Clint_L
Legend
I don't know what "sea lion level harassment is" but it seems insulting. I don't think I'm doing it, whatever it is. And I don't appreciate the insinuation.Yeah, we are. It's what made me finally respond. If you think a pile-on of people Sea Lioning for sources from a documentarian's claim he has sources isn't a form of harassment, I disagree. The ongoing increased level of "name your sources" is in fact a pretty well trod form of online harassment.
John Rateliff is not a "better" or "more extensive" source than the producers of this documentary (Pat Kilbane, James Lowder, Jon Peterson), particularly when John makes a claim about what hundreds of people said without naming names or providing copies of interviews with those people. But the standard applied is not just "name names" but "what exactly did they say" and even then "show me the interviews" for this claim the documentary filmmakers claimed to have multiple sources about a specific aspect of one person. That's exactly what Sea Lion level harassment looks like. It's intended to shut off the conversation with that distraction, particularly when it's done in numbers like it's being done right now.
It is not "harassing" to express skepticism of a claim that is not well sourced, particularly when that claim is derogatory, and particularly when there is a history of people making hurtful and misogynist claims about an individual. To me, the story seems fanciful. It seems like the kind of thing that could be just a rumour, or it could be something that was originally said in jest, or it could be an exaggeration. It's impossible to say based on scant evidence, and as it is hurtful I am choosing to ignore it as gossip.
Asking for evidence beyond hearsay is not shutting down conversation. Though I suspect accusing people of being "sea lions," whatever that means, might be an attempt to do so.
I'm not some huge Lorraine Williams fan. She sounds like she was often difficult to work with, I think she made or maintained some bad business decisions at TSR, and I question her judgment regarding her interactions with the fan community and regarding her family's Buck Rogers IP. But she's not some cartoonish supervillain, and I think it is evidently clear that she was better at running a business than Gygax and the Blumes (a VERY low bar). Again, I think it is notable that ex-employees have expressed a preference for working under her.