Bartimaeus

No, not really...but um, thanks for the inquiry? I don't believe you Barti.....you would lovvvvvvvvvvvvvvve to be arested by her....think of all the much needed discipline she could inflict on you..

https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3d3hrp/exex_ceo_yishan_i_actually_asked_that_he_be_on/ I'm not sure I can handle Reddit anymore. #BringBackPao?

No, not really...but um, thanks for the inquiry? You can usually have them even when they're on duty...there's just generally a limit to how long they'll stick around and humor you (though it depends on exactly what they're doing).

How are these inflammatory remarks helping the situation, exactly? Such nonsense from those on both sides...

From just your article: "These straw man ‘game journalism ethics’ conversations people have been having are largely the domain of a prior age, when all we did was negotiate ad deals and review scores and scraped to be called ‘reporters’, because we had the same powerlessness complex as our audience had. Now part of a writer’s job in a creative, human medium is to help curate a creative community and an inclusive culture -- and a lack of commitment to that just looks out-of-step, like a partial compromise with the howling trolls who’ve latched onto ‘ethics’ as the latest flag in their onslaught against evolution and inclusion."

"That was post-edit :p" I'm not sure how your article dispels my notion. The article is still full of ridiculous hyperbole and sweeping generalizations about seemingly the entire "gaming" industry and community...it raises specific points and ideas that might've been appreciable if presented in a more limited, discretionary manner, but packages it in such a terrible way that I'm not surprised people took offense to it when it says laughable nonsense like this: "Suddenly a generation of lonely basement kids had marketers whispering in their ears that they were the most important commercial demographic of all time. Suddenly they started wearing shiny blouses and pinning bikini babes onto everything they made, started making games that sold the promise of high-octane masculinity to kids just like them. By the turn of the millennium those were games’ only main cultural signposts: Have money. Have women. Get a gun and then a bigger gun. Be an outcast. Celebrate that. Defeat anyone who threatens you. You don’t need cultural references. You don’t need anything but gaming. Public conversation was led by a games press whose role was primarily to tell people what to buy, to score products competitively against one another, to gleefully fuel the “team sports” atmosphere around creators and companies." I kept the last sentence for integrity's sake (because it is criticizing traditional gaming "journalism" as you said...even though it goes on later to imply that such behavior was in the past, and that "game journalists" are very different nowadays, and much more ethical and creative and cultured and... ), but everything before it (and a bit of the stuff after)? Yeah, I'll admit, that side of the gaming industry doesn't really appeal to me...in fact, I rather hate it, personally. It also does seem to be a rather sizable portion of the industry, it seems to me...but the thing is, I don't have to interact with it if I don't want to, and stuff that I hate that appeals to other people I can keep to my danged self about and instead engage with other communities for other games or other types of games. People enjoy the type of games they enjoy because...why? I have no idea. Why's that any of my business? It's certainly not the business of self-righteous so-called "journalists" who would write arrogant, "blow my own horn until my audience is deaf" nonsense like that article. To generalize the entire gaming community like that in one breadth? The question I have now isn't so much, "What were/are these guys thinking?" as much as, "Why did we even treat these people seriously long enough for Gamergate to even become a thing in the first place, instead of just laughing them off right from the get-go with the fact that we know better, that the situation is a little more complex than this?". Help me see this article from your point of view, because all I'm getting is what I'm pretty sure is exactly what the pro-GG people got out of it, though perhaps more striped with amusement than the outrage they had at the time. Maybe GG has already painted my perspective so much my judgement is clouded.

Okay, and I specifically said enlighten me in that very post in regards to that very subject. (edit): I am pretty sure when I hit quote, that last sentence wasn't there. Hmm. (edit): So, out of curiosity, what should my key search terms be, since you haven't supplied me with anything yet? (edit): to make more sense

Bro, do you ever fact-check? Ooh, that's constructive! (edit): Hey, looks like I finally got the drop on somebody before they got an edit in for once. That's a first. Surprised I wasn't too busy editing my own post to see yours.

Ah, but TECHNICALLY, did he specifically call you one? If not, you're applying that label to yourself all by yourself: he could think you're just the normal SJW, while SJF are actually a very special brand of SJWs! If he did actually call you one, then I'm probably out of lame arguments that technically counter what you said. Probably.

At least two of those were only by Volourn. That's hardly a valid argument.

Just another reason, then, that none of us should be making any sweeping generalizations about the "majority" or "most of you guys": a lot of us often argue from the same platform for very specific subjects within broader ones, but that doesn't mean it carries over to others. Well I think the majority of posters here doesn't really give a **** either way. They're fine with the status quo, but they're also fine with changes as long as they get what they're looking for in gaming. "Having your protagonist be male or female", I'd venture, isn't really a meaningful change from that perspective. Neither would be "having interesting characters in the game be male or female". Which is, incidentally, why I really don't get the violent pushback to the notion that maybe we should change things around a bit; such changes are unlikely to affect the core experience of whatever game we're looking at. Which, in my probably worthless opinion, would suggest there's probably something wrong with the way such potential change is being portrayed or argued for by its proponents. Different and less polarizing strategies than saying "gamers are dead", demonizing gamers for having a vested interest in the ethics surrounding the business side of their hobby (to be completely honest, I'm not sure why the whole anti-women in gaming thing is even associated with GamersGate, when I haven't seen hardly any evidence of the two being related to each other outside of anti-GGers like Bruce repeatedly and obstinately bringing it up all the time and stating that it is: someone feel free to enlighten me why this is)...and conducting worthless straw polls like the one we just saw earlier while ignoring possible ACTUAL evidence suggesting something contrary to what one already believes (this presumes that people actually saw the contrary evidence, of course, when it's quite possible they didn't given the social circles we all run in...and the fact that we usually don't run in those strongly opposed to our viewpoints). Though the bridges may already be too burned and the sides too polarized for anything to work at this point.

Could you get the majority of posters to do the opposite, or has that been clearly demonstrated in one of these topics already (for the record, I don't think it has been, so give me some evidence if you do think so )? If not, you can't really make a sweeping generalization either way, I'll agree with you that much...if you look at the latest edit to my previous (my apologies, I'm a bit of an edit-freak, ), Bruce asked if anyone "besides ShadySands" would have a problem having to play a female character...of which the few repliers to either said "no" or "I prefer playing males characters because I am a male, but not really, no" (besides Bruce himself, who said he probably wouldn't play a game like Dishonored 2 with only a female character as the choice...which seemed fair enough to me). Everyone else did not reply to it...I think you might find it difficult to pin the majority of users here down to any particular stance on some of these subjects...which means, don't have sweeping generalizations about the folks here on these forums. (e): Need to not be a horrible hypocrite and poorly paraphrase for other people. Fixed. (e): A little additional discussion on this subject in the previous topic that was before the previously linked post which I think at least vestigially supports my point of view: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80106-journalism-and-bias-in-the-gaming-industry/page-9?do=findComment&comment=1704205

I think the "most of you guys are basically fine with the status quo" is more of the issue, which, in reference to the post/image Bruce was actually replying to, means that we're "fine" with women being underrepresented and/or misrepresented in games. We already had a discussion about this earlier in the topic...or, uh, maybe the last one one, where Bruce misrepresented what ShadySands said about something in regard to this topic (edit: although I'll admit probably unintentionally, given his later posts). Here's the post: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80106-journalism-and-bias-in-the-gaming-industry/?p=1704725

Oh gee, Bruce reframing the narrative of our discussions to better support his point of view...again? I can't believe it! C'mon, Bruce.

A pretty hilarious counter to at least some of the points of the Feminist Frequency videos.

Depends on how bad you were.

Pot, meet kettle.

Funny, after I posted that, I had an idle thought: "Wonder if he's a dad..." Regardless, that's fair enough. I don't think any pedophile, active or inactive, would ever say anything like that, though: would be totally weird and unsettling for all parties involved. Much more likely, they don't tell you and you never know.

LOL R00fles!

It doesn't have to be something you "actually want to do" for it to be something you want to be ABLE to do if you don't think royalty should be any more exempt from insults than the regular joe (or if you can envision a scenario...or if there's actually been one already...where it seemed appropriate for you to do so).

See my somewhat heavily edited post in regards to the U.S.'s success and such: I tried to cover that with the latest edit. I am fine with people with people have extremely negative opinions of the U.S. and the West: we're often worlds apart, in terms of culture. I was raised in mine and often have very negative opinions of things that happen elsewhere, and other people were born in theirs and often have very negative opinions of things that happen here. That's pretty normal: we're different. If they spout hatred and conspiracy theories and...whatever else against us, that's fine by me, as long as it doesn't turn into actions that infringe upon us (or others in their own country who have different opinions). It's within their rights, just as it's within our rights to ignore them and do differently. Western Europeans often like to make of the U.S. for being "backwards" in some ways, for its citizens' favorite sport being "handegg", for taking issue with our illegal immigrants trying to take residence (as, ironically - I think - they also often then have no trouble subsequently spouting hatred against all the Muslims and other peoples immigrating legally to their own home country for whatever reasons...), and whatever else: it doesn't really phase me too much, just as I'm sure any criticisms I have of their love for the dreadfully boring sport known as soccer (yeah, I went there, you non-anglo-saxon pansies, ) likely doesn't much phase them. I don't think hardly anyone on these forums legitimately straight up hates the U.S.: some have bones to pick with the U.S. that, yes, often make it seem like they have a very negative view of the U.S. when certain subjects are brought up. Again, I think this is pretty normal...in fact, let me correct that "some have bones to pick with the U.S." to "everyone in the entire world, including the U.S.'s own citizens, has bones to pick with the U.S.". That doesn't mean everyone hates the U.S.: they just hate certain things about it. People may even say they straight up hate the U.S...but most people, when pressed, will say something like, "well, I mean, I hate their GOVERNMENT...not everyone actually in the U.S." and similar stuff. Fair enough for me: I often feel the same way, theoretical U.S.-hater! Extremists may think they hate every single last aspect of the U.S....but extremists are usually the kind of people that are willing to do the whole "infringing on others" thing I mentioned, so I'm not really particularly concerned about them. If you're not willing to infringe on others in your hatred of the U.S., then you can't hate the U.S. that much...otherwise, you'd be willing to break that rule of ours. In conclusion, I don't think you need to defend the U.S. constantly: defend it when it's right and just to do so (and when it makes sense to you to do so...and hopefully when you can actually convince others that it makes sense to do so... ), and criticize it when it doesn't...just as everyone in the U.S. itself does. It's part of our process. (edit): Oh, also: I don't really care if their "hatred" of the U.S. comes from ignorance/exaggerations: that's something seems pretty native to almost everyone in regards to one or some things or another...still doesn't stop anyone from making judgement on those things, and there's no reason it wouldn't be applicable here. Que sera, sera, Bruce.

That depends on how you define a "patriot". You probably wouldn't think so, but others you're arguing against probably would... Being a patriot, to me, is, in general, supporting your country*...but also being willing to speak your mind freely about it, including criticizing it when you believe it does or goes wrong, so that we can realize our mistakes, potentially correct our course, and better ourselves for the future. It's also supporting/defending everyone in having their own opinions and beliefs, as well as exercising their freedoms, even if you personally find what they do with them repulsive and try to convince them to think/do otherwise - as long as they do not infringe on others. (e): In my opinion, a lot of people criticize the West (and particularly the U.S.) because they want the West to do better. Obviously, it's up to you to determine if what they're actually proposing as an alternative would be better, but regardless, if the intention is "make some changes compared to what you're doing now so things/you will be better", I personally think that's admirable and the very opposite of unpatriotic. Obviously, very extreme cases like "throw out all Western values and institute Sharia law!" are probably not gonna garner much support from me, but even so, I would support their freedom to at least suggest it...preferably quietly . (edit): *As an example, I would say being patriotic in this respect is...hoping your country continues to do well, that nothing terrible happens to it or the people within it...that it continues to be the country you love and want to reside within. You don't have to support everything it does, though: you can be a pacifist, for example, and personally wish that the U.S.'s soldiers were not involved in conflicts where people are getting hurt and/or killed...but to be patriotic in this regard would be to still wish them the best, hope that they all return home safe and sound (and, as a pacifist, without having had to have hurt anybody, particularly unnecessarily)...and that they generally succeed at their missions - outside of when they're doing things you personally find reprehensible, of course: you still support them, but not necessarily what they're doing, and you may wish for particular aspects of their objectives to not succeed (WITHOUT hoping that horrible things happen as a result): that is within your rights. This is patriotism to me. edit edit edit I like to edit

My problem with such an argument (and others like it you've made previously and in other topics), is that it is primarily emotionally/feeling-driven, not reasoning/evidence-based. Just your feelings are going to have a tough time convincing anyone of your side, my friend. So no, any supposed "anti-Western" bias those arguing against austerity might show doesn't really affect too much how I see this issue...once in a while, I even see a little wisdom in Volourn's posts...even underneath the constant hyperbole and personal attacks as it is. (edit): I should say...clear and extreme biases obviously can undermine one's credibility, of course, but unless it reaches obyknven (spelling?) levels, it's usually not enough to reject decent points/evidence out of hand. Even oby makes a reasonable point about Western hypocrisy/bias (IMO) once in a great while...though it's obviously never enough to convince me of all the other things he says.