The Public Access Weekly: Wake me up before you go-go
Wow, has it ever been a Pokémon-tastic week or what? In the roughly ten days since the AR games' release, it has exploded across every dark and light corner of the internet and out into the real, live world. Players are crashing their cars, finding bodies, walking off of cliffs, walking onto sex offenders' property, getting caught cheating, getting locked in cemeteries, registering voters and getting robbed all over the damn place. It's craziness out there y'all.
Now, on to the non-Pokémon portion of the Weekly! Over in the comment section, we've got a bug that is removing legitimate comments. I'm not sure what's causing it yet, but I'm working with the developers on fine-tuning the spam algorithm (which might be the culprit). In the meantime, I'm doing my best to catch legit comments and re-approve them. So, if your comment has disappeared (and there was nothing untoward about it), it was almost certainly caught by this bug. In other words, it's not you. It's us. Sincere apologies to those who have been affected by the glitch, we hope to have a fix for that shortly!
Looking for something to read? Check out:
There was a good amount of eye-rolling in the Engadget Slack channel when Shervin Pishevars mobile app response to recent police shootings was brought up (Okay, most of it was mine). Maybe his heart was in the right place, or maybe it was just his pocketbook, but the fact remains: It might be time to admit that not everything needs an app or a Silicon Valley-style "disruption" to be solved.
Because Verizon is our parent company, people often think we can't write about them objectively. Cherylnn Low's honest coverage of Verizon's new data plans is sure to ruffle some feathers on both sides of the fence (and has already provoked quite a few thoughts in the comment section).
The news that Microsoft will be cutting the 15GBs of OneDrive storage that it gave to users in 2014 is provoking a whole bunch of strong feelings in the comments. But even if you skip the conversation after the story, it's worth knowing what's going down and when.
Looking for something to write about? Mull over:
World of Warcraft, being an MMORPG, has a history of troubled communications and social interactions between players. Blizzard's newest policy is to silence players who have been reported multiple times for spam or abuse. What are your thoughts -- Will this help with WoW's history of harassment? Will anything? What are the drawbacks to this new policy? If you're a WoW player, do you support it?
For those of you who are playing the Pokémon, what are your thoughts about the mental health claims being made by players on Twitter (and doctors)? Is catching them all really a great way to alleviate the symptoms of anxiety and depression?
For those of you who aren't playing, here's a quick question: How are you escaping from Pokémon Go?
