Not everyone is going to like the thing you made, and that’s okay(wilwheaton.net)
wilwheaton.net
Not everyone is going to like the thing you made, and that’s okay
https://wilwheaton.net/2013/12/not-everyone-is-going-to-like-the-thing-you-made-and-thats-okay/
15 comments
What I find really interesting are cases like the "Napoleon Dynamite problem".
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23Netflix-t.html?...
There are some things that are so oddly polarizing that it becomes very difficult to guess whether someone will like it or hate it, no matter how much you know about that person. And even the people who are asked why they love/hate it tend to have a hard time explaining it.
Human opinion is complex, that's for sure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23Netflix-t.html?...
There are some things that are so oddly polarizing that it becomes very difficult to guess whether someone will like it or hate it, no matter how much you know about that person. And even the people who are asked why they love/hate it tend to have a hard time explaining it.
Human opinion is complex, that's for sure.
Sounds like you want a multi-dimensional rating system that works. Patience, it's coming. We're focused on doing it right.
1. Sign up at http://tinj.com
2. ...
3. Profit... I mean, we'll let you know when we launch.
1. Sign up at http://tinj.com
2. ...
3. Profit... I mean, we'll let you know when we launch.
ranking / rating done right/optimally seems to be a highly problem specific challenge. What problem domains are you focusing on?
Starting with entertainment for a variety of reasons.
good luck!
look forward to learnign more when you get it out
I too look forward to this site. The problem with Smart Recommendations that Netflix and Pandora make is they are still subject to highly subjective tastes. I could have watched 6 documentaries on Wine, rated them all 5 stars and I still might not like the title recommended by Netflix, even if it is a documentary about wine and has an average 4.9 from other Netflix users. There are simply too many variables and most people (myself included) are fickle. If I'm in a certain I could like a movie I would otherwise dislike.
That would be hunch.com. It was bought by eBay a while ago, not really sure what's been going on with it. The concept is great, but in practice, your mileage may vary. There are a few other similar sites too... but none of them have really taken off in a big way.
unfortunately the fear of a company knowing too much in order to "sell" you, I.e. the privacy debate that is so rightly ongoing would restrict or otherwise cloud ambitions in this arena I fear.
You should also remember that anybody giving you a negative reaction might just be having a bad day for totally different factors. This is especially true on social media, where it's so easy to blow off some steam by writing a snarky remark without thinking about how it's going to be interpreted.
So whenever someone isn't very nice with me, I prefer to assume that they're a nice person who just happens to have bumped their toe into a table leg or something.
So whenever someone isn't very nice with me, I prefer to assume that they're a nice person who just happens to have bumped their toe into a table leg or something.
So whenever someone isn't very nice with me, I prefer to assume that they're a nice person who just happens to have bumped their toe into a table leg or something.
Nice persons tend to apologise, if they don't apologise they are probably arseholes.
Nice persons tend to apologise, if they don't apologise they are probably arseholes.
I think that's probably situational. There could be aspects in which they couldn't apologize. If the person really is in a bad mood, it's unlikely that they'll turn around a few minutes later, suddenly feeling better and then being apologetic. And it could also be the case that the person was just a random person who could never contact you again to apologize.
I really like the article overall. It seems somewhat like common sense, and even reading it, I know the next time I bump into a situation like this, it'd still be difficult for me to see it this way.
I really like the article overall. It seems somewhat like common sense, and even reading it, I know the next time I bump into a situation like this, it'd still be difficult for me to see it this way.
Well, I tend to apologise straight away. Perhaps I've spent a lot of my life surrounded by arseholes... Yes, I have spent my life surrounded by arseholes.
Six months ago I created an e-mail course for teams that are using Agile, Scrum, Lean, and Kanban. I called it the "Agile Tune-Up Kit" (shameless plug: http://bit.ly/15sz0Pl)
Man that was/is a freaking lot of work. Over 30 mini-classes so far. People get one each week. When people sign-up, I ask them for comments, and I hand-reply back to why they're there. When people unsub from the list, I apologize and ask what I could have done better.
I am learning this lesson, but very slowly. Whenever somebody unsubs from the list, I always look at what the last email they got was. Can I make it better? Am I writing the series too long/too short/wrong reading level/to the wrong audience? It's enough to drive you nuts.
But it's been a great lesson, because with any email list, you're naturally going to lose people. It actually doesn't have to have anything to do with what you're creating. Maybe they don't have time to read it any more, or their job changed, or they just clicked on the spam button on Gmail because they had too much stuff in their inbox. Yes, it might be something I can control. Or it might not. All I can do is do the best job I can, ask for feedback, and move on.
Every second and every bit of emotional energy I spend worrying about what I can't control is taking away from the things I can control. Creating things and interacting with people ain't like programming. Things aren't boolean, there are tons of hidden variables, and "debugging" doesn't work the way it does in code. Tough thing to learn.
Man that was/is a freaking lot of work. Over 30 mini-classes so far. People get one each week. When people sign-up, I ask them for comments, and I hand-reply back to why they're there. When people unsub from the list, I apologize and ask what I could have done better.
I am learning this lesson, but very slowly. Whenever somebody unsubs from the list, I always look at what the last email they got was. Can I make it better? Am I writing the series too long/too short/wrong reading level/to the wrong audience? It's enough to drive you nuts.
But it's been a great lesson, because with any email list, you're naturally going to lose people. It actually doesn't have to have anything to do with what you're creating. Maybe they don't have time to read it any more, or their job changed, or they just clicked on the spam button on Gmail because they had too much stuff in their inbox. Yes, it might be something I can control. Or it might not. All I can do is do the best job I can, ask for feedback, and move on.
Every second and every bit of emotional energy I spend worrying about what I can't control is taking away from the things I can control. Creating things and interacting with people ain't like programming. Things aren't boolean, there are tons of hidden variables, and "debugging" doesn't work the way it does in code. Tough thing to learn.
I've had multiple projects of mine on the front page of HN, and while I got lots of upvotes, there have been many negative or overly harsh comments.
Once my business hit substantial revenue, I realized it didn't matter, that it was more important to make a few people love us than to make everyone like us.
I also realized that a lot of hackers on HN are having a hard time making their own business because they don't realize people like things that they might not. Taste is huge.
Once my business hit substantial revenue, I realized it didn't matter, that it was more important to make a few people love us than to make everyone like us.
I also realized that a lot of hackers on HN are having a hard time making their own business because they don't realize people like things that they might not. Taste is huge.
> When I was younger, I would have completely ignored the first one, and obsessively focused on the second one to the point of feeling shitty about myself.
That made me sad to hear given how much hate the character Wesley Crusher got.
That made me sad to hear given how much hate the character Wesley Crusher got.
I really like the idea that a product has legs if people love it or they hate it. If everyone is in the middle, they're apathetic, and you're not on to anything.
I'm relaunching a website I've been running for years and I'm relentless about customer service and community management. I don't know how EVERYONE is going to react that's already a member of my site, but I know some people are going to love it, and that's way better than thousands of apathetic users with only a tiny fraction coming back every day. I can't wait.
I'm relaunching a website I've been running for years and I'm relentless about customer service and community management. I don't know how EVERYONE is going to react that's already a member of my site, but I know some people are going to love it, and that's way better than thousands of apathetic users with only a tiny fraction coming back every day. I can't wait.
Something that always helped me:
"Most people are focused on themselves. So whatever bad interaction you have with them, is mostly a reflection of them, instead of a reflection of you."
"Most people are focused on themselves. So whatever bad interaction you have with them, is mostly a reflection of them, instead of a reflection of you."
One of my goals in life is to write a piece of software that everybody hates. If those same people depend on it to survive, that is a hugely satisfying bonus.
Bill Gates did the same thing, he must got off on that.
Bill Gates did the same thing, he must got off on that.
And if you made something and are trying to make it perfect, make it good and get it out there. It is better to publish to not, and there will be haters. But there will be fuel from the ones that like it, and some good insights from critical ones. Learn more about what people like and get better.
People like the things I make, but organizations don't.
I've had this with this my personal take of 750words ( can be found here and it's in french so I doubt it's interesting to anyone here : 3pages.fr ), I'm getting a lot of feedback :
* There are people who love you because your application is changing their life
* There are people who gives you pertinent feedback.
* There are people who just don't get it and are suggesting core modifications.
I often ignore the last kind of people because I have a principal view on how I want things to be and making something should be about that. You cannot please everyone and you should focus on pleasing you first.
* There are people who love you because your application is changing their life
* There are people who gives you pertinent feedback.
* There are people who just don't get it and are suggesting core modifications.
I often ignore the last kind of people because I have a principal view on how I want things to be and making something should be about that. You cannot please everyone and you should focus on pleasing you first.
Disappointing truth be told, Theodore Sturgeon's observation certainly applies to programmers talking. Mostly because the same ratios apply to the quality of programmers listening.
Most programmers are quick to pigeonhole you and what you say. Pay attention to their conclusions and note how careful they are(n't) about gathering enough info to arrive at those conclusions. Look for signs to see if they are skeptical of their own mental models.
This is how to pick who you should work with.
Most programmers are quick to pigeonhole you and what you say. Pay attention to their conclusions and note how careful they are(n't) about gathering enough info to arrive at those conclusions. Look for signs to see if they are skeptical of their own mental models.
This is how to pick who you should work with.
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I think this is true for anything we put out there for the world to see, whether it be software, prose, music, video, photos, etc.
I have had a hard time dealing with some of the feedback I've gotten with the things I've written, whether it be on HN or on my blog, but I'm slowly learning to be okay with the fact that no, not everyone will love what I have to say :P
I have had a hard time dealing with some of the feedback I've gotten with the things I've written, whether it be on HN or on my blog, but I'm slowly learning to be okay with the fact that no, not everyone will love what I have to say :P
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Looking at a site like Rotten Tomatoes, where the metric is "professional reviewer thought thing was at least decent" and seeing that there is surprisingly little agreement even on such a simple metric (even a terrible movie, like Season Of The Witch, has a 10 so 10% of the reviews like it; even a great movie, like wall-e, only has a 94 - so somebody didn't like it - and most movies are in between with lots of critics liking and lots of critics disliking the exact same thing. Yet we still try to arrive at a truth by considering all their opinions equally as a group. This is obviously doomed to failure.)
It's even more clear when you think about something more abstract, like a favorite color. My favorite color is purple. If yours is yellow, does that mean I'm wrong? Clearly there isn't an obvious objective "This Is Good" when it comes to taste or opinions. Why then is up/down arrows the current state of the art?
I know Netflix has managed to do more by looking for similar reviewers and weighting their opinions, and Pandora does audio classification, but I'm not aware of this concept catching on well in other areas, and I particularly don't know of it being applied to multiple things at once - if I want a recommendation about a new movie that isn't on Netflix yet, or if I'm tired of the repetitiveness of Pandora's stations, their clever algorithms don't help me a bit beyond their limited walls. I don't know of a site like reddit or hacker news or videosift trying to capture more than 'good/bad' for evaluating links on the web. I don't know of a site that is really trying to help me pair my taste with other reviewers, so that I can get personally curated content and we can end up with a world that recognizes some people love action movies and others love romantic comedies and recommending a movie for me to see should take that into account. How wonderful will it be when there is finally a site that can suggest I should read these three articles because -I- will find them good, maybe I should be sure to catch Pacific Rim, and a new band I might like has a video out; while giving completely different recommendations to my sister, without trying to limit to an objective non-relative definition of "good", because we're talking about taste and opinions aren't wrong.
When one of you smart folks makes that site, please let me know.