I guess what just confuses me is that when this idea was proposed, the agreement was unanimous. Not a single person disagreed with the fact that a) unwanted collaboration offers can be stressful and b) giving people the choice up front is the best way to resolve it. So it just feels weird to suddenly have pushback against, of all things, an idea that nobody at the time even questioned. At least, not that I can remember.
(Also since this debate started at least 4 people have taken my side, so IDK why everyone is only responding to me... maybe it's just because I'm the most passionate but that's just because I don't have a life outside of refreshing the forums lmao but seriously keep in mind that I'm far from the only person who still thinks this idea makes sense. Also keep in mind it wasn't my proposal or anything... I just agree with the person who did propose it, whoever they were, like 100 pages ago)
Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 1:10:32 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallEarnestly, if someone reserves a huge work, or long-running series like that, they should at least be open to being asked about collaboration. I'm just making my point on this now, because I really don't feel dialogue and conversation is something someone should be closed to.
I once got sent a whole EP by someone trying to push a collaboration with me. I gave a polite answer to it. My social anxiety is far from ideal on things, but I always give an answer on things like that. If someone says "I prefer to handle this myself" that's pretty solid on what people should take.
If people want it as part of the trial, I'll respect the democratic process, though.
Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 22nd 2022 at 10:14:48 AM
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Well apologies, I missed the initial discussion. I have a job and a life outside this site, so not here all the time.
I'm not going to fight the idea if it's what the majority wants. But just to me feels like trying to find a solution to a non-existing problem. If more than 5 people have experienced feeling forced/pressured into doing a collab, then I'll rescind my statement. But have yet to see it's anywhere close to that.
Edited by Snowy66 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 10:16:33 AM
Jay, respectfully, I am offline on Saturdays during daylight hours.
It's an Orthodox Jewish thing.
Maybe it's just because I know that if it were me, I would 100% be one of those people who agree to a collab they don't actually want to do just because I don't want to upset people. And I agree that it's probably because I have Extreme Doormat tendencies and get in my own head about whether or not I'm being rude to people... but it's absolutely what would happen to me. So it might be bias on my part because I can relate to the problem this rule is meant to prevent (even if I've literally never even been asked to collab because I barely use these threads). This also means it's hard for me to understand how people feel so comfortable doing something I'd second guess myself for doing. That's just how my brain works.
But, uh... yeah. Because this discussion ended with no disagreements about the new rule suggestion, a lot of my posts about this came from a place of shock that people didn't just think it was a good idea, especially since the post that started the debate went back to the "not collabing is implicitly rude" mentality that makes people feel forced in the first place. Even if that wasn't what Snowy was trying to say (I doubt it was their intention), it's the sort of phrasing that wraps around to making it an issue.
Look, I'm even willing to compromise and say that for people who already have a history of agreeing and disagreeing to collab, making them abide by the rule is sort of silly since they provably don't feel nervous about saying no. And maybe there's a better way to encourage people to speak up if they don't want to do collabs, IDK. But the arguments I'm using are the exact arguments that lead to this idea being pitched way earlier in this thread, so again I'm literally just here explaining why I still agree with it y'know? And I'm not judging anyone for not being around when the discussion happened... it just caught me off guard because the issue already seemed resolved.
Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 1:24:03 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI guess my issue is that it's hard for me to see where another person may be coming from when the entire collaboration system has simply never been that big a deal. Collabs happen, don't happen, get switched around all the time - I've even collabed with someone who I'm genuinely confident doesn't like me because we both happened to like the same thing, and we're mature enough to put that aside to work together. I'm one of the most socially anxious people you'll ever meet and I've never once felt any kind of pressure whatsoever because I've seen just how little people actually care once the question is answered either way.
Here's my bigger concern though... what's stopping this from being used in the other direction? What's stopping someone from just coming in, snagging five high-profile things at the right time, and then not letting anyone collab on them right out of hand? There's a difference between just letting the person say no and outright forbidding someone from asking the question, and I feel like there's a line between making people comfortable and giving someone a bit too much hoarding power.
And... alright, I really don't like doing this, but having gone back to the incident the previous troper was referring to with the collaboration they felt pressured into? Looking back, that's... really not what happened.
It started with an EP here
, and it was unanimously voted up. At that point, the user said they'd take the franchise to their to-do list
, and Lighty then pointed out that he was checking out some of the stuff already since the work had been out for a long time and thus couldn't actually be outright "reserved". A third person
then suggested communicating and splitting so that they didn't step on each other's toes - outside of agreement to the idea
, and a few promises that there would be more stuff alongside some votes here and there, ze proceeded to ghost the thread for a month. Once the month went by without a writeup, ze was pinged in, and while I agree with the comment that the call-in could have been a bit more polite
, that was basically the last we ever heard from zem - despite promising a write-up by the end of the week. I will also admit that zer point that ze was told to wait on the writeup is accurate - ACW specifically said it was okay to wait for more stuff from the franchise - but the statement was contingent on zem providing more info and subsequent EPs, not just Lighty, and ze simply never did.
So, basically? The troper said that ze was asked for a "collaboration" by Lighty, which wasn't accurate at all - they were agreeing to split a long-released work they were both covering separately just to ensure no one stepped on someone else, and it wasn't even Lighty's idea. Ze said that ze was asked to hold off until Lighty got to theirs - this one I'll chalk up to a miscommunication, but ACW was saying to wait until all the franchise stuff was done, including the ones that ze was saying ze intended to get to, not just Lighty (again, probably a miscommunication). Ze said that we got impatient two weeks later when it was really close to a month of complete radio silence - not even an update that ze was continuing the work. Lighty had basically nothing to do with it but ze kept saying
that ze felt pressured to accept a "collaboration" offer that didn't even happen (at best, it was a split suggested by a third party), and that was the backbone of this discussion and subsequent rule addition.
Like, I really need to say something - I genuinely hate making posts like this because it feels like I'm implying bad faith from someone, but I genuinely don't see how the events as were presented on the thread match up with what actually happened. Now, I'll agree that there could have been more politeness and I'm happy to crack down on that, but none of the issues here involved the collaboration itself - if it could even be called that, cause that's not what was really happening - it was two people trying to split a long-released work with a massive franchise so that they didn't crash into each other. Again, I don't want to assume bad intent, but this now makes at least three different people who have made strong claims about the issues on the CM thread where I've then had to point out that the actual history doesn't match what they're claiming. I don't know what that indicates but it is so beyond frustrating because there are actual issues to be solved, but more and more people keep coming in with "evidence" that simply isn't accurate and makes everything that much more murky and awkward.
And again, I don't even have an opinion on the potential rule itself cause it changes basically nothing for me and the odds of it being hypothetically abused are admittedly slim, but a rule change based on something like this... doesn't feel right to me. That's basically all I have to say at this point.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 1:44:22 PM
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Like I said, I knew you weren't actually trying to say that "people have to collab or they're being dicks"... but you can understand how what you did say could be used to argue that point, right?
I don't know if there's any perfect solutions here. Is it better to give people a more obvious "out" to collaborating, or is it better to encourage teamwork and prevent someone from being selfish? There's no answer that's going to work for everybody, but I do maintain that if everyone is already OK with collaborating, then this rule won't do anything but prevent the once-in-a-blue-moon "felt forced to agree" scenario from happening. I don't think there'll actually be many cases where someone just outright refuses to ever collab, just like there's probably not actually a lot of cases where someone feels forced to.
Okay, so... we were all just going off what the anecdote was. Since nobody at the time argued that it wasn't what happened, everyone just rolled with the idea of "let's make sure this doesn't keep happening". I know I certainly didn't have enough knowledge to question it, and even the regulars didn't question anything. If the issue was misrepresented, well... that put things into a new perspective. IDK if it's enough to push for a removal of the idea, but it does mean that we're out of evidence that the problem even exists.
And btw, I'm sorry if I'm one of the three who made a claim about a nonexistent event... I was just legitimately confused by how things had gone down that day and it stuck with me since. I wouldn't have brought it up if I'd known that I'd misinterpreted everything. I can't speak for the other cases, but my instance was genuine confusion.
Edited by WarJay77 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 1:51:16 PM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallProblem was the thread at the beginning was moving so damn fast I didn't have time to pull this stuff out. Now that things have calmed down and I actually had time to think about the incident again, it gave me the motivation to check it out and... to say I'm frustrated is beyond an understatement.
I do need to make one thing clear here - I'm glad this thread happened. At the absolute worst case scenario, this gives us the chance to be more welcoming, gives some people a wake up call about how they treat new people, codify some of our "unwritten" rules to keep things in check, start fresh with new threads, and help get some outside ideas - but seeing now at least three instances of people outright misrepresenting things to make the threads look worse is so terribly annoying, and when that's combined with people saying things like calling us masturbatory
, I really just want this to wrap up as soon as possible. I'm glad it happened but the sheer amount of shit that's been thrown at what I'll happily refer to as a "hobby thread" that I quite enjoy, plus all the times that people I will genuinely call friends have been called out by name for things they simply didn't do, has just been draining.
That's all. I'll get off my soapbox now.
It wasn't you, I promise - the thing there was a miscommunication, which is its own issue, and I know for a fact there was no genuine malicious intent there. I'm talking about the people who genuinely misrepresented things and then just left when they got called out - I won't name who it was, but I will say it wasn't you. We're good
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 1:58:50 PM
Good to know. (See, there's my anxiety again if you wanted proof that I would somehow be the one person to agree to a collab I didn't want
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Yeah, no, this really is a big issue and I certainly don't think we should be deciding on new rules based on exaggerated anecdotes. I'll still stand by the idea we were discussing if only because I don't see how it could possibly be harmful (if people are being dicks about it, they can be reported like always), but since the "evidence" was, I guess, faked...
Eugh. This is annoying. I'm not even part of the threads and I agree that this is pretty upsetting. And yeah, the fast-moving nature of the thread earlier on I guess did make it hard to think critically, take too long to post and the thread would move 5 pages.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallI know two of the cases Star is talking about... forgetting #3 is why I thought it was me
. But yeah, best not to name names; if you're really curious, re-reading the thread would take a while but it'd also explain everything.
In my personal experience? I've both declined and been declined when it comes to collabs, and neither situation has resulted in skin off my—or the other person's—nose, afaik. It's part of the game in participating in a public forum... there's gonna be disagreements, debates, desires to handle certain topics alone, etc.
I'm 100% with STAR that this thread and most of the topics we've covered are absolutely great and worth tackling + implenting changes for, but right from the start, I and others were fully aware of the...misrepresentation going on in regards to a someone's depiction of this negative effect in regards to collaborating, and then using it to claim rules needed changing. The mere fact that it took a misrepresentation to get this rule discussion going is...yeah.
I wholly admit many of the issues we've addressed in this thread have been needed ones that I've been happy to address and work out compromises for, but this is just something that I personally have never noticed as an issue amongst the threads. I think restricting folks from even asking "hey wanna team up on (massive work that will probably have multiple candidates)?" unless someone else initiates is kind of a needlessly strict addition to an otherwise understandable set of new rules, when the ability to just say "no thanks, I'm good" is—quite literally!—4 words away. Between the...erm, origins of the original accusation of collab offers as a problem being off-base + the general energy that I've always gotten when it comes to collabs, I personally would vote against any kind of hard rule to say "you're not allowed to even ask for a collab unless the OP verbally expresses desire."
If the thread majority wants it, cool, not something I'll take major issue with. But I do think it's kind of going too far in the direction of "walk on eggshells around one another and make as little contact as possible", for me.
Edited by Ravok on Oct 23rd 2022 at 12:20:05 PM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!This isn't just a problem of social anxiety, though. This goes back into the whole clique-ish-ness thing we're trying to cut down on. If an established user requests collaboration with an outsider who isn't familiar with the decorum, they might think/feel the correct thing to do is agree, even if they don't really want to.
Maybe instead of requiring people to state willingness to collab, we could just implement a final line of "No collabs, please"?
On a completely, monstrously unrelated note, how would you guys feel about merging the discussion date sandboxes? Most people who reserve a work for one thread reserve it for both, and if they don't, they can just mark (CM/MB only). Not a huge deal either way, but I feel this will cut down on redundancy and prevent some oversights.
That might not be a terrible idea, but first I suggest we clean up the dates sandboxes first. I don't know if a month out is officially official yet, but at the very least we can probably remove all non-ongoing works without a set date.
As for collabs, a simple solution to that is simply "No pressure, and I'm perfectly okay if you say no, but mind if I can collab on that if there's more than 1 candidate?" Or something like that.
If someone would like to put "I don't want to collab" on their post about reserving something, I think we'd all respect that but I don't see it as something that needs further enforcing. The basis of this decision was on the assumption someone'd been pressured into feeling they had to collab, which we've now just seen wasn't the case. On the flip side, I can think of at least three examples of a request being politely declined without issue. I quite strongly don't believe having the ability to ask if you can collab makes the threads "cliquey". Again, if someone says "I'd like to cover this alone, not interested in collabing" that's fine, I don't see any reason to believe they'd get pushback.
I also do stress in the interest of fairness, that it’s more cliqueish to be able to call major long running franchises without any issue or sharing. And honestly, I have seen a lot of the long time participants be more than happy to share with newcomers
Edited by Lightysnake on Oct 23rd 2022 at 7:17:26 AM
I previously stated:
If they don't say so either way, people can ask, and they can accept whatever response they get, be it negative or positive.
Also, if you are the person calling the work, and nobody you have talked to wants to collaborate with you because of which work it is, or for other reasons? Ask someone else, and maybe eventually you will find someone who will say yes. If you don't, do what you can alone within reason (as in, don't overwork yourself if you don't feel like it).
It's also frustrating when people have to drop out of a collaboration for whatever reason, by choice or by circumstance.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Oct 23rd 2022 at 12:47:41 PM
@Nona
Uh...I would be really against that? That feels like a really specific scenario. If someone is asking for the Collab, as a question, then why would they assume it's something you have to accept? And if someone is unfamiliar with the rules they could just, check it out and such.
Bow to the PrototypeThat's... not 100% accurate. I myself had far more CM reservations than MB reservations. It's true that someone who checks it out for one tends to check it out for the other but reservations themselves are just as often single-thread as they are double-thread, which is why I'd prefer to keep the discussion dates sandboxes separate. Plus, one of the fastest ways to collab on a one-shot thing like a film or comic is to have one person take one thread and another take the other, and merging the sandboxes in general just seems to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Oct 23rd 2022 at 12:49:03 PM
I agree with STAR that the Sandboxes should remain unmerged, and for the reason he gave.
I once collaborated with someone on a certain film, with the agreement that they would handle the CM discussion, while I would handle MB. ~Tropers/Futuremoviewriter, my collab in question, ended up handling the body of the MB writeup as well when CM turned out to be not as much of a discussion.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Oct 23rd 2022 at 1:06:12 PM
Just to clarify, the person asking for the collab isn't the person we're talking about when we say "assume they have to accept". It's the person being asked, with the assumption being that there are cases where people feel pressured into accepting. Now that the counterevidence has been presented we no longer know if these things are true... but that's what the discussion was about.
I'm not here to keep pushing for the idea btw, I'm just trying to explain the hypothetical.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

Lighty summarized it well. People should be mature enough to say and/or accept a polite no. There can be a point where we are over-accommodating in trying to cater to every possible scenario.
Edited by Snowy66 on Oct 22nd 2022 at 10:07:19 AM