Talk:Anita Sarkeesian

ahem

I think it should be noted that she has been critized her being called an "academic" video series when in fact she refused to cite sources on her videos, and she has taken video footage from let's players not mentioning them (should point out the irony they are guys who made the let's plays) oh and she didn't tell them. It is clear she has some unethical practices, oh and lets not forget about the fact that she went to 4Chan in order to stir up trouble, why is there not a controversy line for her. Why does she get special treatment, she does wrong, why is she getting a free pass?

I am not bring this up because she is a feminist, no, I bring this up because gender doesn't excuse deplorable tactics. Then again its clear she has played the victim card so much people think she is one....oh how sad.

76.178.136.203 (talk) 05:47, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:BLPSTYLE, in particular, "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources" (emphasis added). Wikipedia has a guideline about identifying reliable sources. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 06:10, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a single source for any of these claims? Euchrid (talk) 22:49, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if these qualify as sources: http://victorsopinion.blogspot.be/2013/07/anitas-sources.html http://www.dailydot.com/society/anita-sarkeesian-feminist-frequency-backlash/ Anyways I think a section characterizing criticism against her would be notable. BerserkerBen (talk) 14:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Ben. The blog clearly does not meet WP:IRS, but based on two previous discussions at WP:RSN (1, 2), I think The Daily Dot article by Gavia Baker-Whitelaw and the two by Kevin Baker at the same site approach the RS standard. The Daily Dot is a professional online publication and the writers are paid. However, the points made by the authors (that comments are disabled on YouTube, and that the subject DID NOT post pictures of Gucci shoes) seem pretty weak tea to label "criticism", IMHO. BusterD (talk) 15:37, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

So your saying we should not post any of it then? Facts like she does not cite sources or has disable youtube comments are just that, facts, they should not needed to be cited by anyone to state on wikipeida. But I guess your saying we have to wait until a paid journal cites her use of other peoples videos as source material before posting it? BerserkerBen (talk) 16:06, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I've drawn no such conclusion as User:BerserkerBen infers. I've thanked that user for sources, offered a personal opinion The Daily Dot is the first arguably critical source I've seen presented which meets the standard for inclusion in a BLP such as this. I took the liberty of tacking on my views on the content of the DD's reporting on the subject. That Sarkeesian didn't post pictures of shoes isn't biting critique of her positions (and isn't critical of her at all, instead pointing out trolling behavior from one of her detractors), so this RS reporting has no business being included in the article, except to verify continued trolling behaviors on the part of her critics. Neither of the other two DD articles make critique of her positions either, instead reporting that comments are not allowed on her own YouTube posts and no longer allowed on her TED Talks video. These choices are discussed in the RS DD articles, but don't themselves indict or criticize her views as expressed in her videos to date. I could see these sources eventually used supporting statements discussing criticism of the subject, but in my own personal opinion, don't warrant inclusion by themselves. BusterD (talk) 16:59, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

We can also glean "facts" about her clothing choice or how many times she says the word "the", but we require reliable sources to say that's important. Personally, I find it laughable that people demand she cite sources or allow comments when plenty of other YouTubers don't. But that's just my opinion and, like yours, it doesn't warrant inclusion in the article. Woodroar (talk) 16:25, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Their is no need for us to "glean" about her use of other people's videos to construct her own. There is in fact legitimate criticism of her work out there, not just rabid mindless trolling. Now stating she "closed comments on her youtube videos" or that "she does not cite sources" are not judgmental statements: anyone can "glean" what ever they want from them, we would not be telling people what meaning they should derive from these facts. We would be merely presenting these facts as is. BerserkerBen (talk) 16:47, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

But until a reliable source comments on these facts, asserting that they mean something, then it is inappropriate emphasis on our part to do so, since it implies that these facts are somehow meaningful. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:02, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Using the source was discussed here. I am slightly leaning towards thinking we should include something about being criticized for not allowing comments. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:06, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm leaning the same way (barely). I agree that a sentence mentioning the criticism User:NeilN describes above could be included, and I'd submit the two DD articles as RS citation. I'd like more, but I'd accept those two. BusterD (talk) 17:15, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Presuming that you are referring to the Daily Dot piece, it doesn't criticise Sarkeesian. It notes that there was some criticism of her, but mostly the article criticises the critics. - Bilby (talk) 18:29, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The Daily Dot pieces don't criticize her, I agree. The last one does document criticism of the disabling of comments on both her videos and the TED channel. This documented criticism might be argued to deserve bare mention. BusterD (talk) 22:06, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure how her disabling of YouTube comments because of commenter behavior is a criticism of her work. If it's so bad and/or off the mark, why isn't this being critiqued in RS that can then be used on WP? Because YouTube comments are simply not the medium for actual critiques. Cap020570 (talk) 19:55, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Some things I think need to be considered:

1. Commenting was stopped because she received death and rape threats in the comments section of her videos. It should probably be mentioned in the second or third paragraph of the Kickstarter Campaign section because saying "she wont allow me to publicly threaten to rape her" is not a criticism of anything
2. Who the hell on youtube cites any sources ever? And while she doesn't directly post sources, what she does say is all pretty easily verified by a 5 second search on google, or godforbid wikipedia (in the sense that, in her video on Bechdel Test at the Oscars, no she does not link to a source that specifically lists off Oscar movies that do or do not pass the Bechdel test, you can easily find out looking it up or watching them yourself)
3. Literally every comment that mentions her using other people's "lets play" videos completely and totally misunderstands what the point of the kickstarter campaign was even about. She clearly was not planning on raising 6 grand to buy and play a bunch of video games, and certainly not for something she doesn't draw a salary from. It was almost definitely so that she could pay someone to do those nice fancy graphics and more money means "I can do this professionally, rather than just whenever I have time off from work". To the trolls reading this, did you notice that the last few videos included more (and better) graphics and included a lot more information past "here are a bunch of games with terrible presentations of women"? Did you spend any time at all thinking about why that might be? Because the answer is that this has become what she does as a job, rather than a "whenever I get the time" kind of thing. Seriously, you are making yourselves look even stupider then when you demand to be able to make public rape/murder threats. Which is actually kind of impressive, I'll grant you.

tl;dr: people are stupid and I'm irritable today.--Hamilton-wiki (talk) 01:33, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I understand the frustration, Hamilton-wiki, but your comments above also violate WP:NOTFORUM. I don't know how to explain this to everyone: we are not here to comment on her videos, or to comment on the comments to her videos. This is not a place to either attack or defend Sarkeesian (though, of course, attacking is worse as it crosses over into WP:BLP). I think that from now on we should keep either collapsing or deleting every comment in violation of WP:NOTFORUM. We don't want this talk page to be yet another front in the troll vs. academic battle surrounding her. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:23, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I guess my problem with stating this has to do with the value of the criticism. Using the Daily Dot article, yes, she was criticised for disabling comments, but as it points out, this didn't prevent people from engaging with her, and the comments had to be disabled on her TED video because of the attacks that followed. If we mention that she was criticised for disabling comments on YouTube, we also need to balance that by saying that the validity of the criticism was questioned. Alternatively we need to question whether or not it is worth raising this as criticism at all. - Bilby (talk) 08:07, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that your desire to question the validity is original research. It's not our job to question what RS say; the fact is that an RS reported that people criticized her removal of the ability to comment on the videos. People keep coming here and telling us we should include criticism, and we say "only when that criticism is reported in reliable sources". This is exactly that: criticism reported in a reliable source. Now, we could conceivably provide context that is in that article; something like "In response to repeated rape and death threats, Sarkeesian disabled comments on her Youtube videos; some internet writers criticized her for this and claimed that she was limiting the ability for people to respond critically to her work." Qwyrxian (talk) 08:45, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not questioning the validity of the criticism, although yes, I do think it is invalid. The main source we're referring to, the Daily Dot article, is questioning the validity of the criticism. That said, it isn't OR to question the due weight we give to criticism, it is only OR to make our own conclusions in the article about the criticism. - Bilby (talk) 09:04, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

This is a tricky one. By reporting the (idiotic) criticism here, we risk giving it an air of legitimacy it probably doesn't deserve, given that no reliable source has made it. (The Daily Dot doesn't actually make the criticism, just reports on it and defends Sarkeesian.) So I think if we're to report on it at all, we need to include the criticism of the criticism in the Daily Dot article. I think Qwyrxian's sentence is a perfect start, but needs to be accompanied by a short comment stating the (obvious) point that critics were still able to respond to the video. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 13:17, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

An attempt to put criticism, any criticism in the article? 'Obviously, she's wrong.' Jim1138 (talk) 13:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The Daily Dot source does not need to be used as criticism of Sarkeesian. It's commentary about the harassment campaign and can be placed at the "Kickstarter campaign and subsequent harassment" section. Given that it's the main topic of an article by a reliable source, I think one sentence properly summarizing the article gives this commentary its proper weight. Qwyrxian's sentence is thus adequate and should be included. Diego Moya (talk) 07:40, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

I do want to state bluntly that I see no reason that anybody should consider the fact that she disabled comments as worthy of criticism, unless you consider, "Nyah, nyah, girly-girl bitches can't take the heat, hiding from us manly men like a girly coward!!!!" a biting critique of lack of intellectual courage. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:45, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Have to agree that Sarkeesian disabling comments on YouTube is about as noteworthy as Roger Penrose not using Twitter as a source of peer review. DonQuixote (talk) 14:28, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

This is such a non-story that it's sad we're even debating including it. Even Qwyrxian's valiant attempt doesn't make this workable, as it doesn't accurately reflect the source. Hunter, Don, et al have it right, the source (which is still just one source commenting on this one point of blog "criticism") essentially just says, "Sarkeesian disabled Youtube comments after previous death threats, and some irrelevant blog 'critics' have honed in on this one meaningless point to accuse her of 'censorship'; however, there's nothing to it as it hasn't stopped vigorous discussion about the videos in other forums. When it's framed like that, it becomes obvious this is extremely weak tea and has no place in an encyclopedia article. We shouldn't bend over backward to include such trivial points for the sake of including "criticism" in the article.

Why are we event bother discussing this rather than the half dozen at least other pieces Daily Dot has run on Sarkeesian, several of which actually discuss her work?[1][2][3][4] There are various other reliable sources now available as well.[5][6][7] As with anything we need to consider due weight above noise level in deciding what to include.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:40, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Collapsing post containing substantial violations of WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:TPG and responses to it. Comments need to be about specific article improvements, not general discussion of the article subject or soapboxing. Repeated violations will be considered disruptive and handled accordingly.--Cúchullain t/c 13:45, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

{{archive top=:There are a few ridiculous arguments here. 1) That "other YouTube vids don't cite source so who cares" negates the fact this isn't some amateur production. This is a professional gig, she was paid...to the tune of $150k. Nobody forced her to make a Kickstarter, she asked people for money- those people has the reasonable right to expect some level of professionalism. They probably also expected someone who labelled their site "Conversations with pop culture" to allow for, you know...conversations. Even if we take the possibility of threats as a valid reason to disable comments (has anyone who threatened rape on YouTube ever followed through with it? Or why she openly has a Twitter account where people can make also send her rape threats) it doesn't explain disabling RATINGS. You can't threaten to kill someone with a thumbs down. The people who funded this have the right to know if it was popular and thus worth their money. 2) On the Daily Dot being a reliable source. DD is currently deemed a reliable source on >100 Wikipedia articles. It's a site with paid writers, and if anything it's PRO-Anita: not only do they take her side in the comments disabling, at least one of their writers admits in another article that she's a contributor to Anita's site. Even then, they actually reported on the criticisms. If a site that has (even a slight) bias towards her brought them up, why can't we neutrally say it? 3) They can talk about it other places. This is a series released specifically FOR YOUTUBE, it's not insane to think the conversation with pop culture should take place on the medium with built-in comment system it was released on. Anita doesn't have control on if people can comment on it via other social media, etc. The two places she has control over (her site her YT vid) she doesn't allow it. Just because people can talk about homosexuality in America doesn't provide a valid reason to overlook Putin banning it in Russia. She took money from the public, and she blocks the public's ability to do anything as simple as thumbs up/down everywhere she has the power to. 4) If it's not worth our time mentioning, why IS it worth our time to mention that it was briefly removed due to the autonomous nature of YouTube's flagging system? Anti-feminist videos (as well as vids on a wide variety of topics) have experienced the same thing, sadly it's not uncommon. FYI I'm all for providing criticisms on the content (positive & negative) from reliable sources. In fact, a lot of the stuff on her page is about this project and not her, we should probably discuss moving most of that page to an article dedicated to the video series and focus this article on the actual subject (Anita) and reduce this page to brief mentions of the project & major controversies. --TheTruthiness (talk) 23:02, 26 August 2013 (UTC) Thanks for your commentary, but YouTube comments and ratings are academically unimportant so the lack thereof has no encyclopaedic value. Sorry about that. DonQuixote (talk) 23:18, 26 August 2013 (UTC) YouTube ratings are mentioned in several articles (Friday (Rebecca Black song) to name one) so there is encyclopedic value. Sorry about that. --TheTruthiness (talk) 00:35, 27 August 2013 (UTC) The unfortunate Rebecca Black is an product of YouTube; otherwise, see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. --Orange Mike | Talk 00:55, 27 August 2013 (UTC) It should be noted that Sarkeesian is an academic; when she says, "Conversations with pop culture", she isn't talking about comments in social media, she means "conversation" in the weighty and pretentious manner that academia uses the term: i.e., hermeneutics, where one "engages in a conversation with the text". --Orange Mike | Talk 00:55, 27 August 2013 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The problem with the article as written is that it makes it look like harassment and misogynistic comments are the only reaction that was made by the world at large after Anita published the financed videos; which is clearly not true, and not the only thing that reliable sources are describing. It's true that few or none reliable sources have commented on the "Tropes vs Women", but that shouldn't prevent us from including other commentaries made by reliable sources.

Excluding all other kind of commentary from reliable sources as "undue weight" only because it doesn't get the same volume as the analysis of harassment is creating a biased perspective of what RSs are commenting upon. We have feature stories like [8] reporting that several female professional writers are not always evaluating Sarkeesians' work under a not-strictly-positive light (Myers is but one analyst of many noticing the existence of non-harassing criticism of Saarkesian; there are many others of different reliability making similar claims). Others like the Daily Dot had noted the negative reactions upon Sarkeesian blocking comments and judging how the money raised with the Kickstarter campaign was used. Surely those are not direct criticism of the work itself, but the're still points of view that have been documented by reliable sources, and as such they should have some level of coverage to comply with neutrality requirements. Diego Moya (talk) 16:11, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Heads-up

Her next video just came out, so I'm sure we can expect some vandalism; let's keep an eye out. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:54, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality disputed.

The statements here could arguably be deleted from the history, because they make patently false claims about both this Wikipedia article and the subject, who is a living person, and thus protected by WP:BLP. Either discuss what is actually stated in the article, and make suggestions based on reliable sources, or stop the conversation. Further disruption will result in blocks or protection of this talk page. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:17, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. This reads like the same kind of nonsense that Anita was putting out in her press releases trying to generate a storm in a teacup. The amazing atheist has exhaustively debunked a lot of her claims, citing some solid sources. Not to mention the entire kickstarter section fails to mention she raised nearly a quarter of a million on and offline and has only released a single video in two years. Wikipedia isn't for propaganda. If you go to 4chan to try and 'troll the internet' then get trolled back you can't then go bawwing and trying to pretend it was anything more than ships passing in the night seeing an easy target who would take extreme offense with minimal effort--the MO of most trolls online, naturally--and going for it. This reads like it was written by some elderly journalist who doesn't know what the internet is. The kind who prefixes the word 'troll' with "internet trolls" and other fuddy duddy things. :/ BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 10:46, 12 August 2013 (UTC) Please either provide reliable sources that cover things we have not already covered, or kindly keep your opinions (and they are that--your opinions) to yourself. As a side note, she's released 3 videos so far based off of the crowdfunding. And if you watch them you'll see (in my opinion) that they demonstrate an extreme attention to detail, basically equivalent to that which would go into an academic journal article. And writing 3 high quality journal articles in 2 years is not an unusual pace for an academic. But, of course, I digress, because now I'm the one talking about things that don't belong on this talk page. I'm making a point, in case that escapes any one. So, BP or anyone else, as always--sources, or there's nothing to be done here. Qwyrxian (talk) 11:08, 12 August 2013 (UTC) TAA is a bastard, but that doesn't mean he's wrong about everything. 112.213.168.173 (talk) 08:26, 13 August 2013 (UTC) ...also doesn't mean that he's an acknowledged expert. So, no, he can't be used as a source for this article. DonQuixote (talk) 12:45, 13 August 2013 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. The article is not neutral, it is biased because it says all male gamers are rapist, misogynistic and female gamers are always innocent victims and can't do any harm like male players. Ergo there needs to be a criticism section of her from the Men's moment perspective. --124.169.215.165 (talk) 05:29, 21 August 2013 (UTC) You must be reading a version of the article hosted on a different site as the one on here doesn't include such statements. I suggest you go and complain to that site. --NeilN talk to me 05:42, 21 August 2013 (UTC) That is why I said it needs to be balanced. I know we are making the argument that whether or not all feminist are misandrist but she states in her video vlogs that both all abusers are male and that all victims are female. It appears to be leaning on only one side which leaves her equality to be questionable. --124.169.215.165 (talk) 05:54, 21 August 2013 (UTC) The only remark the article has about the contents of the videos is, "the video series Tropes vs. Women, which examines tropes in the depiction of women in popular culture." Kindly read the article properly and refrain from giving your opinion on the contents of her videos as this is not a forum. --NeilN talk to me 06:03, 21 August 2013 (UTC) Since neither this article nor any of Sarkeesian's videos say any of those things, it's clear that 124.168.215.165 is either intentionally trolling, or has never bothered to either read this article or watch any Sarkeesian's work. So there's nothing to discuss here. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:54, 21 August 2013 (UTC) It's sort of cute though.--Hamilton-wiki (talk) 21:09, 21 August 2013 (UTC) I will have you know I have both seen her videos and read the Wikipedia article before I started to argue over what she believes. --124.169.215.165 (talk) 10:05, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Video series as separate article

Amidst Truthiness's ranting on his own personal opinions above, there was one point I felt worthy of consideration: splitting out Tropes vs Women in Video Games into its own article. How do others feel? I think that the series probably has enough independent notability to have its own page, but I'm a little worried about duplication--Sarkeesian's notability isn't only from the events related to TvW, but much of it is. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:16, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Seems like a broader scope of the Tropes vs. Women series in general would be more useful. I don't think there's great danger of either subject failing WP:N independently. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:58, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Is there enough academic coverage aside from the reaction it generated to create such an article? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 01:25, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Academic coverage is not a requirement to have an article; otherwise, we wouldn't have articles on the vast majority of tv shows, entertainers, sports players, etc. Qwyrxian (talk) 02:47, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

So what coverage do you propose to use? I haven't looked that hard but we have barely a paragraph on it here and most of the non-bloggy stuff focuses on the preceding controversy and is light on discussing the video series itself. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:57, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe this would be helpful as of yet. Most of the media coverage remains tied to lingering effects of the harassment campaign (including the positive responses to it) rather than discussing the contents of the videos, and that can be dealt with as well here as at an independent article. I think we run the risk of half-assing two duplicative articles when we could just improve the one. And of considering the BLP maintenance issue this article has been, I wouldn't want to give the haters a second target unless we were going to make it really good. I don't think we're there yet.--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:39, 27 August 2013 (UTC)