On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 7:09 PM, Phlip <[email protected]> wrote: > > Stephen Eley wrote: >> Am I wrong? > > Thanks for reminding us that the user-programmer is the one who's supposed to > be > opinionated around here. (Almost as opinionated as their client!;)
I think you took the wrong moral from my message. Everyone has an intrinsic right to an opinion. You, me, core committers, my boss, your pet iguana, whomever. There isn't any group that's "supposed to be" opinionated to the exclusion of anyone else. Getting other people to *care* about your opinion is a different story and a greater challenge. You do not have an intrinsic right to others' respect for your opinions. That has to be earned. I think you're missing a few clues on that front, Philp, so I'm dragging in my soapbox. If we were all Vulcans, the only relevant factor in earning respect for our opinions would be the merit of the opinion itself. Opinions well-grounded in facts and subject to empirical confirmation would be respected; groundless or untestable opinions would not be. We are not Vulcans, however, and respect for opinions is subject to human social dynamics. Within human communities, there are three key factors weighting the perceived value of another's opinion: 1.) the merit of the opinion itself; 2.) the finesse with which the opinion is presented; and 3.) the reputation of the person presenting it. Different people weight these factors differently, and each of the factors -- "merit," "finesse" and "reputation" -- is itself subject to a lot of opinion, but they're almost always there. Within this context, Philp, you are running a serious deficit on respect for your opinions. The reason for this is a failure on two-and-a-half factors. I personally think some of your opinions do have merit; there *are* holes in Merb's testing, a lot of the documentation truly is lacking, the dependency structure isn't always clear, and it could be made a lot easier for newbies unversed in Ruby and Rails to get up to speed. Pointing this out is not a bad thing. However, other opinions of yours don't have merit, and appear to be based on a tendency to post to the list before confirming things for yourself. This failure to filter for merit on your own end makes it inefficient for others to consider any of your opinions, when they could spend their time on the opinions of others who try to figure things out a bit more before they post. More serious is your style. Its negativity and lack of finesse. To drop *my* finess for a moment, you come off as a total ass in the way you complain about things. Asking questions is one thing. "Please help me understand why this works this way" can lead to some great discussion. But every post of yours frames your attempt to further understanding as "This behavior is WRONG" or "This decision makes no sense" or "Why the hell do things work this way?" A lot of people are being very generous with their time and attempting to explain why it *isn't* wrong or what the reasoning was behind a particular feature. You're getting a lot of help here. You've shown little appreciation for it, but you're getting it. You'd get even more if you were more respectful. Or pretended to be. Finally, you have no reputation. Nobody knows who you are. That's no crime (nobody knows who I am either here) but if you're going to buck the system and tell everybody that things are wrong, it really helps to have some backing that you know what you're talking about. The good news is that technical communities tend to be meritocracies. Reputation can be earned fairly quickly by contributing. The next time you identify a gap in testing, if instead of saying "Someone needs to fix this" you said, "I'd like to learn how to fill this gap -- can someone help me out with some questions?" you'd probably earn some respect for your willingness alone. I have no idea if any of this is sinking in. I have no idea if you care. But it was on *my* mind. And although I'm just starting out with my Ruby-based technical contributions, I've been a social observer and a smartass for a while now, and I try to use that power for good. So here I am. Contributing. Maybe someone else will get some insight or some laughs out of it if you don't. Best of luck with all your projects and your learning. -- Have Fun, Steve Eley ([email protected]) ESCAPE POD - The Science Fiction Podcast Magazine http://www.escapepod.org --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "merb" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/merb?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
