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Owen Benjamin content
Jlevi, I don't think this contribution is DUE on a number of levels[[1]]. The three sources are Media Matters, Right Wing Watch and an opinion article from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. None are good sources (JTI might be but the article is clearly labeled "Opinion"). Next, it's a BLP violation to call Benjamin a "conspiracy monger, and holocaust denier" in wiki voice. These accusations may be true but they are also contentious labels and thus we have to be careful with how we use them. Finally, the content really doesn't say much other than these groups are unhappy PragerU allowed this person to speak. However, without saying what Benjamin said or why the comments were controversial this is basically a he said, she said with little information conveyed to the reader. For this reason and the poor sourcing I think this is UNDUE. Springee (talk) 03:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- I removed it. The refs fail BLP criteria as far as I can see, it's grossly UNDUE, and there appears to be SYN/COAT problems by drawing from Owen Benjamin. --Hipal (talk) 03:52, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
- PragerU took down Owen Benjamin's videos afterward, which may make him of more interest to this article. From Business Insider[2]: "Benjamin's "anti-PC" comedy repertoire — previously praised by the conservative free-speech crowd despite being replete with racist and homophobic slurs — started to feature overt anti-Semitism in 2018. Not too long after, his PragerU videos disappeared without explanation from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter." Llll5032 (talk) 21:14, 28 December 2020 (UTC)
So, in 2018, PragerU made several videos made by the "comedian" Owen Benjamin, later revealed to be a holocaust denier. This was written about by:
Individually these might not be due but with the three of them taken together, the deletion of this material looks like egregious pro-Prager bias. I don't understand how Prager platforming a controversial speaker who turned out to be a holocaust denier, then removing his videos, could not be due weight. I'll leave it open to the floor but I think this is quite overt right wing bias. I'll listen to responses but currently I think this might call for admin intervention. I'm concerned that material unflattering to PragerU is being systematically removed from this page Noteduck (talk) 08:25, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Welcome to Wikipedia. Please focus on content and assume good faith.
- WP:CIVIL:
editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect. They should focus on improving the encyclopedia while maintaining a pleasant editing environment by behaving politely, calmly and reasonably, even during heated debates.
. --Hipal (talk) 17:02, 6 January 2021 (UTC) - I commented just above on how the Business Insider piece is poor.
- The opinion piece published by the Jewish Telegraph Agency is not useable.
- We've repeatedly rejected the Media Matters piece. --Hipal (talk) 17:34, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Hipal, please assume good faith in your comments about my edits. Please give your rebuttal on the JTA piece - it's not enough to just state "it's not usable". Noteduck (talk) 01:31, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- The JTA article is an OpEd. That means the editorial board of JTA is, in a sense, washing their hands of any specific claims. Thus that article can only be considered the opinion of the author. As such we have to ask, does that author have sufficient WEIGHT to her views that we could put something to the effect of "JTA OpEd author X says BLP subject Benjamin is a [contentious label/claim]? The answer is no. Springee (talk) 02:16, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Hipal, please assume good faith in your comments about my edits. Please give your rebuttal on the JTA piece - it's not enough to just state "it's not usable". Noteduck (talk) 01:31, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Hipal, I'm happy to WP:REDACT if you redact the following statement you made on this talk page, which I regard as patronizing and not conducive to consensus-building:
Noteduck, given your assessment of the JTA ref and comments above, I'm finding it difficult to see how your opinions demonstrate the necessary understanding of content policy. --Hipal (talk) 23:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Thanks Noteduck (talk) 03:24, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Sorry I didn't see this request. Looks like I did regardless [6]. --Hipal (talk) 19:03, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Robert E. Lee
Content regarding PragerU's video on Robert E. Lee has been repeatedly deleted. In the video (which can be viewed in its entirety here: https://www.prageru.com/video/robert-e-lee/), it is argued that Lee is a "great historical figure" who deserves a statue because, among other dubious rationales, "Lee led U.S. marines to crush an attempted slave rebellion," resulting in all the slaves and abolitionists being "killed or captured." This is a provocative and controversial take to say the least (e.g., see https://hillreporter.com/prager-university-praises-confederate-general-robert-e-lee-after-his-statue-was-removed-from-the-united-states-capitol-88088). Is there any serious argument that this isn't noteworthy?23.242.198.189 (talk) 10:01, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
- No idea about this specific indident, but we do not need a list of everything they have ever realeased.Slatersteven (talk) 10:34, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
- A commenter with a music degree has a negative comment about a PragerU video on what appears to be a left-wing political blog with no established reputation. Yeah, this is not due. Shinealittlelight (talk) 13:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
- Describing the crushing of a slave rebellion as a positive act for which someone should be held in high esteem is an inarguably contentious position and is therefore noteworthy, there is no reason to keep deleting contributions for any of the reasons listed here, and a quote from PU's video needs no other source in this case. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 05:49, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
- I should probably mention that the quote from the commentator is unnecessary and not particularly noteworthy, this should be an addition to the "content" section without a critique quoted, unless a suitably notable critique has been made. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 00:36, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
- You might want to review WP:DUE and related policies. We depend on secondary sources to establish that some information is due for inclusion. Since the source provided is not a good source, it does not establish that the material is due. And you can't establish due weight using a primary source. Shinealittlelight (talk) 19:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
- "you can't establish due weight using a primary source" Despite the ways in which this is correct, I am sure you are aware that if this was the bar that information had to pass to be included then WP would be a very barren place, including this page. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 07:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
- You might want to review WP:DUE and related policies. We depend on secondary sources to establish that some information is due for inclusion. Since the source provided is not a good source, it does not establish that the material is due. And you can't establish due weight using a primary source. Shinealittlelight (talk) 19:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
Did PragerU take down this video? The link above did not work, but the Internet Archive shows there was a video: https://web.archive.org/web/20201108073810/https://www.prageru.com/video/robert-e-lee/ but does not seem to have the transcript (which PragerU normally includes). If this is the 2-minute video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N839Z38w_AU then its mention belongs at Michael Medved who is credited at the beginning of the video. DougHill (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2021 (UTC)
- Here is the Hill Reporter article[7]. Note that Hill Reporter is not a "left-leaning blog" as stated before. Critically, Hill Reporter does seem to have editorial control[8]. It has made it onto the foreign policy of the Donald Trump administration page[9] and I believe should be treated as a RS in this context unless other evidence can be adduced against it. Another point to make is that it seems clear that PragerU has gone into damage control mode and deleted/made private the Robert E. Lee video. They are no strangers to controversy but as far as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong) this is the first time they have ever deleted one of their own videos. It's hard to measure the significance of this objectively but I think it certainly deserves at least a passing mention on the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noteduck (talk • contribs) 03:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Noteduck, the content you restored twice today [[10]] was originally added by Llll5032 and a IP account. I was also removed by myself Slatersteven and 331dot. The only reason to restore it to the article is if this discussion has reached a consensus that it's DUE. I will only speak for myself but I do not think this discussion represents a consensus for inclusion. The Hill Reporter does not look like a source with WEIGHT. The video appears to have been removed by PragerU but even if it hasn't, the argument that not every criticism of a PragerU video belongs in the wiki-article has yet to be addressed. For these reasons restoring the text is premature at this point. Springee (talk) 04:41, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- just checking, you accept that Hill Reporter is an RS in this case? Your complaints are with whether it has due/weight issues? Also, would you not concede that it's significant that this appears to be the one time PragerU have voluntarily deleted their own video> Noteduck (talk) 04:45, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- I do not see evidence that Hill Reporter is considered reliable per RS standards. Additionally, I do not see evidence that it would be considered DUE. Springee (talk) 04:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- I'm removing this; please don't continue to edit war. The story is not due, and the points I and others made above stand. Specifically, they state about themselves that they employ two editors and four staff writers on their "about" page, but I don't know that this is sufficient evidence to show that the piece in question is not self-published. Moreover, the author in question does not appear to have any particular expertise in this area: he holds a music degree. Finally, in any case, the site does not have a significant reputation, and is thus not able to establish DUE weight. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- Shinealittlelight so your sole problem is whether Hill Reporter is an RS? I'm happy to flick it to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noteduck (talk • contribs) 02:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- No, that is not my
sole problem
. This material is not DUE aside from the fact that the sourcing is arguably not RS. Shinealittlelight (talk) 03:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)- I would like to interject that not a single argument for why this is not DUE has been given aside from vague imputations of the reporter and the news agency. It is becoming increasingly difficult to take objections like these seriously and I would recommend not continuing to do so. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 07:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- No, that is not my
- Shinealittlelight so your sole problem is whether Hill Reporter is an RS? I'm happy to flick it to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noteduck (talk • contribs) 02:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
UPDATE: It looks like PragerU has scrubbed the Robert E. Lee video from its website and deleted the tweet that embedded it. 2600:1700:9BD1:7130:293C:B1DF:46E5:8D41 (talk) 06:10, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
- thanks, it's been down for a while. Btw, here is another source with editorship writing in detail about the Robert E. Lee video.[11] I'm making a dispute resolution notice for this page as I believe the partisanship has gotten too much and it's not really salvageable in its current form. Noteduck (talk) 07:00, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
How is them releasing a pro-slavery video still not part of the article? Norschweden (talk) 01:08, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
- Hi Norschweden, unfortunately I believe that material perceived as being unflattering to PragerU is being repeatedly scrubbed from the page - there is an ongoing debate on the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard page about it. The Robert E. Lee video is one of the contested items. Hopefully this page will eventually be unlocked and impartial editors can get back to the task of improving this page Noteduck (talk) 01:34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
UNDUE Douglas Murray content
Noteduck, your expansion of the Murray video content is UNDUE here[[12]]. This appears to be a direct copy of the content you are pushing into the Douglas Murray (author) article[[13]]. Perhaps this would be a good time to rework that material but any more than a sentence or two is too much give the scope of this article isn't Murray or Islam. Springee (talk) 04:49, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- What would your amended paragraph on the subject look like? Given that you have responses from luminaries of the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League specifically discuss this video, it clearly made quite a splash. Do you think the paragraph should be shortened, or removed completely? Noteduck (talk) 05:01, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- Let's start with a clean up and removal of claims not supported by sources. I've copied the text you created below. You have some good stuff here so this isn't a case of throw it all out. It needs a better topic sentence as well as not citing Sludge back to back. Ideally a single source shouldn't appear in the references twice. It can be used many times but with only a single citation. Since the number of views is transitory that information should be excluded.
Text from article
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A 2018 video produced for PragerU by Douglas Murray titled "The Suicide of Europe" led to considerable media discussion and controversy. The video, which has thus far received 7.4 million views on PragerU's website,[1] drew criticism for purportedly "evok[ing] the common white nationalist trope of white genocide with its rhetoric of 'suicide' and 'annihilation'.[2] Mark Pitcavage, a fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism Mark Pitcavage said that there was "almost certainly prejudice in the video" and that it was "filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric".[3][4] Similarly, the Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right",[5] while Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times argued that the video "echoed some of the talking points of the alt-right".[6] References
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- The opening sentence contains subjective content not supported by the rest of the paragraph. "Considerable media discussion and controversy" is your WP:OR, not from the sources. Also, since this is the PragerU article there is no reason to say the video was produced by PragerU. Since this is the opening sentence we should tell the readers what the video content is before saying what others said about it. Perhaps an opening sentence like this:
- A 2018 video by Douglas Murray argued that North African and Middle Eastern immigrants have been permitted to destroy European culture by refusing to assimilate[cite LA Times article]. The article was criticized as supporting a white genocide narrative and being anti-Islam and anti-immigration[cite sludge - bridge just repeats sludge so the it isn't a useful citation]. The video was also seen as echoing extreme-right and alt-right talking points [cite SPLC and LA Times].
- This cleans up the text, keeps the points in place and helps the reader understand what the video is before we tell them why it was criticized. Springee (talk) 14:47, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- Springee, I'd prefer that the we keep the in-text attributions that your proposal removes. Did you have a reason for pulling those out? Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- The primary intent was to streamline the text. I felt like it reads awkwardly when you have too many X of the Y Institute say Z about A vs Z was said about A. However, I don't see a huge issue with keeping them. What about:
- A 2018 video by Douglas Murray argued that North African and Middle Eastern immigrants have been permitted to destroy European culture by refusing to assimilate[cite LA Times article]. The article was criticized as supporting a white genocide narrative[sludge]. Mark Pitcavage, a fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, said the video contained anti-Islam and anti-immigration rhetoric[cite sludge]. The SPLC said the video included far-right dog whistles[cite SPLC].
- That restores the specific attributions. Springee (talk) 16:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- Noteduck, the changes I made to the paragraph here [[14]] were discussed above. Why did you revert them including restoring a number of double citations? Other than cleaning up the paragraph text, the content was nearly identical. The bulk of the reduction of edit bites was simply due to replacing the redundant citations with links to those already in the article. At this point the changes you made don't have consensus. Per wp:NOCON we can come to a consensus version of the edit or revert to the long standing stable text. Springee (talk) 03:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- The primary intent was to streamline the text. I felt like it reads awkwardly when you have too many X of the Y Institute say Z about A vs Z was said about A. However, I don't see a huge issue with keeping them. What about:
- Springee, I'd prefer that the we keep the in-text attributions that your proposal removes. Did you have a reason for pulling those out? Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
- The opening sentence contains subjective content not supported by the rest of the paragraph. "Considerable media discussion and controversy" is your WP:OR, not from the sources. Also, since this is the PragerU article there is no reason to say the video was produced by PragerU. Since this is the opening sentence we should tell the readers what the video content is before saying what others said about it. Perhaps an opening sentence like this:
Noteduck the new, shortened paragraph that you added was clumsily worded to say the least. In the current paragraph, there are 4.5 sources:
- LA Times
- SPLC - which thankfully you no longer seem to regard as "self-published"
- Bridge Initiative - which thankfully you no longer seem to regard as "self-published"
- Sludge
- +.5 of a source - Mark Pitcavage in Sludge
I think the references to all are due and I don't think you can remove any of them or shorten the paragraph any further without compromising its quality. If none of the information is contested, why not leave the paragraph the way it is? Noteduck (talk) 03:24, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- In the updated paragraph the only removed source was Bridge Initiative. It is redundant since the relevant content comes from BI citing the Sludge article. If source B is just citing source A and we have source A in the article then common practice is to not include B. Also, BI's status as a secondary source was not resolved. The Pitcavage material is not a second source. It is not sourced to an ADL publication. It is simply an interview in a story which makes it sourced to Sludge alone. The updated text was better in large part because it started by telling the reader objectively what The video was about and then offering the assessments. Springee (talk) 03:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Springee, delete the reference to the Bridge Initiative if you want. The direct quotes are all quite critical to getting a sense of the specific objections these sources had to the Murray video. Unless you have further rebuttals please leave the text of the paragraph unchanged Noteduck (talk) 04:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- The direct quotes are not needed. It comes across as trying to insert "sound bites" rather than summarize which is what we are supposed to do. You are welcome to contributed by looking at the changes I've proposed above vs what you created and suggest otherwise to harmonize them but the current text in the article should be fixed. We should at least agree that any citation which already exists in the PragerU article should not be duplicated. The next part is the LA Times reference should be first since it summarizes the video content. The other sources can go after as they contain the bulk of the criticism. It makes for a more logical presentation of the information. Springee (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- each and every other example of a "critique of a video" from this page utilizes direct quotes. There are three sources in this paragraph (as distinct from one source in each other paragraph) and this material is all important. I'm also somewhat concerned that you have followed me over from the Murray page and are dedicating yourself to contesting my edits without proposing any positive content of your own. Unless you have further rebuttals please refrain from deleting without justification Noteduck (talk) 04:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- The direct quotes are not needed. It comes across as trying to insert "sound bites" rather than summarize which is what we are supposed to do. You are welcome to contributed by looking at the changes I've proposed above vs what you created and suggest otherwise to harmonize them but the current text in the article should be fixed. We should at least agree that any citation which already exists in the PragerU article should not be duplicated. The next part is the LA Times reference should be first since it summarizes the video content. The other sources can go after as they contain the bulk of the criticism. It makes for a more logical presentation of the information. Springee (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Springee, delete the reference to the Bridge Initiative if you want. The direct quotes are all quite critical to getting a sense of the specific objections these sources had to the Murray video. Unless you have further rebuttals please leave the text of the paragraph unchanged Noteduck (talk) 04:00, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
new proposal
I'm following the WP:BRD process here; I reverted to the original version of the text so we can work out a consensus here. Here's Noteduck's last version:
A 2018 PragerU video about immigration to Europe presented by author Douglas Murray titled "The Suicide of Europe" drew criticism for purportedly "evok[ing] the common white nationalist trope of white genocide with its rhetoric of 'suicide' and 'annihilation'.[Sludge] Mark Pitcavage, a fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism Mark Pitcavage said that there was "almost certainly prejudice in the video" and that it was "filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric".[Sludge][Bridge] Similarly, the Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right",[SPLC] while Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times said the video "echoed some of the talking points of the alt-right".[LAT]
I agree with Springee that (i) this is awkwardly written, (ii) the Bridge reference is redundant, and (iii) this version does not summarize the video at all. I would add that the claim about "white genocide" needs to be attributed to Kotch if it is to be included. However, I don't see why a remark from Kotch is WP:DUE in the article, so I think it should not be included. Also, the reference to the LAT piece inaccurately quotes Halper. On review of his piece, I cannot tell that Halper means to cite Murray's video (rather than just D'Souza's) as an example of a video that echoes "some of the movement’s talking points" (that's the accurate quote), so this has to come out in my opinion. In light of these issues, I propose this:
A 2018 video by Douglas Murray argued that North African and Middle Eastern immigrants have been permitted to destroy European culture by refusing to assimilate.[LAT] Mark Pitcavage, a fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, said that although he does not regard the video as being fascist or white nationalist, there was "certainly prejudice inherent in the video" and that it was "filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric."[SLUDGE] The SPLC described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right."[SPLC]
Shinealittlelight (talk) 06:28, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Shinealittlelight, that's a silly argument. This is the paragraph from the LA Times:
Prager says he disavows the alt-right ideology that has gained ground in the Trump era, but the online lessons often echo some of the movement’s talking points.
A video of Dinesh D’Souza, the right-wing author, opining on why Western cultures are superior to others has been viewed 4.7 million times, for example. Another, featuring Douglas Murray, the British author of several books about Europe and immigration, laments that North African and Middle Eastern immigrants have been permitted to destroy European culture by refusing to assimilate. It has 6.7 million views.
The clear implication is that both the D'Souza and Murray videos echo alt-right talking points. Why remove material when we don't need to? How about the paragraph start with:
"A 2018 video hosted by Douglas Murray that displayed the purported negative consequences of immigration to Europe titled "The Suicide of Europe" drew criticism for..."
I don't get what your objection to the Kotch quote is at all. Here you have three separate articles with the added weight of an expert from the Anti-Defamation League criticizing PragerU's video in very harsh terms, encapsulated in three short sentences - I'm not sure how you can argue any of that is not due Noteduck (talk) 07:12, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
What is "due" for PragerU's page
I'm seeing a repeated pattern where material is being deleted from PragerU's page on the basis of undue weight. This seems to be mostly the work of Shinealittlelight and Springee, who appear to have been doing this for a while. Material related to the video on Robert E. Lee and the videos hosted by Douglas Murray and Owen Benjamin. My question is - if a reputed media or academic source criticizes a video made by PragerU, what grounds do you have for excluding the material? The brief paragraph under "critiques of videos" about the Douglas Murray "Suicide of Europe" video includes three respected sources and comprises three short sentences. What grounds are there for excluding any of this?
Shinealittlelight, you wrote the following comments about the PragerU page on your talk page[15] in November 2019:
Now if you really want to see a revert, you should add a positive conservative opinion of Prager U to the reception section, which is now reserved for critical remarks from partisan leftists writing in fashion magazines and on twitter. Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:52, 20 November 2019 (UTC)
I think this demonstrates that you are struggling to view the source impartially, and should perhaps step back from editing this page. You also describe yourself as a "reasonable conservative" (19 May 2019) in discussion with an editor who seems to perceive Wikipedia as full of leftist bias. It seems that you keep a kind of watch over this page, but I think it's best to engage with your own biases first. Noteduck (talk) 07:05, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- I have had issues with this also. I made the assumption that the deletions and the immediate jump to policy lawyering was done in good faith, but after watching for a while it seems I was naïve. Some particular issues are the offhanded rejection of reputable sources and overreaching interpretation of the WP:DUE policy, but overall there seems to be an attempt to create WP:FALSEBALANCE by excluding negative content. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 08:01, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- MasterTriangle12 I just went over this talk page and I realized how egregious the problem with pro-Prager bias is on this page. In 2018, PragerU made several videos made by the "comedian" Owen Benjamin, later revealed to be a holocaust denier. This was written about by:
Individually these might not be due but with the three of them taken together, the deletion of this material looks like egregious pro-Prager bias. I don't understand how Prager platforming a controversial speaker who turned out to be a holocaust denier, then removing his videos, could not be due weight. I'll leave it open to the floor but I think this is quite overt right wing bias Noteduck (talk) 08:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Repeating what I wrote above[19]:
editors should always treat each other with consideration and respect. They should focus on improving the encyclopedia while maintaining a pleasant editing environment by behaving politely, calmly and reasonably, even during heated debates.
- First, we need to agree on the quality of the references. Then we can look into how noteworthy and due the information from those references are. --Hipal (talk) 17:18, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- This is a good example of part of the problem, all that is given is rejection of sources and content, and any debate about the validity of these decisions comes only from the contributor and is barely even engaged with by these complainants. It would seem that the policies and processes of WP are being misused and misinterpreted without the backing of reasoned argument in order to exclude certain content in furtherance of an editorial bias. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Content policy starts with reliable sources. If we can't agree to that, then we'll quickly be heading to enforcement of the sanctions that apply here. --Hipal (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think we can all agree that there is one high quality journalistic source here (JTA) and two of mixed quality. One high quality source and two mixed quality sources - which have not been deprecated by any means - discussing a controversy about a PragerU video certainly seems due weight. If this is not "due", then I don't understand how any material on this page is Noteduck (talk) 22:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- As I pointed out above [20], the JTA ref is the worst of the three. --Hipal (talk) 23:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- sorry, why? Is it that you don't regard the Jewish Telegraph Agency as an RS? Or because the piece is marked 'opinion'? Or some other reason? Noteduck (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Thank you for asking. Yes, because it's a clearly identified opinion piece, as explained in WP:RSEDITORIAL. --Hipal (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Is the contention that opinion columns are completely off-limits for inclusion? This is what I can see on the WP:RSEDITORIAL page:
- Thank you for asking. Yes, because it's a clearly identified opinion piece, as explained in WP:RSEDITORIAL. --Hipal (talk) 23:27, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- sorry, why? Is it that you don't regard the Jewish Telegraph Agency as an RS? Or because the piece is marked 'opinion'? Or some other reason? Noteduck (talk) 23:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- As I pointed out above [20], the JTA ref is the worst of the three. --Hipal (talk) 23:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think we can all agree that there is one high quality journalistic source here (JTA) and two of mixed quality. One high quality source and two mixed quality sources - which have not been deprecated by any means - discussing a controversy about a PragerU video certainly seems due weight. If this is not "due", then I don't understand how any material on this page is Noteduck (talk) 22:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Content policy starts with reliable sources. If we can't agree to that, then we'll quickly be heading to enforcement of the sanctions that apply here. --Hipal (talk) 19:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- This is a good example of part of the problem, all that is given is rejection of sources and content, and any debate about the validity of these decisions comes only from the contributor and is barely even engaged with by these complainants. It would seem that the policies and processes of WP are being misused and misinterpreted without the backing of reasoned argument in order to exclude certain content in furtherance of an editorial bias. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 19:07, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. Human interest reporting is generally not as reliable as news reporting, and may not be subject to the same rigorous standards of fact-checking and accuracy (see junk food news).[6] When taking information from opinion content, the identity of the author may help determine reliability. The opinions of specialists and recognized experts are more likely to be reliable and to reflect a significant viewpoint.[notes 2] If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article and do not represent it as fact. Reviews for books, movies, art, etc. can be opinion, summary or scholarly pieces.[7][8]
Have a look at the author Bethany Mandel's portfolio on Muck Rack[21] - she's actually quite esteemed. Here she is in the NY Times[22] and The Atlantic[23]. So I'm not sure if I'd call her a "specialist or recognized expert" but she certainly is an experienced journalist writing in a high-quality publication (feel free to make a counter-argument on the quality of JTA if you wish). This is backed by the Media Matters for America source and the Business Insider source, which are two fairly mediocre sources. The JTA article is a detailed exposition of Benjamin's beliefs and ideology. The author reached Benjamin for comment and spoke to some of his supporters, which is a level of professionalism absent from a lot of opinion journalism. In other words, this is not just an anti-Owen Benjamin or anti-Prager spray. I see one good source here backed by two mediocre ones, which I think is surely enough to establish due weight. Of course the material should not be written in Wiki's voice, but "X expressed concern about PragerU's platforming of Owen Benjamin, who later expressed support for white supremacism and holocaust denial" hardly seems undue on this page Noteduck (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
PragerU connections to the far right
Suggestion that a new subheading should be created for the PragerU page, "Links to the far right" or something like that. Here are some relevant sources - links to sources posted BELOW quotes:
Reporting by Buzzfeed in 2019 found that PragerU’s videos do not focus on the news cycle, rather addressing “almost every divisive national issue in the United States today: racism, sexism, income inequality, gun ownership, Islam, immigration, Israel, police brutality,” and free speech. In 2018, the Southern Poverty Law Center said that “more than a few [of Prager’s video topics] function as dog whistles to the extreme right.”
- Georgetown University Bridge Initiative Factsheet: PragerU[24]
For example Prager University (PragerU), an online video portal created by the conservative talk radio host Denis Prager, explains the warped worldview of the extreme right in simple videos with themes, such as police are not biased against black men; man-made climate change is debatable; why we should oppose animal rights and the $15 minimum wage; and that the gender wage gap does not exist (Openheimer, 2018).
- Barbara Franz, "The New Right on American Campuses: Challenges for Higher Education," in Digital Culture & Education 12(1): 2020 1-25[25]
Famous for its weekly five-minute videos which have garnered billions of views, PragerU argues that “the Left” is “akin to hate groups” (p. 39) and that mainstream media is untrustworthy. It also promotes white nationalist thought by far-right thinkers such as Paul Joseph Watson, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Stefan Molyneux (Tripodi, 2017).
- Noah Krigel, "“We’re not the party to bitch and whine”: Exploring US democracy through the lens of a college
Republican club," in Interface: a journal for and about social movements 12(1) 2020: pp492-514[26]
“Sites like Prager U,” Tripodi argues in a report from Data & Society that will be published in May, “create an opportunity to dabble in content that seems extremely innocuous, yet makes connections to the same kinds of ‘revelations’ pushed out by the alt-right.”
- Joseph Bernstein, "How PragerU Is Winning The Right-Wing Culture War Without Donald Trump," Buzzfeed News, 3 March 2018[27]
At the same time, Prager’s amplification strategy also regularly promotes the ideas of white nationalist thinkers, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, and Stefan Molyneux via the same networked strategies. As Tripodi (2018) and Lewis (forthcoming) describe, the implications of creating a dense network of extremist thinkers allows for those who identify as mainline conservatives to gain easy access to white supremacist logic. Leveraging the thoughts of someone like Stefan Molyneux can have disastrous consequences considering that Molyneux regularly promotes “alt-right” “scientific racism” on his own YouTube shows (Evans 2018)
- Francesca Tripodi, "Searching for Alternative Facts: Analyzing Scriptural Inference in Conservative News Practices," Data & Society Research Institute 2018, page 36[28]
“[PragerU] gets people questioning and looking for more information, and if nothing else, it is very blatantly algorithmically connected” to the extreme right content found on YouTube, Tripodi explains...As Tripodi’s study demonstrates, PragerU seems to be yet another node on the internet connecting conservative media consumers to the dark corners of the extreme right.
- Southern Poverty Law Center: PragerU's Influence[29]
Third, I explore how the language of culture and identity is taken up in right-wing educational sites. I look at the forum Conservative teachers of America, as well as the online school PragerU and the Far Right YouTube Channel RedIce. Right-wing users adopt discussions of culturally sustaining curriculum to call for a White idenititarian pedagogy—a White power curriculum they disguise in calls for a return to a traditional curriculum, a patriotic curriculum, and above all a curriculum that valorizes the western world. This idea of the “West,’’ and a classical curriculum that valorizes it, is a theme that moves to the conservative PragerU, into White nationalist spaces like RedIce. To twist Wayne Au’s words, they want to teach for White lives.
- Catherine Tebaldi (2020): Speaking post-truth to power, Review of Education,Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, DOI: 10.1080/10714413.2020.1729679[30]
"This latter theory is argued by British author Douglas Murray in his book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2017), and is neatly summarized in an educational video Murray did for the far-right fake university PragerU"
- Simon Strick, "The Alternative Right, Masculinities, and Ordinary Affect," in Right-Wing Populism and Gender: European Perspectives and Beyond, eds. Gabriele Dietze, Julia Roth (published by transcript Verlag, 2020) [31]
Homa Hosseinmardi, Amir Ghasemian, Aaron Clauset, David M. Rothschild, Markus Mobius, Duncan J. Watts, "Evaluating the scale, growth, and origins of right-wing echo chambers on YouTube," submitted by Cornell University and awaiting peer review lists PragerU as a "far right" channel.[32]
Feel free to add any additional relevant sources Noteduck (talk) 10:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Oh, here's another relevant source.
- Drew Anderson, "BACKGROUNDER: PragerU’s Ties to White Supremacy, Horrific Anti-LGBTQ Record," glaad.org[33], 6 August 2019 Noteduck (talk) 11:03, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Not sure we need a sub heading by certainly something like "and has been accused of having connections to the far-right" might be in oredr.Slatersteven (talk)
- Agree that a subheading may not be correct. Also, we have to be careful that we don't say/imply PragerU is working with far-right groups. Some of the views expressed in PragerU videos overlap with far-right ideas. Also, both the Bridge Initiative and Tripodi papers are self published and the Tripodi framework was challenged by another academic in a self published paper. The connection aspect of the Tripodi paper has been widely reported but the individual characterizations in the paper are simply self published opinions. I think the other sources should be reviewed before assuming they are all valid. Springee (talk) 12:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Review of suggested sources from above:
- Bridge Init: This is a self published work. It is out of a university group but still self published. It should only be used if referenced by others.
- Barbara Franz: This is a paper published in an open access journal. I don't see anything regarding it's impact factor. As such this source is little more than a self published opinion of the author. Her source for the characterization of PragerU is the Oppenheimer Mother Jones article which is already in the Wiki-article (and contains demonstrably false characterizations).
- Noah Krigel: Again a paper from an open access journal. In this case their characterization of PragerU is taken all but verbatum from the Tripodi self published work. This paper has but a single author and again should be viewed as little more than a self published work.
- Bernstein/BFN: This source is already widely quoted in the article so I'm not sure why it is here.
- Tripodi: Already in the article. Again this should be used with care as it is self published but cited by others. The paper's fundamental premise is disputed in another academic white paper (I would have to look up the reference)
- SPLC: This is a bit circular as they are just referencing the Tripodi report and it's method. I would be more comfortable giving the SPLC opinion weight if cited by other clearly RSs.
- Tebaldi: Another open access journal. Again DUE is an issue.
- Strick: This one is a book published via academic press. However, it just stays that Murray's PragerU video is a good summary of Murray's book.
- Hosseinmardi et al: This is not a published manuscript. Until it's published it can't be treated as a RS.
- While this was a long list of sources for the most part it's either sources that are already in the article or are unusable. Springee (talk) 14:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Open-access seems to be equated with unreliability in several of these summaries. But at least one of those is peer-reviewed through a fairly standard process, so it might be worth looking more carefully. Jlevi (talk) 14:32, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Review of suggested sources from above:
I'll respond in more detail to the specific contentions about the sources soon, but first I want to alert fellow editors about the unfortunate conclusion I have reached after weeks of arguing with Springee: Springee is not engaged in good-faith editing, but rather engages in a pattern of tendentious editing aimed at preventing the admission of any source that they perceive as unflattering to conservatives. Please read the threads I have started on Springee's talk page and let me know what you think. I may have to escalate this further[34][35] Noteduck (talk) 22:41, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- Responding to each of Springee's contentions specifically:
- Bridge Initiative is not self-published and Springee knows this. It's a Georgetown University academic project
- Franz - again, your obsession with the spurious use of the "self-published" designation. Open-access means free to access but does not mean "not peer-reviewed" - they say they are peer-reviewed[36]
- Krigel - this is a peer-reviewed journal[37]
- Bernstein - this source is here because it supports the contention that PragerU has links to the far right. There is no ban on using a source more than once in an article
- Tripodi - this is not self-published. According to their website they are an "independent, nonprofit 501(c)(3) research institute"[38] Tripodi is a respected University of North Carolina academic, and this group is also linked with some other quite notable academics[39]
- SPLC - the SPLC's contention that PragerU has links to the far right is supported by every source on this list...
- Tebaldi - this appears to be a well-known academic journal[40] It is peer reviewed[41]
- Strick - did you read the source Springee? The sentence is in a footnote, which is why it may not have come up when you searched it
- Hosseinmardi et al - it indeed has not yet been peer-reviewed. Is there a Wiki policy that says research awaiting peer review has zero weight? My understanding as an academic is that it certainly means the source has less weight, but not none.
In short, not a single one of Springee's rebuttals is convincing. "Open access" does not mean low quality or not peer-reviewed. Please have a look at the links I have provided above to threads discussing Springee's tendency to baselessly block or remove material that they consider unflattering to conservative sources. Given the wealth of source material that we have, let's think about how we can incorporate it into the PragerU article Noteduck (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
- PS: Springee has deleted the post on tendentious editing that I added to their talk page. While they are entitled to remove content on their own talk page, it's a shame that they didn't engage with the substance of the material. For more evidence of my above points, here is the archived thread[42] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Noteduck (talk • contribs) 23:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
:::Hipal, please assume good faith, have a closer look at the wealth of academic and journalistic evidence added to the page in recent edits, and refrain from petty insults Noteduck (talk) 01:33, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Please WP:REDACT. There's nothing about my comment that doesn't assume good faith.
- No insult intended. I've redacted my entire comment as a gesture of good will. I previously notified you of my perspective of new editors like yourself diving into topics under sanctions [43], and the need to work from independent, reliable sources. --Hipal (talk) 03:27, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Hipal just a heads up, I'm drafting a request for full protection by administrators on the PragerU. I think it's unsalvagable in its current form and there's just such a relentless tug and fro that it would be better if we can defer to administrators to help reach a consensus on what this page is going to look like. Other frequent editors on this page like Springee, shinealittlelight, MasterTriangle12 would probably like to know this as well. Noteduck (talk) 03:43, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- I suspect you don't understand what administrators are. They are not mediators nor do they have special status when it comes to determining consensus. Have you looked at WP:DR yet? --Hipal (talk) 03:48, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- (a little out of place because this thread has been moving quickly off-topic) I think we need to see the reasoning for blocking this move beyond offhanded dismissal and provide some sort of substantive reasoning, else I think it should be given little weight. If the sourcing requirements were actually as strict as Springee is asserting then the entirety of WP would contain only a fraction of the information that it does. And could Springee please read both the Tripodi paper and Kevin Munger's paper so that they can understand how superficial the overlap in discussion between the two is and hopefully conclude that they do not dispute each other, we've been over this before. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 03:56, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- I suspect you don't understand what administrators are. They are not mediators nor do they have special status when it comes to determining consensus. Have you looked at WP:DR yet? --Hipal (talk) 03:48, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Hipal just a heads up, I'm drafting a request for full protection by administrators on the PragerU. I think it's unsalvagable in its current form and there's just such a relentless tug and fro that it would be better if we can defer to administrators to help reach a consensus on what this page is going to look like. Other frequent editors on this page like Springee, shinealittlelight, MasterTriangle12 would probably like to know this as well. Noteduck (talk) 03:43, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Hi MasterTriangle12, thank you for contributions. Hipal, I don't appreciate your contention that I'm ignorant of Wiki's policies and "don't understand what administrators are" - please keep the discussion respectful. Hipal, you have yourself acknowledged the ongoing problems with this page:
Noteduck, read the talk page archives. In my experience with this article, you have it backwards, though the anti-PragerU problems have gotten worse in the past year or so. --Hipal (talk) 03:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Hipal, you've been discussing this page as far back as May 2020,[44] so I'm not surprised you can see the problems with it. Without pointing any fingers, it's clear that us Wikipedians have struggled to reach any kind of consensus on what should or should not be included on this page. Even the fairly basic question of what is due on this page is completely unresolved and contested.[45] I maintain my contention that the culling of material that could be perceived as critical of PragerU is so blatant that partisan bias is afoot - see[46] and [47] I believe this page should be submitted for full protection, which would prevent future edit warring and tendentious editing and require administrator approval before any changes can be made. Remember, PragerU is a political juggernaut with BILLIONS of reported views - we're all passionate about the quality of this page and owe it to ourselves to ensure the highest possible standards for this article Noteduck (talk) 04:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Understanding is required. I'll do my best to avoid anything that comes across as an insult.
Hipal, you've been discussing this page as far back as May 2020
That is incorrect.- There are two pages in the talk page archives here.
- On the history page for any Wikipedia page, you'll find multiple tools to get statistics for that page. --Hipal (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Blatant partisan politicking on this page
I've spoken about this indirectly on the talk page before but it now leads to be overtly said. There is a repeated pattern on this page whereby any material perceived to be unflattering to PragerU is systematically removed, tendentiously edited and questioned. Let's have a look at some of the material that has been removed:
- material related to Douglas Murray (author)'s video "The Suicide of Europe", based on four sources (both journalistic and academic) whose credibility was not questioned[48]
- material related to the removal of holocaust denier Owen Benjamin's material for PragerU, based on three journalistic sources (admittedly, there have been robust discussions about these sources but I contend at least one of them is very high quality)[49]
- material related to PragerU's recent video about Robert E. Lee. This has not been widely reported but at least one journalistic source with editorial control has reported on it[50]
- material related to PragerU's platforming of far-right figures such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Stefan Molyneux and Paul Joseph Watson. This was based on two academic sources and its factual basis was never disputed[51] and the only conclusion I can reach is that it was removed for being unflattering to PragerU. PragerU's extensive connections to the far right have been documented on the talk page[52] based on multiple academic and journalistic sources - as an editor I have pitched the wording of these far right links to the talk page so they can be properly discussed.
As can be seen from the above examples, the only consistent factor in the material that is tendentiously questioned and removed is that it can be perceived as unflattering to PragerU. Now, PragerU is of course a controversial topic on which there are likely to be disputes, and we all need to make ourselves familiar with Wikipedia:Controversial articles. However, we also need to acknowledge that NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content, and that material should not be removed simply because PragerU could perceive it as unflattering.
This is the last attempt I'm going to make to put a stop to these tendentious edits. The editors engaged in this process of tendentious editing know who they are and I'm not going to ping them for now. If we cannot agree on how this page should be written, I'll escalate the matter to an administrator, but in the meantime I call upon the editors in question to set aside their biases and aim to improve this page in line with Wikipedia's policies Noteduck (talk) 01:29, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- One of the pillars of Wikipedia is the policy on WP:CONSENSUS. If you make one or more changes and a number of editors revert your changes that strongly suggests that you don't have consensus for the changes you are making. A deity of impartiality might come down from the sky and tell us your version is the correct version but Wikipedia says consensus is still required. If you think local editors are wrong you can use various WP:DR methods including the noticeboards, requests for comments etc. Also, please review WP:BRD. While not policy it is widely considered a best practice and many experienced editors will treat it as a personal policy. Springee (talk) 02:26, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Noteduck, read the talk page archives. In my experience with this article, you have it backwards, though the anti-PragerU problems have gotten worse in the past year or so. --Hipal (talk) 03:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that through the sole reason of having a majority of people who share the same views regularly editing this page the editors in question have come to the conclusion that this grants full discretion to exclude content that they are not comfortable with, with little to no reasoning, and have been behaving as such for some time, rather than achieving what they believe to be balance through more productive and reasonable means. The page should probably be relegated to admins under full protection but it could be worth trying arbitration to resolve things, I am not familiar with the processes though since I typically edit technical pages and haven't gotten caught up in something like this before. Also I'm not sure about the other accounts but Shinealittlelight appears to be a WP:SPA and should probably have their edits reviewed for advocacy since they seem to have an issue with that. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 05:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- MasterTriangle12 I agree with everything you said, and I'm frankly dismayed by what I see as the issues with quality of this page and repeated deletion of good sources. I believe this source will eventually be relocated to admin protection, as I think the content is simply too controversial to be left to open editing, but in the meantime, I'll start by filing an arbitration request under Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests You can name up to seven parties in the dispute, and I believe that Springee, shinealittlelight, Hipal, Jlevi and MasterTriangle12 (feel free to mention others who would want to be included) should be included as parties. We all have strong disagreements, but let's try to keep things civil and keep contributing to the improvement of this page Noteduck (talk) 05:44, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- I am not sure about Jlevi since I can't recall them appearing myself and there may be others that have contributed who should be added, I'm not familiar with the etiquette but go ahead by all means. I would have been just been sitting on the fence about this if I had not checked through the history of questionably rejected content, but I am a rather forgiving editor and should probably learn to just not put up with this. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 08:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- MasterTriangle12 if you've seen additional tendentious edits, feel free to note them here or on my talk page. They would be useful in justifying an arbitration request Noteduck (talk) 08:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- There is the rather general addition I tried to make, somewhat poorly at first, but the reception and response was characteristic of the wider problem, I might have a fresh peek through the talk history this weekend though if I get time because there are MANY similar cases. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 09:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- I've contributed modestly to this back-and-forth. I first added the article content discussed in this talk page section. I would not describe the editor interaction in that case tendentious because I dropped the topic quite early--there is lots of work to do, and I didn't think it worth my time to engage here. The second minor bit was a comment here. Jlevi (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- There is the rather general addition I tried to make, somewhat poorly at first, but the reception and response was characteristic of the wider problem, I might have a fresh peek through the talk history this weekend though if I get time because there are MANY similar cases. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 09:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- MasterTriangle12 if you've seen additional tendentious edits, feel free to note them here or on my talk page. They would be useful in justifying an arbitration request Noteduck (talk) 08:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- I am not sure about Jlevi since I can't recall them appearing myself and there may be others that have contributed who should be added, I'm not familiar with the etiquette but go ahead by all means. I would have been just been sitting on the fence about this if I had not checked through the history of questionably rejected content, but I am a rather forgiving editor and should probably learn to just not put up with this. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 08:02, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- MasterTriangle12 I agree with everything you said, and I'm frankly dismayed by what I see as the issues with quality of this page and repeated deletion of good sources. I believe this source will eventually be relocated to admin protection, as I think the content is simply too controversial to be left to open editing, but in the meantime, I'll start by filing an arbitration request under Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests You can name up to seven parties in the dispute, and I believe that Springee, shinealittlelight, Hipal, Jlevi and MasterTriangle12 (feel free to mention others who would want to be included) should be included as parties. We all have strong disagreements, but let's try to keep things civil and keep contributing to the improvement of this page Noteduck (talk) 05:44, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that through the sole reason of having a majority of people who share the same views regularly editing this page the editors in question have come to the conclusion that this grants full discretion to exclude content that they are not comfortable with, with little to no reasoning, and have been behaving as such for some time, rather than achieving what they believe to be balance through more productive and reasonable means. The page should probably be relegated to admins under full protection but it could be worth trying arbitration to resolve things, I am not familiar with the processes though since I typically edit technical pages and haven't gotten caught up in something like this before. Also I'm not sure about the other accounts but Shinealittlelight appears to be a WP:SPA and should probably have their edits reviewed for advocacy since they seem to have an issue with that. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 05:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
- Noteduck, read the talk page archives. In my experience with this article, you have it backwards, though the anti-PragerU problems have gotten worse in the past year or so. --Hipal (talk) 03:40, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Please read wP:talk and wp:not. We discuss article changes, not wikipedia's bias to other user actions.Slatersteven (talk) 11:54, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Climate change
I propose a wording closer to the source and that doesn't play with WP:YESPOV (the implied suggestion that it's all equal opinions in relation to climate):
From current:
"In August 2018, PragerU criticized YouTube for adding fact-checks to YouTube videos which cover climate change."
to proposed:
"In August 2018, PragerU criticized YouTube for adding fact-checks to YouTube videos that promote misinformation in relation to climate change."
I would even propose "that promote climate change denial" but that is stronger wording not necessarily used by the source, other than in its header. Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 07:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with this proposal, that would be an appropriate change. LK (talk) 10:21, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- I agree as well, the "misinformation" piece is crucial. –dlthewave ☎ 13:38, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with this proposal. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- I agree with this proposal, it is good we make clear it is a fight against disinformation and fringe theories. Climate change is a fact so we should make clear that climate change is a simple fact. Generally uninvolved with this but I can fully support this. Des Vallee (talk) 06:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Per the BuzzFeed News source I think it would be better to say:
- In August 2018, PragerU criticized YouTube for adding fact-checks to YouTube videos that question climate change as part of Youtube's effort to combat climate change misinformation.
The is closer to the opening of the BFN article. It appears the fact check would be applied to videos that only challenge information but don't promote alternatives. Springee (talk) 14:07, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that the source does not say that PragerU spreads misinformation about climate change. It says that they made some videos that have been affected by YouTube's new labelling policy, that the list of topics that receive these labels has not been disclosed, but that climate change is one of the topics. Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- Agree with proposal. In going through past discussions, I had spotted this and wanted to note it here. Thanks, Neonate. --Hipal (talk) 17:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)--Hipal (talk) 17:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- Potential refs:
- https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-prageru-missing-context-cli/fact-check-video-presents-climate-change-statements-that-lack-key-context-idUSKBN2712EY - looks usable
- https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/video-from-prageru-makes-several-incorrect-and-misleading-claims-about-climate-change-richard-lindzen/ - I'm unfamiliar with this website and use in Wikipedia
- https://features.weather.com/course-climate-misinformation/ - I'm unfamiliar with weather.com's use in Wikipedia --Hipal (talk) 17:42, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- It seems that the source does not say that PragerU spreads misinformation about climate change. It says that they made some videos that have been affected by YouTube's new labelling policy, that the list of topics that receive these labels has not been disclosed, but that climate change is one of the topics. Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
People can put forth factual information to raise questions about climate change. E.G selective data. Where is the source that says that the posted information is mis-information? Even if YouTube's determination was considered to be a source, do we know the YouTube identified it as misinformation? For example, fact checking may identify it as correct information which has been removed from context. Or correct information that is too narrow to provide the big picture. North8000 (talk) 19:59, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
While PragerU certainly has videos that will be labeled as skeptical on climate change topics, it appears that in this case this is more about PragerU questioning what YT is doing rather than trying to defend any particular PU video. I think we already have content related to PU videos being denial/misinformation etc. So is this material about PU questioning what YT is doing or is this about PU getting mad that YT said one of their videos is misinformation? Regardless, I think the text I proposed is the best so far because it is closest to the source. Springee (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
- A agree with this: Springee's proposal above most accurately summarizes the content of the the Buzzfeed story. Shinealittlelight (talk) 22:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
Springee, "skepticism" doesn't accurately describe rejection of the scientific consensus regarding climate change. I recommend reading the page on climate change denial. The claim that PragerU promotes misinformation, disinformation, misleading information or denialism related to climate change is hardly a novel one, see just for starters[1][2][3][4] Noteduck (talk) 01:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
- That is a separate topic. Consider that I might complain both about an unreasonably low speed limit setup as a revenue generating speed trap in my town as well as the ticket I got for going 40 over in that low speed zone (and 20 over what might have been a reasonable limit). The fact that I got a ticket for going faster than even a reasonable speed limit doesn't mean my complaints about my town setting up a speed trap are unwarranted. The sources here are talking not about bad content coming out of PragerU, rather they are talking about YT taking an editorial stance by placing a warning on videos. I presume the concern is that some good content will be unfairly labeled and thus dismissed. Springee (talk) 02:24, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
- To talk about yet another angle, it's a common an accepted practice to try to shift the ground a bit on a big political question by bringing up an example that may not be representative. For a HYPOTHETICAL example, if the science/ math says that the majority of welfare recipients don't work any jobs, then John Smith says "you're wrong; for example Jane Smith here is on welfare and working two jobs" the latter is considered acceptable speech and OK untagged in YT even though it is "denial" of the data & science on the question at hand. One could certainly question YT for eprecating such an opinion. Also, it would not be the norm for Wikipedia to say in the voice of Wikipedia that John Smith's speech is a mis-informaiton campaign. I made up a "shoe is on the other foot" example to promote unbiased analysis. North8000 (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
I think that a core item in Wikipedia terms is that two times over including "promote misinformation in relation to climate change." is problematic. First, nothing here even claims that YouTube said that all of the deprecated posts were misinformation. Second, even if they did, YouTube is not a wp:RS much less the the very strong wp:rs'ing that would be required in this case. North8000 (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
"Question climate change" is ambigious and some comments above suggest it may be legitimate criticism. On the other hand, if it's related to the science, the consensus is that warming happens and is mostly a result of human activity. Denial is a strong word, but this means in this context that "questioning climate change" is promoting misinformation, unless it was only related to points in relation to how to implement mitigation regulations and policies. The criticism of Youtube by PragerU was to present it as a politicized, but it's noise, it's a private platform that can remove content that violate its policies, including those about misinformation. Here are two sources from the article that are about misinformation: https://archive.vn/20190911220428/https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zahrahirji/youtube-climate-change-denial https://web.archive.org/web/20181227134554/https://features.weather.com/course-climate-misinformation/ . I'm actually surprised that my single suggestion above is contested by some who suggest non-WP:YESPOV alternatives. —PaleoNeonate – 20:48, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
- Using a more general term (which means less extreme of a claim) which leaves more possibilities open is not suggesting those possibilities. Besides, climate change being well accepted science is not relevant to the main issue here. The main issue is that the proposed wording is claiming applicability of that term to all of the tagged posts. That has not been established, nor is there suitable sourcing for it.North8000 (talk) 16:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think the original concern was valid but I also think the proposal I made was a better summary of the source. Per the source, YT is tagging video it thinks "question climate change" and it is doing this as part of it's initiative to combat "climate change misinformation". Doing A to videos that have B in accordance with goal C vs doing A to videos that have C. I think everyone supports fixing the current sentence. Springee (talk) 16:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- Not done: The page's protection level has changed since this request was placed. You should now be able to edit the page yourself. If you still seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 13:53, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
References
- ^ Silverman, Craig; Mac, Ryan (13 August 2020). "Facebook's Preferential Treatment Of US Conservatives Puts Its Fact-Checking Program In Danger". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Solon, Olivia (8 August 2020). "Sensitive to claims of bias, Facebook relaxed misinformation rules for conservative pages". NBC News. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
In another case in late May, a Facebook employee filed a misinformation escalation for PragerU, after a series of fact-checking labels were applied to several similar posts suggesting polar bear populations had not been decimated by climate change and that a photo of a starving animal was used as a "deliberate lie to advance the climate change agenda." This claim was fact-checked by one of Facebook's independent fact-checking partners, Climate Feedback, as false and meant that the PragerU page had "repeat offender" status and would potentially be banned from advertising.
- ^ Carrington, Damien (8 October 2020). "Climate denial ads on Facebook seen by millions, report finds". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
Analysis of the ads run by these groups found 51 examples of disinformation, including an ad paid for by the conservative group PragerU that ran to 1 October. Its headline was: "Make no doubt about it: the hysteria over climate change is to sell you Big Government control." The accompanying video said: "Fossil fuels are not an existential threat … The Green New Deal is an existential threat."
- ^ Roberts, David (27 January 2020). "YouTube has a big climate misinformation problem it can't solve". Vox. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
Awful sentence transition
Under the "history" section, this paragraph is used
Since a lawsuit over the use of a photograph in 2013, PragerU has used animation in its videos. According to its CEO, Marissa Streit, a group of approximately 500 students called "PragerFORCE" promotes its videos. PragerU reached a billion views in 2018.
The connection between PragerForce and the lawsuit is very abrupt and doesn't sound right imo. Ethan Parmet (talk) 01:46, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
- This is the part where you suggest a different wording rather than just complain about what we already have. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:59, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
- It's a bunch of factoids, the latter two poorly referenced WP:SOAP. A bit of context for the first and perhaps pruning for the latter two would help. --Hipal (talk) 19:30, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not a good writer i dunno what to say instead. Ethan Parmet (talk) 20:08, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
Sentence about social justice
PragerU's videos are often highly visible and accessible, with a report by the Data & Society Research Institute finding that a YouTube search for the keywords "social justice" returned a PragerU video that was highly critical of the concept as the first result.
Why is this sentence being removed? ImTheIP (talk) 12:21, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- A whole block of edits was reverted due to edit warring. I think this specific content is going to come up in a RfC that will be an outcome of an active DRN discussion. Springee (talk) 12:54, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think Hipal was correct in feeling that so many changes were dumped in all at once over objections that it was probably best to restore the article to it's previous stable state and start the discussion process to get consensus for the changes first. I support the restoration to the previous stable state. That doesn't mean the change in question isn't an improvement, just that we should slow down first. Springee (talk) 13:37, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- In the arbitration page, I said: this seems to me more about YouTube than about PragerU. In any case, the proposal mischaracterizes the source. What the source says is
The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute ... In the video, he echoes libertarian critiques of social justice in the format of an educational video...
Ok, so "highly critical" is not in the source, nor is "first result". Again, I don't know why this is DUE anyway, but if it is DUE, we have to accurately summarize the source, which basically just says that the Goldberg video came up one time when the author searched "social Justice" on YouTube. Shinealittlelight (talk) 16:53, 21 January 2021 (UTC)- I didn't read the report before commenting. Having now read the report, I agree that the sentence completely mischaracterizes it and is UNDUE. However, the report's allegation, that PragerU employs keyword hijacking, may be DUE. ImTheIP (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I do not see that the source supports the allegation that PragerU "employs keyword hijacking". Can you provide a quote from the source that supports that claim? Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
Political influencers are also able to strategically use politicized keywords for marketing purposes. Specifically, the influencers in the AIN try to get their content highly ranked in search results. ... Some political influencers in the AIN use SEO strategies to exploit “data voids,” or search terms that lack robust results. In this way, they use SEO to “hijack” certain issues and provide specific messages to potential new audiences. ... In my searches, I also found that influencers are explicitly using terminology affiliated with progressive social justice movements and are therefore appearing in search results for those terms. A number of popular videos from conservative influencers use the terms “social justice,” “liberal,” and “leftist” in their videos titles, ... The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
ImTheIP (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2021 (UTC)- This says that "influencers in the AIN" try to do this. But it does not specify which "influencers in the AIN" it is talking about. In the "Index of AIN Influencers" included at the end of the report, it does not identify PragerU or Jonah Goldberg as an "AIN Influencer". And, when introducing the point about PragerU, the quote says "also" as if this is a separate point, in addition to the point about "hijacking". I conclude that this quote does not support the claim that PragerU "employs keyword hijacking". Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I agree that this doesn't clearly say this is a keyword hijack. Also, if a video is a criticism of X then it's not a keyword hijack to use X in the title of the video. This again makes it unclear if the author thinks PragerU is unreasonably using a term to get views to a video not really about that term or if they feel videos that are critical of X shouldn't show up if people search for the term "X". Ultimately this feels like trying to get a paper that appears to be critical of YT's recommendation algorithm into a criticism of PragerU. Springee (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- PragerU is listed in Appendix B: Network Visualization. The author considers it part of the AIN. The section "Search Engine Optimization" is three paragraphs long. The first introduces the phenomena and the two remaining provides examples of it. One of those examples are
The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Thus, what is written in the first paragraph (p. 30) applies to PragerU. ImTheIP (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2021 (UTC)- PragerU is listed in Appendix B as a "Channel" for Dennis Prager, who they do list as a member of the AIN. So yes, the source does say that PragerU is the channel of one of the influencers in the AIN. But it does not say that PragerU itself is a member of the AIN, which apparently consists of certain people (like Dennis Prager), not organizations like PragerU. I disagree with your interpretation of what the Goldberg video is supposed to be an example of. It is not an example of "hijacking"; rather, it is an example of the general phenomenon that the source notes just previous to bringing up the Goldberg video, namely:
influencers are explicitly using terminology affiliated with progressive social justice movements and are therefore appearing in search results for those terms.
Is this the same as "hijacking"? No. It previously uses that word for a different phenomenon, in which words that "lack robust results" are optimized. This is an example of a different phenomenon, done by Johnah Goldberg and PragerU, neither of which is identified as an "influencer in the AIN". So no, this source does not support the proposed content. Shinealittlelight (talk) 19:12, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- PragerU is listed in Appendix B as a "Channel" for Dennis Prager, who they do list as a member of the AIN. So yes, the source does say that PragerU is the channel of one of the influencers in the AIN. But it does not say that PragerU itself is a member of the AIN, which apparently consists of certain people (like Dennis Prager), not organizations like PragerU. I disagree with your interpretation of what the Goldberg video is supposed to be an example of. It is not an example of "hijacking"; rather, it is an example of the general phenomenon that the source notes just previous to bringing up the Goldberg video, namely:
- PragerU is listed in Appendix B: Network Visualization. The author considers it part of the AIN. The section "Search Engine Optimization" is three paragraphs long. The first introduces the phenomena and the two remaining provides examples of it. One of those examples are
- I agree that this doesn't clearly say this is a keyword hijack. Also, if a video is a criticism of X then it's not a keyword hijack to use X in the title of the video. This again makes it unclear if the author thinks PragerU is unreasonably using a term to get views to a video not really about that term or if they feel videos that are critical of X shouldn't show up if people search for the term "X". Ultimately this feels like trying to get a paper that appears to be critical of YT's recommendation algorithm into a criticism of PragerU. Springee (talk) 18:30, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- This says that "influencers in the AIN" try to do this. But it does not specify which "influencers in the AIN" it is talking about. In the "Index of AIN Influencers" included at the end of the report, it does not identify PragerU or Jonah Goldberg as an "AIN Influencer". And, when introducing the point about PragerU, the quote says "also" as if this is a separate point, in addition to the point about "hijacking". I conclude that this quote does not support the claim that PragerU "employs keyword hijacking". Shinealittlelight (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I do not see that the source supports the allegation that PragerU "employs keyword hijacking". Can you provide a quote from the source that supports that claim? Shinealittlelight (talk) 17:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I didn't read the report before commenting. Having now read the report, I agree that the sentence completely mischaracterizes it and is UNDUE. However, the report's allegation, that PragerU employs keyword hijacking, may be DUE. ImTheIP (talk) 17:23, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- The author defines "hijack" as follows:
Some political influencers in the AIN use SEO strategies to exploit “data voids,” or search terms that lack robust results. In this way, they use SEO to “hijack” certain issues and provide specific messages to potential new audiences.
Especially note "certain issues" and "new audiences". In the third paragraph the author writesIn my searches, I also found that influencers are explicitly using terminology affiliated with progressive social justice movements and are therefore appearing in search results for those terms.
This is a manifestation of the strategy described in the first paragraph. The author proceeds to take a PragerU video as an example:The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg,
"Social justice" is an example of a "certain issue" and the "new audiences" is whomever PragerU hopes to catch. Since the whole point of the study is to investigate the AIM, the author obviously considers PragerU to be part of the AIM or else it wouldn't have been used as an example. ImTheIP (talk) 19:31, 21 January 2021 (UTC)- I don't agree with your interpretation. But anyway, the plain meaning of what she says about the PU video is: she did a search on youtube, got the JG video, and she takes that to be an example of
using terminology affiliated with progressive social justice movements and are therefore appearing in search results for those terms.
This seems to me a point that is not due for inclusion in the article, and that's true irrespective of whether we dress up the basic undue point with her word 'hijack' (which I additionally think is out of step with the source, but we disagree about that). Shinealittlelight (talk) 19:45, 21 January 2021 (UTC)- What she is claiming is that PragerU is using SEO techniques to attract viewers to their videos. Specifically, she alleges that PragerU is co-opting "politicized keywords" from the left-wing's vocabulary to provide tailored messages to potential new audiences. This strategy actually is called "keyword hijacking". ImTheIP (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- Looks like we've reached the end of our dispute. I think you're misreading the source to say that this is called "keyword hijacking" which as she defines it involves "data voids". But the straightforward way of putting her point is that one time she searched on YouTube for "social justice" and got a JG/PU video about social justice, which she thinks is somehow indicative of a nefarious strategy. That's a silly point, and it's undue irrespective of whether we describe it as "hijacking". But I repeat myself. Shinealittlelight (talk) 20:05, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- What she is claiming is that PragerU is using SEO techniques to attract viewers to their videos. Specifically, she alleges that PragerU is co-opting "politicized keywords" from the left-wing's vocabulary to provide tailored messages to potential new audiences. This strategy actually is called "keyword hijacking". ImTheIP (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- I don't agree with your interpretation. But anyway, the plain meaning of what she says about the PU video is: she did a search on youtube, got the JG video, and she takes that to be an example of
- The author defines "hijack" as follows:
The report by Lewis has not been misrepresented, but her wording is somewhat confusing. The source is Rebecca Lewis, "Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube," Data & Society Research Institute 2018[53]
- page 31 of Lewis report. "The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In the video, he echoes libertarian critiques of social justice in the format of an educational video (Fig. 8)."
- page 32 "Fig. 8: A screenshot from a PragerU video criticizing social justice; the video appeared as the first result on YouTube for the search term “social justice”
- page 31 of Lewis report: "In fact, all of the top 10 video results for “social justice” are criticisms of social justice from reactionary channels (Fig. 9).(Google Chrome, Incognito in the US, June 19, 2018)."
I've no idea why this is "silly" or "undue" given that an academic chose to write about it in detail in this report and given the immense visibility of PragerU and YouTube videos more generally. Shinealittlelight and Springee, please bring this energy to resolving the dispute over at the DRN page Noteduck (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
- Let me see if I understand. It's notable that a video about X would use X as a keyword. Or is it notable because a video about X but that is critical of X uses X as a keyword? Springee (talk) 21:51, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
So if I put something about "Right Wing Extremists" on my website, and SEO for that term, is that "hijacking" because I critiqued their initiative? :-) North8000 (talk) 22:22, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
The Southern strategy is well documented
The critique section decribes the Southern strategy as "a historical narrative alleging that the Republican Party purposely exploited racial tensions to appeal to racist white Southerners." The Southern strategy is well documented. It's something that Republicans actually implemented. It's not just a "narrative" that's "alleging" something. That's the consensus among mainstream historians. We shouldn't imply otherwise (See WP:fringe). 23.242.198.189 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 08:15, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
It absolutely is, but if you want to change it you'll need to come armed with sources because it WILL be challenged. If you stick around this page, you'll see that unfortunately anything unflattering to a conservative viewpoint gets scrubbed pretty quickly - I've noticed NPOV problems for a while Noteduck (talk) 08:42, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree that the wording should be tweaked, but the current sentence that the qualifiers are hung on (in essence that it was a strategy of the Republican party overall) would be an overreach without those. Or possibly was it only the "overreach version" that the video was criticizing? North8000 (talk) 14:51, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
RFC on Various Proposed Edits
Which of the following seven six additions should be made to the article?
Robert McClenon (talk) 21:43, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Each of the proposed additions is described, and is then followed by a Survey section. Answer Yes in each of the Survey sections to include the material or No to exclude the material. Be brief and concise in the Survey, and do not respond to other editors. A Threaded Discussion section is provided for discussion following each item, in which the most important rule is civility. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:43, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Item 1. Paragraph on Douglas Murray "The Suicide of Europe"
Should the following paragraph be added to the article? The 2018 video "The Suicide of Europe" about immigration to Europe, presented by author Douglas Murray drew criticism in the media, with Sludge's Alex Kotch contending that the video's "rhetoric of 'suicide' and 'annihilation' evokes the common white nationalist trope of 'white genocide'".[1] Kotch interviewed Mark Pitcavage, a fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism, who said that while he didn't consider the video fascist or white nationalist, there was "certainly prejudice inherent in the video" and that it was "filled with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric".[2] The Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right",[3] while Evan Halper in the Los Angeles Times said the video echoed some of the talking points of the alt-right.[4]
References
- ^ Kotch, Alex (27 December 2018). "Who funds PragerU's anti-Muslim content?". Sludge. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ Kotch, Alex (27 December 2018). "Who funds PragerU's anti-Muslim content?". Sludge. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ Brendan, Brendan Joel (7 June 2018). "PragerU's Influence". SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on 12 December 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
- ^ Halper, Evan (23 August 2019). "How a Los Angeles-based conservative became one of the internet's biggest sensations". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 18 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
Prager says he disavows the alt-right ideology that has gained ground in the Trump era, but the online lessons often echo some of the movement's talking points. A video of Dinesh D'Souza, the right-wing author, opining on why Western cultures are superior to others has been viewed 4.7 million times, for example. Another, featuring Douglas Murray, the British author of several books about Europe and immigration, laments that North African and Middle Eastern immigrants have been permitted to destroy European culture by refusing to assimilate. It has 6.7 million views
Survey on Item 1
Yes. Noteduck (talk) 22:40, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
No. The opinion of Alex Kotch, a journalist at the website "ReadSludge," is not WP:DUE. Moreover, the proposed content does not appropriately summarize the content of the video under discussion, as it should by relying on the summary of the video in the LAT. Shinealittlelight (talk) 23:43, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
Mostly no. The current wording in the article (with just Pitcavage's view) is more economical. The SPLC's view could be added, as could the Los Angeles Times writer's. Sluge should be left out except in the citation. Llll5032 (talk) 01:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No, current wording is generally fine but could be improved. So much of this has already been discussed. Anyway, I agree with ImTheIP's efforts to make much of the text more compact. This long winded passage would go against that effort. It also might suggest that the Murray content was more controversial than some of the other videos. I don't think we have any sources that say which videos were, relatively speaking, the most controversial. Springee (talk) 03:42, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Please refer to what editorial policy would justify cutting this commentary from three sources to one. The item as proposed is three sentences - hardly "long winded"[sic]. The current version on the PragerU page is not "economical" but rather is so minimalist as to obfuscate meaning Noteduck (talk) 04:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, unless the updated content in the article is kept, although there is a little mix-and-match I would like to do. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 06:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Partly: I'm not a fan of the quotes attributed directly to journalists but I'm for keeping in the ADL quote. Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No, bbutmore objective and intelligent critique of the video would be good. Inflammatory characterizations by opponents does not provide information. North8000 (talk) 15:10, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No - I agree with North8000. Why do we need an inflammatory prejudiced opinion to criticize a prejudiced opinion? How about some straight-up facts, otherwise it fails WP:DUE. The article is about PragerU, and it's not our job to imply or allude to whether or not their approach or ideology is right or wrong. It also fails WP:10YT, and doesn't add any encyclopedic value to the article. Atsme 💬 📧 16:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Partly The quotes of Pitcavage should be included without mention of Kotch or Kotch's comments. Boynamedsue (talk) 17:59, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes Something like that. I like my version better: [54]. One should describe what Murray's video was about and why they criticized it, otherwise it's not useful. Murray's theory is that immigration from North Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia (but apparently not from North or South America or Australia, hm...) will cause Europe to collapse because the immigrants doesn't share Europe's "Judeo-Christian values". This is apparently known to Europe's leaders, according to Murray, otherwise he wouldn't have called it a "suicide". ImTheIP (talk) 03:50, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No - Cherry picking opinions that mirror what editors think is generally bad practice. Doubly so when the resulting text is so inflammatory. Bonewah (talk) 14:30, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No although aspects of the text might be included elsewhere. This article is about PragerU and I do not think there should be a paragraph about the reception of one video. I think the "Critique of videos" section should be merged with the "Reception" section, with this text summarised and included as a commentary on Prager U. Z1720 (talk) 15:25, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes I'm not thrilled with the wording here- but I think more of the criticisms need to be covered in the article. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- The article already mentions the Murray video in a critical way. This isn't a case of inclusion or not since there is already inclusion. Springee (talk) 18:01, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Actually- what it says is "In 2018, the PragerU video "The Suicide of Europe" by Douglas Murray argued that Europe is "committing suicide" by allowing mass immigration. The Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right" and Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League that is was "filled with anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric".[24][38]" which is hardly an example of a good and accurate depiction of the criticism and conflict that surrounded this video- its is a sanitized and barely in passing mention. Sorry, but I have to agree that there is a contingency of editors on this page fighting to keep the contents of the article quite sanitized and minimize the conflict surrounding PragerU- and its about time that a more fair and equal article is presented. Nightenbelle (talk) 22:56, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- But at what point does that become commentary on the content/ideas in the video vs commentary on PragerU? I think this is part of the difficult balance here. This is an article about PragerU, not specifically about controversial ideas shared via PragerU. A critical aspect of PragerU is their willingness to let people express ideas that are considered controversial. Sometimes, as with say minimum wage or the electoral college people will debate the merits of the claims but probably not feel the claims are personal. However, when it comes to something that can be considered racist, nationalist etc the reaction levels can rise. Let's be honest, the issue here is simply that many people disagree with Murray and they don't like that PragerU allowed Murray to have a platform. Do we know if PragerU specifically endorses the views in the videos it publishes or, conversely, does it include a "views expressed are those of the speaker, not ..." sort of disclaimer? Either way it would probably be good to include that information. Springee (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Actually- what it says is "In 2018, the PragerU video "The Suicide of Europe" by Douglas Murray argued that Europe is "committing suicide" by allowing mass immigration. The Southern Poverty Law Center described the video as a "dog whistle to the extreme right" and Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League that is was "filled with anti-immigration and anti-Muslim rhetoric".[24][38]" which is hardly an example of a good and accurate depiction of the criticism and conflict that surrounded this video- its is a sanitized and barely in passing mention. Sorry, but I have to agree that there is a contingency of editors on this page fighting to keep the contents of the article quite sanitized and minimize the conflict surrounding PragerU- and its about time that a more fair and equal article is presented. Nightenbelle (talk) 22:56, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- The article already mentions the Murray video in a critical way. This isn't a case of inclusion or not since there is already inclusion. Springee (talk) 18:01, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 1
I wrote what I think is a good compromise here: [55]. I fully expect it to be reverted, but it's a start. Two sentences for describing the video and two for criticizing it. So not undue. Imo, for fairness, the article should also link to the video. ImTheIP (talk) 06:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Item 2. Paragraph on video "The Charlottesville Lie"
Should the following paragraph be added to the article? The August 2018 video "The Charlottesville Lie" presented by CNN presenter Steve Cortes contested the claim that in the wake of the Unite the Right rally Donald Trump had used the phrase "very fine people on both sides" to refer to neo-Nazis. Cortes said in the video, which was later retweeted by Trump himself, that the media had committed "journalistic malfeasance" in reporting it as such.[1] The Forward's Aiden Pink and Mother Jones' Tim Murphy criticised the video, with Murphy calling it an attempt to "rewrite the History of Charlottesville",[2][3] while University of Virginia professor Larry Sabato bluntly rejected the notion that Trump was not referring to the far right with his "both sides" remark, saying that "anybody who tries to pretend that [Trump] wasn't encouraging the white nationalists [at Charlottesville] is simply putting their head in the sand".[4] Dennis Prager himself contended in The Australian that Google placed the video on YouTube's restricted list within hours of it being uploaded in an act of politically motivated censorship.[5] Cortes ceased working for CNN in January 2020, saying that he was "forced out" of the network for making the PragerU video defending Trump.[6]
References
- ^ Wagner, John; Parker, Ashley (14 August 2019). "Trump shares controversial video recasting his Charlottesville comments". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
- ^ Murphy, Tim (3 September 2020). "Donald Trump and His Allies Are Trying to Rewrite the History of Charlottesville". Mother Jones. Archived from the original on 11 December 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
- ^ Pink, Aiden (9 August 2019). "WATCH: Biden Confronts Breitbart Journalist Claiming Trump Didn't Praise Charlottesville Marchers". The Forward. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Hawes, Spencer (7 August 2019). "Video Reopens Debate On Trump's Charlottesville Comments". News. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
{{cite web}}
: Text "VPM" ignored (help) - ^ Praeger, Dennis (8 August 2019). "Thou shalt have no other gods but Google". The Australian. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
- ^ Brest, Mike (21 January 2020). "Trump defender says he was ousted by CNN for condemning 'the Charlottesville lie'". Washington Examiner. Archived from the original on 6 December 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
Survey on Item 2
Yes. Noteduck (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
No. The proposed content attributes the headline of the MJ piece to the author of the piece, violating WP:HEADLINES. Moreover, the MJ piece says very little about the content of the video: it only says that the video is part of a broader attempt on the part of Trump's allies to delegitimize “the media,” defend his most militant supporters, and cast the president’s opponents as violent radicals.
The quote from Sabato does not refer to Cortes specifically, but says that "Anybody who tries to pretend that he wasn't encouraging the white nationalists is simply putting their head in the sand." Our previous source does not have Cortes talking about "white nationalists" but only about "neo-Nazis". Are we to assume that these are the same? Seems to violate WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The reference to Prager is a primary source. The Washington Examiner is generally regarded as a weak source that requires attribution. I'm not opposed to including something about the Cortes video, but this proposal is a non-starter. It's also awkwardly written.
Yes, but shortened and reworded. Keep the Trump retweet, the social media controversies, the Sabato reaction, and maybe Cortes' departure from CNN. Address some factual questions raised in the comment above. Llll5032 (talk) 02:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No but As written, no. Again this is too much text. Also, most of those sources aren't about PragerU rather it's about the controversy associated with a single video. There is also the issue that this became one of those case where you have the text of the speech which all sides agree on (as far as I can tell) followed by the vastly different interpretations of what the speech actually meant. While I don't think this one is needed, if it were trimmed down and impartial in its presentation I think it could be included. Springee (talk) 04:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Maybe, but this is quite a deep dive into one particular video, it should probably be a mention rather than a passage. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 06:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Partly: I'm for including something like this but it definitely should be shorter. I'm also, again, not a fan of quotes attributed directly to journalists. IMO quotes should be credible: we shouldn't be putting in a quote just to be able to claim something we couldn't say in Wikivoice. Attributing quotes to journalists is therefore almost always either saying too little (because we could just say what the article claims in Wikivoice and cite it) or too much (because we couldn't). Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No as written; a shorter version would be good. Report that the video made the arguable and argued assertion. This isn't the place for lengthy content arguing against the assertion. North8000 (talk) 15:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- No - it belongs in the CNN article, if anywhere, but certainly not here per UNDUE. Nobody knows what Trump meant or was thinking - it's pure speculation and doesn't belong in an encyclopedia, and neither does the argument. Atsme 💬 📧 16:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes But I don't rule out the addition of text that contradicts these opinions as well (or indeed further criticism).Boynamedsue (talk) 18:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, but please condense it. F.e in "The August 2018 video" is the month the video was published really relevant? If not, change it to "The 2018 video" which saves one word. And so on. ImTheIP (talk) 04:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- No as written. The part about Cortes leaving (being ousted, whatever) could stand a mention. Once again, the proposal seems to be a bunch of criticisms the editor likes with little regard to its value to the article. Bonewah (talk) 14:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes but summarised. Remove all the commentary about the video and just explain what the video is referencing and that the person who appeared in the video accuses CNN of forcing him out following making the video. The rest of the commentary is undue weight and belongs in a Reception section. Z1720 (talk) 15:38, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Not in its current form I do not feel that this statement is focused on PragerU and their coverage/contributions to the situation- but rather on the situation itself. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:41, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 2
off-topic Atsme 💬 📧 16:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Shinealittlelight, have a look at WP:ROWN when considering whether to discard this edit:
If you contend there are errors (and the errors you've identified are minor) why don't you put forward an alternative proposal? Why aim for the rejection of the material wholesale? Noteduck (talk) 00:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
|
Item 3. Material on PragerU platforming far-right activists
Survey on Item 3
Fully support Well, a proposal to make no changes to a section that doesn't exist is not too controversial. Springee (talk) 04:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I also support doing nothing to nothing. Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
? North8000 (talk) 15:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 3
Item 4. Material from Data & Society
Should the following paragraph be added to the article? PragerU's videos on controversial topics are often highly visible and accessible through YouTube's search engine, with a report by the Data & Society Research Institute noting that a YouTube search for "social justice" returned the PragerU video "What is social justice?" that was highly critical of the concept as the first result.[1]
References
- ^ Lewis, Rebecca (2018). "Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube" (PDF). Data & Society Research Institute. p. 31. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 December 2020. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
Survey on Item 4
Yes. Noteduck (talk) 22:41, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
No. The proposal mischaracterizes the source. What the source says is The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute ... In the video, he echoes libertarian critiques of social justice in the format of an educational video...
Ok, so "highly critical" is not in the source, and what the source is actually saying is that the Goldberg video critical of social justice came up one time when the author of the report searched "Social Justice" on YouTube. I don't see that as WP:DUE; it does not give us helpful information about PragerU, or, for that matter, about YouTube or Jonah Goldberg. Is anyone surprised that a JG video with "Social Justice" in the title might come up in some search on YouTube for "Social Justice"? How does this inform our readers about PragerU? How is it of any interest at all? Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:01, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Probably no. This information doesn't add much to the other Data & Society report that is already included in the PragerU article. Llll5032 (talk) 02:26, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No. The fact that a search for "X" returns a video with "X" in the title is akin to "the sky is blue" is not worth mentioning in this article. --Spiffy sperry (talk) 03:04, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No Spiffy has it right. Several editors, myself included, echoed the same point. It seems odd to call something hijacking when a video about X uses X as a keyword even if it happens to be a video about X that is critical of X. I mean how many videos that were critical of Senator X included the Senator's name in the video? Springee (talk) 04:14, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- That's completely ignoring context. Did Lewis err by keeping this material in her extensively cited report, even including a graphic that referred to it? A critical, revisionist take on a concept is of course significant. To take a more extreme example, would it not be notable if a YouTube search for, for example, the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 returned mostly niche revisionist takes? Noteduck (talk) 04:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Probably no since this adds little information, it would need to tie in to something more noteworthy. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 06:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No: YouTube searches are highly personal and therefore are dubiously WP:DUE, plus it's not terribly surprising that a YouTube video from a large channel with "social justice" in the title came up in a search for "social justice". Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No In addition to "following the source" issues, spun-laded talking points of an opponent is not info about PragrU. North8000 (talk) 15:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No This is beginning to feel like a huge time sink, not to mention the lack substance - seriously, a proposal to include the results of a Google search, or other search engine? Atsme 💬 📧 16:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No Per Spiffy above. A more serious proposal would elicit a more serious response. Bonewah (talk) 14:40, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No Not as written. The report is using PragerU as an example of how far-right media organisations are using the social justice movement's terminology to achieve search results. This addition doesn't reflect what the source says. Z1720 (talk) 15:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No This sentence makes it sound like that source is saying the video is highly critical, when really- its the opinion of the person who wrote the sentence while the source is just saying it was the top search result. Now- the video is highly critical... but to include that statement in the article- we need a source that says it. Otherwise WP:OR or {{WP:SYNTH]]Nightenbelle (talk) 16:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 4
This does not mischaracterize the source. This has been addressed on the talk page previously, - in fact, you were a key part of that discussion, so please pay closer attention[56]
The source is Rebecca Lewis, "Alternative Influence: Broadcasting the Reactionary Right on YouTube," Data & Society Research Institute 2018[57]
- page 31 of Lewis report. "The search results for “social justice,” for example, include a video from PragerU entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. In the video, he echoes libertarian critiques of social justice in the format of an educational video (Fig. 8)."
- page 32 "Fig. 8: A screenshot from a PragerU video criticizing social justice; the video appeared as the first result on YouTube for the search term “social justice”
- page 31 of Lewis report: "In fact, all of the top 10 video results for “social justice” are criticisms of social justice from reactionary channels (Fig. 9).(Google Chrome, Incognito in the US, June 19, 2018)."
No, the source does not use the term "highly critical", hence why its not in direct quotes. Would you argue that PragerU's "What is Social Justice?" video is not highly critical of the concept? I've no idea why this is not relevant given that an extensively published[58] Stanford academic chose to write about it in detail in this report (the report itself has also been cited quite often)[59] and given the immense visibility of PragerU and YouTube videos more generally. Noteduck (talk) 00:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- It does not matter what our opinions of the content of the video are. It only matters what was said in the source. The source does not say that the video was highly critical of anything. The source says that the author searched "Social Justice" once on YouTube and got a JG video with "social justice" in the title that was critical of social justice. That's what the source says, so that's what we can verify and add to the article if it is DUE. It is not DUE, though, so we should not add it. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:19, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Shine, you're essentially saying that any sourced material should be entirely comprised of direct quotes - a fairly baffling contention. Did you click on the report to read Lewis' point? It's open-access. Noteduck (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying we should accurately summarize the source, which does not use the editorial superlative that is included in this proposed content. When we do accurately and straightforwardly summarize the source (as proposed in my last comment), the material is plainly not WP:DUE. And yes, I read the source. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Shine, you're essentially saying that any sourced material should be entirely comprised of direct quotes - a fairly baffling contention. Did you click on the report to read Lewis' point? It's open-access. Noteduck (talk) 00:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- No - if there's an article about that video, then add it the Reception section of that article, it doesn't belong here. Atsme 💬 📧 16:43, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Item 5. Material about PragerU's videos with Owen Benjamin
Should the following material be added to the article? PragerU received criticism for producing two videos in 2018 featuring comedian Owen Benjamin, who had attracted controversy for mocking Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor David Hogg, making racist and homophobic slurs in his material, and promoting conspiracy theories.[1][2] In February 2019, Benjamin attracted negative publicity for making anti-semitic remarks,[3] and in April 2019 the Jewish Telegraph Agency's Bethany Mandel reported that he had made a "full-blown descent into Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism", while noting that his appearances on PragerU had helped him "maintain a limited degree of visibility in the conservative world.[4] PragerU later removed their videos with Benjamin from their website and from YouTube.[5]
References
- ^ Initial criticism in February 2019: G, Cristina López (4 February 2019). "PragerU YouTube video features bigoted conspiracy theorist Owen Benjamin". Media Matters for America.
- ^ Subsequent criticism in July 2019: Gladstone, Benjamin (11 July 2019). "White House Disinvited Cartoonist Over Anti-Semitism - But Kept Others Who Promoted Similar Ideas". The Forward. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Holt, Jared (12 February 2019). "Owen Benjamin: Another 'Red Pill' Overdose Victim". Right Wing Watch. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Mandel, Bethany (8 April 2019). "How did conservative comedian Owen Benjamin became a darling of the 'alt-right'?". Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
- ^ Fisher, Anthony L. (12 January 2020). "Comedian Adam Carolla's new documentary accidentally reveals that a lot of conservative 'free-speech warriors' are just free-speech tourists". Business Insider. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
Survey on Item 5
Yes. Noteduck (talk) 22:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
No. Among the sources for this content are pieces from: Media Matters, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (which is misspelled in the proposed content), Rightwing Watch, and Business Insider. This sourcing could hardly be weaker: these sources do not seem like WP:RS for this content, and do not demonstrate that the material is WP:DUE. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:04, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Maybe. The article should add which PragerU videos Benjamin narrated, and shorten the part about what Benjamin was accused of elsewhere. Shine is right that the information needs less partisan and more expert sources. Llll5032 (talk) 02:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No None of the sources are sufficient to establish weight for inclusion. MM4America is a poor quality source and shouldn't be used to establish content is DUE. The same is true of Right Wing Watch. The JTA article is clearly "Opinion". Again not a good source with which to establish either facts or WEIGHT. BI and Forward make only brief mentions of the video and again, neither are sources that we should be putting a lot of stock in. Once you remove the poor quality sources, a concern that was previously raised, you are left with very little to suggest the article would benefit from inclusion. Springee (talk) 04:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, but it may be best to shorten this the section to mainly commentary and just link to the criticism of Owen Benjamin's views on his own WP page for sourcing. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 05:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes: Could be a little shorter but this is a pretty major controversy regarding PragerU so even the full paragraph is probably WP:DUE. Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Not as written, but this should be in there. A lengthy presentation on why the comedian is controversial is too far away in WP:Relevance / undue for a PragerU article. Trim that stuff to one sentence that he is controversial and briefly why. North8000 (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- No - to begin, "Media Matters" is to be used with caution, so it's not reliable for extradordinary claims, not even for intext attribution. The Forward cites Media Matters so it fails, for the same reason. Right Wing Watch is published by a Progressive advocacy, and is not reliable for extraordinary claims for obvious reasons. The article in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is passing mention of PragerU so nope again. And Business Insider (Australia) says alot of things about the Adam Corolla movie, including While the movie provides solid cases against the logical fallacies made by left-wing activists, it fails to address free-speech violations on the political right and takes the safest route possible by preaching to the choir. I would not oppose inclusion of the latter in the form of intext attribution if included in the article where it would be considered DUE. Atsme 💬 📧 17:18, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Yes Seems quite pertinent and well-sourced. Boynamedsue (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, but in a condensed form. ImTheIP (talk) 04:13, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Rework Shorten, better sourcing etc. Bonewah (talk) 14:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes But summarised. There is too much information about the commentary and not enough about what happened to Owen Benjamin or the result of this video. Commentary should be summarised. Z1720 (talk) 15:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes I think some re-work/shortening could be done- but I think this needs to stay in the article as it is an important criticism/example. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 5
Springee, you haven't referred to a single actual excerpt from Wiki editorial policy, nor any past noticeboard discussions, to establish that these are poor sources. Also, I'm not sure if you're aware that you deleted a reminder that I put on your talk page when you probably meant to archive it, cheers Noteduck (talk) 04:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- OK, WEIGHT, these are low quality sources so they don't have it. This was extensively discussed prior to opening the RfC. Springee (talk) 04:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Springee the "prior discussion" was insubstantial, this would be noteworthy enough to add even without including commentary, linking to Owen Benjamin's views, and only referencing the fact that his videos were removed. It seems strange to attempt to argue this point. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 05:05, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Item 6. Material about PragerU's Robert E. Lee video
Should the following item be added to the article?
In November 2020, PragerU attracted criticism for its video "Who was Robert E. Lee?" in which it defended the historical legacy of the Confederate leader Robert E. Lee and criticized attempts to remove monuments dedicated to him.[1] Brandon Gage of Hill Reporter called the video an "overtly racist jumble of propaganda and historical whitewashing" and objected to the video's claim that Lee should be celebrated for his role in suppressing the slave revolt led by John Brown in 1859.[2] As of January 2021 the video is no longer available on PragerU's website or YouTube, but remains available in an archived form at the Wayback Machine.[60]
References
- ^ Montgomery, Peter (21 December 2020). "PragerU's Awful Defense of Statues Honoring Robert E. Lee". Right Wing Watch. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Gage, Brandon (21 December 2020). "Prager University Praises Confederate General Robert E. Lee After His Statue Was Removed From the United States Capitol". Hill Reporter. Archived from the original on 21 December 2020.
Survey on Item 6
Yes. Noteduck (talk) 22:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
No. The Hill Reporter and Rightwingwatch (the proposed sources for this content) do not appear to be WP:RS. The author at The Hill Reporter does not appear to have any particular expertise in this area: he holds a music degree and the site does not have a significant reputation, and is thus not able to establish WP:DUE weight.Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No as noted in the prior discussion, [[61]] the sourcing here is very poor (Right Wing Watch and Hill Reporter). As I mentioned in the prior discussion, this is meant to be an overview of PragerU, not criticism of any particular video, especially videos that PragerU decided to remove. Springee (talk) 04:26, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes but I would like to see this compacted later, perhaps into a list of content that was retracted after criticism. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 05:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes: This is also a major controversy regarding PragerU, and this paragraph is short enough that I wouldn't even recommend cutting it down. I maintain my above objection to attributing quotes to journalists, and would prefer better sourcing in general for this paragraph, but in this case I think that points towards lengthening the paragraph rather than cutting it. Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes: what Loki wrote --FantinoFalco (talk) 10:10, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Probably. I agree with MasterTriangle that this should be compacted into a summary of retracted videos, if an independent source verifies that it has been retracted. Long critical quotes about this are not WP:DUE because the criticism as of now is not widespread in reliable sources. Llll5032 (talk) 07:07, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No, but inclusion in a more neutral way would be be good. Characterizations and cherry-picked items by an opponent is not really coverage of this. North8000 (talk) 15:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No - it was removed; therefore, fails DUE and 10YT. Atsme 💬 📧 17:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes Though it is long and should be condensed. ImTheIP (talk) 04:10, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No So, the common theme for these RfCs seems to be "PragerU attracted criticism for its video..." So this really applies to all these requests. 1) stop using such bad sources. And relatedly 2) establish that the criticisms in question are actually relevant to something and not just POV pushing. Everyone 'attracts' or 'receives' criticism, demonstrate why the reader should care. Bonewah (talk) 14:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No The text does not describe why this video is notable for inclusion in the article. Why is it so important that this information is in the article? Commentary about the video may be added as more general comments in the Reception section. Z1720 (talk) 15:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes Once again- the controversies and criticisms are not currently being given their WP:DUE in this article and they need to be. It is irresponsible to wash them away like they never happened. Could this be written better? Absolutely! Should it be cut out because its not perfect- NO. It needs to be in the article to give fair coverage. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:51, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 6
Item 7. Header material including some of the criticisms frequently directed at PragerU
Should the following material be added to the header of the article? The accuracy and reliability of PragerU's videos has been extensively questioned, with several sources referring to PragerU videos as containing propaganda[1][2][3][4] and misinformation.[5][6] Specific criticisms levelled at PragerU videos have included the claims that they perpetuate views associated with the far-right or alt-right,[7][8][9][10][11] contain controversial speakers,[12] including those linked to the far right,[13][14][15][16] promote racism[17] and Islamophobia,[18] promote misleading information related to the COVID-19 pandemic,[19][20][21][22] and contain misleading information related to climate change.[23][24][25][26]
References
- ^ Shea, Brie (30 April 2015). "Fracking Titans Spend Millions Proselytizing School Children". Rewire News Group. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
But Prager University is noteworthy in two respects: the program seeks to insert right-wing religious and political propaganda into schools by providing content directly to teachers and students; and it has the generous backing of two of the richest men in the United States.
- ^ McMenamin, Lexi (5 December 2020). "Can the Gravel Institute compete with the right-wing YouTube machine?". Mic. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
"We saw it as an existential threat, because it's a way of taking young people, and preventing them from being on the left," says Williams. "If you're just looking for an answer to a seemingly innocuous question, like what is the electoral college, or what is American history? If you Google those questions, chances are you're going to find a PragerU video, and they're going to masquerade to you as a university." But "they're not a university," Williams says. "What they are is very clever and very effective propagandists."
- ^ Molloy, Parker. "PragerU relies on a veneer of respectability to obscure its propagandist mission". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
- ^ Jackson, Gita (10 January 2020). "The Gravel Institute Is Trying to Make PragerU, But Good". VICE. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
The Gravel Institute is taking aim at PragerU, a YouTube channel that spreads disinformation and right wing propaganda. The YouTubers who have already tried wish them good luck—they'll need it.
- ^ Silverman, Craig; Mac, Ryan (13 August 2020). "Facebook's Preferential Treatment Of US Conservatives Puts Its Fact-Checking Program In Danger". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Solon, Olivia (8 August 2020). "Sensitive to claims of bias, Facebook relaxed misinformation rules for conservative pages". NBC News. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
In another case in late May, a Facebook employee filed a misinformation escalation for PragerU, after a series of fact-checking labels were applied to several similar posts suggesting polar bear populations had not been decimated by climate change and that a photo of a starving animal was used as a "deliberate lie to advance the climate change agenda." This claim was fact-checked by one of Facebook's independent fact-checking partners, Climate Feedback, as false and meant that the PragerU page had "repeat offender" status and would potentially be banned from advertising.
- ^ Bernstein, Joseph (March 3, 2018). "How PragerU is winning the Right Wing culture war without Donald Trump". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on February 14, 2019. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
- ^ Franz, Barbara (2020). "The New Right on American Campuses: Challenges for Higher Education". Digital Culture & Education. 12 (1). ISSN 1836-8301. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Kotch, Alex (27 December 2018). "Who funds PragerU's anti-Muslim content?". Sludge. Archived from the original on 8 November 2020. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
- ^ Halper, Evan (23 August 2019). "How a Los Angeles-based conservative became one of the internet's biggest sensations". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 18 December 2020. Retrieved 5 January 2021.
Prager says he disavows the alt-right ideology that has gained ground in the Trump era, but the online lessons often echo some of the movement's talking points. A video of Dinesh D'Souza, the right-wing author, opining on why Western cultures are superior to others has been viewed 4.7 million times, for example. Another, featuring Douglas Murray, the British author of several books about Europe and immigration, laments that North African and Middle Eastern immigrants have been permitted to destroy European culture by refusing to assimilate. It has 6.7 million views
- ^ Brendan, Brendan Joel (7 June 2018). "PragerU's Influence". SPLC Southern Poverty Law Center. Archived from the original on 12 December 2020. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
- ^ Kaplan, Alex (9 August 2016). "Here are the extremist figures going to the White House social media summit". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
PragerU offers a platform to extremists. PragerU has offered a platform to extremist figures, including anti-Semitic bigot and conspiracy theorist Owen Benjamin and anti-LGBTQ bigot Steven Crowder. In his five-minute rant for PragerU, Crowder took issue with Columbus Day conversations centered on America's original inhabitants in a video featuring racist cartoon depictions of indigenous people. PragerU is also home to a podcast hosted by former TPUSA Communications Director Candace Owens, who raised her profile through YouTube and Infowars punditry that included dismissing white supremacy and likening Black Lives Matter protesters to animals. She has also defended Adolf Hitler's actions by saying, "If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. ... I have no problems with nationalism."
- ^ Initial Owen Benjaim criticism in February 2019: G, Cristina López (4 February 2019). "PragerU YouTube video features bigoted conspiracy theorist Owen Benjamin". Media Matters for America.
- ^ Subsequent criticism in July 2019: Gladstone, Benjamin (11 July 2019). "White House Disinvited Cartoonist Over Anti-Semitism - But Kept Others Who Promoted Similar Ideas". The Forward. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Holt, Jared (12 February 2019). "Owen Benjamin: Another 'Red Pill' Overdose Victim". Right Wing Watch. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Subsequent Owen Benjamin criticism in July 2019: Gladstone, Benjamin (11 July 2019). "White House Disinvited Cartoonist Over Anti-Semitism - But Kept Others Who Promoted Similar Ideas". The Forward. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Lopez G., Cristina (8 October 2018). "PragerU posts a video about Christopher Columbus that features a racist depiction of indigenous people". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Bridge Initiative Team (17 March 2020). "Factsheet: PragerU". Bridge: A Georgetown University Initiative. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Peters, Jeremy W. (1 April 2020). "Alarm, Denial, Blame: The Pro-Trump Media's Coronavirus Distortion". New York Times. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Sommer, Will (16 May 2020). "Dennis Prager Licks Dirty Forks To Show COVID Who's Boss". Daily Beast. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Reuters Staff (3 December 2020). "Fact check: Sweden has not achieved herd immunity, is not proof that lockdowns are useless". Reuters. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
{{cite web}}
:|author1=
has generic name (help) - ^ Moran, Lee (29 April 2020). "Conservative Pundit's Hot Take On Coronavirus Lockdown Gets The Slapdown It Deserves". Huffington Post. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Silverman, Craig; Mac, Ryan (13 August 2020). "Facebook's Preferential Treatment Of US Conservatives Puts Its Fact-Checking Program In Danger". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
- ^ Solon, Olivia (8 August 2020). "Sensitive to claims of bias, Facebook relaxed misinformation rules for conservative pages". NBC News. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
In another case in late May, a Facebook employee filed a misinformation escalation for PragerU, after a series of fact-checking labels were applied to several similar posts suggesting polar bear populations had not been decimated by climate change and that a photo of a starving animal was used as a "deliberate lie to advance the climate change agenda." This claim was fact-checked by one of Facebook's independent fact-checking partners, Climate Feedback, as false and meant that the PragerU page had "repeat offender" status and would potentially be banned from advertising.
- ^ Carrington, Damien (8 October 2020). "Climate denial ads on Facebook seen by millions, report finds". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
Analysis of the ads run by these groups found 51 examples of disinformation, including an ad paid for by the conservative group PragerU that ran to 1 October. Its headline was: "Make no doubt about it: the hysteria over climate change is to sell you Big Government control." The accompanying video said: "Fossil fuels are not an existential threat … The Green New Deal is an existential threat."
- ^ Roberts, David (27 January 2020). "YouTube has a big climate misinformation problem it can't solve". Vox. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
Survey on Item 7
Yes. Noteduck (talk) 22:42, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
No. Many sources here not WP:RS. In any case, much of this content is not in the body yet, and the lead should summarize the body per MOS:LEAD. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:14, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, but if not as the header due to a close following of MOS:LEAD then it should be the first sentence of the "Reception" section until the points are fleshed out elsewhere. MasterTriangle12 (talk) 04:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- That is a separate discussion and one we already had. Springee (talk) 04:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- I did suggest doing that before, but you may want to review the discussion to find that it was not talked about in any responses, but even if it were then I do not see why that is relevant here?? MasterTriangle12 (talk) 06:06, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- That is a separate discussion and one we already had. Springee (talk) 04:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
No This was extensively discussed. [[62]] This ultimately comes off as editors cherry picking the material they want to see vs following MOS:LEAD. Additionally, many of the sources used for these criticisms are poor quality. Throwing up a huge list in hopes that something will stick is not how we should be making changes like this. Springee (talk) 04:33, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Needs more work. For WP:DUEWEIGHT, each of these criticisms should be backed up by several independent, nonpartisan sources, and if possible some conservative sources. The partisan liberal sources could be pared back. Proportionate defenses of PragerU should be included if they appear in WP:RS. I agree with Shinealittlelight and MasterTriangle that per MOS:LEADREL this should be firmly established in the Reception section before a summary at the top is considered. Llll5032 (talk) 06:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes: This is all one of the major things PragerU is known for. There's tons of RSes on this. It's clearly WP:DUE since this is the aspect of PragerU that has by far received the most attention from the sources. Loki (talk) 06:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Yes, what Loki said. For those invoking, MOS:LEAD, consider this excerpt:
The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies.
I've no idea what the standards being proposed for "independent, nonpartisan" and not "partisan liberal" sources are, but you'll need to refer to editorial policy to justify such a standard. When there are TWO DOZEN sources making similar points about PragerU, none of which has been effectively challenged with regards to Wiki editorial policy by editors here, it's clear, that this material warrants inclusion Noteduck (talk) 09:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Noteduck, I mean that we should emphasize sources marked green in the perennial sources (WP:RSP) list, paying attention to any restrictions on their use mentioned there. Snopes, for example, is a WP:RS generally. So are the major television networks and many newspapers. Also consult WP:FRIND, WP:PARITY, and WP:INDY. Llll5032 (talk) 15:58, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- No to the way it's presented above - it's noncompliant with NPOV. I have no objection to well-sourced, warranted criticism, but it's pretty obvious that either a conservative or liberal entity is going to criticize its polar opposite so we don't need the rhetorical UNDUE sentiments and inflammatory criticisms by ideological opponents - not encyclopedic. Atsme 💬 📧 17:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Atsme, Facebook - a commercial titan and not a partisan media source - has given PragerU "repeat offender" status for serially publishing misinformation.[63] It would be absolutely not encyclopedic to leave this material out of the header Noteduck (talk) 22:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- No As written, highly problematic even for the body much less the lead. Predictable low content "slamming" type characterizations by their opponents is not info about PragerU. Why not switch to informative analysis of such areas instead of again and again keeping trying to put in low content "slamming" type characterizations by their opponents. North8000 (talk) 22:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Yes As the lead stands, it contains no criticism of PragerU at all. That is wrong. ImTheIP (talk) 03:59, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- No Have you not read MOS:LABEL? Per above, im not opposed to well sourced, relevant criticisms, but this would make the lede more about what the subjects critics think then the subject itself. Bonewah (talk) 14:51, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
No not as written. There is some WP:CITATIONOVERKILL happening which makes the text difficult to read. Also, I don't think this summarises the "Reception" section very well. I would like to see a more substantive proposal that reflects everything included in the "Reception" section. Z1720 (talk) 15:59, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Yes Since controversy and criticism is one of the most well known things about PragerU- it should absolutely be in the lead and more coverage of those controversies added to the body to support policy- rather than being suppressed at every opportunity as they have been thus far. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Threaded Discussion of Item 7
Shine, I absolutely believe all of this material (particularly the material related to COVID misinformation) should be integrated into the article - block reverts have been the norm on this page so it isn't surprisingly that a lot of material isn't yet present. Obviously, I can't edit the page while the RfC is ongoing. Why don't you draft a suggestion for a COVID misinformation paragraph on the talk page and we can fine-tune it? Noteduck (talk) 00:41, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
Other Threaded Discussion
My initial take on all this: It seems to me that critiques of the videos have the potential to be as numerous as the videos themselves. It further appears that most or all critiques will be negative, which raises the issues of DUE and BALANCE for this article. I think arguing over sources as a way of including or excluding particular text will be mostly unproductive. Sourcing for such highly charged political commentary is likely as not to come from opinionated and biased sources, which are not disqualified on that account. NPOV states that biased sources are not disallowed, merely due to their bias. Right now, I'm thinking the solution is to make the Critique section a general summary, and spin off the gnarly contents into an independent article: "Critiques of PragerU" or "Controversy over PragerU", or the like, which will be seen as an appropriate place for such endless verbal pugilism to occur. DonFB (talk) 00:26, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- I want to emphasize that the items as they are presented here are not necessarily perfect and may require additional pruning, but they all belong in the article in something close to their current form, ie. I don't have an "all or nothing" approach. For those rejecting the edits, I'd stress the contents of editorial policy as per Wikipedia:Revert only when necessary:
- it is usually preferable to make an edit that retains at least some elements of a prior edit
- your bias should be toward keeping the entire edit
- If you care about improving this page, why not correct errors - eg the attribution error that Shinealittlelight has identified with the Mother Jones piece - instead of advocating for the removal of the material wholesale? Let's work together to continue to improve this page Noteduck (talk) 00:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Respectfully, Shinealittlelight, your contentions about RS problems are not strong. You haven't provided, for example, a single link to the WP:RSP page which might indicate the use of an unreliable source. In fact you haven't provided any links or substantive rebuttals at all.
- That's an interesting contention DonFB and something we should keep in mind after we conclude this RfC. It's worth noting that as you can see by the extensive references in item 7, it is absolutely mainstream journalistic and academic opinion that PragerU contains propaganda, misinformation, misleading information, etc and this needs to be referenced in the header of the article. Noteduck (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I think arguing over sources as a way of including or excluding particular text will be mostly unproductive. Sourcing for such highly charged political commentary is likely as not to come from opinionated and biased sources, which are not disqualified on that account.
I mostly agree. "Arguing" without clearly applying current policy and consensus will be unproductive. However, all we have are the sources, so a thorough application of WP:RS and related consensus should at least narrow down what we should even attempt to use and how.- I'd hoped it would be easy to throw out opinion pieces unless they are exceptionally high quality.
- Deciding how biased a source might be is much more difficult, unless there's already consensus at RSN. It would at least be helpful to identify what we have.
- A thorough search for higher quality references (in depth reporting, or better yet, academic research) is always helpful to see if we're missing something that would be useful. --Hipal (talk) 01:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Certainly, we don't use Joe Blow's Blog, or things like that. Mainly, this kind of text is a slugfest of opinions, spin, and he-said/she-said, not so much a debate about facts and data. I noted that someone objected to Right Wing Watch as a source. It has a decidedly provocative name, but it's an organ of People for the American Way, a well-established organization with a staff of writers. An analogue might be the Cato Institute, which RSP shows as "reliable for its opinion." I think that phrase will serve to qualify as usable many, perhaps most or all, of the sources being discussed here. DonFB (talk) 01:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- PragerU is very controversial so most of the criticism should remain imo. However, a lot of it can be summarized or written more briefly. The interesting part isn't who has criticized PragerU or exactly which videos they have criticized, it is along what lines they have criticized PragerU and what their reasoning is. I must also say that I think this UNDUE thing is often used as a clutch. Yes, the article contains lots of criticism, so then add more neutral or positive information to balance it out? ImTheIP (talk) 02:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- Absolutely - for example an article titled "Why PragerU was right about Charlottesville" would definitely merit inclusion. Unfortunately as you can see from the page's edit history, it's largely the case that a few editors repeatedly revert large chunks of material from the page without pruning the material or adding contrasting information for balance Noteduck (talk) 02:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- PragerU is very controversial so most of the criticism should remain imo. However, a lot of it can be summarized or written more briefly. The interesting part isn't who has criticized PragerU or exactly which videos they have criticized, it is along what lines they have criticized PragerU and what their reasoning is. I must also say that I think this UNDUE thing is often used as a clutch. Yes, the article contains lots of criticism, so then add more neutral or positive information to balance it out? ImTheIP (talk) 02:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
ImTheIP wrote, Yes, the article contains lots of criticism, so then add more neutral or positive information to balance it out?
Noteduck wrote, Unfortunately as you can see from the page's edit history, it's largely the case that a few editors repeatedly revert large chunks of material from the page without pruning the material or adding contrasting information for balance
. These present fundamentally incorrect perspectives on what neutrality means in Wikipedia. We do not as editors look to balance information that we find, that would be WP:FALSEBALANCE. To do so would violate WP:POV, and likely WP:OR as well if the editor is working from their own biases to "balance" perspectives in the article and references. --Hipal (talk) 16:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
The article as is doesn't seem ideal (describing, at length, this organization as the victim of censorship without really saying why in context; a lead that doesn't attempt to summarize most of the article). I'd attempt a lead if I didn't think it would be disruptive while this RfC is ongoing. Speaking of which, I've spent the last half hour going through these various blocks of text and their sources and am concerned at what looks like !voting on overly specific, overly long text that includes some sub-par sources. Most of these topics certainly appear WP:DUE, but the language and sourcing leaves a bit to be desired. I'm not quite sure how to approach it at this point. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:29, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Related discussions
On a lot of modern politics articles (and on others reflecting a current real-world contest) the dialog seems to be be a side-based contest. And the most common example is using policy and guideline-based arguments to include maximum quantity and hard-hittingness of negative material where the topic is about the "other" side. Of course, the other combinations also occur regarding "same side" and positive-sounding material. I would like to recommend a different emphasis which is both more fun and which results in better articles. And that is to focus instead on making an article which is focused on providing information about the topic of the article. For this a particular emphasis on the degree of relevance of the material to the topic is helpful. For example, let's say that PragerU (not just one errant guy within it) did a video. If there was widespread negative reaction (vs. just some predicable swipes from their political opponents) then that is informative/information about their video, and their video is only one step removed from ParagerU from a relevance standpoint. The fact that they took a video down (if such is unusual) further re-enforces this. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:45, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
- I agree. I want to emphasize what i stated above "1) stop using such bad sources. And relatedly 2) establish that the criticisms in question are actually relevant to something and not just POV pushing. Everyone 'attracts' or 'receives' criticism, demonstrate why the reader should care." Bonewah (talk) 14:55, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
I don't concede that any of this is "POV pushing" - Neutral editing. Isn't. Neutral. Content. Read WP:NEUTRALEDIT again if you gotta. There are quite a few editors criticizing these edits on the grounds of "bad sources", "not RS" etc. Where are your links to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard, to anything backing up your arguments? Noteduck (talk) 03:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
White privilege
I'm not sure that attribution is needed for According to Snopes, recent history and statistics indicate that white privilege still exists.
given White privilege. I'm also not sure if it deserves so much weight without more references. --Hipal (talk) 19:26, 25 January 2021 (UTC)
I'm having a difficult time finding anything of use to demonstrate stronger weight. https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/2777b09e appears to be of questionable reliability, but I'm not finding any discussions on logically.ai. --Hipal (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think citing snopes as an authority on white privilege is pretty cartoonish, especially in response to what is obviously an opinion video. My preference would be to remove the line in question. Bonewah (talk) 20:47, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I'll ask the same question that has been asked above. What makes this particular criticism DUE? Clearly there are some videos that should be discussed specifically but if Snopes is the only source I don't see why it should make the cut. Springee (talk) 21:03, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
"Despite its name"
I think that the claim that PragerU is misleading people by virtue of having the word 'University' in its name is sufficiently controversial that it should be sourced. LokitheLiar disagrees here, and claims that the misleading nature of PragerU's name is a case of WP:BLUESKY. What can I say, this seems to me obviously not as uncontroversial as the blue sky. Thoughts? Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:33, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think the fact that Prager University is not a university is self-evidently misleading, and if it was not we would not have any reason to include that line. We don't say Tucker Carlson's show is not a university because that's obvious. But it's not obvious in the case of PragerU, because it calls itself a university, despite not being a university, which is why we feel the need to clarify that it is not a university. Loki (talk) 15:39, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- The sentence still clearly says "PragerU is not an academic institution..." Why is the meaning lost without "Despite its name..."? Springee (talk) 15:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Because that connects the sentence to the reason for including the sentence. It's important to draw attention to the university part of the name before the clarification or the clarification isn't clear. Why are we saying that PragerU isn't an academic institution? Because its full name is Prager University, and it's not actually a university. Loki (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Shall we also say that Hamburger University is self-evidently a misleading name? Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- We honestly probably should. The reason we don't is that Hamburger University is a corporate university, but that those aren't accredited academic institutions is probably worth mentioning more clearly. That article currently seems to be a bit too promotional, unironically promoting the idea of a "degree in Hamburgerology". Loki (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- The sentence still clearly says "PragerU is not an academic institution..." Why is the meaning lost without "Despite its name..."? Springee (talk) 15:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
LokiTheLiar, Shinealittlelight, I agree with the removal of "Despite its name" from "Despite its name, PragerU is not an academic institution..." [[64]]. I don't see this as a huge issue but without sounds more "factual" or impartial to me. Adding the phrase could suggest cynicisms on the part of the author. Since this is only suggesting vs actually stating I don't think it needs to be removed to stay impartial but I think removal would be better. This change was made a few days ago by AKK-700 in a cleanup of the lead[[65]]. Prior to the cleanup the sentence was longer as it said PragerU was a not for profit. With that text moved to the lead sentence I can see the sentence in question may have come across as naked and needing some sort of lead in. Is there an alternative text that could be used? Springee (talk) 15:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Seems like we could remove the "Despite its name" without changing the information imparted. What is the actual objection here? Bonewah (talk) 15:59, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- The reason for the clarification is unclear without it. Simply saying that PragerU is not an accredited academic institution is unclear: because they normally go by the shortened version of their name, a reader that is unfamiliar with the topic might be confused when we say that. Saying that "Despite the name, PragerU is not an accredited academic institution", or that Prager University is not a university, draws attention to the reason for the clarification. Loki (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think the clarification is unclear without it. "PragerU is not a university" vs "Despite it's name, PragerU is not a university" The first sentence is short but to the point. The second has a lead in (I generally like that) but it's ultimately no more informative and could be seen as trying to be pointy/scornful, an issue for IMPARTIAL. Springee (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- The reason for the clarification is unclear without it. Simply saying that PragerU is not an accredited academic institution is unclear: because they normally go by the shortened version of their name, a reader that is unfamiliar with the topic might be confused when we say that. Saying that "Despite the name, PragerU is not an accredited academic institution", or that Prager University is not a university, draws attention to the reason for the clarification. Loki (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I don't think the "Despite its name" phrasing is necessary or editorially favorable. VQuakr (talk) 19:27, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed "Despite its name" AKK700 19:52, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
I think you are seeing POV problems where there is none. "Despite its name, ..." is there to make the prose flow. ImTheIP (talk) 02:42, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
I agree with ImTheIP. The term "University" is indeed misleading Noteduck (talk) 03:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Concern about some of the Tripodi content
The article currently says of Tripodi that She also demonstrated an algorithmic connection on YouTube between PragerU, FoxNews, and alt-right personalities.
This is a reference to p. 46 of her report (which is cited in our article), where she says For example, Tripodi (2018) uses Candace Owens and James Damore as case studies to demonstrate the algorithmic connections between Fox News, PragerU, and “alt-right” YouTube personalities.
I have two concerns about this. First, are James Damore and Candace Owens really "alt-right" figures? That seems highly dubious to me. But more importantly, my second concern is: when she says that she used these "case studies" to "demonstrate" these "connections", she cites a 2018 paper she wrote in a venue (a journal?) called Points, but (i) I cannot find this 2018 paper, and (ii) she does not list it on her own website. I can't verify the claim, since the paper is apparently not available for us to read. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I think what part of you're looking for is on p. 36 of her report:
At the same time, Prager’s amplification strategy also regularly promotes the ideas of white nationalist thinkers, such as Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson, and Stefan Molyneux via the same networked strategies.
Loki (talk) 15:45, 26 January 2021 (UTC)- She again refers to her 2018 paper on that page in support of the point. I agree that she does assert that there's such a connection. But she does not "show" it in this report (as our article currently says); she simply claims to show it in apparently unpublished work from 2018. Shinealittlelight (talk) 15:50, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Shinealittlelight Candace Owens' extreme views are well-known and her praise of Hitler is particularly notorious - I recommend checking out this document[66]. Tripodi may well be referring to an unpublished conference manuscript. Tripodi's report has been extensively cited in the media and academia. Try to see past partisanship in this case Noteduck (talk) 21:13, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- We can't satisfy our verification policy with unpublished materials that are not available. The ADL source you've provided is critical of Owens, but does not identify her as a member of the alt-right. Please FOC and AGF. Shinealittlelight (talk) 22:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- very few people describe themselves as alt-right, and Owens' extreme views are well-known. Tripodi is referring to her own research as an academic, and as an academic expert you'd expert her to do so. Noteduck (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- I cannot verify what her "research" says in this case, as it is not publicly available. That's the main point here. I don't see you disputing that. Shinealittlelight (talk) 22:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- very few people describe themselves as alt-right, and Owens' extreme views are well-known. Tripodi is referring to her own research as an academic, and as an academic expert you'd expert her to do so. Noteduck (talk) 22:32, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
- Owens original comments were clearly taken out of the context she intended. The provided great fodder for political points but once she clarified what she meant the issue, in rational times, should have been dropped.[[67]] Of course that isn't how click bait politics works. Just ask Howard Dean about his scream. Springee (talk) 23:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)
Whether James Damore or Candance Owens are alt-right figures is irrelevant. Tripodi states that on YouTube there is an algorithmic connection between PragerU, FoxNews, and alt-right personalities. It is not up to us Wikipedias to decide whether that "actually" is true or not. ImTheIP (talk) 02:26, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Our verifiability policy requires that "people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source"
; in this case, Tripodi IS the reliable source. It's perfectly normal for an RS to cite information that's not publicly available for various reasons. –dlthewave ☎ 02:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- I'm not sure Tripodi should be viewed as a RS. It's more like a noted opinion. The Tripodi paper is not peer reviewed. It has weight because many have talked about it. I suspect some of that is because the paper seemed to fit a narrative that worked well for the media. Anyway, because the paper was widely discussed I would view it as having weight in a discussion. That doesn't mean we should treat it as a factual source. In general claims have been attributed to Tripodi so that hasn't been an issue. As a self published work I have wondered about using it to make claims that are not supported/discussed by RS discussing Tripodi's findings. Here is my thinking and perhaps it's overly Wiki-lawyering. Let's say Tripodi makes claims A, B and C. Claims A and B are discussed by RSs. Claim C is not. Claims A and B can clearly make it into an article since we just point to a RS to establishes the WEIGHT of those terms. What about C? Our normal policy is to treat unpublished academic work as self published (ie a paper that is say on a university lab website but not yet accepted for publication). Why would we treat the Tripodi work any differently? We don't have an independent review saying claim C is reasonable/adequately supported. Thinking back to my time in academia, I do have to ask, why didn't Tripodi publish this paper through the normal peer review channels? Perhaps this is the differences between more technical fields vs ones with popular/political appeal. Anyway, it's possible we can accept claim C based on the fact that the whole report is widely discussed (not sure how widely or in what form the report is cited in academic work). Anyway, we also should keep in mind that Tripodi's work seems more about how Youtube makes connections vs a truly reliable assessment of the individual channels in question. That Tripodi may have over scrutinized or claims a particular channel is more or less to the right than it really is doesn't necessarily negate the core conclusion about Youtube's recommendation algorithm. Springee (talk) 03:12, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- I 100% agree with ImTheIP that all that matters is what the source says, and not our personal opinions of Owens and Damore. I should not have raised that issue (though I also can't tell for sure that Tripodi is claiming that these two are alt-right). What the source says is that Tripodi (2018) is where Tripodi is supposed to have shown her "algorithmic connection" using certain "case studies". Does anyone have access to Tripodi (2018)? If not, it seems clear that we can't report this since it fails WP:V. Otherwise, are you really maintaining, ImTheIP, that we should rely on Tripodi (2018) without having it to check? Or maybe the idea is that we can report "Tripodi says that, in unpublished work, she has shown such and such"? Shinealittlelight (talk) 03:33, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- Tripodi claims in an RS (her study [68]) that there is an algorithmic connection between PragerU, FoxNews, and alt-right personalities. If you want to disqualify here study, I think you need a consensus on this talk page (which you don't have) or you need to go through the RSN. ImTheIP (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- No, Tripodi says
Tripodi (2018) uses Candace Owens and James Damore as case studies to demonstrate the algorithmic connections between Fox News, PragerU, and “alt-right” YouTube personalities.
So what we can claim on the basis of this is that Tripodi says she showed this in work that isn't public. Shinealittlelight (talk) 03:56, 27 January 2021 (UTC)- "Last year I demonstrated that the earth is flat." We can confidently say that not only does ImTheIP claim to have demonstrated that the earth is flat in 2020, they also believe that the earth is flat. Frankly, yours and Springee's objections are getting ridiculous. ImTheIP (talk) 05:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- Which specific objection of mine? While above I note a concern with using Tripodi as an independent source I don't actually see that I've suggested any specific additions or subtractions based on the work, only that we should keep in mind that the work is not peer reviewed. Springee (talk) 05:48, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- "Last year I demonstrated that the earth is flat." We can confidently say that not only does ImTheIP claim to have demonstrated that the earth is flat in 2020, they also believe that the earth is flat. Frankly, yours and Springee's objections are getting ridiculous. ImTheIP (talk) 05:11, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- No, Tripodi says
- Tripodi claims in an RS (her study [68]) that there is an algorithmic connection between PragerU, FoxNews, and alt-right personalities. If you want to disqualify here study, I think you need a consensus on this talk page (which you don't have) or you need to go through the RSN. ImTheIP (talk) 03:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Tripodi's report has 33 citations on Google Scholar[69] and her reported has been heavily cited in the media.[70][71][72][73] Drag it through RSN if you want, but this is clearly an RS. Noteduck (talk) 04:49, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
- I didn't say it wasn't RS. I said it is not the source where she allegedly establishes the claim about "algorithmic connection". Shinealittlelight (talk) 04:59, 27 January 2021 (UTC)
Alright, let's try to disentangle this. In the report we cite, Tripodi cites herself only twice: one work in 2017 titled "Fifty Shades of Consent?" in Feminist Media Studies, and one work in 2018 called "Mainstreaming the Extreme", in Points. (In addition, the report itself was published in 2018, so there's a possibility that this was a strange sort of recursive citation, which I won't consider further.)
- "Fifty Shades of Consent?" is fairly easy to find: it's here, and she in fact provides a link in the article. However, it doesn't seem to be the right topic, nor is it the right year, so we can discard this as a possibility.
- That means that, discarding the possibility that the report is citing itself, we must be talking about "Mainstreaming the Extreme". "Mainstreaming the Extreme" is much more difficult to find. On her website, she cites this same work as
Tripodi, Francesca (under contract) Mainstreaming the Extreme Yale University Press
, under "Books". The closest thing I've been able to find is this Medium article, which is on the same topic and published in the same year but is obviously not book length.
My ultimate conclusion here is that Tripodi 2018 exists but we do not have access to it. It's probably buried in a handful of university libraries. As several others have said, we generally trust sources that we believe to be reliable even if we don't have access to their underlying data, so this shouldn't concern us too much. Loki (talk) 05:23, 27 January 2021 (UTC)