Talk:Sweet Baby Inc./Archive 3

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

NPOV is a fundamental principle of Wikipedia

section closed due to WP:NOTFORUM

Everyone editing this article back and forth should please have a refresher on Neutral Point of View. Pay particular attention to the following:

  • Avoid stating opinions as facts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significant opinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should be attributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state that genocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil.

I'll thank you for stopping inserting "falsely" and "correctly" in places where they do not belong. Sanzennin (talk) 12:48, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

That the theory is false is a fact, and is sourced as such (though I've removed it from the lead anyway). The word "correctly" is not used in this article. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 12:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
No. The fact is that Kotaku writer Alyssa Mercante characterized it as false. Alyssa Mercante is not, however, the ultimate decider of truth, and as such you can't claim everything she says is a fact. Sanzennin (talk) 13:12, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
It has nothing to do with Mercante's opinion or characterisation; it is objectively how the company operates. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:15, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
According to whom? Whoever the source is, just write that "So-and-so has stated this is not how the company operates."
This is precisely the same as in the example provided in the NPOV article:
For example, an article should not state that genocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil. Sanzennin (talk) 13:26, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
According to anyone familiar with how consulting firms actually operate. In-text attribution is not required for simple facts. Regardless, I don't see this as an issue in the article's current state. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
"Consulting firms exist" is a simple fact. What consulting firms would and wouldn't do really isn't.
In any case, I do agree that the article is looking pretty good right now in regards to neutrality. Thank you for talking this through civilly and amicably. Sanzennin (talk) 14:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
You don't see a problem with citogenisis in action, using unreliable sources? I mean come on. Many of the articles being used as "sources" on the claims are coming from the very organizations that (BLP violation removed). 2607:F2C0:EEC6:2B:6DC0:DAFC:4D0C:545C (talk) 15:37, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
That's plain bullcrap. How can you be sure, just because the sources are in support of the company? Carlinal (talk) 15:54, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
One CAN'T be sure, either way. That's why the neutral language is required here. The issue of whether SBI is doing only what normal consulting firms do, or engages in dishonest practices (like "terrify these people into giving you what you want" as in the circulated clip of SBI CEO) lies at the heart of the entire conflict. Automatically assuming SBI does just what consulting firms do is exactly, strictly siding with one side of the conflict and directly rejecting evidence the other side offers. Sharpfang (talk) 11:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Your comments here alone are cause for you to be removed as an editor on this topic. Unless you work for SBI (in which case you *definitely* should not be editing this article), the fact that you claim to possess objective knowledge about how the company operates and therefore should be exempt from the NPOV principle demonstrates that you are not neutral on this matter. Android927 (talk) 00:28, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
If you wish to discuss my conduct, the best place is my talk page or WP:ANI. If you believe I have a conflict of interest, the best place is WP:COIN. Thanks. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
If you want to stay neutral here, it might be beneficial to mention tweets of SBI employees regarding non-existence of white racism and other (BLP violation removed) statements too, just as a fact - people working in [SBI] posted [this] commenting on this topic. Covering SBI co-founders methods of (BLP violation removed) might also provide a good perspective on situation. In general, the article still feels pretty one-sided. Moon darker (talk) 01:45, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
If reliable sources discuss it in relation to the company and its work, then it might be suitable to add. Tweets from employees are generally not notable on their own. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 02:18, 9 March 2024 (UTC)
Tweets of employees and CEOs are not enough, but then you're using biased, immensely one-sided articles at face value to paint SBI as the victim, as well as individual shitposts from singular people as evidence that the critics are <insert bad word>?
I will be open here: I'm a member of the Steam group and all it does is list games with SBI's involvement. Without any judgement on the Steam page. As for WHY people join, it's to oppose "forced" diversity. This is in contrast to "natural" diversity. So the people criticizing SBI are not against diversity per se, as you and your source articles claim, but is only against the amateurish inclusion of ideology in video games and other media, resulting in worse games and movies. A popular example is an npc that you meet right after leaving the space ship in the beginning of Mass Effect Andromeda and the first thing this character tells you, a total stranger, "btw I'm trans". This is "forced" diversity. It adds nothing, it only makes the game feel less immersive, like someone put that in just to force it down people's throats. An example of "natural" diversity would be Olivier from "Trails in the Sky", who is bisexual and constantly hits on both female and male characters, but it never feels forced, because it's befitting his character as an easy-going, charming bard.
So again, we are FOR diversity, but against forced diversity based on ideology. And nothing about the group has to do with alright, racism, bigotry or any of the terrible claims you make. Yes, there's a lot of unhinged idiots flinging around insults, too, but that's what happens when one side basically controls the entire industry and for years has pushed big game publishers to abide by their "consultation".
You can now either update the SBI entry to make clear that there is no harassment against the company going on, that it's a wider anti-DEI movement with "anti-forced diversity" at its core, or I guess you can continue to publish a factually untrue article on Wikipedia, damaging the entire website's reputation. And, of course, not mentioning any of the terrible things SBI employees and CEOs have said, which triggered the whole thing to begin with. Please be better, Wikipedia. 2003:D8:8F3C:E000:B8F6:2724:3492:FC17 (talk) 19:42, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
If you're this upset about bad writing, there's plenty of outrage waiting for you in the wider world. I appreciate your offer to make an exception to Wikipedia's policies and five pillars, but I, for one, will pass. Have a nice day. Dumuzid (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Unfortunately Wikipedia's policy on [No primary sources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research) means in conflicts of Journalists vs Public, Wikipedia will be completely biased towards journalists, as their side's articles are secondary sources (accepted) while public's evidence to the contrary is primary sources (rejected). That's the unfortunate state of affairs, and only by finding secondary sources (press articles) to the contrary the bias can be reversed. Sharpfang (talk) 11:25, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Thatdarkplace.com
Theshortcut.com
Breitbart.com
Retro-replay.com
Game8.co
Do any of these work?? All of them mentioned how SBI employee started a mass report campaign against the curator group and the personal steam page of the curator groups creator. Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 14:40, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Kaijyuu2016 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
No. TheDarkPlace is a personal website with no reputation; TheShortCut is a substack blog, again with no reputation. Breitbart has not only been affirmed as unreliable and deprecated in multiple WP:RFCs, it is on the spam blacklist (see WP:BREITBART) due to constant abuse, meaning it can't even be cited as a technical matter without a special exception. Retro-Replay and Game8 also look, at a glance, like blogs with no reputation. WP:RS is about having a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, as well as editorial controls and the like, so personal websites or blogs rarely qualify. Reliability is to an extent contextual, and unexceptional, uncontroversial statements with no implications for the reputations of living people can sometimes be cited to lower-quality sources; however, the things people want to add here using sources like these would likely run afoul of WP:BLP or WP:EXCEPTIONAL, which requires high-quality sourcing. Aside from Breitbart, whose unreliability is extremely well established, this is all just at a quick glance - if you think one of these actually does have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, you could bring it up at WP:RSN... but I doubt they'd be usable here. --Aquillion (talk) 21:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
You realize Kotakus Wikipage says Gaming Blog ErrgoProxy (talk) 13:46, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Not commenting on any other aspects, but I'd certainly disagree that "Game8 also look, at a glance, like blogs with no reputation". I can't say whether it's reliable (that would be a discussion of it's own in the appropriate place), but it's pretty big for walkthroughs/guides, often being one of the first results. It goes far beyond your regular blog. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 15:10, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Just following up, the reliability of Game8 was discussed here, but it doesn't seem it's been looked into beyond the name and tagline. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 15:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku's "unreliability is extremely well established," yet you do not seem to have any problems holding up its writings as objective descriptions of reality. 2600:1700:3902:880:8835:4F86:88F9:A16B (talk) 13:07, 21 March 2024 (UTC)
fully agree, this article is way too bias for WIKI Edits for Integrity (talk) 15:48, 11 March 2024 (UTC) — Edits for Integrity (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
WP:YESBIAS would be good reading for you. Wikipedia deliberately matches the 'bias' of the mainstream reliable sources. MrOllie (talk) 15:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i mean they are not neutrally reporting the sources, the gaming journos writing articles have no sources, WE hold the sources and they are being completely ignored. Edits for Integrity (talk) 15:58, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, neither you nor I are reliable sources. Wikipedia's entire ethos is organized representing what is found in reliable sources. I would respectfully suggest that you would be better off trying to get your point of view reflected in such sources rather than pushing against one of Wikipedia's foundational principles. Happy Monday, everyone! Dumuzid (talk) 16:01, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i'm not saying I am a reliable source, what I'm saying is that the actual reliable sources, like {{(BLP violation removed) How about we talk about how one of the sources "Alyssa the writer from Kotaku" stated on their X page when criticized for not covering the racist remarks by Sweet Baby INC now famously stated "You can't be racist to white people" this is her image on her page now. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:08, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i forgot to finish that thought. we are ignoring these sources? really? Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
To finish that thought, there is NO reliable sources that sweet baby inc was harassed, and if they are i can't access them because they are locked and that lacks integrity. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:12, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia's standards for sourcing can be found at WP:RS. We use secondary sources from commerical publishers, mostly. We cannot and will not use blogs, social media, or other self published materials in a situation like this one. Wikipedia absolutely will 'ignore' posts like that - except to the extent that secondary reliable sources comment on them. MrOllie (talk) 16:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
When quality of WP:RS content is questionable, which can be determined on a case-by-case basis, Wikipedia prefers NOT to include information from low quality sources. Moon darker (talk) 16:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
An accurate statement, but one that does not apply here. Low quality sources are things like the National Inquirer, not sources that editors happen to disagree with. MrOllie (talk) 16:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku is a generally unreliable source to begin with. You can't argue the lacking reliability in this particular case, judging by claims made by authors of the article, quoted multiple times on this talk page. There are questions regarding multiple other sources too. Moon darker (talk) 16:25, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That you declare Kotaku 'generally unreliable' does not make it so. MrOllie (talk) 16:27, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
well non of the articles are reliable, they are all puff pieces, and if your sources lack integrity, anyone echoing said sources also lack integrity, i'm talking sources of what people actually did, you can't get a more reliable source than that, and if you can ignore peoples real life actions and hold up these people that are socially engineering racism and hate, than apparently Wiki is part of the problem. You can't be a group that claims DEI when you are filled with sexist and racist. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Ok, then Wikipedia lacks integrity. "Echoing said sources" is what Wikipedia's policies require us to do, and we're not going to simply set those policies aside for this one article. MrOllie (talk) 16:34, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It does. Also, WP:5P5 Moon darker (talk) 16:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
No one here has listened to Larry Sanger for many years. He's taken up supporting nonsense like QAnon and antivax. MrOllie (talk) 16:39, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I'm all against antivax, but it doesn't matter here, because a person can have opinions on different things and one "wrong" opinion doesn't take away the credibility of other ones. Moon darker (talk) 16:45, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I think it matters when his problem is that Wikipedia won't let him add antivax views in the name of 'neutrality'. MrOllie (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
i'm not anti-vax, what are you even going on about. your trying to demonize me and you know nothing about me. I am just trying to make sure things are covered truthfully. i don't even know who larry sanger is. Edits for Integrity (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Unless you're Larry Sanger, nobody is talking about you. MrOllie (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
fair enough. i figured that was the case but it was in response to me. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Correct. Wikipedia does lack integrity. Idrawrobots (talk) 21:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Consider reading lists of WP:RSes before making claims like this. WikiProject Video games/Sources Moon darker (talk) 16:32, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, most of us are familiar with our source lists. Kotaku's reliability is situational, which means its to be evaluated by editors before its use. I'm perfectly happy with the reliability of the Kotaku article we use in our article. It's written by one of their senior editors, and the quality of it is actually pretty high. If all of their articles were as good as this one, we'd likely rate it higher on the reliability scale, alas they do put out some truly awful stuff as well. Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes Moon darker, I have always considered Kotaku basically reliable for video game news (though there are certainly cautions, as Sideswipe9th mentions above). That said, it is entirely possible I missed something relevant. I have seen you say some version of this before; is there a specific page or reference to Kotaku that you're referencing? Dumuzid (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, Wikipedia values reliability of actual article authors over the platform the article is posted on. I shared my observations on article author, Alyssa Mercante, multiple times on this page. Moon darker (talk) 17:03, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Somewhat confusingly, reliability can take in both authors and the publications in which they appear. I am not sure whether you think Mercante or Kotaku in general should be deemed unreliable, but a good step toward either would be presenting your case at the reliable sources noticeboard for others' opinions. Right now it is just you--which is not nothing, but is not terribly compelling. If you can get a consensus on that board for your position, that would be far more persuasive. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
It has been covered extensively here, thanks for your input. Moon darker (talk) 17:13, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I am not saying that it has not been; I am saying that you haven't achieved a consensus here. You might be able to if you were to go somewhere and focus upon that one discrete issue, but the choice is yours, of course. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:20, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
We can't use RSN right now due to an active DRN case. If I remember correctly, you were aware of that, and I hope that wasn't an attempt to throw me under WP:FORUMSHOP bus. If you didn't know about that or that wouldn't result in WP:FORUMSHOP, my apologies. Anyways, thanks for the suggestion, I think this stage will come naturally as a part of DRN case. Moon darker (talk) 17:30, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
To add, even if one considers Kotaku unreliable, more reliable sources like Euro gamer have taken up the Kotaku article that first covered this and expanded it on their own. We are well past questioning the reliability of sources discussing the concerns at play. — Masem (t) 17:06, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
This is a huge red flag about your affiliation, I suggest you to disengage immediately. You're openly supporting a person who said this and then doubled down. Moon darker (talk) 17:00, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I don't really care what she said on social media. She's entitled to her opinions, and those don't seem to have influenced her coverage on the backlash against Sweet Baby Inc in any way. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:07, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Those opinions ended up being posted only due to her coverage on the backlash against Sweet Baby Inc, thus I deem it nearly impossible that it didn't affect the tone or the writing of the article. Moon darker (talk) 17:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Again, I don't really care what she's said on social media. It does not appear to have influenced her coverage on this topic in any way. What you deem is irrelevant when high quality sources like Eurogamer, PC Gamer, and The Guardian have taken Kotaku's reporting at face value when writing their own articles. Sideswipe9th (talk) 17:42, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
eurogamer and pc gamer both use kotaku as their source. the guardian does too but one ups it by making it all a political snuff piece against the alt-right. this isn't a political movement anyways. we are consumers. I myself have democratic values, which leads me to defend against all kinds of racism and sexist as a white person but I always hit a wall when its time to defend hetro-gendered white males. their is no reliable information in this stuff, no verified sources. yet the wiki is ignoring articles through bias merely because they are seen as "alt-right" when these are the articles that ARE posting verifiable sources. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:52, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Any time people band together for a cause, there are political implications. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:56, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That just puts an issue into a box, people are truly waking up. You cant just label things black and white, again I am not Republican. People have identities beyond the narrow minded point of view of politics. Sometimes things just are the way they are, and the left should be just as mad that a group that claims to be about diversity and inclusion would hold so much hate from within. You can't claim diversity and inclusion when coming from a place of hate and exclusion. we all need to show each other respect and hear each other out. Edits for Integrity (talk) 18:09, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
Please see WP:NOTFORUM, this talk page isn't a place to debate the issue. MrOllie (talk) 18:22, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
that opinion was in a direct response to being asked why she did not cover the harassment and racism by Sweet Baby INC, it is directly related at least. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
@Dumuzid Kotaku is not a reliable source. They have been caught lying in favor of their own POV numerous times now 176.199.10.17 (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
That may be! But "reliable source" has a specific meaning on Wikipedia, and it is determined by consensus. That's why I suggest making a case at the applicable noticeboard. If things are as you say, it should be easy to get a consensus that Kotaku is not reliable. Until such a time, I think consensus continues to be that Kotaku is a marginally reliable, if not first-class source. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
With that said, the IP isn't exactly wrong that Kotaku isn't reliable (it's a situational source), but that's because they've been pushing AI-generated slop, not because of some woke agenda. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 19:35, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
I wouldn't consider comparing employees at Nintendo to the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service just because they blacklisted them "AI-generated slop". Mikey'Da'Man, Archangel (talk) 13:38, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Been pushing it. Doesn't instantly mean the Nintendo comparison is AI-generated. Carlinal (talk) 14:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
Agreed. What's more is that they are an active party to the conflict and thus have a clear bias. I'd go so far as to say that Alyssa Mercante (the author of the article) is not a reliable source because she is one of those who claim to be harassed. Titor1000 (talk) 11:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Completely irrelevant, especially since harassment directed towards Mercante (wrt SBI) came after she wrote her article (not that being harassed makes an author unreliable anyway). – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 12:51, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
ok which one of you decided to site opinions instead of fact on the sources? noone doxxed them they have their real names and faces on their twitter bio's you cant dox someone who is doxxing themselves. at this point this article should be shutdown temporarily as it just cites opinions and dosent fact check the sources. Mymanjoe24 (talk) 11:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Mymanjoe24 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Should there be "quotes" around the word "woke"? Putting quotes around a word like that can give a dismissive connotation, which is not neutral. But on the other hand, this woke is the word that is being used by critics, so it kind of is a quote. Does the Manual of Style have guild lines for something like this? GranCavallo (talk) 14:33, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
The intention was to present it as a quote but I understand the concern; this is discussed at MOS:QUOTEPOV too. I've expanded the quote to encompass "woke agenda" instead—this term is even less common so I think using quotation marks is valid. What are your thoughts? – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 14:46, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
This article is avoiding factual information that has been documented in the past weeks to paint SBI as innocent and victim of a harassment campaign, fix this.This is misinformaion. Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 12:58, 13 March 2024 (UTC) — Kaijyuu2016 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Speaking of NPOV...

I put the NPOV tag on the page because I don't think that calling employees fac[ing] harassment and doxing attempts mere "online backlash" is neutral. It's a harrassment campaign. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 04:21, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but we'd need sources to back up a section title like that. I also think that sources for that will eventually appear, as they did for Gamergate (harassment campaign), especially once we get more in-depth academic coverage digging into its roots and the like... but it may take some time. Do you have any good sources for how to characterize it yet? --Aquillion (talk) 04:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
The best I can come up with, in terms of summarizing the information concisely and without glossing over any details, is "(Online) Backlash and harassment". I don't see why putting such a weighted tag over just a section title is justifiable, but regardless if that's your only concern then I'll remove the tag if consensus on the title is decided. Carlinal (talk) 04:56, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
I'll remove the tag myself. I'd be fine with "Online backlash and harrassment" for now. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 04:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Alright, thanks for helping.
As for Aquillion, there's mentions of conspiracy theories and a "firestorm" along with the Steam and Discord groups, all stemming from significantly far-right-wing platforms that discuss video games. If that's not enough backing for the phrase "online backlash" I don't know what is. And doxing and comparisons to Gamergate is definitely justifiable to add the "harassment" part. If more reliable sources somehow come up for use, who knows if the new info would lead to another change, but in describing a series of events that have been going for several months I think it's unlikely another retitle would be needed further down the road. And the current batch of sources is good enough too. Personally I...hesitate to see what right-wing media could bring to the table. It wouldn't be as clean for neutrality, so to speak. Carlinal (talk) 05:31, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
An absolute majority of people have nothing to do with "far-right-wing platforms" (most people found this out through influencers like this one or this one +1 - and all statements from these videos can be easily verified by anyone through web archives).
Please explain which "conspiracy theories" are you referring to, and with high likelyhood all the "theories" can be confirmed by archived statements from employees of this company. Moon darker (talk) 06:17, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, 'influencers' covering content arising from right-wing platforms still means the content is stemming from right-wing platforms. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 06:23, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. It is true that involvement of Sweet Baby Inc. was initially discovered on platforms like 4chan. However what Carlinal tried to do here is nothing else than substitution of concepts. The fact that it was discovered there doesn't change the fact that it got much more traction elsewhere among left-, middle- and right- wing actors.
Example: The fact that USSR launched the first artificial satellite doesn't make all artificial satellites soviet. Moon darker (talk) 06:48, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
Maybe this is confusion but none of my edits (on the main page) tried to substitute anything beyond the section title and the mention of DEI, and it's a stretch to accuse me of something like that. The "conspiracy theory" mention is from the Mary Sue source, where the phrase appears several times, and knowing how contentious this subject is, I tried to create the best summary without any inaccuracies or accusations of substitution.
Also, what I mean by "all stemming from significantly far-right-wing platforms" is just Kiwi Farms, 4chan, and subreddit r/KotakuInAction, all of which are also mentioned on the main page. I never extended that to YouTube commentators, nor do I mean to. The former three are the few, if not only right-wing platforms mentioned altogether that are currently on the Wikipedia article, including reports of Sweet Baby from other publishers. I guess the last two sentences in my previous response are in bad faith, but from a glance the two YouTubers also seem to be taking clips OOC. I'm not watching those videos anyhow just to prevent anymore contentious edits than the ones I did now. If the YouTube videos Moon darker provided are included in a reliable source or are reliable themselves, that's your call. Carlinal (talk) 16:20, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
No. It isn't. It's gamers who aren't happy about the situation making themselves heard. This is the fans expressing why the games Sweet Baby worked on received such a negative reception from gamers.
Interpreting it as harassment is simply a strategy which we've, of course, seen before. 92.28.184.225 (talk) 14:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
You can critique Sweet Baby as a company without harassing its employees directly, as many have. It's not inaccurate to call it harassment. Harryhenry1 (talk) 16:05, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
exactly no one is harassing Sweet Baby INC, its the other way around for Kabrutus however, HE WAS DOXED AND HARASSED. the sources are plain as day and at the end of the day, it doesn't matter is an article is normally unreliable when they are posting actual sources that can be verified and not just writing whatever someone at Sweet Baby INC or some narrative design program for a game company said, those are exactly what opinions are born from. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:16, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
no one from Sweet Baby INC has provided a factual course showing they were harassed, but I am being given nothing about lame excuses to why this page is ignoring the fact that they are defending people that did the actual doxing and harassing. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
again Source* not course. i got them fat fingers lol. Edits for Integrity (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
  • For things like this, we rely on secondary sources. And in this case plenty of sources have described what happened to Sweet Baby as harassment: [1][2][3] - the last one even gives a fairly detailed description when it notes how the groups targeting Sweet Baby had to purge their posts to avoid violating the terms-of-use, noting that Initially, rants about Sweet Baby Inc. and its work were accompanied by a bevy of slurs, hate speech, and broader far-right conspiracies about "wokeism" and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. You might disagree about how they characterize it, or feel that they're wrong, or dislike those sources; but we go by what the best available sources say, and in this case they're all pretty much unanimous. Reporting a group that - per that source - was, at the time, in violation of Steam's TOS is not characterized by RSes as harassment; whereas the sorts of things described there as part of the way Sweet Baby was targeted are generally what RSes consider harassment. Your personal definitions might differ! Or maybe you just disagree with the facts they state. But we go by what reliable sources say. --Aquillion (talk) 20:23, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    @Aquillion, you claim "reliable sources" yet the two first—namely Kotaku and aftermath.sin—of your three listed as "plenty" don't qualify as such as per "consensus" [4]. Hackerman67 (talk) 22:15, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    Kotaku is judged on a case-by-case basis; the issue is AI-generated stuff, which I don't think anyone is arguing that this piece falls under. And both discussions on Aftermath leaned towards reliable. If you're unsure, you can ask about these specific uses on WP:RSN for a more specific answer - reliability is contextual - but I don't think there's any question that they'd be found reliable in this context. --Aquillion (talk) 23:29, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
    Every source can and should be judged on a case-by-case basis in spite of their previously agreed upon reliability, but in the case of WP:RS, a source quite simply either is "reliable" or not; a source not being outright labeled unreliable does not qualify it as such. In the case of kotaku, it seems a grave mischaracterisation, and quite irresponsible, for you as an individual to claim what "the issue" with it is given its criticism extending far beyond that. In the case of Aftermath, the first discussion was purely speculative, erring on the side of caution, and the second with clear objections, e.g., over editorial policy. Do you have qualifications/expertise for personally deciding it "leaned towards reliable"?
    Your personal "thinking" does not trump consensus, and you ought to revise your apparent habit of misrepresenting the former as the latter.
    I don't think there's any question that they'd be found reliable in this context.
    I question how you came to such a conclusion. There appears to be ample evidence of the very opposite on this very talk page. Hackerman67 (talk) 15:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    There's always discussion and debate over sources - the only reason Kotaku is currently not 100% reliable is due to AI, otherwise their articles are accepted as reliable. Harryhenry1 (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    Hypotheticals over sources' supposed "100%" reliability aside, the point is over established consensus, or in this case, lack of it.
    By the way, since you seem to share the viewpoint of Kotaku's use of AI as the sole acceptable critique, do you mind explain why other criticism should be disregarded and consensus somehow derived from lack of it? Hackerman67 (talk) 18:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    On Wikipedia, reliability of a work is based on the work having a history of fact checking, and that there is editorial control to prevent incorrect information from being publish and retracting when such errors are found. How much apparent bias doesn't enter into that as long as that bias does not create falsehoods (eg as with sites like Breitbart). Kotaku has shown to have that. Masem (t) 18:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    The conversation is starting to extend beyond the intended scope of a article talk page. I take it that you introduce "apparent bias" as the sole expected "other criticism" of Kotaku as a source, which appears to be demonstrably false and not quite what I was asking, but did in a way did answer my question.
    I understand that you wish to report Kotaku having an editorial policy, which is a requirement for "reliable sources", but whether Kotaku would or should be one is not something to be debated here, but on WT:VGRS. Hackerman67 (talk) 12:54, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
    Here's the rub though: given other sources that we have, is Kotaku wrong in the fundamental facts around this (let's not speak to any opinions given), given the other sources that did their own work beyond just Kotaku's own? Even as an editor and looking at the primary sources, I see nothing wrong with the timeline or how they have documented SBI's business.
    We can talk potential bias and one-sided reporting all day, but that doesn't take away from the basic idea that there's clearly nothing wrong with the facts as asserted by the Kotaku article. So that if you look at those past discussions, you'll see that's a conclusion consistent with that. the VG project hasn't demoted Kotaku, only placing red flags to watch for AI or poor-quality, no-effort content, and their article on the SBI situation is far from either of those. Masem (t) 13:06, 15 March 2024 (UTC)
    Absolutely it is judged on a case-by-case basis, and in this case they are unreliable.
    I don't think there's any question that they'd be found reliable in this context.
    Your opinion does not trump consensus. Your edit history demonstrates a very clear bias and your opinions on this matter are not relevant.
    Kotaku should be completely purged from this article as it is NOT an RS despite your arguments against consensus.
    Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:06, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    But what makes this specific article unreliable? What's actually wrong about it? Harryhenry1 (talk) 03:11, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    I suggest you read this talk page, that has been asked and answered.Fizzbuzz306 (talk) 03:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    Personal attacks are not a substitute for rational discussion and making them will not help your case. MrOllie (talk) 03:30, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
    It's pretty neat that sources like Kotaku and Aftermath can deem harassment to be whatever they want and you admins get to help make it so. What a terrible site. 2600:6C44:5F7F:DC78:E8D9:60D7:E790:B345 (talk) 07:14, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    There's a difference between actual criticism and outright harassment. It's not a big leap for sources to call thousands of accounts brigading and sending nasty messages to SBI's employees harassment. Harryhenry1 (talk) 07:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
    Tbh. Kotaku aren't really known to be consistent about that. Trade (talk) 19:36, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Being refuted is not “harassment” 122.213.236.124 (talk) 00:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Being harassed, however, is. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Which doesnt seem to be the case when you dont mention the harassment against Kabrutus, which started the whole thing.
And theres no evidence of harassment against Kotaku/SBI, only hearsay.
You choose to take hearsay as truth, while ignoring facts.
Extremly biased.
And theres nowhere you dipsute it, it only gets deleted by other mods. 2001:9B1:CDC2:2400:C73:8CD2:97F4:772 (talk) 23:16, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
If reliable sources discuss this alleged harassment against Kabrutus—like they do wrt SBI and Mercante—then I see no reason for the information not to be included. It's as simple as that. That's not bias; it's policy. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 23:23, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Its not alleged, theres actuall evidence with posts from SBI employees.
"like they do wrt SBI and Mercante" where is that evidence?
If you want to be unbiased you should include information from ALL sides, not just one.
It would even be better if you added "alleged" in the article rather than nothing. Selo007 (talk) 23:36, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
And now even The Verge (i guess you wont take The Verge as a reliable source right?) has come out as running hit pieces based on personal agendas.
But i guess you wont take that under consideration Selo007 (talk) 23:40, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
We don't look for "evidence"; we cite reliable, secondary sources. To echo Dumuzid: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a courtroom. We cover "information from ALL sides" insofar as the sources do. And, per MOS:ALLEGED, we don't use words like "alleged" in the article unless sources do. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 23:47, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
By your definition any article posted on Kotaku could be reliable aslong as it goes past the editor.
So if made an article about the earth beeing flat it would be reliable.
Wikipedia pages should be based on facts and evidence, not hearsay
If articles are made on hearsay it shouldnt be used in wikipedia as truth.
Also, Mercante is currently asking people to doxx Melonie Macc on twitter so she can write hitpieces against Melonie, and will continue doing it to other youtubers.
Not really someone you want to use as a reliable source.
You also fail to take into consider Grummz, a higly reliable source that actually has worked in the industry contradicting everything on the page. Selo007 (talk) 00:20, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
SBI is also currently hiring developing studios to attack and harass SBI Detected, currently in the form of Gearbox. Selo007 (talk) 00:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Could you please define hearsay for us? I honestly am not even sure what your complaint here means. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:24, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku and SBI has said they were harrased and are beeing doxxed, but provides no evidence > hearsay.
SBI employees posts harrassment campaign against individuals not agreeing with them in form of a steam curator "report the f*** out of this group" "Attack his personal account" > 100% undisputable fact since the info is right there on their own account for everyone to see.
You choose to use doxxing and harrassing when its done in one direction, but "asking" when its done in another direction.
That is biased. Selo007 (talk) 09:00, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
One employee from SBI made a message that approached doxing (linking steam and twitter accounts) which lead to the account to be blocked, but other SBI employees asking others to report a steam group for violating its policies is not harassment or doxing. (Just as we know there's lots of off-site discussions aimed at trying to change this WP article. That's meatpuppetry which we discourage but is not harassment or doxing - but absolutely in the same vein).
At the same time, anyone can go into 4/8chan or Kiwi Farms or other similar sites and see forums with racist and hateful messages towards SBI, and that independent sources have done that and have confirmed that SBI is seeing such harassment towards them.
You're talking trying to balance one small drop of water (the one SBI employee) verse the ocean (what can be shown towards SBI). Masem (t) 12:05, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
So, remember that Wikipedia is not a courtroom, and formal rules of evidence do not apply. Secondary sources will often rely on what might be considered hearsay, so long as there are sufficient other indicia of reliability. But moreover, it is my understanding that information about the harassment has come from the targets of the harassment. That is...not hearsay. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:26, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

"The group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct."

This is a mischaracterization of what actually happened that omits important context. The employee in question specifically tried to enact retribution on the creator of the Steam group by asking people to mass-report him in an attempt to get his Steam account banned. This was deemed to be targeted harassment according X's TOS and the employee's X account was temporarily banned as a result. Android927 (talk) 21:58, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the information. Do you have any reliable sources we can use to include this in the article? – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 22:20, 12 March 2024 (UTC)
And there you touch upon the heart of the issue: Alyssa Mercante and her fellow journalists will *never* report on Kindred's tweets because it is not in their interests to do so, yet you will not allow his own words to be cited as a source until one of them reports on it. You are basically letting one side of a hotly debated issue to entirely control the narrative by allowing them to gatekeep what information can and cannot be used as a citation. Android927 (talk) 00:02, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Alright, buddy, got any sources for it, then? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 00:05, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
and Mercotte alleges harassment. of which she is unable to provide proof of who sent it or if it was sent at all.
kindred's tweets are here.
https://ibb.co/hXWkjws
https://ibb.co/0Bq66ww
https://ibb.co/rcStJSL
https://ibb.co/f1wQQLw
https://ibb.co/WDgBy6x
https://ibb.co/jJQptFV
https://ibb.co/ctt4H4w
https://ibb.co/stQ4cSD
https://ibb.co/5Y2QP2C MisteOsoTruth (talk) 11:05, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Meta discussion here about Wikipedia itself. What happens when this is a niche topic (like online gaming contraversy) and all the reliable sources (gaming journalists) are themselves being criticized? How would information of that kind ever make it onto a Wikipedia page?
The topic that I'm most interested in is the accusation that gaming journalists are being in league with Sweet Baby; gaming journalists are omitting facts and covering only details that is beneficial to Sweet Baby. This is actually more interesting topic than the anti-woke currently written in the section "Online backlash and harassment".
For example, "The curator group received increased attention in February when a Sweet Baby employee asked others to report it for failing Steam's code of conduct." is actually misleading, as this curator group had no attention at all, and it is the Sweet Baby employee's tweet itself that garnered all the attention. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/sweet-baby-inc-detected-controversy (Yes, KnowYourMeme is not a reliable source.)
In the end, I think perhaps the whole section of "Online backlash and harassment" might be marked with WP:N as it doesn't seem like any non-gaming journalist seems interested in covering this topic, and that the raw evidence is on twitter, and twitter posts are ephemeral and can be deleted (and only secondary evidence, like screenshots, can be preserved).
Also, kudos to you Rhain for your diligence. Goose (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
WP:N does not apply to sections, only whole articles. During GamerGate pt1 we saw a lot of this notion that if one 'side' of a dispute attacked journalism, that means Wikipedia could then not use journalists as a source. Since then, the same attacks have become extremely common in all kinds of political discourse (think of people who say 'Lamestream media'). But buying into that notion is untenable, one cannot silence critical sources just by making attacks on any journalist who writes something one disapproves of. MrOllie (talk) 23:20, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
You are making an assumption that journalists are colliding with SBI here, but we first off don't work that way, and more importantly it is likely journalists, previously burned on "it's about ethics in video game journalism" from GG, are making a stance again from another vector out of the 4chan/8chan/Kiwi Farms venues that fester far right concepts, implicitly making SBI the side they trust to start with. And there is little I can see in both reliable and unreliable sources that suggest the larger picture is much different than what the RSes are saying. The counter narrative, that SBI was specifically formed to force diversity into games, has been shown clearly to be quotes taken out of context and what SBI actually does verified independently by game devs. It's really hard to find any type of appropriate lining here for the opposite side since unlike GG, all of what's been covered is out in the open. — Masem (t) 23:28, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
and what of an archive link? MisteOsoTruth (talk) 11:07, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
HATting this per WP:FORUM. Discussion should be about improving the article, not complaints about Wikipedia policy or assertions that Wikipedia is "shaping the narrative". — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:16, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Glad to see the wikipedia editors refusing to be nuanced. 104.167.150.247 (talk) 00:08, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
We are exactly as nuanced as the sources we rely upon. That's what we do here, for good or for ill. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Cheers, you're actively contributing in hit piece journalism and refusing to shut down an article that pulls from unreliable sources. 104.167.150.247 (talk) 00:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not journalism, so it is not "actively contributing" to anything besides the building of a free encyclopedia. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:19, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
The article as it stands is (extremely biased) journalism, because all the sources it pulls from are by (extremely biased) “journalists”. Maybe consider that a biased source like Kotaku does not and should not have a monopoly on truth 122.213.236.124 (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Of course Kotaku should not have "a monopoly on truth"—that's why it makes up less than 3% of the reference list, and less than 10% of citations overall. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 00:27, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I just checked this. 6 of the 10 sources in the "Online backlash and harassment" Section, All refer back to the Kotaku Article. (Kotaku is the 11th)
Eurogamer, MediaMatters, Mary Sue, GameDeveloper, TheGuardian and Aftermath, all uses the Kotaku article as a source for what they are saying.
DotEsports refers to "KnowYourMeme" and Asmongold as sources.
TheGamer simply refers back to itself.
So in terms of representation here, we have 6 sources who all substantiate some of what they are saying, using Kotaku's article. Battle00333 (talk) 01:35, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
That's a good thing. Wikipedia editors like it when tertiary sources appear that validate and confirm secondary sources. MrOllie (talk) 01:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
There is a difference between tertiary sources independently validating a secondary source, and tertiary sources relying solely on a secondary source for their information. The latter does nothing whatsoever to validate the information in the source. Android927 (talk) 12:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
When articles from reliable press pass through their editorial process, it is assumed on Wikipedia that the former took place rather than the latter. MrOllie (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) It's logical that most would refer to Kotaku as it was the first major outlet to cover the topic—but it's worth noting that Aftermath and Game Developer both performed interviews with relevant parties, MMfA did its own independent research, and Eurogamer and The Guardian only refer to Kotaku in passing. I don't think the section relies too heavily on any one source. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 01:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
By leaving the article up in it's currently form, Wikipedia is helping to shape the narrative. Android927 (talk) 13:01, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, we have primary sources in the form of Chris Kindred's social media posts, but apparently primary sources aren't accepted here. Android927 (talk) 12:56, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
https://ibb.co/hXWkjws
https://ibb.co/0Bq66ww
https://ibb.co/rcStJSL
https://ibb.co/f1wQQLw
https://ibb.co/WDgBy6x
https://ibb.co/jJQptFV
https://ibb.co/ctt4H4w
https://ibb.co/stQ4cSD
https://ibb.co/5Y2QP2C MisteOsoTruth (talk) 10:34, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
https://archive.ph/Oiqyb Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 13:12, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the link. Niche Gamer is considered unreliable per WP:VG/S. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:15, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
So is Kotaku and it's still here despite the article clearly being biased. You’re just as biased. Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 13:47, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
No, Kotaku is not considered unreliable per WP:VG/S. If you have issues with my conduct wrt NPOV, take it to WP:POVN or WP:ANI. Thanks. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 13:50, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Do any of these work for you? Kaijyuu2016 (talk) 14:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
You do know that Mercante is the SENIOR EDITOR right?
She decided what gets published.
Not really an unbiased person and shouldnt be taken as a reliable source. Selo007 (talk) 22:31, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
With all due respect, you've made your opinion on this very clear. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:46, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
The SBI Employee directly saying it on Twitter is a reliable primary source 122.213.236.124 (talk) 00:21, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
It actually isn't, for several reasons. For one thing, the post above characterizes it as harassment, which is an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim (and WP:BLP-sensitive in this context, since it's being applied to a specific living person.) That means it would require a secondary source; the one secondary source that does directly mention the tweet in question indicates that the concerns that Steam's policies were being violated were valid, and another source notes that the group had to clean things up after Steam contacted them, which likewise implies they were in violation. Ultimately we rely on secondary sources to interpret primary sources in order to resolve this problem; and the secondary sources support the text we currently have. --Aquillion (talk) 01:29, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I will say, ignoring all the other aspects going around, I do think we should try to legitimately source the facts through reliable soruces that 1) the initial tweets of the one SBI employee to call out the steam curator group did end up being treated as harassment by X and thus led to the account being blocked, 2) at least one other SBI followed up without engaging in harassment to try to urge followers to report the group to Valve, 3) that attention from multiple SBI employees increased the groups numbers by 10-fold (a type of Streisand effect) and 4) the founder of the curator group did respond to Valve's warnings to remove most of the forum posts and otherwise took steps to bring the curator group into compliance with Steam's AUP, and also 5) created a situation that started running through social media and leading to journalistic interest in it. The Mary Sue article somewhat gets to all these points but not all of them. All those are reasonable neutral facts that explain why we have a section now on the SBI page to explain a controversy. But as reiterated over this page, we need non-first party reliable sources that explicitly say this, no random connecting-the-dots, I just don't think that once we find sources for those, this type of detailing of the timeline is a neutrality problem. --Masem (t) 04:33, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
FWIW, 4 is already mentioned (albeit briefly) and I've expanded 1. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 04:44, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
I absolutely do not think that that is enough (and I think that this is a clear-cut BLP issue; Gry Online may be usable for videogame trivia, but looking over it, I think that it is bluntly clear that it is not sufficient for something highly BLP-sensitive like this.) Even without a name, it is obvious that the individual written here is a potential target, meaning the risk of harm to their reputation is extremely high; higher-quality sources are necessary. If you absolutely think Gry Online is sufficiently high quality for this we can take it to WP:RSN, but please don't restore it here with just that source alone. I hold by my previous statement that still we don't have enough sourcing to mention this aspect at all and have to approach it carefully, but in this aspect in particular we would need better sourcing than one line from a single source that is only VGRS. --Aquillion (talk) 09:59, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
Yes, I was clear above that while these element should be so thing we should strive to include as neutral facets of the issue, we need RSes to explicitly say that before we can include. I agree with the questionable nature of that Gry source. Masem (t) 14:23, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
are we going to at least point out the fact that the user who called out this steam curator group got banned for harassment on X? Idk about you but that should be mentioned in their wiki because that's pretty crucial and very literal information regardless of what side or stance you have in this situation. This is pretty common knowledge that everyone can agree happened, and not including it shows your bias in the situation. And might lead people to believe you're defending one side by keeping the page vague. We're not trying to force a particular narrative on Wikipedia, we just want people to know the facts, and then they can do their own digging and form their own opinion from there. I understand that this situation is a bit sensitive and it's hard to tell what information to trust, but there is real proof of Sweet Baby Inc employees causing misconduct from simple research. AnonymouEevee (talk) 16:11, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Who is this "we"? Acroterion (talk) 16:22, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
The employee's Twitter account being blocked for that is such a tiny part of the larger story, and yet I see so many in trying to defend the curator group and those arguing against SBI, claiming this is a huge part of the story because to them, it appears to be a "win" that this employees' account "attacked" the curator account and thus trying to justify that SBI harassed them, just as much as others have been harassing SBI and thus making it a "both sides equal" story. Yes, the employee's tweet likely violated Twitter's TOS by linking the different accounts, but other SBI employees pointed out the group without any effects, so that really is a trivial factor that, unless reported by RS sources, is something we aren't going to force into the article. Masem (t) 16:32, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
"we" meaning everyone else in this comment section saying exactly what I'm trying to point out. But are missing the mark
Also, no, including the fact that Chris Kindred was banned on X should be noted because it's a pretty big story right now, and a lot of people are talking about it. At least acknowledging that fact should be enough info to encourage the reader to do digging into the situation if they wish too and form their own opinion. Not including this makes people think that there is no drama and that Sweet Baby Inc has a completely clean image. The allegations of racism from the employees should also be noted because it's also being talked about, and again not mentioning it on the wiki gives people the false impression that they have a clean image and that there's no controversy. Which is why people are coming to these comment sections to make sure people know about what others are saying about this company AnonymouEevee (talk) 16:47, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
"Its a big story" only appears to apply to the groups and forum that are critical of SBI's work including the curator group. It is clear that the sum of all SBI employees' tweets created a Streisand effect that drew members to the group, which we do have documented, but simply because one of them was blocked doesn't matter to that point.
As well as the claims of racism, which have been disproven by independent reporters to show that the basis for these claims of racism have been take way out of context, and part of the conspiracy theories that have been attributed to the curator group and other forums. Masem (t) 16:55, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
I concur. I would also add that "it's a pretty big story right now" should be an indication of caution rather than inclusion. Wikipedia is not newsmedia and it is likely far to early to determine if Chris Kindred getting kicked off a dying social media web page has even a smidge of encyclopedic relevance. Simonm223 (talk) 16:59, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
it is a big story because a very loud majority of gamers have expressed their criticism for this group, and the criticism should be noted. Silencing these people shows a clear bias, and also damages Wikipedia's reputation. Someone's going to hear about whats going on and they're going to read this one sided wikipedia article and logically take it all as fact without doing any research. Which is why it's important to list the other side so people can form their own opinion and not what one side says. Also, Wikipedia doesnt have to be news media to show that a lot of people have been critical of sweet baby inc, and can reveal the reason for such. But they choose only to show one side, calling the other side harrassers instead of revealing that forced diversity was involved, the very thing the people were complaining about. Furthermore, no the screenshots of white racism were not taken out of context. A lot of the comments were deleted to create plausible deniability, but screenshots exist proving they did indeed happen. And its important to note what sbi employees are doing because it gives insight on who manages this company because it tells people who exactly is making their games and whether they should support the games they work on. And not showing this further proves Wikipedia's bias and that they're supporting one side. AnonymouEevee (talk) 17:40, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
We don't make articles or include content on Wikipedia just because there's a vocal group of people complaining about something. If Qanon hadn't received any news coverage, we wouldn't have an article on it either. SilverserenC 17:49, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Silverseren is correct, Wikipedia editors don't write articles based on who is being loud online. I'll also add that this is a request for WP:FALSEBALANCE, which is something the Wikipedia community has specifically rejected. Wikipedia does not give equal validity to 'sides' of a dispute, it follows along with whatever the reliable sources do. You also might want to have a look at WP:YESBIAS. MrOllie (talk) 17:52, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately it further proves my point that Wikipedia is a biased source. Their policies only supports secondary sources over first hand sources and accounts, which is why it's gradually becoming unreliable for a lot of people. It benefits triple a game journalists who don't care about games, over people who are truly passionate for the games they play and want their voices to be heard about what they want for the markey. This is the last time I'm going to reply because this debate will ultimately go nowhere due to Wikipedia's policies, but I'm glad I was at least able to contribute to this conversation for onlookers. Hopefully people will boycott this sight and discourage others from using this as a first hand source of info AnonymouEevee (talk) 18:04, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

A majority according to who? Simonm223 (talk) 18:06, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
If Wikipedia is "gradually becoming unreliable for a lot of people" due to policies which have been in place from the beginning, then I guess it's about time? People should really be more aware of what they consume, I suppose. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 19:25, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Citations and news sites and clickpieces and slop

There have been a great number of discussions opened on this talk page to propose alternate sources; these tend to be largely identical. Somebody will post a link saying "this proves that the stuff in the Wikipedia article is wrong", someone will say that the linked website is some kind of lame clickslop garbage, and it will be thrown in the bin. Perhaps this is true. The ones I have seen so far are: https://mobilesyrup.com/2024/03/16/sweet-baby-controversy-toxic-gamers-stand-up-for-devs-and-media-editorial/ , https://game8.co/articles/latest/sweet-baby-inc-employees-fail-spectacularly-at-trying-to-get-steam-curator-banned , https://www.theshortcut.com/p/sweet-baby-inc-detected-what-actually-happened , https://www.geeksandgamers.com/sweet-baby-inc-does-exactly-what-gamers-think-they-do/ , https://www.geeknewsnow.net/index.php/2024/03/08/sweet-baby-inc-when-grifting-goes-wrong/ , https://thatparkplace.com/sweet-baby-inc-employee-begs-followers-to-report-steam-curator-that-tracks-sweet-baby-inc-s-involvement-in-video-games/ , https://nichegamer.com/sweet-baby-employees-incite-harassment-campaign-against-steam-curator/

These sites look pretty mid to me, and some of them look bad. They are mostly what we call "video game journalism".

I don't think we should be citing stuff to sources where the editorial oversight and quality of writing/research is demonstrably much poorer than our own.


Most websites that claim to do journalism about video games, to be blunt, do not. To the extent they do, it seems to be a small minority of their output, which is predominantly clickable content-mill stuff regurgitated from industry press releases, and occasional "tweetalism" articles about a viral social media post (which tend to consist entirely of embedding the post and making some vague commentary about how it "just won the Internet" etc). For example, if we look at the front page of Kotaku right now, here is what it has:

18 Things We Learned From The Acolyte Trailer
Overwatch 2 Is Reverting One Of The Sequel’s Most Controversial Changes
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Unicorn Overlord: The Kotaku Review
Skull And Bones: The Kotaku Review
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: The Kotaku Review
PlayStation Pulse Elite Headset Offers Some Serious Bang For Your Buck

"News" is one of the nine separate subsections of the main page of the site. Clicking on it, we get a few of those articles from the front page, as well as:

Destiny 2’s Newest Mode Delivers Something Fans Have Waited Years For
18 Things We Learned From The Acolyte Trailer
Someone At A Flea Market Couldn't Give Away Copies Of NBA 2k19
Massive Dragon's Dogma 2 Spoilers Leak Days Before Release

None of these are really news. They are mostly press releases from video game companies -- with some video game reviews (essentially blog posts) and a couple tweetpieces. Most concerning to me are the undisclosed affiliate marketing posts -- the post about the PlayStation headset has not one but two line-spanning large bright buttons to buy it from Best Buy, which has a Kotaku affiliate marketing link (https://howl.me/clFYghE6Uld, which redirects to https://www.bestbuy.com/site/-/6567072.p?cmp=RMX&nrtv_cid=64bc791c1371d3764b43e73146d231368b93cd79a818f0041cc1cafe235f6884&utm_source=narrativ&ar=1837046648727687202). Generally, when websites and blogs do affiliate marketing promotional posts where they make money from people buying the product, they disclose this somewhere in the article. They have not done this.

While I certainly agree that being primarily a review/walkthrough website does not militate strongly towards something being an acceptable source for contentious topics, it seems rather silly to raise this standard only for the sources that have been provided so far, whereas the article currently has... twelve citations to a single page on Kotaku. I suppose the relevant question, then, is not "is this site a credible source?", but rather "is this site at least as credible as Kotaku, a tabloid/blog whose posts have undisclosed affiliate marketing links?" It seems noteworthy that at least some of the central issue here (?) is people having some beef with Kotaku specifically, which makes it especially questionable to lean on it so heavily as a source -- hasn't a site who isn't involved in this idiotic online argument weighed in?

I am not particularly interested in the political dimensions of this, nor do I play video games very often (and what games I do play are open source) -- to be blunt, I do not really give a hoot about whether these guys are woke bluehairs ruining video games 4EVAR!!!!! or whether the other guys are sleazy creepazoid far-wing-alt-whatever. These things should not really be a consideration when we evaluate sources; my concern here is that using low-quality sources causes us to write low-quality articles, and we should be seriously committed to citing things to credible outlets. jp×g🗯️ 09:17, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

None of those sites you've listed are what we'd seriously consider as "video game journalism" as none of them have a history of fact checking or editorial control, nor are recognized by the larger video game community. Kotaku has been, despite the changes they have gone through. Plenty of other known RSes using undisclosed marketing links, but that's not a concern under WP:V for reliable sources.
It is also important that from the nature of the controversy around SBI, it was Kotaku that broke the story to the larger world, and since then, multiple sites have confirmed the story, refering the Kotaku story. Hence why many of the references are to Kotaku. Attempts to undermind the reliability of Kotaku, as to thus either claim we shouldn't cover the controversy or that we should include lesser sites make no sense at this point. If Kotaku was the only source covering this, then I would agree its too much, but with the numerous other RSes that have validated the story, there's zero reason to put any doubt into inclusion of the Kotaku story at this point. Masem (t) 12:40, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
No, Kotaku didn't break this to a wider world. It were YouTube Creators who did. Kotaku wrote a (very biased) piece and other Media outlets refer to it because they don't do any original research, at all. USEBYOTHERS is a pretty neat thing, but here it just proves to be fatally flawed. Not that it matters. The Fact that the Factchecking, you all inquire so much about, is not done in this particular instance by Kotaku or any of the follow ups, is mindbogeling.
WP:NOTFORUM. This talk page is to discuss the article, not the topic generally. ☔

The following part might be considered OR so take it with a grain of salt.

If the harassment, like stated in the source, was solely because the steam group wanted to attack SBI (and the Author of the hitpiece), why is it that the percived perpetrator (the Kurator of said steam kurator group) was attacked first by an employee of SBI on X, and only then the backslash started? (as BLP says X is not reliable, but thats where this clusterfuck started)
If the Steam Kurator Group (wich essentially lists just the games SBI worked on/was asked for consel, which are avaible on SBI's website, so same information) somehow deframed SBI, how comes that the group is within the TOS of Steam's Kurator Programm? That parts of the attached forum where purged is absolutly irrelevant to this fact.
If the Kotaku Author did not involve herself in a harassment campaign of her own making and recived backkash because of it, would it affect the reliabillity of her piece? (again BLP and X)
Context matters. Adtonko (talk) 13:29, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
The harassment came after she wrote the article, so it has no relevance to the article's reliability (not that it would anyway). And, to clarify, other media outlets certainly did do their own research and fact-checking. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 14:08, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I whooleheartently have to disagree with you on that. She initiated the harasment. Thats why the Article is a harassment piece in and of itself. And she earned backslash for it. Tahts how harassment works nowadays aparrently. -- Adtonko (talk) 06:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

My point is that the harassment Mercante has received has no impact on the reliability of her article. Regardless, this continues to be irrelevant to this discussion and talk page. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 06:54, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
It has Not? You are doing a fair bit of WP:OR with that statement alone. --Adtonko (talk) 14:28, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Nothing about my comment is original research, but WP:NOR does not apply to talk pages anyway. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 14:33, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Only replying to the part about YouTube creators that broke it - maybe within the gaming community, the highlighting of how the SBI employees were calling for the curator group to be removed via youtube videos may have increased attention there, but that's only with the circle of gamers and likely a small subset of them, and certainly not to the world at large. Kotaku is a recognized source for gaming news across the media (even if their quality is no longer as good as it was) and it is recognized there that they broke the story about SBI getting harassed by gamers and the use of disproven conspiracy theories that SBI was forcing all those games to go "woke". Again, I'm seeing the pattern from GamerGate, but there, while there may have been some gamers that thought initially the protest was about "ethics in game journalism" but eventually was throws out the door, the side here trying to latch on to "SBI did a bad thing, the curator group was only listing games and not telling ppl to avoid" and a whole bunch of other excuses have quickly been proven wrong, and the attempts to discredit Kotaku here isn't going to change what has been published since. — Masem (t) 14:19, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Thing is Kotaku is an active participant here. It's senior editors have been involved in the initial doxing attempt of the users in the steam/discord group failing which they tried to go after several high profile gamers/ content creators. This brings the entire stuff they write regarding this into question.
Of course recurring issue here being sources can't be cited due to Wikipedia:No original research. 58.84.60.110 (talk) 17:05, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
This is a powerful endorsement of the criticality of WP:NOR to the health of the project. It provides a barrier against a flood of conspiracy theories and gossip. Simonm223 (talk) 17:09, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Or that verifiability and neutral point of view can be in direct conflict when journalists cited as sources are the stakeholders. Even if the sources are straight from horse's mouth. 58.84.60.110 (talk) 17:48, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
During GamerGate pt1 we saw a lot of this notion that if one 'side' of a dispute attacked journalism, that means Wikipedia could then not use journalists as a source. Since then, the same attacks have become extremely common in all kinds of political discourse (think of people who say 'Lamestream media'). But buying into that notion is untenable, one cannot silence critical sources just by making attacks on any journalist who writes something one disapproves of. If Wikipedia bought into this argument we would have to say goodbye to almost every source we have on politics, on vaccines, climate change, etc. MrOllie (talk) 17:57, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
And therein lies the journalistic dishonesty. The assertion that she got bullied solely due to the article while the reality was that she initiated conflicts which would otherwise have blown away. Sure the article may have added to the flame, but the timestamps don't lie.
[5]https://archive.is/1jzFO
[6]https://archive.is/50UF5
Bit unrelated but she also mocked and accussed a well known Japanese game developer of racism post his death, which might've attracted people outside the gaming sphere. I mean whoever went after her family members should be ashamed of themselves but context wise flakey AF.
Not that the list created is any better with everything being not-recommended irrespecive of quality.
I am not really aware of what went down in GG1 (the article seems to suffer from worse problems) but when both sides are flakey actively joining one side isn't good optics, which it looks to be the case.
Tell me honestly, if there is a confict in reporting cutting edge scientific findings say quantum computing like journalists vs scientist would journalists be given more priority cause it's easier to digest for the public and by nature of not being original sources? 58.84.62.59 (talk) 21:52, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Bit unrelated but she also mocked and accussed a well known Japanese game developer of racism post his death, which might've attracted people outside the gaming sphere.
See, it's when y'all push blatant lies like this that your POV propaganda stance becomes that much more obvious. Saying that Toriyama made the best and worst of black characters isn't accusing him of racism at all. He made really good depictions of black characters and he made token characters like Mr. Black. Saying he made the best and the worst is much more towards just a factual statement and is in no way meant to be a slight to him. SilverserenC 22:06, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
  • The assertion that she got bullied solely due to the article—nobody said this. Not only are those tweets by a different person than the one being discussed, they are also completely irrelevant to this discussion and talk page. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 23:41, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
Journalists are not "stakeholders" in any rational sense. This whole argument that we have to disregard journalists because they're a "side" in this situation is utter nonsense and will not result in Wikipedia changing its practices. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 20:44, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
Not saying you should take this into the article but might be worth watching
Kira is not American so there no political conspiracy theories.
Hes also considered very level headed on things.
MIght be worth a look for the editors here only taking one side.
[7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZageHrl8qgM Selo007 (talk) 22:25, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
A point still missed by that video and many of the articles trying to support the curators side is that before the purge, at the time the SBI employee made the the tweet, the curator page used an icon of the SBI logo with the red circle/cross on it, and the forum posts inside it were repeating the same hateful messages that were already on Kiwi Farms etc. That is very much a hateful message towards SBI and readily violated the Steam AUP. Now that it's been scrubbed and the icon changed to just that of the SBI logo it simply appears to be a group used to identify SBI games, which is a legit purpose, but all these article and that video act like that was the purpose of the group from the start, washing away it's history. That's something that us easily seen by just looking at screencaps used in the SBI tweets, but also backed up by secondary reliable sources. You could call the gaming press not identifying that the SBI employee as being biased and purposely whitewashing the story, but at the same time, all these other articles bought up as unreliable also are whitewashing part of the narrative that doesn't work for the side of the curator group or the gamers that have attacked SBI. That is why we write summaries based on what is presented in works with a history of reliability, rather than any source you may think usable. Masem (t) 23:39, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
having a icon with a cross over it is not against the tos, its just a sign to recomend the people of the group to avoid the games.
It does not warrent harrassment attack from a SBI employee ordering their followers to attack an individual person. Selo007 (talk) 07:24, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
While I see an argument for saying Americans are particularly susceptible to political conspiracy theories, the idea that non-Americans are immune strikes me as both silly and troubling at the same time. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:45, 25 March 2024 (UTC)
That was not the argument, it was mentioned becouse in the debate many on both side us the "leftist" "misogynist" "conservative" and so on arguments.
America is in a state where everything os blamed on either democrats or republicans even if it has nothing to do with it., and it ruins the debate.
Many of the videos on youtube use alot of conspiracy theories (often Trump theories or QAnon theories) and it ruins alot of them, atleast for me. Selo007 (talk) 07:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
" it was Kotaku that broke the story to the larger world, and since then, multiple sites have confirmed the story"
The other sites havent done any journalism of investigation on their own, they are just quoting the Kotaku article.
That is not "confirming" Selo007 (talk) 07:45, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Even a quick glance at articles from several other outlets prove that they have performed their own investigations. Very few have relied solely on Kotaku's article. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 07:48, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Kotaku is certainly clickbaity, and I have the same concerns you do about the affiliate link, but otherwise I'm not sure what this is supposed to prove. Of course a video game news site is going to be mostly news about (specific) video games. Reviews, spoilers, and so on are video game news. Not every site can be People Make Games and only do hard-hitting investigative journalism about video games. (And even they have relatively fluffy stuff.) Loki (talk) 21:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)
  • One small note The Mary Sue article [8] is entirely derivative on other sources also included. As such it's probably irrelevant and, given the tendency of TMS to blend editorializing with news without labeling it as such, would probably constitute a source to remove. From what I can see this would have slim to no overall impact on page content. Simonm223 (talk) 15:43, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
    While I have a generally low opinion of Kotaku as a source I read the Mercante article and, from a perspective of journalistic methodology, notwithstanding her ideological position entirely, it's pretty decent practice. I would treat this specific article (and exclusively this article) as being just as reliable as any other mainstream newsmedia source. IE: In my ideal world I'd eliminate them all from Wikipedia entirely but I wouldn't eliminate this one before taking out the NYT and, recognizing my opinion about WP:NOTNEWS is a minority one I would support a consensus decision of inclusion in this context. Simonm223 (talk) 15:48, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
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