

How Newcomers Can Influence Established Groups - monkeybusiness
http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/07/how-newcomers-can-influence-established-groups.php

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dustice
Wow, I thought I was just being shy, but I've been adhering to a similar
strategy my whole life when joining a new group: stay back, let the group
welcome you in instead of forcing yourself into the group. I also find that
befriending single members of the group outside of the normal group
environment works well in gaining some legitimacy in the group. After
friending one person, you just apply the transitive property of friendship a
couple time and hey! you've got a ton of new friends.

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endtime
The basic point seems to be "if you're new, shut up". Probably good advice in
most cases.

Perhaps the headline could be changed to "How Groups Perceive Criticism From
Newcomers" - I was expecting an article about how a group changes based on an
influx of newcomers, which has been a topic of interest on HN lately.

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metachor
This reminds me of a great book, "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral
Participation", by Lave and Wegner (an anthropologist and a computer
scientist). This book deals with how newcomers to a community of practice
interact with core practitioners to learn the central knowledge/beliefs of
that community. As newcomers move from the periphery to the center of
practice, their criticisms to the body of central knowledge become more
acceptable to the community as a whole. This of course causes the "center" of
the community to shift over time as new members cycle in to a community and
old members exit.

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ggchappell
This article solidifies something that's been rattling around in my head for a
month or three.

It relates to a post on HN (which I can't find now) about job interviews. I
think the article was written by an interviewer, who said he liked to hire
someone who could offer a knowledgeable, well reasoned critique of his
organization.

The implication is that, if you're looking for a job, you should aim at doing
that kind of thing. I had a problem with that, but I could not articulate it
very well. This article filled in the gaps in my thinking.

Wish I could find that old post ....

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copenja
I think it is perfectly reasonable to take criticism from an 18 year veteran
more seriously than from a 2 week new jack.

In both cases you are assuming to gain a new perspective from the experience
of another human.. Is it not reasonable to assume that someone that has spent
a vast quantity of time in a particular environment would have a better
perspective than a new jack?

And, do we need a study to tell us that groups are hostile toward newcomers
that give them criticism?

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shpxnvz
But that was not the group reaction. The article indicated that the group...

 _thought newcomers provided less constructive criticism_

 _agreed less with newcomers' suggestions_

 _were more negative about their criticisms_

If the group just wasn't taking the criticism seriously, they would ignore it
rather than disagree with it.

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tybris
I don't see why you would want to change anything as a newcomer. There's no
way you are going to understand the process well enough by then. First get to
know the people, figure out how they think, how they work and how they
communicate. Then figure out what's wrong and start telling them about it. You
have nothing important to tell in the first few weeks. Ignoring your criticism
is the rational thing to do.

At a lower level the way to get change done is to agree with people on
anything you find sufficiently unimportant. On the thing you really want to
change you'll explain that it's really quite similar to what they've been
doing before, except you start taking into account A, which should be
something they can identify with. To be able to do this, you need to know who
you're talking to.

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onreact-com
I'm just experiencing "hostility to newcomers" on HN. My comments have been
repeatedly voted down for no apparent reason. I just can't imagine people
loving nuclear weapons and such so why vote me down for speaking out in favor
of pacifism.

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TrevorJ
Not true. After reading through your past comments on this site as I have, you
will see that the only times you have been downvoted are when you bring
political views into conversations where it is almost entirely off-topic.

Plenty of your comments in other threads have been upvoted, so laying the
blame for your treatment on the rest of the community here is disingenuous.

~~~
onreact-com
It's not off topic to speak out against militarism on a post that is
cheerleading the military for being hilarious. I know people in the US love
guns and are proud to "liberate" countries in the middle east but in Europe
people think differently. I was surprised to see militarism being hailed in a
tech and business oriented social news community. You don't want my political
opinion stop promoting the army.

