Thoughts on exclusion and culture

[Doriane]

David, I love you !! LOL !! Seriously, your post helped me understand 
what was bothering me so much. You've stated my opinion quite nicely, 
and you've also opened my eyes to other people's opinion quite 
widely. A truly enlightening post as far as I am concerned. I had to 
snip a lot of it, but I still want you to know that I absolutely 
loved all of it.

Dave Witley wrote :

> The first metaphor is that of the party. (...) In this metaphor, we 
> imagine groups of people holding conversations.  People may join or 
> leave a particular group, or participate in more than one 
> conversation at once.  (...) each person knows more or less who is 
> in the group (...), and addresses their remarks to that group.  
> (...) On a list, though, there is no definition of who is 'in' a 
> thread: potentially any list member may be trying to join in by 
> reading posts.

Del answers :

Yup, that's how I feel some people are seeing the list : as a big 
party where different groups have different conversations. And they 
don't understand me when I tell them that I'd like to participate in 
their particular conversation but I don't understand them. I guess 
for them it's simple : if I don't understand, I can simply choose not 
to participate. But for me, it's different : I want to at least know 
*what* each group is talking about, because I'm interested in a lot 
of different topics. So when I come accross a group that's talking 
garble to me, I feel rejected. Especially when I catch words that 
seem to promise a highly interesting discussion. It then gets 
horribly frustrating to me. And it gets only more frustrating if they 
look at me with wide eyes and say "If you don't understand us, just 
go and talk to people you understand, that's simple". But I want to 
talk to YOU, guys, because you seem to be talking about very 
interesting stuff !

Dave Witley wrote : 

> Now let's amend the party metaphor slightly.  We now have a group 
> holding a conversation, but they are native speakers of two 
> different languages, say English and French.

Del answers :

LOL ! My native language is French, and English is a learned language 
for me. So I *have* been thinking of that metaphor for days, but I 
didn't dare bring it up. I was afraid people might misunderstand my 
point.

Dave Witley wrote : 

> Some of the group are fluent in both languages, but not all, and 
> poor speakers of both languages are present.  Suppose the 
> conversation has been going on in English, when suddenly one of the 
> French speakers who can't manage English very well turns to a 
> fellow francophone and continues the conversation in French.  How 
> does that make the English-speakers whose French ability is poor 
> feel?  How did the fact that the conversation was formerly English-
> only make the French speakers feel? Do the fluently bilingual have 
> any special duties in the situation?

Del answers :

YO !! You got my problem down pretty well.
When I got on the list, I knew English was its language, so I know 
that if the language gets me lost sometimes, it's my problem and 
noone else's.
But TBAY is also like another language to me, and this time I feel 
cheated, because I wasn't forewarned about it. Basically, I feel like 
the TBAYers are telling me : "Ha, sorry you don't speak TBAY, too bad 
for you, because we've decided it's the language we'll speak among 
ourselves from now on. If you want to join, learn the language".
Now of course, if their approach is that of the party, I understand 
their point of view. But it had never clearly occurred to me that 
some people saw it that way (and that doesn't mean I think they are 
wrong, okay ?).

Dave Witley wrote : 

> My second metaphor is that of the academic seminar.  (I personally 
> have always felt uneasy about the party metaphor, largely because 
> the seminar metaphor was the one that I naturally assumed when I 
> started here. 

Del answers :

Same for me. It's only when I got on Feedback that I started to 
realise that maybe some people didn't see it that way.

Dave Witley wrote : 

> In fact, so strong was its grip on me that I had 
> difficulty understanding some of the impulses for a 
> conference/convention.  Why wait to get a load of people into a 
> room to give a paper and discuss it when we are in a room 24/7 and 
> can discuss anything put forward by anyone all the time?
> (...)
> In this metaphor, someone has the floor, and makes a more formal 
> comment or even something approximating a short speech.  Everyone 
> else in the room is expected to keep quiet while that person 
> speaks, and in return the person is expected to speak up, enunciate 
> clearly, and so on.  It's rude, in this metaphor, to mumble, or 
> insist on addressing only some of the group.

Del answers :

Yup yup yup, my ideas exactly !
 
(Okay, I know I should have snipped those parts if I had nothing more 
to say but "me too", but I *really* wanted to say it :-)

Dave Witley wrote : 

> In discussion list terms, posters would be required to make their 
> posts accessible to the known weaknesses of their audience.  In the 
> context of TBAY, I should add that, in this metaphor, there is no 
> requirement to take account of the possibility that people don't 
> *like* TBAY, only that they find it hard to read, or that, like 
> Eileen's brother, they find aspects baffling or meaningless.

Del answers :

Yes, exactly ! As I said, I happen to sometimes like some TBAY posts. 
But that's not the point to me. The point *to me* is that I simply 
don't understand them most of the time. And since I've come on this 
list (or is it that list ? I never know. Well I mean Feedback 
anyway), I've discovered that some TBAYers see even more in their 
posts that I thought there was and I already couldn't see ! In other 
words : it seems that I understand the TBAY posts even less than I 
previously thought. Which, as you can guess, doesn't exactly make me 
feel overjoyed...

Dave Witley wrote : 

> You can see how, in an academic seminar, it would be rude for a 
> group of people to hold a private conversation (even supposing it 
> not to be disruptive to listening to the floor),

Del answers :

It's particularly hard for me when it comes to TBAY posts, because 
some of the greatest theories out there have come straight out of 
TBAY. So I feel like either I keep out of some enthralling threads, 
or I have to figure out what *ever* the original post (and the TBAY 
responses, if there are any) say and mean (which is not the same 
thing).
To make my own metaphor, I find myself receiving a letter from a 
fellow French friend about an interesting new idea. Only problem : 
that letter is written in English, because my friend has decided it 
would better convey his ideas. All very good, but it so happens that 
*I* am not fluent in English. So I have to decipher the letter and 
make sense of it, hopefully without misunderstanding any crucial 
part. And then I have to write my response, which I'll do in French, 
of course, even though that will make me feel bad and slightly afraid 
of making a mistake in the translation and looking like a perfect 
idiot. So in conclusion : I'll have to put up extra work to 
understand the letter, then additional extra work to translate the 
original terms in French, and in the end I'll still feel like a jerk 
because I can't keep up the quality level my friend set up to start 
with. Tp say I feel bad is an uderstatement.
Now of course, the TBAYers will tell me that if I don't speak 
English, I simply shouldn't bother with the letter at all. Bah yes, 
but my friend gave a title to his letter, and that title tickled me 
badly, so I want to know what he has to say about it. Or even worse : 
let's say I don't read that letter, and then another friend writes to 
me, in French, about what my first friend said, and I find myself 
very much interested by what that second friend is saying. Can I 
really avoid reading that first letter then ?

Dave Witley wrote : 

>  And you can see how, in the context of an internet 
> discussion group, these metaphors begin to break down: offlist 
> continuations of a thread are not necessarily rude, nor is a post 
> from a newbie requesting clarification of another post.

Del answers :

I personally am not against offlist continuations of a thread. I'm 
saddened that people won't share their point of view with me (and 
others) on the list, but I am also aware that threads are often 
carried on offlist because they have become seriously off topic. 
Moreover, offlist discussions sometimes lead to interesting onlist 
threads. Wherever a discussion takes place, I'm for it, because it 
will ultimately promote onlist discussion, one way or another.

Dave Witley wrote : 

> What obligation do we as posters have to our readers?  I don't mean 
> under list rules, but in common humanity.  Should TBAYers consider 
> the 'Eileen's brothers' who populate the list?

Del answers :

I must admit I'd love it if they did, and I'd feel put down if they 
didn't. But this isn't my list, so I don't expect it to cater to all 
my needs.

Del