Zoe Quinn on growing past the online mob

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Many of us make jokes in a vein of, “where is the manual for Life”, or " I don’t know how to adult". But it strikes me if Zoe and others have solid techniques for dealing with even a single facet of life–online harassment–that could be an immensely valuable book/website/tumblog/whatever.

Most of us are just guessing. Real advice from people that used it to solve real problems like this could be invaluable.

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“Online mob”, Oh my…

off topic from Quinn, but another of the great XOXO talks this year is this splendid one from independent comics publisher C. Spike Trottman.

Funny, I was just thinking the opposite: How helpful that she’s just an ordinary shmoe; it preemptively takes the wind out of a lot of excuses for not trying to do better.

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That’s… What I was thinking. If my personal details were published my Good Person card would be immediately impounded.

Thank FSM I am not a woman in game development and simply a giant shark with excellent teeth. (Typing with fins is a major pain, let me tell you)

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Seems to me like someone who doesn’t know that they shouldn’t air their bullshit, straight out of high school dirty laundry where everyone can see.

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I would totally invite Zoe to my D&D game night.

Also: Kayne West sucks.

That is all.

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It’s like a magic spell. You post about this, and Gentlemen appear to wring their hands about “Yes, But Wasn’t She Just Awful” — like that justifies, or even means anything in the world of adults.

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I still cannot understand GG to this day. Even if you take it in the best, most positive light and all the claims at face value, it’s still just about game reviews not being entirely honest. Being concerned about ethics in game journalism seems on par with being upset that the hoverboard in BTTF2 wasn’t real.

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Is that what you think?

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Since when has advertising ever been honest? Game magazines have been owned (mostly by the game companies since the beginning of games.) Media always serves it’s own intrests. It’s never been honest and it never will be honest because it’s about selling a product.

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Ever think about setting up stories as honeypots? Contributing the IPs of the proxies they use to the sec community would be useful.

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No. I’m saying that that’s the conclusion you’d reach as an outsider if you actually believed everything that GGers claim GG is about. It’s clearly about so much more and means something different to different users of the hash, but if even in the best light it still seems petty or irrelevant, that just indicates that the reality must indeed be significantly worse.

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Agreed. I grew up reading Nintendo Power. They didn’t ever pretend to be anything more than a means of increasing interest in their products. I rented a lot of games for the NES and SNES in my youth simply because the magazine had a guide for them.

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20 minutes well spent.

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I know, the whole thing is completely ridiculous, game “journalism” has always been a joke. Have a pulse and the ability to play videogames? Welcome to your new career! So lame.

Poor Zoe, she did not deserve this shit. Nobody does.

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I know what you’re getting at, but…this reads weird.

Between 2000-2008, there were thousands of people who threatened to maim, murder, and do other things to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and some of them even attempted to carry out on those threats, with varying degrees of success. This doesn’t elevate Bush or Cheney above criticism.

I know; they were two of the most powerful people in the world at that time. Zoe Quinn was totally different because she was just a person who put out an indie game. However, I think we can all agree that adults understand that a person can be the target of harsh unjustified criticism and even abuse, and still be subject to criticism.

I like to think adults understand that “this person had something bad happen” shouldn’t be a Shut Down All Criticism card.

Despite what I just said, I actually agree. I don’t quite “get” forums like Reddit. Remember the Boston Bomber incident? (We did it, Reddit!) Seemed like there for a long time, there was this depressing trend of one person making a claim, and the horde went to work on the vigilante justice. It’s exactly what happened in this case.

And almost all of it leveled at Zoe Quinn. Almost none of it at the guys who were accused as well. Hey, had it been true that they gave positive reviews for sex, it would require consent on their parts. If it’s really truly about ethics in journalism, they’re the primary target, right?

And naturally, the people who believed it doubled down as soon as they got called out on it. It seems to be a flaw with human behavior, sadly, because I’ve even seen it happen, well, on BoingBoing, even. I won’t call out specifics because I already flung poo at someone I shouldn’t have…at least I haven’t seen it lately. Seems to have tapered off after “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.” More people need to grok that just because someone was adamant about something and we agree with the premise, doesn’t necessarily make it true.

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That’s quite a millennial Godwin you’ve constructed there.

sips PBR from a tall-boy

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It’s a fucking hobby press! Ever open up a copy of Nuts and Volts and see an ad for a product that has an article written about it in the same issue? I like games, and I see no problem with people enjoying the shit out of them, but holy shit! Games are not a serious issue almost by definition. It’s so clearly not about ethics in gaming journalism, because people who wave big flags with the word “Ethics” on it actually have an obligation to live up to their own damn standards.

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