Apology from Sticktwiddlers for comments...

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
There has been a lot of back and forth with the guys from Stick Chat because of their well... abusive video (here) but they came clean discussed and engaged on their page and the most offensive comment involving shooting us between the eyes has been apologised for:

"Hi folks, Jamie here. Firstly, I would like to apologise for being unable to comment on the furore surrounding this video until now. I have been attending to family matters and have been unavailable, hence my request that Ben post my apologies in the interim, as I did not want anyone to think that I was ignoring the issue.



I would like to apologise for suggesting that those who pay £100 for access to the Elite Dangerous beta should be "taken into a field and shot". As Ben has already stated, at my request, I freely admit to abuse of hyperbole and the aforementioned statement used an extreme, exaggerated anger to express my depth of feeling on the matter. I would not, under any circumstances, wish for anyone to take this comment seriously and I apologise profusely for any offence or distress which my words may have caused.



As regular readers and listeners of Sticktwiddlers content know, I often use an overly angry, "ranty" style for comedic effect and to put my point across. That was my intention in this instance but I fully accept that I made an error in this case and for that I am sorry."

Which I think was good of them, not many people will admit to that.
 

drbosnovich

D
Wow are people annoyed about this? I really don't see the issue; they're entitled to have and voice whatever view they like really; the language is a little fruity, but they shouldn't have to apologise for their views, nor for something that quite obviously ironic; nobody in their right minds listens to that and thinks 'oh they're asking people to find Elite backers and shoot them'.

Clearly, being a beta premium backer, I obviously disagree with their view, but there is the option to, yknow, not listen to it. I'd have daily psycotic incidents if I decided to watch Sky and Fox everyday. So I don't.
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
drbosnovich said:
Wow are people annoyed about this? I really don't see the issue; they're entitled to have and voice whatever view they like really; the language is a little fruity, but they shouldn't have to apologise for their views, nor for something that quite obviously ironic; nobody in their right minds listens to that and thinks 'oh they're asking people to find Elite backers and shoot them'.

Clearly, being a beta premium backer, I obviously disagree with their view, but there is the option to, yknow, not listen to it. I'd have daily psycotic incidents if I decided to watch Sky and Fox everyday. So I don't.
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Well calling an entire group of people morons publicly tends to make said group a tad annoyed. Which is reasonable I think.

jefranklin18 said:
Never heard of them previously, but what a weirdly unprofessional group.
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I thought so too until they apologised. That is professional.
 

Ulysses_W

Ulysses_W
drbosnovich said:
Wow are people annoyed about this? I really don't see the issue; they're entitled to have and voice whatever view they like really; the language is a little fruity, but they shouldn't have to apologise for their views, nor for something that quite obviously ironic; nobody in their right minds listens to that and thinks 'oh they're asking people to find Elite backers and shoot them'.
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What he said.
 

popuptoaster

P
Did anyone point out to them that we paid to back the game so that it got made and the access to alpha or beta or whatever was a gift for helping out?

I would not have paid £200 just for alpha access had the game already been fully funded by a publishing house.

I donated money, I didn't "buy" anything.
 

drbosnovich

D
JeffRyan said:
Well calling an entire group of people morons publicly tends to make said group a tad annoyed. Which is reasonable I think.
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All people who eat fish and cheese together are morons. Boom.

Really get over it; people disagree with each other. It happens. I have many views that are undoubtedly considered moronic by intelligent rational people, just as there are many intelligent, rational people who I think are total morons.

Put it this way; what actual harm are they doing to you or anybody else by stating an opinion on an internet site?
 

Joat

Joat
drbosnovich said:
Wow are people annoyed about this? I really don't see the issue; they're entitled to have and voice whatever view they like really; the language is a little fruity, but they shouldn't have to apologise for their views, nor for something that quite obviously ironic; nobody in their right minds listens to that and thinks 'oh they're asking people to find Elite backers and shoot them'.

Clearly, being a beta premium backer, I obviously disagree with their view, but there is the option to, yknow, not listen to it. I'd have daily psycotic incidents if I decided to watch Sky and Fox everyday. So I don't.
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The problem wasn't that they called the backers morons etc., the problem was they said that the backers "should be taken into a field and shot". That is waaay passed what is acceptable.
 

JeffRyan

JeffRyan
drbosnovich said:
All people who eat fish and cheese together are morons. Boom.

Really get over it; people disagree with each other. It happens. I have many views that are undoubtedly considered moronic by intelligent rational people, just as there are many intelligent, rational people who I think are total morons.

Put it this way; what actual harm are they doing to you or anybody else by stating an opinion on an internet site?
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I find your vehement defense of calling a group of people morons strange. And I can take this to the extreme here, opinions matter, what you call people matters. I agree it's not a big deal, it didn't make me particularly angry or annoyed, I was pleased that they were big enough to apologise.

My point /here/ is that insults and derogatory comments about groups of people are the basis of prejudice in general as well. A blanket 'x should be shot' whether that x be men, women, black people, french, whatever... so it does matter. Opinions count and are the basis of society as a whole. When I put a group of people together and label them all as one and the same I'm doing the individuals in that group, whatever group that might be, a disservice. And the people in that group will get annoyed or angry.

If I adjusted the words alpha backers or beta backer to any other group then my website would be under attack as a hate site.

Words count. If they didn't we wouldn't spend so much time learning them, using them and holding people accountable for them.
 
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MrShadowfax

MrShadowfax
JeffRyan said:
My point /here/ is that insults and derogatory comments about groups of people are the basis of prejudice in general as well. A blanket 'x should be shot' whether that x be men, women, black people, french, whatever... so it does matter.
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Disagree on the "prejudice" point - if it is based on a conscious decision or action by the people in that group, then that's not true, ie a blanket "all murderers should go to jail" sits absolutely fine with me.

I think "should be shot" is something that if you say, you should make obvious it is a joke. Except for the French, of course.




(j/k)
 

drbosnovich

D
JeffRyan said:
My point /here/ is that insults and derogatory comments about groups of people are the basis of prejudice in general as well. A blanket 'x should be shot' whether that x be men, women, black people, french, whatever... so it does matter. Opinions count and are the basis of society as a whole. When I put a group of people together and label them all as one and the same I'm doing the individuals in that group, whatever group that might be, a disservice. And the people in that group will get annoyed or angry.
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This is a massive red herring and a completely different topic; Such statements (in the UK at least) would, I believe, fall under the Public Order Act 1986 and would constitute a criminal offense. They are just stating that they think some decisions that people have taken are stupid. There is no discrimination on the basis things that people do not choose such as a person's race; gender; etc.

I will grant you that there is a conversation to be had over whether the clearly sarcastic comment of 'should be taken into a field and shot' (a phrase which is commonly used in unofficial, colloquial UK speech) could be reasonably construed as criminal offense; which is presumably why they apologised.
 
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VR jefranklin18

VR jefranklin18
JeffRyan said:
I thought so too until they apologised. That is professional.
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My comment about professionalism wasn't directed at their "premium backers are morons and should be taken into a field and shot" comment (which is highly unprofessional), but more the refusal to undertake even basic research in to Elite history and why Frontier avoided the publisher model. It seems they looked at the original spiel on the Kickstarter page and based their comments solely off that. The fact that they are unlikely to review it (in their own words) is also unprofessional when they have admitted to backing Star Citizen.

If I ran a site that professed to be "by gamers for gamers", I would hope that I keep any prejudices in check. (BTW Nintendo sucks ;))
 

Alien

Alien
The sole reason I objected to the comments was that we have a hard enough time as it is, for example, the whole Star Citizen vs Elite Dangerous thing, which I have recently stated we should stop doing. What we don't need is some website getting attention for making unjustified negative comments, not about the game, but about us as a community. It is for that reason I didn't resort to swearing when I replied in their comments section.
 

drbosnovich

D
jefranklin18 said:
My comment about professionalism wasn't directed at their "premium backers are morons and should be taken into a field and shot" comment (which is highly unprofessional), but more the refusal to undertake even basic research in to Elite history and why Frontier avoided the publisher model. It seems they looked at the original spiel on the Kickstarter page and based their comments solely off that. The fact that they are unlikely to review it (in their own words) is also unprofessional when they have admitted to backing Star Citizen.

If I ran a site that professed to be "by gamers for gamers", I would hope that I keep any prejudices in check. (BTW Nintendo sucks ;))
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I know nothing about the site, or the audience; but undoubtedly it's bad journalism. My take (just from watching that one video), was that it was a comment piece and was not intended to present a fair or reasonable argument on anything. I haven't checked, but clearly the site needs to be careful about distinguishing 'comedy rants' from 'informational journalism'.
 

cptzipzap

C
wow what an unprofessional comment. thx for sharing..

an apology is not enough in my opinion they have to understand whats it all about..
 

Alien

Alien
jefranklin18 said:
The fact that they are unlikely to review it (in their own words) is also unprofessional when they have admitted to backing Star Citizen.

If I ran a site that professed to be "by gamers for gamers", I would hope that I keep any prejudices in check. (BTW Nintendo sucks ;))
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That is interesting. Does anyone know how much they each backed Star Citizen for? Because if they backed high enough to Alpha / Beta test the game ... well ... I think you know where I am going with this.
 
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