Jump to Comments Every message I get from someone asking me to check out his or her track I understand that message as meaning 'please come and check out this track and tell me what you think'. But I think they are sending me the wrong message, because sometimes when I go give them feedback they get annoyed and tell me not to leave feedback, or they come and leave a negative comment on my beats. The message they should really be sending me is 'please come check out my track, but I don't want your feedback, just a dope point and a nice message'. So my question here, is, do people really want feedback? I noticed Leobdope has been putting his own marks on people's tracks - a score out of five normally - which I think is a pretty neat idea. But it's really easy for someone to get uptight about that sort of scoring because people want the top marks. Suddenly three out of five sounds like a diss, because most artists (myself included) are pretty protective over what they have done and are prepared to defend it. But Leo isn't the type to just hate and what he is doing us a much better service than some copy & pasted message and a dope point - he's helping people grow, and we should appreciate that. I really believe that we all need to develop thicker skins and learn to take honest criticism in our stride and turn it to our advantage. The word 'honest' is the most important part of that last sentence. Sometimes if you leave a REAL comment (which is often a mixture of 'I like this, but not that' or it's cool but you should change that'), you get a pretty negative comment back and it's kinda hard to work out if the comment is honest or made as part of some vendetta. When it's revenge, that that just sucks. I know a couple of people who almost definitely do this. I hope I've never done that, but I can't be sure. Thankfully, there's a growing amount of people who can take it. I've got to nice place with the other UK producers where we seem to be able to be a lot more honest, and I really dig that, because it's hard to step away from your music, so you need others you trust to tell you like it is. An artist that gets love all day and night isn't gonna challenge themselves, and that is the definition of wackness. I gotta say though, TOTAL HONESTY is a completely different matter and I really don't want to promote more hating. Some guy hated on my last track ('not good at all, try doing better') so I went and gave him 100% of what I thought. The track wasn't terrible by DT standards, but I felt like he'd opened the door for real honesty. I know if i was 100% honest all the time I wouldn't have many friends here, so there is a balance to make. You gotta show you mean it respectfully and real artists will respect you for it. If fact, if someone bothers to comment at all that's positive because there's too many people listening and not commenting. At the same time, to say 'that's wack' and no explanation is even worse than the cardinal sin in my book, which is to leave a copied message and a link your track. Normally I just sleep on those tracks but perhaps I'm gonna start going to the linked track and give it to you 100% honestly, and you probably aren't gonna like it. I don't want to do that, you don't want that, so be clever with your comments. Earn respect. Don made a good comment the other day when he said that we gotta keep wackness of the front page, so don't dope what you don't feel. We really do need to keep wackness of the front, but Don's way is gonna be hard, cos i think most stuff is worthy of a dope point, so maybe the answer is to be extra critical on frontpage tracks. Like a celebrity, if you get to the front, you gotta be prepared to take the strain. Or maybe a better ratings system, like Leo's, is the answer. What do you think?