Dealing with feedback.
polycounter lvl 20
I have yet to ban the new IP you are posting from, but I have banned the 4 new accounts you've spammed us from.
I thought, instead of contacting you outside of Polycount we'd handle this here, out in the open, so others may learn a thing or two.
And no, I don't mean I'm about to berate you for spamming our forum and people can learn from that. That's fine. We get spam everyday and for what its worth you're just another drop in the bucket when it comes to spam. It takes all of 10 seconds for me to handle all of your accounts and IP addresses so I promise you, its not sweat off my or the other admins backs here at Polycount.
However, I do want to talk with you about how you're handling things. You're young and I can remember feeling attacked when given feedback from Polycount (I've been coming here for nearly half my life now, and I'm 29 years old). I would often times write out large replies to people that with many more words than necessarily would essentially say 'go fuck yourself'. Before I would submit these replies I would take a breather, re-read their feedback and try and absorb it as criticism of my abilities as an artist and not my character as a person.
My understand is that you received some feedback on your models that you may not agree with or found to be harsh. Before taking to spam you thought sending private messages to some of those users was the best course of action. And while sending PM's is totally fine here at Polycount, the content of which they contain is not.
One thing you'll want to realize and realize quickly, is everyone here wants to see you get better. Or they did, maybe now they just want to see you go away. But before this spamming stint of yours everyone was trying to help. It may have been blunt feedback. Perhaps it wasn't wrapped in sugar like you're use to at other forums. But every single person who's ever commented on your work wanted to see you grow as an artist. I know the feeling. You feel you're growing and have done a bang up job only to receive less-than-positive feedback on your abilities as an artist. I've been there many times in the past. Far too often as young artists do we put up blinders when we're learning and think we're doing well only to realize we have a lot to learn still. When you're first told this it can be a punch to the gut and discouraging. It's all too easy to take given feedback personally rather than objectively.
Unfortunately you took the feedback from others harshly and acted out immaturely.
This is no way to deal with feedback - inside or outside of Polycount. Polycount now has 40,000+ registered videogame artists. Virtually every single studio you could think of has an artist here at Polycount. And while your contact information isn't out there for everyone to see, its not hard to find if people go looking. I've seen far too many artists get black listed at studios for their behaviour at Polycount and I'd hate to see it happen to you at such a young age.
You have some growing up to do - as an artist.
Dealing with feedback is part of the job. I mean that. I've been in the industry now for about 7 years and have shipped 8 games. Not a day goes by where I don't give & receive feedback. Being a talented individual isn't the only part that comes with being a successful artist in this industry.
So please, take these words in, compose yourself and come back to us when you're ready to learn. We'll be here ready and willing to lend a hand if you're ready and willing to listen.
If you - or anyone reading this - wants to contact me directly regarding criticism, Polycount, the community or being an artist you can feel free to contact me directly: adam(at)polycount.com
:thumbup:
I thought, instead of contacting you outside of Polycount we'd handle this here, out in the open, so others may learn a thing or two.
And no, I don't mean I'm about to berate you for spamming our forum and people can learn from that. That's fine. We get spam everyday and for what its worth you're just another drop in the bucket when it comes to spam. It takes all of 10 seconds for me to handle all of your accounts and IP addresses so I promise you, its not sweat off my or the other admins backs here at Polycount.
However, I do want to talk with you about how you're handling things. You're young and I can remember feeling attacked when given feedback from Polycount (I've been coming here for nearly half my life now, and I'm 29 years old). I would often times write out large replies to people that with many more words than necessarily would essentially say 'go fuck yourself'. Before I would submit these replies I would take a breather, re-read their feedback and try and absorb it as criticism of my abilities as an artist and not my character as a person.
My understand is that you received some feedback on your models that you may not agree with or found to be harsh. Before taking to spam you thought sending private messages to some of those users was the best course of action. And while sending PM's is totally fine here at Polycount, the content of which they contain is not.
One thing you'll want to realize and realize quickly, is everyone here wants to see you get better. Or they did, maybe now they just want to see you go away. But before this spamming stint of yours everyone was trying to help. It may have been blunt feedback. Perhaps it wasn't wrapped in sugar like you're use to at other forums. But every single person who's ever commented on your work wanted to see you grow as an artist. I know the feeling. You feel you're growing and have done a bang up job only to receive less-than-positive feedback on your abilities as an artist. I've been there many times in the past. Far too often as young artists do we put up blinders when we're learning and think we're doing well only to realize we have a lot to learn still. When you're first told this it can be a punch to the gut and discouraging. It's all too easy to take given feedback personally rather than objectively.
Unfortunately you took the feedback from others harshly and acted out immaturely.
nope, you are sad sorry excuse for a human being and I won't let you get away with talking crap. You only want to assist others with being part of the meat elite. Make a couple of things before you decide to judge anyone to your "standards" again. And I hope one day when you are in an insane
asylum you will realize I was right.
This is no way to deal with feedback - inside or outside of Polycount. Polycount now has 40,000+ registered videogame artists. Virtually every single studio you could think of has an artist here at Polycount. And while your contact information isn't out there for everyone to see, its not hard to find if people go looking. I've seen far too many artists get black listed at studios for their behaviour at Polycount and I'd hate to see it happen to you at such a young age.
You have some growing up to do - as an artist.
Dealing with feedback is part of the job. I mean that. I've been in the industry now for about 7 years and have shipped 8 games. Not a day goes by where I don't give & receive feedback. Being a talented individual isn't the only part that comes with being a successful artist in this industry.
So please, take these words in, compose yourself and come back to us when you're ready to learn. We'll be here ready and willing to lend a hand if you're ready and willing to listen.
If you - or anyone reading this - wants to contact me directly regarding criticism, Polycount, the community or being an artist you can feel free to contact me directly: adam(at)polycount.com
:thumbup:
This discussion has been closed.
Replies
Taking crits is hard, when I first joined it was like gettin hit in the head with a brick. I went from being praised at college to realizing I was not as far along as I thought. From what I can tell you are not taking this transition very well. You just need to remember no one here was trying to attack you. The only way you can grow as a artist is to step back from your art and be able to analyze it. that's what others are doing, they did not make the art so thy don't have a emotional attachment to it, you do. You need to be able to push back that feeling to truly accept crits and improve your self.
set your ego aside, and accept the help people give.
If you want cherry covered advice, then go to DA, where a large number of people don't have jobs and have more then 5 minutes in writing poetry about your piece.
I know I asked this in another thread but I can't find it now. What did he do to get banned? It's actually pretty hard to get banned from PC hah.
The gist is a user didn't handle some feedback well and PM'd people giving him feedback with personal attacks and the like. They then went on to create false accounts and spam the boards. If you hadn't seen it, that means we did a good job cleaning it up.
Andreas - banned for spamming. We have a 1 strike rule on spam.
I was obviously being figurative in terms of there being a physical list somewhere. There's been, on a number of occasions, people chiming in saying they'll keep a look out for individuals applying to their studio and avoiding them if they were to do so. The point being: Don't be a dick in a public forum of your peers. :thumbup:
racer, you're fine
So to recap: Take feedback objectively, at face value, and derive from it points you'll find helpful. Personally attacking people for trying to offer feedback is not the way to go.
Also, don't spam Polycount. That's dumb.
in all seriousness, if the kid doesn't become self-aware of this at a point then it's going to be a real problem eventually. personally, i think people like this who can't take any kind of feedback are probably just not meant for any sort of creative-related job. feedback is an integral part of the job.
also yeah: don't be a dick
lol :poly142:
Seriously though, that kid needs to chill out, maybe a callout thread will get his attention. Just talking to him doesn't seem to work.
Wish he wasn't doing this during all the E3 buzz at least.
I've seen other people that went to school with him post that he acted similarly to faculty, so it should be obvious at this point he's not going to change.
While I do kind of agree with this, on the other hand I also don't feel it's too terribly extreme given the guy's posting history. I'm not going to link to his profile, but suffice it to say that his threads and posts were full of nothing but vitriolic bullshit and butthurt over feedback that was entirely reasonable, and he continued to make the same mistakes, both game art related and regarding interacting with other people.
The only way to get better is by having other artists critique, i never understood the maco mentality of my art is uber awesome you suck blah blah blah. Im 27 maybe im just getting old now in my thinking :-)
I still don't have a job so polycount is my life and the feedback and resources make it what it is. So many pro's here why the hell wouldnt you want to listen. They are pros for a reason ...
Mmm kinda but it's not like this is an anonymous 4chan-like forum where someones anonymity is stripped and everyone sends them death threats or something. His name was in his signature and on his website (which was also in his signature), so it was his posts that were damaging his real name anyway.
I don't think anything sinister was intended other than to try and get a former member of the forum to grow up.
His identity was no big secret, his resume is on his site. We all knew who he was already.
R13 can usually be found in the Minecraft server thread.
It's scary to expose oneself, it's scary for veterans to post their stuff and hopefully they'll live up to the standard that is expected of them.
Hopefully stuff like this can be avoided in the future if we all try. However in the end, to really succeed in any business where you have to take direction and critique you need to be a little bit more tough-skinned. In the end we all want to master our craft, we want to be the best and we want the best for each other even though it's a competitive industry.
that's a perfectly valid reason to mock and call him names, bb made a name for himself
it hasn't come at once, and unless he needs urgent help, all stuff here is justified.
The only thing personal about my post was what I already wrote about;, I've been there. Albeit not as intensely as I reckon it was for this fellow, but I've been there none the less. Using his name - which was absolutely no secrete and was right there in many of his own posts - was done so for him to have read it. In hindsight I have removed his name from the topic and will send him an email suggesting he check out this thread.
Shame on me for trying to bring light to a relatively negative event here on the site. I am glad, though, there's comments from differing opinions.
I agree with the OP for sure. It's easy to get worked up when someone lays a harsh critique on you. I mean, if you spend many hours putting all you've got into something, only to get shot down, it can be upsetting. But if people take the time to give you that feedback they just want you to get better. It's best to just take emotion out of it, and try to remove yourself from your own work, and then you can see it from their perspective and work on improving it.
Sometimes I can still get annoyed, and write off someone's critique in my mind, but after a few days of contemplation realize that they were completely right. It's always better to delay your reaction rather than going on an offended rant after someone critiques your work.
Oh sir, this isnt even close to the truth. If they want someone to get better, they would critique everyone's work. Some who have to bump their work repeatedly do not see it this way. Personally it took me about 2 years to figure out that you would say that "here people want to see you get better." In Reality right when you get off from your computer seat, you wont remember who anyone is unless you know them in real life, Nor you would give a damn about them. No offense.
With that in mind I also figured out that if you critique someone's work and he doesnt take it well, dont try to make him understand anything because that is going to bite you later on. Leave him be and allow him to adjust to the brutal truth that you or any critique told him.
Heh, you know whats funny? As an Admin you maybe allowed to do this and expose personal issues to the general discussion. If it was say...Me trying to do the same you and others would ask me to take it to PMs.
I know you meant well but its kind of a Hypocritical act on your part is it not?
Anyways. These were on my 2cents this morning.
With kind regards
Nitewalkr.
Ban him or give him infraction warning for being a Dick?
It certainly does come off as hypocritical but it has to be, given my position on the team. I'm OK with that as the majority of artists here know my intentions are positive or meaningful.
If for every 100 PM's I send to people I need to use 1 of them to start a general topic of discussion for our forum, I'm OK with that. I just won't use someones real name the next time around.
Luckily for me this kind of post isn't something I typically do. My intentions are good, which I've already expressed I believe most of you are aware of. I took no offense to the person in the OP and what they were doing here. To think otherwise is silly. I just used it to catapult the broader topic of 'feedback'.
7 or 8 account bans. 1 IP block. I was going to a second IP block but I thought, instead, this post would be of use to him and others so I used it as an example.
Maybe not all of you realize, but he posted at least 3 or 4 threads yesterday that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. People commenting on those threads posted links to his website. Yet, they did not get reamed out like adam did.
I've been an active member of a few forums in the past, and the way adam posted this is perfectly normal.
Adam approached this in the best way possible, and I learned something (well, it was more of a reminder):
"Virtually every single studio you could think of has an artist here at Polycount. And while your contact information isn't out there for everyone to see, its not hard to find if people go looking. I've seen far too many artists get black listed at studios for their behaviour at Polycount and I'd hate to see it happen to you at such a young age."
This is true... a lot of people that have applied here, most of them i know their work from the preview section when i see their portfolio.
So its just bad etiquette i think... and you are burning your bridges. Why would you want to seclude yourself in that way?
I think the whole thing had to be addressed, and people giving feedback is a good thing. Maybe the name was inappropriate, but hey... now we know. Right?
I think if you are going to go out on our forum and act like a complete turd and have nothing positive to contribute to the community and then call members that are indeed trying to help clueless meat heads and other names then you should be called out for your behavior. Act like a damn adult on here. Sure we get a bit carried away sometimes but I don't see Adams post wrong in any way.
Many of us use our real names on here just like this user used his name / website in his signature so he was very widely known and any person should understand that acting like a dick has consequences...
Does the above image sound like a message from anyone we want part of our community or workplace? Do you want to have this guy blow up in an art meeting because someone tells him his texture isn't up to par or the proportions are wrong and don't match the concept?
The vast majority of PC gets this is a professional community and acts accordingly. A thread like this is preaching to the lowest common denominator and thats just pointless.
Sounds like a fairy tail to me though lol. Lets face it some people are just born to be an ass, parts of the brain where empathy is produced were just never formed right and 4Chan is a perfect scientific example.
I fucking lost it when I read
"I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE"
what the hell is he man polycount first super villan? I thought that title was reserved for belias
While it's always good to remind people of a good lesson (in this case, learning to take critiques), maybe it could have been presented differently to the community in a way unrelated to the drama that has produced it.
Yeah that's about it really; A more direct approach unattached to any 'drama' as to not cloud the message.
"You've not seen the last of this fellow, heroes!"
The harsh critiques are why I came to polycount. When I finished school, I was not up to par at all. Many other communities hit my work with kid gloves but I never got any better because people wouldn't critique me harshly. Here though, you guys ripped my asshole through my face. I had to man up pretty quick but because of that, I feel like I have become a better artist and I can take critiques better because of it.
Normally calling someone out on something may not be the best method, but chances are this kid thought he was being so smooth with different user names and maybe, calling him out by name will snap it into his head that we know what he's doing. I just imagine him acting like a villain from Scooby Doo that just had his mask ripped off.
It was the hotel manager all along.
Haha god dammit.
I did a search on his name to see what all this noise was about (before it went down earlier) and saw this guy had a deviant art that went down (banned as well) but doing a search on his name showed a CG Portfolio a facebook and a deviant art, all sharing the same name, and lord and behold this guy isnt exactly the kid everyone is making out to be.
Why am I bringing this up at all?
2 reasons
1 for the admins so you guys understand how easily I did this
2 for all of you to realize how easily this info is to find and track.
We are throwing stones at a guy who we know isnt the best to work with and cant take feedback and 1 half of the people want him to learn and grow and the other half want to burn him at the stake...even if these attentions from the admins WHERE for the greater good of a example from everyone to learn from, look at what the general people of polycount have caused and how easy the info was to find on this guy. If I was a recruiter or developer or lead and happened to see this. Even if this guy got his shit together I wouldnt pay him the mind of day because of the kinda flaming issues he caused.
I think this guy is causing enough of his own issues with what he is doing but making examples of him is like a witch hunt. In the end someone is gonna get burnt and that effects them more then just a few months, that can follow them the entire careers. And no offense to you self taught guys but people who went to school and have a high tuition over there head but arent at the right emotional skill level yet to work, when they mature and get there shit together (if they do) it isnt fair that they EVER have this over there head...Seriously this would make them more bitter and resentful that they not only went to school, and had a bumpy start but people are already shutting them out completely due to some stupid growing pains mistakes.
Why do I bring this up...because this has happened to me in the past when I was younger and this site (though has given to me more then taking away) caused me at that time a job and a blacklisting for something simple.
So I say on behalf of speaking for this guys potential career that maybe one of you admins close and delete this thread and we all go off and tease about this secretly on our facebooks like we usually do. And lets leave this public affair closed for everyone
Until then he will:
Well damn it worked for a moment. Those opening words made me think you were talking to me for a split second. Anyway it's a sad day to see private messages like that being sent, I hope the person who acted this way looks back at this when he is older and cringes because I "know" he will.
This is a young man who is:
- actively hurting his reputation
- disputing this community
- learning that is behavior is accepted
He needs some correction for our and his own good. Given his reputation and previous behavior in other communities, it was determined that some stern words and a finger shaking probably wasn't going to do squat. I'm not sure if the paragraph about was enough to be honest. But it was an honest straight forward talk about what he was doing is wrong and urged him to think twice about his actions before he acts.
As far as calling him out by name, I think it's necessary so he can't dismiss it as not concerning him. He seems to need specific facts and details to anchor his thoughts and this wasn't a chat we wanted him to dismiss. I expect he probably did, but we are trying to help. As the original post said, this is about offering advice to someone that we think needs it.
However, once he started spamming us, any tenancy to more discreet actions on our part went out the window.