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Where did the actual ethics issue go?

At one point we covered an actual ethics issue where a AAA company gave out free swank to independent reviewers under the condition they only give positive reviews to the game - an issue that GG studiously ignored because thats not the kind of ethics they are concerned about, apparently, because its not about SJW ethics or something.

Where did that go? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:24, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

This appears to be what you're referring to (kudos to EthicsInJournalism for the linked content). I don't think you can actually keep the phrase that "GG studiously ignored" this issue because the people writing the link covers it in depth and identify themselves with gamergate. Now, you might very well have a reliable source in the press that claims "GG studiously ignored it" so obviously that would trump the obvious proof in the link that these self-identified gamergaters are very much looking deeply into it. But do you have a reliable source that says that the link I just posted is nonexistent? Bramble window (talk) 13:24, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

This is so obvious WP:FORUM that it's sad no action will be taken against you yet other people are forever banned for reverting a button size twice. You're referring to the Shadow Of Mordor thing? You came to know about it because of TotalBiscuit, he's pro-GG, the story was broken on The Escapist a fairly neutral site that allows GG discussion. It was later resolved, there were threads on KiA about it Those "reviewers" were YouTubers, not journalists. Loganmac (talk) 06:18, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

This question is clearly about article content. Content that was there and is not now -and I am asking when it disappeared and why because i did not see any discussion. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

There seems to have been a little rewriting of history here. This is Erik Kain, at the time, tweaking the Gamergate people for their very muted response to the Shadows of Mordor scandal.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/10/08/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-paid-branding-deals-should-have-gamergate-up-in-arms/

--TS 14:05, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Another contemporary report from Damion Schubert appears to corroborate Kain.

http://www.zenofdesign.com/what-games-journalism-integrity-actually-is-and-what-it-isnt/

Note that both of them credit Jim Sterling (who acknowledged John "TotalBiscuit" Bain's role in breaking the story) with obtaining and analysing one of the contracts at issue. Sterling has been steadfastly critical of Gamergate. --TS 14:16, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

References

1. http://press.gamergate.me/dossier/

and here (belated sign) -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:16, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Workshop

This edit request to Gamergate controversy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I suggest we add/restore to the end of the first paragraph in ]

• Commentators including Zaid Jilani and Erik Kane discussed the lack of any significant response from Gamergate supporters regarding the ethical issues surrounding the release of preview copies of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor tied to conditions which included reviewers having to give positive reviews, restricting the mention of any bugs, and requiring the publisher to approve the review in advance.

References

1. Zaid Jilani (Oct 28, 2014). "Gamergate's fickle hero: The dark opportunism of Breitbart's Milo Yiannopoulos". Salon. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
2. Erik Kain (10/08/2014). "'Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor' Paid Branding Deals Should Have #GamerGate Up In Arms". Forbes. Retrieved 26 December 2014. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:42, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

John "TotalBiscuit" Bain's come out and stated "Shadow of Mordor was not only not an issue of journalistic ethics BUT it had the whistle-blown it by someone pro-Gamergate (ie. me) and the PR company in question was pressured into changing their contracts. The idea that "Gamergate" did not care about this issue has no basis in reality. Revisionist history, nothing more." Seeing as Mr Bain broke the story, is the reason it is publicly known, his statement needs to be in the section. If the whistleblower's viewpoint is to be excluded, then I don't support covering the Shadow of Mordor affair as the POV would be unacceptably far from neutral. Bramble window (talk) 14:44, 26 December 2014 (UTC)11

The above thread is pertinent to the matter of how to cover the Shadow of Mordor issue within the article. It is also inappropriate for @TheRedPenOfDoom to collapse a discussion in which he/she is a participant. I call on TRPOD to reverse the collapse. Rhoark (talk) 04:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

make up your mind already. "first what does this actually have to do with the article " or not? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Not everyone who disagrees with you is the same person, and this section is all about how GG reacted to the Mordor situation. Resolving that is tributary to improving the article. Rhoark (talk) 16:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

We over-weight Kain already in the article and we really have plenty of 'not-really' ethics. I don't think this paragraph is needed. — Strongjam (talk) 15:00, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

We cover the "objective reviews" et al is not "ethics" (false positives)in the article but we dont cover the aspect where actual ethics issues coming from AAA sites are ignored (the false negative). Multiple people not just Kain have covered this. It paints the full picture - if GG were actually active in issues of actual ethics and had non ethics issues, that would be a different "organization" / "movement" - but no, they dont even have that. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

If you want to use the Shadow of Mordor affair, you have to include the statement by the Gamergater who exposed it. Otherwise it would be an outrageous breach of neutrality. I agree with covering this affair, including the powerful pro-Gamergate statement by the whistleblower who brought it to light. Bramble window (talk) 15:27, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• 2) Commentators including Zaid Jilani and Erik Kane discussed the fact that even though a Gamergate supporter brought an issue of ethical concerns regarding the release of preview copies of Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor to attention of the media and Gamergate, the lack of any significant response from Gamergate supporters to conditions which included reviewers having to give positive reviews, restricting the mention of any bugs, and requiring the publisher to approve the review in advance were more evidence that the supporters were not actually concerned about ethics.

Does that satisfy your issues? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:30, 26 December 2014 (UTC) You have to include the whistleblower's riposte if you're going to mention the Shadow of Mordor affair. Anything else would be an extreme violation of NPOV. That's all there is to it. Bramble window (talk) 18:32, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

At this point I think this very long-winded argumentation is less an attempt to improve the article, more yet another pointless attempt to relitigate Gamergate's lost PR campaign. As such we probably should ask the editors to take the argument off-wiki. --TS 00:37, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

No, this is actually incredibly relevant to the article and should be discussed here to figure out how to appropriately deal with it on the article. Discussion is how we do things here. Thargor Orlando (talk) 01:21, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, without actually addressing your argument, I apologise for that misplaced comment, which I intended to append to the sub-thread below. --TS 10:09, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Getting back to the original proposal, the idea seems to be that we should cover a particular affair which is marginally related to Gamergate. In early October John "Total Biscuit" Bain, who is broadly sympathetic to Gamergate but has kept his distance and has sometimes condemned, sometimes dismissed, concerns about the attacks, raised the topic of conditions being imposed on YouTube commentators in return for early access to Shadows of Mordor. Others such as Jim Sterling carried the investigation further. Multiple commentators about Gamergate at the time remarked on the evident lack of interest in this scandal displayed by Gamergate supporters, who were more concerned with attacking and vilifying independent developers, women, journalists, and game commentators.

I think the issue here is that the whole affair is a little inside-baseball. We have an article that focuses on some events that had a pretty severe effect on the victims, and here we have an event that clearly had little to do with Gamergate and was largely ignored by Gamergate supporters. A few commentators tweaked their noses about it, and openly wondered why this clearly unethical behaviour by a major software distributor wasn't raising a ruckus among Gamergaters. But that's about as close as we get to the relevance to Gamergate. Yes we could put it back, but I don't see its absence as an editorial failing on our part. We have to draw the line somewhere. --TS 14:49, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

So as far as the "controversy" goes, this is essentially a non-issue - it is merely evidence of the hollowness of the GG "but ethics" mantra? OK i can see that. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:00, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

On abstract opinions and judgements

It seems it's gotten to be habit to simply close off dissent by abusing Wiki tools. The issue here is that any suggestion of revision to be more objective or belabor less about the speculative ethical nature of a controversial subject is immediately shot down. Anyone can make a direct suggestion for a revision, but none are accepted unless said revision leans towards a condescending tone against Gamergate. This particular edit request was established to once again harp on Gamergate for things editors or journalists think Gamergate isn't doing, which is just plain madness. The article would be never ending if we had to list every aspect of politics that could be tangentially related to this group but potentially wasn't. The article is really just very stupid. It focuses so much on these abstract opinions and judgements, ascribing motives where there are none. Discussing this problem isn't really far afield of content. YellowSandals (talk) 18:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I think what's actually happening is fairly clear. Some editors are unhappy about what the vast majority of reliable sources say about Gamergate. Continual attempts to move coverage away from reliance on reliable sources are inevitably rebuffed on grounds of due weight and verifiability. In fact, over the months the article is visibly converging on a narrative that has coalesced within reliable sources. That's pretty much how the encyclopaedia is supposed to be written. --TS 18:50, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

see WP:TPG and WP:NOTFORUM and the 15 pages of archives. What is happening is that people go off on wild tangents that are not directly discussing specific article content and how best to represent the reliable sources in the article. Anything else doesnt belong here and should be cut off. there are whole forums on reddit and 8chan for ranting about how wikipedia is not being fair to gg. if you want to join them, feel free. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:16, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Demonizing Groups on Misplaced Pages

This abomination of a page needs to be deleted

Notability? Neutrality? Neutralize?

Honestly, no matter how many gamers or feminists talk about this, is it really notable? Should we document every single gaming outrage as encyclopedic events if they have well known sources behind them? Also, it appears that large portions of the article are sourced and referenced by the magazines and websites whose independence as journalists are the very ones called into question by the outrage, making this a POV nightmare! It appears to me that there is no possible way to neutrally cover this subject given the quality of the sources given. (Podcasts are not reliable sources by the way.) The only possible solution to this crapfest I can see is to just delete the whole thing. Best of luck. Breckham101 (talk) 06:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

You are welcome to put it up on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion (it was up once before, on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/GamerGate), but I highly doubt you would succeed; at this point it has received extensive coverage from many of the most reputable news sources in the world, and those make up the bulk of the sourcing for the article's core. I also doubt you'll convince many people that the sourcing is a problem; if we refused to use even the most well-known, mainstream, reputable sources in a situation like this, we would be unable to write articles about eg. conspiracy theories at all (even when notable), since it is very common for such theories to claim that any voice that rejects or disproves their theory is part of the conspiracy itself. For instance, we cite NASA (and news sources that trust it implicitly) extensively in our article on Moon landing conspiracy theories, even though anyone who believes those theories obviously feels that NASA is an unreliable source for that, and even though they would argue that NASA has a vested stake in rejecting them; similarly, we cite evolutionary biologists at length in our article on Evolution, and climate scientists in our article on Global Warming, even though there are countless voices who would accuse them of being biased for one reason or another. Beyond that, our current sources draw heavily from the Guardian, the BBC, Columbia Journalism Review, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Australian Broadcast Company, and so on -- as far as I am aware these are not sources that have been accused of anything in this case. We cite people who are directly involved only to source their own opinions or claims, when these things are noteworthy and relevant to the subject. --Aquillion (talk) 08:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I think this kind of ill-informed comment is turning up often enough to go into our FAQ. Something like:

Q. Why does this article use sources that are accused of being unethical?

A. Our article stringently adheres to Misplaced Pages's core policies on sourcing, and reflects the overwhelming consensus of reliable sources such as The Telegraph, The New York Times, The Guardian, TIME, and Forbes. We do not rely on the gaming press as a source for facts, except for instance facts about their publicly stated opinions.

That needs work, obviously, but we should make more extensive use of the FAQ, and keep it up to date. --TS 12:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

On matters pertaining to gender feminism, I don't think the Guardian merits consideration as a reliable source. In terms of faithful fact-checking and attempts at objectivity, its work on gender politics is akin to the O'Reilly Factor or the North Korean official news agency. Bramble window (talk) 13:43, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I havent ever seen that FAQ's actually impact disruption on talk pages, so i am pretty ambivalent about putting effort into making it more comprehensive. the SPA drones will keep coming with their same tired complaints. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

In practice I've found the existence of a FAQ useful in handling perennial complaints, usually prompted by off-site sources, on talk: Global warming and other climate change article talk pages. It doesn't measurably reduce the number of such complaints but it reduces the amount of work needed to handle them. You don't need to repeat the same rebuttal umpteen times, you just say "see FAQ Q10" or whatever, hat it and move on. --TS 14:24, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

i guess its worth a try. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:04, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

You can use what I listed at the ArbCom page as a starting point. Rhoark (talk) 16:41, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Have you thought of putting your ideas into an essay? --TS 20:29, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 28 December 2014

Editors are politely requested to stop abusing the edit protected tag. Please read the documentation before even contemplating using it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
This edit request to Gamergate controversy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. This article is written in such a way as to demonize a large group of people, which includes many women, by assigning "hatred" (misogyny), "sexism", etc. It only presents the controversy from the perspective of those who oppose the Gamergate movement. This is like extreme atheists writing the article on the Catholic church. The article needs to be reopened so that the Pro-Gamergate perspective of the controversy can be put. Ksolway (talk) 11:05, 28 December 2014 (UTC) You dont seem to understand what the edit request template is actually for. You're meant to write a specific request like "add this sentence about Pakman I've written to the article" not just ask for the entire article to be rewritten. If you want to get the article to be unprotected, you're meant to ask the admin who protected it User:Future Perfect At Sunrise. Please read WP:ERQ before you try and make an edit request again Bosstopher (talk) 11:19, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Being bold with the lede in the draft

This comment thread relates to the draft version of the article, Draft:Gamergate controversy, which is being used to test editorial changes while the main article is fully protected due to disputes.

I just went in and hacked out every lede paragraph after the first, which I proceeded to split in two.

The subsequent paras just look to me like an attempt to repeat the entire history in miniature. Well, that's what the article body is for.

Comments, aggressive edits, etc, are hereby solicited. --TS 13:14, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

A lead will generally include a summary of the history for context ... although i guess the history here is harassment, harassment more harassment so I guess there is not much context gained except for an introduction of the significant "players" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:08, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks good! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Artw (talk • contribs) 16:55, 28 December 2014‎ (UTC)

per below the identification of the gamergaters as leaderless mob is important and needs to be added back in somehow. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:32, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The role of the lede is to summarise the content in the body - accordingly, if the body goes into the history of GamerGate, some summary of that history needs to be restated in the lede. - Bilby (talk) 22:45, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• The cutting seems good. Thanks TS for stepping up. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 03:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 28 December 2014 (2)

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Gamergate supporters have been unwilling to move beyond the unorganized, leaderless and anonymous origins which has resulted in an inability to control the behavior and messaging of those acting under the Gamergate hashtag.

This sounds biased as if the group themselves refuse to appoint a leader. However can gamergate even be qualified as a movement as there are no goalposts? Ethics in Journalism is not a goal but a tenet. As such I think it would read better as:

Gamergate being unorganized, leaderless and anonymous in origins has resulted in an inability to control the behavior and messaging of those acting under the Gamergate hashtag.

Xgllo (talk) 20:11, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

The current draft is at Draft:Gamergate controversy. Actually that bit looks like something I may have hacked out of the draft early this afternoon. Do join in the editing if you have further thoughts. --TS 20:17, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Being a leaderless anonymous mob has been a conscious choice. There has been no effort made to select leaders or even spokesperson (and in fact active campaigning against such). -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:28, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think you're almost certainly right. --TS 20:35, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Tony, would you be willing to include something like "Gamergate, being purposefully unorganized, leaderless and anonymous, has been unable to control the behavior..." in the draft's lead? Shii (tock) 20:53, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a true statement, but I don't know if its verifiable. We should probably drop 'purposefully' unless we have a source for it. — Strongjam (talk) 20:57, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikis work best when people just write something onto the page and others refine it. Give it your best shot at the draft page, no pressure. --TS 21:37, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Keep in mind that we can only say it is a perception of the sources that GG has opted to stay leaderless/unorganized. It's Occums Razor based on all evidence they are and the clear opinion they purposely stay that way, but still only an opinion and nothing yet factual (even in their GG mandates they don't address the leaderless asepct). --MASEM (t) 01:44, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

no there are actual threads and postings where they talk about "we are not going to have a leader- thats against our ethics " (only you know, with calling each other faggots and posting lots irrelevant pictures) . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

...Which, for the same reasons we can't go into more details of their ethics credo, we can't use forum posts as to meet WP:V; we have no idea if those are the GG supporters or just people there to stir the shit. --MASEM (t) 02:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

again, thats the problem with being a leaderless missionless mob. one that has not soaked into GGers heads yet. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:03, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• There's no need for the inflammatory second sentence. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 04:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

There are or were several sources cited discussing Gamergate's unwillingness to organize, particularly Jesse Singal in New York, and others discussed it as well. It's the point Jimmy repeatedly made, though obviously he's not a reliable source for it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

TechRaptor at RSN

The discussion here got stale and archived, but it is now being renewed at Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#TechRaptor. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:06, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I get the impression that website is a bit like examiner.com. The stories I've seen are often way out there. --TS 00:05, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Phil Fish and weasel words

We still seem to be cleaning up various bits of passive aggressive nonsense from the article. Until recently the article still contained irrelevant rubbish about Phil Fish's turbulent relationship with the public.

Another recent excision was the removal of the text "which included numerous denigrating tweets he made about her opponents" from the statement that Fish was doxed and had his website compromised for defending Zoe Quinn. Of course he denigrated the disgusting low-lifes who threatened Zoe Quinn's life, any decent person would. The presence of the text served no purpose, except perhaps to weasel away the crime against Fish.

So why is that text now back in the draft? --TS 22:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Reliable sources saw fit to mention his insults in relation to the hack and doxing. His past was relevant enough to mention in those sources as well, presumably because it indicates such comments were not unusual for him. I find it rather bizarre that you have no problem with saying Kluwe insulted them but didn't get doxed, but have a serious problem with saying Fish insulted them and was subjected to a nuclear doxing. Saying he got doxed for speaking in support of Quinn is horrifically misleading as it makes it seem like he just went on YouTube to be all "Leave Zoe alone!" and then got doxed, when the truth is he said the people criticizing Quinn were "essentially rapists" among other insults.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:05, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Where? I didn't see the refs characterizing his tweets that way when I glanced over them just now. Some of the refs quoted them, and I can understand you interpreting the quotes that way, but it's still WP:OR to characterize them yourself, since you're asserting not just the tone but the relevance of that tone in your own personal voice (ie you're making the implicit statement that first, his tone is noteworthy, and second, that he was attacked because of that tone, which is not in the sources that I can see.) --Aquillion (talk) 23:15, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not suggesting my interpretation be added to the article, only that the nature of his "support" and his prior history be mentioned as reliable sources saw fit to mention it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:46, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's an adequate reason to include this quite irrelevant material. We do not ever include material from reliable sources simply because they "saw fit to mention it." Here we're writing about the crimes, not what the victims said about the criminals. The wording at present reads like an attempt to weasel away those crimes and blame the victims for their righteous anger. --TS 01:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

"Well, they doxxed him and spread and hacked his business financials, but thats legitimate becuase he called them names first." -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:48, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, RedPen, that's how it reads to me. I keep asking myself what else that statement is doing there if not to mitigate the crime.

Incidentally, looking at your latest edit to the draft, The Devil's Advocate, I notice that the edit summary says "If we are gonna say Kluwe didn't get doxxed after attacking GamerGate then we should acknowledge that Fish did." That sounds like a false equivalence. We refer to the Kluwe case because it coincided with a notable case where a famous actress unconnected with Gamergate in any way merely voiced her fears about Gamergate, and was promptly doxed. Frankly, that edit summary is in poor taste, and sounds like an attempt to bargain, suggesting that we should remove pertinent material if we don't include this manifestly inappropriate material. That's not how we edit Misplaced Pages. All material must stand on its merits. --TS 01:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The whole "side" thread about Felicia Day and Kluwe was a minor bump in the larger picture, as little came of that in terms of ongoing aspects. In contrast, Fish, who prior to August has already had his own runins with those that would use harassment, became an immediate target as soon as he expressed support for Quinn, to the point that he and his company was doxxed and he completely left the game industry. In a different approach to the narrative, explaining how there had been some like Quinn, Sarkeesian, and Fish already in the sights of the anon mentalitiy and making them prime candidates once the GG aspects came to light would make sense. This is not blaming the victims but setting the stage that they were not all brand new targets once GG hit. --MASEM (t) 02:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

That is still WP:OR, at least as far as I can tell given the sources we have at the moment. I mean, it's not unreasonable to assume that that's a factor (though I would point out that Day, at least, was absolutely not a target before she spoke up, and I'm not sure how much Fish was actually a target before all this), but we have to go by the aspects reliable sources have covered, and the ones we're relying on at the moment are unanimous in focusing on the fact that Fish was attacked because he was defending Quinn. Beyond that, as far as TDA's last edit-summary goes, connecting what happened with Fish and Kluwe like that is also original research; we could argue here in the talk page about the similarities and differences, but that would be pointless, since the article has to go by what WP:RSes say and not by our opinions. Numerous reliable sources cited the fact that Kluwe was not attacked while Day was as evidence that GamerGate, generally, targets women rather than men; and all the reliable sources we're citing for Fish say that he was attacked primarily because he was defending Quinn. They quote his tweets, but at least from what I saw when I glanced over them, none of them describe them as 'denigrating', nor do they make the argument (which the line we're discussing implies) that he was attacked because of his tone rather than because he was defending Quinn. --Aquillion (talk) 02:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Prior to GG, Fish's relation with the would-be GG supporters was already weak, that can be shown from sources after he pulled Fez 2, in addition to prior statements. , . There's also some additional claims the GG has made involving Fish, Fez, and the IGF which have not been verified to any degree, which was something they had earlier had claim to ( 2012). Now, I'm not coming up with anything that establishes specifically that Fish was already in the headlights as it relates to GG, but that's not to say I've exhausted all sources, eg this from the WA Post describes there was already an effort to drive Fish out of the industry before GG hit.

I'm just saying though that Fish's involvement is not trivial (it's well established in articles even today about it), but Day's and Kluwe's are moreso. No one , outside of Kluwe for the most part, have used the harassment at Day and lack of harassment towards him, as an additional sign of misogyny. --MASEM (t) 04:36, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Outside of Kluwe, no one but CNN, Gawker, Time, The Washington Post.... -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 06:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not talking about Day's harassment (itself an example of the ongoing harassment), but the fact that Day got harassed and Kluwe didn't being made bigger than it is; it is a side point of Day's harassment, and more an opinion made by Kluwe, and not a point used in any great rotation to demonstrate the misogyny of the harassment by more recent mainstream sources. (Heck, by that guide, even Day's initial harassment is a side point) It would be completely fair to list a number of major celebs that have spoken out against GG, which would include Day and Kluwe and Wil Wheaton, and several more, but the details of Kluwe's rant compared to that of Quinn, Sarkeesian, and Wu's harassment makes it very trivial for inclusion. It's minor details like this that bog down the size of the article - we should be looking at the long-term representation of GG and not the short term. --MASEM (t) 06:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that any coverage of GG of any depth will be including Kluwe's GG assessment of " basement-dwelling, cheetos-huffing, poopsock-sniffing douchepistol," - That is a phrase that is going down in gamer history right there with "All your base" -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:33, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I see absolutely nothing that makes Kluwe's quote "important". He's an outsider of the whole event, having had no skin in the game before voicing his support. I'm sure we can find as-demeaning quotes from those actually that are involved (Wu would be a source as a first guess) that would be more appropriate and central to the discussion. We need to recognize the RECENTISM of how the Kluwe's section was included, as in the larger picture it is nothing. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Fish's comments provide context your preferred phrasing leaves out. Saying he was hacked and doxed after supporting Quinn makes it seem as if he were just being kind to Quinn and got pummeled for it by some ebil misogynists. The reality is that he went on an inflammatory tirade and then was hacked and doxed. If we are going to implicitly ascribe motives to unknown perpetrators, then we should not leave out key contextual details.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 07:34, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

"Saying he was hacked and doxed after supporting Quinn makes it seem as if he were just being kind to Quinn and got pummeled for it by some ebil misogynists." That is in fact what happened. All the rest is, as I suggested, a blatant attempt to blame the victim for the crime. Anybody with a shred of decency would be angry at a woman being driven out of her home by rape and death threats. Weren't we all? Why are we now pretending Fish's reaction was in any way extraordinary or unnecessarily provocative?--TS 14:14, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

No, that is simply not true. Fish was already a target for how he was seen as being pretensions and his involvement in the IGF prior to GG. While I don't agree with what the GG claim to these points, it would be completely naive to not note that Fish has a prior history of being a target (perhaps why he was one of the first to quickly support Quinn on the first harassment claims) and going off the handle - the whole cancellation of Fez 2 is a clear indication of something that most journalistic sites commented about. If it was any other person (male figure in this case) who had had no prior indication of being a target, say someone of the likes of Ken Levine or Cliff B. or the like, I doubt that they would have been as quickly targetted to be doxxed. It's the same reason that while Sarkeesian never spoke directly about Quinn but only released another Tropes vs Women, the poisoned well of harassment quickly recentered their attention on her, having already harassed her before; if it was some other random commentor, the reaction would not have been as major or as fast as it was. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Because Fish's reaction was extraordinary and unnecessarily provocative, per things such as the Wolf Wozniak tweet affair, which Kain attributes as being part of the events that led up to his doxxing. Bosstopher (talk) 15:19, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I am still not seeing any sources describing what he says as provocative, nor any connecting that to the reason he was attacked. Whether he was a previous target (which also isn't covered) is irrelevant to TDA's characterization of his statements as 'denigrating' and TDA's personal opinion that this is the reason Fish was attacked. If it's as obvious as people here are claiming, it should be easy to find reliable sources making both points explicitly. (The Erik Kain link you provided, as far as I can tell, does not.) --Aquillion (talk) 00:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Isn't your justification here just so much original research, as others have suggested? Fish is only mentioned because he was the most prominent defender of Quinn against hate mobbing and crime. He was in turn made a victim of crime. Full stop. Can you cite a source to support the notion that his expressions of disgust were so inflammatory as to justify and excuse criminal actions? --TS 15:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

You're posing a loaded question here. Justifying and excusing is not (I hope) what anyone is trying to do here. If someone is murdered by (for example) a fan of Pokemon because they called pikachu a fat rat, giving this as the reason they were killed is not an endorsement of the murder. As such pointing out that Fish has a history of being harassed and attacked for his agressive tweeting style is not an endorsement of the doxing of Fish.Bosstopher (talk) 15:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

This article from polygon in the wake of Fish quitting the industry after the dox note that "Quinn and Fish have been the subject of a larger, ongoing harassment effort", so clearly tying Fish's prior history as part of the GG story just as Quinn's prior history is important. --MASEM (t) 15:35, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

This edit request to Gamergate controversy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Can we merge the changes i have made to the see also section in the draft to the main article? Retartist (talk) 06:07, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

edits have been reverted per WP:SEEALSO retracting request Retartist (talk) 06:09, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

As per WP:SEEALSO, As a general rule, the "See also" section should not repeat links that appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. All of the links you added in that section either appear or should appear in the body text of the article. But thanks for raising this issue, because while checking to make sure all those links appear in the article, I discovered that somewhere in our cuts, Sommers' first mention/name/link got taken out of the article, leaving her unlinked and without a first name. I've restored it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:10, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

In principle I see nothing wrong with asking for all or part of the draft to be merged into the main article. It may, though, be a good idea to check that consensus exists first, before putting up an official request which would tend to fail if the admin cannot see evidence of consensus for it. This is the main reason why we've been hatting a lot of these edit requests (the other reason being that some of the "requests" are not specific about what change is to be done).

Remember that admins have to be able to look at the request and will perform the action requested only if there are no serious objections. Spelling corrections and the like are most likely to be accepted; other changes require significant discussion and substantial agreement. --TS 14:25, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Christina Hoff Sommers: necessary edit to fully protected article

In the course of editing, the name of Christina Hoff Sommers has been lost, and currently the only reference in the article is her surname. This should be changed to the wikilink Christina Hoff Sommers as suggested recently by User:NorthBySouthBaranof and performed by the same user in the draft article thus: . This edit is necessary to correctly identify the person being talked about in that sentence. --TS 14:41, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

• support as completely non controversial -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support — Strongjam (talk) 14:54, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Done, makes evident sense. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

No, she is not a conservative or pundit. She is a registered Democrat that that works for a nonpartisan thinktank AEI. Her politics are not conservative. Removal of "conservative" is necessary if you lump Baldwin, Yiannouplis and Sommers together. --DHeyward (talk) 18:53, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

What's iffy here is attributing condemnation of Sommers to Liana Kerzner. Kerzner is generally pro Sommers, calls her based Mom and has positive opinions of Sommers' "equity feminism." (there is way better sourcing for this, but I'd probably be revdelled if I posted it) While there are no reliable sources in which Kerzner writes this, it seems wrong to imply that she condemns Sommers when in fact she does the opposite.Bosstopher (talk) 19:26, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

This successful edit request was just to make sure readers know which Sommers we're talking about. Any other problems with the article can be fixed by directly editing the draft at Draft:Gamergate controversy. --TS 21:42, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Except the current version of this article literally contains an outright BLP violation in claiming Adam Baldwin, who was a voice actor in several games such as Halo 3: ODST, is a "conservative pundit" who had "little involvement" in video games before GamerGate despite the cited sources not making any such claim. You guys keep introducing these BLP violations against GamerGate supporters even after it is pointed out that it is a BLP violation.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:52, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Thems what the sources say. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:29, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Then find better sources. Thargor Orlando (talk) 23:32, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Only thems NOT what the sources say. Only the Gawker article mentions Baldwin, and it merely says his proclaimed interest in video game journalistic ethics is new, not that he hasnt been involved in video games.Bosstopher (talk) 23:39, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Not only that, the author was clearly just wanting to lay into the guy who confronted him for his tweets about bullying nerds and added Baldwin, Milo, and Sommers, just to give it that nice holistic look.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:50, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the wording is currently rather sloppy, confusing the viewpoints of several different sources. We should reword it. While Sommers when speaking on behalf of the conservative AEI is undoubtedly expressing conservative views, it's incorrect to imply that Liana K is taking about her in her article (which is about her spat with Milo, also conservative). Baldwin is also conservative but his game acting is known. The writing there is shoddy and should be replaced swiftly. For the moment I wouldn't object to its outright removal on the identified BLP grounds, simply as a precaution until we know where we're going with it. --TS 23:56, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

New source on GamerGate political affiliation

An article in Game Politics from Allum Bokhari details a survey showing GamerGate is generally left-wing or centrist in orientation and often libertarian. This can be used to further reinforce the statement from Cathy Young about GamerGate supporters generally being left-leaning.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:08, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it does fit in quite well with what we have. It's good to see some figures. The unapologetic extreme right wing and explicitly racist positions of some prominent Gamergate adherents seem to live uncomfortably alongside a lot of essentially liberal or libertarian aspirations. The only thing they all seem share is blindness to the severe misogyny around them. --TS 23:46, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Does Bokhari /EAC have expertise in surveys? On-line samplings are notoriously inaccurate and subject to spamming/bias - just what gamergate did to the survey from the Digra academic. I did not see anything in the article where they talked about how they selected their sample and why they think its accurate. Did I miss that? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 02:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, it seems consistent with Young's observations and it is the closest thing we have to an actual data-driven approach to characterizing the politics of GamerGate as contrasted with most of the sources characterizing them as right-wing on the basis that *gasp* they disagreed with some people on identity politics issues. I would not suggest we treat it as fact, but we should definitely include his work in the article.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:13, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

Please remove Baldwin from this sentence. Commentators such as Liana Kerzner and Sam Biddle have also said that a number of the conservative pundits who have involved themselves in the movement—such as Christina Hoff Sommers, Yiannopoulos, and Baldwin—had little involvement in video games beforehand, and in some cases had spoken of them with contempt. Only this source mentions Baldwin, and this is what is says: Actor-turned-Tea Partier Adam Baldwin, whose last notable film role was the guy in Independence Day who shoots the alien in Area 51, is another conservative extra with a very sudden interest in "video game journalism ethics." It says Baldwin is conservative but it does not say that Baldwin had little involvement in video games beforehand. A sudden interest in video game journalism ethics does not equal to a sudden interest in video games. Furthermore, the source is Sam Biddle and Gawker, an involved party in this whole conflict, thus he and it cannot really qualify as an "secondary" outside commentator. The article is also extremely partisan. Background info: Baldwin has had voiced roles in Halo 3: ODST , Half-Life 2: Episode Two , among other games. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 23:55, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

As I said above, I think we should remove the whole final sentence in the political views section on BLP grounds until we know where we're going with this. It's worded too loosely. --TS 00:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

As a model for the kind of excision I'd like to see, I edited the draft version: like this. --TS 00:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

And the inevitable cleanup edit to fix the references: like this. --TS 00:19, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that that sentence is important, but it was badly-directed -- there isn't any need to single out specific commentators (and in fact several of the refs didn't.) The fact that right-wing support for GamerGate has been characterized as exploitative by numerous commentators, though, is important, especially in the larger context of discussing the movement's political affiliation and the broader politics involved. The old version had a weird thing where it lined up their argument without saying their conclusions; but the refs do make that conclusion in their pieces, so we can just report that. --Aquillion (talk) 00:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'm fine with right-wing support for GamerGate has been characterized as exploitative by numerous commentators and isn't any need to single out specific commentators. But this false claim regarding Baldwin should be removed immediately. It has been in the article for over a month. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 00:31, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I like Aquillion's simple, economical fix. If we're all agreed that it resolves the BLP issue I think we should swiftly ask for an uninvolved admin to perform Aquillion's edit on the main article. --TS 01:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'm uncomfortable as listing Sam Biddle of Gawker as a commentator. He is obviously involved - see Operation Baby Seal in the article. I have replaced him with a Forbes source which mentions rightwing non-gamers suddenly swooping into the scene. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 02:34, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• Strictly speaking, Kerzner is also involved with regards to that matter since she had a tiff with Milo right before writing her piece. I don't think we need to name the commentators at all, but should instead just leave it unattributed. Enough people have raised this concern that I don't think we need to provide the names.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:19, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Failure to apply WP:IS

Gawker Media (including Deadspin, Kotaku, Jezebel, and others), Rock Paper Shotgun (partnered with Eurogamer, dunno if it's close enough here), Polygon (which shares ownership with Vox and the Verge), and Gamasutra (owned by UBM) have been subject to a massive advertiser-writing campaign from Gamergate called Operation Disrespectful Nod, along with a boycott and use of archive.today links on places like 8chan's /gamergate/ board and Reddit's kotakuinaction.

They are not independent sources and neither are their business partners, and must be treated with extreme caution. I'm especially concerned that some of the most hostile comments about Gamergate in this article come from Vox and the Verge writers, along with the dismissal of GameJournoPros sourcing them - that's a blatant violation of NPOV. Birdboy2000 (talk) 02:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• It's been already said - there's no need for Vox and Verge to dismiss GameJournoPros. We've already got Columbia Journalism Review, Forbes, the Week and Westman Journal doing exactly that. These three are unaffiliated sources. That's enough. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 02:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Would you cite the part of the essay WP:IS you are relying on here? Be aware that it is not any part of Misplaced Pages's policies or guidelines. --TS 02:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a written topic and therefore it is commonly expected to describe the topic from a disinterested perspective. An interest in a topic is vested where the source holds a financial or legal relationship with the topic, for example. An interest in a topic may be either positive or negative. I'm especially concerned with the financial relationships between media outlets that share ownership.

Birdboy2000 (talk) 02:48, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• He's probably referring to Independent sources have editorial independence (advertisers do not dictate content) and no conflicts of interest (no potential for personal, financial, or political gain from the publication). The latter part. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 02:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The policy here is WP:QS (under WP:V), in that these are sources that have a conflict of interest. As I've argued before, that doesn't make them unreliable to use here but we have to be aware they are not independent of the events of the story and should be avoided for the more contentious claims. The only real case of where we are doing that is the refuting of the initial claim by citing Kotaku, but that's a directly required source for that point. --MASEM (t) 02:51, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The Chris Plante quote that Gamergate is "completely devoid of empathy" and the use of Gamasutra's Leigh Alexander and Vox's Todd VanDerWerff to dismiss the ethics complaints strike me as woefully inappropriate. Birdboy2000 (talk) 03:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

There is no Chris Plante quote about empathy in our article. How much of the rest of your purported problems don't exist? Hipocrite (talk) 03:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

It was an Adi Robertson quote, but from the Verge so my point stands. My apologies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birdboy2000 (talk • contribs) 03:09, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Your point was that it was written by Chris Plante. This point stands, despite the fact that it was written by someone else? Hipocrite (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

No, it was that it was written by a Verge writer. I conflated two writers for the same publication, which I apologize for, but the issue is the publication's shared ownership with polygon, not anything personal about Chris Plante. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Birdboy2000 (talk • contribs) 03:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

That's not what you wrote - you didn't care about the publication, you were focused on the authors being people who wrote articles about the changing identity of gamers (The "Gamers are Dead" articles, to use GamerGator parlance). I get that you are shifting your argument - believe me, I do, but I'm not letting you. Hipocrite (talk) 03:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

That's more than a little unfair when my first post here specifically addressed shared ownership issues along with biased authors. Birdboy2000 (talk) 03:38, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it's perfectly fair to note that one of your "woefully inappropriate" sources wasn't actually "woefully inappropriate." I think that a constant litany of errors invalidates a lot of points about source appropriateness in an encyclopedia where our first job is to get the facts right. Hipocrite (talk) 03:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree this has been my argument since day one Loganmac (talk) 06:34, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This is a non-stop "independence until you disagree with us" treadmill. Every source that doesn't say what GamerGators want them to say is immediately labeled as involved. Don't fall for it. We have a guideline on sources - WP:RS. Essays are not policy or guideline. Hipocrite (talk) 02:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Please cease the WP:BATTLEGROUND behaviour - I don't see anyone purporting to be a GamerGator here. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 02:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not referring to anyone here as a GamerGator. I'm saying that the movement declares every source that disagrees with them as totally conflicted. We cannot follow the movement in that. Hipocrite (talk) 03:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I could make a lot harsher criticisms if I wanted to follow that route, but I've restricted them to the four outlets specifically mentioned in Operation Disrespectful Nod, which doesn't even contain all the sites that participated in the Gamers are Dead articles, along with places that share ownership with said four and writers who write primarily for them. Birdboy2000 (talk) 03:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

So GamerGate can disqualify otherwise reliable sources by having an "Operation Invalidating Facts," that targets them? Hipocrite (talk) 03:08, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

We are discussing sources which ran the "gamers are dead" articles before the hashtag even spawned and faced heat on day one. This isn't a case of shifting targets. Birdboy2000 (talk) 03:13, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Except those articles came out after the hashtag spawned - it's certainly a case of shifting targets. Regardless, it's not relevant, as the sources in question are reliable and thus usable, especially for attributed quotes. Hipocrite (talk) 03:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

My bad. One day before - I mixed it up because it predated a lot of the big events (i.e. founding of notyourshield, reddit mass deletions, 8chan.) However, your contention that these outlets are being exclusively targeted for criticizing Gamergate, when not all outlets which criticized Gamergate are targeted, and these particular outlets have faced a sustained boycott campaign, and the criticism of Gamergate in question cited postdated the start of said campaign, is a major reach. Birdboy2000 (talk) 03:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

So, yes, "GamerGate can disqualify otherwise reliable sources by having an 'Operation Invalidating Facts,' that targets them." Hipocrite (talk) 03:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

What surprised me about citing IS is that it's basically just saying "don't write an article predominantly from dependent sources", which is a rather weaker baseline than our actual policies and guidelines, to which we adhere very well. --TS 03:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

It was the first thing I found looking for wiki policies to address conflicts of interest regarding sources and not editors. I never had the best knowledge of policy. Birdboy2000 (talk) 03:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm surprised by an account that has lain dormant for 7 years, reappearing and citing a rather obscure essay. Tarc (talk) 03:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

No you're not. Hipocrite (talk) 03:43, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• I just wish that Tarc and Hipocrite would stop contributing towards a toxic and unwelcoming environment with passive-aggressive jabs / attacking an editor's background. They would do well to learn from TS' actions within this thread. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 04:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

The gentleman doth protest too much. This topic area has been deluged by coordinated attacks by 8chan and reddit for months now, and ample evidence was entered into the Arbitration case regarding SPAs, sockpuppets, and zombie.dormant accounts. This is simply another of the latter. Consider contributing positively to the environment yourself, rather than egging on and goading such accounts. Tarc (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• Who is the one goading such accounts? An account being "zombie dormant" has absolutely nothing to do with the legitimacy of its arguments. Everything has to be treated by a case by case basis, and good faith assumed at first. starship.paint ~ ¡Olé! 04:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• WP:IS is an essay and not policy, but in any case it doesn't forbid sources with involvement from the subject from being referenced; it just says that "...it must be possible to source the majority of information to independent, third-party sources." This is the case here; the majority of the information in the article is cited to independent sources. The actual relevant policy is in Misplaced Pages:Identifying_reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources WP:RS, and it says: "...reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." That is to say, biased sources (those with a stake in the topic) can be used judiciously provided they otherwise meet our requirements for a reliable source -- non-fringe, having a reputation for fact-checking, and so on. Otherwise (to use the example I cited above) our article on Moon landing conspiracy theories couldn't cite NASA, because the people who believe those theories would say that NASA is implicated in them, and in fact it probably couldn't cite the mainstream media at all (because they're all in on the conspiracy!) Similar issues have been brought up, I believe, in our articles on Evolution and Climate change, where people have similarly accused sweeping swaths of otherwise-reliable sources of being part of a vast conspiracy and editors have therefore tried to argue that (being the target of such accusations) they are not impartial. --Aquillion (talk) 05:40, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

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