[LA.pm] Anyone with a teaching bug?

[Ben Tilly]

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 11:45 AM, Andy Lester <andy at petdance.com> wrote:
>> No, I meant what I'm said.  I'm disappointed at how few pages have so many
>> errors, so early in the cycle.
>
> That's fine to be disappointed.  But you can fix errors, you can learn
> coding, what you can't learn is attitude and spirit and wanting to help the
> community.

The way to fix errors and coding is to be firm on not tolerating them
while demonstrating how to do them well.  Randal may have expressed
that harshly, but he has done both parts of this for years.

My firm opinion is that part of the reasons why perlmonks works as
well as it does is that some people early on, including me and Randal,
helped set the culture there to value *both* accuracy and helpfulness.
 Try it.  Go and try to give a deliberately wrong answer to a
question.  See how long it takes you to get corrected.

Getting that attitude in the culture of a group at the start takes a
lot of work.  Reverse engineering that attitude into an established
group is probably impossible.  It is therefore extremely important to
be sure that any new group that wishes to help starts with high
standards and then tries to maintain them.

> I'll take a spirited player wanting to learn over a benchwarmer any day.

I'll take a benchwarmer over a spirited newcomer who has not learned
and objects when informed of the need to learn before trying to inform
others.  At least the benchwarmer is not actively causing harm.

Cheers,
Ben