I think if someone demands that you give into their toxic behavior, it’s better to lose them then to make yourself miserable for the sake of keeping them.
It’s different from giving someone a second chance who wants to do better. And vastly different from someone who wants oneself to do better.
EDIT: alright, my mistake: I was under the impression this was about the people boycotting CoG because they believe CoG deleted MMM.
I apologise. Sorry.
(my point about losing that brand of people stands though)
EDIT2:
In addition, as noted above, it’s often hard to tell what exactly someone means when all you have is the written word.
Not to derail this entirely, but there’s the famous sentence of
I never said I owe him money
seven words, with the meaning changing depending on which you put emphasis on. And when reading something, past experience put emphasis on different words and read them in different ways.
@moderators - I think it is proper to close this thread, at least for a time because this discussion is going very far off the rails. I’m sorry for my part in this.
As has been referenced in this thread, I do not work 24/7. Expecting/demanding that I/we do so is inappropriate.
That aside, I’m going to quote myself:
Thus, please take this in stride, Avery. I’m trying to elevate the conversation here, not put you down.
This is an example of negative conjecture.
If you have no evidence of me/COG doing something like “getting someone in trouble for disagreeing with [me]”, I would counsel you to try and refrain from voicing your anxieties through negative conjecture. In eight years of running this forum, I would challenge you to point to a single instance where a member of this community has “gotten into trouble” because they’ve disagreed with me. (What does “get in trouble” even mean? That I’m going to send you to bed without your dinner?)
But, this isn’t what I said. What I said was:
Did you think that this was in reference to something specific you did? If so, what do you think that was?
This was not my intention. If I were going to say that you were a “bad community member,” we wouldn’t be having this conversation publicly; we’d be having it over email, because it would be centered around a specific infraction of the forum rules.
This is how I started the thread (emphasis added):
I should have more clearly distanced my post from your specific actions; but my exhortation was genuine: it was directed at everyone, not specifically you.
I’m genuinely curious to know who/what/why people would boycott our company because of things said in this thread. If anyone has any insight, I’d invite them to send me a DM.
I was posting this as a direct response to Mary’s,
If I am guilty of “negative conjecture” then Mary is also guilty of “negative conjecture”, but you are not telling her to stop using “negative conjecture” you are telling me. The reason that people are taking sides is because they see you calling out people who disagree with you, but not calling out people who don’t disagree with you when they do the exact same thing.
I thought the entire “Being Better Internet/Forum Citizens” thread was a direct response to the discussion we had where I used “negative conjecture” and you said “if you stop using negative conjecture then you will be a better forum citizen.” I think that if you’d have just started this thread with your list regarding how to be a better forum citizen, instead of splitting the other thread and beginning this thread with a post I’d made, this thread would have been received a lot better by the community because it would have been seen as you addressing the whole community and nobody could interpret it as you singling me out.
Thank you. I am glad that you cleared that up. A lot of people have said, “I don’t think this was Jason’s intention,” but you’re really the only one who can clarify that, so I’m glad you did.
Mary’s not engaging in negative conjecture, she’s summarizing your comments.
Negative conjecture—at least as I’m using it—is where you expound upon a hypothetical without evidence.
Such as: “they will get into trouble if they disagree with Jason” (paraphrased)
Do you see how that’s a hypothetical (“you will get in trouble if…”) without any basis in evidence (as I asked: do you have an instance in the past eight years where I’ve “gotten someone in trouble” for disagreeing with me).
Or, as in the original post:
…where you expound upon a hypothetical without any evidence, and attribute the worst of intentions to us in the process.
That’s very different from Mary reading your posts in this thread and distilling it down to a single sentence.
As I said in my last post, I could have done a better job of putting distance between my post and your posts in the Dark Matters thread. However, as I also said,
There were, in fact, instances of Negative Conjecture and Unconstructive Opining in those posts. But, as Mary has pointed out, you are by no means the only person who does this. You just happened to exhibit these particular behaviors in a condensed time frame while the subject was on my mind. But that’s also why I was careful not to say anything specific about you in that post: I was responding to bigger issues in online communication, not trying to publicly flog you.
I notice, however, that you have not answered any of my direct questions.
Is there a single instance of me “getting someone into trouble for disagreeing with me”?
What does “getting into trouble” mean?
Do you think the paragraph about micro-aggressive opining was about you? If so, why? Where did you micro-aggressively opine?
@jasonstevanhill - I have a question for you here, regarding a statement you just made.
Here is the statement you made:
Wouldn’t this be considered negative conjecture and/or micro-aggression?
The only two people that I saw referencing 24/7 was myself where I state:
and Mary Duffy in post 39:
Neither one of us mention a demand or expectation that you or another staff member work 24/7, so I am quite mystified who you are rebuking “as being inappropriate” or why you would be speculating that a person would be demanding or expecting such.
I’m sure you did not mean to put either Mary or myself on the defensive with your statement, so perhaps you can explore this example more in depth.
Pretty sure he was referring to Avery’s earlier more general requests that he reply/respond–implications could be read into what Avery said that he was somehow pointedly ignoring these posts (as opposed to just not working on the weekend.)
… OHHHHH! It only took four attempts to explain to me what negative conjuncture is, but I think I FINALLY get it! (To be fair, Jason uses a lot of big words, and they hurt my tiny brain.)
I honestly thought it meant, “Saying something where, if somebody only read one sentence of your post without reading everything before and after it, that one sentence could be taken out of context.” … Which is why I was so confused, because frankly, trying to avoid doing this would be impossible. (Also, sorry about the misunderstanding.)
Still, I would like to fight the corner of negative conjuncture. I think that sometimes negative conjuncture is the most effective way to express what you want to say, and in fact, I think that the post I deleted would have come across a lot better if I’d used negative conjuncture in it.
To me, saying, “Please consider how saying “blah, blah, blah, blah” might be interpreted by the community,” comes across as more hostile than, “People are reading what you say, and interpreting it as, “blah, blah, blah, blah” but I think they’re misunderstanding you.” The first might come across as accusatory, while second is just stating a fact. The first could come across as me trying to create a negative opinion of the community, while the second is just me letting you know that there are already negative opinions of the community and bringing them to your attention.
Edit: … And, I’ve just realized that this isn’t negative conjuncture either, because it’s not a hypothetical. I’ll get there one day, I promise!
No, and believe it or not, that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. From what I understand, the reason some people have boycotted is because, quite honestly, they’re interpreting what you said about your right to refuse publication to HGs as, “Your game could potentially be refused publication for ANY distressing content if we don’t like the way you’re using it, and we don’t need to tell you where we set the bar. You have to figure it out for yourselves.” And your comment about micro-aggression as, “Unsolicited opinions are an act of violence, and I might publicly shame, or ban you if you give me your unsolicited opinions.”
Both of these are untrue because, as Mary stated,
(Also, I think the fact that I’m still here proves that you’re not in the habit of banning people for disagreeing with you.)
I definitely haven’t expressed it in the best way, but ultimately, my goal is to try and convince the people who boycotted (one inparticular) to come back. I only thought that would happen if you made a public statement saying “We’re not going to refuse publication of games without a good reason,” and “People are allowed to disagree with me and there won’t be any negative repercussions (unless you break the rules, of course).”
I saw that you hadn’t responded in over a day, jumped to the conclusion that you were ignoring what I said, and so made a thread specifically designed to provoke a response… Which I wish I hadn’t done because, like you said, you’re not on the forums 24/7.
No.
It could mean a lot of things really, but I don’t think I should say them because, as people can clearly see, these are not things they need to be worried about.
I did think that, but I don’t any more. And I’m not saying that I did micro-aggressively opine, but you stated that, “Unsolicited opinions can be micro-aggressive.” … And that can apply to pretty much anything. An unsolicited opinion (from what I understand) is an opinion that is not asked for… I’ve given a lot of opinions that weren’t asked for.
(Also, sorry for not responding to your questions before. It was very early in the morning when I posted, and I was just rushing through the bare minimum of what I wanted to say before I went to bed.)
That’s how I interpreted it too, but this is a good example of how a lot of things can be interpreted as, “negative conjecture and/or micro-aggression?” I think this is what made people misinterpret what Jason was saying. The comments he gave were just advice that he thought might make the community better. People were misinterpreting this as “Here are a new set of rules that can be extremely vague and very hard to follow. Now, pretty much anything you say can be interpreted as you breaking the rules.” This is obviously not the case. “Negative conjecture” is not against the rules. Jason’s pointed out when I used it, but he’s never actually told me to stop using it because what he said wasn’t a list of new rules, it was just a piece of advice.
I think if there’s one thing that everyone can agree on, it’s that it’s easy for someone to be misinterpreted. People literally don’t even need to say anything to be misinterpreted. One of the misunderstandings in this thread came from the assumption that people read all of the forum posts in order, and another came from assuming that people are watching the forums 24/7. Misinterpretations can do a lot of damage, and we should all be careful to avoid them.
Also, regarding the whole “what is and isn’t acceptable content in Hosted Games” thing… Just want to point out that, if ever a writer is in doubt that a specific scene or subject matter wouldn’t be acceptable in a HG game, you can always just ask. That’s what support@choiceofgames.com is for.
I hate to ask but…do you understand the difference between “conjuncture” as you put it, and “conjecture” which is what we’re talking about? Because I feel like if you looked up the word “conjecture” beforehand maybe we could have avoided all this?
… It’s suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks why this whole mess started.
I did say before that I wasn’t talking about Mass Mother Murderer, but I think some people still thought I was, which is why it was interpreted as disingenuous. Some people saw this as, “Avery is saying that HG should publish MMM,” whereas other people saw this as, “Jason is telling Avery off for saying that CoG is a good company.”
Just want to reiterate that… I really, REALLY wasn’t talking about MMM. I was talking about other games, (Like my own game, Price of Freedom) which focus on distressing themes, but to a much milder extent.
I completely understand why MMM is probably unsuitable for Hosted Games. A scene in which the protagonist commits an act of rape could potentially be seen as “glorifying rape”. I personally don’t see it that way at all, because I don’t always think a protagonist is supposed to be relatable. (In fact, some of my favourite games are ones in which I don’t relate to the protagonist at all.) But I do know that other people like to play IF games as “self-insert” characters, and they might see a scene in which the protagonist commits an act of rape as “you’re trying to get me to relate to a rapist.”
While I really hope that Sammy does come back and does finish the game, I don’t really think that HG is the best platform for it [edited for clarity – JSH]. I haven’t actually read the game myself, to be fair, but I think he would have to make a lot of changes for it to be suitable, and that’s going to have a negative effect on a game where the protagonist is supposed to be a full blown villain.
One thing he could always do is start some kind of crowd-funding campaign (or maybe a patreon) and then publish the game for free on dashingdon. (Assuming of course that dashingdon would host such a game. @dashingdon, can confirm or deny?)
I don’t speak for CoG but in terms of the ChoiceScript license, I’m pretty sure making it available “for free” would preclude running a fundraising campaign.
Sam clearly could publish MMM on dashingdon or any other website, but if he took money for it (by ads or any other means) without prior permission from CoG he’d be in violation of the CS license terms.
Edit: also, I don’t think Jason (at any rate) had MMM in mind at all when he talked about disingenuous conjectures. You ended the lengthy description of a hypothetical bad thing by saying “Of course CoG wouldn’t do this.” In most cases like that, the person is being at least somewhat disingenuous – either because they were sincere in not believing the hypothesis (in which case they’re disingenuous in describing it as if it’s a problem to worry about) or because they actually are worried about the hypothesis (in which case they’re disingenuous in saying “I’m sure CoG wouldn’t do this.”)
In your case, I think the fact that you were responding to an actual policy proposal made by Eiwynn (rather than a conjecture of your own) complicates the picture. So count me as another who thinks this thread started with a less-than-ideal example of a real problem.
