@twitterbeef: I'm not saying the postcards section wasn't a mistake, rest of the crew accepts that too, but at the same time they repeatedly say that they really appreciate it - it's just hard to handle all of it. You ignored the part about the corrections, the crew wants us to correct them, people aren't idiots to be sending in corrections if you're gonna go "ughh I can already hear people typing corrections on their keyboards" everytime. I haven't sent any yet myself, but I think it's insulting.
Anyway that's all I had to say, hope these things get corrected with time.
Quick hit thoughts from an old dude after finishing this ep and reading the comments.
The criticisms of Abby in this thread are sexism, pure and simple. If any male member of the staff had said the exact same things, people wouldn't be reacting nearly as harshly. I'm talking the mentions that she "doesn't know what she signed up for" or "seems turned off by GOTY" and all that. No. You're wrong. And you're dicks. She plays just as many games as anyone else. The only thing she might be lacking is the perspective and history that the older members have, but that's because she's young. Hardly a character flaw.
As someone who was here all through the Patrick years, the only thing I can say is that this is demonstrably untrue. Perhaps you just missed those incidents or something, but I remember a threadnaught on the regular whenever Patrick decided to say anything even remotely "feminist"y.
The abuse Patrick got in general is like several orders of magnitude worse than the reaction to Abby has been at its lowest.
You're absolutely correct that some people got pissy when he made SJW-type comments (not meant derogatorily - I'm probably one as well). They were absolutely savage against Patrick's politics, but I cannot remember anyone flat-out questioning his "gamer creds" the way people constantly do with Abby. That's what I was aiming for with my comment #1.
I've been a fan since the Sausalito days, so I've seen it all too. I'm usually just quiet on the site. ;)
People question Abby's 'gamer creds' because she knows noticeably less than her nearest point of comparison (Ben) as well as the others. It's nothing to do with being a woman or being a man. It just kind of sticks out and it's not an age thing.
Also, if you work for a video game website there's an expectation that you know your stuff, now whether that expectation is logical to have is up to you, but I can understand where people are coming from with it.
Tbf Abby doesn't get very much criticism, probably due to the fear of being labelled as sexist if anyone does do it. Dan for example, gets so much vicious hate, and I at times feel sorry for him!
On the topic of Abby, there's been a lot of groaning from her lately when it comes to the postcards section for example, or the corrections section. It's a bit insulting to the people who do send these in, so maybe she should reign it in a bit. She also groans when other site members talk about something they like that she doesn't agree with.
I think this is pretty valid criticism that has nothing to do with gender.
The whole depressing NeoGAF saga has made me think a lot about video game communities online, and how it's kind of a bummer how this site's community has waned in favor of off-site community spaces instead, like Reddit or now ResetEra. The forums on this site just kind of feel like they've been left to die on the vine in the last few years, and after a quick glance of the staff's posting histories, the time when they seemed to post more often on the forums is ages-past. It's just a bummer that Giant Bomb's own forums get so little promotion or participation from them. I've always really loved the forums here and felt like the hub of the Giant Bomb community should be on, well, giantbomb.com.
I've always loved GB's forums (been here from the start) and I'm not joking when I say the conversations here have changed my life, taught me a lot of what I know, and helped me grow. I was about 16 in 2008, so that's a pretty impressionable age.
I'm not as active as I used to be, and I know that the golden era of the forums ended somewhere ~4-5 years ago, (and a lot of those classic old users have disappeared) but why do you say these forums have been left to die? I only ask as I am sporadically active on them and don't know.
Also, is Giantbomb's community more active on reddit (or resetera) the way it used to be on giantbomb itself during it's best times?
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