Slashdot Mirror
Game Company Fires Two Employees Who Complained About 'Mansplaining' on Twitter (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes the Verge:
On July 3rd, narrative designer Jessica Price tweeted a 29-tweet thread dissecting the challenges of writing player characters in an MMORPG. A streamer who goes by Deroir responded, "Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree slightly," and shared a three-tweet explanation of how narrative design influences player expression in the sort of games that Price narratively designs. Price both replied directly to Deroir, tweeting "thanks for trying to tell me what we do internally, my dude," and retweeted his response with the caption "today in being a female game dev: 'Allow me -- a person who does not work with you -- to explain to you how you do your job....'"
Price's suggestion that Deroir was mansplaining game development -- an area where he does not have the same knowledge or experience -- sparked anger among the ArenaNet community. She subsequently responded to those criticizing her on Twitter. [Here's the first lines of that tweet. "Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: this is my feed. I'm not on the clock here. I'm not your emotional courtesan just because I'm a dev. Don't expect me to pretend to like you here. The attempts of fans to exert ownership over our personal lives and times are something I am hardcore about stopping."] Price was fired shortly after. Although many fans are comparing this to something like working in a restaurant -- be polite to the customer, or get fired -- Price says it's impossible to talk about this incident without larger context about systematic online harassment, particularly the sometimes abusive relationship between fans and game developers and the failure of game companies to address it. "Game companies are generally unwilling to be honest with themselves about how they're complicit in creating and sustaining that environment," she tells The Verge...
Price adds that she believes her firing was an emotional reaction on the part of ArenaNet co-founder Mike O'Brien. "He fired me personally, and the meeting was mostly him venting his feelings at me," she says. "I understand being afraid when you see the Reddit mob coming for you, but if people with less power can weather it -- and we do, regularly -- so can he...."
"We can probably fire anyone on the GW2 dev team as long we make a big enough stink," wrote one user on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit. "Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We're literally running the company now..." UPDATE (7/12/18): That user eventually clarified that their remark was satirical, identifying themself as an angry Reddit user who felt powerless and "surrounded by individuals who are so thoughtless and shitty I was hoping I'd appeal to some sort of sense of decency by writing the most vile shit I could think of... I took it down because I realized that nobody was going to disagree with me."
ArenaNet also fired Peter Fries, a writer who'd worked for them for 12 years, apparently for defending Price in a series of now-deleted tweets. (For example, "Here's a bit of insight that I legitimately hope [Deroir] reflects on: she never asked for his feedback.")
"The message is very clear, especially to women at the company," Jessica Price tells the Verge. "If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you. The quality of your work doesn't matter."
Price's suggestion that Deroir was mansplaining game development -- an area where he does not have the same knowledge or experience -- sparked anger among the ArenaNet community. She subsequently responded to those criticizing her on Twitter. [Here's the first lines of that tweet. "Since we've got a lot of hurt manfeels today, lemme make something clear: this is my feed. I'm not on the clock here. I'm not your emotional courtesan just because I'm a dev. Don't expect me to pretend to like you here. The attempts of fans to exert ownership over our personal lives and times are something I am hardcore about stopping."] Price was fired shortly after. Although many fans are comparing this to something like working in a restaurant -- be polite to the customer, or get fired -- Price says it's impossible to talk about this incident without larger context about systematic online harassment, particularly the sometimes abusive relationship between fans and game developers and the failure of game companies to address it. "Game companies are generally unwilling to be honest with themselves about how they're complicit in creating and sustaining that environment," she tells The Verge...
Price adds that she believes her firing was an emotional reaction on the part of ArenaNet co-founder Mike O'Brien. "He fired me personally, and the meeting was mostly him venting his feelings at me," she says. "I understand being afraid when you see the Reddit mob coming for you, but if people with less power can weather it -- and we do, regularly -- so can he...."
"We can probably fire anyone on the GW2 dev team as long we make a big enough stink," wrote one user on the Guild Wars 2 subreddit. "Nobody at Arenanet is safe from the hand of reddit. We're literally running the company now..." UPDATE (7/12/18): That user eventually clarified that their remark was satirical, identifying themself as an angry Reddit user who felt powerless and "surrounded by individuals who are so thoughtless and shitty I was hoping I'd appeal to some sort of sense of decency by writing the most vile shit I could think of... I took it down because I realized that nobody was going to disagree with me."
ArenaNet also fired Peter Fries, a writer who'd worked for them for 12 years, apparently for defending Price in a series of now-deleted tweets. (For example, "Here's a bit of insight that I legitimately hope [Deroir] reflects on: she never asked for his feedback.")
"The message is very clear, especially to women at the company," Jessica Price tells the Verge. "If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you. The quality of your work doesn't matter."
Someone who is unable to take valid criticism, immediately making a fuss about on it on social media, generalizing members of both genders, isn't good a look for a company.
That term was invented by Neo-Nazism-feminists. Their way is the only way, and it doesn't include men at all, as men are evil in everything they do.. Its very sickening.
Quoth Jessica on the death of John "TotalBiscuit" Bain (dead at age 33 by cancer): "The kindest thing I can say is "I'm glad he's no longer around to keep doing harm.""
let me make it crystal clear:
you responded to simple criticism with sexist remarks.
that shit don't fly.
First, let's get the obvious out of the way: women also try to explain and argue things they have no clue about.
So if I say "you're cluelessly explaining", versus "you're cluelessly explaining in a MAN way", does the second add any information besides the implication that men are bad? If "mansplaining" is a pejorative term, this situation becomes simple: in the US, if someone is a bigot in public and gets caught, their company typically fires them.
On the other hand, I think that response is a problem in US culture. Everyone has ugly aspects in their personality. Firing should not be a standard response whenever a bit of ugliness rises to the surface. This seems like a bit of Puritan legacy which our European friends don't share.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
She got fired for being a sexist jerk. Her co-worker got fired for joining into the sexist attack. The person that responded to her, Deroir, said nothing sexist, demeaning, belittling, or insulting to her. SHE is the one who took things too. She could have simply ignored the comments if she did not want to interact with him. Reddit did not do the damage, she and her co-worker did this to themselves.
She was being an asshole, fueled/excused by her idea that men are enemies, while somewhat representing the Company (which customers likely are 90% men), and got burned. Big deal.
It's weird how the left whines about how we talk about each other (here in Sweden at-least, once we've finally started to trash-talk them back) and how supposedly now the dscussions are so toxic / uncivilized even though their method operandi has always been screaming and trying to put shameful words onto people rather than actually meeting an argument or having a conversation. They used to be such great fans of it. And I still think they are. And I still think they will continue. It's just that it's pretty boring to be on the receiving end .. "There's a problem people don't dare to speak what's on their mind!" - yeah⦠can't imagine anyone having had such problems before!!
Anyway, feminism is cancer and sexist.
And, of course, The Verge tries to spin this 180 degrees to make HER the victim. Nope. SHE is the one that caused her own firing.
Man/Woman/Other-splaining. A sexist word no matter what the prefix is.
That's 50% of the population right there. If I have to walk on eggshells because you might make it a gender issue, who is the one using gender as a weapon?
Not denying sexism exists, it does. It also exists in these hardcore gaming feminists, who are shooting themselves in the foot with really rather terrible arguments and soundbites.
There are several comments highly critical of Price's sexist attitude, and I would tend to agree, except that reading the article, I think "mansplaining" might be the reporter's choice of words, rather than Price's.
I would also tend to lean to warning and then firing developers who argued with young teenagers on line not as a stranger but as an employee of the company.
Oh noes, the horror, seemingly adult developers are getting harassed by teenage boys and girls. Yep, that is a real problem and the problem is not the teenage boys and girls, they are just being what you would expect children to do as the struggle with the hormonal changes of adolescence. The adult employees are the problem and their inability to mature, hence warning then firings.
If they are adults and they arguing shite with adolescents online, then they are problem and they need to grow the fuck up and shut the fuck up if they can not control themselves.
Gamergate, adult narcissistic women, arguing shite with young teenage boys and those narcissistic women claiming it meant something so, they could play the victim and profit by it (technically the behaviour of the women was child abuse as it promoted bad behaviour in the children they targeted, so the children would hurl insults at them online).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
My understanding is, the guy who messaged her, was very tame in his reply, it was a direct reply to her tweet and I believe he works or worked with them or he was some kind of official partner.
He also was quite tame in his response and gender had nothing to do with it. Furthermore, his behaviour the remainder of the night, was very much polite and lite, he really wanted nothing to do with an internet lynching and was just disapointed by her reply.
Her reply was a quote tweet (ie: a shaming) to make them look bad and went on to a gender whine.
I've become very sick of this gender politics / identity politics bullshit, she was foolish to defer to the "I'm a woman so he's not allow to question me" however that being said, firing her seems a bit excessive.
I'm not sure why this belongs on bloody slashdot though, more political stuff eh?
She got fired for being a sexist jerk.
Really? Which official company channel did she use while being a sexist jerk? I hope your employer sees this and fires you because I think you're and idiot and they are an idiot for hiring you.
Yeah, because Slashdotters never get their panties in a twist when someone they perceive as a layman in a subject tries to correct a person working in that field...
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
So, a person - presumably a customer - posts his opinion on a subject.
A developer, with a huge following immediately publicly shames him, and retweets, using their large public following to embarrass the person who deigned to weigh in on a subject that apparently only developers know about.
The publisher then sacks the employee for bringing the company into disrepute.
Sacking seems a little heavy handed here, but I don't think the employee was in the right.
Is she? Did she formally issue a position on something on the clock? Did she waste time at work? Did she fail at her job? Yeah she came across as an arse, but in her own time.
She is the victim here in terms of her firing. Just not in terms of people being pissy at here. Don't conflate the two. Employers should not have power over our personal lives.
She celebrated TotalBiscuit's death, she's a hateful, evil, sexist, racist feminist lunatic, and according to management this was the last straw after a string of far left nutjob bullshit. That's the REAL story. This is not even about reddit. This is about another SJW getting what she deserved.
Not only was he not insulting, he was right. The player's choices usually can't affect the outcome but they can certainly allow the game to develop an understanding of how the player wants to play and respond to them accordingly.
I would also completely disagree with the "she didn't ask for his input" defense. Putting something on twitter is asking for a response. He didn't break into her house and read her diary and then leave her a note disagreeing with her.
But I wouldn't fire either of them over just that nonsense.
Private in the public/protected sense of the word? So how come Deroir was able to read and comment on it?
Private in the sense of personal? So how come she was wittering about work[1]-related stuff rather that posting cat pics?
[1] Using the word in its broadest sense. Definite B Ark material.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So she got fired for, among other things, being sexist. That's appropriate.
I read what the guy wrote, and what she said in response. Arenanet fucked this up bigtime and I expect a lot of devs there - especially their writers - will be looking at exit strategies. There are plenty of other game companies in Seattle. They will contact Arenanet employees and attempt to poach them.
Jessica Price wrote this long, nuanced article about the way to make the player feel they are participating in the world without breaking the way players project their own personality into their characters. In MMOs (I've worked on two) your character is an avatar; it's yourself in the virtual world. It's not like most games where you're operating an already defined character.
The guy (Deroir I think is his name) replied to this with a suggestion so insultingly simple it deserved scorn. He was polite, but it was a REALLY condescending response. Imagine you drive a truck on a really tricky route and write about all the things you contend with. You've been doing this successfully for years. Then someone says, politely, but meaning to educate you, "if you turned the wheel and used the gas at the same time, how about that?" That's a thing deserving only scorn.
She unloaded on him pretty hard, but it was the right way to nip that idiocy in the bud. If she hadn't most likely a whole bunch of other people would've chimed in with similar stupidity. Arenanet management immediately fired her, plus a colleague who had made a few mild comments in support of her.
Bottom line; your staff are the most important thing you have. If you throw talented long-time staff members to the wolves, you stand a good chance of wrecking your relationship with your staff. Everybody else will see that as ruthlessness and feel fear!
Personally I will now never even consider working with Arenanet's leadership and other devs I know are saying the same thing. That the guy has some sort of business relationship with Arenanet only makes it worse; Now every time the company signs a deal with someone the staff will wonder if that person will endanger their career. The game biz is cut-throat; a little self-inflicted wound can have major effects. Arenanet are probably going to suffer the consequences in an ugly way.
Graham
You still read Slashdot...
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
I think the problem started even before. She apparently started a 29-tweet thread (which should automatically tell you it was not the right medium), expecting no criticism/feedback/etc.
If you don't know what twitter is, stay away. That has worked great for me so far!
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
29 tweets? Sheesh. Doesn't ArenaNet have a forum or something?
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Can work both ways? Who'd a thunk it.
Um. If you're discussing what you do at work with a customer of your employer, it doesn't matter whether you called the twitter feed a "personal account" - you're speaking for the company. How you behave reflects on your employer, and your employer is justified in telling you not to do that, or, in a particularly egregious case, firing you over it.
Never underestimate the stupidity inherent in all human beings.
Disclaimer: I do game dev.
You're not wrong, but there's a fair bit of debate that goes on about "superficial choice." If the choice has no consequences, is it really a choice, or is it just virtue signalling for the player? How much of an impact does a choice need to have before it becomes part of the story, and how much is just "fake depth?"
Basically, if every choice you make leads to the same place, do any of those choices matter? It's a complex question, both for philosophy and for game development. People get pretty worked up over it.
Never underestimate the stupidity inherent in all human beings.
Deroir is not just some streamer. He has an NPC in the game named after him i.e. he has a special relationship with the company. There were other pillars of the fan community also taking part in the twitter discussion and Price insulted them as well. She called Deroir "rando asshat." Price has been with the company less than a year, so she probably didn't even realize that she was taking a dump on the company's biggest, most high profile fans.
The reddit quote about the "hand of reddit" was almost immediately downvoted to oblivion i.e. the community at large didn't agree with it at all. It was probably posted with the express purpose of including it in the news stories about the incident.
That being said, this isn't really about politics at all. Jessica Price clearly has issues. Even before the incident her twitter was so full of negativity and toxicity that she can't possibly lead a happy life. You don't fly off the handle like that when your things are in order. I hope she eventually gets the help that she so obviously needs.
He was polite, but it was a REALLY condescending response.
She unloaded on him pretty hard, but it was the right way to nip that idiocy in the bud.
I'm a guy and I had to deal with stuff like that when I was younger. For example, when I started with SAIC at the NASA Langley Research Center in 1996. My first time on-site, a much older admin literally started explaining to me how Unix worked. I interrupted him and said that not only was my BSCS degree focus in operating systems, but that I had actually taken a course in BSD internals from Kirk McKusick when I was an admin with Unisys at the NASA LaRC supercomputing group -- I was an admin for their Cray 2 and YMP supercomputers and 3 Convex mini-supercomputers from 1988-1992 -- and that I knew how Unix (and, more specifically, SunOS) worked. He shut up and we got along pretty well after that.
Unfortunately, sometimes pushing back hard is the only way to get any (initial) respect and, unfortunately, I've seen it be worse for women.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
In many sensible countries, publicly making sexist and inflammatory remarks that are related to your work and employment can be sufficient grounds for getting fired. Personally I think firing her just for this isn't warranted... but I wouldn't be surprised if there's a prior history of similar behaviour. Maybe she handled criticism or suggestions from her co-workers with the same grace and tact. From the interview on the Verge, it sure sounds as if she tends to take criticism as a personal attack.
I'm actually more interested in why Fries got fired after defending her on Twitter. As far as I can tell he was perfectly polite.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Please do not engage publicly (or privately) with customers in a negative manner. This is a big "no-no", and can result in a negative outcome, similar to this one.
I agree that firing could be excessive, but it is still within the bounds of how HR can approach these issues.
If you are worried about someone being wrong in the internet, remember the xkcd:
https://xkcd.com/386/
It is not your job to fix the internet.
I am what you would call a "leftist" or even worst an egalitarian "socialist" which is probably a gross word for msot american ;) (e.g. everybody no matter skin color, gender, sexuality , wealth or political affiliation should have the same equality of opportunity + as a specie we fare better when we protect each other so social net to catch those who fall in the crack e.g. illness, financial problem, rehabilitation etc...).
She was rightfully terminated. She was toxic, obnoxious.
As for the "loud mouth" and the whiner as you call them , they are a problem from all political parties. You would better off to recognize that there are loud mouth in the right wing , mysoginistic racist bigot, and loud mouth on the left wing, ultra "mansplaining manhating" "human are the problem ecologist" and I pass many others. They are a minority but both side are using them as a scapegoat to accuse the other party of going too far, and get brownie point from their base. I doubt all dems are as you describe, just like I doubt all reps are nazis racist. But if you believed the minority yelling, that is the impression you would get
My advice : ignore the extreme left and the extreme right yelling, fight them rationally without name calling, and consider they are truly a minority. So if somebody from your party is trying to use the other party loudmouth as a scapegoat, then get skeptic and look closely at the man behind the curtain puppetting the show, because chance are they are pointing at the loudmouth from the other side to bamboozle you , and withdraw attention from the problem of your own side. Just a friendly advice, and if many of you take it, this should bring back the US politic discourse to the center rather than the ultra extreme. And chance is that it would force head of both party to work for the mass, rather than the extreme ideology. Win win.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Assuming that's all true - then you roll your eyes and brush the question aside, answer it with some friendly sarcasm, or even with (gasp) a professional response. Not by losing your shit and going on a sexist rant from out of nowhere.
Fixed.
Uh huh. And if you're willing to throw your customers and community under the bus because one of your employees is a snowflake - let me know when you go public so I can buy some put options.
Jessica Price:
Since I spent all kinds of time saying it on a Reddit AMA, and I haven't talked about actual game dev on Twitter in a while, here's a thread about writing for the PC character in an MMO.
The dirty secret is I'm not sure if it's possible to make an MMORPG (or CRPG) character compelling, because people have different expectations about what that character will be, as opposed to a pre-designed character in a single-player game.
People booting up Bioshock know they're playing Jack. People starting Dishonored know they're playing Corvo. People beginning Tomb Raider know they're playing Lara Croft. So in those games, you have more wiggle room to make the protagonist an actual character.
Whereas in an RPG, where the player chooses all kinds of character options and names their character and designs their face and so on, they feel more ownership over that character. They're not playing a character YOU designed--they're playing a character THEY designed.
So if Jack or Lara or Corvo says or does something the player doesn't feel that THEY would say or do, the player's more forgiving, because they have the expectation that they're piloting a character someone else created.
N.B. that I'm not talking about overall plot objectives/quests. Players know going in that the game is going to be telling them what to do, and their character is going to do it, and that holds true even when they've "created" the character.
But the *interpersonal* stuff, the PC's REACTIONS, players respond strongly to. Some people don't like it if they think their character's responding in ways that make them too much of an asshole. Some don't like it if their character's responses seem weak.
So, basically, most things that you'd do writing-wise to give a character, well, CHARACTER, are going to upset a large contingent, maybe even a majority, of your players.
So--I know I've said this before on Twitter, but it's still going to weird people out, but please bear with me--you have to construct your MMO/RPG's PC character's dialogue as if they were Bella Swan from Twilight.
To be clear, I don't think Twilight is good writing. I don't think Bella Swan's a well-constructed book character. And I think people who criticize Twilight for the latter are correct but also missing the reason for Twilight's popularity.
Because Twilight isn't the love story of Bella and Edward. It's the *experience of being loved by Edward.* Which is why Bella's constructed the way she is.
Bella Swan is a carefully constructed blank space, with JUST enough personality to function. All of her personality traits are chosen to avoid preventing the reader from inserting themselves into the space she holds in the story.
She's a bit of a klutz, but JUST enough to make her endearing, not enough to prevent her from actually doing anything the story needs her to do. She's a little bit awkward. JUST enough to be relatable but not enough to actually hinder her. And so on.
And essentially, we have to write the player character in an MMO/RPG the same way.
Specifically in GW2, in the Living World, we can write the Commander with a bit of wry exasperation, a hint of impatience, a touch of "okay, I'm done fooling around with this crap and I'm going to take charge," but most of their lines have to be pretty devoid of personality.
Because if we give them too much personality, it might clash with how the player is imagining Their Commander.
So, how do we tell a TV-like season of story with a protagonist who can't
When the mentioned her company by name, she immediately became a PR person.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
The guy (Deroir I think is his name) replied to this with a suggestion so insultingly simple it deserved scorn. He was polite, but it was a REALLY condescending response. Imagine you drive a truck on a really tricky route and write about all the things you contend with. You've been doing this successfully for years. Then someone says, politely, but meaning to educate you, "if you turned the wheel and used the gas at the same time, how about that?" That's a thing deserving only scorn.
She unloaded on him pretty hard, but it was the right way to nip that idiocy in the bud.
No it was not right, it was hateful by her.
In your professional workspace you have to deal with morons. Everyday. Customers, or like here business partners. You can tell them off, but you cannot insult them like she did, publicly.
Also there are the different areas of engagement to consider. If you deal with such a person personally at the office, like the two Unix greyboards in the other response, then yes you can, maybe, call him an asshole while personally talking directly to him. You cannot do this on Twitter which is a public forum. It's very different if you call someone in person an asshole or publish it in a trade magazine for the whole industry. Same words, totally different outcome, for good reason.
What's more: the greybeard had to work with this guy everyday, could not avoid him so a clearing of the air is necessary one day, the sooner the better. She could have easily avoided and simply ignored the replies without any consequences to her work, her posting or anything else in her life.
Bottom line: it's not what she did, telling him off, but HOW she did it that got her fired.
If you and your other writers can afford to screen for companies where you can insult business partners, then more power to you. I doubt it will be many companies to choose from unless game text writers are a suddenly very sought after profession.
If this was the fist incident this probably wouldn't be that big of a issue but she has a long history. Based on her past behaviour I'm pretty sure this is more of a "last drop" situation than the one defining moment.
This isn't the first time she went off on streamers or made sexist remarks. All the while putting the name of her employer next to every single shitty thing she said, like being glad Totalbiscuit died. She publicly associated her employer with every one of her rants.
Being a game developer does not entitle you to drag your employer into your own personal political crusade.
Honestly, she's a real walking vicim looking to express victimhood at the slightest comment. But I doubt this comment alone got her fired. People like that are toxic to work with, if she does that at work, everyone would be frightened to point out the tiniest of problems to her for fear she's explodes.
Deroir's comment is valid, mostly agreeing while making a subtle point. She didn't address his (her?) subtle point, or even take the time to be civil.
She could simply have said, "we do address that, for example [character name] in [game] changes personality based on your choices through the game in ways [example1] [example2]... I understand that problem fully and we do address it"
--------------------
Deroir:
Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design;
When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC.
But, if instead players were given the option to meaningfully express *their* character through branching dialogue options (which also aren't just on the checklist for an achievement that forces you through all dialogue options),
then perhaps players would be more invested in the roleplaying aspect of that particular MMORPG. Nonetheless, I appreciate the insightful thread!
... the *real* female feminists back?
You know, the likes of Catherine Deneuve and Co. that don't go running and crying like a baby whenever they get into some grown-up talk that doesn't go exactly as they suspected. You know, the type of woman who can stand her own ground and thus is the type you'd actually want to f*ck and have children with.
I hope this gender studies and hashtag feminism nonsense is over soon, it's starting to get over-the-top silly.
Boy an I glad having found a sweetheart that has her own workshop, builds walls and takes down trees in her spare time, dresses like a supermodel (when we go dancing) and fucks like a p0rnstar. She'd tell this little spoiled bratt off, that's for sure.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I was pretty pissed that the Verge left out the Tweets from Deroir in the actual article. It really paints a one-sided picture and sets him up to be the bad guy.
Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design; (1 of 3)
Source
When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC. (2 of 3)
Source
But, if instead players were given the option to meaningfully express *their* character through branching dialogue options (which also aren't just on the checklist for an achievement that forces you through all dialogue options), (3 of 4 cause I count seemingly...)
Source
then perhaps players would be more invested in the roleplaying aspect of that particular MMORPG.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the insightful thread! (End)
Source
Personally, nothing about this came off as sexist or trying to "set a woman straight;" its simple, civil criticism to something someone plastered onto the web publicly. Maybe this was the straw that broke the camel's back and set her off. Verge stated that her posts were motivated by the whole "Dev & Community interaction" that is expected, but if that's the case, then I think the better option would have been to post her 27 tweets into the ArenaNet forum or on a company developer blog where Community Managers could moderate the discourse. Either way, Deroir's not at fault here any more than anyone replying to posts here on Slashdot are.
Really interesting thread to read! However, allow me to disagree *slightly*. I dont believe the issue lies in the MMORPG genre itself (as your wording seemingly suggest). I believe the issue lies in the contraints of the Living Story's narrative design. When you want the outcome to be the same across the board for all players' experiences, then yes, by design you are extremely limited in how you can contruct the personality of the PC. But, if instead players were given the option to meaningfully express *their* character through branching dialogue options (which also aren't just on the checklist for an achievement that forces you through all dialogue options) then perhaps players would be more invested in the roleplaying aspect of that particular MMORPG. Nonetheless, I appreciate the insightful thread!
How is that a condescending response? This being Twitter, perhaps you'll have to read between the lines a bit to see what the guy is getting at; the thrust of that message is not "why don't you use some branching dialogue, you idiots". Deroir's response was well-meant. If it really was a simple or stupid remark, the best thing would be to ignore it or to set him straight, not to pour scorn on him. That most certainly was not the right way to nip it in the bud (unless you're Linus Torvalds)
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I've been in and around tech a really long time. The sad fact is 95% of employees are easily replaceable. 80% are outright disposable with minimal hassle. If these employees were indispensable they wouldn't have been separated. Those 5% at the top were going to get poached regardless of this. Either by other companies, or by starting their own endeavors. The rest delude themselves into thinking they have security for *reasons*. Because the thought that they could have their livelihood severed within thirty minutes for no reason at all is pretty terrifying. This will have zero consequences for Arenanet. Most of their customers won't even be aware of this. Employees get fired in every sector every day for the contents of their social media. Who you hire reflects on you as a business. What you say on social media reflects on you as a person. I don't feel bad for Jessica Price in the slightest. I do feel bad for Fries. I read his deleted tweets and his sin was trying to explain her behavior and head off a social media lynch mob. He didn't deserve to take a pitchfork over it. I believe he was fired because he was a man who violated the social media policy at the same time and the same way as the woman they were firing. If they were worried about further bad press or lawsuit they had to let him go.
Transient anonymity brings out the worst in everyone Mr. Anonymous Coward.
Ain't equality a bitch? Time for more examples of women's privilege in all things dissolving in a putative time of equality.
E Proelio Veritas.
That most certainly was not the right way to nip it in the bud (unless you're Linus Torvalds)
Despite a lot of publicised blow-ups, they're actually pretty rare. If you look at all his interactions on LKML, Linus shows a lot of patience with new people.
He only really blows up if (a) you're someone he knows and you're pushing something or done something he thinks is dumb and you should know better, or (b) you're new and you haven't listened to something sensible he's given as an answer, a couple of times already.
If you pursue something with him in an intelligent debate, he's quite amenable to having his mind changed on things.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
I hate how the phrase, 'Teach my grandmother to suck eggs', which doesn't try and belittle either sex has been mutated into mansplaining so it can be used as a political weapon against ~50 % of the human population.
Guess what, I am a guy and I get people trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs constantly from both side of the fence, it happens. If I have the time, I just nod my head and make the appropriate noises at the appropriate time and move on with my life. Otherwise, when I realise it is happening, I tell them I have something else I need to do and go.
It happened to me last week. Bored the hell out of me but I was polite and listened and surprisingly picked up one or two useful tidbits which will help me with the subject at hand in the future. I still found the whole thing frustrating but that's life.
Did you do that, in public, and in front of your customers, while acting as a representative of your company?
And sometimes, too, you have to know to pick your battles.
Because Wired has too many big words.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
He made the insultingly simple suggestion because ArenaNet wasn't doing it. By your analogy, it's like you've been driving a truck successfully for years while operating the wheel or the gas one at a time, but never at the same time. Then someone suggests why not try using both at the same time.
The problem the guy was getting at (the dialog choices don't have any consequences in the plot) is much older than MMORPGs and even CRPGs. It existed back in pen-and-paper RPGing. It's called railroading. The GM (or devs) have a set idea for how the plot should progress, and forces your character down that path. Pretty much all computer RPGs do it, with free-form games like Skyrim or Fallout (outside the main plot) being the rare exception. Mainly because it's a helluva lot easier to write one plotline, than to write a choose-your-own-adventure type plotline with multiple branches and possible endings. A proper, respectful reply would've been simply to state that while a branching plotline is desirable, it would require an order of magnitude more resources to produce. And so it becomes an economic choice between players getting only one new branching plotline each year, or multiple linear plotlines throughout the year.
I discussed RPGs a lot with Raph Koster when he was working on Ultima Online. I threw a lot of suggestions at him, some good, many dumb. I developed a tremendous respect for him because he always responded to my suggestions politely (the dumb ones only needed a short reply to shoot down). He was never insulting, and always provided thought-provoking responses which usually demonstrated why the problem was much deeper than it seemed at first glance. He didn't view dumb suggestions as an insult. He saw them as an opportunity to teach the person making the suggestion, so they themselves could perhaps become better game developers in the future. And that ultimately is what allows our civilization to advance - by helping pull people up to your level if you're clearly higher up. Not by getting offended and trying to tear them down because you think their suggestion is insultingly simple.
The same people arguing this position are getting neo-Nazis and garden variety racists fired on social media, should those people get a free pass, too?
What's being on the clock got to do with it? Chris Langham wasn't diddling kids in the studio. Ched Evans was nowhere near a football field. They both got fired - and the second one was even cleared on appeal.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I don't agree that the company screwed up but it has nothing to do with the content of what was said by either party. The reason I believe that the firing was justified is that the conduct and statement of employees who are known to be employed by an organization reflects upon that organization and the public confidence in the leadership or the organization. Of course Redditors (and users of other public comment forums) 'own' Arenanet and every other company with the fee for service business model. Where do those fees come from if not the Redditors and those like them? Taking a stand for artistic freedom at the expense of alienating those who appreciate the art is fine if you are financially self-sufficient and don't need any revenue from the 'patrons of the arts' a.k.a. paying customers. If it helps, think of the Redditor mobs as as the "player's union". They may not represent the opinion of every player but through democracy in action they have the ear of Arenanet company leadership. I'm not a developer but in my own profession I have observed that if a Marine wants to leave the Corps quickly (irrespective of the end of service date on the enlistment contract) one of the fastest ways to do so is to say something that publicly embarasses the Corps or the chain of command even if the statement falls short of violating the UCMJ. That principal applies to the most senior as well as the most junior Marines (ask the thre Generals who were relieved of command over the past year for saying or doing something that was merely embarassing to the Corps). The simple rule that was not observed in this case was, "Don't embarass the company whose emblem you wear on your pocket or the boss who signs your paycheck." Those who do embarass the organization will, by choice or not, become self-employed and then they can hang a sign in the window that says, "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason." The job is not an entitlement. Antagonizing customers (even if you don't recognize them as customers) is almost never a recipe for job security. The Arenanet devs design the GW2 virtual world and understandably may feel a sense of ownership over it but it is the revenue from the customers that allows their virtual world to exist and puts money in their bank accounts. Mike O'Brien probably took for granted that this was understood by Ms. Price. While the boss may not always be right he or she is still the boss.
When you're continually reminding people that you're saying something _as an employee of the company_, and making the company look bad at the same time, it's not "a right to a personal life" any more, it's "stop making the company look bad, you idiot."
Ah okay, my bad. She said "manfeels". On her personal Twitter account. After being bothered by numerous people.
I guess that's a fireable offense at that company. Glad I don't work there, wouldn't want to be walking on eggshells all the time.
She claimed misogyny where there was none. To be honest I don't want to work in any place where false claims of harassment are honoured.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
She brought up "being a female game dev".
So even if she didn't specifically use the exact word "chair" there were plenty of mentions of things with legs that you sit on and have a back.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Recently, I went through a pretty demanding hiring process for what seemed a very professional, technical, programming-focused company. In fact, that professionalism was the most-appealing-to-me bit, the reason why I wasn't caring too much about spending some time with interviews, coding challenges, etc. I reached the point of having an informal interview with the person managing my application. She was a woman, apparently with not too much technical knowledge. Her attitude was quite different to mine, to the previous (technical) interviewers and to the one of the people with whom I was expected to be dealing. That job was basically about interacting with (experienced) software developers and taking care of programming issues.
When she sent me the time for our informal interview, she made a mistake with the time zone and proposed me a time 1 hour after what she meant. I wrote her back highlighting that error, explaining what I understood that was her intention and how she could easily avoid this kind of problems in the future. I said that perhaps people within that time zone was fine with her convention, but people from other places might have problems. I also highlighted that this might be a source of further problems in the future as far as certain areas, even within the same country, might have different approaches (it was about daylight saving time). She didn't reply to that explanation or say me anything about that in our subsequent chat. I found her behaviour very impolite, disrespectful and kind of indicative of her personality/insecurities/lacks, but didn't say anything.
Logically, I could have not corrected her error and just waited at the two possible times; basically, assuming that person was too stupid to get involved in a simple conversation, precisely provoked by her own mistake. But this would have been against what I consider sensible and even desirable in a potential employer/client: a place where arbitrariness rules isn't for me. We had that informal interview and she said to me that, 2 days afterwards, will tell me if I would go to the final stage or wait some months (they were over-staffed at that moment, but were expecting a big amount of work in brief). Three days later, she wrote me an email saying that I didn't make the cut. I asked her whether I should re-apply in some months or they will be contacting me to do that last interview. Her answer was something on the lines of only being interested in people more compatible with their views and that they weren't planning to consider my application at all?! No idea why she said that. No idea what isolated issue she misinterpreted to come up with a so wrong conclusion. I did like that company's policy and work conditions a lot. I was going to be really good there, everyone winning: they & me. That's why I disliked a lot that uncalled, unfair, unmotivated, even dishonest decision and I did write a quite hard email back to her. Unfortunately, I am already used to unreasonable arbitrariness when dealing with recruiting/HR people, no matter how technical-oriented the company is. But this time seemed different: a so sensible and technically-focused process! Why suddenly bringing that crap into picture? Why making me waste my time and have a preliminary good impression of that company ('s recruiting process), to change it so drastically?
I think that that woman misunderstood my correction as mansplaining (side clarification: I treat everyone identically and that concept has never even remotely defined any of my actions, as what I think that is the case with most of men of my age, education, expectations, etc. everywhere. I even made pretty much the same correction to a man weeks later). Or perhaps any other irrelevant action during our short chat, like me interrupting her? (read previous side clarification). Perhaps it was because I am a man or I am white or I am from outside the US (it was a US company). All what I know is that I passed all the technical tests, was very interested in that job/company and shared their values (at le
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Why do we care? The interaction was read by the company and they linked it back to their product, employee, and a customer. It's an at-will employment and the company didn't like the interaction. Thus they fired her.
There are consequences to opening your mouth. Great, having learned that, you can go to 3rd grade.
WHY IS THIS NEWS?
Didn't anyone teach these people that personal opinions do and SHOULD have reactions from all who hear it? Including those who have employment power over you? If you want to criticize your employer, product, coworkers, etc do it anonymously!
If you put your name to it, that's very brave of you! Now chin up, quit whining, and move on! I criticize some of my employer's practices all the time, that doesn't mean I will be shocked if they fire me over it.
The link in TFS shows only the first post that she responded to, but from the quoted section someone politely suggested that she was generalising from her personal experience to an entire industry and she then immediately launched a personal attack in response. If you do that in private, you're an asshat. If you do that after publicly associating your online persona with your company, there's grounds for disciplinary action. Worse, her response explicitly drew attention to her link with her employer.
Twitter makes no difference, if you go around saying 'as an employee of FooCorp, I am an expert in this' via any communication channel, then if you subsequently act in such a way that reflects poorly on FooCorp then you'd expect issues. It isn't private communication when you're broadcasting it in public and using your company's name.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Honestly, a company which fires faithful, long-time employees and then puts their severed heads on display on a game forum for the mob to behold is worthless, from a moral standpoint even before the professional one. No one worth his salt should be working at such a toxic place.
"These are our private social media accounts"
Do Milennials really believe that? They aren't YOUR accounts and they aren't private. They aren't your "space". They are owned by Twitter and their corporate partners. Get off Twitter.
>"I am what you would call a "leftist" or even worst an egalitarian "socialist"[...](e.g. everybody no matter skin color, gender, sexuality , wealth or political affiliation should have the same equality of opportunity "
That is not my understanding or observations at all. Actually, that is more of a Centrist or Right position that you stated, not "Left". The Right believes in equality of opportunity. The Left believes in equality of OUTCOMES (like so called "equal opportunity"). The latter is requires limiting/punishing/"equalizing" those who do well based on group identity to try and force equal outcomes and wealth distribution (one of several definitions of Socialism).
Otherwise, I agree with what you are saying that she was rightfully fired, both political parties have loud mouths and bad players, and that generally it is a minority of troublemakers.
As an employer, I always do a quick web search for the candidate's name. It almost never produces anything that sways my hiring choice. But, in this case, if I saw the nonsense she posts on twitter, I definitely wouldn't hire her even if she's fantastic at her job. I, and I'm sure many others, try to construct a great team of people who are low ego, accept criticism, and won't create drama. This person, I'm pretty sure, would make a real mess of my team, and a quick web search in the future will tell all potential future employers that.
The chain of events:
1. A woman game dev posts something work-related. Innocuous enough so far.
2. Some guy on Twitter annoyingly tells her how to do her job.
3. The game dev overreacts, humiliates the guy and turns it political. This was unprofessional and stupid.
4. Said guy on Twitter overreacts as well. Oh boy. Stupid.
5. As things get uglier, a co-worker of hers decides it's a good idea to risk his career and join in the now politically charged discussion. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't go well for him.
6. In a perfect storm of stupidity and immaturity from all sides, it snowballs on Twitter.
7. The game company fires her and her co-worker as damage control. They were justified to do this, since they acted unprofessionally, but this turned out to be a PR disaster for them. No way to win. That's what they get for associating with idiots.
8. The media smells blood in the water like the sharks they are. It's a national political issue now. And yet, it's such a stupid, pointless fight that made 2 people lose their jobs over something so frivolous as "mansplaining".
I have no comment. I just look at the stupidity of everyone involved and laugh. It's better to laugh than to get depressed...
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
This is something people don't seem to realise about twitter. It's publishing. Posting something on twitter is no different from the NYT posting something on their website's front page. The reach may be smaller, but you are publishing an opinion online, and on a forum which explicitly invites feedback.
If you don't want strangers responding, then post it on facebook, or something where you have to explicitly be accepted (I think even twitter allows this).
Joke:
Similar example: A company fired someone for having a dirty fingernail.
"The message is very clear, especially to women at the company," Jessica Price tells the Verge. "If Reddit wants you fired, we'll fire you. The quality of your work doesn't matter."
The reality has ALWAYS been the quality of your work doesn't matter if you embarrass the company in a public forum or are a total asshat that doesn't work well with others.
I'm reminded of the quote (I don't know where it came from), don't ask a question unless you want to hear the answer. Or, in this case, don't post something unless you can tolerate the responses.
Nothing to see here, just another snowflake that can't handle differing opinions and wants to play the victim card to justify their original position and blame others for their inability to play well with others.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Thank you APK, you are a true asset to our community. I look forward to your next gift.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.
She was a sexist jerk for years before she was ever fired. She was fired because her policy of hatred, anger, and insult slinging finally garnered her a big enough following to potentially affect the profits of the people she worked for.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Fortunately it isn't in the EU either. It's just harder to fire someone over it. At least where I live she would have had to not only done it more often, but the company would need a record of them warning her not to.
---
Like emailing it to specific people. I believe they used to do that in the old days with a neat trick called lists or something like that.
But then you won't get the ego boost from all the views and thumbs-ups.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That's simple. Don't put your employer in your profile and never refer directly to that employer when talking about things at work which bother you. When you list your employer, you're associating yourself with that employer. When you put that you're in an elevated position with that employer, expect to be held accountable. It's the height of ignorance and entitled behavior to think the two are not interrelated
Sig not found.
No it was not right, it was hateful by her.
Christ what a snowflake.
If you are incredibly rude to someone (being condescending with or without swearing is rude) then you're a massive snowflake if you get offended when thye tell you to fuck right off.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
A bunch of snowflakes got upset at an opinion they didn't like and got the person expressing it fired. Gee, never heard that before...
I found a great summary of the situation for the tl;dr crowd: "Fired Guild Wars 2 Dev Responds and Still Doesn't Get It..." - YongYea https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
She acted like a SJW / White Knight and got treated appropriately :)
Time for a rename.
AC comments get piped to
And that's exactly, how things ought to be. No one owes you a job. You can resign at any moment, and the employer can let you go at any moment as well.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Publicly act a cunt, get fired.
Being a woman doesn't get you a free pass to being a cunt.
specifically it adds context, e.g. that a woman is getting criticism that a man would not have. Here's a pretty good write up about it and also why the term has been diluted.
That said, the tweet she was responding to didn't sound like mansplaining to me. I didn't detect anything condescending. I'm wondering if the Total Biscuit tweet elsewhere on this thread is real (I can't find a reliable source for it online, just a few forum posts) and if this wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back.
In any case one good point has been made: the Reddit Mob, once mobilized, can get anyone at the company fired. That's not a good thing.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Reddit definitely did the damage here. I'm nervous about how Mob Rule just got vindicated. I felt the same way when all those Neo Nazi's were being fired from their jobs. Firing people for being jerks doesn't make them less jerks. It cuts them off from their income, the pressure of which is going to make them worse, not better.
On a side note, she probably can't ignore the comments though. It sounds like she's expected to engage with the community as part of her job. And yes, that means outside of work. Being forced to work off the clock is pretty common in America and it was one of the things she was complaining about in her posts.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Most of the good stuff at Wired is paywalled.
but it would be nice if you were aware about talking down to people. If you personally are, great! Thanks, and keep up the good work. But a lot of people aren't. Don't forget it wasn't too long ago that this wasn't too far from the truth.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
> Didn't she realize that such banter is reserved for men?
You're really gonna use this as an excuse to introduce the tired old male supremacy straw-man? Of course it isn't. It's actually reserved for those who pay the bills.i.e. the players, regardless of their gender.
Damore is a troublemaker, but his writing wasn't actively abusive. It cited journals and drew conclusions in what was obviously a carefully worded communication he knew would be controversial and even hurtful in some cases. In this case the wording is actively abusive, using derogatory terms that play on gender stereotypes. There is a clear difference in attitude and behavior here even if both people are potentially
sexist. One person walked the line, the other didn't even try to.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Hi sweetie!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Jessica Price tells the Verge. If Reddit wants you fired, well fire you. The quality of your work doesnt matter.
That is truly insightful coming from an MMORPG character writer, an occupation known for producing quality writing that repeatedly receives not only multiple industry awards, but is up there with the Pulitzers and Nobel laureates for literature.
The underlying issue is that many people in the U.S. have very limited social ability.
An example: The game development company management did not have the social ability to realize that dealing with this social issue in a foolish way would become widespread news.
If you had the courage of your convictions on this, you would have stated your real name and who your employer is...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
This made my day.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
She is a sexist scum. Nothing less.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Before Twitter, if I disagreed with the company line I never would have considered getting a megaphone, inviting an interested crowd, and voicing my opinion to them. If I had done that, I'd have been fired. Why do people think they can use an immensely more powerful mouthpiece with impunity?
so that I can go out of my way to not buy it
Well, I've worked at a number of companies over the course of my career. And I can assure you that they all employ their share of assholes (much worse than Price IMO). So you are going to end up a lonely, starving, destitute person if this is your life philosophy.
Have gnu, will travel.
This is what a reasonable response to Deroir would have looked like.
Mark my words. She will be hired publicly to some prominent feminist organization despite her reputation as a sexist scum.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
That's Marxism. Has many other names, they rename it everytime it genocides 50 million, so on their forth or fifth name now.
'Socialism' can extend to a basically capitalist economy with social safety nets.
Marxism IS a historic failure and should be immediately junked. Social safety nets, not so much.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The full term is 'equal opportunity under the law'.
There is a birth lottery, no doubt.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
How come is it insultingly simple? You'd have to coordinate with different people working on different areas of the game in order to ensure that extra dialog options presented will be consistent along game's modules. This has potential of being as much of work as adding several more npcs to the game. So there's no wonder that MMORPGs wouldn't let you use much of extraneous replies, because it's not their focus. If you're into roleplay you can do that yourself via in game chat. If you're just for the gameplay you will be annoyed by large amount of extraneous replies instead. So that's what should she have said instead of starting to spew bullshit insults or just plain ignored him.
>"Friendly reminder of what socialism is: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
Like I said, one of several definitions. Here is another (straight from Wikipedia":
"Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production as well as the political theories and movements associated with them[...]"
Note the words "social systems" in that definition. And those are often defined as:
"the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions."
So put them together and you can end up with:
"Socialism is a range of collective ownership and democratic control of the patterned network of relationships that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions as well as the political theories and movements associated with them"
Socialism is an economic matter and/or a social matter. It is usually hard to separate one from the other. Generally speaking, the "left" is very much interested in controlling individuals' freedoms and choices in the name of the collective. The "right" is very much interested in preserving individuals' freedoms and choices from the control of the collective. Nothing is quite that simple, of course, but it is the general flavor.
Being a girl doesn't give you blanket amnesty when you're being an asshole to customers. She simply decided to be a jerk to a guy who commented on one of her public tweets. His post was insightful and polite, but she decided to blow a gasket and tell him to fuck off. Then, it being Twitter, others got involved, and when it got out of hand, she started crying sexism and mansplaining. Pathetic.
What she did is much worse than making false claims. The word "manfeels" is a sexist slur. She said someone's feelings don't matter because of that person's assumed gender.
Good post. I would just add one point of caution.
My advice : ignore the extreme left and the extreme right yelling, fight them rationally without name calling, and consider they are truly a minority.
Those extreme minorities themselves can't be completely ignored. They have to be kept out of positions of power by the rest - from both sides of the politicial spectrum. If that doesn't happen, you will get a near clone of the intolerance in 1930's Nazi Germany. And we all know where that went...
Chris Langham wasn't diddling kids in the studio.
So being bitch on twitter is the same as sexual assault of a minor?
Ched Evans was nowhere near a football field.
Or rape?
Shit man come join us back in reality when you get a chance. We miss you!
and the second one was even cleared on appeal.
And my post stands. Just because something shitty happened to one person does not mean society derranges into a shitty publicity game when it comes to work lives. If he was cleared on appeal than that would be grounds for wrongful dismissal. Mind you not showing up at work because you're actually in prison won't help your case much.
"The guy (Deroir I think is his name) replied to this with a suggestion so insultingly simple it deserved scorn."
You very obviously did NOT read the Twitter thread, at all. Nothing Deroir stated was insulting. If you did read it and came to that conclusion, your faculties are seriously damaged and you need to check yourself into a hospital.
I doubt you're a decent game dev if your logic is that faulty.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Well, it's a good thing the bitch has a history of being rude first and foremost, so quite frankly, the game streamer's initial response was in fact very kind and polite, by her actual fucking standards. That's probably what pissed her off so much, she didn't know how to respond to an actual CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM (something you can't seem to identify.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
You very fucking obviously did not read the Twitter thread. Shut the fuck up until you do.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If you don't want criticism, don't complain on a public forum.
He isn't "right" neither is she (from a game design perspective). The way you balance story and player agency is a debate that will probably never end, because there is no right answer.
Her comments are really interesting, a shame it degenerated into a social justice war. I have some interest in game dev, though not a pro myself, and the way storytelling is approached is something that I find particularly interesting. You can have a very strong story with little to no branching and well defined characters (common in JRPGs). You can introduce branching, which gives meaning to player actions, but it "dilutes" the main story because you now have to spend resources in alternate branches instead of perfecting a single path. You can use a "generic adventurer" character, a classic of western RPGs in order to help the player identify to the protagonist, at the expense of a weaker story. Jessica actually explained that better than me (she really is a pro after all).
The answer from Deroir is a hint to the idea of branching, Something that Jessica didn't mention. I expect a response explaining the weaknesses of branching, but instead we got all that crap... Too bad, it started well.
People cannot claim they are "off the clock" on Twitter when they drop names and positions of work in making arguments.
At that point your actions reflect your employer, for good or bad.
If you are known as someone who is generically an expert in the field without others knowing who you work for (like: I have worked for 25 years in narrative gam design) that is one thing, but even then why be an asshole about disagreeing with anyone? You never know who his reading or will be put off by it.
If you are going to start what looks like a rational discussion on ANY open forum, you have to expect response from anywhere, and if you disagree explain why instead of responding with DUR YOU IS STUPID (unless the response is truly a stupid troll).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The fact is in the Age of Internet Shaming there is no such thing as "off-the-clock"
It's very easy to have multiple Twitter accounts (or indeed on pretty much any social media platform), where someone has no idea who you you work for in some of them and only knows as much as you care to reveal.
It would be plenty easy to set up some anon account that argued about game design, where you just let on you worked in the industry.
But then that would not provide the same level of cache about who you work for, winning arguments by the appealing to authority method...
You can't have your cake and eat it too. If you want to be off the clock, remove ties to where you work from where you post.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Showing that you are qualified and that the other person should best shut up is the complete opposite of accusing them off NOT knowing shit. Respect-by-default might be a nice philosophical position to take, but when you run across loads of un- or under-qualified personnel, it's a tough one to stick to. Understand that, and be prepared to stand up for yourself. Prove yourself useful. If you still get pissed on after that, then maybe there really is a problem.
But you still don't make it personal, which Price very much did, unless you want to burn bridges. Gender has fuckall to do with it.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
She is the victim here in terms of her firing. Just not in terms of people being pissy at here. Don't conflate the two. Employers should not have power over our personal lives.
And conversely, she shouldn't act as a mouthpiece for her company during her personal time (and being a rabid bitch to her employer's customers in the process). She effectively forfeited her "personal time" when she decided to play the role of PR representative and got rightly busted when she decided to start treating her company's customers like trash.
I have been told "your game should have more plot development", and I said "When making design choices, there are three elements to balance: breadth, depth, and speed. Now choose any two. We have chosen breadth and speed, and depth had to be sacrificed. We wanted to put in more, but you wouldn't have read it anyhow."
His response was "then this isn't my kind of game", and mine was "that's fine". That sort of shit just isn't worth fighting over.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
She wrote her thoughts. Someone replied saying what she said is interesting, but on one particular point he disagreed about the relative importance. She went off on her "mansplaining" sexism rant, because they ONLY reason anyone could ever disagree with her on anything would be if they were a sexist pig. Totally impossible for people to have different viewpoints. Disagree with her on just one of her several comments and you're automatically a pig.
That is like her favorite word!
Search her name and Mansplaining.
Keep that spin up and you might just achieve orbit. Perhaps would could attach you to a dynamo and get some usefulness out of you after all.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
The dev who got fired said it's because she's been doing it a few years that nobody should disagree with her about what makes the most fun game design ("telling my how to do my job").
I've been doing my job, and actively studying to learn to do it better, for twenty years. I make sure all my code gets peer review, because I'm still not perfect. People can have ideas different from mine, and they might be good ideas. I actively encourage new people to peer review my work, reminding them "you don't have to be more experienced than me, or better than me, to see where I might have made a mistake or where I could do something better". I actively seek opinions from other people and never once have I attributed their opinions to their genitalia.
Then why put it on twitter at all? He wasn't mansplaining her job to her he was trying to explain how what she did effected his ability as a player to express himself. I read both her entire tweet and his response and her sort flippant tweet about him being a "rando a--hat". The fact that you are qualified and knowledgeable doesn't mean you cant learn something regardless of your gender.
You're defending someone who lashed out at another person because the opinion was different? If someone says something I perceive as stupid, I don't immediately go into attack mode. I'll either brush it off as a display of ignorance, or start a conversation to look further into why our opinions differ. Best case, both our opinions evolve and are refined. Worst case, nothing changes and we both walk away with our dignity intact.
Funny how even after all the backlash, she still tries to play the gender card yet again: "The message is very clear, especially to *women* at the company,"
This is the quality discussion I've come to expect from Slashdot. A "joking" sexist comment is still a sexist comment. And this crap is moderated to +4 or +5. How can you claim gender doesn't enter into the discussion in tech spaces, when these spaces are full of dudebros who drive everyone else out?
I think I've finally figured out why so many of you stick with the delusion tech is a strict meritocracy. Y'all don't want to admit maybe you're not the best at what you do, that toxic culture has driven your competition out. With apologies to Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his ego depends upon his not understanding it!"
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
You can remove your goalposts and take them home. Business and life don't work like that. My ass, if you found out a friend of yours was backstabbing you at someone else's house that you would ignore it.
So true. Kids today don't realize there are many gears involved in a modern company. Views and public relations are important. So is a hostile free workspace. This isn't highschool anymore where you keep showing up.
Employers reserve the right for having only the best people and work with folks they want to do business with.
Respect is important and if you don't give it you don't receive it back
http://saveie6.com/
As a guy who's played games since Zork and before, I see online gaming as worlds or games and worlds don't have plot lines.
There's clearly more going on here that we in the public don't see, but it's good of ArenaNet to not put up with employees attacking customers. There's too much of that going around right now, and companies that let their people tell customers "we don't want customers like you" in response to complaints are finding themselves hemorrhaging customers. Good to see ArenaNet's smarter than that.
We do know she publicly celebrated TotalBiscuit's death, so it's a safe bet that she's not nice to be around. And personally attacking critics in your own industry right up there with ranting at customers, in terms of stupidity. (Seriously, what's going on the mind of a game studio manager when he hires someone who has attacked the most popular and influential PC games critic in the world?)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
On her personal Twitter account.
ArenaNet's social media policy is quite clear that if your social media account isn't anonymous, you're publicly representing the company. Which is appropriate for a game studio, especially an MMO (-ish) given the typical interactions between customers and "devs", with forums deep-diving anything ever said by a dev for clues about game changes.
She knew she was speaking as an employee of ArenaNet.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Have you been a manager or a lead? Great A level players encourage firings. If you haven't then you don't know a thing about setting examples. If you let an employee come in late and be rude others will think that is ok and do it too. When they see someone canned they will go oh shit I better watch myself etc.
20/80 rule implies for a good boss. 10% out of the 20% are in the bottom or the top. 80% are average. After every promotion or firing your job is to identify the top and bottoms and prepare more firings and promotions. The 80% follow the best or worst employee always. This is why Dell fires 15% of it's staff each year as do GE.
By keeping her the game publisher acknowledges this as ok and a hostile work environment is acceptable. Sorry she has got to go or the problem will amplify 10x
http://saveie6.com/
Actually, they should have been fired, but for a different reason.
Presumably, they signed an NDA. They shouldn't have been discussing these specifics with outsiders, and in public. The company's approach to "writing player characters in an MMPORG" is presumably proprietary. In most cases, one is even enjoined from even stating that they work for the company. (But, given the widespread practice of in-game credits, the latter be difficult to enforce, and probably is absent from gaming company NDAs.)
Yes, I worked for a gaming company. (Sony). Did I just violate the NDA? Maybe. But I have in-game credits which makes that moot.
I can't imagine, though - even 10 years later - discussing in public e.g. specifics of how fantasy league baseball scoring is implemented.
Business 102: Do not disparage the product (that didn't happen in this case).
Seriously tho... this is part of the problem with Star Wars. Kennedy, Johnson and Abrahms attacked Disney's customers.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And when enough customers leave that the game caves, how much do you think pomposity will be going for on the open market?
The Left won't like living under the rules they created.
Defending sexism with more sexism. Charming.
Personal lives? Your employers have a limited right to intrude in them, sure. But expecting that your customers would censor themselves in order to make your personal lives more comfortable? You better have a lot of customers and make sure that your requests for self-censorship don't piss off a lot of customers. Otherwise, it's not that you don't have a job anymore. It's that this job won't exist pretty soon.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
The right question is whether you're role playing or min-max'ing the game mechanics. Like if you get a choice to shoot or not shoot someone and in the latter case an NPC goes "Well if you don't have the balls then I'll do it" so either way he dies. For that character's personality it obviously matters like what role are you playing, if you're min-max'ing you don't really care about the moral choice just whether the XP/loot is worth any penalties you get. Personally I tend to pretty much ignore the RP elements and it's just kill boss X get reward Y unless it's completely level-free like "The Walking Dead". You'll reach the end the question is who did you choose to be to get their, who did you help, who did you betray, who did you kill or let be killed. If you don't care the game is just a bit of trivial button pushing, but then I'd play something else...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
"It was the right call."
This seems very likely to me: There were social problems long before the current incident. But no one dealt with them. The managers didn't help create social cohesion, which is one of the duties of managers.
You have to go to eighteen levels of straw manning, word twisting mischaracterization to describe Deroir's comments as anything other than polite and constructive.
she didn't know how to respond to an actual CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM (something you can't seem to identify.
There was nothing constructive in any of his posts. They were startlingly inane.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Speaking of obnoxiously facile replies, Deroir was not "explaining branching dialogue" to the developer as if she'd never heard of it. That is a straw man that keeps being repeated on this subject and it's BS.
You and the other people repeating these tropes are so far out there you can see Pluto from your house. Nowhere did Deroir act as if he was entitled to anything. The only person doing that was a thin-skinned asshole wanting to have a "safe space" from any feedback on a public twitter account with over 10,000 followers.
I could go point-by-point on the rest of your facile bullshit, but I'll just leave you with one of Jessica's tweets where she nastily tells a male reviewer how to do his job.
Not only is Jessica full of shit on all counts, she's a massive hypocrite as well.
Agree on firing bad employees - but stacked ranking is BS. Destroys moral and company loyalty, while rewarding silos and sabotaging your coworkers to make sure someone else is in that bottom 10%.
Not true. But even if they were - it was no excuse for Jessica to lose her thoroughly sexist shit. She's also a massive hypocrite as well, given how she has no problems telling male reviewers how to do their jobs with actually inane comments.
Common, even you know this is BS. Just flip the genders - would you be defending a male developer that flipped out on very-politely-delivered feedback and wouldn't stop going off on how the woman asking the question was a dumb broad demanding his time?
Not true.
Yes true.
Common, even you know this is BS. Just flip the genders
Oh yes. I should just pretend like the world isn't the way it currently is. I know a few women in various tech jobs. They have had to put up with a *lot* of shit that I haven't along these lines.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
> An unfounded accusation of sexism is just as bad as being sexist yourself.
"All men are sexist when they disagree with me"
That IS sexist. Not "as bad as sexist", actually sexist. It seems that's what she believes.
Damn you Reddit! Leave poor Kevin Spacey alone.
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
If the boss walks in at 8:30 am and decides that s/he doesn't like your goatee, you can be out the door by 9. Or, in this case, if a female employee refuses to coddle some mansplaining fanboy on the internet, and the boss thinks that she should have (after the fact)..... welp.... polish up that resume. You're gone.
This is codified into state employment laws in the form of "right-to-work" laws. 28 states have them. The other 22 states aren't that far behind. Don't let the double-speak name fool you. They aren't meant to protect employees.
However, these laws aren't really in the favor of employers either. They cut both ways. If any employer makes you sign a non-compete agreement, you can probably laugh, sign it, and then completely ignore it if the employer is so foolish as to ever bring it up again. You can quit any second you want, and the second you quit, the employer has absolutely zero hold over you. Non-competes don't hold up in court.
Hopefully this developer has the toughness to take the hit and promptly put out her resume again. If she's well-respected in her industry, she'll have another job in a few weeks tops.
> The left is dividing into a group who is traditionally liberal and favors a diversity of opinions and fairness (and many other left wing policies) and a group who insists on compliance, attacks heretics, and isn't in favor of fairness ("it's okay if innocent men's lives are destroyed")
Agreed. And one group makes the other look really bad. When leading Democrats like Maxine Waters call for harassing the family members of the president's staff, so "they can't go to a gas station, can't shop, can't go to a restaurant ... absolutely harass them", it makes Democrats look bad. Really bad. Kinda like how Trump makes Republicans look bad when he - well when he acts like Trump.
When David Souter was nominated to the Supreme Court, the left held protest rallies and all that, pumping up their donors yelling "he'll overturn Roe vs Wade, and probably force states to make abortion illegal". Of course Souter not only upheld Roe v Wade, but generally was more liberal than even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or Clinton's other pick, Breyer. I wouldn't be too concerned about Roe vs Wade. It's stare decisis, settled law.
Even in the very unlikely event Roe v Wade was struck down, consider what that would mean. Before Roe, most states allowed abortions. Since then, public opinion has shifted more toward allowing abortion, so absent Roe v Wade likely all states, certainly the vast majority, would allow abortion. A few more conservative states, such as Texas, might require the clinics performing abortions have procedures in place to transfer a patient to a nearby emergency room if complications arise. Texas might ban partial birth abortions, in which the baby's head is crushed as he or she is born. You may agree or disagree with the policies, but the sky isn't actually falling.
That shit doesn't fly? I say it did, and hit the fan right in the middle.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For this? Nah. I have no idea who your employer is, and since you're responding to an AC, nobody would take it serious anyway.
I'd dare say it's different if you first identify yourself as a representative of your employer and respond with that sexist remark to someone who is a huge influence on your customer base. That might well cost you your job.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How DARE you say there's something women can't do!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Would you consider "my girl" sexist, if coming from what's essentially a stranger?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because Weekly World News doesn't update often enough.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Hell yes I do. And I steamroll over any armchair self-proclaimed IT security expert whenever they make some really stupid remark.
But then again, I don't have "I'm the CISO of $big_IT_security_research_company" in my Slashdot profile. For EXACTLY this reason.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Then her reply was at the very least incredibly unprofessional.
I'm in IT security. You can't imagine what kind of outright stupid, if not insane, replies you can get to suggestions. They don't border on being insulting, they are. Imagine you suggest an elaborate lock mechanism and the reply is "well, have you considered just, you know, closing the door?" Fully ignoring that this won't even keep anyone from simply opening it again. This of course being an example but yes, it actually IS that stupid more often than not.
You STILL have to stay polite to customers and business partners. You can't reply with "Gee, no, we did not think of the most blatantly obvious and most blatantly stupid idea first of all, thank you for pointing it out, it's refreshing to see a customer that hires us to then tell us how to do our job, know what, why do we even charge you?"
This is simple professionalism. This is what you have to have if you want to, well, be professional. Cardinal rule number one: YOU DO NOT PISS OFF AND BELITTLE YOUR CUSTOMERS. At least not deliberately. Or at the very least not to their face and in a way those idiots actually understand.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not guilty is not guilty.
Hardly. Was Roseanne on ABC's clock when she started comparing black women to apes? Your apologia isn't going to happen. Stop trying to make it happen.
And that's called total bullshit. If it were a male developer going on an unhinged sexist rant against a woman making polite feedback, he'd be ejected from the company so fast he could wave at the international space station as he passed it.
His reply was most likely not meant to be condescending, but it was obviously understood as such. More likely than not he genuinely thought he is offering input while what he suggested apparently is one of the "too obvious to mention" things. She could have responded in a polite way, something along the lines of "yeah, that's basically what happens behind the scenes", but instead opted for something like "gee, thanks for telling me how to do my job".
Sorry, but that's just unprofessional. If you say something and your employer's name is next to it or at the very least what you say will be put in context of your employer, you represent your employer with your speech. Act accordingly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Don't worry, it works the same way over here in Europe. If your blog pretty much revolves around your work and you have your company name fairly well entangled with your blog, rest assured that you will get fired for insulting a business partner. Or influential customer for that matter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And deprive us of our daily dose of entertainment?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No more or less than the people who high-fived when Roseanne was fired.
Yeah yeah yeah. That's what they said before, every time. Souter will "end freedom for women", they said.
First off, the vacancy will be filled before the election, and there will be a conservative majority (still). Control of the Senate in the future doesn't change that. There will be a majority conservative Supreme Court no matter what.
Secondly, worst case, never gonna happen, would be Roe v Wade gets overturned, so the voters get to decide on abortion regulation. Texas and Utah would have significant regulations, and the other 48 states would be pretty much unaffected.
I think most managers lack that ability.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Not True"
https://games.slashdot.org/com...
FUCKING TRUE YOU DISHONEST PIECE OF SHIT.
Protip: Studies have revealed that people assigning an emotional connotation to words are generally using THEIR OWN MENTAL STATE.
Which means you're the offended one and you're being a typical redirecting piece of shit by putting it elsewhere.
PROVE OTHERWISE THAT YOU DID NOT DO THAT EXACT THING.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yeah, THAT is the reason that there is union talk. It ain't the insane working hours or the general "squeeze them dry and dump them, replace them with younger material" mentality in the industry. It's one silly incident that everyone will have forgotten about in a month, not working conditions that make you wish you could work in a Chinese sweatshop instead.
Yeah. Right.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
No, when I drop a brick on someone's foot I apologize. Pretty much in the same way he did. Sorry, wasn't meant that way.
And yes, if you're in a professional environment, you respond for the 10,000,000th time politely to the same idiotic "input". Either that or GTFO. Which, essentially, is what she did, if not voluntarily.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It's funny how The Verge tries to scandalize this after SJWs weaponized "shit storms" and it has become "industry standard" to fire people when a "big enough stink" is raised via social media. Thank the #metoo campaign etc. for this and meditate about the merits of due process.
Also in this case the "stink" can be traced back directly to the unprofessional manner in which Price and Fries communicated as representatives of their employer, in violation of company policy. And sure, when you advertise your employment on your twitter page (probably for the merits as GameDev), then people visiting that page or reading tweets in which the employment is mentioned will see you as "representative" and your utterances may be damaging to the employers image.
And here a nugget of wisdom from Jessica herself:
"Shdn't have to keep saying, but 1st only protects from gov censorship. Social/financial consequences are FREE SPEECH WORKING AS INTENDED."
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
It was definitely the right call, remember that this is the same Jessica Price that publicly relished in TotalBiscuit's death.
First of all, calling every critique you don't like mansplaining is sexist and ridiculous.
Secondly, you don't harass your clients. Period. You ignore them or you respond politely to them, but you don't attack them.
Third, lots of us receive unsolicited advice. I get told how to write software by my clients every day. None of them knows a lick of programming. I'm a man though, so I don't get to call it mansplaining. I just tell them they hired me to do the work so they should trust my judgement.
Do I think she should've been fired? Probably not for a first offence. Do I think its because she's a woman? No.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Psst. Your clients are the most important thing you have. Lots of people have made great games that don't sell.
Treat your staff well, but don't let them abuse your clients.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Totally OT at this point, but Linus does a pretty good job at only truly blowing his stack at people *who should know better*.
NVidia and Poettering come to mind. There's no reason to blow your stack at an idiot. Just call them an idiot and move on.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"I think most managers lack that ability."
I agree. Most managers know very little about social cohesion, or that they could help, or that it is necessary that they help. It appears to me that is especially true in the United States. In the U.S., people work too much, for example. That limits their time to think about social structure and about building a sense of community.
Texas and Utah would have significant regulations, and the other 48 states would be pretty much unaffected.
It's more like 17 states.
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/abortion-policy-absence-roe
From the linked page:
17 states have laws that could be used to restrict the legal status of abortion.
4 states have laws that automatically ban abortion if Roe were to be overturned.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
What Jessica Price had to say on passing of TotalBiscuit (John Peter Bain): "The kindest thing I can say is: 'I'm glad he's no longer around to keep doing harm.' "
Jessica Price on Twitter
TotalBiscuit
The overall issue, in my opinion, is that Jessica Price should have been coached by managers and co-workers to be less self- and other-destructive. Her criticisms were too broad. I've known many 3-year-olds who had that shortcoming. One way of understanding her is to realize that she is unfinished with conflicts that occurred in her childhood.
This is, of course, not a fully-detailed analysis. It is just a short comment on Slashdot.
The underlying point seems to me to be valid: Personal conflicts require helpful action by management and by everyone who works with someone who is acting-out conflicts. That didn't happen, apparently.
Caring management brings enormous benefits. Companies that show sophisticated caring when employees make mistakes attract the best employees, for example.
You got it right. This is a woman that expressed she was glad at the death of Total Biscuit.
This was just the last straw.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
...you posted in a public forum and didn't expect the public to discuss? n00b.
You honestly think that this is dependent on Linus' gender? Please.
Linus gets away with being a douche because the whole system depends highly on him. Not because he's a guy, not despite being a guy, but because he's a key figure in the Linux project.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I see you quietly latched on to one part while ignoring the other thing I said (examples abounud).
clearly you have an axe to grind and aren't interested in an actual discussion.
And yes I do think gender has a lot to do with it. You never hear a woman described as "not suffering fools" but plenty of loud angry dudes are.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I don't even have a horse in that race, I'm not in the US and we over here in Europe don't blow shit out of proportion, so it honestly couldn't affect me less. But you're comparing some low level developer to a key developer. Independent of gender you'll notice that the latter gets a lot more leeway than the former. You think I'd get away with going to work, putting my hairy, smelly and dirty feet on the table and start clipping my toenails? First I'd be probably asked whether I lost the remaining few marbles I had, then I'll be shown the door.
Now let's take a look at rms.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Isn't she Girlsplaining? Womansplaining? Or how about we just use the work that has existed for many moons to describe exactly this type of person. Bitching!
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
I don't even have a horse in that race
Yeah I mean getting rid of double standards in the industry are for other people!
Independent of gender you'll notice that the latter gets a lot more leeway than the former.
Yep.
and then gender gets layered on top of that.
9 times out of 10 a dude at a given level of seniority and skill will get way more leeway for "not suffering fools" than a woman of the same level. Which is why you never hear of women referred to as "not sufferin fools".
I've mentioned that 3 times now and every time you stuiously ignore it going off on a tangent instead. It looks like you DO have a horse in the race, you just aren't prepared to admit it.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Well, you have made your mind up it seems. So further discussion is pretty much moot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Says the guy constitutionally incapable of actually addressing points in a discussion. You ignored my main point every single time choosing instead to go off on a tangent.
Your mind is clearly fixed so trying to reason with you is pointless.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Was that sincere Hatorade or performance art? It's hard to tell for sure these days...
Since you need a picture drawn with crayons, the point isn't to equate Nazism with Jessica Price. The point is that it's absurd to claim it's not the company's concern when you publicly talk about company business on a public Twitter account, to which you've attached your employer's name - and then be a flaming asshole to one of the comapny's partners. Now here's another analogy you'll love: you reason like a Klansman justifying his dislike of Jews "because Jews killed Jesus". More on that in a minute.
Not true. Plot limitations is an old subject not just in MMORPG's but RPG's in general, and as a partner to the company, something Deroir actually knows WTF he's talking about from a user perspective. Bioware had this shit worked out with Mass Effect 3, though they were criminally cut short on time by EA to apply it to the main story. Rather than worry about every branching conversation option or plot choice, just assign points to various options the player has taken to see how the story is resolved a la Rannoch.
But even if it was true, and Deroir asked a dumbass question like "have you considered adding graphics acceleration to the game", nothing justifies Jessica going full sexist nuclear hatorade on his ass. If she was capable of either reason or professionalism, she could have answered something like "that takes much more work - which campaigns in the game would you have traded for more meaningful plot decisions?"
Except Jessica was the one throwing out a *lot* of shit here, not Deroir. You only get to the play the cards on the table here, not bring in some irrelevant baggage & bullshit. Deroir wasn't some high school guidance counselor telling a student she should really consider a liberal arts degree instead of computer science. He wasn't some GamerGate nutjob doxxing a person he didn't like. He wasn't some fuckwad calling everyone a See You Next Tuesday on a livestream.
Pretending to the contrary, and justifying Jessica's abuse of Deroir by other wrongs done by other people to other women, is straight up "Jews killed Jesus" reasoning. Fuck that. But trying to claim moral superiority while literally becoming what you hate - good luck with that too.
There's been a lot of talk about "civility" recently, but it all ignores why the civility of others is important to us: it is something people give to us voluntarily. When you start enforcing civility, it is no longer civility, it's conformity.
Similarly, when funds are coercively redistributed from someone who earned them to someone who didn't earn them, no one is being charitable. The spirit of charity is found nowhere in the conformist act of writing out a check to the IRS.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.