RationalWiki talk:What is going on in the blogosphere?/Archive6

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Vaccine "commercial"

I'm sorry, but can anyone else watch that and not cringe at how poorly executed it was? Yeah, sure, it affirms the fact that faith-healing is bullshit, that doesn't excuse it from being an affront to basic comedic taste. WarlordFred (talk) 08:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Faithfreedom.org

How the fuck is this shite in blogs? Even if the studies it doesn't cite are genuine, it's singularly failed to demonstrate anything approaching evidence in this appeal to emotion nonsense. The rest of this webshite's entries are no better. Scherben (talk) 00:12, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

A BoN put it up there. Perhaps it should be removed. - GrantC (talk) 00:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it should be moved to clogs. Peter ^mqzp 06:16, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

It's migrated there all by itself, it was so wrong Scherben (talk) 15:31, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

A new 1984 movie...

Called "Equals" and starring Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult? Good lord, I'm gonna have to watch this trainwreck.

And Jennifer Lawrence says that those two have great chemistry. That's a pretty flattering thing to say about your boyfriend and another woman, especially one with about 0.1% of your acting talent. (Or maybe the rumors that Lawrence is dating Hoult are false? Oh well.) Still, I love reading reviews of bad movies, and this one's gonna deliver on that front, no doubt. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 08:44, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

Should I put this one up?

A rather good essay for the aspiring fringe genius on how to SHOW THEM ALL without needing killer robots, a death ray, or a army of radioactive gorillas, but it's from 2007. I don't think it's been mentioned here before? --Gulik (talk) 05:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Stick it up (Ooh Matron), but just mark it as from 2007. I can't see why it won't be well received (blame me if it isn't) Scherben (talk) 06:49, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Conservative Protestants and traditional marriage

Classic case of post hoc ergo propter hoc there. I don't suppose the study being referenced controlled for income, or for educational level. Those make a large difference in divorce rates as well. We should know better.

There's also the 'do as I say' phenomenon at work, which you see a lot of in that culture. They whoop and holler about the sanctity of marriage at least in part because they know in truth that their own relationships, and those of their neighbors, are fragile.

The Bible Belt is a land of unfortunate feedback loops. When the culture tells you that to touch beer or liquor to your lips marks you as one of the unsaved and damns you to hell, the idea of responsible drinking tends to fade into the background: you ain't going to learn from these folks. And the drunken misadventures of the newly damned prompt another round of sermons. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 21:38, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Trolling paper

Although I would be ready to believe trolls are typically sadistic and childish (Especially those that make threats and spend lots of time obsessing over their targets, not just shitposting snots), trolls are not exactly honest -was dishonesty taken into account when the researchers came to this "Dark Tetrad" conclusion? Or would misrepresenting oneself to seem even worse be part of all that? --TheLateGatsby (The end of the dock ) 17:08, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Hey, I object to merely being called a sadist! I'm also not sure how they came to this conclusion, when the trolls were clearly going to be lying for the lulz. Take it from me, I'm one!--The Madman (talk) 17:30, 12 February 2014 (UTC)The Madman

I wonder what their definition of "troll" was, since in my experience, people labeled as trolls run the gamut from "plays practical jokes on people" to "eggs on suicidal persons". Frederick^♠♣♥♦ 22:54, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Attractive convict

She's not suing because she's a meme. She's suing because her picture is being used for an advertisement. She's more or less okay with the meme (except for the whole suddenly-becoming-the-target-of-a-bunch-of-creepy-internet-people thing)--"Shut up, Brx." 17:45, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

She has every right to sue against the use of her mugshot for commercial purposes. Also that meme is creepy. Bismarck (talk) 00:09, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Mugshots are pbulic domain, personality rights are an entirely different kettle of fish - using the pic for advertising engages the latter - David Gerard (talk) 08:23, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

How do you discuss Darwin in a language doesn't have a word for species?

Fuck knows, but I'm reliably informed that Arabic - and Urdu, for that matter - does have a word for "species". Maybe its another group of backward darkies, eh? Those crazy mooslims! London Grump (talk) 22:40, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure that Arabic has the word now. The review makes it appear as if there was no word at the time that evolution became a topic to distinguish "species" from concepts such as “variety” or “kind”, and that many of the words needed for the discussion were crafted as needed, in the late 19th c. But I haven't read the actual book, so take that for what it's worth. TeenageWasteland (talk) 23:16, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

This isn't much different to many European languages of the time, I think. Octo8 (talk) 00:33, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"Species" itself is in one sense not an English word, either. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 00:35, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

"Darkies?"--"Shut up, Brx." 00:47, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

/r/mensrights survey

Either they got bot-trolled, or... excuse me, I need to stop laughing to take a breath.--ZooGuard (talk) 19:02, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Why do people link to fucking twitter instead of the actual survey? Twitter is for idiots. DickTurpis (talk) 20:29, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

The MRA Pac-man army! Swerve (talk) 20:57, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Seems there was a spike in responses around the tenth. Does that mean bot activity? Personally, I'd have thought the crowd would be older, with more frustrated divorcees and Romeo Rose types--"Shut up, Brx." 23:57, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Ross Edelman on the RW FB did a chi square against the previous survey, said this one looked wrong ... then he spotted the obvious: there are only 570 responses, not 3000; the graphs are a glitch - David Gerard (talk) 09:30, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

O_o And I thought that there seem to be around 2400 suspiciously similar answers...--ZooGuard (talk) 09:47, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Canada's Tumultuous Years

I'm not sure if I necessarily agree that the damage is "relatively reparable." Even leaving aside all of the terrible, terrible reforms hidden in omnibus budget bills, even leaving aside the extent to which Harper has stacked the Senate, Courts, and civil service with his henchmen, even leaving aside the profound policy shifts that would be necessary to, for example, restore the prestige of scientific research--- it seems that Harper has set a number of awful legal precedents for Prime Ministerial power and parliamentary procedure which would necessitate a (notoriously difficult) constitutional amendment to fix, and I'm not convinced that any of his successors will have any interest in giving up these powers. Regrettably, I think that clean-up will take the better part of a generation.Lady Corvex (talk) 00:32, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

"It seems that Harper has set a number of awful legal precedents for Prime Ministerial power and parliamentary procedure which would necessitate a (notoriously difficult) constitutional amendment to fix" I'd love to see some examples. Almost all of his egregious policies that can be reversed through simple legislation - Trudeau is running on abolishing the Fair Elections Act (if it even passes in the first place) because he can do that. The Senate has quite a reputation problem at this point, so you won't see them pulling many stunts during the next administration. And things like the NRC mess, to the census and land treaty rights, may take one or two governments to fix but not a generation.

The ultimate worry was that with the Reform/PC merger, Canadian conservatism would radicalize to a point that Harper would attempt a Reagan/Thatcher-esque reshaping of the country. And what we've found is that the centre-right, Red Tory streak of the party - which always dragged our Tories out from the abyss whenever they were out of touch with reality - is far from dead. (And a non-partisan Supreme Court helps.) Osaka Sun (talk) 04:33, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

The question is will Trudeau not just say "Hey, now that I control this thing, I think I'll keep it." --Revolverman (talk) 05:04, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Osaka Sun:I'd like to see some of these mythical "Red Tories". With the exception of Danny Williams and Hugh Segal (the former who has already left politics and the latter who is on his way out), I see absolutely none. The Tories are essentially running the Republican playbook right now. They are just 25 to 30 years behind the Republicans right now. Just like how the Republicans have driven out all the "Liberal Republicans", the "Red Tories" are becoming fewer and further between. There are hardly any that hold elected office today, none amongst the current Conservative/PC Party leaders across the country.

Revolverman: Another question is will the Liberals go back to the routines they had when they were last in power in the when they enacted the largest austerity regime in the history of Canada, when they broke their promises on climate change, when they had some of the largest corporate tax giveaways in the history of Canada and when they created a propaganda program to make Quebeckers feel good about Canada and instead siphoned the money to their well-connected financiers and corporate ad executives. I am still very skeptical about the Liberal Party. The fact of the matter is all the major political parties in Canada have move to the political right. The NDP has dropped most of its desires for nationalization and has even supported a few free-trade agreements recently. The Liberals had an economic agenda in the 90s that dismantled large portions of the social safety net (in particular cuts to the funding of provincial government services which hurt the poorest), and the Liberals still have yet to come out with a platform. And the Tories are becoming more and more like the Republicans in the United States were 30 years ago. Harper as prime minister is very similar to Richard Nixon in political style and on policy he is a lot like Ronald Reagan.

In all of these things, I find it very difficult to have hope for Canada's political future. Nchriste (talk) 02:29, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

Which is why a non-ethnic-nationalist vision of an independent Quebec, something along the lines of what Quebec Solidaire might present, is becoming more and more attractive to me. TeenageWasteland (talk) 02:37, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

That sounds even less likely then what the PQ peddles. --70.77.241.194 (talk) 11:56, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh great, I remember that some on our wiki think that protectionism is good (and free trade with the EU is a bad idea), that corporate taxes in most social democracies in the world haven't been lowered to the twenties (in replace of others), that Dion didn't yell for carbon taxes, that a 'blue Liberal' party in British Columbia didn't impose carbon taxation, that Canada's welfare, health care, regulatory, and tax systems aren't still revered by Democrats, that Michael Chong isn't scaring the Tory caucus, that a Conservative Senate didn't block a draconian anti-union bill, that right-to-work isn't considered political suicide, that Brian Mulroney isn't speaking at progressive conferences, that Jim Flaherty didn't throw away his Harris background by engaging in massive Keynesian stimulus, that Harper hasn't had to dampen most of his socially conservative views in order to stay in power, and that Alberta isn't increasingly governing from the centre. In Alberta.

We have a lot of problems in this country, especially in regards to poverty, climate change and particularly to the conduct of this government. But if we exaggerate it'll be much more difficult to solve them. Osaka Sun (talk) 04:58, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Is Water Causing Autism

I'm not sure I agree with this article, this seems highly speculative to me. He also doesn't go out of his way to source much, if any, of his information. I agree more research on autism must be conducted, but part of me feels this article might belong in the clogs section..."Think twice about giving water to your kids" because the "so-called experts" don't want you to know how dangerous water could be! Seems jumped up to me. User:EGKunz 18:15, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

It's a joke, using humor to debunk ant-vaccers, etc. Note the part about the "sausage fingers." TeenageWasteland (talk) 21:57, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Haha, wow. That totally went over my head! I seriously couldn't figure out what this Jenny McCarthy type junk was doing here. Oh man now that I re-read it knowing that I can't believe I didn't see it! User:EGKunz 23:17, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

if you really care about free speech,

you might actually read the linked article, or the study the article is about, which concludes that "the votes of both liberal and conservative justices tend to reflect their preferences toward the ideological groupings of the speaker.”209.188.42.11 (talk) 23:47, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

"The Roberts court’s more liberal members “present a more complex story,” the study found. All supported free expression more often when the speaker was liberal, but the results were statistically significant only for Justice John Paul Stevens, who retired in 2010." --A Real Libertarian (talk) 00:02, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

MRAs

Erm...care to add anything to the headline? im not sure just the word "MRAs" linking to a months old web comic strip qualifies as....well anything really but definitely not news. Judge Holden^{The Judge Smiles} 03:26, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Correlations …

… are amazing - highly recommended! Scream!! (talk) 20:11, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

I am fairly sure there is a relationship between swimming pool drownings and Nicholas Cage film releases. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 22:30, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

In that specific scenario, I think causation might actually play a part. - Grant (talk) 22:39, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

My personal favorite is the future factoid on an anti-piracy video that will be seen on a pirated DVD: works of visual art copyrighted in the United States inversely correlates with females in New York who slipped or tripped to their death. Crow7878 (talk) 02:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Clickbaiting

So there's a WIGO that just says "MRAs." MRAs what? can people please say what the article is roughly about, so we can choose whether to read it or not without having to go there? Sophie^Wilder 11:36, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Cracked conspiracy theories

We need to work this chart in somewhere... Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 17:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

It would go well in the Sigmund Freud article. User:PsychoGecko 19:12, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Arthur Chu piece

I'm not normally so grumpy as to complain about the way other people vote on WIGO's (indeed, it's difficult to think of anything more pointless to even be grumpy about), but I'm having trouble understanding how anybody could downvote such an incisive, powerfully written piece. Is it simply a question of missionality? Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 09:27, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

Hovering on the vote band gives you the total number of votes: in this case, 37 up, 2 neutral, 7 down. Note that people who vote on WIGOs don't necessarily participate on the site.--ZooGuard (talk) 10:21, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

No, I know that. Just wondering what people didn't like about it. Wehpudicabok [話] [変] [留] 10:24, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

I am one of the neutrals. I didn't think it was missional. It rubbed me the wrong way; a sermon preached at people who can't tell fiction from reality. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 04:53, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I voted down - he's not speaking for my nerdiness at any level.--Aloysius the Gaul (talk) 03:36, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

That one really annoyed me. Basically it connected what nerds do on television programs (which aren't even aimed at them in the first place) to what nerds actually do. Criticizing nerds based on that is like telling black people that they're all idiots after watching a Tyler Perry movie.--TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 21:25, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Climate change and cigarettes

There is a really good book on this subject already called 'Merchants of Doubt' by Conway and Oreskes. Just pointing this out because of the fact that though this article is new, the information behind it is not. EGKunz 13:30, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

Are we seriously going to do this?

Endorse Satanic Ritual Abuse in the name of Skepticism? --A Real Libertarian (talk) 23:43, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

I have to agree. That article was ridiculous. The author actually said there was a reason for the McMartin trial to go on so long. Yes, ridiculous claims like flight, children being flushed down tunnels, and secret tunnels were totally legit accusations that warranted an investigation/trial spanning nearly a decade. Ayzmo^Cheers 13:34, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

The article also assumes that prosecutors are much less clever than defense lawyers. While this might be true, it's not that big a difference. The same problems with highly leading and suggestive investigations existed, as did the assumption of large clandestine networks of child abusers. The prosecutors simply learned not to mention Satan or cults in the courtroom. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:25, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

why we need labels like...

While I agree with the gist of the article, I do feel that many of these labels do tend to pigeon hole and dehumanise people when used in conversation outside of academic discourse. I certainly see the term 'cis' used as a term of abuse or dismissively here quite frequently. I am sure these are useful discriptors in the right context but there is something to said for more general and vague terms in the interaction between human beings, rather than going into specifics or your sexual or gender orientation and the continuing tribalisation of the gay world AMassiveGay (talk) 13:47, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, there's a simpler problem underlying all this. The contest between human psychological complexity and the need for brevity and specificity in language. No one likes being reduced to a stereotyped identity based on a label, but, as a matter of convenience, it's nice to be able to identify your sexuality in a word or two. Ikanreed (talk) 14:04, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Where the hell do you see "cis" used as a slur? Serious question. I mean, I'm sure you can find some obscure tumblr blog calling for the deaths of cis people, but I'm sure you can find some obscure tumblr blog calling for the deaths of straight people as well. It's not really relevant. 66.116.36.35 (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Indeed. "Oh no, they called me 'cis'! That must mean I'm something bad, not normal, 'cos otherwise there wouldn't be a word for it." - David Gerard (talk) 22:32, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I've probably over stated the point. I have seen it used here dismissively in a check your privilege fashion, not often I grant ya but it has appeared on occasion and for some reason lodged in my mind. I do not recall where. I stand by initial post even if its non existent here. Certainly all the bullshit I'd rather not dwell on with Facebook business had it in spades if only in intent rather than specifically using the term. AMassiveGay (talk) 23:56, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

It's just briefer and more clear in intent than "not-trans". That's all there is to the term. I don't use it, because I haven't had a time when it's important to me to draw attention to the fact that someone is trans or isn't. But it doesn't cause harm by existing. Ikanreed (talk) 14:34, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone else of the 23 people who voted down the link care to elaborate? I'm curious what exactly they found to be off about it.--ZooGuard (talk) 15:52, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

just to be clear I didn't vote down I orange buttoned it. AMassiveGay (talk) 16:33, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

I probably voted it down for the same reason you want an explanation as to why people downvoted it. "Do you hear how self-centered and self-serving that sounds? ... Again, do you hear the closedmindedness? The myopia? The self-centeredness? The arbitrariness?" I don't mind the labels, but I am extremely tired of that kind of moral aggression and scolding. The author needs a session in the cucking-stool. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 20:10, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Roko's Basilisk

Is anybody else miffed that none of these new people finding out about Roko's Basilisk are mentioning us, and that they appear to be taking it seriously?--"Shut up, Brx." 12:30, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Slightly annoyed, given it was Slate's main actual source. But they're certainly finding the article and telling each other about it - David Gerard (talk) 13:44, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Kinda miffed that it left out the best part: That the torturing of people would be be the 'justified' action of a Friendly AI, to punish them for not doing everything they could to help it come into being. Instead the article paints it as malevolent. --74.182.83.96 (talk) 18:05, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Yeah. The basilisk article has been revised by the process of "read this and explain it back to me" (I have exceedingly patient friends) and shoring up the bits that people's brains just balked at - David Gerard (talk) 00:34, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

"Disagreement is inevitable, but bullying and harassment are not."

Reading this article just made me think back to other discussions I've had in the past with others who share my stances/experiences over how to present ourselves and our views, and have been accused variously of "derailing," "tone trolling/policing" and "invoking the tone argument," among others. I'm not saying we should get carte blanche to act like assholes to anyone we please, but I have to ask: what's the difference between that and this? Thanks. Noir LeSable (talk) 16:59, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

The difference is that you were entering a discussion and addressing people directly, while the article is addressing people indirectly. If you say "don't be a dick" to nobody in particular as a general moral statement, people don't get offended, but if you say "don't be a dick" to a specific person or group of people, they react as if you called them a dick, even if you're not trying to. The statement is the same (and it's a perfectly good statement), but the context is different. Frederick^♠♣♥♦ 18:42, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Richard Dawkins

Is there something he said or intended that I missed? It really did seem like he tried as hard as he could to make clear that he wasn't trivializing the lesser of two crimes, and that which one was worse depended on the person. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not here to start a fight (although I wouldn't mind a civil debate) TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 02:15, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

He was molested as a child himself, so speaking of him as not being included in sexual assault survivors is erroneous - David Gerard (talk) 11:39, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Shorter: He's in a hole and should stop digging! Scream!! (talk) 11:08, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I think someone at the Friendly Atheist made a good point about how to most people, "mild pedophilia" is a bit like "mild decapitation". If he wanted to address that, he needed to lead up to it better. He probably should have found a better place to discuss it than Twitter, too. - User:PsychoGecko 19:07, 30 July 2014

reasons to lose faith in humanity

That some folk are a bit thick and/or make crap jokes is the reason and not all that war, murder, and assorted mayhem going on. AMassiveGay (talk) 12:04, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

In olden days people went down to Bedlam to laugh at the loonies. Now they are freely available on t'internet. Feeling superior gives that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. Cloud Yeller (talk) 13:00, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

"Humans Need Not Apply"

Scary shit. I hope it all turns out false. 76.4.254.80 (talk) 21:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Should we call ISIS evil?

Yes.--Mercian (talk) 11:24, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Because that's easier on your brain than seeing them as human beings who have, through various and complex motivations, done evil things? Ikanreed (talk) 19:06, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

For quick catchy descriptions of the group or for treating the group as a kind of person, I think it works to say "evil". But, for me, it actually hurts less to describe the actions as evil and assume the actors (evil or not) are just making horrifically bad choices. MarmotHead (talk) 19:18, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

And keep in mind that as an organization, there are going to be people who see themselves as moderates, doing overall less harmful things, and forgiving those doing worse things as doing bad things for the right reason. You're right in that you can use the word "evil", but to repeat it over and over or talk about it like it's an important point does more harm than good. To get indignant about those not using the word highlights a broken xenophobic psyche. Ikanreed (talk) 19:32, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

¿Una conspiración? QuiZARAs no.

Can I be honest here? I call Hanlon's razor. I hardly think that there was any intention for it to look like a concentration camp uniform (and even so, I didn't see it the first time I saw it... Although I have to say that I'm not crazy about the thin-striped blue-yellow contrast; a solid cream background or brown stripes if any would've fit the theme better). The swastika bag incident was less understandable, yes (I mean seriously, how many people do you have on your QA team?), but this seems more like unfortunate coincidence for a company already known for at least one Nazi-related gaff to me. :\ Noir LeSable (talk) 18:19, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. Their reaction does suggest it was an honest mistake. They need better QA but they aren't Nazis. Abed Nadir (talk) 05:54, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm willing to accept that it was a mistake, but their explanation makes no sense. It was supposedly inspired by "Western cowboys," but when did cowboys wear black and white striped uniforms? RachelW (talk) 19:01, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

when has fashion ever made a lot of sense? AMassiveGay (talk) 09:20, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Latest wigeaux

Now, I aint read the Mother Jones piece, but it seems that even in nations with the greatest income disparities, rich people are doing AOK.--"Shut up, Brx." 04:23, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Zoe Quinn Controversy

So... what's going on here? I step away from the computer for a night's sleep and some morning work, and when I returned, Reddit and Tumblr (or, rather, the relevant parts of them) appear to be exploding, Phil Fish is having conniption fits on Twitter, allegations of censorship are flying, and there's something about Five Guys (the burger restaurant?). Even the WIGO here has a 21-vote -5 score attached to it in the 3-ish hours it's been up. Is there an unbiased source or something close to it that currently hits all the salient points out there? Noir LeSable (talk) 19:30, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Nothing worth RW time, I suspect. IP posts apparent slander, it quickly acquires downvotes ... I comment out - David Gerard (talk) 19:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

It appears it's something that's actually happened rather than slander, but the mudslinging is too strong to make heads or tails of it (not to mention doxxing?). Agreed on moving on. Noir LeSable (talk) 20:02, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi, I'm the guy who posted the original WIGO. I felt that the controversy was on-mission because of the strong ties to corruption in journalism and social media junkies tend to blindly follow their "feels" without pausing to examine the situation. As for an unbiased source, there generally isn't one because most of the outlets who would cover it are suppressing it at the moment, and those that were covering it got downed shortly afterward. Everyone else is understandably rather pissed about it, so I don't know if you could call them unbiased, and most of it's on the shifting sands of 4chan anyway. The Internet Aristocrats video is currently the definitive entry-level source for explaining to people what the whole mess is all about, so I'd recommend checking that. 50.29.204.179 (talk) 18:46, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It's being discussed in the Clogosphere where it belongs, I'd hope most of the community aren't so easily swayed by a sensationalist youtube video created by somebody who has never spoke to the woman --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 23:30, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It speculates and makes "strong conclusions" given uncertain evidence. It's only good to get what a biased view would look like. Nullahnung (talk) 00:24, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Noir LeSable, here is as close to an unbiased point of view (it's not possible with shitstorms like this) as you'll get from someone who actually has a public face: http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1s4nmr1/

TB still doesn't get some of the things that he broadly calls "SJW", but at least he tries to stay out of things he has no clue about, hence the lack of much bias. Nullahnung (talk) 00:21, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Some utter bullshit. A guy can be reviewed by his former colleagues (and with real reviews, not 5 word mentions), drinking buddies, etc. all year long, a journal can mail developers asking for early review copy and by the way we offer to sell you ad space on our site, pay per click wink wink, too, and nobody raises an eyebrow. It's only corruption this and integrity that when incels get angry. Dmytry (talk) 07:23, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, those are the kinds of things that made people lose their faith in gaming journalism in the first place. This whole gamergate thing is just distracting from the real issues. Nullahnung (talk) 09:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Reason Article in Wrong Section

I feel that Reason's article about GamerGate belongs in the clogosphere section as it does a lot of whitewashing of events.Ryantherebel (talk) 20:13, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I've removed it from here. You may add it to the other place if you really want to. Nullahnung (talk) 20:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

It was re-added by someone else, dunno why. Nullahnung (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Best to comment out. Clogged - David Gerard (talk) 21:54, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Japanese Demographic Shift

I think that this article is very misguided to suggest that only a growing population is a sustainable one, especially in a country already as dense with people as Japan. I also think the suggestion that feminism is the way to make Japan's population grow again is very silly. Birth rates have declined to rough stability in nearly every developed country regardless of how women are treated, while the countries that maintain the highest birth rates are impoverished developing countries that can hardly be called feminist paradises. 72.241.41.1 (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

The feminism part is not about birth rates, did you read the article? It's about getting more of the younger population(specifically women) working to help maintain economic stability as older people retire. Ikanreed (talk) 15:35, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

It states multiple times that gender discrimination often forces women to choose between their jobs and child-rearing, and heavily implies that too many are choosing to pursue a career at the expense of a family when they should be doing both. 72.241.41.1 (talk) 16:26, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

The issue is that birth rates haven't declined to stability. They're far below stability. Compro01 (talk) 01:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, there was an overshoot and temporary overcrowding. So if the population is a bit shifted towards old and retired people, so what? What's the big deal? You can live perfectly good lives with probably as low as 1/10 the wealth of a first world country, it's not the wealth so much that matters but the quality of government compared to the third world. Dmytry (talk) 13:38, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

us v UK Ebola coverage

While I am sure it is funny and makes good point, stop enabling Russell Howard. It is a slippery slope leading to Dave gorman, and no one wants that. AMassiveGay (talk) 23:44, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Nothing leads to Dave Gorman! Scream!! (talk) 23:46, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Did this get missed

Or did I just not see it? Hypocrisy here? Not much. Oldusgitus (talk) 14:33, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Nice. The world where you can pay for a smartphone by cleaning toilets for a few days is only made possible by the restriction of freedom of movement of people at the phone factory. Of course, you want to do this not just to the chinese but also to the people at the volkswagen factory in Germany. Dmytry (talk) 07:54, 1 November 2014 (UTC)

Troops article

This was one of the most annoying articles I've ever read. Seriously, no one is forcing you into "troop worship". Many people, believe it or not, choose to revere members of the military and police because they are appreciative of their personal sacrifices. It doesn't mean we live in an authoritarian nationalistic police state. But I guess the fact that some of our soldiers are not very nice people means we shouldn't call any of them heroes anymore. And to top it off, in typical far-left style the author begins the article with "Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him". Yes, throw the word "white" in the first sentence to let us know how evil and discriminatory this practice is, even though you're talking nonsense.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 22:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Firefighters risk their lives every day, but they don't get nearly as much hero worship. Sophie^Wilder 23:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Hah, that's rich. "No one?" How about almost all popular media, on a regular basis? I don't even live in America and we get your American soldier glorification propaganda here regularly. I'm not even going to speculate how much worse it is in the US itself. Oh, and guess what the skin colour of most of those soldiers in your propaganda is? Yup, white. And sure, your troops aren't universally worshipped in America, but I wonder how many more people would have blind faith in the benevolence and heroism of US troops if it hadn't become apparent that a sizable portion of the army is made up out of bigots and sadists. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 23:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Like you said you don't live in America. We aren't just a bunch of morons watching military propaganda all day. Besides, if popular media forces you to do anything then you have a serious problem. Speaking of problems, you might want to check your screen settings, since all of the ads I linked contained black people, and only two of them had any whites at all. The first one had one white guy and two blacks, the other had a group of white people with a number of black people that reasonably represented the population. Seriously, I didn't even have to put "black" into Google to get those pictures. If white men are so, so much more worship-worthy, then why would the military choose to put undesirable blacks on all of their ads?--TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 01:27, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

It may be just my age talking again, but I tend to identify the cause of freedom a whole lot more with war protesters and draft dodgers than I do with soldiers or the police. Mostly I shut up about it anymore, though, but it will never sit well with me. It will of course be trivially easy to find pictures of Black American soldiers, for less than comfortable reasons. - Smerdis of Tlön, for the defense. 05:25, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

It's a force that can be resisted, of course, though a large portion of the impressible masses will just start idolizing US troops without even knowing why. And I wasn't referring to the ads you linked but to American army propaganda in general. And, yes, of course you're gonna find some ads with people of colour, they make up half of the military. Despite this, however, the image of the typical glorified American soldier is still very often a white male. 141.134.75.236 06:59, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

How do you figure? Do you have any actual insight or information on whether whites are more "worshipped" in the US military than blacks? You don't live here, so maybe your country is the one that worships whites, but I've never noticed it here. Tons of people choose not to even care about the military at all.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 20:18, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of it either, and I'm not sure why it's being upvoted. Osaka Sun (talk) 07:04, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

"Do you still think #GamerGate was a spontaneous grassroots movement of any sort?"

Did anyone ever really think that in the first place? I mean, come on. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 13:03, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I've been calling it #GamerGhazi all this time. Vulpius (talk) 13:32, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Wow, hadn't seen that. Hilarious. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 14:13, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh 4chan, why must you house such immature assholes. Here's a bit of a broader perspectie on what GamersGate ultimately comes down to (many things written in this article I don't fully agree with, but I am able to acknowledge a decently researched piece when I see it): http://www.vox.com/2014/9/6/6111065/gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting Nullahnung (talk) 14:20, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Reading that article... Holy shit, Adam Baldwin? The Adam Baldwin? Yeah, it was a disappointment when I learnt he was a "small-government conservative" a year ago, but he is the Adam Baldwin that posts gamergate bullshit on twitter? ^{— Unsigned, by: Shadow Nirvana / talk / contribs}

I skimmed the #gamergate tag on tumblr. Yeah, there are a lot of people who think it's genuine, and likewise for #notyourshield (ostensibly people of color claiming that social justice advocates don't speak for them; in actuality it was started as a front by 4chan as part of the #gamergate offensive). I'm guessing a lot of real people have latched onto these because they are genuinely pissed off at some of the more hardline SJW's. Abed Nadir (talk) 08:33, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Also, I think I heard that somebody deliberately pulled Baldwin into the fray, mimicking Scientology's "grab a celebrity, reap the publicity" strategy. Abed Nadir (talk) 08:35, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh don't get me wrong, I know that what they are feeling is genuine hatred and/or resentment towards "SJW"s(although I would preferably not use a perjorative). What I and the WIGO-poster was getting at was that it wasn't a grassroots movement to "restore journalistic integrity" or anything like that. They wouldn't harrass the shit out of Patricia Hernandez when it was found out that she had written an op-ed not a news article and it was the Guardian who found her connection to her subject too flimsy to report. Or the fact that there has been zero peep from these folk regarding AAA title scandals. Or the shit that Zoe Quinn gathered on an IRC that had 480 people. Stuff like that.

Notyourshield seems too funny to me, because as they themselves are crying about the "end of gamers" articles that were written (which were meant as the end of gamer identity as "nerdy awkward white Western teenage boy" and it becoming more diverse) , their response to it was saying "Gamers are diverse". Yeah well, that's what we've been saying. But they mean it as "us diverse gamers don't want none of your new ideas and equality crap". That's where someone points out the obvious sockpuppets like "afeministwoman" or "Patricia Nelson/patriciaxh"(Patricia Hernandez's account is xpatriciah) and logicalblackguy/logical minority. And one point out the astroturfs. Then you see the fact that notyourshield gets hashtagged as much as gamergate by the 4chan crew, one understands that it's pretty much a dumbass hashtag. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 18:40, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I also don't understand the endgame, even if this was legit. Let's combine on a hashtag to decry "journalistic corruption". Then? Shadow Nirvana (talk) 19:08, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Futrelle's been going the chat logs of the IRC channel. Folks be crazy, yo.. --Maxus (talk) 19:32, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I read it. Initial response: "Aaaah, wtf", secondary response: "Man, that guy has the mental fortitude and the stomach strength of a .... well, he has a high mental fortitude and a strong stomach.". Seriously though. What happened to them that made them like this? Shadow Nirvana (talk) 20:50, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't know exactly, but a quick skim through ED seems to suggest that much much worse has happened at the hands of the more disreputable boards (the worst being /b/). Be careful not to lump all boards into just a broad "4chan" label. There are relatively well-behaved ones. Nullahnung (talk) 21:11, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Worse than "Hey let's send nudes of her to her parents and loved ones, let's dox her home-adress and phone and harass her to shit, hope that she kills herself, organize a fakeass movement to get all SJWs deported from game journalism." Dunno. This seems to be the magnum opus of 4chan and the lowest internet anonymity can get. Also, I'd understand when that argument is made about reddit, saying that they have good subreddits, too(although pretty rare). But 4chan to me seems like the ultimate cesspool. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 21:45, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, worse than all that. They actually harassed someone to the point of suicide... (I'm not going to link you to any of it as it is rather depressing to read) Also, there are a lot more boards @ 4chan than the big ones that are known by the others to be cesspools. /tg/ is relatively tame, I heard /a/ was too. Don't generalise to the point of including all of 4chan, it makes you seem ignorant, is all I'm saying. Nullahnung (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

That's hashtag activism for you, I suppose? (#KONY2012! 3! 4!!) I'll be honest; I haven't really been paying attention to the whole incident since the first allegations and responses spawned, and I'm not fully aware on what's genuine, what's Hanlon, and what's 4chan. Judging from what it sounds like at this point, I'm not sure I even want to know. (On a side note, speaking as a 2nd gen Korean-American, while I do have qualms about certain activism done for Asians/PoC, even I can tell how silly the #notyourshield hashtag is in this context) Noir LeSable (talk) 19:52, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me like Twitter was a bad idea in general. Nullahnung (talk) 20:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Lots of people are still taking it seriously, and I have little suspicion that actual evidence that it was intentionally malicious and directed at Quinn for sexual reasons will change anything. Misogyny is too endemic, and admitting to it is too toxic for "neutral" assholes. Ikanreed (talk) 20:02, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Labels

It doesn't help that people don't specify which people they mean when they just fling labels around like "SJW" or "MRA" or "neutral assholes" and then of course everyone will interpret these labels differently and Twitter's character limit doesn't help. That's one of the roots of why none of this debacle is in any way productive and a huge waste of everyone's time, vague labeling. Nullahnung (talk) 20:39, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

You've had this conversation before: SJW would be for example a feminist, like Jessica Valenti, David Futrelle, Amanda Marcotte or Anita Sarkeesian. MRA would be Paul Elam, Stephan Molyneux or Janet Bloomfield (or if you take the definition loosely, 4channers). Neutral Asshole would be, off the top of my head, Richard Dawkins. Although he does keep retweeting rightwing nutjobs and antifeminists a lot. So maybe he's not so neutral. He is an asshole though. The definitions aren't really vague. And the "discussion" is pretty much of a manichean nature. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 21:45, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Let me link something (I don't like doing this, I think everybody should speak for themselves, but in this case I think longer paragraphs are needed): http://blueplz.blogspot.de/2014/08/this-game-supports-more-than-two-players.html

Let me be clear about this, TB doesn't know a whole lot about the subject (but he knows enough to recognize that there is horrible harassment/doxxing/hacking going on) and should be treated as a first impressions kind of outside observer. Thus I don't think TB makes an accurate assessment that terms like "MRA" are meaningless, I do believe they hold meaning at their cores, since there are actually groups who self-label as MRA (Paul Elam and Co.). I do however think TB's got a point when he says that these labels generally get applied so broadly as to appear essentially meaningless snarl words to the outside observer. Ikanreed above for example just throws out "neutral asshole" without further elaboration of who he could mean. That could be anyone... It could mean people who are actually biased against feminism and trying to pose as "neutral" (I do note the quotation marks Ikanreed was using), it could mean people who just sit on the fence proclaiming that people are freaking out over nothing and being ignorant of harassment/censorship/slander evidence, it could mean anyone. This is what often just happens. You throw out an increasingly broadly applied label on twitter where there's a character limit or in some other format, but lazily, and expect to have said something meaningful, when really all you did was add contentless vitriol. Be less vague. Specify who you actually mean by attributing specific actions like "malignant assholes who discussed about hacking into Quinn's accounts" or "made a video spreading slanderous allegations and rumours". Don't just resort to lazy unhelpful labels like "SJW". Nullahnung (talk) 22:06, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

It's possible "neutral" assholes may have been a reference to this TB fellow whom you described further up the page as "as close to an unbiased point of view as you'll get", and whom you seem to be citing once again as somebody who doesn't know much about this subject but who should still somehow be regarded as an authority on it. ωεαşεζøίɗ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 23:28, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

It's possible, yes. I don't believe I characterised him very accurately further up the page, I probably shouldn't have said he was unbiased or suggested that he was an authority, which is why I now have seemingly contradicting views about him on the same page. I do believe he has a point about some things. Nullahnung (talk) 01:33, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

"Neutral assholes" actually referred to random people I don't know defending this on more mainstream discussion sites, who like to say that they have no part in it, but then implicitly endorse the awful terrible people with their next statement. But clearly from all these different interpretations that fell out from that, I did a awful job of expressing myself. Ikanreed (talk) 18:53, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

I do believe it was

As someone who has been following this from the beginning I can honestly say that yes I do still feel like this is a "grass roots" movement. At first I didn't really care, corruption in the gaming industry is nothing new. It has generally been big players that are to untouchable and all that can be done is vote them worst company of the year (EA) and laugh at their terrible reviews (IGN). So some relatively unknown game dev sleeping with people for good reviews, though not a great showing of journalistic integrity, isn't such a big deal. (Also I think it came out afterwards that she didn't have sex without Grayson until after his review but they did go to Vegas together before, whatever). However no statements like "we do not condone the alleged actions of one of our members bla bla it will be looked into" or what I said in the parentheses in the previous comment was put out by the sites involved which probably would have ended the whole thing. Instead talk of the issue is removed and covered up [1][2][3] on gaming sites across the web. The inevitable Streisand effect blew the whole thing up (this is where I started caring). After learning about what Zoe did to TFYC and Wizardchan[4][5][6][7](what a sad, sad place, also that wizchan breakdown might be a little cherry picky but you get the idea), I lost all respect for her and started paying closer attention to the whole thing. It was uncovered that many journalists and devs had close relationships in the indie gaming scene, not necessarily sexual, but by paying each other through Patreon and journalists writing reviews of games made by their friends [8][9][10][11]. During this time a tide of articles came out about gamers being angry misogynistic racist homophobic straight cis white males that are just out to get minorities in the gaming industry (nevermind all the donations made to TFYC and that most devs and journalists criticized were white males), shockingly most of the sites that posted these articles were the very ones accused of journalistic corruption. This was a ploy to divert the issue away from journalistic ethics and divide the issue into a Left vs. Right dichotomy. It is semi-successful in doing so (look no further than here) thanks to some liberal blogs/sites(not going to name names here but one has already been linked in the discussion) doing knee jerk uninformed articles (and I assume that there were conservative sites who did knee jerk counterclaims right back) and /pol/ trying to stir things up and rile the SJ community (like always) so they can have their little holy war. The only problem with this strategy is that gamers are not a homogeneous group, gamers come from all backgrounds and ideologies and yes that means some are misogynist, racist, and dumb as dirt. It's a diverse community, stop the generalizations. There has been too much stupid shit said on both sides because people don't know what the issue is or are trying to push their own agenda, not that it comes as a shock considering it's taking place on Twitter and every site seems to be a different echo chamber for one side or another...
For a breakdown of 4chans involvement, a better summery of events, and the accusations of misogyny here's a good read, all claims backed up with direct sources. https://medium.com/@cainejw/a-narrative-of-gamergate-and-examination-of-claims-of-collusion-with-4chan-5cf6c1a52a60
TL;DR It IS about journalistic integrity. The focus is not Zoe she's just a catalyst that set it into motion, and there has been a bunch of BS diluting the issue. At the very least read the link above. If anyone has counter claims I am open to hearing them.
(I regret that this will be my first post but it's something I care about and I'm sorry if I made any mistakes in how I posted this, it's 1AM. Don't judge me to harshly) El Psy Congroo (talk) 08:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah yes the pinnacle of rational discussion; ignore and dismiss those who have a different viewpoint. Thank you for enlightening me. What part of what I said was less rational than saying gamergate is conspiracy devised and orchestrated by 4chan to oppress women (or something?) proven by some cherry picked screenshots of a super secret public IRC posted by none other than the infallible Zoe Quinn who has had such a great track record of not being a horrible dishonest human being (never doxxing TFYC, DDOSing their game jam, starting her own with funds going to her personal account, feigning harassment for promotion for her game about depression in doing so hurting a bunch of actually depressed people, cheating on her boyfriend to bolster her carer all while telling him infidelity removes consent and is akin to rape[12][13], saying she was doxxed when she wasn't). The link I already posted talks about her claims made about 4chan. I backed up my arguments so the least you can do is give me honest criticism instead of hiding my post with a sarcastic meme. El Psy Congroo (talk) 19:07, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I am busy, but let's go through your points.

1- Reviews written by Nathan Grayson about Zoe Quinn: There are I think, a couple. One of them mentions a GameJam, one of the people in it was Quinn, so her name gets mentioned. The other is a list of games that got into Greenlight. Sorry to burst your bubble, but nobody slept with anyone for good reviews. Also, people can go to trips with friends, without the fucking. Even if they were however, the lack of "good reviews" is a detriment to your argument.

2- Wizardchan: Here's what I said before about the imagedumps: "Wow, that link is so much bullshit. Just a quick skim shows crying about censorship(steam comments tweet), victim blaming(guy saying "you went to the cesspool of internet what did you expect? for them to be nice?"), zero understanding of depression(guy saying "I would criticize a male who has a partner, job and friends if he said he was depressed." Because that's what depression is), ultra-powerful defence("people here are too scared to call and speak to a girl, it can't be us!").And so on. " Last time one of her friends' was there with her to hear the phone call, this time around her friends' even put videos of the phone calls they recorded.(although I don't think this time was Wizardchan, but cba to check through her twitter.)

3- Censoring: Come on. Did you even watch the video(by thefiveguys or something) that started this? It had the evidence level of a video saying "if you squint hard enough, you can see bigfoot.". Why should anyone let such drivel any air time. Before you cry "freeze peach" reddit, kotaku etc are private entities and have no obligation to give you airtime.

4- Patreon and friendships in the indie community: You guys do realize that unlike people in AAA companies that wine and dine bigshot game journalists, these people are there because they like games. They like games, they connect to others that like games, they support each other. The fact that you guys believe that reviews of any kind can be unbiased sounds extremely naive. So unless they are lying about the technical aspects of the game or being misleading about the content... How is it a problem?

5- Left vs. Right: I'm not the one posting Breitbart articles with a hashtag attached to them. Seriously, frigging Breitbart, talk about ethical journalism. None of the anti-gamergate side has even published a "right vs left" article. Heck, maybe I haven't seen it though.

6- TFYC: First off, Zoe Quinn herself hasn't harmed TFYC. She criticized their payment rate(only %8 of the royalties are yours), their attitude towards trans people(they don't accept preop trans women) and the fact that your idea will belong to them once you start working with them, even if you are unsatisfied with their actions and support. These seem to me as valid criticisms. The problem was I think someone (her friend?) posted their facebook info and this caused some people to harrass them(or one person to harrass them?). This of course is unacceptable. But considering the fact that when that same harrassment happens to Sarkeesian or Quinn, the same GG dudes that were all over this say they are "attention-whoring", "being proffesional victims", "maybe they are lying about being harrassed". etc etc. So forgive me, if I don't believe the sincerity.

7- DMCA: I've said this before, if she's the one who made a false DMCA claim, that makes her look catty and petty, although I haven't seen the video's content thus cannot say if it was fake or not. I don't even know if she's the one who did it.

8- Death of gamers: You know that the entire argument is about the fact that "gamer= white Western awkward teenage male" equivalency is dying, right? People who play video games are a diverse community... Gamergate, not so much.

9- Harrassment: We have the IRC logs of a channel with 480+ people in it (thousands of pages), the analysis isn't so heartwarming.

May have missed a point here and there, oh well. The reason it may have been collapsed is we actually replied to the majority of these arguments before. And we really don't believe their sincerity and truthfulness. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 20:23, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

I like how Congroo denies this whole kerfuffle was misogynistic, while perpetuating the same old unfounded misogynistic canards (Quinn slept with someone to bolster her career etc). ₩€₳$€£ΘĪÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 20:54, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a recurring problem I've seen, actually regardless of context. Really harmfully bigotted people won't consider the notion that they're bigotted, because that's wrong, and no your wrong. I've mentally been calling it "the race card card". Ikanreed (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

What gets me is how vehemently they attack her (and Sarkeesian got this too) for "playing the victim". That is only a problem of their own making. If they didn't want her to look like the victim maybe they shouldn't have spent 3,000 pages of conversation talking about how much they want to rape and murder her.

Also, getting back to one of Congroo's original points: that it's a "grassroots movement." No it isn't. This is factually incorrect. 4channers planned the entire thing. The IRC logs in which they detail their plans to astroturf #GamerGate are up there for anyone who wants to know what actually happened to read. Zoe originally posted them here, but for anyone crying "she faked it OMG OMG ZOE IS A LIAR", the 4chan fucknuts posted the whole goddamn thing themselves, here. She actually cut out the worst of the misogyny because her point in doing this was to prove it was astroturfed, not to play the victim. Abed Nadir (talk) 06:31, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you all for your input, good points have been brought up.

@shadow Nirvana. 1- You are absolutely right, also I was not trying to implying that they had sex on the Vegas trip. I believed, wrongfully, that he had written a review for RPS and I did not think friends should do that. Thanks for clearing that up.

2- I don't think the "cesspool of the internet" guy was there to help either side but rather to be an asshole considering he's insulting both the wizards and victim blaming. As for zero understanding of depression, that's a pretty harsh generalization of the community based on one persons comment. I just went to /v9k/ to check it out and I'd say that they have a rather good understanding of depression. I haven't heard that last claim before, is there any way to easily shift through a person's twitter post history, she has so many. I don't really like this image set but it's the only one I'm aware of and I don't have time to go make a better version.

3-Yes the websites can do whatever they want but that doesn't mean they cannot be criticized for their actions and when someone goes to these sites to have them remove threads or articles people are interested in its hard for it not to look like a cover-up.

4- Though Rab Florence may look dead inside after selling his soul to Dewritos and AAA I'm sure deep down he still loves videogames and that goes for everyone on the gaming totem pole no matter how high. Shouldn't the people who most sincerely care about video games be concerned about not biasing themselves and misleading their audience and put out articles that are deeper than sensationalist clickbate? The AAA and Indie scenes as of now are not that different. The main difference being that one will someday fall under the weight of its own corruption and the other can be still be saved.

5-What I meant by splitting the movement into a left vs right situation are the articles about gamers being opposed to social justice concepts being put into games by the devs. Though an article like that doesn't say anything about political divides I can't say I've met to many right wingers with a passion for social justice or at least the same definition of it.

6- Zoe is the one who said she DDoSd TFYC "on accident". Their trans policy does not exclude those who have not had surgery and the only people denied are those who have not identified until very recently, this is obviously put there to prevent actual men from applying (Why yes I am a woman, ever since this morning), people are payed 8% (10% to the Production company that develops the game, 8% for future contests, 74% split among various charities) but they are given all the resources and money needed to create a game and "all the art they own, everything else they own". As for the limit of revisions to what they want to make "The reason why we have those rules is because we could easily spend one-hundred thousand dollars on just continually redoing a pitch. We've been in productions where that's happened". This was all explained to Zoe but she went on twitter with her friend Maya (aka legobutts Zoes lover/friend/PR agent, she's a whole nother story) and starts a firestorm against TFYC in which Maya doxxes them, it is retweeted by Zoe and Kramer of TFYC receives a death threat (is there anyone left at this point who hasn't?). They also DDoS TFYC site and gloat about it. TFYC loses business partners and Kramer has to pay $10,000 to cover the losses. Chloi Rad Editor-in-Chief of IndieStatik did an interview of TFYC but decided not to publish it after Zoe told her TFYC was transphobic. Zoe starts up her own gamejam (though the last one didn't go so great). As I stated earlier this is where I started caring and it is because of Zoe's actions here that I am inclined to believe that the accusations that she lied about Wizchan, I have judged her character as not one who stands for social justice but rather opportunism. I've said a lot about TFYC and I hope I got all the events in order, there's more to say but this has already become another huge textpost so I'll move on to your other points. The harassment of Anita and Quinn is not condoned by gamergate and those are the people who make the movement look bad. The harassment happens on both sides and is partially the reason for such strong resentment between people of opposing views.

(Splitting my post because its blocking me)

7-I didn't bring this up but the DMCA was filed because of a screenshot in the video of the depression quest steam page, technically the video should never have been taken down because this is not footage of her game but it was reuploaded without the picture anyway. I don't see it be a stretch that she had it taken down considering she had the r/gaming mod take down discussion of the events.

8- I don't know If you read the articles or not but they are not about ending the gamer identity as a "white Western awkward teenage male", that stereotype died with the '90s, but the articles are attempting to paint the gamer identity with that brush so they can have their strawman to beat up and then say "look everyone we have slain the these horrid gamergate people whose campaign is to keep social justice out of gaming". Meanwhile ignoring that the real issue had nothing to do with that but that people were mad about their journalistic practices. Notyourshield grew out people getting frustrated with these article distorting the issue and where the complaints were coming from (people of all backgrounds) along with people constantly being bombarded with ad hominem/genetic attacks on twitter labeling them as the people described before in order to dismiss their arguments. As for fake accounts, those benefit no one because it is extremely easy to find out whether or not they are fake so either side can claim that such accounts were set up to discredit them. But a large majority of the tweets are sincere and backed up by pictures when called out.

There's a problem with my last point that is flagging it as troll and I'm to tired to figure out what it is right now El Psy Congroo (talk) 09:05, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

For this total outsider, if the "gamer community" want to be seen as other than white western awkward teenage males with an over inflated sense of privilege then they need to stop acting that way. Personally, given the vile shit that has gone down, I'd be happy to blame it all on a minority of 4chan trolls but, if you're saying that this is how the grass roots behaves.... Doxys Midnight Runner (talk) 09:30, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

A good start would be if this "movement" didn't primarily target women. Vulpius (talk) 02:07, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

This is a good read (follow the link to the Google Plus post) [14] --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 13:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for posting that, I felt like I haven't seen enough sensible (and knowledgeable about games media) people talking about this. Cool heads who actually want to discuss issues should always prevail. There is a bit of an accuracy problem with Anita's critiques sometimes, but silencing her for it does nobody any favours. Nullahnung (talk) 22:50, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

That's okay. If I honestly thought this was about corruption in the industry I would support it, I'm just confused why it hasn't focused around the big gaming companies buying their reviews. From the outside (or I guess relative inside having read so many articles on it) this looks like one ideology versus a different ideology, as they primarily form their complaints around "SJW" rather than gaming corporations --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 01:17, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

-9 Here. Probably gets flagged because of the 4chan comment. Link in post.

@Nadir On Zoe's post

@Runner What's stopping you from blaming the harassment on 4chan trolls? Or is it that you think that there is only harassment going on in gameregate so it must be one or the other? And why must people who use 4chan be separate from a movement for it to be considered grassroots? Questions, so many questions.

@Vulpius It doesn't primarily target women. Men: Nat Grayson, Devin Faraci, Patrick Kelpck, Adam Sessler, Greg Tito, Arthur Gies, Ben Kuchera, Tim schafer, Josh Boggs, Anthony Burch, Stephen Totilo, Jason Schreier, Josh Boggs, Tyler Malka and of course Phil Fish. Women: Zoe Quinn, Leigh Alexander, Maya Kramer, Patricia Hernandez, and Anita Sarkeesian. Okay, I thought there would be more than that so feel free to add to the list.

@Nullahnung If people hadn't made such a big fuss over her no one would know who she is now.

@Drowninginlimbo Its hard to nail anything on the big companies even though everyone knows they are corrupt because they have a big wall of money and take precaution where as the indies were lazy and unprepared. The best thing we can hope for with AAA is a major whistle blower.

In other news TFYC got fully funded so I'm sure that's something everyone can be happy about and one good thing came out of gamergate for sure. Recommended readingEl Psy Congroo (talk) 06:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I am unmoved by his words. The people who who perpetuate this BS are still an unpleasant group of people who are attacking individuals have little to no power in the industry. Plus, when these people saying that DARPA is part of this conspiracy, that is all the evidence I need to say "you people are not worth my time."Ryantherebel (talk) 18:22, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure they just don't want gaming journalists to focus on social issues, they only really focus on gaming websites that do. I spent a little while reading reviews on Polygon, one of the websites they seem to be against, and they read as fairly in depth. Here, for a relatively new game, they brought on two journalists and waited a day or so after other reviews came through so they could put enough time into the game [15]. Likewise, they were quite critical of this considering its by Nintendo, a fairly big name publisher [16]. Sure, they do focus on social issues, such as disabled people [17], but I don't think it's really "corruption" to be in touch with other journalists. Wouldn't that help with collecting sources? --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 12:48, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Traditionally the ones who are recognised as most corrupt in the gaming media by enthusiasts are IGN and gamespot. They do have their honest people working there, but mostly they do what David Hill described in that google plus post... As for Kotaku, they are typically known for reposting news material from other sources instead of doing actual investigative work and click-baiting, etc. Nullahnung (talk) 17:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

That makes sense, it seems to be more like an anti-SJW movement than a real attempt to change the industry set up. While we're here, does anybody identify as a SJW? --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 01:57, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

It's bad enough that other people try to put you in a box vaguely defined with shitty characteristics, it wouldn't be incredibly helpful if people then decided to perpetuate that themselves. Nullahnung (talk) 06:42, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Totally. SJWs do call ourselves that - David Gerard (talk) 09:58, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

It is just so incredibly easy to put an arbitrary amount of social justice advocates under a broad label, that encompasses an arbitrary amount of characteristics depending on who you ask, so you may throw sloppy generalisations at it, than to in detail try to understand and consider tangible SJ-related concerns by tangible individuals on a case-by-case basis, which is the only way to actually have a constructive discussion and be productive... you know... do things that are helpful. Nullahnung (talk) 13:31, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I had to ask that's all, I know a few feminists who refer to themselves as social justice warriors but I figured it was taking the piss out of the people who try to use it as a derogatory thing, I don't really know the history of the term. I see it applied to just about anybody who cares about social issues, so it is pretty much useless in that context. It's weird that it has become this all-encompassing negative thing for some as I'd consider supporting social justice, in the form of our article, something to be proud of --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 17:09, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, yes, but things look a lot different when you've snowballed into an anti-SJW view. Many of the people who use it as a derogatory term are of the opinion that "I would support true social justice, like I'm all for men and women being equal, but SJWs are just complaining about stupid issues (like sexism in video games: if there were more women, the market would cater to them, so where's the problem). Plus, they are crazy and would go so far as to silence all opposing opinions. Since they only talk about stupid issues, they must logically just be professional victims seeking attention."

So yeah, once you are able to somehow tunnelvision down on the notion that SJWs complain about "nothing" to get attention, and that you get shouted down by an angry mob whenever you dare voice any dissenting opinion (which is a universal problem with social media, especially twitter, but everyone seems to feel persecuted on a personal level by it), suddenly it's not so weird anymore to consider it an all-encompassing negative thing. Here's a video showcasing this attitude: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfRXLVz9Xp0 Nullahnung (talk) 17:45, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The video seemed to be more of a rebuttal of a certain argument than a rant against Social Justice Warriors.

Anyways, I think what defines a social justice warrior to most people isn't really the issue they talk about, it's how seriously they take it. I think that's where the "warrior" part of the name comes from: their inflated sense of the injustice they are fighting. I personally wouldn't have a problem someone addressing or expressing disapproval of minor but persistent social phenomena (such as Asian-related jokes), but when you start an overblown campaign over one joke that gets massive media coverage, all while crying about being silenced, I see that as within Social Justice Warrior territory. I do agree that the term has basically made it impossible to say "I support some forms of social justice" without sounding kind of nutty, which is unfortunate. Those are my thoughts anyway.TheriziπosaurusG (talk) 04:00, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe there is a big misconception that SJW means "someone who fights for social justice", understandable given the name but that isn't case.This is the actual definition (If you don't like the source it's talked about in RW's page on SJ). So if you support social justice you shouldn't be calling yourself a SJW. But TheriziπosaurusG is right in that it has started to give social justice a bad name. There has been a lot of talk about trying to find a better label for SJWs but nothing has caught on, any suggestions?El Psy Congroo (talk) 05:13, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

You guys don't get it. There is no such thing as a "one tr00 definition" for SJW. It varies depending on who you ask, I've seen a lot of reasonable people making reasonable arguments getting hate as an "SJW" just because they made some arguments that there is sexism in video games (nothing overblown about that, nobody asked you to care if you disagree, why the hate?). It's just a meaningless, loaded term that you use to brand people who annoy you with the condition that it's loosely related to social justice. Nullahnung (talk) 07:03, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

How this parallels other paranoid conspiracy theories that destroyed lives

Well written articles but actual journalists like this don't convince anyone, as we've all seen but it touches on how this craziness ends up being even more on mission for rationalwiki than just generic misogyny. The same imagined threads of conspiracy connecting outgroup to "our outright destruction". Ikanreed (talk) 13:34, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

GamerGate Hits a New Low

http://www.buzzfeed.com/josephbernstein/someone-inside-congress-edited-a-wikipedia-article-about-gam#1efp41c I hate everything now.Ryantherebel (talk) 16:20, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Because shitty wikipedia edits (which they get all the time) reported by buzzfeed definitely indicates a new low, compared to all the doxxing, death threats, harassment, etc. at the height of the whole debacle. [/sarcasm] Nullahnung (talk) 18:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

"#gamergate movement of aggrieved and confused white nerds" why #notyourshield happened in a nutshell. John Boehner is looking a little sinister there, I bet it was him. "GamerGate Hits a New Low" you should write for buzzfeed, gawker, huffpost, upworthy or any of their subsidiaries, they love click-bait headlines. Also Nullahnung the height of doxxing and threats (also DDoSing of Escapist forums) was like the last three days, basically all famous people involved and some #notyourshield posters got doxxed/threats. Didn't get reported on of course because it was all pro-gamergate people. Meanwhile Kotaku publishes a story on a 7 month old empty bomb threat against Anita right after their emails logs are leaked. El Psy Congroo (talk) 07:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

No, actually #notyourshield was purposefully orchestrated by the mostly white burgersandfries 4chan users. Minorities aren't your shield, you lying ass. Ikanreed (talk) 12:59, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I guess you haven't read anything I've written so I'll repeat this again #notyourshield was not mentioned in the IRC until after it had been made on twitter and they started talking about it [18]. Nothing was "orchestrated". Saying the opinions of minorities are invalid because you've bought into lies about what gamergate is about makes you seem like an ass and I love your super power where you can tell the race of anonymous people on the internet. El Psy Congroo (talk) 02:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Shit is fucked up and bullshit

Anyone who thinks the problem with conflicts of interest in games journalism has anything to do with a tiny indy dev possibly sleeping with online games journos and said journos striking up friendships and supporting tiny indy devs is either stupid or lying (probably both). What do you think Activison spent wooing the same journos about their super mega blockbuster Destiny? Hipocrite (talk) 14:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Duh? It's been said a million times. But this line of reasoning doesn't seem to work on douchebags. Don't know why. Sometimes they go "YEAH! that's the point" then procede to shit all over Quinn specifically again. Ikanreed (talk) 14:14, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Destiny is a weird example. It flopped, didn't it? --Someon (talk) 14:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I actually think it's a pretty good example. If the game is meh, like the reviews say it is, why is it still getting feature press in the game journo world weeks later, exactly? Could, perhaps, the mad junketing have done something to help? Probably! Again, the main "gamergate" "culprit" is the free game Depression Quest - let's look at it's press from the most evil of game journo sites - Kotaku! [19]. Not much there there. Now, destiny, on the other hand... [20]. Did you know that "Everyone's Obsessed With Destiny's Loot Cave," that "Someone Hit Level 30 In Destiny," that "Destiny's Toughest Challenge Cleared In Just 37 Minutes," and that's all after the formal review. Hipocrite (talk) 14:51, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The question is, who is actually still perpetuating this stuff about Depression Quest and Quinn having much of an effect in terms of games media corruption? Not any gamers I speak to, though I understand that anecdotal evidence doesn't count for anything. The main complaint I seem to see nowadays is about people spewing vitriol at gamers. Nullahnung (talk) 17:07, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I've lost track of what "GamerGate" is now supposed to be or what people are saying it's really about. If there are legitimate issues being raised about genuine corruption within the sector, then the people raising them would do well to distance themselves from a meme that demonstrably started out as judgemental slut-shaming over a woman's private life and progressed in much the same vein. All the people actually involved in this drama, including the vindictive ex-boyfriend who kicked off the whole thing, have denied that there was any kind of sex-for-reviews motivation on anyone's part, but this nasty little canard is perpetuated every time #GamerGate continues to be invoked as a real scandal. Wěǎšěǐǒǐď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 18:32, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

They would do well to distance themselves, yes. Nullahnung (talk) 18:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

That's primarily what they think the issue is though. They aren't talking so much about financial corruption but instead about an attempt to politicise video games to be SJW or whatever. As far as I understand it that is the corruption. The closest they have came to proving this is an email list between journalists for various video game websites that have written on social issues. It is pretty sketchy evidence too. The idea is that they are told what to write about by the people on the list (no evidence of this) as part of an attempt to change the way video games are made (no evidence of this) and will not be hired if they don't promote the SJW agenda (no evidence of this). Personally it looks to me like a way of sharing sources at best, but I digress. The crowd don't seem to care that Quinn may or may not have made money, it's about the things she is saying and the platform it would have given her. That's the supposed corruption. You have to remember that the majority of these people are antifeminist, most men's rights websites have written on the topic. They find feminism terrifying. If I am correct, they have failed spectacularly, as this has strengthened ties between the video game media and general media (with different journalists writing on the subject for reputable publications) and given Quinn a platform to write a few articles herself (like the Cracked one) --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 20:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

So it's just angry reactionaries mad that they still don't understand the difference between female objectification and male power fantasies? It seems to have far too much rage to be that - the last explanation I read is they were mad that their attempts to slutshame Quinn were censored, which also makes the level of rage unclear. Is this even remotely as threatening to games as day-1 DLC or always-on DRM, which are corruption? Hipocrite (talk) 21:10, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The one thing you've got to understand is that feminism seems to have an unprecedented reach compared to other issues (people have experienced doxxing/death threats/racism/etc. in the past). So when websites like 4chan and Reddit, which in the past did all those unspeakable things with impunity, suddenly start shadowbanning and censoring, it gives the signal that feminists are a force to be reckoned with and ... change is scary and threatening and such ("any censoring, even of unspeakable material is bound to lead to unjustified censoring somewhere down the line when censoring has established itself and that's where I draw the line!"). Nullahnung (talk) 22:37, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I get the impression they feel these issues will eventually be represented in video games, such as with more female playable characters. The anger mostly comes from the fact that individuals interested in both social issues and video games interact with each other, even if they, gasp, have jobs as video game journalists. From the outside it could look like a clique. I don't really think this is a bad thing, coverage should be better when journalists are in contact with each other. Multiple news outlets ran a series of articles saying that the gamer identity (i.e. the notion that people who play video games are exclusively male) is something that is dying. That is to say, that gamers are dead, and that the industry is now more diverse, meaning that these stereotypes are essentially useless. Many of the people on these websites took this seriously, as if they were saying that people who fit these stereotypes could no longer play video games, or rather, be represented in the media. At least that's how I read it, the corruption thing doesn't really make sense to me. They don't have, for example, access to the journalists emails. Without real evidence like that, it just looks like a convenient way to attack "SJWs". The funny thing is, if they were to get the "SJW websites" shut down, that would be a very severe form of censorship --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 22:53, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Let me give you some insight into how many gaming enthusiasts feel about this "gamers are dead" thing. They write about how "gamer" as an identity is dying because the different types of gamers are now too diverse to consider as a unified group, which is fair enough because it is a dated demographic label, then turn around and ironically paint people with broad brushes so they can distance themselves: “obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers”. Gaming media came to be as catering to gaming enthusiasts. You can't suddenly say "some of them are cool, they are my audience, a lot of them are bad, they are not my audience". You are expected to be pro-consumer. This means you embrace everyone, cool or uncool, and if there are any issues to talk about, you talk about it as one of them. "We gaming enthusiasts should be more open to progressive change. We gaming enthusiasts should stop hating so much and keep an open mind. Let's all sit down for a moment as gaming enthusiasts and talk about sexism calmly and without calling each other names." That's what you are expected to sound like as a gaming journalist. This is the type of article you should be outputting: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/06/misogyny-sexism-and-why-rps-isnt-shutting-up/ . This is the type of video you should be producing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR9UMgOFeLw . This is what you should avoid writing: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php

My point is a lot of these "gaming journalists" have effectively distanced themselves from a large part of their core audience, when they should be closing the distance and bridging gaps instead. They have indulged in othering. Othering is bad and they are getting a backlash because of it. Nullahnung (talk) 23:18, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay I think I understand, it was a lazy and heavy-handed approach to a situation that requires more finesse. Also I have to say I enjoyed the Jimquisition video quite a bit, I'm surprised it doesn't have more downvotes --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 23:32, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I found this pretty funny, it has surprising circulation by pro-GG people too [21] --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 17:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Poe's law in action! Hipocrite (talk) 02:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no way that gamergate is about anything related to genuine corruption in the sector, given that it's still focused on two people who don't have a dollar to their names. I literally make more in a week than Depression Quest has made in its entire run. Hipocrite (talk) 19:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, it's the birtherism of the video game world: when you convince yourself that there's a real public interest scandal, you can pass off all kind of bigoted assumptions as legitimate public concern. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 22:20, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

The Plot thickens

Remember how Zoe Quinn was accused of doxxing and DDos attacks against TFYC? Turns out that(and other stuff)'s probably bullshit. Also a double team action from Arthur Chu(@arthur_affect) and Vivian James(@vivian_games) Shadow Nirvana (talk) 08:18, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Of fucking course that was bullshit. The motives ascribed never made any fucking sense. None of the things Quinn was doing for the reasons she was accused of doing it made sense. Ikanreed (talk) 13:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Zoe was the first one to say she DDoS'ed TFYC, people seem to forget that. TFYC in response to Arthur: "He asked why we didn't sign up with a non-profit working in the space. We explained to him we did contact two non-profits.

One the head of Toronto chapter was on the board of a non-acreddited for profit school. That used the non-profits as a recruiting tool, they shared space, and the for profit school seem preditory.

The other refused saying that is was to corperate, that they only wanted to focus on education, and they laughed in our face when we said men would be involved.

We've legitmately sent these notes to mutiple journalists, they've taken interest and agree with the sources but say it's not relevant to the current conversation.

We told him both of these, expecting him to ether agree with it being a good thing we didn't work with them, or investigage it.

He's put us in an idiot position where we have to name names, or say he's right.

We've been getting tons of people basically saying, "We think you're a lying." and us saying "Well call us out, outside of twitter, call the authorities, or sue us" and them saying no.

I do interviews to explain what happen and they don't get published.

It's silly."

Chu backtracks after realizing SJV is an idiot (and possible troll).

Then in response to Social Justice Viv.

Also I just can't wait for Zoe's emails(if they exist), almost hyped. I had a lot of fun going over the gameovergate IRC logs and the great reading comprehension (or perhaps it was delusion or dishonesty) displayed in her posts. El Psy Congroo (talk) 04:19, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

"a lot of fun"... Damn, that's sad. How anyone can get joy out of reading trainwrecks and scandals they don't have any personal relation to is beyond me, though I suspect quite a bit of RationalWiki was built from that. Still not as pathetic as Schadenfreude (where you derive joy from other people's loss, now THAT'S pathetic), but it's up there. Nullahnung (talk) 10:55, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

You expected MRAs not to be repulsive? Hipocrite (talk) 14:43, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

"Zoe was the first one to say she DDoS'ed TFYC, people seem to forget that. TFYC in response to Arthur"

Yeah, a tweet taken out of context is such a great proof(bu I guess it's like any other of gamergate's "proof"s, pretty much bullshit. ). Even TFYC admitted they weren't doxxed before deleting the tweet.

"I had a lot of fun going over the gameovergate IRC logs and the great reading comprehension (or perhaps it was delusion or dishonesty) displayed in her posts." I am having fun at you guys trying to weasel out of the accusations. Sure, that chat log wasn't bad, she just took it the wrong way. Losers like you give people who play video games a bad name. Shadow Nirvana (talk) 17:36, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I guess I'm an MRA now for calling out BS instead of just Listening and Believing. If you want context for Zoe's tweet does this help? TFYC said that Zoe was not the one who is responsible for the dox, it was her friend. She did however retweet the information. Sorry I had fun with Zoe's post, I forgot that the internet is serious business. If you want to see something truly sad take a look at this thread, people so eager to tear down a project meant help women just so they can somehow discredit gamergate. This is what people behind gamergate believe, if there's a problem with that then lets talk about it. (gamergate timeline) El Psy Congroo (talk) 06:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I didn't call you an MRA. Although, you guys are on the same spectrum of conspiracy and stupidity. I "listen and believe" because until now everything gamergate and its previous names' have said have turned out to be either completely false, exaggarated or trivial and their intentions based on harassment (Note: It is also fucked up that you are trying to misuse something by Anita Sarkeesian that said "immediately suspecting a woman of lying and going to defense mode when she says something, is bad. Don't do it." I guess Gamergate folks are such shitheads that even something that should be the default can have negative connotations to them.). I've already seen all you can throw at me, I've also seen them being completely debunked. From "game reviews exchanged for sex" to "charity fraud", from "doxxing" to "DDOS" every assertion has turned out fake. Though I guess what can you expect when people are desperate enough to side with Breitbart :') Journaslistic integrity. You can show us any post by "Gamergate" folk declaring their "intentions and goals", what we see is their actions. Guess which one gives a clearer view of the truth. Now, would you kindly fuck off? Noone here is stupid enough to believe your lies. Shit, "even" 4chan is disowning you.

P.S: Just because people aren't believing the genuinity and the methods of a for-profit organization and they are criticising it and don't believe it will be succesful, doesn't equal "people so eager to tear down a project meant to help women". That made me laugh, though, thanks. Gamergate caring about women :') Shadow Nirvana (talk) 10:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ People who don't understand what "Accidental DDOS" means are not, by any means, "gamers." They are the misogynist hanger-ons. None of the people with any computer experience ever accused her of DDOSing TFYC - all she did was drive more traffic than their pathetic webhosting could cover - "over quota." Anyone who now believes that TFYC was anything more than a cover designed to extract money from crowd funding for Matthew Rappard is delusional. Demand financial statements from Rappard and Autobotika. Hipocrite (talk) 12:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I get what you're trying to say, but you sound as conspiratorial as the gamergate crazies do. I don't even know if you're right or wrong about the financial element, but it reads like trying inject greedy malevolence into what was literally just another crowdfunding site. Ikanreed (talk) 13:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but the fact is even after they published a "truce" article, they continued to take jabs at Zoe or other anti-Gamergate folk. That's something. The retraction of the "We weren't DDOS'd" was weird and now people are using that as evidence of SJW corruption and I got absolutely no evidence left except them leaving tweet questions regarding this issue unanswered(which isn't much of an evidence.) Also, the thing Gamergaters asserted and came out wrong. There may be more of course: http://pastebin.com/aRAE3P9r

Also I apologize to El Psy Congroo for using vulgarity in my previous comment. Losing cool isn't cool. :P Shadow Nirvana (talk) 22:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

New type of misogyny

Looking at all that I think the internet (4chan, reddit, MRAs, etc) misogyny is quite unlike the traditional kinds of misogyny and has much more in common with a very very specific kind of xenophobia, the one marked by an overblown (and usually dishonest) fear that the 'foreign element' in question is taking advantage of something. If you ever look at a gaming site without blocking ads, you can see, plain in the open, the money flow far more suggestive of corruption (edit: if you can call it corruption at all) than any sex. What sex does, however, what money don't do - it makes xenophobes mad because this sex is something they think the foreign element they hate can do and they can't. Dmytry (talk) 08:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, the "free speech" shit is just hilarious. What was that crowd so pissed off about in the first place, what were they trying to stop by means legal and illegal? Speech of other people on those other people's servers. Ohh, but now, when their shit is getting deleted off someone else's private property, it's against free speech! Dmytry (talk) 08:44, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

This is exactly my take on it. The push to boycott the websites of those who have different political views to theirs is deeply ironic considering the only reason they dislike them is supposedly because they are against "free speech" or are "trying to push a political agenda using video games". By encouraging people who play video games to stop visiting these websites and to block advertisements when they do, I imagine they eventually aim to shut them down. This is a strong form of censorship and could lose people jobs. The #NotYourShield hashtag doesn't serve to do much other than to "weaponise minority status" either. It's not like they advocate anything to support these groups like the scawey SJWs do. Instead it is mostly used as a shield for criticism. In my eyes most of what the movement is doing is hypocritical --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 16:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

I think you're being a bit inaccurate. Saying "let's not support these websites" is not the same as censorship and "I imagine they eventually aim to shut them down" is not a good justification to start making this equation. Nullahnung (talk) 23:22, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Maybe so, it's still weird that their blacklist consists entirely of media outlets with a certain political edge rather than ones who are notorious for giving big name publishers higher review scores if this is about corruption. They've also been spreading around a list of advertisers emails in order to try and get them to stop advertising there --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 00:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

They literally try to take stuff down with actual DOS, as in illegal shit using scripts, too. Hacking attempts too. With regards to corruption, they should start a Flier Gate, target the corruption in the free on-flight magazines (ones that talk about overpriced products). It'd be as silly. They might if someone start alleging someone slept for those. If you read something talking about consumer products, and on a side pane you see ads for said products, what you're reading is plainly promotional material, and everyone understood it as such until this Quinn nonsense. Dmytry (talk) 05:58, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

They're claiming a victory now

Intel has apparently pulled its ads from Gamasutra according to this story from Recode. This was done in retaliation for an editorial column. I hate this kind of activist bullshit generally and on principle, but given the manufactured and trivial nature of the controversy this has to win some kind of prize. - Smerdis of Tlön, for the defense. 03:23, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I see this as an attack on indie game developers in general. The magazines which would dare to defend an indie game developer for what they think is right, are also the ones that would review you for free, rather than do the ads+review deal. I think the way this controversy worked, at the core you have some genuine shitheads who just plain lie and dramatically exaggerate everything (e.g. a mention in a list of games that got greenlit becomes a "review", which it is not, they list every game that gets greenlit, someone supposedly sleeps around to get an award that's actually determined by votes on the site, etc). They also make a lot of accounts. Regular people don't do due diligence and also just plain jump on what looks like a popular bandwagon. The funny part is, hardly anyone heard of depression quest before that. Dmytry (talk) 06:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I wish they would stop saying it is about "corruption". It's so easy to see through that, you just have to read the things that they are posting in the hashtags and the subreddit. This is a reactionary political campaign designed to politicise men who play video games into becoming part of the online antifeminism movement --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 07:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Precisely. Thing is, traditional 'gamers' - folks that buy, say, wolfenstein the new order, or what ever shooter associated with being a guy, a very large percentage of them is now adults, sometimes with children, boring jobs, and so on. Like your usual RW contributor. But they're also the folks that aren't going to go around various sites including RW and register new accounts to post some political BS. Dmytry (talk) 07:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, Intel has now backpedalled and apologized for pulling its ads from Gamasutra. The ads themselves have not reappeared yet. - Smerdis of Tlön, for the defense. 14:52, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank god --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 15:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I imagine the issue was that a small number of 4chan folks pretended to be a large number of customers, plus outright lied about something in the emails, temporarily misleading Intel. Dmytry (talk) 16:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I imagine it was a freak incident and neither side of the GG controversy really has shit for influence in the gaming industry, no matter how much of a "huge conspiracy omg!!" either side claims the other has got going. Nullahnung (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's not tiny, either. Worst 1% of people are pretty bad, and there's 10 000 of such in a million of people, and the internet enabled a sizeable number of those to band together on shitforums and shitchats. So you could probably have perhaps a thousand of people involved, from the bullshit side of things, but it's not indicative of any large % support and whenever these folks reach outside their natural habitat and try to get normal folks involved, they don't get much agreement. Dmytry (talk) 18:08, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

By the way, with regards to the talk about corruption and integrity, articles like this: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2007/12/the-gamespot-controversy-as-a-window-into-the-world-of-gaming-journalism/ were a thing long before this "gamersgate" (it's actually on one of the sites targeted by the 4chan). Given that background, anyone who claims gamersgate is about some reveal of a hitherto unknown corruption, didn't ever give a fuck about that whole issue in the first place. The Captain Obvious has a sister, and they have a son, Captain Joffrey Obvious, and that's the guy who would point it out that, perhaps, given a free site which runs the ad campaign for what it reviews, you don't need any 'gate'. Dmytry (talk) 13:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

They are primarily concerned with an ideology. Rather than starting and funding a website that supports their specific worldview, they relentlessly attack these websites that already exist that don't and try to pull their funding. I guess the alternative is too much like hard work --Drowninginlimbo (talk) 15:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, well, they aren't particularly passionate about anything at all, it's just how they pass their time, and it sounds passionate, but when you boil down to doing things that aren't writing a fake blog by a nameless "female game developer", it's not. Dmytry (talk) 02:43, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Love Chris Kluwe's post. Indeed, videogames are mainstream media now. For the most part, made and played by normal people. Dmytry (talk) 13:35, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is wise or meaningful to differentiate between "normal people" and "people who used to make and play video games". Nullahnung (talk) 13:52, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

The gamergaters strike me as abnormal, though... Dmytry (talk) 13:34, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Substantially, they're not much different from the typical hate group (from (FBI), taken from Wikipedia: "a hate group's 'primary purpose is to promote animosity, hostility, and malice against persons belonging to a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnicity/national origin which differs from that of the members of the organization'". They spout out vile things; threaten, harass, or otherwise censor critics and minority groups (women); I'm mildly surprised that some organizations including Southern Povery Law Center doesn't categorize them as a hate group, because that's what they are, especially when you factor in the neoNazi and white supremacist allusions... maybe because they're aren't as organized. LEFTYGREENMARIO 19:08, 4 December 2014 (UTC)