Talk:Toby Young/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

BRD

I tried changing "served as a judge ..." in the lead to "was a judge ..." feeling that this was not a really earth-shattering fixing of awkward wording. That change was reverted instantly, and I ask that those who oppose such a major change explain their objections. Otherwise, I suppose such persons will insist on a formal RfC for that earth-shattering change. Thank you. Collect (talk) 13:11, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

This was not the only change you made, you also were changing the most controversial lede sentence in the entire article, as per the multiple discussion threads on this talk page and noticeboards. So, just claiming BRD as if these precisely settled on words had not been discussed multiple times and massive length, and as if it is now everyone else's problem to have a 30 day RfC if they revert your changes, is not really true, is it? --Fæ (talk) 13:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

And all my edits were reverted . Fail to notice that bit? My post here was about the single edit about "serving" as a judge. Care to answer that - or just anxious to assert full ownership of every word here? What about this single edit at issue? Thank you. Collect (talk) 14:39, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Collect, you whitewashed "misogynistic and homophobic" to "controversial", calling them "judgmental adjectives" despite the fact that multiple reliable sources quoted in the article describe them as such. The bit about the judge is irrelevant, I don't think anyone cares whether the wording is "was" or "served as", but you did it in the same edit as the whitewash, so it's not surprising it was reverted Black Kite (talk) 15:46, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

OK -- mentioning "HOMOPHOBIC AND MISOGYNISTIC" needs the dozen repetitions in the BLP (including linking multiple times to the exact same article) . Fine. The question I raised here, however, was only about the "judge" bit - which was throwing the baby out with the bathwater, at best. Do you find that part of the edit offensive or not? Without attacking the poster. Collect (talk) 16:50, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Nope, not at all - I can't see that it makes any difference which is used. Black Kite (talk) 19:29, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Nor can I. In fact, I imagine that if that change had been re-implemented, there would have been no need for this discussion at all. But then the section likely wasn't intended for that purpose... Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:34, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Snide edit comments about others being in "generalized attack mode" and shouting "homophobic and misogynistic", when these are not in uppercase anywhere apart from you writing them, does not really help make you look like the cool and rational one in this discussion. Go look in a mirror before making presumptions about everyone else. Thanks --Fæ (talk) 19:54, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Two reasonable comments is all I can get then, thank you. Collect (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia edits

The article states that Young "is believed to have edited his own Wikipedia page 282 times in the decade to January 2018" (I've just added that date), citing this Guardian article, dated 5 January 2018, which states "he is said to have edited his own Wikipedia profile 282 times in the last decade". Young made no secret of being User:Tyoung8 (see above). However, the figure of 282 is actually the number of edits made by that user in total (see here); of those, only 235 were to the mainspace of this article (see also here), though the others were to related pages, including this Talk page and West London Free School. The edits were made between April 2007 and September 2017, since when Young has not – under that username – edited this or any other article. Should we tweak the wording a bit? Eric Pode lives (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

How much of that account's work is still part of the article? In other words, is the current claim "This article is an autobiography or has been extensively edited by the subject or by someone connected to the subject" verifiably true? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:55, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

Is this still required? It seems everything is cited to reliable sources and I don't see obvious evidence of current conflicted content from 2017? Koncorde (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Removing references to self publications as not reliable or neutral sources about Toby Young

In diff, two references to nosacredcows.co.uk have been removed. The website is owned by Toby Young and appears designed to do nothing else but promote his own publications and promote his views, such as encouraging retweets from his twitter account. I suggest that references to publications by Toby Young about himself are treated with unusual caution, in the light that this Wikipedia article has been manipulated by Toby Young over a long period of time. Wherever possible, independent reliable sources should be used.

Sources that must be considered unreliable or self promotional include:

• nosacredcows.co.uk, Young is the website owner and the site is promotional
• quillette.com, Young is an Associate Editor and has published op-eds which are effectively unedited blog posts
• spectator.co.uk, Young is an Associate Editor and regularly publishes pieces as an apparent right-wing deliberately offensive pundit, trying to be controversial with statements like "90 per cent of the UK’s LGBT population is white" and "... staff now parrot the theoretical gobbledegook that originated in trendy university departments - gender studies, queer studies, whiteness studies, etc. They have convinced themselves it is their moral duty to eliminate 'white privilege'."

--Fæ (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Presumably similar considerations apply to lockdownsceptics.org? Noticed this edit referencing them earlier. Autarch (talk) 04:49, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

I've reverted that edit. Autarch (talk) 05:44, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Autarch, I thought it was an interesting case study of his opinions, but I'm not going to challenge it if you'd rather not have it in the article. I agree that there are challenges in how to cover characters like this whose business is self-promotion and attention-seeking. Blythwood (talk) 23:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Progressive eugenics

THe lead stated 'Toby Young supports what he describes as "progressive eugenics".' But the citations given do not provide any instance of him having used these words. They were apparently used in an editorial sub-headline in an article written by him. The words are certainly frequently quoted by those who disagree with him. Per WP:BLP I have therefore edited the sentence to read 'Toby Young supports what has been described as "progressive eugenics." '--Smerus (talk) 17:50, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

On first glance I agreed with you, because The Guardian doesn't exactly say that he used the term, but if you read the primary source, you'll find the prose sentence: This is a kind of eugenics that should appeal to liberals—progressive eugenics. This sentence was written by Young (as much as any sentence in an opinion piece is written by the credited author). The issue with "what has been described as" is that it's a weasel phrase that doesn't tell the reader who described it—it's not a third party, as the phrase "has been described as" implies, but a primary source—the piece credited to Young's name. I suggest we replace the existing wording, now we've found the place where Young uses the term specifically. An alternative that I think is less optimal is to say that he supports (a form of) eugenics, which he also says freely in the body of the article. — Bilorv (talk) 00:54, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Any use of the term here is a bit weaselly, even if he did use it himself. How about something along the lines of

“Young supported (what he supported in the article). Although not a follower of any of the forms of mainstream eugenics (ref) he described this policy as “progressive eugenics”, leading to significant controversy. Young has said that his views were taken out of context(ref) and have led to mischaracterisations of him as holding (describe them) views, (maybe with examples) (refs)”

Views?

Friendly regards, Springnuts (talk) 07:42, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks Springnuts, this seems imo to be on the right lines in this rather complex situation, and I may well have a go at implementing it.--Smerus (talk) 08:14, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

No, absolutely not. Wikipedia is not a place for promoting eugenics, which is a pseudoscience. He describes it himself as "progressive eugenics" and any more description in the lead is against WP:FRINGE; any lengthy quotes in the body are undue, though I wouldn't object to a sentence or two. We also don't report what Young says in response to what the media said in response to what he said, unless the media reported extensively on it (by "media" I do not mean Quillette, which is not a reliable source—see WP:RSP). — Bilorv (talk) 15:10, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I think, Bilorv, that that is rather a contorted NNPOV. WP is about reporting facts. Reporting the facts here is not 'promoting eugenics' under any interpretation. (And incidentally WP does not define eugenics as a 'pseudoscience', but as a 'set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population'. The belief that it could or should be used to 'improve' populations may be discredited, but it is no more a 'pseudoscience' than Fascism is 'pseudopolitics', whether or not you or I find them uncongenial). WP:BLP requires that if a doubtful allegation has been made against someone, his or her response may be appropriately given. We haven't (yet) embraced cancel culture. --Smerus (talk) 16:35, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

His latest spectator argument clarifies his position.

The claim that I’m a ‘eugenics advocate’ isn’t true, obviously. It’s based on a deliberate misreading of an article I wrote in which I said that if it ever becomes possible for couples to cherry-pick embryos in a genetics lab according to which ones are likely to have the highest IQ, that technology should be made available for free on the NHS because otherwise it will enable the rich to give their children an even greater competitive advantage. If ‘eugenics’ is forced sterilisation, what I was proposing was the opposite — free IVF for the poor. But that hasn’t stopped numerous left-wing journalists claiming I’m some kind of neo-Nazi, including Polly Toynbee, who wrote in 2018: ‘With his views on eugenics, why does Toby Young still have a job in education?’ Shortly afterwards, I didn’t.

This is from https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/there-s-nothing-neutral-about-wikipedia, cite at top of this talk page.--Salix alba (talk): 16:07, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Done.--Smerus (talk) 17:38, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm roughly happy with the current version as a compromise, though I would want more improvements were the article in a better state overall. I'll sum up a few of my ideas: (1) The four lines of text given to describing Young's opinion piece in the body is undue weight for one source, particularly when followed by only half a line of description of what criticisms were made of the piece by scientific bodies. (2) We shouldn't be using the phrase "genetically engineered intelligence" in Wikipedia's own words unless serious scientific bodies use the term (maybe they do, a future topic for discussion). (3) We shouldn't be segregating this content or any content under "Controveries", and instead incorporating this material into other sections which focus on his career, because it is a significant facet of his career (it relates to his journalism, professional appearances at conferences and a job he resigned from). Smerus invokes "cancel culture" to mean "right of reply", which does not apply on Wikipedia, but I would suggest that the real act of "cancel culture" here is the sectioning of content into "Things Bad About This Person", which violates WP:CSECTION. — Bilorv (talk) 18:02, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Twitter comments

The lead states "He has also been criticised for his comments on Twitter". Really? Someone criticised for their comments on Twitter? What is the world coming to! Surely this non-remark can be removed? Arcturus (talk) 20:38, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

This originally also said "and edits to his Wikipedia article", which I feel is more the substantive point. The reason his Twitter comments are significant is that he resigned over them in a OfS job, but that's mentioned a couple of sentences before so I think swapping Twitter out for Wikipedia (most public figures do not edit their own Wikipedia articles... one would hope) would be an improvement. — Bilorv (talk) 20:53, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree. On the subject of Twitter, I think the point here is that just about anyone in the public eye - especially those moving in political circles - will, from time to time, be criticised for comments on Twitter. So it's almost a given, and doesn't really need to be mentioned here. However, on the issue of editing his own Wikipedia page, we need to be careful here, for BLP reasons. The first source used to support the assertion is an opinion piece from The Guardian, quote (my emphasis); "Young cares intensely about his own profile, to the extent he is said to have edited his own Wikipedia profile 282 times in the last decade. Said to have by whom, one might ask? The second source is a blog that probably fails WP:RS. I'm not saying this matter shouldn't be mentioned, but if it is mentioned, we should try for better sources, and I'm not sure the lead is the place for it. I would suggest it's incidental stuff. Arcturus (talk) 21:06, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

All good points, so I'll change my mind and support omission from the lead for now. — Bilorv (talk) 22:40, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Reference to Epstein

"Young's name and contact details appear in the 'little black book' of the financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffery Epstein. Young has made clear that, as was the case with many other names in the book, he never met Epstein." Reference 90 in this respect seems not to be connected to the assertion. Furthermore, we should have a third-party source to support the statement; reference 89 is an article written by Young. There doesn't appear to be a mention of this "black book" at Jeffrey Epstein, so why is it mentioned here? It's seems like trivia. Arcturus (talk) 18:01, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I've removed it. Thanks for pointing this out, Arcturus. No reliable secondary sources (that I can find) mention Young's appearance in Epstein's book, so there is no due weight. Only Young himself has discussed the incident in opinion pieces. I agree that one of the references was quite unrelated. — Bilorv (talk) 07:14, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Autobiography template

I removed the autobiography template Template:Autobiography which was added today to the head of this article because I think it should be discussed here whether or not it is warranted. The template suggests that the article was largely or extensively written by its subject. But I am not aware of any evidence for this. A January 2018 article in the Guardian by Robert Booth (which can be seen at the top of this talk page in media mentions) says that at that date "he is said to have edited his own Wikipedia profile 282 times [sic] in the last decade". This statement is not aparently referenced or evidenced. And even it were true, it does not mean that most or even much of the article was written by Young at that time. And since January 2018 there have been 500 or so edits to the article: it was then 27,389 bytes, it is now 56,170 bytes. It is evident that editors do feel quite partisan about Young, but the article doesn't seem 'autobiographical' to me. Citations used in the article include many from TES, the Guardian, the Independent, and elsewhere, amyn of which are critical of the subject of the article, as well, of course, as some that are supportive and some that reference quotes of the article subject himself.I think we require solid evidence that the article is or may be some sort of 'put up job' before we apply a template of this sort. It looks to me as if a number of editors have genuinely tried to give it a sort of NPOV balance, and to template the article in this way is not fair to their efforts . --Smerus (talk) 20:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

The Guardian _is_ the reliable source (either they have concrete evidence or Young would be contacted for comment before publication), but certainly Tyoung8 identified themselves as the real Toby Young in their many edits and I believe users at the time had reason to take the user at their word. In my edit summary, I mentioned the page statistics which identify Young as having made 235 edits to "Toby Young" (The Guardian wrongly included 47 edits to other pages, almost all made on the subject of Toby Young) . Salix alba also pointed us to a Spectator article in which Young says: I know from friends who have tried to set the record straight [on the Wikipedia article "Toby Young"] that they are immediately overruled by editors who then faithfully restore the smears. Friends editing one's page is just as much of a COI/autobiography issue as oneself doing so, so this is a second concern. Based on my edits over the last six months (15% contributed text), I would like to count myself as among the editors who have worked to partway clean the article up, so I appreciate your words of sympathy, but I am the one who reintroduced the tag—which was long-standing for three years.

To spell out the information in the page statistics, Toby Young has made 235 edits to this article, which constitute 21.8% of the prose that remains in the current version of the article. This is enough to constitute a tag, because that 20% of the article needs to be rewritten so that we are independent of our subjects. — Bilorv (talk) 21:05, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry there is still a lack of evidence here. And can I say I write as someone who is not a friend (or enemy) of Young, (although, for the record, I do frankly consider him a bit of a nutter, if generally harmless). If friends' editing counts as COI (and I agree it does), then so should enemies' editing. And much editing has clearly been done here by those who dislike Young. How do we decide which bits are kosher and which bits aren't? (NB before anyone castigates me as racist for using the word 'kosher' - one has to be careful these days - I am an observant Jew). I don't know where your 21.8% comes from, but as the article has been consistently edited and re-edited by you, me (slightly), and many other editors, what is the evidence that 21.8% of the present article is wording by Young? - as, of course, it is possible that anything from 0% - 100% of his edits have been removed? Which parts of the article are by Young, and which by his enemies, and therefore apparently would also need to be 'signposted' on your criteria? Or can we not just all be trusted to behave as responsible people, to read and edit the article in a responsible manner, and make up our own minds without being told or signposted what we should think? Just asking.....--Smerus (talk) 11:13, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Smerus, it is best not to make assumptions if you know that you do not understand a situation. You say I don't know where your 21.8% comes from and the answer is the page statistics, linked also above. Please read these statistics and then make up your mind about what your stance is. You say that enemies' editing is COI editing—could you please provide evidence that people with a professional interest (such as journalists at competing newspapers, fellow employees etc.) have edited the article if this is the accusation you are making? Otherwise, this does not match Wikipedia's definition of COI. Your other comments are quite tangential, and I suggest you nominate {{Autobiography}} for deletion if this is the hill you want to die on, or perhaps WP:5P2 if you see no issue with COI editing; otherwise, current practice is to tag material which is in contravention with our policies and guidelines. The way this tag is actionable is by editors rewriting the article from top to bottom, overhauling with more reliable sources and more attention to our policies and guidelines, which is separately a way of improving the quality of the non-autobiographical aspects. This has been underway for a while, but having the tag lets more editors know that their help is needed. — Bilorv (talk) 15:10, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Dear Bilorv, I am seriously worried about you - have you considered taking a course of anger management? I assure you that neither I nor Toby Yong are worth you injuring your health. I certainly had no intention to upset you by asking about the 21.8% - thank you for explaining it, which you hadn't previously bothered to do. I make no claims to your levels of omniscience, but I don't think that quite excuses your statement that 'I don't undertand the situation' - a piece of ad hominem abuse which you may care to withdraw. You do not answer my query about how one deals with the NNPOV attitude of editors who wish to attack the article's subject, or why my suggestion that we can rely on editors' common sense to resolve exaggeration in either direction in the article may not apply. Perhaps my estimate of editors' abilities is slightly higher than yours in that I believe most of them will realize that elements of the article is controversial without them being told so, but I was ever an optimist (otherwise why would I be a WP editor?) And - just for your information - although I am 70 years old and expect to die in the short-to-medium term, I have no present intention of doing so on a hill or anywhere else. Best, --Smerus (talk) 17:31, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Please discuss this at Template talk:Autobiography as your concerns are now only general, rather than specific to Young. As we now agree that the article has extended material written by its subject, it is common practice to add the {{Autobiography}} tag and a local consensus cannot override this. I have re-added the tag and expect us both to have better things to do (I'm working on hitting 100 created articles in the near future). — Bilorv (talk) 18:07, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

As you are clearly keen not to discuss this further here, I have taken your advice and posted to Template talk:Autobiography. If you are unable to identify NNPOV bias in the article, it seems to be that it cannot be right to post a template which states that the article "may need editing to conform to Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy". Moreover, you are incorrect that "common practice" in WP automatically supersedes consensus, although your reinstatement of the template perhaps gives an indication that you do not rate consensus that highly. Try reading WP:CONSENSUS - "Decisions on Wikipedia are primarily made by consensus, which is accepted as the best method to achieve Wikipedia's goals." Best,--Smerus (talk) 13:13, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

The AUTO issue is about NPOV - that's why the template includes: "It may need editing to conform to Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy.". Looking though his most recent few edits on the article, it generally involved removing material he did not like, or adding factual information - eg "I am a Spectator columnist". Given the length of time and the many hundreds of edits since he edited the article, is anyone seriously arguing that there is an actual POV issue arising from edits he made? If so, why hasn't it been removed in the past three years? If not, what is the point of the tag? Has some NPOV material been missed in the last three years? Because actually keeping the tag there then looks like POV by Wikipedians. By the way, the monitoring tool link above shows 6.5%, not over 20% of edits (measured in characters) by tyoung8 - it doesn't indicate whether the material is still present in the article, and of course it does not indicate the nature of the material. Springnuts (talk) 18:23, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

This is a persuasive argument. I have removed the template. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:37, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

@Springnuts: you ask, it generally involved removing material he did not like, or adding factual information ... is anyone seriously arguing that there is an actual POV issue arising from edits he made? My answer is "yes, removing material you do not like and adding content is an NPOV issue". He certainly has a selective bias for all material added which is stronger than any of us, because of his COI. My issue is that there is a selective bias towards particular reliable sources or types of content, and against others. The reason this hasn't been fixed is that it is a very difficult issue to find and address, which is why the tag needs to be there to point editors to the issue. You also look at some of his latest edits, but those may not be representative—what is representative is the known quantity that 21.8% of the prose content of the page was written by Yong, based on page statistics analysis (which of course have some inherent uncertainty based on e.g. common words which could remain in the page but be part of a different sentence). — Bilorv (talk) 20:09, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Biolrv, when I run mw:Who Wrote That? on this article, I see that the editor in question wrote 6.9% of the current version of the article. This tool measures visible text, regardless of how much has been added (and then blanked by other people) over time. In the introduction, he introduced the following words: "and...Director...the...free schools charity", "and The Spectator", "served...in seasons five and six of", and "co-founded". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Link to Ideological bias on Wikipedia

I reverted the edit removing this link. It seems an appropriate link to Young's claim of left-wing bias, and will be helpful to those who wish to question it. The edit summary justifying its removal says the quote "likely doesn't reflect what Young views as the issue with Wikipedia" - which for all we know may be true, but makes the edit a piece of (albeit intriguing) original research: Young wrote the words quoted. Friendly regards to all, Springnuts (talk) 07:21, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

It's not original research if it's in a metatextual comment about a Wikipedia article. For instance, your paragraph above is not original research simply because you have not cited a secondary source which says "According to Wikipedia's policies, this quote should have an internal link to Ideological bias on Wikipedia". Rather, the case of original research here is the actual case of original research that you are introducing via a link in the article. The article you link to has sections like: In 2013, the Croatian-language version of Wikipedia drew media attention after the daily newspaper Jutarnji list reported on critics' concerns that administrators and editors on the website were projecting a right-wing bias into topics such as the Ustashe regime, anti-fascism, Serbs, the LGBT community, and gay marriage. It is hardly about the ostensible "left-wing bias" that the linking words are to. As such, it's not what readers expect and violates WP:EASTER. You're welcome to create Left-wing bias on Wikipedia if you want an appropriate link within a quote (or rather, I suppose the process would be expansion of Ideological bias on Wikipedia and then a split of the article after talk page consensus).

I don't know if you believe that the revert I made is based on some ideological dispute, but it's a simple case of MOS (MOS:LWQ). I don't know if you've had much experience with quality review processes like GA/FA but I saw the edit and every instinct says in me, "this would be the first comment made by any GA/FA reviewer" and so I removed it. Nothing deeper than that. — Bilorv (talk) 10:56, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

OK. Springnuts (talk) 22:07, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

rm weasel word 'ruin'

I removed this wording iaw "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced ... must be removed immediately" - no source is given, nor could I find one in the article on the publication - and it may not be an encyclopedic statement even if sourced. "and edited it until financial difficulties led to its demise in 1995" seems more encyclopedic in any case. Friendly regards, Springnuts (talk) 17:37, 9 November 2020 (UTC)