Talk:Spiked (magazine)/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Left-libertarian

The sources below describe Spiked as "left-libertarian". Any polite comments about reliability will be welcomed.

(1) https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mg1rDwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=YouTube:+Online+Video+and+Participatory+Culture&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwidt_jpjO_rAhVsTxUIHdY3DMYQ6wEwB3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=spiked&f=false/

(2) https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_WRE170_a_GGL&dest=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theaustralian.com.au%2Fnation%2Finquirer%2Fbeware-mob-rule-of-the-new-racism%2Fnews-story%2Ff7af414233323f62d6fee1d606cf25c1&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium

(3) https://www.cis.org.au/commentary/articles/say-whatever-you-like/

(4) https://eppc.org/publications/faking-it-and-making-it/ https://newcriterion.com/issues/2017/1/faking-it-and-making-it

(5) https://anglicanmainstream.org/get-on-the-bus-or-get-under-it-shouting-down-free-speech-at-rutgers/

(6) https://www.weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/563/science-and-social-choices/

H Remster (talk) 02:22, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

The first from 2017 refers to Spiked as "left libertarian" in passing in reference to how the magazine referred to #metoo as a moral panic. How would this source be properly summarized in the article?

The second is behind a paywall, but looks like an opinion column complaining about reverse racism from Janet Albrechtsen. More info is needed to explain why this column would be significant.

An opinion Centre for Independent Studies from 2011 would need to be attributed to Adam Creighton (probably not Adam Creighton) and we would need some specific reason based on reliable, independent sources to include this otherwise unremarkable opinion.

Likewise for James Bowman (probably none of these James Bowmans) of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

The Anglican Mainstream one is republished from Quillette. Per WP:RSP, Quillette is not a reliable source, and any opinions from Quillette would need a specific reason, per above.

Again, an editorial in the Weekly Worker from 2005 would need to be attributed to Anne McShane, and we would need a specific reason to include this opinion. As this source is relatively old and specifically mentions Spiked's connection to Revolutionary Communist Party, this doesn't seem useful for a contemporary description of the outlet.

Grayfell (talk) 03:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

My targets are these sentences from the article:

Spiked has sometimes been described as libertarian, and sometimes as right-wing.

According to the Daily Beast, Spiked is libertarian. According to Paul Mason of the New Statesman, Spiked is libertarian. According to Free University of Berlin digital media expert Annett Heft et al, Spiked is right-wing but not libertarian. According to Tim Knowles, the technology correspondent for the Times, Spiked is right-wing and libertarian.

Sorry for not making that explicit.

H Remster (talk) 03:38, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I have adjusted the wording slightly based on my prior comments in Talk:Spiked (magazine)/Archive 2#Edits 1 & 2 September 2020. To repeat for convenience, Heft et al. doesn't say that Spiked isn't libertarian, it only barely even implies it. Interpreting an implication in this way is too close to WP:OR, especially for what amounts to a passing mention in a source which is primarily about something else anyway.

Regarding the current wording, I have a lot of problems which are similar to that one, but these sources would have to be discussed again on their own merits.

As for these new sources, reporting and academic sources are better than opinion article such as columns and editorials. Opinions published in reliable outlets are preferable, and there should be some way for readers to evaluate these opinions for themselves if they wish, such as via a wikilink. Ideally, included opinions would be from notable topic experts reported in WP:SECONDARY sources, but I do not see any like that at all. Grayfell (talk) 04:23, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I understand about the preference for academic and reporting sources, but I'm unsure of your verdict on the comparative values of the sources I've provided that describe Spiked as "left-libertarian" and those used in the article that describe it as "right-wing". My own view is that all the sources are inadequate, but I'm trying to get my head round why "right-wing" would be privileged over "left-libertarian" on the strength of those sources. H Remster (talk) 09:50, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I agreed to the addition of the ‘According to…. ‘ wordings which H Remster is referring to, but as I mentioned in the previous discussion, I do not think that these are particularly good sources, because mostly they just mention the ‘libertarian’ or ‘right-wing’ judgment of Spiked in passing. Regarding Heft et al, if it is only an implication that Spiked is not libertarian because libertarian publications were not included in the study, then it is only an implication that Spiked is right-wing because it was included. As regards the reliability of the sources given by H Remster: surely reliability relates to factual information. The political orientation of a publication can only be a matter of opinion, and people’s own opinion is a reliable source for their own opinion. The opinions should be attributed. The relevant point is that there is no agreement on the orientation of Spiked, and if there are sources saying that it is left-libertarian, these should be included in the article. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:26, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll work something up to tack on the end of each passage, using the same constructions. H Remster (talk) 15:35, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no objection to an equivalent formulation e.g. "has sometimes been described as left-libertarian", if the sources are good enough. On the sources given above, I tend to concur with Grayfell:

• a passing mention in a recent academic book about an Australian Professor of Digital Media and a "Solution Principal in the Customer Strategy practice at Slalom, a purpose-driven business and technology consulting firm." Seems weak to me.
• I can't read this as paywalled but an opinion piece in a non-UK publication.
• 2011 opinion piece which does not characterise Spiked as left-libertarian but only O'Neil. Also Australian, I think by Adam Creighton (journalist) who does not seem to have any expertise on UK politics or UK web publications. Seems unusable to me.
• 2017 opinion piece by an American commentator with no specific expertise on UK politics or UK web publications, mentions Spiked in passing. Seems weak to me.
• reblogged from Quilette by a very obscure publication with the Quilette original now offline[1] The author is US-based and it's hard to see what their area of expertise or reason for authority is.[2] Seems weak to me.
• The Weekly Worker: I am inclined to see the WW as quite a good source for the arcane sectariana of the British far left, and so this is quite an interesting potential citation for the existence of a Spiked network disputed in the previous talk section: The influence of Spiked, a left-libertarian website and contemporary manifestation of the former Revolutionary Communist Party, was palpable among some of the main contributors at the Commons meeting [organised by the "Pro-Choice Forum, a campaign largely run by Ellie Lee, lecturer in social policy at the University of Kent"]. But I suspect I'm in a minority in seeing the WW as an RS, and the author does not seem noteworthy[3]. It is also significant that this is from 2005, and suggests that Spiked was characterised as left-libertarian then, but not necessarily that it is now.

I feel there probably are RSs we could use for "left-libertarian", but I don't think these are them. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:16, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree that these sources aren't great, and I take your points that two of them are old and that one of them is about the editor rather than the website. But the question remains as to whether they compare unfavourably with the sources used for "right-wing". For example, the Times is also behind a paywall, and the article is by the technology correspondent. H Remster (talk) 12:43, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

There is an important distinction between a source which is suitable to found the statement: ‘Spiked is libertarian/right-wing/left-wing’ and a source which is suitable to found the statement ‘Spiked has been described as libertarian/right-wing/left-wing.’ The technology correspondent of the Times is not a suitable source to say ‘Spiked is right-wing and libertarian’, but may be acceptable, in the context of other such statements, as a source for saying how Spiked has been described. Similarly, the sources put forward for saying that Spiked is left-libertarian are adequate for saying that Spiked has been described as left-libertarian.

As regards the sources:

• ‘a passing mention in a recent academic book’ seems to me to be a much better source than a passing mention in an article in the Times in an article which was about another matter. I believe that books are generally edited more rigorously than newspapers.
• The Australian source, interestingly, includes: ‘That O’Neil, who describes himself as a ‘left libertarian,’ could not easily be categorised as ‘right-wing’ or ‘left-wing’ only aggravated the frustration.’ As Spiked is available online, and sometimes includes articles about Australia, I do not see that this is a reason why this should be excluded as a source, though it is true that the actual comment about political orientation is about O’Neill, rather than Spiked.
• EPPC – I see no reason to discard this source merely because it is American. Spiked is online, and sometimes comments on American matters.
• Anglican mainstream/Quillette. Since Quillette itself is not regarded as a reliable source for facts [4], it is debatable whether the opinion about the orientation of Spiked should be included. But, in effect, it would be used as a source for an opinion about the orientation of Spiked, rather than for facts about Spiked.
• The Weekly Worker is a bit old. The RCP is mentioned in the Spiked article.

Sweet6970 (talk) 14:51, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I think the comparison to the "right-wing" sources is valid and that they are not 100% perfect. I also agree that the standard of reliability for "is right-wing" is different from "is considered right-wing". Most of these sources are opinion pieces and our task is to determine what the weight of reliable sources say. The problem is, we don't have a huge number of RSs describing the ideological orientation of the site, but it looks to me that it is a lot easier to find RSs saying "right-wing" or "libertarian" than ones that say "left".

• YouTube: This is an academic book, but it is by experts in YouTube, so I don't think they compare particularly favourably to a technology editor, who is expected to have a wide understanding of web journalism, which is what the article mentioning Spiked was about. Spiked was one of the examples in the Times article; the articlewas not "about another matter". This book is clearly about another matter. The academic book, however, is about another matter. This is the entire quote of the only mention of Spiked in the book: “For example, the social media hash tag campaign #metoo, which women all over the world used in October 2017 to disclose experiences of sexual harassment and assault, was framed as a social media fuelled moral panic about men by the left libertarian publication Spiked online”
• The Australian: this may be a good source; I just can't see it. The Times is the newspaper of record in the UK and consistently uses the designation "right-wing", across content by several staff members, as I showed in the previous section of the Talk. Is that true of The Australian for "left-libertarian", or is this just one external opinion piece using the term.
• EPPC: This is not week just because American (The Daily Beast is also American) but that's just one of the reasons the author doesn't seem authorative. Open to persuasion if there;;s a reason this author is noteworthy in this context.
• Quillete: is presumably reliable for the views of a contributor, so the question is whether it is DUE or not: why noteworthy

BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:06, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: You say ‘it looks to me that it is a lot easier to find RSs saying "right-wing" or "libertarian" than ones that say "left".’ Surely the question is not what is easy to find, but whether anything is found. I really don’t see your objection to the sources saying Spiked is left-libertarian, since it is only a matter of people saying that the publication is left-libertarian. There is no suggestion that there is some kind of political litmus paper which will tell you scientifically whether a publication is left- or right-wing. I am not impressed by the sources saying that Spiked is right-wing. I did suggest at one point that there should be no statements about Spiked’s orientation in this article, but only details of its specific stance on specific subjects.

@Grayfell: Re Heft et al: It is an unavoidable implication that if the Heft study excluded libertarian websites, then Heft et al consider that Spiked is not libertarian. You should reinstate the version which was added to the article as agreed on this Talk page. Sweet6970 (talk) 17:21, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

No, I've already explained this twice. "Implications" are WP:OR, and the source is flimsy anyway. Grayfell (talk) 19:01, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: If you are saying that the Heft et al source is ‘flimsy’, does that mean you would agree to it being deleted? I would be happy with that, but other editors may differ. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:51, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

If a fresh pair of eyes came across that source, how would they summarize what it says about Spiked? Spiked is barely mentioned, and since "libertarian, as well as religious sites" are regarded as "a particularly U.S.‐based phenomenon" (but not directly in relation to Spiked) I do not think a reader with no prior familiarity with the Spiked would make this conclusion about this British website. It is no more appropriate to use this source to say Spiked "isn't libertarian" than it would be for saying it "isn't religious". The source indirectly says it isn't an "American libertarian" or "American religious" website, but neither of these concepts are actually defined by the source, so this is almost meaningless. After all, other countries also have religious websites.

In a nutshell: Heft et al included Spiked in a study of right-wing news sites. The source says that the site's populism used to be from the radical left, but shifted to the right. The source can be used for this, but not much else, as far as I can see.

The emphasis on the Free University should also be fixed. It appears the study's second author was associated with Roskilde Universitet at the time of publication. In cases like this, it's better to mention the journal, Policy & Internet, instead. If readers really have some reason to doubt this, the name of the school isn't going to make much difference. Grayfell (talk) 20:29, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

So the best candidates seem to be 1, 2 and 4 (I've just added the numbering to the original list and replaced the URL for 4):

(1) Publication type: book about YouTube

Author credentials: Professor of Digital Media and Director of the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology

Wording used: "framed as a social media-fuelled 'moral panic about men' by the left-libertarian Spiked Online"

(2) Publication type: long-running culture magazine

Author credentials: think-tank scholar (their term)

Wording used: "Brendan O’Neill of the British left-libertarian site Spiked Online wrote"

(4) Publication type: Australian broadsheet

Author credentials: opinion columnist

Wording used: "part of the Unsafe Spaces college tour sponsored by left-libertarian British website Spiked"

I agree that these are weak, but I honestly can't see that they compare unfavourably with those used for "right-libertarian" and "right-wing". If Spiked characterised their own stance, would that count for anything? One of the problems here is that most of what's written about Spiked seems to be written by its opponents. H Remster (talk) 20:39, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I see a few problems.

The article already suffers from a WP:GEVAL problem, but I'm not sure this will help. It doesn't necessarily matter whether or not reliable sources are Spiked's "opponents" or not. We want sources which are independent. If reliable sources come to conclusions which are unflattering, so be it. We want sources which look at a topic with a critical eye, and summarize accordingly. To put it another way, if most sources share a position, this just means the position has weight.

For this reason, Spiked's description of itself should be avoided or used with caution. Unfortunately, this is also a problem the article already has, but this is a separate discussion. Because Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion or public relations, we avoid "mission statement" type sources in most cases, especially for commercial services and products like websites.

Other than the New Statesman's column by Paul Mason (journalist), this paragraph of the article doesn't currently use opinions. That's a good thing.

As you said, these are all weak. I don't think this is a precedent we need to follow. Some sources mention the left-right paradigm, usually in passing, but by itself, this lacks context. I do not think this is a random sample of sources, either. Grayfell (talk) 21:16, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps "opponents" was the wrong word. I meant "targets". Semi-fictitious example: if a Guardian journalist is described by Spiked as "faux left", when that journalist describes Spiked as "right-wing" in a subsequent opinion piece, is that an independent source?

Are you saying that only Paul Mason's column is an opinion piece, or that only Paul Mason's classification of Spiked's political stance is the expression of an opinion?

Please clarify "I don't think this is a precedent we need to follow". I would agree that adding weak sources to weak sources won't result in a strong set of sources, but surely the solution is to remove all of them. I have in mind this as guidance: "This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether" (WP:NPOVHOW).

Point taken about the irrelevance of Spiked's self-image.

H Remster (talk) 22:35, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Sources do not have the ability to discredit other sources merely by targeting them or insulting them or whatever. People disagree with journalists all the time, after all. In your fictional example, neither "The Guardian" nor "Spiked" would be inherently less reliable because one said something bad about the other. Beyond that, we would have to look at the context. Lacking more info, I would still be inclined to treat both sources as independent of each other.

The paragraph has four sources. Mason's article is an opinion. The other three are not.

As I said before, I think readers are going to want to know the slant of this magazine, and I think the should get this info from independent sources. Right now, the section is mostly regurgitating Spiked's own PR mostly supported by primary examples from Spiked. If we solve this problem by citing reliable, independent source, this specific problem will evaporate. I recognize that this is easier said than done. Grayfell (talk) 04:14, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

So by "Paul Mason's article is an opinion" you mean the same thing as "Paul Mason's article is an opinion piece". This is important, because the other articles, even if they're news reports or academic papers rather than opinion pieces, can (and in this case do) express opinions.

Anyway, "right-wing" is supported by one news report and one academic paper; "left-wing" is supported by one academic book and two opinions pieces. How are these to be weighed? As far as I can tell, although I'm willing to be corrected, none of the authors is an expert in political theory, and in each case the classification is merely assumed to be correct.

"Sources do not have the ability to discredit other sources merely by targeting them or insulting them or whatever." That's not quite what I meant. I wasn't suggesting that Spiked could discredit my fictitious journalist by insulting him or her. I was suggesting that the journalist's independence could be questioned if Spiked had previously laid into him or her. Anyway, the answer appears to be a no (depending on other factors).

H Remster (talk) 10:01, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

The sources saying that Spiked is right-wing are no stronger than the sources saying it is left-wing. If the ‘right-wing’ sources are to be included, then so should the ‘left-wing’ sources. I don’t understand what User:Grayfell means by saying that the section is ‘mostly regurgitating Spiked’s own PR.’ The way the political orientation of this publication is treated is very different from the way this aspect is treated in the New Statesman article, where the only comments in the lead are from the publication itself: ‘According to its present self-description, it has a liberal, progressive political position. Jason Cowley, the magazine's editor, has described the New Statesman as a publication "of the left, for the left" but also as "a political and literary magazine" with "sceptical" politics.’ Sweet6970 (talk) 11:02, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't handle precedent well, partly because there are millions of Wikipedia articles, and partly as a byproduct of the WP:CONSENSUS model. Every topic will have its own set of sources, and we cannot assume that X must be treated the same as Y because they fall under the same broad category. Further, the New Statesman is not necessarily a good article that can be used as a template.

Beyond that, there are two subtly different issues: Primary sources are bad, but arbitrary samples from primary sources are even worse.

Most paragraphs of the "Stance" section are supported by examples of Spiked's own writing. Instead, independent sources should decide which views to emphasize. User:Bobfrombrockley tagged these as primary sources, and I completely agree that this is a problem. One counter-example is the "free speech rankings", but neither of the two independent sources ([5], [6]) is being fairly summarized. Both sources are harshly critical of the validity of this ranking, but the sources are merely being used for the ranking's mundane existence.

This problem means the section is indistinguishable from original research based on someone's first-hand reading of the magazine. A better approach is to figure out what independent sources are saying about the entire outlet and go from there. Grayfell (talk) 22:40, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, saying "mostly regurgitating Spiked" was a poor choice of words. I should say that the use of examples from Spiked is a problem. Being PR would also be a problem, but that's not what's happening in this section. Grayfell (talk) 22:45, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

OK, but where does that leave us on the question of the "right-wing" sources versus the "left-libertarian" sources? If they're equally weak, is your position that the section should be left alone until stronger sources can be found? Or is it, like mine, that it should be made more balanced until stronger sources can be found? H Remster (talk) 23:15, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:BOLD, I have made an attempt to address some of these issues, but not all of them. As I said, it's easier said than done, but I hope these changes demonstrate how the article can be more clear in conveying neutral information about the magazine. I apologize for not making these edits more incrementally.

I know this doesn't actually answer the question, and I apologize for being cryptic. It's not an easy yes/no and sources can be good in one context but not in another. These sources will need to be looked at more carefully and actually summarized. Merely using them for political compass items would be a missed opportunity. Grayfell (talk) 01:11, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't answer the question at all! I'm looking for the reasons for omitting the "left-libertarian" sources while retaining the "right-wing" sources. So far I've seen independent reasons for omitting the "left-libertarian" sources (they're weak) and for retaining the "right-wing" sources (the reader needs some guidance), but these are equally reasons for removing the "right-wing" sources (which are also weak) and for adding the "left-libertarian" sources (which would provide more balanced guidance). H Remster (talk) 12:30, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

i) On Spiked’s website, it gives a quote about itself from the New York Times: ‘often-biting British publication fond of puncturing all manner of ideological balloons’ — fearless in challenging orthodoxy and fighting for free speech. [7]. It doesn’t give a link or a citation (tut, tut!) and I haven’t been able to find the quote on the NY Times website. If someone else is able to trace it, it may be possible to find out exactly what was said, (for instance, whether ‘fearless in challenging orthodoxy and fighting for free speech’ is what the NY Times said) and whether there is anything which should be included in this article.

ii) @H Remster: I suggest you produce a proposed wording based on the ‘left-wing’ sources, for consideration. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:12, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

The quote is from this 2011 column from Andrew Revkin. (I searched for the phrase "often-biting British publication" in quotes). It reflects poorly on Spiked that they would attribute this to "The New York Times", but not give a name or date. But it is just a quote for a PR blurb, so it's hardly a mortal sin.

Proposing a wording is a good idea. I would suggest looking to see if these sources say anything significant beyond a single-word label. My change to the use of Heft et al is an example of what I'm proposing. Grayfell (talk) 18:39, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

OK, I'll propose a wording in due course. I don't think the "left-libertarian" sources offer anything other than the label, but I'm not sure there's a significant difference between (a) an assertion that Spiked "oppose[s] the political establishment from a position on the right side of the spectrum" by the head of the research group Digitalization and the Transnational Public Sphere and senior researcher at the Institute for Media and Communication Studies at Freie Universität Berlin, and (b) a reference to Spiked as "left-libertarian" by a Professor of Digital Media and Director of the Digital Media Research Centre at Queensland University of Technology. H Remster (talk) 19:25, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

The Heft et al source says that Spiked shifted from radical left populism to right-wing populism. Populism helps explain how this happened, and a shift from one position to another is significantly more nuanced then just "right-wing". If you have sources which provide context like this, all the better. Grayfell (talk) 19:41, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

That's certainly a difference, but why is it significant for the reliability or notability of the sources? H Remster (talk) 19:53, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Our shared goal here is to explain this topic to readers based on available, reliable sources. I have tried to summarize what the Heft et al source is substantially saying about Spiked. That's the difference. My edit was not in any way definitive, and more work is needed to contextualize the rest of the currently-cited sources.

Burgess & Green (ISBN 9781509533596) says that Spiked is "left-libertarian" in a specific context. The relevant paragraph of that source is discussing how "the discourse of the moral panic is now simply part of the professional repertoire of journalists". A single Spiked story from 2017 is cited as an example of how "'the media' has no moral centre". The specific relevant sentence is this:

For example, the social media hashtag campaign #metoo, which women all over the world used in October 2017 to disclose experiences of sexual harassment and assault, was framed as a social media-fueled 'moral panic about men' by the left-libertarian publication Spiked Online (Whelan, 2017).[8]

The link cited for Whelan 2017 redirects to this article.

The challenge, and it's a doozy, is how to summarize what this source is saying about Spiked in total. I do not strictly object to using it for "left-libertarian", but if this is an attempt to balance-out the sources which say "right-libertarian", it's ignoring the deeper issue. The source may be usable, but all sources are judged in context. What is this source actually saying about Spiked, and how will this information benefit readers? Grayfell (talk) 20:53, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Burgess & Green doesn't say that Spiked is left-libertarian in a specific context. It says in a specific context that Spiked is left-libertarian. This ostensibly pedantic distinction is important here: the authors don't say that Spiked exhibits a left-libertarian stance in Whelan 2017 or in relation to #metoo; they say that Spiked is a left-libertarian publication. Is it our place to speculate about their grounds for this assertion, or to defer to their peer-reviewed, published expertise (such as it is)? H Remster (talk) 21:15, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

The distinction is important, and this is a fair point, but again, what is this source saying about Spiked? As I said, I don't strictly object to using the source for "left libertarian" but it really is a single passing mention used for context. Heft et al is more useful for this point, because it is explicitly about Spiked's political slant. We do not have to speculate about the grounds for their assertions to note that Heft et al are studying Spiked based on its political history, (as part of a group of "RNS") and they specifically provide context for this political position (populism and a shift from left to right).

Burgess & Green says nothing about Spiked other than what is quoted above. Sometimes it is appropriate to use only a single word or phrase from a longer sentence, but the risk of cherry-picking should be obvious.

"In October 2017, Spiked described the Me Too movement as a moral panic." - This is one possible summary of what this source is saying about Spiked.

"Spiked has been described as left-libertarian." - This is another.

Obviously both are incomplete. We shouldn't shy away from complicated sources, so my take is that any source worth summarizing will have problems like these. Why favor one incomplete summary over another? The question is, again, how will this help readers understand the topic? Grayfell (talk) 23:34, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, Heft et al might be wrong for all kinds of reasons: they might be conflating Spiked's political stance with its political history; or they might just not understand left-libertarianism. The mere fact that they focus on this stuff doesn't make them authorities on it. These people are media and communications experts, not political theorists.

Anyway, "Spiked has been described as left-libertarian" is precisely what I'm thinking of. How will this help readers understand the topic? It will show them that Spiked's political position is classified very differently in different sources, and it will give them a fuller picture of the range of classifications used. H Remster (talk) 23:51, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Ah. Previously you said "Is it our place to speculate about their grounds for this assertion, or to defer to their peer-reviewed, published expertise"? The answer, as I'm sure you've guessed, is "no". Your personal speculation about Heft et al is a form of WP:OR. If Heft et al is "wrong", then Wikipedia will also be wrong, because we summarize reliable sources. Your speculation about the grounds for Heft et al's assertions is not consistent with Wikipedia's evaluation of reliable sources.

"Spiked has been described as left-libertarian" was my example of what not to put in the article, and clearly didn't explain it very well. One problem is that it's WP:WEASEL wording. Another is that it's incomplete and potential cherry-picking.

A more complete summary might be something like this:

• "Burgess & Green (2018) noted that an article on Spiked Online (described as a left-libertarian publication) described the Me Too movement as a moral panic. This was was cited as an example of how coverage of moral panics had become less hegemonic in the contemporary period."

I think that's bloated to the point of being distracting. As I said, it's not an easy challenge. This awkward version is a more complete summary of what the source is saying about Spiked specifically, and therefor is more neutral. I also think this is an example of why we don't always have to cite every source we find. It is not enough to include this source exclusively because it supports "left-libertarian". Grayfell (talk) 00:46, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for working on this. I agree with Grayfell we need to move from simply weighing up the half dozen sources used for "right/libertarian" against the half dozen source found for "left-libertarian" and start looking at what the weight of reliable, independent sources actually say. I started a while ago to try to comprehensively go through academic sources. I haven't got that far, but what I've done is in this sandbox. Feel free to use anything. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:31, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell:‘Spiked has been described as left-libertarian’ is the opposite of ‘weasel wording’. It would only be ‘weasel wording’ if it was not attributed. It is the recommended way of reporting an opinion, for maintaining a neutral point of view as in ‘For example, an article should not state that "genocide is an evil action", but it may state that "genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil."[[9]]. You did not object that the article has the statement ‘Spiked has sometimes been described as libertarian, and sometimes as right-wing’.

Why don’t you want this article to say ‘Spiked has been described as left-libertarian’? Sweet6970 (talk) 10:52, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I have edited the article to delete the reference to 'populist' as Heft et al did not say that - it could only be an implication. Sweet6970 (talk) 12:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: I wasn't speculating about Heft et al. I was merely illustrating why they're nothing special as a source, where the point of comparison is Burgess & Green. I've no view as to whether they're right or wrong.

Now, please explain why "Spiked has been described as left-libertarian" is or might be (a) weasel wording, (b) cherry-picking, and (c) incomplete. It's not as if the passage reads "... by the left-libertarian publication Spiked Online. Sorry, I meant the right-wing publication Spiked Online". And of course "Spiked has been described as left-libertarian" would be woefully incomplete as a summary of everything the author has to say about Spiked, but we're not offering a summary of everything the author has to say about Spiked. H Remster (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@BobFromBrockley: I'm happy to do that, and thanks for the link, but in the meantime I'm still after the reasons for not either including both "right-wing" and "left-libertarian", or excluding them both. H Remster (talk) 16:14, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: In case it should turn out that a publication's self-description is allowed (you mentioned New Statesman), I've found this on the Spiked website: https://www.spiked-online.com/about-spiked/. H Remster (talk) 16:41, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@H Remster: I think that the self-description in the Spiked ‘about’ page is a bit too vague to be useful. However, it does refer to a quote from the New York Times which Grayfell has helpfully provided a link to.[10] (Grayfell has also added it as a reference on the Brendan O’Neill article.) But unfortunately, I can’t get at the NY Times article, because the website just flashes at me. I would like to know exactly what the NY Times says about Spiked, in case it would be useful for this article. Are you able to access the NY Times article? Sweet6970 (talk) 19:11, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Heft et al specifically gives Spiked and Compact as examples of the populist tendency to oppose "elites", and specifically the tendency for populist alternative media to subjugate traditional left/right polarization to this paradigm. This is directly related to any explanation of Spiked's position on the simplistic left/right spectrum.

As I said earlier, the Wikipedia article for New Statesman has its own problems and its own set of sources, so we should instead work with sources that discuss Spiked.

Burgess & Green says something specific about Spiked, and it's a fussy and point that seems distracting and pretentious in isolation, so I do not think this meets WP:DUE. Surely this isn't the best possible source for this point, right?

I am not endorsing how the "right-wing" sources are summarized. We need to look at what they say and summarize that with a lot more nuance. Grayfell (talk) 19:07, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

As for WP:WEASEL, we would need to clearly attribute (not just in a ref tag but in the body of the article) who is "describing" them as "left-wing". Without this attribution, this is too vague and too leading. If we're going to do this with attribution, we need to look at the context. Clearly, we do not agree on this context, so we cannot form consensus on how to summarize this source. Grayfell (talk) 19:12, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell:Re your revert of my edit: I don’t want to get involved in a silly argument about what Heft et al said. Their wording is: ‘However, alternative media also display a broader tendency associated with populism: the subjugation of traditional left/right polarization under the opposition between the people and those understood by populists to represent “the elite.” Indeed, some of the sites included in our study—such as the British Spiked or German Compact—have roots in the radical left‐wing scene, but now oppose the political establishment from a position on the right side of the spectrum.’ This does not say that Spiked is populist. It might, perhaps, imply it, but I do not read it that way. Any implication that Spiked is populist is much weaker than the implication that Spiked is not libertarian. You deleted that as being an implication, even though the wording had been agreed on the Talk page. Please self-revert. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:24, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: Regarding WEASEL and attribution: my original wording had ‘According to’ in the lead as well as in the body. This is a bit wordy and awkward in the lead, but it would get round the problem of making it clear who said what. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:33, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: "This is directly related to any explanation of Spiked's position on the simplistic left/right spectrum." Maybe so, but the question we're addressing is "What is Spiked's political position?" and not "What is the explanation for Spiked's right-wing political position?". Heft et al don't present any arguments or evidence to support their contention that Spiked is right-wing. In that respect, they're no different from Burgess & Green. Moreover, Heft et al's definition of "right-wing" is explicitly stipulative, which also casts doubt on its usefulness to the reader.

Please keep in mind that I'm not claiming that Burgess & Green is a strong source. What I'm trying to get to the bottom of is your reason for including a reference to Heft et al while excluding a reference to Burgess & Green when they're both weak sources.

H Remster (talk) 20:36, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: I can't access the NYT article either. I actually think "a radical, democratic, pro-freedom and humanist perspective" is quite useful. I'd struggle to predict the contents of Spiked on the basis of that alone, but it chimes with "left-libertarian" (they support social equality but oppose state control and woke culture as the means to achieve it). H Remster (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@H Remster: Regretfully, I disagree with you about the usefulness of Spiked’s self-description. ‘Radical’ may mean ‘not centrist’, but it doesn’t tell you which side of the centre Spiked is. ‘Democratic’: no-one ever says they’re opposed to ‘democracy’ - but they may say they’re opposed to ‘populism’. And no-one is ever opposed to ‘freedom’ – it’s ‘licence’ they’re against. But this self-description is relevant to the value of Heft et al, who say that they looked at the ‘about’ page of the publications in deciding to classify them as ‘right-wing’. I don’t see how any competent person could decide on the basis of Spiked’s 'about' page that Spiked is right-wing. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: Indeed, you wouldn't get it from that alone - either that they're left-wing or that they're right-wing. My point was that it dovetails with "left-libertarian" from the other sources, and not that it suggests "left-libertarian" by itself. H Remster (talk) 21:30, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Right, concrete proposals:

1. Replace (a) Spiked has sometimes been described as libertarian, and sometimes as right-wing. with (b) Spiked has sometimes been described as libertarian, sometimes as left-libertarian, and sometimes as right-wing.

2. Replace (a) The Daily Beast, as well as Paul Mason of the New Statesman, have described the site as libertarian. with (b) The Daily Beast, as well as Paul Mason of the New Statesman, have described the site as libertarian. Jean Burgess, Janet Albrechtsen, and James Bowman of the Ethics and Public Policy Center have described the site as left-libertarian.

I'm not under the illusion that this is any good. It's just more balanced than what we have at the moment.

H Remster (talk) 21:48, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

In principle, I would agree that this is better than what is currently in the article. It is unfortunate that only one of the sources for ‘left-libertarian’ is accessible. The Quillette source is accessible, and, as Spiked’s political orientation can only be an opinion, I think that this source is acceptable, as it would be attributed.

Also, the statement about Heft et al must be amended to my version which User:Grayfell reverted, because Heft did not say that Spiked is populist. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:16, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no objection to (1). I think (2) reveals the problem with this approach, because there is no reason why Burgess, Albrechtson and Bowman should be considered noteworthy for specific mention in this article, as they have no particular authority on this topic, simply because they happen to have once mentioned Spiked's political alignment in passing. I also oppose mentioning names in the the lead, as the lead should simply summarise the article or make general statements, and including non-noteworthy names in the lead creates clutter.

Also: Just one comment on the equivalence between Heft et al and Burgess & Green. They are not both week sources, or if they are one is significantly weeker than the other. Burgess & Green is a book on YouTube by two experts on YouTube which mentions Spiked in passing. Heft et al is a serious study of a group of websites including Spiked, which involved them reviewing Spiked rigorously. Heft et al have also written elsewhere about the study, e.g. this Oxford Internet Institute working paper which gives more detail on Spiked and which describes Spiked as a case of "alternative media on the extreme or populist right". I think it is solid and noteworthy. The working paper has loads of details that could be used in this article, e.g. about readership, links, etc. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:56, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Commment An accurate statement (which could potentially be sourced) would be that Spiked is characterized as libertarian, with mainstream and academic sources considering it "right libertarian" or "populist" while more conservative sources label it "left libertarian". Newimpartial (talk) 14:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: Does the accessibility thing matter? Obviously it's better if people can review sources for themselves, but a website behind a paywall is no different from a book in a bookshop, as far as accessibility goes. H Remster (talk) 14:44, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@BobFromBrockley: What's your basis for saying that Jean Burgess is merely an expert on YouTube (I assume you meant to imply 'merely')? Media studies isn't my field.

On Heft et al, the problem is that their rigorous analysis is directed at explaining what they presuppose, namely that Spiked is right-wing (according, by the way, to a stipulative definition that includes the highly dubious "referring to ideological positions associated with the political right" and "taking an explicit stance against the political left"). It's not directed at justifying the claim that Spiked is right-wing. That's why, even if the sum total of what they have to say about Spiked is infinitely more significant than what Burgess & Green have to say about Spiked, it's no more significant in respect of the question "What is Spiked's political orientation?". H Remster (talk) 14:44, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: I see your point, but if we are to have any statements about the political orientation of Spiked, then we must attribute them in the body of the article. So H Remster’s version is the best available.

@Newimpartial: Your suggestion would involve deciding, and sourcing, the political orientation of the sources. I don’t think this is practicable, and, since political orientation is a matter of opinion, I think it would make the material too uncertain.

@H Remster: The accessibility of sources matters to me both as a reader and as an editor. I have on several occasions come across sources which have been cherry-picked or otherwise misrepresented, and have amended the articles to reflect the sources. The political orientation of Spiked is such a contentious matter that I think many readers, as well as editors, would want to check exactly what the sources said.

On your final point to Bobfrombrockley about Heft et al, I agree with you.

Sweet6970 (talk) 16:49, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: I completely agree with the principle, but how much weight should be given to that consideration? Academic journals tend to sit behind paywalls, and some books are both preclusively expensive and unlikely to be available in public libraries. H Remster (talk) 18:11, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

@H Remster: Unfortunately, I have no answer to your question. My suggestion was only that the source from Quillette should be added, because the statement about Spiked is accessible on the website which is linked. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)

Again, per WP:RSP, Quillette is not reliable for factual claims, and otherwise random opinions from Quillette need to be supported by some specific reason beyond their mere existence. Further, that the original article appears to have been removed from Quillette's website is significant and unusual, but all of this would need a reliable source for an explanation, and this Wikipedia article probably isn't the place for any of this.

Regarding paywall, this has come up countless times before. See WP:PAYSITE. Sources do not have to be convenient to any individual editor to be cited. Obviously it's nice when they are, but inconvenience alone is not a valid reason to exclude a source. Further, only using convenient sources leads to the FUTON bias. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia strongly favors academic sources, and WP:V isn't always easy.

One thing that is a valid reason to exclude a source is when it has a negative reputation for accuracy and fact checking, such as Quillette.

The NYT article is a WP:NEWSBLOG interview with O'Neill which says relatively little about Spiked:

Last week I received a promotional e-mail from spiked, the often-biting British publication fond of puncturing all manner of ideological balloons, touting a broadside against warnings about overpopulation. The piece, The definitive guide to modern-day Malthusians, by Brendan O’Neill, had a predictably provocative summary:

With the human population heading towards seven billion, spiked lists the miserabilists and misanthropes who say this is a Very Bad Thing.

I sent a query about aspects of the piece to O’Neill, who was featured here when he debated a campaigner from the Optimum Population Trust. Here’s our brief exchange (with some e-mail shorthand cleaned up):[11]

The rest is a loosely edited email exchange between Revkin and O'Neill. Other than a single passing mention from O'Neill, Spiked is not discussed further in this source.

My assessment of the interview is that it is light-weight and not particularly useful for this article. I did not cite it here because it is mainly about O'Neill, not Spiked. Grayfell (talk) 00:48, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

User:H Remster made a suggestion in their post of 21:48 21 September 2020 for a change to the lead and a change to the body of the article. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that HR, User:Bobfrombrockley and I agree with the change to the lead. I am not sure whether anyone disagrees with this. If the lead is changed to include reference to ‘left-libertarian’, then it seems there is agreement that this must be attributed in the body. There does not seem to be agreement as to which sources are best to use, nor on the exact wording. I support HR’s original proposal for the wording in the body. If anyone disagrees, please provide an alternative wording for consideration. Sweet6970 (talk) 10:19, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

A couple of comments: a) on paywalled sources: they are irritating, but not against WP rules. Including quotes in footnotes is one way to use them so that those who can't get past paywall can verify the claim. b) What's my basis for saying that Jean Burgess "is (merely) an expert on YouTube"? Actually, she is not just an expert on YouTube, but on social media in general. Her profile: https://staff.qut.edu.au/staff/je.burgess I think her expertise (like that of the Times tech editor) includes digital journalism (which includes Spiked), so she might be an OK source despite not being an expert on left-right politics. According to Google Scholar, she has mentioned Spiked twice in her academic publications, the other mention being here: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/112212/1/Burgess%20Mitchell%20%26%20Mu%CC%88nch%20-%20Uses%20of%20Celebrity%20Death%20in%20Digital%20Culture%20final.pdf So, both passing mentions in texts about other topics, which is why she is a weaker source than Heft et al, who have analysed Spiked in depth. (c) Re Heft et al justifying the claim that Spiked is right-wing: I think this is besides the point; they are reliable sources and we have to assume they had some set of criteria by which they made the decision. (d) Re the response that NewImpartial's suggestion would involve deciding, and sourcing, the political orientation of the sources which is not practicable: actually it is very practicable in most cases as a noteworthy source is likely to be notable enough to have a WP article making it easy to check, and a quick glance shows that all of the 2010s sources calling Spiked left-libertarian are on the conservative side of the spectrum. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:46, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

I oppose H Remster's proposal. "Sometimes" is far too vague, and falsely implies that these two positions have equivalent support from sources. They do not. If all of this lengthy discussion is just about finding a way to justify including "left-libertarian" in the lead, then this is non-neutral, and sources are being ignored or favored based on editors' prior assumptions.

Due weight for this perspective has not yet been demonstrated by these sources. The goal is to proportionately summarize reliable sources. There will always be differing opinions on things like this. We cannot, and should not, include every single perspective in the lead. As a rhetorical question, should we also call them "far-right" in the lead, since that can also be attributed to several reliable sources?

As for individual academics, they are still far more qualified than individual editors, at least as far as Wikipedia is concerned. It is up to sources to come to conclusions; it is not up to editors to second-guess conclusions based on their own prior assumptions. Heft et al are reputable academics published in a reputable journal. A journal called Policy & Internet which discusses policy and internet is very obviously relevant for discussions of this website's political position. Grayfell (talk) 23:05, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell: I am somewhat baffled by your comment If all of this lengthy discussion is just about finding a way to justify including "left-libertarian" in the lead……. This discussion has been about how the political orientation of Spiked is to be described. Your comment suggests that you think that there is something reprehensible about referring to this publication as left-wing. This is what some of the sources say. Other sources say it is libertarian, and others say it is right-wing. You have not objected to having the description ‘libertarian’ and ‘right-wing’ in the lead. I cannot see any objective reason why ‘left-wing’ should not feature in this article. If there is no agreement to H Remster’s proposals, then my view is that all the current references to Spiked’s political orientation should be deleted from this article, including your ‘bold’ edits, because leaving it in its current state means that the information given to readers is wrong, because it is unbalanced. See also the new section below. (I don’t want to ping you twice to the same page.) Sweet6970 (talk) 10:13, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

This all-or-nothing approach demonstrates the issue, and your implied ultimatum is inappropriate. Sources refer to Spiked as lots of things. We cannot include them all, even if we do add superficially reliable sources. Giving weaker sources the exact same weight as heavier ones strictly because the are opposed on the political spectrum is false balance, and also false precision. Like I said, we can find sources for a broad range of political positions, including "far-right". My evaluation of sources is that the more reliable sources treat being "libertarian" as a defining trait. Source are also consistent that the site no longer reflects its Marxist origins. Beyond that, relatively few sources describe Spiked at all, but they generally tend towards describing it as right-wing or right-libertarian. The sources which have been proposed for left-libertarian would need to be properly contextualized, if they are even usable. The removed/retracted Quillette opinion, for example, is just a bad source which shouldn't be cited at all.

The political spectrum is, by design, an over-simplification based on legislative politics. Spiked isn't a political party, so here it is even less precise. "Populist" and "libertarian" are not part of this simplistic spectrum, but they are absolutely part of the outlet's political position, and they are supported by reliable sources. If the goal is to explain the political position to readers, this information also belongs in the article. Grayfell (talk) 22:14, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

@Grayfell:I don’t know what you mean by an all or nothing approach, nor what you mean by utimatum. I have not given any ultimatum. You say ”Populist" and "libertarian" are not part of this simplistic spectrum, but they are absolutely part of the outlet's political position…. I don’t know what you mean by absolutely, nor how you are judging Spiked’s political position. I have a feeling that editors have differing views about Spiked’s political position.

The sources saying that Spiked is right wing are no stronger than the sources saying that it is left-wing. The article is currently unbalanced, because the weak sources saying Spiked is right-wing appear in the article, but the sources saying it is left-wing do not. I don’t know what you mean by saying that the Quillette source has been removed. I have not added anything to the article without agreement. As you agree that the political spectrum is simplistic, it would be logical for you to also agree that all the references to Spiked’s political position should be removed.

This discussion has involved a lot of effort by several editors. You seem to be in the minority in insisting that Spiked may not be described as left-wing in the article, despite the fact that sources describe it so. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

In the absence of any further comments, I will take it that there is now no opposition to User:H Remster’s proposed amendments (21:48 21 September 2020) to the lead and the body on the political orientation of Spiked . Sweet6970 (talk) 20:13, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Stop misrepresenting my words or my position. As I have said countless times, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Summarize what sources are saying in context per due weight. Do not use flimsy sources as an excuse to include false balance or juicy blurbs which support a simplistic assessment of a complicated topic. Grayfell (talk) 20:15, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

It was not my intention to misrepresent your words or your position. I am trying to bring this matter to a conclusion. I’m trying to find out what the majority of editors want. It is my impression that the majority would accept a reference to ‘left-libertarian’. Do you have an alternative wording? Sweet6970 (talk) 20:46, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

What is the basis of this "majority of editors" claim? I for one would not, unless the label is very clearly situated as a minority / fringe viewpoint. Newimpartial (talk) 21:06, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: The basis for my impression that you would support reference to ‘left libertarian' is your previous comment on 22 September: Commment An accurate statement (which could potentially be sourced) would be that Spiked is characterized as libertarian, with mainstream and academic sources considering it "right libertarian" or "populist" while more conservative sources label it "left libertarian) Do you have a proposed wording? Sweet6970 (talk) 21:31, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: You have previously said that you would support User:H Remster’s formula for the lead. Do you have a proposed wording for the body? Sweet6970 (talk) 11:39, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow reply. I don't specifically object to the lead wording but I do not actively support it. My main concern is around due weight. It is not the case that "The sources saying that Spiked is right wing are no stronger than the sources saying that it is left-wing." We cite a fraction of the considerable number of RSs which say libertarian and/or right-wing, which include peer reviewed scholarship and mainstream news media, whereas after quite a lot of searching we've come up with a couple of weak sources for "left-libertarian". So while it is objectively true to say "sometimes been seen as X, sometimes as Y" the balance that implies is false: the weight of sources are very much on the right/libertarian side of the scales. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:41, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

On further reflection: I recently saw this: WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY. Although guidance rather than policy, I think it would be supported by most editors. The lead should summarise the body and it is better to get agreement on the body before summarising in the lead. It seems intuitively right that there should be a quick statement of political orientation in the lead, I think we need to agree on the body first. There are currently three statements in the body on stance: Mason and the Daily Beast, which seems OK to me; Heft et al, which we are arguing over in the section below, and should probably also cite the other Heft et al paper too rather than the single article; and the Times, which has a current incarnation that might lack due weight but should in my view be changed to "According to the Times, Spiked is right-wing and libertarian" with the addition of the other Times citations I listed in the previous talk section. The sentence in the lead summarises these three sentences well. We should only expand it if we can agree a fourth sentence about left-libertarian, and we can't yet find good sources or a consensual sentence to do that. If we can, then it should be expanded, but in a way that is clear that the weight of opinion is for right-lib not left-lib. Does that make sense? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:02, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

@BobFromBrockley: Heft et al may well have "analysed Spiked in depth", but it doesn't follow that they've analysed Spiked in any way that would shed light on what their political stance is, because that's not the purpose of their paper. And if "they are reliable sources and we have to assume they had some set of criteria by which they made the decision", why don't we have to assume the same of Jean Burgess?

This is better: "We cite a fraction of the considerable number of RSs which say libertarian and/or right-wing, which include peer reviewed scholarship". Then why aren't we using these? H Remster (talk) 19:48, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

The answer to the question, why don't we have to assume the same of Jean Burgess? is that Burgess is writing for a partisan organization producing FRINGE scholarship and Hind Heft is doing actual academic work and I mistook Burgess for someone else. I would have thought this point to be rather obvious. Newimpartial (talk) 20:18, 30 September 2020 (UTC) Corrected Newimpartial (talk) 11:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

As for LEADFOLLOWSBODY, I think the article is, understandably, a bit of a mess which deviates from what most readers would expect. I have rearranged things to make the article closer to a more conventional approach. Typically, articles for websites like this explain the factual history of the website based on a combination of independent sources and non-controversial details from primary sources. This is interspersed with analysis from reliable sources for context. Contested claims could include a brief response from a primary source, but with restraint. A "content" section would include a broad over-view of the kinds of things the website covers, with more granular details mostly coming from independent sources to prevent back-door PR from slipping through the cracks. An article which follows this boring, conventional structure would be much easier to summarize for a lead, which would therefore be more informative and useful to readers. Grayfell (talk) 01:08, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I don’t understand your post about Jean Burgess. What is the ‘partisan’ organisation? What evidence is there that it is partisan? What is the evidence that Jean Burgess’s research is ‘fringe’? And who is Hind? Sweet6970 (talk) 10:28, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I corrected my statement above; I had confused Burgess with another scholar. The actual problem with Burgess is that, unlike Hind, she shows no particular competence in handling ideological or political affiliations. She does have expertise in what we used to call "New Media", but her expertise does not include those political factors, whereas Hind et al. have such expertise. Newimpartial (talk) 11:53, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: When you say ‘Hind’ do you mean ‘Heft’? Sweet6970 (talk) 12:21, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. Weirdest thing. Fixed. Newimpartial (talk) 12:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial:To go back to your previous comment: Commment An accurate statement (which could potentially be sourced) would be that Spiked is characterized as libertarian, with mainstream and academic sources considering it "right libertarian" or "populist" while more conservative sources label it "left libertarian) – were you thinking of Burgess as being a ‘more conservative source’ when you were confusing her with someone else? If so, what would be your preferred wording when we have (hopefully) sorted out the confusion on who is who? Sweet6970 (talk) 14:49, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, perhaps "mostly conservative sources". Newimpartial (talk) 15:04, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I don’t want to make a meal out of this, but I’m trying to get this clear: Who are you thinking of as ‘conservative’ sources, and why do you judge them to be conservative? Sweet6970 (talk) 15:19, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Janet Albrechtsen and James Bowman. I am using "conservative" here as a synonym for "right-wing", rather than in the partisan sense: Bowman had most of my mindspace on this, and I optimised the label with him in mind. Perhaps "mostly right-wing sources" would work better. Newimpartial (talk) 15:47, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Re "We cite a fraction of the considerable number of RSs which say libertarian and/or right-wing, which include peer reviewed scholarship". Then why aren't we using these? I had to trawl back up the talk page to the previous section where we discussed this but found that I supplied two additional Times quotes, both from the same author (a Times staff writer) using "right-wing online magazine" - see footnotes 9 and 10 above. Not in themselves noteworthy, but show that "the Times describes Spiked as right-wing" would be more accurate than "the Times technology editorcorrespondent describes them as right-wing". Turning to more academic sources, there is one in the sandpit I already linked to, by White et al in a section of an academic book on anti-environmentalism, that supports "libertarian" but not necessarily "right-wing": Declaring themselves ‘beyond left and right’ (Furedi, 2005), the Institute of Ideas/Spiked Online Group argue from an ideological position that draws together radical antienvironmental contrarianism, with the aspects of Leninism concerned with deference to authority and leadership structures. This is combined with a Nietzschian celebration of the unencumbered individual and an Ayn Rand style defense of elitism and the unrestricted free market... Claiming that the whole agenda of ‘sustainable development’ is merely a symptom of societies’ ‘culture of low expectations’, the ‘Institute of Ideas’ and ‘Spiked’ have emerged as central conduits channeling the thinking of US libertarian right think tanks into the UK media. More generally, they have become libertarian promoters of all kinds of contrarian ideas. Another academic article in a tourism studies journal critiquing a tourism studies academic associated with the Spiked network and pubished in Spiked says this, citing Monbiot: It matters that this article was published in an online journal that has an association with a particular voice in politics (whether libertarian or “right-wing” as attested to by Koch funding). In addition, not particularly noteworthy but adding weight to "right-wing" is this literature PhD thesis: I say: “extreme example” since the publication in which the article appears, “Spiked Magazine”, is noted to hold predominantly right-wing political views (in contrast to Pinter’s known left-wing sympathies).

On the other hand, this chapter appears to be a semi-academic source for "libertarian left", or at least for O'Neil being such: Likewise the libertarian left are ardent enemies of PC culture, Brendan O’Neil writing on the Spiked Online journal claims that “The victory of PC is built upon the demise and decay of traditional forms of authority and traditional forms of morality”. The credentials of the author are "CE Analytic-Network Coaching Ltd and President-Elect International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations" so it seems weak and non-noteworthy. This chapter in an academic book by an expert on the history of the UK far right might be taken as implying that Spiked is (or was in 2008) on the left (search the word "spiked" to read in context, too long to summarise).

I'm going to keep on looking (the common usage of the word "Spiked" makes searches harder) but my strong sense is that the weight of reliable sources is for libertarian/right-wing but there may be a noteworthy minority view that libertarian/left is appropriate or that it was in the early years before it turned to the right. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:40, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I’m not opposed in principle to your approach, but I’m not convinced that Janet Albrechtsen and James Bowman are right-wing. Ms Albrechtsen’s views are described on Wikipedia as libertarian, rather than right-wing. On James Bowman – presumably you are considering him to be conservative because of the association with the Ethics and Public Policy Centre (?) Is there anything you know of giving his views as an individual? Sweet6970 (talk) 10:54, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Thank you for all the work you have been doing on this. My comments on the sources you have referred to are:

White (right-wing) The source is interesting, though I wonder if we have been reading the same online magazine. Nietzschian? And the reference to an Ayn Rand style defence of elitism is a bit odd, bearing in mind that Heft et al consider Spiked to be populist.

Higgins (tourism) (right-wing) This refers to Monbiot. The Wikipedia article is already too heavy on Monbiot’s views, and environmental matters are not currently much featured in Spiked. (For instance, it is not included in their list of ‘Selected Topics’.) Also, it refers to the Koch funding. I am not aware that we have any evidence that there is any current funding from Koch.

Literature PhD thesis (right-wing) I don’t think that a PhD thesis on literature is a suitable source. Also, it says ‘…. (Spiked Magazine) is noted to hold predominantly right-wing political views…’ which means that this is not an original judgment by the author of the thesis. (Perhaps they’ve been reading Monbiot?)

'Dr Simon Western – Political correctness etc. (left-wing) This looks like it could be useful, but I can’t find the quote via CtrlF. What page is it on?

'Davies & Jackson – The far right etc. (left-wing) I agree there is a strong implication here that Spiked is on the left.

Do you have any comments on Newimpartial’s suggestion? And do you have your own proposed wording?

Sweet6970 (talk) 11:03, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Higgins: the fact that this source cites Monbiot shows that Monbiot is noteworthy. Lit PhD: agree not suitable, just mentioning to show weight of sources pull that way. Western: will check shortly p.12 of 18. NewImpartial suggestion: a lot of the sources which say "left-lib" are indeed on the right, but I;m not sure that it's the majority. Agree that "right-lib" is the mainstream descripton, with "left-lib" used by a smaller number. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:21, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Higgins (tourism) My point about Monbiot is that the author quotes Monbiot, so it is not directly the author’s judgment. We already have Monbiot’s views given directly in the Wikipedia article, and so I do not think it is appropriate to also include the views of someone citing Monbiot.

Western Thank you for the page number. This looks like a reasonable source.

Sweet6970 (talk) 14:22, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm not sure if any of these are suitable to actually include in the article, but are here as a step to determining due weight. (They are probably reliable, but probably not noteworthy.) I'm struck by the way some of these sources suggest that there is a consensus: "“Spiked Magazine”, is noted to hold predominantly right-wing political views", "an online journal [Spiked] that has an association with a particular voice in politics". They talk as if it is widely known that Spiked is libertarian and right-leaning. That seems significant to me. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I would also point out that Simon Western is a Management prof and "Leadership consultant", so not especially reliable in terms of political labels. Newimpartial (talk) 18:25, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

I get the opposite impression. When an author says e.g. it ‘is noted’ that Spiked holds predominantly right-wing political views, it means this cannot be used as a source, because the author is not giving their own view, but is relying on what they have heard or read – perhaps in Wikipedia. And ‘has an association’ with a particular voice is an author deliberately avoiding saying what they think, so is not definite enough to be used as a source. So there is no reason to believe there is a common view of Spiked’s political orientation – as has been amply demonstrated by the fact that the sources do not agree. As regards ‘not especially reliable in terms of political labels’: none of the current sources are ‘especially reliable in terms of political labels’ – for instance, we currently have as a source in the article the technology correspondendent of the Times.

Does anyone have a specific proposal for the sources to use, and a wording other than User:H Remster’s proposed wording?

By the way, I take back my questioning of ‘Nietzschean’ – I found a reference to him in an article published on 2 October: [12]

Sweet6970 (talk) 10:26, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

So one set of questions revolves around which sources are noteworthy. All of the sources proposed for "left-libertarian" mention Spiked in passing only and do not focus on it substantively. This is also the case with some of the sources which say right-wing/libertarian but by no means all. The Daily Beast/Times articles on the Qatari hoax focus on a group of right-wing/conservative websites that includes Spiked; the two texts by Heft et al are a serious in-depth study of a group of right-wing alternative media sites that includes Spiked; and White et al is on a chapter that focuses on Spiked for quite a bit. These should carry more weight than those which mention Spiked merely in passing. I strongly disagree that "environmental matters are not currently much featured in Spiked. (For instance, it is not included in their list of ‘Selected Topics’.)" Their "Science and Technology" section is mostly made up of articles relating to environmental matters, typically from a stance that critiques environmentalism (recent articles: "The Stalinist folly of the ban on petrol cars", "Now Facebook is censoring environmentalists", "Ontario’s green-energy catastrophe", "Climate alarmism won’t stop the wildfires", "How environmentalism holds back innovation"), hence the centrality of Spiked to White et al's chapter on anti-environmentalism.

Another question is the qualification of the authors to comment on political affiliation in particular. For example, Sweet6970 is dismissive of the Times because the article is written by a technology correspondent, who we may assume to have expertise on web-based publications but not on politics, but it is equally clear, as I've shown, that the Times routinely uses "right-wing" so we can take this as an editorial decision of the paper rather than the personal assumption of one of its staff members. I'm not sure why Dr Western, an "independent researcher" whose affiliation is "CE Analytic-Network Coaching Ltd", should be seen as more authoratitie on the political compass than the Times.

So, my current suggestion would be to: delete the sentence citing Mason and the Daily Beast; expand the sentence on Heft et al to give more detail; delete the sentence on the Times for now; add a sentence or two on White et al into the section on environmentalism; then discuss the lead. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:09, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

That suggestion makes a lot of sense to me. Grayfell (talk) 06:11, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Thank you for your reply.

Regarding any current emphasis on environmentalism in Spiked’s ‘Science & Technology’ section - I just looked at it, and it is mostly about Covid. There is plenty about Spiked’s attitude to environmentalism in the article currently, and this makes our article somewhat unbalanced already.

There are two reasons for including in the article others’ views on Spiked’s political orientation. One is if they say something specific, and the other is to give the readers an idea of what the range of views are. I understand your concern that some of the sources are not particularly noteworthy, but the point of including many of them is not that their views, as individuals, are particularly important, but that we should give a selection of them in the article, so that our readers can see the range of opinions. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like the only sources you want in the body are those that say Spiked is right wing – and none even saying it is libertarian, which is the most common description. Since the lead has to reflect the body, this would mean that the article will still give the false impression that no-one thinks that Spiked is libertarian or left wing, and therefore, our readers will be misinformed.

I suggest that in the body, the current paragraph stating with The Daily Beast should be kept, but it should start: ‘There is no agreement amongst commentators as to the political orientation of Spiked. Some have said it is libertarian, some that it is right-wing, and some that it is left-wing.’ At the end, I would add ‘ Jean Burgess, Janet Albrechtsen, and James Bowman of the Ethics and Public Policy Center have described the site as left-libertarian. Peter J Davies and Paul Jackson, of the University of Huddersfield, treat Spiked as a left-wing publication in their discussion of ’Defining the far right’. Do you wish to add that amongst academic commentators the most common description is ‘right-wing’? If so, do you have an actual proposed wording? What is the wording you are proposing for White et al for environmentalism, and where do you want it to go?

Sweet6970 (talk) 10:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

The proposed body text, There is no agreement amongst..., is clearly whitewashing IMO. There is clear agreement that Spiked is populist and libertarian - no RS disputes either point. Our text should reflect this in summary. As to the proposed text supporting "left libertarian", it relies heavily on low-quality sources. The current proposal therefore does not reflect the BALANCE of sources and is clearly UNDUE. Newimpartial (talk) 11:27, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Your post does not make sense. There is no agreement that Spiked is populist and libertarian. The only source I am aware of which says that Spiked is populist is Heft et al. There are sources saying that Spiked is left wing. There is no agreement about the political stance of Spiked and I don’t understand why you say that there is, particularly since you previously referred to the disagreement, in your comments on 22 September and 1 October, and were in favour of saying (roughly) that left-wing sources say that Spiked right-wing, and right-wing sources say that Spiked is left-wing. What is supposedly being whitewashed? And who is supposedly doing the whitewashing? Sweet6970 (talk) 12:43, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Please parse my comment correctly. We have sources saying that Spiked is populist, and none saying it isn't. We have sources saying Spiked is libertarian, and none saying it isn't. We have a clear preponderance of mainstream, scholarly and "progressive" sources saying that Spiked is right-libertarian, and a minority consisting of "conservative" and non-specialist sources saying that Spiked is left-libertarian. To take this sourcing situation - documenting that the majority of RS consider the current incarnation of Spiked to be libertarian, and populist/right-wing, and to turn it into There is no agreement amongst commentators is what I call whitewashing. Newimpartial (talk) 13:29, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

On environmentalism: Yes, the Science and Tech section is filled with Covid right now, for obvious reasons, but interspersed with lots on environmentalism, which was one of the main themes there pre-pandemic.

On noteworthiness: because due weight (WP:WEIGHT) is a key element of Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy, we need to pay attention to noteworthiness. "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence." What is the rationale for mentioning Burgess, Albrechtsen, Bowman or Jackson - or, on the other hand, Mason? They do not contribute in any way to the body of knowledge about Spiked; their inclusion can only be essentially cherry-picking passing references which happen to back up a particular point of view from amongst the hundreds of op eds and book chapters that mention Spiked in passing. In contrast, White et al and Heft et al have actually researched Spiked and significantly add to our knowledge and so worth mentioning. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:59, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial:I still don’t understand. What is supposedly being whitewashed? What is the other source saying that Spiked is populist? And your comment that we don’t have sources saying what Spiked is not makes no sense. If you don’t like the proposed wording ‘There is no agreement amongst commentators…’ what is your alternative proposal? Sweet6970 (talk) 14:09, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Remember that Heft has offered two sources on this, not just one. Looking around for labels, I quite like "contrarian", as in The Guardian's characterisation of Spiked as a "contrarian, right-leaning, libertarian website, established by disillusioned leftists", which strikes me as an excellent, balanced summary. (And before you ask, the Venn diagram between contrarian and populist overlaps significantly in this era of distrust for elites, but I am by no means considering them to be synonyms). Newimpartial (talk) 14:48, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial:There are 2 ‘documents’ from Heft for ‘populist’ but this still is only one source. The source for the ‘contrarian’ quote is an opinion piece. Are you proposing that this quote should be added to the article? If so, what wording do you suggest?

@Bobfrombrockley: You have not actually answered my question about your proposed wording, and whether it would erase all mention of ‘libertarian’ and ‘left-wing’. This could be described as ‘cherry-picking’. It may be an inconvenient fact to those who like to regard Spiked as right-wing that a variety of people regard Spiked as left-wing, but we would be misinforming our readers if we censor this material. There is already plenty of specific coverage in the article of the various sources which you favour. Do you have a wording which would cover the general spread of opinions on Spiked?

Sweet6970 (talk) 15:22, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

The Guardian piece - which I was proposing as an example of accurate wording, not necessarily as a quote - is by the author of one of the few academic, book-length treatments of these themes and makes him a manifestly reliable source - even a blog post by this author would be RS on the topic per WP:SPS, so let's not get bogged down by the "opinion" label.

I prefer not to formally propose new wording, though I still think something in the family of "all agree Spiked is libertarian, with the mainstream identifying it as right-libertarian and less credible sources saying left-libertarian" accurately reflects the sources available with due WEIGHT. My main point is that "there is no agreement" is just wrong - I haven't seen any source argue that Spiked isn't libertatian, or that it holds an orientation incompatible with libertarianism, and I have looked. Newimpartial (talk) 16:06, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial:. I agree with your approach in principle. But I think that describing the sources saying that Spiked is left wing as ‘less credible’ is inappropriate, because we are not saying that, for instance, people at Huddersfield University are ‘not credible’, but rather that these sources are not specialists in political analysis. So I propose as the basic wording for this aspect: ‘There is general agreement that Spiked is libertarian, with the majority of specialist academic sources identifying it as right-libertarian, and some non-specialist sources identifying it as left-libertarian.’

@Bobfrombrockley: You are well acquainted with all the sources. Do you agree that this is a reasonable summary? Sweet6970 (talk) 09:05, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

@Sweet6970: I think that summary works! It is of course not just specialist academic sources that identify it as right/lib, but that doesn't undermine the wording. This might be a solution!

@Newimpartial:, thank you for reminding us of the Evan Smith source, which actually kicked off the current discussion in the last but one section of the talk page, now archived here. This was my final post there, and some of the sources I mentioned have fallen away in our conversation: "Evan Smith in the Guardian,[13] Amara Diwarkar in TRT (a news piece not an opinion piece, but in a less reliable news source),[14] political scientists (?) Winter and Mondon in a Routledge academic book,[15] and sociologists White et al in a Sage academic book.[16]" Smith says: "Spiked [is] an online magazine increasingly well known for its contrarian takes on current events and for its writers popping up in various places across the media landscape with rightwing views. Infamous for its right-libertarian and iconoclastic style, Spiked has gained notoriety for arguing against numerous progressive positions, but using a rhetorical style indebted to its earlier incarnation as a Trotskyist group in the 1980s-90s, the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). With a combative tone, the magazine’s writers have routinely sought to dismiss many political actions as not dealing with the “real” issues and put forward their own solutions, which often correlate with a populist right position. Previously dismissed as a fringe group on the outer limits of political discourse, more recently Spiked has become an influential force in shifting the Overton window to the right in the UK." Smith is both reliable and noteworthy. Diwarker says "Spiked [is] an online magazine known for its right-libertarian views and combative style. This is a passing reference in an article about a Spiked contributor, so we shouldn't use it, but it is striking she uses the formulation "known for its right-libertarian views". Winter & Mondon say "far right libertarian Spiked!; the chapter does not focus on Spiked so should not be used in our article but is more evidence for where the weight of reliable opinion is. White et al we've already covered. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:55, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I am fine with the proposed wording as well. Better than what we have, and much better than a potential edit war (of which I have seen too many). Thanks to all. Newimpartial (talk) 15:18, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

I am very glad that we have reached agreement on something! My idea is that my summary should replace the current summary in the lead (‘Spiked has sometimes been described as libertarian, and sometimes as right-wing.') That would mean that we would have to select the source/s for ‘left-libertarian’. The lead should reflect the body, so that would have to be changed as well. @Bobfrombrockley: Do you have any ideas on this? Sweet6970 (talk) 10:20, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: Hallo. Do you have any thoughts on the selection of the sources which would support the agreed summary wording, and on how the main body of the article should be amended? Sweet6970 (talk) 19:43, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess I don't think that any of the sources we have for left-lib are noteworthy enough to include in body so for now I think we'd have to live with a footnote in the lead to any one or two of the stronger sources above, which I guess would be 1/2/4 in the list earlier in this section. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:50, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: I have changed the summary of the political orientation in the lead to the agreed wording. I don't know how to do footnotes, so I have just added in the body a statement that Jean Burgess and James Bowman have referred to the magazine as left-libertarian. Sweet6970 (talk) 09:22, 14 October 2020 (UTC)