In short, some of the private thoughts I shared in the wake of Gjoni's blog post crossed the line, and I apologize for airing them. It was an error in judgment.
I want to be clear that none of this affected Ars' other coverage. I don't have any kind of final say about what gets published on Ars Technica, and the
two posts that Ars did on the "GamerGate" controversy were separately suggested by Culture Editor Casey Johnston, who had tracked the issue on her own and worked directly on her pieces with senior Ars editors. As noted above, the decision to review
Depression Quest had already been made before any controversy had arisen. (Due to my lapse in judgment on this matter, going forward I will refrain from writing about or providing editorial support to any further pieces published on "GamerGate," Quinn, or
Depression Quest at Ars.)
As to the broader issue, though, allegations of "collusion" among group members are badly misplaced. Indeed, I see nothing wrong with or even particularly interesting about discussing matters of professional importance in a private Google Group with competing peers. GameJournoPros has been a healthy, robust forum for debate among a community of competitors who can rarely agree on anything—much less collude to alter the course of the game industry.
