You put me on a roller coaster of agreement and disagreement. I don't want want to frame beginners publishing amateur level tutorials and "bad" or "evil" necessarily. I DO think the apparent "internet pollution" is worth considering in the context of "what helps us as a community".
> Yes, please write your tutorial. The best way to learn something, by far, is to teach.
I absolutely agree! This one of the reasons school and university is great: you have tons of peers at about your level of knowledge and who need only the level of rigor you can supply. School work is fantastic at avoiding the kinds of robust rigorous information production work needs.
> To those who say "but we don't want another crappy tutorial we only want to hear from experts" I heartily disagree. First, it is your responsibility as a learner to decide if something makes sense or not. You can not and should never just believe something on the internet.
I agree with whomever you're quoting. I don't want wade through hundreds of crappy tutorials. We don't need experts per say but intermediate skill and some actual experience goes a long way. I think the appropriate tone and style of writing can go along way towards mitigating the frustrations of "internet pollution". Putting the onus partially on the learner is reasonable, but if all of their resources are poor or wrong theres only so much you can do.
> Second, experts are far detached from the beginner's mindset and often lack the ability to explain something in simple terms. Someone who is a few steps ahead of you will have a better chance to explain things in your language.
This is too true. Experts aren't always the best resources, but beginners are virtually always terrible. I think the keys is here it sucks when you're learning something but it turns out the author isn't a few steps ahead but a few steps off the path in a sand trap.
> We need to spread more knowledge, not less. A beginner's experience with learning a new technology is valuable knowledge, even if some details may not be correct. As long as the reader keeps his critical thinking hat on, we all win.
Mixed feelings.
My proposal:
If you're just learning working with your peers (in a very localized), teaching others, and writing your experiences is invaluable. You've gotten all the value you're going to get from it. The broader community doesn't have the context of what level you're at so they're not likely to get a ton from what you're doing. Publishing this is probably not bringing anyone a ton of value unless it's pretty narrow like a messaging board for your class.
When you're at an intermediate level and you have some experience under your belt I'd say putting your ideas out there is the only way to get to the next level. Bringing beginners up the rungs with you is important. It's okay to be a little wrong if you're tackling bigger topics but this is also the level when you're a "reader [who] keeps [their] critical thinking hat on". You know where you're publishing something that fills a need.
> Yes, please write your tutorial. The best way to learn something, by far, is to teach.
I absolutely agree! This one of the reasons school and university is great: you have tons of peers at about your level of knowledge and who need only the level of rigor you can supply. School work is fantastic at avoiding the kinds of robust rigorous information production work needs.
> To those who say "but we don't want another crappy tutorial we only want to hear from experts" I heartily disagree. First, it is your responsibility as a learner to decide if something makes sense or not. You can not and should never just believe something on the internet.
I agree with whomever you're quoting. I don't want wade through hundreds of crappy tutorials. We don't need experts per say but intermediate skill and some actual experience goes a long way. I think the appropriate tone and style of writing can go along way towards mitigating the frustrations of "internet pollution". Putting the onus partially on the learner is reasonable, but if all of their resources are poor or wrong theres only so much you can do.
> Second, experts are far detached from the beginner's mindset and often lack the ability to explain something in simple terms. Someone who is a few steps ahead of you will have a better chance to explain things in your language.
This is too true. Experts aren't always the best resources, but beginners are virtually always terrible. I think the keys is here it sucks when you're learning something but it turns out the author isn't a few steps ahead but a few steps off the path in a sand trap.
> We need to spread more knowledge, not less. A beginner's experience with learning a new technology is valuable knowledge, even if some details may not be correct. As long as the reader keeps his critical thinking hat on, we all win.
Mixed feelings.
My proposal:
If you're just learning working with your peers (in a very localized), teaching others, and writing your experiences is invaluable. You've gotten all the value you're going to get from it. The broader community doesn't have the context of what level you're at so they're not likely to get a ton from what you're doing. Publishing this is probably not bringing anyone a ton of value unless it's pretty narrow like a messaging board for your class.
When you're at an intermediate level and you have some experience under your belt I'd say putting your ideas out there is the only way to get to the next level. Bringing beginners up the rungs with you is important. It's okay to be a little wrong if you're tackling bigger topics but this is also the level when you're a "reader [who] keeps [their] critical thinking hat on". You know where you're publishing something that fills a need.