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Why do “open letters” get so much more respect and attention than an ordinary whining email? The headline “A whining email to <organization>” would be ignored.

Why do “open letters” get so much more respect and attention than an ordinary whining email? The headline “A whining email to <organization>” would be ignored. Change it to “open letter” and it’s instant gravitas. Seems to be the same sort of magic words as ”considered harmful”……. instantly credible and worthy of consideration. I really should frame all of my grumbles about the state of the world as “open letters” so people pay attention.

mirekrusin 3y ago
Open letter to open letters.
bogtog 3y ago
To get people to take you even more seriously, hammer some number of theses on an organization's door.
pilaf 3y ago
Open letters considered harmful?
latexr 3y ago
That is confirmation bias. You only know of the successful open letters and are ignoring all the ones which were not. Search this very website for the term and sort by popularity, then start from the last page. See how many you ever even knew existed. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&query=open%20letter&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&query=ope...
- A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
  Yep, I can call a press conference tomorrow and the attendance will be binary.
paganel 3y ago
Because putting "whining" in the title of such a genuine request would entrench the people ignoring it in the first place, they'll just say "these are not serious people! We were right in ignoring the request! Who in his/her right mind puts 'whining' in the title of a petition?". As such, calling it an "open letter" might have bigger chances of success, even though (and judging by the responses of many of the people here), I don't think that those chances are that big to begin with. Either way, shameful conduct by the PSF, I used to look up to them ~20 years ago when I started learning Python.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
Letters can be a lot of things. Sometimes letters are about love, sometimes they're insulting, sometimes they're ambivalent, sometimes they're begging, sometimes they're threatening. So letters can be a lot of things, but they're fundamentally letters, and some letters are open, like this one. The authors here called their letter an open letter because that's what it is. If you think it's just a whining email, that's a you thing, that's your own personal interpretation of the letter. I personally would not call it a whining email. It's a letter with people raising their genuine heartfelt thoughts.
- andrewstuart 3y ago
  I didn't even read it - the subject isn't interesting to me. All open letters are expressions of dissatisfaction.

mirekrusin 3y ago

Open letter to open letters.

bogtog 3y ago

To get people to take you even more seriously, hammer some number of theses on an organization's door.

pilaf 3y ago

Open letters considered harmful?

latexr 3y ago

That is confirmation bias. You only know of the successful open letters and are ignoring all the ones which were not. Search this very website for the term and sort by popularity, then start from the last page. See how many you ever even knew existed. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&query=open%20letter&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&prefix=false&query=ope...

A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
Yep, I can call a press conference tomorrow and the attendance will be binary.

paganel 3y ago

Because putting "whining" in the title of such a genuine request would entrench the people ignoring it in the first place, they'll just say "these are not serious people! We were right in ignoring the request! Who in his/her right mind puts 'whining' in the title of a petition?". As such, calling it an "open letter" might have bigger chances of success, even though (and judging by the responses of many of the people here), I don't think that those chances are that big to begin with. Either way, shameful conduct by the PSF, I used to look up to them ~20 years ago when I started learning Python.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

Letters can be a lot of things. Sometimes letters are about love, sometimes they're insulting, sometimes they're ambivalent, sometimes they're begging, sometimes they're threatening. So letters can be a lot of things, but they're fundamentally letters, and some letters are open, like this one. The authors here called their letter an open letter because that's what it is. If you think it's just a whining email, that's a you thing, that's your own personal interpretation of the letter. I personally would not call it a whining email. It's a letter with people raising their genuine heartfelt thoughts.

andrewstuart 3y ago
I didn't even read it - the subject isn't interesting to me. All open letters are expressions of dissatisfaction.