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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

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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_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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

"Misplaced Pages 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. Misplaced Pages 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, Misplaced Pages 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. 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)

In the sense that histrionics tend to actually go against a person in the public arena. Bernstein's claim that this decision is "worse than a crime" is an example of something that would tend to set an otherwise neutral reader wondering why such hyperbole was in play. I concur, however, that challenging unreliable sources should go to including sources used by otherwise reliable sources, such as the Guardian as an institution.Calbeck (talk) 02:31, 29 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, even if not here. Is there an article on discussion of Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 "Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages'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)

The article should not be included, even after the proceedings are done. Misplaced Pages's stance on this is that the decisions have nothing to do with wikipedia taking a side in the gamergate issue. Since it has nothing to do with it, we can't now say it DOES have something to do with it by including it. The article is a bit of a trap anyway. If we DON'T include it, some people will take that to be confirmation that we have a bias. If we DO include it, we could be seen as using Misplaced Pages as its own source, as the article references a wikipedia editor. It's circular. As a result, leaving it out of this page and placing it (if at all) in the criticisms page is the most intellectually honest thing we can do. Vygramul 01:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Survey

Misplaced Pages, and to a lesser extent the Arbcom decision are not part of the Gamergate controversy and don't belong in the article at this time.

• Support. Leave it out for now.Two kinds of pork_Bacon 07:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I hesitate to stick my head above the parapet. But it seems to me that this is what everyone has said. The Guardian and Mary Sue and others have decided that ArbCom (and hence Misplaced Pages) are part of GamerGate - and the nasty "misogynist" GamerGate at that, not the nice "ethics in gaming" GamerGate. And of course the dominant narrative is either that the nice "ethics in gaming" GamerGate doesn't exist (it's part of the nasty Gamer Gate", pretending to be nice - just like Misplaced Pages and ArbCom), that it's vanishingly small, or (per User:Jimbo Wales) that they should "leave GamerGate" and start something troll free (Good luck with that!).

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:26, 29 January 2015 (UTC).

Eh, I don't think they're making that claim, more just that the ArbCom (and absolutely not "hence Misplaced Pages") buried its head in the sand and allegedly valued politeness over the quality of the wiki or protecting its editors from harassment. The articles aren't advocating that Misplaced Pages is like, plotting on KiA or anything, more just that its overseers tried to irresponsibly sweep things under the rug.192.249.47.186 (talk) 17:11, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Cherrypicking

Brianna Wu pic in the lead

Why is a picture of Brianna Wu in the lead of the article? I get that she's mentioned a lot throughout GamerGate, but I don't understand why there's a picture of her at the top. GamerPro64 21:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Frankly it's not a very good picture either, just a still from a youtube video. I don't think it's needed. — Strongjam (talk) 21:42, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I decided to remove the image from the lead. I mean, if we can find a better image of Wu it would be fine to add her. But I don't see the point in having her image in the lead section. GamerPro64 22:04, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Someone has added Quinn now. I'm going to strongly argue that I don't think we need any lead photo. I don't think , from issues we've had with Quinn's image before (the one we have vs one taken from a game convention), Quinn would want herself to be the headline photo for the GG conspiracy, nor Wu, nor Sarkeesian. There really is no good image for the lead presently, arguably. --MASEM (t) 22:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Masem. I don't know that we need a pic, although I'm willing to entertain the idea, but neither the previous Wu pic nor the current Quinn pic serves the purpose well, in the lead. Also, as Masem says, I don't know any of them would want to be the photo in the lead. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 22:50, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Yeah I can agree with that. Probably for the best that there would be no lead image in the article. GamerPro64 22:53, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

If anything, lead pics should be of reasonably high quality, or be very poignant illustrations of the topic.

Peter 23:02, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree. There is no single person who is representative enough of the Gamergate controversy to belong in the lede. Rhoark (talk) 23:26, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

• I shifted the Quinn picture to the main text, there are no pictures in the lede now. Issue settled, I believe. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 04:22, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Don't use disambiguation titles as actual names

The title of the article has an added "controversy" to disambiguate it from gamergate. It's a basic dab title, like English language, which makes perfect sense. It makes no sense bolding it, though. This is usually referred to simply as "Gamergate" by almost everyone. "Gamergate controversy" is a description, not an actual name.

Peter 22:51, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

That isn't the only reason. Another reason was that the only noteworthy part about Gamergate is the surrounding controversy - almost the entire article is about that. 109.152.100.135 (talk) 23:18, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Or rather in the early days of the article people fought hard to move the goalposts in order to keep out things they didn't like. Rhoark (talk) 23:28, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

The IP user is correct. It used to be "Gamergate (controversy)", the consensus was to remove the brackets. The problem was that the article was about Gamergate, but the only coverage was some controversy around it. There was very little discussing the movement per se. So it was decided to make it about the controversy. HalfHat 23:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Brackets don't really matter here. Again: English language. There are plenty of similar examples. Like Springfield, Massachusetts.

I'm not exactly sure how you're reasoning here. Focus is still on the notable aspects (controversy, not movement). News articles refer to this as "Gamergate", not "the Gamergate controversy". If the latter, it's descriptions like "the Gamergate death threats" or "the Gamergate media coverage". Or why not "the Gamergate movement"?

Peter 00:03, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I've put arguments (though not forced the issue) that we could really make this article about the movement since it is really about them and the actions they have caused (directly or indirectly) and the criticism that resulted. The term is used enough in sources (equal or more to "gamergate controversy"). However, there is a hesitation there because while sources will say that GG is a self-described movement, they will follow that up claiming they aren't a movement due to their lack of organization, etc. As such, calling it a movement in the prose in the past has been controversial by some editors. But I will argue that nearly every source recognizes that it is a self-described movement even if they criticize it harshly in the same article. --MASEM (t) 00:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

any coverage of the "so called movement" is entirely secondary to the coverage of the harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:44, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

This is strictly an issue of wording and WP:COMMONNAME to me. The scope of the article is quite neatly defined by the actual article title.

Peter 11:46, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the lede is wrong

I'm pretty sure "Gamergate" is described in the RSes as a movement or a campaign. I get this article is focused on the controversy around it, since the actual structure and workings or the movement/campaign gained little attention, but the current lede is just misleading. HalfHat 23:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I see above there being discussion of it up there and I'm not sure if this was linked to a change so I made this a separate section, if in fact it was, please merge this in. HalfHat 23:45, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

As a "movement" its non notable. If you want to call it a "harassment campaign" I am good with that being supported by the sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:42, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

12,500 google news hits pretty much proves the movement is notable. It's just also so tied to the controversy that it does not make sense to consider it a separate topic. --MASEM (t) 00:46, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

WP:GHITS and there is zero evidence that it is notable outside of being a harassment movement. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:13, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

The sources in the article (which are what we have to go by) are ambiguous; some describe it as an amorphous movement, some note that it describes itself as a movement but qualify that, and some describe it purely as a controversy or purely in relation to the hashtag. I think the simplest thing for us to do is to focus on people relative to the hashtag in the lead, since that is universal among sources -- any other characterization should probably be qualified by citing it to someone (eg. so-and-so describes it as such-and-such.) --Aquillion (talk) 01:02, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Columbia Journalism Review in the Gamergate Organization section

I'm having a difficult time locating the following claim within the attributed source: The Columbia Journalism Review's Chris Ip said any legitimate message from Gamergate supporters regarding ethics in journalism was being lost in the noise created by harassment, sexism, and misogyny. From what I can tell that claim is a paraphrase of Chris Grant and Jesse Singal, who both provided quotes for the article. The full quote from Grant is "The closest thing we’ve been able to divine is that it’s noise. It’s chaos. And all you can do is extract patterns from the chaos. With no leaders, with no agenda, with no message, all you can do is find patterns. And ultimately Gamergate will be defined—I think has been defined—by some of its basest elements." Also, the claim that the "noise" is the result of "harassment, sexism, and misogyny" is also not supported by the source. Chris Ip attributes this problem to "faulty PR from the movement, but also the difficulty of covering any digital-era subculture that works in anonymity." The sentence in the article as it stands seems to be a synthesis of the quotes that Grant and Singal gave for the article. It should be noted that the second sentence attributed to that article: "With anyone able to tweet under the hashtag and no single person willing or able to represent the hashtag and take responsibility for its actions, Ip said it is not possible for journalists to neatly separate abusers from those seeking reasonable debate" is fully supported by the reference. I recommend we eliminate the first sentence and keep the second, or failing that, parse out the claims in the first sentence and attribute them properly to both Grant and Singal. ColorOfSuffering (talk) 01:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a good overall summary, but it's phrased backwards from the source. In the middle of paragraph 8, we have When reporters characterize Gamergate as misogynistic, proponents say those views don’t represent the movement. Instead, many claim to be advocating greater ethics among the video game press. Yet many criticisms of press coverage by people who identify with Gamergate...have been debunked which speaks to the murkiness of claims by Gamergate supporters, as seen by journalists. Earlier, paragraph 6 says The multitude of explainers on the subject are testament to the complexity of defining Gamergate. But what has been clear to the media is its effect and then goes on to provide details about "death and rape threats" and sexual harassment. I do agree that our summary seems to have incorporated some of the quoted material from the source rather than purely Ip's phrasing, though the general point is the same. I wouldn't be opposed to a rewording of our summary. Woodroar (talk) 03:38, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Info in wrong section

Academic researchers at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University describe the Gamergate movement as a "vitriolic campaign against Quinn that quickly morph into a broader crusade against alleged corruption in games journalism" that "involves considerable abuse and harassment—including rape and death threats—of female developers and game critics. is in the Political views section. Does anyone else not see the irrelevance of this information to this particular section? How is this a political view? Could we move and/or merge this to somewhere else? This point has surely been made a million times over in the article. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 07:35, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I see where you're coming from; perhaps it's due to the source's stated focus on public (and political) discourse. Personally, I don't think I would have an objection to moving it to a subsection where it is more appropriate, depending on the nature of the change. (Misogyny and antifeminism seems most likely.)

Alternately, I could suggest that a different quote from the same source might serve the purpose better, in the current position: "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." AtomsOrSystems (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Potential Alternate Wording

I was thinking after I responded, does anyone have any thoughts on this alternate wording:

Academic researchers at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University noted that "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." AtomsOrSystems (talk) 21:39, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• @AtomsOrSystems: - it's definitely an improvement - but it's still not very good. Essentially, the point is "Gamergate became highly politicized" - and it doesn't explain how or what does it even mean. The source unfortunately does not elaborate - so it's not very useful. Could we take this Potential Alternate Wording and insert into the Misogyny and antifeminism section? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 01:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Starship.paint: - Like I said above, I don't have any objection to moving it (either the original wording, or my alternate suggestion) to a subsection. Misogyny and antifeminism would certainly seem to be the most appropriate one. I would like to see if anyone else here has a thought on the matter before we did, though. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 03:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Okay. Anyone else would like to comment? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 05:45, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• @AtomsOrSystems: I inserted your proposed text in the new section. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 01:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

History

"Quinn began to receive hate mail over the game upon its release and criticism from some parts of the Steam user community, receiving enough harassment to cause her to change her phone number. This elicited further outrage from others and by September 2014,"

• What elicited further outrage and by whom? Changing her phone number? I'm sure that's not what the fuss is all about, but it reads that way. This sentence is poorly constructed. --Two kinds of pork_Bacon 12:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I removed it. It was a pretty fuzzy statement and it's unclear why it needed to be mentioned in a paragraph about the plight of Quinn.

Peter 20:17, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I believe the trailing phrase was attached to a statement that noted that DQ was about to be released when Robin Williams committed suicide, and Quinn opted to continue the release commenting on the issue of depression. That would lead to additional harassment as left over. --MASEM (t) 21:57, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

4chan largely coordinated the attacks

This is directly stated in the Washington Post. Are there other sources that state otherwise? If not, to imply others had more influence is OR. Regardless it should be noted that 4chan is mostly responsible for getting this harrassment ball rolling.--Two kinds of pork_Bacon 12:56, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Gamergate has been banned on 4chan since mid-september, while august attacks may have been coordinated by 4chan Gamergate has been going on for 4 months since then. See this washington post article for details on more recent Gamergate coordination.Bosstopher (talk) 13:12, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't think this changes that the organization started on 4chan, though. We should clarify that they were banned from 4chan, surely, but it definitely started there.192.249.47.186 (talk) 18:49, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

@Bosstopher: that article only supports the fact that 8chan made attacks. Absent a source being provided that contradicts the first source stating that 4chan was the stated and was largely responsible for organizing the attacks, I intend to restore the text you reverted.Two kinds of pork_Bacon 19:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

@Two kinds of pork: if you did it would be a major case of WP:RECENTISM (but a past version, there should be a better way of phrasing it). None of the sources since mid September have mentioned 4chan being involved at all (unless referring to the beginning of the controversy, and instead focus on the involvement of 8chan and other forums. Since that was only a one example i'll give you the other sources too. Here are articles noting KiA, Escapist forums and 8chan are the new hubs of GG since 4chan shut it down. also pretty much all articles about Brianna Wu mention that the doxxing happened on 8chan not 4chan, and if you read the wiki article on 8chan the sources used there also point out that it's now a central hub of GG activity instead of 4chan. I'd suggest if you want to include it in the lede, use the phrasing the IP editor suggested noting it started in 4chan. Bosstopher (talk) 22:25, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Appeal of Protection Level

The current protection level on this page is being appealed at Arbitration Enforcement for being in violation of the current Protection Policy. Those Editors who wish to make a comment on the appeal may do so there. --Obsidi (talk) 22:03, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

explanation of lede change

I've made this change: , which basically means to address this statement which is not supported as a fact in sources: The leaderless, amorphous group that acted under the hashtag became known as the "Gamergate movement". The movement came simultaneously to the harassment attacks and did make it clear in their statements that harassment was bad. Of course there's a great deal of opinion that the movement was a cover for the harassment attacks, but we don't have sources that affirm that as a fact. As such, rewording this Simultaneous to these events, a leaderless, amorphous "Gamergate movement" grew, using the #gamergate hashtag to identify issues of ethical concerns they had towards these video game professionals. points out the various Occums razor reasons that many think that GG movement is just a cover (happened at same time, targetting the same people). (and of course avoids introducing the BLP issue that started this in the lead) Further, this is a point that the article and our sources supports, in that many many sources doubt the true nature of the GG movement, and have criticized the group for enabling the harassment. --MASEM (t) 22:36, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that Simultaneous to these events, a leaderless, amorphous "Gamergate movement" grew is worded in a way that supports the idea that the "Gamergate movement" had no involvement in the harassment, which seems equally unsourced (and in some cases, opposed to sources). Can I suggest an alternate (and simpler) wording change, such as The leaderless, amorphous group that formed under the hashtag became known as the "Gamergate movement"? It seems this is a simpler change, and it removes the earlier implication that the movement was formed by those "acting" in regards to the harassment. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 22:45, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I notice you added the sentence These commentators have expressed doubts to the true intentions of the movement, and claim that the movement's unorganized nature has created an environment that has enabled the ongoing campaign of harassment. I'm not certain a review of our sources from the listed commentators show that all, or even most, of them have expressed doubts of the movements true intentions. Unless you mean to say that they often say they doubt the movement's stated intentions regarding ethics and journalism. Either way, I'm not certain that the additional sentence is needed, or warranted. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 22:50, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

My difficulty with ... to identify issues of ethical concerns they had towards these video game professionals is that this is only half the story. Gamergate is about ethical concerns and anti-feminism/anti-social critique. Highlighting half the story in the first paragraph seems misleading - the second paragraph seems to better expand on their issues. - Bilby (talk) 22:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Concur with Bilby above: what is meant by "ethical concerns" by those that use the term in this context is far broader than what common usage denotes. I would suggest substituting "ethical and ideological concerns" to communicate this breadth of meaning. CIreland (talk) 23:05, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Which sources are you using to support "Simultaneous to these events"? Kaciemonster (talk) 22:59, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I've reverted the change until a consensus is formed, since a few people raised concerns. I think that's the correct protocol, feel free to revert my revert if it isn't. Kaciemonster (talk) 23:22, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Black Kite, may I hear your reasoning? It seems like most people so far are disagreeing with the language, which is why I reverted it in the first place. Kaciemonster (talk) 00:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe our sources support the claim that there are two gamergate movements, one of which is completely harassment free and only concerned with ethics, and one of which is notable only for being made up of sexist harassers. When looking at amorphous, leaderless groups, we cannot label any who reliable sources claim are part of the group as separate to it- this would be original research on our part. PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. The vast majority of sources treat GamerGate as one thing; there are some talking about how it is hard to determine who supports what, and about how some people pushing the hashtag are using it for harassment while others are not, but I don't think there are significant number of sources that would separate them into two distinct events or movements the way the "simultaneous to this..." wording does. Most sources seem to basically use 'GamerGate movement' to refer to everyone using the hashtag, including people who are responsible for harassment. --Aquillion (talk) 00:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Some sources for the above, from the article:

• Univerity of Wisconsin center for Journalism Ethics: "While many claimed this movement was about calling out ethical lapses in videogame journalism, I was astounded and appalled by the misogynistic and threatening nature of some posts. People — particularly women — were attacked for speaking out, often getting “doxxed” (slang for having your personal information documented or published online). I, like many, have had and still have hope that the participatory nature of digital media will help more people engage with news coverage, counter bias and correct errors. But GamerGate is challenging those hopes of mine. Much of the conversation — if I can even call it that — has been a toxic sludge of rumor, invective and gender bias. The irony comes from people who claim to be challenging the ethics of game journalists through patently unethical behavior."
• Is GamerGate About Media Ethics or Harassing Women? Harassment, the Data Shows
• Here: What does GamerGate want? We don’t know. Attempts to engage with those involved often turn into rambling, cyclical shows of defensiveness with no concrete reasoning. Reasonable party lines are drowned out in the conversation. One thing is clear: when members of the games industry are being driven from their houses and jobs, threatened, or abused, it makes GamerGate’s claim that it is engaged in an ethical campaign appear laughable.
• (Describing why GamerGate behaves the way it does, here : There is also an identification with the mob and its chaotic, dynamic nature – consider the delight Anonymous took in being an inchoate, implacable enemy of whoever aroused its ire (“Because none of us are as cruel as all of us”). As the MIB says, “Chan culture considers personal reputation meaningless but collective identity sacrosanct”. Deliberately trying to stand out is in the eyes of this subculture and in the rules of its discourse uncouth. To claim that the consensus is wrong and that one’s personal experiences can refute a point breaks the rules of discourse. To have a mass of people respond with rude invective to any statement (including statements they actually agree with) is how you have an argument: if you do not want a wave of hostility, why did you invite it by making a claim?
• Here: Okay, enough metaphor, Jon. What is #gamergate, literally and specifically? It’s a Twitter hashtag. What else? What else indeed. While various patterns of behaviour coalesce around the hashtag, #gamergate’s protean nature resists attempts toward summary and narrative. It readjusts and reinvents itself in response to attempts to disarm and disperse its noxiousness, subsuming disaffected voices in an act of continual regeneration, cycling through targets, pretexts, manifestoes and moralisms. Say that it began as a harassment campaign targeting a female indie developer, as reported by credible news sites, and you are subjected to contradictory objections - "No, #gamergate began after that, as a reaction to biased reporting" and "No, #gamergate has been building up for years" - as proponents jostle for the story that paints them in the best possible light
• Here: "The abuse currently polluting Twitter and other social media is largely aimed at female devs – targets include Depression Quest creator Zoe Quinn and Giant Spacekat founder Brianna Wu – and often linked, though not always, to #Gamergate. The root of this self-professed‘movement’ are well-documented enough, with details of Quinn’s personal life leaked by an ex-boyfriend. But this incident has almost become irrelevant given the severity of threats levelled at victims." ... "22Cans’ head of production Jemma Harris adds that such behaviour has grown worse as the internet has seemingly bred “a faceless culture that thinks it’s okay to do this"

--and many more like that, none of which support your thesis that the two are separate. These are the overarching way in which GamerGate is covered and described by the reliable commentators we're using in the article; the harassment and generally caustic behavior they see as originating from GamerGate is described as an outgrowth of its origins in chan culture, the depths of the culture-war passions driving it, and the deep belief the movement has that their ideological opponents are monstrous and must be crushed at any cost. I think that the chan culture analysis is particularly pointed, because (as the sources who discuss it say) it describes why so many people in GamerGate say that they are against harassment and have spoken out against harassment while, in the same posts (and under the GamerGate hashtag!) they continue to do things that the rest of the world describes as harassment. There's a sense among them that vitriol is natural on the internet, and that confronting someone with a flood of angry invectives therefore isn't real harassment the way a death threat is. I can see where you're coming from with that, anyway; but we need to go with the majority of reliable sources, and they have described what the #GamerGate hashtag is used for -- that is, what the GamerGate movement is, to the extent that that's a discrete thing they can define -- as being inextricably entwined with harassment. --Aquillion (talk) 00:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I would also add that even in the case of valid (or at least discussable) criticism, it is delivered in a highly vitriolic way, not only in the choice of the language, but full with personal insults. And if the tone objected, the answer is usually kinda "Well, lady, you stepped into a snake pit. Don't whine, deal with it or out" -M.Altenmann >t 03:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

What the larger issue has been, and discussion needed on that

Related to points made above, and with new eyes (due to ArbCom's request) on this, I think we need to (re)visit a core point of debate of how this article is written, in relationship to WP:V (particularly the verifyability-not-truth paradox) and issues related to NPOV.

Specifically, because the press has largely blamed the Gamergate movement for the harassment, there are parts of this article (particularly in the lead) that wholly blames the GG movement for directly harassing, etc. The issue is multifaceted but here are points to consider/discuss:

• There is clearly different definitions of what the Gamergate movement is depending on who you ask. The press use a more encompassing definition that at its largest includes anyone that has used the #GG hashtag; on the other hand, if you look at the sites/forums that are the apparent home of the movement, they consider that much smaller, with more focus. Yes, the difficulty in defining this is a criticism of the movement to start, but point here is that we have a group that consider themselves part of the movement, while others not associated with the movement consider the inclusion much differently.
• In relationship to this, the self-stated movement has clearly stated by their public materials that they condemn the harassment, do not condone its use as part of their communication tools, and actively try to stop/report the use of harassment done in the name of GG. This is mentioned in some sources but it's spelled on their self-published sources, which are poor/unacceptable sources, though would be the truth from their side. A majority of the press do not believe this, but some do point out the harassment partols by the movement. In otherwords, I know from my own research with sources that wouldn't be acceptable on WP that this is what they claim about themselves, very much counter to what the press claims they are.
• Harassment, doxxing, swatting, and rape/death threats are criminal acts in many areas, and I'm certain at the end of the day there will be criminal proceedings on the specific individuals that did these once their identities are known. However, as best as I've read, no one yet has been positively identified for doing these outside their handles. Now, yes, BLP does not apply to pseudoanonymous identities (per a discussion on the BLP board about the articles that discussed the mods of the Reddit KIA board and their other questionable activities), but a principle of BLP - where applying criminal blame where there is no such blame - should still apply as we are a neutral, impartial source.

What this amounts to is that we have to be careful and cannot state as a fact (in WP's voice) that the whole of the Gamergate movement is directly responsible for the harassment. We can state the press believes this, we can state that the press indirectly blames them for the harassment due to their poor organization and the environment and poor attitude they have taken towards the targets of harassment, and a whole bunch of criticisms. But as a neutral source, we should be given the people that call themselves as part of the movement the benefit of doubt (even if that's not a lot of doubt) that they claim they aren't responsible and thus we cannot factually assign blame on the entire movement. This doesn't change the content for the most part of this article but it does require careful wording of our statements of fact, which was what the change above is. This is why I feel we need to be extra careful of calling the movement as a whole directly responsible for the harassment attacks as a fact, even if the press has made this claim. If anything, calling the entire movement is a contentious point (between the press and the movement itself) and we should treat it as NPOV says, present both sides of this point within the context of WEIGHT. --MASEM (t) 03:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

This is a lot of original research, Masem. Your objection to us stating what the overwhelming majority of the media says is that you believe what the media says is wrong- this is not enough, unfortunately. We cannot give a leaderless movement the 'benefit of the doubt' if doing so requires us to go against what our sources say. Again, I urge you to find sources that show your point of view if you disagree with the article rather than endorse original research. PeterTheFourth (talk) 03:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The issue is not the "overwhelmingness". If any of reliable sources describe these "good gamegaters" in reasonable detail, you are welcome to expand the article. (BTW, Masem is not disagreeing with the article; he seems to say it is incomplete.) -M.Altenmann >t 04:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm saying they are expressing opinion more than facts. They may be (and I suspect they are mostly) right, but we don't know. This is what NPOV says when it comes to contentious statements : "Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Misplaced Pages's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John X as the epitome of human evil." --MASEM (t) 04:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

re "genocide": You are joking, right? The proper wikpedian way to say "genocide is a crime against humanity", not just opinion of John X. On the other hand I did understand what you mean: instead or writing "the movie sucks" it is better to write "John X says the movie sucks". Still better, there are reviewers which aggregate the reveiews and say "65% reviews say the book sucks". Coming back to gamergate, in order to handle an alleged NPOV, you have to document several POVs. If you can document only a single POV, your point is moot. So, once, again, please find good sources which speak about "good gamergarters". -M.Altenmann >t 04:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

We do have sources that discusses the antiharassment parts of GG . And note that we should not be considering if we are talking "good" or "bad" GGers (that's biasing the discussion). It is the fact their documentation that is out there for anyone to read (but has potential BLP issues so I will not link, but it is very public) that they say they aren't harassment-based. Even if this is really a lie, we have no evidence that this is the case, and per our polices, we should be given them the appropriate benefit of doubt in terms of assigning the blame of harassment as a fact. --MASEM (t) 05:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

re: "we have no evidence" - We have plenty of evidence from reliable sources which is why the lede correctly notes the consensus that the ethical concerns are unfounded, debunked, trivial, unrelated to ethics etc. What you seem to be suggesting is that the self-identification of any person or group must be granted a controlling interest in the article, and that is clearly not the policy on Misplaced Pages. Scientologists don't get to write the Scientology article. The editors who do write it don't have to give the self-description provided by Scientologists equal weight alongside the consensus view of Scientology. I'm sure you can think of countless other examples. In short it's reliable sources, not GamerGate itself, that determines content. So find reliable sources to support your suggested editing and stop relying solely on self-description. Emarkcd (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

re: 'expressing the opinions'. Some sources are 'expressing the opinions', while others summarize these opinions. Now what? "In opinion of John X. Random, the widespread opinion is that the opinion about gamergate is wrong"? While your generic quotation of policy is correct, you better be more specific and write clearly what is misrepresented in the article. -M.Altenmann >t 04:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC) -M.Altenmann >t 04:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The "other" opinion here is for the most part what the GG movement says about themselves - that they are not involved and also condemn the harassment. When we state "The Gamergate movement is responsible for the harassment", we are stating something that has not been proven to any degree and is a highly contentious statement in considering the GG side of the situation. --MASEM (t) 05:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Masem: re:" GG movement says about themselves" - the CG movement shot themselves in the foot when they refused to self-organize (AFAIU). Now any moron or troll who uses the tag is automatically member of the movement. Therefore I am using the term "good gamergaters" lacking better description. By letting the horse out of the stable they lost the right to say that they are "true CG movement". Because everybody else sees a quite different "true CG movement". THerefore when we state "the Gamergate movement is responsible" we are stating something that is proven to the extent reasonable. Only when the "true Gamergaters" self-identify themselves to make it possible to weed out "impostors", we can speak of an identifiable "CG side" and protect its rights. Otherwise "what the GG movement says about themselves" is akin to the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. Right now "the CG side" is seen as 88% trolls. -M.Altenmann >t 17:25, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Masem, you have posted "the press" over 55 times on this Talk page recently. "The press" is otherwise known to Misplaced Pages as RELIABLE SOURCES. You, once again, are twisting our policies for some strange reason. Stop it. Your collogues do not appreciate it, nor do they your flippant use of genocide, Nazism and the Holocaust. 192.187.100.10 (talk) 05:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I've never mentioned these (outside the above requote out of NPOV), and that's also a personal attack. This is a very subtle but key detail that needs to be resolved that we have to look at the overall situation to understand how the tone is critical here. You cannot just wave away "oh, they are reliable sources, we should never question them", because our polices do allow for us to make sure RSes are used appropriately and to make sure we separate fact from opinion when contentious points are presented. --MASEM (t) 05:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

re "criminal blame" What the heck are you talking about? The threats are documented. It does not matter whether they were from pseudoanonymous identities or bot-generated. Are you saying that we must also mention the opinion that Sarkeesian fabricated these threats, or, even better, told her buddies to post these threats so that she may cry helpme? -M.Altenmann >t 04:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

They are documented, but who exactly carried them out is not known, nor their relationship to the self-described GG movement. They could be a part of it, they may not be. As such, we cannot assign that blame to the movement even if the press has expressed their opinion this is the case. --MASEM (t) 05:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Once again, AFAIU the only way CG movement is "self-described" is the usage of hashtag. If I am mistaken and you have other way to distinguish "good" users of #gamergate hashtag from evil ones, you are welcome to expand the article with this info. Clearly, the primary sources which say "we are the good ones; they are trolls" is insufficient. -M.Altenmann >t 17:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Masem, this has been discussed quite extensively. Do you have any specific suggestions for article changes?

Peter 05:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

See the section this is in, where I present the change I made in the lede, as the current issue, but this remains a larger problem in trying to organize the article in an objective manner. --MASEM (t) 05:38, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Masem, your interpretation of the reliable sources and how they should be presented has been discussed extensively on this talk page already, and a large number of people have disagreed and continue to disagree with your interpretation. It might be time to consider that, since it looks like this same conversation has happened at least three times over the past few weeks and the consensus does not seem to be in your favor, that your interpretation is faulty. Kaciemonster (talk) 15:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Altennamm: lede change

I was reverted for not discussing first. My bad. Please comment on my (reverted) version.

My points:

• No need for listing the names of the publishers of opinions in the lede; this is article summary, and this is encyclopedia: what only matters is that sources are reliable; besides, listing publishers instead of authors seems unfair to me. Also, publishers may publish views from both sides of the fence, and it is incorrect to attribute views to publishers, rather than to authors.
• After reading the text it occurred to me that the following observation is important to understanding why Gamergate has so many supporters: clearly not all of them are trolls. Some people genuinely (may be confusingly) thought that they may discuss "ethical issues", whatever, but they underestimated the power of trolls. We see this everywhere where comments to controversial posts are unmoderated or unregistered. Therefore I added the following piece, from article text itself:
  • Some commentators have argued that the Gamergate hashtag had the potential to raise important issues in gaming journalism, but that the wave of misogynistic harassment and abuse associated with the hashtag had poisoned the well, making it impossible to separate honest criticism from sexist trolling.

Of course, this may be shortened, but IMO an important explanation why shit hit the fan. (And expands the point about "leaderless, amorphous") -M.Altenmann >t 01:34, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

P.S. for the reverting editor, please be so kind and revise edits one by one rather than reverting in one button hit. My second edit was fixing an inaccuracy in quoting the source, easily verified. Please restore. -M.Altenmann >t 01:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

These are reasonable concerns, but I'm not sure we should be raising the potential of the gamergate hashtag in the lede- I believe we already mention its inability to converse honestly about actual ethical issues in the lede as part of the 'commentators' sentence at the end. We previously had a larger explanation of 'unrelated to actual issues of ethics in the industry' which I shortened to be more succinct. Does that need to be explored further in the lede? PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Re "does that need" - IMO yes it does. IMO a significant reason for the spectacular failure to reach the allegedly intended goal was the level of trollnoise which prevented reasonable people from joining the discussion. The lede is quite short and IMO my addition is non-redundant (although may be shortened. (And I saved some space by kicking out the namelist :-)) -M.Altenmann >t 02:17, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

In relation to actual article content, I believe the current wording about ethics concerns is generous as it is. For all intents and purposes, it's a sideshow.

Peter 02:22, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Pardon, I was not writing not so about ethics concerns, but about the reasons why discussion about possibly valid (at least discussable) concerns flopped spectacularly, i.e., the reasons why it became a sideshow. -M.Altenmann >t 02:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Once again, the section # What the larger issue has been, and discussion needed on that clearly shows that the lede needs to include the opinion (documented in article) that the "original" GG movement allowed the well to be poisoned and lost control over any useful discussion they intended (an lost control over "membership"). -M.Altenmann >t 17:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

No. 2

Some of the people using the hashtag have said that their goal is <...> to end the acknowledgement of social issues in video game reviews

IMO a weird phrasing (or my poor command of English?). Can anybody point to the article text which is summarized by this phrase? -M.Altenmann >t 02:28, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Part of the Debate over ethics allegations section I think. Mostly the first paragraph and first bit of the second where it talks about culture war. — Strongjam (talk) 02:33, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I thought so at first. However I fail to see how the phrase

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

can be summarized as "to end the acknowledgement". Either the article must explain how they struggled to "end the ack" or the lede restated. -M.Altenmann >t 02:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The article does explain this in the "Debate over ethics allegations" section with many specific examples and sources speaking to this detail. Emarkcd (talk) 17:40, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Strongjam have already pointed me at this section. And I re-read it three times. I challenge you to provide the statement which supports the clam that "<the GG community> have said that their goal is to end the acknowledgement of social issues". -M.Altenmann >t 18:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Generally agree, the statement isn't wrong, but it's not really addressed very well in the body. We should probably fix the body. One of the sources for this would be "The battle of Gamergate and the future of video games". The relevant passage "One of Gamergate’s commonly cited examples of an ethical breach in journalism is an October review of Bayonetta 2 by Arthur Gies for Polygon. In Gamergate’s extensive dossier on gaming journalism, released in November, the Polygon review is among the very first cited as an example of the kind of game review the movement as a whole is objecting to. The problem? Gies gave the game a 7.5 out of 10 mainly because he felt its rampant and notorious sexual objectification of women detracted from his enjoyment of it.". The whole GG goal of "objective" reviews is something that we probably aren't covering very well at the moment. — Strongjam (talk) 18:43, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Funny how we have reached for the same source. However a more succinct formulation is slightly below in this source: "Instead of seeing more inclusive stances by reviewers as exercises of personal conscience, Gamergate proponents see them instead as an onslaught of political correctness. IMO this PC scarecrow is the essence and must be added both in the body and in the lede. -M.Altenmann >t 18:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Definitely agree. If you want to take a shot at it I'd support it being in the article. — Strongjam (talk) 18:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

To continue the issue further, I don't see the coverage of GG's buzzword 'SJW' in wikipedia. I added it into the lede (with a ref which significantly discusses it), but there are plenty of other sources, unfortunately I have no more time for this today, bye. -M.Altenmann >t 19:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Mass Shooting Threat

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'm not sure exactly why this was removed- it's an incredibly noteworthy example of the death threats being used against gamergates targets. Is it unsuitable for use in the lede? PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Noticed that and was going to put it back in. Think it just got lost in the shuffle. — Strongjam (talk) 02:40, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually there have been other kinds of threats, such as rape or injury, some pretty elaborate. Do we really need list them all in the article summary? I'd say many women would find rape threats more realistic and more ominous. -M.Altenmann >t 02:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

If you can source a noteworthy threat you're welcome to include it- the mass shooting threat is noteworthy because I believe it caused a scheduled speaking appearance to be cancelled. PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that particular threat received a considerable amount of press. If there's consensus to keep it out, I'm fine with that. But it seems like it's probably the single most notable threat press wise. — Strongjam (talk) 02:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, threats or rape were quite mediaworthy, and I added it. But once again, this is article summary. The article is full of scandalous stuff; do we need to put stuff in the intro judging by the amount of noise, or judging how the lede summarizes the article? -M.Altenmann >t 02:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Given the amount of media attention it's gathered, it's a very notable part of the controversy. Yes, I do believe the lede should include it. PeterTheFourth (talk) 03:01, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The mass shooting also has to go in the lead because it was when the controversy got most of its coverage; it's one of the most noteworthy events related to the article's topic and one of the main reasons people might come here. --Aquillion (talk) 03:19, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

OK. Understood. No objections. -M.Altenmann >t 03:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

1RR self-report

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I was the one who reverted Altenmann's pending change mentioned above. I reinstated the Intel 2020 date change right afterwards, though.

I also reverted an edit that I viewed as a rather unnecessary skewing of wording soon afterward. I realized moments later that this could technically be a violation of the active discretionary sanctions. I've never edited an article with these kinds of restrictions, so I'm not really familiar with how strictly 1RR is interpreted. Does it literally mean one revert of any kind per 24-hour period? Does it apply to pending changes?

Peter 01:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Peter Isotalo:. Yes it applies to pending changes as well. Anything that isn't BLP or vandalism. Probably best if you self-reverted yourself. I don't see those changes sticking anyway as violations of WP:SAY. —Strongjam (talk) 01:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

How about I accept revert of my text as a non-controversial, and Peter is off-the-hook? -M.Altenmann >t 01:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Not an admin, but if everyone is reasonably happy I'm sure admins are reasonable people. — Strongjam (talk) 01:56, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Shadowrunner has already edited the relevant section so I think it's up to that user to decide whether to re-add the previous wording or not.

Peter 02:02, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Citations in the Lede

My previous stance was we don't need them as it's a summary and they can be found in the body, but I'm finally tired of the {{fact}} tagging. Any chance that consensus could change on adding citations to the lede? — Strongjam (talk) 03:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I honestly don't care either way. It'd be fairly trivial to add them, thought it might impact readability a small amount. Are there any relevant policies about adding citations to the ledes of articles? PeterTheFourth (talk) 03:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

WP:LEADCITE. Which is best summed up with this bit "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." — Strongjam (talk) 03:12, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

In the particular case of {{cn}} the statements in the lede are fairly simple, noncontroversial (whether some sources said something) and easily found in article by text search. -M.Altenmann >t 03:14, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

My opinion is the same from a few days ago: 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. The lede is currently more than 4 sentences, but the sentiment remains. Every time we want to, say, rewrite three sentences into two, or move phrases back and forth, we'll have to check each source and move it accordingly. It's going to end up being a huge pain in the ass. Just my $0.02. Woodroar (talk) 03:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The whole point is that the lede is a summary of our article, kinda "quaternary source". And each time you "juggle some phrases around" you must check whether the lede is faithful to our article. If for some phrase in the lede it is hard to find the corresponding article text, this means the lede sucks, references or not. -M.Altenmann >t 03:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

That's not quite what I'm getting at. Let's say our theoretical lead has 3 compound sentences: ", while . , but . , though ." But maybe someone suggests that the lede would flow better if we wrote it as ", even though . But and . This means leads to ." We've had some fairly drastic restructuring of the lede lately, so that's not even a "what if?" situation. It's going to happen. And right now there's not a big issue with that, because all we're doing is summarizing the article itself. But with a fully-cited lede, every time we rephrase it, we have to go through and move each source with its associated claim. Changes start to become prohibitive because of the work involved. Maybe that won't happen, but the history of this article has been citing and backup citing and backup backup citing to the point where controversial statements have a string of citations on them, and I see the lede just compounding that issue. Just my $0.02, though. Woodroar (talk) 06:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Considering the lead will have few or no specific stats or anything like that, it will always have to be some sort of aggregate summary. Anyone who wants to edit it should be expected to read through the entire article, or at least the relevant sections. Citations will not make this process easier.

Adding fact tags to a heavily cited, highly controversial article like this amounts to careless editing. Good faith should be assumed, but all such attempts should be reverted since communicating through fact tags in a case like this is pretty disruptive. Competence should be required in regard to this.

Peter 12:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

#NotYourShield Reversion Explanation

I've reverted an edit, seen here , to the section concerning #NotYourShield and the IRC logs posted by Quinn. I think it's an edit that needs more discussion before it's added to the article body (if it is), and I also think it's poorly worded (and possibly sourced) as is. They also seem to be an unnecessary skewing of the article's wording.

For one thing, as far as I can tell (not speaking French), the sources only claim that "4Chan has released what they claim to be the full chat logs from when the IRC channel that was created on August 17th." I'm also not certain that this edit (and arguably some of the rest of the paragraph) doesn't give too much weight to the chat logs, in what is ostensibly a section about #NotYourShield as a whole.

It's also worth noting that Shadowrunner56 made these edits, without explanation or discussion in the summary or on the talk page, after a reversion of previous similar (but less extensive) edits by Peter Isotalo. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 04:12, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The French article wrote only about logs released by Quinn. So I removed one of footnotes. -M.Altenmann >t

re:What quinn posted: actually, she posted not logs, but excerpts from logs, which are "logs of discussion threads", and IMO may be safely called simply "logs". As for screenshots or not, it is a nitpicking. We write "This is a photo of John R", not "this is a png image of the photo of Jonh R." -M.Altenmann >t

re:what 4Chan posted: I agree this is rather irrelevant, since there is no discussion what exactly was posted and how it is relevant to the section. -M.Altenmann >t 05:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

In summary, I support the revert of the unnecessary increase of verbosity. -M.Altenmann >t 05:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I didn't think my small edits really needed to be discussed as I was only adding info from sources that were already in the section. But I'm alright with my edits being discussed further.

Also, to answer some of your concerns, the Escapist says the same thing about Quinn's spotify collection of screenshots, "Quinn claims the chat logs she released proves", not just with the 4chan member released logs (and think other sources in the section state "Quinn claims"). I also agree with the notyourshield section needs work and refinement in general, not just with the chatlog bit, but I thought any more edits from me would've needed a talk page section from me explaining myself. Shadowrunner 05:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

We already include the sentence Members of 4chan have said that some information has been taken out of context or misrepresented. Why do you think we need to extend the sentence.

Also, we currently have Quinn's release worded as ...which she said showed..., as you note. If we were to add more about 4chans release of logs (I don't believe we need to), we would need to word it similarly, in line with the sources. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 18:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Well the full chat logs were released as a direct response to the screenshots of the IRC she released herself. I thought that would be some good information to put in, and it is supported by the Escapist article. I'm fine with wording it similarly, that's reasonable. Shadowrunner 20:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Brandwatch elaboration

SOURCE. Proposed text: When Brandwatch took a sample of tweets related to GamerGate, Newsweek analyzed "that contrary to its stated goal, GamerGate spends more time tweeting negatively at game developers than at game journalists—a fact Intel, Mercedes, and Adobe should have researched before they pulled ads from news sites". Newsweek also said that data "seem to suggest GamerGaters cares less about ethics and more about harassing women". Brandwatch's algorithm could not classify the content of "most" of those tweets as positive or negative in sentiment; the analysis was done on the remaining classified tweets. Would people object to this elaboration? starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 06:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I see there's been a lot of discussion about this already. But here's my 2 cents... There is one fact that you can extrapolate from this with any real implications. "Most tweets" are not classified as negative. The author states that the negative tweets directed at specific people were in proportion to other people. All this data tells us is there are some negative tweets. Then, the author writes "which suggests that". Which is just that, a suggestion, not even an opinion or assertion. I think this should be enough justification to omit this information. (or seemingly lack-thereof) TyTyMang (talk) 08:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• I'm not totally seeing it your way. While "most tweets" are not negative - but from the other view, "most tweets" are not positive either. I do agree with that Newsweek explicitly says "suggest" - and I have edited the article accordingly, but I don't think that is a good reason why we should remove the whole thing. If they suggest, we report them as suggesting. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 09:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

There is a difference between the algorithm not being able to deduce "most tweets" and the actual content. People can read the Brandwatch article if they want to understand the analysis. Also, "suggestion" is not a weak word. For instance "the pile of bodies suggests a massacre took place" is just a way of inferring there is a logic to their statement. They could just as easily have said "a massacre took place" or in this case "GamerGate spends more time tweeting negatively at game developers than at game journalists". I would further add that they are quite explicit in stating that this is "a fact Intel, Mercedes, and Adobe should have researched before they pulled ads from news sites". So, Newsweek actually believe that this is a fact, and that is what we represent - anything else is synthesis. Koncorde (talk) 12:57, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• @Koncorde: 1) what Brandwatch article? Only Newsweek is cited. 2) Regardless of whether "suggest" is weak or not, we won't do wrong by quoting it exactly. I clarified / added your suggestion. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 13:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, a bit of confusion there, 1. I meant the Newsweek article. 2. I was referring to TyTyMang who appeared to be arguing "suggestion" somehow undermines the whole thing and that it should be omitted. Koncorde (talk) 20:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I would object to any phrasing which stresses that most/some/any tweets weren't categorized—especially phrasing that leads with this information—over the actual results of the analysis. The Newsweek source devotes 7 paragraphs (10 through 16) to breaking down the results, and a single paragraph (17) about their methodology (2 sentences) along with a summary (2 sentences). Virtually all of the proposed wording is based on that single paragraph. Look, data analysis isn't always intuitive, and when working with unintuitive information we either need to present the necessary background for understanding or consider that unnecessary details get cut. I'm not opposed to mentioning the "undetermined" tweets, but we can't do it in a way that implies something the article doesn't actually say or stresses details about methodology over the actual results. Woodroar (talk) 17:34, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Also, this. Importantly - methodology is irrelevant - we are quoting their finding which is explicitly mentioned in the title of the article. Attempting to undermine or apply undue weight to the methodology is exactly that - undue. We do not interpret the analysis, and we shouldn't apply meta-analysis to the paragraphs until we reach pseudo balance. Koncorde (talk) 20:39, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• @Koncorde: If we were to present it the way Rhoark or TyTyMang was saying "Most tweets" are not classified as negative - yeah, that might be meta-analysis, but my proposed text above just pretty much quotes from Newsweek. Here is what the article says Using an algorithm that looks for positive and negative words, BrandWatch found most tweets were neutral in sentiment. "If our algorithm doesn't identify a tweet as positive or negative, it categorizes it as neutral," a Brandwatch representative told Newsweek. "Data scientists refer to these tweets as 'undetermined' because the algorithm did not classify the mention as either negative or positive." I'm not implying anything in the proposed text, readers have to draw their own conclusions.
• @Woodroar: I have rewritten and reordered it according to your suggestion. Conclusions first. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 01:35, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Pending changes Level 2 or full protection?

There is currently a discussion at Arbitration Enforcement with respect to the use of PC2 on this article. While some express the thought that the use of PC2 is outside of policy (technically it is, but it's entirely reasonable to think that, taken to a community discussion per usual process, an exception would be made), I have different concerns. To repeat my words at the other discussion: While it may restrict some accounts from directly editing the article, we already know that editors who hold the necessary permissions have been sanctioned for their actions by Arbcom, community sanctions, or other processes in relation to this topic area. It also invites any editor with the necessary permission to review the edit and accept it, whether or not they have fully reviewed the talk page for consensus, or are aware of the subtle and creeping nature of some of the changes that have been proposed. Remember that essentially only vandalism or obvious BLP violations can be flat-out rejected, under the pending changes policy; the vast majority of edits being proposed through PC should actually be accepted. It is outside of our organizational expectations that pending changes reviewers should check for consensus on talk pages, or evaluate the quality of any edit they are reviewing; at the same time, we should not be putting pending changes reviewers in the position of unintentionally adding subtle or difficult-to-identify BLP violations or other contentious material to the article.

I would actually prefer seeing full protection of the article over PC2, so that it does retain the high level of control that is probably needed at this point; PC2 just isn't strong enough, because it still allows a lot of editors to make modifications without requiring consensus, and puts any reviewer who hasn't closely been following this article in a very difficult position. Risker (talk) 07:18, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to agree that full protection would be best. The article has seen some amount of untenable changes under PC2, and the trend I'm seeing is an increase in these. Full protection would be best to prevent degradation of the article's quality. PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Referencing Claims

We need references for the first couple paragraphs. There are great claims being made that need citation. I am too bias to do it myself and I realize it, so please, cite all sources. (posted by Starius 16:52, February 1, 2015‎)

Please be more specific. Liz 17:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

If you mean the introductory section, usually know as the lead, references aren't required. It's a summary of the entire article, which is in itself heavily referenced. This is being discussed a few sections above under #Citations in the Lede.

Peter 17:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Game media is corrupt says GamerGate, GamerGate hates women says media, Gamergate hates women because the media says so, says Misplaced Pages, just look at all the references to the media, so it must be true. This article is a complete disaster. I reads like an article on Trotsky if it had been written by Stalinist and only referenced Stalinist sources.212.130.116.215 (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Gamergate does not hate women, Gamergate hates feminists. Your statement is emotional and a bit confused. Yes, the article may be not the best. Minutes ago I myself fixed something confusing in it, after discussing here. You too, are welcome to indicate at particular article text you think is incorrect, and we can figure out a clarification. This is how wikipedia community works. -M.Altenmann >t 20:00, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

So the reason Christina Hoff Sommers supports GG, is because she hates herself... or something?212.130.116.215 (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Many waves of feminism. What you are looking for is the (somewhat minor camp) debate between Equity and gender feminism. Hoff Sommers hates feminists of a particular ilk, and has segregated herself from common feminism for the last 20 years. Koncorde (talk) 20:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

We're limited to including information from reliable sources. What's more, that's really the only appropriate thing to do. If you have sources you think are reliable, that you would like to see included in the article, you're welcome to bring them here to the talk page to be considered. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

You must be joking. 168 references, not a single one from Breitbart but lots of reference to Gawker despite them being part of the conflict.212.130.116.215 (talk) 18:47, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Breitbart was discussed at length here before. For some reason they were not considered reliable. Shii (tock) 19:51, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

But Kotaku is? That's like using NAMBLA as a trustworthy reference in an article on pedophilia.212.130.116.215 (talk) 20:20, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

It is fairly clear that most of the sources being used in this article are 'involved' in the dispute and therefore are not credible. This includes 'major' news sites like the Guardian. Until that is accepted it is not possible for this article to match up with the public perception of 'GamerGate Controversy' 189.236.226.241 (talk) 22:06, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Anonymous user, this is not a new area of discussion, so general complaints aren't really that helpful. Please provide specific suggestions for sources you believe should be used.

And please drop the political hyperboles. Stick to the facts.

Peter 20:23, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

And here's a link to the talkpage archives that shows how extensively Breitbart as a reliable source has already been discussed.

Peter 20:27, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Peter, I recommend the editors discuss the problem again; because the editors have failed to reach a conclusion in line with acceptable (never mind best) practices as apply to this article. You can use both sources, which would be acceptable but not ideal. Best practices would be to use uninvolved or quotes assigned to individuals rather than referencing involved sources as being in any way factual. 189.236.226.241 (talk) 22:11, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

No, "best practices" would be to proceed according to WP:RS. You can search the archives of this talk page for "breitbart" for further discussion on this point. drseudo (t) 22:29, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Reliable sources must be strong enough to support the claim. A lightweight source may sometimes be acceptable for a lightweight claim, but never for an extraordinary claim. In this case, where the Guardian have thrown their reliability into the wind in relation to this Scandal including erroneously attacking the encylopedia, they have labelled themselves in relation to this topic to be lightweight. Therefore there is a need to review the bias of each individual source relating to this article as due diligence for the integrity and reputation of the project. 189.236.226.241 (talk) 00:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

If you search the archives for that, also, you will find significant discussion. To be blunt, one poorly fact-checked article doesn't invalidate a source's reliability. It certainly doesn't do it retrospectively. AtomsOrSystems (talk)

I should add, in addition to that, that the Guardian posted an update correcting their errors. WHich actually speaks rather well for their overall status as a reliable source. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 01:05, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Lead edits to accurately reflect both sides of the controversy

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

My proposed edit has been reverted by User:Black Kite. Although the reasons for this are not entirely clear to me at the present (as I haven't been contacted about this by the editor at all), I suspect it may have to do with the fact that I followed WP:BOLD to an excessive extent and simply committed the changes without discussing them here first. This is my attempt to rectify this.

I believe that any article describing a "controversy" should mention both sides of the controversy from the get go. If only one side is at all represented, then there is no controversy and the article should be renamed. That, however, would not be an accurate representation of what's currently happening, and the rest of the article does reflect that (even if with a considerable bias towards one side). It strikes me as unreasonable to define a movement purely as something that its members do not identify with, while not allowing even a mention of their side in the introduction to the article. It provides the reader with an immediate message as to which side they should pick, while entirely erasing the other.

Any comments on the proposed edit, what's wrong (or right) with it, and how a bilateral lead should be implemented would be very much appreciated. Apples grow on pines (talk) 20:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Well at first glance I would have reverted it too. Your reference is not a WP:RS, it's a wiki, and user generated content should never be used as a reference. — Strongjam (talk) 21:03, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Point taken, the reference shouldn't have been there, and a more appropriate one should be found in its place. Assuming that was corrected, are there any other major issues with the edit? Apples grow on pines (talk) 21:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Apples, You're assuming that descriptions of Gamergate-supporters should prioritize the views of the supporters themselves. This is like assuming that articles about politicians should prioritize the views of the politicians themselves. That's simply not neutral. All relevant and reliable sources are supposed to be taken into consideration. Otherwise we would go against the concept of undue weight.

Peter 21:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Agreed with the above. On a more minor note regarding the formatting of "GamerGate" vs. "Gamergate," you can see the latest talk page discussion above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AtomsOrSystems (talk • contribs) 21:07, 1 February 2015‎ (UTC)

Ah, no, I'm not assuming one of them should take preference. I'm merely suggesting that both should be mentioned. I was under the impression that the inclusion of "according to its supporters" would be sufficient indication of this.

I do appreciate everyone's patience with me in this discussion. I am not an experienced editor, and thus likely to make mistakes that may be obvious to others. My intention is not to introduce one narrative as "the truth" or prioritise it. However, if we're discussing a controversy, then by default we're accepting that there are (at least) two sides to it. If there weren't, it wouldn't be a controversy.

Would this article constitute a sufficiently good source for the statement that "according to its supporters, GG is about ethics"? 1. In particular, the quote "The conflict on the site began almost alongside Gamergate, a grassroots campaign broadly targeting alleged corruption in games journalism and perceived feminist influence in the videogame industry" seems to accurately explain the sentiment I'd like to convey. Apples grow on pines (talk) 21:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

My 2c: why not "Gamergate is a controversy related to ethics in gaming journalism, and gender relations in video game culture." We're going for neutrality, right? To actually define this (quote) "controversy"(!), through expressing the position of one side in said controversy, has to be the very meaning of "one-sided". The current state of affairs is pretty staggering..

I like the proposal, but imo we still need a proper "lead sentence". We can elaborate on who exactly says what in the following text. -- Director (talk) 22:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The main reason not to use your suggestion would be that the consensus of reliable sources is that the Gamergate Controversy is related to sexism in video game culture, with any concerns ethics in game journalism portrayed as secondary at best. We're obligated to portray the matter as the sources do. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 22:59, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Director, if both sides of this issue were in any way equal, you'd be right. But they're not equal. The ethics angle is considered fringe, while the sexism angle is clearly a mainstream opinion.

Peter 23:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Both sides? The reliable independent sources don't seem to identify two sides, only victims and abusers. Where are the reliable indepdnent mainstream sources that portray two sides, and where's the evidence they weight them anything like equally? Guy (Help!) 23:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

That's what the media coverage actually consists of. This is not the place to discuss personal opposition to it.

Peter 23:52, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Hmm. Are victims and (alleged) abusers not "two sides"? They're one side, then? Should we be one-sided?

But what you're saying, then, is that the topic of this article is limited to some people being abused by others. How is this a "controversy" then? From what I can gather, it seems that there were complaints and accusations regarding some alleged corruption, which resulted in allegations of sexism and calls to (quote) "abolish the gamer identity", which resulted in threats, which then really had the thing take off.. Boiling it down to the threats is not only disingenuous, its rather absurd with regard to our title, if nothing else. "Gamergate Abuse" then?

But not to veer off the point, lets take the sources into account then. Proposing "Gamergate is a controversy surrounding journalistic ethics and sexism in video game culture." Or switch the two if you like, same difference.

What I'm trying to say is this is a complex event. Our lead sentence seems to focus on one side's view, of the later developments. And we're not really expressing what there is to "controverse" about.

Finally, I'd like to remind everyone that media sources.. aren't very good sources. We are free to take some liberty with how we summarize them. Particularly if it makes our lead sentence actually represent the conflict we're talking about. -- Director (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

This is a complex event, but the reliable sources agree that it centers around a debate regarding sexism. Journalistic ethics are presented as secondary, at best. They're not equal, and we shouldn't portray them as such. Certainly not in the very first sentence of the article. (Edit Conflict) AtomsOrSystems (talk) 00:04, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

We have the sources we have, and some of them are fairly strong (if a touch too primary, which is perhaps unavoidable in an ongoing matter). I agree we are free to take some liberty with them. I think you're suggesting we take considerably more than some. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 00:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The first concern is to actually describe what this is about, second - to do it with regard to weight in sources. To sacrifice the latter for the sake of the former is getting one's priorities mixed up, I think. I'm not talking about equality, I'm talking first and foremost having a functional, up-to-snuff lede sentence. Have a look at the actual Watergate. -- Director (talk) 00:20, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm going to very strongly disagree with any attempt to 'take liberty' with our reliable sources to twist what we've sourced to say something different. PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

We need to actually describe what this is about, relying on our sources to do so. If not reliable sources, what are we going to base the article on, editor opinion or even an individual editor's certainty regarding the controversy? I honestly don't understand what you're suggesting. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 00:46, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any difference between "description" and "summarizing reliable sources". We are supposed to base articles on sources, so they should also guide our descriptions. The "functional" description in this case is of sexism, not concerns about journalism ethics.

I have no idea what you mean by the reference to Watergate scandal, btw.

Peter 00:44, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The comment: are the victims and abusers not "toe sides"? That is not what is being argued for. We already describe both victims and abusers. What we do not do is pretend that they are anything other than victims and abusers. To portray this as "two sides" is to give equal weight to the opinions of both, which the reliable independent sources clearly do not. The claim that gamergate is about "ethics in videogame journalism", for example, has been extensively reviewed and found to be entirely bogus. The article as it is, describes events according to the consensus of reliable independent sources. These sources make due note of the fact that unreliable partisan sources state the matter differently. It would be entirely wrong of us to go against that, and I think it is unlikely that we would do so given the amount of coverage in the mainstream whihc fingers this squarely as an issue of over-entitled abusive misogynists. Guy (Help!) 00:49, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The Apollo program has a fairly popular conspiracy theory attached to it. That's also commented on by serious sources. But as a bogus notion, naturally. So we don't begin the Apollo program article by "describing" it as both a space program and a massive hoax. The situation here is fairly similar.

Peter 01:04, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

You are saying that there is a media consensus, but what happens when media is biased? What happens when all the reliable sources you mention is either factually wrong or just opinions? I am not disputing the existence of abuse and threats on the GG side. But the movement did not started just to explicitly abuse and threaten female game developers or critics. There is substantial evidence that Pro Gamergate people are concerned with the alleged collusion within game developers and journalists, there is evidence of them trying to sensor people who tried to voice these concerns. Maybe the majority of the Gamergate movement has nothing to do with threats and abuse at all. There are certainly considerable people who condemn threats and abuse within GG. Many in GG believe that, those commenters are undermining their real goal and they despise them. They are the ones creating patrols to watch and report those kind of comments. You say those views are fringe, that is not true either, while there are not much reliable source for them, these views are held by a significant amount of people, which is why #gamergate is still alive.

But granted, we can't add those to the article, because they were not covered by reliable sources. We are bound by the data we can collect from reliable sources to construct this article as neutral as we can. What we can do, and I think what we should do, is to do our best to reflect the both with what Reliable source we can find, not follow the consensus of media! Of course we must state that there is a consensus in the media, but we don't have to be a part of this consensus. But If we have a guardian article that defines Gamergate as: "... a grassroots campaign broadly targeting alleged corruption in games journalism and perceived feminist influence in the videogame industry. " It should be added to the lead, as the definition of pro gamergaters coincide with it. Again, no one is saying we should exclude the sexism and abuse part which is why the subject is notable for, only that we should state the definition of the movement as they were perceived by their members. 78.174.219.180 (talk) 01:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Strongly agree with the above. I'd point to Jimbo's comment on the matter (which I sincerely hope I'm not misconstruing): "Wales’ advice for Gamergate supporters who wanted to change the Misplaced Pages article was to be constructive, and present a vision for the article which they wanted to read rather than engage in a war with feminist editors who were trying to maintain their vision."

I feel that this is exactly what we're trying to do here. We're not trying to erase the currently-dominant narrative in the article, merely to present the alternative. The alternative is covered by reliable sources, even if the coverage of the pro-GamerGate narrative is lesser in quantity than that driven by the very media GamerGate is focused on (this should be unsurprising to anyone). The fact that primary sources are allowed (with Kotaku and Polygon prominently displayed throughout the reference section), but Breitbart is not (because "they make stuff up") is, in my view, a sign of a bias where some blatantly POV sources are OK, but some sources which are not quite as directly linked to the subject are not, seemingly because they do not fit the narrative desired by the now-banned editors.

I think the issue at hand is simple. We need a lead that accurately represents both sides of the story. We currently don't have one, and that's due to cherry-picking of sources. This is setting a dangerous precedent, and one that's clearly currently being combatted. What we should be discussing is how to achieve neutrality in this article in a way that does both sides justice, not whether this should be done. Apples grow on pines (talk) 01:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Since the lede is a summary of the article, perhaps it would be more productive to first get your proposed changes into the body then worry about adding it to the lede. — Strongjam (talk) 01:48, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I would argue that they're already there, at least to some extent. Apples grow on pines (talk) 01:51, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

(Further to that, I would note that this section does need some WP:NPOV editing, but I think it's of lesser significance than the complete erasure of the other side in the lead) Apples grow on pines (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The very first thing the article says about gamergate is going to be that it's notable because of the sexist and misogynistic attacks. The lede sentence should say as soon as possible why the subject is notable. It shouldn't start with a frankly fringe position. — Strongjam (talk) 02:00, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Actually, nearly all of the ledes's second paragraph is dedicated to the "alleged corruption in games journalism and perceived feminist influence" position, and how it is overwhelmingly perceived by the sources.GreggHamster (talk) 02:04, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

{od}@Apples grow on pines:I don't think any one source should have a single quote picked out of it, against a large number of other sources, to change the very first sentence of the article. That being said, would you mind linking the Guardian article you are referring to? I thought I was familiar with those sources, and I've gone through each of them, but am unable to locate your quote. Thanks. AtomsOrSystems (talk) 02:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Addition: Some people are making a false equivalency by comparing the things like Appollo landing conspiracy theories which there is scientific proof to debunk, with this controversy which is mostly consists of opinions and allegations that may or may not be true. Furthermore, to use same example, Appollo landing wasn't an event to debunk conspiracy theories, gamergate on the other hand was started by what you call "fringe" allegations and concerns, and those concerns and allegations about ethics in gaming journalism was why the sexist comments and threats was made in the first place. In this article they are very relevant to the core of this issue, and though there are not much reliable source for them, In my opinion they should be included. 78.174.219.180 (talk) 01:58, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

•  Note: Specifics please, sources and proposed edits; this section has become just a Soapbox. Dreadstar ☥ 02:01, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I still feel that my proposed edit has merit, subject to swapping the reference from gamergate.me to the Guardian article mentioned. Apples grow on pines (talk) 02:09, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Which is irrelevant to my point. Dreadstar ☥ 02:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I, uh... okay. If a specific proposed edit with specific sources is not specific enough, then what would be? Should I write it down here instead of linking it? Or are you saying that, despite there still being an active discussion of this edit, we should simply ignore it?

You know what, nevermind. How's this for an edited lead:

GamerGate, according to its opponents (the majority of observers), is a controversy related to sexism in video game culture. Its supporters claim that it is instead a consumer boycott in response to excessive politicisation of gaming media, as well as concerns about ethical misconduct of video games journalists. It garnered significant public attention

Apples grow on pines (talk) 02:30, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

No template warning in article?

being completely new to the topic and just recently having heard and read about it and having now read the article itself: is seems that there should *at least* be a "disputed" or "npov" template shown on the article page itself to caution unsuspecting readers to take everything they read with a grain of salt, no?--109.193.92.201 (talk) 00:25, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The way it is? I'd agree... I did some reading on this in the news, came here just now, and was kind of startled and puzzled. Though, to be honest, experience told me to expect much more vitriol on the talkpage :). Must say I'm pleasantly surprised by the general maturity of the discourse, seems we managed to keep this in perspective. -- Director (talk) 00:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages articles do not have disclaimers beyond the Misplaced Pages:General disclaimer. There is a {{POV}} template, but anyone wanting to add it to the article should read and follow the instructions for how to use it. We've had people use it disruptively in the past. It's not intended to warn readers. Instead it's to invite other editors to discuss a specific and actionable WP:NPOV issue that the tagger has found. If it is added to the article and it's not clear what the NPOV issue that the editor who added is addressing then it can be removed by any other editor. — Strongjam (talk) 01:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I do think that a {{POV}} template would be appropriate, both as a means to inviting editors and an indication that the article is very much a work in progress. Similar templates are in use in much less controversial subjects (e.g. Sexism), so it would not be an unprecedented move. Apples grow on pines (talk) 01:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

As Strongjam said above - please read the rules for NPOV tagging. If you think it should be added, you should "point out specific issues that are actionable within the content policies, namely Misplaced Pages:Neutral point of view, Misplaced Pages:Verifiability, Misplaced Pages:No original research and Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons. Simply being of the opinion that a page is not neutral is not sufficient to justify the addition of the tag." GreggHamster (talk) 02:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Anyone who wants to follow the instructions is free to add it, but I will remove any "drive-by" tagging of the article. Editors who add it should be add a talk page section to discuss what their specific POV issue is. Absent that discussion the tag instructions say it may be removed. — Strongjam (talk) 02:12, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above (Talk:Gamergate_controversy#Lead_edits_to_accurately_reflect_both_sides_of_the_controversy) both identifies an issue and provides sources to back it up. In the absence of a clear resolution of the issue, a tag should be added to invite more editors to seek a rational one. Apples grow on pines (talk) 02:15, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

1. Hern, Alex (January 23, 2015). "Misplaced Pages votes to ban some editors from gender-related articles". The Guardian. Retrieved February 1, 2015.

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