Board 8 > So it turns out Nick Robinson from Polygon is a piece of shit.

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=1415751

TLDR: he's been sending creepy sexual messages to women in gaming and asking for nudes for years.

So much for a femenist ally!

He was on a podcast for six years with Matt Kessler and I think not quite as long with Ben Pack (don't know if he was always there?), hopefully they don't have to deal with harrasment. Both have gotten out in front of it and didn't know. Kessler is PISSED, DOTA 2 cancelled forever.
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don't know who he is so don't care zzzzz
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Good for you Shine!
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Already somewhat covered in the Giant Bomb thread.

Polygon has suspended him pending their own investigation.
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Oh. I mean, he's not at GB anymore, seems like a seperate piece of news.

In fact, his connection to GB is kind of one of the reasons this became such an issue to begin with!
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ninkendo posted...

don't know who he is so don't care zzzzz

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I expect this from Shine, but not you Ed!
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Heard about this, very disappointing even though I don't really follow any of his content.
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what's the point of going in a topic and posting about how you don't know or don't care

you can communicate the same thing by just not posting and you look like less of a jackass in the process
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Don't know him don't care
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Theo72 posted...

what's the point of going in a topic and posting about how you don't know or don't care

you can communicate the same thing by just not posting and you look like less of a jackass in the process

You'll notice a common theme mostly!
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really sucks that folks were manipulated by him (other accounts are that he was luring women with promises of being able to get them in the industry) and ultimately taken advantage of.

and also Car Boys was awesome and CoolGames Inc is pretty funny, and just in general Polygon's video content has been pretty good in the last year and he was a major part of that, so that stinks
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I make it a point to avoid polygon so I have no clue who this is.
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Welp I too have no idea who he is, seems he was abusing his position to gain sexual favours, which is sleazy as fuck though, so he got what was coming to him.
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People who try to make names for themselves on the internet tend to suck. More at 11.

Seriously though, of course. Of course.
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Turns out _____ from Polygon is a piece of shit.

Well no shit, they're from Polygon.
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Never really cared for him. I only like Polygon for their comedy videos (Monster Factory mostly), and Nick wasn't particularly funny on the shows he was on
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i dont know who those people are or care but what does it have to do with dota 2
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I sure hope gamergate won't go after him
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oh wait he's a dude
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Why would Gamergate go after him, his actions are the Gamergate mantra.
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Theo72 posted...

what's the point of going in a topic and posting about how you don't know or don't care

you can communicate the same thing by just not posting and you look like less of a jackass in the process

don't know what this post means dont care lol
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MenuWars posted...

Welp I too have no idea who he is, seems he was abusing his position to gain sexual favours, which is sleazy as fuck though, so he got what was coming to him.

I'm not defending his behavior here, but if you're willing to abuse your ability to provide sexual favors to gain position, you're in the same boat.
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transience posted...

oh wait he's a dude

there's a pretty steadily growing list of "male feminist allies" who ended up being total shits that are mocked and known among old GG supporters actually. including a number of journos.

the only issue with this case is that so far there hasn't been any evidence to support the claim. it's just been a few accusations and nothing else. reasonable thing to do is to withhold judgment until some facts and details come out because so far it's just empty accusations with nothing to support them.
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Fuck.
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WazzupGenius00 posted...

really sucks that folks were manipulated by him (other accounts are that he was luring women with promises of being able to get them in the industry) and ultimately taken advantage of.

Where are these accounts? As far as I know, there are zero firsthand accounts of anything, let alone actual accusations like this.

I feel like he was a creep in some girl's DMs, asking for nudes like fuckboys do, and then this game of telephone with everyone going "well I heard from a friend that their friend said this."
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I feel like he was a creep in some girl's DMs, asking for nudes like f***boys do"

Many women, but yes.

And then it's not so much "telephone" as "People who have seen the behavior happen to their friends discussing it in such a way as to not reveal publicly who was targeted, because of what the Internet then does to those people."

When you see even his closest industry friends reacting with revulsion to what they've seen, I think it's safe to say the accounts are legit.
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Airship_Canon posted...

Turns out _____ from Polygon is a piece of shit.

Well no shit, they're from Polygon.

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hasn't been "many women" involved either as far as direct accusers go. and we don't know what his "closest industry friends" have seen, if anything. many are just commenting with no proof of anything, just going off the accusations of a few tweets. with nothing actually known or even really there right now, makes far, far more sense to just take a wait and see approach as opposed to already accepting that he's a total shit based on little more than hearsay.

for now it's (i assume paid) suspension as vox media investigates, which is fine. there just ain't much to judge him on either way until he speaks up, somebody else provides evidence, or vox releases what they know.
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When you have zero concrete accusations, people fill in the blanks, and the spread of misinformation about Overcooked has made it hard to trust thirdhand accounts of vaguely.

The Giant Bomb Facebook thread about it had people saying shit like "I heard he flashed a girl", "I heard he promised coverage for sexual favors", and then when pressed on where they read it, responded with "Well that's just what I gathered".
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Wanglicious posted...

hasn't been "many women" involved either as far as direct accusers go. and we don't know what his "closest industry friends" have seen, if anything. many are just commenting with no proof of anything, just going off the accusations of a few tweets. with nothing actually known or even really there right now, makes far, far more sense to just take a wait and see approach as opposed to already accepting that he's a total s*** based on little more than hearsay.

Nah, Matt Kessler, Ben Pack, and the McIlroys aren't making the comments they are just off of hearsay, dude.
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They're taking the vague accusations seriously and believing them, without proof, as everyone continuously says they should.

Good on them, and this makes me unpopular in my social justice circles, but I'm not willing to go so far as to believe accusations that nobody can even narrow down to specifics.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

The Giant Bomb about it thread on Facebook had people saying s*** like "I heard he flashed a girl", "I heard he promised coverage for sexual favors", and then when pressed on where they read it, responded with "Well that's just what I gathered".

While it's true that the public does not know the explicit details of the actual offenses, you can easily see in a broad sense that there's real stuff here if you just look at the way people who know him personally are speaking
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

They're taking the vague accusations seriously and believing them, without proof, as everyone continuously says they should.

Good on them, and this makes me unpopular in my social justice circles, but I'm not willing to go so far as to believe accusations that nobody can even narrow down to specifics.

I guess it doesn't really matter if you believe them?

You're applying court logic to human interaction IMO
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FWIW, Austin Walker, not necessarily a friend of Nick's but surely a friend of those affected, and someone whose words I trust, has directly said "I am not speaking from hearsay."
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Ben's reaction of "I'm confused and upset, but i'm leaving the door open to forgiveness" is me.

Kessler's reaction seems so bizarre, like Nick hasn't even made a comment yet, it seems so cold to cut ties to a longtime friend without even hearing their side of the story.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Ben's reaction of "I'm confused and upset, but i'm leaving the door open to forgiveness" is me.

no you're more like "I don't believe it"
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then what are they basing the comments on? right now it seems the best thing anyone would know is a one sided story of which the details are unknown. worst thing is they've been given a bunch of "somebody told me" type stories, which is hearsay. both ways, there's no way for anybody to determine what they've seen or heard and there's no way of knowing the validity of that. it's a black box right now and the specifics are so minimal that there's no way to know what's going on.

Jakyl25 posted...

You're applying court logic to human interaction IMO

no, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" isn't "court logic," it's human decency. if you are accused of something then it makes sense that some evidence would be presented. otherwise it should be treated with severe skepticism because there's literally nothing to work with there, it's a "he says, she says" type of game. only in this case we don't even have that, he hasn't said shit. as the phrase goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. that's called being fair, not court.

nobody is asking for proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that's court logic.
they're asking for any evidence, any proof, any screencaps, first hand stories, anything to support the claims at all. and there aren't any two days later. now granted, it's the weekend so Vox won't do their investigation right now. if you're waiting for the third party arbiter, that's your focus. but nobody else has spoken up so it still makes far, far more sense to be a reasonable human and not damn him to hell until there's an actual reason to.
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KommunistKoala posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Ben's reaction of "I'm confused and upset, but i'm leaving the door open to forgiveness" is me.

no you're more like "I don't believe it"

I mean I believe something happened, but refer to Ben's reaction for more.
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Kessler's reaction seems so bizarre, like Nick hasn't even made a comment yet, it seems so cold to cut ties to a longtime friend without even hearing their side of the story.

This is what I'm trying to say

You're making the assumption Kessler is only going off of thirdhand accounts, while at the same time saying his behavior is bizarre for someone who hasn't seen direct evidence.

It's most likely because he has
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

WazzupGenius00 posted...

really sucks that folks were manipulated by him (other accounts are that he was luring women with promises of being able to get them in the industry) and ultimately taken advantage of.

Where are these accounts? As far as I know, there are zero firsthand accounts of anything, let alone actual accusations like this.

I feel like he was a creep in some girl's DMs, asking for nudes like fuckboys do, and then this game of telephone with everyone going "well I heard from a friend that their friend said this."

For that particular accusation, there's this: https://twitter.com/rockportlimited/status/893568025286156288
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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I feel like he was a creep in some girl's DMs, asking for nudes like fuckboys do, and then this game of telephone with everyone going "well I heard from a friend that their friend said this."

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I feel like he was a creep in some girl's DMs, asking for nudes like fuckboys do, and then this game of telephone with everyone going "well I heard from a friend that their friend said this."

Do you think Kessler and Pack are doing this?

You say look at Pack's statements. Key words there for me are that he could potentially forgive in the future, but he will not ever forget.

This is not something people say after merely hearing accusations of what their close friend has done.
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Why is it difficult to believe that these various people are sharing their personal experiences and/or evidence privately with each other and with those close to him in order to verify the truth? Given the way Gamergate shitheads work their shit on anyone who speaks out against the status quo it's obvious they would be hesitant to or refuse to come forward publicly, but that doesn't preclude private sharing of information to whom it may concern.

Like here: https://twitter.com/austin_walker/status/893854524347224064
Obviously Austin has directly seen something
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Wanglicious posted...

no, the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" isn't "court logic," it's human decency.

You could argue that reserving judgment until more evidence surfaces is human decency, but not this.

"Innocent until proven guilty" inherently makes the assumption that the accusers are lying.
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HotDogButts posted...

MenuWars posted...

Welp I too have no idea who he is, seems he was abusing his position to gain sexual favours, which is sleazy as fuck though, so he got what was coming to him.

I'm not defending his behavior here, but if you're willing to abuse your ability to provide sexual favors to gain position, you're in the same boat.

Yeah, I see where you're coming from and agree to a certain extent.
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WazzupGenius00 posted...

Why is it difficult to believe that these various people are sharing their personal experiences and/or evidence privately with each other and with those close to him in order to verify the truth?

Clearly it's easier for some to believe in the possibility of a wide swath of people deciding all at once on a conspiracy to get Nick Robinson fired.
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Jakyl25 posted...

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Why is it difficult to believe that these various people are sharing their personal experiences and/or evidence privately with each other and with those close to him in order to verify the truth?

Clearly it's easier for some to believe in the possibility of a wide swath of people deciding all at once on a conspiracy to get Nick Robinson fired.

Just like Bill Cosby!
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Jakyl25 posted...

This is not something people say after merely hearing accusations of what their close friend has done.

but what is the accusation he's heard?
the specific one. not that he's a bit of a creep or that he at one point went something like 'send nudes plz' or something. but what's the accusation, to whom, and how damning is it? was Nick in a relationship with that person?

do you not understand that when you have nothing concrete, everything and nothing are both equally valid? you don't know what they're damning him for, you don't know if they're overreacting. you don't know if they know the full story or if it's just snippets that only tell one side and makes the other looks really bad. so why are you judging anything based on this?

WazzupGenius00 posted...

Why is it difficult to believe that these various people are sharing their personal experiences and/or evidence privately with each other and with those close to him in order to verify the truth?

i'm perfectly fine believing that the direct people involved gave their account of the story to the people who can do something about it. i don't shame them at all for that or wanting to keep their privacy, that's fine.

i'm not fine with believing that their account of the story is accurate, true, or complete.
i'm not fine with basing any decisions or judgments from what the person getting only their story is.
i'm not fine with basing any decisions or judgments on "he says/she says" type logic, hearsay, or other third party accounts which may not reflect what actually happened.


which is why my position is that he may be scum and he may not be scum. i don't know because i don't know the facts, so i'll withhold opinion about him. i don't see how there can be any other reasonable response either.
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Jakyl25 posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I feel like he was a creep in some girl's DMs, asking for nudes like fuckboys do, and then this game of telephone with everyone going "well I heard from a friend that their friend said this."

Do you think Kessler and Pack are doing this?

You say look at Pack's statements. Key words there for me are that he could potentially forgive in the future, but he will not ever forget.

This is not something people say after merely hearing accusations of what their close friend has done.

Like I said in my quoted post, if it's just him being a creep in DMs and asking for nudes (which seems to be the most common refrain), then he's gross--and yeah, I won't forget that--but that's not enough for me to drop him completely.

I have a history with the dude, outside of just watching his content, and I realize it's not a good look, but that's where I stand.
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