outside of the most rigor's academia such surveys are almost non existent. Saying that the only time any survey can be brought up that follows that pretty much dismisses almost every survey (from ones WoTC do to ones the Washington Post does) even people who are in the survey field know that level of rigor is the exception not the rule.
I’m not saying that surveys that aren’t done with this kind of rigor can’t be brought up, I’m saying they aren’t data. We discuss things that aren’t data all the time, it’s fine.
We (and I mean we as people not even just gamers or enworlders) use surveys that are biased all the time, ones with small samples and ones that don't account for all the variables. We then say "antidote isn't evidence" then neither is a large portion of surveys becuse more than not are NOT proper scientific rigor, control for things like representative sample populations, framing questions in ways that don’t bias the respondents towards a particular answer.
Right, those surveys aren’t evidence. That doesn’t mean they can’t still be worthwhile to discuss, just that when we do so, it’s important to keep in mind that they’re just collections of anecdotes. Again, that’s the point of the saying.
all we have is antidotes. We can compare them. I can tell you my experience and you can tell me yours. We can make an enworld poll that means nothing, or a survey monkey poll that is slightly better but still not really good.
Now, if you have a peer reviewed with proper scientific rigor, control for things like representative sample populations, framing questions in ways that don’t bias the respondents towards a particular answer. survay on D&D... I would love you to share it. However I bet none of us do.
It isn't about "providing". It is about setting one anecdote as a sort of counter to another - "You had this experience? Well, I didn't, so prove it to me!"
If the issue at hand was a dispute over an assertion of an objective fact (like, say, WotC sales over a given period), then asking for support is reasonable. When it is about a subjective experience, however, it looks a lot like sealioning.
Demanding someone who has gone through a bad experience to provide you with details, so that you may pass judgement over whether it was actually bad is unkind, and has you assuming a position of authority to pass judgement over the experience which you have not otherwise established.
"I got in a fight last night."
"Oh, really? Was it actually fight? Or was it more of a scuffle or an altercation?"
"I got punched in the nose."
"Oh, well I've been punched in the nose plenty of times, and I'm fine!"
"Look, I was bleeding all over the place, and my nose was broken!"
"Broken? Really? In how many places? How much blood was there, really, that you should think this was really a fight?"
"ARGH!"
"All I'm asking..." is one hallmark of sealioning. You are hiding behind the fact that it is "only a question" without addressing the implications of questioning. If, in fact, they did suffer harm, the questioning shows an astounding lack of empathy.
If you are not treating the people in the discussion as more important than you being right, there's a problem.
About their personal experiences, pretty much. You may not agree with the conclusions they reach because of their experiences, but they should not have to "prove" the quality of their experiences to you.
I disagree. In our (consumer) inability to do the work (WotC and Hasbro can do surveys) we should be discussing all of our points of view and reference and not dismiss ANY input.
Certainly we should be using all points of view and every useful bit of data we can get. But I deny what appeared to be your premise that instead of focusing on credible reports of harm (albeit anecdotal ones) we should focus on quantitative data which no one has.
Overall it looks like we've found more points of agreement in this post of yours, though.
agreed. Even though the first person I even met to play with was a girl, and to this day she is a close friend and DM/Player I know that since the 90's she has delt with A LOT of BS. Including (but not limited to) when she has brought new boyfriends to places to show them her hobby the assumption was he was the expert and she was 'just arm candy'.
there was a thread on here maybe 7-8 years ago where all the women knew where security was to report harrasment at gen con and most of us guys didn't...
yes and I celebrate all of the inclusiveness that started in 4e and continued to 5e and I foresee improving still in 6e and 7e and 8e...
I agree and as I said above I welcome more inclusiveness not less. I just hope that people remember that 3e was more than 2e and 4e mor than 3e and 5e more than 4...
now this is one I don't know. I have only heard men ever say that "all or primarily damsels" almost every woman I know always focused on the few awesome character/art they got... I also find that in other circles as well. It is interesting what % is offended victims compared to % offended FOR the victims.
I think that's an example of Survivorship Bias. The women who DID persevere and still became gamers are the ones who DIDN'T get discouraged by cheesecake art and less representation. They focused on what WAS there, and were able to do that either due to greater motivation in the first place, or perhaps due to having supportive gaming friends who helped them look past the dearth of representation and focus on the exceptions. And naturally, if you're talking to women gamers, you're talking to those women who didn't get driven away.
I don't agree with your premise that it's misleading at all. Anyone who's got even the most basic grasp of civil or criminal law understands that the word "harm" encompasses a great deal more things than physical injury.
Your inference that "this causes harm" indicates that this is "the most terrible thing on Earth" seems to me pure hyperbole, though I will credit that you are sincere. It prompts a strong gut reaction of incredulity in me.
I think there's validity to the point that people should be specific about what KIND of harm when they are asked. That's reasonable. I agree with you there.
Is, for example, women and minority gamers finding gaming spaces or publications unwelcome or discouraging not a real problem? Do you not think it's more serious than mere transitory mental discomfort?
this is exactly what I am asking for. Yes I think people feeling unwelcome is usually more serious than transitory mental discomfort. However I think there is lots of debate over whether these things are unwelcoming. I have heard very different things talking to different gamers belonging to these groups. Groups of people aren’t monolithic, and what I encounter elsewhere online, out in the world among gamers I know, if often very different from the opinions I see at en world. And I have watched different YouTube channels and listened to podcasts by different gamers belonging to these groups and also get a range of opinions on this matter. It is complicated. There are honest disagreements about this stuff even within the communities in question
That it is a legal term though is also part of the problem. I can say I am sincere and my issue with Harm as a term is it the way it gets used on places like Twitter and done of these discussion. It feels like a rhetorical bludgeon (because no one wants to be guilty if causing harm, but often if you dig deeper, there is more room for disagreement)
It is not a legal term. I'm just saying that having a passing acquaintance with civil law (as any adult should be expected to) is enough to make someone aware that harm exists in forms other than the physical. In fact, most forms of civil law, lawsuits and so forth, are about compensating people for nonphysical harms.
Now, being excluded from gaming shops or denied fun opportunities to game is less tangible and measurable than, say, defrauding someone on a transaction and thus costing them x amount of money, but both are examples of ways someone could harm another without injuring their body. Not to take this back off topic, but another example might be, for example, if a famous author were to say, represent or argue that trans people as/are monstrous, dishonest, or predatory toward women. If a famous author were to do that, I think we can agree that they'd be making the world a less supportive and potentially ALSO a less physically safe place for trans people, by increasing the general level of hostility towards them rather than empathy. This would be harmful, no?
Now that's something I find even more objectionable. (A different concept from offensive, to underline that point.) Again, there might be sub-cultures whose members identify themselves by their queerness, as they do their interactions and creative work.
But when I make pancakes, they don't become queer pancakes. And if I create a campaign setting for a game, it doesn't become a queer campaign setting.
But not to trample pointlessly long on semantics, the issue I am seeing is that it doesn't hold water if anyone says something like "I am X and I don't like this" and that is taken to mean "this is hostile to X people". Which is how I see a lot of discourse about inclusiveness and hostility taking place.
But knives and art are different. You can directly harm someone with a knife. You can be directly harmed by a knife. Art doesn't harm, it influences. And the line between influence and bad things in the world is hard to measure. It is even harder when you have to weigh, not just how many people go and do bad things because they got an idea from a book, but how many people didn't go and do bad things because of it, how many people went and did good things, because of it. This is a classic argument you see around religion for example. When I was young and developing a skeptical mind about religion, I remember having a conversation with my father where I pinned many of the ills of the world on it (and there were many, many I could point to), but he was also able to point to the amount of good people did, that they might not have done, the amount of people who didn't engage in war or violence, they might otherwise have engaged in, because of religion. My declaration was overly simplistic. And obviously that is a deep and complicated topic, not one we can resolve here. But I think it is a similar type of moral reasoning. And I think there is a bit of a problem with the way we use the term harm in these discussion. It is very vague. It tends to stop conversation (this caused harm, it is bad, end of story). And I think a lot of us, feel like these claims are exaggerated and not critically examined.
Certainly we should be using all points of view and every useful bit of data we can get. But I deny what appeared to be your premise that instead of focusing on credible reports of harm (albeit anecdotal ones) we should focus on quantitative data which no one has.
except that is NOT what I am saying.
We should weigh them all. With no ability to tell who is telling the truth or lying (and this is the internet atleast 1 enworlder is) we can simply take the stories of 'cause harm' and the stories of 'was good' and weigh them witheach other.
I think that's an example of Survivorship Bias. The women who DID persevere and still became gamers are the ones who DIDN'T get discouraged by cheesecake art and less representation.
yeah. I can see that. so again we have to look at what IS causing the harm. my problem (again and again) is how hard it is to find the right way to fix the problem. Especially when the people you want to help (in this case woman in gaming) have such vastly diffrent ideas of what to do.
I don't want to derail but there was a HUGE hot button issue at the start of 4e, and I thought I was on the "women in gaming side" until I was told that the women (some even on this very board) wanted the opposite of what I thought they would want. The trouble is since not all women in and out of gaming can agree... I still end up the 'outsider picking a side'
This feels like a very strained example to me. Again, it is still a knife that can be used to hurt a person physically, even kill them. Unless we are talking about rpg books being used in that way, or works of art being used to do things like physically crush people.....I don't see how this has much relevance.
except that is NOT what I am saying.
We should weigh them all. With no ability to tell who is telling the truth or lying (and this is the internet atleast 1 enworlder is) we can simply take the stories of 'cause harm' and the stories of 'was good' and weigh them witheach other.
