Responding to Mormon Hub Articles

[estradling75]

3 minutes ago, DoctorLemon said:

Perhaps a good goal would be to be gentle to those who are acting in good faith, with good intentions?  

I have been on the forum long enough to see bad faith posters.  You know, the guys who come on and spew anti-Mormon venom, or are searching for validation to sin, etc.  Some of these authors perhaps should be disagreed with somewhat more vigorously. 

While I have not read many of these articles in question, it is clear that these young writers are not acting in bad faith.  Disagreeing with what good faith authors write is certainly not bad, but doing so gently and diplomatically may be most prudent.

So perhaps a prudent course would be to make sure and be gentle, especially when the other party is acting with good intent?

Good grief, I can't express myself without using legalese today!

The problem with this is that we have no idea what the intent of a new poster is.  So we start off with guesses of the posters intent based on how we interpret their post.  Which we all do differently.

Then there is the flipside..  Some posters (like me) tend to be blunt.  Blunt is common misinterpreted as being harsh.  So when we give a 'blunt' answer to a "well meaning" poster we get called out as being harsh.

[Guest]

Just now, estradling75 said:

The problem with this is that we have no idea what the intent of a new poster is.  So we start off with guesses of the posters intent based on how we interpret their post.  Which we all do differently.

Then there is the flipside..  Some posters (like me) tend to be blunt.  Blunt is common misinterpreted as being harsh.  So when we give a 'blunt' answer to a "well meaning" poster we get called out as being harsh.

You have hit the flipside of my point - 99% of posters are in good faith!  And the ones who are truly in bad faith . . . it is pretty obvious.  In many cases with these guys, the right course is to not respond and notify a moderator.

So I just asserted a stealthy argument for general civility!   But it is good to keep in mind that many people posting here and who are posting the articles really are good folks with good intentions, when considering how to respond.  I think we would all do well to keep this in mind.

I am also not sure I would consider your posts blunt or harsh!  

 

Edited May 12, 2017 by DoctorLemon

[Maureen]

3 hours ago, zil said:

Putting on my author hat.  I rate feedback into three categories:

ONE: Comments I hate receiving from readers:

• That was great!
• Loved it!

...and anything along those lines.  As an author, these are the most useless comments on the planet.  (If someone can give me details on what and why they liked, that's slightly more useful, but honestly, not much.)

TWO: More useful comments (but not by much) include:

• That sucked!
• You suck!
• This part sucked!
• I couldn't even finish it!
• Seriously!?

...etc.  As an author, these let me know I'm completely off base and need to change [something].  That is, frankly, a gift.  They just don't help me know what [something] is.

THREE: Helpful comments include those which explain why it or I suck, why the reader couldn't finish, what the reader didn't like (and why - knowing why is the greatest gift of all), etc.  Now I know not only is something wrong, but what, and if I'm lucky, why that person thinks it wrong.  I can work with that.

I'm not sure I would have felt this way during my BYU years.  But my classwork there wasn't about being a writer (to my eternal regret).  IMO, anyone who is studying to be a writer had better learn the above fast.  (In other words, they'd better learn to like it (a little) when someone says, "That sucked!" - because that's useful information, even if it's not politely communicated.  No doubt they'll appreciate the helpful comments more, but they should learn to appreciate the "more useful" and to disregard the utterly useless praise.)

That said, I have no problem with shutting up or being useless in response to MormonHub articles - the vast majority aren't of interest to me anyway and no one's paying me to be useful or helpful, so...

Really? You don't find positive feedback useful at all? Wouldn't positive feedback tell you that the subject you're writing about is connecting with your audience? That your thoughts and ideas are understood and there a like-minded people out there reading what you are writing?

M.

[Vort]

31 minutes ago, Maureen said:

Really? You don't find positive feedback useful at all? Wouldn't positive feedback tell you that the subject you're writing about is connecting with your audience? That your thoughts and ideas are understood and there a like-minded people out there reading what you are writing?

Note the date -- I agree with Maureen. While I appreciate constructive criticism, I appreciate sincere positive feedback even more, and often find it more useful (especially if, as @zil pointed out, it comes with a list of things they liked).

[NeuroTypical]

Some things that are true:

1. It's really easy to criticize someone else's work.

2. Especially if there's an anonymous comments area in which to do so.

3. These places tend to be the most vile places on the interwebs, full of the least common denominators of society, yelling the loudest.  Youtube comment sections, Online newspaper and magazine comment sections, etc.  It's where you find the basest, the least Godly that any given demographic has to offer.

4. The folks who run mormonhub have decided to place one of these on the forums where we all can see it.

5. God is watching to see how you react.

6. [Full disclosure - lest you think I believe I'm something special] You should see me in youTube video comments.  You might be shocked. 

[Guest Godless]

21 minutes ago, Maureen said:

Really? You don't find positive feedback useful at all? Wouldn't positive feedback tell you that the subject you're writing about is connecting with your audience? That your thoughts and ideas are understood and there a like-minded people out there reading what you are writing?

M.

Depends on the nature of the feedback. I've been published a few times, and there's really no benefit to a writer in comments like "Great article!" and "I loved it!", especially when it's coming from people who know you personally (which was always the case for me since my articles weren't available online). If you can tell me specifically WHY you thought it was a good article, then that's much more helpful. It tells me 1) You actually read it and paid attention and aren't just trying to be nice, and 2) I now have something specific to log as a success and strive to continue in my future work. I guess what I'm trying to say is that empty positive feedback can be just as annoying and unhelpful as empty negative feedback.

[Guest LiterateParakeet]

52 minutes ago, Maureen said:

Really? You don't find positive feedback useful at all? Wouldn't positive feedback tell you that the subject you're writing about is connecting with your audience? That your thoughts and ideas are understood and there a like-minded people out there reading what you are writing?

M.

I'm not Zil, obviously, but I am a writer and I love, love, love positive feesback. My love language is words of affirmation!

I appreciate constructice criticism,  and seek it from people I respect. Its necessary for growth, but I  don't enjoy it.  

[zil]

2 hours ago, Maureen said:

Really? You don't find positive feedback useful at all? Wouldn't positive feedback tell you that the subject you're writing about is connecting with your audience? That your thoughts and ideas are understood and there a like-minded people out there reading what you are writing?

M.

Nope, I don't.  Apparently, from this and others' comments in reply, I'm more of an alien than I thought, and I was already pretty sure I was from another species.  Truly, it's rare for a week to go by without me wondering what planet I came from (or what planet the rest of you came from - but my boss assures me you're all human and I'm the alien, so...) - only logic keeps that wondering from being serious.

@Godless explained things to a degree.  I have no need for other people (especially people who know me in person) to tell me what I wrote is good.  If I didn't think it was good, I wouldn't have given it to someone else to read in the first place - I wouldn't even have written it in the first place.  And no, confirmation that it's good does not help me one whit, because I also know that it's not as good as it could be.  I'm not interested in knowing it's good¹; I'm interested in learning how to make it better.  It's as good as I can make it on my own, so the only way feedback is going to help me is if it tells me the ways in which it's not good (or that it's not good at all, so that I know my perception is completely skewed).

¹ I know (some, many, most?) other people derive motivation from affirmation or positive feedback, but I don't.

Don't get me wrong, if someone enjoyed reading what I wrote, I'm happy for both of us.  I know asking them to help me get better is asking them to work and no one's under any obligation to do that unless I'm paying them.  But when feedback is given, I want #3, and if I can't get #3, I'll take #2.  If I get #1, I'll be polite and say thank you, but consider it useless (because I can't use it to get better).

And now I'll repeat: I'm not trying to justify or excuse anyone being a jerk in response to MormonHub articles.  You can give negative feedback without being a jerk.  But a smart writer would get over the jerk part and devour the negative feedback like a hungry animal.  (And if the only way to get the negative feedback was to accept the jerkiness along with it, a smart writer would be glad for the jerkiness.)

[anatess2]

I quit reading the articles.  It's not for the writing skill or the topic.  I quit reading it because of the mindset of the authors.

I wish these articles would be written by Vort.

[Vort]

47 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

I wish these articles would be written by Vort.

LOL. Most people seem to get more than enough of me in the forums.

[Maureen]

6 hours ago, zil said:

...Don't get me wrong, if someone enjoyed reading what I wrote, I'm happy for both of us.  I know asking them to help me get better is asking them to work and no one's under any obligation to do that unless I'm paying them.  But when feedback is given, I want #3, and if I can't get #3, I'll take #2.  If I get #1, I'll be polite and say thank you, but consider it useless (because I can't use it to get better).....

I can understand that empty feedback is not useful, but if you wrote an article that only got positive well-thought out feedback and no negative feedback, would you think your article was a failure?

M.

[zil]

2 minutes ago, Maureen said:

would you think your article was a failure?

This question shows that you're not understanding what I wrote, or that I'm not communicating what I mean.  I'm not in school looking for a grade anymore.  It's not a question of whether the article was a failure (once published, it's too late to care about this).  It's a question of whether I can take the feedback and use it either to make the article better (if it's pre-publication) or to improve my writing.  To me, feedback is useless unless I can use it to improve something.  If all you're looking for is to accumulate more "successes" than "failures", you're looking at the wrong thing, IMO.  What you should be looking for are ways to continually improve your skill.

Please note that feedback on what you wrote is not the same as discussion on a topic about which you wrote.  The responses on MormonHub articles could be either or both, and my impression from this thread is that the concern is less about the discussion of the topic and more about criticism of the author or their work.  It's the latter that I'm addressing, and I'm doing it more as food for thought for the authors of said articles than for any other reason.

9 minutes ago, Maureen said:

only got positive well-thought out feedback and no negative feedback

PS: I would think something was amiss because even the best writing doesn't get this.  This only happens when you're either in an echo chamber or all your readers are people who love you and think they're doing you a favor by shielding you from their negative reactions.  Or, I suppose, if all your readers are below the work's education / sophistication level, so that they're not able to provide negative feedback - in which case, something's still wrong as the readership isn't sufficiently broad.

PPS: Yes, well-thought-out positive feedback can help you to improve, but not nearly as much as well-thought-out negative feedback.

[Maureen]

@zil, maybe my confusion about what you've been saying is the difference between what we consider positive and negative. I would think that if you are writing an article, you would want to get feedback on it pre-publication. But once it's been published and sent out for a larger audience to read, I would think that any feedback you get from your audience whether positive or negative could be helpful. I'm looking at this from a reader's perspective. I've commented on blogs or articles I've read both positively and critically. I would think that any comment could give the writer some type of perspective as to who their audience is and how they think.

M.

Edited May 13, 2017 by Maureen

[zil]

7 hours ago, Maureen said:

@zil, maybe my confusion about what you've been saying is the difference between what we consider positive and negative. I would think that if you are writing an article, you would want to get feedback on it pre-publication. But once it's been published and sent out for a larger audience to read, I would think that any feedback you get from your audience whether positive or negative could be helpful. I'm looking at this from a reader's perspective. I've commented on blogs or articles I've read both positively and critically. I would think that any comment could give the writer some type of perspective as to who their audience is and how they think.

M.

Positive is "I liked", "I agree", or "this part was great", etc.  Negative is "I didn't like", "I didn't understand", or "I wouldn't have done [this] (in [that] way)", etc.  (Positive numbers verses negative numbers, yes verses no.  It doesn't seem complex to me to distinguish.)

Fortunately, the universe will continue to function well regardless of whether we agree or even understand each other.

[Maureen]

4 hours ago, zil said:

Positive is "I liked", "I agree", or "this part was great", etc.  Negative is "I didn't like", "I didn't understand", or "I wouldn't have done [this] (in [that] way)", etc.  (Positive numbers verses negative numbers, yes verses no.  It doesn't seem complex to me to distinguish.)...

Not to beat a dead horse but, if you're not looking for an audience that likes what you write about and only an audience that disagrees with what you are writing about; what is the reason you write in the first place?

M.

[Maureen]

On 5/12/2017 at 8:22 AM, zil said:

(If someone can give me details on what and why they liked, that's slightly more useful, but honestly, not much.)

 

23 hours ago, Godless said:

Depends on the nature of the feedback. I've been published a few times, and there's really no benefit to a writer in comments like "Great article!" and "I loved it!", especially when it's coming from people who know you personally (which was always the case for me since my articles weren't available online). If you can tell me specifically WHY you thought it was a good article, then that's much more helpful. It tells me 1) You actually read it and paid attention and aren't just trying to be nice, and 2) I now have something specific to log as a success and strive to continue in my future work. I guess what I'm trying to say is that empty positive feedback can be just as annoying and unhelpful as empty negative feedback.

The difference as I see it between @Godlessand @zilis that Godless still finds thoughtful positive feedback helpful, why zil doesn't find it helpful at all. That's what baffles me.

M.

[zil]

15 minutes ago, Maureen said:

Not to beat a dead horse but, if you're not looking for an audience that likes what you write about and only an audience that disagrees with what you are writing about; what is the reason you write in the first place?

M.

You're talking about agreeing (or not) with the opinion expressed in the article.  I'm talking about feedback on the way in which the article was written.  Two totally different things.

[Maureen]

1 minute ago, zil said:

You're talking about agreeing (or not) with the opinion expressed in the article.  I'm talking about feedback on the way in which the article was written.  Two totally different things.

Okay, can you explain what you mean by the bolded?

M.

[Vort]

5 hours ago, zil said:

Fortunately, the universe will continue to function well regardless of whether we agree or even understand each other.

What's the "continue" part about?

[zil]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

What's the "continue" part about?

It's about 8 characters.  Well, actually, it's exactly 8 characters.  It's generally understood to mean "persist in an activity or process" or "recommence or resume after interruption".

Edited May 13, 2017 by zil

[zil]

1 hour ago, Maureen said:

Okay, can you explain what you mean by the bolded?

M.

Apparently not.  But there are lots of colleges and universities who do it all the time.  Here's an example of such classes from SLCC:

• WRTG 0900 - Basic Writing
• WRTG 0990 - College Preparatory Writing
• ENGL 1010 -  Introduction to Writing
• ENGL 2010 - Intermediate Writing
• ENGL 2100 - Technical Writing
• LE 1250 - Effective Revision and Editing
• ENGL 1800 - DIgital Media Essentials
• ENGL 1810 - Writing Center Theory and Practice
• ENGL 1820 - Publication Studies
• ENGL 1910 - Writing Center Certificate Capstone
• ENGL 2100 - Technical Writing
• ENGL 2500 - Grammar and Style

In theory, those classes will teach you how to write.

 

[Maureen]

@zil, since you don't want to answer my last question, I'm just going to ask one more thing. Am I understanding you correctly when you talk about feedback you mean that readers are not giving you feedback on the substance or idea of what you wrote but about how you wrote it?

M. 

[zil]

2 minutes ago, Maureen said:

@zil, since you don't want to answer my last question, I'm just going to ask one more thing. Am I understanding you correctly when you talk about feedback you mean that readers are not giving you feedback on the substance or idea of what you wrote but about how you wrote it?

M. 

I did answer the question, as best I know how.  I truly do not understand why it's so hard to separate the topic from the technique.  It's the same as the difference between the subject matter of a painting and the way in which it was painted.  And yes, I think feedback on the writing is different from discussion of the topic, and I'm talking about feedback on the writing, not discussion of the topic.

[Maureen]

3 minutes ago, zil said:

I did answer the question, as best I know how.  I truly do not understand why it's so hard to separate the topic from the technique.  It's the same as the difference between the subject matter of a painting and the way in which it was painted.  And yes, I think feedback on the writing is different from discussion of the topic, and I'm talking about feedback on the writing, not discussion of the topic.

This is a much better answer than your last one. As a reader and not a writer, I tend to critique on the subject and less or not at all on the technique. The only negative critique I have with articles and blogs I've read is the often missed art of proof reading. The typos that many writers allow in their work drives me nuts. Thanks for answering my question @zil.

M.

[askandanswer]

On 2017-5-13 at 0:22 AM, zil said:

Putting on my author hat.  I rate feedback into three categories:

ONE: Comments I hate receiving from readers:

• That was great!
• Loved it!

...and anything along those lines.  As an author, these are the most useless comments on the planet.  (If someone can give me details on what and why they liked, that's slightly more useful, but honestly, not much.)

 

This is a great post! I loved it!