Necromancer Games Under Fire?

[smiteworks]

I bet he's really good at handling rules lawyers.

 

[GreyLord]

If you guys are offended by the writer Scott Maben, it would be best to complain to his bosses and Scott Maben. Perhaps point out that he offended a LOT of people and a whole community that plays these games. Perhaps point out a LOT of the community leaders that have played.

His email is

scottm@spokesman.com

His bosses are

garyg@spokesman.com

And

geoffp@spokesman.com


If enough of us complain to them about the article and it's ignorant bias against normal people in the community...something MIGHT be done about such a slam job against all of us.

 

[joethelawyer]

Clark and I have had our differences of opinion in years past, but I genuinely feel bad for the guy for this. Every nutjob who ever stood before him in court and lost, is now going to claim it was because Clark was on the bench slaying dragons in his mind.

Clearly someone is trying to do a hatchet job on Clark here. He either pissed someone off, screwed the wrong person over--intentionally or not, or someone just wants his job, plain and simple. That's what's really behind all this. They are using the nutjobs, from the paragraph above, to make the stink from below.

And if there is nothing that a judicial branch of government hates more than a stink on its reputation. It doesn't matter that Clark did nothing wrong, technically. The appearance of impropriety is enough to get the higher ups in judicial to put pressure on him to step down. We have enough of that here, along with the nutjobs pressuring from below, to get that pressure applied.

I hope Clark make it through this, but it will depend on how much stink and pressure are generated, and how badly the guy who ordered the hatchet job wants Clark out, and how much clout he has.

It's all politics and power plays. And that's a shame.

Edit to add: Don't read that much into his personal finances. In divorces today it is common to have to claim bankruptcy to get out of debt. You used to be able to refinance to do that, and also to get one person off of the note, but with housing values shot to hell, that's not usually possible anymore. Also, a second mortgage I would bet is part of the dividing up the household assets as part of the divorce. There may not have been enough liquidity to do so without it. Lastly, tons of people who run their own businesses owe the gvt taxes. Expecially in this economy, its hard to gauge how much to put aside, and if things take a downturn, its easier to dip into the tax money and pay the rent to keep the business going, hoping it will pick up and you can replenish what you took, rather than to close up the business. What he owes isn't a lot at all.

 

[BOZ]

I recently started a Wikipedia article about Clark Peterson, and was somewhat astonished by the recent additions to the article within the last few days.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I also find it hard to believe this far into the 21st century that there are people on the Western world not fully familiar with basic concept of a messageboard username. To even begin to suggest that they think that Clark thinks he's the namesake of his username on a messageboard doesn't speak well of their ability to navigate this modern world. I can't imagine the array of challenge and confusion they might find at, say, an ATM or a vending machine.

Probably what they're banking on. In fact, *possibly* even what the article writer and the other party in this scenario actually believe.

Idaho, like large swaths of America, is mostly rural. Internet connections are rarer than they are in most other places (they'd cost more to put up than the folks would make back). It's also an older population (as rural communities trend toward these days). A big chunk of them probably don't even HAVE personal computers. There's no need and no benefit. They're grandmas in the countryside, but even more isolated. And, because this is the US, quite a bit more politically adversarial.

Certainly the whole place isn't a retirement home in an empty field (there are cities! Not everyone is old and marginalized!), but it's quite possible that the area Clark in currently is mostly that, or at least that they are heavily influenced by that mindset. The people this article is talking to probably don't fully know or understand what a message board is, or why one would use it to talk about that game that they had heard vaguely was satanic from their local pastor or TV preacher, maybe 20 years ago (or maybe just last year!).

To those people, the words "demon prince of the undead" probably just reinforce a worldview where activist judges are influenced directly by Satan to do wickedness.

Certainly, this isn't universal in Idaho, and there's no telling if "cooler heads" may prevail -- they totally could! This is just to explain why the article writer might think their audience is really interested in the salacious accusation of D&D playing more so than financial troubles or marital troubles. Everyone's got those. What everyone doesn't have is a possible demonic alter-ego that engages in satanic activity from the judge's bench!

Clark doesn't have that, either, but folks in Idaho might not know that as much as most others.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Idaho, like large swaths of America, is mostly rural. Internet connections are rarer than they are in most other places (they'd cost more to put up than the folks would make back). It's also an older population (as rural communities trend toward these days). A big chunk of them probably don't even HAVE personal computers. There's no need and no benefit. They're grandmas in the countryside, but even more isolated. And, because this is the US, quite a bit more politically adversarial.

Also, newspaper audiences are older than the average American and many regional newspapers are full of older reporters who have a mixed relationship with the Internet. (I've worked in newspapers since the 1990s, and I still run into editors who insist that the Internet is "just a fad," like they did in 1996.)

So this is likely a perfect storm of a novel complaint about a local official, reaching a newsroom that may not be terribly tech-savvy, writing for an audience that needs it all spelled out in copious detail, which makes it all seem even stranger to people entirely new to the concept. (The last story I wrote at my first newspaper was explaining Fidonet -- the precursor to the World Wide Web -- and my editor was sure I had it wrong, since the whole network of distributed computers seemed cuckoo to her back in 1993.)

 

[Le Noir Faineant]

Probably what they're banking on. In fact, *possibly* even what the article writer and the other party in this scenario actually believe.

Don't listen to him! His screen name implies that he is a Japanese rightwing terrorist! And that he targets our navy!

 

[BOZ]

And is very short, at that!

 

[TarionzCousin]

Don't listen to him! His screen name implies that he is a Japanese rightwing terrorist! And that he targets our navy!

The French navy?