Talk:LessWrong

Archives (Index)

2024/April 2024/July

This page is archived by ClueBot III.

Removal of "Neoreaction" section

As it currently stands, the primary statement in this section says, "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong". This claim is contradicted by the History section of the Dark Enlightenment page. (Note that the page considers "neo-reactionary movement" and "Dark Enlightenment" to be synonyms.)

Specifically, the History section says that "Steve Sailer is a contemporary forerunner of the ideology", and then "In 2007 and 2008, software engineer Curtis Yarvin... articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking." Contrast this with LessWrong, which is currently listed as having launched on February 1, 2009 on its page. The ideology could not have been first articulated on LessWrong.

It is perhaps possible that the claim is no "movement" surrounding Yarvin's ideology formed on his blog, a devoted listserv, or a topic-specific page of a social media site, but one did belatedly form in an unrelated tech hangout years later. If true, no source cited in the Neoreaction section explains the rationale for organizing in a tech hangout. Nor can I trace the claim to a primary source. That is, I can't trace it to any attempt to demonstrate that such a movement existed on LessWrong, or that no movement was organized at a more intuitive place and time.

Notably, sources for the Dark Enlightenment history section do not make this claim about the history of the Dark Enlightenment movement. (To insert personal opinion, I suspect because more in-depth analysis of the ideology does not support it.)

In summary, the central claim of this section can be interpreted as saying that either the ideology or movement of neoreaction began on LessWrong. The first interpretation must be false- the ideology could not have been created on a website that did not exist yet. The second is an extraordinary claim made with no justification, and is not repeated on the movement's page.

If no objection is made in the next few weeks, I plan to remove this section on the basis of its dubious assertion. TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 07:42, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the article cited for the claim (which is in German), it doesn't support the claim. It does say that "Nicht zufällig waren die Keimzellen der sich auf diversen Websites artikulierenden Ideologie Blogs wie „Overcoming Bias“ oder „Less Wrong“" ("It is not coincidental that the seeds of the movement [literally gametes, but it can be used for ideologies], articulated on various websites, were ideological blogs like "Overcoming Bias" or "Less Wrong""), but that seems different from the claim that "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong". I would maybe say that it claims "The neoreactionary movement took inspiration from some ideas on LessWrong", but that's hardly worth including in the article. Notably, this source only has two sentences about LessWrong, and the second is just a very short explanation of what LessWrong contains. Gbear605 (talk) 14:31, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@TheDefenseProfessor I decided to go ahead with your suggestion and removed the section. Joynohemi (talk) 02:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Here are the sources which have been removed:

• Siemons, Mark (2017-04-14). "Neoreaktion im Silicon Valley: Wenn Maschinen denken". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
• Keep, Elmo (22 June 2016). "The Strange and Conflicting World Views of Silicon Valley Billionaire Peter Thiel". Fusion. Archived from the original on 13 February 2017. Retrieved 2016-10-05. Thanks to LessWrong's discussions of eugenics and evolutionary psychology, it has attracted some readers and commenters affiliated with the alt-right and neoreaction, that broad cohort of neofascist, white nationalist and misogynist trolls.
• Riggio, Adam (23 September 2016). "The Violence of Pure Reason: Neoreaction: A Basilisk". Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. 5 (9): 34–41. ISSN 2471-9560. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2016. Land and Yarvin are openly allies with the new reactionary movement, while Yudkowsky counts many reactionaries among his fanbase despite finding their racist politics disgusting.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky (8 April 2016). "Untitled". Optimize Literally Everything (blog). Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
• Hermansson, Patrik; Lawrence, David; Mulhall, Joe; Murdoch, Simon (2020). "The Dark Enlightenment: Neoreaction and Silicon Valley". The International Alt-Right. Fascism for the 21st Century?. Abingdon-on-Thames, England, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138363861. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 2 October 2020.

Due weight is decided by reliable sources, not individual editors or WP:OR. I would be very surprised if these are the only sources documenting the site's connection to neoreaction and similar regressive pseudointelelctualism. Grayfell (talk) 06:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Joynohemi first deleted the section on behalf of TheDefenseProfessor's suggestion, however there was no further discussion among the editors before such a revision took place whether it was appropriate to do so in stead of revision to just remove the dubious claim. The sources that have been removed provide additional information which makes the article incomplete otherwise. Please discuss here your reasoning for why neoreaction is not relevant to LessWrong before making another hasty reversion. EdenCat (talk) 04:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, as user Jlevi mentioned in the first discussion about the removal of Neoreaction. "This could probably be fixed by modest rephrasing, and I'll think about how to do that." - I have made such a revision and hope it is now satisfactory to the other editors. EdenCat (talk) 05:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Good edit. XOR'easter (talk) 21:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

There's much more in the Hermansson et al. book about the intersection of LessWrong and neoreaction than just the survey result it's currently being cited for. The book provides a rather in-depth exploration of this fuzzy overlap region, more than enough to warrant the concise mention that the article currently provides on the topic. XOR'easter (talk) 22:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the section on neoreactionarism should be removed. The sentence after showed that only 0.92% LessWrong users self-identify as neoreactionaries. It's very rare for polls to come to such a small percentage.

Moreover, there has been some scrutiny over an influent editor trying to aggressively establish a connection between LessWrong and neoreactionarism.[1] While the source is self-published, it nevertheless provides consistent explanations and links to various sources, including Wikipedia diffs. It also reveals efforts to exaggerate the importance of the Roko's Basilisk story and strengthen its association with LessWrong. Let's try to stop misrepresenting this website. Alenoach (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The percentage is irrelevant in this context; what matters is the history. And a personal blog is the definition of a useless source for our purposes. The article does not misrepresent LessWrong, even if that fact makes some people upset. XOR'easter (talk) 01:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

So we have a German source which is said to not support the claim, a news article which makes the claim that some users of the site held neo-reactionary views, a review of a self-published book, a blog post, and a book that states a whopping 0.92% of users identified as neo-reactionary. Yep this is clearly adequately sourced. Traumnovelle (talk) 08:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the sources cited above by Grayfell are reliable and mention LessWrong as a forum of interest to many neoreactionaries. However, the article currently says "the forum played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement," and the sources do not say or imply that. If Group A is interested in Group B's ideas, it does not follow that Group B played a role in the development of Group A. And even if true, this observation does not necessarily merit inclusion in Group A's Wikipedia page.

To see the problems with these implications, consider the following analogy. Suppose that a WP:RS stated that neoreactionaries have been attracted to articles about race and genetics in the New York Times, and participated in the comment section. I think people would generally agree that:

1. This would not by itself constitute evidence that the New York Times played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement.
3. Even if it were provably true that the NYT articles significantly influenced the development of NRx, no one would consider this a noteworthy, representative fact about the New York Times that merits inclusion in its Wikipedia article. It would belong in the article about neoreactionaries.

I believe we would agree on this because the NYT publishes influential material of general interest to many audiences, and a focus on how the NYT has influenced NRx in particular would run afoul of WP:UNDUE.

LessWrong's reach is surely less than the NYT, but as the article's lead rightly notes, the community's range of interests is very broad, centers around rationality and cognitive bias more than anything, and has no clear connection to NRx. Thus, a focus on how LW has influenced NRx in particular is as WP:UNDUE as it is in the NYT example.

If there is to be any discussion of the connection between NRx and LessWrong on Wikipedia, I believe that the neoreactionaries page should talk about LessWrong, not the other way around.

I will wait for a bit for further discussion, due to the visibility and controversy, then edit accordingly if there is no objection. Getnormality (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It's due if sources discuss it, which they do, regardless of whether or not the site has also hosted discussions of other topics. XOR'easter (talk) 01:12, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree, considering the NYT example, but I do see that WP:UNDUE says all significant viewpoints should be represented, so I'll table that for now.

There remains the problem that Grayfell's sources don't support the claim in the article. "Discussions of eugenics and evolutionary psychology hosted on LessWrong have attracted the interest of neoreactionaries" would align much better with what the sources say. Getnormality (talk) 01:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I did not cite those sources for any specific claims, I copied them from the article to this talk page to simplify discussion. Some of them are likely reliable, and some are not. They will have to be evaluated on their own merits, as usual. Clearly there already are objections, so announcing plans to edit accordingly is presumptuous, at best.

The comparison to The New York Times is non-productive for multiple reasons. For one, the scale of these two topics is completely out-of-whack here. Just look at Category:The New York Times, List of The New York Times controversies, etc.. For another, many of the Wikipedia articles on the NYT include discussions of the paper's politics spanning its 172 year history. Third, attempting to appeal to what you believe "people would generally agree" for an unrelated topic based on an entirely hypothetical scenario has nothing to do with what reliable sources are saying about this situation.

Our goal is to provide context based on WP:IS. Allowing members of a community to decide which aspects are important and which are not would be indistinguishable from PR.

As an aside, I appreciate that members of the LessWrong community wish to distance themselves from the neoreactionary movement. I mean that sincerely. I find it upsetting when this kind of crap pops up in my communities, and I imagine it's the same for others. I would propose that Wikipedia isn't the platform to do this, however. Blaming the messengers for pointing out the problem doesn't solve the problem, and it makes it appear to others as if your group's motivations are tactical and PR-minded. Grayfell (talk) 02:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi Grayfell. Could we start over? I do not participate in the LessWrong community, and it is not my goal to represent LessWrong from any particular viewpoint here. I respect Wikipedia, I respect its policies, and I want this article to be informative to people by following the policies. I am not interested in doing PR for LessWrong, I am not interested in overriding anyone's objections, and I am open to changing my mind and the way I do things based on input from experienced editors.

As I said here, what I'd like to do now is rephrase the existing text to remove a claim which I find to be unsupported by the cited sources. It seems to me that the sources you've already developed are sufficiently reliable to support that rephrased claim. What do you think? Getnormality (talk) 02:26, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

As a show of good faith: if there is a reliable account of the development of NRx that says it grew faster because of LW, or adopted new ideas based on influence from LW, let's say so and cite it. I have no problem with that at all. But if LW is just a place they've read stuff they're interested in and commented, "played a role in their development" seems like it would be misinterpreted by the average reader. Getnormality (talk) 03:07, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree; don't see a RS on this Secarctangent (talk) 03:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Your proposal sets an arbitrary standard that is not based on Wikipedia's norms. Per reliable sources, LessWrong's platform for discussing eugenics and dubious evolutionary psychology had consequences. Anecdotally, I glanced at LessWrong earlier today to perform a quick sanity check that it hadn't completely changed since the last time I looked at it. It hadn't. It is not a fluke that this happened, it was entirely predictable, and we're not doing a disservice to readers by summarizing these sources. Additionally, the article does clearly state that Yudkoswsky rejects neoreaction, and this is an appropriate use of a primary source.

The best way to start over would be with a specific, actionable proposal based on specific, reliable sources. Instead of writing WP:BACKWARDS from how you think the article should explain this based on blog posts or hypothetical scenarios about other topics, look at what reliable sources are actually saying. Grayfell (talk) 04:59, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

The specific statement is: "The forum played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement".

None of the sources cited specifically say this. The fusion article is accurately cited, as it states "Thanks to LessWrong’s discussions of eugenics and evolutionary psychology, it has attracted some readers and commenters affiliated with the alt-right and neoreaction".

However, the specific claim about Lesswrong playing a role in the development of the movement - the citations fail verification.

The quote in citation 15 is the following:

"Ein Hauptideengeber ist der in San Francisco lebende Software-Ingenieur Curtis Yarvin, der unter seinem Blogger-Namen Mencius Moldbug schreibt: „Bei UR“ – gemeint ist sein Blog „Unqualified Reservations“ – „kümmern wir uns nicht um Tradition. Wir akzeptieren nichts Gegebenes, dienen keinem Idol. Im Gegenteil – wir scheißen auf sie.“

Nicht zufällig waren die Keimzellen der sich auf diversen Websites artikulierenden Ideologie Blogs wie „Overcoming Bias“ oder „Less Wrong“, die sich mit künstlicher Intelligenz befassen und mit der Vorstellung, mit Hilfe von Computertechnik ewiges Leben erlangen zu können („Transhumanismus“). Bei der dort geübten „Kampfkunst der Rationalität“ geht es in den Worten des Computerforschers Eliezer Yudkowsky nicht zuerst darum, mit Hilfe des menschlichen Verstandes die Maschinen klüger zu machen, sondern vielmehr darum, mit der antizipierten Maschinenintelligenz die menschliche Vernunft zu verändern: „Wir müssen die Wissenschaft auf unsere Intuitionen anwenden, müssen das abstrakte Wissen dazu nutzen, unsere mentalen Bewegungen zu korrigieren.“"

This Google translates to:

"One of the main sources of ideas is the San Francisco-based software engineer Curtis Yarvin, who writes under his blogger name Mencius Moldbug: “At UR” – meaning his blog “Unqualified Reservations” – “we don’t care about tradition. We don’t accept anything given, we don’t serve any idol. On the contrary – we don’t give a shit about them.”

It is no coincidence that the seeds of the ideology articulated on various websites were blogs such as “Overcoming Bias” or “Less Wrong”, which deal with artificial intelligence and the idea of ​​being able to achieve eternal life with the help of computer technology (“transhumanism”). In the words of computer researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, the “martial art of rationality” practiced there is not primarily about using the human mind to make machines smarter, but rather about using the anticipated machine intelligence to change human reason: “We must apply science to our intuitions, we must use abstract knowledge to correct our mental movements.”"

The closest quote I can find in citation 16 is the following:

"It is unclear to me how Roko’s malevolent AI found a second life on reddit, after the erasure of the original thread, and came to be popularly known as ‘Roko’s Basilisk’ or simply ‘The Basilisk’. The basilisk is a legendary, crested, snake-like being, able to poison anyone unfortunate enough to chance upon his path. The beast appears in one of the Harry Potter novels – in the Harry Potter version, the basilisk is able to petrify his victims with a gaze similar to the Medusa stare – and in some recent Manga series, but the basilisk is better known as an age-old anti-Semitic trope. In Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies (1543) the creature is identified with the ‘venomous’ Jewish folk whose pestilence is said to be lethal. Yudkowsky did dissociate himself from the white supremacist creeps in and around his blog – the ethno-nationalist blog MoreRight, run by the neoreactionary ideologue Michael Anissimov, emerged out of LessWrong, after the two men fell out with each other – but given that ‘The Basilisk’ swiftly became a prominent avatar for neoreactionary transhumanism,Footnote19 it is not far-fetched to assume that the anti-Semitic connotations are intentional. These crypto-fascist forums, which, as Philip Sandifer notes, incubated in tech culture and seem to have compromised it beyond redemption, play a major role in the production and dissemination of alt-right idioms and imagery. According to Mother Jones, the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer – named after Der Stürmer, the unofficial propaganda organ of the Nazi party – gets the bulk of its donations from Silicon Valley, and Santa Clara County, home to Apple and Intel, are the site’s largest traffic source."

The most honest solution at this point is to remove the section that states that Lesswrong influenced the development of the neoreaction movement. The reliable sources only state that certain neoreactionary individuals interacted with the founder of this site and that a tiny proportion of site users identify with the movement. Giving it a whole section in History is totally undue weight. It's more appropriate for Yudkowsky's page or the Dark Enlightenment page. 2001:BB6:76BC:2C00:75C9:AC2B:2549:F606 (talk) 11:21, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for this - I was about to develop a similar comment myself. Again restating the text in question,

"The forum played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement" [15][16]

Let's review the supporting citations against the WP:RS standard. I'll rely on 2001's quotes, as I agree that they are the closest to supporting the claim as stated.

Citation 15: FAZ

2001's quote from the FAZ essay [15] can be read as supporting the claim that LW played a role in the development of NRx, and a well-regarded news organization like FAZ is prima facie WP:RS. However, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:CONTEXTFACTS, we need to consider whether this specific text is of the kind that FAZ would have verified with its fact-checking processes. This is especially important today, given that news outlets now often blend factual reporting with more opinion-based analysis [2]. And the passage is clearly not one that would have been subject to fact-checking, because it presents no verifiable facts. A fact-checker cannot check whether LessWrong provided the seeds of the ideology of the neoreactionary movement. What fact-checkers can do is check whether, for example, Curtis Yarvin cited LessWrong as inspiration for an idea.

Verdict: Citation 15 is not a WP:RS for the current article text because it does not contain a verifiable factual claim that supports the article text.

Citation 16: Third Text

In 2001's pull quote I find two specific claims. First, it appears to be speculating that the basilisk was adopted by neoreaction in part for its antisemitic connotations, but I see no explicit assertion that the neoreactionary basilisk is Roko's Basilisk from LessWrong. Second, there is the note about the origin of MoreRight. This is a verifiable claim, and seems almost certain to be true. However, without a source for the prominence of Michael Anissimov in NRx, the inference that LW played a role in the development of NRx at large is somewhere between opinion and WP:OR. The site MoreRight no longer exists, and what little I can find about Anissimov suggests that he was briefly notable within NRx from roughly 2013-2015 [3] [4]. More importantly, it seems that MoreRight was founded because LessWrong was not a hospitable environment for NRx, which led to the need for a separate space.

Verdict: Citation 16 is not a WP:RS for the current article text because the article text does not accurately represent the claim made by the source. The source says that a neoreactionary who participated on LessWrong went on to found a neoreactionary website because he found LessWrong inhospitable. "LessWrong played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement" does not accurately represent the claim of this source.

Conclusion

To comply with WP:RS, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:CONTEXTFACTS, the FAZ citation should be removed as non-verifiable, and the article text needs to be reworked to align with the actual claim of Third Text. My proposal: "Neoreactionaries have participated as commenters on the LessWrong forum". With the right WP:RS source, this could perhaps be strengthened to prominent or influential neoreactionaries, but doing so without one would be WP:OR.

[15] Siemons, Mark (14 April 2017). "Neoreaktion im Silicon Valley: Wenn Maschinen denken". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 23 March 2019.

[16] Pinto, Ana Teixeira (4 May 2019). "Capitalism with a Transhuman Face: The Afterlife of Fascism and the Digital Frontier". Third Text. 33 (3): 315–336. doi:10.1080/09528822.2019.1625638. ISSN 0952-8822. Getnormality (talk) 14:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

That argument for dismissing FAZ is pure speculation. XOR'easter (talk) 15:17, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Dismissing my comment without specific engagement is inappropriate here. Per WP:CONTEXTFACTS, reliable sources must contain factual claims that support the specific claims in the article. Wikipedians cannot shirk the duty of assessing whether this is actually true in a particular situation. To cast doubt on my argument, you need to respond to the specific point I made: "A fact-checker cannot check whether LessWrong provided the seeds of the ideology of the neoreactionary movement." FAZ made no specific factual claims in support of this statement, so it is not fact-checkable.

Here are some fact-checking guides respected institutions of journalism [5][6]. Fact checkers do not verify generalized narratives without specific supporting facts. Per the CUNY guide, they ask questions such as "Who says?" and "How do they know?". FAZ provided no "who" and no "how" for the "seeds" claim, so it is impossible for a fact-checker to verify the claim. In this case, a fact-checker would have to construct an entire body of facts to verify the claim without any of these facts being included in the story. This beggars belief and defeats the entire purpose of journalism, which is to provide the public with verifiable factual information, not vague narrative claims that the public is expected to take on faith in the general reliability of the institution. Getnormality (talk) 15:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

We are not in a position to evaluate all the reasons that FAZ had to print what they did. Our job is only to summarize it properly. This is how Wikipedia handles all journalism. XOR'easter (talk) 15:49, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a factually incorrect statement about Wikipedia policy.

Per WP:RSCONTEXT:

"The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content." The mere existence of a statement in a generally reliable source is clearly not sufficient to meet this standard.

Per WP:NEWSORG:

"Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces ... are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."

"Whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis."

These policies require that specific claims made by news organizations be assessed for whether they are factual in nature or editorial/analysis/opinion in nature. If they are not factual claims, they can only be reported in Wikipedia as statements attributed to the author, not as facts.

With this in mind, please attend closely to the heading at the very top of the FAZ article [7], which is "Feature > Debates > The digital debate > Neoreactionaries in Silicon Valley". The subheading "Debates" is a clear indicator that this is an opinion essay, not a news article. Getnormality (talk) 16:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

No, it is not a clear indicator that the article is an opinion column. It's a feature (Feuilleton), providing reporting on a trend. The Debatten section of FAZ's features includes things that are clearly not opinion pieces, such as interviews [8] and eyewitness reporting [9]. It's where FAZ covers Kontroverse Debatten aus Politik & Wirtschaft, controversies from politics and the economy. XOR'easter (talk) 16:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate that you have more context than me on this. However, I do not see you making the claim that Feuilleton or Debatten solely contain factual reporting. In English, the term "feature" is a very generic term for a broad range of pieces ranging from opinion essays to factual reporting, typically more toward the subjective "soft news" end (cf. [10]) and "debate" would dispose toward opinion. Unless the usage in German is demonstrably entirely different, the claim that this is more likely to be factual reporting than opinion is untenable.

Furthermore, the content of the FAZ article contains clear indicators of being an opinion essay. For example:

"What is crucial about them is that traditions play no role for them and they consider any kind of 'nature' to be no less a cultural and social construct than the left-wing and liberal theorists who supposedly shape the mainstream they hate so much." (Google Translated)

The claim that some group "hates so much" some other group of people is a highly emotionally charged generalization that does not normally appear in factual reporting. It is not necessarily a wrong thing to say, it may be true in some sense, but it is not within the province of factual reporting to make such emotionally charged generalizations, especially without specific supporting facts.

In light of these facts, the claim that the FAZ article is factual reporting is simply not possible to believe. It contains strong indicators of being primarily an essay of opinion or analysis. Getnormality (talk) 16:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Filing an article under "debates" or "controversies" does not weigh in favor of it being an opinion piece. Nor does an appeal to the supposed emotional charge of a description (and I do not think that saying a group of people hates "the mainstream" is all that emotionally charged). Rather than trying to dismiss reporting in one of Germany's major newspapers based on speculation and personal feelings about tone, one should dispute it by finding sources of comparable reliability that explicitly call its reporting into question. XOR'easter (talk) 17:04, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not dismissing the article. Opinion and analysis essays are not bad; I have learned from them on many occasions. What I have done is question the appropriate categorization of this article. In response, you have presuppositionally labelled the article as factual reporting without support from evidence or argument, and against my evidence and argument. This is noncompliant with the policies WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:NEWSORG. Again, these policies state:

"Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content."

"Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces ... are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."

"Whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis."

Presuppositional labelling without and against the best available evidence is noncompliant with these policies. There can be no reasonable supposition that a news organization which publishes a mix of reporting and opinion is reporting fact. Per policy, must assess this on a case-by-case basis. Thus, it is not my job to prove to you beyond all reasonable doubt that this is an opinion essay; our duty is to weigh the best available evidence without presuppositional bias.

So far, I am the only one in this conversation who has provided positive evidence regarding the categorization of this FAZ article. You have questioned my evidence, but this does not dispose towards factual reporting, because there is no basis here for a presupposition of factual reporting.

To claim that a group "hates" another group is an emotionally charged claim. This is an objective fact, not my subjective opinion. There is nothing wrong with making such a claim, and it may be true, but it is not within the normal realm of reporting. Getnormality (talk) 17:25, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we should weigh the best available evidence without presuppositional bias. But asserting that a newspaper feature said something so emotionally charged that it must be disqualified as journalism seems to be bringing in a presuppositional bias of its own.

Also, you don't need to repeatedly quote policies. I've been editing with this account since 2017; I've read them. Excessive quotation just builds up a wall of text that eventually discourages other editors from contributing to the discussion. XOR'easter (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Since we agree presupposition is off the table, what is your positive argument for the categorization?

I appreciate the feedback on the wall of text and will try to be more concise. In return, I respectfully ask that my arguments and evidence be engaged with meaningfully and not dismissively. In particular, I respectfully ask for greater caution around the strawmanning and distortion of my statements. I did not say that the essay must be disqualified as journalism. I said that the use of emotionally charged statements was evidence (not irrefutable proof) for its categorization on the opinion or analysis side of journalism rather than the reporting side. Getnormality (talk) 17:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It amazes me that the user you were responding to could say, "with a straight face", as it were, "stop quoting the policies at me! I know what they say!!"--as if the reason for repetition was not that they had gone repeatedly unaddressed: already almost self-parody--and then still not actually address them.

I would almost suspect a Poe, if not for the manifold edits on this topic they've made.

Himaldrmann (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Concur. Secarctangent (talk) 00:28, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I've avoided editing the page recently as I'm frankly too frustrated to do so objectively right now. But perhaps if I speak clearly about why, it will help resolve disagreements here.

This is one of several pages where an admin abused his position with an agenda best described as a blog war, and is consequently banned from editing it. This appears to be common knowledge. Actions included adding prominent discussion of two topics that caused this talk page to be so lengthy: Roko's Basilisk, and the alleged link between NRx and the website. Is this not common knowledge? The actions also included cases of what seem to me clear citation laundering of personal takes on those topics. Is this not also common knowledge?

Does a ban not imply a loss of good faith assumptions?

Because if so, I would have expected editors would subject sources on relevant issues to scrutiny for signs of having been laundered, and to ignore sources where this is plausible.

More broadly, I would have expected editors would be very skeptical of past decisions about what merited inclusion in case the page has been WP:Backwards for multiple years.

Instead I see an assumption that the system was working correctly here despite the need for a topic ban of a major editor.

I don't trust myself to litigate this neutrally right now. I sympathize with editors who suspect the neutrality of anyone proposing sweeping changes. But I hope others see the case for at least suspecting the page is WP:Backwards. TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 08:33, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The whole LessWrong controversy has been seen by many outsiders as a confirmation that you should be skeptical of what is on Wikipedia. It's pretty clear that LessWrong is mainly about rationality and artificial intelligence, and that the content on neoreaction was WP:UNDUE and damaged the website's reputation for years. I think that the best thing to do is to just remove the subsection "Neoreaction" and end the controversy, so that contributors can focus their time and energy elsewhere. Alenoach (talk) 12:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Alenoach I think I disagree. Firstly, the RS coverage influences what is due weight. Secondly, and I may not be articulating this right, but LW purports to be about determining what is rational--it's not a descriptive newspaper with a comment section, for example--so there may be different hazards in that territory. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 13:05, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa. One issue is that much of the coverage in secondary sources originates from the Wikipedia edits of a contributor that is notorious for his connection and disputes with LessWrong.

That's a subtle point indeed (if I understood correctly), that orienting public perception of rationality could have particular downstream influence.

The current version of the article is fairer in its phrasing, but it still suggests an significant connection between LessWrong and neoreaction, in which case I would expect a significant amount of neoreactionarists on the website defending the ideology. I made a quick search on the LessWrong search bar. No keyword returned 38819 posts. Searching for "rationality" returned 8755 posts, and "artificial intelligence" returned 7217 posts. Searching for "neoreaction" returned barely 8 posts. And these posts don't seem to endorse neoreaction, despite the fact that neoreaction doesn't appear to be a label that proponents actively want to avoid. Wikipedia focuses on relaying what is consensual, and we have no obligation to cover something that was mentioned in a given secondary source, especially when many Wikipedia contributors think it's dubious.

I'm not sure this fully addresses your arguments. But no problem with your disagreement, I appreciate your concern for reliable sources, as well as many of your edits. Alenoach (talk) 15:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi Alenoach - I think it is no longer necessary to litigate relatively subjective WP:UNDUE issues. The more serious issues in the previous version related to WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP, and the current version has fixed all these issues. As a side effect, the new version makes WP:UNDUE much less material, as it is no longer derogatory. This means we are now free to focus on what Wikipedia is really about: informing people with objective factual information and letting them form their own views. See my new section below for full context. Getnormality (talk) 16:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that deletion is the best solution.

This section has survived for years with big claims unsupported by the citations. In recent days, the paragraph has been edited to specifically reflect the cited sources: this has resulted in a clear case of the sources not supporting the claims at all. Right now, the paragraph says only the following:

1/ a commentor on a different blog was a neoreactionary

2/ one of the forum founders debated the neoreactionary on a different blog

3/ some neoreactionaries used the forum but they amounted to less than 1% of site users

I cannot see a reason for this forum to still have a whole subsection dedicated to the topic of neoreactionaries who interacted with the founders or previous blogs. 2001:BB6:76BC:2C00:691:39D7:786A:2E5 (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi 2001 -- I think it is time for a fresh start on the Neoreaction section, and I have provided one in a new section below. Please avoid removing this material before hearing me out. Thank you! Getnormality (talk) 16:05, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Blanket revert by user Grayfell, asking for reasons

User @Grayfell reverted edit 1234013119 with a vague comment "WP:EDITORIALIZING, WP:TONE and WP:RS issues". Asking them to defend this on this talk page, as they said they would, and in desire to meet WP:BRD norm. Secarctangent (talk) 03:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

This is regarding this edit.

Unherd is a poor-quality outlet for both demonstrating significance and for factual claims. The included quote lacks context and was unattributed (the quote came Tom Chivers) and calling this a "cornerstone" is both uninformative and non-neutral. Find abetter source and use that source to explain why this is significant without cherry-picking.

For the line The community has grown substantially, and expanded beyond LessWrong; some commentators claim that... "Substantially" is too vague, and "some commentators claim" is both MOS:WEASEL and MOS:DOUBT.

As for the first paragraph of the 'Purpose' section, neither wording seems ideal, but whether or not rationality is actually increased is neither a settled issue, nor even a falsifiable claim, and Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion. either way.

Grayfell (talk) 03:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, your most recent revert appears to put you in violation of WP:3RR? —Ashley Y 05:17, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Technically yes; I count four reverts from three distinct edits. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 12:10, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

This revert was to fix a blatant WP:BLP violation. It doesn't count towards 3RR. XOR'easter (talk) 14:03, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. New contributors to this page would do well to carefully read WP policy pages, in this case WP:3RRBLP. Contrary to impressions that some may have, Wikipedia policies are subordinate to the overall purpose of the website (cf. WP:IGNORE). They have a spirit and intention behind them, and policy details are generally consistent with the spirit. Dedicated editors can't be held back from reverting policy violations when many occur in quick succession. Getnormality (talk) 22:33, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Let's take these one at a time.

1. Why is Unherd a poor-quality outlet ? There's a New Yorker source we can probably use instead, but I'd like to know more about your concerns about Unherd.

2. I think the current text is not NPOV; the sourced New Yorker article claims "the center of rationalist gravity followed him, in 2013, to Slate Star Codex" which is NOT the same as "In 2013, a significant portion of the rationalist community shifted focus to Scott Alexander's [[Slate Star Codex]". These are different metaphors with different meanings and we should not treat them the same. I'm happy to hear other options, but suggest we simply quote the underlying source instead.

3. Re: Purpose, I am trying to solve the problem that we don't have a RS saying that it "promotes lifestyle changes" as far as I can tell. I think people discuss them, but I don't see how we can justify "promotes". Is there a source I'm missing ? Secarctangent (talk) 00:34, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@Grayfell is not replying; I would like to seek consensus that we do not have a RS to "promotes lifestyle changes." Does anyone disagree? Secarctangent (talk) 01:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Just shooting from the hip here, I would change the "Purpose" section to "Topics" and simply delete the first sentence. We are not in a position to summarize the purpose of LessWrong, unless perhaps it does so itself (but this would present primary source issues). Getnormality (talk) 01:46, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

The 'Purpose' paragraph cites two sources. Rhetorically speaking, what do those sources say about LessWrong's purpose? Likewise, what do other reliable (independent) sources say about its purpose? The proposed wording change for that paragraph did not make the paragraph any closer to cited sources. It did, however, make the article subtly more promotional-sounding. Keep in mind that we do not necessarily requires articles to share the exact same wording as sources. In fact, we explicitly do not want this, as it's a WP:CLOSEPARAPHRASE/WP:COPYVIO issue. Our goal as an encyclopedia is to summarize the underlying concept that is being conveyed by sources.

For the added paragraph and Unherd, if a more reliable source talks about something similar, look at what that source says and summarize it more neutrally and proportionately. A paragraph that calls it a "cornerstone" without explaining what that means or why it is important, followed by a relatively lengthy unattributed quote, is not neutral nor is it proportionate to the unreliable source being cited. Grayfell (talk) 07:40, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

New reference to Chivers book

I noticed a nice new reference has been added by User:XOR'easter:

Chivers, Tom (2019). "37. The Neoreactionaries". The Rationalist's Guide to the Galaxy. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-1-4746-0880-0. Another accusation is that the Rationalists are linked to the alt-right. And there is a very good and specific reason to think that they might have those links. That is that they do. The online group known as the 'Neoreactionaries', which is a sort of strange medievalist subset of the alt-right, grew out of the Rationalist movement to some extent. The even left LessWrong and founded their own website, named (spot the reference) 'More Right'. Mencius Moldbug [blogged] on Robin Hanson's Overcoming Bias before LessWrong split from it. Michael Anissimov, another prominent Neoreactionary, was until 2013 MIRI's media director.

That Moldbug blogged on Overcoming Bias was not previously known to me, and the source seems solid. Great job! However, I don't think this should be used to support "the website and the community surrounding it played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement." The relevant fact from this source is about Overcoming Bias, not LessWrong. The part about Anissimov would support "a prominent neoreactionary was MIRI's media director, an organization founded creator of LW", not "LW played a role in the development of NRx". I think the following, slightly revised mockup would accurately represent the sources we have:

"Overcoming Bias hosted posts from Mencius Moldbug, the founder of the neoreactionary movement.[Chivers] After LessWrong split from Overcoming Bias, it too attracted the participation of neoreactionaries with discussions on the site of eugenics and evolutionary psychology.[Fusion]"

It feels less than ideal that a fact about Overcoming Bias is being highlighted in the LessWrong page, but this seems appropriately contextualized in the section overall, and the fact is that the LW page is currently the only place on Wikipedia where this story comes together. We shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good: accurately informing people about this community with facts from reliable sources.

Final, minor point: per our previous discussion, I maintain that FAZ is not WP:RS for any version of this claim, and should be removed. While FAZ is prima facie appealing as a news organization, IMHO the Chivers reference is superior per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS because it contains (1) a verifiable fact (2) supporting the (proposed revised) Wiki text (3) authored by an established journalist.

XOR'easter, I hope my respect for your legwork is evident. I'm hoping this proposal allows us to leave the murky FAZ discussion behind and finish with an accurate, informative page. Getnormality (talk) 22:25, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure we can trust this source. Searching the website, I'm not seeing any examples of Moldbug blogging on Overcoming Bias; at best, I see examples of Hanson writing up his sides of debates with Moldbug, but under Hanson's byline. Secarctangent (talk) 00:38, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. In English, a blogger is generally the main author of a blog post, not a commenter. Here is what I'm seeing online:

1. A Google search for site:overcomingbias.com moldbug turns up 32 results on Google. I quickly checked through all of them. No posts have a Moldbug byline. The posts are either Hanson-authored replies in a debate with Moldbug or they are references to Moldbug by commenters (typically on LW, which some OB links forward to).
2. In his debate with Moldbug, Hanson's tone is contemptuous, describing a response as "confused and rambling" [11] and exclaiming, with evident exasperation, "what more can one say to such a person?" [12].
3. Sandifer's book Neoreaction: a Basilisk says "one of the sites where [Moldbug] got his start as a commenter was on Overcoming Bias" (emphasis mine). Hanson is mentioned six times in my 2018 edition of the book. After checking all six, I see no instance where Moldbug is reported to have blogged on Overcoming Bias. This would have been an extremely notable moment given the topic of the book.
4. I cannot determine with certainty whether Moldbug authored posts on OB that were deleted later. However, this would have been notable at the time, and my search for overcomingbias moldbug posts "deleted" turned up no evidence of this.

The weight of evidence strongly suggests (if not beyond all doubt) that Chivers got "blogged" wrong, or was misquoted. Meanwhile, Sandifer's account is almost certainly correct, and could be verified beyond all doubt using the Wayback Machine.

Given how it is promoted, Chivers seems to be a book of feature journalism. This is a form of "soft news" that is likely to be less rigorously fact-checked, even if written by an established journalist. The book title's play on words and the book's reviews ("Beautifully written, and with wonderful humour") also suggest a relatively less serious book. Sandifer's book also has some of these qualities, but Sandifer's factual claim about Moldbug commenting is verifiable and almost certainly true, given the debate.

Per WP:EDITING, "a lack of content is better than misleading or false content". WP:NOTOR says "the best solution is to remove minor incorrect claims". While both Chivers's and Sandifer's books lack bulletproof WP:RS status, both present a verifiable fact, and Sandifer's has the advantage of being almost certainly true, while Chivers's is unlikely to be true. My conclusion: either Moldbug should be described as a commenter on Overcoming Bias, with Sandifer as the source, or the claim should be removed entirely. In my perfect world we would do the former. But as a newer editor, I am unsure if this is appropriate given reasonable WP:RS concerns about the book, and the fact that I have done some WP:OR to reach these conclusions.

Finally, I notice that the word "blogged" is in brackets in the Chivers reference. XOR'easter, I am unable to easily get this book, could you provide the original word used? Getnormality (talk) 02:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the edits proposed in my various recent talk comments. My previous comments provide WP:RS due diligence commensurate with the sensitivity of the topic, and it is long overdue to present the connection between neoreaction and LessWrong in terms of specific, verifiable facts, rather than vague narrative claims from soft news sources that fall short of WP:RS standards. Admittedly I myself have used soft news sources, but only for verifiable claims, and only after carefully fact-checking those claims myself. My interpretation of WP:OR is that we should not present original research within the article text, but we may use fact-checking work to select those secondary sources that best comply with WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:CONTEXTFACTS. I believe that this interpretation is the most balanced, effective way to serve Wikipedia's dual objectives of presenting (1) accurate information (2) from reliable secondary sources. Getnormality (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

" My conclusion: either Moldbug should be described as a commenter on Overcoming Bias, with Sandifer as the source, or the claim should be removed entirely. In my perfect world we would do the former. "

I think it should be removed; he wrote exactly one comment, that didn't get significant engagement, in November 2007 when a) LessWrong didn't exist yet and b) his blog had started (first post in May 2007), so he was basically a nobody; see the history of Unqualified Reservations - in archived versions of his blogroll either before or after I see no reference of Overcoming Bias in his Blogroll, so I don't think he considered it part of his "circle", there was just one drive-by comment. Flammifer (talk) 09:27, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for looking into this. If your report is accurate, I entirely agree that this is warranted. I don't consider Sandifer an unimpeachable RS, and source research disconfirming or heavily qualifying her claims is a warrant for exercise of WP:EDITDISC. Getnormality (talk) 11:05, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

Recent review of History/Neoreaction section against WP guidelines

I think it is time to review recent findings on how this page has represented the relationship between LessWrong (LW) and the neoreactionary movement (NRx). Here is what we have seen so far, from my perspective:

1. The now-removed claim that LW played a role in the development of NRx was vague and lacking WP:RS support. I believe that my comments elsewhere on this page establish this beyond reasonable doubt. Notably, versions prior to 2019 did not include this claim, and only had the well-supported claim that NRx-ers "took an interest" in LW. Unfortunately, a revision was made that damaged the article's WP:RS compliance.
2. The character of WP:RS noncompliance here was a failure to diligently evaluate source claims in context, such that news features with strong evidence of being analysis/opinion in nature were presented as if they provided facts vetted by a fact-checked reporting source. In particular, while opinionated sources can sometimes provide vetted facts, there was a failure to notice whether claims were of a sufficiently concrete character that they could have reasonably been vetted by fact-checkers in a standard news reporting process.
3. This claim -- and even more unfounded ones, such as NRx first grew on LW -- have existed on the page since 2019, and in the past 5 years may have materially misled the public, as well as reliable sources themselves, through Wikipedian citogenesis. It is abundantly clear from e.g. Greyfell's citations and comments on this talk page that
   1. NRx is a widely despised movement.
   2. The connection between LW and NRx has been a topic of significant interest in the mass media and some scholarly communities.
4. More recently, the noncompliant claim was supported by a tonally opinionated book which claimed that the founder of NRx "[blogged]" on LW. My research indicates that this claim is unlikely to be true. It is much more likely that he was just a commenter. We have a responsibility to fact-check where practical as part of exercising editorial discretion in the information we publish. That responsibility becomes much greater when the information is derogatory about a living person -- in this case, the claim that Robin Hanson allowed the leader of a widely-despised movement to blog on his website.

WP pages with reliability shortcomings are likely not uncommon due to the challenging, almost journalistic work needed to fully comply with the policy. However, it should have been recognized that characterizing a community as "playing a role" in the development of a widely despised group, without diligently researched WP:RS support, is a serious WP:NPOV violation. It is also uncomfortably close to a violation of WP:BLPSTYLE, which states "do not label people with contentious labels, loaded language, or terms that lack precision, unless a person is commonly described that way in reliable sources." (emphasis mine) Anyone would reasonably object to Wikipedia pages on their projects containing vague, WP:RS-unsupported claims that suggest they have somehow made the world a worse place.

All that said, this section is now strictly factual and WP:RS-supported to the best of my abilities. It is also no longer materially derogatory, as

1. It is generally understood that blog commenters can be all sorts of widely-despised people without necessarily reflecting on the blog.
2. The text is followed immediately by the clarification that LW's founder opposes NRx.

There remains an issue of whether this material belongs here? I maintain that it does. The documented interest in the topic establishes notability above and beyond what WP:N requires, and it is best to tell the story in full context, which requires going back to OB (as is already done in the opening of the History section, whose text I have not seen disputed).

Having considered all this, it is my opinion that the current text should remain, and remain in its current form, to inform the public and to avoid further violations of WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP with damaging implications to public and media understanding. The only exception to this should be if proposed changes adhere to an WP:RS review standard at least as diligent as that which produced the current text.

I have spent a lot of time developing this opinion, and I expect that disagreement with my evidence and arguments will henceforth be accompanied by meaningful engagement. There must be no more disengaged dismissal or unilateral reversion without discussion on this sensitive topic.

Lastly, I want to emphasize that I believe everyone's involvement has been in good faith, and I have appreciated working with all of you on this article. I have done my best to draw a bright line between what I see as serious WP policy adherence shortcomings with real-world consequences, and negativity towards any contributors who may have been involved. Getnormality (talk) 16:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

(again reiterating that I am the primary admin of LW, so I have a huge COI here)

Thanks a lot for you and other Wikipedian's work on this. I am glad to see the article improved and made more accurate.

I think two issues with the current article remain:

1. The neoreaction section is a disproportionate fraction of the article. I think it might make sense to include this section, since it has gotten media coverage from recognized reliable sources, but I don't think it makes sense for it to be roughly 1/7th of the article. LessWrong has hundreds of thousands of articles on it, with tens of thousands of authors, which have been extensively covered in books and media articles, basically none of which have anything to do with neoreaction. I think the article would be substantially improved by expanding the other sections using reliable sources (I have linked to a good number of them above 5 years ago, and many more have been written since then).
2. I do think the current article gives people a very skewed impression of how prevalent neoreactionary thought is on LessWrong today. I don't think I've moderated a single conversation on the site about neoreaction or adjacent ideas in the whole period in which I've been administrator (since 2017). These topics have nothing to do with the site as it is. I do think politics discussion of this type was more prevalent before I became admin. It would, in my opinion, be quite valuable to add something like "while discussion of neoreactionary ideas was never a large fraction of content written on LessWrong, all remaining activity by neoreactionaries faded out after the transition to LessWrong 2.0, and in recent years no prominent neoreactionaries have been active on the site, as artificial intelligence became the dominant topic of interest of the site", maybe citing some of the content surveys we have done about what kind of content gets written on the site, or maybe just this search result page: https://www.lesswrong.com/search?contentType=Comments&query=neoreaction&page=1

Again, I have a huge conflict of interest here, so please feel free to ignore any of my comments, and I will refrain from making any substantial edits to this page. I do of course have a lot of detailed knowledge about the site and its history and would like this article to be more accurate, and would love to help anyone who wants to do that. Habryka (talk) 19:28, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi Habryka, thanks so much for dropping by. I think your points are very reasonable, and there is a major discussion that needs to be had here -- one that I alone cannot determine the outcome of. I was able to identify and fix clear policy violations and make this article less misrepresentative of LessWrong, but the more subjective question of overall content balance per WP:UNDUE is still in need of a diligent discussion in utmost good faith.

By the way, I have begun publishing essays which I hope will spark a renewal of our commitment to such discussions, not only here, but across all of Wikipedia. This is not something I will be able to do on my own. The success of the endeavor will depend upon the extent to which it inspires others, much like Eliezer's greatest works -- several of which I admire, despite not being a participant in the community. Getnormality (talk) 19:43, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't publish original research. Likewise, Wikipedia is not a platform for public relations. Since it's clear that both of you are at least fans of Yudkowsy and by extension the LessWrong website. I would suggest focusing more on brief, actionable suggestions, and as a show of respect for other volunteers, please, please be more succinct. To be blunt, first-hand observations about about neoreaction or adjacent ideas is not even close to a reliable source. I indicated above, I have visited the site recently to perform a sanity check, and during that visit easily found some "adjacent ideas" to borrow the euphemism, so the involvement of one moderator is irrelevant. Yes, my observations are WP:OR, but so are the first-hand observations of an admittedly biased moderator.

As an aside, Getnormality, from your contributions I can see that you are a new and inexperienced editor. As I hope you are already aware, the things you have written about have already been discussed many, many times before over the past two two decades, by hundreds of thousands of active participants across millions of discussions. So if the only people who participate in these new essays are coming from these talk pages, there is a real risk of these essays becoming a walled garden. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is a related problem. An essay that doesn't reflect the wider community is not very useful. Grayfell (talk) 22:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi again Grayfell. While I sympathize with Habryka, I want to emphasize that I am satisfied with the article text as it stands. By my lights, it is compliant with Wikipedia's standards and furthers Wikipedia's objectives. I regret my inexperience and verbosity and look forward to improving. I appreciate your patience and moderation, and I hope for an ever more productive collaboration with you and the other editors. Getnormality (talk) 23:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Hey @Getnormality there is nothing that you should be apologizing for. @Grayfell refuses to reply to talk page messages and doesn't collaborate with other editors, as is obvious from looking directly above on this very page. You're doing great. Secarctangent (talk) 01:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Here is a fascinating detail of the English language. "Regret" is not quite the same as "apologize" ;) Getnormality (talk) 01:38, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I wasn't asking for an apology, I did not read that response as an apology, nor was I asking for contrition of any kind. I was just trying to provide some outside perspective on this project and Wikipedia's lengthy history of exactly these kinds of discussions.

As for Me "refusing" to reply... gee, with an attitude like that, I don't think it's any great mystery why I might not be enthusiastic about responding. WP:AGF is policy. Grayfell (talk) 07:48, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Over the years, I have found assuming good faith to be spiritually demanding. But it has brought me, and the teams I have worked on, far, far too many rewards to stop investing in.

From my vantage point, it is clear that strong political perspectives of all kinds exist all over Wikipedia. These occasionally become involved in lapses in our mission execution, and sometimes direct engagement of this fact cannot be avoided. Hopefully with experience I will get better both at avoiding these myself and mitigating them gracefully when I see them in others. It is a challenge of great interest to me. Getnormality (talk) 10:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

To signal-boost what another editor wrote above: "It's pretty clear that LessWrong is mainly about rationality and artificial intelligence, and that the content on neoreaction was WP:UNDUE and damaged the website's reputation for years." The connection between LW and Neoreaction is a tiny part of the blog's profile and (in spite of edits which have improved the section) a significant part of its Wikipedia page. From a common-sense perspective, that isn't appropriate. Llajwa (talk) 18:20, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi there, brief perspective from my side. I sympathize with concerns on both sides, but I have yet to figure out if there's a productive way to have this discussion. Based on @Grayfell's message above, there seems to be a belief that the due emphasis issue has already been figured out by wider community consensus. I have no specific evidence on which to evaluate this assertion. This may be because of my inexperience. Therefore, my inclination is to not participate in this discussion further until I understand better what is going on. Getnormality (talk) 18:56, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

To summarize what I said above: Wikipedia uses independent sources to determine how significant any aspect is. This isn't based on first-hand observations. Wikipedia's goal isn't to damage LessWrong's reputation, but neither is the goal to bolster LessWrong's reputation, because this isn't a platform for public relations. Grayfell (talk) 19:07, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I understand that aspect of the policy and I am not aware of any point where I have said anything contrary, either in these talk pages or in my essays. If you dispute this, I would be grateful to be notified of the specific points of disagreement, with citation of the specific words I said that made you think I believed something.

When I said there needs to be a discussion, I did not intend to imply that the outcome of that discussion should be anything in particular. If the outcome of the discussion is "Wikipedia policy is great and we need to refresh our memories of it", that's great. But it seems that there are differing opinions within this talk page on how to address due emphasis, and it would be beneficial for us to align by discussing the issues and the policies we have to address them. Getnormality (talk) 21:47, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

You pinged me about my comments, so I summarized that position for the benefit of the person "signal boosting".

I linked above to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS because that seems relevant to this discussion, but obviously, there are a large number of overlapping guidelines and policies that apply here. One essay that I'm particularly fond of lately is Wikipedia:Writing Wikipedia articles backward. While that doesn't directly apply since this isn't a brand-new article, it does help explain a deeper problem here. If nothing else, approaching the article based on first-hand knowledge tends to make crappy articles. Our goal with most articles is to explain topics to people who don't already have first-hand knowledge of them. People looking in from the outside will have direct experience trying to explain this topic to other people looking in from the outside. We can and should take advantage of that perspective, when it is available, to help us explain the topic. Grayfell (talk) 07:46, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I love that backward essay. Just amazing. It speaks to how a certain bias can creep in in a very specific, actionable way. I'm a fan. Getnormality (talk) 10:30, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

@Llajwa Are the people talking about WP:UNDUE weight even reading it?

Proportional weight is based on what the reliable sources are saying. The prose proportions in this case are incidental; it takes a few sentences to describe what the sources say about the neoreaction connection. Is there any missing well-sourced content about LW? WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 09:56, 27 July 2024 (UTC)