They definitely don't need to be, but i mean if that's all it is anyway. What's the problem with admitting to it?
Like others have said in the thread, they seem to have worked hard to make themselves better folk.
So what's the real harm? Wouldn't they just be saying the same thing as Ben anyway?
Admitting to what, specifically?
Like, I mean specifically. Not "Yes, we did not publish stories to protect our brand." But "We did not publish an EA story because they bought advertising space from us."
+3
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
To say that there is no influence of water carrying here on the PA forums, even discounting subconsious bias, is probably false. We all are to some degree, I imagine.
That doesn't make anything Ben alleges necessarily true or false.
They definitely don't need to be, but i mean if that's all it is anyway. What's the problem with admitting to it?
Like others have said in the thread, they seem to have worked hard to make themselves better folk.
So what's the real harm? Wouldn't they just be saying the same thing as Ben anyway?
I mean, it's one guy who used to work for them saying he had a bad time.
There's zero benefit to saying "yeah, it wasn't good," it just draws attention to the story, which as far as I can tell is pretty much only being talked about in this thread. Despite his language making it seem like a BIG DEAL, it's really not one.
+16
EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
edited February 2021
Yeah, unless there is a concrete claim the best thing PA can do for its own brand is to ignore it entirely.
And that's regardless of it the claims are true or false. If they are true, no need to bring more attention to them. If it's false, you can't send time and effort on debunking it as it will just create the Streisand effect.
Honestly at this point, I've kind of come the conclusion that the PAR wasn't going well from a business standpoint and it was stressing Kuchera out. And there were probably some uncomfortable conversations around trying to kick start things because at the end of the day, PAR wasn't a charity. And maybe those conversations weren't conducted very professionally. And he probably felt singled out. I know I would have. That seems to be what's going on through the vague stuff he points out in the tweets. The only real actionable item I've seen is the suppression of stories to protect advertisers. But unless he's going to elaborate on that, I have no idea if I should be mad about it or not.
Given he was the EIC and featured name of the site, then it makes sense that he would be singled out.
The whole thing reads to me like he wasn't prepared to be EIC of a new online publication. He talks about how it wasn't a problem at Ars or Polygon, but they existed before he got there, so he didn't have to do the ground floor work of creating the journalistic firewall, or advocate for himself and his fellows against the business side's demands, or create any of the processes/standards that would've precluded a lot of the issues he apparently had with PAR. All of that was likely already in place for him at the other venues.
Keep in mind, I'm not blaming Ben or anything. It sounds/feels like there's plenty of miscommunication, not-understood expectations, and just general confusion and mismanagement to go around with all parties involved.
I read him on ars and thought his articles were really good. I was excited when he was getting to do "whatever he wanted" at PAR and sad that ars was no longer going to have his articles. Initially i didn't like the style of his replacement at ars but he grew on me. Meanwhile, most PAR articles just weren't good. Like there was maybe a good seed of an idea, but executed poorely. What i didn't know at the time until this thread was that he was supposed to be the EiC apparently as well as the writer, that is too say he edited his own work. Those are totally separate skillsets! An editor at ars in retrospect clearly gave Ben the proper guidance and rails to keep the articles good. Offered to set his own restraints at PAR he jumped at the chance, not realizing what he was losing. Then when they page views didn't come in and his department of one was pressured to pick it up he peaced out when a very generous severance and PAR closed.
I wonder if he's getting annoyed at the editorial staff keeping him on track at Polygon over something recent and that's where all this came from.
All I remember of Ben at Ars was his debacle of a Castlevania: Lords of Shadow review. He never made it past one of the early chapters because the game never clicked for him - which is fine. But then he decided to write a full review of a game he didn't really play anyway, which I thought was unfair and dishonest. I criticized him for it on the Ars forums, and he got super defensive and condescending.
Honestly at this point, I've kind of come the conclusion that the PAR wasn't going well from a business standpoint and it was stressing Kuchera out. And there were probably some uncomfortable conversations around trying to kick start things because at the end of the day, PAR wasn't a charity. And maybe those conversations weren't conducted very professionally. And he probably felt singled out. I know I would have. That seems to be what's going on through the vague stuff he points out in the tweets. The only real actionable item I've seen is the suppression of stories to protect advertisers. But unless he's going to elaborate on that, I have no idea if I should be mad about it or not.
Given he was the EIC and featured name of the site, then it makes sense that he would be singled out.
The whole thing reads to me like he wasn't prepared to be EIC of a new online publication. He talks about how it wasn't a problem at Ars or Polygon, but they existed before he got there, so he didn't have to do the ground floor work of creating the journalistic firewall, or advocate for himself and his fellows against the business side's demands, or create any of the processes/standards that would've precluded a lot of the issues he apparently had with PAR. All of that was likely already in place for him at the other venues.
Keep in mind, I'm not blaming Ben or anything. It sounds/feels like there's plenty of miscommunication, not-understood expectations, and just general confusion and mismanagement to go around with all parties involved.
I read him on ars and thought his articles were really good. I was excited when he was getting to do "whatever he wanted" at PAR and sad that ars was no longer going to have his articles. Initially i didn't like the style of his replacement at ars but he grew on me. Meanwhile, most PAR articles just weren't good. Like there was maybe a good seed of an idea, but executed poorely. What i didn't know at the time until this thread was that he was supposed to be the EiC apparently as well as the writer, that is too say he edited his own work. Those are totally separate skillsets! An editor at ars in retrospect clearly gave Ben the proper guidance and rails to keep the articles good. Offered to set his own restraints at PAR he jumped at the chance, not realizing what he was losing. Then when they page views didn't come in and his department of one was pressured to pick it up he peaced out when a very generous severance and PAR closed.
I wonder if he's getting annoyed at the editorial staff keeping him on track at Polygon over something recent and that's where all this came from.
It was spawned by hesitation of media responses to call out Ted Cruz for fleeing Texas.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
Doing it to protect their business would be making sure not to piss off the people paying money to PA. PA has called out others for doing that very thing.
It's kind of odd PA hasn't said anything, I understand it's the safer PR move, but that doesn't exonerate them in any way, and really, it just pushes it the other way.
Loads of people say where they worked suck all the time. We just generally don't care about it unless there are examples of something truly heinous.
Why is everyone acting like he only gave a vague undefined answer about what was going on? Like it's some mystery that we don't know about? He seems to lay it out pretty clearly here:
PA killed stories to protect their business despite claiming the opposite in public, that's what he is alleging. Not providing specific details of the stories they killed doesn't make that vague.
Because I just gave a bunch of examples of an organization “killing stories” to “protect their bottom line” which more or less everyone views as totally OK and not an ethical breach. And since we don’t know what or why stories were killed, but we do know that he considered “you need to do your job” as a terror inducing ethical breach I might want to know more because I accept the framing of the above tweet
Strictly speaking, we don't have evidence that any stories were killed because we have no idea of what the hell he's talking about.
+25
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Strictly speaking, we don't have evidence that any stories were killed because we have no idea of what the hell he's talking about.
It could be as grievous as "I had information about Riot's awful internal procedure but we killed it because of an ad deal"
To as mundane as "They asked me to not go on a tirade about how much I hate Gamestop's return policies because of an ad deal"
To something like "They told me not to write about X [which was a bad story/wrong] and I just know it's because of an ad deal!"
Without more information it's impossible to say for sure.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Strictly speaking, we don't have evidence that any stories were killed because we have no idea of what the hell he's talking about.
It could be as grievous as "I had information about Riot's awful internal procedure but we killed it because of an ad deal"
To as mundane as "They asked me to not go on a tirade about how much I hate Gamestop's return policies because of an ad deal"
To something like "They told me not to write about X [which was a bad story/wrong] and I just know it's because of an ad deal!"
Without more information it's impossible to say for sure.
Yeah, the last one is important to consider. "Squashing stories to help the business" isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is sometimes a good thing.
In this case, maybe it was bad, maybe good, we have no idea. As almost everyone has been repeating
this thread is seriously gonna hit 100 pages without Ben ever posting any updates and just recycling the same 4 talking points over and over again every 5-10 pages huh?
i can't possibly imagine there's anything left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times already
this thread is seriously gonna hit 100 pages without Ben ever posting any updates and just recycling the same 4 talking points over and over again every 5-10 pages huh?
i can't possibly imagine there's anything left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times already
It's why I'm kind of mystified that 5 days after it was started that this thread is still open given the complete lack of new and/or relevant information that's been posted here and also why I'm beginning to slide into more and more absurdist posting.
this thread is seriously gonna hit 100 pages without Ben ever posting any updates and just recycling the same 4 talking points over and over again every 5-10 pages huh?
i can't possibly imagine there's anything left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times already
"We need to believe all victims!"
"Ok, but believe them about what specifically, though?"
"(chiding) Sounds like you have a problem believing victims!"
"About what!?"
Also, unless Kuchera was about to unearth some sort of rampant abuse in the industry, I can't see how Ben's professional accusations are justified. He makes it sound like they drove him to cover up something truly vile and I doubt that's even possible.
That's not at all how I read it. It's not about a specific story being repressed. It's about an office culture where the concept of journalism meant "write about things that will make us and our advertisers happy" and how that was extraordinarily problematic for a venture that was supposed to be all about being "the good gaming journalists".
I read "having been told I had to protect their business over writing what I knew was right was horrific" as an insinuation that what he "knew was right" is heavy shit that's, I don't know...more than video games? But maybe I'm wrong. I said this on the first page, but his grievous tone is just so far out of whack for the industry that it's really hard to take him and his weak ass E3 story seriously.
Also literally every journalistic medium works this way past like the 1970s since we don't live in the world of comic books.
They let him write about the titty-esque controllers so I dunno if his censorship thing is holding water for me even. I want to say, if anything, khoo/PA corp probably asked him to tone down the editorialism in his writing. But the lack of information from him makes this nearly impossible to say one way or another.
Speaking as someone who spent a pretty good chunk of the post-1970s as a journalist, this is absolutely not true. Having the business side try to influence what you write is a huge ethical boundary. I can't think of any time anyone ever insinuated to me that I should write something to make our advertisers happy, and if anyone had, most of the editors I've ever worked for would have jumped right in and kicked some ass for me. We called it the "business side" because many of the places I worked for would literally partition the building so that the newsroom was physically separate and had our own side.
But, that being said, I worked in serious newsrooms full of other professional journalists. If I got hired by a webcomic company that wanted to branch out into a news blog about video games, I'd probably understand that it ain't the Washington Post and my bosses are not going to be up on the nuances of journalism ethics.
Fair but the allegation is that the suggestion was about driving traffic.
Did your editor ever come to you and tell you that you needed to write something by the end of the day because stuff needed to be in the paper for the paper to be sold? This doesn’t tell you what to write but it does tell you to “get the clicks up”, as it were.
And the business side telling the news side how much news should be in a paper, how much should be human interest, how much should be local information/advertising*, etc all seem like reasonable interactions. “Don’t write bad things about this restaurant” is a fundamentally different interaction than “don’t write about 20 restaurants per day, the readers can only handle so much and it’s not helping sell our serious paper aimed at business people” or “so the restaurant reviews you’re doing aren’t selling enough copies of ‘The Restaurant Review’, a different approach to reviews should be considered”. And the latter two seem like reasonable discussions to be having over the firewall. And also far more of what the allegation seemed to be.
*like restaurant reviews, which are news in the sense that the reviewer is independent but is functionally advertising. Which is pretty important to games journalism because this is the kind of thing that games journalism existed to do primarily. Tell you about new and upcoming games, tell you how new releases panned out.
Yeah, that's a little different. It's totally reasonable to say "Hey, the stories we're writing aren't generating enough interest." You just can't say "don't write that negative article about VR headsets, one of our advertisers might pull."
Which is why people are a little bit looking for more context. The only example given is one of the former and not latter. He was terrified of the “joke” about “getting the clicks up to support the ad buys” which seems to be an entirely legitimate thing to be discussing with the EiC.
Edit: I think it’s also OK for business to say “don’t write an article about VR headsets, our audience isn’t interested in VR headsets” and ignoring that this is a legitimate decision for business to take over editorial leads to weird places. The reason it is is because most “news media” isn’t really news, but rather enthusiast support. WAPO is news news but the PA report was gaming enthusiast support. Articles that are not about gaming, and do not help people make informed purchase decisions aren’t things you can sell when you’re selling gaming enthusiast support. These also mix, it’s neither a coincidence nor is it wrong that restaurant reviews in the Houston Chronicle do not feature restaurants in Albany. Chronicle Business gets to tell Chronicle editorial not to write those reviews. It would be legitimate for PA to tell editorial to not write articles about the new Mt Dew flavor because they’re a gaming site and not a soda enthusiast site.
On top of this there are other areas that business can butt into editorial. If someone wrote a restaurant review at WAPO and wrote” I loved it, the hot dog was roughly the size of a penis and just as easy to eat” you would expect them to be fired, and anyone who let that get to print to be fired and I don’t think anyone would stand up for their “journalist freedom”. So not only does business get to determine what genre you get to write about it also gets to determine the style in which you write it.
Most of the time these things don’t come up, because there is already an understanding about what kind of content is being produced by editorial and business doesn’t have to step in. The WAPO editor knows it’s going to have a mix of local interest and national news. And no editor is going to suddenly turn it into a home a garden outlet for the greater Tulsa metropolitan area because of course they won’t. But if they did WAPO business would be right for firing them for it.
And while I am not saying they did come up at PA I am saying that the only explicit thing Ben told us about falls even more firmly in the “actually no it’s OK for business to have this discussion with you” than those, which also reside firmly in the “it’s OK for business to have these discussions with you” territory.
And on top of that PA, which represents two actual people, probably has even more leeway as to directing editorial as the real people the company represents can legitimately have opinions on things whereas such a situation is not common or reasonable in papers. The inability of editorial to determine if “Mike and Jerry like something” is because they were paid or because they legit like something is the reason for the firewall. But the actual construction of the company does give more leeway here on what is acceptable.
All of which come together for me to come to the conclusion that I just have to know more of what was so objectionable. Because what was supplied wasnt an affront to journalistic ethics
My biggest takeaway for this is I think he probably wasn't ready for what an EIC actually was, and his experience as an editorial journalist did not in any way prepare him for that.
EIC's are going to have uncomfortable conversations with marketing people if they allow articles about controllers feeling like titties to be pushed out. That is something, even if it's favorable, that companies don't like their brand associated with. And likely, that is something that will make it over the marketing firewall if everyone is pulling advertising and they need to change the direction of the publication or else it's going bust... integrity doesn't pay the bills.
I don't know if that's even accurate either because of lack of context from Ben... and PA as a whole doesn't seem like they're super upset to say shit like that, but I can absolutely see where a conversation like that would crop up. If Ben has anxiety like I do and didn't realize that this shit wasn't going to fly for his position (he's got no one to reign him in anymore), I would feel 100% like he did. Then further along if I was jokingly told about the clicks or whatever by a marketing person, that'd further cement that anxiety in me.
I believe him, he's allowed to feel whatever he wants to feel I can't police his emotions. I just want the facts and context so I can make a judgement for myself.
this thread is seriously gonna hit 100 pages without Ben ever posting any updates and just recycling the same 4 talking points over and over again every 5-10 pages huh?
i can't possibly imagine there's anything left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times already
"We need to believe all victims!"
"Ok, but believe them about what specifically, though?"
"(chiding) Sounds like you have a problem believing victims!"
"About what!?"
The "about what" piece is that it was problematic/toxic/hypocritical work environment.
A lack of specifics doesn't mean that A) It didn't happen or Kuchera isn't justified in his feelings.
If people have different statutes for what constitutes good enough proof that's fine. I believe Kuchera's experience and feelings about the experience are justified. If you don't, that's fine.
It is possible for Kuchera and PA to have had disagreements about stories where Kuchera was ultimately on the more ethically correct side and yeah maybe PA did kill a story for bad reasons, but that alone does not amount to trauma or abuse IMO. Kuchera might be personally processing it that way because of the stress he was under, and that sucks for him, but people doing their jobs badly does not automatically make those who have to work with them victims of abuse or a toxic work environment.
I think it's possible to be sympathetic towards Kuchera for having a shitty time at a job and suffering because of it, but also not think that PA should become some pariah because one employee had a bad time there a decade ago.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
this thread is seriously gonna hit 100 pages without Ben ever posting any updates and just recycling the same 4 talking points over and over again every 5-10 pages huh?
i can't possibly imagine there's anything left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times already
"We need to believe all victims!"
"Ok, but believe them about what specifically, though?"
"(chiding) Sounds like you have a problem believing victims!"
"About what!?"
The "about what" piece is that it was problematic/toxic/hypocritical work environment.
A lack of specifics doesn't mean that A) It didn't happen or Kuchera isn't justified in his feelings.
If people have different statutes for what constitutes good enough proof that's fine. I believe Kuchera's experience and feelings about the experience are justified. If you don't, that's fine.
I think he was unhappy enough about this to make a post on twitter.
And that's about all I think any of us can say about it.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
While true, he clearly perceived something in that vein, which could easily explain why he hasn't published whatever since.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
While true, he clearly perceived something in that vein, which could easily explain why he hasn't published whatever since.
It's also possible he was drunk posting on twitter.
And it's been nearly a week with as far as I know nothing else added to this so it's
Having read through this, this seems like it's mostly about the writer publicly processing his regrets for compromising his principles and not resigning when asked to compromise them, and maybe not being treated very well by his bosses once.
Will the OP be updated if any new info comes to light? I’m tired of reading a bunch of post only to find nothing has changed.
+8
Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Online discussions like this make me think of the whole Koch Snowflake fractal concept, where the perimeter grows evermore, but the overall layout becomes increasingly static. It may be unsatisfying for some, but it looks like Kuchera's said all he intends to say about this, at least for the time being. I think there was certainly plenty of room to misread his statements as they were admittedly vague. The truth of what they contained could range from innocuous to venomous, and it would seem public knowledge lacks any credible metric to leverage the situation into a more definitive state. It certainly seemed like he was making a statement that required clarification, but ultimately there was no requirement, what he chose to say and perhaps not say were up to him, and our views on him being obligated to provide further clarity are only opinions. Perhaps one day there will be more on this matter, but I'm not anticipating it.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
I think you are missing the point of the argument I'm making.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
I think you are missing the point of the argument I'm making.
Ok. What exactly were the repercussions Ben had to fear from M&J? They run a popular-ish internet site, organized a charity and run a convention. This isn't exactly the kinds of people who are going to send in some hired goons to threaten his family or unleash their pet senators to screw up his business.
The possibility of retaliation without an NDA providing an implied consequence for talking about this were basically nil.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
I think you are missing the point of the argument I'm making.
Ok. What exactly were the repercussions Ben had to fear from M&J? They run a popular-ish internet site, organized a charity and run a convention. This isn't exactly the kinds of people who are going to send in some hired goons to threaten his family or unleash their pet senators to screw up his business.
The possibility of retaliation without an NDA providing an implied consequence for talking about this were basically nil.
That it's enough for him to believe there could be retaliation. Please note, I'm not saying there is any valid reason for it, I'm just saying that "oh he had no NDA so why'd he wait" wouldn't be an acceptable answer in other forms of abuse, it shouldn't be one here.
0
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
I think you are missing the point of the argument I'm making.
Ok. What exactly were the repercussions Ben had to fear from M&J? They run a popular-ish internet site, organized a charity and run a convention. This isn't exactly the kinds of people who are going to send in some hired goons to threaten his family or unleash their pet senators to screw up his business.
The possibility of retaliation without an NDA providing an implied consequence for talking about this were basically nil.
?
The biggest threat is not the people who gave him a generous severance package and put no obligation of secrecy on him. The biggest threat is us. Plenty of internet personalities have rabid fans that send nasty messages and death threats, doxx, and harass current and potential employers with negative campaigns for any perceived slight. There is also the network of industry connection where if you piss off bigwigs, they can make a call behind the scenes and stop your career right in its tracks.
I definitely think higher of the PA fan community, this forum and beyond, than other mega communities where stuff like this happens on a regular basis, but I am not surprised that a person who does not share the same faith I have would be scared by taking a shot at a popular internet personality.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
There isn't really any evidence of abuse.
I think you are missing the point of the argument I'm making.
Ok. What exactly were the repercussions Ben had to fear from M&J? They run a popular-ish internet site, organized a charity and run a convention. This isn't exactly the kinds of people who are going to send in some hired goons to threaten his family or unleash their pet senators to screw up his business.
The possibility of retaliation without an NDA providing an implied consequence for talking about this were basically nil.
That it's enough for him to believe there could be retaliation. Please note, I'm not saying there is any valid reason for it, I'm just saying that "oh he had no NDA so why'd he wait" wouldn't be an acceptable answer in other forms of abuse, it shouldn't be one here.
Which cycles back to the point I raised before: what exactly was this abuse?
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
It's very much not like abuse victims, as most of the thread has pointed out time and time again. There is nothing available to us that would lead us to believe that Ben Kuchera was abused or that he was a victim of anything.
It's just odd if someone outside of PA was accused of that, I don't think there would be so much splitting of hairs to rationalize the severity of it. Regardless of what the story actually is. If it was something that should have been squashed I doubt that Ben would be feeling so much inner-turmoil over it.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
It's very much not like abuse victims, as most of the thread has pointed out time and time again. There is nothing available to us that would lead us to believe that Ben Kuchera was abused or that he was a victim of anything.
I think he was the victim of hubris, thinking that being a good writer also made him a good editor and that he could do both jobs simultaneously
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He wrote a story. It conflicted with an Ad Buy. He was told he can't publish the story. He's still mad about it.
You don't need specifics, that's what happened, the specifics don't matter. Do you care? that's a different question.
He was at a company retreat and felt that his ideas were made fun of. He's still mad about it.
Again, you don't need more specifics, it doesn't matter what actually happened, what happened is how he felt. Do you care?
He was at PAX, their Ad guy made a joke that felt threatening to him. He's still mad about it.
He didn't defend the company during dickwolves and got a talking to. He's still made about it.
Like what more do you need here?
In all of these cases the specifics don't matter, the only thing that matters is how he feels. The question you guys need to ask yourselves is do you care?
G&T being kinda shitty for years off and on is irrelevant. This is just about how Ben feels.
(for me on a personal level I think his series of tweets was a bit silly as he's treating these work interactions as they're the most important thing in the world. Clearly they aren't BUT FOR HIM they are and have effected him for years)
Ben actually has posted more on twitter, but mostly he's been dragging his banks for apparently demanding payments during his bankruptcy. I'm assuming he no longer works at Polygon (tho it's still in his bio so who knows). He's made a few more vague posts but for the most part it seems he's really just having a tough time.
Idk I'm not gonna speculate too much. Suffice to say after all the shit that happened to Gawker I'm inclined to think there's a lot of shady things going on behind the scenes in games journalism. I think people were quick to try to downplay things Ben said as normal when they probably shouldn't be. The general consensus was "yeah that probably sucks if it's true, but it happened to me and will continue to happen to other people." It's easy to dismiss things like that when you're not in the room, experiencing them. It's easy for people to downplay your problems from afar and say, oh doesn't sound that bad.
Posts
Admitting to what, specifically?
Like, I mean specifically. Not "Yes, we did not publish stories to protect our brand." But "We did not publish an EA story because they bought advertising space from us."
That doesn't make anything Ben alleges necessarily true or false.
What if they didn’t do it? Or what if their interpretation of the events leaves them in a place where they don’t feel that they need to apologize?
I mean, it's one guy who used to work for them saying he had a bad time.
There's zero benefit to saying "yeah, it wasn't good," it just draws attention to the story, which as far as I can tell is pretty much only being talked about in this thread. Despite his language making it seem like a BIG DEAL, it's really not one.
And that's regardless of it the claims are true or false. If they are true, no need to bring more attention to them. If it's false, you can't send time and effort on debunking it as it will just create the Streisand effect.
I read him on ars and thought his articles were really good. I was excited when he was getting to do "whatever he wanted" at PAR and sad that ars was no longer going to have his articles. Initially i didn't like the style of his replacement at ars but he grew on me. Meanwhile, most PAR articles just weren't good. Like there was maybe a good seed of an idea, but executed poorely. What i didn't know at the time until this thread was that he was supposed to be the EiC apparently as well as the writer, that is too say he edited his own work. Those are totally separate skillsets! An editor at ars in retrospect clearly gave Ben the proper guidance and rails to keep the articles good. Offered to set his own restraints at PAR he jumped at the chance, not realizing what he was losing. Then when they page views didn't come in and his department of one was pressured to pick it up he peaced out when a very generous severance and PAR closed.
I wonder if he's getting annoyed at the editorial staff keeping him on track at Polygon over something recent and that's where all this came from.
I wasn't sad when he left Ars.
It was spawned by hesitation of media responses to call out Ted Cruz for fleeing Texas.
Loads of people say where they worked suck all the time. We just generally don't care about it unless there are examples of something truly heinous.
Because I just gave a bunch of examples of an organization “killing stories” to “protect their bottom line” which more or less everyone views as totally OK and not an ethical breach. And since we don’t know what or why stories were killed, but we do know that he considered “you need to do your job” as a terror inducing ethical breach I might want to know more because I accept the framing of the above tweet
It could be as grievous as "I had information about Riot's awful internal procedure but we killed it because of an ad deal"
To as mundane as "They asked me to not go on a tirade about how much I hate Gamestop's return policies because of an ad deal"
To something like "They told me not to write about X [which was a bad story/wrong] and I just know it's because of an ad deal!"
Without more information it's impossible to say for sure.
Yeah, the last one is important to consider. "Squashing stories to help the business" isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is sometimes a good thing.
In this case, maybe it was bad, maybe good, we have no idea. As almost everyone has been repeating
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i can't possibly imagine there's anything left to say that hasn't been said a dozen times already
It's why I'm kind of mystified that 5 days after it was started that this thread is still open given the complete lack of new and/or relevant information that's been posted here and also why I'm beginning to slide into more and more absurdist posting.
"We need to believe all victims!"
"Ok, but believe them about what specifically, though?"
"(chiding) Sounds like you have a problem believing victims!"
"About what!?"
My biggest takeaway for this is I think he probably wasn't ready for what an EIC actually was, and his experience as an editorial journalist did not in any way prepare him for that.
EIC's are going to have uncomfortable conversations with marketing people if they allow articles about controllers feeling like titties to be pushed out. That is something, even if it's favorable, that companies don't like their brand associated with. And likely, that is something that will make it over the marketing firewall if everyone is pulling advertising and they need to change the direction of the publication or else it's going bust... integrity doesn't pay the bills.
I don't know if that's even accurate either because of lack of context from Ben... and PA as a whole doesn't seem like they're super upset to say shit like that, but I can absolutely see where a conversation like that would crop up. If Ben has anxiety like I do and didn't realize that this shit wasn't going to fly for his position (he's got no one to reign him in anymore), I would feel 100% like he did. Then further along if I was jokingly told about the clicks or whatever by a marketing person, that'd further cement that anxiety in me.
I believe him, he's allowed to feel whatever he wants to feel I can't police his emotions. I just want the facts and context so I can make a judgement for myself.
The "about what" piece is that it was problematic/toxic/hypocritical work environment.
A lack of specifics doesn't mean that A) It didn't happen or
@Handsome Costanza did a good job articulating this last page.
If people have different statutes for what constitutes good enough proof that's fine. I believe Kuchera's experience and feelings about the experience are justified. If you don't, that's fine.
I think it's possible to be sympathetic towards Kuchera for having a shitty time at a job and suffering because of it, but also not think that PA should become some pariah because one employee had a bad time there a decade ago.
With no NDA, he could have published it himself any time in the last 7 years and resolved his Inner Turmoil.
but he did not, and continues not to do so.
I think he was unhappy enough about this to make a post on twitter.
And that's about all I think any of us can say about it.
Look, most of the last 26 pages has been a waste of time, but this is a TERRIBLE argument. Saying he wasn't legally obligated to keep his mouth shut doesn't mean he had no reason to fear repercussions of any kind. Just like other abuse victims can fear all kinds of other repercussions from their abusers and supporters of those abusers.
While true, he clearly perceived something in that vein, which could easily explain why he hasn't published whatever since.
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It's also possible he was drunk posting on twitter.
And it's been nearly a week with as far as I know nothing else added to this so it's
I think you are missing the point of the argument I'm making.
Ok. What exactly were the repercussions Ben had to fear from M&J? They run a popular-ish internet site, organized a charity and run a convention. This isn't exactly the kinds of people who are going to send in some hired goons to threaten his family or unleash their pet senators to screw up his business.
The possibility of retaliation without an NDA providing an implied consequence for talking about this were basically nil.
That it's enough for him to believe there could be retaliation. Please note, I'm not saying there is any valid reason for it, I'm just saying that "oh he had no NDA so why'd he wait" wouldn't be an acceptable answer in other forms of abuse, it shouldn't be one here.
I'm still watching but I am not holding my breath.
The biggest threat is not the people who gave him a generous severance package and put no obligation of secrecy on him. The biggest threat is us. Plenty of internet personalities have rabid fans that send nasty messages and death threats, doxx, and harass current and potential employers with negative campaigns for any perceived slight. There is also the network of industry connection where if you piss off bigwigs, they can make a call behind the scenes and stop your career right in its tracks.
I definitely think higher of the PA fan community, this forum and beyond, than other mega communities where stuff like this happens on a regular basis, but I am not surprised that a person who does not share the same faith I have would be scared by taking a shot at a popular internet personality.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Which cycles back to the point I raised before: what exactly was this abuse?
It's very much not like abuse victims, as most of the thread has pointed out time and time again. There is nothing available to us that would lead us to believe that Ben Kuchera was abused or that he was a victim of anything.
I think he was the victim of hubris, thinking that being a good writer also made him a good editor and that he could do both jobs simultaneously
He wrote a story. It conflicted with an Ad Buy. He was told he can't publish the story. He's still mad about it.
You don't need specifics, that's what happened, the specifics don't matter. Do you care? that's a different question.
He was at a company retreat and felt that his ideas were made fun of. He's still mad about it.
Again, you don't need more specifics, it doesn't matter what actually happened, what happened is how he felt. Do you care?
He was at PAX, their Ad guy made a joke that felt threatening to him. He's still mad about it.
He didn't defend the company during dickwolves and got a talking to. He's still made about it.
Like what more do you need here?
In all of these cases the specifics don't matter, the only thing that matters is how he feels. The question you guys need to ask yourselves is do you care?
G&T being kinda shitty for years off and on is irrelevant. This is just about how Ben feels.
(for me on a personal level I think his series of tweets was a bit silly as he's treating these work interactions as they're the most important thing in the world. Clearly they aren't BUT FOR HIM they are and have effected him for years)
^ I'm assuming that's about Ars Technica?
Then multiple posts about his banks
Idk I'm not gonna speculate too much. Suffice to say after all the shit that happened to Gawker I'm inclined to think there's a lot of shady things going on behind the scenes in games journalism. I think people were quick to try to downplay things Ben said as normal when they probably shouldn't be. The general consensus was "yeah that probably sucks if it's true, but it happened to me and will continue to happen to other people." It's easy to dismiss things like that when you're not in the room, experiencing them. It's easy for people to downplay your problems from afar and say, oh doesn't sound that bad.