How should we debate online?
I ask, because I’m aware that, online, the learning community can all too often look like a love-in. Everyone furiously agrees with everyone else.
Does this help us share good practice in L&D – or are we just suffering from group think, where – for fear of conflict – we agree with each other without any critical thinking?
If we are, this is no way to grow the profession.
There are exceptions to this, of course. We might not all agree with Donald Clark’s views, but he is as honest in spelling them out as he is forthright, and he doesn’t do it just to stir things up – or not too much, anyway. His main driving force is a love of debate as a way of finding the truth.
My favorite of Donald’s posts was on habitual learning (with his withering put down reply to the final comment), but the most notorious has generated 85 comments to date. Personally, I think the style of NLP – training’s shameful, fraudulent cult is too aggressive, but there’s no doubt that he has opened up a debate worth having.
But behind the shield of anonymity, internet dialogue can quickly descend from reasoned debate to name-calling. Witness Jay Cross’s recent posting of Learning Technologies 2008 on YouTube, Jay’s 5 minute video review of the conference.
Pretty harmless stuff, but it sparked this response from LMAO:
Jay,
LAME! This shows a few things:
1) Usual clique – your days will soon be numbered, there are new kids on the block to knock the old duffers out!
2) You are weak at generating content yourself – all talk, little action, and utterly dull. You’d DIE ON YOUR FEET if you didn’t simply pick up and follow the latest ‘thing’, and then pass off as your own. Never seen so much dross. Why do people rate you?
3) The e-l gurus have a feel of southern evangelsists, after your ‘faith’ – I don’t see no miracle men!Viva the New Order!!!
As one of those on the video, I’m not offended by being called an ‘old duffer’, but I am appalled by the lack of any coherent argument and by the spelling. Most of all, I am dispirited by LMAO hiding behind anonymity.
Jay’s response is so livid that I can’t even reprint it here – though it made me laugh.
So, what is the best way to encourage informed, respectful debate that does not descend into name calling?
Personally, I have two rules in every communication I make – online, on the phone, whatever. They are: Am I being honest? And could I say these words to the person’s face, in front of my parents?
Maybe that’s a bit old school, but then I am – apparently – an old duffer. I think it helps get us, respectfully, to the truth.
What are your rules for online debate?
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Stumble It!
February 18, 2008 at 15:41 |
I think debate is healthy – and I’ve seen it fairly often. Downes v Siemens; Downes v Cross; Belshaw v Downes; Romeis (rather nervously) v Downes (although you might notice a common thread there and conclude that I have something against Stephen, I hasten to say that the contrary is true); Romeis v Jarche. What I like about it is that everyone’s names are known and prior material exists to provide credibility and context.
I have no patience with pettiness and sniping. I have no appetite for “What a load of tosh” and am far more impressed by “I totally disagree, and here’s why…” I have disagreed with a good few posts I have read. I have even taken someone to task over their assumptions. In that case, the person responded with an acknowledgement of my point. Had I started my comment with, “What b*ll*cks you talk” perhaps the reaction might have been closer to Jay’s!
In spite of the fact that (as you have now discovered) I am a heart-on-the-sleeve, shoot-from-the-lip, stereotypically gobby South African, I remain convinced that if your point is valid, it will stand on its own merit. If it is not, no amount of dressing it up in invective and name-calling will change that. Moreover, it detracts more from you than it does from the person against whom you bile is directed.
I have noticed a tendency to this sort of sniping in some discussion forums (the conversation in the comments on some YouTube videos beggar belief). It’s as if they forget that there are real people on the other end of the conversation. So your guideline about being governed by what you would say in person is a good one (not sure that I need to include my parents in that equation, though;-)) Without that sense of mutual respect I fear we have the thin end of the wedge which, at its thick end, has the sort of thing that drove Kathy Sierra from this space – and what a tragic loss that was! I still live in hope that she will return at some point.
Oh, and I certainly pay a lot more attention to those who have the courage to own up to their differences of opinion by attaching their names to their comments.
February 18, 2008 at 17:18 |
Given that most people who give their opinions online do so for nothing, it seems unfair that they can then become the victims of rude, spiteful and often hurtful responses. I’m not speaking with personal experience of this because those who have criticised my postings have typically done so with passion and intellectual vigour, in some cases causing me to completely rethink my position. Surely that’s the idea – learning by comparing alternative perspectives. The person labelled LMAO that you refer to above is of course just an idiot and of no consequence to anyone except Jay, who quite understandably was probably a little shaken up. All in all though, these situations are extremely rare and a manageable consequence of freer speech.
February 18, 2008 at 20:24 |
Shaken? No, stirred. I’ve been blogging for eight or nine years now, so I’m quite accustomed to flames. In this case, my response was intended to “out” an obvious ne’er-do-well.
jay
February 23, 2008 at 22:01 |
Heahy debate amongst fellow professionals is surely the way we all learn and have other peoples views brought to our attention, presenting the opportunity to consider whether they add value to our thinking or not. Their is no obligation to agree indeed if you do disagree or have an alternative view there is probably more or an obligation to disagree as long as your intention in doing so is to bring about a development in other peoples thinking and point of view. Criticism should be constructive and not distructive and can be positive as well as negative.
Steve