Sydney, have a look at the findings of fact for TaraInDC, and check the diffs provided: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/GamerGate… I don't think those diffs demonstrate that she was somehow less "reasonable", only that she was frustrated. And there are extenuating circumstances for that. I don't think Wikipedia has ever been through a Twitter- and Reddit-driven POV war quite like this one. In general, Newyorkbrad pretty much said it best for me throughout this page (there is only one case where I disagree with him, and it concerns an editor on the other side of the debate). YMMV. Best, Andreas On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 7:07 PM, Sydney Poore <sydney.poore(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 2:59 PM, Sarah <slimvirgin(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think the lesson it sends is that a righteous cause is not a defense against accusations of disruption, nor a license to violate other policies. I'm sure that among the restricted people are those with positions I'd support along with many others, but that doesn't put their behavior above reproach. Tony Sidaway was hardly the paragon of a calm and thoughtful administrator - insightful as he often was, there was a reason he was fired as a clerk and barred from simply requesting his bit back.

Suppose I should say a brief something since some of the posts here talk about me. I have been caustic and acerbic at the Wikipedia over the years, though in fits and starts I am trying to take it down a few notches. So, yea, I'm quite aware that I'm not the best poster-child for any sort of movement or change or whatnot. I dived into Gamergate after hearing about some of the really awful things that were being said about Zoe Quinn elsewhere, thinking (correctly) that her Wiki bio was going to be a harassment magnet. As far as I am concerned, there is no debate; if one identifies as a "pro-Gamergater", than that one stands side-by-side with the harassment that was done under the hashtag. I did not want to allow these people to direct the narrative of the Gamergate article. So, yes, sometimes one loses one's cool when dealing with dirtbags from 8chan/reddit. However, it is a shame that we who kept the hordes at bay, while being harassed by 8chan/reddit and hell, harassed by Jimmy Wales himself for a time til his eyes belatedly opened, were not cut a little more slack. We were doing something right (with using some wrong words/tone at times) and got the same treatment as a bunch of throwaway accounts. That is the narrative that the mainstream media seems to be running with, and while it isn't accurate for them to say "feminists and women were banned", they are still correctly portraying the WIkipedia's Arbcom as doing a pretty bad thing here. -t

st want to make it clear that don't consider myself to be a feminist, whatever that is. I was not a member of GGTF and have never edited in the topic of gender. I saw the disruptions on the page, and tried to give some support and validation to the only admin I saw trying to deal with the situation. When the ANI discussions seemed like they had gone on for too long, I tried to use my position as an uninvolved editor to get them to agree to a voluntary topic ban. I'm pretty much of a newbie with regards to ANI and have no experience at all with topic bans at all, so maybe I was too naive in thinking that users could just talk things out and come to some agreement. If I had succeeded, there would not have been a case. At the time, I was in the process of deleting my unnecessary sub-pages and storing them off site, as I had decided to retire. On a whim, I asked for an RFA review from an admin who was offering to do them, remembering that Kevin Gorman had a successful RFA after working with KillerChihuahua on Men's Rights issues. After seeing the comments on the RFA review, I started to wonder if my Wikipedia experience had really been as negative as I remembered it. Incidentally, this admin had seen my name on the Gender Gap case, but did not even consider that anyone might take the accusations against me seriously. It's telling that the diffs that were presented about me in the Gender Gap case had nothing to do with gender or with GGTF. They were copy-pasted from the statement of an individual whose disruptions the Arbitration committee had been asked to investigate. The committee even copied his error in citing BADNAMES policy. It's clear to me that the Foundation has reached some kind of Seldon Crisis--if I may borrow a page from Isaac Asimov-- with off-site meatpuppets, and the arbitration committee is not able to deal with it. This page is instructive: http://www.reddit.com/r/GamerGhazi/comments/2lxw4x/effort_gamergates_latest… GamerGate's latest "Arbitration Request" is 15,000 words and climbing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#GamerGate>. That's about 60 typed, double-spaced pages. That's not counting the dozens (hundreds?) of hyperlinks you have to read to digest it. It owes its size to 8chan canvasing for "meatpuppets" <https://archive.today/nmsBK> to target specific editors. Their users dutifully dredged up countless old, investigated and already settled accusations, and material not appropriate for Arbitration.... But perhaps the main takeaway? This is a typical day in a 3-month ordeal on Wikipedia. It must be exhausting, which GG must know... Yes, it is exhausting, especially if you have already stopped editing and have many pressing things in real life. Even if you come out with your reputation intact, you will never get those three months of your life back. The Arbitration Committee is being expected to do too much here. The arbs are real individuals, who, in many cases, have had their real life identities ferreted out. And they are volunteers. They cannot possibly be expected to investigate these Gamergate individuals who are so well organized off-site, and who are adept at issuing death threats, and getting campus events cancelled for security threats. At this point, all the Arbcom can do, as they did in the Gender Gap case, is to ignore the mountains of diffs, and make scapegoats of good faith editors. The Foundation needs to step in here, and protect its editors, not only from the Gamer Gaters, but from the Arbitration Committee, which is being asked to do the impossible without any resources. On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 8:12 PM, Tarc . &lt;tarc(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote:

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:43 AM, Fæ &lt;faewik(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: comments had been a false-flag operation, intended to shine a spotlight on transphobia. He acknowledged that this was not a good way to do it, and as I recall he apologized. Sarah

Thanks for the link and explanation. It fooled me then, I saw it as simple bigotry and stopped reading about it, or anything that Tarc had to say from there on. I agree with your comment about being cautious about sarcasm or reductio ad absurdum on the internet. Bigoted language as a joke, parody or rhetorical trick is not just prone to back-firing but when at this level of nastiness, is going to stick, and be incredibly hard to return from. Fae On 26 January 2015 at 18:15, Neotarf &lt;neotarf(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

I suggest that as a supporter and administrator of a website that labels me as a faggot, and a participant and advocate of another website that has been home to trolling me with homophobic language for years, you avoid finding silly reasons to pick tiny holes in my text. I am in a same sex marriage recognized by UK law. Being called /a gay/ is the least of my worries. In comparison your access to OTRS and personal oversighted material on Wikimedia projects worries me and others greatly. Fae On 26 January 2015 at 19:02, Alison Cassidy &lt;cooties(a)mac.com&gt; wrote: -- faewik(a)gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae

On 1/25/2015 6:17 PM, Nathan wrote: The problem being that ArbCom is so political that most members see editors they dislike/disagree with on issues/content as disruptive even if their disruption is minor compared to that of the editors they feel more sympatico with. And of course if the "community" (i.e., gangs of editors who are allies) decide to target someone it's just easier politically to sanction those persons than not. And if they have a lot of supporters it is safer NOT to sanction them. This issue was very clear in GGTF arbitration where a few people were targeted by most posters, over and over for the same issues, at least til the end when an Arbitrator added a couple more needing sanctions. It's less clear in Gamergate because there are more participants being targeted by many more participants on many different issues. CM

Double standard. Where are all the usual voices protesting about "civility police"? Where are all the arbitrators opining that they cannot set objective standards for language? Beeblebrox used to have an article about "fuck off" in his user space. It didn't get him banned. In fact, he went on to become an administrator and arbitrator. In the absence of objective standards, subjective standards are emerging, based on gender. Using the f-word, or even criticizing male users, is becoming a male privilege on en.wp. Anyone else who uses the word is "hostile" and exhibiting "battleground behavior". I must also say I am very disappointed in GorillaWarfare's role here. Maybe, just maybe, instead of just dismissing anything that is said by a woman editor, the arbitration committee should investigate it. I am looking in particular at this one https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noti… If it is true, there are a huge number of users recruited on external sites, who are not there to build an encyclopedia, that will have huge implications for the survival of women editors on Wikipedia. The arbitration committee is looking at WP:SPA, they should look at WP:MEAT. And they should pay attention to who the ringleaders are, not just the throwaway accounts. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:IdeaLab/WikiProjec… https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:IdeaLab/WikiProjec… https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:IdeaLab/WikiProjec… https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants:IdeaLab/WikiProject_Wom… But, as has been pointed out on the current RFC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Harassment#RfC:_should_the_pol… that would change the WP:OUTING policy to prohibit all mention of outside accounts, including Reddit Men's Rights and Reddit Gamergate, "trying to address the issues without being able to talk openly about the evidence is difficult". On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Marie Earley &lt;eiryel(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote:

Hi Marie, Surely this would cover more than just examples where both parties were in the UK? For example if the victim was anywhere in the world but the offender was in the UK, wouldn't the UK law apply? Regards Jonathan Cardy

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/23/wikipedia-bans-editors-fr… Note that they have changed it from original "five feminists banned" to more accurate account. I see some other reports on Guardian article also updated their versions. Also, I just got around to replying to Slate article writing the below. I'm sure the trashers will immediately reply as they did last time. http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/02/wikipedia_gamergat… CM wrote: Wikipedia’s Gender Gap task force arbitration (decided in December 2014) and the more recent "Gamergate" arbitration are strikingly similar in that both cases involve harassment by a gang of males opposed to what they considered “feminist” influences, in Wikipedia and in the coverage of “Gamergate” on Wikipedia. In both cases, these “gangs” aggressively assaulted the ideas and individuals they considered to be feminist. In the first case, those whose goal was promoting greater female participation in the Wikipedia community, including through asking for more a more civil environment; in the second those whose goal was making sure the Wikipedia article properly reflected the major media’s reporting on Gamergate, which happened to be supportive of harassed women. Some individuals involved in the Gender Gap task force admitted being feminists. Those opposing the imposition of the Gamergate view point on the article were defacto acting to advance the feminist cause, even if they don't consider themselves feminists. The predominantly male Arbitrators in both cases made it clear that heavy duty harassment of individuals perceived as feminists is a minor crime compared to anyone, feminist or otherwise, strongly opposing such harassment. In their final decisions, they site banned two supporters of the Gender Gap task force and only wrist slapped the harassers; a few weeks later they topic banned those who protested massive sock puppetry and/or harassment by Gamergaters while showing little concern for the harassment that provoked protest. That’s why many believe that the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee is institutionalizing harassment of women especially on Wikipedia. Some feminists have written that the primary value of patriarchy is to allow males to prove their manhood through incivility, putting down women and ultimately violence. In sanctioning those who stand up to such bad behavior, the Arbitration committee reveals its patriarchal and anti-woman mind set.

After thought: Crimestoppers in the UK is anonymous, which would make https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats unenforceable, https://crimestoppers-uk.org/give-information/give-information-online/ Marie From: eiryel(a)hotmail.com To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2015 03:48:55 +0000 Subject: Re: [Gendergap] press coverage of Gamergate arbcom case I don't know of a case of hate speech under UK law that has been brought by a non-UK resident. Looking online tends to push you towards information regarding extradition, but that's not really what we are talking about. This week laws against revenge porn came into force within the UK with a potential sentence of two years. Since revenge porn is mostly committed online then I would have said yes, if the perpetrator is a UK citizen, acting online within the UK against someone abroad then I would have thought they could be prosecuted by the UK. This is an article in The Independent about the new law coming into force, the last paragraph seems to hint that that would be the case: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/revenge-porn-criminalised-what-i… "The apparent leaking of nude images of celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence and Kate Upton, who had their private accounts hacked and which thrust the issue into the limelight, would also be classified as revenge porn." A couple of other points to note, does https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats refer to criminal as well as civil law? The UK has no such thing as District Attorneys or pre-trial hearings, preliminary hearing etc., so I get lost around US law. Cases in the UK are brought by the police and then the file is passed to the Crown Prosection Service. The CPS the decides whether to go ahead, it bases that decision on (a) is there enough evidence for there to be a reasonable chance of conviction, and (b) is the case in the public interest. I heard about a case some years ago where three men went out for the night, two of them got into a physical scrap in he middle of the street which became quite violent. The third man made a few attempts to break up the fight. Eventually they cooled off and all three went home. No crime was reported, there was no threat of legal action by any of the parties, but the whole thing had been caught on CCTV. The police arrested the two men and the one of them was jailed for attempted murder. If a concerned member of the public, not necessarily an editor, brought hate speech by a British editor to the attention of the police in the UK, then the police might arrest that editor and the Crown Prosection Service could bring charges using the evidence which is available online. As far as I know it would not require any action or any threat of action on the part of the other editor concerned. Marie Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2015 21:22:35 +0000 From: jayen466(a)gmail.com To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] press coverage of Gamergate arbcom case David Auerbach in Slate on "The Wikipedia Ouroboros": http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/02/wikipedia_gamergat… On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 1:40 PM, WereSpielChequers &lt;werespielchequers(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Hi Marie, Surely this would cover more than just examples where both parties were in the UK? For example if the victim was anywhere in the world but the offender was in the UK, wouldn't the UK law apply? Regards Jonathan Cardy On 30 Jan 2015, at 16:46, Marie Earley &lt;eiryel(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: There is something I thought I should mention as a UK member of this list. Hate speech (including online) is illegal in the UK. When the Bank of England announced that Elizabeth Fry would be dropped from the new £5 notes and replaced with Winston Churchill, it meant that there would be no women on sterling bank notes (apart from the Queen). Caroline Criado-Perez successfully campaigned for Jane Austin to be added to £10 notes and received threats of rape and death. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10207231/Woman-who-campaigned-for-Jan… That instigated an online campaign which resulted in Twitter adding its 'report' button. Isabella Sorley, 23, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, tweets included: "die you worthless piece of crap", "go kill yourself" and, "I've only just got out of prison and would happily do more time to see you berried!!" John Nimmo, 25, of South Shields, made references to rape and added: "I will find you (smiley face)". Sorley was sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, and Nimmo was jailed for 8 weeks. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25886026 The law they broke was Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/section/127 If UK-based Wikipedian 'X' breaches s.127 of the Comms. Act due to something they said on Wikipedia about UK-based Wikipedian 'Y' then they face criminal prosecution and possibly jail. The litmus test is whether what they have said is not only 'offensive' but, 'grossly offensive'. Wikipedia's internal systems and thresholds would make no difference to the authorities in the UK. It would be interesting to see what the public fall-out would be if Wikipedia decided that no action should be taken against X whilst the UK jailed him / her. Marie Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 11:41:36 -0500 From: neotarf(a)gmail.com To: gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Gendergap] press coverage of Gamergate arbcom case Double standard. Where are all the usual voices protesting about "civility police"? Where are all the arbitrators opining that they cannot set objective standards for language? Beeblebrox used to have an article about "fuck off" in his user space. It didn't get him banned. In fact, he went on to become an administrator and arbitrator. In the absence of objective standards, subjective standards are emerging, based on gender. Using the f-word, or even criticizing male users, is becoming a male privilege on en.wp. Anyone else who uses the word is "hostile" and exhibiting "battleground behavior". I must also say I am very disappointed in GorillaWarfare's role here. Maybe, just maybe, instead of just dismissing anything that is said by a woman editor, the arbitration committee should investigate it. I am looking in particular at this one https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noti… If it is true, there are a huge number of users recruited on external sites, who are not there to build an encyclopedia, that will have huge implications for the survival of women editors on Wikipedia. The arbitration committee is looking at WP:SPA, they should look at WP:MEAT. And they should pay attention to who the ringleaders are, not just the throwaway accounts. https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:IdeaLab/WikiProjec… https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:IdeaLab/WikiProjec… https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants_talk:IdeaLab/WikiProjec… https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grants:IdeaLab/WikiProject_Wom… But, as has been pointed out on the current RFC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Harassment#RfC:_should_the_pol… that would change the WP:OUTING policy to prohibit all mention of outside accounts, including Reddit Men's Rights and Reddit Gamergate, "trying to address the issues without being able to talk openly about the evidence is difficult". On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 11:05 PM, Marie Earley &lt;eiryel(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: I don't know a lot about this case, but taking a cursory look at the diffs... https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gamergate_controversy&d… ...presumably an "excessive edit" is a derogatrory way of saying "a single large edit". In which case I would probably have said the same as this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Gamergate_controversy&d… To be feminist or to not be feminist... I once read about a mother who went into a toy shop with her little girl. She was walking towards the check-out with a toy fire truck and some Lego when she was stopped by a member of staff who pointed out that the store had dolls. The mother said that her daughter didn't like dolls, that she likes trucks. She was about to move off again when the staff member pointed out that the store sold pastel Lego (as opposed to the primary coloured bucket of Lego that she had picked up). I'm sure she didn't think of herself as a feminist until that moment. I find that most people who join feminist groups / gender gap mailing list etc. never thought of themselves as feminists until they had a "Lego moment". My Lego moment was reading this article: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/fashion-news/the-wag-wannabes-9… about a 19 year-old who was hoping to become the wife or girlfriend of a footballer (soccer player). footballers go they are recognised and They know they can be with anyone - it's a privilege when they pick you." Marie _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap _______________________________________________ Gendergap mailing list Gendergap(a)lists.wikimedia.org To manage your subscription preferences, including unsubscribing, please visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap

Well, there’s this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Threats_of_violence which never became policy (probably because, it seems, people discussed it more in light of threats of suicide rather than threats to others). But it may be time to revisit that. I assume, in the hypothetical you’re talking about, the question would be whether someone was punished in real life for threats made on-wiki that resulted in no action from the ArbCom? Or from anyone? In the former, yes, the public fallout would be interesting; in the latter, it would depend on whether anyone with the power to take action knew. I do recall some past cases, once described on the now-deleted “List of banned users”, where the trigger for the formal ban (as opposed to the never-lifted indefinite block) was a user threatening violence against someone (usually via their latest sock). Of course, if someone were to be incarcerated in real life as a result of their on-wiki threats, any action after that other than blocking the account to prevent some hacker from making use of it would really be superfluous. Daniel Case

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Marie Earley &lt;eiryel(a)hotmail.com&gt; wrote: With reference to ​Marie and Daniel's emails​ ​​, an ​d​ to Maia's email under a different subject line – where she ​discusses​ the US cyber-stalking and cyber-harassment laws <http://www.ncsl.org/research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/cyberstalking-and-cyberharassment-laws.aspx#overview> – one difficulty for Wikipedians is whether they would be blocked from editing ​ if they were to invoke the law in their defence. (This assumes the editor causing the problem hasn't been banned, in which case I can't imagine that NLT would ever be applied.) Wikipedia:No legal threats <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_legal_threats> ​(NLT) ​ says: "If you make legal threats or take legal action over a Wikipedia dispute, you may be blocked from editing so that the matter is not exacerbated through other channels." This is arguably more likely to have an impact on women. People aren't blocked from Twitter or Facebook for using the law to defend themselves, and women are generally encouraged to seek legal help rather than deal with bad online situations alone. NLT should be updated to distinguish between invoking the law merely to intimidate and invoking it as a legitimate defence, though it would need careful wording. Sarah

On 1/31/2015 2:47 PM, Carol Moore dc wrote: http://www.carolmoore.net/sfm/cooptation.html forgot link

Re the Threats of Violence page... It's an essay in name only. That was a workaround for getting what was actually being done by admins and senior editors documented and standardized after some intractable philosophical fights over what "should be" poisoned the well on normal process. It is policy in every meaningful sense. (I wrote the first and many subsequent drafts) George William Herbert Sent from my iPhone