WotC Is Mike Mearls Happy Hour still a thing?

Jester David · Apr 19, 2019

Gradine said:
I think what I'm talking about is more (or at least different) than a big public "sorry". What I'm looking for, personally at least, I can't speak for anyone else, is an acknowledgment of the harm caused. Just... take responsibility for it. That's all. "Look, I said this thing, I did this thing, and it was wrong. I have heard the pain that my actions have caused, and I am sorry for it." That's really all it takes. Any other fol-de-rol about the importance of taking survivors at face value and supporting them, of rooting out those within the industry (if not hobby) who perpetrate violence against others, etc.; that stuff'd be nice, and maybe there are some who would insist on all of that as well, but I think the vast majority of the people who are looking for more would be more than satisfied with him acknowledging his public statements in defense of Zak (and particularly his public-adjacent statements denigrating those who were trying to warn everyone else about Zak).

A cursory read of the responses to his last tweet makes this, I think, plainly obvious. Dozens of comments in and I've seen one ad hominem insult, a few references to more egregious events I haven't been able to verify, and a whole bunch of people simply saying that this statement wasn't enough, and they were expecting more from Mearls, personally.

Hell, if all he did was come out and say "Look, I'd love to say more, personally, about all this, but legal has my hands tied" I think that would satisfy the bulk of them.

Look at the responses to this tweet:
https://twitter.com/wizards_dnd/status/1097904200401354752

People don't want an apology. They want him investigated. They want him fired. They're not going to be satisfied with him making a statement of contrition. He's better off keeping his head down and out of the public eye rather than returning and reigniting their ire.

Gradine · Apr 19, 2019

Jester David said:
Look at the responses to this tweet:
https://twitter.com/wizards_dnd/status/1097904200401354752

People don't want an apology. They want him investigated. They want him fired. They're not going to be satisfied with him making a statement of contrition. He's better off keeping his head down and out of the public eye rather than returning and reigniting their ire.

I would advise you to actually read the tweets. The vast majority of them are simply declaring that this statement wasn't enough, that they were hoping for more. I just spent the past hour scrolling through these; those calling for his resignation are very far and few between.

Edit: I thought you were referring to reaction to Mearls' own tweet. I'll scroll through this one to see if the content is similar.

Hussar · Apr 19, 2019

Gradine said:
This is exactly how the folks at Polygon responded to all the crap that went down with Nick Robinson went down, and he was an actual employee, not a mere ~~consultant~~ playtester. Everyone was basically satisfied.

And yes, satisfying folks who've been harmed and wronged by this is actually kind of the point here.

Very different though. Nick Robinson worked for Polygon for 9 years. The company coming out and making a statement kinda makes sense in that context. Expecting the same reaction from and employee of WotC who cannot make statements for the company without passing it through a bunch of channels first about a freelancer who did some minor work for the company five years ago is a bit different.

IOW, it is not Mearl's place to comment. It never was. It wasn't his place to comment in the first place, and he should have never got mixed up in it at all. But, now that he is, there is no upside to any continuing engagement. He cannot speak for the company, but, at the same time, he cannot speak without involving the company.

Hussar · Apr 19, 2019

Gradine said:
I would advise you to actually read the tweets. The vast majority of them are simply declaring that this statement wasn't enough, that they were hoping for more. I just spent the past hour scrolling through these; those calling for his resignation are very far and few between.

Edit: I thought you were referring to reaction to Mearls' own tweet. I'll scroll through this one to see if the content is similar.

What are you talking about? The first twenty comments, seven of them call for Mearls to be investigated/fired. That's hardly few and far between. That's a third of the comments. Never minding the repeating of unsubstantiated claims as fact. Granted, I didn't spend an hour scrolling, I only went to about 30 or 40 tweets, but, I mean, come on.

I'm not defending Mearls here, I'm not. He should not have been involved at all. And, this should have been dealt with earlier, unfortunately. But, jumping up and down and expecting some sort of mea culpa from Mearls and then expecting that to actually be enough is, IMO, wildly optimistic.

Gradine · Apr 19, 2019

Hussar said:
What are you talking about? The first twenty comments, seven of them call for Mearls to be investigated/fired. That's hardly few and far between. That's a third of the comments. Never minding the repeating of unsubstantiated claims as fact. Granted, I didn't spend an hour scrolling, I only went to about 30 or 40 tweets, but, I mean, come on.

I'm not defending Mearls here, I'm not. He should not have been involved at all. And, this should have been dealt with earlier, unfortunately. But, jumping up and down and expecting some sort of mea culpa from Mearls and then expecting that to actually be enough is, IMO, wildly optimistic.

In case you missed my edit, I was referring to Mearls' tweet, not the WotC, which was surprisingly more hostile to Mearls than the reaction to Mearls' own tweet.

In any case, I took a quick count of the replies to this tweet and I end up counting about 12 responses directly calling to specifically fire or force Mearls' retirement, about 10 referencing Mearls' role in other incidents I could not independently verify (namely the whole sharing accusations with Zak thing), and about 62 other replies unhappy with the response and expected more out of WotC, few of which refer to Mearls directly, and only a handful of which refer to Mearls directly (there were like 3-4 of these that talked about investigating Mearls' actions without calling for him to be fired). Some of these replies were pithy and backhanded, quite a few were very thoughtful, and two replies used the exact same Tuxedo Mask/Sailor Moon meme.

That's not nothing, but that's by far a worse ratio than in the responses I was reading to Mearls' tweet. Overall the voices calling for Mearls' head a few and far between. The overall majority, however, were simply hoping that WotC and Mearls in particular would do more to address their past wrongs and perhaps address how they will prevent something like this from happening again.

Gradine · Apr 19, 2019

Hussar said:
Very different though. Nick Robinson worked for Polygon for 9 years. The company coming out and making a statement kinda makes sense in that context. Expecting the same reaction from and employee of WotC who cannot make statements for the company without passing it through a bunch of channels first about a freelancer who did some minor work for the company five years ago is a bit different.

IOW, it is not Mearl's place to comment. It never was. It wasn't his place to comment in the first place, and he should have never got mixed up in it at all. But, now that he is, there is no upside to any continuing engagement. He cannot speak for the company, but, at the same time, he cannot speak without involving the company.

There is huge upside for Mearls and WotC to provide more insight and engagement on the issue. There is a large contingent of fans who are unhappy with what they've offered so far. I mean, we've all read the tweets at this point; the voices of support for WotC or Mearls were sparse at best. There is more they can and should be doing in response to this, in plenty of ways that don't open them up to any legal consequences. What they've done isn't adequate. And if they can't say anything more about Zak specifically because of legal, they can absolutely say at least that, and then begin a conversation about how to prevent something like this from happening again.

Instead they seem only interested in downplaying Zak's role in 5e's development (he was more than "just a playtester" and literally everybody knows it) and sweeping everything else under the rug in hopes everyone will just forget about it and it will go away.

Considering the fairly brave and direct stands that both Mearls and WotC have taken in 5e's lifecycle in support of inclusiveness in many, many other arenas, it's hard not to wonder why their stance on this feels so weak and insufficient in comparison.

the Jester · Apr 20, 2019

Gradine said:
Instead they seem only interested in downplaying Zak's role in 5e's development (he was more than "just a playtester" and literally everybody knows it)...

I don't- can you elaborate on this? My understanding was that he was a consultant who got to basically look over the ruleset and sales plan before release. I guess that's more than just a playtester, but not by a whole lot; he wasn't a developer or anything.

UngeheuerLich · Apr 20, 2019

Gradine said:
the voices of support for WotC or Mearls were sparse at best.

Because it is better to be quiet if you don't really k ow what happened and what not and what is actually happening at the moment.
If you voice your support for Mearls at this point you would invoke a lot more commentaries why it is wrong to defend him.
And you also don't want to suggest in any way that you defend Zak or the role Mike Mearls might have played.
At this point it doesn't look like evidence is gathered but the same posts abd accusations are written over and over again.
I understand how Mearls might have come to his conclusions back then even if they turned out to be tragically wrong.
Twitter is not the right place for any such concersations and accusations. The signal to noise ratio is far too low.

Morrus · Apr 20, 2019

UngeheuerLich said:
Because it is better to be quiet if you don't really k ow what happened and what not and what is actually happening at the moment.
If you voice your support for Mearls at this point you would invoke a lot more commentaries why it is wrong to defend him.
And you also don't want to suggest in any way that you defend Zak or the role Mike Mearls might have played.
At this point it doesn't look like evidence is gathered but the same posts abd accusations are written over and over again.
I understand how Mearls might have come to his conclusions back then even if they turned out to be tragically wrong.
Twitter is not the right place for any such concersations and accusations. The signal to noise ratio is far too low.

Eh. He (on behalf of WotC) burnt a few bridges.

Mistwell · Apr 21, 2019

Gradine said:
There is huge upside for Mearls and WotC to provide more insight and engagement on the issue. There is a large contingent of fans who are unhappy with what they've offered so far.

I am not so sure what is huge about the upside, or how large the contingent is that is actively unhappy on an ongoing basis enough for it to mean something to WOTC's bottom line, or even aware of this issue (a substantial majority of people don't use Twitter on a regular basis in fact). I strongly suspect this isn't even a measurable blip in sales.

That's not to dismiss concerns. It's merely to call into question your characterizations of hugeness and largeness relative to the fanbase.