Michael Stackpole resigns from GAMA

[kythri]

From the Dellorfano thread:

GAMA President Stephen Brissaud "assaulted" GenCon security staff, and was booted from the convention (first day of Gencon 2018).  I'm do not believe it was a permanent ban (it appears the only way for that to happen is to be assaulted by an SJW off-site).  GAMA "leadership" convened and ultimately recommended that Brissaud make an apology statement (he made an open apology) and that he attend an anger management class (he did not).  I do not believe either recommendation was a requirement.  He was not censured or stripped of his post.

GAMA Executive Director John Ward dis-invited Larry Correia to Origins 2018 (http://file770.com/origins-game-fair-drops-larry-correia-as-guest/) due to Twatter-bitching about Correia being the evil white Nazi man or some such other bullshit.  GAMA later announced on August 24th (http://file770.com/john-ward-out-as-gama-executive-director/) that they were not renewing Ward's contract, of which there is absolutely no indication that it has anything to do with the Origins dis-invitation incident or any kind of backlash due to that, despite insinuations made here.  There's been continued discussion amongst GAMA membership over Ward's contract, and there's been some waffling, but I do not believe there has been any reversal of that decision as of yet.

On this topic, Michael Stackpole just published an open letter, resigning from GAMA:

My Resignation Letter to the GAMA Board of Directors

06. JAN, 2019

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

To the GAMA Board,

It is my great pleasure to have been part of the gaming industry since 1972 when I first discovered it. In 1977 I sold my first article, in 1978 I sold my first game design and in 1979 began working for Flying Buffalo, Inc.. In 1985 I was able to go freelance and since that time I have made my living through creative arts including game design and game based fiction. My work has been honored with Origins awards, and in 1993 I received the GAMA Meritorious Service award, and was a first ballot inductee into the Academy of Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame. I have worked long enough in this industry to have survived many of the companies for whom I worked, and have continued to enjoy fruitful associations with what companies remain.

A long time ago, to honor the industry which gave me my start, I made a personal pledge to serve it however I could. I have been a long time volunteer. I have been an advocate for gaming in perilous times. With Loren Wiseman's help, in the late 1980s and early 1990s I successfully led the fight against the religious right and their attempts to censor and abolish the games we create, enjoy and share. I still take pride in gamers reporting to me that The Pulling Report enabled them to fight back against anti-game bigotry even to this day. Though the work is difficult, I have been pleased to continue the fight as part of the Industry Watch Committee of GAMA.

The greatest privilege I have had is to serve on the Board of Directors, initially for three years as an elected member, and the last eleven as an Emeritus member. I feel the Emeritus role on the board is a crucial one, since board turnover requires a repository of knowledge so we can avoid the pitfalls of past mistakes, and maintain the benefits of what we have learned in past times.

I regret that I must now tender my resignation from that post.

I have not reached this decision based on any political divide within the Board. I have come to it because the Board is broken. Since June, the board has had more meetings than ever before, and has done less than ever before. In one recent meeting, it took the board 45 minutes to word a resolution empowering a committee to hire a lawyer to negotiate with another lawyer. Three-quarters of an hour, in a meeting scheduled for two hours, which stretched to four.

The board is broken when the organization's membership indicates its will; and then the board commissions a poll to second guess the membership's will. When that poll comes back confirming what the membership wants, the board hires a lawyer to tell them they can ignore the membership.

The board is broken when it, having previously enjoyed robust and detailed discussions about GAMA harassment policies, down to the minutia of the structuring of an investigative team to be in place at our shows, chooses only to censure an officer who physically assaulted a female security guard.

The board is broken when, in wishing to discuss me in email, without my being aware of the chain, they actually send it to a list which includes me. (Thought I'd let you know about that so you didn't think your emails were leaked to me.)

This is not a decision reached easily, and one that comes with profound sadness. During my time in the industry, I have seen incredible change for the better, and an incredible resilience to recover from all manner of disasters--economic, social and board-generated. I have great belief that the gaming industry will survive and thrive in the future. It is bigger than any one person, or a board. It can be defined only by the pleasure and joy it brings everyone it touches, and, therefore, will be eternal.

My resignation is effective 3 PM, 5 January 2019

Michael A. Stackpole

As mentioned, GAMA shenanigans came up earlier in the Dellorfano thread, so a new thread seemed the best place to mention it.

[SP23]

Good for him. GAMA has been more and more irrelevant for the better part of two decades now.

[Mordred Pendragon]

Sad to see another one of the old-timers who helped build this hobby resign and presumably be chased out because of the disproportionate influence of Neo-Bolshevik dangerhair hipsters and other godless Goth and Punk commie scum.

If only we could reclaim GenCon, unban the guy who was assaulted off-site, and perma-ban both his assailant and Anita Sarkeesian, the latter of whom had no business being at GenCon to begin with, seeing as she has no relevancy to tabletop games.

Anita Sarkeesian is just a moral authoritarian commissar masquerading as a feminist. The likes of dyed-hair punk rock scumbag hipsters like her have basically undone decades of progress for women's rights and LGBT rights, all for the sake of moral authoritarian outrage and raising a stink over "problematic" video games and other first world problems.

In Saudi Arabia, real-life flesh and blood women are being treated as mere property and were forbidden to even drive cars until 2018. In Sub-Saharan Africa, young girls are being sexually mutilated.

Even in the First World, women receive less pay for the same amount of work a man does.

And that bitch Anita Sarkeesian cares more about fictional women in video games wearing skimpy outfits.

If she really cared about the well-being of women, she'd focus on the problems of real women. Not video game women.

Sarkeesian is not about gender equality or female empowerment, that's just a facade for her true agenda of media censorship and moral authoritarianism. Like most of her ilk, she's essentially a secular puritan.

[Ratman_tf]

Even in the First World, women receive less pay for the same amount of work a man does.

No they don't.

[Mordred Pendragon]

No they don't.

Eh, my point still stands that Anita Sarkeesian is a terrible human being who doesn't give a shit about real-life women and is just a moral crusader.

[jhkim]

Even in the First World, women receive less pay for the same amount of work a man does.

No they don't.

You're citing a 5% difference in hours worked, which doesn't disprove that women are paid less for the same work, given a much larger disparity in net earnings - sometimes cited as 79 cents on the dollar. It's true that not all of that 21% difference is necessarily direct gender discrimination - but there is evidence to suggest that a significant part of it is. For example, there is this study, also cited in Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2016/03/31/women-are-still-paid-less-than-men-even-in-the-same-job/#1ad3195d4709

In general, discrimination is hard to prove. The job market is not a controlled environment for study, nor is it uniform. Results in one field won't necessarily apply to another. Still, there have been many studies to suggest that discrimination against women is significant.

[Ratman_tf]

You're citing a 5% difference in hours worked, which doesn't disprove that women are paid less for the same work, given a much larger disparity in net earnings - sometimes cited as 79 cents on the dollar. It's true that not all of that 21% difference is necessarily direct gender discrimination - but there is evidence to suggest that a significant part of it is. For example, there is this study, also cited in Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jwebb/2016/03/31/women-are-still-paid-less-than-men-even-in-the-same-job/#1ad3195d4709

In general, discrimination is hard to prove. The job market is not a controlled environment for study, nor is it uniform. Results in one field won't necessarily apply to another. Still, there have been many studies to suggest that discrimination against women is significant.

And many studies to suggest otherwise.

https://abcnews.go.com/2020/GiveMeABreak/story?id=797045&page=1

It has been illegal to pay women less for the same work since 1963.

https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/epa.cfm

I usually start with hours worked, since it's an easy concept to grasp. Less hours = less pay. There are other factors, yes. And I'm sure discrimination against women is in there somewhere. Notably, the unfair discrimination angle is the only one pointed out when discussing the earnings gap. Ex. This very thread. At least, it was until people started pushing back against the narrative.

[shuddemell]

According to the most recent study at Harvard, the pay "gap" is actually an earnings gap explained by personal choice.

https://www.americanexperiment.org/2018/12/harvard-study-gender-pay-gap-explained-entirely-work-choices-men-women/

The actual study itself can be found here:

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/bolotnyy/files/be_gendergap.pdf

[S'mon]

Don't unmarried women in their 20s earn more than unmarried men in their 20s? The 'pay gap' seems more a feature of motherhood later on.

[Spinachcat]

I predict GAMA will collapse by 2024.

[Ratman_tf]

Don't unmarried women in their 20s earn more than unmarried men in their 20s? The 'pay gap' seems more a feature of motherhood later on.

That's another factor. Progressives will bemoan that women are "forced" by "society" to become mothers, and drop out of the workforce for a period after having kids, or simply drop out for good and become full time housewives.

[Kiero]

If it were really possible to pay women less to do the same work, men would not be hired. It's really basic and simple economics, employers care about their profits first, and everything else second.

[Dimitrios]

I suppose there's no hope of getting this thread back on-topic, but I'll give it a try. Does anyone know the specifics of what Stackpole is referring to when he mentions the board polling GAMA's membership and then ignoring the results?

[moonsweeper]

I suppose there's no hope of getting this thread back on-topic, but I'll give it a try. Does anyone know the specifics of what Stackpole is referring to when he mentions the board polling GAMA's membership and then ignoring the results?

According to this it appears to have to do with the John Ward situation.

https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/42184/mike-stackpole-gama-board-is-broken

[kythri]

Yeah, the big one is the John Ward situation, but there's also the Brissaud assault issue.

For Ward, the issue is that the board decided to not renew Ward's contract (essentially, firing him), despite Ward essentially pulling the organization's ass out of the fire and resolving it's financial situation (years of mismanagement had the organization near bankruptcy).  The vast majority of the membership at all tiers (publishing, distribution, retail, etc.) was unhappy with this, and made their feelings known, enough so that the board put out a formal poll to the membership at large.  Resounding support for maintaining Ward was the outcome of the poll, but the board ignored it and hired his replacement.

The Brissaud assault situation was that Brissaud got a bug up his ass about something at GenCon, didn't want to follow rules that GenCon staff/security had in place, and injured a staffer or member of the security team, and was expelled from the event the morning of the first day.  The board half-assedly censured his conduct, and recommended (not ordered) that he apologize and attend anger management classes.  He posted a mealy-mouthed open apology, has not attended anger management, and is still President of the GAMA organization - much to the anger of the majority of GAMA membership, who, by and large, feel that he should have been booted from the org.  I don't recall if this specific incident was discussed in the poll regarding Ward.