Good suggestions busterwrites.
Iām down with 99% of your suggestion, but I would like to see this line modified:
to:
Donāt advocate or carry out hate speech, or direct violence at any member of our community, or advertise/recruit for any group involved with the same.
āDonāt claim someone canāt disagree with you based on who they are or what group they belong to.ā
I donāt remember anyone actually asserting this, which makes me worried that it will be used on implied infractions. Is there recent behavior that would be discouraged under this guideline?
Thatās concerning, since GG isnāt an organization; it has no membership rolls, no leaders, no official platform; itās just a hashtag that means something different to everyone, and itās hard to make any general statements about it that arenāt true of any other group of people to some extent. Is there a better example of the type of group this is intended to target? If not, perhaps we should just skip it.
The sort of thing Iām concerned about is exemplified by this comment from earlier in the thread, in which it was asserted that because of his demographics, one poster should have to put up with being made uncomfortable by anotherās comments:
i cant think of a single post where i ever attacked or singled someone out or called them misogynistic
it is uncomfortable to have to think about gender and race but me taking up a few lines out of the 15 pages of mostly men talking to mention those subjects is not the crime
Ok, you know what? This needs to be said.
GamerGate is not an organization, no, but I can certainly make statements about it that arenāt true of any other group.
Most groups werenāt born out of a harassment campaign. Most groups donāt have exclusively reactionary far-right figureheads. Most groups donāt systemically drive low-paid women out of the industry, one by one. Most groups arenāt driven by people ā people who have literally been ousted from 4chan ā planning āoperationsā to defund targeted websites.
I have been personally harassed by 'gaters without even picking a fight. Iāve had anonymous people telling me they would make a rape simulator for my #RuinJam mascot. I was discussed in the IRC chatlogs where /v/ was strategizing about how to best hurt Zoe Quinn. I have been insulted, deliberately misgendered, and seen my friends harmed.
Youāre right, though; GamerGate isnāt an organization. Itās a harassment campaign.
And if being āall-inclusiveā means giving their supporters airtime or soliciting their participation here? Thatās a valid choice, but Iām not the only person who will walk away from this site and not look back.
Iām troubled by the notion of a CoC that effectively says āDonāt bring up privilege if people donāt like talking about it.ā
Folks on all sides of that issue have been harassed. Tempers flare up every time itās mentioned anywhere. A rule against discussing it at all would be worth considering.
But if being āall-inclusiveā means taking an official stance that only one position on that issue may be expressed, then Iām not the only person who will walk away from this site and not look back, either.
Letās hope it doesnāt come to that for anyone.
Perhaps movement is a better word. The situation it seems we are running into is half the community feels GG is a āhate movementā and half the community does not. We are looking for a way to address the issue as it will undoubtedly come up again and continue to cause major division.
Preview edit:
And itās come up again. Should we get it all out of our system here? Should we open a thread in off-topic to discuss? Iām certain it will get very very ugly. Should we all admit itās too toxic for this community and agree not to talk about it? Should we put in the Code of Conduct a line or two recommending that we avoid divisive subject matter (i.e. politics, religion, GG)? I donāt know the right answer here.
I think itās more likely that three quarters of the community really donāt understand GG, and almost everyone wishes that we werenāt having this discussion at all.
We canāt avoid divisive subject matters because these days nearly everything is political somewhere.
Discussing privilege is quite a bit different from holding some posters to a different standard than others based on their gender.
Weāre discussing politics now. This thread is about the politics of our group.
In the past weāve agreed (without an explicit rule) to avoid divisive issues that arenāt on topic. Discussion of the GG thing is divisive but itās impossible to say itās off-topic. How (various kinds of) IF are treated among (various groups of) gamers has been at the core of it since ā well, since a Twine game came up for Steam Greenlight discussion.
Suggestion: agree to avoid the āGamerGateā label, since it manifestly means different things to me and to vaporware (just to name two of us). I donāt expect to resolve that disagreement here and I donāt even want to try. But possibly we can talk about inclusivity and about journalism and about how IF is treated among gamers without immediately hitting a conversation-ending wall.
Or maybe not. Maybe this does end with some forum regulars bailing. Itās not like thatās never happened.
whether or not people wanted to be part of this forum regularly, this should have been a safer space for authors to participate in the IF comp. the authorās forum has been decent, but the rest has failed to be safe even for the relatively short time during which the comp is held.
women are being talked over, ignored, singled out for voicing their opinions, and reminded of harassment that should never have been brought into this space. the emotional cost of participating in these discussions has been made too high.
whatever your opinion about any of this, the pragmatic outcome is less women, of all kinds, newcomer and veteran, both those who have spoken up, and those who have remained silent. that is a problem.
I donāt know how to have a discussion about it without calling it by its name. Any conversation about inclusiveness and journalism in gaming right now is a conversation about GG.
Iām open to a discussion. I can at least promise I will be civil. However, I wouldnāt be participating because Iām interested in hearing more about it or because I think I can convince anyone of my arguments. It would be to: a) allow an opportunity for people to have a say on the issue, as it seems several are itching to do so, and b) get it out of the way, so we can move on.
I also support not discussing it at all. However, if a discussion were to happen, it should not be in this thread. We should stick to the Code of Conduct topic.
I like that suggestion zarf. Avoiding the label while allowing discussion on associated issues sounds wise, as long as the discussions remain nonabusive.
Do you have specific posts in mind that you believe should be banned by a code of conduct? It would be helpful to see examples.
Idk I just think the person who explicitly described her harassment shouldnāt have had to deal with that drama being brought into the space. Itās not a particularly theoretical discussion for some of us.
Iāve opened a separate topic to discuss GamerGate at https://intfiction.org/t/gamergate/7486/1.
If the mods prefer to have them combined, Iāll move that post over to here.
I am increasingly feeling like moderation is not going to solve what appears to be community issues, and this goes for everything thatās been discussed. I donāt think I have much to further contribute to a CoC discussion. Iām gonna step away from these discussions and try to take some space.
Iāll sleep on this, but it seems like a good idea for me to leave the forum; it doesnāt seem like my relationship with it is beneficial to either of us.