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 cuda1179 wrote:
I am not a fan of Sarkesian getting involved in tabletop wargaming. In my opinion, she's toxic, argumentative, biased, and condescending.

I'm fine with her having any opinion she wants to have. She can even communicate it with anyone she wants, regardless of how wrong she is. I just feel that she will leave this hobby worse than it was.

I think you give her way too much power. She's not Sauron the Great or something.

 Da Boss wrote:
I think you give her way too much power. She's not Sauron the Great or something.

She's less Sauron the Great, and more like a low-quality copy of The King in Yellow.

 Da Boss wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I am not a fan of Sarkesian getting involved in tabletop wargaming. In my opinion, she's toxic, argumentative, biased, and condescending.

I'm fine with her having any opinion she wants to have. She can even communicate it with anyone she wants, regardless of how wrong she is. I just feel that she will leave this hobby worse than it was.

I think you give her way too much power. She's not Sauron the Great or something.

That's the thing with Sarkeesian. I think it's the crybabies who whine about her that gives her power. If the people who disagreed with her had just said, "Oh, this lady is wrong. Dislike" she would've faded into obscurity. But because she received such a hateful and frankly ugly response she was able to ply supportive ears for money. I mean hucksters like Sarkeesian are a dime a dozen and they don't generate nearly the same levels of hate.

At least that's my impression of the situation. I'm not well versed in the situation.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I am not a fan of Sarkesian getting involved in tabletop wargaming. In my opinion, she's toxic, argumentative, biased, and condescending.

I'm fine with her having any opinion she wants to have. She can even communicate it with anyone she wants, regardless of how wrong she is. I just feel that she will leave this hobby worse than it was.

I think you give her way too much power. She's not Sauron the Great or something.

That's the thing with Sarkeesian. I think it's the crybabies who whine about her that gives her power. If the people who disagreed with her had just said, "Oh, this lady is wrong. Dislike" she would've faded into obscurity. But because she received such a hateful and frankly ugly response she was able to ply supportive ears for money. I mean hucksters like Sarkeesian are a dime a dozen and they don't generate nearly the same levels of hate.

At least that's my impression of the situation. I'm not well versed in the situation.

That's a half-accurate assessment. The "good guys" side of the argument don't get to escape responsibility for initially pushing her work as authoritative and responding to genuine criticism - of the work itself, not her - as if everyone engaged in such was basically Ted Bundy in denial. The only reason the genuinely hateful stuff had enough cover to flourish was the sneering blanket insults from some of her fans in the media pissed off a lot of normal non-bigoted, non-outraged people who were then less likely to believe genuine accusations of actual atrocious behaviour.

Ah Gamergate, the simple rejection of a wide and diverse community of gamers opinions in a simple wave of a hand and a label "they are alt right"

No Gamergate was complex complicated and multistaged, with various parties and opinions mixed in from around the world expressing their own opinion, fact is the "narrative" one side chose was everybody disagreeing with us is sexist, misogynist and a fascist, funny thing, this is the stance the gaming news sites that were questioned took and still hold.

What a great way to sweep the problem under the rag, dismiss anybody criticising you as the "worse thing ever" but never address the criticism.

The vast fuel of Gamergate was people reacting to others patronising them as to what they want and enjoy, the fact that it was convenient to toss them and their criticism to "the other side" to avoid them is what fuelled the other side so much.

But hey, never address criticism, everything is done in bad faith if they do not agree with you and praise you.

On the subject I do not like her agenda, I feel she is a person that harmed the industry a lot by been the talk person who expressed the views and then lay the victim card whenever she was criticised, well rehearsed, well executed, her stance is disingenuous and her public unscripted performances have shown a toxic double standard, I do not think such persons have a place as the guest of honour.

If Larry Correia was deplatformed from Origins, I do not see why she should have a platform, he didn't have a history of attacking attendees.

GenCon including her as a guest of honour is a political move and statement I would rather not have in my industry and definitely not if something that is celebrated as the best 4 days in gaming.

I prefer inclusiveness and understanding in my hobby not hostility and exclusion.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
I am not a fan of Sarkesian getting involved in tabletop wargaming. In my opinion, she's toxic, argumentative, biased, and condescending.

I'm fine with her having any opinion she wants to have. She can even communicate it with anyone she wants, regardless of how wrong she is. I just feel that she will leave this hobby worse than it was.

I think you give her way too much power. She's not Sauron the Great or something.

That's the thing with Sarkeesian. I think it's the crybabies who whine about her that gives her power. If the people who disagreed with her had just said, "Oh, this lady is wrong. Dislike" she would've faded into obscurity. But because she received such a hateful and frankly ugly response she was able to ply supportive ears for money. I mean hucksters like Sarkeesian are a dime a dozen and they don't generate nearly the same levels of hate.

At least that's my impression of the situation. I'm not well versed in the situation.

That's a half-accurate assessment. The "good guys" side of the argument don't get to escape responsibility for initially pushing her work as authoritative and responding to genuine criticism - of the work itself, not her - as if everyone engaged in such was basically Ted Bundy in denial. The only reason the genuinely hateful stuff had enough cover to flourish was the sneering blanket insults from some of her fans in the media pissed off a lot of normal non-bigoted, non-outraged people who were then less likely to believe genuine accusations of actual atrocious behaviour.

Okay, that does make some sense. The whole FF was a mess and it's hard to get a clear image of what happened sometimes. A lot like the whole Gamergate scandal.

Well, if the past is any indication then the social media surrounding GenCon 2018 should be a great and wonderful battleground.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

KDM has always generated a healthy level of objection from a portion of the market. That KDM takes that and keeps doing its thing anyway is part of the charm.

I laughed hard when Shut up and gak down tried to make a review of it, it was way too obvious he wanted to get a shovel to bury it, but that kickstarter success would make him look clueless and out of touch, he made a really entertaining passive aggressive video.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
If Larry Correia was deplatformed from Origins, I do not see why she should have a platform, he didn't have a history of attacking attendees.

GenCon including her as a guest of honour is a political move and statement I would rather not have in my industry and definitely not if something that is celebrated as the best 4 days in gaming.

This. If Kevin could get disinvited from being a guest, perhaps the same could happen with Anita.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:
Again, bald-faced assertions aren't facts, even when typed on a miniatures board.

Are you trying for some sort of award for most ironic posts?

In the matter of identify politics, her having a vagina trumps most of you.

I, however, am darker than parchment, so she has nothing on me. Race trumps gender, and she knows it.

I think personally that there are a lot more women who have done a lot more and more tangible things to the benefit of the rpg and tabletop community and they all would have been vastly better choices to invite than someone who is fairly or unfairly considered extremely toxic (and to be honest, what has she contributed to the RPG or TT community that makes her a "industry" guest at all, let alone one of honor)

 thekingofkings wrote:
I think personally that there are a lot more women who have done a lot more and more tangible things to the benefit of the rpg and tabletop community and they all would have been vastly better choices to invite than someone who is fairly or unfairly considered extremely toxic (and to be honest, what has she contributed to the RPG or TT community that makes her a "industry" guest at all, let alone one of honor)

My stance. You want to be inclussive? Grab someone that's done something for the tabletop industry. Or if you're only interested in bringing someone that does totally misinformed reviews just for the sake of cash and clickbaits just contact Teena Hancock's blog. At least her misinformed and clickbaity content are hobby related.

 thekingofkings wrote:
I think personally that there are a lot more women who have done a lot more and more tangible things to the benefit of the rpg and tabletop community and they all would have been vastly better choices to invite

Totally agreed.

Wow, that Larry Correia issue with Origins; wondered how long it was going to be before someone brought that up.

The worst thing Larry did was 'fisk' an article by a gentleman named A.A. George in which he (George) claimed that tabletop gaming was hostile to women and PoC's while effectively calling 50,000 GenCon attendees racist. Larry broke that article down and showed the flaws with his argument (i.e. 'fisking' a new term for me).

This happened four years ago and when Mr. George's girlfriend found out that Larry was to be a GoH at Origins this year, she wrote a letter, as revenge, to John Ward (Origins director) who subsequently did no research on the subject and as a knee-jerk reaction disinvited Larry.

In case no one had heard of this particular case, that's the nuts and bolts of it. I'm surprised that we didn't see a thread about that already.

More here: http://www.monsterhunternation.com

 Da Boss wrote:
I think you give her way too much power. She's not Sauron the Great or something.

And yet she was at the UN Women (which as I understand it is a separate organization under the UN, not the actual UN but still backed by them) talking about censoring the internet to stop online harassment.

I also think the big divide in opinions here comes down to the fact that one side will view her as having been attacked horribly with harassing comments and sent all sorts of threats and the like and so obviously the people doing that (Gamergate) are the bad guys. The other side will look at her and just see someone who stirs up controversy and claims to be the victim when it happens because c'mon, it's the internet, there's always gonna be a few trolls throwing death threats across twitter for literally any opinion anyone gives, and those people probably aren't related to gamgergate since the FBI did investigate and didn't find anything worth persuing. (IIRC I think there were also people taking the 4chan greentext about being a marine sniper with over 300 confirmed kills who'll 360 noscope you seriously.)

I am not aware of Anita ever doing this, and I doubt she would, but other big names on the progressive/anti gamergate side were caught out posting hate and threats at themselves as well from anonymous accounts.

I don't believe Anita ever did anything even close to that, but she is very good at making things that aren't about her into things that are about her (not quite to Brianna "Insert Myself into Literally Anything then cry victim!" Wu levels), like the blow-up at the college that had a concealed carry law that she somehow turned into it being "unsafe" for her to appear.

I'm a little confused by this whole Gamer Gate thing.

From reading the first several pages of this, this Anita person is the "bad guy" in the controversy, or at least one of them.

But from reading the wikipedia article, which I feel is biased, she is one of the "good guys" and the GamerGate community are a bunch of misogynists engaging in inappropriate behavior.

The article also claims the whole thing started from an ex-boyfriend posting about his game designer girlfriend's relationship with him.

I'm totally confused...anyone point me to the Dummies Guide for this?

well.. so I just spent the last couple hours looking into things like “gamergate” “incels”, Anita, gamer culture, feminist and gamer culture, etc... what a stupid mess this all is. Basically you have a bunch of women who hate men and a bunch of men who hate women arguing over things they don’t understand. What a waste of time.

Honestly, you're probably better off doing your own research and trying to find many sources, even watching some of her own videos too. Dig into things to try and get context. If you decide to jump on one side or the other, it's always good to know what the other side's major points are so you can counter them in debate with relevant arguments rather than essentially name calling from the extremes of both ends.

Well, I’m definitely not jumping onto any side here. Running away as fast as possible from both sounds reasonable based on my first (and probably last) few hours looking into this pile.

General Hobbs wrote:
I'm a little confused by this whole Gamer Gate thing.

From reading the first several pages of this, this Anita person is the "bad guy" in the controversy, or at least one of them.

But from reading the wikipedia article, which I feel is biased, she is one of the "good guys" and the GamerGate community are a bunch of misogynists engaging in inappropriate behavior.

The article also claims the whole thing started from an ex-boyfriend posting about his game designer girlfriend's relationship with him.

I'm totally confused...anyone point me to the Dummies Guide for this?

The short of it is, gamers were getting a little fed up with the progressive agenda being pushed (which largely started with, but was not limited to Anita Sarkeesian's videos), as this push ended up portraying them as bad people who hate women. They believed that this agenda was deliberately being pushed by the game journalists, who were selling out the gamers they were supposed to represent in order to gain political and social capital they could use for clicks, money, and popularity (with women).

The ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn, who is legitimately a terrible person who is best known for a TWINE game called Depression Quest, wrote a long screed about how she was emotionally abusive to him and constantly cheated on him. He named names, and some of those names were game journalists who worked out outlets that had given good publicity to Depression Quest in the past. Here, then, was the proof that the game journalists were cliquish and selling out gamers for personal gain. GamerGate was coined as a term from this, not because of the harassment that Quinn suffered but because how it reflected the incestuous nature of games journalism.

Around this time, and I'm not sure if it was before or after the Zoe Quinn memo, a bunch of articles came out declaring that "Gamers Are Dead". Like two dozen of them in the span of two days, all saying the same thing. Basically, that gamers were terrible people and that game developers didn't need to target gamers to be successful. Again, we have a case of game journalists deliberately selling out the very people who supported them and who they were supposed to represent. Some people suspected that there was actual collusion going on, due to the articles sounding so eerily similar and coming out so close together. Turns out, there was collusion going on, and there was a mailing list called Game Journo Pros where the game journalists would get together and actually decide what agenda to push. Leaks from this mailing list prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that people's worst fears were true.

The problem with all this is that Sarkeesian started a... I guess a meme... that gamers were all harassing her because they were misogynists. I'm sure she was getting harassed, but since she never actually provided more than a handful of tweets as evidence, nobody could be clear as to how legitimate the threats were, how many they were, or what their actual intent really was. However, the narrative that a bunch of misogynists were trying to keep a feminist down made her Kickstarter skyrocket. She learned real quick, and several noteworthy others as well, that there is a lot of power (and money and clicks) in that narrative, and it started showing up even when there was no clear evidence of harassment. In one case, one person said that she was run out of her house and home and spent three months in hiding, when in reality, she was spending the summer in Europe on vacation (as evidenced by tweets she made well before the harassment supposedly started).

Still, the problem with GamerGate is that their enemies were the ones with the megaphones, and the game journalists got ahead of the message and managed to turn it into something else. That narrative of harassment worked really well to obfuscate the findings of the Zoe Quinn memo, and it didn't actually matter what it said, only that a woman was under attack by misogynist gamers (a well she would continue to return to many times). To people who didn't know or didn't care what was going on, the result was that the expectations of the conflict were set by the "bad guys" to make them look innocent, and that their enemies were only after them because they were misogynists who didn't want women in the game industry. Things got REALLY bad from there. To this day, the narrative that surrounds GamerGate (including the Wikipedia page) is the worst kind of shallow bs, with the evidence being little more than half researched articles in major newspapers that only interviewed the game journalists who used their own website articles as proof that they were totally being truthful. WSJ: Gamers hate women, Kotaku said so. Kotaku: Gamers hate women, Polygon said so. Polygon: Gamers hate women, Kotaku said so.

Now, this is a biased account. I don't consider myself a GamerGater, but I was there. Having had a similar situation in the past where Penny Arcade smeared me and being unable to clear my name or change an incorrect public narrative, I am very interested in these kinds of situations, and I always seek to read as much primary sources as possible before I make up my mind about these things. And since I was there from the very beginning (before even the Quinn memo), I saw the narrative taking shape, very much in a manner similar to what I had gone through in the past. I saw the narrative form, I knew what would happen next, and watched it prove me right in real time. But I'm still an outsider, giving my opinion on what I thought people saw, felt, and thought. I urge you to go check out all the primary sources yourself, and know that any summary you read about this whole thing is going to be polarized and one sided. I haven't lied about anything here, but it is still my opinion and it should be pretty obvious which side my biases support.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dosiere wrote:
well.. so I just spent the last couple hours looking into things like “gamergate” “incels”, Anita, gamer culture, feminist and gamer culture, etc... what a stupid mess this all is. Basically you have a bunch of women who hate men and a bunch of men who hate women arguing over things they don’t understand. What a waste of time.

None of that is true though. "gamer culture" is virtually identical to miniature gamer culture, with the same types of people and opinions, but maybe a little more mainstream. I see the same arguments happening for boob armor that I saw for Ivy's costume in Soul Calibur, and I see people upset at the same corporate decisions and wanting largely the same better future for their hobby. If you understand the culture you are currently in, then you understand gamer culture. The only difference is that at some point, somebody managed to convince people that one side of the boob armor debate did it because they hate women. They don't, but when has the truth ever matter to public opinion?

As for incels, that's just the newest boogieman. They've already exhausted nazi, alt-right, racist, sexist, misogynist, transphobic, and whatever else they try to label their ideological enemies as, so they needed a new term as the old ones lost their punch. Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people. Fear will keep them in line, right? Personally, I thought that once nazi ran its course, they'd run out of boogiemen - I mean, how do you top nazi? I guess you troll the secret, tiny frontier of the internet and find someone more pathetic, while simultaneously seeming capable of violence. Remember when you just had to worry that heavy metal meant people worshipped Satan?

Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people

Maybe you missed the part where both those groups have committed murders that were widely covered in the news?

And that those murders were fully in line with the respective ideologies both groups espouse?

 ScarletRose wrote:

Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people

Maybe you missed the part where both those groups have committed murders that were widely covered in the news?

And that those murders were fully in line with the respective ideologies both groups espouse?

I guess you are scared then.

 Sqorgar wrote:
I guess you are scared then.

Don't worry, I highly doubt he holds Communists- a group that has committed far more acts of murder and terrorism than Nazis and Incels combined- to the same standard. People tend to be very selective about their boogeymen. This one in particular only comes out of the box when the 'feminism' thing gets questioned, and with a volatile passion. Everyone has their hobbies, I suppose.

And the funny thing is, the overwhelming majority of incels I've encountered are desperate men that will pretend to be white-knight feminists. The only difference between an Elliot Roger and a Desperate Male Feminist is that Elliot Roger gave up chasing things he couldn't hope to have.

Your post regarding Gamergate was spot on. A bunch of folks called the game journalists out for being scumbags, and within 24 hours the journos were smearing their customers. Not sure how this is a wise business practice, but I'm also pretty sure that there's a reason why some game reviewers on Youtube are more successful than the average Kotaku writer. That, and Kotaku was part of Gawker, and Gawker all but flat-out said "We peddle clickbait garbage".

 ScarletRose wrote:

Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people

Maybe you missed the part where both those groups have committed murders that were widely covered in the news?

And that those murders were fully in line with the respective ideologies both groups espouse?

Which in turn are blown up massively out of proportion in the media. Widely covered? Yeah, it's done so to avoid talking about other issues or to distract from other ones.

Because it gets clicks. The media doesn't care for honest reporting, just sensationalist headlines to push a narrative for clicks and coin. The because can you honestly believe that neo nazis and incels being a bigger issue or danger than radical religious terrorism or deep set gang culture in America?

 Sqorgar wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people

Maybe you missed the part where both those groups have committed murders that were widely covered in the news?

And that those murders were fully in line with the respective ideologies both groups espouse?

I guess you are scared then.

Yeah, I left my fake tough guy-isms in the laundry I guess.

Doesn't change the point that calling groups who promote and successfully carry out killings "boogeymen" is disingenuous at best.

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:
I guess you are scared then.

Don't worry, I highly doubt he holds Communists- a group that has committed far more acts of murder and terrorism than Nazis and Incels combined- to the same standard.

"Nothing is is bad, as long something else is worse".

 Dr. Mills wrote:
The because can you honestly believe that neo nazis and incels being a bigger issue or danger than radical religious terrorism or deep set gang culture in America?

This is a weird strawman. No one made the assertion you are rebutting here.

 ScarletRose wrote:
Doesn't change the point that calling groups who promote and successfully carry out killings "boogeymen" is disingenuous at best.

I'm sure you hold all groups to this same standard, too, being the intellectually honest person you are.

But we both know you don't.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
"Nothing is is bad, as long something else is worse".

Oh I won't say it isn't bad. But you can be pissy and sour about it, a fact's a fact.

Suddenly stacks of bodies and human misery are only a problem if it suits your own argument. What a compassionate and humanitarian individual!

 Adeptus Doritos wrote:
What a compassionate and humanitarian individual!

How dare you denounce me when there are worst people in the world?

See how that's a silly argument?

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people

Maybe you missed the part where both those groups have committed murders that were widely covered in the news?

And that those murders were fully in line with the respective ideologies both groups espouse?

I guess you are scared then.

Yeah, I left my fake tough guy-isms in the laundry I guess.

Doesn't change the point that calling groups who promote and successfully carry out killings "boogeymen" is disingenuous at best.

No one said to not call out groups on crimes. But you cannot treat one group different to another or say one is worse than the other because that is biased. Which is what the media is doing.

 Ouze wrote:
How dare you denounce me when there are worst people in the world?

See how that's a silly argument?

Worse* people.

And it's far from 'silly'. It's a point, many of you are selective about your little outrages.

Two virgin losers killed people, big deal.

I notice that you don't have the same outrage for the black guy that went down the street and shot a random man over his girlfriend. Well, he was black. You're probably terrified of bringing that up. But hey, I get it- you've gotta be selective in that outrage. You gotta have your boogeyman, you gotta have something to fight against, even though you're not doing anything but posturing.

I think the funniest part is that a bunch of incels are actually pointing to incel groups on the internet and trying to pretend they aren't the same kind of pathetic human being.

 Dr. Mills wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 ScarletRose wrote:

Sure, incels exist, much like neo-nazis exist, but they are nobodies in the grand scheme of things and are simply being used to scare people

Maybe you missed the part where both those groups have committed murders that were widely covered in the news?

And that those murders were fully in line with the respective ideologies both groups espouse?

I guess you are scared then.

Yeah, I left my fake tough guy-isms in the laundry I guess.

Doesn't change the point that calling groups who promote and successfully carry out killings "boogeymen" is disingenuous at best.

No one said to not call out groups on crimes. But you cannot treat one group different to another or say one is worse than the other because that is biased. Which is what the media is doing.

I didn't even bother replying the first time because as soon as "but the media!" comes out any real point is long gone.

As has been pointed out, just because other bad events happen doesn't mean "the media" is totally in the wrong to cover murders carried out by people espousing systematic murder as part of their platform.