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[torhu]

Not sure what to make of this, just stumbled across it. I checked their Twitter and confirmed that "icculus" himself is part of this. Anyway, probably not an issue for SG, but I thought people might find it interesting one way or the other

[Barto]

The Internet is a rough place where people can get way too far way too easily...

Here is a conversation that happened on their IRC the day after the video got published, or the same day depending how you look at timezones.

Code: Select all

2016-06-26 04:28:13     LambdaComplex   TimeDoctor: Can I get some more context on wtf is going on? I looked at the ioquake3 twitter and yours but I'm still kinda lost
2016-06-26 04:32:01     @TimeDoctor     lambdaComplex: long running hate group is butt hurt that i block them on Twitter and claims we are violating their "free speech rights" in doing so. They also don't understand what this project is a
nd keep accusing me of pissing off "consumers"
2016-06-26 04:32:49     LambdaComplex   TimeDoctor: Nah, rewind just a _little_ bit more. What did they do to get blocked, exactly?
2016-06-26 04:33:23     @_Filth_        zakk blocked them because he isnt a people person
2016-06-26 04:35:52     @TimeDoctor     lambdaComplex: it's a very long story but they harassed a game developer a few years ago because she is a woman and had the gall to release a free game. Their "ethics" are about how her pissed off e
x-boyfriend wrote a screed decrying that he got dumped and since then they've been tearing upturn
2016-06-26 04:36:15     @TimeDoctor     er, tearing up the Internet trying to harass anyone who doesn't follow their lead
2016-06-26 04:36:29     LambdaComplex   So, lots of political drama bs that I can safely ignore?
2016-06-26 04:36:41     @TimeDoctor     yes, please feel free to ignore it.
2016-06-26 04:38:38     @TimeDoctor     if you search for "ioquake3" on twitter you will see a bunch of people attacking me/the project who don't know what free software is and probably have never played quake
2016-06-26 04:40:11     @TimeDoctor     also the user that joined earlier that I banned was named "cuck" which is a term that harassers from various forums use to attack their victims. Easy to identify and ban.
2016-06-26 04:47:01     LambdaComplex   TimeDoctor: Wait, how did this whole thing with ioquake3 get started?
2016-06-26 04:51:32     @_Filth_        gamergate
2016-06-26 04:52:51     LambdaComplex   more specifically
2016-06-26 04:52:57     LambdaComplex   did someone post something on some forum talking about it? or what?
2016-06-26 04:53:29     @TimeDoctor     yeah on Reddit there are a few threads encouraging them to attack us
2016-06-26 04:53:48     @TimeDoctor     in the gamergate subreddit called kotakuinaction
2016-06-26 04:54:32     @TimeDoctor     so there have been dozens or so of people who don't follow the Twitter account just making drive by harassing comments. I don't mind
2016-06-26 04:55:31     @TimeDoctor     it's hilarious that some of them say to use ZTM's spearmint fork of ioquake3 instead of
2016-06-26 04:56:41     @TimeDoctor     I love if people use ioquake3 forks, and especially if they're from friends.


[torhu]

Hm, yeah. I guess that annoying them on purpose is probably only going to strengthen their belief that they are "the good guys fighting against evil". Trolls are not helping. They have to be countered with arguments and facts, I think. And people have to learn to just say "no", and ignore their shaming tactics and appeals to emotion. They are also injecting their politics into the software industry and the open source communities now (Github, etc.).

But anyway, ioquake3 is GPL, and the copyright is held by Id, so they can't stop people from using it if they want to

[TheDoctor]

I can comprehend the ban, but that tweet did just needlessly added fuel into the dying fire. That was unprofessional.

Edit: ban = the blocking

[torhu]

Which ban? In the first tweet in the video it says that they use some kind of auto blocker, which I think means that they stop lots of people from both following them and tweeting to them. I don't use Twitter, but I think that's how it works. Seems like a safe way to make users go elsewhere. Banning trolls makes sense, but I don't think that's what they are doing. Bringing this kind of divisiveness into a gaming and open source community is not a good thing.

[TheDoctor]

Back in the day, I blocked IP ranges and, when necessary, whole providers to get to those cheatin' individuals, so I can understand this kind of self-defense.

However, for compensation, I'd also suggest to the GG community to implement their own blocking list, so both groups can (pretend to) live in peace.

[torhu]

This isn't like that though, you can't "live in peace" with someone that will just keep undermining your freedoms. That only one side likes to block people is revealing, because it tells you which side prefers to stay in an echo chamber, and therefore which side is most likely to be wrong. I would guess that the other side's behavior can be explained by the psychological phenomena called cognitive dissonance. Basically, hearing facts is unpleasant when your own views are based on denying those facts. Let me illustrate:

[TheDoctor]

I don't see any freedom being undermined. If you refer to free speech: the GG community has the right to exercise their right of free speech, i.e. to say anything within the boundaries of the law. However, they have no right to force other people to listen to their crude arguments, let alone to endure their harassment. So any individual is within their right to apply this or any other blocking list.

[torhu]

Hm, are we talking about the same GamerGate here?

This explanation from Reddit matches my understanding of it:

Gamergate is a movement dedicated to fighting for ethics in (gaming) journalism and against censorship and the politicization of (gaming) media and games. It arose after several corruption scandals in the gaming media, attacks on the gamer identity and attempts by the gaming media and "cultural critics" to force a political ideology down the throats of gamers.

[TheDoctor]

Well, I'm following Wikipedia's definition of GG.

[torhu]

Hm, the Wikipedia definition seems to be completely wrong. Lying is par for the course for GamerGate opponents, I think that's part of the reason so many people were driven to speak out against them, using the #gamergate hashtag. People don't like being slandered against.

This is probably a lot more reliable although I can't vouch for most of the details:
http://thisisvideogames.com/gamergatewi ... _GamerGate

I actually remember this very peculiar article being posted on Ars Technica, and discovering that the same day, several very similar articles had been posted on other sites. Pretty obvious that someone had been talking. Basically, a concerted spread of misinformation. Not exactly criminal masterminds, are they?