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It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers ta

It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers taking their competition offline, which is the most common swatting backstory I hear about these days. Rather than allowing herself to be driven out of the field as many other women have been[1], Randi is fighting back and recently founded the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative (http://onlineabuseprevention.org/ http://onlineabuseprevention.org/), which aims to help people protect themselves from harassment and to help tech companies and law enforcement to better respond to this problem. If anyone expected this to stop Randi, they're sorely mistaken. I know Randi as a FreeBSD developer, and she is one of the most fearless people I've ever met. [1] Not intended to cast aspersions on those women who have been driven out; if I faced the same experience I too would have been driven out of this field.

belorn 12y ago
Please don't belittle victims of crime by describing their experience as "just another case of gamers taking their competition offline". People of both gender experience harassment in life, and at times it goes into the realm of becoming victim of crimes. It should not matter what gender you are or your chosen profession in life, by belittle it you are causing direct harm to other human beings. Please stop.
- fenomas 12y ago
  Please assume good faith when it comes to subtleties of wording like this. Just because you feel the post could be interpreted as belittling doesn't imply that that was the author's intent.
- simoncion 12y ago
  This isn't belittlement, it is -as was stated- the most common motive for SWATting. Angry 14-year-olds [0] (whether they're raging about getting pwnt in Call of Duty[1], or doing it for the lulz on *chan) are the vast majority of the folks who engage in SWATting. I urge you to carefully re-read the comment that you criticized. It's pretty clear to me that cperciva has no intention of belittling anyone. [0] Either chronologically or developmentally [1] Or whatever
  - jsnell 12y ago
    Belittling or trivializing is exactly what the word "just" makes the comment look like. If you can't see it, maybe try it with phrases like "it's just another case of harassment" vs. "it's another case of harassment". It's not made any better by describing it as "gamers taking the competition offline". Two problems; first, it's making it appear as some kind of a natural extension of playing a game / watching a game stream. Hey, it's just some competition, boys will be boys! Second, it's too symmetrical, basically spreading the blame between both the perp and the victim. Again if you can't see this, what would you say about describing this case as "some Twitter users taking their gender politics discussions offline"?
    - simoncion 12y ago
      There's some context that you're omitting in your analysis. cperciva says: "It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers taking their competition offline, which is the most common swatting backstory I hear about these days." (Emphasis mine.) Asshole gamers calling in real-life SWAT because they can't handle feelings of inferiority is the most common reason for SWATting that I hear of. I hold the opinion that giving police fraudulent information in order to summon SWAT on someone's house is HIGHLY inappropriate and -often- very dangerous[0]. While cperciva doesn't explicitly express his opinions on SWATting, the remaining 'graphs in his comment would lead one to believe that he also thinks that SWATting is serious business, regardless of motive. [0] Not to mention, yanno, illegal.
      - possibilistic 12y ago
        I find it interesting how much analysis has been given to the tone of cperciva's comment. There is an awful lot of this going around lately. What is the goal commenters in such threads are pursuing? To correct a wrong or misunderstanding? To show someone as biased or bigoted (or to advocate the other way)? Who are we training, and what is it we are teaching? Could it be done a better way? Is the error cperciva may have made large or small? Does it have an impact? If insignificant, why does so much effort need to be expended? Otherwise, why are there not articles to reference on the issue? (Or are there?) To be completely blunt, this all seems incredibly passive aggressive to me. I'm not talking about sexism--again, I'm simply referring to all of the meta analysis on communication and tone. I am honestly curious, and my questions are not for dramatic effect. Could this all be short-circuited by a "I doubt the OP meant to trivialize XYZ, [...]" and be done with it?
- DanBC 12y ago
  I read cperciva as criticising the commonly given justification of online abuse. Many people say it's not actually harassment and that it's just mean comments or that it's just an extension of online competitiveness. I read cperciva as condemning that and using this example to show that all online harassment edit[is / can be] severe.
  - simoncion 12y ago
    > I read cperciva as criticising the commonly given justification of online abuse. Are you sure? His opening 'graph is: "It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers taking their competition offline, which is the most common swatting backstory I hear about these days." This seems to me to say: "This isn't a one-off incident; it's yet another terrible incident in a very long string of related harassment incidents." He goes on to say that Randi has done a huge amount of work to actively combat online abuse. I don't see where cperciva makes the claim that all online harassment is severe. (Truly, not all online harassment is severe. When my boss uses email to get on my case for overdue deliverables, that's online harassment; but it's a) minor and b) justified.) [0] :) [0] Or, look at like 80% of what happens in Eve Online for boatloads of examples of minor online harassment.
  - belorn 12y ago
    I guess it depend on how you want to interpret it, and a clarification from cperciva would be nice. To me it was as a statement that because the long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced, this specific case is much more than all those gamers who complain about getting swatted, as their problem is just another case of gamers taking their competition offline. That this case is different from the norm (as Manishearth phrase it bellow), and thus worthy of notice in contrast to the problems of "gamers". To me, that is belittling. Maybe cperciva meant the opposite, that swatting is a real crime and not something to be perceived as just "gamers taking their competition offline", but it was not the impression I got from that comment.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
- Manishearth 12y ago
  They said nothing about gender, and wasn't belittling it -- they were saying that Randi's story was different from the norm, that's all.
- cperciva 12y ago
  Please don't belittle victims of crime by describing their experience as "just another case of gamers taking their competition offline". Not what I intended at all. Perhaps it would have been clearer if I had written "yet another case"; my point was that this was not like most swattings and readers shouldn't pattern-match and assume they know what was going on.
Snesker 12y ago
>Rather than allowing herself to be driven out of the field as many other women have been[real citation needed]
Ezekial_Noone 12y ago
It's interesting to note that no SWAT contact actually occurred.
- Jweb_Guru 12y ago
  It's interesting to note that what you just said is completely false.* http://gamepolitics.com/2015/04/06/ggautoblocker-creator-and-online-abuse-prevention-initiative-founder-targeted-swatting-at#.VSOMGBPF9vq http://gamepolitics.com/2015/04/06/ggautoblocker-creator-and... How deep does the conspiracy go? * Unless you are differentiating police contact from SWAT contact... which is a pretty irrelevant difference in this scenario.

belorn 12y ago

Please don't belittle victims of crime by describing their experience as "just another case of gamers taking their competition offline". People of both gender experience harassment in life, and at times it goes into the realm of becoming victim of crimes. It should not matter what gender you are or your chosen profession in life, by belittle it you are causing direct harm to other human beings. Please stop.

fenomas 12y ago
Please assume good faith when it comes to subtleties of wording like this. Just because you feel the post could be interpreted as belittling doesn't imply that that was the author's intent.
simoncion 12y ago
This isn't belittlement, it is -as was stated- the most common motive for SWATting. Angry 14-year-olds [0] (whether they're raging about getting pwnt in Call of Duty[1], or doing it for the lulz on *chan) are the vast majority of the folks who engage in SWATting. I urge you to carefully re-read the comment that you criticized. It's pretty clear to me that cperciva has no intention of belittling anyone. [0] Either chronologically or developmentally [1] Or whatever
- jsnell 12y ago
  Belittling or trivializing is exactly what the word "just" makes the comment look like. If you can't see it, maybe try it with phrases like "it's just another case of harassment" vs. "it's another case of harassment". It's not made any better by describing it as "gamers taking the competition offline". Two problems; first, it's making it appear as some kind of a natural extension of playing a game / watching a game stream. Hey, it's just some competition, boys will be boys! Second, it's too symmetrical, basically spreading the blame between both the perp and the victim. Again if you can't see this, what would you say about describing this case as "some Twitter users taking their gender politics discussions offline"?
  - simoncion 12y ago
    There's some context that you're omitting in your analysis. cperciva says: "It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers taking their competition offline, which is the most common swatting backstory I hear about these days." (Emphasis mine.) Asshole gamers calling in real-life SWAT because they can't handle feelings of inferiority is the most common reason for SWATting that I hear of. I hold the opinion that giving police fraudulent information in order to summon SWAT on someone's house is HIGHLY inappropriate and -often- very dangerous[0]. While cperciva doesn't explicitly express his opinions on SWATting, the remaining 'graphs in his comment would lead one to believe that he also thinks that SWATting is serious business, regardless of motive. [0] Not to mention, yanno, illegal.
    - possibilistic 12y ago
      I find it interesting how much analysis has been given to the tone of cperciva's comment. There is an awful lot of this going around lately. What is the goal commenters in such threads are pursuing? To correct a wrong or misunderstanding? To show someone as biased or bigoted (or to advocate the other way)? Who are we training, and what is it we are teaching? Could it be done a better way? Is the error cperciva may have made large or small? Does it have an impact? If insignificant, why does so much effort need to be expended? Otherwise, why are there not articles to reference on the issue? (Or are there?) To be completely blunt, this all seems incredibly passive aggressive to me. I'm not talking about sexism--again, I'm simply referring to all of the meta analysis on communication and tone. I am honestly curious, and my questions are not for dramatic effect. Could this all be short-circuited by a "I doubt the OP meant to trivialize XYZ, [...]" and be done with it?
DanBC 12y ago
I read cperciva as criticising the commonly given justification of online abuse. Many people say it's not actually harassment and that it's just mean comments or that it's just an extension of online competitiveness. I read cperciva as condemning that and using this example to show that all online harassment edit[is / can be] severe.
- simoncion 12y ago
  > I read cperciva as criticising the commonly given justification of online abuse. Are you sure? His opening 'graph is: "It's worth noting that this is just the latest in a long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced -- it's not just another case of gamers taking their competition offline, which is the most common swatting backstory I hear about these days." This seems to me to say: "This isn't a one-off incident; it's yet another terrible incident in a very long string of related harassment incidents." He goes on to say that Randi has done a huge amount of work to actively combat online abuse. I don't see where cperciva makes the claim that all online harassment is severe. (Truly, not all online harassment is severe. When my boss uses email to get on my case for overdue deliverables, that's online harassment; but it's a) minor and b) justified.) [0] :) [0] Or, look at like 80% of what happens in Eve Online for boatloads of examples of minor online harassment.
- belorn 12y ago
  I guess it depend on how you want to interpret it, and a clarification from cperciva would be nice. To me it was as a statement that because the long series of episodes of harassment which Randi has experienced, this specific case is much more than all those gamers who complain about getting swatted, as their problem is just another case of gamers taking their competition offline. That this case is different from the norm (as Manishearth phrase it bellow), and thus worthy of notice in contrast to the problems of "gamers". To me, that is belittling. Maybe cperciva meant the opposite, that swatting is a real crime and not something to be perceived as just "gamers taking their competition offline", but it was not the impression I got from that comment.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
Manishearth 12y ago
They said nothing about gender, and wasn't belittling it -- they were saying that Randi's story was different from the norm, that's all.
cperciva 12y ago
Please don't belittle victims of crime by describing their experience as "just another case of gamers taking their competition offline". Not what I intended at all. Perhaps it would have been clearer if I had written "yet another case"; my point was that this was not like most swattings and readers shouldn't pattern-match and assume they know what was going on.

Snesker 12y ago

>Rather than allowing herself to be driven out of the field as many other women have been[real citation needed]

Ezekial_Noone 12y ago

It's interesting to note that no SWAT contact actually occurred.

Jweb_Guru 12y ago
It's interesting to note that what you just said is completely false.* http://gamepolitics.com/2015/04/06/ggautoblocker-creator-and-online-abuse-prevention-initiative-founder-targeted-swatting-at#.VSOMGBPF9vq http://gamepolitics.com/2015/04/06/ggautoblocker-creator-and... How deep does the conspiracy go? * Unless you are differentiating police contact from SWAT contact... which is a pretty irrelevant difference in this scenario.