Steve Brust opened last weekend’s Fourth Street Fantasy convention in Minneapolis with a short speech that used the term “safe space” to make an impact – and succeeded, for better or worse. He upset a number of hearers and ignited a controversy that has played out on Facebook and several blogs in the past two days.
Steven Brust posted his text: “My opening remarks at Fourth Street Fantasy Convention”
Fourth Street Fantasy Convention is not a safe space. On the contrary, it is a very unsafe space. Of course, it ought to be safe in the sense of everyone feeling physically safe, and in the sense that there should be no unwanted harassment, and it should be free of personal attacks of any kind. But other than that, it is not safe.
Your beliefs about writing, and my beliefs about writing, and what is good, and how to make it good, should be sufficiently challenged to make us uncomfortable.
The interaction of art and politics is getting more and more in our faces. Whether this is good or bad is beside the point (although I think it’s good); it reflects changing social conditions, intensification of conflicts. Anyone who thinks art is independent of social conditions is as hopelessly muddled as someone who thinks there is a direct, simplistic 1:1 correspondence between them.
The result of this is that political understanding, unexamined assumptions, agendas, are very much present in the art we create and thus in the discussions of that art.
If no one feels unsafe, or unthreatened during these discussions, we’re doing them wrong. The same is true in discussing technique, because technique, content, form, attitude toward the creation and role of art, and understanding of society, are all interconnected, and in challenging one, we are liable to find ourselves challenging another….
Scott Lynch delivered the Fourth Street Fantasy board’s closing statement, which was perceived to be, in part, a response to Brust:
We, the board of the 4th Street Fantasy Convention exist to facilitate energetic and even challenging conversation. We want to provide spaces to do so, in both a moderated and unmoderated fashion. At 4th Street, the conversation is intended to spread from our shared spaces to more private spaces where attendees may consent to discuss, discourse, blather or argue about anything on any terms they desire.
We do not prescribe a mindset or an approach for attending 4th Street. We do not demand that anyone be made to endure anything against their will. We want to provide a space in which everyone feels welcome, and everyone respects the welcome we desire to extend. What we do here can be hard, it can be frightening, it can be exhausting. We want to support you in doing it. We want you to know that we take your needs, your comfort, and your sense of safety very seriously. As a friend of the convention said this weekend, “It is difficult to be bold in front of strangers when you don’t feel fundamentally welcome.” We are here to listen to you, we are here to have your backs, and we are doing our damnedest to kindle that fundamental sense of welcome, to sustain it, and to make it grow, in this year and every year to come.
Lydy Nickerson articulated her negative response to Brust’s opening speech in “The Rules: A Memo for Every Man in My Life”. (Click to see the complete post. There are substantial comments there, too.)
At Fourth Street Fantasy Convention, this year, Steven Brust, from the dais, delivered a speech about safety and free speech that made me so angry I had to leave the room. Since then, various people have talked about the issues of safety, harassment, and free speech, often as a response to that situation, but sometimes as a continuation of other conversations. I have some very specific issues with the things Steven said, but I don’t want to write about them at this moment. Instead, I want to address something that comes up over and over in these conversations, and always from men. “What are the rules?” “How can I know how to behave if you won’t clarify what you want?”
Dear men, please do not ask me to provide to you something that I have never had. I cannot provide you the rules. I do not know what they are, and I never have. I have spent my entire life, my personal, professional, educational, social, and romantic life, navigating the complexities of human interaction without rules. There has never been a point at which my exact decibel level was approved, the exact number of square inches of skin I can expose has been acceptable, a precise hairstyle I could wear that would clearly communicate who and what I was. I have spent my entire life being judged by a set of shifting rules.
I have spent my entire life being lied to about what those rules were. If I talk too softly, no one listens, but if I speak more loudly, I am bitchy and dismissed. If I am clear and logical, I am mocked for inadequately mimicking maleness, but if I am emotional, I am mocked for being too feminine and not worth paying attention to. There is no level of dress that does not open me up to either being a prude or a slut.
The penalties for transgressing these ever-shifting “rules” vary. Sometimes, it’s just being unpersoned. Sometimes it is getting a bad job-performance review. Sometimes, it’s unwanted and uncomfortable conversations. Always, at the back of my mind, has been the knowledge that if I girl wrong at the wrong guy, I might be physically assaulted. And if that were to happen, my entire girl-ness would then be on trial. What was I wearing? What did I say? How did I say it? Was it my fault? Oh, yes, some percentage of the population will assert, it was totally my fault. Because I didn’t follow a rule that, you know, doesn’t actually apply all the time, isn’t written down, is entirely contextual, and nobody every told me in the first place.
Rules are a luxury that I have never had. The only way rules have ever applied to me is as a stick to beat me with. They are a shifting landscape of horror. I don’t know if all-male spaces have clear, comfortable rules that everybody knows and the penalties are clear. I rather doubt it, but I don’t know. What I do know is that to be a woman in this culture is to be constantly moving through a space where expectations are variable, and are rigidly enforced on a whim, and can dramatically affect my life.
When we talk about harassment, safety, and safe spaces, stop asking me for rules. You never gave me any, and so I have none to give you. All I can offer you is this shifting, difficult, dangerous, ambiguous space that I live in. If you want to be an ally, if, indeed, you want to be my friend, you must learn to inhabit this uncomfortable space with me. You must accept that there aren’t clear rules where you can know that you are right….
Will Shetterly defended Brust’s use of language: “Ideology makes you confuse the literal and the metaphorical–a bit about the 4th Street Kerfuffle”.
The people who’re upset by Steve’s talk are unable to see that his opening lines are metaphorical:
Fourth Street Fantasy Convention is not a safe space. On the contrary, it is a very unsafe space.
And they’re unable to see that his third line is literal:
Of course, it ought to be safe in the sense of everyone feeling physically safe, and in the sense that there should be no unwanted harassment, and it should be free of personal attacks of any kind.
If you think about his statement logically, there’s no reason to interpret the first two lines as saying he wants 4th Street to be a place that’s physically unsafe, and there’s every reason to think his third line means exactly what it says. But humans aren’t logical. To people who think of safe spaces as sacred spaces, any questioning of the idea is taboo. At least one of Steve’s critics insists they do understand metaphor. But if that’s true, why are they upset?
Steve Brust wrote a follow-up on his blog, the end of which reads:
Evidently I was wrong. And, while one can always blame the reader for failing to understand, when enough readers get it wrong, one begins to side-eye the writer.
So let me state clearly and for the record I do not support that kind of atmosphere, I do not want that kind of convention, and I deeply apologize for any pain or fear that was caused by anyone thinking I did mean that. My fault, not yours.
ETA: It’s worth pointing out that it isn’t just a matter of reading, but that this was a speech, not presented as text, and a speech that, moreover, I deliberately opened with a shocker. This makes more reasonable the number of people who went past the “physically safe” and “no harassment” parts. Again, my bad.
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Lis, I’m also curious about your use of “trust” because my life would be much simpler if I wasn’t so adamant about the truth. Of course I’ve been mistaken—everyone has—but I try to always be honest. I don’t have a great memory, so I’d make an awful liar.
Lis, regarding “i have no expectation of learning about them from you”, the problem with sticking to your echo chamber is you never learn about the things that happen outside it. This is why partisans in fights like Gamergate think bad things are only done by the other side and none are done by their own. It’s why I try to read outside my comfort zone. It’s why this brouhaha began over Steve’s desire to be able to discuss ideas that make people uncomfortable. And it’s why that idea made some people at 4th Street so uncomfortable that they shut him down.
Maybe because your asshole behavior (i.e., sealioning, rudely waving aside points that don’t suit your thesis, including the existence of Vox Day and people like him as “it’s all in your imagination” instead of engaging with them in good faith) makes people distrust anything you say?
What you’re waving around is an editorial, written strictly from the view of one side of the argument. Oddly, there is another article in the same paper that you did not pick, for some reason, which showed a little more of the other side of the argument:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/us/evergreen-state-protests.html?_r=0
…including the feelings of betrayal the faculty had felt when the professor in question had taken a private disagreement public and gone to Fox News and the Wall Street Journal with his complaints of white oppression (though for some reason, he’d declined to be interviewed for the NY Times for the article). In addition this article has the professor who made the original proposal (Rashida Love) that non-POC students attend an event off campus that year saying her proposal was strictly voluntary and non-coercive, and that Weinstein was misleadingly portraying it as oppression. You also omit to mention (as the article states) that there were alt-right threats to the campus and harassment to Professor Love as well as Weinstein. You omit the perfectly polite exchange of emails that began the dispute, in which Prof. Love told Prof Weinstein that the invitation to non-POC students to attend the off-campus event was strictly voluntary, and the comment by an actual non-POC student that he’d attended classes that day on campus with no trouble and that Weinstein was outright lying when he said there was anything coercive about Love’s event:
http://www.theolympian.com/news/politics-government/article153826004.html
No one here is defending violence or threats. But on second glance, the threats were not all on one side in the events you’re waving around like a flag, and with any amount of research, Weinstein does not seem like the uncomplicated martyr to the evil left you portray him as. For a self-proclaimed socialist, your cherrypicking about this event seems remarkably slanted to the right.
See, by demanding that we take your word for it that Brust would NEVER make any remark that was really racist or sexist, you’re setting yourself up as a character witness for your friend and editorializing in his favor. That is your right as a friend. However, your editorializing has been a great deal less convincing than, say, the New York Times article you’re quoting, because when you set yourself up as a character witness, your own character becomes a factor in the judging of the person you’re defending…and your rudeness and constant displays of bad faith may reflect poorly on the friend.
@Will Shetterly
I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring up GG as an example of “both sides do it.” I probably haven’t investigated all of the individual claims, but the claims that I have investigated of “the other side” swatting gators or calling in bomb threats for gator events were false – from what I recall, it was generally 4chan types trolling their own. I’ve also seen claims that eg. calling Vox Day by his legal name is doxxing, an obviously ridiculous claim, since the connection has never been a secret. Basically, most of the claims I’ve read of gators being harassed were akin to when Trump supporters claim any news that puts their man in an unfavorable light is “fake” – an act of trollery in itself, where they are rendering a term meaningless by adding noise and uncertainty.
Not that there aren’t bad actors on both sides, but one side (talking the GG issue here – I don’t defend radical leftists who attempt to “de-platform” anyone they disagree with any more than I defend neo-fascists who get punched) is vicious and, whether some gators disavow the actions of “a few” or not, it isn’t female video game journalists I’d worry about getting on the wrong side of. If I were you and honestly intent on convincing leftists that there is a problem with leftists acting poorly, I would stay well away from GG.
‘If you read more about Gamergate, you’ll find that doxxing, death threats, and bomb scares have been committed by both sides.’
I don’t remember any of Gamergate’s targets doxxing any Gamergaters or sending them rape threats or death threats or smearing them as paedophiles or causing bomb scares. Both sides, huh?
‘I don’t know why those subjects would be covered in an essay focused on one specific community — the arts and academic literary community in Canada — that’s not connected to videogaming or white nationalists.’
Well, yes, you can off-handedly mention that people are responding to racism or sexism so long as it’s kept abstract and notional and no doubt grotesquely exaggerated by left-wing hate-mobs.
Jayn, it’s always hilarious when someone calls someone an asshole and complains they’re rude. It’s especially hilarious when they also use “sea lion”: the metaphor is used to describe people who politely persist, a trait admired by friends and hated by foes.
Uh, seriously, you think I denied the existence of Vox Day? What?
You omit the fact that the polite emails were taken public by the people who decided to attack him and try to get him fired.
Kathodus, GG is such a mess that I doubt anyone can untangle it completely. I know a black male gamergater and a white female gamergater announced they were dropping out after being doxxed–I think the black guy was fired, but maybe he just had his boss called. Yiannopoulos had at least one event cancelled because of a bomb threat, and I see no reason to doubt that was done by identitarians since there are youtube videos of them doing things like pulling fire alarms to prevent people from speaking.
I haven’t followed it closely enough to know about “outing” VD, but I agree that’s silly. When your identity is common knowledge, you can’t be outed.
I checked to see what I’d shared about Gamergate. I made a post about the doxxing of Liz F: http://sjwar.blogspot.com/2015/03/doxxing-liz-f.html
And I spotted these:
Four women and a black guy who had been doxxed and harassed by the anti-GG side raised $1500 for UNICEF. They have proof of their identities here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/from-gamergate-to-unicef#/
“No, Gamergate is Not Right Wing” http://www.gameobjective.com/2016/11/21/no-gamergate-is-not-right-wing/
“Pro Vs Anti GamerGate – Two Interviews” http://mangotron.com/pro-vs-anti-gamergate-two-interviews/
@Will Shetterly – I’m pretty sure that Milo event was the one I was talking about where 4channers called in bomb threats. There were something like 10 called in? Yeah, doing a search for it, that’s the one. That’s what I’m talking about – the whole GG mantroversy was a prelude to the Pepe/kek Trump trollery, where nihilists just like fucking with people who have strong beliefs and are easy targets. Which is why it’s best to just not bring up GG. You will never convince anyone to switch sides.
‘Kathodus, GG is such a mess that I doubt anyone can untangle it completely.’
I can. A small number of female game designers were subject to a vast and relentless barrage of abuse, threats, lies, doxxing and Swatting when one guy lied about his ex-girlfriend. I think it’s politely persistent of you that you have no reason to suppose Gamergaters might turn on their own for the lulz, other than your need to draw equivalences.
“The fight that ensued after the bully punched the kid half his size and age is hard to untangle completely, but I assure you both sides were equally in the wrong.”
I am not sure why a fake blog with the same value as Boaty McBoatface should be seen to be relevant when pretending that gamergaters aren’t mostly from the alt-right. It is not as if the data can be verified in any way.
What we do know for sure is that Gamergate started as a pure harassment campaign and has continued in that vein. That the trolls of 4chan thinks it fun to attack anyone, regarding of side, is hardly anything new.
From one of the interviews from a ‘well respected voice’ in Gamergate:
‘When we, as consumers, began questioning these conflicts,’
It’s like this is a variation of a phrase that quickly became a legendary piece of self-parody because of the way it pretended that Gamergate was concerned with honest practices within the reporting and reviewing profession instead of rape and death threats but I can’t quite recall it just now….
The “ethics in gaming journalism” mantra was always puzzling to me. I haven’t paid much attention to video games in well over a decade, but back in the mid 90s and early 00s, gaming “journalism” was the equivalent of music “journalism” – puff pieces paid for by major content producers to whitewash the flaws in their product and promote sales, regardless of quality. Given the general direction entertainment journalism has taken since the mid-90s, it seems highly unlikely that video game journalism rose from the cesspool and cleaned itself off in the ensuing decade(s).
From what I saw, it wasn’t until a few women began writing and commenting on video games within the larger cultural context that a fear of cooties among presumably unvaccinated gamers* inspired Gamergate. Ethics in video game journalism belongs right up there with military intelligence and business ethics in the oxymoron canon.
* And who the hell doesn’t get their cootie shots on the playground in kindergarten, anyway? Is this a homeschooled kid problem?
Surely you will agree that I was perfectly polite to you till when I pointed out that Brust’s rules about “no threats or personal attacks” left a loophole by which a Vox Day or clone thereof could burble on with racist invective without breaking those rules, and instead of politely explaining how you think I’m wrong about that, you went out of your way to direct a comment personally at me just saying instead that the loophole was all in my imagination? That was dismissive and rude of you, and your abstinence from naughty cusswords in doing it did not make it less so. I, again politely, asked you to explain how I was wrong, and you ignored me while you gish-galloped off on your way (alas, not into the sunset). Hence, you established yourself as rude and as refusing to engage in good-faith discussion of your points…and I pointed that out when I first called the rectal sphincter as I saw it.
Then I see you waving a NY Times article around that purportedly proved the martyrdom of a figure like Brust by the evil left. You having established yourself in my mind as both rude and arguing in bad faith, I wondered if MAYBE you were using this article in bad faith as well, and that perhaps it did not prove what you said it did. With the minimum of checking, I found I was right (surprise, surprise!), and provided the links that showed it. You counter (WITHOUT a link to substantiate your claim) that it was the opposing faculty who leaked the e-mail to discredit and fire Weinstein – a rather calumnious allegation to make without proof. With your reply, you show that you WERE aware of the history that I was pointing out and simply hadn’t included it because it weakened your argument – again underlining the fact that you were arguing in bad faith. You also did not engage the points I raised about how your presentation of Weinstein’s case is perfectly one-sided – and that side slanted against the left…odd considering how the college was threatened with a shooting of “communist scumbags” over this: http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/threat-closes-evergreen-state-college-amid-high-race-tensions/528732951
So I really do think that you seem to be using your friend as your tool because you have some kind of ax to grind…and honestly, such a willfully obtuse and deliberately slanted defense is worse for your friend than none.
“Ethics in gaming journalism” they said, attacking people who weren’t gaming journalists at all.
Wandered in to see how the heck this was still going and see it’s somehow gone so far off the rails that old gamergate fallacies were brought out of storage and dusted off. Much like the term SJW, CHORFS, Puppy Kickers or whatever Anti-GG was not a collective or self identifier, it literally was applied to anyone who didn’t buy into the bullshit harassment campaign. Since it was started by an ex-boyfriend over the suggestion an indie developer traded sex for a positive review of a game, even though that review never existed, and if it had would’ve extorted all of zero dollars out of people as it was a free twine game.
But hey some people who didn’t like GamerGate did bad stuff too so everyone who doesn’t like their harassment campaign are just as bad.
Nigel
They did it all the time when it was going on more actively. RationalWiki keeps a great timeline of events.
I think everyone here agrees that his firing was deserved, including me. He created a PR disaster for his company.
What I called disproportionate was the fact he’s still an unemployed pariah five years later, and any time he surfaces online the hate winds kick right back up again.
The metaphor describes behavior far more obnoxious than that. A sea lion is a pest who asks questions to push an agenda, not because he has a genuine interest in the answers.
Theodore Beale’s fans used to sealion this place all the time to push his rancid agenda.
kathodus, do you have any evidence that 4chan was behind the Yiannopoulos bomb threats? My quick googling isn’t bringing up anything.
But the feminist-pulls-fire-alarm thang is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWgslugtDow
I’m not on a side with Gamergate. It’s why I keep saying the worst on both sides are awful. I’m not a gamer, so I don’t know or care enough to take a side. I’m only interested in gamergate as another big internet flamewar with two sides that, for the most part, are only telling and keeping one-sided narratives.
Nigel, I didn’t say that no one could offer a one-sided narrative.
kathodus, in the punching incidents, remember Allison Stanger: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/opinion/understanding-the-angry-mob-that-gave-me-a-concussion.html
As for the ethics issue, it began when someone got an award from a group that included someone they were sleeping with. If Emma got an award and I was one of the judges, it would definitely be about ethics.
You also seem to be erasing women who wrote about games like Liana Kerzner. Here’s “WHY FEMINIST FREQUENCY ALMOST MADE ME QUIT WRITING ABOUT VIDEO GAMES: PART 1” http://metaleater.com/video-games/feature/why-feminist-frequency-almost-made-me-quit-writing-about-video-games-part-1
Jayn, sigh. Reread what happened if you wish. What I did was to disagree with your take. I realize that for some people, disagreement is rude, so then they feel entitled to start calling people names.
Jayn, regarding the threat to Evergreen College, you do realize that happened after the teacher was attacked and got death threats? These things escalate, but when condemning an escalation, you shouldn’t ignore the beginning.
“The Professor At The Center Of Controversy At Evergreen State Has A History Of Fighting Racism” https://www.forbes.com/sites/danspinelli/2017/06/06/the-professor-at-the-center-of-controversy-at-evergreen-state-has-a-history-of-fighting-racism/#4951510b27e9
‘I’m not on a side with Gamergate. It’s why I keep saying the worst on both sides are awful’
As far as I’m concerned, the ‘sides’ are the abusers and the people they attacked, so this means Gamergate is awful and the people Gamergate attacked and abused and threatened are awful. I’m not sure why you’d say a thing like that but ok.
However this is a lie:
‘As for the ethics issue, it began when someone got an award from a group that included someone they were sleeping with.’
Gamergate got started when a group of people poured a torrent of abuse and threats at some women online. Any other ‘narrative’ is a cover for Gamergate and if you proffer it uncritically you are on the side of Gamergate.
‘Nigel, I didn’t say that no one could offer a one-sided narrative.’
I don’t require your approval or permission, but this phrasing implies that I am omitting something of some importance in my ‘narrative’ and I put it to you that when it comes to understanding the phenomenon of Gamergate I am not.
There was Gamergate and there was the rest of the world. That were the “sides”. Just as it was the puppies and then everyone else.
And Gamergate was rotten to the core. From the start. Even in the first logs, roguestar was discussing how they could drive Zoe Quinn to suicide. The absolutely first logs. And when he was thrown of twitter, all the gamergaters changed their avatars to look like his and started a campaign to bring him back. Bring back the harasser. The blackmailer.
Even without professional harassers like Yiannapoulis or Cernovich, there was never anything to GG apart from the worst.
@Will Shetterly
Unfortunately, only my memory of the time. I remember reading a forum (reddit? Some blog?) where people were LOLing about the whole thing, and I remember GGers being angry at being betrayed by the troll arm of their movement, but I can’t find anything on it now, which is very strange. Also, it may have been the SPJ Airplay event, not Milo’s talk.
As for the rest… I don’t have the energy. You keep sidestepping the fact that, while yes, there are bad players on both sides, the GG movement is the one that actively harasses its critics. Yes, not all Gators. I know. I am not arguing that there is no regressive left. I live in an area where the regressive left is alive and doing great. It’s a tiny bubble, though, and they are vastly outnumbered in the general population, in positions of power, pretty much in every way that matters. To me, at least, the Alt-right and their Nihilist troll allies are a much bigger problem.
Nigel, yes, you are telling a one-sided narrative that appears to be based on even less information that I have.
I just did some quick googling. Gamergate began when Eron Gjoni shared the news that his girlfriend, Zoe Quinn, had claimed to be faithful to him while she was having sex with other men, including Nathan Grayson.
From http://gamergate.wikia.com/wiki/Nathan_Grayson:
“On January 8, 2014, Nathan Grayson of Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote the article Admission Quest which gave prominent coverage to Zoe Quinn’s game Depression Quest without acknowledging that Quinn was a friend of Grayson. [2][3]”
That’s an ethical issue. If you review a friend, you acknowledge the friendship so readers know you’re not an impartial reviewer.
Sorry about remembering that as having something to do with an award. Like I said, I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to GG because it’s such a mess.
@Will Shetterly – He never reviewed her game. He did not cover her game extensively. He mentioned it, from what I remember, in an article.
Why, if you don’t care about GG, are you using it as an example of “both sides are…”? They’ve lied from the get-go. Your arguments are built from the fruit of the poisonous tree. That’s why I’ve been saying you shouldn’t use GG in your examples.
kathodus, one of the few things I know about GG is this isn’t true: “the GG movement is the one that actively harasses its critics” See my links above about the doxxing of Liz F and the five people who were harassed who created a Unicef fund. There are no saints in Gamergate.
‘That’s an ethical issue. If you review a friend, you acknowledge the friendship so readers know you’re not an impartial reviewer.’
I’m so sorry. You seem to be confused. Gamergate started when people poured abuse, rape threats, death threats and lies at some women. You seem to be conflating their contemptible excuse for the phenomenon itself. I recommend a long hard think about what you’ve done.
‘There are no saints in Gamergate.’
And no victims either, apparently, unless they’re pro-Gamergaters who may or may not have been doxxed by somebody on one side or the other.
Jebus crustimus, Will, I acknowledged that there are anti-GG people who have been bad actors, as well. But the Not a Supporter of GG movement was not founded on harassment. The GG movement was. That is my point.
Also… so, I have a bunch of FB friends among the regressive left. I am outspoken on FB about not liking their tactics. I’ve heard from friends of friends that some people call me a Nazi apologist. Most of them don’t argue publicly, because they don’t want to be outed.
I have a friend who, it turns out, has/had some FB friends in the Alt-right (probably related to the music scene in which she participated). She is very outspoken against the Alt-right and neo-fascism in general (and the regressive left, when they go too far, in her eyes).
I was doxxed by the regressive left types. Basically, my public FB picture, along with a few other people’s FB pictures, was posted on an Antifa Instagram account with a caption something like “is attending a Nazi metal show” (the show was not Nazi whatsoever, for the record). One of my friends who was in that picture got hold of an Antifa person and they took down that picture.
My other friend who I mentioned had some alt-right friends was also doxxed after arguing with them. It was a bit different, though – she started getting PMs from people named “Concerned” or “Worried About You.” The PMs would include her home address, her work, her work schedule, her phone number, and have a message along the lines of “I’m worried about you because some bad people know all of this information. Please stay safe.” She got a whole lot of those and locked her account down, deleting anyone she wasn’t sure was her actual friend (including deleting people she had been actual friends with because she couldn’t be sure, given their political views, that they weren’t feeding info to her harassers).
That’s basically the difference between the 95th percentile of the worst of the left and the 95th percentile of the worst of the right.
Kathodus:
I remember that one too. Was on the baphomet board if I remember correctly.
…brushing it off with a ‘your problem with it is all in your head’ dismissal instead of explaining why you think I’m wrong. Rude, and betraying a complete lack of interest in genuine communication in good faith. Rude regardless of whether you abstain from the seven dirty words and pout about Hampus’ insults.
I’ve argued civilly with many people on these boards and other places with whom I disagree. I would have, with you, without insults, had you shown the same courtesy. You did not.
kathodus, I care about gamergate for the same reason I care about all the other examples of online flamewars that have devolved into doxing and death threats and mobbing.
You made me check the guy’s article. He wrote: “Anyway, standouts: powerful Twine darling Depression Quest” High praise, and no acknowledgment that it was created by his friend of lover. My understanding is that sort of ethical failure had been common with gaming journalists. The one thing I find very significant about GG: several gaming sites adopted codes of ethics after GG began.
Nigel, you seem to love making up things. There are victims on both sides of Gamergate. I named a few specifically that you continue to ignore, and I never denied any on the anti-GG side.
kathodus, I don’t know who’s worse. Both sides dox. Both sides issue death threats. Maybe you’re right that the GG side is worse. Maybe you were just luckier than your friend. I am sorry for you and your friend. Mobbing has far worse consequences than many mobbers imagine, though the worst mobbers know how horrible it is and are pleased by that.
Jayn, “I’ve argued civilly with many people on these boards and other places with whom I disagree. I would have, with you, without insults, had you shown the same courtesy. ”
Yes, it’s obvious you feel entitled to insult people when they don’t agree with your assumptions. You may have the last word now.
MODERATOR’S COMMENT: I’m not hosting a defense of GamerGate. The comments already made will stand.
To be clear here, I’m not defending GamerGate. The treatment of many people on the anti-GG side was despicable. I’m only pointing out that this isn’t a case of white hats vs black hats. There’re shades of gray and a whole lot of mud on those hats.
And now let us return to whether it’s safe to use “safe space” as a metaphor in a safe space.
Yes, you are defending gamergate. That is obvious to everyone. You go as far as using their own propaganda sites as source for their good intentions.
You only sound ridiculous when you pretend otherwise.
So the way Gamergate started – a massive outpouring of abuse and harassment directed at some female gaming developers – is making stuff up but you’re not defending Gamergate? Yeah.
Sorry Mike. I despise this cheap ugly revisionism. That’s the last I’ll say on it.
I will say this for Will: he has effectively deflected any discussion or criticism of Steven’s behavior at 4th Street.
Well, Will had plenty of help with that (me included). But it’s best to get back to the subject of this post. Steven’s argument about not wanting 4th Street to be a safe space from ideas reminds me of the discussion that was had a few years ago about whether or not it was a good idea for the Minicon art show to not allow certain works to be shown if they were deemed to be unsafe in terms of their content. At the time the consensus was that such censorship of the art show wasn’t appropriate, and that we would continue to adhere to ASFA’s (Association of Science Fiction Artists) stated guideline with respect to not censoring works based on their content alone. Copyright violations, use of models without their consent, etc. would still prompt removal of works.
I haven’t done a review of various convention’s rules regarding art shows, and I know 4th Street doesn’t have an art show to begin with. But there may be a convention that does have a policy of not allowing art that makes people feel unsafe to be shown. If anyone here has knowledge of a con that does, I’d appreciate hearing about it.
@Lydy Nickerson – I will say this for Will: he has effectively deflected any discussion or criticism of Steven’s behavior at 4th Street.
Eh. No. You’re giving him way too much credit. He’s more like a nearly endless series of speed bumps that make you wish you’d taken another road, but you still get to your destination eventually.
Lydy, there’s so little discussion about what actually happened because it’s clear:
Steve wanted to be able to discuss dangerous ideas in a safe space. He was shut down because in a safe space, you cannot discuss dangerous ideas. You cannot even discuss what you may discuss in a safe space.
Hampus, I will give you another shot at the last word, but you’re part of the reason I shared this thought yesterday:
To people who see the world in black and white, gray is an evil idea and color is madness.
More charitably, Brust demonstrated that if you use the “safe space” metaphor to describe something other than the expected meaning of the term, your point is going to be overshadowed by controversy.
There’s a John Lennon/Yoko Ono song from 1972 that uses a racial slur in the title that I won’t include here: “Woman is the —— of the world ” I can recall a few times where a blogger or other writer tried to use that as a metaphor in making a point about mistreatment of women.
Every time, the only thing that was discussed was the use of that phrase and the offense it caused.
Shetterly:
This has something to do with your one dimensionality? Your refusal to accept that people can have a different opinion than you without having misunderstood something? Your constant cherry picking? Your insistence that the only thing that is relevant in a political context is class?
Gamergate began when Eron Gjoni shared the news that his girlfriend, Zoe Quinn, had claimed to be faithful to him while she was having sex with other men, including Nathan Grayson.
GamerGate began when a jilted dude wrote a diatribe full of lies and distortions about his ex and the usual crowd of MRAs and Anti-Feminists jumped on it as an opportunity to attack women for existing.
If you review a friend, you acknowledge the friendship so readers know you’re not an impartial reviewer.
It was not a review. It was one line. This would not be considered an ethical issue in any other area of journalism. It wasn’t considered an ethical issue in gaming journalism until the GG screaming mob started attacking writers for knowing the people they cover.
Like I said, I haven’t been paying a lot of attention to GG because it’s such a mess.
The fact that you are willing to uncritically pass on the lies GG tells about itself and its origins tells us everything anyone ever needs to know about you.
David W., Wiscon has an art show. Since it is the safest of fandom’s safe space cons, I would expect it to have restrictions. I took a quick look at the web site and didn’t spot anything specifically for art, but I didn’t dig.
rcade, both religious and secular cults are very selective about the metaphors they allow, so it makes sense that the metaphorical use of “nigger” has become taboo, even if you’re using it in a way that shows you despise the idea that anyone should be considered less than fully human. I’ve periodically wondered if when I discuss my childhood, I’m supposed to say racists called us n-wordlovers.
With respect to Wiscon, there’s this passage in their Code of Conduct:
I assume the proscription about images also applies to the art show. Would Wiscon allow the display an Omaha the Cat Dancer exhibit? Or would it be deemed to reinforce structures of oppression?
What has Omaha the Cat Dancer to do with SFF?
‘To people who see the world in black and white, gray is an evil idea and color is madness.’
Ironically, this is a very black and white view of people of people who disagree with Will Shetterly.
‘He was shut down because in a safe space, you cannot discuss dangerous ideas.’
One is left wondering what these dangerous ideas are supposed to be, such that their existence was set to defy a term used to denote a commitment to physical safety as well as safety from various forms of abuse and harassment. Do they represent a kind of relentless commitment to equivalences and equivocations used as a platform to minimise abuse and attacks while continuing a sustained assault on the traditional victims of racist and misogynist abuse under the guise of what is essentially concern trolling? That’s what it usually seems to boil down to anyway, but if there are actual dangerous ideas out there being neglected because of a sustained effort to reduce and remove bullying and harassment from Cons, they’re certainly not in evidence anywhere else.
OtCD is the creation of Reed Waller and Kate Worley, both of whom were active members of Minn-STF fandom back in the day.
Waller and Worley and the Shakers
Thank you, didn’t know! Well, I guess that’s up to Wiscon to decide when someone comes to them with a OtCD exhibit. Myself, I find it kind of cute and harmless.