Quixotic Bravado by Josh Babetski

Justin Thorp blogged this morning about “A Great Way to Alienate or Even Lose Friends.” This post started out as a comment to reply to it, but then got pretty wordy fast. Besides, I don’t blog a ton so it’s a good opportunity to post while adding onto Justin’s sentiments. But first, what Justin was talking about:

In my life, one thing that I’ve noticed is that its easy for me to talk or write without thinking first. Plenty of times, I’ve said something that really didn’t do what I set out to accomplish. I put my foot in my mouth. I apologize, they forgive, and we move on.

I guess if I could offer one piece of advice… it’s really not a good idea to blurt out a statement like… [Fill In the Blank] is an idiot or [Fill in the Blank] sucked.

He’s of course right. Having all of these powerful communication tools so readily at our finger tips will sometimes result in some not-so-well-thought out blurtage (yeah, just made that up). I’m guilty; so are you.

However, it’s also important to remember not to form a long-term opinion or vilify someone over a single lapse in judgement. In a real-world scenario, we all know that person or have been that person who says something curt, inappropriate, hurtful, or just plain stupid, but it was a moment in time and all was forgiven. Unfortunately, with online communication, aggregation, indexing, replies and trackbacks, having a FDA moment is forever saved on the Interwebs. Eventually, we all have things online we would have typed differently if we had an Internet-wide “undo” button.

What’s more important is to judge online character over time. A pattern of communication that expresses contempt for differing opinions is probably a better indicator of how someone rolls. A quick scroll through someone’s posting history is easy enough to do. Does it excuse something said in a moment? No, but we have to adapt and be understanding of the occasional online foibles of others so that they will be understanding of ours.

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