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Roderick

Feminism

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I am pretty shite at web design, but I would contribute both writing work and hosting fees if there are any Thumbs with the time and knowledge to put together a nice looking site that would showcase games and devs that do things well.  It feels like the kind of thing that needs to exist, and I personally would like to do something to push back against all the bullshit being cataloged here and in the ethics thread.  I mostly feel powerless to do anything though, but trying to make something that's a positive database like this strikes me as being something of value. 

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I am pretty shite at web design, but I would contribute both writing work and hosting fees if there are any Thumbs with the time and knowledge to put together a nice looking site that would showcase games and devs that do things well.  It feels like the kind of thing that needs to exist, and I personally would like to do something to push back against all the bullshit being cataloged here and in the ethics thread.  I mostly feel powerless to do anything though, but trying to make something that's a positive database like this strikes me as being something of value. 

 

This seems to have sort of been the idea behind These Are Our Lives. But oh look:

https://twitter.com/lucyamorris/status/507423891258884096

okay, i quit too, i guess there's no point in @theselives or the weekends i spent writing screenshot scrutiny instead of spending with my bf

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This seems to have sort of been the idea behind These Are Our Lives. But oh look:

https://twitter.com/lucyamorris/status/507423891258884096

 

Yeah, looks like she was developing a blog/news site to focus on those kinds of games.  It doesn't look like she got too far into development on it, but it is the kind of site that would end up attracting the trolls and making her another lightning rod like Sarkeesian if it started to get any traction.

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Has anybody else noticed these memes floating around Twitter?  They're mocking the message of "Don't make women responsible for rape, teach young men not to rape."

 

post-33601-0-92563700-1409848985_thumb.jpg

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Part of what's so frustrating about arguing with these people is that their statements (like those) seem so self-evidently ridiculous. My argument always wants to be "just read what you wrote, man! you're an idiot!" 

 

Some good news (well, better), because I've spent my whole week so far being depressed about gamergate and the celeb leaks and the like:

http://www.vox.com/xpress/2014/9/3/6101103/prostate-cancer-foundation-returns-donation-after-celebrity-attack?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=voxdotcom&utm_content=wednesday

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Might have already been mentioned but I just saw this.

 

Jenn said this on Twitter and I honestly don't know what the point of anything is anymore.

 

I would like to have a child someday. DOXXing? Literally antithetical to that

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So those claims that "GamerGate" is "winning"? I think those people are in for a huge shock.

 

The FBI is working with the IGDA, collaborating on fighting harassment and crimes against game developers. According to the FBI, they keep track of instances of extreme harassment and cyber crimes, and approached the IGDA because of the rise in both (and from the way it reads it isn't just a matter of the last couple of weeks, it sounds like they mean over the last few years it's been increasing).

 

So this is pretty rad. It should have those jackasses that hide behind anonymity running scared and thinking twice about doing this shit. Because, y'know, they are getting the attention they desire - but it's from people that can prosecute them at a federal level. Game, set, match.

 

http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/4/6105185/fbi-game-developer-harassment

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Eh, I wouldn't get any hopes up based on the FBI stuff.  They are only going to do something about a certain level of crime (terrorist threats against airplanes, hacking accounts to steal data, etc).  They might provide some resources to the IGDA, but I would be shocked if it went any further than that.  And I doubt their being interested has much of an effect on the people driving this, I don't think they will perceive what they've done as something wrong, therefor there's no reason to be worried about being investigated. 

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The F.B.I. isn't going to be doing anything about the pressure of harassment though (and they shouldn't). Involvement by the F.B.I. will have no effect on a woman and/or minority making a game, and understanding that in order to be accepted as worthwhile, they'll have to do extra work to establish authenticity. It won't change that reporters at larger media-outlets are going to second guess whether or not they should be reporting on smaller games that deal with social issues or come from a variety of perspectives because it will inevitably be seen as motivated by journalistic corruption and patronizing activism. It won't stop the death-by-a-thousand-cuts aspect of the general misogyny and/or intolerance, only the severe and public cases of death and possibly rape-threats.

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only the severe and public cases of death and possibly rape-threats.

 

Eh, I'll take what I can get. I've not in general a lot of confidence in cops (see: Ferguson), but if they can do this, it's better than nothing.

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If they can put a stop to the "doxxing", that would be a pretty major fucking win in my book. Of course it's not nearly the whole problem, but it's an outrage I'm sure we'd all be glad to see the back of.

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Has anybody else noticed these memes floating around Twitter?  They're mocking the message of "Don't make women responsible for rape, teach young men not to rape."

 

They seem to believe that rape is inevitable, which is revealing, I think.

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Well, I guess I'm glad I missed that meme.

 

But I'm on the side that thinks they won't take the death threats seriously, but I do think they'll do some work, I think the best case scenario that a few jerks get... what ever is the English word for when someone isn't allowed to approach someone anymore? How does even work now that you can cyber stalk someone? Hopefully this will scare a few people from making more threats.

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It's called a restraining order, but that sort of thing is literally impossible to enforce over the internet. Anyone determined enough could use things like a combination of Tor and new accounts to avoid being easily tracked, etc. I, too, hope that it at least scares people from doing things, but it obviously won't scare everyone. I'm not all that optimistic.

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Is there a second page? Because the button's not doing anything for me and if there isn't, that seems like a pretty negative ending to me!

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Sounds like your browser's broken! It should load more of the tweets and you just keep scrolling down.

 

It was a good ending, but I feel like that guy will wake up tomorrow and see another thing that makes him upset and lash out again. At least, that's who I used to be. Bleh.

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That QA example is really good. On the other hand, that's two hours out of the life of someone with things to do, and the m.o. of trolls is to try to waste your time for as long as possible, so it could have gone a lot worse... 

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I know it's definitely impracticable to take that approach with every hostile person on Twitter (there's far too many of them and not nearly enough time in the world) and my skin isn't thick enough to give it a go myself, but it tickled the stupidly-optimistic part of my brain that wants to believe that there's hope for at least some of these people.

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I kinda gave up on reading that whole saga when I saw the "hostile" was slowly calming down and being reasonable 5 or 6 pages in?

 

But speaking of "storify" posts, here's one about Zoe Quinn infiltrating the enemy ranks and recording the chat logs with incriminating evidence and sending it to the police!  Wow, she's pretty awesome and brave to do that.

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Junior Mints had a nice piece on Polygon recently about the history of female revolutionaries.

 

 

But speaking of "storify" posts, here's one about Zoe Quinn infiltrating the enemy ranks and recording the chat logs with incriminating evidence and sending it to the police!  Wow, she's pretty awesome and brave to do that.

 

That's also linked in the Ethics thread with a punch of people talking about it if you want to see what the IT forums thoughts on it are. 

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