Re: Opening

In article
<1i5bw7y.dbpuys15x7atnN%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Catja Pafort) wrote:

If you think the writer said something that wasn't in what he wrote,

What about _if it is_ only the writer wasn't aware that he put it there?
Is that also the reader's fault?

No, it isn't. As I've been arguing, the situation is symmetrical.
Sometimes it's the writer's fault, sometimes it's the reader's fault,
sometimes both, occasionally perhaps neither. As I think I already said.

After all, it's in the text. Usenet
posts don't come with manuals. Usenet posters don't come with them, or
do you expect all of us to preface every post with 'you should probably
know about my political opinions that, and my personal circumstances
that, and furthermore I have had the specific experience which-'

In this particular discussion, it seems to me it's the readers who are
demanding that. I believe at least two of the people who reacted
negatively to Jonathan's post explicitly mentioned details of their
personal history that made them sensitive to such statements, and
perhaps more. I believe one of those, to her credit, said that the
poster couldn't be blamed for that--the others seem to take the opposite
position.

All Jonathan is asking is that people not blame him for things that
aren't explicitly in his text, at least not until they have pointed out
that they think they are implicitly there and he has agreed.

....

something you added from what was in your head, your options don't
include blaming him--you didn't get it.

The situation is symmetrical.

As a writer, I find 'it seems I wasn't clear enough' to be *far* more
productive than 'well, the reader ought to have done their homework
better'. It's a matter of courtesy as much as everything else.

Yes--but again, the situation is symmetrical. Why isn't it also the
case that, as a reader, you find "perhaps I misunderstood what he said"
to be more productive than "the author should have stated it in a way
that made it clear to me?" Yet people here are passionately arguing that
the fault is that of the writer, not the reader, despite their failure
to find any explicit statement of what they thought was implicit (moral
condemnation).

In both cases, the options do include the reader saying what he read,
the writer responding by agreeing or disagreeing, the reader looking at
the original text, and both of them figuring out where the
miscommunication came from. But automatically blaming it on one side
makes no more sense than automatically blaming it on the other.

When your readers _consistently_ react in _one particular fashion_
regardless of the topic you are writing about, then chances are that
it's your communication style that's at fault, not theirs.

In this case, however, some of the readers reacted that way, some
didn't. When a reader consistently reacts, to multiple writers, in one
particular fashion--being angry at them for things the reader thought
were implicit that were not explicit and that the writer denies--then
chances are that the reader's interpretation style is at fault. Of
course, the writers' style might also be at fault.

It starts with the writer. If the writer can't communicate an idea
clearly (s)he doesn't get to defend that by telling other people that
they can't read.

It ends with the reader. If the reader can't extract an idea from the
communication ... .

If he can't extract _any_ then he might have to work harder, if he feels
it's worth it. However, we were talking about readers getting ideas that
are very much in the text; they just weren't deliberately put there by
the writer. Different kettle of fish.

I don't know what "very much in the text" means to you. They were
getting ideas that were not in the explicit text. They were "very much
in the text" (implicitly) for some readers, not at all in the text for
others.

If "some readers interpreted it that way" implies "it was very much in
the text," why doesn't "some readers didn't interpret it that way" imply
"it was very much not in the text?"

--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: [PATCH] acquire mmap semaphore in pagemap_read.
    ... introduce a deadlock though. ... I do not see where the fault handler acquires the ... This writer is blocked by the first ... reader, and the second reader is blocked by the writer. ...
    (Linux-Kernel)
  • Re: [OT] VeryOT. Reverse Auctions.
    ... Also use of correct sig sep noted...... ... Its not the reader you TC, its the "writer" that is at fault. ...
    (uk.rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: [OT] VeryOT. Reverse Auctions.
    ... Also use of correct sig sep noted...... ... Its not the reader you TC, its the "writer" that is at fault. ...
    (uk.rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: [OT] VeryOT. Reverse Auctions.
    ... Also use of correct sig sep noted...... ... Its not the reader you TC, its the "writer" that is at fault. ...
    (uk.rec.motorcycles)
  • Re: [PATCH 3/3] ring-buffer: add design document
    ... This adds the design document for the ring buffer and also ... +head - where new reads happen in the ring buffer. ... +producer - the task that writes into the ring buffer (same as writer) ... +reader - same as consumer. ...
    (Linux-Kernel)