***Updated: I decided to edit the person's name out of this post.***
I just received the most random email and am not really sure how to reply. Maybe the Destructoid community could help me out a bit. Here's the basic deal: A couple years ago, this guy named Stuart ****** was randomly attacking Destructoid on Digg.com for personal gain. I jumped on him in forums and even made a blog post on one of my random free blogs. This is one of those blogs I started and then forgot I even had. The primary reason I was upset is that I was hired by Ziff Davis and this was the guy who basically inherited the blog I wrote for and ran it into the ground by plagiarizing articles and attacking other sites.
Here's the email:
"Dear William,
If this is the same "Kezins" from the blog located at http://kezins.wordpress.com, then I'm sure you remember me, Stuart ******, from the overrated Digg/1pStart/Destructoid fiasco quite a bit of time ago. As you probably know, I am no longer affiliated with 1pStart or any of the surrounding media demeaning the Destructoid name. The writers of 1pStart at that time and myself who came came up with the post no longer pursue the original notions, thoughts, and/or evidence that was submitted to Digg.com.
My internet presence is now affiliated with many small sites that are not related to any sort of constructive journalism towards Demonoid. Because of this, I ask you to retract the post located here:
Web Link
When Googling my name, this post comes up in the results, and can possibly look negative to someone not knowing the whole story. I know this is the internet, and there are many stray and unrelated pieces of information about almost any individual. However, due to the positive and developing credits of my name, I simply ask that you to delete that post and anything that could come up in a search for "Stuart ******".
I respect you and your colleagues for writing and providing counter-evidence against our post, but I feel as if it is not relevant anymore. I hope your projects are going well, and perhaps you will get a kick out of the fact that I visit Destructoid on a regular basis.
Thanks for everything.
Stuart ******"
Should I delete a post because it's not relevant? Normally, I'd go ahead and delete it because this is honestly old news, but something simply irks me about this message. I saw the post "Stuart ******'s Real Form" no longer exists on the site here, and it's probably because no one really cares about the****** fiasco anymore. I don't even care anymore. I'm asking people here to drop me some opinions. Should I just delete this post or ignore the email? I was also ticked off that they continued using my "Kezins" name on 1PStart after I left and ****** gave me a hard time about it. My other option is to just do some random post showing the entire story. It's actually quite good and would probably make this guy look even worse...
In the end, I feel like deleting the post would be dishonest, even though it's a post and random blog spot of mine I didn't even remember. I also feel like this dude will keep randomly popping up to annoy me if I don't. It's certainly a weird spot. Any help?
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I say just delete the post to make him happy. It's not like it would negatively affect you in any way. And he probably would never talk to you again if you do.
i say let it go and delete it. better things lay ahead to focus on and he ain't one of them. no one knows him but he seems to know biased stories get more traffic than real journalism so fuck him and his way of reporting stories. wash your hands of him and be clean.
Let bygones be bygones. The time has come and gone for this.
You guys are probably right. He'll probably email me about this one next, but what can you do? If that happens, I'll just edit his name out of the post perhaps...
now the trick is figuring out what the hell the password was for this blog. :)
Might as well delete it. Of course, then you'll have to delete this one, too, since his name is in it.
Also, I think the reason the "Stuart Piazza's True Form" blog doesn't exist anymore is because it was by WiiSucks (not that that matters).
the trick now is figuring out what the password was for this place. lol
pffft, leave that shit up! I still see referrals from that Digg gaming article in the first place. Let him suffer.
I'd also like to add that he put up Google Ads on his so-called evidence. The guy is scum -- I'd like to see him go down. I can't wait to run into him. Literally.
I haven't forgotten, Stuart!
I bet he still gets referrals from that. I couldn't believe how high it got, but they actually had about 100 people behind the conspiracy lol.
I vaguely remember WiiSucks
Delete it, he seems like a regular dtoider now, and if he were to post a cblog, I would read it.
DESTRUCTOID!! YOU HAVE DISAPPOINTED ME!! I thought we were supposed to be a bunch of vindictive, immature assholes. I guess I'll have to stand up for our ideals! I say fuck this guy.. he's probably trying to get a job somewhere. I believe in an employer's right to know that he is an idiot.
@Niero: I do remember Google Ads on the evidence page. Pop-ups as well.. The ironic thing about the situation was that the group behind it (this guy was kind of a pawn) were actually huge cheaters on Digg and it went deep. I'll even admit that I was a major cheater on Digg.com a long time ago.. I'm personally responsible for well over 125 articles making it to the front page, but I did it for the money and feel bad about it. Fortunately I changed my mind and don't feel like operating like that.
"My internet presence is now affiliated with many small sites that are not related to any sort of constructive journalism towards Demonoid."
lol, must of been pirating some games while writing this e-mail.
Oh how easily we forget the past. It may have happened years and years ago in magical Internet time, but the damage done was plentiful and continues to exist in many ways.
I'm sorry, but you don't go around damaging company goodwill and tarnishing reputations only to turn around and ask the rest of the world to act like it never happened.
Why would you take it down? Fuck that guy
@Jordan: I do still believe they damaged Destructoid. I can't remember how long, but for a while I thought D'toid would never make it to the front page of Digg. The Digg crowd is mostly full of morons who believe anything that gets over 4,000 votes. I'm not sure how damaging though. Digg traffic is great for padding stats but Diggers don't click on adds or interact much. It was worth a ton of money back then when you had high payout pay-per-impression ads. I was probably making $1,000 a month or so online from Digg in the old days. Now a front page article might bring me a dollar. :)
@Chrono: lol.. it does sound like a pirating ring, but I think he is running some kind of logo design business.. maybe he thinks clients will see these things.. who knows?
I say delete it.
People change, motivations change. If he is trying to turn around a new leaf I say take the article down. It sucks when you have something you did in the past holding you back from moving on.
His letter was legit, upfront, and professional. A lot can happen in a few years to change someone.
It's true about Diggers not being big ad clickers, but expanding potential readership is always a major plus. Yes, we have partially recovered and can now get our very best content the front page if we're lucky, but the issue at hand is beyond just that.
For instance, look at the Destructoid + Reddit gaming launch that happened not too long ago. How many Redditors were freaked out because they thought it would "be the Digg fiasco again"? More than I would've ever imagined, I'll leave it at that.
@Kezins
Demonoid is a pirating site lol, its a members only torrent site, I know because I'm a member and I get destructoid and demonoid mixed up all the time!
yeah I saw some of the Reddit crap. Reddit is kind of a weird place too. I pissed off some of the regulars there and no articles of mine went past 0-1 for a long time.
I haven't really thought about the fiasco for a while, but it is still something that kinda ticks me off when I do. I felt like it was basically the destruction of my hard work on one blog and the attempt to smear D'toid, a community I can relate with. Sometimes I wish I could reach through the computer screen and violently shake people who believe retarded smear campaigns. The good news is that he's pretty much dead in the gaming world and I do feel like D'toid will be around forever. I know most sites eventually fade, but this place does have a uniqueness that can't be copied. Uniqueness comes with hate too I think.
LEAVE WIISUCKS ALONE. And fuck that guy.
ah.. lol. I don't know much about the pirate world these days. I haven't really been into the hacking/pirate scene since I was busted by the cops in 1993 when I was a kid (lol). This was when hacking was real crazy and involved all kinds of homemade devices :) I didn't get locked up or anything, but my parents took away my computer and telephone for a long, long time and I just never got back into it.
yeah I saw some of the Reddit crap. Reddit is kind of a weird place too. I pissed off some of the regulars there and no articles of mine went past 0-1 for a long time.
I haven't really thought about the fiasco for a while, but it is still something that kinda ticks me off when I do. I felt like it was basically the destruction of my hard work on one blog and the attempt to smear D'toid, a community I can relate with. Sometimes I wish I could reach through the computer screen and violently shake people who believe retarded smear campaigns. The good news is that he's pretty much dead in the gaming world and I do feel like D'toid will be around forever. I know most sites eventually fade, but this place does have a uniqueness that can't be copied. Uniqueness comes with hate too I think.
I wasn't around for the whole Digg crisis but if this guy did such a good job in rubbing Destructoid's name into the ground that we still aren't really over it then fuck him. Keep the article up and let employers know that they should not hire this man because he is a complete douche and drain on resources. But if you believe that all can be forgiven and that people can change, then take it down.
Personally, though, I'd leave it up.
fyi the guy's name still shows up in the weblink
I say let it go
Keep the article up. It's your own work. He has no say in what you're saying. Besides, what you posted isn't personal information.
Employers check out their employees for the sole reason of finding things like this. He acted against Destructoid without fully considering the consequences down the line, and now he'll have to suffer for it.
Niero and his crew, who were most hurt by this, say leave it up. I'm inclined to agree. I'm all for forgiving, but forgetting is another matter entirely.
Unless maybe we get a public apology from him on the front page of Digg?
Personally I want to read it.
however THAT sways you...
To be honest, I kinda want to know the whole story.
I guess I missed it when I went missing for a long time on Dtoid.
Ah I 'member you Kezins!
You posted something about exploring Niko's bellic's past in GTAIV. It got linked on G4, so I went to see what you were saying.
A lot of guys got off topic on the comments, So I set some stuff straight and ya thanked me for it.... :]
small world.
@De Bloo: Juan Perez actually wrote that article, but it's my site.. definitely a small world. Comments get weird on my site sometimes. I'm always getting attacked by rabid fanboys too. There was something on here once about me pissing off every Wii fanboy in the world and they were plotting my death. I think Colette wrote it.
Funny thing is I never really try to start shit, but somehow always do :) Nice seeing you on here...
@De Bloo: Juan Perez actually wrote that article, but it's my site.. definitely a small world. Comments get weird on my site sometimes. I'm always getting attacked by rabid fanboys too. There was something on here once about me pissing off every Wii fanboy in the world and they were plotting my death. I think Colette wrote it.
Funny thing is I never really try to start shit, but somehow always do :) Nice seeing you on here...
Sorry about the double comment. Something weird has been going on with my browsing experience since the last Firefox patch. @Barcode.. I have actually considered writing the entire story up one day (it includes stuff that no one on D'toid even knows) but every time I get the urge, I feel like it would just come out dramatic. It wasn't just one random moron posting something. This was a corporate backed attack. Even before it happened, I turned against these people and even had to threaten to sue them for a considerable chunk of change they owed me for past work. In the end, I almost feel like posting an article about the entire debacle would just bring these losers out and then just cause trouble for D'toid....which I am sure they can handle, but there's no point in further annoyance.
I say leave it, if he's douchey enough to google his own name he deserves to see that people think he sucks.
Do tell more about this hacking incident lol, what you just described reminded me of the movie Hackers.
@Chrono: lol. it was simple really, but basically a friend of mine and I got busted hacking into Radford University's BBS. We were also doing random stuff like tampering with the library computers at our school. We also dabbled in phreaking. The actual funny part was years later when I was in the Army and for some random reason CID decided to investigate me since I had a clearance. They had me in an interrogation room and acted like I was the leader of of some secret organization. They kept me there until I told them my life story and then sent me back to my unit. I never heard anything about it again, but it was really odd. They even took photographs of my tattoos. If I were to ever commit a crime these days, the damn government would catch me in a second I bet.
You wrote for Ziff Davis? Sucks to be you. First the phenomenal OPM, then EGM. Yeah, sucks to be you.
Yeah. I mean I bitch about ZD sometimes, because they are shady, but there were good times too. The money was also good.
I'm still bitter about them canning OPM years ago. And the reasoning behind it was ludicrous. Don't even get me started on EGM. I lathered Game Informer at that point anyway. 70 pages isn't a good magazine EGM. Well I guess reporting news is getting harder with games blogs and sites these days.
Where are you working now anyway?
do not delete. even if its irrelevant , out of date, or what ever he was part of something that he needs to be held accountable for.
it was part of his career and good or bad , past or present ,its still a part of it.
@Ron: actually nowhere lol. After I quit, I kind of assumed it would be easy to pick up a writing gig, but it was bad timing and so I am kind of freelancing and running my own blog (kezins.com). I have also discovered there's not as much money in your own blog as there was a few years ago. I decided to actually go back to college and work on some degrees and tap out the rest of what I have in the GI Bill. It's tax-free money, so I kind of consider it a nice job by itself :)
Huh, well that sucks. Good luck finding a gig.
Forget that boner. It would professionally irresponsible of you to delete your work.
Did CNN delete their Eliot Spitzer story because he said he wasn't going to fuck hookers anymore? No. You can't just go around acting like a dick and expect people to hush up when it's convenient.
At the very least, you shouldn't let any one else's agenda affect your personal writings. Not to mention that it's incredibly pretentious to think that anyone would bother googling him.
What?! Fuck him!
I have weighed in all my thoughts and everyone's opinions and decided I'll just keep it up. @Joseph I agree about the pretentious notion. Honestly, I if this post pops up in the #2 spot when you Google him, he hasn't done much with himself. Google me and it will take a long damn time to go through it all. Plus I posted this on basically a BS blog. Sometimes I'll just post things in random places when I am bored.
Maybe my time at ZD got the deletion thing in my mind. They deleted several of my stories to avoid offending people like one I did on Jack Thompson's email to me. But other big sites are always deleting and changing things. In many ways, once you put something on the net, there's no taking it back.. right or wrong. In this case, I was actually lenient on the dude with this particular post.