Over the past year I’ve asked for feedback on my website from people on a few different forums (including here at one point). It didn’t happen here because Dopers seem to be very willing to offer opinions and debate, but I’ve noticed something odd/interesting on other forums:
[ol]
[li]Several people will check out the site I’ve asked for feedback on and post their thoughts very briefly[/li][li]One of those people will give a thorough tear-down of the site[/li][li]all of the other people go silent[/li][/ol]
If I engage with the critical poster to get more details he will reply back with vague stuff that I can’t do much with, and nobody else will chime in to either help elaborate on the feedback if they agree with him or disagree with him.
If I don’t engage, nobody else does either and the thread dies.
So in a nutshell it looks kind of like one semi-bully responds to my request to sort of beat me up a bit, and everybody else runs for the hills. Just a mundane and pointless observation. I’ve been participating on internet forums since the old usenet days so I’m familiar with net bullies and all that. But this is something I’ve never noticed until now.
Is it possible that people just aren’t interested in engaging in what interests you? Some threads strike a nerve or spark conversation, some don’t. Same as chit chat in the real world. Such is life…
I don’t know what you’re referring to so pardon me if there’s more to it than what you’ve posted.
But if you ask for honest opinions, and some of those opinions happen to be critical, that doesn’t make the giver of such opinions a “bully”.
That’s one of the things I love about the internet (this boar in particular) I can ask for opinions and expect to get honest answers. If I were to ask my friends, they would most likely just tell me what I want to hear.
Giving me feedback is welcome, that’s not why I said they’re bullies. It’s more this pattern:
Being critical of every aspect of the site and not mentioning anything they liked or even a general “overall it was okay but…”
Most of the items they list are relative terms like “not done well”, “looks plain” or bizarre like saying that there are no links in the footer when I have links in the footer.
When I reply back to ask for clarifications they only reply back with lecturing, like this: "It goes back to design. It stands out that the footer looks bare. You’re seeing it as the website owner and the person who’s put their time in and built it with their own hands based on what they recently learned. It’s personal to you. You’re proud of what you’ve been able to do on your own ( and you should be), but you’re not seeing it as a stranger does. You’re looking at is like it’s your baby. Again, it’s not about you it’s about them. Customers. Strangers. "
The semi-bullying isn’t any one of those points, but all of them put together. It’s the lack of actionable feedback on every detail followed by a weird lecture that seems to think I’m defensive when I’m not. I just asked for clarification, in this case which links he felt were missing.
One forum where this happened was the discussion forum for my site platform where (in theory) we all help each other out. The other forum was for small business discussion. Of course not everybody will be interested in the topic. But even those who started to participate go radio silent after the Big Feedback guy gives his huge list of issues. Even if he can’t tell me which links he thinks are missing, if someone else agrees with that feedback you’d think they could chime in and suggest which links they think are missing.
A bully offers non-constructive non-actionable vague criticism and can’t be drawn out to the point of providing useful critique. You would be justified in not thinking they were friends.
As to OP, culture varies from board to board, and it’s possible that the silent majority is likewise bullied. Loudmouths often won’t tolerate competition or variation on viewpoints.
When it comes to design, especially website design, there are a billion ways to get it wrong. Getting it right is both difficult to do and difficult to describe. Those you think are silenced by the initial withering critique probably don’t have any concrete advice to fix anything (neither does the criticizer).
When looking for feedback on stuff like this, I would suggest asking specific questions about specific things (‘How are the dropdown menus?’ ‘Does the color palette match the content?’). Or ask for people only for what they like. Or ask for a limit of two or three things “wrong”. Asking broadly like you have invites only indifference or “it all sucks” responses.
With advice, you generally get what you pay for. If you want an honest, in-depth critique on subject matter that doesn’t particularly enthuse most people, you are unlikely to get it on a general public forum.
It’s kind of similar to artwork feedback. Other than a few general observations, I have no incentive, nor time, to think too hard about what someone else is doing, and how they could be doing it better.