Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 21:57, 15 December 2014

Welcome

Logged in to help try fix the badly broken Sarkeesian articles, and other Misplaced Pages areas afflicted with extreme imbalance. By broken, I mean the link between that article and the known reality, rather than the article's strict adherence to the letter of the law.

My personal feeling is that since self-published sources have begun to dominate popular culture Misplaced Pages's restriction on coverage of such sources belongs to a bygone era. Nevertheless, while that restriction remains part of the rules, I'll follow it.

We have a massive public debate going on, with one side of the debate publishing exclusively through self-published sources, and the Misplaced Pages-approved sources (who have anything to say on the matter) exclusively on the other side, and in no mood to provide any kind of balance.

As a result, Misplaced Pages's coverage of the debate is useless, and directly contrary to the known facts. Only one side's view can be given under Misplaced Pages's restriction on coverage of self-published sources. The notion of a single category called "self-published source" that ignores whether the self-published source is read by one person or 5 billion says to me that a radical re-think of the near-blanket ban needs to be started.

Brightsideofnews

 Quoting another editor here about a source:  

"Finally, www.brightsideofnews.com doesn't give me any confidence at all. The author claims no particular credentials, and is not listed in their professional staff. TL;DR version: VentureBeat yes, Asian Age maybe, Inquistr maybe, and brightsideofnews.com no."

My response: I don't see how your confidence should matter. The site is a news source with editorial staff. It's non-reliable status is not demonstrated. I have read the relevant policy documents and there's nothing in there that could disqualify it, or even raise a question.

The writer, Derek Strickland, is indeed a simple working journalist reporting the facts. What "credentials" are needed to report facts in an article submitted to an edited publication?

The facts in question are all public domain. The ban on reporting on self-published sources does not apply to brightsideofnews.com, that is a Misplaced Pages house rule, not an international law. Other publications are free to use their judgement to decide which self-published sources merit reportage.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/2014/09/20/twitter-suspends-anita-sarkeesian-critic-abusive-behavior/

I'd prefer to have added these observations to the article's talk page, but it's apparently locked down.

October 2014

Please stop using talk pages such as Anita Sarkeesian for general discussion of the topic. They are for discussion related to improving the article; not for use as a forum or chat room. If you have specific questions about certain topics, consider visiting our reference desk and asking them there instead of on article talk pages. See here for more information. Thank you. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:03, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Hey

I just wanted to say that I sympathize with you...a lot. You remind me of one of the memorable things that I did when I first started editing Misplaced Pages is that I started an RfC for the fair use thing with Anita. You probably know what I've been talking about. I can't even read the archive of what I said (because I remember it was embarrassing--I'll have to see what exactly I said--I remember that it was rough though.) I thought all of these editors had a cabal of secret IRC channels, constantly making and directing people to the article, and I wanted a RfC to stop it. Well I got one, it was argued for maybe 10 days, discussion stagnated and after about 50+ editors gave their response, it was closed after the sufficient time as to deny the incident any coverage, per community consensus. I also incessantly argued against about 10 editors in that time, claiming that they were blatantly wrong and that they were trying to stifle the content. I think that my approach was wrong and should've 'listened' and researched more in the initial argument, not just ignore all criticism or arguments and exclaim I'm right. All that I ask is that you take it easy, take a breath, and look at what they're saying. They could be right. They could also be wrong. Read the actual policies, read the whole policy, read other guidelines and policies. If you need any help or want any of my thoughts on stuff, feel free to ask. I know how you feel because I felt like that before, and due to WP:BLP policy, you have to be especially important about directly saying any of the allegations about living persons. Overzealous moderation has occurred and people have been blocked because of it, myself included. Good luck. Tutelary (talk) 00:36, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

December 2014

Please read this notification carefully:
A community discussion has authorised the use of general sanctions for pages related to the Gamergate controversy, such as Talk:Gamergate controversy, which you have recently edited.
The details of these sanctions are described here.

General sanctions is a system of conduct regulation designed to minimise disruption in controversial topic areas. This means uninvolved administrators can impose sanctions for edits relating to these topics that do not adhere to the purpose of Misplaced Pages, our standards of behaviour, or relevant policies. Administrators may impose sanctions such as editing restrictions, bans, or blocks. An editor can only be sanctioned after he or she has been made aware that general sanctions are in effect. This notification is meant to inform you that sanctions are authorised in these topic areas, which you have been editing. It is only effective if it is logged here. Before continuing to edit pages in these topic areas, please familiarise yourself with the general sanctions system. Don't hesitate to contact me or another editor if you have any questions.

This message is informational only and does not imply misconduct regarding your contributions to date. Strongjam (talk) 17:47, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

Note

This is just informal advice, but I am giving it in my capacity as an uninvolved administrator. I've been observing conduct on the GamerGate controversy talk page and related articles in an attempt to find the root of the conduct issues in the topic area. Having observed some of your comments, I believe you are contributing to the toxicity of the atmosphere on the talk pages in the topic area. Please use the talk pages to discuss substantive changes to articles, not to express your opinion about the subject matter or on other editors. By way of example most of the "Time to recast the article subject as a moral panic." section, including the section header, is not at all helpful, and many of your comments on the Anita Sarkeesian talk page have also included your own commentary. I am not going to take any further action at this time because none of your comments have been so egregious as to merit such in my opinion, but please bear this in mind in your future editing. Thank you, HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:22, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Your December edits

Hi, as some of your recent edits caught my attention I took a look at related edits. You took a long break from October 2014 onwards, so I only examined your edits since your return on December 6.

You got off to a good start, making your arguments well within reasonable difference of opinion on talk:rape culture, talk:Anita Sarkeesian and talk: gamergate controversy. On December 7, though, your tone changed. This edit is a little worrying because you become inflammatory, declaring that someone who hasn't looked at Phil "Thunderf00t" Mason's YouTube videos is "not fit to be an editor on this topic" and you compare those who disregard criticism of Anita Sarkeesian's work (even if this is due to Misplaced Pages's requirements on reliable sourcing) to "holocaust and anthropogenic climate change denialism." Thanks for removing the first comment and slightly softening the second .

You come back and promote Phil Mason's commentary as "deeply notable", but if you've made a case for this vlogger's notability on the topic it cannot be seen in your recent comments. To the contrary, the article Phil Mason brings us a piece by Ian Steadman on Mason's voluminous Sarkeesian-related output that makes obvious the reason why we don't bother.

The huge volume of Mason's output on the topic and his popularity with his fans don't tell us much, else we'd probably quote Answers in Genesis a lot more (and little-read scientific articles a lot less) in our article on transitional fossils. Your line of argument from personal assessment, though, is only problematic in that it suggests a disregard for site content policies. Your wording "certain POV-pushers are desperate to remove his massively influential and deeply notable work on this subject off the agenda" is more worrying because it's very inflammatory.

More recently you've spent a lot of time on your new threads in talk:gamergate controversy, largely "foruming" and promoting idiosyncratic personal or fringe ideas on the topic. This is deeply worrying.

General sanctions apply on articles related to Gamergate, of which the Anita Sarkeesian article is one. This is because over the past four months or so there has been a large amount of war-like behaviour on these articles. Please be aware of this and take care to express your opinions without attacking other editors. It can be hard to make an argument for inclusion, but editors undertake that task every day all over Misplaced Pages without waging war, calling other editors "desperate POV-pushers", and promoting original research. --TS 05:39, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I contest your accusations. Who is your superior to whom I need to report you? Bramble window (talk) 21:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Concern trolling is no more welcome here than anywhere else.

Please refrain from it on this page. Anyone have a disagreement with anything I have posted? Start off with that, and end with it too. I'll read it and consider the criticism on its merits alone. There's a good chance that we have a principled disagreement about what kind of thing should be in an encyclopedia. Let's start off from that basis.