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Scholarly sources

Some takeaways from the RfC:

  • People want to improve the article piecemeal rather than all at once
  • There is disagreement about how Gamergate is characterized in the best sources
  • Editors were skeptical of ranking sources by reputability of publisher and depth of coverage
  • Several editors wanted to prioritize sources by scholarliness and recentness of publication

Let's try again to list sources following just these two criteria:

  • Sole criteria for inclusion is that it is "scholarly"
  • Ordering is by date of publication

I make no representation that the list is complete at time of writing, so rather than playing gotcha about how I must have deliberately left out X,Y,and Z, just add them to the list. There will be objections, limitations, caveats, etc. to some sources. At this stage the principal concern is making sure nothing important is overlooked, not asserting a particular source must be used. Let's have a clean uncluttered list, follow that with specific objections to keep those itemized and visible, and then any other general discussion. Rhoark (talk) 14:51, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Sources

Caveats/Objections to specific sources

These may be grounds for exclusion, or simply things to keep in mind when determining appropriate weight

  • At least the following are non-peer-reviewed conference proceedings:
  • Trice,M. "Putting GamerGate in context"
  • Guberman, et al. "Quantifying Toxicity and Verbal Violence on Twitter"
  • At least the following are forewords, editorials, commentaries, etc.
  • Antonsen, et al. "The many faces of engagement"
  • Todd, C. "COMMENTARY: GamerGate and the resistance to the diversification of gaming culture"
  • At least the following are web-exclusive supplements rather than main journal content
  • Givens,N. "GamerGate at the Beginning of 2015"
  • Lewis,H. "What GamerGate Can Teach Journalists About Handling Twitter Storms"
  • Press Start is primarily a journal of student research. Principal author information[1] for "A Gendered Identity Debate in Digital Game Culture"
Rhoark (talk) 15:01, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Might be useful to be more precise in our terminology. For example while First Things and Democracy both tend to be intellectual, they are political magazines, not peer reviewed journals. This doesn't make them unusable, but we should be aware of WP:BIASED, and not overweight and put them on the same footing as peer reviewed journals. The same might be said about a some of the books, although I haven't look to closely at those. — Strongjam (talk) 15:18, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
I have mentioned before that the Heron, Belford, Goker source is not peer-reviewed. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:24, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

No, I do not believe we need to apply any special rules on sourcing beyond the regular ones. WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT suffice as policies here. As for the draft, its problems largely extend from ignoring those later two policies and you seem to have no interest in fixing that, so I would suggest just dropping it. Artw (talk) 15:03, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

This is not about the draft. Rhoark (talk) 15:07, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
Good, I'm glad to hear you have abandoned it. Artw (talk) 15:09, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
To elaborate, while the draft handling of NPOV and weight is imperfect, the mainspace article still fails these policies egregiously. To be able to tell what is or isn't WP:FALSEBALANCE first requires a clear look at exactly what is "commonly accepted mainstream scholarship". That's the goal of this section. Rhoark (talk) 15:12, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
I believe you are starting from a false premise there, sorry, so this is unlikely to go anywhere useful. Artw (talk) 15:19, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
While I am inclined to agree with you Artw, I try to keep an open mind. Certainly listing sources can't do anything but help (even if there's ultimate disagreement on use). Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 15:28, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

In general, scholarly sources are fine. However, keep in mind that journals and/or scholars have areas of interest; they may emphasize those aspects of Gamergate which interests them, rather than what is prominent in Gamergate. This can possibly be addressed if one looks at a wide variety of sources. Possibly. I am not sure about this. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

The debate at the moment turns on areas of interest. The question is: what it is about the Gamergate controversy that scholars deem to be worthy of study? S Marshall's conclusions do a good job of summarizing the reasoning of "oppose" votes on the RfC, but this reasoning does not match the facts about sources. The published works are not principally about harassment of women - especially taken as the bald facts about specific instances. There seem to be a few particular frames from which scholars approach it:
  • First is the issue of gamer culture and womens' relation to it. Part of that relation is harassment of course, but the sources in this frame devote the lion's share of attention to dissecting the attitudes of gamers along with the history and causes of those attitudes. A significant substrand is gamers' reaction to research about themselves. These sources include Antonsen, Heron, Todd, Kidd, Vermeulen, Shaw, Mortensen, Cross, and Braithewaite.
  • Another group is interested mainly in social media technology and how that gets used. There's an interest in what platforms Gamergate uses and for what purposes. These mostly take a phenomenological approach, describing things quantitatively or in terms of graph connectivity. In general there's an awareness that harassment is of particular relation to the topic, but these computer-science oriented authors attempt to describe the full gamut of media use, rather than opine on juicy quotations. Sources include Flock, Trice, Gubermann, and Burgess.
  • Douglas and Mantilla start with interests in gendered harassment on the Internet at large and approach Gamergate as it relates to that.
  • Sources that are primarily about journalism do in fact discuss Gamergate mainly in relation to the movement's claims about journalism. These are Lewis and Perreault.
  • For some sources, its mainly about the culture war. Givens represents the religious conservative perspective, while Meserve holds the issue at arm's length from a position that's center-left if it's anything at all.
In summary the particulars of the harassment are not the primary point of interest for any of these sources. These details are part of the factual background of the matter, but the authors consider them only in relation to some broader frame. These frames are what constitute Gamergate as a topic in scholarly literature. The NPOV balancing act should be between frames rather than between frame and detail. Individually, none of the sources consider the details to be of more importance than the context, so that is not a pattern of emphasis that should even be considered for the article. Rhoark (talk) 15:36, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Please stop trying to rewrite reality to fit the view you want.--Jorm (talk) 18:57, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
I did not write these sources. Rhoark (talk) 20:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Rhoark I think has hit upon something that has changed in the past two years, understanding that there are two possible approaches to write this article. One is the "journalistic" stance, that even presuming that all news sources are perfectly neutral, they have presented the situation as a "here and now" approach, without spending any real time delving into the causes or other facets of the situation, because that is their job, to keep their readers current on events. The other stance is the "scholastic" approach, which relies more on these types of journal articles that are trying to look at the situation holistically, the causes and implications. In the first year of the GG situation, we didn't have any serious battery of scholastic articles so that wasn't really an option (hence why the article was more "journalistic" in nature, but now it is.
If you are prone to dislike anything about GG, you're likely going to gravitate towards the journalistic approach as that clearly puts the GG in a negative light for how they have reported; the scholastic approach would appear to conflict with this but it is a very valid viewpoint to take as well. But, WP is not a newspaper, and we're supposed to avoid recentism in our summaries. We have to think about how this situation will be viewed in 5, 10 , 50 years from now, and relying too heavily on journalism where there are scholastic sources that have had time to evaluate the situation is a problem. (This is not an issue just with GG, but many topic areas of current events are putting too much emphasis on this "journalistic" approach, and a sign of a larger problem. Also for purposes of simplicity, I am dismissing any question of neutrality in journalistic sources, which is a separate issue and one that makes the "journalistic" approach even a worse situation to take).
Harassment has to be mentioned, the opinions of the press have to be mentioned and give priority over the minor views, but as per a scholarly approach, these elements are not core features of the GG situation, but symptoms of it. Granted, harassment has to be highlighted early on as it is why this controversy is notable, but I agree with Rhoark that to summarize in a scholarly manner via the above sources as we are supposed to do here, that it should not be a core driving theme of the article. It needs to be about how and why this situation happened and how all parties are trying to remedy it, documenting the controversy appropriately. --MASEM (t) 15:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Not sure what y'all are reading, but all of these sources have harassment up front and center and take a negative view point of Gamergate. — Strongjam (talk) 15:39, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
I think the point is that in scholarly sources harassment is not the only point considered, and other themes are analyzed without necessarily subordinating them to the harassment angle like the journal sources do. Diego (talk) 16:22, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Well some concrete proposals for changes would be helpful. The current article also doesn't solely cover harassment, so I don't know what is being proposed here. — Strongjam (talk) 16:27, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
We could write a draft that follows a structure and tone based on scholarly sources... Diego (talk) 17:12, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Of course scholarly sources are useful, and of course it's good to include context. I do see a danger here of context swallowing definition -- rather like saying "What's important about World War II is the rise of nationalism in the nineteenth century and the Marshall plan thereafter. 1939-1945 is of less concern." It's possible to miss the forest for the trees whatever your angle of approach. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 17:38, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
The events and reactions of/towards GG (August 2014 onwards) need to be documented, no question. But the holistic approach from these scholarly sources attempt to explain why GG happened (including events prior to August 2014), how it flared up, who are those that participated in it, why certain tactics (harassment alongside social activism) were involved, what has happened in the industry as a result, and more. Our WWII articles, by analogy, don't just cover the battles between 1939-45 but the series of events before and after that period that are tied to the war, as determined by historians. That holistic analysis has been lacking in journalistic sources on GG is now being developed by scholastic approaches.
But there is also another counterpoint here, bringing up the WWII analogy again: in WWII the battles were readily documented to a matter of feet and inches at times, so there's a clear record of the events. On the other hand, given that journalistic sources are our primary source for chronologically documenting the events of GG, that record is super vague. There's a few milestones but creating anything close to a detailed timeline of events is near impossible. We can hardly document anything specific within those of the GG movement, and from the opposite side, we can only readily document a handful of explicit cases of harassment/threats (This is not to say there were not other harassment or threats, but in that from RSes, these were only reported in broad, generalized manners to be unable to pinpoint exactly what they were). Despite the fact this was happening in real time, no one in the reliable sources really spent time to document this history, but instead mostly focused their writing towards criticizing the harassment. The scholarly sources are recognizing that harassment and are critical of it, but they are trying to reconstruct the history without getting too caught up in their own criticism of the situation, making them better sources to base the article on than journalistic ones at this point.
What this all means for the article (towards Strongjam's question) is to recognize that harassment is not the sole topic to craft this article around. Harassment happened, it's the most obvious thing when you dig into sources, and understanding where it arose and how it occurred is necessary but there are many other factual aspects around that that scholarly sources are highlighting beyond that. The mainspace lets this one predominate opinion override any reasonable background and analysis that could be included from scholarly sources as that would make these seems like fringe views, when we should be writing from the scholarly aspect first. How we fix this article to do that is not simple, because it is necessary to document the history first and thus highlight the harassment that occurred since this is the most notable thing about GG. But one way from that is to try to avoid going too far into any weeds on opinions too early as to establish the timeline first, then start with the reasoning from these scholarly sources as why this happened and persisted, then get into the critical analysis of the GG membership and approaches, and finally the reactions and responses and impacts to the situation. --MASEM (t) 18:05, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Wow. All this bullshit about alternate drafts and deep source examination just to get back to "we need to reflect the tone of the scholarly sources and not their content" whitewash attempts again.--Jorm (talk) 18:13, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't want this to get glossed as "the article should be less about harassment" which is not at all the point. There's harassment in discussing women and gamers. There's harassment in intimidating journalists. There's harassment in new forms of political engagement. What is not correct is to say the main emphases should be on the bare facts that Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn were harassed, nor the specific time, place, and manner of that harassment. The first myth I want to bury is the idea these facts are the central content of the topic. That's not the main thesis of any of our quality sources, nor does it take up the bulk of the text quantitatively. Overall, I'd estimate the sources devote more attention to the social/political/technological context in about a 5:1 ratio. That doesn't seem especially dependent on recentism or scholarliness, either. Moreover, editors have this pernicious assumption that a full and fair exposition of the issues is in a zero-sum relationship with covering the harassment of Zoe Quinn - that treating this harassment as anything other than self-contained and inexplicable somehow obscures or whitewashes it. I think that's nonsense. I'm advocating following these sources in both tone (detached) and content (socio-political). What is the case against doing so? Rhoark (talk) 18:42, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Because your every attempt to do so has only served to white-wash away the sins. Gamergate is about misogyny, full stop, followed by (in a distant second) the attempts to characterize the harassment as something "noble". Attempting to couch that in some sort of deep, meditative understanding of the history of dudes being horrible to women on the internet is well and truly providing an apology for the behavior. "Sure, the Nazis killed a bunch of Jews, but really, we should talk about the socio-economics of Germany in the late 1920s and how the German people were oppressed (by the Jews)". That's what this sounds like.--Jorm (talk) 18:58, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
Go try out that line of argument at Talk:Causes_of_World_War_II, but in the meantime we should follow the sources rather than your personal views. Rhoark (talk) 19:19, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Proposed agenda

Here is what I think we should do as a pathway to satisfying open concerns both about the article's quality and length. Let's take it step-by-step so any appearance of cherrypicking or disproportionality can be addressed as early as possible in the process. The foundation has to be a selection of sources that is based on clear procedural criteria rather than personal sympathies for the sources' content. Let's take the few sources that can really be considered ideal: proper research journal articles (as opposed to editorials, proceedings, etc.) that take a broad overview (as opposed to a narrow interest). By my estimation, that means:

  • Mortensen et al. "Anger, Fear, and Games"
  • Perreault et al. "The GamerGate controversy and journalistic paradigm maintenance"
  • Braithewaite "It's About Ethics in Game Journalism?"

We can fully mine and wikify the claims from each of these sources in its own single-source userspace draft. Each one can be iterated on to be sure it reflects claims' order and weighting given by the respective authors. With drafts in hand that we agree don't cherrypick either the selection of source or the selection of claims within the source, we can group and merge the related claims into a unified outline. That will probably be the trickiest step, but much more tractable using three vetted sources than hashing out the whole universe of claims all at once. I expect after this we'll have a draft about 80% complete with respect to the final topical content. With that skeleton in place, we can overlay the rest of the scholarly sources as apropos to the established outline and start to negotiate about a few of the best journalistic sources to overlay in similar fashion. The result will undoubtedly be better than the existing article. Moreover, with everyone able to see step-by-step the sausage being made there should not be the same neutrality suspicions as my draft aroused. Does this overall approach seem sound? Rhoark (talk) 16:05, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

For the benefit of those participating in this discussion, perhaps you could link the sources you believe are proper research journal articles that take a broad overview. PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:10, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
Links are at the top of the section. Some of them are paywalled. I think there is precedent for linking a PDF on talk pages for active fair-use commentary, but more guidance is needed. Rhoark (talk) 02:01, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
With no further input forthcoming, I suppose I'll get started in the near future on paraphrasing Mortensen. Rhoark (talk) 16:38, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
It appears you have left out the excellent article "Sexism in the circuitry: female participation in male-dominated popular computer culture" from ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, the Special Issue on Women in Computing. That article provides much useful in-depth analysis of Gamergate. Binksternet (talk) 01:27, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
It's a fine source, and on the larger list above. It is however an early one, a bit "off the cuff" in style and focused on a particular chat log. That's what makes me think it's not ideal for a first-round skeleton. Rhoark (talk) 02:09, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Gamergaters Elected Trump?

Just saw a news article that said that the opposition of Gamergate supporters to the media's bias, PC culture, and extreme lack of ethics helped get Trump elected. Whilst Gamergate was originally a movement about corruption in the gaming industry the same unethical behavior infects regular journalism so some supporters redirected their focus to bring integrity to the US election debate. Whilst CNN and other networks brazenly colluded with the DNC and Clinton’s campaign whilst attempting to control what their viewers thought, Gamergate supporters used memes and hashtags to fight back. Whether the article is valid, and whether it's appropriate to reference it here I've no clue but I thought I'd raise the point and see what others think. 人族 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:40, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could link the article! Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 12:16, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

moved the media section from the template section

anyone is welcome to undo this, but this section of the headers is out of date 

| author      = Jan Rothenberger
| title       = Der Gesinnungskrieg der Gamer
| org         = Der Bund (in German)
| url         = http://www.derbund.ch/digital/social-media/Der-Gesinnungskrieg-der-Gamer-/story/31132860
| date        = 10 October 2014
| quote       = "Dass sich Gegner und Befürworter auch auf Wikipedia bekriegten, rief mit Jimmy Wales auch den Chef der Webenzyklopädie auf den Plan. Er mahnte beide Seiten zur Ruhe."
| author2     = Rory Cellan-Jones
| title2       = Twitter and the poisoning of online debate
| org2         = BBC News
| url2         = http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29642313
| date2        = 16 October 2014
| quote2       = "I am not going into the rights and wrongs of Gamergate here - there is what looks like a factual account of this interminable saga on Wikipedia, although of course there have been disputes about its objectivity."
| author3     = David Jenkins
| title3      = 2014: Video gaming’s worst year ever
| org3        = Metro
| url3        = http://metro.co.uk/2014/10/20/2014-video-gamings-worst-year-ever-4912543/
| date3       = 20 October 2014
| quote3      = "The Wikipedia entry is as good as any at explaining the basics, and shows how the whole movement is based on nothing but the ravings of a female developer’s ex-boyfriend and a level of misogyny that you’d find hard to credit existing in the Middle Ages, let alone the modern day." 
|author4 = Caitlin Dewey
|title4 = Gamergate, Wikipedia and the limits of ‘human knowledge’
|org4 = The Washington Post
|url4 = http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/01/29/gamergate-wikipedia-and-the-limits-of-human-knowledge/
|date4 = 29 January 2015
|quote4 = But in a paralyzing battle that has shaken the site’s notorious bureaucracy and frustrated the very principles on which Wikipedia was built, pro- and anti-Gamergate editors hijacked the Wikipedia page on that topic — and spent months vandalizing, weaponizing and name-calling over it.
|author5=David Auerbach
|title5=The Wikipedia Ouroboros
|date5=5 February 2015
|org5=Slate
|url5=http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/02/wikipedia_gamergate_scandal_how_a_bad_source_made_wikipedia_wrong_about.html
|quote5= ... months of chaos, misconduct, and tendentiousness on Gamergate-related pages [on Wikipedia] ...
|author6= Amanda Marcotte
|title6=On Wikipedia, Gamergate Refuses to Die
|date6=6 March 2015
|org6=Slate
|url6=http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/03/06/the_gamergate_wars_over_wikipedia_show_that_wikipedia_s_neutrality_measure.html
|quote6= Gamergaters were ultimately unable to use Wikipedia to assert their views as if they were objective reality. Still, Wikipedia lost the very people who were trying to guard the gates in the first place. What happens to the next victim of a Wikipedia harassment campaign if the defenders are getting squeezed out through this pox-on-both-your-houses system?
|author7=Lauren C. Williams 
|title7=The ‘Five Horsemen’ Of Wikipedia Paid The Price For Getting Between Trolls And Their Victims
|date7=6 March 2015
|org7=Think Progress
|url7=http://thinkprogress.org/culture/2015/03/06/3629086/wikipedia-gamergate-war/
|quote7= It’s interesting how a male feminist had to write a blog about it before anybody realized that there are these problems on Wikipedia.
|author8=Fabian Flock, et al.
|title8=Towards Better Visual Tools for Exploring Wikipedia Article Development – The Use Case of “Gamergate Controversy”
|url8=http://airwiki.ws.dei.polimi.it/images/1/19/Visual_Tools_Wikipedia_2015.pdf
|org8=Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence
|quote8=We present a comparative analysis of three tools for visually exploring the revision history of a Wikipedia article. We do so on the use case of “Gamergate Controversy”, an article that has been the  setting of a major editor dispute in the last half of 2014 and early 2015, resulting in multiple editor bans and gathering news media attention. 
|date8=2015


ForbiddenRocky (talk) 20:34, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

Gamergaters Elected Trump?

Just saw a news article that said that the opposition of Gamergate supporters to the media's bias, PC culture, and extreme lack of ethics helped get Trump elected. Whilst Gamergate was originally a movement about corruption in the gaming industry the same unethical behavior infects regular journalism so some supporters redirected their focus to bring integrity to the US election debate. Whilst CNN and other networks brazenly colluded with the DNC and Clinton’s campaign whilst attempting to control what their viewers thought, Gamergate supporters used memes and hashtags to fight back. Whether the article is valid, and whether it's appropriate to reference it here I've no clue but I thought I'd raise the point and see what others think. 人族 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:40, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

It would be helpful if you could link the article! Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 12:16, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
comment just to keep this around a little longer ForbiddenRocky (talk) 20:35, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

possible refs moved from templates

I moved these from the template section of the headers

Mortensen, T. E. (2016). "Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate". Games and Culture. doi:10.1177/1555412016640408. ISSN 1555-4120.

Jane, Emma A. (2016). "Online misogyny and feminist digilantism". Continuum. 30 (3): 284–297. doi:10.1080/10304312.2016.1166560. ISSN 1030-4312.

Lees, Matt (December 1, 2016). "What Gamergate should have taught us about the 'alt-right'". The Guardian. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 21:49, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

No "Wikipedia" section?

Look at WashPo, Breitbart, Slate, Guardian, Adland, Think Progress, FrontPageMag, et al have mentioned this article due to controversy of the content itself. I don't see "Wikipedia" section. I want to add the section and use sources discussing the article itself. However, due to the nature of the topic, I must be cautious. Someone here can explain whether these sources are worth adding. --George Ho (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't think that's worth exploring or even noting.--Jorm (talk) 19:32, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
A short mention might be warranted, two or three sentences at the most. The original Guardian article was unfortunately inaccurate and sensationalist; while they amended it later, it was replicated all around the web in the meantime. The whole thing was a flash in the pan, though, quickly forgotten. It is not mentioned at all in most summaries of the controversy. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:01, 21 December 2016 (UTC)
Okay? Which sources? If neither, I shall find more. George Ho (talk) 20:02, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

In the meantime, I will add Guardian as part of {{Press}} instead. Okay? --George Ho (talk) 20:07, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

You could go ahead and add them all to the press sections... Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 20:16, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

This is all so ouroborosian.... (Yes, I am posting merely so I can use the term 'ouroborosian'). Dumuzid (talk) 20:17, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Something I think should be added

Under the "Coordination of harassment" section section after "4chan's founder, Christopher Poole, banned all discussion of Gamergate on the site as more attacks occurred, leading to Gamergate supporters using 8chan as their central hub." it may notable to add that the stress from the controversy and the community reaction to the ban ultimately led to him leaving the website and selling it to the owner of 2channel.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/3/14/8214713/gamergate-scandal-convinced-4chan-founder-moot-to-leave-the-site

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/4chans-overlord-christopher-poole-reveals-why-he-walked-away-20150313?page=2 (original source)

"But Poole, to the victims' relief, banned all Gamergate discussion from his site. 4channers struck back, calling him a 'soulless informant,' saying he 'doesn't give a shit' and that he 'hasn't cared about 4chan for years now.' Poole says the stress wore him down. 'Week after week after week after week, there's this new controversy,' he recalls. 'I kept getting drawn back in.'

Though he'd been thinking about leaving the site for at least a year, he'd finally had enough after enduring what he tells me was 'probably the most stressful month of my life.'"

Shimunogora (talk) 03:53, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect, this strikes me as too much of a tangent for this webpage. Certainly relevant to Christopher Poole, or the chans at issue, but here I don't think it is particularly elucidating on the subject of gamergate. That's simply my opinion, however. Thanks! Dumuzid (talk) 04:39, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Thanks—I added it to the 4chan page. Shimunogora (talk) 00:55, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

"Gaming industry response" and "Responses outside the gaming industry" sections

Now that I re-read "Discretionary sanctions" on this, I shall be cautious about what to do with this article. By the way, I relinquished my rights to edit EC-protected pages, so I can no longer edit this page while EC-protected. I could request regaining them, but I need more experience on editing ECP pages first before editing ECP pages again. To do so, I shall use talk pages instead, like this one.

Some content from the "Responses outside the gaming industry" section shall be moved into "In popular culture", though currently nonexistent. Can it be a separate section or a subsection? The Law & Order: SVU part is a good example of pop culture. Another example of pop culture used in the section is GTFO (film). Also, I see Batman: Arkham Knight from the "Gaming industry response" section.

If content must be preserved, the "Responses outside..." section is kinda long and needs subsections to make the whole section readable for most readers. Same for "Gaming industry response".

I wanted to discuss the lead first, but... previous talks on it were done in the past without any productive results. Also, the topic is too complicated to briefly summarize. For now, I want to focus on the Responses sections instead. George Ho (talk) 03:04, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll take a look at these sections. It might be worth renaming "Responses outside the gaming industry" to "Wider reception". PeterTheFourth (talk) 10:52, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Nice renaming to "Wider response", though I wonder whether the "Social media" subsection is worth it. Can that portion be trimmed? Re-reading the (now-called) "Wider response" again, looks list most of the section is pop culture response. George Ho (talk) 19:34, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

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"Subjected to rape"

@Woodroar: I'm not gonna edit war with you over it, but I feel the sentence structure needs reworked somehow. When I first read it, I thought (however briefly) that she had actually been physically assaulted in this way rather than only threatened. I made the change on the basis that I probably wasn't the only person to have misread that at first. I'll leave it to you and others if it needs changing. Just leaving my two cents. Happy editing! Avicennasis @ 18:00, 9 Tevet 5777 / 18:00, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Same issue in the intro, should at the very least say "threats of both rape and death" or similar. Koncorde (talk) 18:45, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I'm definitely not opposed to rewording the sentence. I just don't know how we'd do that to make it more clear. To me, "subjected to threats of rape and death threats" implies that there were "threats of death threats", as in, someone was threatening to send death threats. I suppose we could say "rape threats and death threats", that's more clear but clunky. Ideas? Woodroar (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
I think adding "both", as Koncorde suggests, would help! Woodroar (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
"Subjected to death and rape threats" probably works, too.--Jorm (talk) 18:54, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
"Subjected to threats of rape and death"? Or just a simple slash? "Subjected to threats of rape/death?" Hmm. Avicennasis @ 20:35, 9 Tevet 5777 / 20:35, 7 January 2017 (UTC)
I like "threats of death and of rape"! That clarifies it without being too chunky, I think. Avicennasis @ 12:49, 10 Tevet 5777 / 12:49, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

recent gamergate news

ForbiddenRocky (talk) 23:43, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

FBI & GG

http://www.businessinsider.com/gamergate-fbi-file-2017-2 ForbiddenRocky (talk) 01:31, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Mostly Milo with some GG

Probably more relevant to Milo's wiki entry, but some mentions of GG http://www.thewrap.com/milo-yiannopoulos-timeline-rise-fall-gamergate-pedophilia-breitbart/ ForbiddenRocky (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

'Reliability issues'

Hi 'GamerPro64', you removed every mention of The Daily Dot from the article. What are the 'reliability issues' that you use to justify such removal? PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:30, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I just thought I'd pop in to note that this particular site has been bandied about at the Reliable Sources noticeboard a few times, most notably to me here: [2] and here, regarding Anita Sarkeesian: [3]. Both times the outcome was that the site is basically reliable, though a case-by-case analysis is never a bad thing. Nevertheless, I don't see any reason why it should be proscribed. As such I'd say the references should be restored and challenged individually. Other than that, happy Friday! Dumuzid (talk) 12:51, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
There's currently a discussion going on about Jamie Kilstein about why he left his radio show. I added a Daily Dot article which got reverted. There's a discussion going on now Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Jamie_Kilstein about it but basically this article was the only place I knew that was using the website so in case it was determined the site was unreliable I decided to remove the sources. Then again there are multiple sources being used for the same information which comes off as excessive. GamerPro64 14:22, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I would respectfully suggest the best practice here is to either wait until there's an unambiguous outcome, or suggest the removals one-by-one. I understand the motivation, but I think "just in case" removals are a bit too far. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 16:35, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
I've reverted the removals. I advise that you wait for an outcome before taking action based on that outcome. PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Talk:List of scandals with "-gate" suffix

This article has a content summary at List of scandals with "-gate" suffix. As has happened previously, the summary within that article has become contested. You are welcome to discuss (reaffirm prior consensus in my view) at Talk:List of scandals with "-gate" suffix. UW Dawgs (talk) 20:36, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Must be spring break. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 17:12, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Ey

I hope you guys wouldn't mind if I question the neutrality of this article. I feel as if this article was written by a bunch of SJWs and really looks like it has a whole lot of wrong information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hug0905 (talk • contribs) 15:08, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Oh yes. Calling people "SJWs" out of the gate is sure to have anyone taking you seriously. I'm certain you'll provide a lot of value to this discussion.--Jorm (talk) 19:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
As a card-carrying SJW, I pride myself on incorrect information. So, on that note, 2+2=8. Cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 20:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

a result of gamergate?

http://www.elle.com/culture/career-politics/news/a45178/why-im-running-brianna-wu-massachusetts/ ForbiddenRocky (talk) 01:28, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Biased article

After giving up on attempting to contribute to this Wikipedian catastrophe years ago (and I really, really tried), I decided to have a quick look at how it's progressed. I'm having PTSD flashbacks of trying to reason with the editors on this page.

It's improved. It's still quite biased in favour of, as the commenter above me characterises them, "SJWs". Maybe in another three years this article will actually be decent and neutral and not a brochure advertisement for social justice posers and opportunists.

Keep trying. AWildAppeared (talk) 06:42, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Kool Story, Bro.--Jorm (talk) 08:26, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
Also, your account is only a year and a half old, so stop with the "years ago" bullshit. No one believes you.--Jorm (talk) 08:28, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
1) Don't be a creepy stalker. 2) >pretending an account's age and record is necessarily indicative of a person's activity on wikipedia. AWildAppeared (talk) 09:25, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
Admitting to being a sock puppet? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
That's exactly the sort of harassment that's responsible for this poor quality article. AWildAppeared (talk) 19:16, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm afraid that since the article follows the sources and there's no general trend in emerging sources to be more favorable towards Gamergate (pretty much anything modern is going to ignore the "ethics in game journalism" narrative, for instance) I doubt this article is ever likely to be satisfying to you. Artw (talk) 19:48, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Hi AWildAppeared. You can think whatever you like about the article, but this talk page exists to provide suggestions to improve the article. If you have concrete suggestions, you can give them here (or edit the article or whatever), otherwise, see WP:NOTFORUM. For the rest of the people, please WP:FOC. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:39, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

main article changes

quoting Aquillion: "the main things are that we don't have as much about the connection to the Alt-Right and Trump as we perhaps could; and our "debate over ethics allegations" section is something that, if we're going by modern sources, could possibly be cut down and be folded into the tactics and culture war sections rather than covered as its own thing. Oh, and one other thing I noticed - most coverage is extremely dismissive of Gamergate's long-term achievements, essentially boiling them down to producing harassment, uplifting Yiannopoulos, providing the playbook for Trump and the Alt-Right, and nothing else. For instance, from the Guardian: "Other than harassment, very little was achieved, with tiny changes held aloft as great victories". The Business Insider ref describes how Gamergate "mostly fizzled" after its inception. Actually, those two might be the most important part, since that retrospective is (obviously) something the older sources couldn't give us and is currently absent from the article."

"how do you eat an elephant?" "one bite at a time." The current bite is the lede, but these are things we should consider for next few bites. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 19:06, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

tie-in to other things

Kingsindian writes: "This (heavily negative) Guardian article, and this The Verge article both tie Gamergate to larger cultural and political issues." & there have been comments about ties to "alt-right", Milo, Breitbart, and Trump.

I think this needs to be more clearly sectioned out in the main article, and then a good sentence about it added to the lede. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 21:48, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

There is already a sentence about "culture war" etc. and the third paragraph is talking about this topic, broadly speaking. I agree that there should be more discussion about this in the article body. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:23, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
I think it should be better organized. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 07:17, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

A review of "what is gamergate"

It's been a few years. What are people saying gamergate is now? The following is a blog and only mentions GG shortly, but if you look around, you see how GG is viewed in many (if not most places now). http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/ian-p-buckingham/female-gamers-the-moral-c_b_16308116.html ForbiddenRocky (talk) 01:35, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It's not clear what your point is, but "harassment" occurs six times in the lead, including the first sentence and the last sentence. I doubt anyone would read the lead and not conclude that harassment was the major thing for which Gamergate is known. This (heavily negative) Guardian article, and this The Verge article both tie Gamergate to larger cultural and political issues. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:21, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Virtually all mainstream sources in the past half-year ago flatly describe it as a harassment campaign. 'But ethics' is rarely mentioned, and when it is it's almost always explicitly described as a pretext or a tactic rather than as a motivation or goal. An example from the Guardian ref: "While the core of these movements make people’s lives hell, the outer shell – knowingly or otherwise – protect abusers by insisting that the real problem is that you don’t want to talk, or won’t provide the ever-shifting evidence they politely require."
  • A lot of coverage of Milo Yiannopoulos and how it gave him his start; I'd say that he could stand to be more prominent in the article, since it feels like lifting him to prominence was one of the most long-term impacts of the controversy, and several sources say that his support was crucial in making it last as long as it did. Breitbart as a whole is covered the same way and seems fairly central.
  • To a lesser extent, it's also heavily tied to its main targets (I left out references mentioning Quinn, Sarkeesian, and Wu when it was only in passing, but there were a lot of them), so they're still core to the story.
  • Many, many comparisons between Trump and Gamergate, especially in terms of tactics and the base they target. There's also a lot of coverage of it as the genesis of the alt-right and its tactics.
In other words... unsurprisingly, harassment is central; it's all most mainstream sources say about it when mentioning it in passing. The other main points are the figures involved, the tactics used, the connection to the alt-right (and Breitbart in particular) and to the playbook used by Trump. Actually, that is pretty close to our current article - the main things are that we don't have as much about the connection to the Alt-Right and Trump as we perhaps could; and our "debate over ethics allegations" section is something that, if we're going by modern sources, could possibly be cut down and be folded into the tactics and culture war sections rather than covered as its own thing. Oh, and one other thing I noticed - most coverage is extremely dismissive of Gamergate's long-term achievements, essentially boiling them down to producing harassment, uplifting Yiannopoulos, providing the playbook for Trump and the Alt-Right, and nothing else. For instance, from the Guardian: "Other than harassment, very little was achieved, with tiny changes held aloft as great victories". The Business Insider ref describes how Gamergate "mostly fizzled" after its inception. Actually, those two might be the most important part, since that retrospective is (obviously) something the older sources couldn't give us and is currently absent from the article. --Aquillion (talk) 06:53, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I also think the 2016 part should be described in more detail in the article (as I mention in the discussion about the lead in the previous section). However, the "dismissive" comment is weird. If Gamergate was in some way related to the rise of Yiannopoulos, alt-right or Trump, "dismissive" about "long-term achievements" seems to me to be in the same category as "other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?". I am personally skeptical of many of these theories about Gamergate and Trump, but as they are very common in all kinds of media , they could perhaps could do with a fuller exposition. This exposition could either be forked as a separate article, or we could trim some of the material based on the early newspaper coverage (which is often repetitive), to make space in this article. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 07:12, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, that's what those sources say; again, Gamergate 'generally fizzled', and 'other than harassment, very little was achieved, with tiny changes held aloft as great victories' - if you have another way to characterize that, or if you've got other sources saying otherwise, be my guest, but I don't think they see the Alt-Right or Trump as a Gamergate achievement, no. Instead, they see parallels in terms of using the same general spiel and targeting the same audience, so to speak. For instance, the Sydney Morning Herald says that "GamerGate didn't start the alt-right -- but shares some of the DNA of the online racist movement." In the Guardian piece, Yiannopoulos (who obviously owes his fame to it) is specifically described as using it as a 'stepping stone' and as one of a few "opportunistic people" who "learned to hijack the obsession of the online crowds". In other words, the Guardian and Business Insider see it as something that ultimately fizzled out without accomplishing anything itself, but which Breitbart later attempted again (more successfully) in order to push Trump. --Aquillion (talk) 08:09, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't think "achievement" is the right word; it is very hard to disentangle cause-and-effect for many things. But there are other kinds of influences between A and B: one can contributes to the other, or both rise from the phenomenon C, and so on. I think "effects", "consequences" or "influences" are better concepts to talk about. With this in mind, what you describe is just normal politics. People use currents in popular thinking to gain power, fame, money etc. That does not mean that the currents are not important or were not instrumental in the associated politics. For instance, suppose it is true that Gamergate served as a template for Trump's media relations, as this Jay Rosen piece (cited in one of your links above) says. It could be a dubious achievement, depending on one's view of Trump, but serving as a template for a successful Presidential campaign is no mean achievement. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 08:32, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
  • So harassment is central. (And perhaps the NPOV claims of being unfair to GG users/supports can be put to rest?)
  • I think Milo needs a stronger mention in the ggc article, but most of the information (after a mention here) belongs at Milo's wiki article.
  • I think the lede spends too much verbage on GGC claims (which are largely dismissed). There needs to be some trimming there. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 08:50, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
The lede spends almost no time on GG claims. If anything, this is a problem, because reading through the current lede you get almost no idea of what they were about. I'd certainly be disinclined to reduce the current coverage. - Bilby (talk) 01:08, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
@Bilby: The lead has been recently changed a fair bit (see a couple of sections above). I am ambivalent about some of the changes, but anyway, as to the last point you raised about "what Gamergate is about": the lead tries to give some sort of idea in the second and third paragraph. It first says that it is anonymous, diffuse, contradictory and so on. Then talks about harassment, then feminism, progressivism etc. Then "ethics in video game journalism" etc. Earlier some of this was presented earlier in the lead. In your opinion, did rearranging stuff and trimming the lead hurt intelligibility? (I don't think the earlier lead was an example of great prose either.) Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:25, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
The old lede wasn't substantially better, but my issue is that we can;t afford to remove any more of what GamerGate is about. At the moment, we have a generic statement in the first paragraph which, more-or-less, defines the domain, history of how it was formed in the second, and how it was organised in the third. It isn't until the fourth paragraph there there is some statement about what GamerGate were opposing, and even then it is unclear. ForbiddenRocky's suggestion of reducing it further seems unwise. - Bilby (talk) 05:37, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
I think that, based on most recent sources, the first and especially the second paragraph give a decent overview of what Gamergate was and who and what it opposed. The other parts are more about the cultural background, its tactics, and some of the back-and-forth that happened while it was active; some of that belongs in the article (and perhaps even the lead), but there's now an essentially unanimous voice among reliable sources as to what it was. One thing that both the Guardian and Salon pieces touch on is that coverage shifted over time; our article hasn't really kept up, and perhaps includes a bit too much on early back-and-forth from before more thorough coverage got out. (Especially the Ars Technica piece detailing the 4chan chat logs that initially created it - I noticed several of the modern sources citing that; we could probably put more emphasis on that piece ourselves, and maybe even reflect that detail in the lead. I think that once reporters fully digested that, reporting largely shifted from "what's up with this all this shouting and who are the sides?" to "4chan vendetta op that got out of hand and was co-opted by Breitbart" - at least among the more internet-savvy reporters; the less internet-savvy ones just threw up their hands and covered it as "wave of harassment in 2014.") --Aquillion (talk) 06:21, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
"what GamerGate were opposing" what was GG opposing? it was a diffuse, semi-organized thing, (as stated in the lede), and most of the claims that came out of GG were largely dismissed. most of the claims that came out of GG were the coat rack for justifying the central theme of gg - harassment. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 07:16, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
See my comment in the section above. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:13, 16 May 2017 (UTC)
Good edit. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

a batch of edits

I've made some edits. Easy to revert, if needed. Only one section; should be easy to discuss, if needed. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 03:06, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

There is a lot of mention of people's credentials, how necessary is that now? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 06:21, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm about to hack at this paragraph. It is almost entirely redundant.

Ryan Cooper of The Week highlighted an analysis by writer Jon Stone: "[Gamergate] readjusts and reinvents itself in response to attempts to disarm and disperse its noxiousness, subsuming disaffected voices in an act of continual regeneration, cycling through targets, pretexts, manifestoes, and moralisms".[1] Christopher Grant, editor-in-chief of Polygon, said that Gamergate has remained amorphous and leaderless so that the harassment can be conducted without any culpability.[2] Grant said that meant that "ultimately Gamergate will be defined—I think has been defined—by some of its basest elements".[3]

ForbiddenRocky (talk) 16:33, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
proposed edit (not sure about this one)

Ryan Cooper of The Week highlighted an analysis by writer Jon Stone: "[Gamergate] readjusts and reinvents itself in response to attempts to disarm and disperse its noxiousness, subsuming disaffected voices in an act of continual regeneration, cycling through targets, pretexts, manifestoes, and moralisms".[1]

goes to

Jon Stone wrote, "[Gamergate] readjusts and reinvents itself in response to attempts to disarm and disperse its noxiousness, subsuming disaffected voices in an act of continual regeneration, cycling through targets, pretexts, manifestoes, and moralisms".[1]

rationale: Do we need to mention the person referring to an analysis of another person? Is there a better way to deal with reference to a comment problem? (please note, I'm not asking the question if the analysis itself is redundant. Yet.)
ForbiddenRocky (talk) 16:33, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference Ryan Cooper Week was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference OTMGrant was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference columbia journalism review was invoked but never defined (see the help page).

Lead is too long

Per WP:LEADLENGTH, the lead should be at most 4 reasonably sized paragraphs. LK (talk) 14:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I could not agree more. I tried, many moons ago, to curtail the sprawling lead, but I was unsuccessful (to be fair, my efforts were not great). Anyway, perhaps now that the heat seems to have died down a bit, maybe it's time to try again. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 14:23, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
How about: "The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture, stemming from a harassment campaign. Supporters of the Gamergate movement targeted several women in the video game industry. Gamergate has often been defined by the harassment its supporters have committed. Gamergate is often viewed as a right-wing backlash against progressivism. Industry responses to Gamergate have been predominantly negative. Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment." ForbiddenRocky (talk) 17:19, 8 April 2017 (UTC)
I, for one, approve. We could also go with "For sale: Journalistic Ethics manual. Never opened." Dumuzid (talk) 13:11, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Artw (talk) 22:49, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
@Dumuzid, Artw, and Lawrencekhoo: "The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism, stemming from an online harassment campaign which used the #gamergate hashtag. Supporters of the Gamergate movement targeted several people in the video game industry, most notably Zoë Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian. Gamergate has been most defined by the harassment its supporters have committed. Gamergate is often viewed as a right-wing backlash against progressivism. Industry responses to Gamergate have been predominantly negative. Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment." ForbiddenRocky (talk) 21:43, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
MOS:LEAD allows for 4 paragraphs as normal, for an article of this size. I would rather have a longer lead which rambles a bit than a shorter lead which can be accused of oversimplification or something. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
@Kindsindian: what would you suggest adding back? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:49, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
I tend to think something along these lines is probably what's best. While the article has a lot of blow-by-blow detail, I think the general outlines of the thing can be limned fairly easily (as I think ForbiddenRocky has shown). I might suggest that instead of referring to "supporters" we talk about "those using the hashtag" or some such, just to avoid some of the old familiar pitfalls. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 20:03, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

outdent

@Dumuzid, Artw, Lawrencekhoo, and Kingsindian: "The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism, stemming from an online harassment campaign which used the #gamergate hashtag. Gamergate has been most defined by the harassment its supporters have committed. Users of the #gamergate hashtag targeted several people in the video game industry, most notably Zoë Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian. Gamergate is often viewed as a right-wing backlash against progressivism. Industry responses to Gamergate have been predominantly negative. Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment." ForbiddenRocky (talk) 20:36, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

@Dumuzid, Artw, Lawrencekhoo, and Kingsindian: "The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism, stemming from an online harassment campaign which used the #gamergate hashtag. Gamergate has been most defined by this harassment. Users of the #gamergate hashtag targeted several people in the video game industry, most notably Zoë Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian. Gamergate is often viewed as a right-wing backlash against progressivism. Industry responses to Gamergate have been predominantly negative. Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment." ForbiddenRocky (talk) 05:15, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Prettty much a perfect one paragraph encapsulation, and vastly better than what we have now. Artw (talk) 15:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
I have stated my opinion already: the lead should be 4 paragraphs. There's absolutely no need to compress everything into one paragraph. The lead right now is a bit bloated; some of the paragraphs could be merged or some content could be cut. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:41, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
Not particularly seeing the need for more paragraphs - the level the bar for inclusion in the lede is set at here seems about right - I would suggest that any future inclusions be vetted to see that they clear that bar. As for the current lead merely being a bit bloated but otherwise fixable, I would thoroughly disagree: it's an unreadable mess that makes the subject seem unduely complicated, and it needs to go. Artw (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
The lead is supposed to summarize the article. There are six sections in the article, and six paragraphs in the lead. I am not sure what kind of standard for "bar for inclusion" you are setting. For instance, the current lead gives the Gamergate POV "it is about ethics in video game journalism" while simultaneously giving reactions dismissing it as self-serving and a pretence. But the proposed lead does not even mention the point. Similarly, the anonymity, diffuse nature and the use of various platforms (Twitter, Reddit, IRC, 4chan) etc. is not mentioned in the proposed lead. I come back to my original point: why is it necessary to compress the lead so drastically? As for the lead being an unreadable mess: well the article itself is an unreadable mess. Why would the lead be any different? Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 20:59, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
@Kingsindian:
  • re: "the current lead gives the Gamergate POV "it is about ethics in video game journalism" while simultaneously giving reactions dismissing it as self-serving and a pretence" that perhaps could be included in some concise way for the lede, though I don't know how. Perhaps you have an idea? But it seems that it needs way more explanation than appropriate for the lede.
  • re: "the use of various platforms (Twitter, Reddit, IRC, 4chan)" Would noting that various platforms were used address this concern? As the list cannot be comprehensive in the lede, a concise summary is preferred over a partial list.
  • re: "the anonymity, diffuse nature" as they are covered in more depth in the main article - are the anonymity and diffuse nature particularly necessary in the lede? Is that something someone looking at a summary would be interested in? It seems a bit detailed
  • re: "why is it necessary to compress the lead so drastically?" I don't know it's necessary, but it's somewhere to start. What would you add back in particular?
  • re: "Why would the lead be any different?" because it can be better
ForbiddenRocky (talk) 08:16, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
I am saying that it's better to start with the current lead and remove or condense stuff (if required), rather than starting with a brand new, extremely condensed, one paragraph version of what you think the lead should be. The latter is a dead end, in my view; people can differ on that. While we were talking, some random person simply merged a couple of paragraphs to make the lead 4 paragraphs. It was rather funny to me, but one can do a somewhat similar thing, if not exactly the same thing. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 11:58, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Concur with Kingsindian here. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarize the article; the proposed text does not (failing to cover sections 3 & 4 at all). Additionally, it is unclear as to what is meant by Gamergate in the second and later sentences. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 13:01, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Every sentence I started with at first came from the current lede. I've since been making changes per suggestions that can be acted on. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:28, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Per WP:LEDE - "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." - every aspect of the aticle does not require it's own bulletpoint in the lede, which seems to be the current philosophy. I would say that while Gamergate goes off in a lot of directions fast, as the length of the articles and it's talk pages testify, it's actual core is pretty simple and the lede should summarize that concisely. Artw (talk) 17:44, 23 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm sure it will surprise precisely no one that I agree with Artw. While there is a surfeit of detail here, the broad strokes of the narrative (for lack of a better term) are not overly complicated. As Artw notes, we don't have to have a 1:1 correlation between lead and body. Thanks all. Dumuzid (talk) 12:48, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

outdent 2

@Dumuzid, Artw, Lawrencekhoo, Kingsindian, and Ryk72: re: Additionally, it is unclear as to what is meant by Gamergate in the second and later sentences.

"The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism, stemming from an online harassment campaign which used the #gamergate hashtag. The Gamergate controvery has been most defined by this harassment. Users of the #gamergate hashtag targeted several people in the video game industry, most notably Zoë Quinn, Brianna Wu, and Anita Sarkeesian. The Gamergate controversy is often viewed as a right-wing backlash against progressivism. Industry responses to the Gamergate controversy have been predominantly negative. Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment." ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:31, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

(note: I'm going to stop pinging people at this point.) ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:32, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

starting with the original lede

re: "I am saying that it's better to start with the current lead and remove or condense stuff"

The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture, stemming from a harassment campaign conducted primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate. Gamergate is used as a blanket term for the controversy, the harassment campaign and actions of those participating in it, and the loosely organized movement that emerged from the hashtag.

Beginning in August 2014, supporters of the Gamergate movement targeted several women in the video game industry, including game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, as well as feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian. After a former boyfriend of Quinn wrote a lengthy disparaging blog post about her, other people falsely accused her of entering a relationship with a journalist in exchange for positive coverage and threatened her with assault and murder. Those endorsing the blog post and spreading such accusations against Quinn organized themselves under the Twitter hashtag #Gamergate, as well as on Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channels and websites such as Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan. Harassment campaigns against Quinn and others were coordinated through these forums and included doxing, threats of rape, and death threats. Many of those organizing under the Gamergate hashtag argue that they are campaigning against political correctness and poor journalistic ethics in the video game industry, while numerous commentators have dismissed Gamergate's purported concerns with ethics and condemned its misogynistic behavior.

Most Gamergate supporters are anonymous, and the Gamergate movement has no official leaders, spokespeople, or manifesto. Statements claiming to represent Gamergate have been inconsistent and contradictory, making it difficult for commentators to identify goals and motives. As a result, Gamergate has often been defined by the harassment its supporters have committed. Some Gamergate supporters have attempted to dissociate themselves from misogyny and harassment, but their attempts have often been dismissed as insincere and self-serving.

The controversy has been described as a manifestation of a culture war over cultural diversification, artistic recognition, and social criticism in video games, and over the social identity of gamers. Many supporters of Gamergate oppose what they view as the increasing influence of feminism on video game culture. As a result, Gamergate is often viewed as a right-wing backlash against progressivism. Gamergate supporters claimed collusion between the press and feminists, progressives, and social critics. These concerns have been dismissed by commentators as trivial, conspiracy theories, groundless, or unrelated to actual issues of ethics. Such concerns led users of the hashtag to launch email campaigns targeting firms advertising in publications of which they disapproved, asking them to withdraw their advertisements.

Industry responses to Gamergate have been predominantly negative. The Entertainment Software Association and Sony Computer Entertainment have condemned Gamergate harassment. Intel, which temporarily withdrew its advertisements from gaming news site Gamasutra as the result of a Gamergate email campaign, later pledged $300 million to support a "Diversity in Technology" program.

Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment. U.S. Representative Katherine Clark from Massachusetts has campaigned for a stronger government response to online harassment, gaining the support of Congress. Within the industry, organizations such as the Crash Override Network and the Online Abuse Prevention Initiative have been founded to provide support to those facing online harassment.

  1. Some the places where Gamergate is used might better be replaced with Gamergate controversy or "this controversy" or "this harassment campaign".
  2. Of special note: I recommend removing anything that is of the form "<claim X>, but <claim X> is considered otherwise".
I would say pretty much everything struck out should be added back. They are all elaborations of important points. The lead gives little or no indication of the "controversy" in the "Gamergate controversy". It is fine to give the viewpoint of the GG supporters and rip it to shreds, as the current lead does. It is another thing to not mention the viewpoint altogether; the reader then wonders what on Earth the flap was all about. The harassment is the most notable aspect of Gamergate, no question about it; but it is not the only aspect. In the highly condensed lead, the political and cultural issues are not given enough space; nor is the anonymous, diffuse nature of the platforms, activity and supporters.

I don't know how many times I can keep repeating these points; so I'll just stop. People can differ on this point; I've given my own viewpoint. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:43, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I actually somewhat agree with Kingsindian here -- I am fine leaving elaborations to the body, but I think we need an "actually, it's about ethics in game journalism" sentence in the lead somewhere. Perhaps after the sexism/progressivism sentence, something along the lines of "Users of the hashtag commonly claimed to be interested in advancing ethics in video game journalism," or something along those lines? Thanks for the work, FR. Dumuzid (talk) 18:52, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

with add backs

The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture, stemming from a harassment campaign conducted primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate. Gamergate is used as a blanket term for the harassment campaign, the loosely organized movement around the hashtag, and the controversy.

Users of the Gamergate hashtag targeted several women in the video game industry, including game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, as well as feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian. Most Gamergate hashtag user are anonymous, and the loosely organized movement had no official leaders, spokespeople, or manifesto. Statements claiming to represent Gamergate were inconsistent and contradictory, making it difficult for commentators to identify goals and motives. As a result, Gamergate was most defined by the harassment its supporters have committed. Many of those using the Gamergate hashtag argue that they were campaigning against political correctness and poor journalistic ethics in the video game industry, while numerous commentators have dismissed Gamergate's purported concerns with ethics and condemned its misogynistic behavior.

Industry responses to Gamergate have been predominantly negative. Gamergate has led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 19:24, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

The Gamergate controversy concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture, stemming from a harassment campaign conducted primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate. Gamergate is used as a blanket term for the harassment campaign, the loosely organized movement around the hashtag, and the controversy.

Users of the Gamergate hashtag targeted several women in the video game industry, including game developers Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, as well as feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian. Most Gamergate hashtag user are anonymous, and the loosely organized movement had no official leaders, spokespeople, or manifesto. Statements claiming to represent Gamergate were inconsistent and contradictory, making it difficult for commentators to identify goals and motives. As a result, Gamergate was most defined by the harassment its supporters have committed. Many using the Gamergate hashtag argued that they were campaigning against political correctness and poor journalistic ethics in the video game industry, while numerous commentators dismissed Gamergate's purported concerns with ethics and condemned its misogynistic behavior.

Industry responses to Gamergate was predominantly negative. Gamergate led figures both inside and outside the industry to focus on better methods of tackling online harassment.

q: should more be added back? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 16:47, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

The paragraph about politics and culture in the lead isn't described adequately. Namely the paragraph: "The controversy has been described ... withdraw their advertisements". The "gamer" identity, cultural diversification in video games, feminism, right-wing, progressivism, social criticism of games etc.; these are all important aspects of the phenomenon. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:54, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
I think that's covered by the summary in the first sentence. Those are important details better left for the main article. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 16:59, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
Make an "edit" to my proposal. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 17:00, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
There are many problems with the proposal. To put some distance between the topic, let's conduct an experiment. Look at the lead for some other, roughly similar phenomena and see what they say. I'll take three: First Intifada, Black Lives Matter and Tea Party Movement. I note the following things: (a) general idea, basic overview (b) Triggering event: (traffic accident in refugee camp in the case of First Intifada; acquittal of the shooter of Trayvon Martin, shooting of Michael Brown and Eric Garner in the case of BLM; protests against aid to bankrupt homeowners in the case of Tea Party). (c) what ideologies, principles etc. were involved, what sort of activities happened, any major players etc. (d) Criticisms, reception, praise etc. (e) Lasting impact, follow ups, influence on other events etc. The order of things can be moved around to make the lead relatively concise and coherent, but all those things should be given enough space in the lead.

The proposed lead is deficient in these respects:

(a) The trigger Zoepost is not mentioned or even alluded to. (b) Ideologies, principles etc. are given very little space. (c) Lasting impact is also given little space. I saw tons of news stories in 2016 connecting all kinds of things to Gamergate: Alt-right, misogyny, technology, Trump, feminism, online harassment, white supremacy, Berniebros etc. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:40, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
For my money, the nebulous and atomized nature of this "movement" make analogies not particularly useful, but I am sure others' opinions will differ. I think the proposed lead is pretty good, and am, as ever, all for leaving detail to the body of the article. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 18:54, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
For my money, the nebulous and atomized nature of this "movement" is overblown, and is no different from the nebulous and atomized nature of all (hashtag activism) movements. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 22:11, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
1) The Zoe Post is covered in detail in the main article (and it is a sub part of the harassment of Zoe Quinn, and she is mentioned in the lede). 2) First Intifada, Black Live Matter, and TPM were not primarily harassment campaigns. 3) the ideologies and ethical concerns are mentioned in the lede (argue that they were campaigning against political correctness and poor journalistic ethics), and in detail debunked in the article. 4) Reception: is in the last section (predominantly negative). 5) lasting impacts also mentioned (dealing with harassment) 6) most of the 2016 stuff hasn't been added to the main article (therefore would not summarize the article if included in the lede). ForbiddenRocky (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
The ideologies and ethical concerns are ... in detail debunked in the article. is a bug, not a feature. We should not be debunking anything ourselves; we should be documenting what reliable sources have said. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 22:11, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Would agree with Dumuzid and ForbiddenRocky on all points. Artw (talk) 21:01, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
I think Kingsindian's comments have been addressed. Unless there are any more substantive issues to address, I'm going to make this live at some point. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:44, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't think my comments have been addressed; but that's irrelevant, since I'm only one person and can be overruled if appropriate. All the people who are in favour of the current proposal were in favour of the original one paragraph proposal as well. The lead is the major part of the article, so I would prefer an RfC to get a broad consensus, instead of relying on a few people who watch this talkpage. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 21:10, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Agree that the concerns raised by both Kingsindian and (to a far lesser extent) I have not been substantively addressed. I have broader concerns, about both the proposal and the existing lead section; but am currently time poor to articulate these. A short version covering some concerns, however, is: Core issue that the proposal does not cover substantial sections of the article must be resolved. Several sentences in both proposal and current say nothing, and appear to be included only as well pissing. Information is unsourced, and not tied to sourced content in the body; or sourced to opinion tier sources, but included as fact. The "Gamergate movement", which is in a majority of sources which cover the controversy comprehensively, is downplayed. The "harassment campaign" (organised harassment as opposed to generalised harassment) which is in a minority of sources is overplayed. The lead fails to mention both TZP and (more importantly?) the "Death of Gamers" articles. The language used fails to satisfy WP:NPOV. And fundamentally, we fail to say what the "controversy" (prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion) was about; but to do so we'd need to clearly & fairly state what the stated aims of the Gamergate movement were, so... - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:41, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
Make specific edit proposals. 1) "Information is unsourced" I don't know how many times this has been covered, but sourcing is not necessary for the lede. 2) "Gamergate movement" is specifically mentioned in the lede. 3) "harassment campaign" is actually in very many sources, and that harassment was the big thing was the one of the resulting comments from the last RFC. 4) "fail to say what the "controversy" (prolonged public disagreement or heated discussion) was about" that's what the main article is for; the lede is summary. 5) "The language used fails to satisfy WP:NPOV" This again? 6) ForbiddenRocky (talk) 08:44, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
The specific answers: 1). I don't know how many times this has been covered, but per WP:V All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. and WP:LEADCITE The lead must conform to verifiability, biographies of living persons, and other policies. ... information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. That's not even remotely equivocal. We don't get to include unverified information in the lead; we don't get to include original research in the lead. 2). "Downplayed" is not "Omitted". 3). Which RfC? "Harassment" is not "Harassment campaign", "Big" is not "Only". And, to be fair, WP:AGF has long since moved past accepting unsupported assertions of what's in very many sources at face value. It's going to need to be demonstrated. 4). What? Seriously? We should have an article on a thing and fail to explain what that thing is in the lead section? Hrm... No. 5). This always; because WP:5P. Unless someone wants to run an RfC to change WP:NPOV to remove WP:IMPARTIAL it's still going to be a core policy, and it's still going to need to be followed. 6). ?
If I were to make a specific proposal, it would be that we draft something along the lines outlined above by Kingsindian from their inspection of First Intifada, BLM & Tea Party Movement and see who salutes; I would also suggest that they and perhaps Koncorde might be best placed to build such a draft. I am happy to assist.
Apart from that, editors are well within their rights to reject the proposed lead change outright and to refuse to engage with it further. To speak plainly, it is all bathwater and not much baby. RfC or BUST. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:16, 5 May 2017 (UTC) On reflection, that's perhaps a little uncharitable; the removal of the specific examples in the last two paragraphs is all baby; suggest also collapsing those into a single sentence. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:56, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
I do realise that the assertions that "information is unsourced" and "language used fails to satisfy WP:NPOV" are going to need to be more clearly articulated. Examples of unsourced information include: conducted primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag #GamerGate (is there any reliable source which actually says this? really?). Examples of POV phrasing include: Many using the Gamergate hashtag argued that they were campaigning against political correctness and poor journalistic ethics in the video game industry, while numerous commentators dismissed Gamergate's purported concerns with ethics and condemned its misogynistic behavior. (has a screaming case of WP:WEASEL & WP:HOWEVER; fails to mention that numerous commentators did not dismiss the Gamergate movement's concerns - including many commentators that we cite in the article, and many that we've specifically chosen not to cite). Examples of non-statements include: concerns issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture (what does that actually mean?); Most Gamergate hashtag user are anonymous, and the loosely organized movement had no official leaders, spokespeople, or manifesto. (true of all hashtag activism - from #StopKony2012 to #OscarsSoWhite - welcome to the internet)... - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 07:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the nod. The article is too big, too bulky, and too full of its own self importance to report what is actually notable vs a laundry list of tawdry tabloid information. The lede has long reflected that. I still say that the article is self-evidently called the "Gamergate controversy" which means it is not actually about Gamergate; so means everything from that point forwards is all set to be a hot mess of an unencyclopedic trot through the annals of the internet-way-back machine. Unfortunately my "suggested" article would involve culling close to 50% of the death-by-quote content that has been introduced to prop up the narrative style. I have to accept some blame for that because such minor inclusions previously of readily verifiable statements by reliable sources were so often challenged and removed by obviously biased editors trying to malign Quinn.
I have periodically suggested the article gets on an encyclopedic footing (rather than reading like a more heavily cited version of RationalWiki) but each time it has been bogged down after a few comments into specifics of language rather than the general idea that the article itself is a horror-story and needs a whole-sale revision. Koncorde (talk) 22:15, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
...the article itself is a horror-story and needs a whole-sale revision. That's as fair a summary as I've seen. Nor can I disagree with the death-by-quote assessment; though perhaps the percentage estimate is charitable. Looking through the article, I find a number of statements which are not directly verified by the sources used as references (a long standing issue, specifically mentioned in the WP:ARBGG arbitration); and also a number of "pull quotes" which do not reflect the whole of the source (see WP:CHERRYPICK). Suggest that removing the former and identifying the latter might be a worthwhile first pass. Thoughts? - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 07:19, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Recent changes

Several changes made to the lead in the past few days. Here's a diff showing all of them. I think many of them are constructive, though I would disagree with at least a few of them, especially the ones in the second paragraph. One can't really talk about Gamergate without talking about Twitter, 4chan or Reddit. Also the "it's all about ethics in game journalism" part (together with the dismissal) has been removed, which also doesn't make sense. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

They look pretty damn good to me. PeterTheFourth (talk) 10:32, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
I have kept most of the changes intact, but mentioned the role of 4chan, reddit and Twitter. The article is filled with references to 4chan. Trying to discuss Gamergate without 4chan is unimaginable. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:31, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I mostly think that naming specific platforms will not be a meaningful to many people trying to read a summary. 4chan and reddit may be known to us, but I'm not convinced it will signify to those coming to learn about GG. And saying Twitter uses hash tags or has harassment is like saying water is wet. I don't think the inclusion is illuminating or helpful in a summary. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 08:42, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
The names are described as "platforms or protocols" (we could drop the latter at the cost of some precision; I added it because IRC is just a protocol, not a platform per se). They are also described as anonymous and pseudonymous, and the sentence states that they were used for organizing. Only then are the platforms named. A person who has no knowledge of 4chan or reddit can still understand the purpose of the sentence, and if they o, will get some much needed information about the platforms used. As I said, 4chan, Twitter or reddit are inseparable from Gamergate; it does not make sense to talk about the latter without the former. I have rephrased the beginning of the paragraph to make it clearer. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:08, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
I generally think that Bilby's point in the section below about "what Gamergate is about" is correct. I had earlier raised the same point in my comments on the reorganization of the lead. For now, I have moved the "ethics in game journalism" part, together with its dismissal, to the second paragraph of the lead (where it originally was). One has to give the reader an idea about what Gamergate claimed to be acting against. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 09:10, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

is that the third rail i see? (aka: Gjoni's post)

So one of the last things I think needs trimming is the long blurb in the lede about Gjoni's post. I think it's too detailed, but I think perhaps some mention of it is appropriate. Thoughts? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 01:31, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

"entering a relationship with a journalist in exchange for positive coverage" -> "entering an unethical relationship with a journalist"? (not satisfying, but better?) ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:59, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Also, why "a former boyfriend of Quinn" instead of "Eron Gjoni, Quinn's former boyfriend"? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 23:36, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Anything else to trim?

I think I've made as many edits as consensus will bear. Anything else? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 17:50, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

batch of edits to "Debate over journalism ethics allegations"

Still more work to be done, but main thing was to put harassment in a more prominent place at the start of the section. Removed some needless details and redundant bits. Needs more pruning. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 16:57, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

FYI, if my edits seem a little peculiar, I'm reading the entry sentence by sentence backwards part of the time. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 23:18, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Gross misreprentation

Thread started by a sock and going nowhere. Reminder: Discretionary sanctions can also be applied to editors not meeting expected standards of behavior --NeilN talk to me 15:43, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Gross misrepresentation appears throughout the article. The Gamergate controversy is about ethics in journalism concerning gaming AND about the opposition to the politicization of gaming, to which the majority happens to be done by the feminists. The alleged harassment of these feminists (I am personally against harassment) and feminism in the Gamergate controversy is less notable than aforementioned and is a subtopic of the Gamergate controversy, not the entire topic, however the article is written as if it is the entire topic. The undue wight in this article needs to be fixed. --I'm on day 4 (talk) 19:22, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Even though I principally agree with the idea that "gamergate" is more than the controversy this article is named after, the assembled masses are preeeeetty much 100% obsessed with harassing, haranguing and generally being vile to anyone expressing an opinion that they don't agree with, and this is reflected in all reliable sources. If you have any reliable sources to the contrary, please provide them. Thank you. Koncorde (talk) 19:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Not sure if you've already read it, but you might find this section above to be worth a read, since it discusses this exact thing. As for the rest of your points, you'll need some reliable sources that support how you think the article should be reframed. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:04, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
"Alleged" harassment suggests doubt. There is no question among reliable sources that harassment has occurred, and casting doubt on it like that suggests a lack of familiarity with sources. Wikipedia reflects reliable sources and doesn't validate fringe ideas. Grayfell (talk) 20:19, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Read through the talk page archives. To be blunt, this will not gain any traction given the history of this page. EvergreenFir (talk) 20:56, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Just give it up already. Taking up the fight for neutrality in an article this politicized is futile and a waste of energy, imo. You have staunch third wave feminists and social justice warriors on one side and edgy gamers on the other. And Wikipedia, even though built on a concept of neutrality, is in itself a mainly liberal and leftist community which often tends to lean towards one side rather than the other. Gamergate is one example, where certain elements gets overwhelmingly space and volume in articles while attempts from neutral "outsiders" often gets shot down. Beatitudinem (talk) 22:17, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

<pat on head> Run along now, little Gamergater. Run along. --Jorm (talk) 22:18, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
I don't consider me part of either, but nice try though. Beatitudinem (talk) 23:31, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
No one uses the phrase "Social Justice Warriors" except GamergateBros, so. Have fun with the "I'm not any side" schlock as no one believes that.--Jorm (talk) 23:58, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
The entire Internet uses that phrase, not just people concerned with the Gamergate case. The toxicity of SJWs are just as relevant to harassment as anyone else. Beatitudinem (talk) 00:06, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
With all due respect, that's a fine stance to take. But if you'd like to incorporate it in to this article, we would need a reliable source saying as much. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 00:48, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Are we here to improve articles for readers or to argue about personal views? Comment on the content, not the contributor. When Wikipedia itself is participating in a social issue (which is now a shadow of its former self), don't be surprised people consider this article to be biased. (I'm sure this comment won't be popular here.) feminist 13:58, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I see the troupe is trying to get back together. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 14:57, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Where an honest, fair and balanced account of Gamergate is to be found, it is not here. The fact that the three "Related Articles" at the bottom of the mobile version of the article all lead to the three people who have arguably benefitted the most from Gamergate, either fiscally or through other means, speaks volumes - and two of them had no part in the controversy until they deliberately inserted themselves into it. In short, I tell anyone who is curious as to what Gamergate actually is to avoid this article at all costs. CynicalNurse (talk) 06:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

You have a very odd definition of "benefited" and "deliberately inserted themselves into it", and not one that I'm inclined to share. However, those articles are clearly related to GamerGate, so it doesn't seem like a bad call to have them identified. - Bilby (talk) 07:21, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

No, I think that my definition fits perfectly well, considering how vocal all three have been in promoting the harassment they have allegedly received and attributed to Gamergate as well as the fiscal results of doing so, and the subsequent opportunities they have been afforded since. But the point remains that when someone asks me what Gamergate is, I tell them that if they want a fair and balanced article, this is not it, and very likely never will be. CynicalNurse (talk) 10:16, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

That's not all Wikipedia's fault. If there's another truth about Gamergate, it needs to be published somewhere WP:RS. If you are right, you and others who agree with you should concentrate on getting it published, then worry about transferring the important parts of it to this article. Chrisrus (talk) 13:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
Right. Wikipedia is fundamentally bound by the available sources. Instead of complaining about the foundation of the project, do the legwork and research to come up with more sources to provide a more complete picture of the article subject, if it exists. —Torchiest talkedits 15:29, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
I remind that moving discussions not about editing GGC to the meta page was an Arbitration Enforcement -- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 15:47, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Point of Order

On what grounds was this talk page section collapsed? Chrisrus (talk) 06:10, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Your reasons --NeilN talk to me 06:22, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
Here you seem to be saying it was closed on the grounds that:
1) It features editors "sniping at each other."
2) It features "edit warring".
3) The edit warring is over a perceived BLP violation.
4) This article is "covered by discretionary sanctions".
Is that in fact what you are saying? Chrisrus (talk) 03:25, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Chrisrus, with all due respect, this is exactly the sort of conversation which caused the creation of the meta talk page, and I personally believe the conversation is best carried on there. Also, in resurrecting this here, you have left out NeilN's reply to you. Thank you (and should this go back to meta, anyone should feel free to erase this comment as no longer operative). Dumuzid (talk) 11:46, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

"Wider Effects" -> "Reducing online harassment"

I already changed the section from "reception" to "effects", but looking at the section,

  1. some parts need to go to other articles
  2. some parts need to be move earlier in the article and integrated into lede better
  3. Looking to 2017 back at 2014 it's clear the reception/effects were efforts to reduce online harrassment the proposal to rename the section
    1. Also, we should put anything that shows a change in gaming journalism or general journalism ethics that can be ascribed to GG here.

-- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 23:30, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

I split into the two sections instead of renaming. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:07, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Sad Puppies section reduction

I trimmed that heavily. Most of the information is at the Hugo Award entry. I left the bits most germane to GGC. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:19, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, bravo! Dumuzid (talk) 18:21, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Can we remove all the text referencing the sources?

Examples:

  • what The New Yorker characterized
  • in The New York Times
  • Ars Technica and The Daily Dot reported
  • The Los Angeles Times, Wired, The Atlantic, and other reports described
  • reported in The New Yorker
  • Wingfield of The New York Times referred
  • In an interview with BBC Three,

and on and on and on and on We have citations, we don't have to mention them all the time do we? -- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:12, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

While such explicit sourcing can be called for when it comes to contentious claims, I think in general the article is better off without this sort of hedging. I'll note for the record that I am well aware there are at least a few who would disagree with me! Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 18:20, 11 June 2017 (UTC)
They were only introduced because of persistent edit warring over rival claims (there were none actually, it was just obstructionism at each step of including factual statements). I.e. "you can't say that, it's someone's opinion and opinion is not fact!!!". Any culling is good. Koncorde (talk) 18:33, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

next?

Since the lede is at least organized in a way that seems satisfactory for a few days (days... snort), I was thinking of at least moving the sections of the main article around to echo the organization of the lede. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 15:25, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there necessarily has to be a slavish link between the two but it makes logical sense to move towards this particular order. Artw (talk) 03:27, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
I was taking the order of the lede as hint as to what people think should be mentioned first. There's a logic to the lede that makes it make more sense. I was thinking that logic could be applied to the main article. Not that the lede should structure the article, per se. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 03:46, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
Yup. Was agreeing. Sorry if unclear. Artw (talk) 12:54, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

So, I'm thinking of swapping sections 2 and 4. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 04:34, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I swapped sections 2 and 4. Can some check that I didn't mess the move up? ForbiddenRocky (talk) 18:09, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Looking over it, I think the activities section could stand to be seriously cut down in size; most of the things in the 'efforts to impact public perceptions' section look extremely trivial from a viewpoint here in 2017 looking back, and even many of the minutiae of the "targeting advertisers" section could be seriously condensed. In many cases, we devote entire paragraphs to things that are only given a passing mention in even the contemporary sources we use, and these are things that have only faded as time went on. An entire paragraph for Tim Schafer, say? An entire paragraph for Biddle specifically, and a second one - with only one source, aside from the ones for the term "Sealion" - for using adblockers? Putting aside the harassment covered in the previous section, the only activity that seems to have attracted any long-term coverage (ie. the only one I think is really worth more than a sentence or so at most) is the targeting of advertisers. I would suggest rewriting the section to focus on that, and trimming or omitting everything else. We also repeat a lot of the back-and-forth over and over ("they did X because they said felt Y, but Z said it was actually...", lather, rinse, repeat), which bloats the section far beyond what it needs to be given that all of that has its own sections further down. This section should mostly focus on "they targeted advertisers" and leave the reasons or cultural debates for the next two sections. (Both of which could probably also stand to be somewhat trimmed in retrospect, but one thing at a time.) -Aquillion (talk) 22:54, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
I agree trimming needs to be done. But as you say one thing at a time. The simply reorganization is very low hanging fruit. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 23:00, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's obvious that some parts of that section would be very contentious to remove, but I think the paragraphs on Schafer, Biddle, and adblockers can be safely removed at this point. Aaand... as I typed that, I realized that I can just be WP:BOLD, remove them, and see if anyone objects. Possibly some sources on the latter two could be salvaged and used for a more general composite section about going after advertisers, but I think we'd be better off using the first paragraph of that section as the basis for that anyway, since it's already written to be more broad. The only thing that made me pause for a moment was that this leaves no mention of 'sealion' anywhere on the page, but... again, trivia. Now that things have settled down and we have retrospectives to work with, we ought to aim towards turning the article into more of a useful overview of the topic and less of a blow-by-blow. --Aquillion (talk) 00:16, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I have some suspicions that 'sealions' and 'vivian james' need some mention. I think anyone researching GG would run across these thing and would want an explanation. I'm not sure where though. Or how. Most of the stuff you deleted is trivial in the scope of things. Some of the stuff are examples reiterating what GG did (examples that feel like beating a dead horse). ForbiddenRocky (talk) 06:07, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

merge tfyc?

Would it be time to merge in the The Fine Young Capitalists article? It's obviously got insufficient notability to stand as an article on its own. Artw (talk) 14:04, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
That sounds good to me- the group was only active for a few months of the controversy and hasn't done anything in over 2 years, I'd support merging it in here. PeterTheFourth (talk) 19:15, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
Sound right to me. Wish us luck. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2017 (UTC)
All I know is that the band deserved better. Dumuzid (talk) 19:54, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Disagree. That article has dozens of sources, plenty of which pass our WP:RS requirements. —Torchiest talkedits 23:06, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Well... after reviewing it, it had some sources that passed WP:RS. But man that is an article with terrible sourcing overall. And simple mentions in sources aren't necessarily enough to require (or support) an independent article, especially for people who (as clearly seems to be the case here) are notable only for one event. --Aquillion (talk) 01:18, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
TFYC article has problems around WP:BLP1E ForbiddenRocky (talk) 19:55, 6 June 2017 (UTC)
TFYC is current underoing WP:GAR. Should let this finish. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 19:07, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Add references or delete/rewrite parts of intro section, update old reference

The intro section is unsourced and includes multiple blanket statements that should be sourced.

Although there are some sections that later expand on these statements and references them, I think it would be easier to follow the point and view these sources if the intro section was referenced as well, or these parts should be rewritten or deleted. From what I've read not all of these statements have been addressed properly and referenced later in the article either.

Example: "Some Gamergate supporters attempted to dissociate themselves from misogyny and harassment, but their attempts have often been dismissed as insincere and self-serving."

I'm not sure where this statement comes from, but it's weasel-wordy and hasn't been referenced. There is a section that goes "Many have denied that the harassment came from Gamergate...", but "their attempts have often been dismissed as insincere and self-serving" seems unreferenced and perhaps overly opinionated.


Also, reference 158's link to the study's essential facts release results in a 404, both the live version and through the wayback machine. This should be updated to show the 2014 study. Jchen57 (talk) 01:47, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

@Jchen57:, please read the FAQ at the top of the GGC talk page. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 01:51, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
@ForbiddenRocky:, I've read the "why is there no citations in the lede" section as well as WP:LEDECITE. Does this not count as "Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations"? Currently it is near impossible to follow some of these statements into the expanded points later in the article. Furthermore, please refer to my example. There's some statements that haven't been expanded and referenced properly later in the article either. Jchen57 (talk) 02:10, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
  • ledecite also says: "The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus." & "The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article."
  • At current count there 239 references. I am not opposed to a few references in the lede, but if too many get added in, it will get crazy. The edit warring in the past (which may indeed be past) made references in the lede unmanageable. Make a proposal for adding some references in, you have 239 to choose from.
  • Also, there is current work to fix some of the glaring defects of the GGC entry. The lede and the body may be out of sync. ForbiddenRocky (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Hmm. The sentence in question essentially has to summarize the "Coordination of harassment" and "Harassment, not Journalism Ethics" sections. I sort-of agree that it's not doing a great job at that. In particular, the sentence it seems to be primarily based on is, from the Coordination section, "Many have denied that the harassment came from Gamergate, or falsely accused victims of fabricating the evidence"; and its first cite - Heron, Belford and Goker - actually says the exact opposite: "Rather than distancing themselves from harassment, slander and bullying it is common for advocates of the Gamergate agenda to claim that the harassment doesn’t exist, or that the victims themselves are responsible for leaked information and hacks." The other cite is similar (only talking about them denying that Sarkeesian was threatened, or saying that she manufactured it herself.) I'll try a quick rewording, although if people have objections we might need to spend some time hashing something out. --Aquillion (talk) 03:13, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Wider effects - a to do

Since I can predict something will happen to this section, and I'm the one who created this orphan, my thoughts:

  • When I split it off, I didn't notice that there was only the orphan topic left.
  • It really needs to be merged into something else, the section it was previously a part of was clearly about mitigating online harassment.
  • Or it needs more examples of representation in non-gaming media. Or gaming representation needs to be pulled out and added to this section with a rename.

-- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 17:45, 13 June 2017 (UTC)

Torill Elvira Mortensen - Anger, Fear, and Games: The Long Event of #GamerGate

This is one of the academic articles currently underutilized on Wikipedia.[4] It's not open-access, but I'm sure savvy Googlers can find a copy. Although I would certainly not suggest that by itself it should define the agenda, I would say it is in the top decile of available sources. It could certainly better speak to aspects of the topic for which we're still citing a slew of hot takes from 2014.

To streamline its integration into the article, I have gone ahead and summarized the entirely of the article into wikivoice in bite-size chunks, annotated with the precise source text that supports each claim.

User:Rhoark/sandbox/MortensenAnger

Why go to such a length? Not to prepare specific text for inclusion, but to permit the community to inspect and validate my assertions about what concerns are more or less prominent in the literature. Certain points of fact I have sought to give more attention in our article have been met with suspicion that I have cherrypicked claims favorable to my interests while disregarding some larger thrust of emphasis elsewhere. It's my hope that seeing the source transformed entirely to wikivoice will facilitate the kind of close reading that has so far been absent from these criticisms.

Please review what I have done and raise any concerns you may have about whether my summary of any claim faithfully represents the source's intent. Doing this with just the one source would be of limited utility, but there are 2-5 other academic papers I have earmarked for similar treatment. With more texts dissected in similar fashion, more can be said about the quantitative weighting that different topics are given across the corpus.

Rhoark (talk) 04:11, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

  1. Many good things that are already mentioned in the GGC article. Some stuff that should be added.
  2. A lot of editorializing not supported by cited text.
  3. Not enough context info about people like TotalBiscuit or Milo; context without which the significance of what they said, and the effect of the fact they said is lost
  4. Chess and Shaw? What is written leaves the reader clueless as to why they are mentioned.
  5. There are too many references to fringe positions (e.g. Christina Hoff Summers).
  6. Overly focused on detailed claims of GG victimhood. Lacks commensurate coverage about the harassment of the victims of GG.
  7. Opinions stated as fact. E.g. "they belong to a persecuted subculture"
  8. Belaboring things not related to the center GGC issues. E.g. "The diversity of opinions on the topic confirms that game players are not a single demography."
  9. (con't)
-- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 05:24, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
I may not be clear enough that the aim is to render the entire source, with it's choice of order and emphasis, in wiki-ready text. If you see a mismatch between source text and my summary on a sentence level, that's what I want to hear about. As far as whether it gives too much attention to various things, your quarrel is with Ms. Mortensen. Rhoark (talk) 12:52, 15 June 2017 (UTC)
One should own one's editorial choices. -- ForbiddenRocky (talk) 04:18, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
As near as possible, the only conscious editorial choices were to be more concise than the original and to omit tangential claims about football hooligans. If you see "editorializing not supported by cited text" the specifics of that would be valuable. Rhoark (talk) 13:02, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
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