Z-list

So the Interwebs have been all a twitter (literally I suppose) about the Infocom archive. A million others will comment on it but I have a larger point to make.

The complete nerd in me is all squeefull. Stuff like this is interesting and deserves not to be lost. Hearing the story behind stuff like this is both entertaining and also informative and instructional - like the Post Mortems at Gamasutra.

But there's another part of me that's kind of annoyed by it.

It didn't really occur to me that Andy Baio wouldn't have at least tried to get in contact with the people involved. The post obviously had a lot of effort put into it so he wasn't rushing to release anything before the attack lawyers kicked his door in or anything.

He claims to be an independent journalist and, as someone who had a sniff at the jobbing journo thing (sadly the only thing I walked away with from that period of my life was a raging booze thirst and the ability to vomit up press releases like a freak show performer),  I know that's the thing you do - you check your sources. You get corroboration and comment. For a start that just plain polite - you know, the sort of thing a decent human being does. For fuck's sake those emails were written 20 years ago when passions were high. The people involved were probably very different people 5 minutes after they wrote the emails let alone 2 fucking decades.

Moreover it also makes for a better story - there will be more information, more body, a better balanced piece. Good journalism should try and be neutral and discover both sides of the story otherwise you end up with useless pap filled with demagoguery and dogmatic crap like Fox News and Michael Moore.

But you can kind of excuse Andy because, well,  when you're that excited and you can only see the good side of something you kind of get caught up with the rush and I can genuinely believe he didn't think he was doing anything wrong.

And then the people involved turned up in the comments. This is good. This is the great thing about the web. Most of them showed cautious approval and/or pointed out a couple of mistakes. Michael Bywater pointed out that he wasn't upset more just disappointed that Andy hadn't contacted him or anyone else and points out that there was plenty more information to be had. In a slight, but in my opinion anyway, completely understandable bit of pique he signs off

"There's a lot more where that came from but not for you, Mr Baio. You should have asked nicely."

Sadly, at this point, the screaming fucktards from the Queen's own 1st Royal Batallion of Internet Dicks arrive on the scene like a thousand drooling, poop-flinging monkeys - ululating and howling and generally lowering the IQ of the place by a cold 50 points.

Let's examine some of their crimes against sense shall we? Now I admit that these are cherry picked but I'm making a point here and they're by no means in the minority.

"Get over it, Bywater. How long are you going to sulk about the past?" - Mark Miller

Err, as long as people keep bringing it up?

"Yes it would have been better to contact those involved but if they hadn't responded, or they said no then what?" - Robert McGovern

You do what any other journalist does - note the fact that couldn't be contacted. You've at least made an effort.

"Michael Bywater, while I understand your point, you also have to understand the weblog community in general. Yes, this is not cutting journalism in any sense of the word, it is a fantastic insight from raw un-filtered data." - sKurt

Various other people on that thread have made all these points and made them well. My broader point is with sKurts "You have to understand the broader weblog community" assertion and with comments like

"The world needs less "journalists" and more "uploaders". Journalists are people who corrupt the information with their own opinions and misunderstandings, making it hard to get at the truth. Give me raw data any day." - Anonymous

and

"I'm grateful Andy Baio published this stuff without going through any red tape. Had he informed and consulted everyone in advance, there probably wouldn't have been a blog post at all and we'd still be in the dark about Milliways." - Jan

Rather like the games industry itself the blog world needs to grow the fuck up. The increase in personal publishing has proved to be incredibly powerful and has started to wreak the changes that the Cluetrain Manifesto called for nearly 10 years ago. Being unfettered from corporate and government agenda is a hugely good thing. Look at the political dissidents blogging from Indonesia, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia. From the people honestly talking about the mistakes and inside scoops from within Microsoft and Wall Street.

About 7 years ago I was involved with an abortive effort to write an anonymous leaks site for games journalists. Games Magazines live and die by their exclusives and, more so then, their ability to stick demoes on Cover Discs. If you gave a bad review to an Triple-A title then suddenly your advertising disappears. You hear rumours, get exclusives and you can't print them because you'll lose your job. This is not journalism. It's the opposite of journalism.

Penny Arcade - Kane and Lynch

This is where blogging and online journalism can help. But being an immature dickwad who can't distinguish between "the real truth", a biased story and common courtesy is actively hurting the cause they claim to be so passionate about.

And to be frank they can go fuck themselves.