Criticizing the Critics

[RunningWild]

Disclaimer: I've posted elsewhere on here that I'm having a rant kind of day today. Beware!

I love coming to this forum. I love looking at the new decks, at the meanings that come up for the cards, checking out new books, studying the decks that I have, etc.

I do not love crabbiness, needless criticism, stupidity or rudeness just because someone feels they MUST say something in some displaced need to be recognized as knowledgeable

I love to use the cards. I don't collect for the sake of collecting. I just don't have one of those kinds of personalities. So maybe I shouldn't say anything. Except that I always do that and when the next time I see the sort of posts that irritated me in the first place, I become doubly agitated.

I've already hidden the most aggravating of the threads from my view.

I always ask myself, if I find something tarot related that puts me off, what it is that's putting me off. If I can define it, do I think I personally could do a better job of it?

Is that artist trying to portray a perspective that's difficult for even the best of artists? Could I do better?

Then there are the backs. I never realized it could be such an issue. I don't spend all that much time staring at the back of a deck so I don't really care if it's perfect. I only have to relate to the images on the fronts of the cards to do a reading.

Maybe I could understand if it was a super expensive deck. But if all I paid was between $12 and $20 for a deck, I'd be pretty satisfied with whatever was there.

Please, Please, Please People! Take a moment to think before you send that post. Is it really important to criticize things down to the tiniest pixel?

 

[AJ]

When I find my crabbiness factor is rising above my acceptable level
I unbookmark the site and take some time off. I took 6 months off from AT a couple of years ago, it did me a world of good. Usually if I take time off I find I didn't need that forum anyway it was just habit.

And I have much of AT shut off, and know whose thread not to open.
Self preservation...I'm naturally crabby so have learned not to poke my own hornets nest.

It isn't up to someone else to modify their behavior to suit us
but for us to modify our own behavior. Life is short and then we die. Why die mad at someone who hasn't got a clue you are even alive.

 

[RunningWild]

I can't quite tell if you've read my entire post or not. I'm not actually crabby, at all. I HAVE in fact hidden threads and individuals from view, and I'm not likely to take any time off from AT. It's normally one of the more joyful moments of my day. So you see, my behavior has already been modified. I have a right to certain expectations for my own behavior and the behavior of others. That's how societies manage to exist for so long.

 

[daphne]

Take a moment to think before you send that post. Is it really important to criticize things down to the tiniest pixel?

I understand you. But let`t look at this in a different way. That of mutual permissiveness.

I think we all have our little birds, the peculiarities.
And if here is a place for free expression, we can write about ours little birds (like yours being not so happy reading critics for every tiny pixel) and in the same time we should be able to tolerate the little birds of the others (who comment about that tiniest pixels).

Fair game, I think.

 

[Marie-Bernard]

I understand where you're coming from, but I like to read the criticisms as much as I do the favorable impressions. If user_Anonymous posts a scathing comment about a 2cm crazy looking whale on the bottom left-hand edge of an otherwise beautiful deck, that could just as likely be a recommendation for me - "I love a crazy whale! Where can I buy it!?" It seems like I'm more likely to hear about all the little things that may make (or break) a deck for me from a negative review rather than a positive one.

 

[RunningWild]

I used that as just one example. Because really, if someone were to shell out the money for a deck that's been OOP for (name a long length of time) , that was rare, would they then sit down and criticize the art? Probably not. And I'm not implying that one shouldn't be critical of art, mind you. I'm just saying there comes a point when the horse is dead and flogging it isn't going to make it get up and start moving again.

Nor am I implying that everyone play up a deck's positive attributes, if indeed there are any.

I'm just suggesting that perhaps criticism goes too far.

 

[AJ]

Sometimes we aren't allowed the courtesy of criticism. There is a publisher with popular decks who takes anything remotely smelling of criticism extremely personal. To the point I sold all their decks. Made a small fortune, so what the hell It also taught me to avoid mob mentality threads...just getting swept up isn't a good reason to buy a deck.

And sometimes just letting off some steam like here suffices.
All the best~

 

[nisaba]

When I review decks, which I do like to do, I think it's imperative to think critically.

It is the job of publisher's employers and advertising companies to talk a deck up and ignore any problems. It is the job of a reviewer (or in fact anyone in an informal discussion) to talk about both sides of a deck: what they like and what they don't like, what works in practice and what doesn't, and so forth.

You can argue with this, saying that it's down to the reviewer's personal taste, but really it isn't. I have reviewed at least two decks that I personally think are horrible, hideous and badly-thought-out, and because I was fair-minded and spoke to their good sides as well as their bad sides, both the creators of those decks later emailed me and told me that they were "good" reviews. They were neither good nor bad reviews - they were fair reviews, despite my personal preferences.

If people are unable to address the problems in decks, we would all sound like advertising agents, and the forum would die of lack of debate.

 

[nisaba]

And no, I'm not going to say which decks they are. If you really need to know, click on the Tarot deck link, then the review link, then any decks mentioning my name (Nisaba Merrieweather). You'll very soon work out which decks I like and which I don't.

 

[ravenest]

I used that as just one example. Because really, if someone were to shell out the money for a deck that's been OOP for (name a long length of time) , that was rare, would they then sit down and criticize the art? Probably not. And I'm not implying that one shouldn't be critical of art, mind you. I'm just saying there comes a point when the horse is dead and flogging it isn't going to make it get up and start moving again.

Nor am I implying that everyone play up a deck's positive attributes, if indeed there are any.

I'm just suggesting that perhaps criticism goes too far.

I think yes, criticism does go to far a lot of the time, especially when someone has too much of something ( overload ) .... a malady of the modern western world ?