The Wikipedia Post — Part 1: The Lie Heard Around The World
“Operation Five Horsemen” was not a failure in the sense that the main objective was in large part not achieved, but rather in that the “operation” itself played little if any part in that success given many involved lacked any understanding of Wikipedia policies or were retreading worn paths. Operation Five Horsemen only provided anti-GamerGate editors a convenient scapegoat for their own failings. Wikipedia has been historically resistant to anything resembling outside pressure and gone to great lengths to silence such pressure be it from Wikipedia criticism sites, large groups such as The Church of Scientology, or even a single Overstock.com employee. Editors determined to find a phantom menace that could be blamed (including editors who before, during, and after the case became active participants in an anti-GamerGate reddit community) had one immediately provided and wasted no time in warning everyone of this dangerous outside influence that was surely to blame for all ills in the dispute. Rather than deal with the reality that, unlike in these past cases, GamerGate was exploding within its own game-loving editing community and long-standing users were just taking sides, 8chan and other GamerGate forums allowed them a path to denial.
Before the final sanctions were handed out by the Committee, an editor by the name of Mark Bernstein saw what was happening and sprang into action hoping to cut off the result. He authored a blog post about the initial proposed decision, where four of the five horsemen would be banned from the GamerGate topic or banned from Wikipedia entirely, and included such outlandish claims as “feminists are to be purged en bloc from Wikipedia” despite only five editors being affected. Bernstein proceeded to spam the link eight different times on Twitter in the course of a day. Though I myself was facing a ban from Wikipedia in that decision, Bernstein claimed only “disposable accounts” had been facing sanctions aside from the horsemen when in reality all editors facing sanctions but one had editing histories dating back years and most of those who could continued editing after the case concluded sanctioned or not. He further claimed the decision rested “almost entirely” on the proposals of these “disposable accounts”, but the reality is the decision was so heavily based on my evidence and proposals that one finding in the early proposed decision cited my own analysis of a user’s edit.
Regardless of the blog’s lack of veracity, Bernstein spamming his piece resulted in the fake news being covered in an article by the Guardian reiterating most of his post’s false claims about the case, which then spread to Gawker, The Mary Sue and several other outlets throughout the globe. He followed these up with Thoughtless, Careless, and Reckless, blog posts (those are the actual titles and not just an apt description of his writing) to press this narrative further with more relentless blog post spamming. ArbCom and the Wikimedia Foundation rushed out statements refuting the more obscene allegations, prompting corrections or updates at many of these outlets, though not before some snide editors created a Wikipedia article on the “ArbitrationGate controversy” citing these “reliable sources” to justify reiterating the bogus claims. Despite being refuted by ArbCom, the WMF, Slate, and The Washington Post, Bernstein stands by his “reporting” on the case and key elements of his false narrative have been enshrined as gospel in ThinkProgress.
Crafting this fictional narrative about “Operation Five Horsemen” allowed opponents of GamerGate on Wikipedia and elsewhere to not only deny their own abuses on the site, but to wave the bloody shirt on any issue on Wikipedia related to harassment and gender to achieve a greater stifling of the free and open discussion upon which Wikipedia has relied for over eighteen years. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Mark Bernstein’s rantings faulted a massive sprawling outside conspiracy for the actions of a single long-time editor. Based primarily on evidence I compiled on my own against editors I personally felt were most in need of removal from the GamerGate dispute, the case largely went along the lines I wanted. Yet never is a mention found of me in any media coverage and only a couple studies of the dispute have acknowledged my existence as Bernstein has effectively erased me from the narrative. Understanding the real narrative of the GamerGate Wikipedia dispute is crucial to understanding why the site is now teetering towards a massive shift away from a space open to all people and perspectives towards one increasingly dominated by a shrinking group of biased elitists.
When I first became involved in the GamerGate dispute it was still mostly concerned with the original allegations against Zoe Quinn and the GamerGate hashtag itself was only a few days old. Though editors trying to bring up the allegations against Quinn were running into a little trouble due to Wikipedia’s strict sourcing requirements and rules regarding information about living people, the first major salvo came from ostensible Wikipedia criticism site Wikipediocracy. Until September 2015, when I was banned nearly two years for criticizing one of the site’s admins, I was an active member of Wikipediocracy and appalled at the piece. Although not a site that shies away from personal sliming of Wikipedia editors, this piece seemed less interested in their activities on Wikipedia and more concerned with speculating about the gender identity of one editor called Tutelary, as well as the sexual predilections of her and another editor called Titanium Dragon. Criticism of their Wikipedia editing was limited mainly to just mentioning that they successfully got the allegations included in Quinn’s bio in a way that complied with Wikipedia’s policies.
Making things worse is that the article contained photos of Tutelary as a minor and the real name of Titanium Dragon, and was at one point tweeted out by Zoe Quinn herself, though she adjusted her stance within days and the photos of Tutelary were eventually removed after criticism. Over two days the semi-official accounts associated with Wikipediocracy, operated by the author’s husband Andreas Kolbe, repeatedly tweeted links to the article on feminism-related hashtags. Expressing less concern about himself than Tutelary, Titanium Dragon posted about the article on an administrative noticeboard to request help from the Wikipedia community. Instead the response was a failed attempt by a large number of editors and admins to ban Tutelary from Wikipedia. So desperate were some to remove Tutelary that they used a nearly three-year-old conversation she allegedly had on another site about hacking pedophiles to convince other editors she would hack into their computers, an accusation that got self-proclaimed Jeopardy villain Arthur “It Ends Tonight” Chu to fervently endorse Tutelary’s doxing.
The only allegations against Titanium Dragon and Tutelary that concerned their Wikipedia editing revolved around earlier failed attempts at discussing the controversy surrounding Zoe Quinn in her biography. For the most part the issues were highly technical. On Wikipedia material about living people, or even the recently deceased, needs to be backed by strong sources and that applies to all spaces on Wikipedia, including the discussion pages where additions to articles are proposed. As some sources Titanium Dragon used for some claims were not considered reliable enough for an article on a living person, they were rejected and the revisions containing his proposals removed from public view. Tutelary was criticized simply for restoring these proposals to allow time for them to be discussed. Up to that point and even in the discussions left open to public view, much less reliable sources by Wikipedia’s standards can still be located such as the original blog post by Quinn’s ex-boyfriend Eron Gjoni.
Discussion of the GamerGate position proved difficult in this environment as inconsistent enforcement of Wikipedia’s policies and the whim of whatever admin was present at the time determined what was acceptable to mention. Weeks after being doxed, Titanium Dragon was banned from the GamerGate topic by admin and future arbitrator Gamaliel, a.k.a. Robert Fernandez, for attempting to discuss the history of abuse exhibited by Zoe Quinn and supporters such as Phil Fish because his comment did not link directly to his sources or the sources did not explicitly say every single thing he stated. After this ban was overturned on a technicality, he would be banned from the topic a second time by Future Perfect At Sunrise for noting past instances covered in the media where people faked death threats, on the grounds that this was an implicit accusation against GamerGate opponents. He was merely the first to run afoul of this nit-picking approach by admins to Wikipedia’s labyrinthine policies on information about living people.
Following Titanium Dragon’s first ban from the GamerGate topic, another editor posted a link to a blog post by gay GamerGate supporter J. W. Caine on the GamerGate article discussion page. In the post Caine detailed how early discussion of the Zoe Quinn controversy was focused heavily on the implications for game journalism, not primarily on Quinn as media asserted, and debunked claims that the NotYourShield hashtag was just a bunch of sock-puppets posing as female, non-white, and LGBT GamerGate supporters. The editor who posted this link was banned from Wikipedia by former ArbCom member PhilKnight and the edit containing the link was hidden from all editors except the few dozen admins with “oversight” privileges. When explaining his reasons for the block and suppression of the edit months later PhilKnight claimed it was because the post linked to 4chan discussions to back up its claims about the content of those 4chan discussions, even though Wikipedia’s own article on 4chan links directly to the popular imageboard.
Meanwhile on the GamerGate article itself, editors opposed to GamerGate were removing material about a DDoS attack on The Escapist’s GamerGate thread claiming it was not related to GamerGate because they don’t know who did it with one editor known as Tarc questioning whether the DDoS attack actually happened. Attempts to mention the revelations about the GameJournoPros mailing list were reversed as Tarc called it “nuttery” and editor TheRedPenOfDoom labeled then-Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannapoulos a “conspiracy theorist” for his reports on it. Smears such as the latter comments were not uncommon when it concerned anyone sympathetic to GamerGate as more smears were attempted against Yiannapoulos and Eron Gjoni by editors on the GamerGate article. Though these actions typically violated the very policies on claims about living people that these editors were citing against their opponents, no action was taken. When I made an attempt at a massive reorganization of the article to move it towards a more neutral treatment of the subject, this same group of editors rushed to slant it back towards their own anti-GamerGate bias.
At this point Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales leaped into the breach and gave a long speech about how the next day he would help fix the GamerGate article and resolve the whole dispute. Essentially promising just to write up a few paragraphs containing his thoughts and ask other people to do the work for him, he proved unable to even manage that much to the surprise of no one familiar with his tendency for ineffectual pontifications. The only noteworthy action from Wales in the following month occurred when he weighed in on whether to include mention of GameJournoPros in the GamerGate article. Supporting its inclusion he remarked that “the allegations of collusion are largely and obviously true” offering up a minor victory for GamerGate supporters. Unfortunately, this was a rare bright spot in the dispute.
For me the tipping point where resolving the situation through Wikipedia’s lower-level processes no longer seemed possible was soon after a community discussion authorized a special sanctions regime to give admins greater leeway over editing related to GamerGate despite admins having consistently favored an anti-GamerGate stance. In a final test to see if the dispute could be handled without ArbCom intervention I made another massive change to the GamerGate article. One of these changes included the addition of details about GameJournoPros that was removed, but reinstated after Wales supported it, albeit in a way that rejected claims of collusion. This small sign of hope rapidly faded as another change I made met with the ire of anti-GamerGate editors.
Having dared to include a single meager paragraph about GamerGate supporters being harassed, an editor named Ryulong viciously mocked this addition. Such a response was not unusual as his fellow anti-GamerGate editors had previously belittled harassment of GamerGate supporters or even claimed they deserved it. Ryulong went further and said if the material about harassment of GamerGate supporters was retained he should be allowed to add various smears against pro-GamerGate lawyer Mike Cernovich regarding a dispute where he said he would donate money to charity if Anil Dash condemned remarks from Gawker writers promoting bullying. Citing an 11-person indie music zine, Ryulong suggested material branding this action as bribery and using a tweet from Dash to accuse Cernovich of stalking and doxing.
Ryulong proceeded to remove details from the Washington Post about threats against female GamerGate supporters and any mention of harassment directed at Yiannopoulos. When I reversed his actions, he followed through on his pledge with a lengthy paragraph implicitly labeling Cernovich a psychopath. Ryulong added on to this with a lengthy paragraph backed by a single Vice Article accusing GamerGate of engaging in copyright infringement for using archiving sites. His cohort NorthBySouthBaranof then added a paragraph sourced to a BuzzFeed article smearing various moderators on the pro-GamerGate KotakuInAction subreddit as violent misogynists for their participation in sexual subreddits and subreddits mocking feminists. The additions about KiA mods were rejected after an exhaustive discussion and the response from Ryulong was to double down on the smears against Cernovich by expressly accusing him of bribery. Once I noticed the paragraph and removed it, Ryulong re-added it to a section on GamerGate’s support for charities with an image at the top of the section repeating the bribery claims in a blatant act of trolling. Discussing the paragraph, anti-GamerGate editors mounted a vigorous defense of their smear campaign against Cernovich, showing a questionable understanding of bribery law in the process.
At the same time this was going on another editor would be severely sanctioned. Editor ArmyLine was banned from the GamerGate topic for a year by admin Acroterion after stating that Quinn cheated on her boyfriend. The reasoning for deeming this worthy of severe sanction was that reliable sources only state that Quinn’s relationship with Kotaku writer Nathan Grayson occurred and it was alleged to be cheating. For this hairsplitting complaint ArmyLine was barred from the article for a year. During the discussion of the BuzzFeed article on KotakuInAction moderators, one editor who loudly complained about Ryulong’s double standards on sourcing was blocked for “incivility” by the now late admin Dreadstar. I left a complaint about the block pinging Dreadstar and pointing out Ryulong’s attempts to smear Cernovich, but was instead threatened with a block for attempting to remove the attacks then got a brief abortive block an hour after I stopped removing the smear in favor of discussing the issue.
By then I was increasingly convinced there would be little chance of resolution without seeking the assistance of the Arbitration Committee. Many of the editors had previously rejected angrily any notion of pursuing the site’s mediation process, so I had little hope for compromise, but I held off still. The situation only worsened as NorthBySouthBaranof and Ryulong twisted my arguments against using the indie music zine as a source for accusing Cernovich of bribery and psychopathy and turned them into an excuse for removing various other sources in a petulant fit, which coincidentally went primarily after details regarding harassment of GamerGate supporters or that questioned claims GamerGate is misogynist. Eventually, the article was locked after my attempts to restore details about harassment were reversed by Tarc and Ryulong.
What became the absolute final straw was when these editors began removing details about the existence of female, non-white, and LGBT GamerGate supporters or having their existence treated as mere opinion. At the same time Ryulong, under the guise of trimming image captions, repeatedly removed the statement by Christina Hoff Sommers that the gamer generation was much less prejudiced than previous generations. In defending their actions, Ryulong insisted that the existence of female, non-white, and LGBT GamerGate supporters should be treated as opinion because they were not being allowed to state as fact in the article that GamerGate is misogynist. My comments criticizing their edits to the article were then removed by admin Dreadstar claiming that I was not talking about content. He essentially suggested I “file a report” if I wanted any editor sanctioned, but adding ominously that it could “cut both ways” if I did.
No longer willing to tolerate these attempts at denying the existence of female, non-white, and LGBT GamerGate supporters and at erasing evidence of the harassment they received, while feeling regular admins would not give me a fair hearing given their lack of action on attempts at defaming named GamerGate supporters, I took the whole matter to the Arbitration Committee with the intention of seeing these editors removed from the GamerGate dispute. To reiterate, despite the narrative spun in the left-wing press, I filed that case on my own initiative to remove some and possibly all of these five editors and to hold the admins enabling them accountable. I did so not as part of some 8chan conspiracy to allow for defamatory attacks on female opponents of GamerGate, but in response to efforts by these editors to defame named individuals supporting GamerGate, to erase evidence of female, non-white and LGBT supporters being harassed, and to deny the very existence of these female, non-white, and LGBT GamerGate supporters, as admins watched on taking no action.
Next: Part 2: The Five Horsemen of Wikibias
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