3183 Board Room Surprise
on December 10, 2018
Chapter: Voyage of the Azure Osprey
Characters: Baron Ellishand of Elwood City, Caelin, Captain Darcy, Eddy the Mage, Lord David, Morgana, Runtherd "Runt", Sir Aeden, Sir Idries of Falconheim, T'Chall the Pooka
Location: Azure Osprey
Want to say something, but don’t want to be yelled at about spoilers
a) What could you possibly know that would be a spoiler at this point? Even *I* don’t know exactly what’s going to happen yet.
b) Wouldn’t it simply have been better not to say anything at all than to petulantly announce that you know something everyone else doesn’t?
I’m going to define here what I consider to be rude spoilerly behaviour. If anyone’s reading THIS comic and is up to date, and/or refuses to go back and catch up to where we are presently then you can make connections and speculate all you like. The only one who knows if you’re right or not is me and I ain’t usually tellin’. (Y’know unless I’m feeling particularly chuffed about how clever I am.)
Posting these connections and speculation on OLD strips is rude and spoilery for anyone who’s doing the catch-up binge for the first time. Don’t do that. Also don’t dump on their speculations when they’re making them on the OLD strips that are ‘current’ to them. Don’t be that guy who sits in the theater with you after he’s seen the film a dozen times, points at the screen when something interesting is about to happen and giggles or -worst of all- says the dialogue along with the film.
How is telling someone, after they made a negative comment about a character, to "Keep Reading" a spoiler?
Have been reading this webic for a very long time, and just wanted them to keep going because it seemed to me that page may have turned them off (have seen that happen, may not have been with _this_ webic butt certainly with others)
I appreciate the sentiment, but the archives don’t need a guide. If they get turned off and stop reading, that’s their decision. But people can add comments and reactions all they like I want to read their reactions to the drama and outrage I’ve set up deliberately.
You would be happy for someone to stop reading after less than 300 pages? o_O
Thought you would be happy to have your readers encouraging someone new to stick around (even if they aren’t new)
No Guesticus, I don’t want you acting like some kind of bullying cheerleader. Knock it off please.
Not bullying, butt certainly feeling like being bullied
I have asked you to stop doing a thing that I don’t like. Even my patience is not unlimited.
Stop using nicknames? Believe slipped up once
Stop posting spoilers? Believe have done that
Stop defending self from attacks? Can’t do that
Ok, the best way to stop a negative feedback loop is to just stop. Otherwise it escalates to the point where people forget where it started and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Can I suggest that Rich be allowed to continue his excellent comic undisturbed and if Guesticus is convinced he (or she) is being bullied, then nobody can convince him (or her) otherwise, and it is therefore futile to try.
Not wanting to pile on here, Guesticus, but in that context, "Keep reading" very clearly means "Wait; he’s gonna redeem himself."
And a negative comment about a character doesn’t mean a person is turned off by the strip itself. In fact, the comment you responded to was a pretty clear "Boo, hiss! Villain!" line, which means the reader is engaged with the comic. Don’t deny her the fun of rooting against a (at that moment) bad guy.
And that couldn’t have meant "It gets worse!"?
(EDIT: It just struck me how confusing this whole exchange looks, since it has nothing to do with the current strip. For clarification, Guesticus’s initial comment was referring to a recent exchange in the comments of an earlier strip, where Rich and others called him out over spoilers.)
Nah, I understood what was going on.
In spirit of your own thoughts above, Aaron, might I put forth a modest proposal of comment area protocol, offered here as a suggestion for those of us who come here to enjoy YAFGC. These are the values and priorities I try to uphold, personally, when I’m here.
1) Let’s treat this website as if we’re standing in Rich’s home. He’s a gracious and magnanimous host, he extends courtesy and patience to his guests, but ultimately, this is his turf, we are guests upon it, and our relationship with Rich, in this space, should reflect understanding that we are conditionally invited into this space by his invitation alone. The fact that the door’s unlocked and the sign says "Welcome" does not change the fact that it’s private property, it has a host, and Rich categorically outranks all of us with respect to this space. When there are disagreements, let us agree that, for purposes of this space, Rich is the final authority.
2) When our host says "Please stop doing something," it is not necessary to understand why. (That’s a bonus objective, possibly to addressed later. It’s nice to know, but it’s not a prerequisite of stopping.) What is necessary is to stop doing the thing in question, to the best of our ability, and with sincere application of understanding, effort, and diligence. We are, after all, making our host unhappy, and if we’re here to visit with him and his marvelous comic, making him unhappy is a thing we don’t want to do. That’s at odds with the whole "fan and admirer" thing we have going on.
3) Let us recognize that intent and impact are two different things. If I’m standing on your foot, the fact that I never meant to hurt you, didn’t realize your foot was there, and/or didn’t think it would be a problem doesn’t really matter; I have had a negative impact on your foot, despite completely benign intentions. When someone says "Ouch! Get off my foot," focusing on vindicating oneself through exploration of intent is not the right course of action; addressing the impact is a better strategy. Get off the foot!
4) Criticism of an action taken or suggested is not an "attack" on a person. Request to cease and desist is not an attack. Social spaces are shared environments, in which we sacrifice some of our individual freedom for sake of harmony. This is just a reality of multiple people sharing a space together, and since this is Rich’s space, Rich’s vision of what makes for agreeable, harmonious cohabitation here is the model we follow.
5) Mistakes happen, misunderstandings happen, and sometimes, we even do things we wish we hadn’t. "Oops, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking" is a powerful sentence indeed, especially when one stops there, modifies one’s behavior for the here-on-out, and that’s the end of the matter.
6) What all of us here have in common is that we like YAFGC. Things that distract a reader from enjoying YAFGC are detrimental to the purpose of why we, and presumably they, are here. Deferring to our host and creator here, and respecting that his vision of civility and courtesy are the ones governing this space we share in his metaphorical living room, is how we show respect for the space, for our privilege to occupy this space, and for the awesome comic that brought us to the space in the first place.
Again, I’m not a moderator or anything, just a fellow fan. These perspectives and practices have served me well, and help me focus on being a good, supportive, and (hopefully) easy-to-get-along-with fan.
Agrecian with the majority of what you posted
Yes, I agree as well. Rich is our host and we are the guests. As guests we have a responsibility to respect Rich’s space. I think we also have a responsibility to respect Rich’s creation, since it is his to make however he wishes.
Now that that seriousness has been gone through, can we get back to being mostly silly, pleeeeeeease… 😀
Always for being (mostly) silly, just everyone takes me far too seriously
LOOONG overdue response to this, shameful when one takes into account that your post accomplishes for my view of online discussion what my post about TV Tropes did for your views on that.
*Twenty years* it’s been since I also came up with the Guest In Someone’s Home analogy, a comparison so bloody obvious it amazes me that I have – believe it or not – never experienced anyone else presenting it before now.
Your guidelines flow beautifully from it.
(And it’s why I never confront anybody online until it’s clear they’re being a pain to my host.)
I had a roommate once who asked me not to use his plastic chopsticks to stir the frozen orange juice: "I know it’s irrational, but could you please not." No problem – that’s what reasonable co-existers do.
With that in mind, there is one thing I would like to add to your list. As we can see in these comments, and in too many similar instances elsewhere, Richard has felt the need to write a long response. That took time. And no doubt he also spent a lot of time thinking about that reply – time he could have better spent thinking not about how he should handle a conflict, but which he could have devoted to thinking about his comic, the excitement he feels creating it, the ideas he wants to share with us. This time was stolen from him. To the detriment of this comic.
And that’s what I want to add: No person who refuses to abide by the guidelines you’ve set out can claim with honesty to love this comic. These guidelines are reasonable. These guidelines put Richard – and therefore the comic – first. Anybody who refuses to abide by these guidelines is *hurting* this comic, for no better motive than their own selfishness.
t!
As long as it’s just to aid airflow, no harm with spoilers 😛
…way to make me feel really guilty over that little "shhh". What have I unleashed…
I’m sorry 🙁
Nothing to feel bad about, not about the "shhh" anyway 😛
That’s one innocent face there.
Aw, a wise guy, eh? Nyuk nyuk nyuk 😛
He said Runt: "I’ve got a Runt job for you." Not his fault if you understood ‘little.’
t!
I hope you have a more detailed version of this plan, Runt, because right now you sound like an Underpants Gnome.
But, profit! XD
Overthrowing an empire and taking down an evil warlord goddess? Sounds like another Tuesday afternoon to me.
After going back and re-reading some old random pages (still enjoy the odd archive swim), why does Runt look younger now than when he had long hair? o_O
Compare with page 2573, _that_ Runt was looking grownup and handsome
All rrright!
Forty days – who won the betting pool?
t!