Commentary on GB Hiring

Hey all,

Today has led to plenty of heated and interesting commentary about Giant Bomb, both here and on Twitter. I've said it before and I'll say it again: we welcome criticism and find it very valuable, but we do ask that all comments are kept civil and constructive. Rudeness to staff, moderators, other site users, and anyone else, on Twitter or elsewhere, will lead to moderation. So please keep things constructive.

If you would like to welcome Jason and Dan to GB, the thread for that is here.

Well put. I hope this doesn't make dan and Jason feel unwelcome

The hate train came from a reddit men's right subreddit. It's unfortunate that giant bomb and its community is being associated with them.

Alrighty then, I guess I'll just re-post this.

The way I see it, it goes like this:

1. This being a personality-driven website, Giant Bomb tends to hire well-established personalities like Patrick and Dan, people who've been at the video game journalism game for a decade or more.

2. A decade ago, female and minority game journalists were far less common, for all sorts of unfortunate reasons.

3. Purely as a result of the first two facts (and almost certainly not deliberately), there has yet to be a female or minority hired to be part of the Giant Bomb editorial staff.

4. Meanwhile, other websites that are more news and article driven tend to be far more diverse because of the need for a larger staff, and a willingness to hire less experienced people.

5. As a result of this discrepancy, Giant Bomb inadvertently attracts a certain percentage of their viewership who, either knowingly or subconsciously, absolutely do not want the perspectives of women or minorities in their video game coverage.

6. The otherwise-cool Giant Bomb community continues to show its ass every single time any sort of social issue is involved.

Honestly, it's nobody's fault. Certainly not Jeff's for hiring the people he decided to hire. But those dudes seriously need to come to terms with this particular element of the community they've accidentally cultivated, because I think the Giant Bomb crew and the rest of the community are both in denial about it.

Shoulda hired an anti-game activist

I don't have a strong opinion either way about the hires because I just don't know the two guys. I look forward to seeing what the future holds, and a lot of people here have good things to say about them. I'm definitely more excited than concerned (not concerned in the least bit to be honest)

Could someone illuminate exactly what was happening? Could we get that kind of post here?

I don't really have anything to add beyond what I've said before, but I appreciate that you're allowing space for discussion.

You're a commentary.

As I said in the other thread, I'm very disappointed in both sides of this. They chose who they thought were the best people for the job, I'd rather them do that than hire a statistic. That would do this site a great disservice. On the other hand, though some shit was said, people didn't need to bite back with death threats and dickish behavior. That solves nothing. Everyone needs to calm the fuck down

Because then there would be a portion of people who freak out and call it segregation.

It doesn't matter who GB hires, there will be people freaking out. If they had hired a gay guy/lesbian girl or black girl or whatever, there would be a portion of people who view that as forced. Admittedly, depending on the people's abilities, I might be in that portion of people.

You can't please everyone. Is this website about having fun playing video games? Or societal politics? I think first and foremost it's about games, therefore Jeff and the rest of the crew should hire whoever is best qualified for the available positions. This is also taking into consideration all sorts of factors such as salary, location, on-screen experience, professionalism in the face of criticism, etc They could have a fantastic black female person apply for the position but is asking for too much money or isn't able to make the move to San Francisco etc.

The video game world isn't going to change overnight because of who one website decides to hire or not. Move on. Things will change naturally.

This is my opinion on this. From all sides. Also from my own; I knew I would hate this discussion but I can't help but participate in it anyway. I already said some stuff that was dumb. A flaw I still need to work out.

@rorie: Lost in all of this is how you're doing an awesome job of keeping sane. Thank you!

Thanks for the update Rorie! I'm looking forward to seeing how Dan work out.

And that "Fuck you" was specifically related to the billionth time someone implied that Dan was the most qualified. Which was the point of my earlier replies in this thread detailing Maddy's qualifications, which in turn was met with a concerted effort to move the goalposts.

Anyone who thinks Samantha was out of line doesn't realize the context.

I love Giantbomb but it's not perfect and I seriously fell a little bit of myself die a little when I see some of the bullshite that happenes in the chat. Do I think that a discussion about race and sex an GB needs to happen absolutely. I really hope one day we can have a thread where someone post something sexist/racist/whatever and the the community come together and tell they guy why what he said might not have been the best or the right thing and that poster learns but based on today were are far from that dream. Also would it have been nice to see someone of a different gender or race be hired yes but that was the decision made and I will not hold anything against the crew for it.

As far as I can see Samantha Allen posted on twitter complaining about the new hires being white men, which quickly devolved into people sending abuse towards her. I looked at her tumblr post about misandry and it seems she likes spreading hate herself as well, so it's basically one extremist being harassed by other extremists on the other side

Edit: Also Jeff and Alex tweeted out these:

But from the websites I imagine the tweets being posted on I'd think a lot of the messages came from users who aren't part of Giant Bomb

Locking a thread where people were actively discussing, criticizing and dialoguing about the direction of the site does not send the message that such conversations are welcome.

I had not seen @rorie's final post on the previous thread before posting the above, since retracted. My apologies for speaking without having done so.

I think this tweet sums up my thoughts on today's events:

I wish some people here had more sympathy for people who get an incredible amount of abuse and harassment when they show up or comment about Giant Bomb. Whether or not these shit bandits come from Giant Bomb (a lot of them clearly do) is irrelevant because they're still doing it in the name of Giant Bomb. Yeah, they're a minority, but don't lose your shit if someone gets angry after they've just been threatened with rape and told to commit suicide.

Thanks Rorie. Lets keep things positive and friendly everyone.

Threads get buggy when they go past a certain point.

@tom_scherschel said:

Opening another thread specifically for that discussion does.

I'll post some of my comments that I made on the Bombcast here:

I'm excited about the new guys too, but I will stand by the others voicing criticism of the demographics in Giant Bomb. This would have been great opportunity and a great example of expanding the video game journalism "rolodex." Change cannot only come from words, but from actions too.

I also challenge the idea that GB wanted to hire people that would fit the group dynamic. Jeff has continually said (in Jar times, his Tumblr, and other content) that he wants to keep GB spontaneous. I think hiring new people (ie not established game journalists who are also their friends) from different backgrounds (ie women and minorities who hardly ever get opportunities from the BIG websites) would have created a more spontaneous environment.

I'm adding @bleatingheart's link to Jenn Frank's article about The Rolodex because everyone should read it before they call out forced diversity.

The original thread was meant as a welcome to Jason and Dan that was usurped. Some people tried keeping it on the original topic, but it proved futile. Rorie did the best thing possible by giving space to both discussions.

I also think that this so called forced diversity that some people are calling out as a bad thing is necessary. CBSi is a private company, so I'm not saying that the government should force them to change their hiring practices. But historically speaking, and not only focusing on games media, sometimes forcing someone (or a company) to do social good is the only way change happens. See the 14th and 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. I don't mean to imply that someone should force GB to do something. I just hoped that a diversity friendly hiring had happened.

No one - NO ONE - is claiming they should hire women or minorities who aren't qualified. As Jenn Frank's article says:

...[W]e should hire based on merit, and not gender.

Friend, I'll be honest: Every time I hear this phrase uttered anew, my brain explodes. The unfortunate — and unintended, I know! — insinuation being made here is that "merit" and "gender" (or "race," or "sexual orientation" or whatever) are somehow mutually exclusive. Yikes! Instead of letting people owntheir personal achievements, we perhaps suspect them of being hired according to some mysterious "quota." Yikes again!

No one is saying "hire a woman instead of a competent, qualified person." Yikes, yikes, yikes!

@hunter5024: @smcn: Yeah, I fucked up. I've edited the post. Allow me to personally apologize for making an accusation without all the facts.

@tom_scherschel: Some people were using that thread to talk about Jason and Dan and others were using it to talk about other issues. It was getting confusing and honestly if I'm going to stay sane tonight I want to have all of these discussions in one place for easier reading. I don't really see what the issue is, as this thread is now here for doing exactly what a lot of people were doing in the other thread, only without two different groups of people talking about two different subjects talking over each other.

Our disappointed voices are not attacking Jason and Dan, are not saying they don't deserve the jobs, are not saying that Giant Bomb or Jeff are bigots. All the negativity is coming from the other side, the side that wants to drown out our generally civil and pertinent opinions.

This shouldn't matter, but it's not just "white social justice warriors" who are voicing criticism. I am a Mexican American man, and I do care a lot about who gets opportunities in this industry. People should look at pretty much every facet of society and notice that most information, most opinions come from the same group and say "Hmm that's interesting." And your first response shouldn't be "Aw this again?!" when someone does notice, because clearly nothing has changed.

I've the feeling this one will be closed sooner than later for turning south.

People just need to learn to stop following the twitter accounts of people they don't agree with. When certain journalists start throwing shade, throwing shade, if not straight hatred, back at them will not solve anything. Just let them be and do your own thing. The only people that had the right to respond to the disrespectful stuff first lobbed at GB were the GB crew; they decided to take it in stride and that should have been the end of it. Fighting misdirected anger with hot rage is fucking stupid and shameful.

It was a hijacked thread that was intended to welcome the new staff and resulted in a mix of people trying to send their best wishes to the new hires whilst others also discussed the slightly more complex topic of man's inhumanity towards man on the internet. The thread was closed and the discussion diverged to be more on topic on both cases which to me signals that they're very much interested in hearing this conversation and as such gave it it's own platform.

Gender and racial bias is a thing that everyone should already know about and actively be trying to subvert, not just automatically reject. It's a researched fact. (And, as pointed out before, subconscious, not "brainwashed").

I hate to sound repetitive, but I'll bring up Jenn Frank's Rolodex article again.

The reality is, there is an unconscious "gender bias," according to Scientific American. That uncanny bias repeats itself in every field. It is both institutionalized and internalized: Even women and minorities ignore academic queries and requests from other women and minorities.

Wow, my power was out all day, and when it finally comes up, it appears that I missed a shit storm. I kind of regret missing it, but at the same time, I'm kind of glad to only be seeing the aftermath of it.

It's hard to expect diversity intrinsically, certain groups and situations just don't lend themselves to it. Doesn't mean the people involved are bigots, only that lasting diversification tends to spring up organically. That's the way I see it, anyway.

We can all safely say that Giant Bomb is still understaffed. So when the next round of hires happens, will the the "safe bets" and "immediate need" reasons still apply, or when are we allowed to call it out?

Also, if "safe bets" and "immediate need" were the primary requirements, then why announce the open positions on the forums? That creates an assumption that they were looking for new blood, not people already in entrenched in BIG games media places.

What can we do? Lots has been said over the last day about certain community members (or maybe community members I dunno its real hard to figure out) going out and spewing hatred at anyone who dares question the actions of GB, lost in that is what I think is a majority of people on this site that find those acts to be absolutely deplorable and don't want that to represent our community.

But what can/do we do as members to squash those people and their connection to the site? I am at a real loss here as to what can be done to show that a majority of us aren't like that.

I have a feeling none of this would have happened if they weren't hyping up new hires for months, opening up applications despite the individuals already being decided on and teasing the audience for weeks with vague hints. If all of a sudden Dan and Jason were on the staff it would be just another day.

So people from different viewpoints who clearly don't know what giant bomb is about got on twitter and started some shit. Some were targeting a site that is standing for equality every chance it gets instead of talking about the underlying problem that made the hiring of 2 white dude inevitable. Some were hatefull trolls. The point is, no one in that stupid twitter argument had a leg to stand on.

One of my fears is if Giant Bomb decides to publicly talk about the applicants' demographics, and it's revealed that little to no minorities or women applied, some people will say "See! We were right." They will casually ignore that the tone and atmosphere created by some (vocal) people in this community might keep minorities and women from applying in the first place.

What the hell?

Usually I'd say that I see "some mistakes on all sides", but really, all of this so far seems relatively one-sided. I mean, Twitter is Twitter. It's sad to see some of what's going on there, but what matters most to me is how we actually interact here on Giant Bomb. And it's absurdly one-sided. A few people have said they are kind of disappointed or may have concerns about diversity, and dozens of dozens of folks are flipping out about it. That is -insane-.

The clear values of the staff and this community are not the perversions many people are trumpeting, and if you think all of this is alright, then maybe this isn't the site for you. I think it should be up to the staff and mods to decide who to ban, but I hope some people will willingly decide to leave on they're own. I'm a relatively welcoming fellow, but if you're going to use this forum as a platform for hatefulness and idiocy, I will do what I can to convince you to find somewhere else to ruin.

We all have a place in cultivating the culture of this site, and what has gone on today should remind us how far we still have to go in making Giant Bomb the awesome and welcoming community we desire it to be.

Gricean Maxims. Know them before you start debating.

I'm still shocked that people think there is something nefarious is going on. I really don't see people complaining about this topic except for the people claiming there are people out there complaining about this topic!! It becomes an indubitable echo chamber where everyone is sure there is something bad going on because everyone is talking about how something is bad is going on. No one has said GB made a bad move hiring but wow a lot of people were pissed off anyway.

Beyond that, there are those that wonder why "gaming" doesn't get more respect or is treated like a bunch of anti-social freaks it is because of anti-social behavior like this. Why would any man or woman want to join a this community when they treat new arrivals like this?

It's presumptuous to say that the new hires were decided on before the applications were even opened. There is no proof that such was the case. It is probably true, however, that the way that the staff milked the speculation for all it was worth in the name of laughs and stringing people along for as long as this went on did not help.

@hailinel: Yeah, I hadn't reloaded the page to see Rorie's final post as to WHY the thread was locked. I just saw it WAS locked, saw this thread, read the first post and gut-reacted which is never advisable. I completely take back that statement and apologize to Rorie for the insinuation.

You are crazy if you take your beef with this to Twitter as being semi-famous and then expect everyone to fully comprehend the context. I don't condone harassment, but saying 'go fuck yourself' on a public medium to a fair question and expecting anything else than fair criticism andShitlords coming your way is just naive. I see a bunch of people saying 'you just don't get it'. In fact, Samantha tweeted something similar not too long ago. The truth is she doesn't seem to get it. You can't act like that and expect the best from people. There are all kinds of people and all kinds of reactions. There is no service where you only get the best of them. You get all of them. It's the internet and it's people. It's not your idealized fantasy.

I may be wrong but I thought I saw Jeff write, either on Tumblr or Twitter, that he already had the person for editor position in mind but they had to open it up formally. Again I could be wrong.

@cabbagesensei: I think Patrick's after-E3 post about the impact of the "Rolodex" concept is also quite worth people's read, and I do find it hard to believe it was not some factor in this result. Still cool with Dan and Jason joining the team, but we can think about and discuss the potential factors involved.

http://patrickklepek.tumblr.com/post/89165256269/my-rolodex

As Patrick did in his post, you can both defend your efforts and admit where you could have done better.