It’s a little rude to just call theyre ideas dumb. Constructive criticism is helpful, but just judging something without giving any alternatives or ideas doesn’t help anytime.
I’m sorry. I’m not very good at gauging tone and tend to come off meaner than I intend. Could someone provide with an alternative wording to my earlier comment that would be considered not rude?
Folks, Anakin Starkiller has mentioned in a few places that he struggles with tone a little, which does buy a little tolerance - though obviously that’s not a free pass and being disrespectful is still problematic.
Anakin Starkiller, the thing that people are objecting to here is the calling of an idea ‘dumb’, because it can seem like a personal attack. All ideas are subjective (i.e. it’s a matter of personal opinion), so technically there’s no right or wrong here, and no bad ideas.
In a situation like this where you think an idea may not work, it’s best to say just that - “I think that might not work”, and then give your reasoning. That way you’re analysing the idea rather than appearing to criticise the person who had it.
It’s always best to avoid language which insults someone’s intelligence - “dumb”, “idiot”, “stupid”, etc - firstly because it’s never pleasant to hear, and secondly because it doesn’t give them any feedback which might help them refine their ideas and grow from. None of us are locked into our weaknesses, all of us are on a journey of personal growth at our own pace, so it’s always best to treat others as people who are growing, and where sensible it’s kind to hand them things (like encouragement, and good analysis of ideas) which might help them grow.
It’s also good to show that what you’re sharing is your own opinion (using “I think”, for example), rather than trying to pass something off as an objective fact (e.g. "That idea is bad)
So you might instead want to say something like:
I don’t think using Rogue One footage would really work, because it’s very clearly set during the OT. There’s no way to remove all the iconography in a way that would make it plausibly pass off as being in the ST era.
All of your analysis is still in place, but this way you’re showing that it’s just your opinion, and you’re talking about their idea, rather than appearing to attack their character.
You could take that further if you wanted to encourage the poster, and help them work through the challenges rather than writing the idea off before it gets off the ground:
I see exactly what you’re trying to do here, and this is a creative idea. How would you handle the aesthetic differences between OT-era Rogue One footage and Sequel-era footage? Without CG to change the Rogue One ships into sequel era ones, you’d need to find some way to explain or justify that the different ships in the two scenes are different ships of the same factions, what are you thinking of for that? The opening crawl is probably your most accessible possibility.
One thing you might also consider, Anakin Starkiller, is to add a signature to your posts. This would be a small message that would automatically appear under all of the posts you make here, and might help to avoid this situation in future. For example you could have it say “I apologise if the above message sounded rude - I have difficulty gauging tone.” It’s up to you whether or not you want that appearing on all of your messages though, it may not be something you want to broadcast. If you do want to do that, you can click on your icon in the top right, then ‘Your Account’, then type your message into the ‘Post Signature’ area and save.
If you do that, bear in mind it wouldn’t become a free pass though - it’s still important to think about the wording you’re using when challenging other people’s ideas.