The negative connotation is one that was manufactured by the gaming news sites from the very beginning, though, and moving away from the hashtag means surrendering the meaning to those people so that they can paint any further attempt to criticize their actions as "remnants of that Gamergate hate group." After two months of near-constant insults and lies on their part, even giving them that opportunity isn't something a lot of people are going to be comfortable with.

You seem like a reasonable person, so I'll float a question: if Gamergate being unable to police its worst members 100% means that the term is unusable, doesn't that mean that gaming journalists who have argued against the movement and refused to cover the doxxing/harassment against Gamergate supporters are equally culpable? Do we not have the right by that logic to demand that they stop using terms like "gaming journalist," "gaming blogger," or "cultural critic" because they haven't spoken out against the harassment coming from their side (and vague declarations that "harassment is bad" don't count), sullying the term in the process? That's not even mentioning some of them financially supporting devs, failing to disclose obvious conflicts of interest, and harassing people on Twitter.

I just don't understand how we can police our side to the best of our abilities and still be the ones in the wrong when they won't even bother trying to police theirs.

YES! :-D *feels understood*
The same goes for them! If they don't want to be put in one group with the shitty "gaming journalists" etc. they need to kick them out of their group (group here being "gaming journalists" etc.), if they cannot do it, they can try to drown them out, failing that, they can leave the group (maybe find a new label?) or stay with the group and face the consequences of being associated with the shitty people.

And now to the interesting part: There are groups that you can't easily disavow of, groups you don't choose, like your skin colour for example. That's when, from my point of view, it is not OK to judge all individuals by the group they belong to. And words like racism come into play.

It's all not a perfect way of seeing things, but it's mine. :-)

And I agree that saying "harassment is bad, mkey" is not enough. For either side.

From my point of view both sides are wrong when they doxx, threaten etc. And I don't believe in trying to "count" those things. "They doxxed so many times and we only this many times" or stuff like that is bullshit from my point of view.
I think one of the reasons why GG side gets more flak is because it is seen more as a group while the anti-GG side so far appears more like single individuals.
A mob on one side, people on the other.
I don't want to say that this perception is correct, but I do believe this way of seeing each side influences the reactions to them, especially from media outlets that normally aren't involved in gaming.

Absolutely. GG has groups of people mass-reporting harassment no matter the side it's coming from, though, whereas I've yet to see so much as a single apology from the anti side. I don't know if I'm not looking hard enough, or if there really haven't been any apologies or demands for their side to do better. Not that I'm excusing the harassment coming from my side or anything; the doxxers and harassers on both sides of this need to be tracked down and prosecuted, if you ask me. No sympathy for internet monsters.

I didn't mean it like a tally so much as actively trying to keep people from engaging in that kind of behavior. In fact, I've seen exactly the opposite a lot of the time: http://i.imgur.com/2o6lNXc.jpg

And that's really why I personally think it's necessary to keep fighting despite people's feelings about the tag. Moving to a new one would lose us a lot of momentum, and the media being able to manipulate the narrative and portray an entire diverse group of people as a single negative thing is problematic.

I must say, it's nice to engage those with opposing views here on GOG. Other sites are either echo chambers or finger-pointing marathons, but the people here are weirdly delightful even in disagreement.

Well this is the community where even a heated religious dispute is held in polite words and with arguments instead of insults 90% of the time. I don't now where you you get this ratio in the real world woth talking face to face to people, much less in the anonymity of the internet, hunting ground of the troll.

Given the interview just linked, thank you htown1980 that was very informative, Brianna Wu, the most tweeted about female in this whole thing claims only to have received dozens of threats, so 2000+ is way out of line. I certainly can buy dozens.

As to that interview, that was actual journalism for a change. Those questions weren't that tough but they were on point. She handled herself well-enough, certainly wasn't a "hit piece", but then again Sarah Palin thought being asked which magazines she reads was an unfair question as well (rather than the softball everyone else sees it as).

It was interesting how she sees Gamergate as having started 2 years ago. Blaming it for Anita's Kickstarter harassment as well. That was a point I just tried to slowly make by asking the questions I did above. The anti-GG movement seems to have Gamergate using a time machine as the anti-GG people try to blame everything wrong with gaming in the last 40 years on the people of GG.

Gawker loses another advertiser:

http://theralphretort.com/email-says-kelloggs-gawker-media/

Felicia Day goes #FullMcNtosh:

http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/Rn93Da9.png

http://theralphretort.com/wp-content/uploads/YYcZkrc.png

Wonderful thing that we have a thread here! Sweet Odin's raven, I love GoG

Ok now I have to buy cereal again ( I am already sold to intel sooo).
However the Felicia Day 'mock up' is of bad taste. People shouldn't have fun on feelings of fear or insecurity, however non-understandable that may seem. As a public figure, it was quite courageous of her to speak of it openly to begin with. There's no point in mocking that, even so slightly. It's easy to consider it unfounded when you are not the one directly affected by it.

I saw the mock up this morning, but couldn't find the right words, but I totally agree with you. It unfortunately also backs up her original fears.

It's Ralph, sadly as much as we yell about him, he doesn't seem to really get the memo that we're not his excuse to attack people. He's been writing these inflammatory articles for a bit, taking old tweets and quotes out of context as fuel, and really become the thing we're fighting, and people are noticing and complaining about him too. Which is a good thing in my eyes, it's very easy for someone to fall into a trap and be the monster you're trying to fight.

That's sad, thanks for the highlights.
And no Kellogg's for him, then !! ;)

Edit : "No kellogg's for you" should become a 'thing of the moment' in regard of the events, as a token of appreciation (in a viral marketting way) or, you know what I mean. But I don't use twitter sooo ...

Glad to see this is up for discussion, not just one sided yelling.

David Pakman interviews someone who is apparently a #gg'er:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqwLyjcQ6SU

I think it was nice that he didn't go too hard, she is obviously not an intellectual heavyweight and not someone who has given a lot of interviews.

That said, I thought it was pretty funny that it pretty much boiled down to, in her opinion, #gg being about wanting an apology..

I actually think the TB interview will be super boring. That guy is far too reasonable, in my opinion.

If you suck at watching youtube videos here is one that you will have trouble with:

TB interviewing Stephen Totilo of Kotaku:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpmIrWqEUUU

You can also get the podcast. Videos like this I tend to put on the background while I am doing stuff around the house.