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	Re: Conceit
	Posted By: Forrest of B.org	Date: 12/11/06 10:13 p.m.
	In Response To: Conceit (RyokoTK) : I guess this is more of a rant than an open-ended topic, but maybe some : feedback on why I'm the scourge of the internets would be appreciated. I wouldn't call you the scourge of the internets, but there is some weight to the accusations levelled against you. I'm not usually one to call people on things like that because I'm often called self-centered or egocentric or various other similar things myself, in situations when I don't feel like I deserve them, and I know how it feels, so I don't like to do it to other people. The one bit of constructive feedback I think I can give is that you often state your opinion without qualifying it as such. That is, you say your opinion like it's objective fact, the way you might say that the sky is blue - as though to say, how could it be otherwise, anyone with eyes or a brain would see that it is thus. That's not to say that you shouldn't think that you are right - of course you do, everybody thinks that they are right, otherwise they wouldn't think that way, and most of the time people have some good reason for thinking that they are right, and their opinion has some merit to it. So I'm not saying not to express your opinion or even to express it less, I'm just saying that some sort of modification to your language use might lessen the kind of feedback you're getting. I was reading your "Puzzles in Single-Player" article on House of Luck earlier, and thinking about this very topic. I'll see if I can cite some examples from there: You say at the end of the section about key puzzles, "This is excusable, but not often." I understand that the message you're trying to get across is just that it is your opinion that overuse of such puzzles is bad, as they get very annoying, but phrasing it in terms of "excusable" (and conversely, more often "inexcusable") makes you sound authoritarian, like you are condemning people who do that for something that is clearly, universally wrong - rather than saying that it is something that you personally, and perhaps many others that you know, find quite annoying. On platform puzzles: "The last problem is simply that platform puzzles aren't that fun." That's your opinion. Now, obviously, anyone with any critical reading skills and emotional detachment will read that and mentally append "in his opinion" to the sentence, but a some people just see that and go "oh yeah? well what if I think they're fun, hmm? who are you to tell me what's fun or not?" On a related note, in that same paragraph: "...because he can't get past one area that doesn't even have to do with his skill with a gun. And really, that's what the game's about." Again, someone might disagree with you here, thinking that Marathon is about more than just your skill with a gun. The original game had plenty of switch puzzles and platform puzzles and such, so an argument could be made in that direction. But whether or not either position is right, the point is that it's a fuzzy issue that's easily a matter of opinion, and stating your opinion as fact could upset people who disagree, and even make people who agree or have no stance on it think of you as conceited or some such. Same paragraph again: "If you want to implement platform puzzles, be my guest. Just don't go overboard. Make them fairly simple, and don't put too many of them in there." There's an implication in there that most people probably don't pick up on on much more than an emotional level. You're giving them permission to do something, with qualification. The implication is that you are forbidding them from doing otherwise... or else what? Now, obviously you're not really making any kind of threat or anything, you're just stating your opinion; but the way that's phrased carries some of the same sort of authoritarian tone that evokes feelings like an "...or else" sentence would. I think that's enough examples. The point I'm making is that it might help people's opinion of you, and lessen the 'conceited' image you're may be accruing, to be careful to qualify your language. Use "I think" or "I feel" or "in my opinion" a lot. Instead of saying "Don't do X. X is not fun." say "You probably shouldn't do X, cause I don't know about you, but I don't find X very fun." That's kind of an over-softened example there just for emphasis, but I think you get the idea. The information conveyed by both is the same (expressing your disapproval of X for the reason that it is not fun), but it's presented in a way that will put people on the defensive less, and help keep them from feeling like you're talking down to them. Hope this is helpful and not offensive, -Forrest

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Replies:

	Conceit	RyokoTK	12/11/06 9:21 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Forrest of B.org	12/11/06 10:13 p.m.
	tl;dr *NM*	thermoplyae	12/11/06 11:06 p.m.
	lol *NM*	treellama	12/12/06 2:37 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/12/06 6:20 a.m.
	Hmm...	MrHen	12/12/06 8:34 a.m.
	Re: Hmm...	Forrest of B.org	12/12/06 3:17 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Forrest of B.org	12/12/06 3:34 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	thermoplyae	12/12/06 10:38 a.m.
	:) *NM*	MrHen	12/12/06 12:02 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	kyjel	12/12/06 12:21 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	McNutcase	12/12/06 1:56 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	Vid Boi	12/12/06 2:16 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/12/06 6:22 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	Nicholai	12/14/06 12:17 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	goran	12/12/06 2:21 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	treellama	12/12/06 2:55 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/12/06 6:26 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	irons	12/12/06 6:34 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	McNutcase	12/12/06 8:13 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/12/06 8:59 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	McNutcase	12/12/06 10:00 a.m.
	Hypocrisy...	MrHen	12/12/06 8:40 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	D-M.A.	12/12/06 5:15 a.m.
	You're my favorite brain fart *NM*	Tycho	12/12/06 8:35 p.m.
	You're my favorite too!!! *NM*	D-M.A.	12/15/06 7:31 a.m.
	ironic...	MrHen	12/12/06 5:52 a.m.
	Re: ironic...	RyokoTK	12/12/06 6:43 a.m.
	Fools and their feelings.	MrHen	12/12/06 9:02 a.m.
	Re: ironic...	ukimalefu	12/12/06 4:40 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Sammy Jenkins	12/12/06 3:36 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/12/06 4:35 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Sammy Jenkins	12/12/06 4:43 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/12/06 4:47 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	treellama	12/13/06 2:48 a.m.
	*shudder*	MrHen	12/13/06 5:04 a.m.
	Re: *shudder*	RyokoTK	12/13/06 5:39 a.m.
	*sigh* fair enough. your life, not mine. *NM*	MrHen	12/13/06 5:48 a.m.
	Re: *shudder*	goran	12/13/06 7:43 a.m.
	Re: *shudder*	RyokoTK	12/13/06 8:28 a.m.
	Re: *shudder*	LegacyTyphoon	12/14/06 8:36 a.m.
	Re: *shudder*	goran	12/14/06 9:41 a.m.
	Re: *shudder*	RyokoTK	12/14/06 10:59 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	irons	12/12/06 5:08 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Tycho	12/12/06 8:34 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Screamingfool	12/13/06 11:12 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	Nicholai	12/13/06 9:20 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	Sammy Jenkins	12/13/06 10:41 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/14/06 4:29 a.m.
	Re: Conceit	Nicholai	12/14/06 12:08 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	LegacyTyphoon	12/14/06 8:45 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	RyokoTK	12/14/06 9:12 p.m.
	Re: Conceit	LegacyTyphoon	12/14/06 9:58 p.m.
	lol *NM*	Nicholai	12/15/06 6:08 p.m.

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