Talk:Gamergate (harassment campaign)

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— Preceding unsigned comment added by TheRedPenOfDoom (talk • contribs) 21:18, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Sweet Baby Inc - Gamergate 2

Is it notable to mention the recent events surrounding Sweet Baby Inc that is being described as Gamergate 2. Below is a possible addition for the article. It can be cleaned up to be more neutral.

In March 2024, a harassment campaign led by previous Gamergate leaders (Redacted) and (Redacted) surfaced on Twitter and nicknamed as Gamergate 2. It started as analysts researched into why several high profile AAA video games were rejected by their fan bases. The common thread that manifested is Sweet Baby Inc - who is the consultant responsible the narratives straying too far from each game's corresponding mythos and established characters. There was spontaneous injections of political ideology that wildly stood out in every failed game that broke each fandom's immersion of their corresponding canon in favor of political pandering causing each game to be massively rejected. When a Steam curator created a list of Sweet Baby Inc games, (Redacted) and (Redacted) of Sweet Baby Inc initiated a harassment campaign to have followers falsely report the curator as breaking the Steam code of conduct. The harassment campaign backfired causing (Redacted), (Redacted), and Sweet Baby Inc to scrub their social media presence. The backfired harassment campaign caused a flurry of YouTube videos, memes, and new articles spreading more awareness of Sweet Baby Inc's involvement of injecting unnecessary political wokeness in video games causing games to fail and eventually causing studio layoffs and in some cases whole companies and franchises shutting down for good. Pusher (talk) 05:27, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

It would be more helpful if you could annotate your proposed section with citations to reliable sources. Until then, it does not seem to me either to be due or verifiable. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 06:12, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This seems like unverifiable nonsense, especially injecting unnecessary political wokeness. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:16, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

This entire article is complete nonsense. I find it farcically hilarious that Encyclopedia Dramatica has a less biased take on the incident in question, than Wikipedia. MutedL (talk) 04:39, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

If you're listening to ED, you're not interested in unbiased opinion. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 01:58, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Says who, some nobody editor on wikipedia? MutedL (talk) 22:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Two nobody editors, at least. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Sure, why not? I'll never be butthurt enough to consider it a personal attack. MutedL (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh hey, Kotaku published an article summarizing events. And unsuprisingly, it does not support your viewpoint. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 02:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

TheGamer have also put out an article, and it also doesn't support the narrative proposed above. Nor does Dot Esports, though it does mention an unnamed employee of the company asking their followers to report the list and its creator for breaching the Steam code of conduct. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:16, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Well if that is the case then I abandon the proposed the edit. I can't go against Kotaku. They were part of the mass media that gave me my "15 minutes of fame" in the summer of 2022. :) Pusher (talk) 05:03, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Right, except this is all irrelevant since before the CEO has gone on record saying exactly the opposite of those agitprop articles. MutedL (talk) 16:27, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

What? Seriously, this statement is incoherent, I cannot understand what you're saying.

Except the bit where you're accusing these articles of being politically-motivated propaganda, which... yeah, not a good argument. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:49, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh, never mind, you only have 64 edits total. Note the section below, you should not be commenting on this article per WP:CTOP. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:53, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I could care less what you think I should or shouldn't be commenting on. MutedL (talk) 19:38, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

While the article is 30/500 restricted, it's not WP:ARBECR. Non-extended-confirmed editors can make contributions to this talk page, same as any others, and subject to the usual rules about talk page conduct in a contentious topic. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:40, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Not quite. While you're correct about the restriction being 30/500 and not technically ARBECR, it is a difference without distinction here as they are functionally the same thing. Extended-confirmed is granted automatically once an account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits in the first place. So by definition, there are very few if any scenarios in which a non-EC editor is allowed to be making contributions to this talk page, as it is a restriction under the CT policy itself, not ARBECR, that applies to "edits and pages in all namespaces" (including Talk pages) per footnote "b". ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 00:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Edits to this talk page fall under CT, but there's no active restriction on this talk page. If you're uninvolved, you could decide this talk page needs some restriction. Until something like that happens, less experienced editors are allowed to participate—but not to do so disruptive let, obviously. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:27, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

The template at the top of the page is super unclear about that, juxtaposing standard restrictions, the general contentious topic designation, and the "Furthermore..." additional restrictions within the span of three lines within a single template, while not clearly indicating who/what the source was for each, or clearly differentiating the scopes of each. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 03:11, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Much of the contentious topics situation is unceasingly opaque, so I empathize. The template in question is Template:Contentious topics/page restriction talk notice, in case you'd like to look into tweaking it. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:33, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually ARBECR is functionally different to 30/500. Per the text of ARBECR the only action that non-extended-confirmed editors are allowed to make on articles subject to it are non-disruptive edit requests. They are not allowed to participate further than that in talk page discussions. 30/500 has no corresponding prohibition on non-extended-confirmed editors contributing to article talk pages. As a result, ARBECR is a much stricter restriction on non-extended-confirmed editors.

Practically speaking for this article, while editors like MutedL are not allowed to edit the article, they are still fully allowed to participate in any talk page discussions. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Reminder: Contentious Topic editing restrictions apply to this talk page as well.

Editors should take note of the warning at the top of this talk page indicating this is a contentious topic (CT) under active arbitration remedies, to which editing restrictions apply. The contentious topics procedure applies to all edits and pages across all namespaces, broadly related to a topic, which includes article talk pages. Specifically, editors here should be aware of the requirement that "You must be logged-in, have 500 edits and an account age of 30 days". Edits in violation of the CT standard restrictions may be reverted, and any single uninvolved administrator is authorized under the CT procedures to impose editor restrictions including sitewide and partial blocks, topic bans and page bans (from the entire contentious topic, a subtopic, or specified pages within the topic), interaction bans, revert restrictions; as well as page restrictions including page protection, revert restrictions, and others. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 05:13, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

@Swatjester:, it appears the the talk page is not set up 500/30? Could you (or some other admin do that)? So that underqualified editors can't get into trouble by editing? i suppose some admin should clean up all the outdated admin stuff WRT gamergate - ForbiddenRocky (talk) 07:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

At the moment, this particular talk page seems to have cooled down a bit, so I'll leave it to some other admin to put that restriction on if they feel they need to. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 15:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually there seem to be several cases this month of very new editors with some knowledge of Wikipedia policy either starting new topics or being active in debates on this page. If it’s possible to just restrict access that seems like a good idea to me. Lijil (talk) 07:14, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Motives are closer to goals than ideas

The infobox lists misogyny, anti-feminism and anti-progressivism as motives. These words probably describe the thinking of the Gamergaters but what they wanted to achieve is more appropriate here. It would be probably better if it was phrased along the lines of "Suppression of feminism and progressivism in video games". Everybody agrees on the harassment element which is obviously a means that goes a long way towards a goal of suppression. From the "Purposes and Goals" section:

Several writers who attempted to understand Gamergate's motivations concluded that, rather than relating to purported issues with gaming journalism ethics, Gamergate represented an effort to suppress opposing views.

Nxavar (talk) 10:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

infobox lists misogyny, anti-feminism and anti-progressivism as motives while the only serious study I have been able to find about Gamersgate supporters seem to indicate the opposite.

https://christopherjferguson.com/GamerGate.pdf

Comparisons Between GamerGate and the U.S. Population on Social Values: According to the study, gamersgate population support action against Global warming Affirmative action, Marijuana legalization, Gay marriage, Abortion and Universal healthcare above the U.S. population mean

"Ultimately it appears that the common narrative associating GamerGate with right-wing, regressive White men (Braithwaite, 2016; Horgan, 2019; Romano, 2018) is not supportable, given the current data. Indeed, GamerGate supporters appear to be more left-wing than the general public and also diverse in terms of race, gender, and other demographic variables than is often assumed"

Quijote3000 (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

You will find extensive citations supporting those descriptors in the body of the article. MrOllie (talk) 16:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

• In general, primary studies (especially one like this, that is just a single poll of people's self-described politics) are not great sources. The article does contain much higher-quality sources, eg. - these are in agreement that misogyny, anti-feminism and anti-progressivism were the primary motives. The paper you present acknowledges itself that the conclusion it draws from its single poll is WP:FRINGE (even in the quote you presented, cites three others that it seeks to debunk, but only has a single poll of self-described opinions to do so.) If the conclusions they drew from their poll of how people involved in the topic described their own politics were borne out, you'd expect them to be confirmed by other studies, and they haven't been. Ultimately the fact that it's a poll of self-described politics means that it's just about how Gamergate supporters wished to be seen; and we already cover, in the article, the fact that Gamergate supporters made substantial efforts to influence the way they were perceived. But those efforts were (as the massive list of citations above shows) ultimately unsuccessful at convincing people that the sort of responses they gave to eg. the poll in question were actually representative. That sort of thing is why we rely on secondary coverage rather than initial polls - it's not unusual for an author to draw a sweeping conclusion from a poll that isn't borne out later. --Aquillion (talk) 17:30, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

FWIW the paper is also only cited 26 times, with a large number of those cites being to unrelated portions of the paper and not the primary claim about the identities of gamergaters. The paper is also self-contradictory, given that it's single poll actually supports the conclusion quite dramatically that GamerGate is white, male, heterosexual, and cisgender; the paper's authors appear to be only quibbling over the political alignment, not the other demographics. Seems quite fringe to me. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 16:40, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

• Hmmm, if gamergate supporters claim that the movement is not about that, shouldn't the article reflect that?, if all the "high quality sources" seem to describe the opposite of what the movement supporters are claiming they support, then maybe those sources are not reliable in the first place.

  ...at least as a rule of thumb I think people should have the right to define themselves rather than just being labeled by their counterparts (I don't claim information from the opposing view should be removed, but I think any movement should be described first by what the supporters claim they want and in second place the criticism rather than be defined by the criticism).

  I quote from reliable sources guideline:

  "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."

  So if there are really no reliable sources representing the point of view of the protesters. Maybe we should remove the article. Lobishomen (talk) 17:08, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  No. We go with what the reliable sources say, not self-descriptions. If we went by the standard you propose, every corporation would be full of righteous people working to better the world through commerce, and Stormfront would be 'a community of racial realists'. NPOV does not mean WP:FALSEBALANCE, we don't give equal validity to self-serving claims. MrOllie (talk) 17:19, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

  Hmmm, if gamergate supporters claim that the movement is not about that, shouldn't the article reflect that?

  WP:MANDY applies. Of course they're going to claim it's not a harassment campaign, because harassment is bad & they don't want people to think they're bad. But reliable sources agree that it is a harassment campaign. So there's no point in putting up any particular GGer's claim that it's not. There is no right to "define" yourself here, because most people are going to use the most self-serving description they can think of, which is why we prefer what secondary sources say.

  Twisting that around to say the reliable sources are in the wrong is just not going to fly here. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:47, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

References