CaptainHook said:
I look at our Forum in a different way. I see us all sitting around at the local Pool hall talking shop. If a new person want's to join the conversation we will all listen, if they say something stupid they are going to get BBQ'd, if they have some good points to add to the subject, we as a group feel more comfortable with them sitting in with us and they become part of our group. If a subject comes up that we need more information on, we yell over to the old timers playing Golf on the Snooker table.
It's interesting to think about whether or to what extent people interact
differently here than in person. I think there are both legitimate and
illegitimate reasons to interact differently here. The illegitimate
ones have to do with exploiting the anonymity or the distance--kinda
like flipping the bird to another driver when you're safely driving away.
But there are legitimate reasons too that have to do with the fact this
is not a chat room but rather is an archived discussion forum. We are
always "on the record." What that means to me is we participants--those
of us who care about the quality of the searchable archived
information-- share some responsibility to expose the nonsense or at
least to highlight the potential nonsense so that further discussion
might lead to more insight.
A few years ago an up&coming pro-level player spent several weeks in
Fargo. Very nice guy. People here enjoyed him and some people learned
a lot from him. Amazed at his ability to kick to play safe, somebody
asked about his kicking ability--how did he do it? did he have a
system? He said several interesting things about lining up kicks.
Then after someone pressed him further about his "system," he started
relaying in an authoritative tone some stuff about angles and aiming for
the corner of the adjacent pool table, etc. Some of what he was saying
made no sense and clearly was not what he was *actually* doing when he
was at the table. I could have demonstrated why what he was saying made
no sense, but I chose not to. In my professional life, that's what I do
all the time, and that's what people do to me. I expect people to ask
me to clarify what I am saying, and I expect people to challenge me to
support what I'm saying. When they call me on something, and perhaps
show me my reasoning is wrong, that's not a personal affront to me.
But there's a cultural dynamic in pool (and elsewhere) where the good
player is expected to be the expert and to have the inner truth on all
aspects of what he does. In that dynamic, a challenge of a player's
assertion is a challenge of his stature to be making assertions.
In that environment, where challenging him is kind of a personal
affront, I keep quiet.
Had he made the same assertions here, I would have challenged those
assertions.
This cultural divide is evident in this forum as well. We see it
whenever someone responds to the challenge of an idea by bringing up who
is a better pool player. In their mind, the challenge of an assertion
is tantamount to a challenge of the asserter's stature. This is foreign
to me.
) or to garner rep points, although those are nice too. It is just me. I talk a lot in real life too.
