Jimquisition: The Wacky Harassment Blame Parade

[The Material Sheep]

From what I can tell after extensive research. It goes like this. (the order is as close as i can find and i take no responsibility for it being wrong)

Dev posts game.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan (it was mostly because of disagreements with whether the dev would actually understand the subject matter of depression, having a successful job and relationship and social life)
Dev finds wizardchan posts somehow
Complains that she's being harassed
takes down game
puts game back up after tirades about how just because she's female doesn't mean she can't game dev (as some of the posts were misogynistic, read: 2 out of the hundred or so, the idea is the harrassment, if you could call it that, is because she's a woman.)
tweeters hear cry of harrassment, run with story, slathering term 4chan about
channers (the source is unknown) take offense at this, obtain devs details apparrently call dev masturbating
Dev reports this
media runs with this because gamers hating devs is in vogue and feminists seem to be very vocal these days

Here is the much more likely sequence of events.
Dev posts game with plans to release it for free on Greenlight.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan.
Some wizardchan peeps decide to take it a step further, and start harassment campaign on her Greenlight page.
One gets ahold of her contact details, posts it on wizardchan.
Dev notices she is getting seriously unpleasant shit heading her way out of nowhere, and wonders what the hell is going on.
Dev Googles, discovers wizardchan.
Dev eventually, worn down, takes down game.
Months pass, Dev puts game back up on Greenlight figuring the campaign will have run its course.
Wizardchan starts up again.
Dev goes to press, shows screenshots, press writes about it.
The usually suspect try to make out as though Dev is at fault for all of this, using logic that would make Kent Hovind blush.

How is that more likely? Seems more like, this is more in line with what you want to believe about the situation and less about trying to figure out exactly what happened.

 

[The Material Sheep]

What nonsense. I think that these indie devs deliberately kick the hornet's nest to rile up publicity. I mean it worked for Anita, this woman then does the same thing, and we're supposed to have sympathy?

No, being harassed isn't a good thing, but going to the troll nests of the internet to seek attention? Well, congratulations, you *found* the attention. Now stop complaining.

So releasing your game counts as "kicking the troll nest?"

That sir is a straw man. Releasing the game is not the assertion, but the idea that she perhaps deliberately antagonized the people on Wizarchan. I doubt that she deliberately did so, but no one is asserting the mere fact that her being a women is "kicking the troll nest." To pretend that's what is being argued is being deliberately obtuse.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

But you're using very backwards logic. As said by others, you are the one making this claim - you show the evidence. It seems there is at least some evidence for her being harassed, in the form of screen caps. And if this "community" at Wizardchan or whatever were at all interested in exonerating themselves, then couldn't they release similar evidence of her going there to stir them up?

Your logic is also twisted as you're just accepting that she is a victim despite having no evidence.

No, I'm not. When did I ever call her a victim, or state that any of the evidence was definitive?

Evidence of harassment doesn't automatically make her a victim, especially if she deliberately antagonised people or used screencaps that weren't representative of the whole discussion.

If someone has been harassed (not saying she was), then yes, that makes them a victim of harassment. How does anything she did to lead to that situation make her not a victim of harassment (if she was)?

So far, all I've seen from you are claims that somehow harassment is justified or it's her fault for going to the wrong site - a claim which you appear to have made up out of thin air. The question is, why are you so eager to fabricate scenarios to try and make her look worse?

Actually he questioned why Zoey was on this site in the first place because it's a site for 30 year old male who don't like women, rather than a site about games. This is a valid point because it lends support to his claim that Zoey deliberately antagonised people to get publicity. Care to explain why you keep ignoring this.

Because he did not provide any evidence that she went to this site to stir the members up.

I don't have any evidence either way - as I said quite clearly, I'm not making any arguments about what did or did not happen. But even if she did go to the site to stir up trouble - the response should be the same: "don't feed the trolls." There is no justification for people on that forum responding with harassment, even if she did go there to stir up trouble.

How does anything she could have done justified the response of harassment (if that's what happened)? I don't care what or who your forum is supposedly for, that's not an acceptable response.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I'm sure the trolls are delighted that their exploits continually get given attention by internet journalists and celebrities. It's surely far greater validation than anything any one faceless user could possibly offer.

It would be interesting to see their usernames and pertinent information included in such a piece. I wonder how trolls that view themselves as righteous in their trolling would view trolling these trolls right back? Not that I condone such eye for an eye nonsense. I'm merely wondering what would happen if anything. Would they, in turn, be harrassed and shamed for their actions when anonymity is broken? Seems like the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory would be applicable when taking away that one component that seems to make everyone an ass. The anonymity or lack of fear of consequence.

Is this an example of righteous trolling? It seems like your more garden-variety, in-it-for-a-reaction and attention kind of trolling to me. (which we're now giving in spades)

With that and the nature of trolling in mind, and considering Jim's "we all contribute" premise... Does this not shoot itself in the foot? If we all contribute, Jim contributes more. He's a bigger fish. His attention is tastier.

Pathetic.

The fact that people are trying to justify this harassment is also pathetic.

Gaming culture is pathetic. The fact that there STILL needs to be a discussion on why this bullshit is tolerated and rationalised away is WHY gaming culture is pathetic.

For the tin foil hats turning logic on its head saying this is a PR stunt, why? what the hell does it matter? This is contemptible behaviour regardless of how it started. Nothing justify's this sickness.

I love gaming, i love talking about games, but this ... if defending or excusing this shit in any way is part of what constitutes the culture of a gamer then I'm not a gamer and never will be.

Or you could just play games with people you like and stop pretending that we're somehow tight-knit.

 

[MPgmr]

You agee with someon who says you're not a hivemind, then you go and explicitly state that none of you ever do a specific thing. Kind of odd.

Surely you're aware use of the common usage of "we", when representing a group of people, to reference a common (NOT absolute) trait within that group? "Only the Sith deal in absolutes."

I also note the use of Kotaku. Hasn't /v/ been the origin or more than one false article used to slander one of the women on that site pretty much solely for that reason? People blame bad writing but it always (far as I've had any reason to note) comes back to an article that can be traced back to /v/, rather than her own writing.

Used to slander her? No.
Used to make fun of the general absurdity of many of her articles[footnote]A few of these I don't think belong in the image, but it's the most comprehensive collection that I know of[/footnote], which are often only tangentially related to video games? Absolutely.

Of course, I'm sure that no true Scotsman would ever fake an article to attack someone, and that every bad person in the community must be a poe or a troll, but that goes back to the hivemind thing....

I don't think you understand what I mean by a poe. Those are people that mistake 4chan's often-black brand of humor and trolls-trolling-trolls nature for genuine sentiments (which they themselves actually hold) and jump in thinking they're in good company. In this case, they see the image edits meant to parody her articles (and aren't really meant to be circulated outside of 4chan, as it's generally looked down upon to do so), and go trying to viral them because "HURR 4CHAINZ IS LEEJUN xD".

 

[TekMoney]

What nonsense. I think that these indie devs deliberately kick the hornet's nest to rile up publicity. I mean it worked for Anita, this woman then does the same thing, and we're supposed to have sympathy?

No, being harassed isn't a good thing, but going to the troll nests of the internet to seek attention? Well, congratulations, you *found* the attention. Now stop complaining.

So releasing your game counts as "kicking the troll nest?"

That sir is a straw man. Releasing the game is not the assertion, but the idea that she perhaps deliberately antagonized the people on Wizarchan. I doubt that she deliberately did so, but no one is asserting the mere fact that her being a women is "kicking the troll nest." To pretend that's what is being argued is being deliberately obtuse.

How did she "deliberately antagonize" them?

 

[Madmonk12345]

From what I can tell after extensive research. It goes like this. (the order is as close as i can find and i take no responsibility for it being wrong)

Dev posts game.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan (it was mostly because of disagreements with whether the dev would actually understand the subject matter of depression, having a successful job and relationship and social life)
Dev finds wizardchan posts somehow
Complains that she's being harassed
takes down game
puts game back up after tirades about how just because she's female doesn't mean she can't game dev (as some of the posts were misogynistic, read: 2 out of the hundred or so, the idea is the harrassment, if you could call it that, is because she's a woman.)
tweeters hear cry of harrassment, run with story, slathering term 4chan about
channers (the source is unknown) take offense at this, obtain devs details apparrently call dev masturbating
Dev reports this
media runs with this because gamers hating devs is in vogue and feminists seem to be very vocal these days

Here is the much more likely sequence of events.
Dev posts game with plans to release it for free on Greenlight.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan.
Some wizardchan peeps decide to take it a step further, and start harassment campaign on her Greenlight page.
One gets ahold of her contact details, posts it on wizardchan.
Dev notices she is getting seriously unpleasant shit heading her way out of nowhere, and wonders what the hell is going on.
Dev Googles, discovers wizardchan.
Dev eventually, worn down, takes down game.
Months pass, Dev puts game back up on Greenlight figuring the campaign will have run its course.
Wizardchan starts up again.
Dev goes to press, shows screenshots, press writes about it.
The usually suspect try to make out as though Dev is at fault for all of this, using logic that would make Kent Hovind blush.

How is that more likely? Seems more like, this is more in line with what you want to believe about the situation and less about trying to figure out exactly what happened.

The other assumes facts not in evidence. If she complained about harassment before removing it, there would be evidence of it but there isn't. We know that the harassment exists, but the idea that she complained about it beforehand isn't in evidence. No reports of it come before December in media. If she reported it or mentioned it, Google is remarkably silent about it. searching for "Depression quest and Harassment" only show up posts after December when searching. If she made any mention of it beforehand, it isn't easily found.

OT: For all the people that tell victims of sexual harassment or rape that they had it coming due to some cultural ideal, most victims already have learned these types of issues in childhood. What woman in childhood doesn't learn to avoid strangers, drink in suspicious places or walk home alone? What child doesn't learn the ever popular and false (as I learned the hard way) mantra that if you ignore a bully they go away? The thing is, people need to balance personal well-being with these cultural ideals. What do people contribute by bringing up these ideals that they already understand and learned from childhood? Do they really believe that women have never heard these positions before, never considered the possibility that they should just ignore the problem?

Zoe Quinn never brought it up the first time that she had to deal with it. Apparently, it didn't work. Why is it wrong for her to takes measures for her well being and call to the public for support after the second?

How dumb do these people think women are?

 

[The Material Sheep]

What nonsense. I think that these indie devs deliberately kick the hornet's nest to rile up publicity. I mean it worked for Anita, this woman then does the same thing, and we're supposed to have sympathy?

No, being harassed isn't a good thing, but going to the troll nests of the internet to seek attention? Well, congratulations, you *found* the attention. Now stop complaining.

So releasing your game counts as "kicking the troll nest?"

That sir is a straw man. Releasing the game is not the assertion, but the idea that she perhaps deliberately antagonized the people on Wizarchan. I doubt that she deliberately did so, but no one is asserting the mere fact that her being a women is "kicking the troll nest." To pretend that's what is being argued is being deliberately obtuse.

How did she "deliberately antagonize" them?

I'm not saying she did. I'm saying that's the argument presented to you. Attack that, not the straw man.

 

[Lex Darko]

We know this already jim. But as fellow users/consumers/customers, we have no direct power to moderate a "community." If someone were to "troll" this thread all I could do is click the report button and move on. If the mods don't do anything it isn't like I have the agency to make things change personally.

This is the dark side of social media where an anonymous speaker is given a potentially a huge audience. See the picture below for the result of that phenomenon.

 

[The Material Sheep]

From what I can tell after extensive research. It goes like this. (the order is as close as i can find and i take no responsibility for it being wrong)

Dev posts game.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan (it was mostly because of disagreements with whether the dev would actually understand the subject matter of depression, having a successful job and relationship and social life)
Dev finds wizardchan posts somehow
Complains that she's being harassed
takes down game
puts game back up after tirades about how just because she's female doesn't mean she can't game dev (as some of the posts were misogynistic, read: 2 out of the hundred or so, the idea is the harrassment, if you could call it that, is because she's a woman.)
tweeters hear cry of harrassment, run with story, slathering term 4chan about
channers (the source is unknown) take offense at this, obtain devs details apparrently call dev masturbating
Dev reports this
media runs with this because gamers hating devs is in vogue and feminists seem to be very vocal these days

Here is the much more likely sequence of events.
Dev posts game with plans to release it for free on Greenlight.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan.
Some wizardchan peeps decide to take it a step further, and start harassment campaign on her Greenlight page.
One gets ahold of her contact details, posts it on wizardchan.
Dev notices she is getting seriously unpleasant shit heading her way out of nowhere, and wonders what the hell is going on.
Dev Googles, discovers wizardchan.
Dev eventually, worn down, takes down game.
Months pass, Dev puts game back up on Greenlight figuring the campaign will have run its course.
Wizardchan starts up again.
Dev goes to press, shows screenshots, press writes about it.
The usually suspect try to make out as though Dev is at fault for all of this, using logic that would make Kent Hovind blush.

How is that more likely? Seems more like, this is more in line with what you want to believe about the situation and less about trying to figure out exactly what happened.

The other assumes facts not in evidence. If she complained about harassment before removing it, there would be evidence of it but there isn't. We know that the harassment exists, but the idea that she complained about it beforehand isn't in evidence. No reports of it come before December in media. If she reported it or mentioned it, Google is remarkably silent about it. searching for "Depression quest and Harassment" only show up posts after December when searching. If she made any mention of it beforehand, it isn't easily found.

OT: For all the people that tell victims of sexual harassment or rape that they had it coming due to some cultural ideal, most victims already have learned these types of issues in childhood. What woman in childhood doesn't learn to avoid strangers, drink in suspicious places or walk home alone? What child doesn't learn the ever popular and false (as I learned the hard way) mantra that if you ignore a bully they go away? The thing is, people need to balance personal well-being with these cultural ideals. What do people contribute by bringing up these ideals that they already understand and learned from childhood? Do they really believe that women have never heard these positions before, never considered the possibility that they should just ignore the problem?

Zoe Quinn never brought it up the first time that she had to deal with it. Apparently, it didn't work. Why is it wrong for her to takes measures for her well being and call to the public for support after the second?

How dumb do these people think women are?

To the first point, I'd like to say I wasn't saying either was really substantiated anymore then the other. Neither, really provided evidence and both you and the original poster say you've done research. So with merely a claim of having done research, and a lack of substantial evidence in proper context, both scenarios have equal merit from where I stand.

OT: Well, I'd hope she's gone to the police, given the nature of some of the harassment she received. At the point that people were calling her, it became criminal, if this is all true. At the point people were threatening to kill/rape her it became a criminal. The horrid behavior has real world consequences if she's telling the truth. If she went to the police, then she did the right thing, and at that point she's in the clear. If she didn't she's either woefully ignorant of how to deal with being the victim of a crime, or she's making it up/vastly blowing it out of proportion. In criminal situations its inappropriate to solicit the community to enact justice for this kind of behavior.

 

[Madmonk12345]

From what I can tell after extensive research. It goes like this. (the order is as close as i can find and i take no responsibility for it being wrong)

Dev posts game.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan (it was mostly because of disagreements with whether the dev would actually understand the subject matter of depression, having a successful job and relationship and social life)
Dev finds wizardchan posts somehow
Complains that she's being harassed
takes down game
puts game back up after tirades about how just because she's female doesn't mean she can't game dev (as some of the posts were misogynistic, read: 2 out of the hundred or so, the idea is the harrassment, if you could call it that, is because she's a woman.)
tweeters hear cry of harrassment, run with story, slathering term 4chan about
channers (the source is unknown) take offense at this, obtain devs details apparrently call dev masturbating
Dev reports this
media runs with this because gamers hating devs is in vogue and feminists seem to be very vocal these days

Here is the much more likely sequence of events.
Dev posts game with plans to release it for free on Greenlight.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan.
Some wizardchan peeps decide to take it a step further, and start harassment campaign on her Greenlight page.
One gets ahold of her contact details, posts it on wizardchan.
Dev notices she is getting seriously unpleasant shit heading her way out of nowhere, and wonders what the hell is going on.
Dev Googles, discovers wizardchan.
Dev eventually, worn down, takes down game.
Months pass, Dev puts game back up on Greenlight figuring the campaign will have run its course.
Wizardchan starts up again.
Dev goes to press, shows screenshots, press writes about it.
The usually suspect try to make out as though Dev is at fault for all of this, using logic that would make Kent Hovind blush.

How is that more likely? Seems more like, this is more in line with what you want to believe about the situation and less about trying to figure out exactly what happened.

The other assumes facts not in evidence. If she complained about harassment before removing it, there would be evidence of it but there isn't. We know that the harassment exists, but the idea that she complained about it beforehand isn't in evidence. No reports of it come before December in media. If she reported it or mentioned it, Google is remarkably silent about it. searching for "Depression quest and Harassment" only show up posts after December when searching. If she made any mention of it beforehand, it isn't easily found.

OT: For all the people that tell victims of sexual harassment or rape that they had it coming due to some cultural ideal, most victims already have learned these types of issues in childhood. What woman in childhood doesn't learn to avoid strangers, drink in suspicious places or walk home alone? What child doesn't learn the ever popular and false (as I learned the hard way) mantra that if you ignore a bully they go away? The thing is, people need to balance personal well-being with these cultural ideals. What do people contribute by bringing up these ideals that they already understand and learned from childhood? Do they really believe that women have never heard these positions before, never considered the possibility that they should just ignore the problem?

Zoe Quinn never brought it up the first time that she had to deal with it. Apparently, it didn't work. Why is it wrong for her to takes measures for her well being and call to the public for support after the second?

How dumb do these people think women are?

Well, I'd hope she's gone to the police, given the nature of some of the harassment she received. At the point that people were calling her, it became criminal, if this is all true. At the point people were threatening to kill/rape her it became a criminal. The horrid behavior has real world consequences if she's telling the truth. If she went to the police, then she did the right thing, and at that point she's in the clear. If she didn't she's either woefully ignorant of how to deal with being the victim of a crime, or she's making it up/vastly blowing it out of proportion. In criminal situations its inappropriate to solicit the community to enact justice for this kind of behavior.

These types of crimes aren't easily prosecutable. Even then, police have a long running habit of ignoring women's reports on gendered issues, and women tend to internalize that. If police often won't properly handle rape reports by women, why do you think they will handle this correctly? This is far less extreme than that. Can anyone really blame her for not being interested in dealing with that sort of nonsense from police?

Instead, she seeks public support. She can get that much more easily than a long drawn-out court case which itself costs both the victim and the perpetrator copious amounts of time and gives lots of attention to both, which will label her as attention-seeking in the eyes of enough people for it to potentially not be worth the trouble.

For all the statements of cynicism about gender issues that people make, many sure have an idealistic view of the police and the legal system.
EDIT:

To the first point, I'd like to say I wasn't saying either was really substantiated anymore then the other. Neither, really provided evidence and both you and the original poster say you've done research. So with merely a claim of having done research, and a lack of substantial evidence in proper context, both scenarios have equal merit from where I stand.

Someone stating that they have done extensive research is different from someone actually doing so. I at least provided a reason for disagreeing with his statement, providing a way in which to copy my research. If you want a link, well here is a link.

[a]https://www.google.com/search?q=depression+quest+harassment+Zoe+Quinn&safe=off&biw=1760&bih=841&sa=X&ei=_RO6UqKeOJftoASFy4DgBQ&ved=0CB0QpwUoBg&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A11%2F1%2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A11%2F30%2F2013&tbm=[/a]

goes from November 1 of 2000 to November 30th of this year. No major articles posted by anyone before December discussing the harassment, though links appear discussing the game or showing other posts that a person has done in December.

Also, her initial posts about it on twitter, AFAICT.

http://storify.com/SeeBeeWhitman/depression-quest-harassment-campaign

First post at 12:41 PM, last at 1:04. If she ever incited anything she described on herself, then it happened ridiculously quickly.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Oh boy, another feminism-in-gaming thread gets mucho replios.

This is the internet; it's well established that "you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany".

So a woman gets hate speech. This happens every day, and similar to the school shootings my solution is to not give the perpetrators any credence. Ideally they send her a crappy message or leave an unpleasant post -- everyone ignores them, and we move on as the semi-civilized online community that we are.

The moment people start hating the haters and writing up reprimands on their blogs and whatnot it just gives them more validation.

It seems the alternate solution is that we all rush to the poor damsel's defense en masse. This is sexism, or 'reverse sexism' if you prefer. A bunch of white knights running to defend this woman [because she's a woman] is no better than harassing her [because she's a woman].

So no, I don't think she needs a 'thicker skin'. I think we need to accept that trolls are plentiful and the best way to silence them is to ignore them. We're not going to get some court order to knock the trolls front doors down and take their Alienwares for 10 years ala ZeroCool. It's just not going to happen.

 

[danon]

What are we getting angry about this week. People harassing other people on the internet. Well then good luck making that go away. I'm sure this discussion will be the breaking point that will make it all better.

 

[The Material Sheep]

From what I can tell after extensive research. It goes like this. (the order is as close as i can find and i take no responsibility for it being wrong)

Dev posts game.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan (it was mostly because of disagreements with whether the dev would actually understand the subject matter of depression, having a successful job and relationship and social life)
Dev finds wizardchan posts somehow
Complains that she's being harassed
takes down game
puts game back up after tirades about how just because she's female doesn't mean she can't game dev (as some of the posts were misogynistic, read: 2 out of the hundred or so, the idea is the harrassment, if you could call it that, is because she's a woman.)
tweeters hear cry of harrassment, run with story, slathering term 4chan about
channers (the source is unknown) take offense at this, obtain devs details apparrently call dev masturbating
Dev reports this
media runs with this because gamers hating devs is in vogue and feminists seem to be very vocal these days

Here is the much more likely sequence of events.
Dev posts game with plans to release it for free on Greenlight.
wizardchan peeps ***** about game on wizardchan.
Some wizardchan peeps decide to take it a step further, and start harassment campaign on her Greenlight page.
One gets ahold of her contact details, posts it on wizardchan.
Dev notices she is getting seriously unpleasant shit heading her way out of nowhere, and wonders what the hell is going on.
Dev Googles, discovers wizardchan.
Dev eventually, worn down, takes down game.
Months pass, Dev puts game back up on Greenlight figuring the campaign will have run its course.
Wizardchan starts up again.
Dev goes to press, shows screenshots, press writes about it.
The usually suspect try to make out as though Dev is at fault for all of this, using logic that would make Kent Hovind blush.

How is that more likely? Seems more like, this is more in line with what you want to believe about the situation and less about trying to figure out exactly what happened.

The other assumes facts not in evidence. If she complained about harassment before removing it, there would be evidence of it but there isn't. We know that the harassment exists, but the idea that she complained about it beforehand isn't in evidence. No reports of it come before December in media. If she reported it or mentioned it, Google is remarkably silent about it. searching for "Depression quest and Harassment" only show up posts after December when searching. If she made any mention of it beforehand, it isn't easily found.

OT: For all the people that tell victims of sexual harassment or rape that they had it coming due to some cultural ideal, most victims already have learned these types of issues in childhood. What woman in childhood doesn't learn to avoid strangers, drink in suspicious places or walk home alone? What child doesn't learn the ever popular and false (as I learned the hard way) mantra that if you ignore a bully they go away? The thing is, people need to balance personal well-being with these cultural ideals. What do people contribute by bringing up these ideals that they already understand and learned from childhood? Do they really believe that women have never heard these positions before, never considered the possibility that they should just ignore the problem?

Zoe Quinn never brought it up the first time that she had to deal with it. Apparently, it didn't work. Why is it wrong for her to takes measures for her well being and call to the public for support after the second?

How dumb do these people think women are?

Well, I'd hope she's gone to the police, given the nature of some of the harassment she received. At the point that people were calling her, it became criminal, if this is all true. At the point people were threatening to kill/rape her it became a criminal. The horrid behavior has real world consequences if she's telling the truth. If she went to the police, then she did the right thing, and at that point she's in the clear. If she didn't she's either woefully ignorant of how to deal with being the victim of a crime, or she's making it up/vastly blowing it out of proportion. In criminal situations its inappropriate to solicit the community to enact justice for this kind of behavior.

These types of crimes aren't easily prosecutable. Even then, police have a long running habit of ignoring women's reports on gendered issues, and women tend to internalize that. If police often won't properly handle rape reports by women, why do you think they will handle this correctly? This is far less extreme than that. Can anyone really blame her for not being interested in dealing with that sort of nonsense from police?

Instead, she seeks public support. She can get that much more easily than a long drawn-out court case which itself costs both the victim and the perpetrator copious amounts of time and gives lots of attention to both, which will label her as attention-seeking in the eyes of enough people for it to potentially not be worth the trouble.

For all the statements of cynicism about gender issues that people make, many sure have an idealistic view of the police and the legal system.

If you don't believe in the legal system's capability to deal with crimes, there are bigger issues then the case in question. This is apparently cut and dry.

When it comes to prosecuting these things. There are supposedly phone records. That's not hard to use and trace. At least enough to find some use out of things. I also feel your assertions that rape cases are improperly handled is a stretch at best and pulled out of your ass at worst. There's nothing to suggest that on a broad scale that police reports involving rape are mishandled or bungled more then any other case. The reason rape is at all ambiguous is because often times the evidence in these cases is one person's word verses another, which favors the defendant in our legal system. I find it hard to believe that police are callous of crimes against women,especially when there is something called the Violence Against Women act signed into law. EVEN THEN... there is supposedly direct evidence that is traceable to an individual who committed a crime. Apparently there is no ambiguity. There is no excuse.

I can blame her for not being interested in going to the police if she didn't. She publicly accused people of criminal actions and hasn't done her civic duty to make the police aware of a crime. It is a crime to harass someone over the phone, and threaten someone with death and rape. You don't go to the public and decry what a victim you are, if your not taking all the steps to protect yourself and make sure those who victimized you are properly dealt with. It's not a court case she'd have to pay for or personally put a lot of time into organizing. This isn't civil court. This is criminal court, the state would prosecute and do most of the work. EVEN THEN, she's still looking for attention. She went to the media about it, which is going to be a lot more irresponsible with the situation and get her a lot more misinformed attention from outside parties. Public Support will do NOTHING for her other then get her money. It doesn't punish anyone for their horrid actions, and won't stop the situation from repeating itself because the only way there could have been real repercussions for the situation, was if the people that committed the crime were put away for it.

At the end of it, if she wanted to be taken seriously by anyone but reactionary types and people who profit either fiscally or politically from this kind of drama, she should have taken this to the police before doing anything. Growing up, I was raised to trust the police to do their job. Now the police harass me while doing my job, and I resent them for what I feel is a need to prosecute more then discover truth. I can understand NOT trusting the police, but if people have so little faith in the legal system, that you discourage people from reporting crimes, then I don't have any idea what you expect. What alternative do you advocate? Vigilantism? Public Shaming and threats? Those are far worse, and there tons of historical examples of why it doesn't work.

 

[odinzeus]

You really need a new topic to recycle.Sorry,but stop with the "women harassment" filler episodes.Just take a nice break if there is nothing interesting to talk about.
And yes,people harass other people on the internet,not just the gamer damsel in distress type,they harass even normal guys and girls.
Try something like EMOTIONS, POLYGONS, AND ELLEN PAGE again.That was funny and interesting.

 

[chiefohara]

Pathetic.

The fact that people are trying to justify this harassment is also pathetic.

Gaming culture is pathetic. The fact that there STILL needs to be a discussion on why this bullshit is tolerated and rationalised away is WHY gaming culture is pathetic.

For the tin foil hats turning logic on its head saying this is a PR stunt, why? what the hell does it matter? This is contemptible behaviour regardless of how it started. Nothing justify's this sickness.

I love gaming, i love talking about games, but this ... if defending or excusing this shit in any way is part of what constitutes the culture of a gamer then I'm not a gamer and never will be.

Or you could just play games with people you like and stop pretending that we're somehow tight-knit.

Nah, I'd rather have an opinion, and hold people who behave contemptibly in contempt.

 

[chiefohara]

And there you have it, Ad nauseum arguements and strawman tactics, you can't disprove my statements so you extend them to exaggerated lengths to ridicule it. Bravo. And your evidence could be easily fabricated and has been in the past (why screen cap the entire screen, why not just the posts that make you look good). Good work there. Face it, you can't prove it's not a stunt. You just enjoy jumping on the rage bandwagon because these days we have to justify our bigotry. I mean with racism and sexism now considered to be bad form i guess we have to find other ways to be generally bad people while still being able to sleep at night.

Pathetic.

The fact that people are trying to justify this harassment is also pathetic.

Gaming culture is pathetic. The fact that there STILL needs to be a discussion on why this bullshit is tolerated and rationalised away is WHY gaming culture is pathetic.

For the tin foil hats turning logic on its head saying this is a PR stunt, why? what the hell does it matter? This is contemptible behaviour regardless of how it started. Nothing justify's this sickness.

I love gaming, i love talking about games, but this ... if defending or excusing this shit in any way is part of what constitutes the culture of a gamer then I'm not a gamer and never will be.

Justifies this sickness? Surely you mean how low people will sink to pull off a PR stunt, using the lowest common denominator because they make the easiest ragebait? Who would defend a bunch of misanthropic misogynists? Whether or not they did anything wrong isn't the point. Yay bandwagons! Boo free thinking!




*cups hands* NONE OF YOU CAN PROVE SHE DIDN'T MAKE IT UP SO GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES.

Self important elistism is still rampant i see. But now it's politically correct! yay....

The only elitism i see being rampantly portrayed here is self entitled misogyny.

Doesn't matter a damn whether it was 'provoked' or not, it is pathetic behaviour. Pathetic beyond belief, Christ knows why you are defending it.

 

[The Material Sheep]

Pathetic.

The fact that people are trying to justify this harassment is also pathetic.

Gaming culture is pathetic. The fact that there STILL needs to be a discussion on why this bullshit is tolerated and rationalised away is WHY gaming culture is pathetic.

For the tin foil hats turning logic on its head saying this is a PR stunt, why? what the hell does it matter? This is contemptible behaviour regardless of how it started. Nothing justify's this sickness.

I love gaming, i love talking about games, but this ... if defending or excusing this shit in any way is part of what constitutes the culture of a gamer then I'm not a gamer and never will be.

Or you could just play games with people you like and stop pretending that we're somehow tight-knit.

Nah, I'd rather have an opinion, and hold people who behave contemptibly in contempt.

I don't think anyone is not holding trolls in contempt.

 

[MrMixelPixel]

Well, I always try to take a little bit of time out of my day when I see it, to inform people who receive a lot of negativity that their are people in the community who don't think it's okay to be harassed. It's usually something small, but I hope it helps a little. I'm not too cynical to think that a little kindness wont go a long way. I don't need to carry the weight of the community, but I can try lighten the load for everyone.

If the people being harassed see some smidges of support, then hopefully that'll brighten the mood a bit.