Optional Realities & Project Redshift

[Three-Eyed Crow]

For what it's worth, I don't get intractability from @Jeshin's posts. What I do get is aggressive salesmanship of a product (the website and his brand of RPIs). Since I work at a Giant Soulless Mega-Corp and sometimes have to deal with people in sales, all of whom drive me in-fucking-sane after any conversation lasting more than 5 minutes, I feel like I get enough of this in my non-hobby time, to put it mildly. But it doesn't offend me, particularly because this is the Ad forum and if there's a place for that kind of thing, this is it.

[WTFE]

@Jeshin said:

Truthfully I think the primary gap to bridge is that we're much more likely to discuss topics freely and with less "this is how it is" style writing on Optional Realities itself.

OK, I'm going to try to keep this polite. (I may fail.)

You're here, presumably, given that this is in the "Adver-tis-ments" section of the board, to get people to want to come over to your community. And yet here we have you saying, basically, that you're more open to different opinions there than you are here.

Do you genuinely not see how stupid this is?

I have thus far refused to go to your site—to even crack it open and look at it—specifically because of the behaviour of the people from your site over here. By being so dogmatic, rigid, and inflexible, and by sticking to a definition of game that specifically excludes the styles played by most people on this board, you are actually being off-putting. You absolutely do not come across as inviting discussion. If anything you should be more conciliatory and flexible when you're out of your domain than in. You're in effect acting as ambassador for your site, after all. And right now, Mr. Ambassador, your site is smelling like the Platonic Form of web sites that need to be avoided at all costs.

Now maybe Three-Eyed Crow is right. Maybe the problem isn't that you're intractable. Maybe the problem is that you're a salesman. If that is, indeed, the problem, you might want to consider toning down the sales persona a notch or ten. Aggressive sales techniques work fine if you're going for one, short-term sale instead of a long-term relationship. (Their use makes you a dick, but if you're comfortable with that it's a great strategy.) The thing is ... participation in a community is pretty much by definition a long-term relationship. If you're genuinely interested in such, perhaps you may wish to rethink your approach to building these.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

That is incorrect. I am saying that I have limited time and that when typing up a post I am more likely to keep it self-contained on other websites because I cannot be freely debating over 10+ forums. If you'll go back and read this thread you can see I dedicated a lot of time to debates, questions, and researching things I wasn't familiar with. I no longer have the free time now that I did a few months ago.

So if it's between coming off as a little "just so" and leaving a productive debate unfinished because of the hours in a day. I opt for the "just so" approach. I'm about 90% (which is just a way of saying pretty sure) that outside of this thread I haven't pushed the Optional Realities community on this board. I may have mentioned games from it as appropriate but I did get a chance to participate in this community for a short time and it was enjoyable.

When my time (or Crayon's time) frees up I expect we'll be a lot more open to discussions where the turnaround times on our posts aren't measured in weeks >_>.

EDIT - I actually personally dedicated more time to this community than any other community we advertised on and you guys answered with the most views and most back and forth out of any of the other 3 combined. So you're currently our favourite in that regard.

[WTFE]

@Jeshin said:

That is incorrect.

Yes. You are very obviously open to the input of others and don't just gloss over it without seeming to want to engage in any meaningful way.

I am saying that I have limited time and that when typing up a post I am more likely to keep it self-contained on other websites because I cannot be freely debating over 10+ forums.

Then don't expect the people on these other web sites to want to come to yours.

If you'll go back and read this thread you can see I dedicated a lot of time to debates, questions, and researching things I wasn't familiar with. I no longer have the free time now that I did a few months ago.

What I saw was you doing the textual equivalent of waiting for your turn to talk. I have seen nothing from you (nor the other one from your crowd, if @crayon is such) that shows you're open to actual input or dialogue. Your "debate" has consisted entirely of saying, in effect, "that is incorrect".

And that's fine. Your life and all that. But it is specifically your performance here that makes me not even want to open your web site.

I'm sure you're stinging at the loss.

So if it's between coming off as a little "just so" and leaving a productive debate unfinished because of the hours in a day. I opt for the "just so" approach.

There's another approach: if you don't have time to engage, just keep your mouth shut until you do. How's that for a strategy? It has the advantage of not turning people off, but the disadvantage of you not being able to hear your own voice.

When my time (or Crayon's time) frees up I expect we'll be a lot more open to discussions where the turnaround times on our posts aren't measured in weeks >_>.

Well, in the mean time, keep on making your site look about as appealing as a plateful of undercooked balut. I wish you well in your endeavours, but they'll be progressing without me (and likely a few others who aren't as blunt and confrontational as I am).

[Jeshin]

Hey,

I would like to point out that regardless of all my responses in this entire thread you have said yourself that you have refused to so much as look at Optional Realities. Now it's different strokes for different folks and perhaps a different tact would have netted you into at least trying us out. But I can't please all of the people and I certainly didn't satisfy you in my advertising attempts. Nor will I satisfy everyone who ever reads this thread or individual post.

If the connection isn't there, then it isn't there but the "bluntness" isn't exactly the way to go about convincing someone short on time to invest more time in trying to connect with you. If you want to tell me you don't like me because of X, Y, Z you could just say that. It's alright not to like me.

[Jeshin]

Crayon & myself (Jeshin) are the only 2 Optional Realities folks running around this community to my knowledge. If there are any others I'm not aware of them. I think Tempest found OR through here, so you could count them maybe?

[WTFE]

@Jeshin said:

If the connection isn't there, then it isn't there but the "bluntness" isn't exactly the way to go about convincing someone short on time to invest more time in trying to connect with you.

You seem to have this relationship backward. You are trying to convince others to go to your site. I'm not particularly in the market for a new site to go to. I'm not intrinsically opposed to it, but it's not something I'm actively seeking. It really is incumbent upon you to make your site attractive.

The bluntness here is me explaining to you why, after 18 pages of your blather, I'm not even remotely interested in opening the front page of your site. And as I said, there's a very good chance that where I'm bluntly telling you, others are either not bothering to tell you or are more subtly telling you. (Others like @Thenomain or @Three-Eyed-Crow or @Autumn or even @Alzie, for example, whose subtler attempts to tell you what might be going wrong for you got blown off.)

That's four people in the last three pages alone who've (mostly) politely told you why what you're doing isn't working here. And one who's being far more blunt. So that's five people who've actually spent time trying to help you improve your technique so that you can actually attract new participants. Your response?

It's alright not to like me.

Yes. You're ever-so-open to input. I'm sure your site is a great place to exchange ideas instead of being merely preached to.

[Jeshin]

You could take a look and know for sure!

[TNP]

That's certainly the way to engage people in conversation and debate ideas.

[Thenomain]

@Jeshin, one of the points I've been trying to make here is that the articles themselves do not seem to me to invite conversation, and until recently I had not seen one create any. This is not meant as an insult, or a negative thing; I was surprised when you (or @crayon, I can't remember which now) said that the articles were for creating discussion. It feels like opening up a PC Magazine article on how to set parental controls in Windows 10 and later hearing the author say the article was written to spur discussion.

Buh?

Anyhow, I understand and appreciate that there are only so many hours in a day, and so you can't spend time both here and yonder getting into this level of discussion, but understand and appreciate that you're asking us (me) to do the same; to go there and engage in the level of conversation that we enjoy here.

A great deal of why I haven't bothered to post like this over there is because it is blunt and crude, and boy if you haven't made me want to throw up my arms and yell, "What the hell are you talking about?!" And have. I don't want to do that to you guys in your own backyard. I've also been scared off by the harshness of the few Mudder-centric discussions being the kind of harsh and crude that I get enough of from here.

There are other reasons, but this is enough creative criticism/harshing for one post.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

For the articles specifically we're working on something to try and promote more discussion, like I said in the previous post. If it is of interest I can certainly post up what we end up doing with that portion of the website.

[Derp]

So, I did go and take a look at these articles, some of the more recent ones anyway.

You know what really screams being open to discussion and wanting to engage in a lively and active debate on things? Going to the 'Staff Ethics' article, having it read like a commandment, rather than pensive back and forth, and then seeing at the bottom that comments are turned off.

That is the anti-discussion format. That is 'this is how it is, and there will be no discussion, we have even put our code in such a format as to disallow it'. That, to me, does not do what you say it does.

Your replies here are also less than convincing that discusion is what you're wanting to engage in, as you deliberately skirt around pertinent ideas and piecemeal your replies. A debate-sparking article feels philosophical in nature, and asks questions that it doesn't necessarily answer. Your stuff just provides answers without leaving room for or entertaining questions or alternative viewpoints.

Kind of like your forum posts.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

It is worth noting that half of the articles on Optional Realities are not written by OR Staff but by people who volunteer to write on a topic. We then give them a platform for publishing the topic and hope discussion comes from it.

The Staff Ethics article was written by a contributor.

EDIT - Also we took the comments out and put in a big Join Discussion button because we wanted all discussions to be easily accessible on the forums instead of tied specifically to the bottom of each article. We felt it provided quicker navigation and better access. From an SEO standpoint we should enable comments because it'd help push the articles higher for search results.

http://optionalrealities.com/forums/index.php?board=11.0 <--- Subforum with a thread dedicated to each article we've ever published.

[Lithium]

I don't know why, but seeing every post start with

Hey,

<Stuff>

Just to me indicates it's to fucking formulaic to be anything more than a bot spitting random words back at us like a limited ai with a thesaurus looking up the words we type and then throwing back a 'No U' response.

Considering this is a forum where people talk about games, the initial 'salespitch' also came across like:

We are you, but better, because writers.

Which made me never click the link even as a lurker before I started posting.

[Thenomain]

This is bizarre. Rather than responding to the naysayers with "wink wink come and find out", wouldn't a response of accepting the views of others, or even saying nothing, be better? But I'm more confused because I thought, eh, let's see what happened lately in this thread.

• Building an Elastic Game World (Crayon)

My response here: There is no content here.
Crayon's response there: (Practically a whole new article.)

This was the first link I clicked because it's one I knew I had read and had an opinion on. Here? We see nothing of this. Not even, "I think you guys are crazy but I started to think about it and came up with <link>".

This is not really aimed toward Crayon, since he does respond here between once-a-week trips, but I see this kind of thing enticing people who are on the fence because of things like unanswered criticism. It's something we know to well, here, is that the loudest wins far too often.

The answer, of course, isn't to be louder, but I think you guys have "being conversational" as an advantage that you're really not using.

And that's bizarre.

[Jeshin]

Hey,

I actually put hey at the beginning of my posts because it makes me feel more comfortable posting. It both disarms my concern that I'm a post shilling robot and is a nice little greeting. It's just a thing I do to help get through all the posts I make on various websites.

I think that one of the issues we're having is that we (I) am not comfortable directing people to Optional Realities for specific content. It was just an ethics thing of not wanting to spam people and be like. Oh you have a differing opinion well <link> there is my reply. We (I) though it would be better to try and take the time to reply on the appropriate forums to individual concerns. Obviously this has not played out as well as I would have liked.

Maybe we can begin posting links to additions/statements/changes that we've made in relations to stuff you guys have asked us or perhaps we can take portions of it and edit it to be posted here specifically so there is a better dialogue without duplicating to much effort on our part.

[surreality]

@Jeshin, something you may want to keep in mind. One of the things that's generally understood around here is that there's not really a 'one true way' approach to things; it's rarely stated outright but the areas of agreement here on 'how things should be' are very, very few.

Usually, once you scratch the surface, everyone has a different idea about how to handle the issue, so the best you're usually going to get is 'people agree <thing> is an issue'.

We will argue that shit like the stakes are life and death with froth and fire now and then, but there's an understanding that things are going to be approached from different angles and bases of experience and that ultimately, no one has it all figured out yet because if they did, whatever the issue is, it would have a stock answer known to work without more complications than it solves.

There's a reason anyone throwing out 'stock answers' is more or less going to get little more than a dubious look, and that, essentially, would be it. You can take it to mean 'we like arguing about it', but that would only be true in a few cases; even if it's taking the form of argument, people around here are generally looking for solutions to shit that addresses their specific areas of concern.

Advice from the high mountain is all well and good, but when it isn't open to discussion -- and frankly, it seems like it's advice dispensed from the high mountain of 'we know better than you even though we don't appear to know shit about this corner of the broader hobby' -- those specific concerns either don't get addressed (bad), or get dismissed (worse, especially with the 'that's because your entire approach is wrong, never mind that your entire approach is what people in this branch of the hobby often specifically enjoy about this branch of the hobby' approach that's been witnessed).

Guess what? That means the advice is not especially useful if someone can't immediately see how it would be applicable. Insisting that it is applicable doesn't resolve this. When people have to stretch their brain to see how what you're discussing even could possibly apply in the first place, you're not off to the best start.

People get 'we don't have a ton of time'. Many around here are in the same boat. Considering how many hats many folks around here wear and how much they do in the hobby alone, many of us are similarly stretched thin. That @Thenomain and @Alzie, etc. have taken time to reply is sorta amazing, considering how much they're actively out there doing, as they're among the real innovators in this neck of the woods and do more than a fair bit to support this neck of the hobby.

@Derp essentially nails it in his description of the ethics article. You're presenting 'solutions' without convincing anyone you necessarily even understand the issues first, and that doesn't appear open to inquiry or discussion. We rip the shit out of people we know have an understanding of what we're collectively talking about with regularity around here on points of disagreement; it's little surprise that when someone comes in with a 'you're all doing it wrong, wait, what are you doing?' attitude, they're going to -- at best -- get ignored. Which seems to be what's happening, for the most part. That the people who are so active in attempts to promote best practices and shared innovations are the ones speaking up should, in fact, speak volumes. These are the people 'walking the walk' around here. Dismissing them? Heh, well...

[Thenomain]

I'd like to add to what @surreality said:

@Jeshin said:

I think that one of the issues we're having is that we (I) am not comfortable directing people to Optional Realities for specific content.

But you want to engage in conversation. There is a conflict of your own interests when you want conversation but your ethics are stopping you from encouraging it. There is an adage about beating a dead horse to water, or something.

(That is, here we beat a dead horse. There, you want to lead a horse to water and expect it to drink.)

I don't think anyone here expects you to post here as your primary form of conversation, since you do have this web site of your own, but it still mildly baffles me that Crayon responded to essentially me, essentially from here, and didn't say, "Hey, Theno, here's my response over there. It might help."

And if that's not your or his goal to placate me or anyone here, that's fine, but something you're doing or saying is coming across as insincere. If it's as simple as your moral dilemma, then consider it a good thing that it's a simple solution. You don't have to try as hard as we're demanding.

We are, after all, kind of jerks.

---

@Jeshin said:

I actually put hey at the beginning of my posts because it makes me feel more comfortable posting.

I think we can agree that even @Lithium knows she's being silly, as she starts with "I don't know why."

[crayon]

@Thenomain said:

Reply the second. I don't see discussion in the articles. I don't see discussion here about replies to your articles. Nothing is wrong with that, but with the medium what I got from the articles is that they were tips and hints, that they were one-way.

I'm not sure what we can do to encourage article discussion any more than we already have with the article discussion threads. They don't tend to attract too much discussion, but it's something we've been working on. If you have any ideas for gearing articles more towards discussion and debate, I'd love to hear them.

@Thenomain said:

Even here, my criticism of the ideas seems to be met with flat explanation.

The flat explanation approach is partly because sometimes it feels like there's a language barrier, and partly because I can only really realistically justify devoting so much time to debating ideas here that I should be debating on OR. Moreover some of the criticism that gets tossed about is hostile and unreasonable or strawman'd to the point that it's not really conducive to discussion. A lot of it has been boiling down to 'I think you're wrong'. Which is fine! People are entitled to their opinions and can feel free to snark away, I've been known to snark it up from time to time myself, it doesn't especially bother me, but I'm not going to devote large amounts of time or dive into debates that are grounded in criticisms that aren't really intended to be for discussion or debate so much as browbeating. I do try to respond to you once a week at least, because there are some pretty interesting points and perspectives in this thread.

@Thenomain said:

My response here: There is no content here.
Crayon's response there: (Practically a whole new article.)

Right. And that was discussion, and that's the type of thing we'd like to see more of in our forums. Why don't more of our design articles engender heavy discussion on our forums? I think part of it is that they tend to be a bit on the technical side and may get TL;DR'd. Regardless of whether we disagreed on some ideas, the input and discussion, even if it's as simple as 'this reads as having no actual content and is too abstract to be useful' helps to refine ideas and put them through a sort of crucible. That's what I, at least, want out of our articles: a crucible for game design and administration ideas and a sounding board for sharing those ideas with other designers.

@Thenomain said:

Cool, because attempts at discussion with you guys here have been cold at best. I really do think you guys don't want to talk about things you think are right.

I love talking about things that I think I'm right about, and from time to time I like to argue the points of a side that I think is dead wrong. What I don't much care for is debating something where I think both perspectives are equally valid, but have a personal preference one way or the other, because it doesn't really accomplish anything. The reason debate's been tepid at best here is because most of the criticism has been founded on the basis of this 'Us vs. Them' mentality or a 'MUSH vs. MUD' grounding rather than on actual ideas themselves. And I don't really care to debate that because I honestly don't really care about that contention. Most 'criticisms' tend to turn into a circular debate that routes right back to our site's criteria for community games, particularly the requirement for automation which I think Jeshin and I have both made a pretty lengthy effort at explaining to satisfaction. If you're adamantly against automated arbitration and decision of in-game outcomes (eg. coded combat, automated dice rolls, etc.) or you're completely against permanent death you're probably not our target audience. And that's okay, games and players of games that aren't our target audience are still perfectly valid.

@WTFE said:

You're here, presumably, given that this is in the "Adver-tis-ments" section of the board, to get people to want to come over to your community. And yet here we have you saying, basically, that you're more open to different opinions there than you are here.

It's not a question of openness. We're perfectly open to different opinions regardless of where we are. We might not always agree or see debate on a subject the same way, but debating to change the beliefs of the other party is generally bad form and a fool's errand for people who have even the faintest experience with debate. But we can only really commit to debating so much, particularly when the parties involved start going after the nearest straw men or circuitously assailing the validity of opinions and preferences.

@WTFE said:

By being so dogmatic, rigid, and inflexible, and by sticking to a definition of game that specifically excludes the styles played by most people on this board, you are actually being off-putting.

I'm sorry that I have my own ideas and opinions about games and that while I understand the validity of other peoples' views and see the advantages of different approaches, I prefer my own. It should be noted that it's not a definition of 'game' that we're clinging to, but essentially a definition of a target audience. If most of the players here don't find that the games we target are the sort that appeal to them, then that's okay. Obviously some of the posters here see the appeal, and honestly it's the insistence on trying to invalidate the opinions and preferences of others that I see as being off-putting. I'll accept dogmatic, at least personally, though. I won't speak for Jeshin, but dogmatic is probably pretty on-the-nose.

@WTFE said:

Your "debate" has consisted entirely of saying, in effect, "that is incorrect".

I'm not sure what else you expect in response when you keep trying to debate peoples' preferences in games. I'm sorry if I don't find "Science-fiction is better than fantasy" or "Real-time strategy is so better than turn-based strategy" to be a super compelling debate that's worth investing a great deal of effort into discussing on the internet with strangers. I strongly suggest you reread most of your posts in the last page with your statement right here in mind.

@WTFE said:

There's another approach: if you don't have time to engage, just keep your mouth shut until you do. How's that for a strategy?

Oh, I see. We should just not advertise because a loud, vocal, and incredibly hostile portion of the posters here disagree with our preferences where it comes to test-based RPGs despite other people on this board clearly having been more flexible or interested themselves.

@WTFE said:

That's four people in the last three pages alone who've (mostly) politely told you why what you're doing isn't working here.

Oh, we're having a popularity contest now. There are at least two posters in the past couple of pages who aren't staunchly against every single idea we put forward on the basis that we target MUDs and MUSHes that meet a certain preferred criteria. I guess that means 1/3 of the people posting in this thread are interested, and you know what? If what we have to say appeals to one in TWENTY people, I'm happy with that. Being the minority, particularly in only a specific venue, doesn't invalidate somebody's opinions.

@WTFE said:

Yes. You're ever-so-open to input.

You're not offering input, really. You're just expressing that you think we're wrong and then attacking people for not agreeing with you.

@Derp said:

You know what really screams being open to discussion and wanting to engage in a lively and active debate on things? Going to the 'Staff Ethics' article, having it read like a commandment, rather than pensive back and forth, and then seeing at the bottom that comments are turned off.

There are forum threads for discussion of each and every one of the articles. The one you're referring to in particular is an opinion piece, and doesn't even necessarily reflect the opinions of OR's staff, we're not putting it forward as 'this is dogma' and it's certainly subject to debate. If you've ever participated in a debate, though, you should know by now that most people don't make their points by waffling back and forth. If they want to argue in support of a view, they do so firmly. Comments may be closed, but there is a big 'Join the Discussion' button at the end of every article.

All of that said, there are some articles, particularly some of the design ones, that are going to be less of a conversation piece for debate and more of a thinking piece for game designers, so I suppose I may have done a disservice in highlighting only discussion as a goal of our articles. While discussion is certainly the primary goal, being informative and provoking an exchange of useful ideas is definitely a secondary goal. Though, I think in most cases these two goals are one and the same.

@Thenomain said:

but it still mildly baffles me that Crayon responded to essentially me, essentially from here, and didn't say, "Hey, Theno, here's my response over there. It might help."

That's my bad, really. I should've popped you a link when I responded earlier, as that was my attempt to provide at least some elaboration based on valid criticism that you provided. I posted on our threads hoping that it would spur a little more debate or discussion, but I certainly should have dropped by and linked the post.

In summary, I don't really expect that Optional Realities is going to appeal to every person in this community. That's okay. I don't think that not preferring the same niche-within-a-niche as far as OR's criteria go makes parties that prefer games outside that criteria 'wrong' or 'incorrect'. @Thenomain, for example, despite self-identifying as not really feeling like a part of our target audience has made some valid arguments in support of their own preferences, and has offered feedback and criticism on our ideas and articles regardless, which I value. For example, he pegged my article as being abstract and conceptual and not really offering much by means of concrete suggestions to the point of being useless, and that's a valid criticism. It probably applies to most of my writing because I'm prone to abstraction. I value and appreciate that, even if we aren't necessarily going to agree on a lot of things.

Effectively, there's a difference between offering feedback and criticism and trying to debate while predicating your entire argument on telling us you disagree with our preferences and that most people in your community disagree. One is useful and something I'm happy to discuss and the other I just don't find particularly interesting or meriting of debate. I'd like to discuss, debate, and receive feedback and criticism on things a little bit more meaningful than chocolate vs. vanilla.

[Thenomain]

@crayon said:

In summary, I don't really expect that Optional Realities is going to appeal to every person in this community. That's okay.

Okay, putting on my blunt hat.

There, it's on.

Please do not offer us crap pudding like this. We do not need placated or pandered; we are adults even if we don't act like it some, most, or all of the time. I know the irony of basically saying the same to Jeshin just one post ago, but it sounds to me like he's trying to negotiate a mutual understanding and I know how it is to fight your own moral code. I don't think he needs to fight it, and would probably be better for our perception of him if he doesn't and hopefully he'd be happier too.

@crayon said:

Effectively, there's a difference between offering feedback and criticism and trying to debate while predicating your entire argument on telling us you disagree with our preferences

What? You (Jeshin, really, but your site) are the one who wants to bridge text communities, and when given a pretty clear example of how our consideration of "quality RP/game" did not mesh yours, you said, "Mm, no." This is not one of those matter-of-opinion things, you said our entire community was wrong.

You don't get to do that and say you want to build bridges at the same time.

This is why I berate you two. You don't get to be the arbiter of anything but your own community unless you are truly willing to explore common ground.

You are not.

I'm not talking about the articles, here, I'm talking about page one of your web site. I'm talking about how you present your community. It's not honest, and I can see the value in it if only you were honest.

We here at MU Soapbox are very keen on calling out bullshit; it's practically our charter, and as Surreality mentioned we each have our bugaboos, our triggers, and our amusements. You guys could be pretty damn sweet, but you are undermining yourselves at best, two-faced at worst, and that is pissing me off.

Either be your own community with your own rules and your own focus, or seek a greater understanding of quality gaming.

One of these options allows you to ignore our ranting as opinions. The other allows you to build bridges.

For fuck's sake, pick one.