User:Tallulah/Gamergate Timeline inaccuracies

I previously attempted to fix some inaccuracies in the article Timeline of Gamergate, but was met with hostility by a certain moderator who reverted my edits and temporarily banned me. His only stated reason for doing so was that he found my edits "boring" and "repetitive". This seems strange to me; surely the main concern is whether or not the information I am presenting is accurate, rather than whether it is "boring"?

As the same moderator ensured that the article's talkpage can be edited only by staff members, I have decided to jot down some of my issues with the article in my own userspace.

Please note that I have removed all direct references to the nature of the accusation directed at Sarah Nyberg, beyond the basic - and firmly established - fact that there are chatlogs in which, by her own admission, she can be seen making distasteful statements.

Sarah Nyberg and roleplay

Gamergater "LeoThePirate" doubles down on Gamergate's baseless attacks on Sarah Nyberg by publishing a video accusing her of being a [bad person], accompanying it with the hashthag "#FreeEncyclopediaDramatica". The evidence used against her is gleaned from nearly 10-year-old IRC chatlogs obtained from when Gamergaters hacked her personal websites wherein, and here's the kicker, she is explicitly expressing disgust with having found [dirty] roleplaying on LiveJournal that she was not engaging in herself. Gamergate has for months been accusing her of [bad behaviour] because of she had copied and pasted the content and they removed the context that showed she was clearly against it.

There is a grain of truth here: a couple of the objectionable passages in the chatlogs are indeed cases of Nyberg quoting other people in a "look how gross this is" kind of way. The trouble is that they comprise only a tiny fraction of the questionable material that she posted. I have looked at the chatlogs, and most of the objectionable statements are clearly Nyberg writing from her own point of view.

This is reaffirmed by Nyberg's own summary of the affair, in which she states that only some of the material was copy-pasted and admits to writing the rest.

The RationalWiki paragraph, in its current form, gives the impression that all of the evidence against Nyberg can be excused as her copy-posting other people's writing. That is simply not correct. More specifically, it states flat out that LeoPirate (incorrectly identified as "LeoThePirate") is guilty of misrepresenting copy-pasted roleplays; I watched his video, and I saw no instances of this occuring.

Nyberg and someone else's chatlogs

The fact that this information has been available for 7 months at this point, alongside debunked accusations that Nyberg is the "Sarah Butts" who wrote for The Mary Sue that they have other context-less chatlogs that may not even be from Nyberg, shows the ethical standards of people who align with Breitbart in action.

This sentence is poorly written and does not make sense; I suspect that there was meant to be an "and" after "The Mary Sue". It mentions "other context-less chatlogs that may not even be from Nyberg", but the significance of these is unclear. Nyberg's defence does not mention other people's chatlogs being presented as her own, so whatever this refers to seems to have been lost in the mists of time.

Doctored chatlogs

As a side note to this, the "chat logs" that Gamergaters are using to attack Nyberg with were apparently uploaded to the server in question on August 12, 2015, bringing into question their authenticity.

This is misleading, as it fails to clarify that there are two sets of chatlogs. One set was uploaded by Roph (one of Nyberg's critics) to his website on August 12 2015. However, the other set was hosted on Nyberg's own website, FFshrine, and its authenticity is not in question - certainly, Nyberg's Medium piece made no claim that any of the chatlogs had been doctored.

Milo Yiannopolous and libel

Milo Yiannopoulos admits that he publishes libel from 8chan threads on Gamergate victims for Breitbart articles; such as the one he has published on Sarah Nyberg covering the rehashed false accusations against her (which took several days and 7 revisions by Breitbart editorial and legal staff because of all the libel he pulled from 8chan and /r/KotakuInAction).

There are many criticisms that can be justly levelled at Yiannopolous. However, this one is unfair. Nowhere in the source does he admit to "publishing libel".