A conversation with a gaming journalist

[sheek]

Sometimes I wonder whats so special about VD that he attracts that much boys who are trying to provoke him and to challenge his authority. Do they have Daddy issues? I guess it's also because he is willing to discuss everything and only threatens with consequences when everybody else would have lost his patience long ago. Remember last time VD threatens with a ban? Volourn got banned - for one day or so.

Believe me, VD wanted to ban him longer. He never said "If you continue I'll ban you for one day" which would have been pretty pathetic. He backtracked because he knew he'd gone too far, and I think left it to DU to come up with the 'Pretty Princess' tag. He does make mistakes, he's done so in the past and he's doing so again.

First of all, you got the url wrong. You have to replace single quote marks with %27 (or the url will be broken).

Ah, that was it. Thanks!

No problem. I'm here to help!

 

[Gambler]

Concepts like right and wrong are utterly subjective

Well, at least there is something you agree with mainstream gaming press about.

Anyway, I'm not going to bother you with boring crap like non-relativistic ethics and morality anymore (btw, those are synonyms). Enjoy Fallout 3 coverage.

 

[Vault Dweller]

VD, you are a monster. Following Kants Categorical Imperative I will teach you now a lesson about ethics. You publish PMs you receive? Than you have no moral right to complain if others publish your PMs too.

Here is the PM you've sent me once:

Much better. Thanks.

That hurts, right?

I can't believe I trusted you. It was supposed to stay between us; it's not something that I was ready to share with the rest of the world. You don't deserve to be called a human being. You are nothing but an immoral and highly unprofessional animal.

Calm down VD, no need to make banning threats. Dumbfuck him if you like, but not need for a ban. Even using that as a threat is a serious abuse of moderator power.
...
Most of his arguments are stupid, though...

I'm not a moderator. I'm an administrator. It's my job (here we go, another job) to keep the forums running smoothly and as idiot-free as possible. Don't get me wrong, an occasional idiot or two are entertaining, but get too many and the place starts going downhill.

Look at this way, let's say you are having a conversation with your friends, when an annoying kid interrupts and starts shouting nonsense. Would you say that removing him from the room is a horrible abuse of your power or something else?

I remember when porn was posted openly, for amusement and under the "free speech" banner. I interfered, banned some people, threated others. Many people were at arms and complained about the freedom of speech. I disregarded the complaints, but we nobody posts porn openly anymore. The way I see it, it's a small win.

Or take the Nameless Prick, for example, who posts racist neo-Nazi crap everywhere he can. Do we need this shit here? Should we tolerate stupidity because every moron should have a right to express his opinion? It's not about NN criticizing me. A lot of people do it daily and it doesn't bother me at all. What bugs me though is when I'm having a conversation with someone and then this someone suddenly decides that he doesn't need to explain anything and doesn't have to prove anything to anyone.

What it would be is another sign of weakness from VD and I think a lot of people would 'respect' him less.

Well, no matter what I do (or don't do) someone will respect me less and someone will respect me more. As for what sign that would of, it's open to interpretations.

He's acting stupid again, seems like he does that under pressure. ... and doesn't like being put on the spot...

What pressure? What spot? Do explain.

...Ninja comes along and makes points I personally disagree with but which are pretty reasonable.

So, what points do you disagree with, but still find reasonable? Just curious.

What VD should do now is say they'll agree to disagree, and leave it at that.

The threat stays. I asked Ninja to explain his position and support it with arguments, which isn't unreasonable. He doesn't do it, he's gone. Other admins are free to step in and rescue him, if they care.

Believe me, VD wanted to ban him longer.... He backtracked because he knew he'd gone too far

Gone too far? In what ways? Anyway, originally I wanted to ban him for a week, then we had a discussion on the staff forum, and most admins preferred to unban him. I respected their decision. Had they not stepped in, I would have unbanned him in 2-3 days. Not a big deal. I like Volly, but sometimes he goes overboard and refuses to communicate.

He backtracked because he knew he'd gone too far, and I think left it to DU to come up with the 'Pretty Princess' tag.

No, that was done without my participation.

He does make mistakes...

Who doesn't?

 

[AnalogKid]

EDIT: Oh and for God's sake, you don't say "unethical" or "ethical", it's immoral or moral (perhaps morally-justified in english).

Totally disagree, more later...

Exaggerating? This isn't a scale of 1 to 100. Either he acted ethically or not. Black and white.You can't act half-ethically. And I'll say ethical or unethical if I feel like it, arguments over semantics are dreadfully dull.

Totally agree, and would like to point out that your whole discussion, every post, is about semantics.

Do read the article posted about ethics and sociopaths, I don't fully agree but it's good background material.

Morality has to do with virtues and values (i.e. defining things that should be valued). Ethics has to do with defining a code of BEHAVIOUR that supports those virtues and values. You seldom hear about a "code of morals", because that doesn't make sense. A "code of ethics", however, is exactly what ethics IS. Ethics are rules to live by, morality is the reason those rules were created.

Now, the problem is that everyone has their own morality and their own ethics. Based on most of the pro-VD posts here, I'd venture to say that everyone (VD included) thinks that it was slightly morally wrong (i.e. "rude") to post PMs. But clearly VD doesn't agree that it was unethical because his ethics don't include arbitrary rules about not posting PMs. He applies a different standard that includes weighing the potential damage that posting the PMs might cause, and the amount of respect someone has earned (or lost, in this case).

So you see, saying that something is "unethical" is exactly equivalent to saying "that's not how I would have done it", or "I don't agree". It's a simple position that can be posted in 3 words. Everything else you've written has been exactly a semantic discussion (in particular, about the words "ethical" and "professional").

A different way of saying it: You can't say something's unethical without defining what ethics are being violated. Don't you see that's why your line of argument will never end? You and VD have DIFFERENT ETHICS. Arguing about what a word means = semantics.

I, too, hate it. And I wish you would let it go so we can focus on how corruption in gaming media will cause the apacolypse.



Also, I mostly agree with Sheek that VD's just fed up. I'm too busyto hunt down VD's actual quote, but at some point he posted something like "care to prove that? I've had enough empty assertions for one day". I think banning someone for insulting or challenging you in one thread (especially around here) is quite different from banning Volly for repeatedly posting content-free insults to everyone. Hopefully VD will wake up relaxed and remember one of the first things he wrote in this thread (and with which I strongly agree):

We do things differently around here. If the best way to describe it is "unprofessional", I'm fine with it. What's in a name?

 

[Vault Dweller]

You acted incorrectly, you were called on it, its an easy thing to fix. Just apologise to the guy. All it takes is swallowing your pride. You said he was still sending you PMs, so he probably wants to sort it out too.

I'll be happy to apologize when someone actually prove that what I did was horrible, unforgivable, and immoral.

But if you want to, go ahead and ban away guy.

The ball is in your court. You want to stay? Do what I asked you to, which is what you should have done anyway, since you decided to start arguing in this thread. Otherwise...

But when it's turned around, when it's your character being called into question, out comes the banning card? Hypocrisy for the loss.

Well, son, you can't call someone's character "into question" and then say that you don't have to prove anything, can you?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Based on most of the pro-VD posts here, I'd venture to say that everyone (VD included) thinks that it was slightly morally wrong (i.e. "rude") to post PMs.

It wasn't a *nice* thing to do, that's for sure, but unprofessional, unethical, and immoral? I don't think so.

Also, I mostly agree with Sheek that VD's just fed up.

Yes.

I think banning someone for insulting or challenging you in one thread (especially around here) is quite different from banning Volly for repeatedly posting content-free insults to everyone. Hopefully VD will wake up relaxed...

I'm very relaxed, and besides:

a) It's up to NN. All he has to do is to back up his arguments, which, like I said, he should have done in the first place. I'm not asking him to apologize or to take something back. If he doesn't think it's necessary, he doesn't belong here. Plain and simple.

b) I don't think that NN insulted me. Challenged? Sure, but a lot of people do that, and there is nothing wrong with that.

c) Remember Mr. Van Buren? Same thing, basically.

 

[AnalogKid]

a) It's up to NN. All he has to do is to back up his arguments, which, like I said, he should have done in the first place.

Ahh, but we both know that's not logically possible, at least with his main argument. His main argument, that you are unprofessional and unethical, is exactly equivalent to "VD didn't behave like I would have". That's an assertion that I think doesn't need any proof.

It's just, who gives a fuck?

 

[AnalogKid]

Because I believe in business relationships based on trust, not fear and desception.

Is that, like, when you shout *BOO* and then steal a guy's scepter or something?

Hey, I didn't get that allusion

It was a pun based on your typo in deception. "desception" = de-sceptering?

Nevermind, nothing to see here...

 

[Kraszu]

Thanks for being much more eloquent than this non-native speaker at 2:30am. Interestingly enough, when it would be interesting to talk about content, the discussion changes to my not perfect grammar. Interesting. And that after 100 or so messages.

2:30 am? The problem that I was talking about was: "Should journalist publish something that developer tell him and not want to be published" Not what procedure there should be.

If it would happen then developers would not give journalist those informations. And I had cover why it would be better.

If journalist would publish something that he was told not to reveal, it would no longer be based on trust no matter haw much respect you give to his points.

 

[robur]

Because I believe in business relationships based on trust, not fear and desception.

Is that, like, when you shout *BOO* and then steal a guy's scepter or something?

Hey, I didn't get that allusion

It was a pun based on your typo in deception. "desception" = de-sceptering?

Nevermind, nothing to see here...

Got it. And I laughed. Really did.

 

[robur]

Thanks for being much more eloquent than this non-native speaker at 2:30am. Interestingly enough, when it would be interesting to talk about content, the discussion changes to my not perfect grammar. Interesting. And that after 100 or so messages.

2:30 am? The problem that I was talking about was: "Should journalist publish something that developer tell him and not want to be published" Not what procedure there should be.

Yeah, that was the question VD brought up in this thread I was answering myself, too.

If it would happen then developers would not give journalist those informations. And I had cover why it would be better.

If journalist would publish something that he was told not to reveal, it would no longer be based on trust no matter haw much respect you give to his points.

Also, I see it this way: if somebody trusts me, he tells me more than he would tell someone he didn't trust. Now, whether it's fit to print or not, it helps me to understand the bigger picture better and eventually come up with a more rounded article.

 

[Kraszu]

Also, I see it this way: if somebody trusts me, he tells me more than he would tell someone he didn't trust. Now, whether it's fit to print or not, it helps me to understand the bigger picture better and eventually come up with a more rounded article.

No if it is information that you can't use by default by standards. He tell you that actual game design was simplistic, you get to that when playing the game but now you fell like you should not write about it becouse he told you that, and you will lost his trust then.

If we are talking about publisher - developer information then that could be the case (where are those rounded articles?), but when we are talking about games reviews the case is opposite only, no? Any examples haw those information could help review whithout killing trust.

 

[robur]

Also, I see it this way: if somebody trusts me, he tells me more than he would tell someone he didn't trust. Now, whether it's fit to print or not, it helps me to understand the bigger picture better and eventually come up with a more rounded article.

No if it is information that you can't use by default by standards. He tell you that actual game design was simplistic, you get to that when playing the game but now you fell like you should not write about it becouse he told you that, and you will lost his trust then.

Well, if I find that out AND he even told me, you can be sure that I'm going to write that. May or may not call out his name, but if he's a high profile guy in the team, you bet I will. Why would I lose his trust for telling a fact that's painfully obvious?

If we are talking about publisher - developer information then that could be the case (where are those rounded articles?)

Read mine. I even did a multi page feature on independent gaming a year+ ago that had been received quite well.

but when we are talking about games reviews the case is opposite only, no? Any examples haw those information could help review whithout killing trust.

Well, what information are we talking about? Something good? Something bad? Some neutral facts?

Good to see the thread is back to where it actually belongs IMHO.

 

[Kraszu]

Well, if I find that out AND he even told me, you can be sure that I'm going to write that. May or may not call out his name, but if he's a high profile guy in the team, you bet I will. Why would I lose his trust for telling a fact that's painfully obvious?

It doesn't have to be that obvious, especially when reviewer don't have much time to play the game. Is game balanced, is there heavy branching or just diferent lines to choose but whit the same effect.

I divined information those about game, and other as you see I think that there is big difference in let say default assumed motivation.

So you think it is impossible to have game related information that you could miss in limited time that you have to play it? It comes down to that.

If we are talking about publisher - developer information then that could be the case (where are those rounded articles?)

Read mine. I even did a multi page feature on independent gaming a year+ ago that had been received quite well.[/quote]

Link would be nice.

but when we are talking about games reviews the case is opposite only, no? Any examples haw those information could help review whithout killing trust.

Well, what information are we talking about? Something good? Something bad? Some neutral facts?

Good - no why would developer not give good news about game, and want to keep them them secret in review.

neutral facts - ?? Like number of quest anything that developer don't mind in review don't need "trust".

bad - that is what it is about, bad things that developer ask you to not write about.


I don't think that what I am writing about is deception if developer would expect gaming journalist to be critics he would expect bad things said about game that he made to be used. The fact that he does not say bad things about gaming journalism (I am talking about game related).

 

[xedoc gpr]

Who cares?

I have to say that it's worth dropping by here every now and then just to see this type of drama unfold. I do wish some of you would stop feigning outrage at the horrible atrocities of RPG video game forum administrators. If you don't like it, there are plenty of forums on the interweb. Leave and go to another one. It's not like anyone forms close friendships and deep social bonds on this forum. You can use the same repetitive sarcasm on any other forum, it's not unique to this one. What is the purpose of staying here and arguing that Person A is horrible and untrustworthy? Let's say you "win" the argument, what next? Discredit the guy and take over his position? I don't see it happening.

And yes, I think there's something a tad unethical about posting a huge pm convo, though I don't want to explain too much and get involved in this stupid debate. It wouldn't be as bad if you hadn't kept the private conversation going for a while before posting it. But who really cares? Seems to me like the contents of the PM conversation were pretty the same stuff he said in the forums.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Sometimes I wonder whats so special about VD that he attracts that much boys who are trying to provoke him and to challenge his authority. Do they have Daddy issues? I guess it's also because he is willing to discuss everything and only threatens with consequences when everybody else would have lost his patience long ago. Remember last time VD threatens with a ban? Volourn got banned - for one day or so.

Believe me, VD wanted to ban him longer. He never said "If you continue I'll ban you for one day" which would have been pretty pathetic. He backtracked because he knew he'd gone too far, and I think left it to DU to come up with the 'Pretty Princess' tag. He does make mistakes, he's done so in the past and he's doing so again.

I give you the Admin Forum from Friday Feb 02, 2007:

I banned the little fucker 5 minutes ago. He forgot to take his medicine again. I'm planning to unban him in a week. If anyone disagrees, let's discuss.

He was baiting you into it, asking for it really. The only thing I'd say is that he'll spin it as a win for himself.

Not just here, either. He'll spin it on every RPG-related forum under our pale yellow star.

He really is unique here, in being about 95% anti-social.

I'd rather he not be banned, but a week isn't going to kill anybody.

You realize he's not going to ever stop talking about it, right? This is now the high point of his life.

That's what I was thinking. He'll milk this for all it's worth and the moment he's unbanned he'll cast it up again to provoke you into being the big mean dad again. This is his best day ever. Maybe you should keep the ban for a night as a cooling off period for everyone at least. If you let him right back on again you'll be an indecisive flip-flopper unless you can claim it was only a "warning", but then he might just push you again as soon as he's back on to see if he can make you react again.

It's kind of like those kids in school who would tease and annoy the teacher in small ways, upping the ante all the time until they could finally make them snap and go berserk and then be overjoyed at the rage.

Yeah, you guys are right. We have no choice but to kill him.

Who cares. It's Volourn. He'll bitch about anything.

Do we have any assassins on standby or were they all used up on the RPG crusades?

Who cares. It's Volourn. He'll bitch about anything.

True. You're in it now. May as well stick to your guns.

I'm waiting for the first 'Honourblade' to turn up.
I'll be disappointed if it doesn't happen.

One of you should play a prank.

Eh? What was that, Shag? Couldn't hear you.

Maybe you should keep the ban for a night as a cooling off period for everyone at least. If you let him right back on again you'll be an indecisive flip-flopper unless you can claim it was only a "warning", but then he might just push you again as soon as he's back on to see if he can make you react again.

If it makes it easier, I could always unban him later so VD can stick to his guns, so to speak, and if anyone says anything you can just say "Don't look at me, that pussy Jason unbanned him." I'll be the Lacey to VD's Cagney. Or is it the other way around?

Eh? What was that, Shag? Couldn't hear you.

Maybe you should keep the ban for a night as a cooling off period for everyone at least. If you let him right back on again you'll be an indecisive flip-flopper unless you can claim it was only a "warning", but then he might just push you again as soon as he's back on to see if he can make you react again.

If it makes it easier, I could always unban him later so VD can stick to his guns, so to speak, and if anyone says anything you can just say "Don't look at me, that pussy Jason unbanned him." I'll be the Lacey to VD's Cagney. Or is it the other way around?

It doesn't make any difference to me, so I'll unban his ass tomorrow. At least we've had a quiet evening without his screams.

I'd rather he stayed banned. I say if the fucker asks for a ban, give it to him. Who cares if he's going to run around like a retarded kid saying "LOLOLZ I GOT TEH BANNED WIN 4 ME!" at some other stupid RPG forum?

At the very least, you've said a week so leave it at a week. Anything less and it just gets worse.

P.S. I dumbfucked sheek. I'm pretty sure he was a dumbfuck before or at least, deserved the title anyway.

P.P.S I messed with the Volourn poll a bit. Just a bit¹.

¹By 6287 votes

Doosh doosh doosh. Another one gets the tag.

Slaine is now illiterate thanks to her "there is no chair" debating skills.

Sheek seems to have taken the dumbfucking rather hard.

I also think the illiterate tag is generally underused. It's the half-way to dumbfucking and it needs your love.

Any thoughts on changing Volly's title? Like some have mentioned here, taking away the "Dumbfuck!" title seems appropriate, but I vote for a pink "Princess" tag.

Best idea ever, MacBone for president

Oh so tempting, no? I'm not sure if it would piss him off or if he'd love it.

I was just going to do that.

A little daisy flower head on it would be a nice touch.

Hey, where did the thread go?

Oh, nevermind.

I gave him the princess avatar. It matches well, I think. Any chance of locking it on, DU?

Someone (other than me) moved it to GD. VD also unbanned Volourn so we can have another 10 pages of fun.

I've locked Volourn's avatar in. For future reference. Admin Panel -> User Management -> Enter user's name -> Set "Can display avatar" to no -> Give them a special rank -> Edit the special rank and set the avatar in there.

Thanks.

The move to GD was by me. I saw sheek was ranting like a crazy wino and the thread had passed well into retardo land levels as a cycle of him saying SUCK COCK FUCK YOU DICK_UNDERGROWTH (etc.) so I moved it there as it looked like it was only going to get worse, but while I was moving it Volourn had posted so I put it back to where VD and others could reply.

I did enjoy sheek's immediate posting of another conspiracy themed thread complaining about it being deleted though. He's really shown his hand recently.

Yup, VD wanted to ban Volourn for longer. A whole 6 days longer. :the horror:. As for "going too far", we can all see what I wanted to do and I had no part in the Pretty Princess affair apart from telling them how to set it up. Feel free to create a religion about me though and "remember the days back when DU wouldn't have done XYZ".

Basically, the only problem with VD is that he doesn't stick to his guns and he values the opinion of members far too highly (and that right there is really something Saint never would've done). VD's never been afraid of wearing the flack he gets for that though.

Also: OH-OH NOW THEY'RE POSTING STUFF FROM THE ADMIN FORUM WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT I WONDER?

 

[Shagnak]

Basically, the only problem with VD is that he doesn't stick to his guns and he values the opinion of members far too highly (and that right there is really something Saint never would've done).

Last I looked VD wasn't the ultimate arbiter.
Saint was when he was here.

Is there something about forum ownership that someone isn't telling me?

OMG THIS SHOULD TOTALLY BE IN THE STAFF FORUM!!

(oh, you prolly mean forum members. my bad)

 

[Joe Krow]

Just apologize NN. He threatened to ban you so he is obviously right.

 

[Elhoim]

Just apologize NN. He threatened to ban you so he is obviously right.

All he has to do is to back up his arguments, which, like I said, he should have done in the first place. I'm not asking him to apologize or to take something back.

 

[Joe Krow]

Just apologize NN. He threatened to ban you so he is obviously right.

All he has to do is to back up his arguments, which, like I said, he should have done in the first place. I'm not asking him to apologize or to take something back.

NN has already backed up his argument. VD admits what he did was not "nice." Some would say, and NN seems to be one of them, that doing things that are not "nice" in your professional life (or concievably anywhere else) should be viewed as unethical. You can disagree, fine, but disagreeing dosn't make NN wrong. You have different ethical standards. So what? Why exactly wasn't it "nice" to reveal the private message? I think most would agree that a trust was violated. If he wanted it public he would have posted it in the forums. He's proven he knows how. Instead, he chose to send a private message. The contents of the message are not important. NN sees ethics in "black and white," as he stated, so the degree of "harm" is irrelevant to him. A trust was intentionally violated... if NN wants to call that unethical more power to him. We can extend the debate and talk about ethics being relative if you like but it might be best to just leave it at that. What I find disturbing, and what inspired my comment, was that VD seems to be saying: Prove my actions were unethical by my own standards (whatever they might be) and to my satisfaction (whatever that might be) or you will be banned. Does that sound reasonable?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Gamespy, a professional website?

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/gothic-ii/6393p1.html

This review is the more unprofessional than most GameFAQs reviews. It says, literally,that Gothic II is a bad game because it's too slow. The fact that a Gamespy employee would call himself professional is ludicrous.

 

[spacemoose]

I don't really see a breach of trust in this case - there's nothing private or damaging that was said in that conversation. if anything, it highlights the divide between what gaming journalism has become and what it should be. patrick would rather continue the debate away from public eyes, just as he's prone to hide faults in the games he covers from his readers. VD on the other hand wants to have it all out in the open.

 

[Ladonna]

Gamespy, a professional website?

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/gothic-ii/6393p1.html

This review is the more unprofessional than most GameFAQs reviews. It says, literally,that Gothic II is a bad game because it's too slow. The fact that a Gamespy employee would call himself professional is ludicrous.

Thats the sort of crap that really pisses me off. Basically they are admitting that the site is full of the same ilk that only like the one kind of game. I bet thats the same guy who reviewed Half a dozen of their FPSer's and yet gets given a game like G2 to review.

I remember in the 90's magazines used to have actual genre reviewers, not just pass games out for any retard to review even if they had never played a game in its genre.

 

[psycojester]

I do wish some of you would stop feigning outrage at the horrible atrocities of RPG video game forum administrators. If you don't like it, there are plenty of forums on the interweb. Leave and go to another one. It's not like anyone forms close friendships and deep social bonds on this forum. You can use the same repetitive sarcasm on any other forum, it's not unique to this one. What is the purpose of staying here and arguing that Person A is horrible and untrustworthy? Let's say you "win" the argument, what next? Discredit the guy and take over his position? I don't see it happening.

HERE FUCKING HERE HERE! This man is speaking solid gold platinum engraved truth.

 

[AnalogKid]

What I find disturbing, and what inspired my comment, was that VD seems to be saying: Prove my actions were unethical by my own standards (whatever they might be) and to my satisfaction (whatever that might be) or you will be banned. Does that sound reasonable?

Have to say I agree with this. Although, VD has also offered another option to NN that is much more reasonable: just let it go and stop shouting the same shit at the top of your lungs.

I'm one of those people that thinks "not nice" is equal to "immoral" (although not "unethical" or "unprofessional"), as long as the person values being nice as a general principle. Of course, that's a semantic technicality and not the way in which NN meant his rantings and ravings.

I think everyone can admit that NN's posts did try to paint VD as a horrible monster by some apparently universal ethical or professional standard that supposedly everyone somehow agrees on. That's much more of a personal attack than the way I paraphrased NN's argument, and that kind of thing in post after post after post is, imo, what really got to VD. In that scenario, what VD is ultimately asking for is to define and defend this supposedly universal standard (which doesn't exist, so it's an impossible mission, like I said).

Isn't it just fucking AWSUM!! that I know everything and can even read everyone's mind and determine their motives? I think it's pretty fucking cool, even if I do have to say so myself.