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RfC: Separate section on tweets?

There is an apparent rough consensus that there should not be a separate section for the Tweets. For starters, there is a clear majority in opposition before assigning weight to arguments. Considering strength of arguments, the opposition is substantially rooted in policy-based objections, the most prominent of which being the view that creating a separate section would be assigning undue weight to a controversy. Supporters rely largely on the counterargument that the tweets are the primary, or only, reason for the notability of the subject, and for that reason, it would be reasonable and appropriate to separate it into its own section. This is a reasonable argument in theory, however not much evidence has been presented to substantiate these arguments, in spite of the fact that a user requested evidence to support these opinions at the very beginning of the RfC. These arguments are further called into question by the fact that this article was previously nominated for deletion on this basis, and the disagreement was so overwhelming that the AfD was speedily closed as a waste of time. Only one supporter has attempted to provide evidence of "sustained coverage", but there is very substantial disagreement even there as to whether the examples provided are adequate to conclusively demonstrate sustained and continuing coverage. On top of this, WP:RECENTISM is one of the primary themes here, and given that the controversy is still recent, it's hard to objectively judge the long-term relevance of this content or what the long-term coverage will be. Those arguments are mostly a matter of differing opinions as to whether the event will continue to receive sustained coverage in sources long-term. For that reason, this question, and the relevant arguments found in this RfC, might be worth reassessing in six months or a year, when there is some sort of longer-term perspective available. Swarm ♠ 00:14, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should there be a separation separate section concerning the article subject's controversial tweets? Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 11:51, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

Survey

  • Yes. The overwhelming majority of the independent, reliable sources concerning her deal with the tweets, they are why we have an article on her in the first place, and not having the tweets in a separate section gives insufficient weight to this aspect of the subject and makes the article non-neutral. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 11:51, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Ephemeral news cycle. A separate section would violate WP:NOTNEWS, WP:UNDUE, WP:NPOV, WP:ATTACK, WP:BLP, WP:RECENTISM, WP:CSECTION, WP:AVOIDVICTIM, WP:INDISCRIMINATE. We don't violate Wikipedia policies based on the number of editors in favor of an edit. Softlavender (talk) 12:11, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
    We also don't decide edits just because you link a hundred irrelevant policies. Once again I have to remind you that linking a policy does not automatically mean that that policy agrees with you. In fact some of the policies that you link run contrary to your comments on this talk page. Galestar (talk) 06:25, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No it would make the article much worse. The current layout is bad enough. I also support closing this since this article is pretty stubby. wumbolo ^^^ 12:19, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • no. Two reasons. First, per WP:CRIT (only an essay yes but a widely cited one) such sections are unwise. Such content should be blended. Second, content about the tweets is under a strict discretionary sanction and would have to get consensus here first anyway. The focus should be on developing consensus around specific proposals rather than how to format it. Jytdog (talk) 13:37, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes. It is quite obvious that this extends beyond a single news cycle, and that Jeong is primarily notable for the tweets, hiring despite the tweets, criticism, justification, whatever. In fact - a standalone article on the New York Times hiring of Sarah Jeong would pass notability for WP:NEVENT, and they'd be much more to write about (due to more extensive sourcing) than what there is to write about other aspects of Jeong. So yes - it should be a separate and lengthy section in this article (even if we have a standalone article as well). This would not be a WP:CSECTION but rather a section on the subject's views on race relations, support, criticism, and effects on the subjcet's employment.Icewhiz (talk) 13:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes That's a significant reason for her notability and they are notable in connection with her, especially for the controversy they caused. Btw i would like to point out that the two sources provided for the sentence "The hiring sparked a strongly negative reaction in conservative media and social media" actually says "Soon after, mainly conservative social media took issue with the tweets". I suggest changing the sentence to "a strongly negative reaction in mainly conservative media" in order for the sentence to be in accordance with its two sources, otherwise these sources are merely being bent to a POV, as they actually say a different thing (they claim the issue came mainly not exclusevly from conservative media: it's a huge difference). 93.36.190.141 (talk) 15:10, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes It's her claim to notability. A separate section is warranted. Scaleshombre (talk) 15:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No per WP:UNDUE and WP:RECENTISM, at the very least. XOR'easter (talk) 16:09, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No People can click around and find them, the emic Wikipedia wall of text notwithstanding. kencf0618 (talk) 16:44, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No In addition to Softlavender’s comments, the tweets alone would provide no context. Attempting to include context would require that we determine what she was reacting to, and that require OR/SYNTH. WP:BLP WP:OR. O3000 (talk) 17:24, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes This is an essential part of her biography and noteworthiness. She would be less remarkable without this.Dogru144 (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No. It's undue at this point, and it's too recent to know if the news will die down or if this will remain a lasting discussion point. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:19, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes The New York Times had to come out and release a statement because of the tweets, so this should be covered in her Wikipedia biography. Whoisjohngalt (talk) 19:34, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes. No strong opinions on structure, except that after tweets quotes are added the article will read better/easier without a huge last paragraph. It is certainly possible to title and phrase such a paragraph in a BLP respecting way and to quote the tweets and also provide Jeong's excuse in a neutral way, thus imitating the best of our neutral, journalistic RS's. Arguments about what is due ignore the reality that Sarah Jeong has unintentionally attained a place as a permanent fixture of the national debate on racism, journalistic standards of speech, and societal practices in holding people accountable for tweets (or lack thereof). The NYT's decision not to fire does not change that editorials all around the country are focusing on this event with her tweets. The tweets and their fallout are quite notable and deserving of treatment under the standard of due weight. Wookian (talk) 19:42, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No And we've already established why up above. The discussion is going in circles... AGAIN! Openlydialectic (talk) 19:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • YesAnd we have already established the reason why above. 2600:1700:1111:5940:D9F6:63D1:857A:104 (talk) 20:41, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Not yet per GorillaWarfare et al. There's not that much to write yet, and too early to know whether this will have a major impact or will die down. Right now, a single paragraph basically covers it. This is not her main claim to notability, lots of people say stupid things on Twitter and don't have articles, but not many people are high profile tech journalists. I like the way User:Kingsindian puts it below: imagine if she had tweeted all this, but not been hired by the NYTimes, would she still be notable? Whereas if she hadn't tweeted but been hired? --GRuban (talk) 20:32, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
    Seems to be spreading rather than dying down. Let's make this "not yet", but may need to revisit. --GRuban (talk) 13:53, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No, that would be UNDUE for reasons abundantly enumerated above; and as it was UNDUE in the biography of Kevin D. Williamson, which I edited down accordingly when it was brought to my attention upthread here. Before, after. Our task in encyclopedic biographies is to write a summary of people's whole lives, not bulletins on what's in the news right now. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:55, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
By comparison to Kevin Williamson's case, perhaps you would support paraphrasing what was said in Jeong's tweets, as per your final revision of the Williamson article. However, it seems like the "oppose"-ers on this Talk page don't want readers of the article to know what Jeong tweeted, whether quoted verbatim, or paraphrased as you did with Kevin Williamson. Hence multiple mentions of WP:CENSORSHIP by supporters of publishing the tweets. Wookian (talk) 21:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
The tweets are not censored, they're summarized. They're actually described in two sentences, double what I put for Williams, who lost a job over his, which makes the episode much more encyclopedically significant than this one is to date. I therefore think the version we have for this entry is already too much. It's certainly not censorship. Innisfree987 (talk) 22:26, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
Roseanne Barr's tweet is also paraphrased. People can scream WP:OTHERSTUFF all they want but at the end of the day, our bias will be judged by the consistency with which we uphold and apply our own rules. If you have kids, you would already know this. If you are not consistent, people will scream WP:CENSORSHIP or WP:BIAS and rightly so. We should either always include the tweets, or never include the tweets when someone says something inappropriate and apologizes. I don't personally care which chose we choose, but could we please be consistent so we don't go in circles for days like this? It is a waste of time, resources and causes a bunch of strife in what little community we have left. 2600:1700:1111:5940:D9F6:63D1:857A:104 (talk) 21:36, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
It's true, a one-size-fits-all rule is often what kids want, but OSE asks us, as mostly-adult and some excellent contributors who are minors!, to be precise about where a comparison matches up, where it does not, and make decisions appropriate to the respective situations (to extend the kid example: "sorry, but your brother does get to stay out later, because he is 17 and you are 13".) I've detailed my view of the similarities and differences, and what that warrants, just above your comment as well as here. You can tell at least I've examined this pretty closely, and put work into improving other flawed entries, across the political spectrum. As with kids (now I guess we're just talking about people): ya do your best and sometimes people are gonna scream regardless! Innisfree987 (talk) 03:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, I wouldn't include the tweets in either article. O3000 (talk) 20:03, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Yes, include. The subject wouldn't be known at all were not for the controversy; therefore a section is DUE. I find it funny that people who oppose list policies (without enunciating the argument). So for example, some have included WP:RECENTISM... yet the article currently includes this: "In August 2018, Jeong was hired by The New York Times". "WP:RECENTISM for thee and not for me" seems to be the mantra of the day! XavierItzm (talk) 22:59, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
WP has always distinguished between notability and fame; even if it didn't, arguing by pageview would be WP:OR; claims about someone's "legacy" after 10 days are WP:CRYSTAL. Innisfree987 (talk) 16:34, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
My personal opinion is that this will be part of her legacy. We are allowed to express our personal opinions when casting !votes in surveys and discussions. If I had said, "put in the article that this will be part of her legacy", that would be a suggestion to violate WP:CRYSTAL. Since I did not do that, bringing up crystal in relation to my comments/!vote is without merit. My opinion and !vote stands based on the reality of what the tweets generated in regard to her notability. WP:COMMONSENSE should be applied here. -- ψλ ● ✉ ✓ 16:50, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes: frankly speaking, her tweets are most notable part about her person. While she did have article even before, she wasn't really widely known. She became widely known thanks to the tweets and I believe that majority of people who are reaching the article right now are doing that because of the tweets. If you google her name, tweet affair is what you see on top. It's just Wikipedia that looks like there is nothing really going on. Tweets should have a large separate section explaining everything. Petrb (talk) 18:20, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
It's just Wikipedia that looks like there is nothing really going on: indeed, because Wikipedia bios are explicitly not meant to focus on what is going on right now. Innisfree987 (talk) 16:16, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes as this has been the usual way to handle controversy topics by having them in their own section or even in own article if there's many controversies like with some public companies. MayMay7 (talk) 19:46, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes (Summoned by bot) and if it comes otu to mean nothing it can be changed back later. Thanks, L3X1 ◊distænt write◊ 17:00, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No This is an undue focus on a salacious current event and it's all being driven by an attempt to derail her career. Notwithstanding policy, which does not support inclusion as per comments up-thread, I don't think it'd be right for us to give extra weight to these tweets at this time. Honestly, I maintain we shouldn't even mention the darn things. Simonm223 (talk) 17:15, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No and FoN should be trouted for the biased RFC question: "controversial" is a word used by the rightist keyboard activists who want her fired, but it seems like the controversy is more drummed up by said activists than an inherent quality of the tweets. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 16:31, 20 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes (Summoned by bot) Topic is notable enough for it's own section. A topic readers of the article would be interested in locating in a quick and efficient way, and it's own section seems like the easies ways to do that. Comatmebro (talk) 05:25, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No The current section on the topic needs expansion (including at least one of the relevant tweets) but given the size of the article an entire section isn't warranted. Hobit (talk) 05:31, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No -- undue at this point; re-evaluate in a year or so. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:52, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No (Summoned by bot) This would cause WP:BALASPS concerns —Zingarese talk · contribs 04:34, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
  • No her hiring is definitely part of her career, and the controversy is too. Having another section would unnecessarily break up the career section; with 20 days of perspective, it has already clear that this has died out. Galobtter (pingó mió) 08:27, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes. If this is applied to Roseanne Barr and Frank Stallone who have done nothing illegal the same standards are to be applied here. I would vote no if these standards where applied to everyone who said something outrageous.Filmman3000 (talk) 17:12, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • No. Too early for that, give it some more time an see if her Twitter (or other media) behavior will cause more coverage due to more "controversies".Omgwtfbbqsomethingrandom (talk) 21:18, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • No. Merely a tempest in a teapot. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:00, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, as quite clearly she is mainly notable for making these tweets - well over 95% of the coverage of this individual is in relation to the tweets/HY-times hiring controversy (for and against).Icewhiz (talk) 11:35, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • No (Summoned by bot) As per others, WP:RECENT and WP:UNDUE. Non-notable effort to create scandal which failed to have an impact on NYT's decision to hire Jeong, although apparently this is the only information about Jeong that penetrates certain kinds of media outlets. HouseOfChange (talk) 18:56, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes Given the slowed yet sustained coverage it would be a violation of WP:WEIGHT to not have a section for it. At this point it has generated more RS coverage than her previous writing career or book, which was her primary notability before this, so weight should be applied appropriately to the article that followed what RS have to say. The arguments for WP:UNDUE and WP:NOTNEWS fall flat given the sustained and breath of coverage. I can understand them at the time this RFC was started, but at this point they are no longer applicable. The WP:RECENTISM has a bit better chance but again it has been a month or so and still gets coverage. I am also not convinced by WP:AVOIDVICTIM for two reasons, she was notable before this event and it is not clear that she was solely the victim here. The only other argument I have seen is WP:BLP which none of the people citing it have given a reason that would apply. I am rather disappointed by the policy spam with no explanation on why they think that policy applies. PackMecEng (talk) 20:40, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes. (Summoned by bot) Agree with the comment directly above that the absence of a separate section would run counter to WP:WEIGHT. The "recentism" argument is unpersuasive. She is a young person and her notability is directly related to the controversy stemming from her social media activity. When the subject is notable for recent actions, the "recentism" argument falls flat. Coretheapple (talk) 03:19, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes; this is nearly the sole reason she is even notable. There was a vast amount of coverage. If you search her name in ten years, you'll still find scads of articles about those tweets... and what, are you going to find nothing about them in Wikipedia? Red Slash 02:20, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

I do not have any firm opinion on this question, but I see this point being raised all over the place that Jeong is "primarily notable" for her tweets. How does this follow? This is a very recent controversy. Well before this stuff, she had a Wikipedia article, so she was wiki-notable. I wish WP:NOTNEWS was taken a bit more seriously here.

And even this controversy is not primarily about her tweets, but also the fact that the NYT hired her to be part of the editorial board. My assertion is very simple to prove: consider a thought experiment: what happens if you keep all her tweets but the NYT never hired her? Exactly. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 14:12, 8 August 2018 (UTC)

This is well-put. --JBL (talk) 21:41, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
But the 'news' considers it news, so we follow suit. If the NYT had never hired her, her tweets would never have been brought to light. But they did, and they were, and it made the news. A lot of people who make derogatory comments (satirical or not) about groups of people based on skin color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc., make major headlines. It's a very hot topic lately, especially since Black Lives Matter and similar movements have brought the subject into the light. petrarchan47คุก 02:21, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Your first sentence is so deeply confused that it's hard to know what to say. This is not a news site, period. What gets coverage in today's newspaper is related to what has encyclopedic importance, but the relationship is not direct or proportional, and "X made major headlines" is neither necessary nor sufficient for X having encyclopedic value. --JBL (talk) 13:13, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
WP has no choice but to follow "news" since we rely on WP:RS for article fodder. It's most unfortunate, but in my experience at WP, it is the case that our coverage reflects what news sources consider important. I'm not sure how it can be argued otherwise. petrarchan47คุก 20:01, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Gosh, if only we had policies that could be used to inform editorial choices, or something. --JBL (talk) 20:14, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
I think our policies are quite clear in requiring that the article reflect the coverage in reliable sources. While not pretty, the fact is that overwhelmingly her notability is related directly to her tweets. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 19:02, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
This is so tiresome. What gets coverage in today's newspaper is related to what has encyclopedic importance, but the relationship is not direct or proportional, and "X made major headlines" is neither necessary nor sufficient for X having encyclopedic value. --JBL (talk) 19:16, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
I realize that but I think the "notnews" argument is being carried to extremes here. We'll see how the RfC goes. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 16:13, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
Applying the ten-year test, will this episode be seen as pivotal in her (Jeong's) career ten years from now? Since it's barely a month out (and the news cycle has moved on), it's obviously too soon to tell. In such a brief article, we should keep sourcing at a high level, but a separate section would likely (inevitably?) become a trash magnet depository for all kinds of primary-sourced commentary, which would inflate the issue beyond WP:DUE bounds (see also WP:CRITS). In the (unlikely?) event that high-quality secondary sources such as books and journal articles emerge focusing on the episode, it could perhaps be expanded then, but not before.

The redditors/channers (both?) who cooked up this scandal want this to be a defining event in her career. If we've learned anything from GamerGate, we should strenuously resist allowing our encylopedia to become a tool of such trolling/abuse campaigns, for multiple reasons, including WP:NOT, WP:BLP, WP:ATTACK, etc. A concise, neutrally-worded paragraph based on strong independent sources is the maximum attention we should give to this shitstorm episode. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:18, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Unless she does something extraordinary notable (which is possible, but not likely) - then of course this passes the 10YT. A cursory examination of extant sources out there about Jeong shows that the vast majority of the coverage about her is in relation to the tweets and controversy around the hiring. Her hiring by the NYT will probably be cited as an example of free speech (or ignoring Twitter dramas) for years to come. If she goes back to be a run of the mill tech reporter with the occasional book - she's not likely to receive coverage over her lifetime that is similar in scope to what's currently out there on this twitter storm. A major chunk of our content should be devoted to this - per WP:BALASP - but we should take care to present the matter in a balanced fashion. Icewhiz (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Breadth of coverage (including non-RS opinion columns etc.) is not equivalent to depth of coverage in reliable sources. The initial flood of news articles has already given way to a trickle, if not a drought. The books and journals citing this episode as a pivotal event "for years to come" do not yet exist. If and when they appear, the article can be adjusted to suit. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:08, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Agree that the ten-year test is certain to be passed. Prior to the scandal, the subject would probably have been deleted had it ever been raised for WP:AfD due to the extreme weakness of the then-existing sources. All mentions now of the subject are as a direct result of the tweets and subsequent hiring by the NYT in contradiction of its previous preach and practice. 10 years from now any research on the subject will bring up articles based on these tweets and consequences. The sole exception is if the subject attracts further notoriety in the next few years, in which case evidently the tweets will compete with these later development, but future hypothetical notoriety is unlikely to ever obliterate the tweets from 2013 to 2018 and the subsequent scandal. Even today, on a Google search, the #1 result (and the result if "you are feeling lucky") is an article which textually cites some of the subject's tweets.[1] XavierItzm (talk) 20:27, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
There's clearly no consensus for a separate section, so just for the sake of general policy knowledge do I point out the following. 1. Essentially everyone with a notable book passes WP:NAUTHOR, so she would have passed AfD regardless. 2. I don't know how to say this without sounding glib, so advanced apologies: the one-month test is not the ten-year test. This is particularly so when the topic in question was specifically an announcement for something to happen one month hence (hired in August to start in September). The concept is, how much will people care about something when it's well into the past? That it is of interest to google algorithms today does not speak to that. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:50, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Certainly one month is not enough to establish how notable it will be in 10 years. Though the test more refers to creation of new articles about a specific event or person not necessarily content in an article that already is notable. Also a long those lines there is no way for us to know if it will be in 10 years without WP:CRYSTAL, so we work with what we have and continue to update the article. If other things become more notable or it is shown that there is not much notability by then it will be addressed by the normal editing process. All we have now is about a month of sustained coverage about the topic and that is all we can go by without going into WP:OR. PackMecEng (talk) 20:59, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ "The "controversy" over journalist Sarah Jeong joining the New York Times, explained". Vox. 3 August 2018. Retrieved 3 September 2018. #CancelWhitePeople — sarah jeong (@sarahjeong) November 18, 2014

Arbitrary break

(Comments moved from survey section in response to PackMecEng's vote)

Please provide some examples of this sustained coverage from actual reliable sources (i.e., not editorial commentary). —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:03, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
Sure thing. The Cut Aug. 28, 2018, The Verge Aug. 28, 2018, The Australian Sep. 1, 2018 (archived site because of paywall, link here) and The Gainesville Times Sep. 3, 2018 (an opinion piece but there is no reason they are not acceptable). That is just tops hits on google news with a filter for the past week. PackMecEng (talk) 21:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
All four of those are opinion pieces (and #2 is the very definition of "editorial commentary"). Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (op-eds) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
They are RS for the authors opinions and certainly usable in an article as you know. The point was to show continued coverage by RS, which those are. Also The Cut's media section is not an opinion section, same with The Verge. The Australian is listed in their news section described as "Features and In-Depth News Articles", so no again. The only opinion piece, which I noted in my post, is the Gainesville Times. PackMecEng (talk) 21:48, 3 September 2018 (UTC) Edit Strike the Verge, could be primary authors thoughts. A little weaker but still something the Verge thought was important enough to publish. PackMecEng (talk) 21:53, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
The talking heads will keep on talking, for sure. By "sustained coverage" we don't mean the gossip-that-pays-the-bills. Jytdog (talk) 09:04, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
WP:RS are WP:RS regardless of anyone's "gossip" personal opinions. PackMecEng's sources demonstrate WP:SUSTAINED. XavierItzm (talk) 11:04, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
That is an invalid statement. A given source might be reliable for one kind of content and not another. An opinion piece source generally has to be attributed; it is reliable for what its author said. There is an entirely separate level of analysis, as to whether said person's view is worth stating. Jytdog (talk) 11:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Is it a source that could be used in the article? That is the question, the answer is obviously yes. They could be used for something, who knows what but that is not the point. They are RS and from people that could be considered for putting in the article. That is a clear and easy demonstration of sustained coverage. If you wish to continue this conversation we should move it below to avoid cluttering up the survey section. PackMecEng (talk) 12:52, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
First, this is the "survey" section of an RfC. Threaded discussions belong below. Secondly, the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors ("talking heads") is irrelevant. Coverage is coverage. Yes, "talking heads will talk." That's what makes it a controversy. Editors with visceral dislike for such things should probably avoid editing articles on controversies, because those nasty "talking heads" are going to be in abundance,. Coretheapple (talk) 13:09, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I hope no one mindes but I moved this discussion to avoid clutter in the survey section. PackMecEng (talk) 13:25, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@Coretheapple: Not all "coverage" is equal. That's why we have guidelines on identifying reliable sources. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
PackMecEng: They could be used for something, who knows what but that is not the point. They are RS and from people that could be considered for putting in the article. There are approximately one zillion such hot takes out there on the Jeong/NYT "scandal". Do you propose considering all of them as sources for the article? If not, then what makes these few opinion pieces (which is exactly what they are) special? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I would consider any RS as something that could be in the article. The point of listing RS is to demonstrate that RS are still covering the topic. They are not a proposal for including those sources in the article, though again if someone wanted to use one of those sources in that article it would be acceptable with proper attribution. PackMecEng (talk) 14:05, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
As stated, there are approximately a zillion such sources that are reliable for their own statements with attribution. If we were to use even a large fraction of them, we would end up with a biography almost entirely based on primary sources. That's a bad way to write any article, and invites a high degree of POV forking. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 14:59, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Again not relevant to the discussion at hand. This is about sustained coverage, which I have demonstrated. You not liking the sources because one was an opinion article does not make them non-RS no matter how you spell it. They are RS covering the topic, sustained has nothing to do with the type of RS coverage. PackMecEng (talk) 15:21, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Au contraire; it has everything to do with it. You can repeat the phrase "RS" as much as you like, but reliability always depends on context. The fact that multiple culture-warring pundits continue to make hay with a manufactured scandal has no bearing on the weight we give to the issue as encyclopedists. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:36, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
First only 1 is an opinion piece, and second the context is perfectly fine. The authors of all the articles are acceptable for inclusion in the article, even the opinion of the author for the opinion artciel. Your opinion of them as "culture-warring pundits" is meaningless in the face of policy and classic WP:OR. They clearly demonstrate sustained coverage. WP:Drop the stick. PackMecEng (talk) 16:45, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
The Cut is a fashion website for starters, and the author is clearly giving their personal opinion with phrases such as "a talented reporter who was facing bad-faith accusations" and "an absurd stance that the Times arguably legitimized", etc. The relevant content from The Verge is by the editor-in-chief of the site, offering their thoughts concerning the reissue of Jeong's book, such as "Lost in all of this noise was the fact that Sarah Jeong is an actual person", calling her work "rigorous and insightful", and labeling the hiring controversy "ridiculous". It is an editorial. The piece in The Australian is by an "associate editor", saying The Times "has only itself to blame" and that "I don’t know about you but her supporters kind of lose me here", finishing up with a judgement of what she finds "wrong" and "lamentable" in the whole affair. Another obvious editorial. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
At this point we are just talking past each other. You asked for sources that demonstrated continued coverage and I supplied them. Then the goal post moved in that opinion sources are not applicable without any policy reason to back it up. Then decided on your own that they are all opinion sources, which again is not relevant to the discussion of if there is continued coverage. Right now there seem to be little gained from continuing this line of reasoning, we have each said our peace and now it is time for others to weigh in or for the closer to decide. PackMecEng (talk) 17:32, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
See my initial reply of 21:04, 3 September 2018, where I specifically requested "actual reliable sources (i.e., not editorial commentary)". That is because biographies of living persons should summarize reliable secondary sources on the subject themselves, especially with relatively unknown subjects. "Coverage" by cultural/political pundits is not the kind of coverage that we can use, so it's largely irrelevant for assigning weight. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 18:46, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Editorial opinions are perfectly acceptable for a BLP. If you want to talk about if those sources have weight to be in the article, okay but that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. PackMecEng (talk) 18:50, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
I agree that editorial and columnist "talking head" sources are fine for the purpose of discussions such as this, whether there should be a separate section etc, even if we choose not to use those sources in the article. We seem to have our head in the sand on the reason why this person is consequential. Everyone but Wikipedia seems to realize that she is important because of her tweets, not because she authored an e-book. Coretheapple (talk) 19:57, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
The topic at hand is the so-called "sustained coverage" of Jeong's Twitter activity. Regardless of whether we can use it, editorial commentary is not "coverage" in any usual sense of the word. Therefore, the claim of "sustained coverage" appears to be invalid. Editorials, op-eds, and the like are not reliable sources on the tweets themselves or the hiring controversy. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:06, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Another one today The Verge. An article bringing up the incident in relation to twitter. PackMecEng (talk) 22:01, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
«Regardless of whether we can use it, editorial commentary is not "coverage" in any usual sense of the word». Wow. Material published by WP:RS in the last week is not coverage, according to some! Just wow. May I suggest parties refrain from inventing their own personal policies as we go along. We go by WP:PG around here. Sustained coverage is sustained coverage and supports WP:N. XavierItzm (talk) 22:17, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
Op-eds are fine if (a) they're actually couched as op-eds ("X, writing in source Y, claimed that...") and X is notable enough to be WP:DUE. Otherwise, nope. Black Kite (talk) 22:24, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
@XavierItzm: it has been pointed out to you before, and not just by me, that opinion pieces are reliable primary sources for attributed statements of the author and little else. If you actually read WP:RS, you would see why. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 13:43, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

The Verge story from the 4th is barely coverage: it mentions the Jeong/Twitter story as one of "a long list of algorithmic and moderation decisions by web companies", literally putting it in parentheses. Nothing in it or the other sources from the past couple weeks convinces me that we need to give the affair more weight than we already do. XOR'easter (talk) 13:15, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

"Barely coverage" is coverage, isn't it? XavierItzm (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Unfortunately our policies use phrases like "sustained coverage" but do not define exactly what counts as "coverage" nor exactly what counts as "sustained". So ultimately interpreting that policy comes down to personal feelings about the meanings of these words. I personally am unimpressed with the four sources PackMecEng brings above. The first two use the twitter stuff as a framing device to discuss something else (namely, the re-release of Jeong's book). The fourth similarly uses Jeong as an example of something, obviously chosen for the convenience of having been very recent. I hesitate to try to classify the topic of the third one, but it's just another op-ed piece. None of the four has anything encyclopedic (or even really interesting) to say about the tweets; the only usable information they contain is about the re-issuance of the book. None of them gives any evidence of lasting impact, and taken together they support the idea that no one will care about this once the next nonsense twitter "scandal" has come and gone and there is some more recent example to reach for. So I agree with XOR'easter that none of this convinces me that we need to give the affair more weight than we already do. --JBL (talk) 13:10, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
I'd agree that a source that states that an incident is overblown and likely to subside once people find something better to do with their lives isn't a reliable source for the same incident being significant for WP:SUSTAINED or WP:DUE purposes. I think our weight to this silly scandal is a perfect example of WP:RECENTISM and a violation of WP:NOTGOSSIP I still question whether we need to address it at all. Simonm223 (talk) 13:14, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The mentions are brief and to the point since it is a well known event that is assumed everyone is familiar with. I personally would not use those articles sources either. They are nonetheless sources that keep talking about the event, even going as far as to assume everyone knows what it was. Again as noted by several others opinion pieces are not an issue here since they certainly can be RS if used correctly. Weight for inclusion in the article is not the standard for determining if there is continued coverage, if that were the case most things would not qualify for that standard. Rather normally RS keep mentioning it, even if in relation to other subjects. That is what meets the bar. To Simonm223's point, I am not sure why you would think we should not address it at all given the consensus to do so? PackMecEng (talk) 13:36, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
Sources #1 and #2 make brief mention of it because, as JBL points out, they are really about something else entirely. That doesn't amount to "coverage" of this specific event, in my opinion. It is an event that readers of these specific publications (The Cut and The Verge) are assumed to be familiar with because it was the subject of a very recent media circus, not because it's a historic event of lasting significance. In much the same way, various media sources from back in late 2016 might have talked about Ken Bone's famous red sweater; that doesn't make the sweater itself historically significant. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:58, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The fact that consensus disagrees with me about this is why I haven't boldly blanked the entire section about her tweets. But I don't believe anybody has provided a suitable response to my complaints that focus on the tweets is a WP:NOTGOSSIP infringing recentism. So I persist in my (admittedly minority) viewpoint that we should do away with references to them. Simonm223 (talk) 16:05, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
yeah all the !votes that say "this is the only thing she is notable for" are ignorant of the fact that this page existed before the social media campaign and I trust their !votes will be discounted accordingly. Many of those people regularly confuse media circus with significance as well. What are you gonna do. Jytdog (talk) 16:09, 7 September 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

2016 mobbing

(non-admin closure) Implemented per consensus on general premise. Tweaks to hone welcome but would be greatly appreciated in form of separate, focused thread. Thank you. Innisfree987 (talk) 07:24, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I propose adding the following, just after the paragraph on Internet of Garbage, where it would fit in chronological order

Jeong supported Bernie Sanders' bid for the US presidency.[1] In January 2016 she posted a tweet criticizing some Sanders supporters' online behavior attacking women and supporters of Black Lives Matter, which set off an online mobbing against her that included threats of sexualized violence sexual violence. The harassment lasted for weeks and drove her to make her Twitter account private and to take an unpaid leave from work at Motherboard.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b Greenberg, Andy. "Inside Google's Justice League and its AI-powered war on trolls". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  2. ^ "Sanders fans go on online attack". BBC News. January 28, 2016.

--Very open to tweaks, improvements, etc. This is not directly about "the tweets" but because it is related, I am seeking consensus instead of just boldly adding this. Jytdog (talk) 18:25, 9 August 2018 (UTC) (two tweaks Jytdog (talk) 19:52, 9 August 2018 (UTC)) (redact, simplify to address concern about "too confusing" Jytdog (talk) 21:08, 9 August 2018 (UTC) -- Struck, yielding to better version below by Innisfree987 at 00:01, 10 August 2018 Jytdog (talk) 01:02, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

  • I changed the phrasing slightly. Sources don't explicitly say "sexualized violence", though that's what they are. This outlines death threats.

Jeong supported Bernie Sanders' bid for the US presidency.[1] In January 2016 she tweeted criticism of some Sanders supporters' online behavior attacking women and supporters of Black Lives Matter, which set off an online mobbing and death threats. The harassment lasted for weeks and drove her to make her Twitter account private and to take an unpaid leave from work.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b Greenberg, Andy. "Inside Google's Justice League and its AI-powered war on trolls". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  2. ^ "Sanders fans go on online attack". BBC News. January 28, 2016.
--— Preceding unsigned comment added by Citing (talk • contribs) 19:33, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Note - am OK with either version. I wrote "sexualized violence" per the " “twist her tits clear off.”" as described in Wired piece. That would be encompassed in some definitions of sexual violence for sure. Either way is fine with me. Jytdog (talk) 19:39, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

Comment not opposed to this but since it's a whole other can of worms (and during the utterly chaotic 2016 presidential election) it might be best to postpone this while everyone's attention is on getting her tweets controversy right. I do remember "Bernie bros" being maligned in different ways during that time, which isn't to suggest that many of them didn't act awfully, but to suggest a more critical lens might need to be applied here too. Not to mention, the 10 year test. 2600:1700:B951:3F40:9E40:FEE3:9AD8:9C28 (talk) 19:42, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

I avoided all that commentary about Bernie Bros; this segment of Bernie supporters ~may~ have been or included Russian agents/contractors/bots, as described in the recent Mueller indictments. People wrote a lot of stuff back then about them, and about the labelling, with no awareness of this aspect of what was going on. So yes we should not go into detail. The Bernie Bros page will carry that freight. Jytdog (talk) 19:50, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Would you at least add your original bit about how "according to Andy Greenberg in Wired, she tweeted a 'list of political carica­tures, one of which called the typical Sanders fan a vitriolic crypto­racist who spends 20 hours a day on the Internet yelling at women.'"?
It was later found that during that time the largest Black Lives Matter page on Facebook (with hundreds of thousands of followers) was a complete fraud. Again, not opposed, just noting the insane amounts of deception, trolling, hacking, political operatives, etc, and why it may be best to postpone this addition until we get the tweets controversy right. Presenting a simple narrative here about a woman facing down hordes of toxic bros might easily become misleading. 2600:1700:B951:3F40:9E40:FEE3:9AD8:9C28 (talk) 20:10, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
the answer to your first paragraph is "no" for the same reasons that I and others have given about quoting tweets.Jytdog (talk) 20:15, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Oppose for now (not fundamentally opposed to it) as this makes less sense the more I think about it. Does it pass the 10 year test, despite it getting a very minuscule amount of coverage compared to the main tweets controversy, which people are currently arguing doesn't pass the test? And why did you yesterday include that line by Andy Greenberg about Sarah's inflammatory caricatures of "Bernie bros" as vitriolic crypto­racists, which you said "set off a wave of attacks", while now flatly rejecting it? I'm not asking you show her tweets, just re-include your own line about what preceded the mobbing. 2600:1700:B951:3F40:9E40:FEE3:9AD8:9C28 (talk) 20:44, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
As I noted there, the "something" content was at a level of detail I do not support and was a "thought experiment"; it was not a proposal. This is a proposal for actual content. Do not continue to misrepresent what I have written or pull things out of context. See WP:TPNO. Jytdog (talk) 21:16, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
You said your experiment "would approach meeting NPOV and BLP" and I'm just asking why that line is now being flatly rejected. It seems important. I'm certainly not intentionally misrepresenting anything, so please assume good faith here. 2600:1700:B951:3F40:9E40:FEE3:9AD8:9C28 (talk) 21:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
It seems clear to me that this piece of "news" is being suggested as an addition in order to help justify the "counter trolling". If it was considered newsworthy on its own, it would have been added to this article years ago. It's not uncommon for people to be harrassed online, and to have to make their accounts private in response, I'm not sure this constitutes news, though indeed it was mentioned in 2 sources. It might make sense to add it to the tweets section (assuming there will be one) as it does seem part of that story, given her mention of past harassment as justification, but we should be allowing additional material there even when it doesn't make Sarah out to be a victim for NPOV. Once again, weight given any particular aspect should be determined by coverage in RS. petrarchan47คุก 19:55, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
This has nothing to do with whether we "show the tweets". Likewise, whether this is "news" is not relevant in WP. This is quite relevant with respect to somebody who published a book about this just a few months before this happened, as the two cited sources, and several more, point out. Jytdog (talk) 20:00, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
"Show the tweets"? I'm not sure if this is meant as a response to my post, but my suggestion is that if this harassment is mentioned, it might make sense to add it to the section about her tweets. petrarchan47คุก 20:05, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
There is no "tweets section". The article is currently arranged simply in chronological order. Jytdog (talk)
I have simplified it. Keeping it higher level and less detailed is better in any case. Jytdog (talk) 21:09, 9 August 2018 (UTC) (remove diff Jytdog (talk) 21:19, 9 August 2018 (UTC))
What if instead of cutting the phrase, switching "attacking" for "toward", to clarify the grammar but keep the context? Otherwise it starts not to make sense; she's a Bernie support but criticizing Bernie supporters? For what? ETA: needs an apostrophe after "supporters" to indicate the possessive--this should also help with clarity. (I will post a separate suggestion on succinctness below.) Innisfree987 (talk) 23:06, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
I've left it at "Sanders supporters' online behavior" - she supported him and criticized some of his supporters' online behavior (apostrophe added above just now). That is clear enough yes? Jytdog (talk) 23:26, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
I'm all for making it as short as possible, and I agree with your comment above about relying the Bernie Bros link to contextualize more fully, but I think it starts to get genuinely hard to parse what followed without some more indication here of what she criticized--she didn't get mobbed for saying their online behavior was too demure, you know? Innisfree987 (talk) 00:13, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Firm Oppose Two problems. First the author (Greenberg) and Jeong coauthored a book in 2015 [1] so his article isn't 'the reflections of a neutral observer' and shouldn't be cited as such. Second, it's unbalanced to devote similar coverage to a story reported in one article (with the aforementioned issue) with a blurb in a second, as to a story reported in dozens. The disparity is even more obvious when considering only the top RS. I would support an addition to the existing text ("in reaction to harassment she had experienced...") along the lines of "that at one point caused her to set her twitter account to private." We can cite Wired, and the BBC source which is listed under blogs-trending but I assume is subject to editorial review. D.Creish (talk) 21:17, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
What is the basis for only two sources existing on the Bernie Bro mobbing? That is an odd argument. With regard to Greenberg, you seem to be saying that the source isn't independent; that is a very weak argument especially with regard to three sentences providing facts about events that are relevant to her career. Hm. Jytdog (talk) 21:36, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
I don't think I understand your objection. Your proposal cites two sources so I read them and commented. D.Creish (talk) 21:55, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
What you wrote Second, it's unbalanced to devote similar coverage to a story reported in one article (with the aforementioned issue) with a blurb in a second, as to a story reported in dozens That is a statement about the actual coverage. Feel free to redact it if it is not what you meant. Jytdog (talk) 22:16, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
FWIW multiple sources talked about this too. Not that "number of headlines generated" is a good rule for inclusion in an encyclopedia.[2][3][4].Citing (talk) 22:20, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
Now I get it. The Guardian article doesn't mention setting her account to private but it can supplement the general harassment claim. I don't know if QZ is RS but I really hope cosmo isn't. That's why I mentioned top RS. Restricted to that we have probably one source, the BBC. D.Creish (talk) 22:32, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
So a shifting grab bag of weak reasons and poor analysis (the Guardian piece is opinion, btw). I've heard your "oppose" in any case. I won't make any changes based on thisJytdog (talk) 23:23, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
What? No. I haven't revised anything in my initial vote and I don't see a need to. I also don't think it's constructive to oppose every oppose. (You have 228 edits to this page.) D.Creish (talk) 23:39, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Support modulo phrasing. I like the version given by Citing above, but I'm not quite sold on the second sentence. What about this: "In January 2016 she tweeted criticism of some Sanders supporters, whose online behavior included attacking women and supporters of Black Lives Matter, and her criticism set off an online mobbing against her that included threats of sexual violence." Anything much longer than the original suggestion would violate WP:UNDUE. XOR'easter (talk) 23:28, 9 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes tweaked? The concrete consequences make the encyclopedic value straightforward and single focal tweet easy enough to summarize; can we say similar slightly more briefly/neutrally? E.g.
"Jeong supported Bernie Sanders' bid for the US presidency. In January 2016, she posted a tweet criticizing some Sanders supporters' online behavior toward women and supporters of Black Lives Matter. A campaign harassing Jeong, including with threats of sexual violence, ensued, lasting weeks and driving her to make her Twitter account private and take an unpaid leave from her job at Motherboard."

References

Doesn't have to be that exactly, just for instance (could combine first and second sentences but I see the reason to separate--the Sanders support is its own thing). Would particularly suggest avoiding "set off", to take care attributing causation. Innisfree987 (talk) 00:01, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Whatever you think reads best there is fine by me--I just did it for the perhaps pedantic grammatical distinction that it was the overall harassment campaign (verified claim) rather than the sexual violence threats specifically that lasted weeks (unverified). But clarity for readers is what matters, not arbitrary grammar rules, so whatever folks think is easiest to read. Innisfree987 (talk) 04:08, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Too many possible permutations of words and clauses :). If this gets added, I'll think about it more then. --JBL (talk) 13:32, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Wait wait wait. I'm fine with the addition, at least in principle, but I don't get the Bernie bros/some Bernie supporters thing. "Bernie bros" is mentioned only once in the BBC article, and it doesn't prove that a. it was those bros (yuk) who did it or b. that she aimed her tweet at them--nor does the Wired article enlighten us. So, that link should go; it works in ordinary conversation, but not here. Note: I saw above that one of the editors had a "firm" oppose, which sounds very manly, so I'll make this a rock-hard endorsement in principle but with moderately velvet-textured objections, just to balance it out. Drmies (talk) 02:48, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
User:Drmies most odd. Just odd.
  • The ref " In what was meant to be a hyper­bolic joke, she tweeted out a list of political carica­tures, one of which called the typical Sanders fan a “vitriolic crypto­racist who spends 20 hours a day on the Internet yelling at women.” .... By the time Jeong went to sleep, a swarm of Sanders supporters were calling her a neoliberal shill. By sunrise, a broader, darker wave of abuse had begun....Sarah Jeong, the Motherboard writer who was silenced by Bernie bros....".
  • The BBC ref: Author Sady Doyle said her tweets about Sanders supporters resulted in "several hundred angry notifications in a 24-hour span from that cohort," she wrote. "Someone also said *I* should die if I thought some Bernie supporters were kinda sexist."....Some say Sanders is the symptom, not the cause - the "Bernie bro" is just an old troll with a new name. Indeed, Sarah Jeong, a journalist who is the frequent target of sexist attacks, has received so much vitriol in the name of Sanders she set her Twitter account to private - even though she too is a Sanders fan."
  • See this posting by her about it. "I kept an eye out for pro-Sanders abuse on Twitter, but what I saw was a surge of apparently real people harassing commentators, pundits, and ordinary citizens for not supporting Bernie Sanders. Then they came for me. I tweeted a criticism of Sanders supporters, and it kicked off weeks of persecution. One man sent a series of death threats to a friend who had defended me. Another man claimed that he'd "twist my tits off." Others spread lies about me in hopes that more would jump in (it worked)."
  • rewire: "Nor is there acknowledgment of how tech journalist and legal analyst Sarah Jeong found herself swarmed by violently angry Sanders supporters after she tweeted criticism of Sanders’ record on race. Despite her position as a confirmed Sanders voter, the abuse—which included rape and death threats—became so noxious and torrential that Jeong had to lock her Twitter account."
There is no doubt that a bunch of women were treated like shit on social media by people claiming to support Sanders. It ~appears~ that those people/bots may well have been or been stoked by Russian agents (there is a bit in Bernie Bros about that, which hopefully will become clear with time). But "Bernie Bros" was definitely a thing, and that thing did some very ugly shit, including to her.
What is the question, exactly? Jytdog (talk) 03:40, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
The question is--no, there is no question, just a problem. Yes there are Bernie bros, yes Bernie supporters did such horrible things as described in the articles (it seems you think I doubt these things?). But we can't automatically assume that what we describe as "Bernie bros" are those people who harassed her, and by wikilinking the article to the phrase "some Bernie supporters" we would be equating them. In other words, if you leave out the wikilink the problem is gone. Drmies (talk) 14:37, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
I usually understand where you are coming from. I don't here. The sources all explicitly say "Sanders supporters" and this is exactly the "bernie bro" behavior as described in those sources. What i hear you writing is "I don't believe the sources" -- I guess you would need to go see the harassing tweets yourself and verify that these accounts were Sanders supporters? But that is not what we do here and not the kind of argument i have ever seen you make before.
I don't care so much if it is wikilinked or not; not a big deal to me. If that settles this, that will do. Jytdog (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Support It is significant enough and related to her online interactions, which is also the focus of her book. The Wired source is more than a passing reference to her ordeal. It could be more terse but I still support it in its current form. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:13, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I can only describe this proposal as absurd.

    First, are we now adding text to the effect of "was the target of online harassment" to people's biographies? It may have been deeply unpleasant for her, but this counts as a significant event in her life or career? Second, this is much too thin a sourcing for inserting this text in this article which is barely more than a stub. Just compare this sourcing with the stuff about the tweets. Instead, add it to the book article which deals with this topic. Third, as D.Creish points out above, basically the only serious source is a Wired article, which was written by a person who was a co-author. The BBC "blogs-trending" is a lightweight story which mentions her in passing. Fourth, her own "counter-trolling" tweets aren't quoted, which even the cited source does. Fifth, if the aim of this is to provide context for the tweets, it should be part of the proposal above.

    I can come up with five more legitimate reasons very easily, but I'll stop here. Kingsindian ♝ ♚ 15:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
And i don't understand this at all. Somebody who is an authority on intenet law and culture and harassment, gets harassed off the internet.... If there were no big brouhaha and I had come across this page and was looking to improve it, this is something I would have added. The Wired ref has been in the article for a long time, and this event is discussed in it, first thing. But i get it that you oppose. Jytdog (talk) 15:43, 10 August 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, same: my argument throughout has been that we should look for some concrete impact to indicate encyclopedic significance before we rush to include a Twitter controversy, and I've now edited down three more BLPs (across every imaginable variety of politics) that had included way too much Twitter outrage; but, when verifiable, harassment that forced a journalist to withdraw from participation in the public sphere, and moreover take an unpaid leave from their job, would fit my bill if I came across it in any of them. And I don't think the factual information is in dispute, right? (No one thinks her co-author/Wired isn't reliable to the matter of her employment status, I presume.) Innisfree987 (talk) 05:48, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
I agree with the "impact" argument and support the insertion. But I also worry about the weight issue that some have mentioned. Delete the sentence that says she was a Bernie supporter, it is not needed and irrelevant. I'd make the remaining text into a single sentence. Jason from nyc (talk) 11:09, 11 August 2018 (UTC)
I too would like it to be shorter but I tried for longer than I'd care to admit and could only cut about 10% from Jytdog's version. Who someone supported in a presidential election, if it was part of the public coverage of them (as the sources on this invariably do--arguing it is relevant to this incident), would not be unusual to include in an encyclopedic bio; we could make it a separate (preceding?) graf but I'll bet a dollar we get someone along immediately behind to complain about single-sentence paragraphs... FWIW I also have trims I would make in the section on more recent maelstromm but basically I think, at this point we're editing by (massive) committee and getting in the right ballpark is realistically the best we can hope for... and I do think adding this gets us closer to the right answer. It can, one day, be revisitinInnisfree987 (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose as worded: This is overwhelmingly relying on the first three paragraphs of the Greenberg Wired story. But that does not at all describe her tweet as “criticizing some Sanders supporters.” “Criticizing” is not used, nor any close synonym. About a fifth of that key text is devoted to saying she meant to make a hyperbolic joke; that it created multiple political caricatures; that she called the typical Bernie fan a vitriolic cryptoracist who spent most of their day yelling at women online; that the tweet was ill-advised; and that Jeong agreed her tweet was provocative and absurd. This was more like a troll tweet, about typical Bernie fans (not “some”). Much more accurate would be:

    In January 2016, Jeong posted an absurd, provocative tweet equating the typical Bernie Sanders enthusiast with those attacking feminists and Black Lives Matter advocates (despite Jeong supporting Sanders herself)...

    I have more problems. Is there a harassment “campaign”, that’s organized? Greenberg doesn’t say, but describes how the initial firestorm degenerated into something darker and abusive. Jeong argues organized “harassment” in other articles, but doesn’t seem to believe death threats are being directed by the people she’s accusing. Why then are death threats included in the campaign, rather than being something separate from the harassment campaign?

    Were there plural threats of sexual violence? I see one threat of sexualized mutilation in the Greenberg article, along with the same troll threatening nonsexual violence (ripping hair out). I’ve seen no other mentions of sexual violence. Some other articles do claim plural death threats, but if it’s changed to that, the article should be cited. Dillsom (talk) 01:38, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine with changing "criticizing" to "critical of"; we can also change "sexual violence" to "death threats". The "equating" language would be WP:SNYTH (it may be how you read the tweet but it's not how the tweet is described in RS), and abundant sources note a harassment campaign, see sources cited in above thread. On the whole, I think there's general consensus this is encyclopedic material and factually accurate, and I think the current language is an appropriately neutral presentation of it. Innisfree987 (talk) 16:57, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment - Both the original and the amended versions look great. Agree with Innisfree987 that it is time to include. XavierItzm (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2018 (UTC)
  • This discussion has meandered; it is no longer clear to me exactly what is being proposed. reading all of the comments above, I think the CONSENSUSish version would be:

In January 2016, she posted a tweet criticizing some Sanders supporters' online behavior toward women and supporters of Black Lives Matter.[1][2] A campaign harassing Jeong ensued that lasted for weeks and included threats of sexual violence; it drove her to make her Twitter account private and take an unpaid leave from her job at Motherboard.[1][2]

References

  1. ^ a b Greenberg, Andy. "Inside Google's Justice League and its AI-powered war on trolls". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
  2. ^ a b "Sanders fans go on online attack". BBC News. January 28, 2016.

That shortens and by removing the first sentence (some have objected to that as too much detail, and too giving this too much weight overall) If folks agree, I somewhat reluctantly recommend closing this thread and starting a new one to get clean read. Jytdog (talk) 17:18, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd support just putting that straight in. I sincerely think that's generally appeared to be ok with folks and I just as sincerely think that it's not within the realm of the DS, so I think it's ok to go for it so any new discussion can be about particular tweaks instead of having to begin from the beginning. Innisfree987 (talk) 21:50, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Innisfree987 here. XOR'easter (talk) 00:23, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
100% in agreement with Innisfree987. Completely disagree with Jytdog, unless if a new thread is opened, all who already contributed are pinged, so as to not discard their contributions. XavierItzm (talk) 07:08, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
I'm quite sure it was exactly the prospect of that rehashing with all parties that made Jytdog reluctant, but he was commendably offering to err on the side of caution. I'll go ahead and put it up tho. Four weeks of discussion is way past BOLD. (Also I'm realizing I actually do think we should include that she was a Sanders supporter but let's discuss it separately, I'm so tired.) Innisfree987 (talk) 07:15, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

How is this article mentioning GamerGate and not mentioning #cancelwhitepeople?

It's ridiculous how GamerGate is mentioned in a non-gamer article, but "#cancelwhitepeople" is conveniently left out as "satire". Great job astroturfing a total of 8 full archives worth of talkpages. This is the literal definition of cabal. 205.175.107.36 (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Bernie Bros tweet

Sangdeboeuf I think you're being too kind to Ms. Jeong with your recent reverts and changes describing her tweet about Bernie Bros. I was following the Wired source as closely as possible on this very contentious subject matter; your changes do not. For instance the Wired source doesn't say Jeong criticized Bernie Bros, let alone that she "satirized" them. The tweet was a provocative caricature and was pretty substance free; there was no satire or meaningful criticism. On top of that Jeong stereotyped all Bernie Bros for the actions of a subset of them. I have no dog in this fight and no personal interest in Jeong; I just want to see her page reflect the cited sources. R2 (bleep) 05:39, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Where does the source say that Jeong's tweet was "insulting" to Sanders supporters? I've changed "satirizing" to "caricaturing" according to the Wired ref, but the implication of the author, as I see it, is that she meant to ridicule the excesses of the Bernie Bros with her "hyperbolic joke",[1] which is more or less the definition of satire. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:41, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Jeong may have meant it to be hyperbolic joke, but that didn't mean it actually was a hyperbolic joke. Thank you for changing to "caricaturing." I don't think it quite captures the full gist of Jeong's tweet but I'm reasonably satisfied. R2 (bleep) 20:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Yes it did. Something is a joke if it is meant to be a joke by the person saying it. That doesn't mean it is a good joke, but it is a joke. Don't confuse "hyperbolic joke" with "truthful hyperbole". While a hyperbolic joke is definitely a joke, a truthful hyperbole is a statement meant to deceive because it is not actually truthful. wumbolo ^^^ 21:08, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
The source does not say it was a joke, nor does it say it was satire. End of story as far as I'm concerned. R2 (bleep) 21:39, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
We're not here to evaluate the contents of Jeong's tweet for ourselves or to slavishly copy from published sources; summarizing information means using our own words while preserving the intended meaning of the source. This is mentioned in several Wikpedia policies, including Verifiability and Editing policy. In this case, the source says, In what was meant to be a hyper­bolic joke, [Jeong] tweeted out a list of political carica­tures.[1] Those are the source's own words. The fact that she meant it as a joke makes it a joke, according to the accepted definition of the word.[2][3][4] —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:15, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I don't understand what we're still arguing over. I support your last edit and said I was reasonably satisfied. R2 (bleep) 05:45, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b Greenberg, Andy (September 19, 2016). "Inside Google's Internet Justice League and Its AI-Powered War on Trolls". Wired.
  2. ^ "joke". Oxford Dictionaries.
  3. ^ "joke". Cambridge English Dictionary.
  4. ^ "joke". Merriam-Webster.

Article says editors at The Verge defended Jeong — but The Verge isn't cited?

What gives? Am I misunderstanding the article's text? Psiĥedelisto (talk) 11:42, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

The cited sources cite The Verge. It's always preferable to use WP:SECONDARY coverage in order to be neutral. The sentence might be confusing, as The Verge compared Jeong's critics to harassers during Gamergate, not Jeong herself. wumbolo ^^^ 13:20, 7 November 2018 (UTC)

Correction

Date is wrong here "Uberti, David (August 3, 2014). "Sarah Jeong, The New York Times, and the Gamergate School of Journalism". Columbia Journalism Review." should be 2018. People are so crazy about some topics I can't change a 4 to an 8? The most effectual Bob Cat (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:09, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

 Fixed. –Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Jeong's apology

Even though I originally proposed the sentence:

Jeong apologized for the hurtful comments, which she said were meant to satirize online harassment toward her ...

I would suggest rephrasing it as:

Jeong apologized for the comments, which she said were meant to satirize online harassment toward her ...

or even better as:

Jeong released an apology, saying that the tweets were meant to satirize online harassment toward her ...

The word hurtful here is ambiguous; it's not clear whether it's being attributed to Jeong or whether we are making a judgement ourselves about the content of her remarks. I think the second third version is clearer and more concise, without a significant loss of meaning, and without appearing to editorialize, as well as having a more formal tone. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:25, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Once again, "notability" is not the same as notoriety, or with being temporarily at the center of a media circus. Specifically, "Brief bursts of news coverage may not sufficiently demonstrate notability. However, sustained coverage is an indicator of notability". Jeong was notable for our purposes before the recent media frenzy; her notability does not rely on it. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

  • The recent AFD disagrees with your assessment. It is hard to argue with the number of sources, impact on her life, and notability she has gained because of it. Also looking at recent sources the vast majority of times she is brought up, it is in reference to the incident. It has become a cautionary tale well documented by RS. PackMecEng (talk) 00:01, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
  • fwiw I don't think its useful to revisit this. The change is small, and the events are too recent. Will just be drama with little benefit in meaning for readers. (somebody already made the change, btw)Jytdog (talk) 00:15, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
  • @PackMecEng: as you know, this notion that the subject is primarily, or only, notable for the Tweets incident was extensively argued in a formal RfC that you participated in, and the community's consensus came down against that interpretation, both numerically and due to the fact that no evidence has ever been produced to substantiate those claims. This is still a contentious article under tight behavioral restrictions, and continuing to argue this point as if it's a given, and misrepresenting the AfD, which overwhelmingly rejected the premise that she was only notable for the one event, is really starting to push the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Bludgeoning and refusing to drop the stick over an unsubstantiated claim that was rejected by the community is disruptive. Also, implying that RECENTISM is no longer an issue after less than three months is ridiculous, not only because the Wikipedia standard is the Ten Year Test, but because even if three months after a news spike was a sufficient sample size to objectively judge an event's historical impact, you're not even making an effort to substantiate your claim that the event is continuing to get significant coverage as of now.  Swarm  talk  10:48, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
    • @Swarm: as you either know or don't know, WP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE, especially since almost all mentions of Jeong this month (therefore almost three months after) also mention the Twitter controversy. You are the one bludgeoning and misinterpreting the consensus of an AfD and an RfC, which were de facto not about what you think they were. wumbolo ^^^ 11:03, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
      • Obviously consensus hasn't changed, and obviously there is no continuing coverage (just occasional passing mentions). Please knock it off. --JBL (talk) 12:29, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
    • @Swarm: Do you mean the RFC for it having it's own section here? That has nothing to do with anything anyone here is talking about from what I can tell. It was to do with the event having it's own section. With bludgeoning and drop the stick, I had not commented here in a bit and had planned on letting it go to revisit in time. Also with WP:RECENTISM, when would you say that is no longer in effect? There is no line for that I can find, what I had said above was as it moves past it we can get perspective. Is that incorrect? Yes the majority of coverage was from that time, but a google search limiting the dates to more recently shows every time she is mentioned, even in passing, is related to the event.[5][6][7] PackMecEng (talk) 13:19, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
      • @PackMecEng: From what I can see, nearly all of your own comments in that discussion had to do with what you saw as the subject's primary notability as demonstrated by what you called "sustained coverage" of the Twitter flap. As regards said "coverage", the phrase "even in passing" is apt, since passing mentions are all that I have seen about the incident in recent sources. Recent events getting a passing mention in stories about something related is a sign that they are recent and related, not a sign of lasting significance. Two of your three links above are also opinion columns, which are not generally reliable in this context, as I've stated to you before. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:07, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
      • I think it's fairly disingenuous to suggest that the RfC has "nothing to do with anything" being discussed here. That RfC was a straightforward attempt to increase the weight given to the topic, on this exact basis, that the sources are overwhelmingly about this event and the weight needs to be increased accordingly. That was literally the stated position of the person who started the RfC, which was repeatedly rearticulated by the supporters. It's not as if the consensus view only answered a question with no implications whatsoever, it rejected a specific underlying argument (the same argument you're continuing to make), and took the opposite position. As for the 'how long is recentism' issue, you're right, it's not objectively defined. But the sentiments behind WP:10 year test and WP:RECENTISM overall are pretty straightforward. Perception of an event changes as it moves from a "recent event" to a "historical event", and the frame of reference provided for this timescale is "ten or twenty years' time", in the context of assessing a U.S. presidential election. RECENTISM is meant to deal with long-term, historical hindsight. Now, to be clear, I don't think a journalist's twitter controversy remotely needs that scale of time to pass to be able to fairly assess the event, and a more practical way of measuring whether adequate time has passed is offered as being after the point that "articles have calmed down and the number of edits per day has dropped to a minimum". I don't think we can judge this with basically no editing happening due to the restrictions, but we can look at the page view history instead. Before the controversy, the average daily views on the article were fairly consistent: (November: 10, December: 9, January: 13, February: 27 (outlier due to a large spike over the course of a few days; the median here was 12), March: 14, April: 18, May: 15, June: 7, July: 9). It went up and down, but remained fairly stable. Then the controversy broke: August: 8527 (median: 1791), September: 410, October: 320. What does that data tell you? There was a monumental spike of interest in the article, which has tapered off. But is it done tapering off? Or will it continue to trend downward in November and December? I would think that we would need a frame of reference of at least a few months without a downward trend to be able to confidently determine that the article has stabilized, before we can even begin to lower our guard against recentism. Last month I gave an estimation that a post-recentism reassessment might be feasible in six months to a year, and, depending on how quickly the page views stabilize, I think that's a realistic assessment.  Swarm  talk  23:37, 29 October 2018 (UTC)
Side note: Looking at those numbers, it's shocking that the community choose not to characterize the tweets as being primarily (albeit not entirely) responsible for her notability. I wonder if a newer RfC on the question would yield a different response. petrarchan47คุก 01:10, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Returning to the topic, if there are no specific objections to the third version of the sentence above, then I'll adjust the article text accordingly, after allowing time for users to see this thread and respond. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 21:56, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment second or third versions are OK. "Hurtful" is not necessary and POV. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal the word "hurtful" came from Jeong; it simply needs proper attribution. A change could be: "Jeong apologized for what she termed "hurtful" comments...". Or, mimic other RS and directly quote her.
The New Yorker: "She added that she understood how, out of context, tweeting such remarks was “hurtful,” and that she would not do it again."
Vox: Jeong: "I can understand how hurtful these posts are out of context"
In this case, using full or partial direct quotations may be a better approach. petrarchan47คุก 01:30, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support removal. Not an accurate summary of what she said (as others have pointed out when elaborating on the context, which emphasizes that her comments were taken out of context to create that effect), and either way putting it in the narrator voice leads to non-neutral, emotive language inappropriate for a topic like this. Given that the controversy seems to have been a flash-in-the-pan that has long since died down, expanding the section and quoting her in full would be WP:UNDUE. --Aquillion (talk) 09:59, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
    Your comment is almost entirely inaccurate. wumbolo ^^^ 12:07, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
  • Support removing "hurtful" per Aquillion. It sounds judgmental and unencyclopedic when used without context, but the (un)importance of this controversy doesn't justify giving it space in bio needed to add its context.HouseOfChange (talk) 10:45, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Nota bene* Since there's an apparent rough consensus to remove the word "hurtful" here, and there have been no specific objections to version #3 that I proposed above, I've implemented this version of the sentence accordingly. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:47, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Wording: "A campaign harassing Jeong ensued that lasted for weeks and included threats of sexual violence..."

I would like to find a wording that is less passively voiced. The "campaign" was the work of human beings with agency who chose to abuse another human being. The word "campaign" undermines the sense that people did this in a deliberate fashion; makes it seem like a weather event or something that nobody chose to do. Possibly something a simple as "In response to Jeong's comments, people [or perhaps trolls would be a better choice?] harassed her and made threats of sexual violence against her. The harassment lasted for weeks, leading Jeong to make her Twitter account private and take an unpaid leave from her job at Motherboard..." Thoughts? PaulCHebert (talk) 19:24, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

The implication of the word "campaign" is not to absolve participants but to emphasize that they were recruited rather than random and spontaneous. This was not a situation where random people happened upon some controversial past tweets. Years of Jeong's past writings were mined for her most offensive comments, which were then posted by multiple rightwing media outlets whose goal was a backlash against Jeong and the New York Times. Joy Ann Reid is another example of the same kind of intensive campaign to end the career of an outspoken media figure. We should expect to see many more such in the future. HouseOfChange (talk) 15:15, 17 December 2018 (UTC) I should read more carefully, I had assumed that "campaign" referenced NYT kerfluffle, not the 2016 Berniebro one, which likely included some Russian agitpro. Although apparently the 2016 event too was pushed hard by partisans such as Matt Bruenig. HouseOfChange (talk) 21:06, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree. None of the sources cited call it a "campaign", and the sentence is poorly worded. Calling it a campaign downplays the fact that many unprovoked people who didn't like Jeong's tweets have harassed her in disturbingly abusive fashion. The comment above is irrelevant at best and homophobic at worst. wumbolo ^^^ 15:30, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
No, the statement is referring to harassment directed at Jeong by Bernie Sanders supporters, citing this article from Wired. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:48, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I know, when I said "tweets", I was referring to the tweet that the Bernie Bros did not like. Looks like it was only one tweet so I was wrong to say "tweets". wumbolo ^^^ 18:03, 17 December 2018 (UTC)
I agree there's a problem with the word "campaign," which isn't verified by the Wired source. Nor is the "threats of sexual violence"; the source only mentions a single threat. However it also refers to nude photos and disturbing videos. My feeling is that we shouldn't give any weight to the single trolling tweet. We should just say she was harassed for weeks. R2 (bleep) 23:10, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

Still at The Verge?

The article currently says that Jeong was a senior writer at The Verge, implying that she no longer is. Is this verifiable? It's clear from her profile that she hasn't published anything there since July, but that doesn't mean she's no longer with them, does it? R2 (bleep) 23:20, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

There's already a discussion on this topic above, under § Job. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 07:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Job

I have been looking for sources, from time to time, that she actually started working at the NYT. Anybody found one? Jytdog (talk) 00:16, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I did a very narrow search [8], and only found a blog. wumbolo ^^^ 05:23, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
@Jytdog: Here's a Fortune article. wumbolo ^^^ 11:08, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
yeah you can find things like that simply limited by "last week" like this and this and this and many more, with somewhat different descriptions. She has updated her twitter profile to say "editorial board @nytimes, lead writer on technology."Jytdog (talk) 14:25, 28 October 2018 (UTC)

The Verge's editor-in-chief wrote in late August, "Sarah recently joined The New York Times Editorial Board to write about technology issues".[1] —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 08:05, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Patel, Nilay (August 28, 2018). "The Internet of Garbage by Sarah Jeong". The Verge. (Introduction).

"Conservative" or "right-wing" reaction?

Would it be more accurate to say that Jeong's hiring by the Times sparked a "strongly negative reaction" in conservative media, as the article currently does, or right-wing media, as Joel B. Lewis suggested here? Here's how the sources we're currently using phrase the issue:

  • AP: "[M]ainly conservative social media took issue with the tweets, which seem to date to 2013 and 2014 ..."
  • BBC: "The newspaper's announcement that it was hiring Sarah Jeong met an outpouring of online criticism ... Conservative critics said the New York Times board's decision to stand by Ms Jeong amounted to an endorsement of discrimination ..."
  • Columbia Journalism Review: "Right-wing media outlets dredged up a series of inflammatory tweets ... statements Thursday following the uproar among conservatives ... leaving many on the right interpreting it as tacit approval ..."
  • The Independent: "[T]hey quickly spread and were picked up by conservative media including the Daily Caller and Gateway Pundit websites ..."
  • The Guardian: "Old tweets in which Jeong ... criticized and made jokes about white people were resurfaced on a rightwing blog ... Gateway Pundit, a far-right blog ... The response has infuriated those on the right ... highlighted the way the 'alt-right' is unearthing problematic social media posts ... the tweets were resurfaced by rightwing political opponents ... When her employer defends her against the charge, figures on the right use that to stoke racial tensions ..."
  • The Washington Post: "[C]onservative media seized on the story ... exposed a deeper rift between some conservatives [and] the left ... right-leaning outlets such as Fox News, the Daily Caller, the Gateway Pundit, Breitbart and Infowars ... To some conservatives, her hiring [was] an example of how liberals get away with their own brand of racism ..."
  • CNNMoney:"Faced with criticism and indignation from conservatives, the New York Times on Thursday said it is standing by a new hire ... the backlash, mainly coming from the right ... To some conservatives, like Fox News contributor Guy Benson, the tweets were representative ..."

What, if anything, is the difference between "conservative" and "right-wing" here, and what would be the best phrasing to use? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:17, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Clearly right-wing per the sources. Note that the BBC article is not a reliable source, not only because it criticizes Jeong itself, but also because they changed the article multiple times without issuing a correction note. This is still misleading, because "conservative media" is not the "alt-right", and "alt-right" was the only right-wing "medium" which reacted negatively according to The Guardian. (That is, if I remember correctly, and I haven't opened any of these articles in the last two months) wumbolo ^^^ 05:16, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
  • In American political dialog the words are close to synonymous. Part of the distinction being made in the sources is between the originators ("right-wing" or "far-right" blogs) and the regurgitators ("conservatives" and "conservative media") of this fake outrage moment, but I don't think we should (in the Wikipedia article) be explaining this event in sufficiently much detail to draw out the distinction ("the people who started the brouhaha are completely crazy, whereas the people who mainstreamed it are merely awful and cynical"). Ultimately I think either phrase is acceptable, but on balance "conservative" is better supported in the sources. (I also disagree with Wumbolo's analysis of the reliability of a particular BBC article, not that I think it determines anything.) --JBL (talk) 11:57, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
    We can't "be explaining this event in sufficiently much detail to draw out the distinction" because reliable sources don't explain it, and instead blame "right-wing outlets" or "some conservatives", ignoring plenty of criticism by left-figures reported by reliable sources. The vast majority of sources don't say either "right-wing" or "conservative", and the rest that do require WP:INTEXT (especially since "right-wing media figures" is a much stronger wording than "media figures judged right-wing by X, Y, and Z"). Moreover, you can repeat that this is a fake outrage moment (it's still going on), but zero sources support that (if they did, they would be spreading the outrage, ending in a catch-22). wumbolo ^^^ 12:29, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
  • fwiw I don't think its useful to revisit this. The change is small, and the events are too recent. Will just be drama with little benefit in meaning for readers. Jytdog (talk) 00:14, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

I know this has been discussed before.   I believe her tweets need to be posted so the readers can make up their own minds. Instead of dancing around the issue of how to phrase the media’s reaction to the tweets, allow the readers to make their own judgments by presenting all the facts.   I baffels me how less information could possibly be considered better in a wiki article. Abwillingham (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Presenting all the facts about anything is not an encyclopedia's mission. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 05:43, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Naomi Wu

Thread retitled from "Whitewashing".

Controversies like this one are conveniently left out: https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.186.255 (talk) 05:16, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Category

Categories are not for POV-pushing about living people. (non-admin closure) —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 08:42, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

No category:racism in the United States on this page? {— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:4163:AD00:52D:509E:B37D:9310 (talk) 04:36, 12 February 2019 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cover story at Willamette Week

Jeong was interviewed for the cover story at Willamette Week. I added some information, but it was removed as WP:PRIMARY. I wouldn't call it primary, it was mentioned in the introduction to the interview: "Four years ago, Jeong described the internet as a trash heap. Now she says the disinformation clogging up cyberspace in 2019 is more like nuclear waste—like the spent fuel rods stored in a Nevada mountain." That obviously implies that Jeong is critical of the spread of misinformation on the Internet (compare with experience at the fundamentalist high school).

Jeong's comments about regulating Facebook are more nuanced. Her opinion is obvious from the answers to "Do you agree that tech giants should be broken up?" and "How would you break up a big company like Facebook or Google?" The significance of these opinions is highlighted above the interview: "She enjoys one of the most prominent perches in America to witness the growing backlash against Facebook and its fellow big-tech companies. [...] It's hard to keep up. [...] In March, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called for the breakup of Facebook, Google and Amazon. [...] The techlash has started—and Jeong saw much of this coming. [...] Before her talk, WW sat down with her to discuss her work, digital threats to democracy, and whether Facebook is destroying America.". As an alternative, maybe we should state Jeong's predictions about the big companies, or the legal issues they are facing. Sangdeboeuf, would this be a secondary source? FWIW, I wouldn't call Jeong's speech at TechfestNW a "trivial factoid"; I'm pretty sure it will gain coverage. wumbolo ^^^ 20:08, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

That's great; once it gains true secondary-source coverage, I'd agree with including it. But a Wikipedia bio should not be a comprehensive list of speaking engagements. She's also spoken at Harvard University, at Yale in 2015 and again in 2019, and, according to the lead image, Portland's XOXO Festival. None of these facts alone tell us anything about Jeong as a person; listing them would just look like promotion.

As for Jeong's stance on big tech companies, what we're looking for are sources that interpret and evaluate her statements in some kind of context. The Shepard piece seems to just paraphrase Jeong. There's certainly an argument to be made that she is a qualified expert on the subject, but if we're writing about Jeong herself, then an interview where she states her views is still a primary source for those views.

I agree there could be some useful material regarding online disinformation, but I'm not sure "critical" is the right word, since it implies a specific target of criticism Would that be the tech companies? Fake news purveyors? The Internet itself? "Warning" might be more appropriate, but that's just an interpretation, so we're back to the need for a real secondary source. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:48, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The Verge editors' statement

For the sake of clarity, I suggest changing:

Editors at The Verge defended Jeong, saying that the tweets had been disingenuously taken out of context and comparing the episode to the harassment of women during the Gamergate controversy.

to the following:

Editors at The Verge defended Jeong by saying that the tweets had been disingenuously taken out of context, and comparing Jeong's experience to that of the women who were targets of harassment during the Gamergate controversy.

Thoughts? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 08:54, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't like it. Both sources say The Verge was referring to the harassment itself, not to how Jeong experienced it. R2 (bleep) 21:06, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
Well, according to The Washington Post, Many said both [James Gunn’s] and Jeong’s experiences were reminiscent of #Gamergate ... But some organizations are wising up ... Jeong’s current employer, the technology site the Verge, issued a vigorous defense of her. I think we can assume that The Verge is meant to be included in the "many said" part. And Jeong certainly experienced the harassment directed at her. I think this version is clearer than just referring vaguely to "the episode". Any other suggestions are welcome. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 02:49, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
And The Independent says, The senior writer [Jeong] had been the victim of a Gamergate-style campaign designed to 'divide and conquer by forcing newsrooms to disavow their colleagues', [her editors] suggested. That's a clear reference to Jeong's experience of being a victim of harassment. Is not as if the harassment itself exists in some ethereal realm separate from human experience. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:14, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
You're right on the WaPo source, but the Independent source is explicitly talking about the style of the campaign where it refers to Gamergate. R2 (bleep) 05:43, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
They're talking about both. The phrase had been the victim clearly refers to Jeong herself. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 08:11, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not really buying it and it seems like extra verbiage with no benefit. R2 (bleep) 08:36, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Sorry, which part are you not buying? Do you have other ideas for making the prose clearer? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:08, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm not buying that the The Verge was talking solely about Jeong's experience when it referred to Gamergate, and I don't understand how the current wording is unclear. R2 (bleep) 19:21, 20 December 2018 (UTC)
Whose experience besides Jeong's would they be talking about? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2018 (UTC)
The wording is vague because the episode could refer to almost anything – the harassment against Jeong, the outcry against the Times, or even Jeong's tweets themselves. Without more context, I think we need to specify exactly who The Verge is saying was the recipient of GamerGate-style harassment. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:08, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

I think I've answered the objections to the suggested wording. If there are no further ones, I propose making the change as described above. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2019 (UTC)  Done —08:44, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

Reading the discussion above, I see that you replied to the objections, but you did not address them in any substantive way or succeed in building consensus. You just reinserted your preferred version word-for-word after waiting until no one was watching, in direct contradiction to the DS laid out in the advisory note on the page. And perhaps most importantly, your summary of Verge's commentary is completely inaccurate. Verge said:

But as the editors of The Verge, we want to be clear: this abusive backlash is dishonest and outrageous. The trolls engaged in this campaign are using the same tactics that exploded during Gamergate, and they have been employed in recent years by even broader audiences amid a rise in hostility toward journalists.

The comparison was drawn between the tactics of the supposed "online trolls" in the two instances, they said nothing of her "experience."[10] I agree with R2's assessment and oppose the wording you've unilaterally inserted into the article. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 20:11, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
You're welcome to file an WP:AE complaint against me if you think I've violated the discretionary sanctions (which you appear to think are absurd anyway). Returning to content issues, both the Washington Post and The Independent sources I quoted seem to refer to Jeong's experience. You also haven't addressed the ambiguity issue I raised. But since there's apparently no consensus, should we open an RfC to get the community's input? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:46, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I think the DS on this page are ridiculous, but I will abide by them until they are altered, and I expect you to do the same. But let's review the sequence of events: 1) You suggested a substantial rewording to a sentence 2) that was opposed by another editor, 3) you then returned later and independently decided that you'd "answered" the objections and proceeded to make the changes anyway. Do you honestly believe what you're attempting isn't 100% transparent, and do you really want me to have to make that case on WP:AE? I don't think you do. And to my earlier point, neither of the sources say anything about Jeong's "experience." An RfC would be a waste of time; there's no support for it in the sources, and you're plainly just trying to force in editorializing language that portrays the subject sympathetically. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 00:56, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Wow, WP:AGF much? Also, when The Verge says that "a widespread campaign of harassment has targeted Verge reporter Sarah Jeong ... she has since received an unrelenting stream of abuse", how are they not referring to Jeong's experience? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:04, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
I'm happy to WP:AGF, but I don't like how you're just systematically dismissing other editors' concerns. Everyone can get a little zealous when they want to see an article a certain way, but this one is under a strict set of sanctions. (Striking—I think the sanctions on this page are inappropriate.) The Verge piece was comparing the behavior of the "online trolls" (I'm not entirely satisfied with this terminology, but whatever) between the two controversies: "GamerGate" and the alleged harassment of Jeong. They said nothing about her "experience," and, IMO, the wording you're suggesting does not reflect what the source wrote. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:08, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
Are you saying that because they don't specifically use the word "experience", they aren't talking about her experience? Who do you think experienced being "targeted" and "received ... abuse"? Also, "alleged" harassment? All the sources we're dealing with mention it as a fact, plus plenty more. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:20, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
The comparison by the Verge editors was a comment on the conduct of the harassers, not Jeong's perspective. You're trying to extrapolate something that they didn't say. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:25, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
So when they say Jeong was targeted by "a widespread campaign of harassment" and "received an unrelenting stream of abuse", and three sentences later say, "The trolls engaged in this campaign are using the same tactics that exploded during Gamergate", you don't think that they're drawing an implicit comparison between Jeong's experience of harassment and what other women experienced during GamerGate? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 01:37, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
No. If they wanted to relate something about Jeong's experience, they would've stated it directly. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 01:40, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
And yet, according to The Independent, "Editors at The Verge, an online tech magazine, denounced what they called 'disingenuous' criticism of Ms Jeong ... The senior writer had been the victim of a Gamergate-style campaign ... they suggested". How is this not referring to Jeong's experience being the victim of the trolls' actions? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
The Washington Post also explicitly refers to Jeong's "experience", as quoted above, so the statement neither of the sources say anything about Jeong's 'experience' is simply false. I don't see any other arguments for reverting based on these secondary sources. Unless Ahrtoodeetoo or Wikieditor19920 have anything to add, I propose restoring the wording I added on March 22, which I think solves the ambiguity of referring to the harassment simply as the "episode". Any other suggestions are also welcome. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 20:17, 5 April 2019 (UTC)
The Washington Post are not the editors at Verge. You're trying to attribute what source B said to source A, which is just sloppy and not how to write an article. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 00:54, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Incorrect; WaPo is a secondary source offering their own interpretation and evaluation of what The Verge said, and they attribute the idea to The Verge. When the WaPo article says, Many said both [James Gunn’s] and Jeong’s experiences were reminiscent of #Gamergate and shortly afterward Jeong’s current employer, the technology site the Verge, issued a vigorous defense of her, they seem to be saying that Jeong's employer was one of those who connected Jeong's experiences to GamerGate, as The Independent also does. Do you dispute this? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:01, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with Wikieditor19920 that Sangdeboeuf's proposal is disputed and does not have consensus. R2 (bleep) 05:58, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
    • This statement is vacuous (of course it is disputed, that is self-evident from the fact someone is disputing in). The question that needs an answer is why to prefer one version to another.
    • Personally, I think that the two versions of the sentence convey exactly the same information, both do so clearly, and both respect the sources, and therefore that anyone who argues that there is an important distinction to be made (let alone thinks it is worth fighting over) must be completely nuts. —JBL (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Joel_B._Lewis You've contributed nothing to this talk page except to try and stir the pot. Find something better to do than provide negative commentary on other editors' posts. Sangdeboeuf It's not clear that the WaPo paraphrase is specifically of Verge, it's of "many sources." The wording you've suggested is just poor prose and does not accurately convey what the Verge editors stated, just what you think they meant implicitly. You continuing to cite new sources that supposedly paraphrase the Verge piece in a similar way but actually don't at all is a waste of time, and frankly, I have much bigger concerns about this section. Wikieditor19920 (talk) 15:30, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
Since your first sentence is a lie, a personal attack, and an act of pure projection, I am not inclined to read further. Please go away. --JBL (talk) 15:33, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
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