somewhere along the line I must have signed up for this news letter. I do like the links to some of the editorial content so I never unsubscribed. This week had a very nice link to an editorial by kristen salvatore ( http://kristenss.1up.com/ ). In it she states thanks Ohio, you and every one else that voted for Bush voted for another war. Hope all of you march your kids down to the recruiting booth tomorrow.
I could care less about her politics. It’s a gaming newsletter. Why was this featured in the news letter? Any thoughts on the appropriatness of this type content? Probably should have posted this in politics and religion, for that’s where it belongs, yet 1up felt the need to have me read it in something equivalent to this forum.
I’ve noticed that on several other gaming blogs too and I also don’t think its appropriate. But then again maybe I’m not the target audience- if I’m reading a gaming blog I generally want to read their thoughts on gaming and the industry (especially if that person has access to the game early) and I’m not looking for political commentary.
Certainly everyone is entitled to their opinion, and through the web, or someone’s celebrity, we (the general public) give people a stage from which to expound. My thought is that you simply tune it out, or you don’t read those who mix politics and X.
For instance, I’m a big fan of the Dave Matthews Band. However, I don’t necessarily agree with his politics. I won’t stop listening to the music however, and that’s my choice, I’m willing to take the elitist pontificating b/c I really dig the music. If a particular blog suits you and they stray into the political arena, it’s your choice to continue listening or not.
A quick comment on the election: What seems to have escaped the Democratic party / liberal elite is the simple fact that disagreement does not equal idiocy. The fact that “middle America” does not agree with the ideas put forth by John Kerry et al does not ipso facto make them idiots. I think there are a significant amount of people, middle of the road people, who were turned off more by the “looking down” upon them for agreeing with Bush than by Kerry and the Democrats.
I think that the Democratic party has an excellent opportunity to reshape itself into a party of moderation and if it continues to veer left, that it will continue to lose, b/c in general, the majority of people in the U.S. seem willing to veer right over veering left.
Back to topic. If a game blog spouts off on something off topic, don’t read it. Kind of like this post.
I don’t think so. Although I’d give authors a little more leeway. Martin’s political leanings and thoughs on current events could very much be reflected in aspects of his fantasy world. I don’t know if that’s true or not though because I’ve never tried to find parallels between Westeros and the real world.
Purely from a financial standpoint I do think it could be a mistake. Given that 51% of the country voted for Bush I seriously doubt that everyone who enjoys his novels voted for Kerry. But that’s more of an issue his publisher might have with him.
Yes, because Martin’s little note is not part of a commercial website dedicated to a specific subject.[/quote]
That’s an important distinction. I still think its a bit dodgy with Martin too though- most people are going to his website looking for updates on the progress of the novel so I imagine his commentary was a bit unexpected for some.
I think on a gaming/tech site it’s probably not that useful. I tend to shoot from the hip from time to time because I get all fussy and worked up about stuff, but in general people come to those types of sites to get away from all the heavy stuff, not to have it shoved in their faces.
I post politically related stuff on my blog all the time (Ironically enough, it’s safer/less argumentative than posting about work-related things). It’s a blog. It’s where I put my opinions. Occasionally during elections I have opinions about elections. Shrug.
As for 1up, aren’t they trying to encourage traffic by giving writers their own blogs? I don’t think 1up is paying Ms. Salvatore to write about the election.
In this case gnmarsh was directed to the editorial by 1Up’s newsletter. I think its reasonable to expect a newsletter to be gaming focused with no political editorial but I haven’t seen the newsletter in question.
1up is definitely focusing on blogs (which is part of the what makes the site so difficult to navigate). I don’t know if ZD has guidelines about what should or shouldn’t go into its blogs but I do question whether its wise for a site devoted to a broad cross-section of gamers to feature political commentary that could potentially turn off customers from ZD and its publications.
When politics gets bitter (which usually involves a war), it always has a huge impact on the world’s mindshare, particularly the entertainment media. This shit is nothing compared to vietnam, when there was a draft. Nothing.
One of 1up’s primary functions is sort of a “friendster for gamers,” where any old user can sign up and put up pictures, keep a blog, and tag their network of friends.
They highlight the entries of the Ziff editors in the newsletter. But if you look around the site, you’ll see loads of the blogs from plain old regular users and they talk about all kinds of stuff - movies, music, what I did last weekend, and sometimes even games.
The issue here is perhaps that it was highlighted (probably automatically by whatever generates the newsletter), not that she talked about something non-gaming in a blog on 1up, because that’s what most people do.
It certainly caught me by surprise, not that Martin himself is, to whatever degree, liberal but that he chose to inject his thoughts on the election into an update on his forthcoming book. Not very wise at all, at least from a sales perspective, though I’m not sure if someone like GRRM cares if someone knee-jerks his books into a bonfire.
Despite the fact that 1UP is a gaming site, my blog space is my blog space. If you scroll past the one paragraph in which I vented on the election, you find multiple pages of chit-chat on games, baseball, and things I like to eat–in short, whatever nonsense I, at the time, feel like putting in my blog space.
The 1UP newsletter isn’t a gaming newsletter–it’s a 1UP newsletter, highlighting what various people are saying on 1UP. A lot of the time, they’re saying things that aren’t related to games.
While I can’t say that I’m necessarily enjoying some of the acrimonious emails I’m receiving–see my post from yesterday for reference to one particular gem–I can say that I’m pretty happy that it’s getting people to talk. I’m also receiving many emails from people thanking me for giving words to what they’re feeling, too, or were at the time. And that’s just what that was–what I was feeling at the time. I could take down what was, really, just a very emotional post at a very emotional time, but I’m leaving it up because for better or worse, it’s engendering discussion.
I tried to find a link to a description of the newsletter on 1Up but couldn’t. Maybe I have to register?
I would think that most people’s expectations when signing up for a newsletter on a gaming site would be that the newsletter will be concerning gaming but maybe that isn’t the case here?
I’m not so much surprised about people commenting on politics and other subjects in their blogs so much as that ZD doesn’t prohibit its staffers from writing about these areas. I know that Steve Bauman posted that he had a few people drop subscriptions to CGM just for giving Faranheit 9/11 a postive review in their Now Playing section.
Yeah, something tells me that GRRM could give a flying fuck whether he loses some readers over his political opinions. I would expect his publishers, who already already signed a contract for the books that he writes, to be concerned though.
Blogs are blogs. They are personal spaces. The only thing Ziff Davis really doesn’t want us to write about on there are anything that would violate an NDA, obviously.
I don’t think it was the greatest call at all that Kristen’s post ended up on the newsletter, drawing extra attention to it, but that wasn’t Kristen’s decision or Kristen’s fault.
Like I wrote one reader who sent me email complaining about her post: it’s an emotional week. It’s one blog post. Bush won. Let those who lost have a day or two to vent. It’s really not that big a deal.
So the blog wasn’t even IN the newsletter? There was just a link to her blog? That seems alright to me. Aren’t blogs just places where people put down their thoughts for the day so that other people can read them? I don’t even know why people find such things interesting, but if you do, then I guess you should expect nothing to be out of bounds. It’s like a diary, although one that you know will be read. Hence Ms. Salvatore can address people in second person. If you disagree with her, that’s fine. No offense to anyone here, but a gaming journalist is not (a fortiori) an expert in politics, so I’m not sure why anyone would take such an admonition seriously enough to be upset about it. She was just speaking her mind and trying to get people to think about the consequences of their votes.
What seems to have escaped the Democratic party / liberal elite is the simple fact that disagreement does not equal idiocy. The fact that “middle America” does not agree with the ideas put forth by John Kerry et al does not ipso facto make them idiots. I think there are a significant amount of people, middle of the road people, who were turned off more by the “looking down” upon them for agreeing with Bush than by Kerry and the Democrats.
Yet these selfsame people are free to look down on all us liberals, right?
I’ll bet anyone complaining about her posting political views on a “Gamer” blog wouldn’t be complaining if she posted nude photos. This is a blog, not a game review or gaming editorial.
