GamerGate's Image Problem

[kyp275]

It wasn't "late" though, it was the earliest that the relevant parties could have made any comment. It's not just "6 months" as an approximate, it was exactly 26 weeks later and any gag order or otherwise police sanctioned silence on the issue would have lifted.

Uh, gag order? police sanctioned silence? You may want to take it easy on them TV shows. Gag orders in LE matters are issued by a court, usually to prevent details of an impending trial leaking to the public and tainting the jury pool. The police certainly don't have the legal authority to impose such an order, what happens sometimes is that the media will self-censor to prevent aiding the suspect in an active/continuing criminal incident with too much up to date info.

Neither of which applies in this case. As a matter of fact, bomb threats are often immediately reported on, even ones that turned out to be a hoax, precisely because of how important it is to evacuate and prevent people from going there. When was the last time you heard a news report that says "Breaking News! xxxx school received a bomb threat.... 6 months ago!"

As it was just a threat and not an actual bomb where lives were at stake, and since the "bomber" clearly just wanted attention, the best thing would be to deny it to him, hence the silence for this much time.

Can you maybe explain why a threat against an individual should be taken seriously and publicly condemned, but a bomb threat to a convention which threatens the live of a substantial number of people (ironically involving the same individual) "is just a threat", and shouldn't be published as to deny the perpetrator's crave for attention?

There was no reason to bring it up before the gag ran out.

Again, unless you know about a pending criminal trial that no one else on the planet knows about, there isn't any gag order.

 

[Calbeck]

Exactly, and this is what seems to be the most silly thing about Gamergate. Whatever their platform was initially built on and whatever it represents now, all of its momentum is based on some vague conspiratorial sense that the gaming market is somehow failing due to the presence of specific 'outsider influences' and 'supervillains' and that they have to purge the gaming media to set things right again.

Um, sorry, haven't heard ANYONE on the GG side making this pitch. At all. I literally have no clue where you cobbled it together from.

Part of the problem about your claim is that it's much too complex of a "plan" for a bunch of cats with no herder to even agree on in the first place. To be a "movement" thing, that plan or a close simile would have to be plastered all over the GG networks --- but you and you alone are where I'm hearing it from.

Which leads me to conclude that this is your view of the movement, and you are simply reinforcing what you would like to believe by asserting that it is fact.

I get the same from Mormons who tell me I should read their Book.

EDIT: Seriously, "purge" the game media? How the hell would we do THAT?!

 

[Calbeck]

Can you maybe explain why a threat against an individual should be taken seriously and publicly condemned, but a bomb threat to a convention which threatens the live of a substantial number of people (ironically involving the same individual) "is just a threat", and shouldn't be published as to deny the perpetrator's crave for attention?

Um... yeah... I can kind of confirm that if a "bomb threat" is called in to police from a convention, you will get:

* The Police

* The Fire Department

* The Bomb Squad

* any Media with radio scanners listening for the above three.

You see, I'm the "Mad Bomber" of ConFurence 4. It was a costume prop which the hotel chief of security chose to treat as real. Stupid of me to have a prop like that at all, sure, but what was REALLY funny was when one of the cops asked why he'd called in a threat on "an obvious toy".

His response? "We gotta get these faggots outta the hotel."

Cop was gay. Reported it to the hotel management. The security chief was blackballed from working in California again.

 

[RexMundane]

It wasn't "late" though, it was the earliest that the relevant parties could have made any comment. It's not just "6 months" as an approximate, it was exactly 26 weeks later and any gag order or otherwise police sanctioned silence on the issue would have lifted.

Uh, gag order? police sanctioned silence? You may want to take it easy on them TV shows. Gag orders in LE matters are issued by a court, usually to prevent details of an impending trial leaking to the public and tainting the jury pool. The police certainly don't have the legal authority to impose such an order, what happens sometimes is that the media will self-censor to prevent aiding the suspect in an active/continuing criminal incident with too much up to date info.

Neither of which applies in this case. As a matter of fact, bomb threats are often immediately reported on, even ones that turned out to be a hoax, precisely because of how important it is to evacuate and prevent people from going there. When was the last time you heard a news report that says "Breaking News! xxxx school received a bomb threat.... 6 months ago!"

As it was just a threat and not an actual bomb where lives were at stake, and since the "bomber" clearly just wanted attention, the best thing would be to deny it to him, hence the silence for this much time.

Can you maybe explain why a threat against an individual should be taken seriously and publicly condemned, but a bomb threat to a convention which threatens the live of a substantial number of people (ironically involving the same individual) "is just a threat", and shouldn't be published as to deny the perpetrator's crave for attention?

There was no reason to bring it up before the gag ran out.

Again, unless you know about a pending criminal trial that no one else on the planet knows about, there isn't any gag order.

I will concede I used the term "gag order" incorrectly. The police likely asked the GDC while the investigation was pending not to release information for six months as it wouldn't be helpful, and would likely only embolden the culprit. When the six months were up, the GDC made the announcement, and the press reported on it after that point when they first heard there was ever a threat.

And you know what, that's all largely assumptions based on relevant facts that have emerged since, and how these things are usually handled, sure. But it's a less ridiculous assumption than whatever insane conspiracy GG could concoct to explain GDC filing a false 6-month old police report at Kotaku's behest within 15 minutes of a post on Breitbart as some kind of meaningless diversion which, by staggering coincidence, happened exactly six months to the day after the incident.

 

[Jaegerbombastic]

And to clarify my point from yesterday, which I had thought would have been obvious, "livestream" isn't a problem, "hostile livestream" is. Some kind of 3rd party moderator (whoever that'd be in this situation) trying to keep conversation on point and all sides having equal time to make their case to a receptive audience? Fantastic.

TotalBiscuit tried exactly that, but then the journalists involved dropped. This was right before Milo's initial report on GamJournoPro came out.

Also, how is one forum of debate set up by one of the sides (the streams) "hostile) and one forum of debate that was setup as astroturf (#GameEthics) isn't?

 

[Caostotale]

Which leads me to conclude that this is your view of the movement, and you are simply reinforcing what you would like to believe by asserting that it is fact.

Yes, it was meant as a loose theory/criticism, but I'm still sure I could go to any Gamestop in the area and, after polling consumers for a week, maybe present 5-10 people who have any opinion on this bullshit whatsoever (and further, I would predict 80% of that 5-10 subset are simply aware of the debate but don't actually care either way about it).

I get the same from Mormons who tell me I should read their Book.

Yeah, man, saying my off-the-cuff and half-improvised forum post is the same as the practices of an organized religious campaign totally isn't hyperbolic or ridiculous...

EDIT: Seriously, "purge" the game media? How the hell would we do THAT?!

From day one, I've imagined that nothing would make the Quinnspiracy or GG people happier than to see those proven 'corrupt' (i.e. Quinn, the people she supposedly slept with, Anthony Burch, etc...), as well as those dread SJWs (Moviebob, Jim Sterling, Leigh Alexander, Anita Sarkeesian), all deserved to be fired from game journalism firms , publicly shamed for doing the gaming world some 'gross' disservice (i.e. the only strategy that could apply to someone like Sarkeesian, who works for herself), or otherwise disenfranchised.

'Purge' might be too strong a word...fine...I'll amend it to a call to 'purify' gaming media.

 

[RexMundane]

And to clarify my point from yesterday, which I had thought would have been obvious, "livestream" isn't a problem, "hostile livestream" is. Some kind of 3rd party moderator (whoever that'd be in this situation) trying to keep conversation on point and all sides having equal time to make their case to a receptive audience? Fantastic.

TotalBiscuit tried exactly that, but then the journalists involved dropped. This was right before Milo's initial report on GamJournoPro came out.

Also, how is one forum of debate set up by one of the sides (the streams) "hostile) and one forum of debate that was setup as astroturf (#GameEthics) isn't?

They weren't prepared to talk about Milo's article on the email dump that just broke, accused literally everyone of wrongdoing, didn't reveal specifics, and yet was naturally going to end up dominating the discussion. Why the hell wouldn't they pull out? And for the record, TB's holier-than-thou attitude in that video didn't do him any favors as far as seeming reasonable.

edited for clarity.

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

Um, sure, I guess you could call them contrarians and skeptics. But behavior like this? Well, that's a little more than just being outside the mainstream. And it's not culture. It's f---ing sick. And it's pretty indicative of why 4chan, as it relates to GG, has an image problem that, in my humble opinion, has stained the movement.

That's on /b/. We don't go to Ravenholm anymore. Seriously, every other board hates /b/ with a passion (maybe even more than gawker media does!) There are 63 boards total. Mind you, /b/ sucks so much that it will probably be the site admin's doom one day.

/v/ is one of the fastest boards on a very large site. Only a small amount of people on /v/ were originally interested in journalistic/indie dev scandals and the rest of the board called them gossipy drama queens. This was before the "gamers are dead" articles whipped a much larger group into a frenzy across several sites.

You can't really go anywhere from here. No one is going to apologize for having posted on the same site where some script kiddie wants to play super villain. Just like no one on tumblr is going to apologize for posting on the same site that nearly drove Tom Siddell to suicide. This is why people need to move away from looking at things in black and white while repeating the genetic fallacy as their main argument. Both sides keep doing this. Everyone's stuck.

EDIT: messed up quotes

Sure, it's one of 63 boards on the site, but you can understand why that handful of users on one board hurts 4chan's rep (and GamerGate's for that matter, because the two ARE in fact linked). This is not to say the majority of folks subscribe to that kind of awful behavior, but as I've said on other threads here, this is the situation you create when you post on message boards anonymously behind screen names. You become identified with the site you're posting on, because there is no real name or identifiers for people to latch on to. It's easy to see why people are grouping what we might call a few bad apples in with the rest of the 4chan and GG crowd because they are HIDING in that crowd. And it's tough, if not impossible, to indetify them or at least distinguish them from the rest of the crowd. And that's the price of the anonymity they hide behind: you get to protect your good name, but you stain the reputation of the site that you frequent and the well-behaved members around you.

Points for the Ravenholm reference, BTW, it was excellent

 

[Thorn14]

Please tell me how you would identify them or distinguish them fromm the crowd, less of being a mod and releasing their information to the internet?

 

[doomrider7]

One thing I have to ask (and sorry if this has been covered already), but given GG tends to misrepresent and take anything negative said about hem as an attack, why are they hailing Milo Yiannopolous a hero when he wrote this [http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/08/14/Players-as-young-as-12-and-13-are-being-raped-by-dorky-weirdos-on-Grand-Theft-Auto] article on an unpleasent GTA Online mod?

I mean, in several places he's outright saying things a certain feminist hasn't said but is actively accused of saying.

Number 4 on this list pretty much explains it. No matter how much of blatant shill and an asshole he is, Milo gets attention and support by sheer virtue of saying something different. Using the same analogy as in the link, like a single red rose in a green field of grass or more appropriately a single dog turn in white tile floor. Pretty much the entire list is why GamerGate needs to die already ESPECIALLY Numbers 1 and 2.

http://www.cracked.com/article_21341_5-ways-every-conspiracy-theory-makes-world-worse.html

Which leads me to conclude that this is your view of the movement, and you are simply reinforcing what you would like to believe by asserting that it is fact.

Yes, it was meant as a loose theory/criticism, but I'm still sure I could go to any Gamestop in the area and, after polling consumers for a week, maybe present 5-10 people who have any opinion on this bullshit whatsoever (and further, I would predict 80% of that 5-10 subset are simply aware of the debate but don't actually care either way about it).

I get the same from Mormons who tell me I should read their Book.

Yeah, man, saying my off-the-cuff and half-improvised forum post is the same as the practices of an organized religious campaign totally isn't hyperbolic or ridiculous...

EDIT: Seriously, "purge" the game media? How the hell would we do THAT?!

From day one, I've imagined that nothing would make the Quinnspiracy or GG people happier than to see those proven 'corrupt' (i.e. Quinn, the people she supposedly slept with, Anthony Burch, etc...), as well as those dread SJWs (Moviebob, Jim Sterling, Leigh Alexander, Anita Sarkeesian), all deserved to be fired from game journalism firms , publicly shamed for doing the gaming world some 'gross' disservice (i.e. the only strategy that could apply to someone like Sarkeesian, who works for herself), or otherwise disenfranchised.

'Purge' might be too strong a word...fine...I'll amend it to a call to 'purify' gaming media.

My question on the purging is why? What have they done that's so appalling? Say mean things about gamers? Have opinions? Be in contact with others in the same field? That all of these things are somehow considered signs of corruption just shows a MASSIVE lack of understanding in how journalism works since in the field, you're going to say mean things to and about people at some point, you're going to have opinions that are sometimes unpopular, and most of all you NEED to have contacts with other writers and people involved in whatever field you work on. They accuse people of censorship, yet their goal seems to be just that. To censor out people they disagree with to be the loudest dominant voice.

 

[Mouser_House]

(...)
You become identified with the site you're posting on, because there is no real name or identifiers for people to latch on to. It's easy to see why people are grouping what we might call a few bad apples in with the rest of the 4chan and GG crowd because they are HIDING in that crowd. And it's tough, if not impossible, to indetify them or at least distinguish them from the rest of the crowd. And that's the price of the anonymity they hide behind: you get to protect your good name, but you stain the reputation of the site that you frequent and the well-behaved members around you.

I think plenty of people are getting tired of it. If half of GG do believe themselves to be brave little Spartans fighting against some kind of SJW invasion then they are going to have to accept at some point that 4chan is a pretty lousy homeland. The mods are incompetent and inconsistent. The swarm logic is a double-edged sword. Worse still, 4chan is the perfect scapegoat that gives power to the opposition. /b/ should have been closed down seven years ago.

At the same time, people will just get even more paranoid about having to stay anonymous as much as possible when they hear about pro-GG getting doxxed on twitter.

 

[Davroth]

From day one, I've imagined that nothing would make the Quinnspiracy or GG people happier than to see those proven 'corrupt' (i.e. Quinn, the people she supposedly slept with, Anthony Burch, etc...), as well as those dread SJWs (Moviebob, Jim Sterling, Leigh Alexander, Anita Sarkeesian), all deserved to be fired from game journalism firms , publicly shamed for doing the gaming world some 'gross' disservice (i.e. the only strategy that could apply to someone like Sarkeesian, who works for herself), or otherwise disenfranchised.

'Purge' might be too strong a word...fine...I'll amend it to a call to 'purify' gaming media.

Actually you couldn't be more wrong on the "purge" part. At least if you are talking about anyone but the absolute nuttiest of nuts in the GG movement. But then, you fail to mention the actual corruption, like the stuff uncovered by the GameJournoPros mailing list. Instead, you seem to concentrate on the flashy figures, which are at the end of the day mostly meaningless.

Leigh Alexander is probably the only one out of the people you mentioned who I would like to see driven out of her job, not because she's a SJW (She certainly isn't a feminist by any modern definition of the movement), but because she's a terrible human being who used her influence to hurt people. Oh, and she's racist, too. What a class act. I've seen people driven out of their job for faaar less. But that's not really important either.

Wether you like it or not, the mailing list is a breach of trust between the journalist and the consumer. They are not doing journalism, they are doing agenda driven PR work. Now, I might or might not agree with their agenda (and believe me when I tell you that this whole thing hit very close to home since 90% of the games I play are indie titles), but that doesn't make it right. Based on the people on the list either admitting to be on it, or remaining silent on it, I don't see any reason to not believe the leaks are truthful. And they are pretty damning in my eyes. So yes, I will be very cautious not to give certain "news" outlets any more clicks in the future. And I am willing to fight to give this breach of trust they have committed all the publicity it can get. But that has nothing to do with purging or purifying the gaming media.

Actually, it's the other way around. From my perspective, certain individuals tried to purify the gaming media from gamers for whatever reason. I'm only trying to push back. And that is true for a lot of the people I talked to about it. If you insist on concentrating on the nut jobs, well, I can't stop you. But it wont accomplish anything.

 

[wetnap]

Removing/distancing yourself from harassers
No.

You are playing into their game when you do that. They wish to control you when the fact is that their charge was never valid to begin with. Its not our job to police the super tiny fraction of our population which is a problem. We are hundreds of millions, its not our job to police the 1 or 2 who actually make a threat, its absurd to claim its our responsibility.

Its like claiming that before every time obama talks he has to lecture black people on crime. And it would still be more justified than with gamers, 7.7% of african americans are felons, how many gamers are sending threats as a %? Its a thousandth of a % at most if that. So if putting the responsibility on black people to control some random criminal element out there who happens to be black is a bigoted smear, it should be called as such as well when leveled at us. Its simply unjustifiable based on the numbers, and the more you concede, the more they win at painting yourside in a negative light. This is the mistake so many gamers have made to be "nice" to these people over the years. And now we are paying for it.


Unpacking Post-Modernism: Jordan Owen's Debate with Evan Tognotti
Davis M.J. Aurini

 

[doomrider7]

From day one, I've imagined that nothing would make the Quinnspiracy or GG people happier than to see those proven 'corrupt' (i.e. Quinn, the people she supposedly slept with, Anthony Burch, etc...), as well as those dread SJWs (Moviebob, Jim Sterling, Leigh Alexander, Anita Sarkeesian), all deserved to be fired from game journalism firms , publicly shamed for doing the gaming world some 'gross' disservice (i.e. the only strategy that could apply to someone like Sarkeesian, who works for herself), or otherwise disenfranchised.

'Purge' might be too strong a word...fine...I'll amend it to a call to 'purify' gaming media.

Actually you couldn't be more wrong on the "purge" part. At least if you are talking about anyone but the absolute nuttiest of nuts in the GG movement. But then, you fail to mention the actual corruption, like the stuff uncovered by the GameJournoPros mailing list. Instead, you seem to concentrate on the flashy figures, which are at the end of the day mostly meaningless.

Leigh Alexander is probably the only one out of the people you mentioned who I would like to see driven out of her job, not because she's a SJW (She certainly isn't a feminist by any modern definition of the movement), but because she's a terrible human being who used her influence to hurt people. Oh, and she's racist, too. What a class act. I've seen people driven out of their job for faaar less. But that's not really important either.

Wether you like it or not, the mailing list is a breach of trust between the journalist and the consumer. They are not doing journalism, they are doing agenda driven PR work. Now, I might or might not agree with their agenda (and believe me when I tell you that this whole thing hit very close to home since 90% of the games I play are indie titles), but that doesn't make it right. Based on the people on the list either admitting to be on it, or remaining silent on it, I don't see any reason to not believe the leaks are truthful. And they are pretty damning in my eyes. So yes, I will be very cautious not to give certain "news" outlets any more clicks in the future. And I am willing to fight to give this breach of trust they have committed all the publicity it can get. But that has nothing to do with purging or purifying the gaming media.

Actually, it's the other way around. From my perspective, certain individuals tried to purify the gaming media from gamers for whatever reason. I'm only trying to push back. And that is true for a lot of the people I talked to about it. If you insist on concentrating on the nut jobs, well, I can't stop you. But it wont accomplish anything.

Question, since I really have to ask, but what on that mailing list was so damning and appalling to be considered a smoking gun since I read it and saw nothing particularly bad or wrong. As for Leigh Alexander, the same can be easily applied to Milo whom has NUMEROUS potshots at gamers and had very low opinion on it, UNTIL he could politicize it all and push a right-wing anti-feminist agenda. I'm fairly neutral on Alexander, but at least to her credit she's actually been a member of the gaming community ad not just jumped in when she saw a convenient time to push an agenda.

 

[Davroth]

Question, since I really have to ask, but what on that mailing list was so damning and appalling to be considered a smoking gun since I read it and saw nothing particularly bad or wrong. As for Leigh Alexander, the same can be easily applied to Milo whom has NUMEROUS potshots at gamers and had very low opinion on it, UNTIL he could politicize it all and push a right-wing anti-feminist agenda. I'm fairly neutral on Alexander, but at least to her credit she's actually been a member of the gaming community ad not just jumped in when she saw a convenient time to push an agenda.

The existence of such a mailing list is absolutely unacceptable for anyone who takes the concept of journalism seriously. Yeah, sure, completely unbiased journalism is a lofty ideal, but that doesn't mean a journalist shouldn't strive to be as objective as he can be. And this is not the case with the people on the mailing list, and the leaked emails made their MO abundantly clear. A select few dictate a narrative which the rest of the press then follows, no matter if it's objective or not. There is no excuse for that. It's the death of journalism. If you don't find that objectionable, then you don't want journalism. And that is fine. I, however, wont stand for it. And I wont support sites that engage is such activities, and I will make sure to let as many people know about it as I can. Because you don't get to dress up PR as journalism, no matter how well intended it is, or how much you might like or dislike someone. It's simple as that to me.

I don't care about Milo's political agenda. And I honestly don't know why you bring him into this. I'm about as far away from him politically as I can be. But that doesn't discounts the information he provided us with. Game 'journalists' don't even deny it. Rather, some actually confirmed it. On what basis would I discredit his work on GamerGate, or rather, what bearing does it have?

Also, I don't understand your logic on LA.. She made racist comments, which she curiously deleted as soon as they came into public light (not that that actually removes it from the internet or anything), and abused her power try and intimidate people into silence. That's both deplorable. How does her being a true gamer redeem her in any way?

 

[aliengmr]

Pretty sure Gamergate isn't in the hundreds of millions.

And a pro-gg post brings in Aurini prove a point. Wow, no image problems there/s.

I personally make it a point not to take what some racist has to say seriously on really anything so...

 

[doomrider7]

Question, since I really have to ask, but what on that mailing list was so damning and appalling to be considered a smoking gun since I read it and saw nothing particularly bad or wrong. As for Leigh Alexander, the same can be easily applied to Milo whom has NUMEROUS potshots at gamers and had very low opinion on it, UNTIL he could politicize it all and push a right-wing anti-feminist agenda. I'm fairly neutral on Alexander, but at least to her credit she's actually been a member of the gaming community ad not just jumped in when she saw a convenient time to push an agenda.

The existence of such a mailing list is absolutely unacceptable for anyone who takes the concept of journalism seriously. Yeah, sure, completely unbiased journalism is a lofty ideal, but that doesn't mean a journalist shouldn't strive to be as objective as he can be. And this is not the case with the people on the mailing list, and the leaked emails made their MO abundantly clear. A select few dictate a narrative which the rest of the press then follows, no matter if it's objective or not. There is no excuse for that. It's the death of journalism. If you don't find that objectionable, then you don't want journalism. And that is fine. I, however, wont stand for it. And I wont support sites that engage is such activities, and I will make sure to let as many people know about it as I can. Because you don't get to dress up PR as journalism, no matter how well intended it is, or how much you might like or dislike someone. It's simple as that to me.

I don't care about Milo's political agenda. And I honestly don't know why you bring him into this. I'm about as far away from him politically as I can be. But that doesn't discounts the information he provided us with. Game 'journalists' don't even deny it. Rather, some actually confirmed it. On what basis would I discredit his work on GamerGate, or rather, what bearing does it have?

Also, I don't understand your logic on LA.. She made racist comments, which she curiously deleted as soon as they came into public light (not that that actually removes it from the internet or anything), and abused her power try and intimidate people into silence. That's both deplorable. How does her being a true gamer redeem her in any way?

It discredits Milo's additions since it's clear he doesn't care about the medium and is only using it as a podium to ush his agenda. I don't know what the full deal is wit Alexander, but at least she's been part of the community before this and not using it to push political agendas that have nothing to do with gaming. As for the mailing list, Journalism s dead then since lists like that have existed for quite some time on top the Reporter's Privilege which means grants protections of sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_sources

 

[Davroth]

It discredits Milo's additions since it's clear he doesn't care about the medium and is only using it as a podium to ush his agenda. I don't know what the full deal is wit Alexander, but at least she's been part of the community before this and not using it to push political agendas that have nothing to do with gaming. As for the mailing list, Journalism s dead then since lists like that have existed for quite some time on top the Reporter's Privilege which means grants protections of sources.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_of_sources

What agenda exactly, exactly? And if you don't know about LA and don't care to look into it, why do you even bother bringing it up? And even if it discredits Milo, it doesn't discredit the information he provided us with. For that the information would have to be proven false, which it hasn't been. So what is your point in all of this?

This has actually nothing to do with the protection of sources.. but since you bring it up, in order to be protected by that somehow, they'd have to be journalists in the first place. But they are not. They are advocates who try to disguise their bias as objective journalism. Colluding among a large number 'news' sites to synchronise the narrative and push an agenda is a mockery of journalism, nothing else. But then, if we can't agree on what constitutes a journalist, I think we will just have to agree to disagree right here.

 

[Maddhaus]

Pretty sure Gamergate isn't in the hundreds of millions.

And a pro-gg post brings in Aurini prove a point. Wow, no image problems there/s.

I personally make it a point not to take what some racist has to say seriously on really anything so...

You and me both. I pretty much apply similar reasoning to the rest of the GG crowd: how can we possibly take their bleating about "journalistic integrity" seriously when they don't appear to know the first goddamned thing about it? Hell, we're over a month into this whole goat rope and they still haven't figured out that most members of the games press aren't even journalists.

I've had biscuits with my coffee that I take more seriously than this gong show.

No leadership nor organization?
No clearly defined goals nor plan to reach said goals?
Unable to root out agitators in the ranks nor condemn their actions unconditionally?
Trumpeting shoddy, mischaracterized, or false "information" as the latest "smoking gun"?
Established on the unsubstantiated allegations of an ex-boyfriend's attempt to slut shame his former girlfriend?

Yeah, this is why I can't take this whole "movement" seriously.

 

[xDarc]

What on earth do you base that on? What historical precedent for an event like this do you assume that will be the outcome? History full of movements with leadership and clearly stated goals that succeed in the end, but you're going the other way because that's the smart thing? Why do you believe that?

When I went to George W. Bush's first inauguration in 2001 to protest; I was there with disenfranchised Gore supporters and communists- and I was neither. That was the same story to all of the demonstrations I went to in the late 90's, mixed political interest groups and strange bedfellows. Someone takes charge of Gamergate, you may not like or agree with them.

The other problem with centralizing leadership is it gives all the people who have been trying to shut this down a nice fat target to focus on. They will be attacked, and any demands they make will be placated. No, an angry mob is better if you can keep it going. Albeit, an angry internet mob is far less effective- but if it keeps up you'll see changes after quartlery earnings in October.