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Page: New Labour, New Danger (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)
Requester: user:The C of E

Comments:

Hi everyone, I'm hoping to find editors who can help on the article for Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus, since the article is covered by this WikiProject. Briefly, the article needs some updating to add in details about his career, particularly his political career prior to becoming chair of the RNC, and information on his tenure as chair. A key example: the article does not mention of his former role as chairman of the Wisconsin Republican Party.

On the article's Talk page, I've proposed a few updates and corrections. Some of these have been made in the article, however, editors who assisted have not returned to look at the suggestions for the Career section. To be fully transparent, I'm working as a consultant to the RNC and due to that financial conflict of interest I will not make any direct edits to the article. Instead, I am proposing updates for editors to review and make the changes they feel appropriate. Is anyone from this WikiProject able to help? Thanks, 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 22:49, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi again, just a quick ping here to note that while the details about Priebus's previous political roles have been added, I do have a few remaining edits I'm requesting for the Career section of the article. I have also just added some new suggestions for the RNC chairman section. If you can take a look, let me know if you have any questions. Thanks in advance. 16912 Rhiannon (Talk · COI) 22:23, 29 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case#Removal of an RS. Thanks. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)Template:Z48[reply]

I do not think that the New Black Panther Party is a conservative group. I do recognize from reading the page that the case has received more news coverage from conservative outlets than from neutral or liberal ones. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 31 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, I'm looking for help with some updates to the Rep. Tom Graves article and I wonder if anyone active on this project might be willing to help. At present, some of the article sections are lacking in detail or WP:RS citations, or both. I also see a few areas where the wording does not conform to the cited source and / or is not encyclopedic. I'm seeking to address these issues. Worth noting, I am working as a consultant on behalf of Rep. Graves and, considering my financial COI, I won't make any direct edits to the article. What I have done instead is to propose suggested updates on the Talk page here. If anyone is able to review and make the changes as they feel are appropriate, I'd be very grateful. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 23:11, 17 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This is  Done. WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:10, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I've restored Foundation for Excellence in Education from PROD, and started adding referenced info. Please feel free to help and expand the page. A section about the history of the organization and another about the policies suggested would be a good place to start.Zigzig20s (talk) 02:03, 18 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion about the redirect Secular-progressive and its variants have stalled. One points to Culture Warrior and two to Progressivism. Maybe this is inviting the foxes into the henhouse, but could you chime in at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2015 February 18#Secular-progressive? --BDD (talk) 17:14, 25 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So there is WP:Gender gap, which appears to be a helpful resource and/or recruit non-males to edit and become involved in Wikipedia and other wiki projects. At least in the United States, such programs to help women exist, and have been so successful, that female enrollment and completion far outpace their male counterparts. Therefore, since as has been verified, there are more liberal editors than non-liberal editors, as one of the pillars of the community is neutrality, and as more non-liberal editors will help create a more neutral wikipedia (see WP:STRAIGHT), I hereby would like to present an idea. Why doesn't WP:RIGHT work with WP:CSB and create a join project or a task force to reduce the partisan gap? This addresses a long standing and verified problem of the project, in an open and helpful manner which can only serve to improve the project as a whole. If new editors are taught how to edit civilly and within the policies and guidelines of our community it will increase our editing community and increase neutrality of articles.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:31, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to read this section: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias#Distinguishing_between_selection_bias_and_systemic_bias.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 00:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are so many mistaken or misguided assumptions underlying this proposal that it's hard to know where to start. For one thing, I think it's foolish to dichotomize all editors into "liberals" and "non-liberals". That sort of thinking reflects a fundamental conception of Wikipedia as an ideological battleground, and insofar as this WikiProject has had serious ongoing problems with promoting a battleground attitude, it is best avoided. Secondly, while it seems to be an article of faith among some members of this WikiProject that Wikipedia has a liberal bias, empirical support for this belief is sorely lacking. Simply asserting that such a bias exists (with a link to a Wikipedia article citing a bunch of partisans complaining about the site) doesn't exactly prove your case, but rather highlights its weakness. Finally, even if we assume that such a bias exists, the worst possible solution is to seek to inject additional highly partisan editors into the mix. That's a recipe for disaster, not neutrality. MastCell ^Talk 00:45, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"this WikiProject has had serious ongoing problems with promoting a battleground attitude" Really, on-going where? Care to to point where or were you just casting aspersions without any basis? This WikiProject is almost inactive. It also has been the target of several nominations for deletion, and amusingly, simply the fact this project exists seems to annoy you people. --Pudeo' 02:54, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ongoing right here, in RightCowLeftCoast's proposal and the assumptions that underlie it. And ongoing in your response, which refuses even to consider the concern voiced by many, many outside editors that this project, while arguably sound in theory, has in practice been a tool to coordinate politically partisan editing. "You people".... heh. MastCell ^Talk 17:25, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The reason there is a liberal bias in Wikipedia is that there is a liberal bias in reliable sources, since the "neutrality" policy requires "representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." (my emphasis) So non-liberal views (communism, Islamism, etc.) do not receive the same weight as liberal views. But if this is a problem, the solution is to change policy.

The problem I see with your suggestion however is what weight to assign different views, if not the current policy. Conservapedia and other wikis do that by adopting another bias. But how would we determine what weight to provide various non-liberal views?

TFD (talk) 14:03, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, the only bias "that could be acted on" would be bias on topic coverage (i.e. same argument that less women users -> less articles on women). But Wikipedia's coverage of conservative authors, biographies and subjects is already excellent in my opinion. While I also think that in theory more editors with the same views in some controversial topic will create bias, "administering a remedy" would not work or be wise because Wikipedia process is not a machine you can turn 0.2 degrees right to fix bias. --Pudeo' 19:49, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that is the same argument at all. The problem with few women is not just that that leads to fewer articles on women, but that it leads to a lack of coverage of female perspectives and what women tend to be interested in, and over-representation of male perspectives and what men tend to be interested in. So the problem is that female perspectives and interests are represented in the reliable sources - but do not make it into wikipedia. That discrepancy between the representation in the sources and in wikipedia is not the case for conservative interests and perspectives, which as you recognize are covered.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:12, 5 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There might be great coverage of conservative authors, biographies and subjects in so far as reliable sources, which as TFD would like us to believe are more liberal than non-liberal, write about them from a POV which may not have a positive view of those conservative authors, biographies and subjects. WP:NEU is not about advancing the non-neutral POV of reliable sources, but achieving NEU. If as verified by reliable source(s), and as documented here in Wikipedia, there are fewer non-liberal editors are there are liberal editors, than that is a bias IMHO which should be addressed. Now I and the wikiproject am being accused, thus showing non-adherence to good faith and also could be seen as having a battleground mentality, that our goal is to create biased content. This is definitely not the case, nor is it the intent of what my idea proposes.

My idea is that to work towards neutral content (as should all our goals be per WP:5P), it would be helpful to have a more politically diverse editing community. And by having a more politically diverse editing community, who are brought into the community being taught the pillars of the community from the get go, that better and more neutral content will be created.

Just as how there is an active effort to recruit female editors, in an attempt to correct a bias, than why should there not be an active effort to recruit a politically diverse (not only conservative) population, in order to correct a bias (even if perceived). This will only help Wikipedia shed the bias (even if only perceived) in the long run and improve the standing of the encyclopedia as a whole among those who believe it not unbiased.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 02:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So we would give equal weight and validity to intelligent design and evolution, climate change and skepticism. And conservatism is not the only non-liberal ideology, there are Islamism, Marxism, conspiracism among others. A lot of people you call liberal believe that the mainstream is right-wing and see the liberal view as middle ground. Anyway, changing weight requires re-writing reliable sources policy. TFD (talk) 06:36, 6 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's an observation I'd like to make here, speaking as someone who would definitely be considered "liberal" on this spectrum by most people. It is not simply a matter of "liberal" sources outweighing conservative ones on WP. After all, the reliable sources do seem to carry that bias, and it doesn't normally cause a problem. Facts are facts, and it is commonly (light-heartedly) suggested (perhaps not as often now as 5 or 10 years ago) that "reality has a liberal bias". Many of you have likely seen this infographic that made the rounds a few months back.

However, it would be wrong to conclude from this evidence that a source that appeals to right-wing sensibilities is inherently less trustworthy or to be cast into suspicion. And herein lies the problem: I have noticed a tendency for "conservative" sources to be explicitly labelled as such in main article text, while "liberal" sources are not thus labelled. This is, in my mind, a clear systemic bias: the "conservative" tag functions as a scarlet letter, appealing towards a presumed liberal audience, by reminding them that a generally dissenting (due to the oppositional nature of American politics), minority (by necessity of the weight of reliable sources) view in an article is attributed to "the enemy".

I'd also like to quickly note, as a Canadian, that this discussion tends to be overwhelmingly US-centric. I saw that WikiProject:Countering Systemic Bias was invited to this discussion (which is actually why I'm here - I'd originally planned to raise the issue with them directly), and certainly they ought to be concerned with that aspect of how politics are presented in Wikipedia, if nothing else. The terms "liberal" and "conservative" mean very different things in different parts of the world; for American editors to label sources as "conservative" therefore has the potential to mislead.

(For what it's worth, my impression of the US political system is that they are playing good cop/bad cop by allowing the media to pander to sometimes-very-far left ideologues while both major political parties generally skew right - and either way, it is really the upper classes who profit while the have-nots are distracted by infighting about "privilege" etc. Canada is not entirely immune to these effects, but at least the New Democratic Party is viable.) 70.24.6.180 (talk) 08:02, 16 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. As a member of WP Conservatism, I am adding the WP tag to the talkpage of 2015 University of Oklahoma Sigma Alpha Epsilon racism incident, as I believe it is relevant to our project, in terms of the constitution and freedom of speech. I have been asked by editors on the article talkpage to censor my comment here, so I am censoring this right here. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 23:27, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Recently I have tried to add some descending views to the Southern Strategy article. I feel like the editors who are watching the article are very quick to try to tear down articles which refute the general thrust of the article but very tolerant of poorly referenced claims or articles that support the racist GOP plan hypothesis. I can understand that the editors with a particular bias (we all have biases so that is not meant as an attack) would be more likely to tend articles of interest to them. That said, I would appreciate any help that can be offered as I'm sure I'm not as good at navigating the world of wikipedia when compared to the other editors. This article was previously cited as being of concern and the article talk page makes that history clear. [[1]] --Getoverpops (talk) 19:01, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]