WotC Is Mike Mearls still in WotC?

[Justice and Rule]

Okay, I'm really confused by all this idea of "This is just a he-said, she-said", because what's being talked about isn't, as far as I remember. This whole talk of "If you look at it all and it's 50/50 that it's true or false" makes no sense to me: no one is disputing the screenshots because people remember them. They were well-known, just as Zak's whole history was. We know that Mike went to Zak with these accusations and talked to him about them because Zak himself confirmed that much on his blog.

So like, what is the whole "But we don't know what the truth is?" part here, because the whole point of this shameful episode was that Mearls went to bat to someone who had been credibly accused of a bunch of things, believed him, and over the years it's come out that the guy was, in fact, a giant piece of crap.

 

[Andvari]

Okay, I'm really confused by all this idea of "This is just a he-said, she-said", because what's being talked about isn't, as far as I remember. This whole talk of "If you look at it all and it's 50/50 that it's true or false" makes no sense to me:

That part of the debate is taking place on a more philosophical level. It's not specific to this incident, although obviously inspired by it. Charlaquin made a general statement I did not agree with and we have been having a little back and forth debating on that. Even if I grant that we are 100% sure in the case of Mike Mearls, I would still disagree with that particular statement - at least the way I interpret its meaning.

 

[Charlaquin]

Hmm. If someone makes a claim and you, taking into account everything you know about the nature of the claim, its context, the trustworthiness of the source of the claim, after long thought arrive at the claim having a 50% chance of being true and a 50% chance of being false, would you then say you believe that claim or not?

This is very abstract, which makes it difficult to answer, especially because it doesn’t sound like how I evaluate claims. But, trying to engage with the question as best I can, if “trustworthiness of the source of the claim” is a factor, and the conclusion I arrived at was a 50% probability, I must not have considered the source of the claim especially trustworthy. That 50% must be coming mostly from knowledge external to the source. Or maybe the other way around, I guess? I consider the source trustworthy but everything else I know about it casts doubt on that source? Either way, it would be a case of disbelieving the source - implicitly in the former case, or due to additional information in the latter case.

 

[Charlaquin]

Okay, I'm really confused by all this idea of "This is just a he-said, she-said", because what's being talked about isn't, as far as I remember. This whole talk of "If you look at it all and it's 50/50 that it's true or false" makes no sense to me: no one is disputing the screenshots because people remember them. They were well-known, just as Zak's whole history was. We know that Mike went to Zak with these accusations and talked to him about them because Zak himself confirmed that much on his blog.

So like, what is the whole "But we don't know what the truth is?" part here, because the whole point of this shameful episode was that Mearls went to bat to someone who had been credibly accused of a bunch of things, believed him, and over the years it's come out that the guy was, in fact, a giant piece of crap.

Folks have been saying that no one can provide them with these screenshots. I don’t have access to them myself, so I haven’t been arguing against that point.

 

[Justice and Rule]

That part of the debate is taking place on a more philosophical level. It's not specific to this incident, although obviously inspired by it.

It is? I dunno, I thought this started with someone not believing Hill's story on this, but okay. At any rate, I feel like the whole situation Mearls brought

Folks have been saying that no one can provide them with these screenshots. I don’t have access to them myself, so I haven’t been arguing against that point.

I thought one of the tweets earlier provided a screenshot of at least one of the comments with Mearls dismissing the claims. I do have it, though:

I did also find a relatively-contemporaneous blog post on the subject that does a decent job of summing this stuff up. However, given the nature of the internet, so much of this stuff isn't permanent that unless you actively gathering evidence at the time it can be hard to access again. I remember all this stuff back when it was happening (and I had an inkling of Zak's reputation given my affiliation with another RPG board) and I remember the outrage at Zak being included in the 5E credits for these exact reasons back when 5E released. Like, this was not exactly hidden when it happened.

 

[Andvari]

This is very abstract, which makes it difficult to answer, especially because it doesn’t sound like how I evaluate claims. But, trying to engage with the question as best I can, if “trustworthiness of the source of the claim” is a factor, and the conclusion I arrived at was a 50% probability, I must not have considered the source of the claim especially trustworthy. That 50% must be coming mostly from knowledge external to the source. Or maybe the other way around, I guess? I consider the source trustworthy but everything else I know about it casts doubt on that source? Either way, it would be a case of disbelieving the source - implicitly in the former case, or due to additional information in the latter case.

The number could conceivably be arrived at due to the source being considered untrustworthy, though it could also be a case of a reasonably trustworthy source making an outrageous claim, or due to not knowing the source's trustworthiness, depending on one's Cynicism ability score. But yeah, it may be too abstract of a question to be of use here.

 

[Jahydin]

@Charlaquin
Does WotC's decision to keep Mearls sour you to purchasing their products?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Nope.

We know he got promoted twice. His title and role definitely changed. He certainly worked on bigger projects with more money involved in his success or failure.
That's all public information.

That was not what I was referring to. We know what happened in the aftermath...

We do not know EXACTLY what happened before.

 

[Aldarc]

None of us know. She told us. We can choose to believe her, or we can choose not to believe her. There’s no third option.

I suspect that Olivia Hill has no desire to show the evidence she has as that would potentially open her up to further harassment. Likewise, neither WotC nor Mearls would ever admit wrong-doing as that would potentially make them liable to legal action. But it's not just her and Sarah Darkmagic who warned Mike Mearls about bringing Zak S on board. There were a fair number of other people who warned him turned out to be right about Zak S, which left massive egg on Mike Mearls's face regardless of whether he forwarded those emails to Zak S or not since Mike Mearls is on record vocally defending Zak S and accusing these people of using gender issues for personal grudges. His entire tone in what we do have aligns him as being more sympathetic to Zak S than Olivia Hill or Sarah Darkmagic.

@Charlaquin
Does WotC's decision to keep Mearls sour you to purchasing their products?

I cannot speak for Charlaquin, but it does sour me to purchase their products because of how Mearls and WotC handled the situation.

 

[Jahydin]

Oh, found a new video of [link removed] (with Michelle Ford (Connie)) for anyone interested in both sides of these issues. Timestamped by each accusation, nice touch.