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[Orange Wizard]

It's all bollocks as far as I'm concerned.

[alway]

So here's an interesting article which has been making the rounds the past few days among game devs: http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point

[Neonivek]

So here's an interesting article which has been making the rounds the past few days among game devs: http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point

Oddly enough I "Think" I am on the article's side (I might have to read it over more closely).

Though it isn't really well made... I kind of want the same article done better >_< as this seems to be an article built out of paranoia giving trolls this sort of hive mind extra sensory perspective. Because yeah trolls are terrible, but they aren't really a united front.

Also by the way article we have had a fascination with trolling and thinking the misfortunes of others are funny... since before the 1500s. It isn't exactly a recent invention.

Though we won't have this problem forever, eventually (most analysis agrees) we will switch from a private system to one to a public one where you can't use the internet without divulging who you are. I honestly think we are halfway there with all the anti-bullying propaganda.

[Stuebi]

It's, as usual, full of generalization and the like. The line about Gamergate says all what you need to know about the author.

I could absolutely sympathize with her, because her basic point is true. There are a ton of people out there who will do exactly as she says in the article. But she lumps these in with all others who voice criticism (Altough, it might be the exact same thing with the earlier article, and you're supposed to exclude yourself from the picture if you think it doesnt apply to you. But I think she does an even worse job than the guy from before).

I especially love the line about complaining people never having any evidence. Because that's the exact thing that's pissing me off so much. You can provide sources, evidence, screenshots and whatever you want, stuff that actually PROVES that certain people on twitter, or on their respective Blogs are either actively lying, or just arguing based on wrong facts. But then you're just a mean harassing troll, out to discredit poor journalists and writers, trying to ruin their lives. Or even better, a sexist pig trying to get women out of games and the internet in general.

A few weeks ago, I would've said that the whole #GG crowd was overdoing it, and that there really was no need to for any of the stuff we're having now. But the more articles from the other side I read, the more convinced I am that the movement was right all along. I'm really getting sick and tired of being lumped into the same cave as these trolls, as being a sexist, harassing hatemonger on the Internet. These sites and people can dissappear, get fired or whatever, from my point of view, nothing of value will be lost.

[Phmcw]

She had weev on her tail, which is pretty much the worst that could happen in internet trolls. That guy is mad, smart and connected. But that's not nearly the standart, and she's conveniently forgetting that trolls attack every movements.

Gamergates personalities are on the receiving hands of a pretty thorough harassement campain.

Still given that in the 70's ideologies used to do the same thing but with terrorism, I'd say we're going forward.

[Sheb]

Who's weev?

[Phmcw]

This dashing fella. Yeah, she got the jackpot.

[Orange Wizard]

English article for the non-Frenchies among us.

[Neonivek]

Indeed greatorder but the article doesn't separate what we have culturally left ourselves open to... and what is genuine concerted effort by trolls.

It is a similar laziness that you often see when someone refers to "The Man".

For example "Don't feed the trolls" wasn't invented by trolls it was because when trolling was first becoming a thing... the easiest way to get a troll to stop posting was just to ignore them... They would usually just respond to your posts endlessly. To a certain extent this is still true.

What the article SHOULD say is that the logic behind "don't feed the trolls" isn't always true and that sometimes it just emboldens them.

It turns trolls from... just a bunch of losers on the internet... into a united force with enough foresight to entirely alter internet culture to their whim far in advance.

It is a blanket system that if this was a conversation about... Terrorism, for example, it would be about how terrorists have infiltrated our government and wouldn't distinguish between a terrorist and people from Britain. Certainly you could agree that terrorism is a problem, but these distinctions are significant.

LUCKLY this article isn't controversial (yet) enough to really hit any serious problem and offers no recommendations or solutions other than "we should do something". So there is nothing to REALLY gripe over so long as people read the article intelligently.

OHH GAWD!!! I am relying on people being intelligent!

[Phmcw]

He made a pretty reasonably toned post as an answer. Yet, given his history, reading anything he write as sincere is a risky gambit.

There are "women that make tech" that complained, but saying anything contreversial on the internet is inviting a campain of harassment. Yet you have things like the "upskirt" contrevery, where a Japanese programmer contributed to a library called "pantyshot" and was so mortified when she learnt it that she withdrawed from the community entirely.  Here's a good article on the subject. Please note the community backleash on the issue.

[penguinofhonor]

Any man worth his salt can tell a case of hysteria when he sees it.

[alway]

Well duh, of course it's "reasonably toned."

If it wasn't reasonable and convincing sounding bullshit, they wouldn't be sociopaths. It's easy to play into people's biases and spread a 'controversy.'
What? We aren't invading Ukraine, that's just rebel units which captured 100 tanks from the Ukraine army!
What? We aren't attempting to inject our religion into science classrooms, we're just trying to further scientific education by telling students about scientific controversies!
What? Why would we harass feminists? They're probably imagining it or just harassing themselves, after all, that is the sort of thing they would do.

That livejournal page reads as more of the same. He even makes use of the very same memes referenced in the page I linked to.

[scriver]

Well duh, of course it's "reasonably toned."

If it wasn't reasonable and convincing sounding bullshit, they wouldn't be sociopaths. It's easy to play into people's biases and spread a 'controversy.'
What? We aren't invading Ukraine, that's just rebel units which captured 100 tanks from the Ukraine army!
What? We aren't attempting to inject our religion into science classrooms, we're just trying to further scientific education by telling students about scientific controversies!
What? Why would we harass feminists? They're probably imagining it or just harassing themselves, after all, that is the sort of thing they would do.

That livejournal page reads as more of the same. He even makes use of the very same memes referenced in the page I linked to.

This, so many times over.

[Antsan]

It's, as usual, full of generalization and the like. The line about Gamergate says all what you need to know about the author.

I could absolutely sympathize with her, because her basic point is true. There are a ton of people out there who will do exactly as she says in the article. But she lumps these in with all others who voice criticism (Altough, it might be the exact same thing with the earlier article, and you're supposed to exclude yourself from the picture if you think it doesnt apply to you. But I think she does an even worse job than the guy from before).

I especially love the line about complaining people never having any evidence. Because that's the exact thing that's pissing me off so much. You can provide sources, evidence, screenshots and whatever you want, stuff that actually PROVES that certain people on twitter, or on their respective Blogs are either actively lying, or just arguing based on wrong facts. But then you're just a mean harassing troll, out to discredit poor journalists and writers, trying to ruin their lives. Or even better, a sexist pig trying to get women out of games and the internet in general.

A few weeks ago, I would've said that the whole #GG crowd was overdoing it, and that there really was no need to for any of the stuff we're having now. But the more articles from the other side I read, the more convinced I am that the movement was right all along. I'm really getting sick and tired of being lumped into the same cave as these trolls, as being a sexist, harassing hatemonger on the Internet. These sites and people can dissappear, get fired or whatever, from my point of view, nothing of value will be lost.

Now, I am almost through the article and anything that is a gross generalization I could find is this:

* A document issues an explicit threat, warning women against speaking out. Lots and lots of women in tech have seen this document.

* Weev endorses this document, enthusiastically, repeatedly.

* Prominent people in tech endorse weev

Which could easily be seen as…

* Prominent people in tech tacitly endorsed that threat against speaking out.

She did talk about techies before, but never did she accuse them of anything, she only stated what she observed.
Now, that last part, that's an accusation, but, damn, the part I quoted is quite straightforward and I don't see how you would even think of denying how that could be seen as a hostile environment. I mean... What?

For the whole article before that any accusation she made was against two groups:
1. trolls
2. dangerous trolls
I think her accusations are actually valid. I mean, those are trolls. That group actually is defined by most of the very accusations she is making.

Are you actively looking for something you might construe as offending?
Seriously, I really thought there would be a mention of gamers or geeks or anything like that, but there just isn't anything that ever indicates that she did say anything against gamers, geeks, nerds, whatever as a group. Even that one accusation against "prominent people in tech" is only a statement of "there are prominent people in tech who endorse weev", so, how the hell is that even a generalization against people in tech in general?
In her last section she even talks about how there is a big group of programmers out there who definitely isn't awful.

I don't know what kind of demands some people in this topic have. When would you ever consider an article not "badly written" if this one is? I don't see the flaw in it. Seriously, I just cannot find anything that seems to be plain wrong, unfair to anybody, hazy, a bad example for what she's writing about...
What the hell?

[Neonivek]

I don't know what kind of demands some people in this topic have. When would you ever consider an article not "badly written" if this one is? I don't see the flaw in it. Seriously, I just cannot find anything that seems to be plain wrong, unfair to anybody, hazy, a bad example for what she's writing about...
What the hell?

It is none of those things (well except maybe hazy).

But remember when reading it that most people know the difference between being mean and trolling, and that trolls are not part of a hive mind.

This sort of "troll leader board" doesn't exist... not really... not even in a "Peeing Contest" sort of way.

I don't really mind the article overall and its fine. I just know that when reading it, you have to actually use forethought in order not to mix the metaphor with reality.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/103045-EEDAR-Says-the-Chicks-Are-Alright

An article on the escapist before the journalist became judge, jury and executioneers.

At the time 51% of games featured a female playable character, on consoles.

In itself it's important, gaming on console tend to be shallow and action-oriented, due to the limitations of the support.
But it's only numbers : how many of these games are failures because the woman despicted is a monodimentionnal fighter in a bikini?
How many of those games have a big enough marketting budget? An how many of the very sucessfull games are rehash of old franchises?
Beside the sample is tiny : 24 games. Blaming the numbers on "gamer" sexism is easy, but I think that simply, a big number of those games are bad, and that games like Cod and Battlefield (and the pletora of imitators) skew the numbers.

I don't want to say this... because it cannot really be said without pissing people off...

But it will never be enough... not really. Not in the eyes of those who care about it.

Because it will always be compared to men. The goalpost for "women in videogames" is "equal to men".

Which is fine, people have different standards of equality and you very well could make an argument that demographics be damned if you don't put in the effort to be inclusive that demographic won't change.

Also yeah honestly the statistics on "games with women as the lead" (Not from this article) is mostly bullocks because they keep using those cruddy games no one buys because they have taste.

Honestly the ONLY TWO games I can think of that sell entirely based on sex appeal and nothing else are...
a) Dead or Alive Volleyball
and
b) Apperantly Bible Black... but that is porn (and Porn is an entirely different matter altogether)

And Dead or Volleyball is pretty much "it" yet some developers (or publishers) seem to over zealously believe in this "sex sells" marketing approach... AND WHAT A COINCIDENCE the games suck and no one likes them.

The ONLY female lead game that was any good that failed spectacularly was Beyond Good and Evil.