We keep skipping over the fact that nobody's really come up with an entirely rational explanation for the request yet. Not that all requests have to be entirely rational to be respected, but I think that has to have *some* weight. All other things being equal, if the request can't be reasonably justified, shouldn't that tip the scales against it?
- People play differently when they are being observed and recorded.
- Maybe he is playing from work and yes, that's his own problem, but that way I could see him having problems with it since Youtube is global and the forums and such are kind of a semi-private area.
- I could see a judge ruling in favor of your opponent as you are invading on his privacy.
- He could be embarassed by his bad play, or have a sneaky strategy he wants to keep to himself.
- But yes, there is the sympton that being recorded makes you play differently, I know if you told me I was being recorded I would play a lot slower and double think everything to make sure, but then im not as good as you and am quite self concious.
- videos don't offer any way for a competitor to explain themselves or defend against any comments you make short of making their own video.
- just consider recording via video as a variant. per Donald X.'s opinion, you can play by whatever variant you want as long as both agree or are indifferent. one doesn't agree, so don't play with that variant.
- It doesn't matter that the logs are already recorded. Everyone who plays on isotropic should have the understanding that their games are logged. There's no similar understanding that you'll be recorded and your play publicly analyzed by other guests to the site. Because players have no reason to assume they've given up that privacy, courtesy requires that you request their permission before taking it from them. This used to be well-understood. Remember when commenters wouldn't even post the logs of their matches until they had gotten explicit permission from their opponents?
- To be fair though, in the few videos by WW that I saw, his comments were more condescending to his opponents than, for example, what he or others would post in this forum after going through the logs.
- i would gladly bet that a poll of the full player pool on isotropic would yield more than the one person who doesn't feel comfortable with being recorded. we can't form conclusions and establish precedents based on the opinions of a fraction of the overall community.
- there is no conceivable way that a single player objecting would ever limit WW's video production in any meaningful way. even if say 10% of top players objected i still don't think the populace would notice a decline in video production.
- The majority of tournament matches are unrecorded, and I don't ever feel deprived of them. If one of WW's opponents is shy, or finds the camera distracting, then I'd rather not get to see the video then force that player to put up with something they don't like.
on the other side, i personally don't think there is a good reason why these should be recorded.
- this is (currently) the request of a single player. one. you are going to be deprived of what, 5 videos? tops? WW plays loads of games, objections from a single player will not slow down overall production. he will still put out a lot of videos for you to watch.
- if videos are so important produce them yourselves and encourage others to produce them. you are missing out on thousands of possible videos this way, why waste so much energy focusing on 5 videos because one player objected.
- it is very possible that video recorded games will take longer to play, due to any setup time or time to explain what is going on.
for me, it just comes down to a simple application of the golden rule. if videos make a player uncomfortable, for rational reasons or not, their requests should be respected. the dominion community at large is a very friendly and respectful place, and this fact has massively increased my love and enjoyment for the game. the marginal gain of this set of videos is to me simply not worth it if it makes anyone feel uncomfortable. first and foremost, dominion is a game, let's not lose sight of that.
Ok, I spoke too strongly when I say "nobody's really come up with an entirely rational explanation." Clearly there have been rational explanations of why people in general don't want to be recorded. But I'm still not buying the argument *here*. It's a tournament to determine who plays on a national stage. Scrutiny comes at the players whether they like it or not. If it's just to prevent WW from stating his opinion one's play... wat? Like, that makes no sense to me. If WW posted a post-game video analysis, would the player care? Do you think the player has a right to ask WW not to publish his thoughts on the game? I don't.
I'm very much assuming that nationals will be played in public with observers. IF I'm wrong about that, it pretty much destroys my main position. But tournaments are part competition and part promotion, so I feel like that's a safe assumption.
"People play differently when observed / recorded" - Yep, that's part of a tournament. People are going to observe live at nationals; now's a good time to get over it if you really want to show up there.
"playing from work" - Rational but a terrible reason to inflict the recording limitation on everybody else, IMO.
"privacy" - there is no privacy at nationals (I assume).
"bad play / sneaky strategy" - So he's going to be embarrassed at nationals? And the logs will be published; sneaky play won't stay sneaky.
"defend oneself" - same as on a forum, IMO. You post in the comments if you want to defend yourself from what somebody else claims.
"just consider recording via video as a variant" - FWIW, I'm OK with this. That's why I think I suggested stating explicitly in future tourneys. That's not really a rational reason to request no recording though. I mean, "we didn't agree we would do that" doesn't explain why you don't want it to happen. And, in this case, maybe he doesn't need to since it wasn't agreed upon ahead of time.
"It doesn't matter that the logs are already recorded." - I simply disagree about this. It's all public record. I don't think there should be an expectation of privacy (as it pertains to your play) or expectation of lack of analysis.
"comments were more condescending to his opponents" - If the player's just saying "please try to be polite about me" then I have no problem with it. By all means, a video recorder should try to treat their opponents with respect at all times while commenting. That's not the same thing as recording itself, though.
"would yield more than the one person who doesn't feel comfortable with being recorded" - Ok, but 1) that's not a reason why they'd feel uncomfortable. And 2), we're not talking about all players in all games. Again, this is for nationals.
"there is no conceivable way one player..." - see above
"The majority of tournament matches are unrecorded" - That's the state of things right now. See below:
There's kind question of what the Dominion community's tournament culture is going to be. You say there's not much *to* record and I very much disagree. Publicity is how you keep a community growing. I keep thinking of the Starcraft community as I think about this. At regular intervals,
www.reddit.com/r/starcraft has stories of people who became pure, regular spectators of the game because they were watching a tournament with a friend / relative. Those people aren't going to stay spectators unless there's something for them to spectate.
Dominion isn't Starcraft and never will be, but here's another way to think about it: A tournament is a bunch of story lines with ups, downs, heroes and villains. Ideally, you'd want to capture as many of personalities and story lines as possible, because that's what draws people in and gets fans invested. And it's important to keep the story lines as continuous as possible. Watching WW progress through the tournament is a story all by itself and, if he doesn't record, part of the story is missing. If he's eliminated, then there's no clear end of the story. If he advances, then a middle chapter of the story is mysteriously missing.
It's not like any of this is the end of the world, of course. It is "just 5 videos", but hey're at an important time. The fact that WW even posted this shows that he really wants to record, IMO; otherwise he would just not do it. I believe it's important to him and I don't think it's fair to expect him to give that up without a good reason.