Talk:Anita Sarkeesian

Cathy Young

The Cathy Young article is already included at Tropes vs. Women in Video Games per discussion here. In fact, most of the wording introduced here on "selective and skewed analysis" is almost exactly the same, and as it's about the series specifically, it's better placed there than here. The other line about "Sarkeesian [sic] theories sometimes rely on radical anti-sex feminist Andrea Dworkin" is not at all what the source says. As far as I can tell, Young only mentions Dworkin in saying that another critic of Sarkeesian cited an earlier column Young had written about Dworkin (which had nothing to do with Sarkeesian); by way of explanation she passingly notes that Sarkeesian "sometimes" relies on Dworkin's theories, without saying how or why this is significant. Either way, the line is pointless ("Young says that Sarkeesian cited someone, mic dropped") and seems to be really reaching to justify including the source here in the main article, considering that Young says basically nothing about Sarkeesian herself (and precious little of substance about her videos).--Cúchullain ^t/c 14:57, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm not even sure it should be included anywhere since it attempts to review a series that is incomplete. I have the feeling this article may come to eat its own words eventually. Zero Serenity ^{(talk - contributions)} 00:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

By that logic we should remove all positive references about the video series as well. Besides it's pretty speculative to not include a source because you feel they might eat their words in the future. Are you sure you're not looking for arguments to exclude any criticism here? PizzaMan (♨♨) 15:01, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

The issue is whether to include this source at this article, and there's no consensus. You've been asked to keep your comments focused on content, not contributors before.--Cúchullain ^t/c 15:08, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree; there's no particular reason we should care that a theory was once cited - a throwaway mic-drop line is not meaningful. So which theory did she cite, is it a theory that's very controversial or a theory that's widely accepted? Who knows! Absent context beyond "let's try and link Sarkeesian with someone controversial," this doesn't belong. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

@Cuchullain (continued from above) I should have phrased that differently but i stand by the opinion that this line of reasoning leads to bias. And I'm surprised you don't agree. As long as there's a section in this article about the critical response to the video series, there's no reason to favor positive over critical response. The arguments brought forth by ZS are in no way (that i can see) specific to Young's article. And imho not applicable to the criticism section in general, although one could argue to move the whole section on the video series to the separate article. But as it stands, i think this line of reasoning leads to bias. PizzaMan (♨♨) 13:06, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there is no reason to favor positive over negative criticism...but that's not what's happening. We're favoring a well-researched and well-written encyclopaedia article over a poorly-sourced, poorly written article.

The Cathy Young article is already included at Tropes vs. Women in Video Games per discussion here...the line is pointless...and seems to be really reaching to justify including the source here in the main article, considering that Young says basically nothing about Sarkeesian herself....
— User:Cuchullain

DonQuixote (talk) 13:44, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

This discussion is on whether the fact that the tropes series is not ready yet is a reason not to include critical articles. Or if the feeling some people have that the author will later swallow their words is a reason not to. Please leave your opinion on how much you like the article out of the discussion, or back it up by sources. PizzaMan (♨♨) 17:49, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

You're responding to one comment that's at this point two weeks old, and not addressing the fact that various other editors have weighed in with reasonable arguments against including the material in question. There's no consensus to add the material; it's high time to move on.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:47, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

Citizenship

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.

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Hello everybody. I read this article but have failed to confirm the citizenship of the subject. I suppose it's nice to identify as a "Canadian-American" but that isn't enough to obtain citizenship. Due to her birth in Canada and since I couldn't figure out whether the parents were there as diplomats, that would make her a Canadian citizen by birth on Canadian soil.

Can anybody figure out what her nationality/nationalities are? I think that should be fixed in the article by either a) providing proper references which mention her dual or US citizenship or b) revert to just Canadian. JakobusVP (talk) 16:13, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Err, citations 2, 3 and 4 all describe her as "Canadian-American" and we go by those reliable sources, they are cited in the first paragraph of "background" with the qualifier of "identifies". That's pretty much all the investigation we do. All reliable sources denote her as Canadian-American (or says she identifies as). Koncorde (talk) 16:37, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Multiple reliable sources describe her as Canadian-American. We are not immigration status investigators and what you have "failed to confirm" is of no relevance to our article. I have restored the description of her identity. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:41, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia not supposed to be about the presentation of verifiable and concrete data? The opening paragraph describes her as Canadian-American, based on what she identifies as. The infobox states that her citizenship is Canadian-American (which isn't even a citizenship).

Can her citizenship be confirmed by any source? - JakobusVP (talk) 17:40, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand how Wikipedia operates. Wikipedia editors do not conduct "investigations" — we restate and summarize what has been verifiably published in reliable sources about a given topic. It is verifiable that multiple reliable sources describe Anita Sarkeesian as Canadian-American, therefore, so will we, and that's the end of it, until and unless there are reliable sources which state otherwise. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:05, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

Seems to be turning into a pattern. If you can't attack the argument, attack the person. Zero Serenity ^{(talk - contributions)} 18:51, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

To be fair, it's an easy thing to think is important and very easy to get tied up in citing sources. Dan Potts (footballer) was a difficult article for this sort of thing because it introduced all kinds of issues related to assumed nationality, actual citizenship, representative nationality etc. Truth is, even if he represented the USA he would still be "English", or "British". The solution for footballers, as it should be for most articles unless we have any evidence otherwise, is to not mention their nationality but to state who they are and what they do and allow the narrative to explain the other stuff. Here however there are multiple sources doing that for us - end of argument. If they turn out to be wrong then that's their fault. Koncorde (talk) 23:05, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

That's fine to restate what sources have published, but the fact remains that no country describes their citizens as "Canadian-American" since that citizenship does not exist. There are two separate citizenships if you replace the hyphen with a comma.

@Zero Serenity Who's attacking anybody here? JakobusVP (talk) 17:00, 24 November 2014 (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.

Nationality

I simply changed the line to "nationality" and linked to Canadian American, which should suffice. This is how it is listed at Jim Carry, and we cna follow that example too and add "citizenship = Canadian and American", but IMO it isn't a critical aspect of Sarkeesian's bio. Tarc (talk) 17:34, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Bart Baggett Connection

In light of a recent article detailing Anita Sarkeesian's early career and connections to <redacted per BLP>, shouldn't this be included in her page? It's all on-record information that can be verified by looking at the archives of her own website so it's not like this information is in dispute and it <redacted per BLP>.Xander756 (talk) 07:24, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Present a reliable source for all negative claims about a living person, or they'll be redacted per WP:BLP. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I have redacted your redactions. Please do not edit my comment again. That is not how discussions work. The source is her own blog. I said that already. I believe her own website is a reliable source for information about her is it not? The article "Anita Sarkeesian Unmasked" from Guardian Liberty Voice can also be searched up on Google. This comment is to start a discussion on the relevancy of her early career. This information, and her working for Baggett, is NOT IN DISPUTE. The conversation here is whether or not it should be included on her page. I believe it should.Xander756 (talk) 08:14, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

And I have re-redacted them — the Biographies of Living Persons policy governs all content on the encyclopedia and you may not present unsourced or poorly-sourced negative claims about a living person anywhere on the encyclopedia. Please do not violate this policy. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:17, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

"Guardian Liberty Voice" is not a reliable source. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

One of the first autofills for Guardian Liberty Voice when I attempted to google it was "guardian liberty voice scam". I have a feeling it's not going to pass the reliability check. Parabolist (talk) 08:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

It is a fact she worked for him as shown on her own blog here https://web.archive.org/web/20070912100534/http://www.neonandchrome.com/events.html Xander756 (talk) 08:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

We don't really care what an Internet Archive site says. Can you provide a reliable secondary source which discusses the issue? If not, it doesn't belong here, the end. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:26, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

You don't care that her website listed her as working for him for many years? Are you calling her a liar? Xander756 (talk) 08:28, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what an encyclopedia is, or how Wikipedia works. I suggest you read the verifiability policy and the biographies of living persons policy. They should help you understand how we write articles, and particularly how we write articles about living people. Hint: If you have to scrounge around in web archive sites to find something, it probably doesn't belong in their biography. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:31, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Almost every result for "Guardian Liberty Voice reliability" returns articles about how it is a content farm clickbait scam. I really reccomend getting your news from somewhere that produces actual journalism. Parabolist (talk) 08:34, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The source is her personal blog. Stop talking about Guardian Liberty Voice. Are you anti-gamergate or are you objective? Xander756 (talk) 08:35, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Her personal blog says she worked for someone at some point. Of what relevance is that, and where does it contain anything which supports the derogatory and highly-defamatory claims of a link to fraud and deceptive behavior that you made above? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:38, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• Primary sources are generally acceptable when published by the article subject themselves as a way of verifying statements, but per WP:NPOV, Wikipedia articles should be written using the balance (or existence) of secondary sources to determine how to weight things. An old apparent resume you found on the Internet Archive that lists occasional part time work (most of those are listed for 1 day seminars etc,) might be acceptable as a way to verify that statement if WP:BLP compliant secondary sources discussed the statement, but it does not make the statement worth including in the first place per Wikipedia policies. Having taken a look over GLV (including a convenient summary of their rather lackadaisical editorial policy,) it does not appear that they meet the standard of sourcing required by Wikipedia to make severely negative claims about living people. Do not restore the comments about either of the people whose names you mentioned. Please note that I am acting as an uninvolved admininistrator enforcing WP:BLP in this situation, and providing an interpretation of our policies in an effort to assist understanding how ENWP BLP and sourcing policies apply to an article to ensure that WP:BLP is adhered to, not weighing in on the actual content beyond that. If you find sources that do meet our standards for writing about living people, it's fine to bring these claims back up. Until then, do not restore the redactions. As a general rule, if you restore a redaction made by another editor on WP:BLP grounds without first establishing consensus that that edit didn't violate WP:BLP, you're likely to run in to trouble, especially if you do so more than once. Without a reliable source, making claims of the nature that you made about either person you spoke of is not acceptable here. Kevin Gorman (talk) 08:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

You should not be redacting discussion about information found on a primary source just because <redacted> Xander756 (talk) 08:49, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

So what you've presented is that 10 years ago, Anita Sarkeesian managed/coordinated several handwriting analysis seminars, among other events. Of what relevance is this to her present-day life and works? We are not a compendium of trivia, we write encyclopedia articles. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Technically as this would class as a person's biography page their past is inherently relevant to the present otherwise why state about any persons early life or in this case Anita's education or see David Beckham, this is not the Tropes vs Women / Feminist frequency project page but a persons biography which should include early life and career choices. Thus also relevant on this page would be her worth with Neon and Chrome and Bart Baggett. For those who need more sources which has archived versions as early as 2006 oh also confirmation from a blog that this is the official site So it's my take that this is a biography page and not simply a page to advertise her work. Am I wrong in that ?Dwavenhobble (talk) 02:11, 01 December 2014 (UTC)

Section for Criticism

Her views are controversial enough that I propose a separate section for criticism. While most of the criticism is happening on platforms like social media that are unreliable sources, there are also articles and columns (examples) on the topic. Other articles (example) also exist that acknowledge the existence of criticism. In both cases it's worth noting that many sources fall under WP:NEWSBLOG. --Eldritcher (talk) 12:32, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

No, Breitbart is not a reliable source, for one. We discuss notable criticisms of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games in that article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:32, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Referencing some criticism she's received doesn't sound like a bad idea, but a whole section only for criticism would be wonky. Perhaps just integrate what she's been criticized for in the appropriate section, like the Reception section of Video Series could hold some criticism of her videos from those sources you listed? Shadowrunner^(stuff) 23:42, 30 November 2014 (UTC)