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Comment by atoav | Hacker News Reader

Programmers sometimes have that experience, as do musicians, hardware designers, film directors, novelists, painters, game designers and all other professions that create things regular people interact with casually.

Consumers (specifically the sub-genre of critics) often have no real imagination what making a thing means and under which constraints it happens. They often see publishing a imperfect work to the public as an affront to their sophisticated intellect and taste, even (or especially?) if it is free.

In German there is the saying: Wer macht, hat recht which translates to who makes is right. Complaining is simple, just shut up and do it better.

Of course complaining is totally okay if we e.g. talk about social or political conditions, or some mandatory process you have to subject yourself to by law. But even there I hate people who just complain and leave it at that without even trying to change a thing.

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> Complaining is simple, just shut up and do it better.

This is an absurd position. We can't all be masters of anything but that doesn't mean we can't recognize flaws. Sure, sometimes there is a good reason for something a novice would perceive as a flaw but just throwing the concept of criticims away entirely and demand that people accept whatever you crap out is ridiculous. Building echo chambers where no one dares to criticize does not help the art at all - that way lies mediocrity.

All creators should learn to find value in criticism, especially negative. That doesn't mean that you need to always follow laymen opinions but even things wrongly perceived as faults are perceived as such and you should at least think about why that is and if that means you can do something better rather than ignoring the ignorant plebes.

It's also pretty arrogant of you to assume that "consumers" (what a dehumanizing term that is) should care about your constraints at all - especially constraints that are self-imposed. If you are selling something (either for money or for the expectation of time/resouces put in by the user) then your struggles are and imho should be irrelevant - all that matters is how well you fill the need that the user is trying to fill.

> In German there is the saying: Wer macht, hat recht which translates to who makes is right.

Jeder hat so viel Recht, wie er Macht hat.

If people have the means to complain, they have the right to. You can ignore them (unless you depend on them) but others might not.

One small point.

> If people have the means to complain, they have the right to. You can ignore them (unless you depend on them) but others might not.

Having the means to do something in no way gives you the right to do so. I have the means to speed in my car. I have the means to murder someone. I don't have the _right_ in either case to do so.

Makers (HN supermen): the strong make what they want; the weak endure the fruits of that (as they must).

Complainers: I am certainly strong enough to complain your ears off.

Makers: No, not like that! That’s immoral!

I think they are talking specifically about complaining though, not about anything in general

I would absolutely say that having the means to complain does not inherently give you the right to complain.

Right is earned through investment.

A creator invests a substantial amount of time and effort into something.

A complainer can invest no time or effort into something.

And specific to the gaming community, there's a distinction between investing consumption time (e.g. playing) and creation time (e.g. modding or building).

I'd allow that playing confers substantial rights ("I've played this game over 1,000 hours and I think..."), but those rights should never be confused with creator rights.

Which is what makes amateur game criticism so toxic to me ("I can't do what you do, nor have any interest in investing the effort, but let me tell you how to spend your time to do what I want").

Especially in the performance-limited era of Half Life, most gamers didn't know a damn thing about the boundary of the possible.

Regardless of knowing what's possible, this is the origin of "the customer is always right in matters of taste".

You don't have to have invested in creation to know what you like and you don't. Claiming that the creators are the only ones who understand things enough to critique them is vanity and is toxic to projects.

Every time I've seen project leaders talk like that it's been a disaster. Jensen Harris et. al used that language to dismiss feedback about the Windows 8 Star Screen, for example.

You still have the right to complain, you just don't have the right for anybody else to care about your complaint.

The ability to complain doesn't need to be earned, only the respect itself needs to be earned.

The wrinkle is zero-context internet, where there's little ability to tell what respect someone is due, which leads to people who aren't due it assuming they should get it (because they also don't know what others complaining have done).

Which I guess boils down to "Don't listen to the internet."

> Right is earned through investment.

Rights are absolutely not earned, they are granted. You do not earn the right to vote, or to have legal protection. A right is granted either by the state, by society, or by 'god'.

History whitewashing. The right to vote was won/taken by people who fought for it. “The state” (?) then doesn’t get credit for “granting” it, as if the state was the from-nothing cause.

That kind of nonsense might be how some theoriticians discuss such things. But no normal person cares about that.

Excuse me, but you don't earn yourself the right to vote by fighting for it until you take it. However it came about in law, it is granted to you. Whether it was fought for or not, your forefathers do not come back from the grave and allow you to have it after you pass some ritual test -- the state grants it to you when you turn a certain age. In fact, voting would be completely pointless if there were no 'state' to grant it. Making this into some sort of weird history lesson and berating "the state" (?) is not helpful.

> Excuse me, but you don't earn yourself the right to vote by fighting for it until you take it.

I didn’t say that I earned it.

> Making this into some sort of weird history lesson and berating "the state" (?) is not helpful.

Weird? It’s about the causal origin of rights, i.e. history.

Weird philosophy lessons on “rights” are not helpful.

This makes no sense. If you didn't earn them, then what does 'earn' mean? Other people cannot earn something for you.

I don't disagree, but I think you are largely conflating the right to speak complaints with the right to be an entitled jerk.

Few creators will object to criticism that shows an understanding of the work/product. Most will object to personal abuse empty of any actual criticism.

Understanding the context of a product makes for better complaints. Just venting is not helpful and often abusive.

Criticism has zero inherent value. It’s easy to assume that stuff people like is inherently better, but anything with widespread appeal ends up really bland. You can’t do better than simply ok while making everyone happy.

This obviously gives rise to picking an audience, but this idea goes beyond just demographics. There is no greatest book of all time for 12 year old boys only individual preference which doesn’t result in an absolute rank.

Commercial art is at best a compromise. No artist is going to inherently prefer exactly what the market wants directly, they only want the indirect things associated with that. Aka money, fame etc.

>Criticism has zero inherent value.

I get what you're saying here, but part of any art program is critical review of each others' works. You don't have to change what you created, but to hear other perspectives on how it is received is important.

One professor told me how it is, partly, about keeping the artist from falling down their own rabbit hole. Sort of like the story about the servant who followed Marcus Aurelius around to whisper "you are but a man" in his ear. Highly creative types tend to have somewhat fragile mental states, and they can spiral out if not kept in check.

Criticism from a professor is useful for passing, and some things are simply errors in technique.

But from students the content of their critique may be important than what it implies. ie: Did they fail to notice some specific detail intended to be obvious. So, it’s definitely a useful practice, but not necessary useful as criticism.

I don't get how someone could get really, really good at any sort of creative process without the benefit of encountering and engaging in criticism, of one's own works and of others'. Simply calling out what does and does not work, and why, is criticism and is super helpful for learning how to do things right.

Feedback can tell you if something does or doesn’t work independently from being criticism. For example asking someone to summarize a story you wrote is a great way to see what is or isn’t clear. How would you describe character X’s motivations is another approach.

People naturally want to provide criticism, but it’s surprisingly inefficient without a great deal of context.

> This obviously gives rise to picking an audience

Even that is hard. App stores are full of negative reviews for apps because X app is not just like Y app…. when X app isn’t at all supposed to be Y app. Or situations where the user simply misunderstood how the app works and etc.

It’s so hard to get things in front of the right audience who understand.

Yes, and it is very very hard to tell prospective customers that a product is not for them. The temptation is always to cast as wide of a net as possible and sell product X as being product Y, often with the best intentions of evolving to be X+Y in a future revision.

I think you two may have a confusion of terms. I'm just guessing here, but I suspect the complaining they are referring to is the zero content anger spew some people think is appropriate, not critique.

I see it a lot in small communities centered around open source games. It is easy for some one to vent their anger in a useless fashion (can we agree that pr teams calling it passion is a euphemism they use to avoid insulting people giving them money?), and comparatively difficult and rare for people to put their experience into relatable terms or to criticize a change as it pertains to the project's goals.

> This is an absurd position. We can't all be masters of anything but that doesn't mean we can't recognize flaws.

Maybe I need to clarify a little bit. Of course everybody hast the right to complain about everything (as people do). But not every criticism is sound cricism. Everybody may just get themselves a Turbo Encabulator and complain that the malleable logarithmic casing is misaligned with the pentametric fan. That is okay. They sold you a turbo encabulator after all and you rightfully expect the pentametric fan to be surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with it – this is what they told you, you will get.

Whether criticism is "sound" by my definition or not has to do with expectations one some part. If someone sells you a backup software that is "guarantueed to be 100% formally correct" for 100k€ and it then proceeds to munch your disks and set your computer on fire, criticism is not only okay, it is outright needed. But if someone puts their "works for me, but I strongly advice anybody else against using this"-backup-script on Github and it munches your disk, you may complain, but the other person is not at fault. A lot of people complain about things where someone basically just was like: I made this for fun in my spare time, take it or leave it. And they complain about it as if it was a commercial product they sold their firstborn for.

My other point with making and being right has to do with instutional experience. You don't have to be able to build a turbo encabulator yourself, but before you criticise it maybe make sure you have read its manual. Maybe that is my first level IT-support trauma speaking here, but many people are very quick in voicing criticism, and don't do the research whether the thing they criticise is wrong or they just had the wrong expectations. Of course a product can also be designed badly so it produces these false expectations and such things should be criticised.

Other things are purely subjective and criticism is worth nothing. You may complain about a experimental noise rock band being noisy of having nasty lyrics, but that is no meaningful criticism as this was very likely their goal. That person's feeling of "I hate that sound" is totally valid and true, and the musicians may or may not decide to take it seriously, but it is still just bad criticism – like complaining water is wet or complaining a weight is heavy. That is sort of the point of the thing.

That being said, as a creator I value negative criticism. And I take the feeling from where it comes from seriously most of the time. I just don't trust what they tell you the solution is.

I'm at the opposite: I think people have the right to complain about anything, especially when they're the target audience (in this case, the game player). This doesn't change even if the product is free.

I do think they should stay polite and if the author isn't willing to change (for either objective or subjective reasons), move on.

I think people have the right to complain about anything, especially when they're the target audience (in this case, the game player).

What people do not have any right, or entitlement, to is agreement from the person they're complaining to. People are allowed to dismiss a complaint and not do anything about it, no matter how unhappy the complainant might be about it. You have no right to demand someone does something; you can only inform them that you're not happy about the status quo.

Yea I do have the right to demand that, but you have the right to ignore my demands.

I think it's the semantics of "demand." To me, that connotes a claim of control or power or moral authority.

I have a right to complain that it's raining. And I have the free speech right to say "I demand it stop raining". But I have no right to come to you and demand that you make the rain stop, because that implies a claim on you that I do not have.

Oh boy, that reminded me of a flame war that started when someone wrote in English, "I demand ..." when they were really just _asking_ for further details about something. They woke up the next morning to find a thread dozens of messages long of people arguing back and forth about whether this person was rude or not. Once they explained that French was their native language and how they would write that sentence in French, things eventually calmed down.

I think there's a similar bit in some movie where some character (foreigners? aliens?) keeps using "insist" inappropriately. I insist that it's nice out today. I insist that we go for a walk. I insist that you tell me what time it is.

It's amazing how relatively mild denotational differences can have such wildly different connotations and perceived tones.

There is one counter example to your position that immediately comes to mind: architects! If you create something, the primary driver should be its users, and not your ego. I believe there should be a law which mandates that architects need to stay at least 5 years in every building they "design" so that they actually see and feel the consequences of their work. Art might be a different issue, but just because someone is creative does not free them from the responsibility to build something useful! If the user experience is no fun, the user has every right to complain.

>If you create something, the primary driver should be its users, and not your ego.

Again, it depends on why you are designing something. If your goal is to just stroke your ego then you probably aren't going to care about the end user.

Which is fine as long as your end users are not implicitly forced to use your creation. So an artist creating a controversial sculpture is totally fine, nobody forces the recipient to consume their art. But buildings are different, they should be user-centric, not vanity-projects to boost your career.

They should, but they do not.

Whenever I see "should" in a sentence I think: why is this not how things are? What are the incentives? In this case: who is the person deciding what gets built? What are the consequences for being over budget? (Calatrava I am looking at you).

Of course. I have been talking about building small projects mostly for yourself. If you build your own house in a weird way, knock yourself out (especially if there is no family).

This is about expectations. Good architecture serves many users. Good films serve many viewers. Good software ...

You get the point. And it is always better if you can serve two target audiences at once instead of one – IF you can do it without compromising.

But some software doesn't want or even need to serve all users. Take vim for example. For most people it would be a horrible experience to use it and they could criticise it for a ton of things. But what value is there in this cricism as they don't understand how vim is intended to be used? Their cirticism comes from a true place, but it still isn't worth a lot, because if you followed it to the end you would end up with something like notepad.exe or MS Word and loosing everything that makes vim special and interesting.

So if anything, what I say here is: good criticism is critcicism by people who see the same thing in your thing as you do, as their vision likely aligns with yours. If you are painting impressionist pictures for example, the criticism "it could look more photorealistic" by some guy is utterly useless, while the criticism "I think you should rely less on simple complementary color combinations" by someone who understands impressionism might be really helpful. The photorealism guy just tells you that there are people looking for this out there, but as you already know and/or actively decided against it, there is no use in this.

The special thing about architecture is that it imposes on others. You can't not see a building. So I agree with the conclusion but not the reasoning. It's not users vs creators, it's the public who are not the users that get harmed by ugly buildings, even if those buildings are private and desired by those who pay for them. (The government commissioning ugly public buildings is a problem with the government, not the architects)

Meanwhile, anything on the internet you're reading/watching/listening to is by your choice.

You’re not “harmed” by an ugly building. Annoyed, maybe, but you’re not harmed. Ugly is subjective. Even if the majority agree that it is ugly, there’s likely a group that enjoys it. Should they be denied the ability to have architecture that pleases them?

But people who write criticisms provide a valuable service to me as an consumer.

I have limited amount of time and before I spend 20 hours on a book or game I would like some indication that it's not a waste of time.

One could argue that both the good and the bad should be highlighted, but my experience is that I'm get most value from knowing about the bad parts.

> In German there is the saying: Wer macht, hat recht which translates to who makes is right. Complaining is simple, just shut up and do it better.

There's unfortunately also the saying "Nicht geschimpft ist genug gelobt", i.e. something like "Not being scolded is enough compliments".

If things work, they are taken for granted and some people only speak up if they are irritated.

Which of course leads to a biased perception of how satisfied the people on average really are with your work.

Last week I wrote an email to an author to a blog I have been following for a year or so. Just wanted to let him know his work was appreciated and I hope he continues writing.

He replied and told me this little gesture made his day. So I guess I should do more of that.

HN superiority complex summarized in one comment.

Of course we know nothing about that inflamed moderator. Oh well.

Maybe the solution is to brand yourself as an "auteur programmer".

Programmauteur

Sounds Swiss, I'd be careful with that.

I think you are confusing this with Programmauteuhr, which is basically a mechanical emacs made by a Programmauteur. Its very fringe, but critics love it.

Different people interact with things and have different reactions. Some are moved enough to develop strong feelings. Some share them nicely. Some write hyperbolic forum posts full of hate. That’s just the reality of having an impact.

My main take away from the post is that anything worth making will receive its share of critics. As a creator you should be aware of that and be ready to focus on the people you actually bring joy to and who appreciate what you do rather than the haters and take pride in actually moving the needle enough to be reacted on.

There are other things at play here. It is important to understand that the average human is unbelievably limited and delicate (in the modern era, they don't understand any of the systems that sustain their lifestyle and have skills of only marginal use). There are multiple systems in place to take all these delicate humans and set them up to live comfortable lives.

The first layer is the makers, but after that there are a couple of layers of assessors and distributors before ideas and products hit the masses. For someone in a community that makes things, criticism isn't so useful. In the other layers that are there to work out what ordinary people should do armchair criticism is a lot more useful. Still not very impressive, but more useful.

The armchair critics aren't at all interested in making things. Their self-appointed role isn't to make things. They are part of a community that generates chatter to help guide the conversation of the people who actually decide what should happen at the mass-market level.

Was für eine Überraschung, ein arroganter Deutscher, der nie Natural-Selection gespielt hat, hält einen Vortrag.

Hier geht es um die Gemeinschaft des Spiels, nicht um das Spiel selbst. Dieser Mann hat das Spiel nicht programmiert, nur eine kleine Ergänzung zu einer Ergänzung.

Ich bin kein Deutscher. Die Annahme, dass jeder jeder der die Sprache spricht Deutscher ist , ist das deutscheste was es gibt.

I'm not German either actually, just acutely aware of the fact that they love to pontificate and made an assumption based on your quote. sorry lad

> Wer macht, hat recht which translates to who makes is right. Complaining is simple, just shut up and do it better.

Ain't dealing with an avalanche of Abmahnung, and ain't going to shut up either.

Sometimes a good way to get feedback is to listen to who is complaining

>Complaining is simple, just shut up and do it better.

This is a good rule to go by. It is always way easier to critique a thing for whatever reason and critique can be good, but only to a point. When you start writing articles about how thing X is bad because of Y, you aren't doing any favors for anyone. You should instead try to channel that into something positive.

Apologies in advance for my choice of words.

I used to be a person that criticized a lot. One day i realized what an cheap ass i was. Talking is easy. Now i say silently to myself:

"Shut up or do it better yourself."

It is very healthy to remove narcissistic micromanagers (driven by subconcious anxiety) from your life if you can.

Apologies again for commenting before RTA. He got blasted by a religious person.

> In German there is the saying: Wer macht, hat recht which translates to who makes is right.

Closest thing in English that I could think of: history is written by the winners. Similar concept.

I'm not sure that it is really similar. I would translate "Wer macht hat recht" to something more like "the creator knows best" or "the creator gets to choose". "History is written by the winners." has, I think a less creative context. Perhaps because history is what is written after wars, conquests and other applications of violence. The word "winners" requires and implies losers. Creation requires neither.

Not similar at all, and an absurd comparison. The former is a value/moral judgement while the latter is an empirical observation about how history is written, and not at all an embrace of such a supposed fact (which would effectively translate to “might makes right”).

Hrmm ok... since mine is so absurd, what's an English equivalent in your mind?

"Put up or shut up"?

Or maybe "patches or GTFO" :-)

Not that I've actually heard it, but you could describe the creator as "the man in the arena", which alludes to a Theodore Roosevelt speech:

https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/Learn-About-TR/TR-En...

> It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

"The customer is always right"?

That's the opposite! :)

Which I guess speaks to how consumerist the US as a society is (said as an American).

The closest I can come up with is "Those who can, do." (Usually seen with "... Those who can't, teach.")

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