Tom_Scherschel

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

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.

@thehumandove: Excepting Patrick, the rest of the Giant Bomb staff including the new hires, have incredibly similar taste in games, music, movies, entertainment (wrestling), food, and booze. That's not my opinion, that's what I've taken away from hundreds of hours of podcasts and live shows.

It's interesting that you keep bringing the conversation back to "having a penis". The homogeneity people are point out goes beyond sex/gender (apologies for writing it like that, I can't remember which is the correct term to use. I DO NO mean to imply that those terms are interchangeable). Do you really feel like Jeff, Brad, Alex, Vinny, and now Dan represent a wide array of opinions and interests, or would it be more accurate to say they like a whole heck of a lot of the same stuff.

@zeik: It's not dangerous territory because this is a private website. No one is saying that you shouldn't be allowed to say or think this terrible, sexist, homophobic stuff, but you don't have a right, for example, to say it in a Starbucks. They will ask you to leave. The choice facing Giant Bomb is do they allow these people to stay?

@thehumandove: I don't want to hijack this thread with an MRA discussion, so maybe PM me if you want to keep discussing that particular topic.

@jeust: Actually, most major corporations will get in trouble for not having a diverse staff, and in fact have quotas in place to make sure they can't be hit by that complaint. Larger corps like Pepsi even insist that the vendors and suppliers they work with have diverse hires so that they can say they foster growth from the top down.

@oldirtybearon: That you would say that trying to deal, in some way, with a group that is actively persecuting and threatening minority voices just for saying they should have a seat at the table is a pogrom against those people is evidence of either ignorance or malicious intent. The pogrom here is the targeted attacks, from this community and others, on women, minorities, and the LGBTQ community by straight white men who believe themselves to be the arbiter of what is fair and "just" (as one guy on here keeps insisting). Chemotherapy isn't a pogrom against cancer, it's an attempt to deal with a disease that is destroying the host.

And saying that people are trying to turn Giant Bomb into an echo chamber is laughable. The site ALREADY IS an echo chamber; it is staffed by nine straight white dudes who all share the same interests well beyond videogames. The people wishing (that's all they're doing by the way, WISHING) that the powers that be would add a little diversity to that mix are trying to change that echo chamber.

@marokai: Here's a choice a moderator might face. A person signs up for the website and in the forums posts things like "I'm sick of all this bullshit gender equality stuff" (a paraphrasing of something posted on the previous page"). That person is saying "issues that don't affect me shouldn't be discussed and/or are made up by the group claiming victimhood. They should not have a voice here." That's not me inferring anything, that's what that statement says. I know what I would do but that's not the point. The point is do the moderators and the staff that built this site want that person in the community? Are they okay with that person feeling like Giant Bomb is a home for that opinion? That's there decision, which I would argue they are more than happy to put off based on their actions, but it is an important one.

What kind of community do YOU want Giant Bomb to be? Are you satisfied that people apparently feel free to lash out at any group that threatens them or the status quo they enjoy? Are you satisfied that the leadership of this site is allowing that environment to exist, if not thrive, by taking no action except when the offense is so great that it cannot be ignored?

@triphos: Yeah, the mods are reactionary rather than proactive. That's a big part of the problem. From the top down people working at Giant Bomb are afraid to speak up.

@rorie: Censorship is a tricky issue, I'll give you that. But with that stance, what becomes out-of-bounds? As long as I'm calmly, and without resorting to slurs, making an argument that phrenology proves that one race should be subjugated by another, is that going to be tolerated? What about factually distorting the amount and extremity of the threats Samantha Allen and Leigh Alexander have been receiving from this community; multiple posts on the last two pages chalk it up to "a couple" or "a few" people when the reality is that it is HUNDREDS. And stepping back from hypothetical issues, how many "level headed arguments" that "help people see things in a new light" are you seeing here? I'm seeing a majority of people dismissing any and all women's issues and a minority trying to explain why that's fucked up and getting shouted down.

@thehumandove: MRA's are terrible people and if you are one of them stop being so immediately. The people attacking women in this thread are not using "very thought out and reasonable" arguments; the BEST anyone has offered was "these two guys were the most qualified for the position!" which (A) is what every white guy says when another white guy gets another huge opportunity and (B) which they are in no position to know as they didn't see/interview the candidates. The people saying this stuff are not a "vocal minority" they are the majority of posts on each page of this thread. The "they were hired for a reason/it doesn't get more deep than that" response misses the point that nobody is saying Giant Bomb is anti-woman, or homo/trans-phobic. The anger is coming from an organization completely composed of straight white men (numbering 9 with these new hires, by my count) hiring more of the same when that organization has a huge platform that would allow even ONE diverse hire to inject some much needed perspective into not just this site but this industry. I'm not suggesting they were hired BECAUSE they were white males I'm stating that the new hires ARE white males, as is this entire organization.

@marokai: Absolutely. We're not talking about people arguing over the best Call of Duty game (Modern Warfare 2, obvs), we're talking about people loudly and proudly declaring that minorities speaking up for themselves should shut up and be thankful they're allowed to exist, with slurs like "bitch" or worse being thrown in for good measure. People that advocate for that kind of thing should go.

When I see Jeff or the other staff tweet stuff like this I wonder if they spend any time interacting with the community they're defending.

Just on this page of replies, 400 posts in, are people (with hundreds or thousands of previous posts) saying:

• they're sick of "gender bullshit talk"
• that women criticizing the hiring decisions of men is unprofessional
• that suggesting a site with nine white/male/straight staff members hire someone who isn't at least one of those things is trying to "force societal change"
• And plenty of posts that boil down to "la la la, let's just ignore the horrible things a large part of this community are doing, aren't the new hires great, EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!"

Add in the conduct in the chat during the E3 live shows (and at all other times, really), the way the community reacted to Patrick being hired and most of the content he posted the first year he was here, and honestly Jeff's steadfast refusal to deal with his communities shitty behavior beyond blanket "don't be a dick" comments, and I don't see how anybody can defend this place. Sure, you can like the site and the content it kicks out (I do) but the "community" that has sprung up around it? Toxic. The occasional cool piece of Giant Bomb/Video Game mashup art or animated podcast story doesn't make up for that.

For another way to handle a toxic community, look at Badass Digest.. Their Editor-In-Chief Devin Faraci can be at turns insightful, stubborn, and a raging asshole, but he takes responsibility for the site he created and spends loads of time combating any harassment that goes on there, beginning with a strict "If you even seem to be indicating an alignment with the MRA community you are perma-banned". I don't think that asking Giant Bomb to take a similar line is asking too much.