Brad, On Tuesday 16 November 2004 09:30, Brad Bourn wrote:
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I recently read an article in one of my linux mags that talked about the difficulty for the laymen to get involved in the open-source movement.
Why would non-professionals whose only interest in computers is to accomplish some kind of work or play care about getting involved in a "movement." If anything, that's going to deter them. It's not that "the movement" (ignoring the unpleasant biological function connotation) need not happen, but that it is only for the self-selected "movementarians" (with a nod to "The Simpsons") to participate in it. Dedicating ones self to a movement cannot be made a requirement for people whose only interests are the ends they want or need to accomplish.
The main problem or deterrent that was referred to was the prevailing attitude of those that are in the know.
The real problem is that there is any degree of beholdenness to any particular cognoscenti at all. That's as much true for Linux and other free or open-source software as it is for proprietary and closed-source (MS or Apple, e.g.). Apple has done more than anyone by freeing the users of its hardware and software from the need to appeal to experts. The success of their approach is illustrated in large part by the premium they've historically been able to charge for their systems. And it's not cheap (in effort, which is usually something that costs money) to produce such easy-to-use software. Usability testing is something of an art and cannot be done haphazardly, incidentally or entirely after the fact. It must be integrated into the process of software design and development. This fact may in itself be the greatest Achilles heel of the open source phenomenon. A small group of skilled and devoted software architects and programmers (and in many cases a single individual) can produce a lot of highly functional software, but highly usable software is a much more interdisciplinary practice and few good programmers do good interaction design.
When you ask a question and get told to RTFM. When you get on a mailing list and ask some questions only to get flamed.
This really just means you're asking the wrong person or asking in the wrong way. People here are all essentially volunteers. They are not being paid to help people along, and they quite reasonably expect the supplicants (heh, heh) to have done their part. Due diligence is to read available documentation and other Web resource before turning their problem over to a group of self-selected, unpaid individuals whose motives generally should not be impugned and who owe nothing other than basic etiquette to the seeker of help.
One of the skills I have been working on is how to turn someones energy to flame me into energy to give me the answer I'm looking for. I don't think it should be that way.
It would be nice to be able to expect that users ask their questions intelligently, but as we can readily see here and on almost any comparable forum, many people have trouble pushing the correct buttons on their mailer. Questions that are unanswerable due to their vagueness or lack of background details are commonplace--almost the norm. How much of that kind of nonsense should we accept with complete graciousness? A little negative feedback is sometimes called for, I'd say.
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Can't we all just get along?
Stranger things have happened.
If a person is truly good enough at what they do, they should easily be able to get other to follow their reasoning without brute force, flame prodding.
I don't agree. I'm very good at software design, but that doesn't mean I'm good explaining the more elementary aspects of software. They've been pushed down so far in my way of thinking, that I find it hard sometimes to explain them to lay people (I practice on my parents, who are now in their 70s). Just as with my previous point about interaction design and usability testing, education and clear writing is its own discipline, and experts in a given profession are often not the best people for educating novices in their own field.
I wish I could find the article I'm talking about, well worth the read. I think our cleaning lady threw it out when she cleaned the bathroom this weekend....
Perhaps if you did your own dirty work...
B-)
Randall Schulz