Who actually cares about GamerGate?

[Vergil Tanner]

You're entitled to your own opinion, not your own facts. The movement that would become Gamergate did in fact originate somewhere, and all the evidence I've seen points to the burgersandfries crowd. That might not be why any individual person joined - but that's where it started, and that set the tone for what followed.

Even if that's true - and I can't say whether it is or isn't, I can't say I've had the time or inclination to do an in-depth study on it since it had kinda passed by the time I got curious about it, and finding reliable narratives about Gamergate that are relatively free from bias is almost impossible at this point in time, so I am working off of second hand information - "setting the tone" doesn't equal guiding it. As it is, they may have made up a sizeable portion of the initial group, but that doesn't mean that everybody who identifies as a pro GGer agrees with them.

Which is why there's so little overlap between the early anti-Sarkeesian crowd and Gamergate, right?

Didn't say that there wasn't an overlap, just that they weren't initially linked.

Unless you have respect, recognition, and a degree of deference from a significant core part of the movement, and a forum or three where these people gather, and a habit of organizing and directing specific campaigns...

That still doesn't equal guiding the whole movement. That just describes the sub-groups. Some of them will work together, others won't. It wasn't and isn't a unified group that has a dedicated manifesto and aim. Different sections of it have entirely different objectives.

I'm talking about the roots here. The movement has recognizable roots that predate the tag - and it was characterized by a small fervent core that met in a few specific places.

I'm not denying that the roots stretch back before the tag - of course they do - I'm just saying that calling it a "Hate Group" misses the point that it wasn't a unified entity and had several different groups each pursuing their own agendas. Sometimes some of them aligned, sometimes they didn't. Calling it a "Hate Group" is overly simplistic since it implies organisation that wasn't really there.

If you sign on to it, you've made it clear that women don't matter much to you (and you don't know much about journalistic integrity).

And that's - to use a word I found I rather like - Poppycock (It is a fun word). It doesn't have a set meaning or a set "This is where we create Gamergate, and the manifesto is THIS!" moment. It's a Hashtag that can be used by anybody for any reason, hypothetically speaking. Because I agree with the Gamergaters calling for superior ethics in games journalism (not always their methods, but the spirit of the thing) then...I automatically hate women. Because that's a logical conclusion...? Why can't I agree with the "moderate," reasonable GGers who are genuinely wanting a discussion and condemn the harassment (which I've already one, even in regards to people I personally dislike/disagree with).

Funny, I've seen a lot of political activism hashtags that didn't immediately go to shit - even if their message was actively hated by the gamergate crowd. So clearly it is possible to not have your message hijacked, if hijacking is actually the problem. Moving to a new hashtag would 1) set a new tone out of the gate, which makes a difference, 2) make the trolls an actual minority, allowing for better policing, 3) shed a lot of the trolls, who won't want to switch from a high-profile tag to an (initially) lower-profile one, and 4) Make it clear to outsiders that you don't stand with toxic assholes.

This is a fair point, but the problem is also convincing the amorphous mass that changing tags is a good idea, and since GG IS a high-profile tag, it might be difficult to do that. I agree that it would be desirable if it were possible, but it remains to be seen whether a new tag can catch on. Nature of hashtags is that they have to be catchy, recognisable and easy to remember.

Quick, do me a favour: Ctrl-F for "nothing but". Notice that none of the hits are in my posts. What I've said is that it was about and defined by hatred from the beginning.

Nope, you're completely right on that. I misread the original post, and apologise sincerely. It wasn't my intention to misrepresent what you said. I inferred from what you said that you were labelling it as "just" a Hate Group. I still think that doing so is massively oversimplifying the issue, but since I did initially accidentally misquote you, I'm going to "back down" on this aspect simply because continuing an argument that stemmed from a misreading of your post is both dishonest and pointless. So, my sincerest apologies. *bows*

No day one? So Gamergate is eternal? That's... an odd claim.

I didn't mean that it was eternal (but that's a good idea for a parody...suddenly I see a group of hooded figures standing in a circle with the letters "GG" in the centre all talking about The Judgement Day when The Eternal GG will be fulfilled, or something. What? It's 2am where I am, my brain isn't working properly and I have a weird imagination, leave me alone), just that there wasn't a specific "This is where we're starting GG," it was more of a gradual process and evolution that snowballed over time. Like, there is a specific date where Feminism was created (mid-late 19th century, as we would recognise it, though I can't remember the specific date. I think it was in or around New York, though I can't be certain). That's all I meant, haha.

Walk into a crowded room and loudly say something horrifically racist. (Disclaimer: Don't actually do this.) Invite discussion of your statement. Watch the reaction. Then tell me again how it's impossible for a disorganized band of complete strangers to reject you.

Damn! I was gonna try that as well! (Not really, I'm not that stupid )
But anyway! That's my point; GG isn't all in one place. They're in hundreds of different places. It's like...walking into a crowded room, shouting something horribly racist, getting beaten up and thrown out, then walking into the pub down the street, shouting the same thing and the people there happen to agree with you. Some GG "Pubs" would reject that person, others would accept them simply because of the amorphous, largely disorganised nature of GG as a whole.

My point there is that the vast majority of unethical influence comes from AAA studios - indies just don't have the money and influence.

Weeeeeeell, I wouldn't say that Indies lack the money or influence to be corrupt. Just take a look at what happened to Jim Sterling. Like him or not, the developers that tried to shut him up by DMCA'ing him were utterly in the wrong. But that's more of a nitpicky thing than anything actually relevant to the discussion, heh.


The rest of that is interesting and I wish I could respond properly, but the simple fact of the matter is I can't for three major reason:

1) A lot of them are responses to comments I made in response to a misquotation by me, and I already backed down on that point because you're right; I did misquote you and continuing that line of discussion when it's been demonstrated that I started on a faulty premise is dishonest at best and obtuse/arrogant at worst. I can be thick-headed and stubborn at times, but not to the point where I can't admit when I fucked up and am largely "in the wrong."

2) They're about topics I didn't want to discuss in the first place but couldn't resist commenting on (I need to learn to stop doing that, for my own sanity if nothing else)

3) You're right, I don't have the statistics necessary to prove my assertions, so continuing to just assert them would be stupid at best. I'll try to hunt some down in my spare time, but since I don't think it likely that such statistics actually exist, I won't hold out too much hope, haha.

I really appreciate your participation here - I want to argue against the best opposition I can. So... thanks.

Haha, I highly doubt that I'm the best opposition available on this topic...you obviously have looked into it far more than I have and have obviously thought about it far more than I have (which is one of the reasons I'm "backing down," as it were, since it's obvious that going on any further would just risk me starting to talk out of my arse and I try to avoid debating subjects I don't have sufficient knowledge in), but I appreciate the compliment.
As it is, I don't identify as a GGer...I wasn't around on the interwebz in the areas it was going on (I only grudgingly got a Twitter account last month. It dragged me there kicking and screaming, but it got me there regardless ) and only heard about it second hand, so I kind of align myself with - from what I've seen, anyway - TotalBiscuits camp of "Loosely aligning myself with the GGers who want a civil discourse about Gaming Journalistic Ethical Integrity." (A new # perhaps? #GJEI? Can you think of a better acronym, because my forte is Haiku's and freeform poetry rather than creative word puns ).

Quick, not in-depth review: Never heard of WAM!, so they bear further investigation, but... they're missing the point. They're looking at block lists and reports; I'm looking at what GG was actually doing, which is what's relevant here. Also, their stats are terrible - they open by stating that most of the autoblocked accounts aren't gamergate, then when it comes time for the flashy "Only 0.66 of gamergate were harassers", they literally define Gamergate membership as "appears on the block list".

Well, that's why I didn't use it in support of my "argument;" I hadn't read it yet. I just saw what they claimed it was and thought "Eh, maybe they'll find it interesting." I'll read it when I get a chance - the study, that is, not the article; I think the study is looking at a broader subject than just GG (from the looks of it, at least). The article is obviously bias, so I'm just gonna ignore it and look at what the study ACTUALLY says - but I didn't cite it simply because I hadn't read it, and I wouldn't want to look like even more of a jackass on this thread.

[Caehlim]

To answer your other question, he was discussing ethics in games journalism, the relationship between Media and Publishers, the nature of disclosure and promotional deals, when certain conduct is acceptable, how obvious disclosure should be, who should disclose what and when, etc etc.

Thankyou. Those are certainly things worth discussing and I can see where some people found positive value in the hashtag.

The problem is, now we're stuck with GG and its negative connotations - whether unfairly or fairly, we're stuck with them - and moving Hashtags wouldn't solve anything, since that wouldn't stop the people who "ruined" the term from jumping ship alongside the people who want a genuine discussion.

Long story short, I think we should support the pushback to "reclaim" it, since simply moving 'tags wouldn't really help, at which point it could be a useful label, but like every label, it needs time to grow and distance itself from the past.

Honestly, I think the fact that it reached that point shows a lack of interest from such neutral members as these events happened that is sufficient to tarnish any serious credibility possessed by the movement at large. However this is a viewpoint from largely outside the discussion.

Feminism didn't start as a useful, wide-ranging label, it started fairly small.

Off topic but... Charles Fourier seemed to use it in a fairly wide useful fashion when he invented the word. Of course as a social movement it had roots significantly predating the use of this term which allowed it to be easily attached to existing philosophies.

[Vergil Tanner]

Thankyou. Those are certainly things worth discussing and I can see where some people found positive value in the hashtag.

That's the thing with a Hashtag...it can be used by anybody with a twitter account, haha.

Honestly, I think the fact that it reached that point shows a lack of interest from such neutral members as these events happened that is sufficient to tarnish any serious credibility possessed by the movement at large. However this is a viewpoint from largely outside the discussion.

This is true. If I was in any way important to the Internet Community I would attempt to start a new hashtag just to see if it could be done, but I'm nowhere near influential enough.

Off topic but... Charles Fourier seemed to use it in a fairly wide useful fashion when he invented the word. Of course as a social movement it had roots significantly predating the use of this term which allowed it to be easily attached to existing philosophies.

Ah, I was referring to when the first suffrage groups were being created in the 19th century...whether they called themselves feminist or not, they were the "blueprint" for future "Waves," and it didn't start as a worldwide label. It originated in America, I think - at least, the movement did - and spread from there. At least, that's my simplified understanding of it. It's possible that I'm utterly wrong...it's been a while since I researched the origins of feminism. I think back when I was doing history videos on my Youtube channel (that I kinda fell out of since I needed the time I was researching that stuff for my ACTUAL homework) I did do an overview of feminist history (like, the basic chronology, no judgements on the Waves either way) but that was years ago now. I can only remember snippits.

[Caehlim]

Ah, I was referring to when the first suffrage groups were being created in the 19th century...whether they called themselves feminist or not, they were the "blueprint" for future "Waves," and it didn't start as a worldwide label. It originated in America, I think - at least, the movement did - and spread from there. At least, that's my simplified understanding of it. It's possible that I'm utterly wrong...it's been a while since I researched the origins of feminism. I think back when I was doing history videos on my Youtube channel (that I kinda fell out of since I needed the time I was researching that stuff for my ACTUAL homework) I did do an overview of feminist history (like, the basic chronology, no judgements on the Waves either way) but that was years ago now. I can only remember snippits.

...it's complicated. Last semester I did my research essay for my politics course on social movements on whether the initial promise of the women's suffrage movement was achieved so I did a ton of research on this topic fairly recently (although now that I've submitted the essay something like 90% of the information just vanished from my brain).

Long story short I wouldn't call America the origin of the suffrage movement, although there was a lot of American involvement and it was one of the first big international social movements. New Zealand, Australia and the UK were vastly important hubs though. Given that New Zealand and Australia were the first to gain women's suffrage also highlights their importance. Feminism has to some extent always existed within human societies but just focusing on the more modern form it's taken it was well established through precursor issues such as widow's rights before suffrage became the main demand. 

But the actual word feminism we can at least somewhat track to the original creator. Unlike the social movement that the word described.

Incidentally while we're derailing I'll just take a moment to recommend a book called 'Before the vote was won'. It's a compilation of essays written by women in the early suffrage movements and it's a fantastic resource for understanding the mentality of the time through primary sources. It's well worth reading if you're even vaguely interested in the topic.

[Vergil Tanner]

Aaah, I see...interesting, and possibly worth a wikiwalk if/when I get time. I mean, I knew that the UK was "more important" than the USA in a lot of ways in the early modern Feminist movement, but my research (since I was trying to keep the video at 20 minutes) was strictly relegated to the chronological development of the modern feminist movement (which arguably unified and started at a conference in NY), rather than tracing its roots all the way back to the pre-modern organisations that were effectively feminist in all but name. I would need a lot longer than 20 minutes to narrate the development of Feminist Theory over several thousand years.

Of course, as I understand it, The UK was a slightly different kettle of fish simply because it wasn't so much men/women as upper class/lower class. Upper class women weren't allowed to vote - they were "expected" to support their husbands political choices - so there was the divide there, but voting was largely determined by how rich you were. Lower class men weren't allowed to vote until only two or three years before lower class women. Interestingly, a lot of the Suffragist and Suffragette movement was made up of "higher class ladies," and even Emilia Pankhurst herself only wanted upper class women - that is "Ladies" rather than "Women" - to be able to vote, since Victorian England wasn't just racist and sexist, but also classist too. It was really her daughter Sylvia who wanted all women to get the vote...complete derailing of the thread, of course, and utterly unrelated, but I found it interesting. That much, at least, I remember from Year 6 History.

And yeah, that always happens with essays.... "Ah, I've finally finished my 3,000 word essay on the origins and ideals of the Knights Of Saint John....and now I can't remember ANY of it."


And I think perhaps we should stop derailing the thread.

[Cyrano Johnson]

Which brings me back around to the title of this post - does anybody actually care about GamerGate? Did it ever really stand for anything, or was it always just a vehicle for sexism and misogyny to attempt to justify its own existence?

Bingo. NeoGAF laid it out this way back in November of last year:

GamerGate's original claims are that Zoe Quinn slept around for coverage favors. This was debunked literally months ago. And yet it persists.

Kotaku shows that Nathan never wrote the articles he was accused of writing

On March 31, Nathan published the only Kotaku article he's written involving Zoe Quinn. It was about Game Jam, a failed reality show that Zoe and other developers were upset about being on. At the time, Nathan and Zoe were professional acquaintances. He quoted blog posts written by Zoe and others involved in the show. Shortly after that, in early April, Nathan and Zoe began a romantic relationship. He has not written about her since. Nathan never reviewed Zoe Quinn's game Depression Quest, let alone gave it a favorable review.

• Rock Paper Shotgun: This is the only article Nathan ever wrote on Rock Paper Shotgun that mentioned Depression quest.
• GamerGate has not provided any other evidence to back up this assertion
• Even though Nathan Grayson is the journalist accused of this unethical behavior (and he never actually wrote the articles he was accused of writing), and GamerGate insisting this is about "ethics in journalism", they can't seem to stop talking about Zoe Quinn (not a journalist) and Anita Sarkeesian (also not a journalist)

Other bullshit about Zoe Quinn

• Zoe Quinn was and still is today regularly accused of doxxing herself.
• Zoe Quinn was and still is today accused of faking death, rape, and other threats.
• Zoe Quinn doesn't actually sell the game she's accused of sleeping around to get coverage of. It's a free game about Depression, called Depression Quest, created to help others learn to live and deal with the disease. She does take donations, and was accused of lying about giving those donations to charity. However, the charity confirmed the donations were actually received
• When accusations of those lies first arose, GamerGate started donating to that charity in her place. After the charity confirmed receiving the donations, GamerGate started harassing the charity and threatening it with legal action because they claim they "didn't disclose publicly" they had received donations from her (even though that is not actuall illegal). This is a charity is made up of volunteers and a part-time paid intern, helping people deal with depression
• Zoe Quinn is frequently accused of winning an award (instead of Papers Please) for Depression Quest because she slept with someone. In actuality, her game didn't receive an award, but just an honorable mention. Papers Please did indeed win the award. No evidence backs up the claim she slept with someone to get the....honorable mention.
• Zoe Quinn was accused to have "deliberately sabotaged, DDOSed, doxxed, and shut down" TFYC ("The Fine Young Capitalists") because they were "competition" for Rebel Game Jam. The reality is that it's yet another bunch of bullshit accusations against her.

Other bullshit about Anita Sarkeesian

• Anita Sarkeesian was similarly accused of faking threats. Still happens regularly.
• The FBI confirmed the threats were real, currently under investigation.
• Anita Sarkeesian needed to cancel an appearance for a talk at a university because of extremely specific and violent threats against her and the students.
• Reminder: Anita Sarkeesian is not a journalist. She makes videos about video games, and that's it. Any attack on Anita Sarkeesian masquerading as "a fight for ethics in journalism" is automatically and instantly misplaced.

Even more bullshit

• There is a mailing list in which games writers talk to each other. Warning: Breitbart link. This fact was presented as inherently controversial, but not really explained why. Absolutely nothing worthy of discussion was ever found on this mailing list. Just people who happen to share the same job, joking with each other, and asking each other uncontroversial questions.
• One frequent accusation of journalist collusion is that there was a collected and coordinated effort to write "gamers are dead" articles to attack gamers. In actuality:
  The first article, written by Leigh Alexander, was targeted at
  developers (the audience of Gamasutra), explaining how the gamer stereotype no longer has to be their focus, since games are so much broader. She wasn't attacking gamers, she was attacking the outdated stereotype
• The subsequent articles are all related to and reactions of the first, not indepedent takes at a coincidental time indicating collusion.
• Rock Paper Shotgun is often accused to have written their own "Gamers are dead" article. They didn't. They quoted one in a weekly round-up.

• Jenn Frank was accused of failing to disclose a conflict of interest. She actually did disclose this in her initial draft, but before publication this was "removed by editors because [it] did not fulfill the criteria for a “significant connection” in line with the Guardian’s editorial guidelines."
• Maya Kramer was accused of colluding/sleeping with the IGF chairman to secure an award for The Stanley Parable, a game she'd done PR for. This award was actually the Audience Award, and is decided by a public vote on the website and consequently immune to this alleged impropriety.
• Phil Fish, developer of the game Fez, is acused to have fixed the IGF 2012 awards. But while Fez's backers were part of the judges, they did not actually have a say in the vote since they weren't a part of the jury that makes the decision.
• The Escapist ran a horribly misguided attempt at interviewing GamerGate supporters who are developers. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
  Titles of the articles are "game developers" and "female game developers". Um. What?
  • None of the female game developers felt safe to share their actual identities
  • The questions are ridiculously loaded
  • The male game developers were sourced straight from 4chan...you'll never guess what happened next
  • One of the male developers interviewed was directly involved in coordinated attacks against Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and others including baseless accusations like tax fraud.

So what is GamerGate, in actuality?

• It's a carefully coordinated attack on women in gaming, orchestrated by the underbelly of 4chan, deliberately masquerading itself as a "concern about ethics in game journalism" because that's the only way it would gather mainstream supportIt's an attack on ethical journalism, the exact thing they have claimed to fight for:

  Originally Posted by RubberJohnny
  
  ]1) The main target of #GamerGate is not a journalist. She’s a video game developer. Holding her accountable for “ethics in journalism” is like telling your accountant that it’s his job to negotiate peace treaties in the Middle East.
  
  2) The second biggest target of #GamerGate is an exemplar of clean journalism. If what you don’t like about gaming journalism is that it’s too cozy with the industry and therefore the writers are afraid to be critical, then your fucking hero should be Anita Sarkeesian. She funded herself with Kickstarter and not industry money. She is harshly critical of video games, even as she is a fan. She is the ideal of what a critical gaming journalist should be: Knowledgeable, critical, fair, thorough and utterly non-corrupt.
  
  3) The biggest victory to date of #GamerGate has been an attack on ethical journalism. One of the most important ideas when it comes to ethical journalism is that there’s a wall between advertising and editorial. #GamerGaters hate this rule of ethics, because, as opponents of ethical journalism, they wish to control what journalists say and censor any ideas or opinions that they don’t want to hear. And so they have been targeting advertisers, trying to get them to pull ads from gaming websites that publish ideas they wish to censor.
  
  5) The most recent target of #GamerGate was selected because she engages in ethical journalism. If Brianna Wu had kept her mouth shut and just quietly developed video games, she probably would have been left alone. Instead, she dipped her toe into the art of writing ethical journalistic pieces. But, because they are opponents of ethical journalism, #GamerGaters attacked Wu like they do any other young woman that doesn’t just churn out mindless pro-sexist propaganda.
  
  6) One of the main leaders of #GamerGate works for Breitbart. Milo Yiannopoulos has been up front, rallying the troops of #GamerGate and even helping them select the inevitably young, female targets for harassment. He also works for Breitbart, an organization whose hostility towards ethical journalism is legendary. No surprise there, because #GamerGate is also opposed to ethical journalism.
  
  In other words, #GamerGate is about “ethics in journalism” in the same way Fox News is “fair and balanced”, which is to say “not in the slightest and, in fact, they are the opposite”. Fox News called itself “fair and balanced” to cover for a not-exactly-discreet intention to be unfair, unbalanced and frequently just straight up misleading. And so #GamerGate claims to be about ethics in journalism, when in fact it is about the opposite: Bullying gaming journalists until they get in line with a corporate-friendly agenda of uncritically marketing “games pitched at the intellectual and emotional level of a 16-year-old suburban masturbator“. Anyone who actually tries to talk about anything interesting or intellectually engaging, particularly if female, will be drilled out with harassment.

GamerGate never evolved beyond what is laid out above, except that a few things have come clearer (like the reason for the Escapist debacle being that Alex Macris at their parent company Defy Media turned out to be a 'Gater). Even most of the smokescreen tactics haven't evolved much, with a few minor variations (like, "actually we're against harassment and about ethics" manifested itself at one point as the community at KiA putting together a "GamerGate anti-harassment patrol" that of course was Kabuki theatre and went nowhere). Most of the "movement" that built up when they gained mainstream media attention of course is gone now, having long since consumed itself in a flaming spiral of conspiracy theory and backbiting; it finally got too toxic even for Milo at Breitbart, who walked away. There are a few hapless trolls still wandering the Internet trying to hawk their "we're not a hate movement, honest, wait come back" collectible GamerGate kitchenware, but they're not very noteworthy.

There are only a few reasons left that it stays in the news: retrospectives as people try to work out what the hell it was all about and/or report on the various speaking gigs that GamerGate gifted its targets via its unhinged lunacy; studies as psychologists try to decipher what could motivate what were often grown men and women to behave this way; a footnote to other harassment and trolling cases to which it's compared (most recently the misogynistic mob trolling of Ellen Pao at Reddit); and of course the fact that the harassment of the original targets was still going well after most of the media attention went away.

[Ephiral]

Cyrano's done an excellent job of covering a lot of the data, but I feel like I owe a response here. Sorry, last few days have been hectic.

Even if that's true - and I can't say whether it is or isn't, I can't say I've had the time or inclination to do an in-depth study on it since it had kinda passed by the time I got curious about it, and finding reliable narratives about Gamergate that are relatively free from bias is almost impossible at this point in time, so I am working off of second hand information - "setting the tone" doesn't equal guiding it. As it is, they may have made up a sizeable portion of the initial group, but that doesn't mean that everybody who identifies as a pro GGer agrees with them.

I am not saying and never have said that literally every 'gater is on board with the hate. Just a sizable enough portion that most of what Gamergate says is hate, and it is fair to characterize it by this standard.

Didn't say that there wasn't an overlap, just that they weren't initially linked.

But if GG is about ethics in journalism, there shouldn't be an overlap. As Cyrano points out, there's no issues with ethics there at all - she's outside the journalism circle, independently funded, and giving solid critique that treats games as a serious art form. Why exactly is she a primary target of something that totally isn't about hating women?

That still doesn't equal guiding the whole movement. That just describes the sub-groups. Some of them will work together, others won't. It wasn't and isn't a unified group that has a dedicated manifesto and aim. Different sections of it have entirely different objectives.

Okay, I'm going to start just trimming iterations of "It's a diverse group!", and issue this general response: The overwhelming majority of what Gamergate says and does is targeted at women. These "sub-groups" were the primary drive of gamergate. The fact that not everybody marches in lockstep does not change this. And even the stuff that actually talks about ethics gets ethics fundamentally wrong. It's not worth supporting if you like ethics and don't hate women.

I'm not denying that the roots stretch back before the tag - of course they do - I'm just saying that calling it a "Hate Group" misses the point that it wasn't a unified entity and had several different groups each pursuing their own agendas. Sometimes some of them aligned, sometimes they didn't. Calling it a "Hate Group" is overly simplistic since it implies organisation that wasn't really there.

No it doesn't, any more than calling national socialism a hate group implies that there's a strict hierarchical organization and a single manifesto you need to swear by. It implies nothing more than that the primary aim and practice of this group was hatred.

And that's - to use a word I found I rather like - Poppycock (It is a fun word). It doesn't have a set meaning or a set "This is where we create Gamergate, and the manifesto is THIS!" moment. It's a Hashtag that can be used by anybody for any reason, hypothetically speaking. Because I agree with the Gamergaters calling for superior ethics in games journalism (not always their methods, but the spirit of the thing) then...I automatically hate women. Because that's a logical conclusion...? Why can't I agree with the "moderate," reasonable GGers who are genuinely wanting a discussion and condemn the harassment (which I've already one, even in regards to people I personally dislike/disagree with).

No, because you take up the banner of Gamergate, you let the hateful majority claim you as an ally. This action shows that not supporting hatred of women is way lower on your priority list than saying nice things about ethics (without actually advancing ethics). I spoke very specifically there: By joining, you show not that you hate women, but that they don't matter much to you.

This is a fair point, but the problem is also convincing the amorphous mass that changing tags is a good idea, and since GG IS a high-profile tag, it might be difficult to do that. I agree that it would be desirable if it were possible, but it remains to be seen whether a new tag can catch on. Nature of hashtags is that they have to be catchy, recognisable and easy to remember.

So try, say, #EthicsMatter?

Nope, you're completely right on that. I misread the original post, and apologise sincerely. It wasn't my intention to misrepresent what you said. I inferred from what you said that you were labelling it as "just" a Hate Group. I still think that doing so is massively oversimplifying the issue, but since I did initially accidentally misquote you, I'm going to "back down" on this aspect simply because continuing an argument that stemmed from a misreading of your post is both dishonest and pointless. So, my sincerest apologies. *bows*

Thank you. I appreciate this. My position, basically, is that if we're going to refer to Gamergate as if it is an entity at all, that entity has to have some useful properties we can talk about. So we should look at the characteristics of that entity as a whole. One of those characteristics - inescapably, the predominant one - is hatred of women. If you can't call Gamergate by the majority of what it says and does, why can you call it a thing at all?

I didn't mean that it was eternal (but that's a good idea for a parody...suddenly I see a group of hooded figures standing in a circle with the letters "GG" in the centre all talking about The Judgement Day when The Eternal GG will be fulfilled, or something. What? It's 2am where I am, my brain isn't working properly and I have a weird imagination, leave me alone), just that there wasn't a specific "This is where we're starting GG," it was more of a gradual process and evolution that snowballed over time. Like, there is a specific date where Feminism was created (mid-late 19th century, as we would recognise it, though I can't remember the specific date. I think it was in or around New York, though I can't be certain). That's all I meant, haha.

There was certainly a specific "Here's where we start an op on Zoe Quinn", and that spiralled into what we now know as GG. So I disagree, but this is kinda a semantic point anyway.

Damn! I was gonna try that as well! (Not really, I'm not that stupid )
But anyway! That's my point; GG isn't all in one place. They're in hundreds of different places. It's like...walking into a crowded room, shouting something horribly racist, getting beaten up and thrown out, then walking into the pub down the street, shouting the same thing and the people there happen to agree with you. Some GG "Pubs" would reject that person, others would accept them simply because of the amorphous, largely disorganised nature of GG as a whole.

The overwhelming majority would accept them. If I walked into a pub and found a GG banner hanging there, my expectation would be that I was about to hear some really sexist and racist shit, because that is what the evidence shows as overwhelmingly likely. The point there was that a disorganized crowd of complete strangers can, in fact, present a unified opinion - and if the best you can say about Gamergate is "They're not literally all sexist and racist assholes," well, that kinda speaks for itself.

Weeeeeeell, I wouldn't say that Indies lack the money or influence to be corrupt. Just take a look at what happened to Jim Sterling. Like him or not, the developers that tried to shut him up by DMCA'ing him were utterly in the wrong. But that's more of a nitpicky thing than anything actually relevant to the discussion, heh.

Sorry, incomplete thought. Meant "lack the money and influence to game things on that scale."

Haha, I highly doubt that I'm the best opposition available on this topic...you obviously have looked into it far more than I have and have obviously thought about it far more than I have (which is one of the reasons I'm "backing down," as it were, since it's obvious that going on any further would just risk me starting to talk out of my arse and I try to avoid debating subjects I don't have sufficient knowledge in), but I appreciate the compliment.
As it is, I don't identify as a GGer...I wasn't around on the interwebz in the areas it was going on (I only grudgingly got a Twitter account last month. It dragged me there kicking and screaming, but it got me there regardless ) and only heard about it second hand, so I kind of align myself with - from what I've seen, anyway - TotalBiscuits camp of "Loosely aligning myself with the GGers who want a civil discourse about Gaming Journalistic Ethical Integrity." (A new # perhaps? #GJEI? Can you think of a better acronym, because my forte is Haiku's and freeform poetry rather than creative word puns ).

The problem here is - and I hope you can forgive me for straying dangerously close to a Godwin here, not actually calling you or 'gaters in general fascists, etc - saying "I'm with Gamergate because I really care about ethics" is, at best, like saying "I'm a fascist because I really care about train schedules." It ignores the massive implications of aligning with that party.

[Vergil Tanner]

I'm gonna reply here briefly, but I hope you'll forgive me if I don't go through and answer the post point by point (which I feel REALLY bad about, because you obviously spent a lot of time responding >.> ) simply because I feel that I should bow out of this discussion at this point in time. It's become obvious to me that I starting "arguing" without the complete picture, and whilst I still maintain aspects of my original position, I think I should admit when somebody knows more about the situation than I do and try and avoid arguing from a position of relative ignorance....which is the position I find myself in now. So I'm going to excuse myself from this discussion simply because I don't know enough about the whole situation to argue any position convincingly, either pro or anti GG. I thought I did, but if this discussion has made anything abundantly clear, it's that I don't and continuing to debate the point would be an exercise in futility and dishonesty.

So whilst I have to say that I appreciate (and apologise for) the time you just took to respond to my post, I can't in good faith answer, agree with or attempt to refute any of your statements simply down to a lack of knowledge. Thank you for the discussion - it's always good to be challenged in a healthy, constructive way, and I've been making a point recently of knowing when to admit that I don't know rather than blindly arguing on (which I am not proud to admit I have done in the past) - and thank you for not getting angry at me for my relative ignorance of the situation
I hope you understand, and I hope we can part on good terms

[Ephiral]

That's probably the most graceful exit I've ever seen from a PROC argument, and I'll gladly accept it in the spirit it was given.

[Vergil Tanner]

You have my thanks I hope you have an excellent week, and I hope to see you around!
*departs*

[Far eyes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

This is more or less the best examination of what GamerGate is actually about.

[Pulsar501]

To briefly and personally answer the central question of the thread - I care about Gamergate in so much as it makes many women, including some I am close to, feel deeply uncomfortable in public social environments around gaming. That is utterly outrageous, frustrating and heart-breaking, though I admit that I'm wary of being reactionary and allowing that to dominate my sentiments on the subject. I am perfectly content to debate principles when the moment is opportune, but the moment harassment and hostility replaces discourse then something has gone very centrally wrong. I appreciate that those who harass may be immaturely expressing sincere aggrievement, but I am not going to pay the respect of reflecting on their core beliefs until they act like a movement that deserves that respect.

[Joel]

First off, I apologize if this point has already been made, and I admit that I haven't followed GG deeply nor the later part of this discussion.  However, on the question of: "does the (misogynistic) behavior of GG reflect a misogynistic culture of gamers..." 

I think people make the misconception that gamer (individual) = gamer (group) or that the group is sum of it's parts, which is also not true.  Therefore, you can make a statement like, "gamer culture is misogynistic but many gamers are not misogynistic" and that wouldn't be a contradictory statement. 

I think it's counter-productive to dismiss a larger critique of culture by insisting that not all members of that group share the same values or beliefs.  Not that I agree with a lot of what Sarkeesian says, but her core argument seems to poke at the notion that we are all passive contributors to the problem.  Having misconceptions about gender or unknowingly bearing or affirming misogynistic ideas doesn't make someone misogynistic, but a collection of such individuals does create a misogynistic culture.

Considering insensitivity and the continued 'doesn't fucking get it'edness of my fellow geeks: IO9's "You Haven't Seen Jurassic Park Until You've Seen It In High Heels".  No you dummy, putting everyone else in high heels and noting that the actress insisted on wearing them does not diminish the criticism against the movie.  Quite the opposite actually.

[Ephiral]

I've recently decided to stop using terms of bigotry as nouns for related reasons. Most of us do something bigoted every single day. If you call the person a bigot, they're just going to double down and defend the problem action, because they know they're not one (or, rarely, they take pride in it). If you call out the action as bigoted, they might actually think about it, and the situation might just improve.

[Assassini]

Bingo. NeoGAF laid it out this way back in November of last year:

GamerGate never evolved beyond what is laid out above, except that a few things have come clearer (like the reason for the Escapist debacle being that Alex Macris at their parent company Defy Media turned out to be a 'Gater). Even most of the smokescreen tactics haven't evolved much, with a few minor variations (like, "actually we're against harassment and about ethics" manifested itself at one point as the community at KiA putting together a "GamerGate anti-harassment patrol" that of course was Kabuki theatre and went nowhere). Most of the "movement" that built up when they gained mainstream media attention of course is gone now, having long since consumed itself in a flaming spiral of conspiracy theory and backbiting; it finally got too toxic even for Milo at Breitbart, who walked away. There are a few hapless trolls still wandering the Internet trying to hawk their "we're not a hate movement, honest, wait come back" collectible GamerGate kitchenware, but they're not very noteworthy.

There are only a few reasons left that it stays in the news: retrospectives as people try to work out what the hell it was all about and/or report on the various speaking gigs that GamerGate gifted its targets via its unhinged lunacy; studies as psychologists try to decipher what could motivate what were often grown men and women to behave this way; a footnote to other harassment and trolling cases to which it's compared (most recently the misogynistic mob trolling of Ellen Pao at Reddit); and of course the fact that the harassment of the original targets was still going well after most of the media attention went away.

The problem with the use of NeoGAF as a source of anti-GG material is the same problem everybody has had for the entire duration of the situation, even now after it has long since died away, in that NeoGAF was staunchly anti-GG from the get go (which I thought was bizarre because they had always seemed like a good source of leaks and new information on video games, primarily the sifting the fact from the fiction in the massive rumour mill that exists). And because NeoGAF is staunchly anti-GG, it finds stuff which agrees with its point of view and then doesn't move on. The exact same could be said for any of the pro-GG sites. I consider myself a member of the, rather insignificant, image-board Funnyjunk (which by the way is one of the only ones which did not start deleting threads about GamerGate, which also incidentally was part of what kicked off the whole GG thing in the first place) and it has always been pro-GamerGate. As such, it only ever posts one side of the story.

For example, half of the stuff that was quoted from the NeoGAF article is also stuff that used to pop up regularly on FJ. Primarily stuff about Brianna Wu (who, thankfully, nobody cares about any more) and Anita Sarkeesian faking threats, faking 4chan and 8chan threads which were supposed to incite stuff to target them (including how Anita faked that huge threat thing which made her cancel a speech), a lot of it seeming very legit as well I might add. Similarly there was talk about the FBI investigating Sarkeesian because of these false reports and threats she kept making against herself half the time. It's also worth noting that the whole "Gamers are Dead" thing was most definitely a coordinated thing done by a large number of groups and websites, all part of that mailing list they keep denying is important (its also part of the reason why even now we absolutely hate Kotaku, and indeed its parent company Gawker, and want it to go under).

But you see my point here, any anti-GGers reading this will likely be fuming and champing at the bit, ready to tell me how everything from the GG side of it was lies and everything from the SJW side was the truth, but that's the way the internet works. People have a tendency to seek out like-minded people, and so we end up with the whole "circlejerk" situation, with everyone in one place saying the same thing and thus reaffirming each others and their own opinions on the matter. So then you take two of these circlejerks and have them spin in opposite directions with each other and naturally they collide. So, perhaps 10% of each side immediately takes up arms and starts arguing with the other, digging up dirt and so on, 85% of each side kind of joins in just for the shits and giggles, and then the remaining 5% troll the fuck out of both sides by making up false stories and sources which are difficult to corroborate or disprove (and that's not even taking 4chan into account where the trolls might make up for a far higher percentage). Shit starts hitting the fan and hitting innocent bystanders and at the end of it all, neither side has even slightly changed their opinion except to now believe themselves to be justified in hating the other side.

It's kind of impossible to get out of and there are very few impartial and objective sources to look at to try and find out what the real truth of the situation is.

[Ephiral]

Not going to bother with the vague half-references to unsubstantiated rumours, but...

The mailing list thing. You realise that that really isn't a big deal, right? That people in creative industries, particularly fairly small ones where there tends to be a tightly-knit social web, talk like that routinely? That having similar ideas, or seeing someone bat around something and going "Hm, there might be something there", or even talking with each other about it, does not make them non-competitors and is not necessarily collusion?

tl;dr: Fairly typical practices are clear evidence of pure evil, meanwhile still no particular problem with advertisers dictating content.

[Ironwolf85]

I find it funny the GG attempt to crucify Anita has made her tons of money. She's actually an asshole and an emotionally minuplitive person from what I've seen, but all the psychotic "OMG GOTTA STOP DA FEMMINISTS" rage-trolling thrown at her made her look like a hero, it also caused her boring depression quest game to sell like hotcakes. 

[Assassini]

Not going to bother with the vague half-references to unsubstantiated rumours, but...

The mailing list thing. You realise that that really isn't a big deal, right? That people in creative industries, particularly fairly small ones where there tends to be a tightly-knit social web, talk like that routinely? That having similar ideas, or seeing someone bat around something and going "Hm, there might be something there", or even talking with each other about it, does not make them non-competitors and is not necessarily collusion?

tl;dr: Fairly typical practices are clear evidence of pure evil, meanwhile still no particular problem with advertisers dictating content.

Thank you for rather clearly proving my point. I basically said the exact same things that the NeoGAF thread said except I was claiming it was about the anti-GG side rather than the GG side. And because you are on the SJW side (apologies for that, it just is easier to say rather than "anti-GG side" all the time) you automatically dismiss anything I say as "unsubstantiated" while that which agrees with you is definite proof and fact.

And you know, I would agree that it probably ought to be practically expected that people of the same profession would have a wee chat list for having a bit of a laugh and a bit of banter, but when suddenly the list is used for a large group of websites to agree to NOT cover one side of the story and to even outright insult those on that side, then there is a problem. The press is supposed to be on the side of the public here (that's how I understand it is supposed to work anyway) and suddenly a large section of their audience said "Hey, we don't like what you are doing, explain this bullshit" and so instead of trying to clear it up and explain it, they basically denied it was a thing, and then went ahead and said "anyone who believes this is a cunt" with the whole "Gamers are Dead" fiasco.

Imagine if actual newspapers did that! Imagine if, before the Iraq War, when Bush said "There are WMD's in Iraq" and then the press went "Yeah, okay, that seems legit." And then if some people questioned it they would all agree to absolutely slam those people who questioned it as "unpatriotic twats" or whatever... That's obviously a pretty exaggerated argument, but you see the point. Not one of those websites tried to be objective and publish both sides of the story, they just all immediately closed ranks and said "this is a problem, YOU GUYS are a problem". And that is why the mailing list is a bad thing.

I find it funny the GG attempt to crucify Anita has made her tons of money. She's actually an asshole and an emotionally minuplitive person from what I've seen, but all the psychotic "OMG GOTTA STOP DA FEMMINISTS" rage-trolling thrown at her made her look like a hero, it also caused her boring depression quest game to sell like hotcakes. 

While I hate Anita Sarkeesian with a passion I've got to point out a few things here. First up, she actually had a fairly significant following before GamerGate. I mean, we hated her before GG as well, but it was only after GamerGate started that we REALLY started to hate her.

The other thing is that Depression Quest was actually made by Zoe Quinn, who I assume is who you meant here. And there I agree with you. Both Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu are fairly widespread names now because of GamerGate. If it hadn't been for that they would both have remained the absolutely nobody developers that they are (because, as you say, Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest was absolute garbage and Brianna Wu's game was equally dreadful and worth absolutely nobodies time whatsoever).

A cynical man might say that this is why they made such a fuss and tried to garner so much attention, because they knew it would publicise their games, but I don't really believe that.

[Ephiral]

I find it funny the GG attempt to crucify Anita has made her tons of money. She's actually an asshole and an emotionally minuplitive person from what I've seen, but all the psychotic "OMG GOTTA STOP DA FEMMINISTS" rage-trolling thrown at her made her look like a hero, it also caused her boring depression quest game to sell like hotcakes. 

In addition to the points Assassini covered, Depression Quest is free. You're wrong on literally every point of fact here.

Thank you for rather clearly proving my point. I basically said the exact same things that the NeoGAF thread said except I was claiming it was about the anti-GG side rather than the GG side. And because you are on the SJW side (apologies for that, it just is easier to say rather than "anti-GG side" all the time) you automatically dismiss anything I say as "unsubstantiated" while that which agrees with you is definite proof and fact.

No, because I haven't seen any credible evidence of the rumours you're circulating, I dismiss them as "unsubstantiated". That's... kinda what the word means.

And you know, I would agree that it probably ought to be practically expected that people of the same profession would have a wee chat list for having a bit of a laugh and a bit of banter, but when suddenly the list is used for a large group of websites to agree to NOT cover one side of the story and to even outright insult those on that side, then there is a problem. The press is supposed to be on the side of the public here (that's how I understand it is supposed to work anyway) and suddenly a large section of their audience said "Hey, we don't like what you are doing, explain this bullshit" and so instead of trying to clear it up and explain it, they basically denied it was a thing, and then went ahead and said "anyone who believes this is a cunt" with the whole "Gamers are Dead" fiasco.

They denied collusion because... industry communications aren't collusion. Do you have any actual evidence of the agreement you're claiming here?

Imagine if actual newspapers did that! Imagine if, before the Iraq War, when Bush said "There are WMD's in Iraq" and then the press went "Yeah, okay, that seems legit." And then if some people questioned it they would all agree to absolutely slam those people who questioned it as "unpatriotic twats" or whatever... That's obviously a pretty exaggerated argument, but you see the point. Not one of those websites tried to be objective and publish both sides of the story, they just all immediately closed ranks and said "this is a problem, YOU GUYS are a problem". And that is why the mailing list is a bad thing.

First: You're describing what actually happened with a substantial section of the media on Iraqs. Second: Sometimes "objective" isn't "telling both sides". Young-earth Creationsts are wrong. Racists are wrong. People who claim that online harassment is not an issue, and specifically not an issue in the gaming community, are wrong. It would be abandoning objectivity to ignore the facts in order to look "fair and balanced".

While I hate Anita Sarkeesian with a passion I've got to point out a few things here. First up, she actually had a fairly significant following before GamerGate. I mean, we hated her before GG as well, but it was only after GamerGate started that we REALLY started to hate her.

The other thing is that Depression Quest was actually made by Zoe Quinn, who I assume is who you meant here. And there I agree with you. Both Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu are fairly widespread names now because of GamerGate. If it hadn't been for that they would both have remained the absolutely nobody developers that they are (because, as you say, Zoe Quinn's Depression Quest was absolute garbage and Brianna Wu's game was equally dreadful and worth absolutely nobodies time whatsoever).

Funny thing: I actually found them enjoyable. I guess I must not be a real true gamer, then, right?

[Assassini]

No, because I haven't seen any credible evidence of the rumours you're circulating, I dismiss them as "unsubstantiated". That's... kinda what the word means.

If you're going to devolve to condescension and insulting my intelligence here then I'm going to stop responding, simple as that.

As for actually responding to it though. I will be honest, I didn't keep a single link or post of all the many I saw condemning Anita (because it was primarily her) because, honestly, I'm among that percentage which kind of care about the issue, but not really to the extent of doing anything beyond maybe retweeting something here and there... Plus, there's nobody I'd really want to argue about on this subject in real life.

HOWEVER, I will not be deterred! A quick Google search provided (first two links I might add) a couple of things which could maybe be taken into account:

http://www.returnofkings.com/42602/did-anita-sarkeesian-fake-death-threats-against-herself - shows some evidence of faked threats made against Sarkeesian (although the website isn't a particularly good one...)
http://www.avoiceformen.com/allnews/anita-sarkeesian-feminism-online-harrassment-2/ - evidence that the threat made against Sarkeesian which she made such a fuss about was actually not a real danger

And that was literally 1 minute of work. I hope you might now start taking what I'm saying as slightly more than "unsubstantiated"...

They denied collusion because... industry communications aren't collusion. Do you have any actual evidence of the agreement you're claiming here?

Because nobody would go on the internet and tell lies, right?

Again, first thing I stumbled across: https://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=GameJournoPros

It appears that the incriminating evidence here is that a large number of "Gamers Are Dead" articles appeared, in quick succession and that those posting them were members of the mailing list. It's by no means conclusive in fairness, I mean I don't know if there is any e-mail transcript out there with "Let's go insult our readerbase" in the title, but then again, this was only 1 minute of searching. I seem to recall there being some evidence, but fair enough if you don't take my word for that. The primary thing here though is that it is at least EXTREMELY suspicious that they would all post such similar articles and all be a part of this list, you'd have to be blind to deny the link.

First: You're describing what actually happened with a substantial section of the media on Iraqs. Second: Sometimes "objective" isn't "telling both sides". Young-earth Creationsts are wrong. Racists are wrong.

Ah, and I guess because some members of the real media did it, it's okay then? You seem to be saying that it was a bad thing, yes? So is it NOT a bad thing when the gaming press does the same thing?

What? Yes it is. You have to look at an argument from both sides to be objective. Looking at an argument from only one side is biased, the complete opposite of objective...

I don't really have an answer to the last part, because I personally agree with you on both of those bits. But those are two rather completely separate and different issues, with no relation to GamerGate whatsoever...

People who claim that online harassment is not an issue, and specifically not an issue in the gaming community, are wrong. It would be abandoning objectivity to ignore the facts in order to look "fair and balanced".

True, there is some harassment around. I'd argue no more than in any other walk of life in which members of a community have a spotlight on themselves.

Well you can't simply dismiss the arguments of the other side because "they are wrong" or because "some of them harassed a friend of mine over a different thing".

Funny thing: I actually found them enjoyable. I guess I must not be a real true gamer, then, right?

No, you're free to like whatever you want mate... Although seeing as you are on the anti-GamerGate side, you should remember that Gamers are Dead...

Also, it DOES mean you have deplorable taste.

[Caehlim]

Just a request, there's already a thread for discussing Anita Sarkesian's video series. (Link). It's 19 pages long, so let's please not start repeating too much here that's already been covered.

[Ephiral]

If you're going to devolve to condescension and insulting my intelligence here then I'm going to stop responding, simple as that.

If correcting you when you ignore what I actually said to cast aspersions on my motives is insulting, then please respond to what I actually said.

As for actually responding to it though. I will be honest, I didn't keep a single link or post of all the many I saw condemning Anita (because it was primarily her) because, honestly, I'm among that percentage which kind of care about the issue, but not really to the extent of doing anything beyond maybe retweeting something here and there... Plus, there's nobody I'd really want to argue about on this subject in real life.

HOWEVER, I will not be deterred! A quick Google search provided (first two links I might add) a couple of things which could maybe be taken into account:

http://www.returnofkings.com/42602/did-anita-sarkeesian-fake-death-threats-against-herself - shows some evidence of faked threats made against Sarkeesian (although the website isn't a particularly good one...)
http://www.avoiceformen.com/allnews/anita-sarkeesian-feminism-online-harrassment-2/ - evidence that the threat made against Sarkeesian which she made such a fuss about was actually not a real danger

First, I'm going to take a moment to enjoy the irony of the best evidence in GG's favour being Return of Kings and A Voice For Men. Seriously, and you wonder why people think it's about harassing women?

Second, nooot seeing a lot of evidence on that first link. Seeing a ton of speculation and insinuation, and then assumption that they've proven their case, but... really, there's nothing concrete at all there.

Second link is... well, she cancelled the presentation because it could not be reasonably secured. Yes, that kept the threat from becoming imminent. Is there a point here?

And that was literally 1 minute of work. I hope you might now start taking what I'm saying as slightly more than "unsubstantiated"...

When highly motivated sources can do no better than speculation and innuendo? Not particularly.

Because nobody would go on the internet and tell lies, right?

So you're saying that having an industry communications channel is in fact collusion in and of itself?

Again, first thing I stumbled across: https://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=GameJournoPros

Here's the thing: I went and read the entire email dump that Yiannopolous provided. (Interestingly, it clearly starts in mid-conversation. I wonder why.) Guess how much collusion I found on articles, how much mention of "gamers are dead", how much mention of writing articles at all?

One person mentions that he's been meaning to review Depression Quest anyway, and now he has a reason to get on it. One says he might write an editorial but not cover it as news. There's some talk of a letter of support for the victim of harassment and condemnation of harassment. A letter, staying far away from official channels for obvious reasons. Also a fair amount of talk about why people are avoiding and staying ut of this and the letter might not be the best idea in their opinions.

This is the dread conspiracy?

It appears that the incriminating evidence here is that a large number of "Gamers Are Dead" articles appeared, in quick succession and that those posting them were members of the mailing list. It's by no means conclusive in fairness, I mean I don't know if there is any e-mail transcript out there with "Let's go insult our readerbase" in the title, but then again, this was only 1 minute of searching. I seem to recall there being some evidence, but fair enough if you don't take my word for that. The primary thing here though is that it is at least EXTREMELY suspicious that they would all post such similar articles and all be a part of this list, you'd have to be blind to deny the link.

It might look odd, yes, but it is very, very weak evidence on its own, and it collapses when you examine the "evidence" presented that collusion was, in fact, occurring. You don't know whether there's an e-mail transcript out there? I linked it above. The whole thing. Feel free to review it looking for the smoking gun.

Ah, and I guess because some members of the real media did it, it's okay then? You seem to be saying that it was a bad thing, yes? So is it NOT a bad thing when the gaming press does the same thing?

Exactly what statements were taken on faith alone despite evidence that they couldn't possibly be true in the gamejournopros thing? Certainly not that gaming is full of misogynistic assholes - that's solidly demonstrated. That there was coordinated harassment in large volumes? We've got evidence for that. So... where's the comparable assertion, and where are the vicious attacks on otherwise-credible journalists who disagreed based on evidence?

Or are the two situations not comparable?

What? Yes it is. You have to look at an argument from both sides to be objective. Looking at an argument from only one side is biased, the complete opposite of objective...

I don't really have an answer to the last part, because I personally agree with you on both of those bits. But those are two rather completely separate and different issues, with no relation to GamerGate whatsoever...

Rather than giving voice to "both sides", you can be objective by looking at the evidence - at what actually happened. I don't need to examine every young-earth creationist claim to know it's bullshit - looking at the actual evidence of the age of the earth is sufficient. I don't need to examine every "human biodiversity" nutjob's claim, just the actual data. Maintain objectivity by cleaving to the truth, not by trying to make sure you give voice to everyone.

True, there is some harassment around. I'd argue no more than in any other walk of life in which members of a community have a spotlight on themselves.

That is... possibly true, though "some" is just a bit diminishing given the scope of the problem (see also: Elevatorgate, the Rabid Puppies, etc), but that does not make it stop being a problem. It does not make it something that should not be addressed.

Well you can't simply dismiss the arguments of the other side because "they are wrong" or because "some of them harassed a friend of mine over a different thing".

If you can't dismiss an argument when it is wrong, when can you? Also, you might want to read the entire thread: A point I've expounded on repeatedly is that this movement that claims to be about ethics in games journalism is exploiting the single largest ethical issue in all of journalism to try and shut down speech they don't like. I don't merely dismiss Gamergate because it's primarily about harassment (though that would, in fact, be sufficient); I dismiss it because it is actively failing its own standards.

No, you're free to like whatever you want mate... Although seeing as you are on the anti-GamerGate side, you should remember that Gamers are Dead...

Also, it DOES mean you have deplorable taste.

Because I'm required to agree with literally every single thing said by anybody who happens to share a single position with me? Gamers aren't dead, but a vocal subset of the community is doing its damnedest to make sure they head in that direction by associating them with horrible toxicity.

Here's the  thing: There is literally no art that will be universally liked. Different things appeal to different people. That is, in fact, okay. There are things that interest me that won't interest you, and things that interest you that won't interest me. We accept this in every other medium; why not in gaming?

[Ironwolf85]

removed mine, this is why you don't post when working on 4 hours of sleep after a long shift. 

[Blythe]

Don't delete a post if someone's responded to it already, please. Post has been restored.

[Ironwolf85]

Don't delete a post if someone's responded to it already, please. Post has been restored.

alrighty didn't realize