User talk:LAP959

user talk

human instance of something else

stop these https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q2038252&diff=1324069993&oldid=1324069942 use instead https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q2038252&type=revision&diff=1357856743&oldid=1324070088 78.54.27.99 17:57, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

ok. Will use subject has role (P2868): refugee (Q131572)) LAP959 (talk) 05:03, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Call for participation in a task-based online experiment

Dear LAP959,

I hope you are doing good,

I am Kholoud, a researcher at King's College London, and I work on a project as part of my PhD research, in which I have developed a personalised recommender system that suggests Wikidata items for the editors based on their past edits. I am collaborating on this project with Elena Simperl and Miaojing Shi.

I am inviting you to a task-based study that will ask you to provide your judgments about the relevance of the items suggested by our system based on your previous edits. Participation is completely voluntary, and your cooperation will enable us to evaluate the accuracy of the recommender system in suggesting relevant items to you. We will analyse the results anonymised, and they will be published to a research venue.

The study will start in late January 2022 or early February 2022, and it should take no more than 30 minutes.

If you agree to participate in this study, please either contact me at kholoud.alghamdi@kcl.ac.uk or use this form https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSees9WzFXR0Vl3mHLkZCaByeFHRrBy51kBca53euq9nt3XWog/viewform?usp=sf_link I will contact you with the link to start the study.

For more information about the study, please read this post: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/User:Kholoudsaa In case you have further questions or require more information, don't hesitate to contact me through my mentioned email.

Thank you for considering taking part in this research.

Regards

Kholoudsaa (talk) 21:21, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

The "Mauerbach Auction" of 1996

I noticed you created The "Mauerbach Auction" of 1996 (Q104828883). I'm doing some data imports and some provenance work. You might like https://w.wiki/57dt . Multichill (talk) 17:38, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! The imports are extremely useful. Excellent work!! LAP959 (talk) 03:58, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Q98392119

Hello, probably this is Clarence Y. Palitz Sr. Should this be adapted? Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 05:54, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't know. Is there a clear source that names father and son, with dates?

I see a viaf https://viaf.org/viaf/222472713/ Palitz, Clarence Y.‏ ‎‡d  1887-1969‏ .

And a NGA "Palitz, Clarence Y., Mr. died 1958"

And a NYT obit (died 2000)

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/26/classified/paid-notice-deaths-palitz-clarence-yale-jr.html

PALITZ-Clarence Yale Jr. Died November 23 following a brief illness at age 69. He was the Chairman of the Board of Financial Federal Corporation, a major leasing and financial services company based in New York. A graduate of Dartmouth College and New York University Business School, he served as an Officer in the United States Navy. His career was devoted to the heavy equipment leasing and financing industry. He served on numerous corporate boards in the banking industry in the tri-state area. In 1963 he founded Commercial Alliance Corporation (ASE) with his brother. In 1989, he established Financial Federal Corporation (NYSE) along with his son and brother. Mr. Palitz was a patron of the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the American Ballet Theatre and a major benefactor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has been mentor to many and his leadership will be greatly missed. He is survived by his adoring wife Anka, loving daughter Suzanne and her husband Joel Bauman, son Michael and his wife Gabrielle, stepson Gregory Kriser and his wife Sandra, brother Bernard Palitz, devoted granddaughters Elianora and Sophie, and step grandson Ryan. Funeral services will be held at Frank E. Campbell, 1076 Madison Avenue at 81st Street on November 27 at 11:30 AM. In lieu of flowers donations should be made to the Central Park Conservancy or to the charity of your choice. LAP959 (talk) 13:56, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Property:P1299 vs Property:P1343

Hi, you added a few sources to items about people with Property:P1299. It might be more suitable to look into Property:P1343 as the former seems to be specific for artwork. --Emu (talk) 08:50, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

In addition to that I'm not sure you're using the right model. list of claims for restitution for Nazi-looted art (Q1864251) is a Wikimedia list article. You're adding all sorts of statements to it and linking a lot of items to items to it. This doesn't seem to be a very coherent model. Maybe get some input from other users how to improve it? Wikidata talk:WikiProject Visual arts might be a good place. Multichill (talk) 15:53, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your inputs. The items added are specifically the same as the entities included in the Wikimedia list article in question. This offers a significant advantage for users and researchers in terms of retrieving, analyzing and exploiting the contextual information available for Holocaust-linked art cases across platforms as it makes it possible to run Wikidata Sparql queries for all the other artworks that were owned by individuals who were persecuted by Nazis. This is the first time I've tried this approach to bringing Holocaust information together with art information. I'd like to understand List articles and how they are generally used better before widening the discussion. Thank you. LAP959 (talk) 02:40, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Hm, that isn’t really how Wikidata’s modeling works. It makes a lot of sense to allow for querying restitution cases, but linking Wikidata to a somewhat random collection (list) in three different Wikipedia language editions – not so much. But I’m sure we can find a more proper modeling. --Emu (talk) 10:12, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

OK. What do you suggest? LAP959 (talk) 10:17, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

What I said before: Wikidata talk:WikiProject Visual arts

The longer you wait, the more you have to clean up later. Multichill (talk) 17:12, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

There is a project

WikiProject Victims of National Socialism (Q106254470)

description: WikiProject to model and track Holocaust victims or other victims of National Socialism

Would that be a good project to discuss this topic on. Or is there a more active project team for uniting Holocaust-linked information? LAP959 (talk) 17:49, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

This project has a strong focus on biographical data of Holocaust victims and survivors. You can ping that project but following Multichill’s advice is probably best. --Emu (talk) 20:47, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

How do I ping that project? LAP959 (talk) 03:24, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

{{Ping project|Victims of National Socialism}}. But please only do so if you bring up the topic somewhere else. --Emu (talk) 10:55, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks.

These questions involve the intersection of several projects and how best to exploit information across all of them. LAP959 (talk) 07:43, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

This is a gentle nudge to take action. Multichill (talk) 17:02, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

ok, taking action.

Talk:Q1864251#Best practices for linking a Wikipedia list to the Wikidata entities it contains? LAP959 (talk) 03:17, 21 June 2022 (UTC)

update about Trinity Health

Just in case you want to document the full story: Federal judge dismisses ACLU case against Trinity Health over abortion issue Best. Gerwoman (talk) 14:47, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

described by source (P1343)

Hi, LAP. You don't seem to have experience in using described by source (P1343) property. Please read it carefully and ask if any doubt. Thanks. Gerwoman (talk) 13:49, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Hi Gerwoman, according to the description of the property P1343, the usage is correct. Please see below:

described by source (P1343) property.

"work where this item is described

• described in source
• written about in
• entry
• subject of
• described by encyclopedia
• described by reference work
• described by biography
• reviewed in
• source of item
• described by obituary
• mentioned in news article"

LAP959 (talk) 14:24, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, "work where this item is described". All the item should be described in the work. Gerwoman (talk) 15:12, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

This item you created Ireland: a woman dies after being prevented from having an abortion (Irlande : une femme meurt après avoir été empêchée d'avorter) (Q112891907) mentions Ireland, but Republic of Ireland (Q27) is not described by this news. Gerwoman (talk) 15:18, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

On the contrary Gerwoman,

According to the description, correct usage of P1343 includes:

• mentioned in news article

The items are clearly mentioned in the news article. They are often the main topic of the news article.

There are no grounds to remove the edits linking the Catholic Church to news articles about the Catholic Church, evens if these news articles describe abuses by the Catholic Church.

Concerning Ireland, if you read the article Irlande : une femme meurt après avoir été empêchée d'avorter (Q112891907) you will find that it describes Ireland's policy on abortion and why it was condemned by the European Court of Human Rights.

"L'IRLANDE DÉJÀ CONDAMNÉE EN 2010 PAR LA COUR EUROPÉENNE

L'avortement est interdit en Irlande sauf quand la vie de la mère est en danger, selon une décision de la Cour suprême de 1992. Cependant, aucune loi n'a été votée pour faire appliquer cette décision. L'actuel gouvernement a annoncé son intention de légiférer.

Inspired by

Plusieurs manifestations ont eu lieu mercredi soir en Irlande, notamment une à Dublin, devant le Parlement, en hommage à la jeune femme. L'opposition a appelé le gouvernement à agir vite, rappelant que les Irlandais avaient "donné mandat au Parlement pour légiférer sur le sujet".

La Cour européenne des droits de l'homme avait condamné l'Irlande en 2010 pour avoir contraint une femme atteinte d'un cancer et qui craignait qu'une grossesse n'aggrave son état à aller subir un avortement à l'étranger. Quelque 4 200 Irlandaises, selon les estimations, se rendent ainsi chaque année au Royaume-Uni et sur le continent pour une interruption de grossesse."

The article goes on to describe how the policy specific to Ireland is impacting Irish women. One can fairly state that the article is about Ireland. LAP959 (talk) 15:23, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

So you are going to add Republic of Ireland (Q27) described by source (P1343) Ireland: a woman dies after being prevented from having an abortion (Irlande : une femme meurt après avoir été empêchée d'avorter) (Q112891907) as well? This is not the way Wikidata works. Gerwoman (talk) 15:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Gerwoman, ????

Please explain what you mean. LAP959 (talk) 15:43, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

According to your point of view, this newspaper article describes Ireland. So are you going to add also that property to Republic of Ireland (Q27). ? Gerwoman (talk) 15:48, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

I hadn't planned on it. It is, however, a main topic of the article.

Perhaps a series of significant events (Condemnation by the European Court of Human Rights (2010); Death of the young woman (2012); Change in the Law, etc) would be a good solution? LAP959 (talk) 15:57, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

No. A good solution would be a list of significant events from 2000 years ago till now. And Worldwide. And not only against it, but also in favor of it. Gerwoman (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Deletion request

See Wikidata:Requests for deletions#Q112896563. Veverve (talk) 11:45, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

It should be noted that the item Veverve requested the deletion of was an article entitled:

"The Catholic Church Has Paid Nearly $4 Billion Over Sexual Abuse Claims, Group says"

It was published in Newsweek and concerned extremely large financial settlements paid by the Catholic Church in lawsuits concerning the sexual abuse of children by priests and other employees of the Catholic Church.

https://www.newsweek.com/over-3-billion-paid-lawsuits-catholic-church-over-sex-abuse-claims-1090753

After Veverve failed to obtain the deletion of the article, Gerwoman initiated a discussion on the periodicals discussion board to try to contest newspaper articles in general on notability. After this too failed (see Notability of newspaper articles), Veverve initiated a discussion on the administrator's board, which argued that the child sexual abuse scandal was not "notable" but this also failed. LAP959 (talk) 04:18, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

This is not what happened... Veverve (talk) 07:17, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

news articles

Hi LAP959. I've seen that many of the items that you are creating as news articles, probably don't match the notability criteria. One article deserves an item in WD if it has some notability by itself. For example a Pulizer Prize or something like that. Here some examples: https://www.aarweb.org/AARMBR/About-AAR-/Award-Programs-/Awards/Journalism-Award-Winners-and-Sample-Articles.aspx https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097668290/2022-pulitzer-prize-news-winners?t=1657034095607 Not every article about a relevant event is per se a relevant item for Wikidata. Gerwoman (talk) 15:18, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Please stop adding unimportant events

Please stop adding unimportant events (sexual abuse scandals) on numerous items. Those are not important events, but regular events. Veverve (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Veverve (talk) The NYT, Guardian, Le Monde, WSJ, La Naçion, La Prensa, DW, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Pulitzer committee, SNAP, the FBI, numerous courts and the Vatican publicly disagree with your personal assessment about what is important. Please stop harassment. LAP959 (talk) 05:38, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Those are not important: sexual scandals are regular in the Catholic Church and in many religious organisations. And do not make vain complaints of harassments, please. Veverve (talk) 08:58, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I am really starting to get the feeling you are pushing a POV or are trying to en:WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. Please stop. Such a behaviour does not help anybody. Veverve (talk) 09:03, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Please don't acuse of vandalism

Read the explanations that other editors try to transmit you. Thank. Gerwoman (talk) 18:23, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

. Gerwoman (talk) I read all explanations carefully, as well as the discussions on other boards.

The concerted and ongoing effort to erase Wikidata items and links concerning the Catholic Church's child sexual abuse scandal and its extremely well documented (NYT, Guardian, WSJ, Deutsche Welle, Le Monde etc) cover-up needs to stop. The best way to avoid accusations of vandalism is to stop erasing information.

Veverve (talk) and Gerwoman (talk) attempts to justify the removal of Catholic Church sexual assault scandal-related news articles and links to them on various grounds (notability, POV) have been rejected by Wikidata administrators on two separate discussion boards (Wikidata:Administrators' noticeboard and Wikidata talk:WikiProject Periodicals#c-VIGNERON-2022-07-06T17:58:00.000Z-Veverve-2022-07-06T17:31:00.000Z

On the specific subject of the author of Q1140035 (Crimen sollicitationis) which Veverve (talk) deleted on grounds of "notability" despite Wikipedia articles in twelve languages, and which Gerwoman (talk) deleted on the grounds that Alfredo Ottaviani (Q368201) only signed the document, please indicate who the author of the text is so that the appropriate link can be made. Thank you. LAP959 (talk) 02:29, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

You can read the full document here: https://www.vatican.va/resources/resources_crimen-sollicitationis-1962_en.html and an explanation here: [1] if you are realy interested in this theme. Both references are added to the item. And a Wikitalk in a wikiproject is not by no way a decision of administrators, as you should know. Best. Gerwoman (talk) 19:20, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Now you are accusing others of POV-pushing and agenda... Veverve (talk) 20:09, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Reply to Gerwoman (talk) and Veverve (talk) : below are links to some of the many, many sources that specify that Alfredo Ottaviani (Q368201) wrote   Q1140035 (Crimen sollicitationis):

The Age

https://www.theage.com.au/world/hide-sex-abuse-secret-vatican-paper-instructs-20030807-gdw6eg.html

Syndey Morning Herald

https://www.smh.com.au/world/paper-reveals-vatican-policy-of-sex-abuse-secrecy-20030808-gdh8aq.html

CBS News

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-crimes-cover-up-by-vatican/

The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/18/uk.religion

The Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anger-at-vaticans-sex-abuse-secrecy-7j9pfn86s2c

I note that you ignored all the sources and simply deleted the source cited without proposing any other source for the new statement in the item. LAP959 (talk) 15:32, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Here are the unique sources, reposts from other websites ignored:

• https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/18/uk.religion
• https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sex-crimes-cover-up-by-vatican/
• https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/anger-at-vaticans-sex-abuse-secrecy-7j9pfn86s2c

I admit one can say, according to those sources, that Ottaviani wrote this document. However, it is not stated it is one of his most notable works. Veverve (talk) 18:39, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a document, an "Instruction", from the "Office of the Sacred Congregation". This is an organism of the Holy See as every State has similar organisms. The official documents are prepared for the corresponding office. One of the roles of the Secretary of that organisms is to sign the documents approved for the Office, as every secretary does in any institution in the World. But the secretary isn't the "author" of the document because it acts as an official, representing the Organism. If Ottaviani want to write a book, an article, a discourse or whatever, he will be the author of that, but this wouldn't have any official responsibility of the Holy See.

The problem of using news of generalist media is that they, usually, are not experts in the matter. That's the origin of many confusions. That's also why in WP and WD we use academic sources as books or papers. Gerwoman (talk) 19:16, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Gerwoman (talk) Removing statements supported by reliable sources because you are an "expert" in the Catholic church is not appropriate. LAP959 (talk) 03:31, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

I didn't said that. I said that the majority of generalists media, as the ones you use, are not experts in the matter. Here in Wikidata we try not to be a tabloid. Gerwoman (talk) 16:15, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Gerwoman, The sources cited - The Guardian, CBSNews and The Times - are not "tabloids".

Ververve: the document in question Crimen sollicitationis fuelled a major debate concerning the origins of the cover up of child sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church

Please find below an example

- Hidden Vatican document insisted on secrecy in sex abuse cases

reference URL: https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2003/hidden-vatican-document-insisted-on-secrecy-in-sex-abuse-cases/

quotation: A confidential Vatican document drafted more than 40 years ago set out a policy that demanded total secrecy in cases of sex abuse by priests, CBS News reported today.The policy was written in 1962 by Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, and said that anyone who spoke out about sexual abuse could be kicked out of the church, the report said. (English)

Gerwoman removed the references attesting the authorship of Crimen sollicitationis by Ottaviani then changed the author statement without providing any new reference at all. LAP959 (talk) 03:59, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

significant event (P793)

Hi LAP959. Several times, several editors have tried to explain you what an significant event (P793) is. For any institution with 2000 years of history, I suspect there are hundreds or them. If you only include one, very recent, very scandalous, very controversial... may be because you don't know enough history, don't want to be neutral, you have a big trauma, don't understand what Wikidata is... I cannot think of much more causes sorry. Please stop. Thank you. Gerwoman (talk) 17:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Gerwoman (talk) and Veverve (talk) have tried repeatedly to find excuses to remove information about the historic child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The attack focused first on newspapers articles, then notability, POV, and now on significant event. Veverve (talk) dismissed reliable sources (simply removing them) arguing that his or her own personal expertise of the Church was better. The actions started with their attempts to delete an article about $4 billion in settlements for sexual abuse by the Catholic Church and hasn't stopped since, though the excuses keep changing. Stop the harassment please. LAP959 (talk) 03:30, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Q27841920

You merged two similar items, realized you made a mistake, then corrected one, that left the other item still deleted. When you undo a bad merge you have to fix both entries, or ask for help. RAN (talk) 18:56, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

help please! (I didn't know who to ask). Thanks LAP959 (talk) 05:42, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Why did Multichill remove legal settlements exceeding $100 MILLION, please ?

@Multichill An exceptional $100,000,000+ hit on a company's treasury due to the settlement of a major lawsuit is normally considered a pretty significant event in the life of an organisation. Yet you removed three of them. From:

- Google

cost of damage: 118,000,000 United States dollar

Property / significant event: settlement / reference

stated in: Google Settles Gender Discrimination Lawsuit for $118 Million

reference URL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-settles-gender-discrimination-lawsuit-for-118-million-11655079036

published in: The Wall Street Journal

- Saint Francis Hospital & Medical Center

point in time: 2016

Property / significant event: settlement / reference

stated in: Trinity Health hospital to pay $107 million to settle pension lawsuit

reference URL: https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160525/NEWS/160529946/trinity-health-hospital-to-pay-107-million-to-settle-pension-lawsuit

quotation: As part of the settlement, the Hartford, Conn., hospital has agreed to pour another $17 million into its employee pension following settlement approval. It will then contribute another $10 million a year for nine years. St. Francis denied wrongdoing as part of the settlement and maintains that its pension plan is a church plan exempt from ERISA. (English)

- Riot Games

point in time: December 2021

Property / significant event: settlement / qualifier

cost of damage: 100,000,000 United States dollar

Property / significant event: settlement / reference

stated in: Riot Games to pay $100 million to settle gender discrimination lawsuit

reference URL: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/12/riot-games-to-pay-100-million-to-settle-gender-discrimination-lawsuit/

published in: Ars Technica

Each one was properly referenced with a date, an amount, and references with "Stated in" and a Ref URL.

Would you be so kind as to explain your thinking?. Thank you.

LAP959 (talk) 15:58, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Moved here from User talk:Multichill because this is part of a bigger pattern for which User:Veverve and User:Gerwoman also contacted you: You keep incorrectly using curated properties like significant event (P793). The property should only be added if the event is significant in the context of the item. Google having to pay 100M is less than a day of revenue and completely not a significant event in our ontology.

Your way of engaging users who call you out is to accuse them of vandalism and harassment. You seem to be using Wikidata as a Soapbox, see en:Wikipedia:SOAPBOX and I'm getting to the point that I'm done with your shenanigans. I have removed and will be removing significant event (P793) if the only purpose seems to be to advertise some awful event on another item. Multichill (talk) 19:56, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

User talk:Multichill This question belongs on your talk page. It is a question about your editing action - three very specific deletions, one after another on completely different items concerning financial settlements exceeding $100 million.

Instead of answering my question on your user talk page, you moved it to my page and then made accusations against me.

It should be pointed out that the logic you applied for Google - that $100 million is nothing compared to its revenue - does not apply to Riot Games. (A large portion of the Wikipedia Page for Riot Games concerns its gender discrimination/sexual harassment litigation).

The Google logic also does not apply to the settlement you erased concerning the loss of pensions for health care workers at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center.

([2]https://www.wikidata.org/w/index.php?title=Q2318222&diff=prev&oldid=1689921772)

LAP959 (talk) 04:28, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Three people have now called you on your behaviour, LAP959. The "significant event" parameter is for significant events, not notable everyday events that appear in headlines regularly. Veverve (talk) 09:07, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

ONCE AGAIN, INSTEAD OF ANSWERING ON HIS/HER TALK PAGE A QUESTION ABOUT THE ERASURE OF SPECIFIC INFORMATION, Multichill MOVED IT HERE. (Without answering). The question remains:

Why did you (Multichill)remove $100 million settlement for gender discrimination for Riot Games when its Wikipedia page features it as a very significant event?

I do not understand why you removed the $100 million dollar settlement from Riot Games. It is clearly a significant event. The Wikipedia page for Riot Games devotes more than a third of the text to it. (please see below). The discrimination lawsuit caused Riot Games to lose contracts. The settlement represents a significant portion of its annual revenue. Would you be so kind as to explain your thinking as to why you removed this significant and well documented event? Thank you.

- Riot Games

point in time: December 2021

Property / significant event: settlement / qualifier

cost of damage: 100,000,000 United States dollar

Property / significant event: settlement / reference

stated in: Riot Games to pay $100 million to settle gender discrimination lawsuit

reference URL: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/12/riot-games-to-pay-100-million-to-settle-gender-discrimination-lawsuit/

published in: Ars Technica

Each one was properly referenced with a date, an amount, and references with "Stated in" and a Ref URL.

Riot Games on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riot_Games

Criticism and controversies[edit]

Allegations over gender discrimination and sexual harassment[edit]

Over the first half of 2018, Kotaku spoke to about 28 former and current employees at Riot Games. Several claimed that female employees at Riot were being discriminated against. For example, some noted that ideas from female employees were overlooked while the same ideas from male employees were readily accepted, and some female employees were groomed for more senior positions only to be passed up by a new male hire. These employees described Riot's working environment as a "bro culture". Other allegations included receiving images of male genitalia from colleagues and bosses, an email thread speculating on what it would be like to penetrate a female employee, and a list shared among senior staff members detailing which female employees they would sleep with. Kotaku speculated that this came from Riot's history of generally catering to "core" gamers both in products and in hiring practices, causing the company to favor male employees over females.

Some Riot employees approached by Kotaku asserted these accusations were not true or were already being addressed; for example, according to the head of the platform, Oksana Kubushyna, efforts to improve the hiring process to be more diverse and inclusive toward women started nine months before article's publication. Riot Games' corporate communications lead Joe Hixson acknowledged the problems and said they did not align with Riot's core values. Furthermore, he said that all Riot employees must be held accountable for the working environment.

In the week following Kotaku's article, several more current and former developers came forward to speak on their own experiences at Riot, which included claims of sexual harassment and misgendering. In a statement to Gamasutra, Hixson indicated that the company is taking action based on the story and its response. He elaborated that, in regards to claims of misbehavior by higher-level executives at Riot, the seniority of the individuals would have no impact on disciplinary proceedings. By the end of August 2018, Riot revealed they were implementing seven "first steps" to change the company's internal culture in light of the issues raised, including a "Culture and Diversity & Inclusion Initiative" priority. To help implement these, Riot hired Frances X. Freias a senior adviser for diversity, leadership, and strategy.

As a response to the Kotaku article, Riot offered a session at PAX West in 2018 for prospective video game developers with a panel and one-on-one sessions to review résumés; the session only admitted women and non-binary people. Members of Riot's game communities expressed outrage at the exclusion of men, while Riot employees defended the decision as such gender-exclusive support was necessary to correct the male-dominated nature of video game development. Some of the feedback towards Riot included harassment and threats. In response to a shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida in August 2018, Riot planned to increase security at its upcoming events. Two employees of Riot attempted to address the feedback from the PAX event; one was fired, and the other left the company. Riot stated that these departures were separate from their Diversity Initiative.

In December 2018, Riot's CEO Nicolo Laurent sent an email to all employees stating that following the company's internal investigation, their COO, Scott Gelb, was suspended for two months without pay for workplace misconduct and would take training classes before his return. Riot stated to Kotaku that there still other cases they were investigating but did not involve those as senior as Gelb, and thus would not discuss these cases publicly. By January 2019, Riot updated the company values on its website, the first time since 2012, to reflect the apparent "bro culture" mentioned in the Kotaku report, and by February 2019, had hired Angela Roseboro as the company's chief diversity officer to further help improve their culture.

About three months after Kotaku's story, one current and one former Riot employee filed a lawsuit against the company, asserting the company engaged in gender discrimination concerning their pay and position, and that the company had created a "sexually-hostile" workplace. The lawsuit seeks to qualify it as a class-action suit, and for damages to be based on unpaid wages, damages, and other factors to be determined at trial. Three other employees followed with their own lawsuits against Riot Games in the months that followed. Riot Games attempted to have two of the suits dismissed in April 2019, citing that the two female plaintiffs of these suits, when hired, had agreed to third-party arbitration rather than taking court action. Internally, several employees of Riot threatened to walk out, an idea that had been around since the first Kotaku article, as alongside the coercion to use arbitration, these employees felt Riot had yet to improve its transparency on the processes and had otherwise continued to retain Gelb despite his suspension.

A proposed settlement was reached in the class-action suit in August 2019, which would include at least US$10 million in damages to women that had been employeed at Riot Games over the prior five years. Representatives of the class indicated that they thought it would lead to change, while Riot said that there were other issues not covered by the suit, and that they also intended to resolve the unacknowledged issues.

California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) had been investigating claims of gender discrimination at Riot Games since October 2018. In June 2019, DFEH announced that Riot had denied providing them requested documents and were seeking action to compel these documents, though Riot responded by saying that they complied with all DFEH requests. Upon word of the settlement, the department filed a complaint with the court that stated they believed the settlement was far too low, estimating that the lawsuit potentially could have been worth as much as US$400 million. The state's Division of Labor Standards Enforcement also filed a complaint, believing the settlement would release Riot from labor liabilities that had been raised by the lawsuit. Both complaints urged the court to reject the proposed settlement. Riot dismissed the DFEH's larger value to the suit, and denied charges raised by the DFEH that it had colluded with the class's lawyer to reduce the amount they would pay through the settlement.

As a result of the state's findings that the terms of the settlement should have been valued higher, the class withdrew the proposed US$10 million settlement and dropped their original legal counsel, bringing on new lawyers who had been involved in prior lawsuits related to the Me Too movement in February 2020. In response, Riot said they found the US$10 million figure "fair and adequate under the circumstances" after analysis, but were remaining committed to reaching a resolution. In August 2021, DFEH asserted that Riot was interfering in their ongoing investigations by falsely informing employees that they could not speak to DFEH directly; while the court ordered Riot to issue a memo to all employees that they legally could speak to DFEH, Riot had yet to comply with this order. By the end of 2021, Riot had agreed to a new settlement with the DEFH and employees of $100 million, with $80 million going to the impacted employees. The settlement was approved in July 2022.

Riot and Laurent were sued by Laurent's former assistant in January 2021 on sexual discrimination charges, which included inappropriate language and labor mistreatment. Riot opened an investigation by three members of its board of directors into Laurent's behavior in response to the lawsuit. They reported in March 2021 that "We concluded that there was no evidence that Laurent harassed, discriminated, or retaliated against the plaintiff. We have therefore concluded that at the current time … no action should be taken against Laurent."

Alienware which had sponsored Riot's League of Legends esports events, ended its partnership with Riot a year earlier than their contract term in March 2021 due to the ongoing litigation over the sexual harassment allegations.

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LAP959 (talk) 04:11, 31 July 2022 (UTC)