Since I write long comments on blog posts where the blog owner has full control over what they choose to publish, I will cross-post my comment here. This one is for Jon Bach on My brother, the Tester.
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Good thoughts, and well presented, thank you. I wanted to add a few perspectives though.
I don't think people are (including me) are upset about using my name, but using my name to describe my character and misrepresent me. A lot of the first reactions came from people who (unlike James) know me, and felt that the slide misrepresents me. It does not include claims I've made dissected, it includes statements of how James sees he is different from me. And quite frankly, I find many of them quite insulting.
In his blog post, on the other hand, the continues the theme. He misquotes my slides from my presentation (not what I said, the text - the slides were already available for fact checking during conference and in particular when the article was written).
With great power comes the responsibility. I find that James isn't, in this particular case acting very responsibly, instead he chooses to continue to misrepresent me and not publish my response in his blog.
I love how you talk about congruence and being true to your values, and I agree that is what James is doing. He says things as he sees them, and I value that. I'm not against that. I'm against forcing people into 'debates' with fishy tactics. I'm against intimidating people and not realizing that while some find it clear, others find it so scary that we lose relevant voices in the community. A lot of the voices I recognize as lost are women's, and I find we're in a place where we need to stop accepting losing those voices. It's reasonable to expect a change.
You mention the dysfunctional archetypes. I read his post very differently, He starts with blaming me for copyright infringement stating that while it's a fact he's not using that against me - he just did stating that. He corrected it after I quoted a piece of US copyright law and I find it interesting that I needed to do that. Similarly, he blames me for posting the slide. I would never had the chance of posting unless the slide was there in the first place. I find this is often the stance in James I'm witnessing.
When James 'tests' you, he does so knowing you. He does not know me. He has not studied my writings apart from some tweets. He has boxed me, unjustifiably, as 'not a tester'.
I also find his actions in this particular case are not congruent of the message he portrays of himself as The Tester. He did not test the characterizations he made of me, he did not fact check his evidence. He lost focus on evidence for emotions around thinking I'm attacking our craft.
I find, unlike James, that we break through our different beliefs and paradigms through being kind and working with real tasks with one another. Inflicting cognitive dissonance (doing and enjoying things people thought are worthless, like exploratory testing) is far more powerful than a debate.
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Good thoughts, and well presented, thank you. I wanted to add a few perspectives though.
I don't think people are (including me) are upset about using my name, but using my name to describe my character and misrepresent me. A lot of the first reactions came from people who (unlike James) know me, and felt that the slide misrepresents me. It does not include claims I've made dissected, it includes statements of how James sees he is different from me. And quite frankly, I find many of them quite insulting.
In his blog post, on the other hand, the continues the theme. He misquotes my slides from my presentation (not what I said, the text - the slides were already available for fact checking during conference and in particular when the article was written).
With great power comes the responsibility. I find that James isn't, in this particular case acting very responsibly, instead he chooses to continue to misrepresent me and not publish my response in his blog.
I love how you talk about congruence and being true to your values, and I agree that is what James is doing. He says things as he sees them, and I value that. I'm not against that. I'm against forcing people into 'debates' with fishy tactics. I'm against intimidating people and not realizing that while some find it clear, others find it so scary that we lose relevant voices in the community. A lot of the voices I recognize as lost are women's, and I find we're in a place where we need to stop accepting losing those voices. It's reasonable to expect a change.
You mention the dysfunctional archetypes. I read his post very differently, He starts with blaming me for copyright infringement stating that while it's a fact he's not using that against me - he just did stating that. He corrected it after I quoted a piece of US copyright law and I find it interesting that I needed to do that. Similarly, he blames me for posting the slide. I would never had the chance of posting unless the slide was there in the first place. I find this is often the stance in James I'm witnessing.
When James 'tests' you, he does so knowing you. He does not know me. He has not studied my writings apart from some tweets. He has boxed me, unjustifiably, as 'not a tester'.
I also find his actions in this particular case are not congruent of the message he portrays of himself as The Tester. He did not test the characterizations he made of me, he did not fact check his evidence. He lost focus on evidence for emotions around thinking I'm attacking our craft.
I find, unlike James, that we break through our different beliefs and paradigms through being kind and working with real tasks with one another. Inflicting cognitive dissonance (doing and enjoying things people thought are worthless, like exploratory testing) is far more powerful than a debate.
