How is criticism of attitude, tone, or style productive in any way? It's the kind of thing that people do when they don't actually have anything substantive to say.
Well, because it affects how people receive your work, if part of your work is making a positive change by influencing others in some way. I have a shitty attitude a lot of the time and criticism of it has helped me grow. (And helped me make the decision to actually finally quit Reddit, with the exception of one novelty account I keep around for giggles.)
Alternatively, strike a balance in which you release material publicly but only engage in discussion with those who seem capable of understanding the things you say instead of getting caught up in the way you say them. Which is exactly what the author of this article is doing. Which everyone must do to some degree, considering the one-to-many communication model of the internet is capable of generating massive audiences that are infeasible to engage with on an individual level (as you mentioned). If you respond to any member of that audience on an individual level, you have effectively hand-selected a member of your audience to participate in discussion. edit: i think he goes too far in claiming that public comments are harmful. i would say that public comments simply tend to encourages the kind of response he does not find interesting, and that personal email has a higher signal/noise ratio.
I gave it some thought on the way home, and I have swayed a bit more to your perspective, but I still think that a good attitude is a trait that it's simply lazy for any person who presents materials to the public not to cultivate. If you're SO brilliant that you really truly don't need to be liked, okay, but most people (even most brilliant people) are not. However, I acknowledge that the value of his work, though not best served by his presentation, is not itself affected by his presentation. The thing that sticks in my craw is his need to announce that he thinks comments are harmful and that he won't participate. Just don't participate next time, guy. Nobody's waiting with bated breath for ya!
I agree with this. To me it seems like he's just now learning how to interact with people on the internet, and was surprised by the sheer volume of shitposting that happens in public. Of course once you scale up past a certain size, private messages become useless too.The thing that sticks in my craw is his need to announce that he thinks comments are harmful and that he won't participate. Just don't participate next time, guy. Nobody's waiting with bated breath for ya!
Sometimes you can't see forest for the trees, meaning that this may seem benign on its own, but once this type of writing becomes more and more pervasive, is something lost? I would be curious to know which of the two comments he perceived as negative? I'm not saying there aren't 2, perhaps there's more? It's just such a subjective thing. I did like the linked post and again should mention that Fred was very kind in his letter to me and offered to respond to users via email if they wanted to reach out to him. An offer that I would guess stands.