The January 2012 Tutorial Discussion

[Big Frank]

No part of this forum is a democracy, so if I disagree with your criticisms, I win.

Careful when you say things like that - some people will take you at your word

[Gare]

Sorry! That was my ham-handed way of saying, "I don't want negative criticism, and I believe it's my position as Moderator not to listen to any of it."

Which is of course utter rubbish, when viewed from the perspective of an adult.

But on the other hand, don't most of us retreat into a child-like mode when we are criticized?

Seriously, this is something to consider. We all realize we learn from mistakes, and at the same time we blush when we realize we've committed one in public. Some use denial as a defense, some apologize, but an inordinately small number of us do what we're supposed to do when critized: we learn, we get better by analyzing and correcting our foibles in the future.

That is why it's so very important to me to clarify some terms we all use daily, and to re-define their use on the forum:

•Criticism-The accurate appraisal of a body of work. That's the classical definition and it works much better for me than, "to knock someone, or their work." There's really no such this as 'negative criticism', except for the critic to fail to accurately appraise something. Movie critics, by and large, are not that: they're insecure, failed movie directors that get their jollies by bashing real directors.

I'm open to criticism in the classical sense.

•Opinion-Noun, classically defined as a personal pronouncement backed by some sort of facts, although mostly a statement delivered with passion. How many times do people begin a post with, "In my opinion..."? When it is instead a feeling, an emotional response backed by total fiction, or just an uneducated impression. I'm not singling anyone out on the forum, nor in New York, nor on Earth. It's just a personal bug; I'd like to see opinions put forth as opinions, and emotionally-charged impressions called "feelings", and not "opinions".

My two cents,

Gary