[HN Gopher] Commenting vs. Making
___________________________________________________________________
Commenting vs. Making
Author : tosh
Score : 239 points
Date : 2021-02-21 18:11 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chiefofstuff.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chiefofstuff.substack.com)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've always valued making over "commenting," but that's in the
| way that it was written in that piece.
|
| I worked for a Japanese company, and one of the classic Japanese
| aphorisms was _" Don't complain, unless you have a solution."_
|
| Sounds good, huh?
|
| Until you start to see some of the "solutions" proposed by folks
| bereft of Clue. As the representative "maker," I was expected to
| become a wizard, and magick a whole bunch of miracles on the
| spot. Since there were often "Make it so, Numbah One" types in
| the audience, I was sometimes directed to "make it so," even if
| the laws of physics said otherwise.
|
| Luckily, the Japanese managers were generally engineers, and knew
| the issues, but not so, the Americans.
|
| Sometimes, a complaint is quite valid; especially if you are a
| stakeholder. It can also be extremely valuable to makers. I often
| say that kudos feel great, but negative feedback is required to
| improve. A steady diet of negativity stinks, but nothing changes,
| if no one is aware of the problem. Challenging people to "shut up
| until you come up with a solution," when they want to tell you
| that the system is returning wrong data, is a very, _very_ bad
| idea. I wonder if any Citibank employees had complained about
| that transfer screen, and were told to "shut up, unless you have
| a better idea"?
|
| Speaking of commenting, I've found that a great way to get
| correct information, is to confidently state some incorrect
| information in technical forums.
|
| I get set right, PDQ. ;)
| eivarv wrote:
| While it is harder to make than to comment, the sort of attitude
| that leads to environments where one can't "criticize without
| having an alternative" is _unbelievably_ counterproductive.
| renewiltord wrote:
| For me, it's actually pretty obvious who is whom. When there was
| that disease model that was flawed, everyone on HN remarked on
| how it was awful. John Carmack just contributed.
|
| Talkers always think they're contributing, because they usually
| upvote each other. It's therefore easy to think you're a doer
| when you see the upvotes roll in.
|
| It took me years but "talk is cheap, show me the code" is more
| true now than ever before. GitHub even has a "suggestion"
| feature.
| IshKebab wrote:
| I don't think that's a particularly good example. People were
| rightly highlighting how terrible the code quality was, and
| therefore that there was a pretty large chance that there was a
| fatal mistake in it (and it's really difficult to verify
| predictive models).
|
| I think this guy is more talking about "you shouldn't have used
| Electron" type comments.
| toto444 wrote:
| Are you talking about the COVID simulation ?
| idlewords wrote:
| This is typical of a certain kind of whininess in the "maker"
| contingent that is unappealing. Yes, people will criticize you,
| after all the hard work you did, and yes, people may not
| understand the exact context of your decisions.
|
| But that doesn't meant that you're not a bonehead, or that the
| hundreds of people pointing the fact out to you are wrong. The
| good Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has made just as many
| industrious fools as lazy ones.
|
| No special virtue attaches to doing something rather than
| critiquing it. Both can be done with thought and care, or without
| it, and that's the axis we should judge on.
| suketk wrote:
| Another way to distinguish them is reality vs perception. Making
| directly alters reality, but comments only alter perception - the
| underlying thing is unchanged. A good analogy is that comments
| are potential energy - they can help us more accurately
| understand the underlying thing for future revisions. To activate
| it and truly make things better in the real world though, you
| have to make.
|
| Funny timing, I just published a post about this today:
| https://suketk.com/thought-space-vs-reality.
| Traster wrote:
| Other people have talked about skin in the game or whether you're
| ignoring valid criticism. I think the thing that's been bothering
| me recently is the asymmetry of some 'commenters'. My job is
| hard, we're under water in terms of critical things to do vs
| people who can do them. Which is a point at which someone who has
| no expertise coming in and going "oh well what about this"
| becomes toxic. It is incredibly frustrating to have to explain to
| a dilletante the 20 different things going into a decision and
| eventually bring them to the same conclusion you already made
| because it's actually your job.
|
| That's not every situation - some times people really do have
| experience and know better or have tips or suggestions. The
| likelihood is though- if it's my job, I've probably spent more
| time thinking about it than the person just coming in.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| I just started reading, then it suddenly ended. Guess i should
| provide a rewrite rather than to comment.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Many HN commenters (and me) should feel convicted by this post.
| True words. Good words.
| fortyrod wrote:
| A group of high-performers draws non-maker hangers-on like moths
| to a flame. I would tell them that "Around here, the squeaky
| wheel greases itself." You have to be careful about using this on
| the A-listers though. They'll divert from whatever they were
| doing and de-squeak the wheel PDQ, which may not have been what
| you were hoping for.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Having been the one complaining instead of swallowing the
| bullshit that is my pride and starting amends, I apologize. I
| just try to remain cognizant of it at all times when working with
| others.
|
| Also, as someone "making" completely on my own for the first
| time, hot damn is it so. much. work. I love doing it though, but
| it's not at all for the faint of heart or the quick to lose
| attention.
| blabitty wrote:
| This seems to be the norm on software teams these days. For every
| one hands on keyboard maker there is at least one architect,
| security analyst, agile coach, tester etc. In reality it is one
| person doing the work and 10 commenting on it.
| loriverkutya wrote:
| Yeah, I would also prefer if the developer would do the testing
| (or just create an automated test suite so we can be confident
| when we deploy the code), do the penetration testing and also
| create the full network, db and CI and CD infrastructure, not
| to mention the disaster recovery and budgeting for the project
| your are working on. Ahh and yes, ship all those features.
| blabitty wrote:
| I consider the roles you mention hands on fwiw. I'm talking
| about the self sustaining paperwork roles that once they
| reach a critical percentage of a project start creating their
| own "gravity". I'm not a feature Dev.
| jcims wrote:
| The fact that someone is willing to cover the salaries of all
| of those hangers-on (of which i am one) indicates that, despite
| all of the friction and frustration they create, there might be
| value in what they do.
|
| The challenge is for the hangers-on to become waymakers and
| facilitators, to develop some empathy for the folks that are
| trying to actually innovate and iterate within the confines
| they have created.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I tried to fix something at my work once, it was a small bug but
| any bugs in a large system take time. When I fixed the bug and
| submitted it, I was scolded for working outside of my sprint
| task. I tried to defend myself that it was time-sensitive, but it
| didn't help.
|
| So now I don't "make", I only comment.
| w_for_wumbo wrote:
| I understand how being scolded for doing the right thing would
| have felt, but I'd encourage you to find ways to influence the
| culture of allowing these types of development, instead of
| swapping to become an ally of those who scolded you in the
| first place.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| I'd consider doing something outside of sprint again like
| looking around for job offers.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| That's a bummer. I'm always doing work outside my
| sprint/scope/team, probably as much as 20-40% of my time-- my
| company has no issue with it, and I think it's especially
| valuable for building cross-team empathy, technical
| understanding, and so on.
|
| Now, I'm quite senior at my org and I also have a track record
| of my "side bets" turning out to be tremendously valuable on
| multiple past occasions. But I don't think there's a special
| policy just for me-- this is a company-wide culture thing.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Did you finish your sprint task successfully and on time? If
| so, ask the scolder why they are complaining about you doing
| more than required?
| JackFr wrote:
| Unsolicited "you should's" are typically very low value.
| rwoerz wrote:
| Or "someone should", a.k.a. the grammatical mood called
| "delegative".
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Innate recognition that delegative statements cost nothing
| might be the aversion to middle managers (so often anyway)?
| notacoward wrote:
| I think it's more important that comments be specific,
| actionable, and timely than it is that they be associated with
| some commitment from the commenter. "Let me know how I can help"
| is not bad because it lacks commitment. It's bad because it's not
| specific. It puts the burden on the person receiving it to fill
| in the blanks. Similarly, "have you thought of X" is often (not
| always) bad because it's not actionable and/or timely. It might
| be literally impossible. It might be infeasible in light of
| available resources. It might have been a good idea before the
| last five choices were made, or it might just have too little
| effect too late to do any good. But none of this has anything to
| do with whether the person offering the comment has any skin in
| the game.
|
| I've been helped immensely by people around me who have given me
| their own ideas, or others' ideas wrapped up in a paper, which I
| could then apply myself immediately and to good effect. I like to
| think I've done the same for others a time or two. That's not
| "making" but it's still genuinely helpful.
| ddoeth wrote:
| I'm more of a maker myself and I hate that there are some things
| that I can't just do but that need to be decided by someone else
| (which in my company is usually taking forever)
| qchris wrote:
| In case anyone misses the comment by "MicaiahC" at the bottom of
| the page (not mine, but I clicked their link and found it very
| interesting), the ethics interpretation that is referenced in
| footnote 4 is the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics, with a
| really interesting explanation here [1].
|
| It seems to primarily have arisen as a parable of the observer
| effect in quantum physics, where interacting with a particle (or
| a problem) changes it, and therefore makes the observer partially
| responsible for the nature of thing past that point.
|
| [1] https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-
| eth...
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Thank you for resharing this - this post puts clear words to a
| feeling I've felt for a long time. I'm in agreement with the
| author that noticing bad things does not make you bad unless
| you can solve the problem in totality. In fact, following that
| line of reasoning leads to a lot of what I consider "immorality
| dressed up as morality" today.
| soheil wrote:
| This assumes there is always a problem to be solved. Commenting
| can also be a way to synthesize thoughts into more concrete and
| actionable thoughts.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| ...missing point - multiply comment by the weight of the
| commenter. Weight may be respect (personal, community, based on
| their history/work/karma ie. on github/whatever).
| karmakaze wrote:
| I prefer to evaluate comments on inherent merit. If I get a
| "I'm concerned bought _" I'll follow up with why/where? If it's
| a feeling they can't detail in any way I might do the x weight
| or if I agree and investigate a bit to see if it warrants
| anything more.
| sxp wrote:
| Roosevelt's Man in the Area quote sums this up well.
|
| > "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
| how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
| have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is
| actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
| blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and
| again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;
| but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
| enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy
| cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
| achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails
| while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
| cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
|
| It's also a useful metric for deciding who to follow on social
| media. Is the person showing off their work or are they just
| commenting on the work of others? If the work/comment ratio drops
| too low, I stop following them.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| > Is the person showing off their work or are they just
| commenting on the work of others?
|
| You are being reductionist. Comments don't have to be negative,
| they can be positive - I.e just pointing out "new good stuff"
| and this allows one to discover content faster. The content
| here is the speed of distribution of new "worthy".
|
| It's what negative reinforcement vs positive reinforcement is.
| lukeasrodgers wrote:
| I like this Roosevelt quote, and Brene Brown gets a lot of
| mileage from it, but it always struck as me as a veering a
| little too close (for my comfort) to a possible rationalization
| of why it was okay for me to fuck a bunch of stuff up and maybe
| stomp over a few cold and timid souls because at least I was
| _doing_ things.
|
| I would say "the credit belongs to the person actually in the
| arena, who is also able to step outside the arena and consider
| their failures from an outsider's point of view" but that is
| obviously not very catchy.
|
| Hannah Arendt has a bunch of interesting things to say on the
| actor/spectator tension, though I am unable to currently find a
| better reference than
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Roosevelt's Man in the Area quote sums this up well._
|
| Roosevelt said, wrote, and did a lot of important and poignant
| things. I'm particularly fond of his speech about how we must
| stop being hyphenated Americans, and be just Americans. (He was
| railing against how the nation was balkanizing into "Italian-
| Americans" and "German-Americans" and "Irish-Americans.")
|
| Sadly, he wasn't perfect. And modern-day internet revisionists
| who understand neither history, nor context, and expect
| perfection are rapidly erasing him, his words, and his deeds
| from history.
| redisman wrote:
| Is there a good book on Theodore Roosevelt anyone can
| recommend? He seems like the kind of man and leader that has
| completely disappeared in this century
| throwaway8581 wrote:
| Great men with great passions are rarely the ultra-careful,
| calculating people that are allowed to succeed today. Teddy
| Roosevelt was smart and brave but also brash and crude. He
| LIVED, in the way Nietzsche would approve of. People like him
| would today be shunned/passed-over/cancelled for something
| they said, some joke they made, some unconventional opinion
| they dared utter, if they ever got close to power. One major
| leader captured some of that energy lately, though he lacked
| Teddy's intelligence and confidence, and his people rejected
| him for it. We live in a different time. Teddy's traits would
| be called toxic masculinity.
| redisman wrote:
| It's very interesting. No one seems to actually like
| politicians these days. I'm not sure if someone who was
| truly brave and principled would be shunned by the general
| population. Elites - of course they would shun any
| challenger. Trump is not a good comparison as he had none
| of Teddys positive traits.
| gsu2 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Theodore_Roosevelt
| anm89 wrote:
| I've got at best mixed feelings about Nassim Taleb but his
| thoughts on "skin in the game" which I believe is exactly the
| same concept as what is being discussed here is really profound
| in my mind.
|
| And the basic idea is that all ideas need to be weighted relative
| to the "skin in the game" of the person throwing out the idea. If
| people are not willing to take a consequence on their idea being
| wrong then they basically get a weighting of zero or near zero on
| the importance of their idea because they have no incentive to
| care about the quality of their ideas and are likely instead to
| be much more focused on the signal they send by projecting the
| idea itself. Whereas if someone is willing to take on personal
| risk on the outcome of the idea they are proposing, the idea
| should be taken much more seriously.
|
| And the key point, is this isn't about moralizing that the person
| with skin in the game is more moral or righteous because of their
| skin in the game. It's a game theory proposition about signaling
| the likelihood of validity of their idea.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| The article is so vague that people can read anything they want
| into it, and judging from the comments here, they are. My
| question is, who is the target of the article, who is supposed to
| avoid commenting? Your coworkers? Your boss? Your paying
| customers? Your non-paying users? The media? Twitter/HN randos?
| All of the above?
|
| If you're a maker, then you're making things _for_ someone. If
| you 're only making things for yourself, then of course nobody
| else has a right to comment. But if you're making things for
| other people, then it seems to me that those other people have
| the right, perhaps even the obligation, to comment on the
| product, right? The article verges on the parodic idea that no
| maker should ever be subject to any criticism. If that's not the
| author's intention, then the author ought to be clearer what is
| intended.
|
| That's my drive-by comment.
| sova wrote:
| Hmm, I got the notion that makers are welcome to comment on the
| works of other makers, but if you're _only commenting_ knock it
| off and go make something. It's different when you have
| experience making (or writing) something, and that experience
| makes feedback more useful and more actionable.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| Who is a "maker" and who isn't? This seems like a false
| dichotomy. An enormous number of people on Earth are engaged
| in making things. And every maker of things is also a
| consumer of things.
|
| Or is it that only makers of _this_ particular thing are
| qualified to comment? But that would be a strange principle,
| because again, who are you making things _for_?
| sova wrote:
| For example, you could comment on someone starting a garden
| without having tried to start one yourself. Or you could
| start a garden yourself and have lots of interesting
| takeaways and constructive feedback to share. Lots of
| people make things, sure, but just because I make a boat
| does not make me qualified to comment on bridge building,
| or garden making. So I would think someone who has relevant
| experience in making whatever the thing is would be a
| "maker" and other people would not. I don't think the
| audience of "who you're making things for" is nearly as
| relevant, because sometimes you make things for yourself,
| or your partner, or your friends, and sometimes those
| things are useful and more people want them. Discovering
| product demand is an iterative process. On the other hand,
| there are people who do not make things for themselves or
| anyone in need, or to address any need, so although they
| might have a lot to say it might not be all that helpful or
| relevant if they have not tried to build whatever it is the
| maker built, or something close to that.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| Can we not pretend that we're talking about gardens and
| bridges, or that the article author is just making things
| for himself, his partner, and his friends? I really don't
| think these are useful analogies.
|
| Who is commenting on gardens? Who is commenting on
| bridges? I mean, if a bridge collapses, then a lot of
| people will comment on it, deservedly so. "Yes, people
| died, but don't criticize, go off and make your own
| bridge!"
| sova wrote:
| Yes but the article is not about crises and disasters...
| it's about people sharing their work with the world, and
| the observation that it's much easier to comment and
| criticize on something without knowing the difficulties
| in building or creating it than it is to actually set off
| and attempt to build the thing. What I got from the
| article was that if you have actually given it a shot
| your feedback is more valuable and you probably ought
| comment because you'll have something to say that will
| help the builder. Maybe we are looking at different uses
| of the term "comment." Yes, naturally anything anyone
| says in response or as a reaction is a "comment," but I
| think the author was coming from a place of sharing one's
| work on the internet, he pretty much said as much in the
| article.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > I think the author was coming from a place of sharing
| one's work on the internet, he pretty much said as much
| in the article.
|
| Did he?
|
| "I've mostly stopped sharing unsolicited "helpful" just-
| a-thoughts and comments at work. I save them for Twitter"
|
| This is why I said it's not even clear what exactly the
| author is talking about. I actually have no idea, but
| everyone else seems to think they know, despite the fact
| that they have very different interpretations of what it
| is.
| exporectomy wrote:
| It seems clear to me those commenters are also in a position to
| do the work themselves. Maybe coworkers. That is very different
| from a programmer-user relationship that a lot of people are
| talking about here. Almost the opposite - complaints are
| valuable and fixes aren't.
| intrepidhero wrote:
| I've been thinking a lot about Roosevelt's Man in the Arena quote
| this year as I've attempted some things I previously (and still)
| feel very unqualified for. This attitude has helped me move past
| those feelings and keep doing.
|
| "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how
| the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have
| done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually
| in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
| who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again,
| because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who
| does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great
| enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy
| cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
| achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails
| while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
| cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
| ttiurani wrote:
| > Have you ever thought of X?"
|
| > "Cool! Yes, but there's 12 other things we thought should come
| first. You're welcome to go and do it. We've got a big tent and a
| lot of shit to clean underneath."
|
| > "Actually, can't help, gotta take my dog to therapy, bye!"
|
| This part especially is so familiar. It tends to get emotionally
| pretty exhausting, when you've put in countless hours to make so
| many things good, only to get constantly reminded that the not-
| as-important problems that were scoped out for the time being,
| are bad.
|
| In software under active development there is never a shortage of
| things that could be improved, especially wrt developer
| experience. It is very hard not to take personally the whining -
| especially when it typically comes with very, very little actual
| effort to make it better.
|
| Because I know this pain so well, I only make these kinds of
| "suggestions" when I know I can commit the hours to make at least
| a PoC of what I'm suggesting.
| ivan_ah wrote:
| One thing I always wished for was a comment to visually show how
| much work/though/research/effort the commenter put into it, as
| described here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23078161
|
| Drive-by commentary by a non-expert, non-stakeholders can safely
| be ignored, but you should listen to comments based on experience
| and or tech research (as in I-made-a-prototype-and-it-works
| backed comments).
| bcoughlan wrote:
| Reminds me of one of Larry Page's rules for management: "Don't
| get in the way if you're not adding value. Let the people
| actually doing the work talk to each other while you go do
| something else."
| soheil wrote:
| > Simply try to do something about a problem, and many people
| will think you are responsible for the problem's existence.
|
| Depends on which side of the argument you're taking when
| attempting "to do something about" the problem. If you're adding
| to it or give the perception that you are then maybe you need to
| revise the way you're "helping".
|
| > people who are drowning will attempt to climb on top of their
| rescuers, killing both
|
| It's gaslighting to compare commenters to a live or die
| situation, most problems are not as extreme as the image you
| paint so perhaps you taking it there in the first place is the
| reason people react to your comments frantically and with more
| hostility.
| Eszik wrote:
| I agree with your general sentiment but please don't you use
| "gaslighting" when you just mean "exaggarating". Gaslighting is
| a very specific process of denying reality to abuse someone,
| it's not just any bad faith argument
| soheil wrote:
| Thank you for your clarifying comment instead of just a
| downvote.
| larusso wrote:
| I can really connect to this problem. We used a 3rd party tool
| chain for a game (compiling obj-c to android) and some devs loved
| to complain about the state of the tools and that everything is
| buggy yadayadayada. The whole toolchain was open for us to
| inspect and fix. In this case it was a matter of responsibility
| for the other devs. They said it's not my toolchain I'm not
| getting paid to do this. But in the end we needed to ship a
| product. So more often than not a different developer and I
| looked under the hood and debugged issues and proposed fixes to
| the vendor. Sure we were not officially getting paid to fix their
| product but this at least got stuff done and that was in the end
| what matters.
|
| There is at the moment only one community were I don't bother to
| open issues PRs etc. That is the Jenkins ecosystem. It is so darn
| complicated to get anything pushed up. I proposed a bug fix for
| some plugin (I think it was the docker plugin) and it stayed in
| limbo because I did not provide proper tests. I told them that I
| have no clue how to setup and test the issue. I only know what
| the cause is and what fixes it. The PR never got merged and I
| moved on and used a different solution to workaround it (that
| being not using it on macOS agents which is saner in any case)
| jonas21 wrote:
| I agree with the premise that making is harder than commenting,
| and this can be frustrating. But I don't think that telling
| people not to comment is the right solution.
|
| There can be a lot of value in comments, even ones that have not
| been thought through very deeply. In fact, casual, uninformed
| comments are often the _most_ valuable as they 're representative
| of how someone new to your product or project will perceive it.
|
| I've found that the keys to getting value out of comments without
| getting discouraged are:
|
| 1. Not to take comments too personally or get defensive about it.
| They're not attacking you. In fact they're not attacking
| anything. They're just making an observation. (On rare occasions,
| you may get a comment from an asshole who really is attacking you
| personally, but it's pretty easy to tell when this is the case
| and ignore them).
|
| 2. Take a more statistical view on comments. If one person
| mentions something, maybe they're just an outlier. But if 10
| people mention the same thing, they're probably on to something.
| [deleted]
| lazyjeff wrote:
| The article also brings up the difference between two types of
| comments, the "let me know how I can be helpful" comment versus
| "I will connect you to five potential customers tomorrow" which
| is the more helpful one. Commentary can be valuable if it's
| been thought out more, or if it the commenter invests something
| themselves, both of which this example shows.
|
| Academic advising is also extremely valuable even though it
| fits the definition of commentary, because they have put
| reputation and funding on the line, and spend long periods of
| time thinking about the work. It's not always just because the
| advising comes from an "expert" in the field, but just that
| they have invested in the work.
|
| The type of commentary that I find less useful, is the vague
| notions of "there is a serious problem here" comments that I
| hear sometimes on Hacker News. Like "I find this problematic,
| [and then some outrage]" or "I have some concerns about the
| security/privacy of this" or "I am concerned about HIPAA
| here..." It demands a response, and usually the maker has
| already thought through this in more specific terms, but can't
| rebut because the comment is vague.
| skybrian wrote:
| These kinds of comments are probably better worded as
| questions.
|
| Many questions are simple. Others are difficult and not
| immediately answerable, but perhaps worth pondering.
| jonahx wrote:
| > The type of commentary that I find less useful, is the
| vague notions of "there is a serious problem here" comments
| that I hear sometimes on Hacker News.
|
| In creative writing workshops, a common quip about the
| feedback of non-writers (eg, friends and family) is:
|
| "If they don't like something, they're probably right. But
| when they tell you how to fix it, ignore them."
|
| Which is to say, in this context of this thread, vague
| complaints usually are a reliable indicator of _something
| wrong_. But knowing exactly what is wrong and how to fix it
| is a much bigger ask, and even if they spent the time and
| effort most people wouldn 't be able to help you here.
|
| But that doesn't mean the signal they're giving you isn't
| useful.
|
| > but can't rebut because the comment is vague.
|
| Don't rebut it. Don't take it personally. Just take it as a
| data point and say thanks, or don't respond.
| kthejoker2 wrote:
| In our tech consulting onboarding guide it says
| (paraphrasing Jeff Patton's User Story Mapping), "Be
| doctors, not waiters.
|
| Where does it hurt? is the only question you should need."
| ivan_ah wrote:
| +1 for the statistical view. One or two data points can be
| ignored, but 3+ different people who report a the same
| bug/problem and you need to listen up.
| thesteamboat wrote:
| Comments are probably have positive usefulness expected value
| in a probabilistic sense. Unfortunately extracting that value,
| separating the insights from the dross, is work and requires
| effort. Effort that perhaps the person doing the original work
| being commented on shouldn't necessarily be expected to take
| up.
|
| Additionally, human nature makes it hard to receive legitimate
| criticism dispassionately, let alone when it comes in a big
| pile of stuff that also contains pointless abuse.
|
| There is value in comments, but depending on a project's
| circumstances it may or may not be economical to extract it.
| humanrebar wrote:
| > Effort that perhaps the person doing the original work
| being commented on shouldn't necessarily be expected to take
| up.
|
| It doesn't apply to all situations, but sometimes you end up
| with less net effort by listening thoughtfully more. I expect
| this is especially the case when you want or need to optimize
| for some form of popularity. If you're just making things for
| the joy of creation, sure, just ignore everyone as that's
| certainly more work than pleasing only yourself.
| tomcam wrote:
| Did he tell anyone not to comment?
| aidos wrote:
| When you get someone who's willing to offer up a lot of
| information, it's great. And when you don't, then really
| honestly try to understand them and their frustration. When you
| get to the bottom of it, you'll come away with something useful
| and they'll know that you care enough to try to make it better.
|
| I recently jumped on a call with some people from Miro. One of
| them had left a calendar booking link in a forum for something
| else and I tenaciously scheduled myself in. When I spoke to
| them I said "here are my frustrations and I want to give them
| to you know before I just get into the product and learn to
| live with them and can't articulate them anymore". To their
| credit they took the call and listened. They got something and
| I was happy.
| breck wrote:
| Also when breaking new ground, if 10 people mention the same
| wrong thing, you may be onto something ;)
| edoceo wrote:
| Exactly! Lean Customer Development! We spend loads of time
| teaching this to new entrepreneur
| jhoechtl wrote:
| I am sorry to tell you that comments have never been helpful
| for me to meet a deadline. They have ever been a signal that
| the commenter was not willing to engage intensely enough so
| that his contribution would have been of immediate value.
| Instead it remained on a meta-level, expecting me to carry
| half-baked and barely understandable thoughts out.
|
| But guess what? Bosses comment, workers write. That's the fate.
| Don't know why. Some is to attribute to Peter principle but not
| all.
| erwinh wrote:
| I'd love people to comment more on what I make, it is the dialog
| around creations that adds that extra layer of meaning to
| creations.
| nraynaud wrote:
| making is hard when your employment is "at will". You have to
| convince your boss before doing anything.
| kodah wrote:
| This debate is as old as time.
|
| Another form of this debate is whether the onus of understanding
| is on the speaker or the listener. I've seen people manipulate
| this debate back and forth, both have good points and bad points.
| People will always flip flop depending on what situation they're
| in because it benefits them, plain and simple.
|
| I view this article in much the same light. Telling users they
| can't comment without thinking up a possible solution is
| incredibly dismissive. Usually I've seen this done because teams
| have shifting priorities or when a lot of effort was dispensed to
| solve a problem that doesn't solve a problem for _everybody_.
|
| The fact is that people live in their own worlds. When you
| develop a tool that tool becomes part of their world and to some
| degree they depend on that tool. When the tool has lots of
| influence from people who use the tool differently, obviously
| strong disagreements will occur. I've seen this with internal
| tools I've developed before where priority was given to
| automation features and not UX features or vice versa.
|
| To me, the problem isn't the speaker or the listener, the
| reporter or the maintainer. It's just discourse.
|
| - If you feel some type of way about a comment then let another
| team mate tackle it. Maybe the way you feel is justified, but in
| the grand scheme of things, if you go try to explain your
| justification to the commenter they're just going to see some
| powerful maintainer telling them how to feel about a problem with
| a tool that they chose to make a part of their world.
|
| - Use data and process engineering to tackle your problems.
| Overusing empathy to design and develop software leads to
| exhaustion and a lack of caring. Not everyone will suffer from
| this problem, but many people who overuse empathy cannot stop at
| just identifying with a problem. They _feel_ the problem.
| Instead, separate yourself from the problem, quantify it, and
| build a case for _how to work on it_. Let empathy motivate you
| but don 't let it rule your judgement or consume you. This data
| driven approach accomplishes the same thing as the former does
| but leaves your emotions and well-being intact.
|
| - If you're a naturally curious person: on comments which lack
| solutions probe the commenter for more information. Make them be
| useful to you. Sure, it takes more time and it's inconvenient but
| welcome to software; not everyone has a war on time like Software
| Engineers do. Sometimes observational style comments I will wrap
| up and store in Obsidian for a later date. I may not do anything
| about them now, but if I see repetition then I'll start digging.
| rriepe wrote:
| You have access to an army of pedantic jerks. Treat it like a
| super power. Use it or don't use it.
|
| Don't ever wish the pedantic jerks were _better_ because that
| never happens. You just become a part of the other ever-present
| group that 's complaining about the pedantic jerks.
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| I don't know what the author makes, but in his article he is
| commenting quite a lot....
|
| Also it seems like he got into a position with responsibility and
| now kind of feels superior. (The article is pretty vague, but
| it's how I interpret it)
|
| I get that it's frustrating when there are a lot of dumb comments
| in the internet, but this doesn't mean all commenting is bad.
|
| Why is this on top of HN?
| simias wrote:
| That's not _exactly_ the point TFA is making but I want to point
| out that I vastly prefer when people tell me "X is
| broken/bad/doesn't work/weird/..." rather than "maybe you should
| change it to do Y instead". Mainly because the vast majority of
| the time "Y" is worthless garbage, and then I have to spend time
| explaining why I'm not going to do "Y" because I don't want you
| to think I'm just not valuing your output.
|
| For a simple but very common example, take videogames. Players
| will readily tell you when some aspect of your game is broken,
| when it's too easy or too grindy or too random or too unfair
| etc... That's valuable feedback. On the other hand when you read
| gaming forums and see the "fixes" the player propose, a vast
| majority of the time it's completely missing the mark. Either
| because they're not developers so they don't realize the
| complexity of what they're proposing, or they're simply not game
| designers and they don't realize all the new problems their
| solution would create, or they're hardcore players and their
| tweaks would make the game unplayable for the 99% of casual base
| etc...
|
| In my experience this is almost always true. I always listen to
| the feedback I get for my software, but I tend to immediately
| dismiss the "maybe you could do Y instead" part. I know the
| entirety of the problem space, the user doesn't. The user has a
| specific use case in mind but I know that there are hundreds of
| other clients who don't use the program exactly the way this one
| person does.
|
| So unless you're actually going to write some code for me I'd
| much rather you'd give me precise criticisms and feedback on your
| experiences than trying to explain how you think it should be
| done.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > if you work in media, or you're a coach or teacher or similar,
| you're making something by pontificating, so I still respect you
| :)
|
| The commentariat writing opinion articles and drive-by tweets is
| a major contributor to the misapprehension that pointing out
| problems is as useful as doing something. So, this footnote that
| excuses those working in the media doesn't make sense to me.
|
| (There is no way to write a comment about this article without
| feeling a sense of irony)
| brandur wrote:
| Can't +1 this enough. Stated another way, I always think back to
| this slide [1] from one of Holman's old decks ("Drive-by opinions
| are less valuable").
|
| For whatever reason, this is a very common phenomena in tech, and
| there's a positive reason explanation for it and a negative one.
| The positive one is that people really are engaged and
| enthusiastic and want to help make the product better. That's
| great, and far better than the alternative.
|
| The negative one is the same as the classic mid-level manager who
| arranges an unnecessary meeting with shaky pretext that everyone
| knows is just so that they can have their ideas heard for 60
| minutes. It makes them _look_ engaged and increases their
| visibility in the corporate hierarchy. Now, while that was a
| _literal_ meeting back in the 90s, but 2020s version of it is
| littering smart-sounding comments all over as many key Google
| Docs as you can, all of which have your picture next to them, and
| which you know others will see.
|
| Too many ideas aren't necessarily a problem, but it can add a lot
| of overhead to a project, and the end result is often only
| incrementally better. I've worked on smaller projects where it
| took us 2x to 3x longer to ship by addressing tiny feedback from
| a large number of people, and the final product was like 5%
| better. That't not to say that no feedback is valuable, as a lot
| of it clearly was, but there's a happy compromise somewhere
| between taking too little and taking too much.
|
| In the end, the article author's advice rings very true:
|
| > _"So, what are we going to do about it?"_
|
| (With the emphasis on "we".)
|
| Give ideas/feedback, but make sure you're willing to engage with
| the work.
|
| ---
|
| [1] https://speakerdeck.com/holman/how-github-no-longer-
| works?sl...
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| Yes and no. You can't blame individuals for culture issues. If
| independent thinking and action is discouraged (or even punished)
| then it's not going to happen. In fact, without recognition and
| reward most positive behaviours will fade away.
| soheil wrote:
| So the only comment he's making is not to make a comment? Seems
| like an odd comment if it's your only one.
| netofeverythin3 wrote:
| +100
|
| Part of the issue too is folks are often "rewarded" for
| commenting / criticizing far more than providing real empathetic
| help -- often those pot shots are what shoot to the top of
| Twitter or Hackernews and give that reinforcement of the
| behavior.
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