Paizo Jessica Price (ex Paizo employee) spills the beans

[Zaukrie]

Ok, that thread is not good......some serious issues in Paizo land.

 

[darjr]

I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Heck, I used to do naughty word like this without even realizing it! We aren't as self-aware as we should be - all of us.

Now, strategically, why would I give them he benefit of the doubt? Because it's more productive. If they are a bad actor, it is 99% certain that I cannot change or affect their behavior. But if this is a lack of awareness, I am giving them an opening, a way to save face AND perhaps improve in the future.

Attacked people get defensive. And then you have a fight, not a discussion

aye, and this is definitely the better part of valor.
And one I'd much rather take.

But I'm so sick of this baloney. My patience is kaput.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The person who quit and wasn't actually fired disagreed with her and she didn't call them a sexist. Why do you insist that she calls ANYONE that disagrees with her sexist? I think it's because, for whatever reason, you have an agenda to discredit her. I'm getting sick of it.

"Anyone" was a bad term to use, and I'll own up to that. I used a general term and I shouldn't.

We have on record her calling someone a sexist simply for disagreeing with her. And we have this tweet where she inferred two people were fired from Paizo and their minority status had something to do with that.

This isn't an agenda by me to discredit her. As I keep saying, all it does it give me pause to automatically believe her, and to believe the others involved. Many of whom are also woman who I believe. This isn't me out to discredit women or I'd be trying to discredit those other women or women in general. I've been very clear I believe them This is me saying I need additional information before automatically believing HER based on her previous actions. If I were to automatically believe her, as soon as I saw her tweet initially, I'd have gone off on about how PAIZO is targeting and firing minorites. Which of course never happened.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I understand and can work with Twitter very well, thank you. But there's multiple free options that are much better than Twitter for this type of content: twitlongers, blog sites like medium, etc. And no, if I write my novel on a napkin I'm not going to hold it against others when they tell me "well, reading your novel on a napkin is certainly not the best way to read it". Twitter was not designed and is not the primary vessel for denunciations (or any long message) of the sort. Seeing a link to a twitlonger or to a medium article is much more common and a better way to do things. No matter the platform you're using, no matter what year you're writing something, if you want to be heard and your message to come across, you make it accessible, well formatted and well presented.

Ah, so you're giving Price notes about the medium she chose to use, not what she's saying. A very important point that we should definitely spend a lot of time discussing. Never mind that if she wrote a Medium post or whatever else you find more acceptable it's harder for others to interact with and share what she wrote, unless they...use something like Twitter?

It's always something, isn't it? Why so shrill? Why so angry? Why not cover both sides? Why not take this up privately? Why not spend countless unpaid hours fact-checking and refining? Why not take this to the authorities instead?

Or, in this case, why not use a platform that would have a much smaller impact, but that's easier to read?

Always something.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

What happened is that she complained about a thing she was struggling with at work on Twitter (which is... perfectly normal)

True. She's an employee at ArenaNet, her profile says so. And she goes talking about the reality of narrative writing for MMORPGs. I'd quality her tone both as informative (for her readers) and a bit of a rant (it's not an easy job). So far so true.

some dude came in and told her how to do her job for her. This is called "mansplaining" and it's problematic at best

First thing, the some dude is a media partner of ArenaNet and a streamer that spends most of his living time playing that game. He's very respectful in the way he approaches her. He says that he agrees with her, he says that he disagrees with some part of her take, he exposes his vision and he thanks her for her insight. Do note, that he doesn't explicity tell her how to do her job, he describes how AS players they can feel about the current narrative design and how he would prefer things to be.

This is not mansplaining at all. Apart from the fact that there's a man and he's explaining something. But I surely hope your definition is a little more profound than that.

She reacted angrily (justifiably so) to that, which led to a rant about mansplaining

I don't think it was justified. I think her initial reaction is problematic because this might be the most civil and courteous exchange you could have on twitter in such a situation. But this part, I can excuse, we all have tough days.

got the nascent KIA crowd (I don't remember if KIA existed then, but it was the mob that would later make up KIA) complained about it to ArenaNET and that is what got her fired.

She got fired over this message, which is what I think goes over the line.

She got fired twenty-four hours after her reply. There was no time for this upheaval that you describe. A ton of people were not happy with her response. But at the end of the following work day she was fired. And understandably so, as the medium article that was posted before, it's unacceptable for someone that publicly represents the company to openly naughty word on someone like that, even more so when the person is a business partner of the company, a prominent member of the community and was very respectful in his approach. If she had reacted like this to someone that was truly disrespectful or insulted yet, it'd be different. But it wasn't.

 

[Gradine]

I mean, I'm happy to entertain actual proof of her lying. I don't think anyone is a saint, anyone is liable to have a black mark on the record or skeletons in the closet or whatever. But this feels very different.

Repeatedly attack a specific individual, declare them categorically untrustworthy based on a "history" of lying, belies an agenda. Especially when pressed, only two examples can be generated, one of which was a fairly understandable mistake (how many times have people been said to be "fired" later say they resigned in protest? It feels pretty common) and the other being one of the biggest examples of sexist mobs influencing the gaming industry...

Ah! A new post.

Not at all, and I resent the implication that's what I was saying. I said what I said because based on your posts, it doesn't seem like you actually read those tweets. Because...

And I apologize for the implication.

That's not what happened. At all. Which has been pointed out to you by someone else already. Seriously, go read that Twitter exchange again.

I have read the Twitter exchange, and that is exactly what happened. The man did not disagree with her, she complained about her work and a man gave her unsolicited advice, incredibly basic at that, as if she didn't have a clue how to do any part of her job at all. That is manspalining, and Price was completely justified in complaining about it.

I've also been genuinely trying to find this post where someone else posted the Twitter exchange. I seriously cannot seem to find this post you keep referencing. I'd be glad to check it out. In either case, I'm very familiar with it, and I've re-read since beginning this conversation. What happened is obvious.

Or are you saying that ANY time someone who happens to be a male disagrees with someone who happens to be a female is mansplaining, or that a female can never be wrong? Well, it can't be the latter since you already admitted she was wrong in her first tweet, so does that mean if a male points out how she was wrong and Diego wasn't fired, they were mansplaining to her?

No, no, and no. Farewell to those strawmen.

Either way, we seem to be at an impasse. So I won't be responding further. All I'm doing is repeating myself and no one wants to keep reading the same posts, especially if you're insistent in mischaracterizing my posts.

I mean, you obviously have a personal stake in defaming Jessica Price specifically at all costs, and while I can speculate as to why, that's not helpful to anybody.

 

[Waller]

This includes the dynamic of these companies being dominated by white men.

Paizo is not owned by a white man. And until Lisa Stevens recently retired, was not run by one.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

It's always something, isn't it? Why so shrill? Why so angry? Why not cover both sides? Why not take this up privately? Why not spend countless unpaid hours fact-checking and refining? Why not take this to the authorities instead?

I did not say any of these things.

Or, in this case, why not use a platform that would have a much smaller impact, but that's easier to read?

Always something.

Listen, I don't think we'll go anywhere with this discussion. You're taking this way further than it ought to. Some people said it was hard to follow some 150 posts on twitter split in like five different threads. The point was raised that maybe this isn't the best way to present that much information. There's no conspiracy or bad faith. Just people expressing the fact that it's not easy catch all the crumbs scattered on Twitter. That's it.

 

[Gradine]

Okay, it looks like we need a Mansplaining 101 lesson.

At the basic level, mansplaining is when a man corrects a woman or otherwise attempts to talk to her or teach her about something she already knows. The implication is that the woman must not know this thing and you, the very intelligent man, must teach her the correct thing.

Mansplaining can be:
*Friendly
*Cordial
*Professional
*Well-Intentioned

But even when it is a friendly, cordial, professional, well-intentioned correction, it is still an assumption that the woman you are talking to must not know the very basic concept you are trying to explain to her.

It sucks no matter the reason, purpose, or intent, and Jessica Price was completely justified to rant about it on her Twitter.

 

[Gradine]

I'll add that her being fired because a bunch of rabid sexist proto-GGers made a huge stink about it is absolutely, 100%, an example of sexism in the industry. As was the firing of one her of colleagues just for sticking up for her (fun fact: men can be victims of the patriarchy too! In fact they very often are!)