Talk:Brendan O'Neill (columnist)

Is the section here on 'Sexual Abuse' helped or not by his article on Owen Jones' Hamas Massacre film video

The section had contained only 1 thing - something he said in 2012. Since O'Neill he wrote on the relevant theme here of sexual violence in his article about Jones, I added O'Neill's article.

Like the 2012 mention, the source was an article by O'Neill himself.

Vladimir.copic -reverted it. Please can you expand here why you think the 2012 content is worth keeping but you deleted the 2023 new content. Will readers not want to see more details of O'Neill views on sexual abuse?

Vladimir.copic - please will you please withdraw your formal Wiki complaint against me: Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement until this issue has been discussed here and other editors views shared.

I oppose the addition of this material. (1) It is about Owen Jones, who is not the subject of this article and (2) There is no indication that B O’Neill’s views on Owen Jones are noteworthy, since there is no reporting of them in independent sources. Sweet6970 (talk) 16:35, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

References

Edit warring from LadybugStardust

This is regarding this block of edits, which LadybugStardust has been edit warring to restore with slight modifications.

Opinions about how "staunch", "steadfast", and "adamant" this person is would need to be attributed to a reliable source. Further, cherry-picked quotes do not demonstrate that any particular opinion is worth mentioning, which makes it a form of editorializing. Even without these words, this would be arbitrary and artificially promotional. Our goal is not to promote him or his views, it is to provide context via reliable, independent sources. Since you do not have consensus for this content, stop edit warring and discuss here.

Grayfell (talk) 19:07, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't consider any of the language that I used to be un-WP:NPOV. I didn't say that O'Neill was "a stalwart defender of a woman's right to choose". I said that he was "adamantly pro-choice", which is a statement of fact. Regardless, how about this: "Brendan O'Neill considers himself to be pro-choice and is in favor of abortion rights"?--LadybugStardust (talk) 19:21, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That language is subjective, unfalsifiable, and loaded. There is no objective test to determine how 'staunch' someone is, so this is an opinion, and would need to be attributed. Since it appears to be your opinion, using this term in Wikipedia's voice is WP:EDITORIALIZING.

As I said, even without these terms, our goal isn't to promote him via cherry-picked quotes.

To be blunt, I don't accept that those are useful sources for this article. O'Neill is a pundit, which means his opinions are his commercial product. We are not a platform for helping him sell his wares. Further, as the student newspaper you've added multiple times notes, he has a 'hot take' on just about everything. We should be using stronger sources (independent sources) to decide which positions are important and likewise we are not obligated to include an opinion just because he has shared it. Interviews are poor for this, as they are WP:PRIMARY. Opinions are poor for various reasons, and Newsweek is, well, WP:NEWSWEEK.

Specifically regarding the Independent source from 2020, here's the full paragraph: With his contrarianism and pseudo-radicalism, as if a global pandemic was nothing but another opportunity to exploit, Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked!, condemned the closing of pubs and called for “Dissent in a time of Covid”, criticising the “chilling” and “dangerous” “witch-hunting of those who criticise the response to coronavirus”. This led to a backlash from mainstream commentators and even his fellow travellers.[1] Your curated quotes from that article misrepresent the intent of that source. It was not passing these along as a bland description of his opinions, it was contextualizing them as O'Neill "exploiting" the pandemic. Including this source at all is debatable, but any claims from it would have to be attributed as the opinion of the author, Aurelian Mondon, and would have to include context. Grayfell (talk) 19:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this. We're here to summarize what reliable, secondary, independent sources say about the subject, and that typically means at a high level. What the subject says isn't important, except when it's covered by secondary sources—their coverage is what makes it important. Woodroar (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't the one who added the thing about the Coronavirus. As for the rest, you are simply nitpicking semantics. Freedom of speech is O'Neill's biggest thing - it's what he talks about more than anything else, by far. Of course he is a staunch free speech absolutist - absolutely nobody would question that. As for primary sources, they were only used in reference to O'Neill's personal views, so they are perfectly acceptable in that context.--LadybugStardust (talk) 01:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Saying "of course" is not persuasive, nor does answer my concerns. If you have a reliable, independent source source for it being his biggest thing, please present it for discussion, and from that we can figure out how to summarize it neutrally. The source you have used is too flimsy and your proposed wording isn't appropriate.

You did not add the Independent source, but you did restore it. Regardless, continuing to edit war to restore your preferred version of the article is a very bad idea. Grayfell (talk) 03:16, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

One doesn't exactly have to look very hard to find countless sources on freedom of speech being his biggest thing: [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Nor does one have to look very hard to find countless sources for his stance on abortion (particularly the canceled Oxford debate, which was the topic of significant punditry): [9][10][11][12][13][14][15] Staunch free speech absolutist? You bet. Adamant pro-choicer? Absolutely. These are not things that are even in debate regarding O'Neill and, at this point, you are simply being difficult for no reason other than to be difficult.--LadybugStardust (talk) 04:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Do not insert your comments into other people's comments, per WP:TPG, WP:INTERPOLATE etc. It makes it almost impossible for other people to keep track of signatures.

I admit I didn't read all of those source, but every one I did look at was poor for this point. A bunch of opinion columns and other examples of "contrarianism and pseudo-radicalism" (to borrow a phrase from the Independent source) are not proportionate, especially not since some of those are fringe outlets which are not reliable. Further, you need to summarize what reliable sources are actually saying, not just the bits which you assume will support your own assumptions.

Most importantly, your inability to understand why I am being "difficult" is not an excuse to edit war. Grayfell (talk) 05:01, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

First off, "Do not insert your comments into other people's comments?" What are you even talking about? I did not and would not insert my comments into other people's comments. Second, while not all of those sources are reliable, some of them are. The Vox source is the one that I had used in the article for the abortion debate being shut down.--LadybugStardust (talk) 16:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

FYI, this is the edit where inserted your comments into Grayfell's comments. Woodroar (talk) 17:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Okay, yeah, I thought that those were two separate comments. I guess I didn't notice that one of them didn't have a signature on it. Regardless, it's ultimately irrelevant; everything else that I said still stands.--LadybugStardust (talk) 23:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The Vox source says nothing about how "adamant" O'Neill is. It also doesn't call the debate cancellation "highly" controversial, nor does it describe "widespread" accusations of censorship. It cites the two people who would've debated and one of the people who lead the protest against the debate. Based on this source, the significance of this tempest-in-a-teapot to O'Neill seems minimal. The main thrust of the protests is that neither O'Neill nor the other guy deserved a prestigious platform from the school to debate abortion. The Wikipedia article doesn't indicate that he has any expertise in this area, so I'm not sure why mentioning this non-event would help readers understand Brendan O'Neil as an encyclopedia topic. Grayfell (talk) 21:21, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

O'Neill's own words - which were used to cite his POV - make it pretty clear how "adamant" he is. Regardless, I don't think anyone could possibly object to this rephrased sentence: "Brendan O'Neill describes himself as pro-choice. In 2014, O'Neill was slated to argue in favor of abortion rights in a debate at the University of Oxford, but the debate was canceled after student protests, leading to accusations of censorship from O'Neill and others."--LadybugStardust (talk) 23:12, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Let's approach this from a different direction: Why, according to reliable, independent sources, is his position on abortion any more or less significant than any other opinion he's shared? He has, as I'm sure we're all aware, shared countless opinions over his career. It isn't up to us as editors to decide which opinions are important and which are not, it is up to sources. This isn't a new standard and it isn't unique to this article, this is the norm across the project.

Citing a source which merely mentions an opinion is not enough, because he has produced thousands of such sources for hundreds of his own opinions. We need to be able to explain to readers why this opinion is important enough to single-out. So from that, you did not address my concerns. Why was this cancellation important enough to mention at all? Why include his self-aggrandizing accusations of "censorship" without also including the context, or the equally-weighted opinions of those who dispute that it was censorship? If you start from the assumption that his view on abortion belongs in the article and then write backwards from that assumption, the article will always have problems like this. So instead, what do reliable, independent sources say are O'Neill's most important opinions? Grayfell (talk) 00:49, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

His position on abortion is worth at least a mention in the article primarily because of the canceled debate that provoked debate in and of itself. His position on freedom of speech is worth mentioning in the article because, again, that is by far his biggest thing. Is having two sentences in the article about his stance on abortion (backed up with sources) really going to be to the detriment of the article? No, of course not. It's not like I'm devoting multiple paragraphs to it.--LadybugStardust (talk) 01:19, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Like Grayfell said, "his biggest thing" has to be based on an examination of independent sources about O'Neill, regardless of which aspect they focus on, not your personal opinion. (t · c) buidhe 02:02, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Quality > quantity. If you can't pick two or three really solid sources, then it doesn't matter how much you can dredge up. (t · c) buidhe 05:07, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Freedom of Speech and Abortion revert

Here's a breakdown of my revert. Freedom of Speech section:

1. Sky News Australia doesn't make the claim (that Brendan O'Neill takes an absolutist position on freedom of speech). In addition, this is probably one of those unreliable "news" articles mentioned in WP:RSP. It's certainly not news, just repeating some things that O'Neill said.
2. Christian Post doesn't make the claim.
3. The Australian doesn't make the claim in their own words, only in a quote from O'Neill. If we kept the cite, we'd need to attribute it as a quotation. That being said, an entire section based on one quote is very likely UNDUE without widespread coverage in reliable, secondary sources.

Abortion section:

1. Spiked is O'Neill's paper, so essentially a primary source. If that Spikes source gets covered by reliable, secondary sources, then we can discuss mentioning it somehow.
2. Vox doesn't make any claim about accusations of censorship from O'Neill, and it very clearly said the reason was "safety concerns" per "University administrators". This phrasing implies that "student protests" alone caused the cancellation. This section is also likely UNDUE without widespread coverage in reliable, secondary sources.

Cheers! Woodroar (talk) 22:22, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

WP:Headlines should not be used as sources. Please stop edit warring LadybugStardust. (t · c) buidhe 23:08, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The Australian reports on Brendan O'Neill's free speech absolutism by quoting him saying that free speech is absolute. The other two sources are also WP:RS reporting on O'Neill's free speech absolutism. The Spiked source was used to cite O'Neill's POV regarding abortion before using the Vox source to cite how his views on abortion were notable. Again, it is obvious at this point that, no matter what, you are dead-set on removing any revisions that I make, no matter how much I back them up with reliable sources.--LadybugStardust (talk) 23:12, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Neither Sky News Australia nor Christian Post say anything about free speech absolutism. The Australian quotes O'Neill, but your edit makes it sound like it's The Australian saying it. You can't do that. Quotations absolutely need to be attributed. This section is undue without several sources actually supporting the content.

Vox doesn't say anything about accusations of censorship from O'Neill. The only use of "censor" or "censorship" that I could see are in a quote from Oxford/Christ Church officials and a summary of a statement from McIntrye. In addition, the statement the debate was canceled after student protests is vague and implies that the students/protestors had some more direct effect when the reason given was "safety concerns". This section is also undue without several sources actually supporting the content. Woodroar (talk) 23:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

The claim being made was "Brendan O'Neill takes an absolutist position on freedom of speech." All three sources - but especially the one from The Australian that uses O'Neill's own words - make that explicitly clear. For the abortion one, I was trying to only use a non-opinion piece, but there are numerous opinion pieces regarding it, e.g. this Daily Telegraph piece by Tim Stanley, this Aleteia piece by Greg Daly, this Spiked piece by Tim Black, and several pieces by O'Neill himself decrying the cancellation of the planned debate as censorship, such as this one. It would be entirely accpetable to cite these op-eds as testament to the fact that O'Neill and others cried censorship over the debate's cancellation.--LadybugStardust (talk) 00:14, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that the sources support the claim you want to make, and it's clear that other editors disagree as well.

I also disagree that more opinion pieces (from connected sources like Spiked and the other debater, no less) make this issue (or the subject's views) any more worthy of coverage. Woodroar (talk) 00:24, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

• The raw quantity of sources is not the issue. This doesn't justify edit warring. You should revert until consensus is changed on this talk page, and you should not restore this content again until then. Wikipedia is a collaborative project, and your behavior has become disruptive. You have already been warned of this multiple times by multiple editors. Grayfell (talk) 00:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

The Vox source establishes the notability of the event. The op-eds establish that multiple people (including O'Neill himself) cried censorship over it, which you complained that the Vox source didn't go into detail about.--LadybugStardust (talk) 02:01, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Again, that is not an excuse to edit war. Wikipedia has policies in place over edit warring, and you have violated those policies multiple times. Grayfell (talk) 02:10, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I see you logged out so that you could revert me from an IP address and it wouldn't look like you were continuing to edit war, so you are certainly no better.--LadybugStardust (talk) 16:30, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

I did not log out to make that edit. The article has already been fully protect once and you have already been warned multiple times. It is revealing that you think I'm stupid enough to get banned over something like that, but regardless, do not cast aspersions. If you you continue to ignore Wikipedia's policies, you will get blocked. Grayfell (talk) 22:54, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, sure, it's totally not suspicious at all that an IP address with only two other edits just happened to revert me in the exact same way that you repeatedly did. By all means, feel free to go cry to the admins because I pointed out how suspicious it is. But I love how you threatened to block me yourself, as if you're an admin. You aren't, even if you might think that you are.--LadybugStardust (talk) 16:39, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

You're right, I'm not an admin... but I do know that edit warring leads to blocks. Your behavior here won't help you if this does go back to a noticeboard. Grayfell (talk) 18:39, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, you're the only one edit warring right now under an IP address (which I didn't revert), so I'd say that it's pretty unlikely that I'm going to be blocked for edit warring. I'd also say that it's pretty unlikely that I'm going to be blocked for pointing out that you very obviously reverted me under an IP address to avoid scrutiny for edit warring. So, if you're thinking that you're going to get me blocked... well, good luck to you, I suppose.--LadybugStardust (talk) 18:56, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

• While I don't think it would improve the article, I do not object to briefly saying "O'Neill is pro-choice" or similar based solely on the Vox source. None of this flowery editorializing about how staunch, adamant, stalwart, etc. he is. Even calling him "self described" seems excessive. The protested debate seems too trivial to bother mentioning.

The problem with using WP:OR to include his views on "free speech" (even without editorializing) is that it doesn't really say anything of substance. "Free speech absolutism" is now an infamously simplistic right-wing/libertarian buzzword which implies a lot but which is low on meaning. I haven't seen a source yet which explains why this is useful context for understanding him. Our goal, as always, isn't to just dump random information that some editors think is important based on WP:OR. Our goal is top provide context. Regurgitating his own buzzwords without any context is always going to cause problems like this. Grayfell (talk) 00:26, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

The issue I have with Vox is that it doesn't really call him pro-choice, either. It says that he was going to debate "abortion culture hurts us all", taking the against side. Is this what he believes, or is he debating it because that's what free-speech absolutists do? And what even is "abortion culture"? Yes, yes, I know he's "pro-choice", but nobody wants to come out and say it. Almost like they're afraid of going on record because of those low-meaning buzzwords.

You know, if we had a reliable, secondary, independent source or two, plainly saying "Brendan O'Neill is pro-choice", I wouldn't have a problem with putting that and the rest of his views in a paragraph. I don't understand the desire to separate and highlight these views as if he's some recognized subject matter expert on them all. Woodroar (talk) 01:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Fair points. This is a problem with many articles about pundits. Why, rhetorically speaking, should any encyclopedia reader care about anything they say? This is directly related to the free speech issue. If Brendan O'Neill, specifically, has expertise in any topic at all, he's had plenty of chances to demonstrate it. Since he has not, why are we obligated to pay attention? Not giving him a platform to share every arbitrary hot take isn't "censorship", it's just reality. Grayfell (talk) 02:33, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

As stated before, every single time that O'Neill has gone on Q&A or any other show that he's gone on, 99% of the time, it's been to argue for absolute freedom of speech, and more than half of his op-eds are arguing for absolute freedom of speech as well. Yes, he has a hot take on pretty much everything, but this is by far his biggest thing, which is why I felt like it was more than WP:DUE to include in the article about him.

The cancelled abortion debate featuring O'Neill was discussed in British Parliament and in The New Statesman as well. The Conservative Woman even sarcastically called O'Neill "the great and good pro-choice overlord". The cancelled abortion debate was, as stated before, the subject of numerous op-eds, which makes it at least worth one sentence in the article.--LadybugStardust (talk) 16:39, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Not a chance. "He argues a lot in op-eds" and "He's been written about in op-eds" are not reasons for adding content about living persons. Pretty much the opposite, in fact. Woodroar (talk) 18:15, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Something being repeatedly written about in op-eds in notable publications indicates notability.--LadybugStardust (talk) 18:56, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

No, it absolutely does not. Even if this non-event were notable, which it isn't, these sources are bad for showing that it is notable to O'Neill specifically which is all we care about on this talk page. The Parliament one is especially useless. For starters, it does not show that this was "discussed by British Parliament", it shows that it was mentioned in passing in a document which was submitted to Parliament. That submission supposedly documents "key instances of the suppression of pro-life students’ freedom of speech" but neither speaker was a student! Further, the student's right to protest is completely ignored, which makes the whole thing transparently disingenuous. More importantly for our purposes, it says nothing at all about O'Neill's beliefs, nor does it indicate that this non-event has any significance to O'Neill, specifically. Our goal at this article is to explain why some events are relevant to O'Neill. These sources are bad for this. Grayfell (talk) 19:02, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

• No, not really. Many editorials are written by non-experts - essentially "professional opinion-havers", or culture-war "hired guns" whose job is always to argue or present a particular perspective. Those usually aren't great sources for opinions because the fact that they take a particular position is unexceptional and because they have no expertise to give their position any weight. Anyone can hire anyone to take any position, or can find someone with the desired views and elevate them; that doesn't make their opinions encyclopedic. The best opinions are from high-quality established experts, not from op-ed pages. --Aquillion (talk) 08:01, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not talking about the opinions themselves. I'm saying that the fact that numerous op-eds were written about the event in major publications indicates that the event is at least notable enough to deserve a mention in the article. The event is notable to O'Neill specifically because O'Neill was at the center of it.--LadybugStardust (talk) 19:27, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

But if the opinions themselves are by random non-experts and professional opinion-havers, I don't think that that indicates that it's notable at all. The best coverage is WP:SUSTAINED coverage from high-quality secondary sources usable for statements of fact; mentions in opinion-pieces by non-experts don't really mean much at all. Additionally, with only axe-grindy culture-war opinion pieces by non-experts to use as sources, there's no real way to cover it neutrally - we need decent secondary sources to establish basic facts and framing, not a talking head who is paid to argue position X including some dubious anecdote or conjecture in their usual litany supporting position X. We could potentially put such things in attributed "according to talking-head blowhard XYZ, who has no relevant expertise...", but why would we include such opinions? --Aquillion (talk) 23:00, 29 April 2024 (UTC)