How to get feedback?

When you write an article or a piece of code, when you submit a grant proposal or if you are running a newsletter about Perl, at one point you'll want to get some feedback.

There are two ways to do that.

Ask for feedback,

or make people so angry, that they will provide the feedback without asking.

The first one is hard work, the second one happens naturally.

(Actually, there are even people who orchestrate controversy on purpose. That's even harder than asking for feedback.)

So for example we just saw an article that was controversial enough to generate more than 20 comments and at least two other blogs by Chris Prather and David Golden linking to it. There was also a lengthy discussion about it on Hacker News and I don't think it is over.

I also posted it on the Google + page of the Perl Weekly where it got a couple of more comments.

Some people were supporting the original post, some opposing it.

In any case, lots of people got involved, the emotions were high and the bits were flying.

Another example was that someone complained about the lack of visibility of his project on the Perl Weekly. That generated some discussion whether I am objective, neutral or selfish.

The nice thing about it is that I got quite a few people giving me their support in-email and other channels. I don't mean hundreds but enough to make it clear, at least some people like what I am doing with the Perl Weekly.

Then there were a couple of very insightful comments:

"There is more than one way to be objective in #perl" Alexandr Gomoliako ( @zzzcpan)

"The whole 'objective = good, subjective = evil' stance explains why Perl people suck at marketing (notable exceptions excepted)." - Marcel Grünauer (@hanekomu)

"Yeah, lack of feedback is a problem. I just assume everyone loves what I do and go with that :)" - Glen Hinkle (@tempire).

Now let's get back to do stuff.