When others do a foolish thing, you should tell them it is a foolish thing.
Certainly, I agree that we shouldn’t mislead others for the sake of being kind. But is it really too much to ask that we think about HOW we tell them?
As a high school teacher, I could be fired for calling my students’ work garbage. I’m sure I would hear about it at a parent-teacher conference at the least. And rightly so, because it has been demonstrably, emprically proven that negativity impedes learning. Most people don’t ‘rise to the occasion’ when they are put down. A student is likely to resent the teacher, resent the school and resent the subject if he receives harsh words for asking for help with his assignment.
This is a public forum, not a tutoring institution
In all walks of life, people should strive to respect the feelings of others. Doctors call this ‘bedside manner’. Normal people just call it sensitivity. They are sensitive to other’s feelings, because they actually care about people. I’m disappointed that you’re justifying rudeness on the grounds that this isn’t an exclusively educational forum. When you help someone in the support section of BA, you become a teacher in that moment. And why not strive to be a good one? Why else would you be helping?
The best way to foster learning is through ‘positive reinforcement’. It is known to be the most effective method of producing desired behavior. If someone does a good thing, reward them for it. In this case, a beginner with blender put him/herself out there by asking for help. That is positive. It deserves a reward, like kind words and gentle instruction. But what they received in this case was tactless advice.
Blender’s community is known as one of its strongest traits. People here are helpful. But if you’re helpful and rude while you’re at it, people are only going to remember the latter. We will lose people because of this - potentially great artists, coders, educators - because they got turned off from the community. I know because it happened to me while I was learning 3DS Max.
So, how about some tact? In my mother’s words which I’m sure she stole from someone else, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
P.S. - I appreciate Richard a lot. He’s obviously been very helpful to many many people. I’m not suggesting we police the forums for harsh words. I’m just saying we catch more flies with sugar. And as people interested in growing a community, we should do our best.