The Wikipedia Post — Part 12: End of the Battle?

The persistence of the anti-GamerGate editors, particularly the single-purpose accounts who came to dominate the GamerGate article(See Appendix C), and the gradual whittling away of editors sympathetic to GamerGate would firmly take its toll. Mark Bernstein was even allowed a little leeway on his ban from gender-related controversies after he was found editing the article on Milo Yiannopoulos. He abused that leeway to inject misleading content into Google’s article regarding the controversy over James Damore’s memo on the company’s policies regarding gender discrimination. Feeling especially bold, Bernstein decided to test his luck at the end of 2017 by getting involved in a discussion on the page for Zoe Quinn and his luck ran out with a one-year ban as the consequence. DHeyward, who had frequently tangled with Bernstein and the anti-GamerGate SPAs, would depart from the site early in 2018. In the preceding weeks he had been repeatedly hounded by anti-GamerGate SPA PeterTheFourth. DHeyward also endured other frustrations in unrelated fights over American Politics, where he confronted some of the most biased left-wing editors on the site.

Future Perfect would also, once more, be brought before the Arbitration Committee around the same time. After the death of Reverend Billy Graham, a newsletter for a group dedicated to editing articles about Christianity would describe his death as a “profound loss” and this somehow was made into a very serious controversy. Editor Joshua P. Schroeder complained of this description of his death as not “neutral” and tried to have it removed or suggested shutting the newsletter down entirely. Though some took time to make vitriolic attacks on the recently-deceased Graham, many criticized Schroeder as he had not even made an effort to discuss his concerns with the authors of the newsletter or members of the group. One editor closed the discussion for this reason when Future Perfect intervened. He overrode the close and, despite no one supporting Schroeder’s stance, declared by administrative fiat that Schroeder’s position was correct and proceeded to alter the newsletter to say simply that Graham died. Another editor undid his edit and Future Pefect restored the change two times claiming it was an “administrative measure” to change the wording.

Running right up to the line of undoing an edit three times, Future Perfect used his administrative privileges to lock the page and “win” the “edit war” over whether the world being deprived of a famous spiritual leader was of deep meaning. While many editors and other administrators expressed concern about his conduct, there were enough supporters that the decision was closed with some help from a very simple change after an actual discussion with the people writing the newsletter. However, dissatisfaction with this behavior had already prompted the run to ArbCom. Ira “NewYorkBrad” Matetsky naturally declared Future Perfect’s conduct, while wrong from a policy perspective, was not serious enough to warrant action and argued that because he perceived his abuse of his administrative position to advance his position as appropriate it was therefore not an issue. Most of the Committee had a different perspective and agreed to an “admonishment” even as some insisted this was insufficient. Yet again, Future Perfect skated on his bad behavior like he was going for gold at Pyeongchang.

On the GamerGate article itself, however, the anti-GamerGate crew would have more of a hold on the page than ever. While an attempt to have the article renamed from “GamerGate controversy” to “GamerGate harassment campaign” failed, a new character would appear to help them along. Sangdeboeuf has an editing history deeply enmeshed in all the usual topics close to feminists and has edited various articles about progressive women to protect them from controversy. This included throwing in with editors protecting the then newly-appointed New York Times editor Sarah Jeong by pushing to cast criticism of her anti-white commentary as coming from “conservatives” as though liberalism means saying the world would be better off if all white people were dead. As part of a wide-ranging shake-up of the GamerGate article some time later, Sangdeboeuf would add to the article that Eron Gjoni’s blog post about his ex-girlfriend Zoe Quinn “falsely implied” she received a favorable review of her game Depression Quest from Nathan Grayson of Kotaku due to a sexual relationship. The claim was false as Gjoni never mentions a review or says anything that could imply the existence of one. Editor Kingsindian noted the falsehood, but two anti-GamerGate SPAs, together with former Wikimedia Foundation staffer Brandon “Jorm” Harris, shut him down. Harris even suggested Kingsindian should provide “reliable sources” stating Gjoni’s blog did not imply it. The general falsehood remains in the article as of publication.

Later that year, Molly “GorillaWarfare” White would run to get back on the Committee after a year’s absence. She would be joined by Brad “Courcelles” Brown. Though no one raised the GamerGate issue with Brown, White would be asked a question about her history with recusal, which she took as a reference to her unrecusing on the GamerGate ArbCom case. White suggested her big mistake was recusing in the first place and suggested she could not recuse just for having opinions on a subject, downplaying the fact she literally suggested being neutral on GamerGate was morally reprehensible to the point that she supported the silencing of a woman who wrote about being harassed for taking a more neutral stance receptive to GamerGate concerns about ethics in games journalism. White expressed confidence that her conduct in the GamerGate ArbCom was neutral. No drama afflicted either White or Brown and both won election to the Committee. However, Drmies a.k.a. Michel Aaij, would run into controversy with the administrator Fram. Unrelated to Aaij’s conduct towards Slate writer and Wikipedia critic David Auerbach while Aaij served on the Committee, Fram was upset about him helping an editor previously banned for promotional editing return to Wikipedia only for that editor to be banned again for repeating the same behavior. Aaij’s candidacy was sunk.

The year of 2018 would close out similar to 2017 with Mark Bernstein once again violating his ban on GamerGate-related topics. His violations concerned former Breitbart Tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos and efforts to have him labeled a nazi on his Wikipedia article. Bernstein spoke in support of efforts by Simonm223, recently seen praising an Antifa terrorist attack on an ICE detention facility while censoring mention of it on Wikipedia’s Antifa page, who called Yiannopoulos a Nazi and sought to misrepresent an already egregiously deceitful hit piece in BuzzFeed to falsely claim Yiannopoulos was “inspired by the ideas of Nazis” for “much of the work” he did at Breitbart. Although this was eventually corrected, a list of citations claimed as showing outlets branding Yiannopoulos a Neo-nazi remain (none of the sources label him as such). While Bernstein had previously been allowed to edit the article on Yiannopoulos due to some misguided reasoning, the administrator who made that allowance was nowhere to be seen and essentially everyone reviewing the case agreed it was a blatant breach, leading to Bernstein’s indefinite ban from Wikipedia. He has continued fussing about matters on his blog, even suggesting I myself am a “throwaway right-wing account” despite having made five times as many edits to ten times as many articles as him over the course of my eight years of editing with most edits being made prior to GamerGate.

Making one of his regular trips to ArbCom, Future Perfect at Sunrise would again be brought up before the Committee early in 2019 for repeatedly engaging in insulting attacks against another user over article phrasing following the recent resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute, now being called North Macedonia. Though members of the Committee generally agreed his conduct was inappropriate, they insisted it was not yet time for a case against him. A few months later the Committee would repeat this refrain when Future Perfect came before the Committee for having given a “final warning” to another user he was in a dispute with over the North Macedonia article. Committee members once more insisted that, while his behavior was inappropriate, more discussion was needed before they could do anything.

The dispute over the GamerGate article has become increasingly quiet the past year in spite of the drama frequently affecting those who were involved in it. Since the beginning of 2019 to the five-year anniversary the article saw fewer than 50 edits with the most notable actions being the removal of a quote from Allum Bokhari cited to the BBC noting the involvement of trolls provoking both sides of the GamerGate debate. Even with such low activity, errors such as an editor altering a two-sentence segment by replacing the first sentence with one effectively duplicating the second can still go uncorrected. It is not only the main GamerGate article affected by the problem as the Wikipedia article on “video game controversies” would be updated with a lengthy section on alleged “alt-right and far-right associations” in the gaming community by moderate anti-GamerGate editor Masem, who was frequently targeted with harassment for his attempts at keeping the GamerGate article neutral. Linking the “alt-right” to GamerGate and the election of President Donald Trump, the section contained the only mention of GamerGate in the article and falsely identified it as taking place in 2013, a mistake that went unnoticed and uncorrected until two and a half months later. In raising the error that editor quipped: “[Historical-revisionist game of telephone intensifies], evermore.”

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