EPT[Opinion] SHOUTcraft: The Wool Pulled Over Our Eyes - Page 3
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SetGuitarsToKill
Canada28396 Posts
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Olli
Austria24422 Posts
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SetGuitarsToKill
Canada28396 Posts
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FrkFrJss
Canada1205 Posts
On September 30 2017 13:52 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Is it THAT different though? Not....not really...actually... | ||
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Olli
Austria24422 Posts
On September 30 2017 13:52 SetGuitarsToKill wrote: Is it THAT different though? Yes it is. The title mizenhauer chose implies that we're being deceived. That doesn't mean TB is maniacally laughing in a spinning chair as he intentionally makes foreigners win. He argues that how SHOUTcraft has unfolded has contributed to the narrative that the gap has closed, which he says is false. Deception can happen unintentionally, as he also argues. If you think that title is clickbaity in an opinion piece then I don't know what to tell you except that you've probably not read many opinion pieces recently. This is a conservative title if anything. | ||
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pvsnp
7676 Posts
On September 30 2017 14:00 Olli wrote: Yes it is. The title mizenhauer chose implies that we're being deceived. That doesn't mean TB is maniacally laughing in a spinning chair as he intentionally makes foreigners win. He argues that how SHOUTcraft has unfolded has contributed to the narrative that the gap has closed, which he says is false. Deception can happen unintentionally, as he also argues. If you think that title is clickbaity in an opinion piece then I don't know what to tell you except that you've probably not read many opinion pieces recently. This is a conservative title if anything. Eh.... Personally (and from the perspective of nearly everyone else, it seems), I would argue that including Shoutcraft as the first word in the title strongly implies, if not outright declares, that Shoutcraft is in fact the "wool pulled over our eyes." That's the whole point, grammatically, of using a colon. While in reality, mizenhauer is talking about a falsehood that Shoutcraft only contributes to, and inadvertently at that. I would agree that the title is disingenuous. At the very least, there are better/clearer ways of phrasing the title. I mean, if you saw an article titled: "JOHN DOE: The Murderer Convicted," I don't think it's a tremendous leap of logic to assume that the article is about a man named John Doe being convicted of murder. A prosecutor named John Doe achieving a murder conviction on some unnamed criminal, or some other interpretation, while possible, is unlikely at best. | ||
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SetGuitarsToKill
Canada28396 Posts
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Twinkle Toes
United States3605 Posts
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Immaterial
Canada510 Posts
I think part of the problem is that the expression "Wool pulled over our eyes" implies that someone is performing a deliberate action to deceive -- i.e. someone is actively pulling the wool over our eyes, misleading us. One online dictionary defines the expression as to "conceal one's true motives...especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end".... In reality though, the article is suggesting a much more passive, muuuch less nefarious source of this misconception in the community... This could all be a silly misinterpretation on my part, and the description on the home page does clarify things somewhat, but I do think that the choice of title will be misleading to some people. Or perhaps I'm just a dumb dumb ^^ As for the content of the article itself, I won't be quite as critical as some of the other posters have been. However I do agree that you could condense the claim made in the article to something like "Foreigners performing well vs Koreans in online tournaments [or this particular online tournament] does not necessarily correlate with foreigners performing well vs koreans in offline events" On some level this point is likely self evident to many of us here on TL. That said I still enjoyed reading the piece and I thank mizenhauer for writing this && sharing his perspective  I haven't really been plugged into the SC2 community for year(s) now and wouldn't really know much about the common sentiment regarding the foreigner/korean skill gap at this stage of the games life... so if nothing else it was interesting to read a bit about SC2 tournament results recently as my focus on BW lately has kind of limited the extent to which I've been keeping up with these things!~PS Based on his icon at the top of the page I totally thought mizenhauer was actually a gorgeous asian girl, but sadly it wasn't to be TT | ||
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pvsnp
7676 Posts
On September 30 2017 14:48 Immaterial wrote: I don't want to feed into this debate about the title too too much (...as I proceed to do precisely that, lol) BUT... I'd like to say that when I first saw the title I was 100% under the impression that this article was going to be about some form of deliberate deception carried out by the people that run Shoutcraft. I think part of the problem is that the expression "Wool pulled over our eyes" implies that someone is performing a deliberate action to deceive -- i.e. someone is actively pulling the wool over our eyes, misleading us. One online dictionary defines the expression as to "conceal one's true motives...especially by elaborately feigning good intentions so as to gain an end".... In reality though, the article is suggesting a much more passive, muuuch less nefarious source of this misconception in the community... This could all be a silly misinterpretation on my part, and the description on the home page does clarify things somewhat, but I do think that the choice of title will be misleading to some people. Or perhaps I'm just a dumb dumb ^^ As for the content of the article itself, I won't be quite as critical as some of the other posters have been. However I do agree that you could condense the claim made in the article to something like "Foreigners performing well vs Koreans in online tournaments [or this particular online tournament] does not necessarily correlate with foreigners performing well vs koreans in offline events" On some level this point is likely self evident to many of us here on TL. That said I still enjoyed reading the piece and I thank mizenhauer for writing this && sharing his perspective I haven't really been plugged into the SC2 community for year(s) now and wouldn't really know much about the common sentiment regarding the foreigner/korean skill gap at this stage of the games life... so if nothing else it was interesting to read a bit about SC2 tournament results recently as my focus on BW lately has kind of limited the extent to which I've been keeping up with these things!~PS Based on his icon at the top of the page I totally thought mizenhauer was actually a gorgeous asian girl, but sadly it wasn't to be TT I initially assumed (when he first started writing) that mizenhauer was indeed Asian, beautiful, and a girl (as shown in his icon), and did not think to question that assumption for an embarrassingly long time afterward. In fact, I remember thinking: "This mizenhauer girl looks like a model, not a writer." | ||
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ZigguratOfUr
Iraq16955 Posts
On September 30 2017 15:35 pvsnp wrote: I initially assumed (when he first started writing) that mizenhauer was indeed Asian, beautiful, and a girl (as shown in his icon), and did not think to question that assumption for an embarrassingly long time afterward. In fact, I remember thinking: "This mizenhauer girl looks like a model, not a writer." It happens to everyone. Even more shocking is the fact that Olli isn't actually an elf. | ||
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felisconcolori
United States6168 Posts
On September 30 2017 16:00 ZigguratOfUr wrote: It happens to everyone. Even more shocking is the fact that Olli isn't actually an elf. Olli has been pulling the wool over our eyes all this time. | ||
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pvsnp
7676 Posts
On September 30 2017 16:00 ZigguratOfUr wrote: It happens to everyone. Even more shocking is the fact that Olli isn't actually an elf. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/009/993/tumblr_m0wb2xz9Yh1r08e3p.jpg){kind=icon} | ||
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Pandain
United States12989 Posts
But what is clickbaity about "the wool pulled over our eyes". It is provocative, not misleading. Were you expecting that total biscuit had been secretly withholding money or something? I don't even know what you could expect. And any small questions you have can be answered by five seconds of looking at the article. | ||
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands30548 Posts
On September 30 2017 16:40 Pandain wrote: Obviously clickbait can be more than the exaggerrated "you won't BELIEVE". If you start an article online in an American website with "President Killed" and then it turns out you're talking about the president of a small dishwashing company, that's clickbait. But what is clickbaity about "the wool pulled over our eyes". It is provocative, not misleading. Were you expecting that total biscuit had been secretly withholding money or something? I don't even know what you could expect. And any small questions you have can be answered by five seconds of looking at the article. Well with how often money based scandals happen in the esports scene it kind of was what I first thought of when I read the title, I was quite shocked when I saw it in the sidebar. It's really not a good title because it creates a connection of Shoutcraft doing something negative while the article is about foreigner skills instead. | ||
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Kaizor
Singapore909 Posts
On September 30 2017 16:00 ZigguratOfUr wrote: It happens to everyone. Even more shocking is the fact that Olli isn't actually an elf. even more shocking is Olli is no longer the Darklord !! Jokes aside, this is really 1 of the more pointless opinion pieces i have read here. Really. This is Shoutcraft we are talking about here. Besides being hugely successful and entertaining, it would be hard to find anyone that disses it. Not to mention, there is really no reason that people believes that foreigners are closer to korea's level because of Shoutcraft. Which was the entire premise of this article. TB himself has always stated that because of it being bo1, it really is not a true indication of skill level. | ||
hexhaven
Finland963 Posts
On September 30 2017 16:00 ZigguratOfUr wrote: It happens to everyone. Even more shocking is the fact that Olli isn't actually an elf. Well, he is pretty tall, so you never know. | ||
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Olli
Austria24422 Posts
It'd be foolish to argue that foreigners are as good as Koreans now, but considering where we came from I think the skill level in the foreign scene has definitely gone up, while Korea is slowly suffering the consequences of the Kespa structure breakdown, with a lot of minds and players on ladder simply not being there anymore. So I'd argue that the gap is indeed closing, even beyond Neeb who I personally consider as good as any Korean Protoss. | ||
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Golgotha
Korea (South)8418 Posts
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Corvuuss
Austria354 Posts
On September 30 2017 17:52 Olli wrote: Here's something that has nothing to do with the title: I think the gap really is closing. Remember, we're talking about a game where the best ever foreigners at BlizzCon were eliminated in the first round before region lock was introduced. Neeb has definitely closed the gap, but MajOr casually took two games of GSL and SSL champion Stats in a Korean tournament, Showtime took two off soO. Nerchio has done very well in SHOUTcraft (and I don't agree that that means nothing when it's continued games against top opposition). Foreigners are doing alright against Koreans in online competition constantly. It'd be foolish to argue that foreigners are as good as Koreans now, but considering where we came from I think the skill level in the foreign scene has definitely gone up, while Korea is slowly suffering the consequences of the Kespa structure breakdown, with a lot of minds and players on ladder simply not being there anymore. So I'd argue that the gap is indeed closing, even beyond Neeb who I personally consider as good as any Korean Protoss. My thoughts exaxtly, I think here (as on this website) we mostly see 2 different extremes, people saying EVERY foreigner isn't even code S Ro32 material and only got into code S through sheer luck. The others are those who say that foreigners are on the same level/slightly below the level of koreans. Though I don't think either one of those are true. I think the gap is closing, but way slower than it seems to the people saying that foreigners are almost at Korean level. But I think the foreign scene has really improved. And strangely enough I think the region lock helped with it. (Though I have conflicted feelings about that) (I know I generalized with my first statement about the two types of people, and I know there are people in between, me for example, but the two extremes are the loudest groups (especially the ones saying foreigners are not at all on korean level)) | ||
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