Jay 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (4815)

• On the post: This Post Is Not About GamerGate

  

  Jay ( profile ), 25 Oct, 2014 @ 04:24am

  Re: Re: Should Have Included A Link

  That's really the problem with all forms of journalism in general. It seems that we haven't found a way to advance ways to report on the news with media outlets that seem more interested in controlling the facts instead of reporting them.
  
  I believe you should be able to get a lot of news from a lot of sources and come to your own conclusions. Sadly, it seems that other people pick a side and stick to it regardless of how slanted the reporting can be, one way or another.

• On the post: This Post Is Not About GamerGate

  

  Jay ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2014 @ 07:44pm

  Re: Re:

  Annnnd here comes the fights...
  
  The hashtag was originally coined by actor Adam Baldwin to refer to allegations (ultimately determined to be false) that gamer developer Zoe Quinn had slept with games journalist Nathan Grayson in return for positive coverage.
  
  1) The hashtag was changed to move away from discussion about Zoe Quinn but she moved to the new one to claim that it was harassment. Before this, people were using Quinngate and Quinnspiracy.
  
  2) It's now been found out that their relationship was far longer than Grayson let be known. Article
  
  3) There's far more to the story than is being told in your argument. Other stories of abuse paint a very negative picture of Zoe to the point that people are misinformed about her background. Issues of bullying and doxxing are alleged and form a picture of someone who abuses people while having no one speak out against such issues.
  
  4) The corruption uncovered is as follows:
  
  A story about EA having a security hole that affected 40,000 customers was left untold. A whistleblower stepped forward
  
  The GameJournoPros list was uncovered which lead to the vindication of a story by Alistair Pinsof where the list was talking about how he was fired and blacklisted by people in the industry.
  
  There are other successes, but most of the narrative has shifted into observing Gawker and its behavior and hypocrisies which it projects on the audience.
  
  There's a lot that happened in two months and perhaps one day the story can be told and chronicled. Sadly, that day is not today.

• On the post: This Post Is Not About GamerGate

  

  Jay ( profile ), 24 Oct, 2014 @ 02:04pm

  Re:

  It's a Twitter hashtag that has become a clusterfuck of people protesting about gaming journalism.
  
  Regardless of the viewpoints in it, it's a lot to slog through and in order to unwind it would take a bit of time on an article that's not really about it.
  
  It's best to talk to people involved who can bring you up to speed if you have a Twitter account while also understanding that seeing through the bias of either side requires research and study.

• On the post: Nintendo Bricks Wii U Consoles Unless Owners Agree To New EULA

  

  Jay ( profile ), 17 Oct, 2014 @ 06:32am

  Re: Re: Where are the lawsuits?

  Exactly this. The rules are changed to arbitration so it's less likely for the lay person to have a chance in a fair and public trial which could change rules and precedents.
  
  This effectively hurts the customer while locking in Nintendo's model of business, forcing them to be more conservative about risks taken as money bleeds.

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 12:36pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  I'm an AVID gamer, and I'd never heard of either Zoe Quinn or the FYC before this stupid "controversy" broke out. None of this matters. It's not worth the bandwidth the story would take up.
  
  
  shrugs
  
  Then you aren't trying to report with full context. That's on you and your decision. But obviously, it was important to enough people to look into those aspects of the story and uncover what wasn't being told by gaming journalists.
  
  Both are public forums. This bullshit about demanding that independent media outlets cover according to your demands is insane.
  
  If you say so.
  
  All I did was point out three parts of the story going missing. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and all you're doing is saying that it's about women's critiques and other nonsense while ignoring anything that doesn't fit your bias.
  
  Also, a chat box isn't really the best area for a everything when there's other ways to tell the story.
  
  Who do you people THINK you are?
  
  I dunno, maybe people upset that gaming publications decided to pull a Jack Thompson on us, declare us dead and move on as if that crap was kosher?
  
  Just a thought...
  
  It also represents a big fat nothing with regard to the larger "controversy" GamerGate portends to be about. You people are all over the map, which is what I've been saying all along.
  
  Well at least you're not claiming it's a right wing movement anymore...
  
  Your movement was hijacked from its onset, it has no clear and concise complaint, it often makes accusations that turn out to be blatant falsehoods, and it has allowed itself to be characterized by some of the most vile human shitheads I've ever heard about who think it's fun to threaten death and rape upon people who don't deserve it.
  
  Ah yes, ignore how they condemn such threats and ignore what I've just pointed out about third parties in other comments, right?
  
  It's broken,
  
  So's the journalism.
  
  and it was NOT broken from the outside
  
  Right, because journalists that try to claim that the public is entitles is so much better?
  
  so start it anew
  
  You missed the sites that have already popped up with better reporting.
  
  make it make sense
  
  Or you could just stop ignoring things you don't like. ;)
  
  stop bitching about tiny little sub-issues that don't mean anything in the larger context
  
  Sorry, but you have no control over those people and what they are looking for in reporting. Neither do I. What's small to you may be large to someone else. It's a collective of people organized into a number of things where ideas matter over who's in charge. They seem to have found a lot to do and they're still doing more. I guess watching the movement, we'll see where the ride ends.
  
  stop with the petulant demand that major and minor media outlets cover every story you seem to think is worth covering
  
  I didn't demand a damn thing from you. I just said you decided not to report on it. And you said that in chat. I accepted that you didn't want to report on it after our discussions and I'm not going to tell you a thing. But I WILL call out the contradictions just as I've done for years on this site in regards to copyright maximalism and treat this as I do any other person opposed to my viewpoint. You decided to talk about this and I just pointed out the issues. You can agree or disagree but the emotions flowing out don't matter to me. Decide whatever you want to report on.
  
  I am not here to tell you what to do. But just like others here, I call out things that contradict what you say.
  
  --but what you're talking about with the Zoe Quinn "scandal" is akin to the airplane being on fire and you're insisting we all talk about how it's made the soda cans too hot to drink.
  
  rolls eyes
  
  You brought it up dude. That hasn't been the topic since it broke and the censorship made it larger.
  
  By the way, censorship by DMCA started this ball rolling.
  
  Censorship on Reddit got a lot more people involved. Welcome to the aftermarket of the Streisand Effect.

• On the post: Nintendo Bricks Wii U Consoles Unless Owners Agree To New EULA

  

  Jay ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 01:00pm

  Staying to PC

  Dammit, Nintendo, I was JUST about to buy a Wii U. Then you have to go and do this...
  
  If the Wii U is going to be nothing more than a rental service, what's the point in getting it?

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 04:36am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Why do you think there's only two sides to the argument?
  
  There's been evidence that trolls have been riling up and doxxing people on both sides of the issue. That's a third party just looking to cause conflict, namely that one of Anita's recent discussions was prevented because of a really crazy troll from Something Awful.
  
  Hell, did anyone talk about how there's a reward for the capture of the perp? Link
  
  When you have a number of people in a revolt this size, you're going to have outliers. Regardless, you can't just claim that everything is one way or another. Sometimes, you have to rake the much and look for what the truth actually is.
  
  There's been rational debate and discussion trying to occur, but you won't have it if the only thing you focus on is the death threats and ignore the real issues.
  
  What people are upset about is how incredibly corrupted that game journalism has become. It was a problem seen for a long time and gamers have had to fight back against corrupt journalists. This isn't even the first time.
  
  They did it with the Mass Effect 3 ending which was Bioware making a poor ending and hiding behind Jennifer Halperin for it. They spoke up, EA tried to close down conversation and it got larger.
  
  Same thing with Adam Orth and his claims about the XB1 which people were upset about.
  
  Hell, you can go back and see a lot more issues such as the Microsoft/Youtuber deal and see how they were upset with Youtubers on that.
  
  It happens. People respond to incentives and the perverse incentive here is that some people troll. You have to deal with that while moving on with the conversation about how to end the corruption.
  
  Escapist's reforms are a decent start but more people should want to do it. That's far more than trying to shut down a conversation because one person got a death threat when others have condemned it.

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 04:26am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Obviously, you didn't look into the allegations and you've just ignored what people were upset about.
  
  Namely, The Fine Young Capitalists, a feminist group, was harassed by Zoe Quinn and it was not reported.
  
  Not by you, Polygon, Kotaku, RPS, or any other site. They got harassed and one person got doxxed and you're not condemning that. You're not reporting on it but you want me to rage about the Erin post when I said nothing about it.
  
  Further, you skipped right over how 32,000 comments were deleted from Reddit when they were talking about it.
  
  So don't claim people are amazing when all I've done is point out what was missed.

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 01:26am

  Re: Oh, yeah?

  WB has always had this problem.
  
  They even shot themselves in the foot by censoring video of the issue.

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 16 Oct, 2014 @ 01:23am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  You missed the censorship of the story on Reddit, the lack of reporting on The Fine Young Capitalists, and how incredibly abusive she was to someone she was in a relationship with.
  
  That's the problem with a one sided narrative.

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2014 @ 03:11pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  I think they believe it's silly to critique video games the same way we do television, art, and literature. I think that they believe video games are for light-hearted, often mindless fun, not for social critique.
  
  That's rather false given how the Bayonetta reviews came out and Polygon's was minded toward the "social justice" crowd and gave it a 7.5 because of her "sexiness". Meanwhile, the author has an account on Suicide Girls which is a risque site for young girls marking his hypocrisy.
  
  Other sites gave it a higher rating for gameplay instead of how sexy the character was. These are the same problems that came up in GTA V which ignored other aspects of social commentary. We got someone arguing about strip clubs in video games but they ignore how you torture an innocent man in one of the later missions.
  
  If you want to bring in social politics, at least be consistent in the review. Rather glaring when you see how many people care about how sexy a main character is.
  
  
  
  They're INCREDIBLY WRONG on every count, mind you, but I don't think the majority of gamergaters actively hate women or don't want women in their games industry. They just don't want to have to think about the social context of those games, what those games have to say about all of us playing them, or how the industry functions.
  
  And, as I said earlier, until they can control the violence-threatening, idiot minority in their own ranks, they don't get to set the agenda. The dickheads have set it for them.
  
  The majority of gamergate writings I've seen have been misogynistic, and a distressing amount of it has been violently so.
  
  Please show these. I've had a different experience and I've noticed a lot more people willing to make claims on the lives of people supportive of GG than against others.
  
  So I agree, people who are genuinely concerned about journalistic integrity should distance themselves from "gamergate" as much as they can and assemble their own movement. I could get behind such an effort.
  
  It's not really a movement, but a revolt against the corrupt journalists that refuse to report on anything accurately or fairly. Instead of buying into one sided narratives, people have been looking into stories themselves and finding out the things missed by these biased narratives and reporting it themselves. If you try to distance them from the scandal that broke based on Gamergate (namely, the 14 articles declaring "Gamers are dead") then you're ignoring how incredibly crass and entitled those "journalists" seem in trying to dump crap on their patrons.
  
  If anything, I'd probably recommend looking at the recent Huffington Post articles as well as some of the links above to understand where people are actually upset.
  
  
  
  Harassment received for speaking out
  
  Intro to GG
  
  One "journalist's background of bigotry
  
  Timeline of GG
  
  GG not supporting harassment
  
  Take it as you will, but this is far more than what people believe it is.

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2014 @ 02:54pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  There's been far more people doxxed and harassed that are supportive of Gamergate than against. You have three names. These people go through harassment every day.
  
  http://gamergateharassment.tumblr.com/

• On the post: Requiring YouTubers To Give Positive Reviews For Access To Games Can't Work As A Long Term Strategy

  

  Jay ( profile ), 15 Oct, 2014 @ 09:08am

  Re:

  Prove it.

• On the post: New Zealand Whistleblower Reveals He Was Told To 'Bury' Unflattering Info About The Gov't Spying On Dotcom

  

  Jay ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2014 @ 06:48am

  Re:

  Biden is probably it. He's been working with Hollywood for years and they lost on SOPA so this was their second plan.
  
  I don't think "backfire" of a strong enough word to say what happened to them.
  
  If I were the DoJ, I'd be looking into Hollywood instead of looking at them just to CYA.

• On the post: New Zealand Whistleblower Reveals He Was Told To 'Bury' Unflattering Info About The Gov't Spying On Dotcom

  

  Jay ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2014 @ 06:45am

  Re:

  Nice try, WB...

• On the post: Obama Review Of Military Gear Handed To Law Enforcement; Thinks Real Problem Is 'Training And Guidance'

  

  Jay ( profile ), 25 Aug, 2014 @ 10:20am

  Two Centrist Democrats

  You can just see that he doesn't even care anymore. He's trying to put out a ton of fires and they keep popping up because Obama is listening to the wrong people...
  
  And this keeps happening.
  
  Folks... Franklin Delano Roosevelt did all of this in his first two sessions of his presidency. Let's make no bones about it. He listened to the conservatives bully, harry, and harass him until there was opposition to what was going on. To say otherwise is to ignore history.
  
  Why are we repeating history?
  
  We've had a Great Recession since 2007 and we had a Great Depression in 1929. You had a president when faced with opposition become far more progressive and work constantly to do a ton of things that either worked or failed. FDR closed the banks. He tried other stop measures by bailing out the rich. He did everything he could until WWII had him put 1/2 of the country in uniforms and the other 1/2 creating the uniforms.
  
  We're not doing that this time. Hell, I'm omitting the sharecroppers and other poor people left out of the progressive era or the rise of the FBI and CIA from this time period.
  
  He had three main things to deal with while Obama had Occupy. Instead of embracing this fledgling movement, he crushed it.
  
  Instead of turning back the police state, he pushed it further. Instead of appeasing his base, he alienated it.
  
  He's weak. Or he just doesn't care because he has two terms and he's getting out.
  
  At this point, a LOT of people are pushing for Hillary and I can tell you she'll be just as bad, even worse. Remember, the biggest deregulation came from Bill when he signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which allowed the banks to speculate with taxpayer money.
  
  But Obama? Will be a footnote. No legacy. No integrity. All the promises are hollow. He did nothing but turn into Hoover and people expect the next president to do more.
  
  That's just ignoring the situation.
  
  Folks, FDR had to face an organized grassroots effort to push his for reforms and eventually a New Deal. You know how we paid off the war? Taxes on the rich and corporations was at 94% And it has been going down. As it goes down for corporations and the rich, it goes up on people that aren't rich. Simple math.
  
  But let's explain something...
  
  For every dollar at the maximum level, the rich got to keep only $.06 with the maximum income at the time was $25,000 (roughly $300,000 now)
  
  But now, they keep $.75 at the tax rate now.
  
  And people want to keep lowering that tax rate now?
  
  Perhaps doing some of the things that helped people before can help. Organizing, agitating, and pointing out the problems of society could help us have a better president. Maybe it can force Obama to care. But if you don't put pressure on the president to be great, they never will. That's the lesson learned.

• On the post: White House's Cybersecurity Guy Proud Of His Lack Of Cybersecurity Knowledge Or Skills

  

  Jay ( profile ), 22 Aug, 2014 @ 06:09am

  Holy...

  "Ignorance is bliss" should not be a campaign slogan for ineptitude and lack of transparency.

• On the post: There's A Reasonable Debate To Be Had About Showing The James Foley Beheading Video, But Claiming Its Illegal To Watch Is Ridiculous

  

  Jay ( profile ), 20 Aug, 2014 @ 02:28pm

  Let's get this straight...

  I can watch a movie of a beheading and get an R rating and not have problems.
  
  I can write about a beheading in a gory book about vampires and werewolves or while solving a murder mystery. Few issues there.
  
  I can even play a game as a sniper and go for head shots. Depending on cartoony graphics or not, the most I have to be is 18.
  
  But you're telling me, that looking into a real life terrorist act is so graphic that it shouldn't be viewable to the public to understand why people do this?
  
  ...
  
  At least in media, you have a fairly reasonable explanation of why you kill the NPCs. This is just bullshit.

• On the post: Hollywood Desperate To Blame Bad Opening Box Office Of Expendables 3 On Piracy Rather Than The Fact That It Sucked

  

  Jay ( profile ), 18 Aug, 2014 @ 10:40am

  Re: Leaked copy

  I still blame that franchise for destroying any chance of a Scott Pilgrim sequel...
  
  I wouldn't watch that movie if you paid me...

• On the post: Redditors Propose Setting Up A 'Consumers' Union' To Fight Back Against Broadband Giants

  

  Jay ( profile ), 15 Aug, 2014 @ 01:07pm

  Re:

  People took a lot of money in helping out in funding a new ISP already.
  
  I think it started went to $2 million. Can't recall it right now, but I'm sure it was on Ars Technica if someone else remembers...
  
  Anyway, let's get to a few things...
  
  While I firmly believe that most unions today are counterproductive (frequently holding back innovation and flexibility),
  
  This isn't really true because unions represent democracy in the workplace. There are certainly some undemocratic unions but that's the result of rules such as the Taft-Hartley Act which deprive unions of dues while also having them represent people that don't pay these dues. It's a starvation tactic and it works to make unions less effective. Also, look in other countries such as Germany. They made unions stronger while America, since 1946, has made unions weaker.
  
  That it later resulted in vast amounts of corruption and cronyism, let alone hindering the way in which companies could innovate and adapt, are certainly big issues to be concerned about -- but there were reasons why that happened as well (driven by leadership on both sides).
  
  I'm not positive about this but the emphasis should be where we question this... Why are we only looking at leadership? The premise I set is that you pay dues for your protection in the workplace. After seeing what has happened to the largest unions (Teamsters for example), their decimation should make us question how we can better protect workers. It's not happening right now and the result is that the Steve Jobs of the world can walk all over their employees as a result of collusion. That should be something avoided IMO.
  
  In regards to the Consumer's Union, I support the idea, and want to see how it goes. It's about time that people recognize that democracy begins with them. To have so many people create an organization from scratch is certainly needed along with someone advocating municipal broadband while protecting people on the national level could be done. It just takes organizing. I'll definitely see how this comes up as time goes along.

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