Talk:Intellectual dark web/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Main Page is Weak

The introduction at the top of the main page does not make sense and cites no sources. IDW is characterized there by "some" of its members being opposed to certain popular ideologies. The views of those associated with IDW are nuanced and critical to the simplistic ones. In general, long-form conversations are required to flesh out their views. And those views vary a lot from person to person in the poorly defined IDW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.67.222.93 (talk) 17:32, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Template

This is pretty significant nowadays. I think that we should have a template describing what this is, and putting it on "member" pages.Socratesone (talk) 22:22, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Demonization

"Demonized as right wing," is so far off WP:NPOV that I'd be challenging that construction even if it wasn't presented in Wikipedia's voice. Please adhere to neutral point of view. And anyway, anybody who knows internet neologisms knows all the top-shelf extreme left content gets lumped in with leftbook; IDW is the right-wing extreme. Simonm223 (talk) 16:58, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Fine. How about "characterized as right-wing"? That source does characterize it as such. Though that source goes to great pains to assert the IDW is just a re-naming of Reaganite conservatism and suggest the "right wing implications", so it's not even remotely an unbiased source... in fact, I'd delete that entire source, if you're interested in deleting the other one that you did, since both of them are little more than essays about people's opinions. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:17, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Honestly I am really doubting this neologism warrants an article at all, per WP:TOOSOON but as it stands the article is mute on what this supposed movement actually is or stands for - you know since then they'd have to talk about Stephan Molyneux being a white supremacist, Jordan Peterson being a transphobic sexist, and how laughable it is using the names Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro in the same sentence as the word "intellectual." This article is garbage - the sources are garbage - the best source, in the entire article, is the one in which an academic describes how she told Bari Weiss to go away and not bother her with this IDW nonsense. Simonm223 (talk) 18:22, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

An article about a neologism that says next to nothing and cites no scholars

Please tell me why this shouldn't be AfD'd under WP:TOOSOON? Simonm223 (talk) 17:12, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Should at a minimum be moderated, because it seems the article already is a target for people who will want to paint the IDW as a haven of Nazism. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:18, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Read Stephan Molyneux and then read WP:DUCK. Simonm223 (talk) 18:23, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

For now I've stubbed this down to things that are neither the sole opinion of Weiss and Hamburger or straight-up editorializing in Wikipedia voice. Simonm223 (talk) 18:38, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Probably the best idea, since the term seems to be just another political swear-word right now. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:52, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I am seriously considering redirecting to Dark Enlightenment. Simonm223 (talk) 18:57, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with that. Your comment asserts that Bret Weinstein, or Joe Rogan (who you'll agree was identified in the article as part of the "intellectual dark web"), or Richard Dawkins or Steven Pinker (see source 6) is a neo-fascist and anti-democrat. This page is now watched and I'll have to waste my valuable time getting your account locked if you try to bring your own skewed politics into WP. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:07, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm positing that Weiss misinterpreted the phenomenon; that's part of the reason I blanked the member list. I question its accuracy. Simonm223 (talk) 19:16, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

And finally, per WP:NPA and WP:AGF I'd suggest you might want to strike that last comment. Simonm223 (talk) 19:17, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Your redirect suggestion above would suggest that you feel Bret Weinstein is a neofascist. The comment stands. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

If you want to second guess the sources, then you're probably going to need more than your own gut feelings on the matter. And no, IDW has nothing to do with "Dark Enlightenment" other than having similar sounding names. GMG^talk 19:30, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I'd happily rewrite the article using only the academic sources I listed in your Fringe discussion, if I didn't have work to do right now. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:36, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Hmm.. I've been poking around sources a little bit ([1] [2] [3]). I'm afraid I haven't had university library access for many years. Feel free to shoot me anything good you find paywalled via email. But I don't recommend posting links on-wiki to basically pirated documents as that is liable to end badly for everyone involved (even though everyone trades these sources back and forth via email and IRC anyway). GMG^talk 19:56, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

OK, you'll have to give me a reminder on my talk page. BTW, the NY Times article that was deleted was actually a very good introduction to the complexity of the IDW. I wonder why it was deleted. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:58, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Problems: the Guardian article mislabels the IDW as alt-right. The one PT article just mentions IDW, the other is by a Ph.D. who just calls them all Nazis. See, this is a problem with the whole concept of this WP article: IDW is used by too many people as a swear-word, and anyone who wants can identify themselves as IDW. The existence of this article is problematic, and I think the community of people willing to watch over this article in a neutral editor role is dwarfed by the number of political trolls who would take it over. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 20:04, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, I was actually saving the Guardian article because I was looking to see exactly how far ranging the descriptions were. I mean, if there are otherwise reliable sources that disagree about a subject, then that disagreement is itself part of the narrative that Wikipedia should look to cover. We don't really "pick a side" per se. GMG^talk 20:11, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiment. But as we've been seeing, neutrally covering a disagreement is something that's not going to happen with an article like this. And besides, we can't violate WP:SYNTH. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Hmm, the politico piece we already cite is pretty good. Henry Farrell writing in Vox is pretty good two, although they are basically the exact opposite of one another as far as the conclusions they reach. GMG^talk 20:30, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The NYT article is explicitly an opinion piece. Frankly, I found three opinion articles that did explicitly link IDW to the Dark Enlightenment; I discarded them because opinion columns have no place as RSes in Wikipedia. The NYT article cannot be used as anything but a reliable statement of Bari Weiss' opinion on who is part of the Intellectual Dark Web, and I consider her opinion WP:UNDUE inclusion on the basis she has no expertise in any of the topics surrounding this outcropping of Youtube. Simonm223 (talk) 20:32, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Still no interest in making the article NOT just a precis of Bari Weiss' opinion column? Simonm223 (talk) 12:36, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Scholarship - and attempts therein

I haven't had a chance to review all the academic sources from the WP:FRINGE/N thread thoroughly. But I did manage one for the Jonathan Murphy article.

First the journal, Studies in Arts and Humanities is unrated by WorldCat and not listed in Research Gate or Scimagojr at all. Not a good start. The author himself brags in his bio of being an early international member of Heterodox Academy so we're already in WP:FRINGE territory a little bit just there. Another warning sign is that this article, purportedly on philosophy of education and political science was penned by a researcher who, "has a PhD in psychology from NUI Maynooth for research on spatial representation and object-location memory." So he's writing outside his area of expertise. He's not an amazing researcher, with an h-index of 4 and an i10-index of 2. So all in all we have an obscure researcher working outside of his area of specialty in a manner consistent with participation in a fringe advocacy group he advertises membership in and writing in a journal that is not rigorously or transparently reviewed [4]. In short, this is, at best, shoddy scholarship and at worst an example of what WP:FRINGE was designed to guard against. Simonm223 (talk) 21:07, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

It's not entirely clear how Daniel Gilbert, Vernon L. Smith, and Nadine Strossen are FRINGE. Other than that, there is no requirement that sources be from academic journals at all, and so I'm not super concerned about the fact that you don't seem to think this peer reviewed academic journal isn't peer reviewed or academic enough. GMG^talk 21:24, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Frankly my main concern is that it has absolutely no impact whatsoever. Simonm223 (talk) 22:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

And your proposed alternative is? GMG^talk 22:57, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, he calls himself "Academic outside academia". I would not take his article seriously at all. wumbolo ^^^ 22:47, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I think I've made it clear that my proposed alternative is stubbing until somebody reliable actually says something noteworthy; it definitely isn't becoming, yet again, a copy-paste of the NYT opinion pages. Simonm223 (talk) 14:37, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, your opinion is duly noted. GMG^talk 14:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Removed content

The term compares the IDW's opposition to mainstream opinion to what is illicitly found on the dark web.

References

This may be true, and may even be obviously true, but it's not entirely clear how reliable the The A.V. Club is on it's face. WP:RSPS seem to only endorse it for movie and tv reviews, which this really isn't. And to be totally honest, this piece is written so much like a rant from an over-caffeinated undergrad that I'm not sure I'm comfortable using it regardless. GMG^talk 18:17, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

It's an op-ed with many errors, just like every other reference in the article. It's also written by a freelance writer. wumbolo ^^^ 21:39, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, you're certainly welcome to start an RfC to change WP:PARTISAN. As far as I am aware, everything has been fairly well attributed. If I'm missed something, feel free to let me know. GMG^talk 21:45, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Massive Editing

I am concerned by the massive editing underway by an IP. Based on their edit summaries some of this appears to be based on persona disagreements with the text and or WP:OR. IMO this sort of major redacting and rewording is controversial and should be discussed first. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:48, 21 July 2019 (UTC)

I've taken a look through the changes and they mostly seem quite kosher. Where is the WP:OR? PeterTheFourth (talk) 02:47, 22 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Many of the changes have improved the text; but some potentially good content was removed (e.g. the IDW abbreviation which is pretty common), so it would be good to check through all the IP's edits just in case. Rememberlands (talk) 10:56, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

I agree, the See also section is completely OR. wumbolo ^^^ 12:19, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

• I restored one bit, and tweaked a compromise version of another. It doesn't look like there was a whole lot of content actually removed, but a lot moved around. Other than that, OR isn't an issue for the see also section. See also sections are not required to be sourced, but merely thematically relevant based on editorial best judgement. However, I agree that the current one is excessive, and it's not clear what the relevance of some of the links. I mean, yeah, you can connect Social Constructionism with the IDW, but it's a long walk to get there, and there isn't any obvious reason to include that, but exclude something like Social epistemology, or a host of other things that are equally as relevant/not-relevant. GMG^talk 12:48, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Feel free to modify the See Also to be more on-point. It is helpful to have something which illustrates many of the topics that seem to sit near the center of the movement's concerns, but certainly the list should be as clear, relevant, and essential as possible. I would suggest that even the shortest possible form of such a list should not exclude the following: Free Speech, Internet Censorship, Social Justice, Activism, Critical Theory, and Political Correctness. Many of the topics under Social Action and Other Issues (i.e. actual points of contention on social issues) come up pretty often when probing through the process that brought many of the figures to become a part of the IDW and in the conversations amongst them, so I personally think those topics should be linked in the See Also as well (and preferably, in future, noted in the main text of the article). Much of what's listed in the other three headings (which are more or less intellectual frameworks or viewpoints) are topics which IDW members often attribute to contributing to the difficulties in discussions around the noted social issues. Rememberlands (talk) 17:07, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Mischaracterization of the source

The LA review of books article is really really clear that this is not an ideosyncratic movement but rather one that is solely focused on attacking the left. Using it as a ref that says the opposite is inappropriate. Simonm223 (talk) 12:22, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, I wound up with about a dozen tabs open trying to figure out where exactly the extensive edits by the IP broke proper attribution and referencing. Then I gave up and just restored the version of the section prior to their edits. It didn't exactly help that your own removals also broke referencing. I have included a more detailed description of the characterization by the LA Review of Books. GMG^talk 13:00, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

• @E.M.Gregory: I'm not totally sure that the group can really be collectively described as intellectuals. Some of them surely are. Some of them are just a fairly random assortment of podcasters and youtubers. GMG^talk 13:42, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

"public intellectuals" is implied by "intellectual dark web". Even media types anmong them have intellectual credentials, Ben Shapiro writes books, holds an advanced degree form Harvard; And there are sources The Intellectual Dark Web—loosely defined as the group of public intellectuals coalescing around issues of freedom of speech in the context of left-wing political correctness on American campuses...; liberal, libertarian and conservative online commentators and public 'intellectuals' who represent themselves as exiles from ... some of whom would later become known as part of the 'Intellectual Dark Web' (Weiss 2018)..E.M.Gregory (talk) 14:10, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, the second source gets it a bit more on the mark (and is probably more reliable than the online magazine): A growing group of controversial(ist) liberal, libertarian and conservative online commentators and public 'intellectuals' ... They include authors, YouTube vloggers and podcasters ... as well as academics. Also note the scare quotes used for "intellectuals".

We might be able to use more accurate terminology than "personalities", which is one of those words that sounds like it provides information but actually is just the literary equivalent of tofu (mostly just blandly filling space). But I'm not sure "intellectual" is the right way to do it. GMG^talk 14:21, 30 July 2019 (UTC)

@GMG: I'm not sure that the distinction you seem to be making between intellectuals and podcasters/Youtubers is nearly as sharp as you imply. In any case, I believe (FWIW) that the sheer number of hours these people have spent on demanding and exhaustive public discussion, dissection, and description of the issues they tackle fully justifies the characterisation of "intellectual". 81.187.94.66 (talk) 14:06, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I mean, some of these folks don't even claim to be intellectuals. Joe Rogan was a college dropout cage fighter who got famous for telling jokes and making people eat bugs on tv. If you called him an intellectual to his face he'd probably laugh at you. GMG^talk 14:09, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that Rogan would laugh at that description, and perhaps he is the group member whose claim on that title is shakiest; whatever his biography, though, a case can be made (as per WP:DUCK) that his mission of exposing himself to new ideas and discussion in a public setting makes him a de facto intellectual whether he likes it or not. IMO it's the nature of someone's public work that should largely determine what they are seen to be in the public arena (WP:OR notwithstanding of course). 81.187.94.66 (talk) 15:59, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

No relation to the actual dark web

Another criticism would seemingly be that the term seems to be created by non-geeks thinking "dark web" sounds cool without bothering to learn what it means (silk road, Tor, illicit activities that may include payment via cryptocurrencies , etc). Might even make a geek cringe every time they hear it. I'll try to find a source.

2601:185:8201:198:7533:4C50:4A87:7F31 (talk) 10:13, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

The term was coined by the people themselves. It's a marketing term. Guy (Help!) 10:14, 4 August 2019 (UTC)

If the most cringe-worthy thing the IDW crowd ever did was co-opt an online term, they'd be a much less controversial group of (pseudo)intellectuals. Simonm223 (talk) 15:54, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Are we removing sources for some reason other than that they don't say what we would like them to say? GMG^talk 14:42, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

The Washington Examiner is not a reliable source for anything - it's a tabloid. I'm also generally iffy on Salon as a source since it's effectively purely opinion articles. Simonm223 (talk) 15:48, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

There does not appear to be any broad consensus in favor of your assessment. Much of the purpose of this section is to catalog the range of opinions on the subject. As I indicated in my edit summary, this is not a "group" in the sociological sense, nor a group in the traditional political sense, having a hierarchy and definite organizational structure. It is a post/ad hoc classification. It's not clear that this source is being highlighted in particular, among a number of other opinion pieces, for some reason other than the fact that is it the only right-of-center opinion used. I'm not sure it's stretching the reasonable limits of NPOV to expect the inclusion of a single such source. GMG^talk 14:02, 19 August 2019 (UTC)  

I fail to see how citations [7] and [8] support the claim they supposedly justify - that the so-called alt-right has "co-opted" the IDW. For starters, I've been paying attention for two years now and have yet to infer, let alone see or hear, a definition of "alt-right" with any internal consistency, or any discernible and consistent relationship with any of its members' qualities, whatsoever. IMO, this term is nothing more than a dog-whistling McCarthyist slur that debases the dignity of Wikipedia more than it damages the reputations of the people described. But enough of that.

Ignoring the statement itself, I fail to see how [7] supports a claim of co-opting because I couldn't find any such generalisations in the article. [8], on the other hand, relies for its line of argument on YouTube video titles written by third-party YT clippers as supposed proof of the attitudes and aims of IDW members themselves. This is such a transparent and mischievous piece of casuistry that its inclusion in the citations for any article is a disgrace to Wikipedia.

As this article now stands, I would support its deletion rather than set a precedent for this kind of politicised libel to be misrepresented as encyclopaedic content. 81.187.94.66 (talk) 13:53, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

I agree whole-heartedly with your "McCarthyist slur" accusation, above. With that in mind, if the referenced articles are stating their author's opinion that the "intellectual dark web" are "alt-right" or fascist, then WP:BLP alone is reason enough to not include those writings as sources in our article. More generally, though, we have a binary-ways-of-thinking problem in that anyone who critiques the "left" is assumed to be "right" (leaving aside whether or not the "left" nowadays are even remotely 'left'). All we can hope is that proper Wikipedia editor neutrality guidelines will eventually keep this tendency in check. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

While I didn't want to risk basing my argument on technical/policy aspects at the expense of the the larger issue of intellectual integrity, I was sorely tempted to mention WP:BLP myself and I agree that it's all the defence one needs to reject certain sources (at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, defending WP:NPOV requires us to consider the source). Judging by the lack of dogpiling on my comment above, I also have hope that sense might prevail in the long run. 81.187.94.66 (talk) 13:55, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

On reconsideration, the above conclusion is too strong and I apologise. The article's biggest problem is the shaky claims made in its introduction for links between the subject and the so-called "alt-right", and the two sources mentioned, which are each either schlock or irrelevant. In any case this intro is misleadingly at odds with the more proper tone of the article's body. 81.187.94.66 (talk) 13:58, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

• Well, I'll admit I've read Harris, but it's been years, and was back when "New Atheism" was a thing, and to pretty much loving anything Pinker has ever written going back a long way. I'll admit to be somewhat perplexed that these two (or others who were prominent in the early 2000s skeptic movement like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Michael Shermer) would have anything meaningfully in common with people like Stefan Molyneux, or that any of the former could be meaningfully described as alt-right, when so few years ago so many of them were virulently denounced as anti-theist radicals apparently intent on destroying Christian America.

I tend to think that the "ideologically schizophrenic but united against the far left" is probably the more accurate description. But sources disagree and our opinion doesn't trump sources. We ought not be recording a disagreement in the sources as anything but a disagreement, not picking one side or the other and presenting that as uncontroversial fact. If anyone has a contact with anyone in traditional media, I'd be happy to submit my own op ed on the issue, but in these halls we're just editors and our personal opinions are equally unimportant. GMG^talk 19:06, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Since I'm mostly opining anyway, the surprising thing in reading through the sources has been the extent to which the far left seems to be oblivious to the fact that the moderate left exists, that anyone could disagree with them on anything and not be "one of the enemy". Pinker will line up with the left politically all day long, until you get to the borders of post modernism, where theories about the infinite malleability of humanity lies, all of which is supported by high-handed philosophy and basically none of which is supported by actual science. (Frankly, post-modernism is an intellectual cancer much more like religion than it is like anything else.) But there seems to be a pretty prominent knee jerk reaction that if you disagree with us about anything you must secretly disagree with us about everything. GMG^talk 22:56, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

No sources from this so called 'dark web'

How can a page about the dark web accurately portray the source without referencing the subject directly? Sure they are not RS but that doesnt change the fact we are using the analysis of another entity to characterize the source instead of including any material from the source itself... It just seems a little asinine given the availability of so much material that would help improve this page. If we stick strictly to the guidelines it would result in a page that simply relates what mass media (which is a whole point of criticism from this group) thinks the group represents. Bgrus22 (talk) 19:48, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey Bgrus22. Wikipedia prefers secondary and/or tertiary sources on basically any subject. It's nothing particular with this article. Ideally, the quality of these sources will continue to improve over time, and we will be able to cite more long-form books and academic publications, and less news media, as more professional researches and writers have the opportunity to research and publish regarding the subject. GMG^talk 19:53, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo: So much of wikipedia seems counter intuitive, thanks for explaining it. I still feel it would be beneficial to the page if we included some material from this group, possibly members reporting on each other or their comments on the mass media but that's fine I suppose. I am curious how utilizing the primary sources would be an issue of original research (since thats what the wiki guidelines on reliable sources claim is the issue with using a primary source). Bgrus22 (talk) 20:22, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Hey Bgrus22. Well, it's probably a few issues. (Unfortunately, as Wikipedia has become higher quality over the years, it has also tacked on a lot more rules to learn.) So for example, the is also the issue of giving content due weight, which is generally judged by the "hypothetical average" of all the secondary sources that have been published. If something is only available from a primary source, then it...it's kindof you and me deciding as Wikipedia editors that it's important to write about, rather than professional journalists and authors deciding that it's important to write about, and then us following their lead.

If we are looking to include more material from the "members" (since that's kindof a fuzzy term here), then the place to look would be where other independent sources have covered their individual opinions, and then we can include that with a higher level of confidence. GMG^talk 20:33, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Why not corroborate the sources so that we have primary sources backing up the claims we write based on the secondary ones? I'm not saying to necessarily write claims exclusively out of primary sources, but to support them using the primary sources. Bgrus22 (talk) 20:20, 25 August 2019 (UTC)

External links

Should this article have a link to the Pinkerite blog? I would assume that any relevant articles identified by that blog will be added to the body of the article directly. I'm not sure why we would need this link. I see it was removed then restored. [[5]] Springee (talk) 15:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I removed the link. It’s totally inappropriate. The source is not notable or reliable and the slant is clearly biased and potentially defamatory. Jweiss11 (talk) 15:50, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Although a see-also external link is not actually a source for anything within the body of the article, I'll concede this point. Simonm223 (talk) 15:55, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Simonm223's edit comment that the Youtube video is questionable on the same grounds. I would support removing it as well. Springee (talk) 15:59, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Pinkerite appears to be merely the personal blog of "some lady", and I have no idea what possessed us to add it in the first place. The YouTube link was a long-form discussion on the topic of the article, among three individuals repeatedly referenced in the article. But if everybody wants to remove that too, I'm not gonna fight over it. GMG^talk 16:04, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Using the external links to link to self-published defense of the group is not any more reliable or neutral than using the external links to point to a blog criticizing the group. I can see the point in removing Pinkerite. But the youtube link is inappropriate too. Simonm223 (talk) 16:17, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• There's no requirement that external links be neutral; however, there is a requirement that they not be random personal blogs. GMG^talk 16:33, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'd say there is a requirement they not be random social media posts either. Simonm223 (talk) 17:17, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Policy does not treat YouTube as "random social media posts", and indicates that their inclusion should be decided on a cases by case basis. GMG^talk 17:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• There are plenty of policy grounds for excluding this video, even if it gets over the first bar for Youtube - that of copyright. Let's just leave it out. Simonm223 (talk) 17:41, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Copyright? I'm not even arguing to include it. I'm just not sure you understand the relevant policy here. GMG^talk 17:45, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Read WP:YOUTUBE - it's quite explicit that a lot of content on Youtube shouldn't be linked on copyright grounds. Though I may be missing some context. That said WP:ELNO item #2 could quite arguably apply anyway as it's a video to self-description of a fringe group. Simonm223 (talk) 18:04, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Specifically Many videos hosted on YouTube or similar sites do not meet the standards for inclusion in External links sections, and copyright is of particular concern. Many YouTube videos of newscasts, shows or other content of interest to Wikipedia visitors are copyright violations and should not be linked, either in the article or in citations.Simonm223 (talk) 18:05, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Do you fear Sam Harris has violated his own copyright by posting a youtube video of his podcast? GMG^talk 18:08, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• As I mentioned before, the guidance at WP:YOUTUBE argues for significant additional caution surrounding copyright, but even if that can be shown to be non-problatic WP:ELNO #2 still definitely applies. After all the entire self-image of IDW is as a fringe group. And that means their self-description would be treated per WP:PROFRINGE and as such we should not be linking to their apologia via an external link. Simonm223 (talk) 18:15, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• One can't help but get the distinct impression you don't have the foggiest clue what's in the video at all. You apparently didn't take the time to even click on it, or you wouldn't be going on about copyright. Oh well. For future reference, it's not conducive to a collaborative discussion to simply throw random policies at the wall until one sticks and appears to support your preconception. GMG^talk 18:19, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

• Your opinion is duly noted. Simonm223 (talk) 18:21, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Guardian's "alt-right" claim

@JzG and Connor Behan:, when was this content discussed via a RfC? [[6]] If there was a RfC that said remove then we would have so show a new consensus was developed to keep it. Any reasonably attended RfC from just 4 months back should be considered a better representation of consensus vs an assumed consensus because a change wasn't actually implemented (unless the previous RfC resulted in a no-consensus). I see the material as problematic since it doesn't appear to be a humorous headline, not a claim that the IDW is... The fact that "alt-right" doesn't appear in the text would be problematic given how this source is used in the article. Springee (talk) 17:43, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

It has been in the article untouched for over two months, since the first large-scale expansion after it was converted back form a redirect. Over that period there have been editors from both IDW-sympathetic and reality-based communities. That amounts to a consensus. Guy (help!) 18:04, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Guy, this isn't the first time you have effectively disparaged either an article subject you disagree with or implicitly, editors you disagree with (IDW-sympathetic and reality-based communities). As an admin I would ask that you rise above such comments as they don't increase civility. Springee (talk) 18:22, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The IDW is an exceptionally loud and prominent group of people telling the world, in multiple venues (websites, books, TV, podcasts and the rest) how they have been totes silenced just because they oppose being forced to treat people with respect. In fact, if they weren't so busy telling us how ruthlessly they had been silenced, you might be forgiven for entirely failing to notice. Once upon a time, Wikipedia was a haven of tranquility in the culture wars, but now we are the front line. We've had a years-long onslaught from Big Oil, Big Woo, and now Big Otry. Guy (help!) 20:25, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

It was discussed in one of the previous AfDs, not an RfC. I don't know that there was a consensus to include it or not, and that's not really what AfDs are designed to do anyway. I don't have a problem using The Guardian as a source. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who put it there. GMG^talk 18:16, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The Guardian is definitely a good source for news articles, but this Q&A thing appeared to be deliberately outlandish even compared to other entries in the "Pass Notes" section. From what I remember, this was discussed while the AfD was taking place but not on the AfD page itself. It was on the talk page of a now-deleted article so I think there is no way to resurrect that. A few users, including myself, questioned the reliability of this source. I think this included people with both "keep" and "delete" !votes. Another user was on the fence for a few days and later posted that the Pass Note should be removed and replaced with a different source that compares the IDW to the alt-right. Connor Behan (talk) 19:30, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

So my take away is Guy is correct in saying we should assume silence means there was consensus for inclusion. Since this isn't a BLP, consensus would be required for removal. I would favor removal but just among the editors here that means we are no-consensus. Springee (talk) 19:37, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

• It's...a little difficult to say really which sources have their ducks in a row and which ones don't. No one really seems to agree very well. The Rolling Stone put out their bit a couple of weeks ago. Referring to this study, they say no, Molyneux isn't IDW, he's alt-lite. And the IDW is adjacent to the people who are adjacent to the alt-right. That's news to me, because I thought that if you were adjacent to the people who were adjacent to the far right, you were called a moderate. (The number of adjacents needed to connect David Duke to Virginia Woolf remains unclear.) The study itself is a little odd in places. It puts Owen Benjamin as part of the IDW and not the alt-right, which I thought everyone pretty well agreed on. It uses things like Vanity Fair as a control group, which...doesn't make much sense as a control group at all, and for some reason doesn't use shift toward the far left as a control group, which would seem to make sense when you are measuring directional change.

I dunno. I'd say if someone wants to remove the Guardian as a half-satirical commentary, and the other side wants to remove the Washington Examiner then they're both on about equal footing. GMG^talk 21:33, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

You've done a nice job with this article and the sources are used in a way that minimizes sensationalism. But if it comes to voting, I would favour removing The Guardian and The Washington Examiner. I didn't even realize the latter was there. Connor Behan (talk) 10:28, 12 September 2019 (UTC)

They can both be recorded in our article as opinions published in papers. Anything beyond that is a stretch. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 13:40, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

If you want to editorialize rather than respect NPOV, you might want to try RationalWiki rather than Wikipedia. Iamcuriousblue (talk) 18:55, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

General opinion on the central problem of this article

You know, I think the problem here is that WP articles are supposed to be sourced from published factual information. This topic, however, due to its apparent politicization, is encouraging editors to instead try to source everything from published political opinions (e.g. "are the IDW alt-right?") as if they were factual... with the intent of fighting a kulturkampf on this page. This isn't how we do Wikipedia. So, given that, maybe this article needs to be expressly limited to:

1) What (factually) is the IDW,

2) Who is identified as a member of the IDW (including who self-identifies),

3) And *maybe* an illustration of the spectrum of opinion, not taking any one of them as anything more than what some guy says.

The article is pretty much in that sweet spot right now, I think. But the talk page is hinting at very un-Wikipedian intent bubbling beneath the surface with a few editors, so I think an express agreement to remain entirely factual is in order from everyone participating. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 13:52, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

What is the IDW? Great question. Problem is, you get two different answers, theirs and that of everyone who has actually looked into the merits of their claims. Guy (help!) 14:18, 15 September 2019 (UTC)

The problem is numero uno. It's a neologism founded in half jest and popularized in one particular op ed, which dropped a few names and set out some fairly arbitrary personal criteria, at least some of which most everyone agrees doesn't actually apply to pretty much anyone who's name was dropped. Half the sources think they know what's going on because they've oversimplified things to the point of inanity (comment above serving as exhibit A), and then everyone who tries to take a nuanced view all disagree on who belongs where and why. There is no membership role, because there is no bona fide "group", but only a post-hoc/ad-hoc classification that again, no one can really seem to agree on with very few exceptions (e.g., everyone seems to name drop Shapiro and Peterson, and the name drops become a shaded scatter plot as the circle gets wider). Those who might self-identify only do so after they are informed that they've been a member all along, and others insist they're not a member, because how could they be a member of something they've never heard of. The only thing sources do seem to agree on is that it's "a thing" and maybe some day they'll all get their stories straight on exactly what that "thing" is. GMG^talk 00:17, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Well... if the word is being used, and it is being asserted that the word has a referent (i.e. it's asserted to be a thing), then we can certainly have a Wikipedia article on it. So, I guess as long as the article illustrates exactly how ad-hoc it is, then it's a good enough attempt at a Wikipedia article. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 12:45, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

I'd be fine with renaming it to free speech grifter and rolling in the likes of Milo. Guy (help!) 12:58, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Then you shouldn't be a Wikipedia editor. Leave your politics at the door. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:57, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

UFMG IDW Study

I saw a user from the IDW subreddit make an edit to this page (to whom I can not prove actually made the change, but the two events seem related)

https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/dbuxm5/flawed_youtube_study_posted_recently_is_reference/f25cfmi/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x

If you look at these compared revisions from the user IntellectualDarkTrance

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Intellectual_dark_web&type=revision&diff=919469155&oldid=917846719

I am under the impression that this user wanted to change the wording of this paragraph in order to downplay the IDW community's correlation with the alt right, despite the fact that the referenced study came to a different conclusion. This user even took a small quotation from section 6 of the study that appears to downplay the correlation, despite the whole of the study coming to a different conclusion.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.08313.pdf

If you look at the discussion of this study in question (section 8) it's clear that the authors came to the conclusion that there is indeed a growing correlation between the communities IDW, alt-lite, and alt-right. It doesn't say that every person that consumes IDW content becomes an alt-righter, but it does clearly show that alt-righters do consume IDW content at a greater rate than the control content, and the correlation has grown over time. In conclusion, I think the edits done by the user IntellectualDarkTrance are fairly dishonest and ought to be reverted.

That last edit was by StoneRazor who changed the article because he didn't actually read the study and flipped the conclusions. The entire context of the study backs up the conclusion that the IDW is a gateway to the alt-right, and I will provide some examples. Just the first page of the abstract alone lays out there's an overlap between these audiences:

"Processing more than 79M comments, we show that the three communities increasingly

share the same user base; that users consistently migrate from milder to more extreme content; and that a large percentage of users who consume Alt-right content now consumed Alt-lite and I.D.W. content in the past."

Section 1 also says:

"We also find that the intersection is not only growing due to

new users but that there is significant user migration among the communities being studied. Users that initially comment only on content from the I.D.W. or the Alt-lite throughout the years consistently start to comment on Alt-right content. These users are a significant fraction of the Alt-right commenting user base. Interestingly, although control channels share, on a yearly basis, a significant number of users with Alt-right channels, we cannot observe significant user migration from them to Alt-right channels (Sec. 6)."

Section 6 also says:

"In the previous section we showed that the commenting user bases

among the I.D.W., the Alt-lite, and the Alt-right are increasingly similar —and the effect is stronger than for control channels. This indicates that there is a growing percentage of users consuming extreme (Alt-right) content on YouTube while also consuming content from other milder communities (Alt-lite/I.D.W.). Yet, it does not, per se, indicate that there is a radicalization pipeline in the website."

But wait, the last sentence is just the writers trying to be extremely skeptical and is not a pass. The study's conclusion makes the findings clear as crystal:

"To which extent do users systematically gravitate towards

more extreme content, We find that the commenting user bases for the three communities are increasingly similar (Sec. 5), and, considering Alt-right channels as a proxy for extreme content, that a significant amount of commenting users systematically migrates from commenting exclusively on milder content to commenting on more extreme content (Sec. 7).We argue that this finding comprises significant evidence that there has been, and there continues to be, user radicalization on YouTube, and our analyses of the activity of these communities (Sec. 4) is consistent with the theory that more extreme content "piggybacked" the surge in popularity of I.D.W. and Alt-lite content."

Although all of Youtube has become more exposed to radicalized content, the IDW and Alt-lite groups studied have left a lot more comments on Alt-right content than the control group:

"A difference between the communities and control channels

lays in the engagement of their users. users. The number of comments per view seems to be particularly high for extreme content (Sec. 4), and users in all three communities are more assiduous commentators than in the control group (Sec. 5)."

The study also showed someone who started on an IDW channel was significantly more likely than the control group to leave comments on at least one Alt-lite channel, and then an Alt-right channel:

"Moreover, starting from an I.D.W. channel, users have approximately 10% of chance of being in an Alt-lite channel at the next step, and in 5 steps, there is 25% of

chance that the user has found at least one Alt-lite channel. Starting from the Control channels, reachability@5 of I.D.W. channels is of 2.5%, and of slightly less than 1% for Alt-lite channels. For video recommendations, reaching Alt-right channels from other communities is less likely. be seen on the bottom row of Fig. 5 (a)."

So I am restoring the article to saying that the study found the IDW is in fact a gateway to the Alt-right, because that is the natural way of understanding the study. Contrary to what you might want to believe. --Where be me spice (talk) 10:00, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

P.S. I think it's better to have a link to a secondary source, because linking to the study leads to cherry picking and endless disputes on the Talk page. That's why summarizing the summary of the study by the Rolling Stones is a better than refering directly to the study. --Where be me spice (talk) 10:09, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

See also

Hey, placing the history of political thought and intellectual history, seems like a stretch here. To me, in a way, it seems like marketing. I have read many of the thinkers and find them all notable and interesting. But associating a metaphor (IDW) coined by one thinker that includes about ~10 people to this history of political thought and intellectual history... seems like such a far stretch it makes me giggle. Vote to rm. Unsigned, editing anonymously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:14c5:82e5:4134:1341:9f2f:478e (talk) 17:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

You still should sign your post even if you are editing anonymously. Also, it's WP:NOTAVOTE, etc.
Either way, I do agree with you for the most part. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 17:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Not a neologism

Calling this a neologism doesn't seem neutral to me. It's not neologism in the sense of, for instance, "meatspace". It might have some similarities to "broicism" or "Manosphere" both in designating the type of people involved and in that it's a new term informally used by some people, disdained by others, and often disowned by people who are labeled as members. However, unlike broicism and manosphere, this is neither two words made into one, nor does it contain a new word not yet found in a dictionary. Nor is it a phrase used in a unique way, ie "I'm not here for that." or "This!" IDW doesn't count as "neo" because there is nothing new about any of the three words. Only their combination. That's just a name, not a new phrase. "The women who play cards at Kate's house" is not a neologism. Nor is "The East Side Rascals." It may be odd that anyone on the East Side is being called a "rascal' but it's not a neologism. It's just a name for a group, wether they or anyone else likes it. If you don't like the term, please nominate for deletion. Failing that, we have at least 10 WP:RS using the term. When people come to this article they should get a neutral description of what it is. DolyaIskrina (talk) 17:40, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

=@Newimpartial: my issue is not with the general framing of the article. Overall I think it works. I'm concerned "neologism" specifically. See above. Perhaps I'm behind the times on what the word now means. Can you give me an example of a three word title of a group that has WP:RS referring to is as a neologism? I'm currently digging through the RS on Neologism to see if I can find one. I'd be happy if the article kept most of its current framing but didn't rely so heavily on the pejorative deployment of neologism. And FWIW I agree with the edit made by MarkH21 that accordingly re orders the lead. Cheers. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:14, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Continuing to talk to myself here, but within English Wikipedia I have been unable to find "neologism" applied to a group of likeminded people, except for, perhaps "scientology". It is however being used most likely in those cases as a synonym for portmanteau. Which IDW is obviously not. DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:24, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I actually do think that this is a neologism because it's a new term with limited usage. The terms you link are older and have much wider usage. Most examples of neologisms that were articles were deleted per WP:NEOLOGISM. Of course external sources don't explicitly call terms "neologisms", because a neologism is by definition a new term with coverage only by those who use the term. — MarkH₂₁^talk 22:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I didn't know WP:NEOLOGISM was a thing. Now it seems even LESS neutral. If the question is how widely used the term is, that is the same as the question of whether or not this is notable. See below for further discussion. DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:08, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Lead order

@Newimpartial: Per MOS:FIRST, the first sentence should say what the subject actually is first. It doesn’t make sense to talk about its history before defining it. — MarkH₂₁^talk 18:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, essentially the issue I have is that what the subject of the article is, is a historically specific neologism. The actual denotation and connotations of the term are more complex, and to use the wording "neologism that refers to" in the first sentence seems to me not to allow any entirely NPOV formulation, and an attempt to do so will inevitably confuse the reader IMO. It is hard enough to describe the term accurately in the lede as a whole. Newimpartial (talk) 20:29, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I mean whatever definition that follows is what’s already in the article, it already says The term refers to.... I’m not saying anything about the actual definition there, but that the first sentence should be whatever definition is agree upon. The current ordering is way too much emphasis on the origin / popularization and against the MOS. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:54, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial:@MarkH21: Agree with new ordering. Disagree that this article is about a neologism. There is no WP:RS that says IDW is a neologism. To call it that borders on SYNTH, and, ironically, apples "neologism" in a new way. I propose instead "informal group" as is the case with, for example, rat pack. And it also fixes both of your issues. "...an informal group of a public personalities who oppose what they believe to be the dominance of identity politics and political correctness in academia and the media." This would be more elegant and clear. "grouping" is just one of the many awkward phrasings that indicates that someone is contorting the definition to fit this odd insistence on deploying the word "neologism." Again I ask if you can find another example of neologism being used to refer to a specific group of people. Are these neologisms: young turks, Young Hegelians, Neoliberals, old guard?? DolyaIskrina (talk) 21:34, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

But in all of your examples, the label came to refer fairly unproblematically to a group of people or a movement (and sometimes only contextually, as with "old guard"). In this case, as I understand it, we remain with a term that is itself confused and contested, more like TERF in that sense. Newimpartial (talk) 22:44, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

If the notion that is being conveyed is the word "controversial" then we should use that word. However, the group is controversial, but the name itself is not, so I think the body of the article conveys that sufficiently. What's wrong with "informal group of pundits"? DolyaIskrina (talk) 00:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

We're talking about the "neologism" part again, but @Newimpartial: do you still have an issue with the ordering itself? — MarkH₂₁^talk 00:14, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

It's really the same issue. If we stop bending over backwards to keep the word "neologism" in the definition your new ordering makes perfect sense.DolyaIskrina (talk) 01:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed text:

The intellectual dark web (IDW) is an informal group of pundits who oppose what they believe to be the dominance of identity politics and political correctness in academia and the media. The term metaphorically compares opposition to mainstream opinion to what is illicitly found on the dark web. The term is ascribed to American venture capital director Eric Weinstein and was popularized in a 2018 editorial by Bari Weiss." DolyaIskrina (talk) 01:30, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

@DolyaIskrina: I'm mostly okay with it. It should still that it's a term, if not a neologism, used to denote the informal group, i.e. in the same way that the article on Political correctness or Homosexual agenda do (examples from WP:WORDISSUBJECT). So would that be fine? Your proposed text but with ...is a term used to denote an informal group... possibly with self-referential in there, as the term seems to be used by the group itself. — MarkH₂₁^talk 01:41, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

It absolutely has to be a term, something like a "term used to refer to". The language proposed above replicates exactly the problem I have, which is that it treated the IDW as if it were an actual movement. I haven't seen any RS that refer to it simply as a movement - the term itself is contested, not just the FRINGE group AFAICT. Newimpartial (talk) 01:58, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

So I think we are all okay with the modified proposed text using term? i.e. just changing the beginning to

Intellectual dark web (IDW) is self-referential term used by denote an informal group of pundits who...

self-referential seems appropriate here, since the sources suggest that it is used by people claiming to belong to the group to refer to themselves. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:01, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I think any of these versions is better than what is currently there and worth a try. "self referential" seems odd to me, because all group names are self referential. I think if what you want to capture is that IDW is controversial or possibly a big deal about nothing etc, then the body of the article does that work. In my mind, this attempt to be too precise on this point is hurting the readability of the article. I'll take a whack at this in a day or two if neither of you get a chance. Thanks. DolyaIskrina (talk) 17:26, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

If we think the sources say that the key figures all self-designate, then the lede could simply state that IDW is '₩a self-designation used by an informal group...'. But if they don't all self-designate, then the situation is more complicated. Newimpartial (talk)

I agree. It's more complicated, because Even Eric Weinstein who coined the phrase said it was a half-joke, and some people considered in the group do not self designate. DolyaIskrina (talk) 18:59, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

In that case, then perhaps IDW is "a term used (sometimes ironically) by an informal group of pundits to refer to themselves and other allied commentators." The next sentence could then try to characterize the group and its views, which I still believe to be the difficult part. Newimpartial (talk) 19:51, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I think that’s reasonable. I don’t think the parenthetical is necessary, since the lead can later mention that it is sometimes used half-jokingly. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:54, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Works for me.DolyaIskrina (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Anti-intellectualism?

Can someone explain the rationale to categorize this page as Anti-intellectualism? The fact that the title starts with the word "Intellectual" makes this very misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sdistefano (talk • contribs) 21:28, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

The fact that they use the word "intellectual" in their group's name doesn't somehow mean they're absolved of any possibility of anti-intellectualism. — Red XIV ^(talk) 05:45, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Recent article: "left-leaning"

An article in Ozy Magazine by its senior politics reporter says But those early steps served as the ideological inspiration behind the so-called “Intellectual Dark Web,” a growing school of thought that includes a collection of mostly left-leaning professors, pundits and thinkers united in their criticism of the modern social justice movement as authoritarian and illogical. (The article is also about a book I'm doing an article on, that's how I found my way here.) Seeing the back-and-forth in the "Associated individuals" section with its mentions of "alt-right", I wondered whether this differing description should be added or not. Schazjmd (talk) 22:36, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

I say yes, describing a diversity of opinions/outlooks is appropriate. Especially if they are from outside the North American bubble (N.A. because JP is Canadian). ☆ Bri (talk) 06:14, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Uhh... It's hard to describe really. As I've said before at length, it's a loose post hoc classification, and not a bona fide group. Some folks are probably legit Nazis. Probably half of the lot were all New Atheists back when that was "a thing" in like...2002, and are probably the farthest from a Nazi you can get. GMG^talk 19:45, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@Schazjmd:That looks worth adding to me, especially the "growing school of thought." Do you have time to add it? I've made a source for you below if you want to use it. DolyaIskrina (talk) 01:32, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I've added it as an attributed description, with ref. Schazjmd (talk) 12:41, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Carl Benjamin

I don't believe any source about or member of the IDW has named him as a member. But I might be wrong. Please provide a source OR let us agree that he should be deleted from this page. I do see that some members of the IDW were upset by him being canceled by Patreon, but that is not the same as him being a member. Yes, I know that membership in the IDW is a nebulous concept, but I think even by those hazy rules, he doesn't qualify. So let's find those WP:RS or cut himn. Thanks DolyaIskrina (talk) 22:47, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

He's not in the least bit intellectual, he's absolutely not in any way suppressed, and he's on the web. That seems to meet the core criteria of the (pseudo)intellectual(anything but)dark web. We used to call them "loud arseholes" but whatevs. Guy (help! - typo?) 22:51, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Your bias is showing once again. I cannot believe anyone would trust you to be an unbiased or fair admin but whatevs. -TrynaMakeADollar (talk) 02:45, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

References

Proposed Revision to Timeline of Articulation&Popularisation

Proposed Revision to Introduction and Origin and Usage section to reflect that: The term was coined by Eric Weinstein and articulated in a January 2018 article by Jacob Kishere. It was further popularised in a May 2018 editorial by Bari Weiss.

Basis for Amendment: On January 18th 2018 I published the first article characterising the Intellectual Dark web and framing it. The piece was published on Conatus News now 'Uncommon Ground Media'. As shown below it received rapid Recirculation by Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan on Twitter causing widespread readership. Later in February 2018 British Journalist Douglas Murray published a very similar framing and following that in May 2018 Bari Weiss of the NYT wrote a full editorial.

File:Jordan Peterson Article Share Jan 19th.png

Jordan Peterson Article Share Jan 19th

File:Joe Rogan Article Share Jan 21st 2018.png

Jordan Peterson, Article Share Jan 19th 2018 : https://twitter.com/jordanbpeterson/status/954251546010660864?lang=en

Joe Rogan Article Share Jan 21st 2018: https://twitter.com/joerogan/status/955339364518707201?lang=en

Jacob Kishere, Conatus/UncommonGround, Jan 18th 2018 https://uncommongroundmedia.com/rise-intellectual-dark-web/

Douglas Murray, Spectator, Feb 21st 2018: (Spectator

Bari Weiss, NYT, May 8th 2018 ([7].

My Conflict of Interest: I am seeking clarification of Wikipedia's record of my own role in the Intellectual Dark Web's historical development.

References

H. L. Mencken Society

@Struthious Bandersnatch:, this recently added/challenged material [[8]] is both UNDUE and synthesis. Additionally, the way the SPLC is used as a primary source is a RS problem. The material is UNDUE since it appears that the only person to mention this is Darryl G. Hart who is the author of the cited work. That effectively makes it a primary vs secondary source. Absent others discussing this claim why would it be DUE for this article? Even if Hart wasn't the author, again, why is it due that one person says, group X should be part of the IDW because they do something similar to other members of the IDW? That connection is tenuous at best. It's synthesis because you haven't shown that the source that links the Mencken Writing Club to the IDW also links them to the white nationalist claims of the SLPC. Finally, the SPLC is effectively an opinion source when saying "Group X is a Y" Since the SLPC is a primary source you need a secondary source to talk about "the SLPC says Group X is a Y". Overall this tells the reader very little about the IDW itself. I mean, assuming this stays, what does this say about the IDW vs what it says about the Mencken Club. Springee (talk) 12:34, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

The first sentence in the edit is WP:UNDUE; it's about the head of the Mencken Society distancing the society from the Mencken Club and really has nothing to do with IDW (other than as an illustration of IDW being used as an accusation to discredit something). And without the first sentence, the second with its refbomb has no place. Schazjmd (talk) 15:14, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@Springee and Schazjmd: I said in my edit comment why I don't think the edit qualifies as SYNTH; to expound further, my point in mentioning that the SPLC categorizes the Mencken Club as a white nationalist group was to point out that there are other non-IDW reasons to characterize its ideology as explicit questioning of mainstream politics, not to indicate that a single source is making both statements.

But an UNDUE/WP:PROPORTION type objection seems much more valid to me, since while this is genuinely illustrative of the reception of the existence of the IDW, it's an exonym sort of characterization rather than a self-identification on the part of the Mencken Club, and you're correct to observe Schazjmd that Hart's intent isn't to characterize the IDW overall.

So, either of you, feel free to delete the entire paragraph. Thank you for seeking consensus here on the article talk page, Springee. --‿Ꞅtruthious 𝔹andersnatch ͡ |℡| 16:27, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Unsupported claims

I've been looking at the revision history of the article, and it seems that the current lead and the first section are largely based off an unreliable source that was added sometime back, and then removed. But the prose stayed; now the claims are unsupported, and aren't reflective of the citations that were left in place, but look like they're being used as references. This is concerning. Despite things like this being a perennial problem on Wikipedia, it definitely shouldn't stay unaddressed on an article like this which serves as a primer, and I'm surprised no one caught onto this before. In addition, while there is some talk about part of it in a section on this talk page, a lot of that was just digression, and there weren't any reliable sources added to the article as a result. What I'm talking about is this, specifically:

1) In the lead, this description: "loosely defined informal group of commentators who oppose what they believe to be the dominance of identity politics, political correctness, partisan politics, and cancel culture in higher education and the news media."

This seems to be based almost entirely, and is almost verbatim, from the following section:

2) "Sources differ on the nature of the IDW, with some describing it as left, and others as ideologically diverse, but nonetheless united against primary adversaries hailing predominantly from progressives, including postmodernism, post-structuralism, Marxism, and political correctness."

The original source for this was some random podcast. Over time, and several edits, this was removed, the original source obscured, without the text being challenged or altered. I would guess that people saw the references following it, and just assumed this was supported by those, without checking. Even then, some of the information that was originally in the article and supported by those sources (like Psychology Today) was truncated in the intervening edits.

Some of this seems a bit self-evident, such as the IDW's general repudiation of what they regard as political correctness and "cancel culture". But aside from that, and regardless, there's actually no sourcing in the article to support virtually any of this directly. These parts of the article should be restored to the long-standing stable version that existed before the edit which added this, unless these claimed can be individually verified. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 17:15, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest making changes to the body based on the current sources and then we can sort out the lead. What you described sounds like a common Wikipedia issue. That does help explain the source of the "left vs right" revert I made earlier today. I didn't see any immediate source supporting left or right so I just reverted to the last stable version. Springee (talk) 17:35, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

That makes sense, and was along the lines of what I was thinking. That, and a combination of piecemeal adding back in parts of what we had there about a month or so ago. While it was a bit more academic, even esoteric, it looked solid based on the sourcing. But I agree: I think it's a good approach to mine what we can from among the better sources already in the article, to help fill it out the body, and then the lead. This is a surprisingly short article for such a notable subject.

And yeah, your revert of that edit was what brought all this to my attention. I started looking at the revision history to see when these sentences were added, as it seemed a bit odd-- and counterintuitive to what I know about the subject (although it's somewhat influenced by some aspects of the historical left, more in terms of approach... It's obviously a phenomenon based on ideas primarily emanating from the political right). The source that was there, from what little I listened to of it, was sort of all over the place, and highly speculative. I didn't listen to enough of it to see where the particular claims came from, since it was already a defacto unreliable source.

And your revert makes sense, as did your edit summary. It's what I would have done as well for such an extraordinary claim, before poking around to see if it was supportable. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 19:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

* (P.S., I have no idea why I thought the template ping in the edit summary would work with a sig, and why I didn't just use the user page mention instead, so I'll just ping you now, Springee. I was trying to let you know I altered the comment to add an indentation mark to your reply, after I had copy-edited the first post. Since that's a courtesy that's supposed to be observed if there's any alteration to another's comment.) Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 19:39, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Heather Heying and Evergreen College

In Associated individuals you can see that Heying is connected to a mention of her on the Evergreen page. I believe this is an inconsistency since the rest of individuals are connected to their individual pages.(I didn't know how to fix it because of the Transclusion if you agree with me please do) --FH24 (talk) 08:31, 26 November 2020 (UTC)FH24

FH24, Heying doesn't have a stand-alone article on her. Schazjmd (talk) 15:52, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Then it shouldn't be linked to anything? (I'm not sure but linking it to a different topic seems odd)--FH24 (talk) 19:05, 26 November 2020 (UTC)FH24

It's common to have a redirect when someone/something doesn't have its own article but is mentioned elsewhere. The redirect in this case tells readers that Heying is a professor at Evergreen and married to Weinstein and was involved in that incident, which is more info than they'd have without the link. Schazjmd (talk) 19:12, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Do WP:RS describe IDWers as "philosophers"?

The lede says The intellectual dark web (IDW) is an informal group of philosophers … but the term is not used elsewhere in the article. I might say "commentators", "writers", or even "thinkers"; "philosophers", unless there is consensus among RS that this is the appropriate term, seems inflated. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 06:41, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

@AleatoryPonderings: Good catch, it seems to have been changed in this unexplained IP edit. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:43, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

MarkH21, Gotcha. I'm not necessarily opposed to "philosophers", but "commentators", in the absence of better sourcing, seems more accurate and neutral. AleatoryPonderings (???) (!!!) 06:46, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Joe Rogan??

Joe Rogan is considered part of the IDW? By whom? Someone kicked in the head by a horse multiple times??? Apeholder (talk) 02:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

Serious BLP issues

It appears that the list of people associated with the IDW are based on an Op-Ed piece which includes a link to a dead website: http://intellectualdark.website/. I'm 100% sure that website is not a reliable source, and describing intellectual associations of people based on an op-ed regurgitation of that content does not satisfy WP:BLP. From the op-ed:

The closest thing to a phone book for the I.D.W. is a sleek website that lists the dramatis personae of the network ...

My suggestion would be to include actual reliable sources for people who have self-affiliated with the group, instead of relying on dubiously sourced information. In the meantime, I've made it clearer that this list is being sourced from Opinion. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 15:58, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

My edit above was reverted, without the editor addressing the WP:BLP issues. If this is reverted again, please consider explaining issues on the talk page. 99.152.115.208 (talk) 18:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

A quite lengthy article about a bunch of people dedicated to guess if they are right-wing or they aren't

Weird. >>> Just a normal reader a little confused, here.

This seems to be a term used by some politicians to give a derogatory label to all people that oppose their views. Imho this article gives too much credit to that term. I recognize it tries to be precise by stating that is loosely defined group, but I would go one step ahead and describe it is just slang, and not a group of people (an actual political group would be people willingly associating with each other or being unified by a common ideal, but there is nothing like that, instead it's a label that some people deliberately apply to others, it's pretty much a synonymous of "reactionary"). --2620:0:1000:8010:8C81:21A0:F47D:19B7 (talk) 23:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

NPOV

The majority of the intellectual dark web members are liberal leaning. Wikipedia lists the major figures as

• Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• Jonathan Haidt
• Sam Harris
• Heather Heying
• Claire Lehmann
• Douglas Murray
• Maajid Nawaz
• Jordan Peterson
• Steven Pinker
• Joe Rogan
• Dave Rubin
• Ben Shapiro
• Michael Shermer
• Debra W. Soh
• Christina Hoff Sommers
• Bret Weinstein
• Eric Weinstein

Of these 17, only Murray, Sommers, Shapiro, and Peterson are conservative, while Rubin is libertarian. Moreover, there are no truly far-right intellectuals (e.g, Patrick Deneen, Sohrab Ahamri) in the intellectual dark web. Yet the article makes the IDW seem like a right-wing movement. This article needs to be more balanced. (talk • contribs) 17:45, 2 January 2022 (UTC) Island Pelican (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

How is Ayaan Hirsi Ali not right-wing? And for example, while Peterson claims not to be right-wing, sources have repeatedly called him right-wing, see Jordan_Peterson#Political_views. Dajasj (talk) 17:59, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, where is it claimed that IDW are specifically right-wing? The source you've added is being discussed later in the article. Dajasj (talk) 18:05, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• A. I think there was a misunderstanding here. I was referring to the extreme, theocratic right. I agree with you that Peterson is right-wing.
• B. I know that this is discussed later in the article, but this is a topic overview. For obvious reasons, things in topic overviews will be repeated.
• C. Ali is part of a centre-right party by European standards, or centrist by American standards.

Island Pelican (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

VVD is not purely centre-right, but members can definitely be to the right or even far-right (Geert Wilders, Wybren van Haga). Ali is definitely more to the right. And I mentioned just two examples, to show your categorization is a simplification. Dajasj (talk) 20:26, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The rightward lean seems pretty hard to ignore, and I know that at least some of this has already been discussed on the linked articles' talk pages.

But it's not up to us here, on this page, to decide these things. That would be original research.

We are required to use sources about the "intellectual dark web" for the ideology of any particular individual within this group. We cannot add our own research about the political leanings of any individual member. Unless sources cite someone's position as an example, we cannot cite it as an example, nor as a counter-example. Further, we have to use reliable sources with a strong preference for independent sources (WP:MANDY is just one reason that's important). A possible exception might be, in some very limited cases, as context for why someone is being mentioned, but even there sources must be support this at the linked biography. It's also worth noting that "liberal" is ambiguous and slightly loaded, and the political compass is at best an intentional simplification. By giving it too much credence to these categorizations, we risk false precision. Grayfell (talk) 02:28, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

OR in an article is not OK. However, conducting OR to see if claims from a source pass the sniff test is OK. If the list of associated members seems to be rather centrists then we should ask why our article appears to focus on the right side of things so much. Note that I'm accepting this to be true for argument sake. I haven't gone into this enough to decide if I personally agree. A bias in the article could come from several sources both internal and external to Wikipedia. An external factor could be that those discussing this are mostly concerned with the right wing aspects (note the recent papers talking about university studies being somewhat blind to left wing authoritarianism while discussing right wing authoritarianism extensively [9]). If this is the case and our article is a reasonable summary of those sources there is nothing else to do. The article would be neutral per NPOV. An alternative possibility is that a true survey of reliable sources would find even focus on both sides but Wikipedia editors for what ever reason have only found/added the sources that talk about the right-wing aspects. That would be a failing on the part of Wikipedia but at least one correctable by adding more sources. A third possibility would be the sources we have are not very robust. If the facts in the article and the claims in the sources don't line up nicely perhaps we should question if the source is actually that reliable for the claims being made (I noticed Rolling Stone is still a source in this article even though it's not considered reliable for politics). Ultimately it may be a mix of things. If the sources and our article seem out of alignment that much it is worth trying to decide why but we can't just change the article because we don't like what our sources support. As a final comment, MANDY is perhaps satisfying but it's frequently a logically poor essay. It basically says we should accept as true because some claim it is blue sky true. But who gets to decide it is blue sky? For political reasons it is often nice to accuse someone that isn't liked of being part of a disliked group. Rather than addressing legitimate concerns it side steps them by presenting a show that they are clearly not valid. It's as valid as saying, "if he didn't do it he wouldn't be on trial" Springee (talk) 05:09, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

Sniff tests are useful, but the still have to meet WP:V and have to be based on other reliable sources. They are a way to check if something has gone wrong, but they can only tell us that more work is needed, and that work has to come from other sources. More, those sources must be looked at individually, even when that's tedious. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and editing takes work.

While the Atlantic article might be interesting or useful in other contexts, with attribution, there's some irony in cautioning against bias while citing an author who is proudly a resident of the American Enterprise Institute. This shows the deeper problem with this line of thinking. A survey of sources to determine a hypothetical bias is at best misguided and at worst disruptive. This kind of thing is using personal opinion to evaluate sourced based on a subjective assessment and then presenting is as objective. This only makes sense under the presumption that there is some bias that needed to be uncovered in the first place, which is a round-about way of saying "I don't like what these sources are saying so they must be biased".

As for MANDY, sometimes the simplest and most neutral way to say it is in plain language, and we don't have to beat readers over the head by constantly reminding them that not everybody likes how they are described. The point of MANDY isn't necessarily to encourage partisanship, instead it cautions against the partisan tendency some editors have to favor euphemisms or bland PR over succinct and precise language. Whether you like that essay or not, that point still applies here. Grayfell (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

NPOV; electric boogaloo

I've removed several instances of leading language, but this article really is littered with them.

For instance, from the lead, I just removed "The term, which metaphorically compared opposition to mainstream opinion to what is illicitly found on the dark web, was not originally intended to be wholly serious". This is implying that the name itself is a False equivalence through the contrast of "mainstream opinion" vs "illicit". Whether or not that's the case, it's not backed up by any of the sources in this article so is WP:UNDUE. There are many other instances of this. I've attached an NPOV template until these issues can be resolved. BrigadierG (talk) 18:10, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

BrigadierG, I don't understand your issue here. Eric Weinstein coined the term "intellectual dark web" as a tongue-in-cheek play on "dark web". He was drawing a metaphor between the 1) sort of illicit stuff found on the dark web and not the mainstream internet and 2) the sorts of arguments and conversations that he and his "IDW" circle were having vs. what you'd find on mainstream media. That's supported by the Bari Weiss and Jacob Humburger sources. What else in the article do you think violates NPOV? Jweiss11 (talk) 04:01, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Absurd article. Please delete it.

I had never heard of the "intellectual dark web" until I saw a mention in another article of someone who was supposedly in it but left. "Huh?" I thought, "the dark web is where illicit stuff is posted. What’s the intellectual dark web? Somewhere where people openly justify issues such as child molestation?"

The creator of the term has, basically, tried to do a nut job on right-leaning thinkers by labelling them with his made up derogatory term. Because there’s nothing illegitimate about having right wing views. All Wikipedians should strive to maintain that consideration, and if they don’t, then they cannot be adhering to NPOV and should not be editing at all. But because that nut job article was in the New York Times, and because current affairs issues on Wikipedia appear to be overseen and worked primarily by those who do their utmost to label any right wing news source as unreliable, we now have an article giving this nut job derogatory term legitimacy. The article should be deleted, and soon. Boscaswell talk 04:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Boscaswell, you're sorely misinformed here. The term was coined by Eric Weinstein to describe himself and a set of others including both liberals and conservatives, with whom he had a friendly intellectual alliance of sorts. It was not intended to be derogatory. And Bari Weiss, who wrote that article for the NYTimes, was, if anything, celebratory of those identified in the IDW. She has become one of the most vociferous critics of leftist politics at the NY Times. Jweiss11 (talk) 16:53, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

@Jweiss11: thanks for that. Well Bari Weiss’s efforts have backfired on her. The thrust of my argument still stands, because the dark web has overwhelmingly negative connotations and so throwing anyone into a grouping which includes that term in its title and expecting people to be positive about them as a result is idiotic. Unless one wishes to put right wing thinkers in a bad light. And so the NYT gave the new term legs by publishing her article. I don’t doubt that editors there were of the same view as myself. Boscaswell talk 20:40, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Further, JWeiss11, Bari Weiss isn’t even right wing. She describes herself as a "left-leaning centrist" (words are her self-description, straight from the Wiki article on her), although she is critical of what are sometimes described as the excesses of the left. So basically, my points stand, in their entirety. Her political position explains perfectly why she did what she did, being to paint right wing thinkers in a bad light, and explains perfectly why the NYT published her piece. It is deliberate mud-slinging. Boscaswell talk 20:52, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

It's kinda funny, I've got this page tagged on my profile for NPOV cleanup, but actually going the other way. The lead is laden with broadly conservative framing of social issues which I think falls afoul of WP:WIKIVOICE. There's lots of little excerpts like "expressing views contrary to orthodox progressive views on identity politics" which is pretty much the textbook defence of people who feel they're being "cancelled". The definition section I think is pretty on point for neutrality, but I don't think the lead reflects the rest of the article, with a conservative slant. BrigadierG (talk) 16:26, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

@BrigadierG: perhaps you missed my point? I set it out twice. Boscaswell talk 04:43, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Boscaswell, you point appears to be that Eric Weinstein and Bari Weiss conspired to apply a derogatory term to set of people in order to malign conservative intellectuals (Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Douglas Murray?)—nevermind that the term was self-applied by Weinstein and also applied to other liberals like his brother, Bret, and Sam Harris. It's wild theory—one that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and one that is supported only by pure conjecture—a sort of kneejerk reaction you had when discovering this topic just a few days ago. I challenge you to find an opinion piece or something published somewhere that remotely aligns with your view. I don't think you'll find it. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:13, 3 September 2022 (UTC)