whitemithrandir said:
The pod casts are freely available for download for anyone who wishes to listen to them. There's negativity, but it's most definitely NOT disruptive or unreasonable negativity. There's some heavy criticism of the Star Trek: Legacy video game published by Bethesda, but that's hardly grounds for black-listing an entire bank of customers and potential customers, a vast number of which have already purchased the game.
If the podcasts would have limited themselves to giving constructive criticism about the game, and not more, then I don't think we would have been in this situation. Instead they also choose to use their podcasts to take personal shots at administrators, and moderators. They used loads of profanity and whatnot.
take for instance TESF, I don't think they've ever allowed people to link to sites which hold as much profanity as those podcasts. Nor have they ever allowed to link to movies which contain it. So going further along that why would the podcasts be any different.
The site administrators have said time and time again that the disruptive and threatening behavior exhibited by those members are NOT in affilation with the site as a whole. There are people from the Elder Scrolls Forums who come on to THIS site and make the same threats, behave in the same general trend of retardedness, and try to stir up the same magnitude of trouble as the black sheep of the Trek site that Bethsoft is using as an excuse to blacklist the entire community. Yet, here at the codex, we TARGET THESE MEMBERS when it comes to responsibility for their actions instead of the entire community that they happen to have an account under.
Bethsoft did the exact opposite.
I see your point, but do not agree. While it might be the case that the admins at the STG say the disruptiveness is not affiliated by with the staff of the forums, they certainly did nothing to stop it.
They've had posts that had the following;
- Bashing of moderators
- Bashing of administrators
- advocating piracy
- threaths to get into some organised trolling of the official ST forums of Bethesda
- Harasssing atleast one of the moderators through his private email address.
- Accusations that Bethesda had hacked someone's emailbox.
- And that's not even mentioning all the swearing and namecalling that goes on there.
And much more.
While the admins of the STG might not agree with the sentiments of their members, they certainly never did anything to stop them.
And yes, before you start, I could provide links to all the above cases, I'm a bit pressed with time right now but if you'd really like to get the links from me, please mention it and I'll go dig at them tonight.
You, me, and anyone who listened to those podcasts know that there's nothing in those podcasts overreaching into the realm of inappropriateness. They criticize the game by giving clear and present reasons - which are rational and valid.
Bethsoft blacklisted the site as a PR manuever - to suppress criticism and negativity. That's a stupid move from both a marketing perspective and PR perspective, in my opinion, but Bethsoft has every right to do it.
Just don't pretend it's some sort of move to "shield the poor, young, helpless minds of the ESF teens from blatant 18+ mature content".
...And if you truly believe the STG community site contains "inappropriate content and discussion", show me, and I'll show you the exact same content and discussions from some of the other fansites listed under the bethsoft official page.
Again, those links I fear will have to wait untill tonight when I have a bit more time. And if other forums contain similar things, then for one thing I must have missed it all this time I went there, and second it would mean we'd have to re-evaluate linking to those peticular forums and such.
Alexander