I think I tend to expect more from people when they are critical—i.e. I’m fine with a compliment/agreement that someone spent 2 minutes on, but expect critics to “do their homework”, and if a complimenter and a critic were equally underinformed/unthoughtful, I’d judge the critic more harshly. This seems bad!
One response is “poorly thought-through criticism can spread through networks; even if it’s responded to in one place, people cache and repeat it other places where it’s not responded to, and that’s harmful.” This applies equally well to poorly thought-through compliments; maybe the unchallenged-compliment problem is even worse, because I have warm feelings about this community and its people and orgs!
Proposed responses (for me, though others could adopt them if they thought they’re good ideas):
For now, assume that all critics are in good faith. (If we have / end up with a bad-critic problem, these responses need to be revised; I’ll assume for now that the asymmetry of critique is a bigger problem.)
When responding to critiques, thank the critic in a sincere, non-fake way, especially when I disagree with the critique (e.g. “Though I’m about to respond with how I disagree, I appreciate you taking the critic’s risk to help the community. Thank you! [response to critique]”)
Agree or disagree with critiques in a straightforward way, instead of saying e.g. “you should have thought about this harder”.
Couch compliments the way I would couch critiques.
Try to notice my disagreements with compliments, and comment on them if I disagree.
“Though I’m about to respond with how I disagree, I appreciate you taking the critic’s risk to help the community. Thank you!”
Not sure how much this helps because if the criticism is thoughtful and you fail to engage with it, you’re still being rude and missing an opportunity, whether or not you say some magic words.
This is a great point—thanks, Jacob!
I think I tend to expect more from people when they are critical—i.e. I’m fine with a compliment/agreement that someone spent 2 minutes on, but expect critics to “do their homework”, and if a complimenter and a critic were equally underinformed/unthoughtful, I’d judge the critic more harshly. This seems bad!
One response is “poorly thought-through criticism can spread through networks; even if it’s responded to in one place, people cache and repeat it other places where it’s not responded to, and that’s harmful.” This applies equally well to poorly thought-through compliments; maybe the unchallenged-compliment problem is even worse, because I have warm feelings about this community and its people and orgs!
Proposed responses (for me, though others could adopt them if they thought they’re good ideas):
For now, assume that all critics are in good faith. (If we have / end up with a bad-critic problem, these responses need to be revised; I’ll assume for now that the asymmetry of critique is a bigger problem.)
When responding to critiques, thank the critic in a sincere, non-fake way, especially when I disagree with the critique (e.g. “Though I’m about to respond with how I disagree, I appreciate you taking the critic’s risk to help the community. Thank you! [response to critique]”)
Agree or disagree with critiques in a straightforward way, instead of saying e.g. “you should have thought about this harder”.
Couch compliments the way I would couch critiques.
Try to notice my disagreements with compliments, and comment on them if I disagree.
Thoughts?
Not sure how much this helps because if the criticism is thoughtful and you fail to engage with it, you’re still being rude and missing an opportunity, whether or not you say some magic words.
I agree that if engagement with the critique doesn’t follow those words, they’re not helpful :) Editing my post to clarify that.