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:Being refuted is not “harassment” ] (]) 00:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC) :Being refuted is not “harassment” ] (]) 00:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::Being harassed, however, is. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 00:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC) ::Being harassed, however, is. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 00:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

== This article needs more citations covering both sides of the "controversy" ==

<big>First, allow me to propose a couple of edits:</big>

In 2024, the studio became <u><s>the</s> '''<big>a</big>'''</u> target of online users who claimed it promoted a "woke agenda". ''(there is a long list of companies, it's not the only target)''

The group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for <u>'''<big>allegedly</big>'''</u> failing Steam's code of conduct. ''(it's not against Steam's code of conduct, otherwise it would've been banned a few days ago. If you believe it is, please provide objective sources)''

<big>Now back to the main topic, this article needs more diverse facts (not opinions):</big>

Since the tweet that started the whole "controversy" , it might be better to add as well as . It's also worth mentioning that this employee was for these tweets.

I will also leave a couple of additional links here, that may or may not be good sources according to Misplaced Pages standards by themselves, however these contain a lot of '''facts''' that are '''ommited''' by this article:

https://www.theshortcut.com/p/sweet-baby-inc-detected-what-actually-happened

https://game8.co/articles/latest/sweet-baby-inc-employees-fail-spectacularly-at-trying-to-get-steam-curator-banned

I would like to kindly ask editors to be consistent in their efforts to be objective and include more dry '''facts''' in the article, instead of '''favoring facts''' of '''one side''' by not including any '''factual reasons''' behind actions of '''another side'''. ] (]) 03:50, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

:Thanks for your input. {{xt|the target}} still makes sense regardless of how many "targets" there are. {{!xt|allegedly}} is unnecessary since the sentence is referring to what the employee said. As mentioned above, tweets from employees are generally not notable on their own, so their inclusion here is dependent on inclusion in reliable sources. Neither of those sources has been ] by editors ]. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 04:05, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::Should the GDC talk be included as a source on its own? Or does it still need coverage from other reliable sources? ] (]) 04:17, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Unless it has relevance to the history of the company (discusses its founding, employee count, studio partners, etc.), I see no reason for it to be included without additional relevant coverage. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 04:32, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::The GDC talk in question discussed the basic concept this entire company is built upon, surely it's important and relevant to the history of the company then?
::::Even if you deem that unimportant for the history of the company, it is one of the key points for the "Controversy" part of the article. ] (]) 04:40, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::The only source that talk about that GDC talk so far is from . They quoted a small part of her speech where she says:
:::::"If you’re a creative working in AAA which I did for many, many years: put this stuff up to your higher-ups. And if they don’t see the value in what you’re asking for when you ask for consultancy, when you ask for research: go have a coffee with your marketing team and just terrify them with the possibility if they don’t give you what you want.”
:::::But the quote seems to be out-of-context as there is no further commentary on that quote - except on the emphasis on the word '''terrify'''.
:::::Another GDC quote was featured in where she said:
:::::"We feed them the same thing that we know that they love and we keep on feeding it. We’re like, ‘Here you go. We know you love it. Eat this. Eat this. Eat this.’ So then when they get anything else they react as a picky baby would, which would be like, ‘Oh! No thank you. I do not want this.’ And we’ve actually done this so long that what we’re doing is creating an entire nation of picky babies and they make us scared to deviate from what we actually want to do. Just in case these picky babies don’t want to play our games."
:::::I am not comfortable including Thatparkplace.com as they have multiple articles attacking Sweet Baby Inc - including . I'm not 100% sure on NicheGamer, but they seem less extreme. ''] <sup>]</sup>'' 04:45, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::''Niche Gamer'' is considered ] per ]. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 04:51, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{ping|Rhain}} Thank you so much. I had no idea of the existence of ]. Yeah; both citations take her GDC comments out of context. To be frank, I don't care about the controversy, but I'm glad there is a Misplaced Pages page that condenses all of its history - without reactionary YouTubers and questionable sources talking about it. ''] <sup>]</sup>'' 05:10, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Adding to this, the full GDC video is nearly . The negative reactions use a similar trick done with ]'s Feminist Frequency videos where her points are taken out of context. ''] <sup>]</sup>'' 05:13, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::*{{ec}} The history of the company is already covered by other sources; is there anything in particular the GDC talk can add?{{pb}}Whether or not it's a "key point" for the "Controversy" section will be determined by reliable sources. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 04:48, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

:*Also, per ], expressions of doubt like that can imply that something is untruthful, and should only be used when the source themselves uses them. An editor personally disagreeing with something is ] and is exactly the sort of situation where we're ''not'' supposed to use that sort of language. --] (]) 04:24, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:*:Would it be better to make it a quote then?
:*:The group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for '''<big>"failing Steam's code of conduct"</big>'''. ] (]) 04:36, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:*::It doesn't need quotes; nothing about the sentence's phrasing is incorrect. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 04:48, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:*:::Point 1: The group is not actually failing Steam's code of conduct
:*:::Point 2: It is a citation of an employee claiming the opposite
:*:::Solution: Clearly show that it is a citation, like you did with ] (]) 04:59, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:*::::Unless reliable sources deem otherwise, whether or not it actually fails Steam's code of conduct is irrelevant and ]. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 05:03, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:*:::::You surely know the lists of reliable and unreliable sources well.
:*:::::From the bottom of your heart, do you believe to follow ]?
:*:::::It is pretty much impossible to cover the "controversy" part of the article without at least minimal use of ] because the absolute majority of people are going against all "reliable sources" in this case (notice: unreliable statement, no statistical research was done on this topic, but mass media together with all the loudest pro-SBI activists seem to be massively outnumbered here).
:*:::::While you can't base the article off what these people are saying, all main reasons that this "controversy" stems from fall nicely under ], and you seem to actively avoid the inclusion of sources containing those reasons, even with added context. That's why I mentioned ] in the first place. ] (]) 05:23, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::: I wouldn't be opposed to including the GDC talk personally, though as noted before we shouldn't put words in their mouth or take quotes out of context. ] (]) 05:36, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::*{{ec}} Self-published sources should almost never be used in "Controversy" sections. All information should be supported by reliable, verifiable sources. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 05:41, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::*:Do you agree that it is as reliable as it gets in this situation? There are limits on what reliable source can cover.
:::::::*:It is verifiable that there is at least a quarter million people actively against the company though, and there is an uncountable amount of console players without a Steam account, plus those who simply never subscribe to Steam curators in general. ] (]) 05:48, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Of course there are limits on what reliable sources can cover—but it's not up to Misplaced Pages to ]. The matter of ] is only relevant insofar as reliable sources are concerned, not the number of people in a Steam group. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 05:57, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Do you agree that it is a citation? And that it might not be accurate? If you do, then the current state of article is suboptimal.
:::::::Otherwise, is it not a citation, or is it an accurate citation?
:::::::What are the sources claiming that this Steam group did break community guidelines, and if it did, why is it not banned yet? ] (]) 06:28, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::] does not claim that the group broke Steam's community guidelines, so no such source is needed. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 06:34, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I don't want to turn this into a forum, you know what I meant here. The meaning of sentence we're discussing is ambiguous right now. It might be percieved as a statement of fact unless quoted correctly. According to ], I don't see any reason not to clear things up. It's not a cultural norm, nor is it unneccessary - because a reader might percieve it as "Misplaced Pages's own voice". At the same time emotional background of that statement is quite obvious. ] (]) 06:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::{{xt|a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct}} ''is'' a statement of fact. I don't think it's ambiguous, nor does it need quotation marks—it's comparable to the "Permissible" quote at ]. I'll leave it to others to share their thoughts. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 07:09, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::From my understanding, they seem to have a problem with the wording line of the line about the group violating Steam's code of conduct, which they claim is incorrect since it hasn't been taken down yet. ] (]) 07:29, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::I understand their point, I just don't think it's an actual problem for the reasons stated above. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 07:37, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Though, as my previous edit implied, I would prefer not to go this deep on this aspect in the article at all - as far as I can tell only a single source actually discusses the reports; PCgamer actually only says that {{tq|The situation grew in scale as some Sweet Baby employees, frustrated at the idea of a curated list specifically made to avoid games they had worked on, acknowledged the group on social media. While the tweet has been removed, one employee also discovered and shared the group curator's Twitter account.}} Most other sources are similar. One thing I remember from ] is that there was this ever-shifting web of narratives presented by adherents that weren't really treated that seriously by the best ]es and which tended to lack long-term coverage, which kept creeping into the article. This feels similar - the sheer size of this section already shows the massively disproportionate amount of attention some editors and forums give to this sort of trivia and the narrative they've built around it based on a personal belief that it's central or a personal outlook in which it drives their own views. That can produce a lopsided or meandering article if we're not careful to take a step back and actually focus on what the sources say overall rather than the aspects that became emotive rallying cries on Twitter or the like. Obviously if things like that do get substantial coverage they still have to be covered (and when they have a lot of coverage, we can rely on that to determine how we approach them), but I'm simply not seeing it here, so a better option might just be to omit all mention of the group being reported entirely until / unless there's more coverage. Right now it is a single line cited to Dot Esports and nothing else (and while Dot Esports may be usable for games, we're going outside of the usually uncontroversial things we rely on sources like that for here.) Is that really ]? If most sources don't consider it worth even touching on, then we shouldn't include it out of a desire to "answer" those narratives or anything like that unless the sources do - we should just leave it out entirely. --] (]) 14:44, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::It ''should'' be ambiguous; we can't word it in a way that makes it sound definitive in either direction without unambiguous sourcing. You haven't actually presented any yourself - your arguments are ], in the sense that you're trying to make your own personal arguments for why your gut feeling tells you the group doesn't violate any policies. But that's not how we write articles; per ], we can't word the article in a way that implies to readers that that's the case. Right now we attribute it, which is the appropriate way to do it. And it's also worth pointing out that PCGamer says that {{tq|Regardless of your opinion on that, it should be noted that Steam's guidelines for this sort of thing prohibit insults, harassment, and discrimination. "The creators and members of these groups are responsible for ensuring that they adhere to all of the guidelines outlined above." It can be argued that the anti-Sweet Baby group is violating said guidelines.}} - which doesn't support your interpretation and which certainly wouldn't justify a wording that directly casts doubt on the idea that the reports. --] (]) 14:34, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::It's not my "gut feeling", Steam Support replied to the author of that group that it did not violate any policies, with limited . It's just common sense that the group would've been banned instantly if it did violate anything, considering the amount of traction this situation got. I deemed it unnecessary to mention that, because it was not covered by "reliable sources". It just goes to show how hilarious the situation is and how much extended confirmed editors are willing to dig into the situation.
:::::::::::I'll also mention here that articles by , (which is generally deemed unreliable by Misplaced Pages, and imo shouldn't be used in such articles) and were received , other outlets didn't dare to tweet their respective articles at all.
:::::::::::When in Rome, do as the Romans do, but imo ] exists exactly for situations like this, as all the primary sources are ]. It's impossible to cover the situation through "reliable" news outlets when they're scared to write a word in the wrong direction about it. ] (]) 16:05, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Whatever other users think of those articles isn't the point here, what matters is what Misplaced Pages considers a reliable source. Getting "ratio'd" on Twitter/X is not a reason to discount an article's reliability. ] (]) 17:14, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::The last paragraph of my message addresses this, you added 0 valuable information by replying this way, plus you only covered one third of the message. ] (]) 17:19, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::A tweet is obviously not a ]; even beyond that, the screenshot in the image simply doesn't say what the tweet asserts it says. Even if it did, we wouldn't be able to use it; ] is inappropriate in this situation for numerous reasons. The tweet (by the creator of the group, presenting what looks to me like a canned ticket-closure message of no significance and using it to claim personal vindication) is clearly {{tq|unduly self-serving}}, and the image's province itself is unknown, so there are reasonable doubts to its authenticity. It also involves {{tq|claims about third parties}}, since you want to use it to imply via ] that reports against the group (which, I'll reiterate above, only a single source currently even notes happened) were invalid. Likewise, your feelings about the reaction to those tweets and your personal opinions about what that means aren't really usable to dictate article content. Consider the alternate possibility, which I outlined above, and which is really the default per ]: The reason nobody else has covered this aspect isn't because they're terrified of being ratioed on Twitter, it's because it is trivial. The reason Steam has been giving canned replies and has done little is because they give canned replies to almost everything, and rarely act at all. If these are significant developments, it should be easy to find ]es covering them; currently the entire tangent seems so trivial that it would probably be better to omit it entirely until and unless secondary sources cover it in more depth than the one line in a single source that we have currently. --] (]) 00:59, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Lets stop here.
:::::::::::::The first paragraph in it's entirety was addressing your accusation of me relying on "gut feelings", when in reality it's just <s>]</s> (]) supported by that particular tweet. Note that I did not ask to use that tweet in the article, and even noted that this screenshot is not complete, thus can't be used on its own.
:::::::::::::Regarding "canned replies", that sounds like your own personal opinion here without any ] provided. I've seen a recently.
:::::::::::::In my opinion, you and '''''{{U|Rhain}}''''' are harming the Misplaced Pages project by completely ignoring <s>]</s> (]), ] and ] ] (]) 02:08, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::The point is, there are alternate explanations for everything that you are, personally, choosing to believe; and much of what you seem to believe is both fairly ] and contradicts the best available sources. Therefore, we cannot present the conclusions you personally feel are so obvious without an actual reliable source backing them up. If the things you believe are true, supportable and due, then it should be possible to find ]es to directly support them; if you can't find them then you should at least ''consider'' the possibility that the people on the forums you're reading this on may be distorting, exaggerating, or outright fabricating parts of what you read, which was a major problem with similar controversies in the past. Even if you're unwilling to consider that possibility, Misplaced Pages has to do so, which means that we can't rely on ] sources for the kinds of things you want to add. --] (]) 04:29, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::First of all, allow me to apologize, because I linked ] instead of ] both here and in the DRN thread, which led to confusion.
:::::::::::::::With due respect, I always consider the possibility of being wrong myself, or that sources I read might be incorrect. I did spend a considerable amount of time checking all available information, and taking everything into account: the information provided by people on the forums is exaggerated at times, and lies can be found here and there, but the main thought, as far as my "]" goes, (yes, I understand what I said here, it's a truthful irony if you will) is true at its core.
:::::::::::::::There are tweets by company employees confirming they worked on large chunks of plot for some games. The GDC talk can't be taken out of context - the CEO described how the company works. Then there are tweets with an attempt to start harassment campaign towards the Steam curator. I probably forgot something else that was already discussed on this talk page. All the links are here. If you want to be sure (for yourself) that all of this was posted by employees - LinkedIn is open + as far as I'm aware, SBI never stated that the people in Twitter are not related to the company, and they would've done it instantly if it was the case. It's all just ], it legit feels like most of active editors for the article didn't even attempt to investigate the timeline of events. ] (]) 09:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Tweets, by their nature, can only tell us so much on their own. I'd imagine SBI's involvement varies from game-to-game, but we can't know that from just tweets alone. Again, a tweet on its own is not a reliable source. The article already mentions that employees tried to get the Steam page taken down, since it's been reported on by other reliable sources. And as for "The GDC talk can't be taken out of context", it can. Anything can be taken out of context, that's how online discourse tends to work. If we're going to include it as a source we can't put words in their mouth. ] (]) 11:41, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::Then use the GDC talk as a source and DON'T put words in her mouth.
:::::::::::::::::SHEESH ... ] (]) 22:12, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*No, we definitely couldn't use tweets from employees claiming X, Y, and Z about the company, for countless reasons. First, when they're not talking in an official capacity, then the company itself is a {{tq|third party}}, which immediately bars using them as an ] source in this article all on its own. Second, depending on the context, it could be {{tq|unduly self-serving}} (ie. people have an incentive to play up the importance of their work - yes, something can both be unduly self-serving in one context and negative in another.) Third, though, and most importantly, it's still ] and ] because you state yourself that your goal is to build a {{tq|timeline of events}} that you feel explains what "really" happened for the overarching event, based on things you personally saw where randos on Twitter and forums told you that these tweets were central to their own feelings and opinions on the topic. I can understand that you're upset that ] coverage doesn't reflect what you consider the timeline of events; but again, trying to "correct" it here is trying to ]. If you feel they got it wrong by not highlighting the things your gut tells you is important, then you should send letters to the editor asking for updates and corrections. But Misplaced Pages isn't the place to "reveal the truth"; your objection that we haven't performed the research you feel you did and haven't come to the conclusion that the tweets you feel are so significant shows the core problem, because that is textbook ]. Lots of people affiliated with the company make lots of tweets; the GDC talk is huge and covers a ton of different things. Why do you feel that the few random things you want to add, pulled out of context, are important? How would you demonstrate their relevance? Those are the things you need ]es for in order to avoid original research. Ultimately our article is going to reflect ] coverage, so if you think there are things your gut tells you are vital that were left out, the thing to do is to contact those reliable sources, or to wait and hope that it gets more coverage. We can't help you by presenting your personal theories of the "real timeline" as fact ourselves; all we can do is cover them if a ] does. Again, if there's one thing about Misplaced Pages that you need to understand, it's that we ''summarize reliable sources'', we don't do our own research. You're free to repeat the research you feel you've done on forums elsewhere, or to send it to various publishers and news sources hoping they cover it; but it's no use here. If you repeatedly fail - again, you should consider the possibility that you're wrong, that the quotes are pulled out of context to rile people up and push their buttons, and that, most importantly, the reason RSes haven't focused on them is because they've looked over the whole thing and decided (perhaps completely accurately!) "ah, it's another 4chan / kiwifarms / gamergate-style harassment op" and focused on that rather than on the usual ever-changing list of dubious faux grievances they always present when running that sort of op. Coverage is more internet-savvy than it was a decade ago, and the playbook is sort of tired right now; random internet shouty people going "hey, look at this list of quotes and clips we've assembled into a dosser! These people are TOTALLY BAD!" doesn't get the same traction it used to. That's not just my analysis - by my reading it's what most of the sources that ''have'' covered this more-or-less say in summarizing it. Those are, I think, the actually important points, based on current coverage. Even if you think that coverage is wrong, Misplaced Pages isn't the place to try and "correct" it. --] (]) 15:24, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*:I already replied to most of these claims in other branches of the discussion.
:::::::::::::::*:It's not about my personal opinion at all, in fact, I just want will of people to be properly documented instead of "these far-right* keyboard warriors don't understand anything".
:::::::::::::::*:<nowiki>*</nowiki> - <s>citation needed</s> gamers are just people who want to play good games
:::::::::::::::*:The narrative you're following is supported by a vocal minority of people, while an actual majority is being ignored. I understand that ], however in its current state the "controversy" section of the article is . Not by my "personal opinion", it's just not the way situation unfolded, omitted information leads readers to ]. Remember, ].
:::::::::::::::*:This article is not rocket science, thus I deem your constant seeking of ] to be a bit ].
:::::::::::::::*:Once again, I do not want to include any emotional outcries from gaming community. I do not ask to humiliate SBI employees either. However, the contoversy part ] capture the real causes of events, a good alternative would be to remove this part completely otherwise.
:::::::::::::::*:I will kindly ask you once more, do not twist my words. ] (]) 20:18, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*::It's never extreme to seek reliable sources, as everything--''everything''--on Misplaced Pages must be ]. That means you must be able to point to a reliable source outside of Misplaced Pages to corroborate what you're saying. Misplaced Pages simply cannot capture the "real causes of events" if they haven't appeared in reliable sources. That's simply axiomatic. I know that can be unsatisfying, and I also know that Misplaced Pages's policies are the worst possible way to run an encyclopedia (with the exception of all the other options). I am afraid the options are either to wait for coverage in reliable sources (or find some that currently exists), or to go through the AfD process and seek deletion of the article until such time as the subject has been more fully fleshed out. There is no exception to sourcing or verifiability policies either for "fairness" or "showing what really happened." Both of those goals come dangerously close to an attempt to ]. I would urge all involved to understand that Misplaced Pages is ever-evolving. The state of the article today will not be where it is in a few weeks. While any given snapshot of this encyclopedia can seem incorrect (sometimes egregiously so) in the moment, in the long sweep of time, the arc of Misplaced Pages bends towards accuracy. Sometimes we all have to have a bit of faith in that. Here's hoping everyone had a nice weekend. ] (]) 20:55, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*:::Thanks for the comment!
:::::::::::::::*:::It just occured to me that claims in the article also seem to be quite ] per clause 4: <small>Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions—especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living and recently dead people.</small>. It is to be proven of course, and I'm not sure how to cover that.
:::::::::::::::*:::That's just for the future reference should the AfD process be initiated. ] (]) 21:22, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*::::The 'relevant community' here are the journalists who have covered this, not the folks posting on Twitter or reddit. The article reflects the mainstream reliable sources quite well. ] (]) 22:05, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*:::::Hard objection. Journalists nowadays are largely irrelevant to the gaming community. Especially so with sources like ] which behind it at all and ] with behind the article.
:::::::::::::::*:::::There are out there, but I doubt editors are willing to make use of those. ] (]) 22:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*::::::If Misplaced Pages really followed the standard you are suggesting here, articles like ] would be very, very different. ] (]) 23:12, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*:::::::That's just an indirect insult. And .
:::::::::::::::*:::::::Please refrain from commenting on things unrelated to ] ] (]) 23:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*::::::::The point remains, on Misplaced Pages we follow the reliable sources, and subcultures do not get to substitute for that with their own version of reality. ] (]) 23:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*:::::::::It would've been good if it was true. Unfortunately, subcultures do get to substitute everything with their own version of reality here, and it's a very rare occurence to see the real version of reality on Misplaced Pages when it comes to politics-related articles nowadays.
:::::::::::::::*:::::::::I do understand your stance on keeping the discussion in one place, but it would be better if we continue either at ] or ]. ] (]) 00:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::*:::The article in its current form actively harms a lot of people. I understand that Misplaced Pages-articles are "ever evolving", but they base of an article should be solid enough to start it at all.
:::::::::::::::*:::I agree with the other user, therefore, that it'd be best to remove the section of the article until sources exist that include ALL the relevant information and are reputable enough to be accepted by you. ] (]) 22:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::You have my most heartfelt sympathy. I cannot imagine being so morally bankrupt that I would have to lie to protect my preferred message. That must be terrible to deal with. ] (]) 01:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::To be fair, it's more akin to ] of the Bankruptcy Code. A moral reorganization, if you will. Cheers. ] (]) 01:31, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::absolutely agree, Wiki is such a joke, they are absolutely refusing to even look into the facts. facts are facts regardless of what anyone says. ] (]) 17:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
{{od|:::::::::::::::*:::::::::}} Misplaced Pages can only ever include content that's ] to one or more ]. As things stand right now, the content you're advocating for inclusion is not verifiable to a reliable source. You have, at best, a couple of tweets, and a whole bunch of speculation. While we can include tweets as citations, it is only within the limited scope afforded by ]. What you're advocating for inclusion is extremely far outside that scope, and seems to be a significant amount of ], something that is forbidden by policy in articles.{{pb}}Now if you have a reliable source that supports the changes you want to be made, please link it here now so that we can see what it says and figure out what (if any) changes need to be made. Otherwise, I strongly urge you to ]. Multiple experienced editors have pointed out the issues with the changes you're seeking, and simply repeatedly repeating it will not convince anyone. ] (]) 00:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:Please explain what speculations do you see in my proposals, I do not see any reason to continue discussing abstract matters. Just provide a list of what is false in your opinion, or what is being speculated upon.
:Like I said earlier, there are alternative solutions, refer to my message from ''<u>20:18, 10 March 2024 (UTC)</u>''.
:With due respect, your reaction seems to be emotional and related to your affiliation with certain subcultures. ] (]) 01:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::Your comment at 20:18, 10 March 2024 offers no alternative solutions that are compatible with Misplaced Pages's ]. Per multiple policies (], ], ]) we can only include content in a Misplaced Pages article if it is verifiable to one or more reliable sources, see ]. It is not our purpose nor our role to document the {{tq|will of people}} in any way other than it is covered in reliable sources.
::{{tq|Please explain what speculations do you see in my proposals}} You are ] based upon your interpretation of a screenshot taken out of content. You have ] the {{tq|absolute majority of people are going against all "reliable sources" in this case}} without providing any evidence to back up the claim. You have ] employees of Sweet Baby Inc have {{tq| to start harassment campaign towards the Steam curator}} without providing any evidence to back up the claim. None of these assertions can be included in the article until you provide one or more reliable sources that support them.
::{{tq|With due respect, your reaction seems to be...}} Please comment on ]. Do not ] about my or any other editors emotional state, or whatever affiliations you perceive them to have. ] (]) 01:36, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Somehow all editors prefer to omit existence of other policies (] aka ] and ]), and, although not a policy, but it should become a policy: ]. What's the point in all the policies if it results in articles detached from reality?
:::{{tq|You are asserting that the sources are wrong based upon your interpretation of a screenshot taken out of context}} - I never said sources are wrong, did I? I'm saying that sources lie by omission. It's not wrong, it's actually a clever move, but it makes the overall picture incomplete.
:::{{tq|You have asserted that the absolute majority of people are going against all "reliable sources" in this case without providing any evidence to back up the claim.}} - well, I did provide evidence, ] in the previous claim, although Harryhenry1 argued that {{tq|Getting "ratio'd" on Twitter/X is not a reason to discount an article's reliability}}. One might treat subscriber count of the Steam curator a decent proof too, considering absolutely 0 positive coverage in mass media.
:::{{tq|You have asserted that employees of Sweet Baby Inc have to start harassment campaign towards the Steam curator without providing any evidence to back up the claim}} - that's simply false, I provided evidence in ]: , , and not mentioned in the original comment for context - it's hard to find an archived original of the last one, but I'll find you one if you need it.
:::Sorry for the last paragraph from previous message. Still, I believe you didn't really read my comments considering 80% of stuff you mentioned as "speculations" had proofs linked within this page. ] (]) 02:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::UCS is not a policy, it's an essay about ]. IAR and 5P5 have some exceptions, ], ], and ] are among them. LIE has been an essay since it's creation 14 years ago.
::::{{tq|I'm saying that sources lie by omission}} So you're asserting that the sources are wrong, because they're intentionally leaving out context.
::::{{tq|well, I did provide evidence}} A twitter ratio is not a reliable source, nor is it any reason to discount the reliability of an article or its publication. Neither is the number of subscribers to a steam curator list.
::::{{tq|that's simply false, I provided evidence in the comment that started this very topic}} None of those tweets are reliable sources, and do not qualify for the ABOUTSELF exception.
::::None of what you're saying here can be included in the article without a ]. No matter where you ask this question, you will get the same answer. ] (]) 02:23, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::Yup, sorry, I forgot to address {{tq|Your comment at 20:18, 10 March 2024 offers no alternative solutions that are compatible with Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines}}. According to ] and due to lack of reliable sources, it does: {{tq|a good alternative would be to remove this part completely otherwise.}} ] (]) 02:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::At three relatively well balanced paragraphs, compared to the five for the rest of the article, we don't really have a RECENTism issue here. While I would hesitate at adding any additional content to the harassment section outside of some sort of significant change in the coverage, I see no compelling reason to remove any content at this time. We are giving a fair and verifiable accounting of the backlash against this company, as those events have been told through reliable sources. That is all we're here to do.
::::::If there is some element of these events that you feel are not being adequately covered within reliable sources, I would suggest that you contact them or another reliable source that you feel may be receptive to the idea and either pitch an article for publishing or ask them to make a correction to their coverage. Until the events that you are asserting we should cover are themselves covered in a reliable source, we cannot include them in any article. ] (]) 02:59, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::completely agree. I am left leaning btw, never voted red once in my life, and i just want to point out that if your are ignoring verifiable sources from articles simply because you seem them as "alt"right". that is a problem, its like saying that anyone on the alt-right has no right to a voice. as a person that just wants to be accepted by all walks of life, your completely bias if you think that a source cant be reliable merely based on political affiliation alone. that is folly. ] (]) 17:29, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::Additionally, even if you go out of your way to find any individuals supporting Sweet Baby Inc. within gaming communities, it's very hard to find any supporters of the company except for journalists and game developers (interested parties) and non-gamers (they haven't done any research and in general can not be considered to be a part of this conflict/controversy - I am referring to a few non-gaming-related subforums in this case). As a precaution, yep, ] - but ] doesn't change anything in context of this discussion where you ask for sources. ] (]) 06:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::I'm not sure what you're getting at there. As I talked about before, we don't judge the reliability of a source based on how vocal the backlash to it is. What do you think the reliable sources are missing here? ] (]) 06:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::See ] and other messages on this talk page. TL;DR is: Reliable sources have failed to process primary sources by omitting a lot of valuable information and interviewing only one side of the controversy. ] (]) 07:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Misplaced Pages isn't here to correct the failings of the reliable sources, see ]. ] (]) 13:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::See ] ] (]) 16:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::The problem is that Misplaced Pages only "knows" what is in the sources. If Misplaced Pages were about what is "real" or "true," then we could never have a collaborative encyclopedia worked on by a multitude of volunteers. You would just have people yelling at one another about what they "know" to be "true." So instead, the guiding ethos of Misplaced Pages is that it summarizes, in proportion, the various views on a subject as they are found in the reliable sources. That way, it's not you or me saying "this is right and I can prove it," but rather "here, let me show you the coverage in the sources" and objective metrics like how many sources mention a given idea. And you know what? There is still lots of yelling. But less I think. You say that the sources are "lying by omission," and while I understand what you mean, that's missing the point a bit. Again, Misplaced Pages ''only'' knows what is in those sources. What we are doing here is a lagging indicator. Misplaced Pages is very poorly set up to cover things as they happen in the moment. That's why you have pages like ] and ]. Your complaints are valid in the grand scheme of things, but Misplaced Pages is the wrong tool to address them. It's a bit like saying "my lawnmower is broken because it doesn't chop down trees." Lawnmowers weren't intended to do so, just as the use you seem to want to put Misplaced Pages to is not intended. Then again, if consensus decides I am all wet on this, then I am! It's the beauty of this strange collective. Cheers, and here's to hoping everyone has a good week ahead. ] (]) 02:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::Thanks for the input. Like we discussed earlier, I fully support removal of unbalanced portions of the article - if that's the only way to deal with the problems of this article due to ]. Have a nice one. ] (]) 02:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::Unless you can provide ] what you're describing is ]. We simply report on the controversy as it is reported on by reliable sources, and as multiple editors have said that is what we're currently doing in the article. ] (]) 02:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::If there's nothing to ], then there is no ] ] (]) 02:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::honestly this has really pulled the veil out from my eyes. i will never look at a wiki article again without seeing it with a grain of salt. ] (]) 17:32, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::In that case, how exactly is a "reliable" article deemed "unreliable"?
:::::As it stands, ]
:::::It is my argument that the Kotaku article suffers from few but critical failings that should make it unreliable specifically on the topic of SBI. Only because it fails to include important context about what caused the "rampant harrassment" it is referring to. That context being social media communications from SBI employees themselves, and the calling for mass-reporting of the steam group owner's Personal account. Yes it is not wikipedia's job to correct for failings in articles nor decide what is truth. But I have to ask; Does it not fall on wikipedia to make sure sources being used arent misrepresenting facts or events? ] (]) 01:34, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::Well, the most ''obvious'' way to argue a Kotaku article is unreliable is to demonstrate that it is AI-generated, because that's what got Kotaku downgraded in the first place. If you think it's unreliable for other reasons you could raise the issue on ], but I doubt you'd get anywhere - disputing a source's reliability because you disagree with its conclusions is rarely productive, since it invites ] and risks editors replacing their personal views for those of the sources. You'd probably have to demonstrate that the source is saying things that are so wildly out-of-line with other RSes writing on the topic as to be ], which is clearly not the case here - the other RSes all say the same thing. On top of this, the Kotaku piece has been cited by other RSes, which per ] is a strong argument for its reliability. But, again, you can take the argument to ] if you think they'll listen. --] (]) 01:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It should be put on ] , from the looks of it the site Kotaku has questionable practices in the business. Being blacklisted by companies like Nintendo; Bethesda; Ubisoft https://kotaku.com/a-price-of-games-journalism-1743526293 over the years cause of unprofessional acts and leaking confidential information for game details since 2013 and outright encouraging piracy, criminal act's. https://kotaku.com/so-called-pirates-are-doing-the-work-when-publishers-fa-1846533244 It goes without saying smaller outlets have the right to be included regarding this topic as valid sources. If they are deemed trustworthy. I do not approve the language some of the team used when mentioning these outlets. ] (]) 14:24, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

:Hi, I'm just a user that walked into here after adding that "Controversy" sub-heading. (Currently titled it "Online backlash" for better accuracy.) I saw this IP user make a couple of uncontributive edits including . In the edit summary they mentioned "a certain 'rant' that the CEO had" and I have no idea what that is since I never heard of this company until yesterday. For the sake of clearance and removing skepticism could someone clarify? ] (]) 21:44, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
::I assume they're referring to , which has got some people based on a brief clip. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 23:41, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Brief clip. Okay. Gotcha. Yoshiman6464 is right anyhow. ] (]) 04:47, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
::::brief clip, you know the original video is nearly 30 minutes long. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfMsxjWgUbI&list=WL&index=1&t=3s ] (]) 17:34, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::This is irrelevant to me. I just came to ask about a source and that's it. I do not care about clips, especially given that ''many'' commentators are taking clips OOC and I'm not taking any chances. Thanks. ] (]) 21:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
::*Things like that are definitely not usable as a primary source for a wide variety of reasons; most obviously, given the context, inclusion would be clear ] / ] in the sense that it guides the reader towards a conclusion not stated in the source. The purpose of ] is not for editors to surface what they consider juicy scandals or quotes they find objectionable. And since these are quotes by real people, they would be ] issues on top of that. --] (]) 07:39, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
:Aquillion in ] talk thread , mentions this talk page and "An editor is arguing that they can be included under WP:ABOUTSELF." And Moon Darker on ] thread has mentioned most participants here. ] (]) 18:08, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

== Unfair sourcing situation results in biased, misrepresenting article ==

Here's what Misplaced Pages-editor MrOllie wrote in another reply:

"Misplaced Pages's standards for sourcing can be found at WP:RS. We use secondary sources from commerical publishers, mostly. We cannot and will not use blogs, social media, or other self published materials in a situation like this one."

This is problematic, because here we have situation where the very thing that triggered the entire situation happened on social media and similar (SBI employees and CEOs saying stuff like "I want to erase all white leads from games"). Meanwhile the terrible, unbased reaction from video game journalists is being taken as a valid source by Misplaced Pages-editors because they're not social media.

How can we expect a factual, truthful Misplaced Pages-article when one side of the topic at hand dominates the entire traditional news media, while the other side can only rely on social media posts? Just because you say "this is Misplaced Pages's standards" doesn't help the situation. If you really refuse to acknowledge all available sources that are important for the topic, then you'd be better advised to remove EVERYTHING until relevant sources appear that cover the whole thing and not just the one-sided accusation you find right now on traditional news media.

I hope this whole situation is quickly being reviewed. The people criticizing SBI are not the bad guys here. ] (]) 19:52, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

:We're not going to set aside Misplaced Pages's content policies for this one article. If we used 'all available sources' anyone could write anything and put it into the encyclopedia, which is obviously untenable. ] (]) 19:55, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::MrOllie, I'm applying to your common sense here: You KNOW that the article as it exists right now is wrong. It omits obvious, important points that would paint the entire situation in a different light compared to what the article says right now. Since you're a registered Misplaced Pages-editor, you must care about facts. So pls, I beg of you to change your mind and provide a solution to the current dilemma. If you do not accept sources that prove important counterpoints, then wouldn't the 2nd best solution to remove the whole text about the current situation and wait until it is resolved, wait for a more complete picture? The Misplaced Pages article as is only functions as ammunition for those targeting the critics of SBI, further branding them as vile nazis or whatever.
::I hope you can see that. Otherwise I'll try to get ahold of a Misplaced Pages-admin (not a threat, just laying down my planned action), because the current situation is absolutely unacceptable. I'Ve been using Misplaced Pages my whole life, trusting its factual nature, and now I'm witnessing myself how an anti-factual article is being protected. That mustn't happen on this website. ] (]) 20:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::I care about sources, and I do not {{Tq|KNOW}} the article is wrong, because I don't believe everything I see on twitter. ] (]) 20:07, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::But you also clearly do not know that the article is right, either. So when in doubt, why not take down the entire thing and wait for more information? What kinda standard is that to keep an article online that "might" be wrong?
::::And "I dont believe everything I see on Twitter" is very condescending. Nobody needs to believe anything. The tweets of employees and CEOs are there for everyone to see. ] (]) 20:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::See ]. You're asking the wrong questions. We care that the article summarizes the sources we have, because that is what we do here. You're trying to get Misplaced Pages to confirm to a vision that it is not designed for. ] (]) 20:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::You're ignoring important sources for one side of the situation, while only accepting sources of the other side. This results in an article that tells a story that's not based on reality. Who benefits from this, other than the supported side who will use Misplaced Pages as "evidence" for their claims?
::::::At this point I'm not sure whether you're a Misplaced Pages-die hard who lost sight of what Misplaced Pages is supposed to accomplish over the rigid rules it has, or actually a supporter of the SBI-defenders who call all critics "harassers" and worse.
::::::Once again, I ask you to see this. The article right now creates a fake-reality. Misplaced Pages isn't fiction, is it? ] (]) 20:25, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I don't care about 'sides', but I do care about publishing standards. We don't do ] here, so I don't have to care about sides. ] (]) 20:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::You are aware that the current decisions of yours lead to an article that creates a fake-reality. I cannot understand how you fail to see that and how sourcing rules are more important than a factually incorrect article. If sources for a factual article do not exist, Misplaced Pages used to un-publish the entire article. Why not now? ] (]) 20:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::{{Tq|If sources for a factual article do not exist, Misplaced Pages used to un-publish the entire article. Why not now?}} So far as I am aware that has never been the case, because Misplaced Pages editors aren't in the business of evaluating facts separately from what is verifiably sourced. The way we determine what is factually correct is by following the sources. {{Tq|You are aware that the current decisions of yours lead to an article that creates a fake-reality.}} I do not agree with your premise there, but I'm not going to be drawn into a debate on it because that is not the purpose of this talk page (or Misplaced Pages in general). ] (]) 20:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::By leaving the article online as is, you're making yourself part of the debate. Again, you support that one side of the situation is completely unheard, creating a fake-reality in which SBI is the victim and its critics are labeled "harassers" and worse. Assuming good faith, you appear to be someone who cares about Misplaced Pages and I can respect that. But then I don't understand why you allow misinformation to be spread on here. You don't want to be a part of this whole situation? Then unpublish the entire article and wait until reliable sources that cover all sides appear. That would be a mature, responsible stance. ] (]) 20:57, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::{{Tq|why you allow misinformation to be spread on here.}}. ], ], and ] are the only mechanisms we have to prevent the spread of misinformation, and they are being followed carefully here. Since we are now repeating ourselves, I do not plan to respond to this thread any further. Feel free to take the last word if you require it. ] (]) 21:04, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::I do require it, because you have shown no consideration for the big problem at hand. At this point, I have no choice but to assume you support the side defending SBI. Otherwise as a responsible editor, you'd remove the entire article in light of no succint sourcing existing. Disappointing. ] (]) 21:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::Pretty insane that real-time events on social media unfolding are completely ignored as these editors refuse to reexamine the journalistic integrity of these sources. Sources that have been caught time and time again fabricating stories and omitting important context. While I don't think it's useful to get into a pissing argument with the editors, I do agree this article should be taken down for objectivity's sake. I think wikipedia's biggest problem is the overreliance on sources that tend to staff problematic writers. ] (]) 21:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::"I care about sources" I've looked into the Wikipedias "Reliable Sources" list And Kotaku is a situational one and Kotaku very article(about SBI) is very opinionated. Kotaku shouldn't be used here as a source because of this. Something that other user said: "I just checked this. 6 of the 10 sources in the "Online backlash and harassment" Section, All refer back to the Kotaku Article. (Kotaku is the 11th) Eurogamer, MediaMatters, Mary Sue, GameDeveloper, TheGuardian and Aftermath, all uses the Kotaku article as a source for what they are saying. ] (]) 02:03, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::There are admins watching this page and more than one who are active on it. So, by all means, reach out as you see fit. ] (]) 20:07, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::Can you link me to an admin's talk page then? I'd like to reach out. Thx. ] (]) 20:13, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::Have at it here! Cheers. ] (]) 20:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::You said aminds are watching this page, so I thought you could link me to someone who's been watching, not give me a list of all of Misplaced Pages's admins ... ] (]) 20:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::] is probably the most familiar with the video game milieu. ] (]) 20:21, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:Second this. The articles cited in this page are not only lying by ommission, but have largely been debunked by the greater community and/or community noted with evidence that contradicts their very claims. It's ridiculous that this page has been locked for a year as it's rife with misinformation about both the organization and the community. ] (]) 19:59, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::] is good reading to explain Misplaced Pages's position on this. Flat earthers have all sorts of social media posts that 'debunk' NASA, and we don't use those either - we must stick with reputable publishers, otherwise we have no means of quality control at all. ] (]) 20:00, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::We are comparing a largely debunked flat earth theory that has been established as psuedoscience for hundreds of years to real-time false reporting of a company's practices into harassment and lying by omission. I completely understand the need for quality control but when the control is not of "quality", then it defeats the entire point of it. These sources lied, simple as that. ] (]) 20:07, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::{{Tq|These sources lied, simple as that.}} That's exactly what they say about NASA. Whom are we to believe? We'll update the article if other reliable sources show up to contradict what we have. ] (]) 20:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::comparing Flat Earthers to false-real time reporting is a false dichotomy. ] (]) 20:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::And yet if we followed the sourcing standards you would have us use, ] would be a very different article. ] (]) 20:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::this is hardly the gotcha you think it is, but I concede since we refuse to be nuanced. ] (]) 21:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Instead, if we had an article about a pro-flat-earth consulting firm which covers a section about a niche issue, such as a boycott, and a few writers in reliable sources would write a distorted narrative about said niche issue, the article would just repeat the distorted narrative of these "reliable" sources. What a lovely situation for Misplaced Pages's integrity. ] (]) 10:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::You're using literal ] as a defense here. Dressing up the entire discussion as "he said/she said" while hiding behind "sources", but can't extend that impartiality to "the other side" when it actually matters (which is all the time).
:::::This is a complete lack of ethics and integrity, much less a logical argument. ] (]) 22:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::Using an analogy to point out that Misplaced Pages has the policies it has for good reason is not 'whataboutism'. ] (]) 23:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:It's sadly a massive flaw with Misplaced Pages's policy's itself, if primary sources state facts, but a secondary source that is "Reliable" (Even if demonstrably and repeatedly proven false via primary sources) reports on something, by policy, the factually incorrect article is to be treated as undeniably true regardless of primary facts. It's a massive appeal to authority fallacy.
:Of course such a discussion is better held elsewhere because it'd require an entire sitewide policy rework, ''However for hot and opinionated topics that ends up with more than one side vying for information real estate'' I'd argue it'd be a necessary policy change to maintain the spirit of Neutral Point of View. It's far easier to present primary facts that are archived and observable than trying to fight between opinion and hit pieces that happen to come from sources that at one time achieved Reliable Source status.
:As the policy stands, and with actors that are determined to "Win" more than present a highly factual article that allows the reader to be highly informed with citations that can be observed and allow the reader to come to a conclusion with neutral language.
:Just see how this particular commented into accusations of Flat Earth'ing when such a notion is defeated by demonstrable fact. If NASA were the only source reporting on the Earth with pictures and tests you could observe and repeat yourself, but a Reliable Source author went rogue and started saying that the Earth is flat and NASA conducted a harassment campaign against them, WP would have to side with the reliable source over the primary source with citations and evidence that can be observed. ] (]) 23:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:
:*Lots of people on social media and the like believe they've debunked all sorts of things. Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong; but Misplaced Pages isn't the place to publish that sort of ]. We cover things the way reliable sources do, which means that if someone has a novel theory of some event that they think disproves the mainstream conclusions, they need to get it published somewhere ] first. We can't include (and can't even ]) something just because some discord channel or subreddit or the like believes it to be true. --] (])
:Regarding {{tq|Of course such a discussion is better held elsewhere because it'd require an entire sitewide policy rework,}} -- {{ping|Katacles}}, or anyone else who would wants to pursue that discussion, that place would be at ], while the place to address the long-term reliability of a specific source would be at ]. ]] <small><sup>Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!</sup></small> 00:07, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::Hey, thanks for linking me to the Reliable Sources page, I never gave it the proper look at that it deserved, often just glossing over and looking at what is counted as a Reliable Source.
::I've noticed it says that a Reliable Source ''Isn't always reliable or unreliable'' and that context matters, and I feel that everyone on this talk page would benefit from observing these guidelines on this topic, especially in regards to ''Verifiable and Well-sourced material'' which I feel a few of these articles simply do not meet the scrutiny we should have for such a volatile topic.
::Thank you, I'm going to posit an argument elsewhere in hope of finding neutrality and keeping this site at a high quality. ] (]) 02:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


== "The group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct." == == "The group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct." ==
Line 435: Line 227:
:::I absolutely do not think that that is enough (and I think that this is a clear-cut BLP issue; Gry Online may be usable for videogame trivia, but looking over it, I think that it is bluntly clear that it is not sufficient for something highly BLP-sensitive like this.) Even without a name, it is obvious that the individual written here is a potential target, meaning the risk of harm to their reputation is ''extremely high''; higher-quality sources are necessary. If you absolutely think Gry Online is sufficiently high quality for this we can take it to ], but please don't restore it here with just that source alone. I hold by my previous statement that still we don't have enough sourcing to mention this aspect ''at all'' and have to approach it carefully, but in this aspect in particular we would need better sourcing than one line from a single source that is only VGRS. --] (]) 09:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC) :::I absolutely do not think that that is enough (and I think that this is a clear-cut BLP issue; Gry Online may be usable for videogame trivia, but looking over it, I think that it is bluntly clear that it is not sufficient for something highly BLP-sensitive like this.) Even without a name, it is obvious that the individual written here is a potential target, meaning the risk of harm to their reputation is ''extremely high''; higher-quality sources are necessary. If you absolutely think Gry Online is sufficiently high quality for this we can take it to ], but please don't restore it here with just that source alone. I hold by my previous statement that still we don't have enough sourcing to mention this aspect ''at all'' and have to approach it carefully, but in this aspect in particular we would need better sourcing than one line from a single source that is only VGRS. --] (]) 09:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::Yes, I was clear above that while these element should be so thing we should strive to include as neutral facets of the issue, we need RSes to explicitly say that before we can include. I agree with the questionable nature of that Gry source. ] (]) 14:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC) ::::Yes, I was clear above that while these element should be so thing we should strive to include as neutral facets of the issue, we need RSes to explicitly say that before we can include. I agree with the questionable nature of that Gry source. ] (]) 14:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

== The Alyssa Mercante article should not be used as a source ==

Mercante has demonstrated via her and that she is not a neutral reporter of the facts, and thus her reporting should not be seen as a non-biased source of factual information. ] (]) 22:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:Being nice to involved parties on social media does not make a journalist unreliable. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 22:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::You're absolutely right. {{RBLPV}}, however, make you a terrible journalist, which is exactly what she did. ] (]) 23:32, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::No, but certainly does. ] (]) 23:40, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::This is a great example of why we don't use social media posts as sources - what the folks pointing at them say they mean is seldom found in the plain text of the post at issue. Also, by that standard reporters couldn't write about elections if they've ever voted. ] (]) 23:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
::::you are completely missing the point. It isn't about using these social media posts as sources for said article, it's the fact this article was sourced from bad-faith journalists whose behavior is well documented and contrary to their reporting. This wikipedia page shouldn't even exist with how awful these sources have proved themselves to be. ] (]) 23:50, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::Agreed. Everything about the controversy should be purged until a full picture is allowed to emerge. Otherwise, the fact that the very people that Misplaced Pages allows as "sources" are those comprising one side of the debate will in turn result in those people getting to shape the entire narrative surrounding this issue. ] (]) 00:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::The issue you are failing to see is that one side of this debate consists of journalists and those consumers that agree with them, while the other side consists *entirely* of consumers. Thus, by only allowing journalists to be used as sources, you are only allowing one side of the issue to be told. ] (]) 00:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::And if her tweet isn't expressly an admission that she is explicitly siding against the creator of the Steam curator group, then i am a fish. ] (]) 00:16, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::This is absolutely right, the journalists considered "reliable sources" here would stand entirely on one side on ideological and social circle grounds. While the sources that have been provided previously that speak out against SBI and Kotaku and their ilk have been dismissed unfairly as "opinions" or "blogs". CNN isn't going to stand with the steam curator who was harassed. That said the spj.org has a pretty neat that is completely ignored by Kotaku... Lies of omission and lack of transparency abound. Especially on point like this "Respond quickly to questions about accuracy, clarity and fairness" come up and Alyssa either stays silent {{RBLPV}} to anyone asking why she didnt cover Chris Kindred's tweets. ] (]) 03:57, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::That's because the sources are largely just opinions and blogs considered to be unreliable. IS that an unreasonable standard to have? ] (]) 04:22, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::It is when its more researched than anything Alyssa wrote. With more proof than "we talked to SBI and they said they were harassed" and if something like is an "opinion" at least the proof they do have up prove how much Alyssa... decided to omit. And you're not going to count that as a source I hope that at least it shows how Alyssa is unreliable. ] (]) 04:45, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::No, it does not. In any case, there's more to a reference than just the opinions of its author. <span class="nowrap">– ] ] <small>(])</small></span> 00:13, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::It matters when journalists comprise one entire side of the issue in question. What you are doing is basically the equivalent of only allowing US government sources in an article about the Cold War, or only allowing Israeli sources in an article about the current Israel-Hamas war. ] (]) 00:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::If we cared about ], that would be a good argument! But we don't. We're not concerned about which side sources come from, only that they are published in a reliable fashion. ] (]) 00:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::I believe that it's very much fair to call into question the article as being ''Verifiable and Well-Cited'' as per the ] page, in which it states that Accepted reliable sources are ''Not'' to be considered infallible, and that they require being verifiable and well-cited, in which, the article is demonstrably neither, with plenty of evidence to the contrary, and should not be present within this article despite being a "Reliable Source". It's effectively a first hand account of a journalist who is emotionally and financially invested in the argument curating a piece to defend their interests, rather than take an objective, verifiable, and well-cited approach to the situation.
::::::While the source is allowed to be biased, as per the rule, so long as it's presented on WP through a Neutral Point of View, the qualification to be a Reliable Source for citation, is not being met. I understand as editors it's not our place to do our own research or contest facts, but simply asking for an article to be verifiable and well cited is the very premise that, in another section of this talk page, "Keeps the Flat Earthers from running the show.", and as it currently is, the article is effectively of such quality and only serves to muddy the waters than to present a factual, neutral and objectively well cited and verifiable article for WP to cite.
::::::Thus, I argue it's an unreliable source by the standards set up by the Reliable Sources page. ] (]) 02:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::So, you claim the reporter is emotionally and financially invested; what's to stop me from making the same claim about you? ] (]) 02:17, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I'm not the one writing articles being cited nor am I personally involved in this event, I'm not a first party source. If I were it'd be self reporting and that'd also violate the WP standards. ] (]) 02:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::You are quite correct in all of that; but my point is about '']'' accusations. If we can discount a source on editor say-so, we can certainly discount an editor based on editor say-so, no? ] (]) 02:26, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Personal involvement as a primary source is stated as grounds for extra scrutiny in citation, even if not outright "Bad", however a secondary source can still observe the primary source and report upon it, and is generally preferred (Although is not inherently reliable).
::::::::::Unlike a primary source stemming from a think tank who received money to conduct a study, and published their results in a scientific manner that can be observed, and hopefully repeated, a primary source on the topic of current events based around the concept of harassment, is a much murkier and harder to cite in good conscience given personal involvement. I'd cite outside reasons for this as well, but ] prevents pointing at a directly sourced timeline of events without opinion, which is fine to a degree, but often hinders scrutinizing primary sources involving individuals being talked about. ] (]) 02:54, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::I don't really disagree with that. Cheers. ] (]) 03:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Thanks, I do apologize for my loaded language and carelessness with accusations, it muddied my intent and citation and I've learned a lesson here. ] (]) 03:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::You have misunderstood. The Misplaced Pages article must be verifiable and well cited. We do not require our sources themselves to cite every claim, disclose all their sources, or otherwise 'show their work'. If we did, we couldn't cite a scientific journal that reported on experimentation or a mathematics journal that gave an original proof. ] (]) 02:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::According to the FAQ on ] it refers to the "Reliable source", not the article, as requiring being verifiable and well-cited. "Verifiable", as far as I understand on Misplaced Pages, means published by a "Reliable Source", however in the same FAQ it states that no source is always reliable, and I quote
::::::::''"The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual."''
::::::::I understand and respect the policy on biased articles, however given the first party involvement of the author, and the lack of being a well-cited article, I simply believe that although it's often a "Reliable Source", in this case, should not be used. If Kotaku writes another article with better citation, and a third party as author, then I'd find it less contentious and conflicting with WP standards.
::::::::While it's not up to us to seek "Truth", ] the example given is that of a courtroom with admitted evidence, it's not up to the "Jury" to play investigator and smuggle in evidence, but some level of scrutiny should still exist and primary sources involved in a contentious topic should be scrutinized more so, see ] in which primary sources are not inherently bad, but are cautioned against.
::::::::All in all, I think it's reckless to accept a primary source from an involved individual on a hot topic that is quickly a cultural and political debate, without invoking ] against myself for citing personal statements and observed timelines and interactions with the events that took place. I'm not denying the source from publishing on the event, I am saying that this particular primary source is notably unreliable due to personally being a major part of the topic at hand. I'd also contest Fox News reporting on the treatment of one of their own Anchors and a benefactor, and would prefer a secondary source, and unlike a published research paper by a think tank that was based on a left or right ideal but came to a conclusion that can be observed and repeated and cited by secondary sources. ] (]) 02:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I'm telling you, you are misreading. Those statements are about the content of Misplaced Pages articles, not sources. ] (]) 02:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I'm willing to concede the verifiability part of the argument to mean what WP states as ], but the part of the FAQ that explicitly states
::::::::::'''Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?'''
::::::::::''No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual.''
::::::::::Requires a serious rewrite if that's not telling editors to have scrutiny over an article based on basic standards (In contrast to original research and "I feel" or "I know") that should be upheld even by WP editors. Pair that with the page on primary sources stating reasons to have scrutiny. Obviously if it's a sitewide policy issue, the argument should be taken elsewhere (I have been pointed to the appropriate page for it), but as it reads and within the spirit of editing, it appears it should be applying some level of acceptability from cited sources beyond merely that it's published on the right site. When dubious sources like Media Matters gets the go ahead, it makes me wonder where the line is for acceptability when "Mixed" sources are approved or disapproved, rather than blanket accepted/disapproved. ] (]) 03:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::There are lots of factors, but a lot of that 'context' is about what is being cited. We wouldn't cite NBC for detailed medical information, but they're perfectly fine for current events or politics. Kotaku is a gaming site, this context is where they are most reliable. If you find them being cited for astrophysics or something, we can talk. ] (]) 03:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::While it's gaming adjacent, the article in question is a primary source talking about social harassment they're personally involved in. As a primary source, the "Context" becomes much more worth scrutiny. If they were the secondary source reporting on harassment at an E-sport tournament, there'd be less reason to scrutinize as it'd be within video gaming solely and be a secondary, uninvolved source observing and reporting.
::::::::::::Without invoking ] I think that it's well within grounds of editors to scrutinize on the grounds of it being an involved, primary source on a social topic that is hotly contested. Especially when sources of mixed reliability without specialization on the topic are being given the green light in the same article, while other mixed reliability with specialization are being denied, citations end up being at the whim of the editor more so than any core principle or standard and appears to be curation, over semblance of reliability. ] (]) 03:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::A primary source would be the social media posts Kotaku was writing about. Kotaku is a secondary source. ] (]) 03:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::Why are you even including the Gamestar.de-article as a source? I'm from Germany myself, the GameStar-article adds zero new content, it's just a German version of the Kotaku-article, and just as one-sided. On top of that, it includes an ad authority-paragraph citing the "Amadeu Antonio Stiftung", which has long come under criticism ( https://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/plus243877223/Amadeu-Antonio-Stiftung-Denunzieren-und-zersetzen-alles-zum-Wohle-der-Gesellschaft.html ).
::::::::::::::Just because you cite the same content from websites in different languages doesn't add to the validity of the accusations.
::::::::::::::Note that neither Gamestar nor Kotaku mention the primary sources for the criticism against SBI. ] (]) 03:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::Secondary sources are not required to cite primary sources. I have no idea what the "ad authority-paragraph" has to do with anything, but you have a problem with Gamestar being use as a RS generally, I suggest you take that to ] and better explain the reason. As for the claim the GameStar is simply a translation of the Kotaku article, that would indeed mean it shouldn't be used as an additional source. But I'd like to hear this from some other editor first. Note that there is a big difference between a simple translation, and a re-report based on another source. Also if the GameStar article is indeed simply a translation then while we shouldn't use the the reliability of GameStar is largely irrelevant so I'm not sure why you bring it up. ] (]) 10:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Not only does it not create new points, just re-reporting what Kotaku did in German; it's also a terribly biased article in general, painting the critics of SBI as rightwing as a "hate group":
::::::::::::::::"Diese Gruppen bedienen sich meistens rechten bis rechtsextremen Narrativen und schrecken nicht vor Drohungen gegen bestimmte Personen oder Studios zurück."
::::::::::::::::"Sweet Baby Inc ist aktuell das Ziel einer weitreichenden Hass-Kampagne, die an die GamerGate-Bewegung erinnert"
::::::::::::::::And at the end of the article, SBI staff Chris Kindred is entirely being absolved from the harassment HE committed against the critics of SBI, saying "he put his profile to private to escape the hate". "Hate" being nothing but valid criticism here.
::::::::::::::::It's disappointing that Misplaced Pages would use such low-quality articles as a source. Gamestar even published the article anonymously, without naming its author. ] (]) 14:00, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Fact is, proof that 'shows her work' exists and it doesnt paint Alyssa as a reliable, ethical journalist. Logs of her talking to her 'source' when she 'infiltrated' the discord. Was informed of the Chris Kindred tweets and decided to just not talk about it on her totally 'reliable' smear campaign and Puff-piece... But those, just like sources that go against the allowed vitriol are probably not good enough to disqualify what is essentially an advertorial for Sweet Baby. ] (]) 04:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::That page literally starts off by says that "it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic." This topic has two significant viewpoints, and one is not being accounted for. ] (]) 12:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It {{Tq|literally starts off}} with {{Tq|While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Misplaced Pages policy does not state or imply that every minority view, fringe theory, or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity.}}. Don't cherry pick quotes, please. ] (]) 14:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I wouldn't call it a minority view, fringe theory, or extraordinary claim to have the second half of a dispute cited.
::::::::If a citation starts to talk about the lizard people in governments funding them, then it'd be fringe and a view held by the minority. The articles that have been denied have, to some degree, demonstrated integrity in documenting primary sources, timelines, and reporting on the situation factually as observed, and a source of mixed reliability, that demonstrates specialty in the field it's talking about, and demonstrates a well cited and factually based article with documentation, should be accepted for the sake of creating a full, well-cited article.
::::::::When there's two sides involved, we're looking at the two majority sides, we're not trying to determine who's right or wrong based on original research, we're taking published articles on a subject, contextually identifying specialty on the topic (Should this source be discussing this topic?), and then consider if the article itself otherwise raises objections based on integrity, rather than if it falls on one of two sides. ] (]) 09:02, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::The thing is, one side of this issue is represented more in fringe sites, personal blogs, and sources considered unreliable like Breitbart and Game8. No matter how much you think they've done their due diligence in terms of journalistic integrity, coming from those sorts of places is a nonstarter here. ] (]) 09:34, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::On the FAQ on Reliable/Unreliable sources, it states to seek context when citing a source for it's reliability. Shutting out an entire half of a discussion while citing a primary source personally involved in the topic, but flatly refusing any of the opposing half of the conversation, feels far more like curation over proper scrutiny. ] (]) 10:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Misplaced Pages does not compromise on sourcing standards to get to ]. ] (]) 12:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::The majorities and minorities are evaluated in terms of representation in the reliable sources, not number of postings on social media or opinion polling. Something like 1/4 of the population still believes vaccines cause autism, but we don't give that view any space in medical articles. ] (]) 12:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Comparing obscure ] theories without any factual basis to events that many witnessed with their own eyes and can be fact-checked in a matter of minutes is a stretch.
::::::::::* Vaccine fairy tails are not supported by a majority of scientists and are based on ] if anything at all. "Something like 1/4 of the population still believes" in those.
::::::::::* Kotaku's version of events is not supported by a majority of gamers and is based on ] ] ] if anything at all. "Something like 5,6/100 of the population* still believes" in it.**
::::::::::<nowiki>*</nowiki> - this number will be somewhat a lot lower within the gaming community.
::::::::::<nowiki>**</nowiki> - at this point enough journalists have covered it from both sides. The timing of Kotaku's article can only prove lack of research compared to other neutral and non-neutral sources which covered this situation at later points in time. Gaming is not an exact science, majority of gamers are by definition experts in gaming - their opinion defines the whole field (in relation to assessment of recently released games) and statements by Sweet Baby Inc. employees suggest that gamers are correct.
::::::::::--] (]) 14:17, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::If Misplaced Pages were based on polling ({{Tq|a majority of gamers}} - and if you could actually support that) you'd have a great argument! But as I just said, that is not how Misplaced Pages works. ] (]) 14:22, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Good point. Much thanks. I'll think of a way to fix lack of data first thing when I wake up, have a good one :) --] (]) 14:36, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::We honestly don't care what "{{tq|a majority of gamers}}" think, to be quite honest. Plus, I'm willing to bet that the majority of gamers ''aren't even aware of this matter''. The people who care about it are a small, loud group who've bought into a conspiracy theory. — <b>]:<sup>]</sup></b> 20:28, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::Dismissing an entire half of a contested argument as a "Small, loud group who've bought into a conspiracy theory" is not in the interest of anything with a semblance of trying to create a well cited article. Effectively the biggest barrier here is the ] rule which refutes the reliable source reporting, although I understand the rule, we're currently discussing a topic where journalists are in a fight and reporting from their sources against people without access to such outlets, creating an infuriating position for Misplaced Pages.
::::::::::::It's fine to be biased and to have an opinion but to flatly dismiss the entirety of one half as conspiracy theorists is a level of bias I think should be purged off of editing Misplaced Pages, and it's not like Vaccines or flat earth which is a false equivalence and an attempted guilt by association, since this is a social event between people having a conflict, and not people misinterpreting data and fabricating data, there's primary sources that can be observed, traced, catalogued, compiled and put into a nice timeline that's objectively true and can be referenced, however it either constitutes original research (Not allowed) or it is posted on sources considered mixed or unreliable, even if I feel the way reliability is judged can be affected by bias where people seek "Truth" despite that not being the point of Misplaced Pages, as per ], resulting in the frustrated mess that is this talk page. ] (]) 04:37, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I wouldn't compare this controversy to vaccines or flat earth myself, but it is seen (by both sides here) in the same vein as ] and is being judged as such. As said before, this is a ]. ] (]) 04:46, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::This is very simple. Misplaced Pages has had a definition of reliable sources and how they are to be used for roughly two decades. Maybe you think that's terrible, and it's fine if you do! There are other places to disseminate one's views and ways in which the reliable sources might be affected, and through them Misplaced Pages. But for the time being, the ] of "the journalists are totally wrong here, you have to take my word for it" is just not all that persuasive. Cheers. ] (]) 04:48, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::In regard to sources being seen as unreliable, I'd encourage anyone to discuss it and try to get any relevant sources approved or unapproved in the ].
:::::::::::::I do think there can be bias . Gaming media does tend to lean one way politically, outlets may hire likeminded people, and press likely have to keep a good relationship with the gaming industry for access. On top of that, I've seen some Misplaced Pages editors dismiss sources as unreliable using the writer's inflammatory opinion on issues as rationale or use dubious tactics such as saying certain facts presented are incorrect, despite a lack of evidence and other sources agreeing.
:::::::::::::That said, it's somewhat like the quote about democracy being the best of a number of terrible systems. In most cases, it works fine and it prevents the difficulties around editors not being able to verify primary sources (which a reliable secondary source should be able to) and other issues around this. ] (]) 08:38, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::Not in medical articles, but the theory itself ] (despite having no basis in fact). ] (]) 15:27, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::The point being that even that article does not present both 'sides' of the argument as possibilities, because that is not what the reliable sources do. ] (]) 15:29, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:Sources are not required to be neutral or unbiased; see ]. Otherwise, anyone could dismiss any source simply by disagreeing with its conclusions - someone could say "show me one source that says X"; and, when presented with a source that says X, they could just say "ah, but that's written by someone who believes X, therefore they're biased." --] (]) 01:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)


== The harassment campaign started on 4chan, not Kiwi Farms. == == The harassment campaign started on 4chan, not Kiwi Farms. ==
Line 536: Line 247:
:::::That's ] territory to say if it's being accurate or not, or if it's getting everything relevant or not. Kotaku has very often had opinion articles touted as news and very often gotten things wrong with little retraction policy, but, that's not the point I'm making here, some of the sources that people have been trying to add to this page have been marked unreliable 10 years ago, but have since then improved their standards to be compliant with what constitutes a "Reliable Source" by Misplaced Pages standards, and have demonstrated editorial integrity by retracting incorrect information and issuing corrections, in which, the discussion to reevaluate it should be open, but people don't know where to debate it, and instead fight it out on Talk pages like this. ] (]) 07:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC) :::::That's ] territory to say if it's being accurate or not, or if it's getting everything relevant or not. Kotaku has very often had opinion articles touted as news and very often gotten things wrong with little retraction policy, but, that's not the point I'm making here, some of the sources that people have been trying to add to this page have been marked unreliable 10 years ago, but have since then improved their standards to be compliant with what constitutes a "Reliable Source" by Misplaced Pages standards, and have demonstrated editorial integrity by retracting incorrect information and issuing corrections, in which, the discussion to reevaluate it should be open, but people don't know where to debate it, and instead fight it out on Talk pages like this. ] (]) 07:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::Does ] not already cover what you're alluding to when it comes to debating the reliability of sources? I don't know any example of a once-unreliable source being reevaluated as reliable, though I could be wrong of course. What are these sources you're alluding to anyway? ] (]) 08:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC) ::::::Does ] not already cover what you're alluding to when it comes to debating the reliability of sources? I don't know any example of a once-unreliable source being reevaluated as reliable, though I could be wrong of course. What are these sources you're alluding to anyway? ] (]) 08:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

== NPOV - yet again. ==

First off - this article and the way it is written damages the reputation wikipedia has.

# I know we have to find sources, but the sources used are, whilest deemed reliable, one sided and, frankly, not 'reliable'. In any other circumstance we would have the use of {{template|cite tweet}}. While Social media is volatile in it's core, there are more than a good share of tweets out there that are qouteable.
# It is, as we can clearly see an ongoing event, so why is there no pointer to that? Just push it under the rug and hope the internet forgets?

Anyhow, let us begin.
In the Introduction:
In 2023, the studio became the target of online users who claimed it promoted a "woke agenda".
sources? Who claimed that and, where? if you say Twitter, then why isn't it sourced? (as per the above)

The Sentence, to at least be somewhat NPOV should either be
In 2023, the studio came under criticism because online users claimed it promoted a "woke agenda"
and attach that Kotaku source, if you want, but i'd even remove that entirely because it in itself is not neutral in its point of view.

-- ] (]) 03:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:You've been here long enough that you should understand how reliable sources are used. "Cite tweet"'s use for primary sources, since that's what all tweets would be, is almost exclusively for the biographical subject of articles and basic biographical information. Such as someone's birthday. We would not use tweets for anything connected to any controversial subject matter, especially when it involves ].

:No idea what your second point is. We cover current events all the time and there's more than enough secondary coverage on this subject.

:As you should be aware of by now, the ] of an article is a general, shortened summary of the content of the article. In most cases, you don't use references in it, because the references are in the expanded upon sections in the article body proper.

:A reference is not non-neutral just because you dislike the subject matter it is covering. Furthermore, we are perfectly allowed to use non-neutral sources anyways, as neutrality has nothing to do with our reliable sources policy. We use plenty of known biased political news organizations, for example. ]]<sup>]</sup> 03:25, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
::So, we have a section of an article that is based in/on social media. And said Social Media is denied as Sources. Lovely.
::Second Point is different from my home wiki, but apparently, enWP does it this way. But my point of NPOV of the sentence still stands.
::I never said that we are not allowed to use non neutral sources. I said that it's one sided and thus the other side should be evaluated, too. But because the 'other side' is not a 'reliable' source (Social Media) you can't source it. Hence this counts as NPOV from the get go. ] (]) 04:06, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
:::The reason we don't use social media directly is that it requires interpretation and other aspects of ] to explain the importance or relevance of the messages, which we can't do. We rely on reliable sources that are known for fact checking and editorial oversight to identify which of those social media messages are most significant and how they apply to the topic, so that we can summarize a topic within the scope of WP:N without engaging in original research , hence why we say "verifiability, not truth". ] (]) 04:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


== Odd wording == == Odd wording ==

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NPOV is a fundamental principle of Misplaced Pages

Everyone editing this article back and forth should please have a refresher on Neutral Point of View. Pay particular attention to the following:

  • Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Misplaced Pages's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that genocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil.

I'll thank you for stopping inserting "falsely" and "correctly" in places where they do not belong. Sanzennin (talk) 12:48, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

That the theory is false is a fact, and is sourced as such (though I've removed it from the lead anyway). The word "correctly" is not used in this article. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 12:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
No. The fact is that Kotaku writer Alyssa Mercante characterized it as false. Alyssa Mercante is not, however, the ultimate decider of truth, and as such you can't claim everything she says is a fact. Sanzennin (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with Mercante's opinion or characterisation; it is objectively how the company operates. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
According to whom? Whoever the source is, just write that "So-and-so has stated this is not how the company operates."
This is precisely the same as in the example provided in the NPOV article:
For example, an article should not state that genocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil. Sanzennin (talk) 13:26, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
According to anyone familiar with how consulting firms actually operate. In-text attribution is not required for simple facts. Regardless, I don't see this as an issue in the article's current state. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
"Consulting firms exist" is a simple fact. What consulting firms would and wouldn't do really isn't.
In any case, I do agree that the article is looking pretty good right now in regards to neutrality. Thank you for talking this through civilly and amicably. Sanzennin (talk) 14:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
You don't see a problem with citogenisis in action, using unreliable sources? I mean come on. Many of the articles being used as "sources" on the claims are coming from the very organizations that (BLP violation removed). 2607:F2C0:EEC6:2B:6DC0:DAFC:4D0C:545C (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
That's plain bullcrap. How can you be sure, just because the sources are in support of the company? Carlinal (talk) 15:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
One CAN'T be sure, either way. That's why the neutral language is required here. The issue of whether SBI is doing only what normal consulting firms do, or engages in dishonest practices (like "terrify these people into giving you what you want" as in the circulated clip of SBI CEO) lies at the heart of the entire conflict. Automatically assuming SBI does just what consulting firms do is exactly, strictly siding with one side of the conflict and directly rejecting evidence the other side offers. Sharpfang (talk) 11:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Your comments here alone are cause for you to be removed as an editor on this topic. Unless you work for SBI (in which case you *definitely* should not be editing this article), the fact that you claim to possess objective knowledge about how the company operates and therefore should be exempt from the NPOV principle demonstrates that you are not neutral on this matter. Android927 (talk) 00:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
If you wish to discuss my conduct, the best place is my talk page or WP:ANI. If you believe I have a conflict of interest, the best place is WP:COIN. Thanks. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
If you want to stay neutral here, it might be beneficial to mention tweets of SBI employees regarding non-existence of white racism and other (BLP violation removed) statements too, just as a fact - people working in posted commenting on this topic. Covering SBI co-founders methods of (BLP violation removed) might also provide a good perspective on situation. In general, the article still feels pretty one-sided. Moon darker (talk) 01:45, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
If reliable sources discuss it in relation to the company and its work, then it might be suitable to add. Tweets from employees are generally not notable on their own. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 02:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
Tweets of employees and CEOs are not enough, but then you're using biased, immensely one-sided articles at face value to paint SBI as the victim, as well as individual shitposts from singular people as evidence that the critics are <insert bad word>?
I will be open here: I'm a member of the Steam group and all it does is list games with SBI's involvement. Without any judgement on the Steam page. As for WHY people join, it's to oppose "forced" diversity. This is in contrast to "natural" diversity. So the people criticizing SBI are not against diversity per se, as you and your source articles claim, but is only against the amateurish inclusion of ideology in video games and other media, resulting in worse games and movies. A popular example is an npc that you meet right after leaving the space ship in the beginning of Mass Effect Andromeda and the first thing this character tells you, a total stranger, "btw I'm trans". This is "forced" diversity. It adds nothing, it only makes the game feel less immersive, like someone put that in just to force it down people's throats. An example of "natural" diversity would be Olivier from "Trails in the Sky", who is bisexual and constantly hits on both female and male characters, but it never feels forced, because it's befitting his character as an easy-going, charming bard.
So again, we are FOR diversity, but against forced diversity based on ideology. And nothing about the group has to do with alright, racism, bigotry or any of the terrible claims you make. Yes, there's a lot of unhinged idiots flinging around insults, too, but that's what happens when one side basically controls the entire industry and for years has pushed big game publishers to abide by their "consultation".
You can now either update the SBI entry to make clear that there is no harassment against the company going on, that it's a wider anti-DEI movement with "anti-forced diversity" at its core, or I guess you can continue to publish a factually untrue article on Misplaced Pages, damaging the entire website's reputation. And, of course, not mentioning any of the terrible things SBI employees and CEOs have said, which triggered the whole thing to begin with. Please be better, Misplaced Pages. 2003:D8:8F3C:E000:B8F6:2724:3492:FC17 (talk) 19:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
If you're this upset about bad writing, there's plenty of outrage waiting for you in the wider world. I appreciate your offer to make an exception to Misplaced Pages's policies and five pillars, but I, for one, will pass. Have a nice day. Dumuzid (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Unfortunately Misplaced Pages's policy on (https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:No_original_research) means in conflicts of Journalists vs Public, Misplaced Pages will be completely biased towards journalists, as their side's articles are secondary sources (accepted) while public's evidence to the contrary is primary sources (rejected). That's the unfortunate state of affairs, and only by finding secondary sources (press articles) to the contrary the bias can be reversed. Sharpfang (talk) 11:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Thatdarkplace.com
Theshortcut.com
Breitbart.com
Retro-replay.com
Game8.co
Do any of these work?? All of them mentioned how SBI employee started a mass report campaign against the curator group and the personal steam page of the curator groups creator. Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 14:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Kaijyuu2016 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
No. TheDarkPlace is a personal website with no reputation; TheShortCut is a substack blog, again with no reputation. Breitbart has not only been affirmed as unreliable and deprecated in multiple WP:RFCs, it is on the spam blacklist (see WP:BREITBART) due to constant abuse, meaning it can't even be cited as a technical matter without a special exception. Retro-Replay and Game8 also look, at a glance, like blogs with no reputation. WP:RS is about having a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, as well as editorial controls and the like, so personal websites or blogs rarely qualify. Reliability is to an extent contextual, and unexceptional, uncontroversial statements with no implications for the reputations of living people can sometimes be cited to lower-quality sources; however, the things people want to add here using sources like these would likely run afoul of WP:BLP or WP:EXCEPTIONAL, which requires high-quality sourcing. Aside from Breitbart, whose unreliability is extremely well established, this is all just at a quick glance - if you think one of these actually does have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, you could bring it up at WP:RSN... but I doubt they'd be usable here. --Aquillion (talk) 21:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
You realize Kotakus Wikipage says Gaming Blog ErrgoProxy (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Not commenting on any other aspects, but I'd certainly disagree that "Game8 also look, at a glance, like blogs with no reputation". I can't say whether it's reliable (that would be a discussion of it's own in the appropriate place), but it's pretty big for walkthroughs/guides, often being one of the first results. It goes far beyond your regular blog. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Just following up, the reliability of Game8 was discussed here, but it doesn't seem it's been looked into beyond the name and tagline. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 15:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku's "unreliability is extremely well established," yet you do not seem to have any problems holding up its writings as objective descriptions of reality. 2600:1700:3902:880:8835:4F86:88F9:A16B (talk) 13:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
fully agree, this article is way too bias for WIKI Edits for Integrity (talk) 15:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC) — Edits for Integrity (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
WP:YESBIAS would be good reading for you. Misplaced Pages deliberately matches the 'bias' of the mainstream reliable sources. MrOllie (talk) 15:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i mean they are not neutrally reporting the sources, the gaming journos writing articles have no sources, WE hold the sources and they are being completely ignored. Edits for Integrity (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, neither you nor I are reliable sources. Misplaced Pages's entire ethos is organized representing what is found in reliable sources. I would respectfully suggest that you would be better off trying to get your point of view reflected in such sources rather than pushing against one of Misplaced Pages's foundational principles. Happy Monday, everyone! Dumuzid (talk) 16:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i'm not saying I am a reliable source, what I'm saying is that the actual reliable sources, like Chris Kindreds documented post calling for harassment against kabrutus, or @legobutts of Sweet Baby INC making racist post against whites and jews. How about we talk about how one of the sources "Alyssa the writer from Kotaku" stated on their X page when criticized for not covering the racist remarks by Sweet Baby INC now famously stated "You can't be racist to white people" this is her image on her page now. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i forgot to finish that thought. we are ignoring these sources? really? Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
To finish that thought, there is NO reliable sources that sweet baby inc was harassed, and if they are i can't access them because they are locked and that lacks integrity. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages's standards for sourcing can be found at WP:RS. We use secondary sources from commerical publishers, mostly. We cannot and will not use blogs, social media, or other self published materials in a situation like this one. Misplaced Pages absolutely will 'ignore' posts like that - except to the extent that secondary reliable sources comment on them. MrOllie (talk) 16:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
When quality of WP:RS content is questionable, which can be determined on a case-by-case basis, Misplaced Pages prefers NOT to include information from low quality sources. Moon darker (talk) 16:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
An accurate statement, but one that does not apply here. Low quality sources are things like the National Inquirer, not sources that editors happen to disagree with. MrOllie (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku is a generally unreliable source to begin with. You can't argue the lacking reliability in this particular case, judging by claims made by authors of the article, quoted multiple times on this talk page. There are questions regarding multiple other sources too. Moon darker (talk) 16:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That you declare Kotaku 'generally unreliable' does not make it so. MrOllie (talk) 16:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
well non of the articles are reliable, they are all puff pieces, and if your sources lack integrity, anyone echoing said sources also lack integrity, i'm talking sources of what people actually did, you can't get a more reliable source than that, and if you can ignore peoples real life actions and hold up these people that are socially engineering racism and hate, than apparently Wiki is part of the problem. You can't be a group that claims DEI when you are filled with sexist and racist. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Ok, then Misplaced Pages lacks integrity. "Echoing said sources" is what Misplaced Pages's policies require us to do, and we're not going to simply set those policies aside for this one article. MrOllie (talk) 16:34, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It does. Also, WP:5P5 Moon darker (talk) 16:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
No one here has listened to Larry Sanger for many years. He's taken up supporting nonsense like QAnon and antivax. MrOllie (talk) 16:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm all against antivax, but it doesn't matter here, because a person can have opinions on different things and one "wrong" opinion doesn't take away the credibility of other ones. Moon darker (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I think it matters when his problem is that Misplaced Pages won't let him add antivax views in the name of 'neutrality'. MrOllie (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i'm not anti-vax, what are you even going on about. your trying to demonize me and you know nothing about me. I am just trying to make sure things are covered truthfully. i don't even know who larry sanger is. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Unless you're Larry Sanger, nobody is talking about you. MrOllie (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
fair enough. i figured that was the case but it was in response to me. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Correct. Misplaced Pages does lack integrity. Idrawrobots (talk) 21:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Consider reading lists of WP:RSes before making claims like this. WikiProject Video games/Sources Moon darker (talk) 16:32, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, most of us are familiar with our source lists. Kotaku's reliability is situational, which means its to be evaluated by editors before its use. I'm perfectly happy with the reliability of the Kotaku article we use in our article. It's written by one of their senior editors, and the quality of it is actually pretty high. If all of their articles were as good as this one, we'd likely rate it higher on the reliability scale, alas they do put out some truly awful stuff as well. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes Moon darker, I have always considered Kotaku basically reliable for video game news (though there are certainly cautions, as Sideswipe9th mentions above). That said, it is entirely possible I missed something relevant. I have seen you say some version of this before; is there a specific page or reference to Kotaku that you're referencing? Dumuzid (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, Misplaced Pages values reliability of actual article authors over the platform the article is posted on. I shared my observations on article author, Alyssa Mercante, multiple times on this page. Moon darker (talk) 17:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Somewhat confusingly, reliability can take in both authors and the publications in which they appear. I am not sure whether you think Mercante or Kotaku in general should be deemed unreliable, but a good step toward either would be presenting your case at the reliable sources noticeboard for others' opinions. Right now it is just you--which is not nothing, but is not terribly compelling. If you can get a consensus on that board for your position, that would be far more persuasive. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It has been covered extensively here, thanks for your input. Moon darker (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I am not saying that it has not been; I am saying that you haven't achieved a consensus here. You might be able to if you were to go somewhere and focus upon that one discrete issue, but the choice is yours, of course. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
We can't use RSN right now due to an active DRN case. If I remember correctly, you were aware of that, and I hope that wasn't an attempt to throw me under WP:FORUMSHOP bus. If you didn't know about that or that wouldn't result in WP:FORUMSHOP, my apologies. Anyways, thanks for the suggestion, I think this stage will come naturally as a part of DRN case. Moon darker (talk) 17:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
To add, even if one considers Kotaku unreliable, more reliable sources like Euro gamer have taken up the Kotaku article that first covered this and expanded it on their own. We are well past questioning the reliability of sources discussing the concerns at play. — Masem (t) 17:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
This is a huge red flag about your affiliation, I suggest you to disengage immediately. You're openly supporting a person who said this and then doubled down. Moon darker (talk) 17:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't really care what she said on social media. She's entitled to her opinions, and those don't seem to have influenced her coverage on the backlash against Sweet Baby Inc in any way. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:07, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Those opinions ended up being posted only due to her coverage on the backlash against Sweet Baby Inc, thus I deem it nearly impossible that it didn't affect the tone or the writing of the article. Moon darker (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Again, I don't really care what she's said on social media. It does not appear to have influenced her coverage on this topic in any way. What you deem is irrelevant when high quality sources like Eurogamer, PC Gamer, and The Guardian have taken Kotaku's reporting at face value when writing their own articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
eurogamer and pc gamer both use kotaku as their source. the guardian does too but one ups it by making it all a political snuff piece against the alt-right. this isn't a political movement anyways. we are consumers. I myself have democratic values, which leads me to defend against all kinds of racism and sexist as a white person but I always hit a wall when its time to defend hetro-gendered white males. their is no reliable information in this stuff, no verified sources. yet the wiki is ignoring articles through bias merely because they are seen as "alt-right" when these are the articles that ARE posting verifiable sources. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Any time people band together for a cause, there are political implications. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That just puts an issue into a box, people are truly waking up. You cant just label things black and white, again I am not Republican. People have identities beyond the narrow minded point of view of politics. Sometimes things just are the way they are, and the left should be just as mad that a group that claims to be about diversity and inclusion would hold so much hate from within. You can't claim diversity and inclusion when coming from a place of hate and exclusion. we all need to show each other respect and hear each other out. Edits for Integrity (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Please see WP:NOTFORUM, this talk page isn't a place to debate the issue. MrOllie (talk) 18:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
that opinion was in a direct response to being asked why she did not cover the harassment and racism by Sweet Baby INC, it is directly related at least. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@Dumuzid Kotaku is not a reliable source. They have been caught lying in favor of their own POV numerous times now 176.199.10.17 (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That may be! But "reliable source" has a specific meaning on Misplaced Pages, and it is determined by consensus. That's why I suggest making a case at the applicable noticeboard. If things are as you say, it should be easy to get a consensus that Kotaku is not reliable. Until such a time, I think consensus continues to be that Kotaku is a marginally reliable, if not first-class source. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
With that said, the IP isn't exactly wrong that Kotaku isn't reliable (it's a situational source), but that's because they've been pushing AI-generated slop, not because of some woke agenda. LilianaUwU 19:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider comparing employees at Nintendo to the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service just because they blacklisted them "AI-generated slop". Mikey'Da'Man, Archangel (talk) 13:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Been pushing it. Doesn't instantly mean the Nintendo comparison is AI-generated. Carlinal (talk) 14:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. What's more is that they are an active party to the conflict and thus have a clear bias. I'd go so far as to say that Alyssa Mercante (the author of the article) is not a reliable source because she is one of those who claim to be harassed. Titor1000 (talk) 11:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Completely irrelevant, especially since harassment directed towards Mercante (wrt SBI) came after she wrote her article (not that being harassed makes an author unreliable anyway). – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 12:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
ok which one of you decided to site opinions instead of fact on the sources? noone doxxed them they have their real names and faces on their twitter bio's you cant dox someone who is doxxing themselves. at this point this article should be shutdown temporarily as it just cites opinions and dosent fact check the sources. Mymanjoe24 (talk) 11:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Mymanjoe24 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Should there be "quotes" around the word "woke"? Putting quotes around a word like that can give a dismissive connotation, which is not neutral. But on the other hand, this woke is the word that is being used by critics, so it kind of is a quote. Does the Manual of Style have guild lines for something like this? GranCavallo (talk) 14:33, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
The intention was to present it as a quote but I understand the concern; this is discussed at MOS:QUOTEPOV too. I've expanded the quote to encompass "woke agenda" instead—this term is even less common so I think using quotation marks is valid. What are your thoughts? – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 14:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
This article is avoiding factual information that has been documented in the past weeks to paint SBI as innocent and victim of a harassment campaign, fix this.This is misinformaion. Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 12:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Kaijyuu2016 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Speaking of NPOV...

I put the NPOV tag on the page because I don't think that calling employees fac harassment and doxing attempts mere "online backlash" is neutral. It's a harrassment campaign. LilianaUwU 04:21, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but we'd need sources to back up a section title like that. I also think that sources for that will eventually appear, as they did for Gamergate (harassment campaign), especially once we get more in-depth academic coverage digging into its roots and the like... but it may take some time. Do you have any good sources for how to characterize it yet? --Aquillion (talk) 04:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
The best I can come up with, in terms of summarizing the information concisely and without glossing over any details, is "(Online) Backlash and harassment". I don't see why putting such a weighted tag over just a section title is justifiable, but regardless if that's your only concern then I'll remove the tag if consensus on the title is decided. Carlinal (talk) 04:56, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll remove the tag myself. I'd be fine with "Online backlash and harrassment" for now. LilianaUwU 04:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Alright, thanks for helping.
As for Aquillion, there's mentions of conspiracy theories and a "firestorm" along with the Steam and Discord groups, all stemming from significantly far-right-wing platforms that discuss video games. If that's not enough backing for the phrase "online backlash" I don't know what is. And doxing and comparisons to Gamergate is definitely justifiable to add the "harassment" part. If more reliable sources somehow come up for use, who knows if the new info would lead to another change, but in describing a series of events that have been going for several months I think it's unlikely another retitle would be needed further down the road. And the current batch of sources is good enough too. Personally I...hesitate to see what right-wing media could bring to the table. It wouldn't be as clean for neutrality, so to speak. Carlinal (talk) 05:31, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
An absolute majority of people have nothing to do with "far-right-wing platforms" (most people found this out through influencers like this one or this one +1 - and all statements from these videos can be easily verified by anyone through web archives).
Please explain which "conspiracy theories" are you referring to, and with high likelyhood all the "theories" can be confirmed by archived statements from employees of this company. Moon darker (talk) 06:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, 'influencers' covering content arising from right-wing platforms still means the content is stemming from right-wing platforms. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 06:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. It is true that involvement of Sweet Baby Inc. was initially discovered on platforms like 4chan. However what Carlinal tried to do here is nothing else than substitution of concepts. The fact that it was discovered there doesn't change the fact that it got much more traction elsewhere among left-, middle- and right- wing actors.
Example: The fact that USSR launched the first artificial satellite doesn't make all artificial satellites soviet. Moon darker (talk) 06:48, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Maybe this is confusion but none of my edits (on the main page) tried to substitute anything beyond the section title and the mention of DEI, and it's a stretch to accuse me of something like that. The "conspiracy theory" mention is from the Mary Sue source, where the phrase appears several times, and knowing how contentious this subject is, I tried to create the best summary without any inaccuracies or accusations of substitution.
Also, what I mean by "all stemming from significantly far-right-wing platforms" is just Kiwi Farms, 4chan, and subreddit r/KotakuInAction, all of which are also mentioned on the main page. I never extended that to YouTube commentators, nor do I mean to. The former three are the few, if not only right-wing platforms mentioned altogether that are currently on the Misplaced Pages article, including reports of Sweet Baby from other publishers. I guess the last two sentences in my previous response are in bad faith, but from a glance the two YouTubers also seem to be taking clips OOC. I'm not watching those videos anyhow just to prevent anymore contentious edits than the ones I did now. If the YouTube videos Moon darker provided are included in a reliable source or are reliable themselves, that's your call. Carlinal (talk) 16:20, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
No. It isn't. It's gamers who aren't happy about the situation making themselves heard. This is the fans expressing why the games Sweet Baby worked on received such a negative reception from gamers.
Interpreting it as harassment is simply a strategy which we've, of course, seen before. 92.28.184.225 (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
You can critique Sweet Baby as a company without harassing its employees directly, as many have. It's not inaccurate to call it harassment. Harryhenry1 (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
exactly no one is harassing Sweet Baby INC, its the other way around for Kabrutus however, HE WAS DOXED AND HARASSED. the sources are plain as day and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter is an article is normally unreliable when they are posting actual sources that can be verified and not just writing whatever someone at Sweet Baby INC or some narrative design program for a game company said, those are exactly what opinions are born from. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
no one from Sweet Baby INC has provided a factual course showing they were harassed, but I am being given nothing about lame excuses to why this page is ignoring the fact that they are defending people that did the actual doxing and harassing. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
again Source* not course. i got them fat fingers lol. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
  • For things like this, we rely on secondary sources. And in this case plenty of sources have described what happened to Sweet Baby as harassment: - the last one even gives a fairly detailed description when it notes how the groups targeting Sweet Baby had to purge their posts to avoid violating the terms-of-use, noting that Initially, rants about Sweet Baby Inc. and its work were accompanied by a bevy of slurs, hate speech, and broader far-right conspiracies about "wokeism" and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. You might disagree about how they characterize it, or feel that they're wrong, or dislike those sources; but we go by what the best available sources say, and in this case they're all pretty much unanimous. Reporting a group that - per that source - was, at the time, in violation of Steam's TOS is not characterized by RSes as harassment; whereas the sorts of things described there as part of the way Sweet Baby was targeted are generally what RSes consider harassment. Your personal definitions might differ! Or maybe you just disagree with the facts they state. But we go by what reliable sources say. --Aquillion (talk) 20:23, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    @Aquillion, you claim "reliable sources" yet the two first—namely Kotaku and aftermath.sin—of your three listed as "plenty" don't qualify as such as per "consensus" . Hackerman67 (talk) 22:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    Kotaku is judged on a case-by-case basis; the issue is AI-generated stuff, which I don't think anyone is arguing that this piece falls under. And both discussions on Aftermath leaned towards reliable. If you're unsure, you can ask about these specific uses on WP:RSN for a more specific answer - reliability is contextual - but I don't think there's any question that they'd be found reliable in this context. --Aquillion (talk) 23:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    Every source can and should be judged on a case-by-case basis in spite of their previously agreed upon reliability, but in the case of WP:RS, a source quite simply either is "reliable" or not; a source not being outright labeled unreliable does not qualify it as such. In the case of kotaku, it seems a grave mischaracterisation, and quite irresponsible, for you as an individual to claim what "the issue" with it is given its criticism extending far beyond that. In the case of Aftermath, the first discussion was purely speculative, erring on the side of caution, and the second with clear objections, e.g., over editorial policy. Do you have qualifications/expertise for personally deciding it "leaned towards reliable"?
    Your personal "thinking" does not trump consensus, and you ought to revise your apparent habit of misrepresenting the former as the latter.
    I don't think there's any question that they'd be found reliable in this context.
    I question how you came to such a conclusion. There appears to be ample evidence of the very opposite on this very talk page. Hackerman67 (talk) 15:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    There's always discussion and debate over sources - the only reason Kotaku is currently not 100% reliable is due to AI, otherwise their articles are accepted as reliable. Harryhenry1 (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    Hypotheticals over sources' supposed "100%" reliability aside, the point is over established consensus, or in this case, lack of it.
    By the way, since you seem to share the viewpoint of Kotaku's use of AI as the sole acceptable critique, do you mind explain why other criticism should be disregarded and consensus somehow derived from lack of it? Hackerman67 (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    On Misplaced Pages, reliability of a work is based on the work having a history of fact checking, and that there is editorial control to prevent incorrect information from being publish and retracting when such errors are found. How much apparent bias doesn't enter into that as long as that bias does not create falsehoods (eg as with sites like Breitbart). Kotaku has shown to have that. Masem (t) 18:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    The conversation is starting to extend beyond the intended scope of a article talk page. I take it that you introduce "apparent bias" as the sole expected "other criticism" of Kotaku as a source, which appears to be demonstrably false and not quite what I was asking, but did in a way did answer my question.
    I understand that you wish to report Kotaku having an editorial policy, which is a requirement for "reliable sources", but whether Kotaku would or should be one is not something to be debated here, but on WT:VGRS. Hackerman67 (talk) 12:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
    Here's the rub though: given other sources that we have, is Kotaku wrong in the fundamental facts around this (let's not speak to any opinions given), given the other sources that did their own work beyond just Kotaku's own? Even as an editor and looking at the primary sources, I see nothing wrong with the timeline or how they have documented SBI's business.
    We can talk potential bias and one-sided reporting all day, but that doesn't take away from the basic idea that there's clearly nothing wrong with the facts as asserted by the Kotaku article. So that if you look at those past discussions, you'll see that's a conclusion consistent with that. the VG project hasn't demoted Kotaku, only placing red flags to watch for AI or poor-quality, no-effort content, and their article on the SBI situation is far from either of those. Masem (t) 13:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
    Absolutely it is judged on a case-by-case basis, and in this case they are unreliable.
    I don't think there's any question that they'd be found reliable in this context.
    Your opinion does not trump consensus. Your edit history demonstrates a very clear bias and your opinions on this matter are not relevant.
    Kotaku should be completely purged from this article as it is NOT an RS despite your arguments against consensus.
    Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    But what makes this specific article unreliable? What's actually wrong about it? Harryhenry1 (talk) 03:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    I suggest you read this talk page, that has been asked and answered.Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    Personal attacks are not a substitute for rational discussion and making them will not help your case. MrOllie (talk) 03:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    It's pretty neat that sources like Kotaku and Aftermath can deem harassment to be whatever they want and you admins get to help make it so. What a terrible site. 2600:6C44:5F7F:DC78:E8D9:60D7:E790:B345 (talk) 07:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    There's a difference between actual criticism and outright harassment. It's not a big leap for sources to call thousands of accounts brigading and sending nasty messages to SBI's employees harassment. Harryhenry1 (talk) 07:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    Tbh. Kotaku aren't really known to be consistent about that. Trade (talk) 19:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Being refuted is not “harassment” 122.213.236.124 (talk) 00:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Being harassed, however, is. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

"The group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct."

This is a mischaracterization of what actually happened that omits important context. The employee in question specifically tried to enact retribution on the creator of the Steam group by asking people to mass-report him in an attempt to get his Steam account banned. This was deemed to be targeted harassment according X's TOS and the employee's X account was temporarily banned as a result. Android927 (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Do you have any reliable sources we can use to include this in the article? – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 22:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
And there you touch upon the heart of the issue: Alyssa Mercante and her fellow journalists will *never* report on Kindred's tweets because it is not in their interests to do so, yet you will not allow his own words to be cited as a source until one of them reports on it. You are basically letting one side of a hotly debated issue to entirely control the narrative by allowing them to gatekeep what information can and cannot be used as a citation. Android927 (talk) 00:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Alright, buddy, got any sources for it, then? LilianaUwU 00:05, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Meta discussion here about Misplaced Pages itself. What happens when this is a niche topic (like online gaming contraversy) and all the reliable sources (gaming journalists) are themselves being criticized? How would information of that kind ever make it onto a Misplaced Pages page?
The topic that I'm most interested in is the accusation that gaming journalists are being in league with Sweet Baby; gaming journalists are omitting facts and covering only details that is beneficial to Sweet Baby. This is actually more interesting topic than the anti-woke currently written in the section "Online backlash and harassment".
For example, "The curator group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct." is actually misleading, as this curator group had no attention at all, and it is the Sweet Baby employee's tweet itself that garnered all the attention. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/sweet-baby-inc-detected-controversy (Yes, KnowYourMeme is not a reliable source.)
In the end, I think perhaps the whole section of "Online backlash and harassment" might be marked with WP:N as it doesn't seem like any non-gaming journalist seems interested in covering this topic, and that the raw evidence is on twitter, and twitter posts are ephemeral and can be deleted (and only secondary evidence, like screenshots, can be preserved).
Also, kudos to you Rhain for your diligence. Goose (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
WP:N does not apply to sections, only whole articles. During GamerGate pt1 we saw a lot of this notion that if one 'side' of a dispute attacked journalism, that means Misplaced Pages could then not use journalists as a source. Since then, the same attacks have become extremely common in all kinds of political discourse (think of people who say 'Lamestream media'). But buying into that notion is untenable, one cannot silence critical sources just by making attacks on any journalist who writes something one disapproves of. MrOllie (talk) 23:20, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
You are making an assumption that journalists are colliding with SBI here, but we first off don't work that way, and more importantly it is likely journalists, previously burned on "it's about ethics in video game journalism" from GG, are making a stance again from another vector out of the 4chan/8chan/Kiwi Farms venues that fester far right concepts, implicitly making SBI the side they trust to start with. And there is little I can see in both reliable and unreliable sources that suggest the larger picture is much different than what the RSes are saying. The counter narrative, that SBI was specifically formed to force diversity into games, has been shown clearly to be quotes taken out of context and what SBI actually does verified independently by game devs. It's really hard to find any type of appropriate lining here for the opposite side since unlike GG, all of what's been covered is out in the open. — Masem (t) 23:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
HATting this per WP:FORUM. Discussion should be about improving the article, not complaints about Misplaced Pages policy or assertions that Misplaced Pages is "shaping the narrative". — The Hand That Feeds You: 20:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Glad to see the wikipedia editors refusing to be nuanced. 104.167.150.247 (talk) 00:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
We are exactly as nuanced as the sources we rely upon. That's what we do here, for good or for ill. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Cheers, you're actively contributing in hit piece journalism and refusing to shut down an article that pulls from unreliable sources. 104.167.150.247 (talk) 00:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages is not journalism, so it is not "actively contributing" to anything besides the building of a free encyclopedia. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
The article as it stands is (extremely biased) journalism, because all the sources it pulls from are by (extremely biased) “journalists”. Maybe consider that a biased source like Kotaku does not and should not have a monopoly on truth 122.213.236.124 (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Of course Kotaku should not have "a monopoly on truth"—that's why it makes up less than 3% of the reference list, and less than 10% of citations overall. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I just checked this. 6 of the 10 sources in the "Online backlash and harassment" Section, All refer back to the Kotaku Article. (Kotaku is the 11th)
Eurogamer, MediaMatters, Mary Sue, GameDeveloper, TheGuardian and Aftermath, all uses the Kotaku article as a source for what they are saying.
DotEsports refers to "KnowYourMeme" and Asmongold as sources.
TheGamer simply refers back to itself.
So in terms of representation here, we have 6 sources who all substantiate some of what they are saying, using Kotaku's article. Battle00333 (talk) 01:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
That's a good thing. Misplaced Pages editors like it when tertiary sources appear that validate and confirm secondary sources. MrOllie (talk) 01:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
There is a difference between tertiary sources independently validating a secondary source, and tertiary sources relying solely on a secondary source for their information. The latter does nothing whatsoever to validate the information in the source. Android927 (talk) 12:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
When articles from reliable press pass through their editorial process, it is assumed on Misplaced Pages that the former took place rather than the latter. MrOllie (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's logical that most would refer to Kotaku as it was the first major outlet to cover the topic—but it's worth noting that Aftermath and Game Developer both performed interviews with relevant parties, MMfA did its own independent research, and Eurogamer and The Guardian only refer to Kotaku in passing. I don't think the section relies too heavily on any one source. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 01:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
By leaving the article up in it's currently form, Misplaced Pages is helping to shape the narrative. Android927 (talk) 13:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, we have primary sources in the form of Chris Kindred's social media posts, but apparently primary sources aren't accepted here. Android927 (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
https://archive.ph/Oiqyb Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 13:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. Niche Gamer is considered unreliable per WP:VG/S. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
So is Kotaku and it's still here despite the article clearly being biased. You’re just as biased. Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 13:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
No, Kotaku is not considered unreliable per WP:VG/S. If you have issues with my conduct wrt NPOV, take it to WP:POVN or WP:ANI. Thanks. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Do any of these work for you? Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
The SBI Employee directly saying it on Twitter is a reliable primary source 122.213.236.124 (talk) 00:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
It actually isn't, for several reasons. For one thing, the post above characterizes it as harassment, which is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim (and WP:BLP-sensitive in this context, since it's being applied to a specific living person.) That means it would require a secondary source; the one secondary source that does directly mention the tweet in question indicates that the concerns that Steam's policies were being violated were valid, and another source notes that the group had to clean things up after Steam contacted them, which likewise implies they were in violation. Ultimately we rely on secondary sources to interpret primary sources in order to resolve this problem; and the secondary sources support the text we currently have. --Aquillion (talk) 01:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I will say, ignoring all the other aspects going around, I do think we should try to legitimately source the facts through reliable soruces that 1) the initial tweets of the one SBI employee to call out the steam curator group did end up being treated as harassment by X and thus led to the account being blocked, 2) at least one other SBI followed up without engaging in harassment to try to urge followers to report the group to Valve, 3) that attention from multiple SBI employees increased the groups numbers by 10-fold (a type of Streisand effect) and 4) the founder of the curator group did respond to Valve's warnings to remove most of the forum posts and otherwise took steps to bring the curator group into compliance with Steam's AUP, and also 5) created a situation that started running through social media and leading to journalistic interest in it. The Mary Sue article somewhat gets to all these points but not all of them. All those are reasonable neutral facts that explain why we have a section now on the SBI page to explain a controversy. But as reiterated over this page, we need non-first party reliable sources that explicitly say this, no random connecting-the-dots, I just don't think that once we find sources for those, this type of detailing of the timeline is a neutrality problem. --Masem (t) 04:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, 4 is already mentioned (albeit briefly) and I've expanded 1. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 04:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I absolutely do not think that that is enough (and I think that this is a clear-cut BLP issue; Gry Online may be usable for videogame trivia, but looking over it, I think that it is bluntly clear that it is not sufficient for something highly BLP-sensitive like this.) Even without a name, it is obvious that the individual written here is a potential target, meaning the risk of harm to their reputation is extremely high; higher-quality sources are necessary. If you absolutely think Gry Online is sufficiently high quality for this we can take it to WP:RSN, but please don't restore it here with just that source alone. I hold by my previous statement that still we don't have enough sourcing to mention this aspect at all and have to approach it carefully, but in this aspect in particular we would need better sourcing than one line from a single source that is only VGRS. --Aquillion (talk) 09:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I was clear above that while these element should be so thing we should strive to include as neutral facets of the issue, we need RSes to explicitly say that before we can include. I agree with the questionable nature of that Gry source. Masem (t) 14:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

The harassment campaign started on 4chan, not Kiwi Farms.

Looking at the Kiwi Farms thread, the entire 1st page is just screenshots of the /v/ board on 4chan. 86.42.91.198 (talk) 12:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Probably but we can't add it unless the news reports on it Trade (talk) 12:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Omg.
"1 plus 1 is 2"
Wiki editors: "We cannot publish this unless Kotaku reports on it."
Excuse my sarcasm, but Misplaced Pages is in dire need of a rule update if OBVIOUS facts cannot be included in articles if no outlet has talked about them. This gives SO MUCH power to bad actors. 2003:D8:8F3C:E000:D08:F9:2CCA:F920 (talk) 14:04, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I think a better solution is to reexamine these sources as "reliable" under https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources. It's sad that these sources are still relied on after about a decade of failed fact checks and malicious hit-pieces masquerading a journalism, but change has to come from the top. 104.167.150.247 (talk) 14:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Look up "Verifiability" Trade (talk) 14:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
If reliable sources were to verifiably deny the claim that 1 + 1 = 2 then Misplaced Pages would do so too regardless of the opinion of the common folk. ADroughtOfVowels (talk) 21:24, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
If it's so obvious, cite a source. — The Hand That Feeds You: 20:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
This right here is my exact criticism of Verifiability, not truth, and in particular, the attitude around it. On one hand I understand dissuading original research because that's a whole can of worms, but on the other hand it leads to situations like this where an article will point directly at evidence, and then write something wrong despite linking the evidence, and you can only put the incorrect information on wikipedia despite the article having proof to the contrary. More people need to be invested in looking at wikipedia:RSN and trying to argue for/against reliability of sources there, since the problem almost always seems to swing back to "Reliable source is factually wrong even with their own citation they point to, but they're a reliable source so their wrongness is all we can report on, unreliable source is factually right with their own citation, but are unreliable, thus have no place here." and some of the things that got a source marked as Reliable or Unreliable are nearly a decade old and should be reevaluated, hence, Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard is where such things should be debated and discussed in order to rectify what so many people don't understand about how Misplaced Pages works.
Again, Misplaced Pages:No original research means Verifiability, not truth and thus, frustratingly, hinges entirely on reliable sources, much of which do not get debated and checked for policies and oversight, and people try to challenge it on Talk pages instead of where they should. People need to understand that Misplaced Pages is not Truth, just a culmination of what is reported, and the general oversight and discussion on reliability of sources is not engaged in enough, resulting in talk pages like this, where people fight the wrong battles on the wrong grounds. Katacles (talk) 05:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Except this has nothing to do with source reliability. When sources do frequently put out incorrect information, they appropriately get downgraded in RSN discussions. Hence why the Daily Mail was deprecated so long ago, as they openly fabricated stories for clicks. Here, there's nothing about sources putting out wrong information. Not covering some specific piece of information is not the same thing. Especially in a situation where it's not that the sources are wrong, it's that some people just don't like or disagree with what they are saying. But that doesn't mean the source is wrong. Silverseren 05:10, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
That's Misplaced Pages:No original research territory to say if it's being accurate or not, or if it's getting everything relevant or not. Kotaku has very often had opinion articles touted as news and very often gotten things wrong with little retraction policy, but, that's not the point I'm making here, some of the sources that people have been trying to add to this page have been marked unreliable 10 years ago, but have since then improved their standards to be compliant with what constitutes a "Reliable Source" by Misplaced Pages standards, and have demonstrated editorial integrity by retracting incorrect information and issuing corrections, in which, the discussion to reevaluate it should be open, but people don't know where to debate it, and instead fight it out on Talk pages like this. Katacles (talk) 07:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Does Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard not already cover what you're alluding to when it comes to debating the reliability of sources? I don't know any example of a once-unreliable source being reevaluated as reliable, though I could be wrong of course. What are these sources you're alluding to anyway? Harryhenry1 (talk) 08:04, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Odd wording

"with attention drawn towards Sweet Baby and it's employees by high-profile, far right accounts including Elon Musk and Libs of TikTok." This might lead others to think that Musk is far-right, an exceptional claim not explicitly verified by the source. Could it be worded in another way? ObserveOwl (chit-chat • my doings) 15:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

To be fair, the man keeps promoting white genocide conspiracy theory all the time, but it's true we can't label him as such in Wikivoice without a source. And that's a can of worms to be dealt with on Talk:Elon Musk, not here. Removing it from this article is the right call. — The Hand That Feeds You: 20:35, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Yea; just to clarify, I was not trying to defend him or anything, I was just requesting here so that the article follows the source (I was a bit in a rush). ObserveOwl (chit-chat • my doings) 21:38, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
NOTFORUM.
You calling it a "conspiracy theory" does not automatically make it a conspiracy, especially since the overwhelming majority of "conspiracies" in the last 10 years have all come true
This article is clearly one-sided and shilling for SBI. Acknowledge the SBI employee started the harassment campaign against the curator group. 2600:1700:22ED:9A0:1144:D559:5634:40EA (talk) 03:22, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Sweet Baby Inc.'s Misplaced Pages page is missing key facts – here’s the unbiased context

For the interested. Afaict, it's a WP:BLOG, so I wont add a "this article has been mentioned by a media organization" template. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:06, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I see there's a related discussion at Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#The_Shortcut:_reliable_source?. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:33, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

That article itself is full of holes. For one, as we've already discussed First, the group did not fail Steam’s code of conduct, which is evidenced by the fact it’s still live. is a non-starter, it did fall afoul of the CoC, then they removed the offending content and were allowed to stay up.
I don't currently have time to deal with the rest of it, but it mostly rehashes debates we've already had here, and uses "sources" we can't (screenshots of emails & social media posts). — The Hand That Feeds You: 15:22, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Just a side-note: the part that you've covered in the first paragraph has been changed a few days ago with appropriate explanations regarding user-generated nature of the offending content, so this part of the post in question is not relevant at this point. Cheers :) Moon darker (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
When the group was founded, it used a red circle/cross icon over the logo for Sweet Baby, which combined with the statements, could easily be seen as violates Steam's terms as disrespectful content that targeted SBI and not simply highlighting its games as other curator groups do (this can be seen in the tweet screenshots). The image now is just the SBI logo without the "NO" icon in addition to the scrubbing of the forum contents. Masem (t) 17:29, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Talk page size and archiving

Talk page size is starting to get pretty large. Per the talk page guidelines we should start looking at archiving at around 75KB in page size or when there are "numerous" resolved/stale discussions. The page size is currently just shy of 250KB. I don't have any strong preferences about whether that's done by MiszaBot/Lowercase SigmaBot or ClueBot, so I'll defer the actual archive tagging to someone who has opinions on which to use, but we probably should do it fairly soon. ⇒SWATJester 16:43, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

I set up auto-archiving back on the 12th. It's currently set for archiving after 30 days of inactivity. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Maybe 7 days would be better for now due to the activity of this talk page? Silverseren 16:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
We could 7 days it, but it wouldn't remove any threads immediately as the current oldest is 4 days of no activity. I am going to one-click-archive the couple of NOTFORUM hatted posts now though. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:07, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Moved 4 threads, two answered edit requests and two hatted NOTFORUM posts. Still leaves 225kb in length though. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:11, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh nice, I totally missed that you'd already done that. Thanks Sideswipe9th. I'd suspect either 7 or 10 days is probably an OK auto-archive duration here, yeah we'd be at ~225 for a few more days until that kicks in but that's not the end of the world. ⇒SWATJester 17:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

+1. And when things calm down, it can be set to the usual 30. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Sounds good, I've just changed it to 7 days. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Kim Belair image

Asking if we should add an image of Kim Belair herself since she's the CEO and is the genesis of the company's drive. I found a preserved image from the Complications Ensue blog (which had a 4-part interview with her but got removed for not being an independent source), from September 7, 2020. Carlinal (talk) 16:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

How do you figure it's released for free-content use? Acroterion (talk) 16:52, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't. I already assumed this could be done under a fair use license anyhow. Carlinal (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Fair use for images of living individuals is all but impossible. Acroterion (talk) 17:32, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
And even in cases where it would be possible, it would only be in biography articles actually about the person. Silverseren 17:35, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Alright, thank you both. Carlinal (talk) 17:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Ok so I gave the blog page a second look and found "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License" under a book, but I'm not sure what the licensing is referring to. Carlinal (talk) 17:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Certainly not the image in question. MrOllie (talk) 17:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
"This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License" And based on that statement alone, there's no guarantee it's compatible with CC-BY-SA, specifically. ⇒SWATJester 23:47, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Twitter ban of an employee

https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Sweet_Baby_Inc.&diff=prev&oldid=1214046582

@Sideswipe9th: Ok so why must this content by removed? Gry-Online is a reliable source. Seems like a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. -- FMSky (talk) 17:16, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

It was removed on 13 March by Aquillion with the reason "don't think this source alone is enough for something plainly BLP-sensitive". That's a good faith BLP removal by any definition of WP:BLPRESTORE, and you've restored it twice now without any significant changes. I've no opinion right now on whether it should be restored or not, I'm just pointing out that policy prevents its restoration until an affirmative consensus is gained for it. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
The "policy" also prevents using "claimed" but that didnt stop you from re-inserting it anyway https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Sweet_Baby_Inc.&diff=prev&oldid=1214047033 --FMSky (talk) 17:21, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
MOS:CLAIMED is a guideline that does not prevent us from using the word claimed in articles where it is appropriate, it simply advises us to exercise caution when using it because the word can imply a statement is not credible. We are allowed to use that word whenever reliable sources use the same degree of scepticism about a claim, which they do in this instance. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Also are you saying that WP:BLP is not a policy? Because the very first banner on it states "This page documents an English Misplaced Pages policy." Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:28, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Here is another source covering it https://www.theshortcut.com/p/sweet-baby-inc-detected-what-actually-happened That should be enough to include it --FMSky (talk) 17:36, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

The Shortcut seems to be an unreliable source, per an ongoing discussion at RSN. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:37, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
another one: https://thatparkplace.com/sweet-baby-inc-employee-begs-followers-to-report-steam-curator-that-tracks-sweet-baby-inc-s-involvement-in-video-games/
Im still waiting for an explanation for why Gry-Online is unreliable — Preceding unsigned comment added by FMSky (talk • contribs) 17:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Wasn't it already said earlier here that That Park Place is unreliable? Carlinal (talk) 17:44, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
A few days ago I said the following about That Park Place on this talk page: That Park Place doesn't appear to be a reliable source. At best it's a group blog, and it doesn't seem to have any editorial oversight of what is published on it, which is required per WP:RS/WP:QUESTIONABLE.
And I'll add, although it hasn't been discussed at RSN or WT:VG/S, I would strongly suspect That Park Place would never be considered a reliable source, let alone for a BLP claim, given the tone and type of content it publishes. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:48, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Im still waiting for an explanation for why Gry-Online is unreliable Per WP:VG/S Gry OnLine is considered a reliable source, however that's not the issue here. The issue that Aquillion raised was that the Gry OnLine source on its own was not a strong enough source for content that is plainly BLP-sensitive. That's a good-faith BLP objection to the content, and the BLPRESTORE policy point tells us that content that is removed on good-faith BLP objections cannot be restored without a consensus for it. Per WP:ONUS you need to demonstrate why this content should be included, as the responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:53, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
If a source is considered reliable, it means its also reliable for content that is "BLP-sensitive" --FMSky (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
As the IP editors and new users have been telling us, it is dependent on context and nothing is blanket reliable or unreliable. MrOllie (talk) 18:02, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
It's not like it's desputed content anyway as the employee literally confirmed the suspension. It's factual, it happened --FMSky (talk) 18:03, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, none of the English language reliable sources have said that a Sweet Baby Inc employee's Twitter account was temporarily suspended, much less give a reason why the account was suspended. The only reliable source so far that has mentioned it has been Gry OnLine, though the reason for the suspension has, as I said in my reply below, multiple possible machine translations.
Even leaving aside the good-faith BLP objection for a moment which remains unanswered, there is also an open question here about whether that content is even due for inclusion. While I do note that multiple unreliable sources like That Park Place and The Shortcut have mentioned it, unreliable sources do not count when assessing the weight of a piece of information. If the majority of reliable sources do not mention this, then it seems like including it would be giving undue emphasis to a minority aspect of this topic. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
none of the English language reliable sources have said that a Sweet Baby Inc employee's Twitter account was temporarily suspended And that is exactly why these sources are *not* reliable. I realize several editors on this page want to tell a certain narrative but these sources are clearly lying. Any source that tells the full story is immediately suppressed. Kotaku should be purged from the article, it previous consensus that it can be unreliable. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:23, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
But why is that detail relevant? It just means the site suspended them, not that it was justified or the right thing to do. It certainly doesn't make the article unreliable. Harryhenry1 (talk) 03:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Seriously? It is an important part of the timeline of events - far more relevant than most of the rest of the section that somehow made it into the article eg the (primary source) opinion of a The Mary Sue author. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
If it was an important part of the timeline, multiple high quality reliable sources would have mentioned it. So far no high quality reliable sources have mentioned it. At best, only two reliable sources have mentioned it, Gry OnLine and Xfire, and one of them (Xfire) is sceptical of the reasoning behind the block. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Refer to my previous comment. Asked and answered. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:37, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Where exactly? Can you give me a hint as to where I might find these answers? Dumuzid (talk) 03:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
See 03:23, 17 March 2024 Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Thank you. Dumuzid (talk) 03:44, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
"these sources are clearly lying" Omitting a detail is not lying. It may be a sign of bias but determining a reliable source does not account for bias. And while I do think that if an RS actually discusses it that we should include it, it is a minor factor in the overall story: it is the fact that SBI employees called out the curator group that created a Streisand effect to grow the followers of the group. Masem (t) 03:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
it is a minor factor in the overall story: it is the fact that SBI employees called out the curator group that created a Streisand effect to grow the followers of the group.
As you might imagine, SBI employees did interact with other users of Twitter before this event. What created a Streisand effect in this case is not the request to report the group by itself, it's the way it was done. You already know it, but I'll add another citation for those who don't: "Anyways, report the out of this group!". What caused much more outrage and actually set things in motion was the next tweet in that thread (which is not mentioned in "reliable sources", despite being the most important one!): "and report the creator since he loves his account so much" --Moon darker (talk) 06:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Did that second tweet actually cause more outrage? Can that actually be measured? People would've been mad at them reporting the group anyway, it seems more like a cherry on top instead of the chief reason for the outrage. Harryhenry1 (talk) 08:44, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't think it can be measured accurately, although I will say that the second tweet in question has caused:
  • Much more vocal outrage compared to the one asking to report the group
  • Accusations of targeted harassment towards the group owner
  • Ban of the employee account (previous tweets didn't target anybody personally)
Moon darker (talk) 09:09, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Irrespective of the topic at hand and strictly generally speaking, omitting key details is a form of lying DarmaniLink (talk) 17:49, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
True but most of the users here aren't interested in improving this article. They want to push a certain narrative --FMSky (talk) 18:17, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
It's quite a bold statement to say that every reliable source, that doesn't mention something that seems utterly non-notable, is unreliable simply because they do not mention it. Nor is omitting that detail lying.
Per WP:VG/S the current consensus on the situational reliability of Kotaku is due to their publishing of unmarked, low quality AI-written content, and a slow decline in editorial quality over a period of years. The current article, having been written by a senior editor for the site, has none of these issues, and has been widely cited and its content verified by other high quality sources present in the article. There is no reason for us to consider removing this Kotaku article at this time. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
slow decline in editorial quality over a period of years This is the issue. You can't simply hand-wave that consensus away because WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:36, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
The consensus is that articles from Kotaku are assessed on a case-by-case basis, because of the slow decline in editorial quality. This article has been assessed as reliable by multiple editors, and by multiple high quality reliable sources by nature of them citing it for facts within their own coverage. If all of Kotaku's articles were of this quality, it would not be considered a situational source. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:39, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
This article has been assessed as reliable by multiple editors Patently false. There is clearly no consensus that Kotaku should be used in this case. Simply asserting that there is is not sufficient. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:41, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Accusing other people of Proof by assertion while engaging in it yourself is not going to bring others around to your way of thinking. MrOllie (talk) 03:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I just want to put in a good word for ipse dixit--I am trying hard to broaden its usage! Dumuzid (talk) 03:47, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
The onus is on the person claiming consensus. My assertions on consensus can be found at WP:VG/S. Where can the other editor's alleged consensus be found? Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 04:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Your assertions about what VG/S say are incorrect. The full text of the entry for Kotaku states News posts from Kotaku between 2010 and 2022 are considered reliable, although editors are cautioned of blog/geeky posts that have little news or reporting significance (such as ). Articles published before 2010 had comparatively weaker editorial standards, while articles published from 2023 onward should generally be avoided due to content farming concerns and unmarked AI-written content. It should be noted that this is not a definitive cut-off—editorial deterioration is gradual, and editors have noted instances of low-quality reporting in preceding years—so articles should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. (emphasis mine). As I've said in my comment below, multiple high quality reliable sources and multiple editors have assessed this Kotaku article as reliable. Sideswipe9th (talk) 04:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Everything I've said above agrees with WP:VG/S (P.S. I haven't see an actual argument with something I've said about WP:VG/S, only some vague indications that I should prove it. So if you want to continue this please point out what you take issue with). See my previous comments.
Your comment below has already been refuted by my reply there. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 04:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
In terms of editors on this talk page, myself, Rhain, Dumuzid, Masem, and Aquillion have all assessed this Kotaku article as reliable. And as I said in my comment on 11 March, Eurogamer, PC Gamer, and The Guardian all consider the Kotaku article reliable and cite it in their coverage. In addition Wired, and Rock Paper Shotgun have also cited the Kotaku article as factual over the last 6 days. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
There are also many editors in this page disputing the reliability of Kotaku's reporting in this instance. Highlighting only the subset of editors that agree with you is not consensus.
I picked one of the sources at random that you linked in that Gish Gallop: Wired has been careful to use attribution in many cases ("According to", etc) which is a far cry from characterizing them as cited the Kotaku article as factual. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 04:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Quality of argument matters. People who just disagree with that Kotaku is saying, accusing them of 'lying' or who based their argument on misstating that WP:VG/S says can be discounted. MrOllie (talk) 12:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Whether this is utterly non-notable or not is WP:OR on your part. I'd assume that the thing that started the whole chain of Online backlash and harassment is notable? Moon darker (talk) 07:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
BLP sensitive content, like asserting that someone was blocked on social media for "inciting harassment", typically requires multiple high quality sources. At present there is one source, written in Polish, and when I looked at the text through machine translation as I don't speak Polish it could be translated a couple of different ways with entirely different meanings. The text in Polish is za nawoływanie do nienawiści w stosunku do twórcy listy., which Google translates as for inciting hatred towards the creator of the list, and DeepL translates as for hate speech towards the list maker, and our article text was for inciting harassment. Now I don't know how accurate those machine translations are, I don't speak Polish, and perhaps someone who does can chime in with the correct translation as it might be something entirely different. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Another couple sources: https://www.geeknewsnow.net/index.php/2024/03/08/sweet-baby-inc-when-grifting-goes-wrong/
https://game8.co/articles/latest/sweet-baby-inc-employees-fail-spectacularly-at-trying-to-get-steam-curator-banned --FMSky (talk) 18:26, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
The Geek News Now article you linked is very clearly tagged as an opinion article, so even if it were reliable WP:RSOPINION would apply and we could not cite it for facts. That said, it hasn't been discussed at RSN or VG/S, and I can't find any evidence of an editorial policy or oversight which is required per WP:QUESTIONABLE, so if it were brought up at RSN I suspect it would not be considered a reliable source.
game8 is likely an unreliable source per a brief discussion in September 2022, though it hasn't been discussed in any detail at VG/S or RSN. That particular article has been brought up a couple of times on this talk page over the last week, and multiple editors are sceptical about whether the source is reliable. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:38, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Geeknewsnow is only a few months old and hasn't had time to develop a reputation either way. No Editorial policy, looks like a group blog. MrOllie (talk) 18:40, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Its getting slightly ridiculous now, we are having 7 to 8 sources now discussing the same exact event --FMSky (talk) 18:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
And only one, Gry OnLine, has been reliable. Again, unreliable sources do not count towards due weight per multiple policies and guidelines (WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:RS). Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:50, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
We can surely stick to the ones that aren't doing things like citing Knowyourmeme as a factual source. MrOllie (talk) 18:51, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
This one is almost certainly reliable https://www.xfire.com/sweet-baby-inc-detected-controversy-shutting-down-critics-on-steam/ --FMSky (talk) 19:15, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
It is possible that XFire is a reliable source, though it hasn't been discussed at RSN or VG/S. It appears to have a reasonable editorial policy and standards. Ideally I'd want to see at least one more reliable source for a piece of content this contentious, but reasonable minds may differ on that. I'd like to hear from Aquillion for what they think, as they're the editor who originally removed the content.
If it is reliable though, for me that still leaves a question of whether or not this is due for inclusion. If only two RS, out of the dozen or so in the in the article, have actually mentioned this why is this due for inclusion? It seems to me like this being an important factoid is a minority view within reliable sources, and policy tells us that small minority views don't belong on Misplaced Pages even if they are verifiable. Sideswipe9th (talk) 19:46, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Can i ask you why you want this information suppressed so badly? --FMSky (talk) 19:57, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Considering the amount of disruption we've seen on this article, which has been ECPed per a request at ARCA for a year, and this talk page, which is semi-protected for another 4 days, ensuring that we're carefully policy for all additions to the article is not unreasonable.
WP:NPOV is as the policy lead states in bold, non-negotiable. Any piece of content we include in an article must comply with it. So I return to the question, if only two RS out of the dozen or so in the in the article have actually mentioned this piece of information, why is this due for inclusion? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
here is another reliable source: https://mobilesyrup.com/2024/03/16/sweet-baby-controversy-toxic-gamers-stand-up-for-devs-and-media-editorial/ any attempts to further stonewall this article will be considered disruptive --FMSky (talk) 21:55, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
After a July 2022 RfC at RSN there appears to be no consensus on the reliability of that source, with a slight leaning towards it being generally unreliable. I would not cite that for anything BLP sensitive. Additionally while it could support a brief mention that the employee's Twitter account was suspended, it would not support the text that it was suspended for inciting harassment. Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:01, 16 March 2024 (UTC)
Frankly, your rabid insistence on including any detail that favors your view is what's disruptive. You're really pushing it here. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:33, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
  • There's numerous reasons why these sources aren't enough. I won't go over all of them individually (if you have doubts about any one of them, take whichever you think is best to WP:RSN), but WP:BLP-sensitive and WP:EXCEPTIONAL things require the highest-quality sourcing; obviously, asserting that they were blocked for inciting harassment hits both those points, especially in this context. And it's important to understand what you are asking to add to the article here, compared to the weakness of your sourcing - remember, this isn't an article about "Gamergate 2" or whatever title it eventually has, this is an article about a company. You want to add something about a tweet by a random employee at the company, on their private account, giving a rationale for a block that is sources to only the weakest sources; obviously the bar for that is going to be high to begin with even before we get into things like WP:AVOIDVICTIM. On top of this (and this touches on why the section header was a BLP violation), there is a WP:SYNTH / WP:OR issue here - even the weaker sources that you've presented attribute the rationale for the block to Twitter; they don't endorse it in their article voice. In fact, one of them, xfire, clearly disagrees with that rationale. But presenting it the way you want to add it, without context higher-quality secondary coverage, would imply (and, again, per this section header, you clearly recognize that it implies) that the employee in question did something wrong. That's the sort of implication that, again, requires high-quality sourcing; and it's the sort of problem you run into when using weak sources to "prove" something. If, as you believe, it is actually central to the entire topic, higher-quality sources will go into depth on it eventually and we can add it then - but it's worth pointing out that we do already have relatively high quality sourcing (eg. Wired) which make no mention of it and which, in fact, describe a history of harassment going back much further. This implies that it is simply WP:UNDUE and that your interpretation of it isn't reflected in mainstream coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 01:20, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
What do you think about including " which resulted in the emloyee's Twitter account being temporarily blocked instead."? --FMSky (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
As I said earlier, and just now on both my talk page, I think it's WP:UNDUE. There are, at best two reliable sources (Gry OnLine and Xfire) who have mentioned this in any way. The vast majority of reliable sources writing about this simply have not mentioned that employee's account being temporarily blocked, nor the reason why. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:50, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
So how much reliable sources more before its fine to include? --FMSky (talk) 01:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Certainly more than 2, but it's not strictly a volume question it's also one of source quality. Ideally we'd see at least one of the higher quality sources like Game Developer, GI.biz, or Wired mention it as being of importance.
I agree with what Aquillion has said below however, we're here to provide a summary of the history of this company. Based on the sourcing we have available right now, that an employee was temporarily blocked on Twitter just doesn't seem that noteworthy in the broader story of the ongoing harassment the company is facing. Sideswipe9th (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
majority of reliable sources writing about this The reason for that is certain editors here have forgotten WP:NPOV and only accept sources if they tell the narrative those editors want them to tell. eg Kotaku is included in the article despite previous consensus that they are often not reliable. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:29, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll have to agree that Kotaku publishes a lot of trash. However, for once they made something good (their exposé on SBI Detected), and that's when y'all dismiss it? LilianaUwU 03:47, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
IMO Kotaku really should not be used nearly as much as it is across the rest of WP. WP:OTHERTHINGS exist, but we're not discussing those other articles so I'm not sure how this contributes to the conversation here. Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 04:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
I do think it's kind of a murky one. Kotaku as a source has been debated for many years (I recall one editor claiming since 2016). The article in question seems good and contains actual journalism rather than what Kotaku is normally known for. That said, I do hear the concerns about the author of the article being too close to the issue and on top of that they're a senior editor so there could be concerns about whether sufficient oversight is in place prior to publishing.
It also seems like many other sources are using the Kotaku article as a source. On one hand, this provides some validity to it. On the other hand, it wouldn't be out of character for a commercial website to jump on the only notable source for their own article to get in on the clicks and ad revenue. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 12:33, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
The Kotaku author is only close to the issue in that after the publication, they became the target of harassment. If they wrote a second article on the topic , that might raise issues but not the first one that appears unaffected by any closeness to the issue.
The RSes that start from Kotaku have demonstrated their own original journalism to affirm what Kotaku has said, so that eliminates concerns that Kotaku is falsifying the whole thing. (Bias, again, is not something we consider for reliability). Masem (t) 12:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Well, that version is certainly not as bad, but some of the basic problems remain - it's given no weight in the best sources. Maybe as this develops and gets more coverage there will be more, but one problem that happened during Gamergate (harassment campaign) was that there was this constant flood of ever-shifting rationales for the campaign, coupled with YouTube videos or the like broadcasting them; and because many people believed points X or Y or Z were vital based on this, they tended to creep into the article as soon as they had any coverage anywhere at all, no matter how low-quality or brief, rapidly coupled with other articles debunking or dissecting them. Again, by my reading the xfire piece is the latter sort of coverage; if we were really going to use it we'd have to make clear that it condemns the block in order to avoid misuse of it as a source. But it's easy to see how going that route makes things even more bloated and unreadable - this sort of thing resulted in an article bloated with the detritus of blow-by-blow forum arguments that ultimately didn't matter and which was rarely mentioned in higher-quality big-picture coverage. It'd be best to avoid a repeat of that here by focusing on things that only have high-quality coverage from the start; especially, again, since this is an article for a company, the thing to do is to just summarize the key points from the best sources, which mostly look like the Wired source linked above. We're an encyclopedia, so we're just supposed to provide a top-level summary; and for a summary like that, it's hard to justify "an employee of this company got briefly blocked on Twitter" based on the sourcing we have at the moment. --Aquillion (talk) 01:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

List of sources

So here just a quick summary of the sources we currently have to support the fact that the Sweet Baby Inc emloyee's account was blocked for a violation of rules:

-- these two also explicitly state the account was blocked for inciting harassment

I think one more reliable source and it should be enough to include Only meant as a summary --FMSky (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll repeat what I said last night. Unreliable sources don't count towards assessing due weight, and it's not strictly a question of volume. None of the high quality sources have mentioned this at all, which stands somewhat at odds with a lot of the unreliable sources mentioning it. The open (if rhetorical) questions seem to be; why do the higher quality sources consider this not noteworthy? And is a temporary block of one employee really going to be something that's notable about this company or this backlash in 5-10 years time? Sideswipe9th (talk) 22:57, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
This is just meant as a summary about what we currently have and not to start the discussion all over again. Also no, None of the high quality sources have mentioned this at all - Gry-Online clearly has mentioned it --FMSky (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
The summary shouldn't include sources which are clearly never going to be included in the article, due to being unreliable. — The Hand That Feeds You: 12:34, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
  • You weaken your argument by including obviously unreliable sources. As I said last time, part of my concern is that it feels like inclusion could effectively imply or cobble together the arguments made in unreliable sources via WP:SYNTH, which is obviously a problem. I don't think any of these sources really come close to what we'd want to use for something of this nature, but if you look at the sources you consider reliable, they don't place much emphasis or focus on this. So why are you so insistent on wanting to include it? It feels to me like you're influenced by the more strident accusations in the unreliable sources, which is obviously not how we should be writing articles or assessing WP:DUE weight. Beyond that, like I said, you know where WP:RSN is - it wouldn't necessarily settle the WP:DUE issue, but if you're convinced the sourcing is here for this, take whatever source you consider best there and see what they say. --Aquillion (talk) 15:06, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Yeah, FMSky, with all due respect, this feels a bit like saying "if so many unreliable sources are saying it, it must be true." I don't think there's anything wrong with it per se, though I also don't believe it's helpful. But as I often say, to each his or her own. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:24, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Is The Verge reliable? As the author has leaked DMs where she clearly states shes got a bias and reporting the whole story hurt the spin they put on the whole thing, which they are trying to avoid by blaming ONLY the steam group. Kotaku is the same and everyone BUT wikipedia knows it. 24.201.177.245 (talk) 01:53, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Just to add on to the above as I had some technical issues. The point is that the sources called reliable are all opinion pieces reporting only one side of this issue and it continues to be based on allegations and unreliable information based on ideology. Opinion pieces based on the opinion of a Kotaku journalist whos shown herself hostine to answeriing any question about her article and shows absolutely no reliable proof of anything she says. While the sources deemed 'unreliable' have accurate timelines with all of the actual proof (screenshots, Twitter DMs, discord dms etc) with an accurate descrition on the whole issue.
And now the author of the Verge article, who's come out and said that reporting the whole situation would hurt what shes trying to push.
So what makes The Verge or Kotaku's opinion pieces more reliable than actual well reserched articles with all of the proof of what is actually going on with this situation? Alyssa mercante whos been hostile from the start and wont answer questions about the integrity of her own work or a website thats plastered the reciepts of what they're saying all over their article? what source is reliable again? 24.201.177.245 (talk) 02:09, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Please see Misplaced Pages's description of reliable sources. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:20, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
My point was that every single "reliable" source is from an opinion piece with very little if any factual information. Not to mention the obvious leanings of their authors and now, from their own admission, actual proof that presenting both sides of this story is something editors wish to avoid, is being used as the gold standard for this story.
While anything that is actually factual. With proof and reciepts all over them, coming straight from the individuals involved, or THE FACTUAL "THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN SUSPENDED" on the Chris Kindred twitter page itself... Is not a reliable source because... reasons? 24.201.177.245 (talk) 04:33, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Please see Misplaced Pages's discussion of primary sources. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 04:36, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Lets skip over the fact that Alyssa Mercante inserted herself and whatever she spews definitely makes her a primary source and what everything she says is somehow NOT considered an opinion piece... also the main source for any of this apparently (Since all of the others point back to her) what makes her attempt at a smear campaign more reliable than this of This with clear references and proof to what they are talking about. Since Context matters. 24.201.177.245 (talk) 06:20, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
One more point, again, you're not going to have CNN side with SBI Detected for the same reason you're not going to see them praise Donald Trump if he somehow did something that wasn't dumb and they liked. More than that they are fully involved with one side and people calling out their integrity for omitting facts (with proof) isn't making any of them likely to do better. Context matters and I think that should apply when you have opinion pieces treated like they are reliable while sources which actually show their work (even if its not required, it s all over the news articles with all of the screenshots anyone needs) are considered unreliable for some reason. Where proof of facts exists, that should be the context. 24.201.177.245 (talk) 06:31, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm trying to see this from your POV but I don't think your proof/receipts are the bombshell that you do. It's entirely reasonable and normal for journalists to exclude details that they believe are irrelevant to the story. It's also entirely reasonable and normal to struggle with the decision of what to exclude, and for back and forth dialogue to happen with editors. There's nearly always more that could be written in an article but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. You disagree with the line. I get that.
But all of this is beside the point. We can't use the primary sources or unreliable sources the way you want us to. We also can't demote news coverage to "opinion pieces" the way you want us to. The article you're asking us to write is simply not possible. You can argue that it's one side relying on facts and the other ignoring them, but as is usually the case, everything points to both sides valuing the facts differently. Woodroar (talk) 13:11, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Well I will say that, in general, I'm negative on the use of newsmedia in the context of reliability. That being said I can confirm that mobilesyrup constitutes a mainstream newsmedia source and is as reliable as Kotaku, etc. Simonm223 (talk) 13:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Well first of all both sides do value facts differently because both sides have an ideological agenda, but this isn't flat earth or pizzagate. Theres no denying the important fact that Chris Kindred asked for people to mass report the curator group and the person who created it, causing this to grow from a 5000 people group to 300 000 people.
While Kotaku and every other publication with a stake in not discussing that SBI employees pushed this to blow up are allowed to find this irrelevant to their story, their story is that an evil group of 300 000 people are just bigots. period. Not reporting on the timeline of events or telling the truth and not even about SBI either. As The Verge writer admitted before saying that reporting on that would give the other side legitimacy which editors wanted to avoid.
I'm not saying that these sources are reliable all the time, but as context matters, they're as reliable this time as the Kotaku article, which the others based themselves off of and share the same ideology in this case. Seeing as those who oppose Kotaku have the proof visible to all embedded in their own articles and while Kotaku is considered reliable despite their constant need to insert their ideological values in most of their articles, all they have up is a meme about haircuts and a mention of talking to SBI to get their side. While she mentions "infiltrating" the public discord and cherrypicking what she needed to make these people look bad and ignored the documented talk she had with a member.
I'm just saying that since a wikipedia article is supposed to tell the truth, it cant (or shouldn't) just ignore what proof or who has it as fully visible to make this an unbiased article in this case as its not an issue where anyone is willing to tell the whole story as such where proof exists of events, context should matter. 24.201.177.245 (talk) 14:35, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm only going to point out three things:
1) WP:TRUTH. We aren't actually here to "tell the truth". We're here to report what reliable sources say, with due weight to the topic at hand. That means some things are going to get left out.
2) Not everyone here agrees that the information you want to include is "important." At this point, you're beating a dead horse.
3) The entire argument that gaming media (especially Kotaku) is "biased" or "involved" is not really going to fly. It's a convenient way of eliminating reliable sources. Kotaku was not involved in the issue, and has no stakes here beyond reporting it. People have invented this agenda that Kotaku supposedly has, and it was not a persuasive argument in the GamerGate article. It's not going to be persuasive here. — The Hand That Feeds You: 14:40, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
THTFY pretty much beat me to it, but I'll say my piece anyway: First of all, Misplaced Pages is interested in verifiability, not truth. I am very much with Woodroar (and THTFY) here insofar as while I know these items you are bringing up seem quite meaningful to you, from other standpoints they can seem less so. Perhaps you're right that the fact of the reporting of the Steam group cannot be denied, but the importance thereof certainly can. And I also read that Verge writer quite differently. To my eye it looked like she investigated and was therein trying to decide how best to put the story together. You can certainly look for 'news' that is simply a transcription or timeline of events, but that's not how Misplaced Pages works. Just for the record, Misplaced Pages is not the only place to try to espouse these views. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:42, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
1) Context matters. The reliability of sources is a large part of the issue. Like it or not if you have to bring up Donald Trump in a Playstation preview, what matters to you is showing (talking about gaming press).
2) It's what started this. If those tweets aren't important, none of this is. You cant have both. In no logical world is this to be avoided... in an ideological one however... not everyone agrees. I wonder why.
3) Kotaku's reliability (especially Kotaku) has been in question for a decade if not more. You can't choose to ignore proof when there are sources that put in the work when Kotaku chose not to. Since that article came out Alyssa Mercante has fully involved herself in the situation and when asked to explain her choices her answer has been "You’re not my boss! I don’t owe you shit! Bye!" which is the complete antithesis of ethical journalism. 24.201.177.245 (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
A couple of thoughts: as to (1), there's no rule that says a game review can't take into account politics in some manner. That seems to be your rule, but it's not a general rule. If that's not for you, then don't patronize that outlet. Either there are people in the world who don't mind or like that sort of commentary, or the outlet will go away in short order. (2) it's entirely logically consistent to say an initial event might be non-noteworthy, but a backlash or reaction is. That's a bit like saying you can't discuss The Great Chicago Fire without having the full pedigree of Mrs. O'Leary's cow. Finally, with regard to (3) being an ethical journalist does not mean you have to answer questions on Twitter, or even be nice on Twitter. It means you follow the sources and make corrections when required. Again, I honestly don't blame you for wanting to pursue this--that's fine. But Misplaced Pages is the wrong venue. You're trying to contort this encyclopedia into something it just isn't (at least with its current policies and guidelines!). Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:48, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
While the tweets by SBI is inevitably what lead to something that was quietly mumbled about on KF and other sites into a larger group, it is the attacks on SBI that happened afterward which drew the press interest. So the fact that one SBI account was blocked due to the likely doxxing issue, we have mentioned that it was the total if all SBI tweets that grew the size of the curator group, and which led to harassment. Whether to mention the one BI account that was blocked, the only point that is a consession to the curator group's side, it is overall a minor drop of everything that has gone on.
And even if we assume the Kotaku writer had a conflict of interest in writing that story, other reliable (more consistently reliable too) sources have independently confirmed the events. So maybe Kotaku went out of their way to light a fire under the press to cover this (which I highly doubt) but now we have multiple in depend reviews of the topic and thus we are summarizing what they have said. Masem (t) 16:50, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
On 3) - While I'm not exactly convinced that Kotaku is a great outlet and I personally thought the blurb saying why it's situational should've been a lot stronger based on the discussions that proceeded the downgrade from reliable, the consensus is that it's reliable in this context.
Rather than trying to convince people on this talk page, you might be more successful collecting evidence and arguing over at the reliable sources noticeboard that it should be downgraded further. Their second Editor in Chief in a matter of months just resigned, not long after one was fired, how a staff writer says the management is telling to copy other website's content, and some veiled accusations are going around. Maybe something more might come out, maybe not. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 17:44, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Everyone else has basically addressed the points I would've made. 24, you're not going to gain consensus for the changes you want here. You just want something Misplaced Pages isn't built for. — The Hand That Feeds You: 20:39, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Is Game8 actually an unreliable source?

I've seen a number of editors on this page automatically dismiss Game8 saying it's unreliable or 'looks like a blog'. It seems to me that it's being dismissed without any significant discussion on it.

I can only see one past discussion on the topic it where the single editor replying claiming it "Smells awry" seemingly hasn't looked into it much. Their only comment against is asking why it's in English while claiming it's one of Japan's top sites, while the linked claim specifically notes that this is their "English site" (implying they have a Japanese site too which they do).

They're often one of the top results for walkthroughs and guides, claim 60,000,000 page views per month, has somewhat of an editorial policy, offer paid positions, and have multiple listed authors on their English site, are seemingly set up as a company (LinkedIn claims 51-200 and it has HR/Admin/etc), and quite a few industry interviews on the Japanese (and at least one significant one with Tetsuya Nomura of Final Fantasy fame on the English site).

It may or may not be considered as reliable, but this is no small blog to easily dismiss without looking further at least. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 11:29, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I'm not exactly convinced that it's the best source for controversial claims. I mostly wanted to make it as a point of order that sources should be properly evaluated and not immediately dismissed or claimed as unreliable, particularly if they're going against the more widely supported narrative. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 11:45, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
So, for me, I would still say unreliable for news content and BLPs, as everything seems to indicate the primary focus of the site is reviews and walkthroughs (for instance, this page about the operating company). The page you link to as an editorial policy is more like a review rubric to me. As stated at WP:RS, In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. I see little to no evidence of those categories here. I could see a case for citing to Game8 for reviews (or possibly walkthroughs, though I can't imagine a case for that at the moment), but I would still say for me it's a no as to fact reporting and certainly for BLPs. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:26, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
"Somewhat of an editorial policy" is not a glowing endorsement. Simonm223 (talk) 18:01, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
It's not! But some experienced editors are arguing to add a website with former Kotaku staff and no editorial policy as reliable, so it's presumably not something that rules it out completely.
Plus, as my comment said, 'I'm not exactly convinced that it's the best source for controversial claims. I mostly wanted to make it as a point of order that sources should be properly evaluated and not immediately dismissed or claimed as unreliable'. This was primarily posted as I was seeing people immediately dismiss it or think it's some random blog, when they should at least evaluate it before dismissing. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 18:20, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
I mean their about page is rather more inspiring of confidence than Game8 - which appears to be a game walkthrough site rather than a worker-owned media outlet. Simonm223 (talk) 18:26, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
According to whois data, Aftermath was registered around 6 months ago. Almost no followers in social media compared to other news outlets. About page is not everything, you are free to write anything there. Any reliable sources to confirm what they're saying there? --Moon darker (talk) 22:40, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
It's no secret that Aftermath is relatively new; the site's creation last year was covered by several outlets. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 22:49, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
There has been some WP:USEBYOTHERS pickup of the Aftermath, especially with regard to the exit of Kotaku's last editor-in-chief. It was cited by gamesindustry.biz; Video Games Chronicle; and The Daily Beast. Dumuzid (talk) 23:01, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
Yeah but I also know the names of the people who founded Aftermath and they're all well-established journalists.Simonm223 (talk) 13:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Harassment from SBI

This source has already been discussed on multiple threads (see this and this thread). Isabelle Belato 21:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

So, as I am not able to edit the Article, and as we have (finally) the {{POV}} in there, maybe we should include sources that show that SBI itself is on the harrasment train. - Kindred calls Steam Group "Nazis" or is that not reliable enough? Adtonko (talk) 20:16, 17 March 2024 (UTC)

Can you explain why That Park Place would count as a reliable source? It seems to be a WordPress blog site, even if it has multiple contributors. Silverseren 20:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Well, Kotaku itself is build on a blog plattform, so to dismiss another Source as 'a blog' seems cherry picking to me. As why it should be considered reliable, you have said your self. Multiple authors, and as a matter of fact, they form a timeline of events from primary sources, that we are not allowed to. Adtonko (talk) 20:51, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku describes itself as "a news and opinion site about games and things serious gamers care about." Furthermore, on its about page it lists a staff including editors. That is not typical of a blog to me. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:56, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
Also, as mentioned above, the particular Kotaku piece we're citing here has massive WP:USEBYOTHERS in that it's treated as reliable by a wide range of high-quality sources. That's one of the ways we distinguish a reliable source. --Aquillion (talk) 21:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
That's not how reliable sources are determined here, otherwise anyone could set up a website with a couple of friends and say they are a reliable news source. One of the main requirements is to have an editorial fact checking board with a history of proper news coverage. It's why The Daily Dot wasn't accepted as a reliable news source initially on Misplaced Pages and only reached that level of reliability after a few years of existence. One thing that does help is if the source is referenced and utilized by other known sources for its coverage. Such as how The Daily Dot started being referenced by actual newspapers and television media in the things it covered. Silverseren 21:00, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
  • Reliability is about having a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy as demonstrated by eg. WP:USEBYOTHERS, which isn't present here. On top of that... at a glance, isn't the editor-in-chief there also the original editor-in-chief of Bounding into Comics, a similar site with no reputation that was created around the time of Gamergate to advocate for what became Comicsgate? As WP:RS says, we can't simply take a site's claims of reliability at face-value - anyone can create a site and claim to be an expert. That said, it might be worth taking both sites to WP:RSN to get a formal WP:RSP entry, since the latter has come up a lot and the former is likely to come up a lot going forwards. --Aquillion (talk) 21:13, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
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