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by mwfunk
4001 days ago
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This wasn't really explicit in the article, but a lot of it came across as frustration at the overwhelming negativity or snarkiness in forums/mailing lists/etc. If so, I think that's just the consequence of these forms of communication not scaling well as more and more and more people participate in them. It's so common to hear people complain about how their chosen Internet communities aren't like they used to be- everyone used to be so thoughtful, now it's just a bunch of precocious kids flaming each other over dumb things. I remember feeling the same way about Usenet circa 1996, or Slashdot circa 2000. Constructive, productive communities are very tenuous things and I think there's just a natural entropy that happens as they grow where the tone of the conversation gets watered down, snarkiness and flames beget more snarkiness and flames, the more mature community members get annoyed and stop participating, and after a while it's just a bunch of people who don't know what they don't know screaming at each other about which phone/language/Linux distro/whatever they use. It's tempting to attribute this to the profession as a whole ("my fellow developers used to be interesting, now they're all jerks!"), but I think it's more just the inevitable deterioration someone sees if they go to the same forums or stay on the same mailing lists for a few years. It might also be due to the observer getting more mature and clueful and picking up on negatives that have always been present in those communities, but previously unnoticed. Back in 1995 I really put Usenet on a pedestal, but that's partially because I was way more immature and thought many of the other posters were far more insightful than they actually were. In other words, it may seem like everyone else has become really clueless and immature but part of that could just be you, the observer, becoming more experienced and mature. |
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At the same, it's also true that people have generally gotten nastier towards one another.