You're the gun: Krahulik's fallacy and your role in it.

Ivan

PirateNinja

I think the real fallacy is all the tech sites using this incident to write editorials about what happened that are basically click-bait for a hot tech news controversy.

I feel like anyone who was really outraged about the whole thing would do better to just leave it alone instead of giving additional press to either Penny Arcade or "Ocean Marketing", the power you're speaking of largely sits with the tech media on this and by publishing op-eds and getting more people stirred up you're just feeding the machine.

Also, I'm not just speaking about this article in particular, but it hit me after reading the Kotaku article that Brian linked that basically every tech site out there now has an article tracking this thing and providing updates and opinions and it's just breathing more life into it.

I completely agree with this, which is what I was saying in my post too. I can't wait for this to blow over. However, I'm somehow addicted to reading the comments in this thread for no other reason than I find all the attention this is getting to be completely absurd.

NiGHTS

It's also HIS site, where he commonly posts HIS thoughts and rants on HIS blog. He has every right to post that there.

I don't think our opinion on the "proper ways of doing business" differ, I think our opinions on whether or not it's acceptable to publicly call out someone for conducting business inappropriately is what differs. What I've taken away from your posts is that if a PR guy, representing a company to which you may have paid money for a product or otherwise had business dealings with, treats you like shit or name-drops you while bashing a customer, you shouldn't be able to post that publicly and call him out for behaving completely inappropriately. I think they should have every right to do so.

Oh definitely, I think they should have every right to as well, sorry to mislead. I just don't think this is the most mature way of handling it. I mean, Gabe even points out it's caused legal problems in the past, but this line:

I will personally burn everything I’ve made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames.

kinda drives that point home. He even has the self-realization that he might indeed be the bigger bully, this time.

The way I see it, if I were in Mike's shoes, I'd be concerned that this tool had used my name when bashing and threatening other customers as well without me knowing about it. I would then want to post the email and a scathing rebuttal solely to distance myself from him and make it very clear that I was not in any way associated with him because I would not want ANYONE to think that I was associated with him in any way shape or form. Dealing with him in private won't do that and wouldn't discourage him from using my name and reputation in the future. Posting a very public rebuttal as well as his own emails will. Simple as that.

Fair enough, I'd be just as concerned as well. By proxy, this man now represents my business (however loosely) and must be dealt with. For me, dealing with him in private would only be the first step in a larger chain. In the end we're agreeing on the same thing: let your shareholders know. My stance is that I'd prefer to do this by phone/e-mail/whatever to my shareholders/customers/prime interests instead, though, to get ahead of it. Gabe is certainly large enough to get the ear of anyone who will listen, and I would have preferred he'd done it more discreetly.

Just for giggles, say Gabe sends an e-mail. We both know it would have gotten out on the larger websiphere anyway, but the attitude would have been totally different. Gabe doesn't look vindictive, it looks like he's keeping everyone aware of what's going on. Hey, I've got a problem here, this is the guy, this is what he's up to, he no longer represents me in any way. I've taken these steps to remediate the issues, I'd ask you consider doing the same based on the following.

End of the day, we both agree on the main issues. Like you said, we just differ on how we'd go about solving this idiot's mess. :)

aChad

If I'm the gun, and Mike Krahulik wields me, then the extent of his action was to place the gun in Christofo's hand and watch him shoot himself. Over and over and over again. This is not a "Jenny Jones" situation where someone was murdered after getting outed on TV. This is a case where a bad businessman had been dealing in threats, evidently for a while, and got his bluff called. Chistoforo can only suffer damage equivalent to the size of the castle of lies that he built.