A good blog always comes-up with new and exciting information and while reading I have feel that this blog is really have all those quality that qualify a blog to be a good one HP2-E49 70-659 70-290 JN0-101 642-617 642-627
A good blog always comes-up with new and exciting information and while reading I have feel that this blog is really have all those quality that qualify a blog to be a good one 640-461 70-432 70-646 642-731 642-874 352-001
i been watching ur drafts lately, and am a fan of course. drafting is fun and i do it alot myself. i do alot of swiss though, maybe u should to, plus its better for more coverage as well. i hate doing 8-4 and getting bad land draws, no good stuff happens and i end up losing to some junk rare. anyway good luck in the future and i hope you recorded any cubes if u did them because they were fun. i played 3 and all were fun, lots of land destruction. everyone hates ld but me.
If the insult is a part of critique, for example "you play terrible", "this is the worst article, Ive ever read" etc., then such response constitutes your reader's reaction to your work. Thats how he truly feels, it is his raw response, untampered by politeness. If I am interested in my readers' sincere opinions, I am definitely welcoming their feedback, regardless of how they decide to express themselves. And if they hold my work in such low regards that they decide to insult it, then yes, I also prefer to hear it.
I am sure many writers have similiar attitude. I never specifically talked about this topic with anyone, but I know couple of people who would really surprise me, if they said they rather not heard potential insulting things that people might wanna say about their work.
I think you are misconstruing or misreading what has been written. No one has stated that everyone reacts the same way to negative criticism. (Though there is a strong difference between critique and criticism here.) I think you are not getting the main message.
GP went for an attack approach in his criticism because he (said he) was offended by what he perceived as a cash grab by someone he doesn't respect. This triggered a flame war that imho was unnecessary and somewhat invalidates his points in the author's eyes, because 'fragile' or no very few people will stand for being openly insulted.
Someone virtually smashing your face in the mud and telling you "bad dog!!!" isn't conducive to learning. Tell me if you have an experience like that and actually learn something besides contempt/fear/anger for the doer. I will be interested in hearing about your experiences and gut reactions.
Was I condescending to him? Did I put him down or insult him when I censured his methods? No. Your perception of that is beyond me. As far as preventing rudeness, this is the internet. That seems to fairly impossible as many posters hide behind a pseudonym and apparent anonymity. I wouldn't even begin to suggest that we could accomplish that. (Though I guess one could hope?)
I do suggest that there are better ways to get a message across especially when someone like GP (long time reader/poster) has such a fountain of ideas waiting to be expressed. Kara, imho SHOULD read his critique and just ignore the insults and focus on his very good points. They could learn a lot. However, it is understandable if they don't.
As far as Kara's maturity is concerned that is neither here nor there. Calling someone childish is generally considered to be an insult so I guess that was your aim, but even if it is a perfectly true statement (and I am inclined to think not entirely), that is way beyond the scope of a simple comments section of an article. Saying that just means you don't respect their feelings. *shrugs*?
As a writer, on a personal level I do embrace the comments of others, both negative and positive. And I have been fortunate enough to garner great comments of both schools from the posters on puremtgo. I think it is a difficult thing for any artist/writer/whathaveyou to separate their ego from their art. I agree with you that it is desirable to do so. When it is achieved we learn a lot from our audience. Before that? Perhaps not so much.
I am also more interested in in-depth commentary rather than the simpler "Great Article" or "This sucks!" stuff. It seems much harder to draw anything positive from short pithy statements. Though of course a sincere compliment does usually feed the ego. But that said, again everyone reacts differently as you point out. And no reaction is invalid here except bringing flames.
In re: "The Golden Rule" aka "if you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all." I am sure many people do adopt that because they don't really care. I think at the very least GP shows he cares (if a bit awkwardly) by fixing his initial commentary to be more in-depth. But on the same foot he could have left out the deliberate attacks and had twice as powerful a statement.
I am a little surprised that you are reacting so emotionally to this stuff.
Clearly, not everyone would react this way, and generalizations like "no amount of constructive criticism will be listened if it follows an unwarranted assault on someone's character" are not true.
Like I said, I found his comments valuable and would be happy to get them if I was the writer, even if I thought some of his personal attacks were unwarranted (at least now I know how a person perceived my article and me as a writer, which is a valuable info). Just because such experiences emotionally affect you to the point that you're considering quitting magic if they continue to happen, that doesn't mean that his style of criticism holds no value for an average writer.
In principle, I think critic should be allowed to express himself in any style he wants, including saying nothing more than "your articles suck!". And I think ideally author should welcome such raw response, whether it is negative or positive.
I have been reading the comments posted here now and again, I just haven't read anything written by grandpoobah since his second post. I have no idea why someone would expect any person to learn from something insulting. I don't even know what points have been made or if anything's been valid or not. Some of the things that were said affected me very personally. I was attacked simply for posting an article (one which apparently passed the litmus test of this site's editors). Then I was attacked for "playing poorly." Things like this make me hate the game of magic. Finding problems with the structure of an article is one thing; but no amount of constructive criticism will be listened to if it follows an unwarranted assault upon someone's character. This is rude, arrogant and inappropriate. I have spent the last few days just hoping it would all go away, but since it hasn't, I guess I'm stuck posting here again.
I plan to continue submitting articles for this site, but if I get too many experiences like the one I've had here, I will likely just stop playing magic (at least for a while). It's not worth it for me.
While grandpoobah's criticism was indeed insulting, I think he provided so many useful tips on how to improve her article, that his comments are clearly very valuable for a writer who sincerely seeks feedback on his work.
If a person can't see through insults, and is so personally affected by them that she ignores all the good content (and even straight out denies existence of any constructive criticism, when there is plenty), then I think she is acting *much* more childishly than the person who was being rude.
And I am not saying this because I particularly liked how grandpoobah formulated his opinion or because I particularly hate the article. Neither of these is true. I am just very surprised by the reactions the criticism got. Like it's the end of the world if he calls it the way he truly feels about it.
I also don't agree with the points about "human nature" - how nobody will take to heart criticism that is presented in an insulting way. In my experience, there is a whole range of different reactions different people exhibit when being rudely critiqued. Some will get very offended and take it personally, while some will deliberately concentrate on the content and appreciate any info they got out of critique (as a writer, you should welcome even the one-liners like "you suck", because they represent what a person thinks about your work, the same way you appreciate comments like "Great article!"). I, for one, would definitely prefer being bashed than not being criticized at all because the potential critic subscribed to stupid rule: "If you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all".
By saying that grandpoobah shouldn't be so rude to her, I think you re actually being more condescending than he is. You're effectively saying that Karazorel's feelings are so fragile that she should be prevented from being hurt by a rude critic.
Perhaps fun with the current set since I+D = fun evil tribal, but that also leaves the chance for it to become stale with everyone running the same crits
I wouldn't mind replacing half of the Endangered Weeks with something different if I liked this "something different" better than Endangered Weeks (obviously).
I know you're not asking for more specific opinions yet, but 2HG, while it was interesting to try once, is not something I would like to play on a semi-regular basis (much prefer Endangered Week then). On the other hand, I wouldn't mind occasionally playing a tournament with a different, non-Tribal restriction (like Standard Tribal Wars, BYOS Tribal Wars, Pauper/Silverblack Tribal Wars etc.).
I spent most of the PTQ trading my Lilly's and Sorin's for Snappy, Primeval Titan, and Razorverge. A few more cards will be released from Avacyn and then people will go... Hmmm.. Primeval Titan gets lands into play, I want to play Elesh Norn and not sac it to Pod to play Avacyn, Avaycn is 8 mana.... EUREKA!!!!!!! (Btw, trading the foil Sorins and Seachrome Coasts when you don't have the playset is damn near impossible)
There will be a 2-3 month window where G/W mthics will dominate the trading market and Primeval Titan is at it's low before it cycles out.
Sadly for black, not only is it terrible, but Lilly's second ability is now useless. (Read new Gold G/W Angel).
Snapcaster Mages, Champion of the Parish, and Thalia.
Have you seen the C**P they are releasing in Avacyn? Restoration Angel is BROKEN. So anything to do with White and Green is just plain nasty.
And at the NY PTQ, 92.0787% of the decks were "mage blade". It's funny though. Nobody was undefeated going into the top 16. Mage blade lost to my deck (RG aggro, RG Aggro lost to UB Control, UB Control lost to Mage Blade.
I think it's less a card dominating the format and just too many decks that cancel each other out. If you looked at the Modo DE's a few weeks ago, you would be surprised to see even a single Delver deck go 4-0 or 3-1. Then it came back.
The card that is doing it is not delver, it's sword of W&P. When people forgot about the whole stupid Runechanters Pike thing and switched to Swords, Delver came back.
I appreciate the honesty in your posts but you really need to work a little on your social skills. This isn't about sugarcoating it. This is about getting your message across (which I pretty much agree with except the cheat angle) and having it not only understood but accepted. OK maybe that is a little about sugarcoating it.
But we aren't talking an actual cheater here. If you want to rail about the fact that you find articles on here to be unacceptable to your higher standards then OK we have something to discuss.
Kara has written a few articles on different topics and has both hit and missed. And Josh I am sure has considered each time whether or not to let it go through. I am not saying uprate the article. I think in this case it was a general fail. It deserves the 1 fireball. Or maybe 2 at best.
In all honestly I avoid articles like this when I see them because I have absolutely no interest in the subject matter and generally I expect these sorts of articles (limited coverage) to be limited in entertainment value. But then that has been true for me of most since Godot stopped posting years ago.
But your advice while accurate is condescending and mean. It is possible to say the same things you said and be on point and still make it so the author actually wants to follow your advice.
If you REALLY feel it was some sort of misguided cash(credit) grab why not approach Josh about it directly? He has let people know he wants more feedback on the site. Give it to him. joshua.claytor@gmail.com. That would be preferable to a flame war in the comments which is one reason Facebook was introduced here.
My tone and attitude varies by scenario. I'm a Level 1 DCI Judge, and sometimes I'm teaching 10 year old kids how to play, sometimes I have a player argue with me who's trying to cheat. Who do you think I'm nice to? In my opinion, this author was trying to cheat the system--this entire article is a troll, and I called him out on it. To some of you that makes me a jackass. It's great that this site accepts articles from anybody. If somebody makes a good effort but is off the mark, then that person deserves kindly advice on how to do better. If somebody is lazy, whiny with a bad attitude, and wrong on essentially every point he makes, then I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Obviously, that's what I thought about this article.
Anyway, if the original author is interested in making another article on this topic, I play Innistrad 4-pack sealed a fair amount (several times a week), and I will happily provide what insights I can so long as your effort seems genuine.
Unfortunately some people seem to not have too many modes other than jackass, and silence. I didn't uprate the article because while I disagreed with the method used to criticize it many of the points were ones that not only made sense but I agreed with.
It is true that saying something in a nasty drill sergeant (this is for your own good "son!") manner is unlikely to cause change in the target audience which means all that effort is probably wasted.
I'm not a fan of Captcha, it rejects me 4 out 5 times on other sites - it's too unclear for my tastes. I've heard people say that using FB to validate against bots works well, doesn't appear to be the case here. But I haven't noticed it being especially rampant on Pure.
"Ok, seeing as how this site doesn't provide any editorial feedback to its writers, and because I bashed this article, I thought I would give KaraZorEl the editorial feedback he should have gotten. Then maybe this article can serve a purpose as an example to others on what not to do and maybe how to fix it."
That's not how you package constructive criticism, unless you like getting punched in the face. Nobody is going to read that and take it to heart, it's human nature.
I don't even think it is necessary to heap praise on an article you don't like. Just saying, "Personally, I didn't enjoy this article, I thought it was lacking in XYZ" is perfectly fine. Calling it an example of what not to do to others is way past acceptable.
This guy has obviously never done any sort of editing, because giving realistic criticism and having it be accepted is probably the most important tool you have as an editor.
I wouldn't take that kind of abuse, not when I'm creating community content essentially for free, since the "pay" per article is going to work out to less than minimum wage.
Nobody is requiring hugs and kisses and rainbows in the comment section, I'm just asking people not be jackasses.
A good blog always comes-up with new and exciting information and while reading I have feel that this blog is really have all those quality that qualify a blog to be a good one
HP2-E49
70-659
70-290
JN0-101
642-617
642-627
A good blog always comes-up with new and exciting information and while reading I have feel that this blog is really have all those quality that qualify a blog to be a good one
640-461
70-432
70-646
642-731
642-874
352-001
i been watching ur drafts lately, and am a fan of course. drafting is fun and i do it alot myself. i do alot of swiss though, maybe u should to, plus its better for more coverage as well. i hate doing 8-4 and getting bad land draws, no good stuff happens and i end up losing to some junk rare. anyway good luck in the future and i hope you recorded any cubes if u did them because they were fun. i played 3 and all were fun, lots of land destruction. everyone hates ld but me.
Thanks for the write up and thanks to Mtgotraders for the prize support.
If the insult is a part of critique, for example "you play terrible", "this is the worst article, Ive ever read" etc., then such response constitutes your reader's reaction to your work. Thats how he truly feels, it is his raw response, untampered by politeness. If I am interested in my readers' sincere opinions, I am definitely welcoming their feedback, regardless of how they decide to express themselves. And if they hold my work in such low regards that they decide to insult it, then yes, I also prefer to hear it.
I am sure many writers have similiar attitude. I never specifically talked about this topic with anyone, but I know couple of people who would really surprise me, if they said they rather not heard potential insulting things that people might wanna say about their work.
I think you are misconstruing or misreading what has been written. No one has stated that everyone reacts the same way to negative criticism. (Though there is a strong difference between critique and criticism here.) I think you are not getting the main message.
GP went for an attack approach in his criticism because he (said he) was offended by what he perceived as a cash grab by someone he doesn't respect. This triggered a flame war that imho was unnecessary and somewhat invalidates his points in the author's eyes, because 'fragile' or no very few people will stand for being openly insulted.
Someone virtually smashing your face in the mud and telling you "bad dog!!!" isn't conducive to learning. Tell me if you have an experience like that and actually learn something besides contempt/fear/anger for the doer. I will be interested in hearing about your experiences and gut reactions.
Was I condescending to him? Did I put him down or insult him when I censured his methods? No. Your perception of that is beyond me. As far as preventing rudeness, this is the internet. That seems to fairly impossible as many posters hide behind a pseudonym and apparent anonymity. I wouldn't even begin to suggest that we could accomplish that. (Though I guess one could hope?)
I do suggest that there are better ways to get a message across especially when someone like GP (long time reader/poster) has such a fountain of ideas waiting to be expressed. Kara, imho SHOULD read his critique and just ignore the insults and focus on his very good points. They could learn a lot. However, it is understandable if they don't.
As far as Kara's maturity is concerned that is neither here nor there. Calling someone childish is generally considered to be an insult so I guess that was your aim, but even if it is a perfectly true statement (and I am inclined to think not entirely), that is way beyond the scope of a simple comments section of an article. Saying that just means you don't respect their feelings. *shrugs*?
As a writer, on a personal level I do embrace the comments of others, both negative and positive. And I have been fortunate enough to garner great comments of both schools from the posters on puremtgo. I think it is a difficult thing for any artist/writer/whathaveyou to separate their ego from their art. I agree with you that it is desirable to do so. When it is achieved we learn a lot from our audience. Before that? Perhaps not so much.
I am also more interested in in-depth commentary rather than the simpler "Great Article" or "This sucks!" stuff. It seems much harder to draw anything positive from short pithy statements. Though of course a sincere compliment does usually feed the ego. But that said, again everyone reacts differently as you point out. And no reaction is invalid here except bringing flames.
In re: "The Golden Rule" aka "if you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all." I am sure many people do adopt that because they don't really care. I think at the very least GP shows he cares (if a bit awkwardly) by fixing his initial commentary to be more in-depth. But on the same foot he could have left out the deliberate attacks and had twice as powerful a statement.
I don't know anyone who welcomes something they find insulting.
I am a little surprised that you are reacting so emotionally to this stuff.
Clearly, not everyone would react this way, and generalizations like "no amount of constructive criticism will be listened if it follows an unwarranted assault on someone's character" are not true.
Like I said, I found his comments valuable and would be happy to get them if I was the writer, even if I thought some of his personal attacks were unwarranted (at least now I know how a person perceived my article and me as a writer, which is a valuable info). Just because such experiences emotionally affect you to the point that you're considering quitting magic if they continue to happen, that doesn't mean that his style of criticism holds no value for an average writer.
In principle, I think critic should be allowed to express himself in any style he wants, including saying nothing more than "your articles suck!". And I think ideally author should welcome such raw response, whether it is negative or positive.
Kirins huh? I think there might be a way to do this.
I have been reading the comments posted here now and again, I just haven't read anything written by grandpoobah since his second post. I have no idea why someone would expect any person to learn from something insulting. I don't even know what points have been made or if anything's been valid or not. Some of the things that were said affected me very personally. I was attacked simply for posting an article (one which apparently passed the litmus test of this site's editors). Then I was attacked for "playing poorly." Things like this make me hate the game of magic. Finding problems with the structure of an article is one thing; but no amount of constructive criticism will be listened to if it follows an unwarranted assault upon someone's character. This is rude, arrogant and inappropriate. I have spent the last few days just hoping it would all go away, but since it hasn't, I guess I'm stuck posting here again.
I plan to continue submitting articles for this site, but if I get too many experiences like the one I've had here, I will likely just stop playing magic (at least for a while). It's not worth it for me.
While grandpoobah's criticism was indeed insulting, I think he provided so many useful tips on how to improve her article, that his comments are clearly very valuable for a writer who sincerely seeks feedback on his work.
If a person can't see through insults, and is so personally affected by them that she ignores all the good content (and even straight out denies existence of any constructive criticism, when there is plenty), then I think she is acting *much* more childishly than the person who was being rude.
And I am not saying this because I particularly liked how grandpoobah formulated his opinion or because I particularly hate the article. Neither of these is true. I am just very surprised by the reactions the criticism got. Like it's the end of the world if he calls it the way he truly feels about it.
I also don't agree with the points about "human nature" - how nobody will take to heart criticism that is presented in an insulting way. In my experience, there is a whole range of different reactions different people exhibit when being rudely critiqued. Some will get very offended and take it personally, while some will deliberately concentrate on the content and appreciate any info they got out of critique (as a writer, you should welcome even the one-liners like "you suck", because they represent what a person thinks about your work, the same way you appreciate comments like "Great article!"). I, for one, would definitely prefer being bashed than not being criticized at all because the potential critic subscribed to stupid rule: "If you can't say anything positive, don't say anything at all".
By saying that grandpoobah shouldn't be so rude to her, I think you re actually being more condescending than he is. You're effectively saying that Karazorel's feelings are so fragile that she should be prevented from being hurt by a rude critic.
Perhaps fun with the current set since I+D = fun evil tribal, but that also leaves the chance for it to become stale with everyone running the same crits
Replaced half the times with something different
I suggest Standard Tribal Wars
Welcome back Mikey K. Enjoy yourself doing what you love to do.
I wouldn't mind replacing half of the Endangered Weeks with something different if I liked this "something different" better than Endangered Weeks (obviously).
I know you're not asking for more specific opinions yet, but 2HG, while it was interesting to try once, is not something I would like to play on a semi-regular basis (much prefer Endangered Week then). On the other hand, I wouldn't mind occasionally playing a tournament with a different, non-Tribal restriction (like Standard Tribal Wars, BYOS Tribal Wars, Pauper/Silverblack Tribal Wars etc.).
I forgot to mention.
I spent most of the PTQ trading my Lilly's and Sorin's for Snappy, Primeval Titan, and Razorverge. A few more cards will be released from Avacyn and then people will go... Hmmm.. Primeval Titan gets lands into play, I want to play Elesh Norn and not sac it to Pod to play Avacyn, Avaycn is 8 mana.... EUREKA!!!!!!! (Btw, trading the foil Sorins and Seachrome Coasts when you don't have the playset is damn near impossible)
There will be a 2-3 month window where G/W mthics will dominate the trading market and Primeval Titan is at it's low before it cycles out.
Sadly for black, not only is it terrible, but Lilly's second ability is now useless. (Read new Gold G/W Angel).
It's simple as to what to buy.
Snapcaster Mages, Champion of the Parish, and Thalia.
Have you seen the C**P they are releasing in Avacyn? Restoration Angel is BROKEN. So anything to do with White and Green is just plain nasty.
And at the NY PTQ, 92.0787% of the decks were "mage blade". It's funny though. Nobody was undefeated going into the top 16. Mage blade lost to my deck (RG aggro, RG Aggro lost to UB Control, UB Control lost to Mage Blade.
I think it's less a card dominating the format and just too many decks that cancel each other out. If you looked at the Modo DE's a few weeks ago, you would be surprised to see even a single Delver deck go 4-0 or 3-1. Then it came back.
The card that is doing it is not delver, it's sword of W&P. When people forgot about the whole stupid Runechanters Pike thing and switched to Swords, Delver came back.
I appreciate the honesty in your posts but you really need to work a little on your social skills. This isn't about sugarcoating it. This is about getting your message across (which I pretty much agree with except the cheat angle) and having it not only understood but accepted. OK maybe that is a little about sugarcoating it.
But we aren't talking an actual cheater here. If you want to rail about the fact that you find articles on here to be unacceptable to your higher standards then OK we have something to discuss.
Kara has written a few articles on different topics and has both hit and missed. And Josh I am sure has considered each time whether or not to let it go through. I am not saying uprate the article. I think in this case it was a general fail. It deserves the 1 fireball. Or maybe 2 at best.
In all honestly I avoid articles like this when I see them because I have absolutely no interest in the subject matter and generally I expect these sorts of articles (limited coverage) to be limited in entertainment value. But then that has been true for me of most since Godot stopped posting years ago.
But your advice while accurate is condescending and mean. It is possible to say the same things you said and be on point and still make it so the author actually wants to follow your advice.
If you REALLY feel it was some sort of misguided cash(credit) grab why not approach Josh about it directly? He has let people know he wants more feedback on the site. Give it to him. joshua.claytor@gmail.com. That would be preferable to a flame war in the comments which is one reason Facebook was introduced here.
I have to agree with grandpoobah here.
My tone and attitude varies by scenario. I'm a Level 1 DCI Judge, and sometimes I'm teaching 10 year old kids how to play, sometimes I have a player argue with me who's trying to cheat. Who do you think I'm nice to? In my opinion, this author was trying to cheat the system--this entire article is a troll, and I called him out on it. To some of you that makes me a jackass. It's great that this site accepts articles from anybody. If somebody makes a good effort but is off the mark, then that person deserves kindly advice on how to do better. If somebody is lazy, whiny with a bad attitude, and wrong on essentially every point he makes, then I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. Obviously, that's what I thought about this article.
Anyway, if the original author is interested in making another article on this topic, I play Innistrad 4-pack sealed a fair amount (several times a week), and I will happily provide what insights I can so long as your effort seems genuine.
Unfortunately some people seem to not have too many modes other than jackass, and silence. I didn't uprate the article because while I disagreed with the method used to criticize it many of the points were ones that not only made sense but I agreed with.
It is true that saying something in a nasty drill sergeant (this is for your own good "son!") manner is unlikely to cause change in the target audience which means all that effort is probably wasted.
That seems far worse than the numerous one mana spells that actually kill the Delver now.
I mean that pulse is disqualified from the "large set rare" qualifier I put earlier in the post.
I'm not a fan of Captcha, it rejects me 4 out 5 times on other sites - it's too unclear for my tastes. I've heard people say that using FB to validate against bots works well, doesn't appear to be the case here. But I haven't noticed it being especially rampant on Pure.
"Ok, seeing as how this site doesn't provide any editorial feedback to its writers, and because I bashed this article, I thought I would give KaraZorEl the editorial feedback he should have gotten. Then maybe this article can serve a purpose as an example to others on what not to do and maybe how to fix it."
That's not how you package constructive criticism, unless you like getting punched in the face. Nobody is going to read that and take it to heart, it's human nature.
I don't even think it is necessary to heap praise on an article you don't like. Just saying, "Personally, I didn't enjoy this article, I thought it was lacking in XYZ" is perfectly fine. Calling it an example of what not to do to others is way past acceptable.
This guy has obviously never done any sort of editing, because giving realistic criticism and having it be accepted is probably the most important tool you have as an editor.
I wouldn't take that kind of abuse, not when I'm creating community content essentially for free, since the "pay" per article is going to work out to less than minimum wage.
Nobody is requiring hugs and kisses and rainbows in the comment section, I'm just asking people not be jackasses.