Improving as a community.

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Emral
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Improving as a community.

Postby Emral » Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:29 am

Hi!

After learning a lot about feedback, leadership, criticism, project management and so forth I'd like to share some of these aspects with everyone to help us move forward as a community (and skills which can be applied to basically anything you guys will deal with in the real world). Welcome to "Enjl stop acting like the savior meme" - topic edition.

What you'll learn in this topic:
•How to react to criticism
•How to give proper criticism
•How to be a better leader

The third one might seem out of place next to the other two, but after classes I've taken on project management and leadership and observing the general communication between project leaders/staff and the general userbase of this community I can see that lack of leadership skills are part of what adds to the general hostility and conflict in this community. Keep in mind this is a topic for everyone and everyone can learn from it.
I was GOING to write all fancy sentences about stuff in this topic, but then I did some quick google searches and... people already did it! Far better than I could have!

How to react to criticism
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/dealin ... icism.html

How to give proper criticism
http://personalexcellence.co/blog/const ... criticism/

How to be a better leader
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2 ... d-leaders/ (this title might throw you off, but it does a good job at getting traits of a good leader across)

My observations:
General hostility in this community between regular users is usually found when one party sees the other as too dense or immature to accept their feedback. There's a few things where both parties can improve here:
Both parties should...
keep it civil. It's easy to get angry at other people for saying something you didn't want to hear, but that doesn't benefit anyone.
Respect each other's ideas. Even when you're the more knowledgible person you shouldn't completely neglect the other party's ideas. If both parties are stubborn, nobody will get anywhere. Together you can to accomplish more than if you're trying to force something.
Don't ignore one another. It's unlikely for the other party to say something arbitrary. If they're not being clear about their reasoning, try to get to the gist of it. If you understand where they're coming from it's easier to find a solution everyone's happy with. Ignoring them doesn't fix anything.
Not be Dr. Obscure. You're not a super secret superhero whose thought processes could potentially disrupt the timespace continuum if you shared them with other people. In fact, not sharing them is bound to lead to misunderstandings sooner or later. Sharing your ideas and thoughts with the other party makes the topic at hand more transparent. By making your thoughts clear, discussions will stop being a puzzle to figure out what the other person is trying to do and you can more easily find a solution that makes everyone happy.
Have more patience with the other party and formulate their statements clearer and more nicely. If someone acts immature, it's best to help them improve rather than shun them. If you don't want to potentially spiral into a mentoring session or don't have anything meaningful to say, keep it to yourself. If your approach doesn't work out, revisit it and try a different one. Different kinds of people need different kinds of wording in the criticism they get.

You might've noticed that the big word looming over this entire thread is cooperation, which is something that I've observed is lacking in this community and would greatly help in making the atmosphere nicer.
Even in community projects one thing I've noticed is that there barely is any communication. It's usually like "yeah take a level and we'll put it in". Why not have discord meetups together where you share your progress and ask for ideas and feedback from the others?
It feels like everyone's trying to avoid each other which leads to small cliques that hate on the beliefs and actions of other cliques. No-one ever thinks about talking to people from another clique and giving them some feedback and clearing up misunderstandings.
This community has the potential to be a friendly environment, we just need to become less childish.

/rant
That said, please point out where I'm wrong and give me ALL the feedback you have. Oh, and Staff, please take a look at "How to be a better leader" and see if there isn't anything you can do to resolve conflicts between you and the community. Points like 4, 6 and 8 are something a lot of people seem to have observed over the past months and I believe there are either some ways to improve or some misunderstandings at hand that should be cleared up.
Last edited by Emral on Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:02 am, edited 1 time in total.

aero
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby aero » Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:45 am

Enjl wrote:It feels like everyone's trying to avoid each other which leads to small cliques that hate on the beliefs and actions of other cliques. No-one ever thinks about talking to people from another clique and giving them some feedback and clearing up misunderstandings.
I don't think I'm allowed to comment on anything else you mentioned, but this is absolutely true and needs to be stopped. Everyone seems to make their own SMBX forum where they can lord over and show the current "official" forum at the time what's what and same with Skype, Steam, and Discord groups. It's splintering the community and isn't good at all really. I don't think it would happen as much if niches were built here where anything can be aired out in discussion rather than in retreat on a free forum host.

Good post.

Imaynotbehere4long
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby Imaynotbehere4long » Tue Oct 25, 2016 7:20 pm

"Not be Dr. Obscure" should be a point for the critics as well. If the only feedback given is incredibly vague, like "it's too hard," that doesn't help out anyone. What specific parts were hard? Why were they hard? How can they be improved?

Emral
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby Emral » Wed Oct 26, 2016 12:44 am

Imaynotbehere4long wrote:"Not be Dr. Obscure" should be a point for the critics as well. If the only feedback given is incredibly vague, like "it's too hard," that doesn't help out anyone. What specific parts were hard? Why were they hard? How can they be improved?
Good point. A lot of the things I say in that section actually apply to both parties. I'll see if I can generalise it later to make all of them properly apply to both with small specifications on how this can affect one of the sides in particular. Thanks for pointing that out.

Witchking666
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby Witchking666 » Wed Oct 26, 2016 1:54 am

Enjl wrote:If someone acts immature, it's best to help them improve rather than shun them. If you don't want to potentially spiral into a mentoring session or don't have anything meaningful to say, keep it to yourself.
But sometimes we do have something meaningful to say. How should we react if people just straight up refuse to learn from constructive critisism and feedback and just keeps on making the same mistake because they cannot accept critisism?.

Zeldamaster12
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby Zeldamaster12 » Wed Oct 26, 2016 8:59 am

witchking666 wrote:But sometimes we do have something meaningful to say. How should we react if people just straight up refuse to learn from constructive critisism and feedback and just keeps on making the same mistake because they cannot accept critisism?.
If they won't take the time to help themselves and listen to the criticism, then why should you waste your time trying to help them?

Emral
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby Emral » Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:18 am

Finally got around to fixing the first post.
witchking666 wrote:
Enjl wrote:If someone acts immature, it's best to help them improve rather than shun them. If you don't want to potentially spiral into a mentoring session or don't have anything meaningful to say, keep it to yourself.
But sometimes we do have something meaningful to say. How should we react if people just straight up refuse to learn from constructive critisism and feedback and just keeps on making the same mistake because they cannot accept critisism?.
I added a short nod to this in the revisited version, but I'll go more in depth here:
If, while arguing, you get the idea that the other party isn't taking your criticism properly, chances are they think you're wrong, which means you didn't do a good job at getting your ideas across to them. Keep in mind that there are different types of people and that it's generally a good idea to figure out someone's intentions before suggesting improvements. If you have a clear understanding of the other person and their ideas you'll have an easier time coming to a conclusion where everyone benefits and which doesn't make you a new enemy who'll never listen to anything you say.
Then again... you will probably not always be able to get to the gist of their intentions/mindset because they're being stubborn right off the bat. If you're dealing with young people and have had bad experiences with them in the past you can try to get into a conversation about what you want to criticise. If you're being curious and friendly they might open up and you can embed your feedback into the flowing conversation and handle it in a casual manner. Feedback doesn't have to be all "oompfh" and "here's a list of things".
If you still struggle to approach them... show them this thread? You'll likely have to rely on society and time to make them more mature, but giving them a bit of a push never hurts.

CynicHost
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby CynicHost » Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:03 am

Thank you for this.

Cedur
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby Cedur » Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:53 pm

Incredibly wise stuff, especially the "what makes a good leader" part.

There's just one problem that I feel is hard to be adressed, and that's when someone decides to infinitely ignore all of your well-meant advice and it becomes clear that it's not your fault that you're not getting further. This is often the case with trolls.

I also add as advice that honesty, and by extension, authenticity is your highest good whenever trying to communicate. It usually helps you nothing if you express yourself intricately just because you try to be overly nice and harmonic. A good measure between honesty, transparency and sensitivity is what matters.

Anyway, I genuiely think this deserves a sticky.

JupiHornet
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Re: Improving as a community.

Postby JupiHornet » Fri Oct 28, 2016 7:34 am

Zeldamaster12 wrote:
witchking666 wrote:But sometimes we do have something meaningful to say. How should we react if people just straight up refuse to learn from constructive critisism and feedback and just keeps on making the same mistake because they cannot accept critisism?.
If they won't take the time to help themselves and listen to the criticism, then why should you waste your time trying to help them?
100% true.
Exhibit A: Amy's Baking Company


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