i agree that elizabeth's advice is great
one strategy that i have used is what i call the 10 times rule
if i read ten posts in a row, on any list mind you, from a person where it
is clear to me that the person is, to quote my grandma 'just trying to
make trouble' then i delete that person's subsequent posts unread for the
next month.
after a month, then i read the person's next post. if it is still the
same, i continue to delete unread for another month. if the third try is
still problematic, then i put the person in my kill file.
you would be surprised how irrelevant most of those discarded posts are --
since they do not seem to have much impact on the real discussions. as
you might guess, i didnt read the original jokes....
gary
On Sat, 26 Jan 2002, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> Elizabeth,
>
> Your advice seems good to me. I do not think that simply exhorting
> people to reflect will help. But your concrete suggestion:
> ;Avoid telling jokes
> that depend for their humor on ridiculing another person or a group to
> which you do not belong."<br>
> <br>
> And another:<br>
> <br>
> "Avoid assuming an accent or expressing stereotypical attitudes or
> behaviors that mock members of groups to which you do not
> belong."<br>
>
> is very useful.
>
> I do not know what could be done to make Mary feel as if it were worth
> her time to participate in xmca. I value her work and contributions
> and have tried to demonstrate that in my public behavior. But I cannot
> avoid the apparently unforgivalbe circumstand of being a satraight,
> white male. I cannot control who contributes to this discussion. I cannot
> provide an analysis of jokes on xmca in activity theory terms because
> xmca is to variable with respect to its status as an object for those
> who participate.
>
> What interested you most about the Wenger discussion so far? To me
> what has seemed like an assist to my own development is Mary and Diane's
> emphasis on exclusionary practices that are the underside of every
> community crossing the Vann and Bowker discussion of the movement
> of COP from object to instrument in its change of context from
> critical social science theory to business op. Now it seems as if
> we cannot live with our differences.
>
> Unable to change my identity, thanks in part, to a little help from
> my co-participants.
> mike
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 11 2002 - 09:22:33 PST