I'm stopping contributing

Jono Bacon jono at jonobacon.com
Thu Jun 8 16:22:59 UTC 2017


There is a huge amount of value in video communication, and it can be an
easier form of communication for non native-English speakers too.

This is though, a mailing list. It is a medium designed for *text*
discussion and collaboration. The purpose of a mailing list is to discuss
ideas, approaches, and problems in a way that the threads of the discussion
can be easily connected. When you throw in another medium (such as video,
audio, PDFs, presentation decks etc), it makes discussion (referencing and
responding to sub-points) waaaaay more complicated than it needs to be.

Trust me, I can't stand it when people are overly prescriptive about
communication...I am a firm believer in a "live and let live" approach in
how we communicate and share. As an example, note how I am top-posting. ;-)
There is though a practicality issue of how people respond to content in a
video. If Alberto makes a valid and salient point in one of his videos
(which he indeed has), it is difficult to reference and discuss that part
of that video. Sure, people could provide timestamps, but that will get
messy quickly.: one thing I have learned is that if people are expected to
include too much meta-data in their work (such as timestamps), it just
won't happen.

My take is this: people should feel free to post videos of on-topic videos
to this mailing list, but if you are expecting a discussion of the concepts
in that video, it isn't going to happen. If you want a discussion, post
text to the mailing list and you will more likely get some good discussion
and debate.

Thanks,

On Wed, Jun 7, 2017 at 8:58 PM, Alberto Salvia Novella <
es20490446e at gmail.com> wrote:

> Stephen Kellat:
> > Within the strains of my civil service posting, even machine
> > translated text is easier for me to approach than video.
>
> Before I made video-responses widespread I wanted to warrant it wouldn’t
> exclude too much people.
>
> So I picked up a web-site which was English written, but had a wide
> diversity of people from around the world, and made this poll:
>
> (http://girlsaskguys.com/education-career/q2272280-do-you-
> understand-spoken-english)
>
> It throws that about 92% of people in an English written website will also
> be able to understand spoken English well.
>
>
> Also the web-media format is incredible efficient at compressing videos,
> and watching a video response will only take as much as visualising a 6MP
> photo.
>
> At that point we can discuss that videos are longer to pay attention to,
> but that's only if you choose to do a long explanation versus a minimal one.
>
>
> The idea of making video responses came out because I realised that most
> arguments which happen online, on a text basis, would never occur in a face
> to face manner.
>
> After sending around a hundred of messages in a questions and answers
> board, where you can usually find political extremists and social justice
> warriors, it shown that very little people would answer my video-messages
> in a rude manner. Even when they usually did when interacting with other
> users, and my points were as upfront as usual.
>
> So even when text has some obvious advantages, those things suggests me
> that video has hidden benefits. And perhaps it's far better suited for
> having discussions with people you are working with than plain text or a
> hangout, which is by far longer.
>
> Not to say these emails takes me long time to write, compared with just
> shooting a quick video. Instead of working, I find myself spending the time
> trying to convince people of details that doesn't really matter.
>
>
> Lately, when answering my latest message, I could had taken into account
> that it would be rejected anyway if it was on video. But that particular
> explanation had been way harder to understand on text, as it was about the
> disposition of elements in an interface.
>
> I'm usually only showing you the tip of the iceberg. That something is
> short, unorthodox or casual doesn't mean it isn't well designed.
>
> The papercuts logo, that circle with a heart origami in the middle, took
> me 30 hours to design. Imagine if I had to discuss its design in depth with
> someone. Take this email as specimen, took me 2 hours to write. I need my
> life!
>
>
>
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>
>


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