Board 8 > Polygon parting ways with Nick Robinson

(+) Yeah! (+)

well yeah.
but if you're an indie dev and he's not talking to you that much but he did talk to someone you know that sent nudes and flirted with him, your inference is sex for coverage. which again, probably isn't malicious but bad time management and not understanding his professional responsibilities.
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Wanglicious posted...

but if you're an indie dev and he's not talking to you that much but he did talk to someone you know that sent nudes and flirted with him, your inference is sex for coverage.

...What
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Wanglicious posted...

but if you're an indie dev and he's not talking to you that much but he did talk to someone you know that sent nudes and flirted with him, your inference is sex for coverage.

...What

okay, gonna lay out the example. bear in mind, the only thing we know is that "what I always thought of as "flirting" can quickly become something more insidious when one of those people is in a position of power."

the only position like this that makes sense is journo/guy at Polygon vs. indie dev. so here's what i'm seeing:

Dev A talks to Journo.
Dev A and Journo talk a lot at first. interest doesn't last very long but certain subjects get more conversation, particularly sexual ones. nudes are gotten.

Dev B talks to Journo.
Dev B and Journo talk a lot at first. interest doesn't last very long and there aren't many subjects that get conversation.

Dev A, having talked to Journo a lot, gets decent coverage at some point and they're close.
Dev B is not close to Journo a lot, is not covered as much if at all, and they aren't close.


Dev B may infer that boobs = coverage.


this inference may be wrong, assuming malice there is a bit much. it's entirely possible that he was busy or that he was talking to an unrelated person in DMs, possibly a different sexual contact even. it doesn't actually matter what the alternative was - he just wasn't paying attention to her. so they assume sex for coverage is the game.

that'd explain the accusations and his confusion/not seeing where he was at fault. basically he's not an asshole, just stupid.
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....but now this thing.
this just makes me want to say he's just innocent.

https://padlet.com/watney/w7d4bchyeb3s

yikes.
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what the hell is that website
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I'm saying yikes too, but likely not for the same reason.
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MoogleKupo141 posted...

what the hell is that website

A conspiracy nut's chalkboard in 4D.
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an attempt of a flowchart of every single accusation of anything, previous "crimes," and reactions.

in the style of a six year old's scribbles.
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SmartMuffin posted...

if he's hitting on multiples as his attention would be somewhere else (e.g., another twitter DM with boobs)

Uh yeah, guys flirt aggressively because it works. I thought everyone knew that.

Isn't that a lie some guys tell themselves to justify flirting aggressively?
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Wanglicious posted...

position of power could technically be a reference to him being a journo. if he was hitting on an indie dev you would have a clear example - he'd be one of the people who could control the freeflow of information at the 4th biggest gaming publication.

but there's no way to know.

Wait so **NOW** GG is casting doubt on a claim that a journalist slept with indie devs for favorable coverage?
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we have come full circle
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GuessMyUserName posted...

we have come full circle

like every good toilet
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I'm just super disappointed in this situation. If we're not getting facts we should all shut up, and that includes the people talking about 3rd-hand accounts on twitter. With that said I'm not defending Nick, even what is known isn't great.

I hate the court of public opinion. That goes both ways - it can unfairly harm the accused and the victims.
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...we don't know if he was doing anything with a game dev, that's never been confirmed and likely won't be. that situation's one that i'm coming up with, same with the rest of my posts. there's just no way to know how accurate i am.
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I don't see any reason to believe that he'd just fade away with an apology if he'd done nothing wrong, especially when he's lost his job and his work colleagues/friends have deserted him.

It it truly ironic that GG is now trying to defend him after the way they went after Quinn.
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As an aside, the Google guys had the shit doxxed out of him, and people are crawling through every post he's ever written, so it goes both ways.
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MenuWars posted...

It it truly ironic that GG is now trying to defend him after the way they went after Quinn.

it's almost as if it was never about ethics in game journalism

*thinking emoji*
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The Mana Sword posted...

MenuWars posted...

It it truly ironic that GG is now trying to defend him after the way they went after Quinn.

it's almost as if it was never about ethics in game journalism

*thinking emoji*

Here was me being naive enough to have thought it was. *Facepalm* At least I never sided with them over anything other than that premise, but still makes me feel grubby.
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Lightning Strikes posted...

I'm just super disappointed in this situation. If we're not getting facts we should all shut up, and that includes the people talking about 3rd-hand accounts on twitter. With that said I'm not defending Nick, even what is known isn't great.

I hate the court of public opinion. That goes both ways - it can unfairly harm the accused and the victims.

This is how I feel. It's perfectly okay to NOT pass judgement either way.
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MenuWars posted...

The Mana Sword posted...

MenuWars posted...

It it truly ironic that GG is now trying to defend him after the way they went after Quinn.

it's almost as if it was never about ethics in game journalism

*thinking emoji*

Here was me being naive enough to have thought it was. *Facepalm* At least I never sided with them over anything other than that premise, but still makes me feel grubby.

Look at it this way.

At least you didn't go the opposite way like one of my ex-friends did and become a full blown alt-righter who believes homosexuality should be re-categorized as a mental illness despite being into guys himself.
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he's not really being "defended," there's just almost nothing to work with so he's not being damned to hell and considered the worst thing in the world. you think anybody associated with GG wants to defend a Polygon writer? seriously, we've a running list of "male feminst allies" being anything but, it's kind of win/win from that perspective since either he joins the list or Polygon gets to be made fun of. somehow it's kind of both, kind of neither. with no evidence of any wrongdoing, you can't really spring up with the sort of worst-in-the-world scorn he was getting and with his resignation letter there he's probably downplaying what actually happened. the most we've seen is him badly hitting on a girl when he was an e-celeb (pre-Polygon) and him sending a picture that, if tilted 90 degrees, says "send nudes" to... i think she was a cosplayer? don't know where in his career that was. that's seriously all the evidence we've got. everything else has been third party accusations.
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Wanglicious would never have posted in 2014...

there's just no way to know how accurate i am.

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Which the accusations against Quinn also were, yet GG had no problem running with those based on hearsay, even when some turned out to just be false
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you mean the accusations of Quinn that were by her ex, the direct person who she harmed, and included screencaps and archives of his abuse? or do you mean the main relationship of the five guys stated - a journo - was proven right? and then he was hit pretty damn hard by people for it.

or do you mean the accusations of Quinn that were by TFYC, who also was the direct person/group she harmed, and also provided caps, archives, and hell, her twitter feed to explain the situation there?


direct accusers with ample evidence and specific statements VS. third party accusations with no evidence of wrongdoing.

you're calling that the same?
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Oh god don't turn this into a Gooblegobble topic please holy shit
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you already did
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I mean there is definite overlap there yes. The lack of full, public information is the only real difference, but as I've said I can't envision a world in which the guy just takes a public beatdown and loses his job and doesn't fight at all. If these allegations are merely spurious.

Also yes Quinns a POS, but she didn't deserve to have rape threats, her life history and revenge porn be thrown at her. Her ex might've got shit on, but he's a POS too.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Oh god don't turn this into a Gooblegobble topic please holy shit

The overlap is too stronk.
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Wanglicious posted...

do you mean the main relationship of the five guys stated - a journo - was proven right?

I mean the maliciously false accusation by her ex that she slept with a journalist who then gave her game a positive review, which never existed, which he then later retracted after the damage was already done and tons of people believed him.
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MenuWars posted...

The lack of full, public information is the only real difference, but as I've said I can't envision a world in which the guy just takes a public beatdown and loses his job and doesn't fight at all. If these allegations are merely spurious.

no, the lack of a direct accuser is a big difference.
a direct accuser will tell you "this person did A, B, and C to me."
and then they usually come with some evidence of it.

there's a specific person, specific claims, and evidence. that's three key things. even if the person wishes to stay anonymous that can still be okay (for the audience anyway), you still get a direct accuser and the rest can be provided.

we don't have any of those three.

you seemed to imply that i was defending him.
where?
i've spectulated about him and i'm perfectly fine believing that he crossed that line and should be fired, sure. but i'm not calling him bottom feeding scum. that's a defense?


(was going to comment on the Quinn stuff you said as some of that is factually wrong but for Tony's sake i'll drop that.)
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Jakyl25 posted...

I mean the maliciously false accusation by her ex that she slept with a journalist who then gave her game a positive review,

he never said this.
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yeah the right to confront your accuser was considered a pretty big deal

thats why its like, in the constitution and stuff
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All your speculation points to him being innocent, so it's not like you're not defending him, it seems like you're reaching to come to the conclusion that he's innocent. With less information going for you than there is those who believe him to be guilty.

So that's where my implication stems from.

Perfectly okay to be neutral about where you stand based on lack of evidence but to assume innocence currently when he's been abandoned faster than a floater in a swimming pool, is definitely skewing the situation.
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SmartMuffin posted...

yeah the right to confront your accuser was considered a pretty big deal

thats why its like, in the constitution and stuff

I don't think he's being accused of a crime. The Constitution is somewhat shakier on the subject of people accusing you of being a bad person.
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what? how do you get me saying he's innocent, my first post here is saying that he's likely admitting he's guilty when he talks about positions of power. i think he's saying that he crossed the line between journalist and dev - that's guilt. that's the first assumption i made.

you seem to be confusing whether someone has malicious intent or not with guilt. they are not the same. there's a very plausible scenario where he did not actively behave maliciously but he still did wrong, basically he did a bad thing and should be fired for it but he's not complete trash. at no point have i said he's innocent. not in this topic, not the last.
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Then I have misunderstood your intent. Sorry.
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that's not how i expected this to end. no problems here, glad it's cleared up.

you can see after drak comments on it that i just expand on that same idea and go further when Tony does too. basically it seems clear that he most likely did something wrong but we don't know what. there's a few things you can infer but you still can't state "this is what he did" definitively. we're assuming wrongdoing based on his resignation but we still don't have any evidence of it and probably won't. his resignation's in pretty PR talk so he's likely talking down what he did though the people who could correct him aren't because... i don't know, even some evidence with any identifiable evidence removed could work. instead they'll make bizarre flowcharts.
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That flowchart hurt my soul.
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oh wait, is that where you got that impression, that i legit thought he's innocent? that was completely in jest, the flowchart is so bad that i pretty much want to dismiss everything on it.
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Wanglicious posted...

Jakyl25 posted...

I mean the maliciously false accusation by her ex that she slept with a journalist who then gave her game a positive review,

he never said this.

what
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I mean, if you want to get literal it's true

The issue is that in general journalists who are close friends or romantic partners with people in the industry they’re covering can be prone to biases — not only because journalists can offer exposure to their friends, but because they can be influenced by those friends to give good reviews to their friends.

Hey he never specified Zoe there even though it was a post about the Zoe post. <_<
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Eron never said Grayson gave her a positive review, ever. he didn't "later retract it" like Jakyl says, he just literally never said it.

Jakyl - did you not read the page that's from? it's from the "About" page, which didn't exist until... i want to say mid September? didn't happen in August though. and if you had checked, you'd have noticed that he links to a tumblr post when he says "give good reviews to their friends." and it's literally about Zoe's friend, not her, with presumably a different journo.

you're just factually wrong on this one. he never said it and you're pointing to something you didn't bother checking.
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(also seriously, tony did say he didn't really want this topic to become about that. that's an easy point to end on.)
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His original blog has a retraction at the start where he says the Zoe post may have led some to believe that there was an inappropriate review of DQ by Grayson, because Eron typoed "March" instead of "May" at one point.

The impression that there was a review involved sure came from somewhere!
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Okay fine, I've outlined my interpretation, you've made your counter/points, we can move on.
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Jakyl25 posted...

Okay fine, I've outlined my interpretation, you've made your counter/points, we can move on.

You are arguing with Wang about the impetus behind GamerGate exactly three years after it started, so I don't know if this is true.
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Well it is August, which never ends
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it's like asking, "can we make this topic any worse?" and instead of just stepping over the line, you ride a flaming motorcycle dragging a cart of firecrackers and feces over it
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Wanglicious posted...

(also seriously, tony did say he didn't really want this topic to become about that. that's an easy point to end on.)

I said I didn't want my topic about this to go a certain way and Tony said fuck off.

That's called karma!

MenuWars posted...

As an aside, the Google guys had the shit doxxed out of him, and people are crawling through every post he's ever written, so it goes both ways.

Google themselves also got doxxed to hell over this yesterday, so it goes both ways.....in reverse....
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