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HandSolo -> RE: WHY NO POLITE RESPONSES??? (10/12/2008 6:51:36 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Icarys
To Hand: There is no societal norm mandating a response to an email/message.
I'll put this inline so you can see it better...Emails as you know are just another form of communication and their are plenty of set ways in society on how a "proper" way to respond is..Kind of like someone talking to you in person and asking a question yet you do not respond? Why is it different if a stranger on a buss or at the mall in line asks that question versus someone online? Isn't it still rude to not answer them? I guess you could ignore someone in a convenience store line but I most likely wouldn't if they were being polite.
I'm off to watch a movie..I'll read up later.
There are two, enormous differences.
1. An email is not analogous to talking to someone in person. It is, at best, analogous to a voicemail. You can certainly ignore an incoming phone call from a stranger. You can review a voicemail at a more convenient time, or you can delete without listening. You can call back, or not. The caller will not draw offense from an unreturned, unsolicited call, because he bears no illusion that he is owed one. If he does, he may be offended, not because you are imploite, but because his expectations are at odds with reality. More accurately, however, online messaging is a unique mode of communication, no more similar to a face to face conversation than it is to a phone call, or skywriting.
2. Based on #1: there is no automatic expectation of a response to an email from an unknown person, for any reason. The Internet, is (as I mentioned) extremely fast paced, and largely anonymous. The pace and impersonality require a different etiquette than other, more intimate modes of communication. An email, a BBS post, a PM, is arguably more closely related to writing a message on the wall than any other form of communication. There certainly is an expectation of a response to a face to face conversation, with very few exceptions, regarding outrageous behavior by the contacting party. As has been mentioned repeatedly, no response, is a response.
2 1/2. In the olden days of personal ads in newspapers, it was not uncommon for a message to go unreturned. The reasons were the same as those cited in this thread: there is no need to enter into a potential argument with someone who will not be considered for a meeting. To do so opens up the ad poster to nothing more than needless abuse. The unreturned calls were accepted etiquette.
Again, the Cliff's Notes version of my responses here: you are offended (or "put off," if "offended" is too strong a term) not by rudeness, but by your mis-reading of the behavior of others as rudeness.
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