Z98 wrote:The tendency that those of us on that project that interact with you generally see is that short of actually adopting your suggestion, you always believe that your ideas are not given sufficient attention or consideration. You continuously press on topics, adding increasing amounts of overly verbose text that often boils down to how, if we would only consider things from your point of view, we would realize how reasonable you are being and how good your ideas are. You are often unwilling to accept the position that, regardless of whatever merit you personally consider something to be, the relative merit that the project sees may be drastically different or lower. When you encounter such a situation, your response is not to back off but instead spend more time trying to argue your point, coming up with new rationales for why your idea is so good, and that it is only natural that the topic cannot be closed because it can only be closed when your idea is adopted. The few times when a member of the team got sufficiently irritated enough at you to tell you to stop, you hide behind some point about how you have an obligation to make your voice be heard and that attempting to stifle you is an affront to the open nature of the project. And every time you do this, every time you piss off one of us with your insistence, every time you are unable to just accept a 'no' and move on, you decrease your overall credibility with us and make us that less willing to bother considering your views because we know what's waiting for us if we take any sort of interest. If you still do not understand how problematic that is, then consider this. You are bordering very closely to the point where all of the team members that frequent the forum will automatically turn a blind eye at anything you say because they do not feel that any benefit that may come from interacting with you is not worth the time and energy they must expend in the process. If you persist as you currently do, then your proposals really will end up as ignored as you constantly complain about them being.
I think this stems from the fact that you guys often do not give much sensible arguments on it. Let me give you an analogue example: if you would present a car and ask for input (and Vic did ask for input for his site, in analogy), and I say; "well, it looks allright, but the tires are rather worn, you better change them" and then the answer comes with as argument: "well, you can always choose not to go into the car", then it *obviously* makes no sense as an argument. If I point that out, one can say: "oh, but you always insist in being right'...well...it's because it's rather straightforward, isn't it? Now, it could be one HAS a valid argument, but if you're not telling me, than I can't know. Also, if you give counterarguments that can be remedied, like, say "but we can't find other tires', and I say :"well, you can find other tires over there in that shop", it then makes little sense to say "You see, that's what annoying about you; you always want us to adopt your suggestions!".
Well, no, I don't. But if you give reasons for why you are NOT able to do something, and I try to accommodate those reasons, that's called helping, not wanting to 'force my suggestion'. You're still free to do with it as you want, since it's your car, but you can't just claim it's 'impossible to get new tires' when I've just pointed out a way to get new tires. It could be, you DO NOT WANT new tires and think the old tires are still brand new. That's something else. But I didn't see anyone, including victor or you, claim that the Wall-of-fame page contained crisp images which looked good. Not once. So, one might reasonably assume that you agree with the basic tenet of the claim, namely that the pics are oversized and don't look good on that page. Now, it may be that, as you say 'the relative merit that the project sees may be drastically lower' than me. But why not say that outright, then? Why all the pseudo-arguments? If you just said: "Well, Webunny, you're right that it doesn't look good, but I can't really spare the time" that's a whole other argument than saying "Some of them DO look good" (which they don't) or "Not all people send high-res pictures".
However, if the argument is now that you don't want to invest time in something you deem of lesser importance, I could then offer to help resize the pictures myself and help out that way, then. You, AGAIN, could be saying "you see, you don't want to back off"...but...that's just because I try to come up with a way to address the points you yourselves raised. You know, to deal with the reasons (you said) the pictures (or in the analogy the tires) don't get changed. So if I complain about anything, it's not because I want to 'hide' behind libertarian and free speech concepts. (Which I'm a bit offended by that, since I do not 'hide' behind that point, I actually adhere to it as much as I can, also for myself and towards others, even if I find them irritating. Or did you miss my suggestions in threads of others where some people were really quick in calling for banning that person and such, while I was saying he had a right to say his opinion? Did I AT ANY TIME claimed someone couldn't give his opinion to me, or chastised him/her for doing so? I'm not saying I agreed, I'm saying whether or not I only use the free speech/libertarian doctrine when it suits me, and not when somebody else uses it (aka, the 'hiding behind'). I think you'll find that to not be the case.) No, if I do so, it's because I actually think it has inherent worth, and it's not something I use to 'hide behind' it.
Basically, I look at the arguments presented, and try to come up with ways that those counterarguments can be remedied. That this is considered to be irritating and 'pushy' strikes me as weird, since it are the arguments YOU YOURSELVES give as the reasons why you can't change it. So, unless one wants to claim that the current result is actually something one wanted and is, in fact, the desired effect looked for, one should rather appreciate that I give ways to deal with the obstacles one claims is preventing one to actually improve on it. However, as I said, it seems we are in agreement that the page/pictures in question doesn't look very good. So it can't be considered a desirable effect (if it is, you just have to say *that*, instead of giving arguments why it's not possible). If it isn't a desirable effect, but you give arguments why it is like that anyway (aka; we can't make it smaller because we also have high-res pictures which can be shown larger), then if I give you a way out, to circumvent that objection (aka, only make the low-res pictures smaller then, within their normal frame), one should rather consider that properly, instead of giving a lecture about how I 'don't back off'. Because, you know, I thought it's rather a matter of how to get the obstacles raised out of our way, instead of ego-tripping about whom is backing off from whom.
In conclusion, I have no problem with someone saying "We prefer a car with worn tires" or "We prefer a page that looks ugly and is full of over-sized pictures that are pixelated". But I didn't see you say that. Not even once. So, maybe we should make that explicitly clear from the start: Do you, or don't you, agree the (pictures on) that page doesn't look very appealing, or, at least, won't be regarded to be looking good by the majority of people visiting that page? Can I have a clear answer to that? (Not the, "but we find it 'less' important than you", but just the basic fact if you feel it could be improved upon or not).
Once that is established, it goes for reason that one looks at the issues and obstacles one deems is prohibiting to properly deal with the issue, and give those arguments. And you (well, Vic) did give those objections. And I tried to remedy them. You deem that being pushy. Well, ermm? No, it's suggesting ways to deal with the objections given. If you feel they are not adequate, then say why, don't begin lecturing people that point out problems and the solutions for them. On the other hand, if the REAL issue is, that you think I have a point and my suggestions are worthwhile, but you don't have time to implement them, then say so as well. I would offer to do it for you, then. (Note: I'm talking about this specific issue) This, neither, would be 'being pushy', just dealing with the objection(s) raised. As long as there is the recognition that the site doesn't look good, and the objections raised are dealt with it, I don't see a reason why one would feel annoyed by anyone pointing these things out. This would be true whether or not the problem is seen as 'major' or 'minor' (btw, I don't see it as overly important neither, if you might think that). But a minor improvement is still an improvement. So it is still desirable. If it is, and the objections raised are dealt with, then what's the problem? All this talk about how I don't just lie my head down when I hear an argument or objection from the devs, is really nonsensical. It goes against the very reason why people give argumental objections; namely to find a solution to them (well, unless it's about egotripping). I repeat, once one recognises the webpage can use some improvements, it's only natural to look at ways to do that, and try to deal with the arguments/objections that prohibits doing so.