Skip to main content

Negligible Minority

Dismissing a concern by asserting that the people who hold it are too few to matter, without addressing whether the concern is right.

"The people who care about this are a rounding error."

"You're hardly representative of actual users."

"That's like four people on a forum."

"Maybe a dozen people still print anything. Not a reason to keep the driver."

Why It's Unproductive​

A headcount answers a different question than the one raised, since how many people are affected doesn't settle whether they're right about the problem. Calling a group a rounding error feels like grounding the thread in reality, and it's comfortable because it never requires saying the concern itself is wrong. What it leaves behind is a person defending that they exist, instead of a problem anyone is looking at.

The Better Move​

Take the concern on its merits first, and treat scale as a separate question. How many people a problem affects changes how it should be prioritized, not whether it's real.

Why It's Better​

Splitting the two questions keeps both on the table: a narrow problem can still be worth fixing, and a widespread one can still be wrong. It also skips a headcount nobody in the thread can check.

Examples​

OP: "The keyboard-only flow broke in the last release. I can't tab through the form anymore."
Antipattern: "Realistically that's about twelve people. Non-issue."
Better: "Confirmed, tab order skips the date field now. Worth an issue since it'll hit screen readers too."

OP: "Dropping the headphone jack made this worse for anyone using wired monitors."
Antipattern: "Wired headphone users are a rounding error at this point."
Better: "Fair for studio use. USB-C DACs got cheap enough that it's mostly latency-sensitive work that still suffers."

OP: "The new schedule cuts the 5am bus, which is the only one that works for early shifts."
Antipattern: "Hardly anyone is catching a 5am bus."
Better: "Ridership was low on that run, but it's the one with no alternative. Might be worth asking for a smaller vehicle instead of cutting it."