So, who are you people, anyway?
I see about 350 subscribers to Geek Etiquette, many of you via the Livejournal syndicated feed. I know I know a lot of you already — especially those who are regular commenters — but I’d love to find out who else is here.
So, who are you?
Where are you?
What do you do?
What kind of geek are you?
What’s your interest in etiquette?
What do you wish I’d post about?
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So, who are you? My name is Gareth, I almost exclusively use the pseudonym Avron online, and I’m not really sure what else to type here.
Where are you? Christchurch, New Zealand.
What do you do? Work in a factory that prints and binds magazines. I’m unskilled labour.
What kind of geek are you? The closest I actually come to being a bona fide geek is being a Board Game Geek, but I don’t really have the cash reserves. I do have some PC geek knowledge but that’s mainly in comparison to those I spend time with.
What’s your interest in etiquette? I don’t really understand social niceties. It’s led to at least two friendships disintegrating to some extent.
What do you wish I’d post about? If you can do anything about people that don’t have the ability to recognise body language or think in advance about how others will interpret what they say that could be useful.
What I’d most like to know is why there doesn’t seem to be a preview option for posting comments here. That would seem to be one of the most common conventions for commenting on blogs.
Hi, Avron, pleased to meet you!
The stuff about body language etc is a really hard topic, but I’ll give it some thought. It’s a difficult subject for me too. Human interfaces are tricky!
Meanwhile, I’ve installed a “preview comments” plugin. It seems to work. Can you let me know what you think?
So, who are you: I’m Adam.
Where are you: Currently, Soho in London
What do you do: I’m a Linux Sysadmin for a large Post Production Company
What kind of geek are you? UNIX geek, with a smattering of science, maths, music, food, beer, wine, cinema, etc. :)
What’s your interest in etiquette: I like to think I have a strong sense of right and wrong, what is good manners and what isn’t. That being crossed with the geekish tendency to have some troubles with social interactions seemed like an interesting read.
What do you wish I’d post about: Good question. Communication, presentation of ones self, the Geek Social Falicies are all rich loam. I’ve certainly enjoyed the posts so far. Keep up the good work. :)
The plugin seems to work for me as well. This is good.
You should also continue to post whatever comes naturally. If it wasn’t good beforehand you wouldn’t have readers.
Avron: thanks!
Adam: Good to meet you — looks like we have a lot of friends/acquaintances in common, if your LJ flist is anything to go by. When you say “presentation of one’s self” do you mean like, when you meet people? or when standing up to give a talk? or just general grooming?
Any and all of the above, I guess. Communication covers some of this I guess. It’s all part and parcel of the social interaction aspect. The way you present yourself to the world at large and to people individually.
Who are you on the El Jay?
Adam: I’m damned_colonial over there. We’ve only got reddragdiva as mutual friends, but I see a lot of others on your flist that I know even if I don’t have them friended — mostly people I know through Perl Mongers or alt.sysadmin.recovery back in the day.
* So, who are you?
Samrobb. Husband, father, software developer, Sunday school teacher, itinerant preacher working on getting my BDiv in pastoral theology.
* Where are you?
Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Not normally noted as a hotbed of technological innovation, I know :-) There’s an awful lot of interesting work here, though.
* What do you do?
I’m a software developer. I’ve worked on internet search engines, network discovery and provisioning tools, and embedded Linux. My current job is working on distributed file systems.
* What kind of geek are you?
Computer, science-fiction/fantasy, role-playing, PC gaming.
* What’s your interest in etiquette?
Honestly, it’s kind of minor. Why do I read your site, then? Well, I mean… it’s fascinating, but not so much for the etiquette ideas. It just boggles my mind that there are people out there who honestly, truly, don’t know or understand some of this stuff.
* What do you wish I’d post about?
Nothing comes to mind at the moment. I am glad that you’re settled in and posting again :-) Perhaps something about differences in etiquette across cultures? That’s something that’s always interested me, and working in IT, you tend to run into a lot of different nationalities, traditions, etc. - so that what seems obviously right to one person may seem confusing or strange to another.
Samrobb: I dunno, I know a bunch of CMU folks from round the Pittsburgh nexus, so I tend to think of it as a fairly tech-friendly area. As for people knowing/not knowing this stuff… I guess there are people who don’t know it at all (probably had other things on their minds instead of learning the social graces) and then there are those who know it but have trouble applying it consistently (me!), and then there are those who get tangled up when it comes to applying it in specifically geeky circumstances. Wrt different cultures, I tend to find that the divide between geek/non-geek is usually greater than that between different nationalities. Not that there aren’t a heap of intercultural differences when you have a workplace full of people from all round the place, but mostly they seem to rub along OK, as opposed to, say, engineers vs sales.
Elaine Nelson, Olympia, WA USA
Originally a writing geek, now also a web geek and D&D geek. Working as a professional web geek. ;)
Like you, I have trouble consistently applying good people skills, which often fall under the category of etiquette. That, and I really enjoy your writing style. Just continue as you are, and don’t worry too much about us out here in the peanut gallery.
I’m Katie, and I’m in central Maryland, US. I’m a spacecraft software geek with interests in hobby electronics, open source software, sea kayaking, feminism, and Japanese tea ceremony. I don’t know how to explain my interest in etiquette, but I enjoy reading your posts. I probably first heard about you on the LinuxChix lists.
I’m a software engineer from Sunnyvale, CA. I have fairly omnivorous curiosity, which gets me into all sorts of odd niches of geekery; this morning, I was joking with one of the guys in QA about bug tracking systems written on various assumptions from medieval theology, and our coworkers were giving us very strange looks. My interest in etiquette comes from my habit of analyzing the world as a feedback system; etiquette is, in my opinion, a valuable lubricant for keeping society functioning smoothly. Since geek culture breaks a number of the usual assumptions about etiquette, I find it interesting to see what mechanisms appear to replace the ones that have been left behind.
Hi! I’m Jenny, a UNIX System Administrator who works in Mountain View, CA (I only live in outer space). Type of geek? Good question. Ultimately, I’m in denial, I think. ;-) I have found your blog interesting both for the comments on geek etiquette that it discusses (which I understand) and on human etiquette (which I don’t).
One thing I’d be interested in is the Geek Etiquette take on blowing off friends for work. The Miss Manners take is that engagements are engagements, and you honour the first one you make except in the event of illness. Almost no one does this although it is quite nicely designed: the economic term is “overcommitment”, as in you use a strategy that won’t always result in the local maxima (you occasionally have to say no to your buddy’s wedding because you committed to coffee with Boring Work Colleague), but which means that in the longer term you spend less time fretting about excuses and you don’t get a reputation with your friends as someone who should never be planned around or possibly even invited, since you won’t ever show anyway.
The take of some of my friends on the other hand is a little extreme in the other direction. “But A CLIENT CALLED so I don’t know what all this ‘I stood in the rain for three hours and had to sit alone in the block of six seats that I didn’t get paid back for’ whining is about.”
I’m Monica. We met on LiveJournal. I’m a software developer (more or less) in Pittsburgh, and another of those CMU alumni you mentioned.
(”More or less”: Background in both programming and tech writing, eventually used both to carve out a niche in API design and the like, now a tech lead and a part-time manager.)
In addition to API and SDK design, I’m geeky about renaissance music, internet “culture”, and religion.
Why do I read your blog? I’m broadly interested in etiquette in general (enjoy Miss Manners), and I’m curious about geek-specific etiquette (either different rules or new situations). I’m curious about *lots* of things, by the way. :-)
No specific topic requests come to mind right now. If you have any wisdom to offer about improving behavior on mailing lists (broadcasting what should be private replies because we don’t care, quoting the last 87 messages in the thread, breaking formatting, etc), I’d be interested. But I suspect it’s intractable, ’cause it only takes a few clueless list members to mess it up for everyone else.
Katie: Hi! If you first heard of me on linuxchix I can only imagine it must’ve been years ago. Don’t tell me you’ve been stalking me all that time? ;)
Mary: Ugh, that’s incredible. If you’re on call, then be on call and don’t make personal engagements. Next time, make them pay for their seats in advance, at least.
Monica: actually, I believe we met at Pennsic in 2001 before I ever found you on LJ. Cortejo knew you on LJ and introduced us, however. Pleased to see you here! As for mailing lists… gah. I fall strongly into the old-school curmudgeon camp, and would happily lop limbs off top-posters, but I realise I’m part of a dying breed.
Skud: It’s less people on call for me and more people who have sudden business opportunities involving travel a lot. “Oh hey, your thing was last night right. Must have forgot to tell you I decided to go to Melbourne to close that deal instead. Hope you had fun!”
I’m not a subscriber, strictly speaking, but I’m a repeat visitor via a link originally on Livejournal.
I’m a grad school student in Linguistics, Canadian but currently studying in the US. I’ve never been clear on the geek/nerd distinction, but if I’m a geek of anything, it’s linguistics/languages. The posts I’ve found most noteworthy are the ones on clothing, since that’s an area I’m largely clueless about, and I’m trying to learn to understand how other people think about it. Not being a tech geek, I find the particularly tech-related posts less relevant than others, though they can still be of interest. Partly I’m interested to see if you fill in any gaps in my etiquette awareness that I might not even have known were there.
So, who are you?
The name is Lloyd :-)
Where are you?
Perth, Western Australia
What do you do?
Final year of study at Murdoch University and working part-time for Government.
What kind of geek are you?
Hard-core computer science geek :-P
What’s your interest in etiquette?
Just an interesting topic. It has bearing on my life and I enjoy your perspective on it.
What do you wish I’d post about?
What you’re doing is great! :-)
Estel: hi! good to see you here!
Lloyd: Welcome!
I just caught your posts on the Australian Bloggers RSS feed, welcome to the community and I look forward to reading more of your work. ;)
Snoskred: Hey, good to meet you! Took a look at your blog — loved your scam baiting! I nearly wet myself laughing over the butterfly guys.
[...] the International Co-ordinator of LinuxChix, a group for women who use Linux. When I posted asking Who are you? the other day, she replied with the following, which I’m promoting up here because it’s [...]
I know this post is old now, and if that makes this a no-no etiquette wise it might be a good idea to write about that as well.
But the reason I’m replying here again is that I had a thought about how best to get friends/family/colleagues to change the email address they use for you.
* Do you simply do a mass email from the new account to everyone (using the BCC field of course) so they can simply add the new address?
* Do you send from the old so it’s obvious that the new address is you?
* Do you merely start sending from the new one and hope people get the hint?
Avron: Thanks! Good question; I’ll try to cover that soon.