You don't have to be afraid of taking a public stance against #GamerGate.

[blackmanon4chan]

For a group that has anti-censorship as one of its primary talking points, it sure seems like asking for trouble to say anything against it. Obviously, first off, you're going to get ten million comments telling you you obviously did no research, don't understand the movement, etc. Right? Well, yes, *but* it isn't that bad. I wasn't sure......

the idea is that both groups can be really freaking toxic. one side screaming journalism and the other side screaming we need to protect teh womens. i haven't come out publicly for fear of the "feminists"(they arent) feeling themselves justified for attacking me because i don't really buy the whole "them gamergate boys are just mysoginists or being controlled by the hollowed out volcano dwellers of 4chan". to me most conversations with the pro have always been quite peaceful. i mean you have a consenting opinion to gamergate guys, they give you pamphlets and articles trying to describe their cause. even the ones that go "obviously you didnt do enought research" will quickly post papers and papers describing their cause. but then if you support the principle of gamergate(better media) you get called a misogynist and told about all the bad things guys who say they are for better media have done.... because you know since members of the kkk call themselves Christian obviously all Christians secretly hate black people.

To me im neutral but more so on the gamergate side, mostly because ive been feeling that the gaming community has been forgetting about their powers as a consumer(DLC, always on, broken games and being called entitled for being mad at said games, media boiling consumer complaints to "its just his hair") so any movement that encourage gamers to realize that they are customers and that its perfectly ok to demand better, will always get my support. boycott(yes boycotts include emailing publishers, you cant harass a company. Intel is not crying to its investors saying someone was mean to them on the internet), write letters, don't buy the damn games, stop clicking on these sites and give praise to the sites that dont condone what their doing. remember that your consumers!!!

i digressed but the idea is of the gamergate guys and the anti-gamergate guys the ones in support have all around been more accepting and wanting to get everyones opinion on the matter. like was it the anti crowd that wanted female developer opinion on the matter? example:the discussion that went down between eric kain(neutral), tb(positive), and the rest; do you believe that no one from anti-gg side of the argument weren't there because they weren't invited? why are only the neutrals and positives having a convo, while the anti refuse to even acknowledge the neutral. maybe im sligted as i don't use twitter (and never will, twitter is were convo's go to die)

Something I noticed.

The Anti-GG group constantly wants to talk about ZQ while Pro-GG wants to move away from it and discuss journalism.

Not once did I give a shit about ZQ or the ZoePost and to this day I don't. I doubt TB and others who now support GG do either.

this is something ive noticed myself. in all reality you pro-gg make the mistake of being dragged back to her. in all reality you need to just ignore anyone who brings her up, pretend she doesnt exist. same with anita sarkesian(seriously this event has nothing to do with her, why is it that every article i read on gamergate from the gawker media circle will make a mention of her?).
at this point in the game you just need to not engage with anyone who brings her up.

 

[Silvanus]

When people say "its not properly addressed" I have to ask exactly what that means. We do not endorse harassment of any kind and support women in gaming. How many times do we have to repeat it?

#GG isn't a secret club where we carefully monitor our members. Its a hashtag to organize our movement. Literally you or I or a random person or even a person with a bone to pick against #GamerGate could literally spend 2 minutes making a new twitter account and start typing horrible hateful things, and because they then add #GamerGate to the end of it, its suddenly our fault and we aren't doing anything about it.

What do people want us to do? Invent mind control devices?

Note, I do not expect each and every person to rebuke instances of sexism. I respect that many individuals do so.

There is a significant number who either partake in it, though, or dismiss that it happens. A popular movement is judged in aggregate.

http://theweek.com/article/index/269377/intels-awful-capitulation-to-gamergates-sexist-thugs

To name one, from a possible plethora (I'm not in the habit of collecting articles that demonise us, so I'll leave the rest to yourself/others).

That's a rather silly article, I agree.

The mainstream trend within gaming journalism, though, has been rather better. It has not dismissed every gamer, or every gamer-gater, as all of a type.

 

[Jux]

I love how people think they can say anything as long as it's preceded by 'no offense' or 'all due respect' as if that makes anything that comes after not insulting.

Actually, it was a reference to a strip by Scott Adams, but y'know.

Yea, that was apropos of nothing. This isn't a thread about a Dilbert strip. If you're going to come out of left field with something, don't be surprised when no one 'gets it'.

something something claims about not fact checking.... I've seen you elsewhere post that you put anyone who is new to the forums and loosely pro-GG on your ignore list... I'm fine with letting you "win" and going off to take a nap instead.

You must have missed the part about 'low content' too. I'm not going to waste my time being bombarded by the same tired talking points from posters that can't bother to craft an argument that at least appears like they put some thought into it, I already deal with being bombarded by the same tired talking points from posters that write up freaking pages on it. I'll at least entertain that, even if it's still mostly bull anyway, because they're actually putting in the effort.

Though one point: You should change your avatar from Hobbes to Calvin. He suits you more.

I'll do ya a favor this one time and compromise. (See? I'm reasonable)

-snip-

Aye, and for a movement that's supposedly moved past it's misogynistic roots, they can kindly tell that to Brianna Wu. What's your channel? And tippy, most people have abandoned the gg thread, it's an echochamber. Any sort of criticism of it just gets lost, ignored, or met with the same talking points.

Brianna wu who got the same copy pasted death threat as gamergate feminist did? From the same person?

Oh yeah that's totally not suspicious, and totally doesn't make you look bad, Jux. /s

And vague allusions that this is fake, or some false flag don't make you look any better Twinkie.

Where did you read it was fake? I said that guy was threatening everyone on twitter. Nice to know reading a 2 sentence post is now considered "too much work" too.

How many times are you going to try to pull this?

Yawn. Try to spin it however you like, but when you make vague posts about how it's 'suspicious' without any sort of qualifying statements, you have only yourself to blame when people read between the lines.

 

[Nirallus]

#GG isn't a secret club where we carefully monitor our members. Its a hashtag to organize our movement. Literally you or I or a random person or even a person with a bone to pick against #GamerGate could literally spend 2 minutes making a new twitter account and start typing horrible hateful things, and because they then add #GamerGate to the end of it, its suddenly our fault and we aren't doing anything about it.

What do people want us to do? Invent mind control devices?

Their modus operandi is not just to condemn but censor, so they expect to see that on our side. Which won't happen.

 

[Thorn14]

Quite frankly, afraid might not be the right word for it, but you sure as hell can't feel comfortable coming out against it if you're in a thread that is full of GG. I'm of the mind that I like to hear both sides of a story, perhaps it's because I worked in journalism so long as a side hobby through university, or perhaps it's because I'm a Libra if you buy into astrology. Who knows. But I kept track of the first monster thread, and I kept track of the second (minus 2 weeks when I didn't have internet), and if I said something that the hive mind (and I do mean hive mind) did not agree with, I was bombarded with comments.

There wasn't one comment, or two comments, or five comments, there were dozens of them. And because I couldn't reply to them all in time, I would get private messages (especially at the first when Zoe led the talk), and they were certainly not pleasant to read. Being new at the time I didn't really do much except ignore them, or try to come back at them.

And it's more or less still this way. On Twitter, or Youtube, or god forbid in a thread here on Escapist dominated by the Gamergate people (with the exception of about a half dozen of some very nice, sensible, and lovely people that I would say I truly enjoy debating), anything you say that falls out of line of what they think you have:

A) Not done your research (to whit I say bullshit, I've read every article, read all the threads, and watched the videos)
B) Am trying to derail conversations (to whit I say bullshit, the conversation was already derailed, I was only making a point, the thread brought up X,Y,Z and I was only trying to add my two cents in as someone who had experience in that field)
C) Am just some SJW feminist (to whit I say stop trying to call me a feminist. I'm not. I never have been. I'm a pacifist, I'm a teacher, and I'm a woman, but those are the only labels I call myself. Stop putting me in a box)
D) Won't bring in evidence (to whit I say, I just posted 10 effing links that none of you bothered to read. I even brought in blogs that I wrote trying to help smooth things out for GG people, though I know I'm only a small time blogger, but I was only met with disdain or ignoring.
E) Ignored all out (to whit I say, I prefer this one all together)

I pointed out to one person, one of the ones that I would say that I enjoy talking to, that it might be a good idea to suggest to the group to calm down some of the rhetoric, because on one page they were talking about including feminists but two posts down from that several people were talking about how they hated feminists. It felt a bit bi-polar. I wasn't making a mean statement, it was going to him as just an observation as an outsider who might come in to the thread to read to see what was going on. I wasn't even being critical, it was literally just "Hey, heads up, you might want to watch out for this stuff in case new people come in and get confused."

And I got so many nasty private messages after that, from the anti-feminists, that I had to hit my ignore button so many times that I thought maybe I broke it.

So maybe I don't have to be afraid, but I sure don't feel comfortable. And quite frankly, I think that's a lot worse. At least I know what to do when I'm afraid. I can fight back. Right now I'm not even sure I want to continue to visit the Escapist any longer, as it's no longer a website that makes me feel welcomed. I'm more of an outsider here than I ever was in high school

I'll just say I'm sorry people sent you nasty PMs and I hope they got kicked out of this site for it. That is not something I and the large majority of #GG supporters believe in.

 

[Silvanus]

Their modus operandi is not just to condemn but censor, so they expect to see that on our side. Which won't happen.

I've seen this claim numerous times, and not once has a genuine example of censorship been brought up.

 

[Jux]

Spinning? you're the one that's spinning open attacks because research on any topic is too much work by your own words. I said don't you think its strange that one person sends copy pasted death threats to not only the enemy but his own side?

By 'research on any topic' you mean refusing to accept non sourced claims? I can live with that. You know, every time I mention threatening tweets from pro gg'ers, I'm met with a chorus of 'but that could be anyone! you can't prove they support gg!' or 'they're not representative of gg!'. Yet every tweet attributed to one of those evil 'SJWs' is taken as gospel truth. That song and dance is getting old.

If you actually took the time to research anything, I wouldn't be calling you out all the time.

If you actually bothered to source your claims and not docdump me every time we talked about this, I wouldn't dismiss you out of hand all the time.

and yet you have the audacity to say you care about harassment when its obvious you only care if it happens to specific people. I have yet to hear you complain about the death threats against Total Biscuit (right after his surgery), Boogie, Sommers, GamerGate feminist, and tons of others have gotten.

Yea, because if I don't hunt down and comdemn all the harassment, I obviously don't care. My sentiments on harassment are well documented. I don't support it, and I condemn it from anyone. That you'd dishonestly try to portray me otherwise is par for the course though I guess.

When I bring up harassment against people speaking out against gg, it's because I'm using it as an example of how gg isn't simply about journalistic ethics, as people like to widely claim. This doesn't mean I support harassment coming from people opposed to gg. To make that assumption betrays your black and white thinking on this issue.

Where was your outrage then?

Outrage quota gets filled up fast, gotta be in line early or you're gonna miss out.

 

[dragoongfa]

Their modus operandi is not just to condemn but censor, so they expect to see that on our side. Which won't happen.

I've seen this claim numerous times, and not once has a genuine example of censorship been brought up.

I have to go to sleep (3:00AM here) so I will make it quick:

The biggest is that 4chan banned discussion about GamerGate almost a month ago (Think about it: 4chan banned a topic).
Every pro-GG member of NeoGAF was banned early in the controversy.
At the GameJournoPro leak Ben Kuchera of Polygon tried to convince Greg Tito of the Escapist to ban all discussion from the Escapist. After the emails were leaked there was the DDOS attack against the Escapist as well.
When Cracked went Anti-GG all of the pro-gg comments were deleted or defaced by the mods.

Those are from the top of my head, I am sure that more examples are around and if you need proof some Pro-GG people here will be happy to offer it.

I am going to sleep, have a goon day/afternoon/night everyone.

 

[Nirallus]

Their modus operandi is not just to condemn but censor, so they expect to see that on our side. Which won't happen.

I've seen this claim numerous times, and not once has a genuine example of censorship been brought up.

Co-opting the moderators on Reddit and 4chan to ban all discussion of the topic. Taking down MundaneMatt's video with a bogus DMCA complaint. Getting Thunderfoot banned from Twitter for criticizing Anita Sarkeesian's videos. Trying to browbeat Greg Tito into locking GamerGate threads right here on the escapist.

Edit: Plus the other examples in the post above mine.

 

[Dragonmouth]

Their modus operandi is not just to condemn but censor, so they expect to see that on our side. Which won't happen.

I've seen this claim numerous times, and not once has a genuine example of censorship been brought up.

Co-opting the moderators on Reddit and 4chan to ban all discussion of the topic. Taking down MundaneMatt's video with a bogus DMCA complaint. Getting Thunderfoot banned from Twitter for criticizing Anita Sarkeesian's videos. Trying to browbeat Greg Tito into locking GamerGate threads right here on the escapist.

Edit: Plus the other examples in the post above mine.

Those are all private sites who have the right to block whoever they wish for any reason. Ironically, these instances of "censorship" are no different than what Gamergate professes to be about, which is pressuring private publications and forums into changing the way they do business.

 

[Mikeybb]

I pointed out to one person, one of the ones that I would say that I enjoy talking to, that it might be a good idea to suggest to the group to calm down some of the rhetoric, because on one page they were talking about including feminists but two posts down from that several people were talking about how they hated feminists. It felt a bit bi-polar. I wasn't making a mean statement, it was going to him as just an observation as an outsider who might come in to the thread to read to see what was going on. I wasn't even being critical, it was literally just "Hey, heads up, you might want to watch out for this stuff in case new people come in and get confused."

And I got so many nasty private messages after that, from the anti-feminists, that I had to hit my ignore button so many times that I thought maybe I broke it.

So maybe I don't have to be afraid, but I sure don't feel comfortable. And quite frankly, I think that's a lot worse. At least I know what to do when I'm afraid. I can fight back. Right now I'm not even sure I want to continue to visit the Escapist any longer, as it's no longer a website that makes me feel welcomed. I'm more of an outsider here than I ever was in high school

I remember that situation and I'm still annoyed about it.
Mainly for the private messages sent your way later.

I hope you did report it as I asked at the time.

I'm sad to hear that you don't feel welcome though.
I can understand that feeling in a thread where the majority are following one side of an argument, after all it's got to be intimidating to be the one holding the contrary position and knowing you'll draw the attention of so many replies when you make any statement.

The five responses you received aren't fair reactions, though the fifth doesn't always imply dismissal.
I'm ignored in there too, on occasion.
The four other potted response are unfair dismissals and, frankly, should not be a response to a contrary voice that speaks out.
Granted, the people who do respond that way may genuinely believe what they are saying, but it doesn't make them right.
Aside from contributing the the feeling of being outnumbered in a thread, those responses in themselves are evidence of poor behavior on the parts of the individuals who do respond that way and I can understand that leading to a feeling of unwelcome in that thread, but I don't see how that can stretch to the rest of the site.

Now, if the feeling of unwelcome is due to overspill into other threads, then I can understand that.
It does happen though it shouldn't.
In fairness to this, there are some threads that are ancillary to topics that involve GamerGate, such as this one.
However, in looking at a glance at the off topic section, the threads that qualify under that criteria are a greatly in the minority.
I've seen a little bleed over into the Games forum, but they sink quickly and rightly so.

I'm not questioning the fact that you do feel unwelcome on this site.
What I am doing is trying to understand why.
The issues you raised are, save for the PM responses, exclusive to that thread and the few others that relate to periphery issues.
If there is someone using the PM system to behave poorly, a moderator needs to know about it.
Not just for yourself, but for all the other people they could be doing the same to out of public sight.

I guess, the reason I'm trying to unravel this with guesswork is simply this.
No one deserves to feel unwelcome on this website, and if there's a way to resolve that, I want to be part of the solution.
It's a big place and there's room for all.

 

[Fox12]

For a group that has anti-censorship as one of its primary talking points, it sure seems like asking for trouble to say anything against it. Obviously, first off, you're going to get ten million comments telling you you obviously did no research, don't understand the movement, etc. Right? Well, yes, *but* it isn't that bad. I wasn't sure if I should say anything against GamerGate, even though it's something I follow very closely, because of the perception I had that I would be harassed, bothered, and that it would be a pretty serious clusterfuck to even broach the issue.

It wasn't. It was well worth it.

Sure, I got comments telling me I obviously did no research. I hate that one-- as if watching this thing unfold for over two months across hundreds of websites and forums, reading GamerGate in GamerGate's own words, doesn't count as research. What surprised me was that I only got a couple dozen comments like this among two hundred comments, and even then, other users were calling folks out about it. And no one was shit-slinging, either-- the video I did, while coming down firmly against GamerGate as a movement, didn't make any wild accusations and for the most part, neither did the commentors. And my channel is pretty small (7k subscribers), so it's a risk to come out with an opinion you know is going to alienate some of your viewers. I expected to lose up to a thousand subscribers. I ended up losing 120-- and considering that I lose 20-40 subscribers *every time* I put out a new video on anything, that's barely significant.

All in all, what I'm saying is that staying silent isn't as critical for your long-term security in the gaming community as you think-- all these blacklists and bullshit and bluster you see, it isn't actually very powerful. It's only got power now because they're the loudest voices in the room. It's important for people who are part of the consumer end of the gaming economy, who don't have any kind of agenda other than "I love games" to be able to have their voices heard too. It's not necessary to speak louder than the most toxic voices of GamerGate-- doing so would be incredibly obnoxious. Speak, though! GamerGate isn't as big or as meaningful as it thinks, it's only this bipartisan "Gamers vs. The Press, CHOOSE WISELY" dichotomy they try to force that makes it appear that way. This isn't a two sided issue. It's a thousand sided issue. The fewer people standing behind their honest, heartfelt opinions, the longer and more venomous this thing becomes.

I honestly don't think the gamer gate folks were as hostile as they were perceived to be. Not here, anyway. They were civil when I spoke to them, and other then some unfair criticism directed at Jim Sterling, they weren't behaving irrationally. At the very least, I think they made some interesting points. The problem is that their more of an unorganized collective with some fringe elements. I largely agree with their criticism of journalism, though I tend to be more defensive of feminism then they are. To be fair, a lot of them had moved past the zoe scandal to shed light on more important issues.

 

[AkaDad]

There's no need to be afraid about opposing Gamergate. There's plenty of reasons why I don't.

1. How it started with 4chan and the harassment of Zoe Quinn.

2. The dishonesty of some saying it didn't start there. Even the guy who started the Gamergate resources thread admits it started with Zoe.

3. The false accusations of corruption.

4. The temper tantrum over the "gamers are dead" articles.

5. The anti-feminist rants.

6. Saying it's about journalistic ethics and then supporting a Breitbart "journalist" who's said worst things about gamers than those gamers are dead articles.

7. The war mentality of trying to ruin the livelihoods of journalists.

I've also been visiting the blacklisted sites and giving them some clicks.

 

[Orphan81]

I reiterate, this is not a debate. Gamergate is not a debate. It has not been a debate for quite some time now. Gamergate is a consumer activism movement to burn businesses to the ground and salt the earth for their ilk in the future. Gamergate is a mass-email campaign intended to change an industry to suit the liking of the majority of its consumers. That is all it is. There is no leader, there are no tenets, there is no collusion. The reason gamergate still exists after two months is because there are still things for people to be angry about. You cannot remove someone's anger by debating their right to be angry, you can only remove it by removing the source for their anger. "Debate" in the context of gamergate is a joke, and should be treated as such.

This right here. I have never been on any of the Chans, I don't use IRC, I don't support harassment. I'm a Sociologist, a Democratic Socialist, and part of the core gamer demographic (I.E. those who gaming is their primary hobby, who play more than 20 hours a week of videogames, and who purchase mainly mainstream titles over indie titles). We are in fact the majority of the video game consuming industry.

We are not all white straight males. We are diveristy, we are women, we are men, we are all colors, we are all creeds. We are people who do not support harassment of anyone. We are people who are sick of agendas and politics being put into our videogames. We are a consumer revolt, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Jux]

No you said you stopped following everything regarding the controversy because research was too time consuming for you, but that never stopped you from talking about it.

So because I don't actively follow whatever ya'll are on about at this very moment, everything I was informed about up until that point is null and void? Did ya'll make a time machine and reinvent how all this happened? Is what I knew prior no longer actually events that took place?

If you don't care, you don't talk about it and go about your day. Not run around spouting copy pasted spin from the gamergate twitter feed. Which people would only know by looking at twitter.

I don't care about whatever gg is breathlessly reporting about at whatever moment of the day, that doesn't mean I don't care about letting ya'll rewrite history however you please. And I don't follow twitter. I occasionally see what gets posted there when it's linked to me. So thanks, but I'm not going to tell you what to talk about, so kindaly extend me the same courtesy.

and its hilarious how you say its "docdump" instead of sourcing claims because it gets too long. By your own words. I should hire kotaku to condense it into a single sentence analogy using Master Chief and Rainbow Dash, that would be so much more reputable right?

The last few conversations we had, every time you 'sourced a claim', it was a laundry list of stuff, most of which had nothing to do with what I was asking for. So yea, that is pretty much the definition of docdumping.

and you condemn harassment? Okay then, then why did you defend the journalists who set their fans on these people or tumblr who is the source of a lot of doxxing and threats?

[citation needed] on all of it. First that journalists 'set their fans' on anyone, second that I actually defended such a thing.

Saying it didn't exist and wasn't a rampant problem? You were more than happy to side step the hate coming from these two sources yet gamergaters get multiple death threats every day.

Every time you try to correct someone, its always about gamergate and how its awful. You never corrected anyone saying anti GG is about diversity when one of the main figureheads against gamergate is a white supremacist who claims he is THE diversity in anti GG.

so don't tell me you go after both when its obvious you only go after one.

I frankly don't care if you go after harassment or not. What I care about is that if gg is about journalistic ethics, that's what they stick to.

 

[Silvanus]

I have to go to sleep (3:00AM here) so I will make it quick:

The biggest is that 4chan banned discussion about GamerGate almost a month ago (Think about it: 4chan banned a topic).

Remember, this wasn't ideological, it wasn't censorship from the anti-gamergate side. Apparently, it was because they violated the rules pertaining to personal information and raids [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bx0VQwBCUAE809U.png:large]. We should all recognise the right of a site's own owner to moderate it; almost every site has rules.

Every pro-GG member of NeoGAF was banned early in the controversy.

I couldn't find anything conclusive on this. Do you have any links? I found people who had been banned and claimed this was the reason, but that's far from compelling.

If true, it's a pretty shoddy way to run a discussion board, but it's still an example of a site moderating its own content; it's not really censorship.

At the GameJournoPro leak Ben Kuchera of Polygon tried to convince Greg Tito of the Escapist to ban all discussion from the Escapist. After the emails were leaked there was the DDOS attack against the Escapist as well.
When Cracked went Anti-GG all of the pro-gg comments were deleted or defaced by the mods.

Those are from the top of my head, I am sure that more examples are around and if you need proof some Pro-GG people here will be happy to offer it.

I am going to sleep, have a goon day/afternoon/night everyone.

I'm extremely glad Greg and the Escapist ignored that call, then. It's a legitimate discussion, and ignoring it won't make it go away.

A quick hunt for a Gamergate-related Cracked article [http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-ways-gamergate-debate-has-made-world-worse/] shows that comments disagreeing (vocally and even aggressively) with the article still stand.

Co-opting the moderators on Reddit and 4chan to ban all discussion of the topic. Taking down MundaneMatt's video with a bogus DMCA complaint. Getting Thunderfoot banned from Twitter for criticizing Anita Sarkeesian's videos. Trying to browbeat Greg Tito into locking GamerGate threads right here on the escapist.

Edit: Plus the other examples in the post above mine.

I addressed most of this stuff above. With regards to Thunderf00t, I can't find what tweet(s) he was actually banned for. If you know where I can, I'd appreciate a link.

I'd like to evaluate whether it was actually just legitimate criticism, or whether Twitter's stated grounds have any basis.

 

[Mikeybb]

Hi Mikey,

By the way, when I spoke of people I find genuinely pleasant to talk to, you are counted amongst those people. At any rate, you'd be surprised how incredibly easy it is to find bleeding into other topics, even when said topic isn't about gamergate. Sure, you'd think Feminism it'd pop up, but I saw one the other day (and I swear I wish I could remember what it was about) where it erupted between two people. And then the entire thread eventually devolved into it.

That's really nice to hear.
The first bit I mean.
All the rest is disheartening.

Anyway, first off I'm going to apologize for slicing up your post to respond to.
I'm not overly fond of it as a method of response.
It always looks a little confrontational.
Only doing it here to help keep my migraine addled brain on track.

I'm disappointed to learn it's spreading to places it shouldn't
If I spot it, I try to nudge it back to the coral, but I can't be here all the time.
I know for some it's the topic that fires everything they want to talk about, but there needs to be some consideration in that regard.

It regularly gets pushed into the R&P section, but because they don't really want to talk about it there, it usually gets ignored (thankfully). But even things that are just supposed to be about stupid topics can eventually set into a fight amongst people about gamergate, because someone has brought up feminism, or journalism, or harassment, or something. One of those filthy buzzwords that get thrown around.

That's even more disappointing.
What I said above stands.
We have a place for that to be discussed and other specific threads for it too.
I know tempers can fray and spill overs can happen, but that needs to be dealt with as in a place like R&P, it's blatant derailing.

The GameDev articles, both female and male articles, were really interesting, but the female one just exploded into a toxic thread almost immediately. Granted, that one was actually about gamergate, but it wasn't supposed to be about journalism, it was supposed to be about developers and how they've been dealing with it. About how they saw it. But somehow it became whether or not Escapist had written a bad article, if these women were fake, if they made everything up to get attention... And that's just not very welcoming.
Instead of seeing it as a way to see how developers were handling the gamergate situation it turned back into just a fight about Zoe and Anita (a bunch of it was), and Jim and SJWs, so even the Gamergate threads that aren't about the same old gamergate issues end up getting hijacked so you can't feel welcomed to talk about new things.

To you and me both.
I only stepped into those threads to say 'thankyou for posting them' and give an immediate feedback.
Didn't stay around long enough to witness any of that, but sadly it's not hard to imagine it happening.

Hijacking needs to be curtailed.

I think that's what I mean by not feeling welcomed. I have no issue about bleeding into other threads, but when it turns so angry so quickly, then what's the point of going into a thread in the first place? Why not just turn on Rush Limbaugh or Bill Mahr and have them tell me I'm wrong for whatever I'm believing in for the next hour?

You know, it's odd.
This was something I posted about last night.
I don't know if it was read or not.
...but anyway.

I'm starting to think that this is happening because of a general lack of engagement from the people that these individual posters are angry toward.
As a result, when they do find a contrary opinion on the matter, the words (and the emotions wrapped up with them) that they wish they could be heard by some, are instead heard by someone who doesn't deserve that kind of impassioned response.

Now, I know and you know this is not an excuse for doing it, just my take on the 'why' it's happening.

I expressed in the GG thread that the more it happens, the more we treat the people who will listen like they're manifestations of the people who we're angry at for refusing to listen, the more we're going to drive them away.
In the end, there'll be no one left who wants to listen at all.

Suffice to say, I hope some people read it and internalized it.

As for the people that sent me the messages, I just delete them. I'm not one to send anything to mods, I've explained why before, back on the Zoe thread, which you probably missed, but it comes down to a long history of stuff that is entirely too complicated to explain here and derails the conversation a bit. If it were anything more than sarcastic or mean, then I would do so, but they're mostly just not happy people, and for that I just close my eyes and take a breath and delete. Much easier that way to me.

I did miss the original, and I won't ask you to derail or drag up something unpleasant.
Also, I'll ask for forbearance on this exchange as I think we are derailing a little bit here, but anyway...

That's a decision I'm going to respect, even if I don't agree.
You have to deal with that kind of harassment in the way that makes you most comfortable and no one has a right to ask you to deal with it in any other way.

I will ask that if anyone else who reads this has received nasty private messages though, please report that behavior to a moderator.
The people who are doing that to you are likely doing it to other people as well.
it shouldn't be allowed to go on.

Anyway.
I hope that there's something that can be done to tone down that feeling the thread and other overspills have been giving lately.
You are a liked poster and would be missed by a lot of people here.
I'm at a loss to think what that could be right now, but suffice to say, It's something I'm going to be ruminating on.

 

[Jux]

Rewriting history? What?

Primarily, the stone headed insistence that gg didn't spawn from harassment of quinn that I see so much from gg supporters.

It doesn't matter how it starts, it matters how it ends.

Ah yes, 'the ends justify the means'. Words spoken by every man of integrity.

Civil rights started as violent backlash against whites in the 1800s all the way into the 1900s. No one is saying the NAACP condones genocide of whites.

Climb off that cross man, ya'll aren't fighting for civil rights.

Labor unions were once illegal and called communist spies. No one is saying labor unions are communist now.

Yea, I'd disagree with that. [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2010/12/09/afl-cio-leader-gladly-accepts-communist-party-award/] That aside though, who cares if troglodytes call labor unions communist? I don't have anything particularly against communists. If anything, hard core communists are just wild eyed idealists to me, much like libertarians, but less destructive than the Randroids.

and you did defend journalists by saying harassment from their side was nonexistent and one off events. Now you're saying harassment doesn't matter and all you care about is "making sure gamer gate sticks to its message."

Just as I thought. Thanks for admitting it.

So, you're not going to provide citation that journalists 'set their fans on' anyone, or that I defended it. Ok, good to know.

 

[Ushiromiya Battler]

Remember, this wasn't ideological, it wasn't censorship from the anti-gamergate side. Apparently, it was because they violated the rules pertaining to personal information and raids [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bx0VQwBCUAE809U.png:large]. We should all recognise the right of a site's own owner to moderate it; almost every site has rules.

I only have issue with this. The rule might be there, but it was never enforced before this point. Unless it was a specific instance where the owner had been contacted by authorities.
That one rule is literally broken everyday on the site.
EDIT: I noticed you linked a post related to /v/, which I'll agree was correct.
I've only taken issue at the banning and censoring on the /b/(random) board.


OT: I've mostly noticed that as long as you don't pick a side and don't actively post in threads saying how much you don't care or tell one side they're wrong you don't get harassed by either side.
I care enough about it that I'll occasionally make a post on it, but I don't go around and claim I don't care while actively bashing either side. Which a lot of people do.
Still, most people I've spoken to about it has been fairly nice.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

Personally, I'm not so much as afraid as not interested in participating. I don't participate in any discussions about Anita Sarkeesian stuff, and Im not about to start with this. I have an opinion on it obviously, but the way this issue has been blown out of proportion by everybody, me responding would be like throwing a glass of water onto a forest fire.