GamerGate deserves some face time.
My name is Michael Koretzky, and I’m a national board member with the Society of Professional Journalists — the world’s largest organization for one of its least-respected professions.
Yesterday, I wrote about GamerGate after my fellow leaders refused to. They warned me that any whisper of the movement would get us doxed and stalked.
Instead, I’ve been unable to keep up with all the fascinating comments, tweets, and emails offering passionate opinions, detailed corrections, and informative links.
So far, the worst a GamerGater has called me is a “snooty hipster” (which is, I believe, redundant). Meanwhile, I’ve been called far worse by my fellow SPJ leaders.
While I try to catch up on the correspondence, let me announce that SPJ will indeed delve deeper into GamerGate — in person.
I’m recruiting rank-and-file SPJers to support a live-streamed panel discussion called AirPlay.
Let’s flesh it out in the flesh.
One of my jobs on SPJ’s board of directors is to organize an annual journalism conference in my region – which covers Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.
I don’t need anyone’s permission to do whatever the hell I want. And I want to explore GamerGate.
This will be an objective panel discussion, featuring all sides of the issue. It’ll be promoted to SPJ’s 7,400 members and thousands of others in the media.
(Based on the enthusiasm I’ve seen so far, GamerGaters seem quite capable of spreading the word amongst themselves.)
I could use some help…
If you’re a GamerGater, please leave comments below suggesting who should represent your movement — and what opponent you’d like to see confronted. Mind you, I’m going to be courteous and fair to whoever you hate, because my job isn’t to take sides.
My job is this…
1. Introduce mainstream journalists to this topic in a personal way.
2. Give GamerGaters and their opponents a chance to debate face to face.
Ideally, I’d love to find 3-5 GamerGaters who can act as a committee for their cause. I’ll consult them as we congeal the details of this event over the next few weeks, and they can consult with the GamerGate community on decisions that need to be made.
This page will be updated until everything coalesces — hopefully by June 1 — then I’ll announce the specifics on my SPJ blog. Meanwhile, I’m recruiting supporters from within and outside SPJ.
So far, much of what I’ve been told about GamerGate has been proven wrong. Meeting in person and broadcasting the results just feels right.
I’d like to see @sargon_of_akkad on the panel as a supporter of GamerGate.
THANK YOU for giving this topic a fair shake
If you’re looking for people to represent the #Gamergate argument, I suggest Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Sommers and Sargon of Akkad
Milo vs Anita
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sargon of Akkad
Thank you for this Michael. I have asked TheHatMan2 (The owner of the KotakuinAction) reddit board to create a mega thread on this with a poll on the 5 people we think would be the best representatives of our opinions.
Thank you so much for taking the chance and reaching out to us, Michael.
I believe @Sargon_of_Akkad, @OliverbCampbell and @Nero are three people you should definitely reach out to.
@oliverbcampbell , @CHSommers , @Nero , @Grummz, @Sargon_of_Akkad Have shown the will to discuss the issue.
Going to leave the obvious suggestions of
@OliverBCampbell @Sargon_of_Akkad @Nero @Totalbiscuit
Not sure if any will be available or willing but imho for ethics discussion one or all of those four would be best.
I’d warmly recommend Sargon of Akkad(Carl Benjamin): he’s eminently reasonable, well-spoken, polite and thoughtful. Same goes for Christina Hoff Sommers. But really, any GamerGate supporter capable of producing coherent sentences should be up to the task.
Your real challenge will be finding anti-gamerGate people willing to defend their position: they’ve displayed utter cowardice and unwillingness to debate their ideas out in the open, instead opting to dismiss any criticism as hateful bigotry.
The mere fact that you’re willing to listen to both sides already makes you a “GamerGater” in the eyes of aGG. Any skeptical interrogation, any demands for evicdencem anything less than “listen and believe” is seen as an attack by antis.
I’d say invite @Oliverbcampbell. He’s smart, knows what’s been going on, and has been ignored by every other media outlet so far.
That aside my favourite 5 voices would be (cough #GamerGateDreamTeam) and in no particular order
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yiannopolous
– Christina H. Sommers
– William Usher
– Brad Wardell
Oliver Campbell might get in there as well.
You could even invite TotalBiscuit as although he is ‘beside’ #GamerGate rather than ‘inside’ I think he has some terrific standards and great decency. His presence would be a boon to all gamers.
I’m happy to see SPJ take the initiative and have a ‘face to face’ as it were, to get to the crux of what #Gamergate has been asking for for 8 months now. Few people I would recommend are Christina H Sommers, MiloYiannopoulos, Oliver Campbell, @Daddywarpig and sargon of akkad as they are the most versed in the topic of pro-gamergate.
Oh yeah, I forgot Mark Kern (@Grummz)
Milo Yiannopoulos @Nero
BTW please don’t advertise the venue like you are doing above in this article – our detractors have already called in two bomb threats on their perceived opponents, please be safe
Sargon of Akkad, Oliver B Campbell, or Total Biscuit would be absolutely amazing for this.
I’d especially like to see Oliver Campbell get some decent coverage. He may need sedating though. The word passionate falls some way short of doing him justice.
I don’t know if you have geographical/region limits, but I think you’d actually be a little better off to try and go for some “rank-and-file” gamergate people than, say, some of the more prominent members like Sargon or Milo. The reason for that being I think they can sometimes be a little heated in a way that probably wouldn’t work well on this panel, and also that they have been the “go-to” people for quite a while. People will habitually just not listen when they speak because they already have a very public voice.
As for which rank-and-filers to choose… I’m not sure. But I’d be wary at this stage of necessarily choosing the “big names”.
I believe @sargon_of_akkad would be a wonderful addition to your panel, as would Christina Hoff Sommers(@CHSommers) and Milo Yiannopoulos(@Nero). All three of these individuals have spent a lot of time getting to know #Gamergate, as opposed to drawing assumptions from media without evidence.
I would like to state that personally I think the focus of the talk should be on the goals of GG, not so much on the group. Sure, we can talk back and forth about the group, but that detracts from the goals of the consumer revolt, which should definitely be raised as a key point in the talk.
Right, Christina H. Sommers would be stellar, too. To show we’re not all fat white male neckbeards.
Sargon of Akkard or Mercedes Carrera @TheMercedesXXX
Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Sommers and Sargon of Akkad would be good candidates to talk for gamergate, maybe even Thunderfoot.
I’m not sure who they should face, a mix of game journalists that are anti gamergate and maybe someone from feminist frequency, since they want it to be about them when it isn’t..
Sargon of Akkad, Oliver Campbell, Mark Kern, Jennifer Dawe, Liz Finnegan, TotalBiscuit, Christina Sommers, to name a few.
Thank you for taking the time to explore Gamergate and not just blindly buying into the media narrative. Sargon of Akkad, Milo, Oliver Campbell(Former game journalist) would all be good people to talk to.
Having said that, though, if you decide to go for well-known names, Mark Kern is probably an excellent choice as he is a developer who has been calling for reason and mutual discussion – something which seems very much in the spirit of your panel. You might also try Total Biscuit, or Liana Kerzner who are both (especially the latter) kind of outsiders who have stayed pretty independent and not really lost their cool. Both reasonable people.
Fellow shitlords, stop conforming to this preconceived notion of identity – it’s not a win but a ridiculous compromise.
Keep emailing and doing the damage we’re doing without this shitshow of ‘fairness’.
Who the fuck gave this guy permission to be devil’s advocate?
While not affiliated with GamerGate I feel that john Bain aka TotalBiscuit would be a worthy participant in this panel.
I recommend Oliver campbell, Sargon of Akkad, and Milo Yiannopoulos.
Get TotalBiscuit aka John Bain, one of largest Youtube videogame critics, eminently reasonable fellow and a Gamer with capital G. I suggest you watch his interview with David Pakman on Youtube if you want to get a feel for where he is coming from.
I vote @olivercampbell for GG
– Prominent GG voice
– Former Game Journo
– Maker of NotYourShield
– Knows Code of Ethics
Inb4 Arthur Chu calls for another ”it ends tonight” scenario with this podcast ending with a bomb threat like from #GGinDC
Maybe we’ll finally see Milo vs. Anita? Oh I’d love that, improbably as it may be.
Milo Yiannopoulos, Sargon of Akkad and Christina Sommers seem to represent us well, a diverse group of people with diverse views.
Thank you for giving this a fair hearing. It’s all many of us have asked for in these eight months, I would nominate Sargon of Akkad (@Sargon_of_Akkad) or Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) as I believe they can represent GamerGate the most.
Thank you for your time!
-Raven Hawke (@RavenHawke22)
John ” totalbiscuit ” Bain is a good person to ask having a background in law and game journalism. plus he’s a brit and could use some miami sunshine.
my picks for pro gamergate would be in no particular order:
1. Milo Yiannopoulos @nero (associate editor at Breitbart)
2. Oliver Campbell @oliverbcampbell (ex games journalist)
3. William Usher @WilliamUsherGB (journalist)
as for the anti-gamergte side (these 3 journalists are responsible for crafting the narrative that gamergate is only a group harassing women)
1. Ben Kuchera @BenKuchera (senior opinion editor at Polygon)
2. Leigh Alexander @LeighAlexander (former Editor-at-Large and News Editor for Gamasutra)
3. Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo (editor-in-chief for Kotaku)
You can email or shoot me a message over twitter (@piefke4) if you need any additional information on why exactly these people.
Also consider Alison Tieman and Karen straughan.
I agree 100% with @InvisibleJimBSH
1. Sargon of Akkad (youtube name)
2. Milo Yiannopoulos
3. Oliverb Campbell
And about the “I’m going to be courteous and fair to whoever you hate” part. The more hatred, the better!
The big problem GG has is that the head people of multiple movements that put GG in the shadow for their own gain, refuse to debate. They only talk in 1 side talks “Listen and beleive” aka L(is)ten (a)nd Be(lie)ve. GG is always blocked, ignored, removed and then projected as pure evil, so they don’t have to awnser to their bullshit.
If you get any of these hated people on a spot where they have to reply to our critism and vise versa. It would break the wall inbetween down and get the truth more to the top.
William Usher should definitely be on the panel. He’s the game journo who leaked the existence (and much of the contents) of a game journalism equivalent of the Journolist. He’s also provided significant insight into specific instances of collusion and corruption in the industry. Milo Yiannopolous would be another good option.
Christina Hoff Sommers and Milo Yiannopoulos Vs Anita Sarkeesian and Ben Kuchera
Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Sommers, Oliver Campbell and Sargon of Akkad
Here’s my suggestion for a gamergate committee:
Total Biscuit
Mercedes Carrera
Oliver Campbell
Christina Hoff Summers
Sargon of Akkad
Milo Yiannopoulos
To be honest, we’ve avoided having anything in the way of leaders (or representatives) since the beginning for a couple reasons, the primary two being that being a leader/rep makes the individual a prime target for harassment; several Youtube personalities and bloggers were forced to stop supporting GG either through continued, targeted harassment or threats of violence against family members (or both). However, TotalBiscuit, a YouTuber who reviews video games, has talked about GamerGate before, and has firsthand experience of the sorts of practices that have become commonplace in the games industry, despite them being of questionable ethics, at best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaMccosnRMc
Cheers for giving us a fair go mate, I’d say Christina Sommers, Sargon of Akkad and Brad Wardell would be the most interesting perspectives to represent us.
Christina offers a valuable look in from the outside as someone who isn’t really into gaming but has offered support against what she sees as very radical feminists.
Sargon gives a kind of average #GamerGate supporter view, he’s a gamer just like the rest.
Brad Wardell offers a very useful perspective since he is both the CEO of a game development company and has been the victim of the kind of bad journalism GamerGate has gone out of their way to expose when in 2012 he was branded a sexual harasser by a variety of gaming sites without evidence which led to several death threats against him, his wife and his children.
Good luck convincing any of the profligates who created this debacle to enter a debate. They prefer intimidation and payoffs.
I believe the following people will be able to give you a very clear assessment of the issues at hand:
@sargon_of_akkad
@mundanematt
@playdangerously
@nero
If we believe this is legitimate we have plenty more we need to share with you about this.
Thank you for your time.
The question is, what kind of debate it should be.
If you want to have a debate about “toxic” twitter culture and the culture war in General, peoepl like Christina Hoff Summers and Milo Yannopolis would be good candidates.
If the emphazisis should be on ethics (which IMO most within GamerGate would prefer…but I could be wrong) in Gaming Jornalism, people like William Usher and Oliver Campbell or the better candidates.
Beside that, there should be a actual developer like Mark Kern or Sargon of Akkad participating, to state how gaming media influences them, and why a fair media is vital to the Gaming Industry as a whole.
One candidate, who would be more on the neutral side, is Alexander Marcis, the General Manager of The Escapist Magazine, who actually reformed is publication pretty thouroughly (http://supernerdland.com/the-business-of-games-journalism-a-conversation-with-alexander-macris/)
Read this article and you will get an inkling of what caused GamerGate. http://kotaku.com/a-different-way-to-respond-to-a-rape-accusation-update-1605542083
Bonus points if you listen to this conversation https://soundcloud.com/ben-kuchera/jaffe-confrontation
I’d like to recommend David Auerbach who writes for Slate, as well.
First: thanks for doing this. Second, I would nominate myself as a panel member but all the above suggestions are much much better and I’m a late addition to #gamergate, having only just learned of it via #sadpuppies (I’m a Science fiction author). I’m still learning. So there are better qualified folks and I totally second ALL the suggestions you received so far! live in the southeast (South Carolina) so if you need a backup for this panel I volunteer!
Thank you for giving us a fair chance! We never asked for more.
I vote for Milo Yiannopoulos, Sargon of Akkad, Christina H. Sommers, John Bain/TotalBiscuit and Oliver Campbell. I’m more than happy if they represent the Gamergate side.
As for the other side of the debate, Anita Sarkeesian, or anyone from Polygon and Kotaku. Maybe Jim Sterling.
Best regards!
Milo or Sargon would also be my top 2 picks.
Thanks a lot guys.
For pro people, Sargon of akkad, Oliver campbell, The Hat2
Positive neutrals, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christian Hoff Sommers, MundaneMatt
Neutrals that at least get the ethics part, John Bain – “TB”
First of all, thank you for the consideration on hearing the GamerGate side of things. My vote for the five people are as follows:
Sushilulu (Stephanie Greene)
Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin)
Christina Hoff Sommers
Oliver Campbell
TotalBiscuit (John Bain)
These are all articulate people — who have in depth knowledge of gaming and GamerGate — and who can also touch on the angle in which GamerGate has been attacked from.
I will throw up a +1 for Sargon to speak for Gamergate, he’s very level-headed most of the time and, in my opinion, the most capable of real impartiality. I’ve seen him defend Fox news ffs, and then I found myself agreeing with him because he made a really good, impartial case for their defence. I would happily let him represent me any day.
Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, Oliver Campbell are my top 3 suggestions.
Others would include @Sargon_of_Akkad, TotalBiscuit, Mark Kern, Jennifer Dawe, Mercedes Carrera, William Usher, Brad Wardell, @Daddywarpig and the list never ends.
Thank you for going to all this trouble. My suggestions are
Milo Yiannopoulos (pro)
William Usher (pro)
John Bain (semi-pro?)
Sargon of Akkad (pro)
Given that you are with the SPJ, I am guessing you are less interested in all the politics surrounding the issue, but if you’re not, you could certainly consider
Christina Hoff Sommers (pro)
and
Mercedes Carrera (pro)
Much as I would love to see Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu (being our most vocal opponents) be in a position of having to defend their viewpoints under scrutiny, the first would never agree, and the second won’t agree to something like this after being caught off-gaurd by Pakman’s interview. Also, it would probably just result in the whole thing going off the rails in terms of relevancy. There are a whole lot of people who have been quite vocally against gamergate, but the only person I can think of who makes sense to have in a debate or on a panel is
Stephen Totilo (anti)
Other possibilities include:
Leigh Alexander (anti)
and
Ben Kuchera (anti)
or…pretty much anyone from any of the mainstream gaming press.
I don’t know if you’re considering having more neutral people, but I would strongly suggest
Liana Kerzner (neutral)
if you are.
Thanks again
Sargon of Akkad
Milo Yiannoppolous
Cathy Young
Christina Hoff Sommers
TotalBiscuit
@oliverbcampbell or @tvtokyoben or @scrumpmonkey or @libertarianblue would be good candidates.
It seems we kinda agree on most representatives… This seems to be more important to me than elections in my own country. Might even wander into KiA section for the first time because of it… this is big thing now!
well here is my wishlist of people
Milo Yiannopoulos
Oliver Campbell
William Usher
Sargon of Akkad
Brad Wardell
Christina Sommers
As mentioned, I highly doubt you will be able to organize any type of debate. Our opposition seems to only want the home-field advantage comfort zone.
Brad Wardell @draginol is an excellent choice, as he has first hand experience of being a developer that was harassed, doxed and attacked by the media. Seemed quite okay if you’re a male without best friends in the press.
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yiannopolous
– William Usher
– Christina H. Sommers
are also excellent choices.
For the opposition, please try to avoid twitter professionals and try to get people that actually wrote articles calling GamerGate supporters a hate group and all the other vile labels used.
Off the top of my head:
Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell)
Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers)
Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero)
Sargon of Akkad (@Sargon_of_Akkad)
Mark Kern (@Grummz)
Jennifer Dawe (@GMShivers)
Mercedes Carrera (@TheMercedesXXX)
Georgina Young (@georgieonthego)
Jennie Bharaj (@JennieBharaj)
Daddy Warpig (@Daddy_Warpig)
Why has no one suggested Cathy young :s?
I’d also suggest myself as one of the anons, if it means I’d have to put of the mask so be it, if it requires travel it won’t be possible for me.
“So far, the worst a GamerGater has called me is a “snooty hipster” (which is, I believe, redundant).”
I like you already.
______________
Sargon of Akkad (Carl Newman, I think) and Milo Yiannapoulos would be the most obvious picks.
Sargon is well-respected within GamerGate in general, and pretty well-informed on the particular ethics breaches in question.
Milo is well-informed as well, though maybe not as broadly. He was however the one who leaked the mailing-list “GameJournosPro” which you will no doubt have heard about by now.
C.H.Sommers is not so well informed on the particular ethics breaches as far as I know, she is more focused on an academic discussion within modern feminism.
Another good speaker on the general issue would be the well-known youtuber Totalbiscuit. Although he does not keep up on everyday events as much as Sargon, for example, his opinion is well-respected on the ethics subject, inside and outside of GamerGate.
Jennie Bharaj would be another pick, since she started her own independent Game-Review-Site in a Rotten Tomatoes format. I do not know how well that project went though.
Liz O’GingerMcIrish might be a possible pick, though I do not know if she is willing to speak in the GamerGate discussion again. She retreated from the argument after having been doxxed.
_______________
For the opposition, the biggest score of all would be Anita Sarkeesian, or her affiliate John McIntosh, though both have only tangentially to do with journalism.
For a neutral position, you might contact the editors of GamesNosh, Techraptor, and TheEscapist. They have been pretty levelled on the whole affair, and TheEscapist in particular has changed its position slightly in favor of GG, since the beginning. They are of particular interest because they were told to censor their forums on the issue by Ben Kuchera of Kotaku on the GameJournosPro mailing-list.
Opposition again:
Nathan Grayson,
Ben Kuchera,
Patricia Hernandez,
Leigh Alexander,
and Stephen Totillo of Kotaku
These persons are very central to the discussion in different ways. Some of them are the ones implicated in very un-ethical behavior, and might want to take the opportunity to defend their position.
Do not, under any and all circumstances, get Brianna Wu into the discussion.
She is completely irrelevant to the Journalistic Ethics side of the discussion, and thus completely un-interesting to the people of GamerGate.
Lastly, a representative of the IGDA, or maybe two to three, would be interesting to have in the discussion.
Derek Smart comes to mind, he has been sympathetic to GGs arguments in the last weeks.
Kate Edwards would be interesting to have, a clear opponent of GG,
as well as the head of the Puerto Rican IGDA-branch, which was closed after the main branch started using the GGautoblocker, blocking their own people in the process.
Thanks so much for taking a look at the discussion that the people of GamerGate want to have!
Thank you for going to all this trouble. My suggestions are
Milo Yiannopoulos (pro)
William Usher (pro)
John Bain (semi-pro?)
Sargon of Akkad (pro)
Given that you are with the SPJ, I am guessing you are less interested in all the politics surrounding the issue, but if you’re not, you could certainly consider
Christina Hoff Sommers (pro)
and
Mercedes Carrera (pro)
Much as I would love to see Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu (being our most vocal opponents) be in a position of having to defend their viewpoints under scrutiny, the first would never agree, and the second won’t agree to something like this after being caught off-gaurd by Pakman’s interview. Also, it would probably just result in the whole thing going off the rails in terms of relevancy. There are a whole lot of people who have been quite vocally against gamergate, but the only person I can think of who makes sense to have in a debate or on a panel is
Stephen Totilo (anti)
Other possibilities include:
Leigh Alexander (anti)
and
Ben Kuchera (anti)
or…pretty much anyone from any of the mainstream gaming press.
I don’t know if you’re considering having more neutral people, but I would strongly suggest
Liana Kerzner (neutral)
if you are.
Thanks again
The standing media narrative about #GamerGate being an harassment movement began with and centers around three women: Chelsea “Zoe Quinn” Val Valkenberg, Anita Sarkeesian, and Brianna Wu. All three claimed to have fled their homes at one point or another and that they are in fear for their lives, and it is on this core basis that the media has taken their word at little more than face value.
None of the three have ever had to present serious evidence that #GamerGate is behind any harassment they have received, much less that any threats are credible. Indeed, the FBI has so far debunked all such threats they’ve investigated as non-credible. The ONLY instance of a threat which the FBI has requested police to act upon was the bomb threat in Washington DC, AGAINST #GamerGate.
Giving these three women the opportunity to solidify or withdraw their allegations, rather than continue to treat them in the same fashion as “Jackie” from the Rolling Stone’s UVA campus-rape article, is essential to allowing discourse to move beyond the “harassment movement” narrative.
#GamerGate will never be resolved so long as its members continue to be slandered and ignored as the “dangerous” people they simply are not.
Through you asked for pro-gamergate people, I will suggest also some neutral journalists who seem to be embraced by most in gamergate:
* Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63)
* Georgina Young (@georgieonthego)
* Erik Kain maybe? (@erikkain)
Personally, I like also Liana Kerzner as neutral too, but she is more controversial – she was attacked by both sides and tend to function as magnet for extremists. You might want to check her out too, to get fuller picture.
Mark Kern (@Grummz) is neutral too and he is more interested in topics of censorship then journalism itself.
Pro-gamergate on top of head (those who spoken about journalism itself e.g. not feminism or censorship or other related issues):
* John Bain (@totalbiscuit)
* Brad Wardell
* William Usher
* Oliver Campbell
Other: Stephanie Greene (@Sushilulutwitch) wrote about blocklist, so I am not so sure it falls strictly into journalism.
I was trying to avoid people who spoken more about sub-topics of feminism or censorship. All those topics are unfortunately interlinked and mixed right now.
First off, thank you!
Second, I’d like to say that #GamerGate is by its nature a leaderless movement. While some people are more and better spoken than others, they in no way can be truly representative of the whole and also are not “leaders” in the sense of commanding other people. They are simply people with their own thoughts and opinions.
That said, I’d like to hear from game developer Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), games critic John Bain (Total Biscuit), and scholar Christina Hoff Sommers.
I’d also say that many of the suggests I’ve seen so far would also be excellent.
Thanks.
Mundane Matt would be another interesting choice. Other than that, Christina Hoff Sommers, Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yanopolis (last name spelled wrong) and Mark Kern or Total Biscuit would be interesting choices.
As for people to investigate, Anita Sarkesian is extremely suspicious as is her partner Jonathon McKintosh. Gawker is another subject to look out for and so are organizations such as DIGRA. There’s going to be suggestions for lesser known people like Brianna Wu and Arthur Chu but they are red herrings in all of this. If you stay on course you’ll be sure to find lots of dirt.
I can not thank you enough for being willing to give us this opportunity. The top people I could see as being true representatives with the knowledge to be able to debate and discuss these issues are:
1. Total biscuit (John Bain) @totalbiscuit
2. Saargon of Akkad @saargonofakkad
3. Oliver Campbell @olivercampbell (?)
4. Christina Sommers @chsommers
5. Milo yiannopolis (I probably butchered his last name) @nero
Thanks again.
another thing, please oh please do not include an SJW, what is an SJW, it’s basically an extremist with left with authoritarian social justice views, instead of getting a discussion about ethics you’d end up with a panel of shit flinginging and accusations
Oliver Campbell @oliverbcampbell (ex games journalist)
William Usher @WilliamUsherGB (journalist)
John Bain @TotalBiscuit (youtuber and commentator)
Mark Kern @grummz (Veteran AAA Game developer)
I’d recommend Oliver Campbell and Sargon.
Also, if we a speaking about ethics this has nothing to do with eceleb nonsense. Our main opponents are video game journalists, and it is these people that have been unwilling to discuss this issue. Inviting someone like Kluwe or Chu would only serve to further detail the conversation away from ethics. This has been their MO all along. These people have nothing to do with ethical concerns in games journalism.
Invite someone like Ben Kuchera or Jason Schreier. Someone that actually has SOMETHING to do with the issue at hand.
I’m just here to add my voice to the previous recommendations for
@Nero, @WilliamUsherGB, @oliverbcampbell ,@SargonOfAkkad, @TotalBiscuit, @CHSommers, @Grummz and @draginol
It should be easy to put together a panel from among that selection, and they cover journalism, gaming (both as gamers and as industry workers) and academia, as well as a diverse range of political views.
For the other side, I doubt any will agree to a panel like this, but I’d like to see @BenKuchera, @stephentotilo, @botherer (John Walker) and @leighalexander.
A representative from a non-gaming outlet would also be good. The Guardian have been vocally ‘anti-GG’, as, I’m sure, have some US media outlets.
I’d add
Alexander Macris (@archon)
to the list, a journalist/editor at The Escapist Magazine. He is neither pro, nor anti, but very reasonable. You can check out the Escapist Magazine’s articles on the subject.
I would also recommend
Total Biscuit (@Totalbiscuit) — again, not a pro-GamerGater, neither an anti-gamergater, but he is a very strong proponent of ethics and the consumer advocacy.
I hope I don’t offend any of the people I’d like to mention in this comment. It’s not my intention to throw anyone under the bus, I’d just like to provide some names of people whose voices I’ve gravitated towards.
Oliver Campbell: https://twitter.com/oliverbcampbell
A level headed gent who I, as a gay man, have a great deal of respect for because of his involvement in the #NotYourShield hashtag. GamerGate’s attempt to show how the media’s portrayal of GamerGate as only white men is untrue and to dispel a media disseminated myth that GamerGate minorities are fake ‘Sock Puppet’ accounts. In reality, GamerGate actually contains numerous women as well as racial, gender and sexual minorities. https://youtu.be/tzwGIHUCtjU
TotalBiscuit: https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit
Although not someone who identifies himself as a GamerGate supporter, John “TotalBiscuit” Bain has always had a strong focus on ethical conduct in games coverage and has become popular amongst GamerGate supporters for this reason. He has been interviewed by The David Packman Show as well as hosted an interview with Kotaku.com EIC Stephen Totilo.
Mark Kern and The League4Gamers: https://twitter.com/League4Gamers
Mark Kern is a video game industry veteran who over the past few months has become far more interested in the portrayal of gamers by the Gaming Enthusiast Press and in recent weeks has actually chosen to leave active game development to focus more on advocacy for games and gamers with his group, League4Gamers.
That’s only 3 folks, but I think that might be a good start. I don’t want to write a whole book here!
Thank you Mr. Koretzky for taking the time to simply listen to what some of us have to say. Hope my contribution helps.
GG Reps:
@Nero
@Sargon_of_Akkad
@oliverbcampbell
@CHSommers
@Totalbiscuit
aGG Reps:
@FemFreq
@srhbutts
@radicalbytes
@arthur_affect
@BenKuchera
Hi Michael, thank you so much for giving us the time to speak about the issues that Gamergate has presented, personally it means a lot to me that you took the time to do this.
From people who you would like to talk to i would suggest a few who have been supporting Gamergate for quiet some time such as
Christina H. Sommers – a feminist scholor who is a former philosophy professor
Milo Yiannopoulos – A journalist who exposed the corruption of the gaming journalists
Mark Kern – A developer behind Diablo 2 and World of Warcraft
Totalbiscuit – A youtuber who we believe will replace the corrupt journalists in the future
The Fine Young Capitalists – A developer group assigned to create more development opportunities for women in gaming
Oliver Campbell – A fiction writer and ex journalist
Jennie Bharaj – The creator of an upcoming game news outlet
Mercedes Carrera – An adult porn actress and a former woman in stem
I appreciate the gesture of wanting a dialogue between the people who support Gamergate and the people who are against it, however the people who are against it do not seem to want to talk, at all.
There is Jonathan Mcintosh who blocks anyone who criticizes him and calls them misogynists.
Sam Biddle – Who works at Gawker who stated that every gamer should be “bullied into submission”
Jason Schreier – Who is an editor at Kotaku who claimed that “objectivity is a silly thing to strive for”
Ben Kuchera – User of the blockbot writer for polygon, starts threatening devs when they retweet a supporter of Gamergate (even if the tweet is unrelated to gamergate)
Kate Edwards – The executive director of the International Game Developers AssociationWho stated she wants discussion with Gamergate but uses but uses the blockbot.
There are probably a lot more submissions of people who we would like to have a dialogue with, and i truly wish you find someone who is against Gamergate who wants to talk with us, but since i’ve been here for 8 months i doubt anyone will.
We don’t really do ‘leaders’. That’s part of the point. Selecting speakers sails a little close to that and by avoiding that we’ve managed to keep going successfully. However, I would suggest Oliver Campbell, Sargon, Chris Kern (even though he’s ostensibly neutral), Allistair Pinsoff could give useful perspective (though again, ostensibly neutral), Jennie Bharaj, Allison Tieman, Mercedes Carrera. There’s actually too many good people.
Forgot to add, Mercedes Carrera (@TheMercedesXXX) convinced me in her interviews with Pakman. She also keeps the debate rational and factual even when asked uncomfortable questions and she is good at answering them.
Her job may make her more controversial then she would be otherwise, she is porn actress. Through, that should not be related and her opinions are worth listening to.
Considering I am the leader of Gamergate (“and so can you!”) I humbly nominate myself even though everyone else is nominating the people who are already well-known.
What about Super Bunnyhop? He is a Journalist and made a video about ethics in video game journalism talking with a professor of journalism:
And also:
William Usher
Mercedes Carrera
Brad Wardell
MundaneMatt
Mark Kern.
Thanks for hearing us out and your willingness to discuss instead of insult.
I’d like to recommend the following for a GG committee:
-Christina Sommers
-TotalBiscuit (John Bain)
-Milo Yiannopoulos
-Brad Wardell
-Mark Kern
At least two on this list don’t identify as GG but have sympathies with the movement, which would help provide some balance. They’ve all played a crucial part in events surrounding GG and TB & Kern are notable for attempting to foster dialogue in the gaming community on the issues GG is centered on.
Thank you for being willing to undertake this task.
On the suggestions of potential panelists to represent the sides:
Pro:
-Sargon of Akkad
-Milo Yiannopoulos
-CHSommers
-Oliver Campbell
-Cathy Young
-John Bain (Total Biscuit)
-@ProfessorF
Mercedes Carrera would be a good choice too, though I find she is more emotional – though that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Anti:
-Ian Miles Cheong (Has shown he’s willing to admit he’s wrong and call out prats on all sides)
-Anita Sarkeesian/John MacIntosh
-Zoe Quinn
-Stephen Totillo
I would not suggest Brianna Wu at all. Every time I’ve seen her responding to critical questions, she’s deflected, acted like she’s being insulted and gone on to attack to interviewer. I do not feel she would be able to defend her position without resorting to these tactics.
Should this event take place, I do hope you record and stream it, and I wish you the best of luck. I’ve found it extremely sad that SPJ has seemingly stuck its head in the sand on this issue, despite the flagrant betrayals of the standards it represents by the media at large.
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yiannopolous
– Christina H. Sommers
– William Usher
– Brad Wardell
– Oliver Campbell
Milo Yiannopoulos – @Nero
William Usher – @WilliamUsherGB
Oliver Campbell – @oliverbcampbell
Mark Kern – @Grummz
Christina H. Sommers – @CHSommers
Since no one suggested him, @Brian_TGA would be a good insight too as he’s done gamergate presentations in schools.
My picks for this would be Mark Kern, Brad Wardell and Oliver Campbell.
TotalBiscuit is not directly a part of GamerGate but shares most if not all of its goals, my guess is that he’ll be open for a debate too.
Christina Sommers,
Milo Yiannopoulos,
Sargon of Akkad,
TotalBiscuit
As far as opponents, that is a tough one that other people have already answered
Milo Yannopolous
Twitter: @Nero
UK Journalist who writes for pro-GamerGate
Christina Hoff Sommers
Twitter: @CHSommers
US Professor and Feminist who
Oliver Campbell
Twitter: @oliverbcampbell
Former Game Journo, creator of sister hashtag #NotYourShield, ethics expert
John Bain
Twitter: @Totalbiscuit
Pro-GG spokerperson and concerned with ethics and pro-consumer
Carl Wilkinson
Twitter: @Sargon_of_Akkad
GamerGate spokerperson / youtuber
William Usher
Twitter: @WilliamUsherGB
#GamerGate ethics investigator / exposer of unethical press
I will have to echo a lot of people here in saying…
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yiannopolous
– Christina H. Sommers
– William Usher
– Oliver Campbell
Other that PRO GG personalities, I would like to see their opinions contrasted by game journalists such as:
-Ben Kuchera (senior opinion editor at Polygon)
-Leigh Alexander (former Editor (at large?) from gamasutra, founder of Outworld)
-Jason Schreier (News Editor for Kotaku)
-Brian Crecente (news editor for Polygon)
-Stephen Totilo (Kotaku IEC)
@HoneyBadgerBite + @TheMercedesXXX + Christina H. Sommers + Otter Jesus @andrewgleason vs. J. McIntosh+Anita S. of @femfreq + Arthur Chu + @srhbutts
BTW you’re awesome for doing this. Fair coverage is what we’ve been asking for since the beginning.
I believe to discuss Journalism in gaming, someone with experience in that field should do it- Alistair Pinsof(@megaspacepanda), William Usher(@WilliamUsherGB), Oliver B. Campbell(@oliverbcampbell) and John Bain(@totalbiscuit).
For someone who has talked about ethics in journalism long before Gamergate, and isn’t specifically “pro-gamergate”:
@RAZ0RFIST
For some context:
For representatives, I nominate two journalists: @georgieonthego and @lizzyf620.
I vote for one Oliver Campbell. https://medium.com/@oliverbcampbell/considering-who-the-social-justice-warrior-is-and-how-they-potentially-came-to-be-an-old-ideology-65d5c7cdf083
Well I would say from Gamergate the most important members you could bring in are: Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Summers, Georgina Young of techraptor, Alistar Pinsoff, and Sargon of Akkad, all these people are very well versed in the situation and as an added bonus Milo, Georgina, and Pinsoff all have deep ties in journalism.
As for Anti-Gamergate, I’d say Ian Miles Cheong, Stephen Totillo, Anita Sarkeesian, Quinn, and Johnathan McIntosh (as to why I only put Quinn’s last name, my keyboard is broken and it cannot type the 26th letter of the alphabet and I’m on a laptop so replacing is hard.)
Otherwise I would recommend William Usher, John Bain, Oliver Campbell, Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock who was affected by a false sexual harassment scandal ala Rolling Stone) or Liza K(https://twitter.com/redlianak)
@Sargon_of_akkad
@Totalbiscuit
@Grummz
@nero
1. Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin (@Sargon_of_Akkad): http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Sargon_of_Akkad
2. John “TotalBiscuit” Bain (@Totalbiscuit): http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=TotalBiscuit
3. Oliver Campbell @oliverbcampbell
4. Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero): http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Milo_Yiannopoulos
5. William Usher (@WilliamUsherGB): http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=William_Usher
Some women that I think would be awesome at representing GamerGate:
Jennifer Dawe @GMShivers
Mercedes Carrera @TheMercedesXXX
June @shoe0nhead
Jennie Bharaj @JennieBharaj
Liz Fogarty @lizzyf620
Ivy @IvyTwisted
Julie @milky_candy
I’ll second the recommendation of David Auerbach. He has been unfailingly fair and professional when dealing with the subject.
You guys do realize that as “opponent” they mean corrupt journalists right?
Why do you keep suggesting Anita, Cheong and other twitter personalities / con-artists who have nothing to do with corrupt journalism?
Keep this ON TOPIC please.
I’m going to assume since this is SPJ the topics will remain about journalism ethics as they pertain to GamerGate & won’t include other socio-political issues.
If that’s the case, I’d like to suggest the following as of now.
Pro:
@Totalbiscuit <—-(An absolute must)
@Sargon_of_Akkad
@LibertarianBlue
@olivercampbell
@Nero
If I could chose 6, my 6 would be.
@WilliamUsherGB
Anti-side: (I doubt most of them would agree).
Stephen Totillo
Ben Kuchura
Leigh Alexander
Nathan Grayson
Kyle Orland
GamerGate Proponents Top5:
– Sargon of Akkad – New Media / Indie Dev
– Milo Yiannopolous – Editor/Journalist (Breitbart)
– Christina H. Sommers – Researcher / Feminist
– Brad Wardell – Developer (Have huge problems still with misrepresentation due to unethical conduct by various media, articles now retracted mostly)
– John Bain (Total Biscuit) – New Media
GamerGate Proponents Alternatives:
– Mercedes Carrera – Porn Actress, proponent of free speech
– Oliver Campbell – Journalist
– Allum Bokhari – Journalist
– William Usher – Journalist
– Justice Tunner – OWS – Have dealt with SJWs & Media misrepresentation before.
Neutrals
– Mark Kern – World of Warcraft lead designer, proponent of free speech & artistic freedom
– David Auerbach – Journalist
GamerGate Detractors Top 5
Ben Kuchera – Journalist (Polygon, formerly editor)
Stephen Totillo – Editor (Kotaku, Gawker)
Leigh Alexander – formerly Gamasutra (now Offworld, BoingBoing)
Kate Edwards – Commissioned blacklist (IGDA)
Anita Sarkeesian – (Accused GG of doing various things seemingly based on a feeling)
GamerGate Detractors Alternatives:
Jason Schreider – Kotaku(Gawker)
Nathan Greyson – Kotaku(Gawker, Involved in the scandal)
Sam Bidler – Gawker(likes to bully nerds, cost gawker a million+ dollars)
Randi Harper – Creator of blacklists
John Walker – Rock, Paper, Shotgun
Hi, given the plethora of comments so far I’ve failed to see a single example of a pro-#GamerGate representative that wouldn’t work out. You can’t go wrong with any of them.
However(and I do dread using “but” in this context) those who are opposed to GamerGate do not wish for discussion. An example that came up was Kate Edwards who claims to want discussion and that GamerGate does not yet using the blocklist. Now if you can get her to represent the opposing side and maybe at least one of the women who claimed to have been harassed(doubtful they would agree) as well, so we can get the counterclaims out of the way as well.
Also thank you for taking your time and I am using my real name.
Let me go out on a limb and suggest something: Actually do an article of your own work on this topic. The concept of a debate panel, of trying to place a face to the movement, is nothing. It’s meaningless. There are countless facts never reported on, and instead we get these talking head pieces where opinions fly but no facts are driven home.
What about the video of Anita, long before Tropes Vs. Women, speaking about how she doesn’t play video games, and has no interest in them, yet in her Kickstarter claimed to be a lifelong gamer? What about the fact that her videos are still not done, several years after their scheduled end date? How about the fact that all of this sudden fame has led to a lucrative speaking career? Why are these questions never asked? Where is the story on that?
What about GameJournoPros, the list of games journalists who communicated privately, and often influenced one another? What about the numerous brand deals these sites make with large publishers? What about the UK awards show where journalists could enter to win free merchandise by providing the show publicity? Where is that story from the mainstream?
I could sit here for hours, listing item after item that the mainstream press refused to cover because “video games”, or that they simply took the word of a games media rife with corruption and collusion. There are videos of games journalists stating they have a clear agenda, and refuse to report honestly, yet here you are, offering a change for GamerGate to prove itself.
I said it before, I’ll say it again, we have. We’ve held steadfast as the mainstream media, as the feminist and as even average citizens spat on us. You want to prove that you’re about ethics? Ask for evidence. We’ll provide it in spades. Vet the evidence, and make your report, good, bad or otherwise. It’s your turn to prove your worth, not ours.
Thank you so much for this opportunity. This is the arena we wanted to speak in from the very beginning. Nobody wanted to get embroiled in a culture war with a group of radicals. We just wanted the people covering our hobby to adhere to some reasonable standards.
In addition to the excellent names already mentioned, I’d like to nominate @GMShivers, for her perspective as a game developer, and as the person behind #Solution6Months, an initiative to get people to learn game development (or any skill) in response to the #GamerGate fiasco.
Opponents should be chosen from those fighting to maintain or excuse their unethical behavior I.e. corrupt journalists not LWs whom GG was never about. Many good proponents have been named. Opponents should be chosen from the list of GJPs that are still claiming they don’t need ethics. Please do not had irrelevant people (to GG) like Chu, Wu, Sarkeesian et al.
People that I would like to see representing anti-GamerGate in a discussion with GamerGate:
Jonathan McIntosh @radicalbytes
Ben Kuchera @BenKuchera
Anita Sarkeesian @femfreq
Rebecca Watson @rebeccawatson
GamerGate is a leaderless movement.
I don’t believe that naming people as representative of GamerGate is necessarily the best course of action, as even the most vocal GamerGate supporters have detractors. Part of the problem is those within the GamerGate movement disagree on the best course of action.
That is, from my perspective, GamerGate as a whole wants a greater degree of accountability and transparency for writers/bloggers/journalists where it relates to product reviews and recommendations. Particularly where the writer has a relationship of any kind with the subject of the text. (personal or financial)
Further, I perceive that GamerGate want to reduce or eliminate potential conflicts of interest between publications and advertisers. (Jeff Gerstman’s firing over the Kane & Lynch Review comes to mind) to allow the writer the highest degree of freedom to cover a topic as objectively as possible.
Also, I perceive that GamerGate as a whole reacts extremely negatively to any form of censorship of opinion. Both of the original Author and in the response to the Author.
Finally, GamerGate accepts (and to an extent encourages) anonymity. That is: no one cares who someone claims to be, but judges one solely on the content provided.
In sum:
1. Transparency, disclosure, and accountability of writers and publications to their readers, not their publishers.
2. The Reduction or eliminations of potential conflicts of interest between publishers and advertisers.
3. Minimal Moderation of opinion so as to promote a free and open exchange of ideas.
4. Accepting Anonymity and Identification of Commentators and Authors, so as to focus on content which can be discussed objectively and not devolve into “Well that’s just like, your opinion, man.”
____________
What this means is that you have certain subgroups within GamerGate who disagree about both the means and the ends of the movement. Some people shitpost (that is, are critical without proposing a solution to their criticism)(Think Socratic Gadflys at best), others write letters to developers and government entities ( e.g. Rebuildinitiative, FTC, Operation DisrespectfulNod). Still others seek out and compile information on Conflicts of Interest (DeepFreeze). Some others have taken the stance that the industry as a whole is beyond saving, and want to metaphorically “crash the narrative with no survivors” (see Baneposting, but don’t quote me on that).
While there is often overlap between many people involved, it’s ultimately up to the individual to decide their level of involvement. Some people got involved at the beginning and are still active, others have stepped down.
Still, If you must have a few names I might suggest contacting the following Twitter users(In no order):
@PlayDangerously
@Sargon_of_Akkad
@MundaneMatt
@TheHat2
@TheLeoPirate
@Nero
____
The list is not meant to be the representatives of GamerGate, but the individuals listed may be able to provide you with a more full and complete picture of GamerGate, which you appear to be looking for, or at least point you in the direction of individuals who could provide you with more information.
I might also suggest (with caution) posting a thread on the /v/ board and /gamergatehq/ boards of 8chan (potentially 4chan as well, but discussion of GamerGate is defacto banned)
_____
As to those who I would like to see confronted:
Feminist Frequency (The organization in entirety, including Anita Sarkeesian, Jonathan McIntosh, and Katherine Cross).
UBM, Gawker Media, Silverstring Media, IGDA
ACES (American Copy Editors Society)
Randi Lee Harper
Sara Nyberg
_____
PS: I’m cautiously skeptical and optimistic.
I have a good list of people Recommended
Pro GamerGate
1. @oliverbcampbell
2. @sargon_of_akkad “Youtube Commentator”
3. @Nero (Milo Yiannopoulos “Breitbart”)
4. @CHSommers (Christina H. Sommers “PHD Feminist)
5. @megaspacepanda (Allistair Pinsof)
6. @ProfessorF ( Prof. Nick Flor )
7. @georgieonthego (Georgina Young “Writes for Tech Raptor and Nichegamer”)
9. @PlayDangerously ( Mike Cernovich “Lawyer” )
10. @WilliamUsherGB ( William Usher )
11 @GMShivers ( Jennifer D’awww “Game Developer” )
12. @girlwriteswhat ( Karen, With the “Honeybadgers” )
13. @Typhonblue (Alison, also with “HoneyBadgers” )
14. @TheMercedesXXX ( Mercedes Carrera “Pornstar” )
15. @ RSG_VILLENA (Game Dev had Experiences with IGDA, also Wrote For Gamastura )
16. @jenniebharaj (Jennie Bharaj “Game Review site BasedGamer)
17. @draginol (Brad Wardell, Was Accused on false information by Ben Kuchera)
18. @erikkain (Had issues due to Ben Kuchera misinformation and tried to ruin her Career
Neutrals
@Totalbiscuit (Neutral, Youtube Game Reviewer 2 Million Subscribers)
@Grummz (Mark Kern “Veteran Game Developer Blizzard”)
@EthanJamesPetty (Ethan James Petty, Neutral )
@League4Gamers (Important to know is Mark Kern’s Group)
List of Journalists that is in the GameJournosPro List
1. Nathan Grayson (Failed to Disclose his Relationship within his Writing)
2. Sam Biddle (Encouraged Bullying to a Anti Bullying Event)
3. Leigh Alexander (Coined the Gamers are dead Articles with others in the GameJournosPro List, as well as Threaten Careers of her Co workers, also has a Drinking problem)
4. Ben Kuchera ( General and unprofessional Behaviour as well as threatening Career of Individals such as @erikkain
5. Authur Chu (Recent Events from the DC Meet up should be Discussed)
Individuals Worth Addressing
1. Kate Edwards (Head of IGDA, Lied about GamerGate saying it never wanted Dialog as well as Questionable Business Practices, Including a Blockbot that is a Industry Blacklist, RougeStar is willing to discuss)
2. Anita Sarkeesian and Jonathan McIntosh (Critics that tend to Slander other individals, but they mainly focus on Censoring Opinions that Disagree with them entirely and cuts Debates on the otherside (Milo attempted a fair Debate with Anita and is willing to pay)
Really, more than anyone, I’d like to see Alexander Macris get in on this.
Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yiannopolous and Total Biscuit show a consistent and qualitative understanding of all the core issues of gamergate.
Thank you for delving deeper into gamergate.
This has probably been said already, but my votes are:
Sargon of Akkad (game dev) VS Arthur Chu (editor of Salon)
Christinna Hoff Summers (a femenist) VS Anita Sarkeesian (a femenist)
Milo Yannoupulous (journalist) VS Jonathan McIntosh (Anita’s boss)
Ralph (journo from the ralph retort) VS Brianna Wu (game dev)
Jim (Mr. Metokur, a youtuber) VS Ben Kuchera (Polygon)
@Sargon_of_Akkad Is pretty much required to be there. this is not optional. He is knowledgeable, articulate, and best of all, he has a banging British accent.
Brad and/or Mark, Developers should definitely be represented
And since she is supposed to be a representative of the industry, Kate Edwards needs to put up to shut up with this talk of wanting a dialogue but being amongst the first to jump on the block list, and backing official IGDA support of it
Though it’s near impossible to maintain a concise list of people who could effectively represent all ‘sides’ of the debate surrounding the
GamerGate scandal, I would highly like to see these individuals involved in the panel somehow
To speak on Ethics, I’d nominate
PRO GG
William Usher
Milo Yiannopoulos
Georgina Young
John Bain (TotalBiscuit)
Oliver Campbell
ANTI GG
Brian Crecente
Stephen Totilo
Ian Cheong
Arthur Chu
Ben Kuchera
Leigh Alexander
And David Auerbach, as a near-neutral with great insight on both sides.
To speak on Developers attitudes to the conflict, I’d nominate
Brad Wardell
Rami Ismail
Daniel Vavra
Kate Edwards
Jennifer Dawe
Jonathan Blow
To tackle the ‘Feminism’ side of the megadebate, I’d also love to see
Liana Kerzner (Feminist VG Journo)
Cathy Young (Feminist Columnist)
Anita Sarkeesian (Feminist VG culture critic)
Jonathan McIntosh (Anita’s writer)
I’m sure you’ll be able to fit them all in, but barring an infinite table and unlimited time span this list should hopefully give a push to help find participants😛
Thank you for taking the time to investigate the situation! Remember, beware of those who uses the hashtag but is not in communication with prominent GG figures, as anyone can do this. Including our vested detractors who claim harassment but have been known to impersonate GG or harass themselves (Brianna Wu creating that Brololz account for example, or Quinn posting on Wizardchan impersonating one of their members to stage harassment, which an admin has since confirmed).
I recommend, for the side of #Gamergate:
Milo Yiannopoulos @Nero
Christina Hoff Sommers @CHSommers
Carl Benjamin @Sargon_of_Akkad
Margaret Gel @_icze4r
MundaneMatt @mundanematt
And for the side of #aGGro I agree with the above
Feminist Frequency (The organization in entirety, including Anita Sarkeesian, Jonathan McIntosh, and Katherine Cross).
UBM, Gawker Media, Silverstring Media, IGDA
ACES (American Copy Editors Society)
Randi Lee Harper
Sara Nyberg
The people you should be talking to of anti-gamergate positions won’t be talking to you. If they do, their supporters would call them out for it. It’s not admissible to talk to dirty gamergate supporters.
As such, you won’t be talking to Nathan Grayson, Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Kyle Orland, Kate Edwards or Brianna Wu. Any attempt at fair or neutral coverage will not be supported by any of these people, unfortunately. These journalists and game developers are unwilling to have a discussion, despite their public appearances and statements that gamergate is unwilling to have discussions.
Just yesterday an IGDA member had to go anonymous in order to discuss things with gamergate: http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34vklj/igda_dc_member_and_game_developer_here_to_chat/
Because to talk to gamergate publically is to become socially shunned.
If you did, you would have one of the biggest scoops that is out there right now, waiting to be picked up.
There are many good people who could talk about the issues surrounding gamergate, I would suggest but here are the top five.
Oliver Campbell as he has a good grasp of the subject and is very active in pushing for better ethics, he also is a vocal part of #notyourshield which was a sibling hastag to gamergate which highlighted that many women, minorities and LGBT people supported the push for better ethics and have been continually slandered and their identities erased by both the opponents to gamergate and the media reporting on it.
Christina Hoff Sommers is another I would suggest as she is a feminist scholar who has been arguing against exactly this kind of outrage culture and radical feminism that has been on display throughout this whole episode and she very well knows the way that these people have abused feminist and social justice movements to turn them against gamergate and many others under false pretended.
John Bain (Totalbiscuit) is someone who for the ethics side of the issue is another very good speaker. He has continually pushed for ethical reform and has had an inside view from the start despite not being a supporter of gamergate he admitted to there being serious problems that needed attention
Mark Kern (Grummz) is a veteran game developer who tried to reach out and start discussion between the two sides and was attacked unfairly by the media and opponents of gamergate, he still is neutral but he is sympathetic to the issues raised and has seen evidence of the claims first hand.
And while I have less to say about him I also think Allum Bokhari would be a good choice. He is a journalist and while self admittedly a gamergate supporter he still tries to present the facts around a subject instead of just writing what he thinks they should be
Oliver Campbell, Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yannoupulous, Jenn of Hardwire, Mark Kern.
It depends what you want to discuss?
The things GG have been accused of?
How media have (in our view) wrongly covered GG?
The things GG have uncovered?
General problems we see in the games press?
Not sure how she does in debates, but seemingly well articulate @CultOfVivian could be a good choice that I haven’t seen others post. Another unnamed person (from what I saw anyway) is @ShortFatOtaku which have been doing a lot of digging. And of course @Iribrise who have shown to be good in discussions.
Then of course repeating the same names as others
GGers @Sargon_of_Akkad, @mundanematt, @lizzyf620, @oliverbcampbell and @JennieBharaj
Neutrals: @GMShivers, @redlianak, @archon, @erikkain, @Totalbiscuit, @draginol, @Grummz . And unsure if he want to get involved in GG debate, but can comment on the media games climate: Matt from @TFYCapitalists.
Anti GG: Ben Kuchera, Leigh Alexander, Stephen Totio, Jason Schreier.
Should be noted that several people we’re mentioning is not in the US, and might be in the wrong parts of the US.
Just dropping a second comment to mention some people I’d like to see brought to the other side of this debate.
– Ben Kuchera, Polygon
– Kate Edwards, IGDA
– Jonathan McIntosh, Feminist Frequency
– Jason Schreier, Kotaku
Sargon of Akkad, Mark Kern or TotalBiscuit (should the latter two be up for it, they might not be) would be my picks.
Mercedes Carrera or Christina Sommers are top picks as well, but I think it’s important to pick people mainly known for being gamers or devs for something like this.
I actually vote against Oliver Campbell. I love the guy, and he’s straight as an arrow, but I haven’t liked his performance in past conversations of this kind.
Jennifer Dawe needs to be considered for this.
I have several.
Sargon of Akkad – Though he has recently had a child so it might prove difficult.
Oliver Campbell – An exjouranlist who used to run a gaming site.
Total Biscuit/John Bane – A game critic who knows the industry nearly inside out, he’s also top steam curator and has done several interviews on GamerGate.
I’m going to borrow (read: plagiarize) from B08’s list, which is pretty much what I think, with a few modifications and cut down a bit.
Pro-GG side:
@oliverbcampbell (ex-games Journo)
@Nero (Breitbart Journo extraordinaire)
@draginol (Brad Wardell, Was Accused on false information by Ben Kuchera)
@ProfessorF ( Prof. Nick Flor )
@CHSommers (Christina H. Sommers “PHD Feminist)
@WilliamUsherGB (game journo, member of GameJournoPros list)
Neutral-ish side:
@erikkain (Forbes Journo)
@Totalbiscuit (Neutral, Youtube Game Reviewer 2 Million Subscribers)
@Grummz (Mark Kern “Veteran Game Developer Blizzard”)
@megaspacepanda (ex-games Journo)
@AuerbachKeller David Auerbach – Slate journo
Anti-GG journo side:
Nathan Grayson (Failed to Disclose his Relationship within his Writing)
Leigh Alexander (Coined the Gamers are dead Articles with others in the GameJournosPro List, as well as Threaten Careers of her Co workers, also has a Drinking problem)
Ben Kuchera ( General and unprofessional Behaviour as well as threatening Career of Individals such as @erikkain
Arthur Chu (writes for the Daily Beast)
Kyle Orland – Ars Technica journo
Wow, thanks for giving us a chance! Though if the past 9 months indicate anything, those that are against Gamergate will not appear at all. This has happened countless of times. One of many examples here, where a guy trashes Gamergate, but when a female Gamergate supporter appears, he leaves immediatly:
So, heres hoping you manage to find someone willing to talk for the other side, its going to be difficult. Anyway:
pro-GG:
Oliver Campbell, Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yiannopoulos
neutral: Erik Kain, Liana Kerzner, David Auerbach.
Oops! Forgot one neutral: Mark Kern
Thank you so much for this! You have no idea how much this means to us. Milo, Christina Hoff Summers, Sargon Of Akkad and MundaneMatt. On the opposition, Anita Sarkisian and Arthur Chu.
I am really excited about this. It’s difficult to say who can speak for Pro-GG, but I recommend these ppl:
Sargon of Akkad
Total Biscuit (John Bain)
Oliver Campbell
Milo Yiannopolous (@Nero)
Mark Kern (@grummz)
Christina H. Sommers (liberal feminist)
Mercedes Carrera (porn actress, advocate for free speech)
For Anti-GG, I would suggest these people:
Anita Sarkessian
Jonathan McIntosh (Anita Sarkessian’s writer)
Arthur Chu
Sarah Nyberg (@srhbutts)
Leigh Alexander
Nathan Grayson
Brianna Wu (@spacekatgal)
Katherine Cross (@Quinnae_Moon)
P.S the big fish on the Anti side are Sarkessian, McIntosh, and Nyberg
Ralph Retort! :-DDDDD
(no seriously his name is Ethan and he could learn a lot from you guys)
Here’s some suggestions.
1. Milo – broke GJP story and is great in debates. He is also an actual professional journalist.
2. William Usher – was with GJP and could provide even further insight into it.
3. Allistair Pinsoff – to further clarify what GJP did to him and how bad it is/was.
4. Brad Wardell – victim of terrible journalism and could provide excellent insight into the agenda pushing.
5. TotalBiscuit – excellent in debates and could probably show up in a damn bathrobe and still have more credibility than the gaming journos. Could also provide insight into how gaming PR people attempt to bribe reviewers.
6. Erik Kain – Forbes writer, and has a neutral stance. Was able to write a fair article explaining what GG really is.
7. Alexander Marcis (@archon) – High-up in the Escapist management and actually did what GG wanted. Could provide insight into why Operation Disrespectful Nod was embraced by GG and what happened to Gawker’s revenue.
8. Oliver Campbell – Huge proponent of NYS and also former game journo. I realize he can get a little too passionate, but he is a good candidate.
9 (maybe) Christina Hoff Sommers – As others have said, she would be able to school these hackjob journos like Leigh Alexander if they defelct with the soggy knees crap.
As much as I love our wonderful based mother, I don’t think CHS would add much to the —ETHICAL— aspect of GG. With that said, I think if the event is public, she should attend/spectate. She could even write a statement that say Milo could read where she debunks the whole anti-feminist thing, instead of her being on the panel. That would save us a slot to focus on ETHICS and not radfems/SocJus insanity. Although I admit I am split on where CHS should be on the panel.
I am uncertain about Sargon. David Pakman seemed to walk all over him the moment it got off topic, and I fear Sargon will take any off-topic bait the corrupt journos throw out and run with it in the completely opposite direction. I’m sorry, Sargon, I love your videos and your accent, but I just don’t think you’re a good choice here.
Of those 9 people I listed, either would be great. But I believe Milo should be an absolute shoe-in for the panel. This is, of course, assuming he accepts. Which he should.
@oliverbcampbell
@CHSommers
@Nero
@Grummz
@Sargon_of_Akkad
Either Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yiannopoulos, Karen Straughan or Christina Sommers.
If you want this to be about ethics in games journalism/media and not about the wider discussion of social issues, then please be very selective in who you have on this panel.
This is a mixed list of pro-, anti-, and knowledgeable neutrals that would be suitable:
Oliver Campbell – Pro-GG and actively involved on Twitter. Former games journalist and current author. Has proposed creative ways to hold unethical behavior to account.
William Usher – Freelance games journalist. He was the main source of the GJP e-mail list leaks. He has reported extensively on the issue of ethics in games journalism over the course of GamerGate. Assumed to be pro-GG.
Stephen Totilo – Anti-GG, EIC of Kotaku and veteran games and entertainment journalist. The first breach of ethics GG pointed to was was by his editor Nathan Grayson. Many of the subsequent ethical breaches have involved Kotaku editors.
Leigh Alexander – Anti-GG, former editor at Gamasutra. Her infamous “gamers are dead” article, which was one of many published on the same day, was the catalyst that promoted gamers to look in to collusion between various publications and journalists.
John Bain (TotalBiscuit) – YouTuber who is neutral on GG. He conducted a lengthy interview with Stephen Totilo on the ethical breaches that occured at Kotaku. He is widely known for his pro-consumer views.
Erik Kain – Forbes contributor focused on gaming and neutral on GG. Reported on GG from a neutral perspective, drawing ire from both extremes.
Sargon of Akkad – Pro-GG Youtuber. Effectively anonymous if you ignore him getting doxed. Has been described as a citizen reporter for his extensively researched videos. Very knowledgeable about all things GG, especially social agendas in the media.
Ben Kuchera – Anti-GG, former editor at Polygon. One of the most staunch anti-GG voices in games media.
My pick of GG reps, in no particular order:
1. Sargon of Akkad, YouTuber (@Sargon_of_Akkad)
2. Christina Hoff Sommers, feminist scholar (@CHSommers)
3. Milo Yiannopoulos, journalist (@Nero)
4. Mark Kern, ex-AAA game developer (@Grummz)
OR
4. Jennifer Dawe, game developer (@GMShivers)
5. Oliver Campbell, ex-game journalist (@oliverbcampbell)
OR
5. William Usher, game journalist (@WilliamUsherGB)
Would be great to see them debate anti-GG, but I doubt any of anti-GG would be willing to come to the table. I’d pick the following; again, in no particular order:
1. Ben Kuchera, game journalist (@BenKuchera)
2. Anita Sarkeesian, YouTuber (@femfreq)
3. Stephen Totilo, game journalist (@stephentotilo)
4. Jason Schreier, game journalist (@jasonschreier)
5. Zoe Quinn, game developer (@TheQuinnspiracy)
You should ask anti-GG which five reps they would choose, too.
Main people that would be useful for such a talk would be those like Milo Yiannopoulos, Erik Kain, and William Usher. Georgie from Tech Raptor would also likely be able to provide some decent insights.
William Usher seems like one of the only people to actually have kept up with everything since the beginning, mostly because it’s just a huge number of issues that have surfaced over the past year, but the other I mention have a very nice body of knowledge of the various media problems so that they could easily speak on the matter.
Some people seem to be mentioning CH Sommers, but really that makes very little sense as she’s mostly concerned with feminism and her comments mostly got more attention because they had to do with how some studies were misreported as well as the ideologies behind some fanatical groups that are sometimes friend with media folks, and that really is only a tangential issue to GamerGate.
The Youtube personalities Sargon and MundaneMatt could be interesting to have on, but Sargon is mostly interested in the warped ideology of the anti-GG folks and MundaneMatt I’m not sure has actually kept up with the news that well and would make as much sense to have around as having a TV weather announcer invited to a think tank on climate change. A decent semi-neutral youtube personality to have on could be TotalBiscuit, he has made some comments over the past few months about media problems as well as the anti-consumer stances many hold, so I think he’d be a more diplomatic choice. Keep in mind that Youtube personalities are often looked to more often than the video game media due to their increased honesty and greater relevance in reporting on the video game industry, so there is some animosity from the media sites when it comes to Youtube personalities..
Having some developers come around to talk about some of their experiences with journalists would probably be a very good thing to do though. So having people like Daniel Vavra, Jennifer Dawe, and Brad Wardell around would be some good choices. I say this because they have spoken about some of the media issues they personally have had and have kept up with the news about some of the corruption issues so they wouldn’t just end up muddling about if they needed to talk.
Thank you for choosing to hear us out. I nominate:
Milo, Christina Hoff Sommers, Oliver Campbell, Total Biscuit and lastly Mark Kern.
I’d like to see the journalists actually implicated in the scandal. I doubt they will accept though.
Pro-GG people I consider a must for the debate are
Total Biscuit
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sargon of Akkad
William Usher
Oliver Campbell
C.H Sommers
As Anti-GG voices, I’d really want to hear from Ben Kuchera, Nathan Grayson, and Jason Schreier.
They’re responsible for a lot of the yellow journalism going about in gaming.
I assume the topic of the panel would focus on the topic of games journalism, not on the twitter flame war. If this is the case, then getting Erik Kain (freelance Forbes writer) on the panel is absolutely essential. Kain’s articles were what introduced many to the issues involved in Gamergate. Seriously, get Erik Kain.
Other important Gamergate people:
– William Usher (former games journalist, now Gamergate supporter)
– Jennifer Dawe (campaigned against corruption in journalism long before Gamergate)
– John Bain (Totalbiscuit)
– Oliver Campbell (former games journalist, now Gamergate supporter)
Although not a Gamergater, I would still recommend Allistair Pinsof (@megaspacepanda) for these reasons:
– One of the few people who have talked about Gamergate and have an actual degree in journalism
– Former games journalist who was screwed over by the poor practices of other games journalists
From those opposing Gamergate, I think the most important person might be Damion Schubert, the game designer who runs the Zen of Design blog. He has written a lot about Gamergate. Jason Schreier, Stephen Totilo and Ben Kuchera also come to mind.
If you want to talk about politics instead, then by all means ask for Milo, Christina and Anita. But unlike most others, I would like for the discussion to stick to the non-ideological issues if possible.
And I wasn’t joking, Erik Kain is the most important candidate for that list. Get him if it’s at all possible.
Sargon, Erik Kain, Mark Kern
Please do not include Brianna Wu, Anita Sarkeesian, Randi Harper on the ‘opposite’ side, they are not relevant and will derail your setup. I would like to see Arthur Chu & Will wheaton defend their position.
I’m sending positive vibes your way as you’re going to need them once the Ravenous Aggrieved find out GG is going to get a fair hearing somewhere. They most recently tried to eat Joss Whedon, but he bailed from Twitter after he discovered they weren’t willing to stop after the first arm.
Definitely speak with Brad Wardell of Stardock. The abuse directed towards him by video game journalists and sjw’s was absolutely disgusting and will really open eyes as to who the hate mob really is.
Mark kern, Christina Hoff Sommers, Sargon of Akkad, Oliver campbell, Mercedes carrera, Erik Kain, would all be good choices to represent Pro-Gamergate.
In addition to those already named, I would strongly recommend the following people for consideration:
Mark Kern (@Grummz) – developer (formerly for Blizzard, now for MEK Entertainment), mostly neutral
Chris von Csefalvay (@chrisvcsefalvay) – strictly neutral, but did an excellent analysis of GamerGate interactions on Twitter
Jason Miller (@j_millerworks) – developer, staunchly pro-GamerGate, and (if memory serves) creator of the #NotYourShield hashtag
Howabout @RalphRetort @FartToContinue Davis Aurini and Jordan Owen of the Sarkeesian Effect, and Roosh V of A Voice for Men?
I think Mark Kern@Grummz twitter handler https://twitter.com/Grummz Is a pretty great choice sense he also from the industry.
Please get in contact with:
Sargon of Akkad
Milo Yiannopoulos
Christina H. Sommers
Total Biscuit
Mark Kern
These are people with both experience in the gaming industry, as well as in journalism and feminism.
Lesser known but highly relevant people who should be considered for this;
@WilliamUsherGB, William Usher is a games journalist who has been instrumental in exposing and investigating unethical behavior within the games media scene.
@I_Am_Iron_Van is a journalist and GGer who participated in the SPJ Ethics Week, was personally at the DC meetup, and is an articulate and personable fellow.
@LibertarianBlue, Allum Bokhari, is a journalist who was at the DC meetup and has been a prolific and stalwart GGer for some time.
@CathyYoung63 is a writer for Reason magazine who’s contributions to GG have been low-key, accurate, and in my opinion under-appreciated.
No doubt I’ll be passed over, but if you want some random salt-of-the-earth type, I’m reasonably articulate and can represent GG as well.
you have no idea the storm you’ve started here there is gonna be a big fight over this because some people are gonna view this as electing leaders and we just don’t do that.
Milo Yianopolous, Christina Hoff Sommers, Mark Kern, or Sargon of Akkad. They are all well informed, and seem pretty good at getting a point across.
Finally!! So happy to see someone actually taking the time to research the issue rather than pushing a narrative or listening to what the media has said about us.
I nominate @oliverbcampbell
@oliverbcampbell
@WilliamUsherGB
This two will give you detailed precise discussion.
Between them they’ve written some of the best pieces on gamergate
@oliverbcampbell
@WilliamUsherGB
This two will give you detailed precise discussion.
Between them they’ve written some of the best pieces on gamergate
Mark Kern (@Grummz) is a game dev that heads the League4Gamers, he’d be great to have at a talk.
Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) was one of the first outside of gaming to look at this, he’d be good to have.
Jennifer Dawe (@GMShivers) is another dev who’s been outspoken about the false narrative the gaming press has been using.
William Usher (@WilliamUsherGB) is a former gaming journalist who blew the whistle on the gamejournopros group.
Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) has been dealing with this kind of outrage sloppy press for years and is great at correcting them with facts.
THIS
—>
Although not a Gamergater, I would still recommend Allistair Pinsof (@megaspacepanda) for these reasons:
– One of the few people who have talked about Gamergate and have an actual degree in journalism
– Former games journalist who was screwed over by the poor practices of other games journalists
—>
Though I disagree with Milo Yiannopoulos on many things outside of GamerGate, he should be a representative. He has more experience working in journalism than most Gaters, and it would probably be good to have someone with that experience to represent us.
Milo
I commend you on your open-mindedness
@oliverbcampbell
Mix of pro and neutrals
@sargon_of_akkad
Christina Hoff Sommers @CHsommers
TotalBiscuit @Totalbiscuit
Mercedes Carrera @TheMercedesXXX
Mark Kern @Grummz
Milo Yiannopolous @Nero
Oliver Campbell @oliverbcampbell
Brad Wardell @draginol
Jennier Dawe @GMshivers
anti’s
Ben Kuchera @BenKuchera
Anita Sarkeesian @femfreq or Mcintosh @radicalbytes OR both
Stephen Totilo @stephentotilo
Jason Schreier @jasonschreier
Zoe Quinn @TheQuinnspiracy
Brianna Wu @Spacekatgal
Arthur Chu @arthur_effect
Hi
We have no leaders. It is a consumer revolt, not a movement. Nobody will be elected to speak in the name of #gamergate.
A AMA in KotakuInAction or even 8chan would be better as everybody has a chance to speak (and it is how things actually happens)
The most charismatic voices maybe louder, but usually are followed only by a section of people.
If you really want individuals, please choose the ones that concentrate their eforts in journalism, censorship and the gaming community, not the identity politics side of things. (which IS relevant, but not productive)
Pro:
1. Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Sargon_of_Akkad
2. John “TotalBiscuit” Bain: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=TotalBiscuit
3. Milo Yiannopoulos: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Milo_Yiannopoulos
4. William Usher: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=William_Usher
5. Brad Wardell: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Brad_Wardell
Anti:
1. Ben Kuchera: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Ben_Kuchera
2. Nathan Grayson: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Nathan_Grayson
3. Stephen Totilo http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Stephen_Totilo
4. Arthur Chu: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Arthur_Chu*
5. Kate Edwards (@IGDA_ED) from IGDA: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=IGDA. Ask her about allegations of corruption at IGDA: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkq5lqVabDjzWHB4E30T2W76Yhd_O5R2l
Event Status – YouTube videogame news analyst/commentator
Sargon of Akkad – Game dev, YouTube personality
Thank you in advance for being based!
Note that there is a comment with my real name (David) attached to it. I did not mean for it to be there, that was a mistake. Please delete that comment.
Pro:
1. Carl “Sargon of Akkad” Benjamin: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Sargon_of_Akkad
2. John “TotalBiscuit” Bain: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=TotalBiscuit
3. Milo Yiannopoulos: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Milo_Yiannopoulos
4. William Usher: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=William_Usher
5. Brad Wardell: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Brad_Wardell
Anti:
1. Ben Kuchera: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Ben_Kuchera
2. Nathan Grayson: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Nathan_Grayson
3. Stephen Totilo http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Stephen_Totilo
4. Arthur Chu: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Arthur_Chu*
5. Kate Edwards (@IGDA_ED) from IGDA: http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=IGDA. Ask her about allegations of corruption at IGDA: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkq5lqVabDjzWHB4E30T2W76Yhd_O5R2l
Sargon of Akkad
Mundanematt
Christina Hoff Sommers they are all great speakers and have been in the movement since very early on
I’m not sure how the logistics of getting these people to the venue will work, however I’d like to see:
Sargon of Akkad – Straight up British gentleman and advocate for truth.
Milo Yiannopolis – Associate Editor for Breitbart, behind several major revelations of impropriety amongst game journalists.
Christina H. Summers – Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, creator of the factual feminist youtube series and opponent of authoritarian feminism.
Total biscuit – British gentleman mk.II and one of the biggest names in gaming on youtube.
Mark Kern – Developer of several major AAA titles and industry veteran.
Quick warning though, all the following suggestions will only take applause in the form of jazz-hands or donations to their respective patreon accounts.
Milo Yiannopoulos, Sargon of Akkad, Christina Sommers.
I would love if @Nero would be able to make it there.
Since it seems most of my choices are well-represented by other commenters, I’ll ask about the logistics. Is this going to be a live event with the panel and audience in the room and streaming online? Who covers travel expenses? Are you prepared to deal with bomb threats and swatting?
Hi Michael,
thank you for taking the time and effort to listen to #GamerGate. I agree with most of the names supplied above but as it’s actual ethics I would prefer actual journalists like:
Pro GamerGate
Oliver Campbell, Milo Yiannopoulos, William Usher
Anti GamerGate
Stephen Totilo, Jason Schrier, Arthur Chu, Ian Miles Cheong
Neutral
Erik Kain, David Auerbach Keller
I’d also say people like Sargon of Akkad who’ve been here since the beginning should have a shot at the panel as gamers. There are many of us but his videos are generally ver well regarded by people supporting GamerGate.
PS We *hate* the term GamerGaters. We are gamers, nothing more, nothing less.
I suggest contacting John Bain aka Totalbiscuit. He is not a journalist but a critic who had in the past a lot of insight into both the corruption journalists in gaming face (He himself was offered a laptop by a company he was meant to cover and rejected it) and on the #GamerGate debate in large. Unlike Milo Yiannopolis, who is more concerned with the ideological side of the debate than with the ethical side, He is likely to stay on the topic of the ethical issues and is more versed on them. Christina H.summers is also more invested in the ideological side and not on the ethical issues so i would not recommend her as well despite both her and Milo being two very articulate individuals.
I would also recommend Oliver Campbell who is versed in the #GamerGate debate on the ethical side and is very articulate.
Alexander Macris is really not getting the love he deserves here.
Thank you so much for this opportunity. At last a fair and open discussion about serious topics GG care about. Hopefully general public will see that GG is not what the mainstream media is painting it to be. I vote for
Sargon of Akkad
Christina Hoff Sommers
Milo/Nero
Total Biscuit/John Bain
Oliver Campbell
Bonus:
MainEvent/Event Status host
THANKS AGAIN
Milo Yiannapolous, You Tuber Sargon of Akkad, CH Sommers, Oliver Campbell, Total Biscuit
My lineup for covering the different perspectives in/of GG
Gamers – @Sargon_of_Akkad , @TheHat2 (runs KiA)
NotYourShield – @oliverbcampbell , @lizzyf620
Devs – @draginol , @TFYCapitalists
Journos – @Totalbiscuit , @Nero
Allies – @CHSommers , @TheMercedesXXX
I’d recommend Oliver Campbell consider he was a former games journalist and current author. The reason why the mainstream media doesn’t want to talk to Oliver Campbell is that he is a Black American of GamerGate consumer movement. This poses as a threat to their narrative of “#GamerGate is made of angry white young males” Further more, his youtube video contents contest the narrative so much that he pretty much strike fears to the heart of the Anti-GamerGate.
This is what Oliver did for the non-White CIS (Whatever that is) of #GamerGate,
#NotYourShield
People voting up Sargon of Akkad, I believe you are doing yourselves a disservice. I have never seen him fare well when he’s speaking with someone that doesn’t more or less agree with him already.
The problem here is that GamerGate has no leaders, it has celebrities it gathers around.
This is going to make any public debate tricky at best. Gamergate is a nebulous crowd of people who have recognized something seriously wrong in media, specifically collusion and attempts to ‘dictate’ reality by people gone mad with (a rather small amount of) power.
Meanwhile I will be amazed, Mr. Koretzky, if you can get the likes of Leigh Alexander on the AGG side. They are among those who have the most to answer for and will tear at the pillars of heaven before they acknowledge their (at best) mistakes .
Godspeed, Sir.
Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin)
Main Event
J Miller
Slade Villena – Game Developer who has been suspended from twitter over a dozen times during #GamerGate timeframe
First of all, thank you so much for offering to cover this subject.
You’re doing something that many others in your position, as well as in gaming “journalism” circles have refused to do.
I would like to see Georgina Young, Christina Hoff Sommers and Mark Kern. They all have very different backgrounds and professions and are very eloquent speakers. As for which “antis” to choose from, I would recommend Anita Sarkeesian, Ben Kuchera and Leigh Alexander. All of these people have been subjected to criticism from Gamer Gate but, in the case of Sarkeesian (and others, like Brianna Wu), have actually *profited* from making the attention about themselves rather than about ethics in gaming journalism.
Why Milo? he has a vested interest in keeping division and anger up. it gets him clicks folks. I like Milo’s newfound change towards gamers as much as the next guy, but lets not pretend he is somehow representative of gamers interests as his primary motivation.
No.
And Christina is not really a option either as she isn’t even discussing ethical journalism and transparency concerns..her focus is on kicking 3rd wave radical feminists often and hard..a worthy goal, but its a secondary objective to GG.
My list:
John Bain (Totalbiscuit)
Mark Kern
Sargon of Akkad
Jennifer Dawe
Oliver Campbell
There are many voices, and this is in no way the top 5, but it is 5 that can articulate well the various points and counters well.
These are not “leaders” of GG, these are people with understanding and voice, but they cant’ like…call GG over.
Many of the people suggested live very far away. John Bain @totalbiscuit is closer to your neighborhood than most of the people suggested and is very eloquent.
As an aside, I want to thank you for looking into this. We’ve been looking for people to give us an honest shake for months. We picked a fight with corrupt journalists, and the old adage about picking a fight with those who buy ink buy the barrel has rung true. They’ve villified us across the board, so much so that very few people are will to look at us objectively.
I have to warn you, though, once this gets more attention, you will start getting attacked by the “social justice warriors”. A recent meetup of GG folks had to be evacuated due to threats from these people. But I suspect you have more than enough fortitude to handle those folks.
I’d be happy to see Oliver Campbell, Christina Sommers, Milo Yiannopolous, and/or Sargon of Akkad. I think having a couple of them there would be good if we could. Oliver would probably be my top choice.
I can think of one person who could speak on our behalf, and that person is John Bain aka TotalBiscuit. He’s not a GamerGater, but he know’s more about the movement from an outside perspective and has spoken on GG’s behalf a few times in the past.
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yiannopolous
– Christina H. Sommers
Sargon of Akkad and/or Milo Yiannopoulos. That would be awesome!
Pro: Sargon of Akkad, Oliver Campbell, one of the Honey Badger Brigade (Preferrably Karen Straughan)
Neutral: Mark Kern, @MainEventTV_AKA, Derek Smart
Anti: Stephen Totillo (EIC of Kotaku), Nathan Grayson (The catalyst of #GamerGate), Ernest W. Adams (Founder of IGDA), Ben Kuchera (EIC of Polygon for most of #GamerGate)
Harmful News – Buzzfeed’s Color Cabal Conspiracy – Ema O’connor smears with poor journalism and is like;y too gullible or easily taken in by trolls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxpWXPaD2Lk&feature=youtu.be&a
Please – “Gamer” or “GamerGate supporter.” Not “GamerGater.”
I would like to see the following people:
Sargon of Akkad
Totalbiscuit
Christina Sommers
Jennifer Dawe
Erik Kain
will this be filmed i live in the uk and i have no chance of coming over to see it it must be filmed
I have to also support Milo, Christina Hoff Sommers, Total Biscuit, Oliver Campbell, Brad Wardell, Cathy Young, James Desborough, Sargon, etc.
A good mix of bloggers, journalists, developers, gamers, and free speech anti-harassment activists.
Maybe get someone like Feargus Urquhart, who just got caught in the middle of one of these controversies.
On the other side, it’s hard to find people who are not demagogues. Pakman is fair though not really on our side. Damion Schubert isn’t a complete demagogue. Totilo seems mostly fair. Chu is always a treat, and Jason Schreier can control his distaste sometimes (and he’s the author of the original smear piece on Wardell). No way will you get someone like Anita or Wu, but there aren’t really relevant to the journalistic ethics issue of this war, anyhow.
MundaneMatt. Sargon. Milo and Based Mom Christina Hoff Summers.
Vs. Arthur Chu, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, Nathan Grayson, #FullMcIntosh
For my part, I’d want to see Ben Kuchera, Kyle Orland, Nathan Grayson, Stephen Totillo, Sam Biddle, or any of the other journalists, particularly those who were members of the Game Journo Pros listserv, stand up and defend what they’ve done, the numerous ethical violations they’ve committed, etc.
This isn’t about Sarkeesian, Wu, or even Quinn, as much as they want it to be. This is about those who worked hard to censor, bully, lie and promote friends and lovers and those they have financial ties toward, all without disclosure or consequence. I want to know why it was ok to take one badly written blog-post by Dan Golding, that didn’t accurately describe the study he used as support, as a basis for ten different sites to tear into their audience and call them the worst of names, all on the basis of attacking a tiny minority of gamers. I want to know why Ms. Quinn’s poorly made twine game that doesn’t accurately describe depression is an ‘indie darling’ when so many better games can’t even get notice. I want to know why it was ok for Ben Kuchera to call Brad Wardell horrible things and not detract them solely on the basis of claims made by one employee, who later apologized in writing for the statements, yet no retraction occurred. I want to know the basis of using each other as their only sources and why it’s ok to push a story that is likely fabricated, like the Wizard-chan harassment of Quinn, without ever checking the source’s story in any way, or talking to the ‘other side’ about it at all.
I want to know why these people consider themselves journalists when they show no compunction for ruining the public trust and manipulating stories to benefit themselves, all the way to manipulating the Gamergate story to being about harassment instead of their own corruption.
Wu, Sarkeesian, and even Quinn, aren’t important. Their story is a repeated lie that they profit from. Their story has had plenty of coverage, and they’re not going to admit to what they’ve done.
The SPJ is about journalists, not about sources. What I really want is to see the journalists answer for their ethical breeches, even if the answer finally convinces me that they didn’t breech ethics at all (fat chance of that happening but I’ll leave open the possibility).
Don’t frame this about the stupid harassment lie. Frame this about the corruption, the ethical violations, and the way the gaming media should be serving the public and their readers, not their friends and those who bribe them.
I’d prefer Carl Benjamin (@sargon_of_akkad), John Bain (@totalbiscuit) William Usher (@williamusherGB) and Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell) as representatives from Gamergate, concerned with ethical violations by the media and these journalists in particular. All have spoken tirelessly in favor of ethical journalism, against harassment, and have been quite rational and fair. Oliver Campbell and William Usher are game journalists themselves, and William Usher was the whistleblower on Game Journo Pros I believe. Carl Benjamin and John Bain are both youtube personalities; Carl is a developer as well, and John Bain has done his very best to remain neutral while standing up for ethics.
I want to thank you a great deal for this, for giving us the time to air our real grievances, and the potential to finally bring most of what is Gamergate to a close, though I imagine we’ll remain as a consumer-focused media watchdog. If you really must have someone as part of the harassment narrative, I’m sure any but Sarkeesian will jump at the chance to potentially be ‘harassed’ again so they can increase their donations. Sarkeesian doesn’t like to be debated or confronted.
I would love for @LunarArchivist to be a part of it, to represent the non-e-celeb contingent of GG. They’ve been working really hard when it comes to taking on the CBC over their dubious reporting of GamerGate.
Also, I think Alexander Macris (@archon on twitter) from The Escapist would be an excellent inclusion if he is up for it
When all this kicked off, The Escapist was one of the few places we could talk about GamerGate (thanks to both Macris and Greg Tito). He was the only person from a game and entertainment publication that actually engaged us fairly and listened to our concerns, and worked on revising the code of ethics for not only The Escapist, but the whole of Defy Media.
As far as opposition goes, I would love to hear what Jonathan McIntosh really thinks, without Anita parsing it and making it palatable for human consumption.
As an aside, thank you for having the conviction to stand up for your beliefs when it comes to ethics and journalism, and thank you for engaging with us despite all the bad press, the 3rd party trolls, our opposition, and our own aggressive fringe elements.
I’lll post again since I have seen so many good suggestions and I forgot people. I cut a pasted this but wish to support this list of 5. No particular order. But asterisks mean extra special must gets.
*1. Sargon of Akkad @saargonofakkad
*2. Christina Sommers @chsommers
3. Total biscuit @totalbiscuit
4. Oliver Campbell @olivercampbell
5. Milo Yiannopoulos @nero
For the “GamerGate” side of things, I would recommend the following people
1-Totalbiscuit(@totalbiscuit). John has shown himself to be very concerned about the ethical issues surrounding GamerGate, and is well respected by most of the people that are involved in this. (For those stating John is neutral, he is not, hasn’t been since the Dell guy compared us to ISIS.)
2-Sargon of Akkad(@Sargon_of_Akkad). Sargon has been a proponent of GamerGate for almost its entirety. Very knowledgeable about the subjects that may be brought up. Though he lives in England, and recently had a child, so he may be unavailable.
3-Oliver Campbell(@oliverbcampbell). Former journalist, author, and can speak to the massive dehumanization that has been received by GamerGate proponents, both by the press and anti-GG activists, especially those that identify themselves with the NotYourShield hashtag.
4-William Usher(@williamushergb). Games journalist, was the person that stepped up and fed Milo the information of GameJournoPros, and continues to parse and release information on it.
5-Milo Yiannopoulos(@Nero). Journalist who broke GJP, and has been covering the issues around GamerGate for some time now. Also writing a book on GamerGate, so he would be a great choice.
6-Christina Hoff Sommers(@chsommers). Feminist scholar, former professor of ethics. Currently with AEI, has been contributing to GamerGate for some months.
For a “neutral” perspective, though I would expect the SPJ members will be playing the neutral party in this, I would say:
1-Erik Kain(@Erikkain). Games writer at Forbes. Did panels near the beginning of GamerGate, has always maintained as much neutrality as can be in a conflict like this.
2-David Auerbach(@Auerbachkeller). Writer for Slate. While he leans more “anti” than Erik does, he is still quite good at seeing both sides of an issue, and speaking without slant wherever possible.
3-Mark Kern(@grummz). Been high in the gaming industry with Blizzard, founder and president of League for Gamers, which fought SoPA, and has been re purposed as a campaign for ethical journalism.
For the “Anti” side, if you plan on inviting people, I would say:
1-Stephen Totilo(@Stephentotilo) EiC at Kotaku, the publication whose ethical violations were central to the start of GamerGate. Also one of the only Games Journalists that I know of that has a degree in journalism(He has a masters in it.)
2-Leigh Alexander(@leighalexander) Former Editor at large for Gamasutra. Currently runs start-up gaming journalism site Offworld. Was the one with the ridiculous “ethics policy” you quoted in your first article. Also has been published in places like Time magazine on gaming.
3-Jason Schreier(@jasonschreier) News editor at Kotaku. Former GJP member, has actually engaged in discussion a couple times. Probably a good choice.
4-Kyle Orland(@KyleOrl) Senior Gaming editor for Ars Technica. Founder of the now infamous GameJournoPros list, styled on Ezra Klien’s “Journolist.”
5-Ben Kuchera(@BenKuchera) Opinion editor at Polygon. Various ethical failings on his part. Was a major part of the Brad Wardell incident a couple years ago, wherein the press jumped on a developer due to accusations brought by one of his employees, which were later dismissed with extreme prejudice. Also linked a video containing slander about Totalbiscuit in one of his articles on GamerGate. Could also be seen trying to bully the former EiC of The Escapist Magazine on what should be allowed for discussion on his site in the GJP list.
If I had to give my voice to a proxy it would be TotalBiscuit. I appreciate Mark Kern’s journey in GamerGate although I regret he’s more about the effects of censorship in games and less about the consumers and ethics. Whoever ends up representing GamerGate, please try not to end up with a right-wing panel. Breitbart does *not* represent me.
1. @Nero (Milo Yiannopoulos)
2. @WilliamUsherGB (William Usher)
3. @megaspacepanda (Allistair Pinsof)
4. @AuerbachKeller (David Auerbach)
5. @Sargon_of_Akkad (Carl Benjamin) or @Totalbiscuit (John Bain)
Four journalists and an English gentleman.
I would have to nominate William Usher, Oliver Campbell, and Milo Yiannopoulos.
Total Biscuit would also be worthwhile, as even though he is not a traditional journalist, a large portion of his work involves reviewing video games and he maintains a high standard of ethics.
Here’s my pro GamerGate dream team:
Milo Yiannopoulos
Christina Hoff Summers (AKA Based Mom)
Karen Straughan
All I can say for the Anti side is please no professional victims. They probably won’t actually do any debating and will just derail any discussion, but include:
Anita Sarkeesian (AKA Literally Who [as in literally who cares] #2)
Brianna Wu (AKA Literally Who #8)
Zoey Quinn (AKA Literally Who)
Randi Harper (Literally a Meth Head)
Please invite some actual Journalists from the anti Gamergate side, because as much as they want to make it about a harassment narrative, it’s actually about ethics.
Another side note: Liana K is not neutral. She has been an agent provocateur and pushes the false narrative. I can’t believe I have to say this after 8 months, but there it is.
Adding my voice to the suggestions of Crecente, Auerbach, Alexander and Totilo.
Would like to suggest James Fudge of Gamepolitics.
Try getting Oliver Campbell. Or Sargon of Akkad. Good of you to do this piece, good luck!
Milo Yiannopoulos is a must. also sargon of akkad
My suggestions will mirror most others, but here goes
People I’d like to see discussing for include Total Biscuit, as he seems well capable of discussing the topics reasonably, rationally and calmly, Oliver Cambel, well, because he’s got the credentials from the inside of gaming journalism, Sargon of Akkad, because he is so well informed on the subject and speaks quite well, Mark Kern because he’s made such an effort to remain neutral, yet has been so thoroughly attacked and not given a fair shake by the media… plus his credentials make him an authority on gaming, to some extent.
People I’d like to see on the anti-side include Lea Alexander, Stephen Totillo, Ben Kuchera, as they have a great deal to answer for with how this has all played out.
People I would rather not see include Milo (as he is too antagonistic for something like this, presuming you’re not just looking to make a hit piece, in which case include him and make it entertaining for us), Christina Hoof Sommers and Karen Straughan (both of which are excellent speakers, and if you were doing a discussion on feminism in any respect, I would strongly support them being spokespeople… but for a gamergate discussion, I think they are a little too out of their element, and could derail the discussion off of gaming and onto feminism’s failings.). Anita Sarkesian (as she is not a journalist, and so has nothing to answer for regarding gamergate itself (again,if this was a discussion about feminism specifically, my opinion would differ)).
Just my two cents.
To further clarify, I’m only suggesting opposing personalities.
William Usher, Oliver Campbell, John Bain.
On the side of gamers, I’d go with Mark Kern, a developer who worked on Diablo II and World of Warcraft and has started the League for Gamers as a non-politicized alternative to the IGDA (International Game Developers Association).
In addition you have Christina Hoff Summers, a feminist, writer and former Ethics professor who currently works for the AEI.
I’d go with a wild-card pick for the third spot and take Matthew Rappard from the Fine Young Capitalists. He’s a feminist of the camp that most of those who are constantly shouting of our misogyny and harassment belong to who runs a ran a kickstarter campaign designed to get women designers into gaming with a chunk of the profits going to charity for which Gamergaters raised upwards of 50k dollars.
On the other side, you’ll want Stephen Totillo, EIC at Kotaku, one of Gawker’s gaming culture publications. He stands out in gaming journalism as one of the very few doing it with actual training in journalism.
You’ll want Derek Smart as well. He’s a game developer and IGDA member capable of reason and logic rather than just hewing to the narrative.
I don’t know many other reasonable people on the Anti side, but if you really want a ‘jounalist’ with no training and no experience that had to be shamed into not donating cash to the patrons funding the lives of the indie devs they covered and happily tweeted pictures of themselves with their monogrammed Playstations and Xboxes while the literal bloggers who wrote for Forbes returned theirs involved in this, then you won’t lack for choice.
David Auerbach is a good neutral party here, but one side sees neutrality as opposition so you wont’ get a consensus on that.
I would recommend in this order
John Bain aka @Totalbiscuit – MUST GET
carl benjamin aka @sargon_of_Akkad
Christina Hoff Sommers
Milo Yiannopoulos A journalist who broke the story of the Game Journo Pros
Brad Wardell a game developer who got slandered by false allegations.
http://journoterrorist.com/airplay/#comment-18839
here again. William User might also be a code choice.
Personally, I’d pick the following people for the reasons I’ll point out:
– Milo Yiannopolous, as he’s a journalist involved with Gamergate with a more outside perspective of journalism
– Christina H. Sommers, as she’s a liberal feminist which understands how the third wave feminists act in regards to Gamergate, more specifically, their motivations
– Oliver B. Campbell, as he’s a gamer and used to be a game journalist
These three people touch on the biggest aspects which Gamergate has seen itself involved in, sometimes by force (as is the case of feminism).
Sargon
Oliver
and maybe a few regular members of gg
i personally would recommend Sargon of Akkad (https://twitter.com/Sargon_of_Akkad) and CH sommers(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RVlCvBd21w).
Oliver Campbell, William Usher, Lizzy Finnegan from The Escapist, Mark Kern, and Brad Wardell would be my choices. They all have seen different sides of this and have different perspectives that would be valuable.
I would suggest asking Grummz (Mark Kern), Sargon of Akkad and Total Biscuit(John Bain) if they are interest for debate.
John Bain (TotalBiscuit), Oliver Campbell, Milo, Christina Hoff Summers, and Liana K.
If I had to pick the “Avergers” of GamerGate, they would be:
William Usher (@WilliamUsherGB) because he has been exposing journalistic corruption for a long time. He also was a member of the secretive Game Journo Pros group and has been leaking the info on them for the past 8 months.
Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero) because he hits the corrupt and abusive game journalists like no one else can. He also exposed the secretive Game Journo Pros group to the masses.
Christina H. Sommers (@CHSommers) because she is a feminist scholar who crushed the game journalists’ faulty claims that game make you sexist.
Sargon of Akkad (@Sargon_of_Akkad) because he can speak on the subjects of game journalists refusing to be objective and also abusing their audience and also how game journalists conveniently leave on important details about GamerGate.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak, you snooty hipster.
@thunderf00t – Has made many video criticisms of Anita Sarkeesian with evidence.
@lizzyf620 – A writer at The Escapist who was doxxed and her children were threatened on Twitter.
@sargon_of_akkad – Critisises the absurdity of feminism & it’s fixation on GamerGate trying to label it as a white male hate group.
@Nero – A prominent GamerGate journalist at Breitbart offering to give $10,000 to charity to interview Anita Sarkeesian who so far is ignoring his offer.
@CHSommers – The “factual feminist” recently asked by Georgetown University to retroactively edit a published video of her speech.
@girlwriteswhat – Karen from the Honeybadgers, a strong mens rights activist.
@Typhonblue – Alison founder of the HoneyBadgers and recently kicked out and banned from Calgary Expo for speaking up against cencorship.
@jordanowen42 – Creator of the soon to be released documentary ‘The Sarkeesian Effect’. Feminists got his account suspended by Twitter for several weeks.
@jenniebharaj – Jennie Bharaj founder of game review site BasedGamer.
@draginol – Brad Wardell, Was Accused on false information by Ben Kuchera of Polygon.
@erikkain – Ben Kuchera of Polygon tried to ruin her Career.
@Totalbiscuit – A prominent Youtube game reviewer with some great ideas on creating fairer & honest video game reviews.
@Grummz – Mark Kern, veteran game developer at Blizzard was slandered in an article by vg24/7 and they refused to interview him or get his opinion. (#letmarkspeak)
@MrRepzion – Framed by an anonymous troll for a bomb threat against Anita Sarkeesian and received a visit from the FBI.
@mundanematt – Popular Youtube commentator.
@MisterMetokur – Critic and commentator on GamerGate.
@dpakman – Hosts the David Pakman Show on YouTube and has interviewed many prominent figures around the topic of GamerGate.
I believe you will be best getting both emic and etic perspectives: on the emic side, sargon of akkad. He plays, letsplays and makes computer games. He will be able to convey the gamer perspective and is highly knowledge on the timeline of the GG movement and the ethical breeches it opposes and the victories it has won.
On the etic side, milo yiannopoulos will give the proGG perspective as a non-gamer/minimal gamer and show how the movement is a response to greater social shifts demonising gamers as a group.
I will strongly recommend @WilliamUsherGB.
Many of the others nominated are effectively celebrities. Usher is a journalist with proximity to significant events and who has written consistently about GG issues. I might also suggest Greg Lisby (http://gsu.academia.edu/GregLisby), not as a supporter of ours but as a subject matter expert on journalistic ethics interviewed during these events.
I have no idea which ‘opponents’ will step to the plate, but possibilities actually relevant to ethical issues include @KyleOrl, @stephentotilo, @BenKuchera, and @jasonschreier. I will recommend AGAINST individuals such as Sarkeesian, Wu, and Quinn, because although they are caught up in these events, their involvement and positions have little direct relation to ethical journalism.
I hope this is not supposed to be a “debate” format. Inviting hardened agitators and liars (e.g. Brianna Wu, Leigh Alexander, Chris Kluweless), trying to score cheap points, is the last thing I’d want to see.
One of my biggest complaints with media bias in gaming, is that interesting and worthy criticism is hard to find through the mainstream outlets.
As an easy and popular example, Feminist Frequency often has articles applauding its work or decrying its denouncers, but there’s numerous fair and detailed critiques that don’t have a strongly negative tone. Here’s one writer’s catalog of the top 20 best critiques, most of which have never been given a voice.
View story at Medium.com
Feminist Frequency has many, many supporters in mainstream gaming media, but a fair and balanced coverage would at least mention some of these critics, who are generally polite and well researched.
I nominate @adrianchm for his consistently high quality work and careful analysis.
Sargon of Akkad
William Usher
Oliver Campbell
Milo Yiannopoulos
Christina Hoff Sommers
The dream team gamergate panel. Most with a background in journalism too, so it seems to fit well. Although sargon and milo are not US native I believe.
As for who to have them debate, there’s a wide and varied pool of self-hating white people with coloured hair demanding diversity through histrionics to pull from. So, craziest of the crazy:
Jonathan McIntosh
Brianna Wu
Randi Harper
Nathon Grayson
Jason Schrier
Arthur Chu
Sorry, no links are allowed, apparently: the article is titled Top Ten Critiques of Feminist Frequency by Adrian Chmielarz on Medium.
Any of the writers/youtubers featured in that article would be interesting to see, but I support Adrian Chmielarz as my top pick.
I’d like to second the suggestion for William Usher. His reporting through all of this has been excellent, solid, and free of (non-GG related) political bias or sensationalism – just a lot of very damning facts and stories about game journalists.
It might be interesting for you to contact Allison from the HoneyBadgerBrigade (@HoneyBadgerBite). She was expelled from the CalgaryExpo (and all other expo’s hosted by its parent company) for unsubstantiated reason. (Most commonly accepted reason is that she was kicked out for being a Men’s Right Activist and also selling GamerGate-supportive merch at her booth)
I already left one list of people who are pro-GG, but there are a few people who are NOT explicitly pro-GG that I think would have interesting perspectives:
LianaK – Anti-GG at first, now neutral but GG-leaning. She’s a journalist herself and often critical of how GG works towards it’s goals, although she’s generally in support of those goals.
David Pakman – A progressive commentator who’s done a bunch of videos on the subject. He leans anti-GG, but he’s someone GGers nonetheless respect.
Erik Kain – Neutral, journalist, he’s covered the subject before, and he’s been pretty fair in his coverage.
David Auerbach – Neutral, journalist, another person who has been pretty fair in his coverage of the subject. Early on he was more critical of GG. He’s been going against the editorial slant of his publication by being even-handed in his coverage.
Pro GG
My Top 5:
Professor Nick Flor, @ProfessorF – A professor of media and gaming culture, best form of representation for the intellectual segment of gamergate. He has studied GG as culture and the interactions of GG and gaming media online. You REALLY need to get him.
Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad, @sargon_of_akkad – A gamer and youtuber, best form of representation of the average person in GamerGate. You REALLY need to get him. He is by no means a top intellectual, scholar, or journalist, but neither are most of GG. He is, like most people in GG, well informed and well read.
Christina Hoff Sommers, @chsommers – A freedom feminist and supporter of the values of GamerGate. She has the utmost respect of GamerGate, but is not entirely up to date with the “Happenings”, but is the most qualified to discuss the “isms” that will no doubt be brought up by the anti-gamers. She REALLY needs to be there.
Milo Yannopolis, @Nero – a journalist and political pundit, best form of representation of the more conservative leaning ideas of GamerGate
Georgina Young, @georgieonthego – a gaming journalist, best form of representation of the apolitical games blogger in GamerGate
My Second Tier list:
Oliver Campbell, @olivercampbell – A gaming journalist, similar role to Georgina.
Mark Kern, @Grummz – a game developer and creator of League 4 Gamers (@league4gamers), representing game developers who side with gamers.
William Usher, @WilliamUsherGB – was with GJP and could provide even further insight into it.
Erik Kain, @erikkain – Forbes writer, and has a neutral stance. Was able to write a fair article explaining what GG really is.
Anti GG:
Ben Kuchera of Polygon
Nathan Grayson or Stephen Totilo of Kotaku
Brianna Wu, @Spacekatgal
Leigh Alexander of Offworld, formerly of Gamasutra
Arthur Chu of Jeopardy
Jonathan McIntosh of Feminist Frequency
There’s a few people I’d recommend contacting Sargon of Akkad, Christina Hoff Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, Oliver Campbell, Georgina Young, Jennie Bharaj, Mundane Matt, Jennifer Daww and TotalBiscuit.
While she isn’t actually “Pro” Gamergate, I’d also recommend Liana Kerzner. A games Journalist who has stayed pretty much neutral throughout, and has received abuse from both sides of the debate. I think her point of view as a games journalist will definitely add to the debate.
Thank you again for doing this sah. Very much appreciated
Thank you for your interest in GamerGate.
As far as people I would like to see represent GamerGate, or at least the desire for ethics in gaming journalism, here is my list.
Oliver Campbell – @oliverbcampbell (a former game journalist and author with a strong ethical background)
William Usher – @WilliamUsherGB (current freelance game journalist responsible for exposing the gamejournopros group)
Carl Benjamin aka Sargon of Akkad – @Sargon_of_Akkad (a youtuber that has covered many of the issues facing GamerGate)
Milo Yiannopoulos – @Nero (associate editor at Breitbart that has covered much of GamerGate)
John Bain aka TotalBiscuit – @Totalbiscuit (PC gaming critic on Youtube with strong ethical concerns)
Brad Wardell – @draginol (CEO of Stardock, has had his professional and private life harmed by unethical journalism)
Allum Bokhari – @LibertarianBlue (A journalist that has fairly covered GamerGate)
As far as opponents, even though I would think they are unlikely to join the discussion, I would be interested in seeing the following
Ben Kuchera of Polygon
Stephen Totilo of Kotaku
John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun
Jason Schreier of Kotaku
Nathan Grayson of Kotaku
Totalbiscuit, Oliver Campbell, CH Sommers, and Milo
5th position is up, I’d say Kern, Usher, or Wardell.
The simple, unfortunate, fact of the matter us that no anti-GamerGate person is going to agree to discussion. You are not the first to attempt such a thing. You will eventually be faced with this fact after trying to get them to participate.
At this point you might end up seeking a panel of involved neutrals, to directly get an in the middle view. If you do, I would recommend the following people:
Georgina Young (gaming journalist, now with TechRaptor, tries to talk to both sides)
Alistar Pinsof (former gaming journalist, critical of both sides)
Liana Kerzner (gaming journalist, freelancer, tries to talk to both sides)
David Auerbach (tech journalist, has written about Gamergate)
Erik Kain (gaming journalist)
David Pakman (interviewer, has done a number of interviews on the issue)
Please not Milo. I really dislike him for his behavior in other arenas, he’s a bad face to put on GamerGate. There are liberals in Gamergate too without his bad reputation.
Thank you so much for giving GG a chance. Too many just swallow the mainstream narrative and don’t bother trying.
William Usher, Milo, Total Biscuit, Allum Bokhari for GG.
I’m going to revise my earlier recommendations, after further thought.
– Allistair Pinsoff
Worked in the games media industry, was subjected to unethical behaviour, has a good insight into the workings of some of the sights in the spotlight.
– William Usher
Broke the GamesJournoPro email leaks, very good coverage of that specifically and has been a great asset to GamerGate.
– Sargon of Akkad
Has been a voice of reason, debunking several negative talking points against GamerGate and also intelligent.
– Oliver Campbell
Also worked in the industry, has a very good knowledge of GamerGate happenings, well rounded and passionate.
– Christina Hoff Sommers
The social justice angle is unavoidable in GamerGate, although not directly related to the ethical breaches, she has a good knowledge of feminism and it well respected in the movement for her facts and statistics.
Sargon of Akkad
Milo Yiannopoulos
Christina H. Sommers
Total Biscuit
Mercedes Carrera
That’s my pick
Personally I’d say either Christina Hoff Summers, Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yiannopoulos or William Usher. Any of them are clever enough to be a proper for voice for us. Another part of thinks Total Biscuit but I doubt he’d accept the offer. The men deserves some peace and quiet.
If we have to go with 5 choices, I’ll go with
Oliver Campbell
Mercedes Carrera
Totalbiscuit aka John Bain
William Usher
Georgina Young
On the anti-GG side,
Brian Crecente
Greg Tito
Stephen Totilo
Jason Shreier
And it’s a little hard for me to think of others, because most of the aGG figureheads are vile in their rhetoric.
But on the other hand, it doesn’t have to be a 2 sides thing. There are plenty of people who who I wouldn’t qualify as taking sides (not openly anyway), such as:
Liana Kerzner
Erik Kain
Alexander Macris
Janelle Bonano
As it turns out, all 4 of them are journalists.
And from a dev standpoint, those names are interesting:
Mark Kern
Derek Smart
Jennifer Dawe
Brad Wardell
I’d also like to see women BESIDES Summers. Definitely get Liz if you can, she’s incredible. We absolutely have seen GamerGate spun as a boys-only club before, despite the NotYourShield documentation, and we don’t need a representative cast of mostly males to spin further.
“Pro” GamerGate
C.H. Sommers is a must.
William Usher
Sargon of Allad
Anti-GamerGate
Anita Sarkeesian
Arthur Chu
Brianna Wu
Zoe Quinn
1 sane person (if you can find them)
There’s an awful lot of talk about “feminism” when it should be about “ethics.”
Its a mistake to say “GamerGate supporters” because many people have different perspectives on the issues. This isnt black and white and shouldnt be represented as such. There are no teams, there are no sides. If you want to do an investigation into the abuses of gaming media then you should do THAT. If you want to enable a discussion with people who have been defamed by the media then do THAT.
Hi there, I support #GamerGate, but if you really want to get the perspective of a leaderless movement, you should bring in at least one “unknown” from within the GamerGate community.
I would suggest you look into the Twitter accounts of less popular people, like, @whenindoubtdo <– my vote if you have to pick one
@enjoy_murph
@YTM1staWu1fy
These are people with under 2000 subscribers, but it's people like that, more than Milo or Sargon, who make up the core of GamerGate.
As for the opposition, I suggest you ask them. If I had to vote, I'd say Arthur Chu, Jonathan McIntosh, or Chris Kluwe.
i’d love to see either john bain totalbiscuit or miloYannopolous
Allum Bokhari
Milo
William Usher
Cathy Young
Christina Sommers
Total Biscuit
After much though, my recommendations are:
Christina Hoff Sommers (liberal feminist scholar)
Mark Kern (gamer, game developer, freedom of expression advocator)
Milo Yiannopoulos (controversial journalist)
Oliver Campbell (gamer and well balanced journalist)
Sargon of Akkad (Youtube personality, critic of contemporary feminism in the media and academia, but not of feminism’s core goals)
Thank you so much for taking on the task of investigating. Just to be fair, I warn you that as you progress in your research, I think it’s likely that you will find those who will try to tarnish your reputation and mischaracterise you. There is a no room for dissent in the games media, and a lot of that leads back to something that is dangerous to analyse critically: contemporary feminist media and academia. I personally believe it is possible to distinguish between the root goals of feminism and feminist media, but your opponents who have legions of blog-readers at their command will purposely choose *not* make this distinction, because it means they run the risk of being questioned.
Regardless, I sincerely hope you’re still willing to objectively look at what is going on with the GG controversy. You will probably take a few knocks just for treating us like we don’t have the plague, and regardless of your conclusion we will stick by you just for giving us a fair chance to be heard. Once again, thank you.
I said on the last one, talk to Oliver Campbell!
Also, bring in Leigh Alexander, the author of the infamous “Gamers don’t have to be your audience, Gamers are OVER” nonsense article as a questionable journalist.
Her article was riddled with bias and harmful attacks on groups of people that very likely include those with mental disabilities and disorders. Please bop her on the head with some ethics.
This is all very exciting, I have to say.
Thanks for being receptive!
While I do like listening to and reading a lot of the people suggested here that are involved in GamerGate, I worry about this interview falling into the trap that I’ve seen a lot of GamerGate related discussion fall into. Namely, it ends up sounding like a liberal vs. conservative debate, when I think the more interesting part of GamerGate is the debate WITHIN the left.
In other words, what we often end up with is a debate between, say, feminism and anti-feminism. What I’m more interested in is a debate between whether feminism is absolutely correct and the media should not give serious credibility to differing opinions, or whether that is not the case.
I pretty much believe in most everything that the media opposed to us espouses (I even work for a “Women in Tech” organization), with the caveat that I don’t believe I am necessarily correct about it. To me, that belief outweighs the individual issues by an order of magnitude. I disliked GWB’s campaign against Kerry because it portrayed certainty as a virtue (and changing one’s mind as a vice), and I’m a supporter of GamerGate for precisely the same reason.
All that said, I do find things like feminism vs. anti-feminism, freedom of speech absolutism vs. limited freedom of speech, etc. to be interesting as well. I just think the core issue at play here isn’t so much whether one side or the other is correct, but rather whether the discussion should be allowed to happen at all. Indeed, I think the colleagues you mention that don’t like the idea of you reaching out are a fine example of that. (I don’t mean to demonize them. Trust me, most of my friends and colleagues are on the other side of this debate, and I still think they are overall good people, despite them largely having written me off as a crazy person.)
Anyway, with all that in mind, I’d recommend getting some people that don’t necessarily represent GamerGate itself, but rather represent its right to exist. Suggestions would be:
– Erik Kain (@erikkain, writer at Forbes)
– John Bain AKA TotalBiscuit (@totalbiscuit, YouTube personality and game reviewer)
– David Auerbach (@auerbachkeller, a culture/tech writer who is pretty critical of GamerGate, but not in the “kill them all” sort of way)
– Cathy Young (@cathyyoung63, writer at Reason)
The suggestions from others are good as well, don’t get me wrong. I have no more right to suggest a direction the debate should go than anyone else. But despite having suffered career-wise because of my affiliation with GamerGate, I’m less interested in GamerGate “winning” a debate, and more interested in a discussion about the debate’s right to exist. That’s why it’s such a big deal to me, and why I’ve been willing to endure months of being called vile names by the media and my colleagues.
Thanks for listening to us!
I agree with most of the recommendations here.
Sargon of Akkad
Milo Yiannoppoulos
Totalbiscuit
Christina Hoff Sommers
Oliver Campbell
Thanks for lending us you ear. You have have no idea how much this means as the last 8 months has made me question the sanity of the MSM. For suggestions I say:
-Oliver Campbell (former gaming journalist, now author. The major voice for #notyourshield)
-David Auerbach (Tech journalist for Slate. He is neutral but knows something strange has been going on).
-EventStatus (YouTuber who is very knowledgeable about gaming, especially the FGC)
-jennofhardwire (she has been cataloging the abuse leveled at GG that the gaming press and MSM ignores)
-@icze4r (a prominent member of the GG harassment patrol)
-Frederick Brennan (owner/administrator of 8chan. You will need someone who understands both chan culture and chan politics. These two are very difficult to penetrate or untangle).
-TotalBiscuit (YouTuber and consumer advocate. Has experienced an extraordinary amount of abuse, character assassination, and attempts to marginalize/blacklist him during all of this.)
-William Usher (gaming journalist who has been covering the more intricate details of GG from very early on)
I did not get a chance yesterday to add my 2 cents, so I will do it now. The problems with the gaming press treats its readers has been a long running issue as summarised here is this pre-Aug 2014 video.
That many of the issues discussed there would later be revealed to have serious conflicts of interest is what made the GG scandal start to boil. What really made GG explode was the “gamers are dead” articles. What you will notice missing from all of them is that not a single one mentions what happened to wizardchan or TFYC (something that the gaming press had a hand in). Up to now, only The Escapist has apologized for what happened to wizardchan.
Again, thank you so much for giving us a chance.
Dr Christina Sommers, Milo Yiannopoulos, William Usher, Lizzie F.
-vs-
Anita Sarkeesian, Ben Kuchera, Nathan Grayson, Jonathan McIntosh.
I say you should get the Youtube personality who whines about women and supports white supremacy.
Wait, that doesn’t narrow it down you say?
Lots of good suggestions here. Make sure you include some people who would identify as “gamers”. For example, while Christina Hoff Summers and Milo are prominent figures who know a lot about GamerGate and have a lot of interesting and worthwhile things to say, they’re not first and foremost gamers.
Christina Summers.
Dr. Christina Hoff Sommers, Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yionnopoulos, Lizzie F, Frederick Brennan and Oliver Campbell all seem to be very good representatives of Gamergate. That is my suggestion having been a part of this movement since November.
For the GG side :
Milo Yiannopoulos – Journalist
Christina H. Sommers – Feminist
Georgina Young – journalist
Mercedes Carrera – pornstar and ex-stem
Jennifer Dawe Or Mark Kern – developers
Lizzy Finnegan
For the Anti GG side :
Josh(or N) Mcintosh – writer/thinker for Feminist Frequency
Brianna Wu – developer
Arthur Chu – journalist
Kate Edward – IDGA
Stephen Totillo / jason Schreier – journalist
Just dropping off the credits you’re due, sir.
Have a nice day!
* John Bain (@totalbiscuit) Hes a very clear an decent public speaker. He has a great memory and ability to maintain himself.
* Brad Wardell. Brad is a dev who has suffered first hand at the hands of the gaming press acting irresponsibly.
* William Usher. William is the man who leaked the Game journpros list that as a gaming journalist hes part of . Milo covered that. Hes also show many conflicts of interest and is quite honestly one of the best people that could go for us.
Milo (@NERO) Hes also a journalist thats part of this though he is not that involved in gaming journolism. Hes reported quite a bit on this and uncovered a lot. Hes is however a very flamboyant and controversial figure
Cathy Young, Oliver Campbell, William Usher, Milo Yiannopoulos, Allum Bokhari
As pro-GamerGate, I nominate Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina H Sommers, and youtubers ‘InternetAristocrat’ and ‘Sargon of Akkad’. Possibly also Adam Baldwin.
Plenty of comments on who should be included in the panel… Now a word about who SHOULD NOT be on the panel.
On the ANTI side of the aisle:
Chelsea Van Valkenburg/Zoe Quinn
Anita Sarkeesian
Brianna Wu
Arthur Chu
Sarah Nyberg/Butts
ANYONE associated with Silverstring Media
First of all, these people are in no way central to the discussion of *Ethics in Journalism*, seeing as they are utterly unethical in every way, shape and form AND most definitely aren’t journalists at all. They’re all obsessives who narcissistically try to control the #GamerGate discussion and make it all about them. They constantly self-victimize and splash their names all over the media for fun and profit. Trust me when I say their presence would zero value to the discussion; they are propagandists at best.
On the PRO side:
Mike Cernovich
Vox Day
Dean Esmay
Anyone associated with the infamous Ayyteam
These people might be pro-#GamerGate but they are fringe outsiders, in reality. Their views on many topics (including #Gamergate itself) are “controversial” to say the least. They would be little more than a distracting sideshow and, again, would add very little of value to the conversation.
P.S. The name and address of the venue should not have been made public before the event. You may have opened yourself up to a bomb threat or false fire alarm prank…
I caution against any including any self-described “neutrals” on the panel because #GamerGate’s critics have made a habit of attacking such people on the basis either that they are not “true neutrals” or that “true neutrality” is impossible for a variety of reasons. The pro/anti format should be adequate for a discussion and I see no reason to open the debate to the recurring “true neutral” distraction.
My recommendations would be John Bain (TotalBiscuit). While he doesn’t use the tag a lot he is one of the largest advocates for the causes of ethical journalism and also one of the most prominent personalities on the internet.
The one that is known as Sargon of Akkad would be my second recommendation. Lesser known person but hugely involved in gamergate.
Lizzy Finnegan since she is one of the more prominent females inside gamergate, aside from Summers who is mostly there to push back the radical feminism of its opposition.
As for enemies, there are plenty to pick from. Any of the “Litteraly whos” could do which is Anita Sarkissian, Brianna Wu and Zoe Quiin. Stephen Totilo Kotaku’s editor-in-chief is an option too.
Anti-Gamergate representation should be JudgeHolden72, the mod on /r/Againstgamergate. He’s well articulated and has quite a bit to say, even if he doesn’t get the face time others do
https://www.reddit.com/r/AgainstGamerGate/
Mr. Koretzky
We are currently trying to come up with a ‘master list’ of suitable candidates, then we are going to vote on them. Once voting is finalized and the voted candidates accept, then that will be our collective choice of representatives. This could take up to a week or more to do, but we will have a list for you in time for your deadline of June 1.
Thank you.
Sincerely
Another Leader of GamerGate
PS You can follow the decision making on http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/ and more specifically here in this thread (at time of this posting) http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34yvg0/lets_do_this_right_submit_nominations_for_spj/
@Sargon_of_Akkad, @Nero, @oliverbcampbell, @CHSommers and @Totalbiscuit😀
Just realized something. GamerGate is ridiculously complicated right now. You will NEED to define the parameters of what you are going to discuss before you pick representatives. Here is a simplified breakdown of the issues.
-The original gaming press scandals (people abusing connections to gain or deny coverage of the truth)
-The censorship/blacklisting
-The biased and deliberately dishonest MSM media coverage that is still definitely coordinated to tell only one side (you can not trust anything they have said)
-The culture war against authoritarianism
Each one of of these is a singularly huge and complex issue. You will have to chose which you are going to mediate and then chose the representatives. I hope this is helpful. Thanks again.
Any talk of the movement probably will get you in a lotta shit, be warned. But it probably won’t be from the Gamergate lot.
I’d say William Usher, Oliver Campbell and John Bain (TB). After that, CHS and Milo.
1. William Usher 2. Oliver Campbell 3. Milo Yiannopoulos
I’m respecting Sargon’s wishes not to be put forward.
I doubt Totalbiscuit would wanna do it because he’s sick of twitter drama, but if you could get him, he’s great, Milo and CH Sommers are awesome folks, but they’re not really gamers, and if somebody is gonna stand up as the voice of GamerGate, they should actually be a gamer. Maybe Oliver Campbell? As for who they should be against…well that one’s easy, Anita Sarkeesian, she’s pretty much our opposition incarnate in one person.
Thank you so much for doing this!
HAPPENINGS –
It’s been mentioned here at least once, but to signal boost: GamerGate is coming together to create an ordered list of it’s preferred candidates. This is probably going to take us a few days because we’re an unruly mob, but in the end we’ll get you a list that’s as official a GG position as GG is capable of making.
My prediction, for what its worth — Anti-GG reps will not show. I would be highly amused to see for example Oliver Campbell, Milo and CH Sommers debate Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu and Arthur Chu. But while I expect the first three to jump at the chance, I expect the latter three will find some excuse to back out, safety issues perhaps, or not wishing to give harassers a voice, or something like that.
My good friend, thank you for giving us a chance to speak for ourselves. It doesn’t matter to me who you side with. I’m content that there are people out there who want to get as close to the truth as possible.
I personally recommend Milo Yiannopoulos to represent us. He’s been an excellent voice and a commendable journalist in his own right.
Thank you, SPJ board, for giving this a fair shake.
I’d recommend reporters from Techraptor or NicheGamer, as well as Christina Hoff Sommers.
Sargon , Milo and Based Mom !
The only one who’d be suitable for this – in my opinion – is John “TotalBiscuit” Bain. He’s a sensible, calm and intelligent man who’d do a great job of representing GamerGate, while still giving those who are opposed to GG a fair depiction, and his professionalism and knowledge when it comes to video games and games media is as far as I’m concerned unmatched, .
On the GG side: Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Hoff Sommers, Sargon_of_Akkad, Mark Kern, and Adam Baldwin would be my dream team. On the AGG side it doesn’t really matter. Whoever it is will make emotional appeals, use fallacies, and name-call.
Thank you for putting your neck out to hear out our side of the story. I look forward to this discussion and thank you for polling the GG community for their choices to represent us. My primary choice would be Sargon of Akkad. My second choice would be TotalBiscuit (John Bain) even though he would be more neutral and slightly leaning towards Gamergate. I feel he is best suited in a discussion of Journalistic Ethics. Even though he would not call himself a journalist he has demonstrated a very strong adherence to ethics in what he does.
While I’m not sure if any of these people are willing or not, and you would have to contact them for that, I believe Professor Christina Hoff Sommers, journalist William Usher, writer Oliver Campbell, and adult film star Mercedes Carrera would be some of the best choices. All are reasoned, logical people, who used evidence and facts to support their positions. They come from all walks of life, and will all have unique perspectives. Not to mention, I believe all have some credentials, academic or otherwise (heck, Mercedes is, quite literally, academically accredited as a rocket scientist; she has “aerospace engineer” on her resume for a reason).
While I love Milo’s attitude and no-nonsense actions, I’m not sure he would be the most conducive to the discussion because of his penchant for flippancy at times.
This is a friendly reminder to ignore the trolls and derailers that are sure to come out in full force now that the SPJ will objectively talk about the topic.
I would like to suggest: (copied and pasted from wiki)
Philip E. Mason
is a British scientist and skeptical atheist blogger best known for his YouTube channel, Thunderf00t. He has attained a PhD in chemistry, and studied multiple areas of biochemistry. He has produced numerous science communication and social issue videos focused on his views about politics, religion, and feminism.
I agree with a lot of the above and don’t need to mention them. Philip would be a great choice to be on your panel.
I forget her real name, but her twitter handle is @shoe0nhead.
One thing I’m not seeing a lot of suggestions for those that would be on the anti-GG side.
I think Anita Sarkeesian or John Macintosh are obvious (but I have a strong feeling that they will not accept).
Leigh Alexander,
Jason Shrier, would be great.
Chris Kluwe seems fairly motivated to to talk.
Arthur Chu as well.
Brianna Wu
Thank you for attempting to organize this talk!
I’m a member of Gamergate and these are the people I would like to see discuss the issues:
Sargon or Mark Kern (@Sargon_of_Akkad) (@Grummz)
Christina Sommers (@CHSommers)
Oliver Campbell (@olivercampbell)
Milo Yiannopoulos (@Nero)
William Usher (@WilliamUsherGB)
For #GamerGate:
Milo Yiannopoulos: https://twitter.com/Nero
Oliver Campbell: https://twitter.com/oliverbcampbell
Christina H. Sommers: https://twitter.com/CHSommers
Sargon of Akkad: https://twitter.com/Sargon_of_Akkad
Karen Straughan: https://twitter.com/girlwriteswhat
John Bain: https://twitter.com/Totalbiscuit
William Usher: https://twitter.com/WilliamUsherGB
I believe that these individuals will provide adequate representation for the revolt. There are, however, several others that you may wish to talk to for some further information and just their opinions on everything.
Alison Tieman: https://twitter.com/Typhonblue
Lizy: https://twitter.com/lizzyf620
Mark Kern: https://twitter.com/Grummz
Adrian Chmielarz: https://twitter.com/adrianchm
Jennifer Shivers, I believe: https://twitter.com/GMShivers
These are individuals who could provide some valuable information and insight, for various reasons. The latter three are industry professionals that have supported us, as of late, and stood as opposed to our opposition as we are.
As for our opposition:
Ben Kuchera: https://twitter.com/BenKuchera
Leigh Alexander: https://twitter.com/leighalexander
Nathan Grayson: https://twitter.com/vahn16
Anita Sarkeesian (Who will never do it.)
There’s quite a few to choose from, but those would be my top picks.
They have already been mentioned, but I’d like to add my recommendations for:
Milo Yiannopoulous (@Nero), my editor at Breitbart.
Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63), contributing editor at Reason Magazine.
John Bain (@Totalbiscuit), YouTuber
William Usher (@WilliamUsherGB), contributor at Gaming Blend
Christina H Sommers (@CHSommers), resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute
I’ll vote for
Milo Yiannopoulos
Christina Hoff Sommers
Oliver Campbell
Mark Kern
William Usher
Oliver Campbell’s my #1 vote. Then Milo for an odd couple pairing that’ll be unpredictably awesome. Then I think William Usher, then Based Mom. Sargon’d be my fifth. He’s awesome but we have so many awesome people.
As a member of GG, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Sommers and Sargon of Akkad, John “Total Biscuit” Brain, Oliver Campbell, Mercedes Carrara (probably butchered the last name), and Mark Kern.
They tend to think like most GamerGaters and are polite enough the mainstream journos wouldn’t immediately start some sort of smear campaign when they sneeze too hard in anyone’s direction.
Thank you SO much, for this opportunity for people to see what we’re actually about, and not what they HEAR we are about.
I vote for
John Bain (TotalBiscuit)
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sargon of Akkad
John Bain would probably be the most moderate of the three. He also is big on ethics. But all are great.
As for the opponent…well, if anyone is willing to do it (they probably won’t, as they don’t like to debate much), you can’t go much higher than Anita Sarkeesian or Jonathan McIntosh. The latter is more likely to debate, between the two.
Sargon of Akkad, Oliver Campbell, Queeny Martha, Jenn of Hardwire, Lucien Maverick
Pro
Oliver Campbell (The primary Candidate)
Prof. F.
Sargon of Akkad (Technically neutral I believe, but only technically)
The Ralph
The Ivy Clover
Ashton Liu
Jennifer D’aww
Daniel Vavra
Andrew Gleason (Otter Jesus)
Brad Wardell
Jennie Bharaj
Neutral
Allum Bokhari
Total Biscuit
C H Sommers
William Usher
Milo Yiannopoulos
Lizzyf620
Thunderf00t
Girlwriteswhat
Alistar Pinsof
Mark Kern
MundaneMatt
Mike Donachie (https://twitter.com/Mike_Donachie could an interesting perspective)
David Aueback
Chris Von Csefalvay
I forgot Cathy Young, so Cathy Young also.
Thank you for taking the time to hear us out.
– Oliver Campbell is a great first choice, one of my favourite GG voices by far, I heartily look forward to hearing his streams and insights.
– Total Biscuit (John Bain) is a fantastic advocate for Games media ethics and, while he does not use the GG hashtag, has spoken to many of us and people in the industry.
– Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin) is a very strong speaker and a well respected member of GG, he stays on topic and his David Packman interview was one of the best and describing our goals.
– Brad Wardell is a Game developer for Stardock and has been the victim of poor and unethical journalism in the past.
– Mark Kern, who came into the debate in an attempt to bridge the gap, got attacked by journalists and members of Anti-GamerGate. He has a lot to say from and industry perspective as someone who has worked with Blizzard and has since gone independent.
My votes for the following:
William Usher
Cathy Young
Christina Hoff Sommers
Milo Yiannopoulos
Professor Nick Flor
Oliver Campbell
Alexander Macris
Mercedes Carrera
CRASHING THIS COMMENT SECTION.
WITH NO SURVIVORS.
Also William Usher, Cathy Young, Christina Hoff Summers, Milo Yiannopolous, Oliver Campbell.
1. Sargon of Akkad
2. Oliver Campbell
3. Milo Yiannopolous
4. Mercedes Carrera
5. Lizzy Finnegan
William Usher
As an interested but neutral observer, Sommers is basically the only person who I respect on the subject of GamerGate.
As many on the anti-GG side dramatically point out, GamerGate is about a SPECIFIC kind of ethical misconduct in journalism, the insistence on a “social justice” narrative to the exclusion of other narratives. As a veteran academic and feminist, Sommers is familiar with how this works and has worked for the past 20 years, and doesn’t seem distracted by the confused charges of literal collusion among journalists.
Thanks for this opportunity! I’d have to promote:
Totalbiscuit
Professor Nick Flor
Lizzy Finnegan
Karen Straughan
Sargon of Akkad
Mark Kern
David Packman
Christina Hoff Summers
I’m Simone Tanzi, (small) developer of GamerGate known on twitter as @scarletgameshow but mostly on reddit as ScarletIT as a moderator and prominent debater for the side of Gamergate on the /r/AgainstGamerGate subreddit.
I would love to take part to this but of course, that is self reference,I hope someone would vouch for me as I make myself available for this debate.
As for nominating other people I believe we should have people invested in the consumer revolt and the gaming community rather than people who have a very tangential interest in it.
So I would vouch for:
– Jhon Bain (also known as Totalbiscuit on youtube)
– @Fewrfreyut (who already debated about gamergate along with Liana Krezner in a 4 hours long TYT community video)
– Jennie Bharaj (founder of Based Gamer)
– QueenyMartha (youtouber and host of many “women of GamerGate” stream debates)
Pro-GG gamers:
@oliverbcampbell, @CultOfVivian, @Sargon_of_Akkad, @lizzyf620, @ZombieNeith
Pro-GG developers:
@GMShivers, @Grummz, @adrianchm
Pro-GG outside of gaming:
@CHSommers, @Nero, @TheMercedesXXX
I would probably like to see 3 gamers, 1 dev and 1 outside of gaming people to represent GG side among these.
As for anti-GG side, @radicalbytes/@femfreq is I’m sure what everyone would like most but gl getting them to agree. Apart from that, I could nominate @jasonschreier, @BenKuchera, @arthur_affect, @leighalexander and @Spacekatgal.
I’m going to throw my vote towards Oliver Campbell.
Let’s talk strictly ethics.
Neutral (pretty much pro in my eyes, since fair shake was the only thing we really wanted)
@TotalBiscuit (John Bain)
Georgina Young
@draginol (Brad Wardell)
Antis
Greg Tito – former EiC who approved a news story about harassment against a forum of vulnerable people with a sole source and unverifiable claim for the story (in his own words, anything to ‘signal boost’ the issue, his reply is still on the escapist forum). Ended up having the forum in question vandalized and its members harassed (this was prior to GG, but it was one of the things that helped broke the camel’s back).
Jason Schreiber – tied to the false reporting of the affairs and accusation against Brad Wardell. The article wasn’t updated until Gamergate came along.
James Fudge – same as above, actually have disclosures on his articles, so yay for improvements.
I don’t think you’d even need a ProGGer on the panel since any neutral that talks about ethics would cover core GG concerns. If you absolutely need one, I’d recommend Oliver Campbell.
Totalbiscuit is very level headed and eloquent, would love to see him up there.
The Factual Feminist (Christina H. Sommers) has a broader perspective on the issue, and has been saying the right things around gender equality for much longer gamergate has been around.
Id also beinterested in seeing that guy from Stardock, the one who was falsely accused of rape and harassed for it.
Apologies if my typing is off, the form doesn’t actually let me see what I’ve typed so I’m guessing.
I recommend Grummz, Milo, or Sargon
Invite these Pros
TotalBiscuit
Brad Wardell
Mark Kern
C.H. Sommers
William Usher
Alexander Macris
Do not invite these Pros
Seattle4Truth – Conspiracy nut, although quite fascinating
Ralph – Hothead
Milo – Trollish (sorry, mate!)
Eron Gjorni – Is Eron Gjorni
Invite these Antis
Nathan Grayson
Stephen Totilo
Ben Kuchera
Leigh Alexander
Kyle Orland
Do not invite these Antis
Zoe Quinn – Is Zoe Quinn
Anita Sarkeesian – Interloper
Brianna Wu – Unable to debate well
Arthur Chu – Embarassment
Ryulong – Certifiably Insane
I’d like to suggest my list:
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yanoopolous
– Christina Sommers
– William Usher
Just Milo and Christina being present serves to debunk and crush some of the SJW most proeminent arguments like, for example:
#GG is homophobic and full of mysogyny.
Now for opponents..
I doubt any will show up, they usually avoid reasonable ambients like one should avoid the plague.
I suggest:
-MundaneMatt
Thats it
I would recomend: @draginol and @Grummz.
and also
@TheRalphRetort and @mundanematt
and if posible @Totalbiscuit @lizzyf620 @Boogie2988 and @CHSommers
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yanoopolous
– Christina Sommers
— MundainMatt
— Thunderf00t
– Sargon of Akkad
– Milo Yanoopolous
– Christina Sommers
— Karen Straughan
Sargon of Akkad and Milo Yiannopoulos, please.
Oliver Campbell.
Please for the love of all that is holy. He is a former game journalist and have extensive knowledge of what have been happening for the past 8 months.
I vote for Milo Yiannopoulos, William Usher, Oliver Cambell and Christina Hoff Sommers.
Firstly, thank you for braving the deep, dark, and scary GamerGate “group”. We’ve been called neckbeard terrorists, Nazis, the KKK, ISIS, and virgins (gasp!). It says a lot about your character that you’re coordinating this, despite what your colleagues might think. Honey Badger don’t care!
Here are my nominations. I first want to say that Christina Hoff Sommers, while very popular, is better off remaining on the sidelines for this. She is great when it comes to the “culture side” of things, but doesn’t have the focus on the journalistic ethics and documented conflicts of interest that the others have.
1. Joseph Campbell is an absolute must. He has done some of the best work, IMO. IF YOU ONLY GET ONE PERSON, GET CAMPBELL.
2. William Usher is also a solid pick. If it were between Usher and Cambpell, I’d pick Campbell, and replace Usher with Mark Kern
3. John Bain, aka TotalBiscuit (Limey bastard that he) is would also be a great attendee/participant. He is a prominent YouTube games reviewer (so, not a journalist) who, though not “in” GG, certainly stands by GG. He broke a story on Shadow of Mordor being given to YT reviewers only if they promised positive reviews. Erik Kain is a good replacement for TB.
4. Liana Kerzner is definitely more Neutral, and is a controversial figure. I personally find her commentary to be very insightful. She’s written many pieces about games and on gaming for sites like Polygon, and others. I do not think she’d be a bad choice at all. Derek Smart might be a good replacement for Liana, as would Brad Wardell.
5. Georgina Young: she will forever hold a special place in my heart for coming to the GG subreddit and starting multiple threads in which she asked us to explain our personal beliefs on a variety of issues: conflicts of interest, disclosures, censorship, the role feminist critique can/should play. She currently writes for TechRaptor and is a total boss. She appeared on a HuffPo Live TV stream called “The Ladies of GamerGate”, or something similar.
Other solid picks include:
Alllistair Pinsof
Professor Nick Flor
Lizzy Finnegan- sadly, after she and her kids were threatened she’s stopped her involvement in GG. She did show up at the GGinDC event last week.
Mercedes Carrera- adult film actress and accredited aerospace engineer
Erik Kain of Forbes
Mundane Matt
Cathy Young of Reason
Brad Wardell – CEO of Stardock and victim of Kotaku’s awful journalism. Just, look up what happened to him. It’s atrocious.
Mark Kern – Game developer
Derek Smart of IGDA
——
As for the antis, I can really only say Stephen Totilo.
All the other big e-figures have just consistently denied that GG has any sincere interest in ethics. So, people like Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Arthur Chu, Ian Miles Cheong, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian/John MacIntosh (really the same person) wouldn’t have much to contribute. In fact, many of those people have declined requests for public debate. Milo has a standing offer to donate $10,000 to a charity of Ms. Sarkeesian’s choice if she will engage in a public debate.
The problem for you, as I see it, is that most of the people who have “opposed GG” (which means different things to different people) have done so by focusing on the horrible trolling that goes on. If any of them were to assent to participate in your event, they would essentially be volunteering to table the argument that “GG is evil and doesn’t care about ethics because harassment”, because harassment is outside the scope of the discussion.
You’d be asking them to put down the cudgel they’ve been wielding for the past eight months. I’ll be amazed if that happens.
The most likely response you will hear is that they don’t want to open themselves up to more harassment, and that you should be ashamed for a) even considering exposing them to that and b) giving GG any legitimacy by entertaining the idea that there are actually people concerned with conflicts of interest in the games industry. You might even be accused of enabling harassment.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see them try to behave civilly and not accuse the people who disagree with them of harassment and vile bigotry, I’m just giving you fair warning.
Thanks again for trying! Keep on keepin on, and don’t let the haters hate on you for being a snooty hipster😉
I vote for Mundanematt
Let me toss in a few additional voices for consideration on the anti side. These are people who have claimed knowledge and have repeatedly expressed strong opinions.
I would, at the very least, like to hear their reasons for refusing such an opportunity.
Graham Linehan @glinner
John Scalzi @scalzi
Wil Wheaton @wilw & Anne Wheaton @annewheaton
Well,
I’ve updated my list at:
http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34yvg0/lets_do_this_right_submit_nominations_for_spj/
There’s a very important addition to my list that I believe should be there…but that’s for the masses to decide. Either way, I encourage you to watch the thread unfold. Thank you for taking this leap down the rabbit hole…we’ll try to make your landing as comfortable as possible.
You’re welcome to add me on Twitter.
i vote for Milo and Sargon. But the biggest issue you’ll have is finding someone on the anti-GG side willing to come and have a peaceful discussion, they view this kind of thing very negatively and would prefer to just run smear campaigns in the mainstream media. I could never imagine myself typing out a sentence like that with a serious face before gamergate, but it’s true. If you want to see what I mean, go on youtube and look up “#gamergate david pakman” – watch the videos with anti-gamergaters like Arthur Chu (who’s a hot topic right now because of his incendiary tweets before the bomb threat against GG) and Brianna Wu. Then watch the interviews with pro gamergate people, like sargon of akkad (carl benjamin), “Hotwheels,” and Milo Yiannopolous and you’ll see the difference between the #GamerGate people and their opposition on Pakman’s show has been staggering. One side discusses issues and answers questions civilly and the other side attacks Pakman for being neutral.
THe Youtuber called Sargon of Akkad, he has the head in the right place even if isnt the best debater.
Frederick “Hotwheels” Brennan isnt directly involved with Gamergate, but can offer insight on the nearly-untrasversabe “channer culture” Gamergate relies on.
Another siteowner that chose to house instead of shun those involved with Gamergate is Alexander “Archon” Macris, he might have his own insights about this situation.
And lastly, Erik Kain, who early on wrote an article I used as reference of whats going on with this mess. Pretty levelheaded fellow, although not much of a debater either. Not strictly on either side.
I see many people suggest Totalbiscuit and other names, its of note most of them arent strictly into Gamergate as much as they uphold ideas Gamergate support — TB for example is extremely but strictly pro-consumer, Milo is very anti-SJW, so on, so forth.
I have no idea of who to suggest from the anti-gamergate side. They consistently mocked any attempt at discourse.
I have been thinking very carefully about whose name to put forward for an SPJ panel. Normally, when one is needed to represent GamerGate, my mind instantly conjures Christina Hoff Sommers. However, I don’t think The Hoff is right for this discussion. CHS has never really been involved in the ethics side of GamerGate, and she isn’t a journalist either. I’m not even sure she’d want to be involved with this discussion.
Someone who is a journalist, and who has involved herself with the ethics aspect of GamerGate, however, is Cathy Young. And if she were willing, I think she’d be the perfect candidate for this. She is a highly regarded journalist with an intimate knowledge of GamerGate, its complaints, and the people who oppose it. I can’t think of anyone more equipped to represent GamerGate at a debate about journalistic ethics.
Secondly, I’d put forward Brad Wardell. He is a veteran within the industry this corrupt speciality press reports on. More so, he has been a victim of their disregard of ethical standards, and has written previously both about the way forward for GamerGate and the corruption within gaming journalism.
Thirdly, I’d recommend Allum Bokhari. Allum has proven to be an articulate and competent speaker, having heartily argued GamerGate’s case in a live steam recently with a reporter in a constructively calm, collected, and most importantly, convincing manner. More so, he has a near encyclopaedic knowledge of GamerGate and its history, and has used that in subtle ways to direct and further our cause.
Fourthly, I’d suggest William Usher. Here’s a guy who has devoted a lot of his time to actually investigating the ethical problems within the media, having exposed myriad egregious lapses. When it comes to recounting the actual discoveries GamerGate has made, who could possibly be better than the person who discovered many of them?
Finally, there’s several people who could take a fifth place. All for different reasons.
-Sargon has been knee deep in all aspects of GamerGate, has reported on it for months, has argued at all levels, has been engaged with both sides of the debate, and is well-respected within the community.
-Erik Kain has covered GamerGate from a point of neutrality, and separately, has raised concerns about the ethics of his sector of the press since long before we were around. He could provide an unbiased insider’s view of the problems faced, practices he considers shady, and ways forward.
-Milo has perhaps done more for GamerGate than any other single person, having tackled every stratum of the controversy. He is a tour de force when it comes to public speaking and debating. And he is a journalist, who has reported on GamerGate since the very beginning. The only reason I didn’t include Milo as a definite is because almost all of GamerGate’s opponents hate him probably more than anyone else. And I can see them seizing on that and attempting to deflect from the issues at hand.
-Total Biscuit. Total Biscuit is familiar with GamerGate, gaming journalists, standards and practices, and is capable when putting forward his case.
I’m going to pitch my two cents into this hat as well. Going to nominate people alphabetically and attached some comments to each one.
For #GamerGate
Christina Hoff Sommers
Jennifer Dawe
Lizzy Finnegan
Mercedes Carrera
Milo Yiannopoulos
Oliver Campbell
William Usher
Sargon_of_Akkad unfortunately has turned down this event, though I would really have liked to have seen him there.
Neutral:
@Sushilulutwitch (the everygamer representative)
David Auerbach
TotalBiscut (John Bain)
Mark Kern
AntiGamerGate:
It’s hard to find someone on AGG that wouldn’t make it look like I was trying to sabotage the talks by nominating, but I’ll try to be careful and pick some anyways.
Ben Kuchera
Chris Plante
Ian Miles Cheong
jason Schreier
Kate Edward
Leigh Alexander
Stephen Totillo
I’m going to stop, because I just realized I’ve spent 2 hours researching this and I just keep adding more and more names.
I would put forth Sargon of Akkad. Some would argue that Sargon would lose his cool but Some, I think that that’s not truly a bad thing. He’s full of passion and well spoken however, he really isn’t much of a journalist. I would secondly suggest Christina Summers or William Usher though Sargon is my favored.
I’d recommend Milo Yiannopoulos, William Usher and Lizzy Finnegan for Gamergate representation.
Would love to see Mundane Matt, Total Biscuit, Liana Kerzner, and Mercedes Carrera on this. Sargon of Akkad if AND ONLY IF he is up for it.
My picks for GG representation would be as follows:
Sargon of Akkad (Carl Benjamin)
Oliver Campbell
Christina Hoff Sommers
GMShivers
Milo Yiannopoulos
I say Milo Yannopolous, Christina Sommers, and Karen Straughen. Those three can be intelligent and agressive debators without being assholes or egotistical. Sargon of Akkad would also be good, if he actually wanted to go.
God speed you brave soul.
Just, please don’t distort our voice in the final cut.
I recommend MundaneMatt. Since Sargon of Akkad said no.
My choices in order would be:
Milo Yiannopoulos
Oliver Campbell
Cathy Young
John Bain (totalbiscuit)
Carl Benjamin (SargonofAkkad)
Jennie Bharaj
I’d recommend TotalBiscuit I think he’s the guy for this.
milo yiannopoulos
sargon of akkad
and mundane matt
I would like to vote for MundaneMatt, TotalBiscuit, Thunderf00t, Oliver Campbell and Sargon.
http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/34yvg0/lets_do_this_right_submit_nominations_for_spj/
Just so you know, we’re going through a nominations process right now on the reddit.
Oh! Or Shoe0nhead.
John “TotalBiscuit” Bain and RazörFist talked about journalistic ethics years before GamerGate came to be. They wish earnestly for improvement, and I believe them to be excellent candidates on this topic. In the case of Bain, he blew the whistle on unethical review contracts regarding the game Shadow of Mordor, and the contracts were revised as a result.
For opposition Ben Kuchera, Stephen Totilo, and Leigh Alexander come immediately to mind.
Regardless of who is picked, I will be satisfied if they’re related to the issue at hand, be they journalists, publishers, developers, or critics.
Lastly, I want to thank you very much for your offer to host such a talk. What we all need is discussion.
definitely mundane mat
Listen… I’m not going to pretend I speak for gamergate, because I’m just one individual with it’s own ideologies and choices.
But gamergate does not care about having people pandering to us, we just want a FAIR representation, a FAIR shot, to have a REAL face representing us, as a consumer revolt, not the f* anonymous trolls or the twitter accounts with zero GG involvement that were made to harass people who are receiving 4k on patreon… and for that THANK YOU.
You will get a lot of hate comments, not only that but threats from accounts with literally no prior activity, yeah, those are the kek sec, ayee team, SJWs and third party trolls with nothing to lose but to create chaos.
How do you know id the account is real? Well, for starters, he/she has a lot of involvement with GG, secondly this person is followed by other GG supporters, who are also followed and follow prominent GG figures. Anything else is just trolls.
Again, you can bash GG, you can be against us, we just want a fair representation. I hope we make the right choice. But any of those people will be a great candidate!
My vote is for William Usher. He’s been at the forefront of this debate for quite some time, and while there are some great speakers capable of giving their points on the subject – ultimately he’s the one (in my opinion) who can tie it all together.
I am not really part of Gamergate any more. No one in Gamergate would say I was any kind of representative, but for the first six months or so I was pretty heavily involved in it, wrote thousands of long posts on multiple sites, talked to most of the major figures in it, tried to give them advice, and even wrote a fairly long article on the topic for a gaming site. I walked away when it was clear that Gamergate had its own way of doing things, was not particularly interested in dissenting opinion, and was more than happy to turn on its own if they didn’t toe the party line.
However, I am quite familiar with the events that led up to this point, am still inclined to lean towards at least the original goals of Gamergate, and would still consider myself mildly friendly toward at least the idea of Gamergate. If you ever want to talk with someone who can give you a good overview of the situation, and help make sense of the confusing overlap of different interests at play, feel free to contact me (you have my email address). There are actually some legitimate issues here, with some sound arguments by smart people, that have mostly been subverted by shameless attention seekers and people who just think it is fun to cause trouble. I would hate to see Gamergate continue to be defined by its worst members, and would really like to do what I can to make sure it gets a fair examination by outside reporters and readers.
Most of the people I’d vote for have already been mentioned. I kinda really want to take part though because I know so intimately so much of why GamerGate has been misunderstood, through phenomenons that have existed long before GamerGate. This includes things that I’ve not seen many show much awareness of.
One such phenomenon, especially in gaming communities, can be seen in World of Warcraft, or most online games that have balance tweaks done over the course of the game. Blizzard makes a change to WoW, and most people react rationally about it, including those that dislike the change. Then you have the minority groups that threaten to boycott over the change, and an even smaller minority that goes ballistic and threatens to burn Blizzard down.
Most people know not to lump all WoW players with that irrational minority, and have known for years. So it’s been a little baffling to see that wisdom forgotten now.
And that’s where some of the clashes with Sarkeesian come in. Gamergate wasn’t about Sarkeesian (though there’s some overlap there with so many of us being in such support of freedom of expression and art in gaming.) But while there’s been many logical, well written and spoken criticisms of Sarkeesian’s work, she refuses to address any of that, and instead looks for the irrational minority of responses, signal boosts those, and tries to claim that’s representative of all of her critics. So when she targeted GamerGate with that…well the result has just helped fuel and escalate the tensions over the last eight months.
So, while there’s so many known, public faces of GamerGate that have already been pointed out to represent us here, known of who I want to replace…I think that’s an important, and underrepresented aspect of this that I really want to see shared.
http://www.deepfreeze.it/about.php We’ve also made a dossier. All you got to do is come to the table.
I only voted Oliver Campbell on the strawpoll going around(I didn’t know if it was set to allow multiple choices or now), but now that I’ve put more thought into it, I’d like to include William Usher to provide a journalist point of view to the discussion. Perhaps Christina Hoff Summers for a feminist point of view, etc.
Milo Yiannopoulos
Get in based mom Christina Hoff Sommers
Total Biscuit and Liana Kerzner
I believe these 5 are the most prepared to discuss, being journalists as well & deeply informed on GamerGate and the unethical behaviour in games media:
William Usher – @WilliamUsherGB
Oliver Campbell – @oliverbcampbell
Milo Yiannopoulos – @Nero
Lizzy Finnegan – @lizzyf620
Sock – @Rinaxas
If any of them are unable to attend, I recommend these excellent individuals:
John Bain – @Totalbiscuit
Jennifer Dawe – @GMShivers
Christina Hoff Summers – @CHSommers
Karen Straughan – @girlwriteswhat
Mercedes Carrera – @TheMercedesXXX
Georgina Young – @georgieonthego
Adrian Chmielarz – @adrianchm
For more interesting info on GamerGate, I recommend these links:
http://www.deepfreeze.it/about.php
http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/
http://wiki.gamergate.me/index.php?title=Main_Page
Start with the Pro GG journalists and academics but also consider at least one of the content creators and developers professionally affected, like:
Brad Wardell
Mark Kern
Roberto Rosario
Jennifer Dawe,
John Bain (Totalbiscuit)
Lastly, steer clear from Derek Smart, claims to be pro respect and anti abuse but has been playing both sides of the fence, shifting his position when opinion regarding GG swings.
I’d love to see the following:
John Bain (Totalbiscuit)
Christian Hoff Sommers
Oliver Campbell
Mark Kern
Brad Wardell
Jennifer Dawe
Milo Yiannopoulos
Milo Yiannopoulos
Sargon of Akkad
“Based Mom” Christina Hoff Sommers
MundaneMatt of course !
We need some girls :
Liana K
Jennifer Dawe
Christian Hoff Sommers
Karen Straughan
Milo Yiannopoulos
Liz Finnegan
Jennifer Dawe
Oliver Campbell
William Usher
Mark Kern
Christina Sommers
Jasyn Jones (aka Daddy Warpig)
Georgina Young
And probably hundreds more…😛
Oh yeah, Karen Straughan as well… goddamn it, there are too many cool people around😀
Mr Koretzky, thank you for your open-minded reconsideration of your initial assumptions about GamerGate and the people involved in it. Kudos for continuing to investigate despite the reactions of your colleagues. And thank you for taking on the Herculean task of bringing together a group of people who can discuss the issues in gaming journalism…with the side benefit of now having a hot topic for the conference you’re responsible for organizing.
May the SPJ members in your region also find it to be intriguing & engaging.
I hope that the discussion comes to fruition and can be an actual meaty discussion (facilitated & moderated) than those panel presentations in which every person at the table says his or her piece then the session is over.
I’ve been following GamerGate for about 6 months because what gamers have faced is so similar to a situation present for several years in several other communities (scifi-fantasy and atheism-skepticism) – but gamers have been so much more effective in speaking up to challenge the authoritarian left, including coming together in action despite the very loose structure including absence of leaders.
As a few others have mentioned above, it will be crucial for you to define the scope of the discussion you have planned. You could fill an entire day with sessions on different aspects of this problem, but may not be planning to do so.
Whether or not you take it on, there are at least 2 major issues at play besides – or underlying? – the ethics issue.
One is authoritarian vs. libertarian (small “l”) approach, particularly to ideas & speech. I’ve yet to meet anyone who describes themselves as “authoritarian”, but that describes the behavior by those you’ve probably seen called “SJWs”, and it’s evident in that list others mentioned of gamer journalists who were all expected to be on the same page.
The other is modern feminism (3rd wave? 4th wave? I lose track) vs. a pro-equality position. The latter also called equity feminism, gender equality, egalitarianism; I don’t think there’s any 1 settled name for this position, but it’s a widely (but not loudly) held position. The former (modern feminism) values “intersectionality” so also is used as a catch-all for identity politics.
(I shouldn’t have to say this, but for some “cred”: I strongly considered myself a feminist for decades until dropping that term in the past few years due to the toxicity of modern 3rd/4th wave feminism. Christina Hoff Sommers’ eloquently voiced views on feminism & equality echo my own views.)
At any rate, the “gender feminism” vs “equality”/”equity feminism” area of disagreement seems to be an extremely hard one to discuss, with the view from the equity position – my position & I suspect many in the GamerGate movement – being that anything that’s interpreted by a modern feminist as a challenge to a modern feminist position evokes an outraged response claiming harassment, hatred of women (misogyny), etc – basically a claim of victimhood. Instead of engaging in discussion or even supporting their claims, the response is along the lines of “How could you be so mean as to attack a woman?”
I’m not sure whether it’s a cause or result of that type of response, but mainstream journalism seems to have a blind spot when it comes to modern feminism. It’s been frustrating in the past year to hear NPR (1) interview Laurie Penny on #YesAllWomen without appearing to have looked into any of her claims (including about “misogynistic language” and “dedicat[ion] to hating and slut-shaming women” in games), and (2) report on Anita Sarkeesian’s cancellation in Utah as “One Feminist Critic’s Battle With Gaming’s Darker Side” – again, without appearing to have looked more deeply into the story.
So, don’t be surprised as you delve into this if you hear claims about how GG is all an attack on one woman who created a successful video game against all odds but then her former boyfriend violated her privacy by posting lies about her online. There’s much more to that story than that version, and it seems to have been a tipping point in exposing the collusion and other unethical behavior in game journalism (from which she benefited).
Finally, please know that it’s no joke that – as others have warned you – for taking this on and considering the possibility that there’s some merit to the GG claims, you find yourself under attack (the virtual/online kind, sometimes with real-life ramifications) and your event may come under attack (the real-life disruptive kind, for example a false bomb scare). Many people have already experienced that, including at least two who’ve been suggested multiple times up-thread as possible panelists.
Pro:
Sargon of Akkad – @Sargon_of_Akkad
Milo Yiannopoulos – @Nero
Oliver Campbell – @oliverbcampbell
William Usher – @WilliamUsherGB
TotalBiscuit – @Totalbiscuit
Anti:
Stephen Totilo – @stephentotilo
Ben Kuchera – @BenKuchera
Leigh Alexander – @leighalexander
Nathan Grayson – @Vahn16
Ian Miles Cheong – @stillgray
Posting this Poll in case others haven’t seen it, and so SJP has some way to quantify GG opinion on this matter. http://strawpoll.me/4286750
The Twitter Handles: @mundanematt & @WilliamUsherGB seem to be the best qualified for an honest conversation about GamerGate. @nero would be a 3rd option. They are fully educated and aware of the vast majority of peoples concerns about the gaming press.
GamerGate probably would have never happened if MundaneMatt’s video wasn’t falsely DMC taken down by Zoe Quinn on YouTube. It was what many consider, “the straw that broke the camels back,” in the way of silencing free speech.
Many of the other names mentioned in the comments above me, (Mercedes Carrera, Liz Finnegan, Jennifer Dawe, Lianna K, Oliver Campbell, Mark Kern, Christina Sommers, Jasyn Jones (aka Daddy Warpig) Georgina Young) have all been social commentators, not all journalist. And some of them are not even Pro-GG but rather just open minded Social commentators who openly talk about both sides of the issue. (Nothing wrong with that, that’s great to have them be objective! More of that please!)
But, I think it’s important that GG gets a fair representative not another Occupy Wall Street blunder where the most obscure unknown, uneducated person on this issues is drug out to discredit our movement.
Mr Koretzky,
There is a http://strawpoll.me/4283302/r that may help in your decision making.
Thank you very much for allowing GG a voice.
Snez
@Koretzky I was wondering if you could elaborate more on the scope of the topics beyond what is mentioned in this post. The assumption is that the topic will be on video games journalism, journalism, ethics, etc… which implies that GG representatives that are more culture based, probably won’t be as important for the panel. (Is this a correct assumption?)
What is the best way of contacting you with questions about the event?
A reply would be much appreciated.
Oliver Campbell, Sargon, and William Usher would be great representation of the ‘core’ of the community. People who have been with us from the get-go. You will not go wrong or have any regrets to include them.
Milo, Jennifer Dawe, Mark Kern, Dr. Sommers, Mercedes Carrera, Brad Wardell, and TotalBiscuit are all people from different related industries that have shown support for the GamerGate community. They have unique perspectives from their relevant fields and could also contribute well.
Well I think Mundane Matt would be good for this however I request that you stay on point and prevent the anti gamergaters to push away the narrative from what Gamergate is about,which is ethics in journalism,I am pro gamergate but I will give you some reasons to dismiss the idea that we don’t want any women in the industry because the assumption of that is stupid because of a very valid reason,there has always been both men and women working in the industry from the beginning of gaming
I’ve been observing the events of GG for some time now and am quite interested in seeing this debate. I am not involved directly, but support GG in spirit.
I believe it’s important to consider the role of journalism in social media alongside that of traditional journalism and the role that ethics plays for both as related to Gamergate. With that in mind, these are the persons I would like to see at the table:
Pro GG:
Sargon of Akkad – @Sargon_of_Akkad; Social media commentator
– Game developer, commenter of GG issues
William Usher – @WilliamUsherGB – Journalist
– Leaked information regarding “Game Journo Pros” mailing list if I understand his role correctly
Total Biscuit – @TotalBiscuit; Social media commentator
– Keen observer and logical thinker, comments on GG issues – widely respected
Milo Yiannopoulos – @Nero; Journalist
– Has made many public and media apperances and also publishes articles related to GG
Liana Kerzner – @RedLianaK; Journalist
– Walks the fence idealogically, but seems to be generally considered somewhat pro GG or neutral
Anti GG:
Ben Kuchera – @BenKuchera; Journalist
– Editor for Polygon
Leigh Alexander – @LeighAlexander; Journalist
– Former editor Gamasutra
Jonathan Mcintosh – @RadicalBytes; Social Media Activist
– Controversial figure who uses social media as an activist platform. Partner of Feminist Frequency, a very outspoken online critic of gamer culture.
Arthur Chu – @Arthur_Affect; Columnist, Social Media Activist
– Outspoken critic of Gamergate primarily via Twitter
Randi Harper – @FreeBSDGirl; Programmer/Blockbot creator
– Created the “Gamergate Blockbot” for Twitter, vocal opponent of Gamergate
As for suggested topics:
The role of social media as related to internet/traditional journalism and how the two effect one another with regard to social issues.
The effect doxxing has had on both sides of GG and the ethical reasoning for supporting or opposing the practice.
What constitues bias with regard to social causes supported by journalists/internet commentators and how does this effect their reporting.
The effect of crowd funding, patreon etc. has had with regard to calling in to question the financial ethics and motivations of journalists, critics and internet commentators.
The thoughts of both sides on the representation of the GG controversy, gamers and gamer culture in mainstream media and TV
Censorship, either self imposed, or electonically imposed (Via blockbot or shadowbans). What is the importance and implications of technological censorship, or when should commentators and journalists not release information?
Where does ethically questionable business relationships cross over into outright corruption with regard to game developers, journalists and game associations sharing undisclosed financial, personal or other relationships? (Silverstring Media, Game Journo-Pros, Gawker Media for example)
oOOO oooo how about you have people that are actually gamers? That would eliminate Milo, Sommers, Baldwin, and so many more. Uh oh, does that mean gamergate is being herded by reactionary antifeminists? Ooops, secret’s out.
Then, spend an ample amount of time discussing how anonymous mob crowd-sourcing oppositional research on anyone they don’t like might be an issue of ethics.
On one hand, you have a host of people’s lives who have been vastly disrupted by an anon mob that has used a slew of slimy and/or illegal tactics to attack. On the other side, you have people that don’t actually understand ethics or journalism but love the feeling of belonging to something. Good luck.
GamerGate has de-evolved into the mirror universe SJW. Banning people for having an opposing view, leaping at shadows and calling everything they don’t like and labeling it with the SJW boogyman stigma.
It started off great, but I can see why people like IA/Metokur have distanced themselves from it seeing how it’s become a perversion of what it once was. Both sides are killing gaming and need to sod off. That is why I nominate myself.
Liana Kerzner. She’s got stakes in both sides and would be an interesting addition.
My votes (for pro-GG) go to: Mundane Matt, William Usher and Christina Hoff Sommers, plus Liana Kerzner and Sargon of Akkad.
My votes (for anti-GG) go to: Brianna Wu, Leigh Alexander and Phil Fish, plus Ben Kuchera and Zoe Quinn.
http://www.deepfreeze.it
Let’s NOT have Brianna Wu/Zoe Quinn in on this? They have nothing to do with this, they’re not journalists and they’re not the ones with any kind of influence with anyone about anything.
Zoe Quinn was never the problem, she’s the symptom of a media engineered for corruption. Her case isn’t what’s important, what’s important is that her case was allowed to happen and the corrupt journos are still not doing anything about it and letting corruption run wild.
I think a representative from Gamasutra.com would be appropriate. Leigh Alexander’s “Gamers are over” (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php) article with all those insults is a big reason why Gamergate became a big controversy. Alexander is not at Gamasutra anymore (and most likely would never participate in this panel anyway), so the next choice might be Gamasutra’s Editor-In-Chief, Kris Graft, who also wrote the follow-up article “Losing our voices”. (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224951/Losing_our_voices.php)
Gamasutra is the biggest website for professional game developers. Their article had a big part in this controversy. (They’ve also been pushing the “sexism in the game industry” angle for a long time now.) Can’t find it now, but under one article, when a commenter said that it’s difficult to talk about these issues because any opinion that dissents from Gamasutra’s is branded as sexist/misogynist, Gamasutra’s editor Christian Nutt said “Try us”, which means they claim one can talk to them about these issues.
Given that, how can Gamasutra possibly refuse to participate in this panel without losing face?
I think a representative from Gamasutra.com would be appropriate. Leigh Alexander’s “Gamers are over” (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php) article with all those insults is a big reason why Gamergate became a big controversy. Alexander is not at Gamasutra anymore (and most likely would never participate in this panel anyway), so the next choice might be Gamasutra’s Editor-In-Chief, Kris Graft, who also wrote the follow-up article “Losing our voices”. (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224951/Losing_our_voices.php)
Gamasutra is the biggest website for professional game developers. Their article had a big part in this controversy. (They’ve also been pushing the “sexism in the game industry” angle for a long time now.) Can’t find it now, but under one article, when a commenter said that it’s difficult to talk about these issues because any opinion that dissents from Gamasutra’s is branded as sexist/misogynist, Gamasutra’s editor Christian Nutt said “Try us”, which means they claim one can talk to them about these issues.
Given that, how can Gamasutra possibly refuse to participate in this panel without losing face?
Hello, I’ve been suggested a few times here and on Kotaku in Action, I thought I’d pop in and explain what it is that I do although I sit neutral in stance. In January ABC Nightline news used a video I had posted about gaming and harassment but spun the footage I was in to look as if Gamergate supporters were harassing me for being female. I fought the coordinators of the project and worked on revealing the truth about Gamergate and the video. I posted an article on the inner corruption exposed through emails exchanged with ABC and how they were intentionally showcasing female victims of harassment for pay out and how they had intentionally spun my footage to fit that narrative.
Since then I have regularly spoken about Gamergate and openly debated about topics within the Anti-Gamergate community including topics such as harassment, unethical journalism, and corruption. I also write articles for ship2block20 where I’ve discussed the IGDA, Blockbots, and unethical charity organizations related to online harassment.
If I can be of any help feel free to contact me on twitter. My stance raises eyebrows in a lot of internet places and I am not sure if it would be welcomed at this event due to the neutral stance. I work hard contributing to productive talks and debates on this movement and would fully enjoy the chance to to do so in an open constructive environment.
Independent game developer, reporting in. For reference, my current project : steam.fleetcomm.net
For reference I am a Pro-#GamerGate gamedev, and have been investigating and been vocal about these kinds of issues even before the hashtag. Most of the issues mentioned have been in developer forums since I entered the industry (2011), and I suspect these topics have been with gamedev for a long time, but not as widely broadcast since GG erupted on the web.
I have two major contentions to this debate.
1. Format. If there are no speaking rules, timing rules and speaker turns, calls for points of information, then I can guarantee you the “debate” will devolve into nonsensical screaming and vitriol. Worse than Twitter. Worse than the past few months of GG hashtags inception.
I would HEAVILY advise the use of British Parliamentary Rules. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Parliamentary_Style
I would suggest a range of 7.5 to 15 minutes for each speaker.
2. Game developer representation. Gamedevs have been the hardest hit on this topic. Brad Wardell was directly affected by bad games press. If developers are in any way underrepresented in this debate? Consider it become an “e-celeb” circlejerk, and quite frankly, a big insult to game developers who’ve had to put up with all sides of GamerGate since 2014 (even longer before that, with the same issues)
Those are my only gripes at this.
But I do appreciate someone taking the time to bring both sides of this topic to a formal debate.
It has to be William Usher.
It has to be William Usher.
suggestions:- Sargon (Carl Benjamin), C H Sommers, Mark Kern or Milo.
Milo Yiannopolous, Christina H. Sommers, William Usher, Sargon of Akkad. Perhaps Grummz. I know there are lots of great options, but those are my top choices. Particularly Milo and CH Sommers together.
For the other side: Ben Kuchera, Stephen Totilo, and Anita Sarkeesian are on the top of my list.
For me I think the persons best for this are:
Milo Yiannopolous
William Usher
Since these are the journalists who have covered gamergate in the most neutral way.
Especially Milo since he started reporting while not having an interest in games
Oliver Campbell
A former journalist who has contributed much to the hashtag.
I would also recommend two women since in a conversation where there are arguments about sexism we should discuss with women also.
Mercedes Carrera who has been a vocal supporter of gamergate
Christina Hoff Sommers for her academic work and her youtube channel the factual feminist
In order of preference:
Carl Benjamin
Milo Yiannopoulos
June Lapin
While some of these people may be neutral on the issues these are the people that I would be most interested to hear from. William Usher- Oliver Campbell- Lizzy Finnegan- Liana Kerzner- TotalBiscuit- Mark Kern- Stephanie @Sushilulutwitch- Jennifer Dawe- Gemma Morgan- Brad Wardell- Milo Yiannopolous- Christina Hoff Sommers.
The GG movement was first propelled forward by InternetAristocrat. I wish he were still around, but alas… but Sargon I believe is up to the task.
As others have said, just being rational about this topic puts you firmly in the GamerGate camp. All manner of irrationality is the purview of the anti-GG camp. I’ve never seen such a twisted, corrupt, entitled cluster of spoiled kiddies outside a caricature “high school clique” flick. These antis are caricature bad guys. The Soviets in a 1980’s “patriotism” movie.
I can only compare them to farcical movie villains, because “are these people for real?” is the only other thing I can say about them.
The best people to have on representing our side are Oliver Campbell (@oliverbcampbell), William Usher (@WilliamUsherGB), and Milo Yiannapoulos (@Nero).
William and Milo have covered GamerGate extensively, and Oliver is a former journalist who joined GamerGate because he was fed up with the unethical practices. They can all give you informed, articulate opinions and data about GamerGate.
From pro-GG side I’d like to see people like:
1. Oliver Campbell
2. Sargon of Akkad
3. Jennie Bharaj
4. Milo Yiannopoulos
5. Christian H. Sommers
6. Vivian James ( of @CultOfVivian at Twitter )
I feel I shouldn’t nominate anyone from side(s) who oppose GG. Anti-GG people should decide among themselves who they want to represent them in the debate.
first of all We hate women and niggers Also the colorcabal is the try leaders of gg and fuck you
The key thing to remember here is that the SPJ owes it to its members to reclaim their discipline and make themselves distinct from any profiteering blogger who thinks slapping the title of “journalist” on their twitter gives them credibility.
The only anti-gamergate individuals I’ve seen who have come close to talking actual journalism (under stunned duress and grudgingly) were Jason Schreier and Stephen Totilo. They found their meddle in the comments section of their own articles, but it was there. Journalistic credibility, however, will forever be suspect because of their response to when GamerGate started asking questions about the videogame press.
As for who is “representative of GamerGate” that is a tough call. For every vocal proponent, there are a ton of individuals who would rather investigate, make connections and flush out ethical breaches.
Why remain in the ninja shadows? Because there is a purity of discovering truth and sharing it. Their information – the connections, the details – will be read, be called out by like minds, corrected, and remain forever in the digital arena.
The best for this SPJ, in no particular order:
Oliver Campbell – consistently focuses on the core ethical breaches, also took appropriate umbrage with the dismissal of women and minorities by anti-gamergate *ahem* journalists.
Milo Yiannopoulos – Knows journalism enough to allow some withering snark; articles consistently entertaining and informative.
Sargon – He’s has done a consistent job of dissecting absurd claims and narrative talking points driving anti-gamergate.
William Usher – The source of original information. I’ve no doubt he is trusted by the aforementioned silent gamergate majority of “diggers” who are doing the heavy lifting.
Cathy Young – In a time when I couldn’t believe the harassment bias being trumpeted by popular outlets, here came a measured examination,
@lizzyf620 – Her buzzfeed article was pulled, she was doxxed, she distanced herself from gamergate, but came back to continue writing.
Liana Kerzner – I think her five-part takedown of the femfreq series will remain unanswerable for a reason.
Carl Benjamin (aka Sargon of Akkad) had proven to be an excellent voice on the subject.
Would like to see a discussion on the ethics and standards of reviews. I think reviews should be amoral. that is, they don’t pass moral judgement on the content of the game. if a reviewer is offended by sexualized characters or violence then the reviewer should be ethically obligated to recuse themselves.
i would like to see william usher, oliver cambell (because they are journalist), mundane matt and total biscuit (because they are well informed and intelligent) and based mom because she can shed a light to the feminism angle.
mark kern is also a good choice as far as developer involvment goes.
i understand not everyone on this list is counted as progg but they are fair competent people
Let aGG pick their own (I personally hope brianna wu, anita sarkeesian, and randi harper are among them, but not for me to say). For pro GG:
1. William Usher
2. Sargon of Akkad
3. Professor Nick Flor
4. Christina Hoff Sommers
5. Milo Yiannopoulos
If TB hadn’t chosen to distance himself from GG for various reasons, he’d top the list, but still worth mentioning if anyone wants a neutral stance. Same with @Lizzyf620 (not neutral, but still distanced for personal reasons)
Honorable mentions include:
Oliver Campbel
Mercedes Carrera
Mike Cernovich
@Chriss_m
@_icze4r
[…] board member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Michael Koretzky has written a blog post two days ago (from the date of this article’s publication) requesting […]
Milo Yiannopoulos of course.
also
Mercedes Carrera @TheMercedesXXX may seem an outré choice but look past her day job… she is coherent and understands the issues.
As a fellow journalist I nominate Milo and William Usher for the pro side and then the senior editors of all of these gaming websites on the anti side.
Alison Tieman
[…] кучу комментариев, узнал факты и — решил устроить публичные дебаты. Что-то из этого, возможно, и получится; в любом случае […]
Milo Yiannopoulos and William Usher
How about Jemma Morgan? you might have trouble finding her but she is a mighty gger. maybe even G8an Satan. Shoeonhead she’d be great, really just look through GG and not your shield you’ll find a plethora of people wherever you go who could represent gamergate pretty well.
[…] his proposed plan is — well, one not to be taken particularly seriously. He’s setting up a panel at a conference he’s running, but pretty much putting it on GamerGaters, and asking them to come up with their own panel […]
1. Sargon of Akkad
2. Christina Hoff Sommers
3. Milo Yiannopoulos
4. Mercedes Carrera
5. William Usher
I’d nominate these 5, as they would do a great job of representing GamerGate and what it stands for in my opinion:
1-Milo Yiannopoulus
2- Allum Bokhari
3- Christina Hoff Summers
4- Sargon of Akkad/Carl Benjamin
5- Mercedes Carrera
Not only do each of these individuals have a good grasp on everything that has been discussed so far, but they’ve been pretty much unanimously accepted by GamerGaters.
Many more comes to mind, I had to limit myself to just name 5… Liana Kerzner, Total Biscuit/John Bain, Adam Baldwin, Internet Aristocrat (if he’d somehow decide to rejoin GG, which I doubt), there’s many, many, MANY players in this story.
As for the other side, I’m trying as hard as I can to be positive, but everyone I can think of would most likely not agree to participate.
Anita Sarkeesian/Jonathan McIntosh? Doubt they’d show up. They might agree to it, crowdfund their trip, then show up 3 years later though…
Same goes for all the so-called professional victims. The only one of them that I might see showing up is Brianna Wu, and even then, I doubt it. But, what good would it bring anyway? Shift the discussion back to the topic of harassment? We’ve heard enough about that and barely discussed the core problems, haven’t we?
I think the best bet would be for the opposition to be composed of people that have been dragged in all that followed the dreaded Zoe post. There’s a reason GG called the professionnal victims ”Literally Who” and would rather not talk about them at length, or even better, not at all. Get some people like Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Stephen Totilo, Nathan Grayson, MovieBob, Wil Wheaton, Chris Kluwe, any of them that got into what’s been named ”anti-GamerGate” and that’s willing to talk under the setting you’ve proposed.
I can’t help but think the vast majority of people involved will just ignore you when you try to reach out to them. But at the same time, I hope that some of them will see this as a publicity stunt. At this point in time, I cannot believe that so many people are totally unaware of all that’s been going on and the details of it all while still being so vehemently involved into slandering gamers and GamerGate. It has been going on for too long, there’s been way too much videos and articles and whatnot, there’s too many instances of censorship, people thrown out of conventions, threats, comments being deleted and presentation of a false narrative to truly believe that there is not something else going on.
Never been a fan of conspiracy theory, I see a bunch of individuals that each think they can gain the most on a personal level by supporting each other, even when proven wrong. I do not believe that there’s a rampant ideology controlling the aGG side, I think it’s made up mostly like GG: people looking out for their best interests. Which is why this event might very well succeed in, maybe not ending GG once and for all, but making it known for what it really is to the public:
Not a hate movement.
Not a bunch of mysoginistic neckbeards.
Not a controlled group.
A bunch of people each looking out for their own best interests. It just so happens that we all fucking LOVE video games. Keeping video games fun, diverse, accessible to everyone and regarded as not only the hobby that we enjoy but also the art form that it is, that is in ALL of our best interests. That’s one of the reasons why we’ve been going on so strong for so long.
We want gaming journalists to look out for us. The main problem that many of us see is simple: Our hobby isn’t cheap. A game can cost anywhere from ”Free” to ”Infinite amount of money”, can provide anything from ”Best interactive experience EVER” to ”intense boredom coupled with psychological abuse trick to keep you thinking you’re entertained” and can include material suitable for everyone or for just a select few depraved individuals.
We, as customers, want to make sure that our hard-earned money is spent on games that fulfill our particular wishes and desires. I might have a lot of income, little time and want games that can let me get the full experience quickly, but at some cost. I might have little to no money but all the free time in the world and want THE game that will keep me busy for the next 3 years. I might want a game where I’m constantly provided with attractive and sexy characters to look at for various reasons, including (but not limited to) sexual arousal. I might want a game that I’m comfortable playing with my very chaste and prude entourage, or I myself might be very chaste and prude.
We want to know enough facts about the game to decide how the game will fulfill those requirements. We do not want to be told what the journalist (or even worse, what the developper, who happens to be friends with/paying the journalist…) thinks the game fulfill. Then, and only then, can we confidently spend our money.
Facts, not feelz.
It’s quite simple. You are friend with the developer? You want to give him coverage? Well, just tell us that person’s your friend. We’ll take your review/coverage/mention with a grain of salt, and everyone’s happy. You want the game to succeed/fails because of how it fits with the ideology that you follow? Not a problem, as long as you state it. And as long as you STILL GIVE US THE FACTS WE NEED TO MAKE OUR OWN MIND. That’s the part that really strikes me with how this all went down.
I think I know better than anyone what games I enjoy. I know which games I’m having fun with, having been gaming for about 27 years now. I do not need someone to treat me like their spoiled, overprotected child. Especially when I disagree that much with what they believe in.
There’s a reason why streamers are so popular these days. We get to see someone in their ”natural habitat”, uncut. If someone wants to push a particular agenda, it becomes apparent to the viewer quite quickly, who then chooses to watch (and support) a different streamer. Bam! Done. We can’t really do the same with gaming journalism. Some of them have special access that is needed to get the in-depth coverage. Can’t really just start a gaming website tomorrow and expect to get the juicy information delivered to your door…
Which is why I think it would be important that the end-game of all this, this event, GG, everything, would be a form of gathering of information. OpDeepFreeze does a good job of keeping tabs on most of the stuff that can help someone make up their mind in giving or not their trust to a particular outlet/journalist, but it do so in a very negative way: highlighting the bad practices alone. I believe some sort of platform to exchange ideas and thoughts, not controlled by the journalists but bound by the same ethical standards, where we, the consumers, can make our voices heard.
What I’m saying is that we need gaming’s equivalency to ”Rotten Tomato”.
Those are my thoughts on all of this. I can only thank you for taking the time to listen to us.
Nobody has been willing to so far. I’ve spent countless hours explaining to non-gaming people what this is all about and having them answer ”Well, why aren’t we hearing about what you’re telling me then? Aren’t you making things up? We would have heard about it by now!” when I expose even the tenth of what I know about it all. And I doubt I know the tenth of it all. So………..
I want to thank you once for each time I respawned in a video game. I want to make it clear to you that nobody else but gamers could have endured this. The tactics that have been used against us have silenced far bigger, stronger, and better people than us. The only reason we’re still here, fighting tooth and nail for our hobby, is because we’ve been trained to do so. We don’t see ”being challenged” as a bad thing. We see it as a way to better ourselves, learn stuff and come out stronger in the process. Challenges and achievements are what we’re fucking paying MONEY for, when you take a moment and think about it.
I personally don’t even see anti-GG as a bunch of enemy: I see them as a diverse group of people that just haven’t realized yet that they ARE welcomed in gaming, as long as the reason they’re here is gaming. They can add all the gender politics and feminism and whatnot in their games, they can push their friends’ games on us and accept large sums of money for promoting said games, I’ll even play them and enjoy them when they’re good AS GAMES. That’s what matters to me. I want them to stop feeling scared about how we love our hobby and join us. Bring their vision to our hobby, let us see for ourselves how much we agree and disagree on. We need Gone Home as much as Call of Duty, as much as Rapelay, as much as Hatred and as much as ”Beige Cube Simulator 2015” (credit for that joke goes to Sargon of Akkad, let’s keep it ethical in here😀 ). We might find some of your games good, and you might enjoy some of ours. In the end, we’ll have more fun, because they’re will be more games!
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: If you identify yourself as an anti-GamerGate, I want to talk with you. I don’t want to debate, I don’t want to argue, I want to hang out and chill. I just want you to have fun with me and understand how better it would be for everyone if we could just stop all this nonsense and ENJOY VIDYA GAEMS!!!
Sadly, so far, not a single anti-GG has taken me up on my offer. I’ve been blocked numerous times for just asking this to people though. I’m harassing them with offers of friendship… Really sad when you think about it.
I look forward to this event. I just can’t wait. Call me optimistic, but this just might be what we wanted since… since before all of this began. Since I was on the school bus arguing about which was better, SNES or Sega Genesis, and I wished that I could get some insider info into the industry.
Thanks.
pro GG id suggest:
1john bain @Totalbiscuit (supports GG – jack of all trades gaming youtube personality)
2liana kerzner @redlianak (neutral/supportive of GG – journalist (and cosplayer)
3Mercedes Carrera @TheMercedesXXX (active participant of GG gamer (and adult actress)
anti GG id suggest
Jim Sterling @JimSterling – journalist and youtube personality
Wil Wheaton @wilw – nerd celebrity
i think these people can have a civil discussion
i’d also suggest talking to david pakman @davidpakmanshow
he has a series of interviews with people around gamergate
As an engineer for 15 years and a gamer for over 30, the possibility of sensible and ethical video game coverage is real yet nowhere to be seen. Free trade magazines I get relative to my field are more transparent than video game magazines; in them, agenda-focused pieces are clearly separated from content pieces are clearly separated from mere advertising are clearly separated from advertising articles. I don’t have to worry that discussion of some application of a chip is going to wander off into discussions of how we increase the number of women in engineering.
But time and time again, video game publications show themselves unable to adhere to basic standards like this. I expect video game publishers to, well, financially encourage magazines for favorable coverage; I expect magazines to be clear when this happens. I expect reviewers to have personal preferences in terms of gameplay, if this reviewer is not a fan of RPGs then don’t review them, and if this reviewer can’t stop talking about a social agenda for three paragraphs then have him or her write up an opinion page.
I don’t ask that the media people stop being human. They can have their own opinions on the best mechanics, the relative importance of story versus gameplay versus art direction, the severity of glitches or bugs, and whether an appropriate number of people are killed. If the journalist and publication are transparent and honest, then I can use their opinions to decide my own. But I absolutely ask that journalists not be friends (or more) with developers, that journalists don’t take fancy packages from publishers, and that published material broadly errs on the side of integrity rather than being a glorified blog. One would think this is not too much to ask, but it’s been decades. Decades.
If you asked me to pick someone to speak for GG, I’d choose TotalBiscuit. I don’t know that he’s a dyed-in-the-wool GGer but I know he agrees with my own concerns on the topic and has a good background in the kinds of challenges a journalist faces.
There are three prominent Game devs you need to look at for this Debate:
Sargon of Akaad
Slade (Rougestar)
Jennifer Daww
Sargon is by far the most articulate of all three, regularly debating and discussing both #GamerGate and the ideology we all agree is causing many of these infractions. If you are to get anyone who isn’t a Journalist, Sargon is and should be at the top of the list.
Rouge has been the subject of Harassment by many for his involvement in #GamerGate, being the most visible Dev for at least my tenure in this discussion. His insight on both being an IndieDev (unofficial blacklisting/no inside connections) as well as the target of the Ideology we believe to be causing these infractions would be valuable.
Jennifer Daww has been quite vocal about her dislike of the ideologies within the Debate, who has beem targeted for boycott due to her involvement in #GamerGate. Being a woman, she obviously breaks the narrative many of the Journos push, giving her a unique talking point in any debate or discussion on IndieDevs/Journos.
For this Debate to have legitimacy to many, the Indie Devs MUST be involved, as it’s their work being reported on.
William Usher, Milo Yiannopoulos and Oliver Campbell (I believe) are all adequate Journalist panelists. Including one of them is a must (preferably Milo and William).
Any one else for any other open spot should be an articulate consumer, their view is essential to understanding the outrage that has been generated.
When choosing panel members, we need to keep focus on what the SPJ is about. A lot of the people on the short list are academics and “culture warriors,” and aren’t necessarily the best to have a discussion on journalistic ethics, even if they do make great supporters overall. In particular, as fabulous as Milo is and as happy as I am to have in on our side, one of our main criticisms of the other side is agenda-driven reporting, which is also so very Milo. Oliver Campbell, Sargon (if he’s up to it), and maybe Cathy Young would be great.
I really wonder who the anti’s are going to set us up with. Their main response to accusations of corruption has been to change the subject. They won’t be able to do that here. So, if their role here is to answer our charges, it would make sense for the people who are implicated to be the ones who show up: Leigh Alexander, Ben Kuchera, Stephen Totillo at the top of the list. I don’t think Sarkeesian, Quinn, or Wu have any place here. They aren’t journalists so they have nothing to answer for. All they are, are meatshields that the journalists have been using to avoid the subject.
But here is the problem: Is there really any debate, factually, that game journos have been inappropriate close to their subjects, both personally and financially? Is there really any debate that what they’ve done violates the ethical standards of the profession? It would seem to me that if this discussion is on-topic, it’s going to be very short. I don’t see what they can possibly argue. And that being the case, why should they send anyone?
Milo Yiannopoulos, he is the one who wrote about Game journo pros and he repeteadly proved that he is perfect fit for the discussion.
TotalBiscuit. He’s driven by facts, rather than emotions, and lives in North Carolina. He’s the perfect candidate.
The antis seem to be very afraid of this. Doing a lot of trying to drive wedges, the ghazis are all of a sudden and it looks like the journos are doubling down on throwing accusations around and tagging you.
Thank you for giving Gamergate a fair shake. As for potential committee candidates, I suggest John “TotalBiscuit” Bain, SargonofAkkad, Milo Yiannopoulos, Christina Sommers and Oliver Campbell.
What do you expect this ‘debate’ to look like? If you are accepting the framing of Gamergate that they are for ethics in game journalism (which is a contentious claim in the first place), then presumably the other side of the debate would be anti-ethics. Who do you expect would be prepared to debate that angle in public?
How would that conversation go?
GG: We want more ethics in game journalism!
Anti-GG: So do we. Our issues are about your attempt to shut down critical discussion of video games and harass marginal voices.
GG: Ethics?
Never mind the fact that it seems GG is not only getting to pick their spokespeople but also their debate opponents, why would anyone on the anti-GG side want to put their head above the parapet? GG claims over and over again that it isn’t a movement founded in harassment (despite empirical evidence to the contrary) but it sure is a coincidence that anyone who says bad things about GG with a loud enough voice gets doxxed and SWATted and harassed on multiple channels over and over again. I mean, it might be a coincidence but when it happens 100% of the time, it stretches credulity to imagine that anyone who values being able to continue living their life in peace would want to expose themselves to all of that.
“Our issues are about your attempt to shut down critical discussion of video games and harass marginal voices.”
I weep happy tears of laughter at the notion.
If anti-GG are dumb enough to take that tack, given the copious and well documented examples of you guys being the ones who have attempted to shut down any debate that you do not like, and re-frame to be about something quite different (three cheers for the Frankfurt School approach, eh?) … well… that would be marvellous. But please, keep digging that hole ever deeper.
You seem to be confused. Closing comments on articles isn’t the same thing as shutting down debate. Neither is blocking shitposters on Twitter. Turning comments pages into festering swamps of vileness and harassing people who point out the logical inconsistencies and actual untruths that GG cleaves to is absolutely shutting down debate. GG has proven over and over again that it is primarily a conduit for extremists to point hate mobs at progressive criticism of games. To try and pretend otherwise in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is just unbelievably naive.
TotalBiscuit and Sargon of Akkad. Anita Sarkeesian to the against-side.
I would say I would like to join in the debate. Sadly I am not a big name in GG nor am I an eceleb.😦 1st world peasant problems.
Hello. Just a quick reminder that reluctance or hesitation isn’t down to pro-gamergate people being bad or paranoid, it is simply down to past experiences with people that approached us with what later turned out to be malicious intent. Right now, one of the big worries some people have is this: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CE6vGSgVAAEAGtm.png
I hope you have the patience and understanding.
Yours
@MrBlanchat
In response to me pointing out factual errors in the BBC’s dealings with gamergate, the BBC sent me this email:
“Dear Unknown
Reference CAS-3297144-BMMYKY
Thank you for contacting us regarding the BBC’s coverage of #Gamergate.
We understand you feel our coverage of #Gamergate has been one sided, particularly since August 2014, and that the BBC has not reported the harassment of the recent meeting of Gamergate supporters in Washington DC.
There are several factors that we take into consideration when deciding how to put together our news coverage. For example, whether the story is new and requires immediate coverage, how unusual the story is, and how much national interest there is in the story.
These decisions are always judgement calls rather than an exact science, but we appreciate the feedback that our viewers and listeners give us when they feel a story has been overlooked or marginalised. BBC journalists are well aware of our commitment to impartial reporting and in dealing with any controversial matter the BBC is required to give a fair and balanced report.
We value your feedback about this issue. All complaints are sent to senior management and programme makers every morning and we included your points in this overnight report. These reports are among the most widely read sources of feedback in the BBC and ensure your complaint is seen by the right people quickly. This helps inform their decisions about current and future reporting.
Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
Kind regards”
This is not the first time the BBC has implied that they put together the story according to what they perceive to be in the national interest.
Note, the #GGinDC was a target of what the FBI deemed a credible bomb threat, not merely harassment and this was pointed out in my complaint. Also of note, August 2014 was the month #Gamergate came to be.
[…] press are treated fairly. At this time Koretzky is attempting to explore the Gamergate debate by recruiting various people on all sides of the argument to take part in a discussion panel, called Airplay, to […]
1) Sargon
2) Christina Hoff Sommers
3) Milo
4) Oliver Campbell
5) Jennie Bharaj
[…] now reaching climate change levels of denial. Three such denialists will be speaking proudly at AirPlay this […]
Why in heaven’s name would you be polite here, when you were overbearing, smug and rude during the actual panel discussion? A still of your smirking, self-focused face and air from that video made me almost sick to my stomach. You have stepped in it this time, and cannot swagger your way out of it. Your reputation has been self-destroyed.