Surprise, surprise the deadshits kicking this on are the turds at gawker/kinja… Did anyone stop to think that the best way to stop having healthy, nourished trolls is to stop feeding the fucking trolls? Now, we could do this here on the BBS and we’d be contributing to the solution, but it’s obvious that gawker publishes this shit for the clicks. They love gamergate, don’t think otherwise. To be clear: I think the turds at gawker are trolls as well, but the trolls to which this paragraph refers are the pimply-face teenagers in mum’s basement who are perpetuating these actions that IMHO don’t come with a shred of credibility. Furthermore: the guy who sent the tweets broke a slew of laws and the cops should publicly approach and pressure twitter for info on the account and throw the fucking book at him.
Secondly, the language chosen for your link text is inaccurate and biassed. They didn’t ‘purge’ anyone, they stopped them from making edits to the gamergate article and any that relates to gender. All those throughout history who suffered through an actual purge would choose this pathetic alternative “purge” any day. It was a decision that was theirs to make, and I trust it was made on some basis of their track record of edits and how many of those edits later were deemed to be unsubstantiated by supporting evidence (which is the standard by all which edits are judged).
Thirdly, no I don’t have a dog in the fight. The only edits to wikipedia I’ve made were drive-by vandalism (of personal bios of terrorists and the US senate if you must know) and an addition to the article on the Streisand Effect (which started an edit fight that ultimately ended with my edit being reinstated). I think Sarkeesian’s video are intensely dishonest in the way she plays games to make things happen that, in the normal course of playing the game, would never happen - before presenting the situations as if they’re an integral part of the storyline/game. Yes you can bash whores in GTA and take their money - but you can also bash homeless guys, bodybuilders, gangsters, transexuals, store owners, animals, police, ambulance drivers, fire fighters, other drivers and take their money too if you please (the only thing missing from GTA V is kids, which I think you should be able to bash in-game as well). I think the trolls kicking this on on the “ethics in games journalism” thing are also talking out their ass because this actually isnt about ethics whatsoever - they just hate feminists (not women) and they feel like feminists should fuck off and leave their lame little boys club alone, so instead of participating in the dialogue they’d rather throw shit, vandalise the places that their enemies inhabit and threaten people off social media. When they see gawker write it up, they aren’t ashamed or embarrassed - they thrive on it.
“Of course not Professor Jones, you’re not being purged from the University, don’t be ridiculous. You simply can’t lecture or discussed any subjects related to Archeology, Anthropology, or your severe dislike of contemporary German political movements. You’re perfectly welcome over in the Physics or Maths departments. What’s that you say? You have no expertise in those areas and thus nothing to offer? That’s so sad, Dr. Jones. But, as we said, you are not being purged. Perhaps we could find you some menial labor to do.”
I linked to Gawker because… it was the first summary I found. I actually thought that people would go and read the source article linked, and thence onto the other articles. Mea Culpa,
This American Life, had a pretty thoughtful episode on just this.
From the transcript:
Conventional wisdom says never feed the trollies. Don’t respond. It’s what they want. I do that. It doesn’t help.
I could just stop reading comments altogether, but sometimes I get threatening ones, like the other day someone said I should get Charlie Hebdo’ed. Colleagues of mine have had their addresses published online, had trollies actually show up in person at their public events. If I don’t read comments, how will I know when they’ve crossed the line?
I could just stop writing altogether. I’ve thought about it. But it seems to me that our silence is what the trollies want.
Faced with Paul West Donezo, I was stuck with the question, what should I do? If I respond, I’m a sucker. But if I don’t respond, I’m a punching bag. So I did what you’re not supposed to do. I fed the trolley.
I think “don’t feed the trolls” only goes so far. “Troll” is a very big category that includes a lot of people with different motivations these days. Sometimes if there is one guy in the chat room who seems to want to take up all the space in the conversation, the best thing is to pretend he’s not there and he’ll eventually get bored and leave.
That does not work when the KKK shows up at you civil rights rally. They aren’t just there to get attention, they are there because they actually believe in something and they are trying to accomplish something. When a “troll” shows up in person at a public event to threaten you, it makes you wonder about the category of “trolls.”
But also, what about the people who actually think you are wrong. “Don’t feed the trolls” could easily be taken to mean, “don’t engage with people who disagree with you,” which is pretty shitty advice.
I think speaking out against misogynists is the right thing to do. Most of these people are not sociopathic manipulators or merely attention seekers. Most of them seriously believe the things they are spewing. Sure, you’ll never convince them they are wrong (I always hold out hope - it’s not actually impossible to get through to people) but when we clearly articulate that it is wrong we have each successive generation get better and better and eventually the current crop of bigots die off.
Basically “Don’t feed the trolls” is trying to apply a solution to a very rare problem to somewhere between 35% and 99% of humanity.
Right, if you listen to the podcast, Lindy West manages to get through to one of her worst tormentors, who apologizes. The entire interaction was very humanizing.
[quote=“anon61221983, post:7, topic:50580”]
This is why you can’t cite wikipedia as a source, kids - at least as a serious one.
[/quote]Well, maybe yes and no. I think it depends upon what topic you source from and sometimes when. Many parts of wikipedia are great to source because it’ll contain a nice collection of good sources in itself. It’s up to you to vet it out before sourcing it elsewhere.
Also, keep in mind studies have shown Wikipedia isn’t worse than traditional encyclopedias overall and is perhaps even better in some cases:
That said, there are certainly wide areas of Wikipedia that are dominated by industry public relations that’s very well-guarded by neo-libertarian bullies/stooges. Some of whom are on industry payroll. Sometimes they get caught, but often not, very unfortunately. And, the people who aren’t on a payroll to edit for industry talking points, etc. simply can’t afford to spend week after week battling it out with the libertarian astroturf lackeys.
So, like anything, grains of salt and vetting are required, but I wouldn’t outright dismiss all of Wikipedia for any sourcing whatsoever. At the very least it can be a great source of sources.
Well, I wouldn’t accept it as a source in a history essay. I think, for my field at least, it can give you sources to look up, but even a well-written wikipedia article, much like an encyclepdia article, is written as if the issues at hand are settled, which, at least in my field, they rarely are. While wikipedia is better at reflecting the changing nature of historical debate, I’d much prefer that students treat it as a means to better understand the topic, and then look up the sources being used to inform the article. Wikipedia is already doing what I want my students to do, which is to look at the various arguments and employing them.
Also, we keep getting instances of IP addresses editing wikipedia from congress and other places of political power. So there is that, too.
Why would I read more info about a subject I think everyone should shut the fuck up about. I don’t care about a group of feminists being banned from editing wikipedia articles and I don’t care about the gamergate whiners. That being said, I did read some of those pages and they seem far from objective. The author has decided who is right in the situation and then makes all of these sweeping, melodramatic statements like:
Wikipedia has lost an opportunity, our respect, and our trust. It may have permanently damaged the open Web because it just didn’t seem to care.
While in the very next paragraph he admits the people who were banned actually did break some rules.
You put this nonsense on the BBS. I gave you the respect of reading the links you posted despite my opposition to ongoing, pointless discussion of this subject and all you can do is respond with childishness. Way to show me why some useless people making Wikipedia their battleground shouldn’t be banned for breaking the rules… telling me to STFU is a very convincing argument. You’re such an articulate gentleman!
