C-4 Bomb Scan

[Guest]

maadd1, I'm sure that if you go through the thirty-eight reviews I've written, you'll be able to find a hundred sentences that aren't constructive. That's beside the point. I have already conceded that not each and every sentence is constructive - no review is constructive in every sentence, and since my reviews do include some elements designed for the entertainment of my readers rather than for the author, that's even more to be expected. But your claim is not that my reviews contain lines that, in and of themselves, are not constructive; your claim is that my reviews as a whole are not constructive. If that's the case, then you shouldn't need to hunt and peck for nonconstructive elements; you should be able to turn to any given sentence and say that it isn't constructive. And in the Abridged Review, I gave you a lot of sentences. Prove that they are non-constructive - or admit that you can't.

 

I think that this discussion has ascended the original purpose of this thread. I think that C-4 is laughing at all of us now.

 

Really? I think he's off fuming.

 

And I'll admit that even I' date=' with the 'gotta help everybody' attitude I carry around, I sometimes just give up on a story and go into an angry rant about it at the end of the post on how the author should give up on it and think of something else. Crab Helmet, I respect you, but you do that with every story I've glanced at you reviewing. Not everybody thinks it's so funny to get told 'You should never write again, just go play with your Yu-Gi-Oh cards and don't bother us anymore' (DRAMATIZATION), and some people get angry with that.

[/quote']

 

I do that occasionally, but not with every single story - and the stories for which I do that are generally the more egregious cases of incompetence. And even then, it's not so much "Don't write" as "If this is honestly the best you can do, don't write; if you can do better, then stop being lazy and do better". And even then, it's not so much "Don't write" as "Don't post this on the internet" - I usually make an explicit reference to the fact that the problem is not being a bad writer but being a bad writer and then subjecting the world to your bad writing despite being a bad writer.

 

And you know what? If you don't want criticism of your story, then seriously, don't post it on the internet. This really isn't that hard. But I actually go a step further; even though the rules say that all stories must be open to criticism, I only criticize stories that explicitly welcome comments and criticism or where the author has given me explicit permission to give my opinion. If you write a terrible story and then welcome comments, then you can't suddenly act as if your rights have been violated when people give you the very criticism you welcomed.

 

Reviews are constructive criticism' date=' and you've the criticism part down pat. Now can you give some helpful tips on how to make something work? I haven't seen that too often, thanks to all the picking-at I see.

[/quote']

 

Pointing out problems with a story is constructive criticism. Criticism that is not constructive is simply shouting things like "THIS SUCKS" without explaining why it sucks or otherwise saying anything useful, which, despite what maadd1 has deluded himself into believing, is not what I do.

 

The first step to solving problems is identifying them, and that's my job. Once the problems have been identified, solving them is often trivial - so trivial that I don't bother to explicitly state the method of solution because it's so obvious. If I complain about a lack of proofreading, the correct response is not, "Oh no, he said I didn't proofread and that that's bad! I have no idea what to do now!"; it's, "Oh, maybe I should proofread." If I say the story's hero is a Mary Sue for reasons X, Y, and Z, I shouldn't need to come out and say, "You know, maybe you shouldn't make your hero a Mary Sue." All that is required is the minutest form of reading comprehension - and if you don't have that, then again, you probably aren't qualified to be writing.

 

Taking all of my criticisms of the form, "You've done X. X is bad. This is why X is bad," and then tacking, "Don't do X; do the opposite of X instead," onto the end of all of them would be a tedious waste of time. Anyone capable of writing won't be helped any more by it, and my reviews will simply become longer and more repetitive.

 

(If there is a less obvious solution that could work, however, I will indeed point it out. For example, my last review was of a story where some characters had really terrible names that the author knew were terrible but that had been in use for a while so the author couldn't change them. In that instance, I went out of my way to point out a way that the author could have changed the names anyhow without instituting a magic retcon. But for the most part, this sort of thing just isn't necessary.)

 

And most stories I review here are just at such a low level of quality that simply pointing out a bunch of things they're doing wrong will in and of itself be hugely helpful to the author - if they choose to listen. A more in-depth editing would be of more use to better writers, but the writers I review just aren't of that calibre.

 

The biggest drawback to most constructive criticism is that the critic is generally on very good terms with the original author, and thus must take care to temper their criticism so as not to give offense. I simply have no such obstacle.

 

Once I tried going to the Serebii.net forums three years back' date=' trying to write a Pokemon fic. Everybody said it was horrible. I asked why. They said that it was because it was horrible.

[/quote']

 

If you think a bunch of people saying "It's horrible because it's horrible" is a decent analogy for my reviews, then you've either never read one of my reviews. Go join maadd1 over on the Abridged Review and tell me if you still think that's what I do.

 

I never went back to Serebii' date=' because who wants to be around a bunch of pompous a******s on a site aimed directly at the 6-12 age range (main range of the games)? See where I'm going with this? As a YGO forum, there's probably a lot of ten year olds around here.

[/quote']

 

K.

 

No, seriously, I don't care what age these people are. As a reader, I'm not going to be magically entertained by a bad story just because its author was young.

 

When a reviewer completely destroys a story' date=' everybody then agrees with them and continues to attack repeatedly

[/quote']

 

Since when? People who read my reviews, besides the authors being reviewed, pretty much always do it in the Foe Fiction thread and then proceed to post there; they don't go to the story's original thread to comment on it. If anyone does find the original thread, it's in a case like this where the original author sticks his fingers in his ears, throws a tantrum, goes to the Foe Fiction thread to complain there about how I'm oh-so-unfair, and so on and so forth.

 

Now you're just making stuff up.

 

until the story is discontinued. Is it alright if the story IS complete crap? Well' date=' some anvils need to be dropped.

[/quote']

 

This is basically my underlying philosophy behind reviewing. A terrible story is of no use to any reader. The question must be asked: "Why is this being posted?" Fanfics are posted for people to read, but if a fanfic is terrible, then it's not something at all worth reading. So why post it in the first place if it's so awful that nobody will benefit from reading it?

 

The effect is negative, not neutral. YCM does have good fanfics, but I certainly can't find them; I choose stories to review semi-randomly and I still consistently hit bad ones - out of thirty-eight stories I've reviewed, at least thirty-five have been bad. There are so many bad stories flooding YCM that the good ones written by competent authors that people might actually want to read are being drowned out by Foe Fics.

 

The flood of bad fanfics is a problem. Foe Fiction has three possible effects: it can make a bad author stop posting bad stories; it can make a bad author improve and become a better author; or it can do nothing. The first effect cleans up YCM and is thus positive. The second effect is obviously positive. The third effect is obviously neutral. Most results are wins, and there are no lose scenarios, so I see this as overall a good thing.

 

But if a bad author receives no criticism, then they will forever remain a bad author. As such, it is imperative that I continue.

 

If it's okay' date=' then tell them to work harder. If you see a nice concept tell them, ect.

[/quote']

 

I'm willing to point out good things when I see them. I just don't often see them.

 

So is C-4 a good reviewer? He's around average' date='

[/quote']

 

What looks bad to you!? If C-4 is average, what looks slightly below average to you? Do you just see a two-word review that simply says "this sucks" and think, "Hmmm, this is probably worth two and a half stars out of five, since it's not quite as good as a someone swearing about how the author didn't explain who Toadsworth is"? You grade on the most ridiculously positive curve I've ever seen.

 

Do I like her reviews? Sometimes' date=' but they can sometimes make me feel irritated due to the fact that 5/10 of her reviews (or so) completely destroy a young kid's writing dreams, just because they gave into peer pressure.

[/quote']

 

If you can't handle people speaking their minds about your writing when you post it on the internet for all to see and then invite comments and criticism, then you never had what it takes to be a writer in the first place. All writers must receive criticism in order to get anywhere. Good writers use that criticism to improve themselves. Others do not.

[Hydra of Ages]

Is CrabHelmet a good reviewer? Yes' date=' yes she is. Do I like her reviews? Sometimes, but they can sometimes make me feel irritated due to the fact that 5/10 of her reviews (or so) completely destroy a young kid's writing dreams, just because they gave into peer pressure.

[/quote']

 

I agreed with most/some/kind of a portion of your rant up until this part. You can't become a good writer unless you have your dreams destroyed once or twice.

 

See, writing is one of those things that it's impossible to get better at unless you actually strive -hard- to do better; the easiest way for this to happen is to recognize, and don't try to make excuses for, that your writing is absolute crap and if you actually want to write seriously, you need to make it less like crap. If someone else doesn't point it out to you, it's up to you become heavily critical of your own works in order to make up for it. This is why a lot of writers have self esteem issues.

 

Obviously, since we're talking about fanfiction, this is the absolute bottom rung of writing ability. People here don't really want to be writers, they're just making a story because it seems like something to do. There's nothing strictly wrong with that, especially since few of these peoples want to be authors in the first place, but if they're ever going to improve, they need to realize that what they're penning is absolutely wretched, and more pointedly, why it's so bad. Obviously, some don't even want to improve. This is once again fine, especially if they don't actually want to be authors, but they should still realize that if they don't put much effort into their product, people aren't going to enjoy reading it.

 

Sorry, I'm rambling aren't I? Anyway, I'm saying this from experience. Trust me, you don't want to see what the first entries in my writing portfolio were- although, since they weren't ravaged nearly as bad as they should have been, I am now essentially a one-man hatedom of anything I write that's older than a week or so.

[Weather Report - Stand]

Hm. Well, thanks everybody, I think I've learned some things today. I'll try to list everything I've found out and I'll let you tell me which ones I failed to comprehend, K?

 

1. People need hardship in order to evolve their craft, and I'm taking everything too fluffy by coddling some individuals, hampering them from getting better.

 

2. I need to expand my own attention span in order to remember important details I continue to ignore.

 

3. When I post what I'm feeling at the time, I should make sure I've eaten something of value and am actually awake.

 

4. I'm spending too much time on the internet.

 

5. I go off-topic too much.

 

6. I need to begin to absorb previous conversations so as to not repeat them.

 

7. I need to review more crap and remember how it felt like two years back when I was actually funny to remember how to handle terrible writings.

 

Well? Anybody agree? Disagree? Think I should shut up?

[legendhiro]

come on, of course no one thinks you should shut up, probably.

 

sounds like you did learn something. always good. your first point is particularly valid. my first fic is, at least in my opinion, pretty good, and i know i'm getting better with my recent ones. i can go back to some earlier drafts of my fics that my friends told me were terrible, and i realized that they really were. if i had actually posted those versions of my story, the response would have been even harsher, and i would have been forced to grow even faster. i don't understand why every young, naive writer doesn't welcome Crab's reviews, take them in stride, and get better. i personally see such things as a challenge and go all out to overcome them.

[Kaisu]

Long posts short - Your argument is invalid.

[Weather Report - Stand]

Well, thanks, Legend Hiro. I definitely learned some stuff, thanks to everybody else, too. I guess I was just spoiled when I was younger to the point of not really knowing if bullies were real until 6th grade. And that was the first year I ever beat somebody up~

 

Overlooking that, yes, Kainine Kaisu, you are right. C4, learn from the conversations we've shared with others and learn as a bystander. DO IT OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!!

[Ghoulish]

damn alot of people commented over the night, can't be bothered going through them at this point so I'll do my replys later..

 

"maadd1, I'm sure that if you go through the thirty-eight reviews I've written, you'll be able to find a hundred sentences that aren't constructive."

 

Alright so you try to give me a choice to find unconstructive advice, than you state that i will find a good majority of the reviews to have unconstructive critisicm.

 

Leginhiro ill reply to you later sit tight gimp.

[Guest]

It's like maadd1 becomes less literate with every post.

 

Look, Maady-boy, let me put this as simply as possible: You claim I never give constructive criticism. I compiled a big list of quotes from my review of the C-4 Bomb Scan that I claim constitute constructive criticism. To prevent your claim that I never give constructive criticism from being disproven, you must show that the quotes I listed are not actually constructive criticism.

[Mighty Platypus]

And also maad, that's from one review. ONE. Arguably one of the best, but still. It's hard to argue with those statistics.

[Guest]

You know what? I've figured it out. maadd1 thinks my reviews contain no constructive criticism because the constructive parts (i.e. pretty much the whole review) are written at too high a reading level for him, so the only section he ever understands is the "You're an idiot" line that pops up at the end. That makes absolutely everything make sense.

[Mighty Platypus]

I can't believe I didn't notice that. Are idiots attracted to mentioning their own kind?

 

I don't think you really need me to help fight your battles with fools. You do it well enough yourself.

[Ghoulish]

HAHAHA, omg i didn't think you could be any more of an arogant idiot crab, honestly, you really believe that the credibility all your reviews can be generalised through 1 review of a review. Haha no I'll get quotes from a lot of your reviews.

 

Your reviews aim to do 1 thing and that's destroy what a person has done, and apparently Legindhiro, in an attempt to defend you, agrees with me. A person posts a fan fic, they want constructive advice, someone points out everything wrong and tells of how to improve, another person does a review like yours...which is more helpful?

 

Your reviews basically say "You suck" and "You should give up on life because i am a great and powerful moderator of YCM who ridicules efforts in an attempt to make myself feel awesome even though i'm really a gimp", at least if you got permission then ffs fine do what you want but for people that don't want their efforts ridiculed why the hell should they have their work mocked by an arogant loser who thinks they're god just because their a YCM Moderator.

 

Mighty Platypus you obviously have no idea, you may want to buy new pants or at least fix the holes in your knees just like legend hiro, why you suck up to a moderator i don't know.

[Guest]

Tell me, maadd1 - if my reviews consist of nothing but me saying "you suck" while providing no useful criticism... then what do you call these?

 

I found something horrible. It's your spelling of the word "past".

 

The C4 gimmick seems, well, unspeakably gimmicky and incredibly stupid,

double_c4 claims he didn't know because he didn't play all of the Mario games, but if you're going to whine about things like LUIGI SHOULDNT SPEAK EITHER, you can't have such huge gaping holes in your background as Super Mario Galaxy. If you aren't familiar with the canon, don't argue over the canon. Especially since little is less consistent than Mario canon.

 

You keep calling people out incorrectly on mainstream things you're clueless about.

That's not my mistake there; double_c4 suddenly changes format here for no reason and starts including spaces between his commentary and the original fic.

But more to the point, why are you whining about the author choosing one set of characters to star in the fanfic instead of another?

Yeah, because all great stories are filled with hyperlinks to information that the intended audience already knows. Why don't you go ask him to add a Chapter Characters before the story so we can find out who this "Waluigi" is while you're at it?

You're completely and utterly clueless about everything Mario-related, and yet you have the audacity to come in here and argue over canon and complain about the characters being too obscure and moaning over not being given enough information. Did you ever consider that maybe the target audience for a Mario fanfic might possibly be people who have played a Mario game at some point in their life!? I can't even come up with a Rorschach quote to properly express how terrible this is.

No, it is not even remotely reasonable to demand that fanfics recap all of canon

Indeed, it's extremely confusing that Luigi might be the person continuing to speak during a paragraph that began with him speaking and where the only other person in the room never speaks.

I'm pretty sure we've now confirmed that it's completely impossible for you to have ever played any Mario game in existence, with the possible exception of Super Mario 64, and yet you still feel the need to interject these complaints about not recognizing the characters. That's like me reviewing a Yu-Gi-Oh! GX fanfic and then getting upset when there's all these characters named Jaden and Syrus and stuff that I've never heard of.

Thanks for interrupting the story to say that you have nothing to say. That really contributed a lot.

We know he got the same letter because it just said so. What do you want him to do, write out its full text again? He didn't describe each character receiving exactly the same letter because that would be a tedious waste of time.

Is that all you're going to complain about now? Insufficient description? In Mario? Is that really the only problem you can see with all of this?

Yeah, that one line "off" description - DEY HAD CORSAGE K - was absolutely brilliant and solved all of this story's problems.

I'm glad you're doing better, but EXPLAIN HOW THEY GOT THE LETTERS! If you can't do that, then I don't see the point of going on! Got it?!?

 

Uh, they got the letters when Parakarry delivered them, as was explicitly stated earlier.

I take it all back, for now. Do better!

 

Here's constructive criticism for you: Do better! What a skillfully-written review this is.

Rather than pointing out the underlying problem that ZeroChill's work is and has been from the start a hideous pseudo-script, double_c4 merely waits until late in his review to point out one or two symptoms of that problem.

Indeed, this in-depth description is perfect in every way. And since, as far as double_c4 is concerned, a story's value is decided solely based on description of the background and inclusion of absurd recapping of things anyone actually interested in reading the story would already know, there's really nothing else that could possibly be criticized here.

there was nothing else you could think of to say beyond flaunting your cluelessness once again? Apparently, this section of the story was perfect. In every way. There was nothing to criticize there. Except it was also unspeakably awful, since there was nothing to compliment.

 

Bear in mind that we were promised "Comedy through and through" at the start of this review. So far, we've had exactly one joke: the mushrooms = drugs joke that we all know was so hilarious.

That's two jokes so far: LOLDRUGZ and LOLNAKEDPEEPLZ. Neither was relevant. Neither was funny.

I would guess that "gaining spirit" means they're getting more spirited. As for the aura... you strike me as the sort of person who looks at the first page of a mystery novel and becomes enraged that it doesn't say who the killer is.

You just got your explanation for the thing that you whined about being unexplained one sentence ago. Maybe you should stop throwing a tantrum every time an encyclopedia of exposition isn't dropped on your head whenever something vaguely interesting happens. And what sort of explanation are you expecting? It's the magic all-powerful Crimson Dragon of Deus Ex Machina; why shouldn't its power be available?

Indeed, how is the super-god-dragon with magical powers able to do magic stuff? Why would he want to oppose Yliaster, the villian with whom I think he's at war or something in the canon? Why would he choose the most powerful beings in the Marioverse to grant his power to? All of this is so incomprehensibly complex and confusing! I can't figure it out!

I can understand that you're just building up suspense, but you're building up so rarely and so slowly, that it's annoying.

 

This is slow? In five paragraphs or something similarly short, a party was interrupted by the host turning out to be a villain from another dimension trying to cardify everyone, all the heroes gained Crimson superpowers, a big battle ensured, and the villain embarked on his plan to capture everyone. This is slow!? What are you, six? Do you have ADD or ADHD or something?

I would guess he swooped into the wormhole by... um... swooping. Into it. These are things called "English words". You might find it useful to familiarize yourself with them.

I also really don't see why Mario and Luigi being the primary protagonists of a Mario fanfic should be such a problem,

Oh, and of course the rehashed whines about how it wasn't explained who Toadsworth was and such are as stupid now as they were originally.

 

Yes, you can find quotes of me saying you suck. I do say that, since people do suck. But before I say that they suck, I post stuff like that wall of quotes above that you seem determined not to read that tells the author exactly what has gone wrong and how they can improve. The problem is that you're literally too stupid to read properly - that's why you can't understand the challenge with which I have presented you, and why you probably won't understand this sentence - so the only phrases that pierce your unspeakably dense skull are the ones that are fewer than five words long.

 

If you don't think you can generalize to my whole review series from one single review, even though that one single review is one that you have specifically singled out as non-constructive in this very thread and therefore would be a prime example for your case if your case were even remotely valid, then fine. I'll play your game. Find a single one of my reviews that isn't constructive, and I'll give you a similar wall of quotes exhibiting its constructive criticism.

 

Oh, and I do get people's permission before doing these. In fact, according to the forum rules, posting a story inherently gives others permission to give criticism, but I go a step further - I only review stories that either include a statement explicitly welcoming criticism or that, when I request permission to give my opinion, explicitly grant me said permission. The problem is monkeys like you who welcome criticism until said criticism turns negative and then throw a tantrum.

[Ghoulish]

loser i never specified that review, I refered to most of your reviews to date. I'm to stupid am i? I must be stupid, i mean to think that "You suck" isn't a useful and totally relevent comment to make when you're talking in terms of improving someones future abilities...i must be really stupid.

 

Lol and i don't need to do your challenge i'll do my own challenge thanks.

 

FYI I know I'm not a good writer, in fact I'll admit i'm far below the common person in terms to writing stories and that is because my brain just like everybodys and yes even the great Crab Helmets, works different in that I'm able to to comprehend things like maths and single answer questions easier but struggle slightly more in terms of writing as there are many possible answers for the story.

 

The problem is little self centred arogant pigs like you can't take the fact that people can do things better and things worse then you. So what do you do? You start a FOE FIC and ridicule everyones work as you think you can do a much better job cause you're the great pig of YCM, you then try to back yourself up saying it's for entertainment and constructive advice when you admit you make statements like "You suck" and what's your response when that's pointed out? "Because people do suck". In your little head does "Because people do suck" transmit to "People suck compared to me queen pig".

[Guest]

This kid's found my one weakness. It is quite literally impossible for me to effectively argue with someone who uses a form of nonsensical moon-logic and is incapable of actually reading anything I type.

[Ghoulish]

This kid's found my one weakness. It is quite literally impossible for me to effectively argue with someone who's level of arogance can only be matched with its own self absorbed nature that in the end when compiled together forms into someone who simply does not take things into account or look at things from others perspectives.

 

We don't have nearly enough reviewers to justify creating a reviews forum' date=' and a reviews forum would merely encourage more morons who can't review to create their own idiotic attempts at reviewing, as Pichu and double_c4 have done.[/quote']

 

So basically why even try right? Oh but wait crab helmet gives constructive advice....by telling people not to even try.

[Nuub]

I've LoL:ed through this entire thread.

This isn't even necessary, from what I've read you all sounds like spoiled kids. You do realize that don't you ?

[Weather Report - Stand]

I knew this would happen. Well, now that I've resigned myself to not posting, I'll give Maad and Crab some options:

 

1. Continue the argument.

 

2. One of you just drops out of the conversation politely, fully believing that the other poster will not see your point of view, showing as they try futilely to challenge you back in that you are, in fact, the better person.

 

Okay Crab, what will you do, because maad1 or whatever's not stopping anytime soon, and you don't really have anything to gain from continuing this argument except encouraging him.

[legendhiro]

i wouldn't mind dropping this if i were crab. regardless of whether or not madd is wrong or wrong (did i say wrong twice? whoopsie ^_^ ) its obvious to me that he (or she? seriously, i hate this anonymous internet thing) is never gonna listen. crab is just wasting her energy.

[Twig]

This kid's found my one weakness. It is quite literally impossible for me to effectively argue with someone who's level of arogance can only be matched with its own self absorbed nature that in the end when compiled together forms into someone who simply does not take things into account or look at things from others perspectives.

 

We don't have nearly enough reviewers to justify creating a reviews forum' date=' and a reviews forum would merely encourage more morons who can't review to create their own idiotic attempts at reviewing, as Pichu and double_c4 have done.[/quote']

 

So basically why even try right? Oh but wait crab helmet gives constructive advice....by telling people not to even try.

 

If that's true, then care to find me a 38 quotes where Crab says to not even try?

 

@Nuub: Spoiled kids? We're just trying to explain something to an idiot. It's harder than it looks.

[Nuub]

^ That's what I mean, I feel sad about you.

[Grunt Issun]

I've LoL:ed through this entire thread.

This isn't even necessary' date=' from what I've read you all sounds like spoiled kids. You do realize that don't you ?

[/quote']

 

Were spoiled because we insult people? that makes no sense

[Twig]

^ That's what I mean' date=' I feel sad [b']for[/b] you.

 

So you mean explaining something to an idiot makes us spoiled?

[Nuub]

No, the real problem is that your fighting due to new review topic, accept the new topic and return to the one you support instead of joining the fight. That's what's makes you spoiled, this is between Crab Helmet n' double if I've read correct.

[Mighty Platypus]

Mighty Platypus you obviously have no idea' date=' you may want to buy new pants or at least fix the holes in your knees just like legend hiro, why you suck up to a moderator i don't know. [/quote']

 

Um..., sucking up to a moderator? How about using common sense to determine that you're an idiot? Please improve your grammar before you continue to insult me.