WotC WotC is hiring Senior Manager for Diversity, equity and inclusion.

[Sacrosanct]

Well, hopefully whoever they hire will be able to catch stuff like this. Not just the card itself, but it's image url online in the database ended in 1488--a clear dog whistle to neo Nazis.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

Yeah, the ad looks more like they're looking for someone to help them choose the right designers, or help development teams to find the right people, to help with diversity issues.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

1. they are all real English words.
2. It’s a corporate job, of course it’s going to use corporate language.

Can you recommend a writing book that enthuses "corporate" style in any situation. I've read dozens of writing books, including those that cover business writing. Never once have I see jargon recommend over clear transparent communication.

The way I see it, corporate jargon, instead, manipulates the reader and obscures communication.

 

[lavamancer]

The Senior Manager Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion position is focused on "attracting, retaining and developing talent that reflects our audiences and promoting an inclusive environment where employees throughout the company can perform at their best." I don't see anything in the job description that would suggest this HR manager has any editorial input on WotC products.

It's definitely possible that I am wrong, but my life experience has lead me to be wary. I might be reading between the lines, but when I read:

"Partner with Wizards' Leadership to improve our strategic DE&I plan & identify new opportunities to integrate and amplify diverse perspectives within our ... products. "

this seems to indicate that the person will be involved with creative and narrative work in the IP. I suppose that whether or not this is a good or bad thing very much depends on your point of view about DE&I.

Additionally, when they write:

"Create and moderate safe spaces for honest and practical dialogue around DE&I while challenging conventional wisdom."

I also read that the job will require some arbitration between differing parties and philosophies in presentation of the IP, with final say being in the hand of the senior manager for DE&I. This is probably going to be, at the least, stressful and thankless work for whoever gets it.

In fact, having someone from HR tell a line managers how to run their business is a good way to alienate management which is no way to start a strategic partnership.

That could be. It could also be a paper tiger position that is simply advisory. It seems like a lot of effort to create a sinecure position.

 

[Charlaquin]

Can you recommend a writing book that enthuses "corporate" style in any situation. I've read dozens of writing books, including those that cover business writing. Never once have I see jargon recommend over clear transparent communication.

The way I see it, corporate jargon, instead, manipulates the reader and obscures communication.

Can you give a specific example of “jargon” being used in the posting? Because to me all of the words in it seem to be used in their plain-English sense. Certainly it reads as very corporate in style, but I don’t see anything that I would define as “jargon.” Is it particularly direct and clear? No, but what communication in the corporate world is? If your intent is to critique the way corporations in general communicate I don’t disagree, but complaining that this specific job posting sounds corporate is an odd way to go about it. If you believe there is a problem with how the corporate world communicates, then this job posting is at most symptomatic of the problem.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Can you give a specific example of “jargon” being used in the posting? Because to me all of the words in it seem to be used in their plain-English sense. Certainly it reads as very corporate in style, but I don’t see anything that I would define as “jargon.” Is it particularly direct and clear? No, but what communication in the corporate world is? If your intent is to critique the way corporations in general communicate I don’t disagree, but complaining that this specific job posting sounds corporate is an odd way to go about it. If you believe there is a problem with how the corporate world communicates, then this job posting is at most symptomatic of the problem.

Just because someone else does it, doesn't make something OK.

Here are some words & phrases from the first two sections I find confusing. I don't have a clear picture what WotC was imagining because their language can be interpreted multiple way or is so general as to be meaningless.

• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leader
• innovative organizations
• bring their whole selves
• critical advantage
• strong connection
• strategic partner
• developing talent
• inclusive environment
• integrate and amplify diverse perspectives
• equitable fashion
• under-represented perspectives
• moderate safe space
• Evaluate and report the effectiveness
• impact
• best-in-class industry DE&I practices
• Support and empower
• deliver their goals
• growing the feedback loop

 

[Charlaquin]

Just because someone else does it, doesn't make something OK.

Indeed, but again, if your problem is with the way corporations communicate, this job posting is a mere symptom of that problem. By focusing on this one example of poor corporate communication, you are missing the forest for the trees.

Here are some words & phrases from the first two sections I find confusing. I don't have a clear picture what WotC was imagining because their language can be interpreted multiple ways or is so general as to be meaningless.

• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Leader
  That’s just the job title.
• innovative organizations
• bring their whole selves
• critical advantage
• strong connection
• strategic partner
• developing talent
• inclusive environment
• integrate and amplify diverse perspectives
• equitable fashion
• under-represented perspectives
• moderate safe space
• Evaluate and report the effectiveness
• impact
• best-in-class industry DE&I practices
• Support and empower
• deliver their goals
• growing the feedback loop

With the possible exception of “bring their whole selves,” I would say the meanings of all of these phrases are pretty clear in context. If they aren’t clear to you, that’s probably fine, as I doubt you are the audience this job posting is meant for. I think it would be fairly easily understood by the people qualified for the position.

Could it be clearer? Yes. Is it worth our energy to critique its lack of clarity? I don’t think so.

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

Indeed, but again, if your problem is with the way corporations communicate, this job posting is a mere symptom of that problem. By focusing on this one example of poor corporate communication, you are missing the forest for the trees.


With the possible exception of “bring their whole selves,” I would say the meanings of all of these phrases are pretty clear in context. If they aren’t clear to you, that’s probably fine, as I doubt you are the audience this job posting is meant for. I think it would be fairly easily understood by the people qualified for the position.

Could it be clearer? Yes. Is it worth our energy to critique its lack of clarity? I don’t think so.

Agree that many corporation use obtuse language. Is that an excuse?

Are these phrases really clear? What does WotC mean by "Impact," for example? I understand the word means "results," but "results" is also vague to the point meaninglessness.

 

[Bacon Bits]

Well, hopefully whoever they hire will be able to catch stuff like this. Not just the card itself, but it's image url online in the database ended in 1488--a clear dog whistle to neo Nazis.

Don't get me wrong, the card's art is awful and was never considered acceptable. Everybody knew it as the KKK card. And the artist, Harold McNeill, is absolutely a white nationalist. WotC never should have used this art. But you're really, really stretching credibility to argue that the multiverse ID was intentional.

Look, early Magic sets were assigned a multiverse ID in the order the set was released, and each unique card image was assigned a multiverse ID in order.

Set	Release Date	Set Size	Multiverse IDs
Alpha	August 5, 1993	295 cards	1-295
Beta	October 1993	302 cards	296-597
Unlimited	December 1, 1993	302 cards	598-899
Arabian Nights	December 17, 1993	92 cards (78 unique + 14 variant)	900-991
Antiquities	March 4, 1994	100 cards (85 unique + 15 variant)	992-1091
Revised	April 1994	306 cards	1092-1397
Legends	June 10, 1994	310 cards	1398-1707

So, the next set to be printed, Legends, began at 1398. Every set (with the exception of Antiquities which is straight alphabetical because there are so few colored cards) are grouped like this: Artifacts, Black, Blue, Green, Red, White, Land. Legends, which introduces Multicolored cards, goes Artifacts, Black, Blue, Green, Red, White, Multicolored, Land. Each group is sorted alphabetically. If you place Legends in this order, then the 91st card in Legends is Invoke Prejudice. 1397 + 91 = 1488.

Invoke Prejudice is literally the one thousand, four hundred and eighty-eighth card printed. You'll also note that if you're looking at the dates above, that all seven of those sets were printed and sold in under a year. Essentially all of them sold out immediately with the exception of Revised. They couldn't print the cards fast enough. Arabian Nights was supposed to be 300 cards, but they had to ship what they could because nothing was on the shelves. It would take a staggering amount of foresight and planning to know that between the accidentally missed cards in Alpha, the "variants" which were in Arabian Nights which weren't supposed to be variants, and then to know that ten years later in 2004 when the Gatherer site which introduced the multiverse ID was released that the IDs would be assigned in that particular order. And to do all that while WotC was pumping out cards literally faster than they could design them?

 

[Charlaquin]

Don't get me wrong, the card's art is awful and was never considered acceptable. Everybody knew it as the KKK card. And the artist, Harold McNeill, is absolutely a white nationalist. WotC never should have used this art. But you're really, really stretching credibility to argue that the multiverse ID was intentional.

I don’t think anyone who understands how multiverse IDs work thinks it was intentional. It’s pretty clearly a very unfortunate coincidence. But it’s an unfortunate coincidence that really should have been caught and addressed much sooner than it was.