Ideas about how software should behave

[Ben Finney]

Ned Batchelder <ned at nedbatchelder.com> writes:

> All of this could have been avoided.  Steve called an idea arrogant.
> Jon felt that Steve was calling him arrogant. If Steve had simply
> said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that to apply to you," we wouldn't be
> here now. Why is it so hard to treat people as if they mattered?

I both agree – people are of primary importance, this could have been
avoided – and disagree.

I see that Steve *did* treat Jon as though he mattered: he gave quite a
lot of detailed discourse in getting to the nub of disagreement, and in
exploring in various ways what he saw as flaws in some of the ideas
expressed.

To treat our community members with respect entails, among other things
that you rightly champion, the respect of obliging each other to engage
with turning an idea around and examining it critically, and to allow
one's mind to be changed and discard a bad idea if it is shown to be
bad. I think Steve's actions were respectful and civil in that regard.

I also think Jon had cause to bristle somewhat at the characterisation.
I don't think Jon was attacked by Steve's remark, but I do sympathise
with the instinct to feel a criticism as an attack.

The criticism of ideas is a respectful, civil action. Can it be done
brusquely, even incivilly? Yes, certainly. Is it necessarily an incivil
action to criticise an idea harshly? No, I don't think it is.

We can be respectful and civil with each other, and simultaneously harsh
and disrespectful to ideas held by each other. Done well, it is a
respectful thing to criticise ideas harshly: it shows the respect that
the person trusts you to recognise and discard a bad idea, when it is
convincingly demonstrated.

Criticism can of course be done less well, and frequently is. Nothing
about this principle, of respectfully holding ideas up to harsh
criticism, protects us from instead behaving incivilly and
disrespectfully when we botch the attempt. I am in accord with Ian Kelly
about that, to be sure.

> People are so caught up in proving others wrong and themselves right,
> that just saying, "Sorry, I wasn't clear" feels like giving ground.
>
> We need more civil discussion, and less sniping.  We're better than this.

Amen to that.

-- 
 \       “Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea |
  `\                                    of liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney