[Tango-L] Melina's essay, "rudeness in Tango," Tango-L postings

[Shahrukh Merchant]

Melina Sedo & Detlef Engel <tango at tangodesalon.de> said:
> ... I was quite surprised by  
> the personal attacks and complaints to my DJing article, ...

"Pat Petronio" <petronio at adam.com.au> said:
> It has been very interesting to observe the reactions to Melina's essay on DJing.  

Unfortunately, it became a "tradition" of sorts for flames and put-downs 
to start appearing on Tango-L a few years ago. Seemed harmless at first 
since they were usually accompanied by something useful. More on this in 
a bit, but it was interesting that I happened to see a thread on 
"Rudeness in Tango" from back in 2003. (As I mentioned in a previous 
post, I was working on the archives and decided to start with 2003, and 
since this thread was in early January of the year, it happened to catch 
my eye.)

The phenomenon being addressed in this 2003 thread was more on the dance 
floor than on the list, but the parallels were interesting anyway. Here 
are some excerpts--you can see the whole thread starting at 
http://www.tango-l.com/archives/Tango-L/msg00120.html (and help me debug 
the 2003 digest in the process :-) remembering that the search box on 
the top is not implemented yet).

luda_r1 <luda_r1 @YAHOO.COM>:
> Subject: [TANGO-L] Tango and rudeness
> Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 08:57:28 -0800

> I have been told by some of my friends, and have
> experienced it first hand, that tango seems to attract
> some of the rudest people in the world. I have NEVER
> run into such rude behavior in any other social
> situation. Why is it that the tango scene tolerates
> it?

Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG> in a related thread:
> Subject: [TANGO-L] Tango and friendliness
> Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2003 12:26:59 -0600

> In traveling and dancing tango, Susan and I have been given very warm
> welcomes by the tango communities in most cities we have visited.  We have
> found tango dancers worldwide to be enthusiastic about meeting and
> greeting tango dancers that happen to be traveling.  We have been hugged
> with friendliness by strangers, picked up at our hotel and driven to tango
> parties, taken to dinner, and been invited to stay in the homes of tango
> dancers.  I cannot think of greater friendliness.  (I like to think that
> we are similarly friendly in Texas.)
> 
> Yes, we have also encountered occasional rudeness at milongas in our own
> city and in others, but when one compares the little rudeness we have
> encountered with the genuine open hearts and friendliness of the people we
> have met through tango, it seems as though the glass is well more than
> half full.

I'd like to believe the latter view as well, and the optimist in me will 
in fact do so. There's no question that things have changed in the 5 
years since these posts were written. As Tango has grown, and as the 
communities have become larger with more of them (which is a good 
thing), some "global community intimacy" has died naturally along with 
it. Everyone in Tango no longer knows (almost) everyone else in Tango, 
but it is still true that other than in a handful of large Tango cities, 
a Tango dance traveller will still be recognized (and usually welcomed) 
as a stranger. This cannot be said of salsa and swing communities (which 
yes, may be friendlier in some senses as claimed in other posts in the 
aforementioned thread, but lack that global community sense).

Returning to the subject of Tango-L, the unchecked rudeness on Tango-L 
basically led to a phenomenon where many of the civil majority either 
stopped posting (many unsubscribed during the peak of this phenomenon), 
because naturally they didn't like being attacked personally, or watered 
down their postings to the point that there was nothing that could be 
disagreed with, which of course made the posts less interesting.

This left the rude people dishing out and exchanging insults, and good 
posts by the thicker-skinned people, who were willing to put up with 
them (or able to ignore them). But this unfortunately still deprived the 
list members of good commentary by those who were turned off by the 
flames or reluctant to post because of them. Even "newbie" questions by 
beginning dancers (which may have been asked and answered a dozen times 
before) often leads to good followups and discussion that was catalyzed 
by a seemingly innocuous or even mundane question, and newcomers should 
be the ones who are made to feel the most welcomed, and not driven away 
by intimidation or rudeness.

So several months ago, I started enforcing the "no flames" rules. Most 
of the small handful of those responsible adjusted willingly (mostly 
they just wanted to be able to "respond in kind" and if there was no 
flame to respond to in like vein, they were able to stay on topic). A 
few (an insignificant percentage of the list membership) did not and may 
choose not to contribute to the list any more if they cannot do so on 
their terms, but the damage they were doing outweighed their occasional 
contributions.

So while I cannot promise that the list is 100% "flame"-safe, I would 
encourage those who have been reluctant to post in the past for this 
reason to go ahead and do so now if you wish, as such disruptive 
behaviour IS being acted upon more actively now. Certainly, you should 
not expect that your opinions will not be disagreed with--they almost 
certainly WILL be by someone (and SHOULD be, as that's what usually 
leads to interesting discourse), but you should expect this disagreement 
to be on your *opinion* and not spill over into "ad hominem" attacks on 
you (or your intelligence or personality or dance ability or whatever).

I'll end with another "2003 quote" from Luda (who was quoted earlier):

> If tango is supposed to be a metaphor for life, as
> some people believe, then it would explain some of
> this weird behavior. Maybe. If you're a nice person in
> real life, it will show up in tango. And if you're an
> SOB in real life, that will show up in tango, too.

Tangazos,

Shahrukh