Silverware wrote: <lots of snips throughout>
But the general LT public need something visual and tangible. And screenshots, from the current running version, show that there is a current running version.
Even if you just show another iteration of a ship from the ship generator, it stills shows people that, yes there is a game, and yes it is progressing and running.
I partially agree; the issue I see with demanding screenshots is two-fold:
1) Josh has been cagey about releasing actual code he's written for public viewing, which I can possibly justify from a proprietary standpoint - at least until his IP is selling as intended.
2) Screenshots that don't show anything meaningfully *new* can have the opposite effect, making people think he's just recycling the same content from years ago and further cementing the impression that no progress is being made. Even with a time-stamp, since it's not particularly difficult to bring up something which had been working before, rotate the camera a bit and then take another (time-stamped) photo when literally nothing has been done except a rotation and a screen capture. Most people are technically savvy enough to realize this.
A possible 3rd issue is that in the same post where Josh spoke of the death of showman-Josh, he wrote a book where he painstakingly articulated every detail of the last two years (not needed) instead of a brief overview of the last several months (badly needed) and plans for the immediate future (a good idea) with *specific and tangible* references to actual progress that was made. Hell, most of the content of the post was a rehash of things we already knew (at least those of us who have kept up with past updates.)
Given his strong difficulties with communication in a context appropriate for community relations, I fear that a strong insistence on "screenies dude!" will result in a Josh-segfault due to the fact that a) screenies related to actual progress aren't available and he will agonize over how to adequately demonstrate actual progress via vision shots, b) he'll feel the need to show off every angle of whatever IS demonstrable, rather than a simple screen cap here and there, and possibly c) he'll put off posting until he feels there is enough visual pizzazz to impress us, which is exactly what he needs to not be worried about.
He doesn't need to impress us, he should be showing us the actual work, not stage lights. We're in this because we wanted to assist with development, we want to be impressed by the final product, but (most of us) understand that what goes on under the hood before it's ready isn't pretty, and overwhelmingly have stated that we're okay with that.
In writing this, I'm aware that I'm now proposing solutions based on anticipated challenges which wouldn't be necessary if Josh was able to communicate in a more normal PR/CR fashion, but the fact is he isn't, and proposing solutions which don't jive with the target's capabilities doesn't seem productive.