Forum

Blood- wrote:

dormcat is not a peer opinion. He is an ANN representative. He may be an unpaid ANN representative, but a representative nonetheless.

I can't speak for dormcat, but I don't consider myself a "representative" of ANN. I moderate the forums for FUNimation on a volunteer basis but clearly do not represent them.

Any moderator is a representative of ANN. How could he or she not be? A moderator is responsible for, and has the authority to, uphold ANN's posting policies. That's clearly being a representative. And not that it may matter to you, Shiroi Hane, but based on my dealings with you in the past, I consider you an excellent representative for ANN. I wish some of the others would copy your play book.

Blood- wrote:

I realize that ANN is not a professional news organization and do not expect it to be able to function as one.

Still trying to insult us I see...

Although our staff are entertainment/niche market journalists, I in no way consider them to be non-professional. They have considerable experience and have written and edited numerous professional publications before they worked online. Some of us are also members of professional journalist associations (I've intentionally refrained from making ANN itself a member of anything).

You however are not a journalist. You are free to express your opinion, but remember that you are a lay-person telling professionals how to do their jobs.

Olive Branch time: There may be some value yet in such an article. Not at all for shedding light on what is actually happening (which was the case for the ADV article) since that is very clear and very black and white, but obviously if Gen is willing to share information about the company going forward, that would be interesting. Normally in circumstances like this, they won't share more than what is in the press release or the public statement. And there's nothing to "dig up" in terms of investigative journalism here. That's why I was not initially planning to do any article. But yes, if I ask the right questions and Gen is forthcoming with his answers, then we may learn something interesting. That said, I expect the whole interview to boil down to "business as usual" and/or "we expect nothing but great things." If it's that, I will gleefully rub your face in it and bemoan what a waste of time it was. If I get something good out of it I will pat myself on the back and completely forget to acknowledge that I was pushed to do the interview.

PS: I'm not editor in chief.

-t

Very cool, tempest. I don't expect any earth-shattering revelations from the interview, either, but you never know what acorns might shake loose. Again, in an ideal situation, a reporter would talk to a number different sources (including ones who are only willing to speak off the record) but I ain't gonna push my luck any further than I already have.

Blood- wrote:

Again, in an ideal situation, a reporter would...

Are you aware of how much of an presumptuous asshole you're being ?

That wasn't my intent. I only made that comment because you seem to be suggesting that I assumed an interview with a single source would yield something significant. Re:

Quote:

But yes, if I ask the right questions and Gen is forthcoming with his answers, then we may learn something interesting. That said, I expect the whole interview to boil down to "business as usual" and/or "we expect nothing but great things." If it's that, I will gleefully rub your face in it and bemoan what a waste of time it was.

I am not a practicing journalist (nor ever have been) but I got my Bachelor's of Journalism degree at Carleton University. Not that anybody needs a journalism degree to understand what constitutes a news story, or how one should be put together.

Anyway, this is what I get for not sticking to my original contention that I would make no further comment on this matter.

I want to make a quick clarification (even though I don't think you deserve it, Blood-, as even with all your blathering about "customer service" your behavior here would've entitled any call center employee to hang up on you in disgust) but you're clearly comparing niche entertainment journalism to mainstream news.

It's kind of stunning to me that someone who's been on our forums and heard the employees here speak about the industry and read/listened to our many interviews with employees both current and former, doesn't seem to understand that this industry is approximately the size of a pinhead. For you to talk about how "ideally we'd be digging up multiple sources" and "former employees", especially in this case (not to mention most others) assumes that there is a giant herd of people out there willing to talk on the record or anonymously about the distinct inner workings of the teeny-tiny R1 anime industry.

I would assume that over the years you would've picked up on the fact that for the most part those people don't exist and the industry is extremely small. Combined I would say the ANN staff is familiar with virtually everyone who works in the R1 anime industry and we absolutely do stretch our capacity to bring you every bit of information we can, provided we're not exposing a source or breaking someone's confidence, which are important ethical barriers (as you would know, having a journalism degree). What you see here is what there is to know, what we could get from the small handful of people that there is to talk to.

This isn't mainstream reporting on the government or politicians or public policy or war - there is no teeming herd of former aides, former interns, experienced pundits, political team staff members, congressional employees, anyone who you normally see climbing all over themselves to contribute by the hundreds every day in mainstream news. This is an extremely small niche entertainment field, and the reporting you see reflects as such. I assure you, we exhaust what there is to exhaust (for the most part - I'm not saying our reporting is perfect) but your perception of what we theoretically "could" be doing seems to be based on ignorance of the size and scope of field we're actually reporting on.

As you are (wisely) stepping away from this argument, I don't expect any sort of response from you, so don't feel you need to chime in further.

Zac wrote:

even with all your blathering about "customer service" your behavior here would've entitled any call center employee to hang up on you in disgust

They'd be lucky (or out of a job) - it may be different for outbound but in the two call centres I've worked in we've never been permitted to simply hang up on a customer; they have to be being abusive and we have to give multiple clear warnings (i.e. "if you swear at me one more time I am going to end the call" "now you f**" *click*). Unfortunately if they aren't on a premium rate line they can argue till the cows come home (and ruin your call stats in the process) about how they need their residential broadband fixed tonight or it will affect the business they are running on it, or about how they need an immediate replacement for their iPad that happened to develop a fault the day the iPad 2 was released...

Shiroi Hane wrote:

They'd be lucky (or out of a job) - it may be different for outbound but in the two call centres I've worked in we've never been permitted to simply hang up on a customer;

I've been hung up on by call center staff for less.

Shiroi Hane wrote:

Zac wrote:

even with all your blathering about "customer service" your behavior here would've entitled any call center employee to hang up on you in disgust

They'd be lucky (or out of a job) - it may be different for outbound but in the two call centres I've worked in we've never been permitted to simply hang up on a customer; they have to be being abusive and we have to give multiple clear warnings (i.e. "if you swear at me one more time I am going to end the call" "now you f**" *click*). Unfortunately if they aren't on a premium rate line they can argue till the cows come home (and ruin your call stats in the process) about how they need their residential broadband fixed tonight or it will affect the business they are running on it, or about how they need an immediate replacement for their iPad that happened to develop a fault the day the iPad 2 was released...

...not that it has much of anything to do with the point I was making, but in late high school/early college I worked in three different call centers (AOL Tech Support! UPS Package Tracking!!) and at all three of them we were permitted to hang up if we felt the customer was being 'unreasonably abusive', which meant raising their voice or swearing or any of that. But that was like 12 years ago at this point.

After an almost sleepless night I see tempest and Zac have summarized pretty much what I want to say, with way better writings. For the record I'll add a few words of my personal response.

Blood- wrote:

dormcat, as usual, I find your forays into customer relations are useless. You don't understand that ANN is a business, and you don't understand that I'm a customer, as evidenced by your counter-productive intervention earlier when I complained about having a technical enquiry ignored. I'm not sure what you do understand outside of your duties with respect to the ANN Encyclopedia, but for the good of ANN, you'd be advised to stick to that.

Before ANN started its subscriber service, there had been worries that some subscribers might be more demanding and resistant to moderation, as they might regard themselves eligible for better care and more freedom on various issues, reasonable ones or not. Looks like the worries have come true, and you are not the first subscriber I've encountered with such an attitude.

The first paragraph of my previous post was similar to what tempest has said repeatedly: we expected there were very little to report about, so we didn't really understand what you were seeking in this interview, or why you were so eager to see it happen. I still remember the "concise" interview with Peach Pit.

The second paragraph was a response to your increasingly demanding attitude. Unlike tempest or Shiroi Hane I have very little tolerance on unreasonably demanding people, which was the reason I turned down a moderator recommendation, as I don't consider myself fitting for the job. On the other hand, that does not mean I have no right to express my personal opinion in response to your change of attitude from "Hey tempest - if you have the time and inclination, I would love to..." to "I'm sure as EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of this fine site you have bigger fish to fry than making sure that the AnimeNEWSNetwork properly covers such a piddling matter".

You told me to step aside "for the good of ANN." What you don't see is that if my words really hurt ANN's business, tempest can strip my title immediately or tell me to resign, and I won't hesitate for a second.

Blood- wrote:

Your quote about the "seamless transition etc." is idiotic. If you believe that regurgitating a press release is journalism, than you inhabit a sphere of stupidity that I am powerless to penetrate.

As Zac said, the industry is very small, and this transaction is nothing like Watergate or Enron (for the record, I'm not hinting any scandalous issue in the FUNi sale; it's just because of Watergate and Enron were scandalous they became so memorable, while a normal transaction wouldn't be). Just to let you know: when mainstream media (of which you don't regard ANN as one) report anime-related news they usually copy'n'paste press releases as they don't understand the material.

Blood- wrote:

My quote that you quoted was a pretty obvious display of sarcasm. Perhaps English isn't your first language so you didn't pick up on that? I don't know. In any case, I would be far happier if you refrained from responding to any customer relations matter I may have at ANN. You simply make the situation worse for no good reason.

I was fully aware of your sarcasm, and you were being both sarcastic AND demanding. Furthermore, saying something like "I was just kidding/joking/being sarcastic" is a common practice of dodging but it does not waive one's responsibility of his/her opinion.

I think it's instructive to compare this story with the 4Kids announcement today.

I agree with the staff here that there's really not much to learn about Funimation. No one, Gen Fukunawa or anyone else, is going to speak openly about the future implications of this deal, if there are any at all. That's one of the benefits of going private.

The 4Kids story has other features which make it more worthy of journalistic investigation. I'm not talking about, say, whether 4Kids really committed the acts the Licensors allege, or whether Funimation was a knowing partner in deceiving them, or why Funimation is not also being sued. (Perhaps they agreed to testify on behalf of the plaintiffs if the suit goes to trial?) We won't know the answers to questions like these for some time to come, and no one is going to be very forthcoming on those issues either, I suspect.

However, I would find it informative to read an interview with a bankruptcy attorney or two about how filing for Chapter 11 might, or might not, protect them from the consequences of the suit. Are there ways that reorganization would enable 4Kids to protect some of their assets and leave the Licensors suing an empty shell? When other companies have gone into Chapter 11 in the wake of a suit, and come out on the side, what happened? Information like that could provide some context for understanding how these events relate to each other.

That said, ANN isn't Business Week; it's a site specializing in news about a niche entertainment industry. I don't know if delving into the arcana of US bankruptcy law is worth pursuing in the context of what ANN is about.

As Zac notes, the industry can fit on the head of a pin. It's hardly worth antagonizing the small coterie of people with whom ANN must deal every day just to get a few juicy "tidbits" (I believe that was the word Blood- used).

I don't have a degree in journalism, either, but I've played one on TV. Very Happy

And, yes, my name is really Alec Baldwin.

@ dormcat - I frequently forget that I'm a subscriber here. In any conflict I have ever had with ANN, I have never explicitly or implicitly referred to my subscriber status. However, even if I wasn't a subscriber I would still be a customer of ANN. Anybody who clicks on anything in ANN is a customer. ANN is an ad-supported site. Mo' clicks = mo' money. It is in ANN's financial interest to make sure this site gets as many visitors - i.e. as many customers - as possible. You don't understand that. You will never understand that. You are absolutely awful at customer service. You will always be absolutely awful at customer service. However, so are tempest and Zac, so no need to be concerned about being fired, asked to resign or even modifying your ways. I can't emphasize enough how much I would prefer you not address me in anything that does not touch directly upon you moderating me as a customer of this site.

Ok, I think we're done now.

@yuna49 - Yeeah, the 4Kids story is a priority.

Forum - View topic
tempest: request for editorial re: Funi sale

Japanese TV Special Ranks Top Anime Songs, as Chosen by Foreign Fans

This Week in Anime - So, Is Sound Euphonium Queerbaiting or Not?

Wonderful Precure! Episodes 1-12 Anime Review

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: The Ways of Monster Nation Manga Ends Due to Artist's Health

Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction Part 1 Anime Film Review

Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes Game Review

Forum - View topictempest: request for editorial re: Funi sale

Forum

Forum - View topic
tempest: request for editorial re: Funi sale