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 Manchu wrote:
I agree that certain "news sources" outed themselves as mere propaganda organs in "covering" SP.

That said, they didn't make up the GG connection.

That being one person and not really much else considering what I checked for, could he have pulled a few people perhaps, but this wasn't some sort of organizational output that Gamergate was even looking into up until the stories that came about that Gamergate has "Come to destroy the Hugo's for minorities and women" based on this one person and a few others.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Oh I agree that politics is important part of culture and entertainment but doesn't stop some people from wanting their entertainment to be judged in a-political way. Even though it may be a fruitless exercise.

IME, when people say they want to leave politics out of something they usually mean that they want to exclude politics that disagrees with their own politics.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
I do think another thing going on in gamergate that is also somewhat at play here is that some people think that politics shouldn't come up in the discussion of whether something is good or not.[...] I say this because I have seen people interview people on the pro-GG side who don't want game reviews to talk about the politics of the game.

That is not true. They have no problem with politics being in the game, and those being mentioned in the review, as long as those do not challenge the status quo. What they hate is any challenge to the status quo.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Oh I agree that politics is important part of culture and entertainment but doesn't stop some people from wanting their entertainment to be judged in a-political way.

If they want the journalists to refuse to include some additional information in their articles about some aspects of the game that are relevant to whether or not I am interested in it, then they certainly are not fighting for better journalistic ethics .

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
I do think another thing going on in gamergate that is also somewhat at play here is that some people think that politics shouldn't come up in the discussion of whether something is good or not.[...] I say this because I have seen people interview people on the pro-GG side who don't want game reviews to talk about the politics of the game.

That is not true. They have no problem with politics being in the game, and those being mentioned in the review, as long as those do not challenge the status quo. What they hate is any challenge to the status quo.

Yes they have an issue with politics finding their way into the review. I have repeatably heard that line from pro-GG people even when they do interviews. http://live.huffingtonpost.com/r/highlight/female-gamers-react-to-gamergate/543e984bfe3444bac600037b There is an exchange about this between the interviewer starting about 9:30 into the video. Total Biscuit also made the point in a interview that most people either do not agree with the opinion about a games politics or even cared about it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaMccosnRMc&list=PLVrg5xLmCvhGCsW5RCmSo7ojPez1CEtVu&index=1

I see no reason not to take them at their word.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Oh I agree that politics is important part of culture and entertainment but doesn't stop some people from wanting their entertainment to be judged in a-political way.

If they want the journalists to refuse to include some additional information in their articles about some aspects of the game that are relevant to whether or not I am interested in it, then they certainly are not fighting for better journalistic ethics .

So wait you consider not including your own opinion about the politics of a game unethical behavior by a journalist?

Prestor Jon wrote:
Books plural is perfectly acceptable for Hugo voting for Best Novel. The entire Wheel of Time series was legally nominated for Best Novel in 2014. It was on my ballot both as a nominees and finalist. The claim that you can't take previous works in a series into consideration for Best Novel nominees is demonstrably false.

It was nominated legally, but that isn't the same situation. Let's look at the rule that allowed the nomination:

3.2.6: Works appearing in a series are eligible as individual works, but the series as a whole is not eligible. However, a work appearing in a number of parts shall be eligible for the year of the final part.

So two things stand out:

1) The argument that WoT was a "work appearing in parts" and not a series succeeded, but was controversial at the time. The claim was that the entire story should be treated as a single book, which is IMO pretty absurd. But if you accept that argument and put WoT on the ballot then you're no longer considering the author's previous works. Instead, you're just voting for a single book that happens to be really long.

2) The loophole that got WoT as a whole on the ballot only applies once the series is finished. The Dresden Files series is not finished and can not be nominated as a whole.

No rules were broken in the Hugos this year, all that happened is that more fans participated and voted for stories they enjoyed.

No rules were broken, but finding and exploiting broken RAW doesn't mean that you're doing the right thing.

I don't see why people are upset that fans paid their money and cast their votes.

Sigh. You know perfectly well that this isn't what people are unhappy about. We've told you this many times and yet you still keep repeating the same old claims. I know you're a reasonably smart person and can't possibly have this much trouble understanding an argument, so please stop ignoring the explanations you've been given. The issue is block voting regardless of the political ideology behind it or the works nominated with it, not the fact that the "wrong" authors got on the ballot. The primary anti-SP argument is that block voting reduces the Hugos to a contest of which "side" is best at unifying its members behind a single set of designated winners. Even if Happy Puppies (a "SJW" campaign to nominate only books with gay main characters) "wins" over Sad Puppies 4 next year the legitimacy of the award has been destroyed.


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 Blood Hawk wrote:
So wait you consider not including your own opinion about the politics of a game unethical behavior by a journalist?

Of course not. There's no obligation to include discussion of politics in a game review. The point is that if you're demanding that journalists remove political content from their reviews you're no longer arguing for ethics in journalism, you're arguing for journalism that matches your ideology.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
So wait you consider not including your own opinion about the politics of a game unethical behavior by a journalist?

Of course not. There's no obligation to include discussion of politics in a game review. The point is that if you're demanding that journalists remove political content from their reviews you're no longer arguing for ethics in journalism, you're arguing for journalism that matches your ideology.

I don't think I would call arguing for a-political review is arguing for journalism that matches your ideology. Unless of course you assume that arguing for a-political reviews is in turn a political ideology which it isn't.

Here is a very respectful discussion between Larry Correia and George R.R.Martin. http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/14/george-r-r-martin-responds/

 Blood Hawk wrote:
I don't think I would call arguing for a-political review is arguing for journalism that matches your ideology. Unless of course you assume that arguing for a-political reviews is in turn a political ideology which it isn't.

You're missing the point. You're nitpicking whether "game journalism should be apolitical" qualifies as "ideology" or "politics" or merely "a preference" but you're ignoring the substance of the argument: that "I want apolitical reviews" is about your personal preferences, not ethics. Talking about ethics in journalism implies that you're criticizing unethical behavior, not merely the equivalent of preferring to read reviews of PC games instead of console games.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
I don't think I would call arguing for a-political review is arguing for journalism that matches your ideology. Unless of course you assume that arguing for a-political reviews is in turn a political ideology which it isn't.

You're missing the point. You're nitpicking whether "game journalism should be apolitical" qualifies as "ideology" or "politics" or merely "a preference" but you're ignoring the substance of the argument: that "I want apolitical reviews" is about your personal preferences, not ethics. Talking about ethics in journalism implies that you're criticizing unethical behavior, not merely the equivalent of preferring to read reviews of PC games instead of console games.

Ok here is the thing, you can talk about ethics and also talk about having a-political reviews. The two are not mutually exclusive. Some people in GG from what I have seen talk about both how they want to end the unethical behavior and they want a-political reviews. I don't think people consider them the same thing.

Just because I like bananas doesn't mean that undermines my likeness of apples, you can in fact like both. Some people I have seen who are pro-GG talk about ethics as well as having a-political reviews. The two are not mutually exclusive and it is possible to have a conversation about both.

I think that the one thing me and Peregrine agree on is that block voting is not good. SP did it as a protest to demonstrate how broken the Hugos already were. But now we really need to unite as a community and find a system where books are judged by the quality of work and not the political or social views of the author.
(And I don't believe that's what we had. Look at the SFWA kerffuffle that was previous to the Hugo kerfuffle.)

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Yes they have an issue with politics finding their way into the review. I have repeatably heard that line from pro-GG people even when they do interviews.

Of course they said so. They just demonstrated otherwise by their actions.

 Blood Hawk wrote:
So wait you consider not including your own opinion about the politics of a game unethical behavior by a journalist?

I consider trying to forbid game journalists to mention some aspects of the game that are relevant to me unethical. The will to silence is the unethical part here. The reporting by journalists is fine.

 MWHistorian wrote:
I think that the one thing me and Peregrine agree on is that block voting is not good. SP did it as a protest to demonstrate how broken the Hugos already were. But now we really need to unite as a community and find a system where books are judged by the quality of work and not the political or social views of the author.
(And I don't believe that's what we had. Look at the SFWA kerffuffle that was previous to the Hugo kerfuffle.)

The kind of "block" voting happening in Hugo's isn't bad. Anytime popular authors encourage their fans to participate in something you'll get groups of people that are at least somewhat like minded participating. That's good because increased participation is what the Hugo's need if they want to stay relevant.

The reason the Hugo's are having this problem is because the people voting for Hugo's the SMOF WorldCon people were content to become a small insular group wherein the "right" books would get good reviews by the "right" sites and reviewers and get promoted by the "right" people and authors and the number of voters was small enough that those books would win Hugo's and if the "wrong" stories or authors got nominated there were enough zealous ideological gatekeepers that sneer, smear and do their best to drive away wrong stories wrong authors and wrong fans. That small mindedness and elitism and hubris caused this backlash because when somebody like Larry Correia saw the numbers and felt the derisive attitude of the self appointed gatekeepers of "worthy" stories and authors he wanted to push back and empower fans to make the Hugo's more inclusive.

Look at the number of nominating ballots cast this year most categories barely have over 1000 ballots. With that level of turn out its easy to see how Sad Puppies coupled with the addition of the unaffiliated Rabid Puppies could have so much influence on the nominations. It also simultaneously shows how its farcical that a tiny fraction of a percent of fans of genres that sell millions of books are really picking the "best" books/works of a given year.

I don't see the value in trying to shoehorn literary worthiness into an award process that is determined by fan voting. Fan voting will always be a popularity contest. If an author sells millions of books and has lots of fans that author must be pretty good even if some people don't think their prose is as good as some of the iconic names in the genre. You guys can agree that the "best" books should win but you may never agree on which books are "best" and popular authors can always get fans to vote for them simply by mentioning to their fans that they've got eligible works.

The solution to the current "problem" is to push for more fan involvement so that the larger electorate evens out the blocks that can be formed by popular authors or groups.

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
Yes they have an issue with politics finding their way into the review. I have repeatably heard that line from pro-GG people even when they do interviews.

Of course they said so. They just demonstrated otherwise by their actions.

They showed that they don't care about politics in reviews? Since when?

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
So wait you consider not including your own opinion about the politics of a game unethical behavior by a journalist?

I consider trying to forbid game journalists to mention some aspects of the game that are relevant to me unethical. The will to silence is the unethical part here. The reporting by journalists is fine.

Wait a consumer saying they don't like a part of something means the consumer is participating in unethical behavior. How?

George RR Martin responds to Larry Correia's direct repsonse to him.

It's long, but its the best summation of the situation I've read so far. And for anyone wondering I suggest they go to Correia's blog and check that, no, he wasn't taken out of context, he really does make it out that he's pi**ed the cool kids didn't like and by god he'll tear the cool kids club house down and they'll shown them, that'll show all of them.

 .Mikes. wrote:
George RR Martin responds to Larry Correia's direct repsonse to him.

It's long, but its the best summation of the situation I've read so far. And for anyone wondering I suggest they go to Correia's blog and check that, no, he wasn't taken out of context, he really does make it out that he's pi**ed the cool kids didn't like and by god he'll tear the cool kids club house down and they'll shown them, that'll show all of them.

 Musashi363 wrote:
Here is a very respectful discussion between Larry Correia and George R.R.Martin. http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/14/george-r-r-martin-responds/

Correia's response to Martin's response was already posted.

 Manchu wrote:
The Sad/Rabid Puppy agenda has been spread, in part, through networks established by GamerGate.

GamerGate is associated with the "right" because its opposition is associated with the "left" (and vice versa). These are purely relative/non-substantive terms.

As someone who's been following most GG news, it really hasn't been spread by GG at all. There've been mentions of it before the whole thing blew up but honestly, the reason why most GGers would even KNOW of this issue is because right after SP3 won, suddenly a whole slew of articles came out linking GG to SP3 and then lambasting both of them. You'd think journalists would do a bit more research. The GG sub on reddit alone has 30k subscribers. There's only been an increase of less than a thousand voters to the Hugo awards. If GG had been in any way involved, the numbers would probably be a lot higher. tl;dr Some overlap but not much


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, block voting as Peregine imagines doesn't exist in the form he thinks it does. Even the quote Mike quotes from Larry says 'guys, these are suggestions.' which Mike and Perry take to mean 'guys, VOTE FOR THESE'

At the end of the day, to paraphrase Mike, I guess the coolkids are upset because they're no longer the cool kids.

Sining wrote:

 Manchu wrote:

I guess the coolkids are upset because they're no longer the cool kids.

You're talking about science fiction writers.

Something's wrong with the quotes, I was replying to the other guy.

I have a Proffessor that recently said
"There is always going to be inequality, racism, sexism, Transphobia, Give up, you are always going to be screwed"

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I have a Proffessor that recently said
"There is always going to be inequality, racism, sexism, Transphobia, Give up, you are always going to be screwed"

...I sincerely hope he was being sarcastic. That's a very dismal outlook on life. Yeah, you're NOT going to be able to keep everyone from being a frakhead. Doesn't mean that you can't make things better, or that you should give up.

You should do that because eventually the sun will expand and scorch the life from our planet, there's nothing you can do about THAT, and it won't matter on a cosmic scale. Keep your existential despair aligned properly, dammit!

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
What does this have to do with gamersgate? Gamersgate was all about the lack of journalistic integrity within the games industry; at least before all the shrieking manchildren on both sides turned it all to gak. I also dont understand why Gamersgate is associated with the political right.

Historical correction, if you don't mind: the Gamergate hashtag was coined on a tweet linking to a harassment video. The "journalistic integrity" figleaf appeared later.

Gamergate is associated with the political right for a variety of reasons, but one is that a number of right-wing writers and public figures noticed it early on and began promoting it. Some of these, like Milo Yiannopoulos, have subsequently gone on to write glowing pieces in support of the Sad Puppies. People like Yiannopoulos are very openly and strongly political and have very little to do with gaming (in fact, he himself had written some really contemptuous things about gamers) but saw a potential audience and went for it with significant success.

There are other common factors, but Gamergate is (was? I don't know what sort of shape it's in now) driven strongly by a similar kind of sentiment.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:
Historical correction, if you don't mind: the Gamergate hashtag was coined on a tweet linking to a harassment video. The "journalistic integrity" figleaf appeared later.

Gamergate is associated with the political right for a variety of reasons, but one is that a number of right-wing writers and public figures noticed it early on and began promoting it. Some of these, like Milo Yiannopoulos, have subsequently gone on to write glowing pieces in support of the Sad Puppies. People like Yiannopoulos are very openly and strongly political and have very little to do with gaming (in fact, he himself had written some really contemptuous things about gamers) but saw a potential audience and went for it with significant success.

There are other common factors, but Gamergate is (was? I don't know what sort of shape it's in now) driven strongly by a similar kind of sentiment.

Historical correction? Surely you mean historical revision, given the amount of nonsense you just posted.

GamerGate came about as a hashtag after the event we now call GamerGate started. Original it was 5 Guys, as the catalyst for the event was not a "harassment video" (whatever the hell that means), but a video detailing the shady antics of a number of journalists and how they related to a single indie developer.

It then spun out from there as a movement, predominately left-leaning if the various polls are to be believed (not that that should matter - being a conservative doesn't instantly invalidate your opinion and only those that ascribe to poisonous identity politics where what you are matters more than who you are would believe that), centrered around the idea of cleaning up the joke of a gaming press that we have.

You're right about Milo being derisive towards gamers in the past, but so what? He sure through the bs and reported what was happening, despite his previous views. He busted open the GameJournoPros ring. And now he wants to profit from it, which he can if he wants to, nothing much you or I can do to stop him there.

And it has feth all to do with the Hugo awards.

 Spinner wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I have a Proffessor that recently said
"There is always going to be inequality, racism, sexism, Transphobia, Give up, you are always going to be screwed"

...I sincerely hope he was being sarcastic. That's a very dismal outlook on life. Yeah, you're NOT going to be able to keep everyone from being a frakhead. Doesn't mean that you can't make things better, or that you should give up.

You should do that because eventually the sun will expand and scorch the life from our planet, there's nothing you can do about THAT, and it won't matter on a cosmic scale. Keep your existential despair aligned properly, dammit!

She is roughly 68 years old and has studied inequality for all that time. She said it was pragmatic.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Blood Hawk wrote:
I don't think I would call arguing for a-political review is arguing for journalism that matches your ideology. Unless of course you assume that arguing for a-political reviews is in turn a political ideology which it isn't.

You're missing the point. You're nitpicking whether "game journalism should be apolitical" qualifies as "ideology" or "politics" or merely "a preference" but you're ignoring the substance of the argument: that "I want apolitical reviews" is about your personal preferences, not ethics. Talking about ethics in journalism implies that you're criticizing unethical behavior, not merely the equivalent of preferring to read reviews of PC games instead of console games.

And here i thought it was about judging a book on its story, I can read a book that is totally against my political views but still can appreciate it if it is a good story.

 Manchu wrote:
People seem to be assuming this is the first time politics played a major role in the nominations process ...

WHAT? HOW?

I still can't believe that people don't know about that.

I won't comment on the purposed group of 'gamergate' due to the idiocy that it causes in some people. But one of the things I find quite amusing is people talk about gamergate and blame it like it is some sort of valid scapegoat it reminds me quite a bit of other groups such as blaming a certain group say the mexicans because drugs simply exist.

You are basically using a group or a name and just using it to blame. There is no valid reason to blame them. ITs what journalism has turned too....

Well if you count Kotaku, Polygon or hell anything from Gawker Media 'Journalism'.

Though that is my personal opinion

Currently these websites have only pushed their foot into their mouth and have started to choke on it.

For example anyone that has gotten involved from the proposed 'anti gamergate', have only shot themselves in the foot by saying some really stupid things. Though you could say that about alot of gamergaters.

Though I think the hugo awards thing is kind of interesting.


Though I think this left and right debate is quite stupid..

Though I feel like that is an american thing to do is to associate things with black and white or left or right. Instead of you know, having different prespectives.

See political alignment is a 2d space, a line graph.

Left and right are not really seen as anything good in this day and age.... For some reason.... Being left means you are far too government centered and controlled heavy, while being a right person means you are conservative nutball. They aren't good identifiers and something that many people that study politics know to be bad to use in actual politics. Though they do use it in terms to spark controversy.

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
What does this have to do with gamersgate? Gamersgate was all about the lack of journalistic integrity within the games industry; at least before all the shrieking manchildren on both sides turned it all to gak. I also dont understand why Gamersgate is associated with the political right.

People like Yiannopoulos are very openly and strongly political and have very little to do with gaming (in fact, he himself had written some really contemptuous things about gamers) but saw a potential audience and went for it with significant success.

I remember hearing anita sarkesian (or however her last name is spelled) supposedly never even played a video game or at least not before throwing out her opinions. At least that's what i've heard. So you know some of your leaders are also not terribly involved but they sure as hell want to throw their opinions around.

Personally i was of the opinion gaming journalism like most other forms of news are just biased crap anyway. How many critics have sold out and written glowing reviews for big bucks? The first one i remember was the kane & lynch: dead men review on gamespot where they were paid for a review and a critic rebelled and wrote a bad review of it. Funny how some people seem to forget that. Oh and that was back in like 2005-2007 or so. Basically it's been happening for at the very least a decade.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
What does this have to do with gamersgate? Gamersgate was all about the lack of journalistic integrity within the games industry; at least before all the shrieking manchildren on both sides turned it all to gak. I also dont understand why Gamersgate is associated with the political right.

People like Yiannopoulos are very openly and strongly political and have very little to do with gaming (in fact, he himself had written some really contemptuous things about gamers) but saw a potential audience and went for it with significant success.

I remember hearing anita sarkesian (or however her last name is spelled) supposedly never even played a video game or at least not before throwing out her opinions. At least that's what i've heard. So you know some of your leaders are also not terribly involved but they sure as hell want to throw their opinions around.

Personally i was of the opinion gaming journalism like most other forms of news are just biased crap anyway. How many critics have sold out and written glowing reviews for big bucks? The first one i remember was the kane & lynch: dead men review on gamespot where they were paid for a review and a critic rebelled and wrote a bad review of it. Funny how some people seem to forget that. Oh and that was back in like 2005-2007 or so. Basically it's been happening for at the very least a decade.

Well you could say that about any group.

Though to call a hashtag a movement and having a leadership is quite interesting it is like calling tumblr an organization.

Gamergate has no leadership for all tense and purposes there is no organization called gamergate. There are no payments or dues. ITs just a group of people that are from twitter and use social media to talk through.

That kane lynch thing has been rerferenced quite a bit by many people from within gamergate at the very beginning but it was lost in the endless slew of 'mass harassment'.

Connie Willis has now turned down an invitation to present an award at the Hugos this year.

And if anyone needs reminding again how petulent the sad puppies are being:

But then Vox Day and his followers made it impossible for me to remain silent , keep calm, and carry on. Not content with just using dirty tricks to get on the ballot, they’re now demanding they win, too, or they’ll destroy the Hugos altogether. When a commenter on File 770 suggested people fight back by voting for “No Award,” Vox Day wrote: “If No Award takes a fiction category, you will likely never see another award given in that category again. The sword cuts both ways, Lois. We are prepared for all eventualities.”

I assume that means they intend to use the same bloc-voting technique to block anyone but their nominees from winning in future years. Or, in other words, “If you ever want to see your precious award again, do exactly as I say.” It’s a threat, pure and simple. Everyone who votes has been ordered (under the threat of violence being done to something we love) to let their stories–stories which got on the ballot dishonestly–win.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 HiveFleetPlastic wrote:

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
I also dont understand why Gamersgate is associated with the political right.

People like Yiannopoulos are very openly and strongly political and have very little to do with gaming (in fact, he himself had written some really contemptuous things about gamers) but saw a potential audience and went for it with significant success.

I remember hearing anita sarkesian (or however her last name is spelled) supposedly never even played a video game or at least not before throwing out her opinions. At least that's what i've heard. So you know some of your leaders are also not terribly involved but they sure as hell want to throw their opinions around.

I do not have a leader, unless you mean Tony Abbott. I don't know what sort of gaming history he has. In any event, what I was trying to do is explain at least some part of why people are making the comparison.

From the outside, it does seem weird that the groups are linked. Maybe you can imagine a tenuous link between SF and video games? But quite early on a number of right-wing writers realised they had a potential audience in Gamergate enthusiasts, and that link hasn't gone away since. Those same right-wing writers are also really into saving the Sad Puppies and help bridge the gap. Both the puppies and many Gamergate participants spend a lot of time talking about SJWs and how they must be stopped - they have plenty of common ground.