Communication Failures

This is Steven Petrick Posting:

I have said this before, and find it is something that needs saying again.

E-mail, blogs, discussion boards, these are all PRINTED communications nodes. The text is readable (albeit all of us have little foibles where we miss a key or in the rush type "there" instead of "their" or other goofs), but important elements of "human communication" are not. Tone, expression, gesture, are all missing.

Take as an example Charles Chapel (to whom I mean no affront). He proposed a new idea for ESGs, and not being all that familiar with me and my method of expression in the printed prose (ten years in the Army, not to mention seven years of Catholic School is going to have an impact) apparently decided that I was being deliberately . . . something. The result is that though I have sent him a couple of additional missives on his idea (things that would have to be worked out), I have not heard back from him.

This is sad, as in a more normal environment (say on a sunny day in the local McDonalds) we could have sat across from one another with a map, a few counters (to demonstrate placement and firing directions) the appropriate existing rules (not just the ESG rules per se, but other rules) and hashed out the idea more.

Thing is, I wanted to hash it out more, if for nothing else as a learning exercise. I regret that I have apparently driven Charles off without getting his input and ideas for how to deal with the problems. Does not mean the idea would have been adopted, but it could have made an interesting article at the very least looking at a concept, the problems with it, and the possible solutions.