Praise In Public, Criticize in Private...

Fellow Avatars,

If you want to better support Portalarium/the development team/SotA, consider applying the sound leadership principle of Praising in Public and Criticizing in Private.

Got something nice to say? Post it in the forums! Got great ideas proposed in a constructive way? Post them in the forums! Think the devs are doing something stupid, harmful or just saying to us, "Suck It"? Consider sending a PM instead of posting something that makes new forum members wonder why we hate SotA so much! You may even get a response (although I always assume they are too busy to reply).

Although we may, on occasion, have to get out the torches and pitchforks, I hope that becomes the exception instead of the norm.

Cheers,
JkB

P.S. As many have eloquently pointed out below, this is about providing constructive criticism, not censorship. I believe anyone can provide beneficial feedback without being a jerk if they want to.

P.P.S. As customers, we reserve the right to raise hell, but we should also consider if our method will be effective and/or damages the reputation of our product.

 

That goes against the whole open and transparent system the claim to support.

Criticism should be public because it can bring up good discussion and more importantly the way that the devs handle criticism and participate in those discussions can say a lot about the devs.

The fact that there is so often a call for people here to be 100% positive or silent says a lot.

 

I view our conversations here as private even though everyone could look at them. Maybe private is not a good term for the context I mean here. You folks are my family. I realize that I am your crazy old aunt that you tell people that I started on the spiked egg nog early but I love you all anyway even though you sigh when I go off on one of my tirades.
I'm not going to let my family members attend a big event with a huge booger hanging from their noses without trying to deter them from going out like that.
I'm also the crazy aunt that smacks you with the wooden spoon when she catches you putting the meat fork you ate off of back on the serving plate.
I'm not going to scream at you for having the table manners of an orc but I have no compunction against making the lesson sting a little.

 

I suggest that criticism should be public, civil, constructive and sympathetic to the stated goals. Criticism is not doomsaying, insisting that something happens, or shouting the same thing over and over.

 

Personally i think that as long as you state your reasoning behind w.e your opinion is, one way or another, its valid enough for a game in development to be in public.

 

Points taken. The intent is not to silence dissent, but to consider whether a PM would be more appropriate than some of the unproductive rants we often see.

@3devious, I got a good laugh from your examples! But you might consider whether or not to scream at my orc manners in public the same way you would at the family dinner table.

Thank you for the discussion, we could chat for days about the perceived boundaries between feedback, criticism and ranting and how not to discourage productive dissent.

 

I don't like a PM because it makes it personal when often I don't intend for any one person to feel bad. Nor do I expect devs have the time to answer the many pm's they must get.

 

Hmm... I wouldn't want to say anything in PM that I'm not saying in public, just for the courtesy of other players. Its why I rarely even post in the Dev+ forums, where access is limited.

I agree with 3devious though, I think of the forums as semi-private between players and backers of the game. And anyway, when any of us believes the devs are doing something stupid, often its because some other player likes it. To whatever extent that is true, then by principle players ought to be discussing it, instead of ignoring each other's views and going backchannel to the devs. I don't go posting criticism around on real public forums like gaming sites, though.

 

This game has been made better over the course of several years through constructive criticism and heated debate. Removing these things so we appear to have a fictitious kumbaya in the forums would actually hurt development.

p.s. decay sucks!

 

We all know you like a "heated debate" Budner

 

Fantastic response, Mugly Wumple. I couldn't agree more.

 

Heated debate involving serious PaxLair issue.

 

First of all, if we just put praise in the forums we are lying to other people who read the forums. It will give them the thought that wow! this game is awesome, sounds perfect in everyway!
In reality if I come and check out the game as a new person I want to see both sides of the argument! Not just the praise! That is feeding BS to the new person!
it seems to me people try to brush shoulders with all the devs for whatever reason they deem needed good and bad!

The devs are not gods, they are not perfect, they are human like the rest of us they make mistakes too, they come up with bad decisions on things, and they also come up with good decisions. If they cant take the criticism that comes with developing a new game, then maybe they need to find another hobby! Criticism comes with the job, don't ask us how things are if you don't want to know how they really are according to your players! Don't ask us for advice on things if you don't want to take it into consideration! The devs have a few options on criticism 1. Ignore it, 2. fix it or 3. don't fix it!
If I want to get on a personal level with the devs then I will PM them on certain things, but this is a public forum, keep it public, let the new people understand the likes and dislikes of the game, let them make their own decisions.

 

No one is asking to remove that, but to keep it civil. There are ways to say something that's constructive and part of a debate or criticism that's acceptable, and then down right attacking and inflammatory comments that inevitably need to be moderated. I say this over and over here, but it's difficult to drill this in to everyone.

Exactly.

To my knowledge, there has never been a call to be 100% positive or silent. See above the posters that are suggesting how to properly state criticism that's still positive criticism and something we absolutely want to hear to improve the game.

Try to keep these things in mind when posting a response:

- Is my response on topic to the OP?
- Is my response a personal argument with another individual or a group?
- Have I made more points than I maybe should, confusing the discussion?
- Have I read the entire thread to understand its context before responding to someone?
- Am I swearing and being overtly emotional in my response, risking an argument breaking out?
- Did I just type 5 pages that essentially all says the same thing that a single paragraph does?

etc.

 

The OP is literally suggesting being purely positive on the public forum, with anything not positive to be in PM.

Correct a dev has never called this ( in public ) but its what the Op is * calling* for in the first post.

 

They haven't used the word 'positive', or 'purely', so I don't think this is the case. Note that they stated "consider", not an absolute. See what I wrote in regards to the differences in being positive and still being able to post critically. We definitely want the criticism too! But that doesn't mean you have to be overtly negative in expressing it. That's our main concern in the forums here.

 

I mean... Praise / Positive ...
My bad.

But okay... back on topic..
I think less moderation would lead to less frustrated people trying to get their point across. And less need to repeat the same things over and over because of locked threads and deletes preventing real discussions.

Unfortunatly * I disagree with you because... * is classified as a personal attack instead of healthy debate sometimes.. so its hard to go back to *Praise only* on the public forum.

 

My take on the OP is that constructive criticism on the forums is encouraged.

 

It does not.

Constructively speaking, I think it is a good way to keep people from being GODS in the game. That would be boring for everyone but the GOD.

 

I agree with this, in an ideal world.

But, in a lot of situations, we all know that things don't always work like that.

- Is my response on topic to the OP?
With a debate, each one bring new points related to the topic, directly... or not. This litteraly bring to the light interesting interconnections. And sometimes, those new points need corrections or clarifications, which can bring more and more points into the discussion. Just like we are doing this right meow. A debate is a living thing. Quite often, it helps to get straigth to the point while the topic was only a subsidiary thing. You put a topic but you'll never know how it will turns out. Otherwise, it's not a debate. it's a FAQ.

- Is my response a personal argument with another individual or a group?
The problem with this rule is pretty simple. Some people understand very well how it works (not specific to this forum). They just use flawed arguments to provoke an argument. They don't break the rule. They just try to push someone else into the wrong way. They never get sanctioned, but they are a problem.

- Have I made more points than I maybe should, confusing the discussion?
The difficulty that I observed here is that everyone does not feel equal about what's confusion and what's not. And sometimes, people just confuses everything with one single sentence.

- Did I just type 5 pages that essentially all says the same thing that a single paragraph does?
And how do you react in real life when people just dodge your points when you feel like you made a good demonstration that didn't get any proper answer ? Generaly, you only repeat yourself, until you get the proper answer or you get tired.

The problem with all those rules is that they don't take the motivation in count. You will see people lobbying here very agressively who won't get sanctioned ever while some honest and naive people who try to demonstrate their points fairly are breaking those rules.

I know that you don't have the time to proceed otherwise, and to investigate about any personal motivation. It is not a criticism because I think that your method is probably the best one with regard to the conditions. That's the reason why you will probably never see any contestation from me about any sanction against me. But I hope that you are aware of that.

The idea of the OP is interesting, but that will never work. Because those who never get any answer from the devs will quickly begin to question their impartiality, especially when some boast of being in the center of their attention.