Jimmy Wales on #GamerGate Wikipedia Article Message 2

Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 12:10:42 -0400
From: Jimmy Wales <REDACTED>
To: The Leader of GamerGate <GamerGateLeader@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: #GamerGate Article Issues (I'm bubblesort1 on twitter)

And now that you've found my public email address I'm responding from my
private one.  This one is slightly better but still gets swamped. :-)

I'd like to ask that this conversation be kept private, not because it
is particularly secret in any way but because I need to write casually
and simply and if I were writing for public consumption.

Pastebin stuck a bunch of numbers into your writing so the formatting
below is weird.  I'll just ignore that. :)


>  To be honest, I am not just scared of loosing my
>     account.  I am afraid of being doxxed and threatened in real life.
>      That is what SJWs did to a transgendered teen wikipedia editor just
>     weeks ago.  The following link is redacted for obvious reasons.  The
>     article on Wikipediocracy still exists, but it has been edited since
>     this screen shot has been taken.
>  6.
>
>  7.
>     https://i.imgur.com/He7UCVW.jpg

Some things need to be said about this:

First, Wikipediocracy is an attack site against Wikipedia, generally
hated by the Wikipedia community.  They are, like many attack groups,
wildly inconsistent.  One day they'll criticize us because someone's
personal information got posted and get into a lather that we don't do
enough to protect people.  The next day, they're doxxing someone.

Second, it is pretty clear to anyone who has looked at all the evidence
that the user in question is not at Wikipedia to build an encyclopedia.
 Doxxing to a home address (or even city) is rude and borderline creepy
but noting that he's active on the Internet in highly misogynist places
is a perfectly valid observation.  Questions that have been raised as to
whether he's really transgendered (a claim it has been said was only
made at Wikipedia and seemingly quite contrary to his online persona
otherwise) give me some pause as well, but are not really particularly
important.

(That last point is difficult to make with delicacy.  It is my personal
belief that, for the most part, we should simply accept people's claims
about their personal identity without question.  It's normally quite
rude to claim that someone isn't *really* transgendered or whatever.
But it's a sticky issue because it's also a huge icky disgusting thing
if someone pretends to be transgendered and then behaves in awful ways
as part of a 4chan-style trolling campaign.  So, let's leave it aside
for the most part but put a small footnote in our minds to be wary.)

People who keep posting his topic ban as a "gotcha" against Wikipedia do
not have my sympathy.  He's exactly the kind of person we should topic ban.

Third, unless the redacted bits contained much more specific information
than it looks, the doxxing was rude and borderline creepy but not
actually a full blown DOXXING with home address, social security
numbers, work phone numbers, and so on.  It's basically just a bit of
googling and noting publicly available information.


>  9.
>     Zoe Quinn linked to this article on her twitter, to spread the
>     doxxing information in order to put this transgendered teen in as
>     much physical danger as possible.
> 10.
>
> 11.
>     Here are more details on this, with more links:
>      http://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/2fvt9n/zoe_links_a_doxx_to_wikipedia_editors_who_tried/

That person X took action Y on the Internet does not imply that it
belongs in their biography nor in an article about the wider incidents
that give it context.  I say this not to argue that it should NOT be
included but to give you guidance on the ONLY way to get it included if
you think it should be.  And that is: you need high quality third party
reliable sources who talk about it as being relevant to the story.

Now, having said that, that's just editing advice.  But let me go a step
further and argue why I think it should NOT be included and call your
attention to some pretty concerning bias in your thinking.  I ask you to
really focus on this next paragraph and don't respond immediately but
just to sit with it.  Have lunch on it, dinner on it.

Your item 9 above contains two separate claims.  First, that Zoe Quinn
linked to this article on her twitter.  Second, it contains a fairly
spectacular and evidence-free personal attack on her by attributing to
her motives that are not provable and not likely to be true.

"to spread the doxxing information in order to put this transgendered
teen in as much physical danger as possible."

I don't know of any evidence in any of Zoe Quinn's biography that would
even begin to suggest that she would want to place anyone in "as much
physical danger as possible".  Indeed, it seems very unlikely.

If you ask me what is the most likely is that she clicked on the
Wikipediocracy link, read the turgid and boring prose just long enough
to see that it was generally favorable to herself, and posted the link
without finishing it or noticing the doxxing.

Because it is not a full blown doxxing, there is virtually no chance
that anyone was put into any physical danger by the article, as rude and
creepy as it is.

Ok last point on this and this is the part that I want you to really sit
with: If you come to this with a mindset that "OMG SHE TRIED TO GET HIM
HURT" then clearly that would strike you as something of great
relevance.  But if you step back and look at the facts, all she did was
tweet a link to a bad article.  That's not really of major biographical
interest.

> 13.
>     That is what we are dealing with.  We get doxxed and physically
>     threatened constantly, especially the transgendered among us.  I
>     could ask what Wikipedia does about these kinds of issues, but I'm
>     not sure what you can do.  Wikipediocracy is not part of Wikipedia.

That's for damn sure.

> 15.
>     So I am scared for my safety but I'm going to try to make things
>     better anyway, because I believe in you, Jimmy.  You are the
>     greatest educator of our generation.  The world would be much more
>     stupid without your work, so when you tell me that Wikipedia is safe
>     and that I should help fix things I'm going to listen to you.  If I
>     get doxxed then I'm out.  I won't risk my health and well being for
>     Wikipedia.  If it comes to that then the Wikipedia Foundation will
>     have to do something about the toxic environment before I'll come
>     back.  Unless I get doxxed and/or threateaned, though, I'm going to
>     give you the benefit of the doubt, because you deserve it.

In terms of assessing your personal risk, I can't really help you.
Certainly the Wikipedians are quite firm against that kind of behavior
and so I don't see what the risk is considering that you are very vocal
on twitter.  If someone wants to go after you, it seems they already
could, and if you come to Wikipedia and make thoughtful arguments then
the chances of trouble seem quite small.  But yes, you should make that
determination for yourself.

> 17.
>     If any of my #gamergate friends are reading this:  I urge you to
>     also give Jimmy Wales the benefit of the doubt and get involved as
>     well.  We can't go on attacking everybody who gets their news about
>     the world from the New York Post and Gamasutra.  It's not their
>     fault they don't know any better.  We have to give more people the
>     chance to learn the truth.  We need more voices and more compassion,
>     even when SJWs and the press attack us from every side with violence
>     and smear campaigns, dehumanizing us to deny us compassion, we need
>     to stand proud and tell the truth.

I would recommend in your interactions with the outside world that you
drop the term "SJWs".  It gives off a militant and combative "us versus
them" vibe that causes people to rightly doubt the objectivity of what
you are saying.  I think it does you a major disservice in terms of
trying to get the message out to the wider world.  (New York Times, etc.)

There is a view, not correct but not entirely without foundation, that
there is a massive huge community of virulently reactionary dimwits who
want games with hapless damsels with cartoon-hot bodies and all the
rest, who get upset with any criticism or commentary about the problems
with that and lash out at "feminazis", "SJWs", etc.  You and I both know
that this is not the majority of the gaming world by a long shot, but it
is a group that absolutely does exist and have been doing a lot of harm
to the reputation of games and the gaming industry and the gaming community.

It may be a convenient shorthand for internal discussions, but even
there I think it's dangerous.  Labeling people makes it harder to make
distinctions among them.  We see this in the unfortunately dismal state
of political discourse in the US all the time.  "liberal" and
"conservative" are thrown out as epithets in a way that completely
blinds people to real policy issues.  It becomes a... video game where
you shoot the bad guys and save the good guys.  Not helpful to real
progress in society.

Here's a great example from recent times.  Congressman Cory Gardner is
running for Senate in Colorado as a Republican.  I don't support or
oppose him.  I'm just observing the discourse.

The Democrats trotted out the usual playbook that he's a crazed right
winger who wants to ban birth control.  Problem is, he's in favor of
wide access to contraception and even proposes that the birth control
pill be made available without a prescription.

I'm sure there's plenty to love or hate about the guy but the point is
the *label* of "right wing Republican" caused the debate to deteriorate
into nonsense.

Similarly, labeling people as "SJWs" is not conducive to serious respect
and consideration of a variety of viewpoints of people who have varying
degrees of concern and criticism of gaming culture.

(I've removed the long and mostly speculative discussion of who fucked
who and when because I don't think the blow by blow is relevant -
particularly not when pieced together from various blog posts - again,
high quality reliable third party sources are key.)

>     These appearances of impropriety exist.  No neutral person can claim
>     otherwise.

I think that's the main valid point in what you are saying but the point
and should be made without sounding like a personal digging into some
woman's sex life.  Let me explain further.

The problems with corruption in the magazine industry are rampant.  Let
me give a completely separate example so as to make this less emotional.

Boats.

I like boats.  I have a small family speedboat (19 footer) and I'm
fortunate in my life to know a lot of super wealthy people and sometimes
get invited to visit on really big boats.  So I read boat magazines.
Mainly I read ones relevant to me, i.e. about normal family boats -
maybe I'll move up to a 24 footer next year!)

But the one thing I know for sure is that when I'm reading boat
magazines I'm not reading independent hard hitting journalism with
quality reviews.  I'm reading advertiser-supported industry-friendly
borderline-pr puffery.  Part of that is just natural: the people who go
into journalism at boat magazines love boats too!  So they are naturally
positive.  But part of that is just that the whole industry is "in bed"
together.

I mean that in every way.  Loaner boats.  Weekend jaunts.  They know
each other - attend the same boat shows, build relationships.  It's
party unavoidable but partly it's a fertile ground for corruption.

That's true of a lot of "subculture" journalism.

NOW.  Let's switch back to gaming.  There's a massive problem here as
well.  But the problem is not with some relatively unimportant indy game
developer and who she slept with, the problem is with massive issues
with major game magazines being industry-compromised.

So the problem as I see it is that lots of people in #gamergate claim to
be about that corruption bit, but instead are massively obsessed with
Zoe Quinn's sex life.

So, is there an appearance of impropriety?  Sure and the details don't
matter.  An ex boyfriend with little honor decided to go public in a
vicious way about a sad breakup and a firestorm ensued.  But it isn't
really IMPORTANT in the way that massive corruption in the magazine
industry is.


From here on I'm going to try to stick to specific editing advice and
advice about talking to the community.  I will sound like a broken
record: it's all about sources, sources, sources.  Your analysis or mine
may be interesting to us, but not relevant for Wikipedia.


>     First of all, the title of the article is misleading.  Gamergate is
>     not a controversy.  To be perfectly objective, GamerGate is a
>     hashtag.

What do reliable sources call it?  To me it is both a controversy and a
hashtag.  And in a way, it's a movement.  One of the difficulties is
that there is really no way to say "Supporters of GamerGate believe..."
because there is no central authority or manifesto that people sign up to.

>  The #GamerGate movement has actually undergone a few
>     different names, informally.  Before #GamerGate it was Burgers and
>     Fries.  Before that it was some operation to save TFYC (the specific
>     name of which slips my mind at the moment).  Before that it was
>     something involving WizardChan or CYChan or Tumblr, the details of
>     which are difficult to source.  You could accurately refer to
>     GamerGate as a movement, or one name for a movement, but it is
>     absolutely not a controversy.

When hundreds of people are screaming at each other all over the
internet, yeah, it's a controversy.

Here's a google news link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=gamergate+controversy&oq=gamergate+controversy&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60.3094j0j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8#q=gamergate+controversy&tbm=nws

Virtually every source - including those with NO ties to the
publications involve in the controversy - calls it a controversy.

I recommend not trying to change the name of the article.

>     Second of all, the article says that GamerGate is about, "a
>     controversy in video game culture concerning ingrained[1] issues of
>     sexism and misogyny in the gamer community and journalistic ethics
>     in the online gaming press, particularly conflicts of interest
>     between video game journalists and developers."
> 46.
>
> 47.
>     That is incorrect and oversimplifying things a lot.  It deliberately
>     skews towards the SJW perspective.  GamerGate is a movement that
>     relates directly to a dozen different things, and the situations we
>     are addressing change constantly.  As more problems pop up we do our
>     best to handle them.  We are concerned about sexism and about
>     censorship.  I don't have numbers on this, but it is my impression
>     that most of us have been censored for trying to discuss things like
>     Feminist Frequency honestly.  On most forums, SJWs won't allow us to
>     disagree with Sarkeesian's assertions, no matter how outlandish they
>     might be.  For example, she says that female corpses are sexy but
>     male corpses are not.  She says that games shape our reality and
>     spread misogyny (the statistical correlation for that goes in the
>     opposite direction Sarkeesian claims).  We can not deviate from that
>     message on forums such as reddit or 4chan or the something awful
>     forums without risking a ban (or worse if we aren't anonymous).

Sources?  Again this is critical.  Your opinions (or mine) aren't really
relevant.

As a side matter, I think you are mistaken actually.  I've seen vibrant
discussions at reddit in which people DO disagree with Sarkeesian.  And
no one is getting banned for that.

I caution you to be careful with language like "SJWs won't allow us to
disagree" unless there is an actual ban on it.  If there's isn't, then
it would be more accurate to say "SJWs won't allow us to disagree
without them piping up to say we are wrong."  Very different things -
one is silencing, the other is debate.

> 48.
>
> 49.
>     That's not all we are concerned about.  We are concerned about our
>     journalists and the managers of game development companies sexually
>     exploiting young ladies like Zoe Quinn.  We are concerned about game
>     development contests like the IGF being rigged.  We are concerned
>     about being disenfranchised through smear campaigns and censorship
>     and old boy networks controlling our media.  Why do you think we are
>     all on a hash tag?  You really think twitter was our first choice to
>     discuss such complicated issues?  No.  We were driven to twitter
>     because we can not have rational, honest conversations elsewhere,
>     and the media won't discuss any of these issues with us honestly.
>      That's why we are stuck on this hash tag trying to convey complex
>     ideas 140 characters at a time.

"We were driven to twitter because we can not have rational, honest
conversations elsewhere" - that doesn't ring true to me, are you sure?
The last I checked there are hundreds of wide open places for such
discussions.  There's no reason to be forced into 140 characters.

Start a blog (many platforms available)
Start a subreddit
Start a wikia (Wikia is very gamer friendly obviously)
Get prominent people in the community to write editorials for non-gaming
media like newspapers
Start a standalone website (many tech savvy people in gamergate community)

My point is that if you step outside the gg circle, and think about how
it sounds to an outsider, it's not very convincing to say "We had to go
to twitter because it's the only place we can express ourselves".

Notice that I didn't say "go to Wikipedia" although I am encouraging you
personally to do so, because I think that's a different thing.  If you
want to gather like minded individuals to thoughtfully campaign for
something, there are many platforms for it.  Wikipedia is about writing
an encyclopedia so I strongly discourage campaigning there.

> 51.
>     The #GamerGate article asserts that this is about our objections to
>     casual gamers, which is complete bullshit.  First of all, we all
>     enjoy casual games.  Casual game enthusiasts don't actually go to
>     places like Gamasutra to learn about casual games, though, because
>     places like Gamasutra do not report on casual games.  I wish they
>     did, because I hate it when I buy a crappy android game.  Nobody
>     reviews them, though (not well, at least).  The best we have are
>     Google Play store customer reviews, which aren't that reliable.

Well so I don't know what you read but as of this moment, the Wikipedia
article does not say "this is about our objections to casual gamers".
And we should draw a distinction between casual games and causal gamers,
right?

Casual games are games like you mention - android games.  Angry Birds, etc.

Casual gamers are people like me - when I play games I tend to play
traditional deep games. (Currently Civ and Minecraft).  But I'm not part
of the gaming subculture - I just play games sometimes.

Right now, though, the Wikipedia entry only mentions this by way of
broad contextual background.

>      Since the beginning of this, even today, the games press has not
>     actually changed their focus to casual games.  They did declare that
>     gamers are dead, which is not a way to talk about casual games more.
>      It is a way to spit in our faces when we expressed concern that
>     their ethical standards are too lax.  That is why their traffic is
>     down and why advertisers are pulling away from funding them.

Well, that and Wikia's traffic growth means that the best journalism
about games is written by gamers themselves. :-)

So going back to the "casual" thing - reread that whole section and
let's have another think about.  This time read it with the distinction
I made above between casual gamers and casual games in mind.

I think the key is that it is true that as games have gone more
mainstream (serious games, not just casual ones) there has been a wider
audience and more attention paid (by everyone) to issues of gender
representation.  That strikes me as obviously true and obviously
important for a newcomer to the topic who is reading Wikipedia to
understand.

> 52.
>
> 53.
>     The #GamerGate article has a million other issues.  It does not
>     explain the history of the #GamerGate tag, for example.

Is there a reliable source for that history?  If not, then I think your
efforts might be well directed to trying to make that happen.  Because
it just isn't right for Wikipedia to do original historical research.

>     Let me know if you want me to cite any of this, because I have
>     citations for everything I'm saying.  This post is getting kind of
>     long, though, so for brevity and readability I'm skipping citations
>     for now.

Sure, I understand.  Just know that in all discussions with Wikipedians,
you're very well advised to cite everything and to work VERY VERY hard
to make sure that whatever you say is fully backed up in the citation
and indeed if there is some controversial statement in the original
source, you'll want to say something milder.

>     The #GamerGate article also never mentions the numerous charities we
>     have contributed to, to the Women in Gaming project and to fight
>     cancer and to fight teen suicide.

References.  (I know, I'm a broken record.)

>     There are more problems and rules this article breaks.  It is
>     advocacy, scandal mongering, it's not an encyclopedic subject
>     because anything you say about #GamerGate today could easily be
>     false in a week (Wikipedia is not a newspaper), the citations are
>     almost all to editorial opinion pieces and... much more.  Citing
>     Leigh Alexander's opinion as reliable on a #GamerGate article is
>     like citing Hitler's opinion on an article about Jews.  She is a
>     bigger enemy of #GamerGate than Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian.
>      Anyway, I'll get into all of those details on Wikipedia talk pages.

When speaking to the Wikipedians I strongly recommend avoiding
inflammatory rhetoric about Hitler and Jews.

Actually, I recommend that to you as a life recommendation generally.

Hitler killed some six million Jews.  Gassed them to death, shot them,
burned them, buried them in mass graves.  Did all that while engaging in
a massive violent war that killed tens of millions more.

I had to look up who Leigh Alexander is but I have to imagine that she
probably hasn't killed anyone.

Extreme rhetoric like that turns people off.  And it turns people off
for a good reason: it's fucking stupid.

>     I can't post to the #GamerGate talk page, though.  Here's why:
> 62.
>
> 63.
>     The #GamerGate article is tagged as a biography of a living person.
>      I don't understand how a controversy can be a person (back to the
>     misleading title issue).  Anyway, if it is about #GamerGate as a
>     person then I can't edit it because it's about me.  I am a member of
>     #GamerGate.

That's not a valid argument at all.  It doesn't even contain any actual
relevant facts!

First, the article is not "tagged as a biography".  The tag says: "This
article must adhere to the biographies of living persons policy, even if
it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons."

Second, being a person who posted to a hashtag on twitter doesn't make
the article about you.  Now, I'm going under an assumption here that you
are not DIRECTLY involved PERSONALLY with the specific details.  That
is, you don't work at one of the gaming magazine, the article doesn't
talk about you personally as a developer, or whatever like that.

No one would seriously make the argument you have made - so don't worry
about it.

>  Now, I could disregard that and post to the talk page
>     anyway, but that won't help anything.  It's just sleazy to edit your
>     own article, especially when you don't disclose who you are.

Unless I've missed something the article isn't about you in the relevant
sense.  That's just not a valid argument.

It's like saying "Oh no, I can't edit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_the_United_States because
I'm a citizen of the United States."  That's just an invalid reading of
policy.


>     That
>     means that anybody editing this article is probably an opponent of
>     #GamerGate, since we would not deface our own article by editing it.
>      We are not ignorant thugs.  That means that our voices so far have
>     been muted and will continue to be muted unless the article is
>     re-categorized.

Except that, as I said, the article is not categorized as a biography
anyway.

The point of that tag is this: people can't insert unsourced negative
information about Zoe Quinn, her ex-boyfriend, specific people on ANY
side of this.  This applies to everyone no matter what their personal
views are.

>     Correct me if I'm wrong, Jimmy, but it seems to me  that the right
>     place to complain about articles about yourself is on the
>     Biographies of Living Persons Noticeboard, which is located here:
> 68.
>
> 69.
>     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard

That's not going to go over well as people will find the argument silly.
 "Hi, I'm posting my complaint here because the Gamergate article is
about me!"  Huh?  No, it actually isn't about you.  (Again, unless I
missed something!)

I just checked and the name "The Leader of GamerGate" doesn't exist in the article.

>     What I plan to do is to get my concerns all together and post them
>     to this board some time tomorrow (it will take a while to write).

I recommend a different approach.  Don't write up a long long post.
Most people will find it difficult to get through it all and it is
likely to get derailed if someone finds one upsetting thing in what
you've written, thus causing drama to ensue.  Humans are humans.

Instead you can make internal notes for yourself about changes you'd
like to propose.  Break it down into say 10 items.  Or 5 items.  However
many.  Make each one conceptually a unit.

Then pick the easiest one first.  Run your proposal by me so I can
advise you on the wording.  I have a good ear for what upsets people,
and you tend (as pointed out up above) to use pretty over the top rhetoric.

Do the first one.  Make the edit, post the justification to the talk
page.  Be around to answer objections or inquiries.  Let things settle
down - if you've chosen wisely, things will settle down quickly.  And
you'll learn a bit about the people there rather than thinking of them
as some horrible feminist SJW "other".

Then do another one.  And another one.  Keep each item focussed.  Be
prepared to lose a few debates on your weaker points, or points which
have been weakly documented in reliable sources.

>  I
>     will then start spreading the word to my #GamerGate friends to do
>     the same, so that we can all be heard on the board.  One of us can't
>     talk for everybody, so we can try to get as many voices involved as
>     possible.  I will do my best to get every voice I can to post to
>     this board.  I am sure the admins will fix the problems when they
>     hear from us.

You'll be better off understanding that sheer numbers mean very little
to Wikipedia.  We are pretty immune to pressure.  And unless you can
find people you absolutely trust to go slow and write with calmness,
know that inviting people to contribute who are warriors is just not
going to be helpful.

>     Hopefully, they will just delete the article, because the subject is
>     really not encyclopedic in nature.  I could understand moving it to
>     WikiNews, but leaving it on the encyclopedia seems wrong to me.

It easily meets our notability criteria, so that isn't going to happen.

>     Anyway, thank you for reading this long message.  I will do my best
>     to keep my Wikipedian bearing and be bold (but from behind an
>     anonymous proxy if possible... bold doesn't mean stupid).

You're likely to have trouble editing from an anonymous proxy as we
generally ban them.  (The banning isn't perfect so you may find a way,
but it's pretty common that proxies are banned.)

Log in to your account (you have one, right?) and edit from there.  In
this way, the only people who can see your ip address are "checkusers"
and there are VERY strict rules and lots of transparency around the use
of the checkuser tool.  There has never been a problem with it.

--Jimbo