On Sunday 09 August 2009 00:50:16 Marko A. Jennings wrote:
> Your statement implies that people that have not contributed to a certain
> goal cannot possibly have a good suggestion.
Of course, this is a very common and useful line of reasoning in human
society. Put shortly, it increases signal-to-noise ratio.
Being a theoretical physicist, I can confirm that I will flat-out refuse to
listen to any idea or suggestion (regarding physics) from a person who doesn't
at least hold a PhD degree in the area. I expect to find constructive/useful
suggestions only from peers, simply because amateur thinking is just too naive
or irrelevant. My typical response is on the lines of "go learn first, come and
suggest after".
If I were a chess master, I would never listen to advice from a person who
played (and won) less than (at least) 500 chess games, against appreciative
opponents.
If I were attorney defending a man charged for murder, I would be the one to
give suggestions what to do, not the other way around.
If I were a doctor, I would be the one prescribing the therapy to my patient,
and would refuse to listen to his ideas about what therapy he needs.
If I were a CentOS developer, I would accept suggestions only from a person
who proved to be almost equal in skill, has a similar point of view regarding
my project and can thus be trusted.
If I were an expert in any area of life, I would simply refuse to listen to
non-experts regarding the topic of my expertize. It keeps noise low and signal
high. Human society functions very well when upholding to this behavior.
Besides, an amateur giving suggestions to an expert is usually considered
foolish at best, or rude in worse cases, even by third parties.
> Following that line of
> thought, we should all shut up and let our respective governments do
> whatever they please because most of us have not been public servants.
If the governments were made of experts, than yes, we should.
Unfortunately, governments are typically not made of experts, but of
opportunists. Name one president of <insert your favorite political entity
here> that has been elected because he has a PhD in political
sciences/history/law/whatever, or because he had enough hands-on experience in
governing the state (maybe without a formal degree). Even if one such exists,
I doubt he would listen to whatever random non-initiated group of people are
"suggesting".
Also, people who are involved in politics are usually given power because they
are well advertized by their political parties, not because they have proper
expertize in governing the state.
> And even if the suggestion (or criticism, as lots of suggestions have been
> labeled as of lately) is not valid, there are kinder and more polite ways
> of responding to them than those we have experienced in this thread.
Suppose an amateur gives a suggestion to an expert. This is how it typically
rolls out:
First of all, if the amateur hopes to be listened to, he needs to give a
suggestion in a way that is *humble enough*, typically in a form of a question
("please tell me why <whatever> is not feasible thing to do? Or is it?"),
demonstrating his faith in expert's authority and superior knowledge on the
subject. Criticism is completely out of question --- the amateur has not
demonstrated enough competence to be considered a worthy critic (he wouldn't
be an amateur in that case).
The expert usually kindly answers that <whatever> is not feasible for <this>
or <that> reason. The amateur can be happy or sad about it, but he should
appreciate the authoritative answer and leave it at that.
But if the amateur pushes the suggestion again, usually in a form that looks
more like a critique, or whines because his suggestion/wish was not
acknowledged, the most polite thing an expert will generally do is to ignore
him. Silence is a polite way of saying "your suggestion is not good enough,
give up and go away".
If the amateur keeps insisting that he has a point and keeps building pressure
on the expert, the expert will get annoyed enough and eventually respond in a
way that gets increasingly rude ("Demonstrate that you have competence before
you insist that I listen to you.", "Who are you to play smart with me here,
you low life form?" and such).
And the expert has a good point here, because the amateur was being quite rude
by pushing his suggestion beyond any good measure, after being given a polite
NAK.
All in all, the developers are not required to even listen to "community
suggestions", let alone obey them. They know *their* job better than the rest
of us (non-developers) know *their* job. Unless you can prove yourself to be a
peer developer (a process which takes a lot of time, effort, expertize,
humility and good relations with other developers), you have no business
giving suggestions and expecting to be listened to. Meritocracy is not
democracy. You can ask questions, and be thankful when/if you are given an
answer from a developer. If you don't like the answer, it's your problem. If
you insist, you are being rude, expect a rude response.
Btw, I completely support the dev's general point of view in this thread (on
the infrastructure&contributions subject), not only because of their
authority, but also because I believe I understand *why* they have such pov.
HTH, :-)
Marko