Criticism: Me and my big mouth.

[Leama]

This is getting very boring. Neko I think it should be locked. The point of it was made and proven. Enough is enough!

[LigH]

Sorry for answering so late ... as the deletion of one of my posts may be related to the reason starting this thread.

I still don't have the powers to think long enough about all and each word I may write here. There will be someone misunderstanding it anyway. Regardless of the fact that I am not a native english speaker. Just because one may see it as a sport to nitpick and to edge. I won't tell names here. Only that I don't address only or especially Sangwa hereby.

I don't like to talk about what happened much more. Before closing, I only want to tell you my opinions right after I read the last replies, and before I wrote that deleted reply -- which is already several days ago:



The way how Sangwa criticised the fact that people use a guild thread to tell in public about coming events, moving to the fact that the roots of our guild may not be strictly settings conformant, and finally questioning the purpose of our whole guild, finally escalated in a kind of "duel" between lanser (Hokinon/Zinn) and him, and hurt us a lot. And remembering that the player of Lolitra suffers a sometimes violent sickness, and sees this game as one of the few sources of joy in her life left to her, made it look even more cruel. It even led to her taking some time off to cope with this pain.

Sangwa, you may not have expected such a result. But questioning the purpose of a concept that was made for the roleplayers, for giving them plots to join, and to enjoy playing the game, was quite the most painful kind of criticism.



I am sure that Lolitra will have talked to you already in private. So I assume that you found a common point to agree. I will take it as a mistake, just because my opinion may have been just as wrong; as I said, I am not a native english speaker, I may have misunderstood the purpose of your criticizing.

I just wonder ... if this board software has the feature to cut off several posts from a thread into a new thread, so the discussion about the coming roleplay could have been discussed in the "Ingame roleplaying events" forum, instead of the guild thread. Might have been an easier solution.



Neko (and all the moderators): Please leave me a last chance to express my opinion. Don't delete this reply too, at least not without talking to me first, if I might have written something in an inacceptable way.

[zorbels]

What the hell is wrong with you?  My post was meant as a way to support Sangwa's thread because he makes a really good point and anything else I would say would just be redundant, and you still take issue with it.

* zorbels chuckles

  Nothing is wrong with me. I just found it funny that your siggy says "Gone til we get better moderators" yet here you are posting. 

Sorry I didn't catch in your post that you were supporting Sangwa.  It just looked more like a usless statment and an opportunity to take a shot at another mod rather than a support post to me. Hence my post. Anyway now that that is cleared up and you get where I was coming from, I guess this thread can move on hopefully. No need to lock the thread right peoples? We can all keep our wits about us and not turn this into a battle ground.

[Phinehas]

I can. I'm not confident in other people's abilities to do so, however. Also, I think this thread has rather escalated from what Sangwa originally meant. Not that that's a bad thing, but...

For the rest, I wish Kiern would stick around longer. I enjoy his company. I have to say, as well, that it seemed pretty obvious to me that his original post was meant in support of Sangwa, and I was rather surprised at your comment about it, Zorbels. But that's water under the bridge.

[bilbous]

@Watermain: the difference is only one of degree. The fact remains that joking about abusing ones power is an abuse of that power because while it may engender hilarity to some it will only serve to intimidate others. It does not matter if the intimidation is intended or that the threats are empty. This negative effect can be foreseen by any reasonable person.

However I believe the thread is about more than this specific element and this has been done to death. If someone still does not get it then they likely won't get it anytime soon. My apologies to the OP for flogging a dead horse.

[Sangwa]

Well, some people went over the board here. So much so that I haven't been able to give proper respect to each post, therefore reading only some of them.

First I'd like to leave it clear that the last thread criticized by me did bring me to post this, but it wouldn't have mattered if it was the only one. I've been into discussions with other players that were fouler than this one (considering we did reach a consensus in the end in the example currently "studied").

Second I am certain that there are people who have a faulty image of how forums work, others who have no sense humor and some even that can't take critiques. It's because I've found all kinds of these people that I have started this thread as well, because I felt that if everyone was better informed, then the chances of this happening again would diminish.

Third, but equally (if not more) important: I have indeed reached the conclusion that I require to present players with nicer, softer, lighter forms of critique.
I'll still avoid trying to act like I'm moderating idiots though, like Bilbous seemed to propose... Mostly because that'll make some players even more annoyed at me. I will think twice before using that particular kind of humor though.

Ligh's response still leaves me uneasy though. I don't think it should ever matter if players spent a second or a year creating a plot. They should have had fun while doing it and they should always be looking forward to improve themselves. I think players take critiques wrong because they are either too full of themselves, or fear they have been humiliated.
The fact is: if you respond well to a critique everyone that reads your reply will not only understand things better, they will notice there is common sense around. And that is always positive.

As a side note, I don't feel like moderating is a gruesome pain. I enjoy what I'm doing and I enjoy the overall opinion players have of me. If I wasn't enjoying this role I wouldn't be doing it, much like I wouldn't be playing PlaneShift if I didn't find it extremely entertaining.

[bilbous]

I am sorry you felt I was telling you to coddle the unenlightened, I thought I was telling you to show the position the proper respect regardless of the audience. I do admit that in the larger scheme of things this forum is not that important but if you get in the habit of diminishing the proprieties of power it may bite you in the butt someday when it really matters.

My advice was worth at least as much as you paid for it.

[Sangwa]

I am sorry you felt I was telling you to coddle the unenlightened

regardless of the audience

The unenlightened are part of the audience... That's what I meant.