User talk:Oliviakmcalpine

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Hello, Oliviakmcalpine, and welcome to Wikipedia! My name is Shalor and I work with the Wiki Education Foundation; I help support students who are editing as part of a class assignment.

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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me on my talk page. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:38, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Sexism in Video Gaming

Reverted your contribution because of duplication of content in the first instance (always check if what you are adding has already been said, or could be edited into the article in a more seamless way) and in the second half the examples and content lacked context for the paragraph (what is the significance of the "points", and is it actually points or "health") and were a bit of a laundry list. Your sources are also walled off from general community behind the education login required for Layola. This makes verification of the content (and verification of risk of plagiarism) quite high. In these instances it can often help to provide the quotation within the reference. If you need help, let me know. The statements related to Fortnite and the "many players" killing prostitutes meanwhile lacked any source. You may have intended your first source to cover the content but in this case you should have repeated it at the end of each clear use to make attribution obvious. Koncorde (talk) 07:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

• Hi! I received a notification about this and agree with Koncorde's notes. I also left a lengthy message at User_talk:Kthakrar9#Sexism_in_video_gaming that you should review as many of the issues here are similar to what the other student added as well. I'm pinging your professor Jmoorman9 here as well. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:03, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Feedback

Quick feedback on the second paragraph and what is problematic, you added:

The way female characters are typically portrayed in comparison to male characters in video games tends to be hypersexualized. In a popular video game called Grand Theft Auto, players have the ability to virtually have their character have sex with prostitutes, which gives them points. Many players kill the prostitute after having sex with her in order to keep their money. In a popular game called Fortnite, female characters are portrayed as skinny with very curvy hips, a large bottom, and a small waist, whereas the men are large, buff, and strong-looking.

First statement relating to hypersexualised should be relatively easy to cite (it is a common criticism). However it should be clear that both male and female characters are exposed to "hyper" characteristics for balance which are both examples of a type of sexism (criticism over male, nominally heterosexual, white skinned, brown haired characters is quite common as an implicit bias). There should be reasonable sources available for this.

Second statement relating to GTA and prostitutes however is problematic. Firstly it doesn't reference the first sentence preceding it, which is a bit of a sharp jump. There is nothing "hyper" about a prostitute (you could however point at the fact that the few females you interact with in GTA are often sexual in nature as either sex objects, porn stars, or love interests - the Maiden, Mother, Crone is a common trope in the series). Instead you are giving an example of an accepted misogynistic behaviour that has reward mechanisms. This example clearly should go somewhere else in the article possibly relating to exploitative game mechanics, or morally and ethically dubious behaviour being rewarded (look up the "Dastardly" achievement in Red Dead Redemption for instance).

Third statement relating to "Many players kill the prostitute..." is hugely problematic. Firstly, how is this being quantified? Who has analysed this and presented it as evidence? It is true that the mechanic exists, but I think it's probably very unlikely that its use could be measured or has been measured. This statement could be included with the prior statement as an example of a morally dubious reward mechanism.

Wider statements about games such as GTA should also, ideally, reflect its satirical nature. The game is hyper everything. Failing to provide context for criticism is what will draw POV issues.

Fourth statement goes into Fortnite. This appears to be an example of something being "hypersexualised". However aside from no source being cited, it is unclear what is hyper about the description. Physical dimensions alone are not really a good example of "hypersexualised" if the rest of their behaviour / outfits etc conform to norms of in-game behaviour. If costumes are purposely sexualised, or proportions are gratuitous, then this needs to be quantified and what significance it has should also be mentioned. For example: "the female models used in the popular game Fortnite present unrealistic proportions says X, Y, Z, representing a BMI factor that less than X% of the American norm. This reinforces unnatural body shapes unachievable through natural processes says X, Y, Z in A,B,C. D,E,F suggests that unrealistic presentations of female proportions is leading to increasing instances of body dismorphia". However, for balance on this POV, it should be noted that there are multiple additional models in the game (such as Penny) that are a different scale entirely and so do not represent your statement (or my example), and also the hyper-realistic body shapes of the male figures should not be ignored for balance.

I hope this helps. Koncorde (talk) 10:24, 29 November 2018 (UTC)