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Evaluating the Arbitration Committee's handling of GamerGate

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By Masem and Protonk
Editors' note: As we mentioned in our introduction, one of our goals is to offer a platform to discuss happenings in the Wikipedia community through publication of op-eds, editorials, and other material. This week, we have featured two excellent op-eds penned by Wikipedia administrators that offer differing views on how the arbitration committee handled the GamerGate case. The views expressed are those of the authors alone; responses and critical commentary are invited in the comments section, but please let your discussion be a positive representation of two of Wikipedia's core values—consensus-building and civility. Thank you.

Masem: Committee facilitates stability

Gamergate has drawn a lot of people and organizations into the controversy, and Wikipedia has been one of the more visible. The Gamergate supporters have identified that the English language Wikipedia article is one of the first results when one searches for "Gamergate", and desire to see that the article expresses their side of the issue properly. This has resulted in many of these supporters working with the open wiki nature of Wikipedia to try to discuss changes and introduce their side into the article. Some of these have been reasonable, starting civil discussions on the content.

However, the majority of these interested editors have been those that have not taken the time to learn about Wikipedia's policies on content, sourcing, and living persons. Several have tried to introduce some of the tenacious Gamergate theories into the article without proper sourcing, including egregious claims against living persons, particularly women. Some evidence of potential outside coordination to influence the Wikipedia article exists. How to handle the single purpose and sleeper accounts and anonymous edits of this nature has been a struggle. To stem the influence of these types of editors, the community decided on instituting general sanctions on the Gamergate topic space, which has been generally sufficient to quickly quell external pushes to affect the article.

At the same time, there has been a large disconnect between groups of established editors in how they approach the article. The Gamergate topic is clearly emotionally-driven, as the harassment of anyone (women or otherwise) via pseudo-anonymous groups already has a toxic connotation, and it is very difficult to find any sourcing from the media that doesn't paint the Gamergate supporters in a negative light. This has created a divide between these editors on how our sourcing and neutrality policies need to apply. Issues have arisen around how to present the media's highly negative take on the Gamergate situation within the neutrality policy, while the "verifiability, not truth" paradox of reliable sourcing has made the task of presenting objective material about Gamergate supporters from quality sources nearly impossible. There are plenty of pages of heated discussion of these matters, which can be expected from a situation like this.

What is core to the Gamergate Arbitration Committee case is that a subset of these established editors have seen themselves as a type of "white knight". They have expressed an overly strong concern about maintaining the page free of BLP violations and keeping the predominant view of the press as demanded by our neutrality policy to the point of edit warring. They have failed to accept new editors in good faith and have presumed bad faith about existing editors who did not follow their view. They have attempted page ownership, even when a draft version of the page was set up to prevent edit warring on the main space. As more attention was drawn to the Wikipedia article within Gamergate circles, many of these editors themselves became targets from offsite groups due to their opposition towards Gamergate, which appeared to drive them further into their activities of preventing Gamergate supporters from changing the nature of the Wikipedia article, while forgoing what would be expected behaviour of all Wikipedia editors.

The case was presented as a clash of the behaviour and attitudes of these experienced editors against an ongoing tide of single purpose accounts that, intentionally or not, wanted to push the Gamergate supporter side of the controversy onto Wikipedia and correct the lack of coverage the press has given their side.

While this is difficult situation for any editor to deal with, ArbCom's decision correctly focused solely on behaviour, only issuing findings of fact and no decisions or remedies on content policies, supporting the uninvolved admins who have tried to maintain order in this mess, and urging the community to review Gamergate and related articles within the context of policies.

The decision continues to uphold how we should handle new and single purpose accounts that are only here to try to influence the context of one topic, and re-emphasizes the community-based general sanctions within the context of the decision. At the same time, the rulings, particularly towards editors who are being topic-banned or admonished, affirm that decorum and civility is expected of editors even when dealing violations of BLP or neutrality. Actions like edit warring and battleground mentalities, regardless of how "right" that position might be, is not appropriate within the consensus-driven editing process.

The ArbCom decision does not have the bias that some blogs and news sources are reporting, but instead is applying an equivalent standard to every editor, new or experienced, who comes to edit in a given topic area with a mission: editors are still expected to follow civility, standards of decorum, and encyclopedia policy that an open wiki built on consensus requires to maintain stability, no matter how much one might feel their mission is for the right cause. The decision enforces the tenet that Wikipedia is meant to be neutral on any topic it covers and should not be used as a battleground to push agendas from any direction, regardless of the cause.

Masem is a Wikipedia administrator and works frequently on the areas of contemporary works, video games, and popular and Internet culture, science, and current events. He is also a major contributor in the areas of Wikipedia's non-free content policy and notability guidelines.

Protonk: Actually, it's a circus

The Arbitration Committee just announced their decision in the Gamergate case. The case, from the "infamous blunder"[1] of the proposed decision to the bizarre press release (an ArbCom first, perhaps?), has been an utter, avoidable failure that shakes any confidence I have the Committee will be effective in the future.[note 1]

The Gamergate controversy erupted when game developer Zoe Quinn's ex-boyfriend accused her of sleeping around[2] and metastasized into harassment and death threats against anyone (usually female) who criticized either the pretext of the controversy - "actually...it's about ethics in game journalism" - or gaming culture itself. Normally, these situations die out as forum trolls get bored.[note 2] Gamergaters did not get bored.

Threads on KotakuInAction (KiA), a popular[note 3] Gamergate forum, or subreddit, on the website Reddit, brought a heavily active community interested in seeing their version of events displayed here. Rather than just coordinating to tag-team articles, they also focused on editors. Five Wikipedia editors, dubbed the "Five Horsemen",[5][6] were identified as "biased" against Gamergate: Ryulong,[7] Tarc,[8], TaraInDC, TheRedPenOfDoom and NorthBySouthBaranof.[9]

As a result of the attention (and, admittedly, the intransigence of some long term editors), in the span of three months the article has been protected nine times[10] and the talk page has accumulated millions of bytes of discussion. Three arbitration requests were made in 30 days, all lodged by editors pushing a pro-Gamergate POV[note 4][11][12][13] and all aimed at editors defending the article against the same.

Arbitrators recognized early on that off-wiki "co-ordination"[14] and "controversy"[15] were central to the case. Editors with experience in similar enforcement areas warned against potential problems. Hasteur left an prescient note, reminding the Committee that "[c]learing the decks of all the editors who have already contributed to the Gamergate colleciton [sic] of articles is only going to provide more incentive for...[single purpose accounts]."[16] with, as Future Perfect at Sunrise put it, "all the makings for another procedural disaster like the infamous "Macedonia 2", where hordes of people motivated by external political agendas were given free rein to drown the procedure in their drivel for weeks, until clerks and arbs started randomly and erraticly [sic] hitting out with blocks against established participants who had cracked under the constant provocation and lost their temper."[17]

Recognizing these exigencies, WormTT recommended "an expedited case, and firmly holding to deadlines and word limits."[18], with Newyorkbrad hoping to "[handle the case] in a highly expedited manner to avoid its becoming a complete circus".[19] Beeblebrox suggested temporary injunctions may be needed to ensure an orderly case.[20]

On the 25th of November, the Committee accepted the case.

The Committee let two deadlines slip after 11th hour pleas for more space and time from parties to the case, some of whom had been warned about misuse of the evidence page or accusations made with irrelevant or insufficient evidence.[note 5] No temporary injunctions were proposed or enacted. No sanctions were made during the case, although enforcing the third deadline required fully protecting the evidence page.[22]

The initial proposed decision was released, after two delays, on the 19th of January.[23] Every member of Gamergate's "five horsemen" faced sanctions. Only one editor supporting Gamergate who was not already banned or topic banned faced sanctions.[note 6] Proposed decisions change over time, of course; new remedies were added by other arbitrators and some of the original remedies did not gain consensus, but remarkably little has changed in the overall scope. Ryulong, Tarc, and NorthBySouthBaranof were topic banned; TaraInDC and TheRedPenofDoom will just be "admonished". Despite finding unanimously that "off-wiki feuds" and accusations of "off-wiki canvassing" were central to the dispute,[24] none of the proposed remedies addressed off-wiki actions.[note 7]

DD2K summed up the problem directly: "by sanctioning long-time editors who have had to deal with deplorable, egregious off-site (and many times on-site) harassment, while letting one of the main coordinators of that harassment go unmentioned, tells regular editors(volunteers themselves) and admins that protecting the project from BLP violations coordinated from off-site will not only get you sanctioned, but the perpetrators will be rewarded with no sanction."[26] Resolute added, "in trying to appear fair, you've really only given the outside harassers exactly what they want. I sincerely hope your "robust protections" are as advertised, because from where I sit, I see no incentive at all to try and enforce Wikipedia's policies on this set of articles. Looks like all you will get for your trouble is harassed, attacked, doxxed and threatened from the outside, and then topic or site banned from the inside."[27]

Lest we imagine this uncertainty is only hypothetical, Risker, a former arbitrator, wrote that she "took action [in the topic area] using advanced tools the other night only after I had the personal commitment of two of your colleagues to 'have my back' if I did so, because this decision is so broad that even acting entirely within policy I see a realistic risk of being sanctioned for taking entirely policy-accepted actions."[28] Remember the case was kicked off by a complaint about administrative malfeasance, precisely the kind of situation an administrator wading into Gamergate six months from now might face.[note 8]

That an arbitration decision divides the community and foments uncertainty is not news,[note 9] nor is it a sign by itself that the Committee cannot tackle vexed problems. What truly staggers here is the extent to which active arbitrators saw the major issues in the case coming and then did literally nothing about them. They recognized that behavior during the dispute would be a problem, then took no action as the evidence page ballooned.[note 10] They recognized the importance of off-wiki coordination[note 11] and then refused to take action on that very subject. They were repeatedly warned about misinterpreting this dispute as garden-variety Wikipedia factionalism and went on to "[clear]the decks of all the editors"[32] anyway.

Gamergate is not special. It is not a 100 year flood. It is the future of online resentment and so long as Wikipedia is both editable and authoritative we will face the same sort of problems. I had a hope, when this case was first taken, that Wikipedia would do the right thing in the end. That this community, which I am so passionate about and have been lucky enough to be a (very marginal) part of would land on the right solution after having tried all the bad ones. We're still looking, and the Arbitration Committee appears to be badly lost.

Protonk is a Wikipedia administrator who has had an account for over six years, totaling over 23,000 edits in that time (many of which have yet to be reverted!)

Notes

  1. ^ By way of introduction and disclaimer, I'm peripherally involved in the Gamergate issue but am neither a party to the case nor a major contributor.
  2. ^ "If there are a parade of single purpose accounts acting badly, the page can be semi-protected or protected long-term by any administrator, and disruptive accounts can be warned and then topic banned. Once the bad actors realize that we aren't going to tolerate them, they will go elsewhere."[3] Additionally, many of the single purpose accounts in the topic area were older but until-recently inactive accounts,[4] rendering semi-protection less useful.
  3. ^ In terms of concurrent users, a popular thread on KotakuInAction could bring thousands of interested, motivated eyes on a Wikipedia article, user or project page.
  4. ^ ArmyLine was topic banned by the community and The Devil's Advocate has been topic banned by ArbCom. Skrelk has not been topic banned but their activity on the topic speaks for itself.
  5. ^ All the while the page was watched closely by KotakuInAction.[21]
  6. ^ This has proven embarrassing enough to the Committee that in their press release they attempt to obscure the issue by lumping in community action with the outcome of the decision.
  7. ^ Following the proposed decision, Roger Davies (one of the drafting arbitrators) gave their view of the challenges, "if the Committee were in a position to introduce emergency draconian measures (which it isn't), it could only be on the basis of what's happening within the encyclopedia rather what may be going on outside it. There are simply no practical solutions to some of these issues because Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It would take major systemic change (end pseudonymous editing, require ID to create an account etc) to make individual editors accountable and, even then, we'd have no reliable means of connecting external anonymous individuals to named internal accounts."[25] It's possible (likely, even!) that arbitrators reviewed the possibility of addressing off-wiki coordination and found the evidence wanting or the action needed to be outside their remit, but little of that came through in the decision.
  8. ^ While these allegations were never substantiated, one of the remedies in the proposed decision can only be described as a Gilliamesque admonition: "Gamaliel is reminded that the boundaries of 'involved' are frequently blurred and that the exercise of administrative discretion often requires the exercise of circumspection."[29]
  9. ^ Though the current Committee is certainly on a roll with regard to gender-related cases
  10. ^ One principle noting the importance of conduct during arbitration cases has unanimous support from 14 arbitrators.[30] One can only assume the committee feels they've done a good job in this regard.
  11. ^ A problem which still exists on the article, with editors importing translations of the Spanish language version of the article.[31]

References

  1. ^ Infamous - Mark Bernstein 15 January 2015
  2. ^ Singal, Jesse. "Gaming's summer of rage". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
  3. ^ Jehochman 2 November 2014
  4. ^ EvergreenFir 29 October 2014
  5. ^ "Projects:Operation 5 Horsemen". gamergate.me.
  6. ^ "One KiA thread on the subject - Operation 5 Horsemen: The corrupt/biased wiki writers OP (Participation Optional) : KotakuInAction". reddit.
  7. ^ "Logan_Mac comments on Ryulong is working with the gamerghazi mods to promote his gofundme. How would Wikipedia feel about an editor accepting money from those involved in a conflict that the editor is working on?". reddit.
  8. ^ "Involved Wikipedia editor Tarc complicit in off-wiki cooperation with subjects of Gamergate controversy. : KotakuInAction". reddit.
  9. ^ "Many, many threads - KotakuInAction". reddit.com.
  10. ^ "Gamergate controversy protection log". wikipedia.org.
  11. ^ Issues in Talk:Gamergate controversy
  12. ^ Gamergate
  13. ^ The Devil's Advocate 10 November 2014
  14. ^ WormTT 14 November 2014
  15. ^ Newyorkbrad 13 November 2014
  16. ^ Hasteur 29 October 2014
  17. ^ Future Perfect at Sunrise, 11 November 2014
  18. ^ WormTT 14 November 2014
  19. ^ Newyorkbrad, 13 November 2014
  20. ^ "this may be a situation where a temporary injunction at the start of the case may be in order, and I fully agree that a firm hand and an accelerated timeline would also be helpful." Beeblebrox 15 November 2014
  21. ^ "Wikipedia Arbcom Evidence page: Anti-gamergate tactics in play; Need counter evidence. : KotakuInAction". reddit.
  22. ^ "GG Protection log". wikipedia.org.
  23. ^ [1]
  24. ^ History of the dispute
  25. ^ Roger Davies 26 January 2015
  26. ^ DD2K 20 January 2015
  27. ^ Resolute 28 January 2015
  28. ^ Risker 28 January 2015
  29. ^ Gamaliel reminded
  30. ^ 3.1.9
  31. ^ "Turns out that in a culture where social justice warriors don't exist, like the Spanish speaking world, you actually get a neutral and actually informative Wikipedia article made. Translation of the Spanish Wiki lede : KotakuInAction". reddit.
  32. ^ Hasteur 29 October 2014
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The earlier GGTF case is also apposite: target banned, her stalker warned. Efforts to fix the gender gap will flounder with a ruling requiring the targets of stalkers to negotiate with said stalkers or leave Wikipedia (principle 4). Speaking as a media volunteer, I'm flat-out amazed we didn't get coverage of that one at the time (just before the fundraiser), we dodged a bullet there - David Gerard (talk) 22:59, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Or: an unproductive disruptionist shown the door, a productive disruptionist put on a short leash... You spin, I spin, we all spin together... Carrite (talk) 04:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Both editors were involved in editing the GamerGate controversy article and/or talk page and one was involved in the Arbitration case. While they both provide insight, it would be interesting to see an opinion piece by an editor or admin who is uninvolved. Liz Read! Talk! 23:32, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. Our op-ed pages are open to such an uninvolved party who wants to provide their perspective. Gamaliel (talk) 23:56, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Liz, I can give you my opinion as an uninvolved party in a single sentence: Since I can't tell whether this is a Tar-Baby or a Tar pit, & my onwiki time is extremely limited -- for example, I'm monitoring my daughter's play date while I type this -- I'm forced to stay out of it. However, I greatly admire the efforts of those with the courage to deal with it. -- llywrch (talk) 22:00, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ok that's just weird. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:58, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One of the authors is now blocked and topic-banned

See User_talk:Protonk#Blocked. The block is apparently for a (now revision-deleted) talk page statement. Andreas JN466 00:54, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that escalated quickly. kencf0618 (talk) 02:32, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Protonk's block/topic ban was commuted 30 minutes ago after discussion at ANI. --PresN 06:45, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Don't pretend that those nasty right wing Gamergaters are the only ones coordinating action offsite. The anti-Gamergate Gamerghazi is actually a more active (and arguably more vitriolic) Reddit forum. I've said my piece on this case on Wikipediocracy, it is there if you look for it. Short take: Arbcom got it mostly right. I'll give 'em a B+. The anti-Gamergaters still control an unbalanced, POV article however, let there be no mistake about that. Carrite (talk) 04:46, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hah, /r/gamerghazi is 1/5 of the size/activity of /r/kotakuinaction alone, much less the various 8chan boards dedicated to gamergate. If you're going to make up facts, at least make up ones that aren't easily verifiable. The gamergate article has many flaws, but when the preponderance of sources are all saying similar things, the one flaw it doesn't have is being unbalanced. --PresN 06:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
GamerGhazi is indeed opposed to gamergate. It is not more active. In January so far, KiA got 8.77m pageviews, while Ghazi only got 2.66m.
Furthermore, organizing essentially anything is against that subreddit's rules (admittedly, not properly codified as such, though the line "We reject the label "Anti-GG," as we are not a movement in the same sense GG is." does imply it). Posts/comments explicitly calling for action are virtually always deleted, and those implicitly calling for action are generally deleted as well. I should now; as a moderator of that subreddit I've often enforced that rule. "Anti-GG" might organize elsewhere (I wouldn't know), but it is not allowed to do so on Ghazi. (Full disclosure: I got to this page via Ghazi, though I've been paying attention to GG on WP independently) Menethh (talk) 08:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"The (...Arbcom case...) has been an utter, avoidable failure that shakes any confidence I have the Committee will be effective in the future." I would like to celebrate the tenth anniversary of someone declaring this about an Arbcom case decision. Manning (talk) 09:32, 30 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile, editors active in Gamergate controversy seem to be very good at keeping out opinions by pundits, just like in Anita Sarkeesian, Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu, etc. People should think of cutting down the intake of Reddit and 8chan posts.
Peter Isotalo 17:01, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am known for being sometimes critical of Arbcom for often taking too long and being too lenient in concluding its cases; that's why I never actually participate on Arbcom cases although I read and follow them all. They have done a grand job with gamergate and it restores my confdence in the committee. In particular, one outcome: Editor is restricted from editing any administrative noticeboards, is one I will remember for future use.
Arbcom now needs to take its own lead and learn to be faster and sharper with new cases and admins need to be less afraid of excercising their duties under WP:AE. Kudos for admins such as Sandstein and HJ Mitchell for later being bold and not letting themselves be browbeaten by those who insist that infractions of AE are not infractions and who insist that PA and incivility are not PA or incivility, and are perfectly acceptable behaviour for prolific content providers. We will see how the new committee handles future cases. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:17, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think anyone looking at the case pages can see this was not an easy case and opinions on how to proceed differed widely within the committee itself. In the end I am reasonably satisfied with the decision.
Can't say the same about the "other GG" decision, the gendergap case. I feel like we screwed that one up pretty badly. Part of the reason I am glad to be done with the committee was that I was tired of seeing some arbs bend over backwards to try and avoid banning users who we all agreed had been causing disruption for a long time and who would inevitably act disruptively in the future. It's an attitude that I simly cannot understand. We saw a little of this in the gamergate case but it was much worse in the gendergap case. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As Beeblebrox noted, it should be clear from reading the proposed decision page history that opinions on many points were divided; the final result, necessarily, was a majority decision. I think most or all of us on the committee are "reasonably" satisfied by the decision; I doubt anyone is fully satisfied with respect to every point. That's inevitable in majority decision-making.
The committee is under pressure in two directions: "to consider extenuating circumstances" and to deal decisively with long term problem users. These two are often incompatible. I think that was the case here, and this incompatibility was one important cause of the different views by those on the committee. Unless we were to completely ignore one of these factors, all such decisions are matters of judgment, and for any possible result, some people will be understandably dissatisfied. DGG ( talk ) 17:19, 3 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Confusing terminology

I don't understand some terminology: What does it mean to be "for" Gamergate? Or "against"? That's like being for or against Watergate, and what would that mean? I am serious here, will somebody explain what the for and against words mean? Thanks, GeorgeLouis (talk) 08:24, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Pro" Gamergate poeple are those that are stating they believe there are ethics issues in current video game journalism. "Anti" Gamergater people are either those that counter these claims, and/or that have been highly critical of the methods that are attributed to the pro-Gamergate side or the hashtag, though as a label this is much less commonly used. At times you'll see "Gamergater" which refers to the pro-Gamergate side. --MASEM (t) 16:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The whole thing was very confusing. When reviewing some of the offsite evidence I had to do some digging to find out why "fag" "neckbeard" and "sea lion" were all apparently being used in ways I was not familiar with. These folks, on all sides of the gamer insider world, might find people had a better understanding of their concerns if they spoke in ways what could be easily understood by those "not in the club".
On the other hand we do the exact same thing around here all the time with all of our WP:WHATEVER links. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:59, 2 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Defining what GamerGate is has been one of the major debates surrounding this article. Not to get too meta but I've seen it described as a consumer revolt, an effort to change ethics policies in videogame journalism, an effort to target perceived "enemies" with harassment AND a fight as a bulwark against left-wing progressive perspective (the dreaded and mythic "Social Justice Warriors") that proclaims itself no less than a culture war in determining the future of America. As in many articles, defining what something is (and what it is not), is often half the battle. Call it the "War over the Lede". Liz Read! Talk! 00:24, 8 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]


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