As some of you might know, the past year I haven't been very active in blogging. First it was because I had a new job, then it was because I didn't feel like it (having more free time, causes to slack a bit :-) ) and after that, I felt to bullied, vulnerable and 'attacked' to blog anything. (I think 'Gotesen' with her blog wrote it down very well: http://godtesen-on-test.blogspot.nl/2013/11/being-pramatic-tester.html ).
Lately there's much fuss about the ISO29119 standard. I've followed the different 'discussions', seen the rise of a petition, seen blogs being written etc. etc.
I've observed and my sadness has grown and grown. I'm deeply saddened that a group within the tester's community is perceived and treated as lesser lifeform by people who think they have a right to do this. I'm saddened that although I have a right to learn, explore and experience things myself, I'm bullied into a certain thoughtprocess, fellow testers who deprive me of a learning process of my own, only by their own false pretence of 'knowing what's good for me'.
I was astonished of one of the replies on a reply I wrote 'I don't follow the same process as you' .. I wasn't even aware I HAD a process, but apparently that stamp has been pressed on me.
I'm astonished by some blogpost, which, judging on the content, are based on non-information or not (entirely) correct facts . I'm even more astonished on the amount of people who, again judging on the replies, are without questioning the content believing what's in there. It scares the s**t out of me, that it's believed that easily, sometimes it seems that only because a certain person says something ' it must be true'.
I once saw a reference to a quote on the Wikipedia... it was on wikipedia so it must have been true.. only to find out this person had added the wiki-article himself.
I've seen perfectly good replies, seen 'beaten to death' by replies that shout 'it doesn't matter what you say, it's wrong anyway' -non-arguments.
Arguments are made that are of the 'pot calling the kettle black' persuasion.
Arguments are made, it seems, because of the sake of it, not because they have any constructive value in the discussion.
People with the loudest shout or that have the gift of easy writing are sabling down what people with small voices or that have difficulty writing are saying, not on the arguments themselves, but on the way they are using words.
It's not about the meaning but about the correctness of use of words, there just doesn't seem any tolerance anymore for hearing messages, just because a comma or certain word was used wrongly, but only when it's not a message of ones own, because then you are supposed to 'get the overall message'.
Yes, I'm one of the 'ISO people', but I'm also a tester, thinker, questioner, learner, explorer and most of all... I'm a human being... sad but true.
