Constructive (and not) Criticism….

Just tonight I got a link to a blog article that is basically a review of some large “sexuality community” websites. This includes the website of TES, for whom I happen to be IT committee chair. Since there are indication that a number of folks are interested in the response of the IT folks here at TES to this – I will post my personal responses here.

I’ll take it point by point until we run out or I get bored with the whole thing 🙂

Maymay feels our website is “stupidly intimidating” – well, since this is an opinion question it’s kind of hard to comment on. I don’t find the site intimidating at all. I think the large “Warning” page is kind of silly myself but I inherited that and frankly a lot of this isn’t worth changing since there are bigger things afoot(tm). I suppose some folks might be intimidated by it – but frankly I am not sure I have ever really met anyone who was intimidated by a web page.

Maymay finds the design “sad” – mostly because he seems to have a problem with dark pages that have lighter colors on top of them. Overall the reviewer seems to think all of this conveys some sort of “bad boy” image that makes the him scared? feel like a bad person? want to hurt puppies? I am not sure, to be honest. 

Me? I am a pretty “Web 2.0” style guy myself. I like white backgrounds, clean designs and pretty consistent text sizes. I also happen to like fast cars and hot Asian schoolgirls… but that’s beside the point. I any case I doubt seriously that any vestiges of the current TES design will survive the sites evolution and I think most will agree that’s a good thing.

Maymay doesn’t like our HTML – that’s OK. Neither do I. Then again, no one on the current IT staff built it that I know of.

Maymay thinks we should link to more outside sites – Maybe, maybe not. The opinions are still out.

Maymay doesn’t like our calendar – That’s good… neither do we. It’s ont he list of “stuff to deal with when we have more time or more money”.

Anyway – he doesn’t like it. As far as I can tell he doesn’t like any of it. 

Maymay has a huge hard-on for the site of “Polyamorous NYC” and appears to hold it up as a model site design. I can’t say as I am impressed. I was never a big fan of either laugh in or That 70’s Show so it doesn’t really do anything for me. I am amused that I can manage to dislike a design without having to be an asshole about it which is a bit more than I can say for the author of this screed.

Frankly, I find the whole post fairly ludicrous. There is some indication in the text that the author somehow thinks that writing style is necessary or makes him cool or something. If this is just a rant, that’s fine – then don’t expect me to really feel like you are making points that matter to me. If your trying to say something useful it might help a little bit if you weren’t so busy being a screaming fucktard because frankly I am not impressed. Maddox does the screaming asshole thing better and more intelligently and Tucker Max pretty much has the rest of the asshole attitude market sewn up.

Oh hell, we can just sum up my whole reaction with “I am not impressed”.

When this was post was brought to my attention, one of the things that came up was a plea to read between the many levels ignorance and insultingly bad attitude. I was asked whether I could just respond to the technical points that were being made. I was asked to pretend that Maymay had made an intelligent post as if he was a qualified web professional giving advice to others.

Ok, here’s is my response on just that level. I even set it up as a quote so folks can email it to all their friends or hang it on their wall.

“Does Maymay make some good points? you betcha. None of it is anything we don’t already know, but there are a few good points there.” – Soulhuntre (current TES IT chair) in response to the technical points in Maymay’s comments about Tes.org.

If that was all the post was then things would have just stayed like that. Hell I certainly have no need to defend many of the things he doesn’t like about the TES website because all that stuff predates me.

But dear little Maymay didn’t actually make that post. Maymay made a post where he took a large number of webmasters to task and felt qualified to comment on their skill, technical knowledge and in some ways commitment level to the community. Maymay set himself up as someone in a position to judge us and given the level of condescension and insult included in it he clearly feels that his lofty position makes him well suited to take us out behind the woodshed and grant us a thrashing he feels we so richly deserve.

When Maymay says this…

“Why you need to think about what you’re doing or Obviously you’re too busy jacking off at the computer” – Maymay

He is talking to me and about me. Personally. I am the head of the TES IT committee and the buck, ultimately, stops with me.

And when Maymay says this…

“To be fair, this exact problem plagues pretty much every web site built by people who don’t actually know how to work with the Web, which includes the vast majority of every so-called self-proclaimed “web designer” out there, which is also, coincidentally, apparently pretty much every tech-savvy kinky person in existence.” – Maymay

He is talking to me and about me. Personally. And frankly I can’t for the life of me figure out why I am supposed to respond as if he hasn’t.

I find the condescension to be the most amusing. How can I put this nicely… in order to be condescending you need to have some status to do it with. You have neither the design, technical or community chops necessary to condescend to anyone on the TES IT group in any fashion. In every category you just tried to be a dick on – you lose.

Frankly, my tolerance for it is a bit thin. My selection of polite responses is similarly wearing thin. So I’ll leave it with something simple…

Fuck you 🙂

p.s. I realize that it may have been Maymay’s intention for the language of his post to be humorously over the top or some sort of “tough love”. The problem is for anything of that type to work one has to have at least the respect of your audience on some level and preferably you would be their peer. I don’t know about his other targets but in my universe he is and has neither of those things.