Quote from: TristramEvans;797840Heh, googled that and got Gilbert Godfried telling The Aristocrats joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGA0dIz9-Wk

...and people say nothing good comes from #gamergate!!!

Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish has gotten involved now, talking about the way twitter is now working with some groups to silence certain accounts.

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/10/the-sjws-now-get-to-police-speech-on-twitter/

and part 2

http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/11/11/the-sjws-now-get-to-police-speech-on-twitter-ctd/

Quote from: Women Action and the Media"Less than 1 in 100 of classical pieces performed in concert in 2009-2010 were written by a female composer"

Wow. Just...(head shake) wow.

QuoteGone are the accounts of Mykeru, a critic of feminism within the Atheist-Skeptic movement, as well as Janet Bloomfield, Social Media Director of A Voice for Men. Their accounts also disappeared in the past three days. Thunderf00t, another prominent critic of feminism within the Skeptic movement, had his account suspended for close to a month. None of these accounts were abusive or harassing. The only thing they had in common was that they were all critical of feminism.

Remember what I was saying several pages back about the ultimate goal being censorship?

Yeah, that seems directly related to video games journalism.

Anyway, in real news, Ubisoft are finally getting a bit of a kicking, or at least a gentle tap in the shin-guards, in regards to Assassin's Creed 2014, with review scores as low as 7/10 (And given reviews are on a 7-9 scale...) and some displeasure about the "micro"transactions involved in the game. So that's good news; if the game is genuinely a turd, review sites should be telling players that! It's kinda what should be their jobs.

Quote from: Ladybird;798158Yeah, that seems directly related to video games journalism.

I wasn't claiming it was. My first post (the first post of this thread) was not about gaming journalism, but specifically how this whole GG mess has made me contemplate my discomfort with recent behavior from certain groups I used to trust implicitly. Sullivan is hardly a model human either, but I think he and the people he links to have a point here and so I am further dismayed. That's news enough to me.

Quote from: Ladybird;798158Yeah, that seems directly related to video games journalism.

Its about the antiGG group, not GG

Quote from: TristramEvans;798165Its about the antiGG group, not GG

Yeah. It's the same "waaaagh SJW's, waaaagh FOM's*" bullshit that gets in the way of us getting to have a proper discussion about anything.

* FOM = Forces Of Misogyny. I don't know if there's an official "opposite to SJW" abbreviation, and tbqh, I don't really care; that'll do for this example.

Quote from: Ladybird;798177Yeah. It's the same "waaaagh SJW's, waaaagh FOM's*" bullshit that gets in the way of us getting to have a proper discussion about anything.

* FOM = Forces Of Misogyny. I don't know if there's an official "opposite to SJW" abbreviation, and tbqh, I don't really care; that'll do for this example.

Um ...
What are you talking about?

That is not "FOM", that is about how others has been closed down by "feminists".
One was a dirtbag, ok, good riddance, but one was a feminist critical of the anti-GG's, if I understood it correct, and the others seemed open for discussion?
.... There is something wrong here.

Quote from: Ladybird;798177Yeah. It's the same "waaaagh SJW's, waaaagh FOM's*" bullshit that gets in the way of us getting to have a proper discussion about anything.

Almost ironic statement that, considering the story being discussed.

Quote from: Catelf;798180Um ...
What are you talking about?

That is not "FOM", that is about how others has been closed down by "feminists".
One was a dirtbag, ok, good riddance, but one was a feminist critical of the anti-GG's, if I understood it correct, and the others seemed open for discussion?
.... There is something wrong here.

There are just as many trolls working under the cloak of feminism as there are under... not feminism. And that's the real problem; any debate just becomes those two sides arguing at each other, again, about the same tired old topics, and people who actually care about them get drowned out.

If you are a gamer, for example, surely you want more people to play games, because that means more people for you to play with. Surely you want a larger variety of games, because that means more types of game... and if they're not the sorts of games you like, well, that doesn't affect you. If you only play for the gameplay, games having better storylines or more diverse characters doesn't detract from that.

When it gets down to it, I don't understand what the core difference is between writing to advertisers to get them to stop advertising on a given site, and thus close it through lack of funds (And thus taking a voice away), and writing to twitter to suspend down some accounts. Oh, sure, there's a difference in scale - it's easier to suspend a twitter account than bankrupt a website - but the end goal is the same; silencing the "opposition" as a victory for your side.

Quote from: Women, Action and the MediaA completely open and unmoderated platform imposes its own form of censorship.

All you really need to know right there.

Quote from: Ladybird;798199When it gets down to it, I don't understand what the core difference is between writing to advertisers to get them to stop advertising on a given site, and thus close it through lack of funds (And thus taking a voice away), and writing to twitter to suspend down some accounts. Oh, sure, there's a difference in scale - it's easier to suspend a twitter account than bankrupt a website - but the end goal is the same; silencing the "opposition" as a victory for your side.

The difference is that writing to an advertiser to ask them to do something gives the advertisers a choice to evaluate the request and come to an informeddecision. From the looks of things in regards to Twitter, there is no informed decisions being made, a small group has been placed in charge of deciding who is allowed to post on twitter, a group that has already declared thier intention to abuse that authority.

Quote“We’ll be escalating [harassment reports] even if they don’t fit Twitter’s exact abuse guidelines,” Friedman said. WAM intends to “cast a wider net” and see what Twitter’s moderators address.

Andfrom the looks of things Twitter is just going to take their word for it.

Now Ilooked uup a few of the fellows who have been suspended and yes they seem like sexist dicks overall, but there was nothing they did specifically to break Twitter's rules to get their accountssuspended, let alone harass anyone. And thus we have the same situation as we have with RPGnet: people being banned for no reason because they don't tow the party line. This is a group expressedly against free speech.

Quote“I see this as a free speech issue,” Friedman said. She said she knew some would see the work WAM does as “censorship,” but that a completely open and unmoderated platform imposes its own form of censorship. It effectively prevents women, especially queer women and women of color, from getting to speak on the service.

The sameline I heard on tbp for years: free speech prevents women from talking. In other words, women andminorities areunable to have a voice if anyone else is allowed to contradictor challenge it. Note I'm not talking about harrassment. We're talking about people simply saying ("tweeting") things that they don't like.

I don't use twitter, so this doesn't affect me, except in that the more control these groups are allowed to have over social media, the more they will be able to censor any talk that doesn't fit their ideology. That's dangerous IMHO. That's a legitimate threat to free speech.

"Monsieur l'abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire"
"...I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write" - Voltaire

Quote from: TristramEvans;798212"Monsieur l'abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire"
"...I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write" - Voltaire

My understanding is that Voltaire never actually wrote this:

QuoteAnother possible source for the quote was proposed by Norbert Guterman, editor of "A Book of French Quotations," who noted a letter to M. le Riche (6 February 1770) in which Voltaire is quoted as saying: "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write" ("Monsieur l'abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerai ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire"). This remark, however, does not appear in the letter.

Quote from: Ladybird;798199There are just as many trolls working under the cloak of feminism as there are under... not feminism. And that's the real problem; any debate just becomes those two sides arguing at each other, again, about the same tired old topics, and people who actually care about them get drowned out.

If you are a gamer, for example, surely you want more people to play games, because that means more people for you to play with. Surely you want a larger variety of games, because that means more types of game... and if they're not the sorts of games you like, well, that doesn't affect you. If you only play for the gameplay, games having better storylines or more diverse characters doesn't detract from that.

When it gets down to it, I don't understand what the core difference is between writing to advertisers to get them to stop advertising on a given site, and thus close it through lack of funds (And thus taking a voice away), and writing to twitter to suspend down some accounts. Oh, sure, there's a difference in scale - it's easier to suspend a twitter account than bankrupt a website - but the end goal is the same; silencing the "opposition" as a victory for your side.

But then it is rather FOD (Forces of Dirtbags) since they are indeed on both sides.

Quote from: Alzrius;798233My understanding is that Voltaire never actually wrote this:

Then I shall anonymously dedicate it to the great thinker who did I suppose.