Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
Yeah, exactly. Yucking someone's yum usually just puts them in a defensive stance and isn't useful.

Now, if it's a context where you're talking about various game systems and their pros and cons? Being purely positive isn't necessarily necessary. Though even then I find it more useful to discuss things from the frame of "it's good at X, but X isn't something I care about."
Or even "I don't like how it does X; I prefer when that's implemented as Z". Phrasing it as an opinion or matter of taste makes a lot of difference, especially since 99.9% (warning, internet number!) of cases are just matters of preference and subjective judgement.

One thing I was taught about persuading people is to build on common ground. Start from where both sides agree and then build. Even if they have beliefs that you believe are wrong, it's more productive to try to show how they could benefit by accepting yours, rather than trying to break down those "false" beliefs.

Do I always practice this? No. I try, but am vulnerable to taking very dogmatic stances even when the data doesn't really bear that out or where doing so is not effective. It's something I'm working on. Mainly by not responding when I can feel the need to go all bulldog on something that doesn't really matter.