Talk:Gamergate (harassment campaign)/Archive 3

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Emphasis on Controversy

The opening statement needs to be shuffled. The controversy over gaming ethics is by far the largest issue, harassment came as a result of that (and has been overplayed.)

If I were coming to see GamerGate, I would want to know where the harassment is coming from, and to do that we need to establish that this is about ethics. EvilConker (talk) 19:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Agreed --Torga (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Stop making new threads about your perception that misogyny is not the driving force behind the controversy.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Stop trying to make this about misogyny. If we stopped linking biased articles you'd see it's not the driving force, the driving force is ethics, you'll find that the only people crying misogyny are the ones who have a vested interest in this not being about ethics, for example, Leigh Alexander and in extension her connections with Time, Kotaku, GamaSutra, and several other news sites. I would throw out anything written during the 48 hour 'attack on gamers,' as they were all A. Opinion pieces and B. All written by the accused.
You are also not a moderator, so I expect a bit of respect, which you are clearly not showing. EvilConker (talk) 20:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
We have no choice but to describe it as being about misogyny because that's what appears in the reliable sources. You can't ignore that.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Maybe there are something to it? --Torga (talk) 20:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
There's nothing to it. It's just you two who are anti-Quinn/Sarkeesian who keep parroting the same bullshit that the ethics of Kotaku is more important than the fact that two women have been given death threats for their opinions. Wikipedia can only report on content that can be externally verified and everything out there focuses on the fact that the gaming community has leapt down these two women's throats and forced them to leave their homes. Depression Quest might not be a good game and Tropes vs. Women might have issues with the analysis but this does not mean we gloss over this and focus on the NotYourShield side of the debate and only that side. There's been vitriol thrown around and that's being picked up by the media at large and because of that Wikipedia covers it.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:08, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, calling a viewpoint 'bullshit' is not helping your case here. EvilConker (talk) 20:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, we are not the biased one because we want the reader to decide themself. --Torga (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Your arguments have no basis in Wikipedia policy. Your constant affirmation that this is not about the main topic that every single news article is describing it as is against the consensus on this article. This article focuses on both the misogynistic attacks and the attempts to discuss ethics. Due to how inherently tied together they are you cannot only discuss one aspect. Now stop disrupting.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Stop trying to make this about misogyny..., but that is precisely what the subject matter is here. Tarc (talk) 20:20, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Ryūlóng is indeed correct here. The contreversy as it is currently being covered by reliable sources is focusing on the topic of Misogony, though it is indeed branching to ethics as well. Again, as I said above, this is not a blog, opinion piece or soapbox for a position. It is an encycolpedia and with this article our purpose is to document the contreversy from a neutral position, documenting it as it is represented by reliable sources and discussed in major society. Should the circumstaces of that change, then we can look into including it then, but for now we just document it as it is.91.74.219.237 (talk) 20:22, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I've been part of a similar situation (but by no means with any similar coverage or impact) where the voices of a few have "ruined" the situation for the rest in the eyes of others, even though the rest have very rationale, clear reasons that are not at all aligned with the few. This is exactly what is happening here: I doubt the most of the GG movement are misogynic as claimed, but because of those that sought to harass and threaten Quinn et al, the reputation of the GG movement is currently tarnished by that view. And that's what the mainstream media is seeing and reporting. We as WPians cannot change how the media is reporting this even if we know the truth underneath it (I don't think we do in this case), though we can be aware that efforts are being made to report the other arguments that GG has presented. --MASEM (t) 20:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
But it is our duty to detect and ignore bias, and instead present facts. All these articles have treaded on similar ground, it's OKAY to talk about harassment, it certainly IS an issue. However, there are no new 'facts' being reported. This is an encyclopedia, we present facts. So the background should be what happened, no why, and should not quote any articles. There are a lot of instances here of language being quoted from an article that is clearly biased. Using words like 'tirade' are inappropriate in the background, it is also definitely not appropriate in the opening statement. Tirade is a negative way of describing an accusation, and creates bias - it doesn't matter if the source is legitimate, the language is an opinion, we use legitimate sources for FACTS and opinions in the appropriate area.EvilConker (talk) 21:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
It's our duty to publish what reliable sources have published about something. If the reliable sources say something is a "tirade," then we call it a tirade. Wikipedia does not strive for some sort of impossible perfect neutrality in every word. We are required to weight points of view based on their prevalence within the reliable sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:52, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Contrary to the claims of editors trying to push a version dominated by one of the sides, neutral, reliable and non-engaged major news sources like Al Jazeera have presented the situation by presenting arguments of both sides. While claims of harassment are mentioned they are not dominating these articles. Now, I know of course that we can cherry pick selected statements in block quotes to claim otherwise, and some will try to do so, but it won't change this fact.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 20:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
This tired argument has been rejected countless times. You can't possibly argue that Time, the Washington Post, Marketplace, The Telegraph, The Independent, The New Yorker, On the Media, Vox, The Guardian, Indian Express, the Los Angeles Times, etc. etc. are all biased. Clinging to one source that is little more than a couple embedded tweets is not convincing.
Well, I suppose you can argue whatever you want, but it's not a credible argument to anyone outside your echo chamber. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, these are all in their own echo chamber of 'misogyny' that began with Leigh Alexander on Time, who is at the core of the controversy if anyone. So far Al Jazeera is the only source that has presented BOTH sides of the argument, and is the only one that can be considered neutral.EvilConker (talk) 21:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Stop saying that anything that discusses misogyny is biased.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:54, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
OK, so you are arguing that literally every source except Al Jazeera is unusably biased. That's absurd and has no basis in Wikipedia policy. I'll leave it at that. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
The Al Jazeera article is problematic, given that they retracted some of the content not long after it was published. I would tend to be wary of using it to support either side. - Bilby (talk) 22:49, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Even a cursory glance on these articles shows that almost all describe both sides of the conflict.NorthBySouthBaranof-looking at your engaged edits here and in main article body, you are very dedicated to one side of this dispute, and your view isn't impartial.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 22:31, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
And yours is? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:38, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
To produce a neutral article describing both sides of the conflict and their arguments.As per Wiki policies.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:01, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Your actions speak louder than your words. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
The best way to improve coverage of GamerGate addressing issues would be to provide reliable sources showing them doing so, preferably not related to Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeeesian. Without those it's an empty claim. Artw (talk) 21:17, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

There are tons of sources which show multiple sides to it - the Washington Post, for instance, talks with GamerGaters and contrasts Zoe Quinn's claims with theirs. Indeed, most of the articles which present it as being all about sexism don't really look at or interview "the other side". It is the result of poor fact-checking on their part, as well as a result of bias and an absence of independent sources - a lot of them are ultimately just echoing what Zoe Quinn said to them (The New Yorker is one such example). Remember, Zoe Quinn is going to be biased in her own favor, and want to make it all about her. This is a sort of systemic bias, and is why you cannot simply "count sources" - Zoe Quinn has better access to some of these folks, and the media reporting on itself is always a bit troublesome for obvious conflict of interest reasons. Leigh Alexander, for instance, wrote her piece for Time, but it should be noted that Leigh Alexander has a conflict of interest here, as she does work for Kotaku and PR work for some of these indie game developers - given that the controversy is inappropriate blending of roles between journalism and promotion of games, that's a bit of an issue. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

One important thing to note - Digitimes, which is probably the most "distant" source on the controversy (seeing as it is based in Taiwan and has no vested interest in any of these people), is a very important viewpoint to keep in mind. It presents an extremely different point of view from the Zoe Quinn interview pieces. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
TBH adding in Leigh Alexander does absolutely nothing to help the case that GameGate isn't just a groundless witch hunt against women for having opinions. Artw (talk) 23:04, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Remember WP:RS; reliable sources should, ideally, be fact checking, be neutral if possible (biased sources should be used with care; all sources are biased, but sources which are very biased tend to be less reliable), should not have any conflicts of interest (which is why we don't tend to use material sourced to whoever the material is about unless we have very good reason to do so and it is about clearly factual things, like age, release dates, ect.), and the like. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
So it's nighttime in the United States so all the anti-Quinn people come out of hiding? We are not discounting a voice who has written here just because of snooping that claims there is a conflict of interest.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:10, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Discretionary sanctions

Just a note that this article and talk page is subject to Wikipedia:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions; I highly recommend reading and abiding by the conduct outlined there. Dreadstar ☥ 16:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

What arbitration case does this fall under that discretionary sanctions are applicable?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:35, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
All articles with BLP issues are subject to discretionary sanctions. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:42, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
That is a vague as hell way to shut people up.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
That's arbcom's word on how BLP subjects should be handled. It's been on the books since 2008. Think it's 'vague as hell?' Take it up with them. -- TaraInDC (talk) 17:13, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
It's vague when it's applied here is all.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:03, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, Arbcom would specifically have to list pages or related pages that would be under Discretionary sanctions for this to apply (for example, if Zoe Quinn was on there, I would certainly expect that to cover here as well). BLP issues apply, but there's no ArbCom aspects here. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Incorrect. Read the sanctions. It is not 'vague' but broad, and deliberately so. It covers any and every article where there are BLP concerns, because we take potential defamation very seriously here. -- TaraInDC (talk) 18:14, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit protected

I've protected the page for 48 hours. Between all the edit-warring and 3RR, I could block 20 people. Hopefully protection will lead to cooler heads. Bgwhite (talk) 18:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

  • To be honest, I'd extend that protection to indef and make people use editprotected. At the moment, there's simply too much disruption to unprotect it again. Black Kite (talk) 18:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • At this point the main issue is one editor who is against the labeling of the debate as misogynistic covered in the section above this one and his constant removals of this fact despite multiple requests for him to stop.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Black Kite, yea, I wouldn't doubt longer protection is needed. Let's see how the talk page discussion is going before deciding. Before the block is up, let's talk to each other and see what we think.
  • Ryulong, there was way more than one editor. There were 72 edits summaries with "revert" and "undid" out of the last 500. You were also guilty of 3RR. There is alot of blame to spread around. Bgwhite (talk) 01:59, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

SPA edit needs to be restored, per BLP

WP:WRONGVERSION notwithstanding, please revert this edit made by a single-purpose account right before protection. That the allegations were proven false (and that is reliably sourced) is rather critical to the WP:BLP subject. Tarc (talk) 18:50, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

support per the source "The site investigated the alleged ethics breach and concluded there had been no wrongdoing," -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Torga needs to be banned already.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:57, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I do? Because i am actually trying to balance this? --62.243.82.158 (talk) 18:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

your edits of "trying to balance" go against two primary policies WP:BLP and WP:NPOV, particularly subsection WP:UNDUE (in addition to WP:RGW) . Please read and then follow them or you will not be editing. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:04, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
You're not balancing it. It was balanced already. You're skewing it to your point of view.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:00, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, because writing it like it is all about misogony and using sources that are either accused or in relation with the accused of corruption is balance. But whatever, i am clearly in the minority here, so i will withstain from this page. --Torga (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I hate to break it to you buddy, but that's all that's being said about the event and because of that that's all we can report on here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:13, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
No its not. But many of the other pages will be branded as "biased" and so on. --Torga (talk) 19:31, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
You're the only one seeing a bias here because you're obviously in the gamer camp on this issue who don't believe that the harassment towards Quinn and Sarkeesian has anything to do with the desired debate on journalistic integrity.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:47, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Actually MOST people "dont believe that the harassment towards Quinn and Sarkeesian has anything to do with the desired debate on journalistic integrity" and they are wondering why so much time and bile is sent towards two women who have so little to do with the purported issue and goal and why there is such a stunning lack of response from the gamers saying "this harassment is WRONG and we dont support it and we will NOT be a part of any movement which sanctions it." but instead are saying, "Just ignore that- its just harassment- and listen to what we want to say"-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, i am the biased one because i want the reader to make a decision if thats relevant. Not being told from someone that clearly want to make this a feminism/misogony issue. --Torga (talk) 19:55, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Done.--Cúchullain t/c 19:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Further support per Time: "Despite the fact the journalist in question did not ‘review’ the game and wasn’t found to have allocated it any particular special treatment..." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Leigh Alexander is not a legitimate source here as per Wikipedia:CONFLICT as she is also a writer for the site "Gamasutra"[1], which is one of the same publications implicated here. 91.74.219.237 (talk) 19:41, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Stop trying to discredit people simply because they write for video game media or have views you disagree with.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:44, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
The irony is palpable, as I see voices like Hoff Sommers' discredited on this talk page. 70.24.5.250 (talk) 06:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Myself and Ryulong both support the inclusion of Sommers' POV. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:54, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm unaware of any reliable source reporting that Gamasutra is "involved" in the controversy, and even if it was, that wouldn't make every piece written by anyone who writes for that site unusable. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Gamasutra is a reliable source for Gamasutra being involved in the controversy. Witness the numerous anti-gamergate hit pieces their bloggers have written ([1], [1], [3], [dead link] [4]). Besides which, she doesn't only work for Gamasutra, but also Vice UK, Kotaku, Edge and Polygon, per the footer of the Time article. Kotaku and Polygon in particular are very clearly involved in the controversy. 70.24.5.250 (talk) 06:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Writing about a controversy does not constitute "involvement" in any way that would make the source unusable for the encyclopedia. Otherwise, literally every single source would be "involved." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 06:53, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
A number of women who've spoken up about the misogyny in the gaming community have found themselves 'involved' in GamerGate in that they quickly became targets for abuse and harassment themselves. That's simply a silencing tactic, and if we disregard the opinions of Alexander, or of any woman who has been harassed by GamerGaters, because of an alleged 'conflict of interest' we'd be making ourselves complicit in that silencing. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:52, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
"A number of women who've spoken up in favour of gamergate's principles have quickly become targets for abuse and harassment. That's simply a silencing tactic, and if we disregard the opinions of Christina Hoff Sommers, or of any woman who has posted on #notyourshield and been expected to prove their gender, because of an alleged 'lack of reliable secondary sources', we'd be making ourselves complicit in that silencing." 70.24.5.250 (talk) 06:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, as I said below, this is an encyclopedia. Not a blog and certainly not an opinion piece. Wikipedia has no vested interest in either side of the argument, be it supporting or hindering exposure for either side. If you're looking to soapbox about the importance of an issue or "signal boost" as the term goes some opinions, you should not be doing so here. By doing so you are violating Wikipedia:NPOV and editing in an effort to promote a position. As for the point on Gamasutra, Leigh Alexander has long been covering the topic of "Feminism" in video games and has been commenting on the question of harassment but has been doing so through editorials. These are her opinions and do not represent the position of these publications. She clearly has an existing interest in this issue and a particular presentation of it and as such cannot be considered neutral as per Wikipedia:CONFLICT, regardless of wether or not her opinions have validity. We are not here to promote or document opinions, we are here to document an ongoing significant controversy. Please make sure your edits keep this in mind. 91.74.219.237 (talk) 19:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Stop citing WP:COI. COI governs users of this site who may have vested interests in article topics and it is not a means for you to throw out sources that you think support one side.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:04, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
The fact that someone has long been covering an issue makes them a high-quality source for discussion of an issue. Journalistic experience and expertise in a particular area does not constitute a conflict of interest.
I'll use this analogy again: Do you think sports journalists are completely ignorant of sports and hold no opinions about sports? NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Would you trust a sports journalist who was on public record as thinking baseball is a dumb sport, to report on baseball games reliably? None of this changes the fact that Ms. Alexander is writing opinion pieces. She is very clearly biased, while presenting herself as impartial. For example, she describes Gjoni as "a jilted ex who alleges she slept with a game journalist in exchange for a favorable review", which we've already established is untrue and have carefully avoided saying in the current article ("This led to allegations from Quinn's opponents that the relationship had resulted in favorable media coverage.") 70.24.5.250 (talk) 06:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"would you trust a sports journalist who was on public record as thinking baseball is a dumb sport, to report on baseball games reliably?" if his reports were published in reliable sources, yes. just because you think something is dumb doesnt mean you cannot report on it accurately. 95% of every term paper ever written has been about a subject the author thought was dumb.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:18, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Literally every single person who writes about anything can be said to have a bias about that thing. There is no such thing as absolute perfect objectivity about anything. For this reason, Wikipedia is not prohibited from including sources that could possibly be said to be "biased." Instead, we in-text attribute contested statements of opinion.
The sources that you propose, such as CinemaBlend and Forbes, are written by writers who are at least as biased on the issue as Leigh Alexander. You just happen to agree with their bias, so you pretend they're unbiased. They aren't. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:14, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Distinguishing the movement from commentary on the movement

The #gamergate campaign's stated mission is about the ethics of journalists and video game developers/publishers. There is commentary on the campaign, accusing it of misogyny. The article should not justifiably begin with the political commentary on the movement that isn't inherent to #gamergate. It can come after describing that and also have a section. Can a power-user with editing privileges please make this in line with NPOV policy? Pretendus (talk) 15:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

See bazillion of above sections. Every reliable source has this as a campaign that started from misogynmy and harassment, with the frustrations of gamers about the ethics of gaming media bearing out as a secondary aspect. We can explain that there's been such frustrations before the incident with Quinn, but GG started because of what happened to her and spread to others. --MASEM (t) 15:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Please read NPOV policy - many of the "reliable sources" are organizations that are themselves under scrutiny. Wikipedia operates under the Neutral POV and under verifiability - politicized opinion commentary from sources under scrutiny violates both of these. Pretendus (talk) 15:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, discussion many many many times above. Neutral sources from outside the VG industry like the Telegraph, Washington Post, and Independent, highlighted this that GG started because Quinn and others were harassed by a campaign involving misogynmy. If there was any intended movement to address the issues of journalism ethics before that point, there are no reliable sources to show that. We can talk about that aspect after the fact as that's emerged from the ashes of the controversy, but there is no way we can flip it around. --MASEM (t) 15:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, Wikipedia is not a soapbox for political commentary. Quinn being harassed is an issue that can be discussed, but is still a peripheral political issue that isn't the essence of the movement as the largest supporters have stated. This is a controversial subject, and therefore there will be many voices talking about many issues that have occurred related to it. Quinn harassment should probably get a section. In line with a neutral point of view, that can be referenced in the intro after the subject matter of the article is explained. There's a lot of attempts to politicize this page with non-neutral and emotional language/content, but we've made progress making it encyclopedic. There's still more work to be done, so hopefully we will all made a good-faith effort to take political commentary out of the first line characterizing the article. Pretendus (talk) 15:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
That's not going to happen, since misogyny and harassment in the gaming industry is the topic of the article. This isn't reddit or 4chan or whatever hole this gaggle of activist "new" editors are gathering on, and your point-of-view that the misogyny isn't important or is secondary to the "ethics" excuse is not gonna fly here. Tarc (talk) 16:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Your tone shows that you don't have a bona fide interest in making this article neutral and encyclopedic. Commentary on the subject always goes after the description of the subject itself. You have made your political leanings clear, and that's fine, but not a soapbox for your political viewsPretendus (talk) 16:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
My interest is in upholding WP:BLP policy, which forbids the posting of rumours and innuendo against a living person in this project. Tarc (talk) 16:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Minor fixes requested

Just some minor things to fix up:

  • There's a missing serial comma in "Background" section the sentence that ends with "hacking attempts and at least one death threat".
  • Also, within the same section "and designing a mascot character" should be changed to "and designed a mascot character".
  • Under "Analysis", there's a ref number order issue in the first sentence.
  • "The issue of journalism ethics" should probably be changed to "The issue of ethics in journalism". For some reason the phrasing "journalism ethics" just sounds really awkward.
  • The sentence that follows should probably append the hashtag before "GamerGate" outside of the quoted statement. There's a similar issue in the next paragraph and throughout the article. We should be consistent with referring to it as "#GamerGate".

—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:50, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

I've fixed most of these, though I left "journalism ethics," since that's a standard term (journalism ethics) for what's being discussed. Are we decided on adding the hash tag before every use?--Cúchullain t/c 17:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"Journalism ethics" just sounds weird. And it started out as a hashtag so I don't see why we don't consistently label it as such.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit Request: Intro rewrite

The fact that the article starts with political opinion commentary with accusations of misogyny violates wikipedia NPOV policy. I'd like to request that the intro's mentioning of the movement's mission of ethical reform and accusations of misogyny are switched, as Wikipedia not a soapbox for political commentary Pretendus (talk) 15:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Please begin by offering reliable mainstream sources that support your contention that misogyny is not an important part of the discussion on GamerGate. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I never said it's not an important part of the discussion, I said it's commentary on the subject of the article. It deserves to be in the intro, but not as very first line, and certainly at least deserves a section. But even the article on the Nazi party doesn't begin with commentary on its atrocities.Pretendus (talk) 15:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
That's nonsensical. What isn't 'commentary? Please provide reliable, mainstream sources that treat 'ethics' or 'corruption' as the most important aspect of GamerGate and ignore the very plain, very well cited hostility towards women that the movement displays. We are not obligated to ignore that misogyny just because the movement claims it doesn't exist: their actions, which have been well noted by the press, speak louder than those words.
To put it another way, when you remove all the sources that discuss the harassment of and hostility towards women, you're left without any support for the subject's notability. The topic would not be on Wikipedia if it were not for the harassment campaigns it's led against women with the temerity to have opinions on gaming that the hive mind didn't like. If we ignore the misogyny, we ignore the article's entire excuse for existence. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I am not talking about removing anything about hostility towards women, and I hope nobody else is. I am talking about #gamergate, including the hashtag used by activist, starting at and having its self-described goals and executed goals in corruption in gaming. You seem to have strong political leanings, which is fine as long as they don't violate The site's neutral POV policy. But your political leanings do not give you a pass to use this page to promote them. I am assuming good faith in you wanting to make the article better, but you're starting to prove otherwise.Pretendus (talk) 16:24, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"I'm assuming good faith but you're totally not editing in good faith." Riiiiight. You certainly stumbled on that particular policy very quickly, Mr. SPA. You're talking about whitewashing the article to give poorly cited information about GamerGate's 'self described goals' pride of place over well cited information on the movement's hostility towards women. No more dancing around it. Find sources that focus on GamerGate's 'self-described' goals and ignores what it's actually doing. Until you do that there can be no further discussion on this topic. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Didn't take long for the socks to hit up against ol' Godwin's Law, I see. This is a topic centered on misogyny and harassment in the gaming industry, so that is why we mention misogyny and harassment in the lead. There is no issue here. Tarc (talk) 15:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"Proof by assertion that there is a "sockpuppet conspiracy" and it shows that you don't have a bona fide interest in the neutrality of this article. Commentary on the movement definitely needs to be in the article, but opening the article with commentary is just out of line with. Please remember, Wikipedia not a soapbox for political commentary, and wikipedia has a neutral point of view.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Pretendus (talk • contribs)
Please don't quote project policies that you are obviously woefully unfamiliar with. What happened to Zoe Quinn was misogynistic harassment. That is not a "side" of a debate, it is not a point-of-view in a discussion; it is a fact. There is a handful of bloggers and youtube personalities and whatnot that obviously have a different take, and you are here to champion that point-of-view. However, this project goes by what reliable sources say on a matter, and what they say about this is that it was harassment, that the ex's blog tirade was debunked, and that's that. Tarc (talk) 16:21, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Nobody is denying that any of this occurred... I don't think you are, in good faith, addressing my points. A large part of the article should cover what you're describing, but not the intro that is explaining the subject itself. This is not a discussion forum for the events. Whether something was debunked or not should be discussed but does not give a free pass to making this article a soapbox for political ideology. Pretendus (talk) 16:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
If the media at large refers to what happened as misogyny then that's what Wikipedia covers it as. You have no choice in the matter.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The intro is to...wait for it...introduce the reader to the subject matter. As it is the primary focus of the article, yes, they should and will be informed right in the lead. Last I heard, being harassed...or threatened with rape and murder, as in Anna Sarkeesian's case...wasn't an ideology. Nor is speaking out against it in need of a soapbox. Tarc (talk) 16:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I think at this point, there are many sources that are popping up showing that gamergate has and does fight for journalist integrity and other things. I provided plenty of sources in an above section that point out what gamergate has pushed for. Not only this, but gamergate has produced results, such as Kotaku changing their ethics policy and Defy Media, who owns the Escapist, has changed their policy, and TFYC got fully funded. If this was about harassment, those would not make sense. Even some media sources, like vox, released articles talking about the issue that #gamergate was pushing for. "There's much more at the link. Hill really does sympathize with some of the stated aims of #GamerGate. He just thinks the participants are turned toward the wrong targets." So we have sources talking about the wants of gamergate, and we have sources that fully pushed the 'Hatred of Women' aspect coming back and now addressing the gamergate issues. I think it is time to rewrite the intro to include what gamergate was actually pushing for, and that there was major criticism of harassment from some media sources. PseudoSomething (talk) 17:40, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
No. The harassment was a major aspect of the media attention and we cannot ignore that simply because a bunch of game news sites decided to address issues of covering indie games and some people in the media recognized the journalist ethics issues, despite the poisoned well.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry Ryulong, but those sources are talking about what actually happened, and some of them even say that the media has been slinging crap towards the gamergate movement. Again, I said include the harassment in there, but we have enough sources to actually say, "The gamergate movement had many goals, but specific ones were Journalism ethics and such and such." Go look at the sources I put for the section of articles to use after the lock comes up. Please stop trying to push a POV. You, Tarc, and a few others have no desire to follow any sources that contradict what is already written. PseudoSomething (talk) 18:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
There is no POV being pushed. You are clearly under the impression that this is not about misogyny when every source says it is. The movement's goals may have been about ethics but it was still mired in the harassment of two women in the industry (to an extent) rather than anyone else who may have been involved because even here people have been repeating the [redacted] dialog that went rampant on /v/ and Reddit.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:24, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
 Not done Clearly no consensus for this change. Gamaliel (talk) 18:10, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Articles to incorporate during current fullprot

Making this section to add articles for consideration to add while the article is locked down. --MASEM (t) 22:08, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's a couple, Masem. techcrunch. "The key terms here are mechanics and structure. They’re an advocacy, what gamergaters want. That is to say they want games to go back to being products rather than aspiring to be artworks. That they want games to only be those things. That is gamergate’s answer.". Forbes "But there was one point that kept coming up as the hashtaggers requested a “better” games media. They wanted the press to better demonstrate objectivity in reporting and reviewing, and many said they would love if there was simply a gaming outlet that prided itself in being objective above all else." PseudoSomething (talk) 22:22, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I will add a couple more. Forbes Talking about the negative of both sides of the controversy. Forbes The intro goes over some of the hashtags that are not referenced much, if at all. CinemaBlend About #notyoursheild, which was spawned from Gamergate. CinemaBlend An article over TFYC. vox Addresses the main complaints of Gamergate, but says they are focusing on the wrong targets. PseudoSomething (talk) 22:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I have a few more, may be my last batch. indiegogo The indiegogo page for TFYC, just for extra information. techraptor Interview with a game developer over GamerGate. Townhall "So there are two big issues here: the possible conflicts of interest that a lot of the video games press has and the unhealthy response that some online gamers posted in the wake of a revelation of a possible conflict of interest." PseudoSomething (talk) 23:29, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that Forbes piece is quite good, as it continues "While I’m fully on board with points like disclosure of relationships when covering/review games, this constant, pervasive request for “objectivity,” which started long before GamerGate, is something that simply can’t happen, particularly when it comes to the pursuit of the Holy Grail “objective” game review. Reviews are not objective. We’ve been through this before, many times. At this juncture I have to point you to the famous “objective” review of Final Fantasy XIII by Jim Sterling, devoid of any and all opinion, a simple recitation of the physical contents of the game. While news can be objective (this company bought this company, this is the release date for a game), reviews, by definition, can’t be." Prescient analysis of the impossibility of what's being asked. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:49, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree, it focuses on the topic at hand and has valid criticism against the pro-gamergate ideals. PseudoSomething (talk) 04:49, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Zoe Quinn has spoken out on the issue here, and, as with the TFYC interview, is usable as a self-published source about themselves to the extent that we don't use it to make claims about third parties. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 02:56, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Heck no. I read through her Cracked piece and it is (given the magazine) a very nasty "sore winner" take. Yes, she might have penned it, but she penned it for Cracked which is meant to make the reader laugh, not learn. There are much better pieces directly speaking to Quinn (the New Yorker for example) that work better for her POV. --MASEM (t) 03:08, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
      • Be that as it may, there are parts that are certainly usable, such as her description of how the harassment campaign affected her psychologically. I watched every avenue of social media suddenly blow up with messages of abject hatred from thousands of strangers. For the first five days, I couldn't sleep. Every time I would start to doze off, I'd be shocked awake from half-asleep nightmares about everyone I love buying into the mob's bullshit and abandoning me. The ceaseless barrage of random people sending you disgusting shit is initially impossible to drown out -- it was constant, loud, and it became my life. Of course I know that this is just a small minority of the angry and disenfranchised, but I felt like it was the entire world. That's how it works -- they use sheer volume and repetition to make their numbers seem overwhelming. There is nothing "nasty" or "sore winner" about republishing a first-person account of being harassed. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:12, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
        • No, not really. I can understand an earnest interview by an unreliable site being considered okay to get the first-party's POV without too much hassle, but Cracked is not a reliable source, even if the first-party is writing the article in it. Everything in that is firmly tongue-in-cheek, so it is impossible to determine which is sincere and what is not. --MASEM (t) 03:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
          • Well, no, it's not "tongue-in-cheek" and by our policy, it is an acceptable self-published source for content about her own viewpoint. We use the far-less-known apgnation.com, which has even less of an editorial reputation as Cracked, as a similar source for TFYC's viewpoint.
          • As per the policy:

            Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if: it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties; it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources.

          • It is not unduly self-serving to include a first-person account of one's experience being harassed. It does not involve claims about identifiable third parties. It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject. There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. The article is not based primarily on that or other self-published sources. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:35, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
            • It is self-serving, to put a sarcastic spin on her take of GG. It absolutely has no place in WP. --MASEM (t) 03:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
              • The specific section I quoted is not self-serving, it fully complies with applicable policies and it absolutely has a place in the article — just as some sections of the TFYC interview do. You are literally arguing that we should exclude the voice of the person who is undeniably at the center of the entire controversy. That's absurd. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 03:53, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                • So, by the same logic, Gjoni's original allegations also qualify, right? Self-published source about himself, as a person central to the controversy? As long as we don't use it to make claims about third parties (and last I checked, Zoe would be a first or second, not third party)? 70.24.5.250 (talk) 05:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                  • A third party, in this case, is anyone identifiable who is not the writer of the piece. Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves. Please see WP:SELFPUB for details. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:19, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                    • Okay, so it couldn't be used for information about Quinn, but it could be used to illustrate Gjoni's emotional state, right? I mean, this is not the Zoe Quinn article; the story is at least as much about Gjoni as it is about Quinn. 70.24.5.250 (talk) 20:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                      • Well, the story is about what reliable sources say it's about, and they're not discussing him much at all. I'm not sure we'd get much use out of his source, if anything at all, since we couldn't use it to discuss other people. We probably couldn't say anything more than "Gjoni was upset" because going any further necessarily involves mentioning why. And that would be a trivial, unencyclopedic statement. Woodroar (talk) 20:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                • If it wasn't for Cracked, I wouldn't be arguing that. But while it is based on her opinion and experience, it is very satricial and would fall all other normal highly reliable sources, particularly for this article where others are complaining we are dismissing the pro-GG non-reliable sources. --MASEM (t) 04:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                  • Except that WP:BLPSELFPUB doesn't apply to those sources as it applies to that post or to the TFYC interview. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
                    • It's not an issue with it being self published (arguably, this actually isn't really, but the gist is there). It is that this is for Cracked, a satire magazine which has zero possible reliability. Compared to, say, AGNation for the TFYC, they have some but not high reputation but it's not zero. --MASEM (t) 04:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Newsweek now confirming Assange reaction to Gamergate

[2] Here's the relevant part :"Not a Fan of "Censorship" on Facebook and Twitter.It's pathetic. But censorship by companies controlling privatized political space is now almost a norm." I believe Assange is highly notable person and his statement re GamerGate should be added to the response section.For the record Wikileaks itself issued a statement on twitter saying "GamerGate'ers should know that the pattern of censorship & cronyism they see is mirrored at the very top"--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

That statement doesn't even indicate that he knows what GamerGate is or that he's evaluated the specific issues of 'censorship' (which largely revolved around deleting personal information.) It's a serious stretch to call this a 'reaction to GamerGate.' It's a reaction to 'censorship.' -- TaraInDC (talk) 23:12, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Newsweek's piece doesn't even address whatever statements he made towards it.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:16, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
The statement is an answer to question about censorship of Gamergate information on Reddit:How do you feel about the censorship on Reddit in wake of GamerGate?[– Julian Assange[S] 1964 points 1 day ago* It's pathetic. But censorship by companies controlling privatized political space is now almost a norm]
Newsweek also mentions Gamergate in opening sentence of the article.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
WP:SYN.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
What SYN? Newsweek mentions Gamergate mentioned, and gives Assange's comment on it. It's that simple.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
the newsweek is not a usable source - none of the content is directly connected to gamergate in the source. you need to bring outside knowledge to connect the "Reddit being Reddit, #GamerGate came up" to "Not a Fan of "Censorship" on Facebook and Twitter" which is WP:SYN -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Exactly. There's no way to know which one of the comments refers to GamerGate without prior knowledge.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:38, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Fortunately Newsweek mentions Gamergate in the article's introduction and we know Assange's quote is an answer to question about Gamergate. We aren't inventing anything so not a SYNTH. Again-it's that simple.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
There is nothing in the article that indicates that any of Assange's responses that they published concern #GamerGate. They mention #GamerGate, but they do not specify what he said about it. That is why any mention is a violation of WP:SYN.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 23:56, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Please review WP:SYNTH and WP:PRIMARY. We can, in fact, cite the Reddit conversation to verify that the quote mentioned in Newsweek concerned GamerGate. That is not synthesis since we are not making any original conclusions. Everything would be backed explicitly by a reliable source directly concerning the material that would be added to the article. Just because Newsweek is being a bit dishonest in their reporting of the matter does not mean that we should act like we don't know what they are talking about when we can just pull up the thread on Reddit to see for ourselves.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 05:36, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

If we go to the AMA [3] and look to how GamerGate was introduced, the question was: How do you feel about the censorship on Reddit in wake of GamerGate? In other words it has zero to do with any issues yet presented in this article. I do know - but also know we can't source - that there were issues of censorship involved at the onset of GamerGate, but this question - and by extension his reply - has no relevance here. --MASEM (t) 05:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean we can't source it? We have Newsweek quoting his comments on the censorship allegations and we can plainly verify that those comments concerned GamerGate. Obviously, a person like Julian Assange talking about it and his remarks being quoted in Newsweek establishes the relevance of the comments. It is easy to come up with a good phrasing. Inserting something like "Julian Assange responded to a question about censorship relating to GamerGate by saying censorship anywhere is" dot dot yadda yadda, Bob's your uncle, and we're good. Maybe we can even throw in the Wikileaks tweet for added emphasis.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 06:03, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
we can use the primary source to establish that a vague secondary source is actually about the primary source so that there is secondary source coverage of the primary source so that we can use the primary source? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 09:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
You are combining two things to make one statement. Assange did not speak of GamerGate but rather of censorship, because a question was posed to him over people's comments being deleted because they toed the line on the subject. He says nothing of the movement itself.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
More specifically, the question was specifically about the apparent censorship of Reddit, and zero about the actual events of GG. Newsweek made a poor claim this was connected because its clear from the primary source it is not. --MASEM (t) 13:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
There is nothing wrong with using two sources to support one statement that they could not support separately as both sources cover the subject and the material. As far as it not concerning GamerGate by some magical interpretation of what his response really meant, which would be original research unlike anything I am suggesting, the official WikiLeaks Twitter account clears things up.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 13:59, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
It's not an issue of original research, but how even relevant it is. The question asked at the AMA that concerns GG is a complete aside to what GG is (it is asked because Assange being what he is, censorship of any form is a hot topic point, and so the question is technically somewhat loaded to get a desired response), and even the Newsweek article recoginized this "..but, Reddit being Reddit, #GamerGate came up." There is zero usefulness of that quote at this point, because we have nothing about censorship here that we can source (again, though, I am aware that censorship was thrown around in various discussions but there's no reliable sourcing at all to discuss this). Throwing in the Assange quote just because it's someone "famous" is FRINGEy here since the censorship angle is a minority viewpoint. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
We don't need a lot of material about it. Once sentence will do just fine.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 20:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Can we please not start a new section for every individual new comment? There was already a previous section on Assange which you started, there's no reason this could not have been posted there. This talk page is a mess, full of redundant sections and sprawling discussion. The same points are raised over and over because nobody wants to read this thing and see if it's already been covered. Gamaliel (talk) 23:28, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

I would like to request that the words "accusations of" be removed from the lead sentence: "#GamerGate refers to a controversy in video game culture about accusations of sexism and misogyny in the gamer community, that became high-profile on social media in August 2014." Numerous reliable sources have described the GamerGate controversy as being about misogyny and sexism, including the Telegraph[4], the Los Angeles Times[5], the BBC[6], the Washington Post[7], Wired[8], the Daily Beast[9], Bustle[10], etc. The only source I could find that describes it as being about accusations of misogyny or sexism was an opinion piece at MetalEater[11]. Our lead should reflect the consensus of reliable sources. That consensus is that the controversy involves actual misogyny and sexism, not just accusations of misogyny and sexism. Kaldari (talk) 17:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

That is odd that that word was added.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:52, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Hmm, when I read it in that context, it doesn't seem like it is using "accusations" in the sense of doubting the versatility of the misogyny and such, just that the victim or victims stood up and said "this is what you did". But if it is coming across as ambiguous for others, no objections to changing it. Tarc (talk) 17:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I full disagree. Many of those sources give no proof toward the widespread hatred of women, so accusations is the perfect word. Not only that, but you are also slandering anyone apart of the movement by changing it.PseudoSomething (talk) 18:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Pseudo, your insistence that misogyny is not a part of this is a minority opinion that has no consensus to be addressed in the article, so shut up.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:21, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Don't worry Ryulong, I am about to post a really nice back up of my point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoSomething (talk • contribs) 18:50, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Also, isn't it against some policy to just tell people to shut up? PseudoSomething (talk) 18:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
No policy I've ever come across or been reprimanded for.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:44, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Then allow me to introduce you to WP:OWN. You should familiarize yourself with it as it's a behavioral policy and all editors are expected to follow it, and it has a paragraph or two about exactly that. Diego (talk) 21:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I think such a policy can be adequately ignored when dealing with a user who has solely been on this website to participate in discussions on this article as admitted here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
No, Ryulong, being WP:CIVIL and Assume good faith are not optional, and policy can't be dismissed at your convenience. Ignore policy at your own risk. If you actually read WP:SPA (an essay), you'll notice that it notes how it's not intended as an insult, and how focusing on a few topics is not a wiki-crime on itself; and if you follow the Wikimedia foundation stances, you'll note that they place a huge value in anyone being able to edit. Telling someone to shut up is the worst possible assumption of bad faith, as in implying that they won't be willing to participate productively, ever. Diego (talk) 21:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I would recommend replacing "accusations" with "issues" - it doesn't hide the fact this was the major factor ID;d by sources, but it also leaves is sufficiently vague as to not appear as an attack against the proGG side. --MASEM (t) 19:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 17 September 2014

Could we get a citation for the "allegations were proven false" claim in the header? Thanks. Gooberpatrol66 (talk) 11:32, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

you mean other the one already at the end of the sentence [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/12/with-gamergate-the-video-game-industrys-growing-pains-go-viral/ " The site investigated the alleged ethics breach and concluded there had been no wrongdoing, "]? I dont see the point.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
or we could move the forbes cite from the first sentence and add it to the second. "the initial concerns were quickly proven to be all smoke and no fire, " -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:52, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Also remember that leads don't have to be cited (save for quotes) as long as the equivalent statement is cited in the body (Which it is). --MASEM (t) 13:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
No, what that sentence state is that the site Kotaku (The ground zero of this corruption scandal) had concluded there was no wrongdoings. At the same time that Polygon, another site found that they should have stated about connections to indie games over patreon. This "false claim source" is not only taken out of context, but it's also false in itself. If a a company being accused of corruption comes out and say "no, we are not corrupted at al!" and some news site do a report on it, will wikipedia also put that the corruption accusations are false on that company article? Absurd. --Agentel (talk) 21:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The reliable sources discussing the issue have concluded that the allegations have no factual basis. It is trivial to demonstrate this. It is undisputed fact that Grayson never wrote a review of Depression Quest and did not write anything at all about Quinn after beginning the relationship. Ergo, the allegation that she gained favorable coverage of the game through the relationship is provably false. If you have any reliable source which says otherwise, please present it here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Extend protection?

This talk page seems to have seen a major uptick in SPAs and POV pushers in the past 24 hours. Given the amount of outright defamation against the women GamerGate has set its sights on, I'm concerned that unprotecting too soon is just going to result in a bigger WP:BLP-violating mess. Given that there are a number of admin eyes on the page, should we restrict changes to edit requests discussed on the talk page for the time being? -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Pllease prove that there is a sockpuppet account conspiracy before you make the assertion that we need to. Take a look at the Proof by assertion page. This is a C-class article that was going to be deleted before it was edited away from a very biased tone and content. You want to extend protection to protect a political bias that the article is creeping away from - please remember that articles are to be written with a neutral point of view and that Wikipedia not a soapbox for your political viewsPretendus (talk) 16:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Here's some evidence: Special:Contributions/Pretendus--Cúchullain t/c 16:22, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Not sure you know what sockpuppet means, but that contribution doesn't show anything. Conspiracy mongering is bad for this article and you know it. Pretendus (talk) 16:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
This seems to be their tactic everytime, get in, make it one sides, lock even its talk page, at his point editing this is pointless, and yes I actually tried helping for several days but since this is a sensible topic to SRS, Something Awful and the likes, you see tons of people getting it one sided
I can't stop laughing at the "these accusations were later proven false" in the leading oh boy Loganmac (talk) 16:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Did I say anything about a 'conspiracy?' I said there are a large number of obviously inexperienced editors on this page who are all intent on pushing the same POV which is contrary to the sources we have on the matter. That coupled with GamerGate's propensity for dissecting women's private lives to 'prove' they're bad people and spreading outright false information about its subjects makes for a serious BLP concern. It doesn't have to be a 'conspiracy' for the number of SPAs and POV pushers who have arrived here recently to be a problem.
And yes, Proof by assertion is very relevant here. For example, you keep telling me that any mention of GamerGate's behavior is 'commentary' and the lede should be whitewashed to only include its 'stated goals;' no matter how often you state that while linking various Wikipedia policies at me, those policies are never going to support your assertion. -- TaraInDC (talk) 16:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Loganmac, you need to watch your tongue here. You seem to be under the impression that the allegations regarding the sexual life are true and the lead is denying that which would be a massive violation of BLP. The "these accusations were later proven false" statement regards the gamer community's insistence that Quinn received beneficial coverage in the gaming media due to her personal relationships with journalists. Do you have anything else to add?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:59, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Agreed, please keep protection. Artw (talk) 16:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I think that once the full protection expires, a standard semi-protection and close monitoring of who is saying what will be necessary to ensure that this article remains free of libelous material that would get Wikipedia in trouble per WP:BLP and that it's neutrally written per WP:NPOV, but not to the point that the pro-gamer editors who have been appearing here intend for it to be (their insistences that the misogyny aspect be downplayed or outright whitewashed). I don't know if the discretionary sanctions allows for it, but there may need to be page bans based on how some people have been contributing here lately.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

There are WP:TBAN topic bans for people who are disruptive upon a particular subject - such as a relentless crying "bias" based on an interpretation of a policy that has nothing to do with the actual policy says or means . And given the WP:NEWBLP discretionary sanctions on BLP issues, the WP:AE would also be an option. 6 months away from editing about games or feminism would give time to understand actual policies show an actual commitment to the encyclopedia and then possibly some useful contributions to this article and subject. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

No. We don't need to protect the article again, because that is precisely what the POV pushers are trying to achieve. What we need to do is topic-ban the disruptive users, several of whom have a long history of being disruptive. Titanium Dragon (talk) 23:59, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Should these gaming sites/blog be trusted to portray this story correctly?

Nearly none of the major gaming sites are reporting anything about the corruption within the industry. All they are talking about is feminism, how its anti-feminism and an attack on women in gaming. Where is the coverage of corruption, using connections between site mods of sites to collaborate censorship across gaming sites, and accusation of gamers being "nerdy basement dwelling dorito eating mysoginistic virgin slobs"? I believe in this particular article, the target of the #gamergate is not feminism but rather journalistic integrity. In which case, putting too much emphasis on the accused side of things doesn't portray the story accurately at all, as they seem to want to remove themselves from the spotlight. The only investigative report seems to come from smalltime blogsites/users on certain sites that is showing all these despicable things happening in the community. 76.27.230.7 (talk) 04:11, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

You're going to have to produce some substantial claims backed by reliable sources if you want the article to focus on this "corruption" - so far nobody as been able to do so, leading me to believe WP:FRINGE may apply. Artw (talk) 04:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I just put a bunch up in sources to use after the lock comes up. People tend to gloss over things that present that point of view though. Also, it isn't Fringe when it is blatantly talked about in the articles that focus on the hatred of women, also. PseudoSomething (talk) 04:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Those articles talk about real-world corruption in game journalism precisely to point out that #GamerGate *hasn't* engaged with it. So far I've seen nothing showing them come up with any worthwhile claims of their own whatsoever. Artw (talk) 05:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Thats wrong... many of them talk about what gamergate is after. Your entire point is incorrect. Many of them are blatant also, you just have to read them. PseudoSomething (talk) 05:19, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not seeing it - where is a claim of corruption specific to #gamerGate shown to have substance? Artw (talk) 05:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Most of the corruption charges come up very often on most forums where gamers actually talk. Some articles graze over these points like the ones at http://www.newstatesman.com/media-mole/2014/09/wikileaks-wades-gamergate-says-nato-corrupt-video-games-journalism and http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/03/gamergate-corruption-games-anita-sarkeesian-zoe-quinn. Little bit of digging on "corruption gamergate" on google search shows up tons of discussions on it. http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201409032102-0024126 There is one on aljazeera asking whether its corruption of misogyny. Ofcourse none of the game sites actually talk about corruption because they are the ones being accused of corruption. The general news story don't carry out investigations into this because its "gamers" aka childish hobby. I'm sure theres plenty more reports from small time bloggers/youtubers calling out the corruption in the industry as well. So people are talking, just not the reporters and the journalists who are supposed to do the reporting. 76.27.230.7 (talk) 07:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Some of the issues with journalism ethics are already in the article under Analysis. --MASEM (t) 04:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

This article was written by tech journalist Milo Yiannopoulos. He is notable and a reliable source for articles on technology. The claims that the host site makes his writing unreliable is specious. It's like criticizing Brian Williams because NBC news faked a 20/20 story. Yiannopoulos is credible, reliable and knowledgeable. Rather than having such disparate accounts or the current one-sided account, this article should be stubbed. --DHeyward (talk) 05:25, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

You keep saying that but no one is agreeing with you anymore.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 05:45, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I do? Where have I? --DHeyward (talk) 06:44, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
You're right that I would consider Breitbart a laughable source. Also the bulk of it is an attack on Quinn and others for having opinions the author disagrees with, which he is free to do but it doesn't constitute "corruption". There's also a lot of insinuation that Zoe Quinn slept with people for favorable coverage of her games, but no actually examples of favorable coverage given by any of those people, since it does not exists. The best it can come up with is that she had a relationship with Nathan Grayson at some point after he'd quoted her in an article about GameJam, which is to say, the article comes up with nothing. Artw (talk) 05:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The whole WP article is a POV opinion which is why words like "misogyny" appear in the opening paragraph. That has nothing to do with corruption or a defense to the interpretation by Yiannopoulos. On the one hand Yiannopoulos has examined the primary sources and reported activities of Quinn. On the other hand, opinions of others are that Quinn's activities are fine and it's the gaming community.. The characterization that she is a victim is favorable coverage of Zoe but is by no means the only coverage. The timing of her games release on Robin Williams suicide date, for example, was portrayed as opportunistic as was her requests for money - others reported the opposite. The views are of such dichotomy and the characters involved of such low notability that it is not fair to publish all notable accounts nor is it neutral to omit notable accounts. Let's at least be clear that GamerGate did not arise because her game made a big splash or affected the gamer community in any way. Rather it started with an account of her relationships (multiple ones alleged even beyond the journalist) by an ex-boyfriend. It is rather odd that those accounts are not credible but without those accounts the game would have simply been a low volume, indie game with very little impact or coverage. That doesn't imply "corruption" but it does call into question the broad claims of misogyny and the one sided account that Zoe was targeted because of her political views, gender or anything other than gamer community response to her ex-BF's blog. The gamer communities response is much more geared toward Zoe than it is toward women and this article fails to capture that very basic point made by reliable secondary sources. GamerGate is primarily about the gamer communities response to Zoe based on her ex-BF's blog and secondarily a gamer community response to the perception of social activism being injected into games. The connection to portrayals of women in games is a complete fabrication and wasn't even a part of Zoe's game which focused on depression in both men and women. --DHeyward (talk) 06:44, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
So basically you're saying that #GamerGate really is, at root, about a bunch of gamers attacking an indie games developer because they don't like her sex life as portrayed by her ex-boyfriend. Q.E.D., we're done here. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:01, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Nice strawman, but no. There are credible sources that say it's about criticism of Zoe's sex life as it relates to gaming, not women in general. It is not the basis for broad conclusions of misogyny, sexism or any other broad claims or interpretations other than conclusions about Zoe. The article is written as if "Gamergate is not about Zoe, it's about women." The other notable viewpoint is that "Gamergate is only about Zoe." That second viewpoint is written about by reliable secondary sources and is notably absent. It's required by NPOV but Zoe's lack of notability would make this a stub candidate as it cannot be covered neutrally without a lot of salacious detail. Neutrality is required, BLP is required, QED, stub it and remove all accusations (i.e. misogyny, sexism, adultery, cheating, corruption). --DHeyward (talk) 07:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't know how you're coming to these conclusions when the following happened (in a general order AFAIK). Quinn makes Depression Quest in 2013. At some point she argues with TFYC. DQ gets greenlit by Steam. Quinn promotes DQ following Robin Williams' suicide. Her ex claims she cheated on him with Grayson. Gamers go apeshit and think that it means she traded sex for a good review on DQ. Kotaku debunks these claims. Gamers still angry over non-existant nepotism between indie devs and game news sites. Phil Fish ollies out after Polytron is hacked. Sarkeesian releases a new Tropes v Women video. Gamers get angry at her, again. Two women being attacked by gamers gains press coverage outside of the video games sphere and is (rightly) perceived as misogyny because no one's going after Fish or Grayson. Quinn claims both #GamerGate and #NotYourShield are being manipulated by her opponents on 4chan. TFYC gets funding from 4chan after they learn they hate Quinn. TFYC's indiegogo gets hacked. Gamers declared dead by gaming press. Other media begin to note the death knell is shit. Gaming media begin to address indie devs conflicts of interest. Other media note that #GamerGate has a message, but it's drowned out by gamers just going apeshit over Quinn and Sarkeesian. This is covered by the article. What do you think is incorrect here? Your arguments here hinge on how you disagree with several non-gaming media sites referring to what happened to Quinn and Sarkeesian as misogynistic and that won't fly.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 08:40, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
(Redacted). --DHeyward (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The fact that someone had to remove your response because you filled it full of vitriol and unsupported claims concerning one of the subjects of the article means your not worth arguing over because you're parroting /v/ and reddit's views here. And sure, Sarkeesian is unrelated to the whole debate over game devs being cozy with game media, but the hate thrown at her was amalgamated into the discussion whether you or the gaming community like it or not. Other than that, I think we're done here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Milo Yiannopoulos has posted another article, about a secret mailing list where various gaming journalists "discuss what to cover, what to ignore, and what approach their coverage should take to breaking news". I think this might be somewhat relevant here. 78.27.93.124 (talk) 21:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Milo Yiannopoulous has already proved himself to be a 'publish first and verify (and retract) later' kind of guy. Falsehood flies and the truth goes limping after, and Brietbart has taken advantage of that again and again by publishing outright fraudulent material to damage the reputations of its political opponents and 'retracting' later, knowing that the damage is done. Brietbart is more than just biased: they're completely lacking in credibility because they've more than once demonstrated their willingness to publish outright lies. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Could you give me the source for this? This talk page is way too long for me to read all of it. What I have read includes a lot of talk about what constitutes a "reputable source" and how much fact-checking editors on Wikipedia are expected and allowed to do on the sources they link, with accusations of basically every single source on this being deeply corrupt, and it is certainly A VERY INTERESTING QUESTION. I don't really know WP policy on this. 78.27.93.124 (talk) 22:38, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Breitbart has been established to have altered video footage (or not shown the whole of the footage) and produce false situations in order to discredit people or organizations. It's pretty much written out on their article on the site.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:50, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh my god, you mean to say that *gasp* journalists talk to each other, share ideas, argue over things and build relationships with their peers? The horrors! Corruption! Journalists are supposed to be monks locked in a cell with nothing but video games, and tell us nothing more than how many FPS a game has! If they talk with somebody else, they might contaminate each other's perfect objectivity! I am appalled that journalists would stoop to such underhanded and unethical conduct as talking to each other. Journalists never used to talk with one another before they were corrupted by liberal social justice warriors, obviously.
Removing my tongue from my cheek... yes, there are backchannels. There have always been backchannels in every profession. There will always be backchannels. If you think that the existence of backchannels is evidence of corruption, then you are basically saying that everyone in every industry ever is corrupt. Literally no one is shocked that people talk with their peers about things that they do in their daily lives. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

GamerGate isn't about misogyny

Asked and answered in about a dozen other sections above- whip your dead horse there.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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.

The intro needs to be fixed. GamerGate isn't about misogyny, and its supporters do not claim to be about misogyny. Claiming it is about misogyny is a violation of WP:BLP and WP:UNDUE and WP:BIAS. Wikipedia is not a platform for Zoe Quinn's point of view. GamerGate is about angry gamers alleging corruption in journalism and game development as well as issues of conflict with social justice types, which its detractors claim is actually a disguise for misogyny. Saying it is about misogyny is simply wrong, because almost everyone using the tag is discussing corruption in journalism and game development, and the actual thrust of the thing is not about that. As such, we cannot claim that it is about harassment and misogyny because that is simply not the case; harassment and misogyny would be products, not the central thing, and the controversy isn't actually about such. Titanium Dragon (talk) 00:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

This is the 50th separate thread on the same subject. Please see literally all of the above threads for why this will not happen. Thanks. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree with you, but it's not going to happen. If you can't get in on the initial astroturfing when things are decided by 'consensus', you can forget about every other development or the shouted-down opinions getting taken into consideration. This is wikipedia 101 and it is the primary reason why I have largely left Wikipedia in the first place and I'm sad to see that the place has not changed, it has only gotten worse. I encourage you to go elsewhere where discussion is not shut down so quickly. --davidh.oz.au 00:40, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The media has already said this is about misogyny, so this is what wikipedia article will roll with. Mass Media = truth. 2601:7:A80:3E:588A:4C92:F7AF:E8A1 (talk) 00:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.

Christina Hoff Sommers' Reaction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLytTJqkSQqtr7BqC1Jf4nv3g2yDfu7Xmd&v=9MxqSwzFy5w

For your consideration. Yes, it's Youtube, but she's an established feminist scholar and philosopher on AEI's official channel. She directly addresses the charges leveled at gamers, video gaming criticism, and also Anita Sarkeesian's and Zoe Quinn's GamerGate troubles. It's noteworthy, in my opinion. This is all I'll have to say on this; others can argue back and forth about its relevance/inclusion/whatever. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:02, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

She does seem an appropriate voice, and as long as it is non-copyright violation (eg an AEI video published on AEI's channel) then there probably is something to pull from that. --MASEM (t) 19:08, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Given that the channel is verified, I think this can be said to be an appropriate source for her own opinions, so long as we are careful not to use it to support claims about living people. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure this really has any bearing on this article as she's basically opposing the views of Sarkeesian regarding sexism and misogyny in video games, rather than gamers themselves, and the "women are now the majority of video game players" study. She only glosses over the GamerGate events. It more or less just confirms her stance on later waves of feminism and how it regards the recent events in video gaming.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:24, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
To be clear: your position is that Sarkeesian's views are relevant to the article, but views opposed to hers are not? And this is supposed to be impartial? Or just what is the alleged reasoning behind the harassment of Sarkeesian, if it has nothing to do with her views on games and gamers? 70.24.5.250 (talk) 05:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Hey hey hey, hold on a second. This is a clear violation of Wikipedia:CONFLICT. The source that is being suggested as being added is clearly not neutral as as Wllhesucceed said himself, the creator of that video is an established feminist scholar and philopsopher that is actively contributing to AEI's official channel, which to be clear here is a think-tank and that aside, Christina clearly has a vested interest here on the side of Feminism, which is involved in this ongoing issue, regardless of the arguments of either side. Not only is there a vested interest here but this is clearly an opinion piece, yes it's well structured and well communicated, but that doesn't make it anymore than that. Let's not forget that all that aside, the topic of this video is NOT the ongoing controversy but instead is focusing on gender roles inside video games 91.74.219.237 (talk) 19:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Sommers is a polarizing figure in feminist academia that disagrees with the third-wave feminist movement that many modern feminists belong to. She is effectively pro-GamerGate (or anti-Sarkeesian) when it comes to the perceived overstepping of bounds by feminist scholars into the video game industry.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Seeking high and low for the tiny handful of women who may be critical of Sarkeesian and others at the center of this situation rather reminds me of America's Republican Party trotting out the likes of Allen West and Herman Cain to show people that not every African-American follows Obama...while ignoring the party's perennial single-digit results in A-A voting. You're finding the extremest of extreme fringe points-of-view here. Tarc (talk) 19:36, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
What's your evidence for this being a "tiny handful" of women? When do ordinary women get the opportunity to actually be heard on this issue? Aside from #notyourshield, I mean. 70.24.5.250 (talk) 05:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Sommers' stance on third-wave feminism, particularly how it regards traditionally male activities, has existed long before GamerGate. I don't think we should hold that against her, but we should mention her existing stance if we do discuss this video.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Personal opinions on the size of a base fielding criticisms, or in support of a source's validity are not relevant to discussion of it's validity or noteworthyness, rather the question of it's neutrality on the issue and reliability as a source, regardless of it's claims. This is an encyclopedia, not an opinion piece. For the record though, I feel this source cannot be trusted as neutral on account of her own involvement in the feminist community as a feminist scholar and participation with a think-tank, This is in no way a criticism on her claims, but rather she isn't in a position which could be considered neutral as per Wikipedia:CONFLICT 91.74.219.237 (talk) 19:49, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
So, again, you, an anonymous editor who has only ever contributed to this talk page, are complaining about sources that you feel have any bias in the matter, particularly those that you perceive favor Quinn's side of the debate, despite the fact that Sommers is being pro-gamer. Not to mention you are citing the policy Wikipedia:Conflict of interest entirely wrong. It governs users of Wikipedia who may have conflicts of interest.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:58, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I have little care for either side of this controversy. You need only look above to see that I'm raising issue with proposed sources that are on the opposite "side" from the source that I am questioning the neutrality of here. Likewise, I fail to see how character assassinations on myself or suggested agendas behind my editing are relevant to the point and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from personal attacks or projections of an agenda in future, though by all means raise that question in a neutral and civil manner if you wish. In addition I would like to remind you of WP:BITE, WP:CIVIL and WP:FAITH 91.74.219.237 (talk) 20:07, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
I looked into what you were saying regarding my incorrect interpretation of WP:CONFLICT and it appears I was indeed mistaken on my understanding of that policy. However, this is still both a user-generated opinion piece WP:UGC and also does not cover the controversy itself as it's primary topic, rather it is discussing some of the issues regarding gender roles in gaming, which though it is a claim being raised by one of the sides involved as an issue, it is not in itself the controversy, again to be perfectly clear, this is not a remark on the validity or accuracy of her claims, rather it is regarding it's usefulness as a source covering the controversy, not the issue.91.74.219.237 (talk) 20:18, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Christina Hoff Sommers is an established feminist scholar who happens to work at a think tank that has a YouTube channel. This is not user-generated. It is an official release by the think tank. And I address how it is not inherently about GamerGate in my earlier post in this thread. Sommers clearly released this video as a result of the controversy. How it can be used to bolster the article is something else.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:23, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
That doesn't absolve it from the need to be independently verified by a third party reliable source. It's a youtube video. YouTube is a platform which consists of primarily user-generated content. That doesn't mean it's totally unusable, it just means it needs to be independently verified by a third party reliable source, again that's covered under UGC. 91.74.219.237 (talk) 20:32, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes it does. It's not some random fuckwit's YouTube video, which is what WP:UGC is meant to prevent. It's a professionally made and edited video released by an individual or organization.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:41, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
But it's STILL a youtube video. Production quality has no baring on it's reliability, likewise the identity of the creator of content again has no positive or negative affect on what worth that content has. However, as it is a user-generated platform, content can be created and uploaded without any requirements regarding third parties verifying the content. This applied at all levels of content creation, even in terms of a presidental speech, that content is immediately verified by third party reliable sources being the mainstream news, while content that is created that may have the production budget of the movie avatar and be released by someone who is an expert in the field, but onto a user-generated platform is just as needing of that independent verification because there is no peer-review of said content, there is no, out of the gate, independent verification of it's worth. This really isn't a huge deal, if it was to be used as a source in the article, it just needs to be done properly which means an independent reliable source needs to acknowledge it and it's reliability. Otherwise it is as was previously mentioned above, it is just a personal opinion of it's reliability and worth of being documented/covered by what should be a neutral article covering the controversy. 91.74.219.237 (talk) 21:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't matter that it's a YouTube video. Stop trying to ruleslawyer new sources out because you disagree with them. Christina Hoff Sommers is a feminist scholar who works for the American Enterprise Institute and released a video through their official YouTube channel to discuss her take on video gaming and feminism. There is absolutely no need to have a completely separate source discuss this video for it to be used in the article. We at the English Wikipedia can report on Sommers' statements for what they are: her opinions. Just like every other opinion piece that's popped up that's in use on this article. Now stop disrupting this talk page.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:15, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
  • First, quit talking about other contributors and stick to the editorial content of the article per WP:TPNO and WP:NPA, if you want to talk about each other then take it to your user talk pages or follow WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE. Second, take this source to WP:BLP/N in a neutral way and get some uninvolved consensus on it. Third, stop the edit warring. Dreadstar ☥ 21:17, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I meant the above comment to be in this section, but this hatted part is just off-topic and away from the warning. Dreadstar ☥ 00:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
  • Did you post this in the wrong section?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:21, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
    Actually, it needs to be posted in several sections here; this is just one of the several sections on this talk page that I find to be an appropriate location for this kind of message. Do you have a better section in mind? Dreadstar ☥ 21:39, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
    Well, this section is discussing whether or not a video by a prominent and polarizing feminist scholar can be used for the article. There are others that are discussing issues with BLP and such.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 21:53, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
    And you're also discussing other editors, e.g. "So, again, you, an anonymous editor who has only ever contributed to this talk page, are complaining about sources that you feel have any bias in the matter"; definitely discussing BLP in this section, and really, I don't want anyone here to think they can or should start edit warring over this material. My comment applies to this whole page, the article and the editors here. I'd suggest heeding instead of arguing with me about it. Dreadstar ☥ 00:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    Discussing a single purpose account's edits in a section that has nothing to do with BLP issues seems like the warning was misplaced.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:56, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
    So you keep saying, but I disagree; this section is clearly talking about a source to be used in the article and is regarding a BLP. The warning here is fine and I'll certainly be repeating it as I did below. You can have the last word if you like, I'll not be moving or removing my comment. Dreadstar ☥ 01:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Where exactly does she discuss Gamergate? i did not hear her mention it once. Did I miss it? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

She mentions the harassment suffered by women in the industry in the recent weeks and has photos of Sarkeesian and Quinn show up on screen. Is that not obvious enough?—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 00:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
i dont think so. having to go out of the source video to identify pictures from some other source not explicitly made by the source video is relying on Editors to identify and make the context and connection to tie her opinions and comments to the subject of our article . -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
So even though she's gone out of her way to involve herself in the dialog on feminism in gaming that has arisen in the last two weeks (which she does acknowledge), because she does not speak the word(s) "GamerGate" we cant use the video here.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 01:24, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I think the connection is clear enough that it's usable, and arguably she's notable enough for her point of view to be a useful point of reference. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:28, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
what precisely is the content suggestion? -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:48, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm also concerned that there is no mention of GamerGate, or the core issues of ethics in journalism. She does respond to the "gamers are a dying breed" line of argument, which emerged in response to the harassment, but overall the source seems more suitable to an article talking about sexism in video games in general, rather than one focused on the GamerGate issues. The only particularly relevant comments were in the last 60 seconds of the video, which was almost entirely about Golding's argument, and then appears to be something that we're not currently covering. - Bilby (talk) 02:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Not necessarily saying we have to use the video, but she has been specifically mentioned as part of the feminist side of the GG discussions. La Monde, Salon, etc. She didn't just randomly throw her hat into the ring with this video that doesn't mentions GG but clearly the issues tightly around it, but when you add that she has spoken her voice prior to this, it's common sense clarity that it is connected. Now, whether we use any quote from it, that's a different debate. --MASEM (t) 14:18, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Reminder: Don't Bite the Newbies!

The article is about a highly charged topic, and the Wikipedia article itself has gotten some notice on various social media sites as a result of outside attacks on some of the users of the article. As such, there may be newbies coming to Wikipedia here, and this will be their first experience with editing it.

Remember: Don't WP:BITE them! Be WP:CIVIL. If they have trouble with WP:BLP, WP:RS, WP:SOURCE, WP:BIAS, WP:NPOV, whatever, remember: assuming good faith is very important! Good WP:FAITH is a great way to encourage people to stay here and not only improve this article, but other articles in the future. If people make mistakes, assume ignorance before stupidity, and stupidity before malice.

Also remember that many of these people likely are sensitive to issues of censorship, real or perceived, because of the nature of the issue, and many of them may well feel themselves to be subjects of persecution, just or unjust. It is important to make sure that these people understand we're not out to get them, or to muzzle them, but to improve Wikipedia.

Emotions are high because of the nature of the controversy, so everyone should try to keep cool, calm, and collected. We're all here to improve the article. Titanium Dragon (talk) 22:55, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Your third paragraph onwards is really very patronising to the "newbies", and your final line reads like the usual pseudonymous threat of censorship. I would recommend sticking to your first two paragraphs only. Feel free to delete this comment if you amend your own. Koncorde (talk) 23:02, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't mean to be argumentative, but those paragraphs are correct, at least from my perspective. I came in right before the Dox, and I am hoping to be heard to make this a moderate position because of the way it has been handled so far. PseudoSomething (talk) 23:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
I have no idea what you're on about, but the suggestion in the OP is that somehow newbies are paranoid conspiracy theorists with persecution complexes. Maybe that's not what Titanium is trying to say but that's what it currently implies and it's a patronising load of fluff. Koncorde (talk) 23:25, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
Ah, well then we interpreted it differently. I saw it as, "Don't try to tell them to 'Shut up' and not listen to them if they have valid points.". Maybe it just needs a rewording. PseudoSomething (talk) 23:34, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
A big part of what caused the whole thing to blow up was mass deletion of posts on Reddit, 4chan, and other websites - the Streisand Effect in action. Hence, they're likely to be sensitive to perceived censorship because perceptions of censorship were part of what drove the thing in the first place. Likewise with the perception of being subjects of persecution, both from the media and from each other - harassment and all that fun stuff. Removed the last couple sentences; I didn't mean for it to come off as a threat of censorship, and I'm sorry it read that way to you. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

While I side with those on GamerGate, it is important to keep in mind that Wikipedia specifically has rules on editing. As a resort, Wiki may in fact be misutilized by various media sites attempting to push forth a biased narrative and as a result of the rules of this site, there is an issue where in we may in fact be reporting on a biased narrative. But this is something that must be kept in mind as well towards this: Wikipedia is primarily a neutral ground. There are rules involved with editing that require sources, primarily of a secondary nature although primary sources are sometimes given, so long as they're accompanied via secondary sources of commentary. Wikipedia editors are bound by an area by in which neutrality my prevail. As it stands now though, the neutrality of the article is quite clear, that there are both sides pushing one narrative or another and it is up to the reader to decide who it is that is in the right.Reason and Logic shall always prevail (talk) 01:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Playing right into the narrative

WP:NOTFORUM. Dreadstar ☥ 02:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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.

For those of the incessant attempts to minimize the coverage of harassment and misogyny, I would ask if you realize you are playing right into the narrative.

If a mainstream journalist comes to this page, they are going to come it knowing that the most powerful voices of the #gamergaters are the ones sending the incessant vile grotesque harassment at women in the gaming field.

And who is the second loudest voice in the #gamergater? Those claiming "That harassment doesn't matter and doesn't count -you have to listen to ME and not talk about that harassment!!!!!!" ie those whose self-centered attempts to dismiss the incessant vile grotesque harassment that members of the movement have made in their own attempts to relegate death threats of women to be of less value than the fact that they have not been smart enough to realize that companies that buy double-page-spread advertisements previewing their games for six months and then get a 5 star review for a mediocre product are in fact displaying misogynistic tendencies of their own.

what happens to women doesnt matter - whats important is me.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

So... any sources that only apply to harrasment are allowed them? I posted to you five sources that showed you what pro-GG says, and you didn't reply. I have near 10, if not more sources, saying the opposite of what your saying... and you ignored it. What is this post about? To try to spread your view and try to get people to say, "Oh no, we should think about the children?" What about the Pro-GG people who are the powerful voices who got changes made to the ethics guidelines of The Escapist, Descrutoid, and Kotaku? What about the ones that funded TFYC, for women. What about the ones who were compared to ISIS, called subhuman trash, the 12 year old who was threatened by an anti-GG who would come to his house and stab him? How about the death threats against the Pro-GG side, the suppression in media against the Pro-GG side, and the desire to label anyone pushing for journalism ethics and integrity to be labeled a woman hater? Lets no POV push, please. PseudoSomething (talk) 02:08, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.


Remove subjective peacock term - tirade

This is mentioned above at #Stop_.27Framing.27_the_Article and #Some_comments_on_neutrality. Instead of arguing over lots of different points, I'm just going to argue for the removal of "tirade".

Tirade is a peacock term, it has been taken from this Washington Post article. Readers can make up their own minds about whether or not Gjoni's blog is a tirade. The Washington Post's original description of the events, in its second paragraph is "an ex-boyfriend wrote a blog post...", in the sixth paragraph, "...wrote a blog post". Instead of repeating those facts, editors (administrators I'm assuming, given the protection) cherry-picked a subjective term from the seventh paragraph and repeated it in the lead and background sections of this article. Editors sought an opinion instead of a fact, that opinion is singled out with its own quotes (which actually demean it - words singled out in quotes are usually ironic scare quotes or air quotes).

If you want to criticise Gjoni, do so in the analysis/response sections. In the lead and the background sections, just present the facts as is. - hahnchen 13:14, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Tirade, quoted, is fine. It was a long list of various things that he claimed towards Quinn, made in a heated manner. We ourselves can't make that exact claim, but a secondary source can. Mind you, I don't like it in the lead (I expressed issues with that there) as it immediately sets an undesirable tone, but it's fine in the body. --MASEM (t) 14:11, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
You shouldn't be putting judgements in the background section. They should fall under analysis or response. Wikipedia has made that claim by clearly cherry-picking a subjective statement, if this is not an outright violation of NPOV, it still appears as one. Gjoni's blog post can be described indisputably (from both sides) as a blog post, the Washington Post even does it twice before labelling it a tirade. There's no need for Wikipedia to characterise Gjoni's actions in the background section, when we can go in depth and explicitly call it out in the analysis. - hahnchen 15:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Take it up with the Washington Post; they characterize his tirade as such, so we quote them doing so. Tarc (talk) 15:14, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
They also describe it as a blog post twice, but you've cherry-picked the word tirade. It's not about whether I agree that it is a tirade, it's that Wikipedia has placed what is clearly a value judgement in a section that does not require it. Had you cherry-picked the word "bitter" from The Guardian, would you then tell me to contact the Guardian? I've taken it to a Wikipedia talk page, because it's a Wikipedia issue. - hahnchen 15:26, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Hm, well thanks for the suggestion; I will add "bitter" to the lead when editing opens up again. Tarc (talk) 16:07, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, it seems that you did not understand the point I made. I previously removed the word convoluted from the article for the same reasons. I recommend that you stay away from the article when editing opens up again. - hahnchen 16:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I understand very well that you're trying to whitewash the description of the ex's commentary. Tarc (talk) 16:56, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The loaded word should definitely not be used in the lead - it's WP:LABEL style guide, and Masem is right that it sets the wrong mood because it's undue prominence. I don't care as much if it's included in the body; However, if reliable sources use different names to describe the blog post, why would we use the more contentious instead of the neutral one? In fact, we shouldn't; we're expected to use an WP:IMPARTIAL tone. If there's a serious willingness to use the term, it should be more clearly attributed - like in "what The Washington Post described as a tirade"; scare quotes are OK when quoting neutral descriptions or clearly attributed ones, but here are used to include a loaded term in nearly Wikipedia voice. Diego (talk) 15:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

If these words are being used by sources and we're quoting the sources then there's no issue other than people trying to whitewash the page in favor of the gamer side of things.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 16:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

You're misreading the argument. Describing a blog post as a blog post is not a whitewash. The Washington Post does it twice before characterising it as a tirade. It's completely unnecessary to use subjective value judgements in the lead or background. Like Diego, I'd be fine with something like "what The Washington Post described as a tirade" in the analysis or response. It's fine to criticise Gjoni's actions, but the word "tirade" has clearly been cherry-picked. - hahnchen 17:02, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Okay then.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
It has not been cherry-picked, it is simply the wording that WaPo chose to describe the angry and demonstrably false rantings of the subject's ex-relation. When someone lies about another person, and posts that lie on game forum after game forum after game forum, before finally devoting a wordpress page solely to their lie to maximize visibility, that's about a clear a "tirade" as one can go on. It will not be removed from the lead. Tarc (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Just because it is sourced, does not mean it is not cherry picked. There are plenty of other words that could be used to describe Gjoni's actions, bitter, vengeful, slut-shaming... But Wikipedia has inserted "tirade" in a section where is unrequired. It doesn't matter how much I agree with the characterisation, or how much you agree; that you have to argue how much you agree confirms it as a value judgement. We don't need to tell readers how to think in the lead or the background section, we should not be highlighting value judgements in the background when there are entire sections dedicated to analysis and response. - hahnchen 18:29, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"Blog post" doesn't really hack it since the rant was originally posted in multiple locations before ending up on Wordpress. Also given the inflammatory nature of it "blog post" is extremely bland and weasley - I think we need terms that convey it's intent. "Tirade" seems fine for that IMHO. Artw (talk) 18:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
According to the Washington Post, "blog post" does hack it, it's used twice to describe the Gjoni's actions. It's unambiguously a blog post, that's a statement of fact. Readers can deduce the nature of the blog post through its contents and the response, there are entire sections on analysis and response. The background should be bland, it should be a dispassionate statement of the facts, not a characterisation and critique of the actions. I'm surprised you've described it bland and WP:WEASEL, usually the latter is used to spice up the former, while we are accurately representing the opinion of the Washington Post, we are doing so in a section that has no need for it, and in so doing call into question the NPOV nature of the article. It's not about whether you agree with the characterisation, it's that the question should not be asked there. - hahnchen 10:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit protected request.

Please add {{current|date=September 2014}} to the article. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 13:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Specifically, add the template at the top. Grognard Chess (talk) Help:Getting rid of Media Viewer 13:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 Not done The guidelines of that template state "As an advisory to editors, the template may optionally be used in those extraordinary occasions that many editors (perhaps a dozens or more) edit an article on the same day, for example, in the case of natural disasters or other breaking news." As this article is protected it is not being edited by dozens of editors, so this template does not apply. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a Tabloid. Why are we asking like one?

Asked and answered in multiple sections above. Wikipedia follows the reliable sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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.

This article is baised beyond belief, but one thing that I'd like to talk about rather than the "opposing" evidence. Why is this article giving too much credit to the anti-gamergate sources? I'm not proposing that we remove all of the sources that are anti-gamergate, I've read the policy on biased sources. However, we're jumping to gun too much in the article and it's affecting the neutral stance. For example, I've had edits on here deleted because they target the article's opening paragraph, but even without the damning evidence (that somehow doesn't comply with Wikipedia), we still run into a problem.

The section in question reads

these allegations were later proven false, but the debate they sparked continued.

The source cited is a Washington Post article. However, the Washington Post article fails to actually prove that these allegations are false; Washington Post only discusses one of the five allegations and even then it uses the company statement for its source. Rather, the article should read instead:

"however, Kotaku claims to have investigated the matter and found no such relationships to have taken place. source

In doing so, not only is the article more honest with the information it presents, but we're also eliminating a middle-man for the information. Best of all, this conflicts with none of Wikipedia's policies. Furthermore, I don't see any mention of any pro-gamergate sources such as Wikileaks siding with GamerGate, no notable mention of Slate's coverage of the event, or any mention of the the breitbart article that discusses the people accused. There is NO excuse why this article should be slanted so much. Furthermore, I don't understand why Wikipedia holds such a double standard. You claim to not show Breitbart for factual inconsistencies, yet they show their evidence in their article; at the same time you use Kotaku as a source when not only is their integrity a point that gamergate is trying to highlight as problematic, but just as well has had a history of reporting unethically (their accusations that David Jaffe is a misogynist prove this). If you have a problem with what I'm saying, then discuss it here. Reversion is a coward's way out of discussion. Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 15:44, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above 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.

References in an article talk page

If you cite or plan to use the <ref></ref> tags in any post on the talk page, you have to place a {{reflist talk}} template at the end of the section. Otherwise...in an idiotic decision by our esteemed WMF developers...the refs will be placed automatically at the end of the talk page, thus disconnected from the section once other users start making sections after yours. Tarc (talk) 16:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

{{reflist talk|close}} is better.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 17:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Didn't realize that particular one was being used, sorry about removing it. Dreadstar ☥ 18:00, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
You know, what we also need to do is try to get the archive bot to temporarily archive this page at a faster rate than it's currently set. Ten days is far to slow considering this page is at over 100 separate headers because of the single purpose accounts, meatpuppets, and established editors with dead horses to beat. I don't know if non-admin users can modify the parameters of the bot archive template to get it to go faster because nothing seemed to happen.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Non admins can change it, but I can take care of it for you. I'll temporarily change it to three one day and see what it does. Dreadstar ☥ 18:31, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, I hope the manual archiving I did helped matters.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 18:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I've been informed that ClueBot III might be a better choice for archival as it has an "archive now" option.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:05, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Ogeeku

Non reliable source. We do not need to follow non reliable sources in considering how to structure our article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:11, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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.

In the war over Zoe Quinn, there are no winners.

#GamerGate – All Quiet on the 4chan Front

Willhesucceed (talk) 19:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

we only use reliably published sources, I am not sure what you are posting this here for. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 19:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
1. In order for you to decide for yourselves whether this is a reliable source. 2. To give you a better perspective on how to structure the article. Willhesucceed (talk) 19:59, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.

A subjective judgment from a reliable source does not become fact

No specific issues identified. See multiple sections above , We follow the sources. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:26, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

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.

A lie that's being repeated often in this talk page is that subjective judgments, such as the first line of the article, are verified facts when they come from a reliable source. This is simply not the case. All editors on such a controversial topic need to become familiar with WP:SUBJECTIVE and WP:NPOV. I suggest a major rewrite that reflects the aforementioned policies of the Wikipedia project. 71.178.64.248 (talk) 22:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I suggest that you become familiar with a policy that is, as it states, about "Describing aesthetic opinions." The fact that this issue involves misogyny is not an aesthetic opinion. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 22:19, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The discussion above 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.

Talking about structure

Neutrality policy requires that the structure is taken care of to protect neutrality, and the relative prominence of facts is given due weight without creating a false hierarchy of "undisputed" and "discredited" facts and taking into account other balancing aspects. Let's discuss ways to improve the article that don't require finding new references, by enhancing the way already included facts are laid out on the page, and get us closer to the perfect article.

Here are some ideas that have been made in various talks above, feel free to add some more.

  • Indicate the relative importance of each viewpoint according to the number and quality of the sources. This should be done for views held by many reliable sources, and for views with less support - let's identify which is which.
  • Avoid leading the narrative by introducing judgement values and opinions early in the article; start with facts stated in neutral tone, reserve subjective claims for analysis sections.
  • Clearly attribute subjective claims to the party introducing them, no exceptions. This should also help with point 1 - letting the reader assess how much weight is there behind each point, and from what kind of sources.
  • Include separate in chronological order. Avoid a claim/counter-claim format for views stated by opposing sources, as those may create WP:SYNTH.

And please discuss the content and references, not the editors. Let's see if we can get some constructive conversation rolling. Diego (talk) 09:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

1) As I noted above, undue weight is being given to the harassment issue; there are dozens of RSs which talk about the issue of gaming corruption.
2) It needs to start out with it noting that GamerGate is about allegations of corruption in the media, and then note that its detractors claim it is all about misogyny. This is standard practice on articles about subjects like this. See also: any conspiracy theory article, which starts out by describing what the conspiracy theory is.
3) The background section should probably be roughly chronologically ordered by subject matter, with controversies about disrespect by the game devs/journalists on top (John Romereo and Daikatana probably being the first notable incidence of such), corruption in the gaming media next (can we use the doritogate picture? That has been attached to this quite a bit), probably followed by misogyny stuff (IIRC that stuff started getting a lot of reporting somewhere in the last five years or so, but if it is earlier we can put it earlier), and Zoe Quinn's stuff at the bottom, because it happened most recently (and also is what immediately led up to things). Probably should start off with a "See also:" which leads to sexual harassment/harassment in video gaming and controversies about games/gaming journalism, because all of that is background to this.
I'm really not familiar with the background on Anita Sarkeesian; I remember hearing about her and watching her first video and remember people talking about how poorly constructed they were, but I don't remember if there was a whole lot of RS coverage of people criticizing her for the videos. I do know that this was hardly the first time she's been caught up in controversy over her videos, but I'm not sure how many of the stupid internet fights made the news.
4) I agree re: chronological order, but I think chronological order by topic might make more sense than strict chronological order for some of this stuff, as a lot of it would be something of a mis-mash otherwise. For instance, start out with the blog post, then the allegations of corruption, then the response to said allegations (including the censorship), then the accusations of misogyny and harassment and such of Zoe Quinn and her supporters, then the attacks on Zoe Quinn's detractors, then Anita Sarkeesian, then the response section. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
1. There's no issue with undue weight other than your insistence that the harassment is not part of it and this article should only focus on the ethics issues which are not a primary aspect at this point.
2. See above.
3. This is about Zoe Quinn and Depression Quest and not at alla bout Daikatana.
4. There are no claims of censorship in any of the reliable sources put forward in any of the sections on this page. Just claims by people who must have had messages on Reddit and other websites removed for saying something about Quinn and Depression Quest.
—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:43, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Do you have anything to say about the structure? If you have something to say about the weight and reliability of content, please link it to how and where it's included in the article layout; this section is about that. Simply repeating general assertions about those concerns that have already been made elsewhere is of no use to achieve actionable proposals to improve the article. Diego (talk) 10:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
P.S. (If you have some aspect of the article that you like how it's done and you don't want to see changed, you can tell us that too). Diego (talk) 11:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
" Indicate the relative importance of each viewpoint according to the number and quality of the sources. " - that leaves the structure HARASSMENT [1]

References

  1. ^ there is potentially something to the coziness of the big time developers who buy all the advertising space promoting their upcoming products and the reviewers, who make their living on the add dollars those developers have spent over the past six months giving those products 5 stars no matter how crappy they are, but sending death threats and rape threats to small independent women developers is taking attention away from and not going to fix the problem
-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
It that means we get to keep a reference section that documents the connections between advertisers, developers and the press, it would be an improvement, yes. Diego (talk) 11:57, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Any suggestions that run along the lines of Titanium Dragons #1 & #2 are complete non-starters to any practical discussion on the matter. Tarc (talk) 12:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I do not currently agree with the harassment being the opening line and everything else related to the controversy being a separated second sentence. The being said I do not think that these should simply be switched around either, instead merging both major issues that have been reported together in one sentence a'la neutrality. One is not clearly above the other it seems from everything we have available currently, that goes for both sides of the coin. Frankly Man (talk) 12:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

@Frankly Man: your disagreement doesnt matter unless you can provide enough reliable sources to show that the mainstream view of the subject is not a focus on harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 13:23, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Don't get me wrong, I am not debating the overall issue but rather the sentence structure. Basically, so far the article (even still in development) appears to have a good variety of sources from multiple perspectives, that the overall narrative is shades of grey. I'm just not sure if opening with an absolute notion reflects that. Then again, I do suppose more needs to be done to the article first. Just a though, nothing major. Frankly Man (talk) 14:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
On point 4 - the less we focus on the specific events and/or accusations and more on the overall situation, the less of an issue we will with referencing (with RS) and bias and the like. There are some specifics and their timing that are important to understand why this gained media attention, but beyond that, it doesn't matter specifically when it occurred in the narrative, but that it was part of the situation. --MASEM (t) 13:27, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
3. This is about Zoe Quinn and Depression Quest - Correct. Now please tell us how GamerGate is connected to Zoe Quinn and then also why it's not Anita Sarkeesian. Please do so without assuming a feminist trope role that accuses the gaming community at large to be a bunch of mysogynists just as it's also incorrect to call all gaming journalists corrupt. --DHeyward (talk) 15:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
" GG is being defined as the incident of Quinn being accused of professional impropriety by her ex and others. Those others didn't magically appear, they were already on her from their previous issues with DQ. Hence why it is only Quinn to start. Sarkeesian comes into this because she was similarly grouped with Quinn and harassed by the same people, but it wasn't anything did by Sarkeesian to initiate GG. --MASEM (t) 16:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
So the ex and "those others" are mysognists? You've correctly tied that others including the ex were critical of Quinn but are you saying that they are all misogynists? (Read "straw feminist trope" profile if that is your view - and that is how the article portrays it currently). And which "same people" harassed Sarkeesian. She's been battling sexism in gaming for years before Depression Quest was being evaluated on Steam so saying her harassment came after is nonsense. She has been the subject of individual gamers ire for quite a while though I doubt Zoe's ex was ever one of the unnamed "others" as 1) he's from tumblr and 2) not a gamer. I am neither a reddit reader, tumblr reader, or journalist so this is my observation from reading mutltiple sources. It is simply wrong to have a group of "others" with a pejorative label as that is exactly what the concern about sexism is in gaming (i.e. "your great game developer Woman X, it's all the 'others' that are bad" - see how that works? It's a trope of a type of personality) That's what this article does except instead of a patronizing male trope, it's a straw feminist trope. Watch Sarkeesian's video on straw feminist tropes. It's her longest one I believe. Find the article in there because it's nailed to a T. --DHeyward (talk) 20:43, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The harassment sent to Quinn is being described as "misogynist". Not that her attackers are inherently misogynist (I think that's how the article is read). And the article is not saying that Sarkeesian's harassment is new. It's just that the attacks on her for her latest video were lumped into the attacks on Quinn. And Gjoni is a programmer or something isn't he? He seems to be part of the sphere but I don't think the article addresses that anyway.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 20:47, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
No, the article opens with "long-standing issues of sexism and misogyny in the gamer community" - that's describing, in a very broad and strong fashion, a characteristic of a group. Not specific acts of harassment. Not only that, her ex is not a part of that group. In addition, journalists now describe the gaming community as very broad and diverse with women representing 48% of it and climbing. A more accurate statement might be made about certain groups in reddit that have been called out. But calling out the very broad "gaming community" is a form of trope ("gamer trope" being characterized by "straw feminist trope?"). --DHeyward (talk) 22:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
That wording in no way says "every gamer is sexist and misogynic". It says these elements exist in the community, even if only small number. And the press believe that the harassment against Quinn and others targets are aligned with attitudes of those that misogynic. There is nothing wrong with this statement based on what reliable sources say. --MASEM (t) 23:03, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The article opens with that statement because it reflects what reliable sources have to say on the subject.

"In truth, the harassment has been going on much longer than that. For Quinn and many women who do what she does, threats and sexual innuendo are par for the course. Sexism in gaming is a long-documented, much-debated but seemingly intractable problem. It’s also the crux of the industry’s biggest ongoing battle being waged on Twitter under the hashtag “#GamerGate.”"

.
Tarc (talk) 23:03, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Allegations proven false?

Asked and answered in several sections above. We prefer the the secondary sources who have analyzed and commented upon the subject rather than our personal interpretations. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

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.

In the introductory paragraph, there is a statement that the allegations were "later proven false", citing this Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/09/12/with-gamergate-the-video-game-industrys-growing-pains-go-viral/ . From the article, "The site investigated the alleged ethics breach and concluded there had been no wrongdoing", referencing a Kotaku article here: http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

At minimum, the citation should be updated to point directly to the source Kotaku. Secondly, the conclusion of the allegations being false is highly subjective and inaccurate. It should perhaps more accurately be worded that Kotaku did not feel that Grayson's article written on March 31 and subsequent relation with Quinn in April did not constitute an ethical breach. Thus, Kotaku dismissed the allegation but it was never "proven false". Finally, there's only a single allegation here that was discounted by Kotaku. If there are other allegations that were supposedly disproven, more sources ought to be cited. 67.165.142.226 (talk) 01:06, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above 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.

Denial of Evidence, or Misunderstanding?

A short time ago, I posted one this talk page, not the article, a link to (redacted link). The edit, rather than be reverted or the policy properly addressed, was deleted under the excuse that the source did not qualify as a reliable source.

However, I took a look at the policy that is listed for what the video falls under:

Self-published or questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, especially in articles about themselves, without the requirement that they be published experts in the field, so long as:

the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim; it does not involve claims about third parties (such as people, organizations, or other entities); it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; the article is not based primarily on such sources.

These requirements also apply to pages from social networking websites such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

(redated claims regarding Quinn's life)

My question is this then, if we have a valid source that qualifies as a reliable source by Wikipedia standards, then why are we basing our information off of a baseless source and lying to our readers? Honestyislebestpolicy

If you have a problem with this, please discuss it here. Wikipedia claims to want to put forward a neutral view, and to have verification and truth. Why must all three of these be compromised for the sake of one woman? Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 05:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Please read WP:BLP, which is a policy that applies to any information relating to a living persons. A video link of a random internet user taking a cellphone video of their computer while supposedly bringing up (without verification) what a living person's Facebook, and using comments made from that to claim something about that person is absolutely unallowed even to be considered on WP in light of BLP, moreso as you try to claim that evidence is true. --MASEM (t) 06:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
"Link of a random internet user." Sorry, but I can't take you seriously at all. You're denying who this man is and his role in gamergate as Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend at the time of the alleged scandals. The video proves the verification of the Facebook screenshots. Kotaku doesn't prove that the allegations are proven false. It's almost convenient that you seem to fall back on a policy that totally fails to apply here (since Zoe herself put the Facebook chat logs in place) in order to deny this.
Where is Kotaku's verification? They're lacking in truth, so why is the verification allowed to pass by? Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
One: chat logs are not proof of anything, period - people lie in those all the time, so maybe Quinn was lying in them too. Second: we have no idea how legit those are either. Websites and identies can be faked all the time. Third: the person making that video is a random internet user and as such has zero reliability as a source.
"One: chat logs are not proof of anything, period" In other words, video proof that the staff of Rock Paper Shotgun knew Quinn before the Game Jam incident that Rock Paper Shotgun THEMSELVES posted doesn't disprove that Nathan Grayson had no relations with Quinn? Why are you special pleading that Kotaku, a group questioned for being liars deserve to have their voices taken as fact?

"Second: we have no idea how legit those are either. Websites and identies can be faked all the time." Dude, I can't say it enough, but you are full of crap. The video proof goes out of its way to point out that the screenshots that were taken were true. The Facebook profiles used can be verified as legitimate (the url is shown and able to be examined), and, most damning, Facebook provided the dates within the chat logs. The fact that you can't connect three obvious points yet special plead that one party directly involve deserves to have their word taken as evidence (despite showing none) is severely hurting the neutral tone of the article. "Third: the person making that video is a random internet user" Yes, because somebody that personally knows one of the centerpieces of the article has damning evidence towards her relations within the alleged companies, that makes him a "random" user with "no reliability" (even though proof was posted). Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if Quinn and Grayson knew each other before the date that the ex claims their relationship moved into the next phase, since that's not the issue behind the GG accusation - it was the accusation Quinn slept with Grayson to get positive coverage. We don't need nor want to prove or disprove anything else because it doesn't matter here. --MASEM (t) 17:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Kotaku, being the site that employs and publishes Grayson's writings, would be the most reliable source to assert that Grayson did not write anything about DQ after he started a relation with Quinn. You cannot claim otherwise. --MASEM (t) 16:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
You're literally saying that ,Kotaku, a site with a direct gain from withholding negative press about their writers, is a reliable source for an issue regarding a writer of theirs that's published numerous sources outside of where Kotaku investigated, some of which prove that relations between said writer and Quinn had occured before the time that Kotaku claims no relationship had formed. I can claim otherwise because you're proposing a lie. Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Also be aware: we are not here to try to make heads or tails of all the claims made by the ex. The only one that matters to GG is the one that claim an unprofessional relationship with a writer which was later proven false but by then the GG event had gotten into full gear. Nothing else on the ex's list is going to be considered on WP as they are all just claims and fail BLP. --MASEM (t) 06:13, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
"which was later proven false but by then the GG event had gotten into full gear." Dude, there's no other way for me to say this, but you are full of crap. There is absolutely no evidence that these allegations are false besides the testimonial of the people directly involved, which boils down to circular reasoning. You're assuming they're right because they're published, yet GamerGate is about corruption in publishing, but GamerGate has been absolutely been proven false in these allegations because published sources in question say so? Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Honestyislebestpolicy, I believe that there may be some confusion about what the article is saying. If I understand you correctly, the line you are concerned with reads:
The controversy started around the harassment that an indie game developer received after an ex-boyfriend of hers posted a "tirade" against her that led to allegations of professional impropriety; these allegations were later proven false, but the debate they sparked continued.
It seems that you are interpreting the line as saying that the claims by the ex-boyfriend have been proven false. This isn't the intent of the line. What is being said is that the claims of professional impropriety have been disproved, or, more specifically, that Grayson didn't write about Quinn during their relationship. This doesn't mean that the ex-boyfriend's claims are right or wrong, as we're not denying that a relationship occurred - we're only stating that there was no professional impropriety in that relationship. - Bilby (talk) 06:47, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps I'm a bit frustrated that Wikipedia is having such a supposed hard-on for anything published being taken without face value (which, as pointed out above, is part of what GamerGate is challenging), so I apologize if I seem rude or unprofessional with you. However, this claim is also false as well. Internet Aristocrat has compiled numerous videos that show evidence of Kotaku not confronting the issue of their alleged corruption (before anyone attacks me for "unreliable sources", I'm just using the videos as a proxy for where the source is, Internet Aristocrat cited his sources albeit unprofessionally and shows explicitly where the information can be found). The claim that the allegations of relationships for positive press are in a limbo for what we can verify because Kotaku hasn't actually disproven that such unethical acts have taken place, and this article gives them too much credit for being the centerpiece of this controversy. Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Kotaku claimed that there was no evidence of professional impropriety in their own reporter's relationship. It should be noted who the source was. When we quote various folks on their own claims of innocence, we do not present it as objective fact. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:03, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
"These allegations were later proven false," Yes, you do present it as fact.. Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:07, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Because Kotaku reported that, not because Quinn denied it. --MASEM (t) 16:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
We don't need to attribute that to Kotaku. There is no review. That's a matter of public record. We don't need to say that anyone 'claimed' there was no impropriety: there simply wasn't any. -- TaraInDC (talk) 07:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Uh, how is it a matter of public record? Kotaku and Grayson claimed that there was no inappropriate relationship at the time of the publication of the article. That was an after the fact claim made by parties who have a vested interest in denying any impropriety. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Gjoni's diatribe was very detailed and specific, and I don't know if you've noticed, but when journalists publish articles, they very frequently put dates on them. Her game was never reviewed at all - the chief complaint of the GamerGaters - and the article where it was mentioned was published before Gjoni claimed that the alleged relationship began, a fact Gjoni specifically admitted in a later update. This fact has been pointed out in numerous sources. The accusations that Zoe Quinn bought good reviews with sex are false. -- TaraInDC (talk) 07:19, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm sorry for the awkward spacing, but, you're going to need to prove that the allegations are false. The allegations were directed towards Kotaku writer Nathan Grayson. Kotaku's investigation relies mainly on Grayson's presence within Kotaku and finding no review present on their site. However, before Game Jam is mentioned, Grayson does make prior to the writing of Game Jam and that he most certainly DID know Zoe Quinn personally. <redacted> Furthermore, if Kotaku verified the statement that Zoe has friends with Kotaku, then how is the claim that there is positive press towards Zoe because of relations within these sites disproven? Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 16:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Uh no. We have provided the reliable sources that "prove" it. If you want anything else you will need to provide reliably published sources that have declared some bit of truth to the accusations and not merely your denial. see WP:OR. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 16:47, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
No, you didn't. You posted a company damage control that's only source is an alleged investigation within themselves, both disregarding any of the other elegations of positive press by Joshua and disregarding Grayson's involvement and proof on other sites. You don't know what "prove" means, do you? Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 17:02, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
If you continue to go off guns blazing and not reading, understanding and following Wikipedia's policy, you will soon find yourself not being able to go off at all. READ THE POLICIES. Multiple reliably published sources have indicated that the allegations were false We follow the sources. We Do not get to decide that the reliable sources didnt come to the conclusion that we would have and so we need to include our personal interpretation over theirs. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Let's get one thing straight right away, at no point am I assuming what has not been proven either through evidence that has logically proven to be true while falling outside of wikipedia's reliable source description nor relied on a source that falls under a self-published reliable source. The sources that I've presented recently regarding Rock Paper Shotgun were all reliant on what Rock Paper Shotgun themselves had published that directly contradicts the claims that Kotaku makes.
With that being said, the quotation that we're discussing only has one source cited. This one source on the page relies on a company statement released by Kotaku. This one source, mind you, only tackles a fraction of the supposed allegations, and only does so within the scope of a very specific environment. The claims that Zoe Quinn and Nathan Grayson had sexual relations is one that cannot be proven at this time through reliable evidence, but at the same time the only "reliable" evidence put forward to disprove it fail on a basic logical sense. Yet, this article asserts so clearly that one of these cases is absolutely true, jumping the gun rather than present the information as-is. It fails by its own policy of "Verification, not truth" because there is no verification for the claim that no relations had occurred.
Threaten authority all you want, but would not going to change the problems within the article at this moment nor would it convince me personally that the allegations are false. Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 17:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Time : "Despite the fact the journalist in question did not ‘review’ the game and wasn’t found to have allocated it any particular special treatment,"
The article only goes on to discuss Grayson's involvement. Dig deeper into where the sources are pulled from, it goes from Time to Vice to Grayson's Twitter. I repeat, the article that you claim to "prove" that the five allegations are false is basing its information on one post on Grayson's Twitter.
Wa Po: "The site investigated the alleged ethics breach and concluded there had been no wrongdoing
Washington Post has worded this almost exactly how our article should to word it to remain neutral. Regardless, this is that one source cited, and every criticism that I've put forward has already dismissed why this isn't a valid source for "proving" the claims false.
Forbes: "the initial concerns were quickly proven to be all smoke and no fire"
The article fails to cite how these concerns are falsified and makes little mention afterwards. Just as well, Forbes takes a tone regarding the issue of Gamergate in a much more neutral, albeit naive (as the author points out) that Wikipedia needs to take a message from. Forbes admits at the time that it does not know everything relating to gamergate, and this particular article was written before all current information within gamergate has been dug up.

I haven’t touched on all the strands. Readers will undoubtedly be disappointed that I haven’t taken a harder stance on one side or the other. They will point out details that I left out, either consciously or because there are simply too many at this point to include in one article or because I personally find them too flimsy to include. Readers will link to heavily subjective and slanted YouTube videos that make claims far too bold for mainstream journalism. We will define the word “fact” differently. Miniature rhetorical wars will be fought.


What I come away with here is not “feminist bullies” destroying the industry or “misogynistic neckbeards” out to scare away all the women.


What I come up with is three-fold:


First, we have a young industry that began, like so many others, as a male-driven industry on both the producer and consumer side now experiencing growth pains. The media is even younger than the industry itself and it’s experiencing growth pains, too. These growth pains have resulted in some raw, open wounds that fester whenever controversy erupts, and risk being infected further by politicized forces that care less about video games and more about political agendas. (All of this is a distraction from the real business of reporting on the video game industry and critiquing video games, though I think there is plenty of room for cultural commentary with political slants here as well, just like in TV, film, etc.)


Second, we have deep mistrust between consumers and the video game industry thanks to years of bad DRM and other poor business practices. That mistrust is now being cast on the press that’s supposed to be covering the industry to protect the consumer. Consumers (gamers) have increasingly viewed the press as “in bed” with the industry rather than working for consumers. This is enforced by stories of chummy developers and journalists, lavish AAA publisher-thrown parties, high-scoring games that aren’t particularly good, and so forth.


Finally, we have a video game press with a largely left-leaning political bias in some ways alienating itself from much of its readership. This seeps into the first two problems and complicates the matter, but isn’t in and of itself an invalid complaint. If the video game press were deeply conservative, you’d have a lot of left-leaning voices decrying it as well. The tenor of the discussion has become so “us vs. them” at this point, that many gamers simply feel unrepresented and condescended.


Add all three pieces together and you have a recipe for disaster.

One of the current problems with the article is that the third point that the third and second points that Kain makes are being underrepresented within the article.

Now holster your "smoking guns" and stop shooting yourself in the foot. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
See above. It's almost as if you don't know "reliable" means. Honestyislebestpolicy (talk) 17:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
1) don't edit inside another users post. 2) its almost as if you have not read any of our policies including the one on reliable sourcing. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:54, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The "review" idea being the "chief" complaint is simply false - in one of the most widespread early videos on the subject matter, it noted the positive press coverage of Zoe Quinn by Grayson and questioned whether the story of GAME_JAM, which presented her in a heroic light, but which Grayson himself was not around to witness the start of, might have, perhaps, been "fluffed up" on her behalf. The idea that this was a primary complaint is simply false and something that Zoe Quinn's supporters latched onto; yes, some folks complained about it. Was it ever the primary complaint? No. And it is worth noting that he did recommend her game on RockPaperShotgun, but it was not a review - it was a one-line recommendation on a list of Greenlighted games. Her ex-boyfriend noted that he had no evidence that their relationship had started at that point, though he did note that he believed that they had been friends at the time.
Also note, per WP:BLPNAME that we probably should avoid naming her boyfriend, because he isn't a notable person and his role in this incident was restricted to posting the original blog post. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:24, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Okay, it was the 'loudest' complaint then. It was the nearest thing to a valid complaint that GamerGate ever had, as if it had been true, it probably would have been notable. But it wasn't, and if we're going to mention these accusations at all in this BLP article we are going to have to immediately and plainly say that there is nothing too them. -- TaraInDC (talk) 08:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't have any problem with noting Kotaku's response/claims about the matter, just as long as we make sure that they are attributed to Kotaku in the text. Kotaku said that there was no impropriety, and I'm 100% for including that in the article, because it is notable and relevant (and is one of the few actual, concrete things which has been reported on - a lot of stuff has been pretty nebulous), but we need to note that it was Kotaku that said so, because they are reporting on themselves and their employees there. My only issue with that little section is that the claims are not all properly sourced to Kotaku in the text as they should be. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
There are a number of other sources which backed up Kotaku's claims - given that it can be handled in about 30 seconds by getting a list of every Kotaku article mentioning Quinn or Depression Quest, it wasn't difficult to verify. I don't see much point in watering down the statement. - Bilby (talk) 11:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I do have a problem with mentioning these accusations without promptly clarifying that there was nothing to them. This is a BLP issue: there's really no room for argument here. -- TaraInDC (talk) 15:43, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
To note, the video that was redactacted is about the other claims that were made in the ex's blog, and nothing to do with the specific claim about Kotaku's Nathan, the only one that is discussed in RSes in the first place. This last one is unavoidable (and also disproven), and thus have to be covered using careful application of BLP, but the others remain questionable and thus fall within BLP restrictions and cannot be discussed. --MASEM (t) 15:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion and inquiry for edit 626159564 ("subject of contention")

Regarding issues strongly related to the above discussion, I would like to inquire about this edit I made in accordance to WP:STICKTOSOURCE, WP:ABOUTSELF, WP:EXCEPTIONAL, WP:WPNOTRS, along with the consensus which states that Kotaku is an unreliable source. How exactly does this particular edit violate the BLP policy? It was said that there were multiple sources, yet there is but a single cited source linked to the following claim:

those subsequent allegations were later proven false

Upon inspection, the source states:

Quinn’s ex-boyfriend ... wrote a blog post accusing Quinn ... The site [Kotaku] investigated the alleged ethics breach and concluded there had been no wrongdoing

I'm having trouble figuring out how exactly these two translate each other. Even if they did translate literally (they don't), it's an exceptional claim but there is only one source for it. The source is actually reflecting a conclusion reached by a publisher who is directly involved with allegations. The publisher itself isn't even a reliable source. In any case, Kotaku is as unreliable as the blog post containing the ex-boyfriend's accusations. The case cannot be made that – by acting as a secondary source – The Washington Post renders Kotaku's statements reliable, because it simply reports that the site made a conclusion, not that there is veracity to it.

I suggested that "...allegations were later proven false, but..." be reworded to "...allegations were then the subject of contention, and...", but this was instantly reverted per an alleged adherence to BLP policy. Doesn't BLP policy state that comments such as these mustn't appear at all regardless of its nature when accompanied by poor sources? Yes, it does.

  • 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 Wikipedia'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." (WP:NPOV)
  • Questionable sources should only be used as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves; see below. They are not suitable sources for contentious claims about others. ... Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources.(WP:V)
  • Source material should be carefully summarized or rephrased without changing its meaning or implication. Take care not to go beyond what is expressed in the sources, or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intention of the source, such as using material out of context. In short, stick to the sources. (WP:NOR)

I would like that somebody be allowed to provide a non-automated response to this matter. I also suggest that the statement be removed (not reworded – per BLP policy – Zoe Quinn does not even necessitate a mention in the intro paragraph) until exceptional sources are added to accommodate this exceptional claim.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 03:36, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The allegations that Grayson provided positive coverage of Quinn while engaged in a relationship with her - which was the core of the allegation of "professional impropriety" per the current wording - were disproved (not merely disputed or the subject of contention) on the grounds that Grayson did not write about Quinn while they were engaged in a relationship. This is what Kokatu confirmed, and was additionally confirmed by parties on both sides: [12] [13] [14] [15]. We could use another source to support it if you wish, but we cannot insinuate that there could be any possible truth to those allegations, as that would be a BLP violation. Hence the current "proven false" wording. - Bilby (talk) 04:03, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Edit Request: Intro rewrite (With sources)

TDA has a wonderful suggestion for an edit: ""#GamerGate is a controversy that erupted over allegations of improper relationships between gaming journalists and game developers that was seen by media as a cover for a misogynistic harassment campaign against female voices in the industry."

The last request didn't have sources to back it up, so I am making my case. I believe the intro, and article, need to be focused on the goals of #gamergate, with the harassment as a major criticism. Many sources are now talking about what the goals of gamergate are/where, and some of them are even sources that wrote it off as the 'hatred of women' at first. digitimes,techcrunch,Forbes,Vox,Techraptor,Townhall,Forbes,aljazeera,The Guardian,SlateVox, . There are even sources that say that the 'Hatred of Women' point was wrong. Forbes,Techraptor,Slatemetaleater.

Though, in a few of the articles already used, they even state that gamergate views are noble, but there is some harrassment that is hurting it onthemedia.

To also add, #notyoursheild was created that fought against those accusations of the Hatred of Women. cinemablend, Forbes

Not only that, but the gamergate movement has results, such as Destructoid, Kotaku, and Defy Media (who owns The Escapist), all changing their ethics policy, and TFYC getting funded cinemablend,apgnation.

Some major names are even speaking out in the support of gamergate cinemablend.

This Forbes Article sets out the whole situation clearly, yet next to none of it is being used. With all of these sources, as well as actual visible changes (such as ethics policy) that happened, I feel this needs to be on the forefront, with harassment as a major critisism.

Currently, the articles being used to push this as a hatred against women dont have near as much evidence on their point as the people who publish about the issues that gamergate is fighting against. So not only do we have sources backing up the ideals of #gamergate, we also have more evidence that this movement is what gamergate is pushing, and not just word of mouth from many RS'es already used (i.e. many of them run off of what Zoe said). — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoSomething (talk • contribs) 18:57, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Again, we cannot deny that harassment kicked this off. While I will agree that the issues are morphing, all most reliable recent source still lead off that it was harassment. If GG keeps on going for months and the situation changes into a calm and collected discussion of journalism ethics and its clear that the harassment stuff was just a spark, we can rework this, but right now, GG is still presented as primarily an issue with harassment from the start. So we cannot change that. --MASEM (t) 19:03, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem, many of those sources blatantly state that that it was because of the nepotism in journalism. We can verify those to, independently. We cannot verify that harassment was the cause, we are taking the word of basically one person being interview in some RS'es. What we cannot deny, is that the nepotism, which is IN THE SOURCES, was the cause of it. PseudoSomething (talk) 19:06, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
When I say in the sources, I mean, we can find the nepotism. We can see it ourselves without trusting the source. How is this something that can be denied, but we cannot deny that? PseudoSomething (talk) 19:08, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Verifiability, not truth. What 'we' can 'see' in the reviews is irrelevant. You do not get to declare a source 'biased' because you don't like what it says. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
What are all of those sources that I posted then? Plus the evidence of changes from the movement? PseudoSomething (talk) 19:18, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
They're a lot of weak sources and a few cherry picked sections from some stronger ones. They don't override the masses of mainstream sources that are treating this as an example of the misogyny in the gaming community. If you'd like to talk about the 'changes' caused by the movement, why stop at a few minor gaming sites who tried to satisfy GamerGate by publishing their ethics policies? Let's talk about the several women who have been hounded out of their careers by GamerGate's irrational rage. The women who are afraid to return home. The calls to the FBI. The massive quantity of libel and rage that this movement has generated. GamerGate got a few minor sites to try pacify them, and screwed up a whole lot of women's lives for absolutely no reason. That's the effect of your movement. -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Andddd you have moved the goalpost. I can't discuss when they keep moving. PseudoSomething (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
No, I have not. Your sources are weaker than the ones that support the current version of the article. That's just all there is to it. You have not provided anywhere near the quantity of reliable, mainstream sources that present "GamerGate's side" and exclude the misogyny of the movement. That's where the goalposts have been all along. You're asking is to ignore the way a large number of high quality sources are presenting this issue in favor of giving the 'side' presented by some much lower quality sources coupled with a few cherry picked sections from higher quality sources. You have not provided compelling evidence that the 'side' you want presented should be the only one presented in the intro or body of the article. We need to present this the way the sources do, and that means leading with the movement's misogyny and hostility to women. -- TaraInDC (talk) 21:18, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Whether there actually is or is not nepotism or favoritism in gamer journalism really has nothing at all to do with what happened here, i.e. a jilted boyfriend slut-shaming his ex and (falsely) claiming that she benefited from such favoritism. If the false claims of favoritism wrt. Quinn sparked a larger conversation about ethics in journalism, that can be addressed in a single sentence. Tarc (talk) 19:15, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Tarc, you have been nothing but rude to me the entire time I have been here. I just provided the sources, you cannot deny the sources. The sources up there don't say that, those sources up there say the issue of nepotism are the cause. Those issues up there barely reference Zoe. PseudoSomething (talk) 19:18, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Except that there is literally no evidence of any nepotism, the claims w/r/t Quinn have been disproven and the movement spent all of its energy making third-grade-level jokes about her alleged sex life as portrayed by a jilted ex-boyfriend. Meanwhile, as multiple reliable sources point out, the movement has completely ignored the influence of the multi-billion-dollar AAA games industry in favor of a crusade against a few people who are daring to discuss the cultural implications of video games. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:19, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I mean, Patreon, Indiecade, the indie clique, and probably some other things, not the Zoe post from an emotionally abused ex-boyfriend, but the WHOLE INDUSTRY. But that doesn't matter. The sources I posted focus both on the issues that the gamergate pushes, as well as saying why some of those are not doable, or aren't there, etc.. Don't move the goalpost now. PseudoSomething (talk) 19:24, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
"Indie clique?" Is this high school or something?
It's not "moving the goalposts" to note that if the movement was truly about "journalism ethics" as it claims to be, its primary focus is 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Rather, that simply supports the contention that "journalism ethics" is only a smokescreen for the movement's actual ideology of third-grade-level misogyny, slut-shaming and the opportunity to attack anyone and everyone who makes serious cultural criticism of video games. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:30, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Its moving the goalpost since I posted sources, and all of a sudden we can only believe sources that talk about the hatred of women. All while there are changes BECAUSE of gamergate, such as ethic policy updates. PseudoSomething (talk) 19:49, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
NOW you're catching on! -- TaraInDC (talk) 19:33, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
That is what at least one source has said. But hey, I get to add something else that happened to me on WP... called a woman hater... check... called a sock puppet... check.... told to shut up... check.... talked down to... check! PseudoSomething (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
No, I mean, what do you mean by "indie clique" and "nepotism"? Even assuming there is a "clique" of people who talk to each other about indie games, there is nothing "nepotistic" about people talking to each other. That's literally what people do, like, in the real world and stuff. If they share ideas and share viewpoints, they have conversations. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Well sorry if you meant it by that. Being called all that crap and then basically talked down to constantly, its basically my go to when someone post something like that. What it is are people getting 'cozy' with each other in the industry, basically making it so that only one view point of something may be shown. In reference to this subject, it would be like the 'Death of Gamers' thing, where suddenly 12 articles were posted in 48 hours, inspired by a blog post. PseudoSomething (talk) 19:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I didn't explain that well enough, sorry, I am pissed. By indie clique, that also means the possible corruption in the indiecade, where there might actually be fraud. By nepotism, thats corruption. Like funding patreons of people you write about, or not saying, "Hey, we got all this free crap from these people" in articles about them. PseudoSomething (talk) 20:00, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
If a bunch of people agree with each other, that's not "nepotism," though. I mean, it's just literally not. There's nothing unethical about it. People in every industry talk with one another and discuss things all the time. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:13, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I fully agree with that, 100%. A big reason it seems that they went after it is kinda the situations like the 'Death of Gamers'. But there is criticism like yours in those sources, and should be referenced. PseudoSomething (talk) 20:17, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
PseudoSomething, the harassment is still part of it and there's nothing you can say that will change our opinions on that. It will be mentioned in the lede. And Tarc, to be clear, the ex only posted claims that there was an affair. Gamers decided to accuse her of benefiting from favoritism due to their interpretation of the ex's statements.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Hat off-topic comments about other contributors. All editors here should focus solely in the editorial content of the article and not make comments about each other. If you want to discuss either or any behavioral issues, take it to your user talk pages or follow WP:CONDUCTDISPUTE. Dreadstar ☥ 21:16, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Ryu, you don't get top voice in this. You also told me to shut up earlier and seem to be focusing on my post. Just back off. I have no desire to talk to you. PseudoSomething (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
This is a public forum where you're making problematic statements so you don't have a choice in the matter, bucko.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Ryulong, I've read his blog and don't buy the "oops, a misplaced comma implied something I didn't mean to imply" excuse. As for Mr Pseudo... Tarc, you have been nothing but rude to me the entire time I have been here... is a very curious statement, because a quick perusal of the talk page shows no instance where I have directly addressed you until this specific "Edit Request: Intro rewrite (With sources)" thread. Are you losing track of which sock-puppet you're currently logged in to? Tarc (talk) 19:38, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Called a sock puppet again! Yey! I think we spoke 3 times. Twice so far you have called me a sock puppet and lead on that I was a woman hater (admin board, at least from what I remember of your post), and one somewhere up there. Or maybe the one up there was just reading your comments. If you think im a sock puppet, bring another admin action against me! PseudoSomething (talk) 19:43, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
All I've gathered from reading everything is that he did not directly imply that the relationship resulted in beneficial press, but that's what the /v/irgins and redditors deduced.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 19:41, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Let me reiterate that there is a possible scenario in the future that if GG actually turns into a long, earnest discussion on journalism ethics with significant changes in how gaming media operates, as reflected by many sources, there might be a reason then to flip this approach around, to note that GG started with Quinn and harassment, but since has become a positive discussion for change in journalism, and then we can rewrite this in the manner suggested. But there is zero way to do that now, and it would both NOR, NPOV, and Crystal balling to make that change. --MASEM (t) 20:51, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I think the most NPOV way to phrase the first sentence of the lede is to say something to the effect of "#GamerGate is a controversy that erupted over allegations of improper relationships between gaming journalists and game developers that was seen by media as a cover for a misogynistic harassment campaign against female voices in the industry." You give a nod to the journalistic ethics complaint, while noting how it was not widely viewed as being about journalistic ethics. The current phrasing is just inaccurate and POV.--The Devil's Advocate tlk. cntrb. 20:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree with TDA. If it is written that way, it shows the actual information on what GG is (backed up by sources), and the views on it. PseudoSomething (talk) 21:04, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
There is something very POVish about that statement even though it is "correct". I don't think "the media" are at this point fully convinced the ethics part was used to try to cover up for the misogynic stuff. The ethics part arose from that, for certain, but to claim the media , as a whole, called it a cover is really more POV. Really, with everything we have sourcewise, we have to start with the spark - the attacks on Quinn et al. Don't get me wrong, I would to be able to turn this around and if we could, footnote that but there's just no sourcing that we can do that and not create a new POV; the bulk of interest in the media is because of the misogynic harassment even if that does not reflect the majority. --MASEM (t) 21:09, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem... I just posted a buttload of sources about GG, and what it is about. So we know what GG was pushing for, from RS'es. To say we don't know if the ethics part is actually what was being pushing is ignoring those sources. Right now it is POV because it disregards that many sources talk about the goals of GG, as well as ignoring the things such as policy changes. I think at this point, we can say that GG was pushing for certain journalistic things, but that some of the media saw it as a misogynist movement. If you don't think it is POV, look at many of those people who initially replied to me, it is extremely POV right now. PseudoSomething (talk) 21:16, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
did you read the sources you posted at the top of this page? they are all about harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:39, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Some are about harassment, others are straight to the point of what GG is/was. I included the ones that included the harassment to show that even those pushing the harassment issue still saw that GG was pushing for Journalist things. I honestly think TDA had a good lead, because it list what the movement is/was, and the reaction to it. PseudoSomething (talk) 21:42, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Please identify one that you think is not primarily about harassment. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:49, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Here are five I pulled straight from my post. digitimes,techcrunch,Forbes,Vox,Techraptor PseudoSomething (talk) 21:53, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Digitimes is a weak industry source. It's giving a minority opinion even within the gaming journalism field, and one that's not represented at all in the mainstream media. The TechCrunch article absolutely destroys the 'it's not about women' argument. The Forbes article focuses on dissecting the 'we want objective journalism' complaints and exposing them as ridiculous. Vox explains what GamerGaters claim their movement is about and then points out that the targets for harrassment over 'corruption' have been people with absolutely no real power. TechRaptor (another lower-tier source) is one interview with one developer who deflected questions about misogyny. One developer thinks it's not about misogyny. Great!
Most of these are usable in the article, but they do not justify excluding other much stronger sources from the lede or any other portion of the article just because they don't mention things the stronger sources do. When such a quantity of sources have covered the misogyny angle in such detail, you need more than just pieces that don't mention it: at this point, you need sources that say that it's not about misogyny. What you have here are some more focused pieces that mainly point out the flaws in the GamerGaters' other claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TaraInDC (talk • contribs) 22:05, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
And yet... Digitimes was earlier said to be a really good article. Seems the only good articles are ones that lines up with your view of "The massive quantity of libel and rage that this movement has generated. GamerGate got a few minor sites to try pacify them, and screwed up a whole lot of women's lives for absolutely no reason. That's the effect of your movement.", right? PseudoSomething (talk) 22:10, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Well clearly, harassment with ideologies such as a hatred of women aren't those of criticism, and thus are the opinions. There's a lot of sources that got linked to and it might upset the WP:BALANCE. We need to make sure we're covering all sides of the issue in order to create articles that are not conflicting with the wikipedia rules, but are also fair in an evaluatino or judgement to aid others in their evaluations. Who is siding with Gamer's Gate? (Other than Gamer's Gate, of course) Who is going with them, that sort of thing. The comment added by PseudSomething brings up an important issue where there is a lack of evidence and of course that means also credibility. It turns from editing wikipedia to competing in a smear campaign against some company / group. Let's try to avoid word of mouth. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Complete turing (talk • contribs) 22:21, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
All sides of the issue are being covered as accurately as we can via the reliable sources that we are using to verify this article's content. The attacks on Quinn and Sarkeesian have been labeled misogynist harassment by the world at large. That is what GamerGate appears to be to anyone on the outside. Just because there are people who sincerely want to discuss the ethics of indie devs and games journalists does not change the topic of this page to sweep under the rug all the personal and ad hominem attacks on one woman's private life as well as the reported on threats of rape and death sent her way, and threats sent to a another peripheral but polarizing woman in the public eye. We should find articles that discuss people examining the ethics and other sides of the story. But all it seems is that you want to downplay the aspect that everyone from outside gaming media has been seeing when it's what caused everything else.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:31, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Well from the sources that I posted, it seems that RS means that GG is a movement focused on journalistic ethics and has a large commentary of Misogyny from some media. Forbes, Townhall, Digitimes, Slate, onthemedia, cinemablend... PseudoSomething (talk) 22:34, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Aren't all of these already in the article and covering the topic in question? All of the articles you're listing may focus on the intended goals but that does not prove your case that the reporting of harassment gets second or no billing.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:44, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Actually, no, not all of them are in there, I just used ones that also had that point. But wait, why did you stop talking about WP:RS? Thats what we were talking about right? Through WP:RS, there is a point here. Because "Forbes, Townhall, Digitimes, Slate, onthemedia, cinemablend..." PseudoSomething (talk) 22:46, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

The point of this section is your request to change the lead paragraph to play down the mentions of "misogyny" is it not? My understanding of the situation is that while these sources you are referring to are mostly in the article and for the most part do support the "Gamers just want to talk about ethics", I don't think that changes how the lead should be written, as a bulk of the article discusses the issue of the attacks on Quinn (Fish, and Sarkeesian) and the media and industry's response to those attacks first. As such, the lead should describe that. The ethics issues are discussed and mentioned. It's just that until it becomes the bulk of the iscussion in media, then we don't have much of a choice in how we at Wikipedia report on what other people say about what's going on.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 22:55, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, if you read through the thread you are commenting on, I changed my position, and should probably update the post. I supported TDA change proposal. "#GamerGate is a controversy that erupted over allegations of improper relationships between gaming journalists and game developers that was seen by media as a cover for a misogynistic harassment campaign against female voices in the industry." That was, it incorporates everything the RS'es are saying. Yes, the RS'es are saying that, look at my sources. Oh, and Forbes, Townhall, Digitimes, Slate, onthemedia, cinemablend...PseudoSomething (talk) 22:58, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Again, that makes it worse, because it is rather insulting to the proGG side. The problem is that you have a stigma of a few wrecking the situation for the many. If GG becomes a non-story next week, that stigma is going to stay, that GG was harassment and attack that led to discussion of other issues as this is how the situation is presented in the majority of sources. If instead GG continus to receive coverage positively towards address the proGG issues - that is, more sourcing that balances and possibly outweighs the initial issues of the harassment, then the harassment can be taken as a subtopic and made less prominate in the article .But there is no way to do that now without violating WP's sourcing/NOR/NPOV approach. (As a small hint, because there is one way to influence better coverage here that falls within all policy lines and helps the image of the proGG group: if proGG were to organize themselves and present a calm, rational, unified statement that expressed their concerns and sane williness to discuss the matter, and stood against the use of harassment tactics to get ones one, they might get more positive ears to listen and report about them and thus allowing us to change the focus here. But the media is going to have a hard time dealing with thousand of different, haphazard voices, which is why, ignoring the misogyny stuff, the proGG arguments are simply not getting the coverage that they probably could get. But that's just an idea). --MASEM (t) 23:19, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem... right now it is insulting the proGG side. The edit from TDA would show both sides of it. If your looking for sources, look at the large amount of sources I produced in the opening paragraph. Those are all being overlooked. Those sources I produced showed the pro-GG side. The edit that TDA made tells basically exactly what happens. Pro-GG: " "#GamerGate is a controversy that erupted over allegations of improper relationships between gaming journalists and game developers"... Anti-GG: "that was seen by media as a cover for a misogynistic harassment campaign against female voices in the industry.". We have the sources for Pro-GG all together now, in my request. EDIT: I removed part of that, I read wrong. My apologizes. PseudoSomething (talk) 23:25, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
We are unable to change the common opinion that the proGG side is seen by the mass media as angry young male gamers. Some are trying to dig deeper, but because this started with the harassment of Quinn, it's hard to shake that it is anything more than young men raging on the Internet. If that opinion changes and newer sources from the same type of reliable sources that we have now come around and present the proGG side better, then we can switch. We can't do anything if that is not there in sources, through, without engaging in original research or biasing the sources. --MASEM (t) 00:24, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Let me add - I am fully aware that the proGG is not universally angry young male gamers raging on the Internet (I do believe a few have ruined it for the many); I can see the twitter lines, I can see blogs, etc. I respect that some of that side are trying to turn the tide to get discussion back to the games journalism side. But I as a WPian editor am unable to change what RS do or do not cover. If they don't want to give credence to that side, I'm stuck for lack of sourcing there. --MASEM (t) 00:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem... what about the sources I posted? The many that showed that it was more than young men raging on the Internet? Those are WP:RS. Those show the views behind the Por-GG side, multiple times. Even from big sites, such as Forbes, Slate, and others. How is this not WP:RS to change to what TDA proposed? Anyway, im hoping these logs from this email list that were dug up between game journalist get dumped. So far only breitbart reported directly on it, with techraptor using them as a source for some screens. PseudoSomething (talk) 00:33, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

It started off with the blog post. Titanium Dragon (talk) 00:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Others have already pointed out the unreliability of some of the sources. The rest only address the rational reasons for the proGG side after explaining the harassment incidents, so we cannot flip it around on just those current sources. --MASEM (t) 06:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

@TaraInDC: "Digitimes is a weak industry source" - I would like to disagree with this claim of yours, if you don't mind me chiming in. DigiTimes is a well-respected and very reputable newspaper in Taiwan. It is an industry-specific daily newspaper that has been in print since 1998 which specifically caters to those within the microprocessor and semiconductor industry (which makes up a large chunk of Taiwan's exports and GDP), which makes it a key media outlet in the business sector of Taiwan. Even mainland China and Hong Kong newspapers such as the People's Daily and South China Morning Post frequently cite DigiTimes for technology-related news, and it is among the most trusted sources among the Chinese speaking world (China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia) for computer industry news. Please perform a bit of detailed background research before dismissing sources which may not be too convenient for you, thanks. --benlisquareT•C•E 05:56, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

In comparison with The New Yorker and The Washington Post I'd say it's a weak excuse to ignore the coverage of highly reliable publications. Even a few very strong mainstream sources failing to mention a detail would not be enough to exclude it when it has such strong sourcing, but this is not a particularly strong source in comparison to the mainstream publications we have for this information. This isn't about 'convenience;' 'this source doesn't cite it so we should ignore all the ones that do' is just a terrible argument. -- TaraInDC (talk) 06:19, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
And DigiTimes is "unreliable" somehow? Is there a reason? DigiTimes clearly meets WP:RS criteria and can be used within the article to cite whatever statements necessary. May I remind you that specialist publications do exist, and that there is nothing wrong with being specialist: the Financial Times focuses on finance, but having a specific focus doesn't make it less reliable than a catch-all newspaper. There is nothing surprising about a tech-focused newspaper in Taiwan: I can assure you that every single part within the computer you are using contains components manufactured in Taiwan; computer parts to Taiwan is like bananas to the Philippines or vodka to Poland, it's a central aspect of society. I have yet to see any reasonable statement explaining why I should doubt DigiTimes and consider it a "weak" source like you have stated above. I'm not talking about "this source doesn't cite it so we should ignore all the ones that do", please don't shift the argument elsewhere. I am addressing your claim that "Digitimes is a weak industry source". --benlisquareT•C•E 06:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Don't put words in my mouth. I have not called Digitimes an 'unreliable' source. I am not saying it can not be used in the article. I am saying it can not be used to exclude other, stronger sources from the article. It's kind of ironic that you've told me not to 'shift the argument' back to what my post was actually about when you're happily wailing away on that straw man. -- TaraInDC (talk) 07:08, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
"I am saying it can not be used to exclude other, stronger sources from the article." - and nowhere did I suggest such a thing, which is why I find it strange that you're bringing it up. You made the claim that DigiTimes was not reliable in your original post, and that is exactly what I am addressing - all this mention of "ignoring what stronger sources say" is completely irrelevant to my conversation with you. I'm hoping that we can have a productive discussion, and that neither side will resort to poisoning the well. I have not said anything along the lines of "DigiTimes exist, therefore we can ignore WaPo", please don't imply that I have.

I also don't understand why you're so fixated on the argument that DigiTimes is somehow a "lesser" source compared to others. The world does not revolve around the United States, please stop resorting to the argument from authority that The Washington Post has a superior status because it has a large readership in America. Nobody reads WaPo in Russia, India or China, this appeal to authority is extremely regionalist in its justifications. DigiTimes is a well-trusted source within the Chinese world, and any false equivalences made with WaPo hardly makes sense. Use WaPo to cite statements that can be cited with WaPo, and use DigiTimes to cite statements that can be cited with DigiTimes; stop bringing in other publications when I'm trying to discuss the validity and reliability of DigiTimes. --benlisquareT•C•E 07:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem here is that you're fixated on one phrase and are ignoring everything else in this discussion. It's a technology source, but it's not particularly renowned for gaming industry news, is it? It is not strong enough to discount a massive body of highly reliable sources because they report on information Digitimes did not. Fundamentally, it does not matter whether you think Digitimes is a particularly strong source for gaming industry news, because it does not change the facts one bit: it is not such a strong source that it can be used in the way that it's being used here.
DigiTimes is a well-trusted source within the Chinese world, and any false equivalences made with WaPo hardly makes sense. Use WaPo to cite statements that can be cited with WaPo, and use DigiTimes to cite statements that can be cited with DigiTimes; stop bringing in other publications when I'm trying to discuss the validity and reliability of DigiTimes. And here you are putting words in my mouth again. I'm not making a 'false equivalence,' and I'm not suggesting that the world revolves around the United States. I'm not saying that the Washington Post trumps DigiTimes. I'm saying DigiTimes doens't trump the Washington Post. Please stop misrepresenting me. -- TaraInDC (talk) 07:39, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The DigiTimes article is actually a pretty important source, because it is A) international, B) not connected to it in any way (so no conflict of interest issues on self reporting), and C) presents a pretty neutral and detached view of the situation. Their concern with the article is whether or not it will impact manufacturing jobs in Taiwan, rather than promoting any particular point of view in the conflict, which makes them a very valuable source because they don't really have a "horse in the race". It is worth noting that it talks a great deal about why gamers are upset, something this article almost totally lacks, and yet it presents it as very important. So do a lot of other sources. This is because they are - there's an enormous number of non-reliable sources on this, and the "mainstream" view amongst gamers who are aware of this, as far as I can tell, seems to be very much against the video game press, which has long been despised by many gamers due to long-term perceptions of incompetence and corruption. As I noted elsewhere, Zoe Quinn has better access to the press due to her connections, which leads to issues of systemic bias. You'll note that a lot of the pro-"this is all misogyny" articles don't really talk to people involved at all other than Zoe Quinn and related folk. This is a big problem and indicates that these sources are probably less reliable. The Washington Post article is actually one of the few which talks about her detractors and note that they don't see themselves as being after her because she is a woman, in sharp contrast to Zoe Quinn's own claims. Titanium Dragon (talk) 07:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
It's a 'pretty important source' because it's nearly the only one that presents the subject of this article the way you want it presented, in other words? Please stop using 'potential conflict of interest' as an excuse to minimize coverage you don't like. We have mainstream sources all saying much the same thing as the 'conflicted' gaming publications you're attempting to discredit. None of the sources you've cited above are sufficient to justify whitewashing this article, so heap on all the praise you like: the mainstream sources aren't going away. As I noted elsewhere, Zoe Quinn has better access to the press due to her connections No. You have no evidence for this. She's a minor indie dev, not some master puppeteer. The things you are claiming happened didn't happen. -- TaraInDC (talk) 08:11, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
"The problem here is that you're fixated on one phrase and are ignoring everything else in this discussion" - Tara, I don't think you quite understand. Had I not called you out on that one sentence (and that one sentence is all I care about, I don't care about your conversation with the other editors), people would have immediately taken your word for it, and assumed that DigiTimes was just a crappy and useless website. That's all there is to it - correcting something you've said so that others don't misunderstand - I really, really don't see the need for this to drag into a discussion about what you guys were discussing earlier. You guys can argue over all that. You cannot deny that you made a bold claim, and that had I not correct you, people would have believed you. You can argue that I've taken you out of context and that I'm misrepresenting you, but I've popped over here specifically to make it clear that DigiTimes is more than what people were giving it credit for, and since I've done exactly that, I'm already satisfied. --benlisquareT•C•E 03:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
"The problem here is that you're fixated on one phrase and are ignoring everything else in this discussion" - Tara, I don't think you quite understand. Had I not called you out on that one sentence (and that one sentence is all I care about, I don't care about your conversation with the other editors), people would have immediately taken your word for it, and assumed that DigiTimes was just a crappy and useless website. I didn't say it was a crappy and useless website. I said it was a weak industry source - that is, a weak source for gaming industry news. As near as I can tell, that's the case. It's neither a gaming website nor a mainstream one. -- TaraInDC (talk) 04:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Background section issues

Some present issues with the background section.

0) This section completely omits several important background events of the folks involved - the Fine Young Capitalists, Phil Fish's previous issues online, previous allegations of corruption in the video game industry which set up the tensions at the start of this thing, Anita Sarkeesian being criticized for her videos, ect.

1) Depression Quest description at the start of the background section. Unacceptable promotion. Not NPOV.

Fix: In 2013, independent video game developer Zoe Quinn created and released Depression Quest, an interactive fiction title about depression.

2) Saying "According to the Escapist" is simply false at the end of the first paragraph. According to The Escapist itself, the claims of harassment in early 2014 were sourced soley to Zoe Quinn, with no independent validation whatsoever. The Escapist actually edited their article to note this, specifically, and noted that there was a policy in place against fact-checking said claims at the time, something for which they were roundly criticized. Claiming otherwise is simply outright wrong. As Zoe Quinn was the source of these allegations, they should be sourced to Zoe Quinn, not the Escapist. This sentence is a mess anyway.

Fix: While attempting to put Depression Quest on Steam via Valve Greenlight, Zoe Quinn said she was harassed by members of the gaming community. Zoe Quinn attributed this to misogyny, saying her detractors believed that "women cannot relate to anyone with depression".

We do not use the word "claimed" - please see WP:SAID. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
We do use the word "claimed" all the time, but we can just use "said" instead. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

2.5) Everything after the first paragraph should be split out into a separate section (Controversy), as it isn't background at that point, it is what actually happened.

3) Quoting someone as calling her boyfriend's post a tirade is simply not acceptable. Again, just because you're quoting a source doesn't mean it isn't a violation of NPOV, because sources are frequently biased. Likewise, this section should NOT name her boyfriend; this is probably a violation of WP:BLPNAME. We have no reason to name him on Wikipedia; it isn't important for understanding the article, and he is not notable. We probably need to name Grayson because he is referenced elsewhere throughout the paragraph.

Fix: Shortly after the full release of Depression Quest on Steam in August 2014, Quinn's ex-boyfriend wrote a blog post alleging that she had been unfaithful to him and claiming that Zoe Quinn had had sexual relationships with numerous men in the video game industry, including Nathan Grayson, a journalist for the video game website Kotaku.

No. "NPOV" does not prohibit us from adopting the position taken by the majority of reliable sources. Indeed, we are required to present the mainstream point of view as mainstream. Your assertion that the mainstream sources are "biased" is yet again irrelevant; literally every source can be said to have a bias.
This is incorrect. You clearly have not read WP:NPOV:
  • Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
It does not require that we "adopt" any positions at all. Indeed, it requires the exact opposite; see WP:IMPARTIAL. Given that a significant number of sources have stated that it isn't about misogyny and because we are supposed to avoid WP:BIAS and, as noted in WP:BIASED:
  • Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. While a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context.
When a source is biased in support of something, that is precisely the way in which it is most likely to be unreliable, whereas if something is biased but the bias has nothing to do with what it is reporting on, it is much more likely to be reliable - basically, people will distort things in their own favor, but are unlikely to distort things which are totally unrelated or report things which work against their own personal biases (so Fox News running something about how global warming is all a gigantic hoax would likely be given less credence than Fox News reporting on some guy getting shot in Des Moines, or Fox News reporting on global warming causing the ice caps to melt). Moreover, given that the articles in question very frequently only feature Zoe Quinn and her supporters' opinions, that makes it all the more likely that they are unreliable as a result of their bias. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
Naming a person who has voluntarily injected their personal relationships into the public sphere is not prohibited by BLPNAME; Eron Gjoni can hardly claim to be seeking privacy when he originally published the allegations, he gave an interview to VICE and he continues to discuss the issue on his Twitter page. He is not a private figure any longer. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
By that principle we should be naming the other folks involved as well, as they are not private persons and have given interviews to the press, ect. It was my understanding of BLPNAME that its purpose was to avoid naming the names of non-notable persons involved in things unless it was necessary. Titanium Dragon (talk) 10:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
We do name the other people involved who are named in reliable sources - Zoe Quinn, Nathan Grayson, Stephen Totilo, etc. If there are any other people named in reliable sources in connection to this, they should be named.
BLPNAME does not apply to people who have sought out public and media attention and made themselves the center of a public controversy, as Eron Gjoni has voluntarily done. Your proposal would effectively allow him to make anonymous accusations in the encyclopedia, and this we will not do. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

4) Not really a NPOV issue, but introducing her detractors as "Quinn's opponents" in the next sentence is confusing; who are these people? Well, they're gamers. They should be noted as such. Moreover, most of them were not "Quinn's opponents" until this whole thing happened; most people had no idea who Zoe Quinn was, so calling them such at this point in the chronological timeline is a bit weird.

5) "before the relationship began" is a claim by Kotaku; we should make sure to note this.

6) Again, just because you can quote a source doesn't mean it is NPOV; "virulent campaign" is unacceptable.

Fix: Quinn and her family subsequently became the target of harassment, including doxxing, threats of rape, hacking attempts, and at least one death threat.

7) Describing Phil Fish in this manner is not really correct as well, and really doesn't explain what happened. Phil Fish insulted Zoe Quinn's detractors, and was noted as calling them "ball-less man-boobs", among other things. I'm not sure if we should actually quote him on that to give the readers context, but saying that he "defended" Zoe Quinn, when we are describing people as "harassing" Zoe Quinn, seems questionable from a NPOV perspective; similar behavior should be described similarly. There are numerous sources on him insulting folks, and this was not the first such incident (he infamously got in a fight on Twitter last year, which resulted in him cancelling Fez 2).

Fix: Some who came to Quinn's defense or who insulted her detractors themselves became targets of attack. Fellow video game developer Phil Fish insulted Quinn's detractors on social media sites; he was subsequently doxxed, with many of his personal details and documents relating to his company Polytron exposed in a hack. After the incident, Fish claimed he would sell off Polytron and leave the game industry.

8) We make no mention right now of harassment/doxxing/death threats against Zoe Quinn's detractors. A Breitbart writer was noted as having recieved over a dozen death threats from Zoe Quinn's supporters and John Bain was attacked. Both of these were noted in external sources, and should be noted.

9) Saying that the harassment "expanded" to include feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian is... possibly not really the best way of noting this. Anita Sarkeesian herself had long been the target of detractors who claimed she had no idea what she was talking about, and while she was apparently harassed here, I'm not sure if saying it "expanded" to her or if it was simply something which happened at the same time and later got lumped in with it. The background of criticism directed at her should possibly be noted in the background section itself; I think there should be some RSs on previous things about Sarkeesian.

10) We should probably note Zoe Quinn's propagation of doxx re: TFYC. Zoe Quinn's own history of involvement in harassment and doxxing of other people was part of why people disliked her to begin with.

11) It is not a DDOS attack if your website crashes due to too many people accessing it; this is an incorrect use of the term DDOS and should be amended. A DDOS attack is never unintentional. If it was DDOSed, then it should simply be noted as a DDOS attack.

Fix: During the initial argument between the two camps, TFYC's website temporarily became inaccessible due to increased traffic from the discussion on Twitter exceeding their allowed bandwidth.

12) "allegedly out of spite" should probably be removed re: 4chan's donations. The source which it was taken from itself noted that it was done "partly in order to spite Quinn and partly in order to mess with everyone’s preconceptions of the forum." However, this was the opinion of a writer on Forbes, and it isn't clear on what he based this judgement. Moreover, as 4chan is not really organized, it

13) We should note that Zoe Quinn's supporters were responsible for harassment of TFYC.

14) This whole section gives WP:UNDUE note to harassment; while it was noted in many sources, there were a huge number of sources which noted the allegations of industry harassment of gamers (which needs to be noted; this was picked up by many papers), the controversy over corruption (which is barely even mentioned; it doesn't even have its own paragraph, being hidden in another, big one) and such. There's only so much which can be said about this stuff, but it needs to be noted. See the section about sources up above in the talk page. This is not covered hardly at all in this section, and needs to be. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:59, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

We get it Titanium Dragon. You're pro-GamerGate. None of these proposals of yours are actually based in Wikipedia guidelines and policies. You just seem to want to skew the POV of this article it seems with each and every one of your threads and comments.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 10:48, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
The allegation on whether he is pro or anti gamergate has nothing to do with it. Adding content and making semantic corrections is in the guidelines WP:Policies_and_guidelines#Content. 62.234.122.19 (talk) 15:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree with these edits, as long as we can get sources behind the needed changes. Many of them help to fill out the situation that the article is currently pushing toward and fills in many blanks. Much of those rewordings also help to thin out the POV push of the article. PseudoSomething (talk) 05:33, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Source on Depression Quest having positive reviews for its 2013 release?

The article for depression quest has no mention of this and there source further down says nothing about it either. Subinquisitor (talk) 03:29, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair point - the NYorker article points to it's higher level of coverage than its critical (though the DQ article gives out some of the critical praise). --MASEM (t) 05:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
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