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RfC: Should Gjoni's side of the story be reported?

(Closure requested at AN) There is no consensus in this RfC, perhaps also because, as has been noted, the question posed in the RfC wasn't very clear.  Sandstein  20:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should Eron Gjoni's side of the story be reported?

I tried to add Eron Gjoni's side of the story in edit 734887712, but it was quickly reverted by frequents editors of this article citing "need for concensus," which seems to be abuse of the concept of concensus. Concensus is noted to be needed for bold edits. I'm adding Gjoni's side of the story in a tiny manner. There is no controversy in that. Not noting his side of the story would infringe upon WP:BLP. Mr. Magoo (talk) 11:22, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

  • Not through unreliable sources and original research, and not in a way that gives it undue prominence. I am the very first to say I could be wrong about things, and that goes doubly here. But one of the main sources used in the edit is Heatstreet, which I personally don't think is an RS at this point (though reasonable minds may differ). There was also an original research note in the edit, and the whole thing strikes me as very possibly undue attention. If abusing consensus means "you should get people to agree," then I guess I am pro-consensus abuse. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 12:23, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
    • If you want the "original research" note removed, remove that 5% bit and not 100% of the edit. It's also not the matter at hand here, but only Gjoni, so you should strikethrough that bit of your post. Additionally, we are quoting countless self-titled "blog portals," "blog posts" and "opinion posts" in the article. Isn't this just hypocrisy? What is the difference them and an interview done by a notable journalist for a notable a news website run by News Corp? Mr. Magoo (talk) 12:31, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Not really a well formed WP:RfC. Normally there is the expectation to at least discuss the issue first. Going from a revert straight to an RfC seems unnecessary. — Strongjam (talk) 12:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
    • I considered the option of talking with the continent of editors scrubbing this article of Gjoni's side of the story, but found it a pointless errand especially because they only offered the argument of lack of concensus over an edit that is pretty much along the core Wikipedia principle of offering a neutral point of view and both sides of the story, most importantly of living people. The editors who should decide over this should be people who haven't edited this article before. Mr. Magoo (talk) 12:50, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
I think you should have done a tad more than consider discussing your changes. They weren't just adding Gjoni's quote from Heatstreet - you also added additional claims along with other edits. It was a big change, and while it is good to be bold, the BRD cycle requires discussion as part of the process. In addition, you've never discussed this article before or engaged with any of the editors here, and you stated that you don't understand the subject. A bit of discussion before deciding that no one would be willing to try and find consensus would have been a better path.
With that said, yes, I think it is worth mentioning Gjoni's side. Out of all the changes you made, what one are you proposing that this RfC consider? - Bilby (talk) 13:34, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I am thankful that you consider Gjoni's side of the story worth mentioning. I apologize for the last note mentioned earlier as well as original research and not concerning Gjoni; I should have separated it into a different edit. But RfC is the clearest tool for concensus in my opinion. In the past I have been in numerous similar situations and arguing it endlessly has even garnered me a warning for talking too much at the talk page. I am currently avoiding too much at talk pages. I'm also not a native speaker so I apologize for any qualms I have with dialogue in English. I suggest having the statements from Gjoni to avoid BLP violation and behaving in good faith towards living people. I get really riled people when people are not given a chance to say their side of the story. Mr. Magoo (talk) 14:06, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Gjoni's "side of the story" has been reported. If the question is should this be documented in the article?, then, if the article contains other opinions on Gjoni & his actions (and it does), the answer is clearly Yes. I note that the reversion discussed above also included concerns about WP:RS and WP:OR. The HeatStreet interview which formed the primary source basis for the original edit was written by a notable journalist in a publication owned by a reputable organisation. Reliability is also contextual (the operative question is "Does this source verify the content for which it is a reference?"); given that if the information included is firmly fixed in a context of attributed statements, not "fact", reliability hinges on whether we believe that the journalist or the publisher would have misrepresented the interview subject's statements. Given the reputations of the journalist & publisher, I do not consider that such is a sustainable position to take in this instance. If possible, I would like to better understand Bilby'sDumuzid's concerns about WP:OR. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 13:51, 17 August 2016 (UTC) amended Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:26, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
I would also, however, be comfortable with excluding the information (as an editorial decision; per Koncorde), provided that we also exclude the opinion based content on Gjoni. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:26, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
(EC) OR was not a concern I raised. My guess is that it was a reference to other changes, rather than the direct quote from Gjoni. (It looks Strongjam has a better understanding of it than I). My major concern with that quote is that it seems doubtful on the face of it, and I'd like to see if there is a response. While it is true that it is from Gjoni, it seems to be an odd claim to make, and an odd one to choose as his defence. - Bilby (talk) 14:01, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I am thankful to you as well for considering Gjonis's side of the story worth mentioning. Though what of Gjoni's side has already been given? It's just seems like the Washington Post piece is a rumor or an opinion, I'm not sure which is the correct term here. Usually BLP advices against something like that. That's why I added the bit afterwards which says Gjoni states he didn't intend anything like that. The other earlier citation also had a statement like that from Gjoni, but it hadn't been included in the article. If you take a look, I added it at the end of a paragraph. Mr. Magoo (talk) 14:06, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Are we honestly discussing adding more personal opinions to this article? It's bad enough with the crap already in it that needs culling without adding more. A couple of the adds are fine in wider context, but overall there's a raft of crap in there to start with that adding a third voice to does not help clarify (particularly barely relevant counter claims about "specifically put it in places that had a high opinion of Zoe to avoid harassment"). This wiki article needs melting. Koncorde (talk) 14:08, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
    • I apologize for the unrelated-to-Gjoni template with the "reason=" being original research, at the end of the big edit. I really should have separated it into a separate edit. There is also another earlier citation of the Gjoni statement on his intention but the Gjoni statement part wasn't included before. If you take a look I included it at the end of a paragraph. Mr. Magoo (talk) 14:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
    • (edit conflict) I would also be comfortable with excluding both the "specifically put in places ..." and the claim attributed to Zachary Jason. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 14:18, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Additional Comment I would like to note that quote is not the only place from the new interview Gjoni says his intention wasn't like WP writes it. I picked that one quote because I had a harder time summarizing the large amount of dialog. Mr. Magoo (talk) 14:21, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I agree that the jump from BRD to RfC was premature. There is a whole pack of issues here. First of all, the reliability of Heatst. Some people say totally unreliable, but I'd say less of a problem in being unreliable for facts as much as a problem in bias and cherrypicking the facts or exaggerating their importance. It's in similar company as Breitbart or Jezebel. Basically, if its being used without some better source to counter or contextualize it, its probably giving some kind of undue weight. Cathy Young is professional and as I'd expect there's nothing way out of line here, but it does basically give the mic to Gjoni. It would be valid to use it to present Gjoni's side of the story, but it would have to be presented alongside the RS narratives that say the opposite. Not everyone accepts his explanations. It would basically be an entire paragraph of claim, counter-claim, and counter-counter claim. In my draft I sidestepped it by just not saying anything about Gjoni that was derogatory that he would need to be given right-of-reply. Rhoark (talk) 14:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
    • And some say nothing questionable about their reliability. It's especially so because this is indeed a case of an interview where most of the content is Gjoni's own words and his own side of the story. The interviewer posits the kind of accusation the WP article among many has, and the interviewer, Young, talks about "beliefs" and "perception" of Gjoni's motive and behavior and Gjoni responds to those perceptions and beliefs. The term you used, the narrative, stating the opposite is already sitting there and I thought it seemed like a BLP violation to have an accusation like that and no chance given to respond. Latter especially turns my gears the wrong way. Mr. Magoo (talk) 14:55, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
  • As always, we should follow the reliable sources. If reliable sources decide that his side is important, they'll cover it. But it's undue to give any weight to a softball interview on a clickbait site. Woodroar (talk) 00:23, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Commment: The RfC is weird and improperly phrased. The header is not neutral, nor is it asking a clear question. It's also weird to simply jump into an RfC without any previous talk page discussion. More generally, Gjoni's explanation of his viewpoint is obviously relevant and there are no WP:RS concerns. I had earlier removed one of Zachary Jason's characterizations of Gjoni's intent but someone added another portion during copyediting. It should be removed: it is simply an opinion by a reporter about his intent and is not at all typical for sources. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 05:02, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
    • I'm sorry, but as explained below: the reverts were done somewhat "illegally" (not sure if this is the right term), just explaining the need for concensus, so the only option I had left was an RfC to get more eyeballs to look at the matter. The RfC category of Wikipedia policies was especially helpful. And I don't think there's anything improperly phrased about the initial question, the header, because this is the exact matter at hand: should his side of the story be presented. Currently it's not like explained. You could say the following paragraph should be in a following post and not part of the original post. I think that was my original intent but I forgot about that procedure which I have done successfully before as well. Mr. Magoo (talk) 12:00, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
No, it wasn't your only option. You could have just discussed your edits on the talk page. - Bilby (talk) 12:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
It was a poor option, but let's not pretend that it was your only option. Or, indeed, even the best one. - Bilby (talk) 13:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
  • But you yourself stated that concensus is needed and RfC is the tool to gauge concensus? What were I supposed to do, gauge concensus between the three of us? Mr. Magoo (talk) 13:11, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
But not an appropriate first tool. Before clogging up the system with what is an unnecessary and ill formed RfC, you could have tried asking what people thought. - Bilby (talk) 13:15, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Who people? The two who cited a need for concensus in the revert descriptions? The articles I usually deal with have pretty much dead talk pages, so I apologize if I'm not used to a frequented talk page. Mr. Magoo (talk) 13:21, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Talking to the people who disagreed with you is a good start. - Bilby (talk) 13:22, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
  • If your argument is the need for concensus, the only way I can convince you is if I get the concensus, thus the RfC. You pretty much stated that we need to vote on this. Mr. Magoo (talk) 13:25, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
With all due respect, consensus and voting are related, but not identical ideas. I can't speak for Bilby, but when I talk about "consensus," I mean "show me that there's some support for this change and it's not being done unilaterally." I think we were both (perhaps inarticulately) saying "let's discuss this first." Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 13:35, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
That's exactly it. There are a lot of people who are knowledgeable on this subject who are willing to discuss changes. You just had to raise those changes here, and we would see if we could find consensus for those changes or something similar. If that didn't work, escalating it to an RfC might have made sense. However, as it stands the RfC is of no real value - no wording is offered, there's no proposals to consider, and the design leaves little room for any real consensus to form. By discussing it we could have come to some sort of possible framework for an RfC if we weren't able to work out a way forward without one. Not to mention, it would have been a whole lot quicker and easier. - Bilby (talk) 13:43, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Likewise with all due respect, maybe you should have written that instead... I didn't state they were identical but an edit description like that pretty much says let's just vote because we have nothing else to say. Mr. Magoo (talk) 13:46, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. I've taken the RfC out of that category, as it isn't the correct one to place it in. That category is for RfCs on the policy and guidelines themselves, rather than their application - Bilby (talk) 14:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Comment (summoned by bot): I have to agree with several observations already made above. First, it's typically not appropriate to launch an RfC, and thus consume a great deal of volunteer time, if even the most basic of efforts at discussion and consensus building on the matter have not been attempted. Then again, in this instance, with a topic of this profile, under discretionary sanctions, it's probable that this was never going to get solved without community involvement, so the rush to RfC can be overlooked and good faith presumed. What is more problematic is the way in which the RfC, once undertaken, was approached; that is to say, with very little concern for the requisite neutrality in the presentation of the basic query. Putting aside the issues here for a minute, I'd like to encourage Mr. Magoo to read the RfC guidelines before their next efforts at RfC and would like to advise him, with candor, that he will only predispose experienced editors to questioning the neutrality of his perspective by presenting the central issues in such a loaded and one-sided manner.

Now, those procedural issues addressed, I have to agree that this does seem to be essential a WP:Weight issue. I'm not sure if Gjoni's assertions should be excised entirely, but until such time as a more substantial portion of the considerable number of reliable sources we have on this topic give serious discussion to his qualifications of the events in question, then it is completely undue to to discuss them at any significant length. The truth is, I'm not sure that Gjoni's efforts to qualify his acts are at all encyclopaedically significant to be worth mentioning; as a consequence of how the controversy unfolded, we know exactly what he said, but his blog post was little more than the catalyst for the larger and more relevant events which the article is mainly concerned with.

In short, I'm not sure his motive is really important; what the sources overwhelmingly lean upon is how the comments were received, the cascade of controversial behaviour it set off online and the media furor and debate that resulted. We have only one source here discussing Gjoni's views, and that source, an interview which essentially serves as a platform for Gjoni himself to assert his perspectives on controversy, is essentially just a single primary source. That's not really selling the content as WP:DUE, not without a secondary source or three to help support these perspectives as relevant enough to bear mention when talking about the controversy broadly. Snow let's rap 12:40, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

  • I appreciate that you understand the need for the RfC. And we actually have two sources discussing his commentary, like I pointed out before. And currently there seems to be a clear BLP violation without letting Gjoni have a say. I also don't see how he says anything about the controversy other than his motive, which is to defend against the accusations presented in our article. I don't understand what the issue is. Mr. Magoo (talk) 12:48, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
So when you say "accusations," the only bit of the article I can see that fits that bill is the "deliberately crafted" sentence from Boston Magazine. I, for one, would be perfectly fine with a gloss indicating that Mr. Gjoni denies this and an appropriate citation. I'm not sure that sentence is really all that necessary in the grand scheme of things, to be honest. But delving into a sustained colloquy on the interpretations of the so-called "Zoe Post" strikes me as a very bad idea for the article. Just thought I'd throw that out. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 12:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I appreciate that you're fine with the idea. Though I don't understand what you mean by the interpretations? I tried to avoid them on purpose and I'm not suggesting we add anything else from the interview. I wrote in the original edit description that the man isn't given a fair shake with the rumors of his motive without given a chance to respond and usually not giving a chance to respond is what really pines my cones. Mr. Magoo (talk) 13:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
That strikes me as a reasonable compromise solution. I also agree that the "deliberately crafted" statement is arguably dispensable in its own right, but if we are going to include a very brief reference to Gjoni' own assertions as to his motive, this would be the place to do it--ideally in a quick gloss, as you suggest. More than that I tend to agree is a weight issue, given the sourcing. Mr. Magoo says there is a second source supporting this information, but I'm not seeing it in the contested edit, the current version of the article or the discussion above. Regardless, unless it is a secondary and properly independent and reliable source, I can't see it changing the equation much. I think the most weight consensus is likely to allow here is something to the effect of "this characterization is denied by Gjoni" or, at the very most "his characterization is denied by Gjoni, who claims that he intentionally avoided placing his post in forums where Quinn had previously faced harassment." Snow let's rap 02:51, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

People are considered reliable sources on their own opinions; even if you classify Gjoni's opinions about Gjoni as a primary source, you don't need to have a secondary source for someone's statements about himself to include them in an article that also makes statements about him. It is an exception to the rules about secondary sources. Also, the rules about taking human dignity into account would seem to require allowing statements by Gjoni to be included when discussing Gjoni. Ken Arromdee (talk) 02:29, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

@Ken Arromdee: Your link is broken. PeterTheFourth (talk) 03:50, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Fixed. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:14, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
  • No, per WP:WEIGHT. Gjoni's "nasty" blog post was intended to hurt her, and it did. His later backpedaling cannot be believed, and is not believed by most observers. Binksternet (talk) 06:25, 29 August 2016 (UTC)
    • 1. It's a basic Wikipedia principle to give heavier WP:BLP rights and both sides of the story when the matter concerns living people in any article. You want us to fudge core rules? 2. "Weight" alone is a meaningless argument. Imagine being a football fan and going to the opposite team's article and removing their victories with the reason "undue weight". You have to explain why it is so. Just below people are trying to explain basic editing principles and why just stating something's undue or concensus is needed without any other reason is bad form. 3. I don't see how the following "nasty" even relates. That's it? What does that even have to do with anything? You even misrepresent the article, because it actually wrote in entirety: "Despite its length, Gjoni’s post amounts to little more than the kind of nasty, post-breakup gripes spurned partners lament about with close friends. But thanks to a number of key factors, his allegations have turned into a hot-button issue for a certain sector of the gaming community, which has twisted Gjoni’s dirty laundry into a narrative of industry corruption—a tale that is not based on provable fact." and "Gjoni’s post never makes either allegation". It doesn't state it was intended to "hurt", it states it was little more than a nasty breakup gripe from a spurned partner, literally. Do you want us to quote how it was meant to portray Quinn as dishonest? Because that is what it does say in detail. Or do you simply want to quote one cherry-picked word? It also doesn't state that it was posted among "passionately predisposed to attacking women in the industry" like the Boston rumor claims. It actually states "Gjoni's dirty laundry was twisted by the gaming community". 4. You offer no evidence of the third sentence's arguments. It's just WP:OR from your end. And how do you even quantify "most" when even this article could apparently be interpreted either way and does WP:BLP even recognize such a thing as overriding the other side of the story? I think that would only be the case if it were "all"... 5. I'm not saying we cover the interview in entirety but inclusion of the rumor is silly without any counterweight. The rumor itself is WP:UNDUE and the removal of it has been pointed out by others. Mr. Magoo (talk) 18:07, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
WP:BLP means that when we make claims about living people, they need to be meticulously cited to reliable sources. If those reliable sources end up making a living person look bad, so be it. I am not saying it's the case here, but if the vast majority of reliable sources say "Dumuzid is a corrupt jerk," and one fringe source says "Dumuzid is a saint," we don't artificially balance those views. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 18:56, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
So you are stating that we should cover the reliably sourced bits I tried to edit in but you reverted, along now the many others discovered stating to that effect as well? You should cover your bases before slinging arguments like this. Mr. Magoo (talk) 19:27, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
I wasn't aware I was slinging anything! At my job, we have ice cream on Wednesdays. You seem like you could use some ice cream. Just a thought! Dumuzid (talk) 19:30, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
The "reliable source" is just Gjoni saying something about how he selected the places where to post the hurtful breakup note. You are going too far in thinking that the reliable source publication agrees with Gjoni's backpedaling. The undue weight here is that nobody believes Gjoni chose the most respectful places to post the thing. Binksternet (talk) 20:38, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
  • There's a lot of fallacy and WP:OR in that post, let me break it down. No journalist publicly "believes" he didn't either, for to begin with journalists don't tend to give their opinions. We have the Boston writer's odd accusation for it refers to this bit as its evidence: "“If I can target people who are in the mood to read stories about exes and horrible breakups,” he says now, “I will have an audience.”" It boggles the mind how he links reveal-all gossip about exes and breakups as "passionately predisposed to attacking women in the industry". Where did he find the gender here? Are breakup gossipers known to be predisposed to attacking women in the industry? Is TMZ known for being predisposed to attacking women in the industry? Judging by their latest coverage of Jay-Z, I'd say gossip hurts everyone equally. We are covering one vague apparently-evidenceless rumor from a single — seemingly just one of those publications of an opinion which are distanced by the publishers from regular, more fact-checked reporting — of a source, and all without letting an RS interview have a counterword. Let me list some Wikipedia policies: "Avoid gossip", "Be wary of relying on sources that use weasel words and that attribute material to anonymous sources" and "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that: 1. is unsourced or poorly sourced 4. relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet Verifiability standards" amongst others — not to mention the ones which name fair coverage of both sides of the story. The bit breaches upon all these rules. It's even stated that WP:3RR doesn't apply if you're trying to remove libel. I could revert the bit 5 times and be within my rights. And you, stating that I'm thinking the publication agrees, is just a straw man because I never stated that. And lastly and again, not even my suggestion to cut the Boston rumor, but it solves this. Mr. Magoo (talk) 23:49, 31 August 2016 (UTC)
With all due respect here, I'm not even sure which part you're calling the "rumor." The quote from Mr. Gjoni about his audience? Since I think it was me who suggested the cut, I'd like to know what you see as the contours of the "rumor." Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 01:05, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

No "no consensus" reverts, please

Terribly sorry but if I could just go back to the beginning of this discussion and say that, everything else aside, this shouldn't have been reverted on these grounds. Other grounds could have been used, but "no consensus" is not valid grounds to make or undo an edit.

To explain, please read Wikipedia:Don't revert due solely to "no consensus" (WP:DRNC) and be persuaded.

Instead, maybe find some other grounds to revert. Maybe the objections behind the lack of consensus.

In the future, anyone may revert any edit explicitly justified on no other grounds than "this doesn't have consensus" or "you have to get consensus before adding this" or "get consensus before making this edit", "No consensus!!!", and so on.

When doing so, all that is needed is to put "WP:DRNC" in the edit summary, and then edit may then be redone on some other grounds. Chrisrus (talk) 16:35, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

How about this: you continue to acquit yourself in the manner you think most helpful to the encyclopedia while being civil and collegial towards your peers, and I will do the same! Have a wonderful day. Dumuzid (talk) 17:13, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
It's not clear what that has to do with the practice of reverting edits on "no consensus" grounds alone or reverting such on WP:DRNC grounds alone. Chrisrus (talk) 22:14, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
Then perhaps just meditate on it a bit. If there's no connection for you, there's no connection! Such is life. Cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 23:02, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Just a note on relevant policy: "no consensus" is seen as the weakest form of argument against an edit (with limited exceptions) but there doesn't seem to be anything explicitly in policy that forbids it. The highly-regarded essay WP:BRD states "BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work or for edit warring; instead, provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense." which would seem to indicate that the practice is frowned upon (an indication reinforced by longstanding social norms). To sum up, this type of reversion isn't specifically disallowed, but is generally seen as being poor form and a weak argument. For future reversions, it would be better to cite a policy-based argument or a reason why that particular edit detracts from the quality of the article. The WordsmithTalk to me 22:32, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

This article has been extremely contentious, and we've reached something like a generally stable state. In such a situation, we really need to try and get support for big changes (as we see happening here) before those changes are pushed into the article. These changes were certainly contentious, and so opening with discussion was a better plan than just being bold and making them, especially without understanding the complexities. - Bilby (talk) 22:45, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
@Chrisrus: That's not the way it works, unfortunately. What you quoted is simply an essay, written by a random person. The relevant policy is WP:ONUS. It is the responsibility of the person wishing to include the material to get consensus for their edit. Sometimes consensus is easy and implicit, sometimes it's hard and/or explicit. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 04:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Contributors don't have to get consensus before making edits. Chrisrus (talk) 05:46, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
No, but they shouldn't be surprised if they are asked to find it when they are making controversial edits to a contentious page. - Bilby (talk) 12:08, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
How was it controversial to add the other side of the story after a seeming BLP violation rumor? It's only controversial if you're not neutral in the matter? Mr. Magoo (talk) 15:15, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Can we WP:SNOW this or at least the RfC template? Rhoark (talk) 14:42, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

I think Bilby might have removed it. Mr. Magoo (talk) 14:54, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
I just removed a mistaken category for the RfC, but it remains in the other three. I certainly wouldn't close it. Only someone uninvolved should do that. - Bilby (talk) 15:00, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Well, the mistaken category certainly bore fruit. Even I weren't this familiar with the specifics and couldn't have pointed out all these things myself. I think we've all learned something today (or yesterday). Mr. Magoo (talk) 15:05, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Draft of proposed changes

About a year ago I raised the concern that the tone and weight of the most reliable sources were not being followed. That discussion led to the creation of a draft, which as many of you are already aware, is now complete. There have been some positive changes to the main article in the meantime, but I believe change is still necessary on several grounds:

  • The article lacks organization, with section headings that do not partition information in a useful way (and often holding claims that do not relate to their headings.)
  • There is no coverage or inadequate coverage of developments in the topic happening since mid-2015, including SPJ AirPlay, identification of Rankowski, the UN cyberviolence report, SXSW, Allison Rapp, Gjoni's legal challenge, among others.
I think this stems in part from the difficulty of contextualizing and segueing any new material into the existing awkward structure. In the cases of Rapp and Gjoni there was a talk page consensus not to cover them, though I think those discussions could have gone differently if it were more apparent how to cover them well, so ought to be revisited.
  • There are problems of weight and impartiality of tone among the plethora of opinions presented.
This stems again, I think, from the lack of contextualizing structure.

Since the draft is a lot to digest at once, and the impetus revolves so much around top-level structure, let's begin with a discussion of that structure.

  • To begin with, I have packaged as much as possible about Zoe Quinn into a discrete section. The main exception is placing Crash Override Network in the responses to harassment.
  • I then move to the early ethics allegations since they are the logical and chronological bridge between Quinn and the first #GamerGate tweet.
  • I use the tweet as a jumping off point to dispense with the who/what/when/where/why of the movement. This includes the several perspectives on membership, goals, and responsibility for harassment. This seems like a better way to handle these lynchpin questions compared to a scattershot chronological treatment.
  • The next step was the trickiest. Chronologically, "Gamers are Over" came just a day after the hashtag. That couldn't really be explained though without describing the controversies about feminist criticism starting with Anita Sarkeesian. Consequently, the section became a clearinghouse for social and cultural issues.
  • After that comes the section that a lot of people will consider the most important: harassment - though its more apt to say its the section for the remainder of harassment that's not as contextualized by the issues. By this point in the article, harassment of Quinn, Sarkesian, Jenn Frank, Katherine Cross, and Allison Rapp has already been discussed in connection with aspects of the controversy.
This is really three sections: first the discussion of harassment as a general phenomenon, everything about Brianna Wu, and then other specific instances chronologically.
  • Bomb/shooting threats are categorized as a group, as many RS's after SXSW described them as instances of a pattern.
  • The rationale of the remaining sections, "Responses to harassment", "Criticism of coverage", and "Dramatizations" should be fairly clear.

There are two modifications to this structure that are likely to be suggested. The first is to begin with the history of issues starting in 2012. I did not favor this as it delays introducing and defining the Gamergate movement, without which it is harder to explain how those issues related to the contemporary controversy. The other likely suggestion is that the section on harassment should immediately follow Quinn's section. To that I would re-iterate that harassment is discussed in every section, in terms of how it relates to the topic. To jump immediately into harassment would start with Sarkeesian, which would be awkward to do without describing her views. Likewise, the question of how responsible the movement is would necessitate defining it. In the end such changes would lead to something not very different from what I have already done.

If someone has a good idea though, they are from this moment free to enact it. I have copied the draft into Draft:Gamergate_controversy.

Rhoark (talk) 04:48, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

You don't seem to have altered the lede at all from what it was when you disrupted the earlier RFC- concerns raised include your characterisation of the harassment received as 'Various men and women across the spectrum of debate have been subjected to online harassment after presenting opinions on Gamergate.', and your reference to the organised effort to push prominent female voices from the industry as a 'cultural debate about [...] the inclusion of women in video gaming'. One wonders why you solicited feedback if you had no intent of changing what you've written. PeterTheFourth (talk) 05:24, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
On the contrary, the lede now in the draft is more concise than when I improved the RfC. Besides being verbose, the main concern with my wording was that as a lede it didn't reflect the article, but in relation to the draft article it does. (including w.r.t. the two specific aspects you've just raised.) Rhoark (talk) 05:44, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
when I improved the RfC- 'rolling eyes emoticon'. PeterTheFourth (talk) 05:46, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
That seems worse BLP violation than we have now without any chance given to Gjoni's side of the story either. That has countless lines of Quinn's opinion but zero of Gjoni's. You do realize the standard is usually giving the other person's view of the story after the other? Mr. Magoo (talk) 10:29, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
An IP came by my talk page with some of the most constructive criticism yet. I've copied the IP and my response to spur more discussion here. I think the takeaway is we need suggestions on specific anti-GG opinions or interpretations that deserve more weight in the draft. Rhoark (talk) 15:13, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

::I just read the Draft:Gamergate_controversy page, which I assumed was mostly written by you. Since I am not eligible to post on the Talk page, I'd like to submit my feedback here.

I was previously slightly biased towards the "pro-Gamergate" side of the issue, and thus very unsatisfied of the current form of the Gamergate page, which I feel is way too centered on the assumption that Gamergate is a group aiming to harass women and make video games a white male thing.
I feel that your article has a much more factual description of the controversy, with many descriptions of events and few descriptions of intentions. I think that removing most of the subtitles of the photos in favor of short descriptions was a good idea. I really appreciate the clean lead, which I feel is a very well written, concise and nicely symmetrical summary of the issue. However, I feel some of this symmetry/neutrality is lost in the body of the article, though, which seems to give criticism of Gamergate a lot less weight than they have in most coverage of the controversy.
To be precise, I think that criticism of the movement should be gathered in a section, instead of spread around the article, and given more weight as a legitimate opposition. Right now the article mostly follows a "Gamergate's POV >> Anti-Gamergate's POV >> Gamergate's answers to Anti-Gamergate POV" flow, which breaks neutrality by making anti-gamergate complaints seem unreasonable. The original article has the exact same problem, with the sides reversed. I think a fair, neutral coverage of the controversy would include at least one big "Criticisms" section with everything people said was bad about the movement, and minimal inclusion of the movement's answers to these criticisms.
Finally, I think you might want to find some statistics about Gamegate-related harassment by gender and put them in the "Individual Harassment" section; I think that is both relevant to the subject and something you'll need to quote if you want to defend the "men and women were harassed" point as being both technically accurate and legitimately representative of the situation.
Good job taking a long, complicated and loaded issue and making a comprehensive and mostly neutral article about it, that was probably laborious. I hope it gets accepted eventually.
Olivier FAURE - 81.249.92.137 (talk) 14:15, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, this is some very constructive critcism. There probably is a pattern in the article where anti-GG takes an unreasonable position and GG gets the last word, since that's a common pattern in the unfolding of the controversy. The CJR piece about AirPlay touches a bit on how there's a conscious tactic of not engaging when GG is at its most reasonable. There are some cases where an anti- position does get the last word, for example the chilling effects of targeting advertisers, hypocrisy in cultural libertarianism, and that harassment is unjustified even if there were ethical breaches.
There's more weight in RS's to negative opinions, but I don't see how to implement it. As far as the content of negative opinions, I think its all there: misogyny, ethics is just a pretense, coordinated by 4chan, chilling effects on journalists. Adding more would be reiterating these points or quoting unencyclopedic vituperation. If there other points that should be made, that's where I'm most in need of those editors with a strong animus against Gamergate to say what those additions should be.
One way in which weight cannot be implemented is by distorting the facts. For example, regardless of how many sources ignore harassment against GG, there are enough to establish fact that harassment goes both ways. There are seven citations for ant-GG harassment as a general phenomenon, plus more for specific incidents. It would be great if there were a rigorous quantitative study of this, but I don't know of one. Rhoark (talk) 15:07, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
This feels so very much "if wishes were fishes no one would starve". The simple fact of the matter is that the one and only thing that Gamergate is known for outside of a tiny handful of places is harassment and misogyny. The only way to make it appear (and I use the word "appear" specifically here) that Gamergate is anything but a loose mob of anti-feminists rank and frankly bad faith attempts at whitewashing and fact distortion. There isn't enough lubrication to push a horse through a needle, as they say. I wonder why it is that there are some people who think otherwise?
No, no. I don't think we need to take all the "anti-GG" criticism and put it in a little ghetto of its own to be pared down over time until a sentence remains. No, I think it needs to be prominent, first and foremost in the lede. I think it needs to be the primary thrust of the article, and I think that reality - the "real" reality, not the pseudo-reality views that Gamergate adherents push out (you know the one: feminism is cancer, they asked for the harassment, they're playing victim cards, they don't really play games, they deserve it for the bad shit they do, they should be raped for their opinions, Gamergate is important, and it's actually about ethics in journalism) - well, the "real" reality agrees.--Jorm (talk) 18:36, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
Just wanted to briefly chime in and say that while I agree with Jorm on this, a sincere thanks for the effort, Rhoark. Dumuzid (talk) 15:05, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
I do not believe this to be usable due to the POV and WEIGHT problems raised during the RFC. Also since introducing those POV and WEIGHT problems seems to be a direct or indirect goal of the draft I do not believe those problems can be fixed - better to stick with what we have an improve it by increments, even if that is a struggle at times. Artw (talk) 21:06, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
The draft has some serious undue weight problems, but the more fatal flaw is the quality of the sourcing has dropped significantly. It relies heavily on Gawker publications. Even the simplest cite on the main article has caused no end of talk page discussions and complaints. Small thing, the Volokh cites templates are wrong. The work shouldn't be Washington Post. They just host his blog and don't provide any editorial oversight. — Strongjam (talk) 15:11, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
The quality of sourcing has increased significantly when relating the stature of the source to the centrality of the claim. Kotaku is used for some ancillary points and valid ABOUTSELF statements on its own involvement in the controversy. If there are any dyads of source and claim where verification is suspect that would have my full attention. I'll also again call attention to the fact that the draft is out of my userspace and open to everyone. Rhoark (talk) 16:44, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
On further reflection, I axed the Allison Rapp section, which was the densest cluster of claims sourced to Kotaku. Rhoark (talk) 20:56, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

I finally had time to take a look. As I see it, there are issues, big issues. Some examples:

  • Reliable sources don't consider Gamergate "a collection of cultural debates" at all. They unequivocally condemn online harassment, consider the "video game journalism" a misdirection or debunked talking points, and take it as given that women should be included in video gaming.
  • False accusations.
  • "Media condemnations of gaming culture" is inaccurate.
  • Yet more about "journalism ethics". To put it simply, any lead that puts journalism ethics on the same level as harassment has already failed to properly weight the body of reliable sources.
  • A section named "Zoe Quinn controversies"? Might want to run that by BLPN first.
  • Some victim blaming and burying the acquittal.
  • The middle part of the "ZQ controversies" section is okay but too detailed.
  • Scrap the Volokh bit. Too detailed, too many primary sources, and marginally related to Gamergate.
  • The "Gamergate as a movement" section has massive weighting issues. We have what appears to be every single claim attributed to someone in the movement balanced against a roughly equal number of statements found in reliable sources. WEIGHT is about representing sources proportionally. It's not local television news giving one minute each to representatives from the Flat Earth Society and the American Geophical Union. (Yes, yes, that's an exaggeration.)
  • This continues in the "Responsibility for harassment" section. The "both sides" argument is used, sure, but not by most sources.
  • The "Cultural conflict" starts with the notion that it's feminist critics vs. gamers, like the two groups are all-encompassing. Few reliable sources characterize it that way, which causes the entire section to, well, miss the point entirely.
  • The rest of the section is filled with "so-and-so criticized this" rather than "literally dozens or hundreds of sources criticized this". Again, weighting issues.
  • The "Events disrupted", "Other individual harassment", and "Responses to harassment" sections are far too detailed.
  • More weighting issues in "Criticism of coverage".
  • And some actual misrepresentation of sources. CJR doesn't say, for example, that "[m]any journalists are reluctant to cover Gamergate", only that "mainstream observers have little inclination to revisit the issue" based on off-the-record discussions with "[a] number of top journalists in the field". Likewise, the claim that "[s]ome believe Gamergate coverage has exhibited false balance" is attributed to one person. I specifically brought this up months ago, so imagine my surprise to see it still being bandied about like the "positive reviews of Depression Quest" lies.

Now don't get me wrong, I think there are problems with the current article as well. We place too much focus on many individual events rather than telling a coherent summary. But the draft doesn't fix that problem. I hate to say it, but I doubt we'll be free of that particular issue until a good number of long-form or book-length pieces appear that we can use as a guide. Just my $0.02. Woodroar (talk) 00:58, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time. I tightened the wording in the first paragraph of "Criticism of coverage" to allay the concerns in your last bullet point. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do with the rest of the bullet points. Your judgement of what is undue or overly detailed hews closely to everything breaking the script of Gamergate being a harassment campaign. You and Alex Hern may rail against it, but the best sources do not present things in a one-sided melodramatic fashion. I prefer to follow the sources. I won't repeat myself on the true meaning of undue weight, but you would also do well to read my reply to Aquillion at the bottom of the section. Rhoark (talk) 15:56, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for trying to fix the CJR claims, but it's still an incorrect or inexact summary. If you read the referenced paragraph closely, you'll see that it doesn't actually say that "mainstream observers" are reluctant to cover Gamergate, only to "revisit the issue". It doesn't detail the nature of their previous coverage, or say if there was coverage at all. It could be a situation of "we wrote articles critical of Gamergate, we found that it's turtles trolls all the way down, and we see no point in writing more articles because that hasn't changed". But it could just as easily be "we didn't consider Gamergate important enough to write about and we still don't" or even "we wrote positively about Gamergate but there was trolling in the comments and we're not doing that again". I doubt it's the latter, but it's OR/SYNTH no matter what. The sentence about "validating Gamergate" is in reference to speaking on the record, and potentially future coverage if we assume it's connected to the previous sentence. Also, "[a] number of top journalists" doesn't equal "[m]any journalists" (even if we add the two from the rest of the paragraph) and "[a]nother" journalist doesn't equal "[s]ome journalists". Woodroar (talk) 00:28, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Revised

Synthesizing the various points raised by Masem, Kingsindian, Olivier, and Jorm I've made a significant reorganization and reweighting of material, visible now on the draft. Rhoark (talk) 16:49, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

To catch everyone up, I broke up the "relationship disclosure" section, putting most of it together with "gamers are over" to make a subsection on "game journalism and its audience". That allowed "Gamergate as a movement" to come immediately after Quinn. I had considered "disclosure" a necessary bridge between Zoe Quinn and the hashtag, but the single claim that the conversation started to be about more than just Quinn and Grayson was the only part that really needed to come before the introduction of the hashtag. The half of "Individual harassment" that was about general trends rather than specific incidents was broken off and moved up between "Gamergate as a movement" and "Cultural issues". The subsection on game localization and Allison Rapp was cut in favor of a single sentence in the "Further incidents" subsubsection. I have also integrated Mortensen(2016) and "Press F to Revolt". Overall it flows much better, and should satisfy those wanting more discussion of harassment near the top of the article.
Now that I've responded to a couple of rounds of feedback, I'd like to see this become more of a community conversation rather than me continuing to sit at the hub of several disconnected dialogues. Instead of it being "Rhoark's draft", begin to think of it as "the draft". Changes do not need to go through me, so if you see a problem, WP:FIXIT. Rhoark (talk) 03:23, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
I really think it's going to remain "Rhoark's Draft", unfortunately.--Jorm (talk) 06:41, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
  • The revised edition looks better with the fix. Our current article has so much WP:BLPGOSSIP, WP:QUESTIONABLE and use of blogs and opinion pieces as sources — from which full lengthy quotes are included into the raticle — that it's pretty much begging for WP:TNT. Our current article is pretty much a quote farm on why "these people are shit" — which isn't very encyclopedic. Take a look at any article considering nazis. There aren't constant opinion pieces on why the nazis were shit. Our article is constantly interspersed with namedrops of random journalists doing exactly that. It's like an entire article of Twitter posts, illegible. No wonder I've had a struggle getting through this slough. Anyone would. Someone suggested earlier cutting the Boston rumor quote, which would also make Gjoni's retort needless. Our current article needs heavy scissors. The people who should be quoted are the core involved and some very few outside commentaries. The draft follows that guideline much better. Mr. Magoo (talk) 16:31, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

If anyone's looking to contribute and doesn't know where to start, they might try integrating some of the new perspectives elicited by Clinton's speech today.[1][2] There's obviously several claims about American politics, but a few things that might be added about feminist criticism or the Gamergate movement. Rhoark (talk) 20:28, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

In my opinion (which I have already expressed before), the draft article (and the main article for that matter) is already WP:TOOBIG. The readable prose size of the draft is 51kB, which is a teensy bit bigger than the very high end of the recommended size. One might want to look at cutting down and forking some of the content. However, it is usually much easier to add content than remove it. I'll give more detailed comments on your sandbox page to keep it all together. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:54, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
Since no one's volunteered, I'll see shortly about getting in these sources and Burgess. Rhoark (talk) 19:42, 3 September 2016 (UTC)
Getting these sources in led to a bigger wave of revision than I anticipated. I touched some controversial areas, including the lede, so it could use some more looking-over. If I considered it done before, though, I consider it super-extra-double done now. I'll publicly reiterate my privately expressed my appreciation to Kingsindian for revision suggestions and Ryk72 for the wave of copyediting. Still more involvement would be welcome. Consider this last call. Rhoark (talk) 21:51, 4 September 2016 (UTC)
I did look over the article a couple of times but did not find any obvious or low-hanging fruit I wanted to fix. I see that you have streamlined the lead a bit more. I can't really judge whether the new lead is better than the original one you had, but on the whole I think it is an improvement. I'll see if I find the time to do a bit more thorough checking in the next couple of days. Otherwise, it looks a fair attempt. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:43, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Another comment which I forgot to mention: as a crude heuristic, a few days ago I made word clouds of both the current article and the draft. There did not seem to be much of a difference in the two articles. The major themes were mostly the same. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 12:49, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Victim Blaming in the Lede?

"The controversy was incited by accusations made in August 2014 against game developer Zoe Quinn that led to anonymous harassment against her"

Awesome victim blaming there, right in the lede. "Zoey's accusations started it and that's why she got harassed". She deserved, then, is what you're trying to say. In Wikipedia's voice.--Jorm (talk) 20:41, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

There was nothing there about deserving; you're projecting. The perception of a problem is a problem, so I simplified the wording. Rhoark (talk) 20:53, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
"Zoey's accusations started it and that's why she got harassed" does not mean she deserved it. "Slaves revolted, that's why they were shackled" does not mean slaves deserved it, "She jumped in the pool and saved a drowning kid, but later got a severe cold" - does not mean she deserved to get a fever. and zillions of other comparisons. People do not always "deserve" suffering consequences of their actions. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:54, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
As an aside both the Zoey comment and the slave comment are implying fault. Saying slaves revolted and that's why they were shackled implies the thought "well, if they just knew their place they wouldn't have shackled would they?" That is essentially what the Zoey statement says "If she just knew her place she wouldn't be harrassed." It can be written in a neutral way (something along the lines of Zoey Quinn experienced anonymous harrassment following false accusations that occurred in August 2014) but it takes rewordingto get there. As it stands it definitely comes off as victim blaming. Tivanir2 (talk) 21:15, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Respectfully, I think that there has been a misreading of the content. It states "accusations made ... against Quinn", not "accusations made ... by Quinn". The latter could clearly be regarded as victim blaming, but the phrasing as it is does not imply any responsibility for either the accusations or the harassment. At best, a case could be made that the phrasing might be misconstrued. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 21:22, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
True my wording isn't the best, which is why I was trying to get others input. A full and accurate example would be Zoey Quinn experienced anonymous harrassment following a false accusation against her, created by her former boyfriend, and that was published in August 2014. Tivanir2 (talk) 22:32, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Let's get real

I've tagged the article as needing updates and for being unbalanced in presentation, as these are the main qualities by which the draft is an improvement. As I've said, these problems are surface symptoms of the article's disorganization. The present article does not have sections so much as coatracks. As a collection of opinions disconnected from their neighbors and hidden from contrasting opinions elsewhere in the article, relative prominence cannot be ascertained. It violates NPOV per se.

Some specific issues
  • The "history" section has no actual history except the release of Depression Quest. Apart from that it's just a subset of happenings from the beginning of the controversy forwards, barely contextualized and mostly but not entirely chronological.
  • The introduction of the term Gamergate is stuffed in the middle of several paragraphs about Zoe Quinn. There is no description of who used the tag or why, apart from Adam Baldwin and "those harassing Quinn", who multiple RS's have stated were a small minority of those using the tag.
  • Besides Baldwin's opinion, there is no discussion of any ethos connected to the tag before connecting it to John Bain and Boogie2988, creating a BLP-violating implication that they were part of a harassment campaign.
  • In the 21st paragraph its finally stated Gamer'gate might have something to do with game criticism, though it doesn't specify exactly how it relates, and loads the paragraph with 2 more WP:HOWEVER opinions saying it's really just harassment.
  • That paragraph begins, Observers have generally described Gamergate as part of a long-running culture war against efforts to diversify the traditionally male video gaming community, particularly targeting outspoken women. They cite Gamergate supporters' frequent harassment of female figures in the gaming industry and its overt hostility toward people involved in social criticism and analysis of video games. which seems to be improper synthesis. One of the sources cited (BBC) has nothing to do with this claim. For the rest of them it's building a WP:FRANKENSTEIN out of separate claims pertaining to the culture war aspect and claims pertaining to harassment.
  • One of the sources used for that synthesis is Nathaniel Givens, who is WP:CHERRYPICKed in a way that obscures that the tenor of the source is describing Gamergate as a victim of politically-correct smearing. Uses of Liana Kerzner show this problem as well, and there are probably others.
  • The opinions of Chris Kluwe and Stephen Colbert about the gender ratio in harassment are given as much weight as reliable reporting from the BBC, Washington Post, and academic papers.
  • The "Gamers are Over" situation is framed as Alexander defending diversity against Gamergate. Reliable sources show many people joined Gamergate in the first place in reaction to feeling Alexander was calling them misogynists.
  • The first indication that there might be legitimate points of view in Gamergate is a quote from Zoe Quinn in the 23rd paragraph, still with the implication that non-harassers are a minority in the movement (contrary to RS).
  • The article redundantly reiterates in six different paragraphs in different sections that harassment overshadowed discussion of ethics in the press.
  • A hint at what any specific ethics concern might be comes in the "Debate over ethics allegations" section, starting in the 38th paragraph. That section contains only 3 sentences about what allegations existed and 15 sentences criticizing those claims (6 saying they were wrong, 9 saying they were a vehicle for harassment). Mention of updated ethics policies are in a completely different section, and nothing is said about Patreon or the SPJ.
  • Half of the ethics section is actually about culture war and games as art. That's an important part of the topic, but separate from ethics. There is no description of Gamergate's point of view on art that is not a strawman.
  • The claim Targets of Gamergate supporters have overwhelmingly been women, even when men were responsible for the supposed wrongdoings. is synthesized from the opinions of two sources. One of them doesn't make any claim about women and men, only Quinn and Grayson. The other doesn't relate being targeted to whether the target has done any wrongdoing. That's not even considering how many RS's throw into doubt the gender proportions of harassment, or whether it was Gamergate supporters doing the targeting.
  • The game industry response section includes some commentary that is not primarily by or about the game industry. It gives more weight to Andreas Zecher, Damion Schubert, and some random hashtags than to the Entertainment Software Association, IGDA, or major publishers. ESA and publisher statements are cherrypicked to obscure that they explicitly did not consider Gamergate just a harassment campaign and did not want to take a side in the controversy.

That's just a sampling of issues that were easy to identify and bullet-point.

Overall this article is a wreck with respect to NPOV. Some people apparently consider this to be fine, for two main reasons I can tell:

  • "Gamergate is only notable for harassment". This is not true. The most notable aspect of the controversy has been harassment. Other aspects might never have been covered if not for harassment - but they were covered. With the sourcing that exists in our present reality, between the changes to ethics policies, SPJ event, and SWSW there is enough reliably sourced information about the ethics aspect that it would pass WP:GNG entirely on its own. That's before even considering that reliable sources are now saying Gamergate was the progenitor of the political philosophy of the Republican presidential nominee. It may be a shitty philosophy for a shitty candidate, but that's not the same as being harassment, and its hugely notable. In the end it's beside the point though, because WP:NNC.
  • "The majority of coverage is negative, so our weighting needs to reflect that." That is wrong on the face of it because of WP:IMPARTIAL, but beyond that its based on the false premise that making the article more balanced means its presenting things from Gamergate's side. People are interpreting WP:DUE to mean identifying and adopting the most prevalent bias that can be found, but that's not the right. If CNN says something salutary about Gamergate and The Verge says something derogatory, giving more priority to CNN is the correct weighting. It's giving more weight to CNN, not to Gamergate. The kinds of things said by CNN, BBC, CJR, and our academic sources point to the Gamergate controversy being a political fight in which a minority of both sides have engaged in some harassment. There is a lot of complexity as far as the gender, politics, and identification of where harassment is coming from. The current article's approach to weighting is to be deliberately evasive about responsibility for harassment. If an article's approach to NPOV is causing the reader to be misled about reliable sourced facts, that's how you know, with total certainty, that undue weight is being given.

Some would like to take these things incrementally, but it should be clear now that it's unworkable. Everything is so framed by inappropriate synthesis and irrelevant headings that any improvement would be a domino effect towards a new article. Well, I've written that article. It may not be perfect, but improvement does not preclude further improvement. I probably have some blind spots in my own POV, which is why people who are not happy with the draft need to get more involved instead of WP:STONEWALLING. It's time to start identifying what precise textual changes are needed in order to reach consensus it's an improvement on the article. Rhoark (talk) 17:59, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT, instead of edit warring to keep a tag there. PeterTheFourth (talk) 00:43, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
  • For the record, my position isn't "the majority of coverage is negative, so our weighting needs to reflect that"; my position is that we need to cover the topic with the same weight and focus that most reliable mainstream coverage has, while parsing and describing that coverage in a neutral tone. As soon as you start evaluating coverage as "negative" or "positive" and using that to weight it, you're clearly violating WP:NPOV, WP:DUE, WP:VALID, and WP:IMPARTIAL (which requires we cover aspects proportionately.) I feel the problem is that you've chosen to interpret much of that coverage as "hostile" and "negative" because you disagree with its weighting, feeling that it should devote more time and weight to aspects you think are more important, and so on, and are now (albeit unintentionally, since you see yourself as just fixing an error) trying violate WP:VALID by forcing a weighting that reflects your view on what the sources ought to be focusing on rather than what they are. Most of your objections above are where the aspect you want include is present in the article, but not with the prominence you think is "fair"; however, our requirement is to reflect the weighting of the sources, not to judge them on "how does this make the topic look? Is it good or bad?" and then try to balance that out. If we have a hundred high-profile sources specifically devoted to one thing, and a handful that mention another aspect, our requirement is to write an article that is primarily about the side with more weight behind it, structured primarily around that view; the minority view (or less prominent aspects) can be mentioned, but it has to be further down. We can include more marginal viewpoints, but your argument that they need to be weighted equally directly violates WP:VALID and WP:NPOV. --Aquillion (talk) 20:56, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
As soon as you start evaluating coverage as "negative" or "positive" and using that to weight it, you're clearly violating WP:NPOV
our requirement is to write an article that is primarily about the side with more weight behind it, structured primarily around that view
This seems to be going in circles. At the highest level, the article should not be structured around any side or view (except inasmuch as it excludes views that aren't found in reliable sources). It should aim to first of all to inform the reader of pertinent facts without regard to which side most welcomes that particular fact. That's the sense in which I say a pro- or anti-leaning claim sourced to CNN is representing neither side - just CNN.
At a more detailed level though, in order to satisfy NPOV we have to be acutely aware of when a source or a claim is more aligned with a particular side. Proportional representation is being pushed to the exclusion of the rest of NPOV: "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic."
  1. To start with, the article should represent all the significant views. Weight in the sources does not modulate this at all, unless you can make the case that the weighting makes a view "insignificant".
  2. Fairness is in fact something we should strive for. Judging fairness can be subjective, but I think mainly we must ensure a point of view is not described only from the perspective of its opposition. If counterclaims are noteworthy, then the original claims must be presumed noteworthy.
  3. After completeness and fairness it's appropriate to consider proportionality. Proportionality can be achieved with quantity and placement of text, but not by quashing information that points #1 and 2 made necessary. This is the main idea I'm getting at: if the approach to weighting means obfuscating information and confusing the reader in order to make one side come out better, it's clearly gone wrong.
It should be absolutely uncontroversial that I've assembled the claims I considered most important; that's what one does when writing an encyclopedia entry. They are validated by the fact WP:BESTSOURCES consider them worth mentioning. They're not always the main idea of their respective sources, but they don't need to be. The sources are mostly news, and Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS. Appropriate emphasis will be different. The onus on us is just not to WP:CHERRYPICK and that is something I've been careful about. When I've used an ancillary claim, I've tried to make sure contrasting claims and the main idea of the source is also present in the article. If there are places this hasn't been done, there's time to correct it, but someone would need to be specific in their concerns. Rhoark (talk) 15:46, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

Moved from DHeyward talk page

My apologies

Sorry for the gamergate undo, DHeyward. It was just that your reasoning seemed to me to be based on a misapprehension, though I could be mistaken. You said that there had been a legal decision which found to the contrary of the passage at issue. I don't believe there is one. The major legal fallout of which I am aware was Mr. Gjoni's first amendment challenge to the order preventing him from posting "anything" about Ms. Quinn. That was ultimately declared moot as she voluntarily dismissed the order during the pendency of the appeal [3]. Even within that challenge, the real question was the power of the trial judge rather than the underlying facts. If you think there is a different case or some such that is as you describe, bring it to my attention and I will self-revert. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 05:27, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

@Dumuzid: Quinn acknowledged he was not directing it when she dropped the order of protection.[4]. Since it was dropped, speculation is inappropriate. The wording of Boston Mag is not consistent with the legal argument to dismiss it and therefore a BLP vio. --DHeyward (talk) 06:49, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Full quote- "Quinn acknowledged that Gjoni was not "directing" the third parties to harass her, but she alleged that he nevertheless was distributing the information online in a manner that he knew would have that effect (e.g., by specifically targeting the information to groups or people that he knew were already hostile to Quinn). Gjoni denied any conscious effort to harm Quinn, and asserted a First Amendment right to comment about her.". I'd like to point out 'nevertheless was distributing the information online in a manner he knew would have that effect'. We leave matters like this to reliable, qualified journalists to decide on, not Wikipedia editors reading through primary sources. PeterTheFourth (talk) 07:29, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Where BLP is concerned, we are conservative and defer to no mention at all of who was correct or incorrect. leaving it out is the conservative response. --DHeyward (talk) 07:43, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Where BLP is concerned, and the issue is 'is the Wikipedia editor correct, or the secondary source', we defer to the secondary source. PeterTheFourth (talk) 08:23, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Procedural decisions in legal matters do not define reality. There is nothing inconsistent in the Boston Magazine rendition and the legal machinations here. If I sue Thomas Tortfeasor for battery, but ultimately decide to voluntarily dismiss my lawsuit, it is not any sort of definitive proof that the battery did not happen. If there were a finding by a competent authority (judge or jury) on this point of fact, I would agree with you. But in this case there is not. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 08:38, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
This is Wikipedia. We don't deal in reality.
Recommend all re-read WP:BLPCRIME. HINT#1: We don't need an accusation to be proven to have not occured to omit it; we need it to not have been proven. "Not proven" - something for our Scottish editors there. And perhaps read WP:PSTS. HINT#2 The source is primary for the claim. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 11:15, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
But Ryk72 (talk · contribs), it is WP:BLPCRIME not WP:BADINTENT. There is no crime alleged here; arguably a kind of petulant tantrum. That doesn't rise to the level of a crime. If the quote were "X is guilty of solicitation to assault by engaging in acts Y and Z," then sure, WP:BLPCRIME. But "X knew this might cause an uproar"? That's a different beast. BLP creep is already a real thing (and is weaponized for all sorts of purposes). Guidelines are, of course, important. But guidelines run amok can be just as bad as no guidelines at all. Dumuzid (talk) 12:38, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Gjoni was facing criminal prosecution when the OOP was withdrawn. The DA issued a nolle prosequi for the criminal case. --DHeyward (talk) 14:01, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, he certainly was! This is a good way to address the matter. What was the nature of that criminal prosecution? Dumuzid (talk) 14:10, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
It was an allegation that the conduct outlined in the Boston Mag that developed into an OOP was criminal and the violation of the OOP would also be criminal. Whence when the OOP was removed, it was withdrawn. Criminally prosecuting a violation of an OOP is to also say the original circumstances were criminal - similar to trespassing, they prosecute the violation after notice but the notice is an accusation of criminal trespass. --DHeyward (talk) 16:33, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that's rather byzantine. I think the appeal to WP:BLPCRIME is misguided here and at best an unhelpful distraction. Personally I think the quote is unnecessarily sensationalist. There have been suggestions for a rewrite above that I think handle it much better then the current wording. — Strongjam (talk) 16:39, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

With all due respect DHeyward, this seems pretty clearly incorrect to me. Violation of an order of protection is criminal even if it is subsequently vacated by a court of competent jurisdiction. Moreover, orders of protection are routinely granted in civil matters. Violation of those is also criminal. My point is simple and narrow: the accusation embodied in the Boston Magazine piece is certainly one of malice, and implicates BLP policy. It is just not a criminal accusation of any sort. Other than that, as above, I currently tend to think like Strongjam. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 16:43, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, since I am such a nerd, I had to do a bit of research. The statute makes things pretty clear. With regard to harassment prevention orders, it says: "the proceedings hereunder are civil in nature and that violations of orders issued hereunder are criminal in nature." Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 258E, § 4. Not that I can blame anyone for not knowing that. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 17:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
That's the easy order to get. Also, in that chapter: "Further, a complainant shall be given information prepared by the appropriate district attorney's office that other criminal proceedings may be available and such complainant shall be instructed by such district attorney's office relative to the procedures required to initiate criminal proceedings including, but not limited to, a complaint for a violation of section 13B, 13F, 13H, 22, 22A, 23, 24, 24B, 26C, 43 and 43A of chapter 265 or section 3 of chapter 272." The underlying acts that give rise to civil order of protection is a crime. You can read all the requirements necessary for the civil order which is designed to stop further abuse but it is still an allegation of a crime that can be prosecuted. If you look at the requirements for the order, "3 or more acts of willful and malicious..." is actually tougher than the crime itself which requires only a single act but easier to get because alleging 3 instances is different than proving 1 beyond a reasonable doubt. The reason why civil orders are available is to immediately stop criminal behavior that may be escalating and may take time to work its way through the system so an order that protects immediately is more effective. But there is no way to obtain an order of protection without alleging a crime. This happens all the time in domestic violence cases which are clearly criminal but result in a civil OOP when the crime is alleged - prosecution is a different question but allegation of a crime is not. --DHeyward (talk) 21:20, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
"May be available." Dumuzid (talk) 21:35, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
It appears we're arguing about the wrong statute anyway! It seems to be a 209A at issue. With that I'll just say we can agree to disagree. Dumuzid (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Supposed clear BLP violations

Dear editors: In the event that you discover what you believe to be a clear BLP violation, rather than simply constantly reverting and filibustering, consider bringing it up on WP:BLPN. PeterTheFourth (talk) 11:26, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Or you could look two sections higher on the talk page, and discover those BLP objections being discussed. By the way, the burden lies on the editors trying to reinsert material removed on BLP grounds. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 11:31, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
@Starke Hathaway: Regrettably, this talk page is not the biography of living persons noticeboard. PeterTheFourth (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
If you feel you need to post at BLPN to find consensus for restoring the contested material, you should do that. Rhoark (talk) 13:35, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

As I pointed out above, there are two opposed policies here. One is that text which has been reasonably stable is assumed to have consensus (WP:EDITCONSENSUS). The other is WP:BLPREQUESTRESTORE. I am a bit fuzzy here, but I believe the former is technically right since otherwise anything dealing with any BLP could be theoretically challenged again and again (I believe this could be called "sealioning").

Having said that, I pointed out above that this text was added last December, after a similar text by the same reporter was removed on WP:BLP grounds. If I had known about the addition then, I would have opposed it. PeterTheFourth said above that this has been discussed "ad infinitum". I am not sure what they mean, because I can't find any discussion of it on the talkpage, either before or since. The only discussion I found - which was not strictly about this text - was an inconclusive RfC started by Mr. Magoo (which was archived recently without anybody closing it). Now, one can technically take refuge in WP:CONSENSUS: since nobody challenged it back in December, it has consensus. But I don't think it is in the spirit of the policy.

I asked people a simple question which nobody has answered. If some reporter had made a highly inflammatory claim about Sarkeesian, replicated nowhere else and denied by Sarkeesian, would you insert the quote into the article without giving Sarkeesian's response? It behooves us to be conservative in our claims involving WP:BLP. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:12, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

While there are many questions I would have about the hypothetical situation, I think if the quote were a result of an in-depth interview/profile of Ms. Sarkeesian in a reliable source, then I would take the same approach. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 14:17, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
I don't believe you, sorry. I would sure like someone to pull the following stunt in an American politician's BLP, based on the opinion of a single reporter, replicated nowhere and denied by the politician, without allowing the politician's response: "Politician X wants their message to resonate with American voters, some of whom are known to be racist and violent". Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:23, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Well, American politicians often find themselves the subject of more coverage than ex's. I think the source we have is perfectly fine for attributing an authors opinion, especially given the established trustworthiness of the publisher and in-depth nature of the article. If the issue is that you believe the ex is not given enough weight for their opinions, would you disagree with a reinsertion of the contested material with a short 'Gjoni disagrees with this' thrown in afterwards? PeterTheFourth (talk) 14:27, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Gjoni has had several interviews, none of which make this insinuation (it is only an insinuation and not a logical corollary, as my politician analogy shows) that he deliberately crafted the post to incite harassment. This is the closest one, temporally, which I could find to the Boston Mag interview. So no, I would not like it to be added to the article. However, if it was completely unavoidable, a short sentence quoting Gjoni about his intent would be suitable. My main point is the same: Gjoni's intent is irrelevant to the fact of harassment. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
As you noted, it's an opinion from an author who's notability for opinions is not established. It's not a fact. It's also repeating an allegation of a crime. The allegation was withdrawn when the ex dropped the stick and decided no OOP or criminal complaint was needed. --DHeyward (talk) 14:53, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Please don't make me start up with statutory interpretation again. Can we at least stick to vanilla BLP for a while? Dumuzid (talk) 14:54, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
@DHeyward and PeterTheFourth: Reminder that BLP applies to talk pages as well. I've edited both of your posts. — Strongjam (talk) 14:56, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
I would have done that originally but that would have went over like a TPO lead balloon. thanks for doing it for me. --DHeyward (talk) 23:59, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
No need to apologize! Believe what you like. And maybe have some ice cream. Cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 14:34, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Quick question: is there anyone other than PTF, Artw, and Binksternet who supports inclusion of the quote in its current form? I believe everyone else who has edited this passage or otherwise commented on it expressed support for removing or modifying it. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:38, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

"PTF, Artw, and Binksternet don't count" is not to my knowledge a Wikipedia policy. If what you are saying is you want a vote on the issue the RFC process would be the way to go, though I would avoid the problems with the last one on Gonji by making it a simple direct question and also not attempting to spin it as support for anything else after the fact. Artw (talk) 18:37, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
"PTF, Artw, and Binksternet don't count" is not to my knowledge a Wikipedia policy. Thank goodness no one has said such a thing! But when assessing what, if any, consensus exists I find it is often useful to know what positions there are and who supports them. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 18:48, 21 September 2016 (UTC)
Also I would second that if you truly believe there is a BLP problem the BLP board would be the way to go. That it has not been used already to me indicates that the policy's name might be being taken in vain a little here. Artw (talk) 18:40, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

BLPN discussion opened

Ask and ye shall receive. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 19:13, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Request for comment is posted

A Request for Comment about this draft has been made at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Gamergate draft. Rhoark (talk) 03:11, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Woodroar and Strongjam have some unresolved concerns about how CJR Why some SPJ leaders are engaging Gamergate[5] is used in the draft article. I thought it better to have a single threaded discussion here rather than in several places. The draft says, "Some journalists have been reluctant to revisit the controversy when new developments might validate the Gamergate movement." This rests mainly on the source text, "Muddled identity aside, mainstream observers have little inclination to revisit the issue. A number of top journalists in the field declined to speak to CJR on the record because they feared validating Gamergate as something more than a collection of trolls." Combining these two sentences is not a synthesis but a paraphrase. Summarization can reach across not just sentences but whole works, in which case the guiding policy is "A summary of extensive discussion should reflect the conclusions of the source." The broader relevant source text is:
and
Rhoark (talk) 14:15, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Where are you getting the "when new developments might validate" bit? I don't see that anywhere in the source.— Strongjam (talk) 14:20, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
"declined to speak to CJR on the record" is an example/elaboration of having "little inclination to revisit the issue". They declined to speak because they "feared validating Gamergate". Rhoark (talk) 15:06, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I understand that part, but where does "when new developments might validate" come from? They didn't say anything about new developments, they said it's a collection of trolls and they don't want to give them validation. — Strongjam (talk) 15:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
They wouldn't fear validating unless something in the content of revisiting might have the effect of validating. It seems from the overall context of being about AirPlay that it was not the original events under discussion. I suppose it could be walked back to "coverage" rather than "new developments". Rhoark (talk) 15:33, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
My understanding of the quote was they didn't want to validate the trolls, e.g. by covering them they are making them feel important, or to put it another way, don't feed the trolls, not that the coverage itself would contain something that would make GG valid. — Strongjam (talk) 15:40, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
I think the current phrasing is somewhat ambiguous. I suggest splitting it into two sentences: The Society of Professional Journalists put together a few events with some Gamergate supporters, focusing on ethical issues in journalism. However, most mainstream journalists declined to participate: they viewed Gamergate as a collection of trolls and feared that engaging with Gamergate would validate them. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 18:45, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
There are several ambiguities - the revisiting definitely includes responding to CJR, probably also participating in AirPlay, but maybe other kinds of revisiting as well. Not wanting to validate Gamergate as more than trolls is open-ended as to whether the journalists believe there is something more than trolls. I've tried to write something that stays concise while sticking close to the source and got, "Some journalists have been reluctant to revisit the controversy, not wanting to validate the Gamergate movement as more than a collection of trolls." Rhoark (talk) 18:28, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
This alternate phrasing also seems fine to me. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:58, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
I see the sentence has been rephrased: hopefully the different phrasing is (more) acceptable to all. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 04:06, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Two other passages Strongjam raised concerns with were the quote from Shawn Layden, and a summary of Ben Southwood on leftist infighting. Layden seems accurately summarized to me, but its not necessary to include. The piece by Southwood is used to say, Others such as Nathaniel Givens[1] or Ben Southwood[2][3] say the controversy represents a schism within the political left. Strongjam pointed out what might be considered doubtful language in "This makes me think that gamergate might be best characterised as a case of leftist infighting". I think this is just a bit of British elocution though. It is the main idea of the piece, and he points out that it concords with things he said in the earlier piece. Rhoark (talk) 18:50, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
References
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

References

  1. ^ Givens, Nathaniel (January 2, 2015). "Gamergate at the Beginning of 2015". First Things.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference adamsmithLose was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Southwood, Ben (October 22, 2014). "Is Gamergate a Classic Case of Left-Wing Infighting?". Adam Smith Institute.
Looks like the RfC has stronger "reject" arguments than "keep". At the very least, there is no consensus to use Rhoark's draft. Binksternet (talk) 18:53, 17 September 2016 (UTC)
RfCs usually run for 30 days. Let it play out. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 23:56, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Gjoni's intent, again

I have removed the characterization by Zachary Jason of Gjoni's intent in posting the account According to Zachary Jason of Boston magazine, Gjoni deliberately crafted the post to resonate with members of the gaming community, "some of whom he already knew were passionately predisposed to attacking women in the industry". The reasons are as follows:

  • See the old discussion here for another version of characterization of Gjoni's intent. The (ambiguous) comment by the same reporter that Gjoni intended "maximum pain and harm" was removed. The same principle applies here.
  • The current statement comes just after the earlier ambiguous statement: From the start, it seems, Gjoni wanted to make certain that his blog about Quinn would connect with a large base of people in the gaming community, some of whom he already knew were passionately predisposed to attacking women in the industry. Some point after the previous statement was removed, this was added, I don't know why.
  • This is simply a characterization by this particular reporter. This is clear from the clause: "it seems". Gjoni has denied any such intent and stated that it was the opposite.
full quote
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Actually, I specifically put it in places that had a high opinion of Zoe to avoid harassment. I figured that there was a high potential because she had a history of being harassed on the Internet, supposedly. So I wanted to avoid that—avoid 4Chan or any place that had a history of harassing her. There was Penny Arcade, which had a very positive view of her based on forum searches, and Something Awful. Those were the only two places where I put it, because I thought they were least likely to harass her.

  • I don't find any other source which claims this. Gjoni has given his motivations in other venues, whether one believes them or not, this is not one of them.
  • Per WP:BLP, one shouldn't be quoting such a negative statement based on such thin evidence. At the very least Gjoni should be quoted in response. I don't think we need to quote such things at all.
  • Last point, which I forgot to make, but which I made in the other discussion. Gjoni's intent is irrelevant. Whether he intended harm or not, what happened, happened. A single comment should not be quoted like this. (re-signing) Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:32, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Gjoni's own denial is not as definitive as Zachary Jason's confirmation because Jason is an uninvolved third party writing as a secondary source. Jason analyzed various things revealed by Gjoni to come up with his summary. Jason did not take just one Gjoni quote as his source. Jason is by far the better source. Binksternet (talk) 01:28, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Indeed, it is Jason's conclusion about what Gjoni's intent was. The source is reliable for Jason's opinion. I don't think a random reporter's opinion should be quoted like this without any context or rebuttal, for reasons I mentioned above. YMMV. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 01:38, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
WP:SECONDARY seems to me to say that "a random reporter's opinion" is kind of the foundation of this entire project. To wit: "[a] secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources." When you combine that with "Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources," you end up near my thinking on the subject. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 02:46, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
That's exactly it. The secondary source is what we base our articles on. In this case, the "random reporter" is a professional journalist who studied the story carefully. Binksternet (talk) 02:56, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Will one quote a negative opinion of intent by one random reporter of some random living person, say Sarkeesian, which is denied by Sarkeesian, not replicated anywhere else, is manifestly irrelevant and not even give Sarkeesian's response? The question answers itself.

Reading the article, it's pretty clear that it's a hatchet job. Even back then, Gjoni wrote a couple of posts about his viewpoint on the Boston Mag article. I have no problems with hatchet jobs in general, they are one of the most enjoyable and informative formats to read. But one doesn't add such content willy-nilly into an encyclopedia. As far as I can see, this quote by Zachary Jason was added here, a few days after the earlier quote about "maximum pain and harm" by the same reporter was removed, after talk page discussion. There was no discussion on the talkpage before adding the content, and no reference to why the old quote was removed. The edit summary was unclear. There was a flurry of edits during that time: if it had been my practice to watch the page like a hawk, or if I had known about it then, I would have objected, for the same reasons as now. Now, we can take the position that this quote has consensus because nobody challenged it, and we will be technically right. From my perspective, it is in the article because nobody noticed it back then. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 03:25, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Agree. Obviously reliable secondary sources are the backbone of the project, but WP:BLP is worth a read. —Torchiest talkedits 07:33, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Me, too. The first para of Kingsindian's last comment above is particularly telling. BTW, I have no idea whether this professional journalist "studied the story carefully" but I've seen plenty of examples over the years when journalists have proven themselves to err in their work as much as any other person. - Sitush (talk) 07:40, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
The supposedly "random" reporter is professional journalist Zachary Jason who writes for Boston magazine and the Boston Globe newspaper. Gjoni sat down with him and "talked for the next three hours, and again and again over the next three months." Jason had a great deal of material to draw from in order to make his conclusions about Gjoni. This reliable WP:SECONDARY source is so respected that it was cited by a PhD in one scholarly journal ("Online misogyny and feminist digilantism") and by one law student who is the editor of the Seton Hall Legislative Journal ("A Reckless Guessing Game: Online Threats Against Women in the Aftermath of Elonis v. United States"). The guideline at WP:BLP is not being violated here. Jason's piece is a very reliable source. Binksternet (talk) 07:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
I don't think a reference in an article by a law student counts as a reliable anything, and I don't think it is to be unexpected that feminist writers would pick up on it - that, and its opposite, is a big part of the problem with the subject matter, ie: battle-lines. I accept your comment about the long time spent with Gjoni, thanks. I still don't see why the opinion of a "professional journalist" counts for much and I do worry about BLP. - Sitush (talk) 08:07, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
The BLP guideline is mostly redundant with WP:V, but its worth considering WP:BLPCRIME. Also, if an interview subject disputes the accuracy of their interview, that's a red flag about verifiability for sure. This claim is not attributed to Gjoni per se, but is built on statements allegedly attributed to him in error. It's not impossible to include, but it would be better not to include, and definitely contrary to NPOV to include it without a reply. Rhoark (talk) 11:46, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
While WP:BLP is a concern, WP:BLPCRIME does not at all apply. The quote does not accuse anyone of committing a crime. — Strongjam (talk) 17:45, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Incitement to violence is a crime. Rhoark (talk) 19:45, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Rhoark, incitement certainly can be a crime (although this is a complex question), but I don't even see an exhortation to violence alleged here? It's probably a Monday thing. Dumuzid (talk) 19:50, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
@Rhoark: Incitement to violence is an incredibly narrow crime and not at all what is implied by the quote. — Strongjam (talk) 20:06, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Isn't it? It says it was "designed to resonate" with those having a propensity to "attack" women. Coming right before a discussion of threats to bash brains or kneecaps, it certainly creates an impression of inciting violence. While you and I may know that "attack" in this case more properly means "criticize", an uninformed reader may get a very different impression. Rhoark (talk) 00:15, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
No, it isn't. Dumuzid (talk) 00:27, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I go back and forth on whether this quote helps the article, but my current thinking is somewhat different. Why not remove Gjoni from the article entirely? He's not otherwise notable (no offense to him, of course), and I think just describing him once generically as "an ex-boyfriend" or "former paramour" or some such would have a salutary effect on the article, and protect privacy at the same time. I think it would look something like this:

In August 2014, a former boyfriend of Quinn's published the "Zoe Post", a 9,425-word blog post that quoted from personal chat logs, emails, and text messages to describe their relationship. The post, described as "a rambling online essay" in The New York Times,[7] complained, among other things, that Quinn entered a romantic relationship with Nathan Grayson, a journalist for the Gawker Media video game website Kotaku. The post was linked on 4chan, where some erroneously claimed the relationship had induced Grayson to publish a favorable review of Depression Quest. Grayson had never reviewed Quinn's games and Grayson's only article for Kotaku mentioning her was published before their relationship began.[12][13][14][15]

After the blog post, Quinn and her family were subjected to a virulent and often misogynistic harassment campaign.[16][17][18] The people behind this campaign initially referred to it as the "quinnspiracy", but adopted the Twitter hashtag "Gamergate" after it was coined by actor Adam Baldwin near the end of August.[18][19][20][21] Baldwin has described Gamergate as a backlash against political correctness, saying it has started a discussion "about culture, about ethics, and about freedom".[22][23] Journalists who did not cover the examination into Quinn's private life were accused of conspiracy, and a blacklist circulated by Gamergate supporters.[24] The accusations and harassment were coordinated by 4chan users over Internet Relay Chat (IRC), spreading rapidly over imageboards and forums like 4chan and Reddit.[9][18][25][26]

Feel free to tell me that I'm wrong and that my opinions are destroying Wikipedia. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 13:36, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you're right on removing the quote, but not quite in the way you mean. It's significant that, per the source, Gjoni deliberately crafted the post to resonate with gamers, including misogynist gamers, if any of this stuff is. However, we don't need the quote, as we can just paraphrase it: "According to Zachary Jason of Boston magazine, Gjoni crafted the post to resonate with members of the gaming community, including those with a history of attacking women."
I don't know that I see the point in removing Gjoni's name considering that it's been widely discussed in sources on Gamergate.--Cúchullain t/c 14:03, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
To be honest, it's really more of my quixotic quest to trim the article both in terms of sheer word count and topics presented. Most of the reliable sources tend to gloss very quickly over the interpersonal dynamics here, and I don't think that's a bad way to go. That being said, I also don't think including the quote (or a paraphrase) is problematic. Just a matter of style and what constitutes the "full picture" of gamergate. Cheers! Dumuzid (talk) 14:46, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Dumuzid's version is virtually identical to the one I supported above, except the last sentence in the first paragraph, Gjoni later updated the blog post to acknowledge this. The "acknowledge" should be "clarify", by the way - the source says nothing about acknowledging. I think the last sentence is useful, but I am willing to be persuaded otherwise. However, I don't think the "paraphrasing" is materially any different from direct quoting; if anything it is worse. The quote, taken literally, is meaningless. If, for the sake of argument, we agree that the clauses: "Gjoni crafted the post to resonate with gamers" and "some gamers harass women" are both true, it does not follow that "Gjoni crafted the post to encourage harassment". In the article, the latter conclusion is attributed to Arthur Chu and Jesse Singal, with Gjoni, his female dev friends and mother quoted for balance. I again return to my original point: Gjoni's intent is irrelevant. Whether he intended harassment or not, it occurred. Almost all sources don't speculate about his intent, for this reason. One can also quote the proverb: "the road to hell is paved with the best intentions", so even if his intentions were good, it doesn't mean anything. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:24, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
I'm fine with Dumuzid's version or Kingsindian version, or the Cúchullain paraphrase. — Strongjam (talk) 17:45, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
Kingsindian, that's a reasonable point.--Cúchullain t/c 18:49, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
  • Currently the rumor clearly violates BLP It's a pure rumor supported by just one source of countless and the source quotes these pieces as its evidence:
"He was keenly aware of attracting an impressionable readership. “If I can target people who are in the mood to read stories about exes and horrible breakups,” he says now, “I will have an audience.”"
"One of the keys to how Gjoni justified the cruelty of “The Zoe Post” to its intended audience was his claim that Quinn slept with five men during and after their brief romance."
As I wrote before:
It boggles the mind how he links reveal-all gossip about exes and breakups as "passionately predisposed to attacking women in the industry". Where did he find the gender here? Are breakup gossipers known to be predisposed to attacking women in the industry? Is TMZ known for being predisposed to attacking women in the industry? Judging by their latest coverage of Jay-Z, I'd say gossip hurts everyone equally. We are covering one vague apparently-evidenceless rumor from a single — seemingly just one of those publications of an opinion which are distanced by the publishers from regular, more fact-checked reporting — of a source, and all without letting an RS interview have a counterword. Let me list some Wikipedia policies: "Avoid gossip", "Be wary of relying on sources that use weasel words and that attribute material to anonymous sources" and "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that: 1. is unsourced or poorly sourced 4. relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet Verifiability standards" amongst others — not to mention the ones which name fair coverage of both sides of the story. The bit breaches upon all these rules. It's even stated that WP:3RR doesn't apply if you're trying to remove libel. I could revert the bit 5 times and be within my rights.
This is how the post is referred to by another source:

"Despite its length, Gjoni’s post amounts to little more than the kind of nasty, post-breakup gripes spurned partners lament about with close friends. But thanks to a number of key factors, his allegations have turned into a hot-button issue for a certain sector of the gaming community, which has twisted Gjoni’s dirty laundry into a narrative of industry corruption—a tale that is not based on provable fact." and "Gjoni’s post never makes either allegation."

Sources describe the post as nothing more than a nasty post-breakup gripe from a spurned lover and that it was twisted by a certain sector of the gaming community. Are you going against sources, to quote a rumor? I see zero logical counter-arguments here, especially as some people mind-bogglingly don't even want a response from Gjoni if the rumor is kept. Mr. Magoo (talk) 17:15, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Magoo - Repeatedly misrepresenting the outcome of an RfC here and in other places really isn't helping your case, you should probably stop doing that. As for BLPCRIME, that does not seem to be applicable. I'm not seeing a BLP case for your removal of content either, perhaps you should take that to the relevant board? Artw (talk) 19:01, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Mr. Magoo, you say "I could revert the bit 5 times and be within my rights." Well, maybe. You are of course correct that 3RR does not apply to removal of libel. But I don't think you get to be a jury of one. Consensus still applies. I, for my part, certainly don't think the bit at issue rises to that level. But reasonable minds can differ. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 19:25, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
@Mr. Magoo and McBarker: No need to hurry or edit-war: let the discussion play out here. In particular, not everyone accepts the BLPCRIME rationale; people might find some or the other arguments more sensible though. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 19:32, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
I didn't "misrepresent" anything. Three editors other than me supported the cut over addition of the Gjoni interview. Dumuzid wrote he thought he suggested the cut but now he thinks otherwise? The suggestion seemed to have originally come from Ryk72. None opposed the cut proposition. When the suggestion was reached it was the end of the discussion. You didn't even participate for the lengthy duration it ran. And it's a possible case of harassment if portrayed as it is, especially because the matter was taken to court twice and on the second time it was decided a moot charge. I also found it lovely that even though I did a single revert in 54 hours two people who were perfectly aware I had reverted at the article before decided now was the time to spam my talk with "gamergate revert notices". I've seen how these notices are used as a means of mild harassment on Wikipedia. Mr. Magoo (talk) 04:03, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
If it is too hot for you, the door out of the kitchen is over there.--Jorm (talk) 04:14, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

This was discussed before ad infinitum, and I'm disappointed to see the same well being dredged. It's not a rumour simply because such a thing is asserted- it's the conclusion of a qualified reporter who is unrelated to the harassment campaign or its targets. That is, it's from a perfectly reliable secondary source. PeterTheFourth (talk) 22:25, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

How about this? Mortensen says,

As far as it is possible to tell, GG started as a harassment campaign aimed at developer Zoe Quinn, with her previous boyfriend Eron Gjoni as the initiator for the first accusations against her. Gjoni was drumming up sympathy for himself, justifying his anger through telling stories about Quinn in comments (later deleted) at forums Something Awful and Penny Arcade (2014c). It was discussed on the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel #burgersandfries (Unknown, 2014c), and while the available chat log has been disputed, it has so far not been disproved. According to this chat log Gjoni also posted on 4chan, and the stories he had been telling in his blog The Zoe Post (2014a) were refined and used to fuel the anger of members of these different forums.

  • It's a more reliable source
  • It makes the connection between Gjoni and 4chan without implying an intent to incite behavior

Rhoark (talk) 01:28, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd say that's perfect. We could use both sources, and trim the wording a bit.--Cúchullain t/c 02:49, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Mortensen adds weight to the position held by Jason, which is that Gjoni chose his publishing medium for maximum effect against Quinn. That satisfies the WP:WEIGHT and balance that some here were complaining about. Per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV and WP:YESPOV, the Jason quote was already suitable, since its position was attributed.
As I said above, Dr. Emma A. Jane of the University of South Wales takes Jason's position seriously, citing it in her scholarly paper, "Online misogyny and feminist digilantism". So Mortensen and Jane both support Jason's stance. Binksternet (talk) 14:51, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
See the subsection below for the silliness of the citation argument. As for the rest, you are making the same mistake as I described above. Mortensen does not say that Gjoni incited harassment on 4chan. She said that he wanted to drum up sympathy for himself (that is also an opinion, but let's leave that aside). Unnamed people on these forums (I wonder why all these things are written in passive voice) used the Zoe post to fuel anger against Quinn. In fact, if you read the chat logs (search for "<Eron_G>"), you'll see that he repeatedly asks people to not engage in harassment. Maybe he was naive or insincere, but that only proves my point: his intent is irrelevant. However, that is a primary source, so we can't use that in the article. I am simply presenting it as part of a bigger argument. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 16:36, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
What do you suggest? That quote is so incredibly vague too. He used to post on a website? Who refined the stories? Our two other sources state it was the others who distorted it? Can clarification be gotten? What are the exact chat lines. Mr. Magoo (talk) 04:03, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Citation to Boston Mag in Continuum

Binksternet's argument for retaining the Boston Mag quote on the basis that the article in which it appears was cited in Continuum is a non-starter. The statement in the Continuum article for which Boston Mag is cited is After accumulating 16 gigabytes of abuse (Jason 2015). Nothing about Gjoni's intent, and in any event a mere citation wouldn't strengthen the sourcing for that attribution of malice anyway. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 14:54, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, to be fair, in fn 14, Dr. Jane also refers to Mr. Gjoni's "public character assassination of Quinn," which strikes me as independent support for some level of intentionality. Thanks. (Updated with proper title; thanks Starke Hathaway) Dumuzid (talk) 15:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
I believe she's Dr. Jane, but regardless of that, intentionally publishing unflattering things about a person is not intentionally inciting others to attacks. -Starke Hathaway (talk) 15:10, 20 September 2016 (UTC)
Starke portrays an obvious and crucial flaw. There is zero evidenced support for the statement from "Dr. Jane". And sorry, but it also gives me bad faith in you that you'd push something this much off the mark. Did you think no one would read it? Mr. Magoo (talk) 04:03, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Journalist Sarah Jeong writes in her book The Internet of Garbage, page 17, that Gjoni figured the odds of Quinn being harassed were 80 percent. This Jason quote is explicitly attributed to the Boston Magazine piece. Binksternet (talk) 06:15, 22 September 2016 (UTC)
Do you agree that there is a difference between "I thought X is likely to occur" and "I tried to incite X"? The former can be true even if one takes all precautions to avoid or minimize X. What you're claiming is that Jason quoted Gjoni accurately that he figured the odds of harassment at 80%. But then he is directly quoted in the Buzzfeed interview that "I gave this outcome an exceedingly low probability". Harassment is not a binary thing: there is low-level harassment and there is death threats driving people from their homes. I keep coming back to my original point: Gjoni's intent is irrelevant. The important fact is that harassment occurred. I don't know why editors think that readers are too stupid to figure out what is likely to happen when one writes an over 9000 word blog post revealing private details which gets linked on 4chan. No, one must say that Gjoni deliberately incited harassment. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 06:41, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

New academic paper that talks about gamergate

It mostly focuses on Vivian James, the mascot some angry nerds use for gamergate. You can read through it here- if it's not useful as a source for this page, it could be useful on the Fine Young Capitalists page. PeterTheFourth (talk) 10:36, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Not sure it's really usable. Academia.edu is basically a self-publishing repository. — Strongjam (talk) 12:50, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. Perhaps its time for Vivian James to get a dedicated article. Marteau (talk) 14:46, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Weight lead question

Is Gjoni's portion considered due weight for the lead? I only ask because his portion seems minor in the paragraph, so that would indicate that it is undue in the lead. Sorry random thought that popped into my head while I was looking at the lead and trying to figure out a way to rewrite it for clarity and weight issues. Tivanir2 (talk) 12:36, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

I am in favor of nothing more than mercilessly cutting down both the lead and the article in general, but as Mr. Gjoni is the progenitor of this entire fracas, I am afraid I have to say it seems like due weight to me. Sincerely, thanks for taking the time to analyze. Dumuzid (talk) 13:24, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
I can see how that would be necessary and no worries. I figured if I start looking and asking questions perhaps as an outside individual I can help clean up the article. I will let you know if anything else that I see comes up. Will probably be a few days between questions. Tivanir2 (talk) 21:19, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Proposed motion modifying Talk:Gamergate controversy sanction

In response to a request at WP:ARCA, the Arbitration Committee is considering a motion to lift extended-confirmed protection on Talk:Gamergate controversy. Your comments are welcome at the amendment request. For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 01:13, 16 October 2016 (UTC)

Arbitration motion regarding GamerGate

The Arbitration Committee has resolved by motion that:

In May 2015 administrator Zad68 imposed extended confirmed protection of Talk:Gamergate controversy as a discretionary sanction in response to this AE request. The Arbitration Committee notes that Zad68 is currently inactive so the sanction cannot be modified without consensus or Committee action. Therefore the Committee lifts the discretionary sanction on Talk:Gamergate controversy (not the article) to allow the community to modify the protection level in accordance with the Wikipedia:Protection policy.

For the Arbitration Committee, Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 00:59, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Discuss this at: Wikipedia talk:Arbitration Committee/Noticeboard#Arbitration motion regarding GamerGate
  • As this page is no longer under DS, I've lowered the protection level to semi-protection. As per the protection policy, should semi-protection prove ineffective the level may be increased again. — xaosflux Talk 01:54, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Rewrite intro?

Or can we at least get a [citation needed] on the "Gamergate targeted" in the second paragraph - kinda seems a bit harsh to say [new concept/group of people under this named banner] immediately targeted individuals to start off with. Assuming wikipedia still to some degree has pretensions to neutrality on controversies, that is.Oathed (talk) 14:47, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

But they did? And the vast wealth of sources in the article corroborate this. Koncorde (talk) 15:39, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, the whole thing started with attacks on Quinn and everything from there on was pursuit of that or other women. ゼーロ (talk) 20:44, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Article is too long

This is coming from someone who doesn't care about Gamergate. The article is way too long and complicated to understand from a newcomer's perspective, the way that the article is structured is very confusing and not very encyclopedic in my opinion. I'm not trying to be biased but this article is just not very good. I know that the controversy surrounding the article may have been one of the factors for it's long length, but adding more to the article just fuels the controversy even more. Gamergate is becoming more irrelevant by the second and I feel it's time to either shorten the article or remove it altogether. DancingHaggis (talk) 22:42, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

What would you remove, friend? PeterTheFourth (talk) 22:45, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
One problem I have is that the introductory paragraphs are way too long. Remove a couple of paragraphs and shorten the remaining ones so that it's not too convoluted to newcomers. DancingHaggis (talk) 22:52, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Which paragraphs would you remove? PeterTheFourth (talk) 22:56, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Removing or refining the fifth and sixth opening paragraphs would be an easier read in my opinion. The information is already in the "Gaming industry response" section. I'm not some raging asshole Gamergate neckbeard as I'm trying to be civil here. DancingHaggis (talk) 23:03, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
The purpose of the lede is to summarise information in the body of the article. As such, removing content from it as it is already in the body of the article seems strange to me. When you say 'refine', do you have any specific suggestions as to what you'd do? PeterTheFourth (talk) 23:36, 31 October 2016 (UTC)
Not currently. I just came back on Wikipedia after a year and a half of semi-retirement so I'm trying to get used to this site again. DancingHaggis (talk) 23:58, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

Just chiming in to say I completely agree, but I am fully mindful of the difficulties with paring down the article. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 20:20, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I think you could safely remove half of the content of these sections: 2.3 Law Enforcement, 3 Debate over Ethics Allegations, 4 Gamergate Activities, 4.1 Efforts to impact public perceptions, 4.2 Targeting advertisers, 5. Gaming industry response, 6 Responses outside the gaming industry. I read through these sections and a lot of the material is unnecessary or redundant. Mr Ernie (talk) 17:39, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
I tend to agree Mr. Ernie, and in general, I think the "tick tock" approach the article has developed is not really warranted. That being said, I know I am well in the minority, and agreement on changes (including reductions) is hard won, even when we only consider editors engaging in good faith! But that won't stop me from (politely) banging my gong. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 18:37, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Would absolutely agree as far as the lede is concerned. I've made some suggestions for a shorter version previously, which didn't work out for various reasons, but I might take a look at it again. Artw (talk) 00:46, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

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