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Comment by _yb2s | Hacker News Reader

As a scientist, I often have to deal with similar BS of a reviewer misunderstanding a submitted journal article, literally insisting we do something we already did, and explained in the paper.

I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough, so I just submit an updated version along with a comment like "We thank the reviewer for pointing out that we didn't clearly articulate our work on X, so we revised the manuscript accordingly."

In this case change around the UI for this tool to make it slightly more idiot proof, resubmit, and it will be approved. Getting angry and adversarial will only make them have a bad attitude and intentionally be unhelpful. Take them seriously, stroke their egos, and take fully responsibility for having presented your feature in a way they didn't understand. Thank them for pointing out this huge flaw in your program and giving you the opportunity to fix it!

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That is a decent approach to any "Gate Keeper" entity. The Gate Keeper might be anything from a budget holder to a government.

"The Prince" by an Italian lad off of the 16thC is still a pertinent read 400 years later and he's riffing off old Romans, Greeks and before and that's just in Europe. I'm sure China and India, int al, have similar writings. Coercion and other trickery is hardly the invention of Renaissance Italy but a fair few expert practitioners were extent.

Surprisingly enough, some people don't abide by some stated rules and need careful handling. Bonus points are awarded when you make your eventual goal the idea of your "adversary".

This is all a massive game of "us - decent types" vs "you - unpleasant types" and hence a form of tribalism.

As soon as you find yourself using a term like "As a ..." or even "We ..." why not look a little deeper and see if you can't find some common ground or defuse the situation somehow. Perhaps a chat over the blower instead of the usual email trail as a precursor to hostilities might help.

I don't know exactly what is allowed (lol) in refereeing a journal submission but surely the current situation is a bit rubbish. I've been a non scientist reader of New Scientist for 40 odd years and this sort of issue comes up quite regularly. Journos, scientists, engineers and the rest are all unhappy with the way "publication" happens at some level. This is way more fundamental than open vs closed too.

Change is indicated but it will require quite some effort.

Always, always, always “manage up”. When people in some service role like a counter person for an airline hold this much power over you, you lose almost nothing by treating them like they are the most important person in the universe. Talk them up, be overly kind, do everything you can to make their job and life easier. It isn’t fair, but I have found you will experience much less friction in life following this philosophy. Are they right? Is Anthony from the linked article “right”. No, of course not, but they have a sliver of power that happens to be extremely important to you for whatever reason and they can and will hit you with it as hard as they can and you never know what someone else is going through or where they are at in life. Don’t chance it, at least not over small stuff like this.

This "managing up" concept sounds remarkably similar to "face-work":

"With people we trust and know well, we don’t worry so much about face, but with those we don’t know – especially when those people have some power over us – we put in the face-work. When someone puts in face-work and yet doesn’t achieve the face they want, they feel bad. If you strive to be seen as authoritative and someone treats you with minimal respect, you feel embarrassed and even humiliated. In some circumstances you might try to sabotage the encounter to feel better."

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/16/how-to-have-...

This advice is relevant in many aspects of daily life too. I visualize it like tug-o-war. The more they disagree, the more they both back up + pull harder. But the more they "agree" (it's all in the delivery as @universehacker mentioned) the more they approach one another + relax their grip. Meet in the "middle"!

This was illustrated in a business communications course when the instructor asked someone to place their hand up against his high-five style. When the instructor began to push the other person pushed back immediately without being asked, in order to stay in the same place.

It is human nature!

>Take them seriously, stroke their egos, and take fully responsibility

With academic reviews, I'm a bit split on this approach. It's context dependent, but sometimes being on the offence is a better strategy. You shouldn't be rude, but if you clearly demonstrate that the reviewer is wrong and their understanding is wrong, it can have the effect of disarming them and swaying the other reviewers in your favour. It's extremely likely that 1 out of 4-5 reviewers that you typically get will be someone who puts minimal effort and doesn't get the paper. So this is something that you need to do often.

A comment added that he should just have added ,,Report objectionable content''. On the screenshot there was only a ,,Report'' button under blocking user.

I think the person who submits the app underestimates how much heat Google can get from advertisers and people for the content itself.

I think the root cause of confusion is that the reviewer took "Report" to mean "Report User". A simple fix would be to change the button to "Report Comment" or "Report Comment as Objectionable Content". To me this actually makes the interface more clear because honestly when I see "Block User" and "Report" I'm not completely sure that we have gone back to talking about the comment after the first button is talking about the user.

>literally insisting we do something we already did >I try to just own the fact that I didn't make my explanation clear and visible enough

Exactly, I think this works the best. You don’t have to explain the reviewer’s mistake and risk them misunderstanding your reply for being argumentative, the reviewer doesn’t have to admit a mistake, and your writing likely benefits from additional clarity.

Your solution for Reviewer 3 works, but often times, I just work with the editor to convince them the reviewer is confused.

Genuine question, which one is easier: - convince editor - write something that reviewer will understand

The editor reads the reviewer comments and replies also. In most cases replying to the reviewer like I suggest will allow the editor to realize it was the reviewers mistake, and they won't even bother sending it back to the reviewer... but if they do you've targeted both strategies with one response.

> Getting angry and adversarial

They didn't get angry and adversarial, they just explained and asked for clarification. Of course, kafkaesque bureaucracies don't like that, so making a random trivial change and obsequiously resubmitting is still probably the approach to use if you want to stay in business. Google these days is like something out of Brazil.

Examples of angry and adversarial:

> Who do I contact if Anthony is not doing his job correctly?

> This is becoming a joke at this point.

> So I just have to close my business because one person in the review team is having a bad day?

> Like is this serious?

You're right about the tone of those statements. But just how much dystopian bureaucracy can one take before expressing displeasure at the dystopian bureaucracy?

Once you've lost your cool you've also lost.... so take as much as you can!

You are just embracing the dystopia at this point.

It’s important to understand that in order to navigate the world we live in, sometimes you’ll need help from someone “on the inside” and often those people don’t have direct control over the outcome but can be very valuable allies. Taking your frustration out on those people is directly against your own interest.

Being angry at what is essentially a front line customer service rep will do absolutely nothing at all to end the dystopia and just make one human’s day worse.

If you’re not mad at the person who actually has the power to fix the problem then you’re wasting your breath. And to get out ahead of it, your anger doesn’t “go up the chain” either. Like all service workers, dealing with angry customers is a standard workplace hazard.

But the service worker here (Anthony) has the power to approve the app, he is just incompetent or hostile to the author. The anger is warranted (though the statements are harmless), this is targeted sabotage.

Maybe time to sue?

Not sabotage, just incompetence. Anthony is probably overworked, and has seconds to approve or reject an app. He may also not be a native english speaker, and be unsure about the meaning of the words used in this app.

Sure, he has every "right" to be angry, but that strategy will only make things worse.

Waiting a bit longer for a review seems preferable?

Quietly accepting the abuse, and getting angry are two sides of the same coin, both of which are basically "just embracing the dystopia." Notice that the same people that do the first, will eventually do the second once pushed far enough, with ultimately, the same results.

It's perfectly fine to express displeasure in a calm and collected way, the same way you would patiently correct a child... e.g. "I am really disappointed that ____, can you please ____?" (without being sarcastic or condescending)

But losing your cool doesn't correct anything, it just expresses emotional weakness and makes the person dislike you and not want to help you. Someone customer facing at a place like Google sees angry upset customers all day long, and probably makes fun of them to their friends and family, but doesn't go out of the way to help them.

What they don't often see is people showing strength and calm in the face of this BS. Someone that can endlessly adapt and redirect things back to their own clear goals regardless of what is thrown at them, without even needing to be adversarial. Think Bruce Lee's "Be like water." In most cases, this will be off script for them, and they actually won't know how to deal with that other than giving you what you want.

Know where you have the power to fight for a change.

That's from the chat at the end, and I'd hardly call that "angry and adversarial", just exasperated -- and naively assuming the person they were talking to cared that "Anthony" had been giving them the run-around for 2 weeks.

Agreed. To me this is just barely touching angry or adversarial. As a person, who was dropped by a medical practice for threatening with a lawsuit and eventually dropping the f bomb after rather exhausting months of non-activity, that was just that: exasperated.

Google clearly has an issue. The issue is not mainstream, but the moment this hits a bigger name and its community notices, I am sadly certain there will be some adjustment. I do not get why it is only publicly shaming companies work well these days.

I understand that getting the right party is important, but in the article it seems like you can't even seem to get to the right person, because:

1. there is no real person talking to you 2. the person talking to you can ignore you and say buh-bye

edit: removed anecdote

Exactly - that is just venting anger and the reviewer is likely to pass and go on to the next App. Unfortunately a) the app guidelines/rules are often vague and discretionary and b) App reviewers have hundreds or thousands of apps to review a day and don't have the time to think about borderline cases.

With app stores it's guilty until proven innocent/compliant - I've found (particularly with Apple) that taking time to resubmit saying how you are now compliant (making sure you tick all the requirements) is much quicker than waiting days for them to turn around a no again.

Those aren't angry or adversarial and Google deserve much worse.

I have a google pay support thread open. 49 exchanges. The features they keep telling me to use literally do not exist. They just keep posting the same canned response and then ignoring my response that the feature hasn’t been implemented. Then it gets passed to a new person who ignores previous happenings on the thread and repeats. It’s the most kafkaesque thing I’ve ever experienced. I’m going to print it out and bring it to court with me (I’m going to have to sue them to get my money back)

Don't forget to publish an article about it and post it to HN, I'm sure many of us are interested.

Having recently interacted with Google I have no idea why anyone would choose to do business with them unless they absolutely have to.

Every interaction with them you can feel the disdain they have for human interaction. It makes me wish I was doing business with comcast instead.

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