kidkarolus

What's really ironic about the last few years, specifically starting with the backlash to Sarkeesian's videos, is how the reaction has made them all the more powerful. If people hadn't flipped out over her tiny video series, her message would be one of many on YouTube. It hardly would have grabbed the same traction on its own, but the detractors gave her a platform. The very people trying to tear her down managed to turn her into a martyr, and her message is heard louder than ever before. The same thing is happening with Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu. Zoe made a relatively banal but meaningful text adventure about depression, and Brianna's studio made a pretty cool sci-fi adventure starring female characters.

In essence, GamerGate and things like it have had the opposite intended effect.

Don't thank me. Thank Rorie and the tireless mods who have spent hours trying to let people have a reasonable discussion. We could not do this without them.

I'll be clear: I don't like doing this. But I think everyone on either side of this discussion can at least recognize that the last few days have been pretty stressful for the (unpaid, volunteer) moderators, even if you don't particularly care for their role on the site. I'm going to reserve the right to lock threads and unlock them later just to keep everyone sane. Sorry, I know that sucks, and complaints about it are certainly valid, but this argument has been bubbling around for months now and it's clear that the loss of twelve hours' commenting time is probably not going to cause any seismic shifts in the nature of this conversation.

It is! Thanks.

I guess I should have been clearer in my point, though -- I don't see evidence any of the sites in question DID attack gamers. These sites are then the victims of an unjust accusation, and should also be considered innocent until proven guilty.

People that accuse the sites of attacking gamers are, in my opinion, being disingenuous or haven't really understood the actual message of the 'gamers are dead' articles past the headline. The fact that it's the phrase 'gamers are dead' that directly quoted in the post leads me to the conclusion that the objection is based on a misinterpretation of the message. I wanted to highlight this part of what you said: 'With any victim, you must be cautious that the claim are valid and that the accused is not falsely accused.'

I don't believe that most of the claims about the 'anti-gg' side you quoted are valid so I see dissonance there, or perhaps hypocrisy. Not in a conscious way, but it rarely is.

Are you capable of responding to anyone without being sarcastic or patronizing?

I'm going to put this into the simplest possible terms here: The people threatening Anita and the "reasonable" people of GamerGate want the same thing. To silence voices in the games industry that they don't agree with. One group is just nicer than the other.

@kidkarolus: It's really the problem that, for some reason, people are unable to differentiate individuals from the group. Every group has its radicals and loons. Yeah some of the people claiming to support gamergate are indeed being terrible. Now go look at something like the most radical groups of feminists on tumblr stating that men should be killed. There is no difference between radicals when prejudices are thrown to the side. Sadly, it seems that the vocal community on here is incapable of empathy for ideas they do not share, and thus create this great boogeyman.

It's not "Feminists vs Gamergaters" though. It's a bunch of different people affiliated with no one group who just don't agree with Gamergate is doing.

This is a driveby post and I'm sorry for that, but I'm curious if you see any evidence of cognitive dissonance between these two points (one of which you copy / pasted from a blog, I fully realize.)

@dudleyville: They laid out in no uncertain terms why they were making the threat. How is this in any way conflicting with GamerGate's stated aims to purge the video game industry of feminism and leftist politics?