Monday May 09, 2005

Big picture, criticism, and an apology

Another brief departure from the world of internationalization myths to make some brief observations.

First, the apology. I apologize to folks for using industry abbreviations and jargon that you may not understand. I have tried to limit it, but it is faster to use the abbreviations, so I still do it. I will try to put an obvious explanation of the abbreviation i18n somewhere prominent in the static text.

Second, an observation on criticism. Before criticizing someone directly, it might make sense to figure out what you want to achieve. Are you just venting? Do you want to sound superior, boost your own ego? Or do you really want that person to do better the next time? If your answer is the latter (the last choice of those previously prevented), then consider the way you have phrased the criticism. Does it provide enough information for the recipient to understand what they need to change and why? Is the tone helpful? If you were to receive the very same criticism, how would you react?
I've recently received what I would call hostile criticism. It looks like the person didn't really want to help me improve, but somehow wanted to make me look ignorant. Since my goal with this blog is to help improve internationalization knowledge, I really don't understand why someone would do this. Maybe he was just having a bad day. Maybe he has no clue how he comes across. Maybe he doesn't understand what constructive criticism is. Who knows? But I don't understand this style of language as a first point of entry. Certainly I didn't do anything to provoke this person - I just write a blog; I don't see my blog as overly controversial. I don't write things perfectly, but I do review and think carefully about my choice of words. I just don't see the need for hostility. Perhaps it's part of the aggressive language I've seen on mailing lists. People tend to say things online that they would never say face to face.

And last but definitely not least is the Big Picture. As I said, my goal with this blog is to improve general understanding of internationalization (abbreviated i18n because there are 18 letters between the i and the n and so done because typing out internationalization over and over again gets a little tiresome and makes paragraph alignment messy), and to make a few folks chuckle a little. There are not many of us who work in i18n or have an interest in it, and so it stands to reason that we should work together to increase understanding. That means that we need to overlook small differences in order to move towards the common goal. In other words, when you have senior vice presidents (VPs) in software companies saying that "Internationalization is done" when the product in question continues to be revised, calling out a colleague's occasional phraseology* is pretty pointless. Obviously this principle is not limited to the wild and woolly world of internationalisation (alternate spelling of internationalization). Big Picture.

* It is difficult to reconcile my conversational voice with an international English. I like to use all the words and expressions available to me in the language, but have tried to limit it to a minimum. Occasionally, though, expressions like "wild and woolly" will be written - I don't want to bore the natives.

( May 09 2005, 02:28:08 PM PDT ) Permalink