benlehman

I'll tag this one.

Most recently I can point to my own experiences with attempting to run PTA. Tried it once, tweaked a little, discussed what didn't work, was told I was WRONG WRONG WRONG so, in good faith, i went back and tried it more strictly by the book, was still unsatisfied but, apparently, still WRONG WRONG WRONG.

Now, honestly, in other contexts and in other settings, I've had some really, really, _really_ good conversations about PTA, my impressions and my experiences. Many of these conversations have been with forge folks, but they have almost always been in other contexts. For me, at least, this gave a solid impression that this wasn't where I would want to take a wide range of topics that interest me.

Beyond that, I'll admit most of the cases I could document are not from the forge itself, but from folks who I would view as Forge ambassadors (over and above Ron), coming to other places and displaying behaviors that reflect badly on the forge. Now, some of that is entirely me making the arbitrary decision of who is an ambassador for the forge, but I do not think I do so entirely unreasonably.

Here's the last bit though, and it's one I think you address in an admirable way. The forge _is_ a brand, with all that comes with that. There's a lot of denial of that - I don't think people are comfortable with the fact that there is a perceived "Forge" entity because from the inside, it sure doesn't look homogenous. Sadly, some perception just can't be logicked away.

And, to go further, some impressions are just unfair. I admit, there are a bunch of people, yourself included, I just sort of exclude from the list when I think about shit that bugs me with the forge. I've got a very old negative bias, so I tend to discount the good as individual contributors, and I tend to lump the bad together as one mass. A lot of forge proponents seem to do the reverse, discounting the bad as rogue actors, and collectivizing the good. Honestly, I think we're both on crack, but it's definitely not an uncommon crack, and it does not ultimately answer which mass really is the larger.