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Anarchy Online Gamer Responds
An anonymous reader writes "Thought some people might be interested in seeing a follow up on the NYT article about the Anarchy Online player. His reaction to it was less then supportive. You can read about what he had to say and what other players had to say." See the original story for background.
"I feel raped."
a little overboard, i feel.
but it cant have been nice.
---- oh no - it's the RIAA and their $100000000 fine. I'm gonna take that so seriously...
I think the worst part about the NYT scandal is that it's easy to accuse a bad story of being completely wrong now. All this shows is that somebody is a liar. Which side, I don't know. It's messed up regardless.
She was interviewing a mother of a political figure (I forgot who). After the interview, the mother told Connie off the record that she felt that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. Not suprisingly, that "off the record" comment made it to the news. The moral of this story is that to the reporters, nothing is "off the record".
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Normally, I wouldn't recommend litigation, but the player concerned seems to feel that the article was very unfriendly (in his online reply he says he feels like he's been raped) so perhaps the legal route would be good for him, if only to provide a sense of closure.
Keep in mind that in order to prove that libel was committed, one must prove that (1) something written as fact is false, (2) the person who wrote said misinformation knew it was false, and (3) there existed "actual malice". And if he can prove all of that, he must prove that he suffered actual damages.
I'm not saying that libel didn't occur, I just don't want anybody to think that all you have to do to win a judgement in your favor is prove that something somebody wrote about you is false.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
One reason I still read /.
Although filled with usual bull, sometimes it does give the little guy a bigger voice.
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
So the guy thought he would make it repairing computers out of his apartment. They're going through some financial difficulties and his wife stands by him. Then what does he do, but plunge himself into this video game where he is a god and the part time gamers have to do things like have their feet sucked and put up with his sexual ennuendos.
The guy denies it, but from what I've read in the article, his original posts, and now this, he's in serious denial. He should be out there looking for a better job, honing skills, getting some education, loading boxes for UPS, whatever to get motivated to improve himself.
Instead he is playing the victim, getting lots of attention, probably spending even more time in this pseudo-reality.
I feel for his wife, this isn't the behavior of a life partner.
YOu have to be careful about off the record. For example, in the Connie Chung instance, the mom told Connie Chung she thought Hilary Clinton was a bitch, but there was a camera man there.... So later Connie Chung "asks" the camera man if he knows how the mom feels about Hilary Clinton. He was never told anything off the record, and so he can tell Connie Chung. There are other shady ways that this can happen as well. I for one would be interested in know what the NYT actual, not the one they feed you, off the record policy is.
Great Linux Site
I played a MUD (www.actofwar.com) in the year 2000 or so for the first time in my life after learning about it in IRC. It's a PK (Player Killing) game where you level up and group with other players from your city, to attack the players of one of the 3 other cities. It was addictive as hell, and rewards smart and fast thinking. I'd spend over 12 hours a day playing it. Nothing I could do could stop it...I'd delete my char (it's not very long to level) sometimes, only to make new ones. When there were no enemies on, instead of logging off I'd start a new char from a different class or run the monsters for good equipment.
Over a year later I decided I'd had enough, gave away my chars and deleted ZMUD and never went there again. That's about the same time my friend lended me his Diablo 2 + Expansion CDs with a virgin CD key, and BAM! It started all over again. The first week I was a newbie trying to figure out where to go and how to do things, and 2 months later (due to inredible luck from the random item drops) I'm a rich-as-hell elite possessing the rarest bow in the game, and even though I wasn't having any fun, the preciousness (sp) of those virtual items was way too much to just abandon it all. However eventually the same same scenario happened again: I suddenly realized I was wasting my life, gave away the items, and deleted.
As I type this now, I'm addicted to laziness. I spend my time playing old PC games, games of older consoles via emulation, and downloading music and porn off Kazaa. Once again it's time for a purge except this time it'll be more radical. I'm backing up whatever personal things I've gathered over the years (wacky pictures, rom collections, sex pictures I'm particularly fond of, irc logs, etc) to view again 10 years from now since this is basically the only memories I'll have of my late teenager years, and then I'mformatting my hard drive and giving the computer to my sister.
If anyone else than me has gaming fucking up their life, I suggest they do the same. It might seem too radical, but you don't need that PC, no matter how big a geek you are (and I doubt you're a bigger geek than me), unless you're choosing a career down the road.
Libel/slander/defamation of character is almost always easier for a private individual to prove than for a public figure. Take, for instance, the mention of the bankruptcy. (This was true, so it wouldn't really count in this case, but let me use it anyway.) Lets say I tell everyone that you've filed for bankruptcy and its not true. Given that you are a private individual, there is minimal amount of information available about you, your finances, etc. It is reasonable to believe that someone may actually believe me, and either now or at a future time, cause damage (what if a future prospective boss heard this, and denied you a job based on this lie, believing that you were not responsible enough for the position?)
Now, imagine that I tell everyone I know that Wal-Mart filed for bankruptcy. This would be the same lie, but because of the public face that walmart carries, it would be irrational for anyone to believe that wal-mart had actually gone bankrupt. Thus, it would be more difficult for walmart to show that I had managed to damage them in any way.
Either way, it generally takes a court to decide if damages had occurred.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
When dealing with journalists, get *everything* in writing. Just saying "don't put this in print, okay?" "okay" is worth absolutely nothing. Life 101.
As for the accusations from TheDeacon: OK, the article was painfully sensationalistic. But there's no libel here. Yeah, they paint a picture of him and his life, he doesn't like. Yeah, they put stuff in the article about his financial situation he wanted to keep private. But there's no real misinformation. Just interpretations TheDeacon doesn't like.
Get real, dude. Nobody sees a person as they see themselves. And no competent journalist will let the subject of an interview have editorial input. If you want your life to be private, be more careful who you talk to.
I have to say, the NYT article didn't make me think this guy is some kind of loser. I think that should carry the weight of a nonbiased observer, coming from someone whose peak of online gaming involvement was "Multiplayer Jeopardy Online!" or "Acrophobia" (anyone remember those?) for a couple hours a week for a month or two. Not exactly Mr. Intarweb Society Supremo.
There were repeated quotes from various people that he was such a nice guy and he helps people out and everyone loves and admires him and so on. It mentioned he's having some financial difficulties, but hey, who isn't these days? He spends a nontrivial amount of time doing something most people don't? So what? Doesn't nearly everyone? (Particularly everyone reading this right now. I'm looking at you, Gentle Slashdot Reader.) He works, he has a wife...let 'im have his play-time. Such was my reaction.
Mind you, I have known someone who was truly consumed by this kind of thing; it was a freshman at my college back in '92-'93 (when I was a senior). The guy was clearly unprepared to live on his own effectively. Within a couple of months of the beginning of the year, he was pretty much a fixture in front of his computer, playing MUDs and ordering Domino's. I'm not sure he even attended any classes after awhile. So, clearly, this kind of thing can and does happen, but I by no means got the impression from the NYT article that this was anywhere near the case with this "The Deacon" fella.
So what am I saying? Simply: No big deal. It's a good item to have in your bag of jokes and/or stories, Mr. Deacon. Something you can tell at barbecues or snicker about over beers with the guys. Move on.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
>>7 hours a day. you know what? That's such a load of crap
>>I would say it's quite rare that I'm ever online for more than four hours a day.
Ummm...did anyone else find this amusing? It was as if saying "Hey! I'm not a junkie! I only shoot up a couple of times a day!"
I was sympathetic to his story...until I read that.
As for the NYT report, I have no idea what transpired, and maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle (as it usually is). I DO know several newspaper reporters who after an interview get irrate calls saying:
interviewee: "I didn't say that!"
reporter: "Actually I have it on tape, and my notes...that's exactly what you said word-for-word."
interviewee: "Ok..but... that's not what I meant!"
Conversation, when written out, can end up sounding very different to a reader who is divorced from the event/situation. It happens all the time.
1. Pathetic loser is approached by New York Times reporter and is tickled so pink by the attention from a major media outlet that he goes on and on about what it's like being a pathetic loser.
/. crowd, random strangers who call him a loser, etc.
2. Article comes out and loser realizes that his 15 minutes of fame isn't worth being outed as a pathetic loser.
3. Loser, being pathetic and having neither a concept of personal dignity nor any idea how to handle situations in which the social acumen of an adult is required, throws a hissy fit and goes off on the NYT reporter, the
4. Two months later, the world has moved on. The pathetic loser still blames the world instead of himself for being a dumbass. Oh yeah, and he's still pathetic. EL FIN.
I think people who claim they feel like they've been "raped" when they haven't actually been sexually assaulted need a refresher course on exactly what rape is.
Substituting "I feel raped" for "My feeling have been hurt" is an exaggeration of unimaginable proportions, and only manages to make the person in question look foolish.
Not staying anonymous.
He's let a game (and its related interpersonal associations) ruin his ego, his financial well being, and general happyness.
Maybe this is a no brainer. Maybe saying this is akin to saying, i told you so. Hell, call it a troll. But gee, you know...
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."- Friedrich Nietzsche
Why is this news?
...and even though I wasn't having any fun
This is the most important line in the post. Something is wrong when you're driven to keep going, but *you aren't having any fun anymore*.
I have a personality type that makes this kind of addiction very easy. My first experiences with computer games were the early *text* adventures -- Adventure, Zork, and others (xyzzy, maze of twisty passages all different, etc.).
Before I knew it, I found myself glaring red-eyed at the computer screen as the sun came up, surrounded by maps, notes, etc., feeling sick and aching all over. I wasn't playing because I was having fun -- it was frustrating as hell. I felt horrible. But I was going to figure out every last puzzle if it killed me. I felt like the game was a malevolent being fighting against me.
Nowadays, I just don't start playing the games. I don't own any (though I did once spend a dozen hours or so honing winmine strategies before I realized what I was doing).
I have similar rules in other aspects of my life. I never ever gamble (not even penny poker). It just sucks the fun out of it for me, because I feel like I have to win, and I can't enjoy the game.
I was an athletic kid in school, but I ran track instead of playing basketball, or football, or any game like that where there's more personal interaction and physical contact. Yeah, you can get spiked or elbowed in a race, but running a good race involves self-control much more than exerting your will over the other runners.
There isn't anything specifically wrong with playing a game for hours on end, especially a game where you're interacting with other live players, if you're enjoying it. It can be one form of social interaction, or just like watching TV but more interactive. It's when you're harming your own well-being (mental or physical) and you still can't stop that you should get a clue that something is awry.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
Rule 1:
If you're ever arrested for anything say the following 4 words to the police and only the following 4 words: I want my lawyer.
Nothing else you say will help you, it will only hurt you.
Rule 2:
If a reporter wants to talk to you about anything only ever say the following 2 words: No comment.
Anything else you say can be twisted into making it sound like you said whatever that reporter wants.
Are you sure that AOthedeacon in Slashdot is actually the same person that plays thedeacon in AO?
It looks to me more like a troll that wants some attention. The writing style is way different from the post on nanoclan.com, and the fact that you post as an AC does not come to your avail.
I never played AO, don't really liked games I could get too much involved in (except Civilization maybe...). But I have no difficulty believing that some journalists just do as they please, knowing they can lie with impunity.
As a definition I like goes, A journalist is a person who knows nothing and writes about everything. Well, at least many journalists are like that.
Cheers
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Just for the record: I speak for myself. Not my employer.
Now that I have said that, there's something more to say about being written about in the media.
I have never met a person who think that he / she was depicted 100% correctly in an article. As a writing journalist myself, I have some theories about this.
When a person writes an article, it's imperative that the article is neutral and fact based. The article about Thedeacon probably has an angle, a focus. This focus may differ from what the article subject thinks is the focus and lead to a different (usually negative) view on the article. Thedeacon said that the article is factual, but the composing makes him view the article as bogus. This does not meant that it is.
It is easier for Thedecaon to simply brush off the article as bogus than actually take a deeper look into himself from another persons angle.
Furthermore, I'd like to adress the myth about the Vendetta Reporter. Some persons think that the article in NYT is a personal attack on Thedeacon for being a success in the MUD scene, staged by the reporter. Why? Does anyone here seriously think that a professional reporter would have something against this person and merge it into an article? It is difficult to be 100% objective in writing, but most of the journalists view this as a goal. If you absolutely need to worry about something? Go worry about the media melting that is currently going on in the US.
As for the ON / OFF-record thingy: Unless a third person is taking notes, there's NO record. A journalist seeks the truth. Thedeacon told a lot of things that he claims were "off the record" but can't prove this. Furthermore, they were relevant for the article. Maybe the the journalist could have taken the "No, everything you tell me is on the record" stance, but I don't know if he did. Anyway, the golde rule is don't tell a journalist something you don't want the journalist to hear...
Rape isn't all about sexual assult.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=raped
3. Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.
3. To plunder or pillage.
So, did he feel raped, yes.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive