TechRaptor editor-in-chief Andrew Otton and founder Rutledge Daugette recently made a public post indicating that they would be cleaning up the way TechRaptor produces content. They stated that this would relate to quality control and that they would also be updating and removing some past articles published on the site. This included deleting old articles that they claimed were factually inaccurate, and archiving articles with poor editorial oversight.
In the piece that was published on November 4th, 2017, Otton writes…
“With our prior Editor in Chief, there was no editorial process to be heard of. Articles not only did not receive critique or editing, they likely saw no review at all. New hires on the site during what was a turbulent time in gaming—to put it mildly—had a lot of leniency in their content. Aside from completely obvious topics or ideas that were vetoed, likely on title alone, there was no review, no arguments challenged, no critique given.
“As I’ve said, that has completely changed. Then there was one sole editor to look at, critique, and schedule articles. Now we have a whole team, each of which I find incredibly valuable. We all regularly speak about articles and ask for one another’s opinion. The editorial review has improved immensely and will only grow the more we learn.”
Originally Otton and Daugette wanted to delete all of the articles they felt didn’t meet their quality standards, but they were dissuaded from this effort at the behest of their community, the Twitter community, and the Reddit community. Instead they opted to move the offending articles into an archive category, while deleting three others. Majority of the articles archived are from the blind journalist Robert Kingett, who has briefly contributed to One Angry Gamer as well, along with articles from Michael Johnson, Micah Curtis, Anthony Lee and Todd Wohling, to name but a few.
The articles also now have an editor’s note on them, indicating that the TechRaptor editorial staff no longer stands by the quality standard of those articles.
But more importantly, which three articles were deleted? Well, it happens to be three #GamerGate-related articles that they felt were factually inaccurate.
The articles included “Further Improper Relationships Between RedShirt Developer and Games Journalists Have Been Uncovered”, which was published on November 30th, 2014 and was written by Georgina Young.
The article “Zoe Quinn and Lying Journalists” was also deleted, which was published on August 26th, 2014 just before #GamerGate went into full swing.
The last article that was removed from the database was the article from Dan Worcester that was published on October 4th, 2014 titled “Anti-Gamergate Publications Blacklist Kingdom Come: Deliverance”.
One of the more shocking edits is for TechRaptor’s piece about WAM!, which now features an editor’s note saying that they no longer stand by the quality of the piece, which could send a message to readers that the information contained therein may not be reliable.
So what prompted the staff to make this change?
Well, Daugette responded in a Kotaku in Action thread stating that they had always planned to do this but the timing just sucks that it came right on the heels of SJWs attacking the site in relation to the Steam Curator fiasco…
“We’ve been discussing this for a while, and it was something we were really struggling to decide on. Then we went back and re-read a lot of it and were like “Holy shit this is so bad”, and sadly the timing was just not great haha.
“We’ll always be transparent.”
While Daugette states that it was just bad timing, the post on TechRaptor states that they decided to re-evaluate the content on the site after the Steam Curator fiasco, where Andrew Otton writes…
“The recent events regarding the Steam Curator update obviously caught our attention. We were completely surprised and did not realize that so many still held us in such low regard for articles written about a certain subject years ago. We have moved on and had assumed that other parties had as well. Apparently, that is not the case.
“For what it’s worth to those concerned, we’re not entirely happy with many articles we have written in the past. Particularly, there are many from late 2014 and early 2015 that are of such poor quality we will be removing them. If any of those articles had been submitted to our editorial process today, they would have not been published.
“Frankly, many of the articles from a few years ago are embarrassing to be associated with. It’s not necessarily the values they espouse or beliefs they argue for but the quality of writing and choice of topic. We strayed from the path of just talking about games and have no intentions of doing it again.”
This was in response to anti-#GamerGate figures like Nathan Grayson from Kotaku and his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn attacking TechRaptor after Valve briefly featured the site in their banner rotation during their Steam Curator update post.
SJW media fulminated TechRaptor for their association with #GamerGate, and pressured Valve to distance themselves from TechRaptor, as well as attempted to pressure Rutledge Daugette to disavowal their #GamerGate content and renounce the hashtag.
Daugette responded by saying that TechRaptor is neutral on #GamerGate and that the site was not and is not a pro-#GamerGate site.
I’ll just go ahead and post this here, because what Alex said is correct, but there’s more detail to our “involvement” you should read. pic.twitter.com/LaUCrI3KVE
— Rutledge Daugette (@TheRealRutledge) October 26, 2017
Despite claiming to be neutral, many of the SJWs on social media still complained that TechRaptor was supporting harassment by not renouncing any affiliation to #GamerGate.
calling yourselves the kind of journalism that gamergate wants to see means you support a culture of harassment.
— Bryant Francis (@RBryant2012) October 26, 2017
Daugette and the rest of TechRaptor staff’s attempt to distance themselves from their 2014 content and the articles that helped offer a different perspective on the #GamerGate revolt – as opposed to toeing the narrative pushed by the GameJournoPros that #GamerGate was a harassment campaign – still did not go down well with Social Justice Warriors.
Twitter user Mombot caught wind of responses from anti-#GamerGate critics who still excoriated TechRaptor even after they removed the articles, archived others, and updated their outlook to focus more on games.
Naturally, this has appeased no one. pic.twitter.com/MFQY8ERt1i
— Best Mom Eva (@mombot) November 5, 2017
This has been an ongoing tactic from Social Justice Warriors. They attack until an institution or platform rescinds their position and apologizes, and then after that they still opt not to support that institution or platform.
We’ve seen this happen countless times, from game developer Tim Soret being attacked for supporting #GamerGate and even after apologizing he was still attacked. TotalBiscuit attempted to distance himself from #GamerGate and has staunchly advocated Progressive politics, but simply being interviewed by one of his friends at Kotaku resulted in SJWs attacking TotalBiscuit and the Kotaku writer. Kotaku even had to apologize to their harassers for interviewing TotalBiscuit. There was also an artist who gender-swapped a character from the game Dream Daddy and she was harassed vehemently by SJWs with death and rape threats. She apologized to the SJWs, but it still didn’t help.
