The Keynoter article was obviously written in response to the forum discussions about this topic and as an attempt to quell them.
The consequences of past and present actions within the "leadership" of our hobby is the real issue. The information posted on the opportunitylost website is merely a small window on the mistakes that can affect the hobby, which is the larger problem. Not only are these mistakes in the form of actions, but also from a lack of dedicated research and experience within the hobby, which results in mis-information that is distributed through books, magazines, conferences, web sites, and in forum discussions.
Eric's perspective of the hobby is much larger than most of ours so there may be good intentions he had that will never be realized. My comments are not directed toward Eric, but are directed toward everyone who acts or speaks as a "leader" within the hobby. Some of those leaders perform time consuming research, they set up the necessary experiments or scenarios, they take the time and effort to establish facts, they make sure their information is solid before sharing it. These are the kinds of leaders that the hobby needs and their actions benefit all of us. The kind of "leaders" that the hobby doesn't need are those who rush to publish unfounded hypotheses, rush to fill every niche that may place them in public view, load themselves up with projects they can't complete, and give advice about things they have no experience with. Those kinds of "leaders" are best described in the quote below:
Quote:
Originally Posted by MDPinUSA
5) There are too many glorified hobbyists with ego maniacal personalities that travel around or post on the internet for totally self serving reasons.
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