This is a part of why I'm quite selective about what I post online. The major part is that I value my privacy and don't really want random people knowing everything about me. I don't want to be a public figure. I avoid Facebook and Twitter, too, so that really reduces my surface area for this type of attack.
This is a part of why I'm quite selective about what I post online. The major part is that I value my privacy and don't really want random people knowing everything about me. I don't want to be a public figure. I avoid Facebook and Twitter, too, so that really reduces my surface area for this type of attack.
From the op:
So complaining about harassment isn't just whining by sheltered nerds. The more visible and outspoken you are online, the higher the chance that a whirlwind will land on the heads of you and those you love. There is no chance of this changing in the foreseeable future. This is serious business. I am scared. Everything I do online is weighed against the risk of harassment.
So the nerds won against the schoolyard bullies. But as a result we created another kind of public space which has bullying mobs. Unthinking bullying mobs that are in denial of their own bullying and label their activities as something noble or socially/intellectually worthy.
Just about every thoughtful person I know feels effectively censored. There are certain group-minds online you can't risk angering, for fear of the consequences. These often exist as binary pairs in opposition which feed off of one another, gaining more members by mutual creation of outrage.
These phenomena need to be recognized by society. An intellectually vibrant society should shun such stultifying phenomena. However, our culturally dominant means of communication are precisely where such phenomena live, and are the places they effectively police. This ability makes them much more insidious than "hate groups" of the civil rights era.
The nerds created the new bullies, and the new bullies now shape and control the new discourse.
Facebook is honestly not that bad on this because your "friends" circle makes it harder for a post to go completely viral. Twitter on the other hand is really dangerous because you can just make a tweet which pisses off some random celebrity and face a huge backlash, this is really scary.
When I release a game or write something visible to the whole world, even a tiny something (Warning: Twitter counts!), I am acting as a public figure. A teeny tiny one, but a public figure nonetheless. Public figures have always received hate mail, abuse, threats, and messages from the unhinged, and they always will. Alas, the internet makes them much easier to deliver.
Very true. Years ago I sent a "letter to the editor" to the local newspaper. Nothing too controversial, just an opinion about some local politics. I received several unsigned letter in the mail over the following days, no return address, etc. and that was just from a small town community.
> ...opinion about some local politics. ... small town community.
Well, right there is actually the reason. The smaller the pond you're in, the smaller the fish you need to be to make waves. If everybody knows who you are, you can bet a couple people are going to speak up.
I'd like to point out that one's public persona can be different from ones private persona. Lots of public people use that approach, and for good reason.
There's a simple solution: Don't use real names online. That eliminates meatspace threats, if done properly. And then compartmentalize. For risky stuff, create new personas. In worst case, just burn them down.
That's not how public figures work. Influential public figures are influential largely because they are credible. Credibility requires history. Anonymity precludes history.
Take Jeff for example. Jeff has a history. Jeff is a credible game developer with an impressive development history. He's a known factor in the creative community. He's got credibility out the wazoo. As such, we give his words extra weight because of that. In an alternate universe where this article was written by internet-man-of-mystery Bleff Blogel, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion, because he would have no history to back up his points. It just wouldn't have the same impact.
Most people are terrible at OPSEC. If your online persona is used long enough and garners enough attention your real identity will almost certainly become known (extreme example: Ross Ubricht).
This is compounded by the fact that people tend to say things they wouldn't otherwise say if they knew they weren't anonymous.
The other issue is it's harder to capitalize on the reputation of online personas in the real world, if you care about that sort of thing.
If you don't care about reputation online or offline then just generating new identities on a regular basis could work well.
Yeah, this is how we told to use the internet in the olden days. Don't give out personal information online, don't tell every random person your name or what you look like, realise that no one is who they seem on the internet.
Unfortunately, this means that:
Your credibility might take a hit, since people tend to be suspicious of anonymous or pseudononymous sources.
Personally? meatspace threats aren't the problem for me. Which is important, because I think that in a lot of contexts, your "real name" conveys a lot of credibility. I mean, sure, _why could write a technical book and have it be accepted without a real name, but I'm not nearly that good. I also, uh, I really like bragging about the technical book in real life, so compartmentalization would remove some of the reward I get. It would probably make me a less irritating person, too, but hey, I'm talking about me here.
The part of the article that really struck home for me:
> They all have something in common. It never fails to amaze me, but a single mean email or bad review can send them into a spiral. Like, they'll still be obsessing over it days later. I think, "Wow. After all these years, they still won't let this stuff roll off of them?" And then it happens to me.
It's largely an emotional issue... but when I create, and I think when most people create, it is for largely emotional reasons, too.
Of course, it's also, uh, well, I feel kind of embarrassed for admitting that anonymous words can make me feel anything. And it's not like I want to silence thoughtful criticism, even if it's hurtful. (I think there's a line in there somewhere; part of that line is content... how well thought-out is the meanness, and part of it is repetition.)
>Suppose someone gets angry at me for what I write. He gets a bunch of friends together and they give my games bad reviews on Steam and iTunes.
>This is really mean and genuinely harmful, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. They will cost me earnings, and I have no recourse. They walked up, punched me in the nose, and strolled away, and I could do nothing.
which isn't something I've personally experienced, but is something I feel some fear of. Probably not as much as a real creator would feel, just because creating, for me, is almost entirely social; my living expenses come from elsewhere.
I mean, yes, I think that there is a place for a nom de plume, especially if you are working in two different areas with two different or conflicting generally accepted social mores, That helps, I think, mostly by setting expectations with your readers; It's not so much that your pen name is especially secret, but that it gives the reader an idea what to expect, and if they don't like the sort of thing you do under one particular name, well, there's a convenient way to avoid it. Ian Banks and Ian M Banks are a particularly not-secret example of this; choose the former if you like literary fiction, the later if you like science fiction, and it's pretty obvious that if you just enjoy the man's writing more than you care about genre, you can pick both.
More commonly, you see writers penning erotica under an assumed name, and then later, after they have made it with regular novels, their real name is revealed, like Anne Rice/ Anne Rampling
But... the point here is that if I'm creating for public consumption, and a big part of the return is the public reputation, then compartmentalizing, sure, can make the loss of one persona less catastrophic, but it's still a pretty big deal, and for a lot of people, changes the equation to the point where it doesn't make sense to have a public persona at all.
I notice newly famous or semi famous people ignore all of Jeff Vogel's rules. They jump in and defend themselves in every argument. Happens often in the Magic community. Guy wins tournament, guy starts writing Magic articles, guy gets upset when criticized, and guy goes crazy.
It's sort of like what happens to people who win the lottery; they have less experience as millionaires, so they make a ton of big purchases and questionable spending decisions. People who were born/grew up/made it rich more slowly tend to have more experience managing their finances and hence tend to go broke a lot less quickly/often.
The same thing tends to happen to the newly famous. They think they're invincible, get a quickly overinflated ego, respond poorly to criticism and end up under a ton of psychological pressure as a result. You can see it with people who make it big off talent shows or reality tv.
I agree that the games industry has a problem, but I think it's because they're independent developers selling a consumer product. This creates a direct sense of accountability among a large group of end users who know how to get into contact with you.
Maybe it's simply not good business to be a dev who's both acting as the face of a product and writing divisive op-eds. This practice seems unique to the games industry.
I see this article as a sign that we are slowly realising how shit some parts of the internet have become for the people who use them everyday.
There were some recent articles in big news sites about how their comments attract the worse kind of trolling and what they plan to do, or are doing, about it. Maybe a few years from now we'll have found some sort of resolution to all this but currently, we have a problem.
not only he slurs here, he just stereotypes some group of people this way from the start. It is kind of divisive and an efficient way to initiate combativeness. (Not that i let go waste any good chance to stereotype and to get divisive/combative myself, yet i don't whine about harassment toward me after that. You reap what you sow.)
[+] [-] pmiller2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stcredzero|10 years ago|reply
From the op:
So complaining about harassment isn't just whining by sheltered nerds. The more visible and outspoken you are online, the higher the chance that a whirlwind will land on the heads of you and those you love. There is no chance of this changing in the foreseeable future. This is serious business. I am scared. Everything I do online is weighed against the risk of harassment.
So the nerds won against the schoolyard bullies. But as a result we created another kind of public space which has bullying mobs. Unthinking bullying mobs that are in denial of their own bullying and label their activities as something noble or socially/intellectually worthy.
Just about every thoughtful person I know feels effectively censored. There are certain group-minds online you can't risk angering, for fear of the consequences. These often exist as binary pairs in opposition which feed off of one another, gaining more members by mutual creation of outrage.
These phenomena need to be recognized by society. An intellectually vibrant society should shun such stultifying phenomena. However, our culturally dominant means of communication are precisely where such phenomena live, and are the places they effectively police. This ability makes them much more insidious than "hate groups" of the civil rights era.
The nerds created the new bullies, and the new bullies now shape and control the new discourse.
[+] [-] realusername|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|10 years ago|reply
Very true. Years ago I sent a "letter to the editor" to the local newspaper. Nothing too controversial, just an opinion about some local politics. I received several unsigned letter in the mail over the following days, no return address, etc. and that was just from a small town community.
[+] [-] pmiller2|10 years ago|reply
Well, right there is actually the reason. The smaller the pond you're in, the smaller the fish you need to be to make waves. If everybody knows who you are, you can bet a couple people are going to speak up.
[+] [-] Chris2048|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] intrasight|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pmiller2|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grey413|10 years ago|reply
Take Jeff for example. Jeff has a history. Jeff is a credible game developer with an impressive development history. He's a known factor in the creative community. He's got credibility out the wazoo. As such, we give his words extra weight because of that. In an alternate universe where this article was written by internet-man-of-mystery Bleff Blogel, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion, because he would have no history to back up his points. It just wouldn't have the same impact.
[+] [-] tlrobinson|10 years ago|reply
This is compounded by the fact that people tend to say things they wouldn't otherwise say if they knew they weren't anonymous.
The other issue is it's harder to capitalize on the reputation of online personas in the real world, if you care about that sort of thing.
If you don't care about reputation online or offline then just generating new identities on a regular basis could work well.
[+] [-] CM30|10 years ago|reply
Unfortunately, this means that:
Your credibility might take a hit, since people tend to be suspicious of anonymous or pseudononymous sources.
You might become less famous/popular in general.
[+] [-] tajen|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skybrian|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lsc|10 years ago|reply
The part of the article that really struck home for me:
> They all have something in common. It never fails to amaze me, but a single mean email or bad review can send them into a spiral. Like, they'll still be obsessing over it days later. I think, "Wow. After all these years, they still won't let this stuff roll off of them?" And then it happens to me.
It's largely an emotional issue... but when I create, and I think when most people create, it is for largely emotional reasons, too.
Of course, it's also, uh, well, I feel kind of embarrassed for admitting that anonymous words can make me feel anything. And it's not like I want to silence thoughtful criticism, even if it's hurtful. (I think there's a line in there somewhere; part of that line is content... how well thought-out is the meanness, and part of it is repetition.)
>Suppose someone gets angry at me for what I write. He gets a bunch of friends together and they give my games bad reviews on Steam and iTunes.
>This is really mean and genuinely harmful, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. They will cost me earnings, and I have no recourse. They walked up, punched me in the nose, and strolled away, and I could do nothing.
which isn't something I've personally experienced, but is something I feel some fear of. Probably not as much as a real creator would feel, just because creating, for me, is almost entirely social; my living expenses come from elsewhere.
I mean, yes, I think that there is a place for a nom de plume, especially if you are working in two different areas with two different or conflicting generally accepted social mores, That helps, I think, mostly by setting expectations with your readers; It's not so much that your pen name is especially secret, but that it gives the reader an idea what to expect, and if they don't like the sort of thing you do under one particular name, well, there's a convenient way to avoid it. Ian Banks and Ian M Banks are a particularly not-secret example of this; choose the former if you like literary fiction, the later if you like science fiction, and it's pretty obvious that if you just enjoy the man's writing more than you care about genre, you can pick both.
More commonly, you see writers penning erotica under an assumed name, and then later, after they have made it with regular novels, their real name is revealed, like Anne Rice/ Anne Rampling
But... the point here is that if I'm creating for public consumption, and a big part of the return is the public reputation, then compartmentalizing, sure, can make the loss of one persona less catastrophic, but it's still a pretty big deal, and for a lot of people, changes the equation to the point where it doesn't make sense to have a public persona at all.
[+] [-] pmiller2|10 years ago|reply
Tell that to Facebook.
[+] [-] kelukelugames|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CM30|10 years ago|reply
The same thing tends to happen to the newly famous. They think they're invincible, get a quickly overinflated ego, respond poorly to criticism and end up under a ton of psychological pressure as a result. You can see it with people who make it big off talent shows or reality tv.
[+] [-] cpr|10 years ago|reply
Sorry to point that out (I know a lot of HN folks are gamers), but I think it's a valid approach.
I really doubt if Guido has been harrassed or physically threatened because of something in Python 3, for example.
[+] [-] cshenton|10 years ago|reply
Maybe it's simply not good business to be a dev who's both acting as the face of a product and writing divisive op-eds. This practice seems unique to the games industry.
[+] [-] LyndsySimon|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YeGoblynQueenne|10 years ago|reply
There were some recent articles in big news sites about how their comments attract the worse kind of trolling and what they plan to do, or are doing, about it. Maybe a few years from now we'll have found some sort of resolution to all this but currently, we have a problem.
[+] [-] awinter-py|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] known|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Criticism123|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kelukelugames|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martincmartin|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technopath|10 years ago|reply
I wonder if, given the social unacceptability of mental illness, it will ever be socially unacceptable to slur mental illness.
[+] [-] justinpombrio|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] packetized|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trhway|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BobbyThrowaway|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Animats|10 years ago|reply
The pictures in the article are so irrelevant that they're annoying.
[+] [-] jeffsco|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]