Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gamergate draft

Page rationale

Talk:Gamergate controversy is subject to WP:30/500 restrictions as a page-level (not topic-level) sanction. This page is being used to host a Request for Comment with full community participation. Page protection sanctions are intended to prevent disruption, not to privilege the contributions of autoconfirmed over unregistered users. The Gamergate controversy talk page was sanctioned to prevent two types of disruption[1]: 1) New accounts re-raising old issues, and 2) Incivility by a particular user. Neither is applicable to this page, as it is 1) Being used by an extended-autoconfirmed user to raise a single issue, and 2) the incivil editor is topic banned. Any page protection should be used only when proven necessary. Rhoark (talk) 03:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

No, that is a self-evident attempt to en-run around a policy that was designed to prevent votestacking. This discussion should also be covered, because it is a part of exactly the same content dispute. Guy (Help!) 09:36, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I tend to agree with JzG here. One may or may not like the rules, but any reasonable reading of the AE ruling would put this discussion under the 500/30 ambit. One could make an WP:ARCA request to clarify this, of course. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 10:38, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

the 500/30 restriction is, at this time, applied only to the Gamergate controversy article itself, its Talk page and its subpages. In case there's confusion as to what a "subpage" is, see Subpage, which has the definition I'm talking about. Linked or related pages aren't included in the 500/30 restriction, as of yet, so it is not applied here at this time. But, if convincing evidence can be brought that shows that a related page is having chronic problems from a series of low-experience accounts, it can be applied to those pages too. Zad68 14:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)[2]

Rhoark (talk) 22:06, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, but this RfC would normally be on the talkpage, which is covered by the 500/30 restriction. The subject of the discussion is the main article, not a "related" page like the Anita Sarkeesian BLP or Crash Override Network. So I think a reasonable reading of the AE request would mean that the 500/30 restriction would apply to this discussion. As I said, one could clear up the matter at WP:ARCA. One middle ground, if people agree, is to let all people comment, but count the !votes of only the extendedconfirmed accounts. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:15, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

That is precisely what ought not to be done: disregarding voices in the absence of disruptive behavior. In an ideal world, a closer would review arguments only and disregard content-free or "per (name here)" votes. The anxiety about this is enough of a distraction that I'd endorse to The Wordsmith or any passing uninvolved admin to IAR and apply semi-protection, even though WP:SEMI advises not to do it preemptively. Rhoark (talk) 02:34, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

This is a subpage. That is obvious. Guy (Help!) 14:21, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Comment It is no secret that I detest the use of 500/30 protection in content discussions as a way to bar the opinions of our readers and new editors, the people that we are writing an encyclopedia for. In addition, 500/30 has never been authorized or used in the Wikipedia: namespace, according to the Protection logs. Holding an RFC as a subpage of Wikipedia:Requests for comment is a valid and traditional method for gaining a more broad community consensus, though it is unusual for an RFC held here to just cover one specific article. Usually RFCs held here are done so because they affect multiple pages and are thus not suitable for an individual talkpage.

I would also note that WP:ECP specifically states "In its use as an arbitration enforcement, extended confirmed protection may only be applied in response to persistent sockpuppetry or continued use of new, disruptive accounts where other methods (such as semi protection) have not controlled the disruption...Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred". I see some IPs and new editors participating here, but I don't know of any sockpuppets and so far everyone seems to be behaving themselves. I think we can reasonably trust whichever closing admin is brave enough to step up to examine the arguments made and weigh them accordingly, though when we call for a closer we should probably let them know that there is significant participation by new users.

So at this time, I decline to apply 500/30 on the grounds that disruption has not occurred. I intend to keep monitoring this page plus the usual offwiki places to keep an eye out for meaty sock campaigns, and if necessary will apply semiprotection. If that fails to stop disruptive editing, I would then consider extendedconfirmed as a last resort. The Wordsmith^{Talk to me} 14:09, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

FWIW per this conversation [3] I believe Wordsmith should be considered WP:INVOLVED when it comes to this draft page. Artw (talk) 03:29, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

That was fairly comprehensively rejected in this ANI discussion [4]. - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 14:24, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

The draft page was not mentioned at all in the ANI, and since Wordsmith is directed to it by Masem after requesting edits to support I do not believe that it is appropriate for him to speak as an admin here or in maters related to it. Artw (talk) 15:22, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion: since everyone is concerned about the 30/500 protection, I suggest we apply it to this page, withthe added restriction of only allowing edits from users who have NEVER edited the GG article or any of it's related pages in the past. Trolls and vandals are one thing, but the primary problem with the exsiting article is OWNership and POV-pushing from entrenched editors who refuse to allow any viewpoints that conflict with the narative they are trying (and failing) to build. So my suggestion is a clean slate - apply the 30/500 restriction to keep away the vandals, and limit edits to existing veteran editors who can bring a much needed new perspective to the whole article. 69.63.86.114 (talk) 19:08, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

That has no basis in any policy, I'm afraid, whatever one may think of your argument. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:41, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Request for comment

Regarding the Gamergate controversy, is this draft an improvement relative to the existing article? Rhoark (talk) 03:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Relevant prior discussions can be seen here:[5][6][7][8] Respondents are encouraged to make reference to applicable policies which could include but are not limited to WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:WWIN, and WP:BLP. Please focus on the articles and avoid soapboxing on the topic. Rhoark (talk) 03:07, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

---

• Reject. The existing article rapidly explains to me, as one who has only limited exposure to this subject, what it's about and why it's a problem. The revised draft looks suspiciously as if it's all about ethics in videogame journalism. I like, on the whole, matter-of-fact articles on contentious issues, but this is way too far over that line. "People representing various points of view about Gamergate have faced harassment, doxxing, and threats of violence". Technically true, but the vast majority of them, and all the early ones, and all the ones that caused the shitstorm, were women or people who defended them. The draft puts GamerGaters and "SJWs" on an equal footing, as if social justice is a bad thing and misogynist privilege is just a point of view, not something demanding challenge. It started with the attacks on Quinn and Wu, that's how any article needs to start, but your draft minimises that and contextualises it as just one of a number of playful spats between equally matched opponents. I could go on, but basically this reads as if it were written by a Gamergate apologist. I do hope that is not what you intended, but sadly it is what you achieved. Guy (Help!) 07:31, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Being too factual is a curious indictment. I responded in more detail on Jimbo's talk page about whether its "all about ethics", with the answer being plainly, "no." The draft does in fact begin with the harassment of Quinn, as you desire. Harassment is the largest focus in both versions, the difference being that the draft also follows WP:NPOV's instructions to report fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. We should not, as the existing article does, highlight the WP:OUTRAGE. Rhoark (talk) 12:40, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Note: The limited arguments advanced for accepting the draft below seem to me to offer far better support for a careful copyediting of the existing article, through discussion and consensus on its talk page. The current article has undoubtedly suffered fomrt he back-and-forth of competing ideological edits, but the solution is not to replace it with a well-written whitewash, it is to review and sharpen the existing text. Guy (Help!) 08:17, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

It reads as if it were written by a partisan on the GG side, albeit one who is at least prpeared to acknowledge that some independent sources (read: virtually all) put the blame squarely on the GG trolls. That is how it reads to me, and when I compare the two, I find that this one feels less neutral and more like an apologia. I know you think it's more neutral. I disagree. You asked for people's opinion and comment, that's what you got from me. Actually the current article is improved over the version current during arbitration, no doubt due tot he additional scrutiny it received, so I don't even see what problem we're supposed to be fixing at this remove, let alone with a weholesale rewrite that seems to me to offer a massive dose of false balance. Guy (Help!) 12:50, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject. More whitewash/scrubbing/false equivalences. Rhoark knows this, too.--Jorm (talk) 14:49, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

  Clarification: Rhoark knows that it is a common position that his draft comes off as an attempt at whitewashing and false equivalences. He also knows that his draft will not be accepted by the majority of editors working in the Gamergate area. Why he wants to get a larger audience about this, I do not know. Just know that this is a well-worn path.--Jorm (talk) 15:54, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject - Primarily per Guy: this draft seems like a pretty blatant/obvious attempt to put 2 very different perspectives about Gamergate on an equal footing, when in reality the vast majority of RS (and the highest quality RS) make it very clear that our article should not do that. WP:WEIGHT requires that our article portray and discuss Gamergate primarily as the mainstream media have, and not cobble together a collection of lower-quality, outlying sources and pretend that they represent a perspective on Gamergate that has equal weight. An example that's really troubling to me: in the section titled "responsibility for harassment," we find the phrase In public discourse, Gamergate as a controversy or movement has mainly been associated with harassment of women, and this has severely damaged the movement's credibility. OK, well, if that's the case, then we should be portraying gamergate primarily as the harassment of women. I'm not seeing enough sources of high enough quality anywhere in the draft article to justify an article which notes the consensus of most RS about what Gamergate is/does/did, but then proceeds to pretend that that view is just one of two equally-weighted perspective. Fyddlestix (talk) 14:56, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Could you please identify specific uses of "lower-quality, outlying sources" or how the draft coverage differs from mainstream coverage? The reliable sources report that harassment is a minority of activity within Gamergate, but they focus on this minority, and media comments on itself about how it focuses on this minority. That is exactly the mainstream reliable sourcing that I have summarized. Most of the article weight is given to harassment, but weight is not a reason to contradict the reliably sourced fact that it's a minority. I'll note also that the mainspace article's first and boldest claim that Gamergate is mostly about harassing women is the attributed opinion of Stephen Colbert. Is that representative of due weight? Rhoark (talk) 15:24, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Rhoark, that reads as a bit disingenuous. Given your familiarity with the subject, you know that many of the 254 sources in main space echo Colbert's opinion. As a notable personality (especially with the generation primarily caught up in GG), his opinion was considered relevant, but he is not by any means the sole basis for due weight. 2600:1005:B169:195A:8D65:EFAC:3C3A:82F7 (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Stephen Colbert, acting in character, has probably agreed with mainstream political positions on a lot of questions, and half the time he was probably sincere. That doesn't make it due weight to use a satirical performance as a cornerstone for framing contentious topics on Wikipedia. If it is aligned with the other 253 sources, it should be possible to find an example that can be used to follow WP:YESPOV. I'm not so sure that can be done, though. Colbert seems to be used here precisely because it allows the article to insinuate more than it could assert. Rhoark (talk) 21:11, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject per Guy. 2600:1005:B169:195A:8D65:EFAC:3C3A:82F7 (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
• The draft has better structure. I don't think this is a RfC that can be answered with a "yes" or "no" answer. Since the article and the draft are quite different, there will be aspects that are better in one over the other, and vice-versa. In the case of the draft, the titles of sections creates a much more distinct partition of the topic space, where the focus of each section is clearly indicated by the title, and each section covers a subtopic sufficiently different from the other sections; meanwhile, it's hard to say the same about the topics in the article, which include significant overlap.

As for matching the tone in the sources, I'd say the draft would greatly benefit from including quotations within the references themselves, referencing the particular paragraph or sentence in the article that best represents the part of the article it supports; this way, it would be crystal clear how well or badly does each part of the draft corresponds to a point made by one or several reliable sources. Diego (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

That's an excellent suggestion. Several people have gotten the impression that the draft is somehow trying to contest the reliable sources rather than reflect them. Quoting everything would be a massive undertaking, but in the live revision I've added quotes to the citations on the first two sentences of "Responsibility for harassment". These seem to particularly give pause to JzG and Fyddlestix. I suspect some changes are in order to the wording of that passage, but as a starting point we should all be able to agree that it is supported by very mainstream sources. Rhoark (talk) 23:47, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• Accept: (I gave comments on the draft in an earlier version). The reasons are as follows:
  • Better written:
    • Overall readable prose size is 12% smaller. Current article: 57 kb. Draft: 50 kb.
    • Prose is better. This is subjectively clear when reading the article. Quantitative measures are available here. To pick one measure, the Flesch–Kincaid_readability_tests readability score (higher is easier) and grade level (lower is easier): Current article - Score: 38.5, Grade level: 13. Draft - Score:43.2, Grade level: 11.
    • Lead is much more concise and easier to understand for the uninitiated, while covering the major topics in the article. (my subjective view)
    • Topically and chronologically, draft is much better arranged. The current article jumps too much over the place chronologically for my taste. For instance, the "responses to harassment" section is much better written in the draft. The current article jumps all over the place on the issue. The law enforcement portion comes very early. Gaming industry response is separated from the earlier portion.
  • Sourcing:
    • There are roughly the same number of sources in both articles.
    • The references for both versions seem roughly of the same quality to me. High quality sources like the Washington Post are mixed with specialist sources (games press, for instance) or journalism sources like the Columbia Journalism Review, together with scholarly sources. Eyeballing the references: diversity of sources is slightly higher in the draft, but not much different.
  • POV issues.
    • As a crude test, I created word clouds for both the current article and the draft. I couldn't discern much difference. The major themes were the same. Among the biggest words in the cloud in both versions were: "Gamergate", "harassment", "supporters", "women", "threats", "controversy", "journalism/media", "game/gaming/video", "ethics", "online", "Quinn", "Sarkeesian", "Law" and "Twitter". There are some differences: for instance, the current has entries for "industry" and "sexism", while the latter has entries for "bullying", "movement", and "political". People can see both the word clouds here: current, draft.
    • As for subjective issues, I feel the focus in the draft, as in the current article, is on harassment (properly). There are three sections in the draft dealing with harassment (initial phase, continued harassment, law enforcement response) and another section (Events disrupted) is basically about harassment.
    • The draft has a much better section on the political and cultural influence. The current article does a much more muddled job of this. The topic should be discussed in a thorough way. (See recent speech by Clinton on the alt-right for one indication of importance).
    • The draft is a bit more nuanced on the different viewpoints expressed. This is partly through sourcing and partly through organization and emphasis. This is just my subjective opinion: people can differ on this, of course. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 22:17, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, those are useful tools. I find it quite illustrative to compare the "Longest Sentences by Word Count" provided for both versions:

• "The Los Angeles Times, Wired, The Atlantic, and other reports described the campaign as a backlash against the increasing racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in science fiction, while members of the bloc gave a variety of reasons for their actions, saying that they sought to counteract what they saw as a focus on giving awards based on the race, ethnicity, or gender of the author or characters rather than quality and bemoaning the increasing prominence of 'message' fiction with fewer traditional "zap gun" sci-fi trappings."

vs:

• "Gjoni's blog drew attention from people with a variety of pre-existing grievances about Quinn or the industry, including: what some considered undue media praise for Depression Quest, Quinn's prior conflicts with Wizardchan and The Fine Young Capitalists, and perceived bias in video game journalism."

As a sample of the differences in style, the former represent the product of a difficult time, where the process to write the article was akin to an attrition war, and where each stable sentence was the result of a back-and-forth between highly disputed positions. Diego (talk) 22:38, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject. The draft certainly has the advantage of greater readability, but I expect that's because it's the sole labour of a single hard-working editor. In regards to the content itself, I have some concerns - for example, in the "Responsibility for Harassment" Section, there is a claim that assigning responsibility for the harassment is "difficult", but the rest of the section clearly argues for the position that it's certainly due to the efforts of anonymous unaffiliated trolls - and then, bizarrely, spends a paragraph finding fault with the media's coverage of Gamergate. Are we to gather that the media should bear some responsibility for the harassment? There is another section regarding media coverage that simply quotes David Auerbach's opinion that the media has a vested interest in not covering Gamergate properly - I'm not certain that his opinion has weight as an authority in this regard. Now, to be clear, I can easily find similar faults in the existing article - I took a moment to click around the original in the same manner when I discovered this request for comment - so I cannot say that the original article is strictly better, but I'm fairly confident this draft is not superior. I would suggest that certain well-written passages be picked out and integrated with the original article, instead of a wholesale replacement. Since Rhoark has already done significant amounts of work here, perhaps other editors would be willing to take his draft and pull out the very best pieces and try them on for size in the original? Heterodidact (talk) 00:08, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@Heterodidact: If, as some say, the draft's greatest strength is in high-level organization, it might do better to import text with a stronger consensus into that structure. I'm more confident the text can be incrementally improved than the structure can. The "Responsibility for Harassment" section is clearly a lightning rod that will require further iteration. Can you elaborate on the transition you find "bizarre"? I'm not sure I follow what the difficulty is. (Auerbach's quote has CJR's imprimatur, without which I certainly would not have included it.) Rhoark (talk) 02:00, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@Rhoark: I would disagree that the organization is the draft's greatest strength; what I meant to indicate is that it has a far more coherent style and fewer awkward compromises-of-sentences. That is to say, I think certain strongly-written passages can replace their equivalent (if they have one) in the original article. In regards to the transition, I apologize if the word choice was harsh, but I don't see how his opinion should be used in that manner. He was quoted for his own opinion by David Uberti in a larger piece on "why" Mr. Auerbach (and others) are doing what he's doing, and that piece was published in CJR; that's not the same as CJR endorsing his opinion on the media's coverage; on my read of your paragraph, it was presented as a scholarly, authoritative last word on why the media is not conforming to its critic's expectations. Now, I appreciate that citing two specific examples is likely to invite a lot of litigating over those examples, and I'm willing to engage for as long as you wish, but I would like to be clear that my concerns are not limited to those two examples alone, and focusing on them is not likely to change my opinion of Reject for this specific draft. I reserve the right to change my opinion for later ones. Heterodidact (talk) 02:25, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Okay, no sense in belaboring points you don't consider crucial. If you can identify something that is more at the crux of the matter that would be helpful, but if you'd rather wait it out for a revision or two, nothing says you can't. Rhoark (talk) 02:42, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I would be pleased to keep an eye on your successive drafts; thank you for the invitation. However, keeping with the spirit of my original suggestion, I think I would prefer to keep an eye out for particularly good examples of prose and flag those for you (or others) to incorporate into the existing article. I trust you won't be too put out by that. Heterodidact (talk) 02:47, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject per Guy, though with thanks to Rhoark for the effort. Dumuzid (talk) 00:35, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Reject. The draft violates WP:FALSEBALANCE, especially in its overarching structure, which does not reflect the way the topic has been covered in most reliable sources. Devoting an entire section to "Gamergate as a movement" and weighting it equally to "Zoe Quinn controversies" is an unacceptable misuse of the sources, which devote vastly more text to the harassment of Quinn; it's also flawed in that most coverage devotes far more to other harassment, especially pf Brianna Wu and Anita Sarkeesian, which (by moving it to the near the end of the article) is sharply downplayed here in a way that distorts what most reliable sources have to say. Devoting a section of comparable size to "responsibility for harassment" is again clearly not reflective of how most sources have covered the topic - these are aspects that are present in some sources (and are touched on in the current article, with weight appropriate to the degree of coverage each has received); but they are not aspects that can legitimately be weighted equally with eg. the harassment covered by the preceding paragraph or further down. The problem is that this draft structure forces a false equivalence between aspects that generally get only bare mentions (at best) and the vast majority of remaining coverage, which has focused overwhelmingly on particular incidents of harassment and the timeline behind them. The vast majority of coverage has presented the topic in a manner much closer to the current article, especially the current article's excellent and comprehensive history section (which this rewrite inexplicably scatters over the article, with focus drastically distorted from the weight accorded to individual aspects of the timeline in reliable sources.) I take broad issue with this rewrite, but especially with its structure, which is its most clear flaw; an article's structure needs to reflect the weight accorded to aspects of the topic in reliable sources, per WP:BALASP. This structure does not and cannot do that. --Aquillion (talk) 03:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

If you take a look at the text of WP:FALSEBALANCE it is about balancing the validity of fringe views against scholarship. It's not really applicable to this case, because the draft is presenting only scholarship and mainstream journalism. I think your later link of WP:BALASP is probably what you had in mind. What I'm getting overall is that you would prefer a more chronological arrangement? Rhoark (talk) 04:28, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I feel really strange seeing Aquillion say that the "history" section is "comprehensive and excellent". Perhaps for people familiar with the topic, it might be that way, but not to the uninitiated. I'll give my own experience: when I first tried to read it last December, I knew virtually nothing about Gamergate. I found the section incomprehensible: it jumps all over the place chronologically and topically; one subsection, "coordination of harassment", is not "history" at all, but "analysis" by other people of this weird internet phenomenon. I made this point last December (see this ) - virtually nothing has improved since then. People are not amenable to changing the structure of the article. People don't want to change the section content. People were not amenable to making it chronological either. Perhaps people like to keep this mess set in concrete. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:57, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject. The draft fails WP:NPOV as it gives too much credence to the side of the conflict which caused so much harm. Primarily in-universe sources support that view; the wider literature does not. We should respect the wider literature. Binksternet (talk) 04:25, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

By "the side of the conflict which caused so much harm", which side are you referring to? We have it on the authority of the BBC, Washington Post, Le Monde, and Mortensen2016 that this describes both sides. And which provision of NPOV is it that discusses harm? Rhoark (talk) 04:32, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not into pretense. The harassment campaign of Gamergate was catalyzed by Zoe Quinn's angry ex-boyfriend posting a hurtful essay about her. His supporters are given too much credence in your draft, which fails even to call it a harassment campaign. I can't imagine why you went to the trouble of placing this POV piece in front of community review. Binksternet (talk) 05:36, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

@Binksternet: The specific phrase "harassment campaign" is important then? We're getting more specific; that's good. How would this edit[9] affect your overall impression? Are there particular aspects of the harassment that seem to have been neglected? Rhoark (talk) 02:44, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

• Accept: Finally it looks like we are making some progress here. The current article suffers greatly from ownership and POV-pushing, this draft attempts to fix some of those issues. A lot has happened since the Gamergate movement had its genesis. The article is in need of updating, and it needs to actually follow what the reliable sources say. This RFC is a step in the right direction. Too many people have made a good-faith attempt to edit the article and been chased off - by both "sides". There are a great many of us out there who are neither pro nor anti GG, but view the current article as an embarrassment, as it comes across as wildly disorganized while at the same time doing a poor job of defining what GG is and what the whole controversy is a about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.76.20 (talk • contribs)
• Comment: I have seen several people above (like JzG) argue for taking an "incremental" approach to the article rather than a complete rewrite. All I can say to that is: "you're welcome to try". Please realize that people might have hit upon this solution for a reason. I myself had suggested this approach almost half a year ago, but I never had the time, energy or motivation to follow through. As far as I know, Rhoark hit upon this approach independently. The reasons are the same: every talk page discussion about something not minor tends to devolve to WP:FORUMing and goes around in circles till everyone is exhausted. There are more than 50 talk page archives proving my point if anyone is interested. Here is a recent discussion, which can be indefinitely multiplied for anyone who cares to look. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:10, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I do understand your point, but there is only one way we will get a wholesale replacement of the article and that's if the new draft is written by someone who is not a partisan. At this point, only the partisans seem to care. Guy (Help!) 09:13, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

There's an alternative to that, which is that good-willed partisans from both sides start a new draft from scratch, using the best option found in either article whether in terms of structure, weight or phrasing. This is in the spirit of WP:DR, similar to a WP:Mediation process; and it would sidestep the current deadlock at the published article by replacing the "stay the same vs change a single sentence" with a "use the best content available in a way that all can accept", an option which didn't exist before. I believe the latter could achieve a much larger improvement.

And incidentally, that adversarial process is how NPOV articles on controversial issues are normally written - the Gamergate article was an exception in that it was impossible to maintain the scholarly discussion, due to the disruptive and ignited nature of the debate when it was written. Diego (talk) 09:27, 13 September 2016 (UTC) Diego (talk) 09:27, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

JzG: Would you like fries with that? No, seriously: there's another way - the way being followed. Someone can write a better article and put it for an RfC: and the "community" will decide. The point is that people do not want major changes (due to inertia, ownership, apathy, whatever). Here's the article roughly a year ago. See for yourself whether it has improved in prose, intelligibility or NPOV since then. If anything, it has gotten worse. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:30, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

The problem is that the "way being followed" has resulted in an obviously partisan draft that is almost certainly not going to get accepted. Guy (Help!) 09:37, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

See my previous comment - there's no need to accept Rhoark's draft in full for it to be useful. The fact that it works as a foil to the status of the article, which can be now discussed in relative "better/worse" terms of comparisons between concrete aspects of both alternatives, is an improvement over the "acceptable/unacceptable" dynamic over every proposed change; and a lot of that is going on in the "Reject" comments above. I'd say the existence of this RfC is showing that it is possible now to have the academic debate that was not possible when the first article was written. Diego (talk) 09:47, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

• Replace the article with the draft (the existence of votes such as "support" and "oppose" confuses me, so I want my vote to be unambiguous) — the article as of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=738771209 is not neutral, portraying the movement in a negative light, while the draft as of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=739148550 merely describes the situation without implying that either side is in the right. If you think that the article is more neutral, portraying all perspectives without taking sides, you need to stop participating in this encyclopedia project until you can write in a neutral point of view, because the article as if oldid=738771209 distinctly does not "attempt to present ideas and facts in such a fashion that both supporters and opponents can agree", as was the statement of WP:NPOV even at the beginning of the project, and does not conform with the current NPOV intro of "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias". Nyttend (talk) 12:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Reliable independent sources also portray GamerGate in a negative light, so an article of ours that goes to such lengths to avoid this is a pretty clear indication of something seriously wrong. Guy (Help!) 12:14, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

• Accept per KingsIndian and thank Rhoark for this effort. I think that the only way to move forward with this topic area is a BOLD action such as this draft. It's very clear from browsing the article talk page archives (50 pages!!) that the collaborative approach simply isn't working as intended for this topic area, and short of just deleting this article entirely, this is the best approach. Mr Ernie (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
• Reject per JzG (Guy) and Jorm. BethNaught (talk) 22:12, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
• Accept per KingsIndian. For some reason an argument about opposing this would be that the draft does not follow the sources. If I'm reading WP:NPOV correctly: "Neutral articles are written with a tone that provides an unbiased, accurate, and proportionate representation of all positions included in the article." So even if the sources we use are descibing Gamergate as a notorious internet terrorist, WP shouldn't adopt that same tone. Sethyre (talk) 05:39, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

It appears you missed the word "proportionate". We summarize the reliable sources in proportion to the mass of their arguments. If 60% say one thing, and 40% say the opposite, then we emphasize the 60% position, but we also tell the reader about the 40% position. Binksternet (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

My issue is that the current article uses Wikipedia's voice a lot. That's different than proportional use of sources. Hobit (talk) 12:39, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I cannot express just how correct your assessment is! Wikipedia's voice is used to assert things as fact when the sources are opinions, something people have brought up numerous times before being shut down by the entrenched editors. Well, not all of the editors, just a couple who take issue with change. Sethyre (talk) 23:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject per NPOV (especially FALSEBALANCE, UNDUE, and YESPOV), V (NOTRELIABLE), BLP, and a CHERRYPICKING on top. Probably some other scary ALLCAPS as well, but not MOS:ALLCAPS. Woodroar (talk) 01:55, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

  Could you please elaborate on how specific parts of the draft fail specific parts of the guidelines you've listed? Otherwise, your OMGWTFBBQ comment is of little usefulness to the conversation, since nothing can be done to the draft to fix those flaws. Diego (talk) 12:05, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I detailed some issues with the Draft at Talk:Gamergate controversy. As far as I'm concerned, they all still apply. Woodroar (talk) 23:17, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I suggest continuing this thread at Talk:Gamergate_controversy#Request_for_comment_is_posted Rhoark (talk) 14:20, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject Others have already listed the reasons why, but I'll just add that the reporting of threats and harassment is poor. Much of it is unverified. ゼーロ (talk) 13:01, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@ゼーロ: Can you please clarify? Do you mean the sections about harassment need more citations to verify? Or that the sources report on events that are unverified? Or that the draft should describe them in more detail? Rhoark (talk) 17:47, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

@Rhoark: There is a lot of text detailing harassment and bomb threats, but much of it is based on single sources or poor sources, and was never verified or resolved in the end. For example, when GamerGate supporters held events they always got bomb threats, and apparently got the police involved once, but it was never discovered who made the threats. We don't know if they were genuine attempts to disrupt the events, or if it was the organizers trying to paint themselves as victims of extreme... er... feminists I suppose. I cases where there has been follow up, on-going criminal investigations, reputable media coverage etc. it's reasonable to mention it, but I think that in trying to present a "balanced" view the proposed text has ended up repeating basically rumours and allegations. ゼーロ (talk) 10:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

If we were to include only things that had been "verified and resolved" we would be left with only Rankowski's threats against Wu. If in addition they have to be known to be genuine threats, then there would be nothing. Rumors and allegations are the story. Rhoark (talk) 11:37, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• With the comment that I know very little about the topic, I think the new draft is a bit more clear and readable. The lede of the current article is a mess and this is clear and short. Also seems to be more "just the facts" while the current article reads more like a one-sided screed. Sounds like the one-sided thing may be appropriate per sources, but the current article puts this in Wikipedia's voice more than I am comfortable with. Accept draft but with a full acknowledgement that I don't know much about the topic. Hobit (talk) 21:17, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
• Accept draft. Kingsindian's arguments are convincing. This is far better than the current "article" that does not even attempt helping the reader understand a topic. SSTflyer 03:20, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
• Accept Draft I'd forgotten how bad the current article was - right from the start it uses an astounding number of words to say almost nothing. The pattern of contrived language and disjointed structure continues throughout - long, rambling. This is much clearer and more straightforward. An editor above described it as a "just the facts" version and I find it more organized as well. That's no small task with a team of editors much less alone. Well done. James J. Lambden (talk) 05:08, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
• Accept. The draft is more readable, and is a massively superior example of neutrality, free from any false balance. Bravo, sir/madam! 109.255.206.160 (talk) 13:49, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
• Reject - the Gamergate controversy article as it stands gives a very detailed and explicit explanation on both what Gamergate is about and the chronology of events concerning it. The draft is a somewhat whitewashed version of the article. The draft sections off parts of the article that should be better described chronologically, and the draft goes to describe these events in a somewhat POV tone. If there are issues with the current version of the article, then that should be worked on by the efforts of multiple editors, rather than debating whether to implement a version of an article that was solely worked on by a single editor. I'm not against having discussions with the wider community on how to improve this article, but a re-purposing of this RFC may be in order, and then all members of the community could pitch in and discuss their own ideas on how the article could be improved. —Mythdon 22:09, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
• Reject The current article is a bit of a mess, but this one tries too hard to give all points of view equla weight. There needs to be something in the middle. AIRcorn (talk) 22:55, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
• Support with caveats On a re-read, many of the rejects !votes above do have a very valid point that some of the areas covered by this draft are false balance on specific aspects that could be considered "pro-GG supporting", that, in the long run, are minor issues compared to the larger one as a whole (TFYC stuff, for example). We should be trying to look at this from a farther-down-the-road view to avoid details that may have contributed but were minor and that were not readily focused on broadly. But that said, it is very easy to trim from this version to make it better. The key aspect of this one draft over the current mainspace article is that it adopts the correct impartial, neutral tone that one should expect to see a controversy documented in an encyclopedia, rather than the present mainspace version which is written to maintain the vitriolic and accusation tone that the press have adapted. When you take out the minor points above, the article still presents the right balance that there was a lot and a lot of negative opinion on the GG situation, but we should not be letting public opinion drive the tone of the article, and Rhoark's done a good starting point of distancing the encyclopedic coverage from that tone. --MASEM (t) 14:13, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
• Reject Unusable sue to deliberate WP:WEIGHT issues and therefore unlikely to ever be made usable, as discussed in the previous RfC. Artw (talk) 16:54, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
• Comment Came here via bot ping. By coincidence, I was just reading the article earlier today for an unrelated reason and the article struck me as having painfully obvious WP:NPOV issues. However, asking RfC respondents to comment on a wholesale rewriting of an article is really to ask too much of them. Chris Hallquist (talk) 04:25, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

• Actually, I stand corrected. The rewrite seems to mostly concern three sentences, yes? The wording of the RfC leaves me a little unsure. But assuming the issue is three sentences from different points in the article, this should be three separate RfCs. The first sentence of difference, "There is strong disagreement between participants in these debates as to what the controversy is fundamentally about" seems obviously true and clearly important enough that it needs to be clearly stated in the article. The other two edits concern unrelated issues that are mostly going to be a matter of what the cited sources actually say. I'd need to read both sets of sources, but given that the issues are largely unrelated I think they're two separate RfCs. Chris Hallquist (talk) 04:33, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

@Chris Hallquist: The question asked in the RfC is about replacing the current article wholesale with the draft. The reason for doing it this way is explained here. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:39, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: But it doesn't actually look like a wholesale re-write? (It's possible I'm looking at the wrong diff.) OTOH if it were a wholesale rewrite, a wholesale rewrite being desirable does not make it any more realistic to expect RfC respondents to review a large draft. Furthermore, it's not clear how making the RfC about a large diff makes WP:FORUM less likely.

@Chris Hallquist: From the RfC header: we're comparing draft with article. The versions are at the point when the RfC was started, so that changes can be made to the live article, while the RfC is going on, without confusing people. Just indicate which one you prefer and why. Of course, this will involve reading through the draft as well as the article, carefully or not: there's no avoiding this. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:19, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kingsindian: In that case, I stand by my point that it's not clear how this approach makes WP:FORUM less likely. Chris Hallquist (talk) 16:06, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

@Chris Hallquist: A yes/no question usually limits meandering, in my experience with RfCs. Most of my own RfCs (this was not opened by me), are yes/no for this reason. Of course, people are free to weigh in on aspects of the matter they find interesting, in other sections on this page. In case this RfC is inconclusive, perhaps the other sections might still be fruitful in the future. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:31, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Strongly accept —- Someone, who didn't participate at talk before, just reverted a broadly accepted and none-opposed BLP-violating-rumor-removal, the suggestion of which didn't originate from me: [10].

It was again removed by a third editor: [11];

returned by a fourth: [12];

removed by a fifth: [13];

returned by a sixth: [14]

and once again removed by me: [15].

The current article is an edit-warred, illegible, BLP-violating, travesty piece of s*** controlled by a group of editors who abuse their numbers in perfect, WP:TAGTEAM and WP:STEALTH harmony to oppose even the slightest neutrality or readability added. Even a very slight faint of a hint of change is warred against by taking turns. I have no doubt there is a lot of WP:COI involved as well. Current article is a stain on Wikipedia and brings the credibility of the entire site down. Pardon my language but I've had enough of this s***. Mr. Magoo (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Comment on the feedback process a week in. The request has so far been a resounding success, inasmuch as it has injected actionable feedback into what was a stalled talk page discussion. Some readers were apparently given an impression that the draft was attempting to undermine or contest the reliable sources on certain points, and an attempt has been made to address this.[16] Through adjustments to wording and through citation of exact source text it should be clear that the draft is reflecting rather than contesting the reliable sources. A quick review of these changes by Guy and Fyddlestix, to see whether their concerns have been assuaged, would be helpful.

Several editors have commented that the draft is more readable or approachable, which is good to hear. Others have wondered whether this readability could be brought to article space by merely copyediting rather than re-evaluation of the content. It is my firm belief that it cannot. The article's problems are not just some awkward turns of phrase. It fumbles in trying to use terms before introducing them. It repeats itself in trying to discuss a single idea in several different sections. It omits significant points of view, and demurs about answering basic Five W questions that the cited sources would enable it to answer. The readability the draft enjoys is the result of careful and comprehensible organization, not only phrasing.

The most troubling concern raised is the assertion that this organization of the draft is not neutral or reflective of the reliable sources. To a certain extent, this is an expression of shock that the reliable sources differ so starkly from editors' preconceptions about the topic. Some even feel that the topic is so nefarious that NPOV should not be followed. That view should obviously not be accommodated. Others think the draft devotes too much attention to certain claims for WP:BALASPS, and that view can at least be engaged. I've started a parallel discussion in another section of this page to evaluate the overall landscape of sources and see what kind of emphasis is most consistent with the reliable sources. I hope for as many people as possible to participate in that process. Rhoark (talk) 19:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

• Reject draft as garbage I was canvassed to come here and vote support offwiki. I have rejected the advice of my canvasser. Having reviewed the draft, I find it to be highly biased. Even starting, it states, in Wikipedia's voice, that "The Gamergate controversy is a collection of cultural debates." This is not a statement that should be made in Wikipedia's voice. Specifically, a number of sources have stated that Gamergate is a harassment campaign, not a collection of debates. I further note dramatic errors of fact in the lede. Specifically, "a panel discussion hosted by the Society of Professional Journalists," was not, in fact, hosted by the society, but rather by the Florida chapter of said society. I could continue, I choose not to. Hipocrite (talk) 20:31, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Why would "pro-Gamergaters" canvass you to vote "support" when you're very publicly anti-Gamergate...? Can you link the canvassing so we can monitor it, or email the link to an administrator if linking would violate policy? I notice your last edit (in June) was communication with an editor who was indefinitely banned for off-site harassment. It would be especially troubling if the canvassing occurred in a forum where harassment also occurs. James J. Lambden (talk) 20:53, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Unlike some other wikis, Wikipedia values reliable sources over editors' personal opinions.

"At its most basic level, it's a heated debate over journalistic integrity, the definition of video games and the identity of those who play them."[17]

"GamerGate has become a feud between two sets of video game fans."[18]

"On one level, #Gamergate is an internal squabble between ideologically opposed factions within the gaming world."[19]

"GamerGate is the name of a campaign whose supporters allege that close ties between some video games journalists and those working in the gaming industry itself have given rise to conflicts of interest. The movement became embroiled with a wider debate over claims of sexism in gaming, and gave rise to violent threats being posted online."[20]

"Gamergate, a movement at the center of debates about misogyny in gaming and ethics in video game journalism"[21]

There are, of course, dissenting views, but that's why we have the NPOV policy. Rhoark (talk) 01:05, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Sidebar on reliable sources

A recurring response seems to be to doubt whether the draft uses WP:BESTSOURCES or emphasizes the most appropriate claims from those sources. Let's talk first about what the best sources are. If we can agree on an approximate list, then we can start looking at how those sources weight different claims. This is particularly in relation to overall article structure, so lets keep things manageable by limiting the scope to sources that attempt to describe, in the publication's own voice, the complete controversy at the time of writing. This is not to say other sources are not reliable, but interviews, breaking news, or mentions in passing will not be as informative about how to arrange a high-level outline. First let's try to agree on what the most reliable overviews and explainers are. Once we settle on which ones to look at, we can talk about how they structure themselves. There's a dearth of complete overviews after 2014 (breaking stories later tend to link to 2014 explainers or just assume people already know), but we can leave the implications of that for later. Please identify anything that seems to be missing from this list, or appears to be rated too highly or lowly. Rhoark (talk) 17:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Disputed
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/thinkpieces/why-gamergate-will-lose/

When did a blog post on Adam Smith Institute website become a "High-quality" source. — Strongjam (talk) 17:16, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

The Adam Smith Institute is considered reputable and authoritative on far more complex and weighty matters than Gamergate.[22][23][24][25][26]. From the author bio,[27] Ben is Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute, overseeing the ASI’s research papers and strategy. His intellectual interests include monetary regimes, nature vs. nurture in individual differences, sport economics, prediction markets, and quantitative approaches to social phenomena in general. At the ASI, he wrote a 2014 paper on the effect of foreign footballers on the English side, a 2016 paper on safe standing in football stadia, and his review of scholarly research on the economic burden of corporation tax was published in 2013. He has also had a book review published in the academic journal Intelligence and wrote the entry on business cycles in the forthcoming Encyclopaedia of Social Theory. He writes regularly on the ASI blog. He has written for City A.M., Conservative Home, The Guardian, TheSpectator, CapX, Huffington Post, The Yorkshire Post, BBC Online, The IBTimes, and appeared on BBC News, the Today Programme, Sunday Politics Scotland, BBC Scotland 2015, BBC World News, Scotland Tonight, Sky News,BBC Look North, CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and many other radio stations and TV programmes. The fact the work is labeled as "thinkpiece" rather than "research" keeps it out of the top tier, but overall the bona fides of publisher and author are greater than those I've placed as mid-tier. Rhoark (talk) 17:52, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

This is from their blog, not one of their research pieces. This doesn't even qualify for WP:RS let alone "High-quality". — Strongjam (talk) 17:55, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

@Strongjam: One does not need to agree with every choice in a classification. Do you feel that it is largely accurate? Incidentally, reliability is always in context. Two of the citations to the piece in the draft are simply together with multiple citations for the same (undisputed) fact, and can be removed with little or no loss. The third citation is for an attributed opinion - a person is obviously reliable for his own views. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:09, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Personally I'd just drop it entirely. Where it's cited for his opinion in the draft it says the controversy represents a schism within the political left. while his opinion in the source is less firm "This makes me think that gamergate might be best characterised as a case of leftist infighting". Generally this is a symptom of a larger problem with the draft. Some of the sourced statements don't quite match what the sources say, e.g. "Shawn Layden thought there was more to Gamergate than harassment" what the source actually says "I don't think there is one statement or one position on it, or one answer to whatever this very broadly-defined #GamerGate really means. A lot of things are getting swept into that.". The statement "Some journalists have been reluctant to revisit the controversy when new developments might validate the Gamergate movement" is sourced to CJR which doesn't say that "new developments might validate the Gamergate movement" says "A number of top journalists in the field declined to speak to CJR on the record because they feared validating Gamergate as something more than a collection of trolls. One described the hashtag not as a movement with goals, but rather as a platform “used by anyone who wants to say something.” Another feared it would inject false equivalency into the debate: “There is no Gamergate and anti-Gamergate,” he says. “That’s like saying people who don’t collect postage stamps are anti-postage stamps.”" There may be more, but I don't have the energy to check every cite. — Strongjam (talk) 18:27, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

This is good; we're already getting actionable issues. For this section though let's assume that the draft will be undergoing revisions, and not put the cart before the horse. How I'd like for this to proceed is:

1. Consensus on what the key sources are
2. Analysis of what structure they use within themselves
3. Ab initio generation of an "ideal" outline.

Then maybe we can compare the article and draft to the ideal and suggest edits. With that in mind, I'll put Adam Smith in a "disputed" category. Rhoark (talk) 18:37, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

@Strongjam: Let's first decide whether the sources are classified in a reasonable manner and then only later worry about whether they are rendered fairly and with all nuances. Do you think the classification above is reasonable? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:46, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I suggest continuing this thread at Talk:Gamergate_controversy#Request_for_comment_is_posted Rhoark (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

What about the CJR piece you've linked makes it a 'top shelf source'? It's not academic, Chris Ip does not seem to be an expert in the field or a particularly accomplished journalist, and it was published in the infancy of the harassment campaign and is unusable for any sort of macroscopic view. PeterTheFourth (talk) 21:36, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

He is (was?) a Delacorte Fellow - so a recent journalism school grad, who is essentially doing a post-grad work experience/internship at CJR. It's explained Here. Fyddlestix (talk) 02:37, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Columbia Journalism Review is a publication of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, which is widely recognized as the best such school in the country. It's one of the best sources there is about the practice of journalism and considered an authority about the quality of other publications. After the UVA story, Rolling Stone turned to CJR to audit their editorial process. This particular piece is a review not only of the GG controversy to that point, but identifying and describing the landscape of published articles on it. It should be immediately apparent how that's useful to us. Coming in late October it catches more than a lot of overviews. (As I mentioned, there are few late-breaking overviews.) About Ip, he wrote the story while on a one-year fellowship offered to 3 Columbia journalism grads each year. Two months prior to this story, he had written in CJR about New Games Journalism.[28] Before that, he was at Reuters Hong Kong office writing about the Chinese government. Rhoark (talk) 12:03, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Colour me 'unconvinced' as to the top shelf quality of that source. PeterTheFourth (talk) 12:17, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Is there a reason for that, or just a gut feeling? Diego (talk) 13:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I outlined three issues I had with it being considered a 'top shelf source'- there was an attempt to address two of them, but they were not convincing attempts. PeterTheFourth (talk) 13:24, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I would add that the CJR piece is likely being misused even if it is a top-quality source; I took issue with it because it was using the authority of the source and the credentials of the author to add weight to the opinion of a single individual interviewed by the author, which struck me as wrong. Heterodidact (talk) 18:17, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Although that's a different piece from CJR you're referring to, I think its absolutely representative of the authority CJR has and one valid way to use that authority. They interview Koretzky as a matter of course because he's at the center of that particular story. For the others - David Auerbach, Mia Consalvo, and James Fudge - there's no obvious reason they should inevitably be interviewed. It's not as if CJR is lacking names in their rolodex either. The choice to interview them informs not only that they said something, but that they are people whose opinions on the matter are worth seeking out. I didn't use Consalvo's quote since it backed up claims that were already asserted, but looking at this question more closely makes me think some of her work ought to be brought up in the "Cultural conflict" section. Rhoark (talk) 18:53, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

That strikes me as a lot of unsupported inference about the notability of said opinions, to be quite honest. Going to such lengths to theorize about the subtext that might be implied by the assumed editorial process behind the article is probably an indication that the article isn't saying what you want it to say. Heterodidact (talk) 19:15, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm not going to great lengths to "theorize" anything. I'm describing WP:WEIGHT and WP:USEBYOTHERS as applied to quoted pundits. I honestly don't understand what the alternative would be in deciding whether to use a quotation. Rhoark (talk) 20:02, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Forgive me, but I see explicit theorizing - you note that there's "no reason" you can see to quote a particular individual, and then you take that as evidence that if they were quoted, that must mean the CJR thinks they were important, even though there's no evidence there was any selection process of that nature anywhere. Heterodidact (talk) 20:09, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

This list seems incomplete relative to the draft. E.G. The draft uses Breitbart as a source a few times, and I seriously doubt it should be used as a source ever. 2601:640:8001:D700:90A2:BB3F:EBCB:AC66 (talk) 23:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

From what I can see, Breitbart is used three times. One is an attributed opinion of Milo. Two of them are simply used as one of multiple citations about the same thing because they are cited by other sources as well. It's rather hard to talk about Gamergate without mentioning Breitbart at all. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:30, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Added Mother Jones[29] to group B. Rhoark (talk) 20:39, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Outlines

While the discussion above may need some more time to play out, we can go ahead and start outlining some of these. I'll take one or a few at a time, and others can help if they like. Let's treat these as collaborative content rather than users' personal comments, so if there seems to be a problem with an outline we can BRD for expedience. Rhoark (talk) 03:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Mortensen, Torill "Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate" Games and Culture

Introduction harassment: Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and various game designers/scholars/critics Academic game studies conspiracy theories Cultural Marxism conspiracy theories GG Operations targeting DiGRA Swarm-like leaderless organization of GG What was GG? Zoepost "Gamers are over" articles Size of GG estimated from various social media Ethics or Harassment? Baldwin starting the hashtag Issues from GG perspective: Gerstmanngate, TotalBiscuit commentary, GameJournoPros "Gamers are over" some more Issues according to Gamerghazi: harassing Zoe Quinn 4chan logs Academics supporting GG: Christina Hoff Sommers, Nick Flor Talking About GG Disunity of GG, unawareness of other participants' actions sockpuppets, Joshua Goldberg False flags in the hashtag, harassment of GG supporters doxxing of GG supporters, opponents, Quinn, Sarkeesian, Wu, Felicia Day SWATting GG claimed disaffiliation with baphomet, No True Scotsman harassment in larger game / image board culture Image Board Culture Anonymous blase attitude toward offensive speech Sarah Nyberg longevity/ephemerality of imageboard content sensationalist misinformation survives by getting more bumps than corrections The Hooligans of the 'Net GG analogized to football hooligans hypermasculinity NotYourShield social bonding among participants female GG supporters compared to female football hooligans GG's belief in their own victimization Who Benefits? GG theories about Quinn and Sarkeesian profiting from the controversy pro-GG YouTuber revenue socially/economically marginalized GG supporters A Weakness of Participatory Culture diverse range of social media used in the controversy, echo chambers wider social impact than expected from the topic and number of participants importance of more research

Wingfield, Nick "Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in 'GamerGate' Campaign The New York Times
Sarkeesian Utah threat dense paragraph on various subfactions/goals, including harassment and ethics changing game market demographics harassment of Raph Koster in the 1990s industry reaction/silence on the topic Baldwin starting the tag; #StopGamerGate; SJWs Zoepost harassment of Quinn harassment of Wu more on player demographics depiction of women, Lara Croft

Stuart, Keith "Gamergate: the community is eating itself but there should be room for all" The Guardian

(intro) conflict between gamers and critics has been building for several years player demographics changing due to smartphones and Wii Enter the critics Anita Sarkeesian and others investigating games gamers feeling unfairly demonized Zoepost, threats against Quinn and Sarkeesian, #gamergate hashtag, theories of press/developer collusion (all in one paragraph!) gamer identity, alleged conflicts of interest, SJWs The mistakes behind the hate gamers regard criticism as coming from outside the community rather than inside press problems exist but are overblown analogies to movie and film press unfairness of equating media criticism with misogynist harassment The perceived power of social justice fears about SJW influence on games is overblown people can make their own game media with blackjack and hookers harassment is bad people should be able to express themselves without fear

Lewis, Helen "Gamergate: a brief history of a computer-age war" The Guardian
Zoepost "ethics in game journalism" and "SJWs" (skeptical) GG's macho game preferences Twine GG concerns about Patreon Kotaku and Intel responding to GG concerns GG declining in influence

Ip, Chris "How do we know what we know about #Gamergate?" Columbia Journalism Review

quoting definitions of GG from various media entered mainstream media because of NYT reporting Utah threat coverage is pieced together from examining social media it's confusing size of GG estimated from Reddit; goals are contradictory harassment of Sarkeesian, Quinn, Wu; part of a wider Internet trend culture war / expanding game audience / definition of gamer difficulty in assigning responsibility for threats; many ethics criticisms debunked anti-GG has more effective figureheads than Adam Baldwin blockquote of Jesse Singal explaining No True Scotsman

Rott, Nathan "#Gamergate Controversy Fuels Debate on Women and Video Games" NPR all tech considered

Gamergate is about two things: "ethics in video game journalism, and the role and treatment of women in the video game industry" attention has been brought to these things because of harassment Zoe Quinn, Depression Quest Zoepost, backlash on Twitter, SJWs Threats against Quinn Anita Sarkeesian, Tropes vs. Women, threats Andreas Zecher's open letter Leigh Alexander's opinions: not a minority of gamers who resist change

Griggs, Brandon "Behind the furor over #Gamergate" CNN

(intro) Utah State threats online arguments between "a wide variety of disgruntled people" What is #Gamergate? differing game preferences between men and women agenda-driven arguers, death threats hardcore gamers vs feminists How did it start? Tropes vs. Women Zoepost, threats Baldwin, #GamerGate, #StopGamerGate2014 free speech, media bias against gamers Why are people so angry? changing player demographics SJWs Can we resolve this? Wu harassment threats spurring support for anti-GG ESA statement CNN lists the following "story highlights": "Threats against a feminist critic have refocused attention on #Gamergate" "Term refers to debates over the definition of video games and the identity of gamers" "Women are complaining about sexism in video games" "Some men say feminist attacks on games are akin to censorship"

Wienman, Jaime "How a gamer fight turned into an all-out culture war" Maclean's

Gamergate focusing attention on Sarkeesian, false allegations against Quinn feud between video game fans about depictions of women gamers accused of being sexist, "Gamers are Over", Intel advertising female supporters, #NotYourShield; quote Cathy Young about offense-driven feminism Yiannopoulos involved opportunistically Felica Day doxxing, Utah State threat Wu threats; chilling effect on women in gaming

Parkin, Simon "Gamergate: a scandal erupts in the video game community" The New Yorker

Anita Sarkeesian, Tropes vs. Women threats against Sarkeesian 2012 onward Utah State threat thousands of non-threatening messages attempting to debunk and silence Sarkeesian diversification in games' thematic content Depression Quest, #gamergate, Baldwin, Grayson allegation GG stated aims: ethical journalism, objective reporting; critics see it as hate movement GG is tiny relative to game audience; Intel advertising GG fear game criticism will lead to censorship; see criticism of sexism in games as criticism of gamers as sexist unlike past critics, present critics believe in the medium GG concerns about Patron, Jenn Frank, Simon Parkin potential of games as a medium

Analysis

The sources outlined so far seem like a good overview. Some trends and themes are immediately apparent to me, but I want to hear what other people think. Rhoark (talk) 01:39, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Delving into the weeds like this is the opposite of what we should do when you cannot even justify the weighting you've assigned to sources (such as 'top shelf' for the CJR source.) PeterTheFourth (talk) 01:44, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I have given what seem like very solid justifications for this classification and don't understand the objection. I've asked for outside input from RSN. In the meantime, it would also be more constructive to suggest what publications you think are most suitable for informing article structure. Rhoark (talk) 02:12, 19 September 2016 (UTC)