Maybe Improving My Odds

Saleh Abdel Motaal
Draft · 8 min read

In response to feedback on “Towards Open Source” I will try to slowly work on this pitch, from my own experience. Knowing they are not justifiable or relatable to everyone, and seeking only to some semblance of their more practical resolution that would.


Disclaimer

I give my own example, not just to try to push for my own needs, which I certainly would like to see resolved. But more importantly I want to inspire more such accounts, raised in appropriate venues, and more of those appropriate venues, where they would materialize, into more inclusive dynamics of peer collaboration and communication.

Those accounts are “winging” things… they are casual… they lack certain framing for some who will read it. And while there are experts out there on respective theory, those are accounts by experts on the realities. And, those realities seem to be get lost in the body of the existing theory, due to lag and disagreements. So here goes.


Miscommunicator, the Person

Before we can make sense of it all, let’s take a second and consider a concept of a “miscommunicator” — and the squiggly lines that come when typing this word means it is yet to be defined.

Over the past two decades, people like me have experienced this term come to life with the rapidly growing new mediums. So as social and collaboration mediums continue to divert attention away from traditional in-person venues, people like myself, who have a less conventional style are finding it and more more difficult to engage. Because of the rapid pace and vast differences of this new space, all the wisdom from more traditional times hardly carry over, and that seems to leave many feeling “out of scope”.

Someone with ASD finding it hard to find a venue where they remain socially engaged can leave them regressing, until they are able to engage sufficiently long enough to flex those hard-to-retain skills and be more attuned. This concept of transitioning over time is characteristic to many who are ASD, many who might not know they are, and many who might not be ASD at all.

To everyone else, a successfully transitioning person makes two impressions, “regressed” (out-of-sync) and “attuned” (in-sync). However, for folks who are caught in limbo, others will only be (un)impressed with aspects of a regressed nature. They have no clue what to expect. That someone can and would have a different side once they are more attuned. And time alone will not cut it!

Yes, miscommunicators will always communicate differently. But they are effective once attuned. And this is not just because they progress towards a more attuned rhythm of the venue. But also because everyone in such a readily accessible venue also progresses to a more inclusive understanding of peer-to-peer communication, of an appropriate rhythm of harmony.

Such dynamics of peer communication are completely lost with sad excuses people, like “it is on the messenger to rely the message” (not a messenger! “peers”) or “we’re not equipped” (where to even begin!).

Those being design-by-crowd mediums, for communities aspiring for more accessibility and inclusion, of peers. As such, they cannot take a narrow view on the needs of those who are “not able to fit” the more popular preferences and conventions .

If you ever visited such a community, where conventions and preferences are geared not to those who see, or those who hear, or those who are anything but what we take for granted on average… the difference is that those are exclusive communities, not mainstream, but their members are still in the mainstream.

How can new mediums claim to be accessible if they are not considering to incorporate bandwidth for people who struggle to transition (ASD folks) to safely be able to do so.

To safely be able to raise necessary awareness. For others to be caught up enough to appreciate that it is not asking people to accommodate outsiders, and not at their discretionary expense.

Rather to accept that certain conventions of mainstream preference are nothing more than a convenience of a design process skewed with unintended systematic selection, not a privilege. Things some won’t want changed. Sparse landscapes of good and not so much reasons to be addressed. And so, to safely navigate assumptions and fears, as a community.

Yes, it is not your fault… not personally. It is also not the fault of others. And it is not your right to deny the right of others on account of conventions of preference “working fine” until they did not, for some. Is it fair to say, we need to become attuned to those realities.


NOTE: The following is still being considered.


1. Rhythm

This section will address important aspects like pace (to avert misplaced burnout) and continuity (to avert misplaced spinout). It will also talk about collective rhythm being the way to control those effects.

What comes to mind about pace, is that often a miscommunicator will realize they are misarticulating under the pressures of time boxing. And so, they will sometimes send wrong signals as they rush to pace, or they will try to make edits.

Those are all compromises they are making to try to adhere to the preferred pace they are forced to try to align to. And if those are not effective, they are merely failing in working twice as hard as everyone else not becoming aware of this taking place.

Remember that time restrictions are a preference, not a right, and you are certainly not accomodating a preference by respecting “the right” to be of a different pace.

When threads grow stale, repetitive or otherwise saturated, it often helps to step away, but without clarity of intent or time frame, it is hard for others to know when to close the loop. Closing the loop without someone in the initial thread is the kind of behaviour that should never be tolerated! And so it seems important to remind folks, that if you are not interested in certain others not being part of the conversation, that is actually not something you can assert without collective and open vote to exclude, so this kind of sad tactic is nothing more than shameless violation of code of conduct (in open source venues).

But making the assumption that some did not come back when the rest did is a fault of them is equally as bad.

Remember that assumptions based on automatic notifications are not the same thing as intentional visibility, and you are certainly mandated to be intentionally visible in your continuity spans to respect “the right” to be on a different continuum.

Improving the ways for managing the collective rhythm would involve finding balance and fair compromise for pace and continuity.

This comes with making everyone aware of how to respect it. It also requires certain improvements in the tools used to make them more suitable for those who struggle. And not least, it takes leadership to sometimes intervene, and do so without prejudice.

Aside: When “unexpressed” exclusion is sought. They can call for open vote for “exclusion” if this can ever be the justified course of action. Otherwise they must be ready to hold to account any code-of-conduct violators. But at the very least they should not indulge them. They should not be clueless and ignorant of the damage they can cause if they use private communications as means to imply or explicitly request self-exclusion of an at-odds peer— it happens — it is not okay — folks being forced to feel out of scope and afraid to express that kind of behaviour taking place, that is a bigger issue than would be possible to have addressed here.


2. Articulation

This section will address important aspects like clarification (to avert misplaced resentment) and cues (to avert misplaced frustration). It will also talk about collective articulation being the way to control those effects

What comes to mind about clarification, is that often a miscommunicator will realize they are struggling to find the right word, and more so that they are not able to catch on to opinionated terms of preference used by others.

Remember that all unclarity can only sometimes be resolved through assumption, and asking for clarity is the due right to avoid making wrong assumptions. That anyone impatient to respect that is out of place to feel resentment towards those who seek it. That anyone feeling resentment towards an unclarified opinion based on assumption is also equally out of place.

When discussions outgrow the limited bandwidth of the medium, it is important to find a more appropriate medium where members are able to benefit from missing cues (like non-verbal ones). When discussions take place out-of-band, those are cues in themselves. When they exclude certain members, those are cues that are aggressive towards those excluded, and violation of code of conduct.

Remember that all cues are usually perceived from at least two vantage point, but in reality, they can often only be considered from just one. Not being aware of unintended cues does not negate the fact that they are perceived to others, and frustration due to cues is the natural outcome of such miscommunication.

Improving the ways for managing the collective articulation would involve finding balance and fair compromise for clarification and cues.

This also comes with making everyone aware of how to respect it. It also requires certain improvements in the tools used to make them more suitable for those who struggle. And not least, it takes leadership to sometimes intervene, and do so without prejudice.

Aside: A tool that can help with collective articulation would be a terminology document for technical concepts, when appropriate, but it is a collective responsibility to make those relevant enough to pay off.


3. Framing

This section will address important aspects like asymmetry (to avert misplaced coercion) and collective sufficiency (to avert misplaced expectations). It will also talk about collective reframing being the way to control those effects.

What comes to mind about asymmetry, is that often a miscommunicator will realize their intent being paraphrased by others in ways that are not aligned, and they will either insist to try to correct, or resign to it being more like a gap that cannot be conveyed. And that is not the same as closing the gap.

Remember that closing gaps is the responsibility of all parties involved, and thinking “…” on what someone is trying hard to convey is indication that the communication is failing to take place, not that the coercion of “…” somehow magically gives you privilege to think you have done your part, and instead you need to find ways to address such asymmetries in order to succeed.

Coercion forms when gaps are only considered from one end of the conversation. It often feels like a humoring act of pity by those who sadly think their loud or authoritative voice makes them or their views somehow superior, and not that they somehow fail to do their part in closing gaps, that they could in fact be, not inferior, but at least ignorant to their unattuned nature to receive what is meant to be conveyed.

When closing the gaps proves to be limiting, it is appropriate to mutual recognize the sufficient distance to be travelled in closing them. That certain aspects will always have asymmetries, that cannot be discounted by coercion, or completely closed for all parties, but resolved through collective sufficiency.

Remember that parties not able to frame things from a more common point of reference will need to rely on the benefit of those who do in order to get there. And that without it they might approximate, but only after futile effort. Hence, the need for collective sufficiency to do the necessary effort, and to do away with the irrational expectations and biases.

That it is at the very least inhuman to simply consider it “their burden” to somehow figure out. And quite delusional to consider collective effort as the “burden” resulting from the mistake of their inclusion.

Improving the ways for managing the collective reframing would involve finding balance and fair compromise for asymmetry and collective sufficiency.

This also comes with making everyone aware of how to respect it. It also requires certain improvements in the tools used to make them more suitable for those who struggle. And not least, it takes leadership to sometimes intervene, and do so without prejudice.

Aside: Collective reframing…