Talk:White Fragility/Archive 1

Archive 1

Nominate for deletion?

I suggest this article be deleted and its contents incorporated into the article Robin DiAngelo since it is essentially a stub. The reception to the book seems to be as much reception to the concept of "white fragility" itself, which is DiAngelo's notability, and includes her 2011 article as well as workshops and other work. Allanaaaaaaa (talk) 21:13, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

@Allanaaaaaaa: The fact that the article is a stub is not reason to delete; it just means that the article needs to be filled out more. You need to have a legitimate reason for deletion. Biogeographist (talk) 21:21, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, posted that before I read up more on merging and deletion. I think merging is the more sensible choice as I've since mentioned on talk:Robin DiAngelo. Allanaaaaaaa (talk) 21:27, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE weight on Jonathan Church.

Church is neither an expert in the topic nor has his opinion on it been published in any mainstream reliable sources. If there were few other commentators we might include his feelings about the topic, but we have extensive coverage from much higher-quality sources; weighing his opinion, published on a few fringey blogs, as equal to Slate, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, the New Yorker, or the Guardian is clearly silly. Writing for The Good Men Project does not make someone an expert; being quoted once in the New York Times doesn't make someone's random opinion on everything so significant. If his opinions here are important, we can wait until the New York Times quotes them, too, giving them weight equivalent to the rest of the section. (Also, for the record, this is not "established content"; it was added here four days ago. If you want to put it back wherever it came from, be my guest—I suspect it was just as out-of-place there, though the stark, overwhelming difference in quality here between it and the sources it's being pitted against makes it much more obvious—but you need to establish consensus to drop something like this here.) "Publications" like these that do nothing but publish grindy culture-war pieces aren't great ones for opinion because you can reasonably always find an angry talking head publishing there yelling at whoever they disagree with at the moment; if we cited every time they sniped at their ideological opponents in an opinion piece like this, our political articles would be unreadable. When such opinions are noteworthy, they will get picked up outside of that bubble. This one has not, so it's not worth including. --Aquillion (talk) 21:34, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Regarding what I meant by "established content" in my edit summary: The sentence on Church's critique was moved, with the rest of the Reception section, from Robin DiAngelo, where it was added by Equilibrium103 in June and restored by Midnightblueowl after you removed it last August. I am no fan of Quillette, but it is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. Slate, which this article also cites, is no less known "for adopting contrarian views", as the second sentence of the Wikipedia article on Slate prominently notes—so do we need to wait until an opinion in Slate is picked up by the NY Times before we cite it here? In any case, I just read Church's piece in Quillette and Jackson's piece in Slate, and I agree that the former is not anywhere near the quality of the latter. So unless there are other objections to excluding the sentence about Church's critique, I would say there is a consensus to exclude it until it is picked up by a source like the NY Times. Biogeographist (talk) 03:43, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

When you asked if an article from a site notable enough for it's own Wikipedia page needed to be excluded until picked up by NYT, I thought the rhetorical implied answer was 'obviously no', so I'm to take it that you got from there to exclusion on the sole basis of a necessarily subjective evaluation of it's quality. We most certainly do not have a consensus. Whether Church's qualifications as an economist strike one as sufficiently adjacent to other social sciences is not only irrelevant (it is not, as implied in the edit summary, a condition listed in WP:UNDUE), but even if peer-reviewed, mainstream academic sanction were a requirement for inclusion, Church directly cites SSRN published research specifically undermining core elements of DiAngelo's thesis. As it stands, the page consists exclusively of glowing reviews of a scholarship is monumentally controversial among both other academics and the political class. Quillette has significantly higher traffic than The Los Angeles Review of Books, which is cited here at length. There is, in fact, a more notable, and indeed more rancorous critique of the book in The Times by Trevor Phillips. Regardless of whether anyone cares to go to the measure of citing that piece (it's currently behind a paywall) Phillip's and Church's are the two most prominent criticisms of the book in the objectively quantifiable terms of both immediacy of Google search results and Alexa global traffic rankings of their parent sites, moreso than pieces already cited. If the current edit of the page isn't a violation of NPOV, then nothing is. Regardless of all of that, I'm restoring the edit on the basis that the policy violation cited, WP:UNDUE, bears no mention of the reasons given in the summary.Equilibrium103 (talk) 11:42, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Having a page on Wikipedia doesn't, itself, make a source reliable or noteworthy; due weight is based on the qualifications of the source, and Church (and the place where he's publishing) have none. Beyond that, the idea that it must be included in order to "balance out" reviews that you personally feel are too glowing is WP:FALSEBALANCE - our goal is to include high-quality coverage from people qualified to cover the topic, not cranks like Church publishing in disreputable culture-war blogs like Quillette. Wikipedia is not the place to try and plaster opinion-pieces you particularly like all over the place - if you think his coverage is so important, wait until it's covered by a usable source. --Aquillion (talk) 15:38, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

FYI, Church now has a co-author, and she has a graduate degree in the subject area. I added their joint essay, and his co author Helen Pluckrose's bio is here. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC) PS see also [1] NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Reorganize reception section

I am thinking that it would be a good idea to try to reorganize and condense the reception section. I think having lots of information on the reception to the book is better than not enough, but it is getting a bit long. One thing we can do is combine comments which are similar from multiple sources. Something like, "The book has been critiqued by journalist x, scholar y for being unfalsifiable". As well, I think it might be good to seperate popular reception with scientific reception--especially when and if we get a few different scientists with relevant expertise weighing in. I'll try to get to this before too long, but posting it here in case you'all want to comment on the idea or try it yourself.-Pengortm (talk) 19:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

The quoting is vastly excessive but the more immediate problem was the inclusion of a multitude of thoroughly unreliable sources which I've removed here. I've left in The Federalist and The New Republic though I can't vouch for their reliability without further research. We now need to cut down the detail on the reviews that are reliable, not least because quoting large proportions of articles may no longer be fair use. Combining common threads of commentary is indeed also desirable. — Bilorv (talk) 19:18, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Neutral overview

In this revert, HaeB declares in Wikivoice that white people do have a reaction, and the reaction really is defensiveness, and the reaction is in response to being confronted with racism. All of this is stated in wikivoice. In the edit summary, the reason asserted is that "back to what cited source says". However, the source is a book review, by definition an opinion piece about the book. The book reviewer does not appear to have expertise in the subject matter nor first hand evidence. In fact the reviewer uses expressions like "DiAngelo finds" and "In DiAngelo's telling" and "DiAngelo witnesses white fragility" and "she finds it". All of this is consistent with the whole concept being anecdotal. These are DiAneglo's interpretations based on her perceptions of people's responses. That's what we need to report, if we are neutral and POV free. If we accept her interpretation as Truth(tm) that's when we can use wikivoice to describe the book in the way Haeb erroneously finds in the cited source. I'll wait for responses before changing it back to what I believe is more neutral text. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 15:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

I think we might be able to use a book review for uncontroversial points, but yeah, it is generally WP:RSOPINION and shouldn't be used to cite anything remotely controversial in the article voice. I particularly object to DiAngelo depicts race relations in the US as between largely powerless people of color on one side and white people on the other side, which is very clearly a controversial opinion by a critic; we would need a non-WP:RSOPINION source to say something like that. --Aquillion (talk) 16:30, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Add to reception

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/on-white-fragility --Dignitee (talk) 11:32, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

For a start, this isn't a reliable source, and additionally, Taibbi's review is already quoted in the reception. — Bilorv (talk) 13:23, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Overhaul

The old version of the article was overtly lacking, with a single sentence lead, almost no description of the book itself (we had fourteen reviews and no synopsis other than a two-sentence definition of the book title!) and a reception section that went on for days with overly lengthy quoting and cherry-picking from negative reviews added by editors with obvious POVs (comment not directed at Pengortm, to be clear). In this edit, I overhauled the article by adding a "Background" section, writing the "Synopsis" section to the level it should, adding reviews about White Fragility, removing criticism of DiAngelo which is not about White Fragility and then summarizing the new content in the lead. I explained my changes in an edit summary as is recommended. Pengortm reverted it in this edit which makes clear that they haven't really read or understood the new version. I have to say, I've done this for dozens of books over many years (often making larger-scale overhauls) and have never had an editor revert such an obviously constructive change before. If your aim is to Gish gallop then I won't have much patience but here specifically are the issues with the article that I have fixed:

• Outline and sections now conform with WP:NONFICTION.
• Updated outdated / incomplete info about the NYT bestseller lists.
• Reception should summarize by theme rather than reviewer per Wikipedia:Copyediting reception sections.
• Quotes should not be overly long or a substantial proportion of the review per MOS:QUOTE.
• Added Times of India, Seattle Times, Elle and further reading sources.
• Added details of DiAngelo's life, the process of writing the book and publication details.
• Added synopsis based on the most prominent content covered in the reliable sources.
• Removed The Bellows (unreliable) and The Independent (the article is about BLM rather than White Fragility, despite its title, as our prose made clear - "which views the book as part of a discourse ..." is not actually a quote about the book so there's no need for it when we have plenty of book reviews).
• Lead should summarize the body and all key aspects of the topic (subject, background, reception) with due weight per WP:LEAD.

WP:BLM have been notified to draw wider attention to the article. — Bilorv (talk) 19:52, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I believe that your lead, Background, and Overview sections are much better. However, I believe the way you've handled the Critical reception section has some issues, and to be frank, it seems to now leave the reader with a pro-book POV more than the sources do. Here is the old version.

• Why did you remove the reviews from The Guardian? I note that one of those was quite negative. [2]
• The Independent article [3] starts and ends specifically about White Fragility. It certainly seems on topic enough. But again, this piece was negative and was cut.
• Several more negative reviews were watered down. Compare the McWhorter, Taibbi, and Lile reviews between the old and new versions; these examples stood out to me. For instance, why should we sidestep McWhorter (a black man) calling it a "racist tract", Taibbi [4][5] saying it would have pernicious effects on race relations, or Lile talking about a double bind?
• Wikipedia:Copyediting reception sections is an essay and therefore has zero real authority. I would rather we avoid engaging in original research by slicing up and recombining reviews under certain "themes" that may actually vary between reviews. I think the old order of reviews was odd though; I'd prefer chronological order.

WP:NPOVN will also be notified. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:12, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I continue to object to so many unexplained changes being made at once. Again, it makes it exceedingly difficult for other editors to follow. Frankly, it is unnecessary, even when making a big overhaul. I have made substantial changes to other pages we were collaborating on, but made each of these methodically with clear explanations--rather than all at once. I continue to urge you to make your changes in smaller chunks here and in the future. It makes it much easier to focus on the substance and merit of each individual change. I think your changes should be reverted and made in more reasonable chunks. If other editors disagree than I will try to find time to look at each change in the more difficult format imposed on us. - Pengortm (talk) 22:36, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Crossroads that the criticisms section needs substantial revision so as to fairly represent critical viewpoints. McWhorter is mentioned 5 times in 4 paragraphs, separated by comments by other people. This is incoherent. His article is presented as sound bites, rather than as the carefully written opinion piece that it is. I would suggest (1) covering McWhorter all in the same paragraph, (2) deleting McWhorter found it "reasonable" for the book to assume that everyone has a racist bias (this suggests that his review is somewhat positive, which it isn't), and (3) including one or two of McWhorter's examples of claims that are either plain wrong or bizarrely disconnected from reality, such as the one about Jackie Robinson, the one about Black people's supposed reaction when a white woman cries, or the claim that in American universities no one ever talks about racism. NightHeron (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Crossroads: The Guardian isn't a review of White Fragility. It mentions the term "white fragility" once and the book title is alluded to in the same breath. It is otherwise commentary on DiAngelo, diversity training etc. Not relevant.

Yes, The Independent mentions White Fragility more substantially, but it's about something much broader. If you have specific quotes from the article that are about the book, I don't object to the source being re-added at all, but I do object to taking a comment about something broader than the book out of context and using it as a quote about the book.

"Racist tract" is powerful language but it's not a criticism as a two-word phrase. The point McWhorter is making is summarized better by McWhorter found the book "deeply condescending to all proud Black people" and McWhorter viewed a lack of solutions proffered as a negative, which are serious criticisms we need to point readers to, rather than writing a section based around shit-slinging. Point me to a criticism he makes different to those two criticisms and let's add it.

Feel free to add that Taibbi thought the book would have pernicious effects on race relations. As for The Federalist and the "double bind", can you suggest a concise summary of it? Or just add it yourself and let's discuss from there.

The negative reviews have not been "watered down" but summarized appropriately. It has never been the case on any article I have collaborated on that we quote every critique in a review. It is not the case in the positive reviews that I have quoted every comment. I find the important themes of the review and attempt to find a subset of quotes which covers each theme once.

Indeed the reception section is less negative now, because editors have been cherry-picking negative reviews to the exclusion of Times of India, Seattle Times etc. This is not an issue introduced by me, but an issue part-way addressed. The section still has a long way to go because there are a lot more sources out there.

Wikipedia:Copyediting reception sections is regularly recommended at GAN and FAC (where I learned of it) and is common practice, beyond being an essay. If you want to contest the practice as WP:OR then you will need much broader consensus and to notify WikiProjects for GAs, FAs, TV, film and books to a discussion held at a broader venue.

Overall I'm absolutely not opposed to criticism, discussion and rewording. I wrote a first draft of a better article. I didn't write a great article (such work takes much more time). What I object to is being whole-sale reverted after spending hours and hours across multiple days. I use this editing style regularly on articles before taking them to DYK, GA, FA or FL and I've never had anyone object before (to the best of my memory). I want the current version to stand and be adjusted from there, because it's ludicrous to not consider my version an overall improvement. Please adjust it based on the actual facts of the situation rather than a false balance to achieve the same ratio of positives to negatives as the old version which was a battleground for SPAs left, right and centre (check the history in detail). — Bilorv (talk) 23:13, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for adding content on the book and author: yes, it was lacking and the article was skewed towards reviews, mostly negative (I contributed two of them). I believe we shouldn't delete reviews for "balance" if they're negative. Rather, add positive ones, as this has now been done. The issue that has arisen is that the reception section is heavily skewed towards positive reviews (the problem has now been inverted), which have little content. That such and such person/publication appreciated the book is for sure noteworthy information, but it's less valuable than actual engagement with the book's content and ideas. So please, as a rule, I'd like to ask everyone to add instead of deleting content. Also, let's cool down on the accusatory rhetoric and avoid edit wars. Assume good faith, and solve conflicts like mature people. Thanks Fa suisse (talk) 03:32, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I did not remove any reviews of White Fragility, except one review in The Bellows which is an unreliable source. I removed some articles which were not reviews of White Fragility. I don't understand why positive reviews of great length and specificity such as The New Yorker or LA Review of Books do not "actual[ly] engage with the book's content and ideas". Note also that e.g. The Federalist is a marginally reliable publication for reviews, whereas e.g. Publishers Weekly is perhaps the single most reliable source for book reviews, so there is a balance of due weight to reach there for reasons other than article length (or tone). — Bilorv (talk) 07:57, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Let me get this straight. Having as many negative reviews as positive ones is false balance, but more positive reviews need to be added FOR THE SAKE OF BALANCE? Yeah, that makes sense. 46.97.170.160 (talk) 10:13, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Who are you? Please log in if you have an account. My opinion is that reviewer comments should be included in proportion to the ratio of positive and negative critical commentary that exists. Of course I've not managed this because I'm not superhuman and need cooperation to achieve it. There are lots of sources left to add like [6][7][8] and more help needed finding sources and evaluating reliability. It is textbook false balance to say an equal number of positive and negative reviews should be included. — Bilorv (talk) 11:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate Bilorv's work to improve this article, particularly the Background and Synopsis section. The criticical reception section, however is not a clear improvement over the previous section. This is a controvertial book, and any attempt to group reviews by 'important themes' risks involving too much original research, and should get feedback from other editors, on talk. Other editors have already expressed concerns about the restructuring of this section. This would be a good place for the WP:BRD process. As Bilorv says, this is a first draft. We should treat it as such and take the time to discuss it here before adding it to the article.Dialectric (talk) 12:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Dialectric: please explain your removal of the summaries of Times of India and Seattle Times and the updated information about the New York Times bestseller list. I can't see anyone who has contested the necessity of these facts. Additionally, we don't use title case like "Critical Reception" on Wikipedia. Local consensus cannot override the global consensus established over many major WikiProjects about how criticism should be written, which is to summarize ideas rather than indulging in lengthy quotes like:

"[t]he book is more diagnostic than solutions-oriented, and the guidelines it offers toward the end—listen, don't center yourself, get educated, think about your responses and what role they play—won't shock any nervous systems. The value in White Fragility lies in its methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance." and "overarching aim is not for her readers to feel guilty about their white identity. Rather it is to encourage them to understand that there will be no change if they are just 'really nice… smile at people of colour… go to lunch together on occasion'." — Bilorv (talk) 16:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Nine (!!!) paragraphs of critical reception is obviously too much for an article. This is without the sources I previously added. It is ridiculous that this is in contention. Separately, NightHeron, can you provide the commentary which you have summarized in the lead as making false claims about both white and Black people's perceptions of race, for putting whites in a situation where anything they say is used against them? If this is just The Federalist and The Atlantic then it's not due weight when we have 14 sources plus the 2 of mine which have been removed, is it? — Bilorv (talk) 16:28, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I just now revised the first part to reflect what's in the main body (I agree that the earlier version did not, although it accurately reflected what's in McWhorter's article). McWhorter, as a well-known Black public intellectual, is an important critic. The second part is in the discussion of The Federalist review (then treating any active engagement on their part as an exercise of white privilege). The Washington Post review says much the same thing (Either white people admit their inherent and unending racism and vow to work on their white fragility, in which case DiAngelo was correct in her assessment, or they resist such categorizations or question the interpretation of a particular incident, in which case they are only proving her point.). We cannot summarize all of the critiques. I tried to choose the more in-depth criticisms and avoid the sound-bites such as "racist tract", "psychobabble", etc., because such quotes out of context just seem like name-calling. NightHeron (talk) 17:29, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

The Case title is fixed and best seller information has been restored from Bilrov's version. I do not see that my edits removed anything referenced to the Seattle Times. Please feel free to add this again if I did remove it. The Times of India is an unbylined 'micro-review' and not a substantial review of the book. I agree that the reception content could be pared down; I disagree that it needs a total restructuring, and many wikipedia articles on best sellers have reception broken up by source in a format similar to the current version.Dialectric (talk) 17:33, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

My mistake on Seattle Times. Perhaps you're not familiar with Times of India but it's a highly reputable and significant source. Reviews like Publishers Weekly and Times of India don't use by-lines but that's not a comment on their reliability. Point me to a featured article with nine paragraphs of critical reception, undivided into subsections and not organized in any meaningful order. Because I can point you to one which uses my style of critical summary (San Junipero, which I've previously worked on). That many poor-quality articles have similarly unorganized sections is not a good argument; the articles need to be high-quality otherwise it's an WP:OSE argument. — Bilorv (talk) 18:57, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Another thing I've just realized, Dialectric, is that you removed all of my reference formatting improvements for consistency. Do you have a reason to object to these? — Bilorv (talk) 19:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• The reception section needs a complete revamp. Cut most of the quotation and “According to so and so” stuff. SUMMARIZE instead. Look for commonalities. Did the positive reviews all focus on the same things when reviewing the book?... highlight those. Did the negative reviews focus on the same things? Highlight those. Blueboar (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Blueboar: thanks for the comment, this was exactly my aim. Do you view Special:Permalink/968484188 as an improvement? — Bilorv (talk) 19:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

At least two book-related FA's, The Story of Miss Moppet and Reception_history_of_Jane_Austen similarly seperate commentary by author into paragraphs. Chronological order would be a reasonable improvement without the WP:SYNTH aspects of shoehorning fairly complex reviews into a few small boxes. Blueboar, the issue is that there has not yet been an agreement on commonalities, and Bilrov's read on commonalities appears to differ from those of most other commenters on this talk page.Dialectric (talk) 19:59, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Reception history of Jane Austen is quite obviously a different case (we're not dealing with such a foundational body of work here) but The Story of Miss Moppet doesn't have a section nine paragraphs long, does it? What commonalities have others been suggesting there are? I don't recall any criticism of me on mistakenly omitting commonalities or mistakenly including non-commonalities. — Bilorv (talk) 21:55, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

San Junipero, a non-controvertial episode of a television show, is also quite obviously a different case. Commonalities is blueboar's word, but several editors have raised concerns about your restructuring of critical reviews in a way which misses some of their main points. Giving each review and reviewer a few sentences allays these concerns, as does chronological, rather than thematic, structuring. Whether the sentences are in seperate paragraphs or not doesn't particularly concern me.Dialectric (talk) 04:32, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

So no criticism of me on the grounds of disputed commonalities. Would you apologize for saying Bilrov's [sic] read on commonalities appears to differ from those of most other commenters? I can point you to the GA Black Museum (Black Mirror)#Reception, where critics fiercely disagreed over the episode's racial themes, and its other aspects, but it's clear you're arguing to win rather than discussing to listen. Nine paragraphs for a section that still needs serious expansion? If you actually had an interest in improving the article then you'd respond to my ping above to you undoing all my reference formatting improvements. Please fix your re-introduction of errors. — Bilorv (talk) 09:33, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

There's a good reason why a negative review needs more space than a positive review. A positive review usually summarizes a few of the main points of the book and says nice things about it that can often be captured in one sentence. The book's page already has a synopsis section, so there's no need to repeat the review's summary of main points of the book. In contrast, a critical review has to make some new arguments that are not in the book. It is unfair to the critics to just quote a few sound-bites (such as "racist tract") and not give a comprehensible explanation of what they're saying. So I don't think the criticism section is too long or unbalanced in favor of the critics. For the same reason, earlier I objected to the citations to McWhorter being put in five different places, interspersed with other people's comments. The way we have it now, with McWhorter all in one paragraph, is much better. NightHeron (talk) 10:48, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Can you point me to which policy you're basing your views on? Certainly not due weight, in which a critic should be given the same weight as another critic of the same distinguishment, regardless of their opinions. I gave McWhorter more quotes than any other reviewer, I believe, because of the detail and length of his review, published in the esteemed The Atlantic. I'm all in favor of adapting the content I wrote about McWhorter. I never claimed it was perfect or even good. If you believe I misrepresented his arguments then I would have encouraged you to adjust the latest version. Even just to remove his interspersed comments and copy-paste the old paragraph while we discussed the matter. I am not in favor of an exploding section which is nine paragraphs long and omits a substantial number of significant reviews (some of which I added, three of which I pointed to above and many of which I was yet to add, but I don't have an incentive to contribute further if my edits will continue to be reverted by people who have no interest in improving the article), any reduction of which is met with aspersions and antagonism. — Bilorv (talk) 16:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

On the subject of weight, Bilorv's version had no quotes from Pulizer Prize winning critic Carlos Lozada's lengthy Washington Post review, but quoted an unbylined 180 word 'micro-review' from Times of India twice. The reference issue is a minor one; I have no problem with Bilrov's ref style though it did depart from the style that had been used in the article prior to his edits (Wikipedia:Citing sources says "If an article already has citations, preserve consistency by using that method or seek consensus on the talk page before changing it").Dialectric (talk) 17:12, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Recent additions to "Reception"

I have two questions about the recent additions that are sourced to an Ezra Klein podcast. First, is citing to "about 15 minutes in" or "about 20 minutes in" to a podcast an acceptable WP citation? Are there written versions of these two people's opinions that could be cited instead? Secondly, I'm not sure what Ezra Klein means by "totalizing and reductive". Can his words be paraphrased using words that are understandable to the average reader? Does "totalizing" mean over-generalizing? Does "reductive" mean over-simplifying? That's just a guess on my part. NightHeron (talk) 19:49, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, this is all rubbish tacked on by someone looking for dirt. No it isn't acceptable when there are a multitude of published reviews by professional critics with editorial oversight. The podcast might be acceptable if specifically cited, were there fewer sources available. When the article deliberately excludes many good sources in order to include only (in theory) a representative summary of the highest-quality reliable sources, it's not right to give it two paragraphs. A podcast doesn't have the same selectiveness or editorial pruning as an article. — Bilorv (talk) 22:50, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Possible additional source to cite

I don't have time to go through this all carefully right now, but this source might be worth including. Leaving it here for others to work on or discuss or for me to come back to later when I have time. https://www.bostonreview.net/race/peter-dreier-%E2%80%9Cwhite-fragility%E2%80%9D-gets-jackie-robinsons-story-wrong - Pengortm (talk) 17:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Definitely a worthwhile source. I put in a short paragraph in the "Reception" section. NightHeron (talk) 19:09, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

"Controversial" edit

What exactly "needs to be discussed" in what I did in the edit? There is a critical review with reliable sources: it should be included in the article regardless of my or your attitude towards the author, his opinion, political views or food preferences. It is also necessary to avoid the current laudatory presentation of the theory of "white fragility" as something objective according to WP:WEASEL, WP:PEACOCK and WP:NPOV. This is just one subjective point of view of the Author of this book and should be described EXACTLY as such throughout the article - this is the purpose of Wikipedia in context of theories (unless it something undoubtfull like "round Earth" etc). Also, writing the color with a capital letter in the context of the race, or with a small letter (but then all the "colors" of all races will be with a small letter) according to MOS:PEOPLELANG. 31.40.131.100 (talk) 13:56, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

These interpretations of policy are your opinion, unsupported by consensus of other editors. That's why it "needs to be discussed". NightHeron (talk) 14:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Again: where exactly am I "wrong"? I'm not interested in general words, give me specifics. How can you argue that this is "just my opinion" without any arguments. Also, please open the rules i mentioned, read them and come back again to discussion. 31.40.131.100 (talk) 15:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Some of where you are wrong was explained in Bilorv's edit summary. You also chose to selectively capitalize "white" in a several places, which is not according to MOS:PEOPLELANG. The article already treats the book as a controversial book, and covers criticism of it. It does not say that everything in the book is factual. This does not violate WP:NPOV. NightHeron (talk) 15:48, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

We generally use lowercase/uppercase for "white" depending on context, such as what the sources on the topic use. I think I've seen a majority with lowercase in this instance, but happy to be proven wrong. There's no "laudatory" presentation of the topic at present, and your sentence here is an admission that your edits are made with the intention of presenting the topic more negatively. In this case, you need to get consensus that the article is currently too positive towards the book. My view, which I've argued several times, is that the current version is unduly negative towards the book. Moreover, we don't redress balance by scattergunning these snarky, petty "just her opinion"-type comments throughout. There is already sufficient contextualization of DiAngelo's views as exactly that. — Bilorv (talk) 17:06, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Reception should be little more balanced

There appears to be 2 to 1 positive/negative reviews in the reception section. There should be at least one more critical/negative review included in the section. I googled but had a difficult time finding one from a decent source, maybe someone else can find one and add it to that section. Yodabyte (talk) 08:59, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

That is WP:FALSEBALANCE. Reception sections are supposed to cover and summarize the overall reception with weight according to how prominent and significant various opinions are; it's not supposed to be a balancing act where editors divide reception into "sides" and then decide what they personally think the best balance is. --Aquillion (talk) 16:32, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah it's pretty clear that someone's been doing a "find one negative for every positive" on the Reception section when, as we see from the user above saying I googled but had a difficult time finding [an overall negative review] from a decent source, it's pretty clear that critical reception was generally positive. — Bilorv (talk) 22:12, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Project Implicit, the Harvard research project that invented the IAT (Implicit Association Test) literally had to cover its website in disclaimers denying basically everything DiAngelo said in her book regarding their work (which is of course the basis of her book). The work has also failed every single peer review journal submission, every one. Critical reception was by no means generally positive, and was in fact astronomically negative. The general public, and non-critical reviews by people like fiction/non-fiction book reviewers gave it a generally positive reception. This is the key problem with a encyclopedia by lay people: they don't know the topics... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.143.143 (talk) 21:48, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Eventually I hope we'll have enough sources to really distinguish between lay people and professional researchers. Book reviewers are one thing for fiction, but something else for nonfiction. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 23:20, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

There's plenty, and journals are filled with them; they just don't do well on Wikipedia. Almost 3 years later and the Harvard rebuttal is STILL not on this page... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.111.143.143 (talk) 21:50, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

You can be bold and edit the article yourself. — Bilorv (talk) 22:04, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

May I be bold and suggest the addition of a 'Criticism' section?

'Reception' sections tend to explore the overall reaction to a subject, but let's also consider ad populum here for the sake of honest representation; whenever the topic is a book of politicized speculation, perhaps a more directly highlighted mention of some of the arguments against it are in order. Pocket83 (talk) 12:34, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

A Reception section is a criticism section, in the sense of literary criticism. In the sense of "negative reception", this material should not be segregated and instead be incorporated throughout the Reception section as normal. To separate it implies that it is not a type of reception. The Reception section already contains, at far too much length to be due weight relative to the scholarship as a whole, arguments against DiAngelo. — Bilorv (talk) 13:16, 2 June 2022 (UTC)