[arg_discuss] whitepaper:wiki, next version

[Brooke Thompson]

I have to disagree about the lack of constructive criticism in Jackie's
Intellinuts post on the white paper. In fact, many of her criticisms mirror
my own - criticisms that, I might add, I emailed you about right after
Picnic and offered to help overcome (an offer made primarily because you had
stated that the changes had to be made within days and at the time Andrea
was occupied by bringing something infinitely more valuable into this world
- congrats Andrea!). You dismissed my offer to help edit Andrea's section -
not wanting to make changes while she was unable to contribute herself. I
pleaded that because you were an editor it was well within your right to do
so. It was weeks before I heard back from you and you stated that all
discussed changes had been made and a draft would be available shortly. With
no draft coming in, I made the incorrect assumption that you had broadened
the scope of her section by providing additional examples of usage in
various recent games in addition to correcting the typographical errors. 

It was nearly a month later before I heard from you again. You have
repeatedly claimed that the reason for this delay was that you could not
find an author for the business models section (the other section which
Jackie criticized). I find this claim completely bogus as you never once
asked me to help you on this. Something I would have been more than willing
to help with or, if that wasn't desired, I would certainly have gone to my
network which does not completely mirror your own. Furthermore, having done
similar research for my reworking of the Wikipedia article (something which
I was doing at the same time you were working on the section), I could have
certainly helped to point you in the right direction and considering you
used waves that closely resemble my own outline on the publicly available
Wikipedia draft page, I'm certain that the research I had gathered and
people with whom I had talked to would have been of great assistance.

At this point, it had been nearly two months since PICNIC and yet you chose
a holiday weekend for the majority of contributing writers to demand that we
look over our sections so that "truly MAJOR problems" could be addressed as
the paper was going to be published on Monday.  Frankly, that was
inconsiderate, bold, and fully negligent on your part. A few more days would
have gone unnoticed by those that were even aware of the whitepaper and
would have allowed for a far more polished and presentable paper - and one
that, at the least, would have had fewer typos. You were lucky to have heard
from me at all as my internet over the weekend was completely unreliable (I
was out of state visiting family and staying in two different locations
without phone lines, let alone cable or internet) and that is why you did
not hear from me after my initial correspondence on Friday morning - it was
not, as you assumed, that I found no problems with the final draft as I
didn't even see it until Sunday evening and far to late to reply to as it
was already well into the morning hours in the UK. 

So, in my experience as a credited editor, I have to agree with Jackie's
assertion that there was a failure of the editorial process as well as a
lack of "collaboration, interpretation, incorporation of ideas and debate".
And as to her further allegations that the paper is biased, incorrect, and
misleading - she has provided examples of all of the above. You mention the
existence of rebuttals to her criticism and yet fail to provide links to
these rebuttals. I know that there are a number of people interested in
helping with the white paper - since its publication and my attribution as
editor, I've had more than a handful of people asking how they can help to
address the issues that they also see. If these are, in fact, non-issues,
these folks should be made aware of this so that they don't spend their
valuable time and energy making changes that you will, ultimately, reject as
"invalid" and "specious". Nobody wants to take on unnecessary or unwanted
work, especially on a volunteer basis.

And that brings me to the other thing - unnecessary & unwanted work. In the
above linked unforum thread, someone mentioned that they were not made to
feel welcome to assist. You challenged them to provide names and examples of
this. They did. Of course, you have ignored his provided explanation and
done nothing to dispel the feelings that he expresses so clearly and
received further acknowledgement publicly by yet another influential and
productive member of the ARG community (one who is not only and admin at
unfiction and a writer for ARGN but has worked on a number of alternate
reality games - one of which was listed in the current & recent games
section of the whitepaper).

I feel the need to point out that although you seem to be unaware of it,
their complaints are ones that I have heard *repeatedly* and it's a claim
that has often placed me in an awkward spot. I cannot dismiss their feelings
as I can understand how they came to exist. Yet, I have also been a strong
supporter of the SIG and believe that it has the potential to do good
things. It is very difficult to encourage their participation when they are
made to feel otherwise by the SIG leadership.

To see you so flatly dismiss Jackie's post and, in doing so, provide the
implication that those who do have criticisms are just focusing on the
negatives and that those issues are just that of a single individual is
quite distressing. It does nothing to further discussion on the paper - not
every discussion can be positive and there is a place for constructive
criticism, especially if your hopes are that people contribute to the
rewriting process. Though, the way in which this list has been handled as
far as welcoming discussion, I suppose that I should not have been
surprised. Unfortunately, it just makes it even more difficult for those of
us who agree with the number of complaints we hear on the SIG (and not just
in regards to the white paper, but it's leadership, focus, and direction -
or lack of all three) to continue to support it.

Yes, this will be deemed as "unconstructive criticism" and you will likely
just dismiss this entire post. That is fully within your right. But
understand, the only reason that I am speaking up is because I do care - I
care about the white paper and I care about the SIG. Both are in a very
tenuous position right now. It's been suggested by a number of people, a
suggestion which I have agreed to, that something needs to be done.
Unfortunately, it's also come to my attention, that most would like nothing
to do with the SIG itself - feeling that it has become a list with no focus
and one's which goals are not to support Alternate Reality Gaming but one's
owns projects and works. Those who heavily associate themselves with the
player community feel unwelcome and those who heavily associate themselves
in the development community feel that participation is a liability. This
leaves the academic community and so it comes as no surprise that the vast
majority of discussion over the past few months have been related to
educational & academic issues.






-----Original Message-----
From: arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org [mailto:arg_discuss-bounces at igda.org] On
Behalf Of Adam Martin
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 7:50 AM
To: Discussion list of the IGDA ARG SIG
Subject: Re: [arg_discuss] whitepaper:wiki, next version

On 12/12/06, Colin Gehrig <colin at colin.com.au> wrote:

> version though. The Wiki version of the whitepaper can be found here:


Great work, Colin.


> What is the way forward with the whitepaper? In March there is both the

> Unfiction ARG-Fest-O-Con and Games Developers Conference. I think this

> is a good time to release version 1.5 to address some of the criticisms


There's no reason we can't do a new version for the Spring
conferences, assuming people step forwards and provide all the extra
content, and step forwards to edit, collate, and publish the paper.


> of the paper. For those who aren't aware of the criticisms see here:

> http://www.intellinuts.com/blog/?p=204

> http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17585


Unfortunately, very little of that is constructive criticism, and much
of it revolves around misunderstandings about the scope and basis of
the paper. There have been rebuttals on other blogs pointing out the
invalid assumptions and specious claims throughout the intellinuts
piece, but I would suggest focussing instead on whatever positive
changes people would like to add (and which they volunteer to
provide), rather than trying to resolve an individual's issues that
ultimately fell into ad-hominem attacks. Jackie has been asked several
times to volunteer for any future whitepaper, and it's entirely up to
her whether to do so.

There will always be someone who's unhappy with whatever is produced,
but since *everyone* is both free and heavily encouraged to
contribute, limited only by their own devotion of time and willingness
to adhere to an abstract and a schedule, there's no reason for them to
feel shut-out. As a purely volunteer effort, if people cannot make the
time and effort to get involved, there's not much we can do about it.

Adam
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