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Can alt-right / far-right figures be described as such?

This text[1] was removed on the Dave Rubin page, making it unclear why it was controversial for Rubin to host extremists such as Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and Tommy Robinson. It was controversial because these figures are extremists of one kind or another (alt-right, far-right, white nationalist). By simply saying they are "controversial figures" but without specifying why, we are omitting relevant information for the readers. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This is not a neutral description of the issue at hand. The issue here is that on the Rubin page several other BLP subjects are subject to contentious wp:LABELs in wiki voice. On the respective BLP articles there is a mix of attributed and wiki-voice use of the labels in question. An IP editor removed the labels. I think the IP editor was correct as they are very contentious labels and, in the Rubin article, they are made in wiki-voice with no supporting citations. I'm more than willing to agree that there are sources that use these labels to describe the various individuals. However, since all are BLP subjects, avoiding contentious voices in wiki-voice seems like the correct procedure in this case. Snoog failed to link the talk page discussion [[2]] where I've proposed a possible alternative text. "Rubin has had guests described as alt-right, far-right, nationalist and white supremacist. Controversial guests include [list of names]" The alternative text uses all the controversial labels and lists the names but doesn't directly connect any of them. In my view this avoids the BLP issues and respects wp:LABEL. Springee (talk) 17:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah a quick look over and I think Springee is right. It is listed in the subjects article if the reader is interested. For the main article controversial is fine otherwise it comes off as guilt by association. PackMecEng (talk) 17:14, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The way it was added put those labels to those people (not Rubin) in Wikivoice, when it needs to be out with attribution of some type as labels, making it a BLP violation for those four people. You could say, "Critics have accused Rubin of providing a prominent platform to the controversial speakers with alt-right, far-right, and nationalist viewpoints, including Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux, and Tommy Robinson." Now, that's a tiny bit vague of who's who but it takes the labels out of wikivoice and put on the general viewpoints of all the guests of Rubin, still identifies why that's controversial, and lets readers see who they are and follow links if they are not by name. --Masem (t) 17:16, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I think that is a good way to handle it. It's cleaner than what I had originally proposed and again avoids wiki-voice issues. Springee (talk) 17:26, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah certainly an improvement. Snooganssnoogans you good with that? PackMecEng (talk) 17:28, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't accept the premise, and have offered my own version based on what is said in wikivoice in the parent articles on the BLPs. While the sentence offered by Masem - Critics have accused Rubin of providing a prominent platform to the controversial speakers with alt-right, far-right, and nationalist viewpoints, including Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux, and Tommy Robinson - is definitely true, I am unconvinced by the "critics have accused" tagline, which implies that others have disagreed and also that only critics have asserted this, neither of which is supported by the evidence AFAIK. So I would prefer either something closer to my own version, or at least text that conforms to WP:BLPSTYLE. Newimpartial (talk) 18:51, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, there's no doubt that all four BLPs mentioned are indeed alt-right, far-right or nationalist (or a combination of more than one), so if Rubin has indeed interviewed those people, all you need is as reliable source saying that he has provided a platform for extremists (or equivalent wording). "Critics say..." is not ideal - either he has, or he hasn't. But we can't say it in Wikipedia's voice without an RS that actually says that Rubin is providing a platform for such people. Black Kite (talk) 19:00, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The quality "provide a platform for controversial speakers" is an opinion, because the sourced articles do not give the impression that this is Rubin's factual goal with the show, so the "many critics" needs to be there as one point of attribution (though here, we can name the sources, "The Daily Beast and GQ claim Rubin has provided a platform..." In that phrasing, this also implies alt-right/etc. labels are born out from Daily Beast/GQ's assessment too. So that would be better. Alternatively, if there are more, and these just two, you could say "Critics, including The Daily Beast and GQ, claim Rbuin has provided a platform...". --Masem (t) 19:13, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

If we are committed to attribution, I would go straight for the Rebecca Lewis study in Data & Society, rather than any of the journalistic pieces, based on the quality of the source. And I would attribute directly to Lewis, not to "critics". Newimpartial (talk) 19:20, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The Lewis study is already mentioned in the article. We shouldn't use it to support the sentence/material in question. Springee (talk) 19:37, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Masem, except that if it's the Daily Beast and GQ then I would not include it anyway. We should draw a distinction between those sources that comment on the political hurly-burly, and those which are the hurly-burly. The Daily Beast is undeniably the latter, GQ probably somewhere between the two (there have been some very thoughtful pieces there but also some blatant rabble-rousing). Guy (help! - typo?) 20:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the Lewis report, that is probably the preferable source to use (doesn't appear to be SPS, not quite peer-reviewed), but that should still named. Or a way to work all three sources, something like "Critics have accused Rubin of providing a prominent platform to political extremists.(DB, GQ sources). Rebecca Lewis of Data & Society in a 2018 report stated that Rubin's guests are part of a network on YouTube with more extremist views that amplifies far-right politics. These guests include Stefan Molyneux, "a talk show host who promotes scientific racism,' Lauren Southern 'a Canadian citizen journalist who has since been barred from entering England because of her vehement anti-Islam and anti-immigration activism", and ..." (the quotes pulled from the report directly). You have plenty of material in that to be quoted to avoid the issue of bare labels, and probably plenty of names to pick from. (And man, that's a scary picture on those network graphs. That's an article in itself ....) --Masem (t) 21:05, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Masem, and why is "citizen journalist" so much like "independent researcher", in that the first word invokes a repudiation of everything normally understood by the second. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

The Lewis piece is AFAIK the only scholarly study cited in the article, and definitely its highest-quality source. Why should we not cite the "providing a prominent platform" thing to her, since many of the journalistic pieces cited point back to her study anyway? Newimpartial (talk) 19:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The Lewis study was published by her own institute. It was not published in a scholarly journal. It is effectively a white paper by her institute. Also, her article says shows like Rubin's provide a gateway to more radical right material rather than act as a platform (other sources made that claim). Some scholars also disagree with her work.[[3]] Springee (talk) 20:21, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean, "her own institute"? She doesn't appear on its board or editorial team.

Also, are you proposing that Quilette piece as a reliable source on the topic? Newimpartial (talk) 20:28, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The institute that employs her vs an independent journal that published her work after review. I'm not proposing using Quilette in an article. What I'm saying is the Quilette author has credentials equal to Lewis and she points out issues with Lewis's work. You claimed that Lewis's work was at a scholarly level but that simply isn't the case. Lewis has some level of credentials in the field but the same is true of many scholars at CATO or The Hoover Institute. Since the work wasn't released via a scholarly review process this isn't the same as an article appearing in a real journal. Springee (talk) 20:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

No, the Lewis piece was not peer-reviewed, but it is certainly "scholarly" in a sense in which the Quilette piece is not - the latter is anecdotal student journalism, while the former is a systematic study following an established methodology. Newimpartial (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Yet someone with scholarly credentials points out flaws with the study (and rightly so). Quillette doesn't claim to be a scholarly journal but that doesn't mean the contributors lack the scholarly standing to criticize Lewis's work. Springee (talk) 23:34, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

An in-progess Masters degree is not a "scholarly credential", and I don't see any scholarly criticism in the Quilette piece. It is anecdotal political journalism and, if anything, uses a sloppy mischaracterization of Lewis's work to cast aspersions on it. Which is about what one can expect from Quilette - a straw man argument that will appeal to their readers' assumptions. Newimpartial (talk) 23:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

You might review Lewis's limited credentials. Springee (talk) 00:28, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Looks like she's a highly-cited researcher whose work appears in and is covered by mainstream sources (i.e. not Quillette), and she's a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford, where she teaches classes with a specialization in online disinformation and extremism. Those are pretty decent credentials. MastCell ^Talk 00:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• We describe people the way that reliable sources describe them; it's really simple. Reliable sources describe Molyneux and Southern as "far-right" and/or "white nationalist", so if we change that to simply call them "political personalities", then that's a bad edit, and a fundamental violation of WP:NPOV. It's an example of an editor inserting himself between the sources and the reader, and misleading the reader. It is absolutely not a BLP violation to describe someone as "far-right", or as a "white nationalist", if reliable sources describe them as such. MastCell ^Talk 00:48, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• I am in complete agreement with this. We don't whitewash (terrible word, but whatever) people's political and social positions if there are RS for those positions. Black Kite (talk) 01:00, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• MastCell, this, exactly. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

• Agree with MastCell and Black Kite. If reliable sources call the individuals white supremacists, etc. we call them that. If the consensus of sourcing is that he's provided a platform for alt-right/white supremacist individuals, we say that as well. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:59, 6 August 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with MastCell, Black Kite, TonyBallioni, and others. This is simple: we describe people (and groups, political parties, movements, etc.) as the high-quality reliable sources describe them. Full stop. Neutrality^talk 01:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

No one is suggesting we avoid the labels. My concern is using the labels in wiki voice with sourcing that is inadequate to support such labels in wiki voice. Again Masem provided a good alternative that address the wiki voice concern while still keeping the labels. BLP etc isn't something we dismiss because sources like Vox, HuffPo etc choose to use labels. Springee (talk) 01:17, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that we should label anyone in Wikivoice, especially when it's political in nature. WP:REDFLAG is also at issue here, as is WP:BLP and associated 3 core content policies. If the labels were science-based, that's a different story, but when we're citing news sources and published opinions, we use in-text attribution. All of the above instances are political in nature; i.e., the left accusing the right - which is reason enough to avoid stating anything in WikiVoice. Avoiding labels is not whitewashing, it's avoiding tendentious editing and/or subjecting ourselves to potential BLP liability - I'm saying the latter with a high level of RL experience. It doesn't matter who we are writing about because the same applies across the board; i.e., neutral, dispassionate tone, no subjective labeling, no ideological basis in Wikivoice. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

This isn't "the left accusing the right". Reliable non-partisan sources routinely describing Molyneux (for example) as a white nationalist/white supremacist (e.g. [4], [5], [6]), and it's not helpful to misleadingly recast the issue in partisan terms. WP:REDFLAG isn't an issue either—it's hardly "exceptional" to claim that there are white supremacists active on the Internet, nor to describe someone as a white nationalist when they were literally banned from social media for promoting white supremacy. As for WP:BLP, it tells us to follow the sources, not to suppress or bowderlize their content based on editorial discomfort. MastCell ^Talk 19:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, it makes sense to distinguish mainstream commentators making goods faith contributions to political debate, from extremist grifters - whether they be animal liberation loons or neo-Nazis. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

No one, I think is saying to remove the labels, but labels are labels and are subjective and absolutely cannot be left in bare wikivoice, just as terms of praise or the like. I've been through this logic many many times before but you cannot avoid some type of in-line attribution with labels, whether that's a named source or some comment like "widely considered", but how to determine when to do that needs to be done by a literature survey to see how frequently the label is used. (That's beyond this discussion but I've talked to this point before, as well as how to apply those sources into the article). You can do this once on the respective talk page of that BLP's article and then the arguments on that label should become moot in the future. But key here is that just becuse "the media uses the label all over and we follow the sources" doesn't mean that we throw out impartiality and neutrality in wording of how we write that, and labels can never be objective by definition, we're just required to fine the right way to incorporate that language when its needed per WEIGHT/UNDUE.

That said, this article being about Rubin, bringing those labels onto those BLPs into here is difficult, because technically now, unless you have a mass of sources that talk about Rubin's show and the same four people as guests and using those labels, it gets into synthesis to combine those sources. If the sources talking about Rubin's show use those labels (not at a point that I can easily check) then absolutely we need to be stating the name of the sources and probably quoting here to take the labels out of Wikivoice. If they don't use those labels and WPian editors are pulling that from our other BLP, that's wrong. If those sources failed to id why those people were "problematic" save for a generic label, we can't fill in those blanks, not our job. Guy says it makes sense to distinguish mainstream commentators making goods faith contributions to political debate, from extremist grifters - whether they be animal liberation loons or neo-Nazis which, no, we can't. If the source failed to do this, we can't go and fill in those blanks. We can wikilink and let readers figure that out but we can't make that direct connection for them. --Masem (t) 20:37, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Once again I will point out that, if "we" are committed to attribution, the Rebecca Lewis piece is probably the best bet since it is not only the highest-quality source, it also discusses most or all of the "controversial" figures using appropriate labels - if there are any discrepancies between who Lewis labels in the study and who is discussed in the WP text, those should be easy enough to resolve.

This is not to say that I agree that attribution is required, which I don't. For Southern, as an example, Great replacement conspiracy theorist is not a "controversial label": it is how she is notable, and was essentially her job title for a period of time. Newimpartial (talk) 20:50, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I have a very very hard time accepting the idea that (any) "conspiracy theorist" is a career or job title - one actively earning money or the like (at its base that would be like an activist or a writer, etc.) Now, she appears to be self-stating that she accepts that, which is different, but we still need to be careful with using that term about her on Rubin's article. Again, you have material in the Lewis report to identity enough on this page about Rubin why she as a guest (along with Molyneaux, etc.) are why Rubin's show is problematic without having to resort to other nonattributed labels. --Masem (t) 21:10, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Could all of these guests accurately and constructively be called "right-leaning"? We are paraphrasing, are we not? If "right-leaning" or any other such umbrella term can be accurately and constructively deployed, why are we agonizing over more specific labels when those more specific labels serve political, pigeonholing purposes? This is not even the article belonging to Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux or Tommy Robinson. We are discussing the Dave Rubin article. It is bad enough that articles like the Molyneux article consist of nothing but label after mind-numbing label. Is it necessary to force people into political pigeonholes at other people's articles? These labels are meaningless, or close to meaningless, in my opinion. I think their main purpose is to dismiss people and the ideas and arguments that they represent. It is also a lot harder to explain their ideas and arguments than it is to simply pin a label on them. I favor using a simple, general term such as "right-leaning" (or something similar) to refer to all these guests when mentioning them at the Dave Rubin article. Bus stop (talk) 21:45, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

So you consider "right-leaning" to be synonymous with "white-supremacist"? Because I know a lot of right-leaning people who would be very offended that you'd equate the two. It's deeply misleading—and unfair to people who are truly "right-leaning"—to use "right-leaning" as a euphemistic code word for extremists and white supremacists. And since reliable sources routinely note the extremist nature of Molyneux's/Southern's views, it seems just plain false to pretend they simply "lean" to one side of the political mainstream. I don't think falsehoods are an improvement over clear, if unpleasant, truths. MastCell ^Talk 23:39, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

MastCell—isn't there an umbrella term for these enumerated guests on Dave Rubin's show? Couldn't we just call them all racists? A quick perusal of the articles of Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and Tommy Robinson finds some references to race in each article. If there is a better term than "racist" we should consider it as well. All we are trying to do is refer to a collection of guests on The Rubin Report. I don't think that should entail in-depth, separate labeling of each guest. The question is—what do they all have in common? Bus stop (talk) 01:41, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Masem, some labels definitely can be left in wiki-voice. Jenny McCarthy is an anti-vaccinationist. Stefan Molyneux is a white nationalist. When there's no significant mainstream dissent, we don't need to weasel. Guy (help! - typo?) 23:47, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Based on prior discussions, I would agree that if we were at McCarthy's or Molyneux's articles - where a body of sources sit - these labels are ones that ones that can passed w/o attribution due to self-assertion. But this is where I put caution above, when we talk about them on another topic, we can't carry that language (including the ability to say in wikivoice) unless we have sources at the current topic also using that language. If all these sources talk that Molyneux is a controversial guest on Rubin's show for his extreme positions but do not at any point identify his white nationalist stance, we can't introduce that ourself, even though we could reach out to probably multiple articles on Molyneux to show where he self-states that; it is both an OR problem - guessing to what "extreme" stance the author was getting at, and a BLP problem because in less agressive cases WPians could introduce something that may be a NPOV. As a hypothetical, say there is a important piece of abortion-related legislation aimed to provide easier access to clinics, and we have a media piece talking about how the bill was set up by a legislator; while we would normally identify that party of the legislator, a WPian adding that the person was also a Catholic (reported in numerous sources but not the one about the bill), as to throw doubt to the purposes of the bill , would be inappropriate despite being true. If sources did call that out, we would be fine otherwise.

As a specific example, the Lewis report does not actually appear to use "white nationalist" at all, but she does get deep into Molyneux (in the context of a guest on Rubin's show) as "openly promotes scientific racism, advocates for the men’s rights movement, critiques initiatives devoted to gender equity, and promotes white supremacist conspiracy theories" (pg 37) so any of those describers can be attached to Molyneux to be clear of why he is a problem for being on Rubin's show. Of course, the other thing to consider is that as you are selecting blue linked names you could let those blue links speak for themselves rather than necessarily fishing in the report for descriptors. Lewis gives enough descriptors/labels to this central group (not all of Rubin's guest and not the Intellectual Dark Web ones) that we can tell they are the alt-/far-right extremist views that have influence and thus we don't necessarily need the specific labels on any individual. --Masem (t) 14:48, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

To make matters worse we have an explicit denial. Molyneaux says "I have always opposed the idea of racial superiority/inferiority."[7] Bus stop (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

In that same article the Guardian uses "Canadian alt-right internet activist" for Molyneux in its own voice. It certainly wouldn't say "right-leaning" lmao. Newimpartial (talk) 15:14, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Newimpartial, we are keenly cognizant that many sources characterize Molyneaux in many bad ways, hence my suggestion concerning the use of the umbrella term "racist" to cover the group of people under discussion. Aren't Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and Tommy Robinson all racists, according to at least some reliable sources? Bus stop (talk) 15:36, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I actually dispute the implication that the Guardian, or others mentioned, are trying to day that Molyneux et al. are "bad". I regard "alt-right" and similar as essentially descriptive labels in this contexts rather than being used by the sourced to praise or condemn.

And my reservation about "racist" is essentially that it is insufficiently precise; e.g., I'm sure some reliable source somewhere has referred to Joe Biden as "racist", but this shouldn't be the same category. Newimpartial (talk) 15:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I chose the word "bad" out of many equally applicable terms because I believe the broad swathe of the American population roundly condemns "white supremacists". The overuse of labels in the absence of further explanation makes an article uninformative. Wouldn't we expect to find extensive quoting from Molyneux in his article showing the reader why he is considered a "white supremacist"? The man is verbal. He isn't a visual artist or a musician. His quotes could be included so that the reader could examine his words and see him in nuanced detail—or are all "white supremacists" the same? Bus stop (talk) 16:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, if that's how the figures are described by reliable sources. If such a description is used by a large number of sources, and if the description is not seriously contested by other reliable sources, then they can be used without attribution per WP:WIKIVOICE. It's not that hard to categorize people as far-right and alt-right based on their publicly stated social/political positions, and there's nothing exceptional about either of these descriptions. - MrX 🖋 20:29, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't think people should be should be characterized as racist without attribution even at their own article much less at another article. "Racist" is the de rigueur criticism of everyone in the day in which we live. Trump is of course racist. It would virtually be negligent not to call Trump racist. Bret Weinstein was forced to leave his teaching position under the accusation of racism. There is no reason not to use attribution. The reader should be immediately apprised of the origin of the accusation. Bus stop (talk) 20:51, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Why shouldn't a racist be described as a racist? Because it could make some people uncomfortable? We're an uncensored encyclopedia. We should call things what they are. If there is serious dispute, we should use attribution and include non-marginal opposing viewpoints as policy requires. The overuse or misuse of the word racist as a convenient insult is not Wikipedia's issue nor does it apply to this discussion. - MrX 🖋 21:07, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The racist label may not be the best example to start from given that it is one of the "objective" labels that can be defined -- but it still has subjectivity to it. That is the nature of labels is that there is no formula or rules or anything like an objective, quantitative test for that purpose, and thus some people may use the label to describe a person as racist when others would not. Again, "racist" is a case where there's not as much subjectivity as other terms like alt-right, etc. so its a poor example but we still need to be careful about its use. It is not something that can be factually applied to person in wikivoice because there is no standard consistent definition of "is a racist" that every writer and reader can agree on that we can reliable use. Only long after the person has died and that is the long-term view of academics can we readily adopt that. Of course, with a living person and the current subject of discussion, and a survey of the reliable sources should a significant to overwhelming use of that label, we are bound by DUE to include that, but we still have to keep it out of Wikivoice, and again, how to do that based on that survey (whether named attribution is needed or not or just a general broad stance "is generally considered a racist."

But this situation is again unique that we're talking about a BLP Y in the context of topic X, and as I've explained above, it becomes a OR and NPOV to bring in labels that refer to Y but not in the context of X when writing our article of X. Eg: probably more than enough sources since Trump took office to say that he is widely considered racist, but it would be very much inappropriate to tag the article on "The Apprentice" declaring Trump racist there without specific sources making said connections.

Also, statements like Template:Why shouldn't a racist be described as a racist? reflect this thinking on WP that needs to be toned down that leads to a lot of the conflict in the AP2 and other topic areas, in this drive that those BLPs that are on the "bad" side - the alt-/far-right area like Molyneux, Trump, and so on - that we need to document every wrong they have done. I've said this before, but BLP articles - of anyone - are not supposed to be laundry lists of all the bad things they are done. They need to be written as summaries of their life. If they have led controversial activities, that's fine, but we should be summarizing that, not documenting every time a news story comes out. Attitude that we need to make sure labels are applied reflect that same stance. It is importance that when there is a clear stance of the media (not cherry-picking one or two sources but when >25% of sources regularly reporting on a BLP) label a BLP then we should not be ignoring that, but we should definitely avoiding trying to wiggle every solitary opinion if its not widely shared. We need to be thinking much more center-of-the-road/conservatively (not in the political sense) here as we write article on controversial BLP and topics related to them, even though there is the drive to use WP to try to be the force to good to show how bad this people are... we just can't. We have to be neutral and impartial in our approach though we certainly are free to include the media's majority stance appropriately. --Masem (t) 00:25, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

This illustrates what is wrong with discussions on Wikipedia. It's not only a hijack of the original topic, but it's built on faulty assumptions and broken logic. - MrX 🖋 11:38, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

We have to strike a balance between Expressions of doubt and Contentious labels. On the one hand, we don't want to imply that there is any possible doubt that these people are far right, on the other hand we don't want to use the term to denigrate them. That must be done on a case by case basis. In general avoid the term when it is redundant, use it when it is not. For example, don't say "x is a member of the far right American Nazi Party." But do say, "The American Nazi Party is a far right organization." TFD (talk) 23:44, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

"Racist" is meaningless in the hands of those most likely to use the term. Therefore we should always use in-line attribution. Not only are there no objective standards of "racist" but a social justice warrior is unconstrained by definitions of such terms. Critical race theory is rooted in postmodernism. The sources most likely to level claims of racism are the sources least likely to be employing anything like objective criteria. The woke left will call someone "racist" whether they are or not. Bret Weinstein was forced to leave Evergreen State College because he was "racist". But was he? Not even remotely. A couple of weeks ago Dr. James Lindsay writes "My friend and I discussed some of the breaking points that were crossed for us and for people we know. For me, it was something between seeing unfair witchhunt-like haranguing applied to public figures I respected (falsely accusing them of racism and sexism), the subversive manipulation of language, and, especially, the brazen attacks on science coming from both the activist and scholarly communities around Critical Social Justice. This happened for me a few years ago. For my friend, it was the undeniable real racism and blatant double-standards at the heart of much of the Woke activist enterprise. For some of our friends, the public defense of riots in Woke language—like “whiteness is property,” so it’s okay to burn down a business—was a bridge too far. For others, it was being bullied into allyship that’s never good enough. For so many more, it’s just the outright racism." Wikipedia should never be repeating verbatim charges of racism without WP:INTEXT attribution. Any such claims should be kept out of Wikivoice. This applies most strongly to living people. The reader should be apprised which source is leveling the charge of racism. Bus stop (talk) 03:09, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Why did this discussion change from two specific political descriptions to racism? - MrX 🖋 11:38, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

It seems to be a response to this Trojan horse repeated here, which I deftly avoided but which seems to have ensnared other, more experienced editors. Newimpartial (talk) 11:46, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes! Trojan horse describes it exactly. I don't know why I didn't recognize it—it's not like I haven't seen this before. - MrX 🖋 20:26, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

One particular situation would be where the label is synthethized from other sources. Say, there is a reliable source for the fact that one event gathered controversy because the 'right-wing provocateur' John Doe attended it. Then, someone would combine sources that do not detail this controversy itself, and the end result would look something like: "controversy arose, because the far-right white nationalist[1][2][3][4][5] attended the event". This seems very common. Only the main biography should include details and multiple sources at this level, not some short mention elsewhere. I also recall there was some edit-warring over how to desribe the DSA in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's bio, but not the DSA article itself. Silly, right? --Pudeo (talk) 10:43, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Silly, but understandable. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:50, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Refocus

I love it as much as the next guy when editors hijack a thread with thousand-word jeremiads about how critical race theory is The Real Threat Facing America. But this thread started with an actual, specific question. To get back to it: it is a fact that David Rubin uses his show to give a platform to far-right extremists and white nationalists, like Southern, Molyneux, etc. We are in the business of conveying facts to our readers. We are not in the business of finding creative euphemisms to suppress or minimize those facts. These guests' appearances on Rubin's show are relevant not because they're "controversial", but because they are extremists—that context is clear in reliable sources, and therefore should be clear in our article as well. MastCell ^Talk 19:48, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

OK, this discussion has died down so I have a question, where from here? This is contentious material related to a BLP with what looks to me to be no consensus. Normally this would mean remove the material. However, in this case the question isn't inclusion so that wouldn't be the correct action. I think we have consensus for inclusion in some form. The question is inclusion of what? My read is one side is saying we can follow the parent article and include labels in Wikivoice and/or labels that are supported by the parent article even if they are not supported by the sources in the Rubin article. The other side is saying that the Rubin article's sources are not sufficient to apply the labels in Wikivoice so we should use some type of attribution in the Rubin article. How do we handle this in a BLP, no-consensus state? Springee (talk) 15:33, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Springee—the question is "labels" versus "label". One umbrella term of reference should cover the group of people referenced in the Rubin article. In other words—what do they have in common? The answer is possibly seen in the original post initiating this discussion: "This text[1] was removed on the Dave Rubin page, making it unclear why it was controversial for Rubin to host extremists such as Paul Joseph Watson, Lauren Southern, Stefan Molyneux and Tommy Robinson." What is the umbrella term of reference? The term of reference is "extremists". I am saying this not because I think "extremists" is the most apt term. I am simply saying this because it is one blanket term (umbrella term) to cover all the people referenced in that sentence which is found in the Rubin article. Only one term should cover all such people if they are to be referenced from the Rubin article. Bus stop (talk) 15:04, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

I see your point but I don't think I like "extremists" as the universal descriptor. Again, I think Masem's proposal is best because it is the best compromise between those who want specific labels in wiki-voice, those who feel the labels used must come from sources within the Rubin article (thus attributable) and those who want to avoid the labels in articles not about those being labeled. "Extremist" is probably a true descriptor but I don't think it captures what makes them controversial. An extreme-cyclist or ultra-marathon runner is an extremist but not in a way that is controversial. At the same time I can see the issue with "controversial". Someone like Dennis Prager is controversial for what many feel are misleading or deceptive arguments regarding relatively mainstream topics. Masem's proposal adds more detail to the specific controversies in question without putting things in wiki-voice. Springee (talk) 12:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not seeing how alt-right or nationalist are WP:LABEL-quality labels; they're neutral political descriptors that many people use for themselves and which are used widely in academica. Even far-right is an academic terms with a widely-agreed definition; I don't agree that it is automatically the sort of value-laden label that LABEL describes. When such sources are widely used by the sources and not in serious dispute, they should be used. Otherwise we end up in a situation (which we seem to be approaching now) where any neutral, objective description of their politics, no matter how well-sourced, will be rejected because some people view those politics negatively. A political slur is a WP:LABEL; describing someone as a nationalist is simply describing their politics. There is room to argue over whether those descriptors are well-sourced enough or accurate enough, but I would strenuously object to the assertion that calling someone eg. a nationalist automatically falls under WP:LABEL. --Aquillion (talk) 13:12, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not seeing how your comment is a reply to what I was saying. I think that could/should be a separate topic but the issue here is really how do we move forward with a no-consensus state. We do not have a consensus for the current wording but I think we do have consensus for including something. The question is what. Springee (talk) 13:19, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

"Alt-right" is perhaps the epitome of LABEL because it is vastly subjective term, no one agrees where it starts or differentiates itself from the "right" or the "far right". Labels do not necessarily need to be "negative" though most are, but core is their lack of an objective measure (not one that "the media says so, so we go with that"). A "nationalist" itself may or may not be a label depends on context, but a "white nationalist" becomes more of a problem as there are very subjective bounds on that definition, with a grey zone that separates it from the more mainstream "conservative" GOP platform if you go by some media reports. The fact that Molyneux self-identifies as a white nationalist is an exception not a rule as many that seem to be called white nationalists try to deny association with the term, which should clearly make it a label for our purposes. Being a label doesn't invalid using but it requires numerous careful steps to keep it out of wikivoice and apply the appropriate type of attribution to the level it is used in the media. --Masem (t) 13:42, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

The Economist writes "Editor's note: This article has been changed. A previous version mistakenly described Mr Shapiro as an 'alt-right sage' and 'a pop idol of the alt right'. In fact, he has been strongly critical of the alt-right movement. We apologise."[8] What does it say about the term "alt-right" if an astute publication like the "The Economist" can make this error? Bus stop (talk) 14:17, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Stephen Wiggins

Stephen Wiggins (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) This biography of a living person is being repeatedly edited to add material against policy. BLP policy: "include only material relevant to their notability, while omitting information that is irrelevant to the subject's notability" This edit introduces a violation: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stephen_Wiggins&diff=971497311&oldid=971022196

Bruce Loveless, COI editing, and the presumption of innocence

• Bruce Loveless (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
• Bfloveless (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
• Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard/Archive 89 § Bruce Loveless

Bruce Loveless is a retired US Navy rear admiral. Recently, I've cut his article down from 8 kilobytes to about 6.5 kilobytes. I've removed an unsourced list of military awards, plus various other unsourced content.

About a year ago, User:Bfloveless removed one sentence of sourced text. I've now restored it.

But I've been having second thoughts about having restored the text.

• A) WP:DNOLT says: "When editors blank articles ... they may have good cause. Stop and look carefully before assuming they're disruptive".
• B) WP:SUSPECT says: "A living person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until convicted by a court of law. Accusations, investigations and arrests do not amount to a conviction. For individuals who are not public figures; that is, individuals not covered by WP:BLP § Public figures: Editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed a crime, or is accused of having committed a crime, unless a conviction has been secured."
• C) I also wonder whether or not Bruce Loveless meets our notability criteria (WP:BIO / WP:NSOLDIER) at all. If not, then we can just delete the whole article and ignore all of the above.

Your thoughts and suggestions would be welcome. Or, of course, feel free to edit the article directly.

Kind regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 16:49, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

No, we don't report allegations unless there is a conviction in a court of law, and that conviction has been covered by reliable, secondary sources. The exception to that is WP:WELLKNOWN, in which case it will be so widely reported that it's just in every newspaper and magazine that you see, in which case there is no longer any point in protecting their right to be innocent until proven guilty, but this means that the allegations or incident need to be well known (well covered), not just the person by default. Zaereth (talk) 22:52, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Loveless is part of a very very big scandal (see Fat Leonard scandal). There's a ton of reporting on Loveless's involvement. These aren't "allegations", they are criminal charges. I disagree with Zaereth that this interferes with the presumption of innocence. Loveless has been charged and is presumed to be innocent unless and until a court finds him guilty. There is no reason to exclude this content. Mo Billings (talk) 23:18, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

  Dear Mo Billings: I hear you. Still, I think that either you haven't read our WP:SUSPECT policy or you simply disagree with the policy. Kind regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 08:17, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  I have read that part of the BLP policy and I wholeheartedly agree that we should consider if it is appropriate to include information about criminal charges in BLPs. In this particular case, I think it is appropriate to include the charges. Mo Billings (talk) 15:13, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  @Unforgettableid: I just noticed that you removed the information about charges from Loveless's article. I don't know if you've taken the time to Google search the case, but the charges are most definitely "well-known". Also check the table in Fat Leonard scandal which lists all of those charged, including Loveless. This isn't an unkown person getting a traffic citation. Please reconsider your edit. Mo Billings (talk) 15:27, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Slate Star Codex

• Slate Star Codex (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Questions:

• Should the author's full name be published?
• How should a source published under the author's full name be cited, if the first answer is "no"?
• Should the author's full name be revdel'ed from the article or talk page, if the first answer is "no"?

For context and additional discussion on these points, see June/July discussion and July/August discussion.

Arguments for "yes" to question 1 include: the author's full name was published when one of the author's blog posts was re-published in a book; the author's full name appears in medical articles; and the author's full name has otherwise been used professionally. Arguments for "no" to question 1 include: the author has recently expressed the desire to halt publication of their full name; the author has otherwise consistently requested that their full name not be connected to their blog in published media, to the extent that previous publications that revealed the author's full name were taken down; and the author's full name otherwise fails the WP:BLPPRIVACY check.

Arguments for "full name" to question 2 include: WP:V requires citation information that is as accurate as possible. Arguments for "first name only" to question 2 include: the spirit of WP:V only requires as much information as readers need to easily locate the source, and the first-name-only citation includes adequate information for this purpose.

There has been relatively little discussion on question 3.

Pinging David Gerard, BrokenSegue, Ken Arromdee, TheBlueCanoe, Gavrielyosef, Gbear605, YechezkelZilber, Mo Billings, SkylabField, VQuakr, Scarpy, King of Hearts, GeneralNotability, and Barkeep49.

Enterprisey (talk!) 20:55, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit: "Subject" changed to "author" per below comment by Zareth. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• Probably not / yes / as is. This has been discussed at length on the relevant talk page. BrokenSegue 22:33, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
• For question 2, the first name citation does look weird, but why do we need a name at all? It is clear from context who wrote the article because of the quote that the chapter was taken from SSC. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:48, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Because faking reference information is bad practice - it's an RS, the standard for use in Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 23:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
    • Omitting something is not the same as faking information. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
      • Bowdlerising it to the point where someone came along and thought it was literally an error - as actually happened - would, I think, count, even if you were to claim it was in a good cause - David Gerard (talk) 21:52, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
        • I do not agree with what was actually done (i.e. "Scott" or "Scott S."). I simply think that omitting the name entirely is the right approach, and there is no error there. Not all references have to have authors attached to them. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:36, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
• "consistently" is a highly questionable claim - for instance, a number of blog sources took down the name at his request when he took the site down in June. His full name has never been a secret, as demonstrated by his academic use of it in connection with the blog name, and I've followed this guy's work since 2010 and his real name has literally never been a secret. His new claims to have kept it a secret are factually incorrect.

His name is used in connection with the blog only in a single RS - but it's an RS where he would have put it there himself, as professional academic work. And it's absolutely a solid RS for Wikipedia use, for noteworthiness of the blog, and for the fact that he has acted to publish his real name and its connection to the blog in recent times.

Furthermore, I think you've phrased the question badly - the subject's full name was published when one of the subject's blog posts was re-published in a book is in passive voice, as if this is something that was done to him - and not something he did himself.

I would say: correctly credit the academic RS, which is important to the blog's notability, as faking RS references is really not a good Wikipedia practice; don't make it prominent in the body of the article.

Do not further revdel - given the circumstances, the revdel's to date on article and talk have arguably been abuses of the deletion process. I appreciate BLP considerations erring on the side of caution, but this is getting silly.

I've put {{not a ballot}} on this discussion, as this is an off-wiki cause celebre - David Gerard (talk) 23:38, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I encouraged a discussion to be placed here at AN and encouraged Enterprisey, when he contacted me via email, to add an explicit question about revdel. I feel prepared to support whatever consensus the community arrives at. However, David has now said in a couple of places, the revdel's to date on article and talk have arguably been abuses of the deletion process. I stand by the 3 revision deletions I did and would welcome a discussion about whether they were an abuse of the tool at my talk page, ArbCom, on a relevent noticeboard but don't want to derail this forward looking discussion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:05, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply they were in bad faith; but I am of the opinion they should stop going forward (as I say above) - David Gerard (talk) 21:26, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

This is just a short rebuttal to a single point above, but you appear to be claiming that Alexander did not try at all to hide his full name until 2020. There is at least existence proof of the opposite from 2018 at [9]. In it Alexander mentions that he did not link to a journal article written by him because he did not want to share his real name. He has certainly not been perfect at maintaining secrecy, but he did at least try. Gbear605 (talk) 00:26, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Scott's concerns about the public linking of his full name to the blog are otherwise well-documented and uncontroversial. In addition to Gbear605's link, more examples are this 2019 blog post (search for "real name"), this 2017 blog post, and this 2013 discussion. Scott's awareness of the Streisand effect explains the lack of further examples. That aside, to repeat VQuakr from the talk page, the source is unambiguously identified – and can thus be "correctly credited" – even without its authorship information. Third, I stand by my revision deletions and, echoing Barkeep49, welcome further discussion on the subject. Finally, the documentation of {{not a ballot}} recommends against preemptive use and I have observed no evidence of external canvassing (besides the IP edit, and yet), but I will leave its applicability to this discussion up to others. Acknowledgement: the examples and Scott's justification come via the research efforts, which I appreciate, of some people in the SSC community. Enterprisey (talk!) 08:31, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I said it was an off-wiki cause celebre, and you've just literally said Acknowledgement: the examples and Scott's justification come via the research efforts, which I appreciate, of some people in the SSC community - this is, in fact, a case for such a notice - David Gerard (talk) 21:14, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• 2. Bad question. There is no reason to cite those articles at all. The only reason they were added was to force the issue (to put it charitably). They are only notable as evidence about the spread of his name. 98.114.54.138 (talk) 02:56, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • It helps to establish the blog's notability. Also, it was originally added with no source at all. BrokenSegue 14:03, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    • No, resume padding may establish the notability of the author, but not the blog. No one notes those articles. When people note the blog, they don't note the existence of reprints. They don't care about such validation. Some people note the profession of the author, but never formal publication. 98.114.54.138 (talk) 13:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
      • It's literally the blog's academic credibility, in the article about the blog - David Gerard (talk) 14:19, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
        • The wikipedia article makes no explanation of why it cites the article, certainly not credibility. It does give other examples of academics citing the blog, which is a measure of academic credibility, but these are by academics in other fields who probably have no awareness of the republished articles. Since no one connects the articles to the blog, they do not contribute to its credibility. 98.114.54.138 (talk) 18:11, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
          • The wikipedia article makes no explanation of why it cites the article It literally does - you're now making trivially false claims of fact in support of your position - David Gerard (talk) 19:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
            • For everyone's information, the only thing that the article says is A post from the blog, "No Time Like The Present for AI Safety Work", was reprinted as a chapter in The Technological Singularity: Managing the Journey.. I can see why the anonymous user considered this to not be an explanation while you consider this to be an explanation. Given the three other citations in the paragraph, it's certainly not the only source establishing credibility. Al Gharbi 2018 and Campbell 2018 both provide academic credibility while Chivers 2019 establishes credibility in a non-academic source (a pop-science/philosophy book). Perhaps the article should still be included, but its removal would not change the article to show the blog as significantly less credible. Gbear605 (talk) 20:16, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
• The desire for privacy seems reasonable enough. Benjamin (talk) 03:07, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
• I believe there is a disconnect here. If the privacy of the name is of paramount importance, we shouldn't be using a reference that has the full name. If we decide to use the reference anyway, we should follow standard practice and credit the author by their full name as published in the reference, not by first name or pseudonym or "Scoot S" (which is what's in there now). If the aim is to protect the identity of Scott Alexander, we aren't doing a good job and we are also giving people incorrect information about the reference. My position is either use the reference and give the correct information, or don't use the reference. Mo Billings (talk) 16:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • If this was removed, would it be the first time a relevant RS was removed from Wikipedia because a BLP subject put their name in it? I mean - you're seriously proposing removing the academic reference in which the author revealed his full name, because he (actively) chose to reveal his full name in it. This strikes me as bizarre - David Gerard (talk) 21:08, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
    • It strikes me as bizarre that we are pretending to be hiding his name but giving a shortened version of his name and providing a means of getting his full name in a couple of mouse clicks. It's a charade. Mo Billings (talk) 21:41, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
      • It's a compromise. Scott himself has said his interest is not in making his name unfindable (that is now impossible) but just harder to find. This is in keeping with that spirit. BrokenSegue 19:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
        • I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think there is room for compromise with genuine privacy concerns. If this isn't about protecting someone's privacy but about "following the spirit" of making his name "harder to find" then you're changing my opinion towards including the reference with the full author name. Mo Billings (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
• This looks like trying to put the genie back in the bottle at one remove. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:15, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
  • This would, I think, be an accurate characterisation - David Gerard (talk) 21:17, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
• It seems to me that his academically-published work is central to his notability and significance. I'd imagine the bar for removing it is pretty high. I wouldn't imagine that we should include his name in the main text of the article unless that NYT article actually comes out or something, but I think that removing it from the references list when anyone can find the information by just following the reference is a pretty extraordinary level of deference that would require some pretty extraordinary arguments to justify. Winter's Tulpa (talk) 21:16, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

  The blog is known first for its importance and influence in the rationalist community. The book chapter reprint is comparatively unimportant; the article has other information on the blog's impact in academia, and I'm sure we could find more. The discussion here shows a consensus I agree with those above saying that we either have a full citation or none at all. I think it's perfectly fine to leave it out. For the record, I agree that it would be nice to include all relevant sources, including the blog chapter reprint, if we could. But BLPPRIVACY is clear on the matter: no full name. Enterprisey (talk!) 09:09, 12 August 2020 (UTC); revised 20:40, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

  The academic work is a book from the LessWrong rationalist community, about topics promoted by said rationalist community, and used by said rationalist community to show its importance. If that's what the blog is known for, the reference is direct support for that.

You launched this discussion with a question slanted to your preferred outcome, then sought off-wiki backers to support your preferred outcome, then questioned the presence of a notice as to off-wiki attempts to influence the outcome. At this point you're just pushing the subject's line repeatedly - David Gerard (talk) 10:46, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• BLPPrivacy seems to offer only two routes for including the name: where widely reliable sources cover it and where it can be inferred. It can't be inferred, because they specifically want it gone. We do not have have wide enough reliable sources including it to be crystally confident about the first. While the "genie in the bottle" complaints are interesting (and I don't know the level of historic attempts to seek privacy) I don't believe they're so relevant. BLPP doesn't offer a prior exposure route, and, at a minimum, in unclear cases we should default towards providing privacy, that is, remove the full name. I'd say some archiving is probably sufficient and a full OS is not needed, but I'm open to thoughts on that. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:28, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
• It seems like a reasonable BLPPrivacy-compliant solution to omit both the surname and the chapter which uses it. Haukur (talk) 18:25, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
• The purpose of citing the reference is for WP:V, and that can be accomplished without including the full last name in the citation (e.g. using Scott Alexander [Redacted] or Scott S. or something similar). We should try to respect Scott's preferred public name for the same reason we should respect whatever people want to be called in a WP:BLP article (preferred name, preferred pronouns, etc). I'm not sure why basic respect for someone is so controversial and it seems too many people are keen to say something like "look, I know this is how he prefers to be addressed in this context BUT OH MY GOD THE |last1= ATTRIBUTE WON'T CONTAIN HIS LAST NAME AS IT APPEARS ON HIS GOVERNMENT-ISSUED IDENTIFICATION SO WE'RE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO BE JERKS AND INCLUDE IT, SORRY." Forgive me if that sounds like an awful awful excuse and if I have a difficult time understanding the reasoning there, if there is reasoning, because it looks like someone trying really really really hard to find a loophole to include his full legal name in the article. I'm sure we're all good faith editors here and that's not actually anyone's intention, but of I was ten years younger and representing New York's 14th congressional district, I believe the term I would use for that is "not a good look." - Scarpy (talk) 20:35, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Is the name sourced to The New York Times? That might change things. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:18, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

No, The New York Times has not published anything as of now. The only sources that I know of for the full name being linked with the blog are original research and an oblique connection in the republished blog post (the book lists Scott [Redacted] as the first author and that it was republished from Slate Star Codex). Gbear605 (talk) 21:33, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

In that case we should abstain from including the name I would say. Open to changing my view if there is better sourcing. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:44, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• The original question is flawed, since the person we are discussing is not the subject of the article. As far as I can tell, the person we are discussing is not notable enough on his own to have an independent article about him, so the first question I would have to ask myself is: Does using the full name add any value to the reader's understanding? In other words, is it necessary for the reader to know the full name in order to understand the article, or would it read just the same without it? If the answer to former is no and the latter is yes, then I would opt to leave it out.

It would be a different matter is he was notable on his own right, but unless his name has been published in a multitude of high quality sources, or unless there is a very good reason for publishing his name as demonstrated by at least one source --making it clear that the name itself is absolutely necessary for understanding the article-- then I would simply leave it out.

As for the other questions, I guess that depends on how the source is being used. Arguments here say the source is needed to show the notability of the blog, but if that is really the case, then can the blog really be that notable if it cannot handle the loss of a primary source? That doesn't seem to wash. Is the source being used to support some info --about the blog-- being used in the article, or is it just to show that he wrote a book? If the latter, then I would say omit the source. If the former, then use it cautiously. I'd probably just use the first initials, but the real last name, since that is what is needed for someone to look it up. We may not be able to hide the connection, but that doesn't mean we need to make it obvious.

All in all, I would always prefer to err on the side of caution when it comes to matters of privacy, and from what I've read here I don't see any overriding public need to know. Zaereth (talk) 22:24, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

"Subject" changed to "author", thanks for pointing that out. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

• no/no/no. Once we aren't into revealing his name, questions 2 and 3 are moot. The concept of using backdoors to publish information that is not supposed to be published is disingenuous in my view. Not publishing a detail = not publishing it. Not looking for multiple backdoors and shorthands for it. This also implied purging all the histories that infringed on earlier decisions about the above Jazi Zilber (talk) 13:07, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

  YechezkelZilber, question 3 is only relevant if we answer no to question 1. It is what is the correct way to enforce that. A person could definitely be no to q1 and q3 viewing revel as too extreme a remedy but that doesn't seem to be what you are saying. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 05:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Late here, but not late enough not to respond. Sometimes I get the impression in this discussion that people have OCD to put in every bit of information they can find and in addition want to spite Scott for demanding something that contradicts their OCD. Arguments like "there's no room for compromise with genuine privacy concerns" in the context of Scott only wanting to make his name harder to find are absurd. People aren't efficient robots trying to optimize their every action, so the fact that Scott isn't making his name literally unfindable doesn't mean he can't have privacy concerns.

Furthermore, this argument ignores the *way* in which Scott believes his name will harm him; he doesn't want people who only know his name (such as patients, employers, etc.) to connect it to the blog--not people who know about the blog connecting it to his name. The fact that his name appears in an obscure place that is not prominent in Google does not implicate the former problem, so it doesn't show that his privacy concern isn't genuine, nor does it show that leaving the name out won't solve his privacy concerns.

I also agree with the point that the article is about the blog, not about Scott, and knowing his real name doesn't help you understand anything about the blog. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:18, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

• BLPPRIVACY seems pretty clear. The full name should not be published. --Yair rand (talk) 00:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• BLP gives a strong presumption of privacy and prevention of harm. The connection between the name and blog will probably always exist on the internet, but we won't be a part of promoting it. The source is fine without the name in the reference. VQuakr (talk) 17:48, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Jennifer Pritzker - question about appropriate family detail & DOB

My initial concern was a DOB without even a source, certainly no indication even one source would meet WP:DOB which says that DOBs for living people must be well known to be included. Then I noticed all the family details under "Early life". Are these really appropriate? Thanks. Doug Weller talk 10:11, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

The links to her relatives? If they are notable enough to have articles (which may be questionable, I don't know), I don't see why we wouldn't link them here. I could see removing Ratner (her mother remarried him after Pritzker was very much an adult, and he's questionably notable anyway). –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 20:45, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Mark Z. Jacobson and legal wording

Does anyone want to take a look at a question posed by an IP today Talk:Mark_Z._Jacobson#Final_or_not? The secondary source, Retraction Watch,[10] says Jacobson was "ordered to pay legal fees" but the IP suggests "the court granted Clack and PNAS's motions for attorneys fees and costs" would be a more correct wording. It's clear from the source that the authors of the source understand that the order has not been finalized, and that they chose the headline that they did regardless. But I also get the IP's point. If anyone's wondering, Retraction Watch has previously been the topic of discussion on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.[11] Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 04:29, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Will this policy WP:BLP applies for dead people who are confirmed dead by reliable sources

From what i can read and understand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons#Notes, WP:BLP cannot be applied for dead people who are confirmed dead by reliable news sources. Can anyone clarify this? Jehowahyereh (talk) 01:57, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:BDP, BLP can be applied for confirmed dead people in limited circumstances:

The only exception would be for people who have recently died, in which case the policy can extend for an indeterminate period beyond the date of death—six months, one year, two years at the outside. Such extensions would apply particularly to contentious or questionable material about the dead that has implications for their living relatives and friends, such as in the case of a possible suicide or a particularly gruesome crime.

Of course you still have to use reliable sources to confirm that they are dead.

Gbear605 (talk) 02:11, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer. So will in this page Deepak Sathe applies as I could found a lot of reliable articles stating he is dead. Will WP:BLP be applicable to that page ? Jehowahyereh (talk) 02:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@Jehowahyereh:, Deepak Sathe is already reported in our article as deceased and since he is the pilot of Air India Express Flight 1344, this would be a non-controversial report of a person's death. However, as Gbear605 states, BLP standards will still generally apply for some time. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:54, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Jehowahyereh, in addition, WP:BIO1E is still relevant here regardless of whether WP:BLP1E is relevant. Gbear605 (talk) 03:22, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

We can close this, nothing in the notes section linked to supports that recently deceased individuals aren’t subject to the policy and a quotation from that very same policy page proves that they are.--69.157.254.92 (talk) 05:57, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Lenny Gomulka

• Lenny Gomulka (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Everything in this article has been fully verified. We are asking that the administrative caption at the very top of the article be deleted as all needed citations have been included and verified. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lgomulka (talk • contribs) 14:30, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I've added extra citations and removed the template, since the citations should be sufficient now. Gbear605 (talk) 15:05, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Leon Black

Could we have some editors take a look at this BLP where an editor is repeatedly add in a lot of UNDUE innuendo and other disparaging content here. SPECIFICO talk 14:36, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm torn here. Some of the information (connections between Black and Jeffrey Epstein) seems to me to be due - it's covered extensively in reliable sources including Bloomberg and the New York Times - but the initial information was perhaps overly disparaging. Emir of Wikipedia, you removed all the information in [12]. Do you believe that all of it is undue and should not be included? Deltagammaz, you attempted to re-add the information in [13], do you think that all of it should be there? Gbear605 (talk) 19:35, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

It should be there in some form, but I think the way it was done was undue. Thought it would be easier to Wikipedia:Blow it up and start over. -- Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:07, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

The same user has added additional UNDUE innuendo apparently attempting to suggest that Black is implicated in some of Epstein's activities. SPECIFICO talk 17:44, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

On the contrary, the content is due and not a smear. The New York Times, a RS, certainly sees a connection between Black and Epstein, as does the attorney general of the Virgin Islands. In addition, some of the previous content is due as well, so I'm re-adding it. Gbear605 (talk) 17:49, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Given that much of Black's coverage in reliable sources is related to his connections to Epstein, the information is certainly due. I've re-added it, but I've removed much of the innuendo and disparaging content, only simply noting the connections. I see no reason to say that it is undue to describe a connection between Epstein and Black, given that it has been reported by Bloomberg, Business Insider, Forbes, and the New York Times. Gbear605 (talk) 18:01, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

This is a man with a 50 year history in finance and other areas, which is the basis of his notability. It is simply false to claim that "much of his coverage" is over a civil subpoena for documents relating to the recent investigation of a third party. This needs to stay out of the article unless consensus supports including some any of it in some form. SPECIFICO talk 18:07, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree that much of the coverage isn't about this single subpoena, but there are dozens of RS articles discussing controversy around the connection between Black and Epstein. If that isn't significant, I don't know what is. Some significant ones, talking only about the connection, include [14], [15], [16], and [17]. Of course, there is coverage of Black going back throughout his lifetime, but this is a significant amount, making it WP:DUE.

I've removed the content from Black's page for now, but I believe that the version I removed in [18] should be re-added, potentially with some changes. Gbear605 (talk) 18:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I would lean towards exclusion at this point. This seems like a guilt by association and given the relatively short length of the BLP I don't think inclusion is warranted. Some Epstein connection may be DUE but the length in question and as a complete subsection rather than a criticism included in parent topic looks UNDUE. Springee (talk) 19:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Rikesh Chauhan

This is a page presumably created by the person himself, mainly aimed at self-promotion. The citations are poor, in many cases, blogs and the author's own website. Going by Wikipedia's standards, this page must be removed immediately: "Remove immediately any contentious material about a living person that:

is unsourced or poorly sourced; is an original interpretation or analysis of a source, or a synthesis of sources (see No original research); relies on self-published sources, unless written by the subject of the BLP (see #Using the subject as a self-published source); or relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet verifiability standards." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vettipayyan123 (talk • contribs) 23:47, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I believe that the issue here is not BLP standards, since the information isn't contentious, but rather simple notability. Of all the sources on the page, none of them are both reliable and contain significant information about Chauhan. Perhaps he is notable, but the current sources do not show it.

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ezc5d4/acts/a6p9mb only lists RKZ (Chauhan's stage name) as a performer at the event
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qspy3 says that RKZ performs ‘Superstars’ from his ‘Words of Adrenaline’ Mixtape. and has a link to a clone of the Wikipedia information on Chauhan
• https://www.stereofox.com/album-reviews/album-review-handbook-x-rkz-x-supreme-sol-triad-ep/ is not reliable and only barely about Chauhan.
• https://www.thecalmzone.net/donate/ doesn't contain information about Chauhan as of today.
• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1989674/ doesn't contain information about Chauhan as of today.

And all the other sources are self-published and about him or are tweets, so they can't prove notability.

In addition, one editor who has been active since 2011, AlexisBelieve, has contributed more than half of the article and almost all of their edits (158/189) have been to this page. This seems plausibly WP:AUTOBIO.

Gbear605 (talk) 00:22, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Laura Loomer

The page is riddled with libel and personal attacks, and the sources cited repeatedly do the same, cleanup is very overdue, but Wikipedia is blocking any but your "trusted" admins from editing it, some of whom appear to be the responsible individulas for using this page as a partisan defamation campaign. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:681:4C04:6290:3524:2B7:A472:1A3C (talk) 02:39, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest taking your concerns to the article talk page, and proposing concrete changes backed by reliable sources. That usually works best. And it will definitely help if you drop the term "libel," but of course are free to suggest that things are in violation of WP:BLP. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 02:54, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

If you can give specific statements or sources which are problematic, for example, "In the sentence that says XXXX, that is incorrect because YYYY" and also include in your assessment links to reliable sources that support the changes you want to make, that would be most helpful. Vague statements like the above are not helpful for improving articles. --Jayron32 19:03, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Young Dolph

The article on Young Dolph lists 2 different birthdates. Unfortunately I do not know the correct birthdate only noticed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.28.117.16 (talk) 03:53, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Both references used to source the birthdate say August 11, so I’ve changed the article to consistently reflect that. Neiltonks (talk) 13:33, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Evo Morales

Would editors mind having a look at this edit at Evo Morales please?[19] Is the implication of pedophilia a breach of BLP policy? One of the sources (panampost) is considered unreliable but the other sources are not in English and are unfamiliar to me. Burrobert (talk) 18:52, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

I looked at this and I would, perhaps should under living person wikipedia guidelines, delete it for the time being. It is very newsy and totally unproven as yet. Govindaharihari (talk) 19:36, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes I haven’t seen any English language mentions of this apart from the Panampost story. On the other hand, it is written in such bad and melodramatic English that readers who see it will probably burst out laughing. So leaving it in may serve some purpose. Burrobert (talk) 08:53, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

@Burrobert and Govindaharihari: things have moved on since then with new developments which have been covered in the BBC [20] and others [21] [22]. IMO it's starting to receive the level of coverage, as perhaps one would expect given that it involves a former head of state that some mention in the article is likely justified although it probably shouldn't be in to much detail. I definitely don't think we should mention paedophilia in any way. But we probably could mention a criminal complaint was filed alleging statutory rape based on evidence allegedly showing a relationship with a 19 year old that begun 5 years ago when she was 14. Nil Einne (talk) 16:07, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Nil Einne. Yes, it appears photographs exist of him "in a number of places" with a girl who "was 14 when she began accompanying him on trips". As far as I can tell the girl, who apparently is now 19, has said nothing and neither has Morales. It seems the Bolivian justice ministry has lodged the "complaint". There is no explanation of how the Bolivian justice ministry knows what went on behind closed doors. Definately needs to be in the article - mention the photo's and the Bolivian justice ministry lodging the complaint. By the way there is an election scheduled for 18 October and the MAS party is well ahead. Maybe putting "Pedophilia" in the heading is the way to go. Burrobert (talk) 17:22, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Stanisław Michalkiewicz

Some inspection is needed for the recent edits[23] of the newly created account[24] to this BLP article [25] - GizzyCatBella🍁 23:50, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

There's clear issues with some of the sources used - online pdfs, access denied - and, at least in the version which I saw, some of the sources not verifying the content for which they're referenced. - Ryk72 ^talk 06:29, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• The subject's comments on the Holocaust have garnered some coverage, such as:
  • "15 years ago, Stanisław Michalkiewicz repeated on the air that Jews benefit from the memory of the Holocaust and that 'holocaust business managers' want to extort billions of zlotys from Poland".
  • Also in Google books: [26], in Robert S. Wistrich: A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad.
  • Then in Anti-Judaism, Antisemitism, and Delegitimizing Israel, which discusses Michalkiewicz's "provocatively entitled" pamphlet Herrenvolk po zydowsku. The title obviously connects the Jews to the Nazi concept of the "master race".

--K.e.coffman (talk) 19:46, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Terence Yung

There's a potentially defamatory headline that Yung "terrorized" an interviewer stemming from a blog. To be clear, Yung did not plead guilty to terrorism. I consulted his plea agreement and that word is nowhere to be found. I request permission to change that verb to "cyberstalked." Leave the poor kid, alone. He made a mistake, did his time, it's time to move on.

On a separate note, I wonder if cyberstalking should be merged with legal career to conserve space and memory...

LexisNexisWest (talk) 12:50, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I tried to update Yung's bio to give more context into the legal issues raised, but even sourced changes were repeatedly censored by another editor. In my humble opinion, the "why" of the case is just as important as the other questions of who, what when, and where and ought to be a fair subject of an encyclopedia entry. Many cases are reported in encyclopedias before they are ultimately successfully resolved in the litigants favor. And the matters raised here are not insubstantial or unworthy of mention. I am respectfully requesting that the primary-sourced changes be added back to the article.

LexisNexisWest (talk) 12:50, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

References

@LexisNexisWest: As "another editor" who reverted these changes, I will explain to this audience as I did to you on your user talk page (here and here) as well as on the article talk page (here). The section of the article that was edited was titled "Legal career", which was highly misleading. To clarify, Yung studied law (sources are unclear as to whether he actually ever graduated law school), but his entire "legal career" consists of appearing pro se at his appeal of his cyberstalking conviction. The section consisted largely of Yung's own arguments presented at appeal, which is hardly in keeping with neutrality. The "headline" in question (which uses the word "terrorizing") refers to the title of one of the citations used in describing Yung's cyberstalking conviction. To be clear, the Wikipedia article does not use the word "terrorizing" other than as the title of the cited article. Your opinion about whether the "why" of Yung's case is relevant do not come into play here: Wikipedia does not deal in original research (including judgments about which cases are interesting or notable). If Yung's appeal ends up creating some legal precedent, and getting written up by independent sources, then we can include that information, presented neutrally. Regarding your comment about merging the "Legal career" and "Cyberstalking" sections, let me point out that:

1. Saving memory is not really a consideration at Wikipedia. Since every past version of the page is saved, every edit (whether increasing or decreasing the current size of the page) adds to the total Wikipedia database size. The Wikimedia engineers are quite adept at handling this, so we need not worry about it.
2. There no longer is a "Legal career" section to merge; it has been removed since the "Legal career" section consisted solely to present Yung's defense, which I will reiterate was a violation of neutrality.

-- WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 17:09, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Margot (activist)

Margot (activist) is a hero. Over at her article, there is ugly deadnaming. Rainbow freedom (talk) 12:25, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand this problem. -Roxy the inedible dog . wooF 12:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is to use the chosen pronouns and name of transgender individuals. However, Wikipedia will mention their deadname when it is the name that they are widely known under. For instance, Wendy Carlos’ page mentions her deadname, since that was the name that she released much of her music under. However, I believe that in this case, mentioning Margot’s deadname is not appropriate, whether or not it is the name on her legal ID, since she is not widely known under any name and English language sources refer to her as some version of her preferred name (Małgorzata or Margot). Gbear605 (talk) 13:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Olivia Arben

This needs some eyes. Seems to be subject to much promotional traffic. I asked for one recent WP:SPA to be blocked, to no avail. Thanks, 2601:188:180:B8E0:65F5:930C:B0B2:CD63 (talk) 14:47, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Michelle Lujan Grisham

I am reporting false information in the biography of Michelle Lujan Grisham. She is not the first Hispanic Democrat to be elected as governor of a US State. See these articles Ezequiel Cabeza De Baca elected the Governor of New Mexico on November 7, 1916. Jerry Apodaca and Toney Anaya were also Democrats elected as governor. The information in the article, as worded (as well as the first Democratic Hispanic elected state governor in U.S. history.), is false and is easily corrected by inserting the word female before Democratic Hispanic. I am very new to Wikipedia and as yet not comfortable with making edits on my own.

Thanks for your report. Please note the first part of the sentence reads "On November 6, 2018, she became the first Democratic woman elected governor of New Mexico" so that is accurate. With this edit an IP added "woman" to the second part of the sentence so it now reads " as well as the first Democratic Hispanic woman elected state governor in U.S. history." Thus, it looks like everything has been taken care of. Regards. MarnetteD|Talk 16:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Should the arrest of a notable person be in the lead of their BLP

This question relates to the recent arrest of Steve Bannon on charges of defrauding investorsdonors related to raising money for a boarder wall. [[27]]. Given the recent nature of the arrest and the limited information at this time, should this information be in the article lead? Springee (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I trust everyone understands that the fundraising purported to be for a border wall and not a wall inside a boarding house. <grin> wbm1058 (talk) 18:08, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

• My view is no, this is currently UNDUE for the lead. This is a serious, negative allegation made against a BLP subject while the long term impact on Bannon is unclear. The charges of defrauding thousands are serious but that doesn't mean they will stick. Given these are serious, negative allegations I think BLP dictates we should proceed with caution. Consider a case where the allegations against Bannon are found to be without merit. If we could foresee that outcome would we agree to include this content in the lead? If the charges stick I can see adding the conviction to the lead but we aren't there yet. My concern is that the material is being promoted to the lead not because it would normally merit inclusion but because Bannon is controversial and this is negative information about a disliked BLP subject. Springee (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• It is not the key fact of his notability (the crime is getting much attention because it's Bannon, rather than the other way around), so it should not be in the opening sentence, but this is apt to be key to discussion of Bannon for a while to come, so it should be in the introduction. (This will change if he is convicted, in which case his criminal activities become a part of his career description.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:23, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  Springee, there's not limited information. This isn't a plane crash and we are awaiting the results of the NTSB investigation. He was not arrested based on "limited information". The charge relates to the core of his notability above the notabiity of thousands of other ideologue polemecist personalities. Yes it's DUE and amply-sourced for the lead. SPECIFICO talk 16:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• The prosecutor hopefully doesn't have limited information. We the editors have limited information. So how do we reconcile that this content is all but two sentences in the body and the content in the lead is just as long? Springee (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• Three experienced editors have already informed Springee that including this in the lead is appropriate, and now two more. The allegation is not that Bannon defrauded investors; It's that he defrauded donors. - MrX 🖋 16:32, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

That is a meritless claim. I'm also an experienced editor. Regardless of donors vs investors (corrected based on your comment), this is a allegation, not proof. Springee (talk) 16:38, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what is a meritless claim? I never said that you were not an experienced editor if that's what you're referring to. - MrX 🖋 17:14, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

You used an argumentum ad populum to suggest my POV was wrong. Springee (talk) 18:09, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

On wikipedia we call "ad populum" CONSENSUS. Volunteer Marek 21:40, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

And what do you call conflating arguments? 3 early editors to the discussion disagreed with me. So? Since then it seems we are running a roughly split crowd. Springee (talk) 21:49, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• The global media attention to this issue makes it suitable for a brief mention in the lead. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 16:33, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Agreed with Nat Gertler, the information about his arrest definitely belongs in the article lead - I could find you twenty sources talking about it, so it's definitely due - but it doesn't belong in the opening sentence because it isn't what he is most notable for. Obviously Wikipedia shouldn't call him guilty until either the courts rule that way or he pleads guilty, but the charges definitely are an important piece of information about Bannon. Gbear605 (talk) 16:34, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• I am no fan of Bannon, but this strikes me as a case of too much, too quick. I certainly think it belongs in the article, but in the lead seems a bit too much like "breaking news" to me. My opinion (for the little it is worth) is let things settle a bit and then see where we are. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:42, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• No. Too much too soon. Too much: there is not enough meat in the article to warrant inclusion (it's undue); too soon: is the ink even dry on the indictment? (NOTNEWS) I do not understand the rush. Drmies (talk) 16:47, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• No, per Drmie's explanation. Jauerback^dude?/_dude. 16:50, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• There are two completely different questions being asked: the one in the section title, and the one the OP asks in their first post. The question asked in the title, on the general concept of whether arrests should be mentioned in the lead of an article, is "It depends" and "That's a matter to be determined on a case-by-case basis for every article, because there's too many variables to make any general pronouncement." On the matter of the Bannon article specifically, I generally agree with Gbear605, Nomoskedasticity, et. al., that the matter has enough to merit a mention in the lead, however I would also think that we need to expand the text about the arrest in the body first. The proportions in the lead should roughly (not always exactly) match the proportions in the body, and right now theres two lines of text in the whole article about the arrest. The coverage of the event in the world is such that we should have more coverage in the article about it. The lead issue is ancillary to our article being insufficient in the first place, in that it barely mentions it. --Jayron32 16:55, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  Jayron32, you are right and I probably should have separated by two questions a bit. In cases like this I often want to know if there is a policy/guideline that helps editors decide more than just "well not enough weight". As for this specific case, yes, lot's of coverage but also very RECENT. The sources are all saying the same things and repeating the allegations. We don't know much beyond that. I agree that the article level coverage should drive what makes it to the lead. Springee (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  At least it's in the body. The number of times I find something in the lead which isn't mention in the body, often years laters, is sad. Nil Einne (talk) 18:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• Not in the lead, for now. If he's convicted, it might belong in the lead. If it gets ongoing major coverage, it might belong in the lead. But this is by no means one of the most important things readers need to understand about Steve Bannon. —valereee (talk) 16:58, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Not in the lead (not leade) yet. If there is a conviction, it will likely be lead-worthy. At this point, it's an allegation. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy does not have any such requirement. A federal grand jury indictment is not like being arrested for jaywalking. In other words, it's not "just an allegation". It's a really big deal. - MrX 🖋 17:19, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

There's no hard policy, but in general, when someone is accused (and only accused without either conviction or acquittal) of a significant crime, whether to mention it at all will depend on a number of factors that relate to BLP, but these are... touchy-feely factors and not written down for the most part. But there definitely would be consideration of weight of who or what the charge is - a federal criminal charge (fraud) is something you can't quite ignore due to WEIGHT, compared to a civil lawsuit that may be claiming sexual harassment, for example, where we'd weight more on the BLP factors. --Masem (t) 17:24, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Mr. X, if I had argued that there was a policy requirement, then your rebuttal might have been more meaningful. Important or not, it IS an allegation. (BTW, I didn't say "just an allegation". When you add words to the quote, it is no longer a quote). If and when he is convicted, then it will no longer be an allegation. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• It depends. Clearly, minor arrests, such as say drunk driving, small drug possession, etc. totally unrelated to the person's career, obviously not. On the other hand, we're talking about Bannon here, where a major portion of why he was notable was involvement with Trump and fund raising here, and the fact that the arrests (or more specifically, charges made against him) are related to that seem inappropriate to bury away from the lede. As long as the wording is careful to simply say that they are charges, not convictions or proof of guilt/etc., it would reasonable to include. But to generalize, this would have to be something significantly related to the person's career or notability. Inclusion should be considered exceptional but not inpermissible to be decided case by case. Also, if it just an arrest without any named charges, that I would be careful about. The importance is the charges, that implies a legal case that will be brought against the person --Masem (t) 17:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Not lead worthy at present. We are NOT NEWS and per RECENTISM.--MONGO (talk) 17:31, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Odd to think the question might not be influenced by the question of whom was arrested. If the person is in the encyclopedia for being a movie star or scientist, being arrested is much less interesting than for someone prominent in politics, such as Bannon or, say, Siarhei Tsikhanouski. Jim.henderson (talk) 17:34, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Given the breadth and tone of coverage, it belongs in the lead, yeah. The key to recentism is that we shouldn't place undue weight on recent events; but we do still give them the weight appropriate to them - we don't discount something that seems clearly significant solely because it is recent. It is difficult to imagine a sequence of events where this ceases to be an important part of his bio. If it somehow turns out to be nothing we can remove it later, but right now we have to go with what seems to be most likely based on what we know, and that leans overwhelmingly towards this being significant. (Although it is probably obvious, I will add - since people keep mentioning that he's a BLP - that WP:BLPCRIME does not apply because Bannon is very obviously a public figure, ie. it's difficult to argue that including it here could harm his reputation when it was instantly plastered across the entire worldwide news. WP:BLP is about avoiding stuff that could harm the article's subject; reporting on the bare existence of an arrest that clearly occurred, is widely-reported, and affects a public figure has no real possibility of harming them.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
  • That is an argument for inclusion in the article, not an argument for the lead. Given the size of the article and the size of the section on the arrest, at the moment it makes no sense for the lead. PackMecEng (talk) 19:30, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• Let me note that we may be tumbling over some cross definitions here. Some folks seem to be treating the entire introduction as the "lead", but "lead" or "lede" is defined as "the opening sentence or paragraph of a news article, summarizing the most important aspects of the story." Our introductions are often longer than a single paragraph, as is the case with Steve Bannon... where his arrest is currently not in that opening paragraph, but it is in the introduction, as the seventeenth and final sentence. That seems appropriate to me, as it is a piece of information that people will want to have on the subject in summary, even if it's only a few sentences in the body of the article (just as we note in the introduction -- in fact, then generally in the lead -- if someone is dead or retired, even if their death or retirement gets only a single sentence in the rest of the article.) My view would likely be different if the arrest were not related to his source of notability - had it been, say, a DUI charge - but the charge is really of him abusing his position as a conservative cause promoter. It ties closely to his source of notability. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:42, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
  • Nat, per WP:Manual_of_Style/Lead_section the lead is everything above the table of contents, not just the first paragraph. Per MOS, The lead section (also known as the lead or introduction) of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph. Springee (talk) 18:59, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  NatGertler, my opinion is w/re the paragraphs above the TOC —valereee (talk) 19:29, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• I think the WP:WEIGHT for a lead mention is there. It shouldn't be in the first paragraph, let alone sentence. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:03, 20 August 2020 (UTC)
• It seems pretty clear that Bannon's arrest and criminal indictment will be a notable part of his biography in the long term, regardless of the ultimate legal outcome or whether he is acquitted or convicted. (I mean, if he's arrested and then the case falls apart and he's acquitted, that will be at least as notable as if he's convicted, right?). Since the lead is supposed to summarize all relevant aspects of the biography, it is therefore appropriate to mention the arrest in the lead. MastCell ^Talk 19:37, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, this almost inherently gets longer. The dropping of charges, the conviction, the finding of not-guilty, or the pardon, any of these will add to the material that's there. About the only path to not adding substantially to its length is if he dies of natural charges before any of those occur. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:14, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with others that it is not WP:LEAD materiel for this article, at this time. I don't buy that it is summary of his whole life as opposed to gotcha-factoid, which may or may not matter in the long run. Per BLPSTYLE we are to be cautious and conservative about recent matters and per BLPCRIME, we are suppose to presume innocence -- in around 2 to 5 years should his innocence hold or the court decides it's almost like a traffic ticket, the lead of the article will look absurdly un-cautious if it's there, and so it is today. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:15, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  What life? This is not Albert Schweiter. Nelson Mandela? Eisenhower? If Ike had run over a cat or even a little old lady with his Jeep, it might not go in the lead. But this arrest goes to the core of Bannon's notability. It's our best unbiased representation of RS weight today that this needs a sentence in the lead telling readers that he was charged. If things change and it turns out it was really parking tickets and not conspiracies to commit money laundering, defraud a hundred thousand donors out of tens of millions of $$, etc. Well, then we'll update the article. SPECIFICO talk 23:49, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

  How does this go to the core of his notability? He was notable long before this indictment, before working for Trump etc. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

  It would have been more helpful if you'd given me a rebuttal or counterexample. Being a naval officer, a 2-year finance grunt, etc. are commonplace. Being a founding board member of a fringy publication the same. Being the chief driver of Democrat Trump's hard pivot to the alt-right and CEO of his miracle Presidential campaign, top White House advisor -- those are what he is and will be known for. Getting arrested for belying all his deeply held beliefs and anti-immigrant agenda in a scam that turns out to show he's using all this "ideology" to enrich himself and fatten up like a yankee Onassis in the polluted Long Island Sound? That's quite something. It more or less destroys whatever dignity attached to the narrative of his Notability. SPECIFICO talk 18:31, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• The mere fact that the article on Bannon was written in 2013, long before Trump declared candidacy, before he worked for Trump, before this legal issue, is evidence that this issue is not the core to his notability. The notion that guy has an article for 7 years and you claim that this is now what his notability is based on is absurd. Numerous experienced editors, including admins, edited that article, so if his notability had been in question, I'm pretty confident the issue would have been raised.Niteshift36 (talk) 14:57, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

• I try to steer clear of anything political, so I'm going to answer this in the general sense. I think people seem to get too caught up in the notion that one aspect or another is the most important thing, and therefore must be first and most prominent. I try to look at these things as if we were talking about any other article, like a scientific or technical article. It is well sourced that breaking a mirror may cause 7 years of bad luck, at least, that's the legend anyhow. If these things are important to you, then it would likely seem that the first sentence should begin by explaining this incredibly important piece of information. But the first thing a reader needs to know, before they can understand any of that, is what a mirror is. What a mirror is not. What it does. How it works, and what it's used for. In comparison, the mythology associated with them, albeit very interesting and goes back to prehistoric times, well it's really not all that important in the entire scope of things, regardless of our personal feelings or how much coverage it has gotten.

Coverage is a good measure for determining weight, but placement is something more akin to "assembly order" found in construction or mechanics. You have to crawl before you can walk, and similarly, you have to answer questions of what, where, and when before getting into matters of who, how, and why for it to flow and be coherent. This is just as true for living persons as it is for potential energy, welding, or vergence.

In general, for something like this,I would first determine it's weight and placement in the body. Upon determining just how much space to give it, and where it should fit in within the entire scope of the body, then I would go back to the lede, and use the body as a reference to determine the placement and weight given in the lede.

The lede, in encyclopedic writing, refers to the short synopsis given at the beginning of the article, and that's really all it should be, just a very brief synopsis of the entire article (I like to think of it as being somewhat of a scale model) --the shorter; the better. If you can whittle it down to a single paragraph, perfect! If it's a complex subject, that may require two or three paragraphs, but I would avoid any more than that. (For very complex subjects, like alloys or fighter maneuvers, I prefer a very short lede written at a sixth grade level, then a longer introduction section (5 to 7 paragraphs) written at a tenth grade level, whereas the intro is really just an expanded lede. But I digress, as that isn't very suitable for biographical articles.)

Honey is an example of a well written article and the perfect example of how a good lede should look. I really see no difference in this aspect between these types of article and bios, yes, even including political articles. It may seem very important to want to put someone's crimes or accusations in the lede, and even try to cram it into the very first sentence, but unless that person is like Charles Manson and the crime is all he is known for, it sticks out like a sore thumb and just looks ridiculous and amateurish, especially in political articles, like that child yelling, "Look at me! Mom! Look at me!" while the adults are having a conversation.

The point is that, even discussing the lede is pointless until we first determine its weight and placement in the body --it's putting the cart before the horse-- and that there is a certain order of importance that information has, that has to do with coherence and comprehensibility and has nothing to do with our personal feelings about what is most important to us at the time. Zaereth (talk) 01:20, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Very well put, Zaereth. In fact, you have been consistent in your position about leads (ledes) and BLPs, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your thoughtful responses because they align with good practices and ethics in journalism. I was so impressed with your critical thinking skills that I added one of your BLP discussions with Jimbo Wales in the header of my user TP. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:20, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• We don't use lede's. We use leads. You are making an argument for something our MOS disallows. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:46, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

And what in your mind is the difference? "Lede" is the spelling people in the writing profession use simply to avoid confusion between the various meaning associated with the word "lead", for example, if working on the article about the metal lead, or electrical leads, plumbing leads, etc. It is simply the Middle English spelling of the word "lead". That's like saying, "We drive automobiles, we don't drive cars"; a distinction without a difference. Zaereth (talk) 17:34, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Perhaps you should actually read the MOS, especially the part that says "It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph." This isn't car/automobiles, it's a difference in style. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:07, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I might also add that, in all my years at Wikipedia, I'll admit I've never once bothered to read the MOS. I don't recommend that for everyone, but I've read the Chicago Manual of Style and Reuters Manual of Style, and I've been well versed in encyclopedic writing among many others since before there was an internet, let alone a Wikipedia. That made it very easy for me to begin here, starting with the flashtube article, which was in horrendous condition when I found it. An encyclopedia is written in a very formal style and needs to be very coherent and informative across a wide range of ages and backgrounds and intelligence levels, and that's something to always keep in mind, because when you stray from that formality it really stands out. Zaereth (talk) 19:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Zaereth, trust me, you haven't missed anything. Use British-style quotations and sentence case in the headers. That's about it. Lev!vich 23:30, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

No. It should not at this time be in the lede at all: per WP:RECENTISM Maineartists (talk) 01:42, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

What if he dies? Is that RECENTISM too? SPECIFICO talk 14:24, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not a fair comparison. Death is a finite storyline, whereas this is evolving and fresh off the press. petrarchan47คุก 19:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Too soon for the Lede, though it will likely be added in time. As Zaereth notes above, adding this to the Lede now is "putting the cart before the horse". In full, the account of Bannon's arrest in the body of his BLP is one sentence:

Bannon was arrested by US Postal Inspectors off the coast of Connecticut, on board Guo Wengui's luxury yacht Lady May; later that day, he pleaded not guilty to the charges. petrarchan47คุก 19:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Feel free to fatten the horse. SPECIFICO talk 20:03, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

There are, of course, two paragraphs on the fraud indictment and the charges. Mentioning his arrest in the introduction is not just mentioning the arrest, but the fact that he has been charged with a crime. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:10, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• No, not in the lead per Zaereth. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:11, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Include: now a defining characteristic of the subject's biography. --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:47, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Include. Notable event which has garnered nationwide press coverage. It's certainly notable enough to be in the lead. It involves large sums of money, and a host of criminal charges. The "We Build The Wall" non-profit crowdfunding project has it's own article on Wikipedia, and a ton of notable coverage. The whitewashing of Steve Bannon's article is not supported by the utter deluge of news articles on the topic, it belongs in the lead, if for no other reason than its historical importance as yet another example of the greed and avarice which underpins the Trump Administration and the people it associates with. Octoberwoodland (talk) 03:31, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• That depends. There are several criteria for inclusion. The lede should be a summary of the contents, but each inclusion should be WP:DUE - WP:WEIGHT applies. If there is enough material in the body to summarise and if the fact of the arrest will be long-term facet of the reasons for notability of that person, then inclusion is warranted. So - someone arrested for, say, a DUI and no other charges - don't include. A prominent polemicist with connections to the U.S. President, with an arrest for an alleged federal crime, gaining international attention and which will result in a lengthy and prominent trial? Include. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 08:02, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• Look, Bannon was arrested. He's under indictment. He is currently free on $5 million bail (if he weren't rich, he'd be in jail right now) and is awaiting trial on federal criminal charges. If someone reads the lead (which, recall, must stand alone as a complete summary of the article subject and isn't informed of any of that, then we've failed the reader and violated our basic responsibilities in a pretty major way. MastCell ^Talk 18:21, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
• I would include the indictment but not the arrest. At the moment it is an important part of his story and will certainly occupy his time for the foreseeable future. Most readers coming to the article today are probably looking to find out more about him because of the accusations. We should therefore mention them. It would probably be best to give details about the case in a separate article if one has not been created already. TFD (talk) 18:49, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the arrest itself is implicit in the indictment. - MrX 🖋 19:24, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

This is what I was trying to get to; the arrest is really not the "thing" but the indictment or the charges named against the person that should be taken relative to the person's overall notability. And in the case of Bannon, that they are federal charges and that this seems very much rather connected to his notability make it prime lede material.

A second way to look at it: obviously if he is found guilty, this is still lede material; if he is found innocent, I still would think this becomes part of his notability and thus something in the lede, though maybe not presented as "arrested and charged for..." but "was named by found innocent in fraud charges related to the border wall", once those are figured out. --Masem (t) 19:39, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

MrX has taken it upon themselves to decide that consensus has been reached and added the material to the lead. I think it would be best if we allowed an independent editor to decide if consensus has been achieved. Else this just opens things up for a back and forth. Springee (talk) 19:28, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• The indictment should be mentioned briefly, late in the lead section. At this point, the vast majority of sourced information we have in the way of understanding the notability and details of the life of Steve Bannon, both in the world and in our article, pertains to events prior to the indictment. Vadder (talk) 20:54, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

• It definitely belongs in the lede. There is just no state of the future where this does not remain a significant part of his biography (even if he's acquitted). It's not like people get federally indicted all the time. Well, ok, Trump advisors and campaign managers do, but the standard is notable people in general. Volunteer Marek 21:42, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

I believe the recent nature of the arrest and the limited information at this time are irrelevant because his indictment by the SDNY for major federal felonies will never go away with the passage of time. I can't help but wonder if this matter would be debatable for even a moment if it involved, say, Valerie Jarrett. soibangla (talk) 22:01, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

It appears there's more to this story considering the following from the BBC: That this indictment comes out of the Southern District of New York, the federal prosecutorial office that has handled other high-profile cases involving Trump associates, will stir greater interest in the indictment. The district was itself the source of recent controversy when Attorney General Bill Barr abruptly fired its head, Geoffrey Berman. We need to wait, and see some evidence. It looks to me like SDNY thinks they have a "gotcha" situation because there were promises that the money for the wall would go directly to the construction, but some of those players were covering their expenses with it. I will not take either side at their word - corroborate it first - and I certainly don't trust some of the breaking news based on recent experiences. The big scoop is Kevin Clinesmith and far more important in the grand scheme because it appears the lid is about to blow off that pressure cooker. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:30, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

As I explained on Talk, we don't need to know at this time what might be going on behind the scenes. We have enough facts to make it leadworthy. If subsequent reports reveal more, we can add it then. And the Clinesmith matter is trivial and relates to a minor player (Page) in the grand scheme of everything that has happened, but I fully understand the political strategy of some to vastly exaggerate its importance to divert attention from the 16-ton pink elephant in the room. It has no bearing on this matter. soibangla (talk) 22:39, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly right Soibangla. The indictment represents a very significant milestone. Speculation about the prosecution is beside the point. - MrX 🖋 16:14, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with TFD and Masem. It should be included in the lede. Though unless found guilty, not in the first paragraph. starship.paint (talk) 14:22, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
• Include late in the lead - The leads of a BLP should include the "current status" of the BLP, i.e., what they're doing now or lately. If any BLP subject is making national or international headlines, for any reason, that is very likely to be their "current status", and thus should be included in the lead. It may be taken out of the lead later, if through the lens of time, today's "current status" ends up being a non-important part of their overall biography. However, so long as the arrest (or whatever a subject is in the news for) is the "current status" -- i.e., the latest big news story about the high profile subject -- it should be mentioned in the lead. The most appropriate place is probably at the end of the lead. Lev!vich 23:51, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Álvaro Uribe

This article is about a living person and public figure (BLP), and clearly violates Wikipedia's policies regarding living persons:

The article was writeen by an opponent of the subject and is not objective nor impartial. Has NON-NEUTRAL POINT OF VIEW, DEFAMATORY, unbalanced tone mostly CRIMINALIZING (impliying the person is a "MASS MURDERER"); the article is about a "person ACCUSED OF A CRIME", has poor Verifiability, uses attack pages, misuse of primary sources, replicates PARTISAN gossips published in local media, uses contentious sources and content, relies on sources that fail in some other way to meet verifiability standards, ONLY TELLS THE SIDE OF THE PEOPLE WHO CALL HIM A "MASS MURDERER" WHILE OMITTING MOST OF THE SIGNIFICANT ACHIEVEMENTS OR POSITIVE SOURCES given that pejorative sources are at best controversial, uses VICTIMIZATION of the article's subject without definitive sources or proofs (implying he's a "MASS MURDERER"), LACK OF MULTIPLE RELIABLE THIRD PARTY SOURCES for the contentious material.

Rarely uses the words ALLEGED, ALLEGEDLY but implies the facts of which he is claimed to be "guilty" in fact happened; The article clearly perpetuates political, legal, social and personal DISPUTES harmful to the subject. Mostly presents the arguments of the opponents and as facts and mostly omits the arguments of the defense, forgets that everyone is presumed innocent until convicted and after having exhausted all legal appeals; uses VANDALISM, relatively well-sourced material mixed with poorly or not sourced contentious material, LACK OF SUFFICIENT EXPLANATORY INFORMATION about the ALLEGED crimes of which the subject is supposedly accused, so far all the judiciary proceedings against him have either been sentenced in his favor or are just beginning, CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

The article cannot stand as is and should be deleted.

The following are examples of some of the paragraphs and sentences in this article where Wikipedia's policies have been violated in several or all of the above:

Paragraph 2: "However, his role in the conflict was accompanied by large-scale alleged exactions: thousands of civilians were killed by the Colombian army (see "False positives" scandal) with almost total impunity, being investigated by the United Nations.[3] and millions of people have been victims of forced displacement". This violates all of the above of Wikipedia's policies, clearly states that Uribe and the Army killed thousands of civilians and that it is only their fault that millions of civilians were displaced, making no mention of the victims of the guerrillas (hundreds of thousands), and implies Uribe was a member of the paramilitary groups, with little or no proof but gossips in opposition local media.

Paragraph 2: "he was discharged of his function in February 1983, five months after his appointment, by Président Betancur for his alleged collaboration with drug traffickers" and cites as source an article in french from a person who does not have any first-hand, direct knowledge of the situation. Local media documents he resigned, not that he was discharged.

Paragraph 3: "On 4 August 2020, Uribe was placed under house arrest by Colombia's Supreme Court while it decides whether he should stand trial for bribery and witness tampering as part of ongoing judicial investigations". Makes no mention of the ongoing controversy and public scandal the Court's decision caused in Colombia, or of the pronouncements by different Heads of State and governments about the alleged irregularities in the proceedings or of the alleged violation of Uribe's rights. Fails to present both sides of the story.

Title "Internal Conflict", paragraph 1: "And by the end of his first term in office the AUC had other right-wing militias agree to disarm and go to jail under special sentences of seven years". Makes no mention that most of the sentences were extended, that most leaders are still in jail in 2020, and that some of the paramilitaries were extradited to the United States, much less cites reliable sources of this, giving the impression that Uribe favored the paramilitaries' impunity.

Title "Internal Conflcit", paragraph 8: "Credible reports indicate that some of the territories from which the military has ejected the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolutionarias de Colombia, FARC) are now under the control of paramilitary groups, which continue to carry out indiscriminate attacks on the civilian population." The link to the source, https://www.hrw.org/legacy/english/docs/2005/01/13/colomb9847.htm, is dead, and, in any case, the original source does not say what the article's author claims.

"To improve its results in the fight against guerilla warfare, the Colombian army carried out mass executions of civilians transformed into false positives. If exactions of this kind already existed, the phenomenon became widespread from 2002, encouraged by the bonuses paid to the soldiers and by quasi-absolute impunity". Makes definitive statements of things, at best, controversial. Again, the sources are articles in french from people who had no direct knowledge of what happened in Colombia, with clear accusations against Uribe, not founded on real, judicial evidence. Uribe was probed several times by the Colombian Courts and General Attorney Office, even during his period as president, and none found sound evidence of his personal involvement in the "False Positives" scandal. The article fails to present reality in a neutral manner.

"According to the CODHES human rights NGO, forced displacement during Uribe's term affected over 2.4 million Colombian nationals by the end of 2009". Based on partisan or unrealiable sources, the article directly blames Uribe for the displacements, and fails to mention the involvement of the guerrillas. This violates all of the above of Wikipedia's policies, clearly states that Uribe and the Army killed thousands of civilians and that it is only their fault that millions of civilians were displaced, making no mention of the victims of the guerrillas, and implies Uribe was a member of the paramilitary groups, with little or no proof but gossips in opposition local media.

Title "Wiretapping scandal", paragraph 4: "The magazine reported that information gathered by the DAS has been allegedly forwarded to paramilitaries, narcotraffickers and guerrillas". The source does not say that, does not point to Revista Semana, nor that Revista Semana says that, it is merely a list of opinion articles published in opposition media attacking Uribe, where his opponents depict him like a criminal. This statement violates all of the above of Wikipedia's policies.

Title "Wiretapping scandal", paragraph 6: "According to Reporters Without Borders, Colombia was demoted from 114th to 145th place between 2002 and 2010 on freedom of the press". The article cites no reliable source to make such a contentious claim. This statement depicts Uribe as a dictator and violates all of the above of Wikipedia's policies.

Title "socio-economic policy", paragraph 4: "Most direct critics have considered Uribe's administration neoliberal, and argued that it has not addressed the root causes of poverty and unemployment, because continued application of traditional trade and tax policies tend to benefit private and foreign investors over small owners and workers. Union and labor claim that many of the privatizations and liquidations have been done to please the IMF, the World Bank and multinational companies, and will hurt several national industries in the long run". The alleged source is a dead link and, in any case, does not say what the article claims. The article only presents the side of the detractors. The article violates all of the above of Wikipedia's policies.

Title "post-presidency and controversy", paragraph 2: the incident at Georgetown University. The article only cites the opponents side, and omits the positive comments from the advocates' side and even from the University, which clearly appear in the source at https://www.newsweek.com/appointment-colombian-ex-president-sparks-controversy-georgetown-74165

Title "post-presidency and controversy", paragraph 3: "In November 2010, while at the Georgetown campus, Uribe was served a criminal subpoena in the case Claudia Balcero Giraldo v. Drummond, regarding hundreds of civilians murdered by paramilitary forces loyal to Uribe". Fails to mention that Uribe was acquited and therefore was innocent of the alleged charges.

Title "Awards", paragraph 1: (election as El Gran Colombiano) "This decision was widely rejected and criticized by many academics, historians and journalists, even pointing out to possible influence peddling related to the result". The first source is a partisan one that only mentions a handful of academics and two or three jet-set people, only from the opposition side, leaving the claim that "many" academics and historians rejected the election, unsubstantiated. The second source at https://razonpublica.com/el-gran-colombiano-uribe-y-la-histeria-nacional/, is an unreliable, partisan source that even calls Uribe "chuzador" (wiretapper). The tone of this paragraph is clearly biased against Uribe and violates Wikipedia´s policies. Neither of the two poor sources mentions any "fraud" in the election.

Title "Senator of Colombia", paragraph 1: "Some of the legislation later drew criticism, in particular that which reduced the state's responsibility for social security". Citation needed, clearly shows the author's bias against Uribe.

Title "2002 presidential election": no sources whatsoever, much less trustworthy.

Title "Internal conflict", paragraph 11: no sources whatsoever, much less trustworthy.

And many other violations which would be too lengthy to describe in detail.

The article violates many or all of Wikipedia's policies regarding neutrality, living persons, victimization, defamation, etc., cannot stand as is and should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Critic1234567 (talk • contribs) 04:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Critic1234567: I have done what I can, but I don't have enough knowledge or interest about the subject to help much. My best advice to you is WP:SOFIXIT and use the article talk page to engage other editors. - MrX 🖋 19:38, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Potentially defamatory content at Jiah Khan

Abbasquadir has on three occasions[28][29][30] added potentially defamatory content about Indian actor Sooraj Pancholi at Jiah Khan. [self-redacted] After I reverted the first time, I opened a discussion about it, which the other editor didn't respond to immediately. They then resubmitted the content without consensus, I reverted it again, and they restored it again.

Short story: Jiah Khan killed herself and her suicide note attributes her poor relationship with Pancholi as a cause of her despair. Some terms like "rape" and "torture" are used. Quoting from the suicide note: " "After all the pain, the rape, the abuse, the torture I have seen previously I didn't deserve this." That's highly ambiguous phrasing that could be an accusation that Pancholi committed these acts, or it could also be interpreted in other ways, including that Khan experienced these things prior to her relationship with Pancholi. I don't know how anyone can say definitively that she was accusing Pancholi of rape and physical torture. Also, "torture" is vague. People often use the word as hyperbole, or to describe emotional turmoil.

The other source that Abbasquadir used, this, presents a quote, "I loved you and in return, I received abuses, rape, and physical torture" which doesn't even seem to be in the suicide note. And the only discussion about newstracklive.com that I can find on RSN was here, but it's not a source I'm familiar with in Indian articles, and I edit lots of those.

Anyhow, based on that, I think it's egregiously bad to let this poorly-phrased content survive. I'm also concerned about Abbasquadir's defensive behaviour. Refusing to listen to experienced Wikipedians is not a great choice. At Talk:Sooraj Pancholi he pasted the entire suicide note text. I redacted it as a copyright violation, they restored it. And when Hut 8.5 left a warning on Abbasquadir's talk page, they removed it commenting "please discuss on article talkpage". So, they don't seem too receptive to feedback or warnings. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:38, 21 August 2020 (UTC) Self-redacted the potential defamatory content per the BLPN rules. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Please see the talk page, I did "ASK" the Cyphoidbomb (talk · contribs) for a clarification, which the user FAILED to provide. Wonder why is all the exaggeration?

What is this IF NOT WP:BULLYING?? Abbasquadir

@Abbasquadir:, "What is this if not bullying?" This is a new user failing to understand they have been treated with great forbearance despite attempting to post material that violates US law and this project's policies. "Anyone can edit" does not mean "Anyone can edit at any time in any way they see fit." I advise you stop what you're doing and listen to the explanations you've received. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

Here is the content :In her suicide note Jiah mentioned that Sooraj used to physically abuse and torture her everytime."

Curious to understand the issue here. Abbasquadir (talk) 16:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

You asked for clarification 7 minutes after you added the content a third time. And what did you need clarification on? I wrote a clear rationale the first time I removed the content. What part of "potentially defamatory" and "highly ambiguous phrasing" was confusing to you? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 16:55, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Question for information only: Is it possible to apply discretionary sanctions to Jiah Khan? Since she died in India after having appeared in Bollywood films, and remains controversial in that country, perhaps her page falls within the purview of discretionary sanctions for edits and pages relating to India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, as authorized by WP:ARBCOM. If so, applying those sanctions would impose WP:1RR and require a user to wait 24 hours before reinstating a reverted edit. Such additional precautions would seem appropriate in this case. NedFausa (talk) 19:36, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@NedFausa:, there is no need for squeezing this under ARBIP since BLP are already covered by authorized Discretionary Sanctions. If you need to, you can see the list of all authorized topic areas covered by DS here. I hope that helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:34, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

@Eggishorn: What would you recommend here? This seems like a no-brainer to me that this content should be omitted because it is poorly written and interpretive and is potentially defamatory. Is this even considered a standard content dispute? Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:44, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Cyphoidbomb:, a DS alert for Pakistan-india has already been left on Abbasquadir's talk page by Newslinger. I've left a note under your noticeboard alert to clarify that the same sanctions also cover BLP and the articles on the recently-dead. If they do anything else after that point that violates BLP (which I think any mention of the text of the notes certainly does) an uninvolved admin can take whatever measures they think necessary. I think they are intending to follow the rules but as a new user they are not yet aware of all the rules in this area. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:19, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

#1)Please note that I posted it on article Talkpage AND NOT MAIN article page, as I was not sure if posting it would be right per wiki norms.

@Eggishorn: Sir, your explanation makes sense to me,. exactly what I was talking about, give me a rational, explanation! which Cyphoidbomb (talk · contribs) FAILED to provide. AND I DO UNDERSTAND what you said,and don't see a problem following it. I understand that rules and regulations of wikipedia because if which the content holds value. Good day.Abbasquadir (talk) 04:22, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@Abbasquadir: Please stop misrepresenting the facts. There are TWO explanations Talk:Jiah Khan about the unsuitability of the potentially defamatory content you added to the article. TWO of them. Both explain that the content is poor written and potentially defamatory. The first goes into specific detail about how your poor interpretation of the vague wording in Khan's suicide note results in Wikipedia now asserting that Khan accused Pancholi of specific crimes. These were posted before you asked for clarification. I didn't clarify further, because it's obvious you never read either post, and rather than omit the content, as I urged on the talk page should be done, you restored it and now you're playing dumb and shifting the fault to me. Give me a break. This is all on you. Tangentially related: A copyright violation is a copyright violation. It doesn't matter if you post it in the article or on the talk page. If you republish someone's property without a legitimate argument of Fair Use or explicit permission to do so, it's a potential copyright violation. Both of these actions of yours are absolutely ridiculous, as are your responses to them. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 11:47, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Tiffany Alston

Tiffany Alston list the incorrect middle name/initial. The correct middle initial is "T" not "Sheree" The reference to the martindale page for Tiffany Sheree Alston is for a different person and needs to be removed. The correction was attempted but it stills appears incorrect on wikiwand and the google search results for "Tiffany Alston" This is the correct reference . Please help remove this incorrect reference — Preceding unsigned comment added by Helpmefixthis (talk • contribs) 18:12, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

@Helpmefixthis: I see that you've made the changes at Tiffany Alston, so I think that's all we can do from here. Wikiwand and Google search results are not part of Wikimedia. Wikiwand appears to mirror Wikipedia, so hopefully it'll change according to whatever their update schedule is. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:43, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

References

@Helpmefixthis:For clarity's sake, I moved this article to Tiffany T. Alston. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 19:57, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Sara L. Ellis

Sara L. Ellis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

A user 'Snickers2686' kept deleting my edits while I was in the middle of edits.

She claimed that I needed to add sources, which I was working on. Then she filed a report.

I reviewed her record and it seems she has a history of being sanctioned and writing biased reports on judicial figures. I am writing nothing bad about the judge herself. I am commenting on a case she oversaw which was highly publicized in numerous media outlets.

I believe it is important to include this case in her biography.

She kept deleting my edits while I was still in the middle of the edits and then wrote me a letter. I feel that individuals such as 'Snickers2686' are operating with an agenda and harm the egalitarian principle of Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Engaged audience1 (talk • contribs) 18:24, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@Engaged audience1:, egalitarian principles are not operating rules, in general. Specifically in the case of Wikipedia, "Anyone can edit" does not mean "Anyone can edit anything they want into any article in any way with any sources at any time." The material you were trying to add violated several policies and Snickers2686 was correct in removing it, no matter what level of completeness you felt you had yet reached. The Core Content Policies (especially the Undue Weight section of the Neutral Point of View policy) and the Biographies of Living Persons policy (especially the section on use of primary sources) both militate against inclusion of the material you sought to add in that form. As a side note, you should notify anyone you reference in a dispute you bring to this board as the big blue box at the top of the page instructs. I suggest that you read the links I've left here before continuing to edit any article. For that article in particular, I notice that FlightTime has already rejected your edit request on the talk page. I want to emphasize that if three experienced editors are saying "no" to your edits that does not mean, "We don't want you in our club." It means, "Please take some time to read these policies that apply and then try again." I hope that helps clarify the situation. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:37, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Hussain Haidry

1. This article or wiki page is Self promoting. Hussain Haidry is not a prominent person in India or anywhere. His presence is in twitter (has 21K followers) where he tweets against Hindus, RSS, BJP (Political party in power in India). 2. He promotes violence against Hindus and asking Muslims to murder them. Please see all his tweets and his twitter handle is @hussainhaidry. Hussain Haidry tweeted to incite violence by urging people to ‘show courage’ and ‘beat up’ the ‘upper caste’ Hindus, who according to him, are ruining the country. He had asked his people to go to each and every household in their respective colonies and hit all those voting for the BJP with chappals (slippers). 4. He wrote a poem asking for another 09/11 of killing people in India, by hijacking aeroplanes and hitting them against high rise buildings. He also tweeted about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shankargb (talk • contribs) 00:12, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Shankargb, I agree that the article is self promoting and needs to be cleaned up, and I just removed several primary source citations. However, he seems to be notable, as shown by the mention in The Guardian, and the articles in the Hindustan Times and The Hindu. There are a number of other sources that seem to also prove notability, but I don't know how reliable they are, since I'm not familiar with Indian news sites.

As for the other information, that isn't relevant for whether he should have an article. There are many people out there who have done horrible things who still have Wikipedia pages. If you think that information should be included, and you have reliable sources (not social media), then feel free to include it in the article!

-Gbear605 (talk) 00:42, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I am quoting Hussain Haidry's own words, speeches, poems, tweets inciting violence. Are they (his own words and his own tweets) not credible evidence, though not published in newspapers? The Guardian, The Hindustan Times and The Hindu are all managed by Leftists, Communists, etc. who want to spread fake narrative. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shankargb (talk • contribs) 03:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@Shankargb: We do require reliable secondary sources such as the Guardian, the Hindustan Times, the Hindu, regardless of whether they are "all managed by Leftists, Communists, etc. who want to spread fake narrative". If you cannot find such reliable secondary source coverage then whatever it is can't be significant. Nil Einne (talk) 06:32, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I am disappointed that you are refusing to accept primary sources of evidences of Hussain Haidry's words of inciting violence. No wonder most people are losing faith in the neutrality of Wikipedia.My contention is that the article or wiki page is self promoting of Hussain Haidry and it does not deserve to be there.If Tom, Dick and Harry start creating Wikipedia pages in their names, then there will be 7 billion Wikipedia pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shankargb (talk • contribs) 08:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@Shankargb: our policy is the same whether the person is someone Hindu nationalists hate or love, so it's unclear how it makes us non-neutral. If you believe reliable secondary sources are not neutral, that's a problem with the world not with Wikipedia. We are here to create an encyclopaedia, not to right great wrongs with the world. We do indeed have problems with people who have a WP:COI trying to create articles on themselves directly or indirectly and it is true the creation of the Hussain Haidry article is interesting since it was by an editor who only ever did that Special:Contributions/Vinodkhare. While we have policies in place to try and stop this, it's not an easy area to deal with given our strong privacy policy and other factors. Often the most we can do is ensure all articles meet out WP:notability requirements and WP:NPOV policy etc. While I only had a quick look, there seem to be several sources in that article covering the subject including several after the apparent viral hit in 2017 (somewhat assuaging WP:BIO1E concerns) like the Asian Age one. And while The Hindu one is an interview, it is in a source generally considered a newspaper of record. All this makes me think it probably passed WP:GNG. Still if you understand our RS and notability guidelines and you've done the necessary work, you're welcome to nominate it for deletion if you disagree and let the community decide. IMO it would probably be better to try an improve the article e.g. fixing issues of tone. And if you can find any reliable secondary source coverage of these alleged controversies it's possible something could be added. Nil Einne (talk) 13:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Aziz Ansari

We need some BLP eyes on Aziz Ansari, where editors are repeatedly promoting UNDUE derogatory article text related to a brief internet/media controversy sparked by a woman who had a bad experience on a date with him in early 2018 and got her story published on a now-defunct website for adolescent and young adult women. SPECIFICO talk 15:50, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Added to my watchlist. - MrX 🖋 15:52, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

No, editors are repeatedly removing well-sourced longstanding text based only on opinion.  Ansari has never denied coercing her for sex. Kolya Butternut (talk) 19:33, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I have other concerns about content on User/Article talk pages about the accuser of the subject, of sexual assault and/or misconduct (sources have used both words). One editor, SPECIFICO, has made comments about the (unnamed) accuser on public talk pages that I found concerning:

• You are repeating yourself. Yes, the upshot is that she mischaracterizes the incident as assault. That is what the sources say. Diff.
• The noteworthy incident was not the date -- which is like hundreds of thousands of such regrettable and regretted misunderstandings every week around the world. What garnered the brief attention in the blogosphere and a few press articles was the tenuous use of #MeToo narratives to describe the woman's having failed to extricate herself from an unwelcome situation before she got to tears. None of the commentary concludes that this woman impacted or damaged Ansari's "public profile". Nothing much happened. The noteworthy event was the woman's having held up her personal reactions to public scrutiny on the expectation that people would find them somehow similar to incidents of sexual misconduct. The public reaction was only that "bad conduct" is not "misconduct" and both she and Ansari were viewed as having bungled a rather innocuous interaction that left them both temporarily upset at having handled it poorly. Diff.

I found two opinion commentators defending Aziz: an op-ed by the resigned NYT columnist Bari Weiss, here, and a transcript of an interview here. Both opinion commentators seem to suggest Ansari is not guilty of any wrongdoing. Per WP:RSO, neither of these are reliable sources for any information about the incident. They are strictly reliable for the opinion of the authors, period. The above user is rehashing these opinions as if they are fact, without attribution, and in their own words. I do not see any reliable sources suggesting the woman "bungled" the encounter or that what occurred was "innocuous." I explained this to the editor, and was dismissed.

I believe these are BLP vios for the accuser and that the comments should be struck. In my opinion, we as a community should not be casting doubt on public forums on the accounting of events of a sexual assault accuser (or the accused, for that matter) based on opinion pieces with no first-hand knowledge of the events, no involvement in any formal investigation, and who have not spoken to any of the persons involved. I'd appreciate some input here. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 22:30, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

SPECIFICO is also badly misrepresenting what's going on here. He suggests the allegations are sourced to a "now-defunct website." They were originally published in a defunct website, and subsequently covered by NPR Vice NBC USA Today The New York Times and The Washington Post and many others. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 23:55, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I share the same concerns about SPECIFICO's public comments:

• I have been editing [Aziz Ansari] since January 2018, when the woman first promoted this dubious, trivial internet controversy.Diff. Kolya Butternut (talk) 00:23, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Susan McClary

The Susan McClary BLP has large sections of criticism, written in a very WP:ESSAY-like style, that are unsourced, or sourced to unreliable sources (e.g. Holocaust denying publishers). I noted the problem last week and removed some of the most problematic parts, but was reverted by User:Kosboot, despite WP:BLPREMOVE. Looking at the history of the article, I noticed that User:KidAd had a few weeks earlier removed that material and much more, and had been similarly reverted by User:Kosboot and another section reverted by User:Michael Bednarek. I've brought the issue here for review. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:25, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Jayjg, I specifically asked you to review the discussion on the article's talk page where several editors agreed that it should be reinstated. So rather than engage us, you come running over to this page to cry for help. All of the editors of that discussion are well-versed in musicological issues or are musicologists themselves and understand the literature and context of the issue. Either engage us, or move on to something else. - kosboot (talk) 18:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

User:Kosboot, the issue here is primarily of WP:BLP, and secondarily of WP:RS, WP:NPOV and WP:ESSAY. Being "well-versed in musicological issues" does not guarantee that you are well-versed in Wikipedia policy, and the very brief discussion on the article's Talk: page does not address WP:BLP. This board, however, does. Have you read WP:BLPREMOVE? I recommend you do so now, if you have not done so already. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:51, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

By the way, it was for your benefit that I came to this board. As an alternative, I could have simply blocked you (per WP:BLPREMOVE), and then removed the material. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:53, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Might as well chime in – thanks for the ping Jayjg. In April, I made a fairly bold edit here, which removed broad swaths of content that violated WP:NOTJOURNAL and WP:NOTESSAY. If you look at the diff, you will notice that I removed chunks of unsourced text about McClary's scholarship that was written like a college essay, CV, or university bio. I can see now that the text has been re-inserted. There is a very small discussion on the talk page that references a "substantial cut" (being my edit), but nothing that constitutes consensus. I will not that I was never pinged on the talk page, and therefor never participated in any content-related discussion. I will remind Kosboot that they must gain consensus per WP:ONUS to include the unsourced essay material. I will also restore the "essay-like" template to the page, as the problems have returned. KidAd talk 19:24, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of "the" in a stage name

This issue involves a BLP in regard to their name/stage name. The discussion initially began over at: Talk:The_Weeknd#the_Weekend

If a solo musician has “The” with a capital T in their stage name/alias/pseudonym, should the “The” be capitalized, especially in the lead sentence regarding their own stage name?

I’ll use The Weeknd as an example. Abel uses “The Weeknd” (with a capital T) as his stage name. People who are familiar with his music and works know this. If not, this is according to:

• His main website: https://www.theweeknd.com/news/weeknd-claims-1-spot-billboard-hot-100 ("GRAMMY® Award-winning diamond-certified Toronto R&B / Pop icon The Weeknd captures")
• His record label: http://www.republicrecords.com/artists/the-weeknd ("through an ambitious widescreen lens, The Weeknd quietly")
• His YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheWeeknd/about (“Abel adopted the stage name, "The Weeknd," after")
• His official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/theweeknd/ (“The official Facebook Page for The Weeknd")
• Billboard: https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6737514/weeknd-rolling-stone-cover-story-5-things-we-learned (“Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, told Rolling Stone”)

The Weeknd's article has his stage name as "The Weeknd" with a capital T since 2011 (article was created in 2011). This is the long-standing status quo. Random time periods throughout the years: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 all correctly capitalize his stage name as “The Weeknd” in the lead sentence.

Now, a couple editors are recently saying that the “the” should be lower-case, both in the stage name and in the body of the article. [31]

• Some are citing MOS:THEMUSIC. However, MOS:THEMUSIC includes directions for bands, not solo artists, which caused this recent discussion on its talk page: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Music#MOSTHEMUSIC_for_solo_artists and no clear directions.

• Another argument is MOS:NICKNAMETHE, which states: “A leading "the" is not capitalized in a nickname, pseudonym, or other alias (except when the alias begins a sentence)” with a link in its sentence to MOS:THECAPS, which states: “however, some idiomatic expressions, including the titles of artistic and academic works, should be quoted exactly according to common usage.” The section lists The Hague and The Open Championship as examples of exceptions.
• Is The Weeknd an exception, since that's his stage name and is most commonly used with a capital T? Or is MOS:NICKNAMETHE the definitive guideline and MOS:THECAPS does not apply to The Weeknd (or any other solo-musicians)? One editor stated that MOS:THECAPS is guidance for titles of artistic works, but The Open Championship is listed as an example of an exception and I don't believe that that's an artistic work per se.

Abel uses “The Weeknd” with a capital T as his stage name. If Wikipedia decides to start off The Weeknd’s article with “Abel Makkonen Tesfaye (born February 16, 1990), known professionally as 'the Weeknd'” (with a lowercase t), not only is that giving readers inaccurate information, but is basically telling Abel that he doesn’t know the casing of his own stage name.

So how should this capitalization of "the" in regard to a stage name be handled? Some1 (talk) 01:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)