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[Zambayoshi]

Derek brought himself into this. You keep acting like this article has nothing to do with what's been going on. This flame war already existed and Roberts did try to ignore it, until they were accused of racist hiring practices and fucking fraud.

Escapist article did not to my knowledge mention Smart. Roberts brought him up in the long letter he sent to Escapist and published on the SC site.

Roberts needs to calm down. The fact that he spent 8 hours writing that letter to Escapist shows he is not being rational about this. I'm sure it is really annoying for him that Smart won't shut up about SC's supposed problems, but he's not doing himself any favours by reacting.

It takes two sides to make a flame war. We know that Derek Smart is more than happy to engage in one. That leaves Roberts et al to take the higher ground.

Escapist must be feeling quite bemused by the whole situation. I know I am.

 

[tuxfool]

Escapist article did not to my knowledge mention Smart. Roberts brought him up in the long letter he sent to Escapist and published on the SC site.

They were more than happy to give him a platform in the author's previous article.

 

[nynt9]

Escapist article did not to my knowledge mention Smart. Roberts brought him up in the long letter he sent to Escapist and published on the SC site.

Roberts needs to calm down. The fact that he spent 8 hours writing that letter to Escapist shows he is not being rational about this. I'm sure it is really annoying for him that Smart won't shut up about SC's supposed problems, but he's not doing himself any favours by reacting.

It takes two sides to make a flame war. We know that Derek Smart is more than happy to engage in one. That leaves Roberts et al to take the higher ground.

Escapist must be feeling quite bemused by the whole situation. I know I am.

Escapist posted several articles based on his ramblings before the accusations article. He's been involved in this since day 1.

Roberts can not afford to ignore this. Derek keeps recruiting more gamergate crazies, shitty journalists and people attracted to sensationalism and people who go "hmm there are wild allegations, there must be some truth (even though they come from a place of utter insanity)". This is Derek's tactic. Keep yelling his nonsense until he finds people gullible enough to fall for it and create doubt about Roberts. He's been doing this for literally decades, it's the same tactic every time and people fall for it again and again.

 

[Zambayoshi]

They were more than happy to give him a platform in the author's previous article.

Escapist posted several articles based on his ramblings before the accusations article.

I think that article was pretty balanced in that it mentioned responses from CIG's side. To be fair, other sites reported on the same thing. Kotaku ran a couple http://www.kotaku.com.au/tags/derek-smart/

I don't think it is fair to criticise a news site for reporting on stuff that is of interest to the public, provided it is presented in a responsible and even-handed manner.

Escapist revealed that the sources were anonymous, so everyone can make up their own mind about how much weight to give the claims.

To my mind, the article itself doesn't come across as aggressive or a 'hit piece' merely because it reports on negative things that are being said about the company.

I read an article today on a reputable news site talking about how Apple could fail, and it mentioned very few 'sources' for this fear, instead drawing comparisons with other companies like VW or Blackberry. It was clearly an opinion piece and quite negative in tone. You don't see Apple attacking news sites for articles like that. Such an attack would be much bigger news than the article itself. Similarly, CIG needs to ignore Roberts and issue curt denials to (or ignore) claims such as those reported by the Escapist.

Roberts can not afford to ignore this.

If he doesn't ignore it, is there any way, other than issuing brief denials, that you see not feeding the speculation and giving Smart more opportunities to build on?

 

[Geist-]

They were more than happy to give him a platform in the author's previous article.

Yep, here it is for anyone who wants to read it. Before their employee woes article, almost all of the quotes came from Smart's blog.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...r-Citizen-Controversy-Reaches-a-Boiling-Point

I think that article was pretty balanced in that it mentioned responses from CIG's side. To be fair, other sites reported on the same thing. Kotaku ran a couple http://www.kotaku.com.au/tags/derek-smart/

I don't think it is fair to criticise a news site for reporting on stuff that is of interest to the public, provided it is presented in a responsible and even-handed manner.

Escapist revealed that the sources were anonymous, so everyone can make up their own mind about how much weight to give the claims.

To my mind, the article itself doesn't come across as aggressive or a 'hit piece' merely because it reports on negative things that are being said about the company.

I read an article today on a reputable news site talking about how Apple could fail, and it mentioned very few 'sources' for this fear, instead drawing comparisons with other companies like VW or Blackberry. It was clearly an opinion piece and quite negative in tone. You don't see Apple attacking news sites for articles like that. Such an attack would be much bigger news than the article itself. Similarly, CIG needs to ignore Roberts and issue curt denials to (or ignore) claims such as those reported by the Escapist.

It's not about the article itself, it's about the way they went about it. They had an artificial, extremely short deadline for CIG to give a response, and even when Roberts managed to send that response with 3 hours to spare, they say that the email was lost in the spam folder. Even if that's true, which it may be, that is extremely irresponsible of The Escapist considering that their article contained criminal allegations. And that's not even considering the flawed vetting process of the 'sources'.

 

[Zambayoshi]

It's not about the article itself, it's about the way they went about it. They had an artificial, extremely short deadline for CIG to give a response, and even when Roberts managed to send that response with 3 hours to spare, they say that the email was lost in the spam folder. Even if that's true, which it may be, that is extremely irresponsible of The Escapist considering that their article contained criminal allegations. And that's not even considering the flawed vetting process of the 'sources'.

I agree with you on some points but not on others.

24 hours seems reasonable to me, but I think that Escapist would have been prudent to follow up with another request for comment before publishing. Even a phone call asking whether any comment was forthcoming would have been a good idea.

The spam folder thing. Fair enough, although this could have been avoided by either the Escapist calling CIG before publishing or Roberts calling Escapist to confirm his reply had been received.

Flawed vetting process: hopefully Escapist cross-checked as much as it could for ID purposes, and pressed the sources to go on record. The fact that Escapist has stood by its reporting presumably means that it is satisfied that sources were checked as well as possible in the circumstances.

One thing I wonder about is how journalists can reasonably verify the ID of sources. What items or documents would provide reassurance that someone worked at a particular developer? I'm thinking that a combination of LinkedIn profile, photo ID and pay slips would be good, but there are probably other things that would do a better or worse job of it.

 

[call_kotaku]

I agree with you on some points but not on others.

24 hours seems reasonable to me, but I think that Escapist would have been prudent to follow up with another request for comment before publishing. Even a phone call asking whether any comment was forthcoming would have been a good idea.

The spam folder thing. Fair enough, although this could have been avoided by either the Escapist calling CIG before publishing or Roberts calling Escapist to confirm his reply had been received.

Flawed vetting process: hopefully Escapist cross-checked as much as it could for ID purposes, and pressed the sources to go on record. The fact that Escapist has stood by its reporting presumably means that it is satisfied that sources were checked as well as possible in the circumstances.

One thing I wonder about is how journalists can reasonably verify the ID of sources. What items or documents would provide reassurance that someone worked at a particular developer? I'm thinking that a combination of LinkedIn profile, photo ID and pay slips would be good, but there are probably other things that would do a better or worse job of it.

If the allegations that Derek Smart was shopping those sources to other publications is correct (it seems like it is), then the fact that nobody else wanted to touch the story with a ten foot pole demonstrates the actual "veracity" of these sources.

With the Escapist's track history with journalistic competency you shouldn't assume that not retracting the article is any indication that they actually did their due diligence.

 

[Anjelus_]

Roberts needs to calm down. The fact that he spent 8 hours writing that letter to Escapist shows he is not being rational about this.

You do know that Escapist contacted him and said "Hey we're going to run this piece tomorrow. If you want to respond, you need to do it before it goes live tomorrow," right? He wrote for 8 hours and pulled an all-nighter because they forced him to do it, which was a shitty thing to do in the first place.

^ Also has a lot to do with why the letter was so ranty and emotional.

 

[tuxfool]

If the allegations that Derek Smart was shopping those sources to other publications is correct (it seems like it is), then the fact that nobody else wanted to touch the story with a ten foot pole demonstrates the actual "veracity" of these sources.

You'd think by now other sites would be confirming this information. Kotaku has its own sources and they're not jumping into this.

 

[watership]

Escapist article did not to my knowledge mention Smart. Roberts brought him up in the long letter he sent to Escapist and published on the SC site.

Roberts needs to calm down. The fact that he spent 8 hours writing that letter to Escapist shows he is not being rational about this. I'm sure it is really annoying for him that Smart won't shut up about SC's supposed problems, but he's not doing himself any favours by reacting.

It takes two sides to make a flame war. We know that Derek Smart is more than happy to engage in one. That leaves Roberts et al to take the higher ground.

Escapist must be feeling quite bemused by the whole situation. I know I am.

Bemused? Are you serious? You don't write a piece like that and sit back and giggle because the subject of your article is fuming and threatening legal action. If they did react that way they would be nothing less than journalist trolls.

The Escapist gave Roberts a very short time to respond, and he apparently had to cancel his plans to work with his lawyers and do his own investigation and answer their points in their piece. I know I'd be pretty intense if an outlet wanted to write that piece about my company.

Now we come to Derek Smart. If you do a basic google search on Star Citizen and Smart, you would find and incredible amount of time and effort this guy gone through against this game. He has been in contact and involved with the Author of this piece in a number of ways, and before the article when live, he was crowing about something big going down in a number of hours. He had also been shopping this story to a number of sites in the past weeks, demanding they bring their guns on CIG. He called out Gamespot and other sites to "Do their job".

This project may be in trouble, and the way CIG operates may have serious issues. Yet the way this whole thing came about, the methods used and the people involved are extremely sketchy.

 

[nynt9]

Bemused? Are you serious? You don't write a piece like that and sit back and giggle because the subject of your article is fuming and threatening legal action. If they did react that way they would be nothing less than journalist trolls.

The Escapist gave Roberts a very short time to respond, and he apparently had to cancel his plans to work with his lawyers and do his own investigation and answer their points in their piece. I know I'd be pretty intense if an outlet wanted to write that piece about my company.

Now we come to Derek Smart. If you do a basic google search on Star Citizen and Smart, you would find and incredible amount of time and effort this guy gone through against this game. He has been in contact and involved with the Author of this piece in a number of ways, and before the article when live, he was crowing about something big going down in a number of hours. He had also been shopping this story to a number of sites in the past weeks, demanding they bring their guns on CIG. He called out Gamespot and other sites to "Do their job".

This project may be in trouble, and the way CIG operates may have serious issues. Yet the way this whole thing came about, the methods used and the people involved are extremely sketchy.

Just let it go. That poster has been playing the "maybe Derek Smart's claims have merit, maybe The Escapist are right, let's just take them at face value" game for days now, every day they come back and ignore all the arguments made during the day and make the same argument and watch as people get derailed by the same points again and again. Just look back in this thread.

 

[Zambayoshi]

You do know that Escapist contacted him and said "Hey we're going to run this piece tomorrow. If you want to respond, you need to do it before it goes live tomorrow," right? He wrote for 8 hours and pulled an all-nighter because they forced him to do it, which was a shitty thing to do in the first place.

^ Also has a lot to do with why the letter was so ranty and emotional.

I don't think they forced him to do anything. He wrote a lot of stuff that was unasked and uncalled for (going on about Derek Smart for example). He could have just given a bare-bones denial / no comment (which I think would have been wiser).

Bemused? Are you serious? You don't write a piece like that and sit back and giggle because the subject of your article is fuming and threatening legal action. If they did react that way they would be nothing less than journalist trolls.

The Escapist gave Roberts a very short time to respond, and he apparently had to cancel his plans to work with his lawyers and do his own investigation and answer their points in their piece. I know I'd be pretty intense if an outlet wanted to write that piece about my company.

Now we come to Derek Smart. If you do a basic google search on Star Citizen and Smart, you would find and incredible amount of time and effort this guy gone through against this game. He has been in contact and involved with the Author of this piece in a number of ways, and before the article when live, he was crowing about something big going down in a number of hours..

Bemused = perplexed. Escapist wrote to CIG and gave a list of questions. They get back a massive letter from Chris Roberts that goes totally OTT, Why wouldn't they be a bit confused? Understanding why Chris Roberts feels the way he does about Derek Smart doesn't mean understanding why he thought it was a good idea to write what he did.

I wouldn't be surprised if Derek Smart was talking to the 'anonymous sources' and encouraging them to come forward. I also think that Escapist would (as they say they did) go straight to these sources and not just be dictated to by Smart. We all know that Smart is gunning for Roberts and CIG, but that is a far cry from him fabricating the claims and coaching the sources on what to say.

Roberts' heart was in the right place and I believe he was being genuine, but it was naive or ill-considered to respond in the way he did.

Just let it go. That poster has been playing the "maybe Derek Smart's claims have merit, maybe The Escapist are right, let's just take them at face value" game for days now, every day they come back and ignore all the arguments made during the day and make the same argument and watch as people get derailed by the same points again and again. Just look back in this thread.

I think you'll find it's a little more nuanced than that. I live in Australia so I'm probably asleep when many of the posts in this thread are made. I also consider that not engaging over certain points or arguments is not indicative of 'ignoring' them. I broadly agree with much of what has been said. I've said so. I might be wrong in what I have said in this thread, but I assure you that I am genuine in wanting to discuss this issue. It seems too simplistic to just cast aspersions at Escapist's motivations or associations. If people want to do that, that's their choice, but I don't really have anything to add when someone calls Derek Smart a lunatic or what have you.

They put CIG's head in a guillotine and gave then 24 hours before the blade dropped. Investigative journalism is about getting as much information as humanly possible, not taking someone's reputation hostage so you can publish ASAP.

You need to factor in the possibility that waiting too long to publish will lead to someone else breaking the story first. Unless Escapist negotiated exclusivity they did not know who else might have beat them too the punch.

24 hours is a long time in today's media cycle. I believe that CIG could have easily done a brief 'denial' response to the allegations within that time. Certainly, Roberts wrote an 8-hour letter within that time.

Nothing about their handling of CIG's side is how pieces like this are supposed to be done. No way anyone involved set foot in a journalism class.

I disagree. What Escapist did do properly was contact CIG for comment before publishing, giving a deadline for comment, and updating the article when they became aware of Roberts' response. I've said that the verification was problematic. Whether or not they could have done a better job with that, or whether they should have chosen not to publish, is something that is difficult to say based on what we currently know.

The burden of proof is supposed to be on the journalist, even when anonymous sources are necessary. Journalism is NOT acting as an unfettered mouthpiece for anybody with a scandalous story to tell.

I agree that when anonymous sources are used then the journalist bears the responsibility for repeating the claims. A prudent journalist would try to convince a source to go on record and if refused, try to publish the reason for that refusal. For example: "a source in the LAPD who declined to be named due to not being authorised to speak about the case." I also agree that journalists should not be 'unfettered mouthpieces'. They need to use discretion, but many of them make a living out of airing scandalous claims. Granted, that type of journalism doesn't generally use anonymous sources. I agree that Escapist have not done everything that they should have done to be above reproach, but apart from insinuations from certain people (and open allegations from Roberts) there is no evidence that I'm aware of that Escapist acted in bad faith.

 

[Geist-]

I don't think they forced him to do anything. He wrote a lot of stuff that was unasked and uncalled for (going on about Derek Smart for example). He could have just given a bare-bones denial / no comment (which I think would have been wiser).

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if you're just going to keep ignoring the rest of the thread, I don't think I can take you seriously anymore.

 

[Herp2daDerp]

I think that article was pretty balanced in that it mentioned responses from CIG's side. To be fair, other sites reported on the same thing. Kotaku ran a couple http://www.kotaku.com.au/tags/derek-smart/

I don't think it is fair to criticise a news site for reporting on stuff that is of interest to the public, provided it is presented in a responsible and even-handed manner.

Escapist revealed that the sources were anonymous, so everyone can make up their own mind about how much weight to give the claims.

To my mind, the article itself doesn't come across as aggressive or a 'hit piece' merely because it reports on negative things that are being said about the company.

I read an article today on a reputable news site talking about how Apple could fail, and it mentioned very few 'sources' for this fear, instead drawing comparisons with other companies like VW or Blackberry. It was clearly an opinion piece and quite negative in tone. You don't see Apple attacking news sites for articles like that. Such an attack would be much bigger news than the article itself. Similarly, CIG needs to ignore Roberts and issue curt denials to (or ignore) claims such as those reported by the Escapist.



If he doesn't ignore it, is there any way, other than issuing brief denials, that you see not feeding the speculation and giving Smart more opportunities to build on?

Lololol. Writing a speculative article about how a company could fail is not the same as the very specific accusations of harrasment, scamming people and horrible working conditions that Phailscapist made.

 

[foxtrot3d]

So, I haven't been keeping up with this for a couple days now. What's the update? Did The Escapist apologize as per CiG's letter or is CiG going ahead with a defamation suit?

 

[aliengmr]

So, I haven't been keeping up with this for a couple days now. What's the update? Did The Escapist apologize as per CiG's letter or is CiG going ahead with a defamation suit?

The Escapist is claiming its an on going story. So no, they aren't. CIG has been pretty quiet.

 

[Armaros]

I don't think they forced him to do anything. He wrote a lot of stuff that was unasked and uncalled for (going on about Derek Smart for example). He could have just given a bare-bones denial / no comment (which I think would have been wiser).

I wonder how logical and unemotional you would be if you, your wife and the culmination of your life's work in the industry were being charged with alleged federal crimes.

And you had less then 24 hours to respond.

 

[Zambayoshi]

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but if you're just going to keep ignoring the rest of the thread, I don't think I can take you seriously anymore.

I've read the whole thread. I'd be happy to respond to any point you'd care to mention.

I wonder how logical and unemotional you would be if you, your wife and the culmination of your life's work in the industry were being charged with alleged federal crimes.

And you had less then 24 hours to respond.

I don't doubt it would be nerve-wracking. I was once accused of breach of a restraint clause by my previous employer (who is a lawyer as well) and I was very shaken. I even spent hours writing a long letter refuting everything in detail and attacking my employer for wrongs that he had committed. But I didn't end up sending that letter. I instead stopped for a few minutes and thought 'if I send this letter not only am I going to rile him up even more, but I am potentially giving him ammunition to use against me or other reasons to attack me'. My objective was to get on with my business, so I wrote a very short letter politely denying any breach, and left it at that. My previous employer never took it any further.

I'm not suggesting what Roberts is going through is on the same scale as what happened to me, but the point is that if you are in a position like he is, you need to think twice before you say something.

 

[epmode]

This thread has been circling the drain for a few days now. Let it go.

 

[dose]

And that's not even considering the flawed vetting process of the 'sources'.

I'm not sure what to believe with the whole CIG thing, but I keep seeing this 'flawed vetting'. The Escapist say they verified most of their sources visually over Skype, compared them to their LinkedIn profile images, and also saw payslips. What is flawed about that?

 

[jim-jam bongs]

Atleast this ordeal made it plain to me why gamergate is still a thing, because gamergate is just something of a mercenary hate group at this point. They don't really have any core unifying ideals and it seems like all they're interested in is validation from any source that can claim some sort of authority, so they've just become an advocacy group for anybody with no scruples and an axe to grind.

What they choose to be angry about ends up being a completely disjointed and unrelated series of issues, but really it's just a series of people that exploited the group to further their existing grudges.

rockclapping.gif

But the secret is, they were always just a mercenary hate flash-mob, ready to mobilise when they were given an excuse by a shithead with an axe to grind.

 

[Shenmue]

It honestly shouldn't matter. Yes, $20k for some nice cappucinos seems crazy, but when you fund development, you fund people. I can't count how many times gaffers have freaked out about smaller Kickstarters openly using the money for living expenses, for example. Like... What did you think the money was for? You think they have to insert cash into a special money drive connected to their workstations and art assets/lines of code materialize from it? You're paying for people's salaries, tools and working conditions. And frankly, in much of tech (outside of games sadly) high quality working conditions are a major consideration for high level talent to work for you at all.

Haha this is so true. I've always thought it was funny when people acted like it was some huge scandal. Like did these people think there's a store somewhere where you pay money for the graphics? "OOoh they have a sale on midlevel bosses today! Buy 1 get 1 free!"

FFS! The majority of the money put into every single project ever is to pay salaries, which *huge shocker* is used to pay living expenses like rent, food, medical treatment, etc., so those great people making levels, tightening up level 5, etc. can STAY ALIVE to continue doing those things!

 

[TheVoidDragon]

I'm not sure what to believe with the whole CIG thing, but I keep seeing this 'flawed vetting'. The Escapist say they verified most of their sources visually over Skype, compared them to their LinkedIn profile images, and also saw payslips. What is flawed about that?

There was no mention of video calling them over skype, it merely says "had their pictures compared to their LinkedIn profiles or other images of them on the web to verify identities." It doesn't say how they visually verified them on Skype. The way it's worded could mean comparing their profile picture.

The one who showed the payslip and ID card blanked out their name, which completely defeats the point of showing them to verify they are who they say they are. There's also the problem that CiG does not use ID cards for employees.

 

[PtM]

I think you'll find it's a little more nuanced than that. I live in Australia so I'm probably asleep when many of the posts in this thread are made. I also consider that not engaging over certain points or arguments is not indicative of 'ignoring' them. I broadly agree with much of what has been said. I've said so. I might be wrong in what I have said in this thread, but I assure you that I am genuine in wanting to discuss this issue. It seems too simplistic to just cast aspersions at Escapist's motivations or associations. If people want to do that, that's their choice, but I don't really have anything to add when someone calls Derek Smart a lunatic or what have you.

i-dont-believe-you.gif *plonk*

 

[Jisgsaw]

I agree with you on some points but not on others.

24 hours seems reasonable to me, but I think that Escapist would have been prudent to follow up with another request for comment before publishing. Even a phone call asking whether any comment was forthcoming would have been a good idea.

The spam folder thing. Fair enough, although this could have been avoided by either the Escapist calling CIG before publishing or Roberts calling Escapist to confirm his reply had been received.

One thing I wonder about is how journalists can reasonably verify the ID of sources. What items or documents would provide reassurance that someone worked at a particular developer? I'm thinking that a combination of LinkedIn profile, photo ID and pay slips would be good, but there are probably other things that would do a better or worse job of it.

IIRC, Roberts informed them that they'll give them a response before the article publication.
Even if the spam folder thing is true, publishing without getting back to him to know where his response is knowing he said he'll answer is pretty unprofessional imo.

For the vetting, CIG not issuing personal ID cards, and the pay slipss having the personal info blanked out, it's pretty shaddy too.

 

[Version 3.0]

So, I just stumbled across this thread. I read the Escapist piece, and it sounded pretty bad. And it didn't sound at all out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it calls to mind Curt Schilling and 38 Studios. A disorganized company burning through money is totally believable.

Then I skim over this thread, and it sounds like the whole thing is some sort of slur campaign by Derek Smart? I can easily see him trying that. I find it amazing to think that he could succeed - at that or anything. How could a functioning outlet like the Escapist fall for something like that?

If anyone wants to give a quick summary, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll read it more carefully when I'm not constrained for time. Sounds like quite a story.

 

[Zambayoshi]

So, I just stumbled across this thread. I read the Escapist piece, and it sounded pretty bad. And it didn't sound at all out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it calls to mind Curt Schilling and 38 Studios. A disorganized company burning through money is totally believable.

Then I skim over this thread, and it sounds like the whole thing is some sort of slur campaign by Derek Smart? I can easily see him trying that. I find it amazing to think that he could succeed - at that or anything. How could a functioning outlet like the Escapist fall for something like that?

If anyone wants to give a quick summary, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll read it more carefully when I'm not constrained for time. Sounds like quite a story.

This is my issue with many of the comments here as well as Roberts' letter to Escapist. Derek Smart is the bogeyman that everyone brings up to try and delegitimize what these 'anonymous sources' have claimed.

Smart may be involved in terms of encouraging disaffected employees to come forward or asking outlets to cover the claims being made, but as far as I'm aware, there is no evidence that Smart colluded with these employees to fabricate the claims.

Smart has a long record of attacking Roberts and his project, and people are getting sidetracked by calling him names. Understandable, but not helpful.

Quick summary:

1. Escapist does an article questioning whether or not SC is doomed - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...r-Citizen-Controversy-Reaches-a-Boiling-Point

2. Seven ex- and two current employees approach Escapist to air claims about Roberts and his team mismanaging the SC project, including serious allegations about Sandra Gardiner abusing employees and engaging in discriminatory hiring

3. Escapist does some verification on the employees although this later turns out to be somewhat problematic

4. Escapist sends a list of questions to CIG asking for comment on the claims of the employees, giving 24 hours to respond

5. Instead of CIG responding through normal PR channels, Roberts spends 8 hours writing a multi-page conspiracy theory about Smart being behind the claims and generally being flawed and unreliable

6. Escapist didn't get the response from Roberts before publishing the article as it says the response went to spam folder

7. Escapist publishes this article (later amended to include Roberts' response when it was discovered) - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...alk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

8 Ortwin Freyermuth (SC lawyer) sends a cease and desist letter to Escapist, giving 24 hours to take down the article, claiming it is defamatory and threatening legal action

9 Escapist says the story is still developing and in the meantime it won't take down the article

10 In the meantime, it turns out that the verification methods used by the author of the article were somewhat unreliable, including claims that 'ID cards' (which were actually just access cards) were used, as well as comparing LinkedIn photos with social media photos.

That's about it up until now, although I may have missed something.

IIRC, Roberts informed them that they'll give them a response before the article publication.

Wow, if that's the case then Escapist looks really bad for not even checking back to see if the response was still forthcoming. At the very least it should have noted in the article as initially published: "CIG was contacted for comment. CEO Chris Roberts indicated that a statement would be forthcoming. We will update this article if a statement is received." Do you happen to recall where you saw that claim about Roberts promising a response?

Zambayoshi, just because you write out a paragraph showing someone's perspective doesn't mean you're actually constructing an argument for why it's OK to do something.
[...]
You haven't made any points that show why any of this was decent investigative journalism, you've just shown the perspective of why someone has the incentive to do really crappy work. And this happens to be a thread about a crappy piece of journalism being crappy.

I'm haven't formed an opinion as to whether Escapist did the right thing or not. I'm certainly not trying to say that the piece was good investigative journalism. If anything it seems that it was a difficult call to make whether or not to publish. If the claims turn out to be true, of course, then the decision will be vindicated. If not, Escapist looks like the worst tabloid outlet spreading scurrilous rumours that are without foundation.

The fact that Escapist has chosen to stand by the article in the face of legal threats indicates to me that several people over there, not just Lizzy Finnegan and John Keefer, are of the view that the claims will stand up and the sources are good. It's not logical that Escapist is so desperate for site traffic that it is willing to die in a ditch over claims that are likely to be disproved. The only other logical (if unsavory) possibility that I see is that the very improbability that CIG will disprove the claims has led Escapist to stand by the article notwithstanding suspicions that the claims are false. That would be a very serious and likely illegal course of action to take.

 

[Version 3.0]

Thank you,Zambayoshi.

 

[epmode]

Please note that the Escapist piece includes accusations of federal crimes on the part of CIG. Waiting 24 hours for a reponse on an article like that is insane and unheard of in traditional investigative journalism.

 

[tuxfool]

The fact that Escapist has chosen to stand by the article in the face of legal threats indicates to me that several people over there, not just Lizzy Finnegan and John Keefer, are of the view that the claims will stand up and the sources are good. It's not logical that Escapist is so desperate for site traffic that it is willing to die in a ditch over claims that are likely to be disproved. The only other logical (if unsavory) possibility that I see is that the very improbability that CIG will disprove the claims has led Escapist to stand by the article notwithstanding suspicions that the claims are false. That would be a very serious and likely illegal course of action to take.

The fact that this article was shopped around and ended up at a trash level site, instead of the likes of Kotaku, Gamespot, IGN or Polygon doesn't raise any flags?

Surely those that wanted their voices heard could have done a lot better. Hell, Kotaku has an easy link for tips. The author says these people contacted her. Who gave these people her contact details?

 

[Neoweee]

10 In the meantime, it turns out that the verification methods used by the author of the article were somewhat unreliable, including claims that 'ID cards' (which were actually just access cards) were used, as well as comparing LinkedIn photos with social media photos.

With regards to the bold, they claim that they video chatted via Skype with several (six) of the sources, and compared the person they were speaking with to social media pictures of the people.

You're also missing a few things that happened before the original article, namely Derek Smart being a crackpot, and a wave of layoffs/firings/resignations at CIG on or around September 25th of this year, around which time a bunch of somewhat negative reviews appeared on Glassdoor (a job site where users can post anonymous reviews of employers, including salaries and interview questions).

This debacle did not start in a vacuum, which is why so many people are bringing up Derek Smart, or attributing all of the negative statements to disgruntled fired employees.

 

[tuxfool]

With regards to the bold, they claim that they video chatted via Skype with several (six) of the sources, and compared the person they were speaking with to social media pictures of the people..

The author made a big fuss on twitter about images of certain employees having id cards. The cards weren't visible completely visible in the images. It had turned out that those were plain RFID cards.

Why was she so intent on proving that those were id cards?

 

[Primus]

Surely those that wanted their voices heard could have done a lot better.

Here's my question: Why was this story only shopped around to Internet-based games journalism (loosely, in The Escapist's case) sites? We have supposed insiders from the largest Kickstarter project ever, a massive project involving over 200 workers on multiple continents, blowing the whistle on really fucking serious civil (the sexual and racial harassment issues) and criminal (embezzlement by the CEO) charges. If true, this is a HUGE ASS THING. The kind of thing that traditional media would love to get their hands on. The kind of thing that gets people thrown into US Federal prison. The kind of thing that wins Pulitzers.

And yet, not a single reputable publication, print or Internet, has picked up this story and ran with it. No follow-ups by The Guardian. No requests for comment by the L.A. Times. No hand-wringing opinion pieces by the Washington Post. Just a couple of sad blog posts by folks on the Forbes site.

That silence? That deafening silence? It's telling us something.

 

[Zambayoshi]

The fact that this article was shopped around and ended up at a trash level site, instead of the likes of Kotaku, Gamespot, IGN or Polygon doesn't raise any flags?

Surely those that wanted their voices heard could have done a lot better. Hell, Kotaku has an easy link for tips. The author says these people contacted her. Who gave these people her contact details?

Is the Escapist of that low a reputation? I've read a few articles on that site, particularly after Jim Sterling started there, but I've never come across people slagging it off in the same way as they have, say, Polygon or other sites that shall remain nameless.

I think it's fair to say that Derek Smart could be the one who gave Lizzy Finnegan's contact details to these employees, but we don't know for sure. John Keefer only said that Derek Smart wasn't a source. That's very ambiguous if he wasn't involved at all.

You raise a good point about Kotaku not touching it (if indeed it was approached) as Kotaku has done this kind of article in the past. As I said before, I think it must have been a tough call whether to publish. Kotaku may have decided to err on the side of caution or it may still be investigating the claims for all we know. Escapist made the (unfortunate?) decision to be the first to break the story.

Please note that the Escapist piece includes accusations of federal crimes on the part of CIG. Waiting 24 hours for a reponse on an article like that is insane and unheard of in traditional investigative journalism.

I'm not a journalist, but I'd be happy to find out more about time allowed for comment from someone in the industry. If someone came to me and said: "Someone's accused you of a federal crime. We can't tell you who it is because they are afraid of repercussions. Here's what they said. Do you want to give us a comment? We publish in 24 hours," I would issue a carefully-worded denial if I was sure that the allegations were false, or issue a "Looking into the allegations but no comment at this time" if I was unsure about their veracity. What else do I need to do? I certainly don't want to get into an argument with the author of the article or the publisher of it. They are not the ones making the allegations and they sure as hell aren't going to give me the identity of the whistleblowers. I would start investigating where the claims came from, but finding that out (if I could) is not something that would affect my response. I'm not going to air dirty laundry in public.

With regards to the bold, they claim that they video chatted via Skype with several (six) of the sources, and compared the person they were speaking with to social media pictures of the people.

You're also missing a few things that happened before the original article, namely Derek Smart being a crackpot, and a wave of layoffs/firings/resignations at CIG on or around September 25th of this year, around which time a bunch of somewhat negative reviews appeared on Glassdoor (a job site where users can post anonymous reviews of employers, including salaries and interview questions).

This debacle did not start in a vacuum, which is why so many people are bringing up Derek Smart, or attributing all of the negative statements to disgruntled fired employees.

Thanks for that.

 

[tuxfool]

Is the Escapist of that low a reputation? I've read a few articles on that site, particularly after Jim Sterling started there, but I've never come across people slagging it off in the same way as they have, say, Polygon or other sites that shall remain nameless.

I think it's fair to say that Derek Smart could be the one who gave Lizzy Finnegan's contact details to these employees, but we don't know for sure. John Keefer only said that Derek Smart wasn't a source. That's very ambiguous if he wasn't involved at all.

You raise a good point about Kotaku not touching it (if indeed it was approached) as Kotaku has done this kind of article in the past. As I said before, I think it must have been a tough call whether to publish. Kotaku may have decided to err on the side of caution or it may still be investigating the claims for all we know. Escapist made the (unfortunate?) decision to be the first to break the story.

Another question is who the hell in their right mind gets involved with DS. Those people weren't thinking clearly.

Yeah, in recent years the Escapist has gone down the drain. You should have gone through the thread.

 

[draetenth]

So, I just stumbled across this thread. I read the Escapist piece, and it sounded pretty bad. And it didn't sound at all out of the realm of possibility. In fact, it calls to mind Curt Schilling and 38 Studios. A disorganized company burning through money is totally believable.

Then I skim over this thread, and it sounds like the whole thing is some sort of slur campaign by Derek Smart? I can easily see him trying that. I find it amazing to think that he could succeed - at that or anything. How could a functioning outlet like the Escapist fall for something like that?

If anyone wants to give a quick summary, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll read it more carefully when I'm not constrained for time. Sounds like quite a story.

I think this post is still the best summary in this thread.

 

[staticneuron]

4. Escapist sends a list of questions to CIG asking for comment on the claims of the employees, giving 24 hours to respond

5. Instead of CIG responding through normal PR channels, Roberts spends 8 hours writing a multi-page conspiracy theory about Smart being behind the claims and generally being flawed and unreliable

6. Escapist didn't get the response from Roberts before publishing the article as it says the response went to spam folder

7. Escapist publishes this article (later amended to include Roberts' response when it was discovered) - http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...alk-Star-Citizen-and-the-State-of-the-Company

According to CIG they replied to the sender of the email. If that is true then how on earth did the message get lost? What is normal PR channels? Is it not reasonable to respond to the person sending the email?

The response in question...

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/14979-Chairmans-Response-To-The-Escapist

There are lot of things that escapist did that bucks logic and there is no way as presented it sounds like they were being on the level.

 

[Zambayoshi]

Another question is who the hell in their right mind gets involved with DS. Those people weren't thinking clearly.

Yeah, in recent years the Escapist has gone down the drain. You should have gone through the thread.

You mean the GG stuff?

 

[tuxfool]

You mean the GG stuff?

That and the ejection and escape of all their good staff.

 

[Lalalandia]

24 hours to respond is grossly unprofessional, there was no ticking clock justifying such a disgracefully short response period. If they hadn't recieved a reply within 24 hours (which they had) why didn't they reach out to say 'hey where's that response?'. If you want to play at journalism you have to play by the rules, 'Gotcha!' is the tactic of cheap tabloids.

Again no-one credible has posted anything even remotely corroborating the claims in this article, I've seen many make disingenuous claims this is the same as the Kotaku piece on Silicon Knights and the IGN piece on Team Bondi. Both of those articles had multiple sources with better vetting, gave plenty of opportunity to the subjects to respond and were backed up by other sites within days.

 

[Aselith]

I think it's fair to say that Derek Smart could be the one who gave Lizzy Finnegan's contact details to these employees, but we don't know for sure. John Keefer only said that Derek Smart wasn't a source. That's very ambiguous if he wasn't involved at all.

They said the sources contacted her separately and directly. This is highly important for the veracity of the story as sources contacting you as a group or one source putting you in touch with another source means you can't use them to confirm each other. You need to verify information through separate sources. If Smart referred her to all the contacts, that's a significant problem.

 

[BlackRock]

Here's my question: Why was this story only shopped around to Internet-based games journalism (loosely, in The Escapist's case) sites

Very good question, but why even go to the media first at all? Why didn't they report these serious crimes to the authorities? Have any of these allegations been submitted anywhere beside the media? If someone believes they are the victim of a crime or that serious crimes are being committed by the company, why would they not report those to authorities especially with the added bonus of whistleblower protection? On the other hand, if one is engaging in a smear campaign, wouldn't the very first thing they do be run to the media? Why on Earth wasn't this one of the very first questions The Escapist asked their sources?

 

[okiemok]

If anyone wants to give a quick summary, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll read it more carefully when I'm not constrained for time. Sounds like quite a story.

Lot of details and backstory here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3nn3g5/drama_megathread/

 

[Green Wiggly]

Something that's been bothering me: The Escapist article mentions profanity laced emails typed all in caps, yet none of the seven sources they used produced such a document.

 

[Neoweee]

Something that's been bothering me: The Escapist article mentions profanity laced emails typed all in caps, yet none of the seven sources they used produced such a document.

The problem is that there's no way to authenticate an email as real, so there is no reasonable circumstance where the Escapist would be justified in publishing them and claiming them as real evidence. The sources could have easily created them on their own. Same with the "video evidence" one of the sources showed to Escapist. Stating claims and attributing it to the anonymous source as hearsay is one thing, but claiming evidence is real without verification is actual grounds for a lawsuit.

Not even forwarding an email directly from their CIG email address (which is a terrible, terrible idea) would be considered solid evidence.

 

[Green Wiggly]

The problem is that there's no way to authenticate an email as real, so there is no reasonable circumstance where the Escapist would be justified in publishing them and claiming them as real evidence. The sources could have easily created them on their own. Same with the "video evidence" one of the sources showed to Escapist. Stating claims and attributing it to the anonymous source as hearsay is one thing, but claiming evidence is real without verification is actual grounds for a lawsuit.

Not even forwarding an email directly from their CIG email address (which is a terrible, terrible idea) would be considered solid evidence.

I just re-read their vetting followup and didn't see it mentioned. Do you have a link?

 

[Neoweee]

I just re-read their vetting followup and didn't see it mentioned. Do you have a link?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...ns-Its-Star-Citizen-Sources-Vetting-and-Respo

We know the pitfalls of using anonymous sources. A major tenet of journalism is to verify your sources and get them on the record. Unfortunately, because of job security, threats, or whistleblower ramifications, providing the identity of a source is not always possible. According to the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics, it is our job to seek the truth, but also minimize harm. Video evidence was sent by a source, but was not used because we felt it was ambiguous and could not be properly verified. If and when we get verifiable documentation to support the allegations, that will be published.

 

[Aselith]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...ns-Its-Star-Citizen-Sources-Vetting-and-Respo

Also that if and when kind of verifies that they have nothing else currently

 

[Neoweee]

Also that if and when kind of verifies that they have nothing else currently

The same clarification says they've been talking to more sources within CIG, so I'd wait and see. Also, their biggest journalistic mistake in this debacle so far was rushing out an article without properly waiting for a response from Roberts for the previous article, so giving him due time to respond to any followup allegations would alone explain the lack of any updates yet.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"The same clarification says they've been talking to more sources within CIG, so I'd wait and see. Also, their biggest journalistic mistake in this debacle so far was rushing out an article without properly waiting for a response from Roberts, so giving him due time to respond would alone explain the lack of any updates yet."

He already responded.