Talk:Dwilight Daily/2008/May/21

OOC - First of all, its "Fisc Arylon" not "Arylon Fisc". I was always of the impression that wiki metadata was off limits for in character knowledge. And seriously - "look around in the cellars for old copies"? Who's cellars? You think anyone from the Daily would have been given access to Everguard's library? And your using that quote from the paper is out of context, because I was referring to the OTHER newspapers, not our own. Specifically I was referring to the Dwilight Daily's absurd anti-Everguard bias.

Bob is the sole writer for the Chronicle, but I didn't see you write up a massive expose about that - this is getting borderline ridiculous. You wrote fair and nice evaluations of the other papers, but attack the Visionary because my character got tired of himself and his realm being unfairly ravaged in the other papers (gang pile on mentality) so he finally decided to write an editorial article in the paper defending the paper, the realm and Fisc specifically... real nice.

This isn't in character stuff with you guys anymore, which I find sad. I don't mind you mentioning that the Visionary is clearly slanted/biased toward the realm's point of view, because it is and that's fair to mention, but this personal vendetta crap is getting out of hand.

Oh, and just for the record, I changed signing my articles to "Editorial Board" so it wouldn't look (IC or OOC) to the other players in my realm that I was the sole contributer and "the guy" to write everything - I was trying to encourage other people to get involved in its writing by not completely dominating it. It can be intimidating when one person controls the whole newspaper, and it often silently dissuades people from contributing to newspapers. Unfortunately, we have not had a lot of people interested in writing, so its still mostly me, but that's why I did it that way. Arylon 09:54, 22 May 2008 (CEST)

OOC: My apologies for the mistaken name, I'll fix that as soon as I finish this. As for your other points:

• There is no use of metadata. When you started writing the Visionary, you clearly signed your article as "Fisc Arylon". So when you published them, that's how our copies read. Now we go back and look, and it's all "Editorial Board". Sorry, but in a multiplayer game you can't retcon by fiat. We saw what we saw. If it's different now, that means someone changed it, and we know that someone changed it. In fact, your recent article about author's bias is what drew my attention to the change. I knew you always signed your articles as "Fisc Arylon", but now they were all "Editorial Board".
• Wiki articles are explicitly IC information known by all players. To know that info, we have to have copies. If you don't want other people outside Everguard to have access to it, and know what you're publishing, then either don't publish it on a public web site that you know people outside your realm are reading, or you should post a clear and explicit note on your paper that the information published there is not to be used as IC info outside of Everguard. The Lurian Weekly does this for their "Latest Issue", and removes the tag once the issue is a month or so out of date. (They even put an expiration date on the OOC restriction notice.)
• "Anti-Everguard bias"? Sure, I suppose that some of the writers have that. But let's face it, Everguard has an anti-everyone-close-to-us bias. Everguard is the initiator of all hostile actions in the area. And no, I don't consider starting a colony on land that is not publicly claimed to all rulers as being hostile or aggressive. (Your private claims that you make only inside your own realm don't count. When Deverka wanted to claim the city of Freke as a Morek possession, he didn't send a message to the people in Morek saying "Freke is ours", he sent a message to King Neal of Springdale and worked out a public treaty declaring Aegir as Springdale's, and Freke as Morek's, and then posted the treaty on the wiki. The same with Morek and Pian en Luries.) In the short time you have existed you have managed to offend every other realm on the island. So, since everyone dislikes Everguard, do you think the problem is with Everguard, or do you think the problem is everyone else? On an IC basis, I have no problem at all with Fisc Arylon making the claim that everyone has it out for Everguard. It makes good press. But let's keep it IC. I have absolutely no OOC problem with Everguard or it's actions. Again, I can't speak for other players writing for the DD.
  Also, I have to point this out: Everguard set themselves up as a huge target. They strong-armed Caerwyn out of Eidulb with a "move or we'll destroy you" ultimatum. Caerwyn didn't fight it because there was no way they could even appoint lords before the Everguard army could march into the city. When Astrum started in Libidizedd Everguard tried to pull the same thing. Fisc even sent messages to the effect of "Take no notice of our starving regions and the fact that we just had a region revolt, we're really big and powerful, honest!" in attempt to reinforce the threat of "Move or we'll destroy you" again. If Everguard had been able to pull it off, then perhaps things would have been different. But they couldn't. After that threat was delivered, and before Everguard could even begin to try and make good on it, Everguard went into a tailspin that still hasn't stopped. How ridiculous do Everguard's threats of imminent destruction look now that they have lost 5 regions to peasant revolts, their military power has dropped from 5,000 CS to under 1,500, and yet another colony has popped up in their claimed territory?
• Sole writer: Bob may be the only writer writer for the Chronicle, but the Chronicle isn't telling everyone that the Dwilight Daily is a "rag" full of lies and propaganda. On the other hand, the visionary had just published a blatant propaganda piece squarely aimed at the Daily. In that propaganda piece they said that you have to watch out for the possible bias of the writer based on he writer's best interests. Hence the whole point of pointing out that the only known and attributed writer of the Visionary is none other than the (former) High King himself. Did someone say "personal stake in the situation"?
• If my articles are confrontational with the Visionary, then it is because the Visionary has chosen to be confrontational with the Daily. (Note that this journalistic stance of paper-vs-paper is explicitly separate from my character's political stance regarding Everguard, or even his public and private stance on the same issues.) You're the one that started the journalistic warfare with insults and bias accusations. (I am not speaking for anyone else here, others may be confrontational (if they are, that's for others to decide) for their own reasons.) Until that point, I attempted be fair and reasonable with my articles (there may have been some bias, but, hey, I'm human), not even mentioning any other papers' bias or source at all. Yes, I did quote from them, but made no accusations of bias on the part of the paper, as far as I can remember. You cast the first stone, don't be surprised when others toss a few back your way.
• Yes, it is all IC. I'm sorry that you can't understand that.
• Quoting out of context? "Say it isn't so!" Actually, that was a perfect in-context quote. I used your own words in the exact intent with which they were intended: To warn the reader against possible bias on the part of the writer based on the writer's vested interest in the issue. Yes, I aimed them back at you when you intended them to only be applied to other papers. That doesn't make it out of context. You used such a classic propaganda tactic: Someone with a clear and very strong vested interest in the outcome of events on which he is commenting attempting to appear fair and impartial by warning the reader to watch for bias in other sources because they may have a vested interest in events! You couldn't have lobbed out a juicier pitch for me to knock out of the park if you tried.
• On the Editorial Board: I can understand perfectly what you mean about one person writing articles. The Dwilight Daily is the third newspaper I have created for this wiki. (The Rampant Lion and The TattleMaster being the first two. I've been doing the BattleMaster newspaper gig for over two years now, so I'm rather experienced at this.) I found that you can often find quite a few people willing to write articles, but chances are they will not be part of your own realm. Hence the fact that there are so many individual realm-based newspapers each having but a single regular writer and one or two occasional contributors. That's why I decided to go with a full-continental approach with the Dwilight Daily. There's a much greater chance of getting contributing writers if we let anyone edit it, as opposed to only people from a single realm. On an OOC, player/editor-to-player/editor basis, I can completely sympathize with the difficulties in that area. Many wiki newspapers have "gone out of business" when their authors quit, lost interest, moved realms, etc., and no one else stepped up to take over. The Itorunt Informer has had the most success finding new writers of any paper, but even they have fallen by the wayside.
  However... That doesn't change the fact that when you wrote the articles you signed them as Fisc Arylon. So we read them as Fisc writing them. To our characters, that is how they remember it: An article written by the High King of Everguard. If you go back and change it now, then our characters will notice the changed attribution and wonder why the attribution was changed. (Yes, I can have copies of the articles. It's not hard to imagine that illicit copies are smuggled out by spies, or the contents simply memorized and transcribed by agents, or sent by homing pigeon (or homing squirrel for you east/west (whatever) war island folks), etc., etc.) As I said above: You can't retcon things in a multi-player game. (At least not without the approval of all the other parties involved.) You're not the BattleMaster GM where you can just declare that something "is now and always was this way". I consider retconning your character's name out of things in order to disassociate yourself from them, and then pointing fingers at others for bias because they personally signed it, to be unfair play. If you did it, you did it. If you wrote it, you wrote it.

--Indirik 00:42, 23 May 2008 (CEST)