

You (and Joel Spolsky) are tone blind - nate
http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/2009/11/you-are-tone-blind.html

======
mquander
I can't say I understand the example supplied. There's no way to say what the
commenter said to someone's face without being insulting; he is explicitly
implying that Joel is being manipulative and deceitful. It's the sort of thing
you can feel free to think to yourself, but which is very rude to say.

Try this: Say this paragraph out loud, and find a tone where the primary
message conveyed isn't "way to pull one over on us, asshole" (hint: there
isn't one.)

 _You disguise a PR piece as an objective 'how to' in a national business
publication, coming across as an authority, the underdog, and an all around
nice guy who really cares about his customers. You're an engineer who claims
to be 'weak' in the sales department, but all evidence to the contrary: nice
'sales hack'._

Even if you got rid of loaded words like "disguise" and took away the scare
quotes, there's still no nice way to express that thought to someone. It's
really tactless; any reasonable person would be insulted, regardless of the
medium.

To generalize, I posit that a lot of "miscommunication" thanks to tone online
is just a result of people feeling free (with the cover of semi-anonymity) to
throw away any subtlety and confront people in a manner that they would never
adopt face-to-face.

EDIT: Expanding on my last paragraph, I don't want to be overly critical of
people who are very straightforward and speak their mind online, even if it
seems rude; there's certainly a tradition of abrasively practical hackers. The
commenter perhaps did everyone a service by opening for discussion something
that other people might have left unsaid.

~~~
caffeine
And I disagree, which is the point of the OP's article in the first place. I
think the quote can be read as a genuine compliment - saying, "you put
yourself down too much - it turns out you really are good at communication,
and I'm impressed with your skill in this area".

Let's put the author's premise to the test, and add emoticons and
exclamations:

 _You disguise a PR piece as an objective 'how to' in a national business
publication, coming across as an authority, the underdog, and an all around
nice guy who really cares about his customers. You're an engineer who claims
to be 'weak' in the sales department, but all evidence to the contrary: nice
'sales hack'! :P_

~~~
mquander
Hmm, I guess I was wrong. That second version really does come off with a much
more playful and friendly tone (almost completely thanks to the _:P_ ).
Language is so sneakily expressive!

~~~
caffeine
Yep - the difference between yours and mine is 4 characters, including a
space.

 _Language is so sneakily expressive!_

You're so right! For example, I wrote out a positive interpretation before
hand to prime the reader into seeing what I hoped they'd see. Would it come
across the same way if I'd put that interpretation right _after_? Probably
not.

What's going on here is the textual equivalent of:
[http://www.barryandstuart.com/wp-
content/uploads/illusion.gi...](http://www.barryandstuart.com/wp-
content/uploads/illusion.gif)

~~~
10ren
I think the positive priming caused greater affect than the "! :P", and I
propose the hypothesis that it's the "loaded terms" that determine tone,
largely.

They are most effective if applied to the issue at hand; but they are also
effective if a fragment makes them _appear_ to so apply ( _Any reasonable
person who takes your advice would be a fool_ ); and even their mere presence
in the visual field will affect the reader ( _disguise_ , _weak_ , _fool_ ). A
strong example of this is swear words.

Your priming passage includes warm, life-affirming terms and fragments (as
distinct from their denotation): "genuine", "compliment", "really are good",
"I'm impressed with your". I'm suggesting it's not just that you were priming
the reader with that logical interpretation, but that you were directly
influencing their emotional state with your word choice.

I really do think the first-quoted commenter in the article was being
sarcastic. Although he later claimed he wasn't, I find that hard to believe. I
don't think it's just the words that are used; but that those words naturally
emerge from a person's attitude. If they have a kindly approach to others (or
even if they are just feeling happy and optimistic at the moment), it will be
reflected in their word choice.

Unfortunately, optimistic, cheerful people tend not to make good engineers,
given Murphy's Law, so there's sometimes a relative absence of good-will and
affirmation online - including here, on HH.

------
roc
The whole situation is a result of a common communication problem, applied
_twice_.

Simply: we see ourselves in the gaps.

i.e. readers assume the writer shares their own values/goals. From that
default, we build our mental model of the writer, generally by recording
deviations.

Until a deviation is recorded though, our assumption is that there's
agreement. That's why new information that violates our mental models can seem
so surprising, even when we have no good reason to expect otherwise.

The common advice to 'never meet your heroes' is direct result of this
dissonance.

Seeing the reply as an insult required Joel to assume the writer had the same
values Joel did: a mistrust of sales and marketing. Ergo: any congratulations
on an effective sales pitch must be a sarcastic insult.

And in writing that reply in the first place, the author clearly assumed Joel
had the same values _he_ did. That is, that the article was an intentional
(and commendable) application of marketing and that Joel would appreciate an
'atta boy' from a peer.

Emphasis and emoticons can go some way into clearing up these misconceptions.
But not even face-to-face communication really solves the problem.

------
tseabrooks
This is a serious problem but I don't think this is as easily solved by face
to face, or telephone, communication as the author seems to think.

I used to have a professor that claimed interpersonal communication fails 95%
of the time. I now know he was using hyperbole to make a point - but it's
still very often and only going to get worse from here.

The problem is we are all AWFUL are reading tone in text communication - and
it's impossible to get better at it as the author points out with his example.
We can only get better at communicating our intent correctly, not at
interpreting the intent. This is also true of other communication though. We
are very bad at reading body language, facial expressions, and all sorts of
other non verbal cues. I suspect this is why the internet habit of using
smilies and 'lol's began so early in the advent of the internet. A population
of people who historically had more trouble than others with an already very
difficult problem found an easy way to solve it in their new medium.

I think escalation in medium works _most_ of the time is because we have more
practice delivering our intent verbally . Going forward, however, I don't see
any reason that might not change as younger generations get more experience
with text based communication than verbal communication.

~~~
youngian
I don't know - I sure hope we get better at communicating subtlety through
text, but it seems tough. I, as a fairly sarcastic person, have struggled with
this issue for years. When I'd like to throw in some light sarcasm to my
online communication, my options seem to be:

* Writing it straight and counting on the recipient knowing me well enough to realize that it's sarcasm - can be seriously disastrous if I miscalculated.

* Markers like :P or :) - communicates my intent, but comes off as overly cheery, especially when used multiple times in the same email or post.

* Something obvious like <sarcasm> tags - kind of spoils the art of it all.

* Make my sarcastic claims so over-the-top that the recipient cannot help but realize I'm being facetious - usually works, but it's a broadsword where I usually prefer a shiv.

I have yet to figure out a solution that allows nearly the same range of
sarcastic expression as I can achieve face to face.

(And yes, I really have expended a lot of effort trying to be sarcastic
online)

------
Freebytes
Has anyone else here been thinking "How can I implement a solution to this
particular method of online communication?" while reading this article? I
guess emoticons, bold, and italics seem fine, but perhaps there should be some
professional standard or a completely dynamic and alternate device. (Like a
program to leave voice messages on web pages to accompany text or something
similar as an example. This is a bad idea by the way... I am just using it as
a conversation starter on this topic.)

~~~
joe_the_user
Hmm,

Despite the limitations of the written word, human authors have been producing
written works with profound emotional impact for thousands of years. And
without emoticons!

It's true it requires concentration and imagination to read Shakespeare (with
full impact) than it takes see his plays performed.

Still, a vast emotional "punch" can be contained in the written word, just
requiring a bit of effort to extract.

~~~
rimantas
Just a thought: if said work is of substantial length then you have enough
context/space to express all the subtleties by other means. In case of the
message limited to 140 characters or email one-liner you need some crutches to
the same. Are we trading 5 lines of email for one ":)"?

~~~
d0mine
A counter-example in six words:

 _For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn_

is a short story by Ernest Hemingway. <http://www.litkicks.com/FlashFiction/>

See, no emoticons _:)_

~~~
billswift
That sort of works as fiction, in part because it is so ambiguous - it could
be anything from a tragedy to a farce.

------
bena
I was expecting a hit piece of sorts, but was surprised to see that the point
of this article isn't Joel, but just uses an exchange Joel had on here as an
example of a larger problem.

If I were the submitter, I'd correct the title to remove the "(and Joel
Spolsky)" as it emphasizes the wrong part of the article and isn't present in
the actual title.

~~~
kalendae
would be more correct to have (even Joel Spolsky)

~~~
run4yourlives
The fact that we all seem to assume Joel is above the standard communication
defects found in all humans concerns me.

~~~
pyre
Someone that is viewed as a good communicator will be viewed by people as
having overcome/conquered such shortcomings whether it's true or not.

------
ErrantX
_1) Emoticons and internet lingo (lol, brb, lmao, etc.) do have a place in
"professional communication". They aren't just for teenagers._

This is good advice. I've fallen foul of this problem on many an occasion and
now liberally (but not excessively) use emoticons to communicate theme's and
feelings as needed - it really does help :)

------
ramanujan
Look, that wasn't a tone problem, it was a content problem.

Whether or not ed was sarcastic or complimentary, nevertheless his comment
made people realize that Spolsky could stand to gain financially from the
article. Putting that on the radar (even if it was in the form of a
compliment) was a hit to Joel (even if he didn't intend the article as PR).

All the smileys in the world wouldn't make that content issue go away.

~~~
jrockway
The reason Joel interpreted it as an attack, though, is because the commenter
used words with negative connotations, like "disguise". I would have written
the post with different words, and I bet Joel wouldn't have gotten defensive
in that case. It would be the same content, but less accusatory tone.

So while using ":)" is helpful, so is using words with positive connotations
if you're trying to be positive.

~~~
ludwig
On that note, even insults are better when delivered using words with positive
connotations.

------
gruseom
While I agree that the lower bandwidth of the written word leaves room for
more understandings, it's interesting that sometimes the opposite is the case.
I had a professor in grad school who was notoriously harsh to students (people
would sometimes leave his office crying). Somehow I discovered that, over
email, he was warm and encouraging. The easy fix was to simply do all
important communication by email.

------
SlyShy
Actually, that seems like a pretty good argument that people should use
italics or bolding for emphasis more often. They are used to modify the
meaning of the phrase, as he demonstrated, just like our tone of voice. The
exact mechanisms are different, of course.

------
10ren
I like the article's advice about "graduating" communication (a better word
than "escalate" which suggests opposition); but I'm ambivalent about the other
suggestions. If the tone is wrong, adding emphasis can just make it seem more
sarcastic (by being over-complimentary in an ambiguous situation). But if they
convey a tone of warmth in their own right, then that problem doesn't arise.

------
etherael
Quick poll, when you read;

Do you mentally dictate the content of what you're reading?

Do you have a general tone for content of suspicious origin?

Do you have a general tone for content of trusted origin?

Do you use the general tone of the person writing if you happen to know them?

What other markers influence your tendency to switch tones?

~~~
sdrinf
Albeit there is an echo-effect in the back of my head, content interpretation
(for me) is non-vocal, but rather abstract; and as such, there isn't much tone
difference between sources. I do, however, multiply everything being said by
the merit of sources.

------
gord
big catchy arrogant title, no balls to back it up.

