ROE - Rules of engagement is explained in wikipedia as “rules or directives to military forces (including individuals) that define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which the use of force, or actions which might be construed as provocative, may be applied”.
Here I’m not talking about military conflicts, of course, but about what in our new, online world is seen by many as precisely a combat interaction with a virtual opponent, where the enemy must be at least disarmed, captured, and in the best case - virtually destroyed.
The reason for this text was observations of comments on the Radio-T podcast over the last several years. More than once or twice in my personal podcast and in my twitter I’ve wondered about this, and even tried to understand why it happens and how to react. There seems to be no consensus on the situation “here came a stranger into my virtual home and says strange things,” and different people react differently. Starting with attempts to establish some kind of connection with this “strange person” and ending with pointing them to the virtual door in one way or another.
However, here I’m talking about something else and from the other side. Namely, how not to become such a character about whom umputun will ask “what was that, and where do such people come from?” It seems to me that the rules are quite simple and quite clear, however, as practice shows, they’re clear to far from everyone.
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What I think is most important here is accepting the concept of “being a virtual guest.” That is, coming to visit someone’s comments you need to understand that you’re a guest and behave like… a guest. Probably a good check would be to think, before writing something like “you’re all idiots here, ha-ha,” whether you would say such a thing if you came to visit someone in the offline world. This, of course, contradicts the idea of the internet as a big, common square, where everyone is their own everything with their own megaphone, and others have the right to get up and leave if they don’t like something.
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Don’t associate yourself too closely with the subject of discussion. Often in such conversations I observe some unhealthy connection between the person and the object whose correctness they’re defending. For example, a conversation about phones can reach a state of incredible intensity and direct insults within a couple of messages. And it’s not only in the world of high-tech. Try on forums of car enthusiasts, where there’s no strict moderation and strict rules, to say something unflattering about model XYZ, if at least one living owner is nearby. It seems to me that the problem here isn’t “since I own it, I’ll defend it to my last breath.” This personal attitude also manifests toward technologies, methods, and a bunch of other concepts that are perceived inadequately close to heart. You should probably exhale, tell yourself “it’s just a gadget that I won’t even remember in a year” and stop the fingers raised for another angry response.
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Another matter is when your brainchild has been offended. If something you came up with/assembled/improved doesn’t meet with understanding and was criticized - here it’s hard to hold back emotions. I’m not calling for locking everything inside, but I recommend proceeding from the assumption that the offender isn’t a villain and wasn’t planning to show the whole world that you’re a complete idiot by discussing what’s wrong and why in your creation. I’m for presumption of innocence and for accepting the opposing side, however nasty it may seem, as a reasonable person who either didn’t understand, or was mistaken, or actually had good grounds for delivering what they delivered.
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When there’s no doubt that the offense wasn’t imagined, and you were indeed shown to be a complete and utter idiot precisely with the goal of showing you as such - here it’s too late to discuss or express your anger. If everything is so obvious, then you shouldn’t visit such guests at all, nothing good will come of it. We all have our own virtual homes where we can pour out this offense and anger in any form appropriate to the circumstances.
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Before entering into communication, think about why you’re doing it and what end goal you’d like to achieve. If there are several goals, it’s good to evaluate how consistent they are. For example, if you simultaneously want the whole world to understand what an insignificant person your offender is, but at the same time plan to use their platform to explain where they were wrong and how it really is - these two goals don’t work well together. That is, after you say “you’re all idiots here, spouted nonsense and understand nothing at all” it will be hard to expect that your next sentence “let me come to you and tell you why everything is not as you said here” will be received with understanding and agreement.
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Don’t change style in the process, be consistent. Of course, I can easily imagine that a person driven to madness will drop all culture and deliver from the heart, but I’m talking about something else here. When a person conversing with me constantly switches from gopnik (street thug) style to philology professor style and back, personally this only leads me to thoughts about some psychological pathologies, and I show such characters out as quickly as possible.
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Try to accept, as much as you can, the communication style practiced in the place you came to. For this, sometimes you have to raise the level, and sometimes vice versa. That is, if in this place everyone is in tailcoats and calls each other sirs, then don’t address them with “yo” and “dude.” The reverse is also true.
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Usually resorting to personal attacks on the interlocutor is the last resort in the arsenal, after applying which you may be kicked out. I’m not at all claiming that this means is useless (sometimes it’s the only one left), but it is precisely the last, nuclear one. After its application only scorched earth will remain and most likely you won’t be allowed to have any subsequent conversations there anymore. So, if you’ve decided to use it, don’t do it at the beginning, because the beginning will immediately become the end. Save it for the very last case.
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Don’t try to keep the last word at any cost. This is always very obvious from the outside, no matter how cleverly (from your point of view) you might arrange it. And, usually, especially if you came to argue/fight from the position of the offended, it looks pathetic. Leaving mid-sentence as a misunderstood genius is, first, beautiful, and second - leaves that door you walked through slightly ajar.
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There’s no shame in admitting you were wrong. Everyone makes mistakes, and after you’ve understood that the interlocutor is right you shouldn’t stubbornly stick to your line just because it’s yours. Saying “yes, I was wrong” won’t demean you at all in the eyes of a reasonable interlocutor. And the opinion of unreasonable ones shouldn’t interest us at all.
Most likely, much has been written on this topic without me. I won’t be surprised if there’s even special literature, like “How to Communicate Properly on the Internet in 24 Hours / for Complete Idiots.” So I’m not claiming particular originality here, just suddenly it came to mind that it would be good to share this.
By the way, I stretched this to 10 points here, but I suspect that from your experience many more reasonable rules could be proposed. If anyone has worthy candidates for rules number 10+ then boldly suggest them in comments.
This post was translated from the Russian original with AI assistance and reviewed by a human.