Lively

I hope I'm not violating the "chill" directive from Rorie, but I take strong exception to this quote. The riots are not being organized by BLM, the actual organization is organizing peaceful protests, but when unarmed people are being killed in the street by cops, that understandably causes emotions to boil over for some people.

The reason that Trump is causing people to react like this is because he's much more overtly racist than any political candidate has dared to be in many years, and he's shown reckless disregard for the constitution, the rule of law, business contracts, America's diplomatic relationships, and seems to not care how incendiary his language is. This isn't a normal election, and the reaction against Palmer reflects this. He's not even supporting Trump via normal republican arguments, he's trying to propagate the ugliest corner of Trump's supporters.

The most recent Giant Beastcast has an ad for Draft Kings "Fantasy Esports" betting, which somehow feels even dirtier than betting on regular sports. I hope Giant Bomb can find slightly more reputable advertisers than this.

I don't think that games journalism is a shinning beacon by any means, but at the end of the day it is just an enthusiast press about what is, for the most part, a frivolous pass time. And I've noticed that GamerGate doesn't seem to care about ethics violations with AAA publishers and the press, instead focusing most of their attention on progressive and minority voices, which is why I think a lot of GG folks are either being deceptive or self-deceptive about what they really want.

@icarusfoundyou: Maybe a middle-ground step would be to make new accounts harder to make (like only 1 new account per IP address per 3 months, or something), so even if you're still anonymous, you can't make a thousand hateful sock-puppet accounts in one day. Twitter in particular might bennefit from this.

I think you're probably misreading the sentiment from most of the GB staff if this is what you think.

@icarusfoundyou said:

I know they already do something like this in South Korea (mandatory real-identity internet usernames). I'm not sure how well it works there, but it sure seems like real-name Facebook commenting sites aren't really much better. Many of the sociopathic bullies aren't deterred, and the people with minority viewpoints (or afraid of employment repercussions) are made even more shy.

I do want to thank @rorie and the rest of the moderation team for keeping this space mostly on the side of civility and constructive discussion.

I agree with those who commend Giant Bomb for actually being a model for the inclusiveness that others talk about, and that daily articles shaming people isn't the right way forward.

I do think occasional articles like this one are useful, however, because as great as leading by example is, it also helps to have periodic reminders in no uncertain terms where they stand. When things get as bad as they have, silence can begin to look like tacit approval of the status quo.

Big kudos to Patrick especially for being the kind of person who feels passionately about this, yet still listens to the discussion and tries to keep a two-way communication open.

Keep at it duders, I know we're in good hands with you guys.

I think it's actually kind of the source of the problem that the some of their main organizers at the moment are shadowy shit-flingers on 4Chan (or 8Chan now?), and YouTube hate-mongers like "Internet Aristocrat" and "Thunderfoot". What they don't have is a leader who is fully out in the open, and has the influence to command their attention, and the maturity to steer the conversation towards more productive solutions to their complaints, instead of just instigating more shit.

They have a decision to make - are they a handful of earnest people unwittingly providing cover for a mountain of ugliness, or are they a few bad apples dragging down an otherwise legitimate consumer revolt? Time will tell.

I had the same initial response - but I really don't think that the group that allies with gamergate is going to "fuck off", or go away. Although I suspect some of them are disingenuous and complicit in harassment, there are at least some of them that feel legitimately marginalized by what they perceive as an insular, progressive-leaning journalist community, and aren't necessarily bad actors themselves.

At this point, we need to try harder to make sure that those who actually want dialogue get it, without painting with so broad a brush that they are driven even further into extremism. So much shit has gone down that this is hard to do, but I believe it is not impossible.