people and their ideas

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Having read the comments by Eve Pinsker and others on aggression in
professional relationships, I'd like to make a suggestion as to how we
could avoid flame wars on anthro-l. I feel that one of the reasons
discussions sometimes get so nasty is because we know so little about
one another *as people* that we often forget that there *are* people
behind the messages. For example I only just discovered that
Christopher Pound is also a 'computer person', and Stephanie Nelson
mistook me for a tenured academic.

My sugestion is that the 20 or 30 regular contributors to the list
write a short description (say <100 words) of themselves, and that these
descriptions be collated and mailed once a month (or however often
seems appropriate) to the list. I'm happy to compile such a file if
people want to mail me their life stories (or just post them to the list).

I don't mean for people to produce a list of their research interests.
I was thinking of a more personal description, perhaps even with a few
bits of complete trivia - something to help us understand that there is
a person behind all those words! (I don't know about the rest of you,
but I would find it hard to say anything personally nasty about someone
who I knew kept an extensive collection of tropical fish, or who had an
uncontrollable fondness for chocolate, however poorly I thought of
their ideas.)

Danny Yee.

Born 1969. Eurasian (father 2nd generation Chinese), but socialised as
'Australian' (whatever that means) and technically Jewish (mother's
mother's mother was a practising Jew)! Makes a bare living as a
part-time computer network administrator; devotes the rest of his time
to a wide range of subjects of which anthropology is only the most
prominent. Would like to do a PhD in anthropology one day. Writes
book reviews and would like work as a freelance copy-editor. Likes
cats and climbing mountains.

[ This is just my offering - don't feel constrained to use it as a model! ]

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