223
edits
How the FlightGear project works: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
How the FlightGear project works (view source)
Revision as of 01:16, 28 February 2014
, 28 February 2014→Some comments on elitism
| Line 202: | Line 202: | ||
You may call that elitism if you like, but my definition of elitism would be that a transfer takes place, i.e. that someone who owns 60% of the shares of a company starts to believe that he should not only get to say how the company is run, but also should get more influence in other areas outside his field of expertise, in other words, he starts to feel that his value as a human being is enhanced. | You may call that elitism if you like, but my definition of elitism would be that a transfer takes place, i.e. that someone who owns 60% of the shares of a company starts to believe that he should not only get to say how the company is run, but also should get more influence in other areas outside his field of expertise, in other words, he starts to feel that his value as a human being is enhanced. | ||
Experience shows that it makes a lot of sense not to uphold the pretence that everyone is equal with respect to some property when this is in fact not the case. I've been observing internet language communities over the last 10 years where you have basically two classes of users - those who know the language in question, and those who ask questions as they are trying to learn. Almost without exception, communities which treated everyone equal did not work - the experienced users were annoyed at being interrupted in technical discussions, were told that everyone has the same right to enter a discussion, decided that they'd rather discuss in a place without interruptions, thus the communities were left with the users who bring only questions with no experts left to answer them, being unable to get answers they also left and the communities died. The communities which respected expertise worked - it's better to start as low-influence user in a forum and get your questions answered than to start as equal-influence user in a forum and not get your question answered. | Experience shows that it makes a lot of sense not to uphold the pretence that everyone is equal with respect to some property when this is in fact not the case. I've been observing internet language communities over the last 10 years where you have basically two classes of users - those who know the language in question, and those who ask questions as they are trying to learn. Almost without exception, communities which treated everyone equal did not work - the experienced users were annoyed at being interrupted in technical discussions, were told that everyone has the same right to enter a discussion, decided that they'd rather discuss in a place without interruptions, thus the communities were left with the users who bring only questions with no experts left to answer them, being unable to get answers they also left and the communities died. The communities which respected expertise worked - it's better to start as low-influence user in a forum and get your questions answered than to start as equal-influence user in a forum and not get your question answered. | ||
Perceived elitism is not a problem only for the Flightgear project, and the best way to avoid misjudging people is to make contact in a polite but ferm manner, expose yourself in a very matter-of-fact way, and keep it technical as much as possible. Always remember that with great power comes great responsibility, and if you get one day to be in a elite position, you might regret the old happy careless days. | |||
== FlightGear is a meritocracy == | == FlightGear is a meritocracy == | ||