Dealing with criticism

Lewisham

So I presented some work on my lab's academic blog here: http://eis-blog.ucsc.edu/2010/02/space-invaders-enterprise-edition/. It presents a rule engine (some boring enterprise thing) being used as a way of specifying game design. I created a prototype to illustrate the point. For a joke, I called it "Space Invaders Enterprise Edition".

This morning it blew up, and got reported on Hacker News and Reddit.

Hacker News seemed to mostly get it, but a few quizzical posts were nothing I couldn't handle. The Reddit crowd really went to town on me, completely getting the wrong end of the stick, thinking I'm an incompetent enterprise programmer who made a crappy game:

"If it is not a joke, please, for the love of god and all that is holy, find another profession.
"He's a British PhD student. I'm assuming he's used to being somewhat condescending about anyone who opted to, you know, earn some money. I've already discovered that he lacks a sense of humour... or, apparently, the perspective to realise that writing rules in an overly verbose Prolog dialect is still programming."
"i really thought this was a parody... omg. "
"If it was serious, it is a total crap. Game is totally unplayable, yet it is a fucking 9 MB jar file. So if was trying to demonstrate how cool rules are, he failed, as, apparently, he wasn't able to make even a really simple game with them."

I'm not sure whether to respond to these people who really didn't get the point of the post or not. I find the comments hurtful, and I'm not used to criticism. I'm overly sensitive. It bothers me getting criticism directed right at me.

How do I shrug it off? Should I? Should I just not read comments again? Should I comment?

It's something that's going to come up time and time again when I get papers reviewed, and any negativity there is a bother, but at least I feel like the reviewers didn't have their knifes out.

Enc

The only reason people post on the internet is to make themselves feel important. This is what everything from your criticism to blogs to this advice post (hurray meta) is all about. Those blasting your work probably did not read it in full and quite likely wouldn't listen to a thought out response. They want to bash you to feel important. Like all criticism, if they don't get the point, then there is nothing you can do to stop them. Shrug, laugh, and pass over destructive criticism by seeing what it truly is. Crap. Acknowledging it will only encourage them to blast it more without understanding your purpose.

Let it go and laugh, knowing that your work is probably more awesome than anything those blasting it ever have or ever will achieve.

Adda

If you're not intersted in debating with greater Internet fuckwads then I'd just avoid reading comments in places like that. In your situation i'd stick to proffesional and peer review.

Congrats on getting some recognition for your work though.

Aegis

<obligatory John Gabriel's Internet Fuckwad Theory mention>

Your blog comments seem to be the audience that you're aiming for in what you do. By contrast, reddit's format of being a popular "what's new now" format, you're both going to get people who don't give a fuck and people who have no idea what you're trying to do because they honestly don't understand or come from the background.

I'd just ignore reddit and keep responding to the folks interested in your blog.

Zombiemambo

I'm sorry this isn't helpful at all, but what about this makes it worth garnering so much criticism? Isn't it just a neat way to code something?

Satsumomo

Normal person + Anonymity + Audience = Total fuckwad

It's a basic rule, just go to any site and people are general fuckwads, and most of the time miss the point completely. Read any sarcastic article by Jim Sterling on Destructoid, and you'll be surprised how many people don't get the sarcasm at all, and go for personal insults against Jim, because they didn't get it.

CelestialBadger

Do not comment. Shrug it off. There is nothing more undignified than getting into an internet slanging match.

admanb

You should ignore it.

I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who disagrees with most of your arguments, fyi. But there's a big difference between making an argument, and what the people on Reddit do.

Grizzled

I wouldn't worry about it.
Maybe a little positive note would help: I read a lot of reddit, digg, forums, rss feeds, etc., both related to my academic work and to my hobbies and interests Usually when something is good, I don't comment; I just bookmark/save/send it to all my friends. There may have been 10 people who thought your stuff was cool (I did) for every 1 unpleasant person who posted, but none of those 10 people are going to comment/

Lewisham

Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone. I appreciate it. I'll sit on my hands for a little bit and see how things shake out tomorrow; hopefully by then the "drive-by" commenters will have gone.

Zombiemambo: Yes, it is a neat way to code something. That's all it is supposed to do. My hope is that game designers can read the files better. The "Enterprise Edition" joke seemed to have riled people up, and then the throwaway comment about double-for loops being hard was supposed to be a token of humility to the game designers, artists and other non-programmers that read the blog. That, it seemed, was the point where I implied I didn't know anything. Also fond of the guy who thought I was clueless about object-oriented programming. What a star he was

Gafoto

These read like Youtube video comments with slightly fewer 'faggots' and 'douchebags' thrown in. Don't take every person on the internet too seriously.

Ballman

Lewisham wrote: »

Thanks for all the encouragement, everyone. I appreciate it. I'll sit on my hands for a little bit and see how things shake out tomorrow; hopefully by then the "drive-by" commenters will have gone.

Zombiemambo: Yes, it is a neat way to code something. That's all it is supposed to do. My hope is that game designers can read the files better. The "Enterprise Edition" joke seemed to have riled people up, and then the throwaway comment about double-for loops being hard was supposed to be a token of humility to the game designers, artists and other non-programmers that read the blog. That, it seemed, was the point where I implied I didn't know anything. Also fond of the guy who thought I was clueless about object-oriented programming. What a star he was

I want to let you know that this thread has single-handedly convinced me to not blog about any of my research. I think it's interesting stuff, and I had thought about it, but there's no way I'm going to release it into the wild to be misinterpreted like that.

I also have to say that criticism has probably been the toughest part of my research as well. Even established professionals often have a hard time writing reviews of your work that are less than scathing. I've made it a point to grow some thicker skin as a result, but it's very tough.

Drswords

Id just like to say, i spent about 30 minutes reading your article, and looking at the java file.

That was pretty darn cool.

Don't listen to the internet. Its a den of iniquity, scum and villany. ( Internet Fuckwad Theory.. etc )

desperaterobots

I had my website for my art featured on some blogs recently and there were some negative comments about my work on those posts.

I just realised that they're probably shitty artists.

ceres

Aegis wrote: »

I'd just ignore reddit and keep responding to the folks interested in your blog.

This. Worry about your intended audience; there's no need to respond to people who don't get it and won't try.

Lewisham

Again, thanks to all of you for your kind words. I'm trying to shrug it off, and tomorrow is another day The people I respect at Hacker News liked it, I had some people start following the source code (one person even submitted a patch to me), so the people I care about seem to really get what I was trying to do.

Ballman wrote: »

I want to let you know that this thread has single-handedly convinced me to not blog about any of my research. I think it's interesting stuff, and I had thought about it, but there's no way I'm going to release it into the wild to be misinterpreted like that.

I also have to say that criticism has probably been the toughest part of my research as well. Even established professionals often have a hard time writing reviews of your work that are less than scathing. I've made it a point to grow some thicker skin as a result, but it's very tough.

Well, I hope you change your mind! I was one of the most vocal proponents of creating the blog in the first place, and its really important that your work, especially if its publicly funded, engages the wider community. I really felt like the blog serves a mission of engagement, and that whatever happens, having that engagement can only be a good thing.

Yes, it's hard to have people insulting me or my work, but I don't regret that post getting as much coverage as it has. If it convinces just 10 people that my work is somewhat cool, or that their tax money that goes into university research is not wasted, then I consider that a win. If it convinces just one student that video game research is awesome and makes them think about going on to do it at a graduate level, then that would be even better.

I really dislike the old guard of academics who think that just getting the papers published is all that matters, and its that view of the stuffy academy that us younger Internet-literate graduate students can start sweeping away.

corcorigan

You need to get your work published to secure grants.

Al_wat

You've opened yourself to the unwashed masses of the internet.

Lesser men would go insane at a mere glimpse of what you have unleashed.


Basically don't worry about it. Anything and everything on the internet which is exposed to enough people's opinions will get shat all over. It doesn't matter if it is the best idea in the world.
So don't beat yourself up over it.

Bendery It Like Beckham

The only real response you can post when people randomly criticize you for no reason with that much... anger? is "lol noobs"

You could post that but it would cause problems, so just laugh and utter to yourself "lol noobs"

admanb

corcorigan wrote: »

You need to get your work published to secure grants.

And you gotta secure grants so you can get more work published!

ronya

You know, this being the Internet, there's a good chance that some troll will see your post, then think it really funny to then harass you personally for a while.

Showing weakness to the great anonymized masses only prompts them to bite.

H/A is a fairly closed community of posters, duly to heavy moderation. But please don't ever expect to rely on the Internet for personal validation, especially since you're going to keep posting. This being, well, the Internet, there's a non-trivial chance that the first person to Slashdot your latest cool thing writes a summary saying "This is where your tax dollars are going, guys!" and then you receive hate mail for the next year.

Just shrug it off.

Hypatia

Speaking as someone who tends to take things too seriously and has a tough time letting criticism like that go, I've generally found a few effective ways to deal with it:

1) Don't read it. If you see a post, e-mail, or thread that seems like it's going to be something you'll be upset over, don't give in to curiosity. Just delete it or skip over it. If you feel like you absolutely must know what's in it (like it might have important information) see if you can get a more laid back friend to scan it for you first and give you a thumbs up for reading it, or a 1 sentence synopsis of the important bits.

2) If you do read it and get upset, give yourself a certain amount of time to rant/cry/whatever about it to a friend and then go try to get busy so you aren't thinking about it. The best way to get over it is time, and you won't get over it if you keep rehashing the stuff and picking at the scab.

3) Try to get some perspective on it. Think about it in a "40 years from now, how much will I remember this? How important is this really? Where am I going to be compared to where that silly goose will be?"

4) Get busy with other stuff. You tend to not have time to worry about stupid things some jerk said when you're running around trying to get things done, and then by the time you think about them they're a little more remote and easier to deflect/blow off.

corcorigan

admanb wrote: »

corcorigan wrote: »

You need to get your work published to secure grants.

And you gotta secure grants so you can get more work published!

Damn right.

And more work published = a bigger penis right?

:winky:

(Slightly more on topic, stuff published in a proper journal has to pass certain standards (in theory), so it really does make sense. Any clown can stick whatever they want online (see the OP's comment-related woes). Unless you have a peer-reviewed blog of course - in which case you are basically describing a journal anyway.)