Well, Telika's article still has a point.

The push to the right with its defamation, demonization and dehumanizing strategies, disruption, harassment campaigns, doxing attempts, memeification or "covert op" internet trolling from Putin to Luckey, a barrage of completely insensible conspiracy theories, the re-normalisation of xenophobic attitudes and a profound rejection of academic evaluation, scientific findings and even basic fact, that's what brought us gamergate, the Rabid Puppies and eventually Donald Trump.

It is in part also what has pervaded discussion culture on this forum these last two years, so I do consider the topic highly relevant. haydenaurion and not even rwarehall went off topic here. Heck, I even welcome rwarehall's call for forum standards that don't look at any political alignment first, but rather at the bare facts of a user's behaviour.

http://gizmodo.com/facebooks-fight-against-fake-news-was-undercut-by-fear-1788808204

The outcome seems to be the same either way.

I'd call it a trash can.

Started as a decent idea, than some nutters decided to make it all about politics, from which point it became a mere shit-flinging contest.

Maybe favles22 should finally lock this thread, it has reached it's utility loooooong ago, and really starts smelling bad.

Ok, yes, I get it, it has a point.
But...how does that help the forum any? What, are we going to "drain the swamp" and ban anybody who claims to be part of the alt-right? Yeah, see how well THAT one goes over.
What I'm seeing here, from my point of view, is basically what real.geizterfaher pointed out (albeit more bitterly): All that's happening in this thread is the same old grudges through the same old arguments with the same old people. This has been pages and pages of political debating and very little actual feedback or practical suggestion. And after all has been said and done...what will it change? Everybody will walk away with the same opinions they came here with, and they'll sulk in their corners waiting another few months to hash it out again on the next thread. And the next one. And the next one.
I get the feeling this is much of the reason why so many people have turned into lurkers and restricted themselves to only a handful of threads.

This is completely true. However, the question here is not the criticism of Gamergate per se. What is interesting (in relation to the post I was answering to), is how these questions (forum suggestions, moderation, hate speech, free speech, alt right, gamergate) are articulated to each others. The reasons why they are all along the same thread pulled from the ball.

The main issue of GOG's forum is moderation and forumers attitudes. Besides pure trolls (à la Kleetus or Tauto, or venal scammers), it is the antagonism between forumers. And this violent antagonism is very much rooted in oppositions around "hate speech" and "free speech" issues. And "hate speech" (god I detest this denomination, but whatever) emerged on GOG forums in political discussions (greek crisis, migration, islamist terrorism) and in gamergate. A discussion about bettering the atmosphere of these forums can not avoid revolving around its gamergate and political threads, which, unchecked, unmoderated, have allowed "hate speech" to flourish - setting the forum's new standards. An article drawing parallels between "alt right" and "gamergate" rhetorics only helps pinpoint the issue in GOG forum exchanges, explains the commonplace impression that the gamersgate thread had been a turning point in these forums' tone (I would say they had been three or four such downwards-turning-points, but each time specific matters and threads, and each time involving the discourse structures -common to gamergate and the alt right- explored in that article), and puts in perspective the relative stability of "sides" and rhetorics throughout all these threads and subjects.

If a mod wishes to make the forum more broadly viable through "hate speech" moderation (by making it, unavoidably, less viable for foaming far-right militants), then a look at the exchanges in such key threads is important. Real.geizterfahr is completely right, there is genuine bad blood polluting the current -doomed- population (and I'm a strong exemple of it, don't ask me to utter any polite word towards the identified extreme-right militants of this forum : now that we know what kind of people we are, behind username, sympathy and respect cannot be re-built), but if GOG wishes to avoid it in the long term, then focusing on the kind of exchanges and discourses that generated this -and the reasons why it did- is certainly a priority.


Edit :
Ah, I'd also add that, as GOG asked the forums to self-moderate (through peer pressure), most "self-moderation" attempts took the form of more and more violent posting against "hate speech" vectors, with a verbal violence increasing with its futility (as extreme-right worldviews do not function on knowledge and reflexion, which makes "academic" arguments inoperative, and symbolically violent local pressure gets inoperative as well given the strength of outside reference points for militants -breitbert etc- and the shifting of the forum's ideological demographics). A lot of the most violent exchanges are not only an effect of the lack of moderation (and I even mean the moderation of the discourses that trigger violent responses), but are self-moderation itself. If there had been a "hate speech" moderation in the first place, most these most brutal exchanges would have had no reason to take place.

Here's a solution:
Get rid of the pure trolls and keep all political talk to their designated areas. I can disagree with somebody's political opinion in one thread yet still joke around fine with them about cereal in another. Of course, not everybody is like me and there's the inevitable person who's unwilling to speak to someone they were best friends with five minutes ago just because now they found out that the person thinks donkeys wearing orange sweaters is heresy or whatever, but this would at least go some ways into solving the issue and be better than the current alternative, which is "nothing".

1.I was making fun of how a repost could be indefensibly misogynist, especially without mind reading techniques.

2.Still doesn't change the fact that you said ''If the criticism is first and foremost a loose assortment of ostracism, misrepresentation and slander, we could of course find that it is rooted in sexist attitudes.'' And what are the other criteria then?

3.So Anita has a right to not be criticized in any mildly hostile manner? Excessive sensitivity being used as an excuse to dismiss criticism is completely OK, but don't expect to be respected because of it. And how am I denying anyone's freedom of expression?

4.Lets see, I see very little against her that is not trying to debunk her work. The only ''ostracism'' I see is that probably winnable defamation case against that Aurini-made documentary, which is not from the ''gaming community''.

5.And how have people misrepresented those things? As saying that she said ''Its sexist because Mr Pacman came first''? How far of a disconnect is that then? When your interpretation is applied to Pacman, that is correct, because it doesn't take into consideration whether the original character had any substance at all.

6.I think you mean ''systematic'' and not ''systemic'' since ''systemic'' means slander brought down on her by ''the system'', and in the gaming industry, there is no such ''system''. Or if you're saying there is a system, please state which. So you consider it fact that all criticism of Anita is malicious?

7.If her intent was to inform people of ''harmful'' stereotypes, then why did you say the objectives of TvW is to ''make room'' for new ideas? The room is big enough, as many people have said before.

8.Yes you are correct. But the import company didn't do anything wrong either. They didn't insinuate anything. They offered a game the company itself said would not come to the west.

I'd like to say I would have put in more effort if I knew you would continue discussing.

1. Signal-boosting slanderous media can of course be misogynist; please note number of followers etc.
2. I named misrepresentation as a possible other hint; I often see a "critique" of her looks as well, don't you?
3. I'll answer the leading question with "no" up front.
4. I haven't dangled the Aurini movie in your face for a year now, even though its advent was heralded in your gg thread.
5. Your explicitly stated presupposition is incorrect, she did not say that.
6. I did mean "systematic".
7. If the room is big enough, why the defamatory Leonardo list, why get outraged over female protagonists?
8. Insinuating tweet reads "#DOAX3 will not be coming to the US due to #SJW nonsense". More clear cut possible?

1. Misogyny is a state of mind. If you're saying he retweeted out of misogyny, then say it. But assessing the mental process behind a lazy link-retweet isn't very convincing.

2. Yes. Those center around her violating her own principles in the way she dresses. I also agree pointing out present or absent hypocrisy is useless when criticizing theories of a person, but then again, there have been criticisms of her methods only, which she could choose to address if even that is too hostile for her.

3. No to what? I asked 3 things.

4. So what of your mind on the original topic of malicious ostracism?

5. Yeah I know. I was asking how that quote she did not make was so far from the truth when a featureless character was outfitted with a bow and she called it sexist even though the original character was featureless as well.

7. What else is defamatory about Leo's list? I don't speak on his behalf, but he could have made mistakes in his fact checking and you could ask him to correct it.

8. I see what you mean. It does add on the original statement from the publisher. I'd add that that is small addition to a corporate-speak statement which might not be too far from what the publisher had in mind when they made it, but don't forget the hundreds of additions and omissions made by the gaming media (ie omission of dedicated harassment communities' role in harassing ZQ, guilt by association, completely nonfactual association with right wing political movements, many many others).

Oooh, elegant. A single thread probably wouldn't be enough for this place because of how frantic conversations about certain topics tend to become, but a subforum for the tense stuff might help. Or at least keep random topics from cannibalizing other threads like seems to be happening with this one currently. It'd take someone being present enough to remove posts when they're in the wrong place, though, and while fables seems to be far more engaged than other blues, it'd be a lot of work for one person and possibly make things worse should they end up disappearing like the others have.

I have to ask: what's the deal with the grayish/white dot in the bottom-left of your new avatar? It's driving my OCD crazy. Does it have a meaning? Is it a sign? A message? I MUST KNOW.

So, basically this is now #GamerGate #thread #2? Awesome.

To quote our Lord Jesus:

"Are you gonna love each other, for fuck's sake?!"
https://youtu.be/-xSORIDw1Sg?t=1m25s

SORRY. At least I'm trying to keep it ultra-short.

1. I can not think of any other motivation Adam Baldwin could've had to instrumentalize a culture entirely alien to him.
2. She's "violating" a mere fantasy version of "her own principles" that you guys have; see my comment on gender signifiers above.
3. You asked two, not three; no to the first and I don't recognize a response to a form of my argument in the second.
4. Remains sadly unchallenged. The argumentative angles wasted to brand Sarkeesian "not a gamer" are infinite.
5. Ms. Pac-Man is derivative and hence an example of the trope, which isn't inherently bad; Sarkeesian focuses on dev statements and the advertising campaign; the 25-min Mrs. Male Character video does not contain the words sexism/-ist/-ualized or misogyny/-ist..
7. I'm not sure you understand that list correctly. There are no "facts" lingering in the description of these games.
8. There was only one publisher statement, following one statement from an overeager social media manager who has remained unnamed to this day.

I guess the avatar is an ECG representation of the GOG forum. See? I'm a hopeful person after all.

1. Low effort humor, just thinking it was funny, suddenly having an interest in the topic at the time, it can be anything. Or nothing, its not like people put deep thought into every tweet. And I'm guessing you're referring to Internet Aristocrat's video, correct?

2. And even if it was a misinterpretation of her principles, she can choose which criticism to address.

3. So she can be criticized in a hostile manner, excessive sensitivity is allowed but it may cause said hostile criticism and that leaves how I'm silencing others?

4. Then isn't it unreasonable for her to not address criticism that doesn't include it? And BTW are you using the term ostracism to refer to questions about her proficiency as a critic / researcher or gamer? Because I was assuming the former because a not being a gamer needn't (in theory) have anything to do with her work.

If you're referring to questions about her credibility as a gamer, then it depends on how much of it is deserving seeing how she assumed malice in many cases against games where a normal player would not. The assumption of malice in dead bodies being physics objects is for satisfaction of rape fantasy is a prime example of this. Any normal player would realize that the bodies need to be movable objects if the body hiding mechanic is to work and that all the bodies are floppy like that, so it must be a feature of the models in the game.

5. She recognized it as a sexist trope, and she says those are harmful, and what I was saying was whether that misquoted statement is not far from the truth because it was not sexism that made her featureless but being derivative of a dull character, yet she assumes sexism.

7. The statements he believes to be facts then. Point them out as invalid and how / why so he can correct them. Its not really for me to talk about anyway. As far as how it reflects on GG, no one ever said mistakes weren't made. And GG did make mistakes, especially when jumping to conclusions about certain things.

8. Yes and people were wrong to trust the ''because SJWs'' tweet, but that was a case where people were misled and even though the statement is over-reaching of the original tweet, it didn't fail to communicate that the lack of western release was fear of media outrage. No one got harassed for it, and GG's official response was a non harassing wave of emails to Japanese devs saying the media doesn't represent all gamers.

If such mild misinterpretation is such cause for concern, then what of the much larger and sometimes willful misinterpretation done by GG's ''enemies''?

Basically the problem of the forums.

Vain misrepresents everything and claims he is right about everything. Everyone else is totally wrong.
Calls everyone mysogynists. Insists we all get banned. All the alt-left brigade jumps in the defend him.

I'm sick of his shit. I'm sick of the last years of being name-called and being threatened with a ban and getting downrepped by the alt-left brigade.

This is the abuse and harassment I was talking about which is worse than their claims of "hate speech"

And fables, you can see the usual suspects claiming they are immune to a ban because their speech is not hateful but something as benign is criticizing Anita's is somehow actionable.

In what world does stating that the games Pac-Man or Donkey Kong are not sexist constitute "hate speech"?

Because that is the wacky world of the "social justice warrior"...