Topic: Alison Rapp no longer with Nintendo Treehouse

@VelvetElvis: Name one ? I can name a few: Quinn, Wu, Harper, Sarkeesian. All making 2k+ bucks for doing absolutely nothing but moaning about their "harassers".
As for media, you hit the nail on the head with Kotaku. Pretty much everything Gawker owned.
And you can look up how well they are doing due to their very ethical standards right now.

All of them had their 5 minutes in the limelight on TV. Have you ever seen a media outlet try to reach out to the other side of the debate ? I havent.

Again, if its so well documented, point me in the general direction to see those "daily harassments". Id love to be proven wrong, really. All ive seen are claims and accusations without evidence.

And people would love to discuss this...which is impossible, since any and all communication is blocked by these people. Blockbots, blacklists etc. There is no discussion happening, just one sided accusations with anyone speaking against it being labeled a "harasser".

The Kotaku article linked to a Neo Nazi blog post.... I won't link but I will quote part of it:

.................

Needless to say I think that it's not particularly wise to rush into attacking her. Not when these guys are leading the charge. I certainly wouldn't go around pretending that there was no online harassment. You think crap like the above would exist and there not be any attacks? I highly doubt it.

@Einherjar, you've got to be kidding me. "Absolutely nothing but moaning?" The women you listed are working game developers, narrative consultants, creators of initiatives like the Game Developer Help List, or producers of extremely detailed video analyses of gender issues in gaming — just to name a few projects. Whether you agree with their views or not, your statement is insultingly untrue in every sense of both the words "insulting" and "untrue."

Yes, journalists do reach out to both sides of the debate. Even the cited Kotaku pieces feature coverage of both ends, including quotes from Walton of the Wayne Foundation and those who oppose the Fire Emblem localization changes among others. (And speaking of Kotaku, yes I agree that Gawker is not the most savory of organizations — but individual writers are not Gawker, and writers on Gawker's payroll have been covering the Rapp story pretty thoroughly).

Maybe NPR, Stanford University, Slate Magazine, CBS News and Polygon aren't diverse enough sources for you, but these tip-of-the-iceberg articles all provide plenty of examples of said harassment. That's about three minutes worth of searching, by the way. Though as much as you'd "love" to change your mind given evidence, I somehow doubt my plentiful, promptly delivered, easily accessible evidence will have any effect. I'd genuinely love to be wrong on that count, though.

I have no idea what you mean by "all communication is blocked by these people." Most of these women, if that's what you mean, are fairly public figures who get abusive messages in their public inboxes each day. Ironically, like every single point you've made thus far, this is a statement that is actually an "accusation without evidence."

And, yes, there is discussion happening. Speaking of evidence, if those numerous links aren't proof enough of it, here we are — discussing. No one here is calling you a harasser; I do think you're not very well informed of the situation. I don't know whether that's willful ignorance or not. Forgive me if my tone is heated (this topic gets me passionate), but I certainly don't think you're a harasser.

@skywake: Attacking her personally is, in general, not wise. It simply has nothing to do with all of this.
Controversy build due to statements she made on her business account, instead of clearing up misunderstandings, she blocked and mocked people and the whole thing escalated.

Criticise her PR work but leave the woman alone.

What irks me though, is that shes starting to actively lie about the whole case, that people "dug up" her moonlighting that she "posted under a fake name" when she endorsed her cam shows and lewd pics on her business account...

I mean, mocking people and not answering questions is bad PR in and of itself, but lies wont make the whole situation better. Well, maybe for those who wont take the five minutes necessary to look a little deeper into it and flat out believe everything they get told.

@Einherjar:
I honestly don't know enough about it to comment. Frankly I didn't care much about this at all until I saw it under "tending news" in my twitter feed this morning. I've made a point in the past of keeping out of this whole mess. IMO both sides have stepped over the mark at one point or another.

Now IMO what she was actually let go for is beside the point. Again, I don't care. I'm not going to have a go at Nintendo for "bowing" to the pressure of one group or another. I'm not going to have a go at her for being "unprofessional". That's between her and her previous employer.

That said, from what I've read just today about this? I think it's definitely clear that there were some people who were attacking her online. That's clearly not a good thing. And from what I can tell they were attacking her with claims that she supported paedophilia and also because she was apparently part of Nintendo's "censorship" of games. Now if you read the paper she wrote which is the source of those claims? People are clearing missing the mark. That's clearly not her position.

@skywake: dude, who do you think you're talking to? It wasn't GamerGate supporters. However it was mostly anti sex-trafficking activist, parents and general Nintendo fans that went after Nintendo for Allison's opinion. Allison also isn't the nicest towards Nintendo fans that disagree with her, so that fueled it too.

You think OpTorrentialDownpour (Lot of non GG supporters are part of it) and #Gamergate was responsible for her getting fired? She got herself fired. Nintendo would have found out about her photoshoot that she posted to her Twitter that she associates with Nintendo on. Without all the noise.

@R-L-A-George:
Again, I don't care why she was fired and I wasn't commenting on that. Read my post again.

@skywake, I think we're debating with walls here. What you're saying is simple and makes sense.

@VelvetElvis: This is the internet, such is the nature of things here

@VelvetElvis Harper is a notorious harasser herself, Wu is a notorious lier, Quinn is generally completely irrelevant and Sarkeesian is a fraud, but thats a whole discussion in and of itself.
So lets not derail in that direction, lets discuss that another time.

Just an example, lets pick Sarkeesian, the biggest earner in this bunch:
Her new Crowdfunding campaign (Ordinary Woman) didnt go all that well. In response to it, another campaign was started by "The amazing Atheist" calles "Extraordinary People", collectig money for a womans rights organisation directly.
The moment this campaign overtook hers, she got an article published, claiming this campaign was a harassment campaign against her.

Im not talking about quoting tweets, im talking about speaches, interviews, TV specials, general media coverage. Instead, you have a Wu TV special that was basically completely fabricated. And no one batted an eye about that. Saying that she lied is harassment after all.

What i mean by all communication is blocked is exactly that: Again, lets take Sarkeesian. YT channel has all comments blocked, PMs dont get responses, on Twitter she uses a blockbot and has accounts blocked that never even knew she existed, emails fare as well as YT PMs do. No response, no open discussion, no (constructive) critique allowed.

Also, just because i dont share your opinion on this case doesnt mean i am "not properly informed". I followed the whole BS for almost 2 years now, i think i do know what im talking about here. And whyt you might think is irrelevant, although i do appreciate your judgement
Jokes aside, this label has been thrown around quite often now, cutting off any further discussion. Because who would talk to a harasser, right ?

Since i havent slept all night, let me close this with the following:
I dont care about what this woman thinks, no matter how controversial it might be.
Its non of my business.
But working in PR, blocking people and mocking them from behind this block is not a good business practice. Neither is the fact that she used this account for both, Nintendo PR business and promoting her own lewd photoshoots.

I personally criticize her for her bad work and for the fact that she is now actively lying about it.
Everything else should not not matter at all.
She is partially to blame for this controversys escalation, since she refused to rebut these claims and instead, continued mocking critics. Again, not a good job if a PR person cant calm down critics. Thats literally her job.

I hate mobbing as much as the next guy, but ive seen too many people claiming harassment over the last years profiting off of it while actual victims were left in the rain, since the media was preoccupied promoting their own clique. Have i grown numb to it ? Probably and this IS an issue, definitly.
But im simply sick and tired of people profiting off of lies.

Id like to say thanks to you all for this civil discussion of a rather heated topic, but im off to bed, hopefully getting some sleep.

@skywake: than why are you even associating GG with her?

@R-L-A-George:
Because they're associated with the harassment of her. Again, I'm not commenting on why she was fired. I am commenting on the people online who harassed her. Whatever group they were from and whatever they want to call themselves.

They were not only abusive which is reason enough to be appalled by it. They created a noise because she was a feminist and a woman in an attempt to get her fired. All because they didn't like her "tone" and Nintendo's decisions in regards to NA localisations. The more they dug the more they worked themselves into a frenzy. The paper she wrote in particular, there's nothing she needs to answer in regards to that. If anything that paper suggests she'd be in support of "OpTorrentialDownpour"

And again, why she was actually fired? It's beside the point. I don't care. Did she do something wrong in order to get fired? Most probably. Whatever she did do if she did it then she's clearly paid for it. But that doesn't change the build up to it which is inexcusable. It's the groups behind all of that noise which I think are the biggest offenders.

Don't worry - with the patreon pity bucks and favour from the crooked Twitter Safety Council, she'll be set for a few years yet. She might even decide to become a prolific games developer like Brianna Wu or Zoe Quinn.

It distresses me to see Nintendolife take one side in the story though - no mention of how she was targeted by child protection charity The Wayne Foundation. Nope - just blame it all on the misogynerd GG supporters who actually happen to be white priveliged hetero men who won't let women into STEM.
ISIS, KKK and Cecil Rhodes.

Man, the amount of GG apologists and sympathizers that frequent Nintendo Life continues to dishearten me. It has been, by far, the biggest disappointment during my time on these forums. It's a smartly written website — why do the forums continue to attract these folks?

Back to @Einherjar, you're right that whether or not we agree with people like Brianna Wu, Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian isn't exactly on topic here. I will say that, whether or not you like their methods or views, I do still think it's extremely reductive and belittling to claim that "all they do is moan." Though I've kept up with the Rapp situation far more than I keep up with Anita, the latter does produce substantial critical analyses — I don't agree with every little point she makes (naturally) but it's the type of genre analysis that helps legitimize the medium that we all care about.

The thing about the cases of blocking YouTube comments or Twitter users or what have you is that it is a direct result of abuse. Here's just one week of collected abusive tweets directed toward Sarkeesian, for instance. That's what I mean when I say all of this stuff is on record — you can't walk an Internet yard without stepping in piles of incredibly hateful vitriol directed at female gaming personalities. Can you blame them for trying to block that sort of noise from their daily lives?

Again, we're verging into how you feel about Feminist Frequency or how you feel about Alison Rapp's job performance. But that's not the point I'm trying to make at all. The point is that abuse toward women in gaming is out there, and it's out there in a big, pervasive, constant way; and it's that abuse that ultimately led to this person getting fired. Without GamerGate-driven abuse, Alison Rapp would still have her job today. That's plain to see. And when abusers get their way, that's an awful precedent for a gaming pillar like Nintendo to set.

Look, I'm not denying that some people use unfortunate situations or even claims of abuse to serve themselves. I don't see that at all in Rapp's situation, seeing as the woman just got fired from what appeared to be her dream job at a company she adores. And I agree that we focus on public gaming figures while others are abused every day, which is unfortunate. But I truly, genuinely hope you won't let those unfortunate, outlying realities — or any sense of numbness — keep you from recognizing abuse when you see it. Because we've got to get to a place where the gaming community is better than this.

Anyway, if there's one thing we can definitely agree on, it's this: It is time for bed.

First of all, @VelvetElvis I have no idea when you joined but it's nice to have someone coming to intellectual debates and bringing good stuff to the table.

Why is it, when women call out harassment, some people try to make them the culprit in some form?

Harassment should be taken seriously in all forms, regardless of who it's aimed at.

I will say this on the topic of the nature of twitter. I sometimes get into political discussions on twitter that are usually nowhere near as heated topics. Often dry topics about various infrastructure projects and electoral reform. Things that are political but don't usually attract much heat. One thing I've learnt from those discussions? Twitter is not a place for subtlety and it can rapidly turn nasty.

So when you have a go at someone for blocking people on twitter? Especially someone with 10k+ followers? I think it's a bit harsh and shows a huge ignorance for the way twitter behaves as a forum. If you know me from how I act on this forum you'd know I'm not the sort of person who'd be quick to block. I can't help but add fuel to the fire but I have thick skin. I'm also not a minority or marginalised group or a lightning rod for that sort of thing. But even I've blocked a couple of people on twitter.

So I wouldn't be so quick whine about people being blocked. I can tell you now that if I was subject to the sort of responses that some of these people get? I would probably delete my account entirely.

@Aviator and @skywake, for the above two posts:

@VelvetElvis: Well, couldnt sleep anyways, damn phone. Just a quick reply:

Sarkeesians "Analyses" are utterly BS. I actually looked forward to her series when it was first announced. Hear videos consist of stolen lets play clips (proven) and false claims (example: Stating that, in Hitman, woman are implemented so the player can murder them to have their way with their bodys, which is all flavors of idiocy) Most of her claims are utter nonsense and in fact, further harm the whole case, as the actual issues arent even tackled.
There are plenty of examples out there, that try to exploit sexism for quick bucks and this woman talks about "strategic butt coverings"... for several million dollars mind you.
Compare it to YouTube channels like SuperBunnyHop who actually does really good in depth analysis of video games (i highly recommend his MGS retrospective). He doesnt make a fraction of that money.

As for the blocked comments and such, this is false.
Many people have been blocked even without ever getting in contact with her. Those who werent blocked, but asked critical questions where then blocked without comment.
Critical comments or discussions were undesired.

And yes, as public figures, i can and will blame them for stating accusations, misandry and general villification without the necessary spine to respond to criticism.
No one needs to waste time responding to trolls, no discussion needed. But any form of criticism against these people is flat out blocked, both negative and constructive.

Regarding the tweet collection: I could show you mine too, i have a bunch of the more funny ones saved on a HDD. Dont get me wrong, i dont want to sugarcoat anything, but these comments, especially the overblown ones, arent anything out of the ordinary.
Pick a random famous YT accound and browse through the comments, you read the same BS.
This type of "abuse" is anything but exclusively aimed at woman.

Again, it started with TorrentialDownpour, which had nothing to to with GamerGate, the media cought wind of it, which got parents to revolt, which ultimately got the Wanye Foundation to take action.
And lets face it, she was sh*t at her job. The fact that she shilled her lewd photoshoots on her business account alone was reason enough to put her on ice. She had her job, because Nintendo wasnt aware and probably didnt even care what she posted there.
If they had monitored her account, this probably would have happened earlier, just without the fireworks.

I DO recognize abuse, but i also recognize lies, at which point my sympathy for said person starts to crumble fast. Also, my definition of online abuse is a little different from what it is slowly becomming.
There was a case, where a fangirl of a cartoon show...steven something, was bullied, because she drew a character of said show thinner than she was protraied in the show itself.
She was bombarded with "fatshaming" and "bodyshaming" accusations until she (unsuccessfully) atempted suicide.

That is a severe case of harassment in my book.
A publik figure, claiming she is bombarded with harassment on a daily basis but just wont stop taking jabs at said "harassers" to provoke reactions raises a couple of eyebrows for me.
Thats the credit im willing to give Rapp. When things got hairy, she packed her stuff and paused social media for a while, going on a trip with her husband.
Thats how you deal with online harassment, you push the off switch on it. You dont continue to provoke while hiding behind block bots or disabled comments. Confirmation bias in a nutshell. Only hear those who support your cause.

Sadly, Rapp tarnished all that with lies soon afterwards, when the whole thing came to an end. Thats the point i lose respect for someone and generally distrust every claim they made. I siply cant stand liers in general.

Long story short, my stance: She was horrible at her job, unfortunate events for which she is at least partially to blame caused her employer to take notice of her work and let her go. Her "too little too late" damage controll consisted of lies, which tarnished the last bit of credibility she had.

This whole debacle could have been entirely avoided by her being more professional. Split accounts, explain misunderstandings instead of mocking people, end of story.
Like @skywake said, her thesis basically fell in line with the recent UN endevour to investigate japanese gaming media due to misogyny alligations, which was rebuttet quickly by "Theres nothing wrong, its a cultural thing, why dont you morons take care of actual womans problems ?".

Albait still controversial, her stance could have been explained as "Stop caring about the products and instead care about the makers". I get that, we dont blame junkies for their suppliers doing. Thats basically the situation with her position also.
But her tweets are highly misunderstandable and misleading. Her refusal to explain it only made it worse. Be honest, if she would have been a politician that was faced with such alligations and she would have refused to answer that, people would equally quick to take this as a confirmation.

Again, not defending anything, but she is no angel in this situation, nor is she the guilt free damsel in distress. She was provocative and cocky and mixed her personal opinion with her business work. Thats asking for trouble.

@Aviator: Are you kidding me ? Randi "set yourself on fire" Harper is infamous for her actions.
http://www.ship2block20.com/hidden-face-hypocrisy-randi-harper/
Stop making it about her gender, she could be a trans-mecha wallaby for all i care, Harper is a vile person, which is a pretty known fact by now.

@skywake "I would probably delete my account entirely." You see, that is the thing here. You wouldnt take pot shots at those that apparently "threaten your life". And thats basically what gets people mad about it. That and the fact, that people are blocked due to "guilt by assumption".
You follow someone they find problematic ? Youre probably on their blocklist already.
The issue isnt blocking out troll noise, the issue is using a block bot to blocj tens of thousands of accounts and still insisting that they keep harassing her... It simply doent add up.

Anyways, i think im through here and i have said anything i wanted. Before this thing blows up even more, ill finally take my leave. If you definitly want a response, please say so and i will reply.
Else, im going to be quiet now. Lets not make it worse than it already is
The stage is open for other peoples opinions on the matter.

And again, thanks for staing civil ! Have a good one and wish me luck finidng some sleep ! (and remembering to turn my phone off)

Development studios Midboss and Necrosoft throws toys out of pram and ends/halts production on games for 'Nintendo consoles'/WiiU because woman was fired.

And not because she may have been moonlighting as a gravure model, posting pictures on her public, Nintendo linked twitter feed or, alternatively because she was some of her tweets could be interpreted as sympathetic to paedophilia, but because "GG didn't like her".

Source 1 - Necrosoft
Source 2 - Midboss