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The free, online encyclopedia Wikipedia has banned a long-time editor for alleged “off-site” harassment, though the allegations have not been made public.

ArbCom, the site’s arbitration committee announced the ban on New Year’s Day of veteran editor “The Devil’s Advocate.” The decision comes as a result of behavior of the “The Devil’s Advocate” related to GamerGate, a controversy surrounding the treatment of women in the online community and virulent sexism many women experience through anonymous internet communications.

GamerGate has become in essence a catchall term which refers to the various and documented harassment campaigns waged on female gamers in recent years. Controversy began when independent game developer Zoe Quinn released a new game called Depression Quest in February 2013. Soon thereafter, the harassment began, largely through online chatrooms like 4Chan.

According to a piece in the September 2014 New Yorker, one of the many threats leveled at Quinn said “Next time she shows up at a conference we … give her a crippling injury that’s never going to fully heal … a good solid injury to the knees. I’d say a brain damage, but we don’t want to make it so she ends up too retarded to fear us.” The threat is attributed to an anonymous 4Chan user.

Since then, the conversation about sexism and gender equality in the video game world has opened up, with both defenders of women’s rights and more intensely sexist internet users facing off.

While specific offensive comments by “The Devil’s Advocate” have yet to be attributed to the user, it is likely the current Wikipedia editors will release justification of the user’s termination at some point.

However, some Wikipedia editors were not pleased with the announcement, questioning the lack of transparency in the decision to terminate.

One editor wrote, as quoted by Breitbart.com, “Unless I am missing something (which is entirely possible), this action seems entirely opaque.”

Another Wikipedia editor named DHeyward has called on the Wikimedia Foundation to proceed with a public trial, in which the accused may defend their self.

“[The Devil’s Advocate] is a living person that ArbCom just publicly accused of harassment with no venue to respond to that characterization” the editor wrote, adding that “It seems problematic to me for a quasi-official committee to publicly accuse an editor of harassment (which can mean anything from “annoying” to “criminal behavior”).”

“The Devil’s Advocate” has been a Wikipedia editors for over eight years.

While termination of employment based on shaky ground is unjust, the issue of online harassment directed toward women is much larger and serious.

The largely conservative, anti-progressive and male-dominated video game and internet community is a danger to others and needs to be dealt with as such.

It has become such an issue that even Congresswoman from Massachusetts Katherine Clark has campaigned in the House of Representatives for greater protections for users and resources to combat online harassment. A bill called "Prioritizing Online Threat Enforcement Act of 2015" was introduced in June 2015, and is currently on hold in Congress.

Advocates for “The Devil’s Advocate” point to the user’s generally fair policy regarding editing as further reason there should be a trial.

“Typically, I only become involved when I notice a particular problem is not being discussed or feel one or more editors are being treated unfairly,” the user said in a statement pulled from Wikipedia profile archives.

Accoring to the Arbitration Committee's own rules, "The Devil's Advocate" may appeal the decision at the behest of a working editor.

"Any editor may ask the Committee to reconsider or amend a ruling, which the Committee may accept or decline at its discretion. The Committee may require a minimum time to have elapsed since the enactment of the ruling, or since any prior request for reconsideration, before reviewing it."