Since last year we've seen the legitimate criticism from a customer revolt misrepresented (on an incredbile scale) as "harrassment."
from TFA:
When a magnet for harassment like Gamergate takes place on a social platform, will that platform's operators seek to uncover who the wrongdoers are—or will they simply prohibit all from speaking out and documenting their experience?
Gamergate supporters did indeed "attract" a great deal of harassment (and censorship and libel), all for the crime of exposing journalistic corruption and collusion. And the best way for a platform to "tackle" that harassment is by not ignoring it (a difficult task for websites allied on the side of corruption, as we've repeatedly seen).
For instance, Intel's workforce is currently 4 percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.
So what stopped them from hiring these qualified workers in the first place? Maybe there's more to the story?
/. wants to cover Gamergate, but doesn't want to be honest and upfront that it's doing so (and taking a side). That's because users are in charge of the discussion, and we (or at least most of us) don't buy the "misogyny and harassment" narrative no matter how many times they repeat it without evidence. So this is at least the dozenth article to follow the template "misogyny, harassment, threats, misogyny, harassment, threats . . . oh BTW Gamergate."
The tactic is sad and (by now) easily recognizable for what it is: a thinly-veiled smear. It's why I said this summary was the most unbiased GG summary on/., because even though it is hopelessly anti-GG, it's at least upfront that the GG scandal is the topic of discussion.
On September 16, 2012 GamePolitics published a story about Brad Wardell and Stardock Systems entitled "Report: Stardock Sued Former Marketing Manager After She Sued CEO for Sexual Harassment." In that report we echoed a false narrative that Stardocks lawsuit against former marketing manager Alexandra Miseta was filed in retaliation for her filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against Stardock CEO Brad Wardell and his company in late 2010.
After reaching out to Wardell, I have come to the conclusion that I fell short in my reporting on this story and felt compelled to set the record straight. I have also seen proof from Wardell that legal actions were in motion long before Stardock filed its lawsuit against Miseta in the Summer of 2012. It should be noted at this point that Wardell could not have shown me this proof in September of 2012 because of ongoing litigation.
According to that new evidence (an invoice I have seen from the American Arbitration Association dated June 29, 2011 - Case #54-160-00009-11 02 CHFL-C) Stardock founder and CEO Brad Wardell, his attorney Paul P. Asker, former Stardock Marketing Manger Alexandra Miseta and/or her legal representative, were involved in ongoing arbitration. While we do not know the exact start or end date of those arbitration proceedings, two things become pretty clear: the lawsuit filed by Stardock (alleging that Miseta "deleted, destroyed, and/or stole promotional materials, analytics data, and trade show information" vital to the launch of Elemental: War of Magic) after the court denied the companys motion to dismiss Misetas sexual harassment case on July 13, 2012 was a change in venue of sorts - going from arbitration to a full blown court case.
Ultimately both lawsuits were settled out of court, culminating in a letter of apology written by Miseta.
The other thing I want to emphasize here is that, because Wardell was in litigation with Miseta on two different fronts, there was no way he would have made a public comment to the media... but he was never given a fair chance to do so by us or the many other news outlets reporting on the story.
Whether someone is willing to comment on litigation while it is active is irrelevant; it is our job to give those that are the subject of tough stories like this one a reasonable amount of time to respond.
As President Harry S. Truman was fond of saying, "the buck stops here." I take full responsibility for the articles that continued this narrative (whether I wrote them or not) because as the managing editor I encouraged our writers to write them and approved them for publication. And while I did reach out to Wardell prior to publishing our story, he deserved more than a few hours to respond to those accusations.
At the end of the day I let our readers down and did a disservice to all involved. For that I offer my sincerest apologies. On a personal note, I want to publicly thank Brad Wardell for taking the time to show me proof and to accept my apology. I only wish I had been able to see that proof sooner.
As an aside, I was compelled to revisit this topic after the
Oh, you didn't hear about that? Well, I guess the same corrupt media (and the mainstream media, in turn) didn't report it, so, like whoever's in charge of Slashdot, we should pretend it never happened. You know, the same way we pretend that Snowden did no good because the corrupt NSA (and the Executive and Congress in turn) never acknowledged it.
And it's forcing Gawker to revise its policies to comply with updated FTC guidelines, which the
FTC acknowledges came about because of Gamergate's OperationUV.
Damn, look at all these journalists, forced to be ethical against their will. If the media ever covers it, they'll probably invent some new term for the headlines, like "Ethics Rape."
IMO the primary reason she doesn't give credit to others isn't to plagiarize, but to keep the audience in the echo chamber. Comments and ratings (i.e. any public feedback) are always disabled on her vids, so linking or mentioning any other creators runs the risk of exposing her viewers to other opinions and communities (especially after those other creators find out who she is and what she does).
The funny part is that one of the few times she apparently did have to create her own footage, it was to go out of her way to kill two strippers in Hitman and drag their bodies all over each other (which no one else wants to do).
But then again, I have not hear the arguments about the patriarchy and misogyny for a while so at least it's different agenda based reporting.
Society does not have enough turmoil, so we have to invent and spew more...
Here's an article posted three weeks ago about a woman in STEM that (for once) contains no clickbaiting headline, libel about entire groups committing discrimination & misogyny & harassment, nor the usual thinly veiled, anvilicious feminist agenda.
It was just an honest and interesting account of life at CERN, with a woman at the center of it. It garnered barely 30 comments. Who wants to bet this thread will end up with three times that?
Nova did an episode following human mastery of cold a few years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The Tudor part starts at 27:50, but the entire documentary is an excellent watch that follows the advances (and setbacks) in science through the history of this single subject (but it also glosses over the end of the ice trade).
Colbert sacrificed his integrity and actually did fluff piece on Anita Sarkeesian. Comments are disabled on the interview vid; has that ever happened to any other Colbert vid?
Shamus Young (a columnist for the Escapist) recently wrote a small 2D game (almost completely) by himself called Good Robot and chronicled its development in a 30-part blog series:
Those are the first and last entries; they're all numbered and contain links to the next one in the series. He didn't finish the game (and doesn't know if he will), but he did produce a complete playable alpha. I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but Shamus is a good writer (as well as a programmer) and cares a lot about mechanics and gameplay. Several of the blog entries are dedicated to those topics (power-ups, enemies, etc.).
I was referring to the initial week-long news blackout on gaming and tech sites (including Slashdot), most of which were specialized enough (and/or small enough) to care. But you couldn't find a single article about the corruption anywhere, until the pressure of the customer revolt built and the blackout ended in the Aug 28 gaming press tantrum. If the Streisand Effect had a Richter scale, the Gamergate scandal was at least a 9.5.
A miracle occured in that thread. Both pro-GG and anti-GG Slashdotters refused to take the bait, laid down their arms, and stood together long enough to tell Bennett to go fuck himself and leave/. alone.
Slashdot's coverage of Gamergate has been abysmal. Every other summary has followed the template "harassment, misogyny, threats, harassment, misogyny, threats . . . oh btw Gamergate."
Sad as it is, this shitty summary is still the most "unbiased" simply because it straightforwardly mentions the movement as the topic of the discussion. The attempt to imply that the FBI said they were investigating pro-Gamergate people has already been destroyed in the comments (thank fuck users are still in control of the discussion here).
Four months later, there still hasn't been a single/. thread about the Gamergate scandal itself: the journalistic lapses, the universal news media blackout and user forum/comment censorship (including reddit and 4chan of all places), and the still-ongoing coordinated smear campaign that was launched on August 28 with the "Gamers are Dead" shotgun blast of hit pieces. All of those milestones should have gotten at least one article here each.
Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.
More like "without paying twice" or "without paying in perpetuity."
DRM and copy protection are very much about crippling second-hand sales. Hell, they're about stopping first-hand sales too, in favor of forcing pay-per-view and rental models.
In the scenario you are describing, MIT can also do absolutely nothing.
He is not doing anything illegal — nor even unethical, because he has no power over the ladies and can not compel them to submit to his dirty proposals.
knowing that he's out there to take advantage of them.
What "advantage" can he take — in your scenario? There is no exam, which he can grade, there is no "extra credit", that he can issue (or not) — nothing. He has no more power over them, than a free software developer has over his users — if such users contact him for help, is he not allowed to make other suggestions?
He is virtually guaranteed to understand the course material, so he can offer "perfect" help with assignments, up to and including doing the student's work for them. I agree that's not exerting power over the student, but it's probably against some MIT policies (which are the only kind of rules/regulations cited in the story).
I've done a little more reading on this. As I now understand it (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), Lewin is retired, so he doesn't work for MIT or manage these online courses, and they have no authority over him. That was a nuance I didn't grasp before (so "harassing strangers" might not be as inaccurate as I claimed above).
It might make sense for MIT to disconnect him from such "online students", but it makes no sense to take the (presumably valuable) lectures offline.
Let me run a scenario by you (complete speculation based on MIT's statement). Lewin, who is retired, isn't connected to these courses in any way, except that his name is on many of the lectures (obviously, they must credit him for his work), which are available under a free (beer, speech) license. So maybe some students (some of them attractive females) contact him for help. He is in a unique position to provide help to pass (hell, ace) the courses (even though they are technically meaningless for academic credit). And after a while, he takes advantage of this and begins reaching out to pretty students taking the courses and propositioning them. One of them reports him to MIT.
In this (again, completely speculative) scenario, what are MIT's options? He's a free man who doesn't work for them. They can't fire him, nor can they "disconnect" him from the students, as you suggest. Should they put a big "professor may harass you" warning on the course syllabus? Taking the down the course may be the only reasonable thing they could do.
IMO stripping him of his title seems a bit vengeful and vindictive (but probably within their right if he violated their policies, even in retirement), and I can agree with that they shouldn't "disappear" the lectures. But they cannot continue operating a course that attracts young students with (slight, but still real) awards knowing that he's out there to take advantage of them.
And I'll say it again: This is speculation on my part of what may have happened. We need more information (and IMO MIT is being too secretive).
The alleged victim was a female student in one of his online courses (and she claims he did the same to other students), so he could possibly have held a positifof power over her. Completion of the courses results in a certificate but zero academic credit, and MIT has bragged that thousands enroll in the courses, so the amount of leverage he could have had over her is questionable. But if he was using this MIT program at all to try to pick up women then that is wrong, and it makes sense for MIT to put a stop to it. We don't know exactly what he was doing unless we can read the correspondence in question.
Most headlines make it sound like he "harassed" strangers online. No, it's a professor allegedly harassing one of his students, and it's not all that special if he did it "over the internet."
A miracle occurs every time he posts about Gamergate. Both pro-GG and anti-GG posters lay down their arms just long enough to tell Bennett to go fuck himself and leave/. alone.
I agree. Two weeks ago there was a submission in the firehose about the DRM endangering SSDs by incurring thousands of disk writes per minute. Why does the summary take the time to mention the DRM without mentioning this issue? http://slashdot.org/submission...
Here's a good critical writeup of some red flags in the game that might be harbingers of much worse things to come: http://www.escapistmagazine.co...
We may never know what they're investigating, or who, or why, or how it will cause or affect any criminal prosecution. There's certainly no integrity to the process.
Remember when a school was caught installing malware on students' macbooks that covertly took pictures of the children in their bedrooms, almost certainly producing child porn? And we even had correspondence that showed faculty used this capability for entertainment?
The feds investigated but simply decided not to file charges against the school for illegal surveillance, hacking, peeping at kids, etc. I guess that would have set a nasty precedent for the NSA activities that were going on, but only discovered a few years later.
Slashdot Mirror
from TFA:
When a magnet for harassment like Gamergate takes place on a social platform, will that platform's operators seek to uncover who the wrongdoers are—or will they simply prohibit all from speaking out and documenting their experience?
Gamergate supporters did indeed "attract" a great deal of harassment (and censorship and libel), all for the crime of exposing journalistic corruption and collusion. And the best way for a platform to "tackle" that harassment is by not ignoring it (a difficult task for websites allied on the side of corruption, as we've repeatedly seen).
For instance, Intel's workforce is currently 4 percent black; if the company were to adjust its numbers to reflect the number of qualified workers in the tech industry, that number would increase to about six percent.
So what stopped them from hiring these qualified workers in the first place? Maybe there's more to the story?
/. wants to cover Gamergate, but doesn't want to be honest and upfront that it's doing so (and taking a side). That's because users are in charge of the discussion, and we (or at least most of us) don't buy the "misogyny and harassment" narrative no matter how many times they repeat it without evidence. So this is at least the dozenth article to follow the template "misogyny, harassment, threats, misogyny, harassment, threats . . . oh BTW Gamergate."
/., because even though it is hopelessly anti-GG, it's at least upfront that the GG scandal is the topic of discussion.
The tactic is sad and (by now) easily recognizable for what it is: a thinly-veiled smear. It's why I said this summary was the most unbiased GG summary on
TFA mentions Gamergate in the context of the doxxing but all the victims mentioned just happen to be on the anti-GG side (innocent mistake, I'm sure).
Pro-GG people have been doxxed:
http://imgur.com/BNlLKcn
So was the creator of #notyourshield, and his workplace was harassed until he was fired:
https://twitter.com/Moldybars/...
http://i.imgur.com/9ieHMu9.png
A prominent anti-GGer called for the doxxing of all Gamergate supporters: http://i.gyazo.com/5db582013ac...
At least the pro-GG makes an effort to detect, condemn, and report this shitty behavior, no matter which side it comes from.
Who'd have thought. The gamepolitics.com link is Slashdotted.
It isn't; I had trouble with it even before I posted it (but I thought it was just me).
http://www.gamepolitics.com/20...
On September 16, 2012 GamePolitics published a story about Brad Wardell and Stardock Systems entitled " Report: Stardock Sued Former Marketing Manager After She Sued CEO for Sexual Harassment ." In that report we echoed a false narrative that Stardocks lawsuit against former marketing manager Alexandra Miseta was filed in retaliation for her filing a sexual harassment lawsuit against Stardock CEO Brad Wardell and his company in late 2010.
After reaching out to Wardell, I have come to the conclusion that I fell short in my reporting on this story and felt compelled to set the record straight. I have also seen proof from Wardell that legal actions were in motion long before Stardock filed its lawsuit against Miseta in the Summer of 2012. It should be noted at this point that Wardell could not have shown me this proof in September of 2012 because of ongoing litigation.
According to that new evidence (an invoice I have seen from the American Arbitration Association dated June 29, 2011 - Case #54-160-00009-11 02 CHFL-C) Stardock founder and CEO Brad Wardell, his attorney Paul P. Asker, former Stardock Marketing Manger Alexandra Miseta and/or her legal representative, were involved in ongoing arbitration. While we do not know the exact start or end date of those arbitration proceedings, two things become pretty clear: the lawsuit filed by Stardock (alleging that Miseta "deleted, destroyed, and/or stole promotional materials, analytics data, and trade show information" vital to the launch of Elemental: War of Magic) after the court denied the companys motion to dismiss Misetas sexual harassment case on July 13, 2012 was a change in venue of sorts - going from arbitration to a full blown court case.
Ultimately both lawsuits were settled out of court, culminating in a letter of apology written by Miseta.
The other thing I want to emphasize here is that, because Wardell was in litigation with Miseta on two different fronts, there was no way he would have made a public comment to the media... but he was never given a fair chance to do so by us or the many other news outlets reporting on the story.
Whether someone is willing to comment on litigation while it is active is irrelevant; it is our job to give those that are the subject of tough stories like this one a reasonable amount of time to respond.
As President Harry S. Truman was fond of saying, "the buck stops here." I take full responsibility for the articles that continued this narrative (whether I wrote them or not) because as the managing editor I encouraged our writers to write them and approved them for publication. And while I did reach out to Wardell prior to publishing our story, he deserved more than a few hours to respond to those accusations.
At the end of the day I let our readers down and did a disservice to all involved. For that I offer my sincerest apologies. On a personal note, I want to publicly thank Brad Wardell for taking the time to show me proof and to accept my apology. I only wish I had been able to see that proof sooner.
As an aside, I was compelled to revisit this topic after the
Nah, Sarkeesian was a hack before the whole gamer gate thing even started.
Gamergate itself has clearly done more good than Sarkeesian ever hoped to.
It exposed nepotism and collusion in games journalism.
It got Brad Wardell (CEO of Stardock) some long-overdue apologies for hit pieces run against him.
https://twitter.com/iamDavidWi...
http://www.gamepolitics.com/20...
http://www.zenofdesign.com/in-...
Oh, you didn't hear about that? Well, I guess the same corrupt media (and the mainstream media, in turn) didn't report it, so, like whoever's in charge of Slashdot, we should pretend it never happened. You know, the same way we pretend that Snowden did no good because the corrupt NSA (and the Executive and Congress in turn) never acknowledged it.
And it's forcing Gawker to revise its policies to comply with updated FTC guidelines, which the FTC acknowledges came about because of Gamergate's OperationUV.
Damn, look at all these journalists, forced to be ethical against their will. If the media ever covers it, they'll probably invent some new term for the headlines, like "Ethics Rape."
IMO the primary reason she doesn't give credit to others isn't to plagiarize, but to keep the audience in the echo chamber. Comments and ratings (i.e. any public feedback) are always disabled on her vids, so linking or mentioning any other creators runs the risk of exposing her viewers to other opinions and communities (especially after those other creators find out who she is and what she does).
The funny part is that one of the few times she apparently did have to create her own footage, it was to go out of her way to kill two strippers in Hitman and drag their bodies all over each other (which no one else wants to do).
But then again, I have not hear the arguments about the patriarchy and misogyny for a while so at least it's different agenda based reporting.
Society does not have enough turmoil, so we have to invent and spew more...
Here's an article posted three weeks ago about a woman in STEM that (for once) contains no clickbaiting headline, libel about entire groups committing discrimination & misogyny & harassment, nor the usual thinly veiled, anvilicious feminist agenda.
It was just an honest and interesting account of life at CERN, with a woman at the center of it. It garnered barely 30 comments. Who wants to bet this thread will end up with three times that?
Nova did an episode following human mastery of cold a few years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... The Tudor part starts at 27:50, but the entire documentary is an excellent watch that follows the advances (and setbacks) in science through the history of this single subject (but it also glosses over the end of the ice trade).
Nice try, but it's clear from the interview which side Colbert was really afraid of upsetting.
Colbert sacrificed his integrity and actually did fluff piece on Anita Sarkeesian. Comments are disabled on the interview vid; has that ever happened to any other Colbert vid?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Shamus Young (a columnist for the Escapist) recently wrote a small 2D game (almost completely) by himself called Good Robot and chronicled its development in a 30-part blog series:
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twe...
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twe...
Those are the first and last entries; they're all numbered and contain links to the next one in the series. He didn't finish the game (and doesn't know if he will), but he did produce a complete playable alpha. I don't know if it's exactly what you're looking for, but Shamus is a good writer (as well as a programmer) and cares a lot about mechanics and gameplay. Several of the blog entries are dedicated to those topics (power-ups, enemies, etc.).
I was referring to the initial week-long news blackout on gaming and tech sites (including Slashdot), most of which were specialized enough (and/or small enough) to care. But you couldn't find a single article about the corruption anywhere, until the pressure of the customer revolt built and the blackout ended in the Aug 28 gaming press tantrum. If the Streisand Effect had a Richter scale, the Gamergate scandal was at least a 9.5.
What we really need is an opinion piece by Bennett. Then the circle will be complete.
Funny you mention that.
/. alone.
A miracle occured in that thread. Both pro-GG and anti-GG Slashdotters refused to take the bait, laid down their arms, and stood together long enough to tell Bennett to go fuck himself and leave
Slashdot's coverage of Gamergate has been abysmal. Every other summary has followed the template "harassment, misogyny, threats, harassment, misogyny, threats . . . oh btw Gamergate."
/. thread about the Gamergate scandal itself: the journalistic lapses, the universal news media blackout and user forum/comment censorship (including reddit and 4chan of all places), and the still-ongoing coordinated smear campaign that was launched on August 28 with the "Gamers are Dead" shotgun blast of hit pieces. All of those milestones should have gotten at least one article here each.
Sad as it is, this shitty summary is still the most "unbiased" simply because it straightforwardly mentions the movement as the topic of the discussion. The attempt to imply that the FBI said they were investigating pro-Gamergate people has already been destroyed in the comments (thank fuck users are still in control of the discussion here).
Four months later, there still hasn't been a single
You should watch the last five minutes of this (supposedly a Gamergate letter sent to Brianna Wu). It's absolutely priceless:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Working hard since 2003 to preserve your right to consume media without the annoyance of paying.
More like "without paying twice" or "without paying in perpetuity."
DRM and copy protection are very much about crippling second-hand sales. Hell, they're about stopping first-hand sales too, in favor of forcing pay-per-view and rental models.
In the scenario you are describing, MIT can also do absolutely nothing.
He is not doing anything illegal — nor even unethical, because he has no power over the ladies and can not compel them to submit to his dirty proposals.
What "advantage" can he take — in your scenario? There is no exam, which he can grade, there is no "extra credit", that he can issue (or not) — nothing. He has no more power over them, than a free software developer has over his users — if such users contact him for help, is he not allowed to make other suggestions?
He is virtually guaranteed to understand the course material, so he can offer "perfect" help with assignments, up to and including doing the student's work for them. I agree that's not exerting power over the student, but it's probably against some MIT policies (which are the only kind of rules/regulations cited in the story).
It might make sense for MIT to disconnect him from such "online students", but it makes no sense to take the (presumably valuable) lectures offline.
Let me run a scenario by you (complete speculation based on MIT's statement). Lewin, who is retired, isn't connected to these courses in any way, except that his name is on many of the lectures (obviously, they must credit him for his work), which are available under a free (beer, speech) license. So maybe some students (some of them attractive females) contact him for help. He is in a unique position to provide help to pass (hell, ace) the courses (even though they are technically meaningless for academic credit). And after a while, he takes advantage of this and begins reaching out to pretty students taking the courses and propositioning them. One of them reports him to MIT.
In this (again, completely speculative) scenario, what are MIT's options? He's a free man who doesn't work for them. They can't fire him, nor can they "disconnect" him from the students, as you suggest. Should they put a big "professor may harass you" warning on the course syllabus? Taking the down the course may be the only reasonable thing they could do.
IMO stripping him of his title seems a bit vengeful and vindictive (but probably within their right if he violated their policies, even in retirement), and I can agree with that they shouldn't "disappear" the lectures. But they cannot continue operating a course that attracts young students with (slight, but still real) awards knowing that he's out there to take advantage of them.
And I'll say it again: This is speculation on my part of what may have happened. We need more information (and IMO MIT is being too secretive).
The alleged victim was a female student in one of his online courses (and she claims he did the same to other students), so he could possibly have held a positifof power over her. Completion of the courses results in a certificate but zero academic credit, and MIT has bragged that thousands enroll in the courses, so the amount of leverage he could have had over her is questionable. But if he was using this MIT program at all to try to pick up women then that is wrong, and it makes sense for MIT to put a stop to it. We don't know exactly what he was doing unless we can read the correspondence in question. Most headlines make it sound like he "harassed" strangers online. No, it's a professor allegedly harassing one of his students, and it's not all that special if he did it "over the internet."
A miracle occurs every time he posts about Gamergate. Both pro-GG and anti-GG posters lay down their arms just long enough to tell Bennett to go fuck himself and leave /. alone.
He was adept at using the IRS too.
Sorry, I jumped the gun on the SSD thing. I had only read the /. submission and not wider coverage of it.
I agree. Two weeks ago there was a submission in the firehose about the DRM endangering SSDs by incurring thousands of disk writes per minute. Why does the summary take the time to mention the DRM without mentioning this issue?
http://slashdot.org/submission...
Here's a good critical writeup of some red flags in the game that might be harbingers of much worse things to come:
http://www.escapistmagazine.co...
We may never know what they're investigating, or who, or why, or how it will cause or affect any criminal prosecution. There's certainly no integrity to the process.
Remember when a school was caught installing malware on students' macbooks that covertly took pictures of the children in their bedrooms, almost certainly producing child porn? And we even had correspondence that showed faculty used this capability for entertainment?
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...
The feds investigated but simply decided not to file charges against the school for illegal surveillance, hacking, peeping at kids, etc. I guess that would have set a nasty precedent for the NSA activities that were going on, but only discovered a few years later.