O_o This seems to be pretty fundamental to the complaint: females as actors get to be props rather than an integrated part of the landscape. This character is a woman so we can have romantic subplot/subtext, this other character is a girl because we need to use their gender to amplify the peril/concern. Same shitty reason why dogs in movies aren’t usually killed. And if they are killed, it’s often meant to indicate that someone is especially badass/callous.
It’s been a while since I’ve been to my meetings (j/k), but – the concepts you allude to not being part of the discussion were part of the discussions I’ve heard. (VP of my student body in college, college GF went on to get her PhD and teach (among other things) feminist theory.) shrug
It’s not like one person can have a meaningful conversation with ten thousand rabid peoples. Goes hand in hand with the shittiness of commentary on 90% of the sites around. You can certainly enjoy that kind of thing, but … it’s not necessarily productive, especially with respect to contentious issues.
I like games. I don’t have a simpler word to describe this than “gamer”. I’ll keep calling myself a Gamer. I’m not sure what the current newspeak for that is/was supposed to be, but – seems pointless.
Yeah it’s obvious all right, it’s called information suppression.
The whole point of the comment section is so that there can be a public forum to speak on the topic of the article and exchange information, not for the author to react to said comments.
That’s odd because I haven’t seen any articles or comments from notable feminist publications or feminist critics ever ask for a more equal distribution of violence against women. I mean just look at how Anita loses her shit at the few instances in gaming in which women are victimized or how feminist/SJW collectively freak out whenever women are the target of violence in a particular scene or moment in a game. I’ve seen a lot of advocacy for more female lead cheracters but I have yet to see any feminist say"we need more nameless female thugs for you to beat up." I don’t doubt that maybe some feminist have said it but it doesn’t seem to be the ones leading the discussion on the topic of equal gender representation.
angelpalm: Calling that “information” seems disingenuous at best. I think the link I supplied pretty well addressed the general pointlessness of a comments section. Face to face meetings/discussions, sure those can be awesome. Online anonymous-ish communication is troubled, as has been seen in both directions here. It’s pretty obvious over the past years that major web sites everywhere are kind of getting sick of online troll culture. Provide some great strategy that guarantees intelligent conversation and I think you’ve got something and I think they’d go for that. But you’re lying if you say that they have that now.
(We can get into “shades of excellence” here, but it seems really beside the clear point of “Internet discussion of contentious issues is currently generally fucked”.)
reogeo: I’d bother to dig up references here, but you’re at face value just talking about something else anyways. You drift by “inadequate representation of female characters in the game as a whole” to latch onto “Anita ‘losing her shit’ over women being the target of violence”. That’s exactly what I specifically mentioned: " … this other character is a girl because we need to use their gender to amplify the peril/concern … ". There are two concepts at work here:
generally you just lazily use the male sprites everywhere
you use the female sprites generally only when you need to accent the import of someone’s peril
They’re two related but distinct points, and blurring them together is generally counterproductive. The first you had raised and I specifically mentioned as something I’ve seen in feminist critiques. The second I hadn’t bothered to touch since it seems pretty readily apparent and as you noted was a point that Anita raised. But you and I can agree that Anita is somebody to happily avoid. I generally have found most feminist critique to often be heavy-handed and best taken with a large grain of salt and patience. shrug
Well like I said I can only go by what I’ve seen most feminist talk about and if it is the case that feminist are making that same argument then it’s not something that is getting a lot of attention. It would seem that is a trend with most movements…eventually the reasonable points get locked out in favour of the radicals.
Man are you jaded dude, we might as well just get rid of all written communication with that attitude.
Yeah comment sections like the ones found on youtube are rife with all kinds of puerile crap. But you have to take the good with that bad, even if that bad is nothing more than a bunch of sock puppet/shill accounts trying to disseminate the truth.
nods vigorously The general “need more background characters at the same level as other NPCs” argument isn’t nearly as interesting. But it’s way more subtle and insidious IMHO than the long known Woman In a Fridge trope Anita discusses. shrug
angel: I was around for the heyday of UseNet and the birth of the Web as we know it: not jaded so much as … aware of the environment. You can certainly make the argument that someone should wade in a pile of shit to hunt for tasty sandwiches, but – that’s not something that any reasonable person should feel that they need to do.
Equating “internet forum communication” with “all written communication” is lazy as fuck. That’s not nearly what I said nor hinted at, as any semi-rational being should realize. Fuck, you have to actually work a little to write something useful down. Like they did when they wrote their article / blog / blah blah blah. Plus you add in the distortional effect of online communication which I’m unaware as having any equivalent effect in any other medium. Online communication sucks ass. That’s why I add smiley faces way too often: to provide seemingly unneeded but sadly important visual cues so you can have a vague understanding of the humanity beyond the words and potential empathy with the person. :\
You don’t need to take the good with the bad. You can choose to, but oftentimes it’s just not productive, especially these days. BACK IN MY DAY we might flame or troll the fuck out of someone for chortles, but it was mostly small scale fights not the smurfy armies of todays. Today’s fights to get a decent discussion going are unmanageable and generally unwinnable. Take that upon yourself if you want to, but that’s not their obligation and it isn’t an obligation you can fob off on them.
Like I said, disingenuous. I’m not a fan of limiting healthy discussion. You also can’t pretend that other sites haven’t in the past years simply given up on accepting comments. I’m not a fan of limiting healthy discussion. You also can’t pretend that other sites haven’t in the past years simply given up on accepting comments.
I repeated both of those statements because either you can’t read, you’re deliberately pretending to be dumb, or you are dumb.
I believe in the bountiful awesomeness of this world and think we live in one of the most awesome times in history. If we’re to the point where electronic pixels being aligned incorrectly is the worst thing in the universe, awesome. #firstworldproblems! I think the Anita/Quinn discussions have generally been stupid and heartily worth ignoring. Heck, for some reason you’re insulting me for daring to point out that the emperor has no pants:
“Online communication can generally get pretty retarded.”
… as evinced here. :tup:
I realize you don’t know me at all and probably haven’t met me. If you feel the need to, I’m at Evo every year and otherwise get around (will be in LA in two weeks, will be in Florida in six weeks). I’m a firm believer in the awesomeness in this world, and support that thoroughly, as you can clearly note through my public efforts (ignoring the private efforts you don’t know about). I also am a factualist, and enjoy understanding how things are in order to better operate within the world that exists. I will leave the world a slightly better place than I found it.
I have no idea what the needlessly snarky “general character makeup” bit is meant to indicate, but I rest assured that someone you know has met me and understands the generally quiet radiant positivity that is me. My mom is insanely radiant and positive*: I’m just a mellower version of her. shrug (Most obvious retort is “full of yourself” – but then that line of logic runs squarely into “factualist” and “you most likely know someone who has hung out with me and can verify.”)
This is true, and the Seattle FGC and various out of towners that have met her could readily confirm that. I’ll never have any idea how she does it.
Again, your comment was “You notice how a lot of these sites with these articles have no comment sections?”. Factually, a lot of sites don’t have comment sections. Much like we shouldn’t get too needlessly excited by Anita… I don’t see a point in getting excited about No Comment Sections when any true Scotsman pretty readily understands why that probably is. Which feeds directly back into ‘asking them to wade in a pile of shit to hunt for tasty sandwiches is seemingly a laughable request at best.’
I’m in H-town myself but don’t really mess with anyone in the scene if there even is a scene around here anymore. The last place I went to that had people actually playing competitively(were I saw Broly-legs in person no less) closed down 4 years ago. If there is such a thing around here I would be more than happy to meet and greet you and whoever(anyone but @Raz0r j/k)
My thing is it’s not a coincidence that sites like that are being chosen. You have two sides to an argument but one side that has already established that they will go through any lengths to silence/discredit the opposition. People should be allowed to be uninhibited online, unrestricted, but not necessarily unchecked. I mean it is the internet.
That whole topic of thought policing is the very under current of this whole situation. One which I am not entire clear which side you are in favor of. You repeat you are not a fan of limiting “healthy” discussion, yet are referring to discussion as a fight that needs to be won, stating that online communication sucks ass…using smiley faces lol…I don’t know man…you seem to have a confrontational and defeatist attitude. I would say that you need a break from modding but the way this forum has being going this place would probably explode if it had one less mod.
Anyways, yes online forum talk is fucked, but it’s because people don’t self regulating themselves usually, but from what we have seen in this case, these kids are trying to be very civil only to be met with the sort of harassment and cyber bullying that they were themselves being accused of. And no one that actually digs deeper will ever know.
I was working on a post yesterday to back up why I feel the way female superheroes should be portrayed differently, but then I was invited to a bar and I did that instead. Maybe I’ll finish the post today, maybe not.
I was just in Houston in April for Texas Showdown. Why am I more involved in your gaming community than you are?!
The “other side” in most circumstances can create their own medium of communication. Needing to borrow/hijack the other side’s seems pretty wonky.
There’s no thought policing going on when you do not give people your avenue for expression of your thoughts the option to express their thoughts to others on that same forum. If you take that tack, is a book or a magazine “thought police”?
I will take a step back though and say that some of the higher level feminist theory probably does fall in with some things we’d consider “thought policing”, and I politely step away from that because I don’t think most people are ready for it. There’s a reason why people study this stuff in depth and still are wrong.
Very specifically I said
"Today’s fights to get a decent discussion going are unmanageable and generally unwinnable."
I think excellent communication channels are solid fucking gold. Having worked with communication channels for twenty years now, most of them are totally utterly fucked. Efforts (‘a fight’) to keep them stabilized and useful are solid fucking gold. Any person involved in the communication transaction has to wade through the noise to get to the signal, and it’s bullshit to claim that they need to sort out that communication problem for the other “side”. Create your own channel and express your thoughts in a readable and sharable form. Nothing stops anyone from communicating excellently, and excellent communication tends to find audiences.
Online communication does suck ass. Sometimes ass is awesome. You briefly consider the John Gabriel Internet Dickwad Theory, the previous notes I’ve made here as regards the internet personality distortion, and you also reference the various studies upon misinterpretation of emotional tone in online communications.
I’ve probably done a lot more research/paid more attention here to those aspects than most of you because I find online communities incredibly valuable and have done very large amounts of community-building and communication online (generally ignoring my interactions on SRK), but – this isn’t rocket science.
Confrontational: Sure, if things are just face-value wrong. (Pointing and laughing at someone for not hosting Your Discussion Site for you, for example, is just not helpful. It was just a dumb aside from you, in my opinion, but – I felt a reality check was fair. I apologize for my heavy experience bias inspired by working with communication channels for the past twenty years.)
Defeatist: Never.
Don’t confuse realism/factualism for anything more than it is. I very much note the flaws in the world and admire its excellence nonetheless.
We’re conflating all sorts of issues here, so I’ll cheerily pass on by. All I cared about was “comments pages are not a requirement.”
The whole situation is all sorts of fucked, but comments pages and lack thereof aren’t a vaguely interesting part of the crapstorm. shrug I’ll bow out of this conversation again.
It seems that removing the ability to comment is often tied to repression and part of the way these people maintain the spin they have on certain narratives.
I figured I’d leave this here feel free to C&P, modify, etc my E-mail to Comcept
[details=Spoiler]Hello, my name is Cameron, I am 25 years old, and I have been playing Mega Man since I was old enough to physically hold a controller. I have adamantly pursued every Mega Man related game to play, even side games and spin offs. Like many people I was disappointed by the cancellation of Mega Man projects, and like many others I was just as excited to see a spiritual successor come about in your game Mighty No. 9. As excited as I am for the project, I’m afraid that I will not be purchasing or supporting the game. No matter how big of a fan I am I cannot support a company who treats their investors, fans and customers with such blatant disrespect. Last year you had a debacle with your community manager disrespecting and censoring backers on the forum which they paid to have access too. As I understand there was no instances of harassment and it was over matters of opinion. I recently have learned that this same manager has done the same thing recently to backers who have donated over 300 dollars to back the game. The fact that this person is still employed, disrespects each and every investor in your project and every prospective customer. I will not be buying, recommending the game to anyone, and anyone who I’ve recommended the game to already will be hearing about the instances of customer disrespect.
Reading this thread, man. Nothing makes me more sad than watching this discussion about women in games/gaming in a “movement” that has nothing to do with women. Am I the only one who keeps seeing the conversation getting pushed in the direction that the anti-GG crowd wants it to be? The more talk about women in the discussion, the more dumb motherfuckers can say dumb motherfucker stuff like, “women are making gaming suck” or “typical feminists ruining things again”.
The worst part is that it’s not even just this forum.
