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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Zeroparallax (talk | contribs) at 21:43, 29 June 2019 (→"Supremacy" is Inaccurate: another reply to Grayfell). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Lead

So, "described as a white supremacist publication by several sources, including The Washington Post, Fortune, and the Anti-Defamation League. It is published by the New Century Foundation, which describes itself as a "race-realist, white advocacy organization". It has also been described as "alt-right" by The Guardian." I suppose that means "is a white supremacist publication"? A handful of reliable sources seem to say it is. Or, if you somehow like this word salad, maybe we should rewrite this, "Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only object in the Universe known to harbor life", realizing scientific consensus, the epistemological uncertainty of inductive reasoning, and the need to represent opinions from all sides? Drmies (talk) 01:46, 5 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Apropos deleting "Notable contributors and speakers"

@Grayfell - Looking at this article's history one can see that the sources given were considered reliable for more than the last five years.
It can of course not be expected that every appearance of a speaker is mentioned in the main stream media -- thus to indirectly claim that the previously given resources are not any longer reliable and demand others simply means the demand to not include information about conference speakers at all –- which you know of course -- and I'm sure that you do not really doubt that those mentioned actually spoke there, do you?
Why not just honestly give the reason that the one who deleted the information gave in the first place:
"... and we should not be using them as a source for all the Huge Big Stars!"
For years providing this information was deemed OK, and now it's considered propaganda? That's unworthy. 93.224.109.244 (talk) 22:31, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Things change, and people notice things that slipped through the cracks in the past. This information is not encyclopedically significant unless it's supported as such by a reliable source. In this case, that also means an independent source, since American Renaissance is not, and really never has been, a reliable source. It is barely usable for routine details about the publication itself, but these are not routine details.
"Unworthy"? Name-dropping without a reliable, independent source is promotional. That's outside of Wikipedia's scope. Grayfell (talk) 22:48, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It has been right there in the open for years -- and not "slipped through a crack". And it is without doubt a major difference whether a source is used for claims made concerning controversial topics by that very source or for simply providing information who attended a conference. And again -- I'm sure that when looking at the source you do not actually doubt that the speakers were there, do you? Do you actually believe it's all fake? Images, DVDs etc.? All made up? Of course not. That's just common sense and the information has not been hidden i.e. "slipped through". 93.224.109.244 (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's fake, nor do I particularly care why it was originally added, but I do think that American Renaissance is unreliable for establishing due weight. Not every factoid that is verifiable belongs in an article, and Wikipedia is not a directory. American Renaissance has, obviously, a goal of promoting their publications and events, and name-dropping notable contributors is consistent with that goal. If this is truly encyclopedically significant, it should be possible to establish this through reliable, independent sources. The walled garden of academic white supremacists is quite small and intertwined, making this list neither remarkable, nor particularly informative by itself. Minor organizations and publishers, no matter the topic, do not automatically list every notable contributor without a specific reason. That reason must be established by reliable sources, not PR. Grayfell (talk) 23:11, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Summa summarum -- the truth of the fact that the speakers were there is not questioned, and the reader of the Wikipedia may learn that "American Renaissance" held conferences but not know the speakers anyway -- except for David Duke.
You say a reason MUST be established -- I don't think so -- and for the last five years it was obviously not considered a problem by others, too. 93.224.109.244 (talk) 23:23, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Don Black and David Duke are supported by multiple reliable sources. Sources were accepted, likely because they were ignored, and now they are not being ignored. Grayfell (talk) 23:29, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
More likely it was not considered obligatory to establish a reason for stating an accepted truth. 93.224.109.244 (talk) 00:08, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
PS Wikipedia:Edit warring?! For re-adding information that has been included in the article for years and deleted without discussion in the first place. Ridiculous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.224.109.244 (talk) 00:13, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The content was removed by one editor, you restored it, and it was removed again by a second editor, and you restored it again. We are having a discussion about it, so let's finish the discussion.
Not all accepted truths about American Renaissance belong in the article about American Renaissance. The way we establish due weight is with reliable, independent sources. This is standard for all articles about organizations and businesses. As an imperfect example, few other articles about magazines established in 1990 list contributors in this way. For those that do, we could discuss that on their talk pages if we felt it was inappropriate, and we could discuss that at any time, regardless of how long the list had been there. Many of those article are pretty bad, and include a lot of puffery and promotional filler, and I bet a lot of it has been there for years. This isn't a justification for adding that kind of thing here, of course. Likewise, content is not grandfathered-in, nor are Wikipedia editors obligated to honor precedent without looking at the bigger picture. Grayfell (talk) 00:49, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Greyfell is absolutely correct. Material in any article that fails our policies and guidelines may be removed no matter how long it's been there and should not be restored. Doug Weller talk 07:06, 13 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Heavy POV, weasels etc.

And e.g. guilt by association: 

have attended American Renaissance conferences and have been seen talking with Taylor...

Many e.g. US politicians willingly met with despots, murderers and worse. They shook hands and discussed policies and provided weapons. So? Argumentum ad hitlerum. Zezen (talk) 20:23, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"Supremacy" is Inaccurate

I think we need a higher standard when using effectively-pejorative socially-disqualifying terms such as "white supremacist" and for politically charged topics such as this. At least, the standard should be very high for the first-sentence summary. From everything I've come across, Jared Taylor consistently argues against the concept of supremacy; he points out evidence of differences across races and of large-scale social and material consequences of differences, and he highlights the persistence of and advocates for the legitimacy of racial preference within a framework of freedom of association (and politically determined immigration policies). For many people, his own preference seems to be too close to "supremacy" for them to recognize the distinction. But I think this article's authors should be careful to be accurate and nuanced with such a politically and socially charged issue. In fact, I think the term "white supremacist" is particularly inaccurate because, if the term "supremacy" can be used at all, more appropriate terms would be "Asian supremacist", or more finely, "Jewish supremacist", since the data that AmRen presents nearly always puts Asians and Jews in what some people assume to be the "superior" end of the spectrum, with "Whites" or "Caucasians" in the middle of the spectrum.

What are the standards used when dealing with the most volatile topics? When words are used not to communicate precise information but to shunt people's minds into common pathways of "acceptable" and "unacceptable"? When words are used as political weapons? (For example, if I find many quotes from mainstream media that claim that Julian Assange is "guilty of treason", should I lead the article on Julian Assange by labeling him "treasonist" in the first sentence?) I think this topic is extremely important to be precise on because perpetual misunderstanding and miscommunication can lead to mounting tension and conflict and ever more drastic political reactions.

Zeroparallax (talk) 05:53, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not interested in legitimizing WP:FRINGE theories like scientific racism, and we are not interested in evaluating your personal summary of Taylor's opinions. Articles should use direct, straightforward language to summarize reliable sources. Euphemisms and public relations are neither neutral, nor "precise". Grayfell (talk) 06:06, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As your link to reliable sources says, "If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." So perhaps if all these links and sources cannot accurately represent the views of the organization, then this article should be deleted. I'm not sure what you mean by euphemisms and public relations; I'm just interested in clear communication that is as accurate and precise as possible. Accurately presenting this group's perspective does not "legitimize" "scientific racism"; their views do not have to presented as fact. Zeroparallax (talk) 06:59, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There are many reliable sources for this topic. Your assertion that they are not accurate is unsupported. To put this another way, Wikipedia cannot use your personal evaluation of primary sources to dispute reliable, independent sources. Wikipedia is not a platform for helping another website to spread its ideas, and especially not WP:FRINGE ideas. We are concerned with what reliable sources say about this topic, not what the site says about itself. Readers already know where to go for that. Grayfell (talk) 08:31, 28 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Given how Wikipedia works, it seems that the only valid arguments I can make are appeals to (publication) authority. Ok, that seems appropriate for an encyclopedia, for the most part. And that means that when there is a systemic bias among publication authorities, there is little that can be done to correct the error in Wikipedia. It seems that the only route would be to influence the publications to publish additional articles to point out the error or to have previous articles retracted, and/or for American Renaissance to take legal action to correct the problem, or wait for a major outlet to be interested and willing to point out the problem on its own. Of course, I might simply be wrong, and if I explore AmRen more deeply, I might conclude that it is somehow a white supremacist publication that continuously contradicts itself. However, one only has to watch a few interviews by mainstream news outlets with Jared Taylor to see how incapable the interviewers are in understanding what Jared says. It's as if he's saying "I believe that 2+2=4" and the interviewer says "so what you're saying is that 2+2=5" (similar to the Cathy Newman interview with Jordan Peterson) and then they go on to write "we interviewed the two-plus-two-equals-five proponent Jared Taylor...". I don't need to see some news authority point out this error to know that it is an error. Again, I might, on the whole, be wrong in my perception of AmRen, but these errors are so numerous and common that the bias is obvious and I don't trust these outlets to get a clear overall picture of AmRen. (For some important reasoning about clear communication on these issues, please see Scott Alexander's blog post, "You Are Still Crying Wolf".) Zeroparallax (talk) 20:32, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not going to waste my time with blog posts. Experts, such as academics who study these movements, do not accept this boutique definition put-forth by Taylor, nor do they accept his claims at face value, and there are many reasons for this. White supremacy is not decided by someone simplistically making a declaration in the public square that "I think white people are superior". You are free to disagree, but don't assume this means that all of these sources must therefor be factually incorrect just because they have studied the topic from a different perspective than you have. Grayfell (talk) 20:42, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it would be better to cite the nuanced academics than the journalists who do not seem to be aware of the nuance. If the sources discuss the nuance, then I can be more certain that the source is coming to a reasonable conclusion. Instead, for example, the reference to the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) website makes an obvious error within the first several words, calling "The New Centrury [sic] Foundation" "a self-styled white supremacist think tank". (The blog post I referenced at least has nuance, reason, and careful consideration of the topic.) Who are the nuanced academics that you are referring to? And which articles demonstrating their nuance could we reference instead? Zeroparallax (talk) 21:43, 29 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
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