A professional, objective, apolitical future for The Escapist...

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Spoiler

http://geoausch.com/how-to-win-an-argument-on-twitter/

http://misfitpolitics.co/2014/01/the-real-problem-with-macklemores-grammy-performance/

Spoiler

Fucking seriously?! xD

Now before anyone starts, there's no guarantee his personal politics will be at the forefront of what drives his content (though it will inform it one some level, because our politics always informs every non-base thing we do on some level). I know that, and I'm more than prepared to judge what he makes for this site on it's own merits, just as I do for Earthworm Jim and Ender's Game, for example. However, I've found more red-flags about this guy in the space of a few hours than anyone managed to find of all the supposed 'biased', 'unprofessional' contributors the site just jettisoned, and even then, the inconsistency of this being one of the first hirings the site makes after the announcement of a more 'light hearted, apolitical' direction, is pretty fucking glaring.

I say again, seriously?!

 

[Silvanus]

Well, that's pretty upsetting. Transphobic, and believes homosexuality is a choice (though on the latter point, at least he has the decency to advocate acceptance).

I suppose there's no reason to believe this will influence the content he makes for the site.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Oh sweet jesus.

Well, the whole 'Defy promoting drastically different tones and opinions on two of its properties' thing already made me extremely wary.

I hate to keep bothering Urth with more quotes of his discovery that Defy likely has no vested interest in promoting a certain belief or attitude because they really believed in it (instead aiming to just placate a certain audience for this site), but since a number of people haven't seemed to pick up on it:

The requests for politicized condemning of Quinn's behavior is not lost on me. I have a hard time reconciling pre-gg with gg as much as I have a hard time reconciling the disparate elements of gg on KiA, 8chan, here and GameFront.

The reaction/rationality thing makes me as dizzy as the shift in tone about politicization. I've been looking at defy media's brands today, and http://www.gurl.com/2014/10/15/stopgamergate2014-reactions-what-is-gamergate/ is acceptable when the demographic is young adult women. Does that say anything about corporate's decision about what demographic is coming here? Ouch.

This is as somebody who could probably be deemed a "GG supporter." Maybe.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I suppose there's no reason to believe this will influence the content he makes for the site.

Well, I think it will be unlikely that he'll be making video's and articles specifically about his political views, but as I said (both here and in another thread) we all have a personal politics that colours what we think about everything we experience. That's why accusations of 'bias' are always so pointless, because everyone is. His politics will be a contributing factor, and when it's so easy to find examples of him being so outspoken, it's hard to believe his politics didn't also play a part in him being hired.

It's for this reason that the new 'apolitical' direction the powers that be apparently want is a pipe-dream in the first place, but even bypassing that, the first thing they do is hire this guy? Really?

 

[Elfgore]

On the outside looking in... this does not look good. They just fired a anti-GGer, while hiring a Pro-GGer and someone with views completely opposite from him. It does not look good at all.

[HEADING=1]Fucking but!!!!!![/HEADING]

We should wait and see what content they'll be bringing to The Escapist before we start damning them and throwing shit at each other. For all we know he could be bringing some of the funniest shiznit we'll ever see.

Edit: Just to be safe as well, don't go cracking down towards the new staff members. I doubt they have too much of a say in what people get hired here.

 

[Silvanus]

Well, I think it will be unlikely that he'll be making video's and articles specifically about his political views, but as I said (both here and in another thread) we all have a personal politics that colours what we think about everything we experience. That's why accusations of 'bias' are always so pointless, because everyone is. His politics will be a contributing factor, and when it's so easy to find examples of him being so outspoken, it's hard to believe his politics didn't also play a part in him being hired.

It's for this reason that the new 'apolitical' direction the powers that be apparently want is a pipe-dream in the first place, but even bypassing that, the first thing they do is hire this guy? Really?

Agreed. At the very least, alarm bells are ringing pretty loud in my head right now.

We should wait and see what content they'll be bringing to The Escapist before we start damning them and throwing shit at each other. For all we know he could be bringing some of the funniest shiznit we'll ever see.

That's true, but remember that what many found extremely objectionable about Bob-- and which are speculated by some to be a contributing factor in his loss-- are comments made on twitter, quite outside this website.

 

[Fappy]

The future looks quite bleak. If he brings this bigoted bullshit to the site I many end up with a few warnings when the dust settles. Seriously, a bigoted user is one thing, but a site contributor? You bet your ass I'll lay into him if I have to.

 

[Skatologist]

On the outside looking in... this does not look good. They just fired a anti-GGer, while hiring a Pro-GGer and someone with views completely opposite from him. It does not look good at all.

[HEADING=1]Fucking but!!!!!![/HEADING]

We should wait and see what content they'll be bringing to The Escapist before we start damning them and throwing shit at each other. For all we know he could be bringing some of the funniest shiznit we'll ever see.

You're right you're right, and I'm all for getting decent content from a person I may heavily disagree with politically, but this site has been one of the most acceptable LGBT+ sites I've ever seen and I don't want that pissed away. Now to me, I think Mr. Morse's work and his comments so far have shown some concerns on my part and most likely many others, specifically because many of these comments were incredibly recent to the point where the chances that Mr. Morse has somehow changed his on these topics is from slim to none.

 

[JoJo]

Ouch, it would be helpful if Archon confirmed exactly what this guy's contributions are likely to be but right now this doesn't reflect well on the Escapist at-all, to be associated with an openly transphobic individual even if they try to leave their opinions at the door when they come here. Reputations are lost far easier than gained, Defy should be very careful they aren't bringing in a ticking time bomb here.

 

[Zontar]

The future looks quite bleak. If he brings this bigoted bullshit to the site I many end up with a few warnings when the dust settles. Seriously, a bigoted user is one thing, but a site contributor? You bet your ass I'll lay into him if I have to.

A bigot being a content creator wouldn't be anything new, so we'll have to say and see.

Personally I'm more waiting to see what Lizzy is going to make. Not that pessimistic given she's been brought on board.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

I'm torn on this. On one hand, yeah he seems like a dick and I disagree with his political views. Hell, I might choose to not read the occasional article or watch a vid of his if the topic is trans or gays or whatever.

Having said that, I really hate when people are made to disappear for having contentious views. Yeah, he has opinions you don't agree with. What, he should be censored because of that? Fired for not having the right views? Or sent to Tolerance Camp until he learns to think like the community wants him to?
Call him a dick! Call him a bigot and an ass and everything that is wrong with modern journalism. But don't try to get him fired or censor him. That is simply internet SJW fascism, and that never does anyone any good.

 

[Elfgore]

We should wait and see what content they'll be bringing to The Escapist before we start damning them and throwing shit at each other. For all we know he could be bringing some of the funniest shiznit we'll ever see.

That's true, but remember that what many found extremely objectionable about Bob-- and which are speculated by some to be a contributing factor in his loss-- are comments made on twitter, quite outside this website.

I'll admit curiousity as to why Bob was canned as well. Like I said in my post, it does not look good right now. It's times like this I start screaming for sites to communicate with their community. They could put these threads to rest by doing so.

On the outside looking in... this does not look good. They just fired a anti-GGer, while hiring a Pro-GGer and someone with views completely opposite from him. It does not look good at all.

[HEADING=1]Fucking but!!!!!![/HEADING]

We should wait and see what content they'll be bringing to The Escapist before we start damning them and throwing shit at each other. For all we know he could be bringing some of the funniest shiznit we'll ever see.

You're right you're right, and I'm all for getting decent content from a person I may heavily disagree with politically, but this site has been one of the most acceptable LGBT+ sites I've ever seen and I don't want that pissed away. Now to me, I think Mr. Morse's work and his comments so far have shown some concerns on my part and most likely many others, specifically because many of these comments were incredibly recent to the point where the chances that Mr. Morse has somehow changed his on these topics is from slim to none.

Which as long as he keeps out of this site I have no issues with him being here. I'm a firm believer that I can hate the person who creates content and still enjoy what they make. I doubt they'd bring him in to start spewing that stuff about here anyway, that's downright suicide. Even if he does come here and start saying all that, I doubt one content provider being anti-LGBT would change a majority of this site's viewpoints. You can quite simply ignore his articles as well, which I will be doing if this comes to pass.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I'm torn on this. On one hand, yeah he seems like a dick and I disagree with his political views. Hell, I might choose to not read the occasional article or watch a vid of his if the topic is trans or gays or whatever.

Having said that, I really hate when people are made to disappear for having contentious views. Yeah, he has opinions you don't agree with. What, he should be censored because of that? Fired for not having the right views? Or sent to Tolerance Camp until he learns to think like the community wants him to?
Call him a dick! Call him a bigot and an ass and everything that is wrong with modern journalism. But don't try to get him fired or censor him. That is simply internet SJW fascism, and that never does anyone any good.

I'm not advocating him being fired, or censored, or pressured into censoring himself. I'm questioning a decision to hire a guy with this track record at a time when the management apparently just wants to 'Get back to fun and games', and would apparently 'rather people went somewhere else for their political fix'. I doesn't seem to add up.

As I said, I'll judge what he contributes on its own merits. If I think he's using this place as a platform from which to be a bigot, I'll bloody well call him out on it, and I won't financially support a site that gives him that platform. However, I'm not making any kind of petition to get him fired before he's even made a post (not that that would likely make a difference anyway) and if anyone else made one I wouldn't sign it, because I don't actually subscribe to mob justice on the internet, even when it's directed at someone I don't like.

 

[Vlado]

In this context, an author's personal views are only a problem if they get in the way of the content they contribute for The Escapist.

For example, Doug TenNapel is against gay marriage, but Earthworm Jim games are still among the best 2D platformers EVER created. One has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the other, so I think you should calm down.

 

[Silvanus]

Call him a dick! Call him a bigot and an ass and everything that is wrong with modern journalism. But don't try to get him fired or censor him.

That's fine if it's equally applied. Which would be an issue if (and that's an underlined if) Bob's departure was related to his Twitter-ranting and such.

If so, it would be difficult to come to any other conclusion than that insulting "conservabros" is considered unacceptable, but being Transphobic is not.

 

[The Lunatic]

Meanwhile:

Jimsterling has a history of sexist tweets.
http://auntiepixelante.com/?p=912

MovieBob's history of offensive tweets doesn't fit into a single forum post.

Grey Carter is "Not entirely against rape jokes and has used them in Critical Miss".



It's funny, I've heard this line said so many times by people who seem to want to control the views that people can and can't have on these forums, but, hey, there's nothing quite like hypocrisy when it suits your current point of view, so, here we go, let's remind you all of something said so many times:

Twitter is a bad way of conveying messages. The 140 character limit has a serious affect on the ability to accurately convey a decent message.

Added to that, given the purpose of the site's new direction is to be as apolitical as possible, why do you even care about some randomly taken out of context words when they won't influence the articles they run on the site, due to the site's apolitical stance?

And if you do want politics, why are you now complaining about hiring a person who has a history of writing politics?

Are you all just complaining about the idea of people having different opinions being able to have a job now or something?

 

[faefrost]

Out of Curiousity, have any of you ever read any of Jim Sterlings exchanges with Anna Anthropy and Daphne from when he was at Destructoid?