Fucking Kotaku

[TheRevanchist]

Wow, that's fantastic. If it catches though it'll be the old one, not PXOD of course...Even though it still has all those members I wonder how many of them are even willing to go back into that community at this point.

Some, I'm sure, would, if Crecente publicly apologized and re-starred everyone involved. Not all though. And Crecente would never apologize..

[Enervation]

Just though I'd throw this out there:

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/07/07/editorial-why-i-love-pro-gaming/

 

It's created quite a bit of hubbub in the starcraft sub-Reddit, the least of not it being from Kotaku (which Reddit appears to hate with unrelenting and unrestrained passion).

[McBeeferton]

Heh.

 

[TheRevanchist]

You know, I can't pick on Joel. He just works there and wants to be accepted. I know what that feeling is like. He's not someone I can dislike for any real reason.

 

Now, disliking/picking on those that have done you wrong, that I can fully understand.

[CorgiShinobi]

It has been my opinion that Kotaku doesn't necessarily like to hear its users, unless it happens to be a short and sweet ass kissing remark.

 

I haven't visited Kotaku in a long time, but I still remember certain events. I wasn't around for the genocide that took place, but every attempt to "better" themselves has, in my opinion, been face value. The "cornfield" was, as I remember it, a simpler way of throwing out comments. It may have had some genuine purpose, but online communities and moderators are not made of saints.

 

If I can theorize, I think with the case of Dean and a few others, some (maybe most) of the staff just didn't care for having some members having dedication and commitment to the community. Like I said, I think they've always wanted talking heads who chattered with a few others and nothing more. After all, if Owen was telling Dean he was "dictating," that really could be translated to "criticism."

 

"Ugh, who's this kid to tell me what to write? It's our blog and we'll do what we think is best! If it doesn't work out, we'll pull something out of our ass and I'm sure things will get better."

 

Real shame because Kotaku use to be something significant.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

Despite wanting to laugh at that Twitter mix-up, I myself have come dangerously close to doing that on the PXOD account.

[RockyRan]

Agreed. Looks to me like they only want their commenters to act like trophy wives. Talk and chatter and keep an air of being "sociable", but shut up when your "superiors" tell you to and don't talk back.

[Enervation]

Real shame because Kotaku use to be something significant.

 

I think that's the reason a lot of people are rather disappointed in Kotaku now. I know I am. I was around in December '10 when the hackings slammed the Gawker network (I wasn't compromised, but changed the email and gibberished the password, never to return). Things pretty much started to go downhill from there, as far as I see. The redesign was definitely the nail in the coffin for sure, though.

[Thursday Next]

Feel sorry for that Joel guy. He seems like he genuinely wants to engage with the Kotaku Community, don't think anyone told him that that's not how things are done around there.

 

I think the biggest problem that Crecente in particular had with our Dean was that Dean provided worthwhile content to Kotaku in the form of the Kotaku Haynes Guide, spent a lot of time in the comments talking to the community and before too long held more sway and more respect amongst the Kotaku Kommenters than many of the editors, not least Crecente himself.

 

When Dean posted (in the Off Topic section IIRC) his list of suggestions / comments on what had changed in the site recently including the movie reviews that were unrelated to games, the new crappy non-articles without images, headlines or links to comment and others, there was a significant groundswell of agreement from established commenters and newbies alike.

 

Crecente sought to silence Dean by banning him, underestimating how popular he had become and the rest as they say, got all fucked up.

 

TL;DR (I realised I hit my four paragraph limit) Crecente was coming second in his own private popularity contest, so he banned the competition, and lost most of the active commenters in the process.

[deanb]

Heh.

 

I'm with P4, that's not really something to slam anyone for. You may have had multiple twitter accounts beffy, but not at the same time:

Rockpapershotgun had same issue yesterday https://twitter.com/...641589131489280

And it's really easy for us lot to do it too:

http://dl.dropbox.co...witter_PXOD.PNG

 

 

It has been my opinion that Kotaku doesn't necessarily like to hear its users, unless it happens to be a short and sweet ass kissing remark.

 

I haven't visited Kotaku in a long time, but I still remember certain events. I wasn't around for the genocide that took place, but every attempt to "better" themselves has, in my opinion, been face value. The "cornfield" was, as I remember it, a simpler way of throwing out comments. It may have had some genuine purpose, but online communities and moderators are not made of saints.

 

If I can theorize, I think with the case of Dean and a few others, some (maybe most) of the staff just didn't care for having some members having dedication and commitment to the community. Like I said, I think they've always wanted talking heads who chattered with a few others and nothing more. After all, if Owen was telling Dean he was "dictating," that really could be translated to "criticism."

 

"Ugh, who's this kid to tell me what to write? It's our blog and we'll do what we think is best! If it doesn't work out, we'll pull something out of our ass and I'm sure things will get better."

 

Real shame because Kotaku use to be something significant.

 

I don't get the cornfield because it's the most blatant and public signs of how they moderate the comments. You're fine to discuss the topic in the article, but don't discuss the article itself, don't disagree with the opinion of the article, don't point out factual errors. They're very thin skinned which doesn't help. Then on with a heaping of snark in responses. I'm going to say in my year or so away from kotaku and dipping my toes in other online communities and such, especially reddit in the past few months, it's obvious that kotaku is not liked at all. And I think it has been that way for a while, so while they can't control what external forces have to say about their site, they can tidy it up when it is on kotaku.

Heck how many other gaming sites get called out by others as in the case of PCG with this "pro gaming" stuff. (And I'm sure it's not the only time another site has called out Kotaku, probably a few other examples in this thread)

 

 

Feel sorry for that Joel guy. He seems like he genuinely wants to engage with the Kotaku Community, don't think anyone told him that that's not how things are done around there.

 

I think the biggest problem that Crecente in particular had with our Dean was that Dean provided worthwhile content to Kotaku in the form of the Kotaku Haynes Guide, spent a lot of time in the comments talking to the community and before too long held more sway and more respect amongst the Kotaku Kommenters than many of the editors, not least Crecente himself.

 

When Dean posted (in the Off Topic section IIRC) his list of suggestions / comments on what had changed in the site recently including the movie reviews that were unrelated to games, the new crappy non-articles without images, headlines or links to comment and others, there was a significant groundswell of agreement from established commenters and newbies alike.

 

Crecente sought to silence Dean by banning him, underestimating how popular he had become and the rest as they say, got all fucked up.

 

TL;DR (I realised I hit my four paragraph limit) Crecente was coming second in his own private popularity contest, so he banned the competition, and lost most of the active commenters in the process.

 

Joel was/is a Gizmodo writer so he's aware of gawker policy on dealing with commenters. Though his response to Tiller was pretty surprising compared to the normal reaction. And it would be egotistical, but I do agree with your assessment. Even being banned from the site for a year I still get recognised around and about the web. And I did provide a fair few tips and such for them. This is the funny thing, I used to be quite a fan. The steam group, a forum, a guide for the site etc. Yet here I am 2 years later posting in the "Fucking Kotaku" thread. They do say you make your own enemies. And I don't think anyone has ever mastered Crecente in that art. Dude really needs some lessons in something. I dunno, could start with "being nice" before moving on to more advanced topics of "Snark isn't smart".

 

I posted in Talk Amongst Yourselves. http://kotaku.com/55...847675#comments . Which is funny cos later on in my banning when being quizzed on it Crecente said about not posting stuff like that in regular articles but to post in : Speakup, Kotaku off-topic or...Talk Amongst Yourselves.(though at the time Speakup didn't exist). Or to email them, but you guys are aware by now how that goes. At least Crecente the usual "don't tell us what to do, stop reading the site" stuff. Though Bash is pretty good with emails. Most of my emails to him in the past were just "that story is a dupe" or minor corrections and his response were pretty good. I may disagree with his choice of content to post about but he's at least got good netiquette.

 

Thursday I think my tl;dr might be better (if not funnier): http://dl.dropbox.co...nbmmvdotwar.JPG

 

Basically Kotaku has a huge issue with community. They want one cos it helps provide hits. But they don't want to, nor know how to, deal with it. We're not in 1984, the hivemind will not always agree. And how you deal with it is what is important. If you cornfield, delete, ban any disagreement no matter how well put then it's just not going to end up well. If they were to just take Crecente aside for a bit, heck maybe Put Totilo in his position instead, then it might help matters a fair amount.

 

edit: I maybe should email Joel tonight. No idea why or what for mind. As I've said already it's far too little far too late. Most of it's active members have moved on given the pretty shit reaction for Kotaku writers to the group over the years it's not really surprising. All it has spent the past year doing is dwindling in members. About only reason we still have a bunch is because people can't be arsed to leave groups though a fair amount are: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2066351/Screenshots/Kotaku/netloss.PNG That small burst the other day is when Tiller posted about it. Pretty mcuh the past few months has been a constat "person x left group". Also http://steamcommunity.com/groups/kotakuites/announcements/detail/1027014441691256545 now note the current amount we have. We actually got close to 3,400 at one point.

 

So yeah I don't know much what's to discuss. The people who used to buy and run servers for it, post up events etc have pretty much moved on. Apart from the standard E3 there hasn't been an event for ages. The group is for all intents and purposes dead.

[P4: Gritty Reboot]

The saddest part of all this is clicking over to Joel's Steam account, seeing the thousands of games and how little he's played 'em.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/id/joelev/games?tab=all

[Battra92]

The saddest part of all this is clicking over to Joel's Steam account, seeing the thousands of games and how little he's played 'em.

 

http://steamcommunity.com/id/joelev/games?tab=all

 

He's too busy being a "journalist" to play games.

[deanb]

They all have them. It's a press account. I think Owen is the only one who has his own account and his own games.

I have Fahey as a steam friend and he plays the odd game or so every now n then.

[TheRevanchist]

Regarding Steam: "I just joined." - Joel

[AgamemnonV2]

I remember when my first account got banned because I called Bashcraft out on defending rape and pedophilia in Japan as "cultural differences." How much better can irony be defined as when my second account gets starred one day before I leave to live in a different country, a process which has left me with forgetting my recent password change and being stuck in Gawker limbo in regards to a password reset?

 

Of course now that the redirect no longer works it's all for nothing anyway.

[deanb]

I got a reply back from Joel. I'm still in shock from the reply.

 

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2066351/Documents/Kotakuites_email.txt

 

How do you even react to that kind of accusation? It's just so surreal.

[Strangelove]

I got a reply back from Joel. I'm still in shock from the reply.

 

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2066351/Documents/Kotakuites_email.txt

 

How do you even react to that kind of accusation? It's just so surreal.

 

 

Haha, what? Where did he get that from?

[Baconrath]

I'm guessing Joel hasn't been issued his Gawker Network standard issue monocle, tophat and cane sword yet.

[Pirandello]

I got a reply back from Joel. I'm still in shock from the reply.

 

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2066351/Documents/Kotakuites_email.txt

 

How do you even react to that kind of accusation? It's just so surreal.

That is hilarious. Perhaps making up a list of imaginary "things" that Crecente has accused you of would be nice, as well.

 

So I'm taking it as a "no", then.

 

Among other things:

 

I'm really glad you did. I was trying to

comment on X but I didn't have permission, so I just gave up after a

while.

I was under the impression that all you needed to post was an account.

 

-snip-

And the following part afterwards having absolutely ZERO to do with the current conversation at hand.

 

Figures, y'know? Come forward with a serious topic towards them and receive an "equally"-serious response of "DURRRRRRRRRRRRR".

Edited July 10, 2011 by Pirandello

[deanb]

Yeah, in my reply I pointed out the validation email probably got caught in their spam filter. Given the nature of Gawker network I wouldn't be surprised if they have an over-active spam filter. I had been curious on him popping up in member list but not saying anything. Just assumed he was having a peek.

 

I did kind of expect something like that back. The results of some internal memo sent around of "I'm emailing this dean guy, what does everyone know". However for that to be the response was totally unexpected.

[Hot Heart]

That is hilarious.

 

I guess you just explain that Mr. Crecente must have mistaken you for some of the other people who dislike him.

 

Seriously though, I think it's pretty obvious you're not the sort of person to make up such stupid threats (serious or not) let alone directly confront anyone like that anyway.

Edited July 10, 2011 by Hot Heart

[Pirandello]

I did kind of expect something like that back. The results of some internal memo sent around of "I'm emailing this dean guy, what does everyone know". However for that to be the response was totally unexpected.

Perhaps they just wrote various amounts of generally incriminating scenarios, threw them into a hat, and drew from it.

[toxicitizen]

Do you even know what he might be referring to, Dean?

 

I'm assuming based on your reaction that you never said anything of the sort, but do you remember of anyone else posting something even remotely resembling that on the old forum or wherever? O_o

 

I mean, a misunderstanding over something like this might explain why Kotaku/Crecente gave you the boot with seemingly no reason.

But otherwise, if Crecente made that up out of spite/for no reason, then he is fucking insane.

Edited July 10, 2011 by FLD

[deanb]

There's nothing I remember off the top of my head. We are talking well over a year ago. I know whitemage really had it in for them, though his grudge was mostly with Owen and even then I can't see him saying anything like this.

 

 

 

It wouldn't surprise me if it was made up. A little story to help reaffirm that the mass bannings last year were wholly justified. Because while there may have been some reason behind it there was certainly not a single ounce of thought.

[Connorrrr]

I got a reply back from Joel. I'm still in shock from the reply.

 

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2066351/Documents/Kotakuites_email.txt

 

How do you even react to that kind of accusation? It's just so surreal.

 

What the fuck.