Constructive criticism

[Morgaln]

For me, the problem stems from people who arrive, essentially (British-ism) slag off our friend/someone we care enough to stick up for, and then act all surprised and affronted when we DO stick up for him. We're not rabid fans, or blind to Thunt's flaws, but this is a place we've created to celebrate his work.

I mean, really? Do people expect a different response here? Isn't it a bit like standing up in a bar in America and saying the national flag is kind of ugly, and then wondering why all the people in the bar with you just stopped smiling? I genuinely don't understand the thought process that leads to "...gee, I wonder why my opinion isn't popular here" :/

I'm not saying don't have that opinion or anything... But I am really surprised, every frickin time, by people who say "ugh that guys fans just...like him...and they won't stop liking him all in my face, no matter how much I say he's not that good."

I'm also curious as to why you (you as in the OP) feel the need for an entire thread for criticism, constructive or otherwise. We're not really here to criticize, although like Wears and Sessine said, it comes up when it comes up. Thunt does appreciate criticism that *is* actually constructive, though. So if you have some, by all means go with it. Just, you know, don't with the insulting, slamming, kill-it-with-fire kind.

FWIW, I've noticed that we usually get the ZOMG, OVERBEARING MODS!!1!!!1!!!ELEVENTY!!!! accusations from people who get warned after they repeatedly break the posted rules, insult the creator, the moderators/admins, the other forum members, etc.

Also, I don't think I've ever deleted anything that wasn't a spambot. If something is particularly offensive and rule-breaking, I usually just hide it behind a spoiler tag and give the poster an in-line warning. And in case you're wondering, I don't eat babies. Even though I'm an atheist.

Please note that the following is personal opinion and interpretation. If I understood something wrong, feel free to correct me
These two posts somewhat embody the general attitude towards criticism I've percieved on the forum during my years of lurking, especially the parts about not being here to criticize and celebrating the comic. It's not forbidden to criticize, but negative thoughts about the comic or parts thereof are not welcome and frowned upon, ignored at best. I've witnessed instances where constructive critique was met with hostility and insults, although the one instance I remember best was not on this forum but one of the precious ones. It really does give the impression that you want a forum that only talks about the positive parts. What also colored my perception of the goblin fans and by extension this forum were two things I witnessed
One was the fights that broke out over the Goblins vs Gunnerkrigg Court vote in the Mix March Madness 2012 Webcomic Tournament. The outright viciousness fans showed over other people liking another comic better was appalling.
The other situation was when someone read a page of the comic wrong and thought it was a rape joke, and being an abuse survivor she overreacted without investigating further. I remember she got a lot of hate mail and I think even death threads for that. While she certainly wasn't right
Now I'm well aware that these are (like most shitstorms) the deeds of a minority of fanatics and doesn't represent everyone on the forum. But It still told me that being openly critical of the comic is not a safe thing to do and can has repercussions beyond just the forum.

However, this is the official Goblins forum. Where should criticism go if not here? Where would Hunt go to see criticism if not here? Constructive criticism can be helpful; it shows us where we have room to improve because most often, we can't see it ourselves. That goes for every aspect of life, not just art, by the way. People By discouraging criticism, you are keeping out the best way to make the comic you love even better. Obviously, that doesn't mean Hunt has to change everything just because someone tells him so, as his "I Quit" blog implies he thought he did. It's a balancing act between trying out some suggestions and discarding others. But healthy discussion of flaws can help with determining which flaws are just a gripe for a select few and which are bigger issues.

Of course that only goes for constructive criticism. Our thread on the BWW forums is anything but constructive (with rare exceptions), I'm certainly not denying that. But for me at least, criticism is not the point of that thread. It's a place to go where I can vent anger, frustration and disappointment over something I once loved and which fell far from the potential I saw in it. Since that is the case, most of my posts over there are far harsher than they would be in different circumstances. I'm sure it's similar for some of the other former fans over there. Our thread on Goblins over there has more posts than all of the other threads on reviewed comics combined and then some. I think that is because we do care in some way. We wouldn't waste that much time on anything that we didn't care about. So maybe there is some small common ground that we could base something on.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Just a suggestion: If we want to have a constructive criticism thread, well and good. An artist appreciates honest feed back. Let's try to leave THunt's personal life/problems out if we can. He's made some effort to try not to involve his own problems in his work (sometimes to his own detriment). I feel like we should respect his privacy in that respect.
I am curious, however, Hates-fun and American Dork, if you have a criticism do you also propose a solution? That is the whole purpose of constructive criticism after all. And I mean an answer a little more in depth than "Don't do that". Most solutions involve a process. What are you proposing?

[American Dork]

First of all, he didn't complain just because they gave away his home address, and his complaints with Kickstarter are well-founded. A company who had licensed his intellectual property for a game took the money and ran (or ran out of money, or whatever else happened). Thunt has no responsibility to deliver the product to the backers. That was the company's responsibility. This is like Marvel licensing its characters to Mattel to create action figures, and then me expecting Marvel to reimburse me if one of those action figures is broken.

Thunt has taken much more responsibility for the G:AR fiasco than he is actually responsible for. His "sob stories" involve his numerous attempts to get Kickstarter to take the collection page down, inform the backers of the situation, and to help facilitate some communication between himself and the backers so that he can find some way to let them know what happened, maybe even find a way to make sure they are still rewarded for their contribution, and provide them with any updated information about a new solution.

Instead, Kickstarter sent a message to the backers telling them that their products would still be coming as promised (by someone else), and that specific message lead to information about Thunt's home address. Any of us would be upset in the same situation.

And I think we can all agree that someone who calls another a "giant douche" and who makes 5x5 bingo cards to ridicule someone suffering from a mental health issues -- Thunt didn't called it PTSD; he mocked the idea that it was PTSD -- has no business lecturing people about "professionalism". Don't get me wrong, you seem like a level-headed guy yourself, but surely you can see where we would want to keep the criticism constructive and factual.

From what I've read, Thunt must have royally screwed himself over on the whole contract with Evertide, and "taken responsibility" is different than "internalized". If he had really taken responsibility, he would've apologized to the fans, refunded everyone, and then gone after Evertide at a different time. This might be why he's gone to different lawyers, because they aren't giving him the answer he wanted to hear. I'm sure Tarol never shared the full contract with the rest of you, but here's some things I gleamed from other sources.

They do not have the right to fund or finance any Goblins, Goblins: Alternate Realities or G:AR Kickstarter projects. Richard James and Evertide Games do not have the right to the following money... $177,850 Falsely gained through Kickstarter. $5,314 Falsely gained from the Evertide Games website which is currently promoted and linked to through Kickstarter.

This is probably the main line that caused Kickstarter to pull the G:AR Kickstarter page. Though it's only partly true. Evertide did not currently have the rights to make a G:AR Kickstarter but at the time of the Kickstarter's opening and completion they did have said rights.

I don't recall Thunt's contact with Evertide saying that they need to pay the money equal to any money gained from this project back to Tarol a should the project fail. Does it? If not Tarol's claim they have no right to the money is false.

Secondly, Thunt's response to Kickstarter is completely irrational.

Kickstarter: Making the Mafia Look Like Chucky Cheese Since 2009.
April 17th, 2015

I just sent this email to Kickstarter.

Dear Kickstarter. Lets recap

I told you that the project was a scam that ripped off thousands of people in my name by taking their money, disappearing forever and forcing me to face everyone. I explained that no backers would ever receive any rewards or product. I asked for the backer list so I could send all of them ÔÇÿsomethingÔÇÖ to try and make this as right as I can.
You refused to help in any way at all and told me to talk to the person whom you know disappeared forever with the money.

I further explained that none of the backers would ever receive any rewards or product and asked for your help in the form of advice, discussion or somehow removing or altering the scam project page.
You refused to help in any way at all and told me to talk to the person whom you know disappeared forever with the money.

I sent you a DMCA take down notice, explaining once more and with great care, that no backers would ever be receiving any rewards or product.
You took the page down and sent a blanket email to every backer, explaining to all of them that they will indeed be receiving their rewards and product. Then you gave all of them a link to a page with my home address on it.

I understand that Im talking to a business and not a single person, but whoever is reading this right now, please think about this for a moment. You promised over 2000 people that they can expect the non-existent products that they paid for that have my name on them and then you gave all of them my home address.

Please stop this. I honestly canÔÇÖt take anymore.
-Tarol Hunt

Kickstarter isn't treating it like a special case, because it's not a mediator between parties of a deal wrong. In the meantime, he's slandering and blaming Kickstarter for a problem that they didn't cause. This is unprofessional behavior at the very least.

Secondly, I did not make the bingo card (though I did admit I had a good laugh at it and thought it would be a funny idea if it was posted on the Goblins forum at the time) and believed Hunt to be more of an "immature man-child" than anything.

Let's just put my suspicions to my rest hereÔÇöare there any Goblins Forums regulars that believe Thunt is evading fault, blaming others, and generally acting poorly, or is group-think taking charge and punishing dissenters?

[nikohl]

Please note that the following is personal opinion and interpretation. If I understood something wrong, feel free to correct me
These two posts somewhat embody the general attitude towards criticism I've percieved on the forum during my years of lurking, especially the parts about not being here to criticize and celebrating the comic. It's not forbidden to criticize, but negative thoughts about the comic or parts thereof are not welcome and frowned upon, ignored at best...

Respectfully, you have misinterpreted my point. I am in no way averse to reading or moderating criticism and you're right that this is the best place for constructive criticism to go. What I am averse to is people who arrive and are surprised and annoyed to find that the majority of people on the Goblins Fan Forum are... fans. People who post a negative opinion and, when disagreed with by people here who -like- the comic, immediately flap their hands and say that we all just won't hear criticism. I might be explaining it poorly, but I hope that made more sense?

We don't want happy sunshine land where no-one ever says anything negative. We do try and keep actual screaming and trolling and general asshattery to a minimum, but disliking stuff isn't verboten.

With regard to some of your other points -

Everyone on this forum was totally appalled at what happened to the lady who misinterpreted the Dogpile page. She got targeted by some horrible people and it shouldn't have happened. But I don't believe that nasty tweets directed at her came from regular users here, nor do I believe that the average forum-going Goblins fan here got embroiled in the scary Voting thing. That whole occurrence was frankly awful, but even a cursory browse through the relevant threads back then will show that our regular users aren't like that. There might be scary fans out there, just like there are scary fans of everything out there, but looking at that whole March Madness thing from the outside it felt to me more like trolls wrecking the party for everyone. Either way, to say that you feel it's unsafe to criticise the comic because of potential repercussions is... Well, a bit silly, isn't it, since that's what you guys do over on BWW?

[WearsHats]

Most of those have been fixed for a while (including shading, which it doesn't say Danielle did but was poorly done nonetheless).

Like I said, it's been a while since I looked through the article. I'm glad to hear that at least some of the errors have been corrected. Frankly, though, I found the whole article to be poorly written, riddled with errors, and more concerned with mudslinging than thoughtful analysis, which is why I'm not particularly inclined to go back there to fact check the latest version.

Was that comic ever finished? You tell me, but three years is far too long for that sort of thing. And as far as I know, no Kickstarter backer got their prizes or even a refund.

I already explained both situations. In the block of text you quoted to say that the errors had been corrected. I'll go over it again.

Whether or not the comic you refer to is "finished" depends on your definition. While the donation drive was open, he promised us that if we met the mark he'd post a 4 page comic. After donations were closed, he was so blown away by the support he'd received that he said he intended to go above and beyond for us in return and would post an additional two page epilogue. The promised four page story is posted and complete. The additional two bonus pages which we'd never been promised in the first place did not get done. We got everything we "paid for," and the story is complete. What fell by the wayside was the bonus epilogue. Even so, Thunt has offered to refund anyone who is unsatisfied.

As for the Kickstarter: You've still got it entirely wrong. Richard James of Evertide Games approached Thunt with an idea to make a game based on Goblins. Thunt agreed to license the characters to Evertide so that Evertide could make the product. Evertide ran the Kickstarter. Thunt helped promote it. The campaign successfully funded, and Thunt got a small cut of the money in the form of a licensing fee and the fee for doing some commissioned artwork. Evertide then took the money but failed to produce the game. (They started development on it, but the company seems to have folded due to financial troubles. It looks like they overreached, trying to do too much with not just G:AR but their previous game. They underestimated fulfillment costs. And then, instead of owning up to that, cut off communications.) This upset a lot of people, including Thunt. Thunt apologized to his fans, taking responsibility for having trusted Evertide without vetting them as thoroughly as perhaps he should. So now, even though he didn't get the money from the campaign and even though he's not a game developer and even though it was never his product or his responsibility to produce it, he is working overtime to finish developing the game at his own expense. He's not the one who failed here. Evertide is. And he's still taking it upon himself to do whatever he can to make up for their failure.

It's like if Hasbro produced Harry Potter Monopoly, except the game was defective and missing pieces and chunks of the board, so people blamed J. K. Rowling for not making a better game. That's not how licensing deals work.

And yet you still assert that Thunt is not taking responsibility for it. False.

Well first off, I havenÔÇÖt been wronged here, you have. By my project. Yes, Evertide and Goblins were business partners, but the decision was mine to work with them and the money came from Goblins fans, not Evertide fans. You funded the project because you trusted me and my abilities to bring you the game without any serious problems. The responsibility for this is mine. The obligation to repair this as much as I can is on me.

And that's despite the fact that it's Evertide who failed to deliver.

Note that I'm trying very hard to stick to the facts here. Obviously, the interpretation of those facts is a matter of opinion. BWW holds that Thunt is a jerk and we're all brainwashed dupes. I personally enjoy his work and, having spent a fair amount of time hanging around with him in person, have found him to be genuinely compassionate, considerate, down to earth, fun, and really nice. I've also seen him do great things for virtual strangers. If you don't like the direction the comic has taken and you find his personality grating or whatever, that's your opinion and you're entitled to it. But, as Nikohl said, I'm not going to be well disposed towards someone who comes to me badmouthing my friends and the things I enjoy. And if you "stand by" the BWW article, then that's exactly what you're doing.

All that aside:

We're all agreed that we're individuals, each with our own minds and opinions, who have no place speaking for a broader group. So I really don't get this "we should have a dialog between the Goblins community and the BWW community" approach.

If you, as an individual, want to sign up for an account here and participate in the discussions, go ahead. Stick to the rules, and you'll be fine. You may not be popular, but you won't get kicked out or silenced. All we ask is that members be respectful of each other and refrain from personal attacks and suchlike. We have discussions. You're free to partake in them and share your thoughts and opinions. But that's not a dialog between communities. That's someone who happens to participate in another community coming here to be a part of ours, too. (And if one of our members decides to sign up with your forums, same thing.) We're not opposing camps, there are no teams, and there is no tug of war. We're just people who get together to share ideas and talk about our hobbies. You want to come chat with us, come chat with us. There's no need to carry a banner.

Please note that the following is personal opinion and interpretation. If I understood something wrong, feel free to correct me
These two posts somewhat embody the general attitude towards criticism I've percieved on the forum during my years of lurking, especially the parts about not being here to criticize and celebrating the comic. It's not forbidden to criticize, but negative thoughts about the comic or parts thereof are not welcome and frowned upon, ignored at best. I've witnessed instances where constructive critique was met with hostility and insults, although the one instance I remember best was not on this forum but one of the precious ones. It really does give the impression that you want a forum that only talks about the positive parts.

I think that's your perception coloring things. We're fans of the comic. We enjoy it. That's why we're here. It's a self-selected group. It's not that criticism is unwelcome. It's that, overall, we're people with a positive view of the comic so negative opinions will be unpopular. Which doesn't mean people will hate negative opinions. It means most people here will disagree with them.

I don't want to rehash the March Madness thing. It did get very tense and sometimes ugly. I felt that was more on the GKC side of things than the Goblins side, but of course I'm going to be biased on that.

The rape situation is another matter. A woman who had never read the comic saw one page out of context, misunderstood it, and riled up a whole group of people to smear and libel Thunt and the comic. Even though the very next page showed she was completely wrong in her interpretation. There was a storm of personal attacks on Thunt, people refused to listen to his explanations or even look at the source material to understand the situation. Thunt was, understandably, hurt. But he specifically asked fans not to send her threats or hate mail, and we discouraged it here, too.

But for me at least, criticism is not the point of that thread. It's a place to go where I can vent anger, frustration and disappointment over something I once loved and which fell far from the potential I saw in it. Since that is the case, most of my posts over there are far harsher than they would be in different circumstances.

Which was kind of my earlier point: The site is focused on negativity. It promotes a negative mindset, and that echoes around with the others who come in that same frame of mind.

This forum isn't exactly the opposite of that, but we do get it to some degree. We're here because we have a positive view of the comic, and that can echo around.

We wouldn't waste that much time on anything that we didn't care about. So maybe there is some small common ground that we could base something on.

Caring about the comic is common ground of a sort. But again you're talking about two different communities on two different sites with two very different purposes. Like I said, you're welcome here, as an individual. And people here will respond to what you say as individuals.

... Man, the messages keep coming in as I'm trying to finish this post...

If he had really taken responsibility, he would've apologized to the fans, refunded everyone, and then gone after Evertide at a different time.

You really, really fail to understand the situation.

He took responsibility. He apologized. But how the heck do you expect him to give people money back that he never received? And why should he when he's not the one who took the money, failed to deliver, and then vanished? And where the heck do you expect him to get $175,000?

Let's just put my suspicions to my rest hereÔÇöare there any Goblins Forums regulars that believe Thunt is evading fault, blaming others, and generally acting poorly, or is group-think taking charge and punishing dissenters?

Wow.

1. Thunt is not evading fault.

2. Thunt is trying to make up for someone else's failure.

3. Your failure to understand the facts of the situation does not comprise group think on our part. It's more a sign of group think on your side.

That said, I don't think Thunt's letters to Kickstarter have been the most helpful, or that he's taken the best approach. But he is in the right and he's going above and beyond to make up for Evertide screwing everyone (including him) over.

[Glemp]

Let's just put my suspicions to my rest hereÔÇöare there any Goblins Forums regulars that believe Thunt is evading fault, blaming others, and generally acting poorly, or is group-think taking charge and punishing dissenters?

That's a false dichotomy and you know it. It's entirely possible to think neither of those things - personally, I think that Thunt is someone trying to make the best of a bad situation, and behaving like a human rather than a lawyer because he isn't a professional. He has no training, no accreditation, and belongs to no organisations that could be supporting him professionally. Acting like this is perfectly understandable because he wasn't prepared for it and doesn't know how to act. Or who knows, maybe it's all the groupthink and dissent suppression. I totally remember that happening, like the time the Mods locked a thread called "Constructive Criticism" and forbade anyone from talking about it ever agai- oh, wait...

[nikohl]

From what I've read, Thunt must have royally screwed himself over on the whole contract with Evertide, and "taken responsibility" is different than "internalized". If he had really taken responsibility, he would've apologized to the fans, refunded everyone, and then gone after Evertide at a different time. This might be why he's gone to different lawyers, because they aren't giving him the answer he wanted to hear. I'm sure Tarol never shared the full contract with the rest of you, but here's some things I gleamed from other sources.

---

Secondly, I did not make the bingo card (though I did admit I had a good laugh at it and thought it would be a funny idea if it was posted on the Goblins forum at the time) and believed Hunt to be more of an "immature man-child" than anything.

---

Let's just put my suspicions to my rest hereÔÇöare there any Goblins Forums regulars that believe Thunt is evading fault, blaming others, and generally acting poorly, or is group-think taking charge and punishing dissenters?

Addressing a few of your points before bed.

First one - As far as we're all aware, Thunt doesn't have the KS money, as that went to Evertide via KS; nor does he have access to a backer list or a way of contacting all backers, as those were also between Evertide and KS, so "refunding everyone" isn't as easy as you make it out to be. He's chosen to try and produce the game himself and get it to backers.

Second - Name-calling's kind of petty and mean, isn't it? Although man-child is a term I like to use irl, and not a particularly vulgar or overly offensive one. Still, civility in the name of inter-forum relations, pls

Third - A) I think the current KS thing could be handled better but I'm trying to avoid weighing in on it too much (and keep asking others to do the same) as we're just not party to the full situation, so yes. Could be done better. B) Groupthink actually made me spit tea on my brother-trucking iPad, because I just browsed y'alls forum. Pot, kettle, etc.

[SeeAMoose]

Moose proceeds to ban everyone, especially that whiny WearsHats guy.

Really, I don't understand why anyone thinks we would ban anyone for posting something unpopular. I mean the last time we banned someone they must've gotten a dozen warnings first and those were for big things. American Dork, if you want to respectfully discuss your criticisms of the comic, please feel free. However, I would encourage you to get your facts straight on the kickstarter situation because as Wears so thoroughly explained, you are factually wrong on that matter. I may not agree with how he's dealt with kickstarter (I actually think it's a good thing kickstarter didn't just give him the backer contact info when he asked because I find companies sharing PII without permission to be a scary thought), but I can't blame him for what happened with Evertide even though I pledged a significant amount of money.

Glemp, no need to be sarcastic Bans Glemp for good measure

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Ah, there goes my "never banned" status! That'll learn me to just stick my nose in! (I was briefly debating lighting the Carrot Signal, though. )

[Hates-fun]

I'm going to go ahead and make some attempts to get this back down to some manageable level where we can all be on the same page. Hunt's handling of Kickstarter and the whole G:AR thing is complicated. I am not asking Hunt to be a lawyer, I am not asking that he suffer eternally under the weight of a failed project and throw himself upon his sword in penance, of course not, that would be insane. The main point that is raised over at the BWW in the handling of the whole mess, is that it is fairly irresponsible as well as not at all professional. Hunt wanted a game to be made out of his comic, fair enough, that is his prerogative. He contracted a third party to make this game and then you, the fans, funded it. You funded it because of your faith in Hunt and his comic and Evertide was only meant to be the producers of that product. That is fine.

However, when things went south, and I'm talking long before the post where everything came out, when the backers had not received their rewards, when nothing was being produced and people just did not know what was going on, there was a startling lack of transparency from Hunt. This is what they mean when they say lack of responsibility. Even a simple update, some pithy twitter update, "I can't get a reply from Evertide about the game" would have been better than a massive blog post months after anything could really be done. It gives the impression that such information was purposefully withheld as long as possible, and if it had been given sooner, there perhaps would have been more options when it came to dealing with it.

Now, all of that^ That's already done, okay, I understand, Hunt had a hard time, he panicked, whatever happened, happened and none of us are time travelers so accepting that it's in the past and moving on is something I can do. And Hunt making a new game for his backers is absolutely a responsible action I can get behind. Regardless of any feeling I might have towards the finished project, that is admirable for him to do that. However, this mess with Kickstarter? This yelling and this copyright claim madness? Why? Evertide had the rights to use Goblins for the game when the Kickstarter was both created and when funding finished, there was no foul play. Kickstarter has no ball in this game. I feel the copyright violation was only sent in an effort to remove G:AR from the site and prevent more funneling of fan money to Evertide pockets, and that is also admirable. Okay. But there was some idea that Hunt has some legal standing against kickstarter. He does not. Kickstarter sent a mass automated email that backers could contact the project creator to inquire about the project, and in the previous e-mails, Hunt admitted he was not the project creator, Kickstarter was not saying he should be contacted. The only contact to Hunt Kickstarter gave was his home address from his own copyright claim notice which he submitted online, and has since been taken off the site.

Hunt's frustration with Kickstarter is understandable, but I wouldn't call it justifiable. Kickstarter told him what he has to do so that they may help; seek legal counsel, however for whatever reason, this hasn't come to any fruition on Hunt's end. That isn't Kickstarter's fault, and as far as I've seen, they've been very civil. Continuing down this course of action has only proved to be a massive waste of time that I feel Hunt could have spent on other, much better things.

[Morgaln]

Please note that the following is personal opinion and interpretation. If I understood something wrong, feel free to correct me
These two posts somewhat embody the general attitude towards criticism I've percieved on the forum during my years of lurking, especially the parts about not being here to criticize and celebrating the comic. It's not forbidden to criticize, but negative thoughts about the comic or parts thereof are not welcome and frowned upon, ignored at best...

Respectfully, you have misinterpreted my point. I am in no way averse to reading or moderating criticism and you're right that this is the best place for constructive criticism to go. What I am averse to is people who arrive and are surprised and annoyed to find that the majority of people on the Goblins Fan Forum are... fans. People who post a negative opinion and, when disagreed with by people here who -like- the comic, immediately flap their hands and say that we all just won't hear criticism. I might be explaining it poorly, but I hope that made more sense?

We don't want happy sunshine land where no-one ever says anything negative. We do try and keep actual screaming and trolling and general asshattery to a minimum, but disliking stuff isn't verboten.

With regard to some of your other points -

Everyone on this forum was totally appalled at what happened to the lady who misinterpreted the Dogpile page. She got targeted by some horrible people and it shouldn't have happened. But I don't believe that nasty tweets directed at her came from regular users here, nor do I believe that the average forum-going Goblins fan here got embroiled in the scary Voting thing. That whole occurrence was frankly awful, but even a cursory browse through the relevant threads back then will show that our regular users aren't like that. There might be scary fans out there, just like there are scary fans of everything out there, but looking at that whole March Madness thing from the outside it felt to me more like trolls wrecking the party for everyone. Either way, to say that you feel it's unsafe to criticise the comic because of potential repercussions is... Well, a bit silly, isn't it, since that's what you guys do over on BWW?

I can give you two examples on the forum where people were indeed screamed down for constructive criticism.

The first one was still on the old Keenspot forum, when Hunt posted the homebrew stats for Mr. Finger. Everyone who has some idea of D&D monsters could see that it didn't not conform to the standard template of D&D monster creation. Whether that bothers you or not is your own thing, but someone went to the trouble and posted pretty much the exact same stats, just in a way that would conform to those templates. His point was to show that it would be doable and that it would be possible to please both those who want the stats as they were and those who want to keep to official rules. He was ridiculed and insulted for daring to correct Hunt, and several of the most vicious of those posts were made by very active and respected members of this forum, including some that are moderators now.
The second one is far younger and I'm sure the name Brassbaboon means something to you. During Hunt's absence, he did point out that Hunt's behavior has been highly unprofessional not only during his seven month absence but also before that. That was perfectly legitimate criticism (that I also voiced at roughly the same time), and it was delivered as neutral statements. He met with a lot of hostility; people were not willing to accept his opinion and he did get screamed down the same way I did. His mistake was that he did not let the forum scream him down but kept voicing his opinion, which I admit got less and less polite as more hate poured his way. Which led to him getting banned by Hunt himself in a public affair that was far more insulting and condescending to Brassbaboon than anything he had posted up to that point. People on the other side who were at least as aggressive as Brassbaboon certainly didn't suffer the same repercussions. And it was clear that I could have suffered the same fate if I had kept voicing an unpopular opinion.

[spiderwrangler]

However, when things went south, and I'm talking long before the post where everything came out, when the backers had not received their rewards, when nothing was being produced and people just did not know what was going on, there was a startling lack of transparency from Hunt. This is what they mean when they say lack of responsibility. Even a simple update, some pithy twitter update, "I can't get a reply from Evertide about the game" would have been better than a massive blog post months after anything could really be done. It gives the impression that such information was purposefully withheld as long as possible, and if it had been given sooner, there perhaps would have been more options when it came to dealing with it.

During this time (which overlapped with Thunt's hiatus from social media), backers were still getting occasional update emails from Richard from Evertide, explaining some of the difficulties they were facing, but still promising eventual completion of the project. The last was a long email from Evertide dated August 31st, 2015 2014, which I've included below. As we (the KS backers) were still getting updates from Evertide, we were being kept in the loop (though most updates were rather unsatisfactory in terms of any real progress).

► Show Spoiler

Hello _____,

Last month we posted an update on the Kickstarter page about the progress of the Goblins: Alternate Realities game project as well as an update in the Goblins Forum. But, I am emailing you this month to personally update you on the progress of the project and to let you know about a number of significant changes to Evertide Games which have occurred over the past few months.

Despite the release of our first Kickstarter project earlier this year, the companyÔÇÖs expenses in 2014 have significantly exceeded our revenue and the cost of our efforts at publicity and promotion throughout 2013 far outweighed the tangible benefits from doing so. On top of that, the time required to oversee operations over the past year has compromised my ability to finalize product design and led to a lot of product release and production delays, most notably for our project for Goblins. So, in order to make sure that the company becomes cashflow positive, avoids running out of cash and fulfills all our obligations, we have had to resort to some drastic measures.

In April, I ended all our ongoing contract work and in May, I laid off our employees. I cancelled our convention appearances this summer and I closed down our office at the end of July. Much of the inventory, equipment and furniture we have in the office for assembling the fulfillment packages of backer rewards was placed into storage so that we can retrieve them when we need to assemble fulfillment for Goblins. Meanwhile, I set up the essential materials we need to operate in the meantime at home.

Severe as they may sound, these measures do allow me now to focus more of my time on design and marketing so that the design for Goblins gets completed and we generate the revenue we need to operate and fulfill our obligations. But nearly all the company's duties now fall onto my shoulders as well. In addition to development, production and sales, I have taken charge of our updates, customer support and logistics so that the company can continue to communicate the progress of our projects. But because it is now all handled by me, the frequency and extent of that communication will be limited.

All correspondence to this email: support@evertidegames.com comes to me and I will be able to respond to your questions through this email. I will also be cross-posting news about Goblins on our blog, facebook page and the kickstarter page but oversight of these pages and the forum will be sporadic.

Although the design materials required for production of the campaign rewards are nearly complete, the redesign of the game is still not finished yet. Last summer, we identified from further playtesting that there were faults in the initial game design which could not be fixed. Since then, IÔÇÖve been working on a design which will work and live up to the expectations of all the fans, but my involvement in all the activities of the company have made progress on the final design intermittent. I have worked on the design whenever I have had time, but game design is a non-linear process. So, numerous new versions have been made and scrapped after testing over the past year.

But with the current path, I believe that the design of the gameplay is coming close to being finalized. So, I will be finishing it up in the next couple months and describing elements of this design on our blog. Once the design is indeed finished, we will be able to start to tackle the process of production. However, the magnitude of time and effort which goes into coordinating worldwide distribution and fulfillment of personalized rewards for thousands of backers turns out to be significantly more time consuming that we anticipated a year ago. So, even when the design is ready to go, I anticipate quite a bit more time before the rewards can be delivered.

The delays that have occurred so far have been the result of all the activities weÔÇÖve need to do to publish our previous project, prepare Goblins for publication and fulfill our obligations to the campaign and our Goblins partners. Building up the infrastructure we need to fulfill all the rewards we have promised has been an expensive and time consuming task which has not afforded me enough time to work out the redesign Goblins that has been needed. These activities and obligations have also taxed our company's finances severely. But despite the time and cost, we are determined to fulfill all the commitments we made to our backers. So, we will be pursuing arrangements with distributors and publishers and using all the companyÔÇÖs assets to help finally get the finished design for Goblins into everyone's hands and fulfill our obligations from the campaign as soon as possible.

On behalf of the company and everyone who has been involved in the project, I deeply apologize for this inconvenience and all the delays in getting your rewards to you. I will be doing everything I can in the coming months to move Goblins Alternative Realities forward and I am immensely appreciative of the support and patience you have shown so far.

Thank you, Richard James, President of Evertide Games


TL;DR:

I blew the money on other shit, and had to lay everyone off, and get rid of all company stuff, but I'm still going to make the game working entirely solo, sorry for the delay.

[nikohl]

You've sort of glossed over everything I said despite quote-replying me, Morgaln. I was talking about my personal views on grumpy people, and saying I thought the forums were generally moderated in a way to make them a decent non-vitriolic place to visit, but not universally pleasant. But okay.

I wasn't a member of the old Keenspot forums, so if you were around for that, congratulations, you're more of a die-hard goblins fan forumite than me But seriously - before my time, so genuinely can't comment on that.

Brassbaboon was a little bit abrasive from the start, which I guess put people's backs up, but I've just gone back and read the initial responses to his first posts, and people were just disagreeing, not 'screaming him down'... It wasn't until after he started capitalising every other word and using purposefully inflammatory phrases like boot-licking, hand-wringing hero worship, calling people primadonnas, and saying "I'm out, maybe I'll swing by later and have another laugh at you guys" that people started getting actually annoyed. Do you genuinely think that's unjust? Honestly, do you think people should sit down and accept being insulted for deigning to like something regardless of the author's personal issues at the time? I don't. As for Thunt swooping in and banning him - it's his house. Guy'd stood around calling him names and being a dick to his friends while he was out, he came home and heard all about it and kicked him out. Seems kinda fair, given that the guy was yelling about how he was leaving anyway.

[YardMeat]

From what I've read, Thunt must have royally screwed himself over on the whole contract with Evertide, and "taken responsibility" is different than "internalized". If he had really taken responsibility, he would've apologized to the fans, refunded everyone, and then gone after Evertide at a different time. This might be why he's gone to different lawyers, because they aren't giving him the answer he wanted to hear. I'm sure Tarol never shared the full contract with the rest of you, but here's some things I gleamed from other sources.

Thunt has apologized, and the money didnÔÇÖt go to him, so how is he supposed to refund it?

They do not have the right to fund or finance any Goblins, Goblins: Alternate Realities or G:AR Kickstarter projects. Richard James and Evertide Games do not have the right to the following money... $177,850 Falsely gained through Kickstarter. $5,314 Falsely gained from the Evertide Games website which is currently promoted and linked to through Kickstarter.

This is probably the main line that caused Kickstarter to pull the G:AR Kickstarter page. Though it's only partly true. Evertide did not currently have the rights to make a G:AR Kickstarter but at the time of the Kickstarter's opening and completion they did have said rights.

This is part of a DMCA that Thunt sent after everything went south (https://www.kickstarter.com/dmca/goblin ... by-goblins) and he wanted Kickstarter to take down the page. It was sent about a week and a half ago. Thunt never tried to hide the DMCA from anyone. He wrote about it in his blog. IÔÇÖm not sure what part of the contract you think that Thunt has kept from us, but the information you gave here was never a secret.

I don't recall Thunt's contact with Evertide saying that they need to pay the money equal to any money gained from this project back to Tarol a should the project fail. Does it? If not Tarol's claim they have no right to the money is false.

Uh, no. That's not how the law works. Thunt isn't claiming to have a right to the money. He is saying they have no right to collect money using his intellectual property. This appears in DMCAs all of the time.

Secondly, Thunt's response to Kickstarter is completely irrational.

Kickstarter isn't treating it like a special case, because it's not a mediator between parties of a deal wrong. In the meantime, he's slandering and blaming Kickstarter for a problem that they didn't cause. This is unprofessional behavior at the very least.

HereÔÇÖs where we are going to have to agree to disagree. IÔÇÖve worked in fundraising. The moment Kickstarter discovered that no awards would be delivered and that the game wouldnÔÇÖt be happened, they had a responsibility to the donors to shut down the page and/or notify the donors. These situations happen. No, they had no responsibility to give Thunt the donor list, but they could have easily communicated a message to the donors on his behalf or a message in their own words explaining the situation. This is a common way of handling such issues when they arise.

In case you have forgotten, KS did send a message to the donors . . . it was just completely wrong. They informed the donors that they would still be receiving their rewards, despite having been notified that they would not.

Secondly, I did not make the bingo card (though I did admit I had a good laugh at it and thought it would be a funny idea if it was posted on the Goblins forum at the time) and believed Hunt to be more of an "immature man-child" than anything.

And thatÔÇÖs your right. IÔÇÖm not going to ridicule anyone for mental health issues.

Let's just put my suspicions to my rest hereÔÇöare there any Goblins Forums regulars that believe Thunt is evading fault, blaming others, and generally acting poorly, or is group-think taking charge and punishing dissenters?

As has already been pointed out, this is a false dichotomy. As IÔÇÖve said, IÔÇÖve openly criticized ThuntÔÇÖs behavior during the hiatus. He ÔÇ£generally [acted] poorlyÔÇØ. However, I donÔÇÖt see anything wrong with the way he is handling the KS situation. So far you have gotten away with both constructive criticism and non-constructive name calling, and no one has ÔÇ£punishedÔÇØ you. Your ÔÇ£suspiciousÔÇØ were put to a reasonable rest as soon as you were made aware that constructive criticism is perfectly acceptable on this forum.

[Morgaln]

You've sort of glossed over everything I said despite quote-replying me, Morgaln. I was talking about my personal views on grumpy people, and saying I thought the forums were generally moderated in a way to make them a decent non-vitriolic place to visit, but not universally pleasant. But okay.

I wasn't a member of the old Keenspot forums, so if you were around for that, congratulations, you're more of a die-hard goblins fan forumite than me But seriously - before my time, so genuinely can't comment on that.

Brassbaboon was a little bit abrasive from the start, which I guess put people's backs up, but I've just gone back and read the initial responses to his first posts, and people were just disagreeing, not 'screaming him down'... It wasn't until after he started capitalising every other word and using purposefully inflammatory phrases like boot-licking, hand-wringing hero worship, calling people primadonnas, and saying "I'm out, maybe I'll swing by later and have another laugh at you guys" that people started getting actually annoyed. Do you genuinely think that's unjust? Honestly, do you think people should sit down and accept being insulted for deigning to like something regardless of the author's personal issues at the time? I don't. As for Thunt swooping in and banning him - it's his house. Guy'd stood around calling him names and being a dick to his friends while he was out, he came home and heard all about it and kicked him out. Seems kinda fair, given that the guy was yelling about how he was leaving anyway.

I can dig up a link to the Keenspot thread I'm referring to if you're interested, it's somewhere in our BWW thread. Being on Goblins forums longer than you doesn't make my opinion more valid, it just proves that I'm not just speaking from hearsay.

From what I understand from Brassbaboon's posts, he did get a mod warning for stating that nothing new had happened after a week (the March 24), which seemed to start his change of tone. I'm not even saying he acted correctly, certainly not from that point onward. It was definitely far from banworthy in my eyes, but I can agree to disagree on that point. The way Hunt did it, though, was not a matter of fact "you are not welcome." It was stooping down to his level, even going lower than that; frankly, it was an unprofessional knee-jerk reaction, and the last thing you want to do when getting rid of someone calling you unprofessional is to be unprofessional about it. It's part of the reason why I've pretty much lost all the respect I ever had for Hunt over the last few years.

You're right in that I glossed over your earlier post; sorry for that, I'll address it now:

Please note that the following is personal opinion and interpretation. If I understood something wrong, feel free to correct me
These two posts somewhat embody the general attitude towards criticism I've percieved on the forum during my years of lurking, especially the parts about not being here to criticize and celebrating the comic. It's not forbidden to criticize, but negative thoughts about the comic or parts thereof are not welcome and frowned upon, ignored at best...

Respectfully, you have misinterpreted my point. I am in no way averse to reading or moderating criticism and you're right that this is the best place for constructive criticism to go. What I am averse to is people who arrive and are surprised and annoyed to find that the majority of people on the Goblins Fan Forum are... fans. People who post a negative opinion and, when disagreed with by people here who -like- the comic, immediately flap their hands and say that we all just won't hear criticism. I might be explaining it poorly, but I hope that made more sense?

We don't want happy sunshine land where no-one ever says anything negative. We do try and keep actual screaming and trolling and general asshattery to a minimum, but disliking stuff isn't verboten.

I understand that point; my impression of criticism not being very welcome isn't based on just your post here but on lurking on the forums for years. It's also not directed at you specifically, but the general mood the forum gave off to me even before I stopped considering myself a fan.

With regard to some of your other points -

Everyone on this forum was totally appalled at what happened to the lady who misinterpreted the Dogpile page. She got targeted by some horrible people and it shouldn't have happened. But I don't believe that nasty tweets directed at her came from regular users here, nor do I believe that the average forum-going Goblins fan here got embroiled in the scary Voting thing. That whole occurrence was frankly awful, but even a cursory browse through the relevant threads back then will show that our regular users aren't like that. There might be scary fans out there, just like there are scary fans of everything out there, but looking at that whole March Madness thing from the outside it felt to me more like trolls wrecking the party for everyone. Either way, to say that you feel it's unsafe to criticise the comic because of potential repercussions is... Well, a bit silly, isn't it, since that's what you guys do over on BWW?

I certainly know a lot of people on the forum were just as appalled at those situations as I was; as I said, it was a fanatic minority. But it still does reflect badly on the community as a whole and it did make me want to not participate as much in the forums (not that I was all that active in the first place). It wasn't so much that I expected anything to happen to me but that I was aware this was a fandom where shitstorms could be triggered accidentally. Obviously this is not something that you or anyone else here can fix, you can't control what people do outside this forum. The BWW thread has something of safety in numbers in that regard, even though it is a false sense of security.

Unfortunately, I have to leave this discussion here as it's late where I am. I'll be back tomorrow if the thread is still going.

[YardMeat]

From what I understand from Brassbaboon's posts, he did get a mod warning for stating that nothing new had happened after a week (the March 24),

I'm sorry, but plenty of people complained about the lack of updates, including myself, without ever getting a warning. Brassbaboon was doing way more than just "stating that nothing new happened after a week". Brassbaboon was going off of the deep end, even going so far as to gloat about the comic's possible demise. He was warned multiple times that he was allowed to complain, but to keep his complaints constructive and to avoid such immaturity. I suppose we can disagree, and we may disagree about the appropriateness of Thunt's response, but as one of only two people around here who have been banned, BB had it coming.

By the way (and this isn't directed at you Morgaln), the BWW is claiming that the Kickstarter money for G:AR went to Thunt. I'm not familiar enough with Wikis to know the process for getting some falsehoods like that changed, and I doubt the BWW forums would welcome any comment to the effect, but I think it at least deserves mentioning.

[Sessine]

Hunt's frustration with Kickstarter is understandable, but I wouldn't call it justifiable. Kickstarter told him what he has to do so that they may help; seek legal counsel, however for whatever reason, this hasn't come to any fruition on Hunt's end. That isn't Kickstarter's fault, and as far as I've seen, they've been very civil. Continuing down this course of action has only proved to be a massive waste of time that I feel Hunt could have spent on other, much better things.

I more or less agree with you on this. Thunt has not handled the situation with Kickstarter like some calm, cool, collected businessman with a lifetime of experience in how small and big businesses work. He's handled it like the emotional creative artist he is, one who's only just recovering from a serious episode of... anxiety disorder? Whatever it was, it was horrible. Of course he's taking small details of routine business processes way too personally. Any tort lawyer will tell you that most of their first-time clients do the same. They're usually angry, panicking, and outraged. It's the lawyer's job to be the one with the level head who talks the client into a calmer frame of mind and words the letters carefully.

Unfortunately, even in Canada, lawyers cost money. I am only a stranger on the internet, not at all privy to Thunt's finances, but given recent history they can't possibly be good. He's apparently trying to do some legal stuff himself and is making small but worrisome mistakes. This doesn't make him 'unprofessional' -- law is not his profession. It only makes him human.

[Synch]

I really don't understand the point of this thread. You want to engage in constructive criticism with us? Why not just have your little hidden accounts like Hates-Fun so you can argue with us whenever you want to. I don't see the need to come over as 'emissaries' from BWW. Is this supposed to be some intervention or something? Or a social experiment to see if we'll ban you?

Let me just take a snippet from your own forum:

The goblins forum seems to be quiet right now. Makes me want to make an account and stir the pot a little by pointing out the major flaws in hunts letter posted on Kickstarter.

Would it even be worth it though? Would it even?

Making fan boys mad with facts with only the chance of being banned from a forum I don't care about as punishment? Hell yeah.

I'm sure you've got perfectly fine people at BWW, but you've also got people like Horercrzy who hate us just for liking the comic. So I don't understand why there needs to be open dialog between us? We could discuss the BWW thread without banning or warning here, but there's not much point. I don't care if you guys have a place on the net if you want to rant about the comic and THunt, and the majority here don't really give a shit about you guys or your thoughts, honestly. God knows why you're all so fixated with us that you need a 37 page thread about our "cult." Or why you'd bother coming over here to piss us off. I really don't see the point to be honest.

But what the hey, I'll bite. In the interests of open dialog, I'll go make an account at BWW. Chat with me there if you want.

[Lurks_In_Shadows]

Okay, I'm starting to get a little confused. Is the subject of this thread supposed to be THunt, the Goblins community, or both? We seem to be focusing on different things at different times.
As for likes or dislikes, I'm primarily a forum member because I like the community. I'm a little too old and lot too cynical to be much of a fan boy. The fact that I like THunt's work is secondary to me (but I do enjoy it). THunt's business practices are ultimately THunt's concern and whether or not I agree with them, ultimately, is irrelevant unless he asks us for advice. Which he has done on rare occasion. More often, I suspect he has a circle of intimates that he goes to for his problems (like all of us do). So us dissecting his business decisions doesn't really accomplish anything. I've not heard any real discussion about the comic itself, which is really about the only thing we can legitimately comment on. And about half the complaints seem to be targeted on the community rather than on the supposed subject of the thread. And I've yet to hear much constructive criticism, just criticism. If you're going to be constructive, you have to offer a solution as well. Otherwise you're just complaining. Which you're allowed to do, but just be honest about it. I have to admit, it's just looking more like you're fishing for a reaction than anything else. But feel free to prove me wrong. If you want an open discussion, I'm all ears.

[Hates-fun]

Alright, time for actual constructive criticism about the comic, since things got a little carried away. I'm going to go ahead and post a link to this criticism made a few months ago down at the bottom of this post, however, it's wording is fairly blunt and can be interpreted as derogatory, so I'm going to edit it into something a bit less aggressive for this forum. It was recommended I post this here

I wanted to do a quick breakdown of my thoughts while trying to follow a previous page(it was the most recent when the original post was made). It's probably the best example of most of my gripes with Hunts page layouts and lack of visual story telling ability


There are 18 panels, and half of them are dedicated to a visual gag that doesnÔÇÖt need nearly that many.
We only get one of these panels dedicated to what is actually happening to Forgath. It's one of the smallest on the page and doesn't clearly convey much of anything. We get some clarification as to what happened in panel 5, when he declares that they patched his wounds, but it also doesn't really explain anything.

The fourth panel seems to be an establishing shot to show the Kliks, which could work, but it's bigger than the panels before it and offsets the other panels for no reason. Making matters worse, Hunt's minimalistic use of backgrounds on this page give little to no anchor as to where Forgath is relative to the Kliks, and neither of the kliks in his gag are featured in the establishing panel. Showing us the Kliks at least investigating his stuff would have given better setup for the gag than him just declaring they have it in panel 6.

Panels 7-15 are the worst disruption to the flow. Thanks to panel 4 size difference, panels 5 and 6 are better aligned with 12, 13, 14, and 15, making it unclear where our eyes are supposed to go.

There's far too much dialogue to not say a whole lot, and it's just cluttering up this page.

The gag itself could be funny, but it's execution is lacking. Panel 16 could have been omitted entirely with only the sound effect bridging 15-17 to increase the impact.

The green Klik doesnÔÇÖt show up behind him until it's relevant to the gag. It's jarring to the already fragile continuity of this page.
The general consensus on the other forum was that the gag itself probably should have been omitted, but in an effort to see if it could be preserved while also preserving some visual cohesion, I edited the page into two separate pages.


One of my major gripes within the execution of the comic is the page are far too overloaded and often stilted or not interesting to read. I also made a point that all the extra panels seem to mean more work for Hunt, something that'd slow his update schedule

Here is the link to the original forum post on the BWW, where there is a bit more discussion after the post. The most recent update that just happened is improvement. I liked it, it genuinely made me chuckle, and it's panels are large enough to give a better idea of where the characters reside spatially. However, it still seems to have too many panels dedicated to the first gag between ears and that other Goblin, who's name I must admit I've forgotten, and a lot of characters seem to only stand center panel to talk. Despite these gripes, I hope it is the start of a trend towards continuous improvement, and not a one time thing.

[Duncan]

Woah woah woah woah holy webcomic critique Batman, this is enough of a deal to bring me into it.

I went through the BWW page on Goblins and I would like to dissuade anyone here from doing the same. Not because, as members of a cult, you will be heartbroken by the number of errors that Thunt made, or because your sensibilities will be shocked...

I suggest that you don't read it because it is a childish and pointless attack.

(before I am misunderstood, I would like to mention that this post is in no way a complaint about individuals, but is most definitely a complaint about BWW in general)

I took the opportunity to look for other webcomics I read, or have read in the past. And on every one of those pages I found neither constructive criticism, nor negative opinions (as is everyone's right) but a childish and inflammatory diatribe. I was planning on quoting parts of it but I actually can't be bothered. Calling someone all manner of names is... well, it's not constructive criticism.

I cannot speak for the individual people behind the various pages devoted to screaming insults at artists under the premise of "critique", but if you want my thoughts on the matter, a website called "Bad Webcomics Wiki" has as it's central purpose the categorisation (Wiki) of Webcomics based upon a negative subjective opinion (Bad).

The term "bad" being one of the least objective words to apply to anything, I don't think we can safely say the mindset of BWW can lead to anything other than inflammatory hating. I'd love to be able to say that a site so named could be a source of useful critique, but with a given headspace like that I don't have much hope.

Love and hugs to all

EDIT: As I was posting this it turns out Hates-fun has posted in the meantime. I'd just like to say that the post that you have reposted here contained a lot of vile language. If the OP hadn't been so inflammatory and used as much pointlessly foul vocabulary, I would have considered their opinion, but there was no need for it. Gratuitous insults do not a constructive criticism make, I'm afraid.

[BootToTheHead]

Wow, I haven't made a post on the forums in ages! I have been lurking though, if that counts.

I believe the conversation here has been civil which is nice. I feel like I generally see that when a dissenting opinion is presented in a logical manner, most of the users here seem to respond reasonably. I do think that the users call out Thunt when they see things they dislike. A big one that comes to my mind is a lot of the whole Kore battle. One thing in particular that irked a lot of users was his sliding shield mechanism to get back up (especially the somersault thing!). Many complained that it was cheap, and a lot were crying foul about it. The somersault was also drawn badly. I believe he actually redrew that, so that's taking some constructive criticism at least. It still looked weird to me personally, but it was an attempt to take criticism which is still good. I still have some issues with that fights execution.
I have also seen users come in to complain about things they dislike about the comic. I remember a user in particular complaining about Chief's death. I agreed with a lot of what that user said and others did as well.
I do think mods tend to be a bit quick in trying to stop conversations from getting out of hand (the recent boob thing comes to mind). I understand wanting to stop an argument from occurring, but I don't know why they can't just say to make a different separate discussion for that and keep the more friendly conversation in the original board. I do think some of that conversation was just plain weird, though.
As for the drawing thing, I have to say that I love the changes that the BWW poster made! I probably wouldn't like it if I saw whatever rudeness was originally there, though. Being rude automatically makes people not want to listen. I do think that the changes help the flow a lot and that they are more visually interesting. That aside, I do not personally have a problem with Thunt's current layout. It reads left to right and is fairly basic. Some of the panel sizes are unnecessarily weird, but that's never actually brought me out of the comic, so it's a minor thing for me. I do agree that there are changes that could make the comic better and that I'd like to see, but they aren't a requirement for me to enjoy the comic as it is. I think the story (for me) keeps me engaged and the art is a nice bonus. I don't think that it'll ever be perfect, but Thunt is very obviously still improving his style as he goes. I think the way that he's conveying his story is also improving as he goes.

As for the kickstarter thing...I don't really think it has been handled well. I don't blame him for Evertide screwing everyone over, and I don't think he's obligated to give anyone anything. The fault lies with Evertide imo and it's clear they have no intention of doing anything about it. I think it's nice that he still wants to do something for those who donated, but I agree that his emails with kickstarter are probably doing more harm than good. But I have almost no legal knowledge, so I'll leave that at that.

Overall, I think that just because we like a comic as a whole doesn't mean we can't dislike aspects of it as well. I love the comic. I think things could be better, but I love it for what it is.

[Hates-fun]

Shame on my potty mouth I suppose, but I have no horse in the race when it comes to tone policing, I'm more concerned with the message. However, since tone does seem to matter here, I reposted it wholesale for the most part and just edited out the swears. Neither my point nor criticism have changed with the translation.

[BootToTheHead]

Morbid curiosity made me check out the forum link hates-fun posted, and it's not really too bad imo (at least not what I read which was admittedly only a few posts). While obviously rude and, in my opinion, overly dramatic in tone, the message the poster seems to be trying to convey is a valid opinion.
The personal attacks seem overly rude and unnecessary in my opinion (speaking about what's in that link, not what has been said here). I get not liking a person, but claiming to want to give constructive criticism doesn't work when you are name-calling and calling the work "garbage". It's just not constructive and undoes the helpfulness of the art tips to an extent (it still feels somewhat useful to me, but that's likely because I'm not the one being insulted). It's easy to say to stop being sensitive, but it also isn't that hard to deliver the message in a much nicer way (like you did when you posted above).

I also read part of the Goblins page on BWW which seemed to be more aimed towards just being mean and nasty rather than helpful in any way. I feel like it's too mean-spirited to be of any actual help to any creator (whether it was an author/artist/webcomics/etc). It just feels like bashing more than anything. As I said in my previous post being rude when delivering a message automatically makes people tune out whether the message is valid or not. I honestly don't see how the BWW page could be construed as helpful. I do see how people could like that sort of thing, though. It's just not my cup of tea.

[nikohl]

I think, in the interests of taking the "Constructive Criticism" thread at face value and giving the guys (and/or gals I dunno) who've come over to share their opinions with us the benefit of the doubt, we should look at what they say HERE. Hates-fun took the time to clean up their post and make it a bit more goblins-fan friendly than the original, which we should all remember was written for the BWW audience. So let's read and look at the one they posted here for us. I'm not saying don't go look over there - free country etc - but, acknowledge that an effort was made to bring some already-thought-out constructive criticism to us in a format we'd be happier to read.