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Business and Civility

The Atheist

The Grammar Tyrant
The Atheist
Joined
Jul 3, 2006
Messages
36,374
Just before the Business section opened, I made the comment that I expected it to be the most civil of all the forums here. Early posts and discussions bear this out so far.

People in business usually display good etiquette - otherwise they fail miserably - and I really do expect Business to be the forum requiring the lowest rate of moderation.

Given that none of us [should] have any personal agendas to promote, I can't see why it won't be like that. Maybe we could attempt to set a standard for the other forums? Maybe I could try to apply some of the rules I work by to other forums as well - that being a means of cutting incivility by 48.37%.

:bgrin:
 
I spit on your etiquette! Your father was a hamster and your mother smelled of elderberries!

Incivility now up 1.4 %. looks like my investments are safe for now!:p
 
Well, for the most part, business tends to be less personal, more pragmatic. And an awful lot of these discussions would seem boring or pointless to a significant number of people here, I'm sure.

So yeah, we'll still have our outbreaks of incivility, but I would expect this to be one of the easiest forums to moderate overall. (Although it should be noted that one mod action has already been necessary, when a rather pointless post about making commercials to show Jews crying over piles of money would solve the problem of national debt was removed to AAH)
 
I agree with Wolfman. Not many people have ideas on the subject they insist are the only answers and any other answer is a personal criticism.
 
I also think that because in business, unlike sciences, wacky ideas can lead to big successes. This makes business people less likely to be outright dismissive of any ideas outside the norm, a source of many moderation problems in other forums.

(exception: I do expect the occasional thread from doomsayers going on about how the world economy is going to collapse any minute now, we'll all be living in burned out buildings, blah, blah, blah)
 
Well...to be fair...

...if someone came in here and started pitching a "business idea" of selling water that had been "charged with positive energy by singing to it", and asking for advice, or partners, or investors...I rather suspect that at least some of the responses would not be all that "civil" :D
 
Wolfman said:
Well, for the most part, business tends to be less personal, more pragmatic. And an awful lot of these discussions would seem boring or pointless to a significant number of people here, I'm sure.
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Yep, exactly that.

Wolfman said:
(Although it should be noted that one mod action has already been necessary, when a rather pointless post about making commercials to show Jews crying over piles of money would solve the problem of national debt was removed to AAH)
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Yeah, I saw that - surely just a CT poster in the wrong place. Good to see it being disallowed as subject matter; there are sufficient forums for the village idiots to post in, aren't there?

TriangleMan said:
I also think that because in business, unlike sciences, wacky ideas can lead to big successes. This makes business people less likely to be outright dismissive of any ideas outside the norm, a source of many moderation problems in other forums.
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Yeah, anyone remember those guys who wanted to build a better search engine? How are they going to make money out a search engine? :rolleyes:

TriangleMan said:
(exception: I do expect the occasional thread from doomsayers going on about how the world economy is going to collapse any minute now, we'll all be living in burned out buildings, blah, blah, blah)
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Ah, but I think there's a difference with finances. If someone thinks the world's going to end because of Scenario A, B or C, it's pretty straightforward to prove one way or the other. And if it's out and out CT, then it can go to the CT forum.

Some of the smartest minds on Wall St are currently warning of doom - and that's pretty standard, you'd be worried if bulls were unanimous - so it's always a worthwhile topic to discuss. I've never yet met a doomsayer who wasn't able to give reasoning for his predictions. Some of them even turned out to be right. In 1987, there were a very few who publicly warned of the likelihood of a crash. I sure didn't listen to them!

Wolfman said:
Well...to be fair...

...if someone came in here and started pitching a "business idea" of selling water that had been "charged with positive energy by singing to it", and asking for advice, or partners, or investors...I rather suspect that at least some of the responses would not be all that "civil" :D
Click to expand...
 
Wolfman said:
Well...to be fair...

...if someone came in here and started pitching a "business idea" of selling water that had been "charged with positive energy by singing to it", and asking for advice, or partners, or investors...I rather suspect that at least some of the responses would not be all that "civil" :D
Click to expand...

Nah. I look forward to that. At last count I had 4312 Africans who have $US10M+ to invest, so I'll just forward the e mails and they can sort it out together.
 
The thing about civility in business is that, for the most part, it's an email and phone conversation world, nowadays. You don't know the person on the other side very well, and you're only engaging with them for one reason - to get something accomplished for your firms, collectively.

With that in mind, and following the old flies/honey/vinegar axiom, it's fairly rare that you would reduce a discussion to expletives or insults.

"What the **** do you mean 8.88 a dozen, with a minimum order of 700 dozen??!!! Are you smoking crack? Your mama must've spent too much time sleeping with aardvarks if you think I'm buying your worthless **** for that kind of ****ing extortion!"

The good knock-down drag-out fights I get to have are internal. We've got close to 50,000 people worldwide, and they're all classic capitalist middlemen trying to protect their patch of profits. That I can deal with, although it gets a little rancorous sometimes. It's the politicians who erect barriers for the fun of it who I declare open season on!
 
Wolfman said:
Well...to be fair...

...if someone came in here and started pitching a "business idea" of selling water that had been "charged with positive energy by singing to it", and asking for advice, or partners, or investors...I rather suspect that at least some of the responses would not be all that "civil" :D
Click to expand...

Ah but such a venture could, and has, made excellent profits. Posters here would definately question the ethics of selling such products with dubious "characteristics", but the idea itself could not be readily dismissed as worthless in terms of being a viable business. Pet Rocks anyone? Head-On?
 
Reminds me of my first post here people aren't quite so gullible afterall...
How about someone from JREF flood e-bay with fake religious items? Cannot lose. Either
a) Someone from JREF makes a lot of money from <censored> people or
b) People wake up to how stupid religion is and become atheists.
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Some of the other posts in that thread are just as good.

What advice do you give someone who wants to do that sort of thing?
 
In the build-up to establishing this sub-forum we had discussed the possibility that a bunch of spammers would show up with get-rich-quick schemes (see Oakster), but I think this is the perfect place for those folks to show up, rather than the Gen'l Skep/ParaN section.

I'm taking bets that the first who dares to show will get handed his *** on a silver platter.
 
I think part of it might have to do with the fact that there only seem to be about five regular posters in this section so far. We'll see, I suppose.

Solitaire said:
Rename it Business & Economics, then the balance will be restored. :degrin:
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Oh great, then we'd siphon off all the nutty "the Federal Reserve is run by the repitallian Illuminati" threads from Conspiracy Theories.
 
Horatius said:
And good riddence to them! [/TheRestofCTForum]


;)
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Given how 9/11-heavy the CT forum is, I think those threads provide some nice balance.

On the other hand, it would be nice to have a more general economics section, and this would be a logical place for it.
 
Back to the OP

This is not a rule12 attack, I always have found T.A. civil and interesting, but I have a vague idea that some (often themselves incivil) people seem to think that he is not a paragon of civility.

BTW, I see that your sig has vanished T.A. do you need some more rule8-friendly descriptions?

jim
 
jimbob said:
Back to the OP

This is not a rule12 attack, I always have found T.A. civil and interesting, but I have a vague idea that some (often themselves incivil) people seem to think that he is not a paragon of civility.
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Why, thanks! (I do admit to handing it out at times. :bgrin: )

jimbob said:
BTW, I see that your sig has vanished T.A. do you need some more rule8-friendly descriptions?

jim
Click to expand...

;)

You're on it - a couple of them breached the new rules of decency, so I've given them up for now. Have to think of something more interesting to put there. I have an idea or two, so keep watching.
 
It's nothing personal. It's business.

The wonderful thing about business is that cash has a relatively absolute means of determining success or failure. You make money, you stay in business.

Of course, we're talking The Real World (tm) here, not government or civil service.

Beanbag
 
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