Talk:Rob Monster

Point of view concern

Referenced sources are largely composed of writers/publishers with a subjective bias against Monster and his views, or of articles aimed exclusively at condemning his work. This unfair representation of both Monster, and Epik Inc. violates Wikipedia's neutrality policy and the article should be amended to incorporate a balance of both left and right leaning accounts of this figure. 68.71.17.18 (talk) 19:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Please feel free to present any reliable sources with a different viewpoint if you know of them. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:57, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Maybe there aren't any, which just proves that the guy's marginally notable. The article's a hatchet job. That he doesn't have any defenders in print at this time proves little. He's just now coming to attention -- his main notability seems to be based on his company being hacked, which belongs mostly in the Epik article, and beyond that on the basis of "Hey here's a new jerk to clutch your pearls about" journalism. There's no hurry to start slamming the guy. We don't have a deadline. Cut it down a short anodyne short article. We're they person's #1 public face. No harm in waiting before swinging the axe.

Suppose, let us say, that you're a social democrat or something. Suppose somebody has a company that, I don't know, she's transitioning to a worker-owned company by giving them the stock. Suppose she's probably wikinotable enough for an article, but not very notable. Suppose your main or only sources are the respected intellectual magazine National Review and similar type publications. Suppose the sources don't say anything false, but do point out anything negative they can find -- quote a disgruntled right-wing worker, find a time when the gal quoted a notorious dictator, toss around inflammatory terms like "communistic" and so forth, are sure to point out the one Trotsky admirer on her board of directors, and so forth, while leaving out important exculpatory facts. Polemicists can be clever that way, and it's not always so easy to suss out.

You would be OK with that? I wouldn't. It's a similar situation here. Huffpost and Vice are not on the same planet as sources appropriate for negative characterizations of a fellow marginally-notable citizen. Again: I don't like the guy either, not even a little, but that doesn't have anything to do with the price of eggs. Herostratus (talk) 18:16, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Suppose you read policies like wp:or and wp:v.Slatersteven (talk) 18:19, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Suppose you talk to me like a person instead of throwing links at me. I'm quite familiar with our core policies, thank you. Do you have a point to make? Is it "Immoral as this is, it is technically not illegal or against our rules"? Or what?

Then you must be aware the above violates wp:soap and wp:forum. Talk pag4s are for discussing how to improve the article, not vent our feelings about either the subject or the article. Nothing in your post of 18:16, 11 December 2021 is helpful. We can't do as you suggest (it would be OR), we have to go with what RS say, not trying and analyse why RS said it. If you want to AFD it go ahead, but making AFD arguments here is pointless as this is not the right venue. We do not "suppose" anything ever.Slatersteven (talk) 18:45, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

He was notable before the hack, as was established at AfD in 2020. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 18:27, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

He's wikinotable, of course. That doesn't mean he's famous. I'm not even sure he's a public figure, as he hasn't really sought publicity, that's just a side effect of him running his business according to his vision. Hanging up when a reporter calls is not a requirement for being considered a private figure. Herostratus (talk) 18:37, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

So if you accept he passes wp:n, what is ypouitr point?Slatersteven (talk) 18:40, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

This was a reply to your first paragraph, which incorrectly suggested he's only just become notable, or that this article was rushed together after the hack. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:11, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

OK. I didn't mean to leave that impression. Herostratus (talk) 04:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Well so let's rigorously vet the references

(Once again, just be super clear, and I hope this isn't a BLP violation since it's just a personal opinion: I hate this guy. Most of us can agree on that I think, so we can dispense with personal political contention and dispassionately vet the refs I hope.)

So, right at the top of this talk page it says (emphasis added):

"This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page...

OK so let's start properly vetting the references. Starting with Huffpost since it's used 19 times in the article.

• At Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, for reporting on political issues, Huffpost is tagged as " No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply: The source is marginally reliable (i.e. neither generally reliable nor generally unreliable), and may be usable depending on context. Editors may not have been able to agree on whether the source is appropriate, or may have agreed that it is only reliable in certain circumstances. It may be necessary to evaluate each use of the source on a case-by-case basis..."
• Beyond that, in the real world I think it's commonly understood that Huffpost is a rag. Nobody considers them an intellectually serious publication, and their general vibe makes me pretty suspicious that we cannot be sufficiently confident that their independent fact-checking is highly rigorous, altho I don't have proof either way. But they cherry-pick their facts and mix reporting and opinion together, that's just obvious. (Full disclosure: I read Huffpost. However, "I like it so therefore it can't be a rag" wouldn't be a useful thought for me to have, or anyone.)
• And they're really biased and have poor reporting standard. Here's a chart that says Huffpost (and its owner, Buzzfeed) straddle the line between "skews liberal" and "hyper-partisan liberal"; equivalents on the right are National Review, the Daily Standard, and Reason (for bias; for fair-mindedness and quality, those three are well up in the "Fair interpretations of the news" area, while Huffpost is down in "Unfair interpretations of the news". Mother Jones and Jacobin are fairer, and Jacobin is less biased (according to that chart; pick another if you like, they're all probably generally similar).
• And I mean, what is the title of the article in question. It is this: The Bible-Thumping Tech CEO Who’s Proud Of Keeping Neo-Nazis Online. Well boy howdy. Inflammatory polemic title misrepresenting the subject (neither "Bible-thumping" or "proud of hosting neo-Nazis" in particular are the key attributes of the man). The body of the article follows suit.

The Huffpost article is a poor source for a BLP. It just is. "Marginally reliable" is not acceptable for contentious material in a BLP. Even if it was acceptable (it's not), it's certainly poor. And as it says above:

Contentious material about living persons that is... poorly sourced must be removed immediately

So now that I've looked into it I have to remove it. I don't want to remove it. I don't! I'd rather shave my legs with a rusty soup can lid than fight with a bunch of Wikipedia editors over this. But I'm required to. It says "must", not "may" or even "should". So I have to remove it or face sanctions in theory at least. And so I have done.

I removed all the 19 Huffpost refs. If the material was fraught and ref'd only by Huffpost, I removed the material too. If the material was ref'd by another source(s) I left it, for now. If the material was anodyne -- schools attended etc. -- I kept the material but tagged as citation needed. (We don't sneak hatchet jobs into the ref section by using them to ref birthdates etc., that's too clever by half, and altho I'm sure that wasn't intentional here, we still don't do it.)

To be continued. Herostratus (talk) 04:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

Why is where he was born or grew up contentious?Slatersteven (talk) 10:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

It's not, that's why I didn't remove non-contentious material. However, here's how the ploy works. I totally and absolutely don't think anyone involved with this article is doing this, but intent doesn't matter, it's the effect that matters, and so it's still not allowed. So how it works is:

1. You hate Joe Smith, who has an article.
2. You have a ref in The Very Biased Extremist Partisan Review, an article titled say "Joe Smith Has Never Even Once Denied Having Sex With Goats".
3. You can't use that as a ref to support "Smith has never denied having sex with goats", BUT the article also has his birthplace. There's no reason to think that the Review would be wrong about that, so you use the Review to ref the birthplacd.
4. Now "Joe Smith Has Never Even Once Denied Having Sex With Goats" is right there in refs where it's easy for the marks readers to click on it.

If you couldn't use it as an external link, it shouldn't be the refs either.Herostratus (talk) 20:41, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

I have never heard of someone omitting a reference due to its title, where have you seen that this is "not allowed"? And how is it acceptable to remove sourcing but retain information from that source? Now we just have unsourced information about a BLP, which is not better than having a title you dislike in the references section. There's a broken template in there too, by the way, and a broken reference further down. And "December" is misspelled in one of the templates.

Please also restore "far-right" in the lead, which is supported by many sources in this article (WaPo, CNN, etc.) and plenty over at Epik as well. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 01:17, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, you probably haven't heard of it cos you don't usually see people using refs like "The Bible-Thumping Tech CEO Who’s Proud Of Keeping Neo-Nazis Online" 19 times in biographies of (arguably) private persons. It's not so much the title as that, as you would expect, the text of the article is of the same quality. The only unsourced information is some non-contentious stuff, tagged, but by all means deleted, and for stuff like format errors and misspellings, yes editors do make technical mistakes; fix it, don't weaponize it. That's not helpful for cool-headed discussion of the main matter at hand. Herostratus (talk) 13:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't have as someone has redacted the entire edit. Let's take it to the board and see what they say. (But you may be correct; I was removing "neo-nazi" and also changed "far-right" to "right-wing"; that's a detail of semantics and not crucial.) Herostratus (talk) 13:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I am unsure your reasoning is valid and far-right is supported by other sources anyway. Nor are your personal views of this person relevant to how I will judge your edits.Slatersteven (talk) 11:50, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

Yes on the particular term "far-right" you may be correct. I prefer "right-wing" as that's more vague and inclusive, and I'd rather let the reader decide for herself about how far to the right Monster. Semantics tho. (I did leave "far-right" in the lede as regards Gab (Gab is not a living person anyway). And maybe my personal views don't matter, but yours do. You wouldn't support this kind of treatment for say the Ben & Jerry's guys.

We're not agreeing, and since my edit's been reverted, let's go to the noticeboard and get some more eyes on it. Herostratus (talk) 13:43, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

You do not know what I would agree to, and would ask you not to try and use this kind of argument as it is against policy. I have no idea what notice board you want to take it to, but go ahead.Slatersteven (talk) 13:46, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

It's the BLP noticeboard, here: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#Rob Monster. Herostratus (talk) 14:24, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I am not "weaponizing" your typos, I am pointing them out to you so you may fix them. A hired hand for Mr. Monster has somewhat recently taken it upon himself to target egregious harassment at me and my family and so I have been avoiding directly editing the article about him as of late, otherwise I'd have done it myself. As for your opinion on the ref, I have raised it at the BLP noticeboard since there is already discussion there. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:13, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Good Lord, Gor, that's terrible. I'm so sorry. I'm not surprised tho, given the totality of what we're dealing with here. Yes by all means do what is best for yourself. I wish the there was something we could do. Herostratus (talk) 03:46, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Oof @GorillaWarfare: I just looked at your userpage. Why are you involving yourself with people like this. Your call, but I'd back off. This is a lot more important than anything about Mr Monster, so I'll drop all objections and if there's anything I can do, any edit I can make, tell me here or in email. Regardless of these occasional disagreement, I'm sure you know how highly we all think of you. Be safe. Herostratus (talk) 04:17, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Appreciate that. All is well, I'm just erring on the side of caution as far as not directly editing the page of someone whose behavior I've since spoken out about. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 01:42, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I am not seeing the issue here. What the HuffPost is reporting is in line with what other sources are saying. I don't think the article is biased, it is just accurately reflecting what reliable sources have said about Mr. Monster. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:15, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

I led you to water. I can't make you drink. Herostratus (talk) 03:46, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

This entire article reads as a very aggressive hit piece. I can't fathom how anyone could justify this as even striving for neutrality. It is exclusively and extremely negative. Themacuser751 (talk) 07:19, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Because wp:rs are? Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 13 December 2023 (UTC)