Talk:Gamergate (harassment campaign)

Cited sources

I'm sure it's been pointed out before, but the decidedly biased sources being cited should be taken into account. Q ^{T C} 11:13, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The GameJournoPros list was covered by Ars Technica by the guy who created it. It was also covered by Forbes. Diego (talk) 11:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I've found bit-tech [1] too discussing journalist ethics and "the cabal conspiracy theory". Diego (talk) 11:33, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

For the umpteenth time, WP:RS does not say that sources have to be non-biased because you'll never find that anywhere. All of these cries of "bias" are coming from gaters who aren't finding that this article is solely biased to their point of view. And that Breitbart shit has been repeated so many times on this page it's like a show that's stuck on UPN. Breitbart is not a reliable source because of their history of lying to make stories.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 13:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Then we shall cover what reliable sources have said about Breitbart, as those have found it significant. Diego (talk) 16:25, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

But to my knowledge [and correct me if I'm wrong] nobody involved in the scandal has actually denied the truth of what's written on breitbart.com. Everyone involved, like Kyle Orland in his article linked above, has acknowledged that this google group actually exists. If we have confirmation from the accused that the facts of what they're being accused of are true, and have reporting of the scandal both from those who think it is not problematic and those who think it is, does it really matter that the whole thing started on breitbart? This is nothing like some of the contentious allegations being made against Zoe Quinn, as absolutely no one seems to be calling them completely fabricated. The people accused are covering it themselves and agreeing with the facts of the article (although not the conclusions drawn from them) so this very clearly isn't some fringe conspiracy theory. If this is not enough coverage to include the JournosPros scandal in the article, I would like a clarification on exactly what would warrant it. Because as can be seen from the Anthony Weiner sexting scandals article there is clearly a point at which coverage of a scandal broken on breitbart.com is sufficient to warrant it being mentioned in Wikipedia. Not that I'm in any way claiming the GameJournoPros list scandal has received anyway near as much coverage as the Weiner scandal did, but just that the Weiner scandal proves that a point exists at which coverage of breitbart broken scandal become necessary. So my question to those against putting it in the article is: What level of coverage is required for this to warrant inclusion? Bosstopher (talk) 16:27, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Just give up already, you can't include actual journalism on this site by a long respected journalist, but if a freelancer writes the owners of this article's view, they include it happily, also watch as this talk gets closed as any other dissenting opinion gets closed down by the owners Loganmac (talk) 17:27, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

These are a few facts that have been reported by Forbes, not Breitbart:

• Forums where the incidents were being debated were heavily moderated to remove discussion.
• Journalists took a conservative approach in covering the harassment to avoid giving it publicity (this one is confirmed by Ars Technica).
• These two facts above caused the Streisand Effect and calls of censorship.
• Yiannopoulos later gave it publicity to the mailing list, painting it as a conspiracy of journalists.

Is there something in these points that you don't agree represent the content from both articles from Erik Kain and the Ars Technica article that Kain links to? Diego (talk) 17:54, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Let me predict what will happen:

"It's not a reliable source 'cuz its not reported by OTHER reliable sources even doe we have multiple single-sourced points in dis article, but lets look beside dat.".

Happens every time. Derpen (talk) 18:08, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no evidence that the Breitbart story has any credence in mainstream sources and it is undue weight to discuss it as if it does. We aren't going to permit fringe right-wing conspiracy theories in this article. Come back when you have a better source than one Forbes contributor blog. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:10, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

See? I told you he was going to say that. They've gotten to such a predictable level.Derpen (talk) 18:21, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

But there is a better source than the Forbes article. Please read the arguments and sourcing people present before reverting them. There is an acknowledgement by the guy being accused of being behind this, writing in a reliable source that the facts of the breitbart article are accurate. Orland fully acknowledges the existence of the google group but disputes ' the specific allegations and interpretations that a Breitbart writer made based on one of [his] posts." Where is the lack of credence for the facts of the story? I have no clue why you would go as far as to call it a fringe right wing conspiracy theory, when even the journalists accused admit it is factually accurate. Bosstopher (talk) 18:25, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Another prediction of what they will say:

"well ya see, dey still aint reliable sources despite that cuz.... uh... WIKIPEDIA."

They always bend those guidelines. Derpen (talk) 18:29, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

You are not being very constructive here Derpen. Bosstopher (talk) 18:34, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Hey, I already predicted what NorthBySouthBaranof was going to say above. Derpen (talk) 18:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

On Diego's point, there is no source that connects the behind-the-scenes journalism discussion to limit the coverage of the GG towards the increase in the debate and Streisand effect. In fact, considering that that was discovered much later, it's certainly can't be tied to it. This is not saying that what the Forbes article is saying can't be in the article, but where it is was being connected was original research and synthesis. --MASEM (t) 18:40, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

So for clarification: Does anyone object to this being referenced in the article using the forbes AND ORLAND sources, with both the claims of collusion being made and Orland's rebuttal being included? Can anyone who responds to this question please start their response with the sentence "I have read Orland's article." Bosstopher (talk) 18:55, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

I object. We should not be using an individual's defesne against potentially defamatory accusations as justification for repeating said accusations. We have the briefest of mentions in Kain's article and nothing more: that's not enough to justify giving any sort of credence to a publicaion that makes a habit of publishing outright lies to get pageviews and attack political opponents. We should not be including Milo's potentially defamatory accusations if we can't find stronger sources noting them, their impact and their relevance.

Erik Kain, by the way, is cited at least 18 times in this article, more frequently than any single publication, let alone any single author. I know he's popular with the pro-GamerGaters because he's more sympathetic to their cause than most, but this is getting excessive. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:29, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed. There are more than enough references to Erik Kain's reporting here; we already place undue weight on his perspective of this issue. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:09, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

But I dont see why it should be treated as a serious and potentially defamatory accusation when those involved admit to the factual accuracy of what Milo has written, and base their argument on the idea that what Milo details has no serious negative connotations. Bosstopher (talk) 20:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Because it says nothing about their relevance. It does not legitimize the conclusions that Milo drew, and it does not connect them to GamerGate in a meaningful way that merits mention here. They admit the list exists. But that it constitutes 'collusion?' A conspiracy to control the GamerGate narrative? That needs much stronger sourcing. They have a right to defend themselves from unfounded accusations like the ones Brietbart is fond of making, and their decision to exercise that right should not lead to those accusations being repeated. -- TaraInDC (talk) 20:52, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry. I just realised that I seem to have misunderstood what quite a few people have been arguing. I thought people were referring to the existence of the google group as a "right wing fringe conspiracy" not the conclusions drawn from it. Sorry for making incorrect assumptions. Bosstopher (talk) 22:14, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

That's not quite right. In addition to the above, there's this source. There's also the recent TechCrunch article. And Chinatopix. And tportal. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:19, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The ChinaTopix article demonstrably gets basic facts of the controversy wrong, such as completely misreporting the allegations against Quinn — I'm unaware of any other source linking the alleged conflict of interest to Steam Greenlight or to the mailing list. Those obvious factual errors preclude the article from being considered a reliable source. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:09, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The Techcrunch article doesnt actually mention the GamesJournosPros list allegations. Bosstopher (talk) 20:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Pocket Gamer discusses GameJournoPros. I think some mention of this is relevant, along with a mention of the DDoS attack on the Escapist GamerGate discussions since it is of related interest. Both are clearly relevant here and being reported on by multiple reliable sources. We can cite Ryan Smith's statement on the matter there as well as a sort of counter to Orland's defense of the mailing list.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

The issue with the GameJournoPros list is not that it contributed to the initial GG problems since it wasn't know until 2 weeks after, but more that once it was discovered, that the claims that there was ethical problems in the journalism field were demonstrated with that list. While the collusion and actions of those on the list might have affected the initial events of GG (but we have no confirmed evidence to show this), the fact that there was discussion of such collusion fueled the ethics aspects. So this is an appropriate point to include, just not worded as it was originally added. --MASEM (t) 04:09, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

All of that is Original Research, though. We have no source to support the claim what appeared in that list constituted 'collusion.' We do not have any source other than Breitbart that treats this list as particularly important to GamerGate at all. We simply can not cover every stupid lie that GamerGaters get themselves worked into a lather over just because it 'fueled' their 'concerns' about 'ethics.' We can't include Brietbart's accusations unless we have a much less irresponsible source's take on it to draw from. -- TaraInDC (talk) 05:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

We have a reporter reviewing what the opinion of gamers were and coming out that they felt it was "collusion". That is not original research by a WPian, that's a proper secondary claim by an expert reliable source. It doesn't prove that the collusion existed, or even if it did was it purposely meant to silence the story, simply that this was another reaction and issue that the gamer side appeared to have - that type of explanation is perfectly fine in the context here and helps to balance the issue without forcing it. And we're not using Breitbart's, we're using Forbes and TechCrunch. --MASEM (t) 05:13, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Other than the ars techinica article - and I've already explained why it would be irresponsible to use that to justify repeating the accusations - the only source I see that actually mentions Milo's accusation is one of the Forbes articles, which mentions it only briefly in a longer article on another subject. Bear in mind that all of Kain's writings in Forbes (which are ridiculously overcited in this article as it is) are listed as opinion pieces. BLP comes first. That means not repeating clearly unfounded accusations, even with weasel words about how 'some people think this suggests collusion' without high quality sources. We don't have those: we have a few brief mentions in a few weak sources. -- TaraInDC (talk) 05:28, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

There's no allegation against a specific person here that would put this into BLP territory. It's still only an accusation that they colluded, so yes, we do not report it as fact that they worked to keep the story quiet, but simply that there was emails discussing it, and when those came out, gamers percieved that as more evidence of media problems. Neither right nor wrong. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

BLP does not allow us to ignore the policy altogether if we don't name the people being accused. To the GamerGaters this may be a vague claim about 'the media,' but we're still dealing with specific emails made by specific people which Milo believes prove some kind of misbehavior. And you are still sourcing this to a passing reference in an opinion piece. We aren't obligated to include every tangential piece of information just because GamerGaters think it's really, really important or repeat every sensationalized accusation by a professional muckracker that gets mentioned briefly in a column on another subject: the sources we have don't make a strong argument that the information is important and relevant, and especially when we're dealing with poorly supported accusations about living people, that means we err on the side of excluding. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:09, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean that you would agree to include the content if the claim by Yiannopoulos involving living people is not mentioned at all? Diego (talk) 15:20, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

If we don't mention Milo's claims about collusion there's nothing to mention. But we right now have one weak source that's mentioned these accusations - that's simply not enough to merit repeating them here. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Following this, evidence from a private mailing list was discovered that suggested that some journalists worked together to maintain a "radio silence" within the gaming media and moderation of the public forums, as to determine if they could approach the controversy without attracting undue attention to Quinn's private life<ref name=Forbes/><ref name=ForbesEscapist/><ref name=KyleOrland/>. That doesn't include anything from Milo, and is sourced to Forbes and Kyle Orland, which is involved but has been published by Ars Technica (this is the same standard we used to accept Leigh Alexander's article for Time). There's also the piece by Pocket Gamer, which is listed as a reliable source in the Video games project list, and who analyses the mailing list and its role in an "echo chamber" within the industry. So, hardly "nothing". Do you have a policy-based problem with this content, which has nothing to do with the accusations? Diego (talk) 15:57, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

That's nice, we should include something like that, also maybe include something from this interview from the original leaker http://apgnation.com/archives/2014/09/29/7694/breaking-the-chain-an-interview-with-william-usher Loganmac (talk) 16:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

That doesn't include anything from Milo, and is sourced to Forbes and Kyle Orland, which is involved but has been published by Ars Technica (this is the same standard we used to accept Leigh Alexander's article for Time). It does, in fact. You're suggesting that we repeat the accusation that the existence of this email list 'suggests' malfesance, and you're basing that on one brief mention in an opinion column in Forbes and one decidedly third-tier gaming news source. As for comparing the use of the ars technica article to using Leigh Alexander's Time pice, that's absurd. We should not effectivley penalize BLP subjects for responding to accusations against them by using that response as an excuse to repeat them. Your sources for this accusation are extremely weak. We need much better sources to justify repeating these accusations, and to justify treating them as important enough for inclusion. When we're dealing with potentially libelous accusations of the kind that Breitbart is fond of making we can't take concerns like these so lightly. Do you have a policy-based problem with this content, which has nothing to do with the accusations? Yes. I've explained the policy-based problems with this content. You've just got a bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:27, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Pardon me, but that is absurd. Where does exactly in the green text I posted above or the linked Pocket Gamer article is there an accusation of anyone about anything? We have right now three independent reliable sources commenting on the existence of the list and analyzing it (without any kind of "accusations!"), so your assertion that it's a single "weak" source does not match reality, and your analysis that we "penalize" someone for quoting their public words as a reliable stance of their views is just surreal. If those are your arguments for wanting this information removed, they don't make any sense in terms of policy, so "you've just got a bad case of" WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Diego (talk) 16:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

If your problem is with the "radio silence" thing, we can use the wording I first suggested for the article: several journalists debated on a private mailing list whether they could approach the controversy without attracting undue attention to Quinn's private life. There, that is a hideous accusation of wrongdoing as I've seen no other. Is that an accusation of "malfesance"? (I had never heard that word before). Diego (talk) 17:00, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Where "is there an accusation of anyone about anything?" It's nothing but an accusation of 'collusion' coached in weasel words. The 'leaked emails' "suggested that some journalists worked together to maintain a "radio silence?"" What's our source that they 'suggested' anything? Pocket Gamer and an opinion column in Forbes. If you can't find a better source than that for potentially defamatory accusations, it's a good indication that you shoulnd't be repeating said accusations. This has gotten far too little coverage for us to consider it notable enough to be included in the article, and we don't have sources strong enough to handle the accusations responsibly. By choosing to mention the list here at all we are suggesting that it's somehow relevant to the topic. We have very few sources that are even acknowledging that this leak happened, so making an editorial decision to include it here and note the 'concerns' it raised gives Milo's accusations undue WP:WEIGHT, whether we mention him or his targets by name or not. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:08, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Pocket Gamer and Forbes *and a full-length article in Ars Technica documenting the existence of the list and how it's connected to GamerGate*. Your claim that "someone is defending himself, so suddenly what he says has no weight with respect to the topic* is nonsensical, and certainly not in line with how we user reliable sources. Diego (talk) 17:18, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

It's absolutely relevant to the topic. If we had enough sources to support inclusion, citing it would be completely appropriate. But it's not appropriate to use the writers's defense against the accusations as a source to support including them: that is in effect penalizing the writer for defending against the accusations by repeating them. We need stronger third-party sources to support inclusion. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:24, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Listen, Kyle Orland could have defended himself by publishing a statement through his personal blog, and then we couldn't "penalize" him by using his words as you put it. By choosing to divulge his response through his publisher, one of the strongest online media on tech, both he and his house are recognizing its relevance and giving it enough weight to confirm its significance, enough for us to cover the factual aspects of it through a neutral sentence. Had Orland choose to avoid using the backup of his employers and self-publish his stance, you'd have a point, but with Ars Technica as a reliable source and several other independent sources confirming it, we have more than enough references now for this fact to be included with my wording above. Diego (talk) 17:37, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

No. We need third-party sources that indicate these accusations' relevance. This is not a third-party source. You have a few very weak third party sources and one somewhat stronger source from an involved party. That's not enough to justify repeating Breitbart's yellow journalism. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:50, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's the line of logic I'm using. The email list is known to exist, and the posts to that list are now known. We know who their identities are. We know they were discussing, at the wake of the initial Quinn allegations, about limiting coverage on the story. That's all facts, so no BLP issue up to this point. Now we have gamers pointing to that, saying, "collusion!" which is an accusation, and we have at least one source commenting that that is how gamers are seeing more evidence of problems with the current "system". It is factual the allegations exist and part of the furor that the gamer side has, but that's it. It is equivalent to how the accusation of Quinn's ex exploded into complaints about corruption in the media but without much validity, just that those accusations exist and part of the reason gamers are upset. --MASEM (t) 15:23, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

That's all facts, so no BLP issue up to this point. This is incorrect. Mentioning Milo's accusations here, even by weasel-wording our way around them, is a BLP issue. It does not matter that the accusations 'exist.' We don't repeat potentially defamatory accusations just because a columnist briefly mentions that they're being made in an article about another subject. You have one single source that mentions this ridiculous little scandal. That's it. That doesn't support your claim that it's important enough to include. Without the commentary of a much stronger source to give a proper perspective on how relevant this is, if it's relevant at all, we can't include it. WP:WEIGHT sometimes means not giving very minor views any weight at all. It does not matter why gamergaters are upset: what matters is what we can cite reliably. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:44, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Let's see if you guys are neutral as you say, the email leaks are mentioned now on a reputable source (APGNation, in an interview with the original leaker William Usher http://apgnation.com/archives/2014/09/29/7694/breaking-the-chain-an-interview-with-william-usher

Some nice quotes "Some of the members on that list actively used their platform to support and propagate a wide-sweeping media narrative based on lies and factual inaccuracies." "the leaked e-mails revealed that many of gamers’ suspicions were true" and "a grassroots movement of radicals attempt to infiltrate various forms of media and begin to utilize the platform to control who gets coverage and who doesn’t (as seen with The Fine Young Capitalists) as well as content-shaming developers into censoring their work, is the exact sort of thing that will eventually bring ruin to a lot of creative potentiality within the industry"

I can't believe long standing Wiki editors refuse to include this Loganmac (talk) 16:07, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

Given that we're talking a sentence at most to discuss what happened on the list and how it lead to further charges of collusion, I'm not sure if we need it as other sources cover it quite well (And unlike the APGNation interview with a directly involved party TFYC, this was just one person that while involved on the list was not directly involved with the events so more a whistleblower than a party, so the interview doesn't help as much). --MASEM (t) 16:11, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I think APG would be useful just to note that he was the one who leaked it to Breitbart.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:31, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it matters who leaked it beyond it being a person on the list (eg nothing was hacked, etc. and it was unlikely there was any NDA-style clauses with the mailing list, that they aren't private convos so privacy issues aren't violated) --MASEM (t) 22:52, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

I see that the "private mailing list" junk was restored almost immediately after protection was lifted (yet another reason to rid this article of SPAs), not much of a surprise there. Even the watered-down version that is there at the moment is poor, as it is still giving undue weight to a fringe criticism. That the private list exists is not in doubt; that it's existence equates to nefarious ethical misdeeds is the fringe part. Tarc (talk) 15:15, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

But the Orland source while being mostly a defence against the accusations of collusion, does admit some wrongdoings on his own part, (but not on the part of the mailing list as a whole). " Later in the discussion thread, cooler heads prevailed and made me realize that this would be overstepping our primary role as reporters and observers" "However, suggesting that Quinn's work deserved extra attention because she had been attacked was, again, overstepping my proper role as a critic and journalist. " "In short, some of the private thoughts I shared in the wake of Gjoni's blog post crossed the line, and I apologize for airing them. It was an error in judgment." While Orland very clearly and strongly denies the collusion charges, he has admitted some wrongdoing on his own part.

Also does anyone know enough Hungarian to figure out whether or not this is a reliable source? [2]Bosstopher (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

And, pray you, how exactly does this content equates the list to ethical misdeeds? Cuchullain, WP:BURDEN does not apply here, as the content is not challenged on terms of verifiability. Even Tarc acknowledges that the content is supported by the references provided. Diego (talk) 15:27, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I really see no issue with including this, as long as it is worded as a claim that there was purposeful collusion and that we do not explicitly state that there was (we do state the matter was discussed on the mailing list, but that's not the same as jumping to that conclusion). --MASEM (t) 15:34, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Masem, the latest version didn't even include the claim that there was collusion. It only says that some journalists tried to avoid hurting Quinn by giving her publicity, and one commentator expressed the view that such conversation happened within an echo chamber that reinforced their beliefs. If someone thinks that this meek assertion is a BLP concern, they really should defend it in terms of policy, not mere hurt feelings. Diego (talk) 15:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN actually does apply here. By including this information in the article we are giving credence to the claim that it is important and relevant to the issue. Even putting it in weasel words and attributing the claim to a writer for a minor gaming site, we're still suggesting that there's a reason for people to think it's important enough to the 'ethics' debate to mention. We have very, very weak sourcing for that as of right now. We need to wait for higher quality sources to evaluate the claims and frame them responsibly before we can repeat them at all, even by attributing them to some gaming blog.

If I'm writing an article about a politician whose campaign platform involves improving the treatment of farm animals, and I can prove that as a kid he worked on a farm that was later found to use cruel and unethical practices in caring for their animals, but my only source is a minor one (eg Brietbart screaming hypocrisy or some low level blog who's repeating that rag's claims) then by including it, with no high quality reporting on the politician's involvement with the farm, his experiences there, and how they shaped his opinions, it would be irresponsible to include that information. Without quality reporting on whether this list's existence is important or shows bad practices in gaming journalism, we have nothing to counter Pocket Gamer's claims that it proves what Milo says it does. The WP:BURDEN of proof is on those who want it included to prove not just that it exists, but that it's important. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:50, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

The "claim that it was collusion" is not a relevant, notable, or important criticism, and is pretty much analogous to the "Obama was born in Kenya" stuff. Tarc (talk) 15:59, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

And the "claim that it was collusion" was not included in the content you removed, so you haven't provided a valid reason for removing it. Diego (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Tara, you don't understand WP:BURDEN, which is part of Verifiability policy, yet you're arguing about relevance which is a concern of neutrality. The burden of verifiability is met when sources are provided that are believed in good faith to support the listed content; everybody here agrees that the content is verifiable and thus BURDEN is met. Therefore, including the content or not is exclusively a concern of weight. If you don't think Ars Technica counts as a reliable source for establishing importance, no amount of sourcing will convince you, and it's clear that you're not listening to argument and policy but emotion and a pre-defined outcome.

You're now arguing that we can't assess that what reliable source Pocket Gamer says, but that's not how reliable sources are used: we trust them to establish the importance of the content they happen to note, and you're instead deciding that the content is a priori not important and therefore the source can't be trusted - that's again backwards with respect to policy. It's impossible to reason with you if you won't follow the advice encoded in policy and are merely linking to them without addressing what the rules say. Diego (talk) 16:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Tarc, you mean that conspiracy theory which has an extremely lengthy page dedicated to it on wikipedia? Where are you going with this comparison? Bosstopher (talk) 16:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It does. yes, but also take note of Barack Obama, which makes zero mention of birther conspiracy theories. You can try your hand at creating Gamergate mailing list collusion controversy, if you think the sourcing is strong enough to support a standalone article analogous to Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Tarc (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"Do not leave unsourced or poorly sourced material in an article if it might damage the reputation of living people or existing groups, and do not move it to the talk page. You should also be aware of how the BLP policy applies to groups." I think I understand just fine, thanks: this is absolutely poorly sourced material. We're citing it to a minor blog that agrees with Milo's latest scandal, because there are no stronger sources that deal with the accusations' veracity. I'm not saying we 'can't assess what "reliable" (heh) source Pocket Gamer says;' I'm saying that they are not a sufficiently reliable source to use to justify including this negative material.

Please stop trying to discredit me by calling me 'emotional.' Stick to supporting your position, not attacking those who disagree with you. Thanks. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:25, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I didn't call you emotional, but your reasoning; that's a difference there, it just means that your position doesn't stand as a rational argument. The weight of sourcing is not based on Pocket Gamer but Ars Technica, which you have dismissed because somehow quoting Kyle Orland would be an affront to him. I simply can't understand how you try to deny that article as a recognition of the relevance of the topic by one of the major tech sites in the world. Actually I can't think of a greater insult to a journalist than saying they need to be protected from the effect of their own words being republished; implying that he is not capable of assessing whether their public stances don't stand up is an offense to his professionalism. (BTW Pocket Gamer is listed as one of the reliable sources accepted by the Video Games wikiproject, but that's secondary to my argument). Diego (talk) 16:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It's a personal attack, pure and simple. My reasoning is at least as logical as yours: you just don't want to hear it. Stop making disparaging comments about other contributors.

The ars technica article is by an involved party: if we had sourcing to support including Breitbart's accusations it would absolutely be appropriate to include them, but we need third party sourcing that treats them as important. We don't have that. What we have is one (and only one) of the accused parties responding to defamatory accusations being leveled at him by a notorious muckraking rag.

And it's not relevant that the Video Games Wikiproject sees Pocket Gamer as a reliable source, as this information is not about Video Games, but about living people. Wikiproject:Video Games does not have the authority to rule on what is and is not an acceptable source for information on living people. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Calling the claim that some have derived from the email logs that it suggests the journalists were working together is no way a BLP issue, because we are not making the claim, and the claim being one is being made by a secondary source, and it's a claim against a non-specific person, nor is it a legal or personal attack claim. If anything, the claim that the attacks against Quinn were from misogynyist users is more a BLP issue than this is (that claim is much more damaging and based on anecdotal evidence), and that's not going anywhere clearly. (And no, I'm not arguing we remove that, I'm just point out a comparison). --MASEM (t) 17:09, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

These are accusations about specific named people, and without much stronger sourcing than some columnist on a minor gaming blog we can't even repeat them, not even if we leave out their names and not even by attributing them to said columnist. The sourcing for the misogynistic tenancies of the movement has much stronger than this, so even if your comparison were apt our sourcing would be strong enough to address any BLP concern there. We're not barred from publishing negative information about living people: we just need to meet particularly high sourcing standards before we can do it. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I'll ask you the same question I did to Tarc: what exact negative accusations appear in this text that would require such stronger sourcing? Remember that the reliability of sources is relative to the content they support within the article. Diego (talk) 17:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Milo's muckraking is a non-issue: that's why nobody but a couple of opinon columnists and one of the parties he's attacking have even acknowledged that his accusations exist. We need better sourcing to include them here, even couched in weasel words. Why are we considering an opinion columnist on a minor gaming site a sufficiently noteworthy opinion to justify including this manufactured 'controversy?' -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Nearly every reason that the proGG side has given out has been initially presented on minor websites or SPS, and later picked up by sources. This is why we are having a tough time giving viewpoints from that side any coverage because there is no clear single RS that covers everything from them. Additionally, as we have already addressed concerns about the journalism censorship that the proGG side, this is not a brand new thought to add to that, since is about (what the proGG saw as) proported censorship. --MASEM (t) 18:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Nearly every reason that the proGG side has given out has been initially presented on minor websites or SPS, and later picked up by sources. Then we wait. Simple enough. If these views are notable they'll be picked up by major sources in due time. Connecting this to cited sources about other instances of perceived censorship and using that to justify inclusion is OR. -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

No, that's not the point: the issue has be picked up by other sources (like ArsTech and Pocket Gamer). It's not a minor opinion anymore, similarly coveraged as some of the other proGG points already in the article. --MASEM (t) 18:31, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it is. It's a very minor opinion. Your strongest source for Milo's accusations is a post by one of the accused defending themselves from them. You also have two articles by columnists: one from a higher quality source who barely mentions the issue, and one from a much lower quality source that repeats the accusations uncritically. None of these are third party news sources. That's terrible sourcing. Wait for the real sources to pick up on it. What pro-GG points are sourced this weakly, please? Because any negative information about BLP subjects with sources this week that's in the article needs immediate reviewing. -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

So, there's no negative accusations in that text. All this time you're arguing against claims that didn't appear in the content you removed. That's not a valid basis for a claim of a BLP violation, when the problematic BLP assertions have not been made. Diego (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I've explained repeatedly what is problematic about this information. It's nothing but muckraking, and just because you can find an opinion colunist on a relatively minor gaming site who thinks it proves some of GamerGater's claims doesn't make it appropriate to include. We're referencing accusations of misbehavior against specific parties: the fact that we don't name those parties here isn't relevant. And please try to preserve the order of comments: don't place yours above another that's at the same indent level. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I've explained repeatedly what is problematic about this information. No, in fact you have not, as nothing in the actual text of the last version you removed can be construed as a claim of misbehavior by anyone against anyone. If your complaint was about the content that was in the article and not some claims outside of it, you should be able to quote the words in the text that represented an accusation, and the part of BLP policy that those words violate. The wording was carefully constructed to avoid any hint of inappropriate conduct, yet you keep referring to it as if those were the words of Milo Y. himself. Diego (talk) 22:06, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

... an established and respected publication published [the] writing on this subject under its masthead. That's enough to allow us to use her article as a reliable source. We're not citing her opinion here, remember: we're citing the facts of the case. That's a very important distinction. Do you recognize these words? They seem particularly apt here, now being perfectly applicable to Ars Technica. Diego (talk) 17:17, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Care to explain how? That looks like a pretty tangential connection to me. If Alexander had been solely defending herself against whatever accusations the gaters were leveling at her, and if there was no decent source for those accusations other than Alexander's decision to defend herself against them, I'd have the same opinion there as I do here. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Because Ars Technica is a strong reliable source and the article has been vetted by the publisher? How does the nature of the content published by that news outlet affect that? Diego (talk) 17:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, luckily my argument for not using this journalist's defsense against Brietbart's accusations as an excuse to include the 'controversy' doesn't involve claiming that ars technica isn't a reliable source. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:57, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

That part is true; as far as I can tell your argument against using Ars Technica for support is something like "we couldn't use it because it would offend the writer" or something akin to that, which I can't make any sense of. It's certainly a novel argument you're making there, that I've never seen outside this discussion; but I'm afraid that's not a very solid argument as it's in direct conflict with or WP:RS policy, which states that use reliable sources to determine what topics have weight and we write articles according to what they say, and against the logic you previously used to support the Time reference as reliable. That a reference has a reputation for fact checking and accuracy is an argument for including it; that the source was engaged in open debate through the internet with an unreliable source is not an argument against. In fact, in such cases we typically consider that such coverage in the reliable source is ground for mentioning the opinion of the unreliable source as well. Diego (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Nope. I'm not going to dignify your misrepresentation of my argument by re-re-restate my objection to this source. Go back and actually read what I'm saying, preferably with something approaching an open mind, and then try again. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, well, see, that's the problem with your argument. I've actually went there and re-read all your posts to this thread, trying to understand what you said, and I still couldn't make sense of it; how quoting a journalist's public stance could be seen at all as penalizing them just because that stance was made as a reply to someone else, and much less how that public stance could do anything but increase the weight that we should give to it as something relevant to talk about. And all the time it appears that you're talking about something that wasn't there in the article (even quoting words that I removed myself from the disputed sentence!!!, like "suggested that some journalists worked together to maintain a "radio silence").

What I've noticed is that you're repeatedly accusing me of wanting to "repeat the accusations from Milo", when what I suggest is exactly the opposite, that we remove all trace and keep the content to the verifiable facts without any moral judgement - as a proposed compromise to address your valid concerns, even when Masem was fine with including those. Now it's my turn to ask you to re-assess what I'm saying, since you're misrepresenting my position and attacking it based on a straw man - something that I didn't defend. Diego (talk) 22:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Using an attacked party's decision to respond to said attacks as an excuse to consider them notable enough to repeat is absurd. If the most notable source you can find that mentions an attack is one of the people being attacked, that should tell you something about how much merit those attacks have. By even mentioning the 'verifiable facts' we give credence to the idea that they are relevant to this issue. The fact that so few sources have even taken notice of these accusations' existence, much less given them any real attention, suggests otherwise. By making the editorial decision to include this information - which at its root is a disparaging attack on members of a professional community - we imply that it is important information. It's not - if it were, there would be more and better sources commenting on the email list itself or the 'leaked' emails that are supposed to be proving what your opinion columnist says they prove. All of this is rooted in accusations of 'collusion' that are entirely unsupported: that one columnist in a relatively minor source chose to give credence to that accusation by citing it in his column is not enough to support including any such claims here. It does not matter that you are watering down these accusations with weasel words. -- TaraInDC (talk) 22:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Going by the logic of Tara and Tarc, 25-40% of this article should be gutted because it reflects the "fringe" viewpoint of the proGG side which is very difficult to document. There's a reason people keep coming to this article and claiming bias, it is because while we cannot change the viewpoint given by the other side of GG, we are failing to do a decent job of documenting - to the best we can - the proGG side. This is a case of something that is fully documentable and is a part of an existing issue already documented by the article, that there is ethical issues in gaming journalism. I cannot see any reason not to include it - the sources are fine, it is simply a claim made by the proGG side that "hey , they tried to prevent discussion of it". That's it. This is the type of balance that while it won't make it 50/50 between the two sides, at least brings it closer to that. --MASEM (t) 16:13, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"Pro-GG", whatever that is, is represented fairly already...perhaps overly so. Tarc (talk) 16:22, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It's nonsense to compare this to birther theories unless Obama comes out and apologizes for having a Kenyan birth certificate. Since he doesn't have one, but the creator of the google group did come out and apologize, it's an apples to bicycles strawman argument. Mentioning that the google group exists and that it was used to generate support for Quinn by specific journalists is both relevant and mentionable in the article. That there was some opposition to that support such that an open letter was never drafted can be taken many ways but it is notable. I find it extremely contradictory to observe that open letter support was not forthcoming yet we write the article as if all mainstream sources support Quinn as if the letter did indeed exist. Is that not troubling? --DHeyward (talk) 16:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

It sounds to me as if there is a small, fringe group of gamers that exhibited misogynistic attacks on Zoe Quinn through reddit/4chan and there is a small, fringe group of game journalists that colluded to come to Zoe Quinn's defense of her behavior (vis a vis the apology by the google groups creator). Everyone else is immaterial This seems to be the root of the animus. The article should reflect that. --DHeyward (talk) 16:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

We definitely have sourced that many (on both sides) recognize that it was only a minority of the proGG side that lashed out at Quinn et al (which is important to balance the article), but I haven't seen anything that states to what degree, if any, there were purposeful attempts to support Quinn by limiting discussion of the matter; there's claims there were, but we can't say this was actually the case, and certainly not how many were involved. ---MASEM (t) 16:42, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Masem, the sourcing is pretty small, but if there is a few mentions on reliable sources, and the mailing list "proves" several complaints from the GG side, it should be included in a sentece or two, something to this effect by Diego https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gamergate_controversy&diff=627647384&oldid=627645275 Loganmac (talk) 19:08, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Then if this is only about gamergate and the fringes, why is the opening sentence still a broad swath swipe with misogyny in the gaming world? The list creator himself (it was a Google group I believe of professional game journalists) apologized for asking other journalists to write an open letter in support of Quinn. That's sourcable to the list creator and administrator that at least one collusional item was discussed. The fact that all of our sources also seem to support that view but stopped short of an open letter is a huge red flag that coverage may not be neutral. --DHeyward (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

at least one collusional item was discussed. I think you need to revisit the definition of the word Collusion. It's not a synonym for 'collaboration,' you know. There's no 'red flag' here; mainstream, non-gaming media is covering the issue in much the same way as the majority of industry sources are. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

My definition is fine. When they discussed writing and signing a single, unified letter - that's collusion. When they all write the exact same thing after discussing it as an open letter, that's collaboration. Neither would be ethical, though collusion is less ethical. As for mainstream articles, it depends on what you define as 'mainstream.' Since the definition of 'mainstream' here seems to be any view that matches the gamer journalist view, then of course it matches. Other journalists, however, are not covering it the same way. The 'red 'flag' is that all the gamer journalist views match the open letter whether they signed it or not. If a bunch of game developers got together and discussed drafting a salary scale for programmers but didn't formally sign on to it but every game developer adopted it, there would be no hair-splitting about "collaboration" vs. "collusion." It would be called what it is - and they'd owe a lot of money in a class action lawsuit. --DHeyward (talk) 20:36, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

No. An open letter signed by multiple parties is not in any way shape or form 'collusion.' It would be essentially the exact opposite of 'collusion' as it would be an open, public show of support by named individuals, and not an attempt to suppress dissenting voices: nobody would have to sign the letter, and nobody would be prohibited from voicing opinions that disagreed with it. It would be collaboration, as they would be working together on and putting their names to a single work. Multiple people in the same field having the same opinions is not 'collusion' or collaboration, unless you're assuming that these journalists all wrote each other's articles collaboratively. "Collusion" is not 'mutliple journalists all saying things we don't like' any more than 'bias' is 'a single journalist saying something we don't like. This is exactly why we need to rely on reliable, third party sources for this type of information: you're advocating for including this information because you believe it proves something which it simply does not prove. Without high quality sources treating this information as relevant to the GamerGate issue it's impossible to use it responsibly. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

More to the point, the e-mails that have been leaked are very clear that the majority of people commenting on the idea of an open letter rejected it as inappropriate and after hearing from others, even the initiator of the idea admitted in-thread that it was probably a bad idea. So what took place, then, is one person offered up an idea on a mailing list, the idea was briefly debated, the general consensus was that it was a bad idea and nothing more came of it. If there is any "collusion" here, it is collusion against the idea of an open letter. If you want to include a sentence stating Journalists allegedly colluded to agree not to write a public letter of support for Zoe Quinn, go right ahead. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

So you think there is no problem when a group of journalists decide not to put their collective names on a document but then in virtual lock-step write articles that reflect that document? The list/group owner has written his views and also authored the letter. Is there a game journalist that has come out with different viewpoints than the list/letter writer? If not, there's a problem. It would have been more transparent to sign it than just parrot it. --DHeyward (talk) 23:16, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

@TaraInDC: Using an attacked party's decision to respond to said attacks as an excuse to consider them notable enough to repeat is absurd. Why? If the channel used in the reply is one of the major news sites in the world, how is that not notable? In special because the reference is *not* being used to support reporting about the attack, but the original behavior that has been confirmed to exist.

By even mentioning the 'verifiable facts' we give credence to the idea that they are relevant to this issue. Because those facts *are relevant*, as backed up by a reputable journalist publishing a whole piece in their news site attracting notice to them. Your opinion that we shouldn't use it because its somehow "tainted origin" as a reply to Milo doesn't change its relevance.

The fact that so few sources have even taken notice of these accusations' existence, much less given them any real attention, suggests otherwise. Irrelevant, as those accusations were not mentioned in the article.

this information - which at its root is a disparaging attack on members of a professional community I disagree, and you still haven't explained how "they tried to approach the controversy without attracting undue attention to Quinn's private life" is a disparaging attack.

All of this is rooted in accusations So finally we get to the essence of your argument - you're dismissing the content from reliable sources not because you think they're unreliable, but because they're reporting on something that you find objectionable and you think that "transfers" from the unreliable source to the reliable one. I'm sorry, but we don't get to make those analysis ourselves; if highly reliable sources like Ars Technica find some information on the internet relevant to the topic, it's fair game and expected that we consider those as relevant without embedding our own judgement in the process. We can assess the reliability of a given source, but once it's deemed reliable we have to abide with what the point of view that source has made.

you are watering down these accusations with weasel words And finally you again insult me and construct a straw man that misrepresents and directly contradicts what I've stated as my position. I consider the words I posted as a neutral statement that had nothing to do with Milo's accusations, so I request that you retract that personal attack that you made even after I warned you not to do it. Diego (talk) 23:23, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that you consider it neutral. But I think that the sources you are using are not, and I think that the editorial decision to include this information - which suggests that it is important and relevant despite getting no mainstream coverage by anyone not directly involved in the manufactured scandal - and the decision to cite it to sources of defamatory information, are both irresponsible. But you are all over the place with this argument. You're saying that the defense against the accusations being published in ars technica is enough to make the information you want included 'relevant' to the article, but you insist that you don't want to include the actual accusations - just some related claims published by a columnist in a relatively minor industry publication who cites these accusations. You can't have it both ways: if you want to use the ars technica source to claim these accusations' relevance, you can't then claim that you're not really referencing them. If you're not referencing them, why is the ars technical article relevant? The pocket gamer source hasn't been 'deemed reliable' by anyone but WikiProject Video Games. When we're talking about a source that is repeating and citing accusations from a publication that is known for publishing outright lies, Wikiproject Video Games's word isn't going to cut it. It's just not a good source. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:04, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

you are all over the place with this argument Funny that you of all would say that and consider it a negative. Practically all my comments in this thread are direct replies to you.

You're saying that the defense against the accusations being published in ars technica is enough to make the information you want included - Yes I do, - but you insist that you don't want to include the actual accusations Yes, but not because I don't think those are relevant but because *you* don't think they are. I and others would be fine with including Milo claims, as we think those are also well documented as his opinion, yet I was aiming to reduce coverage in order to meet your concerns of BLP implications by removing anything subjective. I was hoping that you'd be able to distinguish between negative judgement directed against living persons and general statements of verifiable facts stated in neutral terms, just as BLP policy does. Unfortunately you're not interested in making that distinction for the goal of compromise, a less-than-stellar solution that nevertheless we could all live with, which is what we're expected to achieve. Diego (talk) 06:03, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Funny that you of all would say that and consider it a negative. Practically all my comments in this thread are direct replies to you. Funny that you would take this out of context and respond as if I was talking about the quantity of your comments when the next line makes it clear I'm talking about their quality. I said that you are 'all over the place' in that your argument is not consistent. Stop trying to 'win points' and respond to what I'm actually saying.

Unfortunately you're not interested in making that distinction for the goal of compromise, a less-than-stellar solution that nevertheless we could all live with, which is what we're expected to achieve. I'm not obligated to accept the inclusion of information I think is problematic in the name of 'compromise' just because you backed down from an extremely problematic version into a slightly-less-problematic one. There is very poor third-party sourcing for this. If ars technica was a third-party source, that might be different, but they're an involved party. The complete silence on the part of any major outlet other than a statement from one of those being accused is telling: this isn't being treated as an important, newsworthy issue, which is why we don't have good sources for it or a good justification for considering it notable enough to include. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Funny that you would take this out of context. Ok, mea culpa. I truly had read that as stand-alone and meaning "you're talking too much", not as as a lead to your next sentence.

I'm not obligated to accept the inclusion of information I think is problematic in the name of 'compromise' just because you backed down from an extremely problematic version into a slightly-less-problematic one Actually you *are* obligated to *do something* in order to reach a compromise. That's what WP:CONSENSUS is about, and it's policy. See the simplified flowchart - when you disagree, you must seek a compromise; if you disagree with the compromise I suggested, then you have to propose one of your own that you expect could satisfy my concerns. So far you haven't made a single proposal other than completely excluding all mention of the verifiable facts - anything that wasn't "my preferred outcome is the one that must happen" was outright denied by you as being totally out of limits. This is not how Wikipedia editors should behave.

The information about GameJournoPro is verifiable, the sources are reliable, and I want readers to be aware of its existence as a significant event related to the topic. I've done everything I can to make a proposal I thought you could could agree in some form. If you don't accept it, it's your turn to make a proposition that you think I could find acceptable. Otherwise, you'll be out of process and failing to follow WP:CONS. Diego (talk) 17:19, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

If I were to remove every remotely pro-gamergate word in this article, and then 'compromise' with any protests by reinstating half of what I removed, would you see that as a fair outcome? I am not obligated to 'meet you halfway' between 'seriously problematic and poorly sourced content' and 'mildly problematic and poorly sourced content.' That is absolutely not in the spirit of those policies. It's still problematic, as two of the three sources (Pocket Gamer and ars technica) are primarily about Milo's scandalmongering, and it's still poorly sourced, as you have only two third party sources, one of which is a short mention in a longer article on another subject and one of which is a minor industry source. I don't have to work on incorporating information that doesn't merit inclusion just because you want it included anyway. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:30, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Please, yes. Remove every remotely pro-gamergate word. Seriously. It would be vastly less insulting than pretending this is not an advertisement: "Feminist cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian was already the target of harassment from the gamer community due to her Tropes vs. Women in Video Games project, but her newest video in the series soon got her involved in Gamergate." It's not even cited! It's original research! So if you're dead set on writing a biased article, just do it. But don't be dishonest and act like you're striving for an informational and unbiased view. That's complete nonsense. Lasati (talk) 04:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a caption that accurately summarizes the reliably-sourced text immediately next to it. Woodroar (talk) 05:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

You know what. There were a couple of publications already used that linked the Patreon accounts of people involved. So would you have a problem if I cited those articles (hey, reliable sources) and provided a link to Patreon accounts of Zoe, Anita, Jenn, etc? I'm thinking that's the way to go with this article. Lasati (talk) 13:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

If I were to remove every remotely pro-gamergate word in this article, and then 'compromise' with any protests by reinstating half of what I removed, would you see that as a fair outcome? If that was truly what you wanted AND it was based in policy or previous consensus AND the other editors agreed to make the change, then yes, that would be an acceptable outcome. In this case doing that is not valid because of the amount of reliable sources covering it, though keeping the strongest sources and removing the weakest ones could be a good solution if some editors thought one side was over-represented. When the positions of editors are confronted over subjective shades of grey, meeting half-way is a quite valid option encouraged by policy.

I don't have to work on incorporating information that doesn't merit inclusion just because you want it included anyway. So, it has come to this. If you won't step back an inch in your position and are completely unwilling to seek compromise and address my concerns, which I based in policy, there's no point in continuing this conversation. The only thing to do is moving to the next step in dispute resolution. Diego (talk) 10:06, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Vivian James drawing

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.

---

Do we really need this drawing? It adds nothing to the article. Yes, we describe the character as existing but that is not enough for WP:NFCC to qualify for inclusion AFAIK.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:28, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

What part of NFCC do you think it's not complying with? Willhesucceed (talk) 14:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Contextual significance. This isn't an article on "Vivian James".—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 15:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

There is a section on the article about Vivian as a result of TFYC situation, going into detail about the character. That's appropriate contextual significance. --MASEM (t) 15:32, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Yeah but it's not like we have extensive critique of the design. Just people vaguely describing the character and also criticizing its mere existence.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 15:34, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It wouldn't be relevant even if it was a free image, but it absolutely does not meet the WP:NFCC. It does not 'significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic,' and I don't see how 'its omission would be detrimental to that understanding.' It's not even central to the topic of that section, much less the "article topic." Even its rationale in the TFYC article is weak, but here it's just silly. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:44, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

There is discussion about the implications of the character reflecting on the community. That needs the image to be seen. That's contextual significance definitely from an NFCC stance. --MASEM (t) 15:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. It's a tangent at best: the image is in no way important enough to the article topic to give the reader a better understanding of the subject. A reader is not going to finish an un-illustrated version of that section confused or with an imperfect understanding of the issue. As it is the TFYC is seriously overlong and unneccessarily detailed given how little attention that 'controversy' has gotten: adding an illustration just takes us further into undue weight. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:56, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It might be informative to let people see what the misogynists have created. I'd prefer to use the picture of Vivian in the crowd with the cellphones, but this works, too. Willhesucceed (talk) 15:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Is the article hurt without it though?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:08, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, without the image, people who read this article and who don't already know the character wouldn't recognize it if they find it over the internet. Identification of visual items is an accepted reason for including images; and as you say, there isn't an article about Vivian James at Wikipedia where the image would be more relevant than here (yes, there's TFYC, but it's equally relevant there). Diego (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Did you read the NFCC discussion? Because they don't seem to agree. If this image were only being used in this article, it would have been deleted by now. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:15, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

To Diego: But it has nothing to do with this article in particular. The character is discussed. But it's not about the character's design or visual themes. It's just that the character exists. This just seems like you want to keep the image on the site so it doesn't get deleted for being an orphaned fair use image TBH.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:17, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Not taking sides on whether the image should be kept or not, but the image caption can't just be "Vivian James". Be more obvious.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:07, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Even with TDA's expansion of the caption, the image is completely out of place on the article. This is about the whole of gamergate and there's no relevance to include this non-free image of unknown authorship on this particular article. I'd suggest we include photographs of the actual people involved (photos of Quinn and Sarkeesian have both been uploaded to the Wikimedia Commons), but that just might piss off the legion of people who are mad at me on Twitter for being too vocal on this very page. This drawing's inclusion here is simply for the sake of having it next to a vague description of it existing. We do not need to have the artwork of unknown provenance looking dour next to text that explains TFYC's dispute with Zoe Quinn, the hacking attempt, and criticism of the mere existence of the character, only one of which includes anything regarding the character's actual visual design elements. Again, File:Vivian James.jpg has no place on this page. It only vaguely has a place on The Fine Young Capitalists article.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:51, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Diego Moya, the "identification" that you're claiming is not one of the criteria of WP:NFCC. It's only a vague requirement for if there is an article solely about the subject of the image. The drawing of Vivian James is not inherently relevant to the discussion of gamergate as a whole. It's an image for the sake of having an image on this page. Having this massive drawing accompany text that basically attacks its mere existence is not contextual significance.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:22, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not a direct NFCC criterion, but it's a common outcome recognized by NFCI. If the problem is the size of the image, it can be made smaller with ease. Diego (talk) 22:38, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

But like it's not inherently important to feature on this page. The only thing it adds to the page is an image that satisfies the Gamergate crowd because I can assure you that if we put a free photo of Anita or Zoe here (which we are completely capable of doing even if the one photo we have of Quinn is her drinking beer at some game conference) they would flip their collective shit.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

If Vivian was just mentioned "Oh, they created a mascot", then NFCI would not apply to allowing its use here. However, because there is discussion of why the character was created and some thoughts from other sources about that, then it does pass; it is very relevant to GamerGate even if it represents the proGG side of things - including a free pic of Zoe or Anita would just as much balance it the other way (not that I'm saying we can't). NFCC would allow this image, and the only editorial reason being given to not include seems to be "I don't like it" type statements. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

the only editorial reason being given to not include seems to be "I don't like it" type statements. This is a completely inappropriate mischaracterization. By your logic most Wikipeida articles would be peppered with images every few line, each time a new subject came up. Even if this were a free image it would not be important enough to merit inclusion. It's purely decorative here, not illustrative: looking at Vivian James does not enhance the reader's understanding of GamerGate. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:34, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Having been in NFCR enforcement for years, this image has a lot more reason to include than many others that skimp by on weak rationales. There is sourced discussion about the image, that immediately makes it "important" enough to consider for inclusion. --MASEM (t) 00:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the image's discussion I'd say that the uninvolved contributors don't agree that this image's NFCC rationale for this article passes muster, though. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:55, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It does past muster, and that's speaking from a purely NFCC manner, this part is not up for question. Now we are not required to include it because it passes NFCC, but I'm also not see any reason not to include this if we also include photos of the people also affected, to balance that out. (And I'm speaking as someone that I do not side with proGG part of the situation, but can tell there's an effort here to try to delegitimize any proGG argument by some editors here and we need to work the balance a lot better within the allowances WP lets us). --MASEM (t) 06:09, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

:It does past muster, and that's speaking from a purely NFCC manner, this part is not up for question. The uninvolved editors in the image's NFCC discussion who are supporting its use seem to be supporting its use only in the TFYC article: at least one explicitly mentions that it's good and appropriate that the image has been removed from this one. That's because this image is not important enough to the issue being discussed (GamerGate, not Vivian James) to merit inclusion. There are only a very few sources that even mention her. That's important here.

Now we are not required to include it because it passes NFCC, but I'm also not see any reason not to include this if we also include photos of the people also affected, to balance that out. "Balance it out?" This is just silly. Photos of others affected would not add to the readers' understanding of the article, either. They'd be purely decorative, just as this one would, and if we included photos of every figure as relevant to the issue as Vivian James (and that's a pretty low bar) this article would be a mess, NFCC aside. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:16, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

NFCC does not require an article to be solely dedicated to a specific topic to use an image of that topic in the article, and since the characters is now strongly tied to GG, it is very relevant here. Also, we should be looking to add images, free ones at least, as per MOS we should not be a wall of text. The most reasonably likely ones that we have are those of Zoe and Anita which are the two most relevant figures here. --MASEM (t) 16:26, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The fact of the matter is that the Vivian James drawing is not relevant to the whole of gamergate or this page. Not to mention we do not discuss the character that much to have it feature at all.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, she's 'tied' to GamerGate, just as a living individual only notable for their role in GamerGate would be in a WP:BLP1E sense. But that doesn't mean that she's so important to GamerGate that an image of her in this article passes NFCC: it only means that GamerGate is important to her notability. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Here is an article by Vice.com discussing the character and its GamerGate origins. Never seen Vice.com before though so I don't know if it is reliable. The picture definitely helps recognizability, at least. starship.paint ~ regal 23:01, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

You could say that about literally every person or entity mentioned in this article. Why is it so important that readers recognize Vivian James if they see her elsewhere without a caption. Why is this recognition so crucial that we can't leave it to the curious to google her for themselves? Would you support including images of every woman victimized by this movement's harassment? Of every journalist quoted and every game dev whose work is mentioned? Even without NFCC concerns to consider, we don't take the time to depict every person, character, building, street sign and landmark mentioned in every Wikipedia article. And when there are NFCC concerns, inclusion criteria are even stricter. What's so important about Vivian James, when she's scarcely mentioned in the sources we have on this issue? -- TaraInDC (talk) 23:14, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Vivian James is even more important because she is a direct creation of GamerGate, whereas naturally none of the real people have such a claim. Anyway, I don't object to having pictures of the major figures within GamerGate. Quinn definitely. Sarkeesian perhaps. See whose name keeps popping up within the article as a subject. starship.paint ~ regal 00:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

She was created collectively by the gamergate hive mind? Or she was drawn by someone who wanted to prove something about GamerGate? You think perhaps Sarkeesian might be as important to GamerGate as Vivian James? Doing a Google news search, Sarkeesian gets 270+ hits to Vivian James's' three. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:55, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I meant, perhaps we should include a picture of Sarkeesian. Since I even bothered to mention Sarkeesian, you should understand that I am quite in favour of including Sarkeesian's picture. Just not as definitely as I would support Quinn's picture. Also, it doesn't really matter who created it, the important thing is VJ was created due to GamerGate. starship.paint ~ regal 01:29, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

That's a justification for Gamergate being important to Vivian James, not for Vivian James being important to GamerGate. We have very few sources that even mention her in relation to Gamergate. -- TaraInDC (talk) 01:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The image is relevant to the TFYC article; it's their image, their conception about some sort of fictionalized "everygirl gamer", like a spectrum opposite of manic pixie dream girl. It's not real, and has really nothing to do with Gamergate. Tarc (talk) 00:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I am not only in favour of deleting the image, I'd go as far as saying the entire TFYC section is a big blob of WP:UNDUE that should either be stubbed or deleted. Artw (talk) 01:48, 2 October 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.

Intel pulls ads off Gamasutra

Since this is major it should have a mention next to the lines explaining what the movement accomplished (The Escapist policy changes, etc)

This is still a heavily biased article but it mentions the matter http://www.dailydot.com/geek/intel-pulls-ads-from-gamasutra/#

This I don't know if it's reliable, and there's a conlifct of interest stated in the article itself, Leigh Alexander of Gamasutra works for them http://boingboing.net/2014/10/01/gamergateintel.html

This site I never heard of but apparently it's a site covering advertising http://adland.tv/adnews/intel-has-gamers-inside-pulls-advertising-gamasutra/251869514

We'll probably have to wait for more sources though I'm sure Loganmac (talk) 05:44, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Would you gaters stop kvetching about Leigh Alexander and how you think she's biased? Jesus fucking Christ.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:49, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

This is not a forum but I'm not saying she's biased, I'm saying the site is biased because Leigh works for them, which they say so Loganmac (talk) 06:00, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Would you gaters Opinion discarded. --davidh.oz.au 05:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Really, how many sources does people need to acknowledge that Intel has withdrawn their ads from Gamasutra? It has happened because of Gamergate. It does not need to be analyzed and discussed. It is a fact! Just write a sentence that says that.--Torga (talk) 05:55, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Right now, I'm not sure if this is appropriate to include yet. It's a "deduction" by weak RS that this is tied to GG - see "We can deduce from that statement that the promised boycott I wrote about in #gamergate - insulting consumers shrinks the market is very much on" from adland.tv (which is not an RS here). They pulled ads, that might be factual, but we have no idea why outside of responding to feedback from its customers. We cannot make the leap of logic that this was due to Alexander working for Gamasutra. --MASEM (t) 06:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

To add, I mean if I were using Occum's Razor, yes, the reason they pulled the ads is to to Op Disrespectful Nod, but we cannot employ that here, and neither DD or adland.tv are sources we can used to justify that. --MASEM (t) 06:04, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Going off source here but noone thinks they pulled because of Alexander, but because of those Gamers are dead articles, I've seen 3 emails and they all mention "shift in editorial content" and "recent controversial articles". You're right that we need more sources though. Loganmac (talk) 06:10, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The shift in editorial content is a result of Alexander, as she's the EIC, so ... Willhesucceed (talk) 14:11, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Dont know if reliable though. http://imgur.com/h5WqpM1 --Torga (talk) 10:54, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

No, you need sites reporting on it.

Here's an Austrian national newspaper Der Standard http://derstandard.at/2000006322120/Gamergate-Unterstuetzer-setzen-kritische-Journalisten-und-Werber-unter-Druck been in publication since 1988, online version since 1995, since 2005 the paper has been cooperating with The New York Times Loganmac (talk) 11:05, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

A German language newspaper is not really optimal for sourcing for the English Wikipedia, but I laud your efforts in going out of your way to find it.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:12, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It may not be "optimal", but it's usable. En.wikipedia is an international project. That the news is written in German merely entails that an editor proficient in German language confirms that our coverage within the article is directly supported by the meaning of the original text, per WP:RSUE. Diego (talk) 11:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Reading the translated version, we're still stuck on the presumption that it was specifically 1) the Alexander piece and 2) the actions of the Disrespectful Nod campaign that led to this; it's the leap of logic. I would say it is usable to say that the proGG side has taken a cause to try to get advertizers to pull from specific sites that reported negatively towards the proGG side of the GG events via Operation Disrespectful Nod, though if we need to include that I don't know. --MASEM (t) 13:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

If the likes of Intel are in effect supporting the misogynist harassment campaign by withdrawing ads from sites that condemn the harassers, then sure, I'd love to see that included in the article. Tarc (talk) 12:30, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

...preferably with a more neutral wording. This has to be the first time I agree with Tarc in this topic. Diego (talk) 13:05, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

This is the bias here , because that's not the articles that are triggering this backlash by gamers - it is the ones that that side considered "disrespectful" of the stereotypical gamer, particularly the ones that are vocal and, importantly, not necessarily the ones that got involved in harassment. Eg: Alexander's piece wasn't so more on the harassment, but the fact a large # of gamers were insulted by how Alexander wrote for this. (eg "‘Games culture’ is a petri dish of people who know so little about how human social interaction and professional life works that they can concoct online ‘wars’ about social justice or ‘game journalism ethics,’ straight-faced, and cause genuine human consequences. Because of video games." from [3] is clearly not a statement that would be fair if you were proGG - and if you notice, it is not tagged as an opinion piece nor does GS have an editorial statement. I may not agree with the viewpoint of proGG but I also can see that that article raises a lot of issues if one was part of that camp). Again, there's a lot of speculation we can't include, but we cannot state that Intel is supporting the misogynist side even if they do affirm they removed ads due to Alexander's piece. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Obviously we'd have top wait for reliable sources to begin to characterize Intel's actions as such, but when/if they do, that characterization would be quite article-worthy. Tarc (talk) 15:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Yet another source has come out [4]. Bosstopher (talk) 14:37, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

This is good enough now to add in that Operation Disrespectful Nod exists and it's purpose, but that's all we can say now. Even that Verge article is making a leap of logic (the most obvious one, yes), to why Intel pulled. --MASEM (t) 15:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Question: do we think we can say "In October 2014, Intel pulled its advertising from Gamasutra, citing feedback from its consumers on controversial pieces published on that site; some media sites like The Verge believed this was in direct response to Operation Disrespectful Nod". (emphasis here for the key wording to prevent bias and OR). --MASEM (t) 16:21, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

If we feel that we still have to qualify that by attributing it to a particular source, we should probably leave it out for now and wait for a more formal statement. Several articles have referenced statements from an Intel spokesperson, so I wouldn't call this pure speculation, but it can't hurt to give them a little time to let the issue make its way higher up the chain of command before we assume that's the company's stance. Verge and BoingBoing have the most detailed articles I've seen so far, but I doubt the information that's out there now is all that we're going to get on the question. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Tara on this. If Intel isn't forthcoming, then we can eventually do the attribution. Willhesucceed (talk) 16:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Re/code is now reporting on it as well. There is also a report in Computer Business Review (www.cbronline.com/news/tech/cio-agenda/the-boardroom/intel-pulls-ads-from-tech-website-after-gamergate-pressure-4392798), but the site is apparently on the blacklist due to editors trying to spam it on Wikipedia years ago. We might consider white-listing the specific article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:01, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I believe Recode is the original source of the news from what I can tell, and so while not an RS it is reported in others. --MASEM (t) 17:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, they were either the first or one of the first to publish the story, but we do have other stronger sources for it already. There's really no reason to request whitelisting of the CBR article, because they're not difficult to replace as a source. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:18, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

How is Re/code not a reliable source exactly?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:07, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree to this, sounds neutral. Although readers might be left wondering what that Operation is, you either don't include it, or explain it a little Loganmac (talk) 19:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Stop posting your responses in front of those from other people, FFS. I had to move this out from in front of TaraInDC's comment on 16:28, 2 October 2014.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:57, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It was my first time, no need to be rude Loganmac (talk) 20:37, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

More sources if they're needed http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/10/intel-folds-under-gamergate-pressure-pulls-ads-from-gamasutra/

According to media Intel are misogynist pretty much lol

Also for some reason a lot of Austrian/German sites are reporting on it, doubt any of these are reliable https://www.google.com/search?q="Gamergate"%3A+Intel+beendet+Werbekampagne

Ars Technica mentions 4chan has banned discussion of the topic by the way, don't know if that's important Loganmac (talk) 20:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

This was added to the article

"Rich McCormick of The Verge decried Intel's decision to cave to what he called "co-ordinated strikes" to silence voices calling for diversity in gaming, writing, "By giving in to its demands and pulling its advertising from Gamasutra, Intel has legitimized a movement that has shown itself to be anti-feminist, violently protectionist, and totally unwilling to share what it sees as its divine right to video games."

I don't see how a single guy's opinion on The Verge is relevant or important, the anti-feminist side has enough weight already as Masem agreed. We don't need to look up opinions of everything that happens, this way everything gets twisted. A neutral statement is all that's needed. I intended to add something similar to what Masem suggested and noone opposed "In October 2014, Intel pulled its advertising from gaming website Gamasutra, citing feedback from its consumers on controversial pieces published on that site; some media sites like The Verge and Ars Technica believed this was in direct response to Operation Disrespectful Nod, a movement aimed at advertisers of sites in opposition to GamerGate." Sourcing it with Ars Technica and The Verge (Which explain what ODN is) Loganmac (talk) 22:59, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Both Re/code and Ars Technica offer a fairly neutral take on this development. We should give them priority over the more obviously partisan pieces.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:23, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The Verge is more known, not sure if Re/code is RS, and yeah the Ars Technica article is pretty neutral. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Loganmac (talk • contribs) 23:36, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

[5] NYTimes is now reporting on this, so I would say a neutral statement that it is believed that the Alexander piece was the trigger would be appropriate. But asking for a quick check from here before doing so. --MASEM (t) 00:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Are we sure Nytimes blogs are RS? I still think we should include a small neutral statement like you suggested before, no opinions needed Loganmac (talk) 02:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Neutral in the sense that "Intel removed its ads from GAmasutra, which the site confirmed was over some recent controversal articles" (this is all fact, that's quotable) "(Sources) claim this was in regards to Alexander's piece." (here to avoid us being presumptious). --MASEM (t) 02:46, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

[6] CNN has come out with an article too now. Mentions Pro-GG interpretations of Operation Disrespectful nod. Bosstopher (talk) 13:00, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

... and claims it all started with Anita Sarkeesian. And people wonder why I'm contemptuous of mainstream coverage of this topic! Willhesucceed (talk) 16:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

DHeyward, corporations are not people; they do not get BLP protection. Seeing how reliable sources are now beginning to describe Intel's actions as "siding with misogyny" as well, your claim of "libel" is a joke. Do not alter my post again. Tarc (talk) 16:50, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Intel's statement Willhesucceed (talk) 01:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Both Engadget and The Verge note that it's effectively a non-apology apology, given that there's no indication the ads will be restored. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:34, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I seriously think the word "apology" is rather wrong (yes, I know, sources say that), but statement is a much neutral description, oh well Loganmac (talk) 02:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Fish's comments

In regards to this change [7] from TDA: There are three major issues here:

1. We really don't need to add more negative opinions about the proGG side from prior events at this point. The article - due to the press angle - already paints those that harassed Quinn etc. as bad people, so more comments of that same are unnecessary. And while Fish is well-established to be combative, I'm not 100% sure we really need his vulgar descriptions of this in an article that is already in a heated state.
2. There is no clear evidence that he was doxxed due to those comments (which would make them appropriate) or simply speaking out in favor of Quinn (making the quotes unnecessary). As without evidence we should simply avoid any significant details here; he was doxxed due to speaking out for Quinn, and then left the industry. End of story.
3. Minor, but this also replaces a very reliable source (Verge) with two weak ones. Understood this is for quoting, but again, not sure the quoting is appropriate. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The Verge source is from 2013 and does not discuss this situation at all. I replaced that with sources that actually discussed the allegations, discussed Fish's situation, and noted his combative style as being part of it. Paste and The Daily Dot are both reputable outlets cited in other parts of this article to make anti-GamerGate arguments such as blaming it all on 4chan, including claiming #NotYouShield was made up on 4chan and perpetuated by sock puppets. Your reasoning for excluding this is essentially that it would "fuel the pro-GamerGate fire" and that is not a valid rationale, but instead one that seems steeped in POV considerations. In fact, it appears to me that your real reason for removing it is because it makes Phil Fish look like a bit of a jerk and makes the alleged hacking seem less like an attempt to silence a valiant male voice defending a horribly-harassed woman, but more like retaliation for some rather vitriolic attacks. Right now this says people defending her were targeted and Fish got hacked and doxxed for supporting her. The fact this person was likening her critics to rapists and calling them "ball-less manboobs" is definitely relevant. By knowingly excluding the full story, despite it being laid out in reliable sources, we are propagating a false image of people viciously attacking anyone who says a kind word in favor of a poor, defenseless madame. This is unethical and a violation of NPOV.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 20:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The Verge 2013 article establishes that Fish is a known controversial figure to begin with (that was the Fez2 mess). The reason to not include the specific quotes from Fish is that they do make him look like a jerk but more importantly make us look more biased against the proGG side because of the bitterness of those statements, if there is no reason to include them. (And yes, I'm well aware that before this, Fish did have a certain reputation in the industry for outbursts, etc. I am no way trying to defend his image here). If we were 100% sure that those that doxxed Fish were doing because of those statements, then yes, including them is almost necessary as to talk about the type of language that led to the doxxing. But that's not an affirmed point: he sided with Quinn and then he lashed out, but which was the true catalyst, we can't tell. As such, we should very much avoid including any statements that are unneeded that will make the claims that this article is more biased (even though I do recognize that having them sourced to Fish should not do so, it will be taken that way, judging from the past of this article). If you can show that the doxx was specifically or mostly influenced by the bitter statements, then we should include them, but otherwise, by identifying Fish as a "controversial" person from prior issues (the 2013 Verge article) the reader can infer that his support of Quinn likely met with problems (And they can read more if they wish to know more). --MASEM (t) 00:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but your reasoning that noting what Fish said is going to bias the article against GamerGate or create the appearance of bias against GamerGate is kind of ridiculous. His comments are also not solely relevant in the context of the alleged hacking, but point to the overall toxic atmosphere at the time on both sides rather than just one side. Reliable sources saw fit to include specific quotes so I am not sure why we should not do the same. I am restoring it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

One reliable source in mentioning Fish included them. We also did not include some of the more tasteless language that those that harassed Quinn used. So it is completely out of line for this article, encroaching on BLP issues. --MASEM (t) 02:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The stuff about Fish is frickin' book-ended by a quote from a harasser and a demeaning comment from Quinn. I fail to see how this is a BLP violation. The quotes are Fish's own words as noted by reliable sources.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

While they are in his own words, they paint him in a bad light, and a reader unaware of Fish might come off thinking he is always that way. If the specific wording of his tweets triggered the doxx, then yes, inclusion makes sense but we can presently avoid a BLP issue of characterizing a person wrongly be including them like this. --MASEM (t) 14:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Image captions aren't another front in the battle

If we're going to have images of some of the major players, there's no need to rehash every detail about them. Just a brief who-it-is and what-they-did, e.g. going into all the minutiae of Quinn's ex in her caption is excessive. I'm also unconvinced of the need to include Adam Baldwin; have reliable sources continued to make note of his initial involvement? It seems like it was a one-and-done blip. Tarc (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Stating Sommers "disagreed" with the criticism is limp-wristed, while refusing to mention why Quinn was subject to any campaign is overly protective. The allegations against Quinn are widely discussed and directly relevant to the whole issue so a brief summation should be included in the caption. Baldwin is totally relevant seeing as he is believed to have started up the hashtag for which this whole frickin' article is named and is certainly the one who got it the most initial exposure.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:16, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree the captions should be limited to the name as long as the text of why they are relevant is "next" to the image in the body of the article. One less area for edit conflicts/warring. --MASEM (t) 00:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The whole point of having the captions puts the images in context with the rest of the text in the article. You can't just say "look at this picture of someone who appears in the text". There has to be some form of contextual significance to the prose.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:23, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Sure you can, particularly if we are just identify names specifically mentioned in the article, with no immediate relevance of the photo to the event and just for attaching a face to a name. Even moreso in this case when we have editors on both sides arguing about POV, the captions need to stay as neutral as possible and the best way to do that is to say "Zoe Quinn" under a photo of her, for example. This is a case we need people to read the article and not just skim the captions to understand what's going on.--MASEM (t) 16:27, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

From my experience, image captions tend to include some information from the text. You can't just go "Zoe Quinn" or "Adam Baldwin" here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:33, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Radio Nero

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.

---

Thoughts on using this as a source: https://soundcloud.com/radio_nero

It's hosted by Milo, a journalist; it's independent of Breitbart; and many of the figures interviewed so far are well-known in the industry or are notable participants in the controversy.

Willhesucceed (talk) 00:17, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

HOMG!!!!! HOMG!!!!- the journalist conspiracy continues! Milo is obviously in the pocket of the gamergaters as an acquaintance of the founder of gamergate hash tag. Conspiracy1 He must be removed from the article as completely bias source. And HOMG ! More conspiracy and bias! he is also colluding with Sommers. Why werent these connection exposed! HOMG the corruption!!!1!!! Why isnt the media covering this inscestious relationships? HOMG! This obvious collusion and MUST be removed from the article. HOMG! They cannot be reliable!-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

If you can't see the difference between interviewees who are doing it for free and journalists who are being paid to write articles defending their jobs, you shouldn't be editing Wikipedia at all. Willhesucceed (talk) 01:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

More to the point, this is pretty much the definition of a self-published source. General comments about the issue that do not relate to accusations about people might be usable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Ya, I thought as opinion it might be useful, especially to flesh out or contextualise relevant parts of the article, e.g. Erik Kain's and Sommers' opinions. Willhesucceed (talk) 01:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

For the purposes of this discussion are we pretending that Milo Yiannopoulos isn't actively involved with promoting GamerGate? Artw (talk) 01:42, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

For the purposes of this discussion, are we pretending Leigh Alexander and the gaming sites aren't actively involved in doing the opposite? Willhesucceed (talk) 01:50, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

We certainly have enough random editors popping up every five minutes to suggest anything vaguely related to them isn't a proper source on far less substantial grounds, yes. Artw (talk) 01:56, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Since Leigh and Polygon are in the article, this can be in the article. Willhesucceed (talk) 02:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Nope. Artw (talk) 02:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Yep. Willhesucceed (talk) 02:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Not unless Wikipedia's RS policies are spontaneously overthrown to allow a source that is involved, untrustworthy and shows clear bias and has nothing to say of substance anyway. Artw (talk) 02:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

An awful lot of users pushing for his inclusion appear to be SPAs as well. Artw (talk) 03:07, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Calling him "untrustworthy" is probably a violation of BLP. All the things you write could be written about Leigh. Anyway, it's not his opinion I care about. He's an interviewer. It's the interviewees that matter. Willhesucceed (talk) 03:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

SPS states you can include self-published sources as long as it's an expert on the matter, maybe we can take something by Christina Sommers from it, on feminism and women representation in games Loganmac (talk) 02:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Right, and Erik Kain, and whoever else has been on there who's relevant. Willhesucceed (talk) 02:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

A self-published source can only be used for the opinions of the author. The idea is that if Alice self-publishes information about herself, we can safely assume that the opinions expressed in the piece are those she holds. However, if Alice publishes a piece in which she quotes (or interviews) Bob, we cannot assume that the source accurately depicts Bob's opinions. This is not to say that Milo's interviews are inaccurate, but that in terms of reliable sources, they cannot be assumed to be accurate depictions of the opinions of those being interviewed in the same way that an interview published through Time or a source with independent editorial oversight would be. Accordingly, I would be wary of using these to source the opinions of those interviewed, except where they are used to source Milo's personal opinions only. - Bilby (talk) 04:11, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there reason to believe the source is unreliable? As I understand it, exceptions to the rules are allowed. I think in this case it's justified in order to flesh out some of the sources we've already included. It's not like it's solely a pro-Gamergate endeavour, either. From what I understand, there will be people on the other "side" interviewed, too. Willhesucceed (talk) 11:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the whole issue is that Milo is so right-wing and his publication Breitbart has a history of bad reporting it makes anything he writes problematic to include here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

My own feeling is that if the interviewer has been shown to be strongly on one side of the debate - whatever side that might be - then it would be very difficult to justify an exception to the self-published rule in regard to anything other than their own opinion. - Bilby (talk) 16:43, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Can you explain the reasoning here? It seems really strange to exclude an interviewee's opinion on the basis of the interviewer. The interviews are uncut, too. Willhesucceed (talk) 17:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:SPS is pretty cut and dried. If there was some exception for interviewees speaking in a source published by someone else, it would be in the policy. Wikipedia has been around for years, remember: GamerGate is not some special case that deserves 'exceptions' just because most of the sources that depict it favorably are distinctly unreliable ones. Milo is not recognizable as an 'expert' on GamerGate under the conditions outlined in that policy. -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:21, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

In response to TarainDC: "Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book, and also claim to be an expert in a certain field." Milo isn't just anyone, he's a journalist, the person helping him put together the podcast is a journalist, and the interviewees would have complained if something was untoward. "if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else will probably have done so." Except we all know why that isn't happening in this instance.

Since the journalists and academics who've been interviewed don't have a problem with it, I'm considering it usable, unless someone can justify its exclusion. Willhesucceed (talk) 22:06, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

• • What part of "no, this is a textbook SPS" was unclear? Protonk (talk) 22:10, 3 October 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.

This article is POV, and most of the sources are clearly POV as well

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.

---

The article's lead, as well as most of it's sources, clearly take a stance that GamerGate can be boiled down to a conflict caused by rampant misogyny. Although many of the sources could otherwise be considered reliable, the clear editorialization, often present in the headline, demonstrates the sources are approaching the subject from a POV. Other reliable sources(Forbes, Medium, even TechCrunch and Slate) express more neutral, and contrary views.

Additionally, many of the sources used in the article are owned by the same parent companies, including Vox and Gawker Media.

The article is also writhttps://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gamergate_controversy&action=edit&section=newten in an inverse manner, compared to most wikipedia articles. The main body of the article concentrates on criticism, with only a small section discussing the origins of the movement and it's legitimacy. Generally, Wikipedia articles have a criticism section, not an entire article devoted to criticism.

I believe the following sources qualify as reliable, and should be integrated into the article, as part of a transition to a NPOV article.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/25/gamergate-an-issue-with-2-sides/

Discusses the possible origins of the conflict, as well as a neutral explanation of both sides.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/09/gamergate_explodes_gaming_journalists_declare_the_gamers_are_over_but_they.html?wpsrc=fol_tw

POV, but less POV than most of the current sources, and provides and addresses the 'Gamer is dead' controversy.

https://medium.com/@aquapendulum/reality-check-what-do-the-statistics-tell-you-what-gamergate-is-about-8cc80ddb7201

Statistically contradicts claim that Zoe Quinn is at the center of gamergate.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/09/04/gamergate-a-closer-look-at-the-controversy-sweeping-video-games/

A reasonable analysis of both sides.

It is certainly true that the front page of Google results, as well as the NYT present a certain view of GamerGate. But that perspective is not neutral, and it's prominence does not make it correct.

I hope that this article can be turned into an example of Wikipedia's ability to be neutral in the face of conflict, but I dare not edit it myself. Skrelk Skrelk (talk) 04:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC) 04:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Three of those four sources are already being used in the article. The only one that's not—medium.com—is a blog written by someone at Know Your Meme, which is not a reliable source. WP:NPOV doesn't mean that we give every viewpoint an equal say, but rather all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. You are right that the majority of sources "present a certain view of GamerGate", and that is how we balance the article. Woodroar (talk) 05:12, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Get in line with every other dormant account who came back to life to solely express this very flawed opinion. There have been constant calls that the article is biased, but it has been demonstrated that these claims are coming exclusively from members of the movement who want to completely deny that several prominent women have been and are still being harassed not because of what they did in regards to the industry but because they are women. The article does not say that the movement is misogynistic, as everyone like you has been claiming is the reason it is biased. It rather states that a slew of misogynistic attacks accompanied the vaguely defined complaints of journalistic integrity. Not to mention that, and this has been stated by multiple sources, that the whole reason that this started was because Zoe Quinn's ex posted all over the Internet claims that she had slept around on him when any fucking sane person would recognize that he's just a dejected ex lashing out, but instead the movement latched on to the fact that her new partner wrote for Kotaku and that must mean he wrote things about her that gave her an edge in the industry when that was disproven by Totillo, considering there is no fucking review on Kotaku for Depression Quest and in all my fucking conversations on Twitter, they think the fact that Grayson gave Quinn time in his piece to talk about how after the failed reality show she wanted to start her own game jam means jack shit in the long run. You all just want to make this page exclusively about the movement and sweep under the rug all of the negative things that accompanied it and show the movement in a bad light and that's not how things work on Wikipedia.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Rude.--davidh.oz.au 05:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Did I hit a nerve considering most of this applies to you as well?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea where you got that idea. Please refrain from swearing and using undue foul language on talk pages. --davidh.oz.au 06:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It might be because you haven't edited here in 2 years up until the controversy began.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:10, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh no, I'm not here for the article. I'm here to admire the typically bad wikipedia policy getting put in practice and the highly-charged acerbic editing atmosphere, so feel free to ignore me. It might surprise you that the only reason retired editors pass by talk pages is to be faintly amused by the state of the wiki. Check my user page. I left wp ages ago out of protest when the wiki turned sour and the community got in the way of editing. As for my edit history, I'll continue editing the odd article here and there when I feel like it, provided I'm not using my paid vpn to have some privacy at the time and/or I care enough to turn it off so I can edit. For the most part however, wp is no longer my go-to place for information and I limit myself to the technical sources instead, hence my apparent lack of heavy editing activity. I'm sorry that you're blind to wikipedia's failings. You need to take a leaf out of Masem's book. --davidh.oz.au 06:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

So retired that your only major edits have been regarding this page.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Seriously, dude, shut the fuck up. No, it is not just a bunch of random people resurrecting their dormant accounts who think this article is biased to one side. I and many other active and established editors have been objecting to the blatantly partisan slant being imposed by unabashedly biased editors such as yourself for a while now. We sort of grumble and accept it given the persistence of your side but the dissent is here and it is very real. Personally, I support keeping the POV tag.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The POV claims like the above are simply things we cannot fix because the sourcing that exists is inheriently unbalance. I believe that at least myself and a few others are trying to keep this as middle ground as possible from both those that want to paint the gamer side as harshly as possible, and from the proGG side that cannot help but read this and think it is unbalanced when at the end of the day it's balanced as best we can by the sources. As long as we do our best to balance what is provided by coverage and not introducing (or removing when it is introduced) new POV, then we are doing our jobs, and that's why the POV does not apply here. (Or more to the point, unless someone can point out that we've been ignoring a whole body of assuredly reliable sources that coverage a point, our hands our tied and we're doing the most middle ground aspect that our policies allow). --MASEM (t) 06:11, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

You are part of a minority in that fact, TDA. There are active editors like yourself and Diego who are discussing the issue and then there are a dozen accounts who have been inactive for years and coming here to only edit this page, and related ones.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:14, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Don't bother, mate. Many people before you have tried and failed to improve the article. --davidh.oz.au 05:48, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Ryulong, you are part of the problem. I am neither a gamer or developer or reporter. Your broad nonsense of dismissing those that believe the article is incredibly biased contrary to policy, specifically BLP policy, is disturbing. BLP policy, is, at the forefront, about getting it right. If mainstream game journalist have chosen a side and that's the sources you believe are reliable, that is not shield you can use to cover up BLP issues. At best, the article should be stubbed until more neutral coverage is available. We are not automatons. WP has often made the choice to not publish anything rather than publish "mainstream" sources that are obviously harmful and objectively. Your broad label is personally offensive and you should retract it. --DHeyward (talk) 08:13, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Do I really need to paste the 10-mile-long list of reliable sources for this article again? The idea that all of them are "biased" is so impossibly ludicrous as to be unworthy of further discussion. You're pushing nothing more than a conspiracy theory borne of the inability to accept that the position you support has been examined and rejected by mainstream sources.

What you're demanding is that we ignore the dozens of mainstream sources (ranging from The Week to PBS NewsHour, On The Media to The Boston Globe) which discuss the issue as an episode of vicious, misogynistic harassment driven by historic tensions in a subculture confronted with change, and instead adhere to the tiny number of fringe sources (Breitbart, a Forbes contributor blogger) that adhere to the claim that it's about some nebulous connection to journalistic ethics that just happens to have been centered on third-grade-level jokes about an obscure female developer's sex life.

The article already went through AfD once and survived. If you think it should be deleted, feel free to nominate it again and see what happens. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:18, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Getting it right and neutral is larger than whatever interpretation of sources you imagine exist. No one doubts there are misogynistic elements. Non-neutrally presenting that those elements represent an entire community is as ludicrous a conspiracy theory as you proposed. Yet the article reads as if that CT is real. The interpretation and use of sources to weave this vast network of misogynist gamers sounds like some of the tumblr blogs. --DHeyward (talk) 17:15, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

So you claim. Wikipedia articles are based on what reliable sources say, not what editors claim they should say if they were "unbiased." And it is hardly a "conspiracy theory" to suggest that the gamer community is riven with a significant level of overt misogyny and sexism, as amply demonstrated by the sources.

If you don't want to write an encyclopedia article based on what the reliable sources say about a topic, then may I politely suggest that you are in the wrong encyclopedia project. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:26, 3 October 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.

It's really hard to keep the article going

I've tried to add NEUTRAL mentions of the Intel thing and both times got reverted by Ryoulong in less than 5 seconds. Only for him to add it himself later, with a quote by a The Verge author, which noone agreed on, nor did he mention/suggest of including in the talk page. This is amazing. I asked for reasons on his talk page and he reverted my comment there too. This guy used to be an admin I can't believe it. Anyway this is related to the article since I want to improve it, I'm not here to push my agenda in any way. Anything related to Ryuolong I'll state in a future ANI since this is not the place Loganmac (talk) 05:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Stop making new sections on topics already under discussion here. I simply restored content that had been removed from the article which is explicitly stated as the opinion of the writer cited. Maybe it goes elsewhere on the page and a mention of Intel pulling their advertising can go where it is now, but we have both to cover and not omit one aspect because it's critical of the situation.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:47, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I see no need for the quote from the verge author as it adds unneeded focus on a single person's opinion. So I trimmed it, but it could also be put elsewhere in the article, like you suggested, but as a whole quote it's a bit odd considering all the other sources that offer an opinion don't get a long quote. Shadowrunner^(stuff) 12:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That's the overall problem in general that this article is having - as there is almost no one unbiased in the media reporting on this, and the bulk are going to be against the harassment issues and as such appear to be anti-GG, each new quote makes the article appear more biased. Ideally, months or years from now, this will have long settled, and scholars can look back and comment on the topic without bias, and their quotes will be much more relevant to the encyclopedia, maybe identifying quotes made now as key talking points, but we should avoid getting to much into this ourselves at this point, quoting only to assert something of a factual nature (eg for example, Intel's statement of pulling ads). --MASEM (t) 14:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

No, Masem, there are lots of unbiased sources. They're just virtually all opposed to GamerGate. Do I need to post the list of reliable sources again? Viewing the issue as one of harassment is not "bias," it is simply accurately depicting the primary thrust of the issue. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:42, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Nearly all mainstream sources will be biased (because harassment of women is never going to be seen as a good thing even by outside parties to this). I am not invalidating those sources, just that we have to be aware that there's a huge "pile on" of anti-GG commentary we could easily pull out from these, and we should not be doing more "harm" than needed to explain why the proGG side is seen as negative. Eg: we unavoidably have to discuss how the attacks were seen as misogynic, but at the same time, we have made it clear that the industry does believe only a minority of those on proGG really were involved with the attacks. As such, we can take the necessary care to not use more and more quotes that keep hammering on the sexism and misogyny of that side even if the reliable source chose such language. We need to be be clinically detached from this. --MASEM (t) 22:38, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm going to keep archiving new sections if they're not materially distinct from stuff we've covered before. We're aware that you feel the article is not neutral. We don't need an umteenth talk page post on the subject where everyone can repeat what they've been saying for the past month. Protonk (talk) 22:18, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Kotaku is a biased source, that is precisely why it needs to be cited

@Masem:, the entire reason that Kotaku needs to be cited here is per WP:RS (specifically WP:BIASED); the claim that the "allegations were found to be false" is sourced to Kotaku by all of the secondary sources, which means that we should be citing Kotaku on it, because Kotaku is the original source and Kotaku is, obviously, potentially biased in favor of itself. It needs to be attributed to the involved party. Titanium Dragon (talk) 09:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Kotaku and the various sources reporting on what Kotaku has said (as well as other sources that have come up that did their own investigation into whether or not there was in fact a breach of ethics) are both being used here. There's nothing wrong with this other than a pro-GG insistence that something must be done to correct this article and put everyone other than the GG crowd in a bad light.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:26, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Is there a reason that, in your edit, you chose to characterize Kotaku as "questioning their employee" rather than a more neutral and sourced "spoke to", where "questioning" can imply wrongdoing? Or why you rephrased the allegations as "to obtain positive media coverage" (rather than "to obtain positive media coverage for her game") and at the same time specified that "their reporter had never reviewed Quinn's game", leaving the implication that there may have been other positive coverage? Need we remind you that this is a BLP, and phrases like "allegations were shown to be false"—which summarize the reporting of multiple reliable sources—are absolutely necessary to deny and shut down gossip? Woodroar (talk) 10:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

While most of us would not question the statement from Kotaku's editor in chief that refutes the claim, too many others put a lot of doubt on that. So to make it 100% clear that other RSes agree that the claim has been proven false, we have to include the other sources in addition to Kotaku's statement. (And some will still deny this but we've done our part to satisfy the majority). --MASEM (t) 14:25, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Except that all the other sources are referencing Kotaku. Per WP:RS, when we talk about something like this, we're looking for independent sources. They aren't independent sources, and therefore, it isn't multiple sources, it is a single source - Kotaku - whose claim is being repeated. And ultimately, Kotaku's claim is dependent, per their own article, on the reporter's own testimony that it wasn't a conflict of interest. Indeed, to characterize it as false is wrong, because that's not what Kotaku - the original source - even said. They said that they failed to find evidence of impropriety, NOT that the allegations were false - there is an important distinction there. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:36, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not that they are using Kotaku as the source, but by how they publish the reiteration of Kotaku's statement, that they believe Kotaku is correct on the matter about the lack of professional impropriety. If they doubted Kotaku, they would have phrased their statements a different way, but they are stating that Kotaku's claim that nothing happened is going to be the truth here. And no, the distinction is not different. The one specifically allegation: "Quinn slept with Grayson for a positive review" was dismissed by Kotaku and subsequently others. Any of the other claims, or any other claim of problems with Kotaku's journalist integrity, weren't examined at all. --MASEM (t) 21:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Also, we have to constantly point out to the POV pushers who insist that the phrasing is incorrect because they assume "allegations" refers to the romantic relationship rather than the non-existent result of that relationship. However, in personal experience, that has not stopped the gaters from insisting that Grayson giving Quinn a soap box in the one article he did write about her constitutes this conflict of interest due to whatever conspiracy theorist timeline they have on when the two began their relationship. There's no satisfying this group, to be honest.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Undue weight tag

This article continues to be in dispute resolution over the issue of undue weight and NPOV. It needs to be tagged. Given that there are a number of sources which discuss this issue, and given that the Streisand Effect was a big part of why this blew up the way that it did, it is given quite cursory mention. Likewise, there are general issues with presenting Zoe Quinn and her advocates' views excessively. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:04, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

The participants of that DRN thread then should not be participating in editing this article. And there is not any undue weight or lack of neutral poitn of view. This is the same argument being rehashed by every single person who has been coming to this page again and again because they feel that the pro-GG side of the debate is not being adequately represented, or that the anti-GG side is being given too much coverage. This is how things are represented in reliable sources. And no amount of complaints that these reliable sources are biased against the gamergate crowd is going to change that because we cannot report on what is not already said in the media. It is not the fault of Wikipedia editors that one side of the debate is being written about in detail in the mainstream media while the other side is relegated to fringe media and controversial blog posts that cannot be used one bit on Wikipedia as a source. In fact, several of the sources you have listed above are not reliable and are in fact problematic on BLP grounds to include, which is the whole god damn reason you were originally banned from this article. I don't understand why that ban was lifted one bit. I mean this is already being discussed above under the header #This article is POV, and most of the sources are clearly POV as well where other people have been saying exactly what I have. The article is neutral. No undue weight is given to anything, other than perhaps writing a bit too much on one single person's opinions, rather than the "undue weight" that you are alleging is an issue which is the whole of the "gamergate is full of misogyny and sexist harassment" narrative that is reliably sourced to multiple news sources.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

If "no one involved in the DRN should be editing the article", then why on earth are you, Tarc, and NorthBySouthBaranof doing so? All three of you are involved in that. You continue to remove the tag, despite having been told in the past that it was inappropriate to do so while the dispute resolution was going on. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:35, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I've clearly stated twice on the DRN page that I'm not participating in it because its just forum shopping.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:40, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing at DRN that prevents one from editing the article in question, particular with the underspecifity of the DRN request (which boils down to "None of the sources present the unbiased view, what are we to do!"). --MASEM (t) 14:29, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

I had no idea there was a DRN filing over this. Tarc (talk) 12:55, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

And at the DRN, you are simply rehashing the same tired, irrelevant conspiracy-theory "biased" nonsense for the fifteenth time. There is no purpose in it, and I decline to relitigate claims that have been repeatedly rejected as lacking any basis in policy or common sense. Sources you disagree with are not biased and even if they were, we're not prohibited from using biased sources. If you want to keep peddling that line, there is no point in "dispute resolution" because you refuse to admit that that has already been resolved. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 16:39, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

At the DRN, I'm going through and sorting out the sources by what they talk about. You are upset because it indicates that the sources do not back up your repeated claims that the sources all just talk about harassment, because they do not. Even a selection from your list, which you claimed to be all about harassment, revealed a large number of sources which disagreed with that assessment. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

No one is claimed that they only talk about harassment, but it is true most make that the lead-in focus of the story. --MASEM (t) 21:34, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

[citation needed] - neither I nor anyone else has ever stated that it is "only" harassment. Rather, what I have repeatedly stated is what is supported and restated by reliable source after reliable source - that if it ever was about "journalism ethics" (a debatable point in itself), the decision to focus the campaign on allegations about the sex life of an obscure indie developer stemming from a "strange, rambling attack" of a blogpost by the developer's "spurned ex-boyfriend" (both quotes from NYT) was impossibly misguided, resulting in a wave of misogynistic harassment and third-grade-level sex jokes which have permanently and irreversibly poisoned the well for any future debates. To quote The New York Times, "Intel’s decision added to a controversy that has focused attention on the treatment of women in the games business and the power of online mobs." That is how the movement is perceived in the mainstream, and there really isn't any neat and easy way of undoing it as you and others would apparently like. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It's like I'm on Twitter again. For fucks sake, Titanium Dragon, no one is saying that "Gamergate is a harassment campaign and nothing else". All reliable sources and all people discussing things here note that the controversy concerns eliminating conflicts of interest in gaming journalism but it was also conflated with the fact that Zoe Quinn was and is still being harassed because her jilted ex said shit about her that people ready to hate on anyone for getting into their boy's club ate right up.

And also what the hell happened to that Brianna Wu piece I found weeks ago?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 12:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@Ryulong: I'm not sure I'm familiar with that article. Who is Brianna Wu, and who did she write for? I mostly remember sources, not journalists. Titanium Dragon (talk) 20:08, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Wu is a podcaster with 5by5 Studios and wrote this for Polygon shortly before the shit hit the fan.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:11, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Censorship

The question of private censorship of privately owned but publicly available fora seems to be an important and interesting component of this controversy. The Techcrunch story of 25 September covers some of this here. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 13:45, 3 October 2014 (UTC).

It's briefly covered at Backlash and social media campaign ("On some websites, posts relating to the controversy were blocked or deleted"), and that Techcrunch is used further down to quote the author's opinion. I agree we could expand the concept with more opinions from RSs. Diego (talk) 14:01, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

There's not a lot of opinions on this that can be sourced, since the primary reaction is from gamers posting in on social media or other forums. It's covered as necessary to the point right now that sources go into it (as a minor part of the overall issue). --MASEM (t) 14:27, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

There are a large number of sources on this. Forbes, TechCrunch, GamerHeadlines, GamesNosh, Digitimes... Julian Assange commented on it, and we also had the Breitbart thing which would be an opinion on it. Really it is a major part of the story. I'm not sure where you got the idea it was a minor part of the story from; the coverage on it has been fairly extensive. Titanium Dragon (talk) 21:19, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

We've already rejected Assange's comment as completely aside to the matter (as he never stated the words Gamegate). GamerHeadlines and GamesNosh aren't reliable. We have mentioned that the censorship led to the Streisand effect, which is important, but there's little more else that we can go into on it. --MASEM (t) 22:02, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That Assange AMA question is constantly being brought up on this site and others as proof of whatever the speaker wants to say about people being banned from all of these websites for bringing up Gamergate, but as Masem points out he did not speak about Gamergate. He may have been asked something that included the word "gamergate" but it's not like what he said applies only to Gamergate.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:50, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

It is more accurate to say that Assange did comment on GamerGate, but Newsweek only alluded to this without noting that a quote about GamerGate was a quote about GamerGate. We can easily cite Reddit as a primary source to clear up that fact, but then that would require acknowledging a more credible voice of support for GamerGate and, natch, some here will use any excuse in the book to keep as much of that shit out of this article as possible. Fortunately, the New Statesmen has been more honest in its reporting.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:08, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I read the AMA at Reddit, and the question was a way to attach GG to a censorship question, something like "What are your feelings when corportions employ censorship, as with Gamergate?". Assange basically had no opinion on GG itself, just (as would be expected for him) the use of censorship. As such, the quote is completely unrelated to any valuable discussion on this article. --MASEM (t) 01:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The question was "How do you feel about the censorship on Reddit in wake of GamerGate?" and his response started with "It's pathetic" so he was definitely talking about it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Which doesn't give any opinion on gamergate itself, and a question that just knowing Assange, the answer was pretty much a given. It's useless here. --MASEM (t) 03:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Eg it is like asking Charleton Heston his opinion on gun control in the wake of a school shooting, and using that to justify an opinion about the school shooting. It's a indirect question. --MASEM (t) 03:14, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

A question about censorship of GamerGate discussions is not related to GamerGate? Masem, you have very weird standards. For the record, we also have the News Statesman piece talking about it as well. The WikiLeaks tweet cannot really be interpreted as anything other than a show of support for GamerGate.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 06:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

A man who is extremely anti-censorship was asked what he thinks about censorship and the person asking the question tacked on something about Gamergate to the end so they feel like they have someone huge backing them regardless of the answer's content. Assange said nothing about Gamergate itself. Just a reiteration of his stance on censorship.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:11, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That's cute, but you are operating in WP:JDL territory now. The question was about GamerGate and the response was about GamerGate. Newsweek takes note of the comment and that GamerGate came up (the Reddit thread allowing us to connect the two seemingly unrelated statements in the article), while the New Statesman explicitly notes support from Assange and Wikileaks. We would be quite able to make further note of censorship concerns in relation to all that.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:20, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Assange replied to it and less than 30 minutes the official Wikileaks published two tweets asking #GamerGate (using the hashtag) to aim higher, who are we kidding here that he wasn't talking about? Loganmac (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Can either of you point out one thing in his response that speicifically discusses Gamergate? Or is it just "censorship is bad"? And no citable source we have mentions Gamergate in relation to the actual quote you want to have in this article, as far as I am aware.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:14, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

We can cite primary sources when we're dealing with opinions expressed by people, Ryulong, and the fact that he was responding to the question about GamerGate - and the fact that Wikikleaks Tweeted about it reinforces the idea that they are aware. That's one of the things that primary sources are actually useful for. Incidentally, your complaint about a man not liking censorship not being quotable would mean that we would have to eliminate all of the feminist sources from this article. According to your logic, we should do so. Titanium Dragon (talk) 01:53, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Is the forbes source a real article or a contributor post? Protonk (talk) 22:52, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

That's likely a Kain piece, which while a contributor, has an established past with being reliable from the standpoint of the VG project. We're fine with that as a source here. --MASEM (t) 22:54, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

More structure

I've added some sub-headings to two sections, to make it easier to find content in them and separate different subjects. The "Allegations" and "Legitimacy" could also use one heading or two, but I couldn't find a good arrangement.

I've bitten the bullet with the term "Social Justice Warrior". By using it as a section title we don't need to define it, and it's clear that it refers to the "backlash against social criticism of video games because many readers don’t want to be told what’s good or bad about a game’s social politics" described in that section. Diego (talk) 08:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Is it really appropriate to use a term of abuse (and that's how it's intended, however absurd that may seem) as a section heading? --TS 11:26, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

agree I would not use it as a section heading. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Google News

For the first time in my experience, today this article appeared as the top hit in a Google News search on the word Gamergate. Perhaps a slight uptick in page accesses and talk page discussion might be expected as a result if this increased exposure. Perhaps not. Google's algorithms produce different results for different locations and different users, so it's difficult to quantify the actual exposure resulting. --TS 11:23, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It probably has to do with the Intel thing, GamerGate has been the most popular on twitter/reddit the day that happened Loganmac (talk) 19:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Possible background source

Sometime in the last couple of weeks, I had included this Polygon opinion piece by Brianna Wu concerning her experiences with sexist and misogynist harassment. But now everything from this piece is gone entirely. What's up with that?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 12:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Consensus and debate my friend. --Torga (talk) 13:20, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Could you point out the debate and consensus that led to the removal of this as a source? Cause I don't think I ever saw it happen.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 13:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

When this article was massively restructured (I think by RPoD), some of the pre-event stuff was taken out; that including Wu's piece as well as other examples of pre-GG harassment (eg the COD dev) --MASEM (t) 14:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Don't give the Doomed Red Pen credit for my accomplishments. That was my epic Leeroy Jenkins edit.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That article is earlier than the GamerGate, being dated at Jul 22. It would better used at Sexual harassment in video gaming and Women and video games; if no RS has made the link between that opinion to the GamerGate, including it here would be WP:SYNTH. Diego (talk) 15:00, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I found it in a post-GG article, but it was on Cracked. To be honest, a lot of their writing on GG has not been satirical.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 15:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Asian sources / Patreon / Quinn

http://www.huxiu.com/article/43065.html

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/2014/10/01/patreon-pressured-pull-sarkeesian-effect-documentary/

Running the first article through Google's translation service shows that it's reliable and detailed. Everything matches up with the record elsewhere. I link it because I'd like to use it, or Bright Side of News, as a source for gamers' earlier concerns about Quinn's Patreon patrons (beyond just Jenn Frank), many of them video games journalists and game developers.

It's also covered implicitly in http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/27/6075179/anita-sarkeesian-says-she-was-driven-out-of-house-by-threats and http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/07/the-gamergate-question/

Willhesucceed (talk) 14:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

What information does the article include that isn't covered in Enlglish language ones? Machine translations lose a lot of nuance. English-language sources are generally preferred, all other things being equal. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:24, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That it's more than just Jenn Frank who's funding her, i.e. other members of the gaming press and developers are doing so, too. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The Google Translation of the article is a muddled, unreadable mess, featuring phrases such as "Another game circle feminist warrior, female game commentator Anita Sarkeesian also unfortunate gun." I'm not sure what we're supposed to make of it, but it doesn't seem useful to support anything meaningful. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

"The Google Translation of the article is a muddled, unreadable mess" - Good thing the English Wikipedia is home to 1,544 different native speakers of Chinese, right? Why not ask for help? --benlisquare_T•C•E 05:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not the one proposing to use the source, so maybe you should ask someone else. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:55, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

But you were judging the desirability of a source based on a poor machine translation that did not accuratey reflect the contents of the piece. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Please read the previous posts in a thread before commenting in that thread. I did exactly what the person who proposed the article said they did — ran the article through Google's translation service, which according to them, "shows that it's reliable and detailed." On the contrary, I got a garbled mess that can be said to be neither reliable nor detailed. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:05, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm well capable and willing to accurately translate the piece to English, provided that I can have reassurance that I won't be accused of BLP policy violation simply for being the messenger once I post the translation on the talk page. The piece is quite detailed in how it covers the entire history of the debacle, which can help with the verifiability of this article and fill in any missing gaps.

Having a quick Baidu search, the entire incident is well covered on Chinese websites, with articles from the IT specialist section of this news website, and this mainstream news website (in fact, QQ.com is one of the biggest mainstream news portals in mainland China in terms of readership). These are all websites that the general population takes very seriously, both sites being government registered news outlets per the information laws of the People's Republic of China (it is illegal to market yourself as a "news outlet" without government permission).

Finally, may I remind you that while machine translations work decently between Germanic languages such as English and Dutch, Chinese is a Sinic language, and that the technology for machine translation to Chinese is hardly there yet, of course you're going to get gibberish. Regardless of how much money Google attempts to pump into developing machine translations, many scientific journals guesstimate that it will be at least 25 years until we can get reliable machine translation between Germanic and Sinic languages. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:26, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

If you're concerned that you might be accused of violating BLP by posting a translation of this article I would suggest that you not do so. We are not likely to be using any extraordinary new claims that are only sourced ot this article and have somehow been overlooked by the many, many sources that we already have. This is primarily an English-language movement, so unless the article has some insight into the effects the movement is having in Chinese-language communities or how the Chinese speaking world is participating I don't think it's likely to be any more useful than the many high quality sources we already have.

I think we're all well aware of the limitations of machine translations, but when a machine translation is the point of reference for the person initiating the discussion it's entirely fair for other participants to use and comment on it as well. -- TaraInDC (talk) 06:37, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I've just been seeing overzealous accusations of BLP vios being thrown around all too much lately, not specifically on here, but all over the Wikipedia project. It's precisely the reason why I find BLP topics tedious and bothersome. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, that brings up the question of whether or not this is a reliable source to begin with. The translation says it's a "submission," the only byline is "game grapes" and it comes with the disclaimer that "Articles for authors independently views do not represent the position of the tiger sniffing network." (Oh, machine translation...) This would suggest that it's not a staff-written, edited/fact-checked article, but more akin to a self-published user blog. A machine translation of the Frequently Asked Questions page seems to support the proposition that articles on the site are basically self-published. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:38, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's the author's own editorial, he doesn't write on behalf of the website. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Is there an identifiable byline, or is it an anonymous username? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The article is written by 游戏葡萄 (pinyin: Yóuxì pútáo; lit. 'Game Grapes'), which is described as "A games industry media business with discerning integrity and foresight", that can be contacted with the email hi@youxiputao.com. Their writer's page refers to themselves in the first-person collective pronoun (我们), which suggests that this is a company hired to write articles on the behalf of websites, and not an individual. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

After a bit more digging, I've discovered that "Game Grapes" is officially registered as, and is operating as, "Beijing Coolgame Technology Co., Ltd.", with the ICP registration number 13050684. The company address is located at "中国 北京 朝阳区景华南街1号 旺座中心公寓西塔1208室，100022" (Unit 1208, Wangzuo Central Apartment Blocks Eastern Tower, 1 Jinghuanan Street, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China. Postcode 100022) and their telephone number is 010-53370644. --benlisquare_T•C•E 06:59, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The Fine Young Capitalists

aren't mentioned at all. I understand why the section was removed, but it's odd to remove them entirely. They should be noted and briefly discussed somewhere in the article. Willhesucceed (talk) 14:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

There's a H3 section for them...--MASEM (t) 14:19, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I swear I Ctrl+Fd the page before coming here! Willhesucceed (talk) 14:20, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

"Social Justice Warrior"

Why is it 'best' to leave this term unqualified? Just saying it's 'best' isn't a justification - explain why, please, if you're going to revert every attempt to include any context for the term It's not unique to GamerGate, and it's not so important to the movement that it needs to be included at all, but if it must, I see no reason not to include some information about what people are saying about the use of the term or what it implies. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:02, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's important to include somewhere here because the term is used frequently in the sourcing we are providing, so anyone reading further will know where the term applies; that makes it necessary to at least mention. But because the definition will actually vary strongly depending on which side you want to take, it's best left for the term to speak on it's own and/or left to the reader to infer from the sources, because we cannot certainly come up with an consistent objective definition from the sourcing. (It also does sorta speak for itself, knowing that "social justice" is a thing). --MASEM (t) 15:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

With no explanation for the term or its implications, including it doesn't add anything. As with GamerGate itself, we let the reliable sources define it for us, so it doesn't matter that the definition 'will actually vary strongly depending on which side you want to take.' -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes it does add something; it provides a text in enough context (to know that those supporting Quinn et al were called that by the proGG side) to let the reader know what is implied by this term. We have zero need to define it because it is simple enough to gleen from the words, and there is no definition out there that is not biased any way or another. While I am fully on the lines that we do go by what the sources say, this is yet another point that we have to be awre the bulk of the sources are decidedly anti-GG and is going to us language that is not appropriate for what our neutral stance needs to be. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Perceived bias isn't a fatal flaw in a source, as I would think you would know by now. GamerGaters would say that this article is 'biased' because it describes their movement in terms the movement doesn't use itself, but since we're only saying what the sources do that's not a problem. It's a pejorative. That's simple fact. It's generally anti-progressive. that's easily citeable. What reliably sourced information on the term would you like to include that might 'balance' that in favor of the Gaters' position? Saying that we must include this term but we must not explain its meaning is a bizarre position to me. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

There's nothing we can add to balance the proGG because that's sourced, so to maintain the balance we subtract from the other - or at least prevent that position from being so pervasive throughout the article as to create the bias. When reliable sources do define the term, it's more anti-proGG fuel, adding to the calls of sexism and misogyny that are already clear in this article, we don't need to pile on more. That's been the issue with a lot of the recent editors and the overquoting. Yes we are using the sources, but to me it feels like some are using that to push the anti-proGG side as much as it can be since there's going to be nothing from the proGG to counter, which means that NPOV doesn't have to be followed. While technicially correct, we can be better, and find something that is a fair balance of points and does not at all attempt to villify the proGG side as much as the article does now while still making sure that the actions of harassment and doxxing are noted as extremely bad things as seen by the press and in no way justifying these tactics. --MASEM (t) 15:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

We need to present this information the way the sources do, good or bad. We can't restrict information simply because it paints GamerGate in a bad light. If there is 'nothing we can add to balance the proGG' then there's no bias problem. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:53, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That's not accurate. We do have to summarize and mirror sources, but per NPOV and WP:BIAS, we also have to be aware when sources will spin the story in a direction that's not appropriate. This in no way means we should alter how we approach the facts here (eg burying the mysogyny aspects) but when these sources are speaking their opinions, and particularly personal opinions, we can be a lot more selective about what to include to avoid being too much a mouthpiece for these. And in the case of SJW definitions, none of them that I've seen even attempt to state the term in unbiased language. Since it stands on its own in context (eg who called who, and after establishing that Quinn's game was around focus of a social issue) it is better for us not to enter into that debate and only acknowledge its existence. --MASEM (t) 16:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's because the phrase itself is inherently biased. It is only ever used by people in or out of the Gamergate controversy to pejoratively refer to people. It's used on Tumblr to refer to the overly politically correct people who talk over other people or champion for things that don't need to be championed for. Gamergate just uses it to call out their opposition.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's because the phrase itself is inherently biased. This is exactly it. It's a decidedly loaded term. Using it with no context about how it's used within the gater movement is inappropriate. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

We give it context: it is what the proGG side has called Quinn et al. --MASEM (t) 17:19, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm talkinga bout context for what the term means. Yes, they called Quinn and her supporters "social justice warriors,' but why? What does the term mean? By including it, we're suggesting that their use of the term is important, so why don't we bother telling the reader what it means? There is commentary about gaters' use of the term, and what it implies which is at least as important to this article as their use of the term itself; excluding it because it 'creates too much bias' is an NPOV issue. We can't exclude relevant information that clarifies what this term means as it's used by gaters because it makes the gaters look bad. If you don't want to include it, we can remove the term altogetehr, but we can't introduce it without explaining why it's being used as it is. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:31, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Either we give the definition or criticism of the term or we don't include it in our summarization of the events.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it works fine without definition as it is clear to its meaning in context. --MASEM (t) 16:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Why is it important to include if we don't define it?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Because some of the articles in our sources using "SJW" (the term or even some cases, just the abbreviation) without context; as such for a reader that is looking to research this topic, we provide a necessary "term of art" that applies so they know what it is when they encounter it. This is standard good practice for any encyclopedic article. Again, it's perceived meaning is apparent in context. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not our place to explain that to people if we don't mention it but other publications do and don't bother to inform their readers what it means.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:18, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes it is. And it's not that none of them that use the term/abbrev SJW don't define it, some definitely do. If it the term was used and never defined or put in context, I might agree, but it's definitely understood what it means in context, but putting that to words will be a biased statement from any source. --MASEM (t) 16:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the definitions provided by publications differ so much that picking a definition would ultimately be an arbitrary decision. Besides, none of them really get it right. Willhesucceed (talk) 16:12, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I disagree: the sourced definitions are perfectly apt. A linguist defining a term would look at how it is used to determine what it means, rather than accepting what the people using it say that it means. The sources do get it right: it's a pejorative term for people who speak up against bigotry, especially online. The people who use it frequently say that it really means someone who makes 'shallow' comments about social justice, or that it refers to people who are insencere and only use social justice to 'make themselves look better.' But the term is actually best defined by examining who and what it's used to describe, not what the users say it says about the people they level it against.

Again, we can not restrict sourced information just because it makes gaters look bad. If you don't want to go into what the reliable sources are saying about GamerGate's use of this term and what it says about the movement, we can leave it out. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

There are also more neutral definitions in some of the sources, and many of the sources vary as to the exact definition, so we can't arbitrarily pick which one to use. Willhesucceed (talk) 16:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

If you don't like the content I added, let's see the sources you'd rather use instead. All you're doing is asserting that conflicting sources exist and using it to argue against using any of them. Let's see the ones that conflict? -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

NPR calls it "an insulting term." [8] I again agree that it is entirely inappropriate for us to mention the phrase without mentioning the fact that it is a non-self-applied pejorative label created and singularly pushed by their ideological opponents. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:29, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That's fair, but when we start to broaden the ambit beyond that to explain what exactly it's meant to insult, we run into the problem that different sites say different things. For lack of a reliable dictionary definition, there's little else we can describe about it. Willhesucceed (talk) 04:52, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

If we're including the term to arm readers who want to look through the sources on the page we should at least do them the courtesy of noting its valence and various uses. We don't have to settle on a single definition just yet, but it's not the kind of term which can be on the page without elaboration as it is not commonly known and has specific meaning to this issue. Protonk (talk) 18:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Without knowing anything about the controversy, the term "Social Justice Warrior" already carries an implicit meaning - one that fights for social justice. Yes, when used in GG, it takes on also a more demeaning nature, however, you have sources reporting on what the term means that already don't like that term being used, and as such, is nearly always going to be defined by them more harshly than it really should be taken. As such, we can leave it at the implicit meaning particularly when enough context is established: it is what some proGG call Quinn and her supporters. --MASEM (t) 19:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The term is demeaning, insulting and pejorative, and is singularly used and applied by their opponents in an attempt to belittle their actions and motivations. We cannot use demeaning, insulting and pejorative labels without specifically citing its use and explaining the term as discussed in reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

As NBSB said, it's a pejorative, and we need to make that clear. If the only argument against including it is that it makes Gamergate look bad, I invite you to balance the information we've introduced on the term with well sourced pro-Gamergate information about its use (whatever that might be.) Fighting to exclude extremely well-sourced information that makes the movement look bad in the name of 'neutrality' is simple hypocrisy. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you 100% sure that every proGG person is using the term in a derogatory manner? I'm not proGG but I would disagree with that statement. There are definitely a handful of cases that "SJW" is tossed around insultingly at people, but at the same time, the term by itself is like "911 truther"; there's a negative connotation but that ranges from "they disagree with my opinion" (very slight, and hence not a bad thing) to something equivalent to like the n-word (grossly insulting). That said, I wouldn't have a problem saying that the term is sometimes used derogatorily towards the Quinn supporters, which can be sourced in a neutral manner. But we don't need further comment on why that term being used derogatorily is a bad thing - it's patently obvious already that that side is not seen in a positive light. --MASEM (t) 20:41, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

No, no and no. We have posted a number of sources describing the term as patently pejorative, insulting and demeaning. Do you have even a single source that describes the term as anything else? Yes, it's funny that it's supposed to be a bad thing that someone fights for social justice, but that's the intent of the term as applied against those who oppose harassment of women in gaming. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:44, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you 100% sure that every proGG person is using the term in a derogatory manner? That is so not how WP:RS works and you know it. We don't need to personally verify that it's being used this way all the time: that would be OR. We say what the sources say. If you have sourced information that shows that SJW is something other than a pejorative, please feel free to provide it. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:07, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Fine, the sources say it pejorative, and we can include that, but at the same time that also eliminates the need to go into the term more and provide a definition, though if we have to include a definition, the WA post's version "a derogatory term for people in the video-game industry who use the medium to talk about political issues" is about as neutral as appropriately needed here. --MASEM (t) 21:55, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

"creating a divide between consumers and game industry professionals including developers and journalists."

I'm aware that you don't necessarily need to include sources in the lede, but I don't agree that this is a good assessment of the issue. I added a citation needed tag, rather than simply removing it, to see if anyone could find reliable sources describing this as simply a 'consumers vs. industry' issue: I would contend that GamerGate is a subset of consumers all its own and doesn't represent the general gaming population. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:44, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Re this: what I actually said was that I refrained from removing it out of an overabundance of caution against 'revert warring,' to see if it could be supported by whoever added it. I didn't say anything about 'clarifying.' If it can't be sourced, it should go. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It is very obvious from the entire body that this exists (though being clear that it is not all gamers at play helps). The essence of GG is gamers vs dev/media from numerous sources. --MASEM (t) 16:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That's not obvious at all. It's clear there's a 'divide' between Gaters and the industry. Not all 'consumers' are gaters. Your phrasing also implies that it's only the industry on the other side of the 'divide,' when in fact there are plenty of 'consumers' over there as well. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:31, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Why don't you look into it yourself, Tara, and then you wouldn't be wasting the rest of the contributors' time? It's pretty easy to verify. Willhesucceed (talk) 16:37, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Says the guy who starts a new talkpage section every time he finds a source he thinks 'someone' should use in the article. I tagged the statement and started a talkpage section here rather than removing it to give whoever added it an opportunity to source or improve the statement. It's not my job to source something I don't think should be in the article to begin with. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's so terrible that I bring articles to the contributors' attention. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:15, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

And absolutely dreadful that I started a discussion about a change to the article I had concerns about instead of immediately reverting it. Everyone has access to Google news, so dumping sources onto the talk page and expecting other editors to evaluate and use them for you isn't exactly productive: if this discussion is a waste of time, those certainly are. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

While you and I know that there gamers that support the journos and devs here, we don't have sources that say this. --MASEM (t) 17:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Do we have sources that say otherwise, though? I'm not advocating saying 'between some consumers and the industry and some other consumers,' I'm advocating removing information that gives a skewed perception of the issue. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:29, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm with Tara. It's not obvious (at all) that GG is "gamers/pros versus devs and journalists". That's certainly a narrative that the GG side would like to adopt, but we could just as easily classify the issue as a flare up of resentment and tribalism from a narrow and dedicated group of individuals manifesting itself through sexism and threats against outsiders. Obviously that's the anti-GG side, but I think the bloodless wording belies a slant to the characterization which we need to address. Protonk (talk) 18:03, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The point of the statement is to identify who the participants in the controversy are, because it is not clear without it. Once you read the article, it is glaringly clear that it is a subset of the gamer community on one side, and devs/journalists on the other; these are not bright lines, there's likely some of each on the other side, but for the most part that is the classification. The article does not make that clear at any point, even though the sum of the parts says this. --MASEM (t) 19:30, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious from the whole article. Not sure about the devs part but seriously just google games journalism, and the "divide" has been growing since other incidents, like DoritoGate, mentioned at Keighley's article, the Kane & Lynch controversy, also mentioned, the Mass Effect 3 debacle, etc Loganmac (talk) 19:32, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That's the thing, though: it's a 'divide' between gaters on the one side, and games journalists and the marganalized audiences that gaters are railing against on the other. Gaters have been painting this as an 'industry vs the consumer' issue, but outside observers looking at the movements targets and tactics say otherwise. This looks like an attempt to give preference to the gaters' preferred narrative in defiance of the relaible sources on the matter. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, where are there sources that marganalized gamers are on the opposite side of the proGG side? There is a lot of fallout from certain actions that those that could care less about the matter will be affected by, but there are no sources that claim that there is a large contingient of gamers on the opposite side of the table from the proGG side. I mean, I don't deny they exist, I know a few, but I also know no sourcing is available to establish that. --MASEM (t) 20:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, where's the source that they aren't? You're essentially trying to open the article by introducing Gamergate's 'David vs Goliath' narrative, without providing any support other than saying that it's 'glaringly obvious' that it's true - even though you yourself acknowledge that there are gamers on both sides of the issue. As I haven't advocated changing it to 'Some Davids vs Goliath and some more Davids,' it's still you who needs to provide sources, not me. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:05, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

you shouldnt have to "read the article" to find out that it is a vanishingly small portion of gamers that hold the views/ participated in the assaults, that should be clear in the lead per WP:LEAD / WP:NPOV etc. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I found the Guardian's article spells out the sides explicitly, so readded with the source. --MASEM (t) 22:02, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

You're basing that on the summary under the headline from one article? That's a pretty poor justification for painting this entire issue, in the lede, as being a conflict between gamers and journalists. Look at the amount of sourcing that was necessary to retain the word 'misogyny' in the lede of the article. It's also worth noting that while Gamergate claims to be focusing on journalism and the industry, their real targets are somewhat more specific and we shouldn't suggest otherwise. -- TaraInDC (talk) 22:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It is patently obvious it is primarily between gamers and journalists/devs. That's " It is a war between self-identifying “gamers” and video game critics." gives. Yes there are exceptions, but every major mainstream articles clearly paints it this way. --MASEM (t) 23:02, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it's not and no, they don't.

• The New York Times — "For a little more than a month, a firestorm over sexism and journalistic ethics has roiled the video game community..." [9]
• National Public Radio: "For the past several weeks, the video game industry has been embroiled in a heated, sometimes ugly, debate..." [10]
• Marketplace: "There's a fight underway that's tearing apart the community of people who play, write about, enthuse and obsess over video games." [11]
• Vox: "Over the past several weeks, the online video game community has become ground zero for a series of heated discussions and arguments..." [12]

I can go on. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:11, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that phrasing doesn't fully identify which side is which, but when you gather all the sources, the split is patently obvious. And this should be clear who the "players" are in the lead (which should state the who, what, when, with the body doing the how and why of the matter), but it presently doesn't. Considering it is a broad stroke that doesn't dig into the details of the exceptional cases, what is exactly wrong with "a portion of the gamers vs game journo/devs"? What is factually wrong about that the sources in the article counter? --MASEM (t) 23:15, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It is false and misleading to state, in the lede and in Wikipedia's voice, that the only people on one side of the argument are "gamers" and the only people on the other side of the argument are "journalists and developers." That is a vast, yawning and unacceptable oversimplification of a complex issue. There are journalists on one side (Milo Yiannopoulos and Erik Kain among them) and gamers on the other, as can be easily demonstrated.

It is not possible to identify who the "players" are in the lede in the simple and neat way you would like. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:19, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you can as a broad statement is 100% appropriate for the lead. --MASEM (t) 23:43, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

A broad and accurate statement would be appropriate for the lede, but we have is a broad statement that is backed up by a lone source when there are many others that disagree. The 'split' is not "patently obvious. If it were patently obvious, we would not be here. It only 'obviosu' that is a conflict within the gaming community. It is obvious that the gaters would like to present it as a 'consumer revolt' and a 'battle' between the little guy gamers and the big bad media, but that's not what our sources are saying. A majority of our sources, as evidenced by those that NBSB provided, are not treating this as a conflict between gamers and journalists, but one within the gaming community, so that's what the article needs to say. -- TaraInDC (talk) 23:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

To consider: is GG part of a larger social trend (beyond video games)

First, this is inspired by this article [13] but I would not use this article to support this. But it's implying (and I've seen other elements of this) that what's happening in GG is one facet of what is happening in other media areas as well. It would be interesting to see if there are sources that point this out, but at the moment I'm not aware of any and I would not add this until this point is clear. --MASEM (t) 17:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I haven't seen any source saying that, other than Milo comparing it to the JournoList Loganmac (talk) 19:26, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Exactly, hence why I'm not going to add anything until we can a few more better non-SPS sources on this concept, should it exist. --MASEM (t) 20:35, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Forbes again on Alexander, Intel, etc.

Link Willhesucceed (talk) 18:56, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Oh, look and he references his Radio Nero talk at the end. Does this mean Radio Nero is to be considered reliable for interviewees' opinions? Willhesucceed (talk) 19:00, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• That narrative of gamergate should be slotted under 'fiction', not referenced in the article, but oh well. Protonk (talk) 19:03, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• The more I see of Kain's work the more concerned I am about using him in this article. We have a plethora of much more reliable sources. Not that I think Wikiproject Video Games is the sole arbiter of what sources can be considered reliable in this article ,I note that on their list of 'situational' sources they say: "Articles written by Forbes contributors do not have the same editorial oversight and may not be reliable. Editors are encouraged to find alternatives to contributor pieces." I don't think we should be including any information in this article at this point that can only be sourced to Kain, and I don't think we should be quoting him directly alongside more reliable industry voices. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:26, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Is Kain too problematic for you huh? Loganmac (talk) 20:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

How observant of you. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:47, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

While Leigh Alexander's Time article is still up? Ya, that's not happening. Willhesucceed (talk) 20:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That sounds like a false equivalency. Does Leigh Alexander's Time article has a similar editorial status to Kain's contributor pieces on Forbes? Or do you just think she should be excluded because she's 'biased' because gaters don't like her opinions? -- TaraInDC (talk) 20:34, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's a matter of egregiousness. If Leigh, with her abundant COI, which is easily discernible from her opinion pieces, her jobs, her Twitter account, etc., is allowed to contribute to this article, someone who's not toeing the line 100% but who's very well-respected in the industry is certainly allowed a place. None of what Erik writes in any of his articles is Crazy Land. Everything has been acknowledged in other sources. Willhesucceed (talk) 23:00, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it's still a false equivalency. I get that you dohn't like Alexander, but her use in this article is irrellevant here. This is not about how many pro- or anti- gamergate sources are used in this article. This is about our policies as they relate to this specific source. Forbes contributor pieces simply do not have the same weight as other Forbes articles, because of the nature of their contributor program. In addition to the Wikiproject Video Games list I referenced earlier, there are many discussions in the archives of WP:RSN that discuss contributor blogs' reliablity (or lack thereof). They are not vetted or fact checked in the way that regular Forbes articles (and the articles of most reliable publications) are; they only represent the author's own work, with very little or no editorial oversight. It is very plain that at the best this should be treated as an opinion piece, not a news source. It's at least above a self-published source, but that still isn't saying all that much. He may be considered reliable for video game coverage (I haven't seen a discussion on that pointed out) but we're not just talking about video games here. We're not using him as a source for when the next big AAA game is coming out. He's not automatically reliable as a news source just because he's been used for gaming-specific news in the past. -- TaraInDC (talk) 23:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The guy has written for Forbes, Slate, The Atlantic, Business Insider, The Week, Techonomy, and Mediaite. I'm pretty sure he knows how to write an article. It's also not like Forbes lets their contributors throw whatever they want onto the website. Willhesucceed (talk) 00:27, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, that's all great, but what he's writing here is an opinion blog that is not under any sort of editorial control. I'm not saying he 'doesn't know how to write an article,' I'm saying that this is not a news article with Forbes's editorial stamp on it. That's why contributor blogs are not universally regarded as reliable sources and have to be evaluated individually when they're used. The problem isn't the quality of his writing, it's that this is a distinctly low-tier source because of the nature of Forbes's contributors program. We shouldn't be making making such heavy use of one journalist's opinion and we certainly can't use it to source anything but his opinion. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:35, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Look, it's a bit preposterous to claim that there's no editorial control. Forbes has a reputation to protect, unlike, say, The Huffington Post. If Erik Kain has been writing for them for this long, it's because he's been doing a good job. They also have "producers" which deal with the contributors' pages. I don't know what that entails, but it is input from at least one other person on the articles. Finally, if hexun.com thinks he's good enough to use as a source, he's good enough; they're the largest financial website in China. Willhesucceed (talk) 03:27, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

That's the consensus we have on this source. Here's an article that describes how the contributor model works that might shed some light. And even if we didn't have any standing consensus on Forbes contributors, a good general rule of thumb is that any source that has a 'does not represent the opinions of' disclaimer is an opinion source, not a news source. Currently he's already getting too much weight in this article, especially given that he's not particularly notable for his commentary on gamergate. We should seek to diversify the opinions we're using, rather than piling in ever more citations to Erik Kain. -- TaraInDC (talk) 03:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll have a look at that, but just a quick note: if there's anyone that's considered reliable at Forbes re: the video gaming industry, it's Kain. Willhesucceed (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

If that were true I'd expect there to be a note to that effect in that source list indicating he's an exception to the projects advice for editors to 'find alternatives to contributor pieces,' but that's beside the point: he's not just reporting on video games here, he's reporting on a social phenomenon. -- TaraInDC (talk) 04:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The ultimate question is whether or not he is a reliable source. You seem to be suggesting otherwise, but he frequently cites secondary sources and makes note of what he is discussing and where he is pulling information from. Frankly, he does more fact-checking than a lot of the supposedly professional journalists, many of whom make factual errors. The New Yorker in their coverage, for instance, appeared to rely almost exclusively on Zoe Quinn as a source and as a result made at least two factual errors, one of them hopeful, the other one pretty major (they claimed that Grayson had not had his professional ethics attacked, something which innumerable sources contradict directly, including Kotaku itself) and that's being generous to them. Is Kain making lots of mistakes? Is Kain referenced by other people as someone who matters/knows what he is talking about? The answer to the first appears to be no, and the answer to the second, doing some Googling, appears to be yes. He seems legitimate enough. I dunno. Our ultimate goal with reliable sources is to make sure that the information they are giving us is, well, reliable. Do we have any really good reason to doubt his reliability on this matter? Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

@TaraInDC: Incidentally, where are you seeing the 'does not represent the opinions of'? I don't see anything like that I go to his articles. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The New Yorker in their coverage, for instance, appeared to rely almost exclusively on Zoe Quinn as a source Oh, good lord, this again. "They just took her word for it all and didn't fact check!!!!!" Gters all think they're authorities on journalism, don't they? It's a profile of her. That doesn't mean that they didn't fact check. I can tell you with confidence that information that is sourced only to Quinn and not independently verified will be phrased in a way that makes the fact clear, and that anything that isn't is a statement that The New Yorker has verified to the point where they feel comfortable making it uncritically. Your claims of 'factual errors' are spurious. We don't pick apart sources, find wording we disagree with, and use that wording to discredit the entire source, and we especially don't do it in an effort to frame an opinion columnist as The Only Neutral Journalist. Kain's pieces are clearly labeled as opinion (The exact quote is "Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.") I do not have to prove that Kain is making factual errors here: my argument is quite simply that he is an opinion columnist and must be treated as such, and that his opinions must not be given any special weight in comparison with others just because he's one of the few sources available that the gaters like. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:26, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Interesting quotes here

• "people say conservative actor Adam Baldwin started #GamerGate, and he certainly was the one who came up with the hashtag, but it was Leigh Alexander and the flood of similar articles following hers that truly sparked this backlash against the games media"
• "Now we have writers at video game publications perpetuating this stereotype for absolutely no good reason other than to keep a flame-war burning"

It should be added if weight is needed sometime Loganmac (talk) 19:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Why are you being so confrontational?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

We already give Kain more space and quote him more often than any other single writer in this article. I realize that he's basically the only reliable source you want to quote because he's the only one that consistently agrees with your position, but this is getting kind of silly. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:39, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Chill out, it's OK, just leave that quote out. Wouldn't you say it was problem that all reactions to Intel were negative in that paragraph? I tried adding some neutrality. And no, I disagree with him in a lot of things, like where he says boycotts are bad. And no he's not the only reliable source I want to quote. Loganmac (talk) 22:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

And here's another Forbes writer: link. Willhesucceed (talk) 21:45, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I may be wrong but I think only Erik Kain was found to be RS at Forbes blogs Loganmac (talk) 22:16, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Each contributor is given individual weight. Erik Kain has a long standing of knowing his stuff (see the Mass Effect 3 fiasco, for example), but I don't see a reason to exclude this opinion, if it's needed. Willhesucceed (talk) 22:51, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It is worth noting that Paul Tassi also wrote an article about the same subject matter on Forbes today. Seriously, Leigh Alexander should not be being used as a source for factual information here. As far as Kain goes, given that he has continually cited other sources and demonstrated that his material is well-researched, I don't see any reason to not use him as a source. He has done a better job of fact-checking than a lot of other sources have. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Will you shut up about your and the movement's perception that anything Leigh Alexander writes is biased and unusable on this page? It's just the same shit repeated every other day.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:33, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

POV tag

And so, a POV tag should remain. Skrelk (talk) 21:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

We've addressed the POV aspects numerous times on this page, and have come to the consensus that there's little we can do to correct the fact that the press will bias their reporting on this. --MASEM (t) 21:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I've provided links, in my previous post on this talk page to several unbiased sources. If you take out Vox, Verge, Gawker, etc, most reporting is unbiased, and the raw facts from some of the factually credible biased reporting can be rendered NPOV, and suitable. Skrelk (talk) 22:06, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

And we're addressed those already and sme of them were already being used, and one fails our RS policy. Additionally, no reporting on this will be unbiased, and we are using the least-biased sources to set the framework of events and core issues. That's all within POV policy. --MASEM (t) 22:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

You also removed cites to the Los Angeles Times and The Telegraph — both of which are impeccable mainstream sources. So basically "If you take all of the sources out that I disagree with, then the sources are unbiased." Quite. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:57, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Those are really low quality sources, to be fair, even if they are reliable. There are any number of other sources that could replace them, and for the better, although I don't see why the sentence has to be loaded with references; two sources seems good enough, anyway. Willhesucceed (talk) 00:43, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'd say it's pretty resolved. I'd also point out that the entire foundation of gamergate is straight out of The Paranoid Style in American Politics. It requires (as entre) acceptance of a conspiracy between journalists, indie developers and various other actors. All reasoning stems from that, so sources which don't reaffirm this specific worldview are untrusted or biased. Rather than trying to find bias you're looking at the outcome and judging intent based on that. So we're not going to satisfy claims of neutrality for this WP:FRINGE position without treating it as though its fundamental basis weren't a complete fucking mess. It's impossible. What we're going to do is try to describe the movement using the more reliable sources and summarize from that. Using those we would all try to make the most neutral possible summary, but not without granting, in the voice of the encyclopedia, the megaphone to a fringe viewpoint. If doing so makes the gamergate position seem beleaguered, cruel or dare I say sexist, then that's rough, but it's how it has to work. Protonk (talk) 22:24, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

The claim that GamerGate backers have legitimate concerns is not a fringe position, and it does not require the acceptance of a conspiracy, it alleges that journalistic ethics were violated. As is, the article is granting the encyclopedic megaphone to the anti-GG side of the issue. And I would point out that you have biases on your part. Skrelk (talk) 22:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Which is convenient when it's needed to make a loud stink over perceived bias by insinuating that tenuous connections represent in-group circlejerking and privilege granting and therefore disqualify sources which don't buy the line that it's just all about vidya. Protonk (talk) 22:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Claiming that every single source which disagrees with GamerGate is doing so because of some massive agreement among every journalist to be biased rather than the fact that a large number of people think GamerGate is attempting to intimidate women and other social critics of video games into silence is, yes, what we call a conspiracy theory. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:04, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

"Claiming that every single source which disagrees with GamerGate is doing so because of some massive agreement among every journalist to be biased". That's not what people have been saying, and you know that's not what people have been saying. If you and Tarc and TRPoD and Ryulong could stop attributing willful misinterpretations, that would be great. Willhesucceed (talk) 05:06, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It's hilarious though that he linked to a Tumblr .gif, I just... Loganmac (talk) 22:18, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

It's interesting to remove a template that says 'Do not remove this until the dispute is resolved' The article is clearly slanted towards one direction. Whether that's the absence of reliable sources in the other direction is to be discussed and hopefully to be resolved. That's what a NPOV dispute is. Some people don't think the article is neutral, tag it, then discussion ensues. It's also disheartening to see so many shortly closed recent discussions. I'm sure some are for good reasons, while others...not so much. Tutelary (talk) 23:08, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

When the same arguments that have long been discussed and come to a conclusion by people new to the debate (and in a case like this, where we know there's outside influences to try to change this), closing retreading discussions is acceptable. Until something new is brought to the table to point out the problem, it's wasting the time of editors to readdress. that's why there's an archive page for others to review and determine what new information they can bring. --MASEM (t) 23:10, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Would you mind linking me to that consensus you mentioned in your first post under this header? Tutelary (talk) 23:21, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Just go through every single fucking archive of this article and see the same thing get rehashed every other thread by a brand new voice bitching about the same exact things as every other voice that came before. This article is beseiged by single purpose accounts seeking to push a pro-Gamergate point of view on the page by removing everything that they consider is anti-gamergate because of some conspiracy they have in their minds that everyone in the media is out to get them and that only people who are as vindictive and pro-gamergate as they are are the unbiased voices in the crowd. That's why Milo Yiannopoulos is being touted as their savior right now because he acts just like they do and wrote something that put them in a positive light and put everyone they've been attacking in a negative light.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:28, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Laurie Penny

Is the Laurie Penny citation appropriate? kencf0618 (talk) 22:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think so. I didn't revert it just now because I didn't want to make two unrelated changes in one edit, but I'm off to take a closer look. Protonk (talk) 22:52, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
• I've removed it. Protonk (talk) 22:55, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
  • She's a notable feminist author and journalist, so despite the strong language I believe that she should be cited as a non-gamer commentator. kencf0618 (talk) 23:25, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I read the the article, it states (This article was previously published on Laurie-Penny.com—Comments are open and heavily moderated by the Don't-Push-Your-Luckdragon. Deal.) It's a self published source being published on a new source unedited and unreviewed and should not be used as a result. Tutelary (talk) 23:29, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Unreviewed, true, but neither Cory Doctorow nor Boing Boing are chopped liver. kencf0618 (talk) 23:40, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

That's true, but I'd submit BB can do a good job of letting the reader judge that, rather than presuming it'll apply transitively. Looks like a straight reprint. I think it's just easier (And clearer, if the reprint is why we're reading this) to cite BB. Protonk (talk) 01:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

A self published source doesn't not become a self published source when it's literally copy and pasted from her own website to BoingBoing (which sounds like it would be a questionable source in itself) . They literally took it off of her website and put it on their own website. It was not under their editorial control, and for such a big controversy like GamerGate, should be full heartedly dismissed as it's a SPS. Tutelary (talk) 01:07, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, that's exactly what happens when something that was initially self-published is reproduced elsewhere: it's now being published by BoingBoing, not just by Laurie Penny, so it's no longer self-published. -- TaraInDC (talk) 01:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not super thrilled with its use in the article, mind you. I will look through the talk page to see why specifically it was added, because we are offering her as an opinion but clearly one which stems from an analysis and one which is very pointed. So I'd like to make sure we've got the best quote from her if we decide we want to keep it. Protonk (talk) 01:46, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• I think that there are better quotes in the article that make the same basic point without using the word "cunt" 3 times, like this one: "The people who are so unspeakably angry that women dare, they dare with their stupid ladyheads and evil ladyparts, they dare to come into their special boy spaces and actually demand a voice, they don't understand why not everyone can see how right they are, how noble, how absolutely justified they are in their cause." Kaciemonster (talk) 02:01, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

That'll work. kencf0618 (talk) 02:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

No, it's SPS, it's biased as hell and frankly her opinion it's irrelevant and barely important to video games Loganmac (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, a notable opinion outside gaming. kencf0618 (talk) 02:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I didn't post the quote to start a discussion on whether or not the source is relevant enough to include in this article, considering there's already a discussion about that literally right above me. I posted it because there is already a quote from the source in this article, and I wanted to suggest an alternative that was essentially the same but didn't use the word cunt. Kaciemonster (talk) 02:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Protected

Fully protected for a few days due to edit warring. Dreadstar ☥ 23:14, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Given that there is CLEARLY a POV dispute, how about adding a POV tag? Skrelk (talk) 23:22, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

@Dreadstar: This article is presently undergoing dispute resolution about WP:UNDUE, and there is a POV dispute on the article. It probably needs at least one of those tags. Titanium Dragon (talk) 02:08, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Fourth time, if my count's correct. Does this topic have a cooling off period...? kencf0618 (talk) 23:27, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Admins only, that will surely fix the POV Loganmac (talk) 02:13, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

There is currently no actual POV issue to address; just the same, tired arguments by the same tiny handful of off-site agitators. Tarc (talk) 02:14, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Given that the preponderance of reliable sources suggests that the issue is about far more than harassment, and that censorship is a major issue which the article does not adequetely address, it is pretty clear it has issues. The consensus has been clear for a long time, Tarc. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Your statement is a distortion and cherry-picking of facts to suit your own minority point-of-view. This point-of-view will never be represented in this and related articles to the degree that you wish it to be, as this project does not gives undue weight to minor critics. The sooner you realize this, the sooner this topic area settles down. Tarc (talk) 13:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

• I recommend following WP:PER for any potential additions to a protected article. Dreadstar ☥ 02:45, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

My larger concern here...

Trust me, I'm in no way trying to change the current broad tone of this article - however, I am seriously concerned that there is a problem with editors that are decidedly anti-GG (or definitely not proGG) trying to use this as a platform to include any negative comments about the proGG as they can under the guise that because we don't have really good unbias sourcing and the media is painting the proGG side in the negative light, we can pile up the negativity without violating policy.

If you haven't done it already, a good exercise for those editors on the non-proGG side is to read some of these Reddit and other forum threads about this article. Yes, we know there's outside influences, but when you see why they are angry about it, and read this article in light of those comments, the issues they point out are glaring. And many commentators in those thread recognize our hands our tied by WP's sourcing policy but they recognize that some of the ways we include specific elements is creating a bias against them when there are other ways - from the same set of sources - to present the same information without that same bias. Obviously there's some on these forums that decree the use of any of the sites that they are protesting (ala Polygon, RPS, Gamasutra) but there's a few that are definitely aware that what we're trying to write here is not something we can just swing to their desired version but should be able to do what is basically the same job using the same sources but without the amount of negativity that this has towards proGG. Not to change the story, but to tone down the rhetoric.

What we should be doing is making sure that if we are including opinion on this article, it is a necessarily opinion to express a point that cannot be more neutrally worded or a more neutral quote used. For example, on the issue of SJW, one could easily pull a definition that paints those that use the term in poor light, but there exists a more neutral statement that still denoted it was a dejoratory term but avoids the opininated language about the proGG side.

A thing to keep in mind - the initial week or two of events from Quinn's allegations was heated and a lot of people wrote about the topic in an emotional manner. With the main events now past and people thinking and writing about this in a more rationale manner, we should be looking to retain the existing content on the factual matters but try to swap out and/or remove highly opinated pieces that aren't really necessary to establish the context of this article. --MASEM (t) 23:38, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

If the reliable sources are depicting something negatively, it's not our job to write the article with a purposeful intent to cover up or minimize that negativity.

I do not read what pro-GGers think of this article any more than I seek out the opinion of anti-GGers about this article. I honestly don't care what anyone on either side thinks of it. I care what the reliable sources say, and they're pretty much unanimous. One can either believe that there is some sort of evil globe-spanning journalistic cabal conspiracy to support women who are being harassed, or one can believe that it's the honest opinion of a whole lot of people from a wide variety of backgrounds that the movement's goals are poisonous and retrograde. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:46, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

There's a difference between writing about an actual action that, at the larger scope, taken as negative (like the harassment issues and the doxxing), and writing on the opinion of those people that did that action beyond what other sources say. For example, there is no way we can remove the "fact" that the original harassment aspects were called misogynistic becauase a plurality of sources, all across the bias spectrum, used that terminology. But if one were to describe the entire proGG side as misogynistic now, that's not a commonly shared viewpoint and should not be included at all even if we can source a quote for that.

You should care what outside sources say, though we can't let them influence us directly. My point is that we are using the sources at our disposal in a manner that is not very encyclopedic even through it might seem like we are. We have to be clinical and that's not an approach I see being taken by others here. --MASEM (t) 00:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Masem, I don't think you understand identity politics very well. You can stand on a soapbox all day long and proclaim that you aren't something, but if others carrying your flag are doing that same thing... your flag is going to be seen as standing for it, whether you like it or not. There likely are a lot of well-intentioned folks in the movement. Unfortunately, their flag is covered in the muck of nonsensical and false allegations about an obscure female developer's sex life; ongoing harassment of that developer and others; third-grade-level sex jokes; continued attempts to silence dissenting voices in the gaming community; the absurd idea that journalists should have neither opinions nor any social contact with other journalists; and a strange, inexplicable fixation on the ethics of social criticism and indie games rather than the ethics of multi-billion-dollar AAA publishers with a known history of actually buying positive coverage or having writers fired for negative coverage.

As reliable sources have noted, going after a game industry news site for publishing a female writer's opinion is not doing anything to dispel the notion that "the misogynist language used by many supporters has put the movement at the center of the conversation about how women are treated in the gaming industry." [14]

The word "GamerGate" is now permanently associated with misogyny, much as "states' rights" became permanently associated with segregationism. Which is why Zoe Quinn long ago suggested that those truly interested in issues of journalism ethics come up with another hashtag. The baggage has already attached and it's not going anywhere. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:14, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Identity politics are not Wikipedia's concern. Wikipedia's concern is being accurate. Willhesucceed (talk) 00:33, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

GamerGate is identity politics, and the article is currently pretty accurate. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It is true - Zoe Quinn and her compadres are all about identity politics. Given that a writer for Breitbart has gotten a syringe in the mail at this point, the idea of "guilt by association" would look pretty bad for you, no? Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:07, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello, false equivalencies. One scary thing happened to poor Milo (and it's not as though Gamergate is the only, shall we say 'controversial' thing he does.) A shitton of scary things have happened to a whole lot of people who have said things gamergate doesn't approve of. This is not parity. This is not 'both sides are at fault.' There is simply no comparison, and that's why the mainstream media isn't writing articles about how much harassment gamergaters are getting. If the 'other side' were only making the kind of isolated claims of harassment that the gaters have made, it would be a very different story. But that is not what's happening. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:36, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Masem, reddit is a cesspool only the barest of bare steps above 4chan/b/. An encyclopedia project that is to contain topical articles that reflect what reliable sources says about that topic is not even remotely interested in a discussion board and the opinions of its denizens, any more than Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories takes stock of what the Free Republic has to say about the president's birth certificate. Such places do...not...matter. Tarc (talk) 23:53, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

You just proved my point. I'm well aware that Reddit is far from any authority but I'm not looking to them as that, I'm looking at what they see and what we can improve on, and treating their concerns in as much as we can within WP is something we should be striving for, not ignoring just because Reddit is Reddit. I mean, I'm reading past the noise when I go there, but there are enough self-aware people at these forums to simply ignore those words is doing exactly what this article explains that we're painting the entire proGG as crazy, wacky people due to the actions of a few. --MASEM (t) 00:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Masem - please stop attempting to appease POV pushers by attempting "balance" - it weakens the article, it doesn't actually make them happier (only a fully counterfactual article would), it's repeatedly resulted in us substituting strong sources for weak ones and it basically constitutes a futile excercise in troll feeding. Just stop. Artw (talk) 00:10, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

BS. We need to be clinical, hands-off, no investment in either side of the debate, and we are presently not. We can do a whole lot better while still being true to how the story is presented. --MASEM (t) 00:23, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

And we portray the debate as the reliable sources portray it — that is, if the intent truly was to have a conversation about "journalism ethics," framing that conversation around allegations about an obscure indie developer's sex life stemming from a spurned ex-boyfriend's "strange, rambling attack" was catastrophically stupid and inappropriate, which leads inevitably to the suggestion that the actual intent was to harass and slut-shame a female developer because some people didn't like her game. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying we need to remove that. That's what the sources are saying, and until the sources changes, facts we can't ignore. We have to say that or we're not summarizing the sources. But we don't have to repeat that point over and over and over and over by using every possible anti-GG quote to support it, which is what is happening in some places on this. It's why I say its a pile-on - the point has been made, there's no need to keep rubbing it in even if there's a plethora of sources that try to do that. --MASEM (t) 00:34, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

We ignore them because their opinions are irrelevant. This isn't a blog. If a redditor comes here and wishes to to conform to the the norms and policies and guidelines of the project then that is great. If they come here screaming "THIS ARTICLE IS SO BAISED!!!!!!!!!!" and try to gut the quite reliably-sourced misogyny POV, then they should be run out on a rail. Tarc (talk) 00:08, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

A sanctimonious call for patience and understanding and 'seeing the other side' targeted at the 'anti-gamergate' editors rather than the small army of SPAs and POV pushers? Lovely. I'll pass on reading through KiA, thanks. My blood pressure can't take it. If this is about your opposition to including the basic information that "Social Justice Warrior" is a pejorative, remember that you're the one who rejected the alternative of leaving the term out to avoid having to say something bad about the gaters. And incidentally, informing us that you're neutral and anyone pushing back against the legion of SPAs is not doesn't make either of those things true. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:09, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:SPA is an essay, while often cited, is not a rule. As long as an editor conforms to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, I really couldn't care less what topics they edit, as long as they can justify them. POV pushers are hard to define and have an infinite scope. I was charged as a POV pusher when I removed a BLP violation some vandal had put. Anybody can use it and we have to be cautious. That being said, there does need to be consistency in the ideals of whether to allow something to be explained, left out, criticized with sources, or some other variant. Tutelary (talk) 00:43, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not a rule, but I didn't say it is. It is a problem, and one that Wikipedia encounters frequently, especially in internet kerfuffles like this one. Pretending that there's nothing wrong with an article's talk page being overrun by editors with few or no contributions outside a particular article and subject (especially when they are also advocating a very strong opinion of that subject in defiance of reliable sources) would make Wikipedia far too vulnerable to offsite canvasing. It doesn't have to be a policy to carry weight in an argument, and pointing out that it's an issue here is very relevant when one side is being called out as not being understanding enough of the other side. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:52, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Afd's are the only place where I've seen SPAs have their opinions discounted and be rubber stamped by admins, as it's at the behest of the article's staying or the article's deletion. Whether we'd want to disregard them for other things, like this, should be the nature of whether they are being disruptive or not. Whether they were authoritatively canvassed or not. We should also be natured of WP:AGF, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Also whether they're following guidelines and policies or not. But should they fake their 10 edits and spew BLP crap on this talk page, that's the end of AGF and I'm willing to propose blocks. In short, I don't think we can discount SPAs based solely on them being SPAs, let's look at what they say first. Should they say something like 'WP:CENSORSHIP means that we can qualify Zoe Quinn as a -insert derogatory term here' then disregard all you want. I'll be at your side. But if it's more like 'I really think more due weight should be focused on this source, here's why:' then no. Tutelary (talk) 01:01, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I have not advocated for the SPAs' 'opinions being discounted;' I'm saying that when an article is being besieged by a large number of very inexperienced editors complaining about 'bias' because the article describes the movement the way the mainstream sources do, lecturing other editors about how they should be nicer to the poor SPAs and try harder to see their side is simply not likely to lead to a more pleasant editing environment - it's hostile to editors who are trying to abide by Wikipedia policy, and reassures those who aren't that they are in the right. A single SPA can be managed. A number of them all loudly declaring the article 'biased!!!1' against their side can make productive editing very, very difficult (and it has). So whether it's policy or not, pointing out what's actually going on here when responding to Masem's impassioned plea for compassion for the pro-Gamergate POV pushers is entirely relevant. -- TaraInDC (talk) 06:16, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Thing is, the mainstream sources aren't portraying it the way the article is either - it is overly reliant on fringe views, the views of people involved like Zoe Quinn and Leigh Alexander. Indeed, a great number of sources suggest that the idea that it is centered around misogyny is simply false - the vast majority of the sources depict the harassment which has taken place not as the center of the thing but being a result of it. What we need to be doing is reporting on reality. The harassment. The censorship. The hacking. The attacks on journalists on both sides. Ect. Just because they're newbies doesn't mean that they can't tell something is wrong, and the reality is that several users here are what have been referred to as "culture warriors"; when they see people referring to them as "misogynists" and "virgins" on the talk page, it is not surprising that they get upset. The sad fact of the matter is that the hostility towards these people is very real and very much here, and many users here appear to be happy to turn a blind eye towards this misbehavior.

If you look at the DRN about this article, I've been working on categorizing sources, and the reality is that the bulk of the sources we're citing in major news sources do not appear to support the idea that it is primarily about harassment - harassment is a part of the thing, but a number of sources have noted that the focus on the idea that it is misogynistic and all about harassment is a tactic used by one side (the so-called culture warriors, SJWs, activism-central journalists, whatever you want to call them) in order to discredit the other side. Given the massive amounts of harassment which has been leveled at people trying to report on the issue, and the fact that several sites have actually changed their ethics standards as a result of this (one of the only tangible things which has actually happened as a result of all this), it seems very hard to say that the article is not putting WP:UNDUE notice on one side's point of view. Both sides have engaged in wide-scale harassment and issues with the integrity of games journalists has been something which has been brewing for many years.

We definitely need to cover the harassment, but it should be noted that it has occurred on both sides, and we really should be focusing more on facts than opinions. What happened, when, who was involved, ect. as well as the background of the players involved. The goal of Wikipedia is to present information to allow people to make up their own minds, not to make up their minds for them. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:20, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Would you stop going out of your way to discredit Zoe Quinn and Leigh Alexander? And would you stop fucking saying someone's been called "virgin" when I've said time and time again that it's the self-appelation of one of the centers of this discussion rather than a pejorative name for them? And for fucks sake no one is saying that Gamergate is solely about harassment and misogyny. We're saying that it's an aspect that cannot be played down. And there is no proof that anyone from the journalist/Quinn side of things has leveled any sort of tangible harassment to the gamer/gater side of things. Your claim above that Breitbart received a syringe in the mail is unsubstantiated, particularly because Breitbart is not known for its integrity to begin with.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:48, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Your claim that "both sides have engaged in wide-scale harassment" is simply not supported by the available reliable sources. No doubt this is because all the reliable sources are biased, as usual. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it is beyond the pale to treat gamergate as on the doorstep of fringe material, largely due to the focus on reframing a campaign of sexism and harassment as some sterned nosed but blameless inquisition into "games journalism" that just happens to be incredibly gendered and grew out of some spurned ex saying that a woman who made an unremarkable and until then basically unremarked upon game had slept with some dudes. It strains credulity that we would want to cull sources due to or demand equal time for this viewpoint as though it were not stitched together post hoc rationalization for marginalizing critical (especially but not exclusively female) views. Protonk (talk) 00:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Your attempts to discredit high quality sources you don't like and elevate lower quality ones you do are completely transparent. I'm not going to waste time here addressing your laundry list of 'concerns,' as they've already been addressed again and again. The piece in The New Yorker is fine. Alexander's article in Time is fine. Your 'categorization' of sources is your opinion and your opinion alone. Proclaiming yourself to be neutral doesn't make it true. You have a very clear, very strong bias, not to mention a rather uncomfortable fixation on toing the line of WP:BLP by taking jabs at women like Quinn and Alexander.

Those are the -facts-. In fact, they're just about the only concrete things which have happened! That is aside from the women who've been hounded out of their careers and the chilling effect it's having on women still in the industry who run the risk of being the next victims every time they step out of line and say something the gaters don't like. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It's not about pulling sources or giving proGG more time, but just using more neutral statements when such are available, and cutting out some of the more negative opinions that are not essential to established points. --MASEM (t) 00:52, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Are you aware that you have reverted this article, well, a lot in the past 24 hours? Several of those reverts were removals of tags and other pretty clearly unhelpful changes, but at least five were unambigous content disputes. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] You're simply not the person to be lecturing anyone about collegiality right now. -- TaraInDC (talk) 00:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The last two are still under discussion so the changes shouldn't have been made in the first place. The rest weren't needed. Willhesucceed (talk) 01:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

That's not how WP:3RR works. -- TaraInDC (talk) 01:49, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

The last two changes shouldn't have been made, so it would seem to me they don't count. The first two changes are two changes which weren't needed, anyway. He could have fielded the changes out to other people, with the same result. I wish someone had told me about this rule when there was edit warring going on over Sommers. Let's focus on more important things than of petty bureaucracy. Willhesucceed (talk) 02:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Again, that is quite simply not how 3RR works, and I'd encourage you to familiarize yourself with it if you think otherwise. -- TaraInDC (talk) 02:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Alright, then whoever(s) it is that warred with me over Sommers deserve(s) to be given a time-out. Willhesucceed (talk) 04:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

As I recall it was multiple 'someones' just because you were reverted more than once does not mean someone else broke the three revert rule. -- TaraInDC (talk) 05:04, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I must have warred back and forth with someone over an edit at least twenty times. The responsible persons should be suspended. Willhesucceed (talk) 13:07, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

It takes two to tango. If there were only two participants in the edit war you seem to remember, you were likely in violation yourself. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:27, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

There's a lot of editors here that have done edit-warring like revisions too (I'm not dismissing that claim), but that's deflecting the issue. I'm looking at the fact that there is definitely a spirit of "we can put tons of blame on the proGG side because we have no sourcing to stop us presenting the other side", which is not how we write encyclopedic articles. Clinical, neutral stances, which some of these changes were not appropriate or. --MASEM (t) 02:22, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

And I'm telling you that your perception that 'anti-GG' editors are out to 'get' gamergate is inaccurate, and that you should consider your own behavior on this page and how your own biases might be informing it. -- TaraInDC (talk) 02:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty confident in my point that this article is not as clinically hands off as it should be. Taking comments made by other major contributors clearly shows that they do not want to give any sort of positive treatment of the proGG side at all, and thus the inclusion of certain quotes or framing of certain facts is indicative of this. Again, I'm not arguing that we need to change sources, or change the overall approach and structure of this article - as it clear, this is pretty decent in terms of presenting the situation as the media gives it. But there's specific detailed choices that have been added or were added and removed that, when you tie in with the percieved attitudes towards the proGG from certain editors, tell me that there's a pile on of that dislike being pushed in the article when it does not need it. No one editing has to support proGG but we also have to realize that there are legitimized concerns here and they are people too, and perputating the intense dislike that some members of the press have taken to the entire group is not in any way helpful to this article, and why it will continue to be a target of external pressure to be changed.

Again, I implore those that think this article is fine to step back realize what is being said about it elsewhere and taking the position of a proGG that was otherwise not involved in the harassment aspects. --MASEM (t) 05:25, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

What, pray tell, are we supposed to be giving a "positive treatment" to? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:36, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

We can't (unless new sources come), but that does not mean that in lieu of a positive treatment we load this with negative treatment of them. Yes, we have to address the clear statements that the harassment was seen as misogynic, we have to point out that there's a large perception of the lack of creditability to anything from the GG due to the nature of the 4chan basis, etc. - that's all stuff that's unavoidable due to the high prevalance in the sources. But we do not need to repeat it any chance that a source quotes that in a different section.

Another way to put this is that by using so many quotes, even from reliable sources, it reads as an attempt to swing the reader to be 100% certain that the proGG is in the wrong. Unless other aspects are broadly condemned in sources, we should not be trying to influence the reader and instead let them come to their own decision if something is ethically right or wrong, particularly if we cannot present point/counterpoint due to lack of sourcing of one side. --MASEM (t) 05:46, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

An example of my concern: the lengthy summary/quote from Amanda Marcotte that is presently under "Attacks on women". Nothing in that quote is a new viewpoint on the overall picture of this situation; we've established the attacks were not taken lightly by the gaming press, that it was misogyny-based attitudes, and etc. Completely unneeded, at least at that level of detail. --MASEM (t) 05:49, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm pretty confident in my point that you're wrong. Have you considered the possibility that the 'members of the press' (and most outsiders) have taken an 'intense dislike' to the entire group because that is an entirely rational and reasonable position to take? I really don't care what 'a pro-GG' might think about this article. Fact is fact. We're not going to whitewash it because there are members of the movement who don't consider themselves misogynistic and want us to ignore what the movement is actually doing and just parrot what it says about itself instead.

I think it's high time you stop trying to position yourself as some kind of neutral mediator here. You flagrantly broke 3RR today - again - trying to correct the 'bias' of the editors who you are now scolding for not being sympathetic enough to the POV pushing SPAs. You're not neutral here, and your 'concern' about editors making use of reliable sources that are unfavorable to gamergate is unwarranted. -- TaraInDC (talk) 06:00, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Except "members of the press" have not. The more distant people are from the games journalism establishment and the activists, the more malfeasance by the games journalism industry comes to the fore. Look at Digitimes; it is based in Taiwan, and talks about it in terms of being concerned about the continued fight between the video game press (which acts as PR for the industry) and its customers resulting in depressed sales of consoles in November and December. The Escapist has been quite friendly towards them, and we know that several journalists were very aggressively hostile towards them on the GameJournoPros mailing list for not deleting the thread about GamerGate. If you look at The Telegraph's article, it interviews Zoe Quinn... and then interviews GamerGate folks. And the two are night and day.

The Escapist ended up apologizing for their reporting on Zoe Quinn's original claims of being harassed in late 2013 because she was the only one who made the claims, provided no evidence but her word, and they had interviewed no one but her, resulting in folks harassing the people who Zoe Quinn claimed to be harassed by. They changed their policy to avoid such reporting. How many of the articles only interview Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, and/or Leigh Alexander? How reliable are they, in light of that fact?

Alexander's article about the "death of gamers" has been described as involving "name calling", and it resulted in Intel pulling out of advertising for a website because they didn't want to be associated with it.

The reality is that there is a little tribe which is very upset over the idea that their members might be called out for ill behavior. It doesn't matter if it is true or not; what matters is whether or not you're in the group.

You talk about not wanting to be associated with the GamerGate folks, but let's face it - when the chips have come down, we've seen changes in ethics policies and companies pulling their ads from websites. Those are the -facts-. In fact, they're just about the only concrete things which have happened!

I'm not interested in the more esoteric theories of the GamerGaters; I'm not a part of their tribe. My concern is presenting reality here on Wikipedia. Not your version of it, not their version of it, reality. If it is unflattering to someone, so be it - it isn't our job to make people look bad or good, it is to present things in a neutral, impartial, even-handed manner to our audience so that they can draw their own conclusions. We don't need feminists ranting about how awful harassment is; we can show it to the audience by speaking about what actually happened. Likewise, we don't need to tell the audience about how awful censorship is - we simply need to present what has happened (the DMCA on YouTube, private pressure to pull down and suppress discussion, removal of stuff from various websites, ect.). We can talk about what has actually happened - the FBI being contacted, journalists getting syringes in the mail, advertisers pulling out, Phil Fish attacking people via social media and himself getting attacked in turn, the hacking and general offense against The Fine Young Capitalists... these are all things which have happened. They're facts. They're stuff which we can sink our teeth into.

When people want to selectively omit facts, or put opinion in the article in place of fact, that's POV pushing. I think that the situation, as it is, speaks for itself. If you feel that presenting the facts in an even-handed, neutral manner is going to make "your side" look bad, then you are not doing it right. Harassment needs to be in the article, but it needs to be all the serious harassment, not just some of it. When you've got people getting syringes in the mail and death threats driving people from their homes, that's stuff worth reporting. When you have websites getting compromised or systemic campaigns of harassment against people or groups, that's stuff worth reporting.

It is not our job here to make anyone look good or bad. It is our job here to let reality speak for itself. And indeed, that should be YOUR goal, as an individual; the neutral point of view is not just something which is good for Wikipedia, it is good for LIFE. If you are willing to look at everything neutrally and objectively, you'll never have to lie to yourself, and you'll always end up on the right side in the end, once you've gotten all the information you need.

All this talk about pro-gamergate and anti-gamergate stuff is ultimately a bit misguided. Our sources may be biased, but it is our job, as Wikipedia, to not be biased. If a source isn't giving us any facts, then what value has it? What is it adding to our world? Opinions might be noted, but when we talk about stuff, our primary goal is to present reality, not whatever any group's spin on that is, whatever that may be. If a source has major, verifiable factual errors in it, then it isn't reliable and isn't useful to us either, not for telling people what is going on.

We can present opinions, but when we're presenting facts, it is about presenting facts. We can talk about what the claims of the parties are, because that is the fact of what people are claiming. But we try not to do that to too great an extent, and we generally try to avoid mixing fact and opinion without separating them out clearly.

But what actually happened happened, or it didn't; if a source conflicts with verifiable reality, then we know that that source is wrong. When The New Yorker claims that Grayson wasn't attacked, and we have Kotaku directly addressing the attacks, and numerous other sources addressing them, and tons of posts from the time attacking Grayson, we know that The New Yorker did not fact check their article. When someone claims that Grayson wrote a review of Depression Quest, we have all sorts of evidence that no, that did not, in fact, ever happen. Reality is not subject to opinion, and if a source conflicts with reality, then it is the source that is wrong. Titanium Dragon (talk) 09:30, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

tl;dr. Protonk (talk) 14:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Masem is exactly righ about this, and I might suggest to everyone asking him to stop that they should re-read WP:OWN#actions, as many of them have been repeatedly made here, and all of us the regulars have committed one or the other at some point - I think the only one missing from the list is that of signing our additions at the article itself. There has been way too much in particular on this talk page of "anyone that rises points I disagree with should leave the page and not come back". Even if we stick to the sources we have published by the mainstream media, we as a whole are ignoring the essence of neutrality in the way we use them - to detach ourselves and to represents the viewpoints of each side in a way as accurate as possible, not distorted through the reports made from the other side; weight should define how much content is covered for each point, not the lens we adopt to report about them.

Every time NorthBySouthBaranof repeats yet again the call for "adopting the position of the RSs that are covering it" down to using their words and conclusions as our own, you misrepresent the neutrality policy which states that we should do exactly the opposite. Following policy is not an excuse to fail NPOV - we have more than enough resources within policy to ensure that both sides are fairly represented without misinterpretation, including the call to ignore any rule that is making the article worse. We could include the opinions of those pro-GG side directly as reliable sources, as any source is reliable about their own opinions; yet only anti-GG sources are accepted on that basis, and every time some pro-GG opinion is proposed it gets fought against and ultimately removed, skewing what have been added to include only opinions from one side, which is not even how WEIGHT should be handled - there's an upper limit to what should be included from one side of the controversy, and it has not been respected.

We have thrown WP:BALANCE out of the window; there's no way a detached reader would agree our current article fairly represents what has been published in reliable sources. I honestly think a good strategy would be to ban all editors who have participated so far in the article and let the rest of the community take over it and start afresh, to rework what can be told with the available references from a new angle, cutting off the broken dynamics we have now. Diego (talk) 10:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject.

An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to the weight of that aspect in the body of reliable sources on the subject.

While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Wikipedia policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity.

The view that GamerGate has come to represent a campaign of misogynistic harassment is, far and away, the most prevalent view in reliable sources. Therefore, we present it in that due proportion. We do not need to present other views as if they have equal validity. We include a number of pro-GG opinions; if you want to loosen the sourcing requirements to allow more, then I'm quite sure we can find a lot more looser-sourced anti-GG opinions as well. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 10:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring to, thanks for proving my point so clearly. Every time someone mentions neutrality you bring in those exact quotes, and my comment above explains why they don't mean what you think they mean, and how you're using WP:WEIGHT to imply that we should make the article unbalanced toward the press point of view and hide the other side in the controversy. In particular "proportion" doesn't mean "shape" - we can talk more about the press point of view, but we must do it with WP:IMPARTIAL tone, a part of NPOV that you keep ignoring every time it's brought up. That you have copied those parts of policy yet another time means that you really didn't hear what I was saying. Can you please stop copying those quotes time and time again? Diego (talk) 11:13, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

"proportion" doesn't mean "shape" is a very good way to describe the problem here. It is very easy to pile on as much as the sources have, but for purposes of tone and not content, we should look to the detachment that the non-VG, non pop culture sources use, and when you look to things like the LA Times or the WA Post or the New York Times, they only descend into the overly negative to describe the initial harassment against the people. Most of the other sources - which I am not calling invalid, just emotionally charged and thus bias - use less detached language. All the major points in this article as it is are fine and in proportion, but it's the ensuing discussion that is the problem and that is something that we do have the ability to be clinical about. --MASEM (t) 14:29, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth I appreciate your efforts Masem. Also, just as several have stated. I have seen a lot of NEUTRALS on Twitter saying even KnowYourMeme presents a more detached representation of events, in chronological order. It seems here for every one thing that happens, there's a shitton of new opinion pieces ready to twist it around. Like we got 3 sources calling Intel misogynyst. Don't be so guillible people, it's not a conspiracy theory, gaming journalism is a quasi monopoly, of course if it's needed, people are going to come up and defend Leigh Alexander or whoever. Just take an example, if you haven't followed GG just look this up and you'll realize for yourself. The game Kingdom Come: Deliverance, just a few days ago it reached 2 million dollars on their pledge. No SINGLE site has covered it, NOT ONE. Why you may ask, it turns out Daniel Vavra has been too outspoken of GG, yet they covered the game before GG. Examples like this there are tons, but I'm already being off-topic I guess. Loganmac (talk) 10:32, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

KnowYourMeme is not a reliable source because it is a user-created source. People can call out Intel for all they want. And the conspiracy theory is that the bulk of the gaters think that Kotaku et al are conspiring against them, and Milo posting the GamesJounroList thing is another spark they needed.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:34, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Did I ever state KnowYourMeme is reliable? Loganmac (talk) 10:39, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

You're right. But what they've done doesn't mean shit here. And stop claiming there are conspiracy theories. No one has any fucking time to review games because of all the bullshit that's going on in Gamergate.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:50, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not claiming there are conspiracy theories mate Loganmac (talk) 10:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

"Gaming journalism is a quasi monopoly... No one reviewed this game because the creator is pro-GG." Those are conspiracy theories. And I'm not your mate, buddy.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Gaming media consists of very few sites, at least mainstream gaming media, Kotaku, RPS, Polygon, Gamasutra and a few others, its journalists seem to be pretty close to each other. The view that Kingdom Come was not covered by media is held by Vavra himself, and I believe I should continue your phrase with "I'm not your buddy, pal" and so forth right Loganmac (talk) 11:15, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

There are many more than that, and those are just the sources we find reliable. Woodroar (talk) 11:23, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

A quarter to a third of those sources are defunct, and the rest don't cover the topic, apart from this and this. Willhesucceed (talk) 14:35, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, after having my contributions reverted on that page, I'm now officially done with Wikipedia, for a long while. Have at the article. I expect to return to find that gamers are the soft power arm of ISIS. I'm joking, but I'm not; this place is a mess. Willhesucceed (talk) 14:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey, would someone move the portal templates in the references section, or just make them a bit better placed, if possible?

The appearance doesn't come off well, and they push the references to the side. There isn't a "See also" section, so I guess maybe they could just be moved to the bottom of the "References" section? Dustin (talk) 23:55, 4 October 2014 (UTC)