So. The issue came up on the Bay Area Quiz Club regarding whether the Twitter feed should be opened up further. I am all for it; however, we haven't yet officially discussed it at the club. We have discussed it on Facebook, yes, but never at the Quiz Club. And Facebook cannot be considered to be a quorum because the people who ought to get to decide may not all be on Facebook. One cannot simply make private data public without the permission of the people concerned.
So, a discussion transpired on the Facebook group.
During the discussion, I said things like the following :
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Since N. works for Twitter, I have inquired with her about the possibility of Twitter sponsoring us.
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Then in response to the following comments by a certain person I shall refer to as G. ("First, A M you missed A. S . He is the 3rd admin and not B. I don't think N. is suggesting that we move the club to Twitter. "), I said the following :
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@G., yeah yeah okay.
> First, A M you missed A .
Great- thanks. I just included a subset of the admins.
I think it is okay to talk to B since he conducted the X.
I don't think moving the club to Twitter is practical. <and then more stuff>
I think it is okay to talk to B since he conducted the X.
I don't think moving the club to Twitter is practical. <and then more stuff>
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That was meant to be a stiff reply. And stuff replies are exactly what are called for sometimes.
But, but, but... it is also good to make sure that there is no ill will. And so to make sure there was no ill will, I then went back to the discussion and added the following to the very end of it.
But, but, but... it is also good to make sure that there is no ill will. And so to make sure there was no ill will, I then went back to the discussion and added the following to the very end of it.
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Principled underpunctuation. That is what I call it. When the matter is a matter as serious as data privacy, I think one must take a principled stand.
I have underpunctuated a number of the sentences. There are some virtual smileys in these sentences, there is one after ". @G., yeah yeah okay :) :) :) :)".. and also one after "Great- thanks. I just included a subset of the admins. :) :) :)" it was all supposed to be there. That sentence " Since N. works for Twitter, I have inquired with her about the possibility of Twitter sponsoring us. :) :) :) :) :)". It is supposed to have a bunch of smileys afterwards too. Now that we are done with principle and punctuation, let us move on to business.
As for now, per my conversation with B., what we need is the following:
- some idea of what the policy is going to be for what is going to be made public and what is not (specifically, whether to go with a "whitelist" approach or a "blacklist" approach)
- some idea of what the Twitter feed is going to essentially consist of. I have some ideas on this, but would invite suggestions.
We can discuss this further at the next meeting. In the meantime, feel free to move this discussion further by providing suggestions, thoughts and, if you feel so inclined, fifty second boisterously bold Buffalax Bollywood mashups.
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So, there you have it. Principled underpunctuation. The idea with principled underpunctuation is that if you detect a problem of principle with a stand that other people have taken on Facebook, and there is a matter of principle involved and, by the way, if you notice that other people are getting short and annoying and are not being sufficiently nice in their responses ("Be nice" is a good philosophy to live by), then you simply begin to underpunctuate your own responses. You do want to later go back and clarify everything that you said but, in the meantime, by word and deed, you make it absolutely clear that you are going to take a firm stand on the matter.
Worked out quite well for me. Try it out. See how well it works for you. I will warn you though that there is a certain Zen to the whole thing. A certain Zen.
