From BlenderWiki
How to be an effective Blender (or open source) advocate
Recently I've noticed a number of situations, where advocacy for Blender had the unfortunate result of potential users not only being uninterested in Blender, but also gaining a negative opinion both of Blender and its users.
Does the Behavior of Advocates Really Matter in Software Adoption?
The behavior of advocates absolutely effects software adoption. Since this is addressed at Blender users, I'll use an example that relates specifically to Blender. Prior to Blender adopting a scripting language (before it was open source), Ton (the creator of Blender and the Blender Foundation) was considering two primary possibilities, Python and Perl. The advocates he dealt with who promoted Python were friendly and inclusive, whereas the Perl advocates had tended to be abrasive and have an air of superiority. This difference in behavior of the advocates led to Ton choosing Python as our scripting language.
Common Ineffective Advocacy Practices
Some common 'Ineffective advocacy' problems that I see fairly frequently:
- Criticizing competing software - Don't discuss Blender in relation to another piece of software unless you are extremely familiar with the current version (and preferably have a long history of usage) of the software you are making the comparison with. I've seen Blender advocates make statements and complaints about other software based on versions of the software five or more years in the softwares past. If you don't feel it is appropriate for people to judge Blender based on a five year old version of Blender (ie back before Blender had Undo for anything but mesh editing) please extend the same courtesy to other software users.
- Overstating strengths understating weaknesses - Blender is an excellent piece of software, but it is far from the best piece of software for all 3D tasks. I've seen an oft repeated claim about Blender being the fastest modeling tool, but to my knowledge there isn't any evidence to support this. Blender has a mix of strengths and weaknesses and coming from other software there are certain to be features that other users will be at pains living without, and other features that they will fall in love with.
- Claiming weaknesses as strengths/making excuses - In the early days of Blender I'd frequently see advocates explain that not having an undo was a good thing because it made you think about what you were doing and plan better. Or that lack of a 3D manipulator was a good thing, or that lack of customization was a good thing, or lack of ngons. Claiming that a lack of a commonly available feature in other 3D packages is a good thing just makes you seem either daft or a raving fan boy.
- If you don't know the answer to a question – say so and try and find someone more knowledgeable than you and see if they can answer it. A wrong answer can cost a lot of wasted time and frustration and loses the individuals trust in your competence and knowledgability.
- Focusing on free as the primary selling point. There are certain individuals for whom the cost of a software license might be prohibitive, but for most professionals it is the time invested versus time saved that is important.
- Talking about features in unreleased versions – even if you know a certain feature will be in an upcoming release for certain, it is a bad idea to discuss those features in advance for a couple of reasons. Firstly it might confuse those reading your postings – if you say, for instance, that Blender has ngons, the user will expect it to be in the currently released version, not a development branch.
- Posting about Blender into threads where it would be off-topic. If some other software is released, don't bring up Blender in the thread discussing their latest release - that is just extremely rude.
- Being a 'tireless rebutter' - It is tempting that if someone makes a claim that you disagree with - to try and argue the point, and repeatedly argue until the other person sees the error of their ways ('But someone was wrong on the internet!'). Since the other person seeing the error of their ways is about as likely as me winning the lottery, these end up as extremely long winded back and forth bickering. Since these arguments invariably happen in threads totally unrelated to the argument (or only tangentially related), the thread ends up getting 'spoiled' for those actually interested in the topic. One common place that such arguments spring up is about Blender new releases. If you feel the urge to argue with the person and can't resist doing so, try and at least have the courtesy to take the discussion to a private communication channel.
How To Be an Effective Advocate?
- Participate as an artist in forums outside of Blenderartists. It is great that you are an active participant at Blenderartist, but there are a huge number of artistic forums out there, with a bunch of amazing and skilled artists. If you want to improve your concept art skills, join conceptart or the cgtalk drawing forum, if you are interested in working on game art – polyquad. Remember though – you are not there to discuss software, you are their to improve your skills as an artist. You should be posting mostly in their WIP, Focused Critique, and Finished Art sections or joining in their art competitions. Unless you are asked a direct question about Blender try to avoid talking about it entirely.
- Make awesome artwork with Blender. Most of us are not going to make the next "Big Buck Bunny", but you are capable of doing a well executed piece of art through hard work and dedicated effort, asking for thoughtful criticism and applying the critiques to improve your work.
- Become an 'expert' in some area of Blender. Pick a feature and learn it inside and out. Experiment with it, try and see what its limits are. Try as many different things as you can with it. Read as much as you can about how this type of feature works in other programs, etc. Try and recreate some of the effects you've seen with a similar piece of software. There are all sorts of features you could become an expert in – digital sculpting, paint based texturing, fluids, smoke, particles, hair, cloth, soft bodies, hard body dynamics, compositing, lighting, rendering, uv unwrapping, rigging, animating, or even usage of a particular import or export script etc. Based on that knowledge you can now answer questions about that particular tool with quite a bit of expertise, you can also create a cool animation or useful tutorial, or update the wiki.
- If you spot someone being a 'bad advocate' send them a private message politely pointing it out, and try and redirect the conversation back to a productive topic.
- Show other people videos of cool stuff done with Blender.
- Be nice.
- Be helpful.
