Ab56 v2 aka Ash

I don't have much to add, but I do want to say that I appreciate and agree with Larry's points that Ms. Sarkeesian's points have the potential to be a net positive. I agree she's no Malcolm X, and I think the more limited comparison drawn here is appropriate. I think this thread's given me a better way of expressing my thoughts on the Ms. Sarkeesian's work.

I wouldn't put it as strongly as saying I firmly believe your claims are unfounded or untrue. I'm open to the possibility that they are true or false, but I prefer to see the arguments laid out more clearly and supported with evidence one way or the other. (Do as I say, not as I do.)

Can you back up these propositions with evidence? I'd also have a hard time believing you could convincingly support #2 unless you change it to "most men openly self-identify as heterosexual."

It's really not fresh to me. You've made your opinions on Anita's overly rigid presentation abundantly clear to the point that no one's really disagreeing anymore. Not to discourage discussion in this thread, but I seriously doubt you'll find the counterargument you're looking for in a thread full of people who mostly agree with you already.

There's over 100 pages about her and I don't think anyone has been adding anything fresh about her for the last dozen. I'm ok with expanding the topic.

I think lobbing these questions publicly without waiting for more information from the PD is a pretty shitty thing for this Nero person to do. For all we know, he might be drumming up controversy over a non-issue. Or it may be that she's lying. It's also unclear that she specifically contacted the SFPD rather than some other police entity. In any case, waiting for the PD to complete their investigation and researching some more on one's own beforehand would be more respectable.

How often does this kind of thing actually happen? Have public figures been advocating this?

I think that depends on what form of business it is. If whoever you're talking about is running a sole proprietorship, I'm not sure this is a problem.

I couldn't disagree with this more strongly. The analogy falls flat for me because adding a minority character doesn't mean adding a minority character where one doesn't belong, unless you're assuming that minorities don't belong in pop culture to begin with. Minorities can be, for lack of a better word, "regular" people too, and there are plenty of Carlton Bankses in the world who identify more strongly with lifestyles not typically associated with their race. To me, diversity in media is also about normalizing that imagery because that's how real life is in a lot of places.

I disagree with presuming that Marvel's featuring diversity for the "wrong" reasons, whatever those might be. Way too many people have been presuming that, and it's what makes people feel like games, comics, and other media are too exclusive for minorities to be part of. We just don't know what Marvel and other content creators' motives are, so I don't think there's a point in critiquing the products for including diversity.

I'm not trying to take down your post so much as offer a different perspective. While including minorities may not be something you personally focus on, being an ethnic minority in America is something I can't divorce from my identity. Being an Indian American is always in the back and often at the front of my mind because there are tons of things I encounter in my day that remind me that my culture is not part of the mainstream in this country. So when I see people who look like me or have a similar background to me, something just clicks in my head and makes me engage with the medium on a whole new level. Look at Marvel Comics for example. Marvel recently re-envisioned a bunch of their characters to be minorities. One of them was Ms. Marvel: she changed from a muscular white adult woman (Carol Danvers) to a puny young Pakistani Muslim teenage girl (Kamala Khan). A lot of people criticized this change and the other character changes as too forced. Yet when I read a piece of the new Ms. Marvel, I saw a scene where Kamala Khan shape shifts into the original blonde Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel. She realizes that looking like what a super hero traditionally looks like doesn't make her feel more confident, but saving people was meaningful. I never had any Indian super heroes to admire when I was a kid, so seeing Kamala Khan be heroic despite wrestling with feeling different resonated so much with me. What's more, it told a Ms. Marvel story in a way that's never been done before and hit all the right notes specifically because of what this character's background is. When I see how Kamala Khan makes me feel, I imagine all the people out there of different backgrounds, colors, shapes, and sizes, who aren't really represented too well in media like video games. And then I just can't help but feel like there is no harm in actively introducing more diversity as long as you can tell a good story, because overrepresentation of minorities is definitely not a problem and won't be in the near future. Edit: bonus Ms. Marvel pages: http://i.imgur.com/2c5WTg6.jpg http://i.imgur.com/bdtpDdH.jpg http://38.media.tumblr.com/6f1dc0c26cff06ee362635b6f30118ec/tumblr_nbezsez1hA1t0cxrao4_1280.jpg

Yes, I do mean both. My disclaimer is that I haven't followed all the drama closely in the last few months, but it's easy to find irrational rage all over. What I'd really like to see instead is someone side-step the toxic discussion that is, and instead start with the thoughtful critique and counter-critique that should be.

That didn't really answer my question what you mean by "feminism" in this context. If women out there think women's portrayal in video games has problems, I'm inclined to pause and hear them out. They have a perspective that I, as a man, can't understand through my own experiences. So I don't think having more strong female characters means the discussion of games from a feminist perspective needs to end. I'd actually like to see it increase. The only thing I would want is deeper coverage of the issues and a discussion that doesn't devolve into a shouting match and name-calling. The real sad part is that people can't seem to critique video games from a minority's perspective without all sorts of irrational rage flying all over the place. Just gotta stick to the issues.

Sociologists use different definitions. Moreover, different dictionaries have different definitions and multiple definitions at that. Your dictionary definition of choice isn't necessarily the one other people are using or should even be expected to defer to. That's why it's important to clarify what we're talking about at the beginning. I'll take your word for that being your point; it didn't come across that way to me. Let me take my own advice: what do you mean when you say we don't need more feminism in gaming? How are you defining feminism and why do we not need more of it?

It's worth acknowledging that people might be working under different definitions of sexism or racism. Clarifying the meaning of our -isms in a debate can ease everyone into a more open-minded and productive discussion. It's counterproductive to act like this is a zero-sum game and the gaming industry can only address one form of harm at a time. I welcome introducing feminism to developers if it leads them to create more interesting characters who may be male, female, or another gender.

I wasn't talking down to you. I said what you quoted me on under the assumption that a 1-10 preference rating scheme was already the plan, because that is what I thought. Anyway, I'm clearly not at all as passionate about this topic as any of you. I only wanted to offer some thoughts for consideration to be constructive. Now that I've offered them, I'll see myself out. Edit: And by the way, the reason why a preference rating system made sense to me is because the entire thread was premised not only on the idea of expanding the workshop, but also on the idea that OCReMix could be a suitable replacement for VGMix and potentially other video game remixing sites. If there is no room for a preference-based rating system on OCReMix, then it would make sense to have a distinct website that's purely about about what listeners like--if people wanted it, that is. I'm not sure how successful it would be, but I'm not seeing why a completely different scheme of showcasing content couldn't or shouldn't exist if OCReMix wouldn't do it. It's not a pressing concern, but it does raise a question about whether this site truly can be the community hub that djp is hoping for, or maybe whether the overarching mission needs to be clearer.

You're not saying anything different from what I've said. I explained the same thing in my post and distinguished it from a qualitative rating scheme. The original idea proposed was this: Because "Likes" as on Facebook or YouTube are optional, I inferred that ratings and reviews are also optional and neither requires the other. To me, without other details, the proposed rating system most fundamentally sounded like some sort of scale of preference. I didn't see a proposal about the qualitative rating system I described, so I was suggesting that both be an option. I'd also note that "Likes" have nothing to do with helping someone improve their product either, so if you have a problem with the preference rating system, you might want to voice your critique of that as well. That is, unless OCR plans to give "Likes" an additional purpose as on YouTube, where they are linked to the user's account to give people easy access to items they've marked. Maybe we should get some specific clarification about how the proposed ideas would be implemented. Or maybe figuring that out is the purpose of this thread? I don't know what djp had in mind with the initial statement.

That's exactly what I was thinking, which is why I suggest having maybe two different rating systems, but keep them separate. Maybe I was unclear. I think people who want a more involved rating system to get feedback about the technical quality of their product should have that option. But if a casual listener just wants to give a 1-10 rating based on their preference and nothing else, they should be able to do that with a simple click of their mouse.

I know very little about remixing and I only briefly skimmed this thread, so sorry if my feedback is bad. I think the goals of having a rating system and a workable feedback system have more than one compromise option. My bottom line is to encourage you to be thoughtful about in what ways people can rate a product. One way of rating is based on technical quality. If I were an artist looking for feedback, I would want the rating system to be based on multiple factors, including things like audio quality, arrangement, and other production criteria. Maybe those of you who are more attuned to the technical aspects of music production can come up with better criteria. Moreover, based on those multiple criteria, I as an artist would want to see the aggregate breakdown in that rating. It's a matter of "the consensus on my remix is a 6/10" vs. "the consensus is that my arrangement is at a 9/10, but aspect x of my production is at 5/10 and needs work." That kind of feedback would be a lot more helpful than a one-size fits all number. A technical quality rating is just one way of evaluating a remix though. In contrast, another rating might be "how much did you enjoy this product?" I can find a technically low quality product very enjoyable (e.g. the Snakes on a Plane movie) or a technically high quality product unenjoyable (e.g. Transformers 2). This is a purely preference-driven rating, but also worth knowing. Multiple rating systems may be in order. Just figure out what should and shouldn't be mandatory, because people like me who know nothing about music may want to avoid evaluating on the technical stuff.

That's a really cool thing you people are doing. Hope it meets a lot of success.

Zelda: A Link Between Worlds is one of the greatest game I've played in years. Without spoiling anything, here are seven reasons why I love it: 1. No hours-long tutorials. You get your sword and are in the first dungeon within half an hour. I have a busy life, and I want games like this one that I can easily pick up and play or put down midway. 2. Nonlinear. After the first couple dungeons, you can do the rest in any order you want. 3. Exploration dominates. They don't tell you where to go. You figure it out. 4. Picks at your nostalgia, but cleverly subverts your expectations. 5. Music. It's amazing. And there's a lot of it. 6. Game mechanics. Everything is very tight and it doesn't feel like a moment is wasted. Turning into a painting makes for good puzzles, and 3D isn't lame and gimmicky in this game. 7. Mini-games are optional. I don't care much for mini-games so this is great for me. I could go on, but it basically takes everything awesome about old Zelda games and makes them better while getting rid of everything I dislike about newer Zelda games.

WillRock, I'm only speaking for my personal sense of what a "community" is, but I don't think it should be a community's role to pass judgment on members who may withdraw from it for personal reasons. Instead, a community's role should be to create a sense of belonging for its members and to support them. I think anyone who finds him or herself separated from the community for some reason should be wished the best. If that person ever crossed paths with the community again, I would hope he or she found a welcoming environment waiting.

You said it's feminism's "self-constructed" strawman, which is more sensibly read as assigning creation (or "construction") rather than ownership to feminism. Would've been more appropriate to say "some feminists" constructed the straw man. Not that this derail is meaningful, mind you, so I'll stop here.

I did read his post and I understand his point. But if djp wants people to be precise with their words, I see no problem holding him to the same standard. Specifically, "feminism" as a whole did not construct the straw man he critiques. Some feminists did.

That's an awfully broad stroke you're painting all of feminism with.