Re: Honesty
Originally posted by TKilgore
Sorry but I have to say this.
I like blunt and honest. I hate polictical correctness. Whats wrong with the world today IMO is all this dancing around. We need to get back to the time when if a man shook your hand on a deal, that was all that was necessary.
You may not like what some people say. Thats your right. But take Bill for example. I have not met him yet but I respect him because I know where he stands and I don't think he will back down. I also believe if he looked me in the eyes and shook my hand..... enough said
Tom
Blunt and honest is good. Great even. However, that doesn't negate the need for a reasonable measure of civility. Language is, among other things, social lubrication. If the lube in your Cummins engine is inadequate, the engine will break down; it is the same with social lubrication, where civility breaks down if the language is inadequate.
As I stated in another post, the pitfalls of communicating with words are at least two-fold. First, it can be very difficult to express in words the ideas, symbols and concepts in our minds. Second, it can be as difficult to comprehend what someone else is thinking based solely on the words they write to express themselves.
Thus we must make allowances for folks who are not communication experts. Perhaps they best express themselves by making things, and are not as good with the written word. But this does not mean that we must allow them infinite leeway; from time to time, we may need to ... discretely tell them they may be approaching one or another bound of civility.
And if we are reminded that we are approaching such a limit, we should not take it personally. Rather, we should re-examine our approach and modify it.
Do I sound a bit like Miss Manners? I hope so. I'm attempting to present the absolutely civil end of communication. You've seen the other end of the spectrum; now you've seen this end. Hopefully y'all can find a comfortable middle ground that is neither a verbal slugfest nor a tediously polite conversation. After all, the goals of these fora are to educate and inform, and to promote the easy exchange of ideas and concepts.
And, yes, I do believe there have been posts and threads that have strayed entirely too close to being verbal slugfests. While it behooves us not to stray so far, we are only human, and suffer from human failings. That is why we have moderators, neutral individuals who attempt to compare the tone of posts and thread to a reasonable middle of the communication spectrum. It is their job to step in and ... encourage the tone to return toward a more neutral tone.
As long as the tone of threads and posts is reaonably neutral, new folks will be encouraged to read, and current readers will not be driven away.
And, no, we do not have to read anything we don't like, but we do need to read *some* of it to determine that we don't like it, so we shouldn't be repulsed by anything we read in these fora.
So let's try to maintain a modicum of civility; let's try to keep our negative emotions somewhat in check. Spirited discussions are fine; angry exchanges are frowned upon.
Fest3er
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
You have craw fish, fish brother, fish! and I don't eat them. I am a transplanted hillbilly from NW Ark. We used them to catch real fish
