“Peer” Review

So there’s a new thing happening in the internet gaming-verse, and it’s called #OprationDiggingDiGRA. DiGRA is the Digital Games Research Association, and they have regional and global conferences all over the world every year. They offer venues for scholars of games to present their work, and they publish papers both from their proceedings and from outside scholarship.

DiGRA is an organization of affiliated and independent scholars, most of them with advanced degrees (PhDs) or industry experience or both. They make a living (or part of a living) by doing research into various components of games, whether through the hard sciences, social sciences, or humanities. Their job is to engage games and gamers with thoroughly researched, thoughtful, critical theses based in academic rigor.

#OperationDiggingDiGRA was formed by a few #GamerGaters to “fact check every DiGRA article relating to games,” tweeted by @RogueStarGamez which quickly morphed into “Fact-check, and verify all of feminist papers in DiGRA” when tweeted by @ramzaruglia, who then altered the goal to read “Peer-reviewing and fact-checking of every DiGRA papers [sic] written by feminists.”

Just on the surface level of intention, there is a problem with #ODD – it isn’t actually about fact-checking academic papers, as @ramzaruglia’s tweets reveal. If it were, then no one would care, as academic papers should already be factually accurate (and most academics are willing to make the changes to them if they are not, because no decent academic actually wants to make an argument based on factual inaccuracy). In fact, more than one academic has requested that #ODD either publish or make public factual errors so that they can be remedied.

The idea that gamers could be a useful critical audience for academics working in gaming is actually one that I would embrace in any other context. I think having more gamers reading academic writing on games can do a lot to improve the field, and to educate gamers about the significance of their chosen form of entertainment. It’s good for both the primary audience and the critical audience of a medium to talk to one another, to share opinions and ideas, and to keep each other honest. The concept of fans fact-checking both journalists and academics is, at its core, a good thing.

But that is not what I see happening here. Both because of its origins in #GamerGate and because of some of the tweets made by participants, I am not seeing that kind of open intellectual exchange taking place, irrespective of the assertions of several #ODDers.

What is problematic about #ODD is that it very rapidly morphed in tone from “fact check every DiGRA article” to “papers written by feminists.” That’s a specific biased targeting of a particular type of theoretical approach – and one that is difficult to “fact check” because it’s based in sociological and cultural theory (Butler, Barthes, Foucault, Greer, etc.) and not in anything that can or cannot be proven. An author might get the theory wrong, certainly, but if a #GGer takes issue with Judith Butler, what then? Judith Butler’s theories may be accurately used by an academic, but if the #GGer in question doesn’t like the notion of gender performativity, is it likely that the academic will then “fail” the supposed “fact-check”? I’m thinking that such a thing is more than likely. I hope it isn’t, but it seems to me that gender theory itself is what will fall victim to the “fact-checking,” rather than the criticism of games.

Which brings me to another point. “Peer-review” is not something the average #GGer is capable of offering, because the average #GGer is (and correct me if I’m wrong) not an academic. That’s the whole point of peer review – that the people reviewing the work are the author’s peers: academics. The point of having academics (and gaming academics at that) review the work of other academics is so that they understand the theoretical background possessed by the author, they have a full knowledge of the critical literature, and they know the acceptable methodologies within the field. I’m going to guess (and, again, I could be wrong) that the #GGers engaging in #ODD do not possess this kind of knowledge, and therefore cannot actually offer “peer-review.”

So what I see in #ODD, then, is an agenda-based attempt to “discredit” feminism as a valid form of cultural critique, whether in journalism or in academia. It’s a direct attack on gender and queer studies as valid disciplines, and its intention is to dismantle these fields and discredit those who practice them as being “not real academics” (and practitioners of the humanities in general have been lumped in, as well).

I object to #ODD not on the basis of “fact-checking” (go ahead, and yes, please do share any factual inaccuracies with the authors), but on the presumption that non-academics should be allowed to critique the theoretical approaches of academics in any medium other than that in which academic debates take place; in other words, if you want to discredit Critic X’s work, then publish an academically rigorous article in a peer-reviewed journal explaining why X is wrong… just like X’s actual peers (other academics) would be expected to do.

To offer publication or inclusion on DiGRA panels to #ODDers (without requiring them to undergo the same blind peer review as anyone else) would be to diminish the academe and devalue what it means to be an accredited scholar (not that I think anyone is seriously doing so). But to give credence to #ODDers is to suggest that their version of “fact-checking” is actually fact-checking – a “fact” of which I am very much in doubt.

So do I care if they “fact-check” DiGRA? Not of they’re actually fact-checking. If they are looking up citations, making sure that the citations are noted properly, checking to see that dates and page numbers are accurate, giving accurate data (with citations), and so on – FANTASTIC. I’m all for it.

But if what #ODD is about is finding social and cultural theories and pointing their fingers and howling “I don’t perform my gender! My penis is why I’m male!” or “The panopticon is not a good symbol for a culture of surveillance!” or “The camera lucida doesn’t represent an eye!”, then I want nothing to do with it. It isn’t that I think these theories are all great ways to read games (I don’t, actually), but that a variety of theoretical approaches to a subject is what advances a field, whether each individual use of a theory is “ideal” or not.

What I hope happens is that #ODDers start reading, find a few factual errors, and then become overwhelmed by the enormity of the cultural discussion that they give up in exhaustion, because it takes 5-10 years of advanced study to actually get a cohesive picture of any field, and another 20-40 more to really fully master it, and, let’s face it, #ODDers just don’t have that level of commitment. Not to mention, that by the time an #ODDer were to put in the work? Those papers would long since have become obsolete.