Complaints About Language In Reviews

Vulgar, racial slurs, crude, juvenile posting. I really couldn't care less... and when legomancer says he's seen it all. I get it, I really do, but that has to include dry straight to the point non crude non juvenile stuff as well right? "All" has to include everything. So by that measure there is nothing on line worth his time anymore. Juvenile or otherwise.

I do believe there is such a thing as objectively good writing. I don't give a fuck about personal opinion. Some writing is objectively good or bad. Some is in between and difficult to judge and that's the majority of work out there. But some is simply bad and that's it. You can go on about your personal taste and all that shit all you like but for me there are ways to qualitatively judge this stuff and pretty much everyone agrees whether they can admit it or not. Even Matt Loter, somewhere in his heart, knows this. At least I believe that.

So that's the crux for me, as long as it's good. I don't give a shit if it's offensive to some people (that part truly is subjective) I only care that it's well done. Usually I give up on well done for simply useful because we are talking games criticism and even literary criticism is weaker than what real writers put out... how can I expect game criticism to be anything other than mediocre to bad?

Exactly.

I've heard a lot of shit about my writing these incendiary things, but I've never had anyone write me and tell me that my reviews were not informative.

As long as I get #2 right, #1 is irrelevant.

SuperflyTNT wrote: Exactly.

I've heard a lot of shit about my writing these incendiary things, but I've never had anyone write me and tell me that my reviews were not informative.

As long as I get #2 right, #1 is irrelevant.

Not if #1 is just masturbatory word count that doesn't do much to add to #2. Offensive language doesn't bother me, unless it's extraneous or over-the-top to the point of distraction. Then I'd rather the writer just stick to the fucking point.

Combining the OP's original question and the conversation that sprung out of it: if you're writing on someone else's website, respect their guidelines (and readers have the right to get upset if you don't fit in with the general vibe of the rest of the website). If you're writing on your own website, write whatever and however you want, and feel free to ignore anybody's complaints or upset feelings. Pete's definitely right about that.

You'd rather. I keep hearing that.

The fact is that the writer owes a game manufacturer a review if he gets a freebie (which doesn't happen a lot of times if he hates the game) but he owes nothing to someone who reads it.

If a guy reviews a game that he paid for, he owes not a single person anything, and he is free to write whatever he wants. The only people he could conceivably owe in a very loose way would be anyone who subscribes to their site or whatever...it's arguable that the payment is knowing someone's reading it, and that's only if they care.

Me, personally, I don't owe anyone anything. People can, or can not, go to my site and read the review. If anything, people owe ME because of the work I did on the Mayday fraud stuff. Nobody has EVER done anything like that as far as I can tell. People bitched, people whined, but not a single fucking person ever took time out of their lives and did some investigation. Nobody ever stood up to them as a bad actor. Nobody STILL stands up to bad actors except in the form of whining. I'm not saying I'm some kind of superhero, but I am saying that I provided a service to the entire "gaming community", free of charge and at great cost to myself (libel, defamation...) without asking anything of anyone.

So, I figure that if someone tells me that they want me to do something so that pleases them at the cost of pleasing myself (LMAO) then I am being asked to further give of myself that which is most dear simply to appease someone else.

This is the arrogance of gamers. Publishers "owe" them simply because they exist. Writers "owe" them because they bestowed the blessing of a BGG thumb. It's insanity. Nobody owes gamers a fucking thing other than that which they paid for - a publisher should deliver a game as advertised, complete and without missing parts. A writer who is not paid owes not a single person a single thing.

To Killer's final point - if you are getting complaints on the site you write for, and you're paid for it, then you have to do what you have to do. Make the decision - is the pittance you're paid worth changing the way you write and delivering the message that they want you to deliver. Personally, integrity is priceless. I may be without class, but I am most assuredly not without honor, so for me, the only thing I have is that which I entered the world with and that which I will leave the world with - my body, mind, and integrity.

As an aside, to the point, I've had 6 sites that have asked to copy and paste my work on. Of them, 4 asked me to tone it down. I responded, "Feel free to edit out that which you find offensive".

I think that's the answer: keep your integrity, let them decide what's right for their audience since they DO owe them something.

Well put, Killer.

No one is talking about anyone owing anyone anything.

All that's been said is, "I read for X. If I don't find X, I read something else instead."

The only hint of owing anyone is in the OP where a freelancer is dealing with the editor of the website he's submitting to.

No one's demanding anything of you, just stating their opinions on shit and moving along if they don't like it. I wrote about these things on my blog, because, well, it's my fucking blog, so physician, heal thyself. Write whatever you please however you please, but in the case of the OP no one is obligated to publish it and in Pete's case no one is obligated to read it, nor are they prevented from criticizing it if they feel so inclined.

In a "news story" that I find sort of relevant to the recent discussion, Paula Deen got a standing-O at a recent public appearance

How is this a headline CNN story??!

It was only several hundred people and it was in Florida of all places.

Anyway, I think its funny because its newsworthy for some reason, and because it shows there will be an audience for people regardless of what they say or the words they use

Legomancer wrote: No one is talking about anyone owing anyone anything.

But they have, and you did as well, in your article. I think you don't realize that it's precisely what you're saying, amigo.

if you ARE a person who wants to talk about these things and is motivated to do so and has things to say, don’t squander it with this facile nerdbro bullshit. Don’t waste my time and your words on trying to be Seanbaby in 1999. Get a point across and don’t fuck around trying to get a bunch of meatheads to cheer over a homo joke. You are probably smarter than that.

You specifically tell people that if they have something to say, they should only do it on your terms. This is entitlement. This is being owed.

All that's been said is, "I read for X. If I don't find X, I read something else instead."

No, it's not; if it were, we'd not be having this discussion, which for posterity I'd add is very interesting and instructive...if it were at BGG it would've already exploded into verbal attacks and moderator intervention. What was said is this: Write how I want you to write. In that article it said...

I know you don’t want to be viewed as one of THOSE geeks who takes this all way to seriously, but man, there’s got to be some kind of middle ground, somewhere you can stop before you’re overcompensating to a level one has to assume is parody. It’s just comics and boardgames and movies. I don’t want a deep, beard-stroking analysis of the stuff; nobody, especially me, is going to read that. Just tell me about the thing without having to see how many nerdbro bingo spaces you can fill.

The middle ground...the compromise...nerdbro bingo squares... all of this is telling the reviewer who you are lambasting (whomever that happens to be, I can't say with surety that it's me or if it's others) that they have to find that middle ground, have to compromise. But there's nothing given in return aside from one click and perhaps one and a half minutes of scanning by the reader, which in my estimation is not a whole hell of a lot, especially when they were unsolicited.

No one's demanding anything of you, just stating their opinions on shit and moving along if they don't like it.

I'd argue that you are, and readers are. "Change what you write or I will make your life difficult" is what is happening to the OP. "Write what I want or I will lambaste you publicly" is what is happening to the subject of your article. But I submit that in the OP's case, they do have something to offer - widened readership - whereas in your case, you offer nothing. There are a famous business analogies that compete: "for every 1 person that complains, there's 26 that don't"...on one hand, but on the other is..."for every 100 happy customers, you'll receive only a handful of complaints"... which indicates that you may have 10,000 readers that love you but only 100 of them will complain which means 2700 are unhappy but silent. So, if both are right, you get a net gain of 7300 people that enjoy a given work and 2700 people that don't, with 100 complainers. Seems to me that I'd rather do what I do in any given endeavor, maintaining my 7400 happy clients and giving up the 2700. If I were to change my practices, all of the sudden I ~MIGHT~ get the 2700, but did I alienate the 7300 by not serving their interests? There's the compromise argument, but it's still iffy..it may or may not happen. From a raw math standpoint, it's just bad business to do so.

I wrote about these things on my blog, because, well, it's my fucking blog, so physician, heal thyself.

I get that - totally venting - but the question is this: why do you care? Why was it worth writing? The first paragraph said...

The writer was someone whose name I was familiar with, but someone I hadn’t read much of, and when I clicked on the link I was reminded why. He writes in a style I call, due to my biases, “nerdbro”.

If you know how he writes, and you know your biases, then why the fuck go there? Why then after having your confirmation would you take the time venting about it when you KNEW that you'd not want to read it? It's going out of your way to be offended and then write about how offended you were (not offended in the traditional sense but having your sensibilities offended)

Write whatever you please however you please, but in the case of the OP no one is obligated to publish it and in Pete's case no one is obligated to read it, nor are they prevented from criticizing it if they feel so inclined.

It's that last bit that I don't get. Why criticize if you know you're not going to like it? To what end?

I have ~200 subscribers, down from an all time high of maybe 250. I've had over 200,000 page reads. SOMEONE is reading this rubbish. SOMEONE is happy with the 'nerdbro' style. My point is that there's a market for 12" black dildos. They exist. People buy them. The fact that you don't like them doesn't invalidate them, and writing about how much you hate giant 12" black dildos because women shouldn't need 12" of anything, especially black ones, means fuck all to anyone who makes them and anyone who uses them. So why write it when you KNOW you don't like them? If you look at the motivation, it most assuredly IS "I am better than you" kind of rhetoric. There's no other feasible explanation for taking the time, writing the blog entry, and publishing it.

I tend to look at "to what end" in everything in my life, both personal and business. Once you get motive figured out by deductive reasoning, many things become clear. As one final sidebar, I'd like to point one thing out - none of this bugs me a bit, none of this offends me or hurts my feelings. The one thing that I thought was unfair, and I mean truly unfair, is that you know my friend, but you don't know me, so therefore how can you possibly know my motivations for writing like I write without consulting him first? Or asking anyone here, Dave Denton being foremost, since these people KNOW ME, personally? You note that I'm a nerd trying to say I'm not one of "those nerds" but you don't know Jack nor Shit about me, my culture, my motivations, my personality...so how can you claim that I do these things you say are "for effect", which indicates that you assign a motivation, when you don't know what I'm about? That is the one thing that really resonated with me and had me wondering just who the fuck you think you're talking about...because it most assuredly couldn't have been me.

Now, if playing board games makes me a "nerd", and talking like a sailor and using unsavory metaphors makes me a "bro", then hey, I guess you have me all figured out. I submit that you don't have to be a nerd to enjoy games (my wife is far from a nerd but loves Pandemic) nor do you have to be a "bro-dude" to talk like a sailor and use unsavory metaphors since many of my friends are veterans, some highly decorated, and talk as I do (it's where I got it from FWIW) without ever having surfed, been to the California "valley" or even use any hair product.

You cannot assume something from the very few characteristics you know about a writer - that they play games and talk like cunts. All you know about them is that they talk, and are probably cunts, or at least talk like them. That is ALL you know. It's like saying Matt Loter is a "homo-lover" or whatever and leaving it at that....you miss that he's a sweet, loving guy who loves games, loves people, and loves to have fun. If you only associate him with the only one attribute, you do yourself a disservice because as with most people, you can't define them with one hyphenated set of adjectives.

BUT..if you had to do that for me, try this: "Sociopathic-ultraviolent-crass-but-loving-man-who-sometimes-enjoys-boardgames-as-well-as-myriad-other-interests"

Well alrighty, then.

I don't think people meant Pete in particular when talking about salty or crude writing style in boardgames... but I would be a fool to not think he'd take it that way OR to not think that it sure seems like they meant him specifically.

JonJacob wrote: I don't think people meant Pete in particular when talking about salty or crude writing style in boardgames... but I would be a fool to not think he'd take it that way OR to not think that it sure seems like they meant him specifically.

Dave and I are talking primarily about me in this case, but he's talking about me and the thousands of "nerdbro dudeskis" (did I get that right?) that bury the germ of wisdom in a sea of homo jokes (I don't actually recall any of those in my blog, although you could call some things misogynistic, I guess..?) meant to make meatheads cheer.

I take no offense and I am quite interested in the conversation - I love to see how others think and their views on things, and try to figure out what motivates them. It's the sales guy/analyst in me, I think.

The one thing I'll say is that it's not as if there's an unrelenting tide of crass metaphors or salty language in any but the really negative reviews...mostly I sprinkle things in more than anything else. I can't see someone using my material in a stand-up act as most of the articles are informational with some stuff that popped into my head (or a note I took because I thought it funny) at the time.

For example, I looked at my most recent article and I saw that there was no salty language or "over-the-top" stuff whereas with the Toe-To-Toe review there was all kinds of it. I think my mood and how much I liked the game has a lot to do with what I write. I still say my favorite line about any game I've reviewed was in that one: "The one thing that was missing from the sea of adverts in the bag was the one thing that should've been required, which was a pamphlet from a suicide prevention service." I still laugh at that one.