Maybe this made up scenario will explain the point I'm trying to make. Imagine we're at the outdoor art festival. Individual artists that put their heart and soul and time and money into their work have it on display. We walk to one booth where dozens of interested customers are looking. Most aren't saying anything. Four of us walk up, and have a look, and all four of us do not like the work we are seeing. None of the four of us wants to buy any of this stuff. The artist is standing right there, proudly. Here's what the four of us do:
Person A: nods politely at the artist and walks away to the next booth Person B: says politely but clearly, so all the people around and the artist can hear "this work is not for me. I frankly don't see the appeal. I will not be buying any of this" Person C: tells the artist and the people around "I'm saddened that you made this stuff. It makes your earlier work redundant. I admire your work, and wish you well, but this stuff will not sell, and will damage your business, and that makes me sad." Person D: explains to the artist how he would have made this work. I've been using products like this for 40 years, and I bought one of your pieces like this before. Let me help you by informing you that this edge should have fringe, and this gold part should be brass. Improve your products by following my advice and you will do much better" All four of these people have the right to say what they want. They are in public, and "it's a free country". I don't want to silence anybody. Which one do you want to be, here in public, with dozens or hundreds of silent observers watching? Be whichever one of those four people you want to be. I'm making the observation, for myself, that Person D above sounds like he is a patronizing know-it-all. I'm not trying to silence Person D. S/he can behave how they like in public. I don't think person B, person C or person D did anything productive or generous to the artist by speaking up. That's fine. They are not obligated to help out the artist, and can say what they want in public. Negative comments about product X can be totally great, and totally helpful. If somebody posts "has anybody used product X? what were your experiences?", sometimes the most positive productive comment will be "I used product X and it broke in three days. I don't recommend it". A comment like that can save somebody from a bad decision. Hopefully the silent observers on this thread will just say "look at those goofy bike-nerds talking about manners and semantics" and go on with their day. :) Bill Lindsay El Cerrito, CA On Tuesday, March 27, 2018 at 10:19:07 PM UTC-7, Drw wrote: > > > I would also take issue, in a semantic way, with equating “I don’t like” > to “I know better, let me explain my better thoughts”. People should be > able to say if they don’t like something and not treated like that opinion > isn’t valid. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
