GamerGate Wiki:Policies

This page documents policies and style guides that are used to ensure best practices on the GamerGate Wiki. The goal is to maintain a consistent format across pages, and to maintain standards of quality. These policies are open to change, especially in the early stages of the wiki's life, and any changes can be proposed on the talk page. General editing help can be found on the editing help page.

Style Guide

 * Tone:Entries should be written in a formal, encyclopedic tone. This includes avoiding the use of slang or shorthand as well as addressing the reader in the form of rhetorical questions and use of the word "you".
 * Titles:Titles should be recognizable, short, and concise. Ideally, readers will know what the article is about just by the title. Generally speaking, verbs should not be used in titles.
 * Sections:Sections should be created with level 2 headers (see editing help) to start with, then each level 2 section can be further divided with level 3 headers, and so on. Avoid using only one sub-section. For example, a level 2 section on history that has only one level 3 sub-section within it probably does not need a sub-section at all.
 * Internal Links:Internal links (wikilinks) should be used as often as possible, to help with SEO ranking and conveyance around the Wiki. Internal links should have a title that is as close as possible to article title itself. Do not hide the link target in any way, such as by using phrases like "Leigh Alexander wrote about games without disclosing her relationship to their developer." Any one article should only be linked the first time it is mentioned, and potentially a second time if it is mentioned again much later in the article.
 * External Links:When using external links, always include a title instead of just pasting a plain link. See editing help for how to format external links with titles. External links should usually not appear in the article itself, but instead used in a reference (see below) or in a "see also" section at the end of the article, in a list of related links.
 * # GamerGate:GamerGate is a controversy and the resulting consumer revolt, and #GamerGate is a hashtag used on twitter. Discussing the topic of any hash tag outside of twitter makes the pound sign associated with that hash tag irrelevant. #GamerGate has no meaning outside of twitter, except in considering stylistic decisions which are not appropriate for an encyclopedia. Therefore, use of the pound sign should be avoided. In addition, pound signs are interpreted in MediaWiki as starting a numbered list, which can cause formatting issues.
 * Redlinks:Links to pages which are not yet created (redlinks) are fine as long as it is a page that can be created eventually, in accordance with the notability policy.

Notability
Subjects covered on the GamerGate Wiki must be relevant to GamerGate, or to a controversy that is within the scope of GamerGate. This includes controversies that took place long before GamerGate. In addition there is a large overlap between gaming and technology &mdash; one of the participants in Gamers are Dead was Ars Technica &mdash; so technology related controversies have potential to be within the scope of GamerGate, especially if they relate to programming and computers. Tech related controversies not connected to gaming by any strand of logic, like ShirtStorm, are not suitable for covering.

Public figures are the only people that can have articles. In general this includes journalists, developers, public relations figures, and professional bloggers and video producers. Not everyone who has a blog or youtube channel is a professional. They are only considered public figures if their content is popular and widespread enough that they are able to make it their career, or if they have had an extremely notable impact on GamerGate. Twitter personalities and other e-celebrities are not public figures and are not suitable for articles.

All journalists can have articles about them as long as they have mentioned GamerGate or are involved in at least one controversy. All developers involved in at least one controversy can have articles, but mentioning GamerGate does not automatically mean they are notable. Misinformation about GamerGate among developers is rampant and documenting every bad thing said about GamerGate is unimportant and comes off as overly antagonistic, not to mention that it is not a developer's job to be informed about video game culture and news.

Individual games are only notable if there is some controversy relating to them, and even then, they are usually only suitable to be mentioned on an article about developers, publications, and organizations involved in the controversy. Organizations, such as The Fine Young Capitalists, can be notable enough to get their own article, but many are only notable enough to be mentioned in articles about people and publications that are involved with them, such as Leigh Alexander's involvement with Agency for Games.

Neutrality
Unlike Wikipedia, it is not necessarily the goal of this Wiki to be completely impartial. This Wiki focuses on the controversies and failures of the gaming industry, especially those involving the gaming media. It is our goal to persuade our readers of the existence of the problem within the industry, as well as to justify GamerGate's existence as a force for consumer advocacy. Aspects of subjects that are not related to GamerGate or other related controversies are, with a few few exceptions, not documented. Official responses to controversies are to be covered, but are subject to critical analysis with the intent to discredit where applicable.

Despite impartiality not being a goal, that does not allow for libel, flimsy allegations, misrepresentation, quoting out of context, or any other form of yellow journalism. However, speculation is unavoidable due to the nature of controversies covered by the Wiki. For example, speculating that a reporter's relationship with a subject influenced their decision to cover them is permissible, as it is something no reporter will ever admit publicly. It is still important to clearly indicate what is speculative and what is factual in the process of doing so. In general, this can be accomplished by using phrases such as 'This led to questions about...', or 'It has been speculated that...'.

Reliable Sources
The GamerGate Wiki is unable to have a reliable sources policy like Wikipedia because so many sources are primary sources, including twitter posts, blogs, and original research. In addition, as mentioned in the neutrality section, speculation is an unavoidable aspect of documenting video game controversies. This can include statements for which there is no specific source, but which is derived from information gathered from other sources. These statements must not be stated as facts, and must be presented in such a way that it is clear from which sources the speculation is derived.

Personal Information
Publishing personal information of any kind is not allowed. Edits which contain this information are stricken from the edit history and users who post this may be banned. Real names of people can be used if they are demonstrably comfortable with people knowing and using their real name, for example, John Bain. Sources which contain vital and relevant information about a subject while mentioning their real name can be used, however. In cases where an image contains personal information, but is very important to include, the information can be censored, but an uncensored version should not be uploaded. Twitter posts are public and no usernames need to be censored, even if the username is not relevant to the subject matter.

Be Bold
One way in which the GamerGate Wiki is like Wikipedia is that it encourages editors to be bold with their edits. Mistakes are easily undone or fixed, and the additional information added in a messy edit is worth any cleanup that follows. Policies are guidelines and not set in stone. If something an editor wants to do violates a policy or if they are unsure, they can post to the help noticeboard or any relevant talk pages, as well as any user talk page who they feel would have an answer. They can also just do it, and assuming they did not demonstrate bad faith, such as vandalism and doxxing, they will not be banned.