.
--
<Lo-lan-do> Home is where you have to wash the dishes.
-- #debian-devel, Freenode, 2004-09-22
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