[General Battuta]

Maybe we could proceed from my suggestion above re: critical culture instead of instructing people how to be satisfied, I think that would go more useful places

[Spoon]

It's funny that you dismiss thread reply numbers as 'meaningless' and then you post this.

It's funny you're outright lying about the fact that the reply numbers being meaningless was a mockery of your idea that download counts are meaningless

...
Wat?
Edit: Last time I checked you discarded reply count as meaningless and the wrong way to get motivated.
I replied that I think that its not meaningless at all and that the download number is in motivational factor terms, mostly meaningless to me.
I am completely missing this mockery on your part and especially the part where I am supposedly lying about things.

Holy **** dude, what the ****

Yeah. This.

You have another way to take his comment?

I mean if he's completely unwilling to try and follow internal logic in the series of posts that doesn't reflect great on him either, but he's smart enough to do so, and I like to assume he's serious enough about the argument to try.

I really do respect Spoon (probably obvious from the cheerleading commentary earlier) but he can get stuck in a snit too.

Yeah no. Sorry but you lost me.

This is the HLPest thread. Well-intentioned debate on how to make major content creators feel better derailed by semantic argument about the philosophy of artistic satisfaction. Gonna print and frame

e for content: I still believe the best thing we can do is foster a culture of pluralistic, heterodox appreciation - in-depth, thoughtful posts even when something didn't really work for you, and a recognition of how the campaign in question advances and speaks to others in the medium. The BP forum thrives on its excellent, thoughtful posters, and I've tried to bring some of that to other campaigns via that one thread. Having someone think in depth about your campaign makes it worth it like nothing else.

Yes.

[Luis Dias]

Perhaps the single best thing it could be done was to repair the open instaler. Last time I tried to get people into these things, I couldn't bring myself to tell them "go search the wiki and the thousands of threads and replies to see how you should install these things". I actually promised them to copy them a full folder structure, after they buying the game and so on. That was insane, I thought. And they did as well. That's probably what is choking the community the most of new interested people, as it has been years since the installer worked properly.

[General Battuta]

Yeah I completely agree. Of course GOOOOOBEERRRRRRRR was supposed to have a new one done by now *shakes fist*

[Goober5000]

Yep.  I was going to spend Thanksgiving doing that, but that got derailed by travel.

Also, I just did some thread splitting.

[NGTM-1R]

I'm just kind of baffled that anyone wouldn't want to count all their victories, lurker or poster. You're not going to reach everyone as deeply as you do some, or in the same way every time. Only counting one form of engaging with your work isn't going to help you want to keep working, and if you don't want all possible reasons to keep doing something for fun, how much fun are you actually having doing it?

[mjn.mixael]

I'm just kind of baffled that anyone wouldn't want to count all their victories, lurker or poster. You're not going to reach everyone as deeply as you do some, or in the same way every time. Only counting one form of engaging with your work isn't going to help you want to keep working, and if you don't want all possible reasons to keep doing something for fun, how much fun are you actually having doing it?

Downloading isn't engaging the work, it's consuming it. I'd rather people engage my work via discussion, LPs, or whatever else. My two cents.

[NGTM-1R]

If we're down to semantics that's kind of a crappy argument. This isn't, again, a zero-sum problem. (And honestly only counting those who react the way you want them to is kind of a dick thing to be doing.) If you refuse to have all the enjoyment possible out of something and nobody's gonna get hurt by it, why aren't you doing something you enjoy fully?

[mjn.mixael]

*yawn*

Ok, well the semantics are important in this case. Several of us have said that we find it more motivating when people engage (talk back, respond, take futher action, get into the story) our work, specifically on the forums. You are arguing that we should be motivated by a generic number (because it's never accurate) of faceless people who may or may not have enjoyed our work. All I know is they downloaded it. Great, they were at least interested enough to do that, but I have no way to know anything beyond that. I've certainly downloaded several mods with intention to play and haven't. So that's one count for those mods that doesn't count.

If you are motivated by that number, great. I'm not. Several others aren't. And despite what you say/think/believe, that isn't wrong of us. It's simply different.

Ready... ESCALATE.

[Jeff Vader]

[Scourge of Ages]

All I know is they downloaded it. Great, they were at least interested enough to do that, but I have no way to know anything beyond that. I've certainly downloaded several mods with intention to play and haven't. So that's one count for those mods that doesn't count.

If you are motivated by that number, great. I'm not. Several others aren't. [...]That isn't wrong of us. It's simply different.

I was gonna say this, too.

[NGTM-1R]

And despite what you say/think/believe, that isn't wrong of us. It's simply different.

Nothing is ever simply different. There is method in difference. That has meaning and frequently can be evaluated objectively. One might not be able to back out of it, but I don't think I'm staging an assault on something that core to your character here.

From my perspective:

You're arguing that not wanting to be as happy as possible with your efforts is, well, good for you. And your efforts.

Or/and that certain people's responses, because they're not in an acceptable format to you, do not count.

The first one is kinda troubling in itself. It's probably demonstrably untrue, but leave that aside for the moment. There aren't too many people who don't want to be happy, no matter how ****ed up you or I might find their particular version of what makes happiness. Why, exactly, do you resist this particular metric as addition to the others? What sort of threat do you see in it, if any? And if no threat, why resist it when it will only add to things rather than replacing any (or in other words, why are you even arguing with me then)? It's not like the written word about your works produces infallible truth and happiness (go check out Lorric's ability to derail things and piss off Spoon in the WoD forum, if you want a concrete though extreme example). No source of data is completely untainted here so dismissing one for being tainted at all is ridiculous.

The second is, as noted, kind of a dickish thing to do in general. It's also rejecting opinions based on the format they come in, which is fallacy of its own. (Thieves who tell you not to steal are not wrong.) And you can't protest that you don't know that opinion, because you do at the moment they clicked the button. If nothing else, it tells you that you can pitch the idea really well. If in a series, it tells you significantly more than that (as already stated). It's also just a hop skip and a jump towards (or away from) rejecting opinions because you don't like them in general...and at that point you start rejecting criticism and that's a something most of us will struggle all our lives to try and keep from doing. Backing away from routes to it is something we should be eager to do if we value our work being of quality.

[mjn.mixael]

That's pretty bold to straight up say that the way I tend to be motivated is wrong... and I think you know that. So I'm going to assume now, that you are arguing to win rather than just discussing. I will not be responding to you from this point on. I know myself, and I know what motivates me. Your belief here can't change my opinion or how I'm motivated. We aren't discussing objective facts, as much as you'd like it to be.

EDIT: I would like to add that you are really making yourself look silly by trying to prove non-object opinions wrong using logic and fact. Why can't you just accept our opinions as different?

[Luis Dias]

Because he rejects your reality and substitutes his own.

[Scourge of Ages]

A big problem that I see with going by only download count is that a download without any comment is worse than no download at all, and much worse than getting some sort of actual feedback from the person downloading.

-If nobody downloads, you tell yourself, "Well, nobody played it, so I'll just have to make something bigger and better, and advertise it a little more."

-If somebody downloads, and says they like it, you think, "Yay! Somebody played it and likes what I did! I will make more, and see if I can do even better!"

-If somebody downloads and says they dislike it, you can still think, "Well, at least somebody cared enough to actually play it, and say something. What did they dislike? What can I improve?"

-If somebody downloads, but doesn't comment, what can you think? You have no way to know if anybody actually used it or not, and certainly nobody cared. Could you imagine what it would feel like to see 1000 downloads but not to know if anybody even played?

I released a mission in March 2011. It was downloaded 36 times (yay!). As far as I know, only 4 people played it (still, yay!). The response was... mixed. But that was more than enough to motivate me to improve it and try again. If nobody bothered to say anything at all, I would have given up completely.

Sure, some people are able to make things and learn things purely for their own benefit, but most of us aren't like that. If we do something or learn something we think is cool, we'll want to share it, and hope that other people will think it's cool too.

[SypheDMar]

I think everyone's looking at this wrong, and nobody should be wrong because everyone is right. It's great to hear feedback about your work, especially positive ones. And if they motivate you all to work harder, who is to say that you're doing it wrong? But NGTM-1R has a point as well. It is undeniable that there is a silent majority no matter what the product is. The restaurant analogy is useful in that most HLPers will not comment on anything unless they have problems with installing or with the game. Something to note here is that we have a lot of regulars, so we also have a lot of positive remarks from them. However if the silent majority ever decides to not be silent, then the comment you'd expect from them would be negative, right? And is there a minimum number of comments you'd like in your thread before you're satisfied, or is it relative to other mods? Is it relative to the download count?

And another comment made either in this thread or the other one struck me. Not everyone would play your work if they're not interested in the genre, and expecting even the regulars to comment on those is not a smart way of looking at things. So if you made an anime-based mod and expect people who came here for FreeSpace to play it and enjoy it, then I do think you're expecting too much. Now that is not to say that FreeSpace players hate anime or are critical of mods in different genres. The numbers of comments, contents (2 finished anime-inspired mods with 1 more in the work!), critiques, and the like show that there are lots of people willing to try new things as well. JAD, Antagonist, Windmills, Sync, Transcend, and Blue Planet show that HLPers do enjoy different styles of playing a game even within/out the Freespace universe.

Four months ago, would any content creators have considered quitting because of the lack of comments? Is it because of that one thread that Gen FS has become so negative? I don't see HLP going away any time soon just like I don't see any of you guys going away either. With the number of non-FSO boards, non-FS mods, and the release of Diaspora, I think the demographic of HLP will change to ensure that everything is played and commented as often as you'd like.

[Mongoose]

So how do we pronounce this one?  "H-L-P-est," or "H-L-Pest"?

This discussion kind of turned into a real cluster**** (thank God for splits), but I think there are a few decent points in it.  I can see how most content creators would value in-depth feedback above any other metrics, as it both confirms that their work was valued and provides suggestions as to what worked and what didn't.  However, I do think there's inherent value in the metric of download counts as well.  I don't think NGTM-1R was saying it should be the only metric one looks at, and I personally wouldn't consider it the most important one myself, but it does give at least some level of feedback.  Most of the campaign/mod releases here are dozens, if not hundreds of MB in size.  People aren't going to download something that size by accident; it's not just some picture of a cat asking if he can has cheezburger.  If someone downloads your mod, the odds are good that they're interested in playing it, even if they might not do so right away.  I know I have several things lying around that I've downloaded and haven't played, but I also know that I will play every single one of them at some point.

And this is what I get for having this sit in a tab for hours, since Syphe said everything I did and then some.

[karajorma]

When did everyone become so cynical anyway?

[General Battuta]

e: guess i shouldn't speak ill of the departed

[Ulala]

Last time I tried to get people into these things, I couldn't bring myself to tell them "go search the wiki and the thousands of threads and replies to see how you should install these things".

Whichever way you feel about it, with an easy install package you will get more players, and while a lot of them will probably just click download, I'm willing to bet a number of them will want to talk about what they're playing.