from the I-should-be-getting-better-sometime-soon dept.
Anonymous Coward writes:
"In a timely way for those of us building a new community at Soylent News, the BBC has collected musings on the importance of failure. A few quotes:
'The quest for perfectionism is 'the enemy of achievement' and that the more we seek to get everything exactly right, the less we actually get done.' Heather Hainbury, Headmistress of Wimbledon High School.
'If the failure was our own fault we become more tolerant of human error, and if the failure was the result of external factors, of circumstance, an unkind coalition beyond our control, then we learn about the limits of willpower and self-determination. We see how our own agency interacts with context and fortune.' Ed Smith, Author and former professional cricketer.
'If your venture doesn't work out, but you did everything you could to make it a success, that's what we call an honest failure, and that's seen as an honourable thing... Whereas if your venture didn't work out because you spent too much time at networking events, you weren't doing your customer research, and you were just lazing around, then that's what we would call a dishonest failure.' Stewart McTavish, Director of IdeaSpace in Cambridge, a community and support network for entrepreneurs."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JimmyCrackCorn on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:15AM
After learning something, it has been particularly difficult to understand a perspective of not knowing what I know. I can not explain to you how I can walk, for instance.
But, when failure, the mark of distinction seems to solder a score and I clearly remember the turn of events and the primitive knowledge prior to the mistake.
"don't drive at high speeds after Vodka"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:22AM
Salvador Dali
In my opinion, as long as I can browse and read posts on Soylent News, without getting a message similar to "Oops! You do not appear to have javascript enabled." SoylentNews is a complete success. I read SoylentNews everyday since the beginning. I like the look of the site and everything else about it. The font in the articles on SoylentNews is a little bigger than on the other site, and this is much better. The only thing needed to improve SoylentNews is people to keep submitting a lot of technical news and articles.
Fact: This was posted without Javascript enabled.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Barrabas on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:59AM
(I'm running the show here at SoylentNews)
In the last status meeting everyone agreed that we should have as little JS as possible, and also fail gracefully when it is disabled.
The little we're *probably* going to add will allow inline open/collapse of comments. We felt that the improved functionality warranted the relatively tiny code. We thought initially that this could be done entirely using CSS, but on closer inspection that won't work.
NCommander, the overlord of dev, is well aware of the situation and tries to keep "fail gracefully" in mind when making changes. He points out that this is also important for reading-impaired users. He uses Mosaic (remember that?) for testing.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:10AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:49AM
For SoylentNews to become a success, /. needed to fail.
Moral of the story: while failure may come before improvement, the failing and the improver need not to be the same.
Mistakes [despair.com] - never be afraid to make them, someone will surely benefit
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Barrabas on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:35AM
I'm fond of Henry Grady Weaver [mises.org], which is why my long-term plan doesn't have a lot of detail. Mostly it's "here's what we should be doing next".
Too often planning, rules, and procedure, only serve to bog down the process and waste effort. My best example is the US government: so tied up in bureaucratic process that it can't complete a project of *any* stripe. (Including, but not limited to, a relatively simple web page for health insurance.)
I've got my vision, and I've got ideas on how to achieve that vision. If at any point we need something (better communication, a different command structure, operating procedures) we just do what seems best and improve it over time.
Others can chime in at any point with good ideas, different directions, and short-term predictions. As long as it puts us toward the vision, it's all good.
It's sort of like scrum, but applied to growth and management. It may seem undirected and even a little chaotic, but it's the most efficient way toward our goals.
(Score: 1) by gottabeme on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:00AM
PDF isn't loading. Could you elaborate?
(Score: 5, Informative) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:41AM
Many high achievers take failure personally, not that they have failed at something but that they have failed. Not all of them show it, or let it outwardly affect them too much.
In some cases, high achieving kids have self-imposed stress [nydailynews.com] that leads as far as suicide.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Funny) by German Sausage on Tuesday March 04 2014, @05:42AM
"The quest for perfectionism is the enemy of achievement". Why the added "ism" Heather? Why not say "The quest for perfection is the enemy of achievement". It's shorter, simpler, and actually makes sense.
(Score: 4, Funny) by jmoschner on Tuesday March 04 2014, @06:19AM
Maybe she wasn't trying to be perfect?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:32AM
I was somehow expecting something on the line of quest for perfectionism as the antithesis of the quest to WTFism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by dyingtolive on Tuesday March 04 2014, @01:59PM
A person should not believe in an 'ism,' he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: 'I don't believe in Beatles. I just believe in me.' A good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I'd still have to bum rides off of people.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1) by TK on Wednesday March 05 2014, @10:37PM
"The walrus was Paul."
The fleas have smaller fleas, upon their backs to bite them, and those fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 04 2014, @10:45AM
Some times failure comes before more failure.
Dare I say it ... Beta
(Score: 3, Funny) by Sir Garlon on Tuesday March 04 2014, @12:45PM
I notice the BBC is running a feature on how failure can be good the day after they reported the bullshit story about Russia's deadline for Ukrainian forces to surrender [soylentnews.org]. (Alleged deadline passed, Russian forces didn't fire a shot.) Coincidence?
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
(Score: 1) by Detective_Thorn on Tuesday March 04 2014, @02:53PM
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
-Will Rogers
This sentiment comes in a variety of incantations and has been attributed to many, many people. I just happen to prefer the Will Rogers version.
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.