WotC New WotC Statement on Orion Black

[Olrox17]

My experience on twitter is basically the opposite of this. It depends on your willingness to block and to seek out the content you want to engage with.
You may have had some bad experiences on twitter, but I have reasonable discussions about contentious topics on twitter literally several times a week.

You know, that is probably it. I don't like putting people on ignore, unless they're very obvious trolls. I have exactly zero users on my ignore list here on Enworld, and it's not like I don't disagree with people frequently.

I refrain from using the ignore function because I want to have my ideas challenged, even strongly. I don't want to live in my own bubble where everyone agrees with me, simply because I censored opposing views. This attitude of mine might work well here on Enworld, but might be less wise on Twitter.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You know, that is probably it. I don't like putting people on ignore, unless they're very obvious trolls. I have exactly zero users on my ignore list here on Enworld, and it's not like I don't disagree with people frequently.

I refrain from using the ignore function because I want to have my ideas challenged, even strongly. I don't want to live in my own bubble where everyone agrees with me, simply because I censored opposing views. This attitude of mine might work well here on Enworld, but might be less wise on Twitter.

The idea that using the block feature puts you in a "bubble" is a social media myth, and it absolutely makes twitter an obnoxious place.

Half the really bad comment tweets in reply to a high profile tweet are bots and intentional trolls. Blocking them won't eliminate your ideas being challenged. Unless you are very high profile, those accounts will never see your tweets anyway. If you follow literally anyone with a decent following, there will be dissent in the replies.

It's pretty much impossible to use twitter in a "bubble". It is, however, fairly easy to weed out the accounts that are just there to piss people off while contributing nothing at all to any interaction.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

@doctorbadwolf

Happily, WotC officially welcomes the concerns about D&D from various identity groups.

"
Lastly, we want to make it clear that we condemn the harassment or bullying of those raising their concerns about our content, past or present. D&D wants to be an open, welcoming, and inclusive space. Those who do not reflect those values are not welcome in our community.
— Dungeons & Dragons (@Wizards_DnD) July 8, 2020

"

These kinds of discussions benefit the game.

I'm not sure what you're even responding to?

 

[Haldrik]

I'm not sure what you're even responding to?

In support of several of your posts that defend gamers from various groups who raised concerns about D&D content.

WotC agrees with you officially.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Post #68 in this thread is a moderator warning about misgendering

Sorry, it slipped by me. I've edited the post accordingly.

 

[mcmillan]

At least with regard to medical practice, I have seen lawyers say to say nothing. And the doctors themselves are terrified of lawsuits. Doctors rarely say, "oops, sorry". Meanwhile, political advisors say to politicians to never apologize, unless a controversy explodes and there is no escaping it. These are things I have seen here in the US.

With regard to medical practice there's actually a common practice to review how cases went wrong and what improvement to care could be implemented.

Morbidity and mortality conference - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Due to the confidentiality of those meetings, compared to lawsuits being public information, I suspect people are a lot less familiar with that though. Once a lawsuit is in play the lawyer advice to not say anything probably takes over. But I vaguely recall seeing something recently noting that malpractice lawsuits are less common in hospitals with a culture that is more open to discussing with patients and how poor outcomes came about and acknowledging problems

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In support of several of your posts that defend gamers from various groups who raised concerns about D&D content.

WotC agrees with you officially.

Ah, okay! Ya know, it's sad how much sarcasm, backward talk, etc is used in these discussions that it isn't immediately obvious. Sorry about that.

 

[Parmandur]

I thought it odd that Black had to search for work but we don't really know why that was necessary. Maybe Black is correct, maybe nobody at the company was ready for a non-binary person of color to "critique their problems." On the other hand, perhaps they weren't hired to critique the company's problems and by doing so uninvited they alienated some of their coworkers and managers. Or perhaps they were hired to critique aspects of the project but did so in a way that put people off. It could be that the manager decided that working with Orion was difficult, but firing them would cause more trouble than it was worth so better to just let their contract run out.

This didn't strike me as odd at all, since Orion was on a six month contract. In six months, WotC publishes 1 or 2 products,and has a fairly steady pipeline. So, a contract like this is probably budgeted for those 1 or 2 projects WotC wants to boost with some extra writing work from diverse hands.

 

[Parmandur]

So just finished reading Orion Black's whole statement...

I'm just going to say, that the problems they describe are ones that are fairly typical of Seattle corporate culture. Their definitely not good, but when reading them I was honestly not surprised at all as someone who lives and interacts with people in this area. It is far more important to look conventionally liberal on issues, and even have formats available to discuss race, but actual action is exceptionally rare. Other problems Orion describes, like not being assigned much work, are actually common problems completely untied to race at all; many companies hire someone to fill a job to maintain their budget, whether or not that work needs to be filled. Even when those employees try to self-start and push their projects, the new workers are ignored in favor of those who are more established.

I doubt that all of the problems Orion Black describes are really do to "corporate culture" as opposed to true racism within the company... but my first reading of this felt much more like someone who is used to creative freedom suddenly hitting the limits of cold business bureaucracy.

Sadly the types of changes Orion seemed to want to make are those that happen very gradually in larger companies, and largely to the mechanisms of power gradually being passed on to people who care more about them. I'm sure they were extremely frustrated he wasn't listened to, but I would frankly be amazed if a new employee was able to make substantial changes with a company they were only an employee with for about a year or two.

Yeah, basically nothing about anything said changes my opinion of WotC is like from what I thought it was 15 years ago, let alone last month. It's not really new data, or surprising.

It's not all roses and rainbows, but I accept as much corporate BS from my own employers, so it would be hypocritical of me to get worked up about it elsewhere.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

Yeah, basically nothing about anything said changes my opinion of WotC is like from what I thought it was 15 years ago, let alone last month. It's not really new data, or surprising.

It's not all roses and rainbows, but I accept as much corporate BS from my own employers, so it would be hypocritical of me to get worked up about it elsewhere.

Just curious, how long did Orion actually work at WotC? I think I remember seeing him announce it only a year ago.

If they really only worked there for one year (or even two) I'm honestly not surprised at all with their description. What they described would be normal (it's not a good normal, but it's not surprising). Unless your a VP hired specifically to make broad changes in your department, no single hire is going to make systemic changes in a large corporation in such a short timespan.