My Thoughts on Comments

In the comments section of the Newsweek article on GamerGate, dozens of users logged on to leave comments on the subject matter. Many had intelligent thoughts and well written comments. Others did not.

Credible Comments:

#1

 I thought Brian's comment was credible for a number of reasons. Brian included several facts and even calculations on the subject matter. He used correct grammar and appropriate punctuation. I suppose one sketchy aspect of Brian is his so called "self-employment", but I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.

Brian seems to fear that the article and similar forms of media are giving people the wrong idea. We can tell by the way Brian strongly argues his opinion with statistics. Brian believes that the claims of harassment are dramatized and should not be seen as egregious. We can tell by some of things he says. For example, Brian states that a very low percentage, roughly .0004% of all GamerGate tweets contained true harassment.



#2

I believe Johnathon is credible for a few reasons. First of all, Johnathon draws on personal experiences of his in the gaming world to formulate his opinion. Also, Johnathon speaks with a very mature and intellectual tone using words such as "misogynistic" and "polarizing". 

It seems as though Johnathon fears people will believe there is no form of sexism in the gaming world at all. He explains at length his thoughts on sexism towards both men and women in the gaming industry, citing his own experiences with online gamers. Johnathon believes that neither men nor women are perfect in the gaming industry and that neither gender is innocent.

Uncredible Comments:

#1

Brine Cat lacks credibility for several rather obvious reasons. For starters, Brine Cat refuses to use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation for the entirety of his comment. Also Brine Cat seems to express two different opinions. Initially he calls the harassment a form of criticism, but he then says that GamerGate is all about harassment. 

Brine Cat seems to fear the alienation of females in the gaming industry. He talks briefly on this and says GamerGate is aimed towards harassing these women. Brine Cat seems to value equality between men and women based on the way he defends the women being harassed at the end of his comment.

#2

Handre lacks credibility because of the way he writes his comment. Unnecessary use of curse words and capitalization makes Handre appear as someone who is ignorant and unstable.

Handre seems to fear that criticism can't be made against certain parties anymore. Handre calls the GamerGate tweets "legitimate criticism" and is upset at the way the media is portraying GamerGate. Handre seems to believe that we can say what we want as long as it is intelligent criticism. We see that in the first couple sentences of his comment.

EDIT:

 After reading Bri's and Samantha's posts on comments, my idea of credible comments is reinforced. Credible comments will be controlled and analytical. The writer will clearly be passionate about the subject, but they won't let their emotions dictate their post. They express their fears, but not in a way that shoves information and opinion down the reader's throats. Comments that lack credibility often allow anger and even hatred to dictate their posts. They make no attempt to hide their fears on the subject, which hurts the credibility of their writing.