You guys... I love this site. I love coming here. This has been my homepage for aaaaaaaageeeees. Different relationships. Different gaming systems. Different sections of my life for more than three years.
But dear god, why are you doing this? We are but guests on your site. In your 'home'. Invited guests. Invited guests who hang out to listen to your stories, Old Man Owen rocking back and forth recalling that one time he hit a grand slam in MLB The Show, the rest of us telling him he imagined it and to go back to sleep.
But we are invited guests who have been told by you guys before, to sum it up, that you won't ban us for politely disagreeing with you.
So we speak to you not as if you were some evil omnipotent overlords we have no respect for at all. If that were the case, we might not have shown up. But we speak to you as if you are people we care about, friends, people worth listening to but also accessible. Understandably, nobody raises a fuss when a lunatic wanders in spitting venom and curses at you guys when they ARE still guests, but why oh why would you have banned dean?
I understand that you've given him warnings... by ignoring what he says (thanks Owen for actually NOT) and displaying your power by removing his star for it. But I thought we were all friends here? He wasn't rude about anything... he was just treating you like someone he might know. Was that not the impression you were trying to impose?
You guys have posted life stories. You've talked about your children. You *want* us to be able to see you as people we can relate to. It's both smart marketing and a sign of good faith with your readers. That we're worth sharing with. It's things we want to hear from people we want to hear it from.
So putting all that analogy together and aside..... whaaaaaaat dooooooo youuuuuu wannnnnnt frommmmm usssssssss. Do you want nothing but yes men who listen attentively and high five over everything you do, or say nothing at all? Do you want want one line 'wit' or nothing at all?
Because part of the charm of this place is like other gawker blogs do, we've been free to engage in rather open and lengthy discussion with each other provided the right time and place. I would suspect a rather large chunk of repeat visits and pageviews and even new members is to read the comments section, and what others might think.
You have to have expected that posting an article called 'This is Kotaku' after all the recent goings-on of people feeling run down with the site was going to drag out all the opinions The honest, the brown nosing and the jpegs. If it was a trap, it was an extremely well played one.
Kudos. You sure got him. And then everyone else. The rude and the polite, all the ones who didn't seem to want to snap-to and form a defensive perimeter or wander aimlessly around in circles when you decided to start telling the story of 'this is how it is here' with the previous promise of 'dont worry, we wont ban you for politely disagreeing with us'.
I'm using speakup to keep it as off the main page as I can, following all the little rules and staying as far out of sight from your mainstream comment-little care-nothing visitor pagehits and incomes as possible.
...tbh, I'm not even sure that 'politely' part was in there. I think I may just be paraphrasing the whole essence of the article, but then again, maybe not. We were just nice enough to treat you with respect automatically.
No but in all seriousness, I agree with you completely. As humorous the antics of today were (some of the comments made me laugh long and hard), way-too-many actions by moderators/editors were ridiculous and downright offensive. Because of what's gone down, I'm oscillating between feelings of "I'm not sure if I should speak my mind" and "I don't even care if I get banned." Neither of those thoughts are good, so I'm somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place. Er, a rock and a banhammer?
@ThirzaLepidus: Maybe he only had one hand free - it's an amazing feat to clap with only one hand. What the other hand was doing, I wouldn't like to suggest, but Kayce's comment certainly made me feel good too.
@Komrade Kayce: We want you to stay on topic. We want you to talk intelligently about the story at hand. We want you to disagree with us, prove us wrong.... while remaining on topic.
Kotaku isn't a place people go to talk about Kotaku. It's a place people go to discuss gaming and gaming culture.
If you must spend all of your time debating our story selection, our editorial decisions, the length of a story, don't waste everyone's times by doing it in a story, go to SpeakUp, or Talk Amongst Yourself or email one of us. I try to respond to every email I get, or at least read them.
Most readers don't care about a particular opinion on whether a story should be two sentences or two paragraphs, they'd rather hear people debate the story at hand or relate to it, or disagree with the content.
TL;DR version.
Want to talk about our stories, disagree with our opinions expressed in the stories: Go for it. We love that. And we never ban for it, unless you name call.
Want to spend the day navel gazing and discussing the font size of Kotaku or the color scheme or whether this story or that story belongs on the site: email me directly, do it in TAY or do it in Speak up.
Thats fair, and I can understand if someone is consistently cluttering posts with offtopic information, site editorials or troll images, is still cluttering it.
But having an article called 'This is Kotaku' was bound to draw out a few people who wanted to discuss with you what Kotaku was.
Nobody has ever really ever made a post about 'if you want to talk about the site, we'd be happy to do it with you... just keep it to tay or speakup'. That might have helped a LOT. Then we'd at least know you're still here with us and understand the reasons behind being miffed about people bringing things up and going offtopic a bit more.
Don't worry about the TL;DR bit... I mean, look at the size of the comment you replied to. ;)
I'm just very sad that it looks like a giant mistake by both parties, his through ignorance of unspoken rules, yours for not understanding or caring that an article called 'This is Kotaku' might bring out people wanting to talk about 'What is Kotaku?'... because it sucks and I hate it and I think it sucks even more that if people were making mistakes, extremely polite well meaning mistakes, they were still 'mistakes' and you're banning them for it.
@Brian Crecente: Can you tell me if this is the case, why was Dean de-starred in TAY for giving fair constructive criticism here [kotaku.com]
Not to sound cynical, but it's tough to believe that TAY or KOT is "anything goes" when the thing that was set in motion came from exactly that place. Will you set about new policies where one can't be banned or de-starred in those locations beyond blatant personal attacks, trolling or posting spam?
And, let's say for the sake of argument that Dean's criticism was not constructive, What would be a better way to go about it?
@Komrade Kayce: Long time no see. Seems this situation has been bringing out a lot of long-lost commenters
And this just made me lol, though I have no idea what it's about... "Old Man Owen rocking back and forth recalling that one time he hit a grand slam in MLB The Show, the rest of us telling him he imagined it and to go back to sleep."
@Komrade Kayce: The first ban, the one that set it all off, was of a person who is very aware of the rules.
Trolling, even in the name of trying to just help out, is still trolling.
When you do it for months and months, I think that you shouldn't be surprised when you get banned.
But, yeah, the intern army kicked in when people freaked out and it was a bit of a blood bath.
I'll see what I can do tomorrow, when I'm actually working :) to fix things.
Maybe we need a third off topic post, like Kotaku's Editorial Board or something. I figured that SpeakUp, the Off Topic posts and the TAY were enough, but maybe I just need to be extremely blunt about where people should drop off their suggestions for the site.
The irony here is that I rarely am emailed suggestions, instead people decide to express them on the post in a story about, say, the World of Warcraft.
Just in case, my email address is listed at the bottom of every single one of my stories as well as the side of the site.
@Brian Crecente: I have a quick question to ask you. Is it possible to have a reminder on that in a new quick topic in light of the massacre that just happened? I think that everyone was banned not because they were talking about Dean's banning, but because they were doing it in the wrong post and derailing it.
Or an alternate way I propose is to have a new weekly or monthly "criticism" section so this wouldn't happen again, and at least there would be a clear place for the rest of the commenters to go to. Is it possible?
@Killer Toilet: That's a great idea. Like a Why I hate Kotaku comment post once a month?
And you're absolutely right.
What's so frustrating for me is how many times I remind people about that and how easy it seems to understand, and yet people just dont seem to get it. #speakup(Edit comment)
@Brian Crecente: Brian, I would absolutely *love* that Editorial Board idea!
It'd be great to have somewhere we could properly discuss suggestions and comments on current editorial decisions, get some feedback from you guys, have it out in the open for the community to look at and see 'Yes, I want to suggest something, I can do it here!'. Smashing idea, and something I could get behind, if it'll at least stop anything like the veritable madness that was today from happening again.
The community is one of the cornerstones of making Kotaku a great site, so it would be cool if there could be some sort of monthly, or even weekly, 'Editorial Board' as you put it, for us to suggest ideas .
But part of why this stuff is rarely emailed is because we know you guys are flooded with tips, and don't know if you actually read them. Here, on the site, somewhere... they're there. Not lost in email cyberspace.
I think a monthly 'talk with the editors' would be a great idea. It would also be a wonderful way to weed out the unpolite and rude, while at the same time showing that you're approachable and open to discussion out in the open.
@Brian Crecente: If the reason for most bannings is off-topic-ness, why aren't the people who do NOTHING in their comment but shove their nose up the ass of an editor get destarred, disemvoweled, or banned?
And are you seriously saying here that you ignore criticism on purpose just because it's in the wrong place? And that people should automagically know that they aren't to criticize something in the obvious place- the comments section for it- but to do it elsewhere?
And again, for the eight hundred thousandth time, you keep ignoring one question: If TAY is a safe haven for criticism, WHY DID YOU DESTAR DEANB WHEN HE CRITICIZED IN TAY? This has been asked hundreds of times but you never answer it, you tiptoe around it. "Well, despite deans ridiculously enormous contributions to the site and community, and 99.999% of his comments being extremely helpful posts or valuable tips, including an entire article about commenting on kotaku, he sometimes criticized us and made us look bad." was your only response, and that's not good enough.
You destarred him for criticism in TAY, but you keep going on as if everyone knows you should do such things in TAY and that you won't get in trouble for it. Can you please at least attempt to explain this contradiction or do you feel you must continue pretending to be infallible?
Also, a sidenote: Disemvoweling and deleting comments are, to me, a complete admission to what they say. Why would you disemvowel or delete a comment unless you didnt want others to see it? Why wouldnt you want people to see harsh criticism? Because you know it is true, and you want it hidden. YOu only respond to criticism you think you can deny- others are deleted or disemvoweled. This tells me that every disemvoweling today is the equivalent of going "You're right, we're horrible journalists, but we cant let the commoners figure that out.".
@wirebrain: The best way to criticize content on the site would probably be to email the editor. The best way to criticize the way the site is run (ran?) would probably to email the editor and/or gawker. Although seemingly more confrontational, I would assume it would be less-so, in that it doesn't spawn a ridiculous amount of posts about why the site fails at what it does for x reason, while simultaneously alerting the editor/poster to the concerns.
I agree that there should be a safe-zone for all constructive criticisms about the site and the way it is put together somewhere. Somewhere that isn't within each weeks posts or daily articles.
I, for one, got sick of hearing DBmmw bitch about the way the site was run.
Instead, let's talk about the articles, whether good, bad, or ugly.<<<
Because he had his own site, his comments about improving the site came across as him living a pipe-dream about taking over. It's great that he wanted k to be better. We all do. But the forums and methods he choose were not proper.
For instance, in that post he speaks of infallibility. He talks about them updating/changing articles. - That goes to the policy of the site, and really has nothing to do with gaming. Clearly, no one is perfect. He comments, "Look dudes, you're human, you can make mistakes. Can maybe admit to them once in a while too." - Well no shit?
It isn't necessary to remind a person that they make can make mistakes. Everyone knows this. That is what #corrections is for. As for the commenting policy of the site and other procedure, send an email to the editor, and ask politely.
There is a difference between being an awesome asset to the community, and being an asset that is good with substance, but bad with procedure.
Keep your procedure posts to that safe-zone and substances posts everywhere else.
(edit: That might have came off as though I was directing you to do something. Not the case my friend. Also, it appears the safe-zone is coming..) (Edit comment)
@Brian Crecente: It just never dawned on me that people would want to invest any time in making suggestions about the nuance of how Kotaku runs.
Ok, this is just ridiculous.
People invest time in making suggestions about the nuance of how Kotaku runs in article comments all the fucking time. You just admitted repeatedly that people are destarred and etc for this because it's in the wrong area!
You know it's there, how the hell could you not have known people would like to do it, when they ALREADY DO IT?
@Brian Crecente: I'd just like to say thank you for taking out time to discuss this matter with us. I think that's all any of us wanted to begin with. To understand just what the hell was going on. The confusion just escalated everything even further resulting in the events that happened today. Glad to hear this whole matter is being resolved though. +1 Respect
@Brian Crecente: I'd love to feel like I'm giving a helping hand. As you do the job I want to do *envious glare*, on a personal level it would be great if I could suggest something to you guys that could then come to fruition and be part of the site I care about so much, it's silly to say, but it would make me feel like I'm a little step closer to being a contributer for the site, and I'd love that feeling - and I assume that would be a similar feeling for other frustrated kotakuites who currently feel like they can't do something like that, simply because there isn't a specific place to do it.
I've stayed out of the way of all this mess today, but I'm glad to see at the end of it all, we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and something great can come of it.
Thanks for coming down to the trenches, so to speak, and making the effort to do this. I can't speak for others, but I can say for myself it certainly makes me feel a little less sour about this whole incident to see that there's the inkling of a really great idea coming out!
@Kanji08: How ar eyou guys falling for this? He is saving face.
He has been told countless times that we need a place to criticize, yet he acts as if it's a new concept. He sees criticism from people daily about the site, he bans for it, and yet he acts like he never thought that people would like to be able to criticize things about the site.
He's saving face in the light of what happened today. Suddenly, now that hordes of users can see there are massive problems with how the site is run, he just happens to become reasonable and listen to this stuff, for the first time ever?
How are you falling for this facade?
I guess at the very least there's a chance it's genuine. Even if it is a saving-face response, if it is genuine, it'll be a good thing...but still. It's clear the motive for it, because like I said- these things have been brought up before, but only now, in the wake of massive dissenting, is he responding to it.
The way people are just all smiles and puppy dogs and happy birthday unicorn cakes about his response is kinda irking me. He doesn't deserve the cuddles and loving happy responses he is getting even if he is finally responding to problems being put forth- the fact that he pretended these things didn't exist beforehand should not be ignored. Be happy that he's paying attention, but don't give him the false impression that he has done no wrong.
@Komrade Kayce: Clearly I'm not a new commenter if I'm aware of the horrible way that Kotaku is "run" by this man. New account does not mean new commenter, and it's a bit stupid to pretend I'm meandering through speakup and just going "Oh hey guys, new poster here! :D" when the comments have made it clear I'm aware of how this place works and has been falling apart lately. You're not Sherlock Holmes, though you are pretty elementary, so maybe you're Watson. He had trouble with that stuff. ;)
Anyway, if he is genuinely reforming things, it's good, even if it is just as a face-saving response, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
@cityslicker: That seems fair, and while I'm well aware about obsessive fans (really, you guys should have seen some of the fan letters game companies get) when all is said and done, why wasn't this mentioned before?
I don't think I've seen a "take site management concerns and recommendations via e-mail/Private Message" statement made, especially on the post where Dean got de-starred. Closest was a "Dean was de-starred because he was telling us what to do" line which wasn't really helping matters.
This answer you give is really good, but it has taken far too long to get that across and far too many people seeing it as management just being hypersensitive and over-reactionary. If it was plainly and clearly mentioned with the advisement given here in that thread, we likely wouldn't be in the situation we're in with a bunch of bans, de-starrings, and Kotaku's name being synonymous as... well, being run by a bunch of drama queens.
I'm not one to turn down a quick roll in the hay, if you'd like. This is speakup, afterall... we're allowed a little more leniency it seems. So no worries about being banned for letting me sex you up.
@Brian Crecente: Thank you very much Brian for clarifying things. I don't think everyone got the whole picture as to what was going on and there was a lot of misunderstanding on both ends of today's events. I also want to thank you for your willingness to open up to more suggestions here on Kotaku. As a Kotaku reader for over three years, today really worried me, but I'm glad to see things have winded down a little and some clarification.
@thecrimsonalchemist2: Do keep in mind, I'll still ban people for being pedantic jackasses who really aren't here to help, but are only around to throw rocks.
I'm not saying anyone is doing that here, but this new post won't be a place where you can break all the rules and be obnoxious.
The difference here will be that the topic will be Kotaku policies, and not a story about something unrelated. In theory that will mean that people can talk about those issues there and not clog up stories with off topic commentary.
I suspect there will still be people not happy with that, who still feel the need to bypass Off Topic , TAY, Speakup, open forums, email and this new post. And yes I'll warn ( with a destar) and then ban them.
And I'm sure they'll get angry, but with each new comment forum we create I'd like to think the number of these incidents will decline.
@Brian Crecente: I wrote this in a different comment and was wondering if maybe I should email it to you (you did ask for suggestions to be emailed to you, after all) but it seems kinda basic so I feel silly putting it in an email :P
But I was thinking that you could make this 'talk about the site to the editors' (or whatever you want to call it) feature only visible to registered & logged in visitors. That way even if the comments do get pretty ..vocal.., at least you're not having new visitors to the site seeing that as their first experience.
In addition to that, any 'letters to the commentors' or similar could be posted with the same 'only visible to logged in users' rule. Alternatively, those sorts of public letters could instead be distributed via the internal messaging system.
I think if it had been possible to send out a mass message to everyone saying 'abc just happened, please limit your responses to #x and avoid going off topic in other articles' when the riot or whatever started then you (and that's a pretty general 'you', not you specifically, Brian) would have been able to control the situation a lot better. Or at least would have had a very public justification for the bannings/censorship/etc as you'd just given everyone a clear warning.
I work with a website and we've just built a 'comments' section for our articles (deployed today! very exciting, except I think our first comment was spam :P) and I've been pointing everyone on the team towards kotaku as a great example of what can be done to moderate comments and improve their quality. So what I'm suggesting to you now are the exact features that I will suggest to my own company should our comments area ever turn into a real community such as Kotaku's.
@Brian Crecente: It's personal because I read this site. I am a reader. I am a frustrated reader- frustrated by complete lack of listening from the staff in regards ot what the readers think and want.
Even here, you ignored repeated points that I made! How am I supposed to feel, then? When you come into this comment thread and pretend that you had no idea people had criticisms for the site, despite talkinga bout said criticisms pretty much the whole day? You put on all these facades and hide behind them, you won't respond to things you don't feel you can counter, and you just keep ignoring the points being made. It's frustrating as hell.
I would like to read Kotaku since all the other gaming sites suck ass, but Kotaku is only better by a slight margin, and it's a margin that is getting thinner, in part because the editors just ignore and ignore and ignore and disemvowel criticism. How many times has Kotaku gotten a commenter taking issue with Bashcraft making NSFW tagged posts that put nudie pics on the front page, and how many times has he gotten the message? How many times have people pointed out that, despite it being YOUR blog, it's OUR reading it that keeps it a success, and that our criticisms should get fairly listened to, and how many times has that happened? It's a ratio of 100:0, man, it's frustrating.
The site can't get better if nobody is listened to and it can only get worse if you guys just keep on pretending to be perfect. Like I said before, I think you're trying to save face in this comment thread. I've been here a year, and never, ever have you responded to comments near identical to these ones with anywhere near the kind of tact and personal responsibility and understanding that you have here. THe difference today is that a bunch of commenters saw a bunch of bullshit go down, and I do think you're trying to cover the site's ass about it.
(Though like I've said repeatedly, if you are serious about a place to criticize the editors on a regular basis, then hell yes that's awesome, but it doesn't change that I think that's your true motive at the moment.)
You guys need to respond to people the way you are here all the time, not just when there's a situation you'd like to push out of mind and the spotlight.
I just cannot get over that one thing- that you act like you had no idea people had criticisms about the site. That's just so out there, so ridiculous, how can we respect you guys or even care when you can lie right to our faces like that? How can you possibly expect readers to trust you guys and want to be respectful to you when you can disemvowel somebody for criticizing the site in the wrong place, but minutes later say "What? People want a place to criticize the site? I had no idea!". You can't tell me you don't see the problem with that.
Hell, I sent you an email about this (since you've been going on today about how you guys will respond to emails), and you literally ignored all of it to respond to one part, just to say "You do realize I was right about that part, right?"
What is with this fixation on being right? A journalist who can man up, admit his mistake, and move the hell on is a hell of a lot more respectable than one who doesn't make mistakes or pretends he doesnt make mistakes.
But nobody listens. None of you listen to any of this. It's extremely annoying.
I do like the "fresh start" thingy, too. Hopefully this comment doesn't get me banned because I quite like this name and would like to try it out on the new, actually-listens-to-criticism Kotaku that supposedly will be starting up soon. :)
@Brian Crecente: Also, you were making jokes and stuff with readers earlier. Someone put the troll face or whatever on a picture of you and you laughed it off. They weren't banned. They weren't disemvoweled (though to be fair they didn't have any text in their comment, I think.).
THAT was a nice guy to see.
Are you aware that everyone thinks of you as a guy with a banhammer who is power hungry to use it? Who goes into a fit if he's disagreed with? I don't say this to be a dick, I'm just saying- this is what people think. (Though some people, obviously, are just neutral, and some are Remoraids to your Mantine, but a significant chunk sees you as something of a harsh, unreasonable tyrant.)
The guy who laughed at people making fun of him/light of the situation is a lot more approachable and likable than the guy whose articles were considered for a boycott by a big chunk of the community because of how often bannings and destarrings go down in them. You're scary. That other guy was awesome, though. Where has he been hiding? Why can't he come out to play more often?
@Brian Crecente: I recommend posting the commenting rules FAQ post tomorrow (today). I forget if Kotaku has one specifically, but if not, borrow the one from Gizmodo, or I believe Lifehacker has one.
@CarbonatedFalcon: The reader whose banning started all this fuss, Deanb, actually wrote an extremely large and comprehensive guide to commenting. It was posted once, and I think maybe linked to in TAY (where it says "Confused about commenting on kotaku?" or whatever), but I'm not sure about that.
But this guide doesn't include "Only criticize the site or an editor or an article in TAY or Speakup", because we didn't know that until just a couple weeks ago, when this same reader was destarred. And even then, only those of us particularly in tune with Dean's comments saw the comment proclaiming that those were the proper place to do it.
This has a lot to do with a lot of things- in particular, it seems people would be destarred/disemvoweled/worse when criticizing something...when in reality it was simply because they weren't doing it in TAY or Speakup. But for ages, nobody had any idea- because it looked like they got hit for disagreeing or criticizing in general.
I guess the commenting guide needs a bit of an update ;)
@Brian Crecente: Stuff like this and your response to my email certainly aren't helping. I clarified right in the comment that obviously what I am saying doesn't apply to everyone, but you act here as if I didn't. That tells me you aren't listening to what people are saying to you. :\ That's really frustrating to deal with.
Though your banhammer swinging reputation is getting knocked down a few pegs with your lack of doing so here, so that's good.
@Brian Crecente: The email I mentioned in my other comment in this thread.
The one about how you claim that you had no idea people would like to be able to criticize the site, despite destarring people for doing so, and talking about people doing so in the wrong places all day. The one where I ended with an example of your attempts at appearing infallible and perfect, the Twisted Metal article. It was titled "Quick Question: Why do you do this?", I think.
In that article, you did not check facts and thought Twisted Metal 3 was coming out. It had been out for 10 years already. So you simply changed it to 4. 4 had also been out for years already. So you changed it again, instead of just admitting that you made a mistake. The comments were a mess of people explaining that you were wrong in ways that weren't even there anymore, because you kept changing it instead of going "I was wrong."
Your response to this ENTIRE email was "You did see the E3 thing about Twisted Metal, right?".
You ignored everythingabout your claims that you were oblivious about people wanting to criticize and give suggestions about how hte site is run, you ignored everything about how your constant attitude of "I am always right" is really hard to associate with, and opted to respond only to the part that you could say "I was right." to.
The irony is just amazing. An entire email asking you why you insist on trying to come off as perfect and infallible and incapable of mistakes, and you ignore all of it just for the chance to say that you were right about one part.
And then you do the same here, ignoring an entire comment to say nothing but "you are wrong about this part".
You seem to only respond to things when you know you can go "Hey, you're wrong, and I'm right about this part.". And you seem to disemvowel those that you can't counter (on many occassions you've responded to some comments and disemvoweled others, so it's not hard to see why this could be the conclusion. Why wouldn't you respond to those you disemvoweled unless you simply wanted to hide them or didn't feel you could easily counter them?)
It's really annoying and it's really hard to respect that attitude, and I think people expect a hell of a lot better from the guy running the site. :\
It's a big issue. You guys demand respect but you're refusing to respect the commenters. You demand we read the whole story before commenting but multiple times in the past 24 hours you've responded directly to me with comments that blatantly show that you barely even read what you're responding to, if at all. You demand to be treated like proper journalists but you refuse to admit mistakes.
And Kotaku would be a much nicer place if those things weren't true.
@Brian Crecente: Why should I? You're not reading it! You're still going on about "We were right about the Twisted Metal thing, even though I was wrong twice and just kept changing it arbitrarily, which was the point of what you were saying".
You're still ignoring that it was just supposed to be an example of a massive ego problem, you're still ignoring the main idea that you're a terribly unapproachable person and that your attitude is completely inappropriate for someone who wants to be respected and thought of as a good leader, you're still ignoring that you and your staff eat inconsistency for breakfast and crap hypocrisy (with the whole "we want respect but don't respect you" and "we want you to read everything before responding but won't do it to you" stuff), and you're still ignoring that you refuse to ever admit that you're ever wrong, ever.
Everything you're saying here over and over is just telling me that you're not listening.
You half responded to the email, so you could go "I was right about that part". I elaborate in my response and you half respond again, with "I was still right about that part". You half respond to a comment here with "I was right about that part" and you half respond to another with "You're wrong about that part", and here you respond once again with "I already replied to that part", ignoring the rest of it.
Over, and over, and over, and over, you ignore the main point, you don't even touch on it, you only respond to the parts that you can say "I was right." to.
I'm fully prepared for your comment to this one, I would be a hundred dollars that you'll ignore the big picture once again, to respond to something you feel comfortable countering.
I am glad that you're listening in the sense that you're not banning and you can tell I'm trying to make a point here (and not just slinging insults), but you're not entirely listening. If you are, you're not entirely responding. It's hard to be civil with someone when they are refusing to actually respond to what you say.
@Brian Crecente: I tried emailing you. You ignored my questions and points. You're continuing to do it here. I don't know how many times I can say "I emailed you and you ignored the entire freaking point in favor of responding to one part you could counter with ease." before you understand that someone might think emailing you is a waste of time.
I don't know why in the world you expect someone to calmly and simply ask you questions when you refuse to actually respond to them.
I think maybe you just don't want this stuff out in the open.
I'm sure anyone who read this comment thread would easily note that you're dancing around what I'm saying and refusing to respond to it. It's all right there to be seen. I think you don't want it to be.
That's the only difference between email and right here, so I can't imagine another reason you'd keep on ignoring all this stuff, over and over and over, but then again you ignored it in the email, too, and nobody else could see that. Maybe you're just ignoring it for the sake of ignoring it, and I'm giving you too much credit and assuming motives that you've never even considered.
Anyway, point is, you've refused repeatedly to respond to me here, and you ignored me almost completely in email, so why should I email you? At least here there's incentive for you to respond, lest you appear to be hiding something, so you're more likely to bother. Or at least I thought you'd be.
I may look ridiculous making such big comments about it, but I can assure you you look equally bad (if not more) outright ignoring everything I say, while still showing that you read it. Thing is, you're a permanent piece here, and have a reputation to care about. I'm not. I don't.
@Brian Crecente: I tried emailing you. You ignored my questions and points. You're continuing to do it here. I don't know how many times I can say "I emailed you and you ignored the entire freaking point in favor of responding to one part you could counter with ease." before you understand that someone might think emailing you is a waste of time.
I don't know why in the world you expect someone to calmly and simply ask you questions when you refuse to actually respond to them.
I think maybe you just don't want this stuff out in the open.
I'm sure anyone who read this comment thread would easily note that you're dancing around what I'm saying and refusing to respond to it. It's all right there to be seen. I think you don't want it to be.
That's the only difference between email and right here, so I can't imagine another reason you'd keep on ignoring all this stuff, over and over and over, but then again you ignored it in the email, too, and nobody else could see that. Maybe you're just ignoring it for the sake of ignoring it, and I'm giving you too much credit and assuming motives that you've never even considered.
Anyway, point is, you've refused repeatedly to respond to me here, and you ignored me almost completely in email, so why should I email you? At least here there's incentive for you to respond, lest you appear to be hiding something, so you're more likely to bother. Or at least I thought you'd be.
I may look ridiculous making such big comments about it, but I can assure you you look equally bad (if not more) outright ignoring everything I say, while still showing that you read it. Thing is, you're a permanent piece here, and have a reputation to care about. I'm not. I don't.
@Komrade Kayce: I am completely late to this as I was out on the fifth doing the birthday dance, but it's been good reading up on the event and I appreciated seeing your comments again.
Should be interesting to see how everything settles over the next few weeks.
@Komrade Kayce: A few days late but not many bucks short. Well, maybe a few, I could never be the Dean that Dean is. He wrote the FAQ that helped me get this Star, and I miss him. :(
@Komrade Kayce: Yikes. Just stumbled upon all this now. Even saw the comments in the original This Is Kotaku post, but some how missed all the drama. Nice post, KK.
"Got something to say?"
Is there a damned point anymore?
You guys... I love this site. I love coming here. This has been my homepage for aaaaaaaageeeees. Different relationships. Different gaming systems. Different sections of my life for more than three years.
But dear god, why are you doing this? We are but guests on your site. In your 'home'. Invited guests. Invited guests who hang out to listen to your stories, Old Man Owen rocking back and forth recalling that one time he hit a grand slam in MLB The Show, the rest of us telling him he imagined it and to go back to sleep.
But we are invited guests who have been told by you guys before, to sum it up, that you won't ban us for politely disagreeing with you.
So we speak to you not as if you were some evil omnipotent overlords we have no respect for at all. If that were the case, we might not have shown up. But we speak to you as if you are people we care about, friends, people worth listening to but also accessible. Understandably, nobody raises a fuss when a lunatic wanders in spitting venom and curses at you guys when they ARE still guests, but why oh why would you have banned dean?
I understand that you've given him warnings... by ignoring what he says (thanks Owen for actually NOT) and displaying your power by removing his star for it. But I thought we were all friends here? He wasn't rude about anything... he was just treating you like someone he might know. Was that not the impression you were trying to impose?
You guys have posted life stories. You've talked about your children. You *want* us to be able to see you as people we can relate to. It's both smart marketing and a sign of good faith with your readers. That we're worth sharing with. It's things we want to hear from people we want to hear it from.
So putting all that analogy together and aside..... whaaaaaaat dooooooo youuuuuu wannnnnnt frommmmm usssssssss. Do you want nothing but yes men who listen attentively and high five over everything you do, or say nothing at all? Do you want want one line 'wit' or nothing at all?
Because part of the charm of this place is like other gawker blogs do, we've been free to engage in rather open and lengthy discussion with each other provided the right time and place. I would suspect a rather large chunk of repeat visits and pageviews and even new members is to read the comments section, and what others might think.
You have to have expected that posting an article called 'This is Kotaku' after all the recent goings-on of people feeling run down with the site was going to drag out all the opinions The honest, the brown nosing and the jpegs. If it was a trap, it was an extremely well played one.
Kudos. You sure got him. And then everyone else. The rude and the polite, all the ones who didn't seem to want to snap-to and form a defensive perimeter or wander aimlessly around in circles when you decided to start telling the story of 'this is how it is here' with the previous promise of 'dont worry, we wont ban you for politely disagreeing with us'.
I'm using speakup to keep it as off the main page as I can, following all the little rules and staying as far out of sight from your mainstream comment-little care-nothing visitor pagehits and incomes as possible.
...tbh, I'm not even sure that 'politely' part was in there. I think I may just be paraphrasing the whole essence of the article, but then again, maybe not. We were just nice enough to treat you with respect automatically.
#deanb
#wtf
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
Also, where have you been? I haven't seen you around in ages.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
Maybe that says more about state of things lately than I've bothered to.
Imagine if July 5th starred Bill Murray and took place in a small snow covered town.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Which, in a way, is terribly sad.
#speakup (Edit comment)
No but in all seriousness, I agree with you completely. As humorous the antics of today were (some of the comments made me laugh long and hard), way-too-many actions by moderators/editors were ridiculous and downright offensive. Because of what's gone down, I'm oscillating between feelings of "I'm not sure if I should speak my mind" and "I don't even care if I get banned." Neither of those thoughts are good, so I'm somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place. Er, a rock and a banhammer?
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup
#inb4dukakis (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
Kotaku isn't a place people go to talk about Kotaku. It's a place people go to discuss gaming and gaming culture.
If you must spend all of your time debating our story selection, our editorial decisions, the length of a story, don't waste everyone's times by doing it in a story, go to SpeakUp, or Talk Amongst Yourself or email one of us. I try to respond to every email I get, or at least read them.
Most readers don't care about a particular opinion on whether a story should be two sentences or two paragraphs, they'd rather hear people debate the story at hand or relate to it, or disagree with the content.
TL;DR version.
Want to talk about our stories, disagree with our opinions expressed in the stories: Go for it. We love that. And we never ban for it, unless you name call.
Want to spend the day navel gazing and discussing the font size of Kotaku or the color scheme or whether this story or that story belongs on the site: email me directly, do it in TAY or do it in Speak up.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Thats fair, and I can understand if someone is consistently cluttering posts with offtopic information, site editorials or troll images, is still cluttering it.
But having an article called 'This is Kotaku' was bound to draw out a few people who wanted to discuss with you what Kotaku was.
Nobody has ever really ever made a post about 'if you want to talk about the site, we'd be happy to do it with you... just keep it to tay or speakup'. That might have helped a LOT. Then we'd at least know you're still here with us and understand the reasons behind being miffed about people bringing things up and going offtopic a bit more.
Don't worry about the TL;DR bit... I mean, look at the size of the comment you replied to. ;)
I'm just very sad that it looks like a giant mistake by both parties, his through ignorance of unspoken rules, yours for not understanding or caring that an article called 'This is Kotaku' might bring out people wanting to talk about 'What is Kotaku?'... because it sucks and I hate it and I think it sucks even more that if people were making mistakes, extremely polite well meaning mistakes, they were still 'mistakes' and you're banning them for it.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Not to sound cynical, but it's tough to believe that TAY or KOT is "anything goes" when the thing that was set in motion came from exactly that place.
Will you set about new policies where one can't be banned or de-starred in those locations beyond blatant personal attacks, trolling or posting spam?
And, let's say for the sake of argument that Dean's criticism was not constructive, What would be a better way to go about it?
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
And this just made me lol, though I have no idea what it's about...
"Old Man Owen rocking back and forth recalling that one time he hit a grand slam in MLB The Show, the rest of us telling him he imagined it and to go back to sleep."
#speakup (Edit comment)
Trolling, even in the name of trying to just help out, is still trolling.
When you do it for months and months, I think that you shouldn't be surprised when you get banned.
But, yeah, the intern army kicked in when people freaked out and it was a bit of a blood bath.
I'll see what I can do tomorrow, when I'm actually working :) to fix things.
Maybe we need a third off topic post, like Kotaku's Editorial Board or something. I figured that SpeakUp, the Off Topic posts and the TAY were enough, but maybe I just need to be extremely blunt about where people should drop off their suggestions for the site.
The irony here is that I rarely am emailed suggestions, instead people decide to express them on the post in a story about, say, the World of Warcraft.
Just in case, my email address is listed at the bottom of every single one of my stories as well as the side of the site.
Make sense?
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
And notice how Holly wasn't banned?
#speakup (Edit comment)
Or an alternate way I propose is to have a new weekly or monthly "criticism" section so this wouldn't happen again, and at least there would be a clear place for the rest of the commenters to go to. Is it possible?
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
And you're absolutely right.
What's so frustrating for me is how many times I remind people about that and how easy it seems to understand, and yet people just dont seem to get it.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
I do really mean it. Let me look into doing something this week.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
It'd be great to have somewhere we could properly discuss suggestions and comments on current editorial decisions, get some feedback from you guys, have it out in the open for the community to look at and see 'Yes, I want to suggest something, I can do it here!'. Smashing idea, and something I could get behind, if it'll at least stop anything like the veritable madness that was today from happening again.
The community is one of the cornerstones of making Kotaku a great site, so it would be cool if there could be some sort of monthly, or even weekly, 'Editorial Board' as you put it, for us to suggest ideas .
#speakup (Edit comment)
It's not just lip service when I saw I value your opinion, but I also need to keep story discussion on topic.
It just never dawned on me that people would want to invest any time in making suggestions about the nuance of how Kotaku runs.
I'm totally doing this.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Yes, thank you, Brian.
But part of why this stuff is rarely emailed is because we know you guys are flooded with tips, and don't know if you actually read them. Here, on the site, somewhere... they're there. Not lost in email cyberspace.
I think a monthly 'talk with the editors' would be a great idea. It would also be a wonderful way to weed out the unpolite and rude, while at the same time showing that you're approachable and open to discussion out in the open.
I appreciate the reply you gave. Thanks.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
And are you seriously saying here that you ignore criticism on purpose just because it's in the wrong place? And that people should automagically know that they aren't to criticize something in the obvious place- the comments section for it- but to do it elsewhere?
And again, for the eight hundred thousandth time, you keep ignoring one question: If TAY is a safe haven for criticism, WHY DID YOU DESTAR DEANB WHEN HE CRITICIZED IN TAY? This has been asked hundreds of times but you never answer it, you tiptoe around it. "Well, despite deans ridiculously enormous contributions to the site and community, and 99.999% of his comments being extremely helpful posts or valuable tips, including an entire article about commenting on kotaku, he sometimes criticized us and made us look bad." was your only response, and that's not good enough.
You destarred him for criticism in TAY, but you keep going on as if everyone knows you should do such things in TAY and that you won't get in trouble for it. Can you please at least attempt to explain this contradiction or do you feel you must continue pretending to be infallible?
Also, a sidenote: Disemvoweling and deleting comments are, to me, a complete admission to what they say. Why would you disemvowel or delete a comment unless you didnt want others to see it? Why wouldnt you want people to see harsh criticism? Because you know it is true, and you want it hidden. YOu only respond to criticism you think you can deny- others are deleted or disemvoweled. This tells me that every disemvoweling today is the equivalent of going "You're right, we're horrible journalists, but we cant let the commoners figure that out.".
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
I agree that there should be a safe-zone for all constructive criticisms about the site and the way it is put together somewhere. Somewhere that isn't within each weeks posts or daily articles.
I, for one, got sick of hearing DBmmw bitch about the way the site was run.
Instead, let's talk about the articles, whether good, bad, or ugly.<<<
Because he had his own site, his comments about improving the site came across as him living a pipe-dream about taking over. It's great that he wanted k to be better. We all do. But the forums and methods he choose were not proper.
For instance, in that post he speaks of infallibility. He talks about them updating/changing articles. - That goes to the policy of the site, and really has nothing to do with gaming. Clearly, no one is perfect.
He comments, "Look dudes, you're human, you can make mistakes. Can maybe admit to them once in a while too." - Well no shit?
It isn't necessary to remind a person that they make can make mistakes. Everyone knows this. That is what #corrections is for. As for the commenting policy of the site and other procedure, send an email to the editor, and ask politely.
There is a difference between being an awesome asset to the community, and being an asset that is good with substance, but bad with procedure.
Keep your procedure posts to that safe-zone and substances posts everywhere else.
#speakup
(edit: That might have came off as though I was directing you to do something. Not the case my friend. Also, it appears the safe-zone is coming..) (Edit comment)
Ok, this is just ridiculous.
People invest time in making suggestions about the nuance of how Kotaku runs in article comments all the fucking time. You just admitted repeatedly that people are destarred and etc for this because it's in the wrong area!
You know it's there, how the hell could you not have known people would like to do it, when they ALREADY DO IT?
You are not infallible! Stop pretending you are!
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
I've stayed out of the way of all this mess today, but I'm glad to see at the end of it all, we can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and something great can come of it.
Thanks for coming down to the trenches, so to speak, and making the effort to do this. I can't speak for others, but I can say for myself it certainly makes me feel a little less sour about this whole incident to see that there's the inkling of a really great idea coming out!
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
He has been told countless times that we need a place to criticize, yet he acts as if it's a new concept. He sees criticism from people daily about the site, he bans for it, and yet he acts like he never thought that people would like to be able to criticize things about the site.
He's saving face in the light of what happened today. Suddenly, now that hordes of users can see there are massive problems with how the site is run, he just happens to become reasonable and listen to this stuff, for the first time ever?
How are you falling for this facade?
I guess at the very least there's a chance it's genuine. Even if it is a saving-face response, if it is genuine, it'll be a good thing...but still. It's clear the motive for it, because like I said- these things have been brought up before, but only now, in the wake of massive dissenting, is he responding to it.
The way people are just all smiles and puppy dogs and happy birthday unicorn cakes about his response is kinda irking me. He doesn't deserve the cuddles and loving happy responses he is getting even if he is finally responding to problems being put forth- the fact that he pretended these things didn't exist beforehand should not be ignored. Be happy that he's paying attention, but don't give him the false impression that he has done no wrong.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Hrm, italicizes a quote from an editor to start his reply...
I wonder who YOU could be, 'new commenter'.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Anyway, if he is genuinely reforming things, it's good, even if it is just as a face-saving response, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.
#speakup (Edit comment)
notice the 's around the 'new commenter' bit.
For being so 'elementary', nobody has ever pointed out any of my alts as being obviously me. :)
#speakup (Edit comment)
I don't think I've seen a "take site management concerns and recommendations via e-mail/Private Message" statement made, especially on the post where Dean got de-starred. Closest was a "Dean was de-starred because he was telling us what to do" line which wasn't really helping matters.
This answer you give is really good, but it has taken far too long to get that across and far too many people seeing it as management just being hypersensitive and over-reactionary.
If it was plainly and clearly mentioned with the advisement given here in that thread, we likely wouldn't be in the situation we're in with a bunch of bans, de-starrings, and Kotaku's name being synonymous as... well, being run by a bunch of drama queens.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
I'm not one to turn down a quick roll in the hay, if you'd like. This is speakup, afterall... we're allowed a little more leniency it seems. So no worries about being banned for letting me sex you up.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Here's to a better tomorrow.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#deanb (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
Thats WhiteMage, in case you didn't recognize his style.
You guys made it 'personal' for him by banning him repeatedly for being a retard, lol.
#speakup (Edit comment)
I'm not saying anyone is doing that here, but this new post won't be a place where you can break all the rules and be obnoxious.
The difference here will be that the topic will be Kotaku policies, and not a story about something unrelated. In theory that will mean that people can talk about those issues there and not clog up stories with off topic commentary.
I suspect there will still be people not happy with that, who still feel the need to bypass Off Topic , TAY, Speakup, open forums, email and this new post. And yes I'll warn ( with a destar) and then ban them.
And I'm sure they'll get angry, but with each new comment forum we create I'd like to think the number of these incidents will decline.
#speakup (Edit comment)
I think people don't realize how much we DON'T ban for.
I'm all for fresh starts. But if a person doesn't even try there're going to keep gettin banned.
Do keep in mind we have about 5 million readers, so it's hard to keep up with everyone.
I do try.
#speakup (Edit comment)
But I was thinking that you could make this 'talk about the site to the editors' (or whatever you want to call it) feature only visible to registered & logged in visitors. That way even if the comments do get pretty ..vocal.., at least you're not having new visitors to the site seeing that as their first experience.
In addition to that, any 'letters to the commentors' or similar could be posted with the same 'only visible to logged in users' rule. Alternatively, those sorts of public letters could instead be distributed via the internal messaging system.
I think if it had been possible to send out a mass message to everyone saying 'abc just happened, please limit your responses to #x and avoid going off topic in other articles' when the riot or whatever started then you (and that's a pretty general 'you', not you specifically, Brian) would have been able to control the situation a lot better. Or at least would have had a very public justification for the bannings/censorship/etc as you'd just given everyone a clear warning.
I work with a website and we've just built a 'comments' section for our articles (deployed today! very exciting, except I think our first comment was spam :P) and I've been pointing everyone on the team towards kotaku as a great example of what can be done to moderate comments and improve their quality. So what I'm suggesting to you now are the exact features that I will suggest to my own
company should our comments area ever turn into a real community such as Kotaku's.
Good luck getting through the chaos!
#speakup (Edit comment)
Even here, you ignored repeated points that I made! How am I supposed to feel, then? When you come into this comment thread and pretend that you had no idea people had criticisms for the site, despite talkinga bout said criticisms pretty much the whole day? You put on all these facades and hide behind them, you won't respond to things you don't feel you can counter, and you just keep ignoring the points being made. It's frustrating as hell.
I would like to read Kotaku since all the other gaming sites suck ass, but Kotaku is only better by a slight margin, and it's a margin that is getting thinner, in part because the editors just ignore and ignore and ignore and disemvowel criticism. How many times has Kotaku gotten a commenter taking issue with Bashcraft making NSFW tagged posts that put nudie pics on the front page, and how many times has he gotten the message? How many times have people pointed out that, despite it being YOUR blog, it's OUR reading it that keeps it a success, and that our criticisms should get fairly listened to, and how many times has that happened? It's a ratio of 100:0, man, it's frustrating.
The site can't get better if nobody is listened to and it can only get worse if you guys just keep on pretending to be perfect. Like I said before, I think you're trying to save face in this comment thread. I've been here a year, and never, ever have you responded to comments near identical to these ones with anywhere near the kind of tact and personal responsibility and understanding that you have here. THe difference today is that a bunch of commenters saw a bunch of bullshit go down, and I do think you're trying to cover the site's ass about it.
(Though like I've said repeatedly, if you are serious about a place to criticize the editors on a regular basis, then hell yes that's awesome, but it doesn't change that I think that's your true motive at the moment.)
You guys need to respond to people the way you are here all the time, not just when there's a situation you'd like to push out of mind and the spotlight.
I just cannot get over that one thing- that you act like you had no idea people had criticisms about the site. That's just so out there, so ridiculous, how can we respect you guys or even care when you can lie right to our faces like that? How can you possibly expect readers to trust you guys and want to be respectful to you when you can disemvowel somebody for criticizing the site in the wrong place, but minutes later say "What? People want a place to criticize the site? I had no idea!". You can't tell me you don't see the problem with that.
Hell, I sent you an email about this (since you've been going on today about how you guys will respond to emails), and you literally ignored all of it to respond to one part, just to say "You do realize I was right about that part, right?"
What is with this fixation on being right? A journalist who can man up, admit his mistake, and move the hell on is a hell of a lot more respectable than one who doesn't make mistakes or pretends he doesnt make mistakes.
But nobody listens. None of you listen to any of this. It's extremely annoying.
I do like the "fresh start" thingy, too. Hopefully this comment doesn't get me banned because I quite like this name and would like to try it out on the new, actually-listens-to-criticism Kotaku that supposedly will be starting up soon. :)
#speakup (Edit comment)
THAT was a nice guy to see.
Are you aware that everyone thinks of you as a guy with a banhammer who is power hungry to use it? Who goes into a fit if he's disagreed with? I don't say this to be a dick, I'm just saying- this is what people think. (Though some people, obviously, are just neutral, and some are Remoraids to your Mantine, but a significant chunk sees you as something of a harsh, unreasonable tyrant.)
The guy who laughed at people making fun of him/light of the situation is a lot more approachable and likable than the guy whose articles were considered for a boycott by a big chunk of the community because of how often bannings and destarrings go down in them. You're scary. That other guy was awesome, though. Where has he been hiding? Why can't he come out to play more often?
#speakup (Edit comment)
Thanks if you do! :D
#speakup (Edit comment)
But this guide doesn't include "Only criticize the site or an editor or an article in TAY or Speakup", because we didn't know that until just a couple weeks ago, when this same reader was destarred. And even then, only those of us particularly in tune with Dean's comments saw the comment proclaiming that those were the proper place to do it.
This has a lot to do with a lot of things- in particular, it seems people would be destarred/disemvoweled/worse when criticizing something...when in reality it was simply because they weren't doing it in TAY or Speakup. But for ages, nobody had any idea- because it looked like they got hit for disagreeing or criticizing in general.
I guess the commenting guide needs a bit of an update ;)
#speakup (Edit comment)
To be fair, I do this ALL the time. For all you know it's me... ;P
#speakup (Edit comment)
:D
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
Though your banhammer swinging reputation is getting knocked down a few pegs with your lack of doing so here, so that's good.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
The one about how you claim that you had no idea people would like to be able to criticize the site, despite destarring people for doing so, and talking about people doing so in the wrong places all day. The one where I ended with an example of your attempts at appearing infallible and perfect, the Twisted Metal article. It was titled "Quick Question: Why do you do this?", I think.
In that article, you did not check facts and thought Twisted Metal 3 was coming out. It had been out for 10 years already. So you simply changed it to 4. 4 had also been out for years already. So you changed it again, instead of just admitting that you made a mistake. The comments were a mess of people explaining that you were wrong in ways that weren't even there anymore, because you kept changing it instead of going "I was wrong."
Your response to this ENTIRE email was "You did see the E3 thing about Twisted Metal, right?".
You ignored everything about your claims that you were oblivious about people wanting to criticize and give suggestions about how hte site is run, you ignored everything about how your constant attitude of "I am always right" is really hard to associate with, and opted to respond only to the part that you could say "I was right." to.
The irony is just amazing. An entire email asking you why you insist on trying to come off as perfect and infallible and incapable of mistakes, and you ignore all of it just for the chance to say that you were right about one part.
And then you do the same here, ignoring an entire comment to say nothing but "you are wrong about this part".
You seem to only respond to things when you know you can go "Hey, you're wrong, and I'm right about this part.". And you seem to disemvowel those that you can't counter (on many occassions you've responded to some comments and disemvoweled others, so it's not hard to see why this could be the conclusion. Why wouldn't you respond to those you disemvoweled unless you simply wanted to hide them or didn't feel you could easily counter them?)
It's really annoying and it's really hard to respect that attitude, and I think people expect a hell of a lot better from the guy running the site. :\
It's a big issue. You guys demand respect but you're refusing to respect the commenters. You demand we read the whole story before commenting but multiple times in the past 24 hours you've responded directly to me with comments that blatantly show that you barely even read what you're responding to, if at all. You demand to be treated like proper journalists but you refuse to admit mistakes.
And Kotaku would be a much nicer place if those things weren't true.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
I don't think that's really the issue. I think the issue is a much more personal one for a few of the recently banned commenters.
Just look at this thread. Most of you are able to be civil and ask direct, important questions. Some of you can't be and instead resort to attacks.
If you were running this site, if you were me, would you think anyone in this thread should be banned?
#speakup (Edit comment)
You're still ignoring that it was just supposed to be an example of a massive ego problem, you're still ignoring the main idea that you're a terribly unapproachable person and that your attitude is completely inappropriate for someone who wants to be respected and thought of as a good leader, you're still ignoring that you and your staff eat inconsistency for breakfast and crap hypocrisy (with the whole "we want respect but don't respect you" and "we want you to read everything before responding but won't do it to you" stuff), and you're still ignoring that you refuse to ever admit that you're ever wrong, ever.
Everything you're saying here over and over is just telling me that you're not listening.
You half responded to the email, so you could go "I was right about that part". I elaborate in my response and you half respond again, with "I was still right about that part". You half respond to a comment here with "I was right about that part" and you half respond to another with "You're wrong about that part", and here you respond once again with "I already replied to that part", ignoring the rest of it.
Over, and over, and over, and over, you ignore the main point, you don't even touch on it, you only respond to the parts that you can say "I was right." to.
I'm fully prepared for your comment to this one, I would be a hundred dollars that you'll ignore the big picture once again, to respond to something you feel comfortable countering.
I am glad that you're listening in the sense that you're not banning and you can tell I'm trying to make a point here (and not just slinging insults), but you're not entirely listening. If you are, you're not entirely responding. It's hard to be civil with someone when they are refusing to actually respond to what you say.
#speakup (Edit comment)
If you want to talk to carry on a conversation about this, email me.
#speakup (Edit comment)
I don't know why in the world you expect someone to calmly and simply ask you questions when you refuse to actually respond to them.
I think maybe you just don't want this stuff out in the open.
I'm sure anyone who read this comment thread would easily note that you're dancing around what I'm saying and refusing to respond to it. It's all right there to be seen. I think you don't want it to be.
That's the only difference between email and right here, so I can't imagine another reason you'd keep on ignoring all this stuff, over and over and over, but then again you ignored it in the email, too, and nobody else could see that. Maybe you're just ignoring it for the sake of ignoring it, and I'm giving you too much credit and assuming motives that you've never even considered.
Anyway, point is, you've refused repeatedly to respond to me here, and you ignored me almost completely in email, so why should I email you? At least here there's incentive for you to respond, lest you appear to be hiding something, so you're more likely to bother. Or at least I thought you'd be.
I may look ridiculous making such big comments about it, but I can assure you you look equally bad (if not more) outright ignoring everything I say, while still showing that you read it. Thing is, you're a permanent piece here, and have a reputation to care about. I'm not. I don't.
#speakup (Edit comment)
I don't know why in the world you expect someone to calmly and simply ask you questions when you refuse to actually respond to them.
I think maybe you just don't want this stuff out in the open.
I'm sure anyone who read this comment thread would easily note that you're dancing around what I'm saying and refusing to respond to it. It's all right there to be seen. I think you don't want it to be.
That's the only difference between email and right here, so I can't imagine another reason you'd keep on ignoring all this stuff, over and over and over, but then again you ignored it in the email, too, and nobody else could see that. Maybe you're just ignoring it for the sake of ignoring it, and I'm giving you too much credit and assuming motives that you've never even considered.
Anyway, point is, you've refused repeatedly to respond to me here, and you ignored me almost completely in email, so why should I email you? At least here there's incentive for you to respond, lest you appear to be hiding something, so you're more likely to bother. Or at least I thought you'd be.
I may look ridiculous making such big comments about it, but I can assure you you look equally bad (if not more) outright ignoring everything I say, while still showing that you read it. Thing is, you're a permanent piece here, and have a reputation to care about. I'm not. I don't.
#speakup (Edit comment)
Should be interesting to see how everything settles over the next few weeks.
#speakup (Edit comment)
#speakup (Edit comment)
#deanb (Edit comment)
User action
Thread action