I'm just going to disagree about GamerGate being a left vs right political fight. Quite frankly, it's left vs. left, with libertarians and those on the right looking over, seeing what weird stuff is happening, and maybe tossing in a few grenades.

Seriously, Sean Hannity and 4chan (or 8chan or wherever GamerGate wound up) on the same side politically is pretty laughable.

Then again, Anita Sarkeesian does remind me a lot of Jack Thompson, so maybe the social conservatives won?
 

>Acknowledging the other side and speaking out against things I disagree with is a value in itself, even if it can't possibly change anything.

Why do you believe this? You would be happier not confronting these people. It would be virtuous to forgo that happiness if you believed you were having some positive impact, but if you don't believe that you're causing change, why would you find value in doing something that makes you less happy?

Perhaps I'm just getting old, but I've resigned myself that I won't be able to save the world. It seems silly to me now, but my younger self genuinely believed that if he worked hard he could make the world a better place. I'm too small to cause any discernible impact, so for now I just want to be happy in my life.
 

You have every right to link to posts you disagree with; I have done so myself when engaged in a worthy debate. However, I decided not to for the precise reason that I was not going to feed the troll with pagehits coming off my blog.
 

"Ignoring everything I don't like isn't really a viable strategy".

As the algorithms used to sort news and commentary on both social and mainstream media platforms become more sophisticated this will increasingly become a very viable strategy indeed. It won't be long before you'll be able to have all your incoming feeds set up in such a way that anything the smart system has learned you don't like simply won't appear.

To all intents and purposes the outside world will become an echo chamber for your own opinions, predilections and beliefs.
 

There are two separate issues at work that this post appears to conflate. The first is the question of whether to publicly disagree with a viewpoint or to remain silent. I don't have any disagreement with Tobold's position there.

The second issue, though, is whether or not to publicly mention *whose* viewpoint you are disagreeing with. Here, Tobold appears to feel that failure to do so constitutes some sort of bullying. This is silly; the person being disagreed with isn't owed any sort of publicity. This is especially true when the topic of discussion is ideas rather than personalities.

When disagreeing, I'm not against mentioning the person that I disagree with -- astute readers will notice that I've done so in this post -- but there is no point in reasoning with unreasonable people. Instead of engaging with the hard-core fringe -- the anti-vaxxers, the John Birchers and so on -- I think it is better to engage with the ideas they spot and let the people in the middle, who can be reasonable, make up their own minds.
 

The problem with your approach is that the famous line is "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" and not The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to say nothing".

Just talking changes nothing. Of course a blogpost is talk. But it can be a report of an action or a plan of an action.

Let me point at my own "crusade". You tried EVE, so you know the kings of griefing, Goons. I don't write "Goons are immoral and shouldn't be doing what they are doing because of ethical reasons". I write "This month I spent 50B ISK (about $1000 if you'd buy it via PLEX) on killing Goons and my recipients killed 300B Goons (About $6000 by PLEX)". This empowers others with a method to act and battle evil.
 

I fail to see how playing their favorite game with the Goons is any more efficient than calling people out on a blog. You are inside the rules of the game there, you don't hurt them any more than you would by taking a pawn of theirs in a game of chess.
 

"You shall not go against the group think. You shall have the correct opinions. All those who do not have the correct opinions shall be cast out and shunned."

That's a beautiful three sentence summary of GamerGate attitudes. I find it most telling that this guy tries to apply it to those on the other side of the squabble.

Reminds me of when you see climate change denial conspiracy theorists claiming that scientists are doctoring evidence because there's money to be made from fat research grants if you support the "groupthink". What are they most afraid of? That people will focus on how much money is being spent by those who profit from these conspiracy theories muddying the waters.
 

Hi Tobold,

Thanks for linking, I appreciate it. I've addressed some of the points you brought up in a new blog post. I disagree with a lot of your points, but i will defend to the death your right to say it.

The Noisy Rogue.
 

Going to Noisy Gamer's blog led to a link to Wolf Head, which was a serious trip. It's...hard to believe that the authors are so oblivious to the violation of their own standards that they cast out everywhere else.

For those who weren't sure that Adam has issues, go on to read in the comments. @Tobold it does seem more than a few of those "called out" for not meeting Adam's rigorous standards of behavior on blogs have since accosted him. It is replete with some amusingly childish rhetorical responses on his part which helps (again, to the obliviousness of the athor) emphasize that not everyone agrees that name-calling and assholery promotes good conversation. On either side...though apparently being pro-GG means one has those tactics down to an art.

Tobold stop posting these things. They get me all worked up, and I have too much stress in RL to have to deal with the imaginary lands that GGers roam. ;)
 

@Nicholas: Maybe just read the linked articles and not the comments section of those?

I sure regretted reading the comments in an article linked in my Brexit post, where somebody summed up the position of the pro-Brexit side as Now us proud Brits are forever cow towing to the b@stards who run the whole sham for their own financial benefit. Wake Up Britain. It is now too late as we are skint, have too many breeding pairs of lazy unemployed fatties, too many non indigenous foreigners who want to drag us down to the level of whatever third world sh1t hole they come from. We did get rid off TB in this country but now it is endemic having been caused by filthy spitting in the streets by diseased ridden ethnics.

I mean, how can you possible discuss with such people? Nevertheless, as Bhagpuss said, not engaging with dissenting opinions leads us to perfect echo chambers, where these people will think that they are not only right, but everybody agrees with them.
 

@Nicholas - That's the Noisy Rogue, not Noisy Gamer.
 

I was not going to feed the troll with pagehits coming off my blog.

I do not understand this obsession with pagehits mentioned her and in the Twitter discussion, which mentioned Alexa rankings a lot. Doesn't that boil down to an argument of "my echo chamber is bigger than your echo chamber"? Why would the validity of an argument in any way be related to the number of pagehits?
 

The page hits conversation originally came from the Noisy Rogue's own claim on his own blog post comment section, where he claimed:

"Regular readers of my blog, (numbering in the hundreds of thousands), know my well thought out and reasoned counterpoints well."

The Alexa rankings was simply just following up to see if his claim was credible.

It was not.
 

That doesn't answer my question of why the number of readers should even matter. After all the Noisy Rogues post contained a lot of objectionable things, so why hone in on the number of readers claim? Would his opinion matter more if he had a million readers?

It comes back to his original complaint that NBI says "For we have the numbers and all agree with us." To me it appears that the number of people agreeing with either side is irrelevant. Truth isn't a democratic process in which the majority is right.
 

You are correct, his opion wouldn't and shouldn't matter any more if he had a million readers versus 10. However, the phrase, "regular readers of my blog, (numbering in the hundreds of thousands)" is a clear attempt at establishing authority based on popularity.

Aside from the fact that you and I both clearly believe such argument from authority is fallacious, it's also one that's easily supported or debunked by third party tools in an objective way.

Thus, it is established that at best he's attempting to establish such a position using data he has misinterpreted, or he is flat out lying in an attempt to shore up a weak argument. When called out on this his response was to call that person "narcissistic and dumb".

I agree truth isn't a democratic process in which the majority is right. That would be absolutely terrifying. But the argument--at least from my perspective--isn't about raw numbers; it's about the author of the statement's credibility.
 

Sorry, addendum to be clear. It's about the author of the statement's credibility measured in an objective manner, rather than subjective.

Calling someone an asshole is arguably subjective. Taking a statement they made that is measurable and either supported or debunked by third party data leaves little to interpretation.
 

I have a problem with that process.

To me the credibility of the author of an argument shouldn't matter either. Attacking credibility is a slippery slope towards ad hominem attacks.

What matters is whether his claim is true or false: Is the NBI welcoming only people on the left wing of the political spectrum, only anti-Gamergate bloggers. Or would a newbie blogger with right wing opinions and generally in favor of Gamergate be welcome, as long as he writes his arguments in a civilized way?

How many pro-Gamergate members does the NBI have? Can it be said to be politically neutral, and only concerned with helping new game bloggers?
 

Joseph Skyrim, an NBI veteran, has proclaimed himself neutral, and posted a welcoming message on The Noisy Rogue's same post. Nobody's cast him out of the NBI. *shrug*

UtraVlt of Endgame Viable finds pros and faults with both sides of the fence. Once again, no one's slammed them, or talked negatively of them. http://endgameviable.com/nbi-talkback-gamergate/

As far as actively pro-Gamergate bloggers themselves, none besides The Noisy Rogue have even so much as blinked with respect to the NBI as far as I can tell. The forums are open to anyone to register, anyone can leave a ping back on the talk back challenge.

Despite The Noisy Rogue's protestations, no one is required to write about any of the talkback challenges. Nor were they supposed to write on a specific slant. The topic was simply, "How did GamerGate affect you?" No prompts for it to be anti, pro, or narwhal.

The challenges are simply there to provide the community with a common topic to encourage cross chatter, which is an imoortant aspect of finding new blogs and getting new bloggers into the blogging community. When one blogger links another, it does bring in new readers. Your blog linking mine once brought in 10x as much traffic as I normally get (which is to say, not much, but I'm mostly happy with my little corner of the Internet).

So, yes, I refute the statement that the organization NBI is politically charged (though I'm sure they could have picked something a little less controversial, but *shrug* I'm not in charge). And the few to none existence of pro-GamerGate bloggers within the NBI isn't indicitative of any bias or slant, at least not intentional. Perhaps there are fewer of them to begin with, or perhaps they see such an organization as abhorrent, especially given the folks who tend to associate with GamerGate prefer the anonymity of not having an organization at all.
 

That is a far superior response to the Noisy Rogue than any other I have seen yet.
 

And as to your ad hominem concern, if someone consistently misled folks and willfully misrepresented people's arguments, you wouldn't eventually throw up your hands and write them off? You'd keep listening to them?

I admit, they may once in a while still have a decent argument to be made, but if it means sifting through oodles of mud-slinging and fanciful interpretations of reality, I have better things to do with my time.

Credibility is important for your voice to be heard. The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a time-honored classic children's story which demonstrates this rather amply. if one is caught willfully misrepresenting facts or truths on the stand in a court of law, do you think the court should not treat them as a hostile witness?

The Internet is a vast place, with a lot of data. We need heuristics to reduce that data to useful quantities. Credibility is one such heuristic. That's not to say one can't assume credibility until otherwise disproven. I read the Noisy Rogue's post to begin with, after all.
 

I find credibility problematic because of the word that you use in your description: "consistently". I have never, ever seen anyone's credibility being attacked over consistent misrepresentations. The attacks on credibility always target a single phrase, often taken out of context. I would bet I could find a dozen of such phrases on your blog which could be made to look as if you were a completely untrustworthy person. Nobody is perfect, and if you write hundreds of blog posts some factual mistakes can always be found. Apart from people rarely even agreeing about facts.
 

Talarian,

The "hundreds of thousands of readers" that I posted was self-deprecating sarcasm. I don't know what else to say to you.
 

Pro blogging tip: Avoid sarcasm, it travels extremely badly on blog posts.
 

I think that's a fair rebuttal.

I also believe that single post of his had more than sufficient willful misrepresentations of both the NBI and other people's blog posts to meet the bar of "consistently" in this case. It just happened that he made a deliberate statement that could objectively be disproven to add to the pile. Well, I suppose besides the other statements he made about how we "must" write about a given topic, or how we "must" all toe the line or be punished.

Twitter, unfortunately, loses a lot of that context. However, I had the opportunity to expound upon that context previously in this comment thread and failed to do so, so that's on me.
 

As Tobold mentioned, avoiding sarcasm or clearly demarcating it is generally the sound strategy. Otherwise it is often indeterminable from sincerity. Also see: Poe's Law. ( http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law )
 

In any case, if that was sarcasm, I clearly misinterpreted, and for that I will apologize. However, the rest of your post does not hold up to such scrutiny.
 

Which was exactly my point. It is better to write a rebuttal of the core claim than attack credibility over a single statement.
 

The original context wasn't only that single point, but one of many. However, fair enough given the context of this discussion.
 

@Tobold: yes, all I do is taking down their pawns in a game. However (assuming they don't get themselves banned from games), the griefers do nothing else either: play the game and take down your pawns.

If my accomplishments are nil because "they only affect pieces in a game", then we have no problem at all. After all, every "evil" (griefing, sexist avatars, pay-to-win) you talked against just did the same: placed or removed pieces from a video game.

 

After all, every "evil" (griefing, sexist avatars, pay-to-win) you talked against just did the same: placed or removed pieces from a video game.

I was specifically talking about out of bounds evil, like swatting. If the Goons would take you seriously, they would hack your website and send a SWAT team to your house, or similar out of game actions.
 

"Similar out of game action" like vandalizing a monument and trying to frame it on me? http://www.pcgamer.com/eve-online-monument-vandalized/
http://www.themittani.com/features/hammer-gods?page=0%2C1
 

Talarian,

You don't have to apolgise because I don't care. I understand that sarcasm should be avoided, however this was an obviously gross exaggeration and yet you guys still were happy to run with it. Why was that I wonder. Easier to do that than actually address the body of my post.

Tobold,

You claim that I abused and insulted people. In my post I stated that there was group think, quoted from each blogger that I was able to find, and commented on how they did or did not fit in with my group think hypothesis. The closest I came to insulting someone was pointing out that the name of a blog seemed narcissistic. So if you could provide me with some of these abusive moments from my original post, that would be appreciated. Otherwise, how about you retract that claim.
 

@The Noisy Rogue: So you don't consider the following passage to be insulting? "and hey, if you need special help to work out how the fuck to put up a blog and write words then I reckon the suck factor is going to be up there with my pal Linda L. I guess we have to agree to disagree on our opinion on what is an acceptable polite and civilized style of blogging.
 

Tobold,

It's rude and it's caustic, but it is in no way "... full of personal attacks and insults ..." It's also a quote from a post of mine from 2013, so you're really grasping at straws here. I think your preconceived prejudices of me have clouded your judgement.

One other thing; you mentioned in an earlier comment that the credibility of an author of an argument should not matter. I entirely agree with you. My opposition, however, very much prefer to disqualify the author using any means possible rather than address the argument, no matter what they might say to the contrary. They were more than happy to run around expending all sorts of energy and time to show that I was dismissible, (and how embarrassing for them when that turned out to be a gross misinterpretation on their part.)

But that is the core of why we are against them. Talarain gave you a nice wordy explanation on how there could not possibly be any bias or group think in the NBI which you accepted on face value and good faith. But their collective actions to dismiss me based on non-evidence paints an entirely different story. That behavior, more than anything else, proved my theory.

And that is what GamerGate is at heart all about. We protest this global group think where only "acceptable" people with "acceptable" arguments are allowed to thrive. The whole "women-hating" tag attached to GamerGate is a deliberate red herring designed so that people will dismiss GamerGate without considering the argument. Something which sadly, you yourself have fallen for.

My blog post has achieved more than I could have hoped for. And all due to a throwaway line that I put in for a laugh to see if they would take the bait.
 

If you wish for me to refute your blog post as whole in a more thorough fashion, I'm pleased to do so. Let us comb through it line by line, shall we?

"When the Newbie Blogger Initiative first crawled out of the fetid muck."
~ Veiled insult that indicates a disdain for the concept from the beginning.

"if you need special help to work out how the fuck to put up a blog and write words then I reckon the suck factor is going to be up there with my pal Linda L"
~ As you mention, a quote from a prior blog post of yours, but you felt it relevant to the discussion to include this insult

"The NBI has gone full George Orwell. You shall not go against the group think. You shall have the correct opinions. All those who do not have the correct opinions shall be cast out and shunned. For we have the numbers and all agree with us."
~ You claim that we disallow anyone who goes "against group think", and that if one does not have the "correct" opinion will be cast out and shunned. I provided two direct counter-examples to that previously. Joseph Skyrim, and UtlrVlt. Neither have been shunned or cast out.

"The first NBI challenge that they must write about this year is..."
~ No one *must* write about anything. "Participation isn’t mandatory", direct quote from the talkback challenge at hand. http://www.newbiebloggerinitiative.com/the-talkback-challenge-1-nbi2015/

"They are making sure that everybody has the correct opinions. Those that don’t will be educated to change, but if that is not successful then they will be expelled."
~ Unsubstantiated speculation. You've made a claim against the NBI here. What evidence is there that supports this claim? As per the prior link on the specific talkback challenge, I quote: "The topic at hand this week is: How did GamerGate affect you? You can answer this however you see fit." That is exactly the opposite of requiring a "correct opinion".

"Over at Me vs Myself and I, (Holy cow, narcissist much?)"
~ Direct insult, as you've already admitted to

"Murf Versus has written a whole lot of blather,"
~ Direct insult. When challenged by Murf in your comment section to expand upon this, your reply was, "[I]t is difficult to have the will to present a well reasoned counterpoint when the original opinions are so light weight and suffering from overall flim-flam. In case you missed it, that was the overall point. I do not intend to argue with SJBs. My purpose is to mock." You, yourself, say that your purpose isn't dialogue, but mockery.

"If you guys think this is tough, spare a thought for me"
~ Veiled insult

"[B]ut then she’s just going to be effected anyway because … well, fuck knows. It’s emotional stuff, man!"
~ Actually, she explained why she felt affected by it. You're dismissing it out of hand without actually explaining why it's not a worthwhile point. Mockery.

"May the forces of light long rail against the forces of group think and darkness."
~The NBI is apparently a force of "darkness". Aside from being hyperbolic, it's insulting.

-----

As I mentioned before, anyone can register for the NBI, regardless of their opinions. If you're unclear about the NBI's mission statement, it's laid out for anyone to read here: http://www.newbiebloggerinitiative.com/about-nbi/

As I've admitted, I made a mistake with that one point; it was far from the only point being argued, but you continue to ignore the other arguments. If you wish to continue tilting at windmills, that's your prerogative. The evidence is laid out plainly and clearly for anyone to peruse.
 

Talarain,

It is not your place to infer what Tobold meant when he wrote his own piece. I am sure that he is perfectly capable of making his own reasoned arguments without your limited help. If you wish to take apart my post, take it to my blog. I'll be more than happy to shoot you down in flames.
 

I don't think I need to add anything to Talarian's excellent point-by-point rebuttal here. "Quoting yourself" is not an excuse. And if you can't see how somebody would feel insulted and personally attacked by the various quotes Talarian listed, I don't know what else to say.

I do believe that you have to make a difference between what is an acceptable opinion, and what is an acceptable way to express that opinion. For me it is mainly the latter point where you fail.

I would agree with you in as far as I have read many of the responses of the talkback challenge and felt that there was a certain anti-Gamergate uniformity in the collective response. I even feel that the question was slightly loaded, not "what do you think of Gamergate", but "how did Gamergate affect you", which pretty much presumes that the authors are all in one form or another "victims" of Gamergate. However I found no evidence that other opinions were actively suppressed, or that somebody was excluded from participating in the NBI because he held other opinions.

As your first paragraphs make clear, you believe that everybody who needs help sucks, which is a typical right-wing attitude. I find it likely that the NBI by being a helpful organization targeted at people willing to accept help has attracted more people from the left side of the political spectrum than from the right side. That can lead to some form of automatic group think, but I don't see evidence of active suppression of dissent.
 

Tobold,

If you accept his break-down on everything then you have to accept that you have been insulting as well. Apparently, writing "... "May the forces of light long rail against the forces of group think and darkness," is insulting. Well, okay then. You yourself dedicated an entire post to me and my blog under the heading, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I suppose this infers that I am evil. I suppose that I should feel all insulted now.

Well, I'm not. Because I'm not a victim, and I don't have a victim mentality.

Moving on from the distraction of who insulted whom, (notice that Talarian was very happy to dedicate a great deal of effort to addressing that but none at all about the rest of my comment), I liked your analysis of the NBI situation very much. To whit, you've more or less agreed with me, apart from there being no active suppression of dissent. And indeed they haven't done that ... yet. That would be their next step.

A recent example is the owner of a private enterprise in the USA who was fined over $100,000 for refusing to write a gay slogan on a wedding cake she had been asked to make. Or preachers who have been forced under legal threat to officiate at gay weddings. And only a couple of years ago they just wanted "equality". Now it is active suppression of dissent.
(That is just an example. I don't want this to derail into a case for or against gay marriage).

Those of us at the forefront of GamerGate recognise the signs and the modus operandi. We know where it will go next. For now they are happy to pull in as many bloggers to their cause as possible under the non threatening umbrella of "helping the poor new people". But eventually the entire blogosphere will be united to their side and cuase apart from a few outliers such as myself, and then all of a sudden they'll be using that weight of numbers to push whatever agenda they desire. It has happened time and time again all over the world in a whole range of idioms. GamerGate was the very first push-back, and the second is the sad puppies and rapid puppies at the Hugo awards for science fiction and fantasy writing.

One last point, (oh and by the way, I have very much enjoyed debating this issue with you and I appreciate the open attitude and sincerity from yourself), the NBI topic was not even "How did GamerGate effect you". It was, "How did GamerGate make you feel." Any more victim than that is just not possible I would think.
 

Those of us at the forefront of GamerGate recognise the signs and the modus operandi. We know where it will go next.

I think the process is called "civilization". Yes, of course you can pervert the description of it as "We used to be allowed to have slaves, now we can't even call them negroes any more", to give another example of what you are saying. But the process is one of society step by step deciding what is right and what is wrong. That is an inevitable process, and you and Gamergate are just putting yourselves on the wrong side of history here. But that would be okay if you weren't fighting so dirty.

I'm still waiting for a coherent statement from Gamergate while the influence of feminists on game development would be harmful. I believe there are things to discuss on that subject, e.g. that gender equality doesn't necessitate equality of representation to the point where half of the "Warlords of Draenor" on the posters have to women. But as long as Gamergate claims that women in game design are primarily harmful because they sleep with journalists and try to paint that as a journalism ethics issue, nobody is going to take you guys serious.
 

There was a survey among GamerGate supporters about their political stance, most self identified as left.
To me, it appears to be more of a conflict between libertarians and authoritarians.
 

I commend the Noisy Rogue for having the courage and the passion to talk about GamerGate with the MMO blogosphere and having the temerity to impolitely drag them kicking and screaming into the debate. The Noisy Rogue’s colorful style of writing should not distract us from the serious issues that GamerGate has brought to light which include journalistic corruption, censorship, artistic freedom of game developers and the problem of outside forces trying to use the video game medium to advance their political agenda.

As a veteran MMO blogger and gamer, I wholeheartedly support the GamerGate movement. From my investigation and research into GamerGate I can attest that its supporters are a grassroots coalition of good and noble fiercely independent gamers, geeks and nerds from all political sides of the spectrum that love their hobby and will fight vigorously to defend it against outside unwarranted attacks from ideologues, hucksters and attention seekers.

The Noisy Rogue is right to warn a MMO blogosphere that is sadly indifferent and even negligent in failing to report the growing trend of political correctness being injected into MMOs.

If people do nothing, the content and lore you experience and love in MMOs is in danger of being emasculated and replaced extreme leftist propaganda by diversity committees populated by professional social justice warriors. After that happens, future MMO players will wonder, who allowed this to happen? Why didn’t MMO players and bloggers speak out?

Most gamers just want to kick back and enjoy their treasured hobby in their precious free time. They don’t want to be indoctrinated while they are playing video games. I understand why gamers may not want to get involved in this issue but the time comes when you have to stand up for the integrity of your hobby and speak out. Those people that have stood up and spoke out are GamerGate.

If you believe that politics and indoctrination has no place in MMOs then you should support GamerGate. If you believe that game developers should have the artistic freedom and individuality to create content that they want then you should support GamerGate. If you believe that video game journalism should have ethics and integrity and be free of ideological bias, corruption and collusion then you should support GamerGate.

I encourage those that don’t know about GamerGate or who oppose it, please be open minded. There is a lot of deliberate misinformation and mischaracterization of the movement by those that oppose it. Don’t take my word for it. Do some actual research and find out the facts for yourself before you pronounce judgement on the movement and what it stands for. Thanks for listening.

-Wolfshead
 

@Wolfshead: I think that Gamergate would be a lot more respected if they actually stated that they are a movement against political correctness in video games, and thus defending artistic freedom. But they always, always, even in your description, put "against journalist corruption" as first objective. When even a casual observer can see that there is nearly no discussion of cases of journalistic corruption in what the Gamergaters write.

In fact the greatest "win" of the Gamergate movement was an act of attempted corruption of journalism, trying to get a journalist to retract her written opinion by getting an advertiser to remove his money.

How can anybody respect a movement that is clearly hiding behind a strawman mission statement?