I don't say stuff to offend people, I say stuff which I feel is true, but not in a nice enough way.

Work on the latter part and you won't experience the same backlash. I promise that people are completely fine with negative feedback.  

I don't believe that personally. But let's move on, too much of the OP was devoted to me bashing other people for attacking me. I want to talk about how the karma system discourages discussion.

This is exactly what I've been trying to say, but in Shos form.
Flash if you can't learn how to give negative feedback, then this is not where you should be.  

*points to Politics topic*
Discussion is healthy and fine.

Give nice negative feedback is what I mean

Despite what everyone else is saying, being harsh is the best feedback. I only learn when I'm given the truth, not some watered-down friendly version.

Well, the "truth" is a subjective thing...

Being harsh =/= Telling the truth. You can tell the truth while still remaining friendly, and if you don't believe so, there's nothing on the Interguild anyone can do for you, and in fact I'd suggest you talk to a psychologist.

I completely disagree, and I think what they said right here above is correct.

*harsh stuff deleted*

I'm putting this here for 3 minutes for you to read and I'll delete that line. now tell me, is being harsh the best feedback?

The feedback Kro gave you on your chessboard is the kind you should strive to give. Don't just say the floor is dumb, say why it is, and say some good things as well.

@shos That is the best example I've heard.

Shos being harsh =/= not giving feedback.

Actually that example sucks because that is in no way "truth"

However, FlashMarsh: Being harsh =/= Giving feedback is also true

I'm not sure I understand your point. I clearly stated, in a very harsh way, that I disagree with your opinion. consider this as 3.5/10 rating with 'more houses?' despite the extreme harshness I used of course.

in the other way, I clearly stated my mind again, but this time, it was perfectly normal. how is that not satisfying my goal?

gone to kung fu, I'll be back in 4 hours.

You stated that you disagreed with nothing to back it up. And for once I appear to have some agreement amonst other users.

I downrated this because I feel that the psychologist line was utterly uncalled for. The rest is fine, but that crossed the line.

Flash, it's ok to be harsh, it's not ok to be unreasonably rude. Sometimes, I get very upset with Isa or Jell or whoever in the politics topic, but then I realize that we're writing, not talking. There's no excuse for losing your temper and putting it in writing. If you're mad, get mad. Then calm down. Then write about it. Obviously, no one does that all the time, because we're human and we get emotional like that, but that doesn't make it ok.
So, what all I'm saying is that there's nothing wrong with your view of the world or your scale of rating. We can all argue about pretty much anything untill the end of time; no position is strictly "right" because everything has problems. You just need to remember that everyone is in that boat. What you say is not as important as how you say it. That's just a fact of life that you'll have to come to grips with sooner or later.
To show this, consider this sentence:
I didn't say you were stupid.

There are at least 5 different ways of interpreting this sentence.
I didn't say you were stupid.
I didn't say you were stupid.
I didn't say you were stupid.
I didn't say you were stupid.
I didn't say you were stupid.
Putting emphasis in each place can drastically change the idea that you communicate to the listener. Written word is different, but it follows very similar ideas.

So, once again, what you're saying isn't wrong; how you're saying it is. From things you've said, I think you at least intellectually understand that. So, unless I've said something that someone thinks is drastically incorrect, we should all let this drop.

=p

It seems to me that FlashMarsh holds his opinions as truth a lot. Opinions are just that, opinions, and are therefore subjective in its nature.

I'm going to skip all of the stuff about Flash not giving negative feedback in an appropriate way(I think that sniper handled that well), and discuss what he talked about and what he wants to talk about.

1st: I don't think that the Karma system is the reason why people give so much positive feedback. I think that some people on here just genuinely try to be nice, so that people can like them more. If we got rid of the karma system, I think that Silver would still post a bunch of paintings in the art thread, and people would post about how much they like them. It's not like Silver is doing it solely for Karma. She's always been someone who likes to openly vent her creativity, through stories or through artwork. And expecting people to give her criticisms on her artwork - what do you honestly expect people to say?


2nd: I disagree with the notion that the karma system is holding back discussions because of the threat of negative karma; generally, you're only going to get -1'd if you say something that you shouldn't have. Sometimes, you might get unfairly rated (I still don't know what the -1 in the mafia topic is about), but those types of rates shouldn't stop you from posting normal posts, and usually they end up getting canceled out by someone who disagrees with the karma rate, like when someone -1d your post on the Other Games topic, apparently mistaking it for a necropost. In fact, looking back at it, most -1s end up canceled out. I wanted to look for an example of a stupid post that received negative karma, but I'm having a bit of difficulty locating a recent one.

If you write something and think, "Hmm... I might get -1'd for this", that's generally a sign that what you're saying either shouldn't be said, or should be said in a more palatable way (like the feedback that's being put in question; Just because you're speaking what's on your mind doesn't mean that it's okay to tell someone to use their brain and stop whining)

If you're trying to say that it's also holding back discussions because people want to get positive karma, so they only say things that they think will get them positive karma, I think that's silly. Although, I'll admit that when I first say the Joryism thread, my first thought was "He's doing this in hopes of getting karma..."


I feel like the karma system has definitely helped improve some of our users, but I do feel you; Every time I get a -1, I don't like it, and I obviously am going to disagree with it 90% of the time, otherwise, why would have I made that post in the first place? And at the same time I often see posts with karma and think that it's silly that they have karma, but I don't think about it for more than 15 seconds, and I don't -1 it to nullify the rate because I hate those guys. With the good of the karma system comes some bad as well. Without the karma system, things might seem a little less tense, but at the same time, they might also become a little bit more chaotic. I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if we made a topic where it was mod enforced that you weren't allowed to karma rate anything in it.



One thing I will say, though, is that I miss the days when we would make tiny irrelevant topics every week. Now days it seems like people are afraid to make silly new topics (minus jorster) for fear that they'll either get negative karma or it will get locked really fast by a staff member. You would never see topics like the original Guess the Password or something like this nowadays. We seem to all focus on the same topics, and are afraid to make new topics, even if they might be silly and short-lasting.

And as I've said in the past, I think that some of our staff are a little bit trigger happy when it comes to locking topics.

Not at all. First of all, what works best is different for everybody. Some people respond positively to criticism and improve. Some break down and get even worse.
Second, in management it has been generally agreed that the best way to give criticism is through a mixture of both positive and negative feedback. Don't just explain to people what they are doing wrong and should change. Also explain what they are doing right and should keep on doing. Not only does it help with people's self esteem, it also gives far more information about the performance of a person than limiting your feedback to the criticism.
And finally, the key word in criticism is constructive. Just telling people how much they suck doesn't help anyone. You need to tell them why they suck so they can actually improve.

I see that someone from the clique has -1d all my posts in the Video Game Discussion topic.

Yes that is true, but I will not delete those rates nor will I +1 to nullify any of those.

let me quote those posts for you.

Yep, I agree. Jorster's post was completely unnecessary, pointless, and it deserved that minibash. But why do it that way? isn't -1ing it enough? wouldn't that be a better solution than to actualy post about it sarcastically, and more important - OFFTOPICally? if you insist so much about saying it, wouldn't it be nicer to just pm the guy?

Then Jorster replied; and you answered with a completely subjective post. well, and what if Haily found it hilarious? you guys started driving the topic away from its goal with no actual goal. good, so you showed him! what an awesome dude. now he'll probably be digging his grave, ashamed. what did you achieve with that?

and then there's the last quote. you're right. I agree. but once again. "blurt out stupid memes"? haven't we already been through the 'HOW' you say your criticism?

for comparison:

god

lol
old times
when flash was actually guyguyextreme

we were so young

Wait, you're calling 2012 a long time ago? That was only 1/2 the Interguild ago!

time has stopped