A Honest to Good Aggravated Criticism of Paid Modifications for vBulletin (Essay)

[y2ksw]

Originally Posted by cheat-master30

The point still stands. You don't need 'expertise' to criticise anything. It's a very similar argument to saying 'only a scientist can criticise scientific knowledge' or what not. Saying 'I'd like to see you do better' and expecting that because someone cannot do better at whatever means they're wrong is a fallacy. You don't need to know how to make movies to say how a movie sucks, or know economics to say that there are unfair business decisions or various other stuff. Sometimes I really wish vBulletin would have a 'no use of code in paid deriative works' addition to their terms of service to stop much of this.

To criticise anything they must have a minimum of knowledge of the argument.

If for example somebody tries to stitch a brand on a tire, they may criticise the needle to be too weak or the rubber be too strong. But unless they don't know that tires are not for stitching, their criticism is worthless.

I usually support all the software I've ever made, in order to understand what people really need. When I get criticised, I try to fix the problem or explain the reasons of the missing feature, in that order. And sometime I admit I can't fix it.

No program or addon is perfect, but it may become still reasonably interesting to many people if there is the good will to make the best of it. And in this sense I agree with you.