</Rant>
Wow. If I ever have to explain what a strawman fallacy is, I found what I'll use to do it. I'm not even going to pretend that I don't find this post to be the most elitist example of a confirmation bias that I've ever seen, because I
absolutely do. The difference is that I can think this through past a knee-jerk reaction and I actually want to
explain my reasoning, so I'm going to set aside that personal opinion to take this from the top.
On the most basic level you might have had a point, if Crimmy had been the one to bring up his opinion of collabs first. It's no secret that he doesn't like them. It's no secret that
I don't like them, nor is it one for Silvan, Plank, or Onarax. But not one of those people (myself included) were the ones to broach the subject. The vague 'you' in "you make collabs scapegoats"
has no target. Pyro expressed an opinion, from their perspective, on KESS' collab. Harine observed a trend (which others have pointed out before), and Lucius stated that it might be "more dynamic" to handle things post-by-post for that mission at this point.
The key factor here is that none of these people (whom I don't pretend to speak for, their opinions are their own) traditionally express a negative attitude towards collabs. My stance is well known, but
so is yours.
Everything you express is a matter of confirmation bias.
Your experience, which is a completely valid one. But no one else is you. No one else is me. I hate to state the obvious, but you don’t seem to grasp that your experiences are not universal. Harine observing that collabs are anathemic to activity, Pyro stating that interest has been lost, and that participating in a collab again is unlikely, and Crimmy stating that they always have been are not universal, either. But they’re experiences that are every bit as valid as yours. Where you lose validity is in projecting your experience on everyone else, and claiming that hating collabs is a scapegoat for personal issues. It is not.
Let us pretend, for a second, that collabs are a scapegoat. You propose instating a deadline to get everyone moving, but will a deadline solve;
- No free time
- No willpower
- Being busy
- Writer’s block
These are the problems you brought up, the problems collabs are (allegedly) a scapegoat for. Deadlines won’t solve any of them. Deadlines won’t create more time. Deadlines won’t create more energy. Deadlines won’t make a busy schedule go away. Deadlines won’t break writer’s block. General motivation I’ll give you; a deadline can be an excellent external motivator. But even if we look at it from that perspective, a deadline would solve 20% of the problems brought up. You have
no support from me on the matter of deadlines.
Deadlines are a failed solution,
and that is if we pretend you’re right. I don’t have to be told to “quit making excuses” because I’m not making any, so maybe we can knock off the elitist projecting. Your experiences don’t override everyone else’s. In fact solutions
have been proposed, this time
and the last time this argument happened, and they amounted to “handle things post-by-post”.
Which I have. Me and Crimmy, and the rest of BASL, JCL, and VGNB on top of that, have stuck to our guns and contributed between us the majority of posts that occurred over the past four months. The only exception is the last week, and perhaps the week before, where a substantial portion has been contributed
by the people done with missions who’ve returned to playing post-by-post. Imagine that. In fact we would even have a much higher amount of posts this week, but the people who have been contributing activity for months have been waiting for the next installment of our mission. So let’s add “gross misrepresentation of data” to “strawman” and “confirmation bias”.
Collabs absolutely have their place, and it’s for when you’re handling a structured interaction. A scene that has been carefully considered, and has no room for interruption. Or perhaps a sequence best suited to a single post where it can be read without any posts breaking it up. The majority of a game’s interactions for months upon months should not occur in collabs. As Harine has noted,
that is detrimental to activity. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again; where I’m from, collabs are called ‘jams’. Like jam they are a topping, not a meal.
Your attention span doesn’t matter, and implying that anyone who dislikes collabs has that of a goldfish (+20 buff to elitism) is just a dick move. Stop projecting.
*Checks watch*
Huh, guess it's about that time. Excuse me while I bang my head against a wall while this conversation happens for the umpteenth time
Me too, man. There’s a dent in my desk and a matching one in my skull from where I’ve been hitting it. There’s nothing new to be said, and at this point I don’t even like talking about any problems I see because this always happens.
But ultimately, I
do want to help out. I love this game, and I love this cast of characters. I wouldn’t bother writing up posts like this if I didn’t. I’m just sick of having to do it. I just want missions done so I can go back to having fun, and stop having to address this fucking problem every other month.
