“Advocacy is a funny old game. Although it seems a loose and inexact science, developing as an advocate demands a range of communicative, philosophical and technical skills. Advocacy is not just about the message, but it is about the tone, colour and dynamics of the communication. As a professional advocate of Open Source, I get email asking about how to advocate efficiently and with a high degree of success.”
The first how to for flame war !
But we all know here that we haven’t the need of this how to: OSNews readers already master the art of flame war. ^^
Edited 2006-01-02 15:36
Remember, Open Source advocacy is not like Star Wars – there is no black and white division and there is no force. Even if there were, it is sometimes better to sit down with Darth Vader and ask why he is such a total shit instead of just giving him to the light saber treatment.
I agree that aggressive, ignorant, uncaring advocacy is a total turnoff, the Star Wars analogy is wrong. If anything, the Sith are the ones who speak in absolutes and have trouble controlling their passions. Also, Luke didn’t “just giving [Vader up] to the light saber treatment.” Luke took the higher road by surrendering to appeal to Vader’s heart. When it finally became clear that fighting was required, he abstained from finishing Vader off when finally given the chance. In the end, Vader destroyed himself by taking down the Emperor.
That aside, the article was excellent. There are many good practices to adopt whether you are advocating Linux, Macs, Microsoft, or something else.
At the risk of being drug off topic. I think you completely missed the point of Star Wars Episode 3.
It was said outright: “Only a Sith deals in absolutes!” But, if you stop and process that I think you’ll see something: It’s self contradicting. He’s making an absolute statement about how he doesn’t (by implication) deal in absolutes.
I see in 3 and 6 a pretty clear message: There’s no such thing as exactly good, and exactly evil. I think, right or wrong, Lucas was saying that even those horrible evil people who appear to just be heartless scum are far more complex than just being evil. Did you notice how Anakin is drawn to the dark side while trying to save the woman he loves? That’s right, evil from love.
This is what makes it a dark film. The fact that evil and good are not shown clearly and drawn apart. These sorts of concepts are definitely dark in the sense that they make people say “wait, am I really on the right side?” Or, at least, they’re supposed to. The pessimist in me tells me that few people are truly that introspective.
But there’s definitely something to the article. You don’t win friends with harsh words and scolding. I think a lot of people have great reasons for using OS X these days: They’ve been waiting forever for a laptop that ran a real OS that didn’t make them tinker. Unfortunately, there’s not much in the way of new PC laptops that run Linux really really well, with no tinkering.
I’m gonna define really really well: ACPI works, completely.
And I’m very aware of the fact that ACPI would work if manufacturers knew how to read [the standard].
Episode 3 was nothing but a big pile of horse shit.
I’m scared to read this article…
Will I be scarred for life?
It’s not that bad. But I don’t see what anyone’s going to get out of it — the true trolls will ignore the message even if they read the words and the rest of the world would find the advice self-evident.
Browser: ELinks/0.11rc0 (textmode; Darwin 8.3.0 Power Macintosh; 80×40-3)
Uh..?
I thought anonymous posting was disabled.
You have to help those people who are in search of it find it, but it’s useless to point it out to the unwilling/uninterested crowd because then you just get a bunch of bitching and whining about why Linux/BSD is too hard. Of course, it would offend their pride to say it’s too hard for them, so instead they just throw a tantrum on an internet bulletin board, change their screen name to some sort of derogatory comment about Linux or simply troll this and other sites (which is strange because if all they wanted was Windows friendly conversation, they could have stayed in Microsoft’s forums). Open source is simply not for cowards and those unwilling to learn. That should always be made clear to a beginner.
Leadership
Humility
Mentoring
I make a point to have KDE running in conference meetings, plant visits, and any gatherings where there are a lot of skilled folks (operators, engineers, manamagement, etc.) who are unfamiliar with alternate OS’s. It always generates discussion, especially when KDE is tricked to the nines and folks say “What the hell is that…that is so cool!” That is the advocacy introduction.
If folks respect you and have confidence in your skills, they will listen to what you have to say. If you demonstrate humility as you advocate, this helps them understand (noone likes a blowhard geek). And when they try it on their own and you help them along the way, the mentoring is helps them become advocates themselves. The trick is to advocate constructively, not use it as a weapon or condemnation of another technology or POV. Folks aren’t dumb and can see right through an agenda – a word that starts with the same letter but has a very sour result.
“Witnessing is a funny old game. Although it seems a loose and inexact science, developing as a witness demands a range of communicative, philosophical and technical skills. Witnessing is not just about the message, but it is about the tone, colour and dynamics of the communication. As a professional witness for Christ, I get email asking about how to witness efficiently and with a high degree of success.”
More evidence that operating systems are the new religion. Move over, Jesus.
“These sorts of concepts are definitely dark in the sense that they make people say “wait, am I really on the right side?” Or, at least, they’re supposed to. The pessimist in me tells me that few people are truly that introspective.”
And some would say there is no good and evil, just winners and losers..
This is OSnews, a site for news on various OSes. If there should be open minds towards new OSes on the internet, they should gather here. But that’s not what we find here at all. We find a majority of people not the slightest bit interested in trying a new OS, instead either ridiculing it from what they’ve heard or simply don’t know, or giving it a brief try and deciding it’s not ready for the desktop (as opposed to deciding that if “ready” must be the defining term for it, than they are not ready for the particular OS). So other than certain businesses trying to save money and a some real enthusiasts willing to experiment, how well does advocacy actually work?
Hi everyone,
I wrote the article, and thought I would reply to a few points:
helf – don’t be scared.
ApproachingZero – I don’t think this is about religion, but instead about doing what you do better. I do advocacy and the point of the article was to help other people advocate better with some scraps of experience that I have learned from.
As for the Star Wars references, don’t read to much into it – it was just a quip that outlined the fact that advocacy does not need to be so divided.
Jono
“Episode 3 was nothing but a big pile of horse shit.”
Says the resident Trekkie…