User:Tstormcandy/Gamergate ArbCom Discussion

Please see User:Tstormcandy/Gamergate Edit Discussion for my rationale in edits I've made in this subject area.

' Please see Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate/Evidence for my statement. '

I have removed my statement for the sake of organization and efficiency in the massive case evidence page. It's far more important that the involved parties get their say. For previous statement please see below.

GamerGate and The Arbitration Committee
Per this diff, a case at the Arbitration Committee (ArbCom) has been opened on the subject. This follows three months of extremely tedious edit warring, countless reverts and removal of unreliably sourced content, and incivility that is not befitting Wikipedia. General Sanctions were imposed in Mid-October but the case was repeatedly escalated to ArbCom and was dismissed not once but twice. Another filing was almost immediate; This is the most extreme example of mod shopping I've ever seen, though I don't question the importance of the case.

Justify Your Existence!
Within hours of my statement to ArbCom I was already being singled out for participation and supposed cooperation with opponents of GamerGate. Ironically, it's a warning to others that I'd already quoted them for collaborating off-site. I want to make this clear again-- I don't care about your articles, their content, or your edit warring. I don't care about your NPOV, BLPs, COIs, RSes, etc in the way you are discussing them. There are incident boards and general sanctions for those and other users have manged that all just fine.

I don't care what your political and cultural views are. I don't care how long you've been on Wikipedia or if you're a new member. To a point I don't even care that you do talk about this subject away from Wikipedia. There's no harm in some passive discussion so long as actions are not dictated to one another.

I couldn't care less about the content of any of the articles considered battlegrounds in this case. Assuming edits follow the standards every other must regarding WP:V, WP:RS, WP:BLP etc it is not of my concern. Likewise, it is not within the scope of ArbCom to enter content disputes. Additionally, the varied levels of incivility between editors on Wikipedia aren't of immediate interest to me as these are things ArbCom can evaluate and remedy. Others can submit what are surely thousands of diffs to bicker and lawyer over. I'm not here to discuss technicalities or parse talk page words. My concerns regard the wider consequences of these actions, not the meat of them.

'''I care about the broader process and keeping order. That is all.''' There are no "sides". Only editors. As an example, I'll point to my statement where I simultaneously mention extreme harassment against one particular user (whom I shall not name here) while questioning his/her combative attitude at the same time.

What's important to me here?

 * I was bullied away from Wikipedia several years ago and have just recently returned. No one deserves to go through that.
 * Bullying via hounding, meatpuppetry, user talk page spam and other related methods is combative.
 * Massive amounts of off-Wiki collaboration between some editors of shared affiliations (as well as non-users), which has caused untold disruption in what would otherwise be normal discussion and dispute resolution within articles.

There are already articles there. People shouldn't be intimidated about contributing so long as they follow our basic policies and guidelines.

The end?
I hope! Let's build a damn encyclopedia, people.

Archived statement from ArbCom
Diff of removal:

Evidence presented by Tstormcandy
To preface, I would like to point the Committee to precedent set at Arbitration/Requests/Case/Eastern European mailing list which states that ArbCom can and will consider certain off-Wiki activity as part of final decision principles and findings of fact. This is meant to be more procedural evidence and generally not directed at any specific editors.

Involved editors have been targets of harassment
Some of the users listed as involved parties in this case have been specifically targeted by external forces for additional scrutiny and potential harassment. Though this does not excuse user actions it may help explain some of the stresses and behaviors displayed in other evidence and should be taken into account as state of mind. User Ryulong is singled out exceptionally, with screen captures of discussions posted on top of diffs. I would welcome the overall behavior of this user be examined the same as any others, of course.

Found as another extension of an off-Wiki forum is this Pastebin file, detailing how persons should complete an "operation" to "dig through" post histories of particular users for the sake of gathering obstructionist evidence for collection and reproduction. In this one case, users Ryulong, NorthBySouthBraanof, Tarc, TheRedPenOfDoom and TaraInDC are singled out as "The five horsemen of Wikipedia" and messages such as "here's a guide to help". These users have suffered from needlessly excessive talk page contacts., and common listings at incident board discussions.

Off-wiki discussion is disrupting the Encyclopedia
The task of collaboration and research resulted in many edits at incident boards and even on the talk page of User:Jimbo Wales (as recommended) many times;. The repeated forum shopping and multiple requests to ArbCom in a short amount of time can also be attributed to this high amount of off-WIki discussion. One recent example is seen here which is "for the purpose of discussing Wikipedia matters". Another offsite thread was created after my original statement merely to warn people that I had used the first link,, advising users to "try not to be a fucking moron" thus implying their possible participation.

By extension of the collaboration and cases of users following through with it we get a large amount of meatpuppetry happening within this topic. I strongly support this evidence section as a collection of diffs.

Such bullying and discussion designed to intimidate and impact on-wiki matters must not be permitted to hold sway over WP:FRINGE and WP:IDONTLIKEIT article content on Wikipedia and editors should feel safe in the process of following basic Wikipedia policies (such as WP:RS and WP:BLP) without being threatened. I implore the committee to not "let the bullies win" in this case. ♪ Tstorm(talk) 23:32, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Edited: ♪ Tstorm(talk) 06:38, 28 November 2014 (UTC) Heavily edited: ♪ Tstorm(talk) 13:23, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

The The End?
For real this time, hopefully.

I do not intend to update this essay any further, though I of course welcome messages on my talk page. Signed for the sake of record: ♪ Tstorm(talk) 05:21, 5 December 2014 (UTC)