Perhaps the headline could be changed to "How Groups Perceive Criticism From Newcomers" - I was expecting an article about how a group changes based on an influx of newcomers, which has been a topic of interest on HN lately.
It relates to a post on HN (which I can't find now) about job interviews. I think the article was written by an interviewer, who said he liked to hire someone who could offer a knowledgeable, well reasoned critique of his organization.
The implication is that, if you're looking for a job, you should aim at doing that kind of thing. I had a problem with that, but I could not articulate it very well. This article filled in the gaps in my thinking.
Wish I could find that old post ....
In both cases you are assuming to gain a new perspective from the experience of another human.. Is it not reasonable to assume that someone that has spent a vast quantity of time in a particular environment would have a better perspective than a new jack?
And, do we need a study to tell us that groups are hostile toward newcomers that give them criticism?
thought newcomers provided less constructive criticism
agreed less with newcomers' suggestions
were more negative about their criticisms
If the group just wasn't taking the criticism seriously, they would ignore it rather than disagree with it.
At a lower level the way to get change done is to agree with people on anything you find sufficiently unimportant. On the thing you really want to change you'll explain that it's really quite similar to what they've been doing before, except you start taking into account A, which should be something they can identify with. To be able to do this, you need to know who you're talking to.
Plenty of your comments in other threads have been upvoted, so laying the blame for your treatment on the rest of the community here is disingenuous.
PS: Cool, an excuse to use Wolfram Alpha! It does calendar computations quite nicely. "Feb 19, 2007 to X days ago" to figure out when someone joined relative to the launch of News.YC.
Because HN doesn't reward cluelessness even if it is riding a unicorn. Spouting false choices, attributing strawmen, and self-righteousness doesn't help.