Re: encouragement

Hi Eric

I'll take this as a sideways jab at my questions about Quanta's CPU / memory 
usage. It always amuses/frustrates me when a developer of a product gets 
frustrated when people ask pointy questions of their product. This is 
generally based on an assumption that the user is an idiot for not having 
done what you would have done or not having the same thought patterns as you. 
As a developer you need to realise that users will raise questions, some 
valid, of your products in ways that may confound you. This happens to me and 
I have learnt, over time, to deal with it and understand that users will 
always use a product the way they want to rather than the way the developers 
intended it to. Get a group of random people together and study how they 
browse the web and you will see what I mean.

Have a think about the theory of constraints for a moment - every product has 
a constraint somewhere, for instance a motherboard could be getting way too 
hot, people aren't using a public transport system like they used to or a 
piece of software could be using excessive resources. Constraints are 
identified by users of a system "complaining" - through whatever system is 
available (bug reporting, email, shouting etc etc). Note that a complaint 
isn't always negative - it can actually be enouragement to get more done on 
the right path to make a system even better.
The complaints can either be ignored, in which case users of a  system start 
going elsewhere or they lodge more complaints, or they can be dealt with 
objectively rather than making assumptions about a users' thought processes.

In your own words below you talk about users making generalised assumptions 
and unfortunately you yourself have fallen into that trap. You've assumed 
that I assumed every user of the system was having the same problem. I didn't 
(in fact the first words in my email were "I'm not sure about anyone else"), 
I asked the question to the Quanta users list to get information / evidence. 
I could have gone off an lodged a bug at kde.org but I prefer to ask 
questions first, get some information and then make a decision.

As you say, the benefit of software such as Quanta is about community - 
sharing information and giving back. If you re-read your responses do you 
really think they address the situation in a way that empowers people to use 
and contribute to the software? For a new user seeing this do you think 
discussion about flat earth beliefs, magic, irrational mobs, doctors 
prescribing pills for people turning blue, spreading disinformation and 
working out which movies you haven't seen actually benefits them and makes 
them want to use the system ? Don't you think it would actually scare people 
off using a system - where a simple and objective "please provide more 
information" would suffice to make people want to contribute more (and 
probably save you and the person asking a lot of time) ?

So, I won't add any more information about my specific question in this thread 
as it's not relevant to the "encouragement" subject, but I'll try and read 
between your lines in the other thread and see if we can make some headway..

All the best
James


On Tue, 20 May 2008 06:11:45 am Eric Laffoon wrote:
> On Monday 19 May 2008 7:53:59 am [email protected] wrote:
> > Just a quick note to say Thanks! to Eric and the other folks who have
> > given us Quanta and keep working to make it what it is - a very solid
> > and powerful editor/tool.
>
> Thank you.
>
> > I've noticed some comments through the mailing list that make me wonder
> > how much the person tries to solve an "issue" with Quanta before they
> > complain  - and Eric has patiently responded with constructive
> > suggestions rather than silence, or anything scathing.
>
> It's an irony of human nature that we assume our experince is universal.
> Note that we used to think the universe revolved around the earth.
> Unfortunately we also like to oversimplify complex systems and attribute
> cause and effect to the realm of magic... Actually I could answser
> questions more patiently but I can't help but think that irrational
> processes may not always be benign. There is an old saying that pure
> democracy is tyranny, meaning effectively that irrational mobs are
> dangerous... I would hope my perhaps eccentric bias for objective thinking
> might produce some side benefits...
>
> One thing I do have to say though is that what bothers me most is that
> people could be experiencing real and reproducable issues that don't show
> up in our testing and would actually assume we knew and didn't care. I've
> seen internet discussions with absurd assumptions and gross errors about
> Quanta and when it is as easy as sending me an email I am not included,
> much as reviewers never seem to write and ask questions prior to writing a
> review. The benefit of community software is community, but unfortunately
> for most people it is merely consumption without cost and a side benefit of
> claiming to be in a community which their sole contribution is speculating
> wildly and spreading misinformation. Less than 1% of the user base of free
> software make things happen and for me being in that comparitively small
> group is about my belief in the need for free software to succeed and
> individuals to be empowered.
>
> > I've recently been learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails and so I tried a few
> > different editors/IDE's out to see what they could do.  Although Quanta
> > doesn't have many Ruby on Rails bells and whistles I'm not leaving it -
> > it's just to good to give up.  (The fact is, that Quanta could handle
> > Ruby and Rails more dynamically if there were people ready to give some
> > time to make it happen.  Unfortunately, I don't know enough to lend a
> > hand at it.)
>
> Ruby on Rails is supported on KDevelop, but it lacks a lot of support for
> web work Quanta has. Quanta4 will support Ruby on Rails much better because
> it will be integrated on the KDevelop platform and will enable tools from
> both environments.
>
> > I'm certain that I only use a fraction of Quanta, due to my limitations,
> > not Quanta's.
> >
> > So, cheers to Eric and Andras.
>
> Thank you. Developer and financial support is also appreciated.