'Everything Is a Story' Inside Wyrmwood Gaming's Narcissistic Funhouse
- Thread starter Teo Twawki
- Start date
Given the definition of the word defines my exact issue, yeah Id say so. I may not have had the right word to use but the message I intended to convey is the same.
Im not trying to argue that all bias can be eliminated, but deliberate bias can.
And I think any reputable outlet and journalist should trust their own readers intelligence to critically examine a news report for such biases without help, because:
This is not actually good at all. Its "easier" for a critical reader, but causes more problems than it solves.
The non-critical reader can't tell the difference between opinion and fact, and allowing ourselves to just give into blurring all lines between them is whats contributing to (if not partially causal to) the extreme degradation of public discourse not just in the US but worldwide.
I don't think journalists shouldn't be giving their own opinions on the things they report, but it needs to be segregated and treated differently.
Opinions and entertainment masquerading as news is not a good thing for society, no matter how innocous we may think a particular instance of it is compared to far more egregious examples.
Grendel_Khan
Hero
Not terribly, but for someone who's only been here for a couple weeks, you're making quite the impression. Trotting out tired anti media talking points is a great way to get people to stop talking about what's in this article, and unite in dogpiling on you for trollish behavior. Off to a great start!
The focus of criticizing the news source rather than the news is exactly how a company like Wyrmwood gets this far without consequences.
Mod Note:
And yet another poster making it personal. This trend continues, and people are going to start getting threadbooted.
Y’ALL, STOP DOING THIS.
Grendel_Khan
Hero
Very cool and effective to just let someone threadcrap a discussion into the ground while scolding others for pushing back on the threadcrapping.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
That is a fairly damning picture painted of them. I certainly won't be supporting them going forward. So much for the dice tower I picked up from them last Origins. I could totally sand off the logo and re-stain it, but I'd still know where I got the thing.
Talking with my brother about it, he described Wyrmwood as being very reminiscent of the systemic, top-enabled poor behavior at Blizzard.
I once had to ready an album review for publication that was submitted at the nth hour; it was a compilation album and my band was on it. As a result I ended up being late to band practice fixing all the grammatical and spelling mistakes on a negative review of my own dang band!
Talking with my brother about it, he described Wyrmwood as being very reminiscent of the systemic, top-enabled poor behavior at Blizzard.
A majority of time as an editor, I merely hoped to encounter a writer who didn't make me dive into a pail of gin.
I once had to ready an album review for publication that was submitted at the nth hour; it was a compilation album and my band was on it. As a result I ended up being late to band practice fixing all the grammatical and spelling mistakes on a negative review of my own dang band!
Snarf Zagyg
Notorious Liquefactionist
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
See, this would be the problem of sanding off their logo. It only really matters if your stuff makes a lot of public appearances and you don't want to advertise their product. If you're just using it at home, you know whom you got it from, you've already paid for it, you're hiding nothing. You might as well just use it for its utility value - they can gain no more support from you than they already got before you knew how terrible their leadership is. This way you don't let the product of the workers who made it under less than safe, ideal conditions go to waste.
Snarf Zagyg
Notorious Liquefactionist
I'd pay an ethical place to sand it (see this link in Umbran's post) -
'Everything Is a Story' Inside Wyrmwood Gaming's Narcissistic Funhouse
https://gizmodo.com/wyrmwood-gaming-doug-costello-bobby-downey-1850237181 Curiouser and curiouser. We had very minor dealings with this company a few years ago. Tried to buy some gourmet dice from them. They never shipped the dice we bought and after a few emails, stopped replying to us. We...
www.enworld.org
And then donate an equal amount to a worthwhile local charity. It's a win-win, and you'll feel better.
I don't think it does.
A non-critical reader also can't tell the difference between a "fact" and a slant, prevarication, or outright lie. They simply consume all points given to them that "feel right". Perhaps the most effective way to mislead a non-critical reader is to give them "dry facts" that are actually misleadingly slanted or outright lies, and let them think they are drawing their own conclusion from "facts".
If you challenge the author's take on things, the reader (broadly) doesn't have any particular investment in it. If you challenge the reader's take on the matter, you are challenging the reader, and they will tend to resist, and defend themselves, despite other evidence.
And, I repeat, there actually are very few "dry facts" in human events. Human events are... moist. Squishy. Full of conflicting perspectives, interpretations, and motivations. Making the author's personal perspective obvious is therefore giving the reader more information to work with, rather than confusing the issue.
In the end here, you don't seem to dispute her facts. You don't say you disagree with her conclusions/opinions. You only disagree with the presence of those conclusions.
And, in the end, if your strongest critique isn't about the factual content of the piece, I am not terribly concerned.
I mean, do you leave the symbols of groups whose behavior you find repugnant around in your home? If so... you do you. But I don't know that you get to tell others the value of removing those symbols to them.
Broadly, symbols matter to humans. There is a symbolic action to getting the branding removed. The object may still be a reminder of the organization's behavior, but it can also be a reminder of your rejection of that behavior. As far as symbols go, that's not too shabby.
Next time I'm near a hardware store, I'm going to get a couple grades of paper for my random orbit sander...
Mod note:
We have a post reporting function. If you think a post is a problem, we expect you to use it rather than get snarky in the thread.
If you escalate conflict, red text is apt to come your way. So please don't.
Mod Note:
There already was a conversation going, before you started this line of discussion. If you aren't going to be a constructive part of it, maybe it is time for you to disengage.
But then we're no longer talking about the same thing are we? Theres a lot of nuance here and I see little reason to deal in absolutes.
I contend that a journalist's writing should be nothing more than a proverbial plate on which information is passed on to the reader, and not a proverbial bread bowl that was not disclosed up front, with ingredients no one asked for.
There shouldn't be any confusion in the first place, and I think you're overstating the impact implicit, unintentioned bias would have. Manufactured Consent is an issue, no doubt, but thats a distinct step above (really, multiple steps) merely reporting the facts, and comes from more angles than just one journalist writing in a way that undermines her own intentions.
This is why its important to digest a healthy variety of sources when learning about some bit of news. (And why, as it happened, I didn't immediately jump on the outrage train when the OGL debacle first started. I more or less abandoned 5e and started writing my own game literally the next day as corroborations came to light)
I think its more that not everyone is going to be that comfortable with permanently modifying their very expensive fancy wood baubles, so it can be worthwhile to temper the desire to try and make a statement that might not be heard by anyone, least of all the people in the wrong.
That being said, I saw on Reddit that there was a woodworker who was making the mod for like a $20 or a service swap. I imagine you could find a local woodworker who'd give you a decent price to do the same, or might even do it for free given what it is.
The primary material that Codega is working with here are interviews with Wyrmwood employees relating their experiences. The role of the journalist in this case is not only to conduct these interviews but to contextualize their comments, which Codega does by placing them within a timeline and grouping them into categories (comments about sexual harassment, worker exploitation, the wyrmlife reality show, etc) to give readers a picture of what's going on behind the scenes. It's up to the editor(s) to review this process to make sure the article meets journalistic standards. There's also the problem that there is a power imbalance here, and Wyrmwood as a company and its executives have their own platforms, while the employees speaking out are either ex-employees or speaking anonymously. Even here, they offered Wyrmwood execs a chance to respond, but they chose not to:
On the whole, I don't think this article is in the same category as cable opinion shows or clickbait articles.
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