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posted by LaminatorX on Monday April 13 2015, @11:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the Livejournal-still-works dept.

From the The Guardian.

Introducing the Sad Puppies...

"The shortlists for the long-running American genre awards, won in the past by names from Kurt Vonnegut to Ursula K Le Guin and voted for by fans, were announced this weekend to uproar in the science fiction community, after it emerged that the line-up corresponded closely with the slates of titles backed by certain conservative writers. The self-styled "Sad Puppies" campaigners had set out to combat what orchestrator and writer Brad Torgersen had criticised as the Hugos' tendency to reward "literary" and "ideological" works.

Today's Hugos, Torgersen has blogged, "have lost cachet, because at the same time SF/F has exploded popularly – with larger-than-life, exciting, entertaining franchises and products – the voting body of 'fandom' have tended to go in the opposite direction: niche, academic, overtly to the Left in ideology and flavor, and ultimately lacking what might best be called visceral, gut-level, swashbuckling fun".

Twenty years ago, he writes, "if you saw a lovely spaceship on a book cover, with a gorgeous planet in the background, you could be pretty sure you were going to get a rousing space adventure featuring starships and distant, amazing worlds". Nowadays, he claims, the same jacket is likely to be a story "merely about racial prejudice and exploitation, with interplanetary or interstellar trappings".

And here we have the Rabid Puppies definitely not mentioning GamerGate:

Another group of allied rightwing campaigners, dubbing themselves the Rabid Puppies and led by Vox Day, real name Theodore Beale, have also added their voices to the block-voting campaign against what Day called "the left-wing control freaks who have subjected science fiction to ideological control for two decades and are now attempting to do the same thing in the game industry".

And finally a bit of Martin:

"Call it block voting. Call it ballot stuffing. Call it gaming the system. There's truth to all of those characterisations. You can't call it cheating, though. It was all within the rules. But many things can be legal, and still bad ... and this is one of those, from where I sit. I think the Sad Puppies have broken the Hugo awards, and I am not sure they can ever be repaired," he wrote.

"If the Sad Puppies wanted to start their own award ... for Best Conservative SF, or Best Space Opera, or Best Military SF, or Best Old-Fashioned SF the Way It Used to Be ... whatever it is they are actually looking for ... hey, I don't think anyone would have any objections to that. I certainly wouldn't. More power to them," he added. "But that's not what they are doing here, it seems to me. Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards."

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @11:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @11:37AM (#169647)

    > Instead they seem to want to take the Hugos and turn them into their own awards.

    What Martin doesn't understand is that the Hugos were always 'their' awards. It's only now that they are starting to lose control of the awards that the knives come out and the ugliness of unearned privilege is revealed.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @04:04PM

    by naubol (1918) on Monday April 13 2015, @04:04PM (#169779)

    You're saying that a system being gamed by a minority group is equivalent to saying that it is 'their' (the minority with views the majority finds extreme) award? What privilege are you speaking of and why is it unearned? Are you basically saying that the people who worked hard to establish this community haven't earned the right to have that community and to issue awards within that community based on that community's choice? Isn't this site about community privilege?

    Much more depressing, why are you being upmodded when your post has the equivalent content of a powerpoint presentation by a vendor of a vaporware product. Clearly, it also smells of characterized rhetoric.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @04:19PM (#169792)

      I'm saying that the awards have changed over the years because society has changed and that the people who used to be on top are now a minority and are having a very difficult time adjusting to that fact.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Monday April 13 2015, @04:48PM

        by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Monday April 13 2015, @04:48PM (#169822) Journal

        Just one more symptom of our completely polarized, broken and non-functioning society and culture. Is it surprising that this break out in the Hugo fan awards? No. It is the fabric of the world. Do you want to see decadence? Lo! Behold!

        It is not in the politics or sexual practices of the people - it is in the complete lack of context and willingness to approach dispute or difference with anything but discord and absolute chauvinism.

        This is a dead society, tearing itself to pieces as the lies on which it was built are forced into denial or break-open, chaotically.

        "Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud ... hatch out."
        https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/I%2C_Claudius_(TV_series) [wikiquote.org]

        --
        You're betting on the pantomime horse...
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:01PM

      by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:01PM (#169830)

      I'm still trying to figure out how a minority secured a majority of the votes in the nominations. You'd think for them to get a majority that a majority of voters would have to agree with them... Which kind of means they aren't the minority at all. It's almost as if the people complaining about the minority out voting them were the actual minority and were just really sore losers because they couldn't game the system as well as the other "minority".

      --
      "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Monday April 13 2015, @05:29PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:29PM (#169850)

        I'm still trying to figure out how a minority secured a majority of the votes in the nominations.

        But some people are unpeople. The actual paying customers in this example. Only the 'right' people should be voting you see. The self appointed vanguard who see it as their job to lead the rabble to what they should be reading instead of the lowbrow crap they actually do read. They believe that the Hugos should be prescriptive instead of descriptive. If you sell a lot of books there is no reason to heap honors upon you, the vulgar forces of the market are your reward; no, major award are to be given to promote rightthinking works that nobody has read so that the past glory of the award (remembered from when it did indeed honor excellence) can move books. I.e. to redistribute honor, attention as well as mere revenue.

        My opinion is the process was taken over by a bunch of sanctimonious hippies more too in love with the smell of their own farts. Typical entryism, they completely remade the Hugo into something entirely different from what it was and are now screeching like harpies when the fans got tired of it and told em to sod off. Of course at this point it will more likely just kill off the award instead of save it because they waited a generation too long. Liberty requires constant vigilance, they weren't.

        Just to really flame the fires higher, Martin's attitude above is entirely representative of the attitude, People move in, take over an existing institution because it is easier than establishing a new one from scratch and thenn when the original population objects they arrogantly just tell them to go make their own if they aren't happy. Kinda like RedHat and Pottering are doing with GNU/Linux.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @05:48PM

          by naubol (1918) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:48PM (#169869)

          Considering it only costs $40 dollars to participate and anyone who is interested can, I fail to see how this class argument applies. Your opinion is so toxic and polemic that I am struggling to find the best argument buried in your post, but lets go with the idea that you believ e it has been captured by a group with narrowly tailored interests (the hippies). Mind you, it is hilarious that you are calling them hippies, what a sound, reasonable, and credible person you are!

          That group, the 'hippies', spectacularly failed to keep the system captured because their (ironic)narrowly-tailored interests(/ironic) failed to converge on a small enough pool of candidates to beat a much more organized minority, the puppies, who swept all nominations in every category by specifying exactly 5 people to nominate in each category.

          The puppies, who absolutely have a narrowly-tailored interest, managed to capture the system perfectly. There is no proof that the group of participators at large are kept purposefully to some oligarchic set by 'the hippies'. So, this charge is, ironically, true of the puppies who are leveling it unfairly at the majority. The irony is made more palpable because if the puppies were correct in this charge, they wouldn't have been able to hijack the nomination process, which made the charge true of them!

          Your band wagon argument that 'the hippies' are screeching against the will of the population seems to fold like so much poppycock when you consider that the puppies ballot-stuffed a small selection of authors approved only by them, a minority in size relative to the general fan population. In other words, it wasn't the fans in general voting, but an extremist group. Vulnerabilities in the nomination process have underlined how susceptible the process is to minority capture.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @06:07PM

            by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday April 13 2015, @06:07PM (#169886)

            Your opinion is so toxic and polemic

            Are you serious? Is this a parody account? am I still on twitter and just haven't realized it?

            I'd like to know at what point in the last five to ten years opinions became "toxic" and "polemic" because I honestly don't remember this type of language being the norm up to about a year ago.

            I'm living in topsy tervy world. Had I read that a year ago I would have dismissed it as a conservative claiming freeze peach should only apply to them and libtards need to STFU, except now I'm reading it from "progressives" that are trying their damnedest to shut down all discussion they don't agree with. Why don't you just tell us we're a rapists and get it over with, might as well not mince words, just go for the nuclear option.

            And seriously don't think people here don't realize you're also one of maybe three different AC accounts running through this comment section mocking everyone that doesn't think sad puppies is the largest toxic environmental disaster to occur in the history of SF.

            --
            "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
            • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:38PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:38PM (#170043)

              I strongly recommend you read Martin's posts in full (he wrote a series of about 8 blog posts on the issue), particularly the one titled "Hatespeech [livejournal.com]" and his (very civil) reply to Larry Correia [livejournal.com]. Martin explicitly distances himself from the "SJW" crowd while explaining why that type of discourse is unhelpful, including references to it being used by people with "social justice" politics, not just conservatives.

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:12AM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 14 2015, @01:12AM (#170133) Journal

            Your opinion is so toxic and polemic that I am struggling to find the best argument buried in your post

            You'll need a much better liver, if you plan on reading the internet. The previous poster's comment was quite innocuous.

            Your band wagon argument that 'the hippies' are screeching against the will of the population seems to fold like so much poppycock when you consider that the puppies ballot-stuffed a small selection of authors approved only by them, a minority in size relative to the general fan population.

            Given how easy it was to do, I count that as evidence supporting the claim that ballot stacking has happened before.

            • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:06AM

              by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:06AM (#170155) Homepage

              Larry Correia, who was an auditor/accountant in his first life, has twice said he believes the Hugo's internal vote-counting process is NOT tainted. Which of course says nothing of whether any group has previously gamed the awards (certainly some have done serious campaigning, notably Scalzi).

              --
              And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
              • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:48AM

                by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:48AM (#170264) Journal

                Larry Correia, who was an auditor/accountant in his first life, has twice said he believes the Hugo's internal vote-counting process is NOT tainted.

                An observation which is completely irrelevant. I'm sure, if you put him to the question, he'd have to admit that probably not a lot of babies were eaten in the process of voting for a Hugo either.

                Tainting the internal vote-counting process is a rather extreme and possibly illegal (due to the potential for being considered fraud) way to game the system. Why speak of that instead of speaking about the obvious, demonstrated example of getting a bunch of your friends on board and voting as a bloc? Sad Puppies showed that latter approach is quite effective and easy to implement. That implies that they might not be the first to do so, just the first to publicly demonstrate that it can be done.

                • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:04PM

                  by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:04PM (#170415) Homepage

                  Well, he said this because he was accused of believing that the Hugo administrators had screwed with the previous votes, and he was pointing out that wasn't what he'd said at all; rather, as you say, that previously various people had done exactly what he did, they just weren't so public about it.

                  --
                  And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
            • (Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:08PM

              by naubol (1918) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:08PM (#170432)

              I'm calling for better rhetoric, not complaining that I can't handle it. I'm not fatalistic about internet debate.

              It would be easy for me to kill someone else -> I have killed someone else? Means is not sufficient to convict in court. This is a false implication.

              Moreover, GRRM and others agree that campaigning for Hugo's has occurred, but drew the distinction that this is an order of magnitude difference. While campaigning might negatively tarnish the reputation of the award on some varying degree, as it has for the Oscars, going from partial influence to full dominance drops the awards value to essentially nil outside of the sub-community who is dominating.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:55PM

          by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:55PM (#169873)

          Yes, LOL, totally get where you're coming from.

          It's not like I haven't repeatedly seen this attitude over the last eight months.

          Gamergate has no place in fandom. Not in videogames, not in comics, and not in sci-fi.

          This is our culture, not yours. Get the hell out.

          https://archive.today/kHfrS [archive.today]

          I've only been a gamer since, BEFORE, I could copy them out of computer magz on to my Atari 130XE, but yeah I should totally just give up gaming and while I'm at it all the other nerdy hobbies like comics and SF and maybe programming too, so a bunch of nobodies that get triggered by a limerick, mocking a man who runs off a cliff for sleeping with another man by accident, as transphobic can take over and make things "more diverse" while tweeting #KillAllMen

          Here lies Firedorn, a hero in bed.
          He once was alive, but now he’s dead.
          The last woman he bedded, turned out a man
          And crying in shame, off a cliff he ran.”

          Read more at http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2015/04/pillars-of-eternity-limerick-was-changed-by-backer-not-obsidian/#zjdrsAvqfSYoVgeT.99 [blogjob.com]

          --
          "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:35PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:35PM (#170010)

          Is Soylentnews based on the same principle slashdot bad, make new and better voila! Soylentnews

          • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM

            by jmorris (4844) on Monday April 13 2015, @10:57PM (#170061)

            Pretty much. Slashdot was once good, went bad, corporate overlord made correction impossible so a fork happened. But it was the same principle, those who didn't like the changes in an existing institution were the ones forced to rebuild from scratch.

            These problems will persist until communities evolve methods to more effectively resist entryism and single points of control/failure. The Hugos are fighting entryism, the Slashdot and GNU/Linux communities are fighting the single point of control where Dice/RedHat ended up in a position to redefine the community.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @05:33PM

        by naubol (1918) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:33PM (#169856)

        I suppose you're also confused about how certain minorities also dominate US politics. Thanks for providing a real life demonstration of how angry internetters shave off nuance by not understanding what is actually happening, assuming you know what is going on without doing any research, and using overly simplistic characterized arguments. For god's sake, you even used bold!

        I'm not sure you're willing to engage with nuance, and I'm sorry I refuse to use bold, but here are some properties...

        The system starts by voting on nominees. Since only the top 5 take all, votes can be diluted by multiple people in the majority voting among a pool of hundreds. The minority was able to take control of this process by publishing a list of five so that all five were nominated, shutting out any majority selections due to insufficient agglutination.

        Also, the majority, historically, has been less interested in voting for nominees than in voting in the final round, thus requiring less effort to steal the election via ballot stuffing on the minority's part.

        To vote, you pay $40, which was ostensibly to be apart of the associated convention, Worldcon. Now, imagine that we asked all voters in a general election to pay to vote, you'd likely drain off a lot of people interested in voting who either didn't have the money or simply weren't riled up enough. This may be a positive idea to you, but to me it is anathema to reasonable politics.

        History is also rife with examples of minorities gaming systems for a variety of reasons. Your bold ignorance of this possibility is a little alarming.

        If you do reply, please consider employing facts, reason, dispassion, and normal fonts.

        • (Score: 3, Disagree) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @05:41PM

          by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday April 13 2015, @05:41PM (#169865)

          I really hate to point this out, but reading through the comments, you're only one of a few, mostly anonymous accounts, sounding really angry.

          Surely you see the hypocrisy in claiming an internet minority of natters is perpetually outraged, while being one of a few outraged in an internet forum where the most outraged are in the minority of posts.

          --
          "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
          • (Score: 3, TouchΓ©) by naubol on Monday April 13 2015, @06:03PM

            by naubol (1918) on Monday April 13 2015, @06:03PM (#169881)

            I wish I had mod points so I could mod you "touche".

            You don't hate to point this out, however. And, you haven't added substance, either.

            • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:15PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @09:15PM (#169995)

              > I wish I had mod points so I could mod you "touche".

              You misspelled douche.

          • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday April 13 2015, @07:29PM

            by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Monday April 13 2015, @07:29PM (#169928) Homepage

            Yeah, saying that certain minorities dominate U.S. politics is racist. And we all know that racists should be ignored, censored, and banned; and that they are angry and there is no truth to anything they say.

            Because racists' cocks aren't as big as the Big, Black ones.

            • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:27AM

              by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @05:27AM (#170772) Journal

              On the plus side my trousers/pants only need two legs … wait, what? :3

              *sings a little of Grace Jones' β€œPull Up To The Bumper” [wikipedia.org] (long black limousine etc.) before watching Aphex Twin's β€œWindowlicker” [wikipedia.org]ΒΉ* (and that must be one of the most epic Wikipedia pages ever, far better than the page on β€œCome To Daddy” [wikipedia.org] another song which also has a hilarious videoΒ²).

              ΒΉ β€œWindowlicker” on YouTube here [youtube.com] (longer is better).
              Β² β€œCome To Daddy” on YouTube here [youtube.com] (perhaps less accessible comedy).

              Sorry for the derailment and thank you for triggering a revisit to those videos, I really needed a few good laughs today and feel much better now :)

              --
              Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
          • (Score: 1, TouchΓ©) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:24PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @08:24PM (#169959)

            > I really hate to point this out, but reading through the comments,
            > you're only one of a few, mostly anonymous accounts, sounding really angry.

            Ah, the "you mad bro?" rejoinder.
            Now we know who has the superior argument.

        • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 13 2015, @09:19PM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 13 2015, @09:19PM (#169999) Journal

          But I hear that Noah Ward is top in all the categories!

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by moondrake on Monday April 13 2015, @09:31PM

        by moondrake (2658) on Monday April 13 2015, @09:31PM (#170006)

        >I'm still trying to figure out how a minority secured a majority of the votes in the nominations

        Where did you read they got a majority (its not in the summary or article AFAICT)? I guess they just got the most votes compared to other candidates. That is pretty unsurprising:

        Strategic voting is a major problem for some voting systems. Including the Hugos. Suppose there are 100 votes and 58 novels. We can go in details and argue about distribution, but the gist of this story stays the same so lets assume the 3 best novels normally each get about 15 votes, the remaining votes (55) go to the 55 remaining ones (some of these people voted on a novel not because it was that good, but because they liked some aspect, perhaps because they though it had a nice political message, but since there are usually several novels for which this applies, things average out), so the remaining novels get just 1-2 votes at max.

        Now, a minority of 20 voters collude together and all vote on the pretty lackluster, but very right wing novel X. It gets 21 votes suddenly!

        Minorities get majorities all the time. Especially when the options are limited. Look at Republicans smiling when there are other moderate independent candidates (or v.v. when there are more conservative independent candidates)

        • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Monday April 13 2015, @10:28PM

          by Vanderhoth (61) on Monday April 13 2015, @10:28PM (#170039)

          This is a very good point I hadn't considered. The conservative government in Canada won a majority of the government with just 30-39% of the popular vote, so the make up a majority with just a third of all the votes.

          --
          "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:28PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2015, @10:28PM (#170038)

        The minority did not get a majority, they got a plurality. The exact numbers won't be released until the awards are announced (i.e. after the final votes are in and counted), but the Sad/Rapid Puppies slate could not have had the majority of the votes given that it did not sweep Best Novel (which tends to get the most votes). A fifth of the nominating votes or even less is usually enough to get on the shortlist. The difference is that instead of the Sad/Rapid Puppies being encouraged to consider certain works for nomination, they were encouraged to vote for a specific slate whether they were familiar with the works or not.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday April 13 2015, @10:30PM

    by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Monday April 13 2015, @10:30PM (#170040) Journal

    Ya know, this is why a card carrying socialist like myself is beginning to fucking HATE the left wingers. You go to the conservative sites, even Faux News, and guess what? You can be as fucking left wing as you want to and they will NOT silence you. Oh they may call you a moron, talk about you being a dumbass bleeding heart, etc but they WILL allow you to speak.

    Now compare this to the left wing sites after the so called "gamergate" (which after 2 of the so called "victims" were caught actually attacking themselves and threatening themselves because the dumb shits forgot to log out their accounts before they started throwing attacks and DOXXing themselves I wouldn't trust a word any of them say as there went their credibility) like The Escapist and Ars and HuffyPo and what do you see? They are banning everybody left and right that doesn't fucking guzzle the koolaid and line up to kiss their asses and be good little toadies. For fucks sake they have 2 of the main mods on Escapist that outright fucking BRAG about how damned left wing biased they are and that isn't a problem because they are "progressive thinkers" so its okay.

    I don't know about the rest of you but I can't fucking stand hypocrites and it seems like that is pretty much all that is left on the left side of the aisles anymore, its okay if WE treat minorities like tokens but YOU better follow our racial narrative, its okay if OUR leader does spying, and wiretapping, and drones and bombing but YOU better not do any of that shit or YOU are a monster, their entire platform is nothing but a platform of hypocrisy and racist shit!

    And I want to say something to all those conservatives that were run out of the tent by the neocons and moral majority types...okay I get it now, I'm sorry I used to make fun of you for losing your own party. Before I could not understand how in the hell you could "lose" a party like that but now I see, it starts slowly like a cancer and it spreads, then they get their voices in the MSM and the next thing you know you are sitting outside the tent going "WTF happened?". I get that now because as a liberal socialist of the 70s the left WAS a party for individual rights over the state, of making sure EVERYBODY was treated equally, of valuing people not for their color or demographic but as people, and making sure nobody fell through the cracks. Well now left wing means progressive stacks and protected classes, political correctness treated as a religion of its own, so damned badly in fact the UK let pedos prey on white girls for fricking years because they were of a "protected class" and therefor it would "seem racist" if you busted them, it has taken everything those of us stood for in the 60s and 70s and taken a big steamer all over the damned thing, to the point they even practice classic Orwell doublespeak and will redefine what words mean on the damned fly!

    As for TFA? No Mr Martin its NOT some sort of "conservative conspiracy" which just FYI those on the radical left tries to blame when somebody don't buy your bullshit, its the simple fact that the vast majority? Are NOT ultra radical politically correct left wingers, in fact you can take a hundred polls and see everyone puts the majority right smack dab in the middle. What is happening Mr Martin is just like the gamers the Sci Fi fans are sick and damned tired of THEIR pastime getting hijacked to push more and more uberleft (I would argue outright classical Marxist) politics and beliefs instead of simply allowing ALL to have a voice. I read the living hell out of Sci Fi from the 60s-80s and ya know what? While there has always been a little of the "planet of hats" kind of Sci-Fi a hell of a lot more of the Sci-Fi was the "what if" variety, about everything from time travel to robot worlds to a million fantastical places that you could read about for ages just because of how insanely beautiful the places sounded...not anymore. Now you pick up a book of short stories and its politics, politics, and oh yeah....politics. We get enough of that shit in our daily lives Mr Martin, we are sick and tired of getting it shoved in our pastimes too. I wonder how long it'll be before we find the equivalent of GG in the Sci-Fi world? Because I have zeroi doubt these Sci-Fi publishers are picking writers and stories based on how closely it follows the political narrative, there is too much sameness for it to be otherwise.

    • (Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:16AM

      by Reziac (2489) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @02:16AM (#170158) Homepage

      Yep, no argument there.

      As I point out above, in fairness one should also read Correia's response to Martin:

      http://monsterhunternation.com/2015/04/09/a-response-to-george-r-r-martin-from-the-author-who-started-sad-puppies/ [monsterhunternation.com]

      I've tried to keep up with both sides, but it very quickly became apparent that only one side was a "safe" place to post a dissenting opinion, and as you say, that's with the 'conservative' side. You might get argued with, mocked, or called a moron, but you won't be shouted down, disemvoweled, or silenced.

      --
      And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
      • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:27AM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 14 2015, @03:27AM (#170187) Journal

        This is why the conservatives have earned a LOT of respect from me, because most of their beliefs may be "trickle upon" dumb as a bag of hammers but ya know what? They DO allow other opinions and go out of their way NOT to censor the opposition! What we are seeing is the ones banning dissent, erasing posts, and calling for people to be attacked and even be jailed? It AIN'T the right wingers folks, its the left. Their so called "diversity" doesn't apply to thought or speech.

        And talk about fucking racism! That is all the progressive stack is, its racism just putting different races in the "good" race and "shit" race columns. We that grew up in the 70s believed that ALL races should be equal, that a man should be measured by the content of their character, but fuuuck that says the new radical left, its ALL about what race and sex you are! Do you have ANY idea how many I've talked to that have said "Yay Hillary is running!" and when I say "Can you name me ONE, just one, policy she has that you support? Can you even name ANYTHING that you like about her other than her gender?"...crickets. Say what you will about the right but everybody I talked to that wanted to vote Romney could actually tell me of at least one policy of his they supported! But don't you dare point that out, or you are a misogynist pushing white male privilege and should be banned!

        That is why I have to give the props to the conservatives, I may think they are full of shit but they allow me to say it without trying to erase me from the net.

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
        • (Score: 3, TouchΓ©) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:48AM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @05:48AM (#170236) Journal

          OK, Hairy, we get it, you are officially old and so are settling into the "conservative" camp, in spite of being all hippyish in your younger days. Nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you're honest about it. I truly hope you enjoy watching Fox News from now on, and saying "Benghazi, Benghazi!" a lot. But I have to ask, why do you think any of us need to know this? And what does it have to do with the Hugo awards? Does Micro$erf actually pay you when you go "off the reservation" like this?

          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:32AM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:32AM (#170259) Journal

            Oh go and fuck yourself you damned SJW! I believe in universal healthcare, that every person should be treated equally, that all deserve a home, food, clothes, and access to medical care no matter what race or income, I believe that gays should be given the same rights as straights, that we should not go to war for "national interests" but only to actually protect ourselves against those that attack us directly....where in the fuck does that make me a "conservative"?

            Just because I refuse to believe that some races and sexes are better than the others, refuse to believe in an "oppression scale" that allows those that have been oppressed in the past to be oppressive now, and will never EVAR in a million fucking eons will I EVAR support censoring or even jailing people for speech...but THAT is what an SJW considers "progressive" so if you consider everyone that isn't a member of the PC police a "conservative"? Then I hate to break the news to ya but a good 90% of the planet must be right wing.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:40AM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @07:40AM (#170262) Journal

              Please continue, Sir! (My god this is getting tiring. Hairy, just admit it already, you have crossed the great divide, you have bought the right-wing media portrayal of the left that you used to be part of. And now you are defending racists and sexists because they, too, have a point of view. Next, Nazi's weren't so bad? We won't censor you, but your rants are becoming less coherent, and definitely less interesting. So, who is your favorite Science Fiction author?)

              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:53AM

                by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:53AM (#170278) Homepage Journal

                This is ridiculous. The problem with claiming 'All nazis are bad people' is not that all nazis are not bad people, it is that you can pretty much call anyone bad by calling them nazi without proving why they are bad. For example, this is exactly what you have done. People like you ruin left. It is like that moron who read one book on newtonian physics and now goes around calling all physicists a pseudo-scientists for believing in relativity.

                • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:11PM

                  by Vanderhoth (61) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @04:11PM (#170435)

                  I'm in agreement there. In the early days of GamerGate the FIRST thing the media and opposition did was, "GAMERGATE IS MOSIGYONIST, GAMERGATE IS THE KKK, GAMERGATE IS WORSE THAN ISIS, GAMERGATE ARE LITERAL NAZIS" and people sucked it up.

                  Go to just about ANY game site and say you feel ethics are a good thing for journalists, or professionals in general, to strive for and it's, "STFU YOU GAMERGATE GOON!!"

                  It's all guilt by association. Make your opposition such a taboo that anyone fence sitting will be afraid to accidentally fall on to their side.

                  --
                  "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
                • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:21AM

                  by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:21AM (#170795) Journal

                  OMG. Let's do the math. You are a Nazi. Now, you may not buy into that whole "superior Race" thing, but you are loyal to your nation that seems to have bought into it. And rounding up Communists, Socialists (other than the Nationalist kind, of course), Homosexuals, Jews, Gypsies, and actual Catholics, you did not agree with any of that, even though you participated in it. And the whole work/death camp thing of the "final solution", yes you acceded to it but it always seemed a bit extreme to you. Couldn't we just send these aberrant writers of science fiction to another country instead of killing them all? Of course, as a "good" Nazi, you would never dare say such a thing, and so by silent tacit consent, you are responsible for the entire Nazi program. That is what it means to say there are no good Nazis, if they were good, they would be in the camps as a political prisoner. not still wearing the uniform and bearing arms. So what of the Sad Puppies? Good Nazis, or Bad Nazis? Not so bad right wing fanatics and Mormons, or just Science fictions writers who want to be able to have a hard-on and conquer evil lesser races, like Slavs? Let's not go all Godwin at once, since I really think it is possible to get there by slow steps. "Service guarantees Citizenship! Want to know more?" Fascism, pure and simple, only redeeming quality is that it is fiction, after all.

                  • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:10AM

                    by cubancigar11 (330) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @09:10AM (#170863) Homepage Journal

                    What do you mean by 'You are a nazi'?

                    You are a woman. Now you may not have a vagina, or you might even like girls... ugh.. the brain is already hurting by imitating your strenuous reply. Just. Keep it simple stupid.

                    • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:05AM

                      by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:05AM (#171485) Journal

                      Evidently I did not keep it simple enough for you. I would give you a "whoosh", but I am afraid that would go right over your head as well. Stay cool, bro, don't ever change!

                      • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:56AM

                        by cubancigar11 (330) on Saturday April 18 2015, @11:56AM (#172365) Homepage Journal

                        You can't make so many assumptions and keep it is generalized. I don't know what your personal experiences are but most things don't happen with so much planning or are how things run. At some time you need to stop looking at rest of the humanity under discovery channel - as if there are certain 'type' of people and this or that is their behavior.

              • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:24PM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Tuesday April 14 2015, @09:24PM (#170558) Journal

                Kiss my hair ass SJW, you can't find a single fucking conservative blog, not a single fucking website, that supports even HALF of what I just listed, because because I won't grovel and beg like a beta male like yourself "I MUST be X" because you are sooo damned programmed to grovel and beg anybody that doesn't MUST be the enemy!

                Go and kiss the feet of a woman and cry about your CIS white male privilege somewhere else SJW, your kind is an ass cancer on the ass of society and the only nice thing I can say is thank the Gods I do not believe in that no woman will give your kind any pussy so you'll die off in a single generation, probably caring for some woman's half a dozen kids by other men while she fucks around on you.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
                • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:19PM

                  by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday April 14 2015, @10:19PM (#170593) Journal

                  So you have read "Fifty Shades of Gray"!
                  Accusations that someone may not be able to control the fertility of their female is very misogynist, by the way. And what makes you think I am male, anyway?

    • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:03AM

      by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:03AM (#170789) Journal

      100% agreement, thank you for voicing what those of us who (in this case) are not socialists simply can't do in the same manner, as well as informing the rest of us (for example I haven't paid much attention to Gamergate and very seldom end up at places like Huffington since I'm not part of the target audience). It's no consolation but it's happening to a lot of different people (and sometimes more than once) as you've already pointed out and maybe, hopefully (I hate that word but can't find a good alternative), many are learning ultimately beneficial lessons (to all) the hard way.

      I can only chime in that it's no better in Europe on a range of topics, if anything perhaps a little worse although in some ways maybe a bit better. One example is that people have relatively new political alternatives, sometimes both on the right and the left as in the UK i.e. both UKIP and the Green Party, not that either manages to avoid all the baggage (disclaimer: I'm not British either). Not that it will do much good if people don't want to vote for them or others like them (not that I trust either polling or voting any more but that's in some ways beside the point and more a result of increased general active distrust than anything else). And even when there aren't yet new alternatives there are at least hints of internal rise of awareness and constructive internal division (but it might still be a pipe dream).

      Anyway: thank you.

      --
      Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:48AM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday April 15 2015, @08:48AM (#170857) Journal

        I actually learned about it from my gay son, who was told he "wasn't really gay" and threatened as well for simply saying "Having the press be objective is a good thing, no matter the profession". It was then I first tried actually rationally talking to the SJWs....after all I'm a socialist, in fact come from a long line of socialists going back to my great grandfather who was a card carrying socialist during the depression, so if these people are "left wing" then surely we can have a rational discussion of their beliefs since we MUST have some common ground to work from....right?

        OH FUCK NO, these people are to the left what the Aryan Nation is to the right, they are soooo fucking far off the deep end that honestly? I do not think anybody should even use the term "left wing" because they are so fucking racist, sexist, and outright hate filled I seriously can't find a single thing they have in common with the classical term of leftist. Look up "progressive stack" to see how your voice means NOTHING unless you are one of the "historically oppressed classes" and even then your voice counts ONLY if you agree with them, otherwise you are a "token" or a "sockpuppet" of a CIS white male. The amount of hatred they have spewed at gays, the disabled such as telling one man who couldn't walk he was a "worthless fat fuck" and hoped he die of AIDS simply for saying he disagreed with their attacking minorities and called for civil discussion. As I said they threatened my son and called him a puppet for daring to say what he said, attacked me as a "CIS racist misogynist" for saying we should all be equal and that calling every man who doesn't support radical feminism a "rape apologist" was simply throwing names instead of debating the subject, hell I could go on all day with example after example from their very own mouths where you are either with them 100% on every issue or you are a fucking monster.

        And the way they treat white men is just disgusting, it goes against everything Dr King fought for and we struggled for in the 60s until today. If you are a white male you are worthless, it is your function to have NO pride in yourself, your sole function is to grovel and beg forgiveness of every single thing a white man has ever done even if it had nothing to do with you. the fact my relatives were in Ireland during slavery and were treated no better than blacks when they got here (I'm sure you've seen the "no niggers, no Chinks, No Irish" signs from back then) doesn't matter, I'm white so therefor I somehow "earned privilege" simply from being born white. As I said in another post racism is racism and the way they argued that hate crime laws were wrong NOT because charging people for what may have been in their heart was wrong but instead because a black man that set a 14 year old boy on fire while yelling "Kill a whitey for Treyvon!" was threatened with charged with a hate crime while "not taking into account historical racism"...so its okay to be racist and commit an obvious hate crime as long as the target is white?

        This is why, while I have ZERO beliefs in ANYTHING their party stands for? I can at least give respect to the right wing for valuing free speech and refusing to censor those like me that don't believe as they do. Go to any of the sites the SJWs frequent and see how quickly even the most rational speech that doesn't follow their cult like groupthink gets banned. They scream about being attacked but when somebody has a different opinion, or points out when key figures they practically worship was caught attacking themselves because they forgot to log out before they started trolling for sympathy? You will see what they are REALLY about as here comes the threats, the insults, the attacks. Notice how that one refused to believe I could be ANYTHING other than an ultra right winger simply because i did not subscribe to radical Marxism and what they call "positive racism", you see you can't have a difference of opinion because they are always right about everything therefor the ONLY answer is you are "the other" which is fair game.

        Again please don't take my word for it, speak to them yourselves, its not hard to find where the SJWs hang out. You'll find out they aren't activists, and certainly not the left wing, if anything they display a cult like behavior that reminds me of groups...well like the Aryan Nation, The Birthers, and other groups that are so radical nobody would seriously consider to be in the same tent as those that are left OR right.

        • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Wednesday April 15 2015, @12:07PM

          by Vanderhoth (61) on Wednesday April 15 2015, @12:07PM (#170916)

          Just point people to GamerGhazi and ask them to go talk to them. Ghazi has been the best thing to push anyone on to the pro-GamerGate side.

          http://reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi [reddit.com]

          Five minutes with those wackos is everything you just described. They will right out mock, shame and ban anyone for any dissenting opinions. What's ridiculous is it's almost always cis-white-males claiming they're speaking for all women and minorities, while attacking women and minorities. Here's just one of many examples I can provide, if you scroll up in the conversation he even uses the "internalized misogyny" argument on someone after she told him she was a women.

          https://twitter.com/JQWhiskeyGinger/status/588153376296329217 [twitter.com]

          --
          "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
          • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:16PM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Wednesday April 15 2015, @06:16PM (#171102) Journal

            They are....well I originally hated the term because too many tried to use it to label somebody by how they look, but if the shoe fits...beta males that have been so browbeaten by the radicals that all they can do is grovel and beg, its damned shameful really. I have literally seen one go on and on about how whites are worthless and should be wiped from the earth and blacks should be given control of the planet...and he was as white as a '64 Barbie doll. It was truly pathetic just how beaten down they are, they have ZERO pride in themselves, their history, nothing. No pride at all, just groveling and begging. Its disgusting.

            And for all their talk I have NEVER in all my years of the Internet met a group more racist, not even close. For all their talk about how great the other races are members of those races better not have a differing opinion, otherwise they are a "token" that is "cooning" or even be told they outright do not exist, as they could ONLY be a sockpuppet of a CIS white male, which is their bogey man. Which as you pointed out is ironic as hell as the majority there are CIS white males!

            I'll be sure to point them there because as I said they really don't need to take MY word for any of it, trying to have a rational dialog with an SJW is all it takes to see what a pit of vipers they are. Narcissist, racist, hate filled, sexist, and so programmed by dogma they make a Scientologist look like a free thinker. that is why that SJW can accuse me of being "an unperson" all he wants (bet my last buck its a beta CIS white male) but I have been to some of the most ardent right wing websites and even though we have exactly fuck and all in common, and my viewpoints are in direct opposition to everything they support....I've never been banned, never been silenced, hell I can't even remember a single one of them threatening me unless you call saying "I should get to try living under communism" as a threat ( because apparently the right don't know that socialism and communism are 2 different things) but nobody called for me to be silenced or outright murdered...sure as fuck did on the SJW side though, that and a LOT worse.

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:10AM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday April 16 2015, @09:10AM (#171487) Journal

              I have literally seen one go on and on about how whites are worthless and should be wiped from the earth and blacks should be given control of the planet...and he was as white as a '64 Barbie doll.

              Sounds good to me, Hairfoot! Better than having to run Micro$oft! And I am whiter than all Barbie dolls. You do refer to Klaus Barbie, do you not? So, what militia do you belong to?

              • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:46AM

                by Vanderhoth (61) on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:46AM (#171507)

                Wow, that was really uncalled for. Unfortunately over the last 8 months, I've actually seen people making the argument Hairyfeet was talking about. There are terrible people out there that say and do terrible things in the name of "Social Justice". I have no issue with giving people a leg up, I have a huge problem with cut off the legs of those who are doing better, whether it's because they're privileged or because they just worked hard or even maybe because they're women/minorities that just don't fall in line.

                https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588532142210093060 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588538384156614657 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588538873371758592 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/ListerTheFister/status/588541605734436864 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/ListerTheFister/status/588544528614879233 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/ParanoidsBible/status/588550559575252992 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/demasking_woo/status/588533037790588928 [twitter.com]
                https://twitter.com/MyOwnGalPal/status/588536995485356032 [twitter.com]

                There's a ton more in the #StopWebH8 tag, but I think the above kind of makes the point
                https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%23StopWebH8&src=tyah [twitter.com]

                --
                "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
                • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:29PM

                  by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday April 16 2015, @12:29PM (#171548) Journal

                  See what I mean? He is white and calling for the murder of his own race....THAT is how programmed and browbeaten he is, he literally can have ZERO pride in anything about himself because he is a beta white male. And notice how it does not matter that I am a card carrying socialist that believes in everything from gay rights to universal health care because I won't grovel and beg for forgiveness for things nobody in my family ever did (as I said we were in Ireland during slavery and when we got here we were poor share croppers that were discriminated against ourselves) I MUST be a right winger because only a right winger could ever be against them, special snowflakes that they are.

                  And there have to be a couple of admins at this site that is SJWs because myself and several others have pointed out that several users have been targeted by modbombing...not a damned thing has been done. Hell I had one post that simply said "You can't judge how old a PC is by it coming with XP as it was sold nationally until 2009" that went from +5 to -1 to +5 more than 3 times in less than 12 hours! And looking at my messages just yesterday I had multiple posts doing the same thing, +5 to 0 to +5 over and over....this is not surprising as SJWs do not believe anybody but themselves have the right to free speech but you can be sure its gonna turn off a lot of people from contributing here as nobody likes a biased site.

                  But of course this sadly is the SOP of the SJW, get in a position with a little bit of clout and wreck the joint, and if they can't do that use an army or sockpuppets to bury anybody who does not think like they do, no matter the race or sex. I have ZERO doubt if you look at those under modbomb attack you'll find its only a couple of IP addresses that are doing this to the same users over and over AND OVER, this is obviously stalking, but again not a thing will be done. Its sad as I had high hopes for this site but now find myself spending more and more time at pipedot.

                  --
                  ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
                  • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:52PM

                    by Vanderhoth (61) on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:52PM (#171587)

                    if they can't do that use an army or sockpuppets

                    An interesting tactic I've seen used in comment sections using Disqus, people will create sock accounts and go argue with people. After they've racked up hundreds of comments, they delete the account leaving a ton of comments all marked as "guest" which makes it look like there was a shit ton of people in the comments disagreeing with like 20 people. When in fact it was 1 - 2 people arguing with everyone else.

                    My theory is they used named accounts because they suspect people will be on their side and/or as a signifier for others that they're an ally so they can "circle jerk" and "dog pile" certain commenters. If things go south, they delete the named account making it look like exponentially more people were on their side. This actually happened on the ABC Nightline video that linked Anita Sarkeesian's "harassment" with GamerGate

                    This was a very insightful video [youtube.com] that explains the mentality and how people could use conformity to trick people into thinking they're going against popular opinion, which either keeps them from speaking out or gets them to join in so they conform to the group.

                    Just reading though the SN comments on this article you notice a ton of Anonymous comments, a lot use language and grammar signifiers that you could pretty confidently say they're coming from the same person. You might even be able to pick out the named account with a pretty high degree of certainty the AC comments are actually coming from if you read really carefully. People trying to make it sound like anyone not denouncing Sad Puppies are on board because of some "conspiracy" or they talk about "secret cabals", when in fact it's been known for years there are individual authors self promoting, submitted slates and campaigned for votes. There's nothing conspiratorial or secret about it, but a good way to discredit someone is to make them look like a conspiracy nut. Even if they have actual evidence and can point to specific people and recorded past behavior supporting it.

                    If you can't attack the argument, attack the person making it.

                    --
                    "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
                    • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:16PM

                      by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday April 16 2015, @08:16PM (#171715) Journal

                      Don't forget the stalking, my son ended up getting rid of his FB account because he was constantly getting attacks from SJWs simply because he was a gay that refused to support their bullshit. I've had to spend entire weekends dealing with tech support at sites like Yahoo and Google because they would try to lock me out of my account by making repeatedly login attempts until it would throw a flag on their system.

                      And like I said I had high hopes that this site would be a return to the old Slash, where we could actually talk about tech without all the political bullshit but myself and several others have been stalked and modbombed almost daily (some others are reporting their are under constant attack) and the response from the admins? they just mod the person back up, which does fuck and all about the stalking and sockpuppets. I mean its really not hard to spot, hell I could probably write a script in 5 minutes that would flag and highlight modbombers...when you have a single IP address downmodding the same user on multiple posts or multiple times? Its a modbomber. If a person gets modded to +5 and then suddenly drops to 0 the day after it leaves the front page where the majority won't see what is going on? Modbomb.

                      If a site doesn't stop shit? You can be pretty sure that one or more admins support it, because any rational person knows that if you let shit like this goes on it just emboldens the stalkers and they WILL escalate. I saw this on other sites, such as OSNews where they said "Its a free speech issue"...until they ended up with a couple articles that were filled with over 200 posts by brand new accounts saying "choke on a cock you dyke bitch" targeting a lesbian poster that was being stalked. If you wanna see what this site will end up if they don't get a handle on it? Look at the forums of Jezebel or the Escapist, where its nothing but a handful of "yes I agree completely" asskissers that agree with everything the admins say or do while the userbase dies as nobody wants to contribute to an echo chamber.

                      --
                      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by Vanderhoth on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:49AM

              by Vanderhoth (61) on Thursday April 16 2015, @10:49AM (#171509)

              Wish I could respond to more than one person at a time, because my response to aristarchus above was also a response agreeing with you, in spite of the fact I rarely agree with you.

              --
              "Now we know", "And knowing is half the battle". -G.I. Joooooe
              • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:17PM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <bassbeast1968NO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday April 16 2015, @01:17PM (#171570) Journal

                That's okay Vanderhoth, I rarely agree with you either but unlike aristarchus (who I really wouldn't be surprised to find out he is one of my modbombing stalkers) support you 100% in your right to express your disagreement and differing opinion.

                As I told someone on Ars I have been stalked across multiple websites, been DOXXed and have been threatened, had one of them follow me around for over a year that would post over and over "die you fat fuck DIE!!" dozens of times any place I posted, even had to deal with multiple attempts to have my online accounts broken into but I will NEVER be silenced and will NEVER support silencing of those with differing opinions.

                Oh sure I may call them a dumbass, may post citations to back up my position or come up with a test to show their BS is BS like with the challenge, but my grandfather and great uncle suffered their entire lives from what happened to them in WWII so I will never support and will fight tooth and nail against anybody that tries to silence free speech, even if I don't agree with a single word they say. That is the difference between a socialist like myself and an SJW, we socialists welcome debate and will be happy to argue our positions for hours, someone who is programmed by dogma like the SJWs? Will insult and try to silence. They remind me of cults like Scientology or Stefan Molyneux with his "DeFOOing", one is simply not allowed to have any opinion but theirs or you are "other" and MUST be wiped out.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.