Talk:Gamergate (harassment campaign)

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A suggestion on article ordering change

This long-running discussion on a proposal to reorganise the article has been divided into sections, one section per day, in order to make editing and reading easier.

Day 1

Looking over the draft (while we're still at draft, and presuming it will not be moved in soon), I really think there is a need to reorganize the material better but without changing the content. And right now, I'm simply talking about text cut and paste moves, no language change outside of necessary sentence flow.

Currently the article structure is this:

• History
  • Gamergate hashtag
  • Subsequent harassment
• Political views
  • Gamer identity
  • Misogyny and antifeminism
• Debate over ethics allegations
• Gamergate organization
  • Activities
    • The Fine Young Capitalists
    • Operation Disrespectful Nod
    • Operation Baby Seal
    • #NotYourShield
• Industry response

I would propose the following:

• History
  • Background (everything prior to August 2014)
  • Onset (this would be the activities within the first ~couple weeks of GG, encompassing Quinn/Sarkeesian; the only major text addition would be to explain that both ethics calls and harassment came from those using the hashtag)
  • Ongoing harassment (From Sarkeesian's bomb threat, Wu, and anything else ongoing including the swatting)
• Gamergate movement (or "organization" if we're still not comfortable with that).
  • History/makeup/organization (what is presently under "Gamergate hashtag"; this also includes, for example, Singal's observations on the lack of organization)
  • Ethics allegations (less any of the "but ethics" broad criticism like the current first paragraph; specific criticism of the specific ethics claims should stay with this)
  • Other activities (same sections as above, but I think we can look to trimming those down too)
• Criticism of Gamergate
  • Debate over ethics allegations
  • Political views
  • Gamer identity
  • Misogyny and anti-feminism
• Industry response/reactions

I suspect that there will be some with issues with putting the Gamergate movement/organization somewhat higher in the article, and doing some reordering around that, but when it comes to the narrative, it makes it much easier to explain the criticism (the sections I've listed above) once you've explained the makeup of GG and their stated desires. Right now, the way this is ordered, the narrative thought is difficult to follow, and this might be part of having too much focus putting the predominate view before the minority view/information. I am not proposing getting rid of any of the predominate view, but just reorganizing the points so that certain facets of the predominate view make more sense or are easier to explain after you've explained the minor view. (For example, the whole "but ethics!" line that the predominate view uses is difficult to understand until after you explain what the ethics claims are, why the press doesn't think those claims can be acted on, and then the complaints about the use of harassment to threaten/silence others.) Again, to stress, the only language change at the start would simply be wording for information flow; most of what I proposed is just moving the right blocks of paragraphs to the different sections.

For sake of minimal disruption, if there's even a reasonable belief this might work better, I would propose that I make the ordering change in the draft article and then revert myself on that change, only so that I can provide a fixed url that would show the skeleton of this re-ordered list to be clearer (and to avoid creating a draft of a draft of info that borders on BLP). --MASEM (t) 07:38, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

As per WP:CRITICISM, The best approach to incorporating negative criticism into the encyclopedia is to integrate it into the article, in a way that does not disrupt the article's flow. The article should be divided into sections based on topics, timeline, or theme – not viewpoint. Negative criticism should be interwoven throughout the topical or thematic sections. Additionally, a separate section titled "Criticism" implies that criticism should be pigeonholed into that section only, which is similarly not a best practice. I oppose creating a section entitled "Ethics allegations" because it avoids entirely the issue that most of the purported "ethics allegations" are widely viewed as not actually having anything to do with ethics — which is why the section is currently titled "Debate over ethics allegations" to present the fact that almost all external commentators see the allegations as both meritless and not actually involving questions of journalism ethics but rather simply furthering a culture war. I'm not necessarily opposed to some reordering, however. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 09:26, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. We could leave readers with a false impression if they only read a single section. In general Masem's outline could work if we drop the criticism section and incorporate it into the prose of the Gamergate movement section. — Strongjam (talk) 13:42, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind CRITICISM is an essay; further even within that, WP:CRITS states "Other than for articles about particular worldviews, philosophies or religious topics etc. where different considerations apply (see below), best practice is to incorporate positive and negative material into the same section." Here's the problem - there's no "positive" criticism to include. Reading through the rest of CRITICISM shows that separating out the larger criticism against GG as a whole as I suggest does not contradict that essay considering the nature topic at hand.

Additionally, denying a section title like "Ethic allegations" because it doesn't address the predominate view is not a neutral approach. In documenting what we can about the movement, we are not to care if the predominate view says what GG says is bogus when discussing the GG supporters/group. We need to write about the facts of the GG cause without any bias from the predominate viewpoint per FRINGE. --MASEM (t) 15:34, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

If there is no positive criticism then uncritically stating their claims is giving them WP:UNDUE weight and could violate WP:FRINGE by making the claims appear to be more notable or accepted then they really are. — Strongjam (talk) 15:40, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind what I said about how the ethics section would be changed: the specific issues raised by the media about some of the ethics claims (eg how unwieldy asking for "objective reviews" is) would be kept with these specific claims as these are best where those aspects are discussed; the broader criticism that "using ethics claims to cover up harassment" factors would be later when criticism of the movement as a whole is presented. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

That might work. Specific claims by GG alongside the specific criticism for those claims, with the broader criticism later. Although I think that we could work the "cover up harassment" criticism as part of the Ethics section, perhaps in a wrap-up paragraph. — Strongjam (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

That goes back to the point of the reordering: the criticism of "but ethics" relies on knowing the ethics claims, knowing the criticism of those claims, and knowing the backlash that the harassment has gotten and how some press see harassment is believed to be considered a tool used by GG to intimidate critics; only then the "but ethics" argument clearly make logical sense. The ordering I present makes those points ll in order before hitting on this core "but ethics" aspect. Trying to put it earlier is part of the reason the current narrative is very clunky. --MASEM (t) 16:11, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

The current Ethics section starts out with a brief description before the criticism already "Many Gamergate supporters contend that their movement is about ethical concerns revolving around the close relationships between journalists and developers, reviewers acknowledging social issues, and private conversations occurring between journalists." I just don't think we need a separate Critiscm of Ethics section, we document their claims (with an eye to WP:FRINGE) and the criticism, and wrap it up with the broader commentary. — Strongjam (talk) 16:21, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Many instances of harassment described in this article never came from GamerGate. Those who made the treats never mentioned or had anything to do with GamerGate. It is a blatant NPOV violation to include them in this article.

Day 2

Totally disagree with any suggestion to have a criticism section. I don't feel it would improve the article, its readability, or its neutrality at all to try and separate coverage into "supportive", "neutral", and "critical" and divide it up accordingly; those categories are obviously very important to many people involved in the controversy, but they are not encyclopedic divisions -- coverage is coverage, and should inform our entire article in accordance to its representation in reliable sources rather than being divided up based on our personal feelings about whether it makes the subject "look good" or "look bad". In particular, I find your assertion that the "political views" section should be a subsection of the 'criticism' section to make no sense at all; that should be its own section, with "Gamer identity" and "Misogyny and anti-feminism" as subsections of it, since those are the coverage of the politics behind GamerGate as covered by reliable sources. Likewise, it strikes me as bizarre to want to separate 'ethicla issues' and 'criticism of ethical issues' into separate sections -- we must cover the topic in one place as reported by reliable sources; if the ethics claims are generally dismissed in reliable sources, then the ethics section itself must make this its core thesis. Criticism sections are generally, I think, agreed to be terrible things, and I don't see anything in your arguments above that would change it here -- they generally end up serving only to provide dumping grounds for unrelated criticism (stripped of context, and therefore less useful), or to move any aspects of the article someone deems 'negative' out of the rest of the article. --Aquillion (talk) 06:52, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

A "Criticism " section does not always mean negative criticism (you can have positive criticism); however, it doesn't have to be called criticism but it should be focused on analysis and criticism of the broad issues of GG. (Perhaps "Responses" as is done on Westboro, for example). There's a better way to gather the information in the article to put most of the broader analysis in one cohensive section. And let me stress - a criticism section has to be kept with this main article because that is what makes up 75%+ of the notability of GG; this is not an attempt to segegrate this off and then prime it to be moved, because I would be fully against that. (Barring anything major in the next few months, I can't see this article growing any more to necessitate a move).

Things like "gamer identity" and "misogyny and anti-feminism" are not political views, that's part of the problem. I'm rereading that section now, and it just doesn't make a lot of cohensive sense, because it feels like we're crowbarring in some thoughts that are better elsewhere in a logical order. I know where the "gamer identity" text came from (I had that as background material months ago), but it doesn't talk about any political views, for example. Maybe if it was "Analysis of Gamergate", discussing the "culture war and gamer identity", "misogyny and anti-feminism" , "lack of GG organization/structure", etc. that might make it clearer without calling it directly as criticism. --MASEM (t) 07:11, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with what you're saying here; the section discusses the forces that shape the political views driving GamerGate, which (according to our sources) are primarily the gamer identity, anti-feminism, and misogyny. Certainly anti-feminism is a political view if anything is; but misogyny and gamer identity (when driven by identity politics) are also political views. Regardless, these are not primarily commentary sections, or analysis sections, or criticism sections; these are sections describing the subject of the article and its views, as objectively and thoroughly as we can (using, ideally, the most reliable sources we can.) That is something that an article on a subject like this badly needs. I do not see any gain for the article by transforming them into "commentary" sections -- remember, we're trying to keep people from using the article as a dumping ground for random commentary, since that was a problem in the past. "Analysis of gamergate" (when it comes from reliable sources) is something we must depend upon for every single section of the article -- it is absolutely not something we could confine to just one section. (As my example, above, of the problems we would encounter trying to separate the section on ethics into 'ethics' and 'debate over ethics' shows.) Ultimately, I see no improvement from your proposed reordering -- I think that the current ordering accurately expresses the history of the movement, then the politics behind it, which are by far the most important subjects here. I would strenuously oppose moving anything in the current politics section lower in the article; it feels to me like you feel that the GamerGate Organization section is more 'objective' or that you can write a section that will accurately depict 'what GamerGate really believes' to be contrasted with people's commentary, but note that the organization and hashtag sections also rely on commentary, since there is no central GamerGate organization. To the extent that there is a broad agreement about what GamerGate wants and what it stands for, it is covered by our current politics section. --Aquillion (talk) 07:43, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Not every section needs analysis. In fact, we should start off with what information is not analysis and move up from that into the more secondary modes later. So starting with the current history and the history of harassment - which is all factual, no analysis needed, moving into what GG is and their claims, which is reporting what they say, though including some commentary on specific issues, and then moving into broad analysis of the situation, including why GG came about, the make up of the people, etc. - following the concept of Bloom's taxonomy in the presentation of this topic as it is very non-standard. And remember, I'm not talking about ridding sections, just reordering to make the narrative and logic flow better. And yes, we should be aiming to accurately represent what GG believes without any attempt at judgement in WP's voice - that's the primary impartial nature we need. We know we have tons of criticism against GG to include, but we can't let the volume of that public opinion sway the approach we talk to writing on the details specific from the GG's mouths. --MASEM (t) 16:40, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Day 3

I disagree with your implicit assertion that we should give critics who claim to be speaking from within some "GamerGate organization" any particular precedent over those who do not when it comes to analyzing and characterizing what is behind the controversy. For one thing, GamerGate is structureless, and therefore such critics' opinions can never be more than their own personal opinions (which must be weighted according to their prominence and usefulness as a reliable source); for another, in situations where these viewpoints conflict, our duty is to focus on things in proportion to their representation in reliable sources -- not to portray "what these random commentators, who arbitrarily claim to be part of some hypothetical GamerGate organization, say their movement is really about." Beyond that, you are still making a false distinction between "criticism against GG, and what the analysis of these supposed critics says it believes" as opposed to "what GG actually believes, according to Real True GamerGators". This is not a meaningful distinction(note that you have to source your statement on what GG actually believes to somewhere, which is, inevitably, analysis.)

As an aside, I note that you have repeatedly said that you want GamerGate covered the way the Westboro Baptist Church is. If you go there and read its Church views section, you'll see it is sourced almost entirely to pieces that are clearly critical of the church; we do not simply rely on the first-hand accounts of the church's own beliefs, but on analysis and interpretation from reliable sources. We must describe GG's beliefs, goals, and politics in the same way, according to what reliable sources have said about them, without regard for what side you (or they) feel they are on; this is what the current politics section does. And in fact it is particularly important here, because unlike the church there is no central GamerGate mouthpiece, meaning that there are almost no concrete and reliable primary sources; but regardless, even if that were not the case, as an encyclopedia, we are supposed to rely primarily on secondary sources and their analysis when discussing eg. what GamerGate is actually all about. In this light, virtually all reliable coverage of GamerGate has said that it is about a culture war centered around people moved by gamer identity politics, gender-politics, and anti-feminism, who have either -- depending on your point of view -- used discussion about ethics in journalism (as it relates to the vast ideological conspiracy that many within GamerGate allege) in order to advance these goals; or who has discovered a vast unethical conspiracy among their ideological opponents on those axes. This is, therefore, what we must lead with in describing it, and it is what the current politics section says. --Aquillion (talk) 02:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I've argued before to avoid SPS sources for proGG statements - most of what we can say about the GG's claims about ethics, etc. are from sources that are critical of GG. We should rely on these sources to put the GG statements in context, but we also should not forget to include what the original statements are. Those people are one side of the controversy and we should be earnestly trying to document it within our RS policy in as neutral and non-judgemental a manner as possible, as is done on Westboro. --MASEM (t) 02:50, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Day 4

But nobody is saying "the Westboro Baptist church isn't really about opposing gays." If there were people who claimed to be members of the Westboro Church and who argued that it was really about (say) ethics in games journalism, yet the vast majority of reliable sources dismissed that as tangential to its purpose and said that it was about opposition to gays, we would focus on its opposition to gays in its 'political views' section, and make that the focus of the article; this is especially true, of course, if that was what it was notable for. (In fact, the Westboro Church does have many views other than its view on homosexuality. The article notes them, but puts them very far down the article and gives them little attention, because they are not what it is notable for and not what most commentators say is the main driving force behind it.) Additionally, it's important not to fall into the trap of saying that "these people are a side in the controversy" as if that means we need to give them particular weight; our job is not to present all sides equally, but to present them in proportion to their representation among reliable sources. I would actually go so far as to say that they are not a side in the controversy as reflected by reliable sources; as far as I can tell, we don't have any reliable sources -- among those that describe them in any depth, or which give them any credit at all -- that describes the ethics issues as something distinct from the culture-war issues. (That is, there are some sources that argue that GamerGate is part of a legitimate culture war opposing a vast unethical conspiracy by feminists and other ideological opponents in order to control the media; but this is, indeed, already covered by the current political views section, though we cover it in a neutral fashion and therefore without giving undue credence to it. I think it's reasonable to describe it as a fairly WP:FRINGE theory, after all.) At this point I think that there is broad agreement among our sources -- on all 'sides' -- about what exactly GamerGate's ethical issues are about, what they mean, what perspective they come from and how they relate to the larger culture war. They disagree only on whether those accusations are accurate or whether the individual claims amount to proof of this broad conspiracy. Obviously it makes no sense to cut out the arguments that it does amount to proof of a broad conspiracy and try to present them separately, since, again, the media conspiracy allegations are a WP:FRINGE theory, which therefore must be given less prominence than the prevailing view. --Aquillion (talk) 02:09, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

This is not about "equal" coverage, this is talking about impartial and neutral coverage, and writing an encyclopedia article that can be understood. If I was a reader with no idea about GG but wanted to be informed to learn what the GG movement is, this article does a poor job in its present state because its focused too much on making sure the predominate POV (that GG is bad) is shown, and does not present the GG side with what sources we have in any form of coherent, non-prejudgemental organization. Everything we can factually state about GG, including elements that could be seen as negative aspects like their unorganized, anon nature or their ethics claims, as well as their activities that can be documented, like the various operations to ad agencies, should be kept in one single section; after which we can then include the broad criticism of the group that builds on all those facets. (All this after we've run through the most visible facts of the harassment that has occurred). Keep in mind - in the topic of a Gamergate controversy , the GG movement is not a FRINGE view. If we were talking about gaming journalism, heck yes what GG claims is extremely fringe and likely would not be include, but to the core of this article which is about what has happened because of the actions of this movement, their views are not trivial. They're difficult to document, for certain, and very difficult to find anyone that agrees with them, but we still need to use whatever means to present the GG side as a legitimate part of the controversy as the key party of interest. This article has that information already, but in such a disorganized manner as to create the non-partial approach. Reorganizing in the manner I spoke of, without adding or removing any sourced content and only adjusting sentence for flow, goes a long way to present the GG side in a more encyclopedic and less judgemential light. That's the whole point when you come to Westboro, or Scientology, or any other group/person that has a broad negative public opinion out there; we don't base the article on the negative public opinion but around the group itself in as much a factual manner as possible and then include the criticism. --MASEM (t) 03:47, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

If you came here to find out what the gamergate movement was, you came to the wrong place asking the wrong question. this is the article about the controversy created by the vile vile harassment under the gamergate hashtag and the underlying antifeminist/anti-woman culture war in the gaming world that the vile vile harassment brought into the view of mainstream culture. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

That makes no sense. Obviously, we are not going to have an article that separates the harassment facets from the movement (the notability are far too tied together to even consider that), and there is legitimately a question of coming to WP to learn about the movement and trying to understand their motives as to learn about how harassment became an issue. This is the right page on WP to discuss the movement and we are not doing a good job of that due to the current organization. And no, we're not here to talk about the "vile vile harassment" but just the "harassment". WP is amoral in that regards. --MASEM (t) 04:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

per all the sources , as it relates to the subject of this article - gamergate the so called movement is a NOTHING that accomplished NOTHING other than perhaps attempt to act as a transparent cover for vile vile harassment against women. and aside from the vile vile harassment is a bunch of idiot conspiracy theorists who dont know what either "ethics" or "objective" actually means. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:12, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Popular opinion/criticism, but not fact. We have facts about the movement we can discuss, and which are necessary to discuss, to understand why criticism is as harsh as it is. We should be earnestly trying to use what we can take from the reliable sources to document clearly what factual information there is about the GG movement to explain the people and their stated goals that are at the centerpoint of this controversy, to be encyclopedicly complete, and should not be ignoring the GG movement because of the claimed "vile vile harassment" they've done. --MASEM (t) 04:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

No, Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability_does_not_guarantee_inclusion whatever "facts not opinions" we may have from reliable sources about the "so called movement" are in fact almost entirely devoid of any relevance to the subject of this article, the controversy. WP:COATRACK -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:36, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

What the GG movement is is absolutely key to this topic and in absolutely no way a coatrack argument. Refusal to cover what the GG movement claims to be (the group that is responsible, directly or not, for the controversy) in a non-judgemental manner, even with as limited an amount of sourcing from reliable sources as we have to do that from, is a direct violation of NPOV, because you are refusing to cover a major facet of the controversy. --MASEM (t) 05:46, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:PROVEIT for any article you can provide that has any measure of focus on the "so called movement" i can produce a dozen that have only a passing mention or directly comment on its actual meaninglessness. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

But the key thing is - there are many highly reliable sources that cover GG as a movement, with most then within a paragraph going on to criticize that for the rest of the article. That means that what GG is is important to their criticism and we should of course cover what GG is and their motives and goals so that the criticism of GG makes sense. You can't introduce "But ethics!" criticism without describing the ethics claims. We don't need dedicated articles that are solely proGG to provide this information, there are plenty of very critical articles against GG that do provide sufficient details for us to explain the GG side of the equation briefly, which we already effectively do, but just with poor narrative or logical progression that can be improved by simply reordering what we have without changing the balance of the article/sources. --MASEM (t) 06:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Still waiting for your actual sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 07:12, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I already said the sources for this are in the article sourcing what we know about the movement, such as the words by Singal, articles like [1], and [2], albeit briefly because there's not that much they can figure out but they try to at least. They talk about what the GG movement is from the view the GG movement, and then move on to analysis and criticism. So yes, there are sources. There are also sources that completely ignoring what GG wants to write one-sided approaches, but we don't follow tone, we are looking to summarize the whole story, so ignoring what we can source that we know about GG is inappropriate for a neutral encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Day 5

No discussion on day 5. --TS 04:58, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Day 6

Again, your statement that those sources are one-sided and that they are completely ignoring what GG wants to write is, ultimately, nothing more than your personal opinion. We have plenty of sources that indicate that, yes, there are voices even within GamerGate (or at least, saying that they are within GamerGate) that are loudly and aggressively declaring that the purpose of the movement is to harass specific women, or to advance a gender-politics agenda, or to push hard on one side in a culture war, or countless other things; we rely on sources to parse through these and produce an accurate summary based on their reliability, not based on subjective opinions about what the "real" GamerGate is. Even if you don't realize it, you are basically suggesting that we categorize and weight sources according to your personal POV over which are accurate -- when one source says "I went to GamerGate, and they said it was all about ethics" you agree with them; when someone says "I went to GamerGate, and they said it was all about driving LW1, LW2, and L@3 to suicide" or "I went to GamerGate, and they said it was all about crushing Feminism and Social Justice Warriors" or when a source says "I speak for GamerGate, and it's all about fighting the liberal agenda of the media and pushing back against the conspiracy of feminist gender-politics", you're dismissing that solely because you disagree with the conclusions they're drawing. All of those sources, after all, claim to be saying that they are reporting what GG is from the view of the GG movement -- you're treating "what GG is really all about" or even "what GG says GG is really all about" as if it is straightforward and obvious; but given the amount of arguing on this talk page and elsewhere, I don't think it's that obvious. And to the extent that there's a broad agreement, I think it's what our politics section generally describes -- that is, GamerGate is basically about a culture war in which some people are convinced that there is a broad gender-politics conspiracy which is being advanced by sinister, unethical media collusion and which must be confronted and destroyed. The sources disagree a bit on what the driving force is behind this belief (whether it's gamer identity politics, gender politics, misogyny, or whether people are flocking to it because the conspiracy is real and gamers can see that), but the overarching reasons behind the conflict seem like they're largely something every reputable agrees on, regardless of "side"; it would be non-neutral of us to bury that because you personally feel that you've looked at the issue and identified what the Real True View From Within GamerGate is. --Aquillion (talk) 02:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

We have no sources that say that from within the same group of people that are asking about ethics within the GG movement, that they also engaged in harassment or directly support harassment as a tool of their agenda. Yes, some have said, paraphrasing, "Yes, harassment is bad, but X deserved what they got", and we have clear press statements that call out that opinion, but that's also not a signficiant opinion of the ethics side of the GG part. This goes to the point below - there is no affirmed connection between any person of the GG movement that supports ethics, and those that engaged in harassment. The likelihood that there is a connection is very high, but we can't presume that. It is important to establish that because of how unorganized, anonymous, and diffuse the GG movement is, it is difficult to define exact bounds, and thus it is readily easy to think of both sides as part of the same group, but we also are clear that there's at least two different subgroups (these we can source) - the "GG Moderate", those that are actively trying to stop the harassment and police that, and people who are don't even care about the GG goals but are using the GG name to harass people. There may be other groups, but these are two we can document with existing sources. But this is all more points to explain what the GG movement is as objectively as possible before getting into full-blown criticsm of the group. Whatever the makeup of the group, they're responsible in a direct or indirect manner for every statement made on this page, so it is the movement that needs to have some focus before getting into the analysis and criticism of all these actions. --MASEM (t) 03:03, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. The issue isn't whether the GamerGate controversy is defined by harassment; that isn't our decision, that's something that is defined by coverage in the mainstream media, which has overwhelmingly made harassment the crux of its reporting. We should, of course, be careful not to inadvertently say "every single person who retweeted GamerGate has committed harassment" or anything like that in the article voice, but we still have to respect the focus of reliable sources, so that aspect isn't really one we can grapple with. (In fact, I don't feel the changes you proposed would affect that aspect much at all.) The issue is the coverage on what the GamerGate controversy is about in terms of politics and goals; this is the focus of the politics section (which you are arguing must be moved to the bottom of the article and generally made less prominent.) Nobody is saying that every single person who ever retweeted #GamerGate is guilty of sending death threats; but the vast majority of our sources say that GamerGate is fundamentally about gamer identity, culture warfare over gender-politics (driven by, as many of our sources term it, misogyny), and opposition to what many people involved in the controversy see as their ideological enemies. This, therefore, must be core to how we describe the conflict. There are very few sources that agree with your implicit assertion that this aspect is divided into two distinct organizations -- some of the people driven by these passions engage in harassment, and some do not, but most sources in our article seem to agree that those particular passions are the driving force behind the controversy. And this is, currently, what our article says; we report on the most noteworthy things that have happened in relation to GamerGate and on what, according to the most reliable sources, the debate is about, what people who are getting angry are angry about, and so on. Your personal opinion that the entire movement splits cleanly into two identifiable groups (and that we must defer to the group that you have identified as the "main" group and give what you say are their views prominent a voice before we move on to what the reliable sources say) is not one that I feel is backed up by the sources we have in the article; most of the in-depth analysis of GamerGate is at this point in broad agreement about the crux of the controversy, and it is not about "ethics" -- it is about people driven by cultural warfare to oppose their ideological opponents, who they believe have used unethical methods to advance their agenda. This is something the current article covers accurately. I feel that your proposed changes would reduce the prominence of this view (which is, again, in the overwhelming majority) in favor of an extremely WP:FRINGE description of the ongoing controversy and a characterization of GamerGate that very very few sources agree reflects reality. --Aquillion (talk) 04:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

This is the problem with how GG is reported in mainstream media, and while I'll frequently point back to things like Westboro Baptist Church, and other groups/people that have a near-universal negative public perception. Yes, it is popular opinion of the press that they think GG is an harassment campaign and that's fair that that is their, but we cannot treat that as fact without any clear established evidence of that, in light that GG does not say they are an harassment campaign. We cannot misrepresent what GG claims to be despite what the popular opinion is. There's not much objective we can say about GG (per WEIGHT/UNDUE), and there's a lot of criticism that we have to include to accurately represent how the popular opinion is about GG, but we have to start without prejudging GG as something they say they are not. We don't treat suspects of crimes who claim they are innocent even if the rest of the world assumes they are guilty, until there is a legal decision that counters that point. Same here - there is no clear evidence of a legal or scientific nature to show that GG is really about harassment. We're going to include the strong doubt this is the case, obviously, but we can't start there, which is what the current organization of the article does. --MASEM (t) 04:29, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

The difference is that people don't disagree about what the Westboro Baptist Church is and what it thinks; everyone agrees that they are opposed to gays, that this is the most noteworthy thing about them, and that the people who we see standing at funerals shouting insults to gays represent the church as a whole, so when we cite critical analysis of what their views are in our description of them, it's clear what it should say. In this case, though, while (as I said) I think there is now fairly broad agreement about what GamerGate is really about, there are a few people (like, I gather, you) who disagree with this broad consensus -- you are saying "these people, who the media quotes, who the coverage focuses on, who the news pieces describe; these are not the real GamerGate. I, Masem, know what the real GamerGate is, and we are being unfair to it." But you need to recognize that this is just your opinion. We have to determine what GamerGate is -- who speaks for it, which opinions it holds, what its goals and methods are -- by looking at reliable sources, not based on your personal feelings. And those sources have generally described it in terms of cultural warfare, fights over gender-politics and gamer-identity-poltitics, and -- yes -- the harassment that has come out of these things. These are the defining aspects of the controversy and the key people involved in it. Describing this as the core of the GamerGate controversy and the driving force behind it is not a misrepresentation; it is an unbiased, accurate coverage of the topic as reported in the overwhelming majority of reliable sources. Obviously you disagree -- you feel that those sources are wrong, that they're misrepresenting it, and so on -- but that is ultimately just your opinion; it's not backed by the sources we have at the moment. --Aquillion (talk) 05:06, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Er, Westboro themselves do not agree with what is said about them. And yes, we actually can objectively state what GG's intents and motives are. We have those sources already. We have that text already, even - but it's spread out across the article and placed in contradictory sentences that prejudge them. We can write a heck of alot better without changing the balance of material and sources. --MASEM (t) 05:23, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Day 7

When the Westboro Baptist church disagrees with what the experts say about them (for instance, in the characterization of them as hyper-calvinist), we go by what the experts say; if someone claiming to speak for the Westboro Baptist Church were to start denying that they were anti-gay, we would still describe them as anti-gay in the lead and devote the bulk of the politics section to their anti-gay sentiments, because our political views section is largely sourced to reliable experts on the topic and not directly to the church itself. Similarly, we can only objectively state what the intents and motives behind the GamerGate controversy are by looking at how they are covered by reliable sources. If the reliable sources state that (for instance) GamerGate is about gender-war politics, harassment, misogyny, gamer identity warfare, and conspiracy theories, we must report these aspects in proportion to the attention such sources have given them; objectivity means reporting what reliable sources say, in proportion to the prominence of the relevant views, without judgment on our part. It is clear that you personally disagree with the conclusion that the majority of reliable sources have come to, and therefore feel that that conclusion is not objective; but it still is what it is. In order to make the locus of controversy completely clear (because I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying): When you say "I just want the article to say what GamerGate really says it is about", I believe that you are looking a small fringe view of what GamerGate says it is about; I am not saying merely that that characterization is a minority view, I am saying that your opinion that GamerGate describes itself that way (to the extent that the controversy can be said to have any concrete character) is not accurate and is not reflected in the sources. The sources in the political views section say that the GamerGate controversy, going by the words of self-described supporters, is focused on fighting a culture war against their gender-politics opponents, which is what our article accurately reflects. I will add one additional thing which might explain your continued confusion when it comes to the focus on harassment: Different sources in the article mean different things when they say 'harassment'. Many of them clearly lump all of the accusations against Quinn et. all under harassment, from the perspective that maliciously repeating untrue accusations is a form of harassment, and therefore describe anyone repeating these accusations as guilty of harassment. In that regard it makes sense for those sources to say that GamerGate is primarily about harassment; and when that perspective is the one reflected in the overwhelming majority of reliable sources, we must reflect it here as well, even if it is something that some people who think of themselves as members of GamerGate would object to. Even if you feel that this is unfair or that it does not accurately characterize their viewpoint, we must still go with what those reliable sources say; our responsibility is to ensure that we report things according to their focus in reliable sources, and to avoid giving WP:UNDUE weight to WP:FRINGE descriptions of the controversy, no matter how much more accurate you may feel those descriptions are. --Aquillion (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's the issue: who are the "experts" making the determination that Westboro is anti-gay, or for anything that is a subjective measure? Usually there is no one that can do this, becuase is near impossible to be an expert in such fields. (Take movie reviews - we will default to explain people like Roger Ebert's POV on a movie because we know he's got a clear handle on films, but his opinion remains opinion, and always in his voice.) There's no issue saying, clearly, "The press think GG is misogynistic", because that is a clear demonstrable fact - 100s of articles express that opinion. But that doesn't mean "GG is misogynistic" is a fact, for the very reason that there is no effective way to prove that. And because this is not fact, and because we're talking about a group central to the issue at hand, we cannot say what they say is wrong (nor right). We have side A, we have side B. We cannot make a judgement which side is right. Side A - the GGers, aren't going to be able to have a lot of objective material here, and side B's voice is going to be a predominate part of this article, but we cannot let the condemnation of the press set our tone in any way. Our responsibility is to stay neutral to what RSes say as we are simply trying to document the event, not try to convince a reader of a conclusion one way or another. --MASEM (t) 05:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Our job, as an encyclopedia, is not to divide everything into two "sides" and then try to give each side equal weight; our job is to try and ignore (and stay above) the conflict as much as possible while trying to find the most reputable sources on the topic that we can, so we can rely on their coverage and perspectives in proportion to how prominent each aspect is. I strongly disagree with your assertion, in fact, that there are two clearly-distinct, definable 'sides' here -- many, many different reliable sources have weighed in with different perspectives, and we must parse the most reliable coverage of the controversy from those and then produce an accurate, impartial summary of it based on what that says. If you end up feeling that the overall coverage of the topic in reliable sources is biased (and that seems to be what you're saying here when you define "the press" as a side?), that's, unfortunately, not something we can correct as an encyclopedia -- we do not suddenly start disregarding WP:RS simply because some people claim that the press is biased. Our responsibility is to stay neutral by reflecting what each reliable source says in proportion to its prominence; if coverage of the topic among reliable sources is a deafening chorus saying that this is a culture war being waged over gender politics and against so-called social justice warriors, then our article must likewise reflect that deafening chorus, and it would absolutely be a violation of NPOV to say "but here's what some random people say it's really all about." Trying to balance coverage away by taking a WP:FRINGE viewpoint on the controversy and giving it greater weight than it deserves is, in fact, taking an unacceptable stance in support of that viewpoint; it is our job to uncritically report on what the press says, not to define the press as a "side" and then try to argue against it by scavenging for whatever fringe viewpoints in opposition we can find. I assume, based on what you're saying above, that you feel that the press should not be reported uncritically in this case (that it is biased, or that it has clearly taken a side?) But that is not how we write Wikipedia articles; if you want to challenge reliability of the press, this is unfortunately not the place to do it. --Aquillion (talk) 06:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

My argument has nothing to do with any possible bias of the press, only that they are expressing their opinion, not fact. As such, while their voice is predominate and will be the majority of the text we have in the article, as it is now, we cannot slip and take the same tone they have taken to condemn GG, as this is not necessary the "right" or "wrong" position, just the predominate one. We cannot prejudge anything, and if the press has, we have to strip that away in presenting any objective fact, and then be clear when we are expressing their opinion. "GG is considered misogynistic by the mainstream media" is completely acceptable here and I am in no way arguing against removing any of the opinions currently cited to the press to condemn GG, only that we make sure that we keep everything else outside that as objective as possible to be a neutral, impartial work.

Further, calling the GG movement's view "fringe" really is not appropriate here. If we were talking an article where the topic is gaming journalism, yes their opinion on what they want from gaming journalism is clearly fringe. But GG is the central reason why this article even exists - not necessary by the actions they specifically started but still required their spark to do that. What their side has expressed is important to present to make the media's take on their actions understandable. They are not a fringe view here if they are the central point this all extended from. They don't have a lot of RS to back up their point but they have enough that we can reorganize what we already have to provide a more cohesive picture of their side of this issue, and thus make the criticism the press throws down in spades much clearer to understand. Look at any disliked organization. Look at any page on a major criminal or crime with identified targets. Even if these people are convicted of a crime, we still neutrally and impartially present their side of the issue - not necessary in equal time, but without any prejudging of whether their motives were right or wrong. We need to do the same here, even if the bulk of GG are anon people, they are still people at the end of the day and not any evidence they have engaged in any illegal activity to factually call them out on that. Again to stress: the reorg I have presented would require no removal or addition of sources from what we already have, nor removal of any text, only the addition and wordsmithing of text to smooth presentation. --MASEM (t) 06:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I think I'm beginning to understand your point of view. You think the central reason for this article is something called Gamergate comprising a group of people. This isn't true, though. The article exists because of a series of vehemently misogynistic attacks on women in gaming. We would not be writing this article if it weren't for those attacks, which for want of a better word make this article notable. Some people want to call themselves Gamergate? We write about those guys, too, though it's very difficult because there is little organisation. But the Gamergate controversy is what it is, and we're here to write the best possible article about that. --TS 13:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

This is the continued problem with the article. Did it get notability because of some attacks? Sure. But now we have an article, so we need to cover what the entire topic is about, not just one aspect of it. The article probably needs a rename and a restructure to start, and perhaps now that ArbCom has done some work here we can start doing the work of repairing the article so it meets our content standards. At no point should this comment be construed as saying the article shouldn't cover the issues of harassment or follow sources, merely that the article, to meet our basic point of view policies, needs significant repair. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Having said that, though, I think we need something concrete to look at. Please make a skeleton of your proposed outline in your userspace and fill it in with a list of sources and general themes (or content from our existing draft if it fits) and then we'll be able to see more clearly what you mean. I'm a but wary about article forks, which can lead to divisive behaviour, which is why I don't think you should create it in the draft namespace. But personally I wouldn't object to your placing your demo into the draft article's history and then mass reverting it, which I think you suggested earlier. --TS 13:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree that in August/September the reason for this article was the amount of attention the harassment aspects under the GG hashtag got - indeed, the AFD filed shortly after creation suggests that the harassment done under "GamerGate" was the notable factor, not the movement. But we're 5 months out, and things have changed. "Gamergate movement" gets more hits than "Gamergate controversy". The group of people under GG - at least as seen by the press - are the subject of intense criticism. Argubly the movement is its own notable topic, but I would never suggest separating it out at all, because the controversy over harassment, and the movement, are inseparable subjects. I've noted this issue several times before: we are really dealing with two different controversies - what the GG supports have against gaming media, and what the mainstream media has against the tactics used by those under the GG hashtag. The latter has clearly the most cover, but the former is readily sourcable to reliable sources (we already have that). The controversy is about the movement.

As a thought experiment (I would not suggest this format at all), consider if this article was about the GG movement, structured close to how Westboro is laid out. We'd explain how their group came to be and some of the activities they have done. We'd have to explain that there was harassment done under the GG name even if that's not tied to the group. And then we go into the reactions and criticism of the group. 99% of that content would be the same as what we have here. This is more evidence that that "GG controversy" and the "GG movement" are inseparable elements if not synonymous with each other, and as it makes zero sense to have a separate article on the movement when it is so tied to the controversy, we need to make sure that that is covered in an encyclopedic-appropriate manner even with there's only about a dozen RS sources we can pull from to describe this (using a lot of Singal's attempts to dive into the innards to help expand). That's the whole point of my proposed reorg is simply to make sure that we cohesively define what is known about the movement as the central figure to the controversy.

As for the draft, my plan to present something to review but without being disruptive (and as this point, I would even consider a user-space draft to be that way even if there's AGF that I'm not going to twist it around (I fear that others will want to do the same based on that), was to simply inject a revision into the draftspace article (Editeded off line), then revert, and then present the diff id as the first draft of reorg w/ minimal wordsmithing for flow, for evaluation, and why I made sure this was clear before doing that to minimize any apparent disruption that might seem to be. --MASEM (t) 13:57, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

You and I are thinking alike on this in a few ways, but I'm wondering why you don't like the format you've mapped out here? That seems to be the most reasonable way out, and solves 95% of the problems with this article as is. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

We are 5 months out and the only thing that has changed is that there are not new press reports coming out everyday of yet another another target of the vile vile gamergate harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:20, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, so now it's time to actually look closely at the article and get it in line with our NPOV policies. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:36, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Please point out where we do not represent the subject as the reliable sources have presented it? Other than the fact that we spend significantly more time on the "but ethics" than the sources do-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 05:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Interjection on Day 6

This discussion, now in its sixth day, is beginning to resemble a rather dull saloon bar discussion largely between two parties who cannot see eye to eye. I think the onus is on Masem to explain why we can't use reliable sources to describe what Gamergate is and how we could do otherwise without making a pact with the dreaded synthesis monster or giving undue weight to negligible voices. Perhaps at this point others may want to chip in with their views. --TS 05:05, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, I mean, according to that, you've already made your decision, haven't you? Saying "explain why we can't use reliable sources to describe what Gamergate is and how we could do otherwise without making a pact with the dreaded synthesis monster or giving undue weight to negligible voices" basically is saying "I think the RS say this, and therefore you trying to change it is working against that." Ries42 (talk) 05:13, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, at this stage I think we all are in agreement about what the reliable sources say. I'm trying to work out how this proposal is supposed to reflect those sources with appropriate weight, given what we already know they say, and especially given how overwhelmingly they say it. --TS 06:11, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Tony, we're definitely in agreement about what the reliable sources being used in this article say. There's definitely significant disagreement still standing about whether we're using all the available resources. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:10, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Because there remains a clear serious problem that this article has a non-neutral tone, despite having the proper balance of sources representing the mainstream view, which is against NPOV and also a point addressed by Arbcom in the NPOV statement. To be a neutral entity in this process, we cannot make the same leaps of logic the press has made in the absence of facts. And I'm addressing this as one that doesn't have much sympathy for the general attitude and the various actions made by GG but can see there's a huge problem in how this article's tone is written. People are shutting out any discussion starting "But the press says GG is bad!" but that's simply not how we can start as a neutral impartial article evidenced by most of our other articles on controversial topics on WP. Remember, I'm not asking to change the sources or the bulk of the wording, simply to reorder to improve the tone, narrative, and logic flow. --05:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not getting that from your proposed outline. You seem to want all criticism of Gamergate corralled in a single section. Isn't that like rewriting the World War I article to describe the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand, and Gavrilo Prinzip's motives, and lumping everything else into an "aftermath" section? The Gamergate controversy _is_ the topic. That's why we gave the article that name. --TS 05:41, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

No, because this topic is nowhere as complicated in the history as, say, WWI. There is one primary event - the chain of harassment from August to September, and while there are other smaller incidents, everything is still based on that month of problems. We explain that first, then the people that are at least central to some of the issues, and then the criticism of that group and what resulted. That's pretty straight forward and a common approach for single events across WP. --MASEM (t) 05:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds to me as if you're _now_ saying we should severely narrow our focus. From an ongoing five month harassment campaign widely covered in reliable sources, you want to concentrate on just the first month. I still don't think I get the same description of what you want in any two comments. Perhaps you need to get a coherent idea of what changes you want first, in your own mind, and then you can present it here for discussion. --TS 06:01, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I notice that you also hint that the arbitration committee says something that supports your view that this article is in contravention of the neutral point of view policy. Be specific. Here is their NPOV principle as written. Explain why you think our article fails on this:

All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, with all relevant points of view represented in reasonable proportion to their importance and relevance to the subject-matter of the article. Undue weight should not be given to aspects that are peripheral to the topic. Original research and synthesized claims are prohibited. Use of a Wikipedia article for advocacy or promotion, either in favor of or against an individual, institution, or idea that is the subject of the article, is prohibited.[3]

I note that none of the findings that are passing refer to NPOV, though that doesn't absolve us of the duty to ensure that we get it right. So I want to understand your criticism and satisfy myself in this regard.

Because your criticisms are so vague and take on multiple facets when you're asked to be specific, it's very hard for me to understand what you criticism is except that you don't like it. --TS 07:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding timing - 90% of what this article focuses on is what happened in the first month - Quinn, Sarkeesian, Wu, Felicia Day, the USU threat, the "Death of Gamers", and the initial Operation aimed at advertisers. The rest have be long-tail responses that are not part of the initial matters that brought this to attention, though are part of how the industry and the media has responded to this. It is not like your example of WWI where there were years of many different battles. Things happened, and they tailed off, with bits of news popping up here and there on long term reactions. If the past 5 months were the same amount of news day after day of Gamergate actions, it would be different, but it's clear that the effect of GG appears to be in its last stages, barring any major revelations.

The last part Use of a Wikipedia article for advocacy or promotion, either in favor of or against an individual, institution, or idea that is the subject of the article, is prohibited is what applies here. The article is writing strongly against the GG movement and/or very sympathetic towards the harassment victims, even if the bulk of the sources are written this way. We can't write that way, we are supposed to be amoral and clinically neutral which is a challenge here because of the emotional aspects this subject has. We cannot adopt the same tone and attitude the press has taken towards GG, and should be in all earnest and within the limitations of the source of our V/RS polices to present the GG side in an fair and impartial manner before turning to the massive amount of crit we have from the press against GG. And by fair, I don't mean equal time, because that's impossible per V/RS. But I do mean not assuming anything negative about them within WP's voice or approach to writing; we cannot present their self-stated goals and issues with any prejudgement either from us or the press; afterwards, we can include the cric in spades, or where it is attached to specific points where it makes more logical sense (for example, when describing the GG's "objective reviews" we can then counter that point right there that the concept is considered an oxymoron by critics), but the broad sweeping crit like "it's a front for harassment", etc. should be after we have fully presented the GG side. It's both more impartial and more logical in thought to explain the criticism of GG after reviewing all of the GG position. It's completely doable without changing, removing or adding any new sources, it is simply reworking order and sentence flow, as a first point, which is what I have clearly asked for above in this thread. I want to use the draft to show what that order would result in, but I don't want to do that yet given that we're straw polling to have the current version replace the main page, but I also want to make sure that others are clear what I'm doing first before massively reverting any changes. --MASEM (t) 07:38, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It is not "advocacy or promotion" to report what reliable sources report about something. Indeed, that is exactly what Wikipedia articles do and exactly how they are written. And no, we are not required to present GG's claims as if they are true before reporting that they have been widely debunked by reliable sources. The NPOV policy does not require us to say that something which is false is true — and in fact, the BLP policy requires us to not present false claims as true when they relate to living people, as the vast majority of Gamergate claims do. These are not academic discussions about the finer points of a theory, but attacks on the characters of living people, and we have a fundamental responsibility to treat living people with fairness, sensitivity and respect. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:06, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Of course it is not "advocacy or promotion" to state what RS state they feel about a situation, but it is the case when we talk their side as being "right", even if we don't say that. When we write "GG claims it is X but many critics say it is not X", that is a tone that puts the GG as "wrong" and the press "right". We are required to present what GG claims about itself (the little we can extract from RSes) without any prejudgemental calls, because we cannot presume the popular opinion is the right opinion. In regards to anything BLP related in that, there is exactly BLP-tied item that we can actually pull from RSes as part of GG's position, and that is the one accusation that is undenibly proven false, the one about Quinn/Grayson/positive coverage. While I know there are many other accusations out there that some GG want to claim, there's nothing to be pulled from any high-quality RSes, and as such, as long as we are staying to RS coverage, the inclusion of any other BLP that would fall line with policy is not going to happen. (There will continue to be the nature that trolls and the like will stay trolling and insert unsourced material as for example on the Frank Wu article, but that's easily dealt with by BLP policy. This is what happens regardless due to the nature of an open wiki, which isn't going to change). And your final point "to treat living people with fairness, sensitivity and respect" -- so are the bulk of the GG movement. They are real people too. No, BLP doesn't apply to them as a broad nameless group, but lacking any clear evidence that all of GG is responsible for the harassment, we should be presenting their side without any prejudgement. The press has enough words about them so the reader will clearly walk away to know the public opinion swings against them, but that should only be after they've read the press's arguments, and not from how WP's voice gives that. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, Masem. On timing, now you're up to the USU cancellation which is in the New York Times in mid-October, two months after the fuss began with the Zoe Post. You also mention Felicia Day, which was about a week later. Can you see why this style of discussion is so frustrating? It takes ages for us to get on the same page about a tiny aspect of what you say we should do, and we still haven't examined why you think this reduction in scope is supported by the sources or how that fits in with your broader ideas. It's exhausting and it's clearly not going to get anywhere until we have clear, limited, justifiable and actionable proposals or at least a fighting chance of moving in that direction.

As to explain the gamergate position, I don't think we can do that because we have no reliable source that presents it as coherent. Possibly the best piece on that position (or at least the earnest search to see if such a position exists) is this piece by Singal.

As for the victims, I challenge you to demonstrate to me a way in which we are writing about the victims in a way that is disproportionate. What do you mean when you say we're sympathetic towards the harassment victims? Obviously even describing a victim of death and rape threats as such, even in the most spartan terms, will necessarily evoke sympathy in the reader. But what are we writing that unnecessarily plays on that sympathy? --TS 09:06, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, my mistake on the length of time but even with October, that's still at most two months of effectively much the same activity (as late August is when the stuff started). The same point is there - this is nothing like WWI in terms of the complexity of events which are the central part of the controversy. The history section captures that period - and the continued harassment that sporatically still occurs - perfectly. Also keep in mind that the press has not focused on any specific event in terms of criticism but the GG movement as a whole; the USU threat, for example, was where the long-running history was brought to the world stage, arguably, but it wasn't the event itself discussed but GG as a whole.

What I've been saying is that we have enough to write a brief but objective section on GG's stance. (brief due to the limited RSes that have talked about it) We talk about how they are (or aren't) organized, where they congregate, their estimated numbers, we talk about their ethics claims already, and actions they've taken in response to negative press. It's all there, but scattered like seeds instead of a cohesive section. That's what the reorganization I've suggested is meant to help. Then once the GG side is explained, we've got a barrage of various facets of negative criticism about GG as a whole, which make much more sense after you've explained the GG approach and mindset.

I never said we're disproportionate about the harassment victims, but we have to be aware that we cannot show sympathy for them just as we cannot show prejudgement for the GG side. I don't think the article at the present time shows any excessive sympathy for Quinn, etc. but it is a danger based on the language that has been used on this talk page and on the ArbCom page (particularly the talk page of the current decisions) that there may be a drive to "protect" these victims. We have to absolutely put down BLP controls to protect them, yes, but the implication of the tone of the talk page of the ArbCom discussion is something more than that. We have to treat the situation amorally, which is difficult here, it's not an easy thing, but it is possible. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

But we do have an objective section on what the views behind GamerGate are. We have a section that describes the GamerGate mindset and everything behind it, at least as well as we can for something as complicated and controversial as this. It is the current "political views" section, which has the analysis of numerous reputable sources who have gone over GamerGate's views, goals, opinions, and politics, and documented them in depth. (Most of them generally agree with each other, in broad terms, even -- as I keep pointing out -- the ones who can be generally described as 'friendly' to it. Pretty much all reputable sources that go beyond just describing it as a wave of harassment, at this point, are describing it as a culture war against what's loosely described as 'social justice.') You still have not really said what your problem with that section is beyond a vague assertion that it is not what GamerGate "really" says about itself; presumably you want us lead with a section that will initially ignore some sources in favor of others and say that these sources are what GamerGate "really" thinks while the ones down below are what "critics" say it thinks -- but that doesn't make any sense; all of our coverage, by definition, can only be based on analysis and criticism. GamerGate does not have one central mouthpiece, nor is there any obvious definition of the locus of the controversy; we must therefore rely on reputable secondary sources to collect and describe the views of people involved, which has produced our current generally-excellent political views section. What's your objection to that? --Aquillion (talk) 00:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Honestly, I like Masem's idea, but I feel like if we just talk about it, nothing will get done. Is it possible to have a "Second" draft, and have Masem lay out the whole article as he sees it in this new format, and then we can vote on it to replace the draft? That may be the best way to just go about it. Ries42 (talk) 04:24, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • There's something much simpler we can do: simply move the current draft page into main article space, then use a new draft page for a proposed rewrite. Shii (tock) 08:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I revoke the above comment in light of the discussion below about keeping the page on full protection. We need to do something to enable collaboration while still offering a presentable page to the world at large, since this page is getting significant media coverage and is the number one result for "gamergate". Instead, maybe Masem and others can start work at Draft:Gamergate controversy/2. Shii (tock) 08:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
    • If someone tells you Wikipedia is a source for actual facts, tell them to read the GamerGate article and have a laugh. The stuff with "publications accussed by Gamergate to be unethical tell us that Gamergate is bad, they must be reliable sources!". How about "women are a big chunk of Gamergate, but Gamergate is about mysoginistic harassment!". This article isn't objective in the slightest, doesn't use facts and some people here think editorials are a source of factual information. No. They're EDITORIALS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.124.0.194 (talk) 08:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Seeking input on draft version w/ reorg

Per Tony's suggestion after the previous draft was moved into mainspace and encouraging us to use the draft page to explore this above reorganization, I have populated and sorted things around, changing just a bit of wording for flow but otherwise not changing anything else. You can see it at Draft:Gamergate controversy (but you have to backfollow the redirect link at the top) or just jump here [4]. This would not be the perfected text for this , but I don't want to have this sit there for too long as the current mainspace article keeps developing and creating too much of a divergence to catch up with.

Key things:

• In reorganizing the existing text, I recognized that while some of the criticism is broad and aimed at anyone that might have used the #GG hashtag, there are two areas of criticism that we can specifically pin onto the ethics movement itself - their lack of organization/leadership, and the debate over their ethics claims - no matter how much there might be spin in the press coverage, these two things are strictly issues the movement has been called out on, compared to the issues of harassment and sexism/misogyny which may or may not be by the movement but are core issues of the controversy all together. Short of more wordsmithing and adding a few details that we can source to RS's (eg like this article [5]), this is the concise summary of what the movement is and the criticism directed specifically at the movement.
• I pushed the misogyny/feminism section up higher in the following Analysis section, since that's gotten more coverage in mainstream (the gamer stuff was more from the game journalism side).

Again, the wording is not perfect and not significantly changed from the current draft, and there's probably a lot more that can be sorted around, but I want to present how this order would look that I feel better defines the movement without changing the balance of the sources. --MASEM (t) 18:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding lead section

The lead section seems to be very conclusional, as if GamerGate has ended and we are looking back on it. This is not the case at all; the news continues to report on the topic, for instance. I also have some issues with some of the claims made, such as "false allegations of ethics violations" which doesn't have any citation. What false allegations? At least a news article saying GamerGate has made false allegations would be appreciated. If Pro-GG wikipedia users aren't allowed to put stuff in without context, then why should Anti-GG users? BlookerG ^talk 11:43, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The false accusations in question are detailed in the history section. The quote from the lede is "Gamergate's origins in false allegations of ethics violations." This is because Gamergate's origins are false allegations of ethics violations regarding Zoe Quinn, which are described as false by all of the reliable sources that have commented on them, as detailed in the history section. Please focus on the content, not the contributors. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 12:50, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The sources are very "conclusional". They have looked at GG's "accomplishments" and likely hood of being able to have any future impact and made their determination. We follow them. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

RedPen, that seems to be at odds with WP:SYNTH as I understand it. We report on the sources, but synthesizing it like that seems to be toeing the line, or maybe crossing it, seems to violate WP:NOR, WP:SYNTH, and maybe even WP:NPOV. I guess the argument I'm making is that a lot of this article might have issues with Synth, as a lot of hte article reads like the "bad example" of :The [Gamergate] stated objective is to [ethics or something], but since its creation there have been [harassment of peoples]. Ries42 (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

What text proposed or currently in the article do you believe violates WP:SYNTH, the elements of which are 1. Multiple sources 2. Combined 3. reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Please be sure to define each of the elements. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 16:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Not to get into specifics, but it seems like the areas this might be an issue would be things like the lede: Some supporters of the movement say they are concerned with ethical issues in video game journalism, but the overwhelming majority of commentators have dismissed the concerns it has focused on as being trivial, conspiracy theories or unrelated to ethics. While not directly sourced, we source all of those comments. SYNTH would likely prefer something more along the lines of: Supporters of the movement say/argue they are concerned with ethical issues in video game journalism. The majority of commentators, though, have dismissed the concerns it has focused on as being trivial, conspiracy theories or unrelated to ethics. Says the same thing, but separates the synthesis to remove the implication in WP's voice. (Note, I did remove some more... aggressive words, like overwhelming. I thought we took that out) Ries42 (talk) 16:56, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I asked you to get into specifics about violations of WP:SYNTH, so let's get into specifics. There are three elements to violate SYNTH - 1. Multiple Sources, 2. Combined, 3. Reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources. Please detail where something violates SYNTH by detailing the section and the elements. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 17:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@Hipocrite: Please stop wikilawyering me, and being so pointy. Ries42 (talk) 17:19, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Please focus on the content, not the contributors. You are alleging synthesis. I'm asking you to show it to me, using the three point test for WP:SYN. Could you please do so? Thanks! Hipocrite (talk) 17:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@Hipocrite: Please stop wikilawyering me, and being so pointy. Second request. Ries42 (talk) 17:36, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no syn in the single sentence as there are multiple sources which address all 4 of the components. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:02, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

But it does have language that falls into wording to watch, like the "overwhelming" that was removed above. It creates a tone that is not appropriate for an encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 17:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I also notice there are mentions the end of the history section of at least some of the attackers potentially being trolls who want to stir up trouble, who don't support either side of the GamerGate debate and are tweeting abuse mostly through new twitter accounts to hide their identity. The lead says that the media has been focussing on attacks from GamerGate supporters, but there is no mention of the trolls. This seems to conflict. BlookerG ^talk 17:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The media has been focusing on attacks from GamerGate supporters. There are notable other opinions, however - specifically, the ones pulled out by the quote you reference. For example, Ice Cream, generally, is sweet. However, there are also savory ice creams, like [6]. The media has been focusing on ice cream as sweet. Hipocrite (talk) 17:56, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

If that's the case, would putting "Some supporters say ice cream is savory, but the overwhelming majority of commentators say Ice Cream is sweet" because that's what the media has reported on a fair and impartial lede from a neutral point of view? Ries42 (talk) 18:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

No, it would provide massively undue weight to savory icecream. See, for example, Ice_cream, which does not even mention savory ice cream. Hipocrite (talk) 18:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Now you've gone and confused me. I thought you were just making an analogy and I assumed were not intending to use "real life" stats in it. I.e., you made it a given that ice cream was notable for being savory. You then made the other given that media attention is that ice cream is sweet. My question was that, with those two items as given, wouldn't the above lede, that "X says ice cream is savory, but the overwhelming majority says ice cream is sweet" be inappropriate for the "theoretical" ice cream article (not the real one). Ries42 (talk) 18:34, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The analogy is that the media, and so our article, covers sweet ice cream even though savory ice cream may exist. The sources, and so our article, covers the toxic gamergate even though non-toxic gamergate may exist. It is not relevant to the overwhelming discussion of the topic.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

That's exactly the response I was looking for. On this line of reasoning, does the fact that a non-toxic gamergate exists, although perhaps not notable on its own because of its lack of media coverage, become notable because the toxic gamergate is notable. Further, following that reasoning, can we make broad generalized statements against the toxic gamergate (which I feel like everyone agrees with, even myself), but have issues because although this article isn't intended to cover the non-toxic gamergate, it effectively lumps them in when generalizing? I feel like this is the crux of a lot of issues with this article, and if we can find a way to make that distinction clear that it will in general significantly improve the article. Ries42 (talk) 19:04, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

No, notability is WP:NOTINHERITED - just because you have an obnoxious notable uncle does not make you notable. And any "effectively lumping together" is because all parts of GG have refused to any type of organization or leadership or mission that would allow any "unlumping" . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:09, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Un-lumping would require WP:OR for the most part. — Strongjam (talk) 19:19, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that no source at all has defined the line between what is the GG controversy and the GG movement, because the controversy is about the movement's actions. It's not that the movement is not notable, but its that the controversy and the movement are, presently, the same topic. And because that movement is so central to it, it is not a fringe aspect of it, it just has not many sources that attempt some objective qualification of the movement. Per NPOV and UNDUE that means what we cover won't be a lot but the movement's aspect needs to be covered in a non-prejudgemental manner. --MASEM (t) 19:23, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

This is totally unrelated to any suggestion to improve the article. I will close and hat it as unproductive in 15 minutes barring policy-grounded objections. Hipocrite (talk) 20:28, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Strongly disagree. It is about what the topic actually is, and thus how that is properly represented in the lead. --MASEM (t) 20:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a specific proposed change? What is wrong with the lede? Be specific and refer to the text. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 20:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

See the example given above by Ries which addressing one case of peacock wording. It attempts to complete dismiss anything objective about GG and "glorifying" the moral-wrongness of the harassment (including the use of the word "terrorism"). It makes the article take a side about which way WP is taking GG which we cannot do, and then when it introduces the objective information we have about GG, it immediately negates that with public opinion. The facts the lead presents are all correct, but the wording is specifically chosen to attack the GG side. --20:48, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I chose not to read anything by Ries42. Please restate any objections clearly, referring to policies and explaining how they were violated or are complied with better by alternative text, in your own words. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 20:58, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I also strongly disagree. We are discussing issues with the article, which is perfectly acceptable. BlookerG ^talk 20:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you have a specific proposed change? What is wrong with the lede? Be specific and refer to the text. Thanks. Hipocrite (talk) 20:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Like the article itself, it provides a big ego boost to Anti-GG users by basically saying the opposition is way more in the wrong. I focus on the lead in particular because it's the section the most people will see, a summary of a long article. All of the reliable sources seem to have a very Anti-GG opinion, so maybe my issue is not Wikipedia orientated. We should strive to find some more Pro-GG sources that are actually reliable. I also find it funny that in the History section, the line about "false allegations" regarding Grayson publishing "a positive review of the game" on Kotaku uses Kotaku itself as a source to show that Kotaku's in the right. There are a bunch of other sources on it too, so I think this one should be removed. Basically, I feel this article needs a hell of a lot of neutralising. Seeing as I've had to justify myself on my reasoning behind wanting to change the article, could you justify why you're ignoring Ries42? BlookerG ^talk 21:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

To clarify: the reason we use Kotaku as a source for that is that is the primary source which then other sources build on. It is completely appropriate in this specific context to use them with the other sources present that voice their agreement the allegation was false. --MASEM (t) 21:17, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that we should be editing our articles based on who is going to like them or dislike them, rather based on what reliable sources say. If all of the reliable sources are saying things one way, then so will Wikipedia - and you state that all of the reliable sources have a specific slant, which means, unfortunately, that we will mirror that. Wikipedia does not lead opinions, we merely document what other people say. Kotaku is a valuable source that we should link to with respect to that citation - if they were the only source, I would agree that it needed further qualification, but since so many other sources agree with them, there is no need to remove what is a valuable citation or change the language. Finally, I am ignoring Ries42 because I find that reading him makes my day less good. Given that I'm not interpreting consensus or editing the article, I feel that ignoring people who make my day less good will improve everyone's day, on average. Hipocrite (talk) 21:19, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It is the case that reliable sources widely view Gamergate as being in the wrong. That reliable sources hold such a view is an indisputable fact. That some people disagree is interesting and should be noted in our article, but it cannot override the clear consensus of reliable sources and it must be subordinated to this clear consensus of reliable sources. Whether it gives an "ego boost" to anyone is not our concern as encyclopedia editors. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not how we write articles; public opinion is not the same as fact. That GG has a hugely negative perception is important, cannot be ignored, and the negative criticism of GG has to be a majority portion of the article. But, we cannot act like the public opinion is the factually "right" answer, nor that the pro GG is "wrong". The controversy continues (albeit much slower than it started), and there's still no conclusion reached. As such, while the predominate of the opinion of the press will be the bulk of the content, it cannot be the tone we take with the article. --MASEM (t) 23:00, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, harassment, death threats, terrorism and doxing ARE wrong. Claiming that "objective reviews" is an "ethical question" IS wrong. Stating that "Objective reviews would be those that only rate games on objective criteria like 'is it fun'?" IS wrong. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:05, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is saying "harassment, death threats, terrorism and doxing" are right, nor was that what Masem was arguing. Its easy to strawman certain views and say they're wrong. Sure, "objective reviews" are not an "ethical question," but "conflicts of interest" are. Ries42 (talk) 23:16, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

They may be wrong, but first) WP is amoral, we cannot write articles based on this being "bad actions", meaning we can't take sympathy for the victims or judgement towards those that might have done the wrongdoing, and second) no single source has established factually that those that are asking about ethics changed have engaged in any of these activities directly, nor can we presume that. We can include all the opinions that because the ethics side of GG has not done enough to separate themselves from the harassment side as to be implicitly responsible for the harassment, but we cannot make any presumption that what the group that calls themselves the GG movement has done anything wrong for purposes of writing the article. --MASEM (t) 23:20, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

We are not " taking sympathy for the victims or judgement towards those that might have done the wrongdoing". We are merely reporting that the sources have reviewed GG and have come to the overwhelming conclusion that what they have done is wrong. Our reporting those conclusions is "amoral". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:31, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes we are, by the means of the use of weasel/peacock words to prejudge the GG movement's side of the issue, as one example above, and by failing to cohesively describe their ethics requests in an objective manner (instead sprinkled throughout the article making it hard to follow); the argument against changing these has been because the predominate view ridicules the GG side we don't have to give them any respect. Being neutral and amoral we can't take that view or attitude; we should be documenting the group objectively to the best our sourcing policy lets us before letting in the wave of negative criticism about them set that part. --MASEM (t) 23:39, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

We are not here to be gamergate apologetics doing something that they have failed to do for themselves. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:41, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Nor are we here to criminalize them just because the sources have opted to. --MASEM (t) 23:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The sources didnt criminalize them. The terrorism and harassment they conducted criminalized them. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

That's original research, and not acceptable. We can use the sources that are vastly negative of GG to show how much criticism the group got and condemn the harassment/etc, but that's it. We treat what actions were done in a neutral tone, either praising nor condemning even if the moral high ground says otherwise. --MASEM (t) 00:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It is not original research. It is what the sources report - you know the threats against Sarkeesian speaking at Utah are literally criminal terrorist acts. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Not that I completely agree with Masem, but to be blunt... what criminal charges were filed and what criminal convictions were sustained? Has there been even one criminal prosecution during this whole event? Ries42 (talk) 00:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you seriously contending that threatening to gun down an auditorium full of people is not a criminal terroristic act? (Here is a hint, I would DEFINITELY NOT suggest that you try it to find out for yourself)-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying you saying it is not a criminal act. But I'm also not saying it definitely is. To use a little legal mumbo-jumbo, it actually may not be, based on a rather large list a things. The legal analysis for legal criminal threats requires certain things, including actual fear, and the fact that the FBI declared "no threat" and the fact that there was no "fear" based on the threat all lend to the possibility that said threat was not actually a legal, criminal threat. This link is to a California Criminal Defense firm that goes over a lot of ways a "threat" may not actually be a legal, criminal threat. Note, he is analyzing California law, and the threat you are referring took place in Utah, and I don't know exactly which Utah or Federal laws will apply. I said all of that to get across the point that a "criminal threat" is actually a very high burden to meet legally, and it is certainly possible that the threats that occurred in Utah may not be actually criminal in nature. You can argue it was criminal. Many people can. But it isn't factually criminal without at the VERY least indictment, and even then, it isn't confirmed criminal without a conviction. Here, we don't have any facts of that. Ries42 (talk) 03:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Your blithe justification of terrorism leads me to the same conclusion that Hipocrite arrived at. Good bye. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 03:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

That isn't what I did at all, but thank you for the accusation. Ries42 (talk) 03:52, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

What exactly is your point? I'm afraid I don't follow. What would you like done to the article? Would you like us to characterize the threat of a shooting as something other than criminal? I'm honestly asking, but I don't understand why you put so much effort into trying to argue that this wasn't a criminal act? SinglePurposePartier (talk) 04:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The actions are certainly criminal or approaching that in nature, and that itself we can't pretend to say anything less because it is a fact that issuing a fake threat like that equates to a crime. The problem is, we have zero idea who are the people doing the crime, outside of the fact that they often tie themselves to the gamergate hashtag. We have zero evidence (though I don't dismiss the possibility) that those that have harassed and threatened are the same that are arguing about ethics, despite the fact that a number of press sources go "Gamergate is guilty of this", more or less. There are several sources that do a very careful job not accusing GG as a whole for these things and stating that it is somebody using the GG hashtag, but then proceed to say that by implicitly supporting these (for example, continuting to call Quinn et al by disingenuous names, or not doing enough to styme the harassment) that the group is guilty as a whole, which is okay as an opinion but still again not fact. To that point, when we write about the GG movement objectively, we cannot presume that they have done anything wrong. Some of their actions, alone, speak for themselves, and others we'll definitely include the press's take on their faults, but we cannot presume this group is, in its entirety, out to harass women and others that speak for them. And that's what is the problem in this article - it's written with a tone that the GG supporters are bad people and that the press are right. We can't take that position at all. --MASEM (t) 16:15, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say that Wikipedia should take that view in the encyclopedia's voice, only that that view must be presented as predominant in our article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

The point of that was pretty much a direct reply to RedPen's comment that "The sources didnt criminalize them. The terrorism and harassment they conducted criminalized them". The point of the topic there was to show that the reported actions themselves are not factually criminal because there is a difference between something that is factually criminal, and what may not actually be criminal (but may still be wrong). Criminal is a specific legal conclusion, one that isn't "given" at any point pre-conviction. With that being said, it is certainly not necessary to remove all mentions that characterize the threats as criminal, merely that they should not be in WP unsourced or be in WP's voice as facts. Someone can have the opinion that they are criminal, and that can very well be in the article. That was the nuance of the dicussion as I saw it. Ries42 (talk) 04:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I just want to make sure I understand. You're saying that WP cannot state in its own voice that threatening to shoot up a college campus because someone is giving a speech is a criminal act? I think you could not be further off the mark. I'd maybe understand if you were saying certain individuals could not be characterized as criminal due to the lack of any self-evident facts suggesting such, but to suggest that a threat of mass violence isn't a criminal act seems a bit far-fetched and quite an odd position to stake out. SinglePurposePartier (talk) 04:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand why you think its odd. Frankly it IS odd. But the law is a weird and at times contradictory beast. You can't have a "criminal act" without a criminal. You can say something is criminal in the abstract, sure, but criminal acts require context. For instance, it is certainly a criminal act to murder someone. But if someone is accused of murder, are they a criminal? What if that person is acquitted, are they still a criminal? It is easy to say a "terrorist act" is criminal, because technically it could be. However, its complicated by International law, but let's just say its a given. Terrorist Act = Criminal Act. Something has to then be proven to be a terrorist act, in order to be a criminal act as well. Lets assume that Joe Blow is the person who made the Utah threats. Completely made up person. Joe Blow is indicted for making them. He goes to trial, and for some reason, he is acquitted. Joe is not a criminal. And in that hypothetical situation, Joe's "threats" are also not criminal. However, if Joe IS convicted, he is then factually a criminal, and his threats are factually criminal acts.

It's like saying XXX is committing libel against me. It may certainly be true. I can accuse XXX of libel. But without a judgment, it isn't factually true that XXX committed libel. It would be inapprorpaite of WP to say on XXX's profile that he committed libel against me at any point prior to an actual judgement. WP could say that I accused XXX of libel (maybe, idk if BLP might be at issue there with just an accusation), but that's the nuance. Ries42 (talk) 04:35, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

"For instance, it is certainly a criminal act to murder someone. But if someone is accused of murder, are they a criminal? What if that person is acquitted, are they still a criminal?" No, but we're not talking about the person. We're talking about the act. It doesn't matter who threatened to shoot up the school, doing that is still a criminal act. What you seem to be suggesting is that a crime is only a crime if someone is caught, which is, again, an odd thing to argue. This is a remarkably pointless semantic debate and, again, you're mostly reasonable, so I can't begin to fathom why you're arguing this point. If we can't characterize a mass shooting threat as criminal without a debate, then what are we even doing here? SinglePurposePartier (talk) 04:43, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Its not an "if you get caught" thing, although I understand that may be closer to the truth than is wrong. Its simpler than that, there cannot be a criminal act, absent a "crime". We can't be sure that a crime occurred, for certain, without a criminal. Its still an opinion until its a fact. Hence why I said, in hypothetical, or in abstract, we can refer to something as "factually" a criminal act. But we can't describe something as factually a criminal act unless there are facts that show that it was actually criminal. Yes, the words are absolutely deplorable. Horrible. I can go on and on with my opinions of what they are. What I can't say, though, is that they are factually a criminal act. In fact, we have two-three big facts showing that they may very well NOT be a criminal act. I.e., the FBI's determination of no threat, the fact that Ms. Sarkeesian canceled not because of the threats but because of the gun control laws of Utah, and the threats themselves were never actually show to have caused an actual, real apprehension of fear. That isn't to say these AREN'T criminal threats. I want to be clear, it is certainly possible, maybe even likely, that they are criminal threats. But it would be incorrect to factually label them that. Ries42 (talk) 04:54, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

With all due respect, this doesn't seem to be based in any sort of legal reality. "We can't be sure that a crime occurred, for certain, without a criminal." Really? Tell that to any number of detectives attempting to solve homicides. Furthermore, the FBI determining there's no real threat to safety is not the same thing as them saying no one sent in a threat. You can't shout "fire" in a crowded theater and then use the lack of a fire as your defense against punishment. If we can't assert in wikipedia's voice that the threat of a mass shooting is criminal behavior, what can we assert? SinglePurposePartier (talk) 05:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, really. Criminal is both an adjective and an opinion until it is a proven fact. It can only be proven by a conviction. A detective can have his opinion. He can say "that damn criminal scum" that he is going after for a homicide. But a homicide can still not be a criminal act, if it is determined there are mitigating factors or other things. If that detective caught the person who was the cause of the person's death that he was searching for (Person X for clarity), but we find out that Person X acted in Self-Defense, and the dead guy was going to kill Person X if Person X didn't kill him right back, is Person X a criminal? Did a criminal act take place? Was there a crime?

That's how the law works. Shouting fire in a crowded theater is not criminal because of fire, shouting fire in a crowded theater is potentially criminal because it can induce panic and cause injuries to others because of that panic. The actual shouting of "fire" could be the criminal act. But you seem to be mistaken about something, you used it backwards. If there actually IS A FIRE, then shouting fire in a theater is NOT a criminal act. You can use the fact that there WAS a fire as defense against punishment. As to your hyperbole: we can assert facts. Opinions, even ones that seem 'common sense' should be attributed. It doesn't have to be a quote. It could be as simple as "the FBI labeled these threats criminal". If the FBI said they were criminal, then cite the FBI at the end of the phrase. If they didn't, then cite someone else. Ries42 (talk) 14:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

OK, this is my stop. Back to the recent changes for me. I'd suggest someone come in and hat this entire conversation as it's drifted far off topic. I'd also suggest Ries focus less on trying to win a semantic debate and more on opening his mind up to the fact that he is arguing that threatening to shoot up a school is perfectly legal or otherwise justified. He seems to be under the impression that there are "mitigating factors" in which this act would be ok. There are no mitigating factors where it's ok to threaten to shoot up a school; even if it's an empty threat, it's still against the law. I'll WP:AGF that you aren't here for an agenda, and say this: no one is suggesting every Gamergate supporter is a criminal, or even that any Gamergate supporter is criminal. We are suggesting that threatening to shoot up a school is criminal, no matter who did it, and asserting that in WP's voice is obviously ok. This is the word's very definition: "Of, involving, or having the nature of crime." Threatening to shoot up a school fits all three criteria. Best of luck trying to convince other editors otherwise. SinglePurposePartier (talk) 16:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It is a strawman and I feel an inappropriate twisting of my words to say I am arguing that "threatening to shoot up a school is perfectly legal or otherwise justified". My argument is simply that there is a difference between opinion versus fact. You can't call something a fact, one way or another, unless its a fact. Whether something is for a fact criminal or for a fact not criminal (like not guilty ≠ innocent) is determined for a fact by conviction. Both (criminal or not criminal) are conclusions that are not supported by the facts as they have been presented. Both (criminal or not criminal) are opinions that do not belong in WP's voice as fact, and should be supported by the source that holds that opinion if it is in the article. I never said nor do I believe it was "perfectly legal or justifiable" I said it wasn't, for a WP fact criminal, it is an important distinction because I believe that some of the issue with this page is that opinions are being stated as facts and that doing so is making the page poorer in quality than it can be. Ries42 (talk) 16:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I can clear this up a bit. A criminal threat does not exist, in law, unless there is a credible actual threat. If someone says they are coming to your house to punch you in the face, and yet actually do nothing, that is a threat, but not a criminal one. Regarding the Utah State University threats, the FBI examined them in conjunction with local police and its Cyber Terrorism Task Force, assessing the email and its contents as representing "no threat" to anyone --- not faculty, not students, not the speaker Ms. Sarkeesian. Now, when an individual repeatedly threatens someone, that IS harassment, which MAY be considered criminal in many areas, but this is covered by local and state laws which vary as to what qualifies as prohibited conduct. [Redacted BLP] Calbeck (talk) 02:57, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Arbcom article

Mentions of the wikipedia edit warring have been appearing in news articles about GamerGate for a while, but usually just in passing. Although more focused articles about Jimbo's role exist [7] [8]

Today Guardian has published a piece on the Arbcom case, which i think given that events on wikipedia are very much part of the Gamergate controversy avoids MOS:SELFREF. But there are two problems. The first one is that the article is incredibly inaccurate. First of all its based only off of the original version of the Proposed decision, and doesnt note any of the changes made. It claims bans have already been put in place, this is incorrect. It claims 5 anti-GamerGate editors were proposed topic bans regarding all feminism topics, this is incorrect only 4 were, (and only 3 have had the topic ban pass). While Masem who claims to be anti-GG was proposed a topic ban later, it did not mention prohibiting edits to Also given that the article is pretty much just based off of a blog post by MarkBernstein who's accused Masem of running an evil cabal of 8channers, it seems unlikely the author was referring to Masem. So given how much of a wreck the article is and how much of it is just plain wrong, is it useable?

The second problem is: if it is usuable who's allowed to put information from it into the article? Would it mean that everyone who took part in the Arbcom case would have to keep WP:COS in mind when editing anything referring to it? Would it just be parties to the case? Bosstopher (talk) 17:00, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Do we have a reliable source saying that The Guardian is inaccurate? If The Guardian writes about it, with their history of Pulitzer prizes, reliability, and editorial oversight, than I am pretty sure we should report it exactly as Guardian says. Obviously we have to mention this is the Guardian's opinion, and cite it as such, unless you think that's WP:UNDUE. I'm not completely certain. In all seriousness though its probably just undue unless we have more articles writing about the ArbCom case in particular. I vote for passing the buck. Ries42 (talk) 17:06, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

We know the Guardian article is wrong because the ArbCom case is still open and all remedies have yet to be voted on completely. Trending towards the conclusions made, yes, but not there yet and some remedies can still flip on votes. Even given that, there's still not a heck of a lot appropriate to the GG topic here from these articles - a topic about the criticism of Wikipedia in general, possibly, but I yet to see any real point of substance of what WP's role has been in GG to date. --MASEM (t) 17:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

We are under no obligation to use reliable sources that still get things wrong. If the Guardian chooses to publish something asserting the moon is made of cheese, we wouldn't include that in an article either. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:17, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe everyone here missed the fact that Ries42 was being sarcastic. — Strongjam (talk) 17:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry. I thought the "In all seriousness" afterword would have indicated that. I was indeed being cheeky. Ries42 (talk) 17:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

My apologies. To be fair, it's been impossible to tell as of late here. Thargor Orlando (talk) 17:28, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think the arbcom really merits inclusion in the article based on one source (which printed prematurely.) Argument might be made for including something about Jimbo based on multiple sources, but I'm not convinced. Seems like a minor detail at the moment. — Strongjam (talk) 17:09, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

The arbcom case is definitely not a minor detail. Copulative (talk) 18:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

At this point, no aspect of how Wikipedia has handled GG - short of Jimmy Wales' statements and even then to a small degree - has affected the GG situation, or at least what has been reported in RS. The case is important to WP, but from the topic of GG, it has little immediate relevance. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I would disagree with you, considering how much controversy the Wikipedia article itself has generated. Copulative (talk) 18:10, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I know in GG circles there is a lot of controversy, and here, I'll just point to the archive page count, but we have nothing from reliable sources that say that WP's article has had any role in the GG controversy. If anything, the stuff about Jimmy talking about the GG's try at their own version of a GG article, that's all about criticism of Wikipedia that involves the GG issue, but not a topic of the GG controversy. --MASEM (t) 18:13, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

What about this portion from the The Guardian article? "The conflict on the site began almost alongside Gamergate" Copulative (talk) 18:18, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

How has the actions we have done here in the long-running debates and through ArbCom have had any direct influence on the GG controversy/movement? The only thing I think that even approaches a point of use is an explanation of how this and other GG-related articles have seen an influx of people likely siding with GG to try to change the way these articles are written, as part of the activities of the GG group -- but there's zero sources for that at all. To GG, this is a non-story, but it is a possible story in discussing WP in the media or criticism of WP. --MASEM (t) 18:24, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It has direct influence because when someone doesn't know what Gamergate is, they're going to Google it and the first thing that pops up will be a Wikipedia article called "Gamergate controversy." Copulative (talk) 18:27, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's definitely the issue the GG side has with WP, that's very clear, and that's why we've had lots of new editors trying to participate. But this is not at all documented in any reliable sources. --MASEM (t) 18:29, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

As I noted on the Arb page, the article is essentially correct; all they whiffed on was quoting Mark Bernstein saying "No sanctions at all were proposed against any of Gamergate’s warriors, save for a few disposable accounts", as there was only one; TDA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tarc (talk • contribs) 17:34, 23 January 2015‎

A diff of Tarc's comment for the interested. — Strongjam (talk) 17:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any big problems in article accuracy, sadly. Artw (talk) 18:18, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I literally listed all the factual errors in the article, at the top of the section. There's a substantial number even excluding the Bernstein quote.Bosstopher (talk) 18:51, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm seeing those as pretty minor quibbles or subjective on your part, TBH. Artw (talk) 20:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Anyone who didn't take part in the ArbCom case can add info from the article without breaking Wikipedia rules. Copulative (talk) 18:08, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It's really sad a source as respected as The Gaurdian published something that poor. Anyway it seems undue to go into any of the specifics anyway while there is only one source. HalfHat 18:19, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

• You know what, I actually think this article is very good for something. Specifically, its factual errors point out that its author may not be deserving of the amount of weight this article has given him, and it seriously brings into question his reliability. Currently the Draft has three articles written by Mr. Hern. I believe there may not be anything directly questionable about those articles in a quick review, but perhaps they are not as rock-solid reliable as previous discussions have led us to believe. Ries42 (talk) 19:26, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I wrote the following in a separate section before I noticed this discussion:

Some people are saying it's inaccurate but I think that, nitpicking aside, this is as fair an account of the political dimension of the case as I could expect.

This one-off article probably doesn't merit mention in our article yet, because in the grand scheme of things Wikipedia hasn't been a big part of the controversy. That may change if many reliable sources start discussing the arbitration case. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. --TS 19:39, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not an accurate news piece at all. If you have particular feelings about Gamergate and this article, you might think the whole thing is being handled in a fairly one-sided manner, but as far as I can tell they're handing out various bans, admonishments, or other punishments to both sides pretty readily. I think Halfhat is on the topic ban list, the Devil's Advocate is on the ban list, Loganmac is there, and other users have had their existing bans confirmed. Anti-GG editors seem to be getting sanctioned, but there's politicking about it - especially for Ryulong. It looks like the article is being written based on Mark Bernstein's statements - and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't he involved with this whole mess? It's like if the Guardian did an article after an interview with Ryulong or NorthBySouthBaranof, which honestly would have made more sense because those two have done a lot of editing to the article.

My guess? It's politics. They're sounding the word that the article needs more anti-GG editors because a few of the current ones may get banned. Emphasis on the "may" part. YellowSandals (talk) 22:52, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it goes without saying that this article is extremely insulting to the arbitrators, who are volunteers, not Chief Justices, and have worked very hard to pursue a just resolution. If anything this is good evidence that newspaper sources are untrustworthy, and that this article won't really be decent until a greater number of neutral, uninvolved accounts are available. Shii (tock) 01:31, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Here's an article about it from the beloved Gawker: http://internet.gawker.com/wikipedia-purged-a-group-of-feminist-editors-because-of-1681463331/+cushac Copulative (talk) 03:26, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

If enough sources report on it, we'll have to cover it here eventually, but for now I think it'd be best to wait until the ArbCom decision is finalized, at least (which should produce most of the coverage if there's going to be more) -- it doesn't seem like something pressingly relevant or high-profile enough that we have to rush to add it on these few sources, anyway. --Aquillion (talk) 04:13, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I haven't been keeping up with the drama, but I just read the news and it's disappointing to hear that a determined group of trolls is pushing away a good group of editors. Sorry I don't have a solution to propose, it's just sad to hear. --Frybread (talk) 06:27, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Please do not call arbitrators "trolls." They have had to deal with this case for several weeks and are trying to find the best solution to multiple groups of editors whose actions might be deemed problematic. This case isn't a win for anyone, so I will apologize if that sounds snippy. To get back on track, do you have an opinion as to what we should do with the article? --Super Goku V (talk) 06:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not the Arbitors he's calling trolls, it's certain editors involved in the dispute. Just to clarify for him. HalfHat 18:42, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Whose to say he wasn't. And whose to say he might not be right?Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 07:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

My opinion is the following: I do not believe that the article should be included as a source at the present time. It appears to make several mistakes: Implies that the case is over, implies that there was a preliminary decision, states that arbcom has sanctioned anyone, etc. It fails to disclose that Mark Bernstein has an indefinite topic ban on discussion and edits to Gamergate related articles. I feel that the author of the article should have confirmed a few things before this could be a reliable article. --Super Goku V (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm in total agreement with this statement by Super Goku V. We can dismiss even reliable sources articles on a case by case basis and this is one of them. The article has several factual errors and sources statements from an editor who has been topic-banned for his involvement in the dispute. There is little doubt in my mind that at this point this Wikipedia article itself, ArbCom, and the history of this article have become a part of the controversy, but this source is not accurate enough for inclusion about it. Reporting about a controversy over a Wikipedia article on the article itself is also a tricky situation that I think would require more community oversight before it is attempted, if a factual reliable source comes up about it. Weedwacker (talk) 09:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

"Wikipedia does not then further investigate whether a source provides "evidence" — we are encyclopedia editors, not investigative reporters. If reliable sources say something is true, for our purposes it is true." So which is it? Do we have to check if a source is telling the truth before using it or do we not? Or do we decide that based on which narrative we're pushing now? Akesgeroth (talk) 23:25, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

You are conflating two different issues. On this topic, we have only a single reliable source thus far presented and it is reasonable to discuss whether we should write an encyclopedia section based upon only a sole source, or whether we should wait to find out if other reliable sources chime in on the issue and what they have to say. We don't have any reliable sources saying that that source is wrong, but we don't have a consensus of reliable sources to say it's right, either. The more sources we can cite on a particular issue, the more likely we are to avoid issues of undue weight and the more likely we are to appropriately reflect the prevailing mainstream viewpoint of an issue. On the other hand, the issue you cite in your post is not a matter of a sole source, but of a clearly-established and overwhelming consensus of multiple reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:32, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

So if a lie is repeated often enough, it becomes the truth? Akesgeroth (talk) 23:39, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

We are not truth finders. — Strongjam (talk) 23:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

And we are not obligated to put falsehoods in the article simply because traditionally reliable sources decide to promote them, either. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

And the inclusion of any material is subject to editorial discretion, and using a single source for anything this controversial is not best practices at any rate, thus I agree that we should avoid including this issue until we have a wider array of reliable sources from which to support an encyclopedic section. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:53, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

So if you have any reliable sources to support your claim that something is a lie, then you'd present them here. That you haven't suggests that you don't have any reliable sources to support your claim, and that it is little more than your unsupported personal opinion. Wikipedia is not a platform for personal opinion, nor is it a platform to right great wrongs. I believe that you have a deep-seated and good-faith belief that it is a lie, but that's not how we write encyclopedia articles. It just isn't. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:44, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

NBSB is correct. Even if normally reliable sources are wrong, Wikipedia operates on verifiability and not truth. If sources continue to get the facts wrong and the notability of the ArbCom decision in relation to this article rises enough, we will have to include the factually incorrect information in this article. Lignos (talk) 13:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

IT KEEPS HAPPENING. [9] Bosstopher (talk) 00:25, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Seriously, this is funny. I think at this rate the GG ArbCom case will become so notable, that we'll have to report on it. And then... wait, do we have to post information that is factually not true because its been reported on so much. I mean, this is The Guardian we're talking about. Even if we KNOW its wrong, for instance, the Arbitrators themselves can say it was factually wrong, are our hands tied? Ries42 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 02:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Given that the Guardian article utilizes only one source on the GamerGate article, that being a person with multiple bans re: the GamerGate controversy, it would almost be pro-GG to use the article itself as a "reliable source". Indeed, it almost comes across as a means to inject that person's PoV back into the article by way of getting a news organization to quote him about it. Calbeck (talk) 02:44, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Pro GG in what sense exactly? Mr. Bernstien, the quoted source, was not Pro GG. If you mean "it proves the Pro GG narative," well, that doesn't really mean anything. Plus, if The Guardian felt it was reliable, we are supposed to not question that. This falls out in one of three ways. 1) Its not notable enough, and thus, no inclusion. 2) It gains enough notability and it is included as the Guardian says. WP:VNT takes precedence, where despite some things not being completely "correct" we report it as The Guardian sees it. 3) We agree that the falsities in the article outweigh its notability, and we challenge the reliability of it. Most likely the target of the unreliability would be the author, not The Guardian itself. Ries42 (talk) 04:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Has there ever been a precedent where the press is so obscenely lazy, political, and unwilling to do research on a subject that there was no way to write to accurate article? For example, imagine James Cook comes back from Tahiti and and a scholar on his boat says that everyone in Tahiti is beautiful and willing to have romance with any European. Afterward everyone began reporting on that and spreading that lie because it was juicy and sexy, and for years people thought Tahiti was some island of nymphs. Is it possible that maybe a lot of the news doesn't actually care that much about video games or video game culture and they just want to report on the juicy stuff? We've had people both pro and anti-Gamergate say they were harassed and sent death threats, but the press has only talked about the women - we can't really report anti-Gamergate harassers because it's only being discussed in social media and not on the BBC. Maybe there runs a possibility a lot of sources are just off-handedly reporting a sexy narrative that's vaguely based on reality, but as with the stories of Tahiti, have much more mundane, banal origins. YellowSandals (talk) 07:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

A thing to keep in mind: all the articles that I've seen about the ArbCom decision all extend/source directly the Guardian article and then subsequently MB's blog posts. It is effectively the same single article, just in the telephone-game of slight variations from message to message. Let's not yet throw the baby out with the bathwater though we should be aware that the article and its small mutations are creating a stir on the social media that we might have to deal with. --MASEM (t) 07:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not "involved", nor am I a regular Wikipedia editor (I was active in some specialized and unrelated articles about a decade ago, but I have completely lost the login details and can't recover them as I no longer have the associated email address). I have, however, been closely following the issues associated with this article, and have often been stunned at the disconnect between what was actually happening, and what was reported (the "GamerGate is dead/over/old news" drumbeat every week was particularly amusing). Now, I realize that Wikipedia has to use reliable sources, but it is a delicious irony that the same style of reporting (using only one biased viewpoint for sources, and presenting their allegations as facts without further research) that has characterized the entire episode has now, in a beautifully meta moment, wrapped around to the Wikipedia article about the whole mess and the ArbCom case it spawned. Now, for all that the overwhelming majority of RS being of a particular tone and presenting a particular group of facts, you may want to consider, how many of those "facts" were independently derived, and how many of those sources were sourced from each other. 150.167.144.14 (talk) 04:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Even if the information in the article is 100% accurate (I haven't read the article, and I haven't cared enough about this issue in several months for it to be fair for me to comment) and even if we view the source as reliable, we still can't use it in this article because doing so would amount to our article indirectly citing itself (albeit through an article quoting a participant in an arbitration regarding the Wikipedia article citing). I forget the acronym, but I seem to remember it being a rule here that we can't cite reflexively. If it isn't, it should be. Quodfui (talk) 14:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd also just like to point out that all of this goes to the point I made October 23rd. We're being used by the Guardian as a primary source in a controversy we're ostensibly reporting on. Quodfui (talk) 14:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

That said, I think the Guardian article is important and should be included on Wikipedia, even if not here. Is there an article on discussion of Wikipedia in the media? Quodfui (talk) 14:29, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As the Guardian article is factually inaccurate, I don't see it getting any play here currently. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The article reflects very real concerns about the effect of the ArbComm on Wilipedia and the claims of falsehood are massively overblown. Artw (talk) 16:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

And as those concerns are based on very real falsehoods, including who is getting banned and the attitude of Wikipedia toward specific points of view, it's not worth discussing at this point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:19, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much every sentence about the Arbcom decision contains some factual error. The headline of the article is "Wikipedia bans five editors from gender-related articles " which is factually inaccurate in that only 3 (possibly 4) are being banned, and from articles on gender related disputes not on gender altogether. This means the 3 (not 5) editors have not been banned from making corrections to feminism articles. Also none of the editors have actually been banned yet. Then quoting Mark Bernstein it says only throwaway GG accounts were sanctioned, which is incorrect, and that there will be no feminists left editing the article, which is also incorrect because I consider myself to be a feminist (although Bernstein admits this is by his own rough count). Everything from that point onwards about wiki-politics being super toxic seems fair enough. While whats written written may sound vaguely true all the specifics of fact are completely wrong. Bosstopher (talk) 17:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Argh...please read all of what I wrote before responding to part of it. I do not think the Guardian article should be used for a source here, and I said as much above. I have no reason to doubt that the Guardian article is factually inaccurate, but factual inaccuracy isn't in and of itself a reason not to use a source - this article is on the #Gamergate controversy and the vehemence of the debate here and the article's wide use as a source elsewhere on the internet say it has become part of the controversy. We can't use it because its content derives from the article we'd be citing it on (WP:CIRCULAR). I think it could be included in a different article on controversies regarding Wikipedia's editing policies. I'm sure such an article exists. I think I've read it before. Quodfui (talk) 20:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry that was meant as a response to Artw's claims of factual innacuracy being overblown. Bosstopher (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Assuming that the case itself becomes notable enough to spawn an article, the place you're probably thinking of is the Criticism page, on a new subpage thereof like other past incidents that became notable. If consensus is that it should be referenced here somehow, we could link to the specific new criticism subpage page from here to avoid WP:SELFREF issues. Sappow (talk) 06:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I knew there was a better spot. The list of controversies is where you want to be. There's already an entry for this event there, and I'm sure there will be a fair number of additional reliable articles about it whenever the ArbCom case closes. Sappow (talk) 06:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

So I've heard it go back and forth between not using the source because it's factually inaccurate, but then there are some voices saying that factual inaccuracy does not mean we should not use the source. So I have 2 questions in regards to this.

1. If we use sources that we know to be factually in accurate, what does that say about WP? Is it just a reflection of popular opinion or potentially even just propaganda? I know that WP doesn't consider the "truth" of sources. But if we know an article to not be true, then don't we have a responsibility to avoid using that material? All of the guidelines of WP:RS AND WP:BLP are in regards to material being used in WP. But does that mean we can't use facts to avoid using overly falsified or misleading articles? In other words, we can't use facts to including unreliable material to an article, but can and should we use facts to exclude seemingly reliable source material from an article?

2. Reliability is based on accuracy, honesty and/or achievement. Does this not mean that factual inaccuracies detract from reliability? If an article is factually inaccurate, would that not mean, at the very least, that this article is not reliable and therefore not a proper source of material for WP?

I do realize though that there are some times when facts don't matter in a source, but it seems like those are usually just going to be opinion pieces or other special circumstances. And I guess there's some question to the autonomy of editors too. For WP not being a bureaucracy it sure seems very bureaucraty... Thanks.TyTyMang (talk) 04:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This is a fair enough argument and we should trim down our use of the Guardian on this specific topic. Shii (tock) 16:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Survey

Wikipedia, and to a lesser extent the Arbcom decison are not part of the Gamergate controversey and don't belong in the article at this time.

• Support. Leave it out for now.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 07:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protect the article?

Now than the bans have been handed out, any chance the article will be reduced to a semi-protection level, anytime soon? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:12, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Case isn't officially over yet unlike what The Guardian wants you to believe. Avono (talk) 15:20, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

OK. I'd perused the Arbcom wiki page and it looked like the decisions were all handed out, but I'm sure I misunderstood... Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:26, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

There's some foregone conclusions there, but they look more like grounds for continuing protection rather than removing it. Things are about to get very messy. Artw (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I like how the current method is: editing the draft article and then establishing consensus for a merge to the mainspace article (like a more sophisticated pending changes). Avono (talk) 17:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I suspect that is going to be how things continue to work going forwards. Artw (talk) 17:44, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I see. I didn't think of that. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:50, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Once activity drops down on this I say that solution would probably not really work, but that has happened yet. HalfHat 18:16, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I am in agreement that the current method (draft space workup) is the best method to handle this situation right now, particularly in light of the articles being written about the decision that is likely going to draw attention, both sides, to this. --MASEM (t) 19:02, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Is it bad form to add a category I'd like to create for Category:Women and video games to the draft version of the article? I feel like it is. And do we think someone will have time soon to sort through the various edits that have already been made to the draft article? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Categories can be added, but for technical reasons please add your new category within the comments that surround the other categories at the end of the article. --TS 20:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, there they are. I suppose it's better to wait until all the pending changes are implemented -- or not. There's already a backlog for the admins to sort through, on what I suppose will be a case by case basis. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

No, if the main article becomes unprotected (or semi-protected) the next thing that happens will probably be that an ordinary editor will copy the latest revision if the draft overt the main article, removing the comments at the top and bottom which conceal notices and categories for technical reasons. You can either wait for that or you can add the new category now. If anybody disagrees they'll remove the category and discuss it here. Administrators play little or no part in editing decisions about the contents of articles they perform administrative actions on. --TS 21:26, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. So when the full protection expires in a couple of days I expect normal editing to resume, strictly observing all Wikipedia's policies and welcoming newcomers. If there are any problems, WP:AE will turn out very useful. --TS 20:24, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I see little point to having a couple of hours of edit warring before the protection is inevitably restored. I don't believe WP:AE will be helpful in preventing that, possibly the opposite. Artw (talk) 21:33, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you intend to edit war? If not, why assume others will edit war? If anybody does, that's where WP:AE comes in. There is no need to protect the article now that everybody knows what happens to people who treat Wikipedia articles like a battleground. --TS 21:48, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

if your best case for what will happen when the article is unprotected is that SPAs roll in and rework it because regular editors have been blocked or will be blocked if they oppose them then I'm absolutely in favor of the article remaining protected indefinitely. Artw (talk) 22:21, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think we can have a pretty solid assumption that people will edit-war over this article. I would definitely prefer to keep it protected. The Land (talk) 16:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Tony, we all know that the moment the protection goes away, Gamergate trolls are going to start vandalizing the article. It's what happened before and, if you looked at any of their threads on the topic, they're just waiting for the chance to do so. At the very least, we should keep the article on semi-protection, so they won't be able to vandalize anonymously and will have to at least put the minimum amount of effort into their SPA accounts. Silverseren^C 23:35, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I think semi-protection might be appropriate, but we can't leave an article fully-protected forever. And, truthfully, it's not as though Wikipedia has never had to handle articles about controversial (even internet-controversial) topics before. If you're worried, the best thing to do is to keep an eye on the article and make sure to check in every so often. --Aquillion (talk) 01:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Fwiw, I don't think Wikipedia has ever had anything quite like gamergate to deal with before, in terms of committed, organized, collective action. I'd agree with those above that keeping the page protected indefinitely is the way to go. NoahB (talk) 04:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

That's just not true. They're not as well organised as most actual organisations and there aren't that many who are committed enough to present a serious challenge. And we're Wikipedia. We don't preemptively full protect any article. Even Barack Obama and George W. Bush aren't fully protected. I'd prefer both talk and article to be unprotected, until a need for protection is established based on fresh evidence, but we can go with both semi-protected if that's how we feel.

We shouldn't, as Wikipedians, ever preemptively say we can't trust people to edit and justify that by arguing that "everybody knows" it won't work. If we hadn't trusted people to edit, Wikipedia would not exist. --TS 17:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is committed to open editing. It is, or should, also be committed to preventing the use of the encyclopedia for slander and harassment. You've got plenty of evidence from the past history of this article, and from the history of the gamergate controversy, that there are some bad actors eager to use any venue in general, and this one in particular, to defame and harass a range of targets. That's a serious ethical and logistical issue, and needs to be taken into serious account. At some point, perhaps a year or two from now, gamergate will not be such an active controversy, and it will make sense to make the page public again. Doing so now just means that you'll get slanderous attacks for a day or two before having to close it again. Or at least, that is by far the most likely outcome. Given the downsides and the upsides, I think continuing to page protect is the way to go.NoahB (talk) 19:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

WAM

The draft includes "In November 2014, Twitter announced a collaboration with the non-profit group Women, Action & the Media (WAM), in which those who believed they have been harassed over Twitter can report harassment to a tool monitored by WAM members, who would forward affirmed issues to Twitter within 24 hours. The move, while in the wake of the Gamergate harassment, was due to general issues of the harassment of women on the Internet, and the data will be studied for further discussion." however I'm not seeing where either source supports the collaboration "was due to general issues of the harassment of women on the Internet". Can someone please quote the exact text that does support this? --Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 03:09, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal says The announcement comes amid an intense spotlight on the treatment of women online. A recent Pew survey found that 40% of Internet users in the U.S. said they had been harassed online. That spotlight is now dominated by “GamerGate,” a controversy that has included threats of rape and death against women who are critical of how females are portrayed in videogames. But “the issue has been going on long before GamerGate,” Friedman said. Slate says "A recent Pew research study found that fully 25 percent of young women have been sexually harassed online and 26 percent have experienced stalking," writes WAM! leader Jaclyn Friedman. "What’s more, Pew found that women overall are disproportionately targeted by the most severe forms of online abuse." This is something that many women have been enduring for a long time, but Twitter abuse has gotten quite a bit of attention in recent months due to #GamerGate and the ugly harassment Robin Williams's daughter Zelda. Woodroar (talk) 03:25, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Even if we where to combine the two sources (which we can't) they still don't say Twitter did X because of Y. The sources are speculating, whereas the article is definitive. Perhaps we should say "the announcement coincided during a period of intense focus on the treatment of women online", which is a more accurate replay of what the WSJ said?Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 04:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I really think that's stretching to beg for more exactness. The tone and writing of both articles are clear this was made in response to harassment of women on the internet which predated GG but became more poignent from it. Every article about this news from around mid-2014 is clear that this is a reaction to increased gendered harassment. A better question to ask is what is your challenge with the statement? --MASEM (t) 04:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If it is clear, then we need sources that clearly says this. Shouldn't be too hard if what you say is true. My primary "challenge" is that you are inferring a conclusion contrary to what the sources provided actually say. Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 04:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Here is the original press release. "Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) has announced an unprecedented collaboration with Twitter, aiming to cut down on the harassment of women on the popular social media platform." It is pretty clear that they establish there is general gender-driven harassment of women through Twitter and they want to cut it down. Our statement collaborates with that. --MASEM (t) 05:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Why don't we use that in conjunction with the WSJ source, and remove the (IMO) lesser reliable Slate source. That would alleviate my concern.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 06:08, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Sounds eminently reasonable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

A legitimate use of WP:PRIMARY! --TS 17:27, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

self-reporting?

What is Wikipedia's policy when it is itself the subject of news stories?

It's worrying to see an editor talk about "what the Guardian would have you believe". Of course, that newspaper is a reputable source, while a Wikipedia editor's perception of the wbesite's inner workings is not.

Distingué Traces (talk) 04:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

See WP:SELFREF.--TS 05:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If reliable source quotes a Wikipedia editor, we can quote the Wikipedia editor's quotes as established and in context of that reliable source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit Request

@Tony Sidaway: An edit request was made here, but was automatically archived before it received a response. See Talk:Gamergate_controversy/Archive_21#Protected_article_edit_request:_sync_draft. Please discuss/re-request as needed.  ^B E _C K ^Y _S A ^{Y L} E _S  05:34, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The article full protection is set to expire tomorrow so no further action is required. We can review the situation if the full protection period is extended. --TS 17:10, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Category:Women and video games

Hi again, another edit request, I guess: I've created Category:Women and video games, and added it as a hidden category on the Draft version of this article. If there's any way to add it to this protected article, I'd appreciate it. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, you mean a category that is currently commented out in the draft (a hidden category is something else).

The full protection will expire tomorrow (unless an admin extends the period of protection at the last minute) so I guess the article will then acquire your new category at that point either through your edits or somebody else's. --TS 16:58, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I'd meant. Thanks. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Missing definitions

I'm not a Wikipedia editor, just a user who came here for information. I tried to read the article, but ended up confused. It starts off referring to the "Gamergate controversy" but then speaks of "gamergate supporters" without explaining what this means. Further on, it speaks of a "Gamergate organization," but only describes it in terms of having no defined goals or leadership. I can't even tell which side of the controversy "Gamergate supporter" are on or what it is they support, nor can I tell what the "Gamergate organzation" is or what the term means. 162.247.60.131 (talk) 17:56, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that's a good point. I only became aware of this controversy recently and had much the same reaction. That said, I realize how difficult it is to say anything about what Gamergate is, in clear simple English, given the charged nature and the polarized views on this group. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Making a bold attempt to clarify this in the lead now... Comments and criticisms are welcome here.--Carwil (talk) 18:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The uh... the article has striven so far to stress the fact that Gamergate is morally wrong and has no basis, organization, or reason for existing. Except to harass women. The prevailing argument for this approach has been that the press is predominantly doing this and it would be UNDUE to not do the same thing the press has done. However, there's a good article explaining, in the broadest sense, what's going on with this movement, controversy, or however you'd like to refer to it. The conflict being faced is that there's not a unified viewpoint on what Gamergate is about - the press has focused on the juicy, emotional stories about women being harassed by a gang evil forum-goers, but originally the thing probably gained steam and notoriety because of DMCA abuses, which haven't been reported or discussed much so I'm not even sure if that's included in this monster of an article.

I guess the thing to understand about this article is that it's about the most dramatic and controversial aspects of Gamergate, but currently it's highly partisan, very politically written, and it won't do well in explaining what, why, or how this became a major internet phenomenon. Some editors feel there is no point in trying to examine the subject because the cause is misogyny and misogyny is self-explanatory and conducted for its own sake, perhaps as according to a number of cynical sociological models for human behavior. However, in the past, a number have expressed concern with the fact that an accusation of "misogyny" requires context and perhaps even specific individuals to describe as misogynistic, as otherwise we're only predicting or speculating on the motives of people neither met nor directly spoken to. YellowSandals (talk) 18:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The article is confusing because the press was confusing. They made Gamergate sound esoteric like Bitcoin. I expect that now that the "movement" has died down a little, more neutral articles may emerge from academic or other sources. Shii (tock) 18:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

It would be really nice if that were to happen. I've seen some talk that a few professors of the social sciences have been doing research into Gamergate and hopefully there will be some published papers in the future, but that would be months away or longer, and with academia there's never really a well-formed look at things until a sufficient amount of peer review gets out there as well. In any case, if you follow social media, Gamergate is a completely different subject than what you read about in the press, which has led Gamergate supporters to fears of intentional conspiracy.

Sadly, certain aspects of conspiracy do exist, but not in a really orchestrated way like some people think. It has more to do with the extreme partisanship and how neither side has complete information on the motives or intent of the other, so people are agreeing to specific internal narratives and are shunning each other. Consequently, you've got Gamergate supporters saying they're upset about this or that, and then you have anti-Gamergate people saying that Gamergate supporters are all insidious liars. It's created a lot of huge obstructions to writing an objective article because people can't agree who's an evil liar, and while the press remarks on what Gamergate is about for a number of people in favor of it, it generally does so to accuse those people of being liars and misogynists. Although there are some press articles that don't do that, but they're far, far less common. YellowSandals (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, thinking of it, one thing to look out for in the future would be research on the impact Gamergate has had on business and advertising. I've been seeing rumors that the most profound impact that the conflict has had has been on ad revenue. Specifically, speculation that PR trouble with Gamergate has probably led to a permanent decrease in advertiser trust for gaming websites - all gaming websites, regardless of their stances, because the conflict has created the appearance that these journals are more controversial than they used to be and are willing to be at odds with their audience. The numerous "Gamers are dead" pieces that arose early on have been cited as examples. Unfortunately I can't really find any reporting or mainstream discussion on that except for the consumer revolt details where Intel pulled ads from Gawker. Nick Denton stepped down as president of Gawker following Gamergate, but again, no articles are saying he stepped down because of Gamergate or because of any lasting impact of Gamergate - although Denton himself remarks he was frustrated that Gamergate was their story of the year. YellowSandals (talk) 19:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, there is also the discussion that Gawker estimates some pretty substantial ad losses thanks to Gamergate. And then there's an article reporting that a few journalism sites have been laying off the staff, and some staff thinks it's because Gamergate hurt the wallet. I've never heard of craveonline.com, though - no idea if they're considered an RS. YellowSandals (talk) 19:28, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

There are several things wrong with your suggestion. The lead is a summary of the article which is a summary of the reliable sources as such the details are out of proportion to the coverage and the article and the claim is factually untrue per the sources which say the mess began with harassment of Quinn. Agree that attributing something to the "movement" is confusing, but thats because as the reliable sources also say, anonymous trollfests without leaders, missions or organizations are not actually "movements" and the issue is with the use of that word. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I once agreed with you, but we have to use something to describe the phenomenon, and I'm seeing an increasing number of sources use the term as a convenient shortcut to to define, for better or worse, that "side." The Guardian, Computerworld, Christian Science Monitor, etc. Using the word "movement" doesn't require us to weaken the description of what it is — as the CSM states, a movement that styles itself as a voice for ethics in video game journalism but which has come to be defined by its vicious anti-feminist harassment campaign. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:10, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that it is best to avoid expanding the lead too much with this; we can reword it to avoid the confusion the original poster is talking about without expanding it too much (since, after all, it has to reflect the article; and since we only recently managed to trim it down to its current length.) --Aquillion (talk) 05:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Somewhat jumping ahead of process, Aquillion deleted this text from the lead on the draft page

Early users of the term "gamergate" sought to define certain media coverage—praise of certain games developed by women and criticism of sexism within the video game industry—as an ethical scandal analogous to others defined by the suffix -gate. Most commentators have dismissed these claims as either false, trivial, unrelated to ethics, or conspiracy theories. The Gamergate hashtag and a variety of online discussion forums became the center of many waves of actions ranging from critiques to online and offline harassment to direct threats, now referred to as the Gamergate movement.

…as too detailed. This section of text was designed to introduce two concepts—the original meaning of the term "gamergate" (why it's named as a "scandal") and the meaning of "the Gamergate movement." Imho, the former is useful and moves us towards clarity and NPOV. More importantly, however, the latter is critical for making the article readable to those unfamiliar with the issue. Otherwise, the lead only defines Gamergate as "a controversy," which makes the repeated phrase "Gamergate supporters" unintelligible.

I'd be okay with NBSB's phrasing a movement that styles itself as a voice for ethics in video game journalism but which has come to be defined by its vicious anti-feminist harassment campaign, but we may have to paraphrase it from the original source.--Carwil (talk) 15:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

No, as I said -- my edit stated that "some people involved in the controversy say that it is a movement concerned with ethical concerns in video game journalism", which I think adequately answers your concerns without unduly bloating the lead up with assertions that have a relatively minor place in the article as a whole. --Aquillion (talk) 06:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Issue in the updated lead

In the current draft lead The hashtag and a variety of online discussion forums became the center of many waves of actions ranging from critiques to online and offline harassment to direct threats, now referred to as the Gamergate movement. The overwhelming majority of commentators have dismissed these claims as variously trivial, conspiracy theories, unrelated to ethics or outright false.

The first sentence is not true. We have no source that links any self-ascribed "gamergate movement" user or forum to any specific harassment attack (the sources that talk about the more recent harassment issues are very careful to not specifically blame the movement but note that these are likely tied to the movement), and to broadly state that as a lead fact is not proper. That said, it is important to stress that there is a broad opinion that the movement is used for harassment. I propose the following rewrite. (There's also removing of the peacock "overwhelming majority" for just "most".)

The hashtag and a variety of online discussion forums became the center of discussion of debates on video game journalism, and these users referred to themselves as the Gamergate movement. Most commentators have dismissed the otherwise-unorganized movement as a front for or enabling the continuing campaign of harassment and threats, and have rejected the movement's ethics claims as variously trivial, conspiracy theories, unrelated to ethics or outright false. --MASEM (t) 22:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

We absolutely have sources which say they're responsible for harassment, the end. Here's The Christian Science Monitor from 20 January: Ms. Quinn was the first target of Gamergate, a movement that styles itself as a voice for ethics in video game journalism but which has come to be defined by its vicious anti-feminist harassment campaign. [10]. Or The Guardian from 3 December: Gamergate continued to suck in more people – some trying to reinvent its origins to make the campaign seem more credible, and some clinging to it as a way of expressing concerns about games journalism, seemingly without comprehending Gamergate’s roots in abuse and harassment. [11] Wired from 20 January: Game developer Zoe Quinn made national headlines last year as the first target of Gamergate, an online movement of angry videogame fans that has inspired widespread harassment, particularly against female games critics and professionals. [12]. It is not a matter of substantive dispute that the movement, such as it is, is responsible for harassment and is, indeed, rooted in that harassment. Not everyone in the movement is responsible, but the very issue with a "movement" is that collective responsibility attaches to uses and abuses of the movement's "good name." If you believe that Gamergate is a "movement," then it is very clear, based upon reliable sources, what that movement is about, what it stands for and what it has done. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:32, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Wording it the way it is now implicates everyone that calls themselves in the GG movement as an harasser and we cannot do that. That's prejudging. It's fine that the press wants to tie the movement to harassment or enabling harassment, that's a fact that has to be in the article and lead as I present, but we cannot make their leap of logic that the movement is all about harassment and stay neutral, when the movement never says this is their purpose. --MASEM (t) 22:41, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not "prejudging," Masem. You can't have it both ways — you can't repeatedly ask for Gamergate to be called a "movement" and then have us deny the collective responsibility that is attached to a movement by the reliable sources commenting on the issue. We don't care what the movement says their purpose is — we care what reliable sources say they are about. Our articles are based on what reliable sources say, full stop. If all the reliable sources say Gamergate is about harassment... then yes, we will state that Gamergate is about harassment. This is a question of fact, not of point of view, and the reliable sources are effectively unanimous in their factual description. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not denying the responsibility of the movement and harassment. That's the "enabling" part of the second sentence of mine - the press has repeatedly made it clear that those that might not even do harassment are not helping their cause by not distancing themselves or changing their approach. But that doesn't make those people guilty of harassment. Further, the way the current sentence reads is implying that the movement set off to do harassment, which we have no idea if this is possibly true or not. --MASEM (t) 22:46, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, yes, we do have an idea, because the reliable sources I have presented say so. You have presented no reliable sources which say otherwise. "The press" is not a "side" here, the press is the reliable sources which our articles are based upon, by foundational policy. If you disagree with the reliable sources I have presented, I ask that you present the reliable sources which say Gamergate is not responsible for harassment. Otherwise, it is very clear what the consensus of the available reliable sources is. Your version effectively denies that consensus, is directly refuted by the available sources and as such is not appropriate for this article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

We have to present the GG movement in a legitimate light if we are staying neutral and impartial. That means we cannot use any assessment of the press that is not based on actual evidence from the GG side to define what GG is. That is like saying "Westboro BC was founded to be a hate mob". The origins of the movement are sketchy, there's no sourcing we can use to directly figure that out, but the people that call themselves the movement reject harassment as a tool, so we cannot say they were formed to engage in harassment. We can certainly express the intent the press has that they feel that GG's motives were about harassment and continue to be about it, but we can't write that as fact. --MASEM (t) 22:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, no, but your claim that "the people who call themselves the movement reject harassment as a tool" is both untrue and unsourced. As numerous reliable sources state, anyone who takes the flag "Gamergate" is part of the movement because of its lack of organization. It is indisputable based upon reliable sources that harassment has flowed from a wide array of people who call themselves Gamergate. Thus, your claim is falsified. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Source right here [13] "The key to reducing the movement’s size lies in the little known but surprisingly numerous species I call the Gamergate moderate (Gamergater moderabilus), which by my estimate constitutes well over half the movement. They are the people who make up Gamergate’s Harassment Patrol, which polices Twitter and has identified and reported some egregious harassers." So yes, there exists people in the GG movement that are fighting harassment, and thus not engaging in it. It is an attack statement to qualify them under that. --MASEM (t) 23:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, no, it's not "an attack statement." You once again fail to get that the movement has been defined by its harassment as per the reliable sources, and at this point that assessment is widespread and overwhelming. A single opinion column cannot override that assessment. Once you choose to accept a collective view of Gamergate, you must accept the collective assessment of their activities. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:16, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a difference to say that the movement is better known/defined by their harassment (a fact I agree with), and to say they are purposely organized to engage in harassment. The former statement properly captures the fact that the movement may not be the ones doing the harassing, but because it is being done in the GG hashtag, they are getting the blame for it. That's completely right and has to be there. The latter is specific blaming them for harassment which we cannot assert, and is an attack statement. --MASEM (t) 23:20, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you're missing the very point, then. If you refuse to agree that Gamergate has collective responsibility as a "movement," then we cannot describe them as a "movement." Either they're a disorganized rabble for whom nobody is responsible for anyone else, in which case they aren't a "movement" at all, or they're a (loosely-)organized social movement which shares collective identity and responsibility under a shared banner. You're trying to have it both ways, and that's not the way the English language works. Jesse Singal in NY Magazine is on point: So what is Gamergate “really” about? I think this is the sort of question a philosopher of language would tear apart and scatter the remnants of to the wind, because it lacks any real referent. You guys refuse to appoint a leader or write up a platform or really do any of the things real-life, adult “movements” do. I’d argue that there isn’t really any such thing as Gamergate, because any given manifestation of it can be torn down as, again, No True Gamergate by anyone who disagrees with that manifestation or views it as an inconvenient blight from an optics standpoint. [14] NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:24, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying that, I'm saying this is what the movement considers themselves. We have to present their point of view legitimately without any bit of prejudgement from the press's side to be impartial, and then go with the counterarguments. I agree there are people in the GG movement that do not understand that if they want to be a movement they have to be responsible for what happens in the name of the movement, and their purposeful means of staying distance from it doesn't help. But that's an opinion. Even your quote above identifies itself as an opinion. Without lack of any evidence to stay that the whole GG movement is purposely there for harassing people, we have assume what they state as their motives as their claims without comment. We cannot write this article as an attack piece against them at all lacking clear solid evidence they are a whole group are purposely engaging in harassment. --MASEM (t) 23:40, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No, we call it a movement because it looks like a movement, acts like a movement, and is described as a movement. That's the difference between that and the claims that the movement is "rooted" in harassment, especially when we know and have sources that note otherwise. The reliable sources describe Gamergate numerous ways, so yes, we will state those numerous ways with attribution, not treat opinion as fact. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I invite you to present said sources here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The ones we use in the article suffice for this specific point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a cop-out. Which sources state that harassment is not part of the activities Gamergate is responsible for? I've cited my sources above and will be happy to provide more upon request. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Who is arguing otherwise? I'm not, and Masem is not. The issue is one of attribution of specific motives and points, not of the broader issue. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Of course you're arguing otherwise — you're arguing to remove that direct statement from the lede of the article. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:02, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Please do not attribute beliefs or claims to me that I do not hold. Read Masem's replacement text closer to get a better idea as to what I'm arguing. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

As long as we pick and choose sources, yes. It's a pretty substantive dispute as to the extent of the harassment in comparison to what the broader movement is, and Masem is correct that the direct language we're using is misleading at best. We must attribute the point to some and/or specific observers, not just relate it as assumed fact. NPOV demands it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The hashtag and a variety of online discussion forums became the center of many waves of actions ranging from critiques to online and offline harassment to direct threats, now referred to as the Gamergate movement is a fact. That harassment is a major part of Gamergate's activities — and by far the most notable activity — is not a matter of factual dispute among reliable sources. If you disagree, I invite you to present reliable sources which state otherwise. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:57, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No, it's an opinion, regardless of the notability of the issue. The reliable sources are better described by Masem's language above. Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

This statement is an attack statement against people that have done nothing in relationship to harassment (which we do have sources say exist, the GG moderate) That is completely unallowed per NPOV. --MASEM (t) 23:00, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Once again, if you believe that Gamergate is a "movement," then you must accept that the "movement" has long ago been defined by harassment of women in video gaming. That is completely allowed per NPOV, because it is the indisputable consensus of available reliable sources, which our articles are based upon. You have presented a singular source from October, whereas there are multiple, stronger and more recent sources which state otherwise. You cannot simply state that "Gamergate was about discussion and debates of video game journalism" because that is a clear example of lying by omission — omitting what the overwhelming consensus of reliable sources say Gamergate is about NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:01, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

One can believe Gamergate is a movement (based on sources and evidence) and not agree that we should "define" it without attribution. Our articles are based on sources, yes. NPOV requires us to attribute those sources properly and not simply assume that the reportws opinions (especially when they conflict with evidence) are fact. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:06, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Building on this point, imaging if the New York Times came out tomorrow and printed some extremely contentious statement about a business without stating why or how but claiming it as fact, and that story got repeated in a number of sources. WP would carefully use that source as a claim, not a fact, despite being printed by the NYT, as without a clear chain of how they got their, the claim is dubious despite the reliability. We are enabled by policy to make that determination and use sources carefully (this was a conclusion of the bias RFC I had). That's what's happening here. There is no evidence or the like that these sources are using to assert that GG is a harassment campaign from the start (and we are aware that the evidence is not readily apparent here), and since that is a contentious claim, we can make sure it is treated only as a claim and not as a fact despite the reliability of the sources. Reliability does not mean infallible, and that's the problem with sources here. I'm not dismissing any of these claims as unusable but they must remain claims and opinions (just as the GG claims and opinions will remain claims and opinions), and cannot make the assumption they are "right". --MASEM (t) 23:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

No, sorry, that's not supported by the facts of the case. That is an opinion that we cannot take as editors here. Let the press do that for us, fine, but not as neutral, impartial editors. We have to be aware that what the instigation of GG is pretty much unknown due to lack of sourcing and the conjunction of many events at the same time (a chicken-egg problem). What the press thinks it is is not the point we can take to edit this article. --MASEM (t) 23:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

You can present a source for your claim that it's "not supported by the facts of the case," right? Otherwise, you get a tag. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:12, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The Salon article above, to start. Plus, there's what is "reality" here. I've spent enough time trying to dig for sources for objectively talking about GG that I know that the bulk of what I read (mostly from KIA) is not about harassment at all, but ethics. That exists. We're stuck, however, with the "verifyability, not truth" paradox, and that information would be both OR and unverifyable obviously, but I know it's true. Take the Guardian article about the ArbCom decision. We know it is factually wrong, but to say why its wrong is OR and unverifiable. But because we know its wrong, we would not include it, or at least make sure its claims remained claims for our article. Same thing here. It's very easy to research what the GG side does, and it is tremendously clear the bulk do not engage in harassment. But again, we have a few RSes that explain there is antiharassment groups within GG, so you don't have to take my word on the nature of what I have to read. --MASEM (t) 23:18, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

The Slate article is an opinion column and dates from October, whereas the sources I have cited above are hard news stories published much more recently. There may have been, at one point, some debate about what Gamergate was about, but there is no longer any such debate. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:22, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

One thing we need to work on getting better sourcing on is the root of the conflict. We have videos and blog posts going back years regarding ethical journalism, and Gamergate exploded those issues while also having proponents engage in harassment. We need more like this that help us connect those dots. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no controversy that gaming journalism has from its inception been essentially an advertising platform. No one really cares. Sexism and harassment of women goes back just as far and people DO care. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:59, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Pen, just because you haven't heard that anyone cares about the state of gaming journalism doesn't mean it isn't noteworthy for discussion in an article that involves gaming journalism as a subject of debate.

I agree that the article would benefit from a better historical look at how either side of Gamergate came into being and why the people supporting either side can't seem to understand each other. As far as I gather, it unfolds as thus:

1. Zoe Quinn makes "Depression Quest" and the game is criticized for a variety of reasons having nothing to do with gender at first.
2. Quinn is assumed to have issued a DMCA claim against a Youtube video that criticized her game. In response, this is when harassment begins in earnest. Still nothing to do with gender so far.
3. Gjoni's posts are discovered. People are led to believe Quinn used distasteful methods to achieve press coverage of her game. Still nothing about gender yet.
4. Zoe Quinn claims she is being harassed because she is a woman. Feminist supporters arrive. NOW it is about gender.
5. Punditry ensues. Gamergate supporters believe they are dealing with DMCA abuse and an unethical press. Gamergate opponents believe they are dealing with vindictive misogynists. Milo reinforces the pro position. Sarkeesian reinforces the anti position. The two sides segregate and fall into their own circles and begin spreading vicious rumors about each other.
6. Actual anti-feminists join the conflict, believing Gamergate is about beating back Feminism. Radical feminists join anti-gamergate in the belief that they are dealing with their ideological foes. The prophesies have fulfilled themselves and now much of the debate is about gender and sexism.
7. Harassment. Everyone gets harassed. Conspiracy theories, death threats, so on and so forth. Gamergate becomes enormous.

Does anyone feel like the above assessment doesn't rather cleanly explain a lot of this without taking a biased, accusatory tone? If you can bring yourself to look at it from the outside this way, you can see how there actually are radical feminists, misogynists, unethical behavior among the press, and every other detail being factually present. This stuff is all here - the two sides are not lying, they just lack perspective. YellowSandals (talk) 03:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no indication that the press "does not understand" gamergaters claimed positions. We have multiple sources that specifically review those claims and dismiss them . That gamergators do not understand the real world and how the real world views gamergators is a potential issue, but I think we cover that, too (or have at one time). -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I wrote this proposed text: The Gamergate hashtag and a variety of online discussion forums became the center of many waves of actions ranging from critiques to online and offline harassment to direct threats, now referred to as the Gamergate movement. You will notice that I'm avoiding unifying the "many waves of actions" into some kind of cohesive whole here. Because of that, this text deliberately did not do what Masem worries that it does: "implicates everyone that calls themselves in the GG movement as an harasser," any more than coverage of the #BlackLivesMatter protests implicate everyone in the movement with burning police cars.

At the moment, "Gamergate movement" (as a two-word sequence) draws 139,000 hits on Google News. I think it's fair approximation of this public usage by reliable sources to say that it encompasses the variety of actions I referred to. Looking online, one can also find "Gamergate is a movement" said by proponents of GG (largely as an ethics-focused thing) and by opponents of GG. You can also find "Gamergate is not a movement" said by proponents ("it's a constellation of uncoordinated actions," or it's a hashtag") and opponents ("it's a campaign of harassment" or "it's hashtag"). (The latter two draw 10-16,000 hits on Google writ large.) There may not be consensus on whether GG is a movement. However, to do our job on clarity and being an encyclopedia, we must explain what this common phrase "Gamergate movement" actually refers to, when it is used to refer to something. (My edits were prompted by the fact that people on this talk page were unable to understand from the article what it meant to be "a Gamergate supporter," a phrase that is repeatedly used on the page.) On this, we can and must be clear by turning to reliable sources.--Carwil (talk) 03:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't wonder if maybe the problem is that the article so far has spent too much time focusing on who Gamergate is when the reality is that Gamergate means something a little different to everyone involved in it. For some it is about gender, for others it's about journalism. For the ones who find it's about journalism and nothing else, they actually don't like being associated with any of the gender aspects. It's so ideological that I think it's fair to say Gamergate is akin to writing about a religion. You might say, "Christianity is a religion based around actions ranging from helping the poor to burning innocent people alive," and you would be accurate, but it wouldn't be the sanest way of explaining it. What I'd like to see this article do is try less to explain what Gamergate is supposed to be about and instead explain how it exists or became this big.

Gamergate didn't really happen because of misogyny or because of a conspiracy among the press. I think that, most likely, when Zoe Quinn said she was being attacked because she's a girl, she really did believe that. She was getting a ludicrous amount of hate mail for things she may not have done, so she found an explanation and there was an ideological group waiting in the wings to support that conclusion, and here we are with Gamergate now a source of ideological controversy. It started off trivial enough to sweep under the rug with a modest statement by Kotaku. Why anyone's PR department didn't put a stop to things as they caught fire I do not know. YellowSandals (talk) 03:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

That's not quite accurate. Many of our sources say that the harassment Quinn, Sarkeesian, and so on were receiving (even before GamerGate started) was misogynistic in character -- see eg. the Washington Post here, the Guardian here, or Sengal's in-depth analysis of it here; and all of them say that the reason these particular people were targeted was, at least in part, because they raised the ire of people eager to fight culture wars over gender (which some of these articles characterize as 'misogyny', but you get the idea.) And as both they and many other sources say, the initial conspiracy theories about Quinn were (paraphrased) that a feminist-friendly press had used its sinister influence to advance its views; in pushing that theory, the initial push against Quinn was absolutely about gender-politics. I mean, it's a complicated issue, but it's important to underline that the majority of reliable sources agree that gender politics was core to what was driving GamerGate right from the start. This is also easy to see this if you go back to the initial chatlogs and 4chan posts, where people would talk about how to use the "ethics aspect" as a tool advance their agenda, using "SJW language" or whatever to convince people that something vile and unethical had occurred in order to get them on their side -- we can't use those posts as sources directly, but fortunately, many reliable sources have gone over them and reported back, and we can use those. Obviously this doesn't mean that everyone involved at the start was driven by a deep-seated need to fight against what they saw as a feminist conspiracy, but the sources in the article are more than sufficient to support the argument that that was part of the driving force behind GamerGate all the way back when it was just the #Quinnspiracy. Of course I agree with you (as you said below) that it's tricky to ascribe motives and goals to a diffuse group like this; but one advantage journalists have, when it comes to GamerGate, is that the main discussion forums involved are generally public, so a journalist who wants to take the time to go over them and paraphrase what GamerGate is based on what they find there can actually do so (even tracing the controversy right back to its start.) And many of the journalists who did so returned with the conclusion that GamerGate's original targets were chosen because they were women or outspoken feminists (although as our article says, politics related to the gamer identity also played a major role.) --Aquillion (talk) 06:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I see lots of narrative here, but I'm not sure what the point is. YellowSandals, what about the modified lead is inaccurate or unsupported?

Masem raised alternate text way at the top of this discussion. It modifies my text to say …became the center of discussion of debates on video game journalism. To my mind, that was part of the "critiques" in the text, but those critiques also clearly include critiques of mainstream journalism, social justice movements, and scientific researchers, so I don't see how Masem's text is an imporvement. --Carwil (talk) 14:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not saying Masem's change is specifically better or worse since both options read similarly. I was suggesting maybe an alternative approach that doesn't try to explain up front what Gamergate is except an "online controversy". What I mean to imply is that it might be better to kind of explain the history and divergent viewpoints without really trying to say Gamergate is about any particular thing. A chronological blow-by-blow. This occurred, that occurred, he said this, she said that, and so on. That way the reader understands a picture of things from either angle and understands why there's a conflict. So far the article has struggled to achieve balance because the two sides want to say the movement is about ethics or the movement is about harassment, but we really just don't have concrete demographic data on any of it. We don't know how many are involved in harassment, the ethics, the anti-feminism, or what. For all we could know, the controversy involves a hundred dedicated supporters and a thousand dedicated detractors - the demographics involved make a difference to how you might explain Gamergate. Since we don't have that data, I feel like it might be wiser to avoid talking motives or demographics and instead explain the concrete history.

The source I found mentioned a lot of non-gender related criticism of Quinn prior to Gamergate, but Aquillion insists there's data showing gender-based criticism from early on. Since these are divergent accounts, we probably need to express that contradiction in perspective since it is most likely that either perspective is true depending on your social circle. The bulk of the article really will detail the harassment because that's so prevalent in the press, but in terms of explaining what Gamergate is, I think it might be better to explain where it diverges and how it's come to mean different things to different people. YellowSandals (talk) 16:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

How about someone suggest a rewritten intro, post is here and we discuss it?BerserkerBen (talk) 17:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Another potential lead issue

One word in the lead that raises an eyebrow is the "terrorism" bit. The USU threat was described by the sources as possible terrorism, no doubt (though "terrorism" is a word that gets thrown around a lot loosely to evoke empathy.) But this is the only case that I think we can document that way (that is, described by RSes as terrorism), and thus using one case to put that into the lead appears to be specifically evoke the word to drive empathy against the GG. The multiple harassment and death threats have to be summarized in the lede, but not a single one-off incident. --MASEM (t) 17:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

No, terroristic threats is not "thrown around lightly to evoke empathy". It is an accurate accounting of terroristic threats to gun down an auditorium full of people because the person issuing the threat does not want people to hear her ideas. Basic definition of terrorism.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Note: All articles state that specific threat was not done by or connected to Gamergate other than the target of it was Ms. Sarkeesian. Although she is connected to GG, not everything she does, nor all the threats she received before and after GG began are all connected to the GG controversy at the same level. There was another threat that occurred at the same time that did, however, connect to Gamergate. The other/secondary threat was not, to my recollection, called terrorist in nature by any source. Do you have a source that says otherwise? Ries42 (talk) 18:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

you are flat out wrong

Cough. USU officials and Sarkeesian on Wednesday revealed new details about the threats. After the mass shooting threat was sent to the school late Monday, a second threat arrived Tuesday. That one, USU spokesman Tim Vitale confirmed, claimed affiliation with the controversial and sometimes violent online video gamers' movement known as GamerGate. The content of the first threat is posted at the bottom of this article. No comment on Gamergate is made in the threat itself. This is the threat that is being called "terrorist" in nature. Ries42 (talk) 01:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not sure why you would think that people would say "Well the first letter that came in threatening a mass shooting is terrorism, but those second two that came in threatening mass shootings were not." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no indication in any reliable source that I've seen as to the content of the second or third threats. Whether they were terrorist in nature or just "death threats like Ms Sarkeesian" received prior to GG. I've looked. If you have a source that says otherwise, please share it. Ries42 (talk) 04:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Sarkeesian said a threat to kill at USU "did claim affiliation with #gamergate" and many reliable sources have reported that detail. You're welcome to contact those publications to see how (if?) they confirmed the claim, but for our purposes here what matters is that reliable sources are reporting it. For that matter, reliable sources (really everyone covering the story) have also reported on the connection between the most publicized of those Utah threats and GamerGate, despite that specific threat lacking the hashtag. Emarkcd (talk) 09:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

There was, as best as has been reported, exactly one threat that has been called "terrorism" by the press. We cannot say "terrorism attacks" since that's false, and compared to everything else, that is calling out one very specific instance in the lede, which is too fine a detail for that. And yes, post-9/11, the word "terrorism" is a weighted word that gets thrown around a lot on things that aren't really terrorism to evoke emotion. I am not saying that the USU incident wasn't called terrorism by sources, but again to stress - it was one isolated incident and still unsure if connected to the movement, so we should not be calling it out in the lead. --MASEM (t) 18:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

one "isolated" incident ? it is that incident which brought the issue to the NYT. it is not tangential to the controversy, it is a major factor in its notability. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it's still isolated relative everything else that at least is attributed to someone using the Gamergate hashtag. The shooting threat was only tied by the fact it was targetted at Sarkeesian who at that time was also a GG target, but threat in no way connected itself to GG. The secondary threats - which were not called terrorism by any source - had the GG mention to link them. As such , that bomb threat may not even be GG related, though it is still necessary to point out that at the end of the day, the use of threats of any nature is a highly criticized and condemned action. So it is completely improper to highlight one event that might not have been done by anyone using the GG hashtag as a GG threat in the lead. --MASEM (t) 04:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

So the lede would look like this if the questionable issues were removed:

The Gamergate controversy, centering on a debate about sexism in video game culture, came to public attention in August 2014 as a result of sexist and misogynistic attacks targeting a number of women in the video game industry, including game developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu, cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, and others. These attacks, which were often performed under the #gamergate hashtag or by people connected to it, included online harassment and death threats, and were frequently coordinated and promoted within subforums of virtual communities such as Reddit and 8chan.

Gamergate is widely viewed as a manifestation of a culture war that is resisting the diversification of gaming culture, the recognition of video games as an art form, social criticism of video game tropes, and the impact of these things on gamer social identity.

Some people involved in the controversy say that it is a movement concerned with ethical issues in video game journalism, but the majority of commentators have dismissed the concerns it has focused on as being trivial, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics.

Removed "mainstream media" buzzword as well. I don't think its needed in the first place, and it definitely isn't necessary if overwhelming is removed. Ries42 (talk) 17:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Third para I'd move to second, and in that , add something about how the press see the movement is seen as a front and/or enabling a campaign of harassment. (That the press sees it like that, that's factually true). --MASEM (t) 18:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I can agree with that. Perhaps separate the "but" comment as well, to show like this:

The Gamergate controversy, centering on a debate about sexism in video game culture, came to public attention in August 2014 as a result of sexist and misogynistic attacks targeting a number of women in the video game industry, including game developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu, cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, and others. These attacks, which were often performed under the #gamergate hashtag or by people connected to it, included online harassment and death threats, and were frequently coordinated and promoted within subforums of virtual communities such as Reddit and 8chan.

Some people involved in the controversy say that it is a movement concerned with ethical issues in video game journalism. However, the movement has been denounced by the majority of commentators because it is viewed as enabling the harassment campaign and commentators dismiss their stated concerns as being trivial, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics.

Gamergate is widely viewed as a manifestation of a culture war that is resisting the diversification of gaming culture, the recognition of video games as an art form, social criticism of video game tropes, and the impact of these things on gamer social identity.

Ries42 (talk) 18:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Wordsmithing: However, the seemingly-unorganized movement has been denounced by most commentators and viewed as enabling the harassment campaign, with the movement's stated concerns considered trivial, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics. --MASEM (t) 18:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Works for me. I do have an issue with the first sentence, as it seems to have been wordsmithed at some point. I.e. Some people involved in the controversy say that it is a movement... When it was originally Some people within the Gamergate movement say they are concerned... I think this was the result of the whole "fighting" to call it a movement issue. Would you be OK with just reverting it back to

Some people within the Gamergate movement say they are concerned with ethical issues in video game journalism. However, the seemingly-unorganized movement has been denounced by most commentators and viewed as enabling the harassment, with the movement's stated concerns considered trivial, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics.

Ries42 (talk) 18:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

How about A self-described Gamergate movement say they are concerned.... "Some people" begs, who they are, they just seem to be out of nowhere. --MASEM (t) 18:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Gold. Run with it IMO. Ries42 (talk) 18:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just accepted that in Pending Changes, though I do prefer the original ordering of paragraphs. The Land (talk) 19:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like the new order is much better because it goes into the two important points first. A) History, B) The Movement that formed, C) The overarching themes. The old order doesn't make sense because it goes A) History, B) Overarching themes, then C) The movement. Its difficult to discuss themes until everything is presented. Ries42 (talk) 19:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Personally I find it difficult to make sense of the movement without understanding the themes, and suspect someone reading the article "cold" would feel likewise. The Land (talk) 19:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The themes (eg the culture war stuff) are assessments that have been made in the longer-term about why we got to this state in terms of GG (that is, it is third-parties making those assessments for the most part). As such, it logically follows in both timing and narrative. If it was the case that GG came out claiming they were fighting a culture war, that would be different, but we'd be writing other things differently too. --MASEM (t) 19:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

To add on to Masem, your opservation (The Land) actually makes the new order better because it avoids a possible attempt to lead a POV. The themes are supposed to be overarching to the whole of the controversy, not directly related to the movement. By saying it like that, it almost sounds like its injecting a POV that the themes are directly related to the movement itself. A point that I know myself and several editors have been careful to avoid because while there are sources that claim that, there are others that do not (see Auerbach's Slate piece for an in-depth discussion of the "movement"). That isn't to say that some or all of the movement may not encompass some or all of the themes, but it seems to be, *ahem* an attempt to lead someone into a specific mindset instead of attempting to keep it as neutral as possible to introduce the "themes" before introducing all the relevent "players" so to speak. Ries42 (talk) 19:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that "Some people involved in the controversy say that it is a movement concerned with..." is best; there clearly isn't enough unanimity among the sources to call it a cohesive movement in the article text, so that's something better attributed to the views of specific people. --Aquillion (talk) 06:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

While the school shooting threat is the most notable act of terrorism it is not the only. There have been countless threats meant to intimidate, the motive is political, and 'non-combatants' (like family and friends who get doxxed, police who are disrupted by swatting/false reports) are intentionally targeted. Also, most of the reputable coverage of the Utah school shooting terrorist threats (plural) confirm GamerGate's targets have received many similar threats. Sources have described and reported on the ongoing threats more broadly as terrorism, not limited to just the specific USU example. Emarkcd (talk) 09:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

New reliable academic source

The Association for Computing Machinery has published a paper substantively relating to Gamergate, Sexism in the Circuitry: Female Participation in Male Dominated Popular Computer Culture: (link removed) NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:39, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Full ref for the interested. I don't believe NBSB link will work for anyone. — Strongjam (talk) 23:13, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I can find the first page to look at (This site appears legit and not a Scribd-like copyvio waiting to happen) so tenacious linking it here [15],) and definitely looks like it would help to describe some of the makeup of GG, though they do stress they don't consider themselves "objectively distant" from the topic. But these are the types of papers I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of to be able to write more objectively on the nature of GG. --MASEM (t) 23:30, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Are we allowed to dissect a research paper? From the looks of it, it appears that paper begins with a forgone conclusion: "Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn are disliked because they are women", and then it proceeds to analyze the methods by which "misogynist harassment" occurs. The problem here is that it fails the first rule of Occam's razor because it makes an assumption at the word "go". The paper could be used to discuss some of the means by which online harassment has occurred, but there's no way of knowing if the harassment occurred because of the subjects' gender or if it's because of the width of subjects' eyes, the pitch of their voices, or any other factor. The dislike against Quinn and Sarkeesian may at this point be political if you could scarce believe that.

This kind of paper can be used to discuss the subject that it studies, but do bear in mind that unless they handed out questionnaires to Anita Sarkeesian's detractors or were otherwise able to gather significant demographic data, there is actually not any research here on motives or causes for the described harassment. YellowSandals (talk) 02:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

YellowSandals, that is specious reasoning, and I think you are misusing Occam's razor. To suggest that the only way to determine the reasons for harassment is to ask the harassers, ignores the intentions baked into the harassment itself.--Theredproject (talk) 04:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. As I said above, it's important to remember that most of the discussion related to GamerGate has occurred out in the open, so it's relatively easy for journalists and scholars who are inclined to do so to go there and document what they find. I feel that Jesse Singal's piece is particularly useful in this regard, say, and I would assume that these journalists have done something similar. They can't obtain a perfect brainscan of everyone who has ever expressed an opinion on the hashtag, but in some ways it is actually comparatively easy to get information about what is driving large swaths of the people who get emotional about GamerGate. We can't do things like use KIA or 8chan as a source, but we can use reliable secondary sources like these when they produce in-depth coverage of what they find there. --Aquillion (talk) 06:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Except by that logic, we have had a source that gathered data related to the hashtag and found the overwhelming majority of tweets about Gamergate were not misogynistic. Most were neutral or at the least not recognized as hostile by the program parsing the data. Among those expressing recognized negativity, much of it was misogynistic, but nobody is saying there aren't openly misogynistic people within Gamergate. I suppose it would be fine if you use the study to describe only those actions which were clearly taken to attack a person's gender, but I maintain that's a subset of the controversy and shouldn't be applied to dismiss absolutely everyone's criticism of the press, Anita Sarkeesian, or anyone else. If you use too broad a stroke, you will get people who object. If you're going to use the study to specifically describe gender-motivated harassment, just be careful that the study isn't lumping every negative comment they can find into a single classification of "misogyny". If you're going on forums and specifically looking for people talking disparagingly about women, you'll find it but that's a confirmation bias. If there's no data demonstrating clear motives among those considered within the study, then the study didn't do research on the motives. It's just assuming the motive is misogyny. YellowSandals (talk) 07:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I mean I get what you're saying, but in academia it's a red flag when a study establishes a model, fails to test that model, then builds a second body of research around the assumption that the model is correct. As I say, if it turned out that Zoe Quinn was harassed because the width of her eyes was subconsciously upsetting people, the study would amount to hogwash because it relied on the accuracy of a model they didn't test. A more realistic hypothesis that might conflict with this model is the possibility that people realized Zoe had feminist leanings and therefore made anti-feminist comments to upset her, which would mean their motives were to upset Zoe individually and they would have also insulted her race or religion if they felt it was a sensitive spot. I'm just stressing the need to be careful with how you interpret something like this because the scope of the research appears to be limited to how to the harassment conducted, but no empirical research has been done to confirm any demographic assumptions. NOTE THE WORD "EMPIRICAL". There are several types of studies and ways data can be collected - this study has a leading premise and may be sound in some regards, but I would not use it to reinforce the assumption of anyone's motives. Instead, seek a study that is actually focusing specifically demographic data and not making foregone conclusions about it. YellowSandals (talk) 07:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we don't want to put too much stock in a single study, of course -- but it does line up with what a lot of other reliable sources say they've found when they analyze the passions and emotions driving the people who seem most heavily invested in GamerGate. (I recommend reading Singal's coverage, for instance, which I think is one of the most in-depth looks at that.) Note, though, that in both cases they probably use a different definition of "harassment" than you do, which I think is one of the ongoing points of confusion here; reading the first page of the paper, I'll bet that they define repeating the accusations against Quinn, for instance, as a form of harassment (which, if you start from the perspective that the accusations are clearly false, it is, since it'd be maliciously trying to destroy her reputation.) By this definition, most of the loudest voices pushing GamerGate are part of its harassment campaign -- and their language (which seems to be driving the controversy) includes a great deal of apocolyptic-warfare talk about crushing their ideological enemies, especially feminism (or, as Singal says they corrected it to, 'radfem thirdwave feminism'.) Some of that might be people trolling? But even when we look at the sources that people say are 'friendly' to GamerGate, like the First Things article people were posting a lot before, it boils down to the same thing in a slightly more genteel tone -- "GamerGate is a backlash against the way feminism and our related ideological opponents have used their control over the media to cram their views down our throats" isn't really saying anything different beyond implicitly accepting the arguments of a media conspiracy and arguing that the feminists fired the first shots or words to that effect. This paper seems usable enough to me, anyway, as one source in the larger analysis of what GamerGate is about and why it's happening. --Aquillion (talk) 08:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

YellowSandals, empirical data driven research is only one of many academic methodologies which are accepted by scholars as establishing a truth claim.--Theredproject (talk) 12:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. Outside of pseudoscience, empirical data is really the only kind of data that is valuable in research. The accuracy of your models is always extremely important. What my concern is, is that feminism can be political, ideological, academic, or none of these things. For some, "feminism" is just treating women fairly. For others, it's about the patriarchy and rape culture, having either to do with those concepts as sociological models or as ideals to live and respect society by. Meanwhile, there also exist feminist lobbies which are involved in law and politics. So anti-feminists within Gamergate, who may be any size of demographic, could be political, ideological, or academic. There also seem to be some who just dislike women. So when looking at a research paper that bills itself as examining "misogynistic" behavior, it's important to ask a lot of questions. What model are they used to describe "misogyny"? What demographic data are they using? If they aren't using any data to justify their model, in terms of the research it needs to be discounted. From what I can tell, this paper focuses on the methods of harassment but doesn't clearly establish a model for misogyny or examine the broad demographics involved in this conflict. So given that, it's a good source to discuss the methods of harassment, but it's important to be careful to discount conclusions or hypotheses that are only speculative. YellowSandals (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Also be aware that if the researcher uses case studies to justify their model, this is a very poor researcher. For example, if they cherry pick specific statements or go to a forum and say, "Yep, here we found a thread saying all women are buttheads", they've established a confirmation bias and that's all. That thread could represent the opinions of no more than ten people belonging to a broader group of thousands, and the findings would have no statistical significance. Case studies are by far the weakest form of research and have easily done the most damage to science and medicine over the course of modern history. Most of Freud's work was based on case studies and is now criticized for setting psychology back by a generation. YellowSandals (talk) 17:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Most of the above seems to be an attempt to discount a study on the grounds of the Wikipedia editor's personal objections to the methodology used. That's probably not going to fly. On the other hand this is just a study. It's certainly in order to identify the credentials of the authors and the nature of the publication, so as not to represent it. References to individual academic sources should be used sparingly, because in academia as well as elsewhere a single paper for not usually count for much. --TS 17:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

You misunderstand! I'm not trying to discount the whole paper. I'm just approaching this study the way I've been taught to handle them - the whole point of science is repeatability, and if a study fails to examine or explain a model being used within the study, the study is virtually worthless. If they don't define "misogyny" with an explicit model, how would you repeat this study? How would you determine which harassment is misogynistic? Your data would vary wildly from the data achieved by this study.

The bottom line I'm getting at is that, in academics, there needs to be a great deal of clarity where the models for your research are coming from. A researcher in this area needs to say, "These are the clear parameters we use to define misogyny, and here is the data that falls within these parameters". Otherwise, for all we know, this researcher feels it's misogynistic to judge a woman based on her appearance. In that case any comments about any woman's weight or hair would also be classified as misogyny. Maybe some would agree with this, but that's not a universally held opinion it's not clinical to assume everyone will just understand what is meant. Do you follow me? There may be studies out there that do set a clearly defined model of misogyny and then account for who falls within this model, but it appears this particular study is focused more on the methods of harassment that the researcher deems "misogynistic". YellowSandals (talk) 17:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not for us to judge the quality of the research, only the quality of the source and to accurately represent the that source. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

See, but it is up to use to decide how a source is used. If this paper is about harassment fitting within a specific model of "misogyny", then you have to recognize the model and the particular scope of the paper's investigation with regard to that model. If the paper does not establish a model for "misogyny", then there is no data in this paper with any actual meaning. It's like a vector - without an established model, the paper has numbers representing velocity, but given no point of reference there is no way of knowing the direction of the study. If you have both direction and velocity, then both need to be clearly defined should this data be used in this Wiki article. YellowSandals (talk) 17:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep in mind that academics != science. Plenty of academic journals—even entire academic disciplines—don't model their data or even use numbers at all. And we also don't require that academic journals establish models, reveal their data, or show their math. Woodroar (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

A model is just a way of describing a particular set of observations. For example, I know of at least two professors who wrote a book together establishing a model for "politeness" so there'd be a point of reference when they talked about "polite" behavior in their papers. If the academic paper doesn't use models, numbers, calculations, or any serious data, then it's not any different than an editorial from Kotaku. If that's the case, then what's even academic about this organization? YellowSandals (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Another example of a model would be "rape culture", which I suspect has probably played some role in the way people have approached or are approaching Gamergate. For most it's sort of an ideological concept, but in schools it's a theoretical model of human behavior. The point of these sorts of things is to make a model and then test the boundaries of its accuracy. Gravity currently operates on a simple, mostly accurate mathematical model, for example, but the model fails at the molecular level. Not every model is mathematical, mind you. In any case, academics is political as well, and there are people who feel that trying to perform peer review against the "rape culture" is an act of misogyny, so this is why I stress it's important to understand the point of reference in a study. They may be discussing people who made threats against other people, or they might be sweeping up criticisms of "rape culture" theory and labeling that as "misogynistic" as well. If this is coming straight from a journal that's another thing as well, but I believe this is a primary research paper, is it not? YellowSandals (talk) 19:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

And I'll come back to velocity again. Suppose you have a car and it's traveling at 60 mph. The car's destination is sixty miles away. When does the car arrive at its destination? You might think, "In an hour", but I neglected to tell you which direction the car is traveling - it's away from its destination because the driver is lost, so the actual answer is "Never, because the car is headed east when it should be going west". A paper like this can be the same way. In fact, even a lot of our news articles have been like this, where they establish our velocity but don't tell us our direction. They keep saying "misogyny" and then let everyone fill in the blanks, which has contributed to the wildly different perspectives on this thing because "misogyny" is not a clear direction or point of reference for everyone. For news journals it's annoying, but it an academic work, it makes the study pure bunk. There's no excuse to not have a solid point of reference in an academic paper. YellowSandals (talk) 19:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be familiar with a specific category of academic writing. I know literary criticism, for example, and it does none of those things yet is no less academic because of it. That's all beside the point, however, because a source's reliability is what matters, it's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. If it has such a reputation, then we don't need to see the data in order to summarize the results. Woodroar (talk) 20:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Reliability of the source aside, if the paper doesn't provide explicit context, how do we make use of it in an an encyclopedia if we intend to be clinical and informational? We really need to get away from these vague concepts and try to be specific about what is actually going on with Gamergate in concrete terms. After all, for some period we had Somners described as a misogynist and anti-feminist, but it was clear that not everyone agreed with that, including Somners herself quite openly. The word "misogyny" as it stands alone doesn't mean anything concrete any more than "evil", "heresy", "stupidity", or any other broad slur. It's a word with numerous definitions and interpretations depending on when, how, and what it is applied. YellowSandals (talk) 21:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what to tell you. If the first page is any indication, they're using standard English, not discipline-specific jargon, so we report what they say. Words have meanings and we trust that the sources are using them correctly. I mean, I'm not trying to be jerk or disingenuous or anything, but we're an encyclopedia and we summarize the sources. That's it. We don't have to be clinical or peek at their data for context to do what we do. Woodroar (talk) 21:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

But standard English isn't more specific. The advantage of a good academic source, in the hard sciences at least, is that they use clearly defined data and jargon. I admit I don't know a lot about academia where data or context isn't required. YellowSandals (talk) 22:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like the talk page is full of lengthy arguments about "black and white" versus the concept of ambiguity. "I know what evil is. Everyone knows what evil is. Everyone knows what is meant when we say another person is evil because it's plain English and a commonly used word. The reliable sources say these people are evil. There's no debate here". This is a difficult mentality to work with when people are contradicting each other in public discourse. YellowSandals (talk) 22:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

We may have to wait until we can see the full article to see how it can be used, look out for jargon, and so on. As far as your other points go, I suspect they get to the heart of this whole controversy. Some people are speaking in terms of ambiguity and others hear black and white, or vice versa. When I read statements like "such-and-such culture is X", it's nearly always talking about social trends, not about individuals. But someone who self-identifies as a member of that culture may believe that they are being called X, or perhaps the term X carries with it other connotations that they assume the speaker means as well. Anyways, without getting too FORUMy, I'll again say that we may just want to wait for the full article. Woodroar (talk) 23:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Part of the quality of the source, and reliability, of said source, depends on the research of the source itself. Certainly WP:NOR states we cannot in article space make claims or contradict a source without another source making those arguments. However, in the talk space, we can bring up issues within the source, even using original research, that tend to show that the work itself is unreliable. See WP:RELIABLE under which states that "Any of the three (the work, the author, or the publication) can affect reliability. (clarification added). Not saying that is the case here, but it is certainly a valid line of questioning the reliability of a source. Ries42 (talk) 17:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Further academic sources

The Internet Monitor project at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University has published Internet Monitor 2014: Reflections on the Digital World: Platforms, Policy, Privacy, and Public Discourse mentioning Gamergate. In a chronology, they observe:

Video game developer Zoe Quinn’s ex-boyfriend publishes a blog post implying that Quinn had exchanged sex for positive reviews of her recent game, Depression Quest. The post provokes a vitriolic campaign against Quinn that quickly morphs into a broader crusade against alleged corruption in games journalism. The movement, labeled #GamerGate, involves considerable abuse and harassment—including rape and death threats—of female developers and game critics. (18)

Later they also write:

Doxing—the practice of compiling (through a mix of Internet research and hacking) and broadcasting personal information about someone—has affected a wide range of individuals, from female game developers and journalists targeted for their comments on the Gamergate controversy (most of whom also received rape and death threats) to Ku Klux Klan members, whose identities and credit card information were published as part of an Anonymous campaign in response to the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. (30)

as well as:

The early indications are that partisanship is alive and well, and that the cognitive biases that inhibit open-minded reconsideration of well entrenched opinions have survived the digital revolution intact. The Gamergate controversy, ostensibly intended to address ethical issues in video game journalism, quickly spiraled into a bitter debate about feminism, misogyny, online harassment, and media conspiracy that was both intensely polarized and highly politicized. (99)

Elsewhere, Marie Antonsen, Kristine Ask, and Henrik Karlstrøm write an editorial note in the Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies They observe (quoting partially to avoid copyvio):

The newest example of large public engagement on an international level, the hashtag movement #gamergate, exploded on social media in August 2014 and has generated almost 3 million tweets since. It has become a focal point for a range of grievances in game culture, but ethics in game journalism and the role of women in games and game culture are the most prominent and polarizing. For those concerned with the role of women in games the movement, which has been repeatedly linked to cybermobs harassing female game critics and -makers, has itself become proof that games and gamers are sexist. For those troubled by corruption and politicization of the games industry, #gamergate is a much needed grassroots movement. #gamergate has, among others, resulted in a sub-campaign called “Operation Digging DiGRA” in which gamers band together to read through game studies papers to demonstrate that the research on gaming is actually ideologically compromised activism that aims to impose a censorial content control on games. …

However, in the case of #gamergate, it is the explicit goal of many of the participants to exclude groups of people, particularly women, from the debate and from the game industry and limit women’s rights as citizens.

I'm unsure if the latter source is available outside of a paywall.--Carwil (talk) 04:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Paywall sources are completely fine, as long as its clear the article does exist and can be obtained by any member of the public (provided they pay a reasonable fee). --MASEM (t) 04:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

References

I have access to most academic journals online as part of uni's library service. I'd be willing to look at and add information from journal sources if no one else editing this article can access them. Bosstopher (talk) 09:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

'Overwhelming Majority' vs 'Most'

Hi! I don't believe WP:PEA in the Manual of Style is appropriate to reference when making this kind of edit. When considering the difference between 'overwhelming majority' and 'most', it's very clear they are talking about different degrees of size. I believe nearly all the sources we are currently using that comment on its concerns dismiss them, which reflects 'overwhelming majority' moreso than it does 'most', and as such I have reverted your edit. If you disagree, feel free to discuss it here or on my talk page. Cheers! PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:53, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I forgot to include this talk page discussion in my edit summary- my apologies. An aside: Does anybody know how to add in an edit summary after the fact? PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Some people do a null edit. As for "overwhelming majority," is that an observation made by a reliable source? Thargor Orlando (talk) 12:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like we've had this argument 20 or 30 times. Each time overwhelming is taken out, and eventually it weeds its way back in. Ries42 (talk) 13:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Because it is a far more accurate descriptor of the fact that no reliable sources say otherwise. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

But the lede doesn't say "reliable sources" it says commentators. Ries42 (talk) 13:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Why would an encyclopedia article need to specify that it was only using reliable sources? No encyclopedia bases content on non reliable sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well if you're talking about what commentators say, that would imply you're saying what RSes have said it has been described as. HalfHat 09:51, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

So, in other words, it's original research? Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: can you please cite where "The Columbia Journal Review et al" states "most" commentators saying what our lede currently claims, and why you believe "most" is more accurate than "other?" You've chosen to edit war so far, but not explain your edit or cite your work. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Did you read the article? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:33, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

(I've changed the title of this section.)

I did. Can you answer my question please? Thargor Orlando (talk) 01:40, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

As I see it, both 'most' and 'overwhelming majority' are references to quantity. I don't see either as being different to each other except in terms of size implicated- I don't think one is more emotive than the other, for example. If we are okay with talking about quantity of commentators in the lede (aka if you are okay with using most) you should be okay using 'overwhelming majority', given that it more accurately reflects the number of those reliable sources we use who denounce the movement compared to those who don't. In order to make it more clear that we're talking about reliable sources, I'm also going to call them 'commentators in mainstream media' as opposed to 'commentators', given that concern was raised over how 'commentators' by itself would be interpreted. Let me know what you think! Is there a better phrase than 'overwhelming majority' that also clearly describes just how many reliable sources denounce it compared to those who don't? PeterTheFourth (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

In considering original research related to this statement, we as a tertiary source can make rough quantitive calls when considering the number of sources, as long as it is an obvious result and we keep to broad terms. For example if we were talking film reviews, we fairly state that a film was well received, poorly received or had mixed reviews simply by editors' observation of the number of positive and negative sources, and if we can't easily make the call, then it falls to the default "mixed". Here, it is completely fair to call out "most" commentators because that is fairly obvious from the source. But to use the more contentiously precise language "overwhelming majority" is original research because it is a more subjective call and thus requires a secondary source to express the number to that size, which we do not have anywhere (much less about the lead). As such, "most" or "a majority" are acceptable terms, but not "overwhelming majority". --MASEM (t) 04:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If it's agreeably contentious, then I agree that we should find better phrasing than 'overwhelming majority'. I disagree with simply using 'most', but it's preferable to 'majority' which simply indicates something greater than 50%. Does 'vast majority' have the same issues as 'overwhelming majority'? Would 'a great majority of commentators' be less objectionable? PeterTheFourth (talk) 04:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the PC Peter made, precisely because of the reasons Masem stated above.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 04:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Would people be okay with me reinserting 'commentators in mainstream media' in the meantime, or is that also contentious? PeterTheFourth (talk) 04:56, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

"Many" or "several" also work - again, it is very obvious from a simple GNews search which way the opinion falls. Leaving it without a quantitative qualifier does beg, in context, if this was a minor viewpoint or not. It is not - we do need to state somehow this wasn't a few isolated commentators but a large number of them. --MASEM (t) 05:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Since we're really discussing a proportion or ratio, "most" would be most accurate. Something like "many" or "several" could mean just a few out of perhaps tens or hundreds of sources. I would also argue against "commentators in mainstream media" because that should be assumed. Woodroar (talk) 05:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure how 'commentators in mainstream media' is an improvement As opposed to non-mainstream commentators? In other words, I think it is implied they are mainstream.Two kinds of pork^Makin'_Bacon 05:14, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm specifically referring to the complaint Ries42 made, which I admittedly did view as frivolous. It's still worth considering ceding to points where readers may be confused, which I'm glad we've done in this case. Seeing general consensus, I can agree that it's not at all a point of confusion for most of Wikipedia's literate readers. PeterTheFourth (talk) 06:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

"Commentators in media" could include every blogger on the planet, in which case the statement would be very difficult to quantify. Clarifying mainstream limits it to our body of RSes and that makes "most" easy to observe from the sources. --MASEM (t) 16:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Ries42 above, it's extremely inaccurate to estimate what proportion of people hold an opinion if we don't qualify which kind of commentators, specially without a reliable source making the claim that we can refer to. To be accurate we should refer to "most commentators used as reference for this article", but that only says something about the criteria used for selecting sources, is not informative about the world. Lacking a reliable source that analyses the frequency and king of commentators holding certain opinions, it's best to avoid the synthesis and omit any quantifier. Diego (talk) 07:34, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Diego, if you have reliable sources that do not denounce gamergate, you're welcome to add them. I invite you to re-read WP:SYNTH and understand what it's about and what it's not about, because I feel you're misusing policy when you say it discourages the use of quantitative language when talking about sources. Masem mentions film review sections on the articles about films, which frequently make these kinds of quantitative judgements based on the reliable sources, and are perfectly fine. PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

It's worth being aware that "mainstream media" carries linguistic baggage; The article on the phrase notes that it has history in internet circles as a pejorative and euphemism for 'disreputable from our perspective'. If qualifying who is saying these things is necessary, is that the best way for us to state it? Sappow (talk) 09:35, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Full article protection has expired

I have copied the latest revision of the draft to the main article, which is no longer protected. The full protection expired today at 1413 GMT. --TS 14:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Wasn't there a process last time to merge the edit logs? Ries42 (talk) 14:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

It's messy and doesn't really work in cases like this. The process last time was to do a copy and paste and note that with a template. Which I've done above. I'll see if I can dig up the last time this was done to make sure. Found it here. — Strongjam (talk) 14:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure that was a good idea. Do we actually have consensus for the draft version? I'm not reverting at the moment, but I'm considering it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:37, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Previous discussion was pretty supportive of it. With one oppose and one comment that I'd count as an oppose. — Strongjam (talk) 14:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

There appeared to be strong consensus that a January 19th revision was better than the current main at the time. I don't know of any major changes since then. Of course the article is here on a wiki so it can be improved, so if you want to do so, have at it. --TS 14:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, that was a specific version of the draft. The draft has been changed since then. This looks like TS took the latest version of the draft. There were some... interesting edits made between the consensus was reached and the protection was dropped. TS, did you take the consensus version or the latest version of the draft? Ries42 (talk) 14:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Diff between the consensus version of the time and the version copied. I don't personally think there is anything controversial there, and some changes that if were reverted would probably upset some people, the change to the paraphrasing of Givens for example. — Strongjam (talk) 14:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

My point being that the consensus was not for that draft. Ries42 (talk) 15:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The number of changes are small an uncontroversial. If they don't have consensus it would be more productive to target specific changes rather then try to reset back to Jan 17th and have everything re-hashed here again. — Strongjam (talk) 15:13, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Long overdue, thanks. In the event of protection being restored we should consider rolling back to this version as a baseline. Artw (talk) 15:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The significance of Wikipedia being a wiki is that there is no authorised version of the article. I copied the latest draft revision, which in my estimation is likely to command the strongest support among editors. I'm allowed to make mistakes. Please do try to improve the article in any way you can. That's why it's here on a wiki and not in a dusty old leather-bound book. --TS 15:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Assuming everyone behaves and the mainspace page keeps stable under semi, would it make sense, purely to avoid disruption, to lock down the draft and attach a note that editors are encourages to edit within consensus/policy or request edits to the mainspace page? If the mainspace page does get locked down again, we can then unprotect the draft and repeat the process again. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As a causal editor who has watched but not partaken in this aah "battle" I think the above suggestion is valid and we should do the utmost to adhere to a firm protocol that tries to maintain civility and discussion on this controversy. BerserkerBen (talk) 16:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Masem has been discussing a proposal to reorganise the article for over a week now. I think this would be a good opportunity to overwrite the draft with Masem's proposed section heading skeleton and start to fill it in, so we will have a chance to see what the proposal looks like in practice. --TS 18:48, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Loaded language and POV in the intro

My edits correcting the loaded language and the POV in the intro paragraph have been reverted. The current opening sentence includes heavy POV phrases such as "as a result of sexist and misogynistic attacks targeting a number of women" and defining the whole backlash as nothing more attacks ranging from harrassment to death and terrorist threats, without giving any information or context regarding the controversy itself. The later two sentences in the opening section define the controversy without providing any mention to accusations of wrongdoing and corruption that form the crux of the backlash, and more unsourced and POV claims like "overwhelming majority" allegedly having dismissed the concerns.

Whatever views one may have on the whole issue, this heavily biased tone is absolutely ridiculous, shameful on the part of Wikipedia community, and would not be tolerated in any other article. --386-DX (talk) 17:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Post your version here, lets discuss it BEFORE starting up the edit war again. --BerserkerBen (talk) 17:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I also recommend that you check out the ArbCom case relating to this article and looking over the talkpage archives before taking on the wording of the lead.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:31, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Its an accurate description of events that is supported by references in the main body of the article.©Geni (talk) 17:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well then we should be able to cite each ever claim from the main body then. Consider for a moment the Spanish version (I won't assume you can read Spanish so put it through Google translator) notice they have citations for every claim. BerserkerBen (talk) 17:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Leads are article summaries. Individual wordings can't always be cited in the same way as in the body of the article. In a case like this, the article as a whole should be considered mandatory reading for anyone suggesting changes.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

As the Manual_of_Style regulation states "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article." I would say this is a controversy and it would be best and in Wikipedia precedent if we cite every sentence of contention. BerserkerBen (talk) 18:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

While my personal preference would be to have footnotes in the lead, the consensus is otherwise. But if you are having difficulty identifying which of the sources support what you have identified as "loaded language," i suggest you try reading, well ANY of the sources used. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Generally agree with RedPen here. The Land (talk) 18:39, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This is the english wikipedia. If you wish to discuss the spanish wikipedia article I suggest you do so on its talk page.©Geni (talk)

Agree with Geni, it's an accurate representation of the sources and summary of the article. Especially "as a result of sexist and misogynistic attacks targeting a number of women" is an accurate summation of why our sources say the controversy is notable. — Strongjam (talk) 18:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

But the lede is not about why the article is notable, it's about an accurate summation of the topic, of which harassment is a part of it but also not the entirety of it, as the lede suggests. Plus, the "majority" language continues to be original research and a synthesis of sources. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:LEAD Yes, the lead IS about why the article is notable, and is a summary of the subject. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The MOS:LEDE most definitely is about why it's notable. My personal preference for the "majority" language has always just been just to drop it and say "but commentators in ..." — Strongjam (talk) 18:25, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Then we're still being misleading with the POV of how we're presenting it, beyond the existing synthesis issues. My error on expecting the language at WP:LEAD to be a little more sane. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

What synthesis issues? Hipocrite (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

What reliable source mentions the "majority" of commentators or whatever? Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:24, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This is a specific case of being a tertiary source, it is not original research to note the relative proportion of sources speak towards something, as long as we are using very broad and demonstrably obvious descriptions - this is the common situation when describing, say, multiple critical reactions to a published work to say if it was well-received, mixed, or poorly received, and with any more demanding accuracy requiring a source for that. It is undisputable most sources (and here, we imply mainstream media and academic sources) that speak to GG are negative of it, so we don't need a source, just avoid superlative language (eg for me, using "most commentators" over "a majority of commentators" is accurate but vague enough. Previous language had "an overwhelming majority" which does beg the need to source that better. --MASEM (t) 23:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok is there any reason NOT to have citations in the lead? I just don't see why we should not. I cited another wiki using citations in the lead for this controversy, and I have citated the rules specificially saying there is no specific regulation against having citations in the lead.BerserkerBen (talk) 22:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Since we're summarizing material based on 159 sources (at current count), we could theoretically require 159 sources in the lede. We probably wouldn't need that many sources, I hope, but I'd say about a third of them are cited multiple times, which means they're probably critical sources. So let's call it 50 sources in the lede, which for 4 sentences is 12.5 sources per sentence, all of which would have to be checked every time someone wants to add some nuance to a sentence or tighten the language, maybe juggle some phrases around to make it flow better. To me, that's the single best reason. Woodroar (talk) 23:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Because this article already has enough problems with being a bloated morass of overwrought compromises, the last thing the lede needs is a dozen citation notes after every controversial sentence. Which is all of them, apparently. Parabolist (talk) 23:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Why would we need 50 sources in the lead? The Spanish version manages 9, at most 2 per sentence. We have only 4 sentences in the lead so that would be 8. So it appears perfectly possible for us to use a few select citations.BerserkerBen (talk) 01:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

So we should because we can? The guideline on citations in the lede explains that since the lede is a generalized summary of the article, it usually does not require citations because everything it states is repeated in greater detail below, with citation. With that in mind, what in the lede do you believe needs citations, because it is not supported and cited in the article itself Parabolist (talk) 01:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I cited the guidelines, in bold above, it specifies for controversial issue sources in the lead may be warranted. Well since you ask: anything people complain is "controversial" in short it makes it harder to change something that is directly cited, more so you can say "something was done about the complaint, stop complaining."BerserkerBen (talk) 02:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Right, I understand what you mean, but if we added citations to every sentence someone complained about, this page would look more like a phone book than an encyclopedia article. Just saying "cite something in the lede somewhere" isn't helpful, without actual reasoned suggestions for changes behind it. Which sentences in the lede do you believe are not repeated in greater detail with citations in the main article? Parabolist (talk) 02:07, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The Gamergate controversy is synonymous with the hate campaign. Gamergate began with accusations of ethics violations, which have been universally identified as false and disingenuous. Thus, the discussion of "ethics" is part and parcel with the harassment of the perceived critics, particularly Quinn and Sarkeesian. In short, the #gamergate tag is a manufactured controversy as part of the overall campaign. There is no defensible reason to suggest Gamergate is anything other than a campaign of harassment, unless you can provide credible sources that show the original "ethics" complaints were sincere and well-founded. There is further no reason to hedge the well-documented misconduct of people engaged in the campaign. Pawsplay (talk) 02:08, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Note that 8chan has directed people to use the Spanish version of this article and import it here, with Loganmac being the main interpreter. They are using direct messages and private forums to push fringe and untrue translations into English Wikipedia. 2604:4500:0:0:0:0:0:5722 (talk) 04:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

How do you create a new Draft?

I'm not exactly sure how to do it... I'm interested in mocking up Masem's proposed article layout so that we can have something to look at. Could anyone help me set up a new Draft to do so? I would love help in laying it out as well, but I can take care of that if no one is interested until seeing the final project. I'm not intending to make any (or many) content changes, and hope to take no more than 24-48 hours to set it up so we can move forward. Ries42 (talk) 17:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:DRAFTS should have everything you need. I've never done one that way before, but it looks fairly straight forward. As an aside, I agree with this method for large-scale organizational changes. It should help avoid week-long discussions about theoretical changes and move us forward toward something actionable. Woodroar (talk) 18:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I was hoping someone would put Masem's skeleton outline into a user sub-page and flesh it out there. As the draft is no longer in use you could just go ahead and overwrite that (which I think would be preferable overall). --TS 18:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:DRAFTS is more about topics that do not yet have articles, for options related to existing articles, user sandboxes are probably preferred. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:22, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I could be wrong, but I get the idea that the community has been moving towards AfC and Draft-space over User-space in the last couple of years. A lot of it has to do with having a central space for articles where they can be worked on by the community, and also to avoid elements of "this is my userspace, hands off!" I personally don't care if someone wants to take a crack at it in their user space—keeping WP:BLP and everything else in mind—but Draft-space seems significantly more transparent. Woodroar (talk) 18:26, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I've done the heavy lifting in the draft. It'll definitely need fine tuning from here, but the basic draft is up and running. I'll take a look at fine tuning in a little bit. Ries42 (talk) 18:57, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Oh, it looks as horribly unbalanced on the page as it did in my mind. We shouldn't put the most important part of Gamergate into a criticism, as if the major topic were some ill-defined "movement" and all negative statements were mere "criticism". We've had months, still ongoing, of really awful stuff all coming neatly under the rubric of Gamergate controversy. That's why it has that name. --TS 19:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I've done some reordering as I spoke to, though it is far from finished. There are two major sections that I need to work through carefully. The last part of the Organization section needs to be moved elsewhere but after checking a few things in my mind. The "Debate over Ethics Allegations" needs to be worked through to pull out the core ethics pieces from the broader "but ethics!" complaints. Note that I am keeping some of the more specific complaints about the group where it is. --MASEM (t) 20:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Okay, rethinking this , I think I hit on what makes this read better to me. There is criticism specifically aimed at the movement itself that cannot be misattributed/misidentified to anyone using the hashtag (that's the lack of organization and the ethics debates). The issues of misogyny, gamer identity, and political views are more broader than just the movement and would include anyone that used teh GG tag (so includes everyone that did harassment), so those I put into a broader analysis section, and pushed the misogyny part to the start (as this is the key point of discussion). Not saying the draft is perfect now, but I think adding a specific "criticism of the movement" section gets better balance there. --MASEM (t) 20:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

reference order

The reference section is impossible to navigate. How can we fix it? Alphabetization? Something else? Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

You can create a separate reference list as in Peasants'_Revolt#Bibliography. Are you sure you really want to start a debate about a new reference format, though?

Peter ^Isotalo 18:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe he just means the reflist in source. Personally I've just been copy and pasting the reflist into Notepad++ and using the find tools there, been getting by OK with that so far. — Strongjam (talk) 18:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

That's actually a really good idea, didn't think of that. Still a navigation nightmare, but it's a short term option. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe it's used in every single video game FA we have as well as in natural science articles.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Expansion of lede?

Generally, the lede is meant to be a reflective summary of the rest of the article. The current lede seems a bit...short. For an article this size, I would think two good sized (five or so sentences) paragraphs would suffice. More than what's currently there though. Silverseren^C 19:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Previous consensus was that it was too long and it was cut down to what it is now. Personally I have no problem with an expanded lede (within reason.) — Strongjam (talk) 19:06, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

What started to happen with the expanded leaded (we did have 4 mid-size para at one point) is we get into various details that, to be fair on summarization, had to include equivalent details, and because we were aiming for something that could be left unsourced (per suggested lede practice), it made for a lot more conflicts on if the lede fairly summarized the article. The shorter lede was meant to reduce as much of the perceived conflict of the situation and avoid editors continually demanding for citations. --MASEM (t) 19:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, the issue of conflict or disagreement isn't really a good reason to not strive for a better article. If we have to get consensus for one sentence at a time, so be it, I guess. Silverseren^C 19:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Changed the lede

Old:

A self-described Gamergate movement say they are concerned with ethical issues in video game journalism. However, the seemingly-unorganized movement has been denounced by most commentators and viewed as enabling the harassment, with the movement's stated concerns considered trivial, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics.

Gamergate is widely viewed as a manifestation of a culture war that is resisting the diversification of gaming culture, the recognition of video games as an art form, social criticism of video game tropes, and the impact of these things on gamer social identity.

New:

While Gamergate supporters contend that their movement is about ethical concerns in video game journalism, the seemingly-unorganized movement has been denounced by most commentators and viewed as merely enabling the harassment, with the movement's stated concerns considered trivial, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics. Gamergate is widely viewed as a manifestation of a culture war that is resisting the diversification of gaming culture, the recognition of video games as an art form, social criticism of video game tropes, and the impact of these things on gamer social identity.

I don't think the choppy sentences or the two tiny paragraphs are anywhere near as good as them combined. Comments/concerns that I can fix? Hipocrite (talk) 19:32, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I personally prefer the two separate paragraphs because it clearly deliniates that the "movement" paragraph has ended, and the "themes" paragraph is not directly addressing the "movement". Further, although it may be clunky or choppy, the two sentences in the first paragraph avoids issues with SYNTH, and separates what "supporters" say versus what "most commentators" say and avoids WP:SYNTH issues with combining them. Also, the single long sentence almost gets to the point of run on.

Perhaps instead of "A self-described Gamergate movement" it would be better to say "The self-described Gamergate movement". I don't think there is more than 1. Ries42 (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

My personal preference would be more like this:

While Gamergate self-identified supporters contend that their movement is about ethical concerns in video game journalism, the unorganized movement has been denounced by most commentators and viewed as merely enabling the harassment, with the movement's stated concerns considered trivial, false, conspiracy theories, or unrelated to ethics. Gamergate is widely viewed as a manifestation of a culture war that is resisting the diversification of gaming culture, the recognition of video games as an art form, social criticism of video games, and the impact of these things on gamer social identity.

Overview of what's changed:

1. Added self-identified which I think address Ries42 & Masem's suggestion, but reads better to me.
2. Dropped "seemingly" from "seemingly-unorganzied" Seems to imply a shadowy organization behind the scenes.
3. Added "false" to the list of what commentars think of some of the ethical concerns of the movement. This will probably be the most controversial item.
4. Changed "social criticism of video game tropes" to the broader "social criticism of video games".

Criticism welcome of course. — Strongjam (talk) 19:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

What are we attributing "most commentators" to? Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

And yours still has WP:Synth concerns. I don't like the whole "While XXX, really what is happening is Y" dichotomy. Yes, sources have said words to that effect, that isn't the issue because they aren't claiming that the supporters themselves said that. If we're effectively drawing from the sources that the supporters themselves would use, we are then synthesizing their view INTO the commentators. They should be seperated, and we shouldn't be using "While... but..." language. Ries42 (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I do like some of it though, how about "Self-identified supporters of the Gamergate movement say... . However, the unorganized movement..." Also, I disagree with the inclusion of "false". Unfounded would be a better word choice IMO. Ries42 (talk) 19:52, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, how do you like a shortened final paragraph that says "The overarching Gamergate controversy is viewed as a manifestation of the culture war over gaming culture diversification, artistic recognition and social criticism of video games, and the gamer social identity." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ries42 (talk • contribs) 19:54, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually meant to drop 'most'. However I do think eventually this is going to be WP:SKYISBLUE territory. There aren't many sources at all that don't take one of those positions. — Strongjam (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

"While" is the word that makes paragraph 2 work as one series of thoughts as opposed to 2 random sentences strung together. Can someone explain why it's constantly removed? Hipocrite (talk) 23:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I have. Several times. You have not engaged me in that conversation. Please scan up to see why and address those points. Ries42 (talk) 23:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not doing this "scan up," thing, because this talk page is poorly maintained. Point me to where "while," was discussed, specifically, please. Hipocrite (talk) 23:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Are you kidding? Read my posts. Each time before I make an edit, I attempt to discuss it on the talk page. Please point to the specific posts where you have made a discussion post on the talk page BEFORE your unilateral edits please. Not after. Be specific. Ries42 (talk) 00:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

You do not have any right to ask, let alone demand that people discuss before they edit your proposed wording. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree. If someone is going to make an edit immediately after my talk-page discussed edit, I think its only in good course to discuss that edit before its made on the talk page. Would you like it if I immediately changed your working after you spent time discussing it on the talk page? That seems like common courtesy to me. Ries42 (talk) 00:39, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you missed this at the top of every edit box Work submitted to Wikipedia can be edited, used, and redistributed—by anyone. If you had established a wide consensus prior to your entry of content , but you certainly cannot claim that. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

A different suggestion

Could I suggest this for the lede?

The Gamergate movement, controversy, or hashtag has been described as a highly partisan, deeply political, online conflict. The conflict has gained considerable notoriety due to threats and harassment, with specific attention granted to the harassment of several female figures in the public sphere. Opinions differ quite pointedly regarding the distinct intentions of the movement.

The movement is best known for the blame of levying threats and harassment over an extended period towards Zoe Quinn, a game developer, Brianna Wu, a game journalist, and Anita Sarkeesian, a game critic. However, other figures have similarly received threats, including but not limited to promises to rape, murder, or otherwise bring harm to other people. These acts have been widely decried as misogynistic by a broad variety of sources, and the threats have been the point of most discussion regarding the movement. As a result of these threats, much has been said in regards to the culture of gaming, its demographics, and its interactions with the feminist movement.

Supporters of Gamergate have insisted that the movement did not begin nor was ever intended to commit harassment, and they counter that they have been primarily motivated by unethical behavior within the press, citing concerns of collusion among game journalists. However, the movement has remained disorganized, functioning from the base of web forums, and is therefore noted to have a lack of unity in its focus. YellowSandals (talk) 23:20, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I have serious issues with this lede - it does not summarize the article, and it leads like a newspaper overview, not an encyclopedia article. Hipocrite (talk) 23:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Granted the article probably needs a re-write to be less partisan as well. I write as part of my profession, actually, so this may have more voice than we'd prefer for an encyclopedia, but I think the above is fair, truthful, and accurate, and it doesn't foist any motives or presuppositions onto the article's subject. YellowSandals (talk) 23:40, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with this change at all. Rather than reframing the lede, its changing the meaning, implying that Gamergate supporters are not misogynistic but rather unorganized, their points are not groundless rather they lack unity. I feel this change, rather than being fair or truthful, is distorting the issue...Sheriffjt (talk) 23:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

But it does lack unity. There's not a unified goal within Gamergate. There are people who, based on plenty of things we can source, have ethical qualms with the press or other issues. Gamergate isn't specifically misogynistic, but it's not specifically about journalism. It's also not specifically about Feminism. The harassment has gotten the most press coverage, but nobody is actually coming forward to claim the harassment or admit that it's part of a broader scheme. All of these things are components of Gamergate. None of these things are the one thing Gamergate is about. The only way you'll write a non-partisan article is by understanding how each components are involved and legitimately present. Supporters don't think they're misogynists and opponents don't think there's ethics problems. Maybe let's not take a side and instead just say why these various people think these things. YellowSandals (talk) 02:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We need not worry about sides. We aren't here to pick the opinions of various stakeholders to represent. We aren't in this controversy, not even as a 'middle-ground' or mediator. We're not balancing or judging or developing any positions. We just reflect what reliable sources have discussed about this as a topic. We maintain an academic distance, we have no concern for being a representative for the involved parties. Darryl from Mars (talk) 13:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

"Opinions differ quite pointedly regarding the distinct intentions of the movement." I have a lot of problems with this suggested lede, but I'll start with this. The opinions of whom? People? Journalists? Former U.S. Presidents? A lede should be lightweight, but this is downright ephemeral, and says nothing except creating a false weighted equivalency in the opinions of our sources. Also, the second paragraph seems to imply, through mis-ordering, that the "other figures" received much harsher harassment than the named victims. I'd try to workshop more of this, but I don't think this lede has wings at all, honestly. It's competently written, I'll grant you that, but it's hardly encyclopedic. Parabolist (talk) 23:50, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

If you think you can work it into a more encyclopedic style, changes are welcome. I'm used to writing to engage readers, so like I say, it may have too much voice. As for the harassment thing, I'm trying to convey that those three women are the most well-known subjects of harassment but that it's not limited just to them as far as discussion has gone. YellowSandals (talk) 03:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The major issue of the proposal is that this article is not about the so called "movement" aspect - as a "movement" it is non notable. This article is about the controversy raised by the vile vile harassment and the subsequent discussion of sexism and misogyny in gaming. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The movement itself is quite notable. Under the heading "Gamergate organization" you can see many citations and quotes that talk specifically about the movement. Shii (tock) 00:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

They analyze it as a "movement" and dismiss it entirely. It is only notable in that it spawned/has been used as transparent cover for vile vile harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Some do. Others don't. This is a very reputable source examining the movement. Ries42 (talk) 01:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Look the title is gamergate "controversy", not "movement",perhaps you should consider starting a "gamergate movement" article BerserkerBen (talk) 02:03, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If we are going to move away from "Gamergate controversy" I would suggest "Gamergate harrassment campaign", since we know that's a thing everyone agrees exists and has notability, whether or not any "movement" does. Artw (talk) 03:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry but there's no way in anyone's mind that's a neutral version of the article to call it that. It downplays any sources that do argue a push for ethics and improvement for a sole focus on claims of harassment? How does that fix anything? I'm not saying the claims don't have any merit to mention here, but to focus solely on them seems counter-intuitive.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with this text's efforts to obfuscate what the controversy here is; the notability here is about the misogyny of parts of the gaming community being brought to wide public attention through GamerGate. It's also incidentally terribly written - it would need a complete rewrite if we wanted to adopt a tone like that. Brianyoumans (talk) 05:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We are to be neutral and impartial, so we can't take the tone the press has taken with GG. We need to present the press's side as the predominate view on GG, but their tone and condemnation of GG is not accept for us to take under NPOV policy. --MASEM (t) 05:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

As I explained above, the need to be neutral and impartial requires that we go along with reliable sources; we must report what they say without the sort of emotional judgment you are trying to bring to bear against them. I can sympathize if you feel that the press is unfair or inaccurate, but Wikipedia is not the place to try and confront that; from our perspective, if the majority of reliable sources say that the topic is primarily noteworthy due to the harassment and misogyny associated with it, then we must make that the primary focus of our article; it would be a violation of WP:NPOV to do otherwise. --Aquillion (talk) 06:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't question that the primary reason this article exists is the attention the harassment got, but we should not pretend that is the only reason. There's plenty of coverage of the other facets of this, albeit in fewer amounts. I will say based on doing the editing on the draft with the suggested order as encourages by Tony, that it is probably better not to make it about the movement as there are parts of the controversy that are exclusively target at the movement (ignoring the harassment) and then parts about the overall situation which is targetted at the combined group of the movement and those that have done the harassing. The point though is that it is not a good strategy for consensus and neutral editing to fixate too much on the harassment aspect - it will get predominate focus, but focusing on that and ignoring other parts we can source leads to an imbalanced article. --MASEM (t) 06:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

in terms of this lead diff [16] by Aquillion, putting the culture war stuff before the claims of the GG side is not proper. The article is not ordered in that manner, and we've already hit the crux of the GG issue, the harassment, in the first para. We only get to why GG is seen as a culture war over gamer identity after we've explained why GG has posted ethics issues, and as such that paragraph in the lead needs to come second. --MASEM (t) 06:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

My bad, my head was wrapped around the reorged version on the draft version. I still think in the broader sense the culture war stuff should come after we've explained the movement's ethics, but that needs the overall article to be that way, not just the lead. --MASEM (t) 06:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(ec) Yeah, as you said, the article currently is ordered in that manner; and, more importantly, I believe that the majority of sources in the article have clearly described the ethical issues as being an outgrowth of the culture war (that is, a concern driven by the fact that many people believe that their ideological opponents have used illegitimate methods to push their views in video-games.) The lead must reflect what the rest of the article says, which means it has to reflect that; I know we've had this discussion above (at length!) when it comes to the ordering of the rest of the article, but either way, lead sections have to reflect what the article says and, like the article, must reflect the coverage in reliable sources in proportion to the prominence of the views in those sources. --Aquillion (talk) 06:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that consistency I can't argue against. I'm still not sure if we need to highlight the one time threat of shooting in the lead when we have identified death threats (If anything, the doxxing has happened more often and should be put there instead) already. Also, the wording on the movement and ethics concerns is clunky, "Some people" comes out of nowhere, but I can't figure out an easy neutral rewrite. --MASEM (t) 07:08, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

"GamerGate," not "Gamergate"

"GamerGate," with the second capital G, is the far more common capitalization for this controversy, and, as far as I can tell, the one Baldwin used in his tweet coining it and in all tweets thereafter. It is, by all accounts that I can concieve, the proper capitalization. (Yes, I know it was Watergate and not WaterGate, but this article is about GamerGate, not Watergate.) Garrett Albright (talk) 04:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We've discussed this before, and per MOS guidelines, "Gamergate" is the better way to present the the title throughout. The casing is sources is not sufficiently consistent (even if it is how it might have originated.) --MASEM (t) 05:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

MOS or no, it's incorrect, and to any degree that the casing is inconsistent, "Gamergate" is the less widely used and frankly just looks wrong to anyone with a familiarity of this topic, so it's not "better" either. For whatever it's worth, the arbitration pages for this mess got it correct.

I don't understand how frequent Wikipedia editors can bemoan their own declining numbers but then make it such a fight to change the simplest yet most blatantly incorrect things. Garrett Albright (talk) 15:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The problem is, how is it incorrect? Baldwin's initial tweet might have been camel case, but today, the case choice is not clear, and there's no authority to tell us what is the "right" name. While camel case may be the more common option, either way is correct, and there is a house style that WP does write towards to make reading comprehension by editors where English might not be their first language easier. I do note that most "-gate" scandals don't capitalize "gate" - on WP or elsewhere (like the current "deflategate") so its wider used style to not capitalize the "gate" part. --MASEM (t) 16:17, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Deflategate actually redirects to camel case, FWIW. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 17:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It must have moved as the standard casing version seems to be the one to stick. Even then, going to google news hits, it's clearly the common casing as opposed to camel casing that's most common.--MASEM (t) 04:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

With lack of some kind of authority to tell us which one is correct, let's find reasons to pick one or the other. I already laid out my reasons why "GamerGate" should be used; it's what Baldwin coined, and it's far more common. What are the reasons to use "Gamergate?" Garrett Albright (talk) 04:09, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

CamelCase words are not common english and per WP:MOSTM are generally rewritten in standard casing. As an example, see List of scandals with "-gate" suffix that all of them as standard casing. --MASEM (t) 04:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with keeping it as it is. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 12:39, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit (to Include gamer/pro-GamerGate perspective)

[Original edit request removed by user. Shii (tock) 08:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)]

Lightja

So, where did you copy-paste this from? A new editor who immediately posts a massive rewrite, full of wikicode, but is unable to format it correctly, reeks of someone delivering a hot and fresh POV-load from some 8chan board. This comment seems relevant. Parabolist (talk) 05:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Pfft. *laughs* Yeah, no. You're exactly the kind of SPA that the discretionary sanctions are meant to be enforced against. Silverseren^C 05:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I didn't copy+paste it from anywhere, and yeah this is my first time editing on Wikipedia. Normally everyone involved does a pretty good job of objectively getting all the information right. I had just spent a particularly long time looking into this subject for my own reasons, and it seems that the page was pretty heavily biased towards Sarkeesian/Quinn. Admittedly, I didn't quite match the standards expected, but then again, it's my first edit. What do you see wrong with it besides the formatting? As for the 4chan stuff, a lot of this originated there, and that's honestly, the major side of it, that isn't currently be represented. I can probably find a slightly better source for that particular piece of information, or not focus on it. Lightja (talk) 05:43, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Please read the pages WP:RS to understand why we can't use imgur as a source, and WP:OR to understand why we can't make serious accusations about journalistic ethics when no sources have done so. Shii (tock) 05:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I think it was a bit imposing to come in on such a busy page. I incorrectly thought it was being neglected, not just so busy that there was this much behind it. Because it was my first edit and the protection of the page, literally the first thing that I saw was only AFTER I posted anything, at which point I realized that it definitely was not the best way to go about things. I'll read through other proposed changes and give much smaller suggestions. I deleted the vast majority of my request. Thanks for making Wikipedia so awesome! Lightja (talk) 06:04, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Lightja: Glad to hear you have come on board. For future reference, Internet forums, etc. are not valid sources when you have to collaborate on a public wiki with others who may be skeptical of your claims. Even Internet-related articles must use good reliable sources, for example DeSmogBlog#References. Shii (tock) 06:06, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Shii: Thanks for the warm welcome. My original post was very cringe-worthy... I do know that Internet forums are not typically considered a valid source, it was probably a mistake to include that picture at all, as I didn't quite 100% anticipate what the implementation process would be. I definitely would not now. Not sure if you saw all my sources (don't blame you if you didn't), but I'm pretty sure that was the only questionable one, though I'll ask about them as I see useful. I do think that a major difference between media and player community beliefs are making it harder to find reliable sources that express views similar to what is found among the You-tube community. @Parabolist you can be sure I'm not trying to import some spanish translation from 8chan, though your suspicions are totally understandable. Looked super sloppy among the others I'm sure, but I'll be sure to remedy that from here on. (talk) 06:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The summary at the top of the GamerGate Controversy seems to be non-neutral. Since the opinion of media, and therefore a majority of reliable sources, is very different from the gaming community (via YouTube, forums, etc) I'll be exploring potentially useful reliable sources exploring the pro-gamergate angle (or neutral angles). I'd be interested to hear from some of the more experienced editors as I integrate myself a bit more fluidly into this process. Bear with me, I am new.

Method article: Why GameJournoPros is a problem, and why it is not. Medium discusses the implications of the journalists working together, and how that affected how reporting on this incident was handled. Even though they did argue and not always share the same perspective, they ultimately ended up working more or less together, with the one exception being the Escapist Magazine, which Greg Tito hosted as a place for interested parties to discuss as long as they followed the forum rules. >Shows multiple instances of the editors/writers/administrators of various Games Journalism sites delay their actions to discuss them, or try to convince others to follow suit. Does this give any credit to the "Gamer Journalism Ethics" side of the argument?

Also: I have 4 separate sources where Kotaku writer Patricia Hernandez writes about 4 of her friend Anna Anthropy's Games and books, as well as another where Hernandez writes for a separate friend, Christine Love's, game. Since the Gamergate scandal, Kotaku has required her to disclose all of her previous relationships, which now she has done completely as far as I can tell.

Forbes article: What GamerGate is Actually about... Forbes discusses how the two oppositions: Gamers vs Media are both wrong about what Gamergate means, and it is actually just a representation of the separation between the Gamer and Media intent/understanding. I agree with this a lot, even being very pro-GamerGate.

Lightja — Preceding undated comment added 15:44, 27 January 2015‎

Hi again Lightja. First of all, please don't rewrite your talk page posts entirely, but make a new post when you have something new to say. You can learn the details of how to use a talk page here. (You could have also learned there not to post large blocks of wikicode to this page.)

The Forbes articles have been discussed before. As you can see, Erik Kain's posts are currently cited over 10 times in the article.

Medium.com is actually a blog host in disguise, not a news website, so it is not RS. You yourself can write a post on Medium.com if you want your blog to look cool.

Last but not least, mere accusations that a primary source is engaging in unethical conduct doesn't mean we cite them as an example of ethics violation. GGers seem to have very high standards of ethics but I have yet to see a source that is willing to back them up. Shii (tock) 08:15, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Gamergate is a term used by supporters to publicly denounce claims made by games journalism that videogames, their consumers and the videogame industry as a whole are inherently sexist. This is all the Forbes article explains, and goes on to explain Gamergate supporters regard claims of sexism as mere "clickbait" resultant of recent trends in online publication. Lightja was in no way asking for an official stance on the validity of either side, nor is he/she asking that you "cite [anything] as an example of ethics violation". They are explaining that denouncement of claims of sexism repeatedly made of certain journalistic circles, regardless of personal stance or legitimacy, is the core of Gamergate. An article on Gamergate must at least explain Gamergate as a concept, just as the neutral Forbes has done.--ImpliedFibre (talk) 14:47, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I was talking about his statement, "I have 4 separate sources where Kotaku writer Patricia Hernandez writes about 4 of her friend Anna Anthropy's Games and books, as well as another where Hernandez writes for a separate friend, Christine Love's, game." Shii (tock) 14:55, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

To address this clarified point though, it would be difficult to include your proposed version of what the "the core of Gamergate" is, based on Erik Kain's perspective, without giving him undue weight or creating a very bloated section. His perspective is one contradicted by most of the other RS for the subject, and there's no real reason to consider him a particular authority on the subject outside what you see as his "neutrality". The article's job is to report on the general consensus of the RS, and that is a current Kain is swimming against. This doesn't mean he's being ignored, however. In fact his other articles are among the most often cited in the article. Lord Lion Lad 15:37, 27 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordLionLad (talk • contribs)

I'm done.

Content better posted to user talk page. — Strongjam (talk) 14:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
There is no such thing as collaborative editing being done on this article. I've tried. I've tried to talk about my edits before making them, to discuss with people the issues, only to be told I'm the one edit warring. I would like to bring nuance and perspective. But that is clearly not what many people on this article want. There are way too many people with a POV to push, aggressively. I'm not going to name names. That's not the point of this post, nor will it help matters. This is just me taking a step back. I know it has affected me, even when I attempted to not let it. It has permeated several others, whether he or she wants to admit it. I implore them to step back as well. For their own sake and sanity. I'm not leaving WP, and I even may eventually return here when it isn't so radioactive. I felt like we actually had a decent thing going with the Draft and protected article. Editors were forced to be civil. We didn't always agree, but there was courtesy. That was tossed out the window yesterday when the protection dropped. Now there is panic over the pending Arb Com decision and the articles that were pushed by "reliable" sources, despite their factual inaccuracies and clearly slanted view. I'm not talking about against GG, I'm talking about the articles attacking Wikipedia itself. This isn't a war. The fact that the media is trying to make it one, and that there are several editors feeding and pushing that is absolutely deplorable. I don't have the stomach to fight it though. So I'm done. Ries42 (talk) 13:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC) Don't leave, report people. The more eyes we get here, the better chance we have at an article within the project's policies. It's the only way out. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC) Thank you for letting us know. I too strongly hope for the day when this article is edited by people who are here to support Wikipedia's policies and mission. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC) This appears to be more of the battleground mentality that is driving people away, especially with the piping. Please stop. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2015 (UTC) If you feel any editor is simply on wikipedia to push a POV, and is doing so against policy, you're welcome to report them. You sound like you have a lot of evidence to be making such sure statements, and I look forward to you proving that you're not simply making stuff up. With hope- PeterTheFourth (talk) 14:10, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Scale down use of the Guardian here

Reliable sources are "published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". But it has come to light that the Guardian is publishing articles on this topic that employ no fact checking and are in fact inaccurate. I think this would be hard to dispute.

I think the Guardian has to some extent disqualified itself as RS for this particular topic. This has nothing to do with how it's used elsewhere on this website. I've accordingly removed several superfluous citations to the Guardian, and one sentence where it is used as an informed opinion. I ask other editors to confirm the validity of these changes. Shii (tock) 16:39, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

While the article on the case from the Guardian is a shameful display of poor factual reporting that we can actually demonstrate (eg published before the case was closed, and misstating the reasons users were blocked) it's also one article, out of thousands. And past experience shows that the Guardian does normally have fact checking and the like throughout many more topics, so no, it does not make sense to cut down Guardian coverage due to one article. Perhaps review articles and information we use from the Guardian written by Alex Hern, but not reduce or eliminate it. We need to show a larger pattern of "mis reporting" to begin to show a problem, which I doubt we'll see. I believe it's really only this specific author in this case to consider. --MASEM (t) 16:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

That's a good point, but I think we do have a larger concern than just Alex Hern -- were the Guardian's usual fact checkers asleep at the wheel for this specific article alone? It does seem to cast their entire management of this topic into doubt. I'm not doubting the many other sources being offered for the claims cited to the Guardian. Shii (tock) 16:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Mistakes happen. One poorly fact-checked article doesn't spoil the entire thing. Further, there's two things to consider: one - once the ArbCom statement goes around, the Guardian may issue a correction or similar statement apologizing for the mistake, and that's "good" for what we expect of an RS - that if they did get it wrong they attempt to correct or the like. The other thing is to see if they do continue to report on this if they do not correct themselves or continue to report mistaken facts that we can easily verify against, which would show a pattern of a problem. I would object to removing articles from the Guardian otherwise not penned by Hern, until we have more points to consider. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Would this be better to raise at the WP:RS noticeboard than here? PeterTheFourth (talk) 16:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I think for the time being Masem has made a good point; it's too soon to judge the paper by this single article, since a correction might possibly be forthcoming. I've reverted my edits accordingly. We should take a second look at the claims being attributed to Hern. Shii (tock) 17:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Aren't we supposed to report the sources and not the truth? The claims in these sources haven't been challenged by other sources, and we can't use Wikipedia as a source itself. Are we allowed to dismiss sources just because we're participating in the dispute and know the truth and that the reliable sources are lying? That seems rather ironic given the article we're on right now. Weedwacker (talk) 17:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this has much to do with the Guardian or even with Gamergate, but with coverage of Wikipedia in general. Most journalism just doesn't get us and our funny ways. Woodroar (talk) 17:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much this. As with everything, Context Matters. In the specific context of Wikipedia politicking, Hern and possibly the Guardian as a whole might be worth watching more critically in the future. But they've been consistently fine when it comes to the context of the wider controversy, and even the general Gamergate sections in Hern's article weren't the controversial parts. His citations on general events within the article are in fact each corroborated by 2 or 3 other Reliable Sources, so I'd say they're pretty safe. Lord Lion Lad 17:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Use of "sexist" and "misogynistic"

Claiming the Gamergate movement was responsible for "sexist and misogynistic attacks" is unsourced and non-neutral.

Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian are people, and to state attacks against them and their controversial actions are instead attacks against women as a whole and the female sex is a dangerous and irresponsible statement to make on such a public forum without substantial evidence.

Gawker Media and similar publications have chosen to emphasize sex at various points, yet there is no evidence Gamergate supporters hold any specific views on sexuality. Zoe Quinn has been involved in a large number of controversies, including alleged attacks against thefineyoungcapitalists and depression support group Wizardchan, and was never a stranger to harsh criticism. Opinion pieces by large enough journalists are not enough to label all criticism of her and others or the movement as a whole simply "sexism", nor do they deserve to be explicitly labeled as such in an apparently neutral article.

I propose these accusations be reworded until more substantial evidence surfaces. --ImpliedFibre (talk) 17:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Discussed in some detail at Talk:Gamergate_controversy#Loaded_language_and_POV_in_the_intro further up the page. The Land (talk) 17:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It's a tricky point but I think it's the best wording we can work with. The attacks (not the movement) have clearly been described as sexist and misogynistic by the press because they focus on women. I have argued that we cannot apply those terms to the movement in WP's voice, but in describing the attacks (and not directly associating those with the movement) in that manner in WP's voice is actually reasonable, because that's how the press and academic sources has seen the attacks, that can't be changed no matter what the motives of GG's goals are. All the stuff you describe in your second para is not about the reason for the attacks (or at least I hope not nor can we source that in connection to the movement) but the ethics issues, which are described elsewhere. The lead carefully balances this factor, recognizing that "those using #gg hashtag to harass" and "GG movement" are not equivalent sets.

Or to put it another way, the way you are phrasing the above is that you are say "Yes, GG has harassed Quinn et al but not because of sexist or misogynistic reasons but because of these reasons", and I'm pretty sure that's not what we want to say, that's frying pan into the fire right there.

When we actually talk about the movement, we do make it clear that the outside perspective is the one that takes the view that the movement is sexist/misogynistic and do not speak that in WP's voice, since the movement has claimed different. --MASEM (t) 17:48, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, over 20 of the cited sources do in fact use some variation of this terminology in their titles alone, to say nothing of the body of the articles, which I have to imagine bumps that figure up quite a bit. To say that language is "unsourced" is a perspective divorced from the reality of the reliable coverage of the controversy. The "non-neutral" complaint is also misplaced, as wiki policy on neutrality demands proportional representation of events and perspectives. Large proportions of the sources characterise the attacks in this manner and it would in fact be a violation of neutrality to imply otherwise in the article. Lord Lion Lad 17:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Aside from what LLL just said, the attacks on Quinn, Sarkeesian, and Wu include rape threats. No doubt about the misogyny there.--Carwil (talk) 19:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We as Wikipedia cannot make the leap of original thought that rape threats equates to misogynistic attacks, but we have more than enough sources to make the leap for us, to make that clear.--MASEM (t) 19:53, 27 J anuary 2015 (UTC)

• • added by Danieljames626** I throughly support what you are saying. I have not entered in on #GamerGate at all up until now and I have not been writing on wikipedia in the many years I have been a member and supporter because I don't believe in talking just to add stuff that has already been said. But seeing this article shocks me. This is the first time, in my experience of specific accuracy arguments and wikipedia controversy where I have seen that people, whose agenda runs counter to the principles of wikipedia have taken such a level of grotesque control over a topic for the expedience of their own political and biased agendas. It is really sad to see. The people who seem to have control, in this wikipedia topic, over the definitions and depiction of narrative do not even seem to be required to have logic or reason constitute a part of their arguments; just pure politics. For example, whether one person is attacked or not, is NOT grounds to suggest the alleged attacker, let alone an entire movement of other individuals is mysogynistic. But the writer is an intelligent person who understands this and is, yet, using language in such a way to further an opinion, despite facts or reason and regardless of KNOWING that they are misrepresenting reality. This issue is not about all women or even feminism generally; GamerGate, as I watch from the outside percpective, is clearly about something else. But, importantly, this topic is not a demonstation of the principles upon which wikipedia has been built and, furthermore, it is one thing to say that 'wikipedia is not a battleground' after one side as already taken the high ground and refuses sane, alternate comment. What I see is the defence of a strange hegemony. I will not call it feminism because I greatly respect the achievments and literature that has come from feminism over the decades but there is some other strange movement which seems to be posing as feminism, which is abusing the principles of both feminism and wikipedia to peddle absolute nonsence. It is sad to see what is happening to Wikipedia, as evidenced in the obvious, protected bias and bigotry expressed in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danieljames626 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

False information with no citation?

Hello, I am fairly new to editing Wikipedia articles. I noticed there is much false information, perhaps even disinformation, that is provided without any citation. I have attempted to remove such information, but my changes have quickly been reverted. What is the correct procedure to remove false information from Wikipedia that has no references to back it up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike20599 (talk • contribs) 18:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Which information are you talking about specifically so we can address the issue? Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

There are plenty of sources for the material you removed. See the Gamergate hashtag section of the article. Shii (tock) 18:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Editor removed from the lede "These attacks, which were often performed under the #gamergate [[hashtag]] or by people connected to it, included online harassment and death threats, and were frequently coordinated and promoted within subforums of [[Virtual community|virtual communities]] such as [[Reddit]] and [[8chan]]; at the most extreme, they included a threat of a mass shooting." The Gamergate hashtag section is what the lede bit is summarizing and that section has plenty of citations. So many edit conflicts — Strongjam (talk) 18:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Your edits to Leisure Suit Larry make it clear that you don't care in the slightest about citations. Please explain why we should be paying any attention to the latest gamergate agender pushing single purpose account.©Geni (talk) 20:40, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I concede that there are citations in the body of the article. However, the information provided in those articles is still untrue. Can someone explain to me how Wikipedia verifies the authenticity of information in cited articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike20599 (talk • contribs) 18:36, 27 January 2015‎ (UTC)

You're going to have to be a little more specific as to what you're protesting. I don't want to assume or guess, but we can help with specifics. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:39, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm asking in more general terms. Let's say there is an article on Wikipedia that has information that is incorrect. That information has a citation. The fact that it has a citation doesn't make the information any less incorrect. I wish to correct the false information. What am I to do about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike20599 (talk • contribs) 18:46, 27 January 2015‎ (UTC)

Either find a reliable source that backs your belief that information is incorrect, or write the publication you feel is wrong and convince them to correct. Suggest you also read WP:V and WP:VNT — Strongjam (talk) 18:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In that case you can "challenge" the content formally by following the steps described at WP:BURDEN, and other editors can "defend" the content by stating what references they think support the content. I suggest that you read the Neutral point of view and Verfiability policies in full before challenging content under "WP:BURDEN", though. This is a lot of reading, but it's expected before you can contribute to controversial topics like this. Diego (talk) 18:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

With a case like this, honestly, it's probably best to raise those concerns here. Other articles are easy to just fix, but this is obviously a pretty controversial area. So my suggestion would be to tell us what information is correct, and with sources that explain why or give the correct information. Please review our rules on what a reliable source is before linking here, though, so we're not running around in too many circles. Newspaper articles, magazine coverage, those are good sources. Blogs, YouTube videos, probably aren't. Thargor Orlando (talk) 18:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:BURDEN seems to just say people have to provide citations from a reliable source. What if the so-called reliable sources are making false claims? And the only sources refuting those claims are not "reliable sources"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike20599 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Mike, you're being a little vague right now. If you believe that there is a source making false claims, or if false claims exist in the article, please list them here. Many of us are eager to help you out on this, especially if it's an issue we've missed up to this point. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:24, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Alright, I'll try to be more specific. I believe that much of the information in this article is false or misleading, even though there are many citations from many "reliable" sources. Gamergate has brought light to these sources' unethical behavior, so in retaliation they have written false and misleading articles against Gamergate in order to undermine the movement's credibility. But since they are considered reliable sources, their word is treated as Gospel by Wikipedia. And the system that Wikipedia has in place seems to be, "Only reliable sources can provide reliable information. Those sources are considered reliable because they provide reliable information." Does no one sees the circular logic behind that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mike20599 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Mike, be sure to sign your comments with ~~~~ so we can keep track of attribution. Which claims are you speaking of? This is still very general. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Mike20599, and welcome to Wikipedia. Posting on the talk page should be the first step, as you have correctly done. However, for your fellow editors to be able to help you address your concerns, they need to know what they are. Could you please specify your concerns here for the benefit of other editors? Thank you. Gamaliel (talk) 18:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

There is actually one part that I would say might not be supported by sources and that is saying the attacks were frequently organized in Reddit/8chan. That Reddit/8chan forums were used to organize, yes, but we don't have evidence/sourcing for frequency. It is true that Reddit/8chan forums were a central hub of that, and we know but can't yet source that one specific 8chan forum (baphomet) is a highly problematic one not just to GG, but it's bit disenginous to implicate all gg forums in this manner via the word "frequently". At the moment I don't know how to wordsmith that better. --MASEM (t) 19:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We could just leave the language as "various internet forums" without singling any specific ones out (especially since we know it's not limited to Reddit and *chan). Remains accurate without picking and choosing. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It is not so much which forums, but that saying that frequently these forums were used. We don't have a lot of sources that affirm the origins of the harassment in every single case. What I'm worried about this is that it is tying what we know about the organization of the movement using Reddit and 8chan to the harassment under the GG hashtag. There's a way to wordsmith it to show the harassment was coordinates on boards (verifyable), including Reddit and 8chan (verifyable), just not every single time that the frequently provides. These attacks, which were performed under the #gamergate hashtag or by people connected to it and sometimes coordinated in forums on Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan, included online harassment, revealing of private information, and death threats, including a threat of a mass shooting at a public speaking event. is a suggested rewording. (Note this brings in 4chan (Verifyably, but only for the initial ones to start), and noting the doxxing part of this that is also critical to include. --MASEM (t) 19:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

How do you feel about this? These attacks, mainly performed under the #gamergate hashtag and sometimes coordinated in forums on Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan, included online harassment, revealing of private information, and death threats, including a threat of a mass shooting at a public speaking event. I feel like it combines the language into something clearer, while also making the bit about coordination flow better into the sentence. Parabolist (talk) 20:23, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm fine with that but lets get more eyes to review. --MASEM (t) 20:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Fine with me. — Strongjam (talk) 20:29, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

One thing to note- Gamergate discussion was at some point banned from 4chan. Do we have reliable sources that indicate as such? Do reliable sources show 4chan as as a significant hub of organisation as they do 8chan? I think it's disingenuous to include them in the same sentence as equivalent without any clarifying statements, but I'm really not sure what the RS's say about the matter. PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes , we actually have a good RS on this (I think it's a WAPost article without looking) It's explained some GG stuff started at 4chan, and when discussion was banned there, 8chan became a central point. (This is also tied to the steisand effect which is also sourced). We have sources that say it started and then moved from 4chan to 8chan. --MASEM (t) 23:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Pruning Superfluous Additions

I will first off apologize ahead of time for any errors I make in using this talk page. I am still relatively new.

Anyway, I wish to bring up an example of something I do not understand, and have not received a reply on. In the second paragraph of the History section there is this sentence. "Shortly after the release of Depression Quest on Steam in August 2014, Quinn's former boyfriend Eron Gjoni wrote a blog post, described by The New York Times as a "rambling online essay",[7] containing a series of allegations, among which was that Quinn had an affair with Kotaku journalist Nathan Grayson.[8]"

As far as I can tell, the section ", described by The New York Times as a "rambling online essay"," is entirely superfluous and serves no benefit beyond a jab at Gjoni. As I am new, I may have missed something which clarifies why this is needed, in which case I would like to know what. If there is not a reason, I feel it would be best removed as it adds nothing to the understanding of the controversy. 173.89.145.97 (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It's there to represent the mainstream POV of the post. That particular quote was chosen as it was the most neutral of the descriptions. Strongjam (talk) 19:33, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I admit, I fail to see why a description of the post is needed. A summation of the history does not need to detail how the press thought about it, unless somehow that response was relevant to the controversy itself. As is, removing that section leaves the sentence as a simple statement of fact, leading into the more relevant sections dealing with harassment. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 19:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The response of the press to GamerGate is a big part of the controversy, though. There should be note of the opinions of mainstream media, which makes this useful to have -- even if it could be better stated and detailed. // coldacid (talk|contrib) 16:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Is there a reason we need to have any sort of descriptor of the post at this stage? Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

To accurately reflect the POV of reliable sources of what most sources credit as the beginning of the whole controversy. — Strongjam (talk) 19:45, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Why do we care about what "most sources" credit about one point? We don't attribute every single claim being made, why should this be different? The discussion you link to assumes we're okay with this sort of description, the question is now raised as to why we need a description at all. I'm not seeing the benefit from a NPOV standpoint. If anything, it seems to be asserting a very specific point of view by assuming the opinion of one source is the best way to describe something that doesn't need description and exists in the article on its own informational merits. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We care about representing "most sources" because, you know, its policy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:09, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Policy does not require us to attribute random musings about a specific point, especially if it violates one of our five pillars. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

As been repeatedly stated, it's not a "random musing." It was chosen from a wealth of examples as representative of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on the topic. — Strongjam (talk) 14:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

And as has been repeatedly stated, there has been no clear rationale as to why we need to attribute anything to this specific point. Can you provide one? Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:YESPOV. As others have said, RS that have covered the post have noted on the tone. It is not neutral for us to ignore that. The NY quote is representative of the overall description used by RS and is the most neutrally worded. I've said all I have to say on this matter I don't feel this debate is moving forward at all. — Strongjam (talk) 15:07, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

It may be worth taking a closer look at this now that some of the heat has burned off. I'm not sure I see the value in continuing to have it in there, even as I was agnostic about it before in general. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:34, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I think its important for context, without the mentions of length the reader could leave the article assuming Gjoni posted a paragraph on his tumblr or something. To be honest perhaps a quote noting the word count would be better, but there is a general consensus amongst sources for rambliness. Bosstopher (talk) 20:01, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

That consensus is clearly in question. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't something like "Shortly after the release of Depression Quest on Steam in August 2014, Quinn's former boyfriend Eron Gjoni wrote a several page blog post, containing a series of allegations, among which was that Quinn had an affair with Kotaku journalist Nathan Grayson" work better? We cover length, while removing the unnecessary quotation in an already quotation heavy article. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 20:08, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

To make something clear, since I fear my purpose in bringing this up may be misinterpreted due to the heated nature of the article, I bring this up in an attempt to make the article more 'matter of fact'. I feel that this, and any, controversy would be best stated with only the bare facts to the viewer, allowing them to come to their own conclusion. I have my own biases, but I think we can all agree that if one side is 'in the wrong' than their actions should speak for themselves, so adding on pointed language seems... irrelevant to the purpose of an encyclopedia. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 19:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

You're right. The article shouldn't try to persuade the reader that Gjoni is a fraud, and this statement should go, because it's not our policy to drop in colorful language from NYT or elsewhere. Shii (tock) 20:00, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Describing the tone of Gjoni's rant is absolutely critical, because its the event that began this whole mess. This isn't some small detail, the RS describe its tone specifically, and so should we. This is not a neutrality issue, the sources all describe it in similar ways, and a large discussion between editors came to that phrase with consensus. Parabolist (talk) 20:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It is kind of a neutrality issue, as we (as a project) are taking a position on the piece by including some sort of description of it and by choosing one and not others. No one is arguing that we shouldn't include note that there was a post that began the mess, but describing the tone is not something I'm currently convinced is neutral. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:10, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Then, no offense, you should reread the articles that describe its tone. Gjoni's 'essay' was not some dispassionate expose, it was an emotional, spiteful, and gross emptying of his dirty laundry onto the metaphorical floor. How we know this is verifiable is because sources knew it was important enough to specifically describe the tone of his post. Wingfield wasn't just padding out his article with adjectives. A lengithier discussion, for everyone to peruse, on this exact section of the article is here. Parabolist (talk) 20:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

That's already been linked once before. News outlets are able to (and often encouraged to) be non-neutral in their descriptions. The question is whether we need to also wade into the gutter, or if we're going to remain NPOV about the situation. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

We report that they report. Considering that the passage in question is not only quotes, cited, but also prefaced with the fact that it is the analysis of the NYT author of the article, I have no idea why you think it violates NPOV, especially considering that Wingfield's opinion is not uncommon among those who have reported on it. 20:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC) Parabolist (talk) 20:30, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Mainly because there is no need to report anything about it, as far as I can see. It exists whether or not we attribute anything to it, and by picking one random comment to attribute to it, it creates a few POV problems. What other reason is there to include the description except to make a statement, in Wikipedia's voice, about that post? Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, an attributed opinion, in quotes, is absolutely not in wikipedia's voice, and I encourage you to reread the NPOV guidelines if you somehow think differently. Secondly, this is not a "random comment." This is the most representative quote of an opinion shared by multiple reliable sources, from the New York Times, one of the most reliable news outlets in the US. This is getting ridiculous. Parabolist (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I actually have problems with it on non-NPOV grounds... which was the entire point of my clarification. I suggested something above, that translated the generally-accepted view of it by reliable sources into a much simpler, non-quote manner. a "many page blog post" says everything the reader NEEDS to know about it. The harassment that ensued is more important than qualifying the post itself. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 20:41, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Please explain why we should be paying any attention to the latest opinion gamergate agender pushing single purpose account. Yes the facts spoil your creation myth but that isn't really our problem.©Geni (talk) 20:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I do believe this would be both Bad Faith and a personal attack. Entirely unwarranted at that. Yes, I support GG, yes, at this time I appear to be an SPA, though that is only due to me not being entirely familiar with the workings of Wikipedia, so I am keeping myself restricted to a single general topic until I get me sea legs. The thing is, I am choosing to do this work politely, using only facts, and constantly keeping in mind the principles and requirements of Wikipedia. I will explain nothing to you, if you cannot at least address me civilly. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 20:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If you wish to get your sea legs I suggest working on articles related to pre-Victorian naval artillery. Its a large topic area with plenty of work to do and a much better area to lean than one in which you have a significant personal bias. Anglo-saxon ceramics would be another option. Hmm “using only facts” interesting claim. Thing is “The quote in no way increases a readers understanding of the controversy itself” is an opinion not a fact. If you want me to assume good faith I can only assume you don't understand the difference between fact and opinion.©Geni (talk) 21:15, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you should behave like newbie and not the 104th SPA gamergate advocate.©Geni (talk) 21:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

By including any sort of opinion, in this case, is us making a judgement of it. I'm very familiar with the NPOV guidelines, I am not new to this. Are you able to answer my question about what reason there is to include it? Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:43, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Its a significant point of view that adds understanding to topic that is well attested by reliable sources.©Geni (talk) 20:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Significant... how? The important part is the harassment that resulted, not the post itself. The controversy is about both the harassment and claimed reasoning behind both sides. The post, beyond being a trigger for events, is not as important as what resulted from it. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 20:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

How in the world is the trigger for the entire controversy not important to the article about the controversy it caused? Parabolist (talk) 20:54, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I stated it was not as important in my second sentence for a reason. It holds importance, just not as much as the controversy itself. Stating the triggers of the controversy is needed to lay the foundation for the rest of the article, this is needed to enable a full understanding of the meat of the article. The quote in no way increases a readers understanding of the controversy itself. It deserves mention that it exists, and that it was long as Bosstopher said, but it is not the controversy itself and thus holds a lesser degree of importance. To use an example: If a driver were to crash their car into a home, the fact that they hit a home and potentially hurt people would be more important than the fact the driver fell asleep at the wheel. It deserves mention, but the primary focus should be on what resulted, not how it happened. Mentioning further is simply not needed, and should be cut. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 21:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

It is important, that's why we include it. What's not important is what random news organizations choose to describe it as. That's the difference. Thargor Orlando (talk) 20:58, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

References

The only content of Gjoni's that is described is the part about Grayson. That allegation is rejected, so there is no danger of a reader being misled about what the mainstream view is. The aims of WP:DUE are satisfied. What anyone thought about Gjoni's writing style, or any content that's not notable enough to talk about in the article, is fluff. Rhoark (talk) 22:09, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Not really, as has already been mentioned the Zoepost ignited the whole thing, and has been the focus of some specific coverage with press interviews of Gjoni existing.[17][18] The length of the post is vital information. There is a massive difference in writing a paragraph about you ex, and writing a 10000 word essay with notes citations and appendices. There is also a difference between a 10,000 word bullet point list of grievances, and a "rambling online essay" these differences are important to capture. Also at risk of opening a massive can of worms, should Gjoni's self proclaimed motives for writing the Zoepost be noted? Bosstopher (talk) 22:25, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Here is where I surprise those who are determined ti mislabel me. The answer, I would say, is no. While I honestly believe his motives would make him look BETTER... I can think of no reason to add it to an article on the GAMERGATE controversy. Gjoni's post helped light a spark, but I feel it is not important enough to warrant beyond mentioning it. Though, I do have to disagree with something you said. The quality or aspects of the piece is, in my opinion, irrelevant. The article is about the Controversy surrounding GAMERGATE, no? Gjoni is not part of it, and even the sources say he only unwittingly lit the fuse. I agree mention of it is important, but I feel it should be cut down to merely mentioning there was a long post by him that triggered the events that would become the controversy this article is about. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 22:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

If it can be handled with BLP in mind...maybe? There's no reason to open the can of worms, though: perhaps a word similar to "lengthy" might suffice? Thargor Orlando (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I suggested above to use ""Shortly after the release of Depression Quest on Steam in August 2014, Quinn's former boyfriend Eron Gjoni wrote a several page blog post, containing a series of allegations, among which was that Quinn had an affair with Kotaku journalist Nathan Grayson.". Saying it was several pages would definitely get across the sheer length of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnsFenrisulfr (talk • contribs) 22:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@AnsFenrisulfr "The quality or aspects of the piece is, in my opinion, irrelevant." Unfortunately, past a certain point, it's not up to editors to determine what is or is not relevant about particular elements of the controversy. The sources that report on this particular aspect very often saw fit to provide a brief characterisation of the post, in the style of the NYT example. To ignore the way that sources characterise the post would seem to me to be irresponsible. Lord Lion Lad 00:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I can understand your point... but I disagree with it. If the article was about gamergate itself, I would have much less issue since then the quality of things that started it could be relevant to how the current movement acts. As is, this article is about the controversy, not the movement. Something I feel editors on both sides seem to forget. The quality of the fuse doesn't matter when talking about the controversy it started. What matters is the controversy. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 09:04, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I dont undertand your position that it would be important to gg the movement but is not important to the controversy. and there are in fact several sources that specifically tie the tone of the original post to the acts make up the controversy. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:45, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Right, how to put this... the Controversy deals with the back and forth. A said B about C who said D about A. What is more, the controversy itself doesn't really kick off until the large number of articles are posted and GamerGate itself is started (Prior to that, something else was in the space). With this said, the qualities of the Gjoni post are largely irrelevant, since they are not a part of the controversy, they are something that helped light a fuel leading UP to the controversy. (Plus the quote as is, is a debatable BLP violation).

With that said, if the article was about the movement itself, the qualities of the post might be a bit more relevant, since THEN characterizing how a movement began is more important. Why? To cut off this question. Because an article about the movement has more to do with the PEOPLE than the ACT. An article about a movement deals with the people in that movement. An article about a controversy deals with two opposing FORCES. Not people, forces. It is more impersonal, since the greater focus is on what has happened, not who it happened to, unless who it happened to is required to further flesh out the whys of something happening. So to summarize, the qualities of the post are largely unimportant to the article, because the article is dealing with actions done and not people. Or at least it should be, instead of the weird hybrid of what should really be two separate articles. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 14:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that including that language sourced to the NYT is less than ideal. We should write "wrote a rambling online essay," since a "blog post" implies that there was an active blog of some sort there. However, the language presented is the result of a substantial debate that took place Talk:Gamergate_controversy/Archive_18#Wingfield.27s_opinion_on_Gjoni.27s_blogpost among other places, and should not be revisited except as an agreed upon compromise being rescinded, which means we should revisit if calling the blogpost something in wikipedia's voice as opposed to the NYT's voice is appropriate. Hipocrite (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Some new perspectives on reliable sourcing

Have a look at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#The_Guardian.2C_Alex_Hern.2C_Wikipedia_as_the_Topic

The interesting self-referential quandary this article has gotten into lately seems to have generated out of necessity consensus for two interesting principles about reliable sourcing.

First: A work containing gross factual errors is not reliable, even if from a reliable publisher. Note the fact that errors exist in this case is only confirmed by WP acting as a self-source, not other reliable secondary sources.

Second: A work can be deemed opinion/editorial and treated as such, even if not presented or marked as such by the publisher.

It will be a large project, but I think over time the existing sourcing in this article needs to be reviewed in light of these principles. Rhoark (talk) 22:31, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

While I agree reviewing sources is important, I feel it should be done for a different reason. With all the edit warring that went on, I think all sources should be re-vetted to ensure that all of them, no matter which 'side' they are on, comply with Wikipedia's policies. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 22:36, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

• Massive changes to policy and interpretation of policy would need to be community vetted other than by a couple of voices on a notice board and attempts to implement the same before such community consensus would be rather disruptive. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:07, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree to this, though do you think going through the sources to make sure nothing slipped by in the heat of the moment would not be a good thing? I am personally uncomfortable doing such a thing myself, as I have no been on wikipedia long enough to know what red flags to look for. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 14:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Cherrypicking

This finding of principle has unanimous support in the proposed ArbCom resolution: "The contents of source materials must be presented accurately and fairly. By quoting from or citing to a source, an editor represents that the quoted or cited material fairly and accurately reflects or summarizes the contents and meaning of the original source, and that it is not being misleadingly or unfairly excerpted out of context. Failure to accurately reflect sources, whether by accident or design, is a serious matter as it undermines the integrity of the encyclopedia."

We presently cite this article: http://www.newsweek.com/gamergate-about-media-ethics-or-harassing-women-harassment-data-show-279736

to support this statement: "Newsweek/Brandwatch performed an analysis of about 25% of two million Twitter messages with the Gamergate tag from September 1, 2014 onward, and suggested from the results that "contrary to its stated goal, GamerGate spends more time tweeting negatively at game developers than at game journalists".

Reading the article, one finds they based this conclusion on tweets directed at a whopping six twitter accounts. It was also unable to determine the sentiment of more than 90% of tweets in the sample. This analysis is obviously utter garbage, and falls under the remit of my post directly above in that reliable publishers are not reliable when making gross errors. Failing that, its rampant cherry-picking and against the above ArbCom finding to cite the conclusion of this farcical analysis without mentioning how the analysis directly contradicts itself - no synthesis required on WP's part. Rhoark (talk) 22:46, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

That the algorithm used was not, on its own, able to automatically categorize 90% of the tweets without further human analysis does not imply that the overall analysis is "obviously utter garbage". You are taking lines from the study grossly out of context.192.249.47.186 (talk) 22:49, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The context is they have basically no idea who is tweeting what at whom. They don't know which tweets come from Gamergate. They don't know if they were positive or negative. They don't know who was tweeted at outside of 5 individuals and 1 corporation. The context is that they have no clue, and any citation of their conclusion without that fact is out of context. Rhoark (talk) 22:57, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

The fact remains that it is a cited, attributed, noteworthy analysis. We could poke holes in it all day, but, in this case, I don't think there's a problem with how we're treating it in the article. This aspect of the analysis (and we call it a study in the article elsewhere and that's misleading, and I'll change that) is getting one sentence and seems like the proper weight and play. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:05, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Again: the algorithm did not know who was tweeting what at whom. The analysis went on from there, and followed standard methods of assessing relevance from a statistical perspective. If you would like to constructively refute them, and add to the RS against their result, perhaps you could help author a peer-reviewed refutation of their method.192.249.47.186 (talk) 23:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

That would likely be original research and thus inappropriate. The Newsweek methodology is sound, statistically speaking, even if we can quibble with some of the choices. Thargor Orlando (talk) 00:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The process of editorial decisions, like determining a claim does not reflect the content of its citation, is outside the scope of page-content policies like WP:OR. Rhoark (talk) 02:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I feel like people must be reading an entirely different article than me. They said what the algorithm spat out, showing their big grey bars with slivers of red and green on the ends. Then they said it means Gamergate is bad. That's it. No analysis, no statistics. Definitely not anything like a p-value. Unless there's some kind of link to a Part 2 that I'm missing, they do nothing of the kind. Rhoark (talk) 02:35, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Hm, you actually have a point I wasn't considering here. What we have here is factually true, but also misleading based on the data. You're not wrong. I'd love to get some more feedback on this from other observers. Thargor Orlando (talk) 02:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Currently the observations this article is cited for are not in fact "Gamergate is Bad". They're the pretty uncontroversial points that examination reveals a lot of new accounts taking part in the discussion, and that game developers are being tweeted at much more often than journalists. Those are points based on the data gathered that aren't influence by the whole grey bars neutral or unclassified confusion. Additionally the original post on this topic is incorrect. The 6 twitter accounts displayed in the graphs were not the only ones examined, they were the 6 most mentioned. The "gross error" that supposedly invalidates its use as a source is an imagined one. Lord Lion Lad 03:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

You might be thinking of the medium piece that examined tweets. This says nothing about new accounts. It says nothing about how the 6 accounts were selected. Even if they are the top recipients, by the numbers given they account for about 5% of their sample of 500,000 #gamergate tweets. That enables them to draw precisely zero valid conclusions, not limited to the one we cite them for, "GamerGate spends more time tweeting negatively at game developers than at game journalists". (Edit: dropped a 0, its 5% rather than .5%. conclusions unaffected) Rhoark (talk) 03:37, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The article is cited twice. Once for each of the claims I mentioned. Taking another look it does seem like the attached claim is nowhere to be found in that particular article, though I do remember it being a Brandwatch where I first saw that info presented. Maybe in some kind of additional graphs left out of the main article? I can't seem to find anything on short notice though. May be something worth looking into all on its own.

Outside it being cited for something it doesn't seem to say though, none of the things you've brought up are enough to discount it being used as a source. It still doesn't contradict itself anywhere that I can see and the conclusion it's cited for in the Wiki article seem to be pretty self-evident from the pure numbers. It doesn't really matter how small a proportion of direct @ mentions make up the tweet numbers, there were still far more directed at one group than the other. This isn't as clear-cut a case of inaccuracy as something like the Guardian's Arbcom coverage. Until we have a reliable source rebutting it other than you, there's no reason to remove it. Lord Lion Lad 04:06, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I open a bag of M&M's and remove 3. Two are yellow, and one is brown. Do they contain peanuts? Rhoark (talk) 04:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm finding it hard to understand exactly what you're trying to say here, Rhoark. Try again? PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:13, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Can you tell, based on the color of 3 M&Ms from a bag, whether or not it is a bag of peanut M&Ms? Can you do that? You might take advantage of the fact that different flavors of M&Ms have different color distributions, but there would still be absolutely no way to confidently answer this question. A sample of just 3 M&Ms does not have statistical significance to tell you what the color distribution of the bag is. I'm asking anyone who wants to say they feel the article's statistical methods are valid to actually look at the (lack of) statistical methods they are talking about. OR does not apply to editorial decisions. You don't need OR anyway - you can just look at the graph that demonstrates in a very visual manner that they don't know what the tweets are. They could be cited for saying Zoe Quinn was tweeted at more than Nathan Grayson. It can be cited for saying their algorithm was able to find more negative than positive tweets. To cite it for saying developers were tweeted at more than journalists, or that there were more negative than positive tweets, without also mentioning its statistical failures, is to misleadingly excerpt the article. Rhoark (talk) 13:34, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

So thinking about this more, do we just introduce a more direct analysis into the article? Perhaps going with something better wordsmithed along the lines of "and suggested from the analysis of tweets showing a positive or negative tone, 'GamerGate spends more time tweeting negatively at game developers than at game journalists'. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:11, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

To avoid being misleading, the level of uncertainty needs to be explicit. I suggest, "A Brandwatch analysis of 500,000 #gamergate tweets beginning September 1 found significantly more tweets were personally directed at Zoe Quinn than at Nathan Grayson or Stephen Tolito. More still were sent to the official Kotaku account or "Gamers are Dead" author Leigh Alexander. Receiving the most individual mentions were Anita Sarkeesian and Brianna Wu, though all of the above represented less than 5% of #gamergate tweets. Algorithms were able to determine the sentiment of fewer than 10% of these tweets." Rhoark (talk) 14:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Or more concisely, "Based on Twitter mentions of seven selected accounts for which automated algorithms were able to determine a sentiment, constituting about 0.125% of #gamergate tweets over a period during September 2014, Newsweek concluded that Gamergate tweeted negatively at game developers more than at journalists." Rhoark (talk) 14:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand what you're attempting to do here, but the first option is too much and the second is far too caveat-heavy. What we have is one sentence in the article about this specific point from the analysis, is there a way we can tweak that sentence to be more accurate? Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Clearly Wikipedia editors attempting to use their own analysis to discredit a reliable source that has a decades long history of analyzing popular culture and who hired a professional social media analysis firm is PRECISELY the the type of disruptive behavior the ArbCom has noted is not acceptable. Drop the stick or you will be the next to go. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Determining the reliability of sources is a core function of a Wikipedia editor. No publisher becomes so reliable they get an automatic free pass. What is disruptive behavior is using threats to try to shut down discussion aimed at improving the article. Didn't ArbCom just personally admonish you about that? Rhoark (talk) 13:38, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

@TheRedPenOfDoom: this sort of response is more disruptive than analyzing whether or not to use a source. This is a civil conversation that may result in some positive improvements, so if you believe this analysis to be worthwhile as handled, a better tack might be to explain why you support it as used as opposed to using a better explanation. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

If you want to keep going down this path, do not say you were not warned. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

If you think that the analysis, as offered, is worthwhile, please share why. Discussion about the article is what we do on talk pages to build consensus. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The "analysis" as offered is not worthwhile as it inappropriately substitutes Wikipedia editor's opinions over the analysis of a reliably published source and a professional social media analytics firm. Please identify any manner in which the article content is misrepresenting the clear analysis presented in the source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:41, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd start with what I posted above. Would you have a problem with that adjusted language? If so, why? Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:05, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Does this count as a reliable source? An Actual Statistical Analysis of #GamerGate? UPDATED by CaineJW It debunks the findings of the Newsweek / Brandwatch "study" fairly effectively -- to be specific, the Brandwatch study did not say what Newsweek claims it said. KiTA (talk) 14:55, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

That would be an excellent source of great value to the article, except that Medium is a self-publishing platform. Rhoark (talk) 14:57, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

A quick google search of site:en.wikipedia.org "medium.com" suggests that it is used as a reliable source on many, many other articles. KiTA (talk) 15:00, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Then we need to clean those articles up, as most usages of Medium don't fall within our policies. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:05, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

To note, I originally had problems with the Newsweek article but as tRPoD has pointed out and as I came to recognize, to counterargument that does require SYNTH and OR we cannot include. As such, we have to accept that this is what the editors that analyzed the tweets and wrote the article concluded. But I will also note that that sentence in our article was written by me (or at least its start), and that it properly puts their conclusion (which they did state in with "seemingly"-type language) as just their conclusion, and not as an absolute fact, thus keeping what is included simply stating "this is their study, this is what they concluded", and letting the reader determine if the study is good or not. --MASEM (t) 14:57, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

There is a way to word it, however, to note that the distinction is made about those with a clear tone in either direction. Are you opposed to that language? Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:05, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I find it impossible to parse this section on cherrypicking. I'd say that cherrypicking is when you dig deep into an article to find a sentence that supports what you want it to say, as opposed to reading the first sentence that defines the conclusion and use that to summarize the source. In this case, it appears people want to use the source to say "Using an algorithm that looks for positive and negative words, BrandWatch found most tweets were neutral in sentiment," which appears approximately 9/10ths down the page as opposed to "an analysis by Newsweek found that Twitter users tweeting the hashtag #GamerGate direct negative tweets at critics of the gaming world more than they do at the journalists whose coverage they supposedly want scrutinized." which is the first statement summarizing the study made. Is that accurate? Hipocrite (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Essentially, the analysis shows that more negative than positive tweets occurred, but more neutral tweets occurred than either positive or negative, and by a large margin. Our sentence on the article instead suggests that the analysis is only showing more negative than positive tweets, which is misleading but not totally inaccurate. Thus my suggestion that we reword it to ensure that we're talking about the tweets with a specific tone. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:16, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess I'm confused, because when I read the article, I go to the conclusion (which is at the top of inverted pyramid article writing - which is what almost all news-analysis articles are). Could you explain why you are focused on the deep body, and accusing others of cherrypicking, if that's what you're doing? If you're doing something else, could you explain what you're doing, in a section titled appropriately, as opposed to "cherrypicking," which implies that other people are finding single sentences deep in the body of the article to cast doubt on the conclusion? Hipocrite (talk) 15:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Data scientists refer to these tweets as 'undetermined' because the algorithm did not classify the mention as either negative or positive." Neutral is not the right word to use here, as out-of-context it means something they did not intend for it to mean. — Strongjam (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe your quote is below the bottom of the article - I'd call it 11/10 of the way through, correct? Why are you digging for that quote and accusing others of cherrypicking by using a quote from the introduction? Hipocrite (talk) 15:24, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm just pointing out that calling the bulk of the tweets "neutral" would be cherry picking. Not suggesting we add that quote to the article. Quote from the intro is fine with me. — Strongjam (talk) 15:28, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Would it? I mean, is it really cherrypicking to see the graph, see mostly undetermined tweets, and then wonder if saying "more negative than positive" is really the most accurate reading? Maybe we shouldn't be using this article for this claim if the intent is what I'm seeing here. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:30, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Newsweek is a reliable source. You appear to be using the graph to reach a conclusion not stated in the article. I think that's a very exciting novel work that you've created, and I'd be excited to consider including it as soon as you get in published in a reliable source. Hipocrite (talk) 15:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

No one is saying Newsweek is not reliable, nor is anyone reaching a conclusion that isn't in the article. As editors, we need to use discretion in what sources we use and how we use them. If you believe my claim to be novel, please explain why as opposed to this sort of response that brings more heat than light. Thargor Orlando (talk) 16:02, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Essentially, the analysis shows that more negative than positive tweets occurred, but more neutral tweets occurred than either positive or negative, and by a large margin." -- this is absolutely false. If you read the analysis, these "neutral" tweets are actually tweets unclassified by the algorithm -- basically, they had an automatic sorter, and the sorter said "you're going to have to do these ones by hand". Classifying them as "neutral" is a gross failure to understand the classifications of the analysis.192.249.47.186 (talk) 15:59, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Video Game Industry and Media Critics" to "Video Game Industry and Media Commentators"

I thought this would be a fairly straightforward edit, but I'm making a section just in case people disagree. I don't really understand what's intended by characterising that large majority in the mainstream media who denounce gamergate as 'video game industry critics' & 'media critics'. It has legs beyond that, so I've changed the wording to commentators. Also, 'media critics'? That seems like really weird phrasing to use. PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:32, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I would appreciate somebody telling me how 'at the expense of not focusing on other, more serious, ethical concerns.' is supposed to be interpreted. Who's not doing the focusing here? It feels as if somebody has come in overnight and inserted some seriously sloppy language to the article which hinders readability. PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:35, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe it's supposed to mean that there are legitimate ethical concerns, but most commentators see GG as focusing on things that are either not ethical concerns or trivial. I believe we have sources to that say that, although I don't have them on-hand at the moment. — Strongjam (talk) 23:39, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

In that event, there might be a way to shorten the sentence and make it more legible. Instead of 'unrelated to ethics- at the expense of not focusing on other, more serious, ethical concerns', we could write 'unrelated to the actual issues of ethics in the industry'. Would this be an appropriate change? PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm ok with that, but lets give some time for some more editors to weigh in. Every change to the lede is inevitable controversial. — Strongjam (talk) 23:44, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

There is the other side though too, that GG essentially ignores the actual ethical journalistic issues from the AAA firms and big budget projects - ie Shadows of Mordor game paying reviewers for positive coverage of the game down and even dictating phraseology that needed to be used . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

That is a very poor example, actually. Since it was revealed originally BY a GamerGater, TotalBiscuit to be specific. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 00:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, if anything, the roots of GamerGate appear to be in situations like the Mordor game reviews or this. Thargor Orlando (talk) 00:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Example is still apt. The point isn't that they never bring up legitimate issues, rather that it's not the focus or that it's overshadowed by bad actors. — Strongjam (talk) 01:04, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The Mordor issue was specifically cited in a lot of coverage as something that GamerGate ignored because (as they say) it didn't fit into their specific culture war. While it is true that Totalbiscuit was involved in it at the start, he was denying being part of GamerGate at the time, and all sources seem to universally agree that it failed to "gain traction" in GamerGate the way, say, attacking Wu or Sarkeesian did. We have to report that coverage; saying "well, TB did it, and TB was later involved in GamerGate, so I feel it is connected to GamerGate" is original research. More generally, a huge number of sources have discussed the way GamerGate ignores eg. reviews being influenced by ad-purchases, and have connected this to the fact that GamerGate is primarily interested in fighting a culture war over gender politics (or, as its most prominent figures tend to put it, pushing back against what they see as the unethical way feminists and social justice advocates have advanced their cause in games and the media) rather than fighting for ethics in game journalism in a more general sense. --Aquillion (talk) 03:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

When things settle down more, and (hopefully) the reordered version I've proposed on the draft page is accepted, there are some aspects and criticism of the ethics angle that can be expanded on; the Mordor issue is one - I'm 99% sure I've seen a few sources go "where's the GG on this big scandle" and the reasoning Aquillion gives above. There's articles after GG broke from the VG industry journalists and developers going "Here are ethics issues we know exist..." but none that lined up with the GG side; arguably the whole thing with Intel's $300M and the industry recognizing they've created a sexist environment internally is a similar fallout or the like. That said, I am also very well aware that GG sides Gerstmann's outster from Gamespot and Doritosgate as fuel for their fire (and there are some VG commentators agree), but we lack RSes that cover this. This is what makes writing this article hard is that I know there are some truths on what GG have identified but with no sources that discuss it to include outside their own manifests, which fail RS (and to some extent, BLP) for this situation. --MASEM (t) 03:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly what Masem said, we lack the RSes for a lot of these things. Most RSes have taken up a specific viewpoint and not deviated from that view. Just worth the mention (I think) that Totalbiscuit himself says "The idea that 'Gamergate' did not care about this issue [Shadows of Mordor] has no basis in reality. Revisionist history, nothing more." HessmixD (talk) 08:37, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

per Masem isnt a policy. per WP:UNDUE IS policy and says that when "Most RSes have taken up a specific viewpoint and not deviated from that view. " THAT is the view that we report. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 09:46, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I disagree with the 'Video Game Industry and Media Commentators' characterization entirely; we use all reliable sources, and the statement encompasses covers all of them, not merely ones who are specifically focused on commenting about videogames or the media. Beyond that, saying "...according to the mainstream media..." in a Wikipedia article is redundant (and, I would argue, prejudicial in the sense that it tries to prejudice the reader against the majority of reputable sources by lumping them together under that characterization); we go by what reliable sources say, so if the majority of the reliable sources condemn something, we can just report that it is broadly-condemned. Even beyond that, though, we have many sources that, in turn, compile quotes and responses from other sources that don't fall into the general categories listed; these cover the overwhelming majority of commentators overall. Finally, I would add that it is absolutely essential to quantify the scale of each respective view (per WP:NPOV); that is, we must use words like 'overwhelming majority' or, at least, 'most', which were lost in some of the proposed changes. It is important that the lead make it clear that the dismissal of the ethics concerns (at least, as something separate from the cultural warfare aspect) is nearly universal across the broad field of all commentators. --Aquillion (talk) 03:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I consider "media commentators" to include those from the mainstream sources like NYTimes, etc. and as to distinguish from bloggers, etc (because from a blogging side, the GG has an overwhelming # of support, so we could not say "most commentators" unless this is clear.) Also "overwhelming majority" is both a weasel/peacock term, and reflects original research - meaning that someone had to go through and count sources and make that accessment. "Most" is a much fairer and non-OR way to state that. --MASEM (t) 16:08, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Pending changes

For everyone's information, I've put this article on level-2 pending changes, which means that only edits by editors holding pending-changes reviewer or administrator rights will go 'live' immediately; all other edits will require by a reviewer or administrator. The purpose of this is to prevent vandalism and BLP violations, and is in conjunction with semi-protection. Reviewers: Please accept all edits which are in compliance with policy, even if you decide to revert the edit on other grounds (for example, a BLP violation should be immediately reverted and should never enter the 'live' version; an otherwise innocuous edit that is contrary to talk-page consensus should be accepted and then reverted). In the event of misuse of reviewer privileges, advice will be offered in the first instance, but failure to heed that advice may result in your being asked not to use your reviewer permissions on this article or—as a last resort—sanction such as page bans or revocation of the permission. Please note that use of reviewer permissions to edit-war constitutes abuse and will be grounds for sanctions. Any editor with a good track record (as an approximate guide, I would say 1,000 edits, an account older than this article, and editing interests that are not solely confined to GamerGate and related topics, but really anyone with a practical understanding of BLP and other content policies) should feel free to ask for reviewer permissions on my talk page, by email, or at WP:PERM/RW.

As an alternative to lengthy spells of full protection, edit-warring on this article will be dealt with robustly, which unfortunately means sanctioning editors, so please watch your reverts. Finally, if anybody comes across any libellous material added to this (or any other article), whether or not it makes it to the 'live' version, please email the diff to me or another admin (or the oversight team) so that it can be deleted. My talk page is open for any queries relating to any of this. Thanks, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:50, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Lede: most commentators ... say GG ignored more serious ethical concerns

The lede made the point that most commentators ... have said that it ignored other, more serious, ethical concerns, focusing exclusively on ones that fit into the context of its culture war. I have hidden that sentence at the moment, because I am not sure whether this is such a hugely discussed point to warrant mention in the lede. Could someone point out where does the Wikipedia article state that most commentators feel that there is an ignorance of more serious ethical concerns? I did a CTRL-F on "ignore", and there is only one such use in the body (RE: Quinn) irrelevant to this issue. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 06:42, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Here, here, and here are citations appended to sentences that make this exact point in the text of the article itself, and that's without finding the other pieces that we aren't directly quoting that say the same thing. I found them by rereading the article, as relying on ctrl-f often leads to missing crucial details. Parabolist (talk) 07:20, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2015

The introduction of this article seems deeply biased and is written in an aggressive stance towards what seems to be the editor's opposition (supporters of gamergate).

Please review and be aware. 128.187.97.21 (talk) 07:26, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y"." Please try to present actual content changes you would like see. Using a template you didn't even read to demand we change the article in some vague way is way past useless. Parabolist (talk) 07:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Back to cleaning up the article?

Now that the worst abusers have been topic and site banned, can we get back to cleaning up and rewriting the article? I tried before only to have one of them harass and maliciously try to cause an edit war with me. This article is currently one of the most embarrassing articles on English Wikipedia. For comparison, the Spanish article on the subject is significantly more neutral, especially in the intro -- I would propose we start with a translation of that and go from there.

Gamergate has absolutely nothing to do with supposed sexism or misogyny in gaming despite the narrative the abusers who were banned were pushing, and it's time we start cleaning this article of it's non-neutral (and not-based in reality) POV. KiTA (talk) 12:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Feel free to propose the changes you'd like to make, and their supporting sources. There does seem to be a fairly strong consensus about much of the current article, though, so starting from a position of "this article is based on a POV pushed by a bunch of people who've been banned" is likely not a productive place to start. The Land (talk) 12:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Ok. Lets start with the fact that the article lede claims that this consumer movement is about "sexism in video game culture." This is blatantly not true, as defined by the actual people who participate in GamerGate -- for example, the primer posted on the gamergate wiki [redacted possible blp concern], which is notable as a primary / first hand source. For more traditionally published sources, here's noted columnist Erik Kain contributing to Forbes about it. Here's another by award winning Russian American journalist Cathy Young talking about how the controversy is much more nuanced. (As a bonus, she covers several points that are non-neutrally taken as "fact" in this article, such as the scandals relating to Zoe Quinn.) Here's another article by Ricky Morris at Digitimes talking about it. It is clear that the people that participate in GamerGate, as well as a non-trivial amount of sources, consider the controversy a consumer movement about ethical practices in gaming journalism, and the article's basis should reflect that fact. If we can start with that as a basis of the article, most of my criticisms of the article would vanish -- although I still maintain that the use of certain publications as sources, when they are embroiled in this very controversy, is inappropriate (Polygon, for example).

A more neutral lede would start along the lines of "GamerGate is a consumer revolt focused on perceived media bias, nepotism, and lack of journalistic ethics in the Gaming Press. Some people posting under the GamerGate hashtag have been criticized for perceived sexist and misogynistic comments, including harassment and threats of violence."

T hat last line there is how criticism is brought up in the Feminism article lede. I still maintain that a good starting point and a neutral lede is available over on the Spanish language wikipedia article for GamerGate, and highly recommend it as good reading. KiTA (talk) 13:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The lede has been an issue, but we do need to reflect what the sourcing says a little more than that as well. Part of the problem is the title of the article, which focuses on the controversy when it really should focus on the overall movement. Your lede is a good start, and you have some good supporting sources, but we might want to try and expand on it a bit more before making a firm proposal. I do agree that "sexism in video game culture" is really not an issue of Gamergate, but perhaps of Gamergate's opponents. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry but Gamergate does not have "absolutely nothing" to do with sexism and misogyny in gaming. The vast majority of criticism of Gamergate comes from a sexism and misogyny angle. Actions like funding TFYC and founding notyourshield, were attempts by Gamergaters to deal with concerns that they were misogynistic. Even if you do believe ethics concerns deserve a place in the first paragraph of the lead (which I think is fair enough, seems nonsensical to knock Gamergate down without even explaining what it claims to be), we cant remove all mentions of sexism or misogyny. Bosstopher (talk) 12:58, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Criticism of GamerGate, yes. But that is not how the article is written. The article is written as if GamerGate is all about Sexism and Misogyny, with ethics being some form of shield to justify that. That is my concern, and that was the wonkery that the banned editors were enforcing upon the subject. The article should talk about the Journalistic ethical concerns first, the supposed sexism and misogynistic criticisms second, and the controversial figures such as Zoe Quinn last (if at all). KiTA (talk) 13:21, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The article is written that way because that is what the sources say. The sources look at the "but ethics" see nothing worth writing about. They look at the sexism and harassment and go "this is important" . We dont undue the analysis by the reliable sources and give first credence to something they dismiss.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:37, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Analysis? Possibly, although a quick read of a random sampling of the current citations reveals that many of these citations are actually opinion, not factual analysis, which is against WP:ASSERT and WP:NPOV.

But more specifically, I'm going to quote NPOV Principle 2 -- "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts." If there are reliable sources that conflict with other reliable sources, it counts as opinion, not fact, and thus cannot be asserted as fact. That alone requires huge swaths of editing to this article to fix NPOV since there are two diametrically opposed sides to this controversy, both with sources that back them up -- one side claiming it's about Ethics with "social justice warriors" and other demagogues trolling and trying to make it all about them, another claiming it's about social justice with supposedly non-diverse gamers reacting to changing dynamics.

Since a major part of the NPOV problems that the banned editors brought to this article was purging citations they disagreed with, this is a problem that will fix itself as alternative viewpoint sources are reintroduced. KiTA (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Be careful with this, though. Using opinion pieces is not forbidden, and much of this entire conflict is about perception and opinion, so the use of sources that discuss it reliably is not inappropriate. We do have a weight problem, and we do have a problem with the tone and point of view of the article, but jumping to this conclusion as you have here is as dangerous as the activities that got the article into this state to begin with. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Except we have sources that also cover both. No one is arguing that we do not talk about the sexism and harassment, but instead are rightfully arguing about the weight and structure of the article, which has been a continued problem exerbated by the bad behavior. Thargor Orlando (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

To be fair KiTA seems to be arguing for that to a large extent, with his claims that GamerGate has nothing to do with sexism and that Zoe Quinn should possibly not be mentioned in the article. I really dont get how you can argue that. Gamergate started with Zoe Quinn, has been strongly opposed by Zoe Quinn, and almost all discussions about Gamergate (especially in the reliable sources) invariably mention Quinn. You cant write about Gamergate without writing about Quinn.Bosstopher (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

No, it absolutely did not start with Zoe Quinn. GamerGate started with Nathan Greyson's lapses in journalistic ethics and transparency, which were made public by noted feminist activist Eron Gjoni. Who Zoe Quinn, developer, feminist activist and internet personality, has a relationship with is fairly inconsequential. Who Nathan Greyson, journalist, has a relationship with is very important, especially if this causes a conflict of interest. That was the major concern, combined with the "Gamers are Dead" / GameJournalPros collusion scandal, that sparked GamerGate. Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian ultimately have little to do with GamerGate outside of their attempts to subvert the discussion to their own ends as noted demagogues. KiTA (talk) 14:34, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

If KiTA is saying no coverage of the Quinn and harassment debacles, I'm obviously opposed to it. Gamergate as a "movement," as a "controversy," has a history beyond Quinn and harassment that has been exised for reasons I don't care to speculate on anymore, and that we have an opportunity to solve the real NPOV issues in the article is one we should be embracing without ignoring other aspects as you note. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

"Gamergate has absolutely nothing to do with supposed sexism or misogyny in gaming." But the vast majority of reliable sources cited in this article disagree with that statement. Sookenon (talk) 13:50, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The vast majority of opinions cited in this article, which by definition are not appropriate sources. In addition, there was a general purging of sources by previous editors that slanted the article, a NPOV violation. KiTA (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Irregardless of the Arbcom case, what the article has been, while off in tone and approach, still falls very much appropriately into what WP polices limit us to. The sourcing is moistly within policy requirements, and poor sourcing for a highly contentious topic have been removed. This is the challenge created by both the GG situation (where there is very little coverage of the proGG side), and our policies on requiring high quality sources. The "verifyability, not truth" paradox. There is no way we can invert the approach of this article with sources given to make it "friendly" to GG because nearly no source does. But what we can do it watch for opinion stated as fact and the hyperbole the press has used. The article will, at the end of the day, have a large amount of negative comments related to GG, but we can be better to give what legitimate voice we can to the proGG side. --MASEM (t) 14:30, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This response is aimed at the people who will read Masem's comment and immediately seek to make a case of 'undue weight'. You have an article about a controversy... and many seem intent to have no mention of the other side. This article is meant to be a summation of events between two forces, so providing the other side comes part and parcel with that. This goes back to something I have been saying a bit of. This article should ether be split into two, or renamed. Since people seem intent to try to write it like it is about the GamerGate MOVEMENT and not the GamerGate CONTROVERSY. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 14:37, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, that might just be the way to go. GamerGate the Movement, and "Criticism of Sexism and Misogyny in Gaming." The more I think of your suggestion, the more I think it's a great idea. KiTA (talk) 14:40, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I know it will end up biased against GG ether way, because the RS's are biased against GG. I have no illusions that this will magically 'make things better'. It WOULD remove a lot of headaches for everyone involved. Since "GamerGate Controversy" is right now being used as an article for two separate things, leading to a sub-par article. Having the movement portion and the controversy portion separated would allow a more narrow view on both, leaving less room for vague interpretations, and helping to make better, more concise, less battleground-y articles. AnsFenrisulfr (talk) 14:45, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Are there enough articles specifically about the movement itself to meet our notability guidelines? Personally, I doubt it, which is why we have an article about the controversy. You are correct, though, that if we were to round up enough articles to support an article about the movement itself, it would still reflect the movement as being primarily about sexism and misogyny, as reliable sources overwhelmingly state. Woodroar (talk) 14:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This has been discussed in the archives a bit, and "Gamergate movement" is actually more popular as a term than "controversy" at this point. I planned on introducing a move request sooner rather than later. Thargor Orlando (talk) 14:55, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd rather see a rename for this one and a new article for movement. Start fresh. Maybe use the Spanish language Gamergate article as a basis -- again, it's very well written. KiTA (talk) 15:01, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Neither of those things will be happening. A rename is possible, but two articles probably won't happen at this point and using the Spanish is simply not applicable. This is a much more detailed and better article even with its faults. Thargor Orlando (talk) 15:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Even if we could should the movement is notable on its own from the controversy that the movement has created (either directly or indirectly), separating the topics is not a good idea - the two ideas (even if separate) are still too interrelated to discuss them in separate articles. Much of the controversy tied to the GG the movement is a result of what has happened with harassment and the like even if this was not GG's goal from the start - the movement has been blamed for it, and we cannot avoid that. We can make the GG movement side with more clarity and there are a few more reasonable sources to be added, but having thought long on how the organization of this article is, I strongly recognize not to try to think about these as separate articles, but just a manner of seeing how to better press GG the movement (which is something I have done per the re-org at the draft version). And no, the Spanish article translation won't work here. Each wiki has different policies , and we at en.wiki have much more stricter rules on sourcing. With the sources given we cannot flip the article around like that. --MASEM (t) 15:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)