Hey folks. Chris here and I need to say I’m sorry. I need to say I’m sorry to the listeners. I need to say I’m sorry to the members of the network. I need to say I’m sorry to Senda. I need to say I’m sorry to Jason Hobbs.
We did an interview with Alexander Macris. We shouldn’t have. I was told that the interview would be controversial but I never thought to look into Macris. That was a large mistake on my behalf. I gave the go ahead without consideration. I won’t be doing that again. My ignorance on who Macris is and what he’s done is no excuse for this.
That said we’ve removed the interview with Macris and going forward the leadership of Misdirected Mark is working on procedures for researching potential guests on the show. We don’t want to have another situation where we’re letting you all down because we didn’t do our due diligence. We are committed to being a welcoming and inclusive community that is a safe, fun, and enjoyable space people can go to and enjoy this hobby we all love. We won’t always be perfect because we’re human but we will do our best to follow through on that promise.
Once again I’m sorry and thank you for listening to Misdirected Mark Productions shows.
So just to be clear, you are inclusive only if you agree with the people? Also, you will vet everyone before they are allowed on these podcast?
Yep, real inclusive and open.
While we are still working out how we’ll move forward, we feel strongly that guests on our shows should follow the same principles as our community guidelines. We don’t feel that it’s outrageous to expect from the people we are giving time and voice the same type of respect for others that we ask of our community itself. The episode has been removed because there were two very clear issues that went against these policies for us.
To be clear, the removal of the episode was not due to outside pressure. It took us several days of debate to come to a determination. We have a history of leaving controversial interviews up in our history with a disclaimer. In this instance, this was simply insufficient as it went directly against one of our stated network goals. While we respect the right of each of our shows to make their own artistic decisions, we are still tying our name as a network to their work, still the point of origin for the posting of that content. Our goal in creating a process will be transparency in how decisions will be made going forward in controversial instances.
I’m unsubscribing from your podcast, and regret voting for your podcast in the Ennies. You put that episode down the Memory Hole when there was nothingness controversial about the content. If your position actually had any integrity you’d scrub any mention of ACKS from all of your podcasts episodes since it seems the sin is to have anything to do with Alex Macris at all. You won’t do that as that would take effort.
While it may be possible as an individual to support the art but not the artist, as a brand it is impossible to make that distinction. We continue to discuss long term resolutions here and expect to resolve post Gen Con.
Thank you for listening.
If we kneejerk react to every situation that “could” ruffle feathers soon there will be nothing to talk about. There was absolutely nothing offensive, nothing alt-right or far-left, nothing even remotely political within the interview. ACKS is a decent system with a lot of care taken to be very forward thinking in regards to dominion and stronghold gameplay. It offers a very well crafted look at a portion of gameplay often neglected in favor of the more common constant dungeon crawl persistent in so much of D&D style of games.
My question for folks that both listen to and produce this show is: Are you going to Vet every single person associated with a product before posting the interview? You do realize some of your past conversation pieces have had products in which team members responsible for their creation could have possibly committed a long string of offenses. You did not vet them, yet I do not see you removing them from circulation. Could this perhaps be because the actual motivation was to jump on the hype wagon and draw more attention to your podcasts because shock sells? If that was not the case it certainly seems to look that way.
My point is this, you keep pandering to every bit of negative criticism soon you are left without a show anyone will listen to. Keep it on topic, keep it about the games and leave folks personal lives, politics of the day and media hype out of our gaming. Gaming is meant to be a neutral spot. Great commanders would meet over game boards at times of war, both to access each other’s mental faculties but also to seek common ground that might prevent more loss of troops. If folks at war could figure this out why can’t ordinary folks?
I apologize for the long-winded commentary, but I expect better out of Hobbs and Friends of the OSR. This will not keep me from listening but it does make me take a more critical view of future releases.
Hi Chris,
We appreciate your feedback, and for transparency on this network moving forward, we have shared how we will handle guest vetting going forward in our guest guidelines (now in the menu bar). This document may continue to evolve as we do, but it is a beginning for us.
The decision to remove the episode was not made by a single person in a vacuum, nor was it to fold to outside pressure. It was under lively discussion among our leadership and network members for nearly two weeks, and in the end this was the decision that we felt best represented our goal of safety and inclusivity. Unfortunately as a brand, it’s not truly possible for us to separate the art from the artist. It’s the ongoing paradox of tolerance that there is a point where we must draw a line in the sand and become intolerant, or lose our ability to be tolerant as a community. We will not always get it right and have not always gotten it right, but in the meantime we will continue to do our best.
Thank you for listening.