[asterisk-biz] DIDX Query

[Alex Balashov]

On 11/04/2010 02:34 PM, Jorge Bellas wrote:

> Make that +2. I've stopped using this list as a business tool. Too many
> folks are shredded here for sport. It's become a spectacle. Hopefully, it
> can recover and become useful once again.
>
> I'm half expecting someone to respond and criticize my grammar...

It's not so bad.

Most reasonable people here agree -- even if they don't express these 
sentiments publicly for a variety of reasons -- that the folks being 
"shredded" have done something to deserve it.  I'm judging from the 
plethora of private e-mail I receive saying, "I completely agree with 
your flame here, but I can't rock the boat with my employer by saying 
so myself."

A "-biz" list should, as well as discouraging people from saying 
things to each other that they wouldn't say in real life on the one 
hand, also on the other hand acknowledge the blunt facts of 
"business," as it were.  Business has vicissitudes: there are very 
positive as well as intensely negative experiences, perceptions, 
strategies, technologies, etc.  Business is a profoundly interpersonal 
thing;  it directly concerns one's livelihood, directly impacts one's 
material well-being, and it is, at the end of the day, a thinly-veiled 
interaction of real people, with the full spectrum of thoughts and 
emotions that attends.

Instituting a Compulsory Pleasantries Act won't change that.  What do
you "only say positive things to each other!" people want?  To 
(metaphorically speaking) paint the room in warm, bright colours like 
yellow and orange and insist that everyone smile and be nice?  In 
Soviet psychiatric "hospitals" for political dissidents, this kind of 
paint job was said to consist of "aggressively cheerful colours."

Contrary to the implicit allegations of self-appointed guardians of 
decorum here, _very few people_ are genuinely, earnestly negative for 
merely for the sake of being so.  Usually, people have a bone to pick 
for a reason, a reason  everyone can appreciate and empathise with if 
they listen.  Under the veneer of "negativity" is useful information 
and perspective, with all the utility as well as the limitations 
inherent in a single narrator.  Thus, it is not necessarily the case 
that negative feedback is, by definition, not "constructive."

The debasement, cultural Third Worldisation, and used car salesmanship 
of the VoIP origination business presently being ascribed to DIDX in 
this thread is a real story, consisting of real thoughts by real 
people that is a useful data point from an empirical perspective. 
Everyone is, of course, free to make their own judgments and 
purchasing decisions.  However, there is clearly sufficient consensus 
around this angle on it that it's not just a figment of one 
disgruntled individual's imagination.

As with anything, there are invariable excesses, of course, but 
there's some saying about heat and kitchens that speaks to that.

In short, the value in "business"-themed lists, forums, etc. is to get 
the good, the bad, and the ugly, like any community.  That's part of 
the reason, I would surmise, why Digium has hitherto taken a hands-off 
role regarding requests to censor or moderate these lists.  It doesn't 
seem to me a good idea to tamper with the role played by all three of 
those elements of the discursive timbre.

-- Alex

-- 
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems LLC
1170 Peachtree Street
12th Floor, Suite 1200
Atlanta, GA 30309
Tel: +1-678-954-0670
Fax: +1-404-961-1892
Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/