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One of the big troubles with OSS volunteering is the current state of technology to communicate with others on the Internet. In our company we have been workin

by pipio21 10y ago

One of the big troubles with OSS volunteering is the current state of technology to communicate with others on the Internet. In our company we have been working from home for years. Using the telephone or teleconference is basic in order to really understand each other. Only text communication is terrible because basically you filter all the emotions from the message. The worst thing is that you interpret or reconstruct those emotions based on your own state of mind. If you are burned out it is not pretty. I can't tell you how bad it is when someone takes something trivial on text and interprets it as an aggression and responds aggressively and escalates and yet it happens every single day when you put an only text communication center in place. The same thing told in another context, in a person to person meeting will be nothing because we are automatically using our tone of voice and body language in order to complete the message. This has to improve some way.

nine_k 10y ago
If you know that implied emotions are filtered out, or can be mis-interpreted, why not add explicit emotions? Add praise and express gratitude for the project you're talking about. Expressly state when you have a strong option (preferably backed with data or something), and where you're humbly suggesting and asking for comments. Stay away from sounding like you're demanding something, and maybe even stay away from irony until you've created a good rapport with a person you're communicating with. Do not remove all this "useless fluff", and work on adding some more in key parts of your message, it can improve communication.
drvdevd 10y ago
This is a brilliant point. Programming has always been a fundamentally collaborative discipline and of course communication is paramount to proper collaboration. And it's easy to forget this when you're spending hours alone mired in code.

by pipio21 10y ago

nine_k 10y ago

If you know that implied emotions are filtered out, or can be mis-interpreted, why not add explicit emotions? Add praise and express gratitude for the project you're talking about. Expressly state when you have a strong option (preferably backed with data or something), and where you're humbly suggesting and asking for comments. Stay away from sounding like you're demanding something, and maybe even stay away from irony until you've created a good rapport with a person you're communicating with. Do not remove all this "useless fluff", and work on adding some more in key parts of your message, it can improve communication.

drvdevd 10y ago

This is a brilliant point. Programming has always been a fundamentally collaborative discipline and of course communication is paramount to proper collaboration. And it's easy to forget this when you're spending hours alone mired in code.