A comment thread at Bounding Into Comics about Alt★Hero #1 illustrates the core problem with tolerating gammas, even when one rides herd on them.
Considering how much of an asshole/sperg Vox Day is to everyone in his blog and his “my way or the highway” mentality, I’m surprised this isn’t a massive disaster or that Vox didn’t fire everybody midway through for not kissing his ass hard enough. That said, it seems this is fun and good enough, so I hope this does well and can keep going forward in the hands of other more capable people.
– SkullomaniacVox gets attacked constantly and doesn’t tolerate it anymore. He is an excellent guy to work for, however, and allows a lot of creative leeway.
– David The GoodI have followed his blog for a couple of years now and I’m convinced he has a severe attitude problem with everyone who may dissent even 0.001{329aa4aef5613a80085c3dd6bd84f5d0e8f5581fdc29e0868f0c3a40e8b25a32} with him, and he often appears to demand complete obedience to his words.
– SkullomaniacIt’s been an interesting process to watch. I started reading Vox Day’s blog back in 2008 and the discussions were provocative and harsh at times, but they were also thoughtful and highly-intellectual. Stay on topic, but nothing was really off the table because it was by and large a self-policing community. No one was afraid to question anyone else, including the proprietor of the blog. It was still largely the same through the Sad Puppies situation. Then, as the Alt-Right started to become a thing and Vox Day became a figure within it, his blog readership increased very quickly and the community rapidly changed. When this happened, everything else changed with it, including the house rules and the attitude toward comments.
– Arcturus Rann
Notice the divorce between the guy who has followed the blog “for a couple of years now”, the guy who has followed it for a long time and actually works with me, and the guy who has followed it for a decade.
Merely having to deal with gammas and the psychological trash they drag in with them has been sufficient to convince some casual observers that I am an oversensitive, incapable sperg who requires people to kiss my ass and doesn’t allow any questioning of my opinion whatsoever. This, as those who work with me know, is almost the complete opposite of the truth; the most common criticism I receive from those who work with me is that I don’t give them enough guidance and oversight.
Granted, I’m not given to much in the way of kumbaya and cuddles either, but if I have repeatedly erred, it has always been on the side of giving people excessive responsibility for which they were not truly ready.
Anyhow, being a game designer, I am putting on my design hat to address this problem. It’s probably going to be based on letting the Dread Ilk decide who is, and who is not, allowed to comment here. What none of my critics realize is that I have actually been far more tolerant of the newcomers than most of the historical readership here prefers.