[ChrisMarshallNY]

Negative feedback is insanely valuable. I write about that here:[0].

Here's what I wrote:

> It can be mighty unpleasant to read negative reviews and comments about our work, but it’s worth it to do so, as long as we’re doing it to improve said work. I often say that positive affirmations feel good, but negative feedback is required to improve a product. Negative feedback, even if it’s uncouth diatribes from unpleasant people, is far more valuable than the most glowing praise (unless said “glowing praise” comes from Consumer Reports).

Simply put, negative feedback is a goldmine. DON’T WASTE IT. Steel yourself. Take a belt of absinthe, if you need, and open the “Comments” section. Read everything. It sucks, doesn’t it? Is that even physically possible? Don’t you wish you were in good enough shape to do it? Do you remember your mother ever saying anything that could indicate this were true? Wait. What was that they said about the communication error report alert?

[0] https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/the-road-most-travel...

[godelski]

There's another piece of advice I've heard along these lines.

> Listen to the users complaining. Users are very good at identifying problems that you missed or can't see because you're too close to the project. But be careful listening to users about solutions to the problems. They can't see the whole picture.

I think this is good advice. You should want to make the best product you can. Some users have good ideas and can see things you can't. But it is hard to get the signal out of the noise and this can be very frustrating.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Agreed. Like Henry Ford is quoted as saying:

    "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have told me 'A faster horse!'."

[godelski]

Yeah and it takes skill to distill what they actually want out of that comment. People don't want a faster horse, they want a faster method of transportation. This is easy to miss, especially the more technical jargon people use when explaining what they want.

[johnnyanmac]

>even if it’s uncouth diatribes from unpleasant people

HUGE Caveat: negative feedback is not always constructive feedback. I imagine the kind of feedback devs fear isn't

>There's this weird clipping problem with the character on this level that can rarely cause you to get stuck in the floor

it's

>OMG why can't I even move in this game, did the dev even playtest this shit?

Even if they are technically saying the same thing, the latter makes me want to discord the "feedback" as some dramatic user. Even if I ignore the language, there's not much action I can take to address the issue, whereas non-diatribe negative feedback user gave me an exact level at the bare minimum to start off at.

And it's the internet. It may not be the most common feedback, but in this day of "likes", people sure do like to hoist the latter kind of comment up for devs to see first.