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Chris Grant (Polygon) shares his blocklist, and I'm on it.

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DocSeuss

Member
So, this happened.

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An indie dev friend brought it to my attention. and pointed out a ton of people on that list are pretty much headscratchers. Lots of marginalized voices, diverse people, stuff like that. What Polygon staff (well, Plante isn't now) seem to be doing are actively shutting down, y'know, diversity. And that's somewhat discouraging and worrisome.


And then there's me. I have, as far as I know, been on pretty good terms with Polygon's staff. Grant and I have chatted on Twitter on occasion, and it's always been quite friendly. Chris Plante and I've chatted too--heck, he once wrote an article and cited me in it. I kinda helped him with his PC.

As someone who's recently been getting more attention as a writer, with largely positive response, and someone who kinda wants to get a career in this stuff, being blocked by the kind of people in the position to hire me is worrying, especially since we've been on pretty good terms in the past.

Anywho, here's the list, make up your own mind

http://pastebin.com/zrcXiTdL
 

antitrop

Member
I'm proud to be on Kuchera's, even though I've never even tweeted at him.

He doesn't deserve to read my tweets.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
I wonder if I'm on it. Kuchera's block list must be HUUUUGE with how he blocks people over any criticism and now they're all merged.
 

LiK

Member
maybe he blocked you by accident, it happens. i was blocked by a dev before and he said it was a mistake after i contacted him about it. maybe email him.
 

jabuseika

Member
Why can't you just, you know, ignore the messages with your eyes.

...and these guys are the big proponents of diversity.
 

kuYuri

Member
If you're on good terms with the guy, maybe it was a mistake? When your block list is 1500+ people, you gotta have some motivation to go through that list in case you added someone by accident, heh.
 

Riposte

Member
I was wondering if something like that existed. Sharing a blocklist with Kuchera is not something I would do though.
 

Averon

Member
So Twitter will become an even more insular, echo chamber for the gaming press? Forgive me if I don't find that encouraging.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
I'm proud to be on Kuchera's, even though I've never even tweeted at him.

He probably just looked up his name and saw something bad was said about him and he blocked you right then and there. I was blocked Gies just for retweeting and being confused about a statement he made during the SimCity debacle. Can't even be confused or ask a rhetorical question on my own TL lol.
 

Allforce

Member
Who the hell takes Twitter this seriously that has to cultivate a "block list" of people? Seems like such a waste of time. I can't even Follow more than like 30-40 people before my feed becomes unreadable.
 
What Polygon staff (well, Plante isn't now) seem to be doing are actively shutting down, y'know, diversity. And that's somewhat discouraging and worrisome.

Or, y'know, they could be blocking people who are/have been assholes to them on Twitter, regardless of their race, gender or creed.
 

kitsuneyo

Member
This is just a sad situation all round isn't it? Sad they need to block so many, sad they're so proud of it. And sad that a lot of people on that list are probably reasonable folk who happened to vocally disagree with something they wrote.
 
That's a really pitiful thing to be proud of. It's fine if you need to block harassers. But since it seems like some people on that list never tweeted at him - it just means he's silencing people for the sake of silencing them.
 

RE_Player

Member
People block people on twitter all the time. I got blocked by a journalist who shall remain unnamed because I simply said by giving the people who harass him on twitter a spotlight or response you are letting them win. Harmless comment but he blocked me, I was confused but moved on.
 

DocSeuss

Member
That's really odd. Any idea why you'd be on the list?

Only thing I can think of is that one time, a dude I was following tweeted "I hate white stupid white people." I said it sounded kinda racist, and Kuchera didn't seem happy with that?

I dunno. The guy in question was someone I quite liked, aside from his incessant moaning about how people had been mean to him 'cause of his silly Far Cry 4 racism remark--y'know, the one that started the panic about the 'racist' cover.


Only other thing I can think of is one time when Gies just completely let loose on me once after I complained about the community (the community moderator had a grudge against me and nobody really seemed to know why; people still ask me to come back occasionally), and I was like "what are you even talking about?" and he goes "you know what you did." Later, he responded with something like "sorry, wrong person."
 
Who the hell takes Twitter this seriously that has to cultivate a "block list" of people? Seems like such a waste of time. I can't even Follow more than like 30-40 people before my feed becomes unreadable.

People whose mentions feed can get flooded by people spamming them with abuse? Or just plain ol' spamming them?
 

ZeroX03

Banned
As someone who's recently been getting more attention as a writer, with largely positive response, and someone who kinda wants to get a career in this stuff, being blocked by the kind of people in the position to hire me is worrying, especially since we've been on pretty good terms in the past.

Without going too far down this rabbit hole, there's worse people you could be on a block list with and better people you could work with in the future.
 

SovanJedi

provides useful feedback
Making your Block/Ignore/Snub list public is always a brilliant idea.

(I'm not on there, and I have spoken about Polygon before - sharing my disapproval of the Watch Dogs/Ferguson article)
 

Jarate

Banned
W2MykXJ.jpg


Yeah im sure that Ben Kuchera is the perfect example of a block list that's well reasoned and well made. Im sure that his block list is good for every journalist to use!
 
I should add though that blocking is/should be a fairly drastic last resort. Muting usually works just as well (though sometimes blocking is faster than having to mute people across different twitter platforms).
 

emb

Member
So now we add him to our block lists?

(I've never heard of him, am not on the list, and don't even have my own block list afaik)
 

ElRenoRaven

Gold Member
Wow. You know I don't get people. I can see blocking people that are intentionally abusive of you but it seems like they're blocking people just for disagreeing with them. Kind of sad really.
 
ctrl-F "Suzushiiro"- nope, not on it. I don't know if I should be happy or disappointed.

As a general rule I think it's pretty fucking childish to publicly say that someone is blocked/ignored. It's basically the equivalent of putting your fingers in your ears and saying "LA LA LA I'M NOT LISTENIIIIING." And this is him doing that times a thousand.
 

Zerokku

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
I know Kuchera blocked me for calling him (and a couple other journalists) out for mocking their readership over the whole ME3 ending debacle. It's one thing to disagree but when people in the enthusiast press were making fun of their own readers for it... Fuck that.
 
I eagerly anticipate the day we can all just agree to not talk about Polygon and their staff of abhorrent human beings anymore.
 

dLMN8R

Member
For those saying you've never tweeted at Chris Grant, surely you understand this is talking about a shared block list by many?

You sure you never acted like a dick toward anyone in the games press or game development industry? Absolutely positive? If not, how would anyone collaborating on a block list even know about your name?
 
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