I agree with the stated purposes of GG: games journalism needs some serious balancing. For instance, that mailing list in which both journalists and producers are members is an example of a line that should exist and yet doesn't. Hech, even "game developer literally in bed with producers" is something that, properly approached (not the case AT ALL, of course), could have been a valid point.
And yet, what is GG known for? They are being openly misogynistic, attacking anyone who dares speaking against them in a pretty serious way. Anita Sarkeesian and Felicia Day, to name two famous women, were doxxed and harrassed just for speaking openly.
And just like you cannot say "X and Y belong to Anonymous, but Z doesn't", you cannot say "The misogynists are using GG as an excuse, but they are not true GGers", because they are GG (the same way that you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic).
So my point would be: If a group is full of jerks that are flocking towards a group erroneously, are they really in the wrong group?
And yet, what is GG known for? They are being openly misogynistic, attacking anyone who dares speaking against them in a pretty serious way.
Okay, so first off, "attacking" does not imply misogyny. Attacking a woman for any reason that's not directly related to her gender is not misogyny. Period point blank.
Secondly, "What GG is known for" is the perception, the thing I take issue with, "What GG actually does" is something else.
I find it somewhat telling that you (not sure if you did this on purpose or not) characterize the community's response to being called misogynists as "attacking", and you characterize the people throwing the accusations as "speaking against". I'm not sure that any reasonable person would respond with anything but derision at being pre-emptively labeled in this way. Are people not allowed to defend themselves?
What I'm looking for here are facts. It appears, and please correct me with something I can actually verify on my own if I'm wrong here, that basically three people are saying "i'm being attacked because X", without actually backing up that accusation.
The cycle appears to be:
* Person writes incisive article or otherwise does something skeevy (GJP email list)
* Community goes "WTF?"
* Person characterizes this response as harassment.
I see no evidence, none, other than the words of the people concerned (which for obvious reasons, is insufficient evidence), that GG is mass harassing them. THIS IS THE MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE FOR ME. Every time I try to follow the evidence trail, it ends at, in effect "I say I'm being harassed, so I am", with a side order of "The extremists in a group define a group".
I do not accept either of those explanations as true or logical.
And as a follow up, even if we acknowledge the existence of that mass harassment, what effort does the rest of the GG community, the people that are actually part of the revolt for the purposes of journalistic impropriety, need to do that they have not already done?
Loudly state they don't support harassment? Already done. [1].
Form a group to ensure harassers are removed from their ranks? Already done. [2]
Try to assemble a code of conduct for people to follow? Already done. [3].
What else needs to happen?
The problem with your standard is that you allow any group to be trivially discredited by the existence of a minority of troublemakers, either real or invented by the discreditors. The same kind of thing happened to Occupy Wall Street, the difference here is that this is the internet, and we should be able to logically separate troublemakers from non troublemakers.
You don't want be convinced, and you won't allow it to happen. It's extremely obvious. No one is going to waste their time attempting to correct you. You have to correct yourself. Or don't.
Who were Anita Sarkeesian and Felicia Day doxxed by? Maybe they did it themselves, or their friends did it. Have you got any evidence at all that this is not what happened. After all damseling-in-distress is very lucrative these days.
Edit: Downvoters, where is your evidence, where is your evidence, where is your evidence, where is your evidence?
This double standard absolutely boggles my mind, especially in the company of the people who usually inhabit this website.
What evidence is there that prominent GG detractors are receiving harassment for their views? Exactly the same amount of evidence that prominent GG supporters are receiving harassment for their views, yet for some reason, this standard is only applied against some people and not others.
I want to know what that reason is, I want someone reasonable to explain that to me, and I hope beyond all hope it doesn't boil down to "because some of those people have media connections and some don't".
especially in the company of the people who usually inhabit this website.
It gets easier to understand when you realize most of us were bullied as kids. It becomes a natural instinct to herd together and protect our own. It's less because some of those people have media connections and more because those media connections happen to be people they consider friends and loved ones. At that point, emotional bias takes over.
Or, to put it another way, if somebody told you your mother was a murderer, would you believe him, no matter what evidence he presented? Even if he had a video of the event, it would be easier for you to believe that the tape had been doctored than for you to believe this person you loved could do something so terrible. At least it would be for me.
I'm not excusing it, mind you, just explaining it.
Thank you MrDom, I partially agree with you, some antiGGers that are in full force here at HN
really don't want to hear the truth and gang up against those who
challenge the damsel-in-distress that the likes of Sarkeesian (who's a
front for Jonathan Mcintosh), Chelsea Van Valkenburg (who currently
calls herself Zoe Quinn) and that odious John Walker Flynt guy (who
calls himself Brianna Wu right now) dish out. As you have seen very
clearly, nobody has been able to provide a shred of evidence in
defence of Sarkeesian (Mcintosh), Van Valkenburg and Flynt. And they knew that
they have been unable to do so.
Given how central HN is to Silicon Valley, I suspect that at least
some of the participants in this discussion are more than innocent (if
naive) bystanders and actively sabotage any investigation into the
licentious relationship between games companies and game journalists:
whenever anyone dares to mention that something untoward has been
going on, they automatiaclly and habitually scream: misogyny,
harrassment, bullying. And it works well on the mainstream level: the
damsel-in-distress trope sells really well with normal guys. But it
doesn't work with everyone, like myself ... leading to angry
downvoting.
I actually had to look up what doxxing is! I realized I had never gotten a proper definition. Doxxing refers to the practice of investigating and revealing a target subject’s personally identifiable information, such as home address, workplace information and credit card numbers, without consent.
I suppose you could argue that exposing frauds is a form of doxxing, but so could whistleblowing. I think there is a line to be drawn[0], but their names? How do you talk about the key players in a scandal if you can't use their names?
[0]: That guy who took a picture of Zoe's work place and posted it on twitter was over the line, for example. Then again, Zoe posted Mike Cernovich's address on twitter and encouraged her followers to swat him.
I think it's not worth talking about them at all - IMO the journalist reaction to the scandal is most interesting. There's still no disclaimer on Nathan Grayson's articles and guys like Devin are playing 'See No Evil'.
But when we must talk about them, we can use their public names and get along fine. Getting their former identities doesn't help people who want to clean up journalism, it just helps dig up background dirt.
In what sense is using people's real names problematic? When I'm
calling the US president Barak Obama I'm doxxing him? Maybe it's a
generational thing: when I was a child we still had this thing called
telephone book, where you could look up every adults address and phone
number.
All this shows the ridiculousness of the charges the Van Valkenburg and Flyns of this world are making, then the gullibility of their followers.
Thank you Karunamon. The fact that GGers who inquire into Silicon Valley power structures get demonised while anti-GGers get celebrated shows that distribution of power, and gives indirect evidence that the GGers are onto something that those in power are desperate to cover up.
I agree with the stated purposes of GG: games journalism needs some serious balancing. For instance, that mailing list in which both journalists and producers are members is an example of a line that should exist and yet doesn't. Hech, even "game developer literally in bed with producers" is something that, properly approached (not the case AT ALL, of course), could have been a valid point.
And yet, what is GG known for? They are being openly misogynistic, attacking anyone who dares speaking against them in a pretty serious way. Anita Sarkeesian and Felicia Day, to name two famous women, were doxxed and harrassed just for speaking openly.
And just like you cannot say "X and Y belong to Anonymous, but Z doesn't", you cannot say "The misogynists are using GG as an excuse, but they are not true GGers", because they are GG (the same way that you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic).
So my point would be: If a group is full of jerks that are flocking towards a group erroneously, are they really in the wrong group?