Bravo. After so much bile and idiocy being thrown around by gamers and journalists alike, it's good to find a beacon of reason and sanity in the Escapist.
Editor's Note: Why I Still Call Myself a Gamer
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
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That was an excellent editorial Mr Tito, fair and well written. I doff my hat to you sir! Also kudos to you, Mr Macris and any one else who helped to put togother the ethical guidelines. They are clear, concise and above all allow for the kind of transparency that is at the heart of the gamergate issue. These are the kinds of rules that allow for trust in the site. Thank you for taking our concerns seriously and for maintaining a great site that I for one really enjoy visiting.
This. So much this. I can believe that some of folks that make these comments are just inexperienced and have misguided opinions. I had my fair share of them in my day. I often hope that given a decent conversation, or more experience, they'll come around. However, then there is some folks with some deep seeded beliefs that come from very terrible places. Places of resentment, paranoia, and pain, and they want to howl here in the forums so others can join in and they don't feel so alone. These gamers can't be talked to. These forums are not a place for them to be engaged, and really, they shouldn't be outside of a face to face with a human being who they will have to at lest hear, if not listen to. Why a debate can be considered productive between anyone that thinks Fake Geek Girls are an actual issue, Anita Sarkeesian faked those death threats, or women are somehow the inferior half of the species because of genetics, culture, or history is beyond me. In fact, the last two should be grounds for suspension.ACman said:
tyriless said:
Nobody engages in these issues though. We're all just trying to not get grouped as those very very very few crazies who do indeed hold those views that you describe. We're reacting to the vitriol aimed at all of us for what 0.1% (at most) of us think.
Just cause someone makes a thread and there's posts in it it doesn't mean that the posts agree with it. Just cause someone makes a post and people respond to it it doesn't mean everyone agrees with it. Just cause someone who has a legitimate grievance also is a sexist asshole it does not preclude non-sexist nice people from agreeing with the grievance and wishing for it to be gone. Horrible people can be right about things too. Most horrible people are right about most things and just have a couple of really messed up ideologies in there as well. A convicted killer telling you not to kill isn't giving you bad advice that you shouldn't listen to just cause he's a bad person.
Stop being close-minded and seeing everyone as somehow endorsing these abhorrent views when we're not doing that. Stop applying those beliefs to anyone who dares to disagree with you. It is precisely because of people doing that that I myself and many others even got involved in this mess in the first place.
Great article. Adressing what gamergate should be about (integrity) and at the same time calling out bullies for their dick-behavior.
I disagree with you on one thing. Anita Sarkeesian, there is no place for her in gaming as she does not critique it, she lies and misrepresents it. By the way the statement I just made is provable as her methods and arguments have been critiqued and found wanting by multiple feminists and non-feminists in and outside of gaming. While she should not be harassed or threatened she should be ignored.
Wonderful article. It's so good to see this type of positivity coming out of the issue. The transparency promised by the ethics policy is also very encouraging.
While I am certain we will continue to disagree on a great number of issues Mr. Tito, I am interested in seeing how your ethics policy works going forward. I don't agree in the harassment and the threats, that undermines the movement, but if there is an active and real interest in being transparent and open, then I am interested in seeing where this goes. Make no mistake Mr. Tito, others will be watching.
We'll see, if you put your money where your mouth is and do things correctly, I don't see a problem in the future.
If you continue blindly supporting and promoting the cause of the SJWs, because you think it needs "signal boosting" this will bubble back up again and then we'll know you lied, don't push us and we won't push back. I'll be watching with interest Tito.
If you continue blindly supporting and promoting the cause of the SJWs, because you think it needs "signal boosting" this will bubble back up again and then we'll know you lied, don't push us and we won't push back. I'll be watching with interest Tito.
Skyweir said:
There's no conspiracy, these people are simply the very vocal very minor minority which don't comprise more than 0.1% of what "gamers" consist of. All the rest of us are normal people. What's so hard to understand about that?
Even 0.1% is a big quantity of people, if they all post what they think cause they're pathetic sad sops they can easily produce what you're describing.
The crime is that you bunch all 99.9% of us with them. That you throw away something you love or someplace where you can belong just cause a few bad apples are super bad. Sadly, there's assholes in EVERYTHING. This isn't unique to gaming. We're not uniquely lenient to assholes. I'd say we're more progressive than sports or the military or other areas where women and LGBT people have much harsher realities. Please do not liken all of us good folk to the idiots who'd actually harass someone on a game. We're not all xbox live 12-year-olds. We don't all play shooters. We're just normal people who love to be super into game stuff and talk about game stuff without being described as women-hating basement-dweller virgins.
Just as playing games is extremely cross segment, discrimination and harassment is as well.
Spiraling off topic for a moment, i remember when news came out about a cheerleader who had photos of licensed big games hunts in Africa. A lot of people who know very little about hunting and conservation were attacking her and sending her threats of rape, violence, and death, the girl was 18 and honestly was not doing anything illegal or immoral.
This subject has nothing to do with video games at all, but illustrates that the issue that are usually discussed in the gamer community as issues with gamer culture are further reaching then that. It is but a single anecdotal case, but there are many more that exist outside of gaming culture.
We need to stop being so self absorbed in think that the issues in game culture, are issues for game culture alone. We will never solve issue with prejudice and harassment by pretending like this is the only place it happens. It needs to be attacked on a larger platform then websites about games. As long as those issues are prevalent in the rest of the world, it will be near impossible to prevent it from seeping in here.
All the same, keep fighting the good fight, but yeah lets not pretend that game culture is special in that regard...
Spiraling off topic for a moment, i remember when news came out about a cheerleader who had photos of licensed big games hunts in Africa. A lot of people who know very little about hunting and conservation were attacking her and sending her threats of rape, violence, and death, the girl was 18 and honestly was not doing anything illegal or immoral.
This subject has nothing to do with video games at all, but illustrates that the issue that are usually discussed in the gamer community as issues with gamer culture are further reaching then that. It is but a single anecdotal case, but there are many more that exist outside of gaming culture.
We need to stop being so self absorbed in think that the issues in game culture, are issues for game culture alone. We will never solve issue with prejudice and harassment by pretending like this is the only place it happens. It needs to be attacked on a larger platform then websites about games. As long as those issues are prevalent in the rest of the world, it will be near impossible to prevent it from seeping in here.
All the same, keep fighting the good fight, but yeah lets not pretend that game culture is special in that regard...
Great article! It's nice to see that, despite the shit flung everywhere, something positive can come out of this.
But that is not what happened. At least on the first couple of pages (I think the last time I read in that thread it had 3 pages) a lot of people, I think most of the poster even, called him out for it and not only told him that it was stupid, but why it was stupid. And that is why I believe threads like that should be allowed here. If someone has a strong opinion on something and isn't allowed to post it here, they will find a place to post it, which most likely will be an echo chamber for their views. When it's posted here, the resulting discussion, at least if it remains factual and doesn't attack the poster personally, may even result in a reflection about their views.
And more importantly, this discussion will be better for people that stumble upon it that either have no or are not sure about their position to the topic, because it is much more likely to adopt someones opinion if you see only agreement to it and no criticism.
So I'd say give them a chance to agrue their case and then prove them wrong. So that those that have no distinct opinion in that topic won't be taken in by baseless rhetoric.
I disagree that a thread like that has no place on the Escapist. I think we can both agree that the topic and content of the opening post was idiotic and if the poster had only gotten support for his views then I'd agree that the thread should be locked.ACman said:
But that is not what happened. At least on the first couple of pages (I think the last time I read in that thread it had 3 pages) a lot of people, I think most of the poster even, called him out for it and not only told him that it was stupid, but why it was stupid. And that is why I believe threads like that should be allowed here. If someone has a strong opinion on something and isn't allowed to post it here, they will find a place to post it, which most likely will be an echo chamber for their views. When it's posted here, the resulting discussion, at least if it remains factual and doesn't attack the poster personally, may even result in a reflection about their views.
And more importantly, this discussion will be better for people that stumble upon it that either have no or are not sure about their position to the topic, because it is much more likely to adopt someones opinion if you see only agreement to it and no criticism.
So I'd say give them a chance to agrue their case and then prove them wrong. So that those that have no distinct opinion in that topic won't be taken in by baseless rhetoric.
I'm going to begin my comment with an apology: I'm sorry if my post appears negative amidst all this much-needed positivity. If it seems like I'm trying to rain on the parade, I assure you I am not. The Escapist has, thus far and overall, comported themselves reasonably well these last few weeks. Simply taking the middle road (instead of blindly and rapidly leaping to the defense of one side, as most media have done) has endeared you guys to me and (very apparently) thousands of others. I greatly appreciate the legitimate reporting and renewed/continued integrity of this community.
Now for the dreaded "that said"...
I can't help but recognize these pleas for the community to "rise up against harassment" as relying upon the exact same logic as the "men can stop rape" initiative on US college campuses.
Deep breath. Don't fly off the handle because someone said "rape". Let me explain precisely what I mean.
Anti-rape messaging, much like anti-harassment messaging, is pretty much ubiquitous throughout the developed western world. I'm not sure it's possible to reach the age where you can post comments online or play multi-player video games or attend college without having experienced a virtual ton of anti-bullying, anti-rape, and generally anti-shithead messaging. No one does these terrible/obnoxious/criminal things for lack of understanding their immorality. Rather, horrible people do these horrible things *because* they (the people and the things) are horrible. No amount of additional or supplemental messaging is going to convince such people not to harass. They wouldn't exist to admonish if they were vulnerable to admonishment.
In the case of comment/twitter trolls, they abuse, harass, and threaten people because that's how they get their kicks. They thrive on the misery and attention generated by their behavior, and the only way to turn off the harassment is to starve them of their enjoyment by refusing to acknowledge their existence. Proclaiming their behavior as horrible is nothing more than twisted vindication of their actions. Thousands of simultaneous, united condemnations? Now you're reinforcing the trolls' delusions of grandeur and import by showing them how many people were affected by the harassment.
People don't advocate ignoring the abuse because they're cowardly or lazy or defeated. They advocate ignoring the abuse because it is very realistically the only thing with even a prayer of succeeding. If the harassment verges on illegality, the offenders should be pursued by law enforcement. If the wider internet is too hostile, there are safe, moderated places to socialize. I can understand the desire to make all of the internet so friendly, but it's just not gonna happen. Some spaces, like twitter, are best kept 100% open and free. If they were ever compromised by moderation, replacement services would immediately take hold. In any of these free spaces, as in life, there's really no good way to ensure everyone gets along or behaves appropriately. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view. I firmly believe it sucks that people treat other people so terribly, but I'm also not overly fond of "cleansing" humanity (or our conception of humanity) of all offense and imperfection.
Literally the best we can do: treat each other well, starve the trolls of the attention they require, report the legitimate psychos to the police, and try not to generalize massive segments of the population on the basis of a few loud idiots given voice by technology - which, it turns out, comes with a few actual challenges in addition to the never-ending laundry list of crazy perks.
Now for the dreaded "that said"...
I can't help but recognize these pleas for the community to "rise up against harassment" as relying upon the exact same logic as the "men can stop rape" initiative on US college campuses.
Deep breath. Don't fly off the handle because someone said "rape". Let me explain precisely what I mean.
Anti-rape messaging, much like anti-harassment messaging, is pretty much ubiquitous throughout the developed western world. I'm not sure it's possible to reach the age where you can post comments online or play multi-player video games or attend college without having experienced a virtual ton of anti-bullying, anti-rape, and generally anti-shithead messaging. No one does these terrible/obnoxious/criminal things for lack of understanding their immorality. Rather, horrible people do these horrible things *because* they (the people and the things) are horrible. No amount of additional or supplemental messaging is going to convince such people not to harass. They wouldn't exist to admonish if they were vulnerable to admonishment.
In the case of comment/twitter trolls, they abuse, harass, and threaten people because that's how they get their kicks. They thrive on the misery and attention generated by their behavior, and the only way to turn off the harassment is to starve them of their enjoyment by refusing to acknowledge their existence. Proclaiming their behavior as horrible is nothing more than twisted vindication of their actions. Thousands of simultaneous, united condemnations? Now you're reinforcing the trolls' delusions of grandeur and import by showing them how many people were affected by the harassment.
People don't advocate ignoring the abuse because they're cowardly or lazy or defeated. They advocate ignoring the abuse because it is very realistically the only thing with even a prayer of succeeding. If the harassment verges on illegality, the offenders should be pursued by law enforcement. If the wider internet is too hostile, there are safe, moderated places to socialize. I can understand the desire to make all of the internet so friendly, but it's just not gonna happen. Some spaces, like twitter, are best kept 100% open and free. If they were ever compromised by moderation, replacement services would immediately take hold. In any of these free spaces, as in life, there's really no good way to ensure everyone gets along or behaves appropriately. This can be a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view. I firmly believe it sucks that people treat other people so terribly, but I'm also not overly fond of "cleansing" humanity (or our conception of humanity) of all offense and imperfection.
Literally the best we can do: treat each other well, starve the trolls of the attention they require, report the legitimate psychos to the police, and try not to generalize massive segments of the population on the basis of a few loud idiots given voice by technology - which, it turns out, comes with a few actual challenges in addition to the never-ending laundry list of crazy perks.
There appears to be one thing missing from the ethics policy.
Content that was paid for (include the listicles you mentions...huh huh listicles) should be clearly marked as sponsored/advertorial content AND the company/individual who paid for it should clearly be indicated.
Content that was paid for (include the listicles you mentions...huh huh listicles) should be clearly marked as sponsored/advertorial content AND the company/individual who paid for it should clearly be indicated.
I posted in that thread to agree with a feminist #gamergate poster that feminists absoluitely have a place in gaming and a right to be heard, and state my own opposition to feminism with an explanation.
My point was a right to be heard should never become a right not to be criticised, which is what it currently is.
The only reply I got was condescending douchebag that I am sure feels entirely okay treating his opposition poorly because feminism is so super awesome and never does any wrong, right?
The fact the "good" feminists I hear so much about never call out that behaviour (indeed outright deny that misandry exists or is ever a factor) reflects why I am an antifeminist. I support equality, I support women's rights, I *actively* encourage every woman in m life to game ON THEIR OWN TERMS.
I hate misandry, and it is *entirely* excused by most feminists I come across.
The scandals within gaming have shown JUST how little feminists conform to their stated aims, goals and ethics, and how they behave *worse* than the gamers they are calling out for misogyny.
My point was a right to be heard should never become a right not to be criticised, which is what it currently is.
The only reply I got was condescending douchebag that I am sure feels entirely okay treating his opposition poorly because feminism is so super awesome and never does any wrong, right?
The fact the "good" feminists I hear so much about never call out that behaviour (indeed outright deny that misandry exists or is ever a factor) reflects why I am an antifeminist. I support equality, I support women's rights, I *actively* encourage every woman in m life to game ON THEIR OWN TERMS.
I hate misandry, and it is *entirely* excused by most feminists I come across.
The scandals within gaming have shown JUST how little feminists conform to their stated aims, goals and ethics, and how they behave *worse* than the gamers they are calling out for misogyny.
I'm not sure what prompted an actual ethics policy change/update. I was angry at the site earlier this year and last year for articles that could be construed as a conflict of interest. The particular kind of story has been noticeably absent for the last few months. If this is because someone at the site has gained insight into what could be a conflict of interest, and has resulted in part of this change then I am thankful.
I'm happy if this helps more the escapist to a more respectable journalism standard.Best Part For Me said:
Thanks so much for this, Mr. Tito. We need to decry harassment every moment, every day, but it does and should not have to come at the cost of the gamer identity. To me true gamers are the ones who are so passionate about games, they want EVERYONE to play. EVERYONE, in a safe environment free of harassment.
I am a feminist and a gamer. I get upset when people try to link feminism to misandry, mostly because it causes some real feminists--egalitarian-minded people who strive to ensure that women and notions of femininity as valued in society as men and notions of masculinity--to disconnect themselves from the "feminist" label. Misandry and feminism are very different things, and I don't believe true feminists are misandrists (even if there have been misandrists who have tried to appropriate that label). I am not going to let the misandrists "earn" the label of feminism, I am going to fight to use the label for myself and others who just want everyone to be treated right.
I feel like some of the folks saying "let's shed the 'gamer' identity" are kind of like the feminists who are afraid of calling themselves feminists. I understand why they do it: they're afraid of being associated with a hateful fringe. Unfortunately, that sadly only in turn ALLOWS the hateful fringe to "own" the identity---instead, the inclusive folks, the welcoming folks, we need to be the ones saying, no, this identity is US, not the haters. This is who WE are.
As a gamer, I sure as HELL am not going to let misogynist exclusionists or anyone who defends harassment or abuse get the title "gamer" while I'm left out in the cold, and I'm surely not going to let my own peeps hand my identity to them. I am a gamer. We are gamers. We want everyone to play, and play fair.
I am also glad for the clearly defined ethics policy. That is ALWAYS a good thing to have (speaking as a former journalist), and the policy looks well and clearly written.
I am a feminist and a gamer. I get upset when people try to link feminism to misandry, mostly because it causes some real feminists--egalitarian-minded people who strive to ensure that women and notions of femininity as valued in society as men and notions of masculinity--to disconnect themselves from the "feminist" label. Misandry and feminism are very different things, and I don't believe true feminists are misandrists (even if there have been misandrists who have tried to appropriate that label). I am not going to let the misandrists "earn" the label of feminism, I am going to fight to use the label for myself and others who just want everyone to be treated right.
I feel like some of the folks saying "let's shed the 'gamer' identity" are kind of like the feminists who are afraid of calling themselves feminists. I understand why they do it: they're afraid of being associated with a hateful fringe. Unfortunately, that sadly only in turn ALLOWS the hateful fringe to "own" the identity---instead, the inclusive folks, the welcoming folks, we need to be the ones saying, no, this identity is US, not the haters. This is who WE are.
As a gamer, I sure as HELL am not going to let misogynist exclusionists or anyone who defends harassment or abuse get the title "gamer" while I'm left out in the cold, and I'm surely not going to let my own peeps hand my identity to them. I am a gamer. We are gamers. We want everyone to play, and play fair.
I am also glad for the clearly defined ethics policy. That is ALWAYS a good thing to have (speaking as a former journalist), and the policy looks well and clearly written.
Hear, hear Greg! It's about time somebody stood up to the insanity and hate and said a huge emphatic NO to it. Thank you for standing up for our hobby!