This is a (WIP) guide to help everyone get the most out of the Aragon Community Forum. Our goal is to outline best practices and resources to improve online async communication. If you have suggestions for how this guide could be improved please comment in this thread. If you have suggestions on how the UI/UX of the forum itself could be improved, please comment in the Site Feedback category. Thanks
Questions
If you have questions please post them in the Questions category. We’ll do our best to respond as quickly and thoroughly as possible.
If the nature of your question is sensitive please reach out to @burrrata and/or @LouisGrx in a private message to explain the situation and get help.
Posting
If you’re going to post something please explain what it is and why you think it’s relevant. Please also put it in the category that seems the most fitting and then tag it with a current or new tag that adds high level information. From time to time forum admins might re-categorize your post to improve forum organization. If you’re not sure which category is the best choice, please reach out to @burrrata or @LouisGrx for feedback.
Async Communications
Async communication is hard. Lots of nuance is lost in translation, even if you’re speaking the same language. With that in mind, we recommend the following:
- In the case of ambiguity reading other people’s posts, always assume the best. Most people are generally pretty chill.
- In the case of ambiguity when considering what to post yourself, always assume the worst. If you’re asking if someone might misinterpret your words or be offended the answer is probably yes. Please do you best to rephrase your ideas in the most constructive way possible.
- Be hard on ideas, but easy on people. We need to have intellectually honest and clear conversations. We don’t, however, need to take things personally. Please do your best to focus on the ideas being discussed and not who is saying them. If you find yourself using the word “you” in a post often, see if you can rephrase your words to explicitly focus on the idea itself rather than who said what. Be precise.
In addition to these high level goals, we also recommend doing your best to keep communications concise. No one wants to read through a wall of text. On the other hand, it’s often good to over specify in async communications to reduce the likelihood that someone will interpret your message incorrectly. It’s a lot easier to read into short and vague messages than long and specific ones. This dichotomy is real, and it’s up to you to find the right balance. We don’t have any concrete answers here, but there are some articles and resources we’d recommend exploring to improve async communication in general.
https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the_day_you_bec.html
https://www.scottadamssays.com/2015/08/22/the-day-you-became-a-better-writer-2nd-look/
https://luisivan.net/saving-time-by-writing-better-11bce34f4631
