I hear this phrase so often, especially as I have begun to venture out and try harder things and learn more and while the instance that first sparked the idea for this was tech related, I’ve heard this across multiple disciplines. There are generally two reasons people will give for saying this: They are giving a safety warning and that they are trying to prevent that person from feeling pain of some sort. That pain could be physical, emotional, or even the pain of not finishing a goal. However, I have also, and most often, seen this be a way of gatekeeping.

The time seeing this that sparked the idea for this post was in the context of low level development, specifically developing a game for the Nintendo DS. I don’t remember what the question was now unfortunately but it was a question I’d had when I was researching how to get started. Related to libraries maybe? One of those questions you ask when you are really procrastinating on getting started because you’ve built up whatever you’re trying to do in your head and are terrified of doing it wrong. If you’re in any community around some sort of hobby or technology, you’ve seen a question like it before, the kind of jaded towards these questions after a while. People ask them every day and sometimes the people asking them will fight with you if you don’t read their minds and know a key detail that was missing in their 3 line post. Or it’ll become clear they want a step by step of how to build their specific dream thing and demand your time with little regard. Those people are annoying and I won’t blame anyone for being a little short with them. But that’s not everyone. When I was looking up that question, I was intimidated because my main language for the longest time was C#. And I didn’t tend to do anything super low level. I knew some C++, but had never tried developing for a console before. If I was the meeker person I used to be, I would’ve quit right then and there and had given up the idea in the past due to less. However, after I got things installed, it really wasn’t too bad. While there weren’t any tutorials per se, I’d learned how to read documentation and had the audacity in spades from my excitement. And then I realized it actually wasn’t all that scary or mystical. I had not done this because I was suddenly some genius or a programmer with skill never before seen, I had just tried. While for me, it came internally from the start, I very much like to learn and do tech stuff “cuz I can”, some people need an external starter. It can be someone they look up to making something cool, but it can also be as small as someone saying “you can do it”. Giving things another try can be started by something as easy as “yeah I had trouble with that too” or even an explanation of what they’re misunderstanding. When I finally dual booted my desktop on a whim and annoyance at some windows feature, I was still a little reluctant due to the stereotype the linux community tends to have. Not because I’d be a part of that community, but rather because certain parts of it make linux seem like it’s some sort of arcane magic. Like the only way to use it is to be a genius but at the same time anyone who uses Windows or Mac is an idiot who barely had the competence to power on their machine. And honestly, it’s not that crazy to install or use. I have heard of someone setting their grandma up with a Linux machine. Now their grandma could very well be super great with technology but at the end of the you don’t have to be. Can you cause issues installing Linux and messing with partitions, absolutely. However, there are also a ton of tutorials, both text and video, to help you. But people won’t search for them if they think in order to use Linux they have to be part of some elite group. Same thing goes with installing a custom OS on your phone or hacking a console. Stuff absolutely can go wrong, data loss is a serious concern, but does that mean someone shouldn’t try? In science class children of various ages are given things that can cause irritation if inhaled, put on skin, or ingested and yet, because it’s deemed important for them to learn, they are allowed to handle them after being given instructions on how to behave in a lab and how to stay safe. We allow them to handle fragile glass and use bunsen burners, things that could cause burns or serious lacerations. And you’re telling me a grown adult or even the very same child can’t build a website? Honestly, given current times a child as young as 8 has probably done the very thing that’s being gatekept as crazy hard to do. So if there is something you want to do that people hype up as super hard, do some research to know the risks, find a tutorial or some docs and jump in. Because it can be done and you don’t have to be part of some elite club/group to do it, you just have to have the audacity to try. Now I’ve talked big about this and how I’ve realized time and time again that things weren’t as crazy as they were hyped up to be, but I have to acknowledge I have been the person to tell someone not to do something. I was joking, and made a statement to contrary later but I still said something along those lines. I have in a way been on my high horse as well so I also want to address those of us who have been or are realizing we still are on the saddle. It’s easy once you know something to see newbie questions as though they’re being asked by stupid people. And as I acknowledged before, you most likely see these questions everyday. I’m not asking you to copy paste the answer over and over, imploring people to search for answers is fine since most of gaining skills results in googling anyways. However, I think we should refrain from blanket “you shouldn’t be touching that” statements. If not for fear of disccouraging someone altogether, then for two other reasons: that we are killing our communities and dilluting the quality of information or that we could be wrong. I’ll address being wrong first since it isn’t quite was it seems. When I say being wrong I mean looking like a dick. That person mightactually not be a beginner or inexperienced but they were just tired, having trouble conveying something in their nonnative language, or a user who got something explained really poorly. I’ll also count telling someone they shouldn’t do something but not knowing the reason why here. If you don’t have a reason other than “because someone told not to” you need to get off your high horse about it. And it’s best to step off gracefully than fall flat on your face because someone called you on your bullshit. This will sometimes happen because someone is checking their infomation/understanding to make sure their more complicated question isn’t based on a misunderstanding. It’s a valid and honestly quite smart way to ask a question, if not sometimes a bit confusing due to being multi-part. I said not getting off our high horses could kill our communities and I wasn’t being overdramatic. Information can get buried and lost due to a number of reasons and as a result, places to get that information can shrink over time. Your snarky comment could become the only relevant result that comes up on a niche question. If everyone just repeats to not do X but never why, a key to understanding what you’re so passionate about could get buried to the point of being nigh unrecoverable. The life blood of every community is not only in its established memberbase and collective knowledge but also in the newbies that come in. After all, when people leave the hobby or community for whatever reason, whether voluntary or involuntary, if that knowledge isn’t passed on in some way, eventually it goes away. If you bury knowledge of your interests or never contribute to it, you may live to see it die out in your lifetime.