Basically, in a nutshell, here is the attack being circulated by conspiracy theorists about senior D&D head Mike Mearls:
The conspiracy theory was begun by people on the Something Awful /tg forum. The theory refers to events back after the release of the fifth edition of D&D in 2014.
Here's what happened with Mike and I. In order:
-Mike and I were casual internet acquaintances. He said he liked my blog.
-Soon after the development of a 5th Edition of D&D was announced, he contacted me about being a paid consultant. This was probably the longest conversation we ever had.
-I read drafts and exchanged long emails with Mike about the new editions' players' handbook drafts and got paid to do it.
-I never playtested the game. That was not in my contract and I had no special reason to stop my weekly campaign to try a different game --and I wasn't in love with what I was seeing at the time.
(-I liked the final product much better. If anyone cares, I can't be sure of my influence on the game. Either they took some of my suggestions or other people had the same suggestions I did.)
-After it was released, the same conspiracy theorists who'd been harassing me and the D&D With Porn Stars/ I Hit It With My Axe women for years about appearing in Maxim in 2011 started harassing us again. They started on twitter, in public posts. These were not new names to us since they'd been harassing us for three years.
-I knew that D&D was going to have to have some sort of official response and probably an investigation so, unprompted, I gave Mike all the information on all the trolls and conspiracy theorists involved that I knew about at the time and said I was happy to cooperate with any investigation of my alleged badness the company might have to do.
-Mike replied that he had gotten lots of emails but none of them pointed to me doing anything bad at all. It seemed in many cases people were linking to blog posts of mine fed to them by Something Awful "friends" they themselves hadn't actually read. (This is exactly what happens any time any company investigates me: they asked for complaints, got lots, they turn out to be bs.)
-Note, none of these emails full of allegedly damning details have surfaced despite the folks involved still being around right now and still active in the scene and on RPG twitter as we speak.
-Important to emphasize: the complaints about me were all about internet stuff and all in response to recorded interactions so there's no question of Mike "believing" or "not believing" anyone. Presumably after asking, Mike was forwarded links, they didn't link to anything incriminating, just the usual: gamers harassing each other and me telling them not to.
-The names Mike used with me were ones I'd already brought up in the conversation (they had been publicly attacking me all over twitter and Something Awful for years.) Mike did not share any of their information with me. He merely said I think people like (Something Awful troll A that you already brought up) is encouraging people like (other trolls b and c that you already brought up).
-If a screenshot floating around with the accusation: look at it. It doesn't show Mike forwarding emails to me or anyone. It has us talking about well-established harassers Tracy Hurley and (the woman now called) Olivia Hill. Again: they'd been publicly harassing me since 2011.
-Mike gave me no instructions or inside info of any kind other than "be nice to people".
-Mike and I went on with our lives. I continued to do what I'd always done, including tell trolls not to troll--which Something Awful spun as "Mike Mearls gave Zak information that he then used to attack people".
-Mike and I didn't meet or talk much until years later at Gen Con and that was pretty randomly.
-Nobody has ever produced whatever alleged terrible thing they sent to Mike (even blurred or redacted) and none of them even claimed I contacted them, so far as I know. So what I was supposed to have done with that "contact info" I don't know.
All of this is recorded because me and Mike only talked online, so if you doubt any of it, contact me for a link or screenshot. If anyone tells a story that contradicts this one: they haven't fact-checked their story and aren't a reliable source of information, they either aren't smart or aren't honest. (I know this is pointless but I have to say it: Ask them for sources.)
Me and Mandy's legal stuff is progressing after a long period of waiting around for the court system to make time for us, in the meantime please stop smearing Mike.
-Z
p.s. If you really want to get into the Holiday spirit, maybe stop harassing anyone anyone you think did something wrong connected to this bullshit until the legal action is over and you know more than you do now.
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-Mike gave me no instructions or inside info of any kind other than "be nice to people".
-Mike and I went on with our lives. I continued to do what I'd always done, including tell trolls not to troll--which Something Awful spun as "Mike Mearls gave Zak information that he then used to attack people".
-Mike and I didn't meet or talk much until years later at Gen Con and that was pretty randomly.
-Nobody has ever produced whatever alleged terrible thing they sent to Mike (even blurred or redacted) and none of them even claimed I contacted them, so far as I know. So what I was supposed to have done with that "contact info" I don't know.
All of this is recorded because me and Mike only talked online, so if you doubt any of it, contact me for a link or screenshot. If anyone tells a story that contradicts this one: they haven't fact-checked their story and aren't a reliable source of information, they either aren't smart or aren't honest. (I know this is pointless but I have to say it: Ask them for sources.)
Me and Mandy's legal stuff is progressing after a long period of waiting around for the court system to make time for us, in the meantime please stop smearing Mike.
-Z
p.s. If you really want to get into the Holiday spirit, maybe stop harassing anyone anyone you think did something wrong connected to this bullshit until the legal action is over and you know more than you do now.
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I honestly do hope that you're "exonerated in the eyes of the court", or that your accuser is found "guilty of defamation", or whatever the correct fucking legal term/concept is.
ReplyDeleteNot even because I know you that well, but because the same people jumping on the "Zak is guiltaaaaayy" train have a bit too much overlap with the sorta people that have astroturfed most online ttrpg communities. They've always projected this lack of morals onto people they hate, and they clearly hate you.
They need to go. And the ability to ruin people's lives by accusing anyone-of-anything needs to go with them.
I suck at understanding law, in case it wasn't obvious.
But good luck with your legal stuff, regardless.
Yeah the people who carried this signal hardest are the same people responsible for harassing Mike for years, for harassing the 5th edition of Vampire out of existence, etc.
DeleteMany of their clique have already, themselves, publicly admitted to being complicit in genuine abuse-- Elizabeth Sampat, Sean Patrick Fannon, Tyler Carpenter or been accused by their own, like Olivia Hill (accused by Shoe Skogen), that RPGnet moderator (accused by RPGnet people), Anna Kreider's co-author on the watch (accused by Anna).
If anyone had good faith sense of what constitutes a "red flag" for abuse it'd be being part of their clique at all.
Yeesh, poor Mike. I don't really understand what the claim here is. They are saying he had proof that you were a "bad actor" in the community, but still associated with you, and then that he somehow gave you information that you used to...harass them, I guess. Is that right?
ReplyDeleteFirst that seems like a very uncharacteristic thing for Mearls to do, and even if the claims about you using this information to harass people, or somehow use Mike's knowledge to cause harm were true, it would seem more likely that it was accidental, or otherwise innocent on his part. I mean aside from his supposed connection with you what terrible acts has Mike been accused of that would warrant such aggressive language towards him? (All so your name could validate 5e? I mean no offense to you, but I think very few people who are playing the game right now are doing so because Zak Smith did some consulting on it.)
Also, I don't understand how the mere association with you is somehow so terrible, lots of people have worked with you, and this campaign against Mike seems to have popped up before the current accusations against you. Is merely having worked on any project with you a crime? (As an aside, I find it terribly dishonest to take your name out of future printings of the Player's Handbook for 5th, even if you were convicted of a crime, or simply known to be guilty, this attempt to whitewash the past smacks to me of fear and willful ignorance. If you spent time with a bad un' you don't get to pretend you didn't when it comes to light that they are bad. And from their perspective they only know someone thinks you're bad, they don't know for themselves that this is true.)
I'm curious to see if any comment comes out after your legal proceedings (assuming they go your way), and if WOTC will change their position at all. I doubt it, but unlike the many internet folk who can just go silent when they are proven wrong, a company who puts out press statements and tweets about such reactionary behavior should have to explain themselves.
Something Awful /tg 's position at the time was that 4th edition D&D was The Peoples' Edition that would bring diversity and goodness to the planet thru its newness, user-friendliness, and avoidance of player skill as a hurdle and that anyone who didn't like it was a Republican at best and a fascist nostalgist at worst. This was a -very- consistent theme at the time.
DeleteThey had a long-running harassment thread called grognards.txt where they basically echo-chambered this idea between each other over and over.
So Mike Mearls' real crime to them was not keeping 4th edition in print forever (while being the boss of D&D), and mine was preferring other editions to 4th (while running a popular blog about a diverse, left-leaning group of players)..
Every single other complaint they have really starts with this piece of petty ignorance.
WOTC won't comment on any of this if they don't have to Hasbro owns them and is a typically risk-averse large corporation.
What a terrible hill for them to die on. 4th has its merits (particularly in action economy of monsters) but it wasn't so amazing, and even if it was the apotheosis of rpg's, it's nothing to harass over.
DeleteThanks for clearing that up.
The sickest part of it is:
DeleteOk, we know there are toxic fans of everything. But in this case its -creators-.
Ettin and the folks at Something Awful make games and--worse--gainfully-employed creators* with no particular investment in that talking point just repeat the attacks they dream up to support it as if they made sense.
And since "A PERSON IS BADD!!!" is always a more popular headline than "A PERSON LIED ABOUT SOMEONE BEING BAD" its basically entirely up to their victims to fix the situation themselves.
*(broken record alert: like Fred Hicks, Cam Banks, and people at Green Ronin, as well as indie folks like Skerples)
Does anyone believe this isn't just back and forth with a sock puppet?
ReplyDeleteIt is not but if that's a claim you actually believe then you're welcome to fill out an affadavit under penalty fo perjury making that claim.
DeleteNow: we both you will not do that. This is because you do not actually know this, you are just trying to spread misinformation and/or annoy me.
So because you don't actually believe this claim, what you're doing is, objectively, harassment, which strengthens my claims for damages in court.
You might say "Well then why tell me? If meaningless internet comments improve your case, why not just let them flow freely?" -- because there are already so many that the case is easily made.
Also, and I don't know if this helps or harms the perception that I'm just a puppet, but I'm like not.(I'm the second "Unkown" in these comments, which I don't even really know why it says that.) For one thing, I'm not going to say Zak is innocent of all claims against him, (though I'd say he's made a good argument and between the people willing to stand behind him, and the history I've observed from following his blog, it makes me suspect the claims about him are distorted to say the least), because honestly I can't really verify most of his claims or interrogate his evidence without taking a major amount of time and effort away from my own life, and that's just the ones that actually have a paper trail, and not the ones that y'know involve the life of him and his partner or whoever in their private lives which I have never had access to. Frankly I'm glad it's not my job to do so, because interpersonal relationships are some of the weirdest and most complicated things I can think of to untangle, and much of the unrecorded aspects of their whole relationship are gonna be remembered by two (or more!) humans through the imperfect and inherently biased medium of memory, which gets edited and re-edited all the time.
DeleteLong story short, I don't know for sure that Zak isn't an abusive liar/whatever else has been claimed, though my somewhat biased opinion as someone who has followed and enjoyed his work interprets the proof I've witnessed so far as leaning in his favor. But what the fuck do I know!
Finally, if I were a puppet, I'd insist on being a marionette.
Zak, the preponderance of the evidence presented causes me to believe you. I cast 2 votes today by ordering "Maze of the Blue Medusa" from Satyr and "Frostbitten & Mutilated" from Amazon. Best of luck to you.
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, what *was* the main way you got the information about people who said bad things about you online? Do you google your name, do you hear about it through the grapevine, were you just the sort of person to be active enough on the internet that you ended up coming across it sooner or later, and then you followed up on their identities on other media platforms (like you realized their Twitter and their blog was written by the same author with some basic sleuthing)...?
ReplyDeletePart of why the "give out information" conspiracy theory is tantalizing is that most people don't keep track of everything that is said about them. Or, if that's overstating it, most people at least don't keep track of as much said about them as you did.
The same way every other online harassment victim does:
DeleteIf Wundergeek harasses you on her twitter account all the time for a decade, you check Wundergeek's twitter once in a while, especially when you're in the news.
Most of the time you don't even need to do that, though--these attacks usually go viral so you either see them retweeted or a friend tells you they saw it.
There's no magic to it, I bet if you ask any consistent harassment target they'd say the same thing.
@French Frie
ReplyDeleteYour comments will not be published because your comment contained misinformation. It might be due to a bad translation.
@French Frie
ReplyDeleteA news or other nonfiction outlet refusing to print inaccurate information is not "censorship". That's simply making sure the news is news, not fiction.
Please -do not- make statements you did not check in the comments, that is the entire problem here.
Science shows publishing inaccurate information in public -even if it is corrected in public- still makes people believe it, because people are stupid.
So: I am not going to compound the problem of stupid people reading misinformation and believing it and taking action on it here.
If you don't know which statements you failed to check or which Google Translate rendered inaccurately email zakzsmith AT hawtmayle dawt calm. If you believe there was an error, you can discuss it there and any questions you have will be answered.
Why did you sue Mike Mearls?
ReplyDeleteThe same reason I sued everyone else: Mike repeated Mandy's fake accusation.
Delete