the forum comment behaviour

[OtisBee]

hi CAD community!

today i want to write about my very own opinion towards the quality and purpose of a comment that's related to a skin or anything else that somebody has just made an effort for.

i very much hope that nobody will feel offended by my thoughts, because that's not in my intention.

let me put this straight: i very much appreciate each and every of your comments referring to my work as a CAD skinner!!

until now i have created well over 30 (!) skins for CAD and receiving your comments after a skin release has always been a great encouragement for me to proceed with doing what in your eyes i do best: skinning.

however -and this is very important to me- i see a certain change in the quality of your comments and here i'm not referring to the comments you make on my work only.

you see, the amount of comments saying "great job", "amazing work", "stunning as always", "i love it", "omg" and so on has significantly increaased over the months and although i gratefully appreciate the supporting tap on my shoulder every now and then, i often have the impression that there's still something missing in these comments.

as a matter of fact i always ask myself: "WHY is this a great job?", "WHY is this considered to be an amazing work?", "WHY stunning?", "WHY do you love it?" or "WHAT does OMG actually mean?"

i know it's not always easy to find the right words and even may take some time that you might not have, but why the rush anyway?
take your time.
it's not important to post your comment within the hour of the according skin's release.
i'm sure that when you decide to give your feedback to a skinners work you already know WHY exactly you like that skin.

as a skinner myself i can only encourage you to really think about the "WHY", because if you're able to tell the skinner about that, he will get a pretty good idea of what there is to improve or not.
he would be able to lay a certain emphasis on the skills YOU commented on as being "great" for example.

please put yourself into the position of the skinner for a moment.

when i create a skin i'm not only doing this for myself (if i would i wouldn't even bother about releasing it, but would keep all my work to myself) and most of my skins were created while consuming a great deal of my effort and time (days or even weeks).
in fact i have never created a skin just like that.
skinning can be quite exhausting for your patience and your overall stamina.
furthermore i dive so very deep into all these pixels that in the end there's a pretty good chance that i'm completely lacking a certain distance to my work in order to objectively say whether it is a nice result i've accomplished or not.

please, don't get me wrong...
...being told that my skin turned out to be awesome or amazing or whatever is really nice and i appreciate this a lot.
i never take for granted that my work would actually have this approach.

but after all the blood, sweat and tears i've been through then, i have hoped that you would take a little more time to tell me what you think and feel about the things you see.

if you're a skinner yourself, i suppose you know exactly what i'm talking about here.
you wouldn't want the simple "great job" comment either.
actually you would want that each and every detail of your skin will be recognized.
you would want that the guy who comments on your work would give you the impression that he/she really took some time to explore your baby.
am i right, or what?

please be aware of the fact that this is the home of CD ART DISPLAY.
people gather here to talk merely about nothing else but exactly this our beloved CD ART DISPLAY.
this isn't deviantART with millions of various artworks and the ever increasing fave-and-run-behaviour of its members.
no matter which artwork you would choose to view at dA, as soon as you would scroll down the comments to the according artwork the place would be poluted with all sorts of wows, omgs, thumbsups, greatworks, awesomes or whatever.

please -i really beg you- don't let this happen here!!

cdartdisplay.com is a forum and as such it is destined to be a place to exchange thoughts, opinions and criticism.

it's not wrong to say: "i like that", but perhaps you can try to also mention "WHY" you do so.


you know, i think i'm quite known for the fact that i'm commenting on things in a rather detailed way and it appears to me (correct me if i'm wrong here) that most of these comments are well appreciated by the most of you.
well, i don't really intend to change my way of commenting on things, but i would like you to think about what difference it would make if i would now start to comment in a more curt way.


again, please let me assure you that i didn't mean to offend either one of you and i wasn't talking about anybody in particular.
i still appreciate each and every one of your comments.
but perhaps you'd like to think about the potential of a comment and what a comment can be capable of.

thank you for reading through all the above.
thank you for your patience and comprehension.

now, let me read what YOU think! ;)


sincerely....


....OtisBee

[barberio]

Hi OtisBee.

First of all, thank you for your expressive article.
It shows, that this community is very important to you.
I always appreciate and enjoy reading your posts and comments.

As you are here for quite some time, and have released one or another skin, ;)
I would say "you are at home" here at CAD.

For myself I detected, that because of the points you mentioned above, your critique and
compliment means a lot to me. You don't just say "Cool skin" or anything equal.
You show me my errors and tell me, what is good on my skin.
For sure, this is very important.

But many users (I would count me in, sometimes), don't speak english very well. To say "cool"
or "great" is easier, than to find the right words for a qualified comment, that would be helpful.
And perhaps, some of them look at your skins (and others) and they say "that looks cool", but actually can't say why, cause they simply don't know (someone who doesn't know anything about skinning or graphics). Yes, I have heard, they exist. :o

For sure I understand, that you too get a great push out of a qualified comment. And an evaluation is important for you, too.
So I will work on my comments, to give you (and everyone else) a more competent feedback like you have given me.

[OtisBee]

yup, it kinda feels like home in here sometimes. :)
...and you're right the CAD community is very important to me. ;)

But many users (I would count me in, sometimes), don't speak english very well. To say "cool"
or "great" is easier, than to find the right words for a qualified comment, that would be helpful.

of course it is the least of my intentions to abandon any of the "cool" comment people.
i just wanted to post an encouraging statement to perhaps make some people think about their commenting behaviour.

granted that some people may not be familiar with the english language, nevertheless i've already read some heartfelt comments in the most broken english. they tried so hard and even if they weren't aware of it, they already said so much.

please don't get me wrong, i absolutely don't want that everybody is singing hymns on things by telling this and that and write complete encyclopedias about anything (although it would be funny to see that one happening ;D ).

compared to the comments that were posted about a year ago, i somehow got the impression that today's comments are more and more lacking a certain quality.

that's why i wanted to somewhat create a certain awareness.

one thing is for sure. i will never be angry with the "cool" comment people.
and it's not up to me to judge anybody for their style of commenting on things.

if the things i wrote made anybody think about his/her commenting behaviour then my efforts weren't for nothing.


thanks for joining the discussion!! :D