I am basically guessing because it doesn't seem anyone has a concrete reason as to WHY.
To be quite frank, I've said
my piece (and many others on the following pages) and I'm not really keen on starting the whole discussion all over again. My suggestion would be to read up on that particular topic. I'm sure you'll find much valuable information from either side of the discussion, so that you can make up your own mind.
The timeline and your video/blog thingies are completely not in sync with what exactly Gamergate is.
Nevertheless, you should be advised that Rationalwiki isn't not a trustworthy source. They have squarely been in the anti-GG camp from day 1 and are not even remotely interested in giving a nuanced account of what happened. Rationalwiki used to be a somewhat reliable skeptics wiki, but went off the deep end when the whole atheism+ thing went down. Since then they are on par with Conservapedia an equally biased wiki.
You should also be aware that the Wikipedia entry is subject to a
never-ending edit-war of insane proportions. It has over 57 pages of archived discussions and quarrels between editors and was nominated for deletion twice. That doesn't automatically invalidate the Wikipedia entry, but you should be aware that the information that's being presented there is far from being considered factual.
It's difficult to explain, but just to give you an idea how ideologically charged both wiki articles are, look at the story of one of their most prolific contributors Ryulong. He alone was responsible for
19% of all the contributions made to the Wikipedia article about GG.
That guy was so obsessed with smearing GG, that he was first banned from editing the GG entry and then
banned from Wikipedia altogether. During that time Ryulong felt the need to air his grievances through an AMA on a known anti-GG subreddit. It became so bad that Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia himself, had to intervene:
He was then invited by a sysadmin to participate on Rationalwiki, where he promptly started to
obsess about GG to the point where his fellow contributors told him
to take a break.
You've been editing the Gamergate article for like 9 hours straight, dude. You're editing it every day. This is behaviour that has already gotten you banned from Wikipedia. You should take a break. Seriously, this isn't healthy behaviour, you're starting to remind me uncomfortably of
Ken DeMeyer. Take a holiday, yah? Let someone else worry about it. --
JeevesMkII The gentleman's gentleman at the other site 10:28, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
No, I was banned at Wikipedia for "recidivism" and not being civil in the face of a horde of trolls trying to skew an article in their favor when they don't have any sources to back their claims up. Research better.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:02, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Whatever. You're still putting in more than full work days editing here. For the sake of your own health, take a couple of weeks off, please. --
JeevesMkII The gentleman's gentleman at the other site 11:05, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Why—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:06, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
Because what you're doing is a pretty clear sign of some sort of mental illness, dude. Editing a wiki is not a paid job, and doing it for ten hours at a stretch isn't good for you. If what you're doing isn't affecting your work or your personal life, it'd be some kind of miracle. --
JeevesMkII The gentleman's gentleman at the other site 11:13, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
The effort I'm putting into the page might actually get me work and my social life has been dead ever since I came back to the states.—Ryūlóng (琉竜) 11:15, 28 February 2015 (UTC)
And this is just one of many incidents in relation to the wiki articles. In fact, it became so bad that Wikipedia had to intervene, banning a number of contributors from participating in any gender-related articles and issuing an
official statement. Here's another take from
the Guardian:
Wikipedia’s arbitration committee, the highest user-run body on the site, has voted to ban a number of editors from making corrections to articles about feminism, in an attempt to stop a long-running edit war over the entry on the “Gamergate controversy”. The editors, who were all actively attempting to prevent the article from being rewritten with a pro-Gamergate slant, were sanctioned by “arbcom” in its preliminary decision. While that may change as it is finalised, the body, known as Wikipedia’s supreme court, rarely reverses its decisions. The sanction bars the editors from having anything to do with any articles covering Gamergate, but also from any other article about “gender or sexuality, broadly construed”. Editors who had been pushing for the Wikipedia article to be fairer to Gamergate have also been sanctioned by the committee.
When it comes to objective empirical facts, Wikipedia is usually pretty decent, but when it comes to political content, you should be aware that wikis are subject to the same kind of controversies. Especially considering how Wikipedia as become the go-to website for primary information and thus plays a huge role in opinion-making. It's difficult to manage and as evidenced, Wikipedia at least tries to balance things out a little bit, but their arbitration process is very slow and cumbersome.
Rationalwiki on the other hand is, for the most part, completely and utterly broken. But people don't care whether the information they provide is factually correct, so long as it serves their particular agenda. In that regard you'd be wise to look at sources from both sides and make up your own mind.
Ironically you can start with a few articles by David Auerbach (yes, the same guy who called Ruylong out on his behavior), who tried to keep a more level headed and nuanced approach,
here,
here and
here. Or Erik Kain's pieces, like
this one or
this one for example.
