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Osaka27156 Posts
Just to clairfy, I dont want this to be an attack on individual sites. I was hoping to discuss the greater theme of the proper use of information. I brought this up because until recently, most community sites had no connection to these big events other than what they did themselves when they got there. I was posting to see how this has changed.
I reworded some parts to better reflect that intention, as I don't think I did a very good job conveying that the first time.
This is something I am more and more concerned about as SC2 approaches. As someone who has an active role in maintaining this site, I am often approached with offers from many different companies regarding the promotion of eSports and whatever product they choose to promote. With the publicity of the TSL, it has been a real eye-opener for us, especially the core group of staff. These events will only intensify as the community swells in anticipation of the big event.
However I feel that some sites are not taking their responsibilities as seriously as they should. Because they have access to privileged information, information companies are trusting them with, they feel that it is ok for them to post it and grab a quick headline.
Obviously the latest incident is with replays.net posting the lineups for the WWI on their sites, which led to MYM and other sites following. There are many people who have known the lineups for more than a month now, but have managed to be quiet about it. That is because confidentiality was requested in the emails. However, what these spoilers don't know is that their actions cast suspicion and doubt over the entire length of community sites, staff, and players. Right now I am talking to people who are rightfully pissed off.
There is a difference between being a journalist and disrespecting the wishes of those who help you. I would hope that in the future, all sites have respect for their partners in the field. If they don't it will not only damage their site, but also this site, and the community in general who will feel the effects of the lack of trust between companies and communities.
This is my opinion, but it isn't everyone's. What do you think the obligations of community sites are in these situations?
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If confidentiality was requested it should have remained confidential.
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CA10828 Posts
this is a no brainer.
if it was stated that the lists were to remain a secret until a certain point in time, it should have remained so.
it's irresponsible of the community to not respect such basic requests.
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It should have remained confidential, like deadvessel said. Honestly, the secrecy an be fun for speculation and hype pruposes (TSL anyone?)
Imo blizz should get the TL staff to run their invitational tourneys, they would be so much better.
You guys rock.
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Hungary11305 Posts
I do not see a conflict here. The closest I could conjecture is the dilemma between satisfying the interests of the readers (post the news!) and complying to the request of the information giver (do not post the news).
Now, if Blizzard was a secretive, malicious company trying to withhold every piece of information they can, maybe being a "journalist" and unveiling the players participating could be considered a trait to the community. But seriously, if you are treated in a privileged way, given the information way beforehand and asked not to publish the information, you are basically abusing the confidence brought to you by posting it and thus biting the hand that feeds you.
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There should be a zero tolerance policy on this issue from Blizzard.
It should be open and obvious what is and isn't acceptable. If you cross the line Blizzard should ignore that site for a long period of time, if not indefinitely.
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
yea blizzard should just come to tl (only)
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Osaka27156 Posts
The other argument, of course, is that community sites are just that, community. Nobody gets paid (generally) and in that case the needs of the community should come first. You could also say (in this case) Blizzard is working off of an outdated business model, as community sites have shown themselves to be much more efficient at getting the word out than the official outlets.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
I don't even see how this is debatable. Someone gives you information asking that it be kept private. There's no justification for someone (or some site) to release this information, or benefit in fact b/c do we really think similar information will be released the next time around?
edit: Losing trust is the fastest way to wrecking your "business alliance"
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confidential information should only be given to organized and trustworthy sites (other than teamliquid, none come to mind)
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
you'd have thought MYM would be such a site, considering they are rather large, organized, and professional. But I guess not ¬_¬
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Sydney2287 Posts
On June 24 2008 20:11 Manifesto7 wrote:
The other argument, of course, is that community sites are just that, community. Nobody gets paid (generally) and in that case the needs of the community should come first. You could also say (in this case) Blizzard is working off of an outdated business model, as community sites have shown themselves to be much more efficient at getting the word out than the official outlets.
I see that you're playing devil's advocate here. I don't think that the outdated business model deal applies, because they're still using the community sites to distribute their information, they're just asking them to wait until time period X before releasing it. As for the needs of the community, which is better?
a) Getting the information out that little bit earlier but jeapordising the communication channel with Blizzard for future information
b) Prolonging the suspense and keeping the existing arrangement pleasant.
I agree with your OP entirely. If this happens too many times then yes I do believe it possible that Blizzard might turn to avenues other than the community sites and then we'll all lose out.
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hmm
MYM.f91, i think we have both our chinese website source and our MYM website source in one, lol.
it's a treat to have chinese players at any event but in the future Blizzard may have to be advised that our good friends in the chinese community sometimes struggle with confidentiality, god bless their hearts.
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On June 24 2008 19:36 DeadVessel wrote:
If confidentiality was requested it should have remained confidential.
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51507 Posts
i don't even understand why mym tries to be a news site.
their a freaking team, not a news outlet. if they want to make a news outlet, make a new site or something.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
tl kinda used to be like that too tho? :O
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On June 24 2008 20:15 thedeadhaji wrote:
I don't even see how this is debatable. Someone gives you information asking that it be kept private. There's no justification for someone (or some site) to release this information, or benefit in fact b/c do we really think similar information will be released the next time around?
edit: Losing trust is the fastest way to wrecking your "business alliance"
Bandwagoning this!
No one gains anything from spoiling this. All it does is upset your source for something very trivial. The only time blowing a source's spot would be acceptable would like if WCG admins knew so and so was hacking, or something to that extent. All this does is burn bridges in an already dying community.
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Taiche
France1963 Posts
I think it depends on the whole story and context.
If you're a community website with no official info or disclosure agreement, then you have the right to relay rumors and stuff. That's part of your business after all. As long as you warn the user it's purely a rumor you grabbed here and there, I don't see where the problem is.
However, if you're a pro site and have had access to inside info while agreeing not to reveal them, then you should stick up to the original deal, period.
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If a site wants to be considered a serious site, then of course it should abide by the unwritten laws regarding such confidentiality. I can't help but feeling the site who broke the silence or a site that starts spreading misinformation should get the limelight of the rest of the community back in the face.
It's sort of a low blow and kind of fingerpointing-ish, but in these cases maybe called for?
I'm glad to see you raising your voice about this one and setting your foot down on the spot.
I wish many other serious gaming sites will follow your example.
Good job.
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Whether it is of significance or not, a secret should remain a secret until time comes (I'm don't know how else to say it). It's just how honor and ethics is. Did MYM even have a (very good)reason to make the lineups public?
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Sweden33719 Posts
Thread lacks a poll. Preferably one with two options.
Something like:
[ ] I agree
[ ] You are right
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United States22883 Posts
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On June 24 2008 19:54 alffla wrote:
yea blizzard should just come to tl (only)
Seconded.
But seriously, people should follow instructions. -_-
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On June 24 2008 21:03 a-game wrote:
hmm
MYM.f91, i think we have both our chinese website source and our MYM website source in one, lol.
it's a treat to have chinese players at any event but in the future Blizzard may have to be advised that our good friends in the chinese community sometimes struggle with confidentiality, god bless their hearts.
i doubt they got it from either f91 or strelok (or any of the other players) as they would have had the correct player lists, including the koreans.
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Even if Blizzard was using an outdated business model, there are still consequences that come with breaching that confidentiality. Then again, IIRC MYM has performed unprofessionally in respect to rumours and whatnot before, so you reap what system you sow.
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On June 24 2008 21:13 GTR-2-Go wrote:
i don't even understand why mym tries to be a news site.
their a freaking team, not a news outlet. if they want to make a news outlet, make a new site or something.
On June 24 2008 21:39 thedeadhaji wrote:
tl kinda used to be like that too tho? :O
I'm not really an expert on the matter, but I believe TL.net was never associated with 1 team in the same way that mYm is. Reading the oldest newsposts are a party (Moderators that I don't recognize, 1 comment news posts) and while there were many high class gamers from certain teams it's not like there was a team back then that was using a TL.net) Clan tag.
Manifesto, if an esports company asked for something to be kept confidential, it should have been confidential, I agree with you. Just a question before we assign guilt: Who knew the player list? Just the players/organizers or did the leaders community sites (Like you or Chill) know?
I think all the people that say that Blizzard should only trust TL.net because that's like saying we should only buy from Apple because they have the best MP3 player or something. Creating a monopoly is not something that should happen in the fragile eSports world.
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On June 24 2008 19:32 Manifesto7 wrote:
This is my opinion, but it isn't everyone's. What do you think the obligations of community sites are in these situations?
Let me put it this way: TL is the only site that does things properly with stuff like this; other sites don't take anything seriously, and go and ruin aspects of the game for people.
I may make fun of TL and its community from time to time, but there's a good reason I'm only a member of TL and not of other gaming sites.
Granted my membership means relatively little to gaming as a whole, but I hope this makes sense.
Keep doin' what you're doin'.
Edit: Blizzard shouldn't only come to TL, but I think after this (and all of the community's feedback), they'd understand to hold TL in a higher regard than obviously lesser sites. Clearly the people behind the curtains at TL know what to do (and not to do).
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On June 25 2008 00:25 thunk wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2008 21:13 GTR-2-Go wrote:
i don't even understand why mym tries to be a news site.
their a freaking team, not a news outlet. if they want to make a news outlet, make a new site or something. Show nested quote +On June 24 2008 21:39 thedeadhaji wrote:
tl kinda used to be like that too tho? :O I'm not really an expert on the matter, but I believe TL.net was never associated with 1 team in the same way that mYm is. Reading the oldest newsposts are a party (Moderators that I don't recognize, 1 comment news posts) and while there were many high class gamers from certain teams it's not like there was a team back then that was using a TL.net) Clan tag.
lol
TeamLiquid
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United States37500 Posts
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Canada9720 Posts
yeah it's not like he went to korea and played with that tag or anything
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On June 24 2008 20:18 thedeadhaji wrote:
you'd have thought MYM would be such a site, considering they are rather large, organized, and professional. But I guess not ¬_¬
MYM used to have a rumors section where they posted all the latest rumors. It got axed I believe.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
I dont really consider MYM a community site. The fundamental difference is that they are after hits and the nature of a half complete half wrong article shows this clearly.
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Well it seems like they weren't the only ones with the information, they were just the only ones willing to break the trust with which the info was given. So they were wrong in doing that and trying to be special by breaking the news early before they were supposed to.
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As an ex-admin (another site) I would say maintaining a professional atmosphere is very important. Confidentiality is another important aspect to keep in the back of your minds. It annoys me when people post claims that no one should know. It makes the community look irresponsible and immature. I've always tried to uphold a certain level of maturity, respect, and leadership qualities that make an administrator on any eSport Gaming serious, especially because it's hard to be taken serious already.
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Even though Tl.net isn't as fancy looking as other websites (That's what I've heard from a lot of people that don't visit tl.net as regularly as I do) Tl.net is really proffesional when it comes to news and reports. Tl.net staff has so much knowledge on pro-scene compared to any other site... you can ask anything on tl.net and it'll get answered accurately... Tl.net Staff would keep stuff confidential if they had to.
Look at TSL... that's all I got to say.. anyhow this isn't about tl.net...
Yeah that was not right.
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this attitude can not possibly work in a professional environment. You can approach people in that way in the community where everyone knows everyone pretty much, and its on friendly basis. But with SC2 coming by, its gonna turn into business, a dog eat dog kinda world. As such the only one to blame for the leak is the company releasing the information, as it is their job to determine who is trustworthy of the information provided, and make people sign the damn NDAs.
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On June 24 2008 19:36 DeadVessel wrote:
If confidentiality was requested it should have remained confidential.
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Canada7170 Posts
The question, imo, isn't about whether a community is justified to leak confidential information, but what actions need to be taken as a result of said community. EDIT:Not naming names. This is not what this is about. 
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Calgary25990 Posts
Manifesto takes this so seriously that he wouldn't even tell myself or Kennigit who was going until just recently.
Seriously.
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It serves no purpose for Blizzard to keep it secret. Hell, their customers deserve to know what they are buying.
This is the only event where something like this can happen because Blizzard has a monopoly on, Blizzard.
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Calgary25990 Posts
On June 25 2008 02:41 BlackStar wrote:
It serves no purpose for Blizzard to keep it secret. Hell, their customers deserve to know what they are buying.
This is the only event where something like this can happen because Blizzard has a monopoly on, Blizzard.
So in the future they just won't tell anyone and we won't be able to prepare anything. Good. Great. Grand.
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Come on guys, Monopoly is a good game. That's what we're talking about, right??
When I think of TL as professional, I think of FakeSteve writing his power rankings in a suit and tie. Envision that for a moment, if you will.
But seriously for a moment, mani does a pretty damn good job of keeping tl—outside of the forums, the news reporting and all that—in a well designed, professional manner. We're lucky.
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
On June 25 2008 02:41 BlackStar wrote:
It serves no purpose for Blizzard to keep it secret. Hell, their customers deserve to know what they are buying.
This is the only event where something like this can happen because Blizzard has a monopoly on, Blizzard.
..........this is the type of thinking that has led to the current problem -_-.
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I can just agree with the OP.
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On June 25 2008 01:08 Dknight wrote:Show nested quote +On June 24 2008 20:18 thedeadhaji wrote:
you'd have thought MYM would be such a site, considering they are rather large, organized, and professional. But I guess not ¬_¬ MYM used to have a rumors section where they posted all the latest rumors. It got axed I believe.
myMYM has rumour section still there...
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well even tho i agree if they have been asked to keep it private they should (which doesnt have to be the case, since we dont even know who gave them the info), i dont think a post like this should be made. I think its not hard to know how the community will react to a post like this and i think making this post thus makes it just giving yourself some more popularity while fucking up your 'competitors'... now i really hate the mym site ever since you had to register there to download a simple movie so i hope the site gets trashed and dies, but i think this post is not a good thing at all and if you really feel this way you should have discussed it with them in private instead of trying to win souls for TL. I think it would be much more professional if you had discussed it with them first privately and if they really wouldnt listen post it here, with eventual ridiculous statements regarding this by their admins/news posters/whatever... I feel TL is a great site and is quite professional at times (also quite some unprofessional stuff going on i guess), probably the best in the community, but the fanboyism of TL on TL is huge as well and i personally dislike it a bit when this goes too far (as happens quite sometimes -_-);
so yea confidential info should be kept confidential no surprise there i guess, still this really feels like a commercial and patting yourself on the back...
other than that keep up the good work tho ^^;
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I agree with the OP... unless more details come out, then we might be able to have a nice discussion.
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I am just coming back home from the office and an admin from TLnet I respect pretty well, passed the link to this thread to me. That sounds like I was almost asked to reply here even though I was thinking about it for quite a while, since I am not the fan of forum discussions.
But let's give me a chance to clarify some issues and points here.
First of all I was pretty surprised to be attacked in such an obvious and public way by TLnet (and with 'I' that means the company I represent). I would have preferred that Manifesto or someone else from the prestigious admin crew (that I respect a lot for their work) would have contacted our editor in chief or me on MSN to discuss that issue. Sure, it is fine that you wanna discuss this with the community and want to hear people's opinion, but you could have kept that on a much different level if you would have left out the name MYM since - in the way you wrote the OP it looks like you just want to move MYM in a bad light - what you are aware of for sure. But yeah, it is your site and you are totally free what u do here. Though when you talk about ethics I am not sure if it was the best way to do an OP like that then.
Though, I won't say with this, that we did something totally wrong we have to apologize for. But more about that later...
Secondly I just want to point out that it is a total mistake when you say 'MYM is posting...'. MYM are the teams we have and the players in it. On the other hand we have the eSports page myMYM.com that is related to the different teams of MYM. Means, I am not a member of MYM but of myMYM.com . If you weren't able to follow the progress we made during the last years, I just want to sum that up shortly so that you can see what I am talking about (and it is important to know for the rest I write here).
We started as a team page called meetyourmakers.com. That page basically had the duty to represent the teams, inform the community about teams and players. A bit later we started to mix up those team news with general eSport news, since a new way of business developed quick and people more and more requested eSport news and coverages, articles, etc. We reached a point when we realised that we are totally biased when it came to eSport news, since we always highlighted our teams and players and of course never wrote negative news about them. This thing and you may agree with me, is totally unprofessional and blinds our readers. So we decided to make an extra space on our page where we had team news, and an extra space with eSport news so that people can clearly see what is written biased and what neutral. Later we even went ahead and changed the URL of our page to myMYM.com to show the people that we are no longer a clanpage, that we are no longer the page that is there because of the team MYM, but we are there as an eSports page. We are totally free in what we write. It is a common thing to post also news or interviews abour or of other people that criticize the players or teams of MYM. Example can be found lately with the MYM]Grubby issue when we posted an interview with TH000 where he talks only bad about him. People actually wondered why we posted it, since it is bad for us. But we also gained respect with that step, since many noticed that can post whatever we want and that there is censorship or whatever from the management.
The other topic that should proof that we are an eSport page and not a clanpage is, that we do heavy investments when it comes to event Coverage. Maybe you noticed that I am working full time as the Content Supervisor for the company behind MYM and myMYM.com and also our Editor in Chief is full time employed. Next to that we got our ESUPs who are all employed part time.
We are also covering since more than 1 year every event that has at least a few ;known; players while we send people there to do live coverage, videos, videointerviews, pics and more (mostly for CS and WC3). Just lately I have been in China for almost 4 weeks to create a documentary about eSports there. And we didn't visit any MYM player. That is only about Esports in general, about any team! Yeah, and I do this cause I love eSports, cause I love gaming and cause I love to do something for the people!
That (last paragraphs) should also help to proof that we did not get the player list from any of our players. Many of our editors actually never talked to any MYM player. Further our players are more or less all contracted, they are not allowed to leak information or act against the ‘law’.
Actually it is also not fully correct to say that we did publish the list. Replays.net was posting the list hours before us and the source in our news gives replays.net as the official source. We just did a news about what they wrote before - btw: now they even have the brackets online!
And I can tell you that I know the player list for StarCraft myself much better then we posted it. But the question here was not about to post a totally correct player list or not, we were aware of that the list may incl. some mistakes. But it did what we wanted to reach with it: a discussion and hype about WWI. We actually wrote in our news that we are not sure if we tell the truth, we wrote that this is just rumors, no one has to believe it, but people always love to discuss about rumors, right?
And let me also ask something, you totally disagree with what we did, so why did you accept my thread here? You could just have closed or deleted it. But you didn't, since you also noticed quickly that people love to discuss rumors (and that it of course creates also traffic for you – maybe you didn’t think about that second point in that moment). Just check how many clicks and comments the thread has, that is speaking for itself.
And on the other hand, you need to say, that many people that later messaged me and blamed me for what we did, posted themselves comments here on that page and spoiled out information, since they said the list is not correct. Just by saying that, you join my side.
And I wonder, where do they have all the player list from? If you ask me, the discussion about ethics is much bigger then, since many people couldn’t keep silence. Of course you (I don’t address you Manifesto, don’t get me wrong please) can tell your gf about the list, but if you tell people that are deeply involved in eSports the list… doesn’t that create a further discussion about ethics?
And to come back to the point that we are an eSports page... it is our job to inform people. Check out a newspaper or a TV station. Everyone tries to get information about news that is not published yet. Everyone tries to make a special report (that no one else has). And how often does it happen that CNN or whoever have information that are not officially released yet but they news it as rumors... so often! Actually there is a big competition between all the companies who gets the best information - and it is the same in eSports! And no one blames them to be unprofessional or says they are no longer a serious media. Yes, also cause people wanna hear such stuff! Again: They love to hear and discuss about this! It is in the nature of every human being! And I think we shouldn’t get blamed for that...
And we didn't have an agreement or whatever with Blizzard that doesn't allow us to say what we know. How could anyone censor the media in the western world? If you have information, and if they are rumors, you are allowed to post them. So the sentence "that is because confidentiality was requested in the emails" doesn't make sense at all for me. I never received an email from Blizzard. I am just an ordinary news guy. They reason why you received this email is a different (yes it is a secret yet and we cannot say why you got it)... and do you notice that you spoil people already while posting that sentence?
So Blizzard never asked any eSport page about not to post the lineup before the official release if any page is able to receive some information... If they really didn't want to get rumours posted, then they could have informed the major pages about that and asked for cooperation. Furthermore, there have been so many information leaked about Blizzard in the past, aren't they got used to it already? ;p
So overall, I don't think we did anything wrong. We did our job. We try our best and the fact that our readers and all the pages that wrote about the news we posted and the comments that have been posted on their pages just shows me that people want to read even more rumors. Actually I read only a very few comments that said that we did something wrong.
And by the way, until today Blizzard didn’t contact us and blamed us for what we did. So on the one hand I wonder why they contacted TL.net about it, and on the other hand that shows me that it is not such a big deal for them that this rumors news was posted. Honestly, I don’t see which disadvantage they take from our post. In the end people talk about Blizzard and WWI, that is good for them, isn’t?
And don't understand me wrong, I think it is great that you bring that topic up, since it wasn't discussed much in eSports thought it is pretty important. I just tried to explain here why we did what we did and that some people just didn't know all about us, that hopefully is changed now. Please ask more if something is not clear.
And I would love to continue that discussion with you Mani and the other TLneters that attend WWI, I think we could all learn a lot from it and maybe try to understand each other.
p.s.: I am sorry for the messed up spelling and grammar, I just had a 12 hours working day behind me, and feel totally tired, so don't flame me too hard about my English ;p And yeah, I know that every single user out there will hate or love me for what I wrote. I just had the feeling so far, most people liked it so far that the list was up, that confused me even more that i saw a big discussion is starting now... actually only a very few ppl got angry with me mhm
-----------------
Here the official statement:
"I feel deeply sorry to see that a respected page like TL, and a respected eSports personality like Manifesto, dashing myMYM.com for our journalistic ethics. Now I feel that we are targetted on a false foundation. I would like to stress out that we have had the players-list for the whole time, and could have published it if we wanted to break the story and get the hits. We didn't.
We respect Blizzard's wish to not publish the list. On the other hand we are a news page, and a news page caters its readers. So when Replays.Net publishes a rumor about the participants of WWI we are going to bring it. Please note that this has nothing to with our agreement with Blizzard. Publishing the NDA'ed list is not the same as referring to a rumour.
How much I would like to extend this explanation, going through it with the same care as Jonas 'The.Crow' Gebhardt, I think this was very much the basics. If a bigger and more extensive answer is wanted, I can be contacted through him.
Yours Sincerely,
Phillip 'Phil' Rasmussen
Editor in Chief / Global Content Manager, at myMYM.com"
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Katowice25012 Posts
On June 24 2008 20:11 Manifesto7 wrote:
The other argument, of course, is that community sites are just that, community. Nobody gets paid (generally) and in that case the needs of the community should come first. You could also say (in this case) Blizzard is working off of an outdated business model, as community sites have shown themselves to be much more efficient at getting the word out than the official outlets.
The problem with this is that while you might be helping the community in the short term (knowledge of confidential items) you are ultimately hurting your long term plan. You need the trust of companies such as blizzard and sponsors so that they are willing to continue business with you - and they are where the money lies (which is probably the single most important aspect in promoting highly competetive play).
Are they using an outdated business model? Possibly, but irrelevant as we need to play by their rules for the time being. Until community sites are willing to pump 6 figures into tournaments, we need to be catering to who is willing to financially support us.
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I can't wait till programing outside of Korea becomes serious so that people will start taking things like this seriously.
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United States20661 Posts
On June 24 2008 21:13 GTR-2-Go wrote:
i don't even understand why mym tries to be a news site.
their a freaking team, not a news outlet. if they want to make a news outlet, make a new site or something.
So, there were like. Liquid`Nazgul. And Liquid`Daaman. And Liquid`Meat. And Liquid`....
And they made this forum, y'see. And this forum slowly grew to include various news about the StarCraft community, both foreign and professional. And then it became a full-fledged news outlet.
I see nothing wrong with MyM's goal; I find it somewhat hard to swallow Crow's explanation though. It seems very grey-area to me.
For the record, I wasn't notified of the player list until a couple days ago despite having access to MiR/Gallery/Gfx/majority of the fora on this site. Manifesto was very hush hush.
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+ Show Spoiler +On June 25 2008 04:23 The.Crow wrote:
I am just coming back home from the office and an admin from TLnet I respect pretty well, passed the link to this thread to me. That sounds like I was almost asked to reply here even though I was thinking about it for quite a while, since I am not the fan of forum discussions.
But let's give me a chance to clarify some issues and points here.
First of all I was pretty surprised to be attacked in such an obvious and public way by TLnet (and with 'I' that means the company I represent). I would have preferred that Manifesto or someone else from the prestigious admin crew (that I respect a lot for their work) would have contacted our editor in chief or me on MSN to discuss that issue. Sure, it is fine that you wanna discuss this with the community and want to hear people's opinion, but you could have kept that on a much different level if you would have left out the name MYM since - in the way you wrote the OP it looks like you just want to move MYM in a bad light - what you are aware of for sure. But yeah, it is your site and you are totally free what u do here. Though when you talk about ethics I am not sure if it was the best way to do an OP like that then.
Though, I won't say with this, that we did something totally wrong we have to apologize for. But more about that later...
Secondly I just want to point out that it is a total mistake when you say 'MYM is posting...'. MYM are the teams we have and the players in it. On the other hand we have the eSports page myMYM.com that is related to the different teams of MYM. Means, I am not a member of MYM but of myMYM.com . If you weren't able to follow the progress we made during the last years, I just want to sum that up shortly so that you can see what I am talking about (and it is important to know for the rest I write here).
We started as a team page called meetyourmakers.com. That page basically had the duty to represent the teams, inform the community about teams and players. A bit later we started to mix up those team news with general eSport news, since a new way of business developed quick and people more and more requested eSport news and coverages, articles, etc. We reached a point when we realised that we are totally biased when it came to eSport news, since we always highlighted our teams and players and of course never wrote negative news about them. This thing and you may agree with me, is totally unprofessional and blinds our readers. So we decided to make an extra space on our page where we had team news, and an extra space with eSport news so that people can clearly see what is written biased and what neutral. Later we even went ahead and changed the URL of our page to myMYM.com to show the people that we are no longer a clanpage, that we are no longer the page that is there because of the team MYM, but we are there as an eSports page. We are totally free in what we write. It is a common thing to post also news or interviews abour or of other people that criticize the players or teams of MYM. Example can be found lately with the MYM]Grubby issue when we posted an interview with TH000 where he talks only bad about him. People actually wondered why we posted it, since it is bad for us. But we also gained respect with that step, since many noticed that can post whatever we want and that there is censorship or whatever from the management.
The other topic that should proof that we are an eSport page and not a clanpage is, that we do heavy investments when it comes to event Coverage. Maybe you noticed that I am working full time as the Content Supervisor for the company behind MYM and myMYM.com and also our Editor in Chief is full time employed. Next to that we got our ESUPs who are all employed part time.
We are also covering since more than 1 year every event that has at least a few ;known; players while we send people there to do live coverage, videos, videointerviews, pics and more (mostly for CS and WC3). Just lately I have been in China for almost 4 weeks to create a documentary about eSports there. And we didn't visit any MYM player. That is only about Esports in general, about any team! Yeah, and I do this cause I love eSports, cause I love gaming and cause I love to do something for the people!
That (last paragraphs) should also help to proof that we did not get the player list from any of our players. Many of our editors actually never talked to any MYM player. Further our players are more or less all contracted, they are not allowed to leak information or act against the ‘law’.
Actually it is also not fully correct to say that we did publish the list. Replays.net was posting the list hours before us and the source in our news gives replays.net as the official source. We just did a news about what they wrote before - btw: now they even have the brackets online!
And I can tell you that I know the player list for StarCraft myself much better then we posted it. But the question here was not about to post a totally correct player list or not, we were aware of that the list may incl. some mistakes. But it did what we wanted to reach with it: a discussion and hype about WWI. We actually wrote in our news that we are not sure if we tell the truth, we wrote that this is just rumors, no one has to believe it, but people always love to discuss about rumors, right?
And let me also ask something, you totally disagree with what we did, so why did you accept my thread here? You could just have closed or deleted it. But you didn't, since you also noticed quickly that people love to discuss rumors (and that it of course creates also traffic for you – maybe you didn’t think about that second point in that moment). Just check how many clicks and comments the thread has, that is speaking for itself.
And on the other hand, you need to say, that many people that later messaged me and blamed me for what we did, posted themselves comments here on that page and spoiled out information, since they said the list is not correct. Just by saying that, you join my side.
And I wonder, where do they have all the player list from? If you ask me, the discussion about ethics is much bigger then, since many people couldn’t keep silence. Of course you (I don’t address you Manifesto, don’t get me wrong please) can tell your gf about the list, but if you tell people that are deeply involved in eSports the list… doesn’t that create a further discussion about ethics?
And to come back to the point that we are an eSports page... it is our job to inform people. Check out a newspaper or a TV station. Everyone tries to get information about news that is not published yet. Everyone tries to make a special report (that no one else has). And how often does it happen that CNN or whoever have information that are not officially released yet but they news it as rumors... so often! Actually there is a big competition between all the companies who gets the best information - and it is the same in eSports! And no one blames them to be unprofessional or says they are no longer a serious media. Yes, also cause people wanna hear such stuff! Again: They love to hear and discuss about this! It is in the nature of every human being! And I think we shouldn’t get blamed for that...
And we didn't have an agreement or whatever with Blizzard that doesn't allow us to say what we know. How could anyone censor the media in the western world? If you have information, and if they are rumors, you are allowed to post them. So the sentence "that is because confidentiality was requested in the emails" doesn't make sense at all for me. I never received an email from Blizzard. I am just an ordinary news guy. They reason why you received this email is a different (yes it is a secret yet and we cannot say why you got it)... and do you notice that you spoil people already while posting that sentence?
So Blizzard never asked any eSport page about not to post the lineup before the official release if any page is able to receive some information... If they really didn't want to get rumours posted, then they could have informed the major pages about that and asked for cooperation. Furthermore, there have been so many information leaked about Blizzard in the past, aren't they got used to it already? ;p
So overall, I don't think we did anything wrong. We did our job. We try our best and the fact that our readers and all the pages that wrote about the news we posted and the comments that have been posted on their pages just shows me that people want to read even more rumors. Actually I read only a very few comments that said that we did something wrong.
And by the way, until today Blizzard didn’t contact us and blamed us for what we did. So on the one hand I wonder why they contacted TL.net about it, and on the other hand that shows me that it is not such a big deal for them that this rumors news was posted. Honestly, I don’t see which disadvantage they take from our post. In the end people talk about Blizzard and WWI, that is good for them, isn’t?
And don't understand me wrong, I think it is great that you bring that topic up, since it wasn't discussed much in eSports thought it is pretty important. I just tried to explain here why we did what we did and that some people just didn't know all about us, that hopefully is changed now. Please ask more if something is not clear.
And I would love to continue that discussion with you Mani and the other TLneters that attend WWI, I think we could all learn a lot from it and maybe try to understand each other.
p.s.: I am sorry for the messed up spelling and grammar, I just had a 12 hours working day behind me, and feel totally tired, so don't flame me too hard about my English ;p And yeah, I know that every single user out there will hate or love me for what I wrote. I just had the feeling so far, most people liked it so far that the list was up, that confused me even more that i saw a big discussion is starting now... actually only a very few ppl got angry with me mhm
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Here the official statement:
"I feel deeply sorry to see that a respected page like TL, and a respected eSports personality like Manifesto, dashing myMYM.com for our journalistic ethics. Now I feel that we are targetted on a false foundation. I would like to stress out that we have had the players-list for the whole time, and could have published it if we wanted to break the story and get the hits. We didn't.
We respect Blizzard's wish to not publish the list. On the other hand we are a news page, and a news page caters its readers. So when Replays.Net publishes a rumor about the participants of WWI we are going to bring it. Please note that this has nothing to with our agreement with Blizzard. Publishing the NDA'ed list is not the same as referring to a rumour.
How much I would like to extend this explanation, going through it with the same care as Jonas 'The.Crow' Gebhardt, I think this was very much the basics. If a bigger and more extensive answer is wanted, I can be contacted through him.
Yours Sincerely,
Phillip 'Phil' Rasmussen
Editor in Chief / Global Content Manager, at myMYM.com"
zing
+ Show Spoiler +
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seems like a self-correcting problem to me.
if site X doesn't respect your request to keep something confidential, you don't tell them anything confidential next time.
"the community" as a whole isn't really a factor here.
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Hungary11305 Posts
So as I see it, the basic logic of the official MYM statement is:
1) They have had the player's list since a while
2) They chose not to publish it, just like everyone else.
3) Replays.net published player lists, first a totally rumorous and inaccurate one, second an accurate one.
4) myMYM reports about Replays.net publishing the list (s).
Thus, the real culprit is replays.net and myMYM was just reporting about them publishing a rumour. What I am still wondering however is this: If you have the real informations at hand (as stated), and someone else posts a rumour which you know to be false. Isn't it still unethical to provide the rumour with more fuel despite knowing that it is not just a rumour but plainly wrong?
There is a need to "cater the readers" cited. Yes, sure, if you are posting a rumour that can yet prove to be right or wrong, this might be catering your readers. But on the first hand reporting something which you know to be wrong and on the second hand linking to something you know yourself but you did not want to disclose by yourself, both of these still appear dubitable to me.
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Melbourne5338 Posts
Tabloids and paparazzi are synonymous with scum in most people's minds because of their disregard. ATM, I see that myMYM.com incident as severely unprofessional from the lack of sufficient fact checking and the blame on the source. When a news piece written by a staff member representing your site goes live to the public as news for your site, I think that your site should be responsible for it.
I think that the attitude that the public deserves any and all information at any cost combined with how a respectable news source as myMYM.com cares about the hits and discussion that a news piece generates more than its validity, is a large portion of the ethics issue in the esports journalism that Manifesto7 is concerned about.
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I expect an apology from TL.
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Mani should have put "MYM AND REPLAYS.NET BREAK BLIZZARD'S TRUST" on the front page with a page long article slamming both sites instead of making this thread, because TL is a news site too, right?
Anyway, iirc this isn't the first time MYM leaked info that wasn't supposed to be leaked (TLT comes to mind), but yeah, This is only hurting their on opportunity for future exclusive information.
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On June 25 2008 00:39 rpf wrote:
Let me put it this way: TL is the only site that does things properly with stuff like this; other sites don't take anything seriously, and go and ruin aspects of the game for people.
I may make fun of TL and its community from time to time, but there's a good reason I'm only a member of TL and not of other gaming sites.
Granted my membership means relatively little to gaming as a whole, but I hope this makes sense.
Keep doin' what you're doin'.
Edit: Blizzard shouldn't only come to TL, but I think after this (and all of the community's feedback), they'd understand to hold TL in a higher regard than obviously lesser sites. Clearly the people behind the curtains at TL know what to do (and not to do).
I seem to remember that when SC2 was shown for the first time. TL took pictures and posted them even though that wasnt allowed by Blizzard. So we are not innocent here..
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On June 25 2008 05:41 Aesop wrote:
So as I see it, the basic logic of the official MYM statement is:
1) They have had the player's list since a while
2) They chose not to publish it, just like everyone else.
3) Replays.net published player lists, first a totally rumorous and inaccurate one, second an accurate one.
4) myMYM reports about Replays.net publishing the list (s).
Thus, the real culprit is replays.net and myMYM was just reporting about them publishing a rumour. What I am still wondering however is this: If you have the real informations at hand (as stated), and someone else posts a rumour which you know to be false. Isn't it still unethical to provide the rumour with more fuel despite knowing that it is not just a rumour but plainly wrong?
There is a need to "cater the readers" cited. Yes, sure, if you are posting a rumour that can yet prove to be right or wrong, this might be catering your readers. But on the first hand reporting something which you know to be wrong and on the second hand linking to something you know yourself but you did not want to disclose by yourself, both of these still appear dubitable to me.
Well what I understood the.crow post is that editor didn't have any clue who is going to participate there, but Phil had list. So editor did correct thing because he had no idea that and Phil couldn't correct information because promise to Blizzard?
Seems to me that normal rumor/news at work.
And that would have been more suspicious if Phil would have removed/stopped news and this would have raised even more questions at least from editors point of view.
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On June 25 2008 05:25 expostfacto wrote:
seems like a self-correcting problem to me.
if site X doesn't respect your request to keep something confidential, you don't tell them anything confidential next time.
"the community" as a whole isn't really a factor here.
Bingo.
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On June 24 2008 19:32 Manifesto7 wrote:
This is something I am more and more concerned about as SC2 approaches. As someone who has an active role in maintaining this site, I am often approached with offers from many different companies regarding the promotion of eSports and whatever product they choose to promote. With the publicity of the TSL, it has been a real eye-opener for us, especially the core group of staff. These events will only intensify as the community swells in anticipation of the big event.
However I feel that some sites are not taking their responsibilities as seriously as they should. Because they have access to privileged information, information companies are trusting them with, they feel that it is ok for them to post it and grab a quick headline.
Obviously the latest incident is with replays.net posting the lineups for the WWI on their sites, which led to replays.net and other sites following. There are many people who have known the lineups for more than a month now, but have managed to be quiet about it. That is because confidentiality was requested in the emails. However, what these spoilers don't know is that their actions cast suspicion and doubt over the entire length of community sites, staff, and players. Right now I am talking to people who are rightfully pissed off.
There is a difference between being a journalist and disrespecting the wishes of those who help you. I would hope that in the future, all sites have respect for their partners in the field. If they don't it will not only damage their site, but also this site, and the community in general who will feel the effects of the lack of trust between companies and communities.
This is my opinion, but it isn't everyone's. What do you think the obligations of community sites are in these situations?
Fixed? :p
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Man. Everyone is getting it from all ends. Whoever reads Crow's post, you have got patience good sir(s) and/or ma'am(s).
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Osaka27156 Posts
@Crow: I didn't mean this as an attack on your site at all. I simply used MYM as an example of the greater theme I was trying to get across. Nothing I said about MYM was inaccurate was it? You had the info, and you posted it. I don't see a big difference between posting it yourself first, or waiting for someone else to leak and then posting it. This is where are opinions are different I guess.
Thank you for the distinction between MYM players and the myMYM site though. Obviously there is a connection there through name recognition, but it is helpful to know how those two entities are different. I don't think I am alone when I view them as the same.
Lastly, I posted this on the forums, not the news page. The news page is TL's official voice, the forums are my own personal voice. There is a big difference there. Nothing in this post is the opinion of TL.net.
@Koalla: Also, I was also not trying to garner sympathy or favour with TL people. I am actually surprised the responses are all one-way like this. I thought for sure some internet-cowboys would come in screaming about freedom of information. That is why I thought this thread would be good for discussion. I guess I was wrong.
I just wanted to discuss the ethics in reporting things. For years the community sites had zero contact with Blizzard. Now that they have opened the door the way that people in charge of sites have to behave is different. That is what I wanted to talk about, not create a witch hunt =/
So again, the question is, when Mr. Rasmussen from mym says:
On the other hand we are a news page, and a news page caters its readers. So when Replays.Net publishes a rumor about the participants of WWI we are going to bring it.
Do you think that is the right attitude?
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Ok got it, seems I took it a bit too personal at the first glance 
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Canada7170 Posts
On June 25 2008 08:01 The.Crow wrote:Ok got it, seems I took it a bit too personal at the first glance
We don't hate you.
I also misinterpreted the OP so let me reread what I said.
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Osaka27156 Posts
On June 25 2008 08:01 The.Crow wrote:Ok got it, seems I took it a bit too personal at the first glance
I reread what I wrote and I don't blame you. I didn't do a very good job expressing what I wanted to. I reworded some parts so it is clearer.
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Totally agree. Being granted a communications channel with Blizzard is a privilege, not a right. It would be a shame to have that privilege taken away due to some trigger-happy news writers.
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On June 24 2008 19:32 Manifesto7 wrote:
There is a difference between being a journalist and disrespecting the wishes of those who help you.
this is a really good point. Its important to respect other people's wishes and remain professional especially in a community atmosphere where there isnt always a someone telling you how to act, it is up to the individual members of the community. So if someone, say blizzard, were providing information and asking you not to use it, it is only right that you don't use it, regardless of why they are asking. After all, its their hard work going into the information they provide, so morally they should have control over it.
Yes?
Poll:
(Vote): Yes
(Vote): No
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Well, it is a criminal offense in the US for publishing rumors that are known to a newspaper to be false. Not sure what the limitations are for magazines but I'm sure its similar if its a news magazine, rather than entertainment such as Esquire.
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Spenguin
Australia3316 Posts
On June 24 2008 21:39 thedeadhaji wrote:
tl kinda used to be like that too tho? :O
That is the blasphemous Old Testament.
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EPT
