Charity Rejects D&D Money - Let's Write Letters!

[mlund]

Digg
Escapist Magazine
Living Dice
RPG.net
Gamertell
Wikinews.org

And that's just the FIRST page of Google results (the Playground is on page 2.) So again, Rich has nothing to apologize for in my mind, though he's certainly free to do so if he chooses.

On the other hand, it wasn't very hard to fact-check this issue either. Almost all the reports were rehashing the same rumor. The sourced one another in a chain that always ended in LiveGamingAuctions.com's post that CCF had refused the money "due to it being tainted by Dungeons and Dragons." The claim itself had no source communication to back it up, named no names, and did not come from GenCon LLC in any official capacity.

That makes it an unsubstantiated rumor. It continued to circulate because it pandered to the prejudices of certain parties, met the "Jack Chick unfairly persecuted gamers" meme to a "T," and passed through sources that applied poor standards of journalism. Thus the falsehood, repeated sufficient times at sufficient volume, became the "facts" for some people.

Additionally, the decision-makers at GenCon have stated that they were misinformed. This does not necessarily place blame on CCF either. Both groups have volunteers that relay this kind of information. GenCon management may have been misinformed by the inference of one of their own volunteers or partners (like LiveGamingAuctions.com) just as easily as they may have been misinformed by someone fielding calls at Christian Children's Fund. We'll likely never know who dropped the ball since such finger-pointing would be poor business form for either party and they are looking to cooperate in 2009. Plus getting into hair-splitting over "he inferred" vs. "I implied," is downright tedious.

There are positives to take away from here, though. Some people may be a bit more willing to question their prejudices in the future, or at least less willing to judge the motives of others. Some of us are going to take a bit more responsibility for the "verify" part of "trust but verify." CCF working to improve their communications should be a positive step too. Plus, GenCon and CCF looking to work together in 2009 can only mean good things for some needy kids.

- Marty Lund