Watch in trouble?

@Arkadia7: You are out of luck though as I was responsible for some of those news posts you fear so much, so they will show up again probably, given that news posters have a freedom in posting news

@HiddenX: Nice to read that again.

Nice to read a little bit about the history and the people behind RPGWatch. Thanks, I enjoyed reading that, HiddenX.
I was a lurker back in the days of RPGDot, and not really an active participant. I am not even sure what game brought me there (though if I have to wager a guess, I'd say Morrowind to my lasting shame) and remember being surprised that it was at some point suddenly… empty. I did find my way here after that, and joined at once. I'm still not sure what exactly happened in 2006?

Also, reading that left me wondering: who are the current site owners? Other than Myrthos, then? Is Rendelius still around? I remember his name being mentioned before.

Myrthos is the site owner. Rendelius pulled out more then a decade ago after he had sold RPGDot. Garrett is still formally a staff member, I guess, but he has announced many years ago that his interests had moved to other things. Every couple of years you can still see a news post by him.
I'm with RPGDot since GothicDot opened in late 2001. Jaz came onboard not much later.

In 2006 we felt that the site had become a dead end because we no longer had control.
Furthermore the forums were dead because of too heavy moderation and especially an inadequate amount of political correctness. As a result we opened RPGWatch and the staff split. A bit oversimplified it could be said that those who were not willing to reverse the course in the forums, or at least tolerate such a change, chose no to come with us to the new site.
Even though we're for a big amount of freedom, of course everything comes in waves. At stormy times bans come more quickly, while it's normally pretty hard to get banned at all, apart from a couple of obvious things on which we have a zero tolerance policy.

If you want a truly shocking and sad look at where things could head to if the road of political correctness is followed, you only have to look at RPGNet, where members spend all their time raging about "misogyny", people get banned for the silliest reasons, and it is even explicitly told that only feminists are welcome and women's experiences should automatically be believed. This is the admin who lays out all this:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php...-the-board-rules-and-feminism-from-The-Wyzard

To get to the thing, RPGnet as a whole basically accepts that privilege is real. You are not necessarily going to get dinged for saying "lol privilege is not real," or for just strongly disliking the term, or for speaking out against ideologies you think are based on faulty notions, but Imma tell you right now that privilege has a solid as a fucking rock empirical foundation, built over hundreds of experiments, and if you don't think it is real then you're basically like a climate change denier. That is why you are going to get met with hostility even if the staff doesn't do anything to you in terms of infracting you.

[a few paragraphs later…]

If you do not have a working knowledge of what derailing and sea-lioning is, if you don't know what privilege is, if you don't grasp how subaltern narratives are excluded from the discourse and the experiences of marginalized groups are made invisible, then I heartily encourage you to LOOK UP THOSE THINGS before you post in a thread about women or sexism or GBLT issues or racism or anything like that, because YOU ARE DRAMATICALLY INCREASING THE LIKELIHOOD THAT YOU WILL GET RED TEXT IF YOU WALK IN AND START TALKING WITHOUT A GROUNDING IN THE BASIC REALITIES OF THE SITUATION.

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Feminism can look weird as an academic discipline because while it is Empirical in many places and times, it also rejects rigid empiricism as a prerequisite to being taken seriously. If a woman says that women get catcalled on the street all the time, and a bunch of women agree, then that is supposed to be sufficient and we should listen to their stories. We aren't supposed to be totally skeptical of the "lived experiences," and wait until there is hard, operationalized data to believe them.

That change in approach exists SPECIFICALLY because of institutional barriers and power structures that keep marginalized groups from doing the research they want to do.

[...]

Basically: If enough people tell you something happened to them in a certain way, you should listen. I'm a lawyer and I don't think that this idea should be controversial, but there are a lot of people who just won't buy it and demand hard data to back up every proposition. Too bad!

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It's nice to read things from the past and learn something new, but all I remember is that I despised RPGdot. I was never a member on that site - it just felt as despicable site to me. Worse than Ironworks.
Instead, I was an active member of sorcerers.net. That changed because of certain RL misfortune I had when I was forced to put things on pause, but later I didn't return to sorcerers, instead I joined watch under a new nick.

And I'll tell you one more thing. RPGwatch is totally different from RPGdot, the very same RPGdot I hated. I don't know how RPGdot looked in it's early days so forgive me for the ignorance. But later it looked like a place I definetly don't want to be.

When it died, I couldn't care less. Just as Hidden correctly noted in this old watch thread worth reading:
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5030

I'll be sad to see couch go but a person has to do what is right for them. Thanks for what you've done and good luck going forward.

txa1265 said:

I make no assumptions - as a 'boss' through the years I have initiated many discussions. Some have gone well, others not so well, and still others somewhere in between. But early in my career I had a coworker who kept applying for manager jobs and when he didn't get them he was told 'really close, keep trying' when in reality I found out they had no intention of making him a manager. Which is much worse, in my opinion.

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That sounds pretty malicious. Not something I can support, so we agree.

But by deciding NOT to decide … you are still making a choice but not controlling that choice or who has the controlling voice.

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That's largely my point, so I think we agree here too.

For example, in the early days the most prolific 'Article writers' were Dhruin and myself, and there were several of us who dominated the discussion forums. The personality of the early days of the Watch were not dictated by the admins, but rather loosely suggested and then only guided by negative reinforcement (say what you DON'T want, not what you DO). So aside from a fairly simply 'mostly hands-off' self-regulating mission, early news & review posters and mods had no real guidance … and since they dominated the discussions - it was THEM who defined the site's personal. Know what I mean?

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Not really sure, no. But I guess it's not something we should be discussing here.

I agree in theory, but having written for a number of sites through the years I know that the 'grab rate' is much higher when there is some amount of personality in the news item. Where is that line? I don't really know - and that would be the sort of guidance that a proper 'senior editor' should impart. For example, when I wrote for GamerDad and more recently Gear Diary, the rules were very clear (and in both cases actually *documented* in a 'behind the scenes' location).

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I haven't found that to be the case, really. Much like the most prominent newspapers strive to stay neutral when reporting news items and how they don't seem to rely on subjective opinion additions.

But look at the flip-side … can you point to where they disagreed?

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Nope, but that doesn't mean they agree either

Point is that I haven't noticed an established style or agenda before - and it seems to have expanded since Aubrielle and Fluent became so prominent. I guess it makes sense that they were the first to join Couch's new site.

Clearly, they want a certain "positive energy" - and I understand that. I think there's a place for enforced positivity - just as long as I don't have to be part of it.

I still go back to this - by allowing 99% of public representation to be dictated by someone, you make that person the 'official spokesperson', intentionally or not. By allowing them to consistently do something in a certain way, that becomes an 'officially accepted action'.

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There's a very big difference between passively allowing something to happen - and having an active agenda that you promote through an individual like that.

As I said, I never had the feeling Myrthos and Co. were actively supporting a manipulative style like that - and I still don't.

I get what you are saying - I was going to counter by saying that you should decide based on your own sense of whether what you get out is a net positive … but at the same time I know there have been times when I have left forums because I felt like my presence and contribution was an overall net negative, even if I wasn't personally feeling negative about my experience. So I guess like anything it is a balance of internal and external factors … preferably without the drama

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Yeah, I offered to leave QT3 forums for the same reason - and the lead guy was eager to accept my leaving. No drama

I did ask him to delete my account, so that I wasn't tempted to comment later on - but he refused me.

As for the Watch - I don't know if there's a "net positive". It keeps me busy at work during quiet times, and I sometimes manage to convince myself that I contribute something of value.

A lot of the time, though, it seems like a massive waste of time and energy.

Gorath said:

Myrthos is the site owner. Rendelius pulled out more then a decade ago after he had sold RPGDot. Garrett is still formally a staff member, I guess, but he has announced many years ago that his interests had moved to other things. Every couple of years you can still see a news post by him.
I'm with RPGDot since GothicDot opened in late 2001. Jaz came onboard not much later.

In 2006 we felt that the site had become a dead end because we no longer had control.
Furthermore the forums were dead because of too heavy moderation and especially an inadequate amount of political correctness. As a result we opened RPGWatch and the staff split. A bit oversimplified it could be said that those who were not willing to reverse the course in the forums, or at least tolerate such a change, chose no to come with us to the new site.
Even though we're for a big amount of freedom, of course everything comes in waves. At stormy times bans come more quickly, while it's normally pretty hard to get banned at all, apart from a couple of obvious things on which we have a zero tolerance policy.

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Thanks for the info, Gorath.

This website has been among my favorites ever since I joined in 2006. It's free of ads, it's clean, its community is mature (for most part) and offers a wide range of perspectives on one of my favorite passtimes. And with that... I realize I have yet to donate to it. 'Scuse me a moment while I remedy that situation at once.

Myrthos said:

I wouldn't go searching too deep for the vision of RPGWatch. I'm encountering visions in business rather often and rarely do people act based on that vision. In the end I think we started RPGWatch, because we were disappointed with the direction RPGDot took after it was sold. We basically wanted back to what RPGDot was, without the heavy moderating, which was a site dedicated to bringing news on RPGs and with articles on top.
That kinda sums up the vision we had and it isn't changed much.

As we are all volunteers, our staff members are given quite a bit of freedom to do what they think is best. It is their time they invest, so if a news poster like Couch feels he needs to post news about games like he did, he can and should. If that is seen as the 'vision' of our site, so be it.

What I feel is important is to not make this site completely political correct and remove or moderate all the outliers. We should only moderate the extreme outliers, where I agree that there is a grey area and room for our moderators to act upon that. There are plenty of threads that are diametrically opposite to my views. Some even disgust me to some level. That doesn't mean they should be moderated in all cases though. As long as the limited number of rules we have are not broken I do not feel that action is needed.

I am aware that this also drives people away, but I can't make everybody happy. And I can't protect everybody on this forum from people who have opposite views. In the end I need to feel comfortable with what I do and the lines I draw.

For the record: note that I use 'I' and not 'we'. This is my opinion and not a team opinion.

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Thank you for the information, which seems to confirm what I already felt was true about the Watch.

In short, a passive style with no real vision - which is what drew me to the site in the first place.

As such, I think it's good for both this site and Couch's new site that they're not one and the same.

Couchpotato said:

Don't worry Nerevarine I will still make a few posts on the forum boards.

Now as for being shit on I wont point fingers, and blame anyone publicly that's just not professional. It's just time to move on as I had a different vision for the site.

Now I finished my last two interviews they should be published soon, and the three contests should still go on as I gave the Keys to Myrthos. So good luck everyone.
And with that I bid you all a farewell, and good night.

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Tnx for everything man. I came to this site only because of your awesome daily posting of RPG news.

Thanks HiddenX and Myrthos

Would there be a way to crowdsource more news in some form? I think it would be easier to post a lot of news every day if ordinary users could help. For instance make an e-mail address to receive news to.

txa1265 said:

I disagree - if he worked for me and I had an issue with the way he posted, or how he behaved - and this is true of anyone, not just Couch - I would take him aside and make clear the rules of the site, the mandate of his job, and the norms and expectations of him as a public face of the site.

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That's normal for a paid job. So it doesn't apply here.

I would say during that the 'Dhruin Era', that HE defined the Watch. And that for the last few years it has been Couch who has defined the site. His stye is THE style, his voice was THE voice. Of course the owners/admins can change that … but speaking historically that hasn't been the case.

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As a former staff member you of course know the internal mechanics as of a couple of years ago.
I agree that the news editor is the site's face. So he at least implicitly defines how the site is perceived by others. Moriendor positioned RPGDot as very fast and 100% neutral. Dhruin brought some personality into it and sharpened our image. Couch also had his own style, which brought more focus on Indie games.

Humanity has risen! said:

Would there be a way to crowdsource more news in some form? I think it would be easier to post a lot of news every day if ordinary users could help. For instance make an e-mail address to receive news to.

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A news "curating" forum actually sounds like a good idea; moderators could then pick topics of note to post on the main page, linking back to the original topic. This would also help prevent redundant news topics between the primary forums and the [current]news forum, as has been wont to happen.

Humanity has risen! said:

Would there be a way to crowdsource more news in some form? I think it would be easier to post a lot of news every day if ordinary users could help. For instance make an e-mail address to receive news to.

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We have a contact form which leads directly into the news pipeline.

Of course it would be an interesting idea to split the newsposting into, say, parts of 5 newsbits and have 5 or 6 volunteers who post one of these parts very day. Unfortunately this has never worked in the past. One editor posts 20+ newsbits, the other often have nothing left to do and disappear after a month.

Posting a simple newsbit
(SOURCE reports that DEV released a new SOMETHING for his new action-RPG SLASH-da-Orcs-2. Here's a brief excerpt: "QUOTE")
takes about 2 minutes for a trained editor who knows his stuff. The first dozen newsbits take more like 15 minutes of course.
Then add another minute to verify that the news hasn't been posted before, and to check the result after posting.
Add more time to read the source if the link is already available.
Add even more time if you have to browse the web to find news.

One or two volunteers who would exclusively post the things which appear in the news pipeline (community submissions, PRs) and in the Indie and Kickstarter parts of the forum would indeed help us a lot. This would have to be done 5 to 6 days per week.
It's not terribly rewarding work though.

Gorath said:

I agree that the news editor is the site's face. So he at least implicitly defines how the site is perceived by others. Moriendor positioned RPGDot as very fast and 100% neutral. Dhruin brought some personality into it and sharpened our image. Couch also had his own style, which brought more focus on Indie games.

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Ha, this sounds a lot like Doctor Who. Different faces with their own personalities, one Doctor.

Arhu said:

Ha, this sounds a lot like Doctor Who. Different faces with their own personalities, one Doctor.

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Not really. It sounds exactly as Black Isle's Overseer account on old BIS forums.

Few people used it beside their actual account, while one was using it, they could post news, ban people, anything - but others couldn't log onto it till it was in use for all I remember.
Of course, Overseer felt like a split personality person. The PM minigame in certain groups was to guess when Josh Sawyer is using it.

Arhu said:

Ha, this sounds a lot like Doctor Who. Different faces with their own personalities, one Doctor.

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Indeed!!!

Pibbur who

First of all, thanks to Couch for the contributions to this page and all the effort put into it.
I am not sure if this is the case, but I can imagine, with all the time effort couch put into it, he wanted to get more in return. Like a contributor or columnist on a “regular” page like Joystiq was paid for his work.
I personally could not put hours each day into to a page without having hopes to grow into something bigger or using the page as stepstone to get into the "industry".
Searching news and bringing them into a good format just isn’t really the most fun thing you can spend your time with.
I don’t agree with every opinion Couch has as well. Latest one was key resellers, some others I remember were Abandonware and, less critical, JRPGs. Promoting Key Resellers and Abandonware also has the danger of damaging reputation and relation to developers/publishers, while JPRGs is probably more to be seen as a conflict of focus of the page.
And that is where we get to the Agenda. To have an agenda can be a really constructive thing. However this agenda does need to be in union with the page and the other moderators/the admin. Otherwise it is indeed rather potential for conflict.

Regarding news I had the same idea as HhR had before I reached the end of the thread and actually read his post.
Imho the "Send in News" form on the front page isn't really working that well. Right now I cant even find it. Yeah, there is a point within "contact" which could be abused for that. Still, horrible. I also remember that I used it a couple of times in the past, could not read the number verification or it wasnt even displayed in a browser and I had to switch between multiple browsers to send in the news.
Later on I sent the few Newsbits I had directly to Couch as a PM or commented in some other newsthread. Of course it was still Couches decision whether he wanted to post it or not.
But sending in news and basically not get feedback if the message actually arrived or was read is bad. I mean you (well, at least I saw it in Couches post several times) aknowledged the news sender in the news, which is a great way to know that you actually contributed something, but if even that is missing, sending in news with the contact formular is "feeling" like flushing news down the drain.

Imho it would be a good thing to have something like a News Comments-Sub forum for "preliminary" news, where people could just open new threads with their news.
If one of the mods thinks some of the news is newsworthy, he could then create an article and merge the thread into the "real news" thread. That way it would not be any additional programming work, but I don't know how much work that would be if you do it multiple times a day.

Here are a couple of things to help us out. The best way to contact us is through the 'Contact Us' link in the 'Contact' tab. I know the verification is a bitch, but it does safe us from a lot of spam too.
I will work on a fix where all registered user with something like 50 posts and up don't have to go through the verification. Dunno when I will get to that though.
The advantage of doing it in this way is that it is sent to a list which can be seen by multiple team members.

Alternatives for now are: send me a PM or send me a mail (as it looks that for the time being I will be doing most of the news posting).

What I would like to see in the message sent is:

Game/company: What game/company is it for
Title: What would be the title
Link: The link to the news

There is no guarantee that whatever you bring forward is also being used. Sometimes people send in news that we already had or it is just not seen as news worthy by the news poster. We also do not send messages back explaining why it is not used. That may sound unfriendly, but I could use the time spent on replying to you better on posting news (I don't have much time available anyway). You can see what we did and did not use by watching the front page and for most news bits I add a thank you in the news post itself.