"No negative commentary" rule for FIFP voting threads

Continuing the discussion from FIFP Round 1, Division 4 (Voting/Fan Choice Commentary):

(Note that, due to a mix-up in communications with moderators, the post to which AmandaB is replying was deleted. It had a poll about whether or not to keep the “avoid negative commentary” rule. Rather than re-post the poll on that thread, I’m trying out the split-topic feature. I would like to hear more from fans before setting up the new poll.)

Some statistics that may be relevant to the discussion:

  • I’ve noted 74 positive comments (excluding my own and those part of mathbrush’s lineup reviews). Of those only 4 have received “yellow cards,” which is about 5%.

  • There have been 448 votes for games in the tournament to date. That’s a ratio of about one-to-six (16.52%) of votes to associated commentary. (Note that it is often the case that a given vote is associated with two comments by the same person on the same matchup.)

The goal in removing the rule would be to increase the rate of fan comments. My hope for fan commentary in general is that it will serve many good purposes, including:

  • alerting players new and old to works that they might enjoy,
  • providing feedback on successful elements to the works’ authors,
  • eliciting observations about works that don’t appear in existing reviews, and
  • prompting participation in IFDB ratings and reviews to add to the critical evaluation of works identified (by one metric) as among the best the form has to offer.

The FAQ provides some explicit guidance on the matter of framing comments positively, i.e. that since any remark is effectively a comparison between works A and B, it can be phrased as “B > A” instead of “A < B” to take on a positive form. To use AmandaB’s hypothetical comments as examples, these would translate along the lines of “I found that the polite/merciful design of Game A provided a much more enjoyable experience” or “I strongly preferred the writing style/theme/subject matter of Game B” when phrased in the positive.

The commentary by @virtuadept and others has definitively shown that it’s possible to make substantive comments while adhering to this format. However, I do not enjoy the role of censor, nor do I want to infantilize the audience at large by assuming that the group can’t handle anything other than a fixed smile. So far those discomforts have been outweighed by the fact that I don’t want to see arguments break out over matters of personal opinion.

I otherwise have no dog in this fight since I’m not otherwise participating, but perhaps you could also add a rule that any negative commentary has to be paired with positive commentary? EX: “I really liked this game’s atmosphere, but I found its difficulty to be very unforgiving”. I think the “factual negative commentary” thing is also a good idea, but that’s going to be inherently subjective and might lead to headaches.

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It’s just as well my comment got accidentally deleted, because you’re right. I mostly trust us not to say things like “People who write cruel games like this author should be whipped in the streets” and instead say “I’m voting for the other guy because I prefer merciful games.” But do I trust us 100%? No.

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My thought is, we can talk critically about games on this forum otherwise, so might as well allow it here too—I think it would lead to more discussions, and I typically find critical comments just as illuminating as positive ones. When deciding whether I want to read a book or not, I usually look at the negative reviews—seeing someone say “I hated how much of this book was dialogue” tells me it’s a book I might like, since I love dialogue! So I’m for lifting the rule, and of course if anyone crosses a line into being overly harsh toward authors or other commentors, that’s what the moderators are here for.

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https://intfiction.org/t/no-negative-commentary-rule-for-fifp-voting-threads/69529
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