Talk:Stefan Molyneux/Archive 5

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Criticism section

Criticism sections are discouraged by wikipedia style guides. The (extensive) controvery section should be folded into the main text. Ashmoo (talk) 13:45, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Generally that is true, but the majority of RS reporting on Molyneux is critical; per WP:Weight the article needs to reflect this. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 13:34, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

This would make the need for a specific section even less necessary. The criticism should be part of the normal text. Ashmoo (talk) 12:31, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Removed reference to Chomsky debate

I removed the reference to the Chomsky interview because it was included in a list of interviews and debates, and it was merely an interview. Its not clear why the interviews and the debates should exist in one single list, as it just makes it vague as to whether or not Molyneux has interviewed or debated each person in the list. A person more familiar with Molyneux's work should take the time to verify who Molyneux has actually interviewed and who he has debated and clearly state as much. I have removed the reference to the chomsky interview so at least the statement is possibly true right now. The entire statement should be removed if no one is willing to determine who Molyneux has debated and who he has interviewed, but I figured I'd wait for someone to correct it before deleting. 74.79.240.188 (talk) 01:07, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

deFOOing & reliability of sources

Being called the leader of a therapy cult because of someone else's actions that were not under direction is unfair to say the least. I believe Tom Weed is responsible for his own actions and no one should be made responsible for them. Having watched the video it's clear he was putting forward an opinion/theory and did not tell him to do anything. I think a section on deFOOing is fine but everything currently in it should be removed including the part which mentions the actions of his wife. --Mralan101 (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Molyneux wife's statements are directly relevant to him because the statements were made on his podcast. If the sources are notable and credible then the content should stay. Removing the weasel words and balancing out the negative with the positive is about all that can be done. Unfortunately, having negative accusations is part of becoming a public figure. If you think this article is not neutral then add more sources and content to the article. Waters.Justin (talk) 22:05, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

DeFOOing, or at least cutting one's family ties following Molyneux's extremely loose criterions is de facto absolutely unsupported by any professionals -- with the exception of Molyneux's wife who, for this very reason, has been sanctioned by Canadian authorities of her profession. That deFOOing is pseudo-scientific practice and that it is characteristic to cult-like organizations should be mentioned immediately at the deFOOing-section, and not merely at the criticism section. This is normal wiki-standards concerning neutrality. c.f., in Astrology -article the fact that astrology is regarded as a pseudo-science by the scientific community is pointed out right at the beginning of the article, and not merely at the bottom of it in "criticism"-section. Likewise, neutrality demands that the fact that deFOOing is unanimously considered humbug-threrapy and a dangerous doctrine characteristic of cult-like organizations; if the article does not emphasize what is common knowledge within community of genuine specialists, it is biased and non-neutral. --Raži (talk) 08:47, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

That section of the article is now a mess. You've included a very long quote from the subject's website and some criticisms from a website set up to specifically criticize Molyneux. What's needed are some calmer voices. I agree that bunk should be called bunk, just more briefly.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 09:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree: it is a mess. I also agree that my edit was poorly done -- the citations were too long, etc. I cleaned it up a little and I think it is now pretty close to wiki's quality standards. In any case, I maintain that as deFOOing is objectively bunk, it is not neutral thing to deal with it first "neutrally" and drop the critical part at the bottom of the article. Furthermore, David Cooperson is a real psychologist and published author, and what he writes is not simply an opinion: he actually describes what Molyneux in fact is doing. As to citations, there should be more of them, but to be frank, my edit made the article better from this point of view. --Raži (talk) 00:32, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

defoo.org

Defoo.org is Molyneux's own webpage, just like freedmanradio.com. It is RS. See WP:BLP. As to the other sources see below. In the context of a mere blogger, these sources are in my opinion completely RS. They are specialist opinions, and are not libelous in nature. At least they should be mentioned in criticism section, but as deFOOing M's way has zero support in scientific community, I stand behind my view that neutrality demands that this be mentioned right at the start. --Raži (talk) 02:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Cult -accusations

The quotation from David Cooperson is from webpage https://www.freedomofmind.com section "group listing". See freedomain radio on their list: https://www.freedomofmind.com/Info/list.php Freedomofmind.com is a cult-information source apparently upheld by Steven A. Hassan (https://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/prof_detail.php?profid=108149&p=10), Steve Guziec and Rachel Bernstein. Specialist opinion: "Steven Hassan is a compelling spokesman on the topic of cult mind control, which encompasses issues of human identity and our innate psychological vulnerability to dissociate. In addition, he educates and challenges us to think about the groups using mind control techniques in our culture, and how to help those affected reclaim their lives. His commitment to this neglected area of human experience is exemplary. At my invitation, Steven has taught psychiatry residents at Brigham and Women's Hospital about these issues for the last 14 years. Knowledge of these issues is crucial for all mental health professionals." -- Mary K. McCarthy, M.D. Harvard Medical School. It is a genuine source, not just " a blog" contrary to what some editors have claimed, and the quotation has the full right to be where it is. --Raži (talk) 17:04, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

No longer a libertarian

Molyneux is an outspoken Trump supporter and racist now. He doesn't even claim to be a libertarian anymore. This page should be updated accordingly. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZzeC06hVvA — Preceding unsigned comment added by MinnesotanConfederacy (talk • contribs) 18:26, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

Certainly. I'm actually really surprised there's no mention of the fact that he constantly talks about how third world people have very low IQs and how "race matters". Seems like this should be mentioned on here since he's done dozens of videos about it and often invited on white nationalists such as Jared Taylor on his show. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.234.39.69 (talk) 13:56, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Content dispute regarding deFOOing

User:Netholic has removed for a second time a chunk of material discussing Molyneux's deFOOing. User:Raži appears to be the main advocate for including this subject and claims that the sources meet WP:RS, but it's clear there's disagreement, including User:Srich32977.

Can we get some references outside of Molyneux and his obvious opponents to write something better? Molyneux's own website is a primary source, but can be used to establish that he advocates certain views. Those views cannot go completely unanswered in a balanced article. Are these views a notable aspect of Molyneux's body of work (I admit I listened to quite a few of his podcasts without ever encountering the concept of deFOOing and first came across it here)? As a YouTube and podcast personality, I suppose it's not too surprising that there is not a lot of mainstream coverage.  —jmcgnh^{(talk) (contribs)} 21:57, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Improvements

Comments by topic-banned editor
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In this edit, I improved the Ann Coulter reference (replacing primary source with secondary news), added another notable guest with a solid news ref, and removed an WP:OR interpretation of a primary sourced ref. I was reverted on technicality, so I ask that editors interested in improving this article please restore that edit. I feel these are uncontroversial, clear improvements. -- Netoholic @ 20:21, 3 February 2017 (UTC) Netoholic As I am sure you are aware, merely commenting on this talk page is a violation of your topic ban. Why are you making such a flagrant violation? Are you trying to get sanctioned? I have no quarrel with you, and have no opinion either way on the edit in question, it may be entirely appropriate. But please, don't cause trouble for yourself that you don't need. ResultingConstant (talk) 20:35, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Infobox person and not Infobox philosopher?

Ann Coulter has Infobox philosopher when she's more of a pundit. Why does this page not have Infobox philosopher? Stoodpointt (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Also there's an old photo of him when he was young when he had blonde hair. I've only seen it on YouTube videos so it's not a good copy but this would be a good pic to get. Even if it can't be uploaded, it would be good to link to. Stoodpointt (talk) 23:02, 10 February 2017 (UTC)

Moot point about Coulter – the infobox has been changed. As far as this article goes, the long lasting consensus (e.g., talk) is that Molyneux is not a philosopher. – S. Rich (talk) 00:00, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

Hmm that's odd. Infobox philosopher lost some of the info, occupation and political party. before (philosopher) and after (person). Seems like infobox philosopher might be redundant. Stoodpointt (talk) 10:26, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

User 'X' is topic-banned, yet persists in editing this article

Comments about and by Topic Banned editor
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The user is topic-banned[1]. The user has been repeatedly warned that he/she is topic-banned[2], yet the user persists in editing this article[3]. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 09:14, 11 February 2017 (UTC) You are inserting your own interpretation of primary sourced material in violation of WP:BLPREMOVE and Wikipedia:No original research. You cannot take what a primary source says, decide what you think is important, and write an editorial about it in this article. Such content can and must be immediately removed because this is a biography of a living person ("Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion"). If you believe your material is relevant and adequately sourced, you can discuss it here or on Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard. -- Netoholic @ 09:52, 11 February 2017 (UTC) If we follow those standards, nearly all content in this article should be removed besides Molyneux's coverage for running a cult-like operation in the Guardian and the Globe and Mail. Should we go ahead and scrub this article? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 10:28, 11 February 2017 (UTC) Those are the standards, and there is no "if" - we must follow them. I suggest giving WP:PSTS a read as well as searching the talk page archives here. I can assure you that these topics have been discussed a lot. Any primary sources still in the article are used for "straightforward, descriptive statements of facts" (such as listing interview guests), but are not used to make interpretive leaps they way that your proposed section did. Any current primary sources are eligible to be replaced with better secondary sources like I suggested above under #Improvements. I am going to withdraw from this particular discussion for now unless called back. My only concern was preventing a BLP violation. -- Netoholic @ 11:12, 11 February 2017 (UTC) Looks to me like a lame attempt at whitewashing. I'll make sure to make the rest of the article consistent with the standards you have provided. Lots of rubbish sources and undue nonsense to remove. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 11:20, 11 February 2017 (UTC)

0.04% of followers deFOOing makes it a "cult"?

The article states that 20 out of 50k FDR members have disassociated from their parents, or 0.04%. If you look at statistics of child abuse, that would be way more than 0.04%, so the number sounds reasonable. It's ridiculous to compare this to a cult like Scientology, which tries to get 100% of its members to disassociate from their unbeliever families, while Wikipedia is reluctant to call Scientology a cult. Also there's a big difference between disassociating from an abusive parent in rare cases versus routinely disassociating from one's entire family (including siblings, aunts and uncles, etc). Scientology advocates the latter, Molyneux advocates the former.

There are structural problems in journalists' incentives that make it unlikely for any RS to ever bother to publish a debunking of the cult claim, even if is false (which it is): 1. Cassandras get more attention than Polyannas. If it bleeds it leads. The story "this guy you never heard of is a cult leader bogeyman" is sexier and more interesting than "this guy you never heard of is not really cult leader". 2. Journalists don't want to appear to be defending a guy that almost all journalists are politically opposed to. 3. Journalists are eager to believe dirt on a guy that almost all journalists are politically opposed to.

"Subtle" distinctions like the difference between cutting ties with a specific abusive family member (as any reasonable person might do) vs. cutting ties with one's entire family (as cults do) are unlikely to be thought about in the rush to find dirt on someone that almost all journalists already hate for political and ideological reasons.

The problem with wikipedia is that it eschews reason and evidence: instead it just does a he-said-she-said in which the only people who are allowed to say anything are journalists and academics, both of which groups are overwhelmingly left wing. These journalists & academics are not required to provide valid arguments or evidence to back up their claims -- membership in the caste alone is sufficient to get their views parroted by wikipedia. Plus, even the subset of journalists and academics who aren't left wing are often discounted as non-RS without any real evidence of their being any less reliable than NYT or Chomsky.Jwray (talk) 03:00, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

If you are agreeing that the content is supported by reliable sources, there is nothing further to do. Wikipedia goes by reliable sources because the alternatives are much worse, and Wikipedia isn't the place to right great wrongs. Do reliable sources make the comparison to child abuse? If not, that's original research. Membership in the FDR community is neither well defined, nor well documented, which is an additional statistical problem, but again, that's just OR. Issues with the structural bias of journalism/academia are far, far outside the scope of this article. If you have reason to doubt these specific sources, you could see what WP:RSN says, but make sure this hasn't already been covered, first. An ANCAP Reddit thread is absolutely not a reliable source for Wikipedia, and isn't persuasive for talk page discussions, either. Grayfell (talk) 04:06, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Reliable sources are not reliable sources. Journalists are very unreliable. And the prohibition on original research seems to function here as a prohibition on thinking critically about sources in the absence of another journalist/academic publishing that.Jwray (talk) 04:48, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure, okay. Encyclopedias, as tertiary sources, are designed to be summaries and reflections of existing expert consensus. They are not publishers of original thought. This particular encyclopedia determines expertise by publishing history, academic/journalistic reputation, and editor consensus. If you think this is misrepresenting the reality of the situation, but is accurate to the published sources, you can either find better sources, or make your case as to why the sources aren't reliable. You have to first understand what "reliable" means on Wikipedia, though, or else nobody's interested. Grayfell (talk) 05:15, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

are designed to be summaries and reflections of existing expert consensus currently the cult section is 1/2 of the article. It seems NPOV to have half of article take up by 0.04%. 10:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe, but we cover perspectives in proportion to reliable sources, not in proportion to the number of people effected. The 0.04% number has nothing to do with expert consensus, it's a statistic derived from numbers reported by one of those sources. The two should not be confused. The statistic itself is questionable, also, since "users of the website" is a very broad, loosely defined starting point. Grayfell (talk) 18:39, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

If there are significant factors about Mr. Molyneux that have been discussed by independent reliable sources, please bring them to the table. Very little about his life or work has been covered by independent writings. SPECIFICO talk 00:32, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

References

BTW the article that talks about cult is from The Daily Beast, which is owned by IAC, which has Chelsea Clinton on board of directors. I wonder how reliable are the statements in that article making Stefan a cult leader because he talks about how Donald Trump is portrayed untruthfully by the media.Bladenkerst (talk) 15:37, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

How is the number of people fully realizing the promoted ideas relevant to whether or not the movement is classified as a cult? It is completely irrelevant. The only thing it shows is that he has not been able to fully convince his audience of methods. a.buchhorn (talk) 01:00, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

The money quote from the report of his wife's disciplinary hearing

"While it may be appropriate to recommend family separation in cases of abuse, the Member did not obtain a sufficient history to ascertain whether the advice was warranted in the circumstances discussed in the podcasts."

This was deleted in a revert because "This was one paragraph among many without any indication of specific significance in a WP:PRIMARY document. Find secondary sources establishing the importance of this point."

Quoting a primary source is allegedly forbidden as OR unless a secondary source does the same quotation. But almost every article about a book does the same kind of OR via either quoting or paraphrasing the primary source. The salience of the quote is obvious. I could easily get a job as a journalist somewhere and publish the same thing, in which case wikipedia would rubberstamp it, but why not save myself the trouble? Any moron can and does get a job as a journalist. Wikipedia should do more than mindlessly regurgitate whatever journalists say.Jwray (talk) 05:21, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

So either get a job as a journalist somewhere or wait until it gets covered. A disciplinary panel's findings is a primary document with legal implications, not a book issued for publication to a general audience. It's different in many, many ways. Articles which summarize a book's content can, with restraint, use the book as a primary sources for an overview or for non-controversial details, which is not parallel to your actions. Again, this isn't a book, and specifically highlighting one paragraph over all the others is a form of interpretation. If it's obvious to you, then it should be obvious to those morons down at the journalism factory, too. If they haven't decided to explain why it's salient, it's not obvious why it belongs in this article, and that's not Wikipedia's problem to solve. Grayfell (talk) 05:39, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2017

On the fifth sentence underneath Stefan Molyneux#Background, could somebody capitalize the "t" in YouTube, so that it says, "In one of his YouTube videos..."?

173.73.227.128 (talk) 14:28, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Done NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:38, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2017

Could somebody add Stefan's wife (Christina Papadopoulos) and his daughter (Isabella Molyneux) too by adding "| spouse = Christina Papadopoulos" and "| children = 1" into the infobox?

173.73.227.128 (talk) 02:28, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not cited reliable sources to back up your request, without which no information should be added to, or changed in, any article.
Furthermore, we do not include details of minors, unless these are already widely available, and relevant to the article. - Arjayay (talk) 12:43, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

I changed Irish-Canadian to Irish-born Canadian

My reason for this is because Molyneux grew up in London, England. Irish-Canadian imply's that he was raised in Ireland when he wasn't. Pc Retro (talk) 23:23, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Why redirect Dispute Resolution Organisation here?

It appears that the page explaining what a Dispute Resolution Organisation (DRO) has been deleted and/or redirected here.

Imho, this wasn't necessary as the idea was also brought up under another name by David D. Friedman. See POLICE, COURTS, AND LAWS---ON THE MARKET. --JamesPoulson (talk) 18:26, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Trump support in lede

Is the fact that he supported a presidental candidate notable enough for the lede? Especially since it is never mentioned in the main article. I would be WP:BOLD, but I have the feeling that this article is attracts a lot of strong opinions and don't want to step into the middle. Ashmoo (talk) 10:43, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Molyneux's view on race

I have added some information on Molyneux's view on race and intelligence, a commonly discussed topic on his show. However, some users are removing this valid information. Discuss here before removing it as it is an important topic that differentiates Molyneux from most sociopolitical commenters.Wadaad (talk) 23:35, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

As multiple users already told you and others, we can't use videos of Molyneux as sources to say he is a philosopher, or to say something about his positions based on our interpretations of the videos. It has to be published by independent, reliable sources. You have added an SPLC article about another individual, Linda Gottfredson, as a source for Molyneux's views becuase it mentions an interview of Gottfredson with Molyneux - rather than discussing Molyneux's views, it discusses Gottfredson's. The other sources that you have added do not meet WP:RS, they are two blogs, and the second ("Genetical Literacy Project") merely says Sixteen years later, Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio interviews Jon Entine about this seminal book in understanding the genetics of human differences., which does not support the statement you have added (aforelinked). So again, please read WP:RS and WP:BLP. Saturnalia0 (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Since Molyneux is a relatively obscure media personality it is difficult to find secondary sources expressing his views on race. However, from his channel and various social media posts it is absolutely clear what his position is. Whoever wants to research this and add to the page, feel free.Wadaad (talk) 00:52, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

So maybe they're just not relevant for an encyclopedia. Saturnalia0 (talk) 02:06, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Usage of his own video expressing his thoughts on being described as alt-right. Not a reliable source of information?

There is an edit that is being thrown back and forth again regarding Stefan's public statement about being part of the alt-right, as some media websites have defined him as.

The video in question is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKCYmgvlar0

In that video Stefan goes over this subject and argues why he thinks he is not part of the alt-right movement. It is a public video made by himself expressing his own opinion on the matter, it is completely relevant to the subject and important information, as it is a statement made by the very person being talked about in the wiki page.

I also would like to point out that his videos are being used as "proper reference" for other lines of the encyclopedia. In the Background section, a video of his is used as reference: "In one of his YouTube videos entitled 'The True Costs of War', Molyneux stated that his mother was born 'in Berlin in 1937 to a pretty Jewish clan' and lived there with her family until the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden in 1944.[13]"

As that source is not being contested, I would like to know exactly what is the difference between that "approved" source and the one being removed repeatedly, it seems like some kind of double standard to me. I think it doesn't make any sense that a video publicized by someone expressing their thoughts on what the media labels them as can't be "reliable source", as we're not even saying that he is or not part of the movement, just merely pointing out he made a public statement about it.

17:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by HJBC (talk • contribs)

That other nonsense doesn't about momma belong in the article either. Feel free to remove. SPECIFICO talk 20:03, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't answer anything I inquired though. HJBC (talk) 20:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia strongly favors secondary sources, especially for controversial details. If you want to propose a specific change, go ahead, but any addition to the article would have to be much, much more concise than Molyneux himself is. Grayfell (talk) 20:56, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

And credible! SPECIFICO talk 21:04, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

How can something be more credible than the very person saying it? I mean, a news article saying Molyneux said something is more accurate than a video that shows him saying that? It seems to me nothing more than mere animosity is going on here towards him, I thought editors were supposed to have a neutral stance. The article mentions several times his relation with the alt-right, heavily implying he is part of it, while the man himself denies that and gives arguments to it, isn't it important to note that in the page? So that not a single perspective is perpetuated especially when, as a matter of fact, that person in question denies that perspective?

Do we really need to be that ingenuous to believe the media that dislikes his opinions will highlight a video that goes against their bias? Did you guys even watch the video? If an author publishes a book with opinions, we can't use the book itself as a source, but only if a big newspaper publishes an article that mentions such book exists?

I just don't understand why the "real, valid" source has to be secondary when there is a direct link to the actual thing that was claimed, the core, the thing that gives origin to a secondary mention.

You say that Wikipedia favors secondary sources, but I don't see in any way how that logic would be applicable in an objectively beneficial way in this case. Going further, I suppose then that the "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" rule would apply in here in case the man himself edited the document with his statements? HJBC (talk) 21:34, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

"...a news article saying Molyneux said something is more accurate than a video that shows him saying that?" Yes. It's counter-intuitive, but that's correct. Encyclopedias are tertiary sources, so we mainly summarize secondary sources. Rather than rely on Wikipedia editors to dig through his content, we rely on reliable sources, instead. He says a lot. A ridiculous amount, in fact, but he is not a generally reliable source. Wikipedia editors choosing which things he's said to highlight and which to ignore would risk cherry-picking. In order for his opinion to be included, it needs to be contextualized somehow. The default way is with WP:SECONDARY sources. Since this is specifically about him, we could include his perspective as a response to the multiple sources calling him alt-right. This would be compliant with WP:BLP. It would have to be short and sweet, though, unless reliable sources also comment on that response. In that case we go with what those sources say. His perspective, while it can be included, does not automatically override reliable sources, however. Grayfell (talk) 21:46, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

OJ is going to find the killer!! He said so. SPECIFICO talk 21:55, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Charles Manson said he is going to live forever, so it might be time to create category:immortals. Grayfell (talk) 21:58, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Please let's not jump into logical fallacies here, it's sad. Those snarky "examples" you guys are using are not remotely similar to what is being discussed here, Molyneux is not proposing something that goes beyond our physical knowledge or is arguing against a jury's decision or whatever. What we have here is a person being called something and that very person disagreeing with that and sharing their own arguments to it, no crime related, no philosophical debate or anything. In fact, regarding that Charles Manson example, what would be wrong with adding "Manson, when asked in an interview, about mortality said he is 'going to live forever'"?

"Since this is specifically about him, we could include his perspective as a response to the multiple sources calling him alt-right. This would be compliant with WP:BLP. It would have to be short and sweet, though, unless reliable sources also comment on that response." Grayfell, that is exactly the kind of edit that was added to the article: "Stefan released a video disagreeing with that [video of those statements]", nothing less, nothing more. Isn't that sweet and short? That edit doesn't proves that he is right or wrong, it doesn't say that the secondary sources opinions (because that's what those 'reliable sources' are doing) are wrong; it just points out he made a claim on the subject, which is very important because we can't just let people be labeled and ignore their own statements about it, wouldn't that be basically censorship? Adding that information doesn't sway the balance towards any side, it's just more information and I believe gathering information about people and subjects is this website's purpose, is it not? HJBC (talk) 22:19, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

If you want to put conditions on this discussion, my condition is that you avoid misrepresenting intentional and obvious exaggeration as a logical fallacy. In Wikipedia, as in real life, tone policing will only get you so far. Snark is a valid response to a "race-realist" and "anti-feminist", which Molyneux most certainly is. Censorship is also a flawed argument to be making. Wikipedia isn't an indiscriminate collection of information, so in that sense our purpose is not about gathering information. That is the heart of what I'm trying to explain.

While they are opinions in the colloquial sense that they are arguably subjective, they are not opinions as Wikipedia uses that term. These are news articles, not op-eds. We mention a couple in the lede, but there have been more since, such as New York Magazine, Vanity Fair, and USA Today.

The added content was phrased in a very leading way, suggesting that readers should watch the video for themselves. We do not, as a general rule, suggest that readers go to unreliable sources. If he has said "I'm not alt-right" than we could say that 'he has said that he is not part of the alt-right.' If it's more complicated than that, well, as I said, he's not known for being concise, but we have to figure something out which doesn't subtly imply that he is qualified to define the term alt-right. He is not an expert by most reasonable standards. Grayfell (talk) 22:53, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Charles Manson said he is going to live forever, so it might be time to create category:immortals That's why there is WP:SELFPUB. Molyneux is not saying the sky is red, he is saying he refuses an ideological label on himself. Saturnalia0 (talk) 23:56, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

If he is widely classified as alt-right it should remain and be attributed. I believe that is already the case. If he refuses to acknowledge the label, it should be noted as a response: ... he has been described as alt-right by Politico and The Washington Post, and right-wing by CNN.[2][3][4][1][5] Molyneux refuses the label, classifying himself as X. Italic is the text not already present in the article. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. Anyone disagrees? If so, why? That is assuming he actually refuses the label and classifies himself as something else on the video, which I haven't checked. Saturnalia0 (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Maybe yes, but this fellow does thousands of videos and who knows whether they're consistent or what? At least it's a positive development that mainstream sources are finally noticing him. For years, there were only his words and his followers'. SPECIFICO talk 00:01, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Whelp, I watched the proposed video just now, and I cannot imagine any use for this as a source on Wikipedia. This is a reasonable proposal, but the source doesn't say anything at all. It's incredibly vague and dismissive to a remarkable degree. Par for the course with him, he takes an incredibly long time to even address the question while never really saying one way or the other. Ironically, he admits that it would be unreasonable to ask journalists to read all of his books to determine his position, but he does nothing to address this problem. He rambles about how loyalty to Trump as a human being isn't the same as loyalty to Trump's ideas, how the war in Afghanistan has been going on too long, and about WWII and the USSR, and fixed-winged aircraft, and the opium trade, and the troop surge, and immigration policy in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China, and how beautiful the internet is, and on and on... none of this has anything to do with being far-right or alt-right as the terms are commonly used by reliable sources.

The closest he gets to a refutation is trying to imply that opposing the war is not a far-right position, but that's not that close. He also admits to being anti-immigration and a nationalist... sort of. He implies that far right politics don't exist in Israel and Israel–Gaza barrier cannot be far-right, implied to be because far-right means Nazi, so he's implying that he's not far-right either.

If there's another video were he actually says this clearly, so be it. If it's in passing, or half as evasive as this video was, we shouldn't overstate it. This is why secondary sources are almost necessary. If he cannot bring himself to actually make a point that's not Wikipedia's problem. Grayfell (talk) 00:36, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

"If he refuses to acknowledge the label, it should be noted as a response" Well, that's exactly what was tried to be added, like I already mentioned multiple times. The issue here is that a source for that response is being deemed as invalid, so those of you contesting this can come into agreement that it is valid to add to the text that he denies that label as long as there is no youtube link to that statement? Doesn't make much sense to me, but alright, that would be still acceptable.

"Maybe yes, but this fellow does thousands of videos and who knows whether they're consistent or what?" That's not an argument, that's your own assumption on the subject at hand, because you just admitted to not watch his content (which is perfectly fine, but doesn't give you any room to declare them as concise or not). We can't say someone is X or Y when we don't actually know that ourselves, regardless of personal opinion. This is not a matter of analyzing his whole life works, it's just a matter that he claimed to not be alt-right in response to claims that propose the opposite and I cannot possibly see what is wrong with that being added to the text.

"Ironically, he admits that it would be unreasonable to ask journalists to read all of his books to determine his position, but he does nothing to address this problem" I don't see your point. What can he even do regarding to that? Physically force journalists, that clearly dislike his opinions that go against their own bias, to listen and read his content properly?

As for the "vagueness" of the video, as you put it, I think that's a perfectly fair point to be made but I also think it's fairly obvious that he is addressing all those topics because labeling people as "far-right" is trendy right now, so they are related. Aside than that, he gives fair focus on the Afghanistan war because that's what the mainstream media article linked him with right after classifying him as "far-right". Please re-watch 14:53 for a precise moment where he quotes the article which claims him as a "...far-right nationalist personalities..." that is not happy with Trump's ideas on the Afghanistan war and are in doubt if they will keep supporting the presidency. Being nationalist doesn't make you "far-right" as a matter of mere definition. Even if the video is not 100% directed to the label in a robotic manner, it still revolves around it. "He rambles about how loyalty to Trump as a human being isn't the same as loyalty to Trump's ideas, how the war in Afghanistan has been going on too long, and about WWII and the USSR, and fixed-winged aircraft, and the opium trade, and the troop surge, and immigration policy in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and China, and how beautiful the internet is, and on and on... none of this has anything to do with being far-right or alt-right as the terms are commonly used by reliable sources." I beg your pardon? Those topics are strictly related to how mainstream media has been talking about the subject, and labeling people. As an example of a trendy label, it was not long ago that CNN, mainstream and "reliable" media source, said an Indian man with dark skin and posters saying "Black Lives DO matter" near him was a white supremacist in Boston, which actually ended up mobilizing people to go to the streets to protest against a rally that was not even expressing ideas those protesters entirely disagree, they were just too angry because the news said a "far-right" rally was going on, right after Charlottesville, since they are used to associating "far right" with fascism or some other infamous word. And I will not even mention that whole shameful display of "reliability" by mainstream media when trolls on 4chan made some terrible fan fiction about Donald Trump having adventures in Russia with prostitutes and that was published. (some websites at least had the decency to apologize for that)

His main point is that even the very definition of "far-right" is being portrayed wrongly by the mainstream media to the public (and, according to him, he is part of that wrong definition), as we can see a terribly obvious example of that when people on the street use the word "fascist" to describe right wingers when it is the completely opposite of what "far-right" would be, which main point is a very small government, the opposite of a fascist government/ideology.

All in all, what I want to know is: would be acceptable to add to the text that he denies the definition given to him as an "alt-righter", regardless if he is right or wrong in our personal perspectives? If the text being contested here seemed to be leading the reader, we can simply work on that. (because it is not up to wikipedia to decide that, but providing that information is valid as it contributes to the subject. I'm not sure if this would be a valid comparison, but can't this be seen the same as someone being accused of a crime and denying that accusation, saying they are innocent?) HJBC (talk) 08:37, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

You do a good job of illustrating why primary sources should not be used. If someone says I also think it's fairly obvious that ..., they are having to interpret what is being said and that is not the job of Wikipedia editors. Wikipedia editors shouldn't be interpreting anything we should be reporting what is said. For it to be included he needs to say that he doesn't consider himself alt-right or something to that effect. There can be no interpretation of what he is saying. Your last example is good, someone being accused of a crime and denying that accusation, saying they are innocent. That isn't what the video does, it leaves it up to the person watching it to determine what he means. ~ GB fan 11:08, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

"they are having to interpret what is being said and that is not the job of Wikipedia editors." But that's not really the case, if we were interpreting his whole video we would have to point out his points, but all we add is a line saying he denies it. Even though it's not just a 5 seconds long video saying "I'm not 'far-right'", his video is very clearly showing that he does not consider himself "far-right", as he even laughs about the idea while arguing about it. Would a line saying simply "Molyneux released videos regarding to that description" be fit?

As a side note, changing the topic a bit, I just noticed edits being made about his subscribers number. Someone said the actual count that shows on YouTube is primary and thus not good. However, wiki pages about other youtubers do that without issue. What about that? HJBC (talk) 16:58, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I don't think there's an issue with using YouTube itself as a source for the number of subscribers, but this information is not present in the article and I don't see why it should be on the lead. For instance, if it was contextualized that Molyneux is a YouTube personality in the Career section and that that's a relevant aspect of his career, then it would make sense to mention the size of his channel on the lead. I have no idea how relevant his channel is in his career though. On Pewdiepie this is clear cut, he is a YouTube celebrity and that's what he is known for. In fact the userbox is "YouTube personality" and not "Person" as with Molyneux. Saturnalia0 (talk) 17:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

His YouTube channel is most likely the most important aspect of his career right now, probably is his source of income as well (and I use "probably" because I don't have objective and concrete statements claiming that), so I think it's fair to say it's very relevant to his career. Molyneux is referred to as a "YouTube Star" by The Washington Post in a source that can be found in his wiki page. That should be enough reliable source to indicate how relevant his channel is, right? I will also go ask talk sections dedicated to answering questions about editing the wiki that are answered by veteran editors to see what they think. HJBC (talk) 21:27, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

His Youtuber status should be very briefly explained, with reliable and independent sources, in the 'career' section. The lede generally shouldn't include things like this which are not explained in the body. Once that's done, I don't see any particular problem including his subscriber count in the same section. Adding it to the lede seems undue without much better sources. Grayfell (talk) 22:13, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

As I said, my summary of that video is that he does not clearly refute anything. You're free to differ, but that's why secondary sources are needed. He implies that the news article called him far-right because he opposed the war, but he's not stupid enough to actually make that claim. He is not alt-right because he opposes the war, nor is that why he's a nationalist. The "big government" thing is a meaninglessly loaded phrase with no consistency, nor does it in any way preclude him from being far-right. Corporatism was a core principle of Fascism, and in practice turns out to be highly compatible with Molyneux and other anarcho-capitalists' extreme interpretation of the NAP. Molyneux is a far-right nationalist who also opposes the war. This is why his opinion was even mentioned in the first place. If he wants to dispute that label, he should dispute that label. Grayfell (talk) 22:13, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

"Adding it to the lede seems undue without much better sources" I still don't agree with this definition of a "much better source" being something that mentions X exists instead of X itself, especially when it is about something 100% objective with no room for interpretation like numbers indicating how many subscribers someone currently have, but I won't make a case out of that. From what I understand, you are saying that it's fair for the subscribers number to be included briefly in "Career", right? Especially because it's directly relevant to the current information there saying he funds his efforts directly from donations, and I believe YouTube's subscriber counter is a reliable and unbiased enough source. If that's the case, then I think we all can agree on something now.

He has actually spoken ill of corporatism in another video and I don't understand how someone who wishes for small government would say working hand-in-hand with government is good. In fact, Mussolini himself said: "everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state" or something similar to that, I don't think ancap enthusiasts would support much of such a concept. Regardless, I won't use that as an argument, as it is something unrelated. Despite our differences in perspectives over his political position or how it would be defined as, I accept your argument that the video is up to interpretation and not entirely objective as it should be, so I suppose that matter is done now. HJBC (talk) 23:13, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Removal of Number of YouTube Subscribers from Article

I have attempted to add the fact that Molyneux has 650,000 subscribers on YouTube. The content has been deleted three times.

The number of subscribers is easily verifiable at his YouTube home page. WikiFan11427 (talk) 22:31, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we know. This is already being discussed in the section directly above this one. Grayfell (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

I added that information briefly in "career" as it was discussed in the section above this one. HJBC (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

References

Websites are not expected to contain actual sources to their claims to be used as reference

Greyfell, Could you please explain to me the logic behind your revert edit that is backed by "They are not required or expected to meet that standard."? I thought references had to be reliable and not just blatant opinions without any real source attached to them. Does that make possible to use very biased and unreliable websites like Infowars as reference then? HJBC (talk) 21:02, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, apologies, that was a mistake. I have restored this section because I think it's worth explaining.

I have self-reverted, as the source was not suitable for the attached claim, but not for the reasons you're presenting.

Who is citing Infowars? Comparing the SPLC to Infowars is false symmetry, and is unpersuasive for many reasons. Calling it "biased" is empty. Sources are not expected to be completely impartial, and anti-racist advocacy organizations can be reliable sources of information about racism, just as doctors are a reliable source of info on cancer. The SPLC is not always usable in every case, but it is a generally reliable source.

Regardless, Molyneux has interviewed several racist and "racialist" personalities such as Linda Gottfredson, as well as advocating his own controversial views on race. If a reliable source connects this to the alt-right, as it reasonably could, this would belong in this section. The source used didn't make that connection, so its use was WP:SYNTH and I agree with its removal. Grayfell (talk) 21:20, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, since you brought back this section for reference on possible future occurrences, thanks for answering, I wasn't sure if the tag thing would work. My line of thought for comparing the two is that they are essentially two websites that publishes their own opinions and I don't think Infowars is a valid source. I think we need to be careful with the label of "racist" though, someone who points out that scientific tests show discrepancies between races (regardless if the actual reason why is genetic, cultural or environmental causes, as that subject doesn't have a definitive conclusion yet) could be defined as a racist, but that's not all that it takes. I honestly don't know enough about Linda Gottfredson to say if she is one or not, and I'm aware that the article (this one) wasn't saying she was one either, but I would like to drop this thought of mine here so others can ponder about it.

One thing that I would like to add that I see as a flaw in that reference from SPLCenter is that they don't have any real link to the interview, they just claim that it happened, wouldn't that be lack of sources on their part? Unlike here, they don't have to worry about primary sources. What do you think of this? Wouldn't this lack of source make it unreliable as well? HJBC (talk) 21:46, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Gottfredson's position was never exactly mainstream, but has been steadily relegated farther and farther to the fringes, for multiple very good reasons. It's popular among "racialists" to claim this is only because of political correctness or something, but the same argument could be made of any WP:FRINGE theory. Unpopular opinions can right sometimes, but they can also be wrong.

As for the link thing: It would not make it unreliable if that were the case, because sources are not required to cite source (which are not required to cite source which are not required to cite sources ^{which are not required to cite sources...}). In this case, the SPLC cites a source, making it moot. The source is "Interview with Stefan Molyneux, 2015". They do not provide a link, but the interview itself is the source which is what matters. If Molyneux interviewed her more than once in 2015, that would be a poorly presented source, but it's still a source. Links are a courtesy to the reader, but they are not mandatory. This is true on Wikipedia, also, where offline sources are still reliable, as long as they are verifiable. One common problem with this is when the only link to a source is through a copyright violation, such as anonymous youtube reupload or similar. These should never be included (per WP:ELNEVER), but that's a digression. Grayfell (talk) 22:44, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Oh, by the way, the template:U tag didn't work, if that's what you meant. I saw this on my watchlist. In addition to the spelling (which everybody gets wrong), pings only work when they are added in the same edit as a signature. Grayfell (talk) 22:52, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Books

All of his books appear to be self published. Including amazon links to them pretty much turns this page into an advertisement for his products.Volunteer Marek (talk) 22:18, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

Cheap at half the price! Instantly delivered to your Kindle. Philosophy. SPECIFICO talk 00:00, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Hi WikiFan, you can't link to webpages that are used in part to sell books. Please don't do that again. Thanks. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 17:45, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your comment. Please clarify what you mean. What Wikiarticle are you referring to? Also, it is important to provide references for all content to ensure the content is accurate and verifiable.

For books, it is sometimes difficult to find online references other than Amazon.com or the author's website. Obviously, a poor reference is better than no reference.

Do you have any suggestions regarding where to find 'better' references than the ones I am using.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. WikiFan11427 (talk) 17:52, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Ooops. I just notices the title of your comment. Please disregarding my question about what article. What references would you like me to use? WikiFan11427 (talk) 17:58, 3 September 2017 (UTC)

Is Stefan Molyneux a White Nationalist?

WP:FORUM WP:OR WP:BLP

I think there is a strong argument that he is a White Nationalist. He has created a lot of content on the supposed "racial differences of populations," and it is a reoccurring theme in his works that whiteness is inherent in "Western Civilization." He has made many videos with those on the alt-right, and with many open White Nationalists, and he generally is in agreement with them. Molyneux also advocates for the cessation of immigration from what he names the third world. He advocates for this due to his argument that they have too low of an IQ to behave in a functional democracy, as well as having incomparable cultures and personalities, which he again links to them being inherent in biology. As one last note, Ryan Faulk, a notable member of the alt-right that advocates for White Separatism, states that "Stefan Molyneux is the most successful White Nationalist currently in popular culture." This seems to be an agreement with most who are on the alt-right or identity sphere. Here are some video examples, (long videos,) but I'd like this to be discussed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S8CJ-qn_3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lsa_97KIlc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ0W5Efp8N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTdMY9RI-7E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW_AZafEJ4A&t=3s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2RVIi6M7oM&t=7s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZPsXYo7gpc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsh_b70NSFQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x-tYmyJSVo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toTKacDgX_Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u1J6EEhkyM Again, almost all of these videos take openly White Nationalist positions, as well as advocating for what is Scientific Racism. This is very re-occurring topic for Molyneux, and forms one of the most foundational aspects of his view of civilization, and where it should head. Most of these interviews, are also by people noted as White Nationalist in popular media, many having wiki articles stating that as well. 2601:982:4201:D40:F494:6D96:E8AA:B7A3 (talk) 19:29, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

For the purposes of wikipedia, the above is WP:OR and likely a WP:BLP violation. Find reliable 3rd party sources labeling him a white nationalist and there there is something to talk about. ResultingConstant (talk) 19:31, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

I do not think there are any, as he is almost never mentioned in any noteworthy newspapers, news sites, or magazines. One can only find this being discussed on non-notable websites, blogs, and forums. We'll more than likely just have to wait for some to be published then if that is the criteria, but the evidence is extremely blatant. Is it possible to include a section outlining his views concerning race, nationalism, and IQ, and how it is in major conflict with mainstream scientific opinion?2601:982:4201:D40:F494:6D96:E8AA:B7A3 (talk) 19:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

In this specific case, I don't entirely agree that discussing this is a BLP problem. I do agree, however, that reliable, independent sources are needed to add this to the article. His connection to the alt-right is discussed and documented by sources, although not in depth. The alt-right is closely tied to white nationalism/supremacism. For us to make the link ourselves isn't going to work, but it's something we can discuss, and it's something sources do discuss for us, but only a little.

Citing examples of white nationalist (or white supremacist) statements he's made would still be original research. His output is prolific, so finding things he's said and implying that they are significant isn't going to work. We need a source to do the work for us to avoid cherry-picking. We also need to guard against misusing this article to give him another platform to share his unscientific views.

As for independent sources, Molyneux has rushed to embrace "apocryphal and racist" statistics when they support a racist narrative, backed up by Chuck Johnson, no less.[4] That's from Newsweek, so it seems at least somewhat substantial. New York Magazine refers to his ...uh, unorthodox views on race,[5] while ThinkProgress calls him racist and sexist.[6] ThinkProgress isn't a reliable source as far as I know, but it's an indicator that this view of him isn't novel. I am not saying we add these to the article, but it's clear from both his own videos and what limited commentary we have his videos that race is a central preoccupation of his.

If we can figure out how to explain that his views on race (and many other things) are WP:FRINGE, we should do so, but we need to use reliable sources to get there. Grayfell (talk) 21:19, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Recommend Grayfell instead edits "rational wiki" to promote his political views and to leave Wikipedia alone in order to enhance this encyclopedia's neutrality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.247.145.89 (talk) 21:53, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Nah. Neutrality is enhanced by discussing how to improve the article through reliable sources and due weight. Silly little comments like this do nothing to "enhance" neutrality. Grayfell (talk) 23:50, 27 November 2017 (UTC)

Molyneux's Background

This article seems to be protected for disingenuous reasons as any entries about Molyneux's background are instantly deleted where the user who reverts will reject such entries for not being "Secondary Sources" yet will keep up entries about Molyneux's theories which are Primary Sources which are in themselves subject to a greater deal of nuance and interpretation by virtue of the fact discussions of politics are more abstract yet entries inserted of Molyneux himself detailing his ethnic/religious/cultural origin are very quickly deleted. So which is it? An article Molyneux writes about political theory can be cited and used to write up an entire section in 'Stateless Society' but his own religious background and upbringing as cited by himself on numerous occasions can not? When the former is morhttp://docs.newsbank.com/s/InfoWeb/aggdocs/AWNB/10E4169AE30BF068/0EB2D3A803A21E8C?s_lang=en-USe subject to change and the latter is grounded in reality and cannot?

Also, this specific user in question, SPECIFICO, wrote this in the article earlier this month:

"Cheap at half the price! Instantly delivered to your Kindle. Philosophy. SPECIFICO talk 00:00, 2 September 2017 (UTC)"

What exactly was meant by this? And is this the calibre of a "Veteran Editor"? I now see it fit to report this user under the suspicion that their edits are motivated by some cause other than neutrality. Rìgh (talk) 19:41, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Actually, you have it backwards. One's beliefs are whatever one says they are, hence we use self-described beliefs in limited circumstances. Facts about one's family, however, are nevertheless facts. Like any other facts, they may be misremembered, falsified, obscured, or fabricated. SPECIFICO talk 19:58, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

"Actually, you have it backwards. One's beliefs are whatever one says they are" This is highly dubious which is why when writing an article, a user should put "X claims Y" or "X states that they believe Y". Why is Molyneux's racial background (which has been confirmed multiple times by himself) removed but the fact he was born in Ireland is not questioned? Or the date at which he moved? Those two 'facts' are found in an article (Reference #9 as of now) that is stuck behind a paywall and therefore cannot be confirmed and whose reporters like the other articles are receiving that very information from Molyneux himself. I understand the position from which you come but I find this highly suspicious. No secondary sources can be found by myself at this moment pertaining to the information I entered into the article, so what happens? His background is essentially left bare and gives a false impression that Molyneux is ethnically Irish or grew up religiously Christian. Rìgh (talk) 20:09, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

This article would be better if all the self-sourced, primary-sourced, video, bloggo, youtube, self-published, and promotional content were removed. You'll get no objection from me if you delete it all. Just don't put the Jewish family stuff back in unless you have an independent, reliable source that verifies it. (There is none). SPECIFICO talk 20:38, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

I doubt there will be a Secondary Source in the near future. Would you accept an insert which says, "Molyneux has stated in previous podcasts that his mother was Jewish" or "Molyneux claims that his mother fled Dresden in fear of allied bombing" or something in that vain? That will be true in the sense that it has indeed been claimed by him but not true in the definitive sense of having been confirmed by a Secondary Source. Rìgh (talk) 22:08, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

No. He could be saying his mother was an antelope and his father was an ostrich for whatever reason. It's simply unverified and not sourced. There are all kind of reasons he might be saying this. That's why we don't use it. SPECIFICO talk 23:30, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

"There are all kind of reasons he might be saying this. That's why we don't use it." What the hell does that mean? That sounds like you only want to remove the statements made by him because the editors have some ideological bias in connecting him with Jewishness or Judaism. Very strange indeed. Rìgh (talk) 00:27, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

You've made your point. It's rejected. Save your breath. SPECIFICO talk 00:33, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

To quote the person in question, Not an argument. Rìgh (talk) 00:35, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

Molyneux himself also really likes to insinuate things without saying them. Insinuating that the only motive for rejecting this utterly unreliable trivia is antisemitism isn't an argument either. Instead, it's casting aspersions while also missing the point. If there were some valid reason, supported by reliable sources, to include this, it could be included. So for, nothing, so it shouldn't be added. Being a prolific self-publisher doesn't justify expanding this article. WP:DUE weight means this article's length should be proportional to reliable sources. He is not reliable, and this article shouldn't be padded out with kibbles and bits for undefined reasons. Grayfell (talk) 04:08, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

I didn't insinuate anti-Semitism or pro-Semitism and to talk about insinuation is not something a Wikipedia editor should do. It is no matter, this article will not be edited by myself to include Molyneux's ethnic origin until a sufficient Secondary source is published. Until then, sayonara. Rìgh (talk) 08:10, 24 September 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO seems to hold a strange belief that I am a Stefan Molyneux supporter and wish to clear his name from White Nationalism or Racism. That is NOT the case. I care about one thing and one thing alone, proving the TRUTH for Wikipedia. Stefan Molyneux has stated in MULTIPLE podcasts (they have been referenced) from the past and lectures that he was born to a Jewish mother. The user in question has stated that if I produced a secondary source that confirms this alongside the primary ones, the information would be allowed to stay. So I did this in producing an article from Salon. The user in question then REMOVES this and claims that Molyneux never states he is Jewish in the podcasts even though this is DEMONSTRABLY FALSE from actually checking the references and I will provide the EXACT minute and second he states it.

Truth above all. I believe this user has a political agenda, of what kind, I do not know. All I know is that I MYSELF have no political agenda but the facts and the facts are this; Stefan Molyneux was born to a Jewish mother and if he covers this up nowadays for whatever reason then I shall prove this also. Rìgh (talk) 19:09, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Don't personalize your talk page comments. I'll leave notice on your talkpage. SPECIFICO talk 19:17, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Check out WP:NOTTRUTH too. What secondary sources say is most significant/important here. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 1 October 2017

To include the statement that Stefan Molyneux's Freedman Radio is a cult, is preposterous. Dark Net is not recognized as a body with the authority to pronounce such things, nor was there evidence given, nor was there reason for including it on Stefan's page EXCEPT to slander him and promote a Leftist ideology. 144.208.110.105 (talk) 23:08, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Many sources, of which Dark Net is only one, describe Freedomain as being cult-like, and Wikipedia includes several of these sources. These sources are reliable according to Wikipedia's standards. Grayfell (talk) 00:09, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 December 2017

Stefan Molyneux is a libertarian, not part of the alt-right. Also, he was not a big supporter of President Trump's campaign. He has been critical to Trumps actions on numerous occasions, while supporting a few of his actions that are more libertarian in nature, rather than conservative. He is constantly called alt-right, but in reality he is a libertarian. Libertarians have some views that are similar to conservatives on certain issues, but they also have views that are similar to liberal views as well. Eirik929 (talk) 08:46, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Terra ^(talk) 09:16, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia uses reliable sources, with a preference for independent sources. Wikipedia editors like you and me are not reliable, and Molneux is not independent. If you know of a reliable source which discusses his Libertarianism, or how not-alt-right he is, bring it forth for discussion. This is not a forum for general discussion or original research, so your individual assessment of Molyneux, or of the views of libertarians, are not helpful in improving this article. Grayfell (talk) 09:23, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

User:Eirik929—you may be right but your suggestions should take the form of wording supported by sources. In other words, please be more specific. Is there an edit that you would suggest? Where in the article would the change be made? What source would support your suggested edit? Also, consider creating a WP:USERPAGE and a user Talk page. Also, feel free to avail yourself of the Teahouse for various and sundry questions that you might have. Happy editing! Bus stop (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Untitled

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

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jewish redux again

SPECIFICO I see your revert on the recent addition of Molyneux Jewish ancestry. Salon seems to back his judaism. Salon is generally considered an RS. The anonymous blogger is not alone in being a Jewish person making common cause with racist anti-Semites, however. Many leading figures associated with the alt-right are also Jewish themselves including Ramsey, Cernovich, Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos, libertarian vlogger Stefan Molyneux and publishing entrepreneur Ezra Levant.. Additionally, I am surprised by your statement regarding extraordinary claims. While that is indeed wikipeia policy, I think this is not an extraordinary claim. Many people are jewish or have jewish ancestry. We generally take their own word for it in biographical articles. In this case we have both Molyneux's own words, and secondary sources stating it in their own voice. To be sure, I don't think this is a super important bit of information, but I think your reasoning for removing it are not correct.ResultingConstant (talk) 18:51, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Salon is a dicey source to begin with. I would not in general use it for anything very complicated or needing investigation, fact-checking, or research. The author of this particular piece is described on their website as everything but a journalist. And what are you claiming? That he has "Jewish" DNA or blood lines like a horse or a dog? SPECIFICO talk 19:21, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Im saying nothing other than he has Jewish ancestry. YOUR statements comparing things to a horse or dog are very out of line and I suggest you redact them. There are a great many biographies that mention or discuss the ancestry and ethnicity of their subjects or their families. There are a great many biographies that mention or discuss the specific jewish ancestry and ethnicity of their subject or family. Its a common point of interest. That some people wish to use that fact arguing for or against certain points is irrelevant (and I certainly agree with you that such arguments are not encyclopedic and should not be included). But because a fact could be illegitimately used in an argument does not suddenly make that fact untrue or encyclopedic. ResultingConstant (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

ResultingConstant I don't know whether you've listened to how Molyneux uses the "Jewish Clan" bit in his Youtube video or whether you've read the previous talk page discussions of this, but they both shed additional light on the matter. SPECIFICO talk 20:03, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO I have read the other discussions, and they mostly amount to you doing original research. That the video goes on to make other claims that actually are extraordinary, or encyclopedic is irrelevant. We are not discussing including those elements. Judaism is a religion. You are correct that Molyneux is not religiously Jewish. But Judaism is also an ethnicity. And Molyneux is of partial Jewish ethnicity. You don't get to ignore part of the definition because it suits your pov. ResultingConstant (talk) 15:43, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Salon is ok, although I'd rather see a better (or several) sources for this. Ive trimmed the mention of his religion to what the salon ref actually supports though. The broader discussion, sourced to his own podcast, was quite undue emphasis imo. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:24, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

Look at the writer. This is not RS for an extraordinary claim. If it is true, the only mention of it would not be a weak writer in a weak publication. (from WP sourcing POV) More important, "Jewish" is a religious belief and Molyneux has never to my knowledge claimed to be of that religion. He talks at length about his Christian upbringing and his atheism. I hope these editors can find proper sources, but meanwhile we can't rush to put likely nonsense or worse into this BLP. SPECIFICO talk 19:32, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

He talks at length about his Christian upbringing and his atheism Hm that does make describing him as "Jewish" problematic. Let me see if I can find any more/better sources on this - I agree it should stay out pending this discussion. Fyddlestix (talk) 19:36, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO—why do you perceive the claim of Molyneux being Jewish to be an "extraordinary claim"? Bus stop (talk) 21:02, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

I believe you and I have been around the circle on that one, so I won't repeat it. Do you think WP should tag people "Jewish" as a racial or genetic attribute rather than as a matter of religious belief and observance? You're aware, I presume, of Molyneux' extensive discussion of his upbringing as a church coirboy and his subsequent abandonment of religion. SPECIFICO talk 22:50, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO—do you have any sources suggesting that Molyneux might not be Jewish? Bus stop (talk) 23:57, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

That's not how it works. The WP:ONUS and WP:BURDEN is on proving it should be included. This content has a WP:REDFLAG all over it. An Irish Christian who is actually Jewish, even though his own videos discuss his rejection of religion. And his Jewish family lived happily in Dresden until near the end days of WW2. This is an extraordinary claim, and the default is to exclude. Valid content will have many indisputably Reliable Sources to verify and establish the noteworthiness of such content. SPECIFICO talk 00:04, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if Molyneux meets your preconceptions of what a Jew is. It is the sources that matter. I think you are conceding that you have no sources suggesting that Molyneux might not be Jewish. You are reverting other editors (here and here). In my opinion it is preposterous of you to ask if he has "DNA or blood lines like a horse or a dog." Not only is that original research but it is reflective of an incomplete understanding of how a person comes to be identified as a Jew. Bus stop (talk) 00:47, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

You've made several false statements in that post, but the crux is that the burden is on the editor who advocates to include, and this bit is not well-enough sourced for the claim it makes. Yes, there are abundant sources that describe Molyneux background and religious upbringing as being not Jewish. Please review the links I provided above. SPECIFICO talk 00:54, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Let's discuss this. What source supports that Molyneux may not be Jewish? Please post that source right here so that we can discuss it. I thank you in advance. Bus stop (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I've responded several times, sorry. Please review this and the previous thread from when we initially discussed this. I don't have a source that says he's not an elephant, but I wouldn't suggest we put that in the article. And he does appear to walk on two legs. SPECIFICO talk 02:04, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

OK, you concede that you have no sources suggesting that he is not Jewish, therefore we should go with the sources suggesting that he is Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 02:09, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I've told you why that's incorrect. I strongly advise against it. SPECIFICO talk 02:43, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Why do you "strongly advise against it"? You don't seem to understand that this is a Talk page. You have only demonstrated one thing: that you don't want to discuss this issue. That is a funny position to take as you have reverted material related to this issue twice ([7][8]). Bus stop (talk) 03:12, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Jewish isn't an extraordinary claim. Salon reports it, Molyneu confirms it, no sources dispute it. Good enough for us. D.Creish (talk) 03:45, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

After looking into this some, I'm uncomfortable with it: Molyneux has gone on record himself as saying his mother was Jewish. But he's also said that he was raised a Christian. People on the far right appear to have run with the "Jewish mother = Jewish" assumption and characterize him that way regularly (though in places, and via sources, that aren't RS for our purposes) but after looking quite carefully, I don't see where Molyneux has ever said he practices Judaism. I do see videos and blog posts online where he talks about having been raised Christian, though, and where he is quite critical of organized religion in general. So the question really is: what is meant by "Jewish" - it can be used to refer to someone of Jewish ethnicity (which, given Molyneux's own statements about himself, seems like what the Salon writer meant), but in general use it implies that he's a practicing Jew, which (again, based on his own statements) is pretty unlikely. Problem is: outside of the Salon piece I can't find a single RS that talks about his religion or mentions his religious upbringing. So we have the Salon piece on one hand and his own statements (which contradict a simple statement of "Molyneux is Jewish") on the other. IMO, we should either state what Molyneux himself has said (that his mother was Jewish, but he was raised as a Christian), and source it to his own statements, or remain silent on his religion altogether. Otherwise we risk misleading the reader by saying "he's Jewish" when he's not a practicing Jew, and is simply of Jewish ancestry on one side. Given that it's the only RS I can find saying he's Jewish (outside of Stormfront-type fringe stuff) and that his own statements appear to contradict that, hanging an ambiguous statement like "Molyneux is Jewish" on the Salon piece is undue weight on that one source. Fyddlestix (talk) 05:08, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Well said. I see no great harm in leaving it out, but this is the rare case where a Stefan Molyneux video could be used as a source. I do not think Salon is universally unreliable, but I avoid it whenever possible. "Molyneux was raised Christian. His mother was Jewish" or similar is good enough. If this becomes controversial as with Yiannopoulos, we can judge based on those hypothetical sources. For now, one/two sentences is plenty. Grayfell (talk) 08:29, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Have a listen to the video, if you fancy. What he says is "my mother came from a pretty Jewish clan..." -- nothing about her religion -- and then goes on to say how these folks lived openly in Dresden throughout the Nazi regime until the firebombing near the end of WW2. Extraordinary. SPECIFICO talk 15:05, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Ludicrously, you argue that Molyneux cannot possibly be Jewish because, in your words, "these folks lived openly in Dresden throughout the Nazi regime until the firebombing near the end of WW2". That is tantamount to original research. You have latched onto an only tangentially-related detail to reach a conclusion which you concede is not supported by sources. I have asked you to present a source suggesting that Molyneux might not be Jewish. You have not done that yet. Bus stop (talk) 15:19, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I think you are bright and thoughtful enough to do better than that. Please don't mock. Don't personalize content discussions. WP policies and guidelines tell us how to evaluate sources relative to the specific article content they would support. If there were a secondary article on the topic of Molyneux' religious beliefs that reflected a journalist's credible investigation into the matter, that might be convincing. When it's a throwaway line, or one more name added to a long list of provocateurs to advance a catchy current-events piece in a marginal publication like Salon by a little-known author, then no siree, that is not a good source. SPECIFICO talk 15:46, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

This is a biography of a person. You are referring to "the topic of Molyneux' religious beliefs" but this discussion, strictly speaking, is not about "Molyneux' religious beliefs". As concerns personalizing content discussions I have to return to your mocking inquiry as to whether Molyneux has "DNA or blood lines like a horse or a dog". This discussion should concern sources, primarily, not delving into your opinions of only tangentially-related subjects. Please note that we are not concerned with his "religious beliefs". We have no information on his religious beliefs. Approximately half of all Jews are nonobservant. We have plenty of biographies of nonobservant Jews in which it is noted in the article that they are Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 16:10, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

In this edit summary you say that "Jewish is not a bloodline". I am asking you to please keep off-topic comments out of edit summaries. Bus stop (talk) 16:15, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

We have plenty of biographies of nonobservant Jews in which it is noted in the article that they are Jewish - sure. How many of those people have publicly said that they were raised as Christians, and made a living (in part) off criticizing organized religion in general? How many of those people have never self-identified as "Jewish"? Molyneux, as best as I can tell, never has. He's said that his mothers family was Jewish, but that's not the same thing as saying "I'm Jewish" - there is no One drop rule of Judaism, and given that there's compelling reason to doubt that Molyneux considers himself Jewish or has ever practiced Judaism (ie, his own statements) one article in Salon that characterizes him as a "Jewish" in passing, which is the only RS anyone has found that says that, is simply not enough to apply the label. Sorry, but it's just not. If you're that determined to include this, and if you think it's really that clear cut, do some research and find some RS that support it and we can talk. Fyddlestix (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Moreover those non-religious "Jewish" BLP mentions are for individuals who self-identify as Jewish. In fact we go out of our way to note stuff like "O'Shaughnessy was born to a Jewish family in Ireland and sang in the church choir as a youth..." in cases like Molyneux'. This Molyneux/Jewish bit is a racial statement of a sort that WP takes pains not to make and that is irrelevant to anything at all noteworthy about him or his work. SPECIFICO talk 18:22, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

We know that he is Jewish because he says that his mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to a "pretty Jewish clan"[9] and the Salon article says that he is Jewish[10]. As to whether this is relevant in this article, the Salon article explains this as an example of a Jewish person making "common cause" with antisemitic people. Why would we omit sourced information from a biography? Bus stop (talk) 20:44, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

At least 3 different editors have already explained why, I see no point in repeating the same arguments ad nauseam. Feel free to start an rfc or bring this up at BLPN if you're unwilling to let it go - but personally I'm confident a broader group of editors will draw the same conclusion I did. Fyddlestix (talk) 20:56, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Your reasoning is based on faulty understanding. You say "I don't see where Molyneux has ever said he practices Judaism." I don't think you know how irrelevant that is. And that is part of your reasoning. It seems to me that you think you are wiser than sources. You are saying a variety of irrelevant things. You say "we risk misleading the reader by saying 'he's Jewish' when he's not a practicing Jew". What? In your supreme wisdom you reason that by giving the reader information we are misleading them? Yikes. Approximately 50% of Jews are nonobservant. It doesn't matter if you don't know or accept this. What matters is that sources know that. We follow sources. Does a source support that Molyneux is Jewish? Yes. The Salon article supports that Molyneux is Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 21:25, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

A "pretty Jewish clan" is not sufficient to say his mother was Jewish, much less to say that he was Jewish. Why is it only "pretty Jewish"? Using clan instead of family also adds ambiguity. Combine this with the Dresden thing, and I think this surpasses the OR threshold into a genuinely unusual claim being highlighted from extremely thin sources. As with so many of his videos, he almost says something meaningful, but never quite gets there. Lacking either quality source, or a definitive primary source, I say leave it out completely. This isn't the place to discuss issues of Jewish identity beyond what sources say about it. They do not say he's of Jewish ethnicity, nor do they say his mother was religiously Jewish, nor culturally Jewish. We would have to clarify what, exactly, "Jewish" means in the article, and currently proposed sourced do not justify that level of detail. Grayfell (talk) 22:38, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

And of course it gets even worse the more one considers this racialist tagging. Let's say a Chinese Taoist woman moves to Poland and converts to Judaism. There she lives and has a child, a daughter in fact, and names her Lulu. Lulu grows up, travels to India, and marries an Indian bloke, a Hindu priest. The couple have a son, Vipal who is immersed in the Hindu life and observance from an early age. Then, one day Vipal goes to an alt-right rally and is spotted there. Do we say Vipal the Jew is at an alt-right rally? Do we say Vipal whose Chinese mother is Jewish went to the rally? Do we say Vipal, whose mother, who was formerly Taoist, Jewish, and Hindu..." ANS: We say none of this cause it's all racialist nonsense. SPECIFICO talk 01:51, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

On what does the Salon source base its information that Molyneux is Jewish? Please tell me, if you know. Bus stop (talk) 03:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

You tell me. I think it's error, hearsay, or nonsense. No source cited in Salon. SPECIFICO talk 03:26, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I am not going to tell you. I admit when I don't know something. I accept the limitations of my knowledge. You on the other hand go on creative writing binges. I can tell you I am not in the least bit interested in your full blown creative writing sprees. Bus stop (talk) 04:05, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO clearly has an agenda. I have provided TWO podcasts where he goes into depth about his Jewish ancestry of BOTH his mother and his grandmother AND their experience in Dresden. I have also provided YouTube evidence of him claiming his mother was born to a "Jewish clan" AND I have provided a Salon (Reliable Source) article as a secondary source to BACK THIS UP after being asked to in a previous attempt at inputting this information.

SPECIFICO is using Original Research and disingenuous arguments to remove this information from the Wikipedia. There are COUNTLESS Wikipedia biographical articles where the sources are PRIMARY and from the OWN MOUTHS of the person in question. These are not put into question but TWO PODCASTS of GREAT LENGTH, a YouTube Lecture and SECONDARY SOURCES are "insufficient". I am entirely convinced that the reasons for these reverts are NOT in good faith and I would like to know why this is the case. And before SPECIFICO claims I am "personalising" the Talk section, no, it is YOU personalising this article by inserting Original Research. Rìgh (talk) 03:51, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Please give a link to where Molyneux states that he "is Jewish" Without this, the Youtube bits do not verify "Molyneux is Jewish". That's fundamental Wikipedia policy. WP:V. SPECIFICO talk 03:59, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

PODCAST EVIDENCE #1 @ 22:35 "Some of my mother's tales, she was born in 1937 in Germany, not the best place to be especially when you come from a Jewish heritage. Not the best place to be at all. And all sympathies to my mother as a child. It still doesn’t excuse the evil woman she became, but I can certainly understand that her life was just hellish for her as a child."

PODCAST EVIDENCE #2 @ 9:44 "On my mother’s side there is a lot more, I guess Jewish influence a Jewish history, as far as i understand it my grandmother was Jewish. Which I’ve also been told makes me Jewish. So I could give a flying fig about that, since the idea of taking on somebody else’s sort of pre-scripted identity would just feel unbelievably claustrophobic and nightmarish. Of course Spinoza and Jewish Philosophers who have great ideas fantastic lets jaw about it all night, but the idea of taking some preformed cultural identity I view that with complete horror. So although people have said “”oh that makes you Jewish”” I really can’t imagine that could have any interest or relevance to me."

PODCAST EVIDENCE #3 @ 6:39 "For my mother to see most of her family wiped out, because ofcourse she came from … uh her mother was Jewish. And for my mother’s own childhood to be the carnage and brutal series of orphanage rapes that I am absolute positive that it was."

PODCAST EVIDENCE #4 @ 32:01 "She was born as I mentioned before 1937 in Berlin, Jewish heritage, not a good place to be. Spend her war years been shunted around, hidden, send to orphanages. You can imagine what was going on in those orphanages, particularly in wartime, was just the worst kind of predation that you can Imagine."

PODCAST EVIDENCE #5 @ 5:13 "My mother was just mad .. like she is just mad and vain and weird. And she also, to me at least, had the additional, not inconsiderable, excuse of having grown up in Nazi Germany as the son of Jewish parents. And she was born in Berlin in 1937 not a good place to have the hallmark childhood so she was shipped to from sort of.. they were in hiding for periods of the war and then she was shipped from orphanages to orphanage during the war and ofcourse complete social breakdown and malignant evil throughout the land. I can only imagine what happened to her in the wee hours with the caregivers who were around. So, she was crazy mad and evil but at least had some pretty sparky starting point to start from so It is something that .. I don’t forgive but I can sort of understand it a little but more."

PODCAST EVIDENCE #6 @ 1:32:27 "I understand that my mother was, you know, had her entire world bombed into oblivion in the 2nd World War. And that she lived in a world that was so terrifying that I don’t think I can even conceive it, right? Her mother was blown apart in the fire bombings of Dresden in 1944. On a bombing raid that one of my uncles on my father’s side was actually piloting in. And she lived in a world that was just blowing up literally blowing up in a way that I can’t even fathom. And what happened to her during the course of that, you know, a girl racing across Germany living in a series of orphanages pulling her own Anne Frank thing from time to time because she came from Jewish parents."

There you go. Now let NO ONE deny that I am providing evidence. Happy now? Or are you going to delete my edits again? Rìgh (talk) 04:07, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Very helpful, thanks. Those statements present Molyneux saying that his grandparents on one side were Jewish and also saying that he himself is not Jewish. Again, not verifying the claim that Molyneux is Jewish in WP's voice. SPECIFICO talk 04:19, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

NO, THEY PROVE THAT HE DOES NOT DEFINE HIMSELF AS RELIGIOUSLY JEWISH BUT THAT HE IS ETHNICALLY JEWISH. JEWS ARE AN ETHNO-RELIGIOUS GROUP. You are LYING. Rìgh (talk) 04:23, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Rìgh—it is not necessary to say that someone is lying, as that is a personal attack. Bus stop (talk) 04:28, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

HE IS LYING. I have provided SIX podcasts which ALL back each other up in their claims, a YouTube lecture and a Secondary Reliable Source. Rìgh (talk) 04:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Rìgh—you have to practice politics. Bus stop (talk) 04:32, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

FUCK politics, Wikipedia has been DECLINING FOR NEARLY A DECADE because of this Notability obsession and ADMINISTRATIVE BUREAUCRACY. I will NOT SUCK UP TO ADMINS to fulfil the truth. Rìgh (talk) 04:35, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO—Molyneux does not say that he is not Jewish. And the Salon source supports that Molyneux is Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 04:24, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I disagree. He specifically rejects the idea of a Jewish identity as "claustrophobic and nightmarish", and only says that his mother has Jewish heritage. It would not be correct to say "he is Jewish", because a simplistic statement like that doesn't convey any nuance or context all all. It's obvious from the sources that it isn't that simple. Grayfell (talk) 04:32, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

He rejects Jewish identity because he is not religiously Jewish. He says people call him Jewish because his mother was Jewish which is ETHNIC. Jews are an ETHNO-RELIGIOUS people and this is confirmed in the Wikipedia page on Jews IN THE FIRST LINE. Rìgh (talk) 04:35, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

HOW INTERESTING THAT SPECIFICO REJECTS MY SIX PODCASTS OF EVIDENCE BY CLAIMING NOW THAT MOLYENUX SAYS "he is not Jewish." WHEN IN PREVIOUS REVERTS HE SAID THAT MOLYNEUX'S OPINION DOESN'T MATTER, WHAT MATTERS IS A SECONDARY SOURCE AND WHEN I PROVIDED THAT HE REVERTED MY EDIT. HOW INTERESTING INDEED.Rìgh (talk) 04:38, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Rìgh—I agree with you that the Salon source supports that Molyneux is Jewish and I thank you for gathering those podcast quotes from Molyneux. But could you please stop typing in caps? Bus stop (talk) 04:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't treat ethnicity or self-identification quite this simplistically. He is 1/4th Jewish, but the sources never really say "ethnically" Jewish. As I said, this really isn't the place to debate the Jewish identity question. Whatever the reason it's vitally important to some people to have this documented here is irrelevant. He clearly doesn't identify himself as Jewish in simple terms, and he doesn't even unambiguously identify his mother as Jewish, so... why does this matter? Why does this matter so much that it MUST be included in this encyclopedia article? Grayfell (talk) 04:44, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

HE IS NOT "1/4" JEWISH, IF YOU HAD ACTUALLY LOOKED AT THE EVIDENCE YOU WOULD KNOW THAT HE STATED HIS MOTHER HAD JEWISH PARENTS ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS MEANING HE IS 1/2 JEWISH AT LEAST. THIS ARTICLE IS A BIOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE WHICH IS WHY IT SHOULD BE INCLUDED. THE QUESTION ISN'T "Why should it?" THE QUESTION IS "Why shouldn't it?" Rìgh (talk) 04:49, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—you say "this really isn't the place to debate the Jewish identity" but you are the only one debating that. Molyneux is Jewish according to Salon[11]. Bus stop (talk) 04:56, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

What is with the diff? Do you think I'm going to delete my comments or something? C'mon, this isn't 4chan.

WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, So let's talk about the Salon source. It's a single sentence, near the end of the article, in passing, about something dramatically more complicated and intensely controversial. Mainly, it's about the Nazi salute as used by American white supremacists at an event that Molyneux wasn't involved with or anywhere near (as far as I know). This sentence is the only mention in the article of Molyneux. The Salon article cites, as its source, a 26 second youtube clip titled "Stefan Molyneux Jewish confession" stripped of all context uploaded by an anonymous account named "911TruthNOW". This account is mostly general conspiracy theory garbage, but includes a healthy does of anti-Semitic "Jews run the world" conspiracy theory garbage as well. So why does this passing mention in a highly controversial article indicate that "he is Jewish" in simple terms belongs in the article, when Molyneux himself obviously believes its more complicated than this? Should we ignore the context of this source, and the complexity of these other podcast sources, and just go with the simplest tabloid summary of a notoriously complicated issue? No, for many reasons this would be too simplistic, non-neutral, and inappropriate. Grayfell (talk) 05:22, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Yawn, I knew the YouTube uploader would be brought up as an argument which it is not. You can watch the full lecture on YouTube for free from other videos. I selected that video because it contained the evidence. Bad argument, try again. A veteran editor too, how embarrassing!Rìgh (talk) 05:25, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

While Molyneux loves to use "not an argument" as though he were an authority on arguments, you do not have that luxury. So... what are you talking about, exactly? Why would we present something as complicated as this in such utterly simplistic terms, based on such a flimsy passing mention? You're not really answering the concern here, as much fun as you appear to be having. Grayfell (talk) 05:34, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Yawn, I knew this veteran editor would insinuate I'm some kind of Molyneux supporter. How do these veteran editors continue to plague Wikipedia with their claims of neutrality yet clear bias really surprises me. This website is truly dead.Rìgh (talk) 05:38, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—what if we said something like: "Molyneux has some Jewish heritage although he doesn't strongly identify with it." I am thinking that is a fair distillation of: "On my mother’s side there is a lot more, I guess Jewish influence a Jewish history, as far as I understand it my grandmother was Jewish. Which I’ve also been told makes me Jewish. So I could give a flying fig about that, since the idea of taking on somebody else’s sort of pre-scripted identity would just feel unbelievably claustrophobic and nightmarish. Of course Spinoza and Jewish Philosophers who have great ideas fantastic lets jaw about it all night, but the idea of taking some preformed cultural identity I view that with complete horror. So although people have said 'oh that makes you Jewish' I really can’t imagine that could have any interest or relevance to me." (I thank Rìgh for that wording.) Another possibility could be something along the lines of: "In some of his broadcasts Molyneux contemplates that he may have Jewish heritage." It is not just the above quote from Molyneux that leads me to make these suggestions, but the many times Molyneux talks about Jews in his family of origin. Bus stop (talk) 14:38, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

References

BS, That fails WP:V - we can't use something kinda sorta to make an extraordinary claim. "Heritage" is a weasel tilt. The only thing that we get from those videos is that Molyneux states that his mother's mother was Jewish, then there's lots about how his mother was not Jewish, he was raised Christian, and he hates mom and religion and so forth. Verification is pretty simple and straightforward. Not something we assemble from shreds of this and that more or less plausibly related to something-or-other quite broad and different. SPECIFICO talk 14:48, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Righ's quotes underline just how clearly Molyneux has said that he does not consider himself Jewish, and never has. There is nothing more to discuss here. We can't label people as having an identity (whether ethnic or religious) that they actively reject, full stop. The fact that we're talking about Jewish identity (and the fact that that outside of that one, outlying Salon piece this seems to be something that you primarily find discussed by neo-nazis and conspiracy theorists online) is particularly unseemly. Enough. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:10, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't know if Fyddlestix or SPECIFICO have noticed but I am not suggesting that our article make an assertion that Stefan Molyneux is Jewish. But in keeping with the numerous instances in which he references a possibly Jewish family of origin I think we serve the needs of the article in including a sentence to that effect, such as "In some of his broadcasts Molyneux contemplates that he may have Jewish heritage." I believe this is a fair distillation of the numerous times he invokes references to a possibly Jewish family of origin. That suggested sentence does not say that Molyneux is Jewish. Of course other possible language for such a sentence should be considered. But we are trying to write a biography. Note what our article Biography says: "It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events." We should want to capture in this biography the interest expressed by Molyneux in a possibly Jewish family of origin. Bus stop (talk) 16:22, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I don't think Molyneux's statements support that. I can see maybe saying that "Molyneux has said that his mother came from a Jewish family, but rejects the idea that he is himself Jewish" - which is much more in line with his statements - but even that seems like undue emphasis to me. He's quite clear that he rejects the suggestion - so why does it need to be mentioned at all? A single RS mentioning it (and getting it wrong) is not enough to justify including it. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:33, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

I am suggesting that we allude in our biography, in one brief sentence, to his apparent concerns with a possibly Jewish family of origin, situated in war-torn Europe. Molyneux is particularly concerned with the Holocaust as the setting in which his possibly Jewish family of origin is situated. He talks at length about the horrors of such a setting for his mother and he does so in the context of her possibly being Jewish. Bus stop (talk) 16:56, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

This is an encylopedia. We don't load up the BLP of a minor self-publishing pop-culture figures with editor-curated this and that from the blogger's self-published vault of bluster, innuendo and rumination. WP policy, honed from millions of hours of community experience, tells us that when information is truly noteworthy it will be easy to cite multiple Reliable Source references to verify it. That's simply not the case here.

We reflect the weight of mainstream secondary coverage. We don't do contortions. SPECIFICO talk 19:40, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Do any of the LIARS here actually know anything about Jewish history? Jews are an ethno-religious group. If Molyneux doesn't follow the Jewish religion then he is still 50% ethnically Jewish. His statements of people calling him Jewish meaning he is Jewish clearly pertain to an ethnicity. You are all being purposely deceptive and strawmanning the debate. No one is debating whether Molyneux is religiously or culturally Jewish, that is the FALSE DEBATE that YOU ARE HAVING. The fact is this from all the evidence I have shown, Molyneux is at least 50% ethnically Jewish on his mother's side. Molyneux is 50% Jewish in at least ethnic origin. Continue being deceptive and continue to strawman this discussion. I hope the lying weighs heavily on your conscious. Rìgh (talk) 20:24, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Even if his mother were King David, I don't think that puts him over 50%. Anyway just for the record all he claims is mom's mom, maxing him out at 25% somethingorother. WP does not endorse racialist tags. SPECIFICO talk 22:01, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

No, he does NOT. He clearly states in the Podcasts that his mother had JEWISH PARENTS, plural, not singular. I wonder what it is that makes you lie or purposely ignore the evidence. I wonder indeed, except one can only come to a single conclusion. One can only come to the conclusion that one must come to after so much struggle and it is this; You ARE A JEW. Rìgh (talk) 23:36, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

There's as much evidence for that as for Molyneux. And both are out of line. Please stop. SPECIFICO talk 00:18, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

You and I will always know the truth and I bet it irks you to know that. Rìgh (talk) 01:40, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Rìgh—would you consider adding a quote from Molyneux to the article? I would consider the following: "Some of my mother's tales, she was born in 1937 in Germany, not the best place to be especially when you come from a Jewish heritage. Not the best place to be at all. And all sympathies to my mother as a child. It still doesn’t excuse the evil woman she became, but I can certainly understand that her life was just hellish for her as a child." It could be accompanied by simple commentary stating that in his broadcasts he mentions that his mother was born in Germany in 1937. He states that more than once and in different settings. For instance Molyneux also asserts this before a university audience as seen here. The quote could of course be placed in block-quote. If you are not entirely fond of this idea please feel free to offer counter-suggestions. Bus stop (talk) 02:37, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Nope, and humoring what has degraded into openly anti-Semitic conspiracy-monger isn't productive. This would be introducing a separate problem. Nobody is doubting that he's commented on his mother's upbringing, but he's commented on countless things. Why would this one thing get so much attention? We cannot include comments simply because some editors think they are interesting for unspecified reasons. Any quotes from him would require a specific reason, which would generally be supported by a reliable source.

This is why I keep coming back to the issue of Jewish identity. If we're going to imply that he's Jewish, and that's apparently the reason this is being discussed, we need to be able to explain some things to pass the due weight threshold:

A) why is this encyclopedically relevant?

B) what, exactly, do we mean by "Jewish"?

The first is relatively easy, since having Jewish heritage is of interest to many people for anodyne reasons, but the second is much, much harder. The term can mean radically different things in different contexts. Lots of people might have Jewish heritage, so Molyneux having "contemplated" this is not particularly helpful. No reliable source treats Jewishiness as pass/fail, and being "ethnically" Jewish isn't a simple matter. Saying he "is Jewish" is unacceptable, because in many very real senses, he is not Jewish. Saying he's talked about having Jewish ancestors is too vague to be meaningful by itself. The only secondary source we have for this, the Salon article, directly ties this issue to neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism as the main reason it was mentioned, so the BLP issues are clear. The burden of sourcing is high, and the default position must be to just leave it out completely. We cannot spread anti-Semitic conspiracy mongering without a good reason, so we need to be able to explain this in a way which is proportional to reliable sources. So far, I have not seen any proposal that meets this requirement. Grayfell (talk) 04:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—a Jew is a person that is supported by reliable sources as being a Jew. You are asking a relatively unimportant question when you ask "what, exactly, do we mean by 'Jewish'?" Bus stop (talk) 04:46, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

It's important because the article should be accurate. Ambiguous, incomplete, or misleading information is not compatible with the goal of writing an encyclopedia article. "Jewish" means whatever sources say it means, so what does the Salon source say it means? It doesn't really say anything about that at all, does it? So if we strip the context from this single-sentence mention and pass it along as naked fact, what accurate information are we imparting to readers? Why are we imparting that? What does Molyneux say it means as it applies to himself (which is the only thing he's reliable for)? As with Salon, not much, since he largely rejects it as a personal identity. We're not trying to including every detail in this article, so why should the article include this detail? Grayfell (talk) 05:09, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—we know that he is Jewish because a reliable source supports that he is Jewish. But I am not arguing that the article say that Molyneux is Jewish. You say that "he largely rejects it as a personal identity". I agree. But he also speaks at considerable length about his Jewish mother surviving the Holocaust in Germany. I am simply suggesting that we flesh out a biography of Molyneux by including a block quote of Molyneux speaking about his mother's difficult years as a Jew in war-torn Europe. In a biography of anyone we tell their family background such as occupations or any other relevant material. This is because the reader is interested in this. Such information informs the reader about the crucible from which emerges the subject of the biography. Does the inclusion of such material tell the reader everything they need to know about the subject of the biography? Of course not. Does it invoke stereotypes? Unfortunately, yes. But no biography provides the final word on what makes a complicated individual "tick". Our job is to provide reasonably well-balanced material that reasonably good quality sources consider valid. It is not just our imagination that to Molyneux a Jewish family deriving from war-torn Europe is of significance. Salon also apparently takes note of this. Your argument is that "Jewish" can mean many things. My response is that it doesn't matter. The Salon piece is not saying that he is not Jewish. The Salon piece is saying that he is Jewish. We are thus reasonably supported by a reasonably good source when we pass along to the reader one of the many quotes by Molyneux in which he describes a Jewish mother born in 1937 in Berlin. Aside from what "Jewish" means, an unanswerable question, we know full-well the significance of the Holocaust to Jews. We don't need any additional explanation of that. Molyneux is speaking of his mother. It would not even matter if ultimately she is not Jewish. What matters is that the story that Molyneux tells, and which appears to be accepted by Salon, has its own intrinsic meaning based on the significance of the Holocaust to the Jews. Bus stop (talk) 05:56, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I think you're giving the Salon source way too much credit, here. The source is weak for this content. Reliable? Maybe for some things, sure, okay. In-depth? Absolutely not. If this is the only reliable source commenting on his Jewishness, and he himself rejects it as a personal identity, then going into detail on this would be totally undue. Find a reliable source which summarizes his background. Find one which supports his discussions of his family history. Find anything better than this, and we can go from there. Leaning on this one passing mention in a BLP minefield of an article is creating problems. Primary sources are great for filling in non-controversial details, but Molyneux is unbelievably prolific, vague, and controversial, so we need to use secondary sources. Pouring through his hundreds of hours of recorded talks to find something to support his vaguely defined Jewishness is bad. Really bad. I'm not flatly against include this in some capacity, but any presentation which fixates on the Jewish angle as the central theme of his personal history is misguided at best and vilely anti-Semitic at worst. Grayfell (talk) 06:08, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—there is nothing remotely antisemitic in anything I've seen Molyneux say. Not to my sensibilities anyway.
I think that you think that I am advocating for saying in the article that Molyneux is Jewish. How else am I to understand your articulation that "he himself rejects it as a personal identity". I have already said that.
I'm not arguing that we say in the article that the mother of Molyneux is Jewish nor am I arguing that we say in the article that Molyneux is Jewish. I would consider saying something like According to Molyneux his mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to a "pretty Jewish clan". The odd locution "pretty Jewish clan" could be placed within quotation marks. I think you will agree that this is supported by this. Bus stop (talk) 09:00, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm not saying that Molyneux is anti-Semitic, and I'm not saying he isn't, either. What I'm saying is that mining for primary sources to emphasize the Jewish aspects of his family background would be misguided at best. It would also, as alluded to in the Salon article, match the obsession of many anti-Semitic groups on methodically categorizing and labeling people with any amount of Jewish heritage as though it were vitally important. It is not, automatically, vitally important, and it's not a coincidence that it was a 911 truther who uploaded the video cited by Salon. It is expressly against Wikipedia's goals as a neutral encyclopedia to promote bigotry or unsubstantiated fringe nonsense. Simply being verifiable is never enough, and in this case it is especially important to weigh these details carefully. The way to weigh them is through reliable, independent sources.

When someone uses an ambiguous phrase in a youtube video, we need a reason to repeat them verbatim. We don't quote filler-words or verbal idiosyncrasies, and an off-the-cuff comment in one obscure discussion is not noteworthy unless it's supported as such by a reliable source. In other words, I do not see any valid reason being put forth to include this specific phrase. Without a secondary source summarizing his family background, this is undue, and is aligned with WP:FRINGE theories and fixations that make it a serious BLP issue, as well. If we had a source that discussed his background, the Jewishness of his mother would, presumably, be contextualized by that source, in which case we could judge accordingly. If we were going to include his mother's background, for some reason, this direct quote about her "clan" is absolutely not a good way to approach it. Grayfell (talk) 10:03, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—how do we know that Molyneux was "...born in Ireland and raised mainly in London before moving to Canada at age 11"? Bus stop (talk) 21:28, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Are you asking why we include his birth information? It sounds to me like your fishing, here, but I'll bite. We include information like this in biographies because it's been very-well established by convention and consensus that it's fundamental. This information is so basic and important that we have special categories for articles which lack this information: Category:Date of birth missing and Category:Year of birth missing. We do not have categories for people's mothers birth information, nor for people's mother's religious upbringing, and we sure as hell don't have them for articles which lack this info. This level of information is not typically included in quality articles unless they are supported or contextualized by secondary sources. Birth information is a defining trait, even if it's arguably trivial in many cases. Since it's defining, it's acceptable (but still not ideal) to use routine/primary sources to fill in these details. A person's mother's "clan" is not a defining trait unless sources say it is, so we need a reason to include this information. At no point do we stick our head in the sand about BLP issues, either. Grayfell (talk) 22:10, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—from where does the information come that "Molyneux was born in Ireland and raised mainly in London before moving to Canada at age 11"? How do we know this? Maybe Molyneux was born in Cuba and raised mainly in Lisbon before moving to Venezuela at age 10. How do we know the particulars about that as found in our article? Bus stop (talk) 23:04, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

If your going to ping me over this, stop playing facile rhetorical games and get to the point, please. Grayfell (talk) 23:24, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

BS, SM saying he was born in Ireland is WP:ABOUTSELF. SM saying his grandmother was jewish living comfortably in Nazi Germany is not. SPECIFICO talk 23:32, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

The information that "Molyneux was born in Ireland and raised mainly in London before moving to Canada at age 11" was probably provided by Molyneux himself. Your only objection to including a paraphrased quote from Molyneux such as "According to Molyneux his mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to a 'pretty Jewish clan'" is that it contains the word "Jewish". Isn't that correct? The question that we are discussing here on this Talk page, and the reason the article is presently "protected", has just about nothing to do with the concept of being "Jewish". If we were saying "According to Molyneux his father was a shoemaker born in Pittsburgh in 1937 to a traveling circus", there would be no issue. But it just so happens that the facts presented by Molyneux involve a Jewish mother and all hell breaks loose on this Talk page. How do we know she was Jewish? Was it by religion or ethnicity or culture? Was she practicing? The suggested sentence begins with According to... This doesn't have to be verified. The reader is immediately alerted that this may be just the narrative that the subject of the biography wants to put forth. Molyneux a multitude of times tells whatever audience that his mother was Jewish and survived the war as a little girl in war-torn Europe. Whether it is true or not doesn't matter as concerns whether we should or shouldn't pass this perhaps-true piece of autobiographical information along to the reader. We are allowed a degree of latitude in writing a biography, even if it is about a living person. The negativity here is hard to bear. With your interest in the concept of being Jewish you should be working on articles such as Who is a Jew? or Jewish identity or other articles with similarly arcane subject matter. I haven't the foggiest idea if Molyneux's mother is "really" Jewish. But in a biography you have the latitude to include significant even if quirky positions maintained by the subject of the biography. Molyneux repeats this narrative numerous times. As long as we are introducing this material with "according to" I cannot understand why there would be any objection to its inclusion. Bus stop (talk) 23:52, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, all hell breaks loose. If you want to know why, I refer you to the "YOU ARE A JEW" comments above. You know exactly why some people are trying to add this to the article. Don't pretend this is a simple fact on the same level as his father being a shoemaker. The citation for where he was born and raised is, presumably, reliable independent source, but as I've tried to explain, that's only part of the issue. Molyneux's bare biographical details are core information and are entirely non-controversial. This is fundamental to a basic biography to a degree far in excess of his mother's religious/ethnic/cultural upbringing. I assume that if you knew of a reliable source which contextualized his mother's personal history, you would've already presented it. Grayfell (talk) 00:25, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

BS, did you not read my post immediately above yours, or did you choose to ignore it, or did you not follow the link and understand the point? At any rate you will never get consensus on this website for the views and approach and behavior you are putting forth here. SPECIFICO talk 00:29, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Are you even reading the comments you're replying to? Specifico and Grayfell both just gave you a good argument for not including this that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not it contains the word "Jewish" so your suggestion that they're only objecting because it contains that word is, to be frank, ridiculous. Please stop wasting everyone's time - there is clearly no consensus to include the info you're suggesting. Fyddlestix (talk) 00:45, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Fyddlestix, SPECIFICO, Grayfell—you are denying the reader information about Molyneux. You are weakening the article. I think I retract my comments about the word "Jew", if you folks will allow me to do so. But the word Jew and the word Holocaust have significance that virtually do not need to be sourced for the meaning to be clear and powerful. Importantly, whether it is true or not, Molyneux's claim harnesses those powerful meanings, and this warrants representation in the article. I haven't the foggiest idea whether Molyneux's mother was a Jewish Holocaust survivor or not, but it is his repeatedly spoken claim. A biography aims to provide a reader with an accurate portrait of the subject. As long as we introduce the claim with the words According to Molyneux... there is no impropriety in repeating his claim. My suggested edit, in case I have not made that clear, is a sentence reading According to Molyneux his mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to a "pretty Jewish clan". Let me mention for those not intimately familiar with this discussion that the words "pretty Jewish clan" are an exact quote. That suggested sentence could be located in the "Background" section, right after the sentence about Molyneux being born in Ireland, etc. Incidentally, my suggested sentence does not even claim that his mother was Jewish. It adheres almost verbatim to what he says here. He makes numerous similar claims elsewhere. Bus stop (talk) 02:28, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

I won't be engaging further in this discussion. Happy editing to one and all. Bus stop (talk) 02:35, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

This still completely ignores the substance of my response. Citing a fishy, context-free youtube clip to hammer-home that his mother was loosely defined as Jewish, while providing virtually no other information about how this is relevant to Molyneux himself, is not neutral or proportional. Why are we borrowing an ambiguous phrase from this source? That still hasn't even been addressed at all. If he talks about his mother a lot... why is this one aspect the part we're including and nothing else? Why is it so important to introduce the vaguest possible indication of Jewishness into his biography? This isn't "denying the reader information". Our job isn't to include all possible trivia, and it sure as hell isn't to include trivia just because it's being highlighted by anti-Semitic youtube clips and political gossip. Grayfell (talk) 03:01, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

BS said he's done. Somebody feel free to archive this nonsense. SPECIFICO talk 03:04, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

This is what the higher up people on Wikipedia do. If they don't want you to include a piece of information, they will debate strawmen and actually create false debates over definitions and even on multiple occasions as seen throughout this talk page, they will even ignore the evidence you provided and say something else, like the multiple people that have claimed "oh he's only 1/4" when in actual fact he is 1/2. They will also ignore the fact that Jews are an ethno-religious people (something which is confirmed on the very first line of the Wikipedia page on Jews) and claim "What does it mean to be Jewish?", "Molyneux has also said that being Jewish is uncomfortable for him" completely ignoring the fact that Jews are an ethno-religious people so if he doesn't consider himself Jewish religiously, he is still ethnically Jewish, and in fact, calling someone just 'Jewish' in their Wikipedia page is ok for this as the difference between the two is recognised in the Wikipedia page on Jews. The fact the higher-up people in this website won't even allow an entry of "Molyneux's grandparents on his mother's side were Jewish but he has expressed x about that" only creates a highly suspicious group of individuals like myself. I wonder if anyone had read my previous attempts to enter this information, only to be told "You need a Reliable Secondary Source" and when I did the second time, it was again removed and strawman debates were had and false debates were had like "What does it mean to be Jewish?" The person in question, SPECIFICO, told me in an earlier attempt at including this information from primary sources that "Molyneux's opinion doesn't matter" (Go to the first section of the talk page) so when I include a Secondary source, the user in question, SPECIFICO, removes it and claims "Molyneux says he doesn't identify himself as Jewish". This is clearly a contradiction to anyone that doesn't have an agenda. I was banned from Wikipedia for 24 hours because of my attempts to input the truth. I will continue on this mission. I have no agenda. I am not an anti-semite or a philo-semite. I am not pro-Molyneux or anti-Molyneux. I am a Wikipedia editor and a Wikipedia editor should be neutral. Rìgh (talk) 19:51, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

[12] WP:V SPECIFICO talk 03:49, 19 December 2017 (UTC)−

SPECIFICO—Agenda-driven editing harms the article because it doesn't inform the reader about the ostensible subject of the article. It just so happens that Molyneux makes a point, repeatedly, that he derives from Jewish family that survived the Holocaust in Germany. The inclusion of this would not depend on its veracity or lack thereof. As concerns "verifiability" it is clearly and indisputably known that Molyneux makes that claim. Bus stop (talk) 04:47, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Read the policies cited to you above. SPECIFICO talk 04:54, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Molyneux has embraced eugenic ideas promoted by Jared Taylor and the Pioneer Fund. This article goes into substantial depth about his support of this specific pseudoscience, and also explains why it is pseudoscience. It's more reliable than a cherry-picked youtube miniclip, but I don't think it's a reliable outlet. Instead, it's useful background info for anyone who doesn't understand why this is so controversial. It also establishes why Molyneux should not be treated as competent when he discusses genetics, which may or may not matter for this discussion. Taylor's "racialism" emphasizes, among other things, that Ashkenazi Jews are, on average, the most intelligent "race". As anyone who pays any critical attention to Molyneux knows, being seen as the most intelligent is important to him, so it would make a perverse sense that he would allude to being "genetically" Jewish. He mistakenly believes having Jewish genes is an indicator of genetic superiority.

To be clear: this should not be added to the article with this source. I'm mentioning this to explain to others why this is debatable and controversial. I haven't seen a source connect his Jewish mother to his racist beliefs, and he's still not significant enough for that level of analysis to be likely. Consider this supplementary material, or ignore it completely if you want. Grayfell (talk) 07:14, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Literally everything you have said bears no relation to the matter at hand which is whether or not Stefan Molyneux has a Jewish mother. Everything you have posted is additional information about another matter. Thank you for revealing the fact that you don't want to include this information because YOU have an agenda. Rìgh (talk) 09:42, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

I still haven't seen a convincing explanation for why the relative amount of Jewishiness of his mother's clan is an important addition to this article. "Agenda" is comically nefarious sounding, but it's also dehumanizing, so please at least consider the possibility that we're just people who don't agree with you on this issue. Grayfell (talk) 23:51, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—correct me if I am wrong but isn't it your concern that this article not assist Molyneux in spreading the possibly bogus idea that he was born to a Jewish mother? Isn't that, in a nutshell, the reason that you object to my suggested edit? My suggested edit was the addition of a sentence reading According to Molyneux his mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to a "pretty Jewish clan". Thank you for the link to this article. I really found it interesting. But I don't see how it changes how we evaluate our differing opinions on the possible edit which I suggest. You say "I still haven't seen a convincing explanation for why the relative amount of Jewishiness of his mother's clan is an important addition to this article." I think it could be considered standard biographical information, and the threat of annihilation inherent in being a Jew in Nazi Germany, only enhances the significance of what is already standard biographical information. You also say. "Taylor's "racialism" emphasizes, among other things, that Ashkenazi Jews are, on average, the most intelligent "race". As anyone who pays any critical attention to Molyneux knows, being seen as the most intelligent is important to him, so it would make a perverse sense that he would allude to being "genetically" Jewish. He mistakenly believes having Jewish genes is an indicator of genetic superiority." (Forgive my multiplicity of quotation marks.) I think you are arguing that we should not include material in this article that may further what may be Molyneux's aims in this regard. But should we be constructing an article in such a way as to be taking countermeasures to frustrate what we think are a subject's failure to be truthful—especially seeing as how we really do not know if he is being truthful or not? Bus stop (talk) 02:28, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

No-I mean yes, you're partly wrong about my concern, so I'm going to correct you. I don't know, but I don't think it's bogus. For information like this I normally take someone at their word, which is common practice on Wikipedia, as we both know. Regardless of how strongly I disagree with his views, we would need a good reason to think he was inherently untrustworthy for his family history, and I don't know of such a reason.

No, my problem is something else. I dispute that this is, in the form you have proposed, basic biographical information. The direct quote is worse than a simple summary would be, and a simple summary would be barely justifiable under normal circumstances. Molyneux is incredibly prolific, to the point of absurdity, and as far as I know, only the tiniest sliver of his output has any outside editorial oversight. When we highlight one of his quotes taken at random, we are giving him a platform to spread information about himself. We are ALSO doing something else, which is even worse. We are highlighting some of his off-hand comments to reinforce an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, as demonstrated by the youtube uploader's history. The problem is not that Molyneux isn't being truthful, it's that we do not automatically include passing quotes just because they answer a question that no reliable source seems to be asking. These are two separate, but important, problems.

If we were going to explain this, we would need context other than "she was probably kinda Jewish". We're introducing incomplete information based on incomplete, de-contextualized comments plucked from youtube. We don't currently mention anything at all about Molyneux's mother, and we do not have sources to even attempt that yet, so why is her ambiguous Jewishness being presented as basic info? Why nothing about his Father? What "ethno-religious" group did he belong to? What were his parents names? What did they do in the twenty years between the war and his birth? All of this history happened decades before Molyneux was born, so if it's encyclopedically relevant to Stefan Molyneux, we would have to indicate how it was significant, and we would have to do this through sources. I'm not saying it isn't significant, but without those sources, the Jewishness of one of his parents isn't automatically the part that needs to be emphasized. Emphasizing truthful information without any other context is a form of editorializing.

So the "pretty Jewish clan" quote is a bad choice for multiple reasons, but one reason is that we shouldn't pick the least-clear example of someone explaining something in order to justify including it. If he's talked about his mother multiple times, why the one quote uploaded by 911truther? If we cannot explain this clearly, we shouldn't feed into conspiracy theory crap to try and include it unclearly as some sort of false compromise. Grayfell (talk) 04:34, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—you don't really have a reason for keeping this information out of the article, rather you have underlying intentions based on personal concerns. But this article isn't written for a certain "right" group of people. It is of course written for all people. It doesn't matter if the person reading the article is of an egalitarian mindset or if they embrace the "eugenic ideas promoted by Jared Taylor and the Pioneer Fund." Essentially you are trying to right great wrongs. Aren't you taking an activist attitude in your rationale for your objections to my proposed edit? Let's be clear about the edit that I am suggesting. In the Background section, after the sentence saying he was "born in Ireland", I am suggesting we say "According to Molyneux his mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to a 'pretty Jewish clan'." I would characterize my suggested edit as very cautious. Not only does it substitute "pretty Jewish clan" for the more normal "Jewish family", but it introduces the assertion with "According to Molyneux..." I would argue this is basic biographical information. The mother of the subject of this article was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. That is not a minor biographical detail that can be omitted without diminishing the value of the article for unaccountable reasons. I am asking you why you are objecting to this suggested edit. You can't talk about the uploader of the youtube clip as a "911truther" and think that that constitutes a cogent argument for omitting biographical information from the article. The full length version is not uploaded by a "911truther". But it is 55 minutes long as opposed to the 30 second version uploaded by the "911truther". Another objection that you've made that makes no sense to me is your notion of "ambiguous Jewishness". While it is true that we know nothing more about her as a Jew, nor does it matter. We supply as much information as we have—we don't omit the information that we have based on an argument that it is insufficient. Perhaps she was religious; perhaps she was secular. It doesn't matter. We just supply the information we have. We know by listening to Molyneux's talk, given at the University of Toronto in 2013, that Jewish identity causes his mother and grandmother and other family members to relocate more than once within Germany in an effort to save their lives. Molyneux talks about his mother's Jewishness in war-torn Germany on numerous occasions. Rìgh gives six examples here of Molyneux discussing his Jewish mother in war-torn Europe. We don't have to be sympathetic to all of Molyneux's views but we should be evenhanded in supplying the reader with the information needed to understand his background. He makes the point that his mother was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. I feel that such basic biographical information warrants inclusion in our article. Bus stop (talk) 14:47, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I do have multiple reasons to keep this out of the article, at least as you keep presenting it. As I said before, I'm not flatly opposed to include this in some way, but this is not the right approach at all. I've been trying to explain my concerns this entire time. Also, again, why are you linking to diffs for previous comments? I seriously don't get it, but it's distracting and seems distrustful. Do you think I'm going to delete them after you call me out on them or something? I try not to rewrite comments unless absolutely necessary, and neither of us does that after people have responded, right?

Anyway... One reason to keep this out is that someone's mother's personal history should be explained to the extent that it's supported by sources -no more, no less. That's the baseline for inclusion of content like this. So what are sources saying about his mother? That she was a refugee? that she grew up in Europe during the war? That she survived the Holocaust? That these experiences negatively impacted how she raised her son? If the "pretty Jewish clan" was an attempt to summarize the sources, it was a near-complete failure. It's inappropriate to carefully pick one single quote about her Jewish religious background while ignoring everything else. Even setting aside the very serious issues about anti-Semitism, this appears to be disproportionate to what sources are saying. It's emphasizing that his mother was Jewish while totally ignoring the context he presented that in. Just as bad, or maybe worse, it's totally ignoring that he, himself, has essentially rejected being described as Jewish. We respect people's self-descriptions in cases like this, and if he doesn't consider himself Jewish, and says he was not raised Jewish, than Wikipedia requires a very good reason to contradict him on this. He doesn't consider himself Jewish, so why is his mother's Jewishness being emphasized without any context or qualification?

Another reason is that we absolutely do pay attention to the context of sources. Being an advocate of extremist fringe anti-Semitism is a legitimate cause for concern. We do not treat every subject "the same" as a justification to ignore BLP concerns. As connected to what I already said, why is the truther's 30 second clip, out of the ~3,300 seconds of the full talk, being repeatedly hammered for inclusion? This is not proportional, and it's a BLP problem. It is absolutely a BLP problem, and if you do not see the problem with using a cherry-picked quote from a WP:FRINGE, WP:UGC outlet to emphasize this extremist view taken out of context, we have a more serious problem than just this article. We do not "supply as much information as we have" as dogma. We use WP:V as the baseline and go from there. Context always matters with sources. Grayfell (talk) 22:56, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—are you saying that this biographical information has to be kept out of the article or that we have to present this information differently? You say "Yes, I do have multiple reasons to keep this out of the article, at least as you keep presenting it." OK, so how would you present it differently? You also say "As I said before, I'm not flatly opposed to include this in some way, but this is not the right approach at all." Fine—please tell me your approach.

You say "Even setting aside the very serious issues about anti-Semitism, this appears to be disproportionate to what sources are saying." What "very serious issues about anti-Semitism" are you referring to? Please explain.

You are saying "it's emphasizing that his mother was Jewish while totally ignoring the context he presented that in." If you feel that there is "context" missing then please offer a counter-suggestion that includes the "context" that you feel is missing.

You say "Just as bad, or maybe worse, it's totally ignoring that he, himself, has essentially rejected being described as Jewish." My suggested edit does not describe him as Jewish, in fact it doesn't describe him at all. My suggested edit is only about his mother.

You say "We respect people's self-descriptions in cases like this, and if he doesn't consider himself Jewish, and says he was not raised Jewish, than Wikipedia requires a very good reason to contradict him on this. He doesn't consider himself Jewish, so why is his mother's Jewishness being emphasized without any context or qualification?" If you want to add "context or qualification" then please suggest an edit that includes what you see as "context or qualification". The mother of Molyneux, according to Molyneux, is a Jewish Holocaust survivor. That does not imply that he considers himself Jewish, and we do not call him Jewish, especially not in contradiction of his own assertions to the contrary. Aren't you making a mountain out of a molehill?

You say "Another reason is that we absolutely do pay attention to the context of sources. Being an advocate of extremist fringe anti-Semitism is a legitimate cause for concern." Are you saying that the uploader of the 30 second clip is an "advocate of extremist fringe anti-Semitism"? If that is what you are saying then why not link to the full-length version? I doubt that the full-length version is uploaded by a "truther". It is simply a talk given by Molyneux in 2013 at the University of Toronto, and I detect no anti-Semitism in it. Bus stop (talk) 04:59, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

What were his mother's and father's names? This is basic info that ideally belongs in most comprehensive biographies. The lack of this info is a far more significant gap than his mother's religious background.

You, personally, might think his mother's religion is obviously important to the article, but I do not see it that way. If he were Jewish, or were raised Jewish, I would say that's a reasonable detail to include, even with flimsy sources. His mother's (mother's) religion is not at that level of significance as free-floating fact. Not everything belongs in the article.

If you wanted to provide context, one simple way to approach this would be something like this... Wait. This isn't going to be a proper proposal, this is an example to demonstrate my point. Please treat this as a demonstration of an approach:

"Molyneux has severed all ties with his parents. According to Molyneux, his mother was born in Germany in 1937..." By starting this way, we've established a minimum amount of context for why being Jewish might be significant, so that it doesn't come out of nowhere like the half-assed conspiracy theory youtube clip. "...Because his mother was Jewish, she was forced to move around frequently to avoid persecution by the Nazis during World War II, and she lived in multiple different orphanages after her own mother was killed in 1944." This contextualizes that being Jewish was obviously a significant part of her early life without inviting any speculation about religion/ethnicity/etc.. Being Jewish isn't always considered a defining trait in a person's life, so this, at least, provides a reason why it's being mentioned. "Molyneux has said that he is sympathetic to her difficult childhood, but that it doesn't fully justify the abusive behavior he has accused her of during his childhood." Again, not a proposal, but something along these lines would explain why his mother's personal history is significant in an article about Molyneux. If he's cut of all contact with her, introducing any details at all is going to be more confusing than helpful, but this way we're framing it the same way he frames it, which is... arguably better than nothing. We would have to end with something along the lines that "Molyneux was not raised Jewish and doesn't consider himself a Jew." since he has directly said that it doesn't apply to him as an identity.

The problem, and it's a big problem, is that these obscure, cherry-picked quotes from speeches spanning many years, don't justify this level of detail. We're not trying to summarize his entire body of work. That's far outside of Wikipedia's mission. These speeches are not vitally important examples of his work even if we were trying to do that. We are trying to summarize what reliable sources have to say about him. If they do not mention his mother's upbringing and how it influenced him, then we shouldn't fill-in these gaps just because we can. That's not neutral, and it's not due weight.

This is why the full-length source isn't cutting it for me. If the only people who care about this stale drama are Wikipedia editors, it's not really that important to the article. If other people care about this, they should publish real sources so we can use them. Grayfell (talk) 06:28, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—you ask "What were his mother's and father's names?" We don't need to know his mother's and father's names to add to the article that his mother is a Jewish Holocaust survivor. This is important information about the mother of Molyneux. Why, in your opinion, does the reader need to be deprived of that fact? This is ordinary information. It is ordinary practice to add information about parents to subjects of biographies. Why would there be an exception in this case?

You say "If he were Jewish, or were raised Jewish, I would say that's a reasonable detail to include, even with flimsy sources. His mother's (mother's) religion is not at that level of significance as free-floating fact. Not everything belongs in the article." As you know Jewish people were commonly persecuted during the Holocaust—not only religious Jews—but all Jews. Even those who were completely assimilated tended to be persecuted. As with most Jews, this persecution was of great consequence to Molyneux's mother. She did not lose her life but it was of great importance in her life, and Stefan Molyneux talks about her Holocaust experience on numerous occasions.

When you say that "Not everything belongs in the article" I agree with you. I agree that not everything belongs in the article. But the fact that Molyneux's mother is a Jewish Holocaust survivor belongs in the article. In the instance of this article, this should be considered standard biographical information. We commonly provide information about parents if such information is known. Why, in the case of Molyneux, would we deliberately omit that? Molyneux has told us in a half dozen podcasts and public appearances that his mother is a Jewish Holocaust survivor—and he should be considered a reliable source on that information.

As an encyclopedia we aim to be educational. In large part that means the inclusion of facts. Conversely that means that we don't contrive to omit information. There has to be a reason to leave out fairly important information. Molyneux may not be Jewish but his mother is a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Bus stop (talk) 21:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Clearly we disagree on how important this really is to an article about Stefan Molyneux. The undeniable importance of the Holocaust does not automatically transfer to Stefan Molyneux's article. As I've said, in order to include this, we would need a substantial amount of context to prevent this being trivia, and the sources do not support this in my view. The length of an article should, more or less, reflect their significance according to reliable sources. Expanding a biography with primary-sourced information devoid of any context is trivia. So you're saying this is basic information, but I'm saying it's also trivializing the Holocaust to promote a medium-popularity youtuber based on cherry-picked sources. I don't think there's anything contrived about opposing that.

This is treating a common practice elsewhere as a technicality to emphasizing his Jewish ancestry, while ignoring his own statements about his identity. We have to treat each article as on its own. When precedence is challenged, we have to debate it on its own merits. This is especially true for BLPs. Grayfell (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—it is standard practice to include information about parents in biographies. If you are not aware of that just pick a biography at random. Wikipedia biographies often provide information on the parents of the subjects of biographies. That information falls into a variety of categories. It can involve religion, it can involve country of origin, it can involve occupation—it can involve a variety of things. There is no need to deliberately omit the information under discussion about one of Molyneux's parents.

You say "So you're saying this is basic information, but I'm saying it's also trivializing the Holocaust to promote a medium-popularity youtuber based on cherry-picked sources." How is it "trivializing the Holocaust" to say that the mother of Molyneux is a Jewish Holocaust survivor?

You say "This is treating a common practice elsewhere as a technicality to emphasizing his Jewish ancestry, while ignoring his own statements about his identity." There is no "emphasizing" anything. This is a simple statement of fact. There is no "emphasis" involved. Mere "mention" is not "emphasis". Bus stop (talk) 22:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

You don't have a reliable source that verifies his mom was "Jewish" in any meaning of the word. You don't have any RS for anything about Mom afaik. Why are you going on and on about this after your declaration of farewell? SPECIFICO talk 22:21, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

SPECIFICO—we have six podcasts here supportive of the fact that his mother is a Jewish Holocaust survivor, and we have this talk given at the University of Toronto also supportive of the fact that Molyneux's mother was a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Bus stop (talk) 22:51, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

You've been told repeatedly that those are not WP:RS. You've received many thoughtful responses from half a dozen editors who have tried to explain this to you here. Your view, simply put, violates Wikipedia core policy. It will never be acceptable here. The podcasts are crap (encyclopedically speaking, that is). SPECIFICO talk 00:22, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, encyclopedically speaking, they are crap. Just for shits and giggles, I hit 'random article' a few times, and none of the biographies I found (Watt Marcus C. Clyde Atkins, Patricia Godchaux, Cyndia Sieden, Abdelghani Bousta, and Miguel Saiz) mention anything at all about the subject's parents. It's common on Wikipedia to include something about a person's childhood, and dramatically less common to include their parent's childhood. Common doesn't mean mandatory. You say it's not emphasizing this, but this is based on one snotty passing mention in a Salon gossip column, and a combined two minutes of passing comments out of hundred or thousands of hours of primary ephemera. That is you, as an editor, emphasizing this far above and beyond what reliable sources have to say about it. Find reliable sources which could be used to explain why this matters to Molyneux, otherwise this remains a waste of time. Grayfell (talk) 07:01, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—Molyneux considers the childhood experience of his mother to be important. This is an excerpt from the talk given at the University of Toronto. I couldn't transcribe the whole thing but I tried to type a relevant portion. Bolding has of course been added by me.

"My family history is intensely bound up in war, in European wars, half of my family comes from Germany, and the other half comes from England and Ireland, and not the part of Ireland that sat out the second world war but the part that got intensely involved, and my mother was born in Berlin in 1937 to, you know, a pretty Jewish clan, and this was of course pretty much the worst time you could pick to be born and, you know, the culture you could choose to be born in, she went through the war of course as a young girl, the entire society blew up and disintegrated all the way around her, she lived in Dresden, a lot of the civilians in Germany went to Dresden because Dresden was entirely civilian, and that had all the treasures of the Weimar Republic and so the Allies had not bombed it because as we all know bombing civilians is a war crime, and they changed their minds in 1944 and they sent one of the first thousand-plane raids to Dresden, and created a death toll that was greater than that of Nagasaki that night, my mother and some relatives of her fled the city when they heard the planes approaching but my grandmother had to stay, she had to go to work the next day, and of course nobody was really anticipating, this was one of the first firestorms that occurred in the second world war..."[13]

Tell me if you see any inaccuracies. Please bear in mind the sort of edit that I am suggesting and the sort of edit that I am not suggesting. I am not suggesting that the above would support an edit such as "Molyneux is Jewish" and I am not even suggesting that the above would support an edit reading "His mother was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, born in 1937 in Berlin". But I am suggesting that the above would support an edit reading "According to Molyneux his mother was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, born in 1937 in Berlin". In my opinion the words "According to Molyneux..." make all the difference. These facts have not been independently verified but we pass them along to the reader simply on the basis that Molyneux repeatedly asserts them. My personal feeling about these assertions are that they are probably true but I take on board the doubts expressed by my fellow editors.

We are here to write an article. Our purpose is not to withhold information. Would this be a WP:BLP concern? When the subject of the biography stands before a large audience, and in numerous other forums, such as podcasts, and tells a large number of people that his mother was a Jewish Holocaust survivor, I think such information becomes standard information for inclusion in a biography on him. We can find countless parallels in our other biographies. Information on the parents is passed along to the reader because it is a basic assumption that the impacts in one life pass along in one form or another to the lives of those close to them. It is assumed the nurturing (or abuse) of the parents is more often than not a factor in the sort of person the child becomes. In the case of the status of "Holocaust survivor" it is almost laughable to think that the impact of Holocaust survival on the mother would find almost no expression in the son, and I think you are going way out on a limb when you suggest as you have several times that this is akin to "trivia". Bus stop (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not allow you to use the article talk page to re-broadcast the primary sourced, self-published, speeches from a video blog. Please stop. SPECIFICO talk 16:57, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—you say "Just for shits and giggles, I hit 'random article' a few times, and none of the biographies I found (Watt Marcus C. Clyde Atkins, Patricia Godchaux, Cyndia Sieden, Abdelghani Bousta, and Miguel Saiz) mention anything at all about the subject's parents." Perhaps I was in error in suggesting that any random biography would show details on the parents of the subjects of the biography.

But we do find Dani Levy: "mother was a Holocaust survivor", Michal Govrin: "mother was a holocaust survivor", Shabtai Kalmanovich: "mother was a Holocaust survivor", Doron Ben-Atar: "mother was a Holocaust survivor", Moshe Ya'alon: "mother was a Holocaust survivor."

And we find Nadine Strossen: "My father was a Holocaust survivor..." Tal Friedman: "His father was a holocaust survivor." Lina Eve: Her "father was a Holocaust survivor". Moshe Halbertal: "His father was a Holocaust survivor". Hannah Rosenthal: "Rosenthal's father was a Holocaust survivor".

The important point here is not just about subjects of biographies who were children of Holocaust survivors. There is a more general idea that we should be discussing. Do we include background information on parents of subjects of biographies? The answer is yes, sometimes. Therefore the question is why should we keep this information out of this article? Bus stop (talk) 23:50, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Unless you have something new to add, which you apparently do not, stop pinging me for every single reply.

Dani Levy (apparently) wrote and directed a comedy mocking Adolf Hitler. Levy's mother's history is supported by a reliable, independent source, which provides specific context for why surviving the Holocaust would make a difference to Dani Levy. I'm not even going to bother going into the other examples. It's obvious you completely missed the point I was trying to make. As I already said, common doesn't mean mandatory. You do not have any source which states that this anecdote is important. You are attempting to include this based on your personal opinion. Bolding the parts that seem important to you doesn't make them any more important to everyone else. We are all already familiar with the quote, we've discussed it multiple times. If you're highlighting it because you think it's the most important part of the quote, you're injecting your personal opinion into the quote, which is original research and editorializing.

Nobody here is accusing Molyneux of lying (on this issue, at least) we're just not interested in every single thing he has to say. This is a minute-long anecdote taken from a single obscure speech recorded on a bad camera posted to youtube along with hundreds of hours of other speeches, and hundreds of hours of podcasts, and thousands of pages of forum comments and similar. The only secondary commentary on this is passing mention garbage. Where does Molyneux say that this specific history is important to him? If it's important, why do you have to dig so deep into primary speeches to find this half-sentence quote taken from the middle of a longer paragraph? If this person's mother's history is so important, then why haven't any reliable source commented on it?

You clearly were, originally, arguing that we use the Salon source to just say "he's Jewish" without any context at all. It's time to drop the stick. Grayfell (talk) 23:28, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

I've adjusted the formatting, as there was an edit conflict. This is another reason why repeatedly pinging over the same issue is irritating at best and disruptive at worst. Don't ping me -or anyone else- unless you are ready for use to respond. In my case, just stop pinging me. Grayfell (talk) 00:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—You've really got to be kidding. This is about your sensibilities concerning Molyneux appearing too "Jewish" even though he is not Jewish at all. I find the following:

"This is treating a common practice elsewhere as a technicality to emphasizing his Jewish ancestry, while ignoring his own statements about his identity." Grayfell (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

"You, personally, might think his mother's religion is obviously important to the article, but I do not see it that way. If he were Jewish, or were raised Jewish, I would say that's a reasonable detail to include, even with flimsy sources." Grayfell (talk) 06:28, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

"Just as bad, or maybe worse, it's totally ignoring that he, himself, has essentially rejected being described as Jewish. We respect people's self-descriptions in cases like this, and if he doesn't consider himself Jewish, and says he was not raised Jewish, than Wikipedia requires a very good reason to contradict him on this." Grayfell (talk) 22:56, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

As you can see above, you have already expressed several times that you wish to exclude this material based on your personal opinion that the inclusion of his mother's Holocaust experience emphasizes Molyneux's "Jewishness". That is your personal sensitivity. It is not a valid editorial concern. I would call it your personal sensitivities. Yet bizarrely I read you now saying to me that "You are attempting to include this based on your personal opinion." Give me a break. I am trying to write a biography. I am not trying to be a polemicist. My argument in the final analysis is very simple. It warrants inclusion because it is assumed the reader wants to know the background of the subject of the biography, and this includes basic details about the parents, if known. It is absurd to write an article by deliberately omitting a detail about a parent that the subject of the biography routinely publicizes.

And no, we are not discussing whether Molyneux is Jewish. We may have touched upon that question a week ago but a clear evolution in this conversation brings us to discussing inclusion/exclusion of his mother's Holocaust experience. If he has expressed dissociation with any Jewish identity we do not say the opposite. But there is a separate question. Is the mother of Molyneux Jewish and a Holocaust survivor? Well, according to Molyneux she is. There is no WP:BLP violation in saying for instance that "Molyneux claims that his mother is a Holocaust survivor who was born in 1937 in Berlin". Variations on that wording are of course possible. This should be the crux of this discussion. Another possible variation is "According to Molyneux his mother is Jewish and a Holocaust survivor." Omitting the word "Jewish" is a possibility. Would you be amenable to just saying that his mother was a Holocaust survivor? That would be in keeping with most of the examples I provided above ("mother was a Holocaust survivor", "father was a Holocaust survivor"). Bus stop (talk) 00:52, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Grayfell—you haven't responded to my above argument. Should I assume that you see a certain amount of logic in my argument? I've made this edit. I hope you agree with it. If not please express your differing opinion. Bus stop (talk) 16:32, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I've also initiated a section at WP:BLPN. Bus stop (talk) 16:54, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I specifically told you to stop pinging me, and posting this comment buried in the middle of a talk section you've repeatedly said you were done with is so confusing it's disruptive. I have already explained why I believe this is inappropriate for the article. Your inability/refusal to get the point has stopped being my problem. Stop pestering me about cramming this into the article. I am not interested in further validating your obsession with this content. Grayfell (talk) 20:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

You have no RS for any of this garbage. You're being disruptive now. It's way past the point of anything constructive. Now you propose that any German who wasn't killed in WW2 is a "holocaust survivor"? Go find a reliable source for that one! -- No more. Enough. SPECIFICO talk 00:59, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

No, "any German who wasn't killed in WW2" would not be considered a Holocaust survivor. Targeted groups fall under that heading, including besides the "Jews", the "Roma", "Poles and the Slavic and so-called Asiatic peoples of the Soviet Union", "institutionalized people with disabilities", "enemies of the State", "homosexuals", and "Jehovah's Witnesses".[14][15] Bus stop (talk) 01:18, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, but Irish girls were not targeted and you have no RS saying that momma was in any targeted group. Move this to your own talk page if you feel inclined to continue. It has nothing to do with article improvement. This unsourced stuff is simply never going in the article until it's sourced and is no longer unsourced. Put it on your own page if you must. SPECIFICO talk 01:40, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Unless I am mistaken you are now engaging in pure conjecture. Bus stop (talk) 02:02, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

We are flogging a dead horse here. There is obviously no consensus to include the material, and Bus stop is clearly not going to convince anyone to change their minds. Fyddlestix (talk) 02:24, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

If you have RS that says little Irish colleens were targeted by the Third Reich, you are free to post it. SPECIFICO talk 02:25, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

I'm out of here. No sense wasting time with this nonsense. Bus stop (talk) 02:41, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Relevance

Here we have an editor, Volunteer Marek, removing material relating to Molyneux being Jewish, with the edit summary "why would this be relevant?" The provided source tells us why this is relevant. The source says that "The anonymous blogger is not alone in being a Jewish person making common cause with racist anti-Semites, however. Many leading figures associated with the alt-right are also Jewish themselves including Ramsey, Cernovich, Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos, libertarian vlogger Stefan Molyneux and publishing entrepreneur Ezra Levant."[16] The relevance is that Jewish people—Molyneux, among others—are "making common cause with racist anti-Semites". Bus stop (talk) 08:08, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

First, Salon is a dubious source. Second, the "making common cause with racist anti-Semites" is not what the relevant text you want in the article says. Volunteer Marek  16:19, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I haven't expressed any text that I want in the article. I am responding to your edit summary. The source is not just making an idle comment. The source is making a point. I think it would be fair to say that the source finds it remarkable that the named Jewish people make "common cause" with "anti-Semites". Your edit summary asks "why would this be relevant". That is a fair question. An examination of the source reveals a reason this might be relevant. Bus stop (talk) 16:32, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

By complaining about my removal, you did indeed express a preference for a particular piece of text. Volunteer Marek  22:00, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure that is true. It may or may not be correct. I feel that we should include mention that he may be Jewish in the article. I would even go so far as to say that I don't think it would be entirely improper to say he is Jewish. But at this point I am only prepared to say that some mention of this should be made. I am open to considerations in which a multiple-assertion sentence is created. Many other editors are rightfully concerned that his upbringing was Christian, that he was a choirboy, that he is an atheist, that he articulates a rejection of organized religion—I think these are all loosely-related considerations in describing him. (Those assertions would require sources, as they are not in the article now.) I only reacted to your edit summary. And of course that your edit removed all traces from the article that he may be Jewish. I don't think my "complaint" was an endorsement of any specific wording. Bus stop (talk) 22:20, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

We can stipulate, can we not, that Molyneux is not observing or practicing the Jewish religion. We also know that he discusses his Christian family environment with his mom and his choirboy youth. We also know that he subsequently turned against religion and discusses atheism at great length in his self-published videos. There's longstanding agreement on Wikipedia that we do not throw "Jewish" into articles as a racial or genetic tag without RS verification as to the subject's Jewish observance. But from his own extensive videoblogging, we are told that there was no such observance in Molyneux' family during his lifetime. Furthermore the issue of his religion is not central to his notability or to the verified content of this BLP. And SM's religion was not the main point of the Salon piece. Valid encylopedic content will have more than a single marginal throw-away mention to verify it. Find us an RS article that is about Molyneux' religion. Then you'll have something to hang your hat on.🕵️ SPECIFICO talk 17:09, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Interestingly you are obsessing over that which does not matter. Why are you seemingly so concerned over whether he is observant or not? That is irrelevant. Bus stop (talk) 20:44, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

that which does not matter - Do you mean to say that relevance to the subject of the article "does not matter"? I don't think so, but if not then could you explain why this dubious snippet of a throw-in line -- no more than a label -- from the "Salon" website is relevant to the life of Stefan Molyneux? What is the relevance of the specific statement in that Salon page to the topic of this WP article? SPECIFICO talk 15:07, 16 December 2017 (UTC) I'm striking this. It's pointless since we have no verified statements of fact from which to move on to the WEIGHT|due weight and relevance evaluation. There's really nothing more to say without verified material on the table. SPECIFICO talk 15:30, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

They (Specifico and his friend Marek) don't want it included because the article is supposed to be about an alt-right nazi, and having Jewish decent would not help them paint it that way. We're all adults here, let's be honest and skip the bs. Saturnalia0 (talk) 01:22, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

WP:AGF. And you realize that it's obvious to anyone who looks into this that "alt right nazi" types are the people working the hardest to paint Molyneux as Jewish all over the web right? Fyddlestix (talk) 01:44, 18 December 2017 (UTC)

Dunno, I don't look hard into it, though I guess people worrying so much about such trivia whatever side they're on surely they have an agenda. I only pointed out the ones I already know. Saturnalia0 (talk) 00:13, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Saturnalia0—I have no agenda. Honestly—I couldn't give a shit. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia. If you do a search within Wikipedia for instance for "mother was a prostitute" you will find many examples. For instance at Sante Kimes we read "Kimes herself has claimed that her father was a laborer and that her mother was a prostitute who migrated from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl to Los Angeles, where the young Kimes ran wild in the streets." The subject of the article is stating that her mother was a prostitute. There are countless other examples. Bus stop (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2017 (UTC)

Ok. Saturnalia0 (talk) 02:45, 24 December 2017 (UTC)