Dogma on
the Net?

Musings on Rule Bound Communication

by Tanis Doe

Remember back in school when we were taught grammar and punctuation? And it was drilled into us that proper use of language would make for better communication? Remember studying French and being told oral (spoken) French was not always the same as the written French used in the text books? Because I remember all this and have spent hours with my teenage daughter explaining the idiosyncrasies of English only to find out that the information age has dawned (while I was watching the X-files) and I’ve missed the boat (or more accurately in sign language "train gone sorry" because the rules were changed).

This article, is about rules and dogma on the Internet and about how we communicate. To preface my comments I should say that I use a TTY every day almost 4 hours a day (which is probably less time than I spend on the Internet). A TTY is a keyboard device that is used to communicate over regular phone lines among deaf people or with the assistance of an operator between non-tty users and people with a TTY. Think baudot, old time modem with a tiny LCD screen and miniature keyboard. (OOps was that a sentence fragment? Grammar police? Sneaked under their radar this time)

Because I spend so much time "talking" in text, (I have to type out all my conversations and read them in text), the Internet, TO ME (capitals intended) is no more than another way of conversing in text. It’s no big deal. However, and this is where the article gets interesting, in case you were about to skip to the next headline...... SOME people have decided they are the gurus and goddesses of netiquette and that some things JUST AREN’T DONE on the net. In fact there are entire websites - from Newbie-U.com to Netiquette
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/

and even more! Yes, it means what you think it means: tips on polite usage of the Internet. As more and more people start using the Internet, more and more is being written about the social conventions of this
http://www.cochran.com/start/guide/Netiquette.html

that explain the RIGHT way to speak on the net. The first complaint I have is abut the use of capitals. I usually use them when I begin a sentence and often used them to emphasize that the word is either REALLY important like "the meeting is on MONDAY at 9 am" or that I want the inflection or intonation of the sentence to be focused on that word like above " the Internet, TO ME,". Now, I have been known to hit the allcaps button and type for three sentences in capitals but on the TTY the capitals and lowercase have no difference in meaning. But three, seriously, three separate people (the day the infamous all caps key got stuck) took it upon themselves to edify me that CAPS were like SHOUTING(BOOOO) and that it is not appropriate use of capitalization. (These three people thought they were doing me a favour to prevent possible conflicts over this, assuming I knew nothing about this). Then there are those nasty emoticons. :-):-( ;-) 8-) and there are web sites full of these emoticons too. See
http://www.randomhouse.com/features/davebarry/emoticon.html

and a comprehensive catalog of different smileys used in chatting broken down into basic, widely used, small, large and other categories.
http://www.eff.org/papers/eegtti/eeg_286.html

Apparently HEARING people (yes that means people who can hear) are so used to tonal inflection that when it came to reading text they could never tell when someone was joking or when someone was upset. True, text can be flat, but there is always the important "listening" skill of ASKING! What did you mean by.... Are you upset? Were you joking? Have we lost this basic communication skill? I tend to avoid the emoticons and use words. Like Smile. Or "giggling" or "smirk" or "I’m not laughing now" so that there is NO confusing as to what I mean and I even avoid shortcuts like LOL (Laughing out loud) TAYL (Type at you later). I realize that for some people text based communication is new, fun and downright Trekky. But I am not a surfer dude with my own way cool language, man, and I don’t like, you know, have to like, guess what people are meaning. I would rather ask and be told. That’s only my first rant.

Second rant is about the dogma on the list serves or news groups. The list serves are usually moderated by someone pretty much invisible unless he or she has to leave on holidays (and announce it) or someone does a "bad" thing and the moderator has to interject. Most ISPs and most list serves have lengthy Acceptable Use Policies and pretty clearly state profanity, pornography, and inappropriate use of the service could result in termination (eeeek) of user rights. But in general my complaint is not so much the moderation of the list serves, since they appear to be quite hands off, but the participants. I have witnessed totally unnecessary bashing of comments, people coming to the rescue and then someone else criticizing the use of the list for that retort etc. I also have seen (this is a personal truth for me) a woman list member posting a comment about a discussion that had not yet been started (about women with disabilities) on a list serve about disabilities and I have seen her very effort questioned. I don’t know if she cried or was upset that day but I cried. I was upset. Her questions or contributions were of the request kind- asking rather than telling. Someone decided to question her right to even ask such a thing, then someone defended her right and the use of the list serve for such purposes and again another person blamed the defender for overusing the listserve for personal means. AAAAAAHHHHHH (Capitals on purpose cause I AM SHOUTING).

The global village, cyberspace, communication without borders. The Internet is becoming fraught with people who I wouldn’t want to talk to if I met them in a class or meeting, even though there are some WONDERFUL (reallllly strongly emphasized) people out there, I am worried about the dogmatic trend. Before, in the good old days, there were hardly any rules because all of us who used the Internet (bitnet, envoy, disc and intranets/ccmail etc) knew each other. That’s right. Before the proletariat and individual people had access to the Internet for their own purposes, organizations like the Canadian Association of the Deaf, like the library systems and in the U.S.A., the Defense Department all used the Internet but ONLY WITHIN THE PEOPLE THEY KNEW (we knew who we were sending our email to.) We had met them either through work, associations or meetings of our groups. Now that email is being used between and among people who have NEVER met and might never meet ever, it bypasses the original knowledge base we used to have to communicate. Subtle things like misspellings reminded us that person was an immigrant and reverses some letters, typing errors were disregarded as long as the meaning was clear. When it was not, we ASKED and clarified. Now, on list serves there are RULES about how to participate, what is not acceptable and what is. My example above was only one of many.

I have also seen a woman post a call for papers for a edited journal on Queer Theory and Disability (or the intersection of these two). Instead of just getting a few comments discussing the intersection, another list member posted a tirade (and this went on for WEEEEEEEEEEEKS; Spelling and capitalization intended to show you how boring it got). << What does queer theory have to do with disability, I signed up for a disability list not a queer list, we should not allow these kinds of posts >> (need I say more). I could not believe the level of homophobia (extended) which pervaded the list for the next few months. Strong or textually outgoing people answered and argued multiple oppressions and multiple identities etc but basically the bashers won out by virtually (no pun intended at all) silencing those who wanted to talk about it. The volume of negative comments just made us give up. We deleted anything from particular senders (email addresses) and started new conversations.

So, as I come to the end of this, my main point remains that I want communication to be open, flexible, accommodating, and yes, even welcoming. As it currently stands out there in cyberland some list serves are only for the brave and even the well intentioned rescuers cannot be faint of heart lest they be bashed for daring to come to the aid of a list poster. For new to the Internet women reading this- there are lots of great women-friendly list serves so please try out more than one before giving up on the whole idea, but consider it like human interaction in person. If you wouldn’t accept that kind of s...t in person don’t bother being hit by it electronically- They don’t deserve you. (I’m smiling with encouragement now- oh and apparently I am cute)

Lastly. I have been accused of being an email slob. True. I don’t spell check my emails. True I type without looking at the keyboard, true I sometimes forget the space bar exists. (These faults I admit to) However, they are errors I make almost exclusively AMONG FRIENDS. When I am submitting a funding request (which I do a lot) or sending a news release out, or writing for information to an unknown email address I found on the web I am more formal. I say To whom it may concern or something appropriate, I put a date and a phone number or email so they can reach me and I use letter writing principals (introduction, topic, supporting comments, conclusion, etc). But come on. When you pick up the phone no one tests your spelling because it is in oral speech. When you yak/chat/shoot the breeze with your friend in a country far away you don’t talk in formal written language do you? Or maybe you do. I don’t. I use a TTY all day. If I had to type out every word and punctuate every sentence I would never even order Pizza. To me, email is an extension of the text based communication that I already use, and that hundreds of people used before the coming of routine access to the Internet. We send emails that make sense althoughidoapologizetothosewho have todealwith my spacebardeficit disorder). I do admit to the occasional stuck allcaps and that for about a week Snapple spilled onto my keyboard so the space bar wasn’t working but generally if you read my emails like you might a verbal conversation they aren’t so bad.

So who are these Internet Goddesses and gurus who seek to impose dogma on my communication? Why is it we MUST conform or suffer the consequences? (What are those consequences by the way?) I think it’s time for women, and other Internet users, to question why we need so many rules of etiquette. I believe in safety and prevention of pedophiles accessing children and I even believe we need parental control over what young children see. But those are totally different issues that the rules of HOW we talk, what capitals we are allowed to use and how people treat each other’s communication on the Internet.

I will leave my email for those interested in answering any of my above questions, but consider this a call for papers- if YOU are not INTERESTED but just want to question my right to even express myself PLEASE DO NOT BOTHER (that was shouting again).
ud944@victoria.tc.ca
post electronique en francais est aussi bienvenue. Merci.