"Overly nice?" Topic

A Russian friend raised a point of distinction between Western forums and those from Mother Russia.

He noted that in the latter, a contributor who posts pictures of painted work needs to be prepared for brutal criticism – "You should give up", "You are wasting our time", "Your shields look like Turkish carpets", and so on.

On the English feeds, however, people fall over themselves to say only kind things, and will turn on anyone who posts the merest constructive criticism.

These are extremes. However, he pointed out that posters on the Russian sites will quickly improve their painting technique, while posters on our sites will post thread after thread, year after year, with no improvement whatsoever.

While it is best to be courteous, do Anglophones indulge too much in 'polite fiction'?

If they are asking for critique, I think you should be honest as brutal as it may be. If they are just showing off their work, keep your comments to yourself.

Fair point.

But does the latter case mean keeping comments of unwarranted praise to yourself? There is a distinction between encouragement and flattery.

Obviously a personal choice. If someone posts their work and my reaction is positive I will usually make a comment.

Conversely, if I'm not impressed and or the work is sub-par I won't comment.

I'm with Joes Shop on this.

I stick to the 'if you can't say something nice, say nothing' mantra.

Plenty of times I've opened threads offering pictures of someone's hard work and labour of joy, seeking comment and all I can think is 'by gad that's terrible' but I say nothing.

So at least you know if I speak up and say how nice I think your work is I'm being honest.

I can't stand all the false praise I see trotted out – I'm all for encouragement but telling people their work is brilliant when frankly it looks terrible isn't helping anyone.

Product of my upbringing: I see no need to be an ass when providing feedback.

grandma said we were all born with an excess of opinion so no need to share.

If they are asking for comments about their work then you may share your thoughts, however, there is a way to give constructive criticism without depressing and discouraging the person to whom you are sharing it with. Some people can handle being roughed up and some people may give up on the hobby if you bang them over the head from your prideful perch of vast experience and perfection.

I dunno,Muerto, I've seen plenty of what might be construed as "criticism" here,though it's usually more in the form of "you might consider trying--" suggestions.

I don't remember any "you should give up" comments. As with Doug,I don't think that would be very encouraging.

I've only known a couple of Russians but they say that being rude is kind of a way of life there, so I'm not surprised it leaks into the online side of life.

How many posters on the Russian sites though just disappear because of the negative feedback? It may only be those that stick around that improve, the rest give up, either on posting or on modelling, so it's unlikely to be a better approach.

I tend to only say nice things – my grandma taught me it you can't be honest at least be kind

So – like Joe – if I don't like it I don't say anything

You can give criticism and still be nice. Honesty doesn't have to be brutal.

andy

Mmmm…in regards to a "Russian" forum, I would say that they are certainly more honest, and expect people to be much more up front with opinion that we are in the US. So no, in that context, I don't find straight up comments to be rude.

I think it's easy enough to tell what people think of a given figure paint job by the number of responses and types, and on FB, I'm so familiar w/the forums, I can judge by the number of likes. If I put something up that's getting half the number of likes as the previous Saga Warband, I've got some work to do.

Sounds like you're not going to post on a Russian site unless you're:

A. Supremely confident your stuff looks real good
B. Welcomes constructive criticism and can tolerate abusive criticism
C. You're a Masochist

I don't see really negative non constructive comments towards creative hobby stuff here very often. I'd say there's more of a tendency of needless petty jabbing towards others personal preferences in rule systems. I think comments on the modelling stuff is usually polite and constructive on the whole.

Not sure if it was here but I remember seeing a painting project that quite honestly looked pretty awful. I felt bad for the guy as no one had commented (which was probably a mercy) and I didn't comment as I wondered why you'd bother posting on a public forum if things looked that bad! On a later post I found out the guy had some disability problems. So I guess just a word of caution before we gleefully torpedo someone's hard work. It may be the best they can do and no level of criticism would help. Maybe no comment at all can be safest route or even a kindly worded question to initiate conversation if we're feeling MAD generous

I'm really not sure cricism is the best form of education even here with us war gaming 'adults.' I look back at my earlier offerings and I could have easily been slaughtered for my efforts but I wasn't. In fact I received a more than fair amount of praise and encouragement. When I saw the work of others here that's what really inspired me to improve. Same today for me. Same probably applies to a newbie tomorrow.

"Overly nice" to me would mean insincere. I don't think anyone should be that towards another's work but perhaps if we enjoy our hobby and would like to promote it maybe we should be generous and encouraging to others especially newbies

Unless they're Russian

I'm also with Joe's Shop on this. I will comment if I really like it, and won't comment if I don't.

In St Petersburg a few years back (admittedly a tourist city and we were tourists) we found few overtly rude people. Politeness isn't the social norm there that it is over here in the UK, they can be abrupt in ways that would be rude in the UK but are normal behaviour there.

We travelled on the same tram a few times and someone sat near us burst out laughing when the ticket collector said something to another passenger pointing to us. He translated it as 'those are the English who say please ..', she was smiling and the local passengers seemed impressed, if a little puzzled.

We took a remembrance poppy and put it on the siege memorial. Once the old fellas sat round it realised what we had done they applauded us – you wouldn't get that in the UK !!!

Praise publicly, criticize in private

Frequently.

I've held my tongue more than a few times, especially about poorly sculpted, disproportionate figures.

Saw some the other day listed here, that people were falling all over themselves about, but the heads/helmets are 1/4 the overall height of the figure's body. Note – for future reference, sculptors, the correct proportion should be about 1/6th the height of the man.

The sculpting of the body and head/helmet was indeed nicely detailed, but way out of proportion.

I see this all the time the other way round too, with some heads being far too small for the bodies they're placed on.

It's because people sculpt the body parts separately, and don't bother to check proportions during the process, or when mating them together. I suspect some hope we won't notice, but I usually do, and suspect others do as well.

I'm usually far more forgiving on peoples' paint work, since we all have various skill levels.

EVERYBODY should be told to never paint white eyeballs.

Social Darwinism and miniature painting? Improving the standards of the hobby through emotional natural selection? Survival of the artistically fittest and the aesthetically attuned? It's Evolution Baby!

I would post a Pearl Jam video here but this is a "family" website. And the "family" would whack me if I did.

One need only go to the UM board here (I am guilty of posting there) or other gaming fora to see how brutal anglophone speech can be in wargaming matters. We might consider this before accusing others of insensitivity. However, that being said, Zippee and myxemail have the wisest counsel in my opinion.

Cheers and good gaming.
Rod Robertson.

That's funny, me and the kiddo were literally just watching that Pearl Jam video today

EVERYBODY should be told to never paint white eyeballs.

White's fine, so long as the end product doesn't look like this:

..which it all-too-often does. 8:O

Mako mako's a good point about sculpting. The difference is that the figure painters are usually showing their work for their hobby project,but the sculptors are showing work they want us to buy. In that case,I feel no compunction about criticism,even brutal criticism. Others here obviously share that attitude :)

As for the professional painters who show their work here,my normal reaction is a gasp of awe.

My Russian grandmother always gave rather stinging criticisms to my sister and I. I used to chalk it up to her surviving the Bolshevik revolution (her father was executed) and the civil war (first husband killed). But maybe it was more than that.

Good criticism is constructive, if it's not constructive it's not good criticism.

"You should give up", "You are wasting our time", "Your shields look like Turkish carpets",

That is criticism without critique. Nobody will improve their technique based on that.

As many above, you can point out specific things to try, practice, or not do. Once you have done that, only a very few will be in the zone to just be rough.

Who is to say the critic is right? The Internet is full of opinion, but most of the time, we have no idea of the credentials behind the criticism or opinion.

For the most part, our wargame forums are comfortable places to be part of and that seems to be the best measure of posting styles.

My Turkish carpet is really intricate. Not sure if I could take that as a criticism!
Everyone seems really friendly to each other on Odnoklassniki whether the photos of the family etc are good or not. Not sure it's a Russian thing. Everyone wants to put the best face on their culture – Russians not excluded. I have seen only great posts of games from Russia on this forum so maybe it's a Russian Frothers thing (not a criticism of Frothers).

My background is with boardgames, so I'm usually encouraging newbies to paint. So, I think, the hobby here wants more people to paint more than paint better.

OTOH, many painters will show off their paint jobs, and there are many excellent painting tutorials on the 'net. So I don't think painters really need *that* much criticism of their work.

Finally, I think many boardgamer painters are fine with tabletop because their primary interest is playing games. If your Zombicide base game has 60+ miniatures, you're not going to have display-level paint jobs even if you spend three months painting the set!

It's a hobby.

It's not a contest where anything serious or important is at stake.

I feel that sculptors and painters generally do their best, especially if they are going to show it off.

If it's not the best effort possible everyone knows and so does the artist. At the moment it's probably the best they can do.

Encouragement will make them try harder. They already KNOW where their work has come up short.

It's a game.

I got told "don't give up your day job" by some arrogant on here once. Everyone rounded on him fairly quickly, no explanation of why he didn't like my figures, just that comment.

What Joe's Shop said. If I praise something, I do like it.

If it is really bad I don't say anything. But if it is truly awful don't praise it either. That is going overboard the other way. Giving out fake compliments. It is really obvious, you can't hide it and for me that would be just as bad or worse. I am not that good a painter, so I am very careful what I chose to share with the world.

But what about manufactures? Like the ones that show off their new products here on the front page. If they are really bad I don't hesitate to criticize them. Their professionals out to make a profit. To me that is different from an amateur hobbyist.

Rallynow: agreed, there, the situation is completely different. That said, I will usually only offer criticism if the product shown is one that I am interested in.

Praise publicly, criticize in private.

If a painter has made mistakes, I will say nothing on the forum, but contact them privately and point them out in case he/she wants to change things. I should stress that I'm not talking about the quality of the brushwork (I'm not good myself), but errors in replicating uniforms etc.

I haven't seen anyone post a picture and ask for a critique – may do it myself one day :)

If you ask for a critique then you should expect to learn something and that process might not make you happy.

If you do ask for a critique I think you should also provide some notes about what you are trying to achieve, and anything you are unsure of

I often look at pictures people post and compare it to what I am doing – if it is better I ask about the technique and there is usually a reply

I feel a duty to encourage people into the hobby. Piling onto their first efforts is likely to discourage them

I think you will also find that culturally Russians are more direct

John

While I don't comment on the quality of a paint-job – although I do wonder why people feel the need to post pictures of obviously inferior work – if someone's made genuine historical blunders, especially with a relatively obscure subject that's not easily researched, I think it's important that other readers be made aware of them so that they don't repeat them. And to my knowledge, I have no Slavic genetic heritage.