Jedi Council Forums - Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)

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Author	Topic: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
Jedi Ben Registered: Jul '99	Date Posted: 12/10/08 1:57pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	rhonderoo posted: Randy Stradley leaving for a while, or other situations that have gone awry. I'm not sure there was much the Mods could have done on that one. The thread in question was the kind that'd normally get Mod attention, either edited or locked. There was quite a bit of defence for the artist in question too. The one Q it raises for me is: Does Lit need 24-hour modding? If an obnoxious thread gets started at a time when most, if not all, of the Mods are either snoozing or working, so aren't yet able to whack it before trouble starts - does that mean there's a need for greater distribution of the modding with more Mods but from different timezones? -----signature----- Excellence: "You are the forum's Quick Ben." SW EU fans: John Ostrander needs your help! http://www.comix4sight.com
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rhonderoo Title: Former Head Admin Registered: Aug '02	Date Posted: 12/10/08 2:02pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	No, we can't point to the situation that irritated Randy as the example, but it is indicative of a lot of the type of comments that lead to people reading enough of them and saying, "This place is just too negative." -----signature----- DT421 FYI: You don't deal with me. I deal with you. Damned right the Jedi's fire has gone out of the universe. I was the bad-ass Class C extinguisher who snuffed them. - @darthvader (Darth Vader on Twitter)
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Jedi Ben Registered: Jul '99	Date Posted: 12/10/08 2:25pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	rhonderoo posted: No, we can't point to the situation that irritated Randy as the example, but it is indicative of a lot of the type of comments that lead to people reading enough of them and saying, "This place is just too negative." But isn't there is a psychological tendency to tag the negative more than the positive? I'm inclined to reckon you could show people 20 positive and 2 negative posts and it'd be the negative ones they'd latch onto and remember more easily. -----signature----- Excellence: "You are the forum's Quick Ben." SW EU fans: John Ostrander needs your help! http://www.comix4sight.com
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Lord_Hydronium Title: Literature Gardener Registered: Jun '02	Date Posted: 12/10/08 2:35pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	Trip posted: For this discussion to get anywhere, I think we need to quit dancing around things and be painfully blunt. I understand that calling people out isn't generally conducive to a friendly atmosphere, but buried hostility is, in my opinion, worse; it leads to misunderstandings and people generally talking right past one another. I don't know how feasible this is-- the mods would have to make the call one way or another-- but I'd advocate using this thread to constructively address using specific examples posters and behaviors which people feel is a problem. Obviously, this toes a fine line between constructive criticism and just unloading on somebody you don't like, but I think it's very necessary, otherwise stuff just continues to simmer under the surface. Just to support this idea, Robimus posted a number of comments (without names, though) in the thread that spawned this one that he felt were over the line; and while I didn't really agree with his analysis, I thought it was very useful to get an idea of where he was coming from. The thing with vague comments is that people can read into them what they want, and all it's going to lead to are assumptions on their part as to what the other person is trying to say. For example, when Lex said he wanted threads without "complaining", I assumed that he meant any criticism; he then had to explain that he differentiated legitimate criticism and complaining. And honestly, I'm still not sure where he draws the line (and I'm not trying to target him here, just using him as an example)—it's a situation where examples would be very helpful. -----signature----- Great midis have little midis Swimming round inside 'em And little midis have lesser midis And so ad infinitum.
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Bly Registered: Mar '05	Date Posted: 12/10/08 2:53pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	WARNING: The following post is somewhat disjointed, but it's the best I could come up with on short notice. Trip posted: Honestly: would we even be having this discussion if it weren't for Traviss-related issues? Of course not. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only guy in this thread who's seen this little fight from both sides: I was a rabid Fando for my first few years in Lit, and now...now I just don't care enough to complain. I like Traviss's characters, kark knows I felt kinda sad at the end of O66, and as for her decisions, well you can have your canon, and eat it, too. I know I can't be the only who's ignored O66 in favor of HOTM, but that option doesn't seem to have occurred to the more vocal posters on this board. Trip posted that "Lit's pretty chill until the next Traviss book comes out", and for the most part, that's true. Traviss and the bucketheads, Mandos and Clones both, seem to have become a lightning rod for the negativity in Lit, just take a look at what poster Sergeant_Dante has as his sig: Dante's sig posted: Meesa lovah the admins so mucha. Meesa love all da authors and theysa products!!! meessa lovsa big brother and da mods!!!! 3 million forever!!! woot l33t mandos woot It's because of dumbasses like this that Lit is the place it is today. And that sort of anger isn't as easily restrained to Ms. Traviss as Trip implies. Randy left over the vitriol slung at one of his artists; Denning received a ton of flak over Dark Nest; the new Clone Wars series seems to be cordially despised by a good number of the posters in Lit. The general attitude over in Lit is one of negativity. But there is simply no way, short of a "technique critique" thread like the one Trip is suggesting (which I support, BTW), to get people to change their posting habits; even then, whilst we might get them to be more polite when posting, we can't force them to love the EU. -----signature----- "Get the order and execute it. Let the Generals sort out the rest." -Commander Bly Proud recepient of Thrawn McEwok's Bronze Thranta™ "Politics is simply the continuation of war by other means." -Mandalore the Ultimate C/TSgt in the Civil Air Patrol
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J_K_DART Registered: Dec '01	Date Posted: 12/10/08 3:32pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	Robimus: Glad you like the idea. I think if there's a dedicated thread for the author, though, it's possibly easier to monitor than the current nonsense, where comments fly thick and fast all over the place. One thread for the Mods to check on isn't half as bad as watching every thread for comments against the latest author to do something weird continuity-wise. Ben: How about posters being allowed to set 'house rules' for a thread in the opening post that acts as a minimum guidance for it? That's a very good idea. I know I've used it in the past, actually, by saying "this thread is for such-and-such, not so-and-so" - but that might've been on another forum. Of course, annoyingly, that stifles potential debates; but it also prevents discussions that may not have been so positive in the first place! Horsey: As a mod, I love when someone PM's me and says "Hey you might want to do something about this thread." I like when you guys are looking out for each other, but the way to do that it not to jump into the conversation and blast/flame the person who started it, but instead to bring it to the attention of the people who can edit things out and stop the behavior. Good point. This is something we, as posters, all need to take responsibility for. When a debate goes wrong, we need to flag it up rather than engage in it. Rhonderoo: And yet, in your list, it was discussions on Anakin's death that first drew me into the forum - because of the positive, debating atmosphere. Things didn't seem like they are now. Recently, I went through my first posts and first threads, just for a trip down memory lane, and a lot of them were on Anakin Solo threads - none of which were anything like recent reactions. Hmmm, respectfully, guys, bemoaning culture and specific examples doesn't do us much good for coming up with practical ideas, which would make this thread a lot more potentially useful. -----signature----- "Victory without risk is like a pizza without pepperoni." "I like my pizzas without pepperoni." "Sir master of the long post" - Excellence
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Havac Title: Lit Mod of War Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 12/10/08 4:08pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	To cover some of the things that might have gotten lost in the shuffle: On the issue of multiple book-release threads: I don't think we need them, at least not officially. We already have a system in place that allows spoiler threads to spin off the main thread -- they just need moderator approval. I don't think the answer is to set up threads in advance for balkanized discussion, but instead to spin off a thread when one topic threatens to take over the entire discussion, or, alternatively, when someone has something they'd like to discuss that looks like it would get lost in the shuffle of a discussion thread that's churning along nicely on-topic. So I don't think we need a new system; we just need to exploit the system we have more fully. TKeira: A lot of times members come into the Lit forums and on page one you'll find fifteen threads that all lend toward topics for those disgruntled fans. That in and of itself can turn people around before they even dive into the discussions. Many of these disgruntled threads lie in the same vein, and I've often wondered why the mods don't combine topics. Again, this is something I'm not seeing. I'm not seeing a preponderance of "disgruntled" topics, especially not overlapping ones. They can flare up occasionally, but this isn't the preponderance of Lit's content. I can see why someone would feel, sometimes, like this is all there is, but the thread count really isn't dominated by disgruntled threads. And part of the problem here is that I see a lot of your and Lex's complaints coming from a highly skewed outside view of Lit. And outside views are certainly valuable, but we can't accept all their criticism as being inherently right because it's from outside any more than we can reject it all as being inherently wrong because it's from outside. So when I don't see fifteen disgruntled topics across the front page, I have to ask whether I'm missing something or whether you're missing something. And what I need, fundamentally, to figure that out is an explanation of what topics, exactly, are emblematic of "disgruntlement"? What kind of threads are you talking about? When have you seen these threads? Be specific; look at the front page of Lit right now and tell me what threads you see as being disgruntled. I can't help you if I don't know what you're talking about -- and if you want to argue that makes me part of the problem, well, I can hardly stop being part of the problem until I know what the problem is. KissMe: On the issue of people complaining, fanboy rants and arguments in the Lit Thread. I'm personally cautious of anything that limits posters being allowed to express their feelings (ie being required to read a book before commenting), but I can see how rants can be annoying. Maybe mods (and us users in general) can encourage (which is not the same as mandate) more use of the EUC and the already partisan threads there, where like-minded people can vent or praise without tempers flaring. Didn't there used to be an NJO/LotF Critics Thread? I don't know if I ever posted on it but I know there at least used to be a pretty active one. Is that still open, or can it be re-opened and encouraged? I think this is a solid suggestion to look at. I think there could be a lot of value in encouraging people who just want to express single-note praise or loathing to take it to a place that's designed to put like-minded people together, rather than expecting it to fly in a community that's ultimately about critical discussion. I think that's helpful not only for the "problem negativity" to be redirected, but also for the people who have a problem with excessive negativity. The sense I get from a lot of this criticism is that people want Lit to be a place where they can be positive without having to deal with negativity all the time, but the place that's designed for that is EUC. Lit isn't. It can work to be less negative, it can work to be more positive, but it's never going to be a place where fanboys don't argue. I have to agree with becca here: we need to focus on curbing excessive negativity, not on trying to make Lit a totally positive place. Ultimately, whether Lit is happy or not isn't something we can control; Lit will never be happy until LFL puts out nothing but magic books that everyone likes. We shouldn't worry about what people's opinions are; we should worry about how they express their opinions. Rob: I remember posting a polite critism in one of the Legacy threads a long while back only to be met by instantly by a half dozen posts saying I was completely off base, didn't know what I was talking about and that I was calling John a bad writer. John then chimed in himself to mention how he could see where I'd get my impression, though he didn't agree with my take of the situation he was polite enough to consider it and was understanding of why I felt the way I did. It was a situation where the author himself was far more open to the discussion than the Legacy fans were. As Keralys has pointed out the gushing can sometimes be very similar to the hating if it takes on a life of its own. I think this is good to keep in mind. We shouldn't vilify negativity any more than we should vilify positivity; what we should be focused on is people shutting down discussion or dragging things off-topic. And I think we're moving toward a good consensus on how to do that: with moderators stepping in more to manage discussion when it goes bad. Lex: Robimus is not the only person who feels this way. Far from it. And what is the response? Two Lit mods claiming they've "never" seen that occurring, a third insisting it's not connected disproportionately to certain voices in the forum. You're entitled to your perception of the atmosphere in the forum, of course, but you will not successfully draw wider participation in Lit if your response to concerns like these is to insist they're imaginary. There are plenty of fanficcers, for example, who happily engage in discussion of the books/comics, plots, storylines, characterizations, etc. over in Fanfic but won't post in the same discussions in Lit because of exactly this dynamic. If you're seriously interested in trying to figure out what might be dysfuncational about Lit, you need to start by acknowledging the possibility that there exists a very real, widely held perception that Lit is a predominantly negative place where criticism of the profic is far more welcome than positive contributions. Shouldn't you as well consider the possibility that three Lit mods saying they don't see the problem maybe means there isn't one? You're being far more dismissive in assuming that any contradiction of your position is simply dismissal of your concerns. If you're saying the problem is people telling others "You don't get it," and your answer to people saying that's not the problem is to say, "Well, you don't get it," I'm not sure how you expect to solve it. I'm reading your posts. I'm thinking about your concerns. I'm responding to everything you say. But I'm not clear on how you expect us to fix it. I'm aware that there is a perception out there that Lit is a predominantly negative place. I'm more than aware of the possibility; I acknowledge it's real. My problem is with accepting that perception as accurate when I don't agree with it. I'm going to have to echo becca here and say that Lit cannot be all things for all people (though, as Trip points out, it comes closer than pretty much any other Star Wars forum on the internet). Lit will always be too negative for some people. It will always be too positive for others. It will be too dumb for some. It will be too high-level for others. It is literally impossible to address every single criticism out there of Lit; they're simply contradictory. So if you want anything to actually change, you have to be more specific than, "Lit is a festering pit of negativity full of bad posters." Persuade me. Persuade MK. Persuade Quest. Persuade RF. Persuade the rest of the Litizens who are saying they don't think your criticism adds up. Persuade them of why Lit should be what you want it to be. Make all of us see the problem instead of simply insisting that we don't see it but trust you it's there. Ben: How about posters being allowed to set 'house rules' for a thread in the opening post that acts as a minimum guidance for it? Frankly the notion of people replying to, for example, a thread entitled: "What did you like about the NJO?" - with what they despised is simply a lack of basic courtesy - especially as even in the EU you find the worst, there will likely be something you liked in it - there may not be much - but there will be something. I think this could be problematic if we get into the idea of "You have to do or think X, Y, or Z to post here" -- I don't want to see this stifle discussion. Fundamentally, I think we can get most of what you're talking about when the original poster strongly defines the topic of discussion and it's clear to everyone what's being discussed, and we the mods are willing to step in and redirect people for being off-topic. So in your example, I don't think you need any house rules beyond the topic itself: what did you like. Someone posting what they didn't like is gratuitously, blatantly off-topic, and that's the kind of posting I know I'd stop on sight. Fundamentally, I think the best advice is to set a clear topic and agenda for discussion in the first post, and those will effectively be your house rules; you don't need regular posters imposing regulations on what people can and can't say in threads, because that leads too much to mini-modding. Furthermore, if you feel your thread is being dragged off-topic, PM a mod and say, "Please come look at this and get people back on topic." We can't be everywhere at once (though Keralys and our Quantum Research Department are currently working on that), and if anyone feels there's a problem -- whether it be with your thread being derailed, someone else's thread being derailed, or just some specific behavior -- the best course is always to PM a mod. Sometimes it may turn out that it's not something we can do anything about; we have to make a judgment call and we judge it's OK. But PMing is always going to bring it to our awareness and we will look at it and consider it, and even if it's not something we feel comfortable shutting down, we can make warnings and attempts to guide conversation onto a different tack anyway. The PM to the mod is one of the most underused tools out there to make your voice heard if you think there's a problem. More Ben: I would suggest Lit has a problem at present and that is a degree of polarisation between fans I have not seen previously, there are a few infamous threads in Lit at the moment and I'm loathe to name names nor do I think I need to, where the arguments have become both circular and entrenched with neither set of particpants able or willing to accept that this is an enduring difference of opinion. I've taken to throwing in occasional posts that mock the affair because of the level it's gone to. It used to be so that people did not require others to subscribe to their opinion as a measure of its validity, that no longer seems to be so. I think you're right on here. This is the key to creating what Dingo called a self-policing community: people need to know when they've said enough. When I started out here, I probably didn't know when I'd said enough, but as I post I've gotten to the point where if I get in an argument, I'll present my side, but once I've made my position clear and he's made his position clear, if we're not getting anywhere and it's clear there's a fundamental difference of opinion, well, that's it. I'll pull out, because we're not going anywhere and it's not worth my time, and just say, "Well, I guess we disagree, but my point remains my point." I'm not sure how we develop this in our posters; I'm hopeful that by stepping up moderating and forcing arguments like this to end, we can build habits back up to the point where we don't need to step in anymore. Trip: Now, if I'm totally missing the point and this is supposed to be exactly what it looks like-- some sort of ritualistic airing-of-the-grievances that lets people get stuff off their chests-- then my bad, feel free to go back to the discussion and just ignore me. It's not Festivus yet. -----signature----- "Is there a captain's hat involved in this?"
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TKeira_Lea Registered: Oct '02	Date Posted: 12/10/08 4:27pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread) - Date Edited: 12/10/08 4:29pm (1 edits total) Edited By: TKeira_Lea
	Havac: Again, this is something I'm not seeing. I'm not seeing a preponderance of "disgruntled" topics, especially not overlapping ones. They can flare up occasionally, but this isn't the preponderance of Lit's content. I can see why someone would feel, sometimes, like this is all there is, but the thread count really isn't dominated by disgruntled threads. On this point, today I can't show you threads A-G that prove that this happens. If you go back to say the era of the last three releases of LotF or the time around when the last Traviss book came out...yeah, it was there. And part of the problem here is that I see a lot of your and Lex's complaints coming from a highly skewed outside view of Lit. And outside views are certainly valuable, but we can't accept all their criticism as being inherently right because it's from outside any more than we can reject it all as being inherently wrong because it's from outside. What exactly do you mean by outside? Because I'm genuinely confused. Do I not post enough in Lit to be considered inside? Are you suggesting that there is some magic number of posts that qualifies a member as inside and therefore their opinion must count? Or do you have some other vague checklist of qualifiers for inside versus outside? I'm not going to jump to conclusions because I'd like you to clarify your use of "outside" and then I'd like to respond. And what I need, fundamentally, to figure that out is an explanation of what topics, exactly, are emblematic of "disgruntlement"? What kind of threads are you talking about? When have you seen these threads? I'm going to have to get back to you on that one, but I will. Trust me. Shouldn't you as well consider the possibility that three Lit mods saying they don't see the problem maybe means there isn't one? Well yeah you can, but I'd suggest you look back through the history of TFN. There is more than one instance where issues have been raised by users in Comms and the mods and/or admin said they didn't see a problem. In the end, things proved that the mods and/or admin either hadn't listened or tried to see the problem through other users' eyes. So no, the argument, "I'm a mod; therefore I must be right" generally doesn't sway me to think my opinion must be wrong. -----signature----- http://www.lominalecantina.com Dark Journey, the EU's version of a head fake current fanfic ~ Return to Bolis Island http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/29571370/p1/?19
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The2ndQuest Title: Manager: -Literature -LACWAC -Games Registered: Jan '00	Date Posted: 12/10/08 7:41pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	Bly posted: just take a look at what poster Sergeant_Dante has as his sig... He had something worse in his sig and was told to remove it. That's his responding protest. It doesn't bother me that it makes him look foolish. -----signature----- "When your future self tells you to do something, YOU DO IT." K'Kruhk, 140 ABY:"Why haven't I come forth earlier to share my Jedi knowledge with Skywalker? Well, it's kinda a long story, see, I had this freaking sweet hat..."
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Jedi Trace Title: • SouthEast RSA • FanFiction Manager Registered: Dec '99	Date Posted: 12/10/08 10:02pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread) - Date Edited: 12/10/08 10:19pm (2 edits total) Edited By: Jedi Trace
	Dingo posted: In regards to "the good olde days" that everyone seems to refer to, it's that period of time between 2000 and 2002 when every author would come here and post for at least 3-6 months around their book release. Hell, Kathy Tyers got so involved in the community for a good 6 months before she even let anyone really know who she was. Yes there was the death threats against Bob, but as I've always said over the years in regards to it, there's more that people don't know about the situation, and won't know for a couple of reasons. It wasn't all sunshine and lollipops for all the authors, but the worst thing that some of them had to deal with was getting swamped with PMs and questions in threads, not wondering whether they were going to be attacked for their writing. Back in the days when Dingo used his 'real' screen name. You make a good point, though, and that is the one thing that TFN's Lit forum has going for it that no other site has: the sheer number and diversity of creators who sign up and participate in the forum. The publishers have their own boards and most of the creators have their own sites/boards/blogs and there are a lot of places to discuss the EU online, but TFN is the only one-stop-shop (for lack of a better term) where so many different fans and creators all mix together. It's special and it's worth fighting to preserve, IMHO. That being said, attitudes toward creators have definitely changed since the days when Kathy Tyers & the other NJO authors were around. I'm not saying it was all gushing, it wasn't (one of Mike Stackpole's last posts here was to apologize for Dark Tide), but as a whole creators were treated with more respect. If we're looking for ideas, this is something that can be improved. The creators don't have to come here and they certainly don't need us to tell them how to do their jobs - the people who sign their paychecks have got that covered. What we CAN offer is a community where they want to hang out and hear from/interact with fans. Bly posted: Trip posted: Honestly: would we even be having this discussion if it weren't for Traviss-related issues? Of course not. I'd have to disagree. In the 9 years I've been in and out of Lit, there has always been a forum bandwagon punching bag - the blows have just gotten bigger and louder. The difference with Ms. Traviss is that she did not go gently into that good night. Good for her, I say. -----signature----- "Luke Skywalker kicks ass. Next question." - Tom Taylor "Sometimes bad guys are the only good guys you get." - Leverage
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Havac Title: Lit Mod of War Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 12/10/08 10:07pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread) - Date Edited: 12/10/08 10:12pm (2 edits total) Edited By: Havac
	TKeira_Lea posted: Havac: Again, this is something I'm not seeing. I'm not seeing a preponderance of "disgruntled" topics, especially not overlapping ones. They can flare up occasionally, but this isn't the preponderance of Lit's content. I can see why someone would feel, sometimes, like this is all there is, but the thread count really isn't dominated by disgruntled threads. On this point, today I can't show you threads A-G that prove that this happens. If you go back to say the era of the last three releases of LotF or the time around when the last Traviss book came out...yeah, it was there. OK, so it's something specific to certain releases -- not a perpetual problem, but something that can flare up at times. I can see where you're coming from. I agree -- when something contentious comes out, it can take over the boards for a week. But generally, a plethora of threads about the same thing will be shut down in fairly short order, so I'm still not sure what kind of domination you're talking about. Again, I'd like more specific examples than "yeah, it was there." I can't understand your complaint if I don't know what we're talking about. If I want to point out something far off to someone, I don't vaguely wave my hand across the horizon and say, "It's out there." I've got to know what you're talking about specifically before I can give you any kind of specific reply -- otherwise we're just going to sit here frustrating each other the whole time because we can't seem to get our points across. TKeira_Lea posted: And part of the problem here is that I see a lot of your and Lex's complaints coming from a highly skewed outside view of Lit. And outside views are certainly valuable, but we can't accept all their criticism as being inherently right because it's from outside any more than we can reject it all as being inherently wrong because it's from outside. What exactly do you mean by outside? Because I'm genuinely confused. Do I not post enough in Lit to be considered inside? Are you suggesting that there is some magic number of posts that qualifies a member as inside and therefore their opinion must count? Or do you have some other vague checklist of qualifiers for inside versus outside? I'm not going to jump to conclusions because I'd like you to clarify your use of "outside" and then I'd like to respond. Please; I've never suggested your opinion doesn't count. I've said it's a different kind of opinion than that of someone who's posting in Lit every day and part of the community. And I mod Lit. I'm in there very nearly every day. I know my community. And I know you're someone who posts in Lit, but you're not in there every day, or anything close, and you're not someone I see socializing with other posters. Checking your post history in Lit, you're there in bits and spurts of a few days, followed by entire months off; when you do post, you're mostly restricted to posting in one or two threads, generally about new releases. Your most recent page of posts (15 posts) goes back to October; not counting a recent three-day spurt of posting in one thread, it goes back to the end of July. You have, in your entire posting career, posted 80 times in Lit since you first posted in 2003, a year after you registered; that works out to 1.27 posts a month only counting time since you first posted there, and 1.07 posts a month since you registered, though that's not all that representative of your actual posting habits; you went all of 2004 and 2006 without posting in Lit at all, and your actual posts tend to be concentrated in clusters. Your WUL consists of Fanficcers, not Litizens. Your own posts in here have emphasized that it isn't your home community -- Fanfic is, and you generally avoid Lit because of the atmosphere. I don't mean to belabor the point, but by any metric I can find, and by simple gut instinct of someone who knows the forum, you're not someone who posts in Lit a lot. Even if you're lurking in Lit every day, you're not someone who participates heavily in the community, however you might define it. I'm not putting down your point of view in the least, but I am saying it's the point of view of someone who doesn't spend a ton of time in Lit and isn't heavily invested in the community, which comes with its own set of weaknesses and strengths. But let's not pretend your point of view is something it's not. TKeira_Lea posted: Shouldn't you as well consider the possibility that three Lit mods saying they don't see the problem maybe means there isn't one? Well yeah you can, but I'd suggest you look back through the history of TFN. There is more than one instance where issues have been raised by users in Comms and the mods and/or admin said they didn't see a problem. In the end, things proved that the mods and/or admin either hadn't listened or tried to see the problem through other users' eyes. So no, the argument, "I'm a mod; therefore I must be right" generally doesn't sway me to think my opinion must be wrong. And I'm sure there's more than one instance where issues have been raised by users in Comms and the mods and/or admin said they didn't see a problem, and in the end, things proved that the mods and/or admin were right. So that's not going to sway my opinion; that's a much more simplistic version of "I'm a user in Comms saying there's a problem; therefore I must be right" than I've seen coming from any mods in here. I've never said "I'm a mod so I must be right" -- what I've suggested is that, if you're saying there's a problem and nobody's biting, maybe there isn't one. If three of the people guiding the community, in there every day, don't see a problem, maybe there isn't one. I'm not saying that our not seeing what you're saying doesn't mean we're right, but it sure doesn't mean that we must be blind. You're starting from the base premise that there's a problem, and when other people in the discussion say, "I don't agree with that base premise. Let's go back and discuss that; you'll have to convince me of it first," the response seems to be, "Well, I'm right and you're wrong. If you don't agree with my premise, you're just blind and I can't be bothered to explain it to you." And that's not getting this discussion anywhere. -----signature----- "Is there a captain's hat involved in this?"
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Master_Keralys Title: Manager Emeritus Registered: Oct '03	Date Posted: 12/10/08 10:09pm Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	TKeira_Lee posted: So no, the argument, "I'm a mod; therefore I must be right" generally doesn't sway me to think my opinion must be wrong. That's not what he's saying. He's asking you to do exactly what you're asking him to do, and nothing more: to look through a different set of eyes and to consider that you might be wrong. We're trying to do that, and we're trying to come up with some good ways to move Lit in good ways - to move it forward. We wouldn't be here, having this conversation, if we weren't, and if we weren't interested in listening. What he's asking for - what all of the Lit mods are asking for - is concrete examples of the kinds of things you think are problematic. I agree with R_F that the quotes Robimus posted in the thread that launched this one were extremely helpful. I recognize that doing that takes some time; trust me. I've invested nearly all of my time on the boards working on this in some way shape or form over the course of the last week, whether through posting in threads in Lit in ways intentionally designed to move in the direction suggested by this thread or by working in our thread in MS to collate ideas and synthesize them and move forward, or by discussing things here and via PM with users. You can ask: every one of the people who spend a large chunk of time in Lit currently who's posted in this thread besides you and Lex I invited, and every one of them I discussed some other things with to varying lengths via PM. Given that, can we stop taking things personally, and can we stop dismissing people's opinions just because they're not ours, please? We're here to listen to you and to work for Lit... we'd appreciate it if you hear what we have to say, and what dissenting voices like Trip, Hydro, and Becca have to say. We're all working for the same goal of making Lit a better place. If we didn't differ somewhat on how to get there and even on what that better place looks like, I'd wonder if we were all part of some mind-control scheme on someone's part, frankly. I think this is a good thing, and I think that we need to approach it as such, and with as little hostility as possible. Now, on the point being raised, the fact that you can't find such a group of threads right now, but that you're sure that it was that way around O66's release and the last several LotF releases. I think you're right. I also think that we can see that LSatSoM is not getting any such bad press, and for the most part the Coruscant Nights trilogy has been getting pretty good feedback, some continuity snafus aside. And the comics are pretty regularly getting huge appreciation (though admittedly, one of the very worst points in Lit history came at the announce of Legacy, when about half the forum panicked and declared the universe OVER). Even the Clone Wars cartoon, which is causing immense canon headaches and is something of an ongoing bugaboo (yes, I said bugaboo ) to Lit posters because of the havoc (not Havac!) it's creating in timelines, is looked on fairly favorably in Lit. When the new contract was announced, people were giddy about most of it. Fate of the Jedi was the only exception, and that was met with mixed response. That should tell us a few things. First, Litizens' primary complaint does not seem to be purely with Del Rey, though it has its ups and its downs with various segments of the population, as is to be expected. I intentionally invited people from the group that really dislikes Del Rey into this discussion, as well as people who think Del Rey has PWNd through and through. Nor is the issue to do with canon entirely - it's quite obvious that, though canon issues trouble people, they're willing to deal with it to some extent or another, though perhaps a bit grumpily. Rather, the points of contention that cause the most backlash seem to be: Karen Traviss. For better or for worse (in almost everyone's opinion, I suspect, the latter), this is probably the biggest source of frustration, complaining, etc. on Lit. No way around it. We're going to have to deal with this eventually, or it's just going to keep simmering. The sooner, the better, in my opinion. The direction that the Big 3 of the OT are and have been going in the timeline through NJO, DN, and LotF, with worries about FotJ on the horizon. This seems to be the area the forum strikes sparks in the most, probably because it's the area there's the greatest overlap of investment in. Nearly everyone reads this stuff, or at least cares about it somewhat. Trip, I'm not counting you in the mix, here; I did say nearly. (There is the important group that CoW mentions, which has stopped reading SW and posting in Lit b/c of the books... if they're not posting because we're jerks, they may come back, but if they're not posting because they don't care anymore because of what LFL is putting out, that's beyond our ability to impact.) Canon issues. What I said above notwithstanding, there is definitely an undertone of frustration, occasionally even resentment, about the way that LFL is handling canon right now, and in particular, the attitudes that various authors have displayed toward it, mostly Karen Traviss and Drew Karpyshyn (that's not an attack on them, just a statement that it's been their books and their stated attitudes about canon that have caused the most sparks, and that's a statement of fact). The Clone Wars kind of gets a bit of a pass here because fans have thrown up their hands and said, "Well, it's Lucas; he can do what he wants even if we think it's stupid." The same may technically be true of LFL and the authors, but people do feel they have more influence there, rightly or wrongly. You can go looking all you want, but that's where you're going to find negativity; I'd almost guarantee that, random negative outburst here or there aside, nearly everything is concentrated in those three areas. What we need to do in response is the question. (As a side note, if there are other major areas that crop up as you're looking, please post them: I'd be very interested to know! These are the ones I have noticed and seen, but I'm just one guy.) Lex posted: There are plenty of fanficcers, for example, who happily engage in discussion of the books/comics, plots, storylines, characterizations, etc. over in Fanfic but won't post in the same discussions in Lit because of exactly this dynamic. If you're seriously interested in trying to figure out what might be dysfuncational about Lit, you need to start by acknowledging the possibility that there exists a very real, widely held perception that Lit is a predominantly negative place where criticism of the profic is far more welcome than positive contributions. The fact we're having this conversation means we have acknowledged that possibility, and are looking at what needs to be done if indeed it's so. However, what we'd like to see is something beyond simple assertion that what you're saying is true. You want Lit to change? Great! Then put in some of the time and effort to dig up the threads that exemplify what you're talking about. Post quotes. Bring in people from Fanfic - really! I would like to hear the opinion of some folks from Fanfic that are posting about the books and doing analysis and all the things we want in Lit. I don't know that community; you guys do. Please, by all means, invite them to this conversation; I for one am very much interested in what they have to say. I would ask that you pick a representative group, not just people who agree with you, as I've tried to do in those I've invited to this conversation. If you want, you can just PM me their usernames and I'll take care of PM-ing them to invite them here to participate. I think that could be a very good and very informative thing, and I'd welcome it and appreciate even just usernames to send PMs to. Lex posted: I agree. But good discussion is also limited, and not all comments are equally relevant or on topic. For example, imagine I open a thread about Jacen's characterization in LOTF. In the opening post, I explain that I want to address his characterization in terms of the story arc internal to LOTF, taking the buildup in NJO and DN as a given. Yet is there any doubt such a thread would immediately be waylaid with complaints about JINO? raised_brow Not every thread marginally related to an issue is an appropriate place to raise one's complaints about the profic. We should be able to have discussions about specific aspects of LOTF without having to wade through generic criticisms of NJO-DN-LOTF. We should be able to have discussions about the Legacy era without wading through the same rote complaints about how it's set too close in time to LOTF and ruins Luke Skywalker's legacy. We should be able to discuss the new Clone Wars material without every thread degenerating into the same discussion of the timeline snafus/fubars created by it. I'm not saying we should have "happy posts only" threads. But I do think the mods need to be much stricter about keeping threads on topic - on point criticism is fine, but too many discussions of material end up mired in extraneous criticism. Dead on; I agree with you completely. We have let this particular stuff go a bit, and we're trying to do better at it now. We are, alas, imperfect, and have limited time, but we really are trying. And that's all we can do. If you start such a thread, and you get that kind of behavior, I want PMs on the spot so that I can do something about it. I don't have time to read every post in every thread in detail every day. I try to be pretty engaged, but I simply don't have that much time. So please PM me, or Havac, or any other Lit mod online. If we're not online, grab someone like Sey or Jello or Trace; they're capable of making a judgment call, and as long it's in a users' notes - which it always should be - we can put it back if we decide the judgment call was wrong. Use us to best advantage. Jedi Ben posted: I don't know how we'd go about achieving but I like Keralys' concept of breaking the link between discussion and authors, authorial intention etc, in effect - this is the material, let's discuss it as it stands with all manner of interpretations permitted. We're probably closest to having something solid on this. With a little more discussion - possibly inside a week - you may see some changes here on a more noticeable level. We're already - especially Havac and I - trying to achieve this by our posting style. We welcome others to do so. I've seen it pick up a bit just in the last week, and I think that's a good thing. If we can get some momentum going, that will help immensely. Jedi Ben posted: I would suggest Lit has a problem at present and that is a degree of polarisation between fans I have not seen previously, there are a few infamous threads in Lit at the moment and I'm loathe to name names nor do I think I need to, where the arguments have become both circular and entrenched with neither set of particpants able or willing to accept that this is an enduring difference of opinion. I've taken to throwing in occasional posts that mock the affair because of the level it's gone to. It used to be so that people did not require others to subscribe to their opinion as a measure of its validity, that no longer seems to be so. I agree, but I think Becca is right: this just needs us moderating more and doing as Havac tries to do by example: just backing off when it's clear that the disagreement isn't going anywhere. We all need to be better about doing this ourselves, and we as mods need to do a better job of moderating it. Sey - thank you for dropping in; I was going to ask you to if you didn't of your own volition. You said, I discussed it with them about how I was not going to bother posting in a forum that was just completely full of complaints by people who hadn't even read the books. I wish you'd chatted more with me about it; I didn't really realize till just now that this was the issue you left over. Bizarrely, I think having the book discussions in EUC might hurt Lit, because the people who would help bring the conversation up a bit no longer have to. We should chat about this more via PM or somewhat, but I think we should try to leverage the increasing ties between EUC and Lit to our advantage in this situation. There's a lot of ways to do that, and we'd welcome suggestions from others, as well. CoW - thanks for that insight. I think you hit a valid point, though I do want to find a good balance as regards VIPs as well. I think the point that users needing to feel their POV has at least been heard and respected, even if disagreed with, is a very important one. How do you think we could accomplish that better? TKeira_Lee posted: a place where fans address other fans to the point that posts are full of snarks and personal attacks That's... harsh. I'd like to see some examples of what you're talking about. I don't feel that way about Lit, at all. Doesn't mean it's not true, and I'm certainly willing to be convinced... but I want evidence that's it's not just existent, but prevalent. Again, that's work on your part. But I'm already putting too much time into this; we need help. As I suggested earlier in this post, your help is necessary if we're going to see a solution to the problems you perceive here; just saying "there's a problem!" doesn't get us so far as identifying concrete examples of that problem and then suggesting practicable solutions to it, beyond the already agreed on "moderate more!" which we are trying to do and will continue to try to do. Robimus and J_K_DART - I think the dedicated author threads might be a good idea. We'll take it under consideration in MS discussions! Thanks! I think that covers everything I hadn't had time to get to previously. Sorry if I missed anyone, and sorry if it's disjointed, rambling, or slightly less overwhelmingly nice than I usually try to be; if it came across at all harsh please understand that I absolutely did not mean it that way. I'm just tired and have 2+ hours of quantum mechanics homework ahead before I can get to sleep, and it's midnight here and I've an 8:30 am class... -----signature----- God made man. Man rejected God. God became the man Jesus Christ, died and rose again to life, saving man from himself. The craziest story ever told. The truest.
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Excellence Registered: Jul '02	Date Posted: 12/11/08 1:01am Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	If Stradley "left" the forum, then he obviosuly doesn't know how popular and interstellar his current fair of series are here. KOTOR. Legacy. Dark Times. I've not even seen seldom negative feedback in over a year. -----signature----- Rock-a-by baby, on the treetop, Beaming with pride, the filth they hold, But when the wind blows, my temper implodes, High above a pit, filled with sharkticons, Down will come hardcover addicts, beaming no more. ©
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Jedi Ben Registered: Jul '99	Date Posted: 12/11/08 2:03am Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	Yep, I'd agree with the hit list of hot topics: FOTJ: There's effectively a fuse on this burning down. Canon: As the old joke goes: Cannon go boom! And it tends to be so. (Plus the Traviss/Mando stuff) BUT there is a slew of favourably received material both present and future - the news that there'd be a Nomi Sunrider KOTOR novel set the fans buzzing, as did the news of a new Reaves book. It's very strange but if you look outside of DR's late EU material - which tends to dominate the forum, like it or loathe it - you'll find a far greater mix of opinions that are generally positive - the Corusant Nights books are a case in point, but Death Star is another example as is Luceno's unofficial PT trilogy of COD, LOE and DL. As for the upcoming Mindor book, there you have a great amount of positive anticipation. Then there's the comics, which have a level of popularity that is amazing. KOTOR and Legacy have been going for 3 years and even fans who don't care for the concept seem to keep an eye on them - just in case there is a big change, or they miss something interesting. Also in regard to VIPs I'd suggest two of the most respected are John Ostrander and Jan Duursema, why? I think it probably has to do with the fact that they tend to see fans as individuals rather than grouping them into blocks. Neither require you to agree with them, but do ask you accept that they see things as X rather than Y and people generally respond well to this. I would take issue though with the notion that there was ever a Golden Age of Lit in regards to fan agreement - there has been numerous fan schisms and there always will be, such is fandom. Pre-NJO there were pro/anti Mara Jade/Zahn threads, pro/anti KJA; KJA vs Zahn threads; then there was (and remains) DE! From 1999-2001 the schism was pro/anti NJO, then SBS split the pro-NJOers into pieces. TUF remains one of the most well-received books going. DN then split the fanbase, as did LOTF. It's going to keep happening and certainly the VP Wars were not well-managed, things have changed some since then, which is good. -----signature----- Excellence: "You are the forum's Quick Ben." SW EU fans: John Ostrander needs your help! http://www.comix4sight.com
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Darth_Lex Registered: Nov '02	Date Posted: 12/11/08 5:56am Subject: Lit discussion (continued from JC Suggestions thread)
	Havac: I will send you some examples by PM tonight. Many of them are best illustrated with instances from specific threads or specific users, and I don't think it's really appropriate to get into that publicly. Master_Keralys posted: I also think that we can see that LSatSoM is not getting any such bad press Actually, there's several full pages' worth of discussion in the Mindor thread about the continuity issues implicated by the identity of the novel's antagonist. (Sorry, I'm not sure how much of that is considered spoilers, so I hope I'm being oblique enough while still being clear what I'm referring to.) And these aren't even actual continuity issues yet - they're anticipated ones. Yet it's already being dissected, before there are even spoilers about how it's actually handled or addressed in the novel. Yes, there's excitement for a Stover book, and excitement to see him handle OT era Big Three (plus Lando!), but when something like half the thread is addressed to continuity dissection rather than story or characters, or general excitement, it sends a message about the priorities of the forum... Master_Keralys posted: You can go looking all you want, but that's where you're going to find negativity; I'd almost guarantee that, random negative outburst here or there aside, nearly everything is concentrated in those three areas. What we need to do in response is the question. I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. And IMO something like the Mindor thread is a perfect example of what needs to be addressed. It's fine for people to care deeply about continuity. It's another thing entirely for spoiler threads to become bogged down in continuity issues (e.g., Mandalorian backstory in Revelation and Order 66, Daala as Chief of State in Invincible, the Mindor thread, the Wild Space thread, the Rebel Force thread) instead of the actual story. I think a very interesting experiment would be to try a Continuity Discussion thread, spoilers allowed, and keep continuity discussions out of the spoiler threads. Let's see how the tone and dynamic of the discussion within the spoiler thread changes when continuity issues are taken elsewhere. IMO, the change would likely be very favorable, and would encourage more people to participate. -----signature----- Return to Bolis Island (J/J wedding, post-LOTF) http://boards.theforce.net/beyond_the_saga/b10477/29571370/p1/ ----- Christie Golden FTW!
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