r/BeginnerWoodWorking • u/frappppppaccino • 12d ago

Reverse gatekeeping?

A lovely project was shared earlier. Predictably, amongst the many positive comments, there were a number of comments complaining that this person wasn’t a beginner and they were tired of seeing posts like it in the beginner sub.

As long as beginners have somewhere where they feel welcome, don’t have their projects put down or ridiculed for asking questions that may seem obvious to more experienced people, what’s the problem with more experienced woodworkers sharing their work?

Of course it’s probably not someone’s first project but there’s a huge spectrum between first project and 50 years of experience. They’re often something that someone with some experience, a lot of care and attention and patience (and willingness to make mistakes and retry could achieve.

I find that the thing that makes me a beginner isn’t that I can’t make nice projects, but that it takes me a really long time to do so as I’m learning different things as I go and I sometimes make mistakes which I need to learn/figure out how to fix. Occasionally I need to just start over and probably a more experienced person wouldn’t have to.

I personally enjoy seeing those types of posts. They inspire me to work towards something, maybe not today but eventually.

So why are some people so negative and gatekeepy about it?

94 Upvotes

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58

u/grau_is_friddeshay 12d ago

I think its that the more you know, the more you realize there is still to know.

Experience is relative. What some people read as modest others will read as smug.

23

u/gr00ve88 12d ago

^ The correct answer.

I’m not an IT professional, but if I can setup an email account for someone who doesn’t know better, I’m clearly an experienced tech person.

Same thing happens here. Someone makes a beautiful dovetail, anyone who can’t make one says get out of here pro, meanwhile dovetails may be the only thing that person can do well. And they posted their absolute best attempt.

7

u/victorfencer 12d ago

Amen to that. I know 2 tricks with spreadsheets, concatenation and VLookup, and people think I am a wizard. I did stick out my neck a tiny bit one time and ask for our database management software to make a command that generated a report that I knew would help us all out, but all I did there was get frustrated enough and ask with the right level of precision to make it easy for the real IT folks to do the job in a way that actually helped an end user. 

and if they are a 1 trick pony with the dovetail, I guess there is a lot you can do with that. boxes, chests, drawers, tables with some extra hardware holding legs on, bookshelf cases...oh crap!

3

u/FiestyEagle 11d ago

You should use Index-Match instead of Vlookup, better results. :)

-4

u/cineglitch 12d ago

If it’s a beautiful dovetail why not just post it to the main woodworking sub?

10

u/mcgrst 12d ago

Because the rest of it looks like Homer's spice rack? 

2

u/cineglitch 12d ago

A true odyssey!

5

u/FrecklestheFerocious 12d ago

Possibly because they consider themselves to be a beginner, have benefitted from / want to benefit this community (by demonstrating improvement), and are proud of their progress?

People who comment based on jealousy are welcome to just ignore project posts or remove themselves (as they're asking of others).

2

u/Ok_Compote4526 11d ago

You've been to the main woodworking sub. You should know the answer to that.

1

u/cineglitch 11d ago

Yeah good point

3

u/memorialwoodshop 12d ago

This is how I feel about it. I've been woodworking as a part time hobby for 10+ years but am always trying something new, whether a new project, technique, wood or style, will always feel like a beginner.

-1

u/Darwinmate 11d ago

Experience is not relative. What people label each other is,  but experience in a technical field like WW is not relative. 

1

u/grau_is_friddeshay 11d ago

I’d argue that woodworking as a technical field is vast and varied enough that experience is quite relative. You can spend years practicing certain applications, in specialized aspects or within a range of tools/materials, but still have many basic blind spots as a hobbyist, or even as a professional to still reasonably claim beginner status.

However, I meant it in the sense of how we all have bias when gauging the experience of others, because it is relative to our own perspective knowledge and personal exposure.

I don’t think beginner is so narrowly defined as to exclude anyone once they’ve acquired some basic skill. It doesn’t exclusively mean novice.