Completely unexpectedly, I got this comment to my last post:
Your foul language doesnt allow many to take you seriously in your approach. A better tone and more professional attitude would do wonders. Feel free to flame my observation in any colorful vernacular of your choice.
Aside the fact that the guy/girl (I will call him/her X and refer to them using neutral it and its from hereafter) managed to put a typo in its first sentence while commenting about my
foul language, my first thought went to trolling. I'm not concerned about X: even if it's not a troll, it can go read Grognardia, and since it either a) doesn't write a blog (and thus doesn't share anything about what it plays/thinks, assuming it does at least one of these things) or b) doesn't dare to show its nickname, I think I have nothing to say to it. I also observe a
No Troll Feeding protocol on this blog, and so if X didn't touch a raw nerve, I wouldn't even care to reply, let alone dedicate an entire post to its comment.
But actually X touched a raw nerve. I don't give a shit about the part of the comment that includes the words
seriously and
professional, for this blog's not Grognardia, I'm not a publisher, none have to pay to read what I write and this is a blog about
D & D, not the metaphysical and mystical implications of the theory of loop quantum gravity against string theory concerning the genesis of the universe. And
D & D to me is about having fun with friends, not a solitary kind of fetish masturbation about
rules,
settings and such. Although I don't have problems with people who likes this kind of self-fucking approach – I'm pretty liberal about sexual inclination, as long as they don't have anything to do with non-consensual harming (i.e. pedophilia, sexual sadism and so on.)
On the other hand, I'm much more concerned about
foul language. Now, as you all know (or, at least, many of you know), I'm not a natural english speaker. Also, I have only high school level english experience, and have never been to an anglophone country. Therefore I greatly rely on Google Translator for my posts, and the very kind
Dave to fix the broken syntax (words will never be enough to say how grateful I am towards that guy.) Still, I understand my english can sound
foul, or even
weird to the natural english speaker out there. Dave said I've improved my english greatly over the course of the last three months, and I trust him since he actually runs a solid Syntax Proof blog (that is also a wonderful, awesome blog, by the way!) As you may have noted, I don't write that much about generic or grognardish related topics, although I guess I would have a lot more followers if I did so, since every time I come out with shit like
this I get 13 comments and five new followers, whereas when I come out with something I consider interesting and attention worthy (like
this) I get virtually no feedback. The reason why I persist in not bending to the will of my readers is that I don't trust my english skill
that much. If I could speak in italian, then you would have a lot more shit to read and way less actual content. Also, I am confident that most of you follow me for what I write about, and not for my occasional, pointless digressions.
Thus, my question is: do you actually agree with what X wrote? I'm not asking this to you X: you are a lurker at best, or a troll, and I don't really know which one of these categories concern me less than ornithology*. I'm asking this to the ones who actually read my blog. You know, what really concerns me is the lack of critical feedback from my followers. I mean, I had some comments by
ChicagoWiz who had something to say about my methods, and I think he was actually right, and it was very useful; and I can count on the fact that Dave would mail me (as he has in the past) to let me know if he thinks I'm taking a wrong direction. As I used to say to my players when we play,
give me feedback, and negative feedback over positive, for I already think that what I write is pretty cool and my ego doesn't need to be fed further.
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*This is untranslatable. "Bird" is italian slang for "Dick" (you would be surprised to know how many different sayings we have to refer to cocks), so you may guess what I mean with "ornithology" (provided that you even know what the hell ornithology means – if not, ask Google.)
