@dislekcia I'd rather talk about encouraging new participation and maybe publicizing their work though (which I felt was the spirit of what I posted) than what "old guard" means. I'd like to talk about improving the meetups rather than defending them (if that's reasonable).
@BlackShipsFilltheSky: The CT meetups have been getting solidly better. And yeah, everybody should be free to propose topics and if the forum wants to hear it, awesome. I don't see why we need to demonise anyone, old or new. I just didn't think calling people an "old guard" and implying a whole bunch of negative stuff with that was useful, especially when that's not what's actually happening in the slightest.
Like, if you tell me that we have an old guard that constantly talks, then I'm not going to feel comfortable proposing a topic or a video or whatever because I should probably shut up and not monopolise the mic. We don't want *anyone* to feel like shutting up! I'm not defending the meetups, I'm defending the people who're being told they're not enabling or encouraging others when they actually are.
We can ask for and celebrate new content without telling the people who regularly produce content that they're bad.
Like, if we're having the problem that people usually don't speak at the meetups and we want to unlock what they know for everyone - maybe we can do something like panel discussions where a moderator asks questions of a few people who might have a difficult time coming up with an entire talk?
I could see a panel discussion of 3 artists being really interesting, for instance.
At the same time, I kinda feel like we lost a little bit of the show-and-tell stuff we had going before when we moved to only 2 talks. Maybe we can encourage that format a little more too :)
I think the makegame meetup are great. I'm kinda shy, but the gaming community is really friendly, especially if i compare it with CG meetups i've gone to in the past.
Bear in mind that participation / presentation of any kind can be difficult to scrounge together, from old AND new members. Until a few days before this meetup, I was the only one who'd volunteered a talk of any kind.
As @WelshPixie pointed out, there's a lot of general shyness and introversion in a community like this because the creative elements at work here don't necessarily overlap with the public speaking skills and outgoing nature required by a meetup environment. A lot of people just wanna interact and promote on the forums, and that's always gonna be a safe spot for them.
That said, I think that "How to talk about your game" would make for a lovely topic if I have the opportunity to present in January ... :3
Joining this discussion a bit late and being a new MGSA member, I have found all the talks by the "old gaurd" to be extremely enlightening, insightful and educational for someone who is new and wanting to learn more. I have thought of giving presentations or talks but what I can bring to the table is all CG/Pipeline and rigging related, which I find is a very niche area of interest in the CG industry let alone the games industry.
I have never felt that the MGSA Community evenings create a barrier between the new and old. But I have found that when we do the open game play sessions, people interacting together, playing games does break down the shy wall and opens up new path ways for communication :)
I have noticed a lot of defensiveness around here where people are just too touchy about certain things. Personally, I think it is a problem with South Africans as a whole where we have become "too" accepting, "too" apologetic, and maybe even scared to challenge someone for fear of being called a "this" or a "that" (you know what I mean) - and it's pervasive throughout all areas where people are involved.
I think this severely detracts from the kind of culture that is required to compete in a world that does not care who we are or what we can contribute. To become a more prominent player in the gaming world (in this case) we need to buck up, toughen up, and grow some claws - or we will never survive (or be seen as anything but a "mickey mouse" country). Nothing will be given to us on a silver platter, no matter how much we believe that we are "that" special.
I can concur the impression that there is a bit of an "old guard" to this community (the forums), as in most communities, except that there is no negative intentions here. In fact, people are too nice - mostly - which is strange to me, coming from a very high performing, competitive, eat-your-own-children world. Nothing wrong with it... just something to get used to, and that's my responsibility.
I feel that people should not wait to feel comfortable, or to be invited - but rather participate and nominate themselves if they feel excluded, or that they could add value.
That being said, I have not been to a meetup yet (but will join in soon enough), and my opinions on this may change once I get to meet some of you guys personally.
EDIT: sorry if this came across like a rant, or went a bit off topic :)
@dislekcia like black ships said, lets rather abandon the term "old guard" if it's creating negative connotations for you, and instead phrase it as: "The meet ups are doing really well, but there is still room for more excellence".
Your last suggestion sounds like an interesting one.
@dislekcia Frankly I don't really understand your problem with the term (maybe it has a different meaning for me). Obviously I didn't mean to demonize anyone.
Also, I think there is a bit of a disconnect here between what I expect of the meetups and what many other folks expect. Personally I was dissatisfied with the last meetup. There were people falling asleep during the talks (one person was actually asleep). Since I was doing a talk obviously some of the blame lies on me. But I don't think it was just the nature of the talks, I think those attendees weren't engaged because they didn't feel that there existed an avenue for their engagement, or they felt there was little merit in their engagement.
Whether or not there is success bias (or professional bias, or old guard, or whatever you want to call it) creeping into the meetups is clearly something not everyone agrees upon judging by these posts (or maybe it's just okay with some of us). And obviously my taste in what a good meetup is is different from most of this community (if I'm nearly alone in feeling this dissatisfied).
@BlackShipsFilltheSky: I'm just trying to switch the conversation from "What's currently happening is bad for vaguely unspecified reasons" to "Here are some ideas to make what's currently happening even better". I don't think you intended to, but it does feel rather discouraging to suggest that the people who are currently putting in effort to make things happen should somehow stop, that's all.
So what's the problem? That people don't seem engaged? Could there be other reasons maybe, like sitting in the room to the right makes people feel left out or not spoken to? What else do you expect from a meetup that isn't happening?
@dislekcia I didn't suggest that people putting in the effort should stop. That would be totally daft. I did make other suggestions that had nothing to do with what you seem to have read from my post.
What you read was just an awful lazy interpretation, and kind of bizarre. I can't imagine why you'd think that I'd suggest that if the new members are not participating the solution is that the more experienced members should stop. Or why you'd think that anyone else here would assume that the answer to new members participating more is to stop more experienced members from participating. No one here is an idiot.
I really hope. Unless there are idiots here, in which case your lectures on semantics and avoiding offense might be useful to this conversation.
1. the original or long-standing members of a group, regarded as unwilling to accept change or new ideas. "the ageing right-wing old guard"
I'm sorry for pissing you off. I just didn't want to have a bunch of people mislabeled as conservative and averse to change. An old guard is always a bad thing to have in a community, the only way to get rid of them is to overwhelm them with new ideas and get them to shut up and change.
I have never seen a comp turnout like this before on an SA gamefrumz. Newbies by the kilo (welcome :D)! The Game.Dev Old Guard rocked up. Travis Freaking Bulford submitted an entry. Even @Thaumaturge rose from whatever etheric plane he'd been lurking in. It's bloody fantastic.
AngryMoose said:
The *majority* of the old guard of ZA game development is *only* here because they started from scratch and learned C/C++/Java/Pascal/DirectX/OpenGL/etc.
Dislekcia said:
So who's the old guard then? I'm certainly not part of it if those are the criteria... I'm only here because Game Maker (after I'd ignored it for the umpteenth time) finally made doing all the things I had been trying to do before not only possible, but trivial.
This derailing conversation about correct semantics came up none of those times. It's being used as a positive in GazzaN's post. People were able to understand the context without a semantic argument.
I want to be able to say "The meetups could be improved" without having to say "The committee members are doing a great job, but the meetups could be improved". That's a given, everyone loves that some of the more experienced members of this community reach out and offer help or opportunities. I really don't think their reputations need stroking at this point, and I don't think anyone who is reading this conversation would assume from an ambiguous statement that they're "unwilling to accept change or new ideas."
Wikipedia said:
Old Guard generally refers to a veteran or group of veterans, a conservative faction, or an older segment of a population.
Merriam Webster said:
1: the conservative and especially older members of an organization (as a political party) 2: a group of established prestige and influence
I think people are able to figure things out without lectures. The meaning of "old guard" is not nearly as inflexible as you are suggesting.
In fact everyone understood fine what was going on until you jumped in without engaging in the substance of the discussion.
In any case:
TheFuntastic said:
@dislekcia like black ships said, lets rather abandon the term "old guard" if it's creating negative connotations for you, and instead phrase it as: "The meet ups are doing really well, but there is still room for more excellence".
Like, if we're having the problem that people usually don't speak at the meetups and we want to unlock what they know for everyone - maybe we can do something like panel discussions where a moderator asks questions of a few people who might have a difficult time coming up with an entire talk?
I could see a panel discussion of 3 artists being really interesting, for instance.
At the same time, I kinda feel like we lost a little bit of the show-and-tell stuff we had going before when we moved to only 2 talks. Maybe we can encourage that format a little more too :)
So what's the problem? That people don't seem engaged? Could there be other reasons maybe, like sitting in the room to the right makes people feel left out or not spoken to? What else do you expect from a meetup that isn't happening?
That's me trying to engage. Can we go back to talking about that stuff instead of how horrible I am for not understanding? I'm sorry.
I think it would be awesome if someone could make a compilation video of all the prototypes made last year. We can watch at the January meet up, reflect on all the rad stuff we did this year and discuss personal goals for next year. :)
Comments
Like, if you tell me that we have an old guard that constantly talks, then I'm not going to feel comfortable proposing a topic or a video or whatever because I should probably shut up and not monopolise the mic. We don't want *anyone* to feel like shutting up! I'm not defending the meetups, I'm defending the people who're being told they're not enabling or encouraging others when they actually are.
We can ask for and celebrate new content without telling the people who regularly produce content that they're bad.
I could see a panel discussion of 3 artists being really interesting, for instance.
At the same time, I kinda feel like we lost a little bit of the show-and-tell stuff we had going before when we moved to only 2 talks. Maybe we can encourage that format a little more too :)
As @WelshPixie pointed out, there's a lot of general shyness and introversion in a community like this because the creative elements at work here don't necessarily overlap with the public speaking skills and outgoing nature required by a meetup environment. A lot of people just wanna interact and promote on the forums, and that's always gonna be a safe spot for them.
That said, I think that "How to talk about your game" would make for a lovely topic if I have the opportunity to present in January ... :3
I have never felt that the MGSA Community evenings create a barrier between the new and old. But I have found that when we do the open game play sessions, people interacting together, playing games does break down the shy wall and opens up new path ways for communication :)
I have noticed a lot of defensiveness around here where people are just too touchy about certain things. Personally, I think it is a problem with South Africans as a whole where we have become "too" accepting, "too" apologetic, and maybe even scared to challenge someone for fear of being called a "this" or a "that" (you know what I mean) - and it's pervasive throughout all areas where people are involved.
I think this severely detracts from the kind of culture that is required to compete in a world that does not care who we are or what we can contribute. To become a more prominent player in the gaming world (in this case) we need to buck up, toughen up, and grow some claws - or we will never survive (or be seen as anything but a "mickey mouse" country). Nothing will be given to us on a silver platter, no matter how much we believe that we are "that" special.
I can concur the impression that there is a bit of an "old guard" to this community (the forums), as in most communities, except that there is no negative intentions here. In fact, people are too nice - mostly - which is strange to me, coming from a very high performing, competitive, eat-your-own-children world. Nothing wrong with it... just something to get used to, and that's my responsibility.
I feel that people should not wait to feel comfortable, or to be invited - but rather participate and nominate themselves if they feel excluded, or that they could add value.
That being said, I have not been to a meetup yet (but will join in soon enough), and my opinions on this may change once I get to meet some of you guys personally.
EDIT: sorry if this came across like a rant, or went a bit off topic :)
[Edit: I just realized Evans talk rendered without sound :/]
Your last suggestion sounds like an interesting one.
Also, I think there is a bit of a disconnect here between what I expect of the meetups and what many other folks expect. Personally I was dissatisfied with the last meetup. There were people falling asleep during the talks (one person was actually asleep). Since I was doing a talk obviously some of the blame lies on me. But I don't think it was just the nature of the talks, I think those attendees weren't engaged because they didn't feel that there existed an avenue for their engagement, or they felt there was little merit in their engagement.
Whether or not there is success bias (or professional bias, or old guard, or whatever you want to call it) creeping into the meetups is clearly something not everyone agrees upon judging by these posts (or maybe it's just okay with some of us). And obviously my taste in what a good meetup is is different from most of this community (if I'm nearly alone in feeling this dissatisfied).
So what's the problem? That people don't seem engaged? Could there be other reasons maybe, like sitting in the room to the right makes people feel left out or not spoken to? What else do you expect from a meetup that isn't happening?
What you read was just an awful lazy interpretation, and kind of bizarre. I can't imagine why you'd think that I'd suggest that if the new members are not participating the solution is that the more experienced members should stop. Or why you'd think that anyone else here would assume that the answer to new members participating more is to stop more experienced members from participating. No one here is an idiot.
I really hope. Unless there are idiots here, in which case your lectures on semantics and avoiding offense might be useful to this conversation.
Maybe I'm an idiot. I don't know anymore.
I want to be able to say "The meetups could be improved" without having to say "The committee members are doing a great job, but the meetups could be improved". That's a given, everyone loves that some of the more experienced members of this community reach out and offer help or opportunities. I really don't think their reputations need stroking at this point, and I don't think anyone who is reading this conversation would assume from an ambiguous statement that they're "unwilling to accept change or new ideas."
I think people are able to figure things out without lectures. The meaning of "old guard" is not nearly as inflexible as you are suggesting.
In fact everyone understood fine what was going on until you jumped in without engaging in the substance of the discussion.
In any case: