You created and wrote this blog as another distraction, didn't you?
Cut your internet off for a week, go outside and "waste time" a bit more often.
Write something for your project with the intent of throwing it away, and then throw it away.
Force yourself to build something you "know" is shitty. You might find you actually get it done.
Are you seriously trying to claim that moving-target web development is more difficult an undertaking than applied high-energy nuclear physics? Get real.
This article doesn't touch on any of the reasons why PHP is a bad language, entirely glossing over it's inconsistent and often baffling internal design, and instead defending it's validity by arguing that you can ship things with it.
You can hammer nails with a rock too, and screw screws with a pocket knife, but that doesn't mean that people who've used hammers and screwdrivers will stop saying that rocks and pocket knives are bad tools to use for construction.
JavaScript is also a bad language - the === operator has no business existing, for just one example - but it's impossible to avoid, due to being the only language which runs client-side in a browser, and the same is not true of PHP.
Ok, I was wrong on that point - believing a forum post to remind me of robin's role was a poor choice of mine. Her game was chosen as an exhibitor among thousands of submissions however, so it seems hard to believe that no influence is at play, nor does it invalidate the other points.
You are VERY quick to accuse me of "swimming in a toxic cloud of hate and anger". Have you yourself considered that you may have had your viewpoint biased by the input you've had? Or that perhaps some of that anger may be due to gamers as a collective being openly insulted by journalists, simply for demanding better standards?
The only reason I viewed them in the first place was because they were readily available at the time, and because I wanted to confirm for myself if the claims being made were true.
I don't want to go digging for other people's private relationship drama to share it here in order to prove a point, and if you think this discredits my position, then so be it.
Nathan Grayson is one of the accused people. He's written a few articles on Kotaku painting her game in a positive light. Kotaku is a Gawker Media site - one of the two sites you've linked to. You can see why your evidence might not be taken so seriously in this context.
Robin Arnott is also one of the accused people. While not a journalist, he is one of the judges for Indiecade. Her game won an award on last year's indiecade, winning over Papers, please and other titles - quite a clear conflict of interest.
There has also been unearthed that the IGF, which granted awards to Fez in two separate years, had judges who all had a financial investment in it, and according to Edmund McMillen, there was direct decision to cause it to win because of this, not on it's own merits.
These are the sort of things people backing gamergate are angry about. Few people are interested in harassment campains, despite what the opposing side claim.
HN is weighted towards preventing an influx of new users having an effect on the voting of comments and articles - precisely to avoid the effect that an new influx of pro-gg or anti-gg users would have on the story or comment score.
I wanted to verify for myself that said claims were true, and video-capped facebook chatlogs where she admits her intent are pretty hard to convincingly fake.
She's not the issue, though. The journalists who accepted such favors in exchange are the issue.
Why are you trying to focus on a woman's sex life instead of the journalist's poor ethical behavior?
She herself stated that it was her reason for sleeping with them, in the video-capped facebook chatlogs her ex posted. That was enough evidence for me to believe the claims.
Her actions aren't important, however. Gamergate the movement generally wants people to stop focusing on women's sex lives, and pay more attention to the actions of the journalists involved.
You're quite quick to accuse me of harassment and hate.
That a hashtag was hijacked hardly discredits it's original intent. Those hijackers, and any since, have quickly been condemned by people who simply want journalists to have integrity and ethical standards.
If the websites had simply stated that yes, having a conflict of interest with the subjects we write about is poor ethical behavior and we will do things to change this, the campaign wouldn't have taken off at all. Instead of simply addressing gamergate's legitimate complaints, they are still trying to discredit the movement, which serves only to fuel the fire, and ironically, destroy their ad revenue due to sponsors pulling out.
The video-capped facebook chatlogs and her own admissions were evidence enough for me.
However, she is not important.
What is important is the poor behaviour of the journalists. That is what the focus is, that is what's been called into question, that is what people are angry about.
The only people still talking about women's sex lives are the anti-gamergate crowd, trying to smear the movement.
It has nothing to do with her actions - the complaints are aimed at the journalists who accepted sex in exchange for coverage, as well as the numerous other journalists who have demonstrably low integrity and poor ethics.
The admission she herself made, as well as the video-captured facebook conversation logs her ex posted with her where she admitted as much, was evidence enough for me.
The scandal wasn't about her though, try as the media might to make her the focus - it was about the journalists who had accepted sex, and reciprocated with positive coverage. It was also about the many other journalists who were found to have been doing similar things - patricia hernandez, writing a multitude of articles about the games of her housemate; danielle rindau, giving Gone Home a 10/10, when she had a pre-existing friendship with the developers, to name two.
It's the behavior of the journalists which is what's being criticized.
Gamergaters generally wants people to stop focusing on women's sex lives.
I argue that, while sparked from the same incident, gamergate is not the same as the childish harassment you refer to. It's rallying cry has always been "game journalism ethics" , and never "women get out".
I would ask the rhetorical question of why journalists continue to focus on claims of gamergate members harassing women, and give no lip service to the gamergate claims of poor journalistic integrity, and a lack of ethics.
Zoe's disgruntled ex-partner decided to publicly air a lot of dirty laundry after he'd discovered she'd been unfaithful to him. This is childish behavior, but the thing that caught people's attention was his claim that she'd intentionally slept with the editors of gaming publications to receive positive coverage, which turned out to be true.
Caught with their pants down, instead of doing the decent thing and apologizing, the editors in question rallied their friends, and published articles decrying gamers as woman-hating children, and declaring that they were 'dead' and 'over' - essentially, insulting their audience for daring to accuse them of poor ethics.
This was understandably offensive to previously loyal readers, being attacked because of their hobbies, and so the movement was born - coined #gamergate by Adam Baldwin, but helmed by none.
Images like that banner were created as a response to the repeated attempts to discredit the movement as nothing more than a woman-hatting harassment campaign, as was the sister hashtag #notyourshield, in which plenty of minorities of all genders showed their support, and disproved the claims that it was just a bunch of hateful white men.
re: your links. Gawker Media are well known as having a vested interest in painting gamergate as a hate movement; their site Kotaku plays host to one of the accused PR-for-sex journalists, they have posted numerous attack pieces, and in return have had several of their sponsors pull out due to gamergater's emails. They are desperate to paint gamergate as a hate campaign, because they badly want it to go away and stop hurting their revenue.
Gamergaters generally want people to stop focusing on women's sex lives, and pay more attention to the actions and lack of integrity of the journalists involved.
The reason this incident blew up is that, when people complained about it, journalists who were friends of the accused decided to publish a series of attack pieces painting gamers as nothing but woman hating adult children in response, thus igniting the current fire.
Browsing that subreddit, it seems to very effectively disprove your claims. Nobody is complaining about 'women', they are complaining about shitty people. You don't get a pass from being a shitty person just because of your gender.
Furthermore, #2 of the subreddit's rules: "Do not be a dick to anyone. Harass anybody, and you're out. We don't want your kind, here."
Social Justice Warriors are vilified because of their fanatical, hateful, exclusionary behavior. They are called 'warriors' and not 'advocates' for a reason.
If you can only see gamergate as an excuse for misogyny, then I'd say you're only looking for that, and ignoring anything else you find, because poor behavior like that is universally condemned within the movement.
Being the interenet, there are naturally aggressive and violent people who will throw harassment around. With regard to this issue, it is downright false to claim that they originate from, or are encouraged by, any one camp, as there are examples of harassment originating from both sides. One of the more prominent journalists writing articles supporting gamergate was mailed a syringe filled with mystery liquid; far from a friendly gesture.
There are, however, a lot of people who wish to paint gamergate as woman-hating trolls - the kind of people in the media who have a lot to lose, who always pick up on these sort of outliers and point to them as the bulk of the movement, to try to distract the public from the real message of gamergate, which is that they want proper ethics and integrity in gaming journalism, not 10/10's for games made by your friends, or articles brazenly insulting your readership.
Cut your internet off for a week, go outside and "waste time" a bit more often. Write something for your project with the intent of throwing it away, and then throw it away. Force yourself to build something you "know" is shitty. You might find you actually get it done.