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:::There's a draft space for articles for creation submissions, last I checked.—[[User:Ryulong|<font color="blue">Ryūlóng</font>]] ([[User talk:Ryulong|<font color="Gold">琉竜</font>]]) 10:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
:::There's a draft space for articles for creation submissions, last I checked.—[[User:Ryulong|<font color="blue">Ryūlóng</font>]] ([[User talk:Ryulong|<font color="Gold">琉竜</font>]]) 10:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


'''Opposing''' this because this shouldn't be used as a way to avoid discussion of the topics and a reaching of consensus, and that's exactly what's happening with overly pushy editors to the draft. I like some of the changes and editing, but this is too open to abuse. [[User:Willhesucceed|Willhesucceed]] ([[User talk:Willhesucceed|talk]]) 15:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
'''Opposing''' this because this shouldn't be used as a way to avoid discussion of the topics and a reaching of consensus, and that's exactly what's happening with overly pushy editors to the draft. I like some of the changes and editing, but this is too open to abuse. I made a number of reasonable changes, and someone went in and undid them all. It's a nonsense effort. Abandon. [[User:Willhesucceed|Willhesucceed]] ([[User talk:Willhesucceed|talk]]) 15:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)


== ESRC researcher Amanda Potts on the importance of industry leadership in the opposition to misogyny ==
== ESRC researcher Amanda Potts on the importance of industry leadership in the opposition to misogyny ==

Revision as of 15:01, 13 November 2014


Template:Gamergate sanctions

RFC: Can an article be too biased in favor of near-universal sourcing of one side of an issue? (Gamergate controversy)

See /RFC1

Straw poll - update lead

Should the lead paragraph be updated to read:

  • The Gamergate controversy concerns misogyny and harassment in video game culture. In August 2014, media began covering actions on the internet which appeared under the umbrella term gamergate (sometimes GamerGate or the hashtag #gamergate) wherein a mostly anonymous or pseudonymous group of individuals without an identified leadership or organization made claims ostensibly about topics such as ethics in games journalism but which included a number of high profile incidents of harassment against women in the industry.

Since the previous offer of a new lead to address problems by focusing our article lead on what the sources actually cover, as most of the sections on this page wandered off into pointless discussion not about the article, a am going to offer it again. Please place your !vote and comment / sources about how / why it could more accurately represent the sources coverage of the subject.

!vote

Which portions are NPOV? and please provide sources that support your claim. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:35, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
ahhh, the journalist ethic of "hedging". so it we added "There may be some truth to their harassment" it would pass your muster? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You can hedge it by quoting the opinions as being from the media. "Various media outlets view the GamerGate movement as putting up a false front" instead of "The GamerGate movement as putting up a false front". starship.paint ~ regal 05:26, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Really? I thought not long ago we were out to prove that Gamergate supporters have embarrassing sexual fetishes. Are you sure we can't tie this issue to any terrorist groups? Maybe we can insinuate that they killed Mister Rogers. There's got to be somebody saying that. YellowSandals (talk) 23:46, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There were some accounts that looked like ISIS accounts (on twitter) that used both ISIS hashtags and the gamer-gate hashtag. Obviously not bots because only gamergate does bad things Retartist (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake, isis spambots picked up #stopgamergate2014 by accident only source i found whoops Retartist (talk) 01:45, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"third party trolling" is fringe minimal part of the coverage. the "movement" started by hitching its wagons to trolling. has embraced anonymity to attempt to avoid culpability. but that can and is covered later in the article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
actually, at least one person would need to. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:03, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
have you read the sources? they near universally use "ostensibly" - it would be a gross NPOV violation to ignore the sources and NOT use "ostensible" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 09:48, 6 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am concerned about the potential for votes like this to be skewed by meatpuppets... Really not sure why else so many people are saying this proposed lead is NPOV. --Sennsationalist (talk) 05:51, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is that this version fails to clearly distinguish GamerGate itself (which isn't notable and has no unanimous focus) from the controversy it caused (which is notable and definitely a misogyny/diversity issue), thus implying that misogyny is factually GamerGate's entire raison d'être. (In fact, the phrasing of the bit about "claims" states this up-front as written.) This is not stated by any of the third-party sources used in the article (i.e. the ones not being targeted by GamerGate at the time of their writing); they merely say that that's the only significant thing to have come out of it. I say we just patch up the existing opening to fix the issue of original concern (distinguishing the movement from the controversy), if that hasn't been done already. Random the Scrambled (?) 06:12, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I oppose. I don't know if I'm posting correctly here but this is very biased: "made claims ostensibly about topics such as ethics in games journalism but which included a number of high profile incidents of harassment against women in the industry." The word "ostensibly" implies that ethics was some sort of cover. Also the word "but" reinforces it and makes it sound like that is the real reason. There was harassment from both sides to people of both sexes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Punstress (talk • contribs) 02:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Punstress: You have read the sources havent you? where they almost exclusively state "ostensibly about"? And would there be a reason why we should not be following our policies which state that we follow the sources? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:44, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

the inevitable rambling discussion

Try to write a neutral lead and follow Wiki policy. That means don't write in the voice of one side of controversy. YellowSandals (talk) 21:55, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This "one side" is the only one adequately represented in reliable sources so per WP:V and WP:UNDUE your concerns are moot.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:56, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My point is not moot. You still aren't supposed to write in the voice of a side in the controversy. We've been over this. YellowSandals (talk) 21:58, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's the only voice out there that meets WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:BLP when the other side's voice impinges on accusing someone of sleeping with five men.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:10, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You aren't supposed to write with Gamergate's voice either. YellowSandals (talk) 22:12, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Then we write with the voice of the media that says it's not inherently about ethics in journalism.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:13, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You write in Wikipedia's voice, you donk. YellowSandals (talk) 22:15, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And Wikipedia's voice represents what the majority of reliable sources has to say about it.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia doesn't know anything about morals. It's an encyclopedia. It just regurgitates facts and tells people who said what things. It is not a guide to figure out who life's bad guys are. Wikipedia's voice is passive, impartial, and encyclopedic. YellowSandals (talk) 22:19, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is the usual argument that "misogyny and harassment" is implying a morality isn't it?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:20, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. It is me. The same argument we keep having. That morals are subjective. Harassment happened. Immoral intent? Eh. I have no idea. I'm not the type of person who would personally threaten someone over the internet and I don't know why or what anyone was trying to accomplish. YellowSandals (talk) 22:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The same argument would be just as valid in arguing to make the article on Hitler say "Hitler was evil."Think about why that would be wrong, then apply that to this. Halfhat (talk) 22:16, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Would you guys stop going "HITLER'S TREATED BETTER THAN GAMERGATE IS" for once?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:17, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Could you actually address my point? Halfhat (talk) 22:21, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We keep saying it because one of history's greatest villains gets more respect than Gamergate does on this website. It would be comical if people weren't actively trying to destroy each other over this controversy right now. Like, if this were a Star Wars Vs Star Trek debate, this article would be hilarious. YellowSandals (talk) 22:23, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has the liberty of 70 years of historians talking about Adolf Hitler to present information as it is in that article. GamerGate is still happening.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:26, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well we've had seventy years of people saying Hitler is one of history's greatest villains. YellowSandals (talk) 22:30, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But why would you want to compare yourself with Hitler in the first place? Why constantly bring up this comparison?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:33, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am not Gamergate. But no matter how evil something gets in anyone's eyes, if we can write a neutral article about Hitler without directly calling him evil, in theory we should be able to write a neutral article about anything! YellowSandals (talk) 22:40, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is why it is even more important to write in a neutral voice to avoid recentism. As suggested at the arbcom case, we should be sticking to facts and not trying to judge which side is right even if the press has come to their own conclusion. --MASEM (t) 23:15, 2 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ryulong, poorer quality of information does not mean we can assume the press's opinion is correct, that argument makes zero sense. Halfhat (talk) 09:11, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Multiple press agencies possess this same "opinion" which in any other context constitutes an accepted idea or fact. Any form of denying this commonality is tantamount to conspiracy theory.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:27, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, because they have no way of knowing it other than based off their personal opinions and assumptions, they can't conform this stuff so it's opinion. Wikipedia shouldn't share their spidey senses. Halfhat (talk) 11:02, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it./it becomes the truth" -Vladimir Lenin Retartist (talk) 11:27, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You cannot keep denying that the statements from news media from the New York Times to the BBC to CNN to The Washington Post are personal opinions and assumptions, nor keep quoting people who are so far right to make your points. If multiple news agencies see misogyny and sexism and harassment and say that the ethics in journalism claims are only a front then that is how Wikipedia will present this information. You cannot keep mitigating the statements from extremely reputable and reliable sources as opinions and assumptions just because GamerGate says its against corruption in (video game) journalism so that makes all media automatically against them and unusable.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:42, 3 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to misunderstand what a fact is and what an opinion is. FACT: People have been harassed. Opinion: It was misogynistic in intent/(it was done by GG/it was done by trolls/it was a false flag (These are assumptions)). Fact: Little has been achieved. Opinion: this is because of the cable/gamergaters only want to harass woman because they are evil man-babies. Fact: Hitler was anti-semitic and allowed/ordered jews to die. Opinion: Hitler was pure evil. Learn the difference between facts and opinions Retartist (talk) 04:03, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. This is the crux here. That "misogyny" or "misogynistic" is an opinion. But seriously, why do you guys keep going to that Hitler comparison?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:07, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The point is that we do not write WP articles prejudging a person/group that is otherwise universally considered "bad" or "evil" (a purely subjective quality) in a degrading manner but instead give that group appropriate coverage with regards to the sources (separating out any opinion towards that until later), and when it comes to actually explaining when it comes to what the opinion is, it is clearly not made in WP's voice. --MASEM (t) 04:09, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Misogyny" is not an opinion here though.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it is. There is a pattern of harassment that easily looks like misogyny, and so the press (and myself, and very much yourself and a few others) can all say that the attacks appear to be a misogynistic because of their focus on woman. But until the people that actually did it are identified, and their personalities determines and all sorts of other studies to make a firm assessment if they did what they did in a misogynistic manner, it remains a significant opinion, not fact, that the attacks were misgoynistic. Consider the Ecole Polytech shooting, where the appearance of the attack was misogynistic: here is what the featured article intro says "Since the attack, Canadians have debated various interpretations of the events, their significance, and Lépine's motives. Many feminist groups and public officials have characterized the massacre as an anti-feminist attack that is representative of wider societal violence against women.... Other interpretations emphasize Lépine's abuse as a child or suggest that the massacre was simply the isolated act of a madman, unrelated to larger social issues....Still other commentators have blamed violence in the media[9] and increasing poverty, isolation, and alienation in society,[10] particularly in immigrant communities." That was in '89, and the cause remains an opinion. We are only 2-3 months out, and there is no way that it can be determined as a fact that the people are doing this for misogynistic manners - even if Occum's Razor says we should assume that. --MASEM (t) 04:35, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh. It is not an opinion. Multiple news sources possess this same "opinion" of how GamerGate has done nothing but focus its attention on a bunch of women so that makes it misogynistic acts. You are making an impossible restriction here because it is highly unlikely that anyone is going to be discovered as the perpetrators. Misogyny is not an opinion and all you've done here is shown your new true colors.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:39, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Apparently, one of the prominent harassers was some Brazillian journo or something. Some pro-gg people tracked them down. --DSA510 Pls No Hate 04:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is opinion. It might be repeated in 99% of the press, but that doesn't make it fact (See: "Global warming doesn't exist" ala 2000). This doesn't discount that their opinions are the predominate aspect of this debate so will get significant attention, but they remain, as about 90% of all the content of the RS, opinions. There are actually very few facts of note here: we know there was harassment and threats against at least 3 woman + others; we know those doing it used the #GG banner, and .. that's pretty much it. Everything else is the court of public opinion. --MASEM (t) 04:44, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If the RS rules were relaxed, then articles (regardless of source, so long as they themselves have good sourcing/evidence), then this article could become much more neutral. That's just my opinion. --DSA510 Pls No Hate 04:49, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And if raindrops were donuts we would be a lot fatter than we are. But they are not and we are not going to drop RS just so we can cover gamergaters in a manner that they would prefer. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The identity of Sarkeesian's attacker has never been corroborated by reliable sources. There is a vast difference between climate change deniers and GamerGate denial. And Wikipedia's rules should not be made lax in any regard just so a positive spin can be made on the GamerGate movement.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:01, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Masem, There is an objective difference between an opinion source and a news source which some editors feel contains opinions. The term 'opinion source' a specific meaning and it tends to be over-applied here. So long as what we are actually saying in this article matches what our reliable, non-opinion sources say, we're fine, and informing us over and over that what our mainstream sources are saying about gamergate is 'just their opinion' is not going to change Wikipedia policy. We should not be reporting opinion from an editorial as fact, but we absolutely can treat what the vast majority of our news sources are reporting as fact. Can you point to specific places where you believe we are using editorial sources to cite information that is presented as fact? -- TaraInDC (talk) 05:30, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Ryulong: the hitler comparison is used because he is a figure that 99.9% of people agree he was evil to some degree, and most historical sources agree that he was to some degree evil. But His wikipedia article doesn't say that he was absolutely evil at all in the lede, it doesn't even say he was evil, it says naism had been described as evil ONCE in the whole page. Retartist (talk) 05:55, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There has been no evidence presented beyond the pattern of attacks that the harassment is specifically driven by misogyny, particularly no apparent attempt to survey and understand the population of GG to see if it a potential issue with these people. (To contrast, the Newsweek/Brandwatch does explain it's methods as to make it clear that they can say X got more tweets than Y to be able to state that as facts, and then separate out their opinion - we would expect that for proper journalism here) However, it is very obvious when you step back and consider the quality of the sources, and who is saying what, that the use of this claim only occurs in the weaker RS and those closer to the event, making it a clear bias issue that we have to be aware exists and be careful in handling the sources. (The stronger reliable sources like NYTimes that are clearly not op-ed pieces stay very neutral though point out the criticism of the situation, when they do, making it clear it is an opinion or observation without 100% affirmation that it is a fact) Add that because we don't take sides, and the GG have denied saying it is about misogyny (which can be sourced), and that's even more reason that we cannot state the claims that might be popular in the press as fact. As to where we have a fact-presentation problem: the first sentence in the lede. The controversy is not about misogyny - that is an effect of the initial problems. As has been pointed out by others, the proper way to frame this is to state that while supports say it is about ethics, the persistent harassment attributed to GG has a pattern of sexism and misogyny, which has tainted any attempt to discuss any possible ethics issues. That is a very neutral statement true to both sides, but reflects the predominate opinion of the press here. (Really, think about it: everyone's pointed out there's misogyny involved, but it's a symptom not a cause that anyone is trying to figure out how to deal with to defuse GG - that's why the controversy can't be about that). Much of this is the right wording choices in the existing narrative simply to make statements that are too concrete as fact in WP's voice to be attributed to the press or specific source, simply so that we are clearly avoiding taking sides. --MASEM (t) 07:04, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So we're allowed to say it's an attack on women and women's voices in gaming but we cannot continue referring to it as misogyny because GamerGaters say their movement isn't inherently misogynistic?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:12, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty much yes, that's what "not taking sides" means, and it's the essence of our NPOV core content policy. Though you can say that the press has called it misogynistic in as many ways and shapes as you like, per WP:WEIGHT. Diego (talk) 12:16, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And even that is questionable as "on women" seem to suggest that ONLY women are being attacked.--Thronedrei (talk) 09:43, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
At the absolute best there are two camps of gamergaters: the 'but ethics!' crowd (who by most accounts spend a lot of time talking about how they're about ethics and not much actually talking about it) and the ones doing the harassing. (And you can spare me the 'they don't represent gamergate' because we all know what the sources say.) We can't give 'but ethics' pride of place when they're the minority perspective. They're getting the extreme minority of mainstream press coverage, and that's because their actions are less interesting, less notable and less significant - because their ethics campaign, again, appears to be largely limited to saying 'gamergate is about ethics.' We can not claim that there is one coherent position that is the gamergate position. We have people saying gamergate is against harassment, and then we have gamergate's extremely well-documented harassment. So at the worst, this article is 'biased' against one faction of gamergate by not presenting it as the majority view at the expense of the much larger, more active and better referenced 'side' that's vocally attacking too-vocal women, "SJWs" and other undesirables in the gaming community. -- TaraInDC (talk) 14:32, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind that WEIGHT/UNDUE applies to the entire article, not a single area. The lede is supposed to concisely present the broad overview of the situation. When one is talking anything about a controversy or the like, the common form used in nearly every reputable source (and on WP pages) is to start with those seeking change to address their points, and then to address the opposition and their points, so that there's the counterlogic argument that follows. This might, in the microcasm of the lede, seem to violation WEIGHT/UNDUE for GG, but again, those apply to the article at large - the intense dislike the press has for GG is not going to go under (and in fact with the rest of the lede, it should be plainly obvious that this is the case). But to be neutral and concise, and to avoid presenting opinion as fact, calling the GG controversy as one about misogyny and harassment in the very first sentence is wrong; the controversy was over ethics (by the initiating side, regardless of how flimsy that reasoning is considered by the press), but the resulting harassment has led the press to broadly condemn the movement as misogynistic. This is why it is best to remove any attempt to qualify what the controversy is about in the first sentence, letting the 2nd and 3rd (about pro and antiGG respective) speak for themselves; this is more true to the sources as well that cannot determine what GG is really about. Putting the proGG side in sentence order over the antiGG side is not pushing their side as the majority view particularly when we follow up on the antiGG side as the broad condemnation of the movement, which makes it clear that's the majority view. --MASEM (t) 14:42, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The question of what gamergate is about is split, even within the movement - there is 'but ethics!' and then there is lots of vicious harassment. This is not 'the movement says X and other people say Y.' It's 'the movement says X and does Y.' We're not going to treat those as two equal sides, 'pro-' and 'anti-' because that's not reality. There's no coherent pro-GG side, and no 'anti-GG' counter movement, and what the movement does can speak for it just as much as the 'but ethics!' protests do. So the question of what the controversy is about is very clear. There is no 'controversy' over whether or not gamergate is really about ethics. If it were, the sources would be more split. There would be sources for the 'but ethics' side other than trivial mentions in articles on harassment that mention that some people claim gamergate is about ethics. There would be an actual discussion. There isn't. Our sources either acknowledge the 'but ethics' claims or actively discredit them. That's not a controversy. -- TaraInDC (talk) 14:58, 4 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gawker's Massive COI in This

Since one of the goals of the revolt is to wipe Gawker off of the face of the earth, unless of course they actually deliver on their ethics promises, it would make sense that Gawker try to smear the GamerGate revolt. Since I know how much Wikipedia hates COI, per WP:COI, I do not think Gawker is a fair source for anything on this matter. Also seeing how Vox Media and possibly Ars Technica are on the hitlist, they would also benefit from smearing GamerGate. --DSA510 Pls No Hate 19:57, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Given that anyone who covers GG "gets targeted", such a proposal would kind of leave us with clickhole. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:03, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There's a difference, though: Gawker was targeted before it commented on GG (likely because of the issues with Grayson et al, combined with its pre-existing mutual hostility with Reddit); it's central to the controversy. More mainstream (and reliable) sites weren't targeted until after they commented, so they're fair game. (I don't know about Vox or Ars Technica, though.) Random the Scrambled (?) 23:09, 7 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As with all sources, the question is more to do with how they are used - I'm not inclined to remove Gawker from the equation completely. What uses of Gawker in the current article do you feel are a problem? If we look at the individual uses we should be able to get an idea of their reliablity. - Bilby (talk) 06:39, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If anything, Gawker sites that are clear opinion pieces after they were knowingly targeted by GG should be avoided due to the clear bias, unless they are specifically commenting on the actions of GG against them. Like, a general opinionated update by Kotaku about GG overall should be avoided, while if they are factually covering a new bit of news in the issue, then that's likely okay (but we should seek more reliable sources not as involved if possible). --MASEM (t) 07:07, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Masem. Bilby: references 11(a) and 103(a) are good examples of what I'm worried about. (The latter may be salvageable, but it's worked in poorly at the moment.) Random the Scrambled (?) 07:13, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How about somebody make a list of every reference in the article at present which cites Gawker followed by the linked statements?--Ilovetopaint (talk) 22:58, 8 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I gave it a shot here. Random the Scrambled (?) 04:43, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. The citations you've collected are all perfectly fine. We are not going to remove the well-sourced and indisputable discussion of the fact that the claims about Zoe Quinn are false merely because GamerGate disagrees with Kotaku. If you want us to rack up half a dozen more citations on that, we can. But we're not going to remove the Kotaku post refuting the charges, and it's not an opinion. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:48, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need to. Other sources already cover that. But to quote Gawker sources extensively for claims about themselves and state it as fact in Wikipedia voice is not acceptable. They are WP:PRIMARY sources in this. Tutelary (talk) 04:51, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, they aren't. As has been repeated here 18 million times, you don't get to convert well-established reliable sources into non-reliable sources just because your movement opposes them. There's been no demonstrated reason why these sources would magically become unreliable except WP:IDONTLIKEIT writ large. We get that GamerGate hates Gawker. Guess what? That has precisely nothing to do with how Wikipedia judges reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:52, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
North, you really trying to say that because I don't believe Gawker commenting on themselves should be in the article I am in this 'movement'. Next you'll say that if I edit the Republican page to remove some blog sourced trivia criticizing them I'm a 'Hardcore Conservative'. Stop with labels. Anywho, I'm not in my right mind but in any case, I don't see much problem as long as they're not commenting on themselves--Mainly on the Zoe Quinn stuff which is in their ballpark and if came to, would probably be substantiated by other sources in any case. That's what they're seeming to do according to Mr. Random's particular source collection and take on it. Tutelary (talk) 05:00, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is a strawman, North - please stop using it. The issue is not that GamerGate opposes them. The issue is that GamerGate opposed them specifically (accusing them of rampant "agenda-pushing" and failure to address or identify conflicts of interest in their writing), before Gawker ever acknowledged them, let alone published these articles. Thus, at the time of writing those articles, it was in Gawker's best interest to denounce GamerGate. This is not the case for the more mainstream sources - no, not even the ones that GamerGate opposes now, because the sources denounced them - so they're fine. Random the Scrambled (?) 05:03, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you understand, Mr. Random. Reliable sources don't become unreliable merely because someone or some group makes wholly-unfounded accusations against them. Yes, that's what they are — unfounded, nonsensical conspiracy-theory accusations. Not a single reliable source gives a shred of credence to any allegation against Quinn and Grayson.
I'm sure lots of 9/11 truthers believe the mainstream media is attempting to silence their viewpoint and cover up George W. Bush's conspiracy with Bill Clinton and the Saudi Royal Family to false-flag a terrorist attack, and I'm sure they have accused lots of media sources of being corporate shills for this conspiracy. That doesn't make any of the mainstream reliable sources refuting their claims unreliable for Wikipedia purposes. And if you don't like my comparison here, that's just too bad — GamerGate is built around a similarly-fringe set of conspiracy theories with a similar amount of credence in mainstream reliable sources, which is to say virtually none. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:08, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The accusations do make it a primary source. Refer to Tutelary's comment above. Also, the mainstream media in that case had nowhere near the incentive to refute the claims as Gawker does here - the article itself mentions that Gawker Media could be financially harmed by all this, whereas mainstream media can take a little flak from run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists. Random the Scrambled (?) 05:24, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
GamerGate has attempted to financially harm several different media sites, including Gamasutra, Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. That does not make any of those sources unreliable or unusable. Unilateral accusations and attacks do not constitute evidence, much less proof, that a source is unreliable. As is trivial to source, the charges laid by some GamerGate supporters against Kotaku have been examined, discredited and rejected by other mainstream reliable sources. That GamerGate continues to cling to these claims like a life ring in a hurricane long after everyone else has moved on does not permit its supporters to make hay with them on Wikipedia. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:41, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop using strawmen. The disproving of GamerGate's claims has nothing to do with this, nor does Gawker's general reliability. And if those other media sites were attacked before commenting on GamerGate, and if it posed a real risk to them in any way, then they must be used with similar caution. GamerGate's claims and actions do not capture the problem - the problem is that they were taken seriously by enough people for long enough to give Gawker reason for concern for its reputation and/or profits, especially when Intel, Adobe, etc. got involved. Random the Scrambled (?) 06:10, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

as the backdoor game to get the article to not state that the allegations against Quinn are false because Gawker is "not reliable" is not gonna work. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 05:58, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

its no "strawman" - When the issue is claims of "conflict of interest" and the claims of conflicts of interest have been shown false, then the "conflict of interest" claim is meaningless. "AXIOM: We cannot use Blue sources. GG: Suzie is Blue so we cannot use her. EVERYONE ELSE: Suzie is not blue. GG: You still cannot use Suzie because we claim she is blue." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The conflict of interest GG claims exists is not the issue. The issue is that the claim was made in the first place, and Gawker was threatened by it, regardless of whether GG was right or wrong. It's more like this: "AXIOM: We cannot use Blue sources. GG: Suzie is Blue, and we're going to tell everyone so people stop taking her seriously. SUZIE: I am not Blue. OTHER SOURCE: These accusations that Suzie is Blue could pose a real financial risk to her. ME: Then we cannot use Suzie's claims about them as factual sources, whether she's actually Blue or not." Random the Scrambled (?) 20:57, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No other sources treat GG's allegations about Gawker as meaningful or well-founded. In fact, they widely treat the allegations as total nonsense. This means that GG's allegations are fringe theories which we give no credence whatsoever. GG's complaints are on the same level as 9/11 conspiracy theorists' claims that media were bought and paid for by George W. Bush and the Bilderbergs to cover up a false flag attack. We do not omit media sources from 9/11 Truth movement that truthers believe are "biased" against them. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:59, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is not the point. GG could be claiming that Gawker's writers eat babies, or that one of their writers stole candy from one. The material of the claim has nothing to do with it. What matters is that GG said something negative about Gawker and started rallying people and corporations (e.g. Intel, Adobe) behind them, to the point where Gawker had a financial interest in portraying them as raging misogynists (and even said up-front that this interest exists, as stated in this article). This is not the case for 9/11 truthers because they never did anything that could make even a small dent in the profits of the media that dismiss them as conspiracy theorists. Random the Scrambled (?) 21:15, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So should we infer that anything published by Gawker prior to them having an alleged financial interest would be fine? CIreland (talk) 21:27, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming Gawker is a reliable source (WP lists them as one), yes. Random the Scrambled (?) 03:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Going back to the page, it seems I didn't explain adequately - if I properly recall, other sources disproving the allegations are already present in the article, and should be used instead of the ones that are there now. Random the Scrambled (?) 06:10, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, we can add more. We're not removing the original Kotaku source, though. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:30, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why there's so much opposition to what Mr Random is doing. Most of the stuff he asks to be removed already has other references anyway. All we are doing is preventing potential COI. starship.paint ~ regal 07:12, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the allegation that they slept together now established as true? Why do we say they are false? There are false allegations but there are true ones as well. As I recall that was not magically revealed but came out as an announcement after blog/manisfesto on Quinn. That allegation being true changed the ethics requirements of disclosure I believe. If this had been a financial reporter that was found to own stocks in companies they didn't cover (or bought stocks after they covered them), it's generally a firing offense. --DHeyward (talk) 18:05, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The allegation is that their relationship led to the coverage, which is false because the relationship started after the coverage. Prior to that, she was a source. Woodroar (talk) 18:21, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And there wasn't even any meaningful coverage to begin with — the sum total of what Nathan Grayson wrote about Depression Quest on Kotaku were the words "Depression Quest." Three months earlier, at RPS, he wrote a whole phrase about it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:34, 9 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly this essay seems to agree with OP, I'm not sure how widely accepted t's guidance is though. HalfHat 14:39, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anyway we could place a sort of warning or notice?

Discussion closed at ANI. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:14, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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.

A lot of information in this article is biased and much of it is very opinionated. Rather than continuously argue about who's right and who's wrong, is there anyway we could place a sort of warning to alert readers that these events are ongoing and that a definite conclusion hasn't been reached, and that the contents of this article are highly susceptible to change? It's apparent to me that the information being provided is too subjective and the premature conclusions one draws from reading the article do not adequately cover both sides of the story. Even if one side is misogynistic or the other side is devoid of ethics, both need to be given fair treatment despite how the other side feels. --Digman14 (talk) 04:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We already have one: the "neutrality is disputed" message at the top. Random the Scrambled (?) 04:44, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That is incorrect. The notice that is on there at the moment is intended to highlight immediate and serious concerns with an article, that the tagger is then expected to raise on the talk page. It is not meant to be used as it currently is being used, as a sort of Scarlet Letter to express a minor it point-of-view. Almost 2 weeks ago I noted this, and stated that the tag would be removed on the 6th. That has no passed, and I will give it until tomorrow, then it comes off and it will stay off. The majority of reliable sources at present show "Gamergate" as a controversy about harassment of women in the gaming industry, with a counter-argument of "it's about ethics" to be a secondary and minor point-of-view. Several editors have presented arguments to reverse that, but they have failed to achieve consensus. Tarc (talk) 05:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No it wont, if you take it off, i will put it back in again. Because you DO NOT DECIDE that. --Torga (talk) 05:20, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Editors, especially ones not here for a valid purpose, will not be allowed to misuse project tags to advance their point-of-view agendas. As I noted above, the tag is used to draw attention to an immediate concern, bring it to the talk page, where the matter is resolved. The article cannot be moved away form its current focus on misogyny and harassment, as that is based on solid reliable sourcing as this project requires. Those who have tried have had over a month now to make their case, but have failed to achieve consensus. 1 month is far, far, far more time than is generally allowed. Tarc (talk) 05:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but the bullying tactic where you guys go ahead and do whaterver you want, and then when people changes it, you say that they need concensus and discussion is not working anymore. The biased sticker will stay. --Torga (talk) 05:33, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What is a "bias tag"? Artw (talk) 05:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The tag should stay until there is consensus that the article is neutral. I very much doubt that there is such a consensus. Sure, the reliable sources depict a lot on harassment. But the key question is, does the article reflect the sources in a neutral manner? starship.paint ~ regal 05:39, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

@Mr. Random: What exactly are you looking for? "We took gamergate to the lab and under the electron microscope we determined that gamergate has a rating of 127 on the Lepine Misogyny Scale and a PR Success value of -3 Drapers" Of course an article about a hashtag is going to consist of analysis and commentary. And per WP:NPOV#UNDUE the analysis and commentary will be reflective of what the reliable sources say about the subject. Which bundle of reliable sources is lacking or misrepresented in the article? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:19, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No we should never endorse opinion no matter how popular. "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone." HalfHat 12:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Where specifically are there "endorsements" or these "tone" issues? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:57, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV tag removal, Nov 10th, late

Just so it is a bit more prominent, but not really worth of its own heading, since it was touched on above...

Per my comments a few weeks ago, it has now been five weeks since this article was tagged for NPOV concerns. User have had thirty-five days to raise their concerns above neutrality, and while things may not have resolved to their liking, this project operates on consensus, and one was not reached that these concerns have merit. If anything, there is consensus that the article as it stands and the direction it goes is a neutral reflection of what reliable sources say on the topic. I'm sorry, but the sources do not support the contention that Gamergate is a controversy of ethics in gaming journalism

The NPOV tag is not a raised fist of protest, nor is it a Scarlet Letter. It has had 5 weeks, and now it is time to go. Unless someone does so beforehand (as I am heading to bed) I will be removing it in ~12 hours, and if editors unwisely choose to edit-war over the matter, we will go to WP:ANI, where I'm fairly confident that the protests of "I disagree!" and "It's biased!" will have many sympathetic ears. The single-purpose accounts should be especially wary here. Tarc (talk) 05:47, 10 November 2014 (UTC) −[reply]

It's not a vote. The tag is not to be used as a "scarlet letter." It's been some time since a credible case could be made that the article doesn't substantially reflect the consensus of reliable sources. It's long past time the tag came off. --TS 12:02, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well done. You have ignored an entire RFC on concerns about the neutrality of the article. Talk:Gamergate controversy/RFC1. I do acknowledge the majority of reliable sources do depict harassment, etc. But, to quote Masem, we are instead giving the antiGG side far too much coverage, to the point of being preachy on how "right" the antiGG side is, and how bad the proGG side is. This is evidenced by certain phrasing, excessive use of the negative words "harassment" and "misogyny" (and forms thereof), and overuse of near-full quotes from antiGG sources when they are not needed for explaining the key parts of the narrative. That is the specific neutrality problem in the article. starship.paint ~ regal 13:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The RFC, though correct in form, is clearly an inexpert attempt to perform an end run around policy. The first question, "Can an article become too biased in the favor of the side with the plurality of sources?" has a clear answer in Wikipedia policy: no. This is not the wiki you are looking for. --TS 13:20, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to think that your "no" answer is fact, but it is instead an opinion. Many other editors answered "yes" in the RFC. Plainly put, you're not the boss. starship.paint ~ regal 13:31, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's a fact that follows from our policy. The overwhelming consensus of reliable sources is that Gamergate is a misogynistic harassment campaign, and so that's what we have to write about. We're not about to relax NPOV just because some editors disagree with it. --TS 13:39, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The overwhelming consensus of reliable sources (which so far happens to be the media) is that Gamergate is a misogynistic harassment campaign. I don't deny this. The problem is not the sources. The problem is how the article is using the sources. Please read the green words above, by Masem. starship.paint ~ regal 13:49, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Again, NPOV tag requires "The editor who adds the tag should discuss concerns on the talk page, pointing to specific issues that are actionable within the content policies. In the absence of such a discussion, or where it remains unclear what the NPOV violation is, the tag may be removed by any editor." Your assessment "The problem is how the article is using the sources. " Is neither specific nor actionable. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Note; this wasn't a vote, this was posted to be informative. 3 hours to go, and as I said last night, I'd advise careful thought before making a stand on this. Already, editors with no part in this topic area at all easily recognize this as an abuse of project tagging and have attempted removal. Tarc (talk) 14:06, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Editors here saying 'no' need to do stop re-instate the tag with vague reasoning. Specific and actionable reasons are needed to be helpful. — Strongjam (talk) 17:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, as per Jgm74. The tone of the article and talk page is adversarial and sufficiently hostile to repel both reader and editor alike from this article. It is also astonishingly that WP:BLPSTYLE is being so thoroughly ignored in every aspect. What reader would describe this article as written in a dispassionate tone, in a non-partisan manner, and that it is avoiding both understatements and overstatements? Criticism and praise is not added conservatively, or written in a disinterested tone, and that is the main reason why the NPOV tag should stay up until resolved. Belorn (talk) 16:56, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lolno Per WP:NPOV --DSA510 Pls No Hate 17:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove: There is no remaining NPOV issue, merely a vocal group of POV pushers, openly collaborating a campaign on 8chan to make this page more favorable to GamerGate. AN/I is going to be needed. MarkBernstein (talk) 17:14, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm not pushing a POV, as this is going to be weighing on the antiGG side, but there is a huge impartialness problem with this article that falls under NPOV as well that I'm arguing for, and the NPOV Tag has to stay until that is addressed. --MASEM (t) 17:21, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, but you have to allow for the possibility that your opinion on what is or is not NPOV may not carry the day. The tag doesn't remain until you are personally satisfied with a result. Tarc (talk) 19:11, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • If it was clear I was the only person fighting for it, yeah, that's TE, I'd not fight its removal. But it's clear (even discounting SPAs) that there's issues with the NPOV-ness, and any attempt to discuss with via consensus building is shot down immediately. --MASEM (t) 19:14, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove: Tarc is right in saying that saying "actually, it's about ethics in gaming journalism" a thousand times doesn't make it any more true. The idea that it's about ethics in gaming journalism simply isn't bourne out by the sources. Sceptre (talk) 19:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep tag until the situation is resolved. SPAs or not, clearly a number of established editors are seeing a problem, and the discussion on this page proves it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:06, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    quite clearly, per the tag instructions, someone claiming to see an issue is not a valid criteria. they must be able to articulate a specific instance of NPOV issues, where the content does not appropriately reflect the sources available. there is not an option "if enough people are vaguely whinging , they must be appeased by hanging the NPOV as a 'warning'." (in fact the instructions say quite the opposite.)-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:03, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Reading the article and the talk pages, I see the problem. This isn't vague whining, it's a problem of the sources, of the tone, of the point of view of the article. When that's sorted, I agree the tag should be removed. Thargor Orlando (talk) 00:39, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just looking at the first source, it seems clear to me that Gamergate refers to both the original GamerGate movement - which was based on ethical concerns, however misguided or unsubstantiated those concerns might be - and the subsequent backlash prompted by the harassment and perceived sexism. So to begin the article by saying "The Gamergate controversy began in August 2014 and concerns misogyny and harassment in video game culture" is to take a point of view that the former usage of the term is not worthy of coverage. I do think the article has gotten a lot more NPOV recently, but I think it still has a way to go, so Keep the tag for now. Λυδαcιτγ 14:49, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy

ANI filing

Well, if I were to draw a football analogy, I'd say I was just tripped by some grudge-bearers, so someone else is going to have to scoop up the ball and run with it, if you want this article to be less Hester Prynne-ish. Tarc (talk) 19:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Per the discussion there, I have closed this thread as well. [1]
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.

Article way too long

I know this has been a controversial and current issue, but the article is currently at 120k. I searched the archives for this topic but only found a brief exchange that didn't seem to come to a resolution. Per WP:Article size it needs to be broken up or heavily edited. I've been uninvolved in this so far, but just looking at the last paragraph of the lede it contains almost entirely redundant information. What would make more sense to people? Heavily editing the article down or creating separate articles like "Harassment issues related to Gamergate" and "Ethical Concerns of Gamergate", etc. PearlSt82 (talk) 06:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Call me pragmatic a pessimist but there's little chance of any consensus on such thing. I foresee UNDUE being plastered across this section. Why not wait until it's mostly over and then edit it down? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 06:19, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Making content forks is the last thing we need on this topic. It should be cut down more but not cut apart.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Addressing (without changing any other content) the WP:QUOTEFARM problems would help. We don't need full pull quotes from every possible source, but just highlight any key words, particularly those more difficult to paraphrase with losing intent/meaning. (The prose is just at 86k, which is heading towards where reduction or split would be needed, but I agree 100% splitting off parts of this is the very very last thing we want to do.) --MASEM (t) 06:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One mini-paragraph which is too long IMO is the Vivian James colour scheme thingy. Whoa. starship.paint ~ regal 09:08, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's two sentences at best.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:14, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't be disingenuous, Ryulong. It was two sentences and 128 words. The next paragraph is 81 words. Good Lord. I trimmed it now. starship.paint ~ regal 13:14, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I advocate for splitting off the whole "Quinnspiracy". It is the initiating event, but has very little to do with the current form of the controversy. Racuce (talk) 09:18, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The "Quinnspiracy" is central to this because this is a controversy over harassment of female voices in video gaming and not corruption in video game journalism no matter how many times people on /gg/ and r/KotakuInAction say it is.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Couldn't agree more, I don't think subparts of this are notable enough to break up the article, and all cases you'd need toread that article to understand this so it'd be quite pointless. So yeah we need to start cutting, the article has too much opinion, redundancies, and is generally poorly structured. HalfHat 09:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No. There is not going to be any sort of cutting this article apart to get rid of things that put the movement in a bad light. It can be cut down to keep the relevant content shorter but there is no need to split things apart. No content forking. This is an article about the whole of Gamergate because its individual parts are not notable on their own.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly why you cause problems here, I said that I agree we probably shouldn't be making split, yet you still argue with me in a highly uncivil manner. I also love your constant baseless assumption that I'm an evil agenda pushing SPA of dooom! HalfHat 09:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop commenting on other editors and their suspected motives and stay focused on article content and sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:59, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:Article size the prose size should only be counted and wiki mark-up excluded. If we do that the prose size comes in at 58 kB per User:Dr_pda/prosesize. This puts us in the recommended range (albeit near the limit.) The rest of the 120k is mark-up and references. — Strongjam (talk) 14:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

We could start making estimates of how much "screen time" the various aspects of the controversy are getting in the current analysis and then model our article after them. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are there even any RSs that covered the controversy as a whole and not just bits? Most just focus on one event or person, the only ones I've seen that try to cover the whole thing are other wikis. HalfHat 12:48, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We have several up through the terrorist threat at Utah. Pretty much the only thing since then has been the attacks on Felicia Day. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Just a simple question. If the dispute is primarily about the lede, why does it have to say that Gamer Gate is about ONE thing? It's clearly about multiple concerns to different participants. And I think RS would back it up that there are fundamentally different goals, objectives and POVs depending on how you view this subject. Is it really crucial to isolate ONE meaning to the movement/hashtag? Can we rewrite the lede to allow for the fact that different groups are viewing this dispute through quite different aspects. Like most complicated issues (politics, religion, economy, etc.) there is not a single overwhelming interpretation. Liz Read! Talk! 02:51, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Because those disputing the lede possess a minority view on what Gamergate is. The majority view is that while the movement claims to be about ethics in journalism but everyone sees extensive misogyny and harassment.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 03:00, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
because there is no controversy about "ethics in journalism" - the responses from the sources is just a flat "you kids dont know what you are talking about. 1) these claims of ethical breach are false. 2) those claims arent about 'ethics' 3) silencing other voices is unethical journalism 4) this actual ethics breach which involved a major developer and no women received no interest from the gamergate community. " -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV dispute

There are numerous NPOV issues with this article. The most simple and easy to fix is the violation of WP:Say I keep finding, these are very frequent. The tone of the intro clearly endorses one side. Wikipedia reflects verifiable facts not popular opinions. "The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. Try not to quote directly from participants engaged in a heated dispute; instead, summarize and present the arguments in an impartial tone." Also ". . . opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views,". Ofcourse it does say "Avoid stating facts as opinions." however it adds the caviot, "Unless a topic specifically deals with a disagreement over otherwise uncontested information," so even if we grant that it being about misogyny is uncontested, GG has partly become about if it's fundamentally about journalistic ethics or misogyny, so that caviot would apply here. Even highly antiGG sources will refer to this argument as "but ethics" so clearly it significant. There's more but that come later and there's people better placed to argue than me, so this is just a basic case, making quotes so you can check what I'm saying. HalfHat

Read NPOV here HalfHat 13:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As repeatedly discussed here, the fact that the worldwide controversy over GamerGate is about misogyny and harassment of women is indisputable. The New York Fucking Times didn't run a front-page article about "but ethics," it ran a front-page article about GamerGate supporters harassing and threatening women in gaming. We mention GamerGate supporters' assertion that their movement is about ethics, but the public controversy has entirely ignored their claims. Therefore, it is entirely neutral to state that the controversy is about misogyny and harassment. "Neutral" does not mean "balanced" — if the reliable sources overwhelmingly agree on something, then our articles reflect that weight. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 13:13, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But we don't agree with them. HalfHat 13:16, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well at least you're being honest in specifying that your disagreement is with what reliable sources are saying rather than how we represent reliable sources. --TS 13:23, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You don't agree with them, that's obvious. But effectively all of the reliable sources do. Wikipedia articles are written based on what is verifiable in reliable sources. It is trivial to demonstrate, and has been demonstrated here repeatedly, that mainstream reliable sources treat the "ethics" claims dismissively, if at all, and repeatedly discuss the fact that the movement hasn't even made any meaningful ethics claims to begin with. Please see the multiple threads above, wherein actual experts in journalism ethics (The Columbia Journalism Review and On the Media, to name two) review GamerGate's claims and find nothing of significance. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 13:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But while we can say they treated them dismissively that doesn't mean we should share their tone. HalfHat 13:40, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you mean by "share their tone." The lede spells out what reliable sources say about this issue explicitly and succinctly — there is a controversy about misogyny and harassment, a movement's supporters say they're about journalism ethics while everyone else says they're not. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't matter one iota if you agree with them or not. WP:RS, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:WEIGHT. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 15:09, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't mean "we" as in me personally or as editors, but as the article. I mean the article shouldn't endorse popular opinion as fact. HalfHat 15:52, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Where exactly is this happening? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:08, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"I feel that the tone of the article clearly endorses one side" isn't, in and of itself, a policy-based a NPOV concern. NPOV is not about dividing an article's subject into arbitrary sides and assigning equal weight to each; it is about reflecting what the most credible and reputable sources on the subject say. The current article generally summarizes these voices in a neutral tone. Your objection, as I understand it, is that you feel that the vast majority of the usually-reputable sources are, in this case, wrong; you object to a summary of these voices because you feel the sources themselves are non-neutral. But that is not an issue that can be resolved on Wikipedia, nor is it (according to our policies) a POV issue. Our role as an encyclopedia is merely to cover reputable sources. --Aquillion (talk) 14:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
WP:IMPARTIAL is a part of NPOV, so yes, the article speaking in a tone that endorses one side can be (and in some eyes like mine, is) a problem. --MASEM (t) 15:55, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please point out for action where IMPARTIAL is not being appropriately implemented. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:59, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First sentence puts too much weight on an after-effect, despite the effect being the most-talked about once it happened. Section above about the long section I changed and reverted by North, the current order gives no attempt to give any credible notion that the GG have legit claims, and gets as fast to the press's response. (Impartially, we shouldn't care if the claims are legit or not - if we can source them, we need to) Excessively long, and in some cases duplicating in thought (mostly in the section on role of misogyny and harasssment) pull quotes that are just there to keep pushing the opinion "GGers are bad, evil people". --MASEM (t) 16:06, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ahh, so not anything actually IMPARTIAL in our presentation, just things that when we follow WP:UNDUE and WP:BALASPS we give the same impression that the reliable sources do that gg is a smokescreen for harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:27, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
100% wrong. "GG as a screen for harassment" is not a fact. It is a strong, pervasive public opinion, and one that dominates the discussion for sure, but it is not fact. As such, we don't treat it as fact, and instead write what little we can starting from the viewpoint that GG is legit, and then from the counterpoint that GG is not. We're not going to have "balanced" coverage in terms of equal time for each side, there's no way we can do that, but we can still achieve impartiality with appropriate construction and wording: eg [2] when I made that edit, zero antiGG sources were removed and zero proGG sources were added (if anything it added more antiGG sources); the only major change was to present the details in a normal point-counterpoint format as you would any debate. The weight of antiGG/proGG remained unchanged, but the impartialness of the section was significantly improved. --MASEM (t) 16:34, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody said it was a fact: only that that's the impression most reasonable people will get after reading the reliably sourced facts of the case. Framing all of our sources as either 'pro-GG' and 'anti-GG' is a bad habit, by the way. Opinion sources may be seen that way, but calling reliable news publications 'anti-GG' is innappropriate. They're reporting facts, not opinions. I disagree that your edit 'significantly improved' the 'imparialness' of the section. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've been observing this page for a while, and I've found it fascinating. I read two good newspapers everyday, but I rarely hear anything about this mess, other than one article and one op-ed in The New York Times. It is almost unknown, to most people. It very much surprises me that it makes such a mess here. Seems like a storm in a teacup. Regardless, I think the biggest problem we have here, partially fuelled by Masem, is that the building of this article is being framed in terms of "pro-Gamergate" and "anti-Gamergate". That is not how we build an article. Our job is not to reflect equally the points-of-view of people that are either "pro-Gamergate" or "anti-Gamergate". Our job is to write an encyclopaedia, based in the concept of verifiability and reliable sources. We reflect the due weight given to points-of-view in reliable sources. If there is a consensus in reliable sources, we reflect that consensus. We do not go out of our way to portray fringe points-of-view as equivalent to that consensus. That would be what our policy on neutral point-of-view calls WP:GEVAL, and is entirely inappropriate. We are not here to strike a balance. We never have been. We are not here to take a side in this dispute. We never have been. We are here to write an article documenting what has happened from a historical perspective. To do this, we use reliable sources, and the facts that provide. We do not seek out fringe sources, nor do we seek to make the article a dialectical form that presents a thesis and anti-thesis. In other words, Masem, your conception of this article and the process of creating it is entirely wrong. I fear you are too personally involved to see that. RGloucester — ☎ 17:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Impartialness is not the same as balanced. This is well explained on the NPOV page. And the issue is decidedly two-sided; the proGG have framed it that way for themselves. But again, I'm clearly not asking for equal balance of the two sides, but that we stay impartial to either side, which does require use to consider which side arguments fall on to build a neutral logical debate of what GG is. --MASEM (t) 17:37, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Then stop demanding that we falsely portray this debate as having anything to do with "journalism ethics" except for the fact that GamerGate supporters recite it like a magic talisman. Yes, we get it, GamerGate supporters think they're talking about journalism ethics. Literally everyone else says no, you're not actually talking about journalism ethics. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:41, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You don't understand. Impartialness means not judging (normatively) the viewpoints of people in Wikipedia's own register, which would be editorialising. I.e. we do not write "Gamergate is bad[citation needed]". It does not mean that we do not report the facts that reliable sources say, nor does it mean that we try to obfuscate the reality reported in those sources. There is no debate. This is an encyclopaedia article, not a forum for debates. It is a documentation of historical reality. RGloucester — ☎ 17:43, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically where and how is our "documentation" not reflective of the reliable sources? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm responding to Masem, who is proposing that thesis and anti-thesis be injected into the article. I haven't read the article, nor do I plan on doing so, so I have no idea what it says at the moment. RGloucester — ☎ 18:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
First sentence puts too much weight on an after-effect, despite the effect being the most-talked about once it happened. How so? What is the 'effect' here and what the 'after-effect?' Do you mean the accusations against Quinn are the 'effect?' Can you support your claim that the 'effect' was most talked about in reliable sources 'once it happened?' Certainly there was a metric shitton of online gossip about Quinn, but that's not relevant because it's not what we have sources for: whether it happened or not is not as important as whether reliable sources found it significant enough to report on. Please point to places where we are 'pushing the opinion "GGers are bad, evil people;"' reporting reliably sourced information that is likely to lead a reader to think less of gamergate is not 'pushing an opinion,' and our article does need to discuss every issue it covers in the way the sources do, which means we can't hold back 'negative' information because it might make people think gamergate is 'bad.' If reality has a distinct anti-GG bias, that's not our fault. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What the first sentence is doing is saying "The Iraq War was about the US spreading democracy" or "...getting cheap oil"; it's certainly widely believed in public opinion to be that but there's an actual chain of events that include the WMD, insurgency, etc. The problem here is that we don't have a good chain of reportable events/concepts prior to Gjoni's post to know the situation accurately through RSes, so we have an event that only really came to light with the charges against Quinn and then the subsequent harassment. And while the proGG built up their case about ethics (as little as their was) the harassment continued and the calls of misogyny started to fly. As such we have a controversy with no well-established cause but clearly two sides. So the way to get the first paragaph in the lead impartial is simply to move the calls about harassment and misogyny to the third sentence where the press's reaction to the situation since that is a clear dominating factor in the debate. --MASEM (t) 17:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a valid comparison. Do the majority of reliable sources say that the Iraq war was about spreading democracy or getting cheap oil? It doesn't matter that we don't have 'a good chain of reportable events' prior to Gjoni's accusations against Quinn being blown up into a large-scale harassment campaign: we report on the events we have sources for. If there were no sources on the 'chain of events' leading up to the Iraq war we wouldn't be writing about those on Wikipedia, either. We're not going to 'bury the lead' because you think it's not fair that the press isn't talking enough about whatever 'chain of events' you think are the gamergate analog to the leadup to the Iraq war. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:56, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. I would also note that this isn't an article about the hashtag, but about the controversy. The controversy primarily concerns misogyny and harassment, and why it's notable. Otherwise this article would have never survived deletion. — Strongjam (talk) 18:01, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Again, "impartial" is not the same as "balanced". Here is what I mean:
  • Current lead para: The Gamergate controversy began in August 2014 and concerns misogyny and harassment in video game culture. Many supporters of the self-described Gamergate movement (sometimes referred to as the hashtag #gamergate) say that they are concerned about ethical issues in video game journalism. Commentators and critics have said that the movement is rooted in a culture war against women and the diversification of gaming culture.
  • Impartial lead para: The Gamergate controversy began in the video game culture in August 2014. Many supporters of the self-described Gamergate movement (sometimes referred to as the hashtag #gamergate) say that they are concerned about ethical issues in video game journalism. Commentators and critics have said that the movement is rooted in a culture war against women and the diversification of gaming culture, and mainstream media has widely condemned the movement as unorganized, sexist and misogynistic due to continued harassment and threats towards female personalities in the video game industry despite their purported claims of ethics concerns.
It's a standard "point-counterpoint" style, and even with the added material that is anti-GG, clearly shows which way the sources are balanced. It's just that flip of the wording that flips it from partial to impartial without changing the balance. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your proposed lead para is distinctly parial in that it gives undue weight to an aspect of the 'controversy' that has essentially no reliable sources. This isn't an article about gamergate, it's an article about the controversy surrounding gamergate. The "standard point-counterpoint" style you're proposing gives the impression that the gamergate controversy is over whether gamergate is about misogyny or ethics. If that were true, there would be far more sources discussing and examining the ethics issues. The controversy is about the misogynistic harassment which is well established by reliable sources as the primary effect of the movement, not 'is it ethics or is it misogyny?' No source is giving any serious attention to the claim that gamergate is about ethics beyond reporting that some people say that and then going on to discuss the women who are being 'ethically' hounded out of their careers. -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's wrong. The controversy is not about harassment/misogyny, because save for a vocal minority and/or trolls doing the harassment, even GG supporters agree that harassment/misogyny is bad, and there's question it should not be happening. Harassment/misogyny is a prominent result of the controversy, but it is not the central topi of it. A controversy needs (at least) two sides to be such. In this case, the controversy at it's core is about the supporters' ethical concerns, which have then subsequently underwhelming by the lack of any specifics or where they have been specifics, the lack of reasonable actions to take for them, the lack of organization, and the fact harassment and misogynistic threats continue, tainting any message that the GG side has - that's the other side of the debate. --MASEM (t) 18:22, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, that's wrong. There is no controversy over ethics. The 'controversy' is not 'is gamergate about ethics or harassment?' If that were the case our sources would be giving the ethics issue serious attention. They're not. The controversy is over the movement's abusive behavior. That's what the sources are about. That's why the article was able to pass the GNG. It's a controversy over the gaming community's treatment of women. 'But ethics' is a side issue and should absolutely not be given equal weight in the lede in the name of 'impartiality.' -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:31, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there has been controversy over the ethics - there are two clear points: conflicts of interest, and writing "objective reviews". These points, alone, have been criticized and refuted by the antiGG side which we have in the article - that's the crux of the actual debate. What has happened is that the controversy has been overwhelmed by the actions or lack of thereof by those under the GG banner, giving a huge amount of coverage about the harassment, the effects that has had, and overwhelmed the core debate. Again "impartial" is not the same as "weight". It is about not taking a side in the situation. By immediately identifying the controversy as one side has decided it should be and not explaining the other side in the same sentence, and in WP's voice, that's not impartial. --MASEM (t) 18:37, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, let's see some sources that treat gamergate as a controversy about ethics, as opposed to mentioning that some people say it's about ethics and then going on to discuss the harassment coming out of the movement. If the bulk of articles written about this controversy are primarily discussing harassment, then that is what the controversy is about. Trivial mentions of ethics claims in articles about harassment don't make this into a controvert about ethics. Can you find some articles that briefly mention the harassment of women and go on to discuss gamergate's ethics claims as something other than vague and ill-informed handwaving? -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:44, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"as opposed to mentioning that some people say it's about ethics and then going on to discuss the harassment coming out of the movement." - There are no problems with using those articles - they actually are the voice of the highest quality RS/least biased in the debate. You cannot dismiss those as "trivial" mentions of the ethics, because they actually do identify them and then, like an impartial source, explain why others find them bad. That's the controversy. --MASEM (t) 18:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Masem, "objective reviews" are not even an issue of journalism ethics, period. That is an indisputable fact, the end. There is no such thing as an "objective review" to begin with. You will not find a single code of journalism ethics which says anything about the alleged concept, nor will you find any expert in journalism ethics giving the slightest credence to this claim. Again, it's a demonstration of GamerGate's cargo cult science approach to "journalism ethics." They are repeating words which they do not even understand the meaning of. Stop demanding that we treat fringe, unsupported nonsense as a meaningful argument. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:56, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Whenever people talk about "objective reviews" I'm reminded of Jim Sterling's 100% Objective Review of Final Fantasy XIII. Sceptre (talk) 20:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there is. An objective review is something Consumer reports does - they will rate things on a very strong objective scale (with some subjective aspects) and present a final score, with some but minimum commentary. But as well described by sources countering this point, video games, if art, cannot be reviewed in the same way, and this point has clearly been highlighted by the press. But that means that we can identify the want of objective reviews as a key starting point. The GG logic that I understand is that it is want reviews that are objective in that they might consider the story and provide praise or commentary on that, but the review should also look at all other facets and if it is something like a notgame, it needs to be called out and rated negatively on that. Of course, I'm sure many of us agree that's a terrible standard for reviews, but it is a point that we can document on their side. It might be "junk science" but just like our other articles on notable conspiracy theories and fringe topics, we at least present their arguments without comment first, and then give all the counterpoints and criticism about it. This is how we do appropriate treat fringe topics. --MASEM (t) 20:10, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, Consumer Reports' reviews are not "objective" and you will never find Consumer Reports stating that their reviews are objective.
Masem, you're still failing to get the point. At best, this argument is an opinion about the way people write reviews. It has nothing whatsoever to do with actual mainstream conceptions of journalism ethics, period, the end. Arguing that people should write reviews differently just factually, fundamentally is not making a serious argument about journalism ethics. It's making an argument about someone's personal preference.
That's great that GamerGaters want a certain kind of review. They're welcome to write their own reviews that make them happy. They're not entitled to demand that everyone else write reviews the way they want, or else. That is not an issue of journalism ethics except insofar as GamerGate is unethically attempting to impose its opinion of what reviews should be on everyone else. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:16, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it does, in their logic, because when they ignore all facets of a game and only focus on a story element (for example, in the case of Gone Home or DQ), the GG side states that they are not performing their (paraphrasing) proper ethical duties as an objective review for a consumer. Again, some of this starts to get into Insane Troll Logic (borrowing a phrase from TV Tropes) that I'm sure most of us cannot agree with, but that is all sourcable with good RSes that this is what they believe. It is no different from those demanding Obama's US birth certificate in terms of fringe, but we still need to give them the time of day. (And yes, actually Consumer Reports prides itself on objective testing, including changing policy when they were accosted with reviewing a pre-production iPad and reported they will no longer review pre-production models [3]). --MASEM (t) 20:26, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OK, and now you're getting to the heart of it - "in their logic," and we are not required to accept or give credence to their WP:FRINGE "logic" which no one else gives credence to. And no, there is no such thing as an objective review, the end. Masem, "objective testing" is not the same as "objective review." Let's hypothetically say we're reviewing clothes washers. Specific tests may be objective (how many pairs of pants fit into a washer), but their review conclusions are not. Weighting the results of those different objective tests is an inherently-subjective process. What if one washer gets clothes 5% cleaner, but takes 7% longer than the next washer, uses 3% more water and holds 1% fewer clothes? Which washer is "objectively" better? Well, kind of depends, right? - what's more important, speed of the wash, thoroughness of the wash, water usage or capacity? See, that's a subjective opinion which someone is going to end up choosing. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:29, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong. To be impartial on a fringe topic, we do have to explain the fringe-y side in so much as RSes do - otherwise it is an attack article. See, for example Barack Obama citizenship conspiracy theories. Of course, here, we have a tiny handful of good RSes that go into detail so we're not going to be spending a significant amount of time on the fringe view (as I've said elsehwere, what might amount to 3-4 paragraphs at most given present sourcing), and ten times that many sources that go "while they have these concerns, they aren't workable" or "while they have these concerns, their actions don't seem to be bear out". The better RSes do not simply dismiss the GG side with no coverage at all, but like what we want to do, they don't spend a lot of time to justify that they are valid and move onto the criticism of the movement. And on the CS part: this is what games want - they want games rated in 5-8 different areas and so they can go "oh this game has a great story but no gameplay, I'll pass", which is the same as CS's ratings, but yeah, I concede that's the not the same as reviews, but this is how GG is presenting their case, with the oxymoron of "objective reviews". --MASEM (t) 20:42, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you're right, we have to explain it as the RSes do. And no reliable source explains GamerGate's obsession with "objective reviews" as a journalism ethics issue. They explain it, as The Washington Post does, as a difference of opinion over whether games are art, specifically stating (GamerGate supporters) should also understand what it is that they are seeking, rather than pretending that they pursue some sort of more ethical model of journalism. I have no problem with writing "Gamergate supporters believe "objective reviews" are a journalism ethics issue," so long as we follow it up with "but everyone else rejects that claim." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have no problem with writing "Gamergate supporters believe "objective reviews" are a journalism ethics issue," so long as we follow it up with "but everyone else rejects that claim." - for the most part, I agree exactly with this (the "but everyone else..." may not be the same sentence but it will absolutely be the next logical thought in the following sentence, but that's a grammar issue). Per WP:FRINGE, specifically "Reporting on the levels of acceptance", we have Wales' way to do things like this : "Usually, mainstream and minority views are treated in the main article, with the mainstream view typically getting a bit more ink, but the minority view presented in such a fashion that both sides could agree to it." (my emphasis) In this case, the amount of ink the minority view will get is tiny, but we still report on the little there can be with some bit of respect that what the GG side says is what they believe. And then we get to pile on the counterpoints. Doing this at the few points in the article (the lead para, and the section on their ethics concerns like my rewrite) would take away one major impartial aspect I have with the article. The majority would would be handled by looking to trim down quotes from full on multi-sentence pulls and reducing the number used. That would leave various minor points that would, I feel, would be much easier to resolve, as long as it is understood we should be approaching this like FRINGE, and that until more proGG sources come about, we aren't going to have any ability to support the proGG argument outside the few statements already present in the article. --MASEM (t) 21:03, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"until more proGG sources come about". Good luck with that. soon we will start seeing the academic papers and while there are departments of ethics and journalism and women's studies, there are no departments of "but ethics". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not holding my breath, unless something massively changes in the GG moderates' approach. That said, I would expect in the future (years, not months) academics will explain the awkward ideals that GG sought, because there are interesting social aspects there in terms of whole "death of gamer identity" aspect and how it manifested itself. But we absolutely for sure have to wait for those to give any more details on what GG listed beyond what is already sourced in the article. --MASEM (t) 04:17, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't interesting at all. It is what we call being a "reactionary", and has been a common response to such fates for centuries. RGloucester — ☎ 14:07, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Arb Break

This "strong, pervasive public opinion" is the majority view on Gamergate as a movement. Whether or not that opinion is the 100% truth is not what Wikipedia is set out to determine. It is not our place to give the "ethics in video game journalism" a more prominent place or in any stretch of the policies and guidelines to downplay the fact that everyone sees it as a group of people involved in misogynistic harassment using their claims of corrupt journalists on a bunch of video game websites where they're just pissed off that they dare not to just give random games 10 out of 10 and be done with it but instead say "why does this character have large tits" or give any focus to non-traditional games with narrative themes that aren't going to show up in Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Saints Row Gat out of Hell, or the next Elder Scrolls game. Gamergate's focus is on not liking actual reviews of a game's story and praise of games that focus entirely on story and not on 360noscoping an alien's head off. So Masem, please stop trying to be a moderate here.
GG is not and has never been a legitimate cause. It started with falsely ledged complaints that Zoe Quinn used her feminine wiles to get positive coverage for Depression Quest that never existed on Kotaku so then they change their story and complain about Quinn being quoted heavily in the GAME_JAM piece and Depression Quest getting some sort of vague preferential mentioning on a list of 50 games that were getting full releases on Steam in his work as a writer for Rock Paper Shotgun as their evidence of "corruption". And when none of those claims were treated seriously and were debunked by Grayson admitting his relationship with Quinn and subsequent timeline that showed he never wrote about her after they began dating or any of Gamergate's other claims of corruption or games journalists being too close to developers (the fact that an indie dev is someone's roommate is the only one that comes to mind right now) were also never paid any mind by anyone, they set their sights on attacking all of the websites that wrote scathing pieces regarding their actions and how the notion of the "gamer" being a white male was dead we are at where we are now. Gawker is no longer a reliable source on any matters regarding Gamergate because of Operation Baby Seal. Gamasutra and Time aren't reliable sources (according to Gamergate) because of Leigh Alexander. No prior existing media is a reliable source because the media is protecting its own because people at the BBC and CNN would give a shit about a bunch of video gaming news blogs.
Everything negative about Gamergate is an opinion because the people doing all of the negative things can't possibly be part of Gamergate. No one in Gamergate sent in that threat to USU. It was some Brazilian clickbait blogger. Gamergate was never mentioned by the people posting the addresses of Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, Felicia Day, or anyone else that's come up. Nor was Gamergate ever mentioned in the threats to the first three women's lives. So these events surely can never be related. That's Gamergate's incredibly skewed point of view here. It's been called out as the No true Scotsman fallacy again and again.
But now their focus is on fucking with Wikipedia's meta processes as much as possible, as is evident of their "Operation Exit the Dragon" to get me out of the picture which included finding my accounts on Photobucket and last.fm in their weird backwards way of proving Encyclopedia Dramatica's page on me where it says I was sexually involved with Danny which was based on the ravings of LamontStormstar on Wikipedia Review. Or their current pisspoor attempts to dig up anything against us, and make sure to implore people that they mean on Wikipedia and not in our social media accounts such as their constant and repeated attempts to discredit me by linking to the Tweets I made where I used "fag" and cursed out any fucking GamerGater that went and complained at me after that as evidence that I'm biased and therefore should not be allowed to edit this page. ANd then when they ask people to do the Wikipedia violation collection they just come up with lists of links which Akesgeroth posted on the arbcom request page and again below and obviously came from 8chan because I saw that shit last night.
They want someone who isn't one of them already (either an SPA or an account revived to use its age to become involved with editing the semiprotected articles and talk pages) to legitimize their opinions, and sadly, you've been doing this Masem. You are pushing and urging editors to make sure "neutrality" ensures that Gamergate's minority view points are given equal footing on this page by treating this issue as a debate that hasn't already come to its conclusion weeks ago. The majority view point is that Gamergate is a conservative backlash against social minorities (women and the LGBT community) daring to make alternatives to the AAA studio games that make billions of dollars and how the hardcore gamers don't like the games and thinktheysho uldn't be given any press because there's no challenging gameplay and they're just stories. It's why the movement has been co-opted by conservative voices that have done things completely antithetical to Gamergate's goals or who have never said anything about video games in the past but see Gamergate fighting feminism and saw an opening to get a new audience. They are legitimizing the movement despite not giving a shit about their ideals, backpedalling on things they said that completely went against the group in the past.
So people coming here can go on and on about the big bad Wikipedians, the Big Five, putting them down and trying to prevent them from skewing the article to their POV when policies and guidelines almost expressly forbid it. They can come praise Based Masem for paying attention to them and attempting to get the article balanced they way they want to. And they can completely ignore other editors who are already on their side unless they happen to become a shill or a sell out for pointing out the threads that they're making on /gg/ or r/KotakuInAction that are attempting to disrupt Wikipedia. This is not how we should allow the article to continue to be edited. The only complaints of lack of neutrality are coming from Gamergate movement members who don't like how they're being portrayed here, which is just reflecting the mainstream view points on the movement.
No matter how many times they compare the coverage of various historical figures and hate groups that don't include the word "evil" and say it is comparable to the word "misogyny" on this page or make references to white supremacist websites to try to discount the staff writers of websites they don't want to be used, they should not be allowed to inundate this page and its editors and keep it in stasis in a way that delegitimizes the complaints against them by having the NPOV tag plastered at the top of the article. The only reason other controversial topics don't encounter this issue as we have on Gamergate and related pages is because the other issues don't have a majority of people involved who are web savvy enough to make this much of an impact. We will never satisfy the Gamergate movement and the #NotYourShield or /gg/ or r/KotakuInAction in what they want for this page to cover and say about them. That does not mean it should be consistently tagged with {{NPOV}}. It is a Sisyphean effort to deal with Gamergate in any fashion. No matter how many concessions you can make with someone nor sanctions leveled against another, there is someone to replace them and make new arguments and accusations to deal with. It's exhausting to deal with this article, on Wikipedia, where you see the same shit repeated day in and day out by a brand new account who managed to get autoconfirmed, and off, when you get people sending you tweets constantly to taunt or harass or digging through your old internet stomping grounds to find evidence against you or your address to send you hundreds of dollars of furry fandom-made dildos. We need to end this now.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:15, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Halfhat, you are not "finding violations of WP:SAY:" you are simply implementing your apparently flawed understanding of that section of the MOS to replace perfectly acceptable and neutral words with 'say.' WP:SAY does not mandate that we use absurdly repetitive language and never use any other word where we could use 'say' or 'said:' it prohibits us from using loaded terms like 'claimed' and 'explained.' "Argued" is also perfectly fine under that policy, because it doesn't make any suggestion as to the arguer's degree of correctness, and 'stated' is explicitly permitted by the guideline. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:25, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay my mistake stated is allowed, however "argued" and "noted" are common here and both less neutral (in opposite directions), there is also the odd other poor words like "explained". HalfHat 17:54, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Argued isn't mentioned, however there was a minidispute after I replaced various cases of "noted" with argued, the agreement seemed to be to avoid both. HalfHat 20:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe use "wrote" some more? Nothing wrong with "said" but it would be nice to mix it up a bit. — Strongjam (talk) 20:02, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here's an example of multiple WP:Say violations I just fixed. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gamergate_controversy&diff=633266565&oldid=633266246 HalfHat 19:17, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think your changes are unnecessary and weaken the prose of an already weak article, but you'll notice that I'm not reverting you. This is not an issue worthy of retaining the Tag Of Shame on the article, though, because it's a relatively simple fix and one that nobody is bothering to dispute even if we don't all agree that it needs to happen. If you think the change needs to happen, it's on you to do it, but it doesn't make any sense to require the tag to remain because you're 'still finding' these words that you believe are WP:SAY violations. Find them and change them. If you haven't found any more to change, then the problem is fixed. If you have, why haven't you changed them yet? -- TaraInDC (talk) 22:56, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

An interesting example is Columbia Journalism Review which while it says "Yet many criticisms of press coverage by people who identify with Gamergate . . . have been debunked." http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/gamergate.php — Preceding unsigned comment added by Halfhat (talk • contribs) 21:46, 10 November 2014 (UTC) sorry post this early what I was going to finish was that it still gave a roughly equal coverage of ethics and harassment. HalfHat 21:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

News: The nature of the Internet is Male-dominated

The source used is http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/04/open-internet-closed-to-women, but for some reason, the Internet article do not mention this stated fact. Describing a communication network nature as being gender-dominated is not something I commonly see, even through some pop-culture do like to present the use of the phone-system to be female-dominated. Thankfully, that kind of statements are not presented as facts on Wikipedia, and very few sources regarding the telephone system mention it so it would clearly be a undue statement from a fringe view, and likely quite sexist. Belorn (talk) 20:06, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you posted this, I couldn't find a single reference to gamergate or even gamer with a search. Seems pretty unrelated. HalfHat 20:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The last sentence in the lead of this article: "The resulting culture war, tied with the anonymous and male-dominated nature of the Internet, led to the subsequent harassment and conflict.". I did not bring it to gamergate article, the gamergate article brought it to me. I just found it as news to me that the nature of the internet is Male-dominated. In a normal article, I would had removed it. Belorn (talk) 20:35, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty sure it was added as there were complaints that misogyny and harassment were internet problems not just GG problems. The wording is a bit awkward, it's supposed to reflect that internet communities, and technology spaces themselves are male dominated. Which is pretty non-controversial when you look at the numbers. — Strongjam (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
While I am sure the intention was good, it just sit there as reinforcement of stereotypes. 85% of all Americans uses the internet. Where I live, that number is 95% of the whole population, half which also have a facebook account, which I am pretty sure qualify as a internet community. I guess you could try to limit the scope of internet communities enough that you can identify a community which is just male, and then use that to "prove" that the internet is male, but why do this? The source itself do not even mention gamergate so it seem quite unnecessary for a article of this size to include such statements and then try to build a narrative around it. Belorn (talk) 21:00, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Article is pretty straight-forward an uncontroversial to me, but if you have a problem with it being used then WP:FIXIT. — Strongjam (talk) 21:05, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are sources, and more to be added, that point out that the nature of the Internet is not so much male dominated by numbers but male-dominated in voices and behavior (eg the Mother Jones pieces uses the language of a male locker room); there is definitely sources (and perhaps we need more) that have tied how GG has handled this situation to how it is just an extension of how the Internet in general reacts to something. (There's more than enough sourcing on the gender nature of the Internet, but that likely should be added to Sociology of the Internet, which is only a start-class article.) --MASEM (t) 21:12, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Mother Jones opinion piece is not encyclopedic in tone, and its conclusion is polemical. This is not the place to discuss the nature of the internet; this article is the place to discuss the nature of Gamergate. MarkBernstein (talk) 21:16, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The point is the nature of the Internet, pre-GG, is what laid the foundation of how GG behaves, according to some. It is important that GG is not the first case of online harassment against women or in general hostile to women eg [4], [5], [6], [7], for example. --MASEM (t) 21:23, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is the nature of the internet online harassment? I think I could make the same point about the nature of education to be about school yard bullying, using a much larger size of sources to prove that many people indeed do experience school yard bullying while going through education. It is a documented problem, sure, and a dedicated researcher in Sociology could likely write a long report about the history of harassment, where it is being practiced, and the consequences from it. However, is Wikipedia article about gamergate really a place for doing that? Belorn (talk) 21:36, 10 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In that othres have said that the male-dominated - or perhaps "female unfriendly" might be better language - Internet the habits have rubbed onto the those that are engaging in the harassing, seeing no issue with harming a woman's sanity and tossing away complains like "grow a spine". It is an attempt by people analyzing the situation to understand why harassment was a vehicle by some in the GG situation. As such, it is connected. --MASEM (t) 04:14, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gamergate winding down

Focus should be given more to the decline of the pro-Gamergate narrative, as noted here; Has Gamergate Finally Burned Itself Out?. Take note of what they discuss, the matter a judge who jokingly said he she would vote against all male-oriented games at the Independent Games Festival. The judge resigned briefly in the wake of the Gamergate complaints, til the IGF actually examined the merit (or lack thereof) the complaints, and swiftly reinstated him her. The article, as well as many others, notes Sarkeesian's appearance on the Colbert Report, as well as the co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment saying "Over the past couple of months there’s been a small group of people who have been doing really awful things. They have been making some people’s lives miserable and they are tarnishing our reputation as gamers. It’s not right." A high-profile game industry person speaking out on this is rather notable. Tarc (talk) 00:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

But ethics!-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:46, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I only read the first link because I don't have much time, but the Slate piece is a blog. Also, the judge was of the Independent Games Festival, instead of a real judiciary. starship.paint ~ regal 00:51, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, no dice. The blog-esque sections of reliable sources are treated no differently, i.e. you don't get to do the "just a blog" dismissal.
Assuming they have the same editorial policies. HalfHat 14:09, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If you're referring to Mattie Brice (and I think you are), she's a her, not a him. -- TaraInDC (talk) 01:05, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Derp, sorry...saw the name, assumed short for Matthew. Fixed. Tarc (talk) 02:02, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Winding down is the appropriate phrasing. Gamergate is not "dead" and will never be dead. It means too much to those who are involved in the movement (or consumer revolt, whatever) that they will continue to work on GG issues into the future. It's like a campaign, those who are marginally involved have now moved on already, there isn't really anything "newsworthy" that has happened recently so it's not in the mainstream media and gaming journals are, for sure, tired of discussing the topic. It will never go away completely but, barring any flash fires, activity will lessen in the coming weeks and months. Ideally, this will provide some much needed perspective that will help this article. Liz Read! Talk! 03:02, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You people do realize that the media churns out yet another "GamerGate is Dead! Pls stop stealing our monies ;-;" every week or so? I'm so pissed off that you actually fall for this that I'm not even going to bother linking to the 20+ stupid "GamerGate is dead" shit. --DSA510 Pls No H8 05:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah one from weeks ago is actually in the references here. I've heard Dyson pulled their advertising recently which doesn't really fit with this, though I've not seen any RS report on it. HalfHat 08:56, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
They didn't even report on Mercedes Benz, only when they got back, and only one outlet, and even when Gawker denied they were advertising with them. Loganmac (talk) 14:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources drive our narrative. As the frightening and horrific events that characterised the first two months recede into the past and public attitudes to Gamergate solidify, it's not surprising that some of those reliable sources are now talking about Gamergate being over. It certainly isn't Wikipedia's task to act as a booster for a movement that the vast majority of reliable sources regard as hateful and violent. That's just not what encyclopaedias are for. --TS 12:34, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that since the author cannot even do a little fact checking about when a website was created ("Gamergate organizers at 8chan—a site set up for Gamergate after 4chan booted them—" a simple Google search will tell them the site was created in 2013), and is instead parroting the views of those who wish people to believe that 8chan was set up just for those involved in GamerGate, that the actual piece is not reliable. If the author can't take 5 seconds to find out if a site was made before or after what they're writing about, then they aren't worth the read. Also, we are well aware that this line "Gamergaters knew an opportunity when they saw one and put on a great show of being offended by this tweet, which they read, or pretended to read, as literal." in referring to Mattie Brice's comments would have been called sexist, misogynistic, etc. had a man said the same thing about any game with women. It is intellectually bankrupt, and hypocritical, to deny that many feminists, etc., do take those types of things literally when men say them; and then turn around and say that no one should take those kinds of statements literally as long as they come from a woman. The article, itself, is of no value to the page. UncleThursday (talk) 05:20, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

tag, again

My removal of the tag was reverted by User:Mr. Random with the following edit summaries:

" A case has been made that this article needs a tone rewrite, if nothing else. Possible sources to fix this have been ignored"

"misrepresentation of sources and lack of non-anti-GG sources are two separate issues. The former, per Masem, is why the notice stays"

"per Masem and the ANI page. None of the three conditions for removal is currently true"

I'm sorry, I'm new to this mess, so maybe I'm missing something. But I've been on Wikipedia for a very long time and this to me looks like a classic case of certain editors fighting to keep a tag on the article as a badge of shame (as the ANI page says) because they they don't like what the article says. In particular they don't like that the article is based on reliable sources and reflects what reliable sources say.

Specifically:

  1. an article "need(ing) a tone rewrite" is NOT a reason to keep the tag on the article. And frankly, that sounds like some weasel bullshit obfuscation. "Oh, the article is POV! Why is it POV? Well... it's the tone!". Come on, you got to do better than that. Keeping the tag requires that the tag is substantiated and it is explained precisely how the article violates Wikipedia policies. From what I can see (I skipped some of the wall-of-text-rants) this hasn't been done.
  2. "Possible sources... have been ignored" - I'm sorry, that doesn't make sense. What the hell are "possible sources"? If there are some "possible sources" out there being ignored, and you feel that they shouldn't be ignored, then for goodness sake, include them, don't spuriously tag the article. "Possible sources have been ignored" is just NOT a reason to include a NPOV tag in an article. *At best* it's a testament to someone's laziness, at words, weaselly excuse making.
  3. "Misrepresentation of sources" - Ok, this one is actually substantial. If true. But I'm not seeing where this is explained. Which sources are being misrepresented? Where? How? Be specific. Just asserting that sources are being misrepresented doesn't make it so. An assertion is not an argument. Let's see the list. If no such list is forthcoming, the tag goes.
  4. "per Masem" - first, this isn't an argument, unless Masem is some kind of authority here, whose views have been widely accepted by the general community, or at least on this talk page. This isn't the case. In fact, if one looks at the discussion right above, it's pretty clear that User:Masem has a pretty fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia policy, and in particular of what "neutrality" means. "Neutrality" does not mean "for every negative statement we must include a positive statement". It does not mean "we cannot include negative statements". It does not mean "we cannot include opinions (from reliable sources)". This is being pointed out to them. The fact that they - and apparently couple of others - fail to get it is not a reason to include the tag. Not understanding Wikipedia policy is not a reason to include the tag.
  5. "per ANI page" - I have no idea how this makes sense. The discussion at ANI does not support including the article at all.

Either specific, detailed explanation is made of how the article violates WP:NPOV - as required - or the tag goes. Soon. Volunteer Marek  05:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your "per Masem" is a gross, incorrect statement of what I am trying to argument for. Impartiality, not balance. Huge difference. --MASEM (t) 05:57, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As to the points:
  • #1 (and same as #4) - Several editors including myself believe this suffers from impartial tone, which is a WP:NPOV consideration. The first sentence is the primary point where this absolutely violated, as the harassment is a consequence of the controversy, but not the cause/reason (which, actually, is unknown or unclear). The rest are issues on phrasing and ordering that, presently, ridicule any point given by the GG side; while technically in line with policy as to not intend to give it the voice of WP at any single phrase, as a whole it is a problem. There's small bits of reordering that can be done to improve the language without changing the content or the ratio of sources. This also applies to the excessive use of antiGG pull quotes in full to keep hammering that the harassment and misogyny is bad, but without contributing to the factual substance of the article. It is not like the article has to be trashed, 95% of the content is good, but there just needs some rewrite, quote trimming, and reorganization to speak in a more impartial voice.
  • #2 and #3 are non-starters; I prefer if we could even get away from weaker RSs to source most of this to high quality ones, but the sources that are claimed to be ignored or mis-represented are very weak or not even reliable to start. So yes, that's not an argument. #5 As the time I write this, the ANI discussion has no obvious consensus either way so that's also a non-starter. --MASEM (t) 06:12, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As noted many times, you are not allowed to keep the tag in place as a warning to readers or a shame badge. Tag the article, make your concerns known on the talk page, and discussion ensues. You and your friends have failed to achieve consensus for your concerns, thus your proposal FAILS. Thirty-five days is more than a generous amount of time to grant for this sort of thing, and as people keep ignoring this, I'll use shouty-bold caps: REMOVAL OF THE TAG DOES NOT MEAN THAT ALL DISCUSSION IS HALTED, it just means there is nothing dire that necessitates the solicitation of outside opinion. Moveon was initially created to prod Republicans to drop the Monica Lewinsky stick and...wait for it...move on. Tag proponents need something similar. Tarc (talk) 13:19, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Given that people have refused to partipate in consensus developing debates (the mediation request, and the two prior ArbCom ) on the basis of SPAs being the issue and not addressing concerns of established editors, there is no way to say that we can talk about "failure to get consensus". --MASEM (t) 14:01, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice if we could drop all the "SPA" stuff, and judge arguments, not backgrounds. starship.paint ~ regal 14:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be nice if we could all just use this page to talk about rainbows and kittens. As it happens, though, the presence of SPAs is a serious problem here and we need to discuss it. In particular we're facing severe opposition to the implementation of Wikipedia's clear and longstanding policies, driven in part by SPAs. We cannot ignore that elephant, sorry. --TS 12:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

More Obvious Bias

Under "Political Views" or whatever (the absolute shit quality of it makes me forget section titles like that), there is only one sentence regarding the charities. It should be expanded on. --DSA510 Pls No H8 05:52, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to be WP:BOLD and expand it based on reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:55, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue that even the current sentence is too much. One donation made by a few random people who use the hashtag is not, itself, a political view; the editors who want it included in the article seem to be trying to make the argument that this has implications for the political views of Gamergate as a whole (arguing, in other words, that because certain people who also use the GamerGate hashtag have donated money to a particular business, this means that we can conclude things about Gamergate as a whole), but that argument is WP:OR -- covering that in such a context requires reliable sources not just stating that it happened, but that it is significant. We don't note, for example, every political or personal donation made by other individuals or groups -- they're only worth covering once a reliable source has made an issue of them in some way. Otherwise, mentioning donations in an article to imply things like "he can't always be a bad person, he donated money to XYZ" or "he is clearly affiliated with this political movement, he donated money to them!" is original research, because it's an editor trying to force readers to draw specific conclusions rather than relying on reliable sources for interpretation. This is particularly true for Gamergate (which is diffuse and therefore hard to characterize) and for, if I recall the story correctly, these particular donations, which were made to someone who had constantly had a dispute with one of Gamergate's primary targets. Some editors might want to say that the donations show the milk of human kindness, or that it was just another form of harassment, or that it was purely a cynical ploy to deflect criticism; but any of these statements would have to be cited to a reliable source indicating the relevance of the event in that context. Without such a source, again, my feeling is that they can't be included because we have no citations for how, exactly, they're relevant to the discussion. Remember that the article is already massively-long -- it cannot hope to cover every particular thing that anyone claiming to be a part of Gamergate has done over the past few months. So any such inclusion needs sources indicating not just that they happened, but that it is relevant to the overarching coverage of the controversy. --Aquillion (talk) 07:28, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Source
Source
Source
Source
Source
Willhesucceed (talk) 10:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thousands of pounds have been donated in the name of GG, so it's more than a few, at the very most though I think it should probably a short paragraph. Preferably shorter, it could probably be better placed in another section, I think it used to be in TFYC section. HalfHat 11:30, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Given that there are tens of thousands using the gamergate hashtag, and one of the sources indicating that a single donor gave several thousand dollars, thats much less than a pound a person. they really put their money where their mouth is. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, exactly. Those sources aren't useful, because they only state, effectively, 'some people who say they identify with GamerGate have given some money to other people'. They don't actually assert relevance, and therefore can't be given any particular weight over the thousands of other things that have happened over the course of this controversy. Conversely, there are countless reliable sources asserting in detail that harassment is core to what Gamergate is; that's the sort of sources that are needed to give this more than a sentence of attention at best. "A few people using the GG tag did something, which we will drop here without context for users to draw their own conclusion" is not encyclopedic writing; "here are a large number of reliable sources discussing what Gamergate is and what its defining elements are" is encyclopedic writing. This is especially true because the article is far too long and therefore cannot possibly cover every single operation, post, or action that people claim to have accomplished in Gamergate's name -- we need to focus on overarching core coverage produced by reliable sources, and avoid trying to cobble together our own original-research narratives out of disparate events like the donations referenced above. Obviously some editors here feel strongly that these (comparatively tiny) thousands of pounds of donations offer some deep insight into Gamergate, or are representative of it or otherwise would improve our article if we gave it more coverage; but I don't think that there's reliable sources backing that assertion up, so I think it's fair to dismiss it as generally not-very-relevant. --Aquillion (talk) 06:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The "charity work" of a particular person or persons is not relevant to the topic of the article. Please keep in mind that this article is not about Gamergaters themselves, nor about their beliefs or their movement or whatever one wishes to call it. It is about the controversy generated by people who harassed (and continue to do so) Quinn, Wu, and others under the #Gamergate hashtag. Tarc (talk) 13:13, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Since they donated under the hashtag, more clearly than many of the threats, that argument would apply just as much to the harassment. It also did garner a decent ammount of attention, with accusations of weaponizing charity. HalfHat 13:16, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Again, irrelevant. This is not an article about Gamergaters, this is an article about Gamergater-fueled controversy, time to accept that and move on. Tarc (talk) 13:21, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This just looks like POV pushing. It is part of a controversy, there were accusations of weaponizing charity. HalfHat 13:32, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My admittedly-brief search doesn't find a single reliable source which even mentions the phrase "weaponizing charity." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 13:50, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it had, maybe it hadn't, it was hot topic for a bit. I'll have a look, but I don't think that phrase itself was used. HalfHat 16:38, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A random thought

Just considering some past discussions, I'm wondering if there are points that we all might be speaking past, on the core nature of what this article is, which in turn might reflect how to write this to address issues.

Imaging if there was no harassment at all involved in this: Gjoni posted his blog, the people that are GG accussed Quinn, and then went on to find other ethics concerns and did their advertiser campaigns. At the core, this is the controversy from the side of the GG, this is what their movement is (as they claim, as we can cite). In considering it as a controvery, it has the two sides and all normal facets one would expect: here is what one side that wants to see change wants (proGG) and here's the other side (gaming journalists and indie devs, or more specifically, those that push political views in games). I don't know if we'd have an article on it if it was just this, but I'm just setting up.

But what did happen is the addition of harassment and the like. Consider that this is another controversy separate from the above. This is the mainstream press criticizing the use of harassment that appears misogynic by those that claim they are part of the other controversy.

What the problem may have been is that by calling this as the "Gamergate controversy" is potentially misleading because it relates to the first one (the gamers vs gaming press), while another way the press have used it to describe there side. So we are starting for all readers (pro and antiGG alike) from a point that could be taken either way by title only.

There is no question that the bulk of sourcing is on the second controversy, the mainstream press vs the proGG side, because of the harassment. As such, I wonder if consider calling this "Gamergate movement controversy" to accurately reflect that this is primarily about the issues the harassment has called around the movement, more than anything else. What that would mean would be a bit of reorganization to frst explain what the GG movement is, their goals, and the critical responses to that are (probably a whole 4-5 paragraphs at most, we have most of the material already) and then going into the actual line of the events that are part of this larger controversy, which at the end of the day is primarily going to be the predominate mainstream critical assessment of the GG tactics and the bulk of the rest of the article. Calling it by the "Gamergate movement controversy" makes it 100% clear we're not covering the movement in detail but the issues that those using the "GG" banner have caused. Alternately, we could keep this as "Gamergate controversy" and make sure in the first sentence of the lead, to explain that the article is going to about the second controversy, and not the movement. Either way, I can see a path that keeps nearly all sources but makes it clear that WP's article is not about the movement but the actions they caused. I'm not 100% on this approach, but it was something that struck me when reading some of the replies overnight. --MASEM (t) 16:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

per the AFD, this article is about the harassment. Gamers and forum trolls being upset about something is not itself notable because that is the usual state for those people. Artw (talk) 16:14, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which is what I'm saying, which might make this easier to write to isolate the part about the movement's aspects and "their" controversy into a single section per FRINGE, and then go on about the harassment. The approach would make it clear that outside of that section, the rest is about the harassment events and media's reaction to it. --MASEM (t) 16:28, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, I'll get back to you on this. HalfHat 16:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There isn't any "movement". That's a figment of people's imagination. RGloucester — ☎ 17:37, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A quick Google search suggests otherwise. I agree with Masem. Reframing the discussion could be a helpful first step in addressing the structural problems of this article. Pollinosisss (talk) 18:16, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there are reliable (high quality) RS that recognize that there is a movement, and if we follow that and treat that as a small FRINGE subsection where all their "ethics" items are described and leave the rest of the article about the harassment that has done in the name of the GG movement, then we can clear up a lot of the issues here. But we have to recognize that the press does recognize a movement. The problem right now is trying to group the concerns of the movement and the concerns of the press about harassment in the same subsections which the collision is causing much of the non-impartial language. --MASEM (t) 18:18, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There are also high quality sources that say it is not really a movement, just a unorganized rabble under a hashtag, and purposefully so , so that there is no culpability for the harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:39, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
...which we can add to the larger part of the article that show the press questions if this really is a movement without leadership, or even using the ethics as a front for harassment. (It would be improper to call the GG a movement in the FRINGE area and then not include these complaints elsewhere). --MASEM (t) 20:17, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why would we privilege the sources that see GG as a "movement" over those that say its just a ravaging horde via implementing a WP:STRUCTUREal bias? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:01, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Again, you are privileging the "some" sources that give credence to a "movement" that other equally reliable sources say is not a "movement" at all but merely a gaggle of hashtaggers whinging about this and that and the other thing and using it as cover for harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:29, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We have high quality sources that are critical of GG, with some that acknowledge GG as a movement before speaking ill of it, and some that doubt or denounce that from the start. As such, two viewpoints with about the same weight and balance means we should present both points, and by presenting the movement as a FRINGE topic of the main controversy instead of trying to mix it into it will simplify the article's approach by making it clear it is about the harassment issues. --MASEM (t) 22:45, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We have just as many high quality sources that dispute any claims that gamergate is an actual "movement". Privileging the structure of the article as if the "but ethics 'movement'" is the valid perspective is not WP:STRUCTURE appropriate and certainly not something we will do to try "appease" ranting tolls and satisfy their desire for attention and acknowledgment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The point of this approach is not to appease the proGG, but to be 100% clear that this article's main topic is the harasment of the actions under the GG movement and there is no NPOV issues in how we cover the harassment given the predominate sourcing in the press. In the current version of this article, by mixing the ethics concerns with the harassment, there are difficult NPOV/impartial issues that are entangled. Separate out and isolate the brief amount of ethics aspects we already have, and then there's a clear delination, and it will be much clearer that once we start getting into the harassment aspects, there is zero way we can give the GG aspects any positive aspects there given the overwhelming negative attention they have in the press when it comes to the harassments. This is an approach supported by NPOV and required by FRINGE, (given that the movement is a fringe view, to give it the weight that sources give little coverage of). --MASEM (t) 06:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It might be noted here that there are many controversies surrounding Gamergate, but Gamergate itself is not a controversy. The current title is misleading. Pollinosisss (talk) 18:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's why thinking "Gamergate movement controversy" as a title might be better, as 1) it's not about the movement, and what would be about the movement would be its a short section to give just the only backgrround we can source) - as such, at least I think, that those proGGs that are asking about the POV of this article but recognize the issues with not being reported in reliable sources will recognize we can't do any more for them in coverage and thus cannot complain of POV of the article, and 2) separate out the two very different issues that are difficult to write in the same logical thought. --MASEM (t) 18:31, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think people are having trouble with the English language. The suffix -gate is attached to words to indicate a scandal or controversy. The addition of "controversy" is thus unnecessary, and only done to disambiguate from the type of ant. "Gamergate movement" doesn't make any sense. It means "Gamer scandal movement" or "Gamer controversy movement", which is a nonsense phrase. There is no "Gamer scandal movement". There is a scandal about harassment and misogyny in the video gaming sphere, hence "Gamer" and "-gate". This meaning trumped the original reference to the so-called "corruption" involving a one Ms Quinn. The suffix "-gate" indicates that scandal. Perhaps a so-called "movement" has arisen amidst the scandal, but that doesn't change the fact that the scandal itself is not about any kind of amorphous movement, but about the contemptible behaviour of certain people. RGloucester — ☎ 18:40, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree generally, but would caution against being so prescriptive. I don't think there's need to worry about the lexical precision of "Gamergate" (as movement or controversy) since that's basically the common term and what we're stuck with. However I don't object to anything else in the above. Protonk (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What I've recognized when I came to this idea is that the people on the proGG side think that "Gamergate" is about them, and thus the fact we bury their ethics concerns (work with me on this) is why they come to this article to want change. The press treat "Gamergate" as the larger harassment issue. There's clearly a communication issue here that we really have two different things happening that are kludgy when trying to treat it as one. We don't necessary have to change the title to separate it, but the lead is going to have to be super clear. If we kept it as "Gamergate controversy", then the lead would likely need to come out as : "An ongoing controversy involving the actions of supporters of the hashtag #Gamergate broke out in the video game industry in August 2014. The #Gamergate supporters have claimed they seek to challenge issues of ethics in journalism within the video game industry. Simultaneous to this was a prolonged series of harassment and threats against several video game industry figures, primarily female, using the #gamergate hashtag. The harassment was condemned widely by international media, and condemned the actions as sexist and misogynistic, and questioned the true intent of the #gamergate movement." (I running that off the top of my head, so it absolutely needs wordsmithing) But putting it in that tone makes it 100% clear, this is going to be about how the press saw GG, and not about the GG movement. There would be no way that the POV (of trying to make this proGG) could be challenged in that manner. We'll have the small section on describing the GG movement with only criticism of their ethics complaints, but we'll get to lack of organization, the "but ethics!" aspects and the like later in the larger part of the article. --MASEM (t) 19:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So what you really wanted to do was muck about with the lede? Nope. Artw (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, because there would be a more significant revision to the overall structure; the point of redoing the lead (and that's certainly not a perfect rewrite) is to make it 100% clear that the article is about the controversy around the harassment issues, and not about the proGG's controversy with the gaming press, so that if the proGG side continue to say "but this is baised!" we can say that their issues are the clear FRINGE point to the larger harassment ones, and dismiss those concerns by nature of the structure. --MASEM (t) 20:46, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
On this page, there is no "proGG" or "antiGG". There are only Wikipedia editors, writing in the encyclopaedic voice. There is no "controversy with the gaming press" according to reliable sources. RGloucester — ☎ 21:39, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"Media: "We are ethical n' stuff XD"[1] Source: Said Media." --DSA510 Pls No H8 23:25, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is silly to claim there are no sources to ascribe what the proGG wants, even if, as some sources believe, this is only pretense for something else - we have what the proGG has claimed to be already sourced in the article. We don't have to necessarily believe that the proGG's claims are true (the press by and large doesn't) but by making it a separate discussion as a small FRINGE section, we can easily separate out arguments that right now are mixed together and make it difficult to undue the two issues. --MASEM (t) 21:54, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There is no controversy about "but ethics"- other than the fact that those claiming it as an issue apparently cannot identify actual "ethics issues" when it hits them on the head. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:09, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If a side of an issue says they have a problem with X, and that source is claimed by a strong RS, then we can say that in the article; in this case, we have all the sources that make the necessary claims of the GG's issues with the press already in the article and would not have to scramble around for re. GG supporters say they have an issue with the gaming press (we can source that), and they have a few things like conflicts of interest (sourced) and "objective reviews" (sourced). However, everyone recognizes these as FRINGE view, so we have many more sources that counter the COI and the "objectives review" points, and we have numerous criticism about how the GG side has managed itself, it's lack of message or workable mess, and of course, the whole harassment side. This proposal is just to call out the little we can source about the GG movement in a small section as FRINGE to the main topic of the harassment which is what this article should be clearly about; this is avoid all the mingling of issues that give it the appearance of POV.
Let's consider this from the opposite side; hypothetically, consider if all the GG complaints about ethics were removed from this article, (excluding the press's "but ethics!" commentary and the like); what is left is really what this article needs to be about, and written to that point. However, as a note in the overall history, we should, per FRINGE, have a short section to explain where GG came about and their fringe viewpoint, and why it is a fringe viewpoint. Because we've made this hypothetical article clearly about the harassment, we have no "responsibility" to do any additional work to speak positively towards GG (until more sourcing to give them that comes about), as per NPOV. Meaning that the claims this is an NPOV article coming from SPAs can be nullified because the article is not about the GG movement itself, but about the harassment done in the name of the GG movement. It's a way to move forward on this article that I think would satisfy my issues with it. --MASEM (t) 23:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No "ethics issues"? Our very own article would disagree "Hill instead wrote that AAA games publishers "coopted [games journalism] as a marketing arm" and said that many games journalists agree that those publishers hold too much power over the media." It is widely established that ethics issues exist within gaming journalism, and that has been a running joke since before Nintendo reviewed their own games in Nintendo Power. What people are arguing over is whether or not GGers are using the legitimate issues of game journalism ethics as a smokescreen for misogyny, which the overwhelming media supports, and not whether or not legitimate issues of game journalism ethics exist which the overwhelming media also supports.AioftheStorm (talk) 00:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly right. There is no "controversy over ethnics issues", because those issues are acknowledged universally. The controversy surrounds how these people used that widely-acknowledged problem as a front to spew hate. RGloucester — ☎ 00:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The concern that some claim to have with journalism ethics is a minor aspect of Gamergate. It is given adequate coverage in proportion to its minority point-of-view. Tarc (talk) 00:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why I'm suggesting that we group all the existing parts that focus on the ethics arguments into a small section to isolate that from the larger, majority topic, and make it clear we are only giving the appropriate WEIGHTed coverage to the GG side, and then get into the larger criticism of their methods/approach. --MASEM (t) 00:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're willfully misquoting Hill's point, which is that Gamergate isn't talking about AAA game publishers at all, and therefore they cannot claim those legitimate issues as an issue of journalism ethics that they're discussing. Yes, there are issues of ethics in video games journalism. No, Gamergate is not doing anything meaningful to discuss or address them. Instead, they're talking about indie game developers' sex lives, sending death threats to a cultural critic and attacking an academic group for being taken over by "feminists" — none of those things have the least shred of connection to journalism ethics. The movement can't claim to be about something it demonstrably has no interest in. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:58, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
They can make the claims all they want. It's their PR that fails when their actions do not speak anywhere close to what their claims are; Scientology can claim it's a religion, but most people consider their actions fraudulent. We absolutely need to cover the mainstream perception that gamergate it not about ethics, but we also can report from sources that they claim are about ethics. --MASEM (t) 07:17, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
and we do state that they claim that. but there is no "controversy" over "but ethics" except on this page. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:30, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Go back to my original thesis on this post: there is clearly the controversy about the use of harassment and other tactics by those claiming themselvs as GG supporters that is the focal point of this article, why this whole thing is notable, etc. Very little of this - save for the "but ethics!" charge - has anything to do directly with any claimed ethics charges that the GG side has stated they want (from our existing sources). To a proGGer's eyes, they think the "Gamergate controversy" is their ethics charges, and the stuff with harassment is not for various reasons, some which go further down the FRINGE route (this can be seen by reading the various boards). I think everyone on this talk page recognize that this view of what the "controversy" is cannot be the primary focus, and only qualifies as FRINGE. But to understand the main controversy over the harassment, we still need to lay out the FRINGE view of the GG supporters - as well as direct commentary and criticism of those concerns. We write the rest of the article to be 100% clear to a new reader that we aren't calling the "controversy" around what the GG's ethics concerns are (we won't even call that a controversy), but solely on the harassment. We make crystal clear that the primary topic of this article is the controversy over the harassment, delegating the little we can source about the ethics charges to a small section. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And again, we DO state that some of the GG hashtag posts are "but ethics" - but we CANNOT claim there is any "controversy" around the "but ethics" because their aint. And we dont give a damn that anyone may feel that our article is not advocating appropriately for their cause. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe I am just misunderstanding what you are suggesting. Can you make a draft article that would show what you are actually proposing would look like? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try - the suggestion here is not to boost the GG signal any more than we already have, but simply group their ethics claims and the counterpoints directly to those claims in one section, so that everything else in the article is focused on the harassment and dubious nature of the movement; the resulting articles, following the lead, would be Background (like it is), a brief summary of the moment and their claims, and then from then on out - the events around the harassment, the death of gamers/GG's email campaigns, and then criticism and analysis of the whole situation including the nature of sexism and misogyny and the criticism of the "but ethics!" aspects. --MASEM (t) 17:18, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Culling substandard sources

This is a controversial article which deals with very specific WP:BLP topics, but is plagued with substandard sourcing. There is really no need to have 153 sources detailing the minutia of the controversy. I suggest removing all the sources labeled as op-eds, and all of the gaming press sources. That would leave mainstream outlets like the BBC, public radio, PBS, The New Yorker, Slate, The New York Times, The Independent, The Boston Globe, Le Monde, Salon, CNN, Mother Jones, The Guardian, Wired, Time, LA Times etc, so long as the sources were not to their editorial page. This would mean removing sources like Venture Beat, Ars Technica, IGN, Polygon, The Daily Dot, Kotaku, PC Magazine, The Verge, Gamespot, Gameindustry.biz, Re/code, Eurogamer, etc...

The question of the RfC: Shall we limit the sourcing of this article to mainstream secondary sources, removing all niche game journalism sources, niche tech journalism sources, opinion/editorials columns, and personal blogs?

We just don't need to use niche publications to create an article for this topic. aprock (talk) 19:27, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

discussion

  • There's a case to be made for some of the sources you've suggested dropping, but it might be a valuable exercise to cull the sourcing in general. There are all ready too many footnotes to marginal or situationally useful references. Protonk (talk) 19:41, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • There will be a few "substandard" sources I think we need to keep, such as Tolito's Kotaku rebuttal to the initial Quinn charge. But I do think that a few step of seeing what claims made by substandard sources can be moved to a good RS should be done first, and then see what the next step (eg how many statements only sourcable to substandard ones are left). --MASEM (t) 19:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sources like that are reasonable to keep if they are referred to in the mainstream press. Thus if his rebuttal is discussed, in say the Wall Street Journal, the primary source can be included. aprock (talk) 19:49, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's reasonable. But I think that determination should come after we do, wherever possible, replacement of weak RS to strong RS that support the same fact (eg what should be non-issue as that's just general improvement) What's left will then have to take a more cautious approach. --MASEM (t) 19:57, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No one is suggesting removing analysis and commentary of the event. In fact, per WP:PSTS we rely on secondary sources to perform topic synthesis. However, per WP:RSOPINION, opinion pieces are generally not reliable sources for much beyond what the author thinks. If a mainstream source indicates that the editorial is of particular interest, then including it might be reasonable. Including it simply because it exists, is contrary to WP:DUE. aprock (talk) 19:54, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Are you reading a different proposal than I am? Shall we limit the sourcing of this article to mainstream secondary sources, removing all ... opinion/editorials columns, and personal blogs? yes, there is not only the suggestion but actual statement we remove from consideration some of the prime locations to derive high quality , in-depth opinion/commentary/analysis to be left with soundbites culled from "news" articles. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:08, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that your definition of "high quality" is considerably different that that of the mainstream. Which "high quality" source would this proposal affect? aprock (talk) 22:19, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"high quality" relative to the sources available for an issue that is 3 months old. When the academic reviews come in, then the editorials are likely to be the second tier of quality. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:05, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Eliminating tech sources for an article about a technocultural controversy seems arbitrary or WP:POINTY. In some cases, though perhaps not in all, the technical press will offer expertise or detail not available to more general sources. Often, requests for source purges of this nature are really seeking to eliminate sourcing for critical sections of an article, which can then be removed, or preparing for a fresh visit to AfD. Neither is likely to be effective here. Moreover, if all this pruning will be done while the article remains capped with an NPOV template, we’ll continually be wrangling over whether each change is a further attempt to deskew the article. I do not see this as a productive path forward. MarkBernstein (talk) 20:07, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean by "pointy". If the tech sources are high quality mainstream sources they are probably reasonable. Which tech sources do you think are particularly high quality mainstream sources? aprock (talk) 22:17, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems like a good broad principle and an absolutely terrible hard and fast rule. Oppose. Artw (talk) 20:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems incredibly overbroad to me to suggest that we can't use well-known tech/gaming journalism sources, which are those which have covered this matter most extensively. The Verge and Polygon in particular are run by noted journalists with a pretty significant history of quality work. Also, if we remove all of the sources you suggest, we will be left with far fewer "pro-GamerGate" voices — no Erik Kain, no APGNation, no MetalEater, no CinemaBlend, no Cathy Young, no Christina Hoff Sommers, etc. The ramifications of the fact that the only pro-GamerGate sources are of such marginal quality is an exercise left for the reader. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:36, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which of the tech/gaming sources are particularly "well-known"? aprock (talk) 22:17, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as I said, The Verge for one. As per its Alexa rank (426), it receives more traffic than Slate (611), Wired (623), Salon (1,088) or Mother Jones (3,700), just to name a few of those you named. Its staff consists of well-known tech journalists including Nilay Patel and its reporting is widely cited and commented upon beyond its site. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:30, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not at all clear that Alexa traffic is a good barometer of mainstream. The Verge is just barely three years old. I personally don't have any issue with the site, and know nothing about it's editorial practices. Is there any reporting there that is crucial to the article, and which can't be sourced to other mainstream sources? If so, it may be reasonable to use it, but it's probably not a big loss if it's not used. I could be wrong though. aprock (talk) 22:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, then what is a good barometer of mainstream other than just arguing by assertion that tech sites can't be mainstream? And why would Wired be mainstream and The Verge not? More people read The Verge than read Wired, at least based upon available traffic stats. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:42, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good question, but again I don't think website traffic is the way to answer it. There may be some insight at mainstream media if you're curious to investigate further. aprock (talk) 23:00, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not up to me to answer it — you're the one making the claim that Wired is "mainstream" and The Verge is not. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:18, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that you're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. I don't really care one way or another about The Verge. If it is generally considered a high quality mainstream source, then it should be included.aprock (talk) 23:28, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that's all I needed to hear. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:32, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seems a bit too sweeping to be practical, but it's hard to say sight unseen. Could a version be worked on as a subpage here, to see what the article would look like if such sources were pruned? Tarc (talk) 20:47, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and if you're going to whine that Gawker is a bastion of gold journalism, [8]. Just a few months after the "Fappening", they do a hard 180, and use (semi)nude pics for traffic. Don't bother reporting it, I have a local copy. --DSA510 Pls No H8 00:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Allow me to suggest that WP:BLP, WP:RS, and WP:DUE be our guides. aprock (talk) 23:25, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Then you agree that The Verge is a perfectly-acceptable reliable source for this article and not "substandard" in any way? I don't object to looking at replacing The Daily Dot, CinemaBlend, etc. where possible, but The Verge is a pretty vital source which has extensively covered this issue. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree or disagree with respect to The Verge. It's up to the community to determine that this is a high quality mainstream source. It's not my call. Personally, I have no real experience with it, and have no clue how often it is used by other media. aprock (talk) 23:34, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This is a bad idea. Mainstream sources are being incredibly lazy with regard to this topic. It would further exacerbate the problems the article's having. Willhesucceed (talk) 23:50, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, to some extent - I don't think it should be strictly limited to "mainstream only" as some of the industry-specific sources may give insight into the greater "chilling effects" on the industry. "Mainstream" will also ultimately be an arbitrary criteria. I'm not sure I agree with the assessment of substandard v standard - is it ultimately saying that if something is mentioned in a smaller source instead of mainstream sources, it is less reliable? I guess I tend to agree with that. But - if something is mentioned in mainstream and lesser-known both, and both are cited here, I definitely agree that the lesser-known can be culled, especially in a long article like this one (as Masem says below). And if there are details used in this article that are only cited in one (or maybe two) niche sources but not in the major press coverage, those should probably be reconsidered for inclusion. Either way I will be watching this with interest, as a related article I've been keeping an eye on uses almost exclusively what aprock describes here as "substandard sources," but that is a much more industry-specific article, while comparatively this issue has broken out into a higher level of media awareness so there are more sources to choose from. Hustlecat do it! 23:54, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as rather arbitrary. The technical press is not automatically of low quality, and in many cases it's the best source. I'm not completely opposed to suggestions that redundant sources should be trimmed. And where we do this, we should always take care to select the best source for the context. --TS 23:31, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Support This has gotten a lot of mainstream coverage, we don't need biased journals. Mr. Guye (talk) 02:27, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Partial step: Replace low quality with high quality sources supporting same point

This is basically what I describe above, but to repeat, and highlight , I do suggest that a partial step that should not be as much of an issue is to replace any weak RS that is not tied to a quote or specific opinion with an high quality RS that can source the same point, if one does exist. If there doesn't exist a strong RS replacement, leave it for the time being. After we do that, we should be able to make a better judgement of what the quality of sourcing looks like if we need a further step. --MASEM (t) 22:31, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What are these weaker sources that you suggest be replaced?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:34, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The same list given above. But again, to be clear, this is only if a better quality RS can source the exact same point; there's definitely points where the writing in the finer details would require a specific source to be used and that couldn't be changed out. --MASEM (t) 22:41, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see a problem with this. Tarc (talk) 22:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like an easier first pass to take. aprock (talk) 22:48, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds sensible. No objection here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:48, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically: IGN, The Daily Dot, PC Magazine, Gamespot and Gameindustry.biz can go. Ars Technica and Kotaku should stay. The former because they are generally reliable (and widely relied upon in tech articles) and the latter because it is unavoidable. Protonk (talk) 23:02, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would add TechCrunch and CinemaBlend to the list of those we can look to replace. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:33, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Reliability must always be evaluated on a case-by-case matter. As someone who works in IT, I can say that the mainstream can sometimes be a poor source about technical topics, as it may be written by journalists who don't understand the topics they are writing about. Sources who specialize in a topic can often provide better coverage since it is what they specialize in. If we eliminate the technical press from technology-related articles, what's next? Should we stop citing astronomy sources in articles about astronomy? This is a bad idea. Each source must be judge individually, not by sweeping assertions. See WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:16, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I was not aware that there were any technical aspects of this controversy. As best I can tell, you are arguing to use primary sources above secondary sources. Given the degree of misuse that primary sources can cause, it's pretty clear that secondary sources should be used for the greatest part. To the extent that using primary sources makes sense, that should be determined by the secondary sources. aprock (talk) 00:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There may not be technical aspects to the controversy, but the gaming industry and community can be abstruse to those not part of it. The topic's not going to be served by handing it over exclusively to mainstream sources. Willhesucceed (talk) 05:05, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't make sense given the suggestion. If we have a point sourced to , say, ArsTech, and the same point can be sourced to NYTimes, we should use the better quality source. On the other hand, if ArsTech goes into some detail on a technical point we have, and the NYtimes touches but glosses over the details, we should keep the ArsTech in this first partial step. The only suggestions I'm saying is when the 1-to-1 replacement is obvious. --MASEM (t) 06:53, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What Is Gamergate? What Is Gamergate Controversy?

After some reading and analysis, it occurs to me that part of the problem with this article is (as mentioned above) that Gamergate has multiple meanings. It is said that the Gamergate controversy is a controversy about the video game culture, involving misogyny, harassment, and sometimes even threats, and that is true, but there are really two controversies masquerading as one, because one side in each of the two controversies uses the hashtag #Gamergate. The first controversy (the misogyny and harassment) is well-documented. The second controversy, which is not really related, is about journalistic ethics. This controversy is not as well documented as the first, and consists largely of tweets and other posts by individuals. That is, there is no direct relationship between those who defend the traditional video game culture against claims of misogyny and harassment, and those who argue that there are issues about journalistic ethics. On the one hand, reliable sources give much more weight to the harassment controversy than to the ethics controversy, and to give the two equal weight would be false balance. On the other hand, reliable sources do document that there is a population of gamers using the Gamergate hashtag who argue that there is an issue of journalistic ethics, and so that issue cannot be ignored.

The complication is that there are two controversies, one of which is mainstream and one of which is largely fringe, with the same name. It is as if the same word referred to both astronomy and astrology, both of which must be described, and we couldn't disambiguate them.

Is there any way that we can describe the two controversies, one of which is taken by mainstream reliable sources to be a real problem, and one of which appears to be that of a population of individual posters, while preserving Wikipedia policies? (Can this issue, of how to describe two controversies that are not even very related except for their name, even be discussed seriously with the current high volume of repeating the same arguments?) Robert McClenon (talk) 23:40, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is what I'm trying to suggest at #A random thought above. The controversy over ethics (prior to applying the "but ethics!" criticism) can be delegated to one small 3-4 paragraph section of this article as covered as a FRINGE topic, and then keep the rest of the topic focused on the harassment aspect that is the more common application of the controversy. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 11 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To counter Red Pen's assertion of it 'not being a movement'. All of these articles cite it as a movement in some way: [9], [10], [11] (Yes, even Gawker), [12] (Erik Kain), [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18], [19] Please do tell me all about how 'RS don't treat it as a movement, it's a hashtag'. Tutelary (talk) 02:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The "movement" is not notable; the harassment that has been done under the guide of a movement is. Focusing the section title on the hashtag and not the non-notable movement is appropriate. Tarc (talk) 02:42, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Elaborate on how you are able to do such without the support of RS. I've just listed about 11 sources each describing it as a movement. Where is your citations? Tutelary (talk) 02:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would envision the section to be called "Gamergate hashtag/movement", because regardless of what RS say about the nature of the movement, there exists a concept of a "gamergate movement" - whether it really exists as a group, a movement, or a front for something else is what can be described more in the text. But "Gamergame movement" is definitely a searchable term by WP's standards. --MASEM (t) 06:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

lets just take a look at the sources that you posted that use the term that are on the more reliable end of the RS scale

Thats not even looking at the sources that explicitly state "its not really a movement"-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If the primary source uses a specific term to describe itself, that's a term we should use for it first and foremost to stay in a encyclopedic tone. The opinions on how legit that term is can be discussed after that and in much more detail why some think that term doesn't likely apply here. --MASEM (t) 07:00, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
no, simply because sources cannot use the term " clusterfuck" and some sources find that we dont have some other word or short phrase that means "an incoherent anarchic group of people each with their own particular agendas and resentments under a hashtag" and so sometimes use the shorthand "movement" does not mean that we frame the article as if it were a "movement"; particularly when we have several reliable sources that specifically state "its not actually a 'movement'" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:26, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But we also have several high quality sources that call it a movement - without, at that point in their prose, critiquing anything - and then later going into how their actions and behavior belie the movement. We are going to have a discussion on the article about how a bulk of RSes think the movement is bogus, etc., but for purposes of framing the discussion to get to that point, we have sufficient sourcing to say "GG consider themselves a movement". We can be clear that it is a self-describe "movement" and make sure that WP's voice does claim that, but the fact consider themselves a movement needs to be stated for a logical flow of the discussion and arguments against GG. --MASEM (t) 15:41, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
that is where you started - yes, some people have used the term. This use of the term is often frequently in context also stating, "but not really" -either explicitly or by the context of the use. We have reliable sources specifically analyzing and stating "'Movement?' Nope". There are not however sources have analyzed and specifically come out with "Does this make a 'movement'? Yep" . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If a critic says "This group says they are X, but I don't believe their motives/they qualify to be called X", that at least means there is a source that acknowledges that the group self-identifies itself as X - no one has to actually believe that, because we're talking the self-identifier. What that means to our writing is that 1) we can call the group as a "self-described" movement from that source, and 2) we can include all the critical commentary about that self-described designation from the source (and others), and finally, as long as we have cleared points 1 and 2 in the article, we, in WP's voice, can continue to use the word "movement" if that helps to simply our phrasing and wording, as we have it clear this is not a term WP came up with and that others disagree with. Using "Gamergate movement" is a much simpler phase than "supporters using the #gamergate hashtag", in terms of running prose. I do want to stress that as along as near the first usage of the term that we are clear that it is a self-ascribed term, and not something we (as Wikipedians) came up with ourselves, we are not ascribing any validity if they really are a movement, but just using the term for simplicity. --MASEM (t) 01:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind using the word "movement" as shorthand (to my eyes, it's better than "hashtag"), but we do need to be clear when using it that it's disorganized and uncontrolled, and thus there's nobody who can "speak" for GamerGate — we can't attribute views to it. We can only attribute views to people within the movement who are claiming to fly its flag. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 12:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It could be that gamergater's most lasting impact other than setting the image of hardcore gamers back 15 years, is the contribution to the vocabulary "gamergate = n. a ineffectual clusterfuck of anarchists on the internet who cannot get their PR shit together and just ranting angrily under the same hashtag. Usage: Is that trending hashtag a group that will have impact? No, they're just a gamergate. " -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:13, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Article about Gamergate and the Digital Games Research Association

Would this be suitable for new section under "GamerGate movement'?

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/11/gamergate-supporters-attack-digital-games-research-association

The above also has quotes from DIGRA's president.

How would you gauge the reliability of this source?

https://www.insidehighered.com/content/about-us

https://www.insidehighered.com/about_us/who Sookenon (talk) 00:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Inside Higher Ed's a pretty good source, and this is a pretty good article to discuss how loopy GamerGate's conspiracy-theory claims are. I think there are some people within Gamergate who are honestly interested in gaming journalism, but among the people who are really suspicious of DiGRA, there is a large group that are very anti-feminist. Some of them are probably misogynist. They’re afraid that for some reason feminists are going to come in and change their game. ... I don’t know that I can blame them, but they have no real knowledge of how academia works, how research works, how things get published, how colleagues in academia relate to each other, know each other and cite each other. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:15, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think I was adding the start of that section before this was added, but yeah. There's one GGer quote in there that believe spoke for itself. Also, unrelated to this immediately, but one additional aspect is that this article says we're going to have journal articles coming down the pipes which (assuming peer-reviewed) are going to be good sources. --MASEM (t) 00:30, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure where you get the stuff about journal articles being worked on, but at any rate I am not sure why this one source is enough to justify a lengthy section. This may indeed warrant a sentence or two since it pertains to the "Gamers Are Dead" article, but I think what is presently included is excessive. Certainly, calling the criticism "anti-feminist" in the heading on the basis of what the DiGRA president says is not exactly appropriate.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 02:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's based on what the movement itself says, and the fact that a self-described anti-feminist video blogger is leading the charge. As the movement evolves, some Gamergate supporters have pledged to scrutinize research produced by DiGRA’s members for proof that the association has been taken over by feminists. ... "I’d like to show you how the Digital Games Research Association became co-opted by feminists to become a think tank by which gender ideologues can disseminate their ideology to the gaming press and ultimately to gamers." That's, by definition, anti-feminist. You can't be explicitly opposing a group because they're "feminists" and then complain when you're described as anti-feminist. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:17, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And as I've been tracking the GG threads, DiGRA was the next major campaign for the last month-ism similar to the previous Operations (it even has an internal name but I can't recall it ATM and not given in that source). --MASEM (t) 02:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
On further articles: At least one paper written about Gamergate is already undergoing the peer review process, Consalvo said. Once the controversy dies down, she said, she expects many more will follow.. --MASEM (t) 02:29, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Some Gaters have given this a name: DiggingDiGRA. This name isn't cited by any reliable sources that I've seen, though.

It's interesting to see what happens when specialist press reports on this stuff. There will be more as Gaters seek to reconcile their core dogma with the real world. In time it could become a significant part of our coverage. I can only imagine the papers this will fuel, as studying gamer culture is well within their academic scope. --TS 05:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tooooooo long

Whoever tagged this, "This article may be too long to read and navigate comfortably", was absolutely right. I offer a barnstar for the first editor who in a non-vandalistic way manages to cut this article down to 80k. [Psst: I understand you want to stick everything in here, but the result is that no one can read it.] Drmies (talk) 02:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will take up this challenge --Guerillero | My Talk 04:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Drmies:The current size is 61K would a size of 50ish K be good? --Guerillero | My Talk 04:30, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Guerillero--wait, 61K? I see 127,386 bytes. Drmies (talk) 16:05, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
127,386 bytes includes wiki markup, comments, etc... The recommendations in WP:SIZERULE are for the size of the prose, sans-markup. According to User:Dr_pda/prosesize the prose size, text-only, is 61 kB (9723 words). Article is basically on the edge of what is recommended. — Strongjam (talk) 16:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, forget what I said about numbers: the article is way too long and too detailed. Drmies (talk) 22:28, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One of the things that is beefing up the size are lengthy quotes from various sources, which, rough estimate, take about 33% of the prose length here. I've tagged the article with {{quotefarm}} to indicate this but this is probably just a matter of review each of the longer quotes and culling down to core statements from each. --MASEM (t) 07:12, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Simply cutting down redundant attack quotes would make this article much shorter and easier to follow.AioftheStorm (talk) 20:45, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there are way too many quotes. The reason there are so many quotes is that every attempt to write a paraphrased summation of the mainstream POV based on those sources was summarily rejected as "introducing bias." If we could work toward expressing the mainstream POV in Wikipedia's voice, we could get rid of a lot of quotes. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trimmed article by Totlmstr

I made a separate page for testing based on Drmies's recent edit (the one on whether Let's Players were mentioned), and I trimmed the article using Notepad++. It cuts the article down from the above 61 kB (9723 words) to 44 kB (6944 words). Note that I barely added anything on there and most of the work was deletions. You can check the abbreviated edit comment on there as an insight. I removed some of the references, and these were commented out at the bottom of the article. Totlmstr (talk) 04:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. That's a huge difference. I tell you what, lots of people or not going to like it, but I do. (But I am not as familiar with the material as some others.) Thanks! Drmies (talk) 04:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. It is a huge difference and the focus on this article is much better. There were at least three paragraphs dedicated to one source and multiple quotes in the same line that were too extraneous (a double quote by Anita in one sentence and three quotes by Kain in a row in three sentences; both were knocked by one each) and articles that focused on a blip in the controversy (An entire paragraph dedicated to a blogger and is not mentioned anywhere else in the article? How relevant is that?). Totlmstr (talk) 04:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like this is a fair place to start working, but there's several removals that I think unnecessarily weaken the narrative, particularly in terms of addressing the movement's claims re: journalism ethics and DiGRA. Also, the "Attacks on women" section should not be smaller than "The Fine Young Capitalists" section, given the relative weight of the two issues in mainstream reliable sources (lots and lots of attention to the movement's attacks on women, not really any at all on TFYC). NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:44, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, I'm allowing the mods to just go ahead and edit this page as they need. My original edit was the base requirement I would like to see on the page proper. Also, I do not see how size comparisons are important here. Shouldn't it be the content? Totlmstr (talk) 04:59, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We weight content based on its relative prevalence in reliable sources. That is, stuff that's discussed a lot in reliable sources should get more space than stuff that isn't. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:11, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
By following that at the general level, DiGRA has only mentioned GamerGate as a blurb on their website as far as I can tell with my simplistic Google searching. I can't find anything else that has a better leaning than TFYC, which organization was deeply involved with Zoe Quinn, at the center of a controversy for at least a solid month, amd part of the 4chan debacles involving Vivian James and several other things that are/should be in the TFYC article proper. I believe that until DiGRA releases their full length articles directly about GamerGate (they must have released something of note about the topic directly), their section really should be that short in the article in my opinion. Totlmstr (talk) 05:30, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My objection re: DiGRA there is that you dramatically shortened DiGRA's response while leaving the attack entirely intact.
As for TFYC, they are, as per the reliable sources, more or less a minor footnote in this issue. While perhaps deserving more space than Anil Dash's incident, they don't deserve much more. They certainly don't deserve more space than the discussion section on "Attacks on women," for which Gamergate is far more notable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:34, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My point still stands. By all means, if you want to add something in, do so in the page I created. Totlmstr (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Totlmstr is just another zombie account. No edits for months and then right into Gamergate as if he's a neutral party. The fact that his draft of the article is removing more content critical of Gamergate and leaving in the stuff supportive of it is proof as such.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I explicity mention I am a lurker on Wikipedia and I follow my interests on my page. I normally don't go on Talk pages and I don't contribute that often to Wikipedia due to most of the pages I am on already have enough edits or sections. Additionally, I am more active off-site than on here, so "zombie account" may as well be half-correct. You are free to not listen if you so desire. Totlmstr (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're here from KotakuInAction though.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:50, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You removed the entire Anil Dash paragraph when there were multiple sources discussing it and using it as an example of how trolling and right wingers were exploiting the Gamergate movement.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Anil Dash (I do not know enough about the person) was, at the really basic level, threatened by an anonymous poster on her blog that she posted on a random day. It is not even known if it was even related to GamerGate at all, so I thought it would be best to hold on putting it up there than impulsively adding it in. It was explained in the earlier paragraphs that anyone could make threats of any kind and anyone can use the hashtag at will, but, so far, nothing of merit or confirmation as far as I know of has come out of it. And it was, like I said, a very small blip in the entire controversy; it is not mentioned anywhere else in the article as of my edit. Totlmstr (talk) 04:59, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm willing to say the Anil Dash thing was a flash in the pan that we can trim. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:11, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Anil Dash is a man who got harassed by that "lawyer" we're not allowed to talk about due to vague BLP violations who made himself to be a "leader" of Gamergate.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:40, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Generally agree on Totlmster's trimmed version, which primarily aimed at the quotes, and that helps a lot. I do agree that we should be focusing on a broader narrative and not get into weedy details like Anil Dash's aspect. --MASEM (t) 05:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Not at all. Totlmstr's just another Redditor from KIA trying to pull the wool over our eyes. His edits almost exclusively remove content critical of Gamergate while leaving lengthy sections that prove it right.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I am not entirely sure how my posting history off-site is relevant on Wikipedia. Totlmstr (talk) 05:50, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It shows that you are not a neutral party here. And your proposed cuts show that as well.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:54, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
True, I am not a neutral party at all. However, I am judging the article based on the content and context of the article itself, not on the premise of whether or not this fits with me. I also wanted to take this challenge because the article is really way too long and needs to be compressed somehow. It is, however, a strange coincidence that the majority of the lengthy quotes (especially the paragraphs that I have deleted) were from that same side and had what would be redundancy in the paragraphs themselves. For example, the MetalEater paragraph in "Legitimacy over Ethics Concerns" section says, at the lowest level, the same thing as the paragraph right above it, and that has two articles referenced. Another example is the Grant remark in "Nature and Organization" is more concise and direct than the quote and remark combination before it. In both cases, these references can be moved to another location so that way the article doesn't talk about a single subject for too long (which you can edit in the page I linked, and I'm letting you do so without any interference from me as of that recent edit). Does Wikipedia really need multiple lengthy quotes back to back just to explain one point when an even better reference can do it that easily? Shouldn't some of these quotes be compressed so that way they fit the narrative? Totlmstr (talk) 06:20, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Finding redundancies is one thing. And as stated multiple times on this page (and in its archives) the quotes have been used because there have been a large contingent of users who have argued that the paraphrasing of these sources has not been adequate as it presents the information within that they have generally disagreed with as being written in Wikipedia's voice rather than the voice of the writer. While it may be useful to cut out some of these (and the Anil Dash paragraph/sentence) it just seemed odd at first glance. TFYC should be given less prevalence on the page if we are cutting out some of this other content (and I am still convinced we should merge the separate article to this one).—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I made this its own subsection, by the way. starship.paint ~ regal 06:37, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I've gone ahead and WP:BOLDly created a subpage working draft, at Talk:GamerGate controversy/Working draft. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Remove Gawker as it is "proudly a tabloid"?

A few sections above editors were talking about replacing low quality sources due to the controversial nature of the article. Therefore I propose removing Gawker from any section which is not about Operation Baby Seal. Why? Because it's "proudly a tabloid", as admitted by this Gawker article, article is recent, from September 2014. Gawker reporter writes that Like Gawker, TMZ is proudly a tabloid, so it’s not worth judging the site by the same standards of mainstream outlets. The article talks about how TMZ edited raw footage to "amplify its visual impact", and the writer says "I don’t think TMZ did anything wrong here". They've essentially sold themselves down from being a reliable source. The only thing that would be removed would be a single sentence in Political views... Gawker's Sam Biddle also raised the issue of the right-wing external forces "exploiting" Gamergate, noting the presence of Sommers, Yiannopoulos, Adam Baldwin, and others who have had nothing to do with video games prior and have only joined Gamergate to be anti-progressive. starship.paint ~ regal 05:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is an op/ed piece by Sam Biddle after he made the tweets that led to "Operation Baby Seal". You cannot pick some single statement from some random article on the website to completely discount it as a source as the whole.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:17, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah. Even worse, it's an op/ed piece from a tabloid site. By the way, Gawker's tabloid status was noted by the Columbia Journalism Review at this link. Also, a cursory search brought up Gawker celebrating a "Sensational Tabloid Journalist"
  • Either that Gawker reporter was telling the truth about Gawker being a tabloid, or not. If not, then there's obviously a lack of editorial oversight for that article to be published, which also points to a lack of reliability. starship.paint ~ regal 06:41, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

biddle is not the only one who has made the analysis that the right wing talking heads for gamergate are not in it for the "but ethics" or the love of games , rather just the chance to bash feminists for a new audience. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 07:01, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That's great. Then use the other sources. No need for Biddle. starship.paint ~ regal 07:07, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Biddle's opinion after being made into a reason for GamerGate to continue is arguably notable as is his analysis that Yiannopoulos, Sommers, et al. are not in it for ethics in video game journalism.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 07:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Could you clarify? I don't really understand. I'm not fine with Biddle's opinion preceding the Operation Baby Seal section. IMO, it's either delete or perhaps we could move it to the Gawker Media section. starship.paint ~ regal 07:24, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The placement of his piece in this article as outside of his presence as a target should not mean anything. The piece was written after he tweeted and Gamergate started the "operation". Just because it has relevance to another part of the article should not in any way detract from his points.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
OK, then I have clarified his notability in the controversy. starship.paint ~ regal 09:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That wasn't entirely necessary when we can just link to the section on the article to give more detail, which I've changed it to. We don't need to constantly bring up his "Bring back bullying" tweet as a reason of anything.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to leave it except for a minor rephrase. I still oppose any future potential additions of Gawker beyond Baby Seal. starship.paint ~ regal 09:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV tag removed

Wait, why was the NPOV tag removed? HalfHat 08:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Because the community at large, and not the vocal minority of editors on this talk page who believe the content of the page is biased, came to the conclusion that it was against Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to have this article persistently tagged as being "biased". Four separate editors who had never edited this article or its talk page before removed the tag and have been reverted time and time again by users heavily involved in editing the article rather than anyone who as any actual points as to how this article is biased (outside of Masem's arguments that it needs to treat both "sides" of the "debate" equally).—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:54, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ryulong, please tell me why 5 limited editors at WP:ANI decide that a tag should be removed, it should suddenly be a consensus even though 5 other editors decided it should stay. That's absolutely gaming of the consensus policy and as such I've restored it. Tutelary (talk) 11:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And I've removed it. Please contest the closure through the usual means, not through revert-warring. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:34, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth I strongly support this removal. After over a month without any substantial POV issues being raised it's time to drop the stick.

The RFC is a good example of how far awry the campaign to retain the tag has become. Essentially the RFC is attempting to suggest that we make an exception to our NPOV policy in order to produce an article more sympathetic to something nearly all of the reliable sources see as a misogynistic campaign involving very real harm to named people. I hope it's obvious why this is never going to fly. This is not the encyclopaedia you're looking for. TS 12:07, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen this kind (This is not the encyclopaedia you're looking for.) of comments before on the talk page, not necessarily by TS. The impression I'm getting is that this is a comment aimed at SPAs and possibly implying the other editor is not here to improve the project. Just my two cents. starship.paint ~ regal 12:28, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is what Gamergate looks like to the world beyond 8chan and the POV represented in this Australian Broadcasting Corporation news segment broadcast yesterday, the mainstream POV of reliable published sources, is what Wikipedia articles are based on. Hint: "but ethics" gets precisely one mention, death and rape threats get many. Attempts to argue that our article is "biased" because it largely reflects the mainstream POV must fail. NPOV does not mean no point of view, it means we reflect points of view in proportion to their prevalence in reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 12:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Gamergate sort of became an issue where people wanted to discuss ethics within games journalism, but because of the reaction towards her, it also became an issue about misogyny and the way women are treated in games." Can I just point out that one of your quote in one of your articles is that. HalfHat 20:14, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't see the article has having a NPOV because of the the structure. Yes, there has been harassment and misogyny, yes, this is the majority coverage in reliable sources. But the article doesn't fit the timeline, and the lead does not either. The journalism ethics part came first, then the harassment was a consequence. Yes, I know that the allegations against Quinn were proven false, but that didn't stop people from protesting against what they thought was journalism ethics. I feel that we should present the journalism ethics parts first, both in the lead and the body of the article. If you look at these three reliable sources (BBC, Boston.com and CNN, when they started explaining what is GamerGate, they've all gone into journalism ethics first. We can then discuss the harassment after framing the background of journalism ethics, because the harassment is a consequence to people reacting to a supposed breach in journalism ethics. [[User:Starship.paint|starship].paint ~ regal 13:02, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, the "journalism ethics" part didn't come first, because the alleged "ethics" concerns were foundationally illegitimate and a 10-minute "investigation" to determine that Nathan Grayson never wrote a review of Depression Quest would have revealed that. Moreover, even if there had been an ethical violation, it would have been committed by Nathan Grayson, not Zoe Quinn — yet Grayson was not targeted for anything. It is patently clear that there was never an intent to dispassionately and reasonably discuss journalism ethics — it was an excuse to go after Zoe Quinn with slut-shaming third-grade-level sex jokes, vicious abuse and unfounded personal attacks. Proving this is absolutely trivial — all I have to do is point to the IRC channel name and hashtag that were used. They had nothing to do with journalism ethics and everything to do with cheap chanboard lulz. Sorry, your argument doesn't even begin to pass the smell test. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 13:06, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that ethics concerns were foundationally illegitimate. But that doesn't mean that the "journalism ethics" part didn't come first! Quinn was bombarded because people thought she slept her way to a review, right? Therefore she was attacked because people thought there was a breach in journalism ethics, even if the people thinking so were wrong. starship.paint ~ regal 13:15, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, the concerns were never about journalism ethics. If you're going to discuss journalism ethics, you don't do it in an IRC channel called #burgersandfries and spend all day making jokes about "Five Guys." If you're going to discuss journalism ethics, you criticize the journalist who allegedly wrote an unethical article, not his girlfriend. If you're going to discuss journalism ethics, you don't send death threats to that journalist's girlfriend. If you're going to discuss journalism ethics, you spend 10 minutes on Google to make sure you're not falsely accusing someone of something that didn't happen. A movement is not judged by what it says it's about, it's judged by what it actually does, and what Gamergate actually did is a matter of public record at this point.
Moreover, if this is about journalism ethics, where are all the apologies to Zoe Quinn for falsely attacking her? It is patently clear that the attacks on Quinn were false, ill-founded and made in bad faith, and that neither she nor Nathan Grayson committed any violation of journalism ethics. If Gamergate is truly interested in a conversation about ethics, they ought to start by having some ethics of their own by owning up to their colossal, catastrophic misjudgment. No, they simply doubled down on "LW1."
I'm sorry, this is a settled argument as far as the sources are concerned — GamerGate was built upon a foundation of specious allegations about a woman's sex life that led directly to misogynistic harassment and abuse of women in gaming. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 13:18, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to argue much further beyond this post. GamerGate started due to the allegation by Gjoni. The allegation, while false, presented a scenario of a breach in journalism ethics by Grayson, as well as a more general breach in ethics by Quinn. Therefore Gjoni started GamerGate regarding journalism ethics. The reaction to Gjoni were in two directions. The article itself states that Although the accusations of favorable coverage were refuted, the incident led to broader allegations on social media that game developers and the gaming press are too often closely connected and that cultural criticism of video games has led to an increasing focus on social representation and cultural meaning in games by some video games writers. Parallel to this, a campaign of harassment started, targeting Quinn and other female game developers, but this was still a consequence of Gjoni's post. "Five Guys" was a consequence, it was not the beginning. There would be no #burgersandfries without Gjoni's post, which presented a scenario which was indeed about journalism ethics. starship.paint ~ regal 13:34, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
if the Gjoni rantfest is the basis of your "but ethics" then you are sooooooo far out there that you need to turn your starship back towards earth. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:58, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've conducted my arguments in a civil manner, I don't see the need for your "witty" snark if you're not really saying anything useful. starship.paint ~ regal 01:48, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The same points are being raised again and again and again regarding this issue, showing to me useful discussion has stopped. I would advise anyone reading this who has become focused on GG to take some time out, go and maybe help to clear some of the backlogs, then come back later as and when there is new material to discuss. I was uninvolved when I closed the discussion, and I did look through the talk page and history before I made my close, which is how I reached my conclusion earlier. --Mdann52talk to me! 13:44, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
What are we to do when useful discussion has stopped? Dispute resolutions, RfCs, ANI filings, ArbComm cases have all been tried at this point. Can this really be only settled in ArbComm? starship.paint ~ regal 13:52, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The specific issue of the tag abuse had to go to ANI, because editors here were edit-warring to retain it in express contradiction to how it is supposed to be used. Now that we're past that, we can all get back to discussing actual content again. Tarc (talk) 13:56, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Starship.paint: Unfortunately, nothing. I suspect ArbCom will have to go through this and sort it all out, because community sactions have failed to resolve this all. --Mdann52talk to me! 16:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Oh well, that sucks. Maybe I should take a break from this article, and maybe some extremely-involved editors should as well... starship.paint ~ regal 01:48, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Community sanctions were barely given a chance, Mdann52.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:20, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, if you reread the discussion at AN/I, most uninvolved editors (such as myself) believe that the tag should remain until the NPOV issues can be resolved. If editors of this article cannot fix these problems, I suggest that they walk away from the article and let others try to fix it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:01, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The problem there is, sometimes things are resolved, but not to everyone's satisfaction. A minority of actual (non-SPA) editors cannot be allowed to stymie the moving on from an issue that most editors no longer feel is an issue. This is reminiscent of Obama article editing circa 2009, when a tiny handful of very loud individuals wanted the parent article to be much, much more critique-based than it is now. Tarc (talk) 14:07, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful if editors who thought the tag should remain would give specific and actionable reasons. To date most of what I've seen as arguments range from the almost useful, but not specific "tone of the article" to the useless "delete it all." I see no current discussion on any specific POV issues. Unless one exists the tag should be removed. — Strongjam (talk) 14:12, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There wasn't even a hint of a consensus. The tag removal should be reverted until the article meets a NPOV by most editors. Loganmac (talk) 15:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
{ping|Loganmac}} A discussion happened on ANI (one of the most watched pages on Wikipedia), and the comments there formed a clear consensus. If you wish to differ, I am sure you are aware of the relevant avenues to appeal this. The consesnsus was secured for me by the same issues being raised again and again; If no new issues are being raised, it is not really a discussion on the issue, more a tape stuck on repeat. --Mdann52talk to me! 16:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Mdann52:, what consensus? Tell me, which editors did you see particularly decide that made you close it as such? I 5 agree, 5 disagree, and a rambling discussion. I see no such consensus. Tutelary (talk) 20:25, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Another admin weighed in on the closure as not a matter for ANI. Probably best to just drop the issue of the closure in ANI as getting Mdann52 to revert will still leave the issue closed. You may have a case for WP:WRONGVERSION, or maybe a protected edit request requesting the addition of the tag outlining the reasons it's needed per WP:NPOV. — Strongjam (talk) 20:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus does not require that we wait until the last bitter-ender and the final zealot agrees that they were mistaken. If that were the case, consensus would seldom or never occur. What is clear is that (a) the page reflects the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence; (b) those who believe the article lacks neutrality reflect a vocal WP:FRINGE movement; and (c) that fringe movement is being orchestrated and coordinated off-wiki as part of a political/public relations campaign. Assume Good Faith is not a suicide pact.

To those concerned that the article leans against Gamergate, I would argue that the narrative it adopts is actually too sympathetic. At this point, the best sources for the controversy have arrived at a rather difference narrative from the one proposed above:

  1. A faction of gamers, unhappy at trends they perceived in game design, decided to attack specific game designers and scholars in order to punish them, frighten them into silence, induce them to leave the field, or convince their employers to dismiss them.
  2. The ensuing campaign of vituperation included publishing details of the sexual histories and home addresses of prominent women in the industry, as well as email campaigns urging advertisers to withdraw business until the group’s targets were silenced.
  3. This campaign was poorly received by the press.
  4. In order to improve their image, the campaigners invented a claim that the press had behaved unethically, that it was (literally) in bed with their opponents, and therefore should be disregarded. (This argument is repeated many times above.)
  5. This new claim that "it was always about ethics" was exploded because (a) few or no ethical questions were raised, much less proven, and (b) neither the timing nor the tactics adopted were consistent with these ex post facto talking points.

I would suggest that a neutral article might adhere more closely to the narrative above -- and expect that a year or two from now, it will. But for now, GG supporters should take comfort that the article is actually more favorable to their crusade than the sources justify or than their crusade deserved.

Finally, many thanks for the full page protection. Though I would argue, as I have done above, that the article departs from neutrality (though not in the way argued at such great length above), it is neutral enough, good enough, and well enough sourced to stand for the time being. Let things cool down for a few weeks (or, better, a few months) and we can return with fewer single-purpose accounts, less lobbying, and cooler heads. MarkBernstein (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, let's understand that tropes and characterization of women in games was criticized long before GamerGate. Second, concersn about journalism ethics in game reviews were around long before gamergate. Loosely, the battle was already being waged by gamers and major developers ("gamers") against so-called "Social Justice Warriors." The flashpoint came when a true allegation about Quinn (an Indie game developer that created games along social justice lines) having an undisclosed relationship with a journalist (also perceived as sympathetic to social justice causes) was made public by a third party (who, incidentally is also in the social justice camp and called out hypocrisy, not misogyny). While journalism impropriety was denied and no link between the journalists work and quinn was found, the relationship did exist and has the appearance if impropriety nonetheless. Gaming journals tightened up their policies as a result and other journalistic fields have always had these measures in place (as have other industries). Gamergate was born out of the belief that social justice was encroaching games and there was an active alliance between SJ game developers and journalists. Outspoken women in the community had already been targets of misogynistic campaigns and when Quinn was revealed as being involved with a journalist. "gamergate" started with the outing of Quinns relationship. When she pivoted away from defending the relationship to a position of being victimized, the "NotYourShield" campaign started. There's no question that these women were subjected to horrific outing and abuse by certain elements and gaming journalists have covered that aspect very heavily but it was also occurring before gamergate so that's not what gamergate is about. Gamergate is the point in time where gamers received information about a relationship between SJW and Game journalists. In its course it also uncovered GameJournoPros which also had an appearance of impropriety. This is all well sourced and documented. Gamergate certainly contributed to the harassment of Quinn but Sarkheesian had been harassed for a much longer time and it's rather myopic to tie her dispute with games to GamerGate. In any case, the Vox piece about politics in gamergate is an excellent reference as was the piece by a prominent mainstream game developer in the archives. It is on it's face, a false claim to say that gamergate started with misogyny when misogyny was occurring way before gamergate. --DHeyward (talk) 20:11, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is on it's face, a false claim to say that gamergate started with misogyny when misogyny was occurring way before gamergate. This doesn't parse for me. I'm also not sure what this has to do with the content of the article. — Strongjam (talk) 20:24, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Bupkis. Yes, women have been harassed and threatened with rape and violence well before Quinn and Gamergate; in some cases (e.g. Sarkeesian), that has been notable. Yes, anonymous men on the internet have been griping about "social justice" creeping into their gaming culture and about issues in gamer journalism, but neither of those were notable. "Gamergate" came about when Quinn's jilted ex posted a blog tirade, anonymous internet denizens saw that as grand proof of their latter 2 issues, and harassed (and continue to harass) the ever-living bejeezus out of Quinn and anyone who has defended her. These anonymous internet men can scream from morning to midnight that all they ever cared about was ethics, but what reliable sources have overwhelmingly taken note of here is the fact that women were threatened with rape and murder by people waving the "Gamergate" banner. That is what is notable, that is what the focus of this article is. It's great that others wave the Gamergate banner for ethics, but no one actually cares about that except for them. Encyclopedias are not platforms to right great wrongs, they are here to discuss topics factually and neutrally. It is a factually neutral thing to say that the predominant view of Gamergate is that it is about harassment, while mentioning "ethics" as a secondary aspect, i.e. the counter-claim. Tarc (talk) 20:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
When she pivoted away from defending the relationship to a position of being victimized... This is total garbage victim-blaming, DHeyward. Moreover, the belief that social justice was encroaching games is not an issue of journalism ethics. It's an opinion held by some people who don't like "social justice."
Loosely, the battle was already being waged by gamers and major developers ("gamers") against so-called "Social Justice Warriors." This is hilarious, given the clear and unambiguous stance of a wide range of "major developers" that Gamergate is a toxic cesspool of vicious trolling with a major negative impact on the industry. What "major developer" are you citing as opposed to these "social justice warriors," Brad Wardell? Or "RogueStarGamez" who has been sitting on his Kickstarter game project for two and a half years now with no apparent progress? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Actually, traffic to pretty much all the major gaming sites is up or flat, which is verifiable through Alexa. In fact, Kotaku's traffic has skyrocketed. GamerGate is having effectively no impact on viewership, as would be expected from a "movement" made up of maybe 10,000 people at most. Intel pulled out of Gamasutra, then backpedaled at 10,000 mph and a (non-RS, but viewable) Twitter post by Gamasutra's editor implied that Intel is already planning future advertising with Gamasutra. And that's it, there hasn't been anything else in weeks now. "Keep sending e-mails" doesn't work when everyone knows the score. The "impact" that GamerGate thinks it's having just isn't there, DHeyward. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:56, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Everybody please cool down. Highly questionable material about living persons will be removed. --TS 22:03, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And please remember this is WP:NOTFORUM. If you dont have specific change you wish to discuss, please consider NOT posting. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested moves

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not to move the pages at this time; the proposed move has no chance of gaining consensus through the current discussion, WP:SNOW. Dekimasuよ! 19:36, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

– The video game culture controversy, and not the ant, has become the primary topic for "Gamergate", by quite a large margin. That is, "it is highly likely—much more likely than any other topic, and more likely than all the other topics combined—to be the topic sought when a reader searches for that term." — Mudwater (Talk) 14:09, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The article is called "Gamergate controversy" because that is the focus and scope here; the controversy caused by people who initially harassed one woman, then others, under a common twitter hashtag. It wasn't named as such for the sole purpose of disambiguating it from an ant article. Tarc (talk) 14:24, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A year from now, when you say "Gamergate", how many people will immediately think of the ant, assuming that you're not sitting in the department of invertebrate zoology of a college or museum? — Mudwater (Talk) 14:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
WP:CRYSTAL but I will bet dollars to donuts far more will think of the ants than than who will remember or think of "harassment of women" /"but ethics!". there is no evidence this trollfest based on nothing will have any lasting impact. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:33, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, with apologies to the ants. Protonk (talk) 14:38, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm a bit flummoxed by some of the opposition. There's vanishingly little doubt as to whether or not the bulk of sources (reliable or otherwise) mean the events covered in this article (and not the ant) when they say "Gamergate" or "#Gamergate". Disambiguating the ant from the controversy as we do right now may feel good, as we can say "we're not subject to recentism, the ant came first and all this will blow over", meanwhile a reader looking to learn about gamergate will either not find the article (because the title is different) or will find the ant first. No doubt this hypothetical reader will praise us for our commitment to lexical precision and not feel grumpy or put out that they didn't get the article they wanted. Protonk (talk) 19:26, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, thanks. I'm aware of that. But now we're two clicks to the article itself (provided we use wikipedia's search). If we use google, searching for "gamergate" brings this article up first regardless (the ant is nowhere to be found). Protonk (talk) 19:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Per Egsan Bacon, and we also have a precedence of the ant article being on Wikipedia first, and being a topic before this controversy came about. Gamergate controversy accurately describes this current article. On the crystal ball comment, scientific information tends to have a bit more staying power, while controversies like this often get blown up early on only to later become just a tiny blip on the radar in terms of encyclopedic content. Also, this is currently a hot button issue amongst editors as evidenced by edits here. I'm a bit concerned about editors who are passionate about this topic bringing that into discussion on a completely unrelated topic and trying to weight which one should get precedence. Best to close this and let the dust settle first to avoid WP:RECENTISM issues. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:44, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Echoing the comments of Egsan Bacon and Kingofaces43. — Strongjam (talk) 14:51, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per the AFD and GamerGate's lack of notability outside of controversy. Artw (talk) 15:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Gamergate controversy is fine. Kaciemonster (talk) 15:09, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The scientific term will have indefinite value; GG as the controversy will likely remain a bad memory of the gaming industry once it's over. Just because now "Gamergate" may be more reflective of the controversy, we consider the long-term aspects. --MASEM (t) 15:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Recentism makes us all think of this as a major topic, but back in reality the article currently called Gamergate is of great significance, being a link target for about a score of articles about ants. Search engines are still perfectly capable of suggesting appropriate choices and the name "Gamergate controversy" is more descriptive. Moreover, like many "-gates" the original claim of some sort of scandal and cover up has evaporated in the light of day, so calling it merely "Gamergate" without a qualifier might not be the best move even if we didn't already have a perfectly good entomology article of that name. --TS 15:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • oppose- the "controversy" has received coverage and notice, not the "movement" /clusterfuck. In 3 months when there is even more evidence that this was just a trollfest, it will fade from view and relevance other than the dingiest corners of 8chan . The ants will still be around. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:47, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Because opinion!=fact --DSA510 Pls No H8 19:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

I suggest adding the Controversial tag to this talk

It just seems odd to me it's not here there's been a lot of arguing on this page. Template:Controversial HalfHat 20:54, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea why you'd think that, it's little more than a warning to editors. HalfHat 21:18, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Something we can all agree on. (maybe) Tutelary (talk) 21:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - This controversy is ongoing and while I disagree with the NPOV tags removal, it's more important to me that readers at least be notified that the editors are not at a consensus on the topic. Digman14 (talk) 21:35, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as this seems to be yet another attempt to beat a dead horse. The sanctions notice tells everybody here we've got a severe conduct problem; going back to pretending it's merely a matter of lack of consensus within policy would be misleading. --TS 21:42, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Even though NPOV discussions are still ongoing that tag was not producing consensus as the article is too controversial. Maybe when it dies down, the controversy will fade and neutrality will be achievable. --DHeyward (talk) 21:58, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • in theory, why not, but every transclusion increases the load and save time for this already very long and slow page, and so for practical reasons, no, unless some of the other tags are removed/replaced -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:26, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The decision to remove it was clearly made with no concensus. We tried to vote on it before. But then someone just said "this is not a vote" and removed it anyways, and those who protested got banned.--Torga (talk) 11:32, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmy Wales approaching GG people to suggest to write their version (offsite)

Keeping in mind that Jimmy Wales cannot force any issue on WP outside of WMF office actions, he does have a vision for how WP should be. And he's asked the proGG side to write what they think this article should be like. (His tweet to them). I have very strong doubts we'd be able to us much they will create but it might be interesting if they have sources that we would take as RS that we have otherwise not used. --MASEM (t) 21:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

And in the first hour, they call the harassment of Quinn "alleged" and make a factually false statement about Quinn and Grayson. Pass the popcorn. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:40, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
inviting people whose edits here had to be oversighted so much that both the talk page and the article page are protected from open editing to make their baseless claims elsewhere off from reddit/8chan seems to me to have been an idea that was not quite thought through. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:30, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, and it's going about as expected — doubling and tripling down on the accusations about Zoe Quinn's personal relationships, zomg Patreon, and nonsensical MSPaint "infographics." Because it's about ethics in gaming journalism, alright. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:11, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to interject, but AFAIK the use of "alleged" in this context would be appropriate - all real and potential misconduct illegal behaviour in this controversy will remain "alleged" until the conclusion of an investigation by the appropriate authority or until an appropriate judicial body has passed judgement upon the veracity of the claims or the guilt of any involved parties. This applied equally and fairly to any people involved in this controversy. To avoid "victim blaming" one could say, "ZQ was the victim of harassment. It is alleged that the perpetrators are aligned with the GG hashtag." Furthermore, "false statement" is harsh IMO. Why don't you (Baranof) say that they make a statement which is inconsistent with a specific RS that you have used.Jgm74 (talk) 01:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
tl;dr, "ignore the reliable sources because they're mean to Gamergate." Nope, we're not going to ignore the reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:16, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That really isn't a good argument, I doubt all the websites had fair trials against the people of GG where it was proven beyond all resonable doubt. HalfHat 09:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, but Wikipedia is not a court of law and we don't operate on a standard of proven guilt or innocence. Rather, we reflect the perspectives of mainstream reliable sources in proportion with their prevalence in said sources and let the chips fall where they may. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:54, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If they do a good job of explaining their POV it could be referenced by RS we could source. HalfHat 21:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No. Wikis, by definition, cannot be reliable sources for Wikipedia. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:52, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, no way that raw claims from that wikia or the other GG wiki sites can be used here. A reference we can check as an RS, sure, but not uncited claims. --MASEM (t) 21:55, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why we site the RS for the opinions. HalfHat 21:56, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikia is a business founded by Jimmy Wales and Angela Beesley. It has no connection with Wikipedia and sites can have their own policies. He's quite a clever boy sometimes. --TS 21:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Notice

Please be aware that a sanctions enforcement page has been established at WP:GS/GG/E. This page can be used to request enforcement of sanctions against an editor or for some other administrative action. Please follow the appropriate guidelines when making a report. Administrators will be watching the page, ready to respond to your requests. RGloucester — ☎ 21:46, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My comment got moved, but let me be clear, admins should be blocking edit warriors rather than locking the article. - hahnchen 00:33, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Hahnchen: If you want someone to be sanctioned, make a request at the page I linked above and provide evidence. RGloucester — ☎ 01:11, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Future Perfect at Sunrise: - If an admin sees an edit war on this page, why does it require a report? - hahnchen 01:24, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

commentary about locking and blocking

Admins should just be blocking anyone involved in edit warring instead of just protecting the article. The article has been fully protected for 10 days because of an edit war over a NPOV tag, it's pathetic. - hahnchen 22:20, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It had to be protected because people wouldn't accept that a consensus formed against them.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:48, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'll assume for a sec, Ryulong, that you're entirely right. Where was this consensus determined and how exactly how was it determined? Tutelary (talk) 22:53, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The ANI thread where at least four separate uninvolved editors agreed with Tarc's summation of the events and removed the tag from this page amongst the other editors who have had zero participation in this article seeing the same thing.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:06, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
here [20] -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:43, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No no, I see that, but are you aware of how consensus was determined in that heated, large discussion? Or how it was gauged at all? Tutelary (talk) 23:54, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
i am not a mind reader, but one would guess the closer compared the weight of the arguments based on policies. there is however, no reason to re-re-hash it on this page as nothing will come from yet another side bar off topic discussion in an inappropriate forum. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Getting very off topic and rehashing finished (?) business. Isn't the tag being discussed elsewhere on the page? If so, can we please keep it confined? EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:04, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The references

Can we {{hat}} the reference list? I know it's unconventional but until the article gets pruned it will make navigation easier. Or will that break wikipedia? Retartist (talk) 22:55, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

MOS issue. Can't hide it w/o printing problems. --MASEM (t) 23:12, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Australian TV news report

This report from ABC (transcript) includes footage and Vox Pops that were probably filmed at PAX Australia in Melbourne the weekend before last. It gives a clear account of the widespread fear produced by Gamergate, and includes commentary by notable gaming personalities including Stephanie Bendixsen of the Australian gaming TV programme Good Game, developer Brianna Wu, and Rebecca Fernandez of the IGDA.

It may be useful as a source for some of the abuse and death threats, as well as giving an Australian perspective. --TS 22:57, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Australian perspective? Doesn't seem like a national issue. HalfHat 23:05, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The international dimension is why non-US sources should be considered for inclusion. --TS 23:12, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It seems largely the same, it probably better to focus just on the quality. HalfHat 00:28, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Auerbach

Auerbach has tweeted about some issues he has with our use of his articles. He has so far only explained one specific concern, but more could be provided. Specifically he criticized Ryulong's material regarding the Salon response to Auerbach's piece on GamerGate moderates. Hanchen's change to another detail was not mentioned, but I think the previous wording is likely to be seen as a better reflection of what he wrote.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 23:23, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is what happens when editor drive the narrative away from a clinically neutral stance. The less we try to read between the lines to stack up the case against once side, the less likely will misinterpret the sources. --MASEM (t) 23:29, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Masem, please don't turn this thread into yet another extension of an argument over editors' motivations and POVs, because we have plenty of those already. Let's focus on looking at Auerbach's critiques and addressing them. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why am I being called out at all?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:15, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Having taken a look at the source material, I agree that the wording prior to Hahnchen's change ([Auerbach] argued that gaming culture is changing, with the ordinary video-game journalist being phased out in favor of video game enthusiasts and amateur Let's Play commentators who use YouTube and Twitch) is probably a better paraphrase, and it avoids the pointed word "accused." If we can get consensus for this change, let's throw up an editprotected request and get that fixed. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:32, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In September, I tweaked Auerbach's statement in the article, because it had been edited to make it look like he was agreeing with Alexander.[21] I further trimmed bits of the article to make his stance stronger. Saying stuff like "gaming culture is changing" is the same as saying nothing at all. Instead of "attacking", we could use "alienating" which is what he used in his article.[22] - hahnchen 00:55, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say this certainly warrants a proper checking. HalfHat 23:37, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I always wondered why we bothered with the Auerbach material; much of it is just this guy's opinion (and for what it's worth, we don't have an article about him). Do we need that material? --TS 23:41, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify, I think the problem is that we include a lot of he-said, she-said which is just pundits imposing their own predefined views on an unfolding situation. Looking back, much of the stuff from Kain, Auerbach and others seems almost surreally misplaced in the midst of all the death threats and all the slimy creatures that were parading themselves before our eyes on a daily basis. There's a place for media analysis, but it's possible to go overboard. --TS 23:50, 12 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You're basically advocating for the removal of opinions because they don't conform with your POV. HalfHat 00:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think this is just too much inside baseball and the article is very long. Why should Auerbach's opinions be mentioned in the article? --TS 00:57, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This could be said for many other of the singular opinions made in this article. We are citing a lot of random people (journalists, yes, but with no skin in the game). It's fine to quote people like Quinn, Wu, etc. who are directly involved, and people like the DiGRA present (name slips mind) who's organization is being affected by this. It's also sometimes necessary to quote key RSes to give a "colorful" description that summarizes a point made by many sources. But there's a lot of other random quotes pulled into this article just to boost signal. --MASEM (t) 01:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Broadly speaking, I agree that there is rather too much chatter in the article. I can see how it happened. In the early stages the mainstream sources hadn't quite made up their minds what was going on and all the defaults kicked in. These voices have subsided in importance now that the true nature and origins of Gamergate have become more widely known. --TS 11:09, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Auerbach's tweets appear to be without merit, as this article is simply citing Elias Isquith's opinions of Auerbach's Slate piece. Remember the old "venerability, not truth" Wiki-standby. He has no leg to stand on, and argumentum ad Jimboem is just as much of a logical fallacy off-wiki as it is on-wiki. Now if we wish to have a discussion on whether to include any of this in the article at all, that's another matter entirely. At first glance it does seem like we're straying too much into opinion-of-an-opinion-of-an-opinion. If we're looking to slim down the article, this may be the edge to start at. Tarc (talk) 00:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, an admin should probably close this section. If there are actually any issues, anyone David or Jimbo included, can post to the talk page. aprock (talk) 00:29, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Probably shut it, but I think it was right to post this anyway. It was worth looking into. HalfHat 00:31, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is a BLP issue. When you attribute a statement to a living person, and then that living person objects to your interpretation of that statement, that's a BLP issue. Tutelary (talk) 00:32, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If you think there is a BLP issue, feel free to take it to WP:BLPN. aprock (talk) 00:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could just clarify the statement. Take to a noticeboard when no need / fix the statement itself. I wonder which one... Tutelary (talk) 00:40, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A subject disagreeing with an article isn't automatically a BLP issue. It's something to be concerned about, but expressly not dealt with in the same manner as BLP violations. If you disagree and feel this represents an issue covered under BLP, you may consider asking for help at BLPN. Protonk (talk) 00:49, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, I disagree. It's rather counterpoint-countercounterpoint. I don't know who wrote that awful paragraph, but "actions in making himself a neutral party" is barely English, and "criticizing him for saying that women harassed and threatened and men attacking those who challenged their privilege should both be held responsible" doesn't look like proper English to me at all. Drmies (talk) 02:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and to better present the concerns of the Gamergate hashtag to the public at large"--I do not see that in the cited article. Unless someone can point me to the original sentence/section from which this comes, I'm going to remove it by executive privilege. Drmies (talk) 02:36, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Auerbach criticized the Brandwatch study as being "defective quantitative analysis" aimed at stopping GamerGate" is now removed: the "How to end Gamergate" article doesn't mention Brandwatch at all, and the direct quote "defective quantitative analysis" is not given the appropriate context. Who added that sentence to the article? That person should not be editing sensitive articles on Wikipedia. Drmies (talk) 02:41, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • "WHAT DIDN’T WORK...Defective quantitative analysis." which links to this. That's the Brandwatch mention. Also that's in the full article view.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 02:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ryulong, I think I'm having a Javascript issue, which is why I didn't "see" that link--no, I see it now: Slate needs to read WP:COLOR; I can't see the difference, only when I hover over it. I still don't like the original sentence: I don't like how the Brandwatch study isn't explicitly mentioned in Auerbach's piece; I don't like that no real critique is offered in his piece, just the naked statement that it is supposedly defective. If someone feels a desperate need to stick that sentence back in, I suppose they have my blessing and all they have to do is ask some admin, which could be me, to stick it back in. Now, I don't know if Auerbach is watching this--hey, Mr. Auerbach, I don't have a Twitter account and it's much easier for us to respond here to specific points than it is to guess what you're pointing at. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 03:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • These are the reasons why I removed it in the first place, dubbing it a throwaway line. Right now, I think you should just remove the Salon paragraph, it's a badly written counter-point to an opinion that isn't even represented. - hahnchen 03:13, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'm about to look at that again; in the meantime I had to put a sick kid to bed. This Twitter stuff, that's fun. I just saw the whole page, this weird alternating sentences conversation, with someone yelling "kike" thrown in. Is that normal? Hey Jimbo, Wikipedia is not as bad as Twitter--I would have blocked that idiot on 6 November, which is the earliest "tweet" I saw from them. Drmies (talk) 03:22, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, by now Tutelary is telling me off on my own talk page and Tarc is yelling at Auerbach via Twitter. Great! I tell you what, I am happy I don't have many opinions, and the ones that matter, I prefer to keep to myself. In this thread, I see Tony Sidaway, Hahnchen, and Tarc (I think) agreeing that the Isquith on Auerbach paragraph could/should go, in varying degrees of emphasis. NorthBySouthBaranof offered a sort of compromise, and if you don't mind, I'm going to go with that--I have the feeling that Ryulong would like to have something kept. If anyone disagrees they can protest loudly here, and maybe Mr. Auerbach can tweet a few more tweets so we can see if he thinks this is OK, but NorthbySouth's brief comment has the benefit of a. being close to the source and b. being in digestible English. So I'm going to instate that, somewhat boldly, and we'll see what happens. Let's not have an RfC and a series of edit requests that will take forever to resolve. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 04:02, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done. I've also moved it (what is now a sentence); why it was in the "Attacks on Women" wasn't clear to me. IM me if you got a serious problem with it, or call Jimbo (he can send me a carrier pigeon), or leave a note here. Thanks. Ryulong, I hope you're not too pissed at me. Drmies (talk) 04:08, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd go "At Salon" or "For Salon" rather than "In Salon" but that's just me.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it worthwhile to summarize what one part of what happened here clearly so that other Wikipedians reading this talk page are better able to understand the situation. David Auerbach, who writes for Slate (magazine), expressed a concern on twitter that "@jimmy_wales 152: "women...should both be held responsible for what Gamergate had become" = Isquith does not say I said this, and I didn't." [23]. This refers to the paragraph wisely removed by Drmies after the complaint. It is important that we be really clear - this is a BLP issue. Saying that a writer for a respectable publication was criticized for something as awful as saying that victims of harassment were responsible for that harassment is a serious claim, and it is a claim that was never in the source provided. Meanwhile, Tarc claims that his tweets were "without merit" and further, in Drmies words "Tarc is yelling at Auerbach via twitter." This is a disgrace. I am recommending that Tarc step away from this article permanently, and that if he does not do so voluntarily and continues with this kind of POV warrior behavior that he be topic-banned from this article. There are plenty of good Wikipedians here to look after the article - those who have been engaged in this as a battleground need to leave now.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 09:08, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did not "yell" ant anyone via Twitter, I responded to someone who is in serious "doth protest too much" mode, that is all. What I do off-wiki is, quite frankly, not your business. @Drmies:, yes, I am in favor of the entire passage being removed if it is this problematic. Tarc (talk) 12:45, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the quotes aren't worth keeping because they're mostly tangential commentary and the article is already far too long -- journalists commenting on other journalists' specific pieces probably doesn't belong here unless it somehow becomes central to the controversy. But I don't think they were (originally) an entirely inaccurate paraphrase, either. The quote Auerbach is objecting to seems to refer to this line in Isquith's piece, which says, at the end: "The women bombarded with violence and abuse, the men hurling invective at anyone challenging their privilege; spurred by his unexamined need to find common ground, both, Auerbach writes, should share in the blame." The quote from the Wikipedia he's objecting to originally summarized that as: "...criticizing his insistence that women harassed and threatened and men attacking those who challenged their privilege should both be held responsible for what Gamergate had become." The only real issue in that is the words "...for what Gamergate had become", since the article doesn't explicitly state what it's accusing Auerbach of saying they should share the blame for, but I think that Ryulong / Tarc's reading is at least somewhat reasonable given the context (it's how I think I would have read the article, at least), and every other part of the quote is basically just Isquith's conclusion run through a thesaurus. Looking over the logs, the real problem started when Halfhat changed 'criticized his insistence' to 'criticized him for saying' here, which shows the problems with applying WP:SAY carelessly -- while it could technically be read the same way, that small tweak dramatically changed the sentence's meaning, since it changed what had been an accurate paraphrase of Isquith-presenting-his-interpretation-of-Auerbach ('Auerbach's article was insisting this') into something that could be read as a claim that Isquith-said-Auerbach-literally-said-this, which was not the case. I assume Tarc missed the fact that Halfhat had accidentally changed the quote's meaning -- it's easy to skim over something you've read many times before and impose a meaning on it in your head based on what you know it's intended to say from having seen previous versions, without noticing that that's no longer the most obvious reading. Anyway the main upshot of it is to please be more careful when replacing text for things like WP:SAY, because sometimes you'll be introducing different meanings; and please read the current version carefully when someone complains about it, trying to clear your head of how it used to read or what you know it's supposed to be saying. --Aquillion (talk) 13:27, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is the single worst article on Wikipedia

You people ought to be ashamed of yourselves. This is the farthest thing from encyclopedic; it's regurgitated feminist propaganda masquerading as neutral information. It's the calculated exploitation of editors' highly legalistic and rigid interpretation of Wikipedia policy to create a POV article. The initial sentence isn't even free of clear bias; "The Gamergate controversy began in August 2014 and concerns misogyny and harassment in video game culture". Misogyny? Of course, no explanation given, no discussion as to the broader context of the controversy, no differentiation between trolls and seriously disconcerted, frustrated gamers. It's just "misogyny". A garbage article. This is why WP:IGNORE is such a crucial principle to follow; so articles like this cannot be maintained, endorsed, and all critics and dissenters sanctioned by admins and various other groups of individuals bent on imposing their intellectually vacuous and intransigent perception of rules onto an open, supposedly unbiased medium such as Wikipedia. JDiala (talk) 08:30, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

So do you have any suggestions for changing the article that meet WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, WP:RS, etc.?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:07, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There has been litteraly thousands of other versions that was better, however they did not stay long. --Torga (talk) 11:17, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is not an answer to my question.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]


For what it's worth, we used to get similar comments on the global warming article talk page. In those days the scapegoat was "government scientist/United Nations propaganda", and here it's "feminists". Leave aside the death threats, that's all "propaganda." Those harmed are "professional victims", not even real people at all.

It's our job as an encyclopaedia to not ignore the facts presented to us by reliable sources. Advice on how we could do that better is always welcome. --TS 12:23, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Noone said we should "leave aside all death threats" even Wikis by proGG people mention harassment, this is a strawman. And you're comparing it to a conspiracy theory Loganmac (talk) 14:30, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well to be fair, when I wrote that I was thinking of the alternative version on the Wikia site, which refers to all the harassment and the death threats as "alleged". I hope you're right to say that nobody here is involved in that horrible mess. --TS 15:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

GamerGate concerns

There is now a page on what is as close to an official GamerGate site as it gets giving an overview of various GamerGate issues.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 08:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hasn't this been heavily criticized by another source in the article?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:45, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt it: "Released: November 12, 2014" Racuce (talk) 10:22, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well I recall something very similar to this having been found and then heavily criticized by an actual reliable source. Also there is really no way that we are going to include this as a source in the article because I'm fairly certain that the various screen caps of peripheral people's Twitter accounts is a no go for BLP when that Buzzfeed piece was thrown out completely without us even mentioning any of the people mentioned within. Also Gamergate.me is a wiki site or something isn't it?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:35, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
someone earlier had posted a "manifesto" to show that GG was all about ethics and then a site posted a markup version showing how every demand and claim was essentially anti-actual ethical reporting. (ie "If you dont like a game, you should give it to someone else on staff who does like it for them to review") i think we cover it, or we did at one point-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
its in the Debate over legitimacy section, paragraph starting "Blogger Kelly Maxwell,"-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would recommend looking at the source first and then decide if it can be used. I don't know who you classify as peripheral people, but this source is highly focused on the corruption in gaming journalism and the involved parties. GamerGate.me is a site to inform the community, it has a blog,a wiki and now also a press section. Racuce (talk) 11:10, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If any of this material ever shows up in reliable sources, then it may find its way into the article. What I find most amusing is that, after a few paragraphs insisting that it's all about ethics in gaming journalism, they switch to discussing Metacritic and start accusing developers of submitting "perfect" user reviews for their own game. --TS 11:19, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's also interesting to read the accusations of developers gaming reviews in one breath, and 10 words later find an attack on a review site for posting its honest opinion of a game, because according to Gamergate, its honest opinion was wrong. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop this kind of soapboxing here, NorthBySouth. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:56, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's not intended as soapboxing, FPaS, it's intended as an observation about the quality of the source and the potential validity of its content. Lord knows there's been plenty of observations here about mainstream reliable sources being "biased." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 12:03, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of a proposed source is appropriate here. I think the problem in this case is that it's a putative primary source. Discussion of its merits will almost inevitably descend into soapboxing. Fortunately our policies mean the merits are largely immaterial here. I am withdrawing my comments on the merits. --TS 12:37, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Grammar error

In the third paragraph under "False allegations against Quinn and subsequent harassment", the quote from Zoe Quinn's BBC interview doesn't have a closing quotation mark. A quotation mark should be added after the phrase "she had sex with someone."—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I've also demoted that section to a third-level heading below "history", as that seemed to be implicitly intended; let me know if that was mistaken. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:12, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah that was a mistake. The "history" section is for events that took place before Gamergate was a thing. That header is the beginning of the discussion of the actual events rather than "history" which was previously a "background" section if I recall correctly.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. Well, I can certainly revert it, but it just looked weird to me. Are "Further harassment and threats" and "Industry response" really meant to be sub-sections to "False allegations against Quinn and subsequent harassment", rather than to "History"? If that previous bit was called "Background", it would be a bit more transparent. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm fairly certain it used to be Background rather than History at least.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 12:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I found another weird error. There's a reference that has "Gamergate is dead" repeated twice for its title. It's from the verge and it's written by Plante.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Working draft

Since this is probably going to get lost in the thread above... I've set up a working draft at Talk:Gamergate controversy/Working draft, and invite folks to work on potential improvements that might gain consensus for a protected edit request. My first series of edits have been trims in the vein of that above thread, working to reduce redundancy and tighten the prose. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:31, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Can it be moved to Gamergate controversy/Working draft? It would make it easier for discussion about the draft. Or is full protection cascading? Retartist (talk) 09:53, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If it's in the article space it gets treated as an article rather than a sub page and that means it gets indexed by search engines and such.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 09:58, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, as per Ryulong above, unfortunately it has to be stuck in the talkpage space. Would be nice to have a better solution for article working drafts... maybe that's something the WMF could look at for a MediaWiki update *cough*Jimbo*cough*. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:59, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There's a draft space for articles for creation submissions, last I checked.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Opposing this because this shouldn't be used as a way to avoid discussion of the topics and a reaching of consensus, and that's exactly what's happening with overly pushy editors to the draft. I like some of the changes and editing, but this is too open to abuse. I made a number of reasonable changes, and someone went in and undid them all. It's a nonsense effort. Abandon. Willhesucceed (talk) 15:00, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ESRC researcher Amanda Potts on the importance of industry leadership in the opposition to misogyny

Here is a neat little trade news piece about an ESRC report on the importance of industry figures taking the lead in attacking sexism and misogyny. Attitudes in a gaming community were studied in the presence and absence of inclusive video presentations, with predictable results. The report's author, Amanda Potts, relates it to Gamergate as follows:

“What we are seeing with #GamerGate is that the more powerful video producers and professionals are divided in their points of view, and are taking up arguments for both sides of the story. So this leads to divided opinions amongst the different fan communities, who aren’t being given a strong enough message that abuse of women and other groups perceived to be in the gaming minority is wrong.”

This could probably find a place alongside the account of Morhaime's almost solitary stand, amongst comparable industry figures, directly against the violence and hatred indelibly associated with Gamergate. As time passes this section is slowly acquiring more prominence than the minutiae of who said what on 4chan. --TS 13:06, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Time to revisit and revise

I agree with Jimmy Wales that all reported speech comes under the BLP and must not be misrepresented. But there's another issue here: our analysis is often tainted by recentism. While that's inevitable and part of what makes Wikipedia such a popular source for ongoing events, it does entail a need for continuous curation, so as to revise the emphasis in places where the news cycle concentrated on whatever new shiny object was presented to it. We probably shouldn't give so much to the opinions of individual commentators where they deviate from the thrust of reliable sources.


In the early days, for instance, Erik Kain's well written essays became popular with some of the article editors and so he's been used as a principal source in many parts of the article. That kind of historical accident suggests to me that, while there's nothing wrong with sourcing an individual commentator on facts, sometimes we may want to go back and revisit sections where we reproduce their opinions.


In the end, to take a prominent example, only Breitbart thought there was anything scandalous about journalists communicating with one another by email, and so we discuss the non-story of the GameJournoPro mailing list through the lens of Kain gamely attempting to rationalise a non-existent controversy. Surely many other sources have discussed this in a more measured way, and the fact that the vast majority of sources don't even consider mailing lists controversial at all seems to be lost in our article. Yet that's the important story, if there is one--that no reliable source regards GameJournoPros as the smoking gun Gamergate insist it is. So why does it get a section of its own? How best to summarise a mild fuss over the fact that journalists use email to communicate with one another? That's one example of where I think we could improve our coverage.


The big slew of death threats and wild accusations of impropriety that characterised Gamergate is now largely over, so we now have time to revisit sections like this. It's a normal function of Wikipedia editing. --TS 12:08, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kain is given way to much weight considering ever piece we cite from him is WP:NEWSBLOG and not subject to Forbes editorial oversight. — Strongjam (talk) 14:03, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If that is true then he may not be such a reliable source. --TS 14:26, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
He's also a salaried Forbes writer, and has a good history, so the Video games project considers him a situational source for video game related matters, but I don't think it's a good source for a controversial topic like this. I'm fine with citing him for his opinions, but we need to be careful not to give him undue weight. Might be a matter for the WP:RSN though. — Strongjam (talk) 14:37, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yet sites like Boing Boing are given space. Why something tells me Erik Kain is getting rid off of the article because of what he writes and not where he writes Loganmac (talk) 14:45, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I did point this out before, Boing Boing is an admitted group blog. Ryulong argued for it because 1) many other WIkipedia pages use it 2) the author of the article is the managing editor of Boing Boing. I'd still advocate for its removal anyway. starship.paint ~ regal 14:50, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't consider Kain's reliability to be an issue as were not using him as a sole source for any fact (or shouldn't be). I just think we can spend time rearranging the coverage to eliminate the effects of recentism, as I discussed above. Erik Kain's excellent early coverage was very important in the early stages of the article, and he's just the primary example that came to my mind when thinking of this. I certainly don't think we should eliminate references to his work. --TS 14:47, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On the Boing Boing thing, the whole Vivian James thing seems overdone to me. I'd rather see a much smaller section on this icon with a few well picked sources, than one that seems destined to blow up because of the rape meme that forms its colour scheme. We've already got lots of material on the Gamergate supporters' seeming imperviousness to bad optics. --TS 14:54, 13 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

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