November 21, 2004

• What does RTFA mean?
• Read the f**king article. Which is, strangely enough, what we do generally on MonkeyFilter without specific instructions, but hey.
• From your article; Bad criticism uses the opportunity provided by someone else
• 'attitude'
• This may be a bit of an understatement, Peachy, but that is not only an excellent article, but also very timely. Tracicle, could I suggest reading this article should be an essential requirement prior to posting? /although I'm sure some will find fault with that... /on preview, perhaps Peachy's "RTFA" was a play on the contents, Moneyjane, a bit of ironic humour?
• This one's getting bookmarked.
• Maybe.
• Hey there Moneyjane. Are you feeling any better yet? Here's a ))) smoothie for you. Good for everything.
• Yum! Thanks! And I do send peachy a kitten with a banana on its head if I misread the intent of the RTFA comment.
• This is all good and well for person-to-person criticism, where a real dialogue can happen, but I think snark and negativeness (if only for the sake of entertainment) have their place in the public space. In movie or consumer product criticism, for instance.
• Kitten with a banana on its head?
• Richer, I would offer that such snarky offerings aren't made in the spirit of criticism. Every time I've heard the "Zen master" defense of such, it's just a smoke screen over somebody being a twunt, albeit perhaps an entertaining one.
• moneyjane, so did I, so we can be shamefaced together if need be.
• RTFM (manual) or RTF(noun of choice) is something I've seen lots in web-design/design/advertising circles as a joke, to sort of lament the woes of the business. Clients are notorious for not ReadingTheFuckingDocumentation before signing off. And usually the shit doesn't hit the fan until everything is mostly designed/built/written. Good times. This is a cool article. Thanks Peachy! I'm going to forward it to my old school. They've got year-end critiques coming up.
• Well, in the 'point out negatives' sense, it is. You can also interspace snark with real criticism, for good measure.
• But when you interlace snark with criticism, the snark renders much of the criticism ineffective. Like interlacing shit with chocolate.
• I dont know if this in there b/c I STFA (skimmed), but good criticism is about the author and the work being criticized, not the critic. Bad critics are more concerned with making jokes or snarkiness to show off their own (alleged) intelligence, than actually talking about the work in question.
• Read the f**king article. Which is, strangely enough, what we do generally on MonkeyFilter without specific instructions, but hey. ...which is exactly what anusy modem used to abuse us here. That link could've been another trap, and Admiral Ackbar is busy enough at FarkFilter. Peachy's link was good, but her FPP wording was the pits.
• So would those who are against snark be prepared to live without Voltaire, Swift, Twain, Orwell, Saturday Night Live, Bill Hicks, David Cross, etc., so on and so forth? Not trying to be snarky; rather, I'm asking a serious, albeit provocative, question.
• Bad critics are more concerned with making jokes or snarkiness to show off their own (alleged) intelligence, than actually talking about the work in question. Yeah, but these days, it pays better.
• Kitten with a banana on its head? *Gasp* That should a wondrous thing did really exist, I had no idea! Goetter, you are my hero :)
• The article is about criticism, not entertainment or art. /Non-snarky reply
• That should a wondrous thing did really exist If only life were like that. —Wait... wait... IT IS! *goes off to find a cat and a banana*
• goetter: to continue our civilized exchange, there are those who'd argue that the distinctions you assume may not actually exist. Just saying.
• Kitten with a banana on its head? I was going to comment on the post but that is just the greatest thing ever and my mind has turned to fuzzy wuzzy fluffy stuff.
• For instance, the article says it might be okay to joke or be razzy if you know the author is okay with that. Well, I don't know if Steven Spielberg is okay with that, but I sure want critics to snark and joke about his manipulative movies.
• (I am genuinely angry at Spielberg, and think it's perfectly legitimate to voice that in criticism)
• Right. I'm too terse, or too lazy. Or both, most likely. Still. I apply a different standard to person-to-person discourse (including that mediated through a many-to-one group environment, q.v. MoFi) than I do to entertainment, or literature, or broadside tracts. Person-to-person implies that one party wants to communicate with another party, with the reciprocal relation also applying. Exhorting third parties as to the rightness of your cause isn't criticism in this sense. Certainly, nobody is wrong to excoriate Spielberg, to use Richer's example. If they were addressing Spielberg in person, they might be more effective avoiding snark. However, Spielberg would still have to be open to receiving that criticism. Fortunately, Spielberg is vulnerable to the market, which is made up of people, who can be exhorted. Or so we pray. Not to go all Humpty Dumpty on y'all, but in the end, I am using criticism in the sense that the FPP used it. If you want to kvetch, exhort, or merely decry, that's all cool, too, but that's not criticism in this sense.
• Ok, I'm a critic, and I found this really pretty good (and reminded me of things that I forget when I get lazy or snippish). One of the weaker points, however, was that this is how to give constructive criticism to the author (or creator) of a work, not how to give criticism in a public field. The goal of criticizing, say, the new Star Wars joint isn't to let Mr. Lucas get an insight into how to run his movie back through and return with an improved draft, it's to let people know not to see it. If the goal is to let people know not to see it, then it's a lot easier to be snarky. But, since most of my criticism goes to local bands, I have trouble remembering sometimes that I need to allow for the feelings of people reading it and that my goal is more often to have the bands improve rather than to drive people away from the clubs in droves. (I also forget that since most people who read what I write don't know me personally, they tend to assume that I take my opinions much more seriously than I actually do. I mean, I hate jam bands, but I don't advocate rounding them up and gassing people who do like them, really. Though I may have mentioned it as a suggestion once or twice...)
• i'd like to point out the part about picking your critics and how the author isn't fond of the nicey nicey approach either. When in THE wrong mood, ANY stray comment can seem biting, but seeking opinions is a completely different matter. unless i respect the people reeling off complements in whatever arena that may be, i simply thank them for being kind. While they may be genuine, it doesn't mean their opinion really matters in any critical sense in fact if some people like it, something may be horribly horribly wrong still, at the right time, it's a great ego boost, esp. when out of left field. Most people seeking opinions ARE looking for approval, which is obvious and extremely different from people who Seriously Ask for opinions-- brave souls only do so from me because they KNOW i will be honest. that doesn't mean Mean, and i qualify points, basis, reasoning, etc. but if i didn't honestly care, i wouldn't care to be honest --leaving yourself open to criticism is a totally different story-- And a lot of truly funny things are funny because they ARE true. delivery, timing, audience: true of comedy, true of life
• As dxlifer commented I was trying to be ironic with the fpp description. Thanks for the benefit of the doubt. I have been known to just jump into the comments section with my predefined views (Not on Monkeyfilter though as i'm too new here)
• In terms of formal criticism, I'd just like to pass along the four questions the critic must ask and answer, which I absorbed somewhere along the line (way) back in grad school, from Matthew Arnold, I think: 1. What the author/artist/creator is trying to do? 2. How is he/she is trying to do it? 3. Has he/she has succeeded? 4. Was the effort was worth it? It's worked as a solid framework for me over the years.
• agh, after my ambigious fpp description im getting paranoid about my communication skills. The thanks was aimed at dx and not a sarcastic snipe at tracicle or moneyjane.
• oy, peach, expect a lot of miscomproblems for around a month. i'm new here and i'm always being misunderstood/standing/undecipherable for decades if it helps, i thought it was funny
• Oh yeah? And just what is *that* supposed to mean? Hey Peachy...given I'm such a snarkenstein, it has since occured to me to not to get so quickly snarky about other people possibly being snarky about snarkiness. Did my kitten with the banana on its head arrive safely?
• no one may have understood that but i don't mind critique me!
• tied again for NOT previewing! no way to win and now i'm using exclamation points I NEVER use exclamation points these filters are ruining me
• *blames the hormones* Apologies, Peachy.
• Here ya go! Sammy Bananas.
• So this will totally get me on tracicle's shit list, but what I found most amusing about the misunderstanding of the FPP was this: (from the article):"Third, respect and ridicule don’t mix well. To offer good criticism must be an act of respect: an act of communication with the intention of helping the other person do better work, or understand their work better. If you are shaping sentences and remarks to be snide, snarky, or sarcastic, the intention of being helpful is unlikely to be served" Read the f**king article. Which is, strangely enough, what we do generally on MonkeyFilter without specific instructions, but hey. posted by tracicle at 07:21PM UTC on November 21 Heh. (:
• So this will totally get me on tracicle's shit list, but what I found most amusing about the misunderstanding of the FPP was this: (from the article):"Third, respect and ridicule don’t mix well. To offer good criticism must be an act of respect: an act of communication with the intention of helping the other person do better work, or understand their work better. If you are shaping sentences and remarks to be snide, snarky, or sarcastic, the intention of being helpful is unlikely to be served" Read the f**king article. Which is, strangely enough, what we do generally on MonkeyFilter without specific instructions, but hey. posted by tracicle at 07:21PM UTC on November 21 Heh. (:
• Argh. how'd that happen? Sillyness.
• ian: psst, blame your hormones or if you watched the original UK Coupling, just say testicles hey, tracicle, you get to have nearly 2500 monitoring your hormones ah, good times i wonder how much will filter in to the monkey
• Geez, ian would say, I was all right when you said it the first time. Now you must die!
• Sammy Bananas How perfectly cute. When I approached my old boys with a banana, they told me where I could put the banana. And it wasn't on their head. Ouchers.
• I heard a rumour, not sure if it's actually true, that cats, as a species, "think they're all that". Your report does seem to support this. Sammy, however, is a kitten of uncommon grace, and also a monkey-lovin' fool.
• Lega-lize it. Doan criti-cize it.
• Now I'm going to attempt to get the Virgin Sammy on a cheese sandwich.
• Another kitten with a banana on his head. Or maybe it's a banana with a kitten on its head. I have no idea what this is about, but I'm certain that it must be very important.