
Not everyone is going to like the thing you made, and that’s okay - frostmatthew
https://wilwheaton.net/2013/12/not-everyone-is-going-to-like-the-thing-you-made-and-thats-okay/
======
pkteison
I find human opinion fascinating, and look forward to the glorious future when
we can do better than up/down arrows.

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.

~~~
flipside
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](http://tinj.com)

2\. ...

3\. Profit... I mean, we'll let you know when we launch.

~~~
carterschonwald
ranking / rating done right/optimally seems to be a highly problem specific
challenge. What problem domains are you focusing on?

~~~
flipside
Starting with entertainment for a variety of reasons.

~~~
carterschonwald
good luck! look forward to learnign more when you get it out

------
sgdesign
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.

~~~
NAFV_P
_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.

~~~
gky2
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.

~~~
NAFV_P
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.

------
DanielBMarkham
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](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.

------
yesimahuman
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.

------
drewrv
> 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.

------
jonathanjaeger
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.

------
xux
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."

------
NAFV_P
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.

------
drawkbox
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.

------
spiritplumber
People like the things I make, but organizations don't.

------
baby
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.

------
stcredzero
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.

------
hkmurakami
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

