StriderShinryu said:
While it's nice to read this, I can't say it really allays any of my worries about the site. Yahtzee, Bob and Shamus already fit pretty soundly in their own niches but if the site as a whole starts to back away from anything negative or controversial (and especially if it starts cracking down on even user based discussion in those areas) will really hurt things overall. I know some of the big topics get discussion enough to make them overplayed at times, but that's better than a site intentionally ignoring them and pretending they're not happening. 3 small but tasty meatballs on a giant plate of bland flavourless pasta doesn't suddenly make the giant plate of pasta palatable. In fact, those meatballs really just make you realize how bland and flavourless the rest of the plate is.
I'd like to address one particular concern here, as I feel it's an important distinction that must be made, and in hindsight, is something I should have allocated more focus on in my original note.
if the site as a whole starts to back away from anything negative or controversial (and especially if it starts cracking down on even user based discussion in those areas) will really hurt things overall
Believe it or not, I actually agree with you here. My note was meant to express excitement and enthusiasm, traits which every content creator we have here has in spades.
Rest assured, we have no intention of ignoring the unpleasant things that happen in the various geek industries. Not-good things are inevitable in literally every aspect of life, and making sure our readers are informed of the not-good things is imperative to our entire mission.
What I don't want to do, however, is make those things our focus. I don't want us to pursue the negative angles when there are positive angles available. I don't want The Escapist to be yet another "angry voice on the internet."
I've been reading Shamus Young since he started, and he is a fantastic example of what we want to be doing here. He will frequently address negative aspects of gaming, but he does so most frequently with a solutions-focused article. "X is a problem, but Y is the answer."
We have no intention of glossing over important news just because it's not good news. We do, however, have every intention of looking for the good, rather than the bad, in the stories we report on and the articles we publish.
I want our collective hobbies to be about having fun, and I want reading about our collective hobbies to reflect that.
