Quote from: GnosticGoblin on December 15, 2024, 05:56:07 PM

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 05:54:38 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 15, 2024, 05:50:44 PMfeel

This word renders all of your assurances about misinformation and harassment irrelevant.

Instead of clear standards and rules you just have "How the moderator feels about it". That always creates a hostile environment in any large forum.

This forum has rules which are not being enforced. The trolls are allowed to do it hate crimes here even in breach of the T&C

If you feel there's a specific rule being breached you can DM me about it. Obviously people stating mere opinions on this thread in particular about the mailing Zak admits to have written would not necessarily constitute a breach of rules, much less a 'hate crime'.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 15, 2024, 06:11:19 PMIf they repeatedly intentionally derail threads as a hostile action

Vague.

QuoteIf they repeatedly follow you around to every thread you post on just for the purpose of attacking you, with the result that they derail the topic of the thread, they would probably be sanctioned, and if they violated the terms of that sanction (for example "do not post on this thread again", or "do not post on any thread started by Zak") they would be banned...If they just insult you...probably

Again, vague. The line insulting-therefore-derail and insulting-but-not-derail is not defined. And you have the word "probably".

Basically, this is just another way of stating that there are no clear rules and its a judgment call.

And none of this has to do with misinformation, the biggest problem.

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 06:18:50 PMAnd none of this has to do with misinformation, the biggest problem.

The best way to solve this problem is to not be part of it yourself.  So, stop misinforming people as to what my post said.  Which I note you haven't corrected, so you must be comfortable with inaccuracies when they are committed by you...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 15, 2024, 06:38:14 PM

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 06:18:50 PMAnd none of this has to do with misinformation, the biggest problem.

The best way to solve this problem is to not be part of it yourself.  So, stop misinforming people as to what my post said.  Which I note you haven't corrected, so you must be comfortable with inaccuracies when they are committed by you...

We disagree about the content of your post.

Well, this thread is a right mess of a situation.

Zak, I have comments.

First, this is not actually going to help you. Your best move is that you can play the "negative attention is actually good attention" game all day long knowing that the more people turn shrill trying to deplatform you, the more they do the work of putting your content out there for you. Community terraforming like this actually puts you in a worse situation because it stands to delete your negative attention free marketing system.

Second, you made a tactical error on how you go about community terraforming. You pick one subcommunity and you make a protracted effort to change opinions there. And then you move on to a different one. This process takes months per community because you need to nudge rather than push. Putting a bunch of posts or comments on all these different communities spreads your efforts too thin and it becomes a flash in the pan everywhere which people will collectively ignore. You divided your forces too thinly and didn't give it enough time to work, anyways.

Finally, $1000 for one book? Well, at least your book prices are somewhere close to authentically medieval. I can only conclude that this is an attempt to make it a rare and exotic collectible. I don't think that will work, but you're welcome to try.

I repeat again, for emphasis, absolute masterstroke.

As a helpful suggestion, whenever the subject of 'proof' or 'misinformation' comes up, as it is wont to do in these types of threads, it might be fruitful to ask one's fellow participant to explicitly mention what conditions this proof should conform to in order for it to be accepted, and what actions they will take if said proof is then provided. In case of misinformation both parties must agree on a method to determine whether misinformation has occured before before any meaningful communication can occur. This is assuming one is an adherent of the theory that both participants are seeking to further mutual understanding and are open to changing their minds, which is admittedly hard to credit in this case. 

On the subject of the reliability of commentators, it should be noted that on this forum, the only person who can be said to have legally made false claims is Zak himself. I refer you to page 37 and 38 of the relevant court case. where no less then 11 statements made on Zaks 2019 facebook post were found to be false. But he won the case! is the usual deflection. The one does not preclude the other, as the facebook statements can be found false, yet still not constitute defamation, nor does their accuracy have any bearing on the truth of the accusations levelled against Zak. 

Quote from: Fheredin on December 15, 2024, 07:05:15 PMFirst, this is not actually going to help you.

It has already helped me. Since I have seen what happens when a thread starts with misinformation and I do not intervene and fix it, I know very well that this thread (like all theRPGsite threads about me) features lots of RPGSite regulars complaining but ultimately turns out much better than the equivalent in a place where I do not intervene--in which case the lies simply compound and become increasingly fanciful.

In my experience, RPGSite people mistake the unpleasant sensation of:
-seeing words on a thread they opened be about something they don't care about and filling the thread with posts expressing that-
with
-an outcome counter to the one any given person in the thread intended

QuoteCommunity terraforming like this actually puts you in a worse situation because it stands to delete your negative attention free marketing system.

Yes I know this silly "all attention is good attention" theory and it only works when the goal is money or cultivating a right-wing contrarian audience, neither of which are my goal.

The community that I worked to put together has already produced excellent results ( a crowdsourced dungeon for instance)

QuoteFinally, $1000 for one book? Well, at least your book prices are somewhere close to authentically medieval. I can only conclude that this is an attempt to make it a rare and exotic collectible. I don't think that will work, but you're welcome to try.

Again, this has already worked: nine people have already paid this price.

---

In general, when seized with the urge to give someone else advice, the best policy is to ask questions first, not assume every condition invisible to you is the one necessary to make your advice accurate. (This advice I just gave assumes you want your advice to be useful, which, I know, is a big assumption. Sorry if you didn't want it to be,)

re:
Eirikrautha's post below--
As I already said, we disagree about what their post on pg 1 means.

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 07:01:45 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 15, 2024, 06:38:14 PM

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 06:18:50 PMAnd none of this has to do with misinformation, the biggest problem.

The best way to solve this problem is to not be part of it yourself.  So, stop misinforming people as to what my post said.  Which I note you haven't corrected, so you must be comfortable with inaccuracies when they are committed by you...

We disagree about the content of your post.

No, you are misrepresenting the content of my post, because you made an error (and are apparently incapable of admitting so).  You were not mentioned in my post.  This is not an "interpretation;" it is a fact.  This dissembling on your part invalidates your entire stated purpose here of "correcting misinformation," since you are unwilling to admit when you have been the purveyor of it.

Physician, heal thyself.

Quote from: BlueWave on December 15, 2024, 07:10:11 PMI repeat again, for emphasis, absolute masterstroke.

Yawn.
You keep quoting a case that Zak won, and insist that it somehow proves that he is a harasser. That's not how it works. There's the court decision that Viv couldn't bear the burden of proof or whatever it's worded legally, so she loses the case. Also there are videos of Viv herself admitting that she lied in those claims that you keep waving around.
Poor unfortunate troll.

I am just waiting for a new discussion thread titled

"The best place to talk about Zak"

Quote from: Zak S on December 15, 2024, 04:49:19 PM..and one factor contributing to Macris shrugging off giving up on our deal at the time that you know nothing about is that Macris knew he had broken previous agreements and guarantees repeatedly before that by, among other things, refusing to pay on time more than once.

Alex and I negotiated a deal through which I got paid. I don't know whether the entity paying was technically Alex or technically Defy or what the exact financial connection was between them--only that Alex appeared to be entirely responsible for all the decisions resulting in me getting paid by whatever entity was paying and all other ultimate decisions when I worked with that company.

When I was getting paid late, I called Alex and Alex was the only contact I had about getting paid late. Alex was also the only entity I had contact with about leaving.

Pundit, you had the good fortune to work with me after I was SVP of Defy Media and had a large well-funded division under my control. Everyjoe.com was always in the black, so you never saw the nightmarish near-insolvency of The Escapist.

Zak developed I Hit It With My Axe for The Escapist prior to our sale of the company to Defy Media. At that time, The Escapist was majority owned by an investment fund called EFP. I had at one time held a controlling share but in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 I had raised funds under bad terms and no longer had full control, though I remained in charge of day-to-day operations. As such I was Zak's go-to for business affairs.

During that period -- the last years of our independent existence -- our financial situation degenerated as game journalism entered the death spiral that led to Gamergate. EPF refused to recapitalize us again; instead it would just make short-term loans to us whenever I managed to plead with sufficient desperation. Even when I did successfully make the case, EPF didn't necessarily see funding us as their top priority, and it would be delayed for days and sometimes weeks. On several occasions my CFO and I were forced to pay for critical functions out of our own pockets. And so The Escapist began paying all of its vendors late. All of them got paid... but always late. Eventually we just suspended many of our shows, I Hit It With My Axe among them. (The difficult we were facing as an independent media outlet during an era of consolidation is essentially what drove the sale of The Escapist to Defy Media.)

Zak is therefore being both honest and accurate when he asserts that he was being paid late during that time period. Of course, it wasn't personal to him; the opposite is true. When I could, I expedited payment to him in preference to corporate vendors because I had sympathy for the situation he found himself in as a full-time caregiver to his wife. (After some early friction Zak and I eventually developed a positive working relationship because we were both caring for chronically ill women with similar health conditions.)

The incident that led to Zak and I severing our business relationship occurred much later, after Defy Media had acquired The Escapist and injected it with new cash. As soon as we had funds, I immediately reached out to my favorite creators to "put the band back together;" one of those was Zak, to do another season of I Hit It With My Axe. He agreed but requested to be paid in advance for the season because of how bad things had gotten the last time. That seemed reasonable to me, so that's what we did. Our working relationship collapsed a few months after that. He'd already been paid but we hadn't yet launched the show. (Before anyone asks, no, I don't think that this was timed by him as part of some nefarious scheme to screw me over.)
 

As someone who asked Zak for a copy of the instructions (and received them) I never took any of it as a directive to shill for him anywhere, aside from the request to retweet some of his images, and even that I wouldn't really consider 'shilling' in the traditional sense. I get how someone could think it's implied though. Even then, in several of those places, you can't discuss Zak's work or those from several other creators at all, so shilling for him would be pretty difficult to do. To add to that, Zak iirc, posted some clarification around the time he started this in the LotFP facebook group about his intent, which was indeed to push collaboration and interaction in the community.

I don't have the time in my life right now (and I don't have $1000) to do what Zak has requested, so I'm going to miss out on the book, which to be fair, looks pretty great. I've always found Zak's work to be highly interesting, so that sucks for me, I guess. Having said that, I get why people don't always get along with him on a personal level. He and I probably would disagree on a lot of things and it's unlikely we'd get along in real life, but I find him to be an interesting person (I like interesting people) and his work is a net positive to the community.

I guess this is a bunch of words, but my overall point here is that I didn't see anything nefarious on Zak's part in doing this. YMMV.

I have a question for Zak.
Why did so many people try to destroy you in the wake of the Mandy claims?

Quote from: Zak S on December 14, 2024, 07:13:51 AMEvery time there's a conspiracy theory

I mean it's a bunch of almost-socks you want to incentivize, and you're not just targeting some big corporations, but also some normal sites like this one.

Quoteparticipate in building RPG community that isn't all psychotic trash people.

Why are you always so wacky?  You know you could just build a forum or a subreddit or a discord and people would come and hang out.  Why this scheme?

QuoteIf you actually read the instructions there's nothing suggesting anyone say anything nice about me or praise the work

"The instructions were to create the infovirus, but I didn't say when and where to release it.... yet..."

QuoteYou guys made that up because I guess you're complete morons.

I mean come on, it's reasonable to be concerned that it would be the next step, right?


Look I get that there's a list of Banned People on /r/ttrpg, /r/osr, and many related subreddits, all with the same tool moderators.  I think everyone understands that, and plenty of people don't like it.  In fact, for like four years, you were the ONLY Banned Person.  It was literally the Zak S rule.  But you HAVE to know that these shenanigans are at least a little bit eyeroll, I'm sure.

Whatever, Zak S content is always top tier.  This thread is pretty fun, so was the thread where you made that guy apologize to you and Pundit pinned it.  I guess from a plebeian perspective, I have no complaints, as I am, in fact, entertained.

First, he lives a perverted promiscuous lifestyle.

Next, he writes shitty rpgs.

Then, he goes on to sue people when they hurt his feelings.

And most recently, he brigades out across discussion forums.

Dear Lord, will the lameness never cease? It's just fucking embarrassing. He should just go clean public toilets, make an honest living doing necessary work, take his pay and use it to settle down with a good woman and build a frugal but decent life together, and stop embarrassing himself.

He must not have been beaten enough as a child.