An apology to another user, because it's important to recognize when we are at fault.
General forum
Posted on Sept. 14, 2022, 9:35 p.m. by TypicalTimmy
Pertaining to kookoo, in the custom card forum.
Since I believe I was the one who kicked the hostility off, I frankly owe you a sincere apology.
I'm sorry, for making this website and community feel unwelcoming.
The main reason many of us have a bit of an edge in this thread is because over the years, a dozen or so trolls and users would flock into the thread and disrupt it to the point of in-fighting and even resulting in bans and blocked users.
The reason was because of their disrespect to the thread and community. What would happen is many users on this site come up with invigorating and compelling ideas for rewarding challenges, and those ideas are essentially kicked and stepped on for selfish reasons by disrespectful members.
What may happen is a user has a compelling idea, such as:
- Create a colorless creature who isn't an Eldrazi or an artifact creature. It can't be legendary, and must be uncommon.
That is honestly a very hard challenge to complete, which makes it fun and interesting. But every so often, someone new comes in and does something very rushed and almost insulting, such as:
Generic Human
Creature - Human
Vigilance
2/2
OKAY NOW I WANT TO SEE---
Does it satisfy the challenge? Sure. But it was clearly made to just "get it out of the way".
That's sort of the online equivalent of pushing someone out of the way so you can stand further up in line. Or cutting someone off during their story so you can talk about something entirely unrelated. Or taking someone's pain and making it about yourself.
- Not that I am accusing YOU of any of those. Just using "you" as a generalization.
It's rude and disrespectful.
Having said all of that. I think perhaps we, as an entire community, have grown calloused and rigid. We have forgotten what it means to be new. To be intrigued. To be inexperienced.
We have forgotten that new members may not know how to format a card properly. Or how to balance one. Or how to properly translate an idea into a mechanic.
I feel perhaps, we forgot what it feels like to learn.
And we all pushed that onto you.
And it all started with me.
kookoo, I am sorry I made you feel unwelcomed here.
If you ever need help, please, just ask.
Squee_Spirit_Guide says... #3
I agree. I also don't know the situation, but I think being able to look at yourself and acknowledge when you were wrong is very important. Same too with being welcoming and nurturing the excitement of people who are trying to learn. Good lessons for the forum and for life, really.
September 15, 2022 9:58 a.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #4
TypicalTimmy while I did not see the altercation take place, I'm glad you recognized your faults and apologized to kookoo for what happened. ^^
I will definitely agree that in the custom card community in general, people do tend to forget that they were once beginners too, and too easily scoff at or ridicule designs for being easily broken or overpowered.
Heck, I've been making custom cards for three years or so and people still ridicule me and pick apart every design I put on a certain Discord server. That's actually why I made my own, but that's besides the point.
I'm of the opinion that, honestly, practice makes perfect when it comes to custom cards. Given the argumentative nature of people on the Internet, it's best to avoid even most criticism (though this sentiment might be because I've had very bad experiences with custom card criticism). As people make more and more cards, their skills will gradually be honed until they're making balanced designs.
Of course, this isn't really an excuse for the kind of apathetic shrugging-off of certain ideas. There's a fine line between newbie design and low-effort design. I know because I've certainly made a lot of both. Low-effort design in the custom cards forum does and can hurt the user, but ultimately some grace must be taken on both sides to make sure that noone gets hurt too badly. Believe me, altercations on this site in the past have stressed me out immensely to the point of nausea, back when I was a new user just trying out new things. I know what's it like to be in that situation, kookoo, so if you ever need anything just reach out to me ^^
Circling back to the initial apology, I'm really glad that you were able to come to better terms. I value you all as talented creators and I look forward to seeing your future designs! :D
Best of luck, everyone.
Profet93 says... #2
No idea what happened but the sentiment is amazing. +1
September 14, 2022 10:38 p.m.