Saturday, July 18, 2020

Dear Chris McDowall and the OSR Discord

Dear Chris,

After the accusations, you had a big conversation about it and explicitly changed the rules of the OSR Discord to allow lying. This isn't my interpretation, this is literally the decision y'all came to: lying is ok on the Discord.

At a certain point, even you and the folks that thought this up (Shoe Skogen, Cavegirl, Aura etc) must realize it has a downside.

Here's some idiot asking Erika aka IceQueenErika aka Erika Muse, a Something Awful troll, for information.
I don't like therpgsite ever since it went all Maga in 2016 but here I am today, going to the trouble to log into my rpgsite account for the first time in forever to post a picture of Erika saying, just days ago, that I am banned from therpgsite.

This is a very small example, of course, there are dozens of more serious ones. Why are you ok with this?

Chris: I understand--running the Discord helps you sell your book, but seriously how fucked up does the community have to get before you reconsider turning your forum into a troll playground?
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31 comments:

TommyWiseman said...

Oh I remember that convo, that was weird. You can see it in the cap, Josie asks for some evidence to Raggi's stalking accusation and Erika couldn't deliever due to lawsuits(?) from you and Raggi??? but was like "You gotta believe me."
Total BS obviously.

Oh and you probably don't give a fuck but a small note: Shoe & Cave aren't mods anymore. No idea why Emmy Allen stopped but Shoe was kicked out due to Erika's and Emmy's complaints.

Zak Sabbath said...

And what did Chris say when you pointed out to him that Erika lies all the time?

Teamslope said...

I thought the raggi "stalker" thing was due to him saying he was a "creep-obsessive like that"? It wasnt even a confession, like saying you're obsessed with a game or whatever.

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

I'm curious:

Why is this something you thought was worth commenting on and yet somebody extremely vocal straight-up lying in the most obvious way not?

Like: does this not seem weird to you? Questionable? Far more of a big deal?

TommyWiseman said...

I am scared of them and did not say anything.

Zak Sabbath said...

@TommyWiseman

Do you think if you contacted Chris directly he would blow you up to Erika?

TommyWiseman said...

Good point. He wouldn't. You're right.

Timmy Crabcakes said...

I never bothered with that Discord, or know who those people are, but she's obviously lying or maybe confusing theRPGSite with RPG Pub... maybe she's lying AND confused.

Teamslope said...

@zak

Well honestly I just find it weird that she's accusing raggi of whatever bullshit but the "evidence" is an offhand comment Raggi himself made years ago. I don't really understand why that would be damnable evidence. Has he been charged with stalking, an actual crime in finland? Does he have a restraining order? These are things I wonder about. I was concerned when the accusations about you came out, but since you haven't been arrested for anything, so I doubt. Same as I doubt Raggi here. Hey, if someone can produce me a restraining order that says "mr raggi fuck off and never speak to this woman again" that's another story. But to just throw that out there over a fairly innocuous comment, seems really stupid. I also have never heard of like, half of these people but all of a sudden they have all the fucking clout in the world and respect for miles, with no published books and it doesn't seem fair!

Zak Sabbath said...

@knobgobbler

If you read the conversation she is, objectively, lying. She describes theRPGsite (pundit's forum) in detail.

She has a long history of lying--Erika manufactures narratives to back up Something Awful conspiracy theories. As each one gets debunked, she invents another.

For example:

There was a conspiracy theory that Mike Mearls gave me the names of people to harass in 2014 when they complained about me being a consultant on 5e D&D. The problem was that:

-nobody could say what the substance of these complaints were, you should've been able to link or screencap them.

-nobody could show me harassing anyone anywhere, this was were supposedl;y online harassment so again you should've been able to link or screencap them.

-nobody could say who these harassed people even were, and these people surely were in no danger from me by 2019 since I had been cancelled

So after promoting this theory from 2014-2018, Erika then added a new wrinkle in the last year:

-The Something Awful goons who had Totally Valid Not Imaginary complaints about me had supposedly contacted mike anonymously using burner accounts

-Mike then (for some insane reason) gave me these anonymous burner account emails and then I (for some utterly inscrutable reason that makes sense in exactly zero ways) harassed the anonymous burner accounts

-Where are these many many burner accounts? Gone. Erased. Unretrievable.

Erika has very much done this on purpose.

Shoe Skogen supported Mandy's accusations on Chris' discord out of naivete and bc she was friends with Mandy.

Aura and Cavegirl supported them out of general 4channy nastiness

Chris supported them (like all the old OSR bloggers) out of a white guy's fear of swimming too close to a drowning man.

Erika and the other Something Awful goons (like Ettin, who got sued) supported them because they'd hated me for years.

Basically Erika's gone on to take over the rumormill at the discord. If you type raggi's or my name into the search bar you find endless conspiracy theories from her keyboard straight off the Something Awful /tg conspiracy boards.

Erika did not remotely make a mistake. She has been doing this since at least 2014.

Zak Sabbath said...

@Teamslope

I am repeating my question because you didn't answer it:

Why is this something you thought was worth commenting on and yet somebody extremely vocal straight-up lying in the most obvious way not?

Why does the thing that you -cannot- be sure about seem more worth commenting on than the absolutely totally provable in your face fact that Erika lied?

teamslope said...

@zak

What's Erika's name on SA? I have never heard of this person.

If you could also clarify something: I saw a tweet regarding your lawsuits back in april, and I just wanted to get it from the Horse's mouth, if it were.

Is a correct reading of the situation that, in order for the lawsuits to stop, the storefront, convention and website bans need to be lifted, in that order of importance?

teamslope said...

@zak

I can't really add anything to the fact that Erika lied? I don't even know who she is? The only comment I could really make is something like "What a dingbat"? Does that answer your question?

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

It's Erika or IceQueenErika I believe. icequeenerika on twitter. If you ask her on the discord she'll tell you, I'm sure.


"Is a correct reading of the situation that, in order for the lawsuits to stop, the storefront, convention and website bans need to be lifted, in that order of importance?"

No.

In order for the lawsuits to stop:

1) Every single aspect of my life they have affected will have to go back to the way they were (including all the things you listed, in no particular order)

AND

2) Every single human being who supported them in any way will face some form of accountability for having done that

-----

OR

Someone kills me.
------

If that sounds like a tall order: I know it is. But I have no choice.

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

That answers my question.

teamslope said...

@zak

Yeah and I'm aware that "accountability" doesn't necessarily mean "lawsuit", I'm sure you're supposed to, at least, as a formality, get a lawyer to send a little letter saying "hey. stop this and apologize or we'll take legal action" or whatever, been awhile since my dad had his suit :).

The next question is what exactly do you mean by "supported"?

Do you mean:

a) believed mandy, out of loyalty, sense of wanting to believe women, etc?

or

b) used said accusations of mandy to "cancel" you, as in, openly said "yeah this is a true fact now, zak is evil and bad and we demand you pull him from DTRPG"?

Or is it both?

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

Both of course. There are lots of reasons to assume guilt without even calling for an investigation, but none of them are good reasons.

Accountability does not -require- a lawsuit but since the guilty parties in the RPG community has 100% refused to engage me anywhere outside a court room, that's where I'll have to start.

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

That said, if any of them volunteer to actually answer questions about their actions and accusations outside a court room, I would happily sign a document waiving my right to sue them.

But considering how many of them just blundered full-steam into completely textbook defamatory language the second they read that Facebook post without a moments' hesitation, I don't think foresight is really their strong suit. These aren't smart people, and, moreover, they are nerds and fear confrontation.

They would literally rather be sued and lose than look their victim in the face and go "I fucked up, I'm sorry, what can I do to make it up to you?"

teamslope said...

@zak

Honestly if they end up in a courtroom after the lawyer's "final warning" letter, then they basically deserve everything they get, as far as I see it. Paul Ettin comes off to me as the kind of dude that would get that letter, go "haha whatever" and just double or triple down. If you get told "nope, we're getting lawyers involved now' over internet bullshit then you should probably rethink your actions instead of doubling down

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

That's exactly why I didn't send Ettin a letter first. It would've been a waste of time. I skipped straight to the lawsuit.

" If you get told "nope, we're getting lawyers involved now' over internet bullshit then you should probably rethink your actions instead of doubling down"

You should but, again:

-The people in the RPG industry are not smart-

Even the ones (like Patrick Stuart, who is no doubt reading this) who think they are.

These are people who, when I issued my first statement, everyone was like "Oh no way a lawyer read that letter" when a lawyer (of course) wrote half of it because what the fuck else would a person in my position do?

These are people who were like "Oh there's no way he'll sue because he knows he's guilty"

These are people who were like "Oh he can't possibly win"

These are people who, when faced with Ettin's intuition vs Jeff Rient's intuition, went with Ettin's.

These are people whose intuition told them Adam Koebel was a good dude rather than a tedious cypher.

These are people who decided to pick a legal fight with a jewish guy known primarily among friend and foe alike for -having records of everything- and. -never letting go of anything ever-.

These are nerds so arrogant they read testimony from witnesses present for events they themselves knew nothing about and decided to go with their own dumb internet guess instead because "Well Zak asks questions and that hurt my friends' feelings so I must know more than like Zak and Mandy's girlfriend or roommate"

These are people who, for the most part, either spent the last 5 years accusing everyone who disagreed with them of being me or, worse, spent the last 5 years -being accused of being me- and still don't realize you can't trust everything you read on the internet.

These are people who literally have accused me of harassing people by asking for evidence that I harassed people.

These are people who literally think they can stand up and say any of this to a judge from a court who sees -real- true gruesome abuse and harm and harassment every day and hear the judge say anything back other than "What the fuck, son?"

So I definitely suspect a lot them are too stupid do anything but double down.

Saul Goodman said...

How's the lawsuit going? Got ahold of the peeps? I'd imagine that Erika to be among them?

Zak Sabbath said...

@saul

"The" lawsuit, singular?

The one against Mandy is sitting on a desk somewhere waiting for the next date that a judge is available to evaluate the next motion she filed. She hasn't got meaningful evidence so it's all delaying tactics.

There are others and they are at various earlier stages. No surprises, from my end, though it is all slow, which is annoying.

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

duh

teamslope said...

This might seem like a strange question, but did Cavegirl "edit" the conversation she posted with you? Omit things? I ask because it's not in screenshot form, and I mean, you can just make shit up doing transcribed conversations

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

what conversation?

teamslope said...

At the bottom of this: http://cavegirlgames.blogspot.com/2019/02/thoughts-on-zaklash-personal-stuff.html

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

i didnt check my discord but i dont see any obvious edits—

i don’t know why anyone saw this transcript as in any way important—

-Cavegirl urges me to apologize (to my abuser) for crimes i didnt commit.

-She does so on the basis that “if someones hurt or says they are you definitely did wrong” which is on-the-face-of-it-stupid (if some hompphobic bigot is sad bc they see two guys kiss did the guys do wrong? no)

-i tell her this is stupid and leads to the same moronic dynamic you saw in storygames where everyone pretends all possible attacks are valid just to keep the peace

-Instead of addressing this gaping problem in her claim, Cavegirl flees

I can’t for the life of me figure why anyone would see that as remotely damning. Even by her own logic she owes me a massive public apology.

Its like Alice In Wonderland logic. And people saw it as meaningful. I don't get it.

teamslope said...

i doubt cavegirl will be apologizing to anyone, since she had a meltdown on the discord and demanded to be banned from it (but not before accusing Shoe of raping her in an RP session). She isn't really stable enough to have an online presence. Doubt you'll get what you want, but her actions say quite a few things about her credibility, which may or may not be good enough. If you did ever manage to track her down, her behavior might be damned good evidence that she, as you have said on twitter, needs therapy time before she needs internet time.

Thanks for answering anyway, Zak! Hope the Covid pandemic isn't hurting you as bad as others. I was just about to go to work but they shut down again because of all the anti-maskers.

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

Its a real weird coincidence how every single person who came out against me has a long history of being totally insane and wrong and its fucked up nobody ever points that out

teamslope said...

i think people are leaning on arnold k being pretty normal and ok

Zak Sabbath said...

@teamslope

Arnold isnt in any way ok. He came out against me right away:
- lying straight up in his post
- telling people, literally, “i dont recommend talking to zak bc he makes sense”
-accusing me of harming people but not being able to say who or how

its like people watched Arnold vomit up a hairball and fuck it and then went “oh he seems smart”