Talk:Dark Enlightenment

The slang word "edgy" doesn't fit in well with an encyclopaedic tone

Equinox ◑ 20:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

It's per the source. We can't arbitrarily accord this thing more gravitas than the sources do - David Gerard (talk) 21:28, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I suppose so: I'd still consider putting it in quote marks though, just as a newspaper might, when quoting a slangy source. Equinox ◑ 00:20, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

I have WP:BEENBOLD or what not. Equinox ◑ 21:56, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

Works for me - David Gerard (talk) 22:23, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

This article doesn't define the subject and relies too heavily on primary sources

Hi, I just came hear to read about the subject and I feel confused rather than informed. As with so many neologisms and new fringe movements, this page is a bit of a mess. Too many primary sources and does not read like an encyclopaedic entry. At times the language is tendentious and weasely (has been described as/Some critics have also labelled/considers itself/Proponents generally also espouse), too much weight is given to unremarkable people and ideas that are simply not noteworthy, hence the high number of primary sources. The lede is all but impossible to make sense of, it's a dogs breakfast of assertions, as someone who knows nothing about the subject this article has left me scratching my head, what on earth is the Dark Enlightenment? Is it a reactionary movement? An anti-democratic movement? An anti-liberal movement? The antithesis to the Enlightenment? A neocameralist movement? A joint-stock republic? A conservative movement? An economically nationalist movement? A Socially conservative movement? A traditionalist movement? A monarchist transhumanism movement? A Catholic anarchist movement? Part of the alt-right movement? A post-libertarian movement? A futurist movement? A post-libertarian futurist movement? anti-libertarian movement? An authoritarian movement? All of the above? (I kid you not, check for yourselves, those are all mentioned...in the lede, it's bonkers!!) This article does not give a clear and concise description of the subject and is poorly cited. It should be reduced to statements of fact from experts or deleted all together (with the small amount of encyclopaedic content added to the reactionary article's 21st century section, which reads poorly at the moment) Bacondrum (talk) 01:41, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I think you're laying blame on Wikipedians where there are at least three other possible causes. (1) The topic is difficult to understand for WP:IS and they write poorly on it, (2) the topic is often deliberately misunderstood by WP:IS, (3) the topic itself is a dog's breakfast. I think there's some truth to all three. - Scarpy (talk) 15:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm not blaming anyone. Bacondrum (talk) 19:59, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Cleanup and removal of unreliable citations, Nazi websites etc

So, I was WP:BOLD and cleaned out all the blogs, random opinions, original research and assertions made by people no one has ever heard of. These citations and assertions are not encyclopedic by any measure, there was a bunch of claims supported by an article from a neo-Nazi website: Taki's Magazine. Please be careful to cite the article properly, don't do original research and make the article readable...it wasn't, it really didn't make any sense at all. Bacondrum (talk) 04:00, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I think you need to tread carefully here. Claiming that Taki's is neo-Nazi could run afoul of BLP as well as NPOV. It is certainly not so described in our article on it which labels it as paleo-conservative and libertarian. That kind of claim makes me wonder what you have done to the article and why. I am going to have a close look tomorrow. -Ad Orientem (talk) 04:51, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

A publication generally doesn't fall under WP:BLP; and we're not required to be neutral on talk pages or when describing sources. More generally, I think that if we were going to use it at all, the weight WP:DUE to it would be very low for a number of reasons. It's not particularly mainstream and has a clear, unambiguous POV; this makes it unlikely that anything citable only to Taki's is worth covering in any depth (and if we have a better source, we should just use that one.) Perhaps it could be used for a sentence or two with in-text attribution that makes its affiliation clear, but citing large portions of the article to it is clearly WP:UNDUE even if it's usable as a source. And I'm not necessarily convinced it is - it's only come up on WP:NPOVN once or twice before, but both times it clearly wasn't viewed very highly. It strikes me as the sort of source that could only really be used for the opinions of its writers, presented as opinions, and which isn't high-profile enough (or lacks the reputation) to make the opinions published there particularly noteworthy. Those kinds of sources don't have very many uses. --Aquillion (talk) 05:11, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

All of the above. I am 100% fine with calling Taki's white supremacist and well within the neo-Nazi sphere, particularly on a talk page. If it looks, walks and quacks like a duck it's not philosophically impossible it's a platypus, but WP:SPADE. And my goodness, read the Taki's Magazine article - "The website garnered some controversy in 2013 after it published articles in support of the Greek Neo-Nazi political party Golden Dawn." ffs. So Takimag's use as a source of opinions on NRx/DE would be within the context of it being in that category of publication - David Gerard (talk) 09:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I should clarify that for a time that read "Greek far-right political party Golden Dawn" (hence why Ad Orientem saw no mention of the term when they glanced at the page earlier); it had previously read neo-nazi but with a dubious tag, and another editor changed it to far-right a few months ago. I changed it back earlier because the editor who first took it out had recently been outed as a long-banned sockpuppeteer (see here, a talk thread on the page where they were most active, for details) and because at a glance the one remaining secondary source used neo-nazi, but I hadn't noticed that another editor had reinstated the change in the intervening period after an objection, and that one secondary source didn't directly mention takimag, so there's now likely to be some back-and-forth on that page now as we hash out new sources, what they say, and which to go with. --Aquillion (talk) 18:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

You've done good, the article was all but unreadable before - David Gerard (talk) 09:10, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks David! Bacondrum (talk) 11:13, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of whether Taki's is a neo-nazi outlet or just an extreme right outlet, it's not a reliable source. Read it, it's clearly not of use for anything. Bacondrum (talk) 11:09, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Concur; Taki's blog is not a reliable source. Whether we call this particular quacking water bird a duck or not is irrelevant to the discussion of its reliability. Simonm223 (talk) 13:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

Taki RFC

So just to put this Taki issue to bed, I've made an RFC regarding reliability here Bacondrum (talk) 04:51, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

This assertion

I believe this assertion should go:

"The embryo of the neoreactionary movement lived in the community pages of LessWrong."

A paper, published on a wordpress blog by an unknown author of little to no notability, isn't a reliable source. It's also not written in an encyclopedic tone ie: "the embryo of" "lived in the". Bacondrum (talk) 22:50, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

That isn't a wordpress blog and the notability of the author is irrelevant. I agree it should be rephrased. VQuakr (talk) 00:03, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

It is a wordpress blog. Notability absolutely matters, whether or not the author is an expert is relevant, we don't publish random, unqualified opinion, especially not sourced from a wordpress blog. I'm glad we can agree that the phrasing is not up to scratch. Bacondrum (talk) 00:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

Notability is the guideline for determining whether we should have an article on a given topic. WP:RS is the guideline regarding reliable sources. Coverage in reliable sources is needed to establish notability, but it doesn't work the other way around. The notability of a source or author is irrelevant to a discussion about reliability. The source has an editorial team; it is not some random person's blog. VQuakr (talk) 01:34, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

I get the difference between notable and reliable, but the first does inform the second. This is a problem on lots of new articles about these kinds of fringe ideas and people, their pages end up being a dogs breakfast of random opinion and experts that no one has ever heard of. As a rule of thumb, if a commentator, academic or journalist isn't widely published in a reliable source then we should be cautious when using them as a source. We need to look at their notability, we can't publish every assertion made by every Tom, Dick and Harry, we need to be discerning, quality content from respected experts in related fields are what is needed, not "experts" who no one has ever heard of. Everyone's an expert these days, at least in my homeland, around 9million people or more than half the adult population has completed a degree, and there are more than 100,000 people with a PHD in Australia. Their work is not inherently good quality or reliable, that's why we look to established, respected and notable academics, not just any one with a certain level of education.

The important question to ask is: Who is Adam Riggio? Nobody, I googled him, can't find anything other than the paper cited in the article and a few tweets. Then why are we considering him a expert or authority on the subject? No idea.

We may have to just agree to disagree on this one. Bacondrum (talk) 02:20, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

• There's more to WP:RS than that. Just stating that they have editors is not enough - what's their fact-checking process? How do they handle retractions or corrections? Are they treated as a reliable source by other sources? Either way, I think we should try to find a better source. This one is a book review from the online supplement of a journal - is that really a good enough source to make such a sweeping statement? --Aquillion (talk) 02:43, 14 July 2019 (UTC)

It's not a particularly contentious or sweeping statement being supported, either. VQuakr (talk) 12:47, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

The ref given here is to a review of another author's work, which I believe is where the assertion came from. I think I read the original at some point in the past though I can't recall when or where. Will dig around a bit. Simonm223 (talk) 14:40, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Her original essay is apparently paywalled behind a kickstarter I definitely didn't back, so I'm not sure where I read it. However while I don't have that, I'd suggest Social-Epistemology, notwithstanding their website architecture, appears to be an academic RS. [1] Simonm223 (talk) 14:48, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Adam is a he not a her. Published on a blog, unknown author, and it's a review. Not a RS. If you could find the original work that'd be a different story. Thanks for having a look. Bacondrum (talk) 21:56, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

It's a peer-reviewed academic source. You're harping on the CMS they use as if this makes a difference. It really doesn't - David Gerard (talk) 05:55, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Unknown author published on a wordpress blog, it's a review of the only work to have made the claim, not the original claim. - it's not a RS. Also, if the claim was verifiable surely we wouldn't need to use such an obscure source. Bacondrum (talk) 07:34, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Show us even one single source besides the wordpress one that makes this claim, on it's own this source doesn't cut it. Bacondrum (talk) 07:35, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bacondrum: sorry for the lack of clarity. I'm referring to the author of the original essay that the source under discussion is a review of. If you look a few comments up I'd offered to try to find a link to it as I believed a lot of what was sourced from the article on Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective was in fact from the original essay. The essayist who wrote the thing reviewed is a woman. That said, I have to reiterate that, notwithstanding their webhosting software, Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective is an academic source and not a "wordpress blog".Simonm223 (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

ETA: Specifically Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective is the online critical response supplement to Social Epistemology - it's a top-shelf academic source for philosophy and social sciences, not a "wordpress blog." Simonm223 (talk) 12:21, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Social Epistemology has an impact factor in the mid-20s (H-Index of 24 according to Scimago). If their online suppliment doesn't constitute an academic RS I'd suggest no online suppliment anywhere does. Simonm223 (talk) 12:58, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

@Bacondrum:Adam Riggio is a professor of philosophy at McMaster University. He's writing about philosophy in this review so he's operating within his area of specialty. Simonm223 (talk) 13:06, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Bacondrum, I get that you really hate this source for some reason. But you're just incorrect about whether it counts as an RS for Wikipedia purposes. It completely does, and it's reasonably clear that consensus is against you here - David Gerard (talk) 18:50, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Hey mate, sorry if I've been too stubborn, you are correct, it is a RS. I don't hate the source, I just thought it was another questionable or lackluster citation on a contemporary far-right article, there's often a lot of them, as there was on this page...but clearly I was wrong this time. Cheers Bacondrum (talk) 23:40, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough, I can see that it's not just some random guy on wordpress. Thanks Simonm223 Bacondrum (talk) 23:35, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Use of http://www.thedarkenlightenment.com/ as a citation

I have concerns about using the website that is written by the author of the movement to describe the movement without some form of statement saying something like "Those who subscribe to the movement feel that" or something to that effect. Does anyone have any other thoughts? 2001:4898:80E8:B:F160:25E0:5631:28E5 (talk) 18:24, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

To translate, this user wants to avoid using a blog created by Nick Land as a citation about the general tenets of the philosophy.

I believe it is a reliable source given that it is a primary source. Nashhinton (talk) 18:32, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Please don't speak for me, I can speak for myself. My concern relies on the fact that taking an organization's word for how to describe said organization without a preface is concerning to me. As an example, take a group like ISIS. They would claim that they are the word of god. We would rightfully say "This group claims" before such a statement. This is an extreme example, but I am trying to use it to illustrate the point that taking what a group says about themselves at face value can be concerning. The other citation is probably enough, don't you think? 2001:4898:80E8:B:F160:25E0:5631:28E5 (talk) 18:38, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

@Nashhinton: The defining element of a primary source is that it's made by someone who has a conflict of interest. "I believe it is a reliable source given that it is a primary source" means that you never read the relevant policy. See WP:PRIMARY before you keep working to turn this article, which is supposed to be unbiased, into an advertisement for Land's extremist philosophy. 2600:1700:B7A1:9A30:A4EE:4873:FD0E:E744 (talk) 18:41, 2 August 2019 (UTC)