Revision as of 20:21, 27 September 2014

Skip to open disputes skip to newest thread (purge cache)

• WP:DRN
• WP:DR/N

This is an informal place to resolve content disputes as part of dispute resolution. It may also be used as a tool to direct certain discussions to more appropriate forums, such as requests for comment, or other noticeboards. You can ask a question on the talk page. This is an early stop for most disputes on Misplaced Pages. You are not required to participate, however, the case filer must participate in all aspects of the dispute or the matter will be considered failed. Any editor may volunteer! Click this button to add your name! You don't need to volunteer to help. Please feel free to comment below on any case. Be civil and remember; Maintain Misplaced Pages policy: it is usually a misuse of a talk page to continue to argue any point that has not met policy requirements. Editors must take particular care adding information about living persons to any Misplaced Pages page. This may also apply to some groups.

If you would like a regularly-updated copy of this status box on your user page or talk page, put {{DRN case status}} on your page. Click on that link for more options.
Last updated by FireflyBot (talk) at 14:46, 11 January 2025 (UTC)

Archived DRN Cases

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160 161, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200 201, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250 251, 252

This page has archives. Sections may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 1 section is present.

Current disputes

2014 Israel–Gaza conflict

Closed at the request of the filing party. Its been 26 days with little or no resolution. Please try WP:RfC or WP:MEDIATION. — Keithbob • Talk • 13:55, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

War of the Pacific

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, We have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:War of the Pacific#RfC: Which are the relevant facts for the LEDE regarding the 14 February 1879? (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Keysanger (talk · contribs)
• Darkness Shines (talk · contribs)
• Eduardo Eddy Ramirez (talk · contribs)
• 210.50.245.62 (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

Was the 14 February 1879 the beginning of the War of the Pacific or another date in a chain of pivotal dates in the road to war?

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

A RfC failed to find a solution: Talk:War of the Pacific#RfC: Which are the relevant facts for the LEDE regarding the 14 February 1879?

How do you think we can help?

To find an adequate wording for the lede

Summary of dispute by Keysanger

The closer of the RfC states: There are WP:RS on both sides here, and people working in good faith can come to the opposite conclusion as to which the the right answer is. The Context matters bit is important however, and some of the sources are certainly less reliable for historical analysis than others.

Therefore I think that Darkness Shines's sentence The War of the Pacific started on February 14, 1879 doesn't meet the WP rules for neutrality. I proposed:

1. The crisis sharpened on February 14, 1879 when Chilean armed forces occupied the port city of Antofagasta,
2. Some authors set the beginning of the war with the first naval battles, others on February 14, 1879 when Chilean armed forces, enthusiastic welcomed by the population, occupied the port city of Antofagasta (83% Chilean population), as the Bolivian authorities pretended to auction the confiscated property of Chilean CSFA, although the first battle occurred in Topater on 23 March 1879, after the Bolivian Declaration of War and before the Chilean Declaration of War.

Both proposals have been reverted by DS, those only proposal has been The War of the Pacific started on February 14, 1879. There is no mention of any other dates or sources.

I ask DS to make a proposal considering the other sources that have analysed the significance of the 14 February (Sater, Farcau, and Pike). --Keysanger (Talk) 09:53, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Darkness Shines

Sorry, I have been very busy the last few weeks, and I am currently very ill. I will try and make a statement within a few days. Darkness Shines (talk) 21:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Right, the RFC did have a solution, and that was the edits I had made were fine. And the arguing over the sources was plain old wiki lawyering. However I am happy to change the current content to "the war began on February 14, 1879 with the Chilean landing of troops and capture of the port city of Antofagasta, On 20 February Daza learned that Chilean forces had occupied Antofagasta, and requested aid from Peru based on the secret alliance between the two nations, following this on 1 March Bolivia issued a formal declaration of war against Chile"

1. Pike, Fredrick B. (1977). The United States and the Andean Republics: Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Harvard University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0674923003. Chile broke off diplomatic relations and on February 14, 1879, landed troops that took possession of Antofagasta, thus triggering the War of the Pacific
2. Henderson, James D.; Delpar, Helen; Brungardt, Maurice Philip; Weldon, Richard N. (1999). A Reference Guide to Latin American History. M.E. Sharpe. p. 155. ISBN 978-1563247446.
3. Marley, David (1998). Wars of the Americas: A Chronology of Armed Conflict in the New World, 1492-1997. ABC-CLIO. p. 584. ISBN 978-0874368376.

This seems a reasonable compromise to me. Darkness Shines (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Eduardo Eddy Ramirez

Summary of dispute by 210.50.245.62

WP:Talk:War of the Pacific#RfC: Which are the relevant facts for the LEDE regarding the 14 February 1879? discussion

Administrative note: I've notified User:Darkness Shines about this case.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC) I've also added and notified two other users who were involved in the dispute on the talk page.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 15:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC) PS I'm not opening this case, just trying to help get it ready for another volunteer to take and moderate.-- — Keithbob • Talk • 21:26, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Suggestions for Compromise

This case is now open. One proposal is to change current content to:

• the war began on February 14, 1879 with the Chilean landing of troops and capture of the port city of Antofagasta,

1. Pike, Fredrick B. (1977). The United States and the Andean Republics: Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Harvard University Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0674923003. Chile broke off diplomatic relations and on February 14, 1879, landed troops that took possession of Antofagasta, thus triggering the War of the Pacific
2. Henderson, James D.; Delpar, Helen; Brungardt, Maurice Philip; Weldon, Richard N. (1999). A Reference Guide to Latin American History. M.E. Sharpe. p. 155. ISBN 978-1563247446.

• Is this acceptable to both parties?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 13:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

That is not much different to what is already in the article, hence my suggestion above. But I am fine with it, the other guy won`t be though Darkness Shines (talk) 17:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Another proposal is to change the current content to this:

• The crisis sharpened on February 14, 1879 when Chilean armed forces occupied the port city of Antofagasta

Can we find some common ground between the two?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, but I can`t go with that proposal, shall we wait on KS to respond on the proposal I gave in my opening statement? Darkness Shines (talk) 00:58, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Nay. I can't go with that proposal. @DS: why don't you consider the other sources, for example, Willian Sater, emeritus professor of history at California State University-Long Beach?. He has written the probably most detailed book about the war. Please, take a look to Andean Tragedy. He states in page 28: Only on 5 April did Santiago reciprocate, plunging South America's west coast into what became known as the War of the Pacific, a conflict that lasted until 1884. If you unconditionally insist to say that some authors set the begin on 14/F, I would accept it under the condition that the same sentence states that other authors set it to different dates. --Keysanger (talk) 07:27, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Gods no, Given you are cherry picking a part from that source and misrepresenting it. The bit you missed out was "two weeks after the Chilean occupation of Antofagasta, he declared that Chile had imposed “a state of war” on Bolivia. Apparently this decree did not constitute a formal declaration of belligerence, which he announced on 18 March. Only on 5 April did Santiago reciprocate, plunging South America’s west coast into what became known as the War of the Pacific, a conflict that lasted until 1884." Did you not notice that war had already been declared? Darkness Shines (talk) 10:17, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Core of dispute for this sentence

First, stop addressing and referencing each other and personalizing the discussion. We are here to discuss text and sources only not people and their alleged deeds or motives. Now.....Let's see if we can find some common ground here. The two sentences are not that far apart:

• The war began --on February 14, 1879 with the Chilean-- landing of troops and capture of-- the port city of Antofagasta
• The crisis sharpened --on February 14, 1879 when Chilean-- armed forces occupied--the port city of Antofagasta

The "landing of troops and capture of" is the same thing as "armed forces occupied". So the dispute seems to be over the first three words:

• The war began
• The crisis sharpened

So the core of the dispute for this sentence is over the characterization of the occupation/capture as a either a war or a crisis. Correct?-- — Keithbob • Talk • 13:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Wrong, KS insists the war did not begin in the 14 of Feb, even though we have RS which says this. My position is to follow what those RS say, which is when the war started, when war was declared and so on. Darkness Shines (talk) 15:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Gospel of Matthew

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Gospel of Matthew (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Andrevan (talk · contribs)
• Ret.Prof (talk · contribs)
• PiCo (talk · contribs)
• StAnselm (talk · contribs)
• Ignocrates (talk · contribs)
• Rbreen (talk · contribs)
• In ictu oculi (talk · contribs)
• John Carter (talk · contribs)
• Evensteven (talk · contribs)
• JudeccaXIII (talk · contribs)
• Tgeorgescu (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

The dispute is about how Due and Undue Weight policy is to be understood.

Andrevan, who is a new editor on the article, wishes to add material about the date and composition-history of the gospel of Matthew, and other editors regard the additions as unnecessary because they over-represent minority views - undue weight, in other words.

In a nutshell: the majority of scholars believe that Gospel of Matthew (GM) was composed after 70 AD, a minority argue strongly for a pre-70 date. This isn't in dispute between editors. We mention it in the lead and again in the "setting and date" section, with RS.

Andrevan wants to add more on the minority viewpoint, specifically from a scholar named Maurice Casey (note that nobody denies Casey is RS). Other editors almost unanimously (one exception) feel: (a) the question of date is already adequately covered, and (b) adding more about the minority view would unbalance coverage of the topic.

There's an important extra point: Casey's idea isn't just for an early (pre-70 AD) date, but for a very early one, about 50-60 AD. So far as I know he's the only scholar who holds this view. It's been pointed out to Andrevan that Casey's view has failed to gain traction in the academic community, but Andrevan's reply was that "academic traction" isn't a policy. My answer was that "traction" is indeed a policy, it's how we tell how much weight to give to different views.

Given that neither side has managed to convince the other, it seems that an edit war is looming - quite unnecessarily in my view.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

Extensive discussion on article talk page, otherwise no action - but Andrevan has now made a charge that all those who take a view opposite to his is a sock puppet/meat puppet (see Misplaced Pages:Sockpuppet investigations/PiCo) I don't mind saying I find this worrying if it means an escalation from a looming edit-war into warfare through wiki-lawyering.

How do you think we can help?

Can someone please look at the talk page and give us an opinion on how the Due Weight policy applies to the question of coverage of a minority viewpoint in general and the Casey viewpoint in particular.

Summary of dispute by Andrevan

I was introduced to this issue through the Mediation Committee as a mediator assigned to it. I am an atheist software engineer with no particular interest or knowledge of the subject area, but have since learned quite a bit about it.

We closed the mediation as successful but it appears that it is not resolved. Ret.Prof is the user who is pushing to include the minority theories in the article.

However, he persists in raising his complaint due to what I see as, at its root, a valid WP:NPOV issue with this article.

violation of WP:RS/AC and WP:RNPOV. It is true that these minority theories should probably not appear in the lead section of the article as Ret.Prof has requested. However, his opponents claim that including these reliably-sourced minority theories with significant adherents in the main article AT ALL, violates WP:FRINGE and WP:WEIGHT. There are a number of theories which pertain to the subject and are not linked at all from the main article: the Augustinian hypothesis, Griesbach hypothesis, Q+/Papias hypothesis, and Hebrew Gospel hypothesis. Including no reference at all for the theories is not proportional to the fact that they do regularly appear in reliable sources about this topic. It has been suggested by Ret.Prof,

that these theories are associated with Jewish, non-religious and Eastern Orthodox perspectives into Western Christianity, leading to this incidence of bias. Maurice Casey, an academic with notable peer-reviewed publications, was a lapsed or non-Christian. Therefore this is an instance of systemic bias masquerading as a consensus, and reliable sources are being excluded at the expense of NPOV. Andrevan@ 02:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Please note I do not think there is a conspiracy. Systemic bias could arise simply by the self-reinforcing lack of NPOV on the part of a group of editors with blind spots. Andrevan@ 03:08, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Ret.Prof

Fringe: 50-60 CE date for Matthew WP:Fringe theories: "A Misplaced Pages article should not make a fringe theory appear more notable or more widely accepted than it is". Casey 2014. p 96 is as follows:

I conclude that the Gospel of Matthew is a major source for our knowledge of the life and teaching of Jesus, written c. 50–60 ce.

WP:Fringe theories:To be notable, at least one reliable secondary source must have commented on it, disparaged it, or discussed it. Here again WP is clear! Such a topic is not fringe

• diff
• diff
• diff
• diff
• diff
• diff
• diff

There is nothing "new" about the 50 CE date. "Christian scholars" have argued in favor of it for years. What is new is a heavyweight Non-Christian historian now supporting it! Maurice Casey is a respected non-Christian scholar and for him come out in support of a 50-60 date for Matthew is notable. Such material MUST be written from a NPOV. This policy cannot be overruled even by a very large number of user accounts. Therefore the early 50 ce date must be included in the article on the Gospel of Matthew. As far as I am concerned, this is the only outstanding issue that has yet to be resolved...but it is an important one. IE Only ONE issue not TWO! Thanks!

• For the record, my POV is that the Oral Tradition was both strong and accurate. The reason the Gospels and Talmud came into being was that this oral tradition Glenn 2014 of Jews and Christians was no longer viable after the destruction of the Temple 70 CE. Therefore I tend to believe in a later date. Still my trip to the library has shown many, many sources either support or make mention of the 50 CE proposed by Casey.
• Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses! Casey is therefore a reliable source. Thanks
• It is truly time to let go of our Hebrew /Aramaic Gospel debate and move on to the topic at hand. The issue before us is the earliest possible date for the Greek Gospel of Matthew. I have produced 7 reliable sources that state that that date was 50 CE. Therefore it must be given at least some weight and included in the article. I can produce many more RS if required.
• The statement "with a pre-70 date having little support among secular scholars. ", is original research that misrepresents France who said, "A pre-70 date for Matthew remains a minority view, but one which has been strongly supported". See also France Matthew: Evangelist and Teacher pp 82-91. See also Williams I think you will agree he helps my case as he supports a date while the Temple is still standing (like Casey!). - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by PiCo

Just restate and also expand on what I wrote above. There are two issues, not one as I stated previously, the two being the date of GM and its composition history. For both the relevant policy is NPOV, which says that NPOV means "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." So does the existing article represent "all significant views"? It says, re the date, that most scholars believe GM was composed after 70 CE and that a minority opinion holds it was before. This is supported by a RS and several others could be cited as well. Re composition history, there's an entire paragraph on authorship and another on sources, both thoroughly sourced.

Andrevan needs to demonstrate that Casey's opinion regarding the date (50 CE) is so significant that it can't be subsumed under a general statement. He also needs to demonstrate that the Augustinian and other hypotheses on the sources behind Matthew are equally significant. He also needs to demonstrate that any scholar at all supports the idea of an Aramaic or Hebrew original version of GM (he notes Casey and another scholar named Edwards, but has misunderstood what both are saying). PiCo (talk) 04:29, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by StAnselm

I personally hold to a pre-70 date for Matthew, but I acknowledge that it is a minority position. The early date in itself is not fringe, but a date of 50 possibly is. The connections made between Casey and an Aramaic gospel seem to be dubious, but in any case it would be better to quote someone like R. T. France, whose commentary has received more coverage in secondary sources. I don't think it would necessarily be undue weight to discuss the usual reasons for a pre-70 date: the dating of Luke-Acts and the lack of mention of the temple's destruction. However, a discussion of these reasons should be accompanied by a discussion of the reasons for the majority view. In other words, I would like to see the whole section expanded. StAnselm (talk) 06:53, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Ignocrates

Andrevan is attempting to enforce what he sees as a WP:NPOV violation by shoehorning a tiny minority view into the article. The dispute began over an early date for the Gospel of Matthew proposed by Maurice Casey. Casey, while a notable scholar, has an idiosyncratic view of the Aramaic origins of Matthew. The majority of editors on the page consider an early date based on that unique conjecture to be WP:UNDUE. More seriously, Andrevan, who has admitted to knowing nothing about the subject, has recently introduced a number of new topics to include in the article, which he claims are being deliberately suppressed due to systemic bias. Ignocrates (talk) 02:45, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by some of the recent edits, so just to clarify: This dispute is not about an early date for the composition of the Gospel of Matthew as a minority view; we already have excellent sources that can provide that information (e.g., Dale Allison, R.T. France). The dispute is about assigning an early date to Matthew based on the unique conjecture advanced by Maurice Casey. Therefore, an early date as a minority view is not WP:UNDUE, but an early date based on Casey as a source is undue weight. That is the consensus position and the locus of the dispute. Ignocrates (talk) 16:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Rbreen

There have traditionally been New Testament writers, usually very conservative ones, who have argued for a pre-70 date for Matthew, largely because it supported the view of apostolic authorship. That idea died a death a generation ago - the consensus is now pretty much the one in the current article. The fact that a scholar like Casey can advance the idea of pre-70 authorship, completely separate from the traditional standpoint, is a sign of the maturity of the discussion. But so far it's just Casey, in a popular book, and until we find out whether the idea is taken seriously by academic writers we cannot pretend that this an academic running an idea up the flagpole. Personally, I have nothing against a pre-70 date - the consensus is a bit stale now, and could do with being challenged - but we can't predict where scholarship will go, and must stick with the picture as it is now. --Rbreen (talk) 20:38, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by In ictu oculi

User:Guy Macon, that was my summary of the root of the dispute. The root of dispute is not that 1 New Testament scholar has a theory which has not gained any peer support. 1 scholar theories that fail to attract peer support belong in the scholar's bio article, not in article space competing for weight with views which have at least a minority of scholars. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by John Carter

I believe there is a very real chance that one of the central problems here is very likely behavioral but that this is not necessarily the correct forum to deal with that.

One of the basic and more obvious ways to determine whether or not a source is reliable is to determine what other academic sources say on the work in question regarding the subject at hand. One of the easiest ways to determine that is through reviews of the work. I haven't seen any reviews of this book in academic journals yet, although I think I have seen some listings of it in "Books Received" sections indicating reviews are likely in the future. I cannot see any real reason to rush to judgment regarding the academic views regarding this particular matter before we have seen the reviews. I said before that I thought the best way to proceed would be to first start an article on the book itself, and then try to determine how much space to give material regarding it elsewhere. I still think that would probably be the best way to go. There is of course another question regarding how many other single academics have presented other views on this topic, and whether they deserve the same amount of weight and consideration in the article. Given the number of subtopics of this article, it is very easy to see that it might potentially become just a set of short single sentences of the "X says Y" nature regarding many of the topics covered. When there are almost certainly literally hundreds of recent academic works on a given topic, "at least one" stated opinion on any issue will probably include dozens maybe hundreds of different ideas, and I don't think we can necessarily list them all.

Another major concern which I have regarding the status of our biblical material in general is the comparative lack of articles in wikipedia relative to the lengthy articles and subarticles in reference sources on biblical subjects. Having looked at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Bible/Encyclopedic articles, there is at least one substantively long named subsection on the date and authorship of the Gospel in one of the leading recent reference sources, and I have to say that I think it almost certain that a standalone article in wikipedia on the topic would be found to meet basic notability requirements, and that it would make much more sense to try to establish such a subarticle and develop it before attempting to effectively write the summary section of the article here. We do ourselves no favors by trying to shoehorn short mentions of every sub-subtopic related to Biblical subjects in one article, as doing so tends to make the articles lack any sort of desirable narrative flow and ultimately makes the articles less appealing to the readers it is supposed to serve. Sorry about the lengtht. John Carter (talk) 15:12, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Evensteven

Summary of dispute by JudeccaXIII

I wasn't involved as much in the Matthew debate. Maybe like three or four responses from me. I did not support Ret.Prof on Casey's views. Simply this, Casey is just one scholar. It wasn't enough to convince me, and I did some research; And there was little suggestion from other sources that agree or mentioned such similar ideals like Matthew first being written in Hebrew. The date of composition is arguable. There are many dates of composition online. A good average timeline of composition based on online sources would between 50 through 100 or 110 CE. It was rare though that I saw 50 CE being the actual date of composition in agreement with scholars. -- That's all -- JudeccaXIII (talk) 00:40, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Tgeorgescu

Western scholarship against Eastern-Orthodox scholarship is a false dichotomy, since Bible scholars are not employed in the main US and European universities for their religious faith commitments, but for their historical expertise. I agree with PiCo's comments from the talk page of the article

Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:32, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Clarification: Talking about other users is strictly forbidden. After the DRN case is closed, anyone involved may bring up user conduct issues in a venue where they are allowed. WP:DRR is a good starting place. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:29, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Non-involved editor Jpacobb's comments

Although I am not directly involved in this specific discussion, it raises issues which have been concerning me for some time and the following comments may be helpful.

1. The condition that "to be be notable a theory must be supported by at least one RS" seems to be a necessary condition, but not of itself sufficient. For example, John Allegro produced an theory about sacred mushrooms and the Eucharist. He was technically RS, but the idea met with total rejection from other academics and quickly became past history. Therefore, information about it was removed from the Misplaced Pages article.
2. Editors should beware of "Phd-itis" (the need to produce some new and original ideas in order to make an academic name/career). It is only when theories are seriously discussed by other RS's, if only to be refuted, that they can be said to become notable. In the 1960-70s, if there was one agreed academic opinion on the Gospels, it was that "they were NOT biographies". In 1989 Richard A. Burridge produced a Ph.D. thesis that argued that they were ancient-style biographies. By about 1995 the thesis had been extensively discussed and was well on the way to becoming "a lasting contribution to scholarship" (Graham Stanton) (See What are the Gospels - 2nd Ed Eerdmans 2002, Cap 11 and Foreword) In short, academic impact or traction is necessary for a particular minority view of this type to qualify as worthy of "due attention". Jpacobb (talk) 19:05, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Non-involved editor Cwobeel's comments

(Not involved either, have some knowledge of the subject having studied Biblical criticism as a topic of interest, but I am not Christian.) NPOV guide us to include all significant viewpoints that have been reported in sources that can be verified, and that are reliable. A minority viewpoint can be presented as such (that is explaining in the text that it is a novel or not widely held viewpoint if there are sources that describe it as such), but extra care should be applied not to use Misplaced Pages to "promote" a minority view above its current standing in the domain in which that viewpoint is being expressed. Minority viewpoints are easy to spot using a number of available metrics, in this case one could use metrics related to the number of sources available, the number of citations in Google scholar, and other such. - Cwobeel (talk) 19:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Another point to remember, for those of us that are passionate about our views and want Misplaced Pages to reflect “the truth” is that Misplaced Pages does not need you - Cwobeel (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Non-involved editor Hijiri88's comments

I was watching this dispute from the sidelines for a while. One-person theories can only be discussed if the contrary views of EVERY OTHER SCHOLAR of similar stature is given equal weight. Unless User:Ret.Prof and User:Andrevan are willing to go out of their way to include citations of all the other scholars who disagree with them, this would essentially place the burden on good-faith Wikipedians who don't want to emphasize fringe views. This is completely inappropriate, and should not be allowed. There's also the practicality problem of listing hundreds of scholars who all say the same thing, just to make room for a fringe viewpoint. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Gospel of Matthew discussion

Gospel of Matthew discussion 01

Hello. I am a dispute resolution volunteer here at the Misplaced Pages Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. This does not imply that I have any special authority or that my opinions should carry any extra weight; it just means that I have not been previously involved in this dispute and that I have some experience helping other people to resolve their disputes. Right now I am waiting for everyone to make their statements before opening this up for discussion. in the meantime, I encourage everyone involved to review our Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution and Misplaced Pages:Consensus pages. Thanks! There is one thing that I need everyone involved to understand right from the start; DRN is not a place to keep doing the same things that did not work on the article talk page. In particular, we only discuss article content, never user conduct. Many times, solving the content dispute also solves the user conduct issue. Do not talk about other editors. If anyone has a problem with this, let me know and we can discuss whether I should turn the case over to another dispute resolution volunteer. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I believe that everyone who is going to make an initial statement has done so by now. I am putting together a plan of attack for attempting to resolve this dispute and will open it up for discussion within a day.

Also, I have started using https://tools.wmflabs.org/sigma/editorinteract.py to check whether I have had any previous involvement in DRN cases I am involved in. I have never edited Gospel of Matthew, and I have had two minor interactions with editors named in this case. Please note that this it is not at all unusual for busy editors to have had some interactions.

Interaction with User:StAnselm:

Interaction with User:In ictu oculi:

I don't believe that either of these will cause me to be biased, but if anyone disagrees we should discuss it at Misplaced Pages talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:49, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

To give everyone an idea of where I am going with this before I open it up for discussion, I plan to start by looking at how the pages for the other three gospels handle dates of origin (including what is in the lead and what is in a lower section), with the door open to looking at other books of the Bible and possibly other religious and historical documents where only a range of dates is known. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:21, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Gospel of Matthew discussion 02

In the spirit of cutting a big problem into several smaller problems, I would like to start out by opening up the discussion with the question "should we put the date in the lead paragraph at all?" Note that we are deferring for the moment the questions of what date or how we should handle dates later in the article.

I did a review of how some other Misplaced Pages pages handle the question of dating:

1. Gospel of Matthew: "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90; a pre-70 date remains a minority view."
   
2. Gospel of Mark: "most contemporary scholars now regard it as the earliest of the gospels."
   
3. Gospel of Luke: "The most probable date for Luke-Acts is around 80-100CE"
   
4. Gospel of John: No mention of date in lead.
   
5. Acts of the Apostles: "usually dated to around 80-90 CE."
   
6. Epistle to the Romans: No mention of date in lead.
   
7. First Epistle to the Corinthians: No mention of date in lead.
   
8. Second Epistle to the Corinthians: No mention of date in lead.
   
9. Epistle to the Galatians: No mention of date in lead.
   
10. Epistle to the Ephesians: "written in Paul's name by a later author strongly influenced by Paul's thought."
    
11. Epistle to the Philippians: "Biblical scholars are in general agreement that it was written by St. Paul to the church of Philippi, an early center of Christianity in Greece around 62 AD. Other scholars argue for an earlier date, c. 50–60 AD."
    
12. Epistle to the Colossians: No mention of date in lead.
    
13. First Epistle to the Thessalonians: "The first letter to the Thessalonians was probably the first of Paul's letters, probably written by the end of AD 52, making it the first written book in the New Testament."
    
14. Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: "The book is believed by many scholars to be written between 52–54 AD, shortly after the First Epistle to the Thessalonians was written"
    
15. First Epistle to Timothy: No mention of date in lead.
    
16. Second Epistle to Timothy: No mention of date in lead.
    
17. Epistle to Titus: No mention of date in lead.
    
18. Epistle to Philemon: No mention of date in lead.
    
19. Epistle to the Hebrews: No mention of date in lead.
    
20. Epistle of James: "There are four views concerning the Epistle of James:, that the letter was written by James before the Pauline Epistles, that the letter was written by James after the Pauline Epistles, that the letter is pseudonymous, that the letter comprises material originally from James but reworked by a later editor."
    
21. First Epistle of Peter: "The author presents himself as Peter the Apostle, and the epistle was traditionally held to have been written during his time as bishop of Rome or Bishop of Antioch"
    
22. Second Epistle of Peter: "written in the name of Saint Peter, although the vast majority of modern scholars regard it as pseudepigraphical."
    
23. First Epistle of John: "This Epistle was probably written in Ephesus between the years 95–110"
    
24. Second Epistle of John: No mention of date in lead.
    
25. Third Epistle of John: "The language of 3 John echoes that of the Gospel of John, which is conventionally dated to around AD 90, so the epistle was likely written near the end of the first century. Others contest this view such as the scholar John A. T. Robinson who dates 3 John to c. AD 60–65."
    
26. Epistle of Jude: No mention of date in lead.
    
27. Book of Revelation: "The bulk of traditional sources date the book to the reign of the emperor Domitian (81-96 CE), and the external and internal evidence tends to confirm this."
    

So we have:

9 pages that give specific dates. Of these, 2 mention minority viewpoints.

5 pages with text that could be construed as giving some sort of date information.

13 pages that do not mention dates.

I also found Dating the Bible#The New Testament, which attempts to date them all.

Consider for a moment the target audience for these 27 pages. How many of them meet the following criteria?

• Not someone who already has a firm opinion on the date in question.
• Someone who has a need to know the date, but is unwilling to look for it farther down in the article.

OK, those are my thoughts, but of course my opinion doesn't matter. What matters is the consensus of those who edit the page. So, should we mention specific dates or ranges of dates in the lead paragraph? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we should mention the majority view in the lead and leave it at that. StAnselm described it well on the article talk page. Summarizing: 80 to 90 - most probable; 70 to 100 - certainly possible; outside this range - improbable to fantastic. We already have highly regarded sources in the article to support the majority view, so why not use them? Ignocrates (talk) 04:17, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't much care personally, but I'd always assumed readers wanted to know this - I was surprised to see that only a minority of articles include it. If you do have the majority view, I think you need to to mention the minority one as well, because (a) if you don't, someone will add it anyway; and (b) France seems to say that the minority view is a significant one, and certainly I get that same impression from the wider literature. (Note that I mean the minority view is pre-70, not specifically 50, which I don't get the impression is significant). (I should confess to being personally responsible for the articles on Mark, Matthew, Luke and Acts, with some input into revelation - maybe that reduces the number of un-PiCoised articles even further).PiCo (talk) 11:31, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Fwiw, I have no problem with this. If we do, we should also mention post-100. There are a small number of competent scholars working on Matthean posteriority. We don't need to be more specific about minority views in the lead. Ignocrates (talk) 16:31, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Ok, how about this for a proposal: Make the lead paragraph say "first century" and create a section on the dating lower down in the article -- content of that section to be discussed next. Does anyone object? --Guy Macon (talk) 02:48, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Works for me. - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:01, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"First century" is too vague. The reason scholars put effort into dating a gospel or epistle is to help establish the community it was written for (it's audience). Then they use that to understand its theology. It makes a great deal of difference to the interpretation of Matthew if we think it was written in 50 AD or 90 AD, or in Rome or Antioch. PiCo (talk) 03:11, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Sure it has some meaning, but what kind of argument is "it's too vague?" It's complicated and murky. Better to leave the detailed explanation for a later point which seems like a meaningful compromise. I feel we have an issue with wanting to own the article's structure at the expense of other contributions simply because of personal preference or desire to squash minority positions. Andrevan@ 03:19, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Remember, the Gospel of Matthew is undated. All we can know for sure is that it was written in the First century. The rest is scholarly speculation. - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:26, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, we don't know for sure that it was written in the 1st century, and there are scholars who hold that it comes from the early 2nd. But that, like 50 AD, is considered highly unlikely by the majority. It would be more productive for you both to give your own views rather than opening a commentary on mine.PiCo (talk) 03:40, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I just said I agreed with Guy Macon's suggestion to not mention the date in the lead at all, which is what we were discussing. As to my "view" of when Matthew was composed, I don't have one. What you are doing now is synthesis which flies in the face of WP:RS/AC. You need to give sources that explicitly say that 50 AD is considered highly unlikely. What I think we should do is a review of the literature in depth, giving appropriate time to the various opinions that exist. Andrevan@ 05:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Your response to Guy Macon is 64 words, of which 48 are addressed to me. I'm flattered, but it would be better not to waste words. PiCo (talk) 10:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with PiCo - "first century" is far too vague, since it goes back to 1 AD. "Second half of the first century" would be better, but I would still oppose the change. StAnselm (talk) 03:56, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Would no mention of the date in the lead be acceptable to you? Or is there some other compromise regarding the lead only that everyone can live with? My idea here is to make it easier to resolve the dispute move the date information out of the lead and into a separate section where we have room to do a better job of explaining nuances such as what most scholars think (and why they think it) vs. minority views. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:33, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm okay with dropping the date from the lead, but not so happy about creating a section on it in the body - just a sentence of the majority position is enough, with a mention of the minority view. That's because the date really isn't important in its own right, it's just a means of establishing setting and community.PiCo (talk) 08:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

To be clear, I am only asking for an agreement on the lead, at which time I will open a discussion as to what, if anything, to put in the body. The separate section seems like a good idea to me, but as a DRN volunteer my opinions carry zero weight -- the decisions need to come from the people who have been working on the page. So, does anyone object to no date in the lead? --Guy Macon (talk) 10:54, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I do. As it stands, the rest of the paragraph ("The anonymous author was probably a highly educated Jew...") would be weakened as a result. But maybe the whole second paragraph of the lead could be discarded. As it stands, it is not neutral: "The author drew on three main sources to compose his gospel" should not be in WP voice. StAnselm (talk) 11:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Gospel of Matthew discussion 03

PiCo has a good point. 99% of the reliable sources date Matthew sometime between 50 and 100 CE. There is very, very little support for a date before 50 CE (I found only two sources referring to the 40s) and the same is true for a date in the second century. Therefore would this compromise work: Although the Gospel of Matthew is undated, most scholars speculate it was written in the last half of the First Century." Nobody can disagree with this???? Cheers Ret.Prof (talk) 13:29, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I've looked at three of the longer articles on this topic in recent reference works and found the following:

Anchor Bible Dictionary, older but maybe the longest article out there where the article runs to 20 pages. Of those pages about 3/4 of a page is on sources, 1/2 a page on literary genre, 3/4 page on time and place of composition, 1/2 a page on the occasion of the gospel, less than one column on Matthew's church and the synagogue, about one page on whether the author was a Jew or Gentile, over 10 pages on the structure and content, about about 3 pages on theological concerns, with a one page bibliography.

The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible article runs to about 14 pages of which around 3/4 a page is on structure, a bit over a page on sources, 3/4 page on time and place of composition, over two pages on it being the "teaching" gospel, over a page on Matthew in the history of interpretation, and about 3-1/2 pages on the important theological considerations.

The Oxford Dictionary of the Books of the Bible article runs to around 20 pages, with about 1/2 page on its canonical status and place in the canon, a page on its authorship, a page on its date and historical context, 1-1/2 page on its literary history, 1/4 page on interpretation, 1-1/2 pages on its reception history, and 2-1/2 pages on bibliography.

Given the high opinion these works have in the academic community, I would tend to think that an averaging of them and other similar sources would be the best way to determine weight, adding as well any other high-quality sources I didn't mention. I would assume that the articles in James Hastings' older reference books and others would be useful as well for any information on questions such as those presented here which may have been more obviously held earlier but not so prominent today, as well as some sources like the recent Zondervan dictionary which tends to have a more obvious Christian bias. John Carter (talk) 15:04, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks John! Good points. I agree that Zondervan Encyclopedia is Christian, indeed its market is mainly priests and pastors of all denominations. Therefore it deals with our topic from a NPOV. - Ret.Prof (talk) 15:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

So far we have two possible compromises for the lead (with any date-related changes to the rest of the article to be discussed after we agree on the lead). One possibility is to delete "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90; a pre-70 date remains a minority view", and the other possibility is to replace it with "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed in the second half of the 1st century". I am assuming that the deletion option would lead to more about dates lower in the article, but we have not discussed that yet. Are either of those a compromise (for the lead only) that everyone can live with? --Guy Macon (talk) 16:25, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90; a pre-70 date remains a minority view" is supported by an extremely reliable source (two in fact); "Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed in the second half of the 1st century" is both unsupported and untrue (most believe it was composed after 70). So no, I can't support this. PiCo (talk) 16:43, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Has someone checked the discussions of dating from the Marcan hypothesis. According to the Marcan hypothesis, Matthew had to be composed after Mark according to the majority weight in the scholarly community. Perhaps it is enough to state that the date for Matthew must be consistent with the dating of Mark and that is must come after it. FelixRosch (talk) 17:05, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

This comment by uninvolved user touches on what I think is a very important part of this issue. The dating and composition of Matthew is following a majority hypothesis about something which also has significant minority hypotheses. This isn't discussed at all. The article needs to explain that it largely follows the Marcan hypothesis since that is the predominant view, while acknowledging that other views exist. Andrevan@ 20:21, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

PiCo, 80 and 90 are both dates within the second half of the first century, so your "unsupported and untrue" claim is simply wrong. The worst you can say is that it is imprecise. Also, We can cover dating in more detail later in the article; why must those dates be in the lead? How does insisting on that benefit the reader? Please consider compromising with the other editors who object to your preferred wording. Both side will have to give a little to reach an acceptable compromise. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:51, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

This is only scientific to a limited degree of certainty, so really minority positions have nearly as good a stake to claim on the truth, and exist in reliable sources in proportion significant enough to mention. It's like if you know your data is kind of lossy, so you reduce precision, i.e. I measure the amount of a 134.67 mL solution with a volumetric container that only has labels for every 1 mL. I might want to say 130 or 135 mL -- this is less precise, but more accurate in that it represents the amount of uncertainty. Calling out 70 specifically when really 50-110 is the range is too precise, therefore less accurate. Andrevan@ 20:21, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:GamerGate

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Talk:GamerGate (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Retartist (talk · contribs)
• PseudoSomething (talk · contribs)
• Masem (talk · contribs)
• Ryulong (talk · contribs)
• NorthBySouthBaranof (talk · contribs)
• TheRedPenOfDoom (talk · contribs)
• Diego Moya (talk · contribs)
• Kaldari (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

The central issue in this dispute revolves around WP:BLP, and WP:RS when one side of a dispute (The media) is attacking the other side; who is claiming that the media is corrupt. One side of the issue (the media and some notable people) are claiming that the WHOLE issue is mysogony and harassment while the other is claiming that this is about journalism ethics. On the talk page several users are insisting that little to no mention of ethics should be included and that per the sources the whole thing should be about mysogony and sexual harassment etc. The other side is claiming that, while harassment has happened; the issue is about the reliability and COI of the sources used. The talk page is littered with threads discussing the issue with SOME editors becoming very uncivil (claims of mysogony on the part of editors) when neutrality is brought up.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I have discussed the issue on the talk page and then attempted to start a RFC (which was quickly shut down before any non-involved editor could comment)

How do you think we can help?

Bringing the discussion to a board to make sure people keep a level head, preventing the talk page from being clogged up and also preventing users from dis-engaging from the discussion because they disagree

Summary of dispute by PseudoSomething

I think the big problem with this article is the common voice vs the media. It is a very weird problem, where there is no head of the GamerGate movement, but we can see the targets of the 'Media corruption' writing articles that label this as Misogyny. Sadly, some of the articles used are biased (which isn't a bad thing), but some of them also have authors who have thrown extreme insults at the Pro-GG side (The Time Author), or have funded someone in the middle of the controversy (The New Yorker Author), and a few other problematic articles. While the Pro-GG side also will have biased articles, there are plenty of sources(Forbes, Slate, and many other sites) that I and others have rounded up and presented that fully show what caused the movement, what the movement is looking for (or at least the main points, since there is no head of the movement), and what has happened. We also have tangible results, such as ethics policy changes with Defy Media (The Escapist Magazine Owners), Destructoid, and Kotaku, as well as TFYC (a game jam for women) getting fully funded, while many of the anti_GG articles focus on the narrative of one person, many times over. Yet, all of these sources are being ignored, as you can tell.

While many sources presented show the movement is about Journalism ethics and other things, many people on the talk page still push the Misogyny side. By this I mean people saying "We are playing right into their narrative", people who are passionate and say things like "The massive quantity of libel and rage that this movement has generated. GamerGate got a few minor sites to try pacify them, and screwed up a whole lot of women's lives for absolutely no reason. That's the effect of your movement", and others just telling anyone trying to present evidence and articles for the Pro-GG side to "Shut Up". I honestly believe that the article currently is portraying wrong information over GamerGate, and it will be an issue that will persist because of the amount of people pushing the 'Hatred of Women' position. I honestly don't know a good remedy, since the sources have been brought and nothing has changed. PseudoSomething (talk) 00:34, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I need to add onto this after a few days of mainly watching. There has been a major movement of people who are clearly Anti-GG who are doing whatever they can to stop changes that may be positive to GG that come from RS'es. Many RS'es are being ignored on the claim of 'Whitewashing' the article, while these sources come from sites like Forbes. Those people have also been doing everything they can to revert any change that they do not like (not because it does not fit), as to tailor the article to their side. While Titanium Dragon has been topic banned, his post shows exactly the people who are doing it. This is causing the article to become stagnant, even with new RS'es being found. To also add onto that, WP:CONTROVERSY relates to this article, and it does not follow "An article about a controversial person or group should accurately describe their views, no matter how misguided or repugnant." PseudoSomething (talk) 20:11, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Masem

It's not an issue WP can deal with. When you have one side (the proGG side) that is fragmented without a clear voice, and where a few have opted to harass and attack other people, no reputable media is going to find sympathy in that. As such, all reliably-sourced articles on GamerGate (such as the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Telegraph) all have to start that GG arose from what appears to be a misogyny-driven attack on specific game devs. That said, several also try to get into the more rational side of the proGG side, explaining their position of wanting journalistic integrity and other reasonable points of discussion. So the article should (and does, presently) go into the idea about these other reasons, that they've been boiling in the game fandom for years, and with the combination of the attacks on the game devs and the media response, is trying to be pushed out with a louder voice. The media just have not fully seen that voice, again due to the fractured nature of the proGG aspect and the fact that there are still people harassing the various targets of this. We can cover it, we cannot take the position that GG is 100% about misogynist harassment, but we also cannot hide that fact or bury it in the weaker claims about the other facets the proGG side want to cover. I beliee the article in its present lock-downed position attempts to make this argument properly without trying to skew what actually happen, irregardless how ugly it was. --MASEM (t) 06:26, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

To add one bit here: there's two core aspects of what GG is about: the misogyny of a portion of the gaming community that turned to harassment (few question this), and the questions of journalism ethics based on the initial accusation that Quinn had a relationship with a journalist as to gain positive reviews. What the problem that we have is whether that question of journalism ethics started in earnest before the massive media attention on the subject, or as a result. Not to say that the supposed logs that Quinn has are true or valid, but they raise the question that some in the media consider that the ethics arguments arose to cover up for the mess that those engaging in harassing were doing; unfortunately the documentation of the events from the point of the first accusation against Quinn to where the media gained significant interest is mostly undocumented (outside of going to unusable source). It's clear the journalism ethics part is now a part of GG, but what a number of editors want is to put that first and foremost when there is no clear evidence that was the reason GG expanded as much as it did, while the misogyny and harassment side (and fallout from that) certainly did contribute. The best we can do is avoid getting into all specific allegations and discussing the analysis of why we got here sooner than later (in which the concerns of gamers can be brought up in a favorable debate light). --MASEM (t) 14:29, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Ryulong

Masem hits the nail on the head. It is not the fault of the users reported here that the sources for the subject only tell what Retartist (and other pro-GamerGate editors that have been disrupting the talk page) define as one side of the debate because that's all that's out there for the topic and the other point of view desired in the article cannot be found in what Misplaced Pages deems as reliable sources.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 06:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Response to Titanium Dragon: because it's a non-issue and NPOV was not brought up in this discussion. Now stop forum shopping because you have a hearing problem. Now as per Red Pen of Doom, I refuse to participate in this any urther.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:30, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by NorthBySouthBaranof

This is quite simply an issue where the reliable sources are effectively unanimous in saying something. Given that fact, we are required by policy to present that as the predominant viewpoint in the encyclopedia. The above user, and others, have complained that literally every mainstream media source from Time to the Washington Post to NPR's Marketplace is somehow "biased" and unusable, and would have us use YouTube videos, dubious gaming blogs and Photoshopped screenshots instead. This we cannot do, obviously. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 08:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The below statement by TitaniumDragon is a perfect example of the crux of the issue; users are refusing to accept reliable sources and claiming that we must ignore what the reliable sources say because they are somehow "biased."

Summary of dispute by TheRedPenOfDoom

Dispute resolution by the named parties will be useless as the flood of new SPAs will continue to come in who, like the filer, are oblivious (and hostile) to the understanding of WP:UNDUE that we need to present the subject as the mainstream reliable sources see it, not as gamergaters wish it to be perceived. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:18, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

And I am not going to waste my time beating the dead horse on this page as well as the main page. Decline to participate in a pointless exercise. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:35, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by TitaniumDragon

user:NorthBySouthBaranof, user:Ryulong, and user:Tarc have been involved in a long campaign of intimidation and POV pushing on this article and Zoe Quinn. user:TheRedPenOfDoom is a more recent entrant.

Unfortunately, Masem is simply incorrect; I have repeatedly cited reliable sources which state otherwise. The Bright Side of News, Forbes, Digitimes, The Telegraph, and others which note that claims that the whole dispute about misogyny is, in fact, a straw man argument set forth by Zoe Quinn and her supporters, and that the actual issues are many and varied, but primarily have to do with gamers feeling bullied and insulted, and feeling that the gaming media is corrupt, and that they are being censored. Indeed, there is presently a DDOS attack going on against one of the participants, as well as an organized campaign of censorship by some of the journalists involved, including at Kotaku. One of the major mainstream articles written on the subject matter, in Time magazine, was written by someone who worked for Kotaku and had a conflict of interest, and indeed was targeted by the campaign because she was involved in both video games journalism and PR for video game developers, which is a conflict of interest for obvious reasons. The article in The New Yorker shows no signs of fact checking, and seems to be entirely reliant on a single, involved source - Zoe Quinn - for its information. And indeed, this is a common issue; there are articles which take a more detached view of it and there are articles which are advocating very strongly for Zoe Quinn and don't show much, if any, sign of fact checking, frequently repeating false or erroneous claims sourced to Quinn herself. Given the entire scandal started because of Zoe Quinn's press contacts, obviously there are some WP:RS issues here, as well as some issues with systemic bias; even still, though, there are plenty of articles which note the GamerGate supporters' point of view.

Zoe Quinn's point of view - and the harassment - are indeed major issues, and need to be discussed in the article. However, as-is, it does not present "the other side" (or really, sides) at all. It is unacceptably biased and gives a massive amount of space to Zoe Quinn's point of view and issues of harassment of Zoe Quinn and her supporters, when she and her supporters have been involved in the same, as noted in RSs, as well as the censorship and attempted censorship of the issue, which has again been noted in RSs. As there are a number of RSs which present a much more neutral point of view on the issue, we should be using those, and we need to avoid giving WP:UNDUE notice to Zoe Quinn - contrary to her claims, it isn't all about her, and several sites have actually changed their ethics policies as a result of the scandal.

Several of the users involved have referred to anyone who disagrees with them in a derogatory fashion, with Ryulong describing them as virgins, Tarc calling them misogynists, and TRPOD repeatedly closing discussions and claiming consensus and insulting other users with claims that they are POV pushing, as well as threatening users with bans in order to intimidate them, something they have been called on before by @Tom991:. This behavior is habitual in some cases. I just became aware of this because I was going through and looking for instances of past behavior for a potential ANI; I found this because, ironically, the notice had been deleted.

user:Ryulong and user:Masem both deleted my attempts at adding the NPOV tag to the article, despite having already commented here. Titanium Dragon (talk) 06:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Diego Moya

It is undeniable that the majority of the reliable sources have linked the attacks to misogyny, and the totality of them have covered the harassment angle. Still, we are not doing our best in the way we're using them to write the article, and the outcome is nothing to be proud of - certainly not the best we can achieve. There is lots of work to do to create an article that can be read by a reasonable reader from either side of the conflict and conclude that it's written in a fair way, but it will need the collaboration from everybody involved without constantly second-guessing the motives of editors at the other side.

Defenders of the Reliable Sources (that's DRS'ers for you) need to stop treating them as Gospel and recognize that they're written by fallible human beings, and thus everything written in them must be subject to scrutiny before -or even after- accepting them in the article; this means you must stop criticizing editors who want to put the references through such scrutiny. Those defending the GamerGate (GG'ers) side while trying in good faith to improve the article, must understand that Misplaced Pages is primarily a record of information available in mainstream sources which have been producing reliable content before the incident started, so it's natural that some angles and points of view get excluded, until people whose criteria we can trust adopt those points of view; this means that some aspects of the incident will be excluded because of our editorial line. (Those in bad faith can go read Encyclopedia Dramatica, where they will find a version covering all the "silenced facts" so it should be much more to their liking - or not?).

The idea that "we can't help having a biased article if all the reliable sources are biased" is, pardon me, bullshit. The problem is not merely for lack of sources, but how they're used to imply that what is included in the sources is WP:THE TRUTH. There's too much Truth-pushing at both sides, though fortunately there's also a few voices calling for keeping a level head. We know we shouldn't represent the views of external sources as ours, yet that's how many try to present them - and I mean people from both sides. We must all perform an exercise in self assessment and reflect whether we're engaging in constructive debate with proper mood and tone, including myself.

We proud ourselves that Misplaced Pages content represents the view from reliable sources have written without engaging in the controversies themselves. So let's write an article that represents the view from reliable sources but doesn't adopt them as Misplaced Pages's voice, but as the documentary record of what those sources have said, registered in a clinically detached tone. Diego (talk) 14:08, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Kaldari

Now that the GamerGate hordes have been kicked off of Reddit, 4chan, and everywhere else, they have descended on the one place that will take 6 months to decide to get rid of them: Misplaced Pages. Right now, there is a strong push by several tendentious SPAs and numerous anon IPs to completely whitewash the GamerGate article. They would like the harassment aspects to be downplayed or removed and the original (though discredited) ethics accusations put front and center. Unfortunately, the reliable sources do not support their POV, so instead they are claiming that the media itself is biased and should be largely ignored. Titanium Dragon and Retardist have been especially tendentious, opening thread after thread on the talk page with the same essential arguments. Titanium Dragon was one of the main original authors of the article and its main defender at AfD. At the time, the article was basically a Zoe Quinn assassination-piece. When the media started debunking the claims against Zoe Quinn and focusing on the harassment campaign, Titanium Dragon suddenly decided that recentism was an important policy and argued against including mention of harassment in the lead. Now that it is clear that the controversy is primarily about harassment, Titanium Dragon, Retartist, and others are determined to whitewash the article through exhaustive arguing, since the policies don't support their POV-pushing. Kaldari (talk) 18:55, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:GamerGate discussion

Hello, User:PseudoSomething, User:Masem, User:Ryulong, User:NorthBySouthBaranof, User:TheRedPenOfDoom, User:Diego Moya, and User:Kaldari. I am a volunteer here at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard. I have read the talk page discussion and the individual summaries of dispute; since all users have made their comments, I will be opening this case. Before beginning the discussion, there are a couple of things to note. Firstly, volunteers here have no special powers and abilities to enforce a particular course of action. We are aiming to establish an agreeable consensus. Secondly, please respect all parties involved and assume good faith. Thirdly, the DR/N is not a place to discuss user conduct. Issues concerning user conduct, including accusations of pushing a particular POV, should be taken elsewhere. Please also be noted that User:Titanium Dragon has been indefinitely banned from the topic, and will not be able to participate in this discussion.

With this noted, let us move onto the discussion. I think there are two crux to this debate, the reliability of sources and due weight for the viewpoints. Feel free to point it out if I'm mistaken. Since due weight can only be judged after determining reliable sources, I wish to start with the first point. I am under the impression that the sources are being questioned about the second and third criterion of WP:SOURCE (Second being the reliability of the creator, the third being about the publisher of the work). Whether the sources themselves are WP:BIASED or not seems to be outside the scope of this discussion, as that will fall under due weight; the only question is whether the facts attributed to the sources are reliable and can be used. Please discuss below. KJ 04:16, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

As I state above, I am not participating in this sham perpetuated by the gamer diaspora from 4chan and Reddit. The claims of unreliability are not founded and are simply attempts to get the article to push a fringe view that does not appear in reliable sources because of the nature of the holders of that view point not being centralized. Good day.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 04:40, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

On the one hand we have the obviously biased corporate media who are circling the wagons in a cowardly last-ditch effort to keep the thin veil of secrecy over their shameful traditions of back-scratching, nepotism, extortion, cronyism, bribery, and sexual favors. Sources like: The Washington Post, The Week, The Boston Globe, NPR Marketplace, The Telegraph, The Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, Wired, The Indian Express, The Independent, On the Media, Vox Media, Asian Age, The Herald Sun, Pacific Standard, PC Magazine, Time Magazine, and The New York Times.

On the other hand, we have the maverick grassroots media that are trying against all odds to get The Truth heard by the masses, and to shatter the wall of censorship and propaganda that has propped up the crumbling edifice of old-style journalism for too long. Sources like: Viral Global News, APGNation, whatculture.com, and MetalEater, along with countless blogs and discussion groups.

Hopefully this makes the situation more clear. Kaldari (talk) 05:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

First of all, the approach followed to assessing the reliability of sources has been questionable. So far, only sources from the traditional press have been used to establish the relative importance of points of views, but using only those is not strictly a requirement of WP:RS policy. In particular, the requirement that sources keep a good record of fact-checking has been misapplied when it comes to opinions; all sources are reliable for statements about their own opinions, and several editors above have acknowledged that excluding those opinions creates a biased result. The solution should be easy - include prominent opinions pertaining to the pro-GamerGate side that can be deemed as reliably documenting that point of view, and attributed to their authors under WP:RSOPINION. This is not a call to remove the coverage of harassment and misogyny from their current prominent place in the article, but to expand the article in other directions that we know are also highly pertinent, using those sources that have covered it and we can verify ourselves as accurate. Diego (talk) 05:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The question under discussion is what sources can be considered reliable. Please be noted that the inclusion of material on Misplaced Pages should be based on Verifiability, not truth. Following the definition of source per WP:SOURCE, the type, creator, and publisher all affects reliability. User:Kaldari, be noted that the intentions of the news sources appear to be irrelevant to this discussion; Misplaced Pages should be 'representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic (WP:NPOV).' My question right now is, are the so-called 'traditional sources' reliable? If not, why not? Not biased, or having other intentions, but just reliable. KJ 05:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I see generalist news sources as reliable for establishing the point of view of people from gaming journalism and game developers. They are also reliable for identifying relevant actors from both sides of the divide, whose opinions are thus significant to be heard. So far, only the opinions from the anti-GamerGate people have been included under RS:OPINION; I'm proposing that we use the news sources to identify significant people from the pro-GamerGate side, to include the opinion of those vocal people as one of the points of view that must be covered under WP:NPOV. Don't forget that the nature of the statements in the article also affects the reliability of the sources used to support them. Opinions from people from the Pro side can and should included as reliable and significant for statements in the article that document their respective POVs. Diego (talk) 06:07, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

As a neutral voice who wants to see this topic fairly covered from both sides, can I ask every editors to refrain from employing genetic fallacy to back up their points like this? Kindly consider. 14.201.66.221 (talk) 08:01, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi KJ. Basically what we have going on is a common voice vs a media controversy. The controversy started with a hashtag called #gamergate that has differing stories of how it came about. On the Gamergate side, we have sources such as Forbes, Slate, digitimes (A pure outsider source), Vox, Townhall, and Aljazeera, to name a few since I would want to site them all, who say that gamergate is about gamers wanting higher ethics and less corruption in gaming journalism, as well as a few stating they want less political push. Most of these sources are currently being shoved aside. The other side of the coin is the media saying that gamergate is a harrassment campaign focused on sexism and misogyny, mostly taking the work of one currently high profile person. For the side of the coin that is fighting for ethics, we can see actual results that are being brushed aside in in sentence, which is that the sites Polygon and Kotaku changed their ethics policies, as well as Defy Media (owners of the Espcaist) and Destructoid also reviewing and changing their policies.

Now, to focus on your statement of "whether the facts attributed to the sources are reliable and can be used", I believe many of the harassment/misogyny ones fall under the problem of taking the word of one currently high profile person with very little backing up her statements, instead of look at the results drive ethics and corruption side. To back up the extremely unreliable sources though, is to look at the Times article and the New Yorker Article. The Times writer wrote an article also on Gamasutra, and spit out a very nasty, curse filled insult at anyone who supported #gamergate. The New Yorker writer had been funding someone who was a journalist in the thick of the mess, and as soon as the article was published, he immediately hid his Patreon, to hide the fact. To add to this (and it is much more speculative than concrete), is that many gaming journalism sites would not cover the ethics and corruption story, only to focus on harassment, which was shown in some leaked emails from a gaming journalism email list. Then we have what companies own what, but that is all up in the air.

Now to add onto fact checking, which is what Diego touched on, is that again, many sources rely on one person's word for the whole issue. They do not take into account what is happening on twitter, prominent discussion forums, or results from the movement such as policy changes. These are all -easily- looked at, yet are not reported on to keep the issue skewed to one side. That is the big problem with this article, is that it is ignoring any pro-gamergate articles and only focusing on negative gamergate articles (look at the last edits, any negative ones are allowed, positive are always reverted), and the article in no way follows the very well written essay at WP:CONTROVERSY. (Forgive me if I reference anything I shouldn't, still learning some of the guidelines. Also, my sources a few days old, and I have not looked for newer sources, since I have tried to stay away until the DNR because of anxiety and work).PseudoSomething (talk) 05:46, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The issue is, quite simply, your claim that there is something called "the common voice" and that this "common voice" is uniformly in favor of Gamergate is not supported by reliable sources. In fact, the reliable sources repeatedly note that this is an issue which has hotly divided people on both sides. You cannot make the claim that everyone who is not in mainstream media supports Gamergate. That's simply not credible and not sourced.

Twitter and discussion forums are not reliable sources and they are specifically and most clearly unacceptable for claims about living people. It is prohibited, by policy, to use them in Misplaced Pages articles relating to living people. Thusly, you may as well stop discussing them here because we cannot and will not use them. Dispute-resolution discussion cannot override black-letter policy.

Please immediately stop suggesting that Quinn is misrepresenting the harassment she has been subjected — it is indisputable, based on the overwhelming weight of reliable sources, that she has been the target of a major harassment campaign described variously in these reliable sources as "a cavalcade of threats," a "flood of threats," "reams of appalling threats and abuse online," "unprecedented levels of death threats and harassment," "nothing short of an online form of terrorism," "poisonous abuse," "a torrent of unfathomable outrage," "a horrible rain of rape threats," "a vicious and ugly online backlash," "a wave of rape and death threats," etc. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:20, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Below is a list of indisputably reliable secondary sources — not a single one of which is a video-games-only publishing outlet — that address this controversy in the context of harassment, culture wars and trolling:

The only retort to this list of sources has been that all of these reliable sources are unusably biased. Which is effectively a conspiracy theory, has no grounding in anything resembling Misplaced Pages policy and must be discarded outright as any sort of point of rational debate. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 07:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Dispute-resolution discussion cannot override black-letter policy. I don't want to address anything else in your comment right now, but I feel it appropriate to remind everybody that this is strictly *not true*, and we have abundant policy establishing the contrary. If there's a place where policy can be bent, interpreted or, yes, plainly ignored is at dispute resolution. Rather than trying to push policy as it's written and trying to enforce it as given law, we'd better off using this forum to assess how each particular policy instructions are good ideas that may or may not apply here in order to improve the article, in a way that all may agree with even if they don't like it in full - i.e., to *build* consensus. Diego (talk) 09:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC) (And please don't bring up Misplaced Pages:LOCALCONSENSUS, because it's about something else entirely - Wikiprojects overriding style guidelines for large areas, and it couldn't invalidate WP:Ignore All Rules anyway). Diego (talk) 09:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't really see a controversy here about the reliability of the sources. User:PseudoSomething, you stated that the mainstream news sources did not do fact-checking, but that's impossible to know. The news sites could be intentionally skewing the issue or considering that the twitter and discussion on the blogs are not worth reporting on. Unless a reliable source actively assert this, the accusations are unfortunately WP:OR. In any case, I think that everyone could agree that mainstream news have reported both sides of the debate, even if this was to endorse a particular side. Consequently, is it agreeable that the article should mention both sides of the debate? Arguments on both sides can be incorporated into the article by attributing it to particular spokesperson (or group) for each respective side. (Putting aside due weight for now) Is this agreeable? KJ 10:33, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

No, there are effectively undisputed facts that are and should be presented in Misplaced Pages's voice — for example, the statement that the controversy centers around sexism and misogyny in video games. The list of sources I posted is for that exact reason — it demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of reliable sources discuss the issue in the context of sexism and misogyny, and we cannot "set aside" due weight because due weight is the very center of this issue.

There is no one arguing that reliably-sourced arguments from the other side should be completely excluded. However, those arguments are a distinct minority in reliable sources, and due weight demands that we treat them as a minority viewpoint. The dispute stems from the claim that we should exclude or discount a large number of those reliable sources based on the nebulous and groundless claims of "bias," and that we should be required to accept a number of borderline or outright-unusable sources, many of which are being proposed to support derogatory claims about living people, which obviously violates the biographies of living persons policy.

And that is a baseline beyond which I will simply not go — if your idea here, Diego, is that this dispute resolution discussion is going to propose that we use unreliable sources to source claims about living people, then I will withdraw from this dispute resolution and it can be closed as moot, because that is quite literally unacceptable and I will have nothing further to do with such a proposal. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 11:09, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The whole point of the dispute is that what is "reliable" and "unreliable" should be open to debate, because there are reasoned arguments to be made about the reliability of available sources, but the edit-warriors have been enforcing a particular interpretation mostly without engaging in such debate. For instance, there are points made by the less established but professional sources that are *not* affected by BLP, because they describe behaviors found in the gaming press as a whole. Are you going to engage in conversation about the core of the dispute as presented, or are you going to reinstate your position without ever listening to the arguments brought by the other side? Because if the latter, there's certainly no point in this exercise. Diego (talk) 12:27, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong but is reliability an attribute that, once given to a particular news outlet, applies with blanket range to every articles that are published by said outlet? Because I'm pretty sure WP:IRS says otherwise. Regarding news organizations, WP:IRS states: "Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Misplaced Pages article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis". WP:IRS also states: "Some stories are republished or passed along by multiple news organizations. This is especially true for wire services such as the Associated Press. Republished stories are not considered separate sources, but one source, which has simply appeared in multiple venues.", so I think the sources given here should be put under scrutiny to assess reliability and detect republished content. 14.201.66.221 (talk) 14:59, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Go ahead and read each and every one of the sources presented above if you wish. Literally none of them are republished stories. Go for it. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I wonder what qualifies for republished stories by Misplaced Pages definition. Word-for-word duplication of a previous source or presenting the same viewpoint with different wording? I see the former leaves room for a lot of outlets to circumvent reliability criteria if the sources echo the same viewpoint with partial sources that have been deemed unreliable, simply by writing them with different words (gaming the system, in a way). This is a known exploitation in political news reporting. Also considering that republished stories is only 1 factor in assessing reliability, and news stories are assessed on a case-by-case basis, there are a lot to scrutinize here. It's never a bad thing to be skeptical of your sources and refrain from jumping to conclusion. 14.201.66.221 (talk) 00:36, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Not sure you understand how we work. Multiple reliable sources that "present the same viewpoint with different wording" is another way of saying "those reliable sources agree." Our policy specifically calls for us to represent the mainstream viewpoint as expressed in the majority of reliable sources. The more reliable sources that adhere to a viewpoint about an issue, the more we consider that viewpoint to be the mainstream and predominant viewpoint about the issue. That is not "gaming the system," that's how Misplaced Pages works. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The IP user raises a good point, though. The prevalence of a viewpoint in reliable sources is not determined merely by volume but by how many of those sources provide additional insight. That's why the WP:EVENT policy doesn't automatically accept as notable events that are covered by lots of newspapers; mere repetition of the same facts does not add weight to their preponderance. Now this is not strictly the case here, as various aspects of the incident have indeed been analyzed separately by the diverse sources, but that means it's quite likely that we over-emphasize some of the commonly repeated points and give them more weight that they deserve. I suspect a lot of that is going on in the article and talk page.

Also, WP:DUE is not the only content of the Neutrality policy regarding viewpoints. If a point is mainstream it means that it will be given more space within the article, but that doesn't imply that we should adopt that viewpoint as our own and report it in Misplaced Pages voice; in fact, in controversial topics we're expected to do exactly the opposite. This was much worse in the early days and has somewhat receded, but we still have to keep an eye on it. Diego (talk) 14:28, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

More in clarification on NBSB's point: we have one side of the GG debate that may be held by thousands of gamers, but they lack any type of coherence that makes it clear what their position really is. (This is looking past the sources for the moment). There seems to be a cry for more journalism ethics, but what specifically? No one really has a good feel for the shape of what the gamers want in this debate, and that makes it very difficult for the media to report on this. Add in that some of this came from 4chan, which most mainstream press will shrug off as a group with any type of valid point. Add in that a small portion of that group turned to hostile tactics to try to make their point. There's a good reason why the mainstream press (not gaming sources) have failed to really cover that side of issue. I am aware that certain individuals have tried to step forward to explain what the gamers want but the initial problems with that side being tainted for media coverage may be preventing that side from being covered in any legitimate depth, in contrast to the gaming journalism side that have well documented what issues they've seen. Mainstream media has tried to reiterate some of the basic things that gamers seem to be concerned about, but they haven't given the same care as they have to the journalism side. --MASEM (t) 11:47, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

There are actually a few RS'es who state that the skew in media is fabricated. / Slate states "These articles share some traits in common besides their theses: They are unconvincing, lacking in hard evidence, and big on wishful thinking.", Techraptor had an interview with an indie developer that said "Trying to argue that gamers are generally misogynists or don’t want women playing games was so over the top, so absurd and so contrary to reality that people started to recognize them for what they are: Garden variety bullies." (There are a few more interviews with different people in the industry who state that), Digitimes states "However, this attempt to paint the angry gamers as a bunch of sexist, homophobic, racist males who were raging at being forced to "become politically correct" was rapidly rebuked by females, homosexuals, transsexuals and other minorities who all consider themselves gamers in the thousands using the Twitter hashtag #notyourshield.". While there isn't an article over it specifically, it has been stated and hinted at that much of those claims are false, or at least majorly overblown to create an enemy. To your point though, yes, we have more than enough RS'es explaining the Pro-GG side, we have enough to follow WP:CONTROVERSY, that writes to let the group explain themselves. At the moment, if you look at the article, much of it is 'Claims', 'He said she said', and other non-sourced assertions that reads more like an opinion piece than a wikipedia article. PseudoSomething (talk) 14:58, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

What those three articles seem to be arguing is that the "gamers are dead" argument is wrong; the "gamers are dead" argument isn't the focus of our article, so I'm not sure what you mean it refutes.

Also not sure what you mean by "non-sourced assertion," because effectively everything in the article is sourced, and scrupulously so. We're even inline-sourcing everything in the lede even though The Devil's Advocate's rewrite omitted them per WP:LEDE. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 17:17, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I've just come back from a break- there seems to be a lot happening and ill need to catch up. But why in the article is there an excessively long section on "the misogyny"? seems a little excessive... Retartist (talk) 12:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I was going to suggest a change in style that would make it easier on the eyes without affecting its weight. I'll posit it in the article's talk page later to see if the idea gets traction. Diego (talk) 12:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it's important to look at what has been removed because of BLP reasons. Most of them have been appropriate, but remember that it's possible to game this - using "removed per WP:BLP" as a trump card in a content dispute to remove information inconvenient to your point-of-view. I was surprised to see so many deletions even from the talk page, maybe I just don't know enough about the topic but not all of them seemed controversial or like serious allegations. The BLP bar should be lower on the talk page - so it's possible to discuss different sources and whether they comply with policies. Let's keep the bad sources at bay, but remember that we are detailing a controversy - not everything on the other side of the controversy can be thought as BLP-removable allegations. --Pudeo' 22:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Reliability of sources

Before continuing, let's talk about the reliability of the sources being used. There appears to be a consensus that published sources in the 'mainstream' media can be used to describe all the facts in this case. Unreliable sources are, well, unreliable and cannot be used to attribute assertions. Both sides have been described in the mainstream media, albeit with different due weight. Is this agreeable? If there is a consensus about the reliability of the sources, we will move on to discuss due weight in the article. Please answer in the scope of this question. KJ 22:53, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

only source i have an issue with is the Time one as that was written by a Leigh Alexander who has a close personal connection to Kotaku Retartist (talk) 02:15, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

And that doesn't make it an unreliable or unusable source. Many people have worked for different companies within the same industry during their careers. You have no reliable sources to support the notion that this tenuous connection makes her work biased in the first place.

Even if, for the sake of argument, she is biased, that does not render the source unusable in the least. Per the Reliable Sources guideline: Misplaced Pages articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject. ... When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. The piece in question is published in Time, an indisputably-reliable and longstanding newsmagazine with significant editorial controls and fact-checking in place. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:20, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I think you have skipped the entire reliability assessment process outlined under WP:NEWSORG by jumping straight to the conclusion that those sources are immediately reliable. Past reputation of the outlet it's published on doesn't exempt a particular article from going through reliability assessment, once again, WP:NEWSORG states "Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Misplaced Pages article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis". WP:NEWSORG also warns us that "News sources often contain both factual content and opinion content" and "even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors", both are something to keep in mind when assessing these sources, especially considering none of them put a disclaimer to distinguish the writer's opinions from the rest of the articles. These articles need to be assessed first to be deemed reliable. 14.201.66.221 (talk) 05:14, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

However, the bulk of the sources here are reliable (they have not misreported anything), though they may be biased in the coverage in giving more weight against the GG side than for it. That doesn't invalidate them. But per Kkj, the next hurdle is to ask what to do if they have somewhat weighted coverage. --MASEM (t) 14:32, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Can we really be blindly sure these sources are reliable without some assessment though? I went through several of these sources, most of them raise some eyebrows in one way or another. The first one, the LA Times article showed some negligence to fact-check on the writer's side when referencing the open letter by Andreas Zecher . Many of these names on that letter can be verified through a quick search that they are just interns, have no game credited in their resume, or are actually journalists like Chris Thursten (PC Gamer), Edwin Evans-Thirlwell (Official Xbox Magazine), etc... which disqualify them for "those who work for game powerhouses", as LA Times writer claimed. WP:NEWSORG states "One signal that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy is the publication of corrections", no correction has been made to the article as of this moment. The Week article made some wild, unsourced claims such as "The gamer Taliban are typical online trolls who organize themselves on anonymous message boards like 4chan and Reddit", which contains a factual incorrectness on first glance (Reddit requires a username to post, it's not an anonymous board), no correction to this has been made, which shows the writer's negligence to fact-check once again. Also, genetic fallacy holds no water. The writer went on to tie the same people into the abuse that Carolyn Petit received. I traced the source of that claim to a petition to fire Carolyn Petit that only has 69 signatures and compared it to the actual response from Reddit community (referenced as the same people who made this abuse), which turned out to be very sympathetic to Carolyn Petit . The top voted comment had 392 points (compared to 69 signatures) which shows overwhelming sympathy to this writer, contrary to the writer's claim. There were threads that presented more extreme and conflicting viewpoints on the subject matter , but were less populated, thus represented a minority voice. All of these showed the writer's negligence to fact-check his claims, and also shows why these sources should be put under scrutiny for reliability assessment.

I also took a quick glance at the Marketplace's piece. It's actually an interview, which by nature is opinionated and should be treated similarly to a written op-ed. WP:NEWSORG states "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.". These are only surface-level assessment, but I think this shows how necessary it is to be skeptical of your sources regardless of past reputation. 14.201.66.221 (talk) 03:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't disqualify all the sources, even some of those mentioned. The way we've been approaching the article is to keep it at a high, broad level in regards to the actual claims and accusations made after the fact (with the only highly specified part being the accusation about Quinn alledged professional improprity with Grayson, since that is both central to the whole thing, and discussed as a false claim by many sources). So they may have specifics off, but they aren't "wrong" about the overall thing at the level of detail we are interested at reporting at. --MASEM (t) 15:32, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

If only because we haven't gone through all sources, yes. The fact that these sources neglected to fact-check their story does discredit them on reliability scale, so to say we should be undoubtful of other details despite the proven negligence to fact-check from the writers that covered the story is irresponsible and reckless. In fact, negligence on fact-checking should have been the most alarming sign that indicates the sources' reliability. If we were to start at ground zero and build up a story from these articles, all we have would be some shaky allegations (the most common pattern being tying certain actions to a group of people, as we have seen with the Carolyn Petit example) and the writer's own interpretation of those allegations. And the tendency of editors to take these interpretations as facts is disturbing. They deserve a WP:INTEXT treatment at best. Per WP:CONTROVERSY, I just want fair coverage from both sides with accuracy, and the articles presented here have served little purpose in a WP:CONTROVERSY situation so far. 14.201.66.221 (talk) 02:07, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Here's the problem: there is no way to cover both sides with the degree of accuracy you are looking for because no sources that are even remotely reliable have attempted to make any type of detailed evaluation of all the actions and the like; and us as Misplaced Pages editors that would be original research to make any attempt to assess what happened using forums, twitter posts, and the like. Reliable sources have struck hard at the initial allegation and then have glossed over much of everything else, and yes, that has left one side without as much in-depth coverage, but that is something we simply cannot fix. You have a media that, due to the actions of a few, are going to bias against that side even if they try to give both sides equal weight. So for all purposes, arguing about the reliability isn't going to make new sources appear, and we ourselves have opted to stay at a high enough level to not get into the nit-picky details where the facts may be off from those sources, so that any actual issues on reliability do not matter. To the point of the dispute, the question is when you have the mainstream media taking, even if inadvertently, a bias against one side of a POV argument, can you do anything about it? We've tried to incorporate as many statement about proGG that are buried in the least-biased articles to give that side its fair share, but we can't make up any more. --MASEM (t) 06:23, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Artificial intelligence

RFC now pending at the article talk page, so inappropriate to continue here. If RFC fails, you may consider refiling here. — TransporterMan (TALK) 14:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Talk:Martine Rothblatt

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

This is false. No one with the IP 50.59.109.37 has discussed anything on the Martine Rothblatt or BINA48 talk pages.-12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Location of dispute

• Talk:Martine Rothblatt (edit | subject | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• RothRep (talk · contribs)
• 66.151.103.11 (talk · contribs)
• 50.59.109.37 (talk · contribs) the IP that filed this complaint
• 12.30.109.2 (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

An editor on this site is using a name for a subject that is no longer the person's legal name. The person in question has requested that their legal name be used. An offer has been made to provide the legal sources for this name change (which has been in effect for more than 20 years). After several attempts to get the editor to comply, even presenting a new sources for that shows the legal name.

An arbitrator is requested, in order to resolve this issue. Thank you.

Have you tried to resolve this previously?

I have tried to calmly explain the situation, and provide legal sources for the article, however, the editor refuses to accept the legal documents, and is accepting an erroneous getty images caption as their proof, only.

How do you think we can help?

I would like someone who can step in and help us resolve this matter, as a legal document is a more accurate source than a photo caption.

Summary of dispute by RothRep

Summary of dispute by 12.30.109.2

Please see my comments at the Martine Rothblatt talk page and the BINA48 talk page. -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC) and edited: -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

A connected contributor, RothRep (and IP 66.151.103.11), has reverted for no legitimate reason and deleted valid sources, such as the New York Magazine article. RothRep deleted that Bina's real name is Beverlee (see source below) and that Martine & Bina have two children together and adopted one another's children from prior relationships (see source below).

What RothRep has reverted/deleted:
1) http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Martine_Rothblatt&diff=626157219&oldid=626155374
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Martine_Rothblatt&diff=prev&oldid=626278992

My source is a New York Magazine article that clearly states that Bina Aspen's given name is Beverlee. Period.

• "The Rothblatts, now married, legally adopted each other’s children, and would soon have two more. Bina started her conversion to Judaism (her given name is actually Beverlee)." http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender-ceo/index2.html

• "Bina, who is African-American, grew up in Compton and was working as a real-estate agent. But they had much in common—starting with the fact that they were both single parents. Martin had met a woman in Kenya on his way home from the Seychelles; the relationship had not worked out, but had produced a son, Eli, who was 3. Bina’s daughter, Sunee, was about the same age." http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender-ceo/index1.html

Also, the IP that filed this dispute resolution noticeboard thing, 50.59.109.37, has never commented on any talk page on Misplaced Pages, contrary to what he/she has written above. This DRnoticeboard claim is the only thing she/he has ever posted to Misplaced Pages. See here: Special:Contributions/50.59.109.37. -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:08, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

RothRep / 66.151.103.11 / 50.59.109.37 doesn't own the Martine Rothblatt or BINA48 articles. -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC) -12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Also see Misplaced Pages:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Martine_Rothblatt. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.30.109.2 (talk) 20:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by 66.151.103.11

Talk:Martine Rothblatt discussion

Administrative note: Another for the participants is to take this issue to the WP:BLPN notice board where editors are very familiar with the policies that cover this kind of a situation. (but you can't do both, it's either here or BLPN, one or the other)-- — Keithbob • Talk • 18:54, 26 September 2014 (UTC)-- — Keithbob • Talk • 13:35, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Another administrative note: Just a suggestion, not a requirement or demand: There are at least three different IP addresses showing up at the article talk page, at RothRep's talk page, and here, 12.30.109.2, 66.151.103.11, and 50.59.109.37, which makes it unclear who's who and whether or not everyone who needs notice of this filing has received it. It would be well if everyone who wants to participate here would create an account, identify which of those edits belong to them, and thereafter only edit when signed into that account. I've given notice to RothRep and to those IP addresses, but if they are dynamic IP's the notices may never be seen. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 19:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I am only using this IP. The other person/side is using all of those other ones.-12.30.109.2 (talk) 19:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• Dispute resolution noticeboard
• Misplaced Pages noticeboards
• Misplaced Pages dispute resolution