That is the implication, yes. That is why people think that is what you are implying.
I was trying to imply that gross improprieties in relationships shouldn't have some special privilege of not being talked about. In each of these cases, I see there as being good reason for the people around the victim to be aware that this happened.
See but one of these things is not like the other. Sesame Street taught us how to play this game.
Cheating is a gross impropriety in a relationship. The other things cause extensive physical, emotional, and psychological damage that reach far beyond what you are talking about with a breach of trust in a romantic relationship. They are not "gross improprieties." They are horrible, damaging crimes.
I don't know exactly what you are trying to do here with all of this and it's pretty off-topic anyway, but never say anything like this again.
Wait... what?
You're saying that cheating doesn't cause extensive physical, emotional and psychological damage? Unless you've been cheated on multiple times to the point that you're numb to it (in which case the damage is already done), it's a terrible thing to happen to you.
I daresay that cheating is one of the worst things that could ever happen to you if you're in a romantic relationship where you both openly profess your love for one another. Cheating ruins more lives than harassment over the Internet does. Honestly, I think there should be an online resource where you can figure out if someone is a known cheater. You'd save many people from wasting years of their lives on doomed relationships, prevent much heartbreak and curb the creation of broken families from the outset.
Luckily I've personally never been cheated on (as far as I know) but I've had to pick up the pieces of my mother when my father cheated on her repeatedly throughout their marriage, then left her with no prospects at 61 years old. Have you ever seen someone try to commit suicide by hypothermia? Yeah. Cheating hurts more than some of the most grievous physical wounds. I take extreme offense to those here trying to downplay the severity of cheating.
If I were cheated on, I'd tell the world too. Just because it isn't implicitly illegal doesn't shield you from the fallout that may come from such a betrayal. Personally, I can't see why someone would go to the lengths Gjioni has unless he was indeed cheated on. Whether or not you believe he was cheated on is neither here nor there. We all have already made our conclusions on that front. I'm not here to convince you one way or the other. I just want to raise my perspective on where this behaviour may be coming from.
I'm sorry to have dragged something up from so far back in the conversation but I'm getting caught up here and I just couldn't let this go without saying something. Cheating may not excuse harassment but there's no excuse for cheating. Let's not pretend that cheating isn't a terrible thing that no good person should have to experience.
Again, I'm sorry to derail. Please feel free to ignore this rant if it's no longer pertinent to the conversation. I just needed to say my piece.
It's none of your business.
+8
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
My sole hope is that it serves as a live demonstration of why most of the people in this thread have no faith in the gamergate movement, even if they do feel there are problems within games journalism.
My first thought is always "maybe this can be salvaged" and I throw out a card but then I kept reading and nah
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
Holy everloving fuck, I followed the link Zoe tweeted (it actually links to a blog I check mostly daily, so I would have seen it anyway), and
Fuck
A couple of days ago, embattled indie game designer Zoe Quinn embarrassed some of her biggest critics by posting screenshots she’d collected from a 4channer IRC channel, showing an assortment of hateful and duplicitous #GamerGaters literally conspiring to wreck her reputation and create the illusion of a vast grassroots uprising against alleged corruption in the gaming business.
Her critics, put on the defensive, tried their best to dismiss her screenshots as “cherry picked,” and a few even accused her of writing the very messages she screenshotted and posted. Oh, there might be a few bad apples in the bunch, some were willing to concede, but they were in the minority.
And then they pulled out what they thought was their trump card: the full chat log from the IRC channel #burgersandfries from when the Zoe Quinn “scandal” first erupted in mid-August up until September 6th. All anyone had to do, they suggested, was to read the log, and they would soon see that Quinn was presenting a distorted picture based on out-of-context, “cherry-picked” quotes.
Even a quick skim through the document demonstrates that Quinn’s screenshots are hardly cherry-picked; you can flip to literally any page in this long, long document and find evidence of egregious misogyny and outright malice. Look a little deeper and you can find discussions of doxxing and spamming and all sorts of other dirty tricks.
The name “Zoe” appears 4778 times in the document, more than once per page; by contrast, “Nathan” – the first name of the allegedly corrupt game journalist she allegedly slept with – appears only 108 times. The words “ethics” and “ethical” appear, collectively, only 146 times.
The 4channers express their hatred and disgust towards her; they express their glee at the thought of ruining her career; they fantasize about her being raped and killed. They wonder if all the harassment will drive her to suicide, and only the thought of 4chan getting bad publicity convinces some of them that this isn’t something they should hope for.
And then there is the ongoing discussion of her vagina [...]
It’s not clear how exactly the size or shape or smell of Quinn’s vagina relates to the high-minded issues of gaming ethics that the #GamerGaters are said to be concerned with.
I am not posting any quotes from the IRC logs because god damn, but it is pretty blatantly obvious that this is in no way about "ethics", when actually, it maybe should be
But probably not the kind of ethics that these guys want to talk about
It's really bizarre that they posted the whole chat log as their defense. Did they just honestly think no one would read it?
They even have an entirely rehearsed defense.
First they spam you with "But you made that up" or "Show me the proof!"
Then once you do they then spam "That's not all of us though, we're against X #notyourshield" or "So what, both sides are doing it!"
It's amazing to behold, because they don't seem to have caught on to how utterly obvious the astroturf smells.
I've been hugely vocal on twitter about this whole thing. Very little coming back my way from that group, with one exception. Started getting all about 'well what about X' and when I, quite reasonably, asked for proof of their claims or even just proof that they were, in fact, as concerned about stopping harassment as they claimed I was labelled a 'troll' and the leader of the little gang told his cronies to just block me.
When I saw his handle/user image in this thread/other threads, it became rather clear why. (Hiro or whatever his name was)
That is the implication, yes. That is why people think that is what you are implying.
I was trying to imply that gross improprieties in relationships shouldn't have some special privilege of not being talked about. In each of these cases, I see there as being good reason for the people around the victim to be aware that this happened.
See but one of these things is not like the other. Sesame Street taught us how to play this game.
Cheating is a gross impropriety in a relationship. The other things cause extensive physical, emotional, and psychological damage that reach far beyond what you are talking about with a breach of trust in a romantic relationship. They are not "gross improprieties." They are horrible, damaging crimes.
I don't know exactly what you are trying to do here with all of this and it's pretty off-topic anyway, but never say anything like this again.
Wait... what?
You're saying that cheating doesn't cause extensive physical, emotional and psychological damage? Unless you've been cheated on multiple times to the point that you're numb to it (in which case the damage is already done), it's a terrible thing to happen to you.
I daresay that cheating is one of the worst things that could ever happen to you if you're in a romantic relationship where you both openly profess your love for one another. Cheating ruins more lives than harassment over the Internet does. Honestly, I think there should be an online resource where you can figure out if someone is a known cheater. You'd save many people from wasting years of their lives on doomed relationships, prevent much heartbreak and curb the creation of broken families from the outset.
Luckily I've personally never been cheated on (as far as I know) but I've had to pick up the pieces of my mother when my father cheated on her repeatedly throughout their marriage, then left her with no prospects at 61 years old. Have you ever seen someone try to commit suicide by hypothermia? Yeah. Cheating hurts more than some of the most grievous physical wounds. I take extreme offense to those here trying to downplay the severity of cheating.
If I were cheated on, I'd tell the world too. Just because it isn't implicitly illegal doesn't shield you from the fallout that may come from such a betrayal. Personally, I can't see why someone would go to the lengths Gjioni has unless he was indeed cheated on. Whether or not you believe he was cheated on is neither here nor there. We all have already made our conclusions on that front. I'm not here to convince you one way or the other. I just want to raise my perspective on where this behaviour may be coming from.
I'm sorry to have dragged something up from so far back in the conversation but I'm getting caught up here and I just couldn't let this go without saying something. Cheating may not excuse harassment but there's no excuse for cheating. Let's not pretend that cheating isn't a terrible thing that no good person should have to experience.
Again, I'm sorry to derail. Please feel free to ignore this rant if it's no longer pertinent to the conversation. I just needed to say my piece.
Here, this is something I posted earlier.
Cheating can be many things. It can be a sign there's some form of co-dependancy issues in the relationship. It can be a sign that someone isn't happy sexually, but is afraid of losing the emotional part of the relationship. It can be a sign that someone feels trapped because of guilt, but goes elsewhere. It can be a sign that someone is amoral when it comes to their relationships and don't mind hurting their partner. It can be a sign that monogamous relationships aren't for someone and they just haven't figured that out yet. It can be a sign that someone is prone to make mistakes and is rather impulsive. It can be a sign that someone has a sex addiction and deals with that in unhealthy ways.
It is something that is a very personal thing that effects only those in that relationship, and it's not a given that in another relationship that person would take the same actions. It is a betrayal of trust, but only with the person involved.
And it is not in any way shape or form ok to air your relationship's dirty laundry because of something that says the relationship was broken in some capacity. It is not the same thing as being abusive. It CAN be abusive, but it can also be caused by abuse in the relationship.
What he did was in no way shape or form acceptable. He did not and does not own her. He should not be trying to control her after their relationship is over. That is not in any way justifiable in any situation. Their private lives were not his to share with the world over being cheated on.
This is an excellent post that everyone who enters into a relationship with another autonomous and free human being should understand.
Also I find it symptomatic of the immaturity and insular nature of gamers that it really matters all that much about "game journalism corruption"
Can you imagine this same discussion about a model train community? If there is corruption, it's such a non-critical thing, it hurts no one, it's about buying games, which can be rented or have demos. This isn't journalists hacking phones of victims to get scoops.
Even in straight up real journalism the idea of paid-for-opinions doesn't produce this much vitriol and hate from any side
Sadly, the poor errant youth was banned before I could make good. Anyone on the PA G&T Adventure team, head on over to the steam thread to enter the contest in his or her memory.
someone that angry and petty might pop up again. It would be easier if they just took a xanex and stopped huddling over their computer being angry at everything but I guess some people really gotta yell at strangers on the internet
a couple things
if you think this has anything to do with journalism ethics then you have been duped, because it isn't and never was
the people doing this are not children. this idea needs to be dropped immediately because it firstly isn't true, and secondly it shuts down any reason to try and improve the situation. "oh they'll grow out of it" so nothing needs to be done.
anonymity means nothing. people post heinous stuff on their facebook stuff all the time. I glanced at some comment on youtube once and a woman said she liked some singer more and someone responded that they were a flat slut and should get raped and die. their real name was right next to the comment.
+9
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Also to add to my previous point about the Astroturfing, you can tell that's what it is when you have the following kind of exchange:
Original tweet: "People are getting really sick of the harassment coming from #GamerGate towards women."
Within seconds: "Nobody from GG harasses anyone. Prove it. #NotYourShield #GamerGate"
Original tweeter: "Okay, here are some links to precisely that"
Immediate response: "Both sides do it too and we don't condone harassment #NotYourShield #GamerGate"
And then you look through their twitter (the responder) and notice that they've done the exact same thing to like, 30 people and every one of them showed them the same links and proof. Meaning it's an incredibly rehearsed piece of public PR/messaging as opposed to them actually being ignorant about what their own movement is doing. I also suspect with how mechanical some of them are that they just automatically tweet people who post to the tag, with a human only getting involved if they get a response.
Didn't they just bust some guy who was posting rape threats to a British member of parliament? And it turns out he was a 37 year old father?
Like you said, it's not kids. And given the shit I saw on our company Facebook page about a year ago, you're also correct that anonymity is not the only enabling factor.
someone that angry and petty might pop up again. It would be easier if they just took a xanex and stopped huddling over their computer being angry at everything but I guess some people really gotta yell at strangers on the internet
a couple things
if you think this has anything to do with journalism ethics then you have been duped, because it isn't and never was
the people doing this are not children. this idea needs to be dropped immediately because it firstly isn't true, and secondly it shuts down any reason to try and improve the situation. "oh they'll grow out of it" so nothing needs to be done.
anonymity means nothing. people post heinous stuff on their facebook stuff all the time. I glanced at some comment on youtube once and a woman said she liked some singer more and someone responded that they were a flat slut and should get raped and die. their real name was right next to the comment.
Like I said, I don't think "Internet Fuckwad" theory is enough to explain this
You poor excuses for humans make sick with your self-righteous, holier-than-thou, self-congratulatory bullshit.
This insular hugbox is a fucking disgrace and disgruntled "progressive" trash like you are one of the main problems with current western civilization.
A pity, because this hugbox has more reviews, more games, more knowledge, and drops more money on charities than any of the websites damned or praised by gamersgate.
A significant fact you should note, is found upon the profiles of most everyone in here. You see, we have badges, age badges, for people who've been here for a certain amount of time. I myself joined PA in 2003 after many years of lurking. As have others. I've seen many a meme come and go, from ranger threads to forum battles.
What I'm trying to say here is that we're adults, many of us have kids, or support kids in our families, we look at gaming as not a hobby or personal release valve after work, but as first and foremost a treasured memory from our childhood, given to us by parents who've passed on, and is something we will become better at so we can pass it onto a new generation.
So when we see the death treats, the goatse's, the doxxing, we aren't looking at it as something happening in the "now," but something attacking what was is our "once was" and our "what will be."
Doritosgate is being brought up because its a cleaner depiction of the corruption you are right to criticize, and doesn't involved the battle between an allegedly unfaithful woman and a man too stupid to realize if he rags on his ex like that, no women will date him for fear of the same treatment.
Your battle for journalistic integrity in the arena you love is a righteous one, but don't use broken hearts as the basis of your battle cry.
You know nothing about me, idiot, save for my disgust for garbage like you.
I don't care about your life or your desires. I just want you to fuck off and die.
Your existence is a joke.
Why is it that trolling with extreme insults, such as this (you want Royce to fuck off and die? for that post? really?) considered acceptable?
And I don't mean "on other forums," and I'm not trying to downplay our moderation staff.
I mean why is this the seemingly standard response to, well, most anything in the games industry?
I don't think the "Internet Fuckwad" theory is strong enough to explain this.
Our large, semi-anonymous internet environment means that it's a good way to get attention; in the larger, 'real' world, continuously acting like a jerk to people around you has consequences and for the most part for the internet-hate-machine folks that we're talking about, it doesn't.
Like, the dude currently trolling our thread might get banned, and if he does he's gonna just keep going about whatever it is he does with his week. Back to twitter, move on to another forum, whatever. The attention you get out of being a flagrant jerk gives a lot of people a rush.
In these particular circumstances that just dovetails with the fact that lots of young men are becoming conscious (if only implicitly) of the fact that their privileged position in our letter slice of society is eroding. Dude probably can't even articulate why he's angry about it, in the end.
I read comments like this.
Then I recall that 97% of the worlds wealth and power is centered on about 100 white dudes.
And I just kind of wonder where this sentiment comes from. A place of really, really concentrated positivity, perhaps?
I mean in media and such... ya, okay, it sort of is becoming more accepting of X or Y thing because... It makes the rich white dude richer. In the laws and everything else its pretty much progressing in the exact opposite direction, wherein the position of these companies and the dudes who run them are becoming more and more unassailable by the day
0
Dhalphirdon't you open that trapdooryou're a fool if you dareRegistered Userregular
It's weird to think folk are so terrified of this thread and it's community.
I wonder how the other large forums are doing.
these big news threads always seem to follow the same pattern. Mostly it's people having a productive conversation talking about different aspects of the issue they agree on. Every few pages someone comes in who doesn't quite get what the fuss is about, is educated reasonably, and goes on their way (I was one of these people with the Dead Rising statue thing). But usually once or twice a thread you get a genuine troll attracted from somewhere else who comes in, shits the place up for a couple pages and is banned.
someone that angry and petty might pop up again. It would be easier if they just took a xanex and stopped huddling over their computer being angry at everything but I guess some people really gotta yell at strangers on the internet
a couple things
if you think this has anything to do with journalism ethics then you have been duped, because it isn't and never was
the people doing this are not children. this idea needs to be dropped immediately because it firstly isn't true, and secondly it shuts down any reason to try and improve the situation. "oh they'll grow out of it" so nothing needs to be done.
anonymity means nothing. people post heinous stuff on their facebook stuff all the time. I glanced at some comment on youtube once and a woman said she liked some singer more and someone responded that they were a flat slut and should get raped and die. their real name was right next to the comment.
Like I said, I don't think "Internet Fuckwad" theory is enough to explain this
I don't know what's better, that I remember that comic, that I remember actual academic debates concerning it, or the Louis C.K. has offered a corollary to supplement the amount of fuckwads that theory can't explain.
What bugs me about all of this - well, a lot of things bug me.
But one of the biggest is that we're all doing this - this 'SJW' stuff, as they call it, to destroy games.
Are you shitting me? I've built a career around games. I make narrative systems and occasionally make virtual people have virtual sex as a living. These are not highly transferable skills (okay, I have some project management and writing/editing skills that would see me through, but still). We love games. I'm thinking of getting up at 4:30 tomorrow to play Destiny and I -know- it's an immensely poor decision.
We're doing this because we love games. We're doing it because we know games can be so much more than they are. We're doing it because everyone deserves the opportunity to see themselves reflected in gaming and to see it as an open, welcoming place that does not commodify harassment and exclusion based on who they are.
Or, more accurately, I don't think it is the anonymity that drives it. I think it is the general lack of repercussions at all from this sort of behavior.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
What bugs me about all of this - well, a lot of things bug me.
But one of the biggest is that we're all doing this - this 'SJW' stuff, as they call it, to destroy games.
Are you shitting me? I've built a career around games. I make narrative systems and occasionally make virtual people have virtual sex as a living. These are not highly transferable skills (okay, I have some project management and writing/editing skills that would see me through, but still). We love games. I'm thinking of getting up at 4:30 tomorrow to play Destiny and I -know- it's an immensely poor decision.
We're doing this because we love games. We're doing it because we know games can be so much more than they are. We're doing it because everyone deserves the opportunity to see themselves reflected in gaming and to see it as an open, welcoming place that does not commodify harassment and exclusion based on who they are.
Fuck, I should be studying for my oral examinations on Friday, but here I am, arguing on the internet in the hopes that it makes the gaming community even slightly better
Holy everloving fuck, I followed the link Zoe tweeted (it actually links to a blog I check mostly daily, so I would have seen it anyway), and
Fuck
A couple of days ago, embattled indie game designer Zoe Quinn embarrassed some of her biggest critics by posting screenshots she’d collected from a 4channer IRC channel, showing an assortment of hateful and duplicitous #GamerGaters literally conspiring to wreck her reputation and create the illusion of a vast grassroots uprising against alleged corruption in the gaming business.
Her critics, put on the defensive, tried their best to dismiss her screenshots as “cherry picked,” and a few even accused her of writing the very messages she screenshotted and posted. Oh, there might be a few bad apples in the bunch, some were willing to concede, but they were in the minority.
And then they pulled out what they thought was their trump card: the full chat log from the IRC channel #burgersandfries from when the Zoe Quinn “scandal” first erupted in mid-August up until September 6th. All anyone had to do, they suggested, was to read the log, and they would soon see that Quinn was presenting a distorted picture based on out-of-context, “cherry-picked” quotes.
Even a quick skim through the document demonstrates that Quinn’s screenshots are hardly cherry-picked; you can flip to literally any page in this long, long document and find evidence of egregious misogyny and outright malice. Look a little deeper and you can find discussions of doxxing and spamming and all sorts of other dirty tricks.
The name “Zoe” appears 4778 times in the document, more than once per page; by contrast, “Nathan” – the first name of the allegedly corrupt game journalist she allegedly slept with – appears only 108 times. The words “ethics” and “ethical” appear, collectively, only 146 times.
The 4channers express their hatred and disgust towards her; they express their glee at the thought of ruining her career; they fantasize about her being raped and killed. They wonder if all the harassment will drive her to suicide, and only the thought of 4chan getting bad publicity convinces some of them that this isn’t something they should hope for.
And then there is the ongoing discussion of her vagina [...]
It’s not clear how exactly the size or shape or smell of Quinn’s vagina relates to the high-minded issues of gaming ethics that the #GamerGaters are said to be concerned with.
I am not posting any quotes from the IRC logs because god damn, but it is pretty blatantly obvious that this is in no way about "ethics", when actually, it maybe should be
But probably not the kind of ethics that these guys want to talk about
It's really bizarre that they posted the whole chat log as their defense. Did they just honestly think no one would read it?
They even have an entirely rehearsed defense.
First they spam you with "But you made that up" or "Show me the proof!"
Then once you do they then spam "That's not all of us though, we're against X #notyourshield" or "So what, both sides are doing it!"
It's amazing to behold, because they don't seem to have caught on to how utterly obvious the astroturf smells.
I've been hugely vocal on twitter about this whole thing. Very little coming back my way from that group, with one exception. Started getting all about 'well what about X' and when I, quite reasonably, asked for proof of their claims or even just proof that they were, in fact, as concerned about stopping harassment as they claimed I was labelled a 'troll' and the leader of the little gang told his cronies to just block me.
When I saw his handle/user image in this thread/other threads, it became rather clear why. (Hiro or whatever his name was)
Ah yes, he's in one of my favourite tweets where he described the harassment of a woman that got so bad she quit journalism as a "victory", but now they had won not to harass or attack her anymore so nobody could accuse them of harassing her.
That should tell you everything you need to know about him right there.
Or, more accurately, I don't think it is the anonymity that drives it. I think it is the general lack of repercussions at all from this sort of behavior.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
Anonymity protects both ways though. A misogynistic boss isn't aware of his employee's social progressivism, and a socially progressive boss isn't aware of his employee's misogyny.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
It's an agenda that a group of people have. They likely are very convincing and manipulative, and know just the right words to say to push people's buttons into action. It is very much targeted not just at the victims, but many of the people doing the victimizing.
This sort of thing is not exclusive to "gamergate" (Ugh I can't believe I actually typed that nonsense out).
I can't understand why people can't immediately see why people aren't sick of bad writing in games where everyone can see the fucking double-cross coming. I further can't understand why people aren't seeing that lazy trope on par with some of Anita Sarkeesian's examples (1 dead hooker for flavor, 2 if 18+ audience).
But, sometimes you have to keep on doing what you do like an airbender and fly above it all.
Which brings up my next point. You can have these female audience members, and strong female characters, but not lose any of the stuff that appeals to the male audience. Katara fucked up a hell of a lot of people, as did Toph, Suki, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. Aang still fucked up more and caused a lot more property damage (airships don't count) and the show was awesome.
You poor excuses for humans make sick with your self-righteous, holier-than-thou, self-congratulatory bullshit.
This insular hugbox is a fucking disgrace and disgruntled "progressive" trash like you are one of the main problems with current western civilization.
A pity, because this hugbox has more reviews, more games, more knowledge, and drops more money on charities than any of the websites damned or praised by gamersgate.
A significant fact you should note, is found upon the profiles of most everyone in here. You see, we have badges, age badges, for people who've been here for a certain amount of time. I myself joined PA in 2003 after many years of lurking. As have others. I've seen many a meme come and go, from ranger threads to forum battles.
What I'm trying to say here is that we're adults, many of us have kids, or support kids in our families, we look at gaming as not a hobby or personal release valve after work, but as first and foremost a treasured memory from our childhood, given to us by parents who've passed on, and is something we will become better at so we can pass it onto a new generation.
So when we see the death treats, the goatse's, the doxxing, we aren't looking at it as something happening in the "now," but something attacking what was is our "once was" and our "what will be."
Doritosgate is being brought up because its a cleaner depiction of the corruption you are right to criticize, and doesn't involved the battle between an allegedly unfaithful woman and a man too stupid to realize if he rags on his ex like that, no women will date him for fear of the same treatment.
Your battle for journalistic integrity in the arena you love is a righteous one, but don't use broken hearts as the basis of your battle cry.
You know nothing about me, idiot, save for my disgust for garbage like you.
I don't care about your life or your desires. I just want you to fuck off and die.
Your existence is a joke.
Why is it that trolling with extreme insults, such as this (you want Royce to fuck off and die? for that post? really?) considered acceptable?
And I don't mean "on other forums," and I'm not trying to downplay our moderation staff.
I mean why is this the seemingly standard response to, well, most anything in the games industry?
I don't think the "Internet Fuckwad" theory is strong enough to explain this.
Our large, semi-anonymous internet environment means that it's a good way to get attention; in the larger, 'real' world, continuously acting like a jerk to people around you has consequences and for the most part for the internet-hate-machine folks that we're talking about, it doesn't.
Like, the dude currently trolling our thread might get banned, and if he does he's gonna just keep going about whatever it is he does with his week. Back to twitter, move on to another forum, whatever. The attention you get out of being a flagrant jerk gives a lot of people a rush.
In these particular circumstances that just dovetails with the fact that lots of young men are becoming conscious (if only implicitly) of the fact that their privileged position in our letter slice of society is eroding. Dude probably can't even articulate why he's angry about it, in the end.
I read comments like this.
Then I recall that 97% of the worlds wealth and power is centered on about 100 white dudes.
And I just kind of wonder where this sentiment comes from. A place of really, really concentrated positivity, perhaps?
I mean in media and such... ya, okay, it sort of is becoming more accepting of X or Y thing because... It makes the rich white dude richer. In the laws and everything else its pretty much progressing in the exact opposite direction, wherein the position of these companies and the dudes who run them are becoming more and more unassailable by the day
if I were really up for turning this into a thread about class conflict I would say that these kinds of attitudes represent a classic divide and conquer strategy by the wealthy; superficial divides over skin color or gender or other social position have always been levers used against class solidarity by the actually powerful.
In reality the idea that it not be acceptable to openly call for assault, rape etc. against women is only the barest first step toward a just society; dudes like our new friend in this thread don't really have the various advantages that come with true wealth and power though, so the (relatively) tiny little amount of privilege they have visibly eroding is profoundly scary.
The consequences of this kind of thing play out over and over again in our politics; this same guy is probably on some other forum posting about how immigrants are the cause of all our unemployment.
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
+2
ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Or, more accurately, I don't think it is the anonymity that drives it. I think it is the general lack of repercussions at all from this sort of behavior.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
Who defines what is or isn't awful? The person you're saying the things to.
Who mediates punishment? The Justice system.
If you sent some of the crap these people have via the postal system, they'd have a team of FBI agents already looking into it.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
My sole hope is that it serves as a live demonstration of why most of the people in this thread have no faith in the gamergate movement, even if they do feel there are problems within games journalism.
That's what I find so interesting about all of this. If they really are interested in talking about journalistic ethics, why are they choosing this exact moment, and a movement that is being co-opted by a small minority of aggressive criminals, to talk about it?
And if they think Zoe Quinn and her magical industry-destroying vagina is inextricably linked to this situation so that we can't talk about one without the other...then maybe they should examine why they think that is the case.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
Sometimes, you will never notice the way a room smells until you leave it.
edit: either I'm so tired I make sense, or I'm so tired that I make no sense. Good night. Stay Safe, build me a better open world game.
Or, more accurately, I don't think it is the anonymity that drives it. I think it is the general lack of repercussions at all from this sort of behavior.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
it isn't even lack of repercussion, really. I mean the consequences after the fact are gratifying, but people are still out there posting stuff like this on facebook under their own names. The guy who wrote the letter to ms. quinn was apparently completely comfortable writing his own name in mud for the whole world to see.
as far as consequences, I'm pretty comfortable letting people decide on their own. Nobody's going to jail for saying something dumb on the internet, and if you're the type to misread your community so completely that you wind up like brendan eich I don't have much in the way of sympathy.
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
0
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
What bugs me about all of this - well, a lot of things bug me.
But one of the biggest is that we're all doing this - this 'SJW' stuff, as they call it, to destroy games.
Are you shitting me? I've built a career around games. I make narrative systems and occasionally make virtual people have virtual sex as a living. These are not highly transferable skills (okay, I have some project management and writing/editing skills that would see me through, but still). We love games. I'm thinking of getting up at 4:30 tomorrow to play Destiny and I -know- it's an immensely poor decision.
We're doing this because we love games. We're doing it because we know games can be so much more than they are. We're doing it because everyone deserves the opportunity to see themselves reflected in gaming and to see it as an open, welcoming place that does not commodify harassment and exclusion based on who they are.
This is how I feel. I think these kinds of talks are important because I want people to see just how awesome the gaming community can be.
Like I've met some of the smartest and funniest people in it. People who have helped me grow in a number of ways and people who've supported me when I was going through tough times.
And that's why I think we have to speak out about the grimier parts because when outsiders look at gamers those tend to be the parts they usually see.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
But all those animators could have been used to make my virtual pecs 52% more glisteny!
Battletag BYToady#1454
0
Andy JoeWe claim the land for the highlord!The AdirondacksRegistered Userregular
What bugs me about all of this - well, a lot of things bug me.
But one of the biggest is that we're all doing this - this 'SJW' stuff, as they call it, to destroy games.
Are you shitting me? I've built a career around games. I make narrative systems and occasionally make virtual people have virtual sex as a living. These are not highly transferable skills (okay, I have some project management and writing/editing skills that would see me through, but still). We love games. I'm thinking of getting up at 4:30 tomorrow to play Destiny and I -know- it's an immensely poor decision.
We're doing this because we love games. We're doing it because we know games can be so much more than they are. We're doing it because everyone deserves the opportunity to see themselves reflected in gaming and to see it as an open, welcoming place that does not commodify harassment and exclusion based on who they are.
These people are hypersensitive about anything they perceive as a threat to gaming, and so conflate criticism with censorship. Maybe it's a holdover from the Jack Thompson days, maybe they're just silly geese.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
potential social status is a powerful thing. we saw it in southern states for a very long time. "hey you're a poor freedman and I'm rich, but we're both white! come on over for some billiards"
the people doing this are lower on the pecking order in our patriarchy so they take it out on the next lowest group on the totem pole. this keeps the top on top. divide and conquer.
0
MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited September 2014
Before we go back into the banning all anonymity business.
As the psychologists Marco Yzer and Brian Southwell put it, “new communication technologies do not fundamentally alter the theoretical bounds of human interaction; such interaction continues to be governed by basic human tendencies.” Whether online, on the phone, by telegraph, or in person, we are governed by the same basic principles. The medium may change, but people do not. The question instead is whether the outliers, the trolls and the flamers, will hold outsized influence—and the answer seems to be that, even protected by the shade of anonymity, a dog will often make himself known with a stray, accidental bark. Then, hopefully, he will be treated accordingly.
It isn't really necessary.
Plus anonymity does good things too.
On the other hand, anonymity has also been shown to encourage participation; by promoting a greater sense of community identity, users don’t have to worry about standing out individually. Anonymity can also boost a certain kind of creative thinking and lead to improvements in problem-solving. In a study that examined student learning, the psychologists Ina Blau and Avner Caspi found that, while face-to-face interactions tended to provide greater satisfaction, in anonymous settings participation and risk-taking flourished.
There's no magic button to make the scummy parts of the internet go away. And you risk losing a great deal of what makes instant communication worthwhile.
Morninglord on
(PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
As a dev, I get a kick out of the ones that tell me they're doing gamergate FOR me. Hands up: How many of us are talking about this all in abject horror over our respective water coolers?
One of our writers had a very specific directive where she made sure every area had at least half of the speaking characters as women.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
...Wait...people argued realism?
In Call of Duty multiplayer?
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.
Dragkonias on
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
If #GamerGate has taught us one thing, it's that forcing minorities to have public names and similar is an absolutely dreadful idea - given what these people are capable of.
Posts
It's none of your business.
My first thought is always "maybe this can be salvaged" and I throw out a card but then I kept reading and nah
I've been hugely vocal on twitter about this whole thing. Very little coming back my way from that group, with one exception. Started getting all about 'well what about X' and when I, quite reasonably, asked for proof of their claims or even just proof that they were, in fact, as concerned about stopping harassment as they claimed I was labelled a 'troll' and the leader of the little gang told his cronies to just block me.
When I saw his handle/user image in this thread/other threads, it became rather clear why. (Hiro or whatever his name was)
I wonder how the other large forums are doing.
This is an excellent post that everyone who enters into a relationship with another autonomous and free human being should understand.
Also I find it symptomatic of the immaturity and insular nature of gamers that it really matters all that much about "game journalism corruption"
Can you imagine this same discussion about a model train community? If there is corruption, it's such a non-critical thing, it hurts no one, it's about buying games, which can be rented or have demos. This isn't journalists hacking phones of victims to get scoops.
Even in straight up real journalism the idea of paid-for-opinions doesn't produce this much vitriol and hate from any side
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
I think they're gearing up their own Geth-bots.
They are legion.
Obey obey obey.
a couple things
if you think this has anything to do with journalism ethics then you have been duped, because it isn't and never was
the people doing this are not children. this idea needs to be dropped immediately because it firstly isn't true, and secondly it shuts down any reason to try and improve the situation. "oh they'll grow out of it" so nothing needs to be done.
anonymity means nothing. people post heinous stuff on their facebook stuff all the time. I glanced at some comment on youtube once and a woman said she liked some singer more and someone responded that they were a flat slut and should get raped and die. their real name was right next to the comment.
Original tweet: "People are getting really sick of the harassment coming from #GamerGate towards women."
Within seconds: "Nobody from GG harasses anyone. Prove it. #NotYourShield #GamerGate"
Original tweeter: "Okay, here are some links to precisely that"
Immediate response: "Both sides do it too and we don't condone harassment #NotYourShield #GamerGate"
And then you look through their twitter (the responder) and notice that they've done the exact same thing to like, 30 people and every one of them showed them the same links and proof. Meaning it's an incredibly rehearsed piece of public PR/messaging as opposed to them actually being ignorant about what their own movement is doing. I also suspect with how mechanical some of them are that they just automatically tweet people who post to the tag, with a human only getting involved if they get a response.
Like you said, it's not kids. And given the shit I saw on our company Facebook page about a year ago, you're also correct that anonymity is not the only enabling factor.
Lack of social immediacy, maybe more accurate.
Like I said, I don't think "Internet Fuckwad" theory is enough to explain this
I read comments like this.
Then I recall that 97% of the worlds wealth and power is centered on about 100 white dudes.
And I just kind of wonder where this sentiment comes from. A place of really, really concentrated positivity, perhaps?
I mean in media and such... ya, okay, it sort of is becoming more accepting of X or Y thing because... It makes the rich white dude richer. In the laws and everything else its pretty much progressing in the exact opposite direction, wherein the position of these companies and the dudes who run them are becoming more and more unassailable by the day
these big news threads always seem to follow the same pattern. Mostly it's people having a productive conversation talking about different aspects of the issue they agree on. Every few pages someone comes in who doesn't quite get what the fuss is about, is educated reasonably, and goes on their way (I was one of these people with the Dead Rising statue thing). But usually once or twice a thread you get a genuine troll attracted from somewhere else who comes in, shits the place up for a couple pages and is banned.
I don't know what's better, that I remember that comic, that I remember actual academic debates concerning it, or the Louis C.K. has offered a corollary to supplement the amount of fuckwads that theory can't explain.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
But one of the biggest is that we're all doing this - this 'SJW' stuff, as they call it, to destroy games.
Are you shitting me? I've built a career around games. I make narrative systems and occasionally make virtual people have virtual sex as a living. These are not highly transferable skills (okay, I have some project management and writing/editing skills that would see me through, but still). We love games. I'm thinking of getting up at 4:30 tomorrow to play Destiny and I -know- it's an immensely poor decision.
We're doing this because we love games. We're doing it because we know games can be so much more than they are. We're doing it because everyone deserves the opportunity to see themselves reflected in gaming and to see it as an open, welcoming place that does not commodify harassment and exclusion based on who they are.
I've seen people post terrible things, under their own names, on Facebook pages for movies, news stories, and the like
It is a tricky area- I'm not sure how I would enforce repercussions. We have had a few threads in D&D devoted to things like the fallout from the Mozilla CEO's public statements and I came down pretty hard in favor of the stance that "if you say awful shit, no matter how privately you think it is, you should be held accountable for those words."
However, this raises the obvious question of who defines what is or isn't awful, and who mediates punishment.
I just don't know, but I'm almost certain that a lack of anonymity would solve the problem.
Fuck, I should be studying for my oral examinations on Friday, but here I am, arguing on the internet in the hopes that it makes the gaming community even slightly better
Ah yes, he's in one of my favourite tweets where he described the harassment of a woman that got so bad she quit journalism as a "victory", but now they had won not to harass or attack her anymore so nobody could accuse them of harassing her.
That should tell you everything you need to know about him right there.
Anonymity protects both ways though. A misogynistic boss isn't aware of his employee's social progressivism, and a socially progressive boss isn't aware of his employee's misogyny.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
This sort of thing is not exclusive to "gamergate" (Ugh I can't believe I actually typed that nonsense out).
Well, that would be my theory anyway.
But, sometimes you have to keep on doing what you do like an airbender and fly above it all.
Which brings up my next point. You can have these female audience members, and strong female characters, but not lose any of the stuff that appeals to the male audience. Katara fucked up a hell of a lot of people, as did Toph, Suki, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. Aang still fucked up more and caused a lot more property damage (airships don't count) and the show was awesome.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
if I were really up for turning this into a thread about class conflict I would say that these kinds of attitudes represent a classic divide and conquer strategy by the wealthy; superficial divides over skin color or gender or other social position have always been levers used against class solidarity by the actually powerful.
In reality the idea that it not be acceptable to openly call for assault, rape etc. against women is only the barest first step toward a just society; dudes like our new friend in this thread don't really have the various advantages that come with true wealth and power though, so the (relatively) tiny little amount of privilege they have visibly eroding is profoundly scary.
The consequences of this kind of thing play out over and over again in our politics; this same guy is probably on some other forum posting about how immigrants are the cause of all our unemployment.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
Who defines what is or isn't awful? The person you're saying the things to.
Who mediates punishment? The Justice system.
If you sent some of the crap these people have via the postal system, they'd have a team of FBI agents already looking into it.
Yesterday I crunched 14 hours to diversify the incidental characters in a bunch of scenes so that there were women and PoC.
We also did a pass a while back to make a bunch of speaking characters PoC as well, including literally the handsomest guy in our game. Little things, but a bunch of positive characters are black! A bunch of our voice actors are PoC. It makes no difference to our combat or to our game mechanics or anything that the average person involved in all of this claims to care about.
This is the kind of stuff people are pushing against. It blows my mind.
That's what I find so interesting about all of this. If they really are interested in talking about journalistic ethics, why are they choosing this exact moment, and a movement that is being co-opted by a small minority of aggressive criminals, to talk about it?
And if they think Zoe Quinn and her magical industry-destroying vagina is inextricably linked to this situation so that we can't talk about one without the other...then maybe they should examine why they think that is the case.
Edit: Changed pronouns.
Sometimes, you will never notice the way a room smells until you leave it.
edit: either I'm so tired I make sense, or I'm so tired that I make no sense. Good night. Stay Safe, build me a better open world game.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
it isn't even lack of repercussion, really. I mean the consequences after the fact are gratifying, but people are still out there posting stuff like this on facebook under their own names. The guy who wrote the letter to ms. quinn was apparently completely comfortable writing his own name in mud for the whole world to see.
as far as consequences, I'm pretty comfortable letting people decide on their own. Nobody's going to jail for saying something dumb on the internet, and if you're the type to misread your community so completely that you wind up like brendan eich I don't have much in the way of sympathy.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
This is how I feel. I think these kinds of talks are important because I want people to see just how awesome the gaming community can be.
Like I've met some of the smartest and funniest people in it. People who have helped me grow in a number of ways and people who've supported me when I was going through tough times.
And that's why I think we have to speak out about the grimier parts because when outsiders look at gamers those tend to be the parts they usually see.
But all those animators could have been used to make my virtual pecs 52% more glisteny!
These people are hypersensitive about anything they perceive as a threat to gaming, and so conflate criticism with censorship. Maybe it's a holdover from the Jack Thompson days, maybe they're just silly geese.
You know how Call of Duty now has playable female soldiers in multiplayer? I had so many arguments about doing that, with considerable pushback from the "lol realism" crowd and others going "Who cares if women are in the game?". Now that the game is out and has female soldiers as playable characters in multiplayer, nobody gave a shit. It wasn't even noticed by these same people anyway.
It's amazing how they think these things will ruin games forever in a conversation with them, but in actual practice we still get mostly the same games we would have in the first place.
Edit: Not to mention how I've played rounds where everyone is playing as a woman.
Thanks for your hard work!
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/
I write about video games and stuff. It is fun. Sometimes.
the people doing this are lower on the pecking order in our patriarchy so they take it out on the next lowest group on the totem pole. this keeps the top on top. divide and conquer.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-psychology-of-online-comments
It isn't really necessary.
Plus anonymity does good things too.
There's no magic button to make the scummy parts of the internet go away. And you risk losing a great deal of what makes instant communication worthwhile.
...Wait...people argued realism?
In Call of Duty multiplayer?
The multiplayer where you can jump 50ft without dying, heal like Wolverine, and summon jets by killing people?
I am confused.