BonesDragon-
I've avoided getting too involved in all of this. But it seems like a very simple situation has been blown out of proportion, and some serious accusations have been made toward our publication. Please allow me to state, for the record, the order of events which led to GameSpot's now-infamous Zog story.
On August 12, a post was made to Usenet in the thread "Lord British-More Crap from OSI." The body of the message was this simple statement:
Is anyone else concerned with the anti-Semitic connotations of "Zog Cabal"? (to see the message, go to DejaNews: http://www.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=380438066).
This began a thread about Zog and whether or not it was an appropriate term to use in connection to UO. As often happens with debates such as these, a curious reader wrote to our news staff and pointed out the connection, and the eyebrows it had slightly raised in rec.games.computer.ultima.online. Our news ed., Curt Feldman, was unaware of any anti-semitic connotations, and so called the Anti-Defamation League, who explained the historical significance of the phrase "Zionist Occupied Government." Curt then called OSI to see if they were aware of the connection and the small discussion it had stirred. OSI's response was far more extreme than expected, and became much more of a controversy than the original issue ever was.
Allow me to stress that I'm neither condoning nor condeming OSI's actions. I just wanted to alleviate some of the uproar.
All the best,
Ron Dulin
Executive Editor, GameSpot