Originally published at: NISEI Weekly Update – Better Late Than Never - StimHack
Discuss the latest article here.
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Hey all.
Most of you all likely won’t know me, but I decided to pipe up anyway to voice my opinion on the ‘Real Talk’ article.
Yeah, it had a little sass, but often very real people who speak about the very real issues the article brings up are told they need to be nicer as a way to delegitimize their arguments. That’s frustrating, and frankly we’re frustrated about that frustration. So, we decided to be blunt, direct, and, well, real.
I understand your source of frustration, but at the same time being frustrated about someone’s else frustration is not very useful for them; even though it is justified.
If you mostly agree we have some real issue to address, ask yourself if the tone matters more than the points? We don’t think it does.
I don’t agree with discrimination, but that doesn’t make sense to me. Just because a righteous topic is being spoken about, the speaker is not granted moral superiority.
Besides, I feel politeness, firm civility, gentle illumination, non toxic and a non-bashing approach is more likely to win over dissenters, and not alienate those people on the border of leaving the dark side.
tl;dr - I don’t think sass is the way to go.
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So your post is to criticize a post that you felt had too critical a tone in it’s defense of another post that had too critical a tone?
Let’s keep it going.
I agree that it is somewhat…‘grandiose’ perhaps release a multi-page statement about inclusion for an organization that at this point is a small group of message board people who may or may not announce small local tournaments for a niche card game that is already mostly middle-aged adults with an established history of basic inclusive politics. Unless there is some quiet, Netrunner incel clique lurking here that I have yet to encounter. Likely playing the Anarch faction, I assume. But it seems pretty harmless and gave people who like to type about inclusion a chance to feel righteous and, like everything else on the internet, no one actually has to read it.
Getting critical of the tone of a harmless, filler press release by unpaid slack chatters seems similar to getting critical of a teenagers livejournal. There are worse things than letting people publically pat themselves on the back for their own struggle against imaginary bigots who want to play netrunner and slander Martin Luther King at the same time or whatever.
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It’s not “someone else’s” frustration. It’s their own frustration at things like this very response.
Nobody is saying anything of the sort.
That said, I don’t completely disagree with you; I’ve been thinking a lot about this article (despite, lol, the belligerent, sanctimonious tone of its headline), and I do think/hope there can be some middle ground between “you can catch more flies with honey” and “I shouldn’t have to coddle bigots just because they don’t want to stop oppressing me unless I’m nice about it”
Man I don’t know what Internet you’ve been reading, but sign me the hell up
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You can read anything you want on the internet. There are billions of pages and a search function. Maybe getting off topic but I am utterly confused by how most people create their own internet bubble and seem to hate everything in it so much.
I mainly read WaPo, The Economist, Lawfare blog and I follow a lot of comedians and politico on twitter. Dry adult stuff rules!
I agree that it is somewhat…‘grandiose’ perhaps release a multi-page statement about inclusion for an organization that at this point is a small group of message board people who may or may not announce small local tournaments for a niche card game that is already mostly middle-aged adults with an established history of basic inclusive politics. Unless there is some quiet, Netrunner incel clique lurking here that I have yet to encounter. Likely playing the Anarch faction, I assume. But it seems pretty harmless and gave people who like to type about inclusion a chance to feel righteous and, like everything else on the internet, no one actually has to read it.
I agree to large portions of this (especially as ANR goes “underground” and let’s say the global competitive player base becomes…5000 people? 1000 people?)…however, I think it’s still okay to set a standard for expectations and behaviors. So, even if it is “harmless” based on the supposition that no one is going to read it (a la, Nerdy Live Journal for Middle Aged Adults), I think NISEI is setting the stage and a standard for the Organization at Large.
That’s not to say the players have to be believe the tenants of what NISEI put forth, but as you say, there’s most likely not a double-secret-underground-White Power netrunner play group (not only do they only play Anarch, but they only play as the guy from the Human’s First card).
He’s got a name, you know. 
(Edward Kim)
EDIT: Huh. You know, I’m not 100% that’s Edward. I’d always assumed, but it might not be…
I feel like incels only play IG and Gagarin and Museum is always their restricted card.
So your post is to criticize a post that you felt had too critical a tone in it’s defense of another post that had too critical a tone?
I think you might have missed my point. Criticism is okay. Being critical is okay. The way you do it matters. Tough love always wins over righteous anger.
lol, I was thinking of the current that got you credits when you scored an agenda. Isn’t that a white guy with a goatee?
and while I ponder this in my brain, I could, you know, just look the card up on the internet that I’m currently using. 
Sorry, back to the conversation at hand.
I wasn’t being critical of your criticism at all. Just enjoying the circle.
Let me tell you though, I’m pretty sure no one sees message board criticism as ‘tough love’ though.
Although if that statements comes off as harsh, in this specific exception, this really is a form of tough love.
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I felt that the article writers were using a moral hammer. Can’t prove it though.
I really liked your article that you linked to, thanks 
@OneFabric and @PizzatimePlayer, maybe you don’t know this but when we made the initial announcement we later edited it to say we’d added a woman and that we believed in being inclusive. Just a nice little blerb. Nothing serious or long.
You know what Reddit and 4chan did? Collectively lost their shit about how we were being SJW crusaders ruining their fun by bringing politics into their game. And 4chan in particular had really distastful vitriol. Over that one little blerb. And every single update since has had at least one nasty comment.
Oh, like my favorite: “I expect when they announce the Board it’ll just be a bunch of fat black lesbian cripples.”
So, the point is, these people do exist. Don’t fool yourselves into thinking the Netrunner community is a magical Christmas land where problematic things don’t exist. It is better than most. It is not where it needs to be.
We’re not going to be nice for the sake of keeping people like the Redditors and 4chaners around. We’re not trying to win them over. We’re trying to drive them out and we hope they never return.
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Just to be clear, I support the initiative 100% and am a San Francisco, card carrying queer community member who admires your attitude and supports it. I maybe threw a little snark just to goof around. You guys rule and I love what you do and don’t take me too seriously. It’s a labor or love.
Edit: After I posted this, i just realized how horrible it must have been for the writers of that post to have gone through the toxicity of the wider internet. I am sorry to hear about that.
Hey man.
Thank you very much for this post, I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t realize some very specific people were being targeted. Also, until I read your comment I was under the impression that the Netrunner community was a magical place.
Still. Make of it what you will, but my opinion is still the same; don’t keep them around, ( because of their toxicity, the preservation of safe space for humans ) but be open for their change.
Look, we hear what people are saying and we’re adjusting as we go (many of us have never done a project like this). Our tone, style, or whatever else aren’t going to be even or polished right off the bat. We’ll keep people’s concerns in mind for future stuff, but we’re damn sure not saying we’re sorry because we dialed up the righteous fury on one post.
If anyone wants to blame anyone for any tonal issues or stuff that rubs you the wrong way, also please direct any vitriol toward me and @jakodrako. We have a lot of help with these announcements, but we’re ultimately the people making the call on what does or doesn’t get posted (at least for now; stay tuned!).
Further, just one more thing, and I know this is anecdotal so you’ll just have to believe me: The inclusiveness article is something we have received hundreds of messages thanking us for. Not a handful, not dozens, hundreds. Prettymuch the main thread in most of those messages was that they appreciated us coming down with a loud roar rather than a meek meow.
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From everything I have heard about 4chan, that’s par for the course, right?
I’m inclined to ignore anything said there, and recommend cutting off anyone who brings that garbage here.
You ain’t wrong. It’s a cesspool. What I was highlighting was that some of those tools play Netrunner, and we have absolutely zero desire to play nice with them.
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Honestly should we care ?
They were less emo 10 years ago. Today “someone is wrong on the internet” and it’s the end of their world.
Today, they are emos raging about who they think are emos. They are not punk anymore.
Thematically “cyberpunk genre” is THE BEST theme to talk about politics, period.
Non political cyberpunk games are for kids. That’s what 80-90’s superhero themes are for.
I don’t like the tone of the earlier article, or the justification this article offered. If you want to get your point across, you can do so by being the better person in the argument on top of having sound arguments. Not wanting to play nice is not a feature I like from the last best hope to keep this game alive. This is not how you bring a message as an organization, because it sounds standoffish for no real reason. I don’t want a new player to come join netrunner, find NISEI and read an article in that tone as their introduction to the community.
Be welcoming. Be clear. Make your point in direct terms. Be civilized, kind and understanding. It’ll get your message much farther since you’ll get people to listen to you. Content of a message may be king, but that’s no reason to use a poor tone.
For the record, I do hope that you are successful in your endeavour. I liked it when Damon mentioned how he paid special attention to representation, not only from the perspective of a future world where everyone is living in a more cosmopolitan world, but also so that minorities have a role model to find in this game. I can only see good things come from that. If we can make this a better place for everyone by giving the minorities a step up so that the playing field is more level, even if this means that the majority takes a step down, then that’s a good thing.
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