Talk:Study says people don't understand the emotional tone of emails, but think they do

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The tone of this article doesn't seem neutral enough! hehe! Netscott 20:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting article. However, i think it could be even better, if we can find some results of studies which compare peoples communication-skills in *real life*. I suspect that the "e-mail problem" is not really because of the medium - instead, the medium just makes fundamental flaws in the communication-skills of people really obvious. For example, according to my experience, most people are unable to express their feelings directly and unambigiously - and just as many peolpe are unable to directly understand what someone else is saying - instead, they try to interprete it. So, even in real-life there is constant guess-work going on. E-Mails just make those flaws really visible.--82.141.51.151 15:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I hope adding the previous research on tapping out song rhythyms is helpful. -- Avenue 22:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

this shouldn't be the featured article[edit]

This is a boring topic based on research whose method I can't check (but I bet was not very scientific, or bore little relation to real life). Bill3 22:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Besides of your valid concerns regarding verification of the method, are you saying that "the majority of online talk being guesswork" is uninteresting? Could it be that you're missing the implication of the story?--82.141.51.70 00:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is not a feutured article (or Candadite)! Yes I know that the third lead is called feutred story, but theres a difference. Bawolff ☺☻ 00:29, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There was a reasonable description of the methodology in the Monitor source given. And while what's boring is subjective, I note that two days later the featured story was Hotel development proposal could displace Buffalo, NY business owners, which is probably of limited interest outside of Buffalo. -- Avenue 22:39, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Which it will soon not be as this is going to cause a lot of rumbling about Imminent Domain, which has the ability to affect anyone. Jason Safoutin 22:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that an example of the U.S. controversies about w:eminent domain would have wider interest. However, the article says that the only owner affected has reportedly signed a contract with the developer, so I don't see how eminent domain would apply in this case. (This is getting off-topic - I'll comment on the Buffalo article talk page so we can add to the discussion there.) -- Avenue 22:43, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Quote: 'People only ascertain the intended tone on an e-mail message about 56% of the time, not much better than chance' This would be 'not much better than chance' if people had a choice of only 2 possible tones to chose from, which may have been the case in the study, but this is not said. If people had a wider range of possible tones to interpret the email as then this number is would be much higher than guesswork alone and the conclusion would be misleading. Liam 195.7.54.2 15:36, 15 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The APA Monitor article listed in the sources gives more details of the study's methodology, and states that participants were asked to use "either a sarcastic or serious tone", i.e. only two possible tones were used. It isn't entirely clear from this article whether the guessers were aware that only two tones were available. The original paper on the study might clarify this, if you're willing to pay the $11.95 they want for access. Anyway, I judged that this level of detail wasn't necessary for what I saw as a fairly lighthearted article. Feel free to change it if you feel differently. -- Avenue 22:45, 17 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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