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Your thoughts on this please

• WP:NONAZIS

Misplaced Pages is supposed to be (and usually is) a welcoming place, a broad church. Is it actually OK to carve out an exception for racists? In the current political climate there is a widespread misconception that because most racists are right-wing, so suppression of racism is anti-right (or pro-left) bias. What's your view on this, as we find ourselves right now? Guy (help! - typo?) 11:59, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Racists also hate black children skipping a grade because they are scared of black kids getting an advantage in life. They love inequality so they make sure black kids are labeled as “learning disabled” and segregated in separate classrooms for the rest of their school career. Why do you think African American children are more likely to be educated in a more restrictive environments? It’s not just a coincidence. It’s a social construct to make sure black people are always on the bottom. Everything was all set up. We definitely should make an exception for racists. Their views should be public knowledge so we can keep track of their racists opinions. Zoe1013 (talk) 13:15, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• User:Zoe1013—you are misusing the term "social construct". Webster's defines a "social construct" as "an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society". You aren't referring to an "idea". You are referring to a situation. Your reference is to an arrangement, not an idea. Bus stop (talk) 18:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I personally think a great many people should be shown the door. I find that essay very well balanced in terms of warning against unfounded claims of racism or using it as a stick to beat people up, while at the same time pointing out that certain behaviors are - and should be - very much unwelcome here.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 13:33, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, thank you. I had a feeling you might agree with it, I just needed to be sure. Of course I do too :-) Guy (help! - typo?) 14:34, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: First they came for the Nazis... How about Zionists next? Did God really give them that land or the United Nations, are Palestinians in concentration camps? Is criticism of Israel antisemetic. Where do these WP:THOUGHTCRIME end? If “racists” and Nazis don’t use reliable sources or follow policy, they get banned. Why are there Laws against Holocaust denial, what are they afraid of? Why don’t we block Trump supporters? We should be skeptical and open minded not WP:BIGOT! Raquel Baranow (talk) 14:08, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I literally have no idea what you're rambling on about, but I'm sure you'll be welcome on twitter, where such "discussion" is widely accepted. We are here to build an encyclopedia, not to engage in mindless battlegrounding. UPDATE: Having reviewed your edit history, I can only thank you for stepping in to give a real-world example of the sort of thing that I'm talking about. You've been wasting good people's time for years and my view is that your indefinite ban should have been made permanent - years ago.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 15:55, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

That is rather harsh and unbecoming. PackMecEng (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so. Review the edit history.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:12, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Please be more specific, I took a quick look and do not see anything requiring that kind of behavior. I am not terribly impressed by an unsupported "well they deserve it" kind of defense. PackMecEng (talk) 16:15, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Well here we go again, PackMecEng? Now you want Jimbo to waste his time on this editor as well? We all have better things that we can be doing if we want to improve our encyclopedia. Gandydancer (talk) 16:27, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

And yet, here you are. I don't know Grandydancer, I just hate seeing unsupported attacks on editors in good standing. You should too. PackMecEng (talk) 16:33, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, unsupported attacks on editors in good standing is not a good thing. However, pointing out that a longterm troublemaker continues to make trouble long term certainly is important. is a fine example, and there are many more, of this user wasting people's time and not being here to build an encyclopedia.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 18:12, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

They're displaying (with prominence) an anti-semitic cartoon on their user page under the heading "A few favorite photos & graphs" so take that for what you will, and most people will probably take it to mean exactly what they are dogwhistling.--Jorm (talk) 18:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Jorm—I'm looking under "A few favorite photos & graphs" but I am not finding any "anti-semitic cartoon". What are you referring to? Bus stop (talk) 21:43, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, I find it interesting that an editor who knows how to find Jimbo's talk page doesn't know how to view a page history before coming with a snipe. Jorm (talk) 21:47, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I can assure you that no "snipe" was intended and I haven't the foggiest idea what you're talking about. Bus stop (talk) 21:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm less worried about outright Nazis, and more concerned—and disappointed—by the enablers who can be counted on to reflexively defend long-term disruptive bigots as "editors in good standing", and who instead focus their effort on tone-policing people who try to deal with them. There's a good illustration of that phenomenon in this thread. MastCell  19:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

So you would take Nazis over people that disagree with the way you conduct yourself? Odd choice but there you go. PackMecEng (talk) 19:53, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Um, no. But that's essentially the choice you've made. In this case, you reflexively sided with an editor with a long history of disruption and thinly-veiled bigotry—whom you described as "an editor in good standing"—over the people who disagreed with her conduct. MastCell  20:07, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Ha if you say so. Always a laugh with you. I get the feeling my original assessment was closer to the mark. PackMecEng (talk) 20:10, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, yikes, a few clicks gets you to her website, which is full-on antisemitic. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:51, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Cullen328--I didn't know she was still around. I appreciate you doing what should have been done a while ago. Drmies (talk) 20:02, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

This is sad. Bob K31416 (talk) 03:42, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Apropos this discussion, if I could loosely paraphrase Alan Dershowitz, the key to defending free speech is defending the free speech of those with whom you disagree—defending free speech universally, across the board. Bus stop (talk) 07:18, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Except you know, that the Misplaced Pages is not the Government and thus not concerned with your bogus pleas to free speech. Valeince (talk) 19:49, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Correct Misplaced Pages is not the Government, it is a platform to build an encyclopedia. To do that effectively an open and honest debate must be possible. PackMecEng (talk) 19:59, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

If you find you time is spent well having an "open and honest debate" with racists and bigots, then fine with me. But it does not help with building this Misplaced Pages. Maybe on Conservopedia or something will be better served by that conversation. But here, there is no opinion worth considering from someone the subscribes to such hateful thinking.Valeince (talk) 23:37, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I think you should read over and consider Masem's point just below. He puts it better than I probably could. PackMecEng (talk) 23:55, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I have read it and disregarded as much as the last time Masen tried the "slippery slope" argument when it came to deleting userboxes that spouted bigoted ideals about same sex marriage. I don't need to listen to someone who likes to waste other's time defending white supremacists at length of every debate about it. Their opinions are widely known and are thankfully not in consensus with most other wikipedians. Valeince (talk) 00:01, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Ha. PackMecEng (talk) 00:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, Misplaced Pages is not an experiment in free speech. People have a right to hold opinions, but there is no right to express any specific opinion here, and policy has long favoured the exclusion of those who come here specifically to promote repugnant views. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:28, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

This has potential to be misused, though obviously it hasn't to the best of my knowledge. Clearly, someone comes on and openly admits association with the KKK, we're probably going to remove that person quickly, even if that person appears to be editing in good faith. But what organizations or ideologies/political beliefs can be considers racist or discriminatory is very much a sliding scale and particularly in the current climate, that scale can slip more and more. For example, Qanon, which while not directly involved with racist is oft-connected to that. Would we immediately block someone that asserts they are a Qanon member but otherwise acting in good faith? One could read this to say yes. And then if Qanon is such a case, how about a 4chan/Anonymous member? I could go on, and its a slippery slope argument but the point I hope is there. There should be a line here: we're talking about expressing one's involvement with organizations or ideologies directly founded on racist behaviors, not those that may be somewhat associated with them. I said it in regards to the userbox thing but it is better that editors are reminded that we really don't care about your political or ideological beliefs and that we judge you more on your editing behavior and this should be the ideal, but this type of essay/approach can make it potentially an issue if you express those. --Masem (t) 20:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm all for banning nazis, but focusing on the contributors instead of the content is likely to cause people to lie about whether they are nazis while they try to edit in as much of their POV as they can. We need a review system to address all the different kinds of bias. We can train new statistical models to locate diffs which may introduce such bias (call them "OBES"), and use systems like DoubleCheck to review them the same way we review vandalism. 107.77.165.47 (talk) 21:48, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

How could OBES ("objective bias" is an oxymoron, by the way, if that is what it is supposed to mean) scores do any better than meta:Research:Detox sentiment or any other kind of sentiment analysis? Do you propose asking Google to train bias sentiment models with GPT-3 amounts of parallel cycles? 107.77.165.30 (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

If the Foundation or a FANNG partner doesn't, will the encyclopedia resist the nazi and other biased onslaughts? 107.209.157.145 (talk) 23:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Google has already shown a firm commitment in very closely related areas. Microsoft, where one of the original ORES architects now works (and experienced with the Tay problem) and IBM, for example, might be better choices than Netflix, lacking NLP expertise, or Facebook, who are struggling with their own bias issues. 107.77.165.14 (talk) 03:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggest reading the policy WP:NPA, not just the title but the whole page. I think it's well written and has worthwhile advice. Bob K31416 (talk) 22:41, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I have significant concerns about this "No Nazis" essay, most importantly who is going to be the arbiter of who is racist. If someone puts a swastika on their userpage, they should of course be banned immediately, but I suspect this essay will be applied more often to editors accused of bias, and then you really have to be careful. Misplaced Pages's five pillars and its conduct and content policies can already be applied to racists, but they are more in line with the Misplaced Pages spirit of having a minimal number of principles and guidelines. To me, this "No Nazis" essays reads too much like a manifesto and it could lead to some kind of reverse racism or some kind of reverse inquisition. I don't like the idea of collaborating with racist editors either, but with an anonymous online project you have to be more practical and less idealistic than you would with a real-world company. Efcharisto (talk) 19:38, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean when you say "reverse racism"? MastCell  22:39, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, that is maybe not the best term. But I mean if you get too excited about applying the label racist, if you go after people who have said something that is somehow related to race and you just don't like it, it can become like a witch-hunt, and can become like the reverse of what racists have done to other groups of people in the past. Efcharisto (talk) 23:26, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

So you are afraid that you may be treated like minorities are treated?--Jorm (talk) 23:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Um, no. I am afraid that people who have done nothing wrong will be classified as racist and treated as if they have done something wrong. In analogy to people who have done nothing wrong being classified as minorities and treated as if they have done something wrong. Yes, I know it is not a perfect analogy. Efcharisto (talk) 23:59, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

" I am afraid that people who have done nothing wrong.... treated as if they have done something wrong" really sounds like you're afraid of being treated like a minority. I find this position curious. Jorm (talk) 00:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Is being a minority bad? PackMecEng (talk) 02:08, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Surely you jest. In many places of the world, being part of a minority demographic can lead to one's marginalization from society, either due to laws or due to hate from other people. Sometimes, being a minority means fearing for your safety when you are just minding your own business. So, in that sense, yes, being a minority is bad.

Concerning Efcharisto, you should probably drop the dog whistle. It's quite loud and annoying. Isabelle 02:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

You misunderstand my comment. What Jorm said make it sound like a negative to be a minority. PackMecEng (talk) 02:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I see Jorm's comment as calling out Efcharisto's usage of the "reverse racism" card, ie. being marginalized by the community for being who they are. But I'll drop this part of the discussion for now and just let Jorm explain what they meant, if they desire to do so. Isabelle 03:05, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Pretty much what Isabelle Belato said. Whenever I see "reverse racism," I hear "I am afraid that a minority will treat me like minorities are treated." Jorm (talk) 03:10, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know man, seems like a stretch. PackMecEng (talk) 03:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Isabelle Belato—Hi, nice to meet you. "Reverse racism", used by Efcharisto, might not have been the best term. I think a better term would be "misapplied racism". I would not presume to know why the terms "racism" and "racist" are tossed about so casually in 2020. But I think their definitions were much more clear at the time of the Civil rights movement and earlier. Therefore I would posit that the modern use of these terms may be slightly problematic. Bus stop (talk) 03:11, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I endorse Efcharisto's comment that "it can become like a witch-hunt". Whereas in the past the term "racist" had a sharp definition, in the present it is casually used and in my opinion often misapplied. Bus stop (talk) 02:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah so just for the record and for context here, and since this appeal to JW may have bearing on my own conduct despite this not being a noticeboard or anything like that (where I'd have been proactively notified...)—after a two-week-long, 90k-in-volume discussion about wording and details related to race on a particular article I observed, one time only, that User:Bus stop's edits and rhetorical behavior in that particular conversation formed a pattern of overt racism, in a very qualified comment explaining my basis for saying so.After which, as if to prove my point, they went and voiced their disagreement with the "No Nazis" essay and then went through and in a series of edits changed every single race-related detail in the lede of the article in contravention of the talk page discussion and of the status quo ante of the lede (as they'd already done repeatedly with individual details in the course of the discussion).So maybe there are places around here where this editor sees accusations of racism fired off promiscuously, but this is at least one bit of context for the former comment about such accusations being tossed about so casually in 2020 and the latter one endorsing fear of "witch-hunts" if there's too much opposition to racism: that their behavior was called racist once in a two-week-long 90k talk page discussion. (In which, by the way, they incessantly attempted to claim that Misplaced Pages merely identifying someone as white would be to accuse them of racism, but when presented repeatedly with a Fox News quote identifying subjects of the article as white would simply ignore it and refuse to comment on whether this meant that Fox News was declaring these persons to be racist—they weren't.)Sorry this has spilled over here, JW, and I hope I'm not abusing the open-door policy to provide this contextual note. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 17:09, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—when you say "extreme disparity of concern is itself overt and conscious racism" aren't you suggesting I'm a racist? Do I display "overt and conscious racism"? You are providing an example of how ridiculous language usage is in 2020. Had you made a similar statement at the time of the Civil rights movement such a statement would have real significance. But now its "meaning" is virtually nonexistent. The reason is obvious—I am not by any stretch of the imagination a "racist". This is emblematic of the current misuse of the term. Bus stop (talk) 17:32, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

​Yes. I unequivocally said that your behavior and speech in the course of trying to exert control over the mention of race in that article were overtly and consciously racist, for a host of reasons I will not reproduce here; people can follow your diff link and read the lengthy discussion and look at your edits in the article revision history.

As to whether that means as a person you are viscerally or irredeemably racist in essence, I refer you to Jay Smooth's classic essay on the subject on YouTube which is mentioned in the article about him. (The answer being no, it doesn't make you essentially or irredeemably racist, but that does not make it okay to do or say racist things either. Important tip: derailing a discussion of whether racism is bad into being all about yourself is also racist.)

Though I anticipate you will likely say that video is evidence that the blood of Númenor has thinned and the discourse about racism is at a nadir in the twenty-first century. In some measure I would agree with you in respect to the US, given that federal judicial nominees are not even expected to agree with Brown v. Board of Education; but for the most part I would say that discussion of race and racism in society at large is dramatically more descriptive and insightful than during the Civil Rights Era, which was only just beginning to deal with the crudest and most malicious manifestations of racism in society like the Alabama Democratic Party removing the phrase "White Supremacy" from its logo and a local government murdering civil rights activists and the respective state government refusing to prosecute the murders, and many crude and malicious manifestations of racism weren't even dealt with at all: real estate covenants attached to deeds which forbid Jews or non-whites from owning a home or living in a building are common across the country despite being ruled unenforceable in a 1948 SCOTUS decision, (meaning btw that many racial steering practices around real estate gained steam in the late twentieth century, after simply contractually excluding the wrong sorts of American citizens from real estate was no longer possible) but their prevalence still isn't even particularly well documented in 2020. It's not just unarmed black people being shot to death by police at a greatly disparate rate nor a president whose "racial views" article currently tops out at 250k, there's a whole lotta racism hidden in plain sight.

It is vital that societies and institutions all over the world combat the worldwide resurgence of racism and ultranationalism. Jewish emancipation on many axes in parts of Germany came a few short decades before the rise of Nazism, so the Civil Rights Era and other movements towards equal justice internationally being in our rear-view mirror is by no means any sort of guarantee that we can regard issues of racial and ethnic bigotry resolved. Hence, speaking to the topic of this talk page section, I whole-heartedly agree with editors saying that WP:NONAZIS should be a staunchly-held principle of Misplaced Pages and more broadly of all Wikimedia Foundation communities.

p.s. I like the name "Wikimedia Foundation" as it is.

p.p.s. It's awfully refreshing to participate in a discussion on the internet that is pre-Godwinned so that you can simply mention Nazis because it's relevant. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 19:58, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—please don't even raise questions here as to whether or not I am "viscerally or irredeemably racist in essence". Report me at Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. Please don't follow me around with farfetched and unsubstantiated accusations of racism. Bus stop (talk) 21:09, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I can certainly see why you would want to declare a blanket rule that whether you are racist cannot be questioned. However, what we're discussing right now on Mr. Wales's talk page—a subject you decided to dive into after I observed that your behavior was racist, not me—is whether racism ought to actually be proscribed by Misplaced Pages or Wikimedia policy.

To my knowledge the word does not even appear in any Misplaced Pages or Wikimedia policy or guideline at this point; until it does there does not seem to me a point in opening a report at ANI. Until then, your outrage at having your behavior accurately described and flamboyant adjectives deployed to assure readers that it's impossible for you to behave in a racist fashion are not a reason for me to refrain from doing so in an appropriate context: once, after weeks of repetition established a pattern, in an article talk page; and a few times here, in a policy discussion of racism, though only because you keep making comments that directly bear on your own behavior. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 22:02, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Unsupported personal accusations against an editor would be considered casting WP:ASPERSIONS and covered under WP:NPA. Best to comment on content, not on the contributor. PackMecEng (talk) 22:08, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you can't say things like "User:Bus stop's edits and rhetorical behavior in that particular conversation formed a pattern of overt racism". I'm not subject to your opinions. I didn't even respond to you when you first implied I was a racist on the Shooting of Breonna Taylor article's Talk page. You are entitled to your opinion. But I don't have to take your opinion seriously. You obviously feel I am a racist or I have said something racist—fine—enjoy your own opinion. I do not accept it. I do not even take it seriously. Maybe you, Struthious Bandersnatch, have a heightened sense of the value of your opinions. But from what I see of your finger pointing at me as an origin of racist positions on the "Shooting of Breonna Taylor" I can only assume you have reached some incorrect conclusions on the nature of race relations in America and on the way police operate. Do I think most police are racist? Far from it. Do I think police show up with the aim of harming black people? The statistics do not seem to support that. Bus stop (talk) 22:16, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

@PackMecEng: Yes, unsupported accusations would violate NPA. But I have put in my due diligence and by now have quite extensively supported what I am saying. If no one comments on racist behavior exhibited by the editors writing Misplaced Pages the racist behavior will persist and the thoroughly-documented racial bias on Misplaced Pages will continue to proliferate. This user is hardly the only origin of it.

What Mr. Wales has created is magnificent and epic and a legacy for the ages, but shot through with flaws. They are flaws that pervade all our societies, though, and if we choose to we can mend them.

@Bus stop: Having bypassed actually addressing any of the reasons why I have characterized your behavior as racist (great job answering your own rhetorical questions though) you appear to have progressed to the point where you're claiming that even if an accurate description can be made of your behavior as overtly racist, it cannot be said out loud. This is not so. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 22:51, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch—you have informed us that "all our societies" are "shot through with flaws". In what way? How are our societies flawed? And thank you for pinging me. Bus stop (talk) 22:57, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

​Dude. We are in the middle of a discussion about Nazism. In case you can't see all the things about American society I just linked to. These are some more rhetorical questions you might have done better to answer yourself—you are not really diverting attention from racist behavior by posing them here and now. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 23:14, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I am "not really diverting attention from racist behavior" because I have exhibited no "racist behavior", Struthious Bandersnatch. Please stop pretending that I have engaged in "racist behavior". And thank you again for pinging me. Bus stop (talk) 23:37, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

​So you were asking rhetorical questions you've now lost all interest in the answers to, but you were totally doing it for reasons other than diverting attention from racist behavior? Right, sorry, my mistake. It's amazing how much one of those things can look like the other. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 01:00, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for pinging me, Struthious Bandersnatch. You are showing us this essay's potential for abuse. What "racist behavior" are you referring to? You can't seem to understand that I've engaged in no "racist behavior". Bus stop (talk) 01:20, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - I condemn racism, not unlike most have in this discussion, but I certainly don't endorse identity politics and the improper labeling of racism under the pretense that, per JzG, "most racists are right-wing". That is just plain misinformation, and it wrongfully implies that the left has clean hands, which couldn't be further from the truth. Jimbo are you agreeing with JzG that "most racists are right-wing"?

1. Half of All Racists Are Left Wing, Political Psychology, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Jun., 1984), pp. 227-235 (9 pages), Published By: International Society of Political Psychology
2. Slate
3. IPS, Racists can be left-wing too: Like to think of yourself as liberal? Don’t congratulate yourself too quickly – your attitude might actually be hampering Muslims.

Jimbo your response to JzG needs clarity regarding his comment that "most racists are right-wing". It appears to me that he believes you agree with that statement. Again, is that true? _Talk 📧 00:08, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, there is no need to be defensive. "Most racists are right-wingers" does not equal "most right-wingers are racists," just as "most racists are Trump supporters" does not equal "most Trump supporters are racists." They just tolerate it in ways that Trump opposers do not. Whether that makes them racists or supporters of racists can be discussed, but it's either one or the other. It would naturally follow that most of those Trump supporters who refuse to support racists tend to stop supporting Trump.

BTW, I'm a liberal and confess to being a racist who is actively seeking to divorce myself from my racist upbringings in America, a basically racist nation, and am becoming more anti-racist all the time. I am suspicious of people who claim they are not racist. I suspect they don't understand how deepseated racism can be. -- Valjean (talk) 20:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Valjean—you refer to "America ... a basically racist nation". The reference is not accurate. America is not a particularly racist nation. The Civil rights movement was exceptionally effective. You say "I am suspicious of people who claim they are not racist. I suspect they don't understand how deepseated racism can be.". You need not be "suspicious". The vast majority of Americans couldn't care less what race anyone is. Ditto for sexual orientation, gender, religion, etc. Bus stop (talk) 20:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Either you are being sarcastic or you've made my point. -- Valjean (talk) 05:07, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Let me guess, you did a search for "liberal racism" and came up with these three articles? We can discount your first link because it's from 1984, which is hardly the current political climate. With respect to the other two, you're conflating the way Guy and Jimbo use "racism" in the posts above and the way those two articles are framing "racism".

Guy and Jimbo are defining racism as centered on individual acts, whereas the articles and anti-racists define it as our culture and a part of the way everyone in it is socialized. This latter way of thinking posits that everyone is racist because they've been socialized to be that way. Some of those racists will engage in overtly racist acts.

In this current political climate, in America, it's the far-right groups and members of the Republican party who are exhibiting the most racist acts. When Republicans and right-wing people elect a racist-in-chief (one who has historically engaged in racist acts, especially with respect to housing, and whose first instinct is to praise people who engage in racist acts), it's fair to say that they're A-OK with his racism.

Note that the only way Black lives will really matter is through identity politics. It's not a stretch to suggest that if you don't like identity politics, you're A-OK with the current state of white culture. You may denounce racist acts, but you're not denouncing our racist white culture. 2605:8D80:620:7BE9:E3E9:845:B5E3:5F84 (talk) 03:23, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Did you forget to login? PackMecEng (talk) 03:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

2605:8D80:620:7BE9:E3E9:845:B5E3:5F84—you say "Note that the only way Black lives will really matter is through identity politics." Why do you feel that "identity politics" is exceptionally important? Bus stop (talk) 03:39, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

"Yet this advisory body of well-meaning people is plagued by polarizing disagreements about the nature of anti-racism that undermine its ability to effect change." - Anti-racist Arguments Are Tearing People Apart, The Atlantic, highly recommended read. _Talk 📧 10:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I did not forget to log in. The Atlantic article doesn't have anything to do with the fact that the word "racist" was being used in two different ways above. Why do you highly recommend reading the Atlantic article?

Identity politics put the problems and issues related to historical and ongoing oppression of, in this case, Black people at the forefront. It names those problems and seeks to bring attention to them as a prelude to fixing them. I don't see how a problem can be fixed without identifying it first, which is why I say that identity politics are important. 2605:8D80:620:7BE9:3628:F101:4803:208C (talk) 15:19, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, feel free to point out any left-wing users who are advancing racist content, I will cheerfully wield the banhammer.

You should also be careful of using terms like "identity politics" - this term is generally used as a way to minimise the validity of actions to protect people against discrimination. The most successful example of identity politics in US history was probably the Civil Rights movement - most people agree that was a good thing, and the ones who don't have a tendency to turn out to be racists.

The problem in current US politics is very simple: any policy that bans racist, Islamophobic or any other form of hateful invective, tends to catch prominent right-wing figures. The fact that most of the rabble-rousing bigots are conservative is a problem of modern day conservatism, not some kind of sinister plot to silence "conservative voices". Can you imagine Reagan supporting Alex Jones, Patriot Prayer or the Proud Boys? Guy (help! - typo?) 15:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The problem with that is the identity politics today is not the same as the civil rights movement, you seem to be conflating them as if they were the same. It would be like that old like "well the KKK was a democrat organization" maybe at one time but things change. No one is arguing the civil rights movement wasn't a good thing, that is a straw man argument. What people are saying is terms like racist, bigot, homophobe, and nazi are thrown around so much as to start losing their meaning. Which is a huge disservice to actual marginalized people. The people over using and misusing those terms are just as bad as the people that those terms fit from what I can tell. Honestly I get tired of old white guys feeling the need to protect people like me, like I cannot take care of my god damn self. PackMecEng (talk) 16:25, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, it depends who you ask. The people who I encounter using the term tend to be trying to frame someone else's edits as advancing a non-neutral POV, as if there is no difference between, say, racial equality and black supremacy. I don't often see anyone use the term identity politics when discussing the actual issues, it tends to come more from the peanut gallery. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:35, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy, you write: "terms like "identity politics"... is generally used as a way to minimise the validity of actions to protect people against discrimination." Very true. The same can be said about Trump's anti-PC campaign, which has become a defining characteristic of Trump supporters. For them it is now okay to be openly racist again. Ridiculing opposition to racism as "political correctness" is used as a method to undermine all the progress against racism made over the last 70 or so years. It trivializes the importance of not using racist terms, practices, and thinking as mere "political correctness." No, those are seriously important changes that are necessary for a society to move away from racism and toward a more just society. Trump has succeeded in reviving open racism and violence, and he encourages it. His dog whistle politics is dangerous.

Racism is a defining factor of the extreme right-wing/fascists/Nazis. Is it possible to be left-wing and harbor racist views? To a limited degree, that is certainly possible, but not openly or blatantly. Becoming an active anti-racist is a process, one which is a defining aspect of left-wing ideology, not even remotely part of right-wing ideology. -- Valjean (talk) 16:29, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Valjean, it's certainly possible to be on the political left and be comfortable with racism when it advantages you (e.g. through redlining). But I have never seen a leftist use phrases like "go back where you came from". Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but I think that this kind of overt racism, rather than Peterson-style fondness for maintenance of historical privilege, is much more associated with the far right, as you say. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:38, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It isn't really relevant to anything, but I just wanted to chime in here to say that left-wing racism is not only possible, it is an actual thing. Here in the UK, there is a serious problem on the far-left with anti-semitism.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Adding to that and I touched on it above, was people feeling the need to try and protect me because of my background. Like without their help I could not make it because you know I'm just a woman or just an immigrant or Korean or in a STEM field. BS like that taints my accomplishments. Heck I have run huge engineering departments for giant defense contractors with close to a hundred degreed engineers under me and I would still get the you know she only got there because of such and such. It is infuriating. PackMecEng (talk) 16:59, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, I can only imagine. One thing that changed in my son between university and passing out at Sandhurst: male engineering students are very prone to exactly that kind of complaint about efforts to support and promote women in STEM, and the lad was disappointingly taken in by it, but having been through Sandhurst he is now much more supportive of efforts to remove prejudice against women. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:31, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It's gotten a lot better since I was in the thick of it. Stuff like you describe is part of the reason why. PackMecEng (talk) 19:38, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Any use of a one dimensional "left-right" political spectrum, even if only in analogy from which inferences are drawn, is only marginally better than deducing from a full-blown contradiction, because race and class are at least partially orthogonal. Many people are familiar with the libertarian "political compass," but its authoritarianism axis doesn't really correspond to race, while its economic axis does correspond at least partially to class. That means that there are at least three dimensions of political opinion. The total number of dimensions is probably less, but perhaps not as much less as almost everyone thinks, than the total number of issues upon which people disagree. There is a way out: anchor theory. 107.77.165.30 (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Why not emmantle minority working class and impoverished females on equal footing with white males instead of dismantling the white male hegemony? 107.209.157.145 (talk) 23:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Of gender, race, and class, I believe removing bias is difficult in about that order, but all and more are easily within reach with careful stewardship of future projects. 107.77.165.14 (talk) 03:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, you say that, and there may be at some level, but every time I ask any of my Jewish friends to explain what Labour has done that is antisemitic, they just point and say "it's obvious!" I'm not a Labour member (I'm a Lib-Dem, so my arse is permanently printed with the mark of a fence) but as far as I can see a good deal of that controversy was ginned up either by people on the centrist side of Labour, or by malicious external actors who deliberately interpret any support for Palestine as antisemitic. Corbyn, of course, has been a supporter of Palestinian autonomy for decades, he doesn't change his mind about things very often.

Left-wing racism as far as my reading goes is much more likely to be passive than active. The left are more likely to be marching against Nazis than calling for Blacks or Muslims to "go back home", but centrist and centre-left people are perfectly capable of NIMBYing with the best of them, especially when travellers set up next door. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:27, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy—my objection to the essay is solely based on the Left's misuse of language. The Left sees racists everywhere. And by the way, I am not troubled by the hypothetical presence of Nazis editing Misplaced Pages. We confer with reliable sources as concerns all content. I don't know the identity characteristics of an editor unless they tell me. I would not have the foggiest idea if an editor was black, white, gay, straight, Jewish, Catholic, male, female etc. Should someone be penalized for saying "I am a Nazi"? I don't think so. If they used a Talk page in violation of WP:FORUM they are vulnerable to being sanctioned. Bus stop (talk) 19:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy—we've come a long way from the language usage applicable at for instance the time of the Civil rights movement. This essay has the potential to be used like the Salem Witch Trials—point a finger of accusation and get your fellow editor blocked or banned. It is the slippery slope nature of the current broad application of the term "racism" to situations where it would not have been applied in the past that should concern us. Bus stop (talk) 16:36, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, on the other hand, when was the last time we cited “no Nazis” and a genuinely productive editor said “stop attacking me personally”? Nazis are bad. That’s just a fact. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:47, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, when has that essay every been brought up and a thoughtful and productive conversation ensued? I cannot think of any. PackMecEng (talk) 17:00, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, no, it's more likely to be part of a discussion of a block or ban. Which is fine. Block all Nazis, nothing of value is lost. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:32, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

To be fair, if someone is an out and out nazi or the like by all means ban them. The problem I see is when it is not a confirmed nazi or whatever kind of bigot. When it is accusations of someone's belief that they deny or take offense too then that is an issue. PackMecEng (talk) 19:36, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

We're here to build a credible unbiased encyclopedia according to the policies and guidelines, not to hunt Nazis, racists, etc. If an editor is to be blocked, it's because the editor is impeding the project. If an editor is a Nazi and makes useful contributions, that's a good thing. But if he harms the encyclopedia with disruption and edits contrary to policy, then block him. I can't imagine a banner on a Misplaced Pages user's page that says, "This user has been indefinitely blocked for being a Nazi." Bob K31416 (talk) 17:16, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I've lost the capacity to be shocked by anything said on this page, but congrats on coming close. Look, no reputable, credible project would ever accept neo-Nazis as employees or volunteers, no matter their skill set. So the idea that we should welcome and appreciate neo-Nazi editors and bigots, as long as they "make useful contributions", is bizarre. We don't expect editors to have "civil" collaborations with people who don't accept their right to exist, or their basic humanity—that would make a mockery of any adult definition of "civility". It might be time to take your moral compass in for a checkup. MastCell  17:37, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng (talk) 17:51, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

If Misplaced Pages existed in 1933 and there were Nazis writing Misplaced Pages articles about their racist beliefs, then maybe the rest of the world would have been wiser to their sinister plans and history would have been different. Efcharisto (talk) 17:55, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

MastCell, Unfortunately, your message seems to be almost entirely a personal attack. However, I did see one point worth considering re, "...'civil' collaborations with people who don't accept their right to exist...". This brings to mind the Israeli and Palestinian editors of articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:27, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Editors on Israeli-Palestinian articles may hold opinions about the governance of a specific disputed territory, but I disagree with your equation of those viewpoints with Naziism. (There have historically been a small number of extremist editors in the topic area, many of whom have been banned specifically for their extremism). More to the point, you won't tolerate even the mild discomfort of having your viewpoint questioned, without invoking "personal attacks"—yet you expect Jewish and non-White editors to tolerate and accept KKK members and neo-Nazis as colleagues here. That seems problematic to me. MastCell  19:12, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

That really comes off as a pot meet kettle kind of argument. I don't know if you realize that. PackMecEng (talk) 19:24, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

MastCell, I think your message is too much of a misrepresentation, and getting it straight would be an unending project. I hope things go well for you, but I'm disengaging from our discussion Bob K31416 (talk) 20:14, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Sure, ok. I mean, you did say that the project should accept and welcome neo-Nazis, as long as they make "useful contributions". In doing so, you implicitly attach little or no value to the discomfort that editors who are Jewish, non-white, LGBTQ—or who belong to any of the categories of humanity that neo-Nazis aim to erase from the face of the Earth—might feel at the prospect. And when your viewpoint was criticized as extremist, you complained of being personally attacked rather than responding substantively. None of that seems like a misrepresentation, but I'll listen if you choose to elaborate. MastCell  20:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a key point I raised in the MFD question those infoboxes. WP is not a "safe space" - for lack of a better term - nor has any policy for this (even attempts at the past have fallen through), though we will make sure editors are not the direct or specific target of discrimination or harassment from other editors. That is, if a Neo-Nazi comes on, edits in mainspace as expected, but clearly wears their Neo-Nazi status on their arm and treats those that have identified as minorities and other groups with clear hostility, which would include thrusting their Neo-Nazi status around like a badge of honor even if they aren't actively discriminating, that's a problem and we should deal with that, because that's harassment. But if that same editor mentions they are a Neo-Nazi on their userpage once, and then never again ever alludes to it, and otherwise editors within all expected behavior, there is no reason to remove that just because other editors feel uncomfortable or unwelcomed around them, as that creates a bad logical argument to start to remove other groups that have views that other users feel threatened by. In a completely unrelated area, this comment from a AE request highlights the potential we're talking about - telling editors that have views that may threaten other editors that they are not welcome here. This has never been the standard for WP, as we have always judged on contributions and not the editors themselves, but essays like this change that. We do want editors that may be coming with extreme views compared to the norm to be aware they shouldn't poke the situation, but as long as they don't do that (and one way is not to announce you have such views) then you'd be happily accepted.

By all means: let's have a policy against the use of hate speech and imagery in userspace - that's 100% valid. Let's have an explicit policy that users pushing strong amorla discriminatory views as a constant theme in their editing, particularly towards specific other editors, will likely see themselves banned (that's "contributions" we can judge.) But we absolutely should not be creating policy that bans editors because of pigeonholing them on what they are as an editor because it will make other editors feel uncomfortable. --Masem (t) 23:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, Regarding user pages, here's an excerpt from the guideline section WP:UPNOT, "In addition, there is broad agreement that you may not include in your user space material that is likely to bring the project into disrepute, or which is likely to give widespread offense (e.g. pro-pedophilia advocacy). Bob K31416 (talk) 00:03, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd personnally would like to see explicitly lists on that, as subjective calls on grey-lines can be highly divisive. Or at least list out the cases that no one would question, of which I'd think Nazi-related imagery would easily meet that (for user pages). --Masem (t) 01:53, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Anything from Tekashi 6ix9ine. Not even the child porn stuff, just like if someone has a scan of the back of one of the tags from his clothing line with a bar code on their user page. Or maybe even just the numbers 6 and 9 or roman numerals ⅵ and ⅸ anywhere, gotta watch how you style those ordered lists. Disrepute-ometer goes so far off the charts from the slightest whiff of that guy it explodes and it's, "Release the Wiki-hounds!" Curtains for that user.Can you imagine what his signature would look like if he was a Misplaced Pages user? Blecch. And come to think of it, given how he speaks and hence probably writes, maybe all anonymous IP vandals on every Wiki project are actually Tekashi 6ix9ine. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 03:12, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

MastCell—I fail to see it as Misplaced Pages's role to weed out so-called neo-nazis, racists, homophobes, those who are religiously intolerant, etc. There are no personal attacks permitted. (WP:NPA) We are not permitted to use article Talk pages to discuss matters not pertinent to improving the article. (WP:FORUM) We would not be able to cast aspersions on other editors. (WP:ASPERSIONS) The WP:NONAZIS essay can be misused. And it is unnecessary because existing policies can be deployed to address the issues you raise. Misplaced Pages does not need separate essays for various sorts of problems emanating from various points on the political spectrum. Bus stop (talk) 23:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, I get it. Neo-Nazis are to be welcomed as valued members of our community, as long as they mention their Nazi affiliations only once and don't, like, Nazi it up all the time. Because if neo-Nazis and KKK members are unwelcome here, then we'd be creating a "safe space"—which we absolutely must not do! Jimbo, you must be very proud of the culture you've created here. MastCell  23:33, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I can't think of any way to respond that won't be considered value signalling, and pre-2016 I would have felt silly for thinking I should say it out loud, but... I definitely consider weeding out neo-Nazis as part of my role as an administrator on WP. Whether they actually use the words "I believe in the murder or forced removal from my Homeland of other editors if they are Jews or Blacks or some other kind of undesirables", or they just say "I am a neo-Nazi", which is shorthand for the exact same thing, they get shown the door. If I have to choose between making this a safe space for Nazis and KKKers, or a safe space for their targets, I choose their targets. Second rule of holes: when you find yourself defending neo-Nazis because they might make good edits in the future, stop digging. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:38, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Then you must be doing a good job, Floquenbeam, because neo-nazis are extremely rare on Misplaced Pages. Let's be realistic about the presence of neo-nazis on Misplaced Pages—where are they? In the many years I've been here I've detected the presence of neo-nazis very rarely. This essay is a solution in search of a problem. Bus stop (talk) 23:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't keep track, but I've probably blocked somewhere between 2-4 dozen editors for being neo-nazi or racist or similar. The fact that you, personally, don't notice many neo-Nazis doesn't mean anything, just as your opinion (somewhere way up above, so I'm paraphrasing) that most Americans since the Civil Rights movement don't see color anymore doesn't mean anything. In a useful coincidence, I just this week watched my 5-person board of selectmen (4 old white men and 1 old white women) patiently explain to a bunch of people of color that they didn't need to pass any statement denouncing institutional racism, because there is no racism in this town (silly people of color, here's a pat on the head to calm you down so you stop imagining things). I say "useful" coincidence because I can call my board of selectmen a bunch of privileged airbags who unconsciously, instinctively side with racists over minorities every single fucking time, all the while pretending to be defending principle, and I can say that it would probably be better if they just left, because they are too close-minded to ever change. Whereas if I said that about fellow editors, I might get in trouble. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

"most Americans since the Civil Rights movement don't see color anymore" If I said that I stand corrected, Floquenbeam. Rephrased it would read: "Social norms have changed in America since the Civil rights movement." Bus stop (talk) 00:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It was actually "The vast majority of Americans couldn't care less what race anyone is. Ditto for sexual orientation, gender, religion, etc." I assume that sounds familiar and I don't need to dig thru the history to find a diff. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Floquenbeam—most Americans want healing. Most Americans are prepared to give up differences. Most Americans want to go the extra distance to bridge gaps. Do white Americans literally see black Americans? Yes. And vice-versa. Therefore I didn't imply, even paraphrased, that "most Americans since the Civil Rights movement don't see color anymore". Bus stop (talk) 00:47, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop: It's time to stop talking. It's very clear that you are only digging an even deeper hole. Jorm (talk) 00:55, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

No, Jorm, credit where credit is due. He caught me. I was trying to trick people into believing that he literally thought people of color were invisible. But he didn't fall for my clever trick. And he did it so slyly that others probably won't even notice that he didn't actually address anything of substance that I said. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:05, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Floquenbeam—I think we can have a civil discussion. I think white Americans and black Americans are keenly aware of one another's existence. But it is intentions that matter and intentions I'm referring to. I think the intention, or the inclination, of Americans in 2020 is to heal the racial divide. Someone said above that America is a racist nation. I don't know if that is true. Since the time of the Civil rights movement, social norms have changed and we should be aware of those changes—not only to race relations but to other areas. Bus stop (talk) 01:14, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Racism exists in every country or locale. Were I braver, I would have written "Racism in Ethiopia" (an actual article, not a redirect to an article that doesn't even mention Ethiopia) with reliable sources to back up every statement. And I would have spent all my Misplaced Pages time defending the article from people who knew nothing about the subject but thought they did & that I was being racist. So maybe I was smarter not to have written it, so I had the time to make more helpful contributions. -- llywrch (talk) 19:32, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Floquenbeam, re "I don't keep track, but I've probably blocked somewhere between 2-4 dozen editors for being neo-nazi or racist or similar." — Could you give an example from the 2–4 dozen? Bob K31416 (talk) 01:22, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You can go to my block log and ctrl-F for "Nazi" or "racism" or "racist" or "KKK" or "anti-semite" or "anti-semitic" or "islamophobia" or "bigotry" as well as I could, and that's how I'd identify them. If you go to the trouble of counting them, please let me know, I'm curious. I purposely chose a wide range because I didn't want to give anyone any gotcha material. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:31, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I looked at your block log and did an edit-find for Nazi. I found the keyword in 5 edit summaries. Although you referred to each editor as a Nazi, it looks like you blocked them for violating Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines, not for being Nazis. I presume that if those editors didn't violate Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines you would not have blocked them. Bob K31416 (talk) 04:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Bob K31416: If you search for "racism" or "racist", you will also see many blocks that were based solely on the user being a bigot. So when Floquenbeam says they blocked someone for being a bigot, then that's the main reason they were blocked. And I appreciate them for trying to keep this community rid of those kinds of people. Isabelle 13:33, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Isabelle Belato—Misplaced Pages in general and administrators in general exhibit no reluctancy in blocking for edits like this. (Block seeable here.) That was in 2017. I expended no effort searching for the earliest possible example. Even in the absence of the WP:NONAZIS essay, which was initiated in 2018, I think there is no reluctance to block for Nazism or racism. A social setting can have characteristics that are virtually intrinsic to it. This social setting does not tolerate Nazism or racism. That intolerance of Nazism or racism is an integral aspect of Misplaced Pages. That is why I question the "no nazis" essay. What is it trying to accomplish? What is its purpose? Bus stop (talk) 14:29, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop: As you say so yourself, it serves to show that at least a section of the community won't stand for bigotry. Even though it might not be an official policy, or even a guideline, it serves to tell a certain subset of people that they are not welcome here, and will be shown the door if they ever make their beliefs known. Isabelle 15:14, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

You say "a section of the community won't stand for bigotry". No, not "a section", but rather the whole community "won't stand for bigotry". This is a characteristic of Misplaced Pages. The refusal to tolerate bigotry permeates this community. For at least a dozen years and no doubt for Misplaced Pages's entire existence, there has been an unwritten rule that bigotry, racism, nazism—were not tolerated. This is part and parcel of who we are. Bus stop (talk) 15:26, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop: Although I've had a much better experience in here than on ptwiki related to pushing back bigotry, I avoid speaking in absolutes (insert Star Wars joke here). Also, some of the comments I've seen in here show me how privileged some people are, to the point they care more about following the policies to the letter instead of creating a welcoming environment: If an editor is a Nazi and makes useful contributions, that's a good thing.So, no, I don't think the entire community is against bigotry, racism or Nazism, but I'm glad they are in the minority. Isabelle 02:38, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Isabelle, Re "many blocks that were based solely on the user being a bigot" — If you are only looking at the edit summary to conclude that, I think you need to look at the discussion/edits that led up to the block to make that statement. However, it may help if you gave a specific example of such a block so we can see if it didn't involve the blocked editor's violation of Misplaced Pages guidelines and policies. Possibly, Floquenbeam's response to my previous message may clear this up. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps one example of what you're looking for is here; I blocked Zaostao for what they said on their user page (now deleted, but this ANI thread describes it). Nothing beyond the content of their user page was needed. Any further examples will have to be dug up by someone besides me. I seem to recall a spate of them around that time, but I have no recollection of how many of them I blocked, and how many were blocked by others. --Floquenbeam (talk) 15:37, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

If I understand what you are saying, your block was not based on Misplaced Pages policies or guidelines. Is that correct? Bob K31416 (talk) 00:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Careful Floquenbeam! He has set a cunning rhetorical trap for you to step into! Jorm (talk) 00:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I could probably interpret either WP:DISRUPT or WP:HARASS to fit the bill if I was trying to hide behind them, but I wasn't too terribly worried about doing so at the time, because, you know, he was a Nazi and all. I thought of it more as clearly making Misplaced Pages better. Sorry, I can see how this does seem like puffing my chest to Florida Army below. It started out as just expressing amazement that this was in any way controversial, but it has kind of morphed into semi-bragging. Which is dumb, because bragging about blocking Nazis is kind of like bragging about not punching random strangers. It's kind of just something humans expect of one another. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:44, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

User:Floquenbeam, Did the blocked user violate WP:DISRUPT and WP:HARASS to the extent that an indefinite block was justified? Bob K31416 (talk) 06:05, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

OMG if I had as much free time as you I would spend it finding less stupid ways to troll. --JBL (talk) 14:14, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

All of this sophistry about the wording involved in blocks is meaningless. If the words "racist" and "racism" do not appear in any Misplaced Pages or Wikimedia policy then of course they're also going to appear in a proportionally small percentage of discussions of conduct or blocking rationales, much less "Nazi" or "Nazism".I was going to follow the above sentence with something like "Only extreme outlier conduct issues that tread into the territory of the more anodyne policy that says, "We welcome editors of every race, religion, ethnic background, gender, sexual orientation, cis and trans and non-binary editors..." would tend to result in the mention of race at all" but I actually can't find a policy or other Misplaced Pages: namespace page that even says that. Maybe I saw something of that sort over at the WMF? But here we are in this discussion worrying that Nazis might not feel welcome enough. Damn. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 02:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch: I'm getting in trouble because I might hurt the feelings of bad-faith transphobes and/or refuse to get in fights with everyone who comes to my talk page looking for one. Everything is pointless and everything is going to be argued over. Jorm (talk) 02:00, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Is this a useful discussion? Newyorkbrad (talk) 01:43, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

In the sense that I'm learning a lot about some of my fellow editors, yes. In the sense that I'm a good enough debater to get someone to see the light? No, probably not (although I do note that just yesterday Bus Stop said this was not a racist country, and now he's saying he doesn't know if that's true, so maybe we're making incremental progress?). In the sense that I am using it as a procrastination tool to avoid serious work that has to be done tomorrow? Yes, definitely. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to read all of this discussion above, I just think that it is worth pointing out that Misplaced Pages:No Nazis is an essay, not a Misplaced Pages policy or guideline. I don't think anyone needs to worry about editors and admins, running amok, applying it to other editors in ideological battles. Essays are advisory, not mandates.

The times when I've seen NoNazis cited at ANI, the editor has been disruptive and grossly offensive and there are a number of actual, relevant policies that were applied to justify their block. Liz 02:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Liz, I think you made good points. Regarding the last one, in the discussion above I became aware of a discussion at ANI that resulted in an indefinite block for a user who put subtle antisemitic references on their user page. In discussing it in the above part of this talk section with the admin that blocked, it looked like the NoNazis principle rather than policy, was essentially used to justify the block. Bob K31416 (talk) 07:00, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I participated in that discussion. My feeling is that we should give editors the benefit of the doubt if they deny articulately that they are not for instance being antisemitic by the sort of User page content that was under discussion in the thread to which you link. Bus stop (talk) 17:12, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I would say that the most appropriate response to Nazis was written by the Dead Kennedys with their song Nazi Punks F Off, which was an expression of the Punk music scene as they learned that letting even one nazi in the door was one too many. https://www.lamag.com/culturefiles/l-punks-80s-90s-kept-neo-nazis-scene/ 2601:2C0:C300:B7:46B:2511:8AAE:C97B (talk) 03:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Correct link to song is https://en.wikipedia.org/Nazi_Punks_Fuck_Off but apparently it can't actually be linked due to a malfunctioning swear filter. 2601:2C0:C300:B7:46B:2511:8AAE:C97B (talk) 03:52, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Blocking

Re a blocking case discussed in several places here, in 2016 an editor Zaostao was blocked indefinitely after their user page was brought to the attention of ANI by Mathmensch. From beginning to block took 4 hours without Zaostao's input. Two years later in 2018, Mathmensch was blocked indefinitely. Bob K31416 (talk) 13:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Bigotry on Misplaced Pages

Excuse me if I intrude on this absurd and Orwellian discussion of bias and bigotry on Misplaced Pages initiated by a highly partisan editor who insists racism is a phenomenon of the right, while fellow Wikipedians puff their chests at helping to root out the Nazis (National Socialists). Meanwhile our coverage omits most African American politicians, many of their films, has glaringly distorted coverage of Catholic Conquistador history, and won't bear to include subjects like the leader of New Zealand militias that helped wipe out Maori protestors. I dare not mention that some of the commentors in this very discussion have threatened me with Wikiextermination if I ever again point out examples of Wikidiscrimination. In the meantime, here's a tiny sampling of the subjects omitted from Misplaced Pages:

• Draft:Mystery in Swing
• Draft:Ouanga (film)
• Draft:Leonard Anderson
• Draft:Gregory Mixon
• Draft:Reginald Fenderson
• Draft:Neva Peoples
• Draft:Independent Party (Florida)
• Regulators, Reconstruction era vigilantes
• Draft:Alfred N. Sack
• Draft:Temptation (1935 film)
• Draft:Charles Stapp
• Draft:Negro World (Knoxville)
• Draft:Downingtown Industrial and Agricultural School
• Draft:Fred Sulis
• Draft:Harry T. Moore Center
• Draft:John Clein
• Draft:George Wiltshire
• Draft:While Thousands Cheer
• Draft:African American cinema
• Draft:Zacariah D. Greene
• Draft:Monte Hawley

FloridaArmy (talk) 17:44, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I am tempted to say "Change the gramophone record, it's got stuck." You have been asked on numerous occasions not to accuse other editors of racism or bigotry if they turn down an articles for creation request.--♦IanMacM♦ 18:30, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with FloridaArmy that racism is not primarily a "phenomenon of the right" and I disagree with the assertion by JzG that "most racists are right-wing". Bus stop (talk) 18:38, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, I think that casual racism and racial bias is found everywhere, but in the West overt racism, of the "go back where you came from" variety is a phenomenon of the right, which is why social media bans on violent racist and Islamophobic rhetoric have notably hit prominent right-wing figures.

In India and South Africa, it's very different, in my experience, so you're right I should be clear that I do mean in the West.

I'm amused that FA goes with the "National Socialists" meme. The Nazis were socialist in the same way the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:49, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG, why don't you ask residents of the Upper East Side how that worked out when the city was going to merge schools? Sir Joseph 13:56, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, like I said, casual racism and racial bias is found everywhere, but in the West overt racism, of the "go back where you came from" variety is a phenomenon of the right. It's also noticeable that efforts to combat institutional racism mainly come from progressives. But things have been different at different times.

Of course left and right are relative; the Democratic Party in the US is centre-right or centre-left according to how you define it, so the fact that the current Congress is the most diverse ever despite there being only two Black Republicans (one of whom is retiring) could be attributed to the tolerance of the progressive centre. Political extremes are where extreme views lie, and yes, there are those on the extreme left who are racist, just as the extreme right is generally racist. Guy (help! - typo?) 15:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG, no, my point is that as our prior conversation showed you are ignorant of US politics and US customs. Your comments here just reinforces it. Sir Joseph 15:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, well, it showed that you believe me to be ignorant, but whatever. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:01, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe go back and read your comments about Pennsylvania you repeatedly made. Your claim that your ancestor fought here hundreds of years ago, and that you once worked here for a bit, doesn't make you an expert in US affairs. Sir Joseph 17:49, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Sir Joseph, feel free to point out where I said I was. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:24, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—you say "It's also noticeable that efforts to combat institutional racism mainly come from progressives." Are you talking about the year 2020? Or are you talking about the time of the Civil rights movement? Bus stop (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, present tense. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:01, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—there is little evidence that any "institutional racism" remains in the United States in 2020 but you are welcome to provide such evidence if you think it exists. Bus stop (talk) 19:12, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

wow. just... wow. Jorm (talk) 19:14, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, are you serious? There are entire books about it. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:14, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—the problem with the WP:NONAZIS essay is its sanctimoniousness. It amounts to virtue signalling. There is a related but bigger problem. It is alluded to by FloridaArmy when they say that racism is not primarily a phenomenon of the right. And it is alluded to by Atsme when they say I condemn racism, not unlike most have in this discussion, but I certainly don't endorse identity politics and the improper labeling of racism under the pretense that, per JzG, "most racists are right-wing". That is just plain misinformation, and it wrongfully implies that the left has clean hands, which couldn't be further from the truth. We've got to stop playing a linguistic version of sleight of hand. Nobody is defending Nazis. But the related but bigger problem, in my opinion, emanates from the Left. In 2020 in the United States the Left is in my opinion the number one vector of race baiting. In my opinion neo-nazis are a problem of secondary importance. Bus stop (talk) 19:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, maybe you can point me to articles on the active left-wing equivalents of Stormfront, Patriot Prayer and the KKK?

I have no idea at all what you mean by blaming the left for race-baiting, unless you're referring to BLM and Kaepernick? You're aware of the long tradition of the white-dominated establishment blaming racial tension on Black people for not protesting right, I take it? Guy (help! - typo?) 19:28, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bus stop: You claim that for Misplaced Pages's entire existence, there has been an unwritten rule that bigotry, racism, nazism—were not tolerated which WP:NONAZIS would obviously be the written version of even though you also say it's unnecessary, and you further say that your objection to the essay is solely based on the Left's misuse of language. So why don't you just go write the right version of an essay which condemns Nazism in the proper way conservative politics supposedly would, without supposedly playing a linguistic version of sleight of hand?After all you've detailed here in this talk page section about how it is part and parcel of who we are and intolerance of Nazism or racism is an integral aspect of Misplaced Pages and nobody is defending Nazis it seems like it should be a snap for you, you could probably just cut and paste some of that stuff.Compared to other commenters here I think I am less blithe about the twenty-first-century left being sufficiently opposed to all forms of anti-Semitism and I'd be quite happy to have a proper conservative condemnation of Nazism to cite alongside WP:NONAZIS. And being the Right written version of the unwritten rule you say is at the heart of Misplaced Pages, it surely would quickly become the more-cited version. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 20:20, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I think Bus stop is dead-on when he says that the No Nazis essay "amounts to virtue signalling". People are repeatedly being bombarded these days by news organizations, universities, and large corporations with propaganda about how big a problem racism is, and then unconsciously doing things to promote the agenda of these news organizations, universities, and large corporations. The reality is that, regardless of how big a problem racism is, there is absolutely no reason to have this "No Nazis" essay, since Misplaced Pages's other policies related to harassment, bigotry, and neutrality can be applied to racists and Nazis without any special considerations. The "No Nazis" essay provides no useful information about Misplaced Pages's policies or guidelines and is really just a manifesto of allegience to the news organizations, universities, and large corporations calling on people to do things to address racism. Efcharisto (talk) 21:48, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

So your position is "racism is an invention of the mainstream media" and that it's all a conspiracy of some kind to get people to to do the bidding of a university or something? Interesting. Please tell me more. Jorm (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, Efcharisto—like Jorm I am curious given what I was saying in the comment you are responding to, are you asserting something like "racism is bad, but no prohibition of it should be documented anywhere, even by people I agree with like Bus stop" or are you not even saying the "racism is bad" part?Edit: Also, what are Misplaced Pages's policies on bigotry? I see one essay and one "humorous essay" in the Misplaced Pages: namespace which contain the word "bigotry" but no policy nor guideline which do. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 22:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Racism is not a conspiracy of the mainstream media, but the mainstream media chooses to significantly amplify racism. Simple or simplistic statements like "racism is bad" or "racism is evil" are part of the propaganda that you get from news organizations, universites, and large corporations, so I am not going to endorse them. Racism is, like many things, is complicated and may be evil or bad or less bad depending on the context and the definition. If I am Greek, and I want to marry another Greek person, am I racist against non-Greeks? What is relevant for Misplaced Pages is harassment and neutrality, which may be motivated by racism or by many things. Here is the bigot essay: https://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Don%27t_be_a_WikiBigot. I guess it is an essay an not a policy or guideline. Efcharisto (talk) 22:34, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

"Simple or simplistic statements like "racism is bad" or "racism is evil" are part of the propaganda that you get from news organizations". Huh. So is it your position that racism is not bad? I jut want to be sure I understand your position and am not getting caught in translation issues. Jorm (talk) 22:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Uh—we're editing an encyclopedia here Efcharisto and on top of that, again, we are in the middle of a discussion of Nazism. Racism has turned out to be a conspiracy (being racist was the conspiracy, not that the racism was false... I'm not sure I can think of an actual documented conspiracy of the latter case offhand, come to think about it) and conspiracies have very often been provably racist throughout history.So yes, racism is complicated, but that is no rational justification to say that racism is not bad or that Misplaced Pages policies should not proscribe racism and other forms of bigotry explicitly—much less Nazism—particularly not upon the actually rather questionable and debatable premise of an edge case of the theoretical offense it might cause to a Wikipedian who expressed a personal preference for endogamy about themselves, when pressuring someone else like a relative or community member into endogamy is definitely bad and definitely racist and definitely bad racism.Saying that racism is not bad or that "racism is evil" is merely propaganda is—and I hesitate to apply this to a talk page discussion, but it fits—WP:UNDUE. When people throw that around about the content of an article I often end up pointing out that they probably mean something like WP:BALASP because UNDUE refers to things like fringe theories... but saying that racism isn't even bad, that it's an alternative lifestyle or something, is some swivel-eyed loon bullshit that belongs on the pile with "the Earth is flat" and believers in phlogiston theory. Except that I can envision Flat Earthers and phlogiston theorists being welcomed as Wikipedians as long as they follow the rules and don't edit disruptively; but unrepentant racists and other unrepentant bigots should be pitched out on their asses because the content of their fringe beliefs is intent of harm for other Wikipedians.To be honest, Efcharisto, you are writing like someone who has just never thought very much about racism. But it's nice to know, I guess, that it's not the Nazis or racists you're worried about endorsing here, but the organizations you're talking about who I assume are primarily made up of your fellow non-racist countrymen who might passively hurt the feelings of a hypothetical Greek person with an unalterable and inflexible preference for endogamy which that person feels compelled to advertise publicly. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 00:26, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

We are in a discussion about an essay which is titled "No Nazis", but which if you read it makes no distinction between Nazis and "others with somewhat-less-than-complimentary views on other races and ethnicities". If Misplaced Pages wants to ban the handful of 110 year olds who were actually members of the Nazi party and are still living, fine, but Misplaced Pages can do that without also banning random people that some administrator suspects have "somewhat-less-than-complimentary views on other races and ethnicities". Nazism and racism are not the same thing. Just like Stalinism and communism are not the same thing. How many editors would even be left if you banned all editors with "somewhat-less-than-complimentary views on other races and ethnicities"? Everyone has biases and preferences, the relevant question for Misplaced Pages is can they collaborate in a respectful manner and write articles from a neutral point of view. And do you seriously believe it is an "edge case" to express a personal preference for marriage within a particular culture or ethnicity? I think your edge needs to be moved a little bit. Efcharisto (talk) 01:57, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

You quite obviously already know this but are being disingenuous (though I'd maintain that, despite concealing some awareness for rhetorical purposes, you still write as someone who has not thought about racism much) but in our time torch-carrying Nazis march in the street openly, wearing swastikas and shouting "Jews will not replace us!" and "blood and soil!", a man who pretended to not know what the KKK was to avoid disavowing them on national television was still elected POTUS by (an electoral minority of) tens of millions of people, who do not even ask him to, say, not retweet things from people who make lists of Jews who work for CNN, and of course, recently the same President who loves to talk about television ratings was asked by a Fox News anchor if he would disavow white supremacy at the third most watched presidential debate in American history and again just couldn't think of any white supremacist groups. And that's pretty much just the highlights of the highlights of the highlights about only the United States.

Yet here you are arguing that any opposition to Nazism that could maybe be interpreted as being implied by Misplaced Pages policy definitely must not be written down anywhere, and that racism in general just really isn't so bad. You are very clearly placing yourself on the side of Nazism and racism: there are no fig leaves left at this point. If you haven't had one so far this should be your "Are we the baddies?" moment but I'm not holding out much hope. That clip was so much funnier twelve years ago.

No, I do not think that the danger of hurting the feelings of a hypothetical Greek person, with an unalterable and inflexible preference for endogamy which that person feels compelled to advertise publicly, is a catastrophic or dastardly thing which means that we have to be nice to racists and Nazis and not write down policies abhoring them and their pathetic, cowardly, and viciously infantile views.

The language in WP:NONAZIS is in fact not strong enough. The calm and neutral language it uses is what should actually be used in Misplaced Pages policy pages and essays—including any essay written with a politically-conservative bent, whatever that looks like, which might show up one fine day, after this ignominy and shame is extirpated by the good people left in conservative circles the world over—essays should be free to speak more realistically about how abhorrent and contemptible the people, behaviors, and views in question are. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 04:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think any of these articles are ready for mainspace yet. El Millo (talk) 19:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

• The fact that FloridaArmy continues to make subpar drafts is not a sign of systemic bias. Yes, we have systemic bias. Yes we need to improve our coverage in many areas. No, we can't do that by decreasing the standards of the encyclopedia. Some of Florida's drafts should get approved, yes. I think the bar at AfC has been too high, and that reviewers should be more willing to accept mediocore stuff. But many of Florida's drafts remain just bad: poorly sourced, hardly notable, mostly stubs. That is Florida's problem, not a systemic problem. CaptainEek ⚓ 21:01, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I think FloridaArmy is impressive. I had the good fortune to do extensive work on one of FA's articles and it was one of the best experiences I had on Misplaced Pages. Bob K31416 (talk) 02:46, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Bob K31416, yes, FA is fine as long as you never disagree with them. Guy (help! - typo?) 07:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy, Actually I did disagree with FloridaArmy, and it was on a thread that you were on in an archived section of this talk page. Bob K31416 (talk) 13:50, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• Gregory Mixon - I would approve the one on Gregory Mixon. If he can provide one more source for the last statement then great, if not it gets a template asking for citations. There is no doubt the extensive work that goes into getting a PhD in anything much less history. He is the author of at least two or three books, some have been independently reviewed, in a specific genre or subject that is relevant to the time we are living in now and have been for decades.

Leonard Anderson - This is a must approve. Leonard was so influential in the early years of television/cinema broadcasting, especially for people of color at that time. Probably would remove that he was white, only because it shouldn't matter, and clean up the article a little but the short films he did on African-American musicals alone are worthy to make him notable. We have to use common sense here people.

Alfred Sack - Same as Leonard. The articles are stubs. I think we can all agree they aren't going to get nominated for GA. That shouldn't be a reason to include or preclude. I have seen articles here that weren't much more than a sentence or two but the subject is notable.

Charles Stapp - Are you kidding me? Not notable? The article is not perfectly written. I get that but anyone doing independent searches can see that this individual is a notable figure in history, especially in regards to British military presence in New Zealand in the mid to late 1800's and as they relate to the indigenous peoples there.

That's just four I picked out randomly. There are some I would dismiss outright, especially those without any sources.--Tsistunagiska (talk) 13:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Anchor theory

Jimbo, do you have an opinion on the anchor theory referenced above? Is owning the libs ever the be-all, end-all? 107.242.121.54 (talk) 06:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd not seen that diagram before. Now I have. I don't think anything about my life is any better or worse than it was before. It's nonsense.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:21, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that your Wikipedian of the Year selection this year was in line with the recommended patch to that diagram, that instead of dismantling the white male upper class, we should elevate women of color. 107.242.121.45 (talk) 19:27, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Interviews with the British Prime Minister

Note: Mark F Anderton blocked as a sockpuppet of Brian K Horton; ChinaDaniel, BDM189 and Jacob Warburton checkuser-blocked.

Is it true that Misplaced Pages will not publish the opinions of the British Prime Minister if the source is an interview with the Daily Mail?-- User:Mark F Anderton

No, that is not true. It is true that the Daily Mail is not preferred as a source, but there is no absolute ban on using it. There are currently 16,730 links to the main Daily Mail website in Misplaced Pages (including talk pages, portals, articles, everything).--Jimbo Wales (talk) 16:46, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, without wishing to offend you, how sure are you that it is not true? Might you be mistaken? The quotation below doesn't seem to suggest it would be allowed. -- User:Mark F Anderton

From WP:RSP#Daily Mail The Daily Mail was deprecated in the 2017 RfC, and the decision was reaffirmed in the 2019 RfC. There is consensus that the Daily Mail (including its online version, MailOnline) is generally unreliable, and its use as a reference is generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist. As a result, the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability, nor should it be used as a source in articles. PackMecEng (talk) 16:48, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

That seems to be unambiguous. Do not use it as a source in articles. -- User:Mark F Anderton

No, it's generally prohibited and should not be used as a source—on a project with a potentially-superseding rule WP:IAR. If the Daily Mail really ended up as the sole available source for a particular opinion of the Prime Minister, and it did not appear to be fabricating anything on that particular occasion, I guess it could be used as a source. But the editor proposing it would obviously need to present quite alot of justification and context and some editorial consensus might need to develop agreeing with that justification and context. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 00:16, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

That wording is stronger than I had remembered, but Mark, I still don't think your blunt summary is quite accurate. The wording 'generally prohibited, especially when other more reliable sources exist' suggests that if the Prime Minister's opinion can only be sourced to the Daily Mail, there is room for a citation in some cases. I would add to that by saying that if the Prime Minister publishes a piece in the Daily Mail that is of encyclopedic significance, which is not at all unlikely, then it would certainly make sense to link to it there. Struthious's characterization of this as being about IAR is something that I do agree with.

The point of Misplaced Pages policy is not, and should never be, about dislike or politics or anything like that, but about quality. The Mail is a low quality source. This classic example of fake news has been online for 7 years. (Debunked: , , , .

Going back to the original inquiry, I do stand by my statement but would need to strengthen it. "No, that is not true. It is true that the Daily Mail is not preferred as a source, but there is no absolute ban on using it" is what I said. In light of the quoted statement, I would now say: "No, that is not true. It is true that the Daily Mail is generally prohibited as a source, but in Misplaced Pages terminology that does not mean an absolute ban. Exceptions to the general rule can and do exist, per WP:IAR as well as general common sense in specific circumstances."--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:17, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I can only say then that I remain unconvinced by your strenghtened statement. My sources seem to be in agreement with what has been said by others here. There would be no exception even in this scenario. And existing links are being removed on that basis.-- User:Mark F Anderton

Still, Jimbo, I'd be cautious to get an editor's hope up on something that all in all is a quite unlikely scenario. In the case an editor thinks a WP:IAR is warranted on a WP:DAILYMAIL issue, matters would often be initially (or would end up being ultimately) discussed at WP:RSN. In the dozens of such discussions I've followed there, I can't remember a single one where the IAR could be upheld. A currently open one can be found here. That's the kind of discussion one would be looking up to, to defend the IAR stance in a particular case going against the Daily Mail RfCs outcome. Zilch chance at success may, theoretically, be a too strong expression, but afaics that's a good approximation of reality. Anyhow, Boris Johnson may be so important, yet may have no other interviews in more reliable sources where he says the same as he does in the Daily Mail (really? ... and would that make the Daily Mail appear trustworthy?), that an exception may be warranted, but an editor wanting to make that case should be prepared to face some fierce (maybe rather: overwhelming) opposition. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:01, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Exclusive interviews are the mainstay of British newspaper publishing, especially the more in depth Sunday pieces. For obvious reasons, Johnson chooses the Mail on a regular basis.-- User:Mark F Anderton

Re. "For obvious reasons" – no, I'm not aware of any obvious reasons for that. Re. "Johnson chooses the Mail on a regular basis" – does he? I couldn't tell whether he does. Hence, I know even less whether he'd choose the Mail more regularly than other outlets, or even newspapers in general more often than other media outlets. Re. "Sunday pieces" – perhaps you'd be rather referring to The Mail on Sunday, which, currently, does not fall under WP:DAILYMAIL (there's a RSN discussion about that at WP:RSN#Can we please adapt the Daily Mail consensus to reflect a position on Mail on Sunday?, which has not yet come to a conclusion). So, currently, there does not seem to be a problem to use Boris Johnson's Sunday interviews (subject to what has been said below: Misplaced Pages is not in the habit of using content of primary sources, such as interviews, on a broad scale, unless when that content has already appeared in other reliable sources, in which case the primary source often becomes redundant too), at least not those published in The Mail on Sunday.

Is there any particular content, from a Boris Johnson interview, which you'd like to see included in Misplaced Pages, and for which an IAR on Misplaced Pages's sources-related guidance would be necessary? I mean, theoretical discussions aside, is there an actual issue which you'd like other editors to look at? --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

No specific examples. The idea it could be true is worrying enough though, no? As below, a metrification example exists, if a practical example is needed for discussion purposes. The obvious reasons are that the Mail is to Johnson what Fox is to Trump. Johnson feels confident enough in his majority that he can and indeed has declined to be interviewed by even the BBC. I do not see any indication there that the Sunday Mail is going to be treated any differently to the Daily Mail. Comments like "the same trash from the same sewer" seem pretty unambiguous, and in clear majority. If this is how Misplaced Pages is defining a primary source, and I was always taught that a journalist putting pen to paper makes it a secondary source, then the point is moot. I suspect it is not the case, unless the purpose of the ban is to say that person is not a journalist because they work for the Mail, which is not a newspaper. Which is basically the reasoning given in rejecting the metrification example. In which case, the interview is unusable no matter who repeats its contents. In other words, a ban, no exceptions.-- User:Mark F Anderton

Jimbo Wales, this is probably yet another sockpuppet of Brian K Horton (itself a possible sock of MickMacNee).

There are documented instances where the Mail has fabricated interviews. In the case where the Mail interviewed Boris, that would be a primary source anyway, so in order to demonstrate the significance of any particular statement we'd want a secondary source - exactly as we would if the article had been in the FT. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:21, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

This is seemingly regarding this although I can't find the actual diffs. Jimmy's answer is incorrect because the RFC is being used to justify the wholesale removal of the Daily Mail i.e. a de facto ban, not just a "not preferred". Frankly, this seems to be more of a moral crusade against the Mail than anything to do with improving the encyclopedia, since completely uncontroversial content is either being removed or replaced with {{cn}} (all from my watchlist today). SmartSE (talk) 11:04, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@SmartSE: it's also being used to remove some international newspapers en masse as references from this site. -Darouet (talk) 21:56, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo, you need to see the rating table at WP:RS/Perennial, if you haven't already. It has been managed primarily by the same few editors. In real life, it has been taken far more seriously than policy itself, despite it being an unvetted supplement to a guideline. Fox News and The Guardian published the downgrading of The Daily Mail. Fox News was also downgraded - the overseers of the perennial table added 3 sections to Fox News, but look at CNN, MSNBC, etc. which are handled entirely differently. It certainly gives the appearance of bias which is not a good look for Misplaced Pages. The Fox News "politics & science" downgrade attracted the attention of online media (of course it would). If an editor attempts to correct it for the sake of neutrality, the correction is reverted. Also keep in mind that these sources are being downgraded by editors who don't even watch/read the source. Imagine a New York Times book review by someone who never read the book, and didn't like the title. Does Twitter come to mind? Has that same style of social media mentality come to WP? If so, it's a new trend and it's not a good one for an academic source of "all knowledge". Fox News competitors had a field day with the downgrading of the most watched cable TV news network: CNN, Insider, Wired, this source quoted a WMF spokesperson: A spokesperson for the WikiMedia Foundation, the charitable organization that hosts Misplaced Pages, explained in part, "The outcome is a guideline for editors to use caution when citing Fox News on two subjects; for other subjects Fox News is generally considered reliable." That is not what happens. Right now, Fox News is providing information about Biden that none of the other networks are providing - after all NYTimes announced their support for Joe Biden, and well, I'm sure the obvious is obvious to you as well. It has hurt the neutrality of our project because this table is being used to skew our articles in favor of a particular POV. I was in the process of preparing something for VPP because it appears to me that WP:RS/P conflicts with WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NPOV. It would be nice to have your insight. Atsme 💬 📧 13:12, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, you keep banging this drum, but you consistently refuse to ac knowledge the fact, documented in multiple academic studies, that there is asymmetric polarisation in the media, due to asymmetric motivation among its consumers. Fox lost ad share when Breitbart was more loyal to Trump, so Fox became more loyal to Trump, and less accurate, and got back its share - and this can be traced very precisely using network analysis.

RSP is not "unvetted", it's a collection of internal notes about past discussions of individual sources in relation to a foundational policy, WP:RS. We have several areas where we record perennial subjects, it saves time and effort and helps with consistent outcomes.

The fact that Fox News is widely watched has exactly nothing to say about its reliability. At no point did a readership in the millions make the National Inquirer anything other than dross. Popular and reliable are two different things, and the Fox decision was based on multiple credibly documented instances of distortion and fabrication - exactly like the Daily Mail. I understand that you don't like this and you dispute the consensus that these fabrications are either fabrications or material, but that's Misplaced Pages: sometimes consensus goes against you. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:29, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG—do you mean the National Enquirer? When was it influential? In 2020? Bus stop (talk) 17:22, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bus stop, I am content with the current consensus re. Fox: it is unreliable for politics and science. We can't magically make climate change denial and conspiracy theories valid by deciding that a source that promotes them is reliable. I am equally opposed to use of Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Truthout, Alternet and the like. I wholeheartedly agree with Masem's comment elsewhere on this page: 90% of our problems would go away if we stopped trying to cover everything according to the current breaking news. We should favour analytical sources over commentary. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Fox News in 2020 is a better quality source than CNN, in my opinion. Bus stop (talk) 19:38, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Here we have The Guardian: "Goodbye civil rights: Amy Coney Barrett's America is a terrifying place". Give me a break. They write: "You’ve got to hand it to the Republicans really; they get things done. They don’t care about being called hypocrites. They don’t care about ignoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wish that she not be replaced until after the election." This is silly gibberish. But The Guardian writes it. Bus stop (talk) 19:47, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

To my comment elsewhere, nearly every single major newsource has thinned the line between its news and opinion desk, adopting the concept of opinionated reported that the AP started using "accountability journalism" where they do not feel the need to cover all sides of a conflict equally, and thus insert opinion and bias into their coverage. For them, this helps them to connect to their readers closer and keeps them in business against New Media (web-based and citizen journalism). From an RS stance, that's ok, that bias doesn't weaken the sources for us to pull out objective facts about a current event story, but it does mean that we should not be heavily relying on these sources to be the analysts and commentary for current stories because we know they are creating their own bias in contract to pre-2000 journalism. It's why we should wait for more academic/long-term review coverage to try to provide the more detailed commentary, at in terms of political and ideological bents. Of course, op-ed pages, like the Guardian article above, should still be considered very much different materials from typical news stories and we shouldn't use op-eds to judge the quality of these works. --Masem (t) 23:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly, Masem. They all do it, and just because one network's news bureau televises or publishes all significant views regarding a hot topic does not make them wrong - it makes their coverage thorough, which is what WP is supposed to be doing, not simply mirroring only those sources that agree with a particular POV. No news source is a high quality, peer reviewed scientific journal or equivalent, and all news sources should be used with caution regarding science and medicine. Reporting about political ideologies is opinion journalism, and that is how we should treat all sources across the board, and not single out Fox News because some of their political pundits happen to be conservatives. If that's what we're doing, then it needs to be done the same way across the board for all news sources - liberal and conservative. Don't forget, the only media that was spinning unverifiable speculation about Trump-Russia collusion for the past 4 years were sources that lean left - MSNBC, CNN, CBS & NBC, NYTimes, WaPo whereas the WSJ and Fox News were among the few that actually got the story right. That is why we should not shrink our pool of resources based on political biases, errors that were corrected which is what we expect of all reliable sources, or because they also reported opposing scientific views from scientists. We shouldn't trust any news source for inclusion of scientific material in our articles without corroborating the information while looking for higher quality sources to cite. We certainly don't have to agree with any political pundit, but facts are facts. There will be more facts surfacing in the political arena in the coming weeks. Surely we're not surprised that we're hearing nothing but crickets about the Hunter-Biden scandal from the same left leaning media that couldn't publish enough clickbait about Trump-Russia collusion. What else can we expect when RS like The NYTimes announce their endorsement of Biden for President? Atsme 💬 📧 01:42, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

And all leading scientific journals have also either denounced Trump in the 2020 presidential election and asked voters to not return him to office, or actually endorsed Biden—in some cases, the first political endorsement in the entire history of the journal. As Guy notes, reality has a well-known liberal bias. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 12:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bus stop:Not only is that Guardian opinion piece not silly gibberish, it's the kind of mild editorial criticism you'd expect to find among the Enemies of the People rather than a European publication like The Guardian: far more than "hypocrites", the combined installations of Gorsuch and Barrett mark senate Republicans as ignoring the part of the constitution which says the President appoints the members of the Supreme Court. It's an unconstitutional seizure of power of one branch of government by a faction of another. Article two specifies the Advice and Consent of the Senate on Presidential appointments, not that "the Senate gets to choose which Presidents appoint Supreme Court Justices and which ones don't."I hardly expect them to suffer any consequences for an unconstitutional seizure of power, much less any real criticism for it in the supposedly-left mainstream press (hint:the mainstream press is not on the left) but that doesn't change the fact that it's unconstitutional. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 12:48, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

The metrification example linked above is timely. Until I saw it with my own eyes, I would never have believed that Johnson telling the Mail in 2019 that post-Brexit, people "should not be prosecuted" for trading in Imperial units, it being their "ancient right" apparently, was somehow irrelevant to Misplaced Pages. Johnson's choice to put views like this only in the Mail, is political. A deliberate tactic. Whether he means to do it or not, he said it, on the record, to millions of people. He may have even succeeded in his political aims at that time, "getting Brexit done", simply because one half of the electorate were aware these were his views, and the other half may never have even known they were his views, much less had an opportunity to debunk them at a later date when the likely post-Brexit legal framework was clearer. All because someone at Misplaced Pages decided to ban them as either possible fake news (laughable) or irrelevant (indefensible). The motive of such things is clearly political, even if the people doing it probably don't really understand how politics works. Faithfully documenting the Prime Minister's on the record views is an apolitical act. To not do so, is highly questionable. Misplaced Pages should probably be carving out a specific exemption out of any future press bans it chooses to implement, for the sole purpose of where it prevents the documenting of on the record views of major political figures. If not, can it credibly explain why it does not?-- User:Mark F Anderton

What ever happened to being the sum of all human knowledge? Should we not be providing all significant views from a NPOV, including our choice of sources, and letting our readers decide for themselves? By censoring, we are being noncompliant with our own PAGs. Did WP adopt some of the views expressed by the social media giants who are controlling information, and "the way billions of us think, act, and live our lives"? I have not had an opportunity to fully investigate the claims about Biden that was recently published in the New York Post (considered generally unreliable at RS/P), but then, so was Buzz Feed (Pew Research Center found BuzzFeed to be the least trusted news source in America per RS/P) when the Trump-Russia dossier was published on WP, despite opposition over the fabricated claims/Russian disinformation, and the spin in our article that gave the dossier & Steele far more credibility than even RS were giving it in the beginning. At least the name was changed to Steele dossier but, depending on one's standards of what constitutes encyclopedic, it has since became a POV, unwieldy article that leaves much to be desired. Now we have Hunter-Biden bombshell that is being handled much differently. It would be nice to think editors have learned an important lesson about RECENTISM as a result of the Russian collusion theories, and all the speculation and fabricated claims that went with it - but that hasn't happened. Very little, if anything, is being handled neutrally across the board. This situation may require some serious thought from the WMF, provided such issues are within their scope. Having said that, let me be clear about my position in that I follow PAGs; therefore, if/when our PAGs are modified to accommodate a left leaning POV in lieu of NPOV, including the processes that determine "reliability of a source", then I will act accordingly, provided the goal continues to be getting the article right. My concern is over the conflicts that are created by trying to achieve accuracy and the sum of all knowledge without strict adherence to NPOV. And the latter is what creates all the dramah at AN/ANI/ArbCom. Just my few coins worth. Atsme 💬 📧 16:39, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, 90% of the needless drama is caused by people trying to keep Misplaced Pages up to the bleeding edge of the news cycle. If we placed an absolute moratorium on primary sources and sources less than one moth old, I think most of the other controls would be unnecessary.

As to the rest, well, reality has a well-known liberal bias. I know that's a joke, but it's funny because it has truthiness. Consider some signature questions that have become "left/right" issues:

• Did life on earth evolve over billions of years by natural selection?
• Is the Earth's climate changing due to human activity?
• Does free access to semi-automatic weapons increase the likelihood of mass shootings?
• Do tax cuts for the wealthy benefit all via "trickle down"?

The left also has problems with denial of reality (GMOs and vaccines, for example) but not to this extent and not to the point that denial of reality becomes a qualifying criterion and not as a causal factor. COVID has flushed out a whole lot of right wing antivaxers, but I have yet to see any left-wing climate change deniers. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Piers Corbyn -- Emir of Misplaced Pages (talk) 20:32, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Emir of Misplaced Pages, you are aware of the fallacy of misleading vividness, I take it? It's worth reading Merchants of Doubt if you're not up to speed on the denial machine. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:31, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessary restrict sources from being used for any period of time after publishing, but I certainly would restrict any commentary/etc. from said sources from being included in that period. But I think there's a wholly separate discussion that we need to help tame the "hyperreporting" that has become too common with many big news topics where we are literally reporting day-by-day events in a PROSELINE timeline (like many COVID pages) rather than focusing on the long-term narrative and story that will be actually .. educational? Dealing with commentary in that scheme is part of the problem and not isolated from it. --Masem (t) 23:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

+1. Atsme 💬 📧 01:56, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, one thing that would really improve matters is to reinforce the idea that sources should be reliable, independent and secondary. "X said Y, source, X saying Y" has always been a terrible idea, but is depressingly common if X is well known. Opinions are, after all, like arse holes, in that everybody has one, and merely being famous does not render them any more valid. Ins cience, you look for peer review and replication. That is how it should always be here. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Sadly, we tend to lack sourcing that generally summarizes responses and reactions to events and other matters. So we tend to want to construct our own. Which can be good in some cases: like we do this for films based on critics' reviews all the time, but that's because films are one-and-done and aren't ongoing things, making that summary just after the film's out easy to do. And I don't see this being a problem for current events if there's no such source that comes out to summarize --- but that should be done well after the event has calmed down and no longer in the news, after editors can do a fair survey of the sources, including being aware of what exists beyond the RSes to know what may not quite be covered by the limited body of RSes to make sure that we're not just painting a very limited picture, that we're not being overly selective on what subjective elements we pull, etc. Waiting for the event to be calmed down may reveal the event was a bunch of nothing in the larger picture and maybe we don't even need reactions to it. But editors tend to just race in with what they think is important as the event is going on and that's just where we get a lot of problems. There's a clear needed balance. --Masem (t) 21:29, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we are censoring. It's really important to understand the distinction between "censorship" and "sound editorial judgment". Refusing a source because we don't like it's political slant would be very bad, and I don't think we do that, and I don't think we should ever do that. Refusing a source because it's notoriously inflammatory and low quality, though. Bang on, we should do that quite vigorously.

Having said that, the proposal that "Misplaced Pages should probably be carving out a specific exemption out of any future press bans it chooses to implement, for the sole purpose of where it prevents the documenting of on the record views of major political figures" is one that I *almost* agree with. (I think terming refusing to use a notoriously low quality source as a 'press ban' is not really correct.) I think existing policy already handles that - if you really can't find any other source for a clearly encyclopedic claim, then IAR among other things would permit inclusion. As I noted at the outset of this thread, there are over 16,000 links to the Mail here already.

Your specific example, though, is not as compelling as I think you hope. Since no one serious ever suggested that people would be arrested for trading in Imperial units (particularly the beloved pint) the Prime Minister's claim wasn't particularly noteworthy either then or now. It just isn't a very important historical detail. (If I'm mistaken, then surely it will have been widely discussed in numerous sources?)--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:13, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Welp, I guess I'm replying to a blocked sockpuppet, but: Johnson's choice to put views like this only in the Mail, is political. A deliberate tactic. Whether he means to do it or not, he said it, on the record, to millions of people.—a rather glaringly important addendum here is that the practical half of the "political" deliberate tactic, which I think we can confidently say he means to do, is plausible deniability: by solely publicizing things through a conduit with a proven record of fabricating articles and interviews, if Johnson gets something gravely wrong or makes a miscalculation, he can ultimately claim "I didn't say that!" if he needs to.It's like Donald Trump pretending that, although he's got access to more resources than anyone else in the world that could verify every tiny aspect of his every communication—hey, it's just Twitter and it's just his direct-to-the-masses style—so that he can "accidentally" retweet Neo-Nazis and a video with someone shouting "White Power!" in it. (To tie this back to an above discussion in this talk page...) --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 07:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Does the Mail have a proven record of fabricating the words of a British Prime Minister? That sounds like an extraordinary allegation. At a certain point, people here ought to realise just how ridiculous they sound. If Johnson was ever forced to explain why, for example, his government's post-Brexit policy on Imperial units seems to contradict his 2019 interview, the only response to an answer of the form "Well, I didn't say that, they must have made it up" would frankly be laughter. And all the negative political consequences you would expect from even thinking he could get away with such idiocy. Not to mention that unlike Trump, Johnson has every incentive not to get on the bad side of the Mail, by for example, publicly calling their integrity into question. Johnson would actually appreciate the value in keeping the Mail on side, in the hopes that the government's apparent U-turn doesn't become either their front page headline or the subject of their editorial. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob Warburton (talk • contribs) 15:20, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

The indignant and clumsy protests that the Daily Mail must be taken seriously inspire a great deal of laughter here, but y'all just keep showing up anyways; I haven't gotten the impression that Johnson is really dissuaded by laughter very much, either. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:09, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Johnson will have likely mentioned it because he undoubtedly remembers the fuss that erupted when people were indeed arrested and taken to court for daring to trade in certain Imperial units after the EU had banned them. The great British pint having always been excepted of course, probably after another huge fuss. This will all be covered in some dusty book somewhere. I wouldn't worry about it, probably not important now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BDM189 (talk • contribs) 19:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Jimbo Wales, exactly. I initiated the discussion to deprecate Occupy Democrats for exactly that reason: it's dross. Low quality rabble-rousing sources are used mainly because people are trying to cover breaking news and current events, and our policies have always been in tension with that - the whole thing about RS and NPOV mitigates against being a newspaper, not least because that is something we explicitly are not.

Example: there fas fevered speculation in the right-wing media about Google "censoring" the "Great Barrington Declaration". It was already at the top of the Google results by the time I saw the comments ont he talk page, and Google said it just took a while for the brand new website to percolate up the results - because of course it did, the whole point of a clever search algorithm is precisely not to allow some SEO to drop a result in at the top of the list. There's no Google graph yet, either, because it's a new thing invented by some libertarian kooks just last week. By the time RS discussed it at all, the storm was over, but we still had great walls of text about censorship.

Same with the Biden "email scandal". New York Post, Breitbart and the like were so quick off the mark you'd almost think they had been given a couple of weeks of advanced warning to gett heir copy ready, but reliable sources rapidly caught up and pointed out that the entire thing stinks of month-old fish, and the underlying claims were well known to be false by the end of the impeachment hearings.

Doubtless if Joe Biden is elected, there will be breathless bullshit from HuffPo and the like about whoever the GOP run against him next time. And we'll dutifully ignore that as well. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I hate pulling out my NOTNEWS soapbox again, but nearly all the issues that I'm seeing in this discussion are related to the fact that our articles on current events include far too much political and media commentary (compared to facts and objective details) of current events for what an encyclopedia should be with articles written for long-term purposes. The complaints about source bias would go away if we weren't so focused on including media commentary on articles as early as we are in these events. (Bad sources, though, like DM, are still necessary to block from any sources). Current news sources are good to documents but as long as we continue to use their commentary as well, we will continue to find editors and outside groups butting heads on RS/P and other things, and rightfully so, because we should not be documenting their commentary unless it is actually part of the story. --Masem (t) 13:34, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Masem, it may theoretically be possible for me to agree more strongly with this, but only by violating the laws of physics as we know them. Guy (help! - typo?) 17:33, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy, you violate Boyle's Law all the time. Atsme 💬 📧 01:56, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, you may not be aware that Boyle's Law was based on experiments done by Robert Hooke, who was an "operator" for Boyle at Oxford and well known as the most diligent and precise experimental scientist of his time. Boyle's Law is an under-appreciated piece of the history of science since it's the first known example where expected results were tabulated alongside achieved results.

The fledgling Royal Society had to persuade Boyle to release Hooke to become its curator of experiments. And of course the motto that John Aubrey coined for the Royal Society would not be out of place on Misplaced Pages: nullius in verba.

All this is very much on point. The scientific revolution saw a complete change in the way the world was viewed. Aristotelians viewed quality of rhetoric as being the arbiter of truth, but the natural philosophers built a thing they called science (from the Latin scientia, knowledge), based on the idea that empirical verifiability was the last word. But the religious have never let go of the idea of belief as Truth™, and when fact (a loan word from law, first applied in its modern meaning by natural philosophers) conflicts with Truth™ they consider fact to be wrong. Hence the wars over creationism in schools, and the exceptionally successful suborning of that by big business to place facts like the link between smoking and cancer, CO₂ and climate change, and guns and death, in the context of religious / ideological Truth™, because the facts are financially inconvenient to them - and the left has exactly the same problem with GMO denialists, alt-meddlers and antivaxers.

That's why we should never cite think-tanks as sources, we should never cite tabloids, we should not cite popular media (Fox or MSNBC), and we should stick to analytical sources and in-depth investigative reporting that cites its sources. But in the mean time we have to push back the appalling tendency to try to document every event as the first chyron rolls, because that is a sure-fire way to be wrong a lot of the time. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:23, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

My reference to Boyle's Law was a little Irish humor in that, "You're a gas!" But since you're being somewhat philosophical, I'll indulge...

Archibald Hill ran on the track before breakfast every morning. It was fast and effortless some days but on other days he suffered "stiffness and fatigue”, and that aroused his curiosity. He started exploring his own desire to exercise. Eventually, it made him one of the world's best biophysicists.

He spent months sprinting around a track with colleagues, assessing their intake of oxygen and muscle exhaustion and its relation to stamina. He was looking for the ceiling - the point at which his oxygen consumption had no effect on his running ability. In forecasting his best run times around the track, his predictions were correct. Quoting him, “Our bodies are machines, whose energy expenditures may be closely measured.” His discovery earned him the Nobel Prize for Medicine.

There was just one problem - his calculations were accurate in the lab, but they were useless in forecasting real life competitions. You could take all the laboratory calculations and in theory decide who was best. In a controlled environment, there were times when predictions matched expectations. But the predictions weren’t consistent in actual races, particularly long, stressful, high-profile races. In some ways, that didn't make sense because subpar athletes could actually beat the top athletes. Uhm...think of it as high profile career politicians getting beat by a developer despite what the experts predicted.

When Hill was questioned about the usefulness of his calculations, he said, “To tell you the truth, we don't do it because it's helpful, but because it's amusing.”. Humans have limits, and Hill noticed them before anyone else. He discovered athletic success isn't about what you're capable of physically. In the context of risk & reward, it’s what one is capable of at any given moment, and what one’s brain is willing to endure. Human hearts and souls are what influence success in the real world in ways you can never imagine in the classroom or by reading books. Hill referred to it as 'moral considerations'.

My point being, that even when it all looks perfect on paper, be it the result of human trials or analysis, it doesn’t always work that way in real life. That’s what experience and the human condition teaches us. Your textbook knowledge is amazing, Guy - in fact it's brilliant - but predictions and one's beliefs don't always align with real life...and that is reality. I ran the media race for 35+ years, and I know the reality of what goes on behind the scenes, not what you read about - I know it like the back of my hand, and I see things that the average person doesn't see in a televised program. I tried to teach my kids, but they'd tell me to hush because I ruined the movie or program. That's why, as a media skeptic, (not unlike you being a science skeptic), I choose to corroborate and validate material and do not readily accept whatever the news media produces/publishes, especially in today's clickbait environment. Back in the day, it was rather difficult to get a story past the bureau chief/station manager/director of programming when we were doing analogue broadcasting via public airways, and/or printing our rags using ink & 4-color processing. The story better be right - the recording better be what they expected, or you lost your job. I know it well because I was an executive producer, and I was also a publisher, and I fired people. It is not like that today - our news is even more instantaneous than when I was doing field production for CNN Headline News. I saw it coming. Journalists today are opinion journalists. In the US, the laws changed to accommodate propaganda, and so did the process of recording, editing and televising/streaming. The rules have all but disappeared - unless you're under the thumb of the tech giants like FB, Twitter and YouTube or you have to protect a broadcast license, etc. Only the broadcast networks have to exercise far more caution because of FCC regulations - they could lose their broadcast license if they break the rules - but cable and pay-for programming are not subjected to those same rules. It's complicated. Atsme 💬 📧 21:09, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, real life and objective reality are very often not the same thing. Ask any creationist. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:04, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

And the emperor paraded proudly down the street wearing his new clothes. Atsme 💬 📧 15:00, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, rude. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:51, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

OMG, why is that rude, Guy? Atsme 💬 📧 21:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: re: "RSP is not "unvetted", it's a collection of internal notes about past discussions of individual sources in relation to a foundational policy, WP:RS." Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources is not a "foundational policy", it is a content guideline. Compare and contrast with WP:Civility, which as a policy which is one of the "five pillars" is a "foundational policy". Yet in spite of that editors can shout F*CK without consequences, because, "not censored", while the guideline forces an editor to get a consensus before they can cite the Mail and allows anyone expressing views supporting the Mail to have their microphone cut off on this page. – wbm1058 (talk) 20:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Wbm1058, it descends from V and NPOV though and clarifies what V means in context. It's existed since 2005, so longer than I have been on Misplaced Pages . I'm not aware it has ever been seirously challenged, and I am not aware of many other pages that have a similar history of consensus.

And no, not anyone expressing views supporting the Mail, just sockpuppets of a cuirrently active WP:LTA who is globally banned and globally blocked under multiple accounts. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:30, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: it is indeed incredible that content guidelines have created very strong obstacles to citing major papers, while core policies enforcing civility (and suggesting professionalism, I might add) are usually not enforced. -Darouet (talk) 21:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: Not really very incredible because citing "major" sources that fabricate articles and interviews has an effect—and a significant effect at that—on the end product, the freely-distributable encyclopedia, whereas civility, while I think it's inarguably a virtue, is at best an instrumental good in the pursuit of the other goals and the overall enterprise; even in WP:5P4 it's expressed as a "should" whereas the other pillars are stated descriptively rather than normatively. So it makes sense to me that—particularly since it's a fairly plastic and subjective concept—our systemic quality control on civility would have higher tolerance for variation.But of course, the place we happen to be discussing this is JW's user talk page, so I'd defer to him as slightly more authoritative than myself. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 07:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

You editors who are all raging at the plight of the Daily Mail—do you guys ever ask the Mail to not publish fake news, or issue retractions if they accidentally do so, or at least silently take down things like the seven-year fib JW pointed out? Because that might be more effective than simply begging at Misplaced Pages for there to be no consequences, citation-wise. Or not, I guess. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:09, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, the fixation on the Daily Mail in any case misses a fundamental point: we should not be using any tabloids. I know the general public bases their opinions on what they read in the tabloid press but you only have to look at the world around you to realise how that's working out. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:01, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch and JzG: I hate tabloids, both IRL and as sources on Misplaced Pages. I used a tabloid source here once, because they had a journalist embedded with a military unit and so provided the only coverage of some of that unit's engagements. If the usage of the source had been or were to be questioned by another editor, I'd defend the usage in that instance for the reason already stated above, but I would also understand the objection: tabloids are terrible sources. Most experienced editors and news consumers understand that if you were to ever make a case for deprecation, the best place to start would be The Daily Mail. But in the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., "Hard cases make bad law." Because we no longer merely hold The Daily Mail repugnant from an editorial point of view but have gone further to administratively prohibit its use via deprecation, we are now deprecating many non-tabloid newspapers in highly politicized discussions. The old system of editorial discussion and judgement worked well: the new system of deprecating newspapers does not. -Darouet (talk) 15:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Darouet, thirty years ago that might have made sense. Not now. Academic research shows that the right wing media bubble has become more partisan, more isolated, more homogeneous and less accurate, sharply so, due to an asymmetric polarising effect brought about by feedback loops. While mainstream media has a feedback loop that self-corrects, losing reputation and thus share if they are inaccurate and fail to self-correct, partisan media has a positive feedback effect where they lose share by being insufficiently loyal to the tribe. The rise of Breitbart, Daily Caller and the rest has effectively isolated the right-wing media from disconfirming fact, with opinion taken as Truth™. If you don't believe me, go and watch Shep Smith's show on Fox tomorrow.

We had a perfect example this week. The New York Post published a story so suspicious that their reporter refused to put his name to it; this was then picked up by the right-wing media, with Fox, the Washington Examiner and numerous other outlets repeating it as if it were true. Mainstream media, meanwhile, points out that the core claim (that Biden had Shokin fired to protect Burisma) has been known to be false since the impeachment hearings, and actually its falsity is evident from contemporaneous reports, most of which don't credit Biden at all but note a broad coalition for his removal including the EU, IMF, World Bank, and bipartisan support in the US (including Ron Johnson who seems right now to be trying to Benghazi it).

Now you could write this down as "us and them", but there's contemporaneous reporting that shows the claims to be false in the Financial Times from 2016, for example. And that's without the additional context that the FBI have been warning for a year that Giuliani is being used as a conduit by Russian intelligence, who tried a similar trick with Macron in 2016. But the conservative media is treating it as the triumhant return tour of Ben Ghazi and the Buttery Males.

As of this moment the Daily Mail is repeating Glann Greenwald, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, John Ratcliffe and other conservative pundits, but searching for Shokin over the last week on dailymail.co.uk finds only one story that challenges the conservative narrative (out of dozens), and even that frames it as Biden's DENIAL, in all-caps, and contetualises it very heavily as "well, some other folks thought the same thing, but all the same, BURISMA!!! eleventy.

That's not responsible journalism. It's propaganda. Responsible journalism looks like the New York Times piece which tracked down the reporter on the Post and found out why he would not put his name on it. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:05, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

​Small media-personality-musical-chairs note: Shepard Smith's show is now on CNBC, if I'm not mistaken. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Struthious Bandersnatch, very much my point. He was eminently watchable. Chris Wallace is pretty much the last significant respectable journalist at Fox. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:53, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

An international or Anglo-American encyclopedia in the context of conflict?

@Jimbo Wales: I'm not sure you're aware of the extent to which "deprecation" at WP:RSPSOURCES has dramatically transformed the manner in which we're now handling major international newspapers. Just a few years ago, sourcing issues were discussed at WP:RSN effectively and on a case-by-case basis: for instance RT's reliability was repeatedly judged conditional on the article and topic in question 2013, 2014, 2014, 2015. Now, in the context of what some international observers describe as a "new Cold War" between the US, the UK and both China and Russia , specific context no longer matters, and attribution has been replaced by exclusion: an extraordinary policy for a scholarly enterprise. Two official news sources of Russia, one of the world's three nuclear superpowers, are deprecated on the English-language Misplaced Pages , and a third contains a warning . Official news sources for China, the world's most populous country and the second of the three nuclear superpowers, are now either deprecated or contain a warning . China's nationalistic and hawkish Global Times was recently deprecated even though the main objection to it by editors was the political speech contained in its op-eds, which are carefully detailed in this excellent review by Foreign Policy magazine. FP summarizes: Since 2009, there has also been an English edition that shares editorial content with the Chinese flagship. It has earned attention — and notoriety — in China and abroad for its hawkish editorials and has been labeled by Western observers as “China’s Fox News.” Whereas we might previously have urged attribution of views (always a positive when describing the political positions of state newspapers, world leaders, or intelligence agencies), now the official print and broadcast voices of strategic rivals of the Anglo-American orbit are being shut out altogether. This is a sharp departure from previous practice on this site, and from the idea that Misplaced Pages is an international encyclopedia.

It's worthwhile to note that it's easy to remedy this problem while keeping WP:RSPSOURCES, by including categories for international papers that have partial or full state control, or nationalistic editorial lines, and should therefore be used with attribution. Furthermore, editors should be encouraged to think in beyond the binary categories of 1 (reliable) or 4 (deprecated): it should come as no surprise that this is difficult for our species in the context of political conflict. -Darouet (talk) 21:49, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I apologize @Jimbo Wales: I know you're a busy guy, but I do think the trend to deprecate the official newspapers of two of the world's three nuclear-armed superpowers will have a lasting and detrimental impact both inside and outside of our international encyclopedia. -Darouet (talk) 15:49, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: Do you seriously mourn the deprecation, earlier this year, of RT as something that will have a lasting and detrimental impact on our noble endeavor? Took long enough, I'd say: its editor-in-chief literally has an encrypted direct hard line to the Kremlin on her desk:

...on her desk sits an old yellow telephone, a government landline, the sort with no dial pad, the sort usually seen in the offices of senior Russian officials. It is her secure connection, she admits, directly to the Kremlin.

As the RfC discussion you link to points out, the problem is hardly just with their op-eds. Have you seen the crap they try to pull on social media with their Ruptly brand? I've seen people passing Ruptly feeds around without even realizing they're mainlining pure Russian government propaganda. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 17:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: with no prejudice against you as an editor here, I don't think your comment even begins to answer my concern, and I'd rather hear Jimbo Wales' view. -Darouet (talk) 19:33, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: As far as I can tell, Ruptly just posts raw videos of generally newsworthy events. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: They post what are presented as raw videos (hopefully that's true—I mean, it is a subsidiary of RT we're talking about here) and livestreams, to accumulate and obtain control of eyeballs during an ongoing news event, of what their crews walk around and point their cameras at. As we've seen with, for example, the videos disseminated through U.S. media and used by elected officials to justify dissolving the ACORN voter registration organization a decade ago, or in the “Cassette Scandal” in which audio recordings brought down the government of Leonid Kuchma, the second post-Soviet president of Ukraine, simply because a recording is genuine does not mean that it isn't propaganda, that it's journalistic, or that it's free from editorial influence (reality television, anyone?)I would say offhand that Ruptly should not be assumed to inherently have the same issues as RT, just because it's a subsidiary brand, but that if it's used as a source for Misplaced Pages the nature of the cited material and the alleged support in the source video should be the subject of very close scrutiny. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 02:01, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058, Darouet, and Atsme: The genius of Misplaced Pages is that they get to mark their own homework, up to and including reviewing internal decisions for the presence of bias. In their own words, "if the Daily Mail was going to sue Misplaced Pages, they would have done so long ago". in response to a fairly convincing internal complaint that printing "The Daily Mail has been noted for copyright violations" is a gross distortion of the facts, and a blatant misuse of sources. Nothing will be done, the complaint will be ignored, much like all previous complaints on that page. What more needs to be said? The potential for bias is clear and obvious. There is nothing Jimmy Wales or anyone else here can realistically say to deny it. I don't know why anyone who sees these things as clear and obvious breaches of basic ethics, even bother to engage in good faith. Do they like being made fools of?— Preceding unsigned comment added by ChinaDaniel (talk • contribs) 12:49, October 17, 2020 (UTC)

That's only correct if you consider "they" to include the entirety of Misplaced Pages, and that's a lot of people with a lot of different political opinions. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:03, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: leaving room for a possible Jimbo comment above, I'd be happy to discuss this issue with you here. I don't know how many governments on earth have close connections with their national presses, but I'm surprised that you think this is anomalous. I'm guessing you haven't read Hugh Wilford's excellent book "The Mighty Wurlitzer," published by Harvard University Press and documenting this very same phenomenon with some care in the US. In fact the very RT detail that you reference has its perfect analogue, as CBS had the same arrangement with the director of the CIA:

Many of the United States’s best-known newspapers cooperated with the CIA as a matter of policy. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, was a good friend of Allen Dulles and signed a secrecy agreement with the Agency, although he delegated liaison duties to subordinates so as to give himself plausible deniability. Under the terms of this arrangement, the Times provided at least ten CIA officers with cover as reporters or clerical staff in its foreign bureauss... Another eminent news executive on friendly terms with Dulless was William S. Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, whose news president, Sig Mickelson (later chief of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), was in such constant telephone contact with CIA headquarters that, tired of leaving his offices to use a payphone, he installed a private line that bypassed the CBS switchboard... A third mechanism for disseminating CIA-approved stories was the syndicated news service, with the Agency using existing organizations such as Associated Press and United Press International for this purpose...

My point is that we should anticipate that such relationships exist, and while that should influence our editorial policy, we are no longer acting as academics if we do more than describe geopolitical rivalries, and actually work to make Misplaced Pages a participant in them. Again, according to the metric you're proposing, all the official news services of Russia and China, two of the world's nuclear superpowers and between them accounting for over 1.5 billion people, cannot be used as sources on Misplaced Pages. Is that appropriate? What will be the long term consequences of that policy? -Darouet (talk) 20:04, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: You're talking about the McCarthyist-era U.S. press—a few years following when, for example, they simply didn't ever depict as in poor health the U.S. president who shortly thereafter died in office in the middle of WWII? Yeah, sure, deprecate them to varying degrees as well, as befits the source.Some sources, like Fox News, at least put in the leg work to maintain some level of plausible journalistic integrity despite their ideological stance. Others like the Daily Mail and RT do not.Yes, it's appropriate to prefer secondary reporting from reliable sources that read the press releases and government white papers of Russia, China, and other states which can't get their shit together to front minimally non-mendacious puppet journalism outfits, rather than have lax standards and accept inaccuracy and deception for the sake of more direct inclusion of freshly steaming state propaganda which in reality ought to be contraindicated for encyclopedia sourcing, or whatever you're arguing for. The long term consequences will be a better encyclopedia, whose readers if we are lucky will be able to anticipate it before their head of state drops dead in office. No guarantees, sadly. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 23:14, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: Major American news outlets cultivate contacts in government, and often run important stories by the government. When the New York Times was considering revealing George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program, they first discussed their story with the administration. On the Bush administration's request, they then indefinitely withheld the story. They only published a year later, when the reporter who had uncovered the story (James Risen) told the NY Times that he planned to publish it in his own book. But before publishing the story, the NY Times again negotiated with the Bush administration about how the story would be presented. Of course, in 2002-2003, we all remember how the newspaper of record covered itself in glory with its reporting on Iraqi WMD. The NY Times, and many other major American news outlets, have strong connections with the US government, and both what they decide to cover and the accuracy of their coverage has been influenced by that relationship in some very high-impact stories. This does not mean that we should deprecate the NY Times, but it does mean that we should not narrow down the list of allowable sources to those that reside in states allied with the United States - which is what we appear to be moving towards. Some of the recent decisions are very concerning, such as the downgrading of TASS and Xinhua, which contain much more detailed reporting on their respective regions than Western media, and which are generally reliable. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Certainly, I do not object to sources if they really actually are generally reliable. But we're talking about organizations operating in media environments descended from circumstances such as, for example, in Russia during the Soviet Union and briefly afterwards, one of the main news sources of the nation was literally actually published by the Communist Party, some individuals and organizations were even required to subscribe to it by law, in its title it was billed as Template:Lang-ru, it had no interest whatsoever in what we would regard as reliability, verifiability, or even pretending to have a neutral point of view, direct pervasive and invasive state censorship touched everything down to erasing individual people by doctoring images for political purposes, and this was all perfectly conventional and run-of-the-mill journalism and news reporting.Unfortunately, that kind of thing has had real and lasting effects on practices, expectations, and the role of the press in society in many parts of the world. In twenty-first-century Russia journalist are constantly assassinated by the government and the same government simply takes over newspaper and television stations whenever it feels like it, undoubtedly leading to self-censorship on the part of the remaining nominally-independent sources (on top of the regular explicit government censorship, the non-explicit government censorship, and the fact that the whole situation is so tense and threatening that diktats explicitly accompanied by claims that there's no banning or censorship can't really be taken seriously as authorizing anything—“please leave the children in peace!”).No, Western media outlets are hardly beyond criticism, but there is a real and substantial difference here which breathlessly talking about nuclear weapons does not do away with. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 02:01, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I recall the Australian federal police raiding ABC recently, because ABC had run articles about the Australian government's actions in Afghanistan: . I also recall the British government threatening to close down the Guardian over its publications about spying, and then sending in intelligence agents to oversee the Guardian's (semi-forced) destruction of hard drives containing leaked documents detailing spying by GCHQ and the NSA: . There are matters of degree, of course, but the governments of "approved" countries can and do exert heavy influence on media outlets under their jurisdiction. The Australian government's raid on ABC will make any Australian journalist think twice before publishing Australian government secrets in the future. The answer to these problems is not to impose blanket bans on media from entire countries. The trend to deprecate media specifically from a certain set of countries viewed as antagonistic to the US will cause systemic bias in Misplaced Pages.

If we were to have this same discussion in 2002-2003, I'm certain that much of the community would be arguing that we should disregard outlets that went against the general view of major media in the US (including most of the outlets we consider highly reliable) - namely, that Iraq almost certainly possessed WMD and was hindering inspections. Foreign media from "adversarial" states that questioned this narrative would be pooh-poohed.

We need a world-wide perspective. If we're at the point where usage of South China Morning Post has to be justified, and in which many editors are arguing for downgrading its reporting, then something is seriously wrong. Frankly, I would trust SCMP's reporting on China any day of the week above reporting from leading American newspapers. SCMP has a very good track record, and is much more connected to China, and covers a much wider range of stories than, say, the NY Times. Yet, because SCMP is in Hong Kong, it's under suspicion now. I gave TASS and Xinhua as examples, above, because they are sources that in most circumstances are highly reliable (they're wire services that contain mostly straight factual reporting, similar to Reuters/AP/AFP). The move to restrict their usage is mostly based on political arguments about which countries are good or bad, rather than whether or not these particular news outlets have a history of fabrication. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:49, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Yes, jingoism is bad and detracts from the credibility of a source on war reporting—and moreover is an even more salient moral issue than your average journalistic/editorial decision because a news organization's war correspondents are risking their lives to obtain the coverage, but the organization is diluting the value of that coverage with their half-assed and sycophantic editorial stances.

I was never particularly thrilled by the idea of government secrecy laws and I am even less impressed with them in 2020, where the default assumption is that a government can spy on its own citizens as much as it wants—perhaps with the extremely inadequate fig leaf of a “private” company acting as a cutout—and foreign adversaries are pretty much expected to know everything already, and the secrecy laws seem primarily designed for keeping the nation's own citizens in the dark. Still, though, just not the same thing as government assassination of journalists and the rest.

Hey, if the SCMP is trustworthy, I'm content to take your word on it; I haven't done an in-depth evaluation myself but the handful of articles I've cited or verified have certainly appeared much more journalistic, objective, and credible than something like the Global Times or Ta Kung Pao, despite the latter's venerable status as an HK and Chinese institution.

Xinhua I similarly am not aware of any specific complaints about, and I like the fact that they and their subsidiaries don't seem to screw around with too many complicated technological schemes to try to prevent you from downloading streamed video to file as most Western news outfits, and many ones in places such as India or Singapore or Japan, try to do. TASS I'm a bit more skeptical of—not because of anything having to do with Russia, actually, but because I've seen them serve as a not-particularly-inquisitive conduit for American officials visiting Russia to make announcements through. That's not their wheelhouse, though, and you're right that they're on the wire service end of the spectrum anyway, so they really shouldn't be faulted for it; and while they had some problems in the twentieth century, I haven't taken a thorough look in this century yet.

Our interaction in this talk page section, though, did not begin with SCMP, Xinhua, and TASS, nor is the rest of the discussion all about them; it began with Ruptly, as a social-media-focused subsidiary of RT. Stuff like the constant government assassination of journalists in some places, direct government censorship and editorial influence, and other pressures that even result in self-censorship, are a real and material difference. And while a source should not be deprecated by national association with those things alone, nor should indirect influence elsewhere from less repressive, more ostensibly freedom-of-the-press-oriented governments be ignored, these genuine differences should be taken into account, especially when there's documented evidence of failures in reliability, verifiability, or other aspects of journalistic integrity. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 01:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Ruptly just posts raw videos, as I said before. I can't think of any circumstances in which a raw video with zero commentary would be used as a reference on Misplaced Pages, so there's no point in discussing Ruptly. Russia has a large number of very good journalistic outlets, and it would be a real problem if Misplaced Pages policy were to deprecate them on purely theoretical grounds. However, I think that this is the direction we are headed in. I have argued with editors who think we should deprecate virtually every Chinese source, simply because they're in China. I know of at least a few high quality Chinese sources that would be ruled out in this way (such as Caixin and Sixth Tone). Even sources that appear to be mistrusted because of their editorials, such as Global Times, still do reliable reporting on all sorts of mundane subjects. A lot of information about China is simply not covered in Western media - one recent example I was involved in was the Changxing railway station, which was nominated for deletion after the Global Times article that covers it was removed. This trend does not just affect sources from countries like China and Russia. Several months ago, I inserted information into the article Julian Assange about a public letter written on his behalf by a large number of highly prominent politicians, journalists and cultural figures in Germany, including a former Vice-Chancellor (and head of one of the two major parties), the most famous investigative reporter in Germany, and several members of the Bundestag. Some editors were extremely dismissive of this story, because it came from Germany. One admin, who shall go unnamed here, even referred to "Assange cultists" and "useful idiots" in the RfC on including mention of the letter. Another editor compared the prominent Germans to Eddie the Eagle. We're really at risk of entering an Anglo-American bubble here. The condescending attitude towards sources from outside the Anglo-American sphere and the undifferentiated deprecation of sources from "adversarial" (from the point of view of the US, of course) countries like Russia and China is a problem. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:20, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: Well, I would unquestionably oppose blocking all Chinese or all Russian sources—that's one thing we can certainly agree on.Is the problem with the Global Times really just with their editorials, though? Just to pick this story off the the front page they're showing me right now, the proof it offers of Guo Wengui being a criminal isn't links to other coverage of their own on him or details of any domestic Chinese prosecution of him, but simply the mention that he's got Interpol red notices out against him, without also mentioning the many problems with the use of Interpol red notices documented in our article on them.Guo seems like quite the shady guy to me based on other stuff I know, though I'm unaware of the basis for the kidnapping and rape charges our article on him mentions (cited to this Metro article and a paywalled WSJ article; the Global Times article does not mention kidnapping or rape and seems to imply it's all about corruption), and he's being held up in that article as an example of the US becoming a the haven of criminals as a Chinese official puts it, but this seems like a rather weak and non-journalistic indictment. My impression has very much been that the Global Times's problems run deeper than their editorials. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 02:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

The article doesn't call Guo Wengui a "criminal", but rather a "fugitive". The "haven of criminals" quote is from a Chinese official, and it is attributed in the article. The tone of this article is a bit aggressive and nationalistic, and I would say that at some points it borders on editorial, but it also doesn't fabricate any information (as far as I can see). If there were a Misplaced Pages article on this subject, it would be important to include references that present the views of Chinese officials, which we could include with proper attribution. If we stick to major American outlets, there is a significant risk that we will not hear those views, but rather that the article will be slanted in the other direction, towards the views of American officials. American media has its own problems with bias when it comes to "adversaries" of the United States, and I would not automatically assume that outlets like the NY Times or Washington Post are presenting all aspects of a story, or even something approaching a complete picture. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:00, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Why I am quitting Misplaced Pages after 16 years

Dear Sir,

I am quitting Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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. Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages on controversial topics is free from bias, and I will stop looking at these articles henceforth.

It seems to me that Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages should stop promoting the talking points of the Left. And in my opinion Misplaced Pages 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. 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". 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.") 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 Misplaced Pages. 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.-- 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 Misplaced Pages, it is the build-up of the little things I think that pushes someone away, not one big thing. Emir of Misplaced Pages (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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages and gender bias on Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages becoming too woke, when words like "racism" and "sexism" and "anti-Semitism" do not appear in any Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages because 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 Misplaced Pages discussion requires a combination of stubbornness and privilege, and concludes, among other things, that 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages@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 Misplaced Pages”, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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.

1. † But note for the record that Byrd was unambiguously a total piece of shit who filibustered the Civil Rights Act and neither twentieth-century nor twenty-first-century members of the Democratic Party should be absolved for any racism. They just for some reason can get along at the moment without abetting Nazis and white supremacists or having a party leader who openly declares himself a nationalist or tweets someone shouting "White Power!" With as many abetters of Nazism and white supremacy as there are remaining in the country and the world, though, there is no reason to assume that they will stay that way.

--‿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 Misplaced Pages. 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages and WMF policy should oppose Nazism and racism and other forms of bigotry—on one hand, I'd suggest that Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 "Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. Bring on Misplaced Pages 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. Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages and identifies themself as a pedophile we first report them to legal-reports@wikimedia.org 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, 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 Misplaced Pages 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-Misplaced Pages-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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages, gender bias on Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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, Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 tatements of intent to properly use normal Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages in some way, but have become confused. Are you two talking about Misplaced Pages? jp×g 00:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@JPxG: Yes. When we refer to “policy” we are referring to Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages to you, or is that confusing too? If you do not understand how what we are writing about relates to Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages project into disrepute and should be proscribed in written Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, gender bias on Misplaced Pages, 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. Misplaced Pages 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 ⚓ 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 Misplaced Pages. We have to use it despite we don't like it sometimes. There is no other Misplaced Pages, only one Misplaced Pages 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.

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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, Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages's competitors. It's ironic that some editors choose Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages (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 Misplaced Pages. Liz 04:35, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

There's discussion of Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 . 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  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. 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)

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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages's deletion policy. I don't really understand how we got to this situation, but the discussion has been about hypertechnical internal Misplaced Pages policy matters, rather than improving Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages. 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. Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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.

Misplaced Pages 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)

Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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. Misplaced Pages'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)

​Misplaced Pages doesn't just document the things historical and academic literature do, though: per WP:5P1 Misplaced Pages 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)

Per Misplaced Pages:How Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages as one of their sources. But notice that Ballotpedia is listed ahead of Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages.)

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 Misplaced Pages 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: . 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 21:15, 28 October 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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. Misplaced Pages 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.

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 ()
• The known fact that Ukraine asked the FBI to help them investigate a hack of Burisma ()
• The lack of evidence supporting the claim that Joe Biden profited from China,() but Trump probably did ()
• The highly questionable narrative of the laptop n()
• 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. The name is certainly in the news. Bus stop (talk) 18:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

--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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages'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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages, 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 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 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)

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)

Misplaced Pages has certainly acquired a bias on US political topics which has led to / is leading to Misplaced Pages 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)

• Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages. 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  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 (), 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 . 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)

@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)

new items for contemporary history

hi! I invented a new type of article, and a new type of navbox, to help with documenting contemporary history. open to any feedback. thanks!

here they are:

• 2020s in political history
• Navbox:2020s in political history

--Sm8900 (talk) 14:24, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Those look cool! jp×g 03:35, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@Sm8900: Yeah, I have to hand it to you, that really is a nice conceptual structure and layout. It's compact, while differentiating into a wide variety of topics and fields quickly. Many navboxes end up with huge amounts of negative space as a consequence of lopsided hierarchies but yours is information-dense. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 15:19, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

@JPxG:, appreciate that. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Struthious Bandersnatch: thanks so much. I appreciate your positive feedback on that. you are welcome to send me any comments you may have. thanks!! --Sm8900 (talk) 15:05, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

inappropriate donation emails

It is known that WMF has large stockpiles of cash. Despite this, extremely aggressive donation messages are pushed out by the WMF that often cause confusion regarding Misplaced Pages's financial situation. Every year, around the donation season, rumours spread that Misplaced Pages is financially troubled and may shut down soon. WMF does nothing to correct, and perhaps even encourages these rumours through it's aggressive and, in my opinion, unethical donation drive strategies. Recently, a email sent out by WMF had the subject line "we've had enough". Many other WMF emails have similar quasi-threating tone too. Seriously? Don't you think this is going a bit too far? Is Misplaced Pages really that troubled that it needs to resort to these tactics? I was going to post it at Misplaced Pages:Village pump/WMF, but I wanted to know your views on this issue, so I'm posting here. Regards, TryKid  16:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you provide some examples of articles about these "rumors"? I'm genuinely curious because I've never read anywhere the proposition that Misplaced Pages was closing down and I wonder who'd be issuing this false report. Liz 23:57, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon's WP:CANCER? 107.242.121.34 (talk) 09:31, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

You know you can unsubscribe from e-mails from the WMF, right? --JBL (talk) 01:18, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I looked at WP:CANCER, then a link from there to the WMF 2019 financial statements, scrolled down to p.3 and it looks like there is a lot of money on hand. For example, the first item "Cash and cash equivalents" alone is $101,932,698. Maybe someone from WMF could clarify what's going on. Bob K31416 (talk) 18:00, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

On politicians...

Jimmy, we have WP:NPOL as a decent guide on notability of politicians, but it confers a definite incumbent advantage. It seems reasonable that unsuccessful past candidates be rolled up into an article about the race, but do you have a view on what we should do differently, if anything, in the next election cycle, about new major party candidates for statewide and national office? Do you think we should try to write less blow-by-blow commentary of elections, or have an article on each major party candidate but merge the losers afterwards, or something else? There's a definite tension here between neutrality (in the political sense) and well-supported consensus designed to stop the abuse of Misplaced Pages for electioneering purposes, and indeed the reverse: popular outrage over candidates who espouse QAnon, for example. I am genuinely torn on this and I'd like to know your view. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I think these are thoughtful questions.

First, we can acknowledge that some people will want to use Misplaced Pages for self-promotion. That's a problem in many fields, not just politics. What I think is that we should not respond to that by trying to *prevent* articles about people newly in the public eye, out of an excessive paranoia or sense of the need to punish people. Rather, questions about notability should be very firmly rooted only in whether there are sufficient third party high quality reliable sources to write a biography. Let's not forget: another good way for people who are motivated more by politics than by encyclopedic values to negatively impact Misplaced Pages is by working to prevent coverage of new challengers in politics! That knife definitely can cut both ways.

Second, I very strongly doubt that in most cases, notability is ever reversible. If someone is notable before an election, they will remain notable after an election.

There are definitely cases of candidates for public office who are not notable - let me go into that for a moment. Here in the UK, there is the Official Monster Raving Loony Party which runs satirical candidates in every election, see a count here: Official Monster Raving Loony Party#General elections. While the party is clearly notable and a fixture of the UK political scene (they wear wild costumes to the announcement of electoral results), most of the candidates are not. They have no chance of winning, frankly don't expect to win, and it's all just a bit of fun poking fun at politicians.

But major party (which can be determined in an NPOV fashion) candidates and people who have a real shot at winning (like for example the front runner in polls, which can be determined in an NPOV fashion) for major offices (say, MPs in the UK, House of Representatives and Senators in the US, and so on in other countries) are notable and furthermore are a part of history that will remain just as notable after the election is done. The idea "oh well, you ran for Senate and came in second place, you aren't notable anymore" is a bit silly.

There appears to be some tension or confusion around this relatively uncontroversial observation and the very good longstanding principles of WP:BLP1E. I don't think this represents a major issue, because as written, BLP1E requires 3 conditions to be met before not having a biography, and the 3rd one: "If the event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented" is clearly not true of a major party candidate for a major office. The event is always significant, and the person's role in it is both substantial and well-documented.

BLP1E is designed primarily as a protection (for the encyclopedia and for the person) against having a dubious article about someone who is generally an innocent bystander in some major news event. I don't see this, therefore, as a major obstacle to coverage.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:18, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I've been doing some thinking too. What JzG calls the incumbent advantage is something we'd call (in the part of the world where I live) the "chancellor's bonus", I suppose, meaning, a chancellor in office will, when running for re-election, always get a "bonus" of a few percent of the total number of votes, apparently just for the coincidence of being the seating chancellor, no matter how good or bad they did, and equally no matter the credentials of an upcoming counter-candidate. I think, indeed, Misplaced Pages should take no sides, neither by refusing to say anything about the counter-candidate, nor by giving them extra bandwidth based on election publicity alone.

Without becoming too bureaucratic, I'd like to propose something along those lines, meaning, all of the following has to be met for a challenger to pass this proposal for a notability criterion:

1. The incumbent is running for re-election;
2. The incumbent has a Misplaced Pages article;
3. The notability (in Misplaced Pages sense) of the incumbent is either supported by NPOL, or, at least, primarily based in the incumbent's political activity.
4. The main challenger is doing well in pre-election polls: they consistently have a result within a few percent (or better) of the incumbent's position in those polls:
   • the "few percent" may be 5%, or less, e.g. 3%, 2.5% or 2% (if I remember correctly that's around the estimate of the minimal value of a "chancellor's bonus" in most electoral systems);
   • "consistently" meaning, for instance, all electoral polls in a period of three weeks, or, if polls are wider apart from each other than three polls in a period of three weeks, then at least in three consecutive polls. This part of the criterion also meaning that if less than three polls are held in the period leading up to the election, then the position is likely not notable enough that someone holding that position is notable by that fact. But of course the "three" (three weeks/three polls), or any alternative numbers, would have to be decided in consensus.
5. The challenger's article can be written with more content from independent reliable sources than merely their election program. (whether that would need to be "substantially" more, e.g. at least 50% of the article content, or just "somewhat more" would also be a matter to be decided in consensus)

Also, if the office holder decides not to run for re-election, the principle might be more general: any office which makes an office holder pass NPOL, also makes the consistent front runner ("consistent" per the same approach as above) in pre-election polls eligible for a Misplaced Pages article (if they also pass the 5th criterion above). If there are two such new candidates "consistently" within a "few percent" of one another in pre-election polls, they'd both be eligible (within condition #5), etc.

Ideas? Probably still too early stages to propose this formally, but gathering some ideas whether a more formal proposal at some later point in time would be a good idea. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:16, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:NPOL is merely a way to bypass WP:GNG, to me WP:GNG is a pretty good way to sort these out. One thing wiki-unique about candidates is that their wp:notability status often changes rapidly. One idea would be to simply recognize that a candidate that fails wp:GNG today and fails it again 3 weeks from now could very well meet GNG 3 weeks after that and so articles on current candidates should not be salted or prejudiced based based n previous deletions. North8000 (talk) 15:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

NPOL, as a part of NBIO, is a presumption of notability, or more specifically a rebuttable presumption. If after the article is created, and the election is over and that candidate failed to win and has nothing else to show for notability, that presumption perhaps failed, and as outlined at WP:BEFORE there are steps you can take to verify no other sourcing likely exists and nomination for deletion. You do want to say what you've tried to check and failed to find to make a convincing argument for deletion to show that NPOL was a failed presumption but that is a route, and assured that articles don't stay around forever, but does give the open wiki a chance to work when there is a possibility for expansion. --Masem (t) 20:33, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, actually NPOL is designed to be more exclusive than GNG, because in any election there will be a metric fuckton of coverage of any candidate, but these are living people and will often have no substantive coverage before or after the election itself. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG The guidelines explicitly say otherwise, twice over. WP:Notability says that if it passes either it passes either (e.g. GNG) it passes. NPOL (merely) says that candidacy alone does not satisfy notability, but that passing GNG does. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The GNG itself is also a presumption of notability. If you only have 2 or 3 sources that barely cover the source - enough for a GNG check but never enough to expand after a thorough search of sources per BEFORE, deletion is still possible. --Masem (t) 21:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

North8000, I see you are right. Le sigh. Yet another case where WP:LOCALCONSENSUS asserts that we can simply ignore the bare minimum requirement for sourcing of a reliable biography. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:11, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

However, see WP:BIO1E. If there is a lot of coverage, but it is all related to their candidacy in an election, then they might be better discussed in the election article. Otherwise we would end up with a shedload of articles about people who are famous only for losing an election. Black Kite (talk) 12:44, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Which is also similar to the fact that the GNG required enduring coverage: a candidate that only is coverage for the few months of the election cycle is not sufficiently notable for that purpose (duplicating the BIO1E logic). --Masem (t) 13:24, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Black Kite But in the big structural picture technically anything at an SNG (e.g. WP:BIO1E) is criteria for bypassing GNG, not requirements for having a separate article. But I think that in the fuzzy Misplaced Pages system SNG's in practice can and do influence discussions also toward the more stringent side.North8000 (talk) 14:31, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Rather, the 'stand-alone' argument both overplays the advantages and underplays the risk. History is not served by a whole article that basically says 'Susan is a failed candidate', nor are the "conservative" values of BLP, well served. What serves both history and BLP better is having the short bio info in the context of the election article, leaving the meter for stand-alone articles to people that have settled impact going beyond an election, like perhaps actual lawmakers. And that way, everyone today and throughout history is still able to find all about Susan that is of encyclopedic purpose, and better avoid the downsides of selling the candidate and continuing over-active invasiveness; and, yes, some failed candidates will still get stand-alone-articles, because there are other ways to have substantive notice in this world besides being a candidate (often as a successful, something else, see, eg Mike Espy). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:32, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Questions about Esquire interview

Hi, Mr Wales.

Just read your interview in this fascinating Esquire piece, What We Know And Can Agree On: Misplaced Pages At 20, and have a few questions for you.

You compare yourself to the Queen: "No real power, but the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn". Of course, Her Majesty does in fact hold considerable power - for example, she can start wars and gets first dibs on any beached whales - only she doesn't usually wield it. I understand that you used to make use of your omnipotence, but these days tend to hold back. Approaching two decades on the throne, what do you consider Misplaced Pages's greatest failing(s), and given Misplaced Pages's prominent role in the knowledge ecosystem, why do feel you are unable to flex your constitutional rights to remedy it/them?

You say: "In 500 years, Misplaced Pages will be remembered and (if we do our job well in setting things up with a long-term perspective for safety) still be informing the public". What exactly do you mean by 'perspective for safety'? I hope you don't mean we can expect to see Misplaced Pages-brand computer chips controlling one's brain! What form do you envisage Misplaced Pages taking in the far flung future? Half a millennium is long way off, we may not even take a recognisably human form by then. Will there even be a need for an encyclopedia, much less volunteer editors, in a world of incorporeal light-beings and hyper-advanced artificial intelligence?

Finally, on a lighter note, I see someone already added your passion for food to your wiki-biography. What could we expect at a Jimmy dinner party, and what would you say is your speciality, your signature dish?

Sincerely, Dark Clouds of Joy (talk) 01:11, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it would be unwise for me to attempt to wield power. My best tools are rational persuasion and being calm. In many cases the exact outcome of any specific decision is less important than preserving the power of the best people in the community to make decisions in defense of NPOV.

I definitely don't foresee Misplaced Pages-brand computer chips controlling anyone's brain. What I meant about safety is making thoughtful decisions around governance to maintain community control, to make radical change away from our most important founding principles hard to do, and making sure (through things like the endowment fund) that we have the financial resources needed to be safe for the long run.

I like to cook a wide variety of things, and I like to joke that signature dishes are for people who learned to cook one thing well, rather than for people who know how to cook. That isn't really fair, but it is a good light hearted joke.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 11:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

How do you feel about Weev? 107.242.121.45 (talk) 19:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

At some point holographic and full-sensory emersion Misplaced Pages will have the capability of taking the reader on virtual tours (with reader-choice from multiple index-choices text or voice guides) as well as keeping "old time" Misplaced Pages - which we are creating now - as a constantly edited and updated format. That should happen long before 500 years, but will be polished with tech-and-edit updates for a few centuries (just wanted to do a one-time pop in to keep an interesting question and topic going, the sci-fi takes on Misplaced Pages have yet to be fully explored and presented in media, so fun to see these kind of concepts flying around). Randy Kryn (talk) 01:29, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 October 2020

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected user page at User:Jimbo Wales. (edit · history · last · links · protection log) This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y". The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |answered=no parameter to "yes" when the request has been accepted, rejected or on hold awaiting user input. This is so that inactive or completed requests don't needlessly fill up the edit requests category. You may also wish to use the {{ESp}} template in the response. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, make a protection request.

Please change {{User:Audacity/centijimbo|3840}} to {{User:Audacity/centijimbo|{{Misplaced Pages:Centijimbos/counter}}}} so editors won't have to update the count manually in both places. 83.9.213.61 (talk) 16:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

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