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> but a page like this is more likely to annoy the decision-makers than to convince them to not remove XSLT support. You cannot “convince decision-makers” with

> but a page like this is more likely to annoy the decision-makers than to convince them to not remove XSLT support. You cannot “convince decision-makers” with a webpage anyway. The goal of this one is to raise awareness on the topic, which is pretty much the only thing you can do with a mere webpage.

bawolff 1y ago
For some reason people seem to think raising awareness is all you need to do. That only works if people already generally agree with you on the issue. Want to save endangered animals? raising awareness is great. However if you're on an issue where people are generally aware but unconvinced, raising more awareness does not help. Having better arguments might.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  > For some reason people seem to think raising awareness is all you need to do. I don't think many do. It's just that raising awareness is the first step (and likely the only one you'll ever see anyway, because for most topics you aren't in a position where convincing *you* in particular has any impact).
  - bawolff 1y ago
    Convincing me personally does not have any impact. Convincing people like me, in mass, does.
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      A mass doesn't move because it's convinced (i.e. rationally) of something, but because they are emotionally impacted. Rational arguments come later, and mostly behind closed doors.
      - bawolff 1y ago
        Sure, but translating that movement to actual policy change usually depends on how much uninvolved people are sympathetic to the protestors, which usually involves how rational the protestors are precieved as. Decision makers are affected by public sentiment, but public sentiment of the uninvolved public generally carries more weight. Thats why the other side usually try to smear protests as being crazy mobs who would never be happy. The moment you convince uninvolved people of this, the protestors lose most power. > Rational arguments come later, and mostly behind closed doors. I disagree with this. Rational arguments behind closed doors happen before resorting to protest not after. If you're resorting to protest you are trying to leverage public support into a more powerful position. That's about how much power you have not the soundness of your argument.
        littlestymaar 1y ago
        > Sure, but translating that movement to actual policy change usually depends on how much uninvolved people are sympathetic to the protestors No, that's the exception rather than the rule. That's a convenient thing to teach to the general public and that's why people like MLK Jr. and Gandhi are being celebrated, but most movement that make actual policy changes do so while disregarding bystanders entirely (or even actively hurting bystanders. That's why terrorism, very unfortunately, is effective in practice). > which usually involves how rational the protestors are precieved as I'm afraid most people don't really care about how rational anyone is perceived at. Trump wouldn't have been elected twice if that was the case. > Decision makers are affected by public sentiment, but public sentiment of the uninvolved public generally carries more weight. They only care about the sentiment of the people that can cause them nuisance. A big crowd of passively annoyed people will have much less bargaining power than a mob of angry male teenagers doxxing and mailing death threats: see the gaming industry. > I disagree with this. Rational arguments behind closed doors happen before resorting to protest not after. Bold claim that contradicts the entire history of social conflicts…
      - jeltz 1y ago
        My emotional response to XSLT being removed was: "finally!". You would need some good arguments to convince me that despite my emotions applauding this descion it is actually a bad thing.
- glenstein 1y ago
  >For some reason people seem to think raising awareness is all you need to do. I guess I'm not seeing how that follows. It can still be complimentary to the overall goal rather than a failure to understand the necessity of persuasion. I think the needed alchemy is a serving of both, and I think it actually is trying to persuade at least to some degree. I take your point with endangered animal awareness as a case of a cause where more awareness leads to diminishing returns. But if anything that serves to emphasize how XSLT is, by contrast, not anywhere near "save the animals" level of oversaturation. Because save the animals (in some variation) is on the bumper sticker of at least one car in any grocery store parking lot, and I don't think XSLT is close to that.
  - CamouflagedKiwi 1y ago
    I think it's the other way around. Simply raising awareness about endangered animals may be enough to gain traction since many/most people are naturally sympathetic about it. Conversely, XSLT being deprecated has lower awareness initially, but when you raise it many people hearing that aren't necessarily sympathetic - I don't think most engineers think particularly fondly about XSLT, my reaction to it being deprecated is basically "good riddance, I didn't think anyone was really using it in browsers anyway".
    - bawolff 1y ago
      As an open source developer, i also have a lot of sympathy to google in this situation. Having a legacy feature holding the entire project back despite almost nobody using it because the tiny fracation that do are very vocal and think its fine to be abusive to developers to get what they want despite the fact its free software they didn't pay a dime for, is something i think a lot of open source devs can sympathize with.
      - necovek 1y ago
        I think all that you say applies to a random open source project done by volunteer developers, but really doesn't in case of Google. Google has used its weight to build a technically better product, won the market, and are now driving the whole web platform forward the way they like it. This has nothing to do with the cost of maintaining the browser for them.
ludicrousdispla 1y ago
>> You cannot “convince decision-makers” with a webpage anyway. They should probably be called "decision-maders"

bawolff 1y ago

For some reason people seem to think raising awareness is all you need to do. That only works if people already generally agree with you on the issue. Want to save endangered animals? raising awareness is great. However if you're on an issue where people are generally aware but unconvinced, raising more awareness does not help. Having better arguments might.

littlestymaar 1y ago
> For some reason people seem to think raising awareness is all you need to do. I don't think many do. It's just that raising awareness is the first step (and likely the only one you'll ever see anyway, because for most topics you aren't in a position where convincing *you* in particular has any impact).
- bawolff 1y ago
  Convincing me personally does not have any impact. Convincing people like me, in mass, does.
  - littlestymaar 1y ago
    A mass doesn't move because it's convinced (i.e. rationally) of something, but because they are emotionally impacted. Rational arguments come later, and mostly behind closed doors.
    - bawolff 1y ago
      Sure, but translating that movement to actual policy change usually depends on how much uninvolved people are sympathetic to the protestors, which usually involves how rational the protestors are precieved as. Decision makers are affected by public sentiment, but public sentiment of the uninvolved public generally carries more weight. Thats why the other side usually try to smear protests as being crazy mobs who would never be happy. The moment you convince uninvolved people of this, the protestors lose most power. > Rational arguments come later, and mostly behind closed doors. I disagree with this. Rational arguments behind closed doors happen before resorting to protest not after. If you're resorting to protest you are trying to leverage public support into a more powerful position. That's about how much power you have not the soundness of your argument.
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        > Sure, but translating that movement to actual policy change usually depends on how much uninvolved people are sympathetic to the protestors No, that's the exception rather than the rule. That's a convenient thing to teach to the general public and that's why people like MLK Jr. and Gandhi are being celebrated, but most movement that make actual policy changes do so while disregarding bystanders entirely (or even actively hurting bystanders. That's why terrorism, very unfortunately, is effective in practice). > which usually involves how rational the protestors are precieved as I'm afraid most people don't really care about how rational anyone is perceived at. Trump wouldn't have been elected twice if that was the case. > Decision makers are affected by public sentiment, but public sentiment of the uninvolved public generally carries more weight. They only care about the sentiment of the people that can cause them nuisance. A big crowd of passively annoyed people will have much less bargaining power than a mob of angry male teenagers doxxing and mailing death threats: see the gaming industry. > I disagree with this. Rational arguments behind closed doors happen before resorting to protest not after. Bold claim that contradicts the entire history of social conflicts…
    - jeltz 1y ago
      My emotional response to XSLT being removed was: "finally!". You would need some good arguments to convince me that despite my emotions applauding this descion it is actually a bad thing.
glenstein 1y ago
>For some reason people seem to think raising awareness is all you need to do. I guess I'm not seeing how that follows. It can still be complimentary to the overall goal rather than a failure to understand the necessity of persuasion. I think the needed alchemy is a serving of both, and I think it actually is trying to persuade at least to some degree. I take your point with endangered animal awareness as a case of a cause where more awareness leads to diminishing returns. But if anything that serves to emphasize how XSLT is, by contrast, not anywhere near "save the animals" level of oversaturation. Because save the animals (in some variation) is on the bumper sticker of at least one car in any grocery store parking lot, and I don't think XSLT is close to that.
- CamouflagedKiwi 1y ago
  I think it's the other way around. Simply raising awareness about endangered animals may be enough to gain traction since many/most people are naturally sympathetic about it. Conversely, XSLT being deprecated has lower awareness initially, but when you raise it many people hearing that aren't necessarily sympathetic - I don't think most engineers think particularly fondly about XSLT, my reaction to it being deprecated is basically "good riddance, I didn't think anyone was really using it in browsers anyway".
  - bawolff 1y ago
    As an open source developer, i also have a lot of sympathy to google in this situation. Having a legacy feature holding the entire project back despite almost nobody using it because the tiny fracation that do are very vocal and think its fine to be abusive to developers to get what they want despite the fact its free software they didn't pay a dime for, is something i think a lot of open source devs can sympathize with.
    - necovek 1y ago
      I think all that you say applies to a random open source project done by volunteer developers, but really doesn't in case of Google. Google has used its weight to build a technically better product, won the market, and are now driving the whole web platform forward the way they like it. This has nothing to do with the cost of maintaining the browser for them.

ludicrousdispla 1y ago

>> You cannot “convince decision-makers” with a webpage anyway. They should probably be called "decision-maders"