Talk:Stop the Steal

"conspiracy theory"

I suspect there's a section on this that would preferably not have been archived. Could that be brought back to the current talk page so that there aren't multiple discussions on the same subject, with imaginable repetition and possible confusion? If so we can delete the new section and my comment here, which could then be appended to the former thread, possibly with modification in response to the former thread's content.

The note I found while looking over this article was "<!--Please see talk page before changing this descriptor-->". I looked at the talk page and there was nothing regarding the use of "conspiracy theory" at the beginning of the article. Since "conspiracy theory" was wrong, I revised it as best I could. I would have put "movement" myself, but when I looked at the sources cited I saw that "campaign" was more common and so I put that instead. The resulting "conspiracy campaign" expression may appear to be novel, but Google gives an estimated 74,100 finds on it, so it exists and may be used.

I copy from my edit summary here. "theory > campaign per cited references [...] Triomphe: campaign, Romm: campaign, Ghaffary: campaign, TechCrunch: group, NPR: group/'Stop the Steal' protest[s], Sullivan: group/movement, Beckett: group, Doerer: campaign (NO cited source calls it a 'conspiracy theory')"

Anyone can go looking in these sources for "conspiracy theory" as a descriptor of the group, but they won't find it and I advise them not to waste their time. There is literally no reference to Stop the Steal as a conspiracy theory in the cited sources, and thus no sensible reason for leaving it. Having now seen prior use of "conspiracy campaign", I consider it sufficiently appropriate (which is to say if "conspiracy" is an absolutely must-have word, which I would ordinarily contest). Another possibility, however, would be: "Stop the Steal is a right-wing campaign in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that widespread electoral fraud took place during the 2020 presidential election". How's that? Any problem with that one? –Roy McCoy (talk) 18:13, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

The talk page archives are linked at the top of the page. There have been multiple discussions in the past on the use of "conspiracy theory" or whether it should be replaced with some other term, which is why I reverted your change which was made without consensus. If you achieve consensus for your suggested change, I have no objection to it being reinserted, though "conspiracy campaign" is an unusual term that I think we should avoid since it is unclear what that even means. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:42, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to plead to correct a misplaced comma or misspelled word, and I'm not going to beg on my hands and knees plead to correct this obvious error either. What I may do is go through the archives and bring a complaint against the whole bunch of you. A lot of good it will do me, but all of this current nonsense has really gone too far.

I repeat the question to you and to everyone else. Do you have any problem with "Stop the Steal is a right-wing campaign in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that widespread electoral fraud took place during the 2020 presidential election"? –Roy McCoy (talk) 19:02, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I would be okay with that wording, though I'd like to hear what some of the people who actually regularly edit this page have to think about it first. This suggested wording was different from the wording I reverted, which I was more concerned with: Stop the Steal is a right-wing conspiracy campaign in the United States that falsely posits...

Regarding the other part of your comment, I don't think the hyperbole about "begging on hands and knees" and "this current nonsense has really gone too far" is helpful. It is not asking much to request that you discuss changes to wording that has already been heavily discussed on the talk page before, something which was noted in an inline comment. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:10, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Agreed with GorillaWarfare that this "begging on hands and knees" language you're using is not constructive or helpful in any way. It distracts from you greater point, of which there is one. "Stop the Steal" isn't a conspiracy theory, as it isn't a theory. It's a movement borne from a conspiracy theory. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:18, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Okay, fine, I had "plead" a second time and was mostly wanting to avoid the repetition. So how about forgetting me and making the correction? As much as I can prefer anything involving dubious aspersions, I prefer "conspiracy campaign", I guess I'd say because I find it comprehensible, fresh and maybe less wordy than the other one. But I offered the other as an alternative and so obviously find it acceptable as well. Just correct the embarrassing "conspiracy theory", please. Thanks. –Roy McCoy (talk) 20:37, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I have no problem calling it a "conspiracy campaign" if a preponderance of reliable sources refer to it that way. We would simply link the term to conspiracy theory. I didn't revert Roy's edit because of that; I reverted it because the rearrangement of citations reduced rather than enhanced clarity of the lead. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:41, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

The sources do not say "conspiracy campaign". GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:05, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

I've shown that "campaign" is the preferred term of the RS sources, both in an edit summary and above here. I agree with Anachronist and GorillaWarfare that "conspiracy campaign" might best be avoided if it doesn't directly conform to the sources and may not be immediately comprehensible. This just seemed to be one way to handle it, and I hadn't yet thought of the alternative. After my last post I thought that this newer version perhaps wasn't wordier as I'd suspected, since "falsely" was rendered unnecessary by the repositioned "conspiracy theory". And when they're put one after the other and compared, the literal lengths are almost identical: the original "conspiracy campaign" variant is 107 characters, while the "campaign"/"conspiracy theory" one is 108. I therefore suggest we agree on "Stop the Steal is a right-wing campaign in the United States promoting the conspiracy theory that widespread electoral fraud took place during the 2020 presidential election". I still don't agree with the content, but this form is an improvement over what's there now. –Roy McCoy (talk) 00:09, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree, "Stop the Steal is a right-wing campaign promoting the conspiracy theory that...." is better wording. I disagree that "falsely" is redundant, though. A conspiracy theory can be true or false. With that in mind, I inserted the word "campaign" into the lead. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:25, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Anachronist. I disagree on the nonredundancy of "falsely", but not enough to make another case out of it. The only real justification I can imagine for the overly widespread application of "conspiracy theory/theorist" on Wikipedia and in the main media generally is that it helps maintain the official narrative by (crudely, and often in remarkably inappropriate cases) suggesting that everything else is insane fantasy. "Conspiracy" is supposed to be pejorative, as several have observed. See in particular Philip Cross's edit summary here, when I tried to change "conspiracy theory" to "conjecture" at Georgia Guidestones: as the term "conspiracy theorists" is used below, "conjecture" (which assumes possibility) is a misleading change to the summary. "Conspiracy theory", thus, denies possibility. –Roy McCoy (talk) 17:58, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Roy McCoy, pretty much all you say about is accurate but I fail to seethe problem. Yes, the implication is that it is "insane fantasy". That is an apt description of conspiracy theories in general, and of the whole "rigged elections" conspiracy theory we are dealing with here. It's a fact that it has no basis in reality, and that is already well sourced in the article. Reading through all your arguments here, they seem to constitute a long case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and nothing more. Jeppiz (talk) 18:11, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

@Roy McCoy: I don't feel strongly about including "falsely" either, but this was my reasoning to include it:

While any given conspiracy theory is often nothing more than crackpottery, it is possible for a conspiracy theory to be true in the same sense that sufficiently many random dart throws may include some that actually hit the bullseye. Given a sufficient population of conspiracy theories, some of them may hit the mark, in line with "if you must predict, predict often" as Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson once said. Indeed, several conspiracy theories in history have turned out to be true, at least in part (for example, this search result includes some reasonably reliable sources). The nature of a conspiracy theory is that it isn't falsifiable (cannot be proven false), thereby falling into the realm of pseudoscience: cherry-picked, incomplete, circumstantial, or unreliable evidence combined with faith, instilling a blind religious fervor among adherents to the point where they are immune to rational argument and facts.

Such is the case with Stop the Steal. What it promotes is a conspiracy theory in that it cannot be proven false, while the actual fact of the integrity of the election, like scientific theories, can never be proven true but only corroborated, as has now happened numerous times with multiple election recounts and even prominent Republicans (some of them Trump appointees) affirming the election's integrity. With enough corroboration of the facts, we can be comfortable using the word "falsely" to describe this conspiracy theory in Wikipedia's voice. It isn't one of those conspiracy theories that might turn out to be true some day. ~Anachronist (talk) 18:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Anachronist wrote: it is possible for a conspiracy theory to be true in the same sense that sufficiently many random dart throws may include some that actually hit the bullseye. Precisely (in the approved view here, at least). This is the same as saying that it is extremely unlikely that a conspiracy theory is true, which renders "falsely" at least unnecessary if not completely redundant. With the reference following, it also causes the reader to stumble – which is largely why I moved the references to the end of the sentence, as is normal.

I hear what you're saying, though I disagree with it. I have other objections to "conspiracy theory" (mainly that there is a mountain of evidence proving massive electoral fraud, such that it's a matter of conspiracy but not theory), but the intention here was simply not to have the term applied in such a grossly incorrect way to the campaign. It amounted to that, Jeppiz, and the issue appears to have been resolved. –Roy McCoy (talk) 19:38, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

there is a mountain of evidence proving massive electoral fraud^{[citation needed]} GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

There was no "massive electoral fraud". This is the only 2020 voter fraud I'm aware of: three attempts to vote for Trump twice. There are only a handful of instances, and no "widespread" fraud. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Reminder: If you want to change "is a conspiracy theory" you must start on Talk

Seeing a lot of edit warring on the status quo text saying Stop the Steal "is a conspiracy theory". Compared to others, I'm relatively agnostic on the change, but it's clearly controversial and will not be instated by edit-warring. That's not how Wikipedia works. Feoffer (talk) 06:19, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Reminder: I already started on Talk

Okay Aquillion, you said "extensively sourced." Let's see it. –Roy McCoy (talk) 16:04, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

There are eight sources for that statement in the article, which is extensive by our usual standards. You'll have to start by saying what you object to about those and what sort of sources you would prefer. I can find even more sources if necessary, but in order to know what to look for, I'd need to know what problems you have with the existing ones, or what other sources you feel should be included that currently aren't there. For reference, here they are: --Aquillion (talk) 17:52, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

References

@Aquillion: You reverted "campaign" to "conspiracy theory", arguing that the latter was "extensively sourced". It was obviously this to which I was referring, and I was clear about the sources as well, individually citing all of them. I now see your list, which is only the original list unmodified. I suspect you didn't read what I originally posted. Rather than again repeating what I've already pointed out twice, I suggest you go back, finally read it, and then perhaps come back here and tell us where in any of these eight sources it says that Stop the Steal is a conspiracy theory. I've already documented what they do call it. –Roy McCoy (talk) 18:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, going over these, first:

• [1] It lived just 48 hours but the page quickly racked up 350,000 members, people subscribing to the conspiracy theory the Republican president too has been touting to his 88 million Twitter followers.
• [2] The campaign’s leading voices have relied on a network of new and existing Facebook pages, groups and events — some of which have garnered hundreds of thousands of members — to rally people in public this week around a baseless conspiracy theory that Democratic candidate Joe Biden is attempting to “steal” the election. Note that campaign in this context refers to the Trump re-election campaign, whereas StopTheSteal, mentioned later, is clearly categorized as part of the network of new and existing Facebook pages, groups and events here.
• [3] Facebook’s reaction to the Stop the Steal group is a sign that it’s starting to move faster to shut down people on its platform who are organizing in ways that could lead to violence. But for many, it’s still unclear what crosses that line — especially before the rhetoric escalates to dangerous levels. In this case, hundreds of thousands of people were already exposed to conspiracy theories and misinformation, and possibly encouraged to commit violence because of it, before Facebook acted
• [4] Another election conspiracy hashtag #stopthesteal is also blocked on Facebook, with a note saying some of its content goes against the platform’s community standards. Context is an article about conspiracy theories, categorized under "conspiracy theories."
• [5] The social media groups are reusing channels that have previously been aimed at sharing other conspiracy theories that cater mostly to Republicans, says Melissa Ryan, who runs the firm Card Strategies, which researches disinformation. "These 'Stop The Steal' protests are clearly building off the infrastructure from the reopen protests that we saw earlier in the year during the pandemic," Ryan said. "And frankly, they're using the same strategy and infrastructure as the Tea Party back in 2009, 2010."

Again, you'll have to be more specific about what you object to with these, but they seem pretty clear to me. --Aquillion (talk) 16:07, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

@Aquillion: I don't have to do anything, and all you've done here is demonstrate that you still don't understand the difference between a campaign/group/movement and what it espouses. –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes you do, you have to convince others you are right. If I support something then I am an "ist" (Or "ian").Slatersteven (talk) 10:46, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Slatersteven: No I don't. Nothing obliges me to play in a game in which I know the deck is stacked, and, again, no one is paying me to do so. Your second sentence is obscure, though the implied argument seems to be that if Stop the Stealers are conspiracy theorists, then Stop the Steal is a conspiracy theory. I no longer have to deal with that illogic, since the problem was finally resolved (thanks again on that to Anachronist and Muboshgu). Following this I left the article in a cloud of dust with a hearty hi-yo Silver, da da dump, da da dump, da da dump dump dump, as you might have seen before Doug Weller deleted my exit. I did later take a peek to see if the website had been deleted, sigh, and unfortunately it had been.

That said, one thing I wanted to do yesterday but didn't get around to was to reply to you on my talk page and invite a further friendly discussion there. You'd gotten me curious as to what you would have or might have said if a discussion had continued here. So yes, let's talk about it on my page if you like, and I apologize for having vented my spleen before. –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:22, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes you do its called policy.Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Slatersteven: Same response. I see what you mean, but my battle for truth, justice and the American way needn't be never-ending. The allusions are to two 1950s TV shows I watched as a kid, Adventures of Superman and The Lone Ranger. –Roy McCoy (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

And I will not respond to off-topic comments.Slatersteven (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

The content of my comment was clear enough and didn't require a response. Over and out. –Roy McCoy (talk) 16:29, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion of "official" website at bottom of article

The inclusion of an "official" website (ignoring the fact that nothing about this website seems to indicate officiality) is completely inappropriate for an article of this nature, and effectively constitutes promotion of the conspiracy. This has been re-instated repeatedly by a single user, despite being removed for being inappropriate. Builder018 (talk) 02:57, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Builder018: The website wasn't removed "for being inappropriate", it was removed because it purportedly "doesn't contain any information which wouldn't appear in a featured article" – which was visibly untrue. You have no authority to judge whether the website is official or not, you have provided no reason to doubt that it is, it's identified as the official site here, it receives donations for the campaign, and no consensus for its prohibition has been established. The website should not be prohibited, unless Wikipedia is to overtly announce itself as a biased instrument of censorship and political manipulation – which perhaps it doesn't mind doing, but there might imaginably be regrettable consequences if it does. –Roy McCoy (talk) 23:43, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

You have it precisely backwards - there is no consensus for the inclusion of this external link. The onus for inclusion of disputed content lies on the person proposing its inclusion. It's up to you to make the case for why this link should be included here. For one, who has declared that website to be "the official Stop the Steal website"? "Stop the Steal" is not an organization, it's a slogan with a loosely-affiliated group of promoters and users. That someone happened to register a website with "StopTheSteal" in its URL does not make it "official." The website has no apparent means of contacting its creators, nor any means of discovering who, in fact, is behind the site. This suggests that it is not authoritative or definitive. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:41, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Moreover, threatening some sort of unspecified "regrettable consequences" for the article being edited in a manner with which you disagree is indicative of an editor who is not here to collaboratively build an encyclopedia, and if you wish to remain part of this community, I recommend you withdraw that statement posthaste. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 01:48, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

@NorthBySouthBaranof: I was sorry I made the statement to which you objected, so perhaps I should thank you for providing me with the occasion to withdraw it. I don't do so for the reason presented by you, however. If someone acts in an inadvisable manner, there may imaginably be regrettable consequences resulting from that action. That's true for Wikipedia, it's true for me, it's true for you, it's true for everyone and everything. I'm sorry you misunderstood this, and perhaps I could have expressed it better, but it's nonetheless true. You read the threat into it, as I'm hardly in a position to break Wikipedia's legs; in fact it was you who threatened me. My mistake was to naively imply that there was anything new about this, and that Wikipedia hadn't already openly announced its bias many times over. I'm embarrassed at having so implied and withdraw the statement on that account.

Regarding the deletion of the website, you started off citing WP:ELNO and saying the website didn't contain any information which wouldn't appear in a featured article. This wasn't true and I refuted it; the deletion had not been justified by the stated reason, so I was entitled to restore it, website URLs being totally normal, noncontroversial information not requiring a talk discussion any more than a sourced birthdate. Then Dumuzid deleted it again, "Per talk" (though there was nothing in talk but the post by Builder018, with no discussion or consensus) and because "this seems inappropriate to me", likewise an insufficient reason to delete such a basic detail. I supposed there likely would be a consensus among the assisting entities if the matter were actually discussed, but it hadn't been and so I felt justified in maintaining the link on that basis, first because it's normal for the website of a group to appear at the end of its article, and second because I was born and raised in the USA with a respect for the rights of free speech and free assembly, which I considered and still consider worth defending. Then you re-deleted it, arguing again on basis of WP:ELNO though this argument had been previously refuted in reference to the cited feature-article clause, and you now cited no other one. Were we supposed to guess whether it was 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, or 19? Or was it really just... because. Finally you came up with WP:ONUS, but this seems to be just another pretext. It is seriously doubtful whether the authors of this guideline were thinking about anything as basic as a website when they published it, and the only way this particular content is "disputed" is by casting doubt on the legitimacy of the site. But what if we did get confirmation today that the campaign has established itself legally with stopthesteal.us indeed as its official site? Would that make the difference? I doubt it, because the lawyering seems to be only a pretext, with what it's really about being the desire of certain individuals, yourself apparently included, that the public receive only the information in Wikipedia's slanted article and nothing from the article's subject itself. Claiming a public-safety rationale is hypocritical, given that the BLM website is normally displayed, with apparently no problem in that case despite the continuing history of BLM rioting. Defining from a political slant what people can see is censorship, which we have a tradition of disliking in the USA and which some of us strongly dislike in Wikipedia. There appears to be little we can do about it, however. –Roy McCoy (talk) 14:30, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

This article violates Wikipedia rules about being neutral.

This article violates Wikipedia rules about being neutral. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gorhamg (talk • contribs) 22:20, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Please be more specific. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:23, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Just a friendly reminder that per WP:NPOV, "neutrality" on Wikipedia is not quite the same as colloquial usage of the term. It means we fairly and proportionally represent reliable sources. If the majority of reliable sources have a certain view on a Wikipedia topic, then the article about that topic will as well. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:38, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

To add to what Dumuzid said, see Wikipedia:NPOV means neutral editing, not neutral content. JJP...MASTER!_{[talk to] JJP... master?} 01:34, 7 January 2021 (UTC)