Vainamoinen

At least an effing contact attempt should have been made. But, no, it had to be another takedown piece. As Keefer puts it in his clarification: That may have been Fogarty's job, but she didn't do it. No, she published not one but two blatantly one sided and stick poking articles in hopes that Roberts would react to her remote terrorism. Congratulations, he did. So she (or someone else) loosely worked Roberts' answers to the already published accusations into the article. The report 'now' presents two sides. And I guess that Roberts has not even given his explicit consent to using and rephrasing his statements in that motherfucker of an ethics breach article.

Accusing your former employer of clear cut racism and misogyny based on hearsay is not whistleblowing. But I get what you're saying. Nothing would be worse than an eventual Derek Smart was right. And it's still damn possible.

The one thing that's necessary to reiterate here is: All this is not about "defending" Star Citizen. I have no idea whether that project's going down the drain or is mismanaged to the highest degree. I don't know. Neither does Smart or Fogarty/Finnegan, nor do single employees of Roberts' company. As long as the singleplayer doesn't pop up at GOG one day, I'm not interested in Star Citizen, and the only things I've heard about it – namely, their crowd funding system that isn't crowd funding – do not exactly sound particularly ethical. But at this time, the (certainly in a way coordinated) effort of Smart and Fogarty to pull down Star Citizen must be considered a well oiled self fullfilling prophecy. Personally, I couldn't work in this kind of job when the press perpetually spoke about its impending downfall. This kind of smack talk will have negative repercussions on the project, wherever it was headed until now. And all this is only just about the article itself. There is, in addition, Roberts' teensy accusation that Fogarty attacks him from an anonymous twitter account. The accusation remains noticably unaddressed by the Escapist. Hey, maybe that's just what Escapist journalists do in their free time after making a living by extorting free studio tours from a to date rather successful indie studio.

Several people here, including myself, have known about the 'rebuttal' Escapist post for a while. Gormongous references its content explicitly when he talks about Fogarty's "defense". /edit: Okay, weird sauce. Can anyone confirm that the link to the Escapist article led to let me google that for you this morning (CET)? Because right now, it looks like I've been the only one to experience that. /edit 2: Figured it out. All 'do not links' to the Escapist lead to that lmgtfy page.

After reading Roberts' response in full, I will retract part of what I said about him in my last post. He's not 'giving in' so much as he attacks, quite in the context of gamergate, the ethically challenged author of the article. He goes on to convincingly show how Fogarty continues her gamergate activism from semi-anonymous twitter accounts – and then, of course, protests that gamergate supposedly stands for the kind of ethics the Escapist has put in the microwave until the hamster burst. Meanwhile, the Escapist has decided to insult its readers. Click on the above link to the article and witness how let me google that for you gives you results for "entitlement". ...as far as I know, gamergate supporters often say that gamergate only started because journalists insulted their readership. Meanwhile, accompanied by the consoling comments of Mr. Derek Smart (...surprise!), Fogarty goes boo hoo on her twitter: "I didn't accuse anyone of anything". Yup, she said allegedly a lot like a proper journalist Yiannopoulos when making accusations.

Yup, they do that. I was all "this has nothing to do with gamergate" yesterday... and then Cernovich and Yiannopoulos et al. joined the bandwagon with outrageously 'funny' comments and 4chan decided to give their usual logic the extra NRA edge. Guns don't kill people, feminists do. Well, indirectly. By not being prostitutes for world peace, y'know. ...ANYWAY... Unghhh. I'd have a more gamergatey bone to gnaw on right now. It seems like "the influential #gamergate defender", reaxxion and AVFM fan Elizabeth Fogarty/Finnegan has flexed her untrained journalist muscles on the Escapist a little too hard, trying to type up a 100% Derek Smart type critique of the Star Citizen project... with plenty of anonymous contacts to former employees who surprisingly sound a whole lot like the readily available employer reviews on glassdoor.com. It's not an ethics in journalism problem though, because this can not possibly have been meant as "journalism". To top it all, Chris Roberts has been giving in to this terrorism. He would now like to tour the Escapist idiots around in his studio. The Derek Smarts are winning this round.

The Oregon shooter was allegedly cheered at and encouraged on a thread on 4chan. Zoe Quinn notes that these forums need proper moderation in order to escape legislation that takes your freedom away. Teh gamergaters accuse Quinn of making this tragedy about herself and her agenda.

Depends on how failure is defined. If they find a way to financially milk gamergaters just so those can downvote reviews that put games into a cultural context, they could be darn successful with it.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/im-disappointed-zoe-quinn-speaks-out-on-un-cyberviolence-report ♥ Quinn

The ultimate level of public accessibility. Yes of course. http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/reports/bb-wg-gender-report2015.pdf

Chu's lost a lot of friends over this. Randi Harper had just finished a veritable rant against the UN report on "cyberviolence" (this report is, unfortunately, a piece of crap, so gaters are now trying to spread the lie that Zoe Quinn "co-signed" it) when Chu offered his 'perspective'. These are all very sad proceedings. I'm just glad that the people I personally trust in this debate were saying and doing the right thing.

Over here, some courts HAVE made website owners responsible for the comments people posted on their website. There was a prominent case in 2008 with journalist Stefan Niggemeier, as I recall (the Landgericht Hamburg bastards of course). To put it mildly, it's not a good idea.

THAT'S MY LINK!! (disclaimer: I've, in a sense, 'worked with' the author of that 2004 article as a voluntary Telltale forum moderator when he was in Telltale's PR in 2012. I've a very high opinion of the guy)

"Derek Smart threatens to sue" should be a meme.

Exploits gamers in a total Early Access disaster and gets quite censorship happy when people tell him that it is, in fact, a disaster. Continuously tries to damage the reputation of Cloud Imperium Games, because they obviously succeed where he fails. Poses as "neutral" for gamergate at SPJ Airplay in order to attack his logical enemies, the video game press. Calls to harassing action his new twitter gamergate friends from the ranks of extreme right wing journalism and utter MRA delusion. Feels wronged to the point of legal action because someone has enough of his verbal turds and blocks him on twitter. Circumvents that block for a threatening message including not particularly skillful insinuations of alcoholism and promiscuity. I didn't really know who "Derek Smart" is when this year started, but man he kept himself in asshole news these last two months!

Fukken... what? When did gamergate adopt Thompson?! I mean, that guy probably cries video game censorship even in his sleep?! (okay, I read up on it. "#gamergate doesn't like Jack Thompson but they hate game devs more" probably hits the mark right in the face)

"Hey, Airplay bro journalist with false info from terrorists and sick MRA guy who thinks he can remote control women with his sperm, come on and help me out here!" Wow. Just wow. And I thought that Kern was the most pathetic sycophant of the lot. In honor of Drek [sic] Smart's monomolecular skin thickness, I will repost the review link to his game Universal Combat (2004). http://www.somethingawful.com/game-reviews/completely-libelous-review/1/ I do hope that particularly page 2 of that review shows that Smart is all bark, but hardly any bite. Not that he'd hesitate pumping the cents he has left from Early Access into legal fees instead of game development. Line of Defense is fucked anyway. That game is to be put down like a rabid puppy.

The term "self harm" as used in the failed satire Yiannopoulos links to only denotes cutters, I think. I can't say whether the tweet rather means "go kill yourself" or "lookitmysuperfunnyarticle", because I can't really assess whether the author's stupidity exceeds his malice.

Smart already posed as a developer "neutral to gamergate" at the Airplay tribunal in August, just two weeks after video game journalists exposed his utter Early Access desaster... another thing that shows professional similarities to Mr. Kern...

That Yiannopoulos self-harm article (from back in June) is quite dadaistic. It's basically: people should cut themselves again like that girl I dated before I "went gay" because then they would stop stop writing for gawker and stop asking to be addressed in strange pronouns and their interest no longer "metastasise into the self-righteousness of social justice". No, I'm not kidding. Meanwhile, Quinn has almost abandonned her twitter for the shit she gets. Not surprisingly, as entirely oblivious gamergaters universally characterise the UN proceedings as a path to censorship.

So Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian spoke on "cyber violence" at the United Nations yesterday. Ooof, ignore the 80s sci-fi movie title. http://webtv.un.org/watch/launch-of-the-broadband-working-group-on-gender-report/4506718502001#full-text (A and Z are speaking in a short segment beginning at around 1:22:30 and ending around the 1:30 mark) It obviously was a rather stressful situation, and I'm impressed with both speakers. Of course, gamergate would love to frame this as a call for more surveillance and censorship. Not much backs this up, really. While Quinn goes out of her way to praise and defend online anonymity, Sarkeesian voices hopes for an internet that punishes wrongdoers by more strongly condemning their actions. Yet if we're to set up guidelines for moral online discourse however, we will have to draw much clearer lines in the sand as to what constitutes abuse and what does not. Personally, I have zero problems calling The Sarkeesian Effect and the Amazing Atheist youtube skit absolutely clear cut harassment. How hate mobs are directed against people (and I've attacked the practice on several sides before) must also be more carefully described and defined; e.g. Eron Gjoni's actions are as obvious as it gets, yet as you well know, I also found John Bain's August 2014 writings to be precisely constructed to achieve the same mobmongering effect. Special kudos and heartfelt thanks go out to both speakers for leaving video games out of the matter, entirely. There's not a single mention of gamers, games or gamergate if I'm not mistaken (Anita briefly speaks of analyzing "media"). It might be their reflex to protect and defend game culture here, a culture they themselves are part of – handled by less skilled (or more vengeful) speakers, games could easily have come into the focus of the debate as a source of 'cyber violence'.

This week's best links - "Gater journalists" http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/breitbart-writer-accidently-chums-around-with-terror-suspect The Sarkeesian Effect is out, and no one gives a damn: http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/09/15/17-completely-wrong-things-about-filmmaking-i-learned-from-the-sarkeesian-effect-the-worst-documentary-ever-made/ JFSS on a roll: http://www.thejimquisition.com/2015/09/the-jimquisition-a-quiet-conversation/ http://www.thejimquisition.com/2015/09/senran-kagura-2-deep-crimson-review/

I hope it isn't necessary to say explicitly that it wasn't my intent to attack anyone here. And it's especially not necessary for anyone to change her posts. I've come across the term 'agg' for at least eight months now, and this definition here was just new to me, while I've seen bona fide gamergate supporters use it in exactly the way described earlier – essentially, for the people who dare to speak to the many gamergate topics while disagreeing with gamergate ideologues most if not all of the time. Sarah Nyberg is in the trenches here. The attacks she has endured are incredibly shocking, and if anyone of you has ever been to that ralphretard website: It's practically dedicated to slinging the vilest possible crap in her direction. If 'gamers' as a group have been 'insulted', then Sarah as a single person has been insulted a billion fold. I still have trouble finding much clear cut gamergate idiocy exposure memes on her twitter these last weeks. Of course, undoubtedly, she does this! Undoubtedly I do as well. And while I think it's necessary, I don't think it's the end of all means, and I don't think it's the end of all means for Sarah as well. Updated with today's article on, well, Sarah's life this last year: https://medium.com/@srhbutts/i-m-sarah-nyberg-and-i-was-a-teenage-edgelord-b8a460b27e10 Gamergate sets up dogmatic argumentative structures in which utter falsifications of the ideological enemy's position survive years and can then . Pointing at these elementary problems will only get you so far, and I'm certain Sarah is aware of that as well. The topic has to be discussed in a broader context, ideally without dragging the gamergate 'position' into a conversation among grown-ups.

(Taken from "why are you so angry", and it is as correct today as yesterday) "Anti-gamergate" is a gamergate constructed identity like "Social Justice Warrior" and indeed means 'everyone who disagrees with our movement'. It's another derogatory grouping term. It explicitly doesn't denote extreme forms of twitter activism. People like Sarah Nyberg argue against gamergate not because they're part of any 'anti-gamergate' group. Sarah argues for rather elemental social issues which surprisingly seem to bear conflict potential for the "not at all about that" gamergate movement. A heap of things here could be discussed without the gamergate mob, many of which don't have a thing to do with games even. But, hellooooo, here's gamergate shoving their dick into the discussion and calling people 'anti gamergate' for speaking on the hardly even games related topic. "Anti-gamergate" is just another desperate attempt at finding and defining new enemy figures for idiots to chew on, and it gets old and boring. (I of course see how some people spend vast amounts of time on twitter exposing gamergate bigotry, yes of course. But 'agg' doesn't denote that and wasn't created by these people)

...anything to do with gamergate? No? This has probably never been a question of 'legal rights'. Nintendo could probably wipe youtube clean of their game footage right now and it would all be completely legal. At least I've been told that e.g. if they really wanted to. The problem is that video game culture has decided that this kind of game use is fair, and Nintendo committing crimes against these unofficially rewritten laws hurts their reputation more than they obviously imagine. Nintendo's on its way down, down, down. I haven't had anything to do with Nintendo these last decades, but well of course I bought a GameBoy in 1989 and played the shit out of NES action adventure classics like Faxanadu and Battle of Olympus. So what they're doing now... it really does hurt.