I’ve seen a lot of folks online who think they can teach developers how to develop, but I didn’t imagine the problem was so bad in face-to-face interactions.

As spotted by Game*Spark, Tokyo Game Dungeon’s official X account made a statement on May 5 saying that despite the organizers’ efforts to raise awareness about the issue of “preachy dudes” over the past two years, they still haven’t been able to eliminate the problem at their events. According to their definition, “preachy dudes”(jp: sekkyo ojisan) are people of any age and gender who find it acceptable to badger developers with condescending, unsolicited “advice” on their abilities and work.

  • PapstJL4U@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    21 hours ago

    Day9 has nice talk about giving good feedback, and commands or commands hidden as rhetorical question are not one of them.

    The right feedback would be something like: "Oh, this confused me. I did not expect the cliff edge to be the goal.

    Not more, because you don’t know the intended. Maybe the dev wanted you to be confused or you were one of ten people to not go down the cliff.

    Describe your experience and your expectations, not a solution to something that might not be a problem.

    • Peffse@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      10 hours ago

      But see, that’s an almost naive take. A convention is not a professional environment. The social contract isn’t set, so it is two strangers meeting each other for the first time. The dev watched me flail about for five minutes before finally giving me the answer, so if I turn around and state the obvious “I was confused and didn’t realize the water wasn’t hazardous” it could easily be taken as a condescending statement. A belief that I think the dev is so stupid that he can’t figure out why I was having trouble.

      So I had just a mere moment to figure out whether the dev understood where the problem was, and break it to him if he didn’t. Hence the question. Not a rhetorical question, mind you… a question hiding my information with a get out of jail free card. We were both there watching me humiliate myself, so how do I say most people are taught not to launch others into water without confirming they can swim, with this dev possibly being thin-skinned and unprofessional?

      Ask a question. Why not make the cliff a gradual beach into the water to indicate it’s not a hazard?

      The dev could have easily answered with:

      I reused the cliff from elsewhere to save memory

      or

      I wanted to give people a chance to familiarize themselves with the controls before moving on

      or even

      I didn’t have enough colors

      and that would have been the end of the exchange. The information was passed, we both knew I struggled, and now we both know why.