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There's several people in this thread saying the user did not provide constructive feedback and I disagree. Amongst the emotionally charged venting there's a de

There's several people in this thread saying the user did not provide constructive feedback and I disagree. Amongst the emotionally charged venting there's a description of a real struggle the user is encountering while trying to use the software. Yes, they should've opted for a more civilised approach. No, it doesn't discard the issue that they (and possibly others) are experiencing.

politelemon 4y ago
Only true if you're expecting the author to behave like a robot and exist without any kind of emotion. I certainly don't see how you would call that constructive in any way. Loose analogy, I don't watch videos of retail workers being abused and think, that customer is providing constructive feedback.
- vultour 4y ago
  Maybe we just use a different definition of "constructive feedback", but my emotional perception of a comment has nothing to do with the classification. "You suck and your software is a piece of crap" is not constructive feedback because there's no details to act on. "Fuck you the submit button is obscured by the footer" is constructive even if the message has a personal attack. You might choose not to act on comments due to emotions, but I don't think it invalidates any constructive feedback contained within.
  - hatenberg 4y ago
    And this right here is why a large number of engineers never make it pas mid-level. Thinking that the only things that matter are technical and the social aspects of communication are just unnecessary complications
    - scraptor 4y ago
      Understanding the things people are actually telling you without getting distracted by anger is also part of communications. You don't have to engage with the rude users but their problems are just as real.
- SpEd3Y 4y ago
  Only true if you're expecting the the person who provided feedback to behave like a robot and exist without any kind of emotions. Loose analogy, I don't watch videos with people buying a bike with no breaks, fall and get hurt, then go to the vendor and calmly explain to them that they should modify their bike design so the breaks function and think, that customer is behaving like a human being. See what I did there? :) My analogy might not be great, I give you that. But frustration is a normal human behavior. Granted I strongly believe you should try to vent a different way and then give clam feedback, you can't discard feedback just because the person giving it is frustrated. We should be able to distinguish between frustrated good feedback and just abuse. I know I was able to get feedback from very hostile messages. And last time I checked I'm not a robot. So it's as skill you can gain.
  - samus 4y ago
    Open source developers should disregard hostile feedback out of principle, for their own sanity. The feedback might be valuable, but it's ultimately not worth mining for because they get very little for their work, donations at best. Commercial customer support stuff at least get a regular income for their trouble.
    - SpEd3Y 4y ago
      Yeah, frustration breeds frustration. So I agree that it's better to disregard it if you can't handle it. But I'm just wondering, is it possible to ignore the form of the message and listen to the content? Looking back the stoics were very good at controlling their own emotions and dealing with insults. Insults would just not get to them, they would bounce right off them. Is this a skill we've lost as a society? It seems that nowadays we're focusing external, not internal. Instead of developing a thick skin we're focusing on changing the behavior of the people who's insulting us. To me that seems like a pointless endeavor. You can't change someone else behavior if they don't want to cooperate. And without a thick skin, all it takes is one jerk to ruin your day. With thick skin the insults from a jerk bounces off you and your day is still a good day. So, it seems to me that we should focus inwards instead of outwards. Not saying it's easy. Just saying humans were capable of that in the past, nowadays I don't hear anybody talking about it.
blowski 4y ago
Here's an example of what a constructive, friendly email might look like, in contrast to what Tom sent. >>> Hey Don, thanks for all the hard work you've put into Notepad++ over the years. I've never paid you a cent, and yet I've personally made quite a bit of money from using the product. Despite how obviously useful the product is overall for me, there's a niggle I've got, that I'd love you to solve. Let me know if I can do any hands-on work to help you fix it. I'm probably not good enough to write code, but maybe I could help with testing, writing documentation, or giving you more detail on the issue. Or maybe I should, you know, give you some cash. Anyway, the issue I'm having is around using the settings. I'd like to use the application with a specific UI - greenish background, black text, highlighting what's selected. The way I've configured it sort of works, but has a white background when I move the cursor around. This is probably me doing something wrong, but I can't work it out - I've searched on the internet, but can't find a solution. Here are the settings I'm using. [...] Let me know if I can provide more details that would help reproduce the problem. Thanks again for all that you do to make Notepad++ the great product that it is.
- SpEd3Y 4y ago
  I agree. And ideally this is what all emails should look like. But you're ignoring the context. Do you know what that guy was going through? Maybe his wife just cheated on him, divorced him and took half his money, his kids don't want to have anything to do with him, his bank took his house and he just crashed the car. And he tried to use Notepad++ and the same old issue happened and he snapped and sent that email. 99 out of 100 times he would have send the email you mentioned here but he had a horrible day and vented in the email. Does it make it ok? No. Is it understandable? Yes. Should we discard the feedback because he was frustrated? No.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    He didn't have to send that email at that moment if he was going through some stuff. One's having a bad day does not excuse anti-social behavior. Ever.
    - 4y ago
z3t4 4y ago
In feedback like this I filter out the useful information. No need to hurt your ego, or go on the offense, if you instead respond by asking questions that show you do care and understand you will often get a more humble response.
obscura 4y ago
While this the feedback in this mail indicates a problem, even if you remove the emotional language I don't believe it's constructive. Constructive feedback would not just indicate a problem, but also provide guidance/suggestions on how to correct it.

politelemon 4y ago

Only true if you're expecting the author to behave like a robot and exist without any kind of emotion. I certainly don't see how you would call that constructive in any way. Loose analogy, I don't watch videos of retail workers being abused and think, that customer is providing constructive feedback.

vultour 4y ago
Maybe we just use a different definition of "constructive feedback", but my emotional perception of a comment has nothing to do with the classification. "You suck and your software is a piece of crap" is not constructive feedback because there's no details to act on. "Fuck you the submit button is obscured by the footer" is constructive even if the message has a personal attack. You might choose not to act on comments due to emotions, but I don't think it invalidates any constructive feedback contained within.
- hatenberg 4y ago
  And this right here is why a large number of engineers never make it pas mid-level. Thinking that the only things that matter are technical and the social aspects of communication are just unnecessary complications
  - scraptor 4y ago
    Understanding the things people are actually telling you without getting distracted by anger is also part of communications. You don't have to engage with the rude users but their problems are just as real.
SpEd3Y 4y ago
Only true if you're expecting the the person who provided feedback to behave like a robot and exist without any kind of emotions. Loose analogy, I don't watch videos with people buying a bike with no breaks, fall and get hurt, then go to the vendor and calmly explain to them that they should modify their bike design so the breaks function and think, that customer is behaving like a human being. See what I did there? :) My analogy might not be great, I give you that. But frustration is a normal human behavior. Granted I strongly believe you should try to vent a different way and then give clam feedback, you can't discard feedback just because the person giving it is frustrated. We should be able to distinguish between frustrated good feedback and just abuse. I know I was able to get feedback from very hostile messages. And last time I checked I'm not a robot. So it's as skill you can gain.
- samus 4y ago
  Open source developers should disregard hostile feedback out of principle, for their own sanity. The feedback might be valuable, but it's ultimately not worth mining for because they get very little for their work, donations at best. Commercial customer support stuff at least get a regular income for their trouble.
  - SpEd3Y 4y ago
    Yeah, frustration breeds frustration. So I agree that it's better to disregard it if you can't handle it. But I'm just wondering, is it possible to ignore the form of the message and listen to the content? Looking back the stoics were very good at controlling their own emotions and dealing with insults. Insults would just not get to them, they would bounce right off them. Is this a skill we've lost as a society? It seems that nowadays we're focusing external, not internal. Instead of developing a thick skin we're focusing on changing the behavior of the people who's insulting us. To me that seems like a pointless endeavor. You can't change someone else behavior if they don't want to cooperate. And without a thick skin, all it takes is one jerk to ruin your day. With thick skin the insults from a jerk bounces off you and your day is still a good day. So, it seems to me that we should focus inwards instead of outwards. Not saying it's easy. Just saying humans were capable of that in the past, nowadays I don't hear anybody talking about it.

blowski 4y ago

Here's an example of what a constructive, friendly email might look like, in contrast to what Tom sent. >>> Hey Don, thanks for all the hard work you've put into Notepad++ over the years. I've never paid you a cent, and yet I've personally made quite a bit of money from using the product. Despite how obviously useful the product is overall for me, there's a niggle I've got, that I'd love you to solve. Let me know if I can do any hands-on work to help you fix it. I'm probably not good enough to write code, but maybe I could help with testing, writing documentation, or giving you more detail on the issue. Or maybe I should, you know, give you some cash. Anyway, the issue I'm having is around using the settings. I'd like to use the application with a specific UI - greenish background, black text, highlighting what's selected. The way I've configured it sort of works, but has a white background when I move the cursor around. This is probably me doing something wrong, but I can't work it out - I've searched on the internet, but can't find a solution. Here are the settings I'm using. [...] Let me know if I can provide more details that would help reproduce the problem. Thanks again for all that you do to make Notepad++ the great product that it is.

SpEd3Y 4y ago
I agree. And ideally this is what all emails should look like. But you're ignoring the context. Do you know what that guy was going through? Maybe his wife just cheated on him, divorced him and took half his money, his kids don't want to have anything to do with him, his bank took his house and he just crashed the car. And he tried to use Notepad++ and the same old issue happened and he snapped and sent that email. 99 out of 100 times he would have send the email you mentioned here but he had a horrible day and vented in the email. Does it make it ok? No. Is it understandable? Yes. Should we discard the feedback because he was frustrated? No.
- brewdad 4y ago
  He didn't have to send that email at that moment if he was going through some stuff. One's having a bad day does not excuse anti-social behavior. Ever.
  - 4y ago

z3t4 4y ago

In feedback like this I filter out the useful information. No need to hurt your ego, or go on the offense, if you instead respond by asking questions that show you do care and understand you will often get a more humble response.

obscura 4y ago

While this the feedback in this mail indicates a problem, even if you remove the emotional language I don't believe it's constructive. Constructive feedback would not just indicate a problem, but also provide guidance/suggestions on how to correct it.