Enough with the "reviewing" already

[Ninian]

All right, I heard enough. Caption connisseurs? You're rating something that isn't even technically a legal use of pictures. You're rating something people get their rocks off on. How can that possibly be good or bad as long as said rocks get off? That's all captions have ever been about, if not telling a small story. And you can't really decide on the quality of a story by the first three paragraphs or so unless you're at the bookstore and you're pondering whether to buy the book on impulse. So that's why captions are here: young people are hot and bothered, and they want a PEZ-sized story to go with it. And here we have people rating these things.

On that matter, linear ratings in general are a stupid thing. How can one thing be better than another? It's all about tastes. And if someone produces something not to your taste, you needn't harp on that person until they conform to your likes. That's conservatism to a fault. No one of importance will care what you think about one form of expression or another. Not unless they're your friends, you write witty things, or both. No one cares.

Why do people review stuff anyway? To save time. You read movie reviews so you don't waste a lot of time (in both going to the movie and the work put in to make the money to go). You read game reviews because games are freaking expensive. Why do people review online works of fiction? Because it saves about five to fifteen minutes of wasted time (miniscule).

Captions, at worst, are a waste of 6 seconds of a person's time --- tops. They need reviews like my housecat needs new stationary. In fact, the negative "reviews" waste more time than the caption themselves, and they serve no purpose except to erode the budding creative's self esteem. And I will personally nightstick anyone who intentionally (as in, premeditated passive-aggressive) sabotages creativity because they can't be bothered to be expressive themselves and don't like what someone else is putting out. As a rule, before I give out criticism, I make a note to look long and hard in the mirror despite whether I like the sight that greets me or not. I suggest a few of you do the same.

Oh yeah... and if you find something morally objectionable about someone's captions? Stop reading them. No one is holding a sledgehammer over your still-working SNES copy of Chrono Trigger and making you read them. The world does not revolve around you and no one should go out of their way because you're too whiny and righteous for your own good.

Thank you.

[Mitera Nikkou]

Dunno what brought this up, but most of your points are a no-brainer. Of course, I can only speak for myself in regard to reviewing captions, but I doubt you want to hear alot of babble from me, so I'll save you from it. I probably already wasted your time with this much. Is what you said true? Sure, why not? There's not much I can think of to argue about it, so you're probably right. Even so, that's only part of the story... I don't believe absolutes are common, and I doubt everyone does what they do for the same reason(s). People are different like that, which I'm sure you're aware of. And yes, I'm probably being so obvious about what I'm saying that it's annoying and I shouldn't have bothered writing this at all. Also, it's probably obvious that I was offended by this post. I'm not exactly sure as to why, yet, but I'm working on it. *Shrugs* Maybe I'm just paranoid.

[Garath the Shadowshifter]

I'm just going to state that I hope my two comments in alebann's thread didn't have anything to do with this post.

If so, sorry about that. It's just I enjoy their captions alot, except those few. If I said "I like all your captions' I feel like I was lying. So I said well I like all but those few. It's not ment to take away the creativity of the caption maker. It's just me trying to be honest.

Hopefully I'm just paranoid. I'll shut up now.

[Ninian]

It's not meant towards anyone in particular, so naturally everyone thinks I was talking about them. If anything, I'm lashing a lot of people with a wet noodle. You're allowed to show dislike, and you're even allowed to comment about something you find objectionable. I mean, seriously, that is your right. I didn't mean to imply no one couldn't.

Honestly, the one person I did think of when I wrote this doesn't even come to MSF anymore, so I'm not even sure it wasn't a waste of time. But I've just talked to a couple of caption-writing friends and they sounded discouraged or frustrated and that just provoked this. I'm very protective of friends (to a fault) and creative spirits.

I just want a place where everyone feels safe to contribute without feeling they have to meet some sort of groundless, conservative standard.

[Duck]

do captions NEED a reveiwer? not really... but can it help.. sure.

you always want to hone an art.. and this is an art. People want comments to make sure they're doing what is good.. and to improve.. least that's how i see it.

[Cutey Kerina]

*hmm* Most are helpful but sometimes one comment with too many parts Simon Cowell can crush someone's enthusiasm and sometimes it's just because the person misunderstood or mis-took the caption. Personally I'd suggest that those be done as a PM and leave the thread replies as posts meant to build up a thread's creative steam like a rolling snowball. That's my feeling

[Beyond]

you dont make captions just for yourself.

feedback is always important.

feedback means opinions.

opinions are based in comparison.

comparison can be interpreted as rating.

rating is just a relative scale.

works ok for me.

[Ninian]

you dont make captions just for yourself.

feedback is always important.

feedback means opinions.

opinions are based in comparison.

comparison can be interpreted as rating.

rating is just a relative scale.

works ok for me.

Actually, Mr. Big Angry Eyebrows, you DO make captions for yourself first. Pandering to an audience should come second. Doing anything else is putting the cart before the horse, and it heralds stagnation in a medium. Just look at how Greece won Eurovision this year using a song patterned after the last three years winners.

Feedback isn't opinions. There is a big difference. Feedback is observation with intention of helping the person improve. It's markedly different from opinions. An opinion is just that -- an opinion. It's worth absolutely nothing except to the person who holds it, unless it's made into criticism. Criticism is the meeting point between an opinion and feedback, and its worth is based entirely on the person who is acting as the critic. Armchair critics aren't worth the O2 they wasted sniping people they're jealous of.

Comparisons only hold water if they're followed through to completion, which they rarely are. A helpful comparison (from reader OR writer perspective) refrains from passing judgement or heavily weighing in opinions and follows up with contrast. Compare and contrast. You don't have one without the other. Most magazine editors don't even get that. Also, written comparative "reviews" often ignore the "Correlation != Causation" rule and fall into the narrowminded trap of "If A has this, and B lacks this, then A must be better than B" without looking at the whole picture.

Ratings are stupid. I've always held them as such. Their role was, is, and always will be about impressions made on judges in competition and even then are faulty. If it's difficult assigning a number to a minute or so of athletic ability, it's obviously going to be hard assigning it to the life's work of numerous people (as in the game industry). The 1-10 Olympic scale sounds effective on paper, but just look at how the numbers are used. Only three or four have any relevance whatsoever.

1-6 = All effectively the same number. Any number below seven pretty much means "This sucks".

7-8 = Both pretty much send the same message: "This didn't impress me, but it wasn't a waste of my time"*.

9-10 = Both pretty much say that the reviewer's interests were pandered to.


Time to make a caption: 5-10 minutes
Time to write a story: 20 minutes to 3 hours
Time to draw a picture: Varies
Time to publish a video game: 2-6 years, typically

Time for some smarmy lazy kid to slap a number on more effort than he'll ever know in his entropy-laden excuse for a life: 0.75 seconds


There you go.


*Time, by the way, I mentioned in the original post as being about five or six seconds if the caption wasn't "perfect". Geez, how awful... if you're a Mayfly.

[Arkain]

*yawn*
Are you just about done trying to force everyone to conform to your views?

Actually, I do agree with a lot of your points (I don' even like captions most of the time, I prefer other media) I just find it absurdly humorous that you're spending so much time and energy caring.

You ever figure it'd be better to just relax and pay attention? I bet if you, like me, just skipped everyone's various comments and focused on the captions, you'd be much, much happier.

And, finally, don' be rude!

[Ninian]

Oh look. A cocky newbie who hasn't even been here two or three years (and is a furry to boot).

Look, kid, I'm pissed because I'm a creative spirit and some of my friends are creative spirits -- and some of them are discouraged because people are being stupid. And when my friends are being forced to an unfair standard, I get feral. And angry. Am I forcing people to conform to my views? I'm only returning the collective narrowmindedness forced on people I care about.

Oftentimes by people too lazy or scared to do anything on their own. If I have to get brutal in order to inspire people to move creatively and not stagnate like the couch lumps they are, then so be it. Drill Sergeant Akemi reporting.

If I ever become your friend, trust me, I'll be just as happy to throttle people who mess with you.

[Shield of Athena]

You know, you're being really mean.

Oh look. A cocky newbie who hasn't even been here two or three years (and is a furry to boot).

Look, kid, I'm pissed because I'm a creative spirit and some of my friends are creative spirits -- and some of them are discouraged because people are being stupid. And when my friends are being forced to an unfair standard, I get feral. And angry. Am I forcing people to conform to my views? I'm only returning the collective narrowmindedness forced on people I care about.

Oftentimes by people too lazy or scared to do anything on their own. If I have to get brutal in order to inspire people to move creatively and not stagnate like the couch lumps they are, then so be it. Drill Sergeant Akemi reporting.

If I ever become your friend, trust me, I'll be just as happy to throttle people who mess with you.

So that's it, then? It's just about who's your friend and who isn't? Has it ever occured to you that attacking everybody isn't the way to deal with an issue? There are other solutions than pure aggression and hateful ranting.

[Jayme]

Hey come on, really ^^;; its not a big deal, lets not attack each other here, Akemi defends her friends, if it was your friends, you would do the same thing to Akemi, so dont get on her for that...

That being said I personally agree, that you do captions because you want to captions, you do them for yourself first, and for everyone else second, if ya can please all parties with a simple picture with words on, then good going, thats a good thing. However, if ya dont do the captions for yourself, and go in with the thought "gotta make people like em" odds are the caption will suck in the end...

>.>;; anyways, I probably missed alot of points here but anyways.. lets all just take a breath, come on (V) captions are made for fun, lets not make captions unfun with things like this... at least not here, wrong place, wrong time, some might say

[Ninian]

Yeah, I'm cooled off now. To me, my friends mean everything. I will do anything to see they're happy, and if someone wrongs them intentionally or unintentionally, I get heated and red between the eyes.

By the way, Jayme, thanks for your interlude. I feel a lot better about the disruption I was causing.

And Athena -- don't bite my hand because you already get a certain degree of my protectiveness by virtue of your friendship with Kerina. If it was you in this situation and Kerina told me, I'd contact you about it and talk and depending on your answers I might still have lead a charge.

[Shield of Athena]

Yeah, I'm cooled off now. To me, my friends mean everything. I will do anything to see they're happy, and if someone wrongs them intentionally or unintentionally, I get heated and red between the eyes.

By the way, Jayme, thanks for your interlude. I feel a lot better about the disruption I was causing.

And Athena -- don't bite my hand because you already get a certain degree of my protectiveness by virtue of your friendship with Kerina. If it was you in this situation and Kerina told me, I'd contact you about it and talk and depending on your answers I might still have lead a charge.

I'm biting your hand because you're being mean, it has nothing to do with who is or is not my friend. And I would appreciate it if you never lead a charge on my behalf, because even if you have a problem, lashing out and flaming everyone up isn't the way to go about dealing with it. I put a lot of value in my friends, but angry, hateful remarks do nothing but upset people, which causes them to look down on you, and may cause them to think less of your friends by association for having you do this to them.

[Guest]

Oh look. A cocky newbie who hasn't even been here two or three years (and is a furry to boot).

Please stop... Is this how you want the newbies to know you, Akemi?