"Competence"

[davidlevine]

Promoted from a comment to this post:

The whole "competence" argument seems to me to boil down to this: "I don't like a lot of the stuff I'm reading. The authors of the stuff I don't like are merely Competent, and clearly this is because they are Not Trying Hard Enough. Try Harder, everyone!" It ignores the fact that not everyone is trying to please this particular reader; even those who are, and are failing, are already trying as hard as they can. Trying Harder is not the answer. Writing your own personal thing, and accepting that not everyone will like it, is the answer.

Comments

basically OT

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

I'm reacting to the way "competence" seems to be a shortcut for "merely OK." I object to watering down this word! Competence is, I think, a rare and wonderful quality. I worked with kateyule on Potlatch pubs, and I was quite flattered when she used "competence" to describe my answer to a query.

The glass is half full?

Re: basically OT

[davidlevine]

In this context, "competent" seems to be shorthand for "merely competent" when excellence is what is demanded. I think that we expect competence, even from volunteers, as the minimum standard, no matter how infrequently it is encountered in real life.