How do you tell when someone is on the soapbox? Well, comments like these are a good sign.


My observations of Sitush aren't criteria, they're just observations. General purpose criteria would look more like.
A) No signs of activism in the topic area on or off wiki. Yes anonymous editors will dodge the off wiki criteria, however it's still worthwhile to weed out the non-anonymous activists.
B) The editors main contributions lie outside the broader topic area of the contention. In this particular case, editors who mainly edit games/feminism articles most likely have a stake one way or another.
C) The editor does not portray them-self as a martyr. If an editor thinks they're sacrificing themselves on behalf of wikipedia by editing the article, it's likely they care too much.

........Only because Bernstein and his ilk would feed the story to a bleating and vacant-eyed media, which really doesn't have a notion that GG is actually a grassroots conservative political movement, not an organized harassment campaign.

No, truth and honesty winning out over distortion does not bother me.

RfB

You're heavily exaggerating how sympathetic Masem is towards gamergate. Gamergate would still come across looking pretty crappy in an article written by Masem. It's not like the article would suddenly become a long spiel about how Zoe Quinn is the worst person ever or anything. As it stands a good 20% of the article is written by Masem compared to a paltry 1-2% by Bernstein. Removing either or both would change close to nothing, except for the amount of drama.

True enough, there's plenty of crap to be apportioned. I don't hump GamerGate's leg, they aren't "my team" — they're a loose-knit conservative political group. All they have really wanted from WP is to be treated fairly...

RfB

Well, GG and similar movements are interesting because they self-describe as grassroots liberal political movements while quite clearly behaving like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary (T-H-L) elements.

I think they identify as libertarian, not liberal. Certainly their collective vision of a bogey called "Social Justice Warriors" is clearly and obviously right wing, not left...

RfB

As soon as you implement those criteria you will end up with accounts carefully designed to circumvent them. This situation only highlights this problem.

A better solution would be to have an editor who makes editorial decisions. It is impossible to eliminate bias, so at least the bias should be attributable. That's the kind of standard that every other serious reference work uses, and it would make sense now 15 years on for Wikipedia to implement it. Of course, it is important to come to terms with Ward Cunningham's excellent quote, "Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, came to me and asked me if a wiki could work for an encyclopedia. I told him that he would have a wiki, not an encyclopedia. A wiki has to have a purpose. People are not there to be social, but to change something."

I'm hiding my reply to RfB as it's becoming increasingly tangental.



True, but then you'd have an encyclopaedia, not a wiki!

That's not the issue. The issue is whether or not an article penned exclusively by Masem would accurately reflect the weight of opinions in reliable sources. It seems pretty obvious to me that it would not. It seems pretty obvious to me why. He's attempting to push his own opinion into the article, to adjust for what he sees as media bias. I believe in Wikipedia parlance, that means he's a POV pusher. If the fact that 20% of the article has in fact been written by Masem is true, then he has perhaps been succeeding far more than he would have people believe, hence why he would gladly accept a temporary voluntary ban as a result of badly misjudging the merits of his AE case he brought in an attempt to silence someone who is standing in his way.

While I agree that Masem has his own PoV that he wants to push and wouldn't be the ideal editor if a single editor was to be picked (He's simply considered the best of the ones currently active on that page) your characterisation here just isn't accurate. While Mark Bernstein is an ass in various ways that do not technically qualify as personal attacks, he's not actually by himself doing all that much to stop Masem from editing the article. To make anything stick to the article, Masem also has to fight the combined might of Brustopher, Strongjam, Woodroar, Aquillion, Dumuzid etc, getting rid of Mark is unlikely to make things measurably easier and none of the others are at risk of AE so it's not a repeatable procedure.

Also it's really fun to look at http://en.wikichecker.com/article/?a=Ta ... ontroversy, apparently it's been dragged to AE so many times that AE is their most frequently edited page after the GG page itself.

Right, but let me reiterate, I don't have any problem with Mr. Masem's writing skills or his ability to stay within whatever parameters are set for him. Nor do I think a "fairer" article about Gamergate would be all that bad a thing if (or maybe when) the pro-GG sources become sufficient to make it so.

The problem here is that if Wikipedia makes a formal decision before that time to set aside its sourcing rules just for them, that's a serious breach of public trust, and they're going to hear about it from the media in a big way. I seems like it would be a newsworthy event, and though it's hard right now to predict the severity and the extent of the coverage, we've already seen how successful Mr. Bernstein has been with spinning nothing more than a proposed Arbcom decision (to topic-ban some people, not even a content determination) out as though it was proof that the whole place had been taken over by misogynist dittoheads. Imagine how the "librul media" will react when they have something real to report.

I also tried earlier to explain the alleged media bias as simple lack of willingness to report hearsay when (somewhat) provable facts are available, rather than some sort of "SJW" wagon-circling conspiracy. I guess that went over like a lead balloon, but c'est la vie.

Last but not least, you also have the slippery-slope argument where if they make that exception for GG, won't they have to make the same exception for other highly-unpopular groups? On articles where there may not be a handy Masem waiting around for the go-ahead to try and rewrite them to make everyone happy?

Yes, any sort of policy decision made in this area would have to be broadly applicable for all partisan topics.

You attempt to frame this as an exception to sourcing rules. That's neither Masem's argument nor Rhoark's nor Ryk72's. Rather they want to more closely mirror the tone and coverage of respected publications like the NY Times, and reduce sourcing from gossip rags like The Mary Sue and The Verge.

Assuming by some circuitous logic this would bring wikipedia into disrepute, understand that an insignificantly small minority care about wikipedia politics one way or the other; while this may be a significant topic here the general public is uninterested.

This I can reconcile. I appreciate your honesty.

It's at this point that examples would help.

One editor, possibly Rhoark, compiled a summary of high-quality sources. I don't have the link on hand. It was posted to the talk page and I believe copied to the editor's user-space.

Found it. Now compare these to wikipedia's opening paragraph (below) and Masem's point seems reasonable:

Responding to some of the points:

1. Randy, if you want a good political analogy for GamerGate that you could understand, it would be Trotsky vs. Stalin with GamerGate as Trotsky.

2. The problem with Masem is that he actually seems to believe simply providing a comprehensive article based off coverage in reliable sources written according to Wikipedia existing rules would somehow require disregarding some aspect of policy. In fact, sufficient reliable sources exist that provide a more neutral or even sympathetic take on GamerGate than what is currently reflect by the article. Even with the biased sources policy is clear that editors are not obliged and actually discouraged from simply repeating partisan coverage.

3. As for what happens if Mark gets removed, the most active editors on that topic are SPAs and them being exposed to closer scrutiny is likely to put them in jeopardy. For now, Mark serves as a distraction from that point and removing him leaves those editors exposed.

Agreed. ForbiddenRocky's recent slip up was noticed.

Re: Masem's point, although it's been argued better by others (DHeyward), I was referring to the recognition of two distinct themes: internet harassment and backlash against moral authoritarians (the Stalinists in your analogy.)

It's a shame you're not still involved in that article but better for you personally perhaps Your recent block was unreasonable. I could link to NBSB's numerous "passes" for removal of lesser BLP violations but what purpose would it serve? Every rule on wiki is subject to arbitrary enforcement and interpretation, as it suits the enforcer's purpose.

I think Randy's perfectly capable of understanding something more contemporary like "Todd Akin vs. Elizabeth Warren" or "Ted Cruz vs. Hillary Clinton," despite his occasional lapses in common sense.


Masem is right, actually. And we already know what sort of sources you consider "reliable," so I'm afraid you're not likely to be taken any more seriously on that claim than usual.


You really think this is all some sort of chess game, don't you? Not just a free-for-all, but something where rules are meaningful. So which type of chess-piece is Bernstein, then? (Don't answer that, it's not a serious question.)

Anyway, I don't think you'll get very far with this strategy, but I'm sure the further self-marginalization will be very entertaining, so... keep up the good work!

Half sounds like you're trying to convince yourself. Outrage always comes in waves. Satanist daycares, heavy metal turning boys into murderers. With religion's decline you have a lot of free-agent zealots looking for a bandwagon - this postmodern-ish PC stuff is the latest. PR, strategy, necessary tools of the minority. The majority only needs time.

So, here's something. NorthBySouthBaranof (T-C-L) is, like me, topic-banned per the standard topic ban outlined in the ArbCom case. That topic ban is explained as follows:



Baranof has for some time been editing the article on activist Shaun King (T-C-L) per his usual "BLP for the people with whom I agree!" schtick. King has been in a bit of controversy due to being a proclaimed bi-racial leader of BlackLivesMatter despite numerous public records indicating he is white with white parents and has thus been lying about his race. His response was essentially, "I am not lying, the evidence is lying!" and apparently that was good enough for some of the more partisan left-wing media outlets despite family members stating to CNN that he is white and his parents are white.

All these allegations became widely known due to an article by Milo Yiannopoulos in Breitbart. Milo has been very active in covering GamerGate and is very much someone who would be associated with GamerGate. Baranof would theoretically be free to edit the article about Shaun King so long as he avoided anything referencing Milo, but instead it seems Baranof is quite deadset on doing everything he can to minimize, attack, and discredit Milo despite none of the claims he has made being refuted with actual evidence.

Cut to today and Baranof is now screaming his head off over at the talk page because one of the people who told Milo about the story has turned out to be a prolific troll who got arrested for sending bomb-making information to an FBI agent posing as a radical Islamist. As the troll was also involved in some GamerGate shenanigans the thread starts off suggesting material about this connection should be put on Milo's page or the GamerGate page. Despite his topic ban covering any edits about people associated with GamerGate, he is now crying shrilly about two people he definitely knows are connected to GamerGate.

It appears Baranof wants to use this to further lend credence to his attempts at trashing Milo in that article as somehow being completely refuted and discredited because he may have learned about the public record evidence from a troll, even though said evidence has been verified by numerous outlets held with higher esteem than Breitbart and the troll is never cited in the article at all. So far no one seems to be pointing out or acknowledging the topic ban violations. He should definitely know that such commentary on Milo and the troll would be covered given he previously went through a contentious AE case focused on the question of whether a figure with no obvious connection to GamerGate was connected due to a gender-related dispute or controversy concerning something she said in her memoirs.

Seems people are giving Baranof so much leeway that he is looking to see how much he can abuse it for his own partisan purposes.

Good lord, what a smug, sanctimonious, punchable-faced asshole.

(lyrics)



RfB

An adult finally stepped between the children and dealt with it. Just like Ryulong, I think NorthbySouth needs to get out of the house a bit more.

NorthBySouthDingbat is a sock of FCYTravis, notorious diaper wearing self-shitter.
He needs psychiatric help and to stay the hell away from wikipedia. In that way, he is very much like Ryulong.

https://encyclopediadramatica.se/Travis_Mason-Bushman

I have a mutual acquaintance who met him at a race and said he was the creepiest person that he'd ever met.

Blah blah blah, delete racist horseshit.

I would think that forcing a black man to admit he doesn't know who his biological father is by questioning his "racial authenticity," based on the obviously, blatantly flimsy information on his birth records, which is probably there because his Mom is real goddamned tired of being called a "{n-word}-lover" every time she walks into the Wal-Mart to buy smokes and is willing to lie about who his particular semen-donor was just to make it stop, is just about the most virulently racist, despicable, sickening thing someone who farcically calls himself a "journalist" could possibly do. But I guess that's just me.

At least Mr. so-called "Yiannopoulos" is getting paid for doing these kinds of bogus hit-pieces. What's your excuse, Mr. Advocate? Do you get some sort of award or prize for the degree to which you can debase yourself? Is someone paying you to make yourself look like unadulterated racist filth?

What other personality type would be willing to go toe-to-toe with people like them on a near-daily basis?

The gamers make the environment as toxic as possible, so of course the "nice people" and the "cool people" are going to disappear after a few weeks - leaving people like this guy to do all their dirty work. Frankly, they're lucky they have him.

She brings his birth certificate to the Walmart?

Baranof hasn't returned to the Shaun King article for nearly five days. I wonder if that is because he saw my post pointing out that he was repeatedly violating his topic ban for weeks or was tipped off about it and decided to scuttle off lest he get in trouble. Amazing the kind of stuff he has been allowed to get away with over there.

I was talking about you and your buddies on GamerGate.

A bit and , seeing how no one was talking about GG in a thread about Jayjg, the Israeli-Palestine topic area, and socking therein.

Well, this, and the fact I was talking about heavy-duty misuse of Checkuser to further a POV in a contentious area. If anyone is still doing that to the extent that Jayjg and his cronies were, I'd be interested to know it.

We strayed into the cabal topic.
Abuse of process, gangbanging anyone who doesn't share our outlook, rules are for the others...

You know exactly what I'm talking about.

For the record, I don't give two shits about gamergate, Zoe Quinn, Anita Sarkeesian, Brianna Wu, the five horsemen or the Five Guys Burgers and Fries ... except as to how it plays out on wikipedia.

Your little gang have been absolute shits and have spindled, folded and mutilated the rules to get your way on that series of articles.

You guys have gone so far over the line that ARBCOM has had to remove several of you, even though they all support your position and hate the gamergat[e|o]rs coming to en.wp.

Ryulong and Mark Bernstein, in particular, do your cause vastly more harm than good.

Yet another Wikipedia front opens;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... a_Uprising

Remarkable. I mean, that anyone still cares. (or ever cared, really)
I guess you have to give credit for the longevity. To someone. Or not.

Split off 'The GamerGate Topic' into its own writhing, living thing.

Will be moving posts germane to that topic from here, to there, and Wikipedia-germane posts from there, to here.

A Herculean labour almost in the league of cleaning the stables of Augeas! How do we award a barnstar here?

I always thought this one was underused.