Hi,
I stumbled into this while researching re: effective methods of dealing with difficult people in our lives. Now the following article deals with the management of an electronic forum which is dedicated to working on a specific project relating to software development, but I can see how it applies and could be useful in functioning more appropriately in any online forum, including this one. These are just some things to keep in mind about the pitfalls of communication in this type of environment, awareness of which could prevent alot of grief, disappointment, and disgruntled flights from the board because someone was caught off guard.
Difficult People
Difficult people are no easier to deal with in electronic forums than they are in person. By "difficult" I don't mean "rude". Rude people are annoying, but they're not necessarily difficult. This book has already discussed how to handle them: comment on the rudeness the first time, and from then on, either ignore them or treat them the same as anyone else. If they continue being rude, they will usually make themselves so unpopular as to have no influence on others in the project, so they are a self-containing problem.
The really difficult cases are people who are not overtly rude, but who manipulate or abuse the project's processes in a way that ends up costing other people time and energy, yet do not bring any benefit to the project. Such people often look for wedgepoints in the project's procedures, to give themselves more influence than they might otherwise have. This is much more insidious than mere rudeness, because neither the behavior nor the damage it causes is apparent to casual observers. A classic example is the filibuster, in which someone (always sounding as reasonable as possible, of course) keeps claiming that the matter under discussion is not ready for resolution, and offers more and more possible solutions, or new viewpoints on old solutions, when what is really going on is that he senses that a consensus or a ballot is about to form, and doesn't like where it is probably headed. Another example is when there's a debate that won't converge on consensus, but the group tries to at least clarify the points of disagreement and produce a summary for everyone to refer to from then on. The obstructionist, who knows the summary may lead to a result he doesn't like, will often try to delay even the summary, by relentlessly complicating the question of what should be in it, either by objecting to reasonable suggestions or by introducing unexpected new items.
Handling Difficult People
To counteract such behavior, it helps to understand the mentality of those who engage in it. People generally do not do it consciously. No one wakes up in the morning and says to himself: "Today I'm going to cynically manipulate procedural forms in order to be an irritating obstructionist." Instead, such actions are often preceded by a semi-paranoid feeling of being shut out of group interactions and decisions. The person feels he is not being taken seriously, or (in the more severe cases) that there is almost a conspiracy against him葉hat the other project members have decided to form an exclusive club, of which he is not a member. This then justifies, in his mind, taking rules literally and engaging in a formal manipulation of the project's procedures, in order to make everyone else take him seriously. In extreme cases, the person can even believe that he is fighting a lonely battle to save the project from itself.
It is the nature of such an attack from within that not everyone will notice it at the same time, and some people may not see it at all unless presented with very strong evidence. This means that neutralizing it can be quite a bit of work. It's not enough to persuade yourself that it's happening; you have to marshal enough evidence to persuade others too, and then you have to distribute that evidence in a thoughtful way.
Given that it's so much work to fight, it's often better just to tolerate it for a while. Think of it like a parasitic but mild disease: if it's not too debilitating, the project can afford to remain infected, and medicine might have harmful side effects. However, if it gets too damaging to tolerate, then it's time for action. Start gathering notes on the patterns you see. Make sure to include references to public archives葉his is one of the reasons the project keeps records, so you might as well use them. Once you've got a good case built, start having private conversations with other project participants. Don't tell them what you've observed; instead, first ask them what they've observed. This may be your last chance to get unfiltered feedback about how others see the troublemaker's behavior; once you start openly talking about it, opinion will become polarized and no one will be able to remember what he formerly thought about the matter.
If private discussions indicate that at least some others see the problem too, then it's time to do something. That's when you have to get really cautious, because it's very easy for this sort of person to try to make it appear as though you're picking on them unfairly. Whatever you do, never accuse them of maliciously abusing the project's procedures, of being paranoid, or, in general, of any of the other things that you suspect are probably true. Your strategy should be to look both more reasonable and more concerned with the overall welfare of the project, with the goal of either reforming the person's behavior, or getting them to go away permanently. Depending on the other developers, and your relationship with them, it may be advantageous to gather allies privately first. Or it may not; that might just create ill will behind the scenes, if people think you're engaging in an improper whispering campaign.
Remember that although the other person may be the one behaving destructively, you will be the one who appears destructive if you make a public charge that you can't back up. Be sure to have plenty of examples to demonstrate what you're saying, and say it as gently as possible while still being direct. You may not persuade the person in question, but that's okay as long as you persuade everyone else.
(Note: I am not advocating this method of handling such a situation here, but I can see the usefulness of this approach when a discussion board is intended to be project oriented, in the case of the software development business.)
And now some other methods of avoiding common pitfalls:
Avoid Holy Wars
A holy war is a dispute, often but not always over a relatively minor issue, which is not resolvable on the merits of the arguments, but where people feel passionate enough to continue arguing anyway in the hope that their side will prevail. Holy wars are not quite the same as bikeshed paintings. People painting bikesheds are usually quick to jump in with an opinion (because they can), but they won't necessarily feel strongly about it, and indeed will sometimes express other, incompatible opinions, to show that they understand all sides of the issue. In a holy war, on the other hand, understanding the other sides is a sign of weakness. In a holy war, everyone knows there is One Right Answer; they just don't agree on what it is.
Once a holy war has started, it generally cannot be resolved to everyone's satisfaction. It does no good to point out, in the midst of a holy war, that a holy war is going on. Everyone knows that already. Unfortunately, a common feature of holy wars is disagreement on the very question of whether the dispute is resolvable by continued discussion. Viewed from outside, it is clear that neither side is changing the other's mind. Viewed from inside, the other side is being obtuse and not thinking clearly, but they might come around if browbeaten enough. Now, I am not saying there's never a right side in a holy war. Sometimes there is擁n the holy wars I've participated in, it's always been my side, of course. But it doesn't matter, because there's no algorithm for convincingly demonstrating that one side or the other is right.
A common, but unsatisfactory, way people try to resolve holy wars is to say "We've already spent far more time and energy discussing this than it's worth! Can we please just drop it?" There are two problems with this. First, that time and energy has already been spent and can never be recovered葉he only question now is, how much more effort remains? If some people feel that just a little more discussion will bring the issue to a close, then it still makes sense (from their point of view) to continue.
The other problem with asking for the matter to be dropped is that this is often equivalent to allowing one side, the status quo, to declare victory by inaction. And in some cases, the status quo is known to be unacceptable anyway: everyone agrees that some decision must be made, some action taken. Dropping the subject would be worse for everyone than simply giving up the argument would be for anyone. But since that dilemma applies to all equally, it's still possible to end up arguing forever about what to do.
When a holy war can't be avoided, decide early how much you care, and then be willing to publicly give up. When you do so, you can say that you're backing out because the holy war isn't worth it, but don't express any bitterness and don't take the opportunity for a last parting shot at the opposing side's arguments. Giving up is effective only when done gracefully.
The "Noisy Minority" Effect
In any mailing list discussion, it's easy for a small minority to give the impression that there is a great deal of dissent, by flooding the list with numerous lengthy emails. It's a bit like a filibuster, except that the illusion of widespread dissent is even more powerful, because it's divided across an arbitrary number of discrete posts and most people won't bother to keep track of who said what, when. They'll just have an instinctive impression that the topic is very controversial, and wait for the fuss to die down.
The best way to counteract this effect is to point it out very clearly and provide supporting evidence showing how small the actual number of dissenters is, compared to those in agreement. In order to increase the disparity, you may want to privately poll people who have been mostly silent, but who you suspect would agree with the majority. Don't say anything that suggests the dissenters were deliberately trying to inflate the impression they were making. Chances are they weren't, and even if they were, there would be no strategic advantage to pointing it out. All you need do is show the actual numbers in a side-by-side comparison, and people will realize that their intuition of the situation does not match reality.
This advice doesn't just apply to issues with clear for-and-against positions. It applies to any discussion where a fuss is being made, but it's not clear that most people consider the issue under discussion to be a real problem. After a while, if you agree that the issue is not worthy of action, and can see that it has failed to get much traction (even if it has generated a lot of mails), you can just observe publicly that it's not getting traction. If the "Noisy Minority" effect has been at work, your post will seem like a breath of fresh air. Most people's impression of the discussion up to that point will have been somewhat murky: "Huh, it sure feels like there's some big deal here, because there sure are a lot of posts, but I can't see any clear progress happening." By explaining how the form of the discussion made it appear more turbulent than it really was, you retrospectively give it a new shape, through which people can recast their understanding of what transpired.
And just something I found of interest re: soft topics vs harder ones and the # of total responses ~
The Softer the Topic, the Longer the Debate
Although discussion can meander in any topic, the probability of meandering goes up as the technical difficulty of the topic goes down. After all, the greater the technical difficulty, the fewer participants can really follow what's going on. Those who can are likely to be the most experienced developers, who have already taken part in such discussions thousands of times before, and know what sort of behavior is likely to lead to a consensus everyone can live with.
Thus, consensus is hardest to achieve in technical questions that are simple to understand and easy to have an opinion about, and in "soft" topics such as organization, publicity, funding, etc. People can participate in those arguments forever, because there are no qualifications necessary for doing so, no clear ways to decide (even afterward) if a decision was right or wrong, and because simply outwaiting other discussants is sometimes a successful tactic.
The principle that the amount of discussion is inversely proportional to the complexity of the topic has been around for a long time, and is known informally as the Bikeshed Effect. Here is Poul-Henning Kamp's explanation of it, from a now-famous post made to BSD developers:
It's a long story, or rather it's an old story, but it is quite short actually. C. Northcote Parkinson wrote a book in the early 1960'ies, called "Parkinson's Law", which contains a lot of insight into the dynamics of management.
[...]
In the specific example involving the bike shed, the other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess that illustrates the age of the book.
Parkinson shows how you can go in to the board of directors and get approval for building a multi-million or even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless discussions.
Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the details before it got this far. Richard P. Feynmann gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point, examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.
A bike shed on the other hand. Anyone can build one of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the game on TV. So no matter how well prepared, no matter how reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is paying attention, that he is here.
In Denmark we call it "setting your fingerprint". It is about personal pride and prestige, it is about being able to point somewhere and say "There! I did that." It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most people given the chance. Just think about footsteps in wet cement.
Anyone who's ever taken regular part in group decision-making will recognize what Kamp is talking about. However, it is usually impossible to persuade everyone to avoid painting bikesheds. The best you can do is point out that the phenomenon exists, when you see it happening, and persuade the senior developers葉he people whose posts carry the most weight葉o drop their paintbrushes early, so at least they're not contributing to the noise. Bikeshed painting parties will never go away entirely, but you can make them shorter and less frequent by spreading an awareness of the phenomenon in the project's culture.
