"Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

[singlespace]

When did I say that we should engage GG on the terms that they want? When did I say that we should engage in rational discourse with them? I said that I think that condescensions and such are not helping.

 

I don't see what you're getting at with FCH. I read the article and largely agree with what he is saying.

[Twig]

Condescensions certainly aren't hurting.

[sclpls]

When did I say that we should engage GG on the terms that they want? When did I say that we should engage in rational discourse with them? I said that I think that condescensions and such are not helping.

 

I don't see what you're getting at with FCH. I read the article and largely agree with what he is saying.

 

You said ". . . but it is such a terrible thing to consider that these jokes and emotional, instead of rational, shots at GG could be causing more harm than good?"

 

That is strongly suggestive that we should be engaging in rational argument. Maybe you misspoke.

 

This is the research I'm familiar with as far as all this stuff about "persuasiveness" goes:

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

 

Crucially, yeah jokes aren't going to win anyone over to your position, but neither are rational arguments. 

 

The article suggests (without really having any strong proof one way or the other) that who provides the argument makes a big difference (which sounds correct on an intuitive level, but isn't really something anyone has in their toolkit generally), and appealing to someone's values.  Again, that's a sensible idea but maybe not so easy to execute in practice. I'm sure women all over the world would love to figure out a way to make appeals to people that hold deeply held sexist beliefs to not behave in such a sexist way.

[Bolegium]

What point are you trying to make when you argue that "condescensions are not helping", when any form of communication with gg has been shown time and time again to "not help"?

 

If by "help" you mean some abstract goal of "helping end the fight between pro-gg and anti-gg earlier rather than later", then there is something distinctly strange with you specifically calling out people who make jokes about gg, as if they are somehow responsible for perpetuating this animosity. There seems to also be a lack of understanding of how social conflict exists. Social conflict isn't something to be won or lost, where we eventually reach some middle ground or equilibrium. The equilibrium IS constant change, reactions, and reactions to reactions. If your desire is to have this gg argument 'end' in a timely fashion, i'd say that is very short-sighted and ignorant of how culture/society exists and functions.

 

Also I've been slowly catching up with this thread (which is why I missed the original post by Flynn with the link to FCH's article) but it definitely doesn't seem like you agree with HULK considering the points you have decided to argue about.

[singlespace]

That is strongly suggestive that we should be engaging in rational argument. Maybe you misspoke.

 

This is the research I'm familiar with as far as all this stuff about "persuasiveness" goes:

 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney

 

Crucially, yeah jokes aren't going to win anyone over to your position, but neither are rational arguments. 

 

The article suggests (without really having any strong proof one way or the other) that who provides the argument makes a big difference (which sounds correct on an intuitive level, but isn't really something anyone has in their toolkit generally), and appealing to someone's values.  Again, that's a sensible idea but maybe not so easy to execute in practice. I'm sure women all over the world would love to figure out a way to make appeals to people that hold deeply held sexist beliefs to not behave in such a sexist way.

 

I wasn't implying having a rational argument, but rather referring to jokes, memes, and other such manners of venting causing unwanted strengthening of beliefs while many solutions that been suggested by researchers and various advocates has been rational ones, though not in the manners they have identified as being ineffectual.

 

The problem right now is that while there is a good body of research on what does not work, on what causes the opposite effects that one would wish, there is very little knowledge about how to solve the issue itself -- just what not to do. So articles like the one you linked will lack much conviction and proof because it's largely an open problem: no one knows how to solve it.

 

Kahan and the folks out of Yale are researching the effects of being in a particular social group, or the perception that you would fit into a particular group, towards how receptive one is to an idea that is fundamentally incompatible with your own world view. They're working more from the standpoint of scientific outreach and social cost of choices. There is a team out of U of Michigan that's working on the more politically oriented issues of the backfire effect and have suggested addressing the source of argumentation of bad facts via increasing the cost of providing bad arguments and facts might be worth looking at (since often our sources of beliefs are not are own). If I recall correctly, a Stanford team have seen results from unequivocable and ubiquitous facts (e.g. not only is it very difficult to dispute, but also all sources have the same stance).

 

But again, no solution has really been discovered, just the things that don't work and are contrary to the goal of correcting erroneous beliefs.

[Bolegium]

Those studies are interesting.

 

I think you are hugely overstating how 'damaging' the net social effect of the jokes and memes about gg are to the "goal of correcting erroneous beliefs". I think the effect of these jokes are minuscule compared to the self inflicted damage caused by self-identifying with gg in the first place. I think being so actively critical of something as mild as jokes does more actual harm than the potential harm of those jokes. I'm sure you don't intend it to be, but this is another silencing effect against gg-critics. So I ask you to reconsider what you are doing.

[singlespace]

Well, yeah, nothing is going to be as damaging as having the erroneous beliefs in the first place, it's just where do you go from there?

 

Point taken on being too critical, I'll call it a day, but I don't believe that kind of prodding is innocuous as it seems when in the more public sphere.

[Bolegium]

Cool, and agreed.

[miffy495]

Apropos of nothing, I've been reading Paulo Freire for work and this quote jumped out at me as particularly appropriate to the "good" gators.

 

Those who talk of "Neutrality" are precisely those who are afraid of losing their right to use neutrality to their own advantage.

 

This was written about educating low-income children in the early 1970s. These things just keep on coming up.

[Hermie]

Someone spent a week on the Gamergate forums, and found that while they could debate calmly and even agree that trolls were hurting them, there was a strong will against any kind of organization or active uprooting of said trolls, basically making it impossible for them to achieve anything positive.

[Problem Machine]

Sigh. I feel so invisible.

[Justin Leego]

Hugs to you PM. It was a good article.

 

Thanks for reminding us about it Hermie!

[Hermie]

Sigh. I feel so invisible.

 

Sorry! I've only scanned the last couple of pages, but thought I made sure it wasn't posted before.

[namman siggins]

Sigh. I feel so invisible.

Actually, it's about ethics in gaming journalism.

[Bjorn]

Vice and some other sites are going after gamergaters for illegally stealing their content by using Archive.today. I've used Archive, and don't feel too bad about it. But the primary reason I've used it has not been to deny traffic or ad revenue, it's because for some of the niche or privately owned sites, I DO NOT want there to be easily traceable links back here, so we don't end up with Mike the lawyer, or Ralph or someone trying to come in here and be d-bags, or to start running hit pieces on the Thumbs (as Ralph has done with a bunch of people). 

Overall I'd say it's a bad move by Vice and others. Even though it is a kind of piracy, it's not like trying to be heavy handed about piracy on the Internet has ever been a winning movie.

Hilariously, there's someone who's decided to call themselves an Ethics Auditor who is going to start "auditing" the ethics policies of sites. Despite this person admitting that they have absolutely no background or knowledge about journalism or journalistic ethics.

Here's a fascinating infographic where someone broke down the gender of the characters of the Top 1000 games of all time (based on a combination of sales and critical scores). Only 1 in 5 characters is female.

Lastly, Liana K dropped my favorite tweet I've seen this week:

[Flynn]

It's about Ethics in Journalism: 

[brkl]

I can't really agree with Vice's move either. Even if those were an infringement, they would be a very petty one.

[Reyturner]

Here's a fascinating infographic where someone broke down the gender of the characters of the Top 1000 games of all time (based on a combination of sales and critical scores). Only 1 in 5 characters is female.

 

An artistic imagining of the of a Gator being confronted with this information:

 

*the briefest possible glance at the information*

 

*eyes shift over to look at author*

 

"She's a feminist!"

 

*proceeds to doxx and harass on twitter* 

[Bjorn]

I've been thinking about the history of women challenging men on the sanctity of their traditional spaces.  In the golfing world, there have basically been mini-gamergates going on yearly for...literally as long as I can remember.  I started golfing in the early 90s, and I can't remember a year that has gone by since then that there hasn't been a sexism scandal (and backlash).  At the very least, there's always a little one around the Master's, since it's still a private, male only club.  Sometimes the specter of journalism ethics has even been used to silence critics.  But there are usually other's as well, like Vijay Singh saying he'd boycott an event if he was forced to play with a woman. 
 
The sexism of golf is particularly interesting when you tie it into the professional world.  There's lots of business, or at least networking, that happens on golf courses, and barring women from being members at clubs is not just about having a space for men to pal around and enjoy their hobby, it's also de facto about making sure women don't have access to one of the professional resources that men do. 

Today, the Daily Beats pondered whether other geeky male habitats like Magic might have their own -gates waiting in the wings.
 
I wish I had more time for writing and research right now, I'm sure there's a fascinating piece tying gg back into the history of what happens when traditionally male spaces start to become less so.

[SecretAsianMan]

Because it's worth repeating

 

https://twitter.com/femfreq/status/527601124992638976/photo/1

 

[Synnah]

     

[feelthedarkness]

So good!

 

I never noticed the frowny ascii faces in between the banners! 

[singlespace]

Hahaha, nice.

[SecretAsianMan]

Oh, and it appears that episode is on tonight.

[Henroid]

So the largest paper in print and one of the largest late night television shows have  covered bullying / harassment / delivery of threats on the net. All we need is a day-time / morning show and we're set on Goobergate having no recourse for whatever it wants to demand, beyond being criminal in its actions.