Imagine my surprise when I jumped into Plurk for a few minutes this morning to take a break from work and found a Plurker name Plurkable attacking me for my choice of themes for this blog! Heck, I’ve been using this theme since February on StumbleBlogger.com and I really like it. My first reaction was to get pissed off. But I have been doing this online thing since 1981, and I knew better. The vast majority of these things are just weird misunderstandings.

So I started looking at the posts, and discovered that the person doing the attacking was Eric Odom! For those that do not know him, Eric is one of the coolest people on Plurk, and an all-around wonderful guy. I was just floored! So I read further, and it was not long before I could see Eric’s point. He didn’t know that I had been using that theme for many months. And he doesn’t know all that much about me, so how could he know that I would never do something like that? Or that when I read blogs, I concentrate on the content and not the theme that’s in use?

The whole thing worked out. Eric and I have apologized to each other. As is usual, it was a misunderstanding that could not have happened in person. Both of us would have immediately known what was up. But that is not the way it works when you can’t see the person you are talking to, cannot see their eyes or their body language.

So there is a lesson in this. I learned it a long time ago, on the CompuServe CB Simulator, and have had it reinforced through the last 27 years on bulletin boards, forums, chat-rooms, email, and all of the rest of the communications media that we do without the benefit of a non-virtual presence. This is going to happen a lot on Plurk. So try to deal with these things according to the following loose rules:

1. Never, ever, air your laundry in public first. There are always private channels. Use them to talk to the other party directly and privately before you start blasting away in public.
2. If you can, look into all of the facts before you do anything at all.
3. If you can, talk quietly to a mutual friend or two of the offending party.
4. Take another look at the offending remarks. It is amazing how much a friendly bit of sarcasm, or an intended joke, can look like an attack.
5. Think about what you say, publicly or privately, before you say it. Words that are written down have a way of lasting a long time.

I am KDFrawg on Plurk. If you get pissed off at me, send me a private message. I very rarely do anything (on purpose) that would piss somebody off.