Talk:Judges Guild

Link

The link to JudgesGuild.net for Bob Bledsaw's obituary currently broken - it redirects to a luxury handbag site!?! Sawatts (talk) 13:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

Try http://www.judgesguild.com/ ? 129.33.19.254 (talk) 14:08, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

• ... which hasn't been updated in seven years. That being said, if the link is broken, it's a simple matter to change it to what the Wayback Machine returns. Ravenswing 16:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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What country is Sunnyside Road in?

A city or town would be nice to know too. Rwflammang (talk) 20:47, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

‎2020 racist and antisemitic remarks by Bob Bledsaw II

The following was removed from the article today; if better sourcing is found, then some commentary may be added back to the article in some form:

On February 10th, 2020, Bat in the Attic Games announced it would suspend all future dealings with Judges Guild over a series of racist and antisemitic posts made by Judges Guild owner Bob Bledsaw II on Facebook.

Also on February 10th, Frog God Games / Necromancer Games made a public announcement on their Facebook page that they would also cease working with Judges Guild.

On February 12th, it was confirmed that Judges Guild had been removed as a publisher from OneBookShelf (DriveThruRPG).

The team for The Secrets of Blackmoor project also cut business ties with Judges Guild following the posts on Facebook. The team cited social media comments by Bob Bledsaw II and Bob Bledsaw III.

207.229.139.154 (talk) 02:26, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

This was added back and I've removed it per our policy on content about living persons. We need reliable, secondary sources to support claims like these. Self-published/social media and forum sources are inappropriate for controversial and negative claims about living persons. Woodroar (talk) 13:22, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

With all due respect, the post linked was my official public statement explaining why I chose to cease doing business with Judges Guild. The Bat in the Attic blog has served as my formal platform for publishing and announcements under Bat in the Attic Games since 2009. Similarly, the statement from Frog God Games was issued through their official channels.

As for ENWorld, it has been a major source of news and industry reporting in the tabletop RPG space since the early 2000s, with a broad readership and journalistic standards that, in practice, function much like trade publications in other industries. It routinely publishes interviews, announcements, and statements directly from creators and publishers.

While I understand Wikipedia's Biographies of Living Persons policy aims to avoid undue harm or unverified claims, I respectfully suggest that the RPG industry’s reliance on digital self-publication and community-based reporting presents a challenge that should be acknowledged. In our field, blogs, forums, and platforms like ENWorld serve as the primary and often only outlets for official statements, news, and responses to controversies. Robertsconley65 (talk) 15:03, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that the Bat in the Attic blog is your platform, and that's precisely the issue here. Per WP:BLPSPS, we cannot use self-published sources (like your blog) to support claims involving other living persons. Our BLP policy is strict and we don't make exceptions for cases like this—particularly for an entire industry.

I'm aware of EN World's pedigree. Unfortunately, this specific EN World source was posted on their forums, and by the owner of the site. That makes it a self-published primary source, and unusable for Wikipedia for claims about third parties.

I'm sorry, but we really need to wait for reliable, independent, secondary sources to cover this before we can think about mentioning it in an article. Woodroar (talk) 15:45, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

ENWorld is structured so that every article is posted with an accompanying discussion thread. The content of the article itself is edited, reported, and authored by ENWorld’s editorial team—most often the site’s owner, who also functions as its primary journalist. Dismissing those articles as self-published forum posts ignores how the site actually operates as a news outlet.

For example, this article is news reporting, not forum commentary. The fact that it's posted to a discussion thread doesn’t change that it’s authored and published by a named editor, covering third-party developments, and following the same practices as other niche industry publications.

If ENWorld is being ruled out entirely as a reliable source for RPG industry coverage, then Wikipedia effectively has no usable sources for the vast majority of modern RPG history, given the lack of mainstream press engagement with the topic. That feels like an overly rigid interpretation of policy that undercuts coverage of a major creative industry.

For example

https://www.enworld.org/

Click on any article and it will take you to the article AND the discussion thread.

This is a specific article on their front as of May 10th 2025.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/goodman-games-offers-assurances-about-judges-guild-royalties.713311/ Robertsconley65 (talk) 20:48, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

I see what you mean about how the articles appear on the site. Regardless, the fact that Morrus/Morrissey owns/runs the site and wrote the article means that it is self-published (in Wikipedia's eyes) which precludes us from using it for claims about third parties. I'm sorry, but there's no way around this.

Perhaps there are other sites that might be interested in covering this? I know that entertainment journalism is in a bad spot right now, but there are still plenty of sites that cover RPGs, not only RPG-specific media but also games media, comics media, etc. Granted, we'll still likely need multiple articles from top-tier publishers, which is typical for negative or controversial claims. Woodroar (talk) 21:30, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

The controversy has now been covered by Rascal.news. (https://www.rascal.news/much-ink-spilled-in-the-defense-of-bigots/?ref=the-weekly-fanfare-newsletter). I assume that is a sufficient secondary source? Bdunn91 (talk) 17:50, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

That's nice to see, really. (I'd wondered where Lin Codega was writing now.) Unfortunately, it's a new source that almost certainly wouldn't meet WP:REPUTABLE yet; and as the author is also an editor, we tend to see those as self-published as well. As I said above, we'll still likely need multiple articles from top-tier publishers, which is typical for negative or controversial claims. This is to ensure that the claim is sufficiently sourced to satisfy any concerns about BLP, DUE, and so on. Woodroar (talk) 18:18, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

References