I have a big mouth, it’s well known. I’m likely to blab on about whatever project I think is amazing and awesome at the time. Which people *love* to have me do for their project. But that also means that I am pretty public and clear on stating what I think is wrong, or when I disagree. Which (of course) people hate. I’ve been learning the slow way to work on keeping criticisms polite, and/or more positive. Finding a clear balance between honestly expressing my opinion, and being reasonably polite is a challenge.

Which leads me to the weird experience of the week. . I posted something opinionated in a thread about democracy on some random mailing list this week. Within a day, someone (lets call ‘em Alice) from a different list I’m on joined that first list, for the sole purpose to rebut my comments. Alice also emailed me privately to explain how she thought my comments were in bad taste, and/or reflected poorly on group A. It turns Alice was ‘tipped off’ to my post by someone else (lets say Bob).

This is a pretty interesting privacy question. Is it socially acceptable to follow join a mailing list solely to rebut someone? In a community with a lot of public mailing list, what is a ‘conversation community A’ vs a ‘conversation in this community B.’ Is a comment in a listserv as public facing as a blog post, or twitter post? And, when anyone can cut and paste things out of context, can one every say anything, without the potential to be mis-interpreted or mis-quoted?

At what point does ‘being polite about a situation’ morph into ‘lying about a situation’? When does trying to protecting a reputation turn into being thought police for/of other’s people’s statements? How much freedom of criticism should one give up when joining a mailing list or a development group?

What do you folks think? If you have an opinion on the topic, I’d love to hear ‘em. Comment away!