Feedback, the promised land
When I started to write articles, I never had feedback as the goal in mind. I was very lucky: now I'm not disappointed by the lack of feedback. If you wonder what is lack of feedback, only 1.25% of the people who read my (coding) articles gave me feedback. Though it was little feedback I felt proud and happy with it, I saw feedback as one of the reasons for doing more articles. (Of course there are other reasons, and with more importance, but this is something rather personal).
You are encouraged to read some articles from Hugi #17, "Feedback on Hugi #16" and the "The Final Curtain" by Adok and Tad respectively. I want you to notice something which you can read in the article from Adok. I quote it here: "Feedback is the main motivation for idealistic, unpaid authors to continue making their magazine."
Haven't you thought about it before? A Hugi writer (or any other kind of article writer, for e-mags or for other non-commercial purposes) does not get paid. We do this because we really like it, because we think that we can change the world in a positive way. Of course only a little change, but little is by far better than nothing. And most of the ppl do nothing.
In this case the only good thing which we can get with it is satisfaction, which can come from ourselves (rather rare, as self-confidence is not common nowdays, a real pity) or from other people, in this case this kind of motivation and proof of respect is actually shown in two ways, ranking high in a competition or personal feedback. Winning in a competition is not easy (I know, I ranked first at Euskal Party 7 with a 4k intro, and I had to work hard on it) but also has a good effect, as a competition is something with a jury, and a given status, thus this may help some of those (non-constructive) criticising ppl to shut up. (While this doesn't make you feel better, it helps you to not feel any worse: someone telling you bullshit about your productions makes you feel down, I know.) So you still have one way to feel happier (and this is one of the points of life, isn't it?), personal feedback.
If I was asked to, I would describe feedback as a little gift, not very expensive, more or less unexpected, which makes you very happy. But this is not the only kind of feedback which you can get. You can also get constructive feedback. This one doesn't make you happy, but makes you think (and this is another point of life, isn't it?) and improve. (And - from my point of view - improvement is an important goal to reach in our lives).
I proudly admit that till the date I got all the kind of external motivations which I've described (maybe there are more). I ranked first at one competition (the most important party in Spain), I got some personal feedback (greets to the ppl who write me some feedback lines, you know who you are!) and fortunately some constructive feedback. But I do not only get feedback, I also give feedback. Just as a conclusion to this paragraph, once you taste honey, you want more, but don't forget hungry ppl.
And now I'll get to the fact that made me write this article. Tad's "The Final Curtain". It is not difficult to see (if you are a writer you can even understand why) that Tad was pissed off about the lack of feedback, but not only the lack of feedback for his articles, but also for his postings and beta testing. So Tad was too tired, and he has decided to stop. Good decision? If that's what Tad wants, then it is. His last article, was two in one, first telling that he stopped writing and why, and then some (malicious) comments on game developers, which made me laugh a lot. They were really funny.
Some time ago Adok (while trying to reply to my long emails!) told me that a new writer called "Tad" wrote a lot of articles which were going to be published in Hugi. Immediately I was interested in such a prolific writer, and so I contacted Tad. I still remember that he told me that my email was the first email about his articles. (Yeah, I also remember my first email about my articles.) And we started to talk, but this is not the point of the article. The fact is that while Tad's articles are not the best ones, he wrote a lot, and so I can easily understand that he got tired of getting no feedback at all. It's a pity that we lose such a prolific writer. Because with time one can learn, and such a constant output with high quality will be something invaluable. But we all did something wrong. (I'm not going to claim that I'm innocent, but nor tell that you are guilty). We were too busy with our business, and so we didn't give him enough motivation. And we have now lost a good writer. I complain about this situation.
Now I also want to briefly talk about something which from my point of view was not cool. Probably you know who Submissive is. Some time ago when I was a beginner I saw Submissive's coding corner. I thought it was cool, and so I emailed him telling, "Hey, your tuts are good, keep up the good job." I also remember that a friend of mine asked me, "Why are you doing so?", and I answered him: "Because he deserves it for his job" (I always tried to support good projects). In Hugi #16 we could read an article about Direct Draw by Submissive. I have not read the whole article, so I'll not talk about it, but rather I'll talk about the introduction, which in my opinion is not polite:
"Well... After reading the last Hugi-Mag I realized that there are a lot of beginner tutorials. I don't want to bash anyone, but no one in the world needs a mode-x line tutorial anymore..."
Refering to one article by Tad in Hugi #15. Submissive is known as a good coder and also a good tuts writer. But does he have the right of flaming the productions of another writer? I think not. (I'm also an article writer but I would never act in such a way - maybe we could classify this as elitism.) While it seems that he doesn't want "to bash anyone" he did. An article writer needs positive feedback, which produces motivation, or constructive feedback, which helps him improve, but Submissive wrote negative feedback which only can help to discourage an article writer, in this case Tad. Just as a conclusion, if you don't want to help someone, don't, you are not pretending to do so, but at least don't flame him.
Also there's a fact which I won't totally discuss (as it deserves its own article). This is the fact that beginners get little feedback, and famous ppl get a lot of it. However I'll try not be hasty and say that "Beginers need feedback more than well-known people" as this would not be totally true, and I think that well-known people do deserve feedback. The problem is that we all need feedback. But we give little feedback. Solution: give more feedback, or at least divide it equally among different people with different status.
I don't want to change my style of writing at the end of the article, though it seems that you don't notice all you should, so here it goes.
Hey you! Yeah, the one sitting in front of the screen doing nothing, why don't you help us, why don't you help yourself? Are you so lazy that you can't even help yourself? Will you lose the chance of improving everybody's knowledge? Will you lose the chance to make them laugh, to make them think, to make them smile, to make them learn new things? Is it up to me to change the world? I try to do so. But what about you? Is this also my obligation? No. Think twice, as we are not talking about the responsibility with one emag, we are talking about the responsibility with life, with yourself. All you have is you and what you do. You can't change yourself, but you can change the things you do. Good luck. You'll need it.