I think that as long as there are different perspectives on the situation and that it is something that people are invested in to some degree then there is merit to discussing it.

The only hearthstone killer will be a court ruling on lootbox mechanics in games.

It is incredible how individuals convince themselves that they represent the silent majority. That somehow, the vocal minority is not A. the people who think they could sue Wizards of the Coast for not letting them officially play in sanctioned tournaments but B. the people who think contributing to a hostile environment is not good. That the ~marketplace of ideas~ is rigged and that is the only reason that more people have not openly sided with the guy whose idea of slander and libel is directly quoting his words back to him.

I have a feeling that the silent majority is people who couldn't care less about the whole matter.

I think it's interesting, in a concerning matter. If your local chain grocery store decided to ban someone from their stores for being an **** on the internet or for plea bargaining in a rape case, I would think that isn't really how society is supposed to work. What does the grey area between grocery store and collectible card game look like philosophically? I don't know.

I'm also a big proponent of freedom of expression, even for ****, and am concerned whenever we let large corporations or social media mob mechanisms impose meaningful costs on people for the ideas they express or the way they express them. The American constitution restricts the government from doing this, but neither social media or the corporation were conceived of when it was written. Freedom of expression is such an important public good; it deserves to be protected from entities that can meaningfully infringe upon it.

The internet is basically "owned" by private companies; if you communicate over the internet, you are probably communicating in a private space. In the past our "national conversations" happened through newspapers and magazines, telephones and town halls, most of which were explicitly public spaces or private spaces owned by people who were passionate about values such as freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Now our "national conversations" increasing happen in private spaces curated by companies that are really only passionate about thier bottom line. I think this is a change for the worse.

A nice post, with one omission: USA is not the world. Other nations have other values, and can see that freedom of expression is sometimes used by rude people as just another excuse for being a jerk. And as always, being free seemly means that you can do what you want, but then must be ready to take the consequences.

(This is all general; I have no idea what exactly happened in the particular case here.)

Hi folks,

I removed some talk of current US politics. This thread is not the place for that. If you'd like to discuss it, I'd recommend the Off-Topic Room, but this topic is volatile enough as-is.

Thanks,
Lazarus

Wait what did I miss!

Yeah that was fast. You're doing good lazabro!

I second this notion. Though I haven't gotten to know you well personally, I've gathered nothing but good impressions of you. I hope it's not too late to change your mind. I'd rather you stay, but, rather even than that I'd prefer you remain happy; so feel free to do what you must. Just know that there are others in this community who support you. Heck, I didn't even see your last post, but I support you just based on context.
And if it's too late and you're gone, well, then I'll still find peace of mind just in having made this post.

http://uncorporatemedia.com/beta/2017/1 ... hypocrisy/

A good 'neutral' piece from an outsider.

I mean, if by 'neutral' you mean random guy (well not as random as he might be famous for being friends with a girl a politician sexted?) who claims to not play the game or have any interest in Magic, and thus is an "outside observer" who just happens to be exhaustively reporting about hypocrisy, which he headlines on a random internet news site that is in beta-test mode and hasn't run any other articles by him up to that point.

I'm not going to lie, it is a pretty exhaustive article, but it basically just boils down to "WotC was mean to that one guy for being a jerk but wasn't equally mean to all those people who were jerks to him because he was a jerk to that girl." Honestly, that's probably true, but it doesn't matter because it's WotC's community to curate how they like. If you are going to build a business model off of the back of another company and be a prominent member of the community and be something of an unofficial "brand ambassador," maybe don't be such an ass that they have to cut you off as an example to others on how not to act. And then don't play the Whataboutism game with all the lesser fish in the sea.

He's an investigative journalist. Journalism is suppose to be as in depth as possible. I understand that in this day of 24 hour news cycles, finding someone who took the time to do the research is rather rare, but I'll give him respect in that regard.

However, this article is in depth, and it's the first article I've seen that painted Sprankle in a realistic light. Not as a creature who schemed her way into the inner circles of WotC, or a tortured artist facing harassment. It instead showed her simply as a young woman, who ended up in the right place at the right time, who got screwed by WotC, and ultimately suffered a major hit back after she broke up with her SO.

The entire article was about pointing out double standards with the company and the community, and it did, and while it leaned toward Hambly a bit more then I would out of my investigative journalism, it got the point across, and you seem to ultimately prove the point he was saying, the people behind WotC are hypocrites.

Alright, let's read this thing.


... isn't she a cosplayer? I would've thought Mark Rosewater would get that title, or like one of 20 different pro players, or a tournament commentator, or somebody from Starcity or something. I can't really deny the claim, but that's because I had no idea who, or heck, even what a "Sprankle" was until I read this thread.
I am left doubting that is is "generally accepted" by any significant group of people that Sprankle is the face of the game.

Yeah, this is going to need a full breakdown.


The author is clearly not an investigative journalist, or if he somehow were one, he's not acting in that capacity here. I'm not even done reading the article and that much is already quite clear.
I don't think the larger point of this discussion was whether WOTC were hypocrites. It was about their policy in general, their actions here specifically, and whether WOTC was justified. WOTC's consistency when dealing with the community is at best a small part of those issues.

Wow. That was a lot to digest.
A whole lot of words, that don't say much of substance about anything but the man who wrote them. As "journalism" or even a thought piece though, it is woefully inadequate.

The big takeaway here is that the author is not an unbiased outsider to this issue. It's something he clearly had an opinion on in general terms before this particular case came to his attention. From there it looks like he wrote this article to reconfirm his preconceptions, vent his emotions, and as a sounding board for the like-minded. (The end of the article claims he has quite a fanbase)
This article is clearly written to push a philosophical viewpoint. The author seems to be pushing some political vendetta against WOTC, I think over their failure to adherence to some strain of libertarianism. That is the only possible thread I can weave connecting all these disparate arguments
He came to write the article as an involved and pre-aligned participant in the "ideological battle" for "free speech nationwide". This whole MTG thing is just a "microcosm" of that battle he fights as a part of his larger war. He says it best himself:

There is no weighing of the facts here, no rhetoric, just raw disdain squeezed into an opinion piece under the guise of investigative journalism.

In any conflict, truth is the first casualty. The author doesn't seem familiar with the subject matter and forms a number of misconceptions.


Characterizations are invented out of thin air to paint people in a good (Hambly, the author) or bad (a much longer list) light.
Some examples:


The arguments are poor to the point of self-defeating.
I was hoping to hunt down the logical flaws in the article- I wanted some fresh meat in the debate. This is a precooked meal. Frankly, I'm kind of insulted. Some examples:

Other arguments are just left hanging. Most never come full circle. They trail off into venom-spewing.


The part you actually want to read
The article is fodder for people who want to have their opinions validated. This was never meant to inform or instruct. It isn't well-written enough to do so. It can't be held up as explanation or justification. Feel however you want to about the DCI bannings, but don't get spoon fed this drivel. This can't be held this up as evidence or clarification of your reasoning.

It is not unbiased- it was written for the sole purpose of confirming a bias. It is not in depth- it's just long and lists many details. It is not persuasive- There quite literally isn't even a coherent argument in the article to draw on.
It's a slap in the face of journalism, rhetoric, logic, and even argument itself.

I'm not sure if I'm more angered by the disgusting opinions presented, or the weakness of the article. Godawful stuff.

I don't lay too much blame on companies that give in to the SJWs demands. WotC just wants to make a fun game and make money and it's hard to do that if up to 10% of your player base (a rough estimate) could boycott your game if you either do nothing or side with the other guys. SJWs are just too loud and too numerous these days.

Part of the problem is the relative might of the pen and the sword these days. Hambly is just a figurehead, all he has to do is write "I don't like X" and a hundred anonymous guys who'll never get caught decide to go and bully X. On both sides, it's the little people who have the real power.

It's better then 40% of your playerbase boycotting the product.

This being said, that is true. It's easy to create a scapegoat these days.

Too think, all this stemmed from a heart broken cosplayer and a impotent neckbeard.

This little blip will never cause that to happen. Magic's playerbase is vast and deep and multinational. The only real thing that has shown to cause a drop in sales is WotC printing sets that people didn't like playing.

I would imagine most people that play dont know a single thing about the greater community or sanctioned play.

WOTC bringing back Combo Winter could fix the seemingly fractured playerbase.