Saying It’s Someone Else’s Fault Isn’t Write

We had more than our fair share of internet drama on BRB last week. A minor disagreement on the forums spilled over into a fairly major social media meltdown, that within hours had developed its own meme – “I blame Sam Write.”

I’m not going to go into the full details of all of the events that occurred, but I do think it’s necessary to clearly and publicly state that, after investigating the matter further, it was conclusively proved that Sam White did not make any of the comments on the Big Red Barrel forums that were falsely attributed to him. Even though he was the one being accused of bullying, the way that he was attacked on Twitter as a result of baseless accusations was worse than the original claims made against him. Whilst we at BRB believe the matter has been resolved to his satisfaction, Big Red Barrel would still like to offer our unreserved apology for any distress caused.

Despite the meme, I certainly don’t blame Sam Write. There are probably a few other people I could throw under the bus in a desperate attempt to “clear my name”, but you know what? No. This one is on me. I may not have been at fault at every step of the way, but my mistakes were a catalyst to events and it very firmly falls under my jurisdiction.

I am “content director” for the site and, as such, with some guidance from the rest of the group, I have final say on the type and style of content that we produce. I invited the writer in question to produce content for the site. On this occasion I also edited the article. Therein came the catalyst for events, as I did a terrible rush job on the editing of the article and this in turn invited the criticism that sparked the whole argument. It was not just my responsibility, but also my mistakes.

Content producers for BRB are encouraged to inject their personality into everything they do for us and, as a result, we end up with some pieces that justifiably may invite the criticism that they would be “better suited to a personal blog”. There are times when this leads to some writers saying things that make me think “Really? That is what you want the world to think of you?” But, aside from tweaking spelling and grammar, who am I to edit what you have to say about yourself? We do like to ensure that all our content be “gaming geek-centric” and I have refused content pitches that don’t fit with that. Aside from that general guide, we have also always tried avoiding articles that gain “cheap hits” by attention grabbing headlines that are simply regurgitating press releases or by producing flame/click bait such as the top 5 list of top 10 booth babes! Beyond those general guidelines though, there aren’t too many other rules regarding the nature of the content that can be written for the site.

Injecting personality into content can cause issues relating to having part of your life displayed and open to criticism and people will naturally take that sort of criticism more personally. Yes, it can go wrong, but you only have to look at content from the same week to see where it can go the other way. PMPB’s recent post in the Gaming For Good series was never going to “traffic well ” – unlikely even to be the most popular article on the site last week. However, there are few pieces of content I am more proud of BRB producing…ever.

When it comes to recent events, I could throw around a number of excuses as a smokescreen. There was a need for content. I was busy. I was distracted by other events going on around me. I’m basically an idiot. It’s not my job. It’s not my area of expertise. It was too hot that day. The sun was in my eyes. The devil made me do it. There was a cat on the internet. None of these, or anything I come up with, are valid excuses for being too lazy to do the job I had committed to. If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.

I still feel entirely justified in my defence of the writer in the forum thread. If this was a mistake I made before, it is one I will knowingly make again. I am proud to say I have always stood up to bullies my whole life, throughout my school and work environments and anywhere else I have encountered it. Arguably BRB’s very existence was born out of this principle. I would not hesitate to stand up for any of our content producers (not least as you are probably attacking one of my friends) – but this was also the reason I couldn’t condone the behaviour that was later exhibited on Twitter.

Please note that while an offer of resignation was initially refused by BRB (prior to Twitter outbursts) the writer in question has subsequently offered her resignation again and this has been accepted by BRB management. BRB would like to wish her well in all future ventures and thanks her for previous submissions.

If you have a problem with how events played out, then you have a problem with me and no one else. You can stop your finger pointing now, I held my hands up.

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Comments

  1. I may be asking this because I’ve been out of the internet loop for a week as I’m still waiting for my PC to come back, but…what the everloving shit have I missed and why did it need to come down to a resignation? It baffles me sometimes, the internet.

    I have, since starting writing this post, looked back at the ‘offending topic matter’, and I fail to see the problem outside closed-minded individuals whining because it’s an article on gaming and relationships and written by a female. Fuck, if I wrote a similar article on my personal blog and it got imported elsewhere, it probably wouldn’t even receive half the crap this did – in fact, it’d probably get a “meh” response and people would move the fuck on with their lives. And heck, it even injected a little humour near the end after all the serious talk about how damned hard it is for gaming to be an accepted hobby even in this modern age by everyone else who thinks shooting the brains out of a human zombie “is a kid’s thing to do”.

    Admittedly, I’ve now read this assuming the grammatical errors that were brought up in the first place have been corrected (which was the first and only complaint originally about the article – I haven’t found any in the forum posting of it) and that matter’s already been claimed to be an editorial ball drop. That shouldn’t be used against the writer – not everyone has a Master’s degree in typewriting. I’ve been known to make spelling goofs at the worst of times (and I’ve known people who’ve made worse). Personally, I don’t think it’s so much a “this article shouldn’t have belonged on BRB” argument as a “I’m sexist and I think this article is making me vomit” argument disguised as the previous argument.

    Personally, I am going to support the content that was created and have requested to follow her after reading both her leave from BRB and the article that (very wrongly) caused it. Whether that’ll be accepted or not is her choice. I don’t know of the Twitter rant, but my mind can only assume that, besides the unnecessary gutshot from the one guy linking to a BBC educational website, any later comment isn’t likely to have been about the article at all (and if it was, possibly sparked by something that began on Twitter in the first place), since it doesn’t seem to have been handled over BRB itself. Again, it’s all my mind can think of, I’ve been out of the loop for a week and came back to this. Which is bullshit.

    TL;DR version: There’s nothing wrong with the article, just a whiny caste of sexist jerks banging on about girl gamers again. Also, meh, editorial slip-ups, I’ve seen worse things to complain about over on IGN or Machinima.

  2. “He”? Guessing here you mean the one bringing up the “learn2English” card? If that’s the case, that’s excessive and not the extent I’d go to by any stretch of the word. But it does kind of add to my point of it all being Twitter drama, not BRB-based, and largely unnecessary. And like I said, been out of the loop for a week and the only Twitter I can read about what happened has since gone protected.

  3. Weekin

    I’m not the straw man for anti-girls in gaming. Don’t make me one. I’m all pro PEOPLE writing and making content but when it reads badly then it drags the whole article down despite the quality of the content.

    Tim, you did a good job making it more fluent and readable but the content was still poor. That’s not your job at all and I totally agree that PMPB’s Gaming for Good article deserves more attention than it got. It was by far one of last weeks better written pieces and had a great message behind it.

    I’m glad people finally laid off Sam. He’s a good guy and didn’t deserve the sheer amount of abuse he received that week.

    http://i.imgur.com/3jblwl5.png

  4. This week has beencrazy for gaming related sadness all round.

  5. @weekin I’m just trying to understand the whole of the issue. And by the looks of those linked tweets, it would seem the matter was to do with someone else – or something else, though probably hard for me to make sense of post-editing. I never said you were one of those kinds of people – you were the only one giving criticism and the BBC link was the only thing I could see that could be considered a trigger mechanism for a twitter rant. I’m glad the rant wasn’t over something as daft and avoidable, but it does seem the matter is a bit more serious than I first guessed too.

    @frawlzfans Obviously wires got crossed in communication there. The “he” was asking who “he had feminists…” was referring to. Guessing that it’s referencing the guy “memed” in this instance, after further reading. And I am saying “Who cares? It’s only Twitter.” Would you rather the drama boil over where it’s likely to involve BRB more, like the forums or – Heaven forbid – a blog post like this? At least, when it did get personal, she used a personal method of dealing with it, not trying to drag anyone down with her. And if people got involved through Twitter, it’s up to them.

    Then again, I guess people can’t understand personal Twitter accounts means personal thoughts and feelings – that’s why Adam Orth also lost a job, eh?

  6. Weekin

    It’s not personal reasons at all, I barely know the girl and I don’t know why you’re enabling this myth of ‘personal attack’. I’ve left feedback and had conversations with your other writers about their content in the past. I actually thoroughly enjoy a debate with Mat both on here and on Twitter about his work. It’s almost as if he wants to take on feedback and develop as a writer! Shock.

    Tim, I honestly don’t see why you’re taking full blame for this ridiculousness at all. You don’t put words in peoples mouths apart from when you’re editing on here, which improved something! That’s your job. One thing you can’t edit, is everything else that went on. You’re not to blame. You’re not a bad person and you’re actually an inspiring writer.

    Just going OT of this article again – the OTHER people she accused before moving on to Sam never got an apology at all. In fact, the reason behind this is because they never spoke up about it and it seemingly didn’t affect Lauren. I bet it affected the accused.

  7. KrazyDude

    Oh BRB, this is the biggest Thing you can produce?

  8. Weekin

    Nah she attacked some people and I was offended by the way she conducted herself. That’s about it really.

    Also, I think I know who Someone is 🙂

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