The Jason Review Was Not Official

[dfchang]

I think some people are just . . . well, a bit dense. Or maybe it's the limitations of the Internet in conveying unspoken intent?

 

For instance, I managed to read the pre-review and did find it sort of odd. Why wasn't it announced on the home page of Dragonmount for instance? The prose seemed slightly rough, there were definitely passages that looked cut off and put in the wrong area, etc, etc. Some spoilers seemed a bit . . . aggressive compared to Leigh's review.

 

In retrospect, it is now obvious that it was never meant as an official review.

 

After reading Luckers and Jason's explanations, it seemed blatantly obvious to me that this is an extremely embarrassing and painful situation for Jason personally and professionally because these types of reviews NEED to be approved by Brandon Sanderson, Tor, Harriet, etc before being made available so everyone is on the right page regarding spoilers,etc. He did this with The Gathering Storm and it should come as no surprise that Towers of Midnight would require the same thing.

 

There is content in this "pre-review" then that may be inappropriate for discussion because it may be too spoilerish. That it was posted early even by accident WITHOUT approval by the author and the publisher COULD be seen as a betrayal of trust. Not purposefully, BUT it could be seen as a rather irresponsible handling of an important document.

 

Example in point: the Apple employee who accidentally left a prototype 4.0 Iphone at a bar. Was that done on purpose or with malicious intent? Obviously not, but it DOES show a certain lack of care that is disturbing to the parent company.

 

Now, I'm sure that Team Jordan is gracious and kind enough not to make a big deal out of this since mistakes do happen and re-booting a site like Dragonmount involves an incredible amount of work.

 

So, again it became obvious to me reading between the lines that absolutely NO discussion should take place about the details of this pre-review because in doing so, you would essentially be taking advantage of Jason's mistake and also publicizing that mistake and making it more damaging via propagation.

 

Decius, your argument about the difficulty of WITHHOLDING information after it is released holds true up to a point but then becomes a bit silly. Just because you and I got lucky and read a review due to a Dragonmount mistake means now that "to be fair" EVERYONE has to have access to that information? I'd have to beg to differ there. Simply being a "nice guy" should be enough to just not talk about it.

 

Even if Jason hadn't done ANYTHING over the years, simple decency would make this the right thing to do.

 

Your continued efforts to "clarify" things along with your insinuation that "we should just acknowledge a mistake has been made but move on and keep discussing" in light of both Jason and Lucker's comments make you come across as either incredibly insensitive or incredibly dense.

 

In point of fact, the mods here at Dragonmount have been very lenient. In other forums, your posts would just be deleted, you would be banned if you persisted, and that would be the end of it.

 

Now that having been said, I'm glad you decided to do the right thing and not talk about it but why did was it so difficult to get the point across? For God's sake, even the guy who started the Petition for Jason's Review got the idea but you couldn't?

 

Shakes head.

 

Dennis

[scraps18]

I generally love this board because of the respect shown here. This is childish bordering on the ridiculous! Please everyone take a step back and think of why we are here: as fans.

[b3arz3rg3r]

I generally love this board because of the respect shown here. This is childish bordering on the ridiculous! Please everyone take a step back and think of why we are here: as fans.

 

You do realise that fan comes from fanatic, don't you? Fandom and reason are mutually exclusive.

[Darkenmal]

Decius was asking a simple question (politely), and people jumped down his throat for asking it.

 

By the way, you guys never really gave him an answer of a simple yes or no.

[scraps18]

I generally love this board because of the respect shown here. This is childish bordering on the ridiculous! Please everyone take a step back and think of why we are here: as fans.

 

You do realise that fan comes from fanatic, don't you? Fandom and reason are mutually exclusive.

[scraps18]

Sorry meant to say that being fanatical is okay but rudeness and snarkiness is a little much. I feel terrible for Jason, who is selfless and helpful to this board. But I also feel bad for the people who want to respond to his review. It is a spoiler board after all. Just be civil 

[Elend]

Dang! I've already forgotten all the spoilers I read, except that it made me buy the prologue.

[b3arz3rg3r]

Sorry meant to say that being fanatical is okay but rudeness and snarkiness is a little much. I feel terrible for Jason, who is selfless and helpful to this board. But I also feel bad for the people who want to respond to his review. It is a spoiler board after all. Just be civil 

 

I know, I was just joking around.

[The Fisher King]

wow i missed it!! hhahaha o well. but seriously dude i dont know jason eaither but it is because of him we have this forum, more so than even luckers or Maj or Jenn so lay off. he works his ass off every day from what iv heard. take a chill pill.

 

 

but since we missed it we cant say any spoilers in the review til the real one is up? i have no problem just clarification. im cool with it either way

 

I SAW IT - LOL!!! (last night).

 

And, it was AWESOME! :)

 

But, it was obvious that it probably wasn't supposed to be there. (if you read it, you probably had the same suspicion).

 

Jason is a human being, I suppose, though Ive never met the man ;) He works hard, like many of us. He made a computer mistake trying to DO SOMETHING FOR *US*, lol.

 

This is a free site and we get alot from it. I think if we just chill for a day or so with zipped lips on the things Jason obviously hadn't meant us to see until he has his OFFICIAL Review up - then that is really not too much to be asked.

 

Thats what *I* plan on doing, at least. Everyone is different and has a right to be different. Personally, I was raised, and believe, that people do not have to 'earn' your respect in life. That you should always treat people with respect. Unless they do something to lose your respect. I respect WOT and this Board and Jason and what Jason's had to do over the years to earn Tor and Team Jordan's trust to potentially cause problems out of sheer impatience.

 

I will comply because it is the respectul, appreciative and decent thing to do towards Jason, Brandon, Tor, readers and posters who may not WANT to be spoiled...etc...

 

I will also comply because I don't want TPTB at Tor to feel uncomfortable sharing advance things with us before AMOL the way they have the last few books. The way they have because of the respect and trust Jason earned.

 

Lets both not shoot ourselves in the foot, and also not cause problems for people who work hard.

 

Theres my 2 Coppers. I = is shutting up now ;)

 

Can't wait for the Official One, Jason. Accidents happen to us ALL - Thanks for all you do for us. It is appreciated. Keep your head up and keep up the Awesome Work! :)

 

 

Fish

[scraps18]

I know and I don't mean come off as a blowhard (love that word)!

[E-Rock]

I think this discussion is being framed in unnecessarily emotionally charged statements.

 

I read the unfinished review while it was up. However, I'm now aware that this was the result of a technical mishap and that the content of the unfinished review had not been given the OK by TOR/Harriet yet. (This is obviously not such an issue merely because of incomplete editing.) As such, it is reasonable to assume that discussing the particulars of the unfinished review has the potential of being embarrassing for Jason and making TOR/Harriet annoyed. As a fan, this would seem to confer very little benefit at all to me individually and likely be directly adverse to the interests of the fanbase in general. (We want our friends in the community to be on good terms with TOR/Harriet. That's why we get these reviews in the first place. )

 

So I suggest playing it cool and waiting for the finished and approved review to be delivered before discussing the details some of you got from the unfinished review.

Best case scenario: All of the potentially spoiler content from the unfinished review will have been approved and you are now free to claim the honor of being the first to post your by this time allready well-polished theories on the implications of said spoilers. (Nobody's saying you can't write up a good theory while you're waiting... )

 

Worst case scenario: Some of the content of the unfinished review isn't approved and you're stuck with knowing things that you can't tell others about. Oh well, I guess you'll just have to take one for the team and remove all references to the unfinished review from your New Pet Theory and instead act like it was inspired out of your sheer awesome genius. Then when ToM actually comes out and confirms it you get to act all smug 'cause you were right all along and anyone who claims otherwise is just a sore loser for not being as clever as you at figuring out in advance what the chapter 50 thing is all about...

Now I ain't saying it's gonna be easy but sometimes you just gotta tough it out for the benefit of getting future advance reviews and spoilers handed to you like this one was.

 

Act casual and move along people, there's nothing to see here...

[TheBeerPatriot]

Decius was asking a simple question (politely), and people jumped down his throat for asking it.

 

By the way, you guys never really gave him an answer of a simple yes or no.

Actually, Luckers did provide a straight answer:

If you wish clarity--I do not wish you to talk about this. I do not want you to repeat a single element of it.

People jumped on Decius because he said that he had not met Jason, therefore he had no respect for him. It's an utterly asinine comment to make, and disgraceful. If he had not made that comment, the tone of this topic would have been milder, for sure.

[Decius]

Well my last reply was deleted, presumably because I included an 'example' of trolling, to be compared to the discussion I was attempting to have (yes, immature of me though that was).

 

I'll reiterate without the facetiousness: Ignoring the veiled insults that Dennis posted, I do understand where he's coming from. We all make mistakes, sometimes, and Jason made one. I doubt Tor or Mr. Rigney's family would, within good faith, feel any misgivings towards Jason for an honest mistake. Obviously we just have different views on the subject, so let's leave it at that.

 

Ultimately, it seems we shouldn't discuss it at all. Therefore I won't.

 

PS. Ignore the whole 'respect' thing. I was differentiating between his online persona and offline person. I'm saying he's only really Jason offline, you should all understand that being part of an RP forum.

[Baletickle_to_da_face!]

*Hangs head*

 

I have spent the past 2 weeks trying to resolve a problem with my screen name for which I got very little support. I finally made a new email address and new screen name, spent all day catching up on all the bits of info on ToM floating around topped off with Jason's review. I spend 3 hours composing a long post trying to weave all of those things together in what I considered a pretty good bit of theory-orizing.

 

And it seems to have been killed because of this mistake.

 

Geez guys, if you didn't want me around the boards all you had to do was beat me with soap filled pillowcases

 

Seriously though, this sucks, but even after all of that I will without hesitation keep all of this info to myself. The book comes out in a month, and the final review soon(from the sound of things). Anyone who can't keep a closed mouth until then if for nothing other then appreciation to Jason himself, but also to Brandon and Harriette who allow these reviews in the first place(which are large part tease fests for our own enjoyment anyway) is just an ungrateful child.

 

By the way, I visit other boards where content sometimes goes up on the boards before it goes up on the front page. I thought the issue with the review was a simple formatting error. I wouldn't have made the post that I did if I had known it was never meant to be seen at all.

[jemron]

Decius,

 

You were actually very level-headed through all this and I'm very impressed. I apologize if I came across as angry or resentful toward you, because I may have assumed that you had wrong intentions and wanted what was accidentally posted to be leaked. That obviously wasn't your intention, you were just excited about what was revealed and wanted to know if you could discuss it yet.

 

You weren't intending to troll and we all kind of over-reacted. Sorry man. I'm excited to discuss this stuff with you when the official review does come out!

[KefkaPalazzo]

Did you take down the "discuss reviews" thread? I didn't see much, if any, of Jason's review mentioned there when I flipped through it, (in fact, I never knew about Jason's first draft until I saw this) but I might have missed something. Is the Butler Review still fair game to discuss?

[Random Man]

Did you take down the "discuss reviews" thread? I didn't see much, if any, of Jason's review mentioned there when I flipped through it, (in fact, I never knew about Jason's first draft until I saw this) but I might have missed something. Is the Butler Review still fair game to discuss?

The Butler review was sanctioned by the publisher (it's on Tor's Web site) so I see no reason why it shouldn't be.

 

I saw one comment yesterday regarding Jason's review on the "discuss reviews" thread but I'd call it fairly innocuous as it pertained to what's going to be pre-release content anyway and was only speculative about the content of said pre-release material. By the time I read it, Jason's review had already been taken down (at least I couldn't find it, I thought he'd released his review when I read the post but didn't find anything afterward). I'd hope that anyone else who did post anything without knowing the truth of the situation would go and fix their posts upon learning of the situation. It's our duty to close ranks around our leader.

[Morgar]

The forum admin as well as responders in this thread should all acquaint themselves with the fable "Chicken Little". Here is a courtesy link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_%28fable%29

 

But seriously the responses in this thread make me wonder how any of you tie your shoes in the morning, get up and proceed to live healthy, responsible lives. It reminds me of the when TGS was released and the forums were abuzz about Storm Leaders with one over aggrandizing member obsessing about all the disabled people who would show up to the signings and may be limited. Well they set up a few nice rows at my event and 2 people sat in the cordoned off section which turned out to be a waste.

 

Long story short, back to lurking. See you guys for the real spoilers in a month and a few weeks.

[Grape_Ape]

Decius was asking a simple question (politely), and people jumped down his throat for asking it.

 

By the way, you guys never really gave him an answer of a simple yes or no.

 

Amen!!! This could have been easily avoided by providing the answer to his flippin' question, rather than dancing around it several times. To some people (like those in the WT maybe?) the hair that gets split is important.

[Stevros]

How about we just remember how close Lanfear got to subverting Mat in the tower after he got healed due to lack of clear communication, or any number of occasions where miscommunication (regardless of blame) nearly led to the shadows victory.

 

Because this incident clearly arose from both sides being slightly misunderstood.

[aunt_pol]

So...

Any timeline yet for when we'll get Jason's review?

[Jason Denzel]

Thank you for everyone's patience and understanding. My review has been approved (for the "spoilers") and posted

http://www.dragonmount.com/index.php/News/tom/i-have-read-towers-of-midnight-r36

 

I realize some of the stuff I had written down in my draft caused some stir. Basically it was just left over from my initial brain dump of ideas. And apparently too I am still learning about how this news / forums software works. I've reported the bug to the people who made it.

 

If you guys have questions about what I said in my review (even the draft version), drop me an email. I cannot, of course, comment on spoilers though.

 

Jason

[fionwe1987]

Thank you for everyone's patience and understanding. My review has been approved (for the "spoilers") and posted

http://www.dragonmount.com/index.php/News/tom/i-have-read-towers-of-midnight-r36

 

I realize some of the stuff I had written down in my draft caused some stir. Basically it was just left over from my initial brain dump of ideas. And apparently too I am still learning about how this news / forums software works. I've reported the bug to the people who made it.

 

If you guys have questions about what I said in my review (even the draft version), drop me an email. I cannot, of course, comment on spoilers though.

 

Jason

Was the last sentence in your draft, which talked about how this book begins, correct?

[Barid Bel Medar]

Thank you for everyone's patience and understanding. My review has been approved (for the "spoilers") and posted

http://www.dragonmount.com/index.php/News/tom/i-have-read-towers-of-midnight-r36

 

I realize some of the stuff I had written down in my draft caused some stir. Basically it was just left over from my initial brain dump of ideas. And apparently too I am still learning about how this news / forums software works. I've reported the bug to the people who made it.

 

If you guys have questions about what I said in my review (even the draft version), drop me an email. I cannot, of course, comment on spoilers though.

 

Jason

 

Thanks mate, appreicate the time and effort you put in to give us this review. Excellent work, I am ready to go for ToM! Lets go !

[-ZanMgt- OneNight]

You have torn away my patience to wait for the next book calmly, and got me to a near, frothing at the mouth, frenzy!

 

Great job Jason!