Talk:Pizzagate conspiracy theory/Archive 8

There is something important missing in this article
The origin of the "gate" portmanteau is, as most are probably aware, the Watergate scandal. There needs to be a sentence explaining this somewhere in the lede or in the first section. Also, pizza is good and almost never scandalous. 2600:1012:B060:BDFC:2C0A:91B3:6F47:8E46 (talk) 09:26, 19 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Pffft. You sound just like a shill for big pizza.
 * In all seriousness, such a statement had been in the article, IIRC, but was removed for not being sources, and no-one being able to find a source. I can't find one now with a quick search (though it's possible that a more exhaustive search could turn one up). In any case, I think it's widely enough understood that adding the "-gate" suffix to coin a neologism by which to name a scandal that it goes beyond "we don't need to source something so obvious" and ends up in "We don't need to mention something so obvious."
 * If some of the regulars at this page are in favor of adding it, I won't object. But I don't see it as really necessary. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  12:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok thanks for the background, that was helpful. I still think that the article is missing something important for anyone who doesn't know what Watergate is (this may actually be a serious issue when you consider a global audience that is not educated in US political history and wasn't alive in the 20th century). Explaining the etymology risks lightly endorsing that there is a scandal, but this can be alleviated if it's made clear that the name was coined by conspiracist proponents of the conspiracy theory, so these readers will learn about the name and also that it is only a "scandal" in the eyes of the conspiracists. But if there is no source for it, then that alone is reason for it to not be here. 2600:1012:B060:BDFC:2C0A:91B3:6F47:8E46 (talk) 18:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Reasonable enough, I've added it. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 18:56, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Like I said, I don't object to the addition. I just looked through List of "-gate" scandals and controversies and saw plenty of international stuff. It's more of an English-language convention than an American one, from what I can see there. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:05, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That is a very amusing list, I had no idea there were so many! CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:11, 19 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I've been going through it all morning, since I looked it up while responding to the IP. You're right, it's thoroughly amusing.
 * Also, what do you want to bet that, at some point in the next 90 days, your edit will get reverted by someone complaining about the lack of source? It won't be me (I'm 100% convinced this is squarely within WP:SKYBLUE territory, as I mentioned above), and I'll be happy to revert and argue about that, but I feel like editors get extra pedantic about politically-charged articles. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants   Tell me all about it.  19:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Just a comment from a random wikipedia reader-- I came here to find out what the pizzagate conspiracy theory was about. That is very hard to determine from this article. There is an enormous amount of verbage being spent to describe it's lack of credibility, which is certainly interesting and relevant, but there should also be a good description of what the theory supposes. 2601:243:1400:310:C895:2BB7:7CC6:143B (talk) 17:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * We do its called Genisis, this is elaborated on in Debunking, where we mention each claim, and how it had been shown to be false. Slatersteven (talk) 18:03, 8 April 2022 (UTC)


 * It's already summarized in several places. The second paragraph of the lead says that Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring. One of the establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C.; likewise, the second paragraph of the Genesis section says that Proponents of the conspiracy theory read the emails and alleged they contained code words for pedophilia and human trafficking. Proponents also claimed that Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., was a meeting ground for Satanic ritual abuse.  These are the key points according to the main sources that have covered it. --Aquillion (talk) 18:07, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the IP has a point in that the narrative of the conspiracy theory isn't summarized in the lede. I'm not suggesting we should repeat its claims in any detail, but a simple sentence would do it. E.g.:
 * "Pizzagate" is a debunked conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle.  It described a non-existent basement under a pizza restaurant in which Democrats supposedly engaged in ritualistic child sacrifices. It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington, D.C. police.
 * That would seem to be the best possible lede, not too different from the way we treat other forms of fiction: We define it, then we very briefly describe it, then we give information to contextualize it. Happy ( Slap me ) 18:59, 8 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Sorry but the best thing to do is redo do the entire page because it shows that Wikipedia intentional post things that know are false, they based the entire thing on a lie and fill it with bias and to demonize the right, just like what they did and continue to do  to lauren southerns page . And the reason the whole thing is based on a lie is because they did not include how pizza gate started and to be fair they probably  weren't aware of who that was at the time. Do you remember When Facebooks oversight board punished trump for something he did not do , even after Facebook help the democrats lie to the entire world and got caught day 4 of trumps 2nd impeachment ?? Facebook also unintentionally revealed  the existence of a 2nd tier policy enforcement system called the white list, The oversight board then ask facebook to provide information about this whitelist they lied to everyone about, even the oversight board itself was revealed to be formed based on a lie  and Facebook provided.  They  admitted that pizza gate was started by someone on their whitelist they lost control of  because normal fact checkers and moderators can't remove the content of someone on the white list the system it self won't let them dop it. Only the full time moderator assigned to them can do that and they couldn't find that person  to remove that user or their content  . The same thing happened  when trump was accused of calling illegal immigrants animals , that was started by someone on the whitelist they lost control of. Not qanon or  the right or far right  or even democrats and as long as they refuse to  include that information then no matter what you do or change . You will still be basing the entire thing on a lie and everyone sees it . I'm new to this so I not sure how to do the link thingy but go to the oversight boards website and go to their decisions and look for yourself . Or read the wall street journals article about the subject called The Facebook Files, Part 1: The Whitelist. 103.111.178.41 (talk) 03:28, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
 * We need wp:rs (do you in fact have any sources, not even an RS claiming any of the above?) claiming this toadd ir. Slatersteven (talk) 09:05, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

"Alleged" sex trafficking ring?
Inasmuch as Ghislaine Maxwell has now been convicted of sex-trafficking minors with the late Jeffery Epstein, is it still appropriate to use the term "alleged"? It has now been proven in court that there were multiple people actually trafficking minors, and additional cases are pending. There was sex trafficking, and it did involve multiple perpetrators. It is no longer just an allegation, and it has gone beyond "accused" to "convicted". --Eliyahu S Talk 03:08, 15 September 2022 (UTC)


 * @Eliyahu S That seems like a stretch. I'm not sure Pizzagate was conflated with Epstein. Just because Epstein was a pedo doesn't suddenly mean pizzagate is true and thus the Democratic party is a nest of satanic pedophiles run by Hilary Clinton. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:42, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Epstein and his associates are more relevant to sex trafficking in the United States than lunatic conspiracy theories about Satanic panic. Dimadick (talk) 08:20, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Without strong sourcing that explicitly links Epstein or Maxwell to this conspiracy theory, adding any information about it to the page, or altering the page in any way to imply such a link would be purely original research, with the effect of turning this article into a propaganda tool. Happy  ( Slap me ) 13:03, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

"spear-phishing" typo to be corrected please
Could whoever has edit rights to this article please fix this obvious typing error. In the 1st sentence in the 2nd par of the article it reads :

"In March 2016, the personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, was hacked in a spear-phishing attack. WikiLeaks published his emails in November 2016. "

The words spear-phishing should obviously read phishing

Note that the hyperlink is correct.

It may be possible to determine who inserted this typing error, which seems to me to be an act of malicious vandalism by people who should be banned from Wiki Pierre Hugot (talk) 05:21, 29 December 2022 (UTC)


 * this is wikipedia, we all have edit rights. i dont know if you are just unfamiliar with the terminology and thought it was racist or what, but spear phishing is a very real method of social engineering, and it differs from regular phishing in that:
 * “Spear phishing is a specific and targeted attack on one or a select number of victims, while regular phishing attempts to scam masses of people. In spear phishing, scammers often use social engineering and spoofed emails to target specific individuals in an organization.”
 * source
 * which, is exactly what is being described in the paragraph you had erroneously edited. again, spear phishing is merely a targeted form of phishing. it has nothing to do with racism here.
 * to be completely fair, what happened to podesta could also be considered whaling, which is simply the use of spear phishing techniques to target senior executives and other high-profile individuals. however, since whaling is nothing more than spear phishing with loftier goals, i think reverting back to “spear phishing” will be sufficient, and it should avoid the need to link to or provide the definition of, a completely new term, such as “whaling”... if you still have a problem with spear phishing as some sort of racial trigger, feel free to mention it here and we can discuss possibly opting for “whaling” instead. if you do reply, please ping me or whatever so i get a notification next time i log in.
 * thank you for your patience and understanding.
 * Snarevox (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * which, is exactly what is being described in the paragraph you had erroneously edited. again, spear phishing is merely a targeted form of phishing. it has nothing to do with racism here.
 * to be completely fair, what happened to podesta could also be considered whaling, which is simply the use of spear phishing techniques to target senior executives and other high-profile individuals. however, since whaling is nothing more than spear phishing with loftier goals, i think reverting back to “spear phishing” will be sufficient, and it should avoid the need to link to or provide the definition of, a completely new term, such as “whaling”... if you still have a problem with spear phishing as some sort of racial trigger, feel free to mention it here and we can discuss possibly opting for “whaling” instead. if you do reply, please ping me or whatever so i get a notification next time i log in.
 * thank you for your patience and understanding.
 * Snarevox (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * thank you for your patience and understanding.
 * Snarevox (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Snarevox (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Snarevox (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion at Sound of Freedom (film) regarding inclusion of connections to QAnon
There is a discussion at Talk:Sound of Freedom (film) which may interest the regular readers of this talk page. Fred Zepelin (talk) 20:18, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 22 July 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – Material  Works  00:03, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Pizzagate conspiracy theory → Pizzagate (conspiracy theory) – For consistency with Spygate (conspiracy theory). GnocchiFan (talk) 21:23, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Leaning oppose. The brackets on Spygate (conspiracy theory) are only there because they serve to disambiguate between that and some other things also called "Spygate". Spygate itself is a disambiguation page for them. That is not the case here. Pizzagate is not a disambiguation. It just redirects to here. So I don't think the same logic automatically applies here. One question is what the topic is most properly called? Is it a conspiracy theory called "Pizzagate"? In that case I think that either name, with or without the brackets would be OK. Is it called the "Pizzagate conspiracy theory"? In that case it would be wrong to add the brackets. Either way, I'm not seeing any compelling need to change the name to add brackets and I think it would be best to just leave it as it is. --DanielRigal (talk) 22:49, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Move to Pizzagate per WP:CONCISE. No disambiguation in the title is required here, whether WP:NATURAL or parenthetical. Rreagan007 (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Disambiguation is not the reason why we have "conspiracy theory" in the title. As Q5 of the FAQ says, "Due to the "-gate" suffix implying some sort of genuine scandal, letting the name stand alone may unintentionally lend credence to an unsupported conspiracy theory." So, I think the question of whether we need the brackets is on the table but the question of whether we need "conspiracy theory" is asked, answered and enshrined in the FAQ as a settled yes. (BTW, sorry if I inadvertently suggested this idea to you with my poorly worded !vote above. I have revised it now to be clearer.) DanielRigal (talk) 22:43, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't agree with the FAQ rationale. Our general article titling policies favor moving the article to simply Pizzagate. However, if the choice is between the current title or the proposed title, then I oppose the move as WP:NATURALDISAMBIGUATION is preferable to parenthetical disambiguation, especially in this case where the parenthetical disambiguator wouldn't even really be a disambiguator but as some kind of weird conspiracy theory title warning.Rreagan007 (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Keep current title as is. All those words are needed, but a parentheses is not. -- Valjean (talk) ( PING me ) 06:22, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose move. No need for the parentheses, per Moon landing conspiracy theories, 9/11 conspiracy theories, and more. As DanielRigal points out, we typically only use parentheses in a name when there's ambiguity between two articles with the same name, but different topics. Regarding the argument about removing "conspiracy theory" altogether, that would require its own WP:RfC. &mdash;  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 14:03, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose - Is there some other Pizzagate that is not a conspiracy theory? O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:06, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * oppose what's the other pizzagate?—blindlynx 14:46, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Support the suggestion by to move to simply Pizzagate. There isn't some other Pizzagate that isn't a conspiracy theory that we need to differentiate from. And incidentally, no, moving an article doesn't require an RfC, or even an RM. Local consensus is fine.   G M G  talk  14:47, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It would involve overturning a consensus strong enough that it was put into the FAQ. If there was a very clear change of consensus in favour of that change then I guess it could be done without an RfC but that's very clearly not the case. DanielRigal (talk) 14:56, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I mean...I was there. I helped bring this article to GA. My opinion on the naming hasn't changed.  G M G  talk  17:58, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose We can't and should not do anything that might even give a slight impression this is a valid theory. This is (after all a BLP about criminal allegations). Slatersteven (talk) 14:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Just because all of us here are smart enough to know that anything other than Watergate being styled *gate is nearly always a heap of conspiratorial nonsense doesn't mean that we should assume that all our readers share the background knowledge required to realise this without being told. Not all our readers are adults. Not all our readers have English as a first language, and even those who do might not have familiarity with this peculiar Anglosphere idiom of affixing "gate" to random things (and not-even-things) to imply scandal. Even those who are, might struggle to recognise when it is being done sarcastically and when not. We need to make this clear for readers of all levels of prior knowledge, even if many of them do already know it. DanielRigal (talk) 15:09, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Slatersteven I respect your opinion, but don't understand how the addition of parentheses gives this the impression of a valid theory. GnocchiFan (talk) 17:18, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Because it implies there is another that is not. In the sense that if this is about the conspiracy theory there must be one that is just about Pizzagate. Slatersteven (talk) 18:35, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose because WP:NATDIS is preferred. cookie monster   755  16:57, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose per all of the above "oppose" arguments. I would repeat the same points, which are all valid. Fred Zepelin (talk) 07:11, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

"other fake news websites"
Follow Wikipedia's content policy. Neutral point of view 97.96.40.190 (talk) 04:51, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
 * We dont, we follow what RS say (and see WP:FALSEBALANCE). Slatersteven (talk) 10:56, 31 August 2023 (UTC)