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Most interesting thing about #gamergate: the #notyourshield protests

Started by Shipyard Locked, October 08, 2014, 12:16:06 PM

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Snowman0147

Quote from: Warboss Squee;794692If everyone is special, than no one is? What a load of crap.

As I said before Will really needs to get his head out of his own ass.  Seriously he drank the kool-aid and is part of the social justice cult.

Edit:  I also love how Will completely fucking ignores that the gaming community at large is still inclusive and welcoming to those that want to join.  The reason it feels like it is exclusive these days is because well we have a entire media of social justice assholes to thank for that.  The old games that feature strong powerful women are still being made.  Newer strong powerful women are being made.  Those women who used to be just damsels are becoming more powerful strong women long before the social justice movement even step into gaming.  You just never hear it from the media because they are too busy shoving a political agenda down peoples' throats and making money off on click bait.

Then again I can't blame Will entirely because at one time I used to be the same fool who bought into the lies of the gaming media.  Hell I could had been a social justice warrior if it was not for the fact Anita attacked LEGOs.  That made me question things and so I went to other side to get their view points.  I look at both sides of the story and give it a fair valuation.  Well lets just say I became skeptical about the true goals of Anita so I tried to warn David A. Hill because you know that is how people should react.  If there is a scam artist you want to inform people so they don't get scam.  Fucker threw me under the bus and let the social justice warrior mob dog pile me.

From there my journey to a actual thinking human being began.

Will

Quote from: Warboss Squee;794692If everyone is special, than no one is? What a load of crap.

Uh, that would be the stance of folks rejecting the inclusion of others into 'their' culture.

That 'gamer' should be some super sekrit club.

I'm one of the folks saying hey, EVERYONE should get rocket packs and let's not be jerks about it, if we're going to extend the metaphor.
This forum is great in that the moderators aren\'t jack-booted fascists.

Unfortunately, this forum is filled with total a-holes, including a bunch of rape culture enabling dillholes.

So embracing the \'no X is better than bad X,\' I\'m out of here. If you need to find me I\'m sure you can.

Premier

Quote from: Will;794650I DO care about people terrorizing other people, and then slacktivists wringing their hands about how they are NOT WITH THOSE GUYS but happily riding on the shit-bags' coat-tails because actually going out and trying to drum up support under a different flag would be, like, hard and junk.

Tell me, do you extend the same care to those cases when it was anti-GG people who have threatened pro-GG individuals, harassed them, sent them knives in the mail, and publically posted their addresses? Or do they get a free pass from you, because hey, the Good Guys don't have to play by the rules of common decency? And what about the anti-GG people who weren't even wringing their hands about how they are not with those guys, but simply cheered on when it happened?
Obvious troll is obvious. RIP, Bill.

Warboss Squee

Quote from: Premier;794708Tell me, do you extend the same care to those cases when it was anti-GG people who have threatened pro-GG individuals, harassed them, sent them knives in the mail, and publically posted their addresses? Or do they get a free pass from you, because hey, the Good Guys don't have to play by the rules of common decency? And what about the anti-GG people who weren't even wringing their hands about how they are not with those guys, but simply cheered on when it happened?

He's been avoiding that.

He does a fantastic impression of an ostrich, I have to give him that.

Novastar

KingOfPol (pro-GG) got doxxed yesterday, threats were sent, had a suicide threat called in, and had the fire dept respond to his home to a 9/11 call. Yes, somebody sent police and firefighter units to his house, when there was no emergency; which means they were not available to respond to other calls, literally putting people's actual lives in jeopardy, over an internet slap-fight.

http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/masonry/000/855/516/fa3.png

I'll wait here patiently to hear anyone anti-GG denounce these attacks, and for the NYT, WP, and MSNBC to run a story. Any time now...any time?

EDIT: Also, an info-graphic, showing "all the negative tweets to the three women (& Leigh Alexander) at the center of the GamerGate controversy!"
Quote from: dragoner;776244Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn\'t what I play rpg\'s for.

Haffrung

Quote from: Will;794707Uh, that would be the stance of folks rejecting the inclusion of others into 'their' culture.


There is no gaming culture. There are several gaming sub-cultures, some of which have more assholes than others. And dwarfing all those sub-cultures put together are people who just play games. Like my wife playing Angry Birds. And my kids playing Minecraft. And by buddy playing Skyrim. They are no more part of a 'gaming culture' than they are part of 'eating pizza culture' or 'riding bicycles' culture. They have never read a video game review, never played a game online, and have no clue what gamergate is. And there are tens of millions of people just like them who buy and play videogames.

What in the fuck is it about self-professed gamers - tabletop RPG, boardgamers, videogamers - that makes some of them so obsessed about communities and culture? They're just games. Play games you like. Let other people play games they like. Stop fighting over virtual turf like the last generation on Easter Island.
 

ArrozConLeche

Quote from: Herr Arnulfe;794636I watched Sarkeesian's video on violence vs. women in games, and IIRC her two main points were:

- violence vs. women is more often sexualized than violence vs. men
- proportionate to their depiction as strong characters, women are more often helpless victims of violence than men are

I'm not a huge videogamer, but I've played enough that these claims seemed reasonable and didn't trigger my BS-meter. I don't recall Sarkeesian claiming that violence vs. women was more widespread than violence vs. men, quantitatively-speaking. The AEI woman's counter-argument is akin to protesting the "male gaze" concept in feminist film theory by pointing out that many films have female protagonists (i.e. total failure to grasp the point).


As I said before, I haven't followed the fallout. I don't do Twitter. I did watch a few of the (very angry) rebuttals to Sarkeesian's videos because they appear in the "related videos" sidebar on YouTube. Those, plus the 4chan connection, convinced me that following Gamergate would be a waste of time and would probably make me stupider.

I get her point regarding the sexualization and helpless victim tropes. I don't necessarily think these tropes need to disappear; IMO, they make for good devices and there's no reason we can't see men used in these tropes too, and why we can't see more diverse tropes.

However, I've been reading her transcripts, and while you're correct that she speaks of violence in the context of sexualization and/or helplessness, she also stretches the connection between sexualization and violence in order to make her point regarding player driven violence against women in sandbox game situations. Most of the mentions I've seen of "cherry picking" have been in regards to these games.

Take this portion of her transcript from this link: http://www.feministfrequency.com/2014/06/women-as-background-decoration-tropes-vs-women/


QuoteThis is especially sad because interactive media has the potential to be a perfect medium to genuinely explore sex and sexuality. But that’s not what’s happening here. These interactions set up a transactional relationship in which women are reduced to a base sexual function. It frames female sexuality as something that belongs to others, rather than as something women enjoy for themselves. I’d argue that none of this is really about sex at all, certainly nothing resembling authentic consensual intimacy; publishers and developers are instead selling a particular fantasy about male power centered on the control of women.

Of course, we can’t really talk about sexual objectification without also addressing the issue of violence against women, since the two are intimately connected. Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted.

In many open world or sandbox style games, developers construct their virtual worlds in such a way as to enable players to directly abuse non-playable sex objects.

This ability to violate the bodily integrity of eroticized women for fun highlights two other insidious aspects of objectification, those being violability and disposability.

Violability occurs when, as Nussbaum points out, “The objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.”

Players are often permitted to knock out, pick up, carry and throw around inert female bodies. And depending on the game series, the programmed options for interaction can include assault, mutilation, murder…

In particular, this line is telling for me: "Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted." Is she trying to demonstrate causation when linking sexualization to violence? That's certainly how the whole paragraph comes accross to me, so the natural counter argument is indeed to point out that male characters are disproportionately the recipients of violence, so there's probably not any causation link between the sexualization and the violence against the female characters [edit: since the male characters are not being sexualized]. The more likely case is that sexualization is incidental to the violence and vice versa-- at least in these sandbox games she is referencing.

I hope I didn't miss any of your actual points.


Premier

Re. image below: Interesting, but is there an actual reliable source to that? Like, a link to the study with the numbers. Just to prove that the image isn't bullshit.

Quote from: Novastar;794716EDIT: Also, an info-graphic, showing "all the negative tweets to the three women (& Leigh Alexander) at the center of the GamerGate controversy!"
Obvious troll is obvious. RIP, Bill.

Will

Quote from: Haffrung;794718What in the fuck is it about self-professed gamers - tabletop RPG, boardgamers, videogamers - that makes some of them so obsessed about communities and culture? They're just games. Play games you like. Let other people play games they like. Stop fighting over virtual turf like the last generation on Easter Island.

Well, for what it's worth, I agree. I mean, that's part of why Death of a Gamer is true (though perhaps in a different way than the authors intended).

But there are folks who INSIST on territorial battles. That some gaming isn't 'real' gaming.

I disagree with Sarkeesian (and radical feminists in general) over the causation of sexism and violence in videogames -- I don't think videogames are that important a prime cause, and if anything is reflective of culture and attitudes WAY more than drives any.

I live very close to the latest US school shooting. I don't blame sexism, gun culture, conservative culture, I blame someone being a crazy shithead (and some parents with way too little sense).
Violence and crime in this country have been going down for 20 years, even counting in 'mass shootings,' and mass shootings are rare and don't map well to anything in particular.
I don't LIKE guns and gun culture, and I wouldn't mind seeing more gun control... but I'm not going to ignore the facts (however some of you might typecast me out of your reflexive stupid tribalism HOOT HOOT (chest beat))

My problems with trends in gaming (and, more importantly to _me_, tabletop gaming) is the effect it has on folks who aren't straight white guys, and the feedback which causes some gamers to close ranks and act like tribal shitheads to folks not in the right tribe.

I loathe tribalism.

Novastar: If it matters (since I don't see myself in a Anti-GG Club, and I don't run a major media agency), I condemn people doxxing and calling police and otherwise terrorizing one another as 'vigilantes' or culture warriors or whatever stupid fucking stuff is going on in their head.

With the sole exception, maybe, of someone getting information on a harasser and forwarding that information to police.
This forum is great in that the moderators aren\'t jack-booted fascists.

Unfortunately, this forum is filled with total a-holes, including a bunch of rape culture enabling dillholes.

So embracing the \'no X is better than bad X,\' I\'m out of here. If you need to find me I\'m sure you can.

ArrozConLeche

Quote from: Snowman0147;794690This man is a strong supporter of #gamergate and #notyourshield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2KePdPrKss&list=UUU64AfivgQUOPuIJ8N5YaCA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5ZoYSILbQ8&list=UUU64AfivgQUOPuIJ8N5YaCA

The second video really paints the anti-gamergate people for who they really are.

Some comments on his first video:


He really needs to stop repeating that LW got ahead from sleeping around...there's no evidence for that. Sigh.

Also, the Kotaku article on the Hong Kong protests and Resident Evil seems inane enough, if vapid.

http://kotaku.com/hong-kong-protests-draw-resident-evil-comparisons-1641123086

I don't get his whole "women and minorities" thing in response to that woman saying that "plenty of women and minorities are stupid enough to join". Seems to me like it's nothing more a personal attack.

Now, He's right about the nerd shaming. And all he said of Leigh Alexander is ON POINT and that asshole needs to go:

http://i.imgur.com/eNvSPhE.png
http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/RkVO0kO1.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bx_1TS_IMAAkHxe.jpg

Here's Leigh again, this hero of anti-gg, women gamers and feminism, engaging in doxxing:

http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/EVIDENCEFIX.jpg

Oh, and she's classist too:

http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/EVIDENCE11.jpg

And just generally a bitter, hateful person:

http://i.imgur.com/reJQEqF.png

Of course, this is really what the Outrage Brigade posing is about. "Punch up, not down" bullshit:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bypbd3ZCMAEOesI.png

This kind of shit is what will set back real social justice.

Someone here better withdraw his support for anti-gg.


By the way, the petition the youtuber mentions has to be a troll or satire, though. Doesn't deserve a mention in the vid, IMO:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/ban-video-games-and-gamergate-and-their-hate-campaign/7cZ1V44R

But, it did lead me to this petition below. If I was a member of the Outrage Brigade, though, I'd sign this one in a heartbeat:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/replace-sensible-logic-feelings/fLjzhcbs

Novastar

Quote from: Premier;794726Re. image below: Interesting, but is there an actual reliable source to that? Like, a link to the study with the numbers. Just to prove that the image isn't bullshit.
An analysis based upon Newsweek's article, IIRC (there's a number now making the rounds, because it was incredibly shoddy):
https://medium.com/@cainejw/an-actual-statistical-analysis-of-gamergate-dfd809858f68
https://medium.com/@mousetick/lies-damn-lies-and-gamergate-statistics-ed322dfc992f

EDIT: having to put up two other articles, cause I cannot find the original, at the moment.
Quote from: dragoner;776244Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn\'t what I play rpg\'s for.

JRT

Just some background on myself

http://www.clashofechoes.com/jrt-interview/

S'mon

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;794721I get her point regarding the sexualization and helpless victim tropes. I don't necessarily think these tropes need to disappear; IMO, they make for good devices and there's no reason we can't see men used in these tropes too.

Men in these roles - well men can certainly be in sexualised roles, and often are in female-oriented fiction, eg Twilight. But the helpless victim trope doesn't work the same way psychologically. Basically, the male (esp the adolescent male) wants to rescue the helpless damsel and have sex with her, but the female brain doesn't work that way. But what I found did work running a d20 Conan game for female players was youthful male sidekicks to their butt-kicking heroines; male Gabrielles to their Xenas, or Robins to their female Batmans. The plucky sidekicks were brave, and reasonably competent - but not as competent as the PCs. The players absolutely loved this, loved eg rescuing them from the pirates, whereas completely ineffectual male characters would not have worked at all.
Shadowdark Wilderlands (Fridays 6pm UK/1pm EST)  https://smons.blogspot.com/2024/08/shadowdark.html

Novastar

Quote from: JRT;794740Actually, there was a recently analysis of 72 hours of tweets here that was pretty insightful.

https://medium.com/message/72-hours-of-gamergate-e00513f7cf5d
Ok, never heard of "sea lioning" before.
And having just read the comic: the sea lion may be annoying, but it could be an honest participant in discourse. The two people? The two people are just dicks.

QuoteOut of 316,669 total tweets, 217,384 of them (about 69%) were retweets. The remaining 99,285 (31%) were original tweets— 46,826 weren’t directed to anyone, 39,622 replied directly to another user, and 12,837 publicly mentioned one or more users. In total, 38,630 user accounts posted to the two hashtags in those three days. Excluding retweets, that number drops down to 17,410 users.
Ok, how does that breakdown compared to normal Twitter usage? ...doesn't say.

QuoteRoughly 25% of all Gamergate activity is coming from accounts created in the last two months. To be clear, I’m not suggesting these accounts are bots or sockpuppets — one person controlling multiple accounts — but simply that these accounts are new to Twitter.
Dude, own your insinuations. I'll say it: both sides have a suspicious number of sockpuppet and bots on Twitter. "StopGamerGate2014" was trending off the ISIS page, for a day. There are services that will "sell" you a Twitter account, with followers already attached. This isn't new. It's just happening a lot in GamerGate (and not all are malicious; some people got pushed into Twitter when the Gaming Forums wouldn't allow discussion on their Boards without censoring/deleting/banning threads/users; some people have made accounts just for talking about GamerGate, worried about getting doxxed on their normal account.)

Wait...you're comparing GamerGate to KashmirFloods? Why?
KashmirFloods has received nearly 100,000 tweets over 4.5 years; GamerGate has gotten 2,800,000 tweets over 2 months.

Maybe I should point out that Kashimir Floods jumped from @500 tweets to nearly 2,800 tweets after the floods? I don't think it surprises anyone, that events tends to generate interest (and yes, Streisand Effect does create bubbles).

QuoteGamergate supporters use the #gamergate hashtag more often.
Really. Supporters use the hashtag that symbolizes their cause, more than the people they criticize. Amazing. I'm glad you're here to tell me these things. :rolleyes:

QuoteNewsweek interpreted this to mean the tweets were neither positive or negative, but I’m fairly sure Brandwatch simply meant they couldn’t make an automated determination for 90% of tweets — sentiment analysis using less than 140 characters can be challenging.
Oh, good, he acknowledges there may be difficulties in analyzing a large and diverse group of tweets into a meaningful data set...

QuoteDigging into the actual text by hand, it’s clear that these tweets are anything but neutral.
...or not.

QuoteIn my three-day sample, there were 1,171 tweets that mentioned Anita Sarkeesian’s Twitter username, 485 for Brianna Wu, and 338 for Zoe Quinn. I put the text of all of those tweets, without user information, in this spreadsheet so you can see for yourself. Roughly 90–95% take a clear side either in favor or against Gamergate. A quick manual classification of a sample shows the numbers to be closer to 75% negative, 15% positive, and 10% neutral or undetermined, very far from Newsweek’s automated attempt.
Ok, out of 316,669 tweets over three days, you cherry-picked out the 1,994 tweets about these three controversial individuals. You then reclassified them positive/negative/undetermined based upon, what exactly?

Info-graphic on "sides of GamerGate"
QuoteWhile there are hundreds of small communities represented by this visualization, it’s clear they group into two major groups: on the left, pro-Gamergate. On the right, anti-Gamergate. In the middle, a handful of controversial people engaging both sides.
Yes, amazing. Just like any other debate, really. At least the picture is pretty. And highlights something else:
QuoteAnd on the margins, a constellation of isolated people unrelated and disengaged.
That would be the bots, and the sockpuppets, actually.

Reproducitivity?
QuoteOriginally, I was hosting complete downloads of the data here for anyone to play with, make their own visualizations, or simply fact-check my work.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, distributing the contents and metadata surrounding tweets is a violation of section 6b of Twitter’s Developer Policy. Twitter politely asked me to remove the downloads without sending lawyers, and I very much appreciate that approach.

My guess? This policy exists to protect the privacy of their users. Any downloadable dataset could include information that was subsequently deleted or made private by its owners, or removed by Twitter.

Pursuant to their guidelines, I’ve replaced the original dataset with a much more limited one, containing only the tweet ID and user ID. You can download it here (9 MB CSV).

I know this is far from ideal, but you can use this information to reconstruct the original dataset by using Twitter’s statuses/lookup API method, 100 tweets at a time. With their API rate limits, you should be able to grab up to 10,800 tweets an hour. Reconstructing the entire dataset would take around 29 hours.

Sorry, everyone.
So, unless you've got 29 hours of spare time to refute me, take my word on it.

EDIT: I also forgot an important point: a "negative tweet", does not in any way mean that the tweet is engaged in misogynistic or harassing behavior. "I don't like your shoes." is a negative statement, but not a misogynistic or harassing one.
Quote from: dragoner;776244Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn\'t what I play rpg\'s for.