User talk:Kaciemonster/Archive 1

OMG you deleted my favorite movie ever. Protonk (talk) 23:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

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Holy crap that's a lot of badge thingies on your user page. Protonk (talk) 22:09, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Hitachi Magic Wand

Thanks again for taking on the review! I've responded, at Talk:Hitachi Magic Wand/GA1. — Cirt (talk) 12:04, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Okay, all now addressed/responded at Talk:Hitachi Magic Wand/GA1. :) — Cirt (talk) 21:02, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

November 2014

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Please review Hitachi Magic Wand

Notifying you as you were the GA Reviewer, no obligations or expectations. :)

As part of a Quality improvement project, I've recently put the article Hitachi Magic Wand up for Peer Review.

Participation would be appreciated, at Wikipedia:Peer review/Hitachi Magic Wand/archive1. — Cirt (talk) 06:18, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Your Gamergate draft

User:Halfhat recently mentioned your Gamergate userspace draft. I just wanted to remind you that WP:BLP applies everywhere on Wikipedia, including in userspace. Your version makes several BLP claims cited to self-published and unreliable sources which I would strongly suggest removing. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 15:09, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

• I have questions. What, specifically violates BLP in this draft and which sources would you recommend removing (I'd also appreciate an explanation as to why). Thanks. Protonk (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
• Hi User:Woodroar, seconding Protonk's question. I appreciate your feedback, but you haven't presented me with any actionable changes that I can make to my draft. You referred to several BLP claims that I made, and I would love to change them, but you didn't tell me what they are. Telling me my draft is terrible without making suggestions on how to improve it isn't really helpful. Kaciemonster (talk) 16:10, 29 November 2014 (UTC)
  • Actually, they didn't tell you the draft was terrible. They slagged it off on the talk page for the article, then posted this rather more polite notice here. Protonk (talk) 16:18, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that was a combination of being short on time and hoping it would be obvious to avoid specifically restating BLP violations. I mostly take issue with quotes attributed to Quinn, an accusation that she "sabotaged" a game jam to promote herself (with no context or explanation to explain how, this could mean anything), and an accusation that she was behind a DDoS—a federal crime handled by the US DOJ—all based on an interview in an unreliable source. And in the GameJournoPros section, we link to Breitbart and their selective/context-free publication of leaked emails, which is problematic for BLP and copyright reasons. The only BLP compliant statement I see from TFYC is their opinion on the Vivian James character. I do find the draft terrible for other reasons—primarily UNDUE—but drafts exist to work on things like that. (If it matters, I would similarly consider my own past drafts terrible until they meet core content policies.) But unreliably-sourced/SPS negative BLP claims shouldn't exist in a draft, even if they're going to be removed or properly sourced at a later time. I hope this helps. Woodroar (talk) 16:34, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, do you see similar UNDUE problems with the current Gamergate article? What, in your opinion, would an ideal Gamergate article look like? Kaciemonster (talk) 20:26, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The current article does have some problems—for example, overemphasizing things that were relevant at one point but aren't any longer (and vice versa), though we'll likely have to wait for post-Gamergate overviews to guide us properly on that—but I don't think UNDUE is one of them. Overall, we strike a good balance: the vast majority of reliable, third-party sources are "anti-Gamergate", while niche "pro-Gamergate" sources are represented minimally. Woodroar (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

issues

"...an accusation that she "sabotaged" a game jam to promote herself...an accusation that she was behind a DDoS...all based on an interview in an unreliable source"

• The bit about TFYC is also sourced to Vice and Reason magazine--both largely reasonable sources in the capacity they're serving and there's a bit on it here as well. It's just that, an accusation in a series of them against quinn by gamergaters.
• The bit about the DDOS can also be sourced to reason (Though it isn't in the draft currently). The background is quite mundane. She tweeted about linking to their website and breaking it, and this spiralled into "ZQ DDOS'd TFYC!". It could be edited out, as it may not be that important (depending on who you talk to).

"And in the GameJournoPros section, we link to Breitbart and their selective/context-free publication of leaked emails, which is problematic for BLP and copyright reasons"

• Kaciemonster and I had a disagreement about this. My problem with the current article's treatment is that we tiptoe around the original source by talking about it and attributing it to sources who will link to it, but there's no fundamental reason to not link to the article itself. We can show the reader the courtesy of "citing where you found it". As for the copyright issues, Brietbart is nominally a news organization and so could likely make a fair use claim. That's largely their issue. I suspect the Enron Corpus is under copyright, but we certainly can and should link to that.
• This can be resolved by treating the issue as the current article does, sourcing things to Kain and what-not. Since I put it in, I'll leave it up to Kaciemonster to revert it (or ask me to, lol). Protonk (talk) 16:56, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The section on proven-false accusations is titled "Quinnspiracy" rather than "False accusations" — I strenuously object to presenting made-up bullshit as a "conspiracy" in a section title, as opposed to directly identifying the fact that the accusations against Quinn and Grayson are false. This places undue weight on accusations which have been thoroughly discredited and rejected by reliable sources. Similarly, repeating nonsensical and unsupported accusations that Quinn DDoSed or "sabotaged" TFYC are undue. The Reason source you cite is a first-person op-ed, and if that's the only place you can find such allegations, they don't belong in the article. straiNorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:32, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

"Quinnspiracy" vs. "False accusations" is easy. The term "false accusations" as a section heading has been causing needless headaches over at the GG page for a while now. Instead of improving the article we're locked in a pointless and narrow dispute over when the word "false" is appropriate. Contrast this with using actual term for the controversy before it became gamergate and that's an easy sell. We don't need to have a refutation of the accusations in the section title. Our readers are not that dense. They'll read the prose and be fine, thank you. Protonk (talk) 19:08, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Reason has been discussed this on the article Talk page and has come up many times at RSN, typically with the result that it's either unreliable or reliable on a case-by-case basis. In this case, the claims are based on things like Imgur—sadly, Vice does the same thing—and that APGNation interview, which makes it inappropriate for BLP claims. (I should note that APGNation is also a poor source, for things like letting 14-year-olds write for them and overall editorial inexperience.) And Vice states that the claims of sabotage and self-promotion come from an unnamed Reddit user, and it considers them irrelevant. As far as Breitbart goes, it is widely considered an unreliable source, known for (like here) quoting out of context. I can possibly understand leaving "False" out of a section title, but the text itself consists of entirely unchallenged allegations of self-promotion, "sabotage" (again, with no clarification), and a federal crime based on a questionable sources. Accustions that, like you said, are false or incorrect or merely what Gamergaters believe her motivation to be. Woodroar (talk) 19:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

The GG article now only refers to TFYC with respect to Vivian James and the charity campaign, which will be worth mentioning at some point as this user draft is expanded, but frankly only mentioning the charity bit completely elides why TFYC are involved at all. THIS is the start of TFYC drama, and excluding it on the basis of some pretty thin BLP claims is entirely misleading. I'm not particularly willing to write off Vice on your say so, but I'll be willing to investigate the reason article further. Regardless, these are minor issues, not 4 alarm BLP violations. I was expecting the latter given the unsolicited nature of the feedback. As the for text itself, I think it's valuable actually detailing the accusations rather than playing the Grey Lady and alluding to the shit that got slung Quinn's way, then leading them into later events (TFYC's charity, complaints about GGr's getting doxxed, etc.) without any real context. Protonk (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I guess I consider including an accusation of a federal crime without a retraction or explanation even when you know it's false to be a very serious BLP violation. Woodroar (talk) 20:06, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Except between the two accusations you've identified there are 5 sources, more if we'd be interested in including Quinn/TFYC's twitter posts (or a few others e.g. tech crunch and less if we exclude APG nation and Reason. We've still got Vice and a bit in The Verge. So the maximal case here is that we have a statement with one ok source and less detailed source covering (in 2 sentences) a straightforward accusation made by one party against another in an article largely about these sorts of accusations. So no, I don't think that's a serious BLP violation at all. Protonk (talk) 20:36, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Not at all, unless I'm missing something. We have 3 distinct statements:

1. What I consider the most egregious, that Quinn DDoSed TFYC. This is currently cited to 1 source, the APGNation interview. Per WP:INTERVIEW and WP:NOR, this is essentially a primary/self-published source—especially considering APGNation's lack of "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy"—and inappropriate for claims about other living persons. No other reliable sources seriously consider this. Reason mentions "accidentally crashing their website" by Tweeting about TFYC, which isn't a DDoS. The closest we get is Kain calling it "essentially, an accidental DDOS attack", but this also gets into SPS territory. (The Forbes contributor blogs have little to no editorial control, which is why Kain can say that Tweeting at someone is a DDoS.) It's similar to how there's nothing in our articles about John Oliver (comedian) or Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about him "DDoSing the FCC". (I'm really not trying to be snarky here, I just find the DDoS claim to be comically overblown.)
2. Next most egregious, that Quinn sabotaged a game jam for self-promotion. Sabotaged? How so? Like, she threw her wooden shoes into the machines? That would be awesome, but it's probably not what happened. (Again, not trying to be snarky. I just love that sabot-ing machines was a thing.) This is cited to 2 sources, APGNation (unreliable) and Vice (reliable, but attributed to an unnamed Redditor). The Verge mentions this in the most tangential way possible: "Oh, and there's some thing going on about Zoe Quinn allegedly sabotaging a game development project called The Fine Young Capitalists, or maybe not" with a link to the APGNation interview and follows up by stating "at this point the group seems to be doing fine". If Vice and The Verge discussed the "sabotage" or "self-promotion" as a relevant fact and gave some what/how/why details, I would totally support including this claim.
3. Last, and least, that Quinn called a TFYC event "exploitative" and "transphobic". 2 cites, to APGNation (unreliable) and Reason (case-by-case, and I'd argue unreliable here, especially as the supposed Tweets are at Imgur). If reliable sites find these particular Tweets relevant, then sure. But that's not the case here.

The Tech Crunch article may support the "After hearing about the feud" sentence, but I couldn't see its relevance to any of the claims that I'm concerned about. Again, maybe I'm missing something. Woodroar (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I mean, it's all bullshit that transpired on tumblr, twitter and reddit. At no point did ZQ do any of the things TFYC or others accused her of doing. We need to get things right from a BLP footing (more on that in a moment), but there's enough sourcing to support claims that TFYC accused ZQ of several very bad things and following these accusations got tens of thousands of dollars from 4chan and gamergaters. Including the actual accusation at that point is no longer a BLP violation, it's a matter of tone. I should point out that the three sources you're interrogating here are all used in the current gamergate article--fn 56, 107 and 108 last I looked. I don't think this section is perfect and I could stand to maybe remove that reason article (though I think it is valuable) and some others, we've already trimmed a number of suspect sources which are still cited on the article or the main draft. We will, of course, continue to do more. Protonk (talk) 22:44, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the claims are all bullshit, but we need to state that they're bullshit, or at least widely refuted. Imagine, for a moment, an article about a person tried and found not guilty of murder. Do you feel it would be appropriate to state that he was accused or tried without immediately stating that he wasn't guilty? That's policy there, WP:BLPCRIME. (Again, DDoSing is a federal crime.) And it's worse, because we're not even delaying the punchline—"guess what? he's not guilty, hahaha"—we just don't include it at all. Even for the accusations where WP:BLPCRIME doesn't apply, we've got WP:BLPSTYLE, WP:GRAPEVINE, WP:BLPGOSSIP, WP:BLPPRIMARY...and I'll stop there, because it's essentially all of WP:BLP that says we don't accuse something of something based on poor sources and not unequivocally state that the accusations are false. You're right that some of these sources are already in the article, but they're being used to support other claims. They are specifically not supporting these claims because we found them to be poor sources or didn't actually present the material as true. I appreciate what you're trying to do, write an article that you feel is more balanced, but leaving poorly-sourced negative claims in a draft until you find time to fix them isn't the way to do it. I understand that we don't have infinite time to work on articles, so please at least remove the accusations until you have the time. Woodroar (talk) 15:51, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

That's something you'll have to ask kaciemonster. I'm sorry you don't agree but I think the draft as written is perfectly defensible on BLP grounds both by itself and in comparison to the current GG article and the community draft. Protonk (talk) 16:55, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Using "Quinnspiracy" immediately places the victim of false accusations and harassment on the back foot, strongly implying that there is a "conspiracy" involving Quinn, when in reality, if anything there has been a conspiracy against Quinn. That wording is right out and unacceptable.

The fact that Gamergate supporters object to describing false accusations as false cannot, per WP:BLP, result in us describing the accusations as anything but false. There is no valid reason to remove the word from the section, other than that Gamergate supporters don't like us accurately describing the fact that their accusations are false. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 19:30, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

LOL, calm down. It's her twitter handle. We're not 'gaters, so you can take it down like...3 notches. If you think the draft sucks (and it's incomplete, to be sure) then let us know what needs to be improved. We're looking to write something that's much more direct and clear (without spending paragraphs setting it up as a "clash of gamer culture", effectively downplaying the harassment received) summary of the events than the current article or the draft. If that sounds interesting to you, we welcome feedback. But I don't think shouting about BLP violations where (frankly) there aren't any is helping us. Protonk (talk) 19:49, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's her Twitter handle (and now website) in an attempt to seize back the word (much like SJW), but used out of context as a section heading for the discussion of what happened, it's entirely inappropriate and creates an implication that should not exist. Particularly given that we have a much more descriptive and straightforward accounting of what happened: "False accusations." NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 20:05, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

I chose the title "Quinnspiracy" for that section because I was trying to separate it from the events of Gamergate, since it happened before Gamergate actually existed. I don't think that it's "made-up bullshit as a 'conspiracy' in a section title" when that's what the early events were referred to as. I believe I only have that sourced to Reason right now, but I have a few other articles that I think can be used that referred to it as Quinnspiracy (I remember that I meant to add a Boston Globe article where it was mentioned, but I think I forgot to add it.)

As for the TFYC quotes, I have an Erik Kain article where it's mentioned, and also a Vice article that mentions the "sabotaging" that can be added to the sources for it. That said, I chose to include TFYC's accusations to elaborate on the reasons for their feud with Quinn. I'm willing to remove the details about the feud, but at that point it would probably be reasonable to ask if they deserve more than a passing mention. Kaciemonster (talk) 19:38, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Alright, everyone take it down a notch

Look. I appreciate the feedback, but everyone needs to calm down. There is literally 0 reason why we can't have a civil, productive discussion on changes that I can make to my draft. I'd even be willing to accept help in addition to suggestions, because I'd love to be able to present a high quality, readable article with most of the bullshit cut out. This draft wasn't meant to be presented so early. I've posted multiple times on the GG talk page trying to start a discussion on restructuring, but I was mostly ignored, so I figured I'd try to work on it myself. Either way, I'm not interested in drama being started over this, so can we try to keep this constructive? Thanks. Kaciemonster (talk) 20:17, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

For my part, I'm sorry if I'm coming across as uncivil. I honestly didn't expect this amount of pushback to what I considered obvious BLP violations. In any case, Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 22:25, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

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