Then when I post after having looked and read more asking for some actual proof of the things that people toss around, you accuse me of being a bad faith actor? Come on.
I'm saying nine times in ten, when someone says what you said, in a thread like this (not out of the blue), about stuff that's pretty easy to find if you just Google, they're doing to either waste the time of the other person, or to try and argue minutiae. You see it all the time in transgender stuff, where some dude is like "I'm open-minded but you need to convince me transgender is real and also tell me all the juicy deets!". It's like, no, sod off. Do your own research you so and so! The other one time in ten, you're the dude in the office I have to literally explain how to Google things to (no reflection on intelligence or seniority, I've had to help twenty-something Oxbridge grads and sixty-something senior partners!). I was going to say you were bad at Google but I just realized I may be the odd one out as I often find things other people can't and/or get asked for help with this. I've worked in knowledge & research though and I'm not really interested in doing a report/dossier outside a professional context because it takes a while and people love to argue minutiae. Like, with people online, you post six good sources, and one okay one, and they don't want to talk about the six good ones, only the other one. It's very demoralizing in regards to doing research for people.
Anyway if you need clarity - I'm
not calling
you a bad faith actor. I'm saying you walked in wearing the same hat they usually wear! I hope you feel better! If not let me know!
I ended up putting one of the more damning tweets in a post anyway (which also links to another pretty bad one), you can see it right there. Dude was explicitly dismissing the victims and giving them the full "emotional women!" dismissal, like this was the 1990s, or something, back in 2014. Whether Mearls actually passed on the actual information of the accusers to Zak S (probably like a dope, rather than an malicious dude), or just spoke to Zak S about it remains a question only they will ever know the answer to, but it was certainly one or the other and neither is a great look. He shouldn't even have been in contact with him (it's literally not his job and they supposedly aren't friends). Legal messed up too because they should have cut Mearls out here, as soon as accusations came out, rather than letting him do damage. I guess they were on holiday?
I should also be clear that design-wise, and in a lot of other ways, Mearls was my favourite D&D guy (behind Zeb Cook but he's been away for decades) so it pains me to see this. I've long-hoped he'd just make a proper apology (not that weird non-apology about WotC's position) and come back. I'm not someone who wants to see him condemned to the outer darkness forever, but I do think unless he does a mea culpa and apologises, he's probably going to just keep hiding out, which is lame.