Selflessness

Yes.

But I did that in my previous professions, so it’s easy to know that I’d take it up again.

Maybe, if I thought it would help me position myself as an industry leader.

Does it depend on your position in the industry? Surely top-end plumbers must pass on information and techniques in some way to educate other people (apprenticeships spring to mind). There are magazines for dedicated to most any industry that might be considered on a par with what educational web devs do, and must be filled with tips and advice?

Most web developers aren’t writing articles or in a position to educate others.

In short – yes. I would if I could.

As good as a question that is, there’s a huge difference in the roles that each of these professions play. In our particular industry, there’s a huge need to a) train the audience into technology awareness b) train our clients to understand that what they need is not always equal to what they want, and c) train our peers because the techniques and resources evolve almost too quick to keep up with.

Few industries require such intense training because the knowledge is already so high in the respective fields. There’s also a higher level of trust that the professional “knows” how to just do what they need to do.

For example: when a plumber comes into a home to fix something, the possibility that the homeowner is going to stick their head under the sink and say “no, no… that’s all wrong” probably isn’t going to happen as much as it does for web designers. We haven’t yet reached that level of trust with our audience.

And on a sociological scale, it’s possible that the type of person who gets into web design, might already have a “teacher” mentality. That they already have a pre-determined interest in teaching people how to “do it better”.

Anyway, to answer your question…
Yes, I do think I would take the time to do those things. Even if it were uncommon in whatever industry I ended up in. Even if it had the slightest chance of helping just one person, then that alone would be worth it to me.

Wow, that comment came out sounding like rubbish didn’t it – hopefully the meaning isn’t too obfuscated.

I imagine there are lots of reasons why people write articles, tutorials etc., and altruism is only one of them – there are sound business reasons for doing so too.

Good question. I think it’s the open nature of this industry that causes us to be so selfless with our best practice tips and tricks. Most of us learned what we know through tutorials and reading other people’s code, so we feel an obligation to provide the same help to our colleagues and competitors.

I would say, “Yes, definitely” but I guess that’s based on my exposure to the mindset of the web designer/development community. As a side note, some employers aren’t too excited about sharing what they consider to be trade secrets…so be cautious about what you share from things you’ve learned at work.

I won’t grace this question with a reply. :P

I think most of the professions approaching computers in complexity are already too structured by way of how individuals contribute. Most strongly striated professional groups—those covering a good number of years—have formalized the path in which you are supposed to contribute and advance. Think of the circus of any academic/medical/research/science journal publication and its importance to careers. While I’m sure there are scrappy blogger-style people within those professions, the culture isn’t the same as geekery.

Once the central change-agent is creativity, it opens the door to a much wider range of contribution. The best counter example I can think up is law, where professional meritocratic stance means a lot. The work is most often slow and laborious, but sometimes law works at an accelerated pace similar to geekery. Yet individual lawyers can change the shape of the profession with an unlikely victory. But to be honest, that’s a kind of creativity with judicial systems in and of itself. Yet that creativity is not collaborative—it is antagonistic and aggressive.

If anything, I see web geekery evolving more toward the systems in law as we age with the web.

That’s a jolly good question.

I had never thought of it that way.

My two cents would be that this is the way this medium works, but I would obviously be too naive.

I think it’s a mixture of what has been said in previous comments: altruism, ‘we’re all on the same boat’, image within the group, are all good reasons.

But actually, come to think of it, we’re not really giving away everything, are we? We’re still keeping things under our sleeves to keep our competitive edge, altogether with communicating the ‘yes, we know how to do that’ bit. (with a hint that says ‘oh and by the way we do it better than our contributors’).

Erratum: ‘contributors’ should have been ‘competitors’ of course.