mindgraffiti

I admit I enjoy ranting about my frustration at wannabes who don’t want to improve their skills. I am only human and I refuse tolerate willful ignorance. Call it one of my flaws. While these amateurs are the worst kind, they are not the only type in the group.

For today, I will loosely define Amateur as a hobbyist or newbie who has little experience or no skills building for the web. Currently, Amateurs are spotted by one of three actions (or any combination thereof):

1. They consider mySpace or BlogSpot an acceptable definition of “I have a web site.”
2. They turn Homestead or Angelfire sites into a freelance business and charge $500-$1500 each.
3. They used Pagemaker or hand coded their HTML in notepad without declaring a docType.

Everyone starts out as an Amateur.

Experts are loosely defined as professionals. They are paid living wages for their skills (their employment status varies- they can be freelance, full time, consultant, etc.) and often have written books, white papers, developed/refined a method, received awards or are acknowledged and well respected by others in the industry. [It's a general definition but because Web Experts often specialize, I cannot define an an arbitrary, narrow statement like "someone who codes Ruby and uses mySQL."]

Observations

Because the learning curve for HTML is low and tools to publish to the Web are available everywhere, there are many Amateurs building web sites. To the great ire of Experts, this landslide of Amateurs devalues the skills of Experts and lowers the price expectations by customers who want a web site built.

The open source philosophy has fostered an attitude of sharing, making it acceptable for Experts to post their work. This allows Amateurs to learn by example and develop their skills. Some Amateurs hold the attitude that they need no improvement and don’t bother to learn- they stick with what they know, and that is the end of the discussion. This exasperates the Experts and leads to the snobbish, elitist attitude reflected in comments posted in help forums, Usenet groups and blogs. This leads to personal attacks by Amateurs which only multiplies the problem. Experts develop a bad reputation despite the fact that not all Experts are rude or mean. Misguided and overly proud Amateurs give legitimate Hopefuls a bad name.

The Gap Between Amateur and Expert

The Hopefuls - for the few who realize they have room to grow and much left to learn. Hopefuls are identified more by their attitude than their skill level. They may have Amateur skills, but quickly bound above that point, given time and experience. The negative attitude expressed by some of the Experts either annoys them or overwhelms them. Hopefuls show great promise in becoming an Expert one day. They actively participates in the forums, Usenet groups and blogs. They seek advice, try out tutorials and ask many questions. When interested in a subject, they take great leaps in technical improvement and knowledge.

The trouble comes when jaded Experts do not identify or sort out the Hopefuls from the always-Amateurs. When a Hopeful searches for an answer, any Expert who extends a helping hand will motivate that Hopeful to continue. When they are rebuffed with rude or snappish answers from the Experts, they stop asking questions. When the tools or approaches to problem solving used by Hopefuls are criticized without alternatives suggested, they stop contributing answers to other newbies.

The best answer to alleviate the Amateur problem? Turn them into Hopefuls. The more Hopefuls who graduate into Experts, the better off the web will be in the future. More Experts need to step up. Experts who illustrate the practical how-to, illuminate the theory behind a new method or suggest better tools will be more effective than the ones who only stop long enough to bemoan the fact that Amateurs exist. Approachable Experts will see things change because they are influencing the future set of Experts.

A few Experts who already patiently tolerate Hopefuls: Kirupa, Eric Meyer and Molly Holzschag. Hats off to you, with a Thank You and a smile.