Reply To: Staying away from negativity in the hobby

[limburger 21710xp 1]

@redscope just because you don’t like something and say such things that doesn’t make you wrong (or them right).
It’s an opinion that is as valid as any other, because there’s no accounting for taste.

I’d even apply it to rules/systems …

As long as you can read critique as an opinion piece and not as a (personal) attack it is ok.
I also feel it applies to both writer and reader.

Emotion can be hard to express in plain text, which means that some things may sound more negative than the person writing it wanted it to. As such I’d argue that in addition to being mindful of the tone of the stuff we write we should also take it easier when reading critique.

A good test would be ‘if company X made it would you still have the same reaction’  ?
If the reaction is similar then the critique is justified.
If it isn’t then the only difference should be along the lines of ‘I expected better’ and not like ‘well it’s [insert brand]’.

I also argue that we should always remember that while companies are not our friends, the people behind that company are still human beings (I hope …  ) and should be treated as such.

@pagan8th I can only speak for myself, but I’d say the same things in the real world as I do on-line.
Social media themselves do run on a negativity feedback loop, because ‘hot’ topics tend to be trending which attracts more responses.  And the best way to get trending (and cause people to react) is to say something that is as offensive as possible. They kind of live because of the flamewars and click-bait items that they (and people within such communities) post, which means they have zero incentive to fix things.

I’m glad that we don’t have such a negative feedback loop within the OTT platform.  (I could do without the XP and thumbs up counters to be honest, but I can see why people ‘need’ them )