A new low: One of Zoe Quinn's harassers was selling rape fanfic about her on Amazon

Yeah, that was my fear, too. I still have no desire to engage these shitworms on Twitter, either.

That’s unsettling. So it wasn’t a GamerGrate thing but they knew who you are and about your coverage. That’s less believable than the trolls we get claiming to not be MRAs and those trolls are not remotely believable.

There’s no way someone without an interest in gamergate/the manosphere would know who David is and that he’s tussled with gaters. Let alone include him in a gamergate “erotica.”

It’s sad that these idiots need to fantasize about rape to feel big.

Something they accuse women and/or feminists who make a rape allegation of doing all the time. At this point, it’s cliché to say they engage in a ton of projection, but it’s very, very true.

I love it that the author of the letter to Jimmy Wales says that “Wikipedia has got me through just about all of my undergrad schooling” Most accredited courses specifically warn against that error and some Professors of other courses (PZ are you there?) will castigate a student doing that

That cracked me up too. I’m old enough to have graduated college before Wikipedia was a thing, so I was wondering if professors actually accept them as a legit source and guessing they do not. Wikipedia is great for trivia and looking up general facts quickly and conveniently but it’s kind of hard to see how you could get enough info from them to write a quality paper.

@kirbywarp

I think that might do the trick here.

@weirwoodtreehugger

I occasionally edit Wikipedia, and maybe I can shed some light.

There is actually a sort-of-high standard regarding sources of information, and all references must be included in the articles.

The rules for reliable sources are usually well enforced: despite the huge size of Wikipedia, there is a ton of eyes looking at the information and willing to correct mistakes and bad faith editions, and when there is a dispute there are sort-of-democratically chosen roles for making sure the rules are followed (rules are never about the content itself, only about what sources of information are accepted for Wikipedia.

As would sound obvious for an encyclopedic project, only academic sources are accepted for academic content. Social content usually requires to be noted in relevant mass media. To name a few examples.

Consent on whether a certain content or source is acceptable is defined in a case for case basis by the users involved in that particular article or debate, which of course is affected by systemic white-cis-het-us-male bias, and content relevant to women is way more questioned and challenged than “regular” content (i.e. what feels “natural” for the dudes).

There is also a small and so far pretty unsuccessful project to counter systemic bias in Wikipedia created by the users.

So if I wanted reliable information on a given subject, I wouldn’t need to rely on the Wikipedia article’s content, but instead I could go directly to the references section and verify the information directly from the sources, or question the sources themselves.

It also works the other way around when I edit: I need to find reliable sources of whatever content I want to add, and only then I can publish it in Wikipedia and make sure it will stay.

.

All of this said, I do not think the writer to Jimmy Wales was referring to any of these, just relying on the common misconception of Wikipedia being an authority on neutrality rather than neutrality being a constant conversation and debate among users.

(Which is not perfect but it is what Wikipedia claims to be, as opposed to “this super-neutral source of info you don’t need to bother fact-checking”)

proxieme

In all seriousness, a well-sourced Wikipedia article can be used as a *starting point* if you’re stuck (that is, a well-sourced article’s footnotes/links can actually be useful/citeable, not the article itself), and I can see an undergrad – especially a freshman or sophomore – legitimately using it for that.

That was what I was told in college, and I’ve told that to a few other college students as well. (My cousin’s friend, who is still attending as far as I know, was asking if he could look over my old research papers to do some research for his, I told him I got rid of all of mine, but gave him that bit of advice.)

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RE: the letter

*snerk* Yeah, okay. “I’m not going to give you my (tiny donation of) money any more! THEN you’ll be sorry!”

Good luck with that. Wikipedia has gotten along just fine before you came around, they’ll still do just fine after you leave. Hell, I’ll donate some money in your stead!

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As for the story as a whole: I did comment about this on an earlier thread, but I’m still very angry about it, as a gamer, as a feminist, as a rape survivor…I want to punch a wall, but that poor wall is just an innocent bystander in this, so I’ll refrain.

And the comments are making me angrier. ESPECIALLY the comment about how this is “needed”. No. Fuck you. Thinking a person doesn’t deserve online harassment and abuse, and a rape survivor doesn’t need her trauma profited off of and exploited like this doesn’t mean she’s “sacred and untouchable”, it means we think she’s a PERSON, and thus deserving of respect and basic human decency, you terrible, terrible excuse for a homo sapien.

Zoe Quinn is a person who’s had enough of your bullshit, and enough of the bullshit of people who think like you to last a goddamned lifetime. If you pulled this nasty act in person, you’d be arrested, and personally, I wish you would be regardless.

*sigh* It’s people like this that make me ashamed to admit I like video games. THIS is the face of “gamer culture” to the outside world. I can’t even play my 3DS in public anymore without feeling like people are staring and comparing me to these assholes.

I can’t help but feel like no matter how much good gamers do, no matter how many charities we donate to, no matter how many good people we have in our circles, it’s going to be over-shadowed by this willful disrespect and hatefulness towards people who did NOTHING but make a game, have opinions on games, and exist as a female.

But, unfortunately, I am a part of this. I will still continue to do as much good as I can and speak out against this bullshit however.

this doesn’t mean she’s “sacred and untouchable”, it means we think she’s a PERSON

Exactly, therefore:

“What makes ZQ so sacred and untouchable” = “What makes ZQ a person, huh?”

*vomits*

Luzbelitx-

“What makes ZQ so sacred and untouchable” = “What makes ZQ a person, huh?

That’s the rub, inn’t? And the real point of “argument”. They really don’t think Zoe Quinn or anyone like her is a person, at least from the stand-point of who should be counted and thought of as real and deserving of respect by society.

This is the plaintive whine of assholes who have gotten so used to being the only ones who matter in a society and in their chosen subculture, that the notion of sharing that mattering with other people who are either new or have been unfairly marginalized pains them.

In their eyes, society and gaming culture have said that Zoe Quinn isn’t a person, because she’s a woman, because she’s outspoken, because she admits to mental health stuff, because she’s queer and most abominably of all, because she doesn’t view that core of assholes used to being treated as the only marketing demographic of gamers as her audience.

But she’s interacting with the world as if she was a person and as if she was real and as if she had an audience of similarly unreal people to sustain her.

And that’s basically the biggest trigger of hate on Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Briana Wu, Mattie Brice, Leah Alexander, and Christine Love. That they dared not think of this group of overentitled man-children as their core audience, as the only people who mattered, and then, they dared to be successful at it.

And that terrifies the doucheweasels because if a bunch of non-people can become successful and popular and respected by solely talking to an audience of similarly non-people, then that means the safe fantasy that the douchebags are the only people who matter and exist might not be real or accurate and this hidden secret world might somehow merge with their “real” world and leave them slightly less powerful and important to the universe than they were (relatively speaking).

And this is the real source of the rage and why these particular targets are gone after over and over again and why the success of their targets despite them only breeds more violent attacks. And it’s why they flip their shit over articles like Leah Alexander’s “Gamers are dead” article, because it epitomizes their greatest fear. That they won’t always be the only ones to matter, and much like with politics and life, people other than them are going to be treated like people and be allowed to have representations of themselves, stories that speak to their experiences, be listened to in culture and society, and treated as if they have a right to exist outside the fantasies and delusions of cis white het man douchebags.

And possibly the glimmer of terror in that speaks to a dim awareness on their part that their privilege does not make them smarter and more aware of the world than everyone else, but actually puts them at a deficit of understanding, since they never had to learn about life experiences of anyone who wasn’t like them or how any of those cultures look and act.

And for douchebro atheists and Libertarians and engineers who have made “being smarter and more knowledgable than everyone else ever” the sole source of their self-worth and understanding of the world, this dim awareness is seen as something akin to a religious person bumping into proof that a particular facet of their religion is not supported by reality.

And yeah, because I’m a horrible person, I’m kind of enjoying the irony of douchebro atheist types going through the same reflexive denialism when presented with reality that is unsupported by core portions of their worldview that the fundamentalists they look down on go through.

cerebustheasexual

And it’s why they flip their shit over articles like Leah Alexander’s “Gamers are dead” article, because it epitomizes their greatest fear. That they won’t always be the only ones to matter, and much like with politics and life, people other than them are going to be treated like people and be allowed to have representations of themselves, stories that speak to their experiences, be listened to in culture and society, and treated as if they have a right to exist outside the fantasies and delusions of cis white het man douchebags.

QFT.

Though, I think they didn’t read past the title on the “Gamers are dead” article before they got their collective underpants in a twist. Either that, or their reading comprehension leaves a LOT to be desired.

So for anyone who wants to get a ebook out is there another avenue than Amazon, because now I feel uncomfortable ever selling something on the kindle store.

Aaaand, according to the person who claims to be the author, it’s not a rape story. You see, the script is flipped at the end, and she’s just fooling around with these five guys.

Yeah, “she wanted it all along” is a standard trope of rape porn. And no, assholes, that doesn’t make it OK, it just reinforces the claims of people who say that about actual rape victims.

That dude… I made a GG post and he sent me anime porn in response.

schwadevivre – absolutely – I was not just referring to women, but obviously in the context of this post I was – at least the indirect use of rape as a punishment of this publication.