Andy Collin's comments re censoring playtester reviews

[Mephistopheles]

I don't think there's anything wrong with them talking up the positives. As has been mentioned elsewhere the criticisms stay in house for review and development. This is what you expect from WotC during the development of the product.

The issue here has been when people not employed by WotC comment with no indication that they're restricted in what they can say. So the view the public gets is that there are people independent of the company commenting and they only have positive things to say. I think a simple disclaimer such as "We've been given clearance to talk about aspects of 4E we're giving the thumbs up. Our criticisms are channeled to WotC RPG R&D for them to consider for improvement." would have made clear the ground rules they were commenting under and may have avoided the negativity it's ended up generating.

In my opinion it was a bad call but I don't buy the argument that there was any malicious intent to deceive the community on the part of WotC or those who commented. Part of why this is still going may be how WotC has responded to the criticism, but that's speculation on my part because aside from considering it on a matter of general principle I was not too bothered by it to begin with. I guess my habit of trying to avoid marketing influence has a lot to do with that though.

 

[Mistwell]

Basically, they've been given clearance to give only positive opinions on their experience thus far. Although I don't buy into the entire anti-4e skepticism, it's still fairly biased. I'd rather hear constructive criticisms about the generic aspects of the game as a broadstroke, as opposed to nothing but "allowance" to give positive opinions only.

I don't think there's anything wrong with them talking up the positives. As has been mentioned elsewhere the criticisms stay in house for review and development. This is what you expect from WotC during the development of the product.

The issue here has been when people not employed by WotC comment with no indication that they're restricted in what they can say. So the view the public gets is that there are people independent of the company commenting and they only have positive things to say. I think a simple disclaimer such as "We've been given clearance to talk about aspects of 4E we're giving the thumbs up. Our criticisms are channeled to WotC RPG R&D for them to consider for improvement." would have made clear the ground rules they were commenting under and may have avoided the negativity it's ended up generating.

In my opinion it was a bad call but I don't buy the argument that there was any malicious intent to deceive the community on the part of WotC or those who commented. Part of why this is still going may be how WotC has responded to the criticism, but that's speculation on my part because aside from considering it on a matter of general principle I was not too bothered by it to begin with. I guess my habit of trying to avoid marketing influence has a lot to do with that though.

OK, you're both repeating a misrepresentation. So, I guess it's time to correct it again.

First guy, you phrased it "they've been given clearance to give only positive opinions on their experience thus far. " Not accurate. They were given clearance to give their opinion if their opinion was positive. That is not the same as given clearance to give only positive opinions. If you read it, then their opinion was positive. It is not the case that these people had both positive and negative opinions and only offered the positive. Their posts were about general impressions, and their general impression was positive. To imply otherwise is to misrepresent what happened.

Second guy, you said "...comment with no indication that they're restricted in what they can say."

That is a misrepresentation of what happened also.

Three people asked to be able to say their opinion about 4e. They were told if their comment (an opinion already formed before being told this) is positive they can post it, and if it is negative then tell WOTC so it can be corrected.

So if you see a comment by one of these people, it's said without a restriction on what they can say beyond the "no details" rule that they all posted about up front. There is no evidence, at all, that anyone (including themselves) edited their comments, or had negative things that they felt they could not say, or were influenced to say something different than what they honestly thought about the game.

Your paraphrasing of the issue implies different. And I think it's inappropriate to continue to misrepresent what happened. Unless you have any evidence, at all, that the three people who posted their opinions edited their comments in any manner to not offer a negative impression of the game, it's simply inappropriate to continue to repeat that their comments themselves were somehow restrained in what they said (beyond the "no details" restriction that they all mentioned up front in their posts).

In conclusion, do you guys get that it's not a case of "don't say the negative part of your opinion, just the positive parts"? That isn't what happened. And by continuing to imply that friends of people here, and of this board, and fellow peers of yours, are somehow lying in their opinions or leaving part of their opinion out after they already said they are not doing that (which is another way of you saying they are lying), is at best impolite.

 

[Mephistopheles]

They were told if their comment (an opinion already formed before being told this) is positive they can post it, and if it is negative then tell WOTC so it can be corrected.

I may be misunderstanding your point but isn't this restricting what they were allowed to say publicly?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I may be misunderstanding your point but isn't this restricting what they were allowed to say publicly?

"Hey, feel free to compliment my hairstyle if you happen to like it. But if you notice that I have a cowlick, can you just discreetly point it out to me so I can comb it down? Thanks."

 

[Mistwell]

I may be misunderstanding your point but isn't this restricting what they were allowed to say publicly?

If they said something, then they are not restricted (beyond the "no details" restriction they mentioned up front). If they didn't say something then they were restricted.

If I form a general impression of a new game first, and I am told I can post that entire general impression later, if my general impression is positive (but I cannot if contains a negative), and I post it, then my general impression was positive. Whatever I write, it's not restricted at that point. I already got beyond the restriction at the point where I answered the question of "my general impression is positive therefore I can post my impression".

Do you see the difference? If someone had a both positive and negative impression, they couldn't post any impression. If you saw the post, you saw the entire impression, which was positive. There was no restriction on that person. Nothing was held back. If there had been something to hold them back, then they were not allowed to post at all.

To offer an analogy, if I am approaching a toll road and I know I can continue driving if I have a pre-paid pass, and I have to stop if I do not have a pre-paid pass, and I fly on by because I have a pre-paid pass, my movement was not restricted. The guys who stopped were restricted, but not me. But you guys are claiming the ones who had the pre-paid pass were restricted even though they were not. If you want to focus on restricted people, it should be on the ones who were stopped...not the ones who flew on by. But because you don't know who was stopped, you're instead taking it out on the guys who flew on by (without good cause for taking it out on them, since they did nothing wrong).

I understand it's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one. You guys are accusing some fine folks here of not offering their true and complete honest impression. But you have no evidence to back that up. If you saw their impression, then you got their true and honest and complete impression (beyond the "no details" part). That other people were restricted because they had negative comments is simply not relevant when considering the comments that were posted.

 

[pemerton]

I had been hoping to keep out of this thread, but I want to give Mistwell some backup.

Mephistopheles, you are paraphrasing the situation this way:

They were allowed to express the positive parts of their thoughts.​

Whereas in fact, what happened was this:

They were allowed to express their thoughts, provided that those thoughts were positive.​

Given this, and given that Ari et al expressed their thoughts, we can infer that those thoughts were (and presumably still are) postive.

Furthermore, Ari said this upfront:

Are there a few things I'd like to see done differently? I think that goes without saying. There's no such thing as a perfect system for anyone. But on a scale of 1 to 10, measuring to what extent I like and agree with all the changes, 4E easily rates an 8.5 to 9.

That is, Ari was upfront about the game not being his perfect game, but merely (in his opinion) very good.

And given that full disclosure seems to be the new standard for the 4e forums, I should add that I do not know Ari, have never met, have perhaps replied to the odd posting of his on these forums but have otherwise never corresponded, and (to the best of my knowledge) own no gaming materials written by him.

But I am getting fed up with the ongoing (and unjust) misattributions on this thread.

 

[Imaro]

If they said something, then they are not restricted (beyond the "no details" restriction they mentioned up front). If they didn't say something then they were restricted.

If I form a general impression of a new game first, and I am told I can post that entire general impression later, if my general impression is positive (but I cannot if contains a negative), and I post it, then my general impression was positive. Whatever I write, it's not restricted at that point. I already got beyond the restriction at the point where I answered the question of "my general impression is positive therefore I can post my impression".

Do you see the difference? If someone had a both positive and negative impression, they couldn't post any impression. If you saw the post, you saw the entire impression, which was positive. There was no restriction on that person. Nothing was held back. If there had been something to hold them back, then they were not allowed to post at all.

To offer an analogy, if I am approaching a toll road and I know I can continue driving if I have a pre-paid pass, and I have to stop if I do not have a pre-paid pass, and I fly on by because I have a pre-paid pass, my movement was not restricted. The guys who stopped were restricted, but not me. But you guys are claiming the ones who had the pre-paid pass were restricted even though they were not. If you want to focus on restricted people, it should be on the ones who were stopped...not the ones who flew on by. But because you don't know who was stopped, you're instead taking it out on the guys who flew on by (without good cause for taking it out on them, since they did nothing wrong).

I understand it's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one. You guys are accusing some fine folks here of not offering their true and complete honest impression. But you have no evidence to back that up. If you saw their impression, then you got their true and honest and complete impression (beyond the "no details" part). That other people were restricted because they had negative comments is simply not relevant when considering the comments that were posted.

Uhm...so what if they sent their criticisms to WotC? I mean that was an option and it does amount to only the positive made public and the negative kept from the public.

 

[Mephistopheles]

If they said something, then they are not restricted (beyond the "no details" restriction they mentioned up front). If they didn't say something then they were restricted.

If I form a general impression of a new game first, and I am told I can post that entire general impression later, if my general impression is positive (but I cannot if contains a negative), and I post it, then my general impression was positive. Whatever I write, it's not restricted at that point. I already got beyond the restriction at the point where I answered the question of "my general impression is positive therefore I can post my impression".

Do you see the difference? If someone had a both positive and negative impression, they couldn't post any impression. If you saw the post, you saw the entire impression, which was positive. There was no restriction on that person. Nothing was held back. If there had been something to hold them back, then they were not allowed to post at all.

I understand it's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one. You guys are accusing some fine folks here of not offering their true and complete honest impression. But you have no evidence to back that up. If you saw their impression, then you got their true and honest impression.

I think it's a somewhat spurious distinction myself because it relies on other assumptions. For what you've suggested to be so we have to assume that the people that commented simply had no issues whatsoever with 4E and their experience was without exception positive. Had it been otherwise they would not have commented. Doesn't it seem more reasonable to assume that the positive comments they gave were honest, but that there were also things they didn't like or problematic points that they brought to the attention of the designers but did not comment on publicly? I don't see any definitive evidence for either position, which has led to the doubt that's sprung up over the issue for some people.

 

[Falling Icicle]

I am guessing the OP has never beta tested anything before.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

 

[pemerton]

Doesn't it seem more reasonable to assume that the positive comments they gave were honest, but that there were also things they didn't like or problematic points that they brought to the attention of the designers but did not comment on publicly? I don't see any definitive evidence for either position, which has led to the doubt that's sprung up over the issue for some people.

I was hoping not to have to actually quote anyone - but Mephistopheles, I have to ask if you have read Ari's blog, the relevant part of which I have quoted in my post above.