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Thank you for the feedback – Dark side of the SharePoint community

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[Update on 4th of Oct] - Seems that original post has been removed from the linked location. We are certainly all entitled to have opinions and are allowed to publish them in Internet. I’m also sure that this opinion was not the official opinion from the company where the blog was hosted, so I have removed the link completely to avoid any references outside of the context. My point for the public response was to point out that we should rather embrace the diversity of our global SharePoint community and the input from cross the world.

This response was not about the personal feedback towards me or my accent, rather wanted to avoid situation where other non-native English speaking persons would be in hesitant to release something for the community due feedback which didn’t concentrate on covered information, rather on the accent or origin of the person. This kind of feedback does not certainly impact me and hoping that it won’t impact any others.

Regardless of the rough feedback received from my previous blog posts and videos released in YouTube, I encourage also all non-native English speaking members in the community for sharing their knowledge. Sharing your skills and knowledge for the community is much more important than that it is done in perfect English. Getting the information for others, will help to whole community to learn from others, regardless of the accent you might or might not have.

All of you have all the right to share whatever you want in your own blogs or YouTube video channels. I personally find this kind of discrimination based on language or accent extremely unfortunate and hopefully this does not have negative impact on how much people are spending their own time for the benefit of the global SharePoint community.

Just for the record. These blog posts and videos what I have published in my own YouTube channel are done on my own time for free, just for the benefit of the community. You can ignore those videos, if you don’t like them or find them irritating. I also can’t prevent anyone else downloading these videos and publishing them in any other YouTube channel. There’s certainly some truth in this feedback and in optimal world we could use voice actors on the material what we create, but that’s not really reality and I simply can’t use my family funds for hiring them.

I’d personally rather see the time spent on criticizing others used for the benefit of the others, but we certainly have right to choose what we write and how we spend our time. This kind of discrimination based on any culture, origin or accent is not something what me or our company (MS) will approve any format. I certainly hope that this would not be the way other companies or groups of people would behave towards the SharePoint community.

This was indeed feedback from just one person and does not reflect the general tone of the whole SharePoint community, but we should not accept this kind of bullying. Let’s keep on publishing and sharing what we know to help others to shine and succeed.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2013
    I love webcasts in general. In particularly for my field of expertise the ones for Microsoft Dynamics NAV where the webcaster most of the times has a deep Danish accent, or from partners with perfect English but very obvious from India.

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2013
    Vesa - your work is fantastic. Keep it up - the community appreciates what you do :)

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2013
    I thought you were from Texas?

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2013
    Keep up the great work Vesa - If they cannot understand your accent (which personally I have no challenges with), how will they ever understand CAML :-P Do not let one snide comment impact your awesome and appreciated contributions to the community.

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2013
    Vesa, Don't listen to this idiot.  Keep up your great work. We all love it and appreciate it. I don't know what "accent" he has ... but i'm 100% sure I would prefer to listen to you all day, who actually knows something useful to others and who is willing to help others :) Keep up the great work. -CJ

  • Anonymous
    October 02, 2013
    Vesa, Please ignore such selfish comments from this guy who from his comments doesn't seem to care about anybody else but the ones who speak his "accent". I pity him and people who encourage him for the comments he made about you. I am sure no sensible person would ever read anything he writes on the internet. Your contributions to the community is great and I'm sure others agree with me. Please keep up the good work and I always look forward to your webcasts in English.

  • Anonymous
    October 03, 2013
    Keep it up, Vesku!  Your contributions far outweigh the negative comments posted by a 3rd party Microsoft Partner.

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2013
    There will always be small-minded, dim witted, detractors.  Please ignore them for the sake of the vast majority that value your contributions.  

  • Anonymous
    January 14, 2014
    Vesku - Your work is just awesome. Keep posting those videos and any content that benefits community. I'm a big fan of your work. Don't mind what others have to say. People might be jealous of what you have achieved in life :)

  • Anonymous
    March 18, 2014
    The comment has been removed