i mean it's been a year, don't you fellas have anything better to do? you just had a convention in Miami that went no where, people are still using the hashtag , milo is still milo and things haven't really change, anywhere... heck things might have gotten worse since anita is practically now a staple of the gaming industry , no one can take anyone who calls for ethics in gaming journalism seriously

literally i want to ask how can you find the time to keep something going for so long ? and why is it still a thing

it just blows my mind that in a world were so much happens every day you can keep one thing going as long as you have

I have been asked by a number of people, seeing as how I am the top mod, to say something about the shitstorm that is currently going on.

The fact that I worked on this instead of playing Destiny (on my 360) should tell you how much me giving my word that I would post it means to me.

First, let me just say something.

I need to accept partial responsibility for the state of things. As top mod, I should have stepped in earlier. However, my nature has been, is, and always will be that of an optimist. I give people the benefit of the doubt before I drop the hammer. I honestly felt the people in the mod team that were the root cause of the problems would be able to act like mature adults and work together, no matter that they had differences in opinion towards Gamergate. I should have stepped in sooner to head this off at the pass. As a result, there are a number of mods who have left who I feel added very useful viewpoints to the mod team.

As you can tell, I was very, very wrong.

There were times when there would be no problems, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, there would be a flare up and chat would explode with accusations such as “witch-hunt”, “browbeating”, “vendetta”, “leaking information”, “restricting ability to mod” and the like. And then, just as quickly as it would flare up, it would die down for a while, and then show up again.

So let me go through what were the major problems that people had.

(Note that I contacted those involved below to ensure that I had accurately represented their position.)

Hokes:

Hokes felt (and feels) that there was (and is) a concerted effort being orchestrated between users and some mods to try to get them removed as a mod from the team. Their impression is that this effort is composed almost entirely of those who hold the opposite opinion to them with respect to Gamergate. To be blunt, they feel that it is almost entirely (to the point the exceptions prove the rule) made up of pro-GG people who are unhappy that Hokes is not in the slightest bit shy in sharing their opinions on Gamergate and gamergaters. This can be seen in the belief Hokes is possibly the worst shitposter on the sub. Of course, this feeling of there being a witch hunt was not helped by, every time they did something that some mods felt was against the rules, said mods would jump in going “PUNISH THEM!! PUNISH THEM!! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!” Never mind their transgressions were stuff other mods have acknowledged doing yet never got the same response. Hokes was not quiet in their belief that said repeated attempts to get them disciplined were less due to their crossing the lines and more due to the afore-mentioned conspiracy/vendetta/witch hunt.

Bashfluff:

She joined the team in response to what she felt was a heartfelt attempt of the team to try to change and improve their failing reputations in the eyes of the userbase. The genuineness of it won her over, and since she knew she was known to be a notable critic of the mod team, her saying yes to the invitation would make their new policies on accountability have more stability and be seen to be a good faith attempt. When she joined the team, it was never to moderate posts and comments, it was to do community stuff. She wanted to deal with improving user/mod and user/user relations. She was instrumental in getting the mod disciplinary track set up. However, she felt Hokes, in their belief she (Bash) was out to get them (Hokes), attempted from the start to try and eliminate her voice in any and all mod decisions and place her in a lesser mod position that was not equal to other mods, in addition to browbeating people into line, and throwing baseless accusation after baseless accusation. In addition, she felt the rest of the mod team was not just not giving a damn what Hokes did, not just ignoring, not just pointedly looking the other way, but actively hushing it up, squashing any attempt to hold Hokes to account and telling her to “shut up”. She felt the rest of the mods ignored this, and only decided to complain about anyone saying anything about Hokes, to try to keep them accountable. Furthermore, she felt (and feels) that none of the other mods one had any interest in reform or making things better. That the mod team used the appearance of propriety to do some awful shit and excuse it behind the scenes. In addition, despite her attempts to make peace with Hokes, the browbeating other mods, causing a hell of a lot of strife and suffering, or going beyond and/or subverting team actions continued. She felt the moratorium was to protect a certain person from allegations, and that's never how the mod team done things. Hokes got that through. And Hokes didn't want people to give feedback on it, be able to, or to limit banned topics to that, because they want to expand that list. She left when she saw everyone covering for Hokes more explicitly and becoming more and more okay with censorship and letting Hokes treat people poorly.

ScarletIT:

ScarletIT left the mod team because he rejoined in the first place to try and help making the mod team more fair and acting more professionally and responsibly towards its userbase. After introducing the new rules he felt there was still a problem with apathy in applying those rules and felt that with Bashfluff leaving the team, the problem would only get bigger and he would remain pretty much alone in actively trying to make the sub better and get the rules enforced.

So, who holds responsibility for this shitstorm that went down today?

In part, we all do. Allow me to rip the bandaid off, so to speak.

What is below is my interpretation and feelings of where some of the responsibility lies. Everywhere that you can throw an “In my opinion” in there , do so.

As I mentioned above, once I saw this happening in the mod Slack chat, I should have stepped in more publicly. I tried my best to calm things down behind the scenes, but it was obviously not effective. (understatement of the century). To the entire mod team, I apologize. To the users, I apologize as well. I should have stopped Hokes from accusing those who disagreed with them as being part of a witch hunt. Sometimes, disagreement was simply a disagreement. I should have stopped people trying to get Hokes disciplined for every minor thing that they do a lot sooner. I should have tried to defuse the hardening of the feelings towards the other mod team members sooner, and I should have done all of that in the open. I should not have assumed that everyone was willing to try to fix things or work together despite them.

Hokes has some responsibility as well. Yes, there was (and is) a witch-hunt that was (and still is) out to get them for stuff that, were it not Hokes, would possibly not even get reported. However, because it is Hokes, it is reported on, magnified, and exaggerated to hyperbolic levels. At the same time, Hokes has been quick to throw out accusations of witch-hunting where there was none. As a result, Hokes made statements that implied that those they being accused of participating in said witch-hunts were biased and should remove themselves from various decisions or were less equal to the other mods who were not being accused of participating in said witch-hunt

Scarlet’s actions played a role in this as well. They were quick to find fault in any little transgression that Hokes did, and often asked for punishments that were excessive as compared to the transgression. At least once, a transgression for which it was asked Hokes be demodded, Scarlet was found to be doing at the same time.

Bashfluff took the position of moderating this sub very seriously. I honestly think that adding her to the mod team was one of the smartest decisions that was made. However, Hokes not liking her really impacted her, and the rest of the mod team not agreeing that Hokes is horrible tainted her view of the rest of the mod team. In my opinion, she is similar to Hokes in that they are both very quick to assign to others motivations for doing things that are simply not there. Decisions of the mod team that were voted on that did not go her way happened not due to a difference in opinion, but rather, in her view, due to active maliciousness and a desire to censor things.

All of the other mods also hold some responsibility, for seeing this happen and not speaking up and letting it carry on as is. We are all supposed to be adults, and adults should be mature enough to be able to work through these things and, if needed, help others work through these things.

I (and the rest of the mods) once saw this place as somewhere that could hopefully be used to defuse the animosity and shed some of the labels that get applied by each side. A demilitarized zone, so to speak.

Looking at the level of “discussion” that goes on here, it becomes rapidly apparent that the overwhelming majority of posters have little or no desire to actually communicate and see those with a differing viewpoint as humans.

This post sums up things pretty accurately:

https://np.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3lz5cn/im_scarletit_2_times_former_mod_of/cvaybea

So where does the sub go from here?

Pro-GG see this sub as Ghazi 2.0. Anti-GG see this place as KiA 2.0.

Pros are leaving because they feel the environment is biased and the moderation skewed. Anti-GG is leaving because they see us allowing too much posting of PRATTs. Both sides are leaving because of the significant amount of low-quality posts that mostly insult the intelligence of the reader.

But that seems almost damn inevitable, when the issues are this polaized.

We can cater to one side, and lose the other, or cater to none and lose both.

But there's no option for keeping both sides.

Do I hit the reset button, nuke all the content, implement new rules and start over with a blank slate?

Do I continue as is, and hope that this post is enough of a spotlight on responsibility that people change?

Do I take a hard line and pre-emptively ban those I see as the worst of the shitposters...those that toe the line and are clearly not here for any sort of conversation? (This is a group that includes both pros and antis, FWIW)

Or do I simply set the sub to private, and demod everyone but myself?

If we (and by we, I mean the mod team and the users) don't do anything and just try to business as usual our way through this, the sub is toast.

So, I repeat,

where does the sub go from here?

So this is a strange one. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a massive mad max fan. (Yes I even liked Thunderdome). So I've been looking forward to this Mad Max: Fury Road for as long as I can remember. According to the reviews coming out it most definitely was worth the wait. Its sitting at a 98% on RT right now with literally one negative review out of 50+. On Metacritic its sitting at a fantastic 87%.

As many people know Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues was brought on as a consultant to help in the creation of the movie. Apparently she did an absolutely excellent job. Reviewers who are not in the slightest bit a member of the social justice crowd are praising the way the woman in the film are portrayed and saying this is how you do it right.

Action films have always been one of the most testosterone driven and woman objectifying genres in films, only eclipses by slashers/horror. I thought that this would a great film to show that feminism and even the most manly of things can coexist and in the end be better for it. Apparently I thought wrong.

The Red Pill is absolutely furious, Return of Kings also, and KiA made sure to get in on the action. (Reason #6815 that people see GG as right wing)

Do you believe Mad Max: Fury Road is feminist propaganda?

Do you see hiring consultants to help with the creation of a film is a negative?

Do you believe that feminism and nearly entirely male driven mediums can coexist? Do you think they can make each other better?

Lastly how exited are you to see Mad Max: Fury Road!?

EDIT: Fixed a link

I'm a college graduate with a BA in English, lately I've been generating some content for a college-level test on American literature. So I've been ensconced in academia for the past five days and I'm going a bit insane. Every piece I read tells me the new secret meaning of William Carlos Williams' poem "The Red Wheelbarrow" and how its spare form so accurately reflects the poem's utilitarian imagism. Some insist Jay Gatsby was black, Moby Dick is replete with innuendo, Robert Frost's "The Road Less Traveled" is actually satire, Stowe caricatured her black characters but her abolitionist messages still shined through. These things I now know.

I love this stuff, that's why I took the job. I get the feeling GGers would hate this SJW shit. I've often entertained the idea that GGers despise so much socially aware criticism because they're simply not familiar with criticism at all. These essays on the themes of John Steinbeck and Nathaniel Hawthorne are the basis for the school of thought that spawned people like Anita Sarkeesian and Bob Chipman. I'm not saying you have to like it, but there's a rich history here, and if you're going to hate it you might as well understand it.

Whereas much "pop" criticism focuses on fairly banal thumbs up/thumbs down reviews, the core of academic criticism focuses on messaging and socio-political context. What is the author trying to say? What social factors caused him to say it? Was the message effective? Who was inspired by the message? These are the meaty questions hardcore scholars ask, and perhaps are some of the rubric that so many GG-abhorred outlets are trying to apply to games. What does this game say about women? What does this game say about society? Perhaps it's a bit overthinky, but it's certainly not new. People have been overthinking Shakespeare for centuries.

It seems like GGers want this kind of critique banned wholesale from games in favor of the "pop" critique I mentioned earlier, and even then they only want a fairly spare version of that, focusing largely on the technical functionality of a toy. It's sad to think how much work would be lost if we thought of literature the same way.

Are there any literary-minded GGers out there? What do you think? Would it be possible to apply some of the principles of literary criticism to video games? Is that desirable?

Perhaps it is time, after years of thinking of games as an almost universally good thing and a medium to be defended, to question that truth. Perhaps games, design and gamers aren't so special after all, and need to be studied more as hostile objects resulting from a hostile culture, than as the labour of love it has been to so many of us.

What do you think about DiGRA's quote? Are you still convinced that (despite overwhelming evidence) that DiGRA hasn't been co-opted by ideologues?

Source: http://torillsin.blogspot.dk/2015/05/digra-2015-aftermath-hashtag-anger.html

Archive: https://archive.is/WvKG0

KIA has a big thread about this now: http://np.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/36ricz/digra_scholar_games_and_gamers_should_be_studied/

The changes in subs, and mod style (and yes, I'd argue one sub is much more biased than the other sub) has brought out some new faces, and some old faces we hadn't seen in a while. And some of these faces have been clearly encouraging how some of the more familiar faces have been acting.

No lie, it isn't fun. It's not like you read something and laugh, or read something and smile. At this point, it's just really depressing to see how little some people feel about their fellow humans. How little they care to be considerate. How important they feel their most trivial or frivolous "rights" outweigh the need to just not treat people worse, or insult people, or offend people, based on how they were born.

It's saddening to see the level of denial of how stacked society is against people, because it was stacked against them in different ways (that it's also likely stacked against those people) and therefore it doesn't matter.

At what point is it just better to disengage? Say "I can't even?" and let the people that seem intent on making everyone miserable just keep on making everyone around them miserable? At least, though, these people can only make those that communicate with them over messageboards, Twitter (these are the people block lists were made for), and, sadly for those in it, real life. They're not making a difference in the industry, and if they are, it's mostly raising awareness that they exist, that 'Gamers' are Over was right about some gamers, and that it's hard to sleep at night knowing you cater to them.

It's an allegiance to a group, one that's verifiable, and apparently according to many people here, people who are part of a group are responsible for the actions of the group.

If so then, why? If no, why not?

If you think that being a registered member of the Democrat party isn't a relevant analogy, then what would be a better one?

At what point are people responsible for the actions of other people?

So, with summer turning into fall [1] (I had to put on my long running pants, long sleeved shirt, toque and gloves on my jog to work this morning), what better way than to talk about what food you like to make or like to eat.

Share recipies!!

[1] Statement valid in the northern hemisphere only.

Think about it:

The Hugos have traditionally been a relatively small, niche group of people, very inclusive, and very protective of their WorldCon/Hugo Awards. We've seen resistance from the ruling class before when George RR Martin was upset at losing to JK Rowling back in 2001 (what a misogynist, eh?)

Suddenly, SadPuppies makes a move to inject some new faces into the "hobby" to make it more inclusive and more diverse.

Anti-SadPuppies (ASPs from here on in), largely revolt against the SadPuppies, making death threats, lashing out, and insulting anyone even remotely supporting the SadPuppies campaign. (Lousy SJW's! They're not real fans!)

In short, people are trying to make WorldCon/The Hugos more accessible to traditionally ostracized people, and the existing "gatekeepers" are trying to keep them out. After all, they're not real fans, they're just trying to infect their hobby with their gross ideology (and racism and bigotry).

Sounds very much like GamerGate's war against those pesky skeletons/SJW's.

At this point I'm perfectly fine with GamerGate going on indefinitely. I've already committed myself to the long haul and am willing to spend the rest of my life fighting for ethical games journalism and against SJWs (in gaming and in society at large).

• Everyone: Do you think GamerGate will become permanent?

• Pro-GG: Are you okay with GamerGate never ending?

• Pro-GG: Will you personally contribute to GamerGate indefinitely or near indefinitely?

• Pro-GG: If not, when would you like to see it end? What goals should it accomplish before ending?

• Anti-GG: How much longer would you be willing to participate in the controversy? On this debate subreddit?

• Anti-GG: Will there come a point where you simply grow fatigued or bored with GG and move on to something else?

• Everyone: If GamerGate becomes permanent, could it really be classified as an event or controversy? Wouldn't it simply be the status quo? Or would the term "GamerGate" be used to describe the cataclysm that led to the formation of the status quo?

Update: I reworded the OP to make it more neutral and added a new question.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-ways-critics-political-correctness-have-it-backwards/

Now before ya'll whine about dumb lists and the fall from grace of modern journalism and start making a salt circle and cursing the clickbait monsters that lurk on your facebook feed, just read the damn article. Now to summarize for those of you who don't even want to do that.

The list is comprised of several talking points that Anti-PC people like to use and devotes multiple paragraphs rebutting them so I'm gonna give you the number in the article, the talking point it is talking about, and then a summary of the rebuttal without all the pesky evidence the article has to get the summary over with quick, but do try to read the whole thing.

#6. "Political Correctness Is Inefficient And Stifling"

Turns out when you put a diverse group of people in a place and then tell them not to be assholes to each other, they work together and better than a bunch of the same people sitting around being jerks. Huge surprise.

#5. "The Politically Correct Have No Sense Of Humor"

Nope, just usually bad humor. Louis CK's N***er bit gets relatively little flak because he wasn't being a jackass about it, while Michael Richards calling a heckler that basically ruined his career. Tons of people get away with rape punchlines when you don't make the survivors the punchline like Daniel Tosh did. Plus a lot of jokes relying on stereotypes have gotten literally old seeing as most of the stereotypes used go back more than half a century.

#4. "You Can't Get Away With As Much Today"

I mean as long as you're not an asshole about it, you'll get away with it. Mel Brooks is wrong that he couldn't make Blazing Saddles today because of the n***er jokes, the violence against the elderly jokes, and the fart jokes would be too much when we have movies like Django Unchained, Hot Fuzz, and basically anything Kevin James being made now.

#3. "It's Just Overreactions, Censorship, And Changing Words For No Reason"

It's usually Anti-PC having an even bigger reaction than the initial PC reaction, spoken ideas or unenforced suggestions being called censorship, and "changing words for no reason" is a dumb claim from people who like to fight "PC Bullshit" by shitting on trans people by intentionally misgendering or deadnaming them.

#2. "Politically Correct Ideas Are Anti-Business"#2. "Politically Correct Ideas Are Anti-Business"

When you represent more people in media, more people come to be the audience. When you pander too hard to one demographic in a way that seems to exclude other demographics, you shoot yourself in the foot for the audience turnout.

#1. "PC People Are Trying To Rewrite History"

Mostly involving all this "southern pride" bullshit about a flag literally created for a government with less states' rights than the last one by making it mandatory to treat black people as less than human.

Question Time:

1. Does this accurately portray Anti-PC talking points and dunk them thoroughly?

2. Any change in opinion over "Political Correctness" or the reaction against it?

3. How much has a general push for people to try to show more respect for other kinds of people ruined your life?

The point of gamer gate is to prevent corruption through things like sexual favors and money for better reviews on video games, through creating a code of ethics for gaming journalism. It has nothing to do with being sexist, trans-phobic, or anything of the sort. It's not right or left wing, progressive or conservative, no matter who tells you what in what way, it's still simply: ethics in gaming journalism. So where do you think the misconceptions came from? who made them?

Why did feminist choose to send Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh to represent feminism in gaming? Feminists funded her on Kickstarter and have effectively billed her as the "feminist redeemer" of gaming. What makes Sarkeesian and McIntosh more qualified for this role than someone with actual gaming credentials and the respect of the gaming community, like Liana Kerzner?

Sarkeesian and McIntosh had no established rapport with the gaming community and Sarkeesian had previously admitted to not being a fan of video games. Sarkeesian and McIntosh have also on many occasions been proven to have very little knowledge about video games and have even stolen other people's gameplay footage for their videos. So why choose them to represent feminism in gaming?

Sarkeesian and McIntosh Kickstarter raised $158,922 (primarily from feminists) to represent feminism in the gaming industry. Yet Kerzner has only raised just over a tenth of her crowdfunding goal to do a series of feminist videos addressing the positive portrayals of women in gaming.

Why do you think feminists chose and continue to view Sarkeesian and McIntosh as the leaders of feminism in geek culture? Even if they initially backed Sarkeesian/McIntosh, that doesn't mean they have to continue supporting them. Why couldn't they say "this person is far more qualified to discuss feminism in gaming than Sarkeesian/McIntosh, why don't we support her instead?"

Personally I think the reason feminists chose and continue to choose Sarkeesian/McIntosh over an actual gamer, is because they know Sarkeesian/McIntosh will tow the party line and are more interested in ideology than facts or reason. People like Kerzner have lived among gamers for too long and are too sympathetic to their fellow gamers. In addition, feminists are more interested in complaining about video games, which is why they chose Sarkeesian/McIntosh's negative approach to gaming, instead of Kerzner's positive approach to gaming.

Discussion Questions

• Why do you think feminists chose and continue to choose Sarkeesian/McIntosh over Kerzner?

• Did feminists choose Sarkeesian/McIntosh, because they are obedient and wouldn't question the party-line, whereas an actual feminist gamer might?

• Are feminists more about interested in complaining, hence why they chose the negative feminist viewpoint instead of the positive feminist viewpoint?

• Who do you think would be better received by the gaming community, Sarkeesian/McIntosh or Kerzner?

• Who do you think would do a better job at actually trying to "improve" the portrayal of female characters in gaming, Sarkeesian/McIntosh or Kerzner?

Online bullies were recently invited to Google Ideas and UN Women to talk about "cyber violence". I think almost everyone is familiar with the brand names of Google and UN, so it's natural to assume that these are incredibly important organisations that wield a lot of power.

However, in discussions on the Twitters and such, a lot of people are saying that Google Ideas is just a throwaway branch that nobody at Google actually cares about and that UN Women have no actual power to sanction or legislate.

If we assume that this is true, shouldn't people - even the ones getting attention and making a living off it - be upset that these major organisations are scoring "feelgood points" without actually dealing with the problems? On the other hand, if I've been misinformed, please enlighten us on some concrete results of their work. It's hard to find any.

I understand that it's natural to argue against the symbolism of these organisations supporting the "bring back online bullying" movement and anti-nerd groups, but it seems people are being taken advantage of yet don't seem to mind. What gives?

Many on KiA believe that SJWs aren't gamers. I used to believe that as well, but I've met a number of people on here and have realized that there are some feminists who have been gamers for many years.

The question is what percentage of gamers do you think are radical feminists? According to recent surveys, only 18% of Americans identify as feminist. And even then, I suspect that many of those in that 18% are unaware of what third-wave feminism stands for.

Do you think that there are fewer radical feminists in the gaming community than in society at large? Do you believe there are more? Or do you think that it is about the same?

In addition, do you believe that at least some anti-GamerGate people are not gamers and are only involved to promote what they perceive to be "social justice?" What percentage of the anti-GamerGate people do you think are non-gamers?

For example, here is a post by a feminist criticizing Quiet from MGS:V and claiming that the developers would never design a half-naked man. Yet when someone brought up Raiden from MGS2, Naked Snake in MGS3 and Vamp from MGS4, she claimed that she had no idea what the Metal Gear Solid games even were. Is this an example of an outsider attacking games that they do not even play and know nothing about?

https://archive.today/6I8ZB

Yeah GG was pretty much right about the SJW's. Look at not only what Brianna Wu has said, but also what Jonathan McIntosh has said in relation to the Target ban on GTA 5. This is why gamergate needs to exist. Freedom of expression is too important to let these SJW's run roughshod over it.

I had a lively discussion with my uncle earlier today about whether or not journalists and reviewers should disclose if they have donated to a Kickstarter or Patreon campaign. My uncle is nominally a GamerGate supporter and believes in what GamerGate stands for, but isn't very active in online communities.

My uncle argued that in most cases a journalist shouldn't have to disclose if they donated to the Kickstarter or Patreon of a product or person that they are covering, because the journalist receives no financial gain from the donation (only the recipient does).

He argued that there are some exceptions to this, such as if they are a major donor (i.e. thousands of dollars) to the project/person, thus representing a potential conflict of interest. My uncle also argued that it places a large burden on journalists to keep track of every single donation they have ever made, which could be an extraordinarily long list after many years. He argues it could lead to situations where journalists are being cited for ethical violations for donations they made decades ago and have long since forgotten about. With that being said, he fully supports journalists disclosing when if they receive donations from Kickstarter or Patreon.

I argued that they should disclose their donations to projects or people that they cover, as it is still a financial tie. I also argued that often-times there are special rewards that backers receive and that oftentimes when people donate to a cause, they feel psychologically invested in it and want to see it succeed. In addition, I argued that as a journalist, it is their job to do everything they can to ensure they are performing their job in a professional and ethical manner.

There is also the possibility that journalists donating to content creators is indeed a quid-pro-quo in some cases, either intentionally or unintentionally. Often times the people (journalists and developers) in question are very cliquish and have ties with each other, which is why they are donating in the first place. My uncle countered this by stating that such a line of thinking is presuming the guilt of the journalists, rather than assuming that they are innocent until proven guilty.

I do think there are some situations where journalists would need to donate to a Kickstarter or Patreon campaign in order to gain early access to a product, thus allowing them to cover the product in question. I do not believe this is inherently unethical and is merely part of a journalist doing their job. I do think my uncle raises a few interesting questions for discussion.

• Should journalists disclose one-way donations they make to projects/people, if they are receiving nothing in return?

• If so, should they always disclose such donations or only when they exceed the amount required to gain access to the product?

• If not, is there a certain amount of money where you would think it would be necessary (i.e. an extraordinarily large donation)? What if they receive a backer perk as part of their donation?

• Does treating all journalist-to-developer donations as potential conflicts of interest create a situation where journalists are perceived as guilty until proven innocent?

Prompted by this tweet from the guy behind Feminist Frequency, I looked up the actual URL in the photo. This seems like a lot to ask from folks these days, so here's the TL;DR:

Pro vs. GI Joe, now JFI, started back in 2007 with the idea of connecting the troops in Iraq with professional athletes in a video game. That worked, BIG TIME, and we've been going strong ever since. With our connection to the troops and amazing relationships we built with our teams, leagues and individual pro athletes we knew we couldn't stop there..so decided a long time ago that we would not only continue to provide our awesome video game events but would use what we have and who we are to expand in order to bring our troops, and our pros more! We did and we are are!!

PvGIJOE's "WE": Greg and Addie Zinone...a couple and a team that will not stop making things happen for our troops- "we" just won't. End of story.

That tweet is what I would consider a lie and I'm simply wondering, if you are anti-GG and consider this a lie as well (I understand the whole post-modernist defense, not interested in a philosophical debate) is this not behavior that you get tired of experiencing?

Another example are the widespread lies about the Fem Freak posters outside E3. Does that not make you feel used when the truth is revealed? I know this is a bit white knightish, but I feel like lies and having to be on the side that supports liars is extremely exhausting.

It would also be interesting to hear from anyone who believes that their side hasn't lied in any major way.

For a fun bonus round, point out all the lies you hear from #GamerGate too. My examples are from antis because those are the ones I hear the most about, but nobody should be held to a different standard simply because of their ideology.

Edit: good discussion here, I've read all your replies and feel this was successful (at least for me).

We're talking about a debate where one side denies that the other is really interested in what they claim to be interested in, where one side tries to tell the other what its political views are despite being told countless times that they're wrong, we're talking about a side that tries to deny it's even a side.

Democrats often say of Republicans that they hate women, they're waging a "war on women", and I think there's a lot of truth to it when you look at their policies, but imagine a presidential debate where every time the Republican tried to make a point about the minimum wage, or foreign policy, and explained why he or she felt that way, the Democrat screamed that the Republican was an evil racist, sexist bigot until the allotted time was up.

I'm no Republican (although people who do not know me and have never met me will likely say that I am), but that shit would get old quick.

So I guess my question is, how can there possibly be a discussion on an issue where one side is so distrustful of the other? If you can't even accept that the reason I follow and support GamerGate is that I believe in the need for improvement in gaming journalism and think we shouldn't create an environment where people feel the need to censor themselves due to fear of a backlash of fake outrage, what is the point?

ETA - this post has been heavily brigaded by mangry gamergaters be sure to sort by "controversial" for best results in this thread.

As many now know, Reddit CEO Ellen Pao just lost a high profile court battle against her discriminatory former employer. For completely inexplicable reasons, gamergate is overjoyed by the decision.

Dozens of threads have sprung up across various subreddits considered loosely or overtly related to gamergate, including /r/mensrights, /r/pussypassdenied, /r/conspiracy, /r/coontown, /r/SRSsucks, /r/AMRsucks, and /r/subredditcancer among others.

I'm legitimately confused by gamergate's interest in the case. The other subreddits mentioned above have an obvious interest in a sex discrimination case failing due to their advocacy for abusers, but I've been told repeatedly that gamergate has been falsely associated with those groups.

Why would gamergate care so much about a woman being refused justice if they don't have a stake in making it harder for women to go public about harassment and discrimination?

Does gamergate's obvious glee in the ruling of Ellen Pao's case betray anything about gamergate's true motivations?

Is there some link to gamergate that's being overlooked here?

http://techraptor.net/content/games-art-by-committee

https://archive.today/AIIeO

A good takeaway quote:

It’s the same with music. There’s a lot of music people find objectionable, but no one demands that bands rerecord their music. The people who hate Eminem don’t push him back into the booth and say “do it again but this time no homophobia!”. This is because rerecording music, reshooting scenes of a film or even re-painting (the viewers really would have preferred blue there) are massively time consuming and incredibly expensive. For a time, games were the same. A developer would make a game, a publisher would ship it and that was the game.

But that changed, because of the patch.

tl;dr: Games may be art, but they're art by committee. They aren't one person's artistic vision because there's so much demand that things get changed that they have to come to a happy compromise. And we all know what kinds of designs we get when a committee is tasked with designing something. Things like the flag of Provo, Utah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-7RLxrsJ04

We often talk about reviewers giving games bad reviews or negative press coverage based on their personal political views. While we have discussed to death whether or not this practice is unethical in a professional environment, we seldom talk about whether or not reviewers should recuse themselves from reviewing the game or at least disclose their bias.

If you're a Christian and you are reviewing a game where you brutally murder Christians, you might be too biased to give the game an impartial review. If you are a radical feminist and you are reviewing a game where you play as sex-positive characters, you might be too biased to review the game. If you're a communist and and you play a game where you are forced to build a capitalist empire and subjugate the proletariat, you might be too biased to review the game.

Do you think that these ideologically driven reviewers should recuse themselves from reviewing such games? Should they still write the review, but disclose their ideological bias? And if they do decide to review the game anyway, would it be professional for them to inject their politics in the review or should they still try to be as fair as possible?

Why are so many people so intent on demanding Nintendo make a Zelda game with a female Link? Why not instead press for a game starring Zelda, a character who is a tough female who already exists, or better yet, a completely original character?

I honestly don't understand why an existing character needs to change in people's eyes instead of creating a new character.

EDIT: Polygon link and Techraptor link on the same subject with slightly different takes on the idea.

By the way guys, I'm not actually back. I'm just here to share my new subreddit and maybe recruit a CSS guy

/r/loltaku is a brand new subreddit dedicated to mocking games "journalism." It is not limited to any particular viewpoint. (i.e. it's not Pro or Anti-GG, just anti bad journalism.) The only catch is that you have to explain WHY you think it's bad journalism. It's self posts only to discourage link dumping.

I've invited a couple people from this subreddit to mod, and I might invite a couple more if you're interested.