The Wikipedia Post — Part 4: White Knights of the White Knights
It was not just regular admins whose bias became apparent in the dispute, but the very members of the committee meant to review it as neutral parties. Most outspoken was arbitrator Molly White known on Wikipedia as GorillaWarfare, opponent of compliments, advocate of banning “micro-aggressions”, proponent of telling others to check their privilege, great-granddaughter of the late best-selling children’s novelist E. B. White, and good friend of now-former Wikimedia Foundation employee Oliver Keyes a.k.a. fellow GamerGate opponent Ironholds. Having initially recused herself from the case, she later claimed backsies and became one of the main advocates for taking a harsher line on anyone not pushing the anti-GamerGate narrative. She went so far as to suggest banning an admin from the topic of GamerGate based on him saying Wikipedia should not be making claims editors know to be false and him arguing that the GamerGate article should adopt a more neutral tone. It was overwhelmingly rejected for not showing any evidence of misconduct.
Her attitude towards neutrality on the GamerGate dispute matched well with what she was found saying on Twitter where she could be seen rebuffing a GamerGate supporter by stating “I must have missed the part where threatening and defaming women became a legitimate movement.” White had also retweeted a statement attacking Mozilla after it allowed female games journalist Georgina Young to write a piece discussing harassment she and others sympathetic to GamerGate have received. In the privileged world of Molly White, apparently only right-thinking women should be allowed to speak about being victims of harassment. Following questions about whether she could act as an impartial arbitrator on the dispute in light of her comments on Twitter, White responded evasively with “I don’t feel that my feminism is a conflict of interest.” After I stated it was not honest for her to portray these concerns as just about her being a feminist, admin HJ Mitchell threatened to block me, labeling my comment a “personal attack” against White. She now claims people questioning her objectivity was really all because she is a woman, thus hiding behind the entire female gender. It would later be revealed that White was also part of a group developing anti-GamerGate Twitter bots. White denies being active in the group or being personally involved in developing anti-GamerGate bots.
White was not alone as there was credible evidence of bias on the Committee both before and after the case. Guerillero, under his real name Thomas Fish, had retweeted an anti-GamerGate remark by online abuse prevention activist and noted perpetrator of online abuse, Randi Harper. Along with White, Fish was one of three arbitrators who did their utmost to protect the horsemen and was the only other arbitrator to endorse White’s proposal to ban admin Masem from the GamerGate topic. Last, but not least, was Brad “Courcelles” Brown who proposed lighter actions against several horsemen and, though formally opposed to banning Masem from the GamerGate topic, suggested the admin should step away regardless. Days after the case ended, his admin wife Karen Brown or Fluffernutter, now a WMF employee, created a shortcut link to a Wikipedia essay on “Civil POV-pushing” that referenced a derisive anti-GamerGate meme. Fluffernutter, incidentally, was also a member of IBM’s Watson team and one of many IBM employees who made promotional edits to company-related articles.
Once the bias of these Arbitrators became apparent they began reshuffling their votes to support harsher sanctions against the horsemen. Yet there was one arbitrator who would not support a single sanction against the five horsemen, including warnings, or even support any finding of misconduct on their parts. His name is Ira “Newyorkbrad” Matetsky, corporate lawyer and one-time attorney to the late Stan Lee. At the time of the GamerGate case he was the longest-serving arbitrator in Wikipedia’s history, only temporarily surpassed due to him declining re-election to the Committee that year. Matetsky’s stated reason for being the sole arbitrator to oppose so much as a slap on the wrist for the five horsemen was ostensibly a belief that they sincerely sought to fight against defamatory editing, in spite of their demonstrated desire to smear any individual sympathetic to GamerGate. This could be a product of gullibility or a rationalization motivated by a less apparent ideological bias, but what can be said is that if Matetsky had his way the GamerGate ArbCom case would have been the most partisan decision on a major content dispute in the history of the Commitee.
Matetsky’s indiscriminate affirmation of the five horsemen even as they were behaving abusively towards any editor that challenged their smear campaigns is not nearly as interesting as his observations regarding admin conduct in the dispute. Although acknowledging some questionable administrative actions, he argued “we need admins who are willing to step into difficult areas like this one.” Matetsky cited this same rationale of low admin involvement for declining any action regarding administrator Gamaliel, even suggesting that under other circumstances he would be asked to step away. His sentiments were echoed by multiple fellow arbitrators supporting a remedy that thanked every admin for their actions in the GamerGate dispute and encouraged their continued participation.
This use of low admin involvement as a reason for avoiding action has appeal in the community as Wikipedia faces an admin participation crisis. An article at the end of September 2015 in the Wikipedia newsletter “The Signpost” stated that out of the site’s then 1,330 admins only around 250 were actively using their admin tools, less than half of the 580 admins listed as active editors. Being split between multiple different administrative tasks such as addressing vandalism, sock-puppetry, or deleting pages, the time allowed for any member of Wikipedia’s dwindling admin corps to become bogged down in complicated and heated disputes such as GamerGate is minimal. Typically only a handful of admins are able to continuously monitor such disputes and so those few admins are seen as vital to maintaining “stability” to the point where ArbCom and the community view the removal of a single one of these admins as a last resort.
Complicating matters further is the creation of discretionary sanctions, which allow these admins considerable leeway in restricting the ability of other editors to contribute and, unlike normal admin actions, can only be overturned by that admin, ArbCom, or a wide community consensus. Discretionary sanctions are effectively a form of martial law imposed on certain topic areas to avoid any further need for ArbCom involvement. Unfortunately, this also means the very body meant to keep admins in check is beholden to these admins to enforce its decisions and reduce its workload. An arbitrator who was active on the GamerGate case, Timotheus Canens, once illustrated this dependence perfectly when he threatened a walk-out of admins and to overturn every sanction he had imposed when ArbCom considered modifying a single sanction he imposed on me and two other editors. The Committee promptly reversed course (Canens would successfully run for ArbCom one month later). As with any case of martial law, this effectively unchecked authority gives rise to a series of abuses because maintaining order among the lesser rabble is the purpose of the system, not restraining the excesses of authority. Keeping order, however, is not the same as maintaining a neutral, high-quality encyclopedia.
(Edit 1/24/2021: Updated to note White denies being involved in developing anti-GamerGate Twitter bots)
Next: Part 5: Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat
Previous: Part 3: White Knights of the Five Horsemen
Return to Table of Contents
