On Sun, May 22, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

Hi all,

I'm not sure about the history of this article, but it it was recently brought to my attention via Facebook.

My take on this article is that it is an abuse of Wikipedia's notability guidelines. The article goes out of its way to cite lots of sources, but I do not believe that being mentioned in the mainstream media is both a necessary and sufficient condition for notability. In this particular case it sounds like someone with a lot of name recognition used that name recognition to get media attention for their smear campaign. This media attention was then used to justify a Wikipedia article. This is an excellent reductio ad absurdum case that brings a boundary condition of our notability guidelines to light. It is, quite frankly, manufactured notability and IMO it does deserve an article.

When you Google for Santorum's last name this Wikipedia article is the second result. This means that people who are looking for legitimate information about him are not going to find it right away - instead we are going to feed them information about a biased smear campaign rather than the former Senators BLP.

Please discuss.

-- Brian Mingus Graduate student Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab University of Colorado at Boulder

Yeh, it's nuts. I thought it was a hoax at first.

Fred

Oh no, not a hoax. Dan Savage is quite serious about it.

Whatever it is, it's correct in reporting that it's existence had a negative effect on Santorum's political career, and it's arguably sufficiently notable to keep if it derailed a potential credible presidential run.

On 23/05/2011 03:56, geni wrote:

On 23 May 2011 02:24, Brian J Mingusbrian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

When you Google for Santorum's last name this Wikipedia article is the second result. This means that people who are looking for legitimate information about him are not going to find it right away - instead we are going to feed them information about a biased smear campaign rather than the former Senators BLP.

Google's search results are entirely their business.

Yes, I agree with that comment. As Google are aware, people try to game their "algorithm"; and their business model requires them to take action on that. Not our problem at all.

The business of neologisms on WP was actually put into "How Wikipedia Works" (Chapter 7, "A Deletion Case Study"). At that time the example to hand was of the buzzword type, and the question was apparently whether WP's duty was to keep people informed of new jargon, or to be more distanced and only include a new term when it was clearly well established.

To be a bit more nuanced about this instance: if there is a dimension in that article of a BLP, certain things follow at least at the margin about use of sources. And NPOV clearly requires that a successful campaign to "discredit" someone is reported in those terms. Here there is a fine line between "mockery" and "smear", and saying the latter by default omits the element of satire. In other words, there are people who take US domestic politics very seriously, and media stories very seriously (I think enWP tends to take the media as a whole too seriously, BTW, which is the media's estimation of itself) , and regard Google now as part of the media, and so come to the sort of conclusion that Brian does.

OTOH we have our mission, and our policies, and should do our job. I'm prepared to take the flak if our pages contribute to information (i.e. report within NPOV) on a "biased smear campaign" (or satirical googlebombing, whatever you prefer); as long as our article is not biased, and is not campaigning. Bear in mind that the COI is supposed to limit the use of enWP for activism of certain kinds. We do have the policies to prevent misuse of our pages.

Charles

Charles

On 23/05/2011 03:56, geni wrote:

...

On 23 May 2011 02:24, Brian J Mingusbrian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

When you Google for Santorum's last name this Wikipedia article is the second result. This means that people who are looking for legitimate information about him are not going to find it right away - instead we are going to feed them information about a biased smear campaign rather than the former Senators BLP.

Google's search results are entirely their business.

Yes, I agree with that comment. As Google are aware, people try to game their "algorithm"; and their business model requires them to take action on that. Not our problem at all.

The business of neologisms on WP was actually put into "How Wikipedia Works" (Chapter 7, "A Deletion Case Study"). At that time the example to hand was of the buzzword type, and the question was apparently whether WP's duty was to keep people informed of new jargon, or to be more distanced and only include a new term when it was clearly well established.

To be a bit more nuanced about this instance: if there is a dimension in that article of a BLP, certain things follow at least at the margin about use of sources. And NPOV clearly requires that a successful campaign to "discredit" someone is reported in those terms. Here there is a fine line between "mockery" and "smear", and saying the latter by default omits the element of satire. In other words, there are people who take US domestic politics very seriously, and media stories very seriously (I think enWP tends to take the media as a whole too seriously, BTW, which is the media's estimation of itself) , and regard Google now as part of the media, and so come to the sort of conclusion that Brian does.

OTOH we have our mission, and our policies, and should do our job. I'm prepared to take the flak if our pages contribute to information (i.e. report within NPOV) on a "biased smear campaign" (or satirical googlebombing, whatever you prefer); as long as our article is not biased, and is not campaigning. Bear in mind that the COI is supposed to limit the use of enWP for activism of certain kinds. We do have the policies to prevent misuse of our pages.

Charles

Charles

This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

Fred

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:54 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:

On 23/05/2011 13:35, Fred Bauder wrote:

...

This seems to combine malice and political purpose. Really it is stuff that belonged on Encyclopedia Dramatica.

I take it Fred means "this article" or "this campaign": if the latter that's obvious enough. Given a mainstream piece of coverage such as http://swampland.time.com/2011/05/17/please-do-not-google-the-name-of-this-u... from a few days ago, I wonder if the article is really out of step.

Charles

There is a big difference between "This name-based neologism is offensive and derogatory" and "This name-based neologism is offensive and derogatory, but politicially and socially significant".

It's neither our doing or fault that the neologism has become significant in some areas of society and has had a noticeable and noticed effect on Santorum's potential future political career. Failing to cover it would be an error of judgement on our part, and quite frankly if we removed it we'd probably stir up enough negative controversy related to censorship that his name would be dragged through the mud worse than it already has been.

Santorum himself seems to have a decent level of understanding that the phenomena is out of his control and not something he should try to suppress, despite being personally offended.

We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it accurately. Many of the things we report on are unfortunate. An IMF candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89 plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the neologism Santorum pale in comparison.

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:

that the situation with Twitter and a UK footballer

I was looking at the wrong article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_British_super-injunction_controversy

This one is more specific:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CTB_v_News_Group_Newspapers

Carcharoth

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:47 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

...

Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid

<snip>

Candidate? Last I looked, he was Managing Director of the IMF at the time the story broke (he is now former head).

Braino on my part. Yes, he was the IMF Managing Director.

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 4:47 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

Santorum himself seems to have a decent level of understanding that the phenomena is out of his control and not something he should try to suppress, despite being personally offended.

I suppose he could change his name? To his mother's maiden name or something. Apparently Ryan Giggs was born Ryan Joseph Wilson. Something I never realised before. Giggs is his mother's maiden name.

Fred, thanks for pointing out the thread on foundation-l.

Carcharoth

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

We don't exist to fix the real world - we exist to report on it accurately.  Many of the things we report on are unfortunate.  An IMF candidate who alledgedly raped a hotel maid, a tornado that killed 89 plus people, a terrorist attack in Pakistan and several ongoing and incipient wars, these are other unfortunate things that make the neologism Santorum pale in comparison.

-- -george william herbert

I think you miss the point. Malice can make even publication of true information about a public figure actionable. Participation of a nonprofit corporation in political activity poses problems. I'm not sure what happened here but we need to look at it carefully and evaluate our level of participation in creation and dissemination of this "word".

The word was created in its neologistic sense, propogated, and became popular / infamous without Wikipedia's help. Google was a large part, and blogging, but we really weren't.

I don't discount that Wikipedia is at times used promotionally, sometimes with negative BLP impacts, but in this case it was a real world phenomenon not something driven by WP editors. The article seems balanced to me, particularly presenting Santorum's objections in a responsible and reasonably positive light.

On May 23, 2011, at 7:58 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:

--- On Mon, 23/5/11, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:

...

From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com

...

...

On 23 May 2011 02:24, Brian J Mingusbrian.mingus@colorado.edu

wrote:

...

...

When you Google for Santorum's last name this

Wikipedia article is the

...

...

second result. This means that people who are

looking for legitimate

...

...

information about him are not going to find it

right away - instead we are

...

...

going to feed them information about a biased

smear campaign rather than the

...

...

former Senators BLP.

Google's search results are entirely their business.

Yes, I agree with that comment. As Google are aware, people try to game their "algorithm"; and their business model requires them to take action on that. Not our problem at all.

The business of neologisms on WP was actually put into "How Wikipedia Works" (Chapter 7, "A Deletion Case Study"). At that time the example to hand was of the buzzword type, and the question was apparently whether WP's duty was to keep people informed of new jargon, or to be more distanced and only include a new term when it was clearly well established.

To be a bit more nuanced about this instance: if there is a dimension in that article of a BLP, certain things follow at least at the margin about use of sources. And NPOV clearly requires that a successful campaign to "discredit" someone is reported in those terms. Here there is a fine line between "mockery" and "smear", and saying the latter by default omits the element of satire. In other words, there are people who take US domestic politics very seriously, and media stories very seriously (I think enWP tends to take the media as a whole too seriously, BTW, which is the media's estimation of itself) , and regard Google now as part of the media, and so come to the sort of conclusion that Brian does.

OTOH we have our mission, and our policies, and should do our job. I'm prepared to take the flak if our pages contribute to information (i.e. report within NPOV) on a "biased smear campaign" (or satirical googlebombing, whatever you prefer); as long as our article is not biased, and is not campaigning. Bear in mind that the COI is supposed to limit the use of enWP for activism of certain kinds. We do have the policies to prevent misuse of our pages.

Charles

We discussed this a couple of days ago at our meet-up. I agree with some of the other comments made here that this blurs and crosses the line between reporting and participation.

I have no sympathy for Santorum or his views. But based on past experience, I also have little confidence that the main author's motivation in expanding the article is anything other than political. They've created puff pieces on politicians before (as well as hatchet jobs), in the service of outside political agendas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Dickson (later deleted as a puff piece of a non-notable politician, but only after the election, in which he was said to have done surprisingly well)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Peralta

Andreas

I think this is an excellent analysis. I too have little sympathy for Santorum, but it strikes me that this neologism would have no real- world notability if it wasn't attached to Santorum's name. In any other circumstance, a concept or neologism that has no notability outside of a larger, overarching concept would be relegated to a decently sized portion of the main article. Here, it's been given its own article, seemingly to make a political point.

I see that as the main thrust of the argument, not to delete, but to merge this back where it belongs-as an embarrassing but largely non- notable (in and of itself) episode of Rick Santorum's larger career. Before anyone says no, can they honestly answer the question "Would this word have deserved an article without co-opting the name of a major celebrity?" with a yes? If so, I'm wrong. But I don't believe a reasonable person can.

Moreover, it is disingenuous to suggest that we can sit on our hands and pretend that our handling of this issue does not have broader implications on the standing of Wikipedia in the world. If we begin to be seen as a "media outlet" (that description being accurate or no is a discussion for a later time) that actively participates in lending undue weight to juvenile retribution, we're going to lose our claim to neutrality quickly. As it is, I think we need to (deliberately, there's no need for haste and conspiracy) start trimming this article to a reasonable size and merge it into Rick Santorum's article, in order to give it the larger context that the higher calling of fairness deserves.

I believe that's the responsibility of Wikipedia, and I'd urge other editors, regardless of your politics (because I know most of us would probably not consider voting for the man, but that's immaterial) to consider the argument here and agree. If so, I'll be happy to take this discussion to the talk page, where we can iron out a way to do this without doing a disservice to our commitment to impartiality.

Chromancer

Yes, let's replace our elite judgment for that of everyone else.

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:27 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

--- On Tue, 24/5/11, GmbH gmbh0000@gmail.com wrote:

...

From: GmbH gmbh0000@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]] To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Tuesday, 24 May, 2011, 1:11

On May 23, 2011, at 7:58 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:

...

...

We discussed this a couple of days ago at our meet-up.

I agree with

...

some of the other comments made here that this blurs and

crosses the line

...

between reporting and participation.

I have no sympathy for Santorum or his views. But

based on past

...

experience, I also have little confidence that the main author's

motivation in

...

expanding the article is anything other than political. They've

created puff

...

pieces on politicians before (as well as hatchet jobs), in the

service of

...

outside political agendas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Dickson (later

deleted as a

...

puff piece of a non-notable politician, but only after the

election, in which

...

he was said to have done surprisingly well)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Peralta

Andreas

I think this is an excellent analysis. I too have little sympathy for Santorum, but it strikes me that this neologism would have no real- world notability if it wasn't attached to Santorum's name. In any other circumstance, a concept or neologism that has no notability outside of a larger, overarching concept would be relegated to a decently sized portion of the main article. Here, it's been given its own article, seemingly to make a political point.

I see that as the main thrust of the argument, not to delete, but to merge this back where it belongs-as an embarrassing but largely non- notable (in and of itself) episode of Rick Santorum's larger career. Before anyone says no, can they honestly answer the question "Would this word have deserved an article without co-opting the name of a major celebrity?" with a yes? If so, I'm wrong. But I don't believe a reasonable person can.

Moreover, it is disingenuous to suggest that we can sit on our hands and pretend that our handling of this issue does not have broader implications on the standing of Wikipedia in the world. If we begin to be seen as a "media outlet" (that description being accurate or no is a discussion for a later time) that actively participates in lending undue weight to juvenile retribution, we're going to lose our claim to neutrality quickly. As it is, I think we need to (deliberately, there's no need for haste and conspiracy) start trimming this article to a reasonable size and merge it into Rick Santorum's article, in order to give it the larger context that the higher calling of fairness deserves.

I believe that's the responsibility of Wikipedia, and I'd urge other editors, regardless of your politics (because I know most of us would probably not consider voting for the man, but that's immaterial) to consider the argument here and agree. If so, I'll be happy to take this discussion to the talk page, where we can iron out a way to do this without doing a disservice to our commitment to impartiality.

Chromancer

Well, as of today, [[Santorum (neologism)]] has taken over the no. 1 AND 2 spots in the Google results for "Santorum". Both the old and new article title appear, in spots 1 and 2.

It's even overtaken the original Googlebomb site set up by Savage, which is now back in fourth place. To wit:

Santorum (neologism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_(neologism)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_%28neologism%29- Cached

Santorum (sexual neologism) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_(sexual_neologism)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorum_%28sexual_neologism%29- Cached - Similar

Rick Santorum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Richard John "Rick" Santorum (born May 10, 1958) is a former United States ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum - Cached - Similar

Santorum www.spreadingsantorum.com/ - Cached - Similar

I've no idea how the Wikipedia article manages to get itself represented twice, with two different titles (one of which redirects to the other). Personally, I think redirecting the thing to Santorum's BLP and covering it there would be the "encyclopedic" thing to do.

The comparison to Bowdlerise, Orwellian etc. is IMO unrealistic. Those neologisms have stood the test of time, and have been used un-consciously in prose. "Santorum" is a conscious joke word.

Andreas

---

WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

Yes, let's replace our elite judgment for that of everyone else.

You've got one word right, "our". You are responsible for this.

No, he (and we) are not. Dan Savage is responsible for this.

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 11:21 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:

On 24/05/2011 18:49, George Herbert wrote:

...

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Fred Bauderfredbaud@fairpoint.net  wrote:

...

...

Yes, let's replace our elite judgment for that of everyone else.

You've got one word right, "our". You are responsible for this.

No, he (and we) are not.  Dan Savage is responsible for this.

Right - and an egregious case of bullying it is, based on a distinctive surname. (Fred's comparison with ED is not off-beam, just missing the point IMO.) I'm clear that, in human terms, I have a low opinion of it. If our article doesn't give the data that would make it possible to come up with an informed opinion on Savage's campaign on that level, then it is failing. Too much to ask whether it could do the same on the issues of whether this kind of campaigning actually changes minds, or discredits freedom of speech, etc. These things are more interesting, when it comes down to it, but constraints on OR mean the article is really just a compilation of quotes from journalism.

I don't know that it's been reviewed in analytical terms at that level. It's so offensive on one level that academics and political commentators seem to just shy away from it rather than addressing the rather deep "Hey, what does this say about society/politics/etc".

If that exists then it almost certainly should be covered in the article. I am not aware that it does, but this is outside my core areas of competence (though I was pretty aware of it when it started).

--- On Tue, 24/5/11, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

I don't know that it's been reviewed in analytical terms at that level.  It's so offensive on one level that academics and political commentators seem to just shy away from it rather than addressing the rather deep "Hey, what does this say about society/politics/etc".

There is some academic analysis of this sort in

Value war: public opinion and the politics of gay rights By Paul Ryan Brewer

Pages 80ff, especially the chapter "The rewards and risks of signaling" starting on page 81 (covering the rewards and risks for political actors signaling their stance on gay issues to the electorate). Unfortunately, I can't see the relevant page in Google Books, and amazon has no preview.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=U34pJTdF-VcC&pg=PA81&dq=%22The+Re...

The work is actually cited in the article, but only for the "frothy mixture" quote.

Andreas

Huh?

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 12:44 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.netwrote:

...

Yes, let's replace our elite judgment for that of everyone else.

You've got one word right, "our". You are responsible for this.

Fred

---

WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

--- On Tue, 24/5/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net

...

I've no idea how the Wikipedia article manages to get

itself represented

...

twice, with two different titles (one of which

redirects to the other).

...

Personally, I think redirecting the thing to

Santorum's BLP and covering

...

it there would be the "encyclopedic" thing to do.

The comparison to Bowdlerise, Orwellian etc. is IMO

unrealistic. Those

...

neologisms have stood the test of time, and have been

used un-consciously

...

in prose. "Santorum" is a conscious joke word.

Andreas

Well, too much. I'm on-board for fighting fascism, but not using Wikipedia as a vehicle. We need to have a policy discussion on-wiki about this.

I've been actually reading the sources cited; this is interesting and useful information, but needs to be handled more appropriately by both Wikipedia and Google. We need to bring the creator, and protector, of the article into the discussion too.

As was just pointed out to me on the article talk page, the article has survived three AfDs. Since the last one in December last year, however, it has grown from about 1500 words to 4800, as well as having captured the two top spots in Google.

[[Santorum controversy]] covers the same ground as well.

We do come across as just a *bit* partial here.

Andreas

I'm skeptical that we should have an article.

The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet. If Wikipedia has an article about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation. It's a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

This brings to mind GNAA. GNAA is a troll group who intentionally gave themselves an offensive name so that even mentioning them helped them troll. Wikipedia had a hard time getting rid of the article about them, because we can't say "by using their name, we're helping their goals" in deciding whether to have an article. It was finally deleted by stretching the notability rules instead.

And in a related question, I'd ask: Should we have an article "Richard Gere gerbil rumor"? (As long as our article describes the rumor as debunked, of course--otherwise we would be directly violating BLP.) Some of the justifications for that and for this sound similar.

On Mon, 23 May 2011, The Cunctator wrote:

...

The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet. If Wikipedia has an article about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation. It's a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

I agree. Let's remove all content on Wikipedia about the Internet.

"Is about the Internet" and "is mainly an Internet promotional campaign" aren't the same thing.

Someone might write a book and want it promoted on the Internet, but the fact that it's being promoted on the Internet is way down on the list of important facts about that book.

On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 21:56, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:

The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If Wikipedia has an article about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation.  It's a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

(Warning: POV ahead.)

Using that logic, we should probably shut down every page on WP about politics, religion, alternative medicine and anything even vaguely controversial. There are factions within those movements or groups who stand to benefit from people knowing less rather than more about them. The Church of Scientology would probably object on the same lines as you have that the mere existence of the article "Xenu" can never be neutral because they would rather there not be an article at all. Our effect is to make Scientology seem more ridiculous to outsiders.

Similarly, there are probably Pentecostalist movements who would rather people not read the sections of the article on "Glossolalia" about how linguists and neuroscientists have studied people speaking in tongues and found that they aren't actually speaking a language with any actual semantic structure but rather a "meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance, believed by the speaker to be a real language but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead". By including this material, we are in effect biased against movements who would rather people knew less about the scientific underpinnings (or rather lack thereof) of an impressive-looking religious practice.

A great many people when asked their views on homeopathy think it is basically a form of herbal medicine. There are undoubtedly homeopaths who financially benefit from this confusion and are quite happy that people associate their extremely dubious pseudoscience with herbal medicine, which is basically a ragtag bag of stuff that does and does not work (the stuff that does work often becomes known simply as 'medicine').

In general, there are a lot of fields where people use and benefit from other people's ignorance.

Neutrality isn't an excuse for ensuring inconvenient material doesn't turn up on Google search results because it might be biased.

A reductio ad absurdum: imagine there is a voter who intends to vote purely based on some very arbitrary property of a political candidate like, say, the colour of their suit. Most informed people would say that this is a poor use of one's vote and one is not living up to one's moral duties to make an informed and meaningful decision about policy with one's vote. In order to enforce this kind of outcomes-based neutrality, should we remove all photographs of candidates on Wikipedia in the run up to elections in order to encourage people to vote based on policy rather than appearance. And what if there is a candidate who is specifically trying to benefit from being aesthetically pleasing? Should we make his picture bigger to ensure the race is fair?

Determining neutrality on the basis of outcome could have such perverse consequences for article policy that it really seems like a tough row to hoe.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 23:57, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:

If there weren't any anti-scientology campaigners spreading the word about Xenu, we'd still have a reason to have an article about Xenu.  If there was no anti-Santorum campaign, we'd have no reason for the article--its entire existence depends directly on that campaign.

Yes, but there *is* such a campaign.

If there weren't a tea party movement, we wouldn't have an article on the tea party movement.

But there is. So we do.

If there weren't a neologism named after Mr. Santorum, there wouldn't be an article on it.

But there is. So we do.

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 1:19 AM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

No question the subject is notable. The question is how to handle it appropriately.

Think outside the box and merge it to the article on Dan Savage?

One criticism I have of the article on the neologism is that the "background" section is too long. In fact, the whole article is too long. It is a blow-by-blow account and I suspect not many readers make it to the end of the article. Reading the lead section is sufficient.

Carcharoth

--- On Mon, 23/5/11, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:

From: Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]] To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, 23 May, 2011, 21:56 I'm skeptical that we should have an article.

The reason: Wikipedia is on the Internet.  If Wikipedia has an article about something whose promoter specifically intends to spread it on the Internet, it is impossible to separate reporting from participation.  It's a loophole in the definition of neutrality that doing things which help one side of a dispute doesn't break neutrality, simply because our intentions are neutral--even though our effects are not.

This brings to mind GNAA.  GNAA is a troll group who intentionally gave themselves an offensive name so that even mentioning them helped them troll. Wikipedia had a hard time getting rid of the article about them, because we can't say "by using their name, we're helping their goals" in deciding whether to have an article.  It was finally deleted by stretching the notability rules instead.

And in a related question, I'd ask: Should we have an article "Richard Gere gerbil rumor"?  (As long as our article describes the rumor as debunked, of course--otherwise we would be directly violating BLP.) Some of the justifications for that and for this sound similar.

It's a good comparison. There are plenty of "reliable sources" to satisfy notability:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%...

We could summarise all of these, neutrally, in an article, quoting four dozen journalists on the controversy.

However, we shouldn't. (No doubt someone will start an article now, and knowing Wikipedia, it will probably make DYK and GA. Ah well.)

Interested readers are directed to:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/celebrities/a/richard_gere.htm

As well as our very own:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerbilling

Andreas

On 23/05/2011, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

Google's search results are entirely their business.

Actually not entirely, we do have quite a bit of control.

In an absolute worse case we could noindex the entire article (I'm not suggesting it, in fact I strongly recommend against it).

But google pay attention to how many articles link to it, and there's an enormous 'political neologism' template at the end of the article, which makes them all mutually link.

I can't estimate how much link juice that pushes into the article, but it may well be substantial, there's probably relatively few Wikipedia articles that link to the term otherwise, terms don't usually get that many links, but I don't know how many external links in there are, or how much link juice they supply.

There is probably a reasonably strong argument for nofollowing internal 'link farms' like that, I don't see that one term should inherit another's link juice, but I couldn't see any obvious way to nofollow internal links when I checked briefly.

-- geni

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:

From: Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]] To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 7:53 On 23/05/2011, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

...

Google's search results are entirely their business.

Actually not entirely, we do have quite a bit of control.

In an absolute worse case we could noindex the entire article (I'm not suggesting it, in fact I strongly recommend against it).

But google pay attention to how many articles link to it, and there's an enormous 'political neologism' template at the end of the article, which makes them all mutually link.

I can't estimate how much link juice that pushes into the article, but it may well be substantial, there's probably relatively few Wikipedia articles that link to the term otherwise, terms don't usually get that many links, but I don't know how many external links in there are, or how much link juice they supply.

There is probably a reasonably strong argument for nofollowing internal 'link farms' like that, I don't see that one term should inherit another's link juice, but I couldn't see any obvious way to nofollow internal links when I checked briefly.

Okay, now we are getting somewhere. There are actually three templates at the bottom of the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Dan_Savage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Political_neologisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sexual_slang

The sexual slang one in particular is massive, listing more than 100 terms.

These templates are all new creations by Cirt, the Santorum article's main author. They were created between 10 and 15 May, shortly after Santorum announced he might run for President, and then added to all the other articles listed in the templates, thus creating a couple of hundred incoming links, and enhancing the article's Google ranking.

Now, *that's using Wikipedia for political campaigning.*

By the way, Cirt's GA articles include this highly flattering portrait of a gay porn company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbin_Fisher

Andreas

You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume Good Faith.

This is starting to feel like something that should be dealt with by interested parties engaging with each other, rather than researching on wiki-en.

There is a on-wiki discussion and there will be more, but this:

By the way, Cirt's GA articles include this highly flattering portrait of a gay porn company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbin_Fisher

is probably not a good direction to go in.

Fred

On 25/05/2011 15:23, Ian Woollard wrote:

On 25/05/2011, Andreas Kolbejayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

...

Okay, now we are getting somewhere. These templates are all new creations by Cirt, the Santorum article's main author. They were created between 10 and 15 May, shortly after Santorum announced he might run for President, and then added to all the other articles listed in the templates, thus creating a couple of hundred incoming links, and enhancing the article's Google ranking.

Now, *that's using Wikipedia for political campaigning.*

To be fair, we don't actually know it's having any effect at all, and it could be *lowering* the ranking for the article by sending its juice off to other articles around, averaging and diluting it down.

My point was only that we probably shouldn't be doing anything, even accidentally, that would be likely to change its link juice over what it naturally gets. If it's fairly naturally at the top of the google listings, and we haven't done anything odd, then that's perfectly fine.

As I said earlier in the thread, COI is possibly relevant here. Also the issue of whether a template should contain a certain linked entry, or not, is a legitimate discussion. "Slang" doesn't usually mean "words somebody thinks ought to be slang", but actual street language.

The alleged SEO is, I still think, primarily the problem of those running search engines. I can see that its discussion is a bit more complex than that if you include: giving a stick to those who want one to beat WP with; and alerting Google (and others) to the way our link "agriculture" might have artificial elements.

Charles

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net

I don't want to get that clever, to the point that we take into account that even talking about the article on this list might affect ranking. What is needed is to improve the article; it is about a political act, not about lube.

If it's about the political act, it should be covered under [[Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality]].

Linguistically -- the term has been included in one dictionary, and in one book on neologisms. Some erotic books have used it (and we have gleefully included full quotes from each in the article's references:

"She wads up the t-shirt, uses it to wipe a trickle of santorum from her ass, and throws it under the cot."

"Mark fucked his wife with slow, sure strokes that seemed to the panting Valerie to penetrate her more deeply than ever before. At each descent of the pouncing big prick into her sanctum santorum, Valerie thrust upward with all her strength until the velvety surfaces of her rotund naked buttocks swung clear of the bed"

"Then, one of them broke ranks and rammed his blood-lubed fist straight up my ass and twisted hard, pulled it out and licked the santorum clean.")

Is that enough for linguistic notability? Perhaps enough for a Wiktionary entry, but a whole article, on bona-fide *linguistic*, encyclopedic grounds?

As for the template use:

Including the term in *both* the sexual slang template and the political neologisms template, both custom-created for the occasion, seems a stretch to me.

It is not a "political neologism", rightfully listed along with terms like

Adopt a Highway • Afrocentrism • "And" theory of conservatism • Big government • Chairman • Checkbook diplomacy • Children's interests • Collaborationism • Conviction politics • Cordon sanitaire • Cricket test • Democide • Dhimmitude • Eco-terrorism • Epistemocracy • Eurocentrism • Eurorealism • Euroscepticism • Eurosphere • Failed state • etc.

in a 100-term template, causing it to appear in all of those articles.

Listing it in the sexual slang template, based on less than a dozen appearances in print as an actual word -- as opposed to reporting about Dan Savage's campaign -- is a closer call, but still debatable.

I don't like Santorum either, and sorry to be a spoil-sport, but it's unworthy of Wikipedia.

Andreas

Let's just delete articles we don't like. It would simplify the wikilawyering.

Another straw man argument.

Fred

I'm not surprised that a Wikipedia article shoots to the top of Google searches, isn't that one of the reasons why we write here? I'm pretty sure I've seen Wikipedia articles come top on Google even if they lack templates and are practically orphans.

Nor am I surprised that someone who writes an article then goes and creates associated templates. I don't do much with templates but I have a similar editing pattern - I was in the British Museum for the Hoxne Hoard challenge and wound up contributing a number of edits to articles about the sorts of spoons that were in the hoard.

I am concerned at the risk of the mailing list degenerating into some sort of back channel and disrupting the wiki. People using it for off wiki complaints about an AFD and criticism of individual wikipedians who may not be subscribing to this list is in my view unhealthy.

Have any of the people expressing disquiet about that editor notified them of this thread?

WereSpielChequers

On 25 May 2011 19:51, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:

...

Let's just delete articles we don't like. It would simplify the wikilawyering.

You see, I question whether if fulfils any encyclopedic (rather than Googlebombing) purpose to list "santorum" in a nav template of 100 political neologisms, and you come back with quips like that, and accuse people of wikilawyering (while exhorting me to Assume Good Faith, in capital letters: "You are ascribing motive to Cirt's activities. Assume Good Faith.").

Incidentally, I just noticed the following conversation on the political neologisms template's talk page:

---o0o---

==Shouldn't this be a category?==

I'm not sure what the purpose of this is. Why would anyone looking at (say) Euroscepticism want to navigate to an article about Soccer mom? Surely, this is why categories were invented. Bastin 08:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

:It is most useful as a template. And yes, linguists and political scholars would indeed wish to navigate through these articles. -- Cirt (talk) 08:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

::They're completely unrelated terms. Why would you have a template on 'words invented since 1973'? Bastin 09:31, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

:::Because they are of interest to those studying the subject matter from the perspective of many different varied fields. -- Cirt (talk) 15:27, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms

---o0o---

"Most useful". A category doesn't add any in-bound links. And that was the end of that conversation.

Andreas

...

On 5/25/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

...

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net

wrote:

...

...

From: Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net

...

I don't want to get that clever, to the point that

we take

...

...

into account that even talking about the article on this list

might

...

...

affect ranking. What is needed is to improve the article; it is

about a

...

...

political act, not about lube.

If it's about the political act, it should be covered

under [[Santorum

...

controversy regarding homosexuality]].

Linguistically -- the term has been included in one

dictionary, and in one

...

book on neologisms. Some erotic books have used it

(and we have gleefully

...

included full quotes from each in the article's

references:

...

"She wads up the t-shirt, uses it to wipe a trickle of

santorum from her

...

ass, and throws it under the cot."

"Mark fucked his wife with slow, sure strokes that

seemed to the panting

...

Valerie to penetrate her more deeply than ever before.

At each descent of

...

the pouncing big prick into her sanctum santorum,

Valerie thrust upward with

...

all her strength until the velvety surfaces of her

rotund naked buttocks

...

swung clear of the bed"

"Then, one of them broke ranks and rammed his

blood-lubed fist straight up

...

my ass and twisted hard, pulled it out and licked the

santorum clean.")

...

Is that enough for linguistic notability? Perhaps

enough for a Wiktionary

...

entry, but a whole article, on bona-fide *linguistic*,

encyclopedic grounds?

...

As for the template use:

Including the term in *both* the sexual slang template

and the political

...

neologisms template, both custom-created for the

occasion, seems a stretch

...

to me.

It is not a "political neologism", rightfully listed

along with terms like

...

Adopt a Highway • Afrocentrism • "And" theory of

conservatism • Big

...

government • Chairman • Checkbook diplomacy •

Children's interests •

...

Collaborationism • Conviction politics • Cordon

sanitaire • Cricket test •

...

Democide • Dhimmitude • Eco-terrorism •

Epistemocracy • Eurocentrism •

...

Eurorealism • Euroscepticism • Eurosphere •

Failed state • etc.

...

in a 100-term template, causing it to appear in all of

those articles.

...

Listing it in the sexual slang template, based on less

than a dozen

...

appearances in print as an actual word -- as opposed

to reporting about

...

Dan Savage's campaign -- is a closer call, but still

debatable.

...

I don't like Santorum either, and sorry to be a

spoil-sport, but it's

...

unworthy of Wikipedia.

Andreas

---

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---

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---

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On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't aware of it.

As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem though: to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather than neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is likely to come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to promote political or social campaigns.

There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an essay.

Andreas

I completely disagree with the direction of this thread that this was some sort of hit piece by Cirt on Santorum.

When this started I re-read the article and found it neutral and presenting Santorum's reaction to the situation in a reasonable and thoughtful manner.

Dan Savage is certainly playing activist here - the claim that Cirt was is not supported, and not in good faith.

With all due respect, Fred, I believe the article either complied or came very close to complying with WP policy when this discussion started here.

Your opinion that it did not has been communicated, but you do not have consensus that there is in fact a problem requiring being solved here.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 12:48 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

...

I've dropped Cirt a note and link to this thread, in case they weren't aware of it.

As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a wider problem though: to what extent we as a project are happy to act as participants, rather than neutral observers and reporters, in the political process.

I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as anything else is likely to come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue* efforts to promote political or social campaigns.

There is little in present policy to address this. WP:Activist is an essay.

Andreas

I completely disagree with the direction of this thread that this was some sort of hit piece by Cirt on Santorum.

When this started I re-read the article and found it neutral and presenting Santorum's reaction to the situation in a reasonable and thoughtful manner.

Dan Savage is certainly playing activist here - the claim that Cirt was is not supported, and not in good faith.

-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

The matter can be resolved by editing which conforms the article to Wikipedia policies.

Fred

---

WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

With all due respect, Fred, I believe the article either complied or came very close to complying with WP policy when this discussion started here.

Your opinion that it did not has been communicated, but you do not have consensus that there is in fact a problem requiring being solved here.

Discussion on a mailing list cannot overturn long established Wikipedia policy. WP:NOT

Again - you do not have consensus (here or there) that it violates the policy.

We know YOU (and Andreas) are offended, but you're generalizing that your interpretation is and must be correct.

That's not how consensus works.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 2:34 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

...

From: George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

...

Again - you do not have consensus (here or there) that it violates the policy.

We know YOU (and Andreas) are offended, but you're generalizing that your interpretation is and must be correct.

That's not how consensus works.

I'm not actually *offended*, George. I just think it's political activism, and I know Cirt has done that sort of thing several times before.

If it were a first-time occurrence, I might write it off.

Andreas

Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:21 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:

...

Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

Having an article that associates someone with human waste be "reasonably balanced" is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably balanced. The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced; it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many disclaimers we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

You are conflating the term (which associates someone with human waste) and our coverage of the term (which describes the term, descriptively, historically, and cultural and political contexts).

Our coverage of the term is NPOV and balanced, in my opinion.

You seem to wish that the term did not exist. That's a fair wish, but not relevant to Wikipedia. What's relevant to Wikipedia is that it does exist, has numerous reliable sources, has had real-world impact, and therefore is at least arguably notable and an appropriate subject for a WP article.

We cannot fix the fact that the term exists and was damaging to Mr. Santorum. Censoring Wikipedia to attempt to right wrongs done in the real world is rather explicitly Not the Point.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 3:29 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

George,

Can you please address a couple of points that I believe have been brought up in this thread. You may want to read the previous emails that more clearly elucidated the points first, or not. They are as follows:

1. This term deserves a Wiktionary entry at best, not a Wikipedia entry.

2. Wikipedia is being used as a platform to damage Santorum.

Thanks,

Brian

I don't agree with either statement.

The event (Savage coming up with the term, the effects on Santorum) is notable. It's covered in reliable sources. The word itself would be a Wiktionary entry, but the incident overall is Wikipedia.

We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not causing it. Our reporting is not making it better, but neither is it making it worse. The damage was done by Savage and others and was widespread long before the article here.

We do not censor topics that are damaging to individuals just because they are damaging. They have to be notable and covered in a NPOV way for us to cover them, but this passes both tests.

--- On Thu, 26/5/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

From: Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com

...

From: George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

...

I don't agree with either statement.

The event (Savage coming up with the term, the effects

on

...

Santorum) is notable.  It's covered in reliable sources.  The word itself would be a Wiktionary entry, but the incident overall is

Wikipedia.

...

We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not

causing

...

it.  Our reporting is not making it better, but neither is it

making

...

it worse. The damage was done by Savage and others and was

widespread

...

long before the article here.

We do not censor topics that are damaging to

individuals

...

just because they are damaging.  They have to be notable and covered in a NPOV way for us to cover them, but this passes both tests.

You may be forgetting that we have an article on [[Santorum controversy regarding homosexuality]]. That's notable. The term, linguistically, is not. It's in one slang dictionary, and one book on neologisms.

As a matter of fact, it would help Wikipedia if the article were retitled, [[Dan Savage Google-bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]].

Andreas

--- On Thu, 26/5/11, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

From: George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

The Santorum controversy...  article has 2 sentences on Savage and the neologism, no coverage of the consequences on Santorum's career, Santorum's comments regarding it, or critical or academic coverage of the incident.

That by itself approximates sweeping it under the rug, which will not fly.

If you want to propose a content merge of those two articles that's not grossly offensive to my sensibilities, as long as it actually merges the content and is not an excuse to delete one of the two articles.

Retitling might not be a bad idea if it lessens the google focus. That's not grossly offensive to my sensibilities.  Not sure that it would actually work.

Well, [[Dan Savage Google bomb campaign against Rick Santorum]] could be a sub-article of [[Santorum controversy on homosexuality]]. That's essentially what the article is, at any rate. An exceptionally detailed article on Savage's campaign. It's not an article on a word.  I could live with that. I don't think it would bring Wikipedia into potential disrepute, or open the project up to charges of partiality in quite the same way. Andreas

On Wed, 25 May 2011, George Herbert wrote:

We're reporting on the damage to Santorum, not causing it. Our reporting is not making it better, but neither is it making it worse.

We are reporting on the damage *and* causing it. Our reporting *is* making it worse, by being two of the top Google entries for his name.

On Wed, 25 May 2011, George Herbert wrote:

You are conflating the term (which associates someone with human waste) and our coverage of the term (which describes the term, descriptively, historically, and cultural and political contexts).

No, I am not. I am conflating what the article says and the article does.

What the article *does* is smear a human being. The fact that our rules don't consider it to be a POV violation as long as as the article doesn't state a position is a loophole in the rules.

You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. Not in any real-world sense.

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:53 AM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:

...

[...] You can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit.  Not in any real-world sense.

I don't agree for a moment that we can't neutrally discuss how a person is compared to shit. We can and in my opinion we have and do.

This is not a more sensitive topic than numerous genocides, racism, sexism, etc.

Santorum has handled the situation more maturely than several people on the list here. He is clearly not pleased, but neither is he making any attempt to suppress the incident.

-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

He has no responsibility for using the resources of a non-profit corporation for political purposes. We do.

Fred

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:47, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:

We aren't doing anything wrong here. We could, but the actual coverage in the actual article is NPOV and does not show Santorum himself in a negative manner, because we show Santorum's reasoned and mature response for what it was.

+1. It's far better for us to report neutrally on the term, describing its origins, its effects on the Senator's career, et al., than to stick our collective fingers in our collective ears and pretend that the term doesn't exist - or worse, to whitewash our content and leave only the happy nicknames for controversial figures. This goes for other disparaging googlebombs or nicknames as well, whether the subject is a politician or not and whether the subject is alive or not; the encyclopedia is less complete if we leave out "Slick Willie" or "miserable failure" or (my favorite) "Attila the Hen".

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:56 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

I believe that you should at least agree that the article should be no more than 2-3 paragraphs in length, with a small handful of citations to truly authoritative, and perhaps even academic, discussions of the subject.

I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more elsewhere as they see fit.

Carcharoth

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:

...

I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more elsewhere as they see fit.

Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not?

Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article belong on the article talk page.

Carcharoth

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:15 PM, Carl (CBM) cbm.wikipedia@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 3:02 PM, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:

...

I can agree with this. Most articles summarise their sources, and serve as a starting point for further reading on the topic. This article appears to be the starting and the ending point. Sometimes less is more. State what is needed, and let the reader then read more elsewhere as they see fit.

Wouldn't this apply to other articles equally (e.g. our biography of Santorum or the article on cats)? If not, why not?

Part of the process of improving articles involves editing them, and that includes removing stuff as well as adding stuff. There are many cases of articles at the featured article process (and sometimes at the good article level as well) where excessive detail is removed. The specific arguments for carrying out such editing on this article belong on the article talk page.

Personally -

Once you get over the basic "What prompted Dan Savage to do this, and what did he do", putting the rest of the context and criticism and Santorum's response in place in more depth is fairer to Santorum than covering those in less depth.

Truncating it actually would be more of a BLP problem than the longer article, IMHO.

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:34 PM, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 2:56 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

Your arguments fail to account for the fact that the article is curated

by

...

biased anti-Santorum contributors,

Well, you lost me right there. This is a terrible slur on both the editors of the article as well as all the uninvolved editors who have examined the article and found it compliant with Wikipedia policies. Surely if this broad slur that you've made is true, then uninvolved editors on both sides of this issue would have noticed this rampant bias and its effect on the article. This kind of thing, as well as earlier emails here from another editor with dark hints about how the creator of this article also started an article about a gay porn company, is really distasteful. And ironic that the bold defenders waving the banner of BLP would defend a living individual by slurring other living individuals.

I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment is false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that the article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors.

- Brian

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my comment

is

...

false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show that

the

...

article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors.

The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.

This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand.

- Brian

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 6:50 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.comwrote:

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:52 PM, Rob gamaliel8@gmail.com wrote:

...

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

I believe you will have a hard time justifying your claim that my

comment

...

...

is

...

false (not to mention that it is a slur). It should be easy to show

that

...

...

the

...

article is curated by at least one, and probably several, biased anti-Santorum contributors.

The onus is on you to prove that such a broad slur on other Wikipedia editors is true. Even if we accept this as truth, the solution to such problems is typically the eyes of more editors and not deletion.

This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is

biased

...

then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand.

I do not read the article as anti-Santorum or biased.

If it were anti-Santorum and biased, this discussion would likely have taken place on the article talk page, with specific examples of paragraphs, sentences, sections, quotes, source selection etc. which were improper or unbalanced.

The actual discussion has included essentially none of this.

It's somewhat of a jump of faith to extrapolate from this that there's nothing wrong at the detail level with the article, but that claim could be made and defended credibly.

The claims of things wrong with it that are being made are, in Wikipedia terms, novel interpretations. BOLD allows us to take wider views, but it does not allow one to merely assert a particular wider view to be absolute and unchallengeable truth.

Yes, several people here believe that it's a problem. No, not everyone does. No, you do not appear to have a consensus on your side, much less a majority.

Under those conditions, BOLD fails, and we revert to the details and to standard interpretations. About which no detailed problems have been asserted so far...

-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com

If only there were a way to quantify notability I believe this problem would be much easier to tackle. I am personally not inclined to go through the article point by point and try to figure out what ought to be there. In general I think we can show that the article is too long and ought to be rewritten in a shorter, more concise form without also having to debate every sentence there. As was previously stated, Wikipedia is not the end-all-be-all of information on a topic, but in this case it comes pretty close. That's not how it's supposed to be..

- Brian

On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 5:28 AM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:

In this particular, I am vexed and confused.  If the longer article makes him look better, why in the flying spaghetti monster's name are those advocating human dignity here asking to shorten it?

Because people should read the article about *him* to find out who he is, not the article on the neologism. Similarly, people should read the article on the person who started the neologism to find out about him. The article on the neologism can be short and to the point, and leave people to go read the articles on the people if they want more. The way to get balance is to look at articles on other neologisms and see how long those are.

Carcharoth

On Thu, 26 May 2011, George Herbert wrote:

In this particular, I am vexed and confused. If the longer article makes him look better, why in the flying spaghetti monster's name are those advocating human dignity here asking to shorten it?

The main negative effect of the article on Santorum is not that it makes negative factual claims, it's that associating him with shit is inherently negative. Shortening the article (and especially, shortening it in ways which mitigate the Googlebombing effect) helps against this negative effect.

I'm sure an article about the Richard Gere gerbil rumor which devoted an extra page to explaining why the rumor is false would make him "look better"-- if by "look better" you mean "prevent negative factual inferences". But that's not the only way in which an article can make someone look more or less better. We don't have such an article no matter how many reliable sources describe the rumor, because merely having the article is bad for him.

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 8:27 PM, Brian J Mingus brian.mingus@colorado.edu wrote:

...

This strikes me as indirection. If someone claims that an article is biased then they are also claiming that the process governing its creation is biased. Such a claim is not a slur, it is a purported statement of fact. However, you would say that the claim is invalid because to claim that an article is biased is to necessarily not assume good faith. Following your line of indirection, it isn't possible to claim that an article is biased because you would necessary violate the principle of good faith, ie, implicitly or explicitly claiming that particular editors are biased. I believe you would rather follow this line of reasoning because it directs attention away from the real issues at hand.

This bunch of wikilawyering ignores the fact that you directly called the *contributors* and not the article biased. And you've doubled down on the baseless accusations by accusing me of trying to distract from the issue at hand. For what reason? Motive: Unknown. I guess I'm one of those "biased anti-Santorum contributors" you initially complained about. Proof of this presented: None.

How long have you been editing Wikipedia? I'd expect this kind of behavior from a combative new editor, but an experienced editor or administrator really should know better. How editors interact with one another isn't a "distraction", it's pretty fundamental to what we do here.

We need to grapple with the articles, and templates, on the wiki.

Fred

On Thu, 26 May 2011, George Herbert wrote:

The *term* shows him in a negative light, but the *incident* actually shows him responding maturely and responsibly.

This is an artificial distinction that happens to fit Wikipedia rules, but not reality. Spreading the term automatically shows him in a negative light, in the same way that spreading a denial gives credence to the claim that is denied.

I have a modest proposal: change the title to read "Dan Savage campaign against Rick Santorum" or something else which has Dan Savage's name in it. Some people have already suggested this, but I will bet that the same editors who want the 100 link template in will argue vehemently against this.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:31 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

...

Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

Having an article that associates someone with human waste be "reasonably balanced" is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably balanced. The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced; it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many disclaimers we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

Well said. That's the problem.

Fred

All things considered, it's a societal problem for people to be claiming Santorum is human excrement, that women shouldn't have a right to own property or vote, that homosexuals should be beaten up or killed for being who they are, that blacks (or Latinos, or Asians, or Jews, or whoever) are less human than (whites or whomever), or that some adults advocate adult/child sexual relations.

We have hopefully NPOV articles on the Santorum neologism, women's rights, gay bashing, the KKK, the Nazis' antisemitism, and NAMBLA. And we should.

That's what being an encyclopedia is about. Yes, it's embarrassing to Santorum that he became the target of a particularly hateful political advocacy campaign. But he was a politician, and said some things that Savage thought were particularly hateful of homosexuals. This became widely enough known to be news, academically interesting, and societally and politically significant for Santorum's career.

We're an encyclopedia. We cover stuff that's news, academically interesting, and societally and politically significant. Even if it's unfortunate for the public figures that created the kerfuffle.

BLP policy says we handle all of these things, where they bear on individual persons' lives or reputations, with kid gloves. But it does not say that we whitewash significant events. I feel sorry for Santorum, and it was a somewhat irresponsible tactic of Savage, but I don't feel that our article is at all improper.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 11:43 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

None of the examples you cite are living people.

This reminds me again about a somewhat common misinterpretation of BLP. BLP is not really motivated solely by the fact that a person is alive, To the extent that WP:BLP goes beyond WP:NPOV, it is motivated by the desire to help people who would otherwise be unable to mount a response to Wikipedia - people who are barely notable, or just known for one event - people who cannot call a press conference at the touch of a button. These people need us to exercise special discretion because they are at a relative disadvantage to us.

It is patently unreasonable to claim that a former U.S. sentator, who is now running for U.S. president, needs us to help him disseminate or control his message beyond WP:NPOV. Santorum can have multiple major news sources report any press conference he wants to hold, just by asking an aide to make some phone calls. So Santorum is fully able to present his own message to the press and get it published in mainstream news sources that we can cite. We simply need to maintain NPOV in our articles by accurately reflecting news coverage. Santorum does not need us to exercise special discretion, because anything he wants to put in the media he can put in the media.

This stands in stark contrast to the people whom things like WP:BLP1E are really intended to protect. These people cannot simply call a press conference to respond to our articles.

- Carl

This is a mistaken understanding of what "unbalanced" means with respect to Wikipedia.

On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 10:31 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.netwrote:

...

...

Again - I am not Cirt, and I find the article reasonably balanced.

Having an article that associates someone with human waste be "reasonably balanced" is like claiming that an article about the Richard Gere gerbil rumor (as long as it stated the rumor was false) would be reasonably balanced. The association of a living person with shit is inherently unbalanced; it spreads a negative POV towards that person, no matter how many disclaimers we add saying that we don't think he's really like shit.

Well said. That's the problem.

Fred

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On Sun, May 29, 2011 at 09:54, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:

Has anyone asked Jimbo what he thinks about this controversy?

I mean no disrespect to you or to Jimmy, but: Why should his opinion matter more than anybody else's? Articles need to stand on their own merits, not because of proclamations from on high.

Fred Bauder wrote:

"The matter can be resolved by editing which conforms the article to Wikipedia policies."

This is true, however it is also true the editing which conforms the article to WP policies might fail to resolve the matter.

The revival of Gore Vidal's technique of some 50 years ago, where he associated the names of several supreme court judges with sexual acts and parts of the human anatomy, in his novel /Myron/ may or may not be considered a reasonable political ploy. The same would apply to the relatively common practice of gaming page-rank for phrases such as "the worlds biggest liar" to ones political opponents.

The issue here is that Wikipedia becomes party to the action, and lends credibility to one side, not solely by documenting a (possibly) notable incident, but by the manner in which it does it . There are several simple methods that could avoid or reduce this within sensible working practices of Wikipedia.

Firstly WP:UNDUE applies, the depth of coverage should not exceed that appropriate for the topic. Secondly the wrod itself is not notable, so much as the incident. therefore simply renaming the article something like "Savage Google attack on Santorum" is far more apposite, and may not feed the Google attack it is documenting to the same extent. Thirdly the direct quote should not be included in many places in Wikpedia, and coverage should be mainly confined to the article in question.

Some parts of the article are of very dubious significance, and the recycling of random quotes does, for example the last one in "Recognition and usage" - citing the coiner himself, does nothing to enhance the readers understanding of campaign, only of preserving their linen.

RMF.

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

As mentioned before, what is at the root of this is a

wider problem

...

though: to what extent we as a project are happy to act as

participants, rather

...

than neutral observers and reporters, in the political

process.

...

I'd say that neutrality is our best bet here, as

anything else is likely

...

to come back to us eventually. We should not make *undue*

efforts to promote

...

political or social campaigns.

There is little in present policy to address this.

WP:Activist is an

...

essay.

Andreas

It is addressed at:

Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_soapbox_or_means_of_promotion

One of our key policies.

"Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, religious, sports-related, or otherwise. Of course, an article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view. You might wish to start a blog or visit a forum if you want to convince people of the merits of your favorite views.[1] See Wikipedia:Advocacy."

Again, this is NOT rocket surgery.

Fred

Maybe I should have said there is little to "effectively" address this.

In my experience activists of either bent violate WP:Advocacy (and WP:BLP) for years with impunity (cf. global warming). Each side having POV supporters, there is never any consensus at ANI etc. that a violation has actually occurred.

It usually goes on for years, until the matter goes to arbcom and swathes of editors from both sides end up topic-banned.

Our consensus-forming process, which is effectively modeled on a chat-show phone-in, rather than thoughtful and team-based analysis, does not help here.

This is why the outcome of arbitration is frequently so different from what the community does on its own. Ideally, it shouldn't be that way, but the only people I've ever seen implement WP:Advocacy are arbcom.

Andreas

Kudos to Andreas for notifying Cirt so quickly after my suggestion, but may I suggest that we review the rules for this mailing list?

Currently neither https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l#Rules nor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette which it links to via a redirect explicitly require that editors are notified about discussions about them.

ANI by contrast explicitly requires people to notify the editor who you are making a complaint about.

May I suggest that we do the same?

WereSpielChequers

On 25 May 2011 21:17, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:

...

I'm not surprised that a Wikipedia article shoots to the top of Google searches, isn't that one of the reasons why we write here? I'm pretty sure I've seen Wikipedia articles come top on Google even if they lack templates and are practically orphans.

Nor am I surprised that someone who writes an article then goes and creates associated templates. I don't do much with templates but I have a similar editing pattern - I was in the British Museum for the Hoxne Hoard challenge and wound up contributing a number of edits to articles about the sorts of spoons that were in the hoard.

I am concerned at the risk of the mailing list degenerating into some sort of back channel and disrupting the wiki. People using it for off wiki complaints about an AFD and criticism of individual wikipedians who may not be subscribing  to this list is in my view unhealthy.

Have any of the people expressing disquiet about that editor notified them of this thread?

WereSpielChequers

Cirt has been notified and has read the thread. However, you are correct that we have more or less completed what can appropriately been done on a mailing list.

Fred

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--- On Wed, 25/5/11, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

From: David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]] To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 22:38 On 25 May 2011 11:34, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

...

By the way, [author]'s GA articles include

See, at this point you completely blew your credibility in this discussion by slipping into ad hominem. That's where you wiped out all gains from your previous posts in the thread. Don't do this if you want to be taken seriously.

Then you've missed the point. The point is not that [[Corbin Fisher]] is about a gay porn company. The point is that it's written in PR style, complete with a blue call-out box:

"I've always had a lot of professional and personal admiration for [Corbin Fisher] because they really defined a new space in gay adult entertainment"

Read it. The common element is promoting a POV.

Andreas

On Wed, 25 May 2011, David Gerard wrote:

Except you did not say "PR style, with call-out box" - you said "gay porn company", as if those three words were enough to make your point. You lose.

In this context, "gay porn company" is legitimate, because it implies a COI.

On 25 May 2011 23:36, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

It's not my fault if your eyes home in on the gay porn bit. :Þ

You are forum-shopping this issue, and it's blatant and obvious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Sexual_slang#Santorum

Forum-shopping is an attempt to synthesise consensus. Please stop it.

- d.

--- On Wed, 25/5/11, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

From: David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia article on [[Santorum (neologism)]] To: "English Wikipedia" wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Wednesday, 25 May, 2011, 23:40 On 25 May 2011 23:39, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 25 May 2011 23:36, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com

wrote:

...

...

It's not my fault if your eyes home in on the gay

porn bit. :Þ

...

You are forum-shopping this issue, and it's blatant

and obvious.

...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Political_neologisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Sexual_slang#Santorum Forum-shopping is an attempt to synthesise consensus.

Please stop it.

Youu forgot:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Dan_Savage

Are you going to try to raise it there next?

The discussion *started* here, two days ago. Then people said it should be addressed on-wiki.

Frankly, I am not very keen to get much involved with it on-wiki.

Andreas

On 26 May 2011 00:52, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:

On 25/05/2011, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

...

The common element is promoting a POV.

But that doesn't seem to be what's happening here; I don't see signs of breach of NPOV.

Andreas appears to have a vendetta against Cirt personally, and this is just part of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Cirt#Advocacy_concerns

Andreas has been hounding Cirt for a while, starting on Wikipedia Review and then forum-shopping anywhere that will listen. That's the entire source of the present discussion.

(Proposed general rule: if you launch your complaint on Wikipedia Review, you're already wrong.)

- d.

Presumably we are evaluating the arguments that are not /ad hominem /on their merits, rather than on the /ad hominem/ basis that their author elsewhere makes /ad hominem /attacks?

RMF

On 25/05/2011 22:38, David Gerard wrote:

See, at this point you completely blew your credibility in this discussion by slipping into ad hominem. That's where you wiped out all gains from your previous posts in the thread. Don't do this if you want to be taken seriously.

• d.