As we await the start of the business meeting, John Pomeranz is handing out WSFS Businss Meeting Bingo cards. Kevin Standlee is the free space. Players are instructed to fill in the rest of the blanks of frequent participants and when they have bingo, get recognized and include the word Bingo in their statement.
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RedWombat,
I suggest that if the same words had been tweeted by a Gamergate supporter about an anti-GG meetup, the assessment and reaction would have been very different. The narrative is strong.
No kidding. That’s not anything like threatening, not when GamerGaters are going around telling women they wish them to be raped, and commit suicide, and die.
This is beginning to sound like that pissante who goes around calling John Scalzi a confessed rapist because Scalzi wrote a Swiftian satire from a rapist’s POV about how easy Republican lawmakers were making it for men to rape at will with no consequence.
Honestly, all prevarication like this does is make Anthony Chu look better.
That’s too many comments not explicitly about SFF.
I just read The Annihilation Score and Seveneves, two novels I thought would be on my nomination ballot next year. Neither of them will be. Anyone else disappointed in those two?
You’ve got to be kidding me. What was ending was the Twitter argument he was having with people about his efforts to persuade the bar not to host GamerGate. There’d be no point to putting public pressure on the bar after the event happened.
He clarified this several times in the link you posted. I guess you overlooked that.
Don’t buy into GamerGate stupidity. They make bad faith arguments to attack their enemies, and that’s what they’ve done here to Chu.
Seriously. Oh, you’re a gamer, so…you devour a form of media carefully created by someone else to have a victory scenario and you can look up that scenario on line and try it as many times as it takes to get it right and even with all that, an extraordinarily high percentage never actually play all the way through.
Yeah, you’re unstoppable.
I’m an avid gamer, I have worked in games, I yield to no one in games as art form with extraordinary potential, game as joy, game as canvas, game as powerful social connector, game as hobby…but seriously, to hear some of these people talk, logging a couple hundred hours of Dark Souls makes them a combination of Navy SEAL and wolverine.
Give me a break.
@RedWombat
Come on, you should know better. Politicians never shut up.
So much of the files were lost in the Great Office Fire of 1966 that we may never know. In casual play amongst friends, I feel it acceptable. However, each tournament committee will set forward their own restrictions base upon the recommendation of their tournament master and players must adjust their play accordingly. (I hear at Sussex Invitational a Brighton in 2014, they allowed the players to set their own restrictions and this resulted in several concerned letters being sent to the board.)
I haven’t received the dispatch from Helsinki yet. I’ll have to make sure I put myself down on their list so I get the get the retroactive temporal messages.
Well, this will all be over when we get to Mornington Crescent.
So what? You don’t fight false allegations by making more of them.
If you want to criticize Arthur Chu for trying to publicly pressure a bar not to host GamerGate, that’s fair. But accusing him of a serious crime in the absence of any evidence is not.
Co-signed so hard my pen-point went through the virtual paper.
rcade,
Chu is an ass all on his own. Just read his tweets about men jumping off cliffs or his anti-Charlie Hebdo post.
In any case, I don’t buy into the narrative that has been constructed around Gamergate. I’ve been following this since it started and this diagram is a much more accurate description of the various players. I’m glad to see people like Christina Hoff Summers, Cathy Young, and the Society of Professional Journalists providing a more balanced view.
Patrick: I haven’t read The Annihilation Score (adds to list) but I did read Seveneves and enjoyed it. Perhaps enjoyed isn’t a good word, because I’m pretty sure it won’t be a yearly re-read, but it made me think about humanity, and what humans are willing to do to survive, both as individuals and as a species. And how that willingness can lead to awful problems. I like books that make me think.
How did it disappoint you?
(Not looking forward to cornering Minnie for her V-E-T appt this afternoon.)
What Chu talking about? It’s Arthur. 🙂
Since we’re talking about him now, it’s a good time to link to the Salon piece he wrote taking on the Puppies when the Hugo ballot came out:
Sci-fi’s right-wing backlash: Never doubt that a small group of deranged trolls can ruin anything (even the Hugo Awards)
His comparison of the Puppies stunt to the stunt that kept the Washington Monument unfinished for 40 years was brilliant.
Beth,
I guess I went into it thinking it would be more like the Baroque Cycle or even Snowcrash. There were too many long info dumps for my taste and I don’t think he built up the characters as much as he could.
He’s still a great writer and I enjoyed the speculation. It felt like two or three books stomping all over each other to me.
He says, linking to a diagram designed to construct a narrative around Gamergate.
Wow, I didn’t know that about the Washington Monument.
And yes, the first stages of the process Chu describes sound a lot like the Puppies. Both what they’re angry about (people different from them getting a voice in something they love) and in their response (try to take it over.)
I think I had missed this before; thanks for linking it, rcade.
*eyeroll* Christina Hoff Summers as “balanced.” Kee-rist.
But you know what? Screw it, I’m goin’ to Helsinki in 2017 and no amount of Gator apologetics can make that less awesome.
Patrick: (re: Seveneves)
Totally makes sense, and I actually agree with you on the multiple books point. That is a criticism that I have seen before.
One thing that I feel Stephenson does well is interconnections between characters, and I don’t think he did that as much here. He did that in Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age which I enjoyed a great deal, and seemed to weave the different threads in a cohesive way. But I don’t think that the story of Seveneves would have quite worked with the same sort of interleaving.
I would have liked to have seen the future part more fleshed out, but it did work for me as a book.
It is a little difficult to discuss this without spoilers! ACK!
Seveneves is on my personal long list for nominations (which will get winnowed down before actual nomination time). What books are on your potential nominee list?
(I miss my book group!)
@RedWombat does that mean all those hours of Crusader Kings II don’t make me Tywin Lannister?
Sorry to hear it. I see attitudes like yours as the new coat of paint over rotted wood.
Patrick May —
I suggest that you’re projecting a persecution complex of epic proportions. Also, who has anti-GG meetups? Has there ever been such a thing?
@Iphinome – sorry. I put a lot of hours into the God of War series, and if I’m not Kratos by now, it ain’t gonna happen.
On the whole it’s just as well. I wouldn’t want to live in a village full of talking animals where I make money collecting bugs, fish and sea shells.
The sky above the Worldcon was the color of television, tuned to a landfill.
Whenever I want to disregard uncomfortable facts, I flatter myself that I’m “not buying into a narrative.” That way I can feel like a keen-eyed skeptic, rather than a dishonest oaf.
Darn, guess I’m not a courier or an Aperture Science test subject either either, all my dreams are crushed.
In any case, I don’t buy into the narrative that has been constructed around Gamergate.
Almost no one does, which is why so many GamerGaters whine all the time. Virtually no one buys their revisionist history and paranoid conspiracy theories. Instead, most people prefer reality, which correctly paints GamerGate as a vile movement with no merit at all.
@Jack Lint ….I might. Except for the indentured servitude debt thing. I mean, I can get pretty into home decorating.
I am as glad not to live in the Pokemon world, though. Everybody is super-nice and life-affirming, but Soylent Green is made of Pokemon.
*eyeroll* Christina Hoff Summers as “balanced.” Kee-rist.
I know. Sommers is bankrolled by the American Enterprise Institute. She is literally a paid shill.
@RedWombat – Happy Home Designer is only about a month away. (September 25th) I’m not sure it appeals to me as much, but I’ll have to see what the reviews say.
@NelC
Pretty much any meeting of gaming related people that is not explicitly a GG organised events is an anti-GG meetup
Also, whenever someone tries to sell me the ” true narrative behind GG ” shtick, I look for the name Eron Gjoni. If they don’t mention that arse, it’s definitely a lie.
Good grief, yes.
This argument is not actually making Arthur Chu look bad, all things considered.
(My apologies to Anthony Chu for being a chowderhead about names.)
EPH is looking like it will get passed, to me. My proposal – 2 year eligibility – was killed without discussion. Postponed indefinitely. Some very nice people spoke FOR, and we’ll probably give it another go next year.
Brian Z wasn’t there to vote in favor of Popular Ratification. It was not popular, and therefore, was not ratified.
Patrick May,
Here is the link to my yes or no answer again.
If you don’t see any problems with 60 percent of the members of an organization not having a voice in its governance, that’s a valid perspective and you should stand by it. I just don’t share your view.
A year ago I’d have enthusiastically agreed that Popular Ratification was a good idea. In the current context, it’s more complicated. Puppies have a history of gaming electoral systems to gain influence out of proportion to their numbers, so I’m not a bit surprised that a number of voting members worried that passing it would give puppies a veto over future constitutional changes.
Yay! Helsinki! That’s the one I voted for!
Hopefully my streak will continue at the Hugos.
Got to congratulate everyone for ignore Brian the troll – no-one knows who’s won the Hugos yet, no doubt there will be major internet revisionism when VD becomes, I believe, the first person to lose to No Award twice. Get your screenshots in early…
Seriously? That’s giving GG way too much relevance. Why does everything have to be all “if you’re not with us, you’re against us?” all the time? The GG and sad-rabid puppy types (just to name a few) keep pushing this polarizing worldview. It does nobody any favors.
Maybe there are non-GG meetups because gamers just want to have fun.
60 percent of members should have a voice in some way – site selection, for example. But I thought their 40 bucks was to buy the Hugo packet…
ETA God Helsinki Stalk
no doubt there will be major internet revisionism when VD becomes, I believe, the first person to lose to No Award twice.
Three times. He already has one loss to No Award on the scoreboard.
@ Aaron – didn’t realized he’d forced himself onto the ballot twice this year, I thought it was only once.
Hat-trick of being below No Award has got to sting. Though I’m sure he’ll pretend to be amused by that outcome. Aristotle Talk!
@GMarie you misunderstood me I think. Much like with the Puppies, there isn’t a anti GG side. Theres just GamerGate, and everyone else.
As such,when you get a meeting of people for anything other than a GG meetup, it winds up being full of people who essentially go “GamerGate? Those arseholes?”
Of course, to the whinging arses that GG consists of, this is beyond the pale and must be called anti-g
Oy. I’m not even touching Summers and Young. But you do know that Michael Koretzky regretted championing GamerGate to the SPJ before Airplay ever happened, right?
People keep saying “At least this Hugo mess will be over after tonight.” Sadly, it won’t. This year’s Hugo mess will be over after tonight. But then we get to go through the same thing next year, even if they change the rules at the business meeting.
didn’t realized he’d forced himself onto the ballot twice this year, I thought it was only once.
He’s nominated in both editor categories. I suspect the voting won’t turn out well for him. I’m planning on using the number of votes he gets in those categories as a proxy for estimating actual Rabid Puppy strength. Having read some of the works he “edited” I can’t see anyone who isn’t a Rabid Puppy voting for him.
@Laertes
On Popular Ratification. There is the fear it may be gamed, and also the fear that the wider membership will just ignore or even vote down anything they don’t understand (not having had the benefit of the debate). The latter point was raised at the Business Meeting.
All of which makes it a very difficult problem to deal with.
I think that a possible way forwards would be live broadcast of the BM plus live online voting by members not in attendance in tandem with the votes on the floor of the meeting. But unfortunately I don’t think the tech is quite there yet.
Oy. I’m not even touching Summers and Young.
Young is on the payroll of the Cato Institute. As with Sommers, she is also literally a paid shill. Pretending she is “balanced” is to deny reality.
Patrick May –
The SPJ national board will meet twice, and I’m thinking twice about mentioning AirPlay.
The AirPlay event is sponsored by SPJ and had members of the SPJ there. The moderator did provide a balanced view, that there was one side of GamerGate hoping for better media, and another that was willing to estrange everyone that didn’t agree with them. That Milo, a journalist who has made several ethical breaches himself, is defending the GG cause is one of the defenders certainly doesn’t help the idea that the former exists. Also they don’t seem to talk a lot about video game journalists as much as they do about a couple of women whose opinions they don’t like over and over and over again.
GG much like the Puppies is just another front in a culture war for a couple of mostly irrelevant people who get other gullible suckers to fight their battles for them in order to increase their own exposure. If you’re one of the few left still beating the drum on the march to obscurity for that side show I hope whatever fuels that offended rage inside of you eventually burns out.
GMarie –
Absolutely there are because there’s still many who’ve never heard of it, and when they have either dismissed it entirely or ignored it.
@paulcarp: you might want to let it rest for a year – IME the meeting reacts pretty badly to seeing the same thing multiple years running, especially is something was killed after any debate at all. (NB, my experience is not very long, and I am against your proposal, but I still think it’s good to let things rest if you can.)
Air quality in Spokane is much better today. And I’m picking up the free WiFi network from Riverside Park whilesitting in the convention Staff Den on he 14th floor of the Doubletree Hotel.