2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Questions About Patreon Use
In general, I agree with what Jason’s said above about negative conjecture (even if I don’t think Avery’s case was the right one to highlight) and its impact on a forum. I couldn’t agree more that empathy is crucial to healthy online discourse, often lacking, and that it doesn’t require clinical expertise.
But yes, “Micro-aggressive Opinions are trickier,” and I particularly disagree with some of the language Jason uses on unsolicited opinions. I don’t think forums, whether online or real-world, thrive when their citizens are encouraged to only share opinions that are explicitly solicited. So in keeping with that perspective…
Even as a parent who’s had to (and still has to) push back opinions I disagree with, I can’t agree that unsolicited opinion-giving constitutes violence against me, or even that someone is necessarily trying to “exert their will” on me by offering an unsolicited opinion. Influence is not coercion, as I argued on another recent thread. There are a range of more and less aggressive ways to offer opinions about childrearing – as Jason notes later in his post.
Even for people who offer strongly-worded opinions… well, I understand the vehemence of people’s judgments on the topic. Parenting is one of the highest-stakes things many of us will do, and if someone thinks I’m doing it wrong, I’d rather they told me. After all, some of my parenting approaches are grounded in firm principle, but others are probably things I could do better if I got the right advice. And where I’ve got a strong opinion of my own, I’m ready to offer it back.
Empathy is I think the right thing to emphasize here, rather than solicitation. I’m not at all inclined to tell people that any unsolicited advice to parents is a form of violence/will to power… but I am inclined to encourage empathy toward exhausted young parents, who are probably stressed by a toxic culture of success maximization and fearmongering around every aspect of childrearing, and who (if they need your advice at all) probably need it in as gentle a form as you can offer.
I’m happy to run with the general advice about finding a tone for offering opinions that doesn’t merit the “demanding one’s asshole be kissed” metaphor. That said, I also argued on that gender thread that authors should be ready listen to opinions offered in a variety of forms, rather than insisting that everything be offered as a tentative personal opinion…and I imagine CoG recognizes that some of the assholes thrust in your direction are worth, er, listening to. (This metaphor is going nowhere good.)
PS: I can well imagine the Gilded Rails fracas was intensely frustrating. But part of me also wonders: isn’t
the right point for people to be satisfied? It’s well and good to be told by a (white American?) staff member that a senstivity reader was used… but perhaps part of the cost of being a socially conscious business is recognizing that a segment of your customer base won’t be satisfied until they hear it from people in the directly affected/referenced group.
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Please move discussions about Patreon/financing of CSGs to a different thread. 
Avery, I’m glad to see that we’ve come to more of a mutual understanding.
I agree wholeheartedly that misunderstandings and misinterpretations can do a lot of damage, thus my call for empathy in the first post.
You’re correct that Negative Conjecture isn’t against the rules, but it can be destructive. As HustlerTwo pointed out:
Negative Conjecture feeds the rumor mill. It makes people attribute malice where there is none.
As for why this conversation started: you’re close! I too wasn’t talking about MMM specifically. I haven’t read MMM, and this wasn’t about MMM or HG guidelines at all for me. This conversation was about the rhetorical structure of your post: the use of Negative Conjecture to frame Hosted Games as capricious—bordering on malicious—and then disavowing that argument. While you did disavow the argument, articulating the argument itself puts readers in a state of mind that contributes to the rumor mill: It makes us out to be jerks when we haven’t done anything yet! And I don’t want to be judged and found wanting not only for something that I haven’t done yet, but that–in the case of MMM–I haven’t been asked to do, and wouldn’t be asked to do for months if not years, if ever.
I hope that makes sense. And thank you for taking the time to engage in this dialogue with me.
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I imagine that you’ll be unsurprised to learn that I spent a lot of time studying the philosophy of language–Nietzche, Foucault, Lacan–so my thoughts on language may be idiosyncratic. My views are actually a little more extreme that I’ve even articulated in this thread, but that’s largely irrelevant.
The parenting example was one that seemed universal (less or non-gendered, in particular), because I was trying to avoid calling out specific behaviors on this forum. I also thought about using more gendered examples, such as men asking women (unsolicited) “why don’t you smile?” or “you’d be prettier if you smiled, you know.” But I didn’t want to make this a specifically feminist argument, which that example might have spun off into.
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Unsolicited feedback in the general public is in a different catagory of feedback than feedback for a game that is developed and released into the wild. These two types of feedback categories should not be held to the same standards of judgement.
As a person that has been giving feedback on games and gaming hardware fore more than a decade, the tester and the feedback given here (i feel) is often treated as if it was the former type of feedback that is given when it should be treated differently.
Feedback that is filtered the wrong way by well-intentioned screeners before an author or developer sees it is feedback that should not be given at all.
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That’s a very good point. I didn’t think of that.
Well I know that Eric Moser has a patreon, so I assume that it’s okay.
LMAO!!! 
Yeah, I can see now how that looks bad to someone if they hadn’t read the rest of the conversation. I won’t say I’m going to avoid using negative conjecture in the future, but I’ll definitely try to avoid using any that might be harmful.
And thank you. I’m very happy with how this whole discussion turned out (besides me showing everyone in the community that I am completely incapable of understanding big words without the use of a story book and colourful hand puppets.) 
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… YES! THIS! This is my absolute 100% biggest pet peeve in the ENTIRE WORLD!!! And it’s not even phrased that nicely (at least in the U.K.), it’s phrased as, “Cheer up love, it might never happen,” and “Give us a smile gorgeous, it’s not the end of the world!” … At the risk of getting flagged for invoking violence, I think that any man who approaches a woman he’s never met before and tells her to smile for him should just be shot on sight.
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I’d venture that the unsolicited feedback I, and perhaps Jason is subject to, and what I’m guessing he’s talking about, is feedback on how COG should run its business.
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This is a general comment not directed towards anyone.
I think part of becoming a better internet or forum citizen involves being able to interact with people you don’t agree with, or might not agree with…
- Without being violent.
- Without provoking them.
- Without insulting them.
Here’s an example of how things can go very wrong very quickly and escalate out of control:
Caution. This video may be disturbing to some viewers.
- Did the employee have the right to refuse service? Probably. I’m not a lawyer so I couldn’t tell you.
- Did the customer have the right to press charges for assault after (apparently) being struck by the employee? Probably. I’m not a lawyer so I couldn’t tell you.
How could this have gone a different way? If these were characters in a choose-your-own story, how could this exchange have been written differently to result in a peaceful resolution?
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WOOOOOOOOAH! Holy sweet Jesus-Mother-Fucking-Christ. I never thought I’d say this but… I think the Trump supporter was slightly less crazy.
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About unwanted advices. I want point a main difference here 90% of wip authors put in their find post Feedback wanted So I suppose they want feedback real, not ego stroking. The author could agree or not and no one could demand an author changes.
However, You as reader has to try temperate the tone to not discourage the author . In a way is like a balance between sincerity and positive encouragement. It is difficult due our global origin what for me is normal could be a mortal insult for the author culture. So I personally now only give feedback in wips I know the author and It is okay with me giving feedback and my way of giving it. I think restrain ourselves of posting were our interaction could be bad received is a good behaviour even if I recognise is hard sometimes see a game wip I like and can’t post what I think could be improved.
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I think this topic is pretty much done now, but either way, I’ve decided to mute this thread (again), and any other threads (on this forum and any other forum) that contain potentially controversial topics. The reason I’m doing this is… Quite honestly… My boyfriend has diagnosed me as being addicted to Internet Forum Drama and, in hindsight, I kind of have to agree. 
I think the only cure for me is to go cold turkey on basically any threads that might contain controversial topics (except for my own WIPs of course.) Basically, I have a lot of strong opinions and I feel the need to express them. I spend a lot of time expressing them and, like I said in the other thread, this is time that I could be spending writing.
I think I’m going to make it my New Year’s resolution to avoid any internet forum drama for a year. (Knowing me, I probably won’t last a week, but at least I tried.)
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Obviously, I cannot speak for any other WIP authors on the forum. I can only speak for myself, and as such, there really isn’t any other reason that I posted my demo here other than to receive feedback on it.
I love the general attitude of respect and consideration that exists on this forum (which is so rare to find on the internet), and I love that positivity is encouraged. I don’t think I would have been confident enough to share my work otherwise, but as mara said, sincerity is paramount.
I haven’t had any negative comments on my WIP so far (I haven’t had that many comments tbh) but one mentioned that they found one of my characters to be… a bit stereotyped. It forced me to take a closer look at said character and to evaluate how her actions translated to the readers.
It wasn’t the most pleasant thing to read, sure, but I considered it fair feedback and as such, important one. It was my decision to share my work. The moment its public, I can’t shut my eyes and ears and bottleneck what people tell me. I have to listen to everyone. Whether I agree with them or not, it’s a different story.
I think that unsolicited advice was mentioned before in regards to how COG should run its company which, as far as I’m aware, they never asked for it. This is a writing community, we should leave the business aspect to the actual professionals. Unwanted advice wasn’t about the WIPs themselves. I think it would be a shame if users (myself included since there are some WIPs that I actively follow and participate in) were to be afraid to provide real feedback on the basis of it been “unwanted”.
So I can’t help but be a bit sad, @poison_mara, by your admission that you restrain yourself since, as far as I’m aware, you and people like you made great games like Choice of Rebels even better because of your contributions. Everyone should be respectful, yes, but don’t be afraid to speak your mind.
(I’m sorry if my comment is off-topic. I’m not entirely sure this is the right thread for it, but I wanted to comment on mara’s post).
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