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Request for comment re: disputed paragraph

Is it appropriate for this article to include the following paragraph:

After Steyn ridiculed Ayatollah Khomeni for giving advice on child abuse and bestiality,refSteyn, Mark (April 28, 2006). "Celebrate tolerance, or you're dead". Maclean's. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)/ref some Canadian leftists accused Steyn of concocting his facts, leading Steyn to pen a refutationrefSteyn, Mark (30 November 2008). "The Shagged Sheep". SteynOnline.com./ref which blogger Deborah Gyapong said made them a "worldwide laughingstock".refGyapong, Deborah (30 November 2008). "How to make yourself a laughingstock around the world"./ref Both his chief critics eventually apologized.refSteyn, Mark (4 December 2008). "The Doctor is In". SteynOnline.com./ref

This matter has been discussed by regular participants on this page in an exchange entitled A problematic paragraph, which interested contributors are encouraged to review. CJCurrie (talk) 04:52, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

• No I don't think so. There are a number of problems with including this. It seems to basically be a pissing contest between Steyn and some bloggers. While Styen is notable, he's not highly notable -- he's not Walter Winchell or whatever -- and the bloggers even less so. So why are getting into this level of detail? To drill down in more detail:
  • There's some issue with reliability of sources. Blogs are reliable sources for their own contents. If we say "Joe Smith said 'OBAMA ONLY LISTENS TO RACOONS!'", then a link to Smith's blog with the supporting material is sufficient. However, it wouldn't be a reliable source for us to say "Racoons are a medium-size mammal native to North America who advise Barack Obama". You see the difference? When Styen writes in his blog "The other day I had an e-mail from M J Murphy, who blogs as Big City Lib, saying only this: I think you owe Dr. Miller an apology", this is not a reliable source for the statements that M J Murphy did indeed sent Steyn an email, that it said "I think you owe Dr. Miller an apology" or that M J Murphy does indeed blog as Big City Lib. (The latter statement is probably true but a blog is not a reliable source for proving that; the other statements may be true or not, who knows?). This applies to all statements of fact made in a blog including all quoted material. (Exceptions may be made; Steyn and Gyapong, as polemicists, don't get one.)
  • Beyond the question of reliability is the question of notability -- the "some commentors" test. We can say "Some commentors have advanced the notion that that the Obama cabinet is actually composed of racoons" when "some commentors" are Christopher Hitchens or George Will or people like that, but we can't say it when "some commentors" are random unnotable bloggers or internet forum posters and people like that. You see the difference? Who are the "some Canadian leftists" here? I don't know who Deborah Gyapong is but she doesn't have an article, which most notable public intellectuals do. She works for religious papers. She had a desk job at CBC. She wrote a suspense novel. So what? Everybody does something. Why do we care what she thinks?
  • We want the article on Steyn to be reasonably comprehensive, but there's a limit to how much we want to include. We don't want to get the point where we're having to break the article out into sub-articles and so forth. Steyn isn't that notable. So, given that, what material should we include? We want to know who he is, who his influences are, who he's influenced, what his impact has been in politics and the world of ideas, how other public intellectuals view him, and most of all we want to know what he says. (And I guess the article does a reasonable job of that, based on a fairly cursory runthrough.) We don't want to know what he eats for breakfast, who his favorite sports team is, what brand of cigarettes he smokes, and so forth. Well, this little kerfluffle seems solidly in the latter category. What does it tell us about him that that helps us get a handle on the man? How does it improve the article?
  • But if there were articles in Time (magazine) and the Los Angeles Times and similar venues with titles like "Steyn - Gyapong Rift Sends Shudders Throughout Intellectual World" or "World Awaits Next Step In Epic Steyn - Gyapong Battle" or something I'd think differently. But there aren't. So it's original research to give this incident weight that editors of actual journalistic enterprises haven't. Herostratus (talk) 03:11, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

The lack of clue displayed by the anti-Steyn folks here is stunning. (The use of argument-via-tedious verbosity is also stunning.)

Bad News: to understand this incident well enough to comment on whether to mention it you will have to read several thousand words of essays, blogs and comments. Worse still, for many commenting here, a large fraction of the required reading was written by Steyn. At least one anti-Steyn editor has repeated demonstrated that he/she either never read the key articles (or retained no understanding of them) by writing incredibly ignorant/stupid things.

Hence my claim (in an edit summary) that the so-called consensus to delete this paragraph is false (like a bunch of Babylonian shepherds agreeing that the world is flat). And no, I don't have time to spell things out for you, except to say: read the links in the paragraph, and the non-trivial links in them. Then you will see why I am stunned by the cluelessness here.

The argument from MSM silence is also a dud. A similar incident these days would be covered by newspapers (at least on their websites, perhaps in print) but this took place when MSM people hated giving publicity to blogs, especially conservative blogs.

What really happened:
A Canadian lefty blogger, the "Journalism Doctor", seized on an aside in an essay Steyn wrote about Oriana Fallaci to claim that Steyn was dishonest or lying or something. (It's hard to say, because he kept changing his accusation and silently editing his blog posts.) The Law is Cool people used this in their attack on Macleans. The "Journalism Doctor" joined in this attack, on the side of censorship. A prominent lefty Canadian political blogger, BigCityLib, piled on. This was popular amongst left-wing Canadian bloggers and their readers; it was also picked up by many Steyn-hating lefty blogs in the US and elsewhere.
Then Steyn replied. His response was picked up by conservative bloggers in pretty much every English-speaking nation, as you would expect. (You have read it, haven't you? If not, go get some clue then come back and re-read this message).
A few months ago, the "Journalism Doctor" (whose only degree is actually a BA) attacked Steyn again, and around the same time some Canadian lefties came to this article and put an astounding amount of time into writing verbose but invalid arguments for deleting the embarrassing material.

Talking about embarrassing: Using the word "encyclopedic" in any connection with an article about Steyn that did not mention this incident should embarrass anybody. If anything, we should expand it. I'm busy with matters relating to my brother's recent death, but I'll try to make a start. In the meantime, you anti-Steyn editors should read the fricking source documents or fuck off (or both). Cheers, CWC 15:28, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

We took out the Gyapong reference but left the remainder as notable and verifiable. That is how it should have stayed. Neither deleting the material entirely nor expanding the material to a separate section on sheepfuckery is justifiable as the first censors comprehensive material but the latter gives it undue weight. μηδείς (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

(ec)

I've done a quick-and-dirty expansion. Some of the stuff I put in is probably unnecessary (but which?); it needs more details and at least 2 more cites. I'm unlikely to be able to spend much time on this for at least a week.

Competence-to-comment-here test: which name in DG's post about Miller becoming a "worldwide laughingstock" has the most weight?

Cheers, CWC 16:43, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

"Read the fricking source documents or fuck off" - is this your idea of civility? I have read the source documents, and just about everything else written by Steyn in the intervening three years, and there's a signed copy of his new book on my bedside table. But just because I am a fanboy doesn't mean I have to bloody well act like one on Misplaced Pages. We're trying to write an encyclopaedia, not trying to make a WP:POINT, fight a WP:BATTLE, right a great wrong, or any other of the things that Misplaced Pages is not. I appreciate that you've made a good effort of improving the section, and if it were a little less "out on its own" I might be tempted to agree with inclusion. However I just can't see this, as a single blogger-skirmish amongst many Steyn has been involved in, passing WP:UNDUE. That said, editors above who clearly haven't read the articles would do well to do so - it's well worth it.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 23:52, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

No, I don't "have to read several thousand words of essays, blogs and comments" if they are not reliable or notable. My opinion of what is "well worth" my time may differ from others, and to be perfectly frank, "spend significant time on the internecine squabblings of obscure Canadian bloggers" is somewhere below "perform eye surgery on myself with a rusty soup can lid" on my must-do list. Please note that at WP:RS, the emphasis on "Never use self-published books, zines, websites, webforums, blogs and tweets as a source for material about a living person" is in the original. We kind of take this sort of seriously, in other words, and for this reason I have removed the material, as being shot through with too much poorly sourced negative BLP material. I'd suggest you rethink the whole section. I seriously doubt that any of this is notable, but if it is notable, we'd need better sources, and very neutral writing. And even if the "there are no reliable sources because there is conspiracy to ignore this" bit is true, you know what the Misplaced Pages does in such cases? We don't publish the material. Because there are no reliable sources. Herostratus (talk) 02:42, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

H states/insinuates that I believe that "there are no reliable sources because there is conspiracy to ignore this" (my italics), which is dishonest, silly and insulting. Please retract and apologize.
As I know from reading Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen, back in 2004ff MSM journos and editors, faced with falling audiences, debated openly and vigorously whether to cover blogs. For many years, most preferred ignoring blogs; now, they report blogs (and hire bloggers) to build their online audience/revenue. This is not a conspiracy, just normal self-interest in a troubled industry. (Aside: the internet phenomenon which has really hurt newspapers is not a blog.)

@H: Of course no-one has to read this stuff. But anyone who doesn't has no business editing or making judgements about that part of the article, let alone censoring it, and would be wise to be much more circumspect about posting on this page. As I've said, there are sources for all this stuff, though some of my hurried writing needs reworking. Good-faith editors would improve my work. Blind reverts are a sign of bad-faith editing. Taking bad-faith editors seriously is a waste of effort.

One of the few things we all agree on here is that there are no secondary sources for this incident. One of the many reasons secondary sources are better than primary sources in Misplaced Pages is that the secondary sources are generally much easier to read, understand and cite than the primary sources. But there are important articles and sections of articles for which secondary sources do not exist. In those cases, anyone who has not read (and understood!) the primary sources is just not capable of good judgement about the article/section as a whole.

(When designing Misplaced Pages's rules, you have to trade-off between accepting input from subject experts and verifiability. Misplaced Pages quite rightly privileges verifiability, but this does create an unfortunate tendency for many/most editors to privilege knowledge of secondary sources over knowledge of the actual subject, which often pisses off subject experts. I became aware of this mainly by editing articles about Linux graphics software which have little/no secondary sources; no blame attaches to editors who have not suffered likewise.)

@Yeti Hunter: If you have read the primary sources, why did you get a basic fact blatantly wrong a few sentences later? Also, Read the fricking source documents or fuck off (or both) is perfectly civil in my culture, and an attempt (apparently successful!) to communicate something important to people who really Don't Want To Hear That. Furthermore, I'm not righting any wrongs, great or otherwise, here; I'm just trying to ensure that a major aspect of Steyn's reputation is addressed in the article. Rough analogy: not mentioning Ritchie Valens in Los Lobos.

My expanded version is a rough draft. I invite good-faith editors to improve it. I have not seen any valid arguments for deleting it entirely. I will be very busy until Thursday. Cheers, CWC 07:40, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

OMG. You know what? Fine. If you really feel that the idiotic sheep shagging thing is central to understanding Steyn, fine, maybe you're right. (You do realize I hope that adding blather about fluff like this not only detracts from communicating the thrust of Steyn's work but also makes Steyn look stupid and petty. But maybe he is, so whatever.) Also, you can't source stuff like "Miller and Murphy issued grudging apologies" to Steyn's blog, for crying out loud. At least source to their blogs where they issued the apologies, or wherever. Herostratus (talk) 09:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

What "basic fact" do I get wrong after explaining that I've read the documents in question? That Steyn's work is well worth reading? Or that you're editing in good faith? You're on the verge of frustrating me into a 3RR battle, for which you're outnumbered.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 10:42, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Possibly-useful link: Steyn on censorship

This NR cover story would probably be useful as a ref. Cheers, CWC 17:03, 26 September 2011 (UTC) who has just about finished clearing his browser tabs

Probably not. National Review is a poor a source for statements of fact (as is The Nation, for similar reasons). (Most of the material is not about Steyn; there is a reference to his being put on trial in British Columbia, but I think this is already covered in the article and properly sourced, so I'm not sure what this is supposed to be a source for.) Herostratus (talk) 02:10, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

It might be a better source for Steyn's account of his trials in Canada. It probably should be used for new material about Steyn's views on censorship. CWC 07:52, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Nooooo, it can't be used for the description of the trials. It's by Steyn. Do you not get this? Have you read WP:RS? You need to at least scan WP:RS, please! It is a reliable source for Steyn's views, though. Herostratus (talk) 08:44, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

CJC Affair

The pronouns used in this paragraph are so vague as to make the various parties unidentifiable. By the second sentence it's already a complete mess. After reading the sources (which are much clearer and give much needed context) I'm going to re-write the paragraph based on the following series of events:

1. Ann Coulter intended to give a talk/speech at the University of Ottawa. 2. On the monday, a muslim student Fatima Al-Dhaher challenged Coulter about a joke Coulter had made about muslims taking magic carpets in lieu of airplanes. Coulter told Dhaher that, lacking a magic carpet, she could take a camel. The crowd "jeered" according to this NY Daily News article http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-03-24/news/27059900_1_muslim-student-ann-coulter-camel 3. The next night, her talk was prevented from going forward due to threats of violence against her. 4. The Mississauga News publishes an editorial expressing pride in the students for preventing Coulter from speaking. 5. The Canadian Jewish Congress republished the editorial on their website, with very minimal attribution as to its original source (according to a cache link from steyn, which is now broken. The original editorial appears to have been taken off the CJC website altogether.) 6. An independent blog discovered that Fatima Al-Dhaher was a member of a facebook called "It's Called Palestine Not Israel" which contained an enormous amount of anti-semitic rantings. 7. Mark Steyn publishes an editorial in Macleans detailing the events of Coulter's aborted speech, the protests against her, the CJC's posted editorial, and the full range of anti-semitic comments from al-Dhaher's facebook group. 8. The CJC corrects the attribution of the editorial. 9. Maclean's places an editors note under Steyn's editorial about the original source of the article reposted on the CJC. 10. Steyn writes a second editorial criticizing the editor's note because the corrected attribution was just that, a correction.

Phew. That was tough. Basically, as far as it is relevant to Steyn I think we really only need to be talking about points 3(for context), 5, 7, 8, 9, 10. Everything else requires a *lot* more context (i.e. "why is Steyn quoting anti-semitic remarks? Oh, it's because he is criticizing anti-semites." Without context they could easily be mistaken for *his* original comments, which they are not.)

If anyone disagrees with that course of events, or my edit, I'd love to see some sources and some justification. Cheers. --CptBuck (talk) 07:58, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

After making my edits I would actually question where this falls under wikipedia's policy of notability. The "Affair" in question occupied a few paragraphs a couple editorials. Most of the evidence and sources involved are dead links. It doesn't seem relevant to a wikipedia article that an editorial, which was admittedly misattributed, was in turn misattributed by a second author. Even if that author doesn't believe it was misattributed at all. It seems silly.

I would say the whole "affair" should be scrapped. --CptBuck (talk) 08:36, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Essentially no difference between this and the "sheep shagging" incident debated ad nauseam above. Removing it per WP:UNDUE.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 10:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

While we're at it, what about that lame "Criticism" section? I mean seriously, one bloke describing Steyn's rhetoric as "shrieking"? Is that the best they can do? There's been some decent criticism of Steyn, but this sure aint it. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 10:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

So I added a sourced comment from a respectable critic. However - seems to me that this section is superfluous and should be combined with the largely-adulatory "writing style" section to make one comprehensive presentation, pro and con, of Steyn's alleged virtues and faults as a writer/critic. Sensei48 (talk) 17:49, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

human rights

Steyn is a noted human rights activist. The terms "mark steyn" "human rights activist" get over 160,000 hits at google and over 300 at google books. The claim is referenced to others and he himself supports it. Of course, if one defines a human rights activist as necessarily not a conservative, there is another viewpoint. But that is exactly it, a POV. μηδείς (talk) 02:48, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Responses:

(i) The fact that the terms "Mark Steyn" and "human rights activist" receive x-number of google hits means nothing in and of itself, considering that all instances of the phrase "Mark Steyn is not a human rights activist" would be included in any such search results. Quantity is no substitute for quality, in this instance. In practice, I suspect most of those google hits would simply be reprints of Steyn's press kit.

(ii) It's interesting that the terms "Mark Steyn" and "human rights activist" receive over 300 hits at google books, but could you please clarify if any of these are from reliable sources that can be used in this article?

(iii) You write: "The claim is referenced to others." My response: this is covered below. I actually have a certain grudging respect for Jonathan Kay (some of the time), but his editorial is only a reliable source for his opinion, not for an assertion of fact.

(iv) You write: "he himself supports it." My response: this is completely irrelevant for our purposes.

(v) I am not asserting that a human rights activist is necessarily not a conservative. Such an argument would indeed be POV, so it's a good thing I'm not making it.

You may well believe that Steyn is a "noted human rights activist," as may Steyn, but this isn't sufficient grounds for describing him as such in our article. I'm perfectly willing to accept some compromise wording ("so-and-so describes Steyn as this"), but the current wording is 100% unacceptable. CJCurrie (talk) 03:17, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Human Rights Activist (again)

Someone has modified the first sentence of Misplaced Pages's Mark Steyn article to read as follows:

'Mark Steyn (born December 8, 1959) is a Canadian-born writer, conservative-leaning political commentator, and human rights activist.refSteyn, Mark (July 2, 2009), Mark's bio, SteynOnline, retrieved March 5, 2011/ref'refJonathan Kay (June 27, 2013). "How 9/11 killed Canadians' appetite for human-rights speech codes". National Post. Retrieved June 30, 2013./ref

This is more than a bit disappointing, in that the question of whether or not Misplaced Pages's policies justify the description of Mark Steyn as a "human rights activist" was the subject of an extensive discussion in 2011. The general consensus was that Steyn should not be described in such terms, his self-identification notwithstanding.

For the present claim, it should be sufficient to state that:

• Steyn's online biography is not a reliable source for any such claim, and
• while Jonathan Kay's editorial may be worthy of reference elsewhere in the article, it cannot be regarded as a reliable source in the present context (please refer to Misplaced Pages:Identifying reliable sources: "Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact.")

I do hope that common sense will prevail and that this matter can be resolved without another RFC and extended discussion. CJCurrie (talk) 02:53, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I really do hope that this can be settled without a lot of condescension as well. We have plenty of sources describing Steyn in these terms, the fact that he calls himself the same is both relevant and citable. Let's see the neutral sources disputing the claim please. μηδείς (talk) 03:02, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

There really are not any neutral sources that describe Steyn in that manner. This has been discussed numerous times before, and the consensus had been to not describe him as such. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 03:36, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

You write: "Let's see the neutral sources disputing the claim please." My response: This is an inversion of Misplaced Pages's policies. Anyone wishing to describe Steyn as a "human rights activist" needs to present a reliable source to that effect. In the absence of such a source, anyone may remove the claim -- regardless of whether a "reliable counter-source" can be found.

The fact that Mark Steyn believes himself to be a human rights activist is sufficient proof of the statement, "Mark Steyn believes himself to be a human rights activist." It is not sufficient for the claim that Steyn *is* a human rights activist.

The fact that Jonathan Kay belives Steyn to be a human rights activist is sufficient proof of the statement, "Jonathan Kay believes Mark Steyn to be a human rights activist." It is not sufficient for the claim that he is (relevant policy cited above).

As the claim is not properly sourced, it may be removed at any time. I have no doubt that uninvolved reviewers will reach the same conclusion. CJCurrie (talk) 03:34, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, the Australian ABC describes him as such. Odd how self identification seems more than enough for some, but not others.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 13:09, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

That is not the Australian Broadcasting Company describing him as such, that is a copy and paste bio for a panelist show. Come on now. Or do you think that is a news story? Dave Dial (talk) 15:48, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I missed the bit in WP:RS that said only major national dailys are acceptable sources. And AFAIK, this never went to RFC, just some extended discussion a while ago that ended in a weak consensus to exclude. In that time, more sources have begun to describe Steyn as a human rights activist. The debate is perfectly valid.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 04:46, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Why exactly are the sources verifying Steyn to be a human rights activist "unreliable"? You have Steyn's stated self-identification, several minority groups with political leanings sympathetic to Steyn have described him as such, a regional newspaper has described him as such, and a national current affairs show in Australia has at the very least not objected to such a description in his bio. That's beginning to be quite a number of people's opinions. It looks like you're relying on WP:REDFLAG, which is a bit of a stretch, IMO. Yeti Hunter (talk) 10:26, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

He's not a human rights activist, and people should cut this out. So what if he calls himself that? Anybody else who calls him that is wrong. I would want several neutral AAA-level sources -- the LA Times, the Economist, the New Yorker, sources of that ilk -- calling him that (and not as "self-described" or "has been described as" or that sort of thing but flat-out categorizing him as such) before I'd accept it. Because he's not. Of course anyone can say "Well, a really basic human right is the right to associate with whom you wish, for you to allow whom you wish to enter your business establishment or join your private club, to allow whom you wish to enter your neighborhood" and so forth. So then George Wallace and Strom Thurmond and P. W. Botha and so on are "human rights activists", and then of course we're in Humpty-Dumpty land. This is the sort of thing where people want to categorize Charlize Theron as an African-American entertainer and its on the borderlines of trolling. For goodness sakes let's use words and phrases in their established meaning and not what we wish they meant. Steyn's very accomplished and has plenty to crow about without adding false labels. Herostratus (talk) 00:44, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

• Exactamundo Dave Dial (talk) 00:52, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

OK, so major national news services are the only sources which we will believe. Glad we've established the ground rules. The Globe and Mail, the CBC and Sun News all describe him as a "free speech activist". And no, not the kind of absurd "free speech activist" you mention above. Please, no more flirting with Godwin's Law, I would rather settle this debate on merit, and amicably.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 03:28, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

"Free speech activist" is a whole nother kettle of fish from "human rights activist". That's something that we can discuss reasonably. We can look at those refs. We want to be careful in the lede to include characterizations that are pretty incontrovertible, as we usually do. He's a newspaper columnist/radio talking head with an emphasis on politics and coming from the right. I think most everyone would agree with that more or less, and that's a good way to introduce him to reader, rather than causing the reader (who, remember, has quite likely never heard of him) to confuse him with Nelson Mandela or Ghandi.

Whether he's a good guy or a bad guy I don't know, and that's probably best left to the reader. If we do a good job of outlining where he's coming from, I suppose the reader can make her own judgement. It's not really up to us to state "He's a good guy, a free speech activist, and that's what you really need to take away from this" or "He's a bad guy, a hate speech advocate, and that's what you really need to take away from this". For goodness sakes give the reader some credit. Now, down in the body, it'd be OK to say something like "Some have called him a free speech activist while others have called him a hate speech advocate ". That'd be useful for the reader in getting a handle on the totality of who he is and how he's seen and by whome. Does that seem reasonable? Herostratus (talk) 20:11, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

This topic is not complex. If someone puts in the article that Steyn is a "self-described flying nun" or a "self-described martial arts champion" (it does not matter what the title is) is POV pushing. That word "self-described" needs to have a reliable source attached to it otherwise it is the opinion of the wiki editor.--NazariyKaminski (talk) 21:46, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

"Human rights activist" is an umbrella term under which "free speech activist" falls. You are right that the former carries an implicit "good guy" message while the latter, strangely, does not. Presently the refs for HRA are limited to Steyn and sources roughly aligned to Steyn, while FSA is more widespread, including national newspapers certainly not of the "right". The three sources I mention above are quite matter-of-fact about it. Indeed, since the Macleans affair, free speech has become something of a cause célèbre for Steyn, and I do think such a characterisation belongs in the lead. That does not contravene NPOV in my opinion, while I concede "human rights activist" could be seen to. --Yeti Hunter (talk) 00:06, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Any objections to modifying the lead to this effect? --Yeti Hunter (talk) 00:40, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

"human rights activist" or "free speech activist"?

An editor is wanting to change the opening of the lede from "self-described human rights activist" to "human rights activist" and, failing that, to "free speech activist".

This has been discussed many times before, for instance in the thread immediately above, and here and here in 2010, and probably other places and times in the archives. That doesn't mean we can't discuss it again, but:

1. Editors are encouraged to use the talk page, per WP:BRD. Edit warring is not encouraged here, and edit summaries do not provide a good venue for reasoned discussion.
2. And, when going to the talk page as we are here, editors are encouraged to scan the prior discussions. This prevents talking in circles and going over the same ground multiple times.

OK. Now to the merits. To my mind, "free speech activist" would tend to describe people such as Saad Eddin Ibrahim and Shi Tao and Li Zhi and Zwelakhe Sisulu and so forth. It basically tends to denote people working in places, often dictatorship or authoritarian regimes, where speech, in particular political speech, is severely limited and the rule of law is weak, and are often working in personal danger of state power being used against them. That doesn't sound like Steyn's situation, to me.

It is true that the English phrase "human rights activist" could be have a different meaning than it does, if we were living in an alternate history. It is true that the words "human" and "rights" and "activist" could be defined separately and we could pretend that "human rights activist" isn't a discrete phrase with a historical context and particular meaning, if we wanted to pretend that. It is true that Jefferson Davis could be described as "property rights advocate" and Hitler could be described as "gene-pool optimization activist" and Bull Conner could be described as a "freedom-of-association activist" and so on. But so what? What does any of that have to do with anything, really, unless we're here to deliberately obfuscate and confuse the reader, which I don't think we are.

Steyn is who he is. I don't know too much about him and I'm sure he has many good qualities. It's not a service to the reader to cause the reader to confuse him with Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela and so forth, though. So let's not do that.

Of course, refs have a lot to do with this. It's a contentious question, and so we're looking for multiple AAA-level refs here. If the editor can point to the New York Times and the Economist and so on describing Steyn in these terms, straight out, then we can look at those refs. Let's see them first. Herostratus (talk) 02:19, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Ah so Godwin's law is invoked in the first post of the thread and we are expected to take seriously comparisons of Steyn to slave holders and mass murderers? That's downright creepy. μηδείς (talk) 02:42, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

After this last edit it is clear that Herostratus believes that his edit is the only possible edit that is allowed. He has to have the term "self-described" in the article, BLP and POV be damned. He is refusing to allow a compromise. There is no doubt that Steyn is a "free speech activist" and in that situation there is no need for Hero's editorializing in the article with the phrase "self-described". No one is comparing Steyn to King or Mandela so that is clearly just a red herring. However, Steyn has been loudly and constantly pushing Canada and the UK and US to a lesser extent to be more open from a freedom of speech point of view. Also, Hero's comments make one believe that only Hero can decide who can be called what and only Hero can decide which publications can be accepted to support the either phrase "free speech activist" or "human rights activist." Also, Hero believes it is perfectly fine to say that Steyn is not in King or Mandela's league (which is to objectively true) but Hero has no problem with making the false comparison that Steyn is in the same category as Davis, Conner, etc. This is a false choice of course. There is no need for Steyn to be in the same category as Li Zhi, for example, to meet the category or title. The former lead singer of the the Dead Kennedys, Jello Biafra, is not in Li Zhi's league by any stretch of the imagination but that does not mean that Biafra has not earned the title of "human rights activist". Steyn has spent years and years in and out of courts in Canada and the UK fighting oppressive laws that attempt to stop freedom of speech. He is now in court in the U.S. Steyn is actually superior to Biafra in many ways but for the purposes of this discussion Steyn has way, way, way more influence and reach than Biafra. Hero is being stubborn and refusing to accept the compromise where we do not refer to Steyn as a HRA but rather a FSA, which is objectively true. It would seem that Hero merely wants to stick with the title HRA (which seems to have a higher standard than FSA) for the simple reason that Hero wants the article to have the POV term "self-described" jammed into the article. Based upon Steyn's extensive court cases and fights with free speech oppressing governments in North Am and Europe the FSA title is easily (unquestionably) appropriate and there will be no need for Hero's comment (not reliably sourced comment) jammed into the article.--NazariyKaminski (talk) 02:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm not insisting on anything. I am saying that the article should stay in it's previous stable state until we have a chance to work this out, and you should stop reverting. For my own part, I'm happy with just "Canadian-born writer and conservative political commentator", period, end of sentence, for instance. I'm not going to negotiate while you're edit-warring, though. Calm down, relax, return the article to its previous stable state, let other editors join in and help us figure this out if any want to, and let's work this through together. Until you do that, we don't have a content dispute, we have a behavior problem, and that's handled differently. Herostratus (talk) 03:45, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I thought we worked out a stable compromise above. "Free speech activist" is extremely well sourced to national broadsheets. "Human rights activist" is generally limited to sources aligned with Steyn, or Steyn himself. Result: use the term used by the better sources. I'm a little annoyed that this issue has flared up again so soon after consensus was previously reached.--Yeti Hunter (talk) 08:08, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

So now we have a edit war

OK, so editors are determined to ignore the talk page and just revert. So now we have an edit war. Wheee!

I can't restore the original, previous-consensus-determined state of the the article again (that'd be WP:3RR! Blocky-blocky! Have to be careful about stuff like that! Better read up on all the WP:TLA's! I know -- let's have a contest: who can get the most people blocked first! It's kind of like Candyland, but without the chance of pulling a Lord Licorice card, I guess. Now this is how you build an encyclopedia, grasshopper!

What's the procedure for this? I'm a little rusty on this stuff. Are we supposed to go whine to WP:ANI or do we want to go straight to dispute resolution? Whose time to we most want to waste? Do I ask for another editor to restore the article's previous state per WP:BRD -- oh wait, that's tagteaming! Oh, snap! Do I just give up and make myself a sandwich maybe. Any ideas? Herostratus (talk) 03:36, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

There is long standing consensus to not describe Steyn as such. Also, the recent attempts on this Talk page have made no consensus to overturn the long standing consensus. So back to the way it was prior to recent attempts. No "rights" descriptions. Thanks. Dave Dial (talk) 03:54, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

There is no edit war. That is a figment of your imagination. What is going on here is that Hero wants the article stuck in its current state, for whatever reason (so he can make a comment with the phrase "self-described"). Also, the self-described wording has the support of those who refuse to call a Steyn an "rights" advocate of any kind. It is as simple as that.--NazariyKaminski (talk) 21:41, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I am curious whether Herostratus might be a sockpuppet or master of MilesMoney. We just went through this exact behaviour at Talk:Ayn Rand for weeks. Contempt for the article subject, and insistence on a specific version of the lead, insulting comparisons, rudeness to other editors who couldn't possibly be editting in good faith, and the immediate creation of a new thread on the talk page to distract from embarrassing points like the Hitler comparison on the previous one. μηδείς (talk) 22:48, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

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