This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 45 | ← | Archive 48 | Archive 49 | Archive 50 | Archive 51 | Archive 52 | → | Archive 55 |
I definitely understand this quote now. As someone who has loved video games all his life I find this article appalling. Gaming unlike film or television is or was a market largely moved by critical analysis. The success of a game is often still made or broken on its Metacritic score and that's why collusion between media outlets and developers has been seen as especially important in the gaming industry. The first time I remember concerns really being raised was with the firing of Jeff Gerstmann over his low score of Kane and Lynch 2. For years now games have been getting what are often viewed as undeserved scores and heavily sponsored events like the Game Awards where we saw a prominent game journalist seemingly schilling for Doritos and Mountain Dew helped nothing on the question of ethics in gamer's minds. While most of the article states anti-gamer gate opinions as cold fact, the singular section addressing the ethics concerns immediately picks them apart as unfounded and conspiratorial. It makes perfect sense as what actually has happened isn't important so much as what can be cited, and that's what we'll put down in the history books. While many of the people crying victim from this controversy have gone on to meet much more success than before, incentivizing the behaviour further, people 'vitriolic' enough to simply criticize them such as Gregory Elliot are met with lawsuits, but of course you'll find no mention of misbehaviour from the other side in this article. After all, we're too privileged to get the new coverage needed for the citations. As long as you can cite speculation or unfounded claims then I suppose they must be fact after all.
The article states, Quinn and her family were subjected to a virulent and often
misogynistic harassment campaign. The people behind this campaign initially referred to it as the "quinnspiracy", the original name for their IRC channel, but quickly adopted the Twitter
hashtag "Gamergate" after it was coined by actor
Adam Baldwin near the end of August.
The web sources cited do not substantiate that anyone who either harassed Quinn or participated in the IRC channel went on to later use the #gamergate hashtag. The only possibility remains Heron and Belford, which is behind a paywall. A quote for verification of this claim would be appreciated. Rhoark ( talk) 17:15, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
Over the months of August and September in 2014, an independent game developer by the name of Zoe Quinn and her friends have found themselves the target of an equally misogynist backlash by a coordinated conspiracy. While originally labelled under the hashtag ‘#quinnspiracy’, it evolved into a collective movement known as ‘gamergate’.— Strongjam ( talk) 17:21, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
The logs involved are exactly those provided by Zoe Quinn to The Escapist.Pg 24, fifth paragraph (last one on the left column) address that. The logs they examined were not the ones released by Quinn. Second, they do not all precede the hashtag. One of the quoted bits mentions recruiting for the hashtag. Not sure what you're arguing in the last sentence. — Strongjam ( talk) 18:53, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
Let's just dispense with Adam Baldwin entirely; his involvement in coining the name is not, in retrospect, very significant. But nobody doubts the involvement of 4chan and reddit, surely? I mean, we've seen it here with our own eyes, there are dozens of sources, and it's increasingly likely that this will ultimately lead to regulatory or legislative action against the sites used to coordinate harassment. MarkBernstein ( talk) 17:42, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
My viewpoint on this is that one must distinguish between two things: "X was started by people doing Y", and "X included people doing Y". Where X = quinnspiracy and Y = harassment etc. The text as written states the former, the sources (I haven't read the Heron et. al. source) state the latter. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:24, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Both the Daily Dot and Ars Technica sources detail how the hashtag was pushed by 4chan and how the IRC channel was central to its initial organizing. You might disagree with their conclusions, but that's what the reliable sources that have examined Gamergate's origins have concluded. -- Aquillion ( talk) 09:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Some users of the term "Gamergate" accused gaming journalists of an unethical conspiracy to suppress discussion of the corrupt behavior they incorrectly ascribed to Quinn and Grayson.
is attributed to IBTimes
[1], which does not call the accusations "incorrect" but "unproven" and does not state the Grayson matter as being the principal substance of the alleged journalistic conspiracy. It does, for Dr. Bernstein's benefit, say, "Baldwin continues to be an active participant in the online debate, accusing gaming journalism sites like Kotaku of using collusion tactics and alleged unethical conduct." and include the delightful quote, "Wu attempted to make peace online and reminded her followers that '#gamergate isn’t about attacking women.'"
Rhoark (
talk) 17:54, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
In "Sexism in the Circuitry", the authors acknowledge that some in the movement are focused on ethics and "genuinely motivated by a desire to uncover these issues and improve the quality of journalism, such as it is, within the game industry", but note that any viable discussion is obscured by the harassment and misogyny.— Strongjam ( talk) 20:13, 17 December 2015 (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.
Just a note to mention that I've had 69 separate Twitter messages in the past hour or so, relating to Adam Baldwin’s role on this page. There are also threads on the Gamergate boards. MarkBernstein ( talk) 16:12, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Just to update this admittedly frivolous and personal note, we’re now north of 100 Twitter messages, including screeds claiming I’ve got a conflict of interest because I do hypertext research and one of the Gamergate targets wrote a hypertext. Another Twitterer darkly mentions guillotines and French royalty. Several Twitterers see this as a manifestation of Cultural Marxism, others cite Animal Farm and/or 1984. Many call for Jimmy Wales to personally ban me. Quite the event! (Seriously, this sort of off-wiki campaign could be a serious problem for the project. If these were editors, I’d bring this up at AE or AN/I or ARCA, but they aren't -- or at least don’t admit it.) MarkBernstein ( talk) 22:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I removed this quote about ZQ from the article a few days ago:
@ Artw: reverted my edit twice, violating 1RR in the process, so I'm bringing it here for discussion. What this essentially boils down to is a tabloid-style approach to the content. The article is already loaded top to bottom with descriptions of how GG supporters have made threats of violence and rape against various women in the industry, and focuses on that issue again and again. Including a specific quote from one random, anonymous person, I believe, violates WP:NOT, specifically, WP:NOTDIARY. If this is to be an encyclopedia entry, it doesn't need to cover tiny specific details like this, when the essential point is made over and over. It should be an overview of the topic. — Torchiest talk edits 15:05, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
I tagged the article as out of date as I've noticed there are several recent events it doesn't cover. The two most notable that come to mind are the Gamergate movie/memoir by Zoe Quinn and the whole thing with SXSW. I'm suspect there are some other recent developments we've failed to add too. Would update it myself, but I've haven't had much free time recently. Brustopher ( talk) 13:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I just realized what is bothering me about this article, and why it makes so little sense. It jumps around forwards and backwards in time in an effort to maintain some coherent "thematic" order - which actually it doesn't manage to do. The "History" section is confusingly named, because it is not a "history" - it is divorced from "Gamergate activities" section, with no idea how they impact each other. Similarly with the "further harassment" section which goes into October, then the article jumps back to September in the "coordinated harassment section", then back to August (!) in the "Gamer identity" section. WTF?
The article should discuss the relevant themes - perhaps in a separate big section. But one can only understand the themes if one understand what the hell the flap was about. For that, we need to say what happened and how things fed into one another. This article would be much better if it maintained a chronological order. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:05, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
@ ColorOfSuffering:I've decided to create a separate section for your suggestions, because it's going to end up getting lost in fracas of a section it's currently contained in. From what I'm getting (correct me if I'm wrong) there are two issues you've brought forward: 1. Some opinion pieces are overly cited 2. Article from a top quality source has been ignored (CJR). As soon as I save this I'm adding the CJR source to the article so that's that problem solved. The opinion piece problem is a lot more complicated. Below is a list of the most cited sources in the article:
I'm going to remove these sources from obvious cite overkill clusters (3+ cites given). And I'll leave it to everyone to discuss whether or not these sources are being used appropriately. Brustopher ( talk) 23:17, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
@ PeterTheFourth: I chose "largely" negative, because game developers such as Brad Wardell, Mark Kern and Derek Smart have been noted to support Gamergate. [2] [3] [4] Also Intel initial withdrawal of their support from Gamasutra could be considered as a positive reaction, if you count Intel as part of the games industry. The "anti-gamer" thing came from the sections on Gamer identity and Gamergate_controversy#Targeting_advertisers in the article. Would you prefer "anti-hardcore gamer" or "alienating traditional gaming audiences?" Brustopher ( talk) 22:55, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
There are a variety of severe problems with this article, mostly traceable to sometimes accidental and sometimes willful misreadings of NPOV policies. Although editors like Strongjam and Brustopher have put a lot of valuable effort into polishing and improving what is there, the article's structure and substance still has not substantially evolved from what was written by banned, partisan editors. Putting it straight to you, the reliable sources present Gamergate as a debate in which there are multiple valid, sincere, worthwhile, and noteworthy perspectives. They also present this debate as being greatly overshadowed by threats and harassment. True enough - but also where the first and greatest misreading of NPOV enters in. WP:NPOV reads, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." It is the reliable sources that matter, not what the reliable source say is happening in other, unspecified public discourse.
Top-shelf sources like NPR, CJR, New York Times, The Guardian, and the few academic papers all recognize there is a sincere debate about ethics in journalism. While these sources are all cited in the article, they are either cherrypicked against their intentions or given insufficient weight. Keep in mind that it is not the views of Gamergate or its detractors that must be balanced, but the views of the sources. When the New York Times says the gamers with ethics concerns are distinct from those making threats, that is a point of view coming from the New York Times - not the gamers that it describes. The idea certainly exists that there is no validity in Gamergate whatsoever, and it gets its say under NPOV as well, but this is an idea mostly found in the Breitbarts of the left.
These issues can not be resolved with only incremental edits. The narrative that issues are overshadowed by threats is used to banish those issues to WP:POVTRAP sections and further harangue them with WP:HOWEVER. Reliable sources do place a lot of weight on threats and harassment, and - all else being equal - that is important consider; but show me where a high-quality source exhaustively lists and details every instance of harassment before intimating there's more to the controversy. That does not, by and large, represent the sources. Being WP:UNDUE consists mainly in misleading the reader about the range of views on a topic, and that is precisely what is happening. The framing and structure is wrong, so even as individual claims are improved, they will be presented in misleading context.
There is no single all-encompassing principle, whether in policy or the manual of style, to govern high-level article structure except in
WP:STRUCTURE: Care must be taken to ensure that the overall presentation is broadly neutral. Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact where details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false. Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative, rather than isolating them into sections that ignore or fight against each other.
This is what I've taken most to heart in preparing my draft: ensure opposing views do not hide from one another. Chronology and prominence are both given consideration, but not to a fault. I begin with chronology, and then ask what the sources consider prominent at that point in time. From there, I follow the debate, even though that may require some violation of chronology. For example, what I present today began with the intention to cover events up to but not including the creation of the hashtag. It pulls in later debates on things like Patreon and 4chan culture however, because the shadow of Quinn's harassment falls heavily on those topics.
I will be accused of whitewashing and Gamergate propaganda, but this is simply what the most reliable sources say and the weight they say it with. I would disagree that what I have written is pro-Gamergate, but if it is, the closing of the syllogism is that the reliable sources are pro-Gamergate. I think it more apt to say this is simply a tale of humans, not angels nor devils. This is how you do NPOV.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhoark ( talk • contribs) 19:05, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Roark. This was doubtless a lot of work. Unfortunately, this blatantly POV effort at whitewashing is contradicted in tone and tenor by dozens if not hundreds of superb sources. It begins by deniably blaming the victim for attracting rape threats and gets worse from there. This may in fact be what the outgoing ArbCom was expecting when they agreed to Gamergate’s demands to ban “the five horsemen of wikibias”, but it’s flatly contrary to consensus. If it were to be published by Wikipedia -- even briefly -- the project would be reviled. MarkBernstein ( talk) 19:42, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
(ec) Roark, I strongly disagree with your assertions about the sources above (in fact, I believe we've discussed this before, and my feeling -- and what I feel was the consensus at the time -- was that you weren't really able to back your assertions about the sources up.) The vast majority of sources have covered Gamergate primarily as a campaign of harassment. Just from the ones you mentioned, see the New York Times ("Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign"); see the CJR summary ("But what has been clear to the media is its effect. Last week, Anita Sarkeesian, a gaming critic, cancelled a speech at Utah State University after being warned by email that “the deadliest school shooting in American history” would follow.") Look at the overarching coverage in The Guardian and how it's weighted and structured. ( "Zoe Quinn: 'All Gamergate has done is ruin people's lives'", Feminist games critic cancels talk after terror threat, Gamergate hits new low with attempts to send Swat teams to critics, Felicia Day's public details put online after she described Gamergate fears, etc.) Read the actual content of the NPR piece, and notice what it devotes most of its focus to. Heron, Belford, and Goker note that not everyone in involved is driven by a desire for misogynistic harassment, but only as part of summarizing that the controversy is one of two "...incidents in which cyber-mobs have, under a façade of moral justification, flooded female individuals within the spheres of video game creation and commentary with explicitly sexualised violent threats that have extended beyond the virtual world." This is the tone and weighting that most reliable sources have taken on the subject; therefore, it's the tone that WP:NPOV requires that we take in the article. In any case, this is a highly-controversial article that has been the subject of numerous debates and lots of extended discussion; I strongly recommend you break any proposed changes up into smaller suggestions which we can discuss individually. Beyond my fundamental and complete disagreement that the problem you say you're trying to fix here is genuine, I can see a huge number of individual smaller issues in your proposed rewrite just at a glance (you cite an interview with a third party for a statement of fact about Quinn; you take statements of fact from a source ("Quinn was soon flooded with death threats and rape threats") and report it as just something "she reports". You also reverse several changes that were the result of extensive discussion and consensus-building or which are currently under discussion (eg. restoring the assertion that the restraining order was unconstitutional, removing the quote we're discussing above); while we can discuss those things if you have new arguments, lumping a bunch of changes you know are controversial (and which have often repeatedly failed to gain consensus before) into a single huge sweeping rewrite strikes me as not really conductive to useful discussion. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:44, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
This is the tone and weighting that most reliable sources have taken on the subject; therefore, it's the tone that WP:NPOV requires that we take in the article.- As above, I am not able to reconcile this with either the explicit impartial tone section of WP:NPOV, which states in part The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view.; nor that policy as a whole - - Which parts of WP:NPOV are the basis for this statement? - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:04, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't believe you have anything usable or actionable here. Further more you seem to be using this discussion as a toehold for disruptive behavior (see your comments re:tags) and so I suggest it be hatted as soon as possible. Artw ( talk) 22:02, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
BuzzFeed is not cited in the draft.Cite #4. The Adam Smith Insitute would likely fail WP:BLPSPS, and doesn't support the statement, the Mary Sue source doesn't support it, and the BuzzFeed source doesn't not support "individuals", and it fails WP:BLPGOSSIP anyway. — Strongjam ( talk) 23:40, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
DGAF | This user does not give a fuck, mmmkay? |
Rhoark recently added NPOV and structure tags to the article, which were subsequently removed by ArtW and then reinstated by Rhoark. Doing this basically simultaneously with proposing a drastic revision feels to me both unseemly and WP:POINTy. I believe those tags should be removed. Dumuzid ( talk) 21:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Using the tag to repeat the almost clockwork stream of "this article is biased" nonsense has got to stop. Bias has been addressed over and over in the archives. DROP THE STICK. ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 09:13, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
the reader ought to be warned that anything like attempted objectivity or editorial distance from the topic area are nowhere to be found here.That is not the point of the {{ NPOV}} template. Wikipedia does not have WP:DISCLAIMERS beyond the general one, and the tag is not meant to "warn" readers or to be a badge of shame. — Strongjam ( talk) 14:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
to attract editors with different viewpoints to edit articles that need additional insightis served by its inclusion here. -Starke Hathaway ( talk) 15:06, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
The article reflects the preponderant public opinion and the consensus of reliable sources: that’s why Gamergate is so eager to change it. Gamergate’s notable actions are its continuing efforts to threaten women in the software industry with rape or murder if those women do not abandon their careers and seek employment their harassers consider suitable. This is the conclusion of the press, which Gamergate has been unable to change; even in stand-up comedy and TV crime shows, Gamergate is universally known for petty misogynistic terror. Unable to convince the press beyond the right-wing fever swamp, Gamergate has fought bitterly to change Wikipedia, perhaps in the hope that more favorable treatment in Wikipedia might open up opportunities for fund-raising. Their fight goes on, most recently, in the absurd crusade to sanitize the page by excluding the description of Gamergate’s actual threats, culminating in denouncing The New Yorker(!) for tabloid journalism.
Wikipedia has been extraordinarily welcoming to Gamergate's efforts, wasting thousands of volunteer hours as Gamergate fans clogged this page with hundreds of thousands of futile words intended to drive away editors outside the movement. Gamergate used Wikipedia to publicize the sex lives of the women they chose as their victims and to deliver death threats. Daring to oppose Gamergate’s whims on Wikipedia exposes Wikipedia editors to a barrage of unsavory harassment off-wiki. When Gamergate asked Wikipedia to ban their opponents en bloc, a credulous Arbitration Committee complied. That committee has now been repudiated, first by the world and now by Wikipedia itself. Yet, we are told here that adherence to the overwhelming consensus is WP:OWNership and (surprise!) that Gamergate opponents should be banned if they cannot be intimidated into complying with Gamergate's perfervid, failed dream to write its own Wikipedia page. MarkBernstein ( talk) 16:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Let's save our breath and not argue with people who are not going to change their mind. I see people in favour of the tag as Starke Hathaway, me, Rhoark, Sitush, Ryk72, ColorofSuffering. Opposed are Dumuzid, Strongjam, Peterthefourth, MarkBernstein, Aquillon, Jorm, ForbiddenRocky, Woodroar, Artw. People who have not weighed in, and have edited the article recently, are Torchiest, Brustopher and Koncorde. Let me know if I've missed someone. One could have a formal RfC for this, but it is rather overkill to have a RfC about a tag so we can have discussion. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:37, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
move it to meta page. and way past 3RR ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 18:38, 23 December 2015 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Support your positions with RS There isn't an ownership problem here. There are plenty of people pushing various non-consensus POV here that it's ridiculous to think there's an ownership problem here - just now there 4 or 5 editors all doing some version of the "article is biased" things right now. The 4 or 5 of them should be able to present RS that support their position. The "there is ownership" claim is nonsense. What there is are editors that can't drop the stick when consensus doesn't go their way - especially when their proposed edits violate BLP or have no RS support. The reasons these edits never gain consensus is that there isn't RS to back them up, or they violate BLP. ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 17:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Regarding this near edit-war [7], if your best reason to revert is the anticipation of future stonewalling, you might want to reconsider. Repeating threats verbatim is contrary to WP:AVOIDVICTIM, and the use of unencyclopedic tone is not an area in which we need to follow the preponderance of sources. Rhoark ( talk) 22:31, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't think this is going to get much pull, Rhoark. Your argument that covering a highly public and already notable threat is somehow violating somebody's privacy doesn't make much sense. PeterTheFourth ( talk) 02:51, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
My own viewpoint is that WP:AVOIDVICTIM doesn't apply, or if it does, the case is pretty weak. But I think the explicit description of this threat is gratuitous and WP:UNDUE. There is already plenty of discussion in the section about the many threats which she received; one does not need to repeat the most crass ones explicitly in an encyclopedia. This almost seems like clickbait. I am in partial agreement with Rhoark's point that there is no indication that this led anywhere; this is just some disgusting guy on 4chan making a disgusting comment. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
As it would happen, someone in one of today's threads about everyone's favorite hypertext researcher happened to link the original source of this threat. Now, its an archive.is link of a 4chan thread containing a threat, so I'm not going to link it here myself. While it would be 100% permissible per WP:BLPTALK to post it for the purpose of evaluating the New Yorker source, I don't doubt some mook would try to get it revdelled or bring it to AE anyway, and I don't have time for that. So I'll just give you the highlights.
fuck off shill she's not even important anymore. no one cares.
No one cares about you anymore Zoe.
epic fails in shilling: the post
I have a feeling you're a shill making a huge archive of samefag false flags.
I know you are astroturfing these responses and preparing them for a compilation. Be aware that I've capped every single one of your shill posts and have prepared a series of compilation responses that prove they are garbage.
Now, this is just my analysis, and I am not a reliable source, but its plain to see that any reliable sources seriously reporting on this as a credible threat of violence, especially to say it was "organized" at 4chan simply has no idea what they are looking at when it comes to 4chan. That's, in all honesty, not an uncommon state for journalists to be in. This is a hoax, and we are empowered to deal with that by editorial discretion. Rhoark ( talk) 06:43, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
there actually were multiple people planning this attack, nor that it is indicative of the general tenor of the discussion in which is occurred. Giving the impression otherwise is firmly in the realm of WP:SYNTH; appeals to the authority of the New Yorker notwithstanding. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 01:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Our duty as an encyclopedia, though, is to report what reliable sources like them say with the tone and weight reflected in those sources;. That is seriously incomplete, but ok, let's apply this test. Look at all the reliable sources on this topic and weigh them based on their original reporting, depth of coverage, reputation for fact checking etc. Would such a sample contain a random, detailed, lurid quote from a single source? Let me make a prediction: nothing I said above will change anyone's mind. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:43, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
Our duty as an encyclopedia, though, is to report what reliable sources like them say with the tone and weight reflected in those sources;- I am unable to reconcile this with either the explicit impartial tone section of WP:NPOV, nor that policy as a whole - The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 01:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
This article is written to use sources that are currently "at war" (for lack of a better term) with the subject. Sites like Kotaku are naturally going to have a huge conflict of interest for us with the ability to write a neutral article. I suggest that the sources be trimmed and that any information that comes from a biased site be removed or refactored in such a way that it is written with a WP:NPOV rather than just being allowed to stand as an attack page. Lithorien ( talk) 17:22, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
This article is covered in NPOV and the discussions on the talk page above are openly hostile. As a result, I felt it might be better to raise a few concerns here than just editing the page directly. I've picked quote from the article that I think is representative of some of the problems with it. Quote:
> Journalists who did not cover the examination into Quinn's private life were accused of conspiracy, and a blacklist circulated by Gamergate supporters.[24] Similar accusations and coordinated attacks occurred on imageboards and forums like 4chan and Reddit.[18][25][26]
The claim in the second sentence "similar accusations [...]" does not appear to match it's source material. Though I don't have source 18 (Heron), 25 (gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting) mentions 4chan once saying:
> The #Gamergate arguments, particularly on 4chan, reference the term "social justice warrior" frequently and often. What this means, usually, is someone — often a woman like Sarkeesian — who is pushing for games to become more diverse or representative of viewpoints other than that of a young white guy.
and a second time mentions 4chan and reddit together saying:
> Thousands of comments on the matter were expunged from normally freewheeling 4chan and Reddit for reasons that weren't immediately clear, and a DMCA takedown notice was filed against a YouTube video using footage from one of Quinn's games.
These are the only mentions of reddit and 4chan in the source. Looking at 26 (Zoe Quinn claims 4chan was behind GamerGate the whole time), the problem is obvious from the title - the article reports on the claims of somebody involved in the controversy rather than making the claim itself. Reddit is never mentioned explicitly in the article, but subreddits are mentioned twice. First, to define internet slang:
> The screencaps show the IRC channel users discussing how "to cause infighting and doubt" within the ranks of feminists and "social justice warriors" (SJW)—a phrase that men in the men's rights movement, anti-feminist subreddits, gaming communities, and 4chan forums have turned into a shorthand for feminists and their supporters.
And second, incorrectly (adding questions about the value of the source). For editors who may not be familiar, 4chans different boards are not called subreddits (any more than facebook's groups are).
> In reality, #notyourshield began as yet another tactic for gamers and members of certain 4chan subreddits, namely /v/ and /pol/, to harass and silence women and other feminists in the gaming community who attempted to talk about the harassment Quinn and other women were receiving over GamerGate.
Such misleading claims and poor sources are the bulk of the content of the article. Is this something where I can be WP:BOLD and edit freely or is that a quick way to be banned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perpetualization ( talk • contribs) 08:10, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
Users from the messageboards Reddit – a sprawling series of communities – and 4chan – ... – hurled false accusations. ... They proceeded to dox Quinn ... If you asked a GamerGate supporter what was happening, they would tell you it was about ethics in journalism. Instead, it became a war against Zoe Quinn.. Heron, Belford and Goker goes into great detail about 4chan, while Massanari focuses mainly on reddit, but does mention chan boards as well. — Strongjam ( talk) 17:31, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
I've started a request at Talk:Gamergate#Requested move 28 December 2015. I understand that there is a moratorium on move requests for this article. My request does not propose moving this article, nor would it even if this were allowed. Thank you. -- BDD ( talk) 21:16, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/05/intel-gamergate-response/ ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 06:13, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead currently doesn't explain what "Gamergate" actually is.
From the title "Gamergate controversy" I'm implying that this is either about a controversy named Gamergate (like "Watergate" etc.) or a controversy around Gamergate, whatever that may be.
Now reading the first paragraph to find out what Gamergate actually means, I'm told, it (= the controversy?) is "most widely known for a harrassment campaign…", so I'm implying "Gamergate" is not a controversy named Gamergate but might be a controversy around Gamergate – again: whatever that may be.
In the following sentences I'm told how everything began and so on, but still it remains unclear what "Gamergate" is. Might it be a "who" – people gathering around the hastag #Gamergate?
Next paragraph I'm reading "Gamergate's supporters" – so is it actually an entity, like a company or organization? The next sentence "Statements coming out of Gamergate" supports my assumption: It has to be a clearly defined entity that issues statements. OK, now I got it. But wait, do I really, or am I on the wrong track?
I'm reaching the conclusion that the lead definitely needs to be completely rewritten – it is horrribly long, but also incredibly inaccurate, failing to answer an uninformed reader's most basic questions about the topic. --
PanchoS (
talk) 03:55, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
I think it might be helpful if we refer to gamergate as a "blanket term," since it has no single specific referent. This would help PanchoS's (and others') complaint about what Gamergate "is," I think. But I am having trouble crafting even that phrase, as I am not sure how to describe the constituent parts. Harassment is obviously the most notable, but I think even that is a bit reductive. "Reaction to progressive forces within video game culture?" That's clunky and awful. But I think we should make the multifarious and nebulous nature of the term more apparent right away. Just my barely coherent thought on a Friday morning. Dumuzid ( talk) 14:16, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
I have restored the first paragraph of the lead to the earlier version. I have kept the rest of the changes by MarkBernstein, which were mostly copyedits. The earliest bold edit wasn't helpful, in my view. Firstly, it is repetitive ("harassment campaign" is repeated in the first and third sentence). Secondly, "discussion of it" is awkward writing. Thirdly, it changes the meaning: the earlier text referred to definition as the discussion around sexism and progressivism, while the later one defines it as the harassment campaign. The latter is a subset of the former. I am not opposed to rewriting the lead, but this was not an improvement. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:06, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Anyway, by my reading, the current copyedit fixes most of the issues raised at the top of this section, and (while almost everyone has preferred tweaks one way or the other) PanchoS seems to be the only person saying that a total rewrite of the lead is necessary, so I've removed the tag again for now. There's probably still room for improvement, of course, but if we tagged every time anyone had an issue with any part of this article, it would never be untagged. PanchoS, I suggest identifying specific issues with the current lead which we can discuss fixes for, and specific proposals for changes; as you can probably see, people have very different views on even small details of the topic, making it hard to discuss sweeping rewrites productively. Incremental changes let us go over points of disagreement one by one until we reach a point where everyone is satisfied. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:11, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead also lacks proper citation and sources. Saying that Gamergate is a "Campaign of Harassment" without sources that aren't just editorials from web blogs one way or another will be difficult, but I definitely think the lead should be changed to something less vitriolic, and something more explanatory of what Gamergate actually is, because to say that Gamergate is a 'Harassment Campaign' doesn't even seem encyclopedic to begin with. Solntsa90 ( talk) 07:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
The article currently states "[Jenn] Frank herself received significant harassment for writing this article, and quit games journalism as a result." However in December Frank wrote this article about video games, and she is listed as a being employed as a freelance writer for Paste magazine. The only time this woman was mentioned by reliable sources ( here here, and here) was to state that the harassment of Gamergate caused her to leave video games journalism, but obviously she is still writing about video games. Her apparent return to video game journalism was not widely covered, but was mentioned in this blog entry where she calls her quitting more akin to a temporary retirement. So what is to be done? Do we continue to claim in the article that she has quit video game journalism in spite of the evidence to the contrary? Or do we rephrase the sentence to state that she only "stepped back" for a bit in spite of what the reliable sources state? ColorOfSuffering ( talk) 08:56, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
I find it interesting that at no point does she mention harassment... Only if you ignore the bit about her being the target of hacking attempts. — Strongjam ( talk) 19:12, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead itself is original research. Where is the (proper) citation for Gamergame being a "harassment campaign"? Solntsa90 ( talk) 07:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
a campaign of systematic harassment of female and minority game developers, journalists, and critics and their allies." — Strongjam ( talk) 14:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
These sources don't exactly exude a sense of impartiality. Newsweek is a *better* start, but it still is an article written by someone with an ax to grind (Would an article from Breitbart be as easily accepted? I hope not) but that page from that Massanari woman seems a bit lacking, especially considering it uses such an inflammatory, biased word as "toxic" in its own abstract.
I doubt my words will have much effect since the consensus by wiki admins (the only ones who really matter around here) seems to be stuck-in-place, but for anyone else reading this, consider the damn sources. Single studies, politicos writting polemics, etc. etc. Solntsa90 ( talk) 21:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
The Institute for Historical Review is a peer-reviewed journal as well, and that doesn't stop it from attracting massive criticism for Holocaust Revisionism. Just because its peer-reviewed, doesn't mean it is infallible. That is an argument that appeals to authority.
Is there any organisation that takes an impartial view in things, that did a mass study on gamergate and come to any solid conclusions about the nature of GamerGate? I'd love to see it. Solntsa90 ( talk) 21:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Hey. Me and Ryk72 are having trouble agreeing on how to summarise the GGC page for the Hashtag activism page. Honestly, I don't even think it should be there as I don't believe a harassment campaign is an example of hashtag activism, but in the interest of compromise have proposed my own summary which Ryk72 has deleted from the page. Any help in coming to a consensus would be appreciated. PeterTheFourth ( talk) 04:15, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I removed this claim that the alt-right "engineered" Gamergate, as the sources do not make say this. Do we have sources that actually make that claim? Woodroar ( talk) 19:37, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 45 | ← | Archive 48 | Archive 49 | Archive 50 | Archive 51 | Archive 52 | → | Archive 55 |
I definitely understand this quote now. As someone who has loved video games all his life I find this article appalling. Gaming unlike film or television is or was a market largely moved by critical analysis. The success of a game is often still made or broken on its Metacritic score and that's why collusion between media outlets and developers has been seen as especially important in the gaming industry. The first time I remember concerns really being raised was with the firing of Jeff Gerstmann over his low score of Kane and Lynch 2. For years now games have been getting what are often viewed as undeserved scores and heavily sponsored events like the Game Awards where we saw a prominent game journalist seemingly schilling for Doritos and Mountain Dew helped nothing on the question of ethics in gamer's minds. While most of the article states anti-gamer gate opinions as cold fact, the singular section addressing the ethics concerns immediately picks them apart as unfounded and conspiratorial. It makes perfect sense as what actually has happened isn't important so much as what can be cited, and that's what we'll put down in the history books. While many of the people crying victim from this controversy have gone on to meet much more success than before, incentivizing the behaviour further, people 'vitriolic' enough to simply criticize them such as Gregory Elliot are met with lawsuits, but of course you'll find no mention of misbehaviour from the other side in this article. After all, we're too privileged to get the new coverage needed for the citations. As long as you can cite speculation or unfounded claims then I suppose they must be fact after all.
The article states, Quinn and her family were subjected to a virulent and often
misogynistic harassment campaign. The people behind this campaign initially referred to it as the "quinnspiracy", the original name for their IRC channel, but quickly adopted the Twitter
hashtag "Gamergate" after it was coined by actor
Adam Baldwin near the end of August.
The web sources cited do not substantiate that anyone who either harassed Quinn or participated in the IRC channel went on to later use the #gamergate hashtag. The only possibility remains Heron and Belford, which is behind a paywall. A quote for verification of this claim would be appreciated. Rhoark ( talk) 17:15, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
Over the months of August and September in 2014, an independent game developer by the name of Zoe Quinn and her friends have found themselves the target of an equally misogynist backlash by a coordinated conspiracy. While originally labelled under the hashtag ‘#quinnspiracy’, it evolved into a collective movement known as ‘gamergate’.— Strongjam ( talk) 17:21, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
The logs involved are exactly those provided by Zoe Quinn to The Escapist.Pg 24, fifth paragraph (last one on the left column) address that. The logs they examined were not the ones released by Quinn. Second, they do not all precede the hashtag. One of the quoted bits mentions recruiting for the hashtag. Not sure what you're arguing in the last sentence. — Strongjam ( talk) 18:53, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
Let's just dispense with Adam Baldwin entirely; his involvement in coining the name is not, in retrospect, very significant. But nobody doubts the involvement of 4chan and reddit, surely? I mean, we've seen it here with our own eyes, there are dozens of sources, and it's increasingly likely that this will ultimately lead to regulatory or legislative action against the sites used to coordinate harassment. MarkBernstein ( talk) 17:42, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
My viewpoint on this is that one must distinguish between two things: "X was started by people doing Y", and "X included people doing Y". Where X = quinnspiracy and Y = harassment etc. The text as written states the former, the sources (I haven't read the Heron et. al. source) state the latter. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 13:24, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Both the Daily Dot and Ars Technica sources detail how the hashtag was pushed by 4chan and how the IRC channel was central to its initial organizing. You might disagree with their conclusions, but that's what the reliable sources that have examined Gamergate's origins have concluded. -- Aquillion ( talk) 09:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
Some users of the term "Gamergate" accused gaming journalists of an unethical conspiracy to suppress discussion of the corrupt behavior they incorrectly ascribed to Quinn and Grayson.
is attributed to IBTimes
[1], which does not call the accusations "incorrect" but "unproven" and does not state the Grayson matter as being the principal substance of the alleged journalistic conspiracy. It does, for Dr. Bernstein's benefit, say, "Baldwin continues to be an active participant in the online debate, accusing gaming journalism sites like Kotaku of using collusion tactics and alleged unethical conduct." and include the delightful quote, "Wu attempted to make peace online and reminded her followers that '#gamergate isn’t about attacking women.'"
Rhoark (
talk) 17:54, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
In "Sexism in the Circuitry", the authors acknowledge that some in the movement are focused on ethics and "genuinely motivated by a desire to uncover these issues and improve the quality of journalism, such as it is, within the game industry", but note that any viable discussion is obscured by the harassment and misogyny.— Strongjam ( talk) 20:13, 17 December 2015 (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.
Just a note to mention that I've had 69 separate Twitter messages in the past hour or so, relating to Adam Baldwin’s role on this page. There are also threads on the Gamergate boards. MarkBernstein ( talk) 16:12, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
Just to update this admittedly frivolous and personal note, we’re now north of 100 Twitter messages, including screeds claiming I’ve got a conflict of interest because I do hypertext research and one of the Gamergate targets wrote a hypertext. Another Twitterer darkly mentions guillotines and French royalty. Several Twitterers see this as a manifestation of Cultural Marxism, others cite Animal Farm and/or 1984. Many call for Jimmy Wales to personally ban me. Quite the event! (Seriously, this sort of off-wiki campaign could be a serious problem for the project. If these were editors, I’d bring this up at AE or AN/I or ARCA, but they aren't -- or at least don’t admit it.) MarkBernstein ( talk) 22:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I removed this quote about ZQ from the article a few days ago:
@ Artw: reverted my edit twice, violating 1RR in the process, so I'm bringing it here for discussion. What this essentially boils down to is a tabloid-style approach to the content. The article is already loaded top to bottom with descriptions of how GG supporters have made threats of violence and rape against various women in the industry, and focuses on that issue again and again. Including a specific quote from one random, anonymous person, I believe, violates WP:NOT, specifically, WP:NOTDIARY. If this is to be an encyclopedia entry, it doesn't need to cover tiny specific details like this, when the essential point is made over and over. It should be an overview of the topic. — Torchiest talk edits 15:05, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
I tagged the article as out of date as I've noticed there are several recent events it doesn't cover. The two most notable that come to mind are the Gamergate movie/memoir by Zoe Quinn and the whole thing with SXSW. I'm suspect there are some other recent developments we've failed to add too. Would update it myself, but I've haven't had much free time recently. Brustopher ( talk) 13:58, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
I just realized what is bothering me about this article, and why it makes so little sense. It jumps around forwards and backwards in time in an effort to maintain some coherent "thematic" order - which actually it doesn't manage to do. The "History" section is confusingly named, because it is not a "history" - it is divorced from "Gamergate activities" section, with no idea how they impact each other. Similarly with the "further harassment" section which goes into October, then the article jumps back to September in the "coordinated harassment section", then back to August (!) in the "Gamer identity" section. WTF?
The article should discuss the relevant themes - perhaps in a separate big section. But one can only understand the themes if one understand what the hell the flap was about. For that, we need to say what happened and how things fed into one another. This article would be much better if it maintained a chronological order. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:05, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
@ ColorOfSuffering:I've decided to create a separate section for your suggestions, because it's going to end up getting lost in fracas of a section it's currently contained in. From what I'm getting (correct me if I'm wrong) there are two issues you've brought forward: 1. Some opinion pieces are overly cited 2. Article from a top quality source has been ignored (CJR). As soon as I save this I'm adding the CJR source to the article so that's that problem solved. The opinion piece problem is a lot more complicated. Below is a list of the most cited sources in the article:
I'm going to remove these sources from obvious cite overkill clusters (3+ cites given). And I'll leave it to everyone to discuss whether or not these sources are being used appropriately. Brustopher ( talk) 23:17, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
@ PeterTheFourth: I chose "largely" negative, because game developers such as Brad Wardell, Mark Kern and Derek Smart have been noted to support Gamergate. [2] [3] [4] Also Intel initial withdrawal of their support from Gamasutra could be considered as a positive reaction, if you count Intel as part of the games industry. The "anti-gamer" thing came from the sections on Gamer identity and Gamergate_controversy#Targeting_advertisers in the article. Would you prefer "anti-hardcore gamer" or "alienating traditional gaming audiences?" Brustopher ( talk) 22:55, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
There are a variety of severe problems with this article, mostly traceable to sometimes accidental and sometimes willful misreadings of NPOV policies. Although editors like Strongjam and Brustopher have put a lot of valuable effort into polishing and improving what is there, the article's structure and substance still has not substantially evolved from what was written by banned, partisan editors. Putting it straight to you, the reliable sources present Gamergate as a debate in which there are multiple valid, sincere, worthwhile, and noteworthy perspectives. They also present this debate as being greatly overshadowed by threats and harassment. True enough - but also where the first and greatest misreading of NPOV enters in. WP:NPOV reads, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." It is the reliable sources that matter, not what the reliable source say is happening in other, unspecified public discourse.
Top-shelf sources like NPR, CJR, New York Times, The Guardian, and the few academic papers all recognize there is a sincere debate about ethics in journalism. While these sources are all cited in the article, they are either cherrypicked against their intentions or given insufficient weight. Keep in mind that it is not the views of Gamergate or its detractors that must be balanced, but the views of the sources. When the New York Times says the gamers with ethics concerns are distinct from those making threats, that is a point of view coming from the New York Times - not the gamers that it describes. The idea certainly exists that there is no validity in Gamergate whatsoever, and it gets its say under NPOV as well, but this is an idea mostly found in the Breitbarts of the left.
These issues can not be resolved with only incremental edits. The narrative that issues are overshadowed by threats is used to banish those issues to WP:POVTRAP sections and further harangue them with WP:HOWEVER. Reliable sources do place a lot of weight on threats and harassment, and - all else being equal - that is important consider; but show me where a high-quality source exhaustively lists and details every instance of harassment before intimating there's more to the controversy. That does not, by and large, represent the sources. Being WP:UNDUE consists mainly in misleading the reader about the range of views on a topic, and that is precisely what is happening. The framing and structure is wrong, so even as individual claims are improved, they will be presented in misleading context.
There is no single all-encompassing principle, whether in policy or the manual of style, to govern high-level article structure except in
WP:STRUCTURE: Care must be taken to ensure that the overall presentation is broadly neutral. Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents. It may also create an apparent hierarchy of fact where details in the main passage appear "true" and "undisputed", whereas other, segregated material is deemed "controversial", and therefore more likely to be false. Try to achieve a more neutral text by folding debates into the narrative, rather than isolating them into sections that ignore or fight against each other.
This is what I've taken most to heart in preparing my draft: ensure opposing views do not hide from one another. Chronology and prominence are both given consideration, but not to a fault. I begin with chronology, and then ask what the sources consider prominent at that point in time. From there, I follow the debate, even though that may require some violation of chronology. For example, what I present today began with the intention to cover events up to but not including the creation of the hashtag. It pulls in later debates on things like Patreon and 4chan culture however, because the shadow of Quinn's harassment falls heavily on those topics.
I will be accused of whitewashing and Gamergate propaganda, but this is simply what the most reliable sources say and the weight they say it with. I would disagree that what I have written is pro-Gamergate, but if it is, the closing of the syllogism is that the reliable sources are pro-Gamergate. I think it more apt to say this is simply a tale of humans, not angels nor devils. This is how you do NPOV.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhoark ( talk • contribs) 19:05, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Thanks, Roark. This was doubtless a lot of work. Unfortunately, this blatantly POV effort at whitewashing is contradicted in tone and tenor by dozens if not hundreds of superb sources. It begins by deniably blaming the victim for attracting rape threats and gets worse from there. This may in fact be what the outgoing ArbCom was expecting when they agreed to Gamergate’s demands to ban “the five horsemen of wikibias”, but it’s flatly contrary to consensus. If it were to be published by Wikipedia -- even briefly -- the project would be reviled. MarkBernstein ( talk) 19:42, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
(ec) Roark, I strongly disagree with your assertions about the sources above (in fact, I believe we've discussed this before, and my feeling -- and what I feel was the consensus at the time -- was that you weren't really able to back your assertions about the sources up.) The vast majority of sources have covered Gamergate primarily as a campaign of harassment. Just from the ones you mentioned, see the New York Times ("Feminist Critics of Video Games Facing Threats in ‘GamerGate’ Campaign"); see the CJR summary ("But what has been clear to the media is its effect. Last week, Anita Sarkeesian, a gaming critic, cancelled a speech at Utah State University after being warned by email that “the deadliest school shooting in American history” would follow.") Look at the overarching coverage in The Guardian and how it's weighted and structured. ( "Zoe Quinn: 'All Gamergate has done is ruin people's lives'", Feminist games critic cancels talk after terror threat, Gamergate hits new low with attempts to send Swat teams to critics, Felicia Day's public details put online after she described Gamergate fears, etc.) Read the actual content of the NPR piece, and notice what it devotes most of its focus to. Heron, Belford, and Goker note that not everyone in involved is driven by a desire for misogynistic harassment, but only as part of summarizing that the controversy is one of two "...incidents in which cyber-mobs have, under a façade of moral justification, flooded female individuals within the spheres of video game creation and commentary with explicitly sexualised violent threats that have extended beyond the virtual world." This is the tone and weighting that most reliable sources have taken on the subject; therefore, it's the tone that WP:NPOV requires that we take in the article. In any case, this is a highly-controversial article that has been the subject of numerous debates and lots of extended discussion; I strongly recommend you break any proposed changes up into smaller suggestions which we can discuss individually. Beyond my fundamental and complete disagreement that the problem you say you're trying to fix here is genuine, I can see a huge number of individual smaller issues in your proposed rewrite just at a glance (you cite an interview with a third party for a statement of fact about Quinn; you take statements of fact from a source ("Quinn was soon flooded with death threats and rape threats") and report it as just something "she reports". You also reverse several changes that were the result of extensive discussion and consensus-building or which are currently under discussion (eg. restoring the assertion that the restraining order was unconstitutional, removing the quote we're discussing above); while we can discuss those things if you have new arguments, lumping a bunch of changes you know are controversial (and which have often repeatedly failed to gain consensus before) into a single huge sweeping rewrite strikes me as not really conductive to useful discussion. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:44, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
This is the tone and weighting that most reliable sources have taken on the subject; therefore, it's the tone that WP:NPOV requires that we take in the article.- As above, I am not able to reconcile this with either the explicit impartial tone section of WP:NPOV, which states in part The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view.; nor that policy as a whole - - Which parts of WP:NPOV are the basis for this statement? - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 02:04, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't believe you have anything usable or actionable here. Further more you seem to be using this discussion as a toehold for disruptive behavior (see your comments re:tags) and so I suggest it be hatted as soon as possible. Artw ( talk) 22:02, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
BuzzFeed is not cited in the draft.Cite #4. The Adam Smith Insitute would likely fail WP:BLPSPS, and doesn't support the statement, the Mary Sue source doesn't support it, and the BuzzFeed source doesn't not support "individuals", and it fails WP:BLPGOSSIP anyway. — Strongjam ( talk) 23:40, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
DGAF | This user does not give a fuck, mmmkay? |
Rhoark recently added NPOV and structure tags to the article, which were subsequently removed by ArtW and then reinstated by Rhoark. Doing this basically simultaneously with proposing a drastic revision feels to me both unseemly and WP:POINTy. I believe those tags should be removed. Dumuzid ( talk) 21:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
Using the tag to repeat the almost clockwork stream of "this article is biased" nonsense has got to stop. Bias has been addressed over and over in the archives. DROP THE STICK. ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 09:13, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
the reader ought to be warned that anything like attempted objectivity or editorial distance from the topic area are nowhere to be found here.That is not the point of the {{ NPOV}} template. Wikipedia does not have WP:DISCLAIMERS beyond the general one, and the tag is not meant to "warn" readers or to be a badge of shame. — Strongjam ( talk) 14:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
to attract editors with different viewpoints to edit articles that need additional insightis served by its inclusion here. -Starke Hathaway ( talk) 15:06, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
The article reflects the preponderant public opinion and the consensus of reliable sources: that’s why Gamergate is so eager to change it. Gamergate’s notable actions are its continuing efforts to threaten women in the software industry with rape or murder if those women do not abandon their careers and seek employment their harassers consider suitable. This is the conclusion of the press, which Gamergate has been unable to change; even in stand-up comedy and TV crime shows, Gamergate is universally known for petty misogynistic terror. Unable to convince the press beyond the right-wing fever swamp, Gamergate has fought bitterly to change Wikipedia, perhaps in the hope that more favorable treatment in Wikipedia might open up opportunities for fund-raising. Their fight goes on, most recently, in the absurd crusade to sanitize the page by excluding the description of Gamergate’s actual threats, culminating in denouncing The New Yorker(!) for tabloid journalism.
Wikipedia has been extraordinarily welcoming to Gamergate's efforts, wasting thousands of volunteer hours as Gamergate fans clogged this page with hundreds of thousands of futile words intended to drive away editors outside the movement. Gamergate used Wikipedia to publicize the sex lives of the women they chose as their victims and to deliver death threats. Daring to oppose Gamergate’s whims on Wikipedia exposes Wikipedia editors to a barrage of unsavory harassment off-wiki. When Gamergate asked Wikipedia to ban their opponents en bloc, a credulous Arbitration Committee complied. That committee has now been repudiated, first by the world and now by Wikipedia itself. Yet, we are told here that adherence to the overwhelming consensus is WP:OWNership and (surprise!) that Gamergate opponents should be banned if they cannot be intimidated into complying with Gamergate's perfervid, failed dream to write its own Wikipedia page. MarkBernstein ( talk) 16:33, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Let's save our breath and not argue with people who are not going to change their mind. I see people in favour of the tag as Starke Hathaway, me, Rhoark, Sitush, Ryk72, ColorofSuffering. Opposed are Dumuzid, Strongjam, Peterthefourth, MarkBernstein, Aquillon, Jorm, ForbiddenRocky, Woodroar, Artw. People who have not weighed in, and have edited the article recently, are Torchiest, Brustopher and Koncorde. Let me know if I've missed someone. One could have a formal RfC for this, but it is rather overkill to have a RfC about a tag so we can have discussion. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:37, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
move it to meta page. and way past 3RR ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 18:38, 23 December 2015 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
Support your positions with RS There isn't an ownership problem here. There are plenty of people pushing various non-consensus POV here that it's ridiculous to think there's an ownership problem here - just now there 4 or 5 editors all doing some version of the "article is biased" things right now. The 4 or 5 of them should be able to present RS that support their position. The "there is ownership" claim is nonsense. What there is are editors that can't drop the stick when consensus doesn't go their way - especially when their proposed edits violate BLP or have no RS support. The reasons these edits never gain consensus is that there isn't RS to back them up, or they violate BLP. ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 17:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Regarding this near edit-war [7], if your best reason to revert is the anticipation of future stonewalling, you might want to reconsider. Repeating threats verbatim is contrary to WP:AVOIDVICTIM, and the use of unencyclopedic tone is not an area in which we need to follow the preponderance of sources. Rhoark ( talk) 22:31, 16 December 2015 (UTC)
I don't think this is going to get much pull, Rhoark. Your argument that covering a highly public and already notable threat is somehow violating somebody's privacy doesn't make much sense. PeterTheFourth ( talk) 02:51, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
My own viewpoint is that WP:AVOIDVICTIM doesn't apply, or if it does, the case is pretty weak. But I think the explicit description of this threat is gratuitous and WP:UNDUE. There is already plenty of discussion in the section about the many threats which she received; one does not need to repeat the most crass ones explicitly in an encyclopedia. This almost seems like clickbait. I am in partial agreement with Rhoark's point that there is no indication that this led anywhere; this is just some disgusting guy on 4chan making a disgusting comment. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)
As it would happen, someone in one of today's threads about everyone's favorite hypertext researcher happened to link the original source of this threat. Now, its an archive.is link of a 4chan thread containing a threat, so I'm not going to link it here myself. While it would be 100% permissible per WP:BLPTALK to post it for the purpose of evaluating the New Yorker source, I don't doubt some mook would try to get it revdelled or bring it to AE anyway, and I don't have time for that. So I'll just give you the highlights.
fuck off shill she's not even important anymore. no one cares.
No one cares about you anymore Zoe.
epic fails in shilling: the post
I have a feeling you're a shill making a huge archive of samefag false flags.
I know you are astroturfing these responses and preparing them for a compilation. Be aware that I've capped every single one of your shill posts and have prepared a series of compilation responses that prove they are garbage.
Now, this is just my analysis, and I am not a reliable source, but its plain to see that any reliable sources seriously reporting on this as a credible threat of violence, especially to say it was "organized" at 4chan simply has no idea what they are looking at when it comes to 4chan. That's, in all honesty, not an uncommon state for journalists to be in. This is a hoax, and we are empowered to deal with that by editorial discretion. Rhoark ( talk) 06:43, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
there actually were multiple people planning this attack, nor that it is indicative of the general tenor of the discussion in which is occurred. Giving the impression otherwise is firmly in the realm of WP:SYNTH; appeals to the authority of the New Yorker notwithstanding. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 01:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
Our duty as an encyclopedia, though, is to report what reliable sources like them say with the tone and weight reflected in those sources;. That is seriously incomplete, but ok, let's apply this test. Look at all the reliable sources on this topic and weigh them based on their original reporting, depth of coverage, reputation for fact checking etc. Would such a sample contain a random, detailed, lurid quote from a single source? Let me make a prediction: nothing I said above will change anyone's mind. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:43, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
Our duty as an encyclopedia, though, is to report what reliable sources like them say with the tone and weight reflected in those sources;- I am unable to reconcile this with either the explicit impartial tone section of WP:NPOV, nor that policy as a whole - The tone of Wikipedia articles should be impartial, neither endorsing nor rejecting a particular point of view. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 01:56, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
This article is written to use sources that are currently "at war" (for lack of a better term) with the subject. Sites like Kotaku are naturally going to have a huge conflict of interest for us with the ability to write a neutral article. I suggest that the sources be trimmed and that any information that comes from a biased site be removed or refactored in such a way that it is written with a WP:NPOV rather than just being allowed to stand as an attack page. Lithorien ( talk) 17:22, 27 December 2015 (UTC)
This article is covered in NPOV and the discussions on the talk page above are openly hostile. As a result, I felt it might be better to raise a few concerns here than just editing the page directly. I've picked quote from the article that I think is representative of some of the problems with it. Quote:
> Journalists who did not cover the examination into Quinn's private life were accused of conspiracy, and a blacklist circulated by Gamergate supporters.[24] Similar accusations and coordinated attacks occurred on imageboards and forums like 4chan and Reddit.[18][25][26]
The claim in the second sentence "similar accusations [...]" does not appear to match it's source material. Though I don't have source 18 (Heron), 25 (gamergate-explained-everybody-fighting) mentions 4chan once saying:
> The #Gamergate arguments, particularly on 4chan, reference the term "social justice warrior" frequently and often. What this means, usually, is someone — often a woman like Sarkeesian — who is pushing for games to become more diverse or representative of viewpoints other than that of a young white guy.
and a second time mentions 4chan and reddit together saying:
> Thousands of comments on the matter were expunged from normally freewheeling 4chan and Reddit for reasons that weren't immediately clear, and a DMCA takedown notice was filed against a YouTube video using footage from one of Quinn's games.
These are the only mentions of reddit and 4chan in the source. Looking at 26 (Zoe Quinn claims 4chan was behind GamerGate the whole time), the problem is obvious from the title - the article reports on the claims of somebody involved in the controversy rather than making the claim itself. Reddit is never mentioned explicitly in the article, but subreddits are mentioned twice. First, to define internet slang:
> The screencaps show the IRC channel users discussing how "to cause infighting and doubt" within the ranks of feminists and "social justice warriors" (SJW)—a phrase that men in the men's rights movement, anti-feminist subreddits, gaming communities, and 4chan forums have turned into a shorthand for feminists and their supporters.
And second, incorrectly (adding questions about the value of the source). For editors who may not be familiar, 4chans different boards are not called subreddits (any more than facebook's groups are).
> In reality, #notyourshield began as yet another tactic for gamers and members of certain 4chan subreddits, namely /v/ and /pol/, to harass and silence women and other feminists in the gaming community who attempted to talk about the harassment Quinn and other women were receiving over GamerGate.
Such misleading claims and poor sources are the bulk of the content of the article. Is this something where I can be WP:BOLD and edit freely or is that a quick way to be banned? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perpetualization ( talk • contribs) 08:10, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
Users from the messageboards Reddit – a sprawling series of communities – and 4chan – ... – hurled false accusations. ... They proceeded to dox Quinn ... If you asked a GamerGate supporter what was happening, they would tell you it was about ethics in journalism. Instead, it became a war against Zoe Quinn.. Heron, Belford and Goker goes into great detail about 4chan, while Massanari focuses mainly on reddit, but does mention chan boards as well. — Strongjam ( talk) 17:31, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
I've started a request at Talk:Gamergate#Requested move 28 December 2015. I understand that there is a moratorium on move requests for this article. My request does not propose moving this article, nor would it even if this were allowed. Thank you. -- BDD ( talk) 21:16, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/05/intel-gamergate-response/ ForbiddenRocky ( talk) 06:13, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead currently doesn't explain what "Gamergate" actually is.
From the title "Gamergate controversy" I'm implying that this is either about a controversy named Gamergate (like "Watergate" etc.) or a controversy around Gamergate, whatever that may be.
Now reading the first paragraph to find out what Gamergate actually means, I'm told, it (= the controversy?) is "most widely known for a harrassment campaign…", so I'm implying "Gamergate" is not a controversy named Gamergate but might be a controversy around Gamergate – again: whatever that may be.
In the following sentences I'm told how everything began and so on, but still it remains unclear what "Gamergate" is. Might it be a "who" – people gathering around the hastag #Gamergate?
Next paragraph I'm reading "Gamergate's supporters" – so is it actually an entity, like a company or organization? The next sentence "Statements coming out of Gamergate" supports my assumption: It has to be a clearly defined entity that issues statements. OK, now I got it. But wait, do I really, or am I on the wrong track?
I'm reaching the conclusion that the lead definitely needs to be completely rewritten – it is horrribly long, but also incredibly inaccurate, failing to answer an uninformed reader's most basic questions about the topic. --
PanchoS (
talk) 03:55, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
I think it might be helpful if we refer to gamergate as a "blanket term," since it has no single specific referent. This would help PanchoS's (and others') complaint about what Gamergate "is," I think. But I am having trouble crafting even that phrase, as I am not sure how to describe the constituent parts. Harassment is obviously the most notable, but I think even that is a bit reductive. "Reaction to progressive forces within video game culture?" That's clunky and awful. But I think we should make the multifarious and nebulous nature of the term more apparent right away. Just my barely coherent thought on a Friday morning. Dumuzid ( talk) 14:16, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
I have restored the first paragraph of the lead to the earlier version. I have kept the rest of the changes by MarkBernstein, which were mostly copyedits. The earliest bold edit wasn't helpful, in my view. Firstly, it is repetitive ("harassment campaign" is repeated in the first and third sentence). Secondly, "discussion of it" is awkward writing. Thirdly, it changes the meaning: the earlier text referred to definition as the discussion around sexism and progressivism, while the later one defines it as the harassment campaign. The latter is a subset of the former. I am not opposed to rewriting the lead, but this was not an improvement. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:06, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
Anyway, by my reading, the current copyedit fixes most of the issues raised at the top of this section, and (while almost everyone has preferred tweaks one way or the other) PanchoS seems to be the only person saying that a total rewrite of the lead is necessary, so I've removed the tag again for now. There's probably still room for improvement, of course, but if we tagged every time anyone had an issue with any part of this article, it would never be untagged. PanchoS, I suggest identifying specific issues with the current lead which we can discuss fixes for, and specific proposals for changes; as you can probably see, people have very different views on even small details of the topic, making it hard to discuss sweeping rewrites productively. Incremental changes let us go over points of disagreement one by one until we reach a point where everyone is satisfied. -- Aquillion ( talk) 19:11, 9 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead also lacks proper citation and sources. Saying that Gamergate is a "Campaign of Harassment" without sources that aren't just editorials from web blogs one way or another will be difficult, but I definitely think the lead should be changed to something less vitriolic, and something more explanatory of what Gamergate actually is, because to say that Gamergate is a 'Harassment Campaign' doesn't even seem encyclopedic to begin with. Solntsa90 ( talk) 07:48, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
The article currently states "[Jenn] Frank herself received significant harassment for writing this article, and quit games journalism as a result." However in December Frank wrote this article about video games, and she is listed as a being employed as a freelance writer for Paste magazine. The only time this woman was mentioned by reliable sources ( here here, and here) was to state that the harassment of Gamergate caused her to leave video games journalism, but obviously she is still writing about video games. Her apparent return to video game journalism was not widely covered, but was mentioned in this blog entry where she calls her quitting more akin to a temporary retirement. So what is to be done? Do we continue to claim in the article that she has quit video game journalism in spite of the evidence to the contrary? Or do we rephrase the sentence to state that she only "stepped back" for a bit in spite of what the reliable sources state? ColorOfSuffering ( talk) 08:56, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
I find it interesting that at no point does she mention harassment... Only if you ignore the bit about her being the target of hacking attempts. — Strongjam ( talk) 19:12, 12 January 2016 (UTC)
The lead itself is original research. Where is the (proper) citation for Gamergame being a "harassment campaign"? Solntsa90 ( talk) 07:50, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
a campaign of systematic harassment of female and minority game developers, journalists, and critics and their allies." — Strongjam ( talk) 14:13, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
These sources don't exactly exude a sense of impartiality. Newsweek is a *better* start, but it still is an article written by someone with an ax to grind (Would an article from Breitbart be as easily accepted? I hope not) but that page from that Massanari woman seems a bit lacking, especially considering it uses such an inflammatory, biased word as "toxic" in its own abstract.
I doubt my words will have much effect since the consensus by wiki admins (the only ones who really matter around here) seems to be stuck-in-place, but for anyone else reading this, consider the damn sources. Single studies, politicos writting polemics, etc. etc. Solntsa90 ( talk) 21:05, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
The Institute for Historical Review is a peer-reviewed journal as well, and that doesn't stop it from attracting massive criticism for Holocaust Revisionism. Just because its peer-reviewed, doesn't mean it is infallible. That is an argument that appeals to authority.
Is there any organisation that takes an impartial view in things, that did a mass study on gamergate and come to any solid conclusions about the nature of GamerGate? I'd love to see it. Solntsa90 ( talk) 21:28, 14 January 2016 (UTC)
Hey. Me and Ryk72 are having trouble agreeing on how to summarise the GGC page for the Hashtag activism page. Honestly, I don't even think it should be there as I don't believe a harassment campaign is an example of hashtag activism, but in the interest of compromise have proposed my own summary which Ryk72 has deleted from the page. Any help in coming to a consensus would be appreciated. PeterTheFourth ( talk) 04:15, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I removed this claim that the alt-right "engineered" Gamergate, as the sources do not make say this. Do we have sources that actually make that claim? Woodroar ( talk) 19:37, 6 March 2016 (UTC)