Posted by so on May 25, 2005, at 14:06:41
In reply to Re: scope » so, posted by Gabbi-x-2 on May 25, 2005, at 13:19:58
> > Frankly, I would rather no one reply to me and I would rather I and everyone else write to the topic and never to a person, but I am influenced by local culture.
> >
>
> Good to know. I find what much of you write to be incredibly interesting, and I have a wry admiration for your directness. My automatic response to posts I find informative/interesting is to say "Thanks!" or add a comment. In your case I shall refrain. Starting now, obviously.
Comments are useful. I hope they continue. I'm not commenting on the contribution of comments, but rather on the voice in which they are submitted. To clarify, saying "thanks" is a comment to me about my involvement and that could be useful to me, because sometimes it is difficult to tell why people are responding. One could as well say "I appreciate what So writes," though the second-person voice might more specifically encourage me to write more. I probably can't say whether I am more gratified by second-person compliments or by third-person compliments about my work. It might not matter, unless I were trying to promote my work.But a second-person acknowledgement of a person's contribution doesn't seem as limiting, in the way I read, as does a second-person presentation of opinions about other matters. At least in keeping with the way I have learned to write my best material comments written for a broad audience are most effective in third person. I might be influenced my lack of appreciation for use of second-person statements by broadcasters who attempt to personalize their product by phrasing news, weather and sports in the second-person to whomever happens to be listening. I'm like, "Who, me?" A personal approach might better engage otherwise undifferentiated listeners to a broadcast service, but third person voice can make it easier for a broad audience to internalize messages written in a particular context that might otherwise be perceived as a one-to-one conversation.
To go a step further, in trying to discern which voice to use to promote the goals developed by the administrator of this site, one might say "thanks" if they enjoy the post, but if they just don't care about someone else's opinion on a particular matter, a third-person voice (i.e. "I just don't care what some people think about my opinion.") might be less likely to encourage a reply than second-person statement. In either case, though, if one doesn't want a particular person involved at all in a conversation they start, it might be best to start the conversation in a more private venue. This particular context can be complicated, for sure, because it tends to address uniquely personal matters, including conversational style.
To review, this post uses first-person and third-person voice. But people who care about the topic might internalize it just as well as, if not better than if the entire post were written in the second-person voice to someone in particular.
Of course, the order of the thread -- in which the Perl script tagged this response as in response to a particular post, and the inclusion of a citation from a particular person's post, helps clarify the context in which the third-person statements are presented. Selecting "add name of previous" can help to further specify the intended primary audience for an entry otherwise written in the third-person voice to be read by anyone with Internet access.
poster:so
thread:502302
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050517/msgs/502765.html