Sometimes, participation in the AtomPub Working Group can be awfully tedious. The discussion of some topics just seems to go on and on and on and on... While feeling the pain the other day, and started making a list of ineffective discussion methods that lead to these protracted discussions. I've augmented it with other communication problems I've observed here and there, and will now present it as a tutorial on how to have a protracted discussion without accomplishing anything. For the record, AtomPub does accomplish things. The following is not an accurate description of what happens there. Most of the time.

  1. Make the discussion tedious:
    1. Restate the same things over and over.
    2. Respond individually with the same response to every message sharing a particular point of view.
    3. If you've been out of the conversation for a while, pick up where you left off rather than catching up to where everyone else has gone.
    4. Send a short "me too" message in response to everything with which you agree.
    5. Send a short "not me" message in response to everything with which you disagree.
    6. Send only super-short messages which do not explain your point of view. Send many.
    7. Express an opinion on everything.
    8. Speak longest on issues you understand least.
    9. Write long, wandering tomes often.
  2. Obfuscate consensus:
    1. Don't speak up in support of things you agree with if you don't have details to add to the discussion (or even if you do).
    2. Don't speak up in opposition to things that you disagree if you don't have details to add to the discussion (or even if you do).
    3. Don't speak up in opposition to ideas that are too stupid for words.
    4. Never express an opinion unless you're an expert on the subject and are certain you're correct.
    5. Support your position by citing decisions that have been superceded and opinions that have been abandoned.
    6. Misquote people and misconstrue their opinions in support of yours, especially the people whose opinions are the most respected.
  3. Keep the discussion polarized:
    1. Never conceed anything -- never acknowledge the validity of anyone else's concerns or point of view.
      1. Example:
        • Person A: "I need feature X, so let's adopt it."
        • Person B: "I don't need feature X, so let's not adopt it."
        • Person A: "I need feature X for reasons A, B, and C, so let's adopt it."
        • Person B: "Feature X is useless to me for reasons D, E and F, so let's not adopt it."
        • Person A: "G, H and I are, in detail, the reasons I need feature X. Let's adopt it."
        • Person B: "J, K, and L are, in details, the reasons I find feature X utterly useless, so let's not adopt it."
        • etc.
      2. Example:
        • Person A: "Let's do X."
        • Person B: "Why should we do X?"
        • Person A: "We should do X because of Y."
        • discussion (including a few people supporting reason Y) continues for a little while.
        • Person B: "I still haven't heard a good reason for doing X. Why should we do X?"

        Notice that person B hasn't addressed reason Y -- he dismissed it entirely without comment rather than explaining why he doesn't think it's a good argument.

  4. Avoid understanding by all means possible -- undermine understanding when possible:
    1. Never accept other people's operational definitions of words. Instead, argue against what their statements would have meant if their definitions of the words were different.
    2. Use jargon that various participants in the discussion are unlikely to understand. When possible, choose jargon that people don't understand but think they do.
    3. Never ask questions about things you don't understand.
    4. Never refer to information sources cited by others -- just assume that you know what they say.
    5. Never verify that you understand what someone has said. Take your best guess and run with it. Better yet, take your worst guess and run with it.
  5. Avoid discussing core issues:
    1. Drift completely off topic often.
    2. Propose solutions to all the little problems that are symptoms of bigger problems rather than trying to solve the big problems. Swat at the leaves, don't hack at the roots.
    3. When possible, redirect discussion from issues relevant to the discussion to related issues that are outside the scope of the discussion.
    4. Focus on errors in people's reasoning that are immaterial to the issue at hand.
    5. Focus on people's misuse of words, rather than what they intended to say.
  6. Never document decisions. If you can't avoid it, do it poorly, make it difficult to find, and never refer back to it.
  7. Whenever things get complicated, but progress has been made, suggest throwing everything out and restarting from scratch. Take care only to do this when progress is being made.
  8. Poison the relationships in the group:
    1. Use inflammatory language:
      1. Deride opinions with which you disagree and the people who express them.
      2. Deride anyone who asks questions about things they don't understand.
    2. When someone admits a mistake, rub their face in it -- use it to discount the value of their participation in the discussion.
    3. Never acknowledge your mistakes.
    4. Never apologize for anything.
  9. Resist all efforts to constrain counterproductive activities.
  10. Encourage counterproductive constraints -- make rules which constrain productive discussion.