User talk:Jimbo Wales

Why I am quitting Wikipedia after 16 years

Dear Sir,

I am quitting Wikipedia for good as of today. I first started contributing to the List of country-name etymologies page way back in 2004, and my first page creation was Similarities between the Bible and Koran (good thing I got in early as I wouldn't touch anything to do with religion now). Though I was very sceptical about an encyclopedia that anyone could edit, I thought it showed promise and at the very least was a decent enough place to store my personal reference material which might also be of benefit to others. Since then my edits have run the gamut from London street names, the Cinema of Paraguay, Prime Minister John Major, and most recently international borders. I had been due to go to the British Library last week so I could finish off Africa's borders (the most useful reference for these being a prohibitively expensive, out-of-print reference book) however I cancelled the appointment and I dare say those pages will never be created. I had also planned to planned to upload my 1,000s of travel photos to WikiCommons, and also set about improving the history sections of the Pacific island states (as I did recently with Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands). Again, I doubt the latter will ever be improved.

I have had my qualms about the site for many years. I left the site for six months back in 2014 after somebody started deleting the London embassy pages I had spent the previous three month creating (they seemingly got bored after deleting seven though by then I had stopped caring). I returned on the proviso that if Wikipedia ever again stopped being fun I would quit for good. Several recent experiences have convinced me the site is no longer worth contributing to, that its well-known intrinsic problems are insurmountable, and that the site has a serious problem with activist editors who are destroying it from within. I have summarised my general concerns below, along with some specific examples.

General points

• As someone with a strong interest in global history, one of the things that attracted me to Wikipedia was that it offered the prospect of treating developing countries on par with developed ones and thus overcoming the biases of older encyclopedias, and I have consistently sought to add material for such places. In the early days these pages were distinctly sub-par, and to be frank many of them have improved little in the intervening 16 years. The blunt fact is that if after 16 years these articles are still not at a decent standard then they likely never will be. The end result is a website in which random suburbs of some average US towns get an enormous article replete with numerous images, references and so on, whereas the page for many medium-sized African countries or capital cities are short, poorly-referenced, barely updated and often badly written.

• The non-English language Wikis are a nice idea, but every time I browse through them their poor quality is instantly apparent even when I cannot understand the language in question. The smaller and more 'obscure' the language is, the worst this is. Recently there have several reports of some of these Wikis being effectively taken over by a very small group of individuals (or even one individual in the case of Scots) and being deliberately and systematically skewed. This does not surprise me at all and it highly unlikely you will ever build a big enough user base for each language to correct this problem. Making the world’s knowledge available to everyone for free in their own language is a noble idea but one that has manifestly failed.

• In the early days I learnt how to edit by editing. If I followed any rules it was that 'there are no rules', if they got in the way of contributing. Since then a massive and unwieldy corpus of regulations, guidelines, and policies have been created and imposed from above, none of which I had any input into and which have increasingly turned the site from a bottom-up site 'run' by the editors to a top-down one run by admins. So I am now expected to abide by a set of guidelines which I had no part in devising, and which in many cases actively work against improving the site. The rules on primary sources are particularly idiotic. Throughout my entire educational career from school to university I was taught that primary sources are paramount, with secondary sources a distant second. Wikipedia completely flips this on its head and even just quoting verbatim what somebody said from a primary source can be slapped down and deleted as 'original research'.

• Watching from across the Pond, I have observed the increasingly nasty and bitter polarisation in America over the past 16 years with some alarm and dismay. Unfortunately given US dominance of the architecture internet I am unable to avoid the many spill-over effects. I deleted my Facebook three years ago and was never a user of Twitter and at least Wikipedia seemed immune I thought. However I have noticed an unfortunate trend in the last few years of activist editors staking out certain topics, editing them to fit their worldview and policing them aggressively against anyone who dares to try and edit them in a more neutral fashion. Looking into it, these people are almost always single-issue editors working almost exclusively on topics to do with politics or the 'culture war'.

Some specific cases

• Falkland Islands (2019): in mid-2019 I decided to improve the pages for the Caribbean countries/territories. I went through all of them, updating them, adding references and images, and in particular improving the histories (several of which were decidedly Eurocentric). None of these edits were controversial and as far as I know all still remain. Having done this I decided to do other small territories in the Americas, starting with Saint Pierre and Miquelon – again no problems. I then did the same for the the Falklands Islands, however it turned out that the page had 'owners', who were none too happy about an outsider coming in on 'their' turf. My innocuous edits about the islands' road system and airport were repeatedly overturned, the page owners demanding that any edits go via them for approval. As I had only a passing interest in the islands I just gave up. The only reasons I can see for such aggressive patrolling is because the islands are the subject of a territorial dispute (note that none of my edits related to this dispute). This experience led me to question how other such areas on the site are similarly policed. Could I trust the pages for Nagorno-Karabakh, Kashmir, Israel or Crimea? My fears were confirmed when I came across Occupied territories of Georgia, a page clearly biased in a pro-Georgian direction and aggressively patrolled to keep it that way.

• Spartacus International Gay Guide (2019-20) – this was a gay venue listings mag (now app) which was very popular back in the day. Unfortunately its founder (John D. Stamford) was also a paedophile sympathiser, and in the 1970s-80s it promoted third world sex tourism and paedophilia (in particular by supporting the notorious Pedophile Information Exchange group in Britain). Several newspapers later exposed this scandal, and Stamford was later jailed, with Spartacus being sold to a new company which thankfully disowned him and stripped out the paedophilic material. None of this was covered on the page, so I added it, adding quotes from the publication itself and from various news articles and so forth. A single editor has recently decided that any mention of homosexuality and pedophilia can only possibly be motivated by right-wing bigotry, and has repeatedly deleted the content, spuriously citing it as 'original research' due to the use of verbatim quotes from the guide. At the moment the content is live, however I've no doubt that either this editor or someone else will come along and delete it at some point and I can't be bothered policing it. Looks like Stamford got away with his crimes twice.

• Toxic masculinity (2020) – I'd heard this term bandied about in the media and didn’t really know much about it, other than that it was clearly a highly contested one. So I was surprised to see the topic’s Wikipedia page presenting the concept as undisputed scientific fact with no criticism section (as there is on the equivalent Russia, German, Estonian and Spanish pages). I raised my concerns about this on the Talk page, only to have them instantly dismissed and hat-hidden by the article's self-appointed owner. Looking through the Talk history I could see that at least 14 other editors had raised similar concerns, only for this one editor to wear them down until they gave up and went away. I insisted that my comments be un-hid, and though this was done, I can see that many of the other comments from other users have been hidden away on an archive page, sometimes not even the one for the actual page but instead for a generic NPOV page. So we have an article here presenting a controversial topic in a fundamentally biased manner and patrolled in a way that means it cannot be changed. Again, this raises the question of how many other controversial 'culture war' articles are biased and policed in such a fashion.

• Cultural Marxism (2020) – originally a right-wing conspiracy theory, this phrase has since mutated in popular culture as essentially shorthand for the rather banal observation that ‘some college professors are Marxist and may seek to propagate their views on students and wider society’, often by people unaware of the term's somewhat darker lineage or history (to make it clear, I do not believe in the theory). However this split is not covered on the page on Wikipedia. The theory is also defined in the first sentence as being 'far-right' and 'anti-Semitic'. Further down the page are a list of proponents and, within a list that includes mass-murderer Anders Breivik, one can find Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, neither of whom are far-right or anti-Semitic (indeed Shapiro himself is Jewish). I have my issues with these two figures and their views, but slandering them by association is simply unacceptable on a supposedly neutral site (note also that none of the other language pages mention them). I raised this point on the Talk page, and suggested that it might be best to add a sentence or note on these two proponents stating that they may support parts' of the diluted-down theory but they are certainly not far-right or anti-Semitic, or at least to highlight this point in the intro. My comments were instantly deleted, the first time I have had comments outright deleted in all my 16 years of editing. I then re-added them, politely requesting that they not be deleted. Others then mischaracterised my comments as ‘ranting’ and ‘not making suggestions’ (I then numbered my suggestions, and also pointed out that British-Jewish columnist Melanie Philips also believed in aspects of the diluted theory, and that like Shapiro it raises obvious questions as to whether the theory can be characterised as anti-Semitic in all cases). A ‘conversation’ (pile-on would be a better description) then developed, with a group of editors who clearly knew each other began twisting, dismissing or ignoring my points, implied that I was motivated by anti-Semitism, slurred Jordan Peterson as a racist and misogynist (note that this would be libellous if said in print in Britain, as would the article as a whole without the caveats I suggested), and compared my pointing to Philips and Shapiro as tokenism reminiscent of Jewish Nazi collaborators. As with ‘toxic masculinity’ looking through the edit history of the users concerned revealed an almost exclusive preoccupation with topics to do with US politics, culture war issues and the like and a history of contentious, belligerent interactions with others editors. After taking a break for a couple of days, I saw that the ‘discussion’ had been helpfully shifted onto an archive page on the basis that it was a ‘rant’ that made no concrete suggestions (both lies). The editors did find room however for a new thread in which they congratulate each other on another battle fought and won (wisely they moved this to the archive a day later – I guess ever these people know that no one likes a boaster). I added one response to this thread saying that the whole incident had been pivotal in my decision to leave Wikipedia for good, which received a salt-in the wound ‘thanks’ notification for this from one of the editors involved, which I think accurately sums up the petty, point-scoring mentality of the users involved.

What is the end result of all this? I can no longer trust what is on Wikipedia, not only because it is still full of errors, but also because entire subject areas are now systemically biased and any attempt alter them so to reflect a more neutral viewpoint would require a huge commitment of time and energy and probably end in failure in any case. So you have the people who you least want in charge of these types of articles in charge of them. Single-issue activist-editors firmly committed to one side will always be willing to devote more time and fight their corner more aggressively than a half-interested editor with varied interests and no strong opinions on the issue either way - this problem is effectively insurmountable. Frankly I can no longer trust that the information on Wikipedia on controversial topics is free from bias, and I will stop looking at these articles henceforth.

It seems to me that Wikipedia is essentially a legacy site from Internet 1.0, a more innocent and naïve age when people still thought the internet would bring people together rather than drive them apart. A time when vandalising the page for a Republican president was seen as a bit of a laugh rather than a sacred duty. I'm afraid your site simply won't survive Internet 2.0 which is an altogether nastier and more unpleasant place. I no longer wish to spend my free time volunteering on a site that is becoming just another front of the US culture war - full of falsehoods, politically-biased smears and an utterly toxic internal culture. Just as when I decided to quit Facebook 3 years ago, I’ve found that my mental health has improved since leaving the site. Unfortunately as Wikipedia has become so entrenched in the internet’s ecosystem I will, as with MySpace or Internet Explorer, be forced to watch its carcass slowly rotting away for several years to come. It was a noble endeavour sir but one that I'm sorry to say has failed. Goodbye. WisDom-UK (talk) 14:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

That's a lot of words to say "I tried to tilt articles with unsupported claims, I was rightly stopped, and I'm angry about it, stomp foot stomp foot." 2601:2C0:C300:B7:FC53:F984:3F15:4B4C (talk) 18:27, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I laughed way too hard at that. This is my userpage^{and this is my talk page} 14:07, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

2601: A person who's made sixteen thousand edits over the course of more than a decade is so blown-out by insane politics stuff that they're leaving the project over it, and this is your response? I'd write more, but that comment hardly even deserves the two sentences I'm giving it. jp×g 00:40, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Lettherebedarklight—you say "I laughed way too hard at that". What are you laughing at? WisDom-UK wrote "After taking a break for a couple of days, I saw that the ‘discussion’ had been helpfully shifted onto an archive page on the basis that it was a ‘rant’ that made no concrete suggestions (both lies). The editors did find room however for a new thread in which they congratulate each other on another battle fought and won (wisely they moved this to the archive a day later – I guess ever these people know that no one likes a boaster). I added one response to this thread saying that the whole incident had been pivotal in my decision to leave Wikipedia for good, which received a salt-in the wound ‘thanks’ notification for this from one of the editors involved, which I think accurately sums up the petty, point-scoring mentality of the users involved." Bus stop (talk) 18:51, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

WisDom-UK—you've got to weigh in User talk:Jimbo Wales#Your thoughts on this please. In my opinion it touches on many of the good points you've made. There is a preoccupation with seeming to favor the fair representation of the people mentioned in our encyclopedia while in actuality, to an extent, doing the opposite. Ben Shapiro is a Jew in 2020. Is he represented fairly on our project? But sanctimoniously we concoct essays on WP:NONAZIS. Hey, there is very little overt hate speech on Wikipedia. The real problem is harder to describe. But we know it when we see it. You say "After taking a break for a couple of days, I saw that the ‘discussion’ had been helpfully shifted onto an archive page on the basis that it was a ‘rant’ that made no concrete suggestions (both lies)." This is a common tactic. You go on to say "The editors did find room however for a new thread in which they congratulate each other on another battle fought and won". Virtue signalling. Sanctimonious virtue signalling. In my opinion Wikipedia should stop promoting the talking points of the Left. And in my opinion Wikipedia should stop suppressing in subtle ways the accurate representation of the vocal individuals who push back on the Left. That is what WP:NPOV should mean now. Bus stop (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, what do you mean by fair? He is poisonous to public discourse, would it be fair to pretend that he is an honest broker just because he's Jewish? Guy (help! - typo?) 19:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—you are simply disagreeing with these people. They push back against the narrative of the Left. Charlie Kirk is not Jewish. You call him a troll ("Bus stop, no, I am making the entirely reasonable assertion that Kirk is a troll") and you say of Kirk that he places anti-abortionism above the murder of Black Americans by police.[1] How can you imply that Kirk is a "grifter"? You wrote "Bus stop, bless your little heart, believing that grifters are engaging in a principled moral stand." Bus stop (talk) 20:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, have you seen Charlie Kirk's Twitter feed? He's a troll. So am I, sometimes, on Twitter at least. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:23, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—it is a problem that you've got a megaphone and you're not reluctant to use it. You refer to "the hyper-privileged mindset of anti-abortion activism".[2] I don't think you know the "mindset" of "anti-abortion activists". "Hyper-privileged"? Wouldn't that be a thinly-veiled allusion to White privilege? In my opinion the central issue in the abortion debate is a "moral" issue. Bus stop (talk) 21:42, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, there are women around the world who are dying because they don't have access to safe abortions. The anti-abortion mindset is as privileged as the anti-vaccination mindset - but as always I draw a distinction with those who follow the consistent life ethic, which is very different. Being opposed to abortion is not the same as a consistent belief in the sanctity of life. The difference is easily identified: ask if they support the death penalty, and whether they believe that healthcare should be free. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:53, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm actually not going to debate the pros and cons of abortion. I'm actually not even opinionated about the pros and cons of abortion—I hold no opinion on that question. I'm objecting to gratuitous observations. And I dislike the harnessing of the abortion debate to the flakey notion that black people in the United States are being murdered by the police. ("To place anti-abortionism, as Kirk does, above the murder of Black Americans by police, is grotesque.")[3] I don't think anybody believes anything remotely like that. But yes, that narrative is promoted by the Left and yes you seem to be lending support to that narrative. Bus stop (talk) 22:08, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, did you actually look at the Tweet by Kirk that I was referring to? He said "If black lives mattered to Black Lives Matter, they would be protesting outside of Planned Parenthood". If you don't see the problem with that then I guess we're done. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:18, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—I think Kirk opposes abortion. But he didn't say anything about "the murder of Black Americans by police", or at least not in that Tweet. You are gratuitously larding on the notion that "To place anti-abortionism, as Kirk does, above the murder of Black Americans by police, is grotesque." Isn't that additional commentary being provided solely by you? Bus stop (talk) 22:26, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, of course, no reasonable person could possibly think that BLM is about black people being murdered by police, how foolish of me. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:31, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Again, you are gratuitously larding on the notion that "To place anti-abortionism, as Kirk does, above the murder of Black Americans by police, is grotesque." It is a debunked disputed notion that black Americans are being murdered by the police. Heather Mac Donald writes (paraphrased) There is no governmental agency more dedicated to the proposition that black lives matter than the police. She is one of many. You can disagree. But it is not your place to promote narratives from the Left. We have a policy of WP:NPOV. This is why we are having the tedious discussion above at User talk:Jimbo Wales#Your thoughts on this please. It is not simply a matter of rejecting Nazis. That happens to be a problem of secondary importance. I consider the gratuitous advancement of the flakey narrative of black Americans being murdered by the police to be a greater problem than the subject of the WP:NONAZIS essay. Note: This post has been edited by me, Bus stop. I struck the term "debunked" and replaced it with "disputed. Bus stop (talk) 22:49, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I would like to strike my choice of terminology from "debunked" to "disputed". My original term was too strong and I apologize for that. Bus stop (talk) 15:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, sure, sure. I was listening to George Floyd saying exactly the same thing just the other day. Did you catch it? He had Breonna Taylor as a guest.

There are, after all, no books at all detailing systemic racism in American policing and criminal justice. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—I hope you don't mind—I edited the terminology in my above post. Bus stop (talk) 15:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, no problem. We're not here to stop people clarifying their actual positions on things, amending and adding nuance is always good. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:58, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bus stop:Even when you edit out the part about "black on black crime" and add fake punctuation—but ooh switch from quotation marks to italics for plausible deniability, what attention to detail!—it's pretty obvious what you're actually saying at the same time you're declaring that opposing Nazis is, to use one of your favorite dismissive phrases, of secondary importance. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 12:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I've tried to follow Jimbo's advice - in fact, I've kept a few of his comments in quote boxes at the top of my User TP - see 2 of them below - but I'm beginning to wonder if it really means anything anymore because some of the very people who are supposed to be enforcing our PAGs are actually marching with the ones who are being noncompliant.

BLPs wherein a subject's work, beliefs or ideologies are perhaps more controversial than the actual subject, should not become focused on bolstering and subsequently refuting the subject's views or theories rather than actually defining the subject. In many cases this may in fact be due to the subject trying to push their own ideas, while others work diligently to refute them, but many such cases involve editors who have no affiliation with the subject other than a personal belief/disbelief in their work. A person's biography is not a good place to debate scientific theory or ideological beliefs; such debates belong in the articles that focus on those topics. For BLPs, it is enough to simply state what their views are and link to the articles which expand on those views.
(quote by Zaereth edited for brevity; Jimbo Wales agreed with Zaereth’s explanation.)

I'd like to add that I don't mind a little bit of personal chit-chat here about politics, I'd like to always seek to tie it back to Wikipedia. We have chosen a very tough job: NPOV. Dislike for the President, fear about things that are happening in the world, may make it emotionally harder to remain neutral, but remain neutral we must. I happen to personally think that given the decline in quality of the media across the board (there are still fantastic journalists out there, but overall the landscape isn't great) the best way for us to help the world heal is neutrality.--[4] Jimbo Wales (talk)] 3:12 pm, 8 January 2019, Tuesday (UTC−6)

We've lost quite a few really good, long term editors who have thrown in the towel, and that's sad, but what the hey - WP doesn't need us. Atsme 💬 📧 21:17, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I imagine we will only lose more, as time goes on. We can't change their past experience and everything they have gone on Wikipedia, it is the build-up of the little things I think that pushes someone away, not one big thing. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 23:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

It certainly seems like Bus Stop is WP:NOTHERE for the correct reasons, and their idea of what constitutes NPOV certainly does not match with Wikipedia policy. Especially when they hang their hat around WP:FRINGE individuals such as Mac Donald, to claim that Black_Lives_Matter#Police_use_of_excessive_force doesn't exist despite robust sourcing. Much like WisDom-UK they seem to be complaining not about anything substantive, but more throwing tantrums that they weren't allowed to force articles to conform to their own, non-neutral POV. A fundamental issue of conservative culture warriors, believing that they are the "default" and getting angry when they find out that isn't the case, and seeking to reset things so that they are "default" once more. 2601:2C0:C300:B7:2CFA:3DA8:CE80:C645 (talk) 23:22, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme:Since all this rancor is happening on a talk page where there was an extensive discussion of Nazism with not all participants being entirely clear that they take a negative view of it, and Nazism is an, ah, political stance, shall we say, famed for its avidity for book burning, it seems pertinent to point out that not all philosophies and political stances are a good fit for Wikipedia editing. Since you're talking about marching with the noncompliant.

You're also stating that remain neutral we must but obviously somebody introduced all of the thoroughly-documented racial bias on Wikipedia and gender bias on Wikipedia during the last quarter-century... I of course don't know which users you're talking about who have left, as you have not been specific, but I have to wonder if in at least some cases they were not on balance the "really good" editors. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 12:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Bandersnatch, in response to your ping, it appears I mistakenly thought my position was quite clear, but at least you queried and didn't accuse, although you did imply that omission is somehow a statement. If you pinged me because you're sniffing out Nazis, you're barking up the wrong tree. I hesitated to respond to your ping at first but then chose to AGF, so I'll summarize my position by saying that all of my life, I have found it deeply troubling to know there were/still are such monsters in the world. I will simply say that, aside from my actual schooling (which I tried hard to not let interfere with my education), the basis for what I know about Nazis comes from what my Dad taught me as a child, much of which was based on his first-hand experiences in the US Navy during WWII. I was a bit of a rebel as a child, which afforded me frequent room confinements in our home library with the Encyclopedia Britannica and an incredible WWII photographic chronology in books published by TIME, among others. I also remember a very strong dislike for Senator Byrd, an Exalted Cyclops of the KKK and for Senator Biden who not only worked together with Byrd, he admired him. You are free to accept a politician's apology as being sincere but I consider it naive in this particular instance. It would require an exalted effort, and even then one would be seeing things through a giant blind eye. I'm not one who easily forgives a politician who had a leadership position in the KKK, and that includes his admirers. You won't find anybody like that in the political center (which is where I am) or in center-right, although the goal of the hypocritical political opposition & former KKK members/admirers is to make everybody believe racists comprise the party of Lincoln. I consider it beneath me to indulge in such discussions. I have long since learned to leave my biases at login, it is second nature with me, and that includes editing WP. I simply quoted Jimbo and the BLP process he supports because my views align with his in that regard, and that is all that should matter here. You can read whatever you like into it, but the text in those quote boxes speak volumes, and were not intended to entice the imagination; they are, quite simply, facts based on WP:PAG. I'm one of many editors who enjoys editing WP as an encyclopedia and not as a venue to RGW. I'm quite happy with what I've accomplished for the project - at least I've made one person happy.

I will add that I will not knowingly engage in a discussion with hypocrites, finger pointers, editors who project onto others what they are guilty of doing themselves, and/or who make unfounded allegations against other editors. It's a waste of my valuable time. I suppose the offending POV warriors actually believe finger pointing helps further whatever cause they're trying to promote from atop their soapboxes when, in fact, the opposite rings true, especially when it's flowing through a hypocritical vein; above all, it is noncompliant with WP:SOAPBOX, and that is what matters most to me relative to this project. A somewhat irrelevant thought - Alinsky's Rules for Radicals may result in a temporary win but things always have a way of working out in the end - some refer to it as karma, others refer to it as truth. We are here to help build an encyclopedia, not assume the role of social justice warriors, and it is because of the occasional anarchist-style behaviors, for lack of a better term, that WP has some lost some of its most brilliant minds. And wouldn't you know...we have an essay for that, too: WP:5THWHEEL.

You said ...but I have to wonder if in at least some cases they were not on balance the "really good" editors - while jumping to conclusions is a popular exercise during COVID lockdown, I say take a hike...in the great outdoors, of course, because it does wonders for clearing the mind and you don't have to wear a mask. I don't judge my colleagues based on their POV or political convictions but rather, as a former publisher I look at them from a publisher's POV and what they are actually contributing or have contributed to this project. In an effort to satisfy your wonderment, I will qualify my "really good" editor choices by distancing them from this particular topic, but not from the disruptive behavior we have evidenced in recent years which may or may not be related. One good editor who left the project and quickly comes to mind is Tryptofish - his reasons for leaving are expressed on his UTP. Tryp often sees things from a completely different perspective from my own, and that's fine - variety is the spice of life, is it not? Another lost editor is MjolnirPants, who actually created the No Nazis essay. He's not gone because he quit, rather his frustration led him to stray off the beaten path of acceptable profanity, and while he and I disagreed on certain topics (particularly Captain Kirk vs Captain Picard - and he even threw me under the bus once) we still got along, and were of like mind on many other things. Another excellent editor who left because of the toxic environment on WP is Petrarchan47, a WP "Editor of the Week" for her contributions to BP and Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and there is a long list of others. Not all got along well with each other, but I got along with all of them, and we respected that about each other. We're not seeing that same kind of comaraderie or collegiality on WP today, and that is sad. In the real world today, we're seeing people who verbally and even physically attack anyone whose views don't align with their own - which brings Alinsky back to mind, Rule #13: target, freeze, personalize, & polarize. From my perspective, that type of behavior raises red flag memories of Nazism (Hitler), and so does turning on one's neighbor to further one's own selfish goals. I have my own beliefs as to why things have changed, and will qualify it by saying my overall perspective is based on years of diverse experiences on a global scale, along with a good balance of retrospect and foresight. I've already gone on longer than I intended, so I'll end by suggesting the following read: Woke. There is also a link there to Professor Bryce Peake's article about the “hegemony of the asshole consensus”, give it a read if you haven't already because it applies to much more than the topic of his article. Atsme 💬 📧 20:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I, uh, would not worry about Wikipedia becoming too woke, when words like "racism" and "sexism" and "anti-Semitism" do not appear in any Wikipedia policies or guidelines, at least one user above showed up to pretty much be clearly pro-Nazi, and several others made clear that at least they have no objection to the presence of Nazi editors who do not get caught behaving badly.

The article at the link attached as a citation accompanying the Bryce Peake quote on your talk page is certainly interesting, but it does not by any means appear to be saying the same sorts of things you are saying. It faults Wikipedia because [t]he intellectual labor of encyclopedia creation is likened to a fetishised male, blue collar workplace, diminishing and dismissing other modes of contribution, styles of communication, and types of volunteers. It derides entitlement promoting volunteers to place their own personal needs over the health of the project, says that to have a voice in a Wikipedia discussion requires a combination of stubbornness and privilege, and concludes, among other things, that [t]he entitled volunteer resists improvements because it upsets their comfortable vision of how things should be done. Hmm, sounds familiar.

Accomodating Nazism and racism and other forms of bigotry not only drives away existing editors but has resulted in potential editors never even joining the effort—as described in the essay and evidenced by the documented pervasive biases in Wikipedia content I mentioned above.

But of course Atsme—as you must know because you yourself added the citation with full details to your talk page—that essay is not by Bryce Peake; it's an entry from the Wikipedia@20 project by Robert Fernandez. The actual work in which Bryce Peake uses the phrase “hegemony of the asshole consensus” is an article “WP:THREATENING2MEN: Misogynist Infopolitics and the Hegemony of the Asshole Consensus on English Wikipedia”, doi: 10.7264/N3TH8JZS, in Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology of the Fembot Collective.

...in which he is describing how a comprehensive effort he made to improve documentation of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States was reversed by a swarm of editors and admins and he was assumed to be a woman because of the nature of those edits. Looking at his user page he seems to have made no edits whatsoever in the last 2½ years and a scarce handful in the preceding years; so there's an example of a really good editor driven away, the one you are so brazenly misquoting. I would suggest that you check your privilege but I know that you will not knowingly engage in a discussion with hypocrites. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:50, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, first of all, I didn't brazenly misquoute anyone; secondly, please stop projecting your misinterpretations onto me; and thirdly, that Nazi stick you keep beating the bushes with is ugly, and you need to drop it. In fact, you cast the following aspersions in your comment above: "...at least one user above showed up to pretty much be clearly pro-Nazi, and several others made clear that at least they have no objection to the presence of Nazi editors who do not get caught behaving badly." Those are hefty, unsupported accusations against colleagues and they don't belong in this discussion on Jimbo's TP. You also wrongfully claimed that ..."words like "racism" and "sexism" and "anti-Semitism" do not appear in any Wikipedia policies or guidelines". WP:PA clearly states: Abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious or political beliefs, disabilities, ethnicity, nationality, etc. directed against another editor or a group of editors. Disagreement over what constitutes a religion, race, sexual orientation, or ethnicity is not a legitimate excuse. Do you not see the words you mentioned in that policy? You also completely misinterpretated my suggestion to read the section User talk:Atsme#WOKE, which includes (1) a Bloomberg article about WP's reliance on news publications and lack of diversity, (2) a highly relevant article by Robert Fernandez which also cites in footnote #17 the origin of the term "hegemony of the asshole consensus" by Peake. The footnote appears in the following relevant paragraph: It's more serious when you realize this is the basic dynamic for Wikipedia decision making and control. The logical, sane response to disagreeing with Giraffedata is to shrug and move on. Since decisions are by those who participate in a localized discussion, leaving cedes the decision-making power to those willing to engage in the least logical and sane response. This incentivizes not just obsessive but also belligerent behavior and even harassment, and empowers those privileged with the time and resources to engage in this behavior. Minor quibbles about grammar is one thing, but these techniques are frequently used by political ideologues, ethnic nationalists, and conspiracy theorists. Professor Bryce Peake called this the “hegemony of the asshole consensus.” The Peake article was interesting as well, but not because of the topic itself as I clarifed in my comment: ...it applies to much more than the topic of his article. I was unaware that my suggestion required a high level of critical thinking skills relevant to relevance - but perhaps it does. Facepalm Atsme 💬 📧 02:16, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

​Wait, wait, wait... so your big absolution of Wikipedia policy for not proscribing sexism and racism and anti-Semitism is that "racism" and "sexism" appear in the wikicode of one policy that is specifically about insults? That's your principled political-center dismissal of any concerns that Wikipedia policy might not go far enough given that it has produced extensive racial and gender bias and can't explicitly condemn Nazism in written policy? To be fair, I suppose it was someone else you described as disliking Robert Byrd, while you were clumsily attempting to imply that I must be a person who naive[ly] accepted his apologies for his KKK activities—oh my, the scurrilous aspersions against me! Fetch me my smelling salts and my fainting couch!

You might note that I pointed out last week that the Alabama Democratic Party did not remove the phrase "White Supremacy" from its logo until 1968. Sorry, kinda beat you to the punch in this talk page on the whole "Dems were institutionally racist too!" schtick, with a much more recent example as the IP editor points to below, even if it weren't a luridly absurd tell for a "centrist" to be breaking that out defensively when Nazism is under discussion.

Gallant of you to be defending Efcharisto's Nazi apologetics and "racism is bad is just propaganda" act when they themself have quit the field. I alleged below that the account is a sock too: perhaps you'd like to haul me up on casting aspersions charges for that as well, and for good measure indict me for biting a 120-hour-old newcomer.

So yeah. You had an opportunity here to say the Nazism is ugly and the Nazism and racism abetters need to drop it. But you chose not to. Instead, you said that opposing Nazism and racism is what's ugly and needs to be dropped. And as if everything else wasn't enough of a bad parody of someone poorly pretending to be a middle-of-the-road politically neutral straight-shooter, you claimed those things don't belong on a talk page where a policy discussion of Nazism is explicitly occurring. I hope your WWII veteran father, whom you also chose to invoke here as a folksy touch or for whatever other unfathomable reason as you decided to pursue this line of discourse, is really proud of you wherever he may be.

This sort of thing, and your reaction and the reaction of other Wikipedia editors to it, is exactly what needs to happen on JW's talk page and which the whole world needs to see.

You also need to get better at what Bus stop calls a linguistic version of sleight of hand: you literally said above of your talk page that [t]here is also a link there to Professor Bryce Peake's article, which is not true in any way, shape, or form, no matter how much of Gamaliel's article you now cut and paste into this talk page or how many emojis you use—because, as I said, you were brazenly misquoting an article from a feminist collective's academic journal to furnish faux-erudite support for your bullshit.

--‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 05:38, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, Seems like your messages persist with misrepresentations and a battleground tone. This may be an example of the type of behavior that contributed to the OP leaving Wikipedia. I don't see any chance for improvement in your messages but I'm open minded and would be pleasantly surprised if it came about. Bob K31416 (talk) 11:41, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

As with the others, Bob K31416, you reveal more about yourself than you say about me. You could have targeted your patronizing mild etiquette-revering disappointment act and “battleground tone” policing at the (socking) user who claimed that "racism is bad" is merely propaganda, at the one who asserted another user on this talk page has threatened [them] with Wikiextermination, or in this talk page section you could have responded to comments about throwing tantrums or the stupid people or any number of other things (or you could have criticized both these other things and me, for example.)

You instead picked my above comment and its substance to oppose and for a handwavy unspecific claim of misrepresentations. (Though you timidly qualify that it seems that I make misrepresentations on top of the non-specificity, so I have a funny feeling you may demur from backing that characterization up.)

These reflexes you appear to have all developed which activate, and then dissemble and deflect through appeals to and chiding about decorum and propriety, when Nazism or racism come up as issues, may be useful tools in the course of shaping content disputes but they just do not work in the context of actual policy discussion of racism and Nazism: they simply turn your every comment into something irrelevant to the policy discussion—or material to it, but as a performance that illustrates the fundamental problem Wikipedia has rather than as a cogent argument. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you say You also need to get better at what User:Bus stop calls linguistic...sleight of hand. It doesn't matter if I use the phrase linguistic sleight of hand. I read it somewhere. It sounded interesting. So I thought I'd use it. We are all tied to words. This is a linguistic medium. Unless I've said something substantive, the actual specific words I've used don't matter all that much. Bus stop (talk) 16:07, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

​Unless I've said something substantive, the actual specific words I've used don't matter all that much.—I whole-heartedly agree. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—I find your reference to Atsme's father to be problematic. They wrote "I will simply say that, aside from my actual schooling (which I tried hard to not let interfere with my education), the basis for what I know about Nazis comes from what my Dad taught me as a child, much of which was based on his first-hand experiences in the US Navy during WWII." You wrote "I hope your WWII veteran father, whom you also chose to invoke here as a folksy touch or for whatever other unfathomable reason as you decided to pursue this line of discourse, is really proud of you wherever he may be." You are voluminously engaging in meaningless commentary and nobody needs to respond to extraneous commentary. Just as I do not need to respond to your reference to my phrase linguistic sleight of hand they do not need to respond to your commentary on their father. This isn't a creative writing exercise. We use language to communicate ideas that we think need to be communicated. We don't comment on everything. This page is ostensibly geared toward improving the encyclopedia. Tedious rehashing of unimportant details is counterproductive. Bus stop (talk) 19:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

​If you do not need to respond then why do you keep responding?

It's especially incongruous for you to be making the above argument bemoaning tedious rehashing of unimportant details given your penchant for picking a word that stands out to you and repeating it in comment after comment with a {{tq}} template. (And making this argument while, of course, you're quoting and repeating something you're simultaneously claiming is “problematic” to refer to—except in pursuit of your higher totally encyclopedia-improving purpose of clumsily trying to chastise me for insufficient propriety and decorum, apparently.)

If you don't like discussions perennially circling around the same topic, such as whether Wikipedia and WMF policy should oppose Nazism and racism and other forms of bigotry—on one hand, I'd suggest that Wikipedia may not be the place for you, but on the other hand, you might also want to try responding to the substance of other editors' comments instead of pretending WP:ICANTHEARYOU. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 23:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you do not need to refer to Atsme's father. You need not say "I hope your WWII veteran father, whom you also chose to invoke here as a folksy touch or for whatever other unfathomable reason as you decided to pursue this line of discourse, is really proud of you wherever he may be." Bus stop (talk) 23:33, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

​But you definitely need to mention another editor's off-wiki family again and again and again, right? Because you hope you've finally found a gimmick you can use for the etiquette-based dismissal of discussion of racism and other bigotry on Wikipedia you so desperately desire. Nope.

I may well not respond if you continue posting quotes and comments about this particular off-wiki topic—because unlike you, I think that even if someone brings their personal life here of their own accord, that doesn't automatically make it fair game for third parties to use as rhetorical fodder. Though maybe Atsme would be okay with it, if you want to bring up this aspect of her personal life constantly as a topic of discussion with me; you should obtain her consent first. (edit: And I'll want to see a diff proving her consent before I'll say anything further on the subject.)

Either way, though, I will not stop saying that Wikipedia should officially, in written policy, oppose and prohibit Nazism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.

I'll close again with this Johann Kaspar Lavater quote I've grown to love so much—one good thing your craven antics have introduced me to if nothing else: The craftiest wiles are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 00:46, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

​<chefskiss>--Jorm (talk) 00:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you say "Wikipedia should officially, in written policy, oppose and prohibit Nazism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry." I don't think we need explicit policy on these concerns. We have guidelines on WP:ASPERSIONS, WP:No personal attacks, WP:CIVIL, and WP:Assume good faith. Bus stop (talk) 20:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

​You don't seem so confident about that. Could it be that you realize that simply requiring Nazis to act like they're at a tea party and maybe put an extra bit of polish into their uniforms is not all that is needed to oppose Nazism?

Or perhaps by saying that we don't “need” the policy, despite the fact that you qualified it with the word “explicit”, you actually mean that we should not oppose Nazism; since you have shown unwillingness to even put down opposition to Nazism in an essay, despite claiming that your objection to the existing WP:NONAZIS essay is solely based on its wording.

And of course there's the part where you said you are not troubled by the hypothetical presence of Nazis editing Wikipedia. Bring on Wikipedia Nazi Edition, I guess. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:51, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you say "Could it be that you realize that simply requiring Nazis to act like they're at a tea party and maybe put an extra bit of polish into their uniforms is not all that is needed to oppose Nazism?" I think we are only concerned with behavior. We can't gaze into another person's heart. Wikipedia should primarily be concerned with maintaining an atmosphere that is welcoming and hospitable to all—and of course we must adhere to reliable sources and follow a few more fundamental policies. Bus stop (talk) 22:10, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

​Nah. If someone comes to Wikipedia and identifies themself as a pedophile we first report them to [email protected] then gaze into their heart, deem them to be the utterly worthless piece of shit they are, eject their ass from our community with extreme prejudice, and report the incident to law enforcement. We'd do the same even if they were from a jurisdiction in which pedophilia is legal—because their mere presence brings the project into disrepute.

This one is actually in policy for once. No fucking around with “well if it's a pedophile who pinkie swears to always be on their best behavior...” bullshit.

Now if you gaze into a Nazi's heart and you are not troubled by what you see there, that's up for you to reconcile and live with—but the community should kick the Nazis right out on top of the pedophiles and follow them with the rest of the bigots.

An atmosphere we want to maintain is not a reason to be welcoming to pedophiles and Nazis and racists and sexists; on the contrary, as MastCell says up above we can't expect Jewish and non-White editors to tolerate and accept KKK members and neo-Nazis as colleagues here—if anything, an atmosphere that is welcoming and hospitable, of the sort the WMF promises for its in-person events but does a poor job of defining outside of the standard direct insults and incivility caveats, is the reason to oppose and prohibit the pedophiles and Nazis and racists and sexists.

I hope that pedophilia turns out to be one case in which you have the courage for the heart-gazing and staunchly opposing. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 04:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

There has been no difficulty blocking people for racism. I'm trying to understand, Struthious Bandersnatch, what purpose you think your suggested language would serve. You suggest we need "written policy, [to] oppose and prohibit Nazism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry". For what reason? Do we not already know that existing policy is sufficient to address the problems you mention? Bus stop (talk) 18:00, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Wow, Bus stop, you're not even going to issue a pro forma denunciation of pedophilia? That's how strategically valuable you hold not breaking character on this “welcome all without gazing into their hearts” premise, for whatever membership or conduct inclusion criteria you think it implies which you are gunning for in this policy discussion?

But by all means, continue to performatively struggle to understand why anyone would explicitly and openly oppose pedophilia, Nazism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, and to alternate between saying that we mustn't gaze into their hearts and that we can gaze into their hearts just fine with existing policy. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 19:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—I did not literally say "welcome all without gazing into their hearts" yet you are enclosing that in quotes. You say "Either way, though, I will not stop saying that Wikipedia should officially, in written policy, oppose and prohibit Nazism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry." It is not called for. That is because existing policy serves as justification for blocking people for expressions of the qualities you enumerate. Have you looked at the User talk:Jimbo Wales#Blocking section of this page? Bob K31416 shows that displays of references to Nazism results in a person being blocked—based on already-existing policy. For what reason do we need the additional language you are suggesting? Bus stop (talk) 04:10, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bus stop: Yes, I have read the three sentences in § Blocking which mention one user being blocked once over a user page that is no longer visible, and a second user over WP:NOTHERE. Bob K31416, in the course of their investigation or whatever further up the page, made it sound rather like they opposed sanctions against the first user. Let me say you do not present much of a case here.

To bring in another example from contemporary politics, which are really quite relevant although no one on the anti-proscribing-Nazism-in-Wikipedia-policy side of these discussions has responded on those counts: at the United States presidential debate last Thursday, President Trump, when asked to speak directly to black American families about race, and asked about his “White Power!” retweet, responded by telling the black moderator of the debate, and all the non-white people in the audience, that he was “the least racist person in the room”—and all of the white people in the audience, too, for that matter, and I have to wonder how many of them have retweeted someone shouting “White Power!” if any. (question and response at 1h12m in the video and transcript) From there he went on to list a few things he has supposedly done to supposedly benefit black Americans. Overall, it gives the impression that everyone has to let the “White Power!” retweet slide without Trump ever even acknowledging he did it or admitting it was racist, in exchange for his supposedly adhering to his duties towards black Americans as President; or there are several other interpretations, none of them good.

But I'm not seeing acknowledgement, much less condemnation, of that interaction, in American conservative media sources or on social media. I'd love to be wrong—if you can show me white Trump supporters even telling Trump that now he's done the “White Power!” tweet he needs to stop claiming he's superlatively non-racist, or even just, on the premise it was all a crazy kooky accident, white Trump supporters coming together to petition him to use the vast resources he has access to for hiring someone to screen his tweets so that sort of accident doesn't happen again—if you can show me those things it would reassure me a bit and perhaps even restore a smidgeon of my faith in humanity. Though it would hardly erase everything else that has happened.

I do not believe, and I've seen no signs during the past half-decade, that the average political partisan supporting the President would have any intention of asking for either of those two things above. So that's the scale, on the order of tens of millions of English-speakers in the United States alone, of people who have absolutely no intention whatsoever of holding racists accountable for racist behavior. That is why handwavily saying that, here at Wikipedia, a few little PAG snippets about possible characteristics of prohibited insults and vandalism are sufficient to prevent Nazism, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry from proliferating in our community just isn't true (nor would pedophilia and pro-pedophilia advocacy, which it did not escape my notice you've skipped over commenting on again, be curtailed by such PAG snippets, which is why they have their own policy primarily devoted to them in addition to special mention in various other places in policy and guideline pages) and this is evidenced by, again, the widespread well-documented racial bias on Wikipedia, gender bias on Wikipedia, and other bias in the function of the organization and in encyclopedia content.

p.s. Obviously the non-talk-page-quote-template quotation marks I used above were scare quotes, though I note you are not actually articulating an objection to my paraphrasing, just complaining for the sake of complaining. But as usual, feel free to haul me before a court for unorthodox use of punctuation if you wish. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 07:46, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—please don't misquote me. You enclosed within quotes "welcome all without gazing into their hearts". It derives from something I said. The word "gaze" (or "gazing") appears in both our comments and the word "heart" (or "hearts") appears in both our comments. But I didn't say "welcome all without gazing into their hearts". I am asking you to please not misquote me. A reader who does not double-check exactly what I said would be led to believe you were quoting me. Bus stop (talk) 06:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

​Right... but... what would a reader be led to believe you had said which you did not say? Sorry, scare quote are an actual, notable use of quotation marks—that's why Wikipedia has an article about it that I was able to link to. You're trying to make a grammar police argument to imply that I've been deceptive, but I haven't been: the deception and disingenuousness in this discussion has been all you.

Strident claims about my use of punct-uation are not going to make any of your points (or non-points) about pedophilia, Nazism, racism, sexism, Wikipedia policy, or other forms of bigotry for you. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 06:54, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—please don't misquote me. Bus stop (talk) 11:05, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, I'd believe that you're part of the political center if you didn't parrot right-wing talking points and phrases. Take your example of Senator Byrd and Joe Biden. Setting aside that your link says nothing about Biden admiring Byrd, your telling of the situation is a misleading smear. The facts: yes, Byrd was in the KKK - in the 1940s and early 1950s. But he left them, apologized repeatedly for being part of them, and supported some civil rights - certainly more than a Klansman would. People truly in the center, or those with an eye towards neutrality and NPOV would investigate the smear instead of repeating it as you did. 2605:8D80:626:152D:AAC7:3E3B:4325:E204 (talk) 03:21, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Bandersnatch & IP - this is my last comment to your troll-like witch hunt activity - neither of you are sole judge and jury in this witch hunt you've been conducting on Jimbo's TP. What you are doing here is exactly why we have WP:PA. If you have an issue against a colleague, you take it to ANI with your evidence and let the community decide. I strongly advise you to present strong evidence that supports your allegations or you will find yourselves defending against a boomerang. Anything short of ANI and presenting evidence that supports your claims is considered casting aspersions, a BLP vio, and a violation of WP:PA. I strongly suggest that you follow procedures, and do not ping me here again in light of your political defense of a former KKK member and his admirers which, from my perspective, is hypocritical to your advocacy. Atsme 💬 📧 11:47, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

​Witch hunt... I think I know which “centrist” political figure you cribbed that one from.

But it causes you the same problems it causes him: the point in calling something a “witch hunt” is that (supernatural) witches don't exist, so no precautions against witchcraft or witches, no matter how extensive, can be effective. Hence manias like burning the Templar Knights at the stake or the Salem Witch Trials did nothing but harm, as would be the insinuation in applying the term elsewhere.

Nazis and avowed racists, however, very much exist and are quite active in 2020, as I pointed out above; and you are not a Templar Knight, and neither is the politician you borrowed the phrase from. Suggesting that for Wikipedia to formally oppose Nazism and racism in policy would be a “witch hunt” is the same rhetorical gimmick the Efcharisto sock was using above in claiming that for Wikipedia to ban Nazism would mean that we want to ban the handful of 110 year olds who were actually members of the Nazi party; it's dissembling by pretending that you don't know that Nazism and overt, conscious racism are real modern-day things.

No one has to bring a case through AN/I before they can criticize you. It's the other way around: if you think criticism of your behavior or the views you've indicated in policy discussions like this has been unsupported or is unsupportable, you can bring a case at AN/I. And as with Bus stop I would relish the opportunity to detail at great length, with quotations and citations and probably even W3C-compliant SVG diagrams and flow charts, how thoroughly I'm able to support the things I've said.

You know as well as I that [a]nything short of ANI and presenting evidence that supports your claims is considered casting aspersions, a BLP vio, and a violation of WP:PA is more of your utter bullshit. WP:ASPERSIONS is an information page, a list of quotes from four unanimous, and one nearly-unanimous, ArbCom descisions elucidating WP:NPA, all of which carefully include qualifying language reiterating the unsupported nature of the definition of personal attacks. But thanks for brazenly lying about five ArbCom decisions and two Wikipedia policies all at once in one compact diff, in case I ever need a link to that. (And I mean... characterizing your talk page rhetoric negatively is the equivalent of improperly editing a BLP about you? LOL. I guess I get to consider myself a poison pen biographer now.)

Since you have turned your tender attentions on this IP editor too, I've got a policy shortcut for you: WP:WIKIBULLYING. It has the appropriately-worded carve-out that [s]tatements of intent to properly use normal Wikipedia processes, such as dispute resolution, are not threats—but making shit up about ArbCom decisions and policies to claim that you can't be criticized without an AN/I decision beforehand, and that talk page comments by others characterizing your own talk page behavior must follow WP:BLP article-editing rules, is not intent to properly use normal Wikipedia processes. Words mean things. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you say "Since all this rancor is happening on a talk page where there was an extensive discussion of Nazism with not all participants being entirely clear that they take a negative view of it..." Which "participant" was not "entirely clear that they take a negative view of" Nazism? Bus stop (talk) 23:04, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

The obvious sock Efcharisto and the user who referred to Nazism as a thoughtcrime. Don't worry Bus stop, you made the right noises for the most part, up until the point when I asked you to take it all and put it in your own essay on Nazism and you mysteriously went silent, despite the fact that supposedly your “objection to the [WP:NONAZIS] essay is solely based on the Left's misuse of language.”

Though responding to a comment stating that it's a fallacy to say that a Jewish person cannot originate or repeat an anti-Semitic statement by ignoring its substance and instead claiming that the term anti-Semitism “should not even be used” and is “all but meaningless” is not a great look either. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:50, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—I have no interest in writing an essay. The first one (WP:NONAZIS) was terrible and I am not interested in writing another. You said to me 5 days ago "why don't you just go write the right version of an essay which condemns Nazism in the proper way conservative politics supposedly would"? The reason is because I don't waste my time writing purposeless, sanctimonious, virtue-signalling essays. Now you are saying "Don't worry Bus stop, you made the right noises for the most part, up until the point when I asked you to take it all and put it in your own essay on Nazism and you mysteriously went silent". WisDom-UK cogently said "The editors did find room however for a new thread in which they congratulate each other on another battle fought and won." Are we really here to "congratulate each other"? Bus stop (talk) 23:09, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Nothing I have said was meant to congratulate you; and the battle against Nazism and other forms of racist ultranationalism, here on Wikipedia and in the broader world, should not be considered won. You regard opposing Nazism as purposeless sanctimony—<sarcasm>indeed, who are we to, with "excessive piety", say that there's anything wrong with Nazism?</sarcasm>—even to oppose it in the language proper conservatives would supposedly use to do so, which is pretty much what I expected when I proposed such a thing.

I guess pronouncing that intolerance of Nazism or racism is an integral aspect of Wikipedia as you've done above isn't sanctimonious or virtue-signalling at all, huh? Because that's simply checking off a check-box, speaking of meaninglessness and attitudes displayed for public show. It's those notions coming anywhere near written Wikipedia policy, even so far as to merely appear in an essay, which curiously then becomes a huge allegedly-outrageous problem.

You bring cowardice and disrepute upon the names of Wikipedia and conservatism, Bus stop. There's avoidance of signaling virtue, but then there's also failure to display basic virtue.

A couple of lines Wikiquote gave me: The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint — the affectation of sanctity is a blotch on the face of piety and The craftiest wiles are too short and ragged a cloak to cover a bad heart. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 01:02, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I have tried to follow this conversation, in the hopes that it was related to Wikipedia in some way, but have become confused. Are you two talking about Wikipedia? jp×g 00:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@JPxG: Yes. When we refer to “policy” we are referring to Wikipedia policy; when we refer to an essay, that's most frequently a reference to the WP:NONAZIS essay, which as you may note was also under extensive discussion above. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 01:18, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I've read that essay and I've also read the posts above. I am still confused about how the posts that you and Bus stop are making relate to Wikipedia, except perhaps incidentally by virtue of taking place here. jp×g 01:34, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@JPxG: I have many harsh criticisms to make of Bus stop, but although I think they are often not representing the truth in what they say, their actual writing is clear. And I think I express myself pretty well. I mean... does the essay appear to relate to Wikipedia to you, or is that confusing too? If you do not understand how what we are writing about relates to Wikipedia despite our constant links and quotes, and the actual content of our prose, I'm not sure I can help.

Also, I have to say that it's a little bit weird that you only thought to look at WP:NONAZIS after I replied to you, given that Bus stop linked to it two comments above your 00:49 comment, I'd linked to it in the preceding comment before that too, and the words “Nazi”, “Nazis”, and “Nazism” appear again and again in the discussion—I think many if not most people would notice that. But whatever. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 02:59, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Like most people, I am aware of what Nazis are. The part of the conversation that confused me, however, was the part where you posted You bring cowardice and disrepute upon the names of Wikipedia and conservatism, and where your interlocutor, @Bus stop:, posted I don't waste my time writing purposeless, sanctimonious, virtue-signalling essays. The reason these posts confused me is because − now, please correct me if I'm mistaken − they don't seem to be about Wikipedia, its content or its policies? jp×g 03:25, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Don't strain yourself or anything, but if you press Ctrl-F and search for the word “disrepute” the first occurrence you will find in this page is in a quote from the guideline WP:UPNOT, which states that user page content must not bring the Wikipedia project into disrepute, and gives as an example pro-pedophilia advocacy.

I am arguing that expressing Nazism, racism, sexism, and many other forms of bigotry, even outside of direct insults and vandalism and in namespaces other than User:, should also be regarded as bringing the Wikipedia project into disrepute and should be proscribed in written Wikipedia and Wikimedia policy. (And that, as a supporting point, failing to do this in the past has been a substantial contributor to the well-documented racial bias on Wikipedia, gender bias on Wikipedia, and other bias in the function of the organization and in encyclopedia content.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 04:32, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

In concert with points raised above in #Interviews with the British Prime Minister, I think many points raised here has become a problem with (pun unintended) how much weight we have given WP:WEIGHT w.r.t. to current media sources over those that are more academic when it comes to non-objective parts of a topic. WEIGHT is key, we need to keep out random blogs and rants and fringe views, and certainly when there is a significant viewpoint expressed through a consensus of the media after enough time to judge that (such as the general consensus around Trump's handling of COVID) that should also be included due to WEIGHT. But far far too many editors use WEIGHT as a tool to pound the short-term assessments and opinions of the media into articles, outweighing the fundamental and basic academic principles of an encyclopedia that should be the foundation of any good article, regardless of topic. We are not here to be the mouthpiece for the media even if they seem to be what is the WEIGHT of coverage (as is such the case with many many topics on the right-side of the political scale right now); we first and foremost have to cover topics in a neutral manner and then move into what is reasonable and appropriate coverage per WEIGHT.

But further when we get to covering the WEIGHT from media sources on commentary and analysis of current events, we should be focused solely on the universal assessments. Too many of these articles, not only heavily focused on the media reaction, also read like laundry lists of every perceived slight from any random journalist, which again, way beyond what the scope of an encyclopedia should be. The points raised in the OP all ring from what I've seen in these areas, editors are just so focused on how much negative coverage there are of these topics to become over-preoccupied with the matter. Again, this comes from treating WEIGHT as an above-all principle, eschewing rational discussion of any alternate approaches to neutral approaches, when it is one of many other facets of NPOV and the other five pillars about our encyclopedia. I'll stress this is likely not intentional: I think most editors feel this is one of the few ways they can contribute in a manner to fight the ongoing culture war and are doing this unintentionally, but we're well beyond a point and it is getting out of control, costing us long-term editors, and needs to brought back to a tamer position. (yes, I've been on this point for several years, it is very closely tied to the NOT#NEWS problem as well). --Masem (t) 23:28, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• What this strikes me as is a failure to use our dispute resolution methods. If you think someone is OWNing an article or being biased, we have a great many ways to deal with that. If an editor is hogging a talk page, hold an advertised RfC. If they're removing things repeatedly, ANI. Yes, maintaining pages takes energy. Making pages nuetral is not easy. But throwing your hands up because some pages are wrong isn't the answer. Wikipedia is a SOFIXIT place. If something is wrong, don't complain about it, get to work! If we don't fix it, no one will. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 01:56, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• I call your attention to Timbo's Rule Infinity - Let the stupid people congregate among the widely read, News of the Day, general interest type pages and fight amongst themselves. Find something unwritten and write it and improve the encyclopedia on the edges. That's the secret to life at WP. — You talk about writing about African borders. Good, you get it. Then you give examples of your frustrations, which include an eclectic jamboree of hotbutton topics such the Falkland Islands, homosexuality and pedophilia, toxic masculinity, and cultural Marxism.

Hello?!?! Can you figure out what the problem is with this picture? Write about Africa. The world needs you to do that. Leave the other huffy-puff topics for the dumbasses. The world doesn't need you to write a single word about that. Problem solved. You're welcome. —tim /// Carrite (talk) 04:21, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Good advice Carrite. Hopefully WisDom-UK will feel better after a wikibreak and will remember wise thoughts like yours. Their edits are valuable to the topics and worldwide knowledge base, so nice work WisDom-UK! The encyclopedia is much better because of your contributions here. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:29, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Writing about Africa is no way to avoid these issues because conflict and controversy are everywhere. For example, see the recent AfDs about Shopping malls in Egypt and Angola. Make some observations about systemic bias and the drama then escalates. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It even occurs in our dog & horse articles! That's what happens in an open editing project. Every person who ever owned a dog is a dog expert and the same with horses. They are free to tell the RL dog and horse experts that they don't know crap, and that's when the back and forth begins. That's WP in a nutshell. Hell, I even ran into an issue with male editors over cleavage, and even maternity clothing, for Pete's sake!! My advice - count to ten, AGF, fix a cocktail, go to the museum and have a good laugh. Sleep it off, and resume work tomorrow. Atsme 💬 📧 20:15, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

See also WP:RANDY. But there is a solution, and I have yet to see it fail in practice: exclude all crappy sources, remove all content that cannot be supported by a source meeting a reasonably high minimum bar. The medicine project have done a good job on this, and as a result our COVID-19 articles, especially, are generally excellent. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:27, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, you will see it fail if we adopt your proposal because what you just prescribed would leave us with no news media to cite relative to politics and science, which is why we have NOTNEWS, RECENTISM, & BREAKING. How about just adhering to our current PAGs? Now that would be productive, indeed. Atsme 💬 📧 22:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• Good that you quit Facebook, but you lost its functions of messaging and interacting with important people. I hate Facebook too, but I use it because it's useful. I can minimize Facebook usage and its harm. So, Facebook is harmful but necessary. So is Wikipedia. We have to use it despite we don't like it sometimes. There is no other Wikipedia, only one Wikipedia per planet is possible. --ssr (talk) 08:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• Fish for finance (2020) – Here's another curious case which I came across recently on the main page. It had been put there specifically to coincide with a milestone in the Brexit negotiations. It seemed rather fishy so I looked into it. Here's a table which shows how a political slogan has been puffed up into a whale alongside the more conventional topics which are comparative minnows or absent altogether.

Sizes on 15 Oct 2020

Article	Size (Kb)	Prose (words)
Fish for finance	159,827	13,243
Trade negotiation between the UK and the EU	54,777	3,230
Fishing industry in Scotland	25,333	3,069
Fishing industry in England	2,958	213
Fishing industry in France	does not exist	nor does Fishing industry in the EU
Financial services in the United Kingdom	3,949	78

If WisDom-UK goes away then this may accentuate the trend. Me, I'm not going anywhere. As Woody Allen said, "80 percent of success is showing up".

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson, are you particularly surprised that the English-language Wikipedia covers the English fishing industry but not he French? I'm not. Not that an article on the French fishing industry would be bad, or indeed the Spanish, which is probably more on point here. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:08, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

We don't have the Fishing industry in Spain either but we do have Morocco; it's rather random. But the point here is the stupendous size of Fish for finance, which makes the current FA look small. I'm not sure what's going on but hypotheses might include logorrhea, being paid by the word and search engine optimization... Andrew🐉(talk) 12:56, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It's also tons easier to cover a topic of current events when its widely covered in the media, while the more academic topic (the general fishing industry articles" actually require legwork of going to journal articles and older sources that aren't readily searchable (Even with the Wikimedia library card project) to fill out. It is part of our unhealthy focus on what can easily be created because of online media but forgetting that we're still an encyclopedia. In addition to those other factors. --Masem (t) 13:52, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Andrew Davidson, yup, it depends very much on who turns up. But it is a surprise to em that we don't have the Spain one, given the current trajectory of Brexit "negotiations". Guy (help! - typo?) 20:25, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It's helpful to divide your criticisms into two types: criticism of policy and criticism of editors. As Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, policy is designed so that articles summarize information and opinions in reliable sources according to the weight they provide. This is very different from giving equal validity to different views or publishing all information or opinions that editors find important. Personally I don't think the equal validity approach would work. Not only that, but it it's probably not what readers want. If I'm preparing for a biology exam for example, I don't want to read extensive information about creation science.

I agree that some articles on U.S. politics and ethnic/national disputes are dominated by cliques of biased editors, some of whom are highly experienced. I think we should discuss how we can address this problem.

Otherwise, some of your comments are unfair. It's not a rational argument and in fact is an argument also used by anti-Semites that if a Jew agrees with an opinion, it cannot be anti-Semitic. Regardless, Wikipedia editors cannot determine what is or is not anti-Semitic which is why we rely on expert opinion.

Finally, I would point out that there are other fora for getting out information you think the public should know. You could for example write for Conservapedia. It won't reach as wide an audience. But the reason why Conservapedia is less popular is that it's editorial policy, which allows original research greater use of primary sources for example, does not attract the same number of skilled editors or produce articles that as many people want to read. That's been the experience of all Wikipedia's competitors. It's ironic that some editors choose Wikipedia because of its popularity but want to change the policies that account for its popularity.

TFD (talk) 20:41, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

That last sentence sums it up perfectly. As for the rest? More people, more participation, more accuracy. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:57, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

"More people" is certainly a good solution especially needed in non-English wikipedias (e. g. my "native" Russian one). But there are certain problems with "more people" in Russian one. First, WMF doesn't give money in Russia and doesn't even allow Russian Wikipedia to collect donations within Russia (why? what for?). Second, the community tend to contain a little number of aggressive "Fram-like" active "flagged" editors that tend to distract newcomers by imposing excessive requirements to notability. Much harder than in English Wikipedia (why? what for Russian wikipedia has to have harder notability requirements than English one?). As result, "more people" is a very harsh task that requires a lot of effort and produce a minimum effect. --ssr (talk) 10:39, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll add to TFD's idea - and Jimbo, please share your thoughts - what if the WMF asked the general public if WP is presenting all significant views in a neutral manner? The questionaire must be wide-spread, and not just targeting coastal/urban demographics like what we see with political polling in the US. Go to the heartland of the various countries - rural, suburban & urban. As to the comment about popularity - I would like to see how the page views are broken down, and show us actual stats that include time spent, locations and if it's possible to separate editing views/previews from actual reader views; i.e., a more nuanced approach to page views. Atsme 💬 📧 23:06, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, that's a great way to get both-sidesism. We have always worked on the basis that reliable analytical sources are the gold standard, we don't care if media bubbles disagree. According to antivaxers we are unfair to the "vaccine safety advocacy" community. According to homeopathists we are unfair to the Supplements, Complementary and Alternative Medicine industry. Because we insist on verifiable fact in reliable sources and don't treat rhetoric as truth. This is very much by design. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:20, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy, glad you brought that up. I wasn't thinking about science/health/medical because those topics already have WP:MEDRS and a vast pool of peer reviewed, high quality sources to choose from; a citation luxury that many other topics don't enjoy. My thinking was focused more on political science, like AP, because of our dependence on news media and why WP has neutrality issues, and/or is perceived as biased. I think the article by Larry Sanger is the most recent online criticism. It attracted quite a bit of media attention as did the scrubbing of certain political articles. On the other hand, at the rate of speed we're seeing news publications and eZines hide behind paywalls, the issues may self correct. Atsme 💬 📧 21:03, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

"Otherwise, some of your comments are unfair. It's not a rational argument and in fact is an argument also used by anti-Semites that if a Jew agrees with an opinion, it cannot be anti-Semitic." Most of the terms like racist and and antisemitic should not even be used, or used with care, by which I mean expanded upon. In many usages terms like these are all but meaningless. They can be expanded upon by including supplementary language that alludes to the alleged racism or antisemitism. Bus stop (talk) 14:30, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess WP:NOTFORUM doesn't apply to this page. Because every time I visit it, it feels like I'm on a message board that sometimes has limited relevance to Wikipedia. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 04:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

There's discussion of Wikipedia but there is also a witches brew of conflict. If this were a wake for the OP that left, he might be looking down from Wikipedia heaven and take comfort that he made the right move. Bob K31416 (talk) 12:25, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo has a solid reason for being cautious about today's news media. We just haven't adjusted to it, yet. For example: Jonathan Turley wrote:

What is so disconcerting is that it would take little effort to acknowledge that this record is highly disturbing and wrong, but not enough to throw out the plea. As I said last year, it is unlikely that Judge Sullivan will toss out the plea. Yet, because such analysis would seem to benefit a Trump associate, the media has aligned itself with an outrageous record of bias and abuse. There was a time when MSNBC, CNN, the Washington Post and other outlets were voices against such prosecutorial abuse. However, in this age of rage, even this record is dismissed as “routine” to avoid undermining a crushingly consistent narrative that the Russian investigation was based on real crimes, albeit collateral crimes. The “nothing to see here” coverage sacrifices both legal and journalistic values to to maintain a transparently biased narrative.

Media bias is beyond the pale but it was happening back in the day, and has only gotten worse with the transition from print/analogue to digital:

• Harvard Review - dates back to 1995
• Gallup poll - interesting evaluation on media use
• Gallup and Pew polls about media's coverage of COVID-19
• Pew Research, Trusting the News Media in the Trump Era
• NBC News opinion, but some of it cites academics, including a video
• WSJ - A Half-Century of Liberal Media Bias
• RCP - The Media's Democratic Ties
• Politico - Why Liberals Aren't As Tolerant As They Think

I'm not favoring or supporting one party's position over another - I'm simply demonstrating views that contrast with the systemic ideological bias on Wikipedia. But it's not just bias that should concern us. Left leaning news sources dominate WP because news dominates mainstream media with only a splash of center/center-right/right leaning sources from which we can draw material for our articles. We should not be complacent and accept only those RS that align with our POV. Some of the problems with our articles can be attributed to RECENTISM, NOTNEWS and NEWSORG, along with some of the media's choices to publish propaganda or spin their articles utilizing the new style of opinion journalism interspersed with factual reporting, not to mention errors & omissions, and just plain getting the story wrong. Back in 2012, The New York Times predicted there would be problems ahead: "Staff members at The Times-Picayune expect that about one-third of the roughly 140-person newsroom will be cut. Brian Thevenot, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch business editor who left The Times-Picayune in 2009, said that reporters had already been told their priorities would shift to writing for the Web. 'They want them to produce more blog posts a day and not even worry about putting things together in a more thoughtful package,' Mr. Thevenot said. 'The Times-Picayune has a sterling tradition of enterprising journalism. That’s why people are so mad. That tradition is being thrown under the bus.'"

From my perspective, these are important points to get across if it will help even a little bit in maintaining WP's reliability as a neutral, encyclopedic reference. j/s Atsme 💬 📧 12:25, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Has Turley stopped writing for or appearing on any of those media outlets? No? Kinda puts an "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member" flaw in his relegated-to-blog impeachment of their scurrilous lack of integrity... integrity those news sources are evidently lacking because they generally agree with the federal judge overseeing the Michael Flynn case and the first several years' worth of Trump Justice Department prosecutors about a guy who registered himself as foreign agent and unambiguously pled guilty twice to lying to the FBI.

And what makes Turley think of moral and ethical relativism in 2020 is the judge, prosecutors, and reliable media sources being consistent this way... not, say, Donald Trump—who hired Michael Flynn, the guy the above paragraph is about, the Islam is “a cancer” foreign agent of Islamic-dictatorship-curious Turkey, hired that guy as the U.S. National Security Advisor—also having no objection to an Islamic theocracy murdering and chopping up a Washington Post reporter. j/s. But oh woe, this age of rage we're in! Speaking of ‘nothing to see here’ coverage.

So I don't think Turley's position is JW's position, though of course I wouldn't try to speak for JW.

Just to take the first of your other links, the 1995 HBR article is by a guy who describes his professional experience as an executive at a large public-relations agency and bases most of it on his own “insight” and also is reviewing a book by yet another guy who even he calls a corporate propagandist. Evidently, the root of all evil in journalism was Joseph Pulitzer—as in the Jewish immigrant anti-trust, anti-corruption, Pulitzer Prize Joseph Pulitzer. The article author's bio mentions that he was also the head of corporate communication at J.P. Morgan & Company, and guess what: according to the article, the savings and loan crisis was actually the fault of journalists rather than anyone in the banking industry! Who knew! I could go on, but you get the idea.

Left leaning news sources dominate WP because in this era they're the ones who report things that can at least be repeated with a straight face, don't do stuff like “accidentally” have news anchors propose that a candidate for president did a “terrorist fist jab” or constantly mis-label elected Republicans they don't like as Democrats the way Fox News does (still not deprecated, though, because we are in fact lenient enough to overlook such things: it takes even more to get deprecated) and because they occasionally issue retractions.

Media objectivity and integrity are hardly stellar even among the popular press sources Wikipedia does use but on the whole I'd say we're slightly better off than most phases of twentieth-century U.S. media; as I pointed out up above to Darouet the “Greatest Generation” media moseyed along not even ever showing FDR in a wheel chair, he dropped dead in the middle of WWII after being elected for a third term, and then as a country we collectively went “...oops” and passed the 22nd Amendment. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 19:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, Just for shits and giggles, here is a list of all known previous cases where the Department of Justice has required its prosecutors to request dismissal with prejudice after a guilty plea and during the sentencing phase:

None omitted. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:18, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the news has become misleading. For example, I was just looking up something and came across this CNN story title: The US just topped 1,100 coronavirus deaths a day. One state is getting National Guard help, and others keep breaking records. The impression to me was that 1100 Covid deaths is a record US high for a day and it's going up fast. I googled to find a plot of daily deaths and found [5]. I think few people would check this and would come away thinking that the US daily death rate is at a record high and is going up fast, although the data doesn't indicate that. Bob K31416 (talk) 02:28, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

The fact that you misread a CNN headline is not exactly the ringing indictment of the mainstream media that you imagine it to be. MastCell ^Talk 05:25, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

FYI: for a plot comparing the same data Bob K31416 presents for the US to the EU and other countries around the world, see here.

I picked the "New Deaths, 1 Wk. Avg." for a smoother, more readable line, but from the Data: dropdown below the plot you can also choose "New Deaths /Day" to see the spikier data corresponding to the bar chart values overlaid in Bob's link. Also it's set to just show the top 10 places by death rate but the Show: dropdown has other options. http://91-divoc.com from UIUC is a really great data visualization site that has been crunching the worldwide numbers since nearly the beginning of the pandemic. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 15:07, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Although CNN was misleading, there may be a cause for concern about a rising daily death rate for a reason not given there. If we look at the data for daily new cases of Covid-19, there is a significant rise that started about Oct 7.[6] Since on the average, resulting deaths occur a few weeks after onset of symptoms, a significant rise in daily deaths should be starting around now. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:47, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Update. It's been 23 days since the beginning of the upsurge in cases [7] and so far there's no indication of an upsurge in deaths [8]. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:44, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Here's our article on that web site btw: COVID Tracking Project. They appear to be journalists. The graphing code also doesn't appear to do a good job with boundary conditions; if you move the slider so that it displays from October 5th to yesterday, October 30th (currently the latest data) you get a graph that makes it look like the 7-day-average daily death rate nearly tripled. (Because that starts the data in the middle of a weekend/Monday divot, which the software isn't compensating for.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:01, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Side by side Covid-19 plots for comparison of daily tests, daily cases, currently hospitalized, and daily deaths [9]. Bob K31416 (talk) 23:58, 1 November 2020 (UTC) Bob K31416 (talk) 08:12, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

What I think is a clearly wrong decision

Theresa Greenfield is clearly 100% notable today, and is the front-runner in the race for US Senate in Iowa (see the betting market forecast). There is significant coverage in reliable sources, including sufficient biographical detail to write a good biography. While the initial decision may (or may not, I take no position) have been correct, it is clear that we need an article now. I would personally WP:IAR and move the draft into article space, but I believe doing so would simply generate unhelpful press coverage of an unfortunately disappointing failure of the slow grinding wheels of our policies. I do recommend that this be given fast attention.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 06:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

The matter is at WP:AN. So, you could either chime in there or, since you are one, close it as an uninvolved admin. I suggested that if the draft version wouldn't meet WP:G4, it be accepted and AFDed if necessary. You are in a position to judge that as well. I don't know what else there is. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:10, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I have commented at WP:AN. In terms of the WP:G4 question, I think the answer is clear (and that you are right): "It excludes pages that are not substantially identical to the deleted version, pages to which the reason for the deletion no longer applies, and content that has been moved to user space or converted to a draft for explicit improvement (but not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy)." The page is not substantially identical to the deleted version, the reason for deletion no longer applies, and the content has been explicitly improved in draft, and not simply to circumvent Wikipedia's deletion policy. I don't really understand how we got to this situation, but the discussion has been about hypertechnical internal Wikipedia policy matters, rather than improving Wikipedia. We are in the embarrassing situation where a clearly notable politician who appears poised to win a seat in the US Senate doesn't have an article - a complete failure of our mission to deliver high quality information to the world.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:16, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I even left a second comment there to make sure I drove the message home that it is inappropriate for admins to try and deduce the notability matter to decide about unsalting because that's the job for the AFD. All they need to guide their decision is whether the draft would be speedy deleted as soon as it got to mainspace. And since at least one uninvolved editor in good standing thinks the topic is notable and doesn't meet G4, G4 doesn't apply, hence it needs AFD to keep it out of mainspace.

The heart of the problem, in general terms, IMO, is a disagreement over what notability is. I am new, but it appears to me GNG was conceived as a shortcut to presuming notability (a good shorthand, as it is essential for NPOV when one sets about writing a full-length article), while the notability itself has the real world meaning, but over time, the understanding of the majority shifted towards the mistaken reading that GNG is notability, while real world notability, some of them listed among our WP:SNGs, are just shorthands to determining whether GNG is met. So, we have a situation where people who truly understand encyclopaedic notability have to shrug in resignation when presented with subjects that have received 2/3 news articles without having done anything truly worth noting, while the demand that GNG be met right away sees articles on actually notable topics get deleted. What constitutes SIGCOV for politicians, businesses and sportspeople is one of the other things that's not clear (because almost all coverages they get are easily mistaken for routine coverages, which are discounted for GNG purposes), but that's of minor concern when Notability itself is being misunderstood and misapplied. Usedtobecool ☎️ 07:50, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Usedtobecool, nope. The problem is that some people think Wikipedia is a directory, whereas long-standing consensus is that it isn't. We can't have biographies without good sources, for obvious reasons, and this causes endless tensions with people writing "biographies" of, say, sports people whose only coverage in RS is results tables. Specifically in this case we have NPOL, which was written because every candidate for dog catcher sent their PR along to write a Wikipedia biography to support their campaign. Sometimes a candidate nudges over the limit after initial deletion, so we get drama. We get the same drama at the fifteenth deletion for a garage band after they finally released a record. Normal for Wikipedia. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we are terribly inconsistent. I went looking this morning. I found the roster for what was arguably the worst team so far in this year's Major League Baseball season, and scrolled down to see their roster. As expected, we have a biography on every single player. I don't know which one of them is least notable, but one of them must be. In any event, whichever one that is, it's very clear to me that they will have less press coverage than Theresa Greenfield, as well as having by almost any way of looking at it that I can think of, less encyclopedic (historical) merit.

I'd like to make the additional point that none of our rules exist in a vacuum or for no reason. They exist solely for the reason put forward in IAR (as a reason any rule can be ignored): to improve Wikipedia. The US is facing an enormous election, arguably (and so argued by many reliable sources, so this isn't just my opinion) the most important one for a generation. The Senate hangs in the balance. Wikipedia exists, in no small part, to make sure that voters can get a high quality neutral article to help them decide how to vote. (I care much more that people vote after having read relevant Wikipedia articles than how they vote in particular. The alternative is voting based on random disinformation and twitter spats, really.)

I think all of us of good will who know Wikipedia know how we got to this point on this article, and your diagnosis is right on the money. It isn't political, it isn't sexist (good thing her opponent is also a woman or we'd quite rightly face tough questions about that as well). It's normal that quite a large number of people will be not-notable today, but notable in the future.

In many many areas we have some very helpful "shortcuts". In the area of Royalty, it's pretty well established (last I checked) that most people who are born of a monarch or sufficiently high in the order of inheritance are notable, even if they are babies who haven't themselves actually done a single thing. I think that's right. Similarly, without formulating the perfect general rule on the fly, people are notable if they are a major party nominee for the US Senate. Period.

Wikipedia is not a directory, for sure. But neither should we have a complex set of rules that gets it as wrong as we did in this case.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 12:04, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is misused as an avenue of promotion of many persons and things that are not notable. I'd vote to delete those not notable ballplayers as much as I do not support the creation of an article about a not notable challenger for a Senate seat. I'd vote to delete Joe the Plumber. What is your stand on an article about Kara Eastman?--MONGO (talk) 13:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Judging from the drafts, Draft:Theresa Greenfield and Draft:Kara Eastman: the former draft seems to have more body, e.g. including a section on their political positions. The former runs for senator (representing the entire state), the latter for congressional representative (representing one of the three districts the state has). As to Jimbo's on the fly suggestion ("... people are notable if they are a major party nominee for the US Senate ...") the former would pass, the latter not, but it might be worth thinking about if the actual rule is in the process of being carved. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, we are indeed terribly inconsistent. On monarchy, for example, we have a cadre of editors who are busily documenting the current Archdukes and Archduchesses of Austria, and the present-day princes of Bavaria and Hohenzollern - a glorious alternate reality in which 1918 didn't happen.

And I agree with you that this decision is wrong, and we should have that article. But it's been endorsed at DRV multiple times, and IARing it would probably set a terrible precedent that we would come to regret very quickly. The rules are probably wrong. At least we should allow a separate Senate campaign article for this level of race - there are only 100 Senators and 50 Governors, it makes sense for a challenger at that level to get an article, and it would also make sense to sweep up failed candidates with no other source of coverage after the election, which we don't really do right now. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

There is the difficulty that too many entities (not just political candidates) have figured out that getting an article in Wikipedia is easy SEO, and so in some cases we actively have to fight against what seem to be apparently notable topics when really the coverage is superficial. The editors behind WP:NCORP have done a lot of work in this area to make sure we are avoiding inclusion of companies that are looking for the easy google hits, and their concepts have to extend to BLPs that also may be seeking easy hits, which we have to presume will include running candidates in elections. This is not to say Greenfield herself is seeking this, but this is still a concern. And when the state of the article is summarized that "She is this person with little notability before running for office, she's running for office now, and here's her platform", it looks like a political ad. Maybe there's additional sources and improvements to drive it away from that, but it would not be acceptable to have a political ad in mainspace, regardless of balance of topic coverage, but covering her campaign in the relevant election article is appropriate. That's also the other factor: having a standalone article should not be seen as the epitome of importance on WP. We use redirects and coverage in larger topics all the time, and as long as we are not burying coverage of Greenfield in the relevant election article that we redirect her name to currently, that should be good otherwise; her details are still there. --Masem (t) 15:18, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jimbo Wales: There does seem to be a fundamental incoherence with the concept of notability as implemented on Wikipedia. What I always think about when it comes to modern fame and repute is that someone like Greenfield must already be known to more people, and probably in more genuine detail, than any pre-dynastic king of Ancient Egypt was in their own time, most subsequent pharaohs, and probably even most national rulers in most of human history.

Or if you look at much of insular British history for example, it's incredibly detailed information, to the point of being like a social media scrape when it comes to narratives of court intrigues, about vanishingly tiny numbers of people on any modern scale. Wikipedia's Chinese history articles can't hope to cover things in the same resolution at the same scale of population; not just because of the various kinds of bias (though they surely don't help) but because simply getting hold of English-language sources at that level is no small task. (Not saying there isn't lots of room for improvement on Chinese history and the histories of other population-dense parts of the world, of course; English is probably the most versatile cross-cultural language for it in 2020.)

Maybe you don't have the perfect general rule there but I am inclined to think that an agglomeration of many rules like that is more appropriate for modern notability. The problem would probably be adding such “notability whitelisting” rules at a rate and with a topic and field coverage that did not reinforce existing biases. (And, of course, balancing it against the sort of SEO gaming Masem points to.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, but a pre-dynastic King of Egypt had genuine power and influence, something a politician typically doesn't get until they are elected. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

​True, but conversely most rulers throughout history exercised completely indirect influence and never met the eyes of subjects who were illiterate and hence didn't even directly read their words, nor heard them speak; so in those respects, even many modern Youtubers who would be considered unsuccessful are more directly taken note of by more people, much less a candidate for a major political office.

(I'm kinda fronting there: I have no idea what the threshold is for a Youtuber to be considered successful. I'm confident though that the number of people who will have seen and heard Greenfield speak is orders of magnitude higher than for any pre-dynastic king of Egypt during their lifetime; the whole thing that jump-started human “civilization”, as I understand it, was remote administration through the invention of writing.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 23:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, I am struggling to see the point you're trying to make. Historical figures are documented in academic and historical literature. The vast majority of YouTubers will not even merit a footnote in history. I would cheerfully nuke all articles on anyone whose main claim to fame is as an "influencer", of any form, including "motivational speaker", because those articles are almost always pure PR - they have to be, only PR sources usually cover them. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:49, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

​Wikipedia doesn't just document the things historical and academic literature do, though: per WP:5P1 Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. The average town is notable because people live in it (apart from ghost towns and the curious macroeconomic empty-development phenomenon in China), the average school is notable because people attend or attended them, the average hospital is notable because people were born there and have died there. (Yes, technically it's because under GNG these article topics are mentioned in secondary sources, but they're mentioned because of all of that, and the kind of sources in question are not historical or academic literature: we don't have an article on Waghinzoy, Tajikistan because it's of historical or academic interest—I know because I carried out a very thorough search through English, French, and Russian sources.)

Anyhow, I wasn't arguing in favor of articles on Youtube influencers specifically, just pointing out what seem to me fundamental incongruities in our concept of notability because I thought JW was making a similar observation in saying that we're terribly inconsistent and pointing out notability shortcuts; I think the concept is much more shaped by practical concerns and path dependence rather than axiomatic principles as is oft portrayed and, while practical concerns are nothing to handwave away, I think the cobbled-together nature of notability rules contributes to many axes of bias.

But I see below JW has said that our guidelines generally work well, so I'd appear to be in a smaller minority of opinion than I'd thought; and I think I've articulated myself fully at this point. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 19:38, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

In the realm of Royalty, it's pretty well established (I checked last time) that most of the people who voted to shorten the head of Charles I of England ... didn't read the Holy Encyclopedia beforehand. Would the result have been different? At least a reference is needed for such an assertion. The very idea that people do not have sufficient reasons in their personal day-to-day lives to decide what to choose and need to be enlightened ... sounds like a royal disdain. Pldx1 (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Is this a perk of being one of the founders of Wikipedia along with Larry Sanger? You post something on your talkpage, and people come to it? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:19, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works right now Theresa will inevitably get an article. The problem is that our process (including the detours) is embarrassingly slow on this one. Perhaps we could IAR regarding timing issues to speed it up. Or if she could just play baseball or soccer for a few minutes she would be automatically wiki-eligable.  :-) North8000 (talk) 21:13, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• I believe the discussion of Theresa Greenfield is an edge case and that our existing guidelines generally work well. The existing guidance removes much of the subjective judgment of which candidates are notable. In that vein, I do not think your comments are helpful, unless you do believe that being a candidate should be enough to meet our notability standards. In your comments, you use the terms "front runner," which invokes WP:CRYSTAL, and "major party" which may bring up WP:NPOV (and the term also has a specific definition in the laws of many states). I think that the pages about the election has room for improvement, and certainly there is space there for more prose and more information about the candidates. I also think that there is a tendency, if not passion, to have a Wikipedia entry of an unelected candidate be treated as an extension of the campaign, not a high-quality neutral article. --Enos733 (talk) 00:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Just two notes. "Front runner" is not a matter of WP:CRYSTAL - it is a fact about the present state of affairs, easily verifiable in reliable sources. Similarly, "major party" is not a problem for WP:NPOV as it is easily verifiable in reliable sources. I see no evidence that anyone advocating for this article existing suggesting that the Wikipedia entry of an unelected candidate be treated as an extension of the campaign.

Let me state this plainly: this is not an edge case in the sense where whether to have an article or not is a difficult judgment call. Those cases do exist. The reason this case has caused a stir is that our existing guidelines - which do generally work well - have failed completely. My own view is that it isn't our notability guidelines that failed - she is 100% clearly and plainly notable for all the reasons that nearly everyone has acknowledged. It is a series of arcane processes which have grown organically over the years and which generally do work well, which in this case led to a frankly absurd outcome. I'm sorry if you don't find this discussion helpful. It is important and I can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:44, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise. Lack of imagination, may be. In any case, you only have to wait a short amount of time, before seeing what is the authoritative opinion of the Iowa electors about the question: "does the challenger deserves an article as an elected Senator... or not". Pldx1 (talk) 08:45, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

She will clearly meet WP:notability whether she wins or loses.North8000 (talk) 11:20, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we should just eliminate WP:GNG & WP:N, RECENTISM, some of the NOTNEWS policies, and use only our core content policies, particularly WP:V? If we can verify the information and cite it to RS, simply create the article. It will actually help reduce the backlog/workload at AfC, NPP and AfD because all we'll have to do is check to see if the material is verifiable (no OR, and at least 3 cited RS?), make sure MOS was followed and that the grammar is coherent - click approve, publish, reviewed and move to the next one. We can include all politial candidates, start-up businesses, every school and mall that was ever built, popular trends, fashion, dog and pony shows, etc. as long as they're in the news. It's an endless sum of all knowledge - a kind of WikiAlmanac with breaking news. Why not? Atsme 💬 📧 11:30, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd not sure if you meant that seriously or sarcastically. But as you describe it it would be a larger workload and larger backlog at AfC, NPP and AfD. North8000 (talk) 18:08, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, eliminate GNG? That predates all the SNGs - and this article actually passes GNG. Wrong solution. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:46, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• Jimbo makes good points and it is good that they have been heard. The stats show that thousands of people are now reading our article and so there is clearly demand from our readership.

When I search for the subject using Google, their Knowledge Graph panel (right) now lists Wikipedia as one of their sources. But notice that Ballotpedia is listed ahead of Wikipedia. If there is demand for information and we don't satisfy it then others will.

Andrew🐉(talk) 11:30, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Andrew, Jimbo has about 14,000 pageviews so I wouldn't get too excited over the pageview numbers. We don't know if those views are our own editors, bots (spiders), or actual readers. I wish there was a way to break it down. Atsme 💬 📧 11:34, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Deletion of the article will have tended to reduce the readership and so it is now bouncing back to its natural level. Compare with her main opponent and Jimbo too, since you mention him. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:47, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• Now that we're openly making binding content decisions on the administrator's noticeboard, we can surely do away with the polite fiction that sysops don't make content decisions. We should also redirect deletion review to the AN.—S Marshall T/C 16:51, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Let's call it strong community consensus that just happened to be at wp:AN. North8000 (talk) 18:05, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

• I take that AN consensus as one to unsalt, nothing more. Any editor should be free to AFD. Yes, I know it is practically impossible to challenge that article now, even to suggest an ATD; I find what admins are doing there, pretending AN decision on content can not be challenged, very concerning. Many users who would participate in an AFD or a merger discussion don't even know non-admins are allowed to comment at AN or won't even if they know they can (or don't watch that page because "it is for admins", and that alone should be enough reason, other than just common sense, why admins should not be making content decisions and then shooting down any further discussion on the matter. But this is not the first time, in my short wiki-experience, that I've seen admins do things like this when it comes to topics of high real-world visibility. And they say (1) Real world doesn't understand how Wikipedia works; it thinks admins are power users when they are just mop-wielders (that's not how they act on matters the real world watches closely), and (2) Adminship is no big deal (what a joke!). Usedtobecool ☎️ 01:26, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

  I think the learning points here are: (1) If urgently needing to overrule a community decision because the community is wrong, use the Village Pump and not drama central; and (2) Use a fixed-duration discussion (24 hours?) so the closer can't be accused of tactically choosing their moment to close so as to favour their preferred outcome.—S Marshall T/C 09:24, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm puzzled about one point that has been ignored: a stand-alone biographical article is not the only way to include notable (or important) information about people who otherwise might not merit coverage. It's a problem I chronically encounter in developing material on Classical history, where there is a person who meets the criteria for notability, yet there is little or no further information about him -- & far more often, her. Should one simply ignore said individual & pretend that important information doesn't exist? Or should one find another article where our readers would expect to find the information? (IMHO, the problem with Deletionism isn't that some articles are not included, but that the information from that deleted article doesn't stay in Wikipedia.)

This applies to the two articles discussed in this thread. For the sake of my argument, assume neither is clearly notable. Instead of spending time arguing whether to keep or delete the biographical article, add the information to the article about that specific election: a paragraph-long profile, & explain how the candidate effected the election? One thing I've noticed about how Wikipedia presents information is that while there are always well-fleshed out articles on individual subjects, the more general articles are often sketchy & perfunctory in their coverage. We focus on the individual trees while ignoring the forest. -- llywrch (talk) 16:44, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Generally agree. The emphasis by the 'stand-alone-article' argument seemed to be generally misplaced or perhaps some just did not understand: it was not a choice between having/not having these people in the pedia, it is rather a WP:PAGEDECIDE issue. It seems NPOL is the guide for candidates in the page decide question, and there does seem little reason to depart from that here. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:35, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I feel that there is something that editor feel good about being able to make their own stand alone article (which is certainly a worthy goal, not dissing that) but one made being able to also sorta control that, which is where we tend to get the desire to work on these individual articles rather than the shared, and the resistance to having content in general articles. We have all the technical abilities to support subsections for those non-notable topics (searching, redirect, anchors) to make information readily available, but editors seem to grasp comfort in having their own standalone to "care' for. And that's a problem I have yet to figure out any solution for without instigating the inclusion/deletionist wars all over again. --Masem (t) 13:57, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

For the interested, Greenfield-WP now in WaPo: [10]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:09, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• I think we can simply modify notability guidelines if people are so hung up on the rules. Quite simple, if someone is on the ballot for a US Senate seat, they are notable. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• Wired covering this, fwiw. --Masem (t) 17:54, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Asserting The debate over Greenfield eventually grew so heated that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia’s mercurial founder, personally got involved is only a romanced rewrite of the story, even if pontified by a self-anointed professor in Wikipedia Studies. The debate grew so heated because the mercurial founder involved himself in the controversy. And now, we have the result: Iowa voters were not impressed by a San Francisco based lobby group. Or may be they were impressed by how void the article was ? Pldx1 (talk) 12:33, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Loren Culp

Similarly, Loren Culp, who has a non-trivial chance to be the next Governor of Washington, has been systematically erased from Wikipedia. Again, people are laughing at us over this, and rightfully so. This is absolutely absurd. Red Slash 22:15, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The two races are not the same. Polling indicates that the 2020 United States Senate election in Iowa is a toss-up, while the 2020 Washington gubernatorial election would only be competitive if Seattle ceased to exist. KidAd talk 22:25, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia at risk of becoming a part of Orwell's "Outer Party" as being suggested on MSM?

Hi, Jimbo,

There has been a couple of censorship assertions on Fox about Wikipedia's Hunter Biden bio being Hunter Biden "locked". What I think is more thought proviking is a short segment on a Fox interview, beginning at 39:05, with a reference to media now becoming something resembling Orwell's Outer Party. What do you think about that? Specifically in terms of Wikipedia content. Willingtohandlethelikelytruth (talk) 15:35, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it's complete nonsense, of course.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:09, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo - Hunter Biden is clearly not written from a WP:NPOV. To summarize the situation with Hunter Biden at this point by saying "He and his father have been the subjects of debunked right-wing conspiracy theories pushed by Donald Trump and his allies concerning Biden business dealings and anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine." is just ludicrous. Tvaughan1 (talk) 06:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm interested to hear more. Could you be more specific? (And I want to caution everyone that a detailed debate about Hunter Biden's article should take place on the talk page of the article.) I'm just curious to hear from Tvaughan1 a proposal for a more neutral summary of the situation.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:01, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. A group of Wikipedia editors (including a number of administrators) has been using every trick in the WP book to keep any negative information out of Hunter Biden, or spin it in positive way for many months. This has all played out on the talk page, which has been archived many times. It's also been the subject of a number of news articles on bias at Wikipedia. That has been amplified in recent days by a news blackout on the laptop by Twitter, Facebook, Google, and most "main stream" news organizations. So the Barbara Streisand effect has kicked into overdrive. Wikipedia shouldn't be a party to that kind of censorship. Months ago I proposed replacing "debunked right-wing conspiracy theories pushed by Donald Trump and his allies" with (if I remember correctly) "concerns of a possible conflict-of-interest", but that was shot down numerous times. The reference to "right-wing conspiracy theories" is a fallacious strawman argument, designed to sweep everything under the rug. Of course these conspiracy theories aren't enumerated in the summary - we're just told... don't worry about it - it's been debunked. At this point I would settle for my original proposal, but obviously with the laptop and all of the incriminating emails and texts, stronger language describing the concerns of his business dealings with foreign oligarchs in adversarial nations could certainly be warranted. Also notice that nowhere in the article is the laptop, any of the evidence that it contains, or any of the controversy surrounding it (Senate investigation, etc.) mentioned.Tvaughan1 (talk) 08:08, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Tvaughan1: For the record, yesterday on the Hunter Biden talk page, you asserted “Kim Strassel is perhaps the best investigative journalist in the world” and “The Wall St. Journal is publishing relevant, notable facts which are corroborated by multiple sources,” but that was before the WSJ news division caught up to the story:

On Thursday evening Kimberly Strassel, a Trump-booster for the Wall Street Journal opinion pages, published a column claiming that text messages from a business partner of Hunter Biden “raise questions” about Joe Biden’s involvement in a deal with a Chinese company. Hours later, the news side of the Wall Street Journal shot down some of those questions. [11]

Also note this from WSJ:

In July 2020, more than 280 WSJ journalists and Dow Jones staff members wrote a letter to new publisher Almar Latour to criticize the opinion pages' "lack of fact-checking and transparency, and its apparent disregard for evidence," adding, "opinion articles often make assertions that are contradicted by WSJ reporting." The editorial board responded that its opinion pages “won’t wilt under cancel-culture pressure” and that the objective of the editorial content is to be independent of the Journal's news content and offer alternative views to "the uniform progressive views that dominate nearly all of today’s media." The board’s response did not address issues regarding fact-checking that had been raised in the letter.

soibangla (talk) 18:20, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, actually the debate is at Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (which I think is possibly mistitled).

We're pretty clear here: the debunked part is the claim that Joe Biden had Viktor Shokin fired to protect Burisma. That was definitively refuted during the impeachment inquiry. The bipartisan US policy of pushing for reform of the prosecutor's office was backed by the IMF, World Bank and the EU, Biden's influence was not accorded any significance by contemporaneous sources, and it's generally agreed that because Shokin wasn't investigating Burisma - or anyone else - his firing would if anything have increased the risk.

I've been arguing for much more clarity about this because there are actually several elements including:

• The known false claim that Biden intervened in Ukraine to protect Burisma
• The known fact that the FBI warned of Russian disinformation via Giuliani last year ([12])
• The known fact that Ukraine asked the FBI to help them investigate a hack of Burisma ([13])
• The lack of evidence supporting the claim that Joe Biden profited from China,([14]) but Trump probably did ([15])
• The highly questionable narrative of the laptop n([16])
• The lack of credibility of those promoting the claim (Giuliani, a known conduit for Russian disinformation and associate of Russian agent Andrii Derkach, and Bannon, currently under indictment for fraud)

The laptop business is, as I am sure you understand, as fishy as hell. The FBI informed the White House last year that Rudy Giuliani is being used as a conduit by Russian intelligence, and there were reports in January that the GRU had hacked Burisma. The entire operation reminds everyone of the "Fancy Bear" operation against Macron in 2017, and the provenance of the release, trailed in advance by Giuliani, makes it very plain that it's a political operation deliberately timed as an "October surprise" - the laptop was apparently in the hands of the FBI late last year, and the only recent indictments that look even vaguely relevant are the Russian hackers from the Macron case and others. Fox turned down the story, and multiple journalists at the New York Post refused to put their names to it. So reliable sources are all treating it as deeply suspicious.

The right-wing media bubble is hyping it relentlessly in opinion shows but, notably, not really in hard news segments. And that's where we struggle: how to represent the right-wing narrative without giving undue weight to something that is very clearly a politically motivated story designed to resurrect a disproven claim and make some kind of assertion of corruption within the Biden family that comes across as stunningly hypocritical given what is not being said about Trump's family and financial dealings.

People bring sources for the purported factual basis of the claims, but in every case these are opinion sources by conservatives (e.g. authors for National Review). It's very clear that there is a deliberate disinformation operation underway, and the right is incensed that we're not buying it at any level. Are we pushing back too hard? Maybe. But the stakes are high, and reliable sources are very careful not to give any appearance of legitimacy, e.g. characterizing statements by the DNI as "carefully worded". We're struggling with what to do about Ratcliffe's statement, since the FBI have refused to confirm it (again in a "carefully worded" statement) and mainstream sources note that Ratcliffe is a Trump loyalist and has been part of a deliberate effort to withhold security information from Congressional Democrats.

The section title is telling: "MSM". There is a widespread and false perception that mainstream is the opposite of conservative. It's not. The opposite of conservative is liberal, the opposite of mainstream is fringe. `

Hunter Biden (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) is a WP:BLP, obviously. There's been a campaign to Pizzagate Hunter Biden, which we have resisted for good and obvious reasons, but if there was credible evidence to back any of the claims I am pretty sure we'd include them. We include the drug abuse and alcoholism, after all, and Burisma, and China. And Joe Biden discussed these in the first debate. The distinction is between provable, neutrally sourced negative information, deliberate politically motivated smears, and how to represent smears without imbuing them with spurious legitimacy. We should also remember that Hunter Biden is not really a public figure. Don Jr. and Eric are out on the campaign trail, and have been since the outset. Hunter Biden is not a surrogate, he is not part of the Biden campaign team. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:37, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Wow, thank you for the mind-meld level of detail summarizing the article situation, JzG!

This has undoubtedly been pointed out a million times on Wikipedia talk pages but it's a pet peeve of mine, Tvaughan1: a straw man, in rhetoric, is a caricatured artificially-weak version of your opponent's argument that you make yourself and then easily knock down.

But for critics to propose that any right-wing “coverage” of these things are baseless conspiracy theories is not a simulacrum of right-wing sources' own arguments those critics are trying to knock down, it's an actual characterization meant sincerely. For example as The Volokh Conspiracy blog at the libertarian magazine Reason pointed out when this all started last week that any outlet which claims to have access to a trove of Hunter Biden's personal emails should, along with allegedly incriminating and embarrassing emails, have access to a great many innocuous emails which could be confirmed via copies in the possession of senders and recipients. But to my knowledge no such confirmation has yet been produced by the many right-wing venues claiming to have such access and peddling this story. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

To me, this is where part of the problem of where we've let the coverage of right-leaning topics "degrade" (dismissing the neutral, impartial approach that we're supposed to use in favor of simply following the critical tone taken by the media) is what lends to problems with articles like the Hunter Biden non-story. JzG's summary of what we should be covering and all the policy concerns is on-the-nose: we need to document to a level of what the right has claimed (document the controversy) without judgement. But we've created such a dichotomy of editors here , those that stand perhaps too strongly behind RSes as to not hear anything else, and those that have felt the right's voices have been ignored by WP and thus demand certain right-leaning sources be included, that we get into all these editing conflicts. WP is not good at covering these as they are breaking, but unfortunately, this being a key story of the election cycle, its a topic we need to cover, and we need better practices about how to write towards these with the right balance of coverage and tone to identify the facts but nothing more than that. --Masem (t) 16:48, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, in fact there are now secondary sources on the right-wing reporting that we can use, the problem mainly is in the vacuum between the lie starting it's world tour and the truth completing the tying of its boots - though as with many conspiracy theories, the narrative morphs constantly to work around refutation. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Now we have them, but again, in the midst while this was headline news two weeks ago, we didn't. Goes back to how badly we do when it comes to covering these type of controversial stories when they are breaking news. --Masem (t) 17:52, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, $DEITY yes. We should have a policy on that or something. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:57, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised a search for the term "Tony Bobulinski" turns up nothing on Wikipedia. The name is certainly in the news.[17] Bus stop (talk) 18:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

[18]--MONGO (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2020 (UTC)--MONGO (talk) 18:27, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

OMG this is hilarious! I mean not really because of the Nazism and white supremacy and international authoritarian attempts to undermine democracy with the cooperation of elected officials of the United States of America and sundry other nations of the free world, but I hadn't been following this—the whole Biden-got-money-from-China red herring Trump was trying to spin at the debate last night is based on the word of this Bobulinski clown and a guy who is in prison in China?

Even if there was the faintest trace of validity to it, although Bus stop's own link explicitly says Bobulinski's presence in the audience was the latest episode in a multiyear effort by Trump and his allies to use Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings as a cudgel against his father's campaign, notes that Trump referenced Bobulinski's news conference during the debate, in between lobbing false accusations that Joe Biden took money from various foreign countries, that this wasn't even when Biden was in the White House and that Trump's foreign business activities in the White House are the ones actually under a lawsuit for violating the constitution, and MONGO's link goes even further to show it's pure bullshit—even were there any tiny smidgeon of substance to it Trump of course pissed in the swimming pool by publicly asking China for help in the election so no one can take seriously an accusation from the CEO of a state-run company of China who is in the custody of the Chinese government.

That Bobulinski news conference video, though... worth a watch if you have eight minutes of your life you don't need. “The hawk is Hunter Biden's favorite animal! Ergo GUILTY CRIMINAL CHINA GUILTY GUILTY! I'm not taking any questions!” Perhaps MONGO is offering it for addition to the America's Funniest Home Videos article. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 19:44, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I have to say that, in my experience, the frequency with which people who come to Wikipedia and try to make nutty claims are undone by the sources they themselves present just goes to show the validity and value of our sourcing policies and guidelines—even extending to their secondary effects influencing talk page behavior. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 20:17, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Eh, Mongo seems a lot more on point than what every this wall of text is supposed to be. Not to be rude but I really do not know what you are trying to say here. PackMecEng (talk) 20:31, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

All I did was provide a link to the C-Span video of the claimant's remarks. I have no idea why this Struthious Bandersnatch editor is attacking me for that.--MONGO (talk) 20:40, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@MONGO: My apologies, you put a bare link in there to C-SPAN without providing any context—I actually thought you also found it funny and were posting it as a refutation to Bus stop's apparent insinuation that Wikipedia should have encyclopedic content covering a person because he gave one eight-minute press conference twenty-four hours ago and was a guest at a presidential debate. Sorry you felt attacked, I thought I was agreeing with you. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:15, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I didn't think an article should be devoted to "Tony Bobulinski". I was just surprised the name did not appear in any article. I determined this by using Wikipedia's own search function. Bus stop (talk) 21:32, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I posted the C-Span link only so anyone could see the statement. I have no idea if the claims have any veracity or not. Supposedly Bobulinski is to interview with the FBI today and then subsequently with Senator(s). Thats all I know and am indifferent as to whether the statement given by Bobulinski, who you refer to as a "clown", be incorporated into article space.--MONGO (talk) 21:35, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't surprised that we didn't have an article on Tony Bobulinski. It looks like he's only become notable due to the events of the last 24 hours and nothing else. I'm sure as an adult man involved in business, Hunter Biden has many people who could call themselves his business partner. So far, we only have Bobulinski's claims to go on. The Vanity Fair article on this is entitled Trump's Presidential Debate Surprise: Inviting a Hunter Biden Associate No One's Ever Heard Of Or Cares About. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:53, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

No one is suggesting he should have his own article? PackMecEng (talk) 23:56, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, there are lingering doubts. And...questions remain. https://i.imgur.com/FEJj3te.png soibangla (talk) 23:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@MONGO: In the absence of any context to your and Bus stop's links, which readers such as myself would consequently have to click on to figure out what you were talking about, I saw fit to provide my own; which I related to this discussion and other recent ones here on JW's talk page. I definitely appreciate you linking to that C-SPAN video as I think it provides vital illumination when combined with the Washington Post quotes I brought in, despite your indifference to your own fine work.

I too hope that the claims made by this very serious person can be examined for veracity one day, like whether the hawk is really Hunter Biden's favorite animal and whether Joe Biden really has billions of dollars to invest in a Chinese joint venture.

I'm especially curious about the latter point given that I leafed through several of Biden's tax returns during the primaries by following links from his Wikipedia article and they did not show anything like billionaire-level wealth; but curiously those links don't seem to be in the current version of the article and there's less content about his wealth in general than I seem to recall.

Also notably, the tax returns I looked at did not indicate ownership of “many houses” as President Trump claimed during the debate last night, but just two.

I do not think that WP:5P2 and Wikipedia's elaborating policies and guidelines about neutrality mean that we have to be blind to manipulation—particularly WP:NOTNEWS-related manipulation insisting urgent encyclopedic coverage is necessary right before an election of a guy whose notability, again, seems to be that he gave one eight-minute press conference slightly more than twenty-four hours ago and was a guest at a presidential debate, and who would also appear to explicitly be trying to garner headlines for a specific Senate Republican “report” of last month.

As far as I can tell that, er, publication is also not mentioned on Wikipedia, not even in the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory article (though it's difficult to search for); it was debunked by Snopes in a lengthy article. To pick just one highlight, the “report” alleges involvement of Hunter Biden in human trafficking based on a single New York Post piece which they (the Senate Republicans) represent as extensive public reporting.

PackMecEng evidently prefers bare links to quotes and context; but I would say that it takes a lot of truth to respond to a lot of bullshit. (In the C-SPAN video's case, the bullshit being from this Bobulinski guy and not from my dear colleague MONGO, of course.) Cheers, ‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 01:18, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I do not know, I am only seeing bullshit from you. But perhaps I am just not understanding you well. At this point, I am just seeing you randomly call people all kinds of nasty things with no support for any of it. It gets tiring. PackMecEng (talk) 03:06, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Right, no support, you award me no points. And you just do not know what [I am] trying to say, no matter how hard you work your thinker on it. Poor you, you must be so tired. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 04:32, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

See what I mean? Gibberish. Nonsensical gibberish. PackMecEng (talk) 15:50, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Aphasia and sudden confusion of consciousness, speech or ability to understand problems may be signs of a stroke. I worry for your well-being, PackMecEng. Please take care of yourself. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:42, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Not so sure you have that right. From what I can tell you are suggesting I have had a stroke or some such nonsense and that is why no one can make sense of the rants you keep posting. Given that I am not a lone is having a hard time making sense of the points you are trying to make and I see everyone else just fine I am left to conclude you have it backwards my friend. Please work on that. Thanks! PackMecEng (talk) 19:22, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't have the clinical rehabilitative experience to help someone in your situation; indeed no one may, no matter how much they “work on that”. You're displaying what's called a “semantic access deficit.” Though it is an encouraging sign that you were suddenly able to grasp your predicament on some level in this most recent comment. But given that

1. once I take material from a reliable source and quote it, you become unable to understand it, and
2. in addition to the disturbed linguistic comprehension capacity, you demonstrate an inability to organize facts into articulate responses of your own, but instead experience short outbursts of featureless and contextless coprolalia, helpless to express your own opinions or make your own arguments on any issue

—I think we may be looking at a complex etiology, possibly with involvement of multiple brain regions. There's the fatigue to account for as well, of course.

Don't worry, though, there are still many options open in life, even to someone with such severe limitations and functional deficits as yourself. You could pursue a career as a mechanical engineer, for example. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 20:58, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—in such references as "a complex etiology, possibly with involvement of multiple brain regions" you are straying far from our recommended focus on content. Bus stop (talk) 21:14, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a clear IAR exception, though—I mean, this isn't about focusing on an editor's conduct. Our beloved colleague PackMecEng has had the courage to openly discuss her devastating, life-altering cognitive problems and we must take her at her word and tend to her needs. PackMecEng's well-being is paramount. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:33, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bus stop: You have to remember, when you have no argument all you can do it make personal attacks like they do. Now I asked them to improve themselves and overcome this deficiency, rather than continuing to post nonsensical rants, but they just cannot help themselves it seems. I would just ignore them per WP:DFTT. PackMecEng (talk) 21:45, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm getting serious User:RTG vibes from User:Struthious Bandersnatch. Coincidentally, Bandersnatch returned to being active the same month that RTG was SBANned by the community. Mr rnddude (talk) 16:11, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mr rnddude: Glancing at search hits relating to that account, this timing claim doesn't even appear to be true, and I don't think I have a “vegan agenda” since I've been known to put bacon on a veggie burger... but by all means, if you feel a disturbance in the force around me, feel free to open a sock investigation. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 21:51, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's my recollection of RTG: writes gibberish. I didn't mention a 'vegan agenda', and 'search hits' are not what I looked at. RTG's block log states he was banned indefinitely on 8 August 2020, and your xtools! logs[19] indicate you became an active editor again from August 2020. August 2020 = August 2020 so 'the same month' checks out. The only reason I checked either of those things is because I read your comments and thought hmm... you remind me of RTG. Though, to be fair to RTG, I don't recall him going around suggesting editors have mental health problems. Mr rnddude (talk) 22:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

​Oh my, we're blocking people for gibberish now? I certainly hope that this self-identified affliction does not continue to spread, then. Particularly not, considering the title of this talk page section, in this new doublethink version where a message is construed as gibberish—meant in the most non-NPA way, I'm sure—but every single part of it still simultaneously makes enough sense to respond to. It's starting to remind me of Langford's basilisks too.

Like I said—if your concerns are genuine, instead of just more chaff that saves the effort of having to write anything of substance, put a little elbow grease into it and go ahead and open a sock investigation. Unless you have also suddenly forgotten how to do things like that, I guess. An alleged sock puppet that's been around nearly three times as many years as your own account would be quite the big game, no? Then you could bring me up at WP:COCKTAIL parties and on the next occasion you want to casually make discrediting implications that someone is a sockpuppet in a discussion they're participating in.

(OMG, I had no idea the “Mixed Drinks Task Force” existed at one point... wish I'd joined before it was shut down. Normally I have no truck with user boxes or accumulating little badges and gold stars but I'd proudly display something related to that if I'd earned it.) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 02:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll address paragraph 2, since it's meaningful. I don't care to discredit you. So, 'hear-ye, hear-ye, let Struthious' words stand or fall on their own merit'. As to the rest, I've never opened an SPI myself. 99% of the socks I've dealt with were ducks and the other 1% I'd dealt with by e-mailing a check-user with evidence or posting it to an already active SPI. I commented for others to provide input. Either, 'no, you're imagining things' or 'mmm... yeah, I can see how they appear similar'. If I'm the only person who sees your comments and thinks of RTG, then you're probably not RTG. Clear?

As to double think, to quote Noam Chomsky: colourless green ideas sleep furiously. The words have meaning, but the phrase does not. Same for ... and I don't think I have a "vegan agenda" since I've been known to put bacon on a veggie burger .... Mr rnddude (talk) 15:26, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. Unless you're making a joke about the concept of veggie burgers being incoherent (in which case, bravissimo) I don't think you're quite using “colorless green ideas sleep furiously” as Chomsky intended. Either way, though, ㊙️. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 13:45, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

We ignore all rules when a clear path forward can be seen to improve an article, though the meaning of "improve" is certainly debatable, but I don't think we ignore all rules in interpersonal relations, as doing so would degrade what is supposed to be an intellectual environment. Bus stop (talk) 21:45, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia has certainly acquired a bias on US political topics which has led to / is leading to Wikipedia having a reputation for such and being considered to be a poor source on such articles. A bunch of factors have led to this. A part of it is succumbing to simple "head count" in the various discussions, or failure of policies / guidelines to prevent that from happening. A few are historical weaknesses, for example, a definition of "reliable source" which does not mean actually reliable with respect to expertise and objectivity on the topic at hand. Also policies have become outdated in this arena and have not adapted to major media having transitioned from "reporting" to "advocacy" in this area, and not recognizing that the most common form of bias is what gets / does not get covered. North8000 (talk) 13:44, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Wikipedia itself cannot by definition be biased, and if its content has any bias, that is because it has acquired the biases of those that edit it. However, I disagree that there is an inbuilt bias here as regards to American politics; what I generally see is those that have gained their information from external sources that are themselves biased complaining that Wikipedia does not agree with their worldview. You can see this quite clearly when people who are quite convinced that whichever currently-popular wacky conspiracy theory is true try to insert them as facts into our articles. Black Kite (talk) 14:00, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I think we have a systemic bias that US political stories get far too much detailed WP coverage compared to nearly any other topic in the news today, and that's a combination of external media being overly focused on that, WP editors being overly focused on that, a result of the culture war that editors feel this is one of the few ways they can fight against misinformation (which is important, no question), and a lack of enforcing/promoting NOT#NEWS and other relevant policies so that editors are less focused on writing in every detail and more on the overall stories for these articles (not my term but "hyperreporting" describes the situation perfectly). In terms of the "spin" bias on these articles there is something to say that editors have tended to adapt Wikivoice to sound close to the press voice in many current articles, which affects tone, and I've argued before we shouldn't be rushing to include as much commentary as we tend to do. But broadly and in general, our articles on these current events do appropriately give the right WEIGHT to viewpoints as per major RSes on the topic and summarizing but otherwise dismissing the minor views (particularly those that are trying to push misinformation) so that part is actually generally working as intended (but its not perfect and can be improved). --Masem (t) 14:11, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

    Masem, once again, it might theoretically be possible for me to agree more with this, but probably not without violating the laws of physics. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:15, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, {{citation needed}} - and remember that Breitbart is not a reliable source.

Here's what the Financial Times has to say about the Biden laptop: Nothing. It's not a credible story, so they aren't covering it. Do not mistake quantity of noise for quality of coverage. It's notable that the WSJ's news team have flatly contradicted the editorial commentary talking up "laptopgate". Why should we be the ones to draw a false equivalence that credible sources do not? Guy (help! - typo?) 14:06, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I was talking overall; I wasn't commenting on the laptop issue.....since there is a news blackout on covering it, I honestly know very little about it. :-) Either way, good factual coverage of it would bring out the reality of it, whatever that may be. Which is a part of my point.North8000 (talk) 14:24, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, there is no news blackout. There is plenty of commentary in mainstream sources to the effect that it's as sketchy as hell. And we reflect that good, factual coverage, and we are under relentless assault from people who use terms like "Russia hoax", so clearly get their "information" exclusively from wihtin the right-wing media bubble. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

So you are saying that the media did not cover the specifics of it but instead gave their opinion on it. :-) Would be somewhat off topic, but we need to realize that characterizations and opinions by political opponents is not information on the topic, it is info on what political opponents said, and we need to cover the topic as well. North8000 (talk) 17:05, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, this is actually where the high-quality RS did as much as they could to do journalistic investigation to evaluate the basis of the claim to find nothing that could corroborate with it, and even found more information that the story was planted from questionable agents. That's very comparable to how Watergate broke, and the example of how the media doing its job as the fourth branch of gov't to speak. It would be one thing if they just said "nah, that can't be true" and didn't do any digging, but they did the legwork here. --Masem (t) 17:14, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not knowledgeable on it because the media I read & listen to gave it zero coverage. But are there not simple matters of fact that need to be covered? North8000 (talk) 18:18, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, I congratulate you on your excellent choice of media. No coverage at all is almost certainly exactly the correct amount, according to its objective merit. This is what the French media did with Fancy Bear's 2017 Macron hack-and-leak attack, and it worked perfectly. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:07, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, with the laptop story, that itself wasn't a story, but the fact that the media opted not to covered in the depth that certain people wanted it triggered actual newsworthy stories (eg more attention to modifying Section 230 for example), so we have to have minimal coverage of what the laptop story was and how it was readily disproven, before moving on to its impacts elsewhere. It is similar to Pizzagate - the story itself is nothing to document to any depth but what happened after the fact was newsworthy (to the point of encyclopedic topic). it's just as soon as we have that brief discussion to establish the disproven story, we have outside editors wanting to have the full blown accounts rattled off, that makes the problem. --Masem (t) 19:31, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, as the FT pointed out, this is largely the point of a hack-and-leak operation: to make as much noise as possible before the facts can be established. In this case the failure to break out of the conservative media bubble at all has created an unusual disconnect which is itself noteworthy (though maybe not notable). It will be interesting to see how historical sources view this period. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:46, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

As much as it was all hogwash, the "Biden laptop" story is unfortunately as relevant to this election as ibogaine was to the 1972 election. People will hear something about each incident (e.g. "What is this about Senator Muskie abusing illegal drugs?" -- "What is this about a laptop the Biden campaign lost?") & want to know the complete story. While both stories proved to be nothing more than a bizarre interlude, nonetheless each sheds light on an aspect of the respective campaign: in the earlier incident, it was a warning of just how much credibility any random journalist has on the story, while the latter case is an example of the dirty tricks pulled in American elections. (Although an incredibly poorly executed one.) -- llywrch (talk) 21:02, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

And those the laptop story is mostly all myth, it is of DUE to at least document the facts of the controversy around it. And this becomes a practical study of the art - knowing where to document from an encyclopedia standpoint, enough to explain the fake story to be understood to its importance without going into the unnecessary details (some which tread on BLP), and at the same time providing enough of the reponse that says why the story was considered fake but avoiding too much excessive commentary against those trying to push the story. There is a careful balancing act here not to incorpoate too much off the BS but also not to be overly critical in WP's voice in covering it. --Masem (t) 21:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, absolutely. And that's why I have pushed to be really clear what is known to be false, and what is merely known to be dubious. We have excellent sources for both now. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

And of course the alleged Biden stuff is no where near as important to the election as this during-election Wikipedia coverage of Mitt Romney's dog getting a ride on the roof of his car in 1983 Mitt Romney dog incident.  :-) North8000 (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Since you say you don't know anything about the alleged Biden stuff under discussion (and I guess haven't read all of the above comments?): I'd agree with your apparent point about the questionable notability of the incident you link to.

But the most salient objection to the alleged Biden stuff does not concern its notability, rather that it's disinformation being promoted by an individual identified by the US Intelligence Community as a conduit for Russian intelligence operations (Giuliani) similar to those carried out against France during their 2017 presidential election, as Guy mentions. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 05:28, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I subsequently read up on this notable story elsewhere. The connection of the laptop to Biden so far sounds pretty weak. Too bad I couldn't learn about this notable topic in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 12:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, but you can. It's documented in great detail at Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory‎. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@North8000: Notwithstanding the link Guy provides, in which the word “laptop” appears fifteen times currently, you must be able to see that there's at least a little bit of incongruousness in bemoaning something along the lines of, “I wish I could read more disinformation about this immediately upcoming election on Wikipedia, instead of just established encyclopedic facts about insufficiently notable incidents!”

You seem to be tip-toeing around the fact that it's disinformation. Again—the topic is actually covered here, but doesn't it actually seem better practice, anyways, to err on the side of not covering something that is not only WP:NOTNEWS, but is active disinformation, in the moment? The first thing you said in this talk page section was to express concern about Wikipedia's reputation. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 03:43, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, I think that's unfair. North8000 is obviously not focused on this content area and the amount of noise on the talk page is such that I can understand anyone walking away without finding the "conspiracy" article. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:31, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't want to focus too much on just this one incident, especially one where when I first mentioned it I immediately noted that I was not knowledgeable on it. In general, if something is factual, a hoax, mis-information, theory (supported or unsupported), an assertion, etc. there are ways to cover it as such. In this case, as was pointed out, it was covered in a place that I would not have thought to look and which didn't come up under a wiki-search. I haven't read the whole article which was pointed out, but as a sidebar, another common POV issue is to mis-label something as a "conspiracy theory". Most of the time when this label is used, there is little or no "conspiracy" allegation, it is more of a straightforward allegation (un-proven or proven) or set of such allegations with little or no allegation of there being a conspiracy. Wrong-doing or disdained behavior is common, having a conspiracy behind it is not. So seeing a "conspiracy" behind too many things is a common flaky behavior, and a common way to deprecate a whistler blower or accuser is to mislabel mere allegations of wrong-doing / disdained behavior as being allegations of a (straw man)conspiracy. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:39, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Aye, as a chaotic neutral editor, this new world order has drained my stamina, willpower and intelligence substantially this year. Even worse than trying to plainly state a conspiracy theory simply needs a theory about a conspiracy to meet its objective definition, I've learned, is calling the theory about Trump's crooks and Putin's goons meeting in secret to plot nonstop alleged electoral crime a "conspiracy theory". Even though I'm pro-nature, pro-abortion, pro-minority, pro-weed and pro-Carter, guys like Guy think I get "information" from the same wifebeating, crossburning, Budswilling, squirrelshooting, windowlicking bubble my actual enemies do. So yeah. I don't need to tell you things are bad. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:08, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@North8000:​ I agree that seeing too many conspiracies is a thing we should be on guard against, even though we document countless actual conspiracies throughout the ages here at Wikipedia. Sorry if I got a bit prickly. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 01:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

InedibleHulk, me? I don't know what you're talking about, but drop a link on my talk page if you like. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:53, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

My main point is that if an allegation has little or no component of alleging a conspiracy, it should not be mis-labelled as allegation of a conspiracy, and that mis-labelling it such is pejorative and POV. North8000 (talk) 13:35, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, the core allegation is a conspiracy theory: a fake conspiracy to protect Burisma, that is assessed by independent sources to be flatly false. The article title has not developed to incorporate the subsequent disinformation operation that has been coatracked onto this - but only because nobody has yet suggested a new title that doesn't risk implying validity where none exists. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy, Just a few questions that I'm not sure about. Was Shokin soliciting and getting bribes from Burisma to not prosecute before Hunter Biden joined Burisma? Did eliminating Shokin after HB joined Burisma solve this problem for Burisma? Were there any prosecutions of Burisma while HB was with them? After HB left Burisma, did prosecutions start up again? (For the last one I think there was a $6 million sting in the news.) Bob K31416 (talk) 19:00, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure you can find those answers on your own, but we are lucky to have editors who are brave enough to ask the hard questions. MastCell ^Talk 19:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Was Shokin soliciting and getting bribes from Burisma to not prosecute before Hunter Biden joined Burisma: I'm not aware of any evidence of this. For the most part the grift doesn't seem to have intersected with the oligarchs, who were friendly with Poroshenko. But I don't read Ukrainian, so there might be local reporting that deals with this, just nothing I've seen in English. Did eliminating Shokin after HB joined Burisma solve this problem for Burisma?: No. Poroshenko held it off - he hired another buddy - and a year after Zelensky's election they are still having trouble getting to Mykola Zlochevsky ([20]), but it absolutely hasn't gone away. Were there any prosecutions of Burisma while HB was with them? Not relevant since the issue with Shokin was that he wasn't investigating multiple oligarchs - the link was not Hunter Biden, it was oligarchs cosy with Poroshenko. After HB left Burisma, did prosecutions start up again No. But there is pressure now to look into Zlochevsky [21]. There are money laundering and fraud allegations against him dating back to early 2014 which failed due to failure of the Ukrainian prosecutors' office to turn over documents, something about which US ambassador Pyatt complained at the time. Don't be seduced by the post hoc fallacy. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:34, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: Guy, that may be a good example. The putative alleged conspiracy (according to the article) was an explicit quid-pro-quo on Biden influence peddling. But there's nothing sourced in that article that someone specifically alleged that. And, the contents of the article pretty covered everything about the Biden's and Ukraine (including all of the factual material) under the "conspiracy theory" title. North8000 (talk) 19:45, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, that's largely an artifact of a Bannonite "flood the zone with shit" approach. They have nothing on Joe so are going for guilt-by-association, because there is no way Donald Trump would engage in nepotism, self-dealing, dodgy foreign business deals, concealed profits or cosy deals with corrupt foreigners. Unless there's a Y in the day. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:37, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand. My point was mostly structural related to the title. Perhaps the analogy that I just posted at the article that you referred to would clarify my point. North8000 (talk) 13:42, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

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A barnstar for you!

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A cookie for you!

Random 203-109 (Help Desk (for question)) 04:28, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm surprised

I'm shocked that there isn't more vandalism on this page. I'm proud.

WildAGR (talk) 16:27, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

The page is semiprotected, so that ip users and nonconfirmed users cannot edit this page. :D -GoatLordServant (Talk) 16:36, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

Nope. 107.242.121.42 (talk) 04:48, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

GoatLordServant, expired hours ago. Enjoyer of World^💬 05:24, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Makes sense WildAGR (talk) 16:44, 5 November 2020 (UTC) UTC)

• Comment: I see his talk page more of a public chat room that happens to have Jimbo Wales name on it. It’s so cool to be able to comment on a famous person page without getting reverted. Zoe1013 (talk) 06:50, 6 November 2020 (UTC)