Month: October 2014 (Page 3 of 3)

Initially written late Friday, updated and copy edited late Saturday.

On Thursday night, I did a thought experiment. Basically, I was saying “I am not a #gamergater, but if I were, this is what I would do in order to take this anger and turn it into purpose and results.” Responses did not go well. Among the various feedback, there was enough common threads that I thought I might respond to some of them. However, I would ask that you read the article first. Like seriously. At least read it before yelling at me.  No, go read it. That being said, here are some responses to some of the more common responses.

“You’re a shill.”
The shill gambit is a logical fallacy that rejects a person’s ideas because they come from outside your cause.  Which means, quite literally, if #GamerGate holds this worldview consistently, as they are trying to do now, any sort of outreach to them is impossible, and therefore developers and press should just stop trying.  And so if this becomes the default answer when one of us not on your side of the fence throws out a proposal, you’re going to keep seeing what I see – press and developers choosing to ignore the cause, because really, what’s the point in engaging?

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Note: I have added a followup article addressing common complaints here.  Also, I’ve made a point to delete or moderate no comments in this thread.

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The core of GamerGate came from the cultures of Anonymous and 4Chan, and so that group has taken it on faith that being leaderless is good, and that having no central organization is good. I’ve come to the conclusion that that is exactly wrong.

Speaking as someone who has tried to engage #gamergate here, on twitter, on reddit, and in IRC, I can tell you that trying to move things forward in any direction is impossible. I say this as someone who is sympathetic to some of its goals, but cautious of its underpinnings, and highly critical of some aspects of it as well (as readers of this blog will note). I try to explain points of view to reasonable people, only to have other people throw unrelated stuff in my face and demand answers. I spent 20 minutes explaining that it was unreasonable for one #gamergater to want XBox to stop banning people from voicing rape threats to other players, only to have people shout at me on twitter “THAT’S NOT WHAT GAMERGATE IS ABOUT!” No, but that’s what I’m talking about IN THIS PARTICULAR CONVERSATION WITH THE GUY THAT MADE THAT POINT.  (Man, does twitter suck for this whole debate)

And then I go to Reddit and read how depressed people are because a loose cannon went off to yell at devs.  Seriously.  GamerGate is not going to get far until it can win over devs, because we are the ones who spend all of the money that make it so that games journalists can pay rent.

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