Unconfirmed: More Layoffs at WotC

[Desdichado]

Term "lying" might be to strong to use here, however "avoiding factual statements" appears to be appropriate.
It's a common practice and form of brand protection, since being viewed as unsuccessful could damage sales.

Hence use of "tinfoil hat" is not appropriate here.

It's entirely, 100% appropriate. You've substituted another phrase that doesn't sound so harsh, but semantically it has the exact same meaning. Take off your tinfoil hat, dude.

 

[ggroy]

Term "lying" might be to strong to use here, however "avoiding factual statements" appears to be appropriate.

Lying by omission?

 

[Shemeska]

Uh... excuse me, but didn't we establish a long time ago that Andy Collins voluntarily left WotC?

Did we? His WotC blog doesn't say he resigned, and Gwen Kestrel's facebook entry doesn't indicate it was either. I've heard speculation that it was a voluntary resignation, but the two people who would directly know don't say anything like that.

 

[Herschel]

Did we? His WotC blog doesn't say he resigned, and Gwen Kestrel's facebook entry doesn't indicate it was either. I've heard speculation that it was a voluntary resignation, but the two people who would directly know don't say anything like that.

Maybe because it's none of your (or my) business why they left, nor is it appropriate to comment on someone else's job status and that can be cause for termination under many company HR policies. Nor do they owe any of us a "timely" explanation even if they are inclined to give one.

 

[Herschel]

Keep political commentary off these boards, please. -Eridanis

 

[Dausuul]

It's entirely, 100% appropriate. You've substituted another phrase that doesn't sound so harsh, but semantically it has the exact same meaning. Take off your tinfoil hat, dude.

"Avoiding factual statements" does not mean the same thing as "lying." It means "avoiding factual statements," as in, "We're going to talk about how optimistic we are and how we think D&D has a great future instead of saying anything concrete about profits and sales."

 

[BryonD]

It's not "less net beans," period. It's "less net beans than the business would have made if it didn't engage in such practices." And it's an exceptional bean-counter indeed who can reckon up that sort of hypothetical bean with any degree of certainty.

Are you saying Steel Wind is one of these exceptional bean-counters?
Are you saying you are?

Or, are you saying that Steel Wind's comments are hollow?

I certainly don't see any disclaimers of "hypothetical bean with any degree of certainty" when it is presented as a damning case of wrong action. You can't have it both ways. You particularly can not have it both ways when trying to make the case that you know better than the insiders actually making the decisions.

You can't intermix wishful thinking for cherry-picked karma with honest economic assessment.

 

[Shemeska]

Nor do they owe any of us a "timely" explanation even if they are inclined to give one.

I never claimed that they or anyone else does. I just wanted to counter the earlier claim that it was totally proven that he resigned. Beyond wanting to counter what I saw as a false claim, I don't care, and in fact I wish them and everyone else impacted by this the best of luck.

 

[Dausuul]

Are you saying Steel Wind is one of these exceptional bean-counters?
Are you saying you are?

Or, are you saying that Steel Wind's comments are hollow?

I certainly don't see any disclaimers of "hypothetical bean with any degree of certainty" when it is presented as a damning case of wrong action. You can't have it both ways. You particularly can not have it both ways when trying to make the case that you know better than the insiders actually making the decisions.

I am saying that

a) it's virtually impossible to calculate the total cost (including damage to morale and loss of experience) of a given round of layoffs to a given company;
b) it is possible to estimate the impact statistically, across large numbers of companies that have had layoffs;
c) when such analysis has been done, it has found that layoffs typically lead to bad results for the companies that do them;
d) clearly companies that do layoffs think they're going to get good results;
e) the fact that most of them are wrong indicates WotC is probably wrong too.

The arguments advanced for why the layoffs "must be" improving WotC's bottom line could be applied to any sizeable company that lays people off. Hence, if such arguments were valid, we should see layoffs improving the bottom lines of most companies that do them. In fact, the opposite is true.

 

[jgbrowning]

It's entirely, 100% appropriate. You've substituted another phrase that doesn't sound so harsh, but semantically it has the exact same meaning. Take off your tinfoil hat, dude.

It's rational to assume that spokespeople of a company put positive spins on situations because it is ubiquitously common.

joe b.