Civil debate

#Gamergate Escalates by Frogboy. A summary of what is going on in the gaming community, which is comparable, from what I can tell, as is occurring in the scifi indie space as well. Social Justice Warriors seeking to advance a particular ideology against the interests of the community. In the #Gamergate folderol, the issue is exacerbated by real journalistic ethical lapses.

In this post, which seems to serve as a reasonable summary of the issues, the author suggests that the gaming community ought to craft a five point suggestion of what they seek in terms of changes in the gaming publishing community.

Frogboy, in the comments section, comes up with his list of five.

Transparency on any financial or intimate relationships between journalists and the subject you're reporting on.

Ensuring that what games and developers get covered is based on merit and not on undisclosed personal or political views the writer has on the subject

Keep editorial content and news separate. Don't allow editorial narrative or political agendas to seep into what is supposed to be objective reporting.

Discourage the blocking or censoring of topics based on your personal or political views of the subject.

Vigorously discourage individual writers from using their position as a platform to push a personal agenda unrelated and counter to the understood mission of the gaming site.

Hobbyist Hermit comes up with a different list.

1) Full disclosure of financial and personal ties within the industry - both with those who make games and those who write about them. This is basically Brad's first point, but taken a little further due to the leak of the GameJournoPros mailing list. That's not to condemn all of those among the 150+ members of the list of colluding with each other, but the fact that there's a common forum where one writer may influence others rubs me the wrong way, especially given all the articles that were posted on August 28th. Keep socializing to twitter, tumblr or whatever and let us know when you're writing about or taking a story from one of your friends in the industry.

2) Avoid censoring or culling opposing views on a topic, or encouraging such. You don't convince people you're in the right or create a positive and inclusive environment by silencing viewpoints you disagree with - no matter how strongly justified you feel about it. If a person isn't simply trolling and provides reasonable evidence of his or her concerns, that person reserves the right to be challenged on that position as well as defend it.

3) A source should always come from a reliable authority, and that source should always be cited directly. No more daisy-chaining articles from other news sites. If there's a press release, you post the e-mail or webpage. If it's an exclusive, you post the original site. If there is a credible threat, you go to the proper authorities and post their statement on the matter - the FBI and police have liaisons for a reason, use them. If it's a legal issue, wait until the case is decided before you start releasing the facts. That way, you're not ruining the reputations of innocent people. Posts on twitter and tumblr aren't evidence of anything outside of a specific individual saying something. No more hearsay.

4) Keep editorials and news separate. Pretty much as it says. We don't need personal commentary fused with new reporting - if we want your opinion, we know where to find it.

5) Avoid needless vitriol and generalizations on editorials. Never shy away from disagreement, but never take things too far away from their proper context. If an individual or individuals say something you disagree with, say you disagree with THEM (as well as link to those posts so other people can view the context) and avoid guilt-by-association. Avoid terms like 'neckbeard', 'basement-dweller', 'misogynerd' or similar phrases - you're better than that.

I am interested in this in part because in communities I see a similar set of issues. A small but very vocal group of Social Justice Warriors wishing to push a particular agenda of limited interest or relevance to the particular community but the rest of the community too polite to dismiss them. I see this in particular in educational/children's books community where there is a lot emotive discussion and rarely a reliance on logic, evidence, or rationality.

So can we extend these lists to all communities? Here might be one approach for encouraging robust discussion without the animus that is so quickly evident.

1) Full disclosure of financial and personal ties. The journalist/reviewer needs to disclose all relationships (financial, sexual, personal, etc.) that might cause a reasonable person to consider whether those relationships might color the opinion being rendered.

2) Maintain the distinction between personal opinion, news analysis and news reporting. What are the sourced and undisputed facts, how are you interpreting those facts, and what are the conclusions you are deriving? As in maths, show your work.

3) Encourage respectful, robust discussion and avoid censoring or culling opposing views on a topic. Be mindful of, and act against, the suppresion of discourse via the Heckler's Veto including all ad hominem attacks.

4) Serve the reader/customer with information that allows informed decisions. Omit pushing personal agendas, no matter how well intended. Seek out and highlight counterfactuals to any given received wisdom.

5) Source opinions primarily in robust, reliable, empirical information leavened with acknowledged authorities or experts and cite specific sources.

6) Never speculate about motives without direct direct citation.