Looking at this with fresh eyes: I'm still not going to jump on calling for Mearls to be fired, but I also don't want to invalidate the pain that would lead to joining that cause.

I'm gonna preface this by saying my goal here it to lay out my thinking in the hope that others will understand me better, and secondarily that others might agree.

I don't claim to be an expert or this. I have a ton of self-doubt on it.

My concerns are both tactical and moral.

Tactically, calling for a firing here (as the headline hashtagged demand) just opens up more people at companies to the same tactic.

This time it's for reasons I agree with, but it's not a leap to see the same thing, with the same number of people, because someone was Too Politically Correct or whatever bullshit.

Jessica has a good thread on that here: https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1264824771922980865

It's also not a stretch for whomever replaced Mearls to hurt folks in the same way. Calling for a single firing here just doesn't seem to do much.

I'm not actually sure Mearls shouldn't be fired, in like a performance review kind of way. The negative effect of his actions on D&D might be a good reason for that.

But a vote by hashtag use isn't that.

The thing that I struggle with then is: what instead? Calling for broader change at WotC more directly (instead of as a demand behind a "fire this person" campaign) is a decent step. Boycotting seems reasonable as well.

But those both drive the company, not the person.

I think, from where I am now, I don't see a way that a hashtag changes Mearls himself. And sure, that can be a secondary goal, folks who cause harm and won't change are folks I can ignore.

But this pointed out to me the limits of what a hashtag can do.

I hope Mearls has someone close to him that can get him on the right path here (and that if there are any legal obligations that keep him from speaking out, as some have suggested, that they're removed).

But I don't think a hashtag can get restorative justice here. That takes changes in a person that seem unlikely to come from a broad campaign.

Which takes me to my moral concern: I'm not sure adding more pain resolves harm caused.

My ideal is that the person in the wrong here (clearly Mearls) make restitution to those harmed.

I want to be really clear on this: this stance does not mean that I'm particularly concerned about the impact on Mearls, or that I'm asking for sympathy or mercy for him. The pain I'm concerned with is of the victims.

But adding to Mearls' pain doesn't resolve theirs. Combined with my tactical concerns above, I end up not feeling like I can support this.

Firing this one person doesn't seem to change what the company behind him will allow, doesn't correct or repair a wrong, and is a roll of the dice on if it actually makes WotC or the RPG community better (who knows who would be put in place after him).

I don't think any of these are reasons that those more harmed by Mearls (through Zak) shouldn't express their hurt. I'm not going to go around arguing against everyone using that hashtag.

This actually feels really unsatisfying to me. Calling for Mearls to be fired is direct action at low cost. I want to feel like that would make things better.

So that's where I'm at. I don't claim to be an expert on this, or to even be living up to all my ideals in this. But it's what I've been able to make of this situation so far.