greenbaggins
Puritan Board Doctor
When I first joined the PB, I thought how fun it would be to increase vastly the number of posts I wrote, so that I could be seen to be a great contributor. That is, of course, utter vanity. And by saying that, I do not mean to disparage in the slightest the system of grades that we have here (Freshman, Sophomore, etc.), as it is the PB's way of thanking loquacious contributors.
I have instead shifted my vanity to the number of thanks I receive. Now, this vanity can, of course, be a great deal more subtle, since it can be cloaked in an aura of edification. However, though vanity can still be present, it is still a better barometer, in my opinion, than the number of posts written (and no disparagement to Andrew Myers is meant!) as to whether a person is contributing positively to the conversations that happen.
Maybe I shouldn't even be talking about this, as it might make everyone self-conscious about their own posts too much. And there are certainly many people on this board who love simply to encourage people, and they don't receive many thanks, oftentimes, for simple encouragement. So, there must be careful qualifications put on my statements here.
Be that as it may, I would encourage everyone to stop and think about their posts as to whether they are edifying or not. Would this post that I am about to send offend anyone? Would it build up someone? Would it encourage someone? Would it challenge someone in a friendly iron-sharpen-iron way?
Understand, I am not saying this because of some specific thing that I have seen recently on the board. I am saying it because I occasionally see inane comments that don't go anywhere, and are simply noise. There is definitely a place on the PB for playfulness and sarcasm (though one must be careful with this, as sarcasm often has too much of an edge). The basic point I am making is that if we thought a bit more about the number of thanks we received as opposed to the bare number of posts we made, there would be a larger percentage of edifying comments. And remember, no one is required to thank your posts, so everyone else is the judge of whether or not your comment was helpful. So a comment has to be actually helpful for people to think so.
I have instead shifted my vanity to the number of thanks I receive. Now, this vanity can, of course, be a great deal more subtle, since it can be cloaked in an aura of edification. However, though vanity can still be present, it is still a better barometer, in my opinion, than the number of posts written (and no disparagement to Andrew Myers is meant!) as to whether a person is contributing positively to the conversations that happen.
Maybe I shouldn't even be talking about this, as it might make everyone self-conscious about their own posts too much. And there are certainly many people on this board who love simply to encourage people, and they don't receive many thanks, oftentimes, for simple encouragement. So, there must be careful qualifications put on my statements here.
Be that as it may, I would encourage everyone to stop and think about their posts as to whether they are edifying or not. Would this post that I am about to send offend anyone? Would it build up someone? Would it encourage someone? Would it challenge someone in a friendly iron-sharpen-iron way?
Understand, I am not saying this because of some specific thing that I have seen recently on the board. I am saying it because I occasionally see inane comments that don't go anywhere, and are simply noise. There is definitely a place on the PB for playfulness and sarcasm (though one must be careful with this, as sarcasm often has too much of an edge). The basic point I am making is that if we thought a bit more about the number of thanks we received as opposed to the bare number of posts we made, there would be a larger percentage of edifying comments. And remember, no one is required to thank your posts, so everyone else is the judge of whether or not your comment was helpful. So a comment has to be actually helpful for people to think so.
Some of us just multitask when sitting at home at night. Right now, for example, my response to you is tagging along on one of Sen. Obama's typically longish answers to a short question on the forum on national service at Columbia. And, some of us sit at desks a good part of the day with the internet on the screen. It is actually pretty easy to dip in between meetings and tasks to see what is happening on the old PB.
