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Current disputes

Call-out culture

Have you discussed this on a talk page?

Yes, I have discussed this issue on a talk page already.

Location of dispute

• Call-out culture (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

Users involved

• Sridc (talk · contribs)
• Bacondrum (talk · contribs)
• Aquillion (talk · contribs)

Dispute overview

The two users mentioned are intent on maintaining the status quo which a) has inaccurate description in the lead paragraph (re: accountability), and b) is not actually mentioned in the reference it uses (The Next Web). One of them also reinstated the two feminist sources which has already been established to be irrelevant to the article (not to mention highly biased, and not neutral at all).

My edit, replaces the first two paragraphs with a more accurate description of 'cancel culture' cited by two best sources I could find. They are patently better than what the article had before.

How have you tried to resolve this dispute before coming here?

- Talk:Call-out_culture#Opening_paragraph

- Talk:Call-out_culture#The_two_feminist_sources

- Talk:Call-out_culture#undue — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sridc (talk • contribs) 04:05, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

How do you think we can help resolve the dispute?

Neutral parties, who can make an unbiased judgement.

Summary of dispute by Bacondrum

Sorry about that, I posted it before the guidelines were posted below. Bacondrum (talk) 09:55, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Summary of dispute by Aquillion

I think that the fact that the filer describes the two highly-relevant sources they tried to remove as "feminist" (technically, in the sense that they were published in peer-reviewed journals on feminism) says everything that needs to be said. Those sources are clearly relevant - they discuss call-out culture directly from the perspective of experts in the field where the term is most frequently used - and it's reasonably clear that they were removed because the editor disliked the fact that they were published in a peer-reviewed journal. (EDIT: On closer inspection, this may have been a mix-up caused by the sources in question getting moved to the wrong part of the lead at some point in the past; they were accidentally placed with the "cancel culture" subparagraph when they discuss "call-out culture", which led to them getting removed for not referencing cancel culture.) --Aquillion (talk) 00:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

Call-out culture discussion

• Volunteer Note - There has been discussion at the article talk page. There is also discussion at WP:ANI. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:12, 9 November 2019 (UTC)
• Volunteer Question - Are the parties willing to discuss content and not contributors, and to be civil and concise? If the parties agree that this is a content dispute, I will try to mediate, and to facilitate compromise. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:12, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: - I'm willing to discuss content and not contributors, and to be civil and concise. I'd greatly appreciate a mediator, thanks. (I'm new to this process). Presently, there is a dispute over adding content from Cancel culture (before the merge) back to this article; see Talk:Call-out_culture#Popular_culture. - Sridc (talk) 02:19, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

First Statement by Volunteer Moderator

I will try to moderate this dispute. I do not start out with any particular knowledge of the subject, although I am aware what the Call-out culture is said to be. However, Misplaced Pages must present a neutral view of what reliable sources say. It is up to the parties to present those sources and their reasoning. Read the ground rules. Comment on content, not contributors. Be civil and concise. Any comments about specific editors, or conduct allegations, may be collapsed, and the editor may be cautioned. Civility is required in Misplaced Pages, and especially in dispute resolution, where it is in short supply. Each editor should state, in no more than two paragraphs, how they think the article should be improved and why, or what they think should be kept as it is, and why. Do not reply to statements by other editors. If you must engage in back-and-forth argument, do it in the section provided, and we can ignore it.

If there are multiple violations of the rules, the moderation will be failed, and will go back to WP:ANI, which will probably result in a decision as to who was more disruptive, and in sanctions. So don't have the moderation fail. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:25, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

First Statements by Editors

Bacondrum

The subject is a neologism, a very recent one. The sources used in the past were predominantly primary sources as a result. Myself and others worked to remove undue, biased and primary sources. A lot of the undue material relates to fancruft and tendentious editing, Misplaced Pages articles should not be an indiscriminate list of what people have said and who has used this neologism. Lukianoff and Haidt's book The Coddling of the American Mind, for example is given undue weight, it is a highly partisan book, an expansion of an article that was pushing a very clear ideological line - it should be used sparingly if at all. We should be aiming for content and references that use non-biased, cautious language not anti-feminist, anti-progressive or pro-feminist or pro-progressive language, this applies to the tone also. I'd gladly see the article expanded in a matter of fact way - using quality secondary sources, preferably academic and a neutral tone. My problem is the recent nature of the subject, there's a tendency towards cruft, recentivism and battleground editing - I think strong, neutral sources are a must and definitely not opinions pieces of which there are thousands that cover this subject, with wildly divergent views and they are often hyperbolic views ie: David Brooks comparing it to Stalinist purges and Maoist re-education camps (Haidt makes comparisons to Stalinism also, which is no better than Hitler hyperbole - This article was literally comparing a neologism to the most extreme horrors of Stalinism and Maoism at one stage, I kid you not). Bacondrum (talk) 07:26, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Sridc

This article used to have substantially informative content (see the two older revisions) but over the recent months has gotten bulk of its content deleted en masse. I read Talk:Call-out_culture/Archive_1 to try to understand the rationale behind those deletes.

One objection was the use of op-eds; I'm new to Misplaced Pages so correct me if I'm wrong, but here we don't blindly reject all op-eds. Call-out culture being a social phenomenon (a recent one at that) is going to have several op-eds from major publishers (often reliable sources) discussing it. I think instead of removing them all we should summarize their views in NPOV.

There were other reasons, such as undue & cruft (they come up very often). These rationales don't make any sense to me. My recent inclusion of the social psychologist, Jonathan Haidt, as a reference was reverted several times for such a reason; after involving a neutral third-party, however, we arrived at the consensus to keep; it got reverted once again even after establishing the said consensus (which involved further dispute before reinstating it back). Another example is the removal of the 'In popular culture' section. I added it back yesterday, wherein it was reverted promptly citing prior consensus (not true) and "text book fan cruft and completely undue"; once again, with the help of a neutral third-party (who referred to MOS:CULTURALREFS) we arrived at the consensus to include it back.

So, to summarize:

• A lot of valuable information from older revisions got deleted to the point the article looks to be a stub.
• Even new information about the article (such as the highly-relevant inclusion of Jonathan Haidt) faced inordinate resistance.
• When mediators, or neutral third-parties, arrive to assist in resolving content disputes, the result has so far been a consensus to include.

The last point, in particular, is why I mostly would appreciate having the said mediators/ neutral third-parties in assisting, with me, to improve the article.

Thank you, and I look forward to your help @Robert McClenon:!

- Sridc (talk) 14:10, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Back-and-Forth Discussion

Second statement by moderator

The article is currently locked due to edit-warring that happened immediately before mediation began. I will remind the participants that WP:DRN Rule A states that no one may edit the article while moderated discussion is in effect. This rule will continue to apply to the participants after the lock expires.

Will each of the participants specifically explain what changes they either wanted to make to the article that were reverted, or what changes they reverted from the article, and why? The objective of this discussion is to see whether we can arrive at a compromise for any portions that were to be added or subtracted. Also, as explained below, it may be better to describe opinions as opinions rather than just deleting them.

Since there are widely differing opinions on the call-out culture, presenting those opinions as opinions is a better idea than simply removing them. Non-neutral sources such as op-eds may be reliable statements of what the viewpoints are.

Please provide your statements of what you either added or removed, and why, within 48 hours.

Second statements by editors

Sridc

Robert asked me to explain what changes I "wanted to make to the article that were reverted". The bulk of my changes involved using Jonathan Haidt as a reference in the article. Those changes had gotten reverted multiple times, sometimes even after establishing consensus. After various back and forth, I managed to position them in the article description to the satisfaction of other editors. The other changes on the other hand involved a lack of consensus due to editors unilaterally deciding to revert them; they include:

- Revert of 'In popular culture', however a consensus has since been established in here, so I expect Bacondrum will be self-reverting it as soon as the article comes out edit-protection.

- Revert on the lede, however note that we are discussing a potentially better source for the lede here & here, as David Cunningham's source is a reliable secondary source, and it covers the two groups of viewpoints on this topic (while giving due weight in each group).

- Revert of Obama's statement - I think Obama's public statement on call-out culture is quite notable, and should be mentioned.

- Revert of Quillette's POV - Same as above; Quillette is a notable online magazine, with a Misplaced Pages entry. I don't see why it cannot be included, if they have made an article on 'cancel culture'.

I must particularly emphasize here that the bulk of the dispute on this article is not about the above reverts specifically (they are minor in comparison), but the dispute is currently to do with the majority of content that got deleted from older revision (this is an example of what the article looked like). Judging from the clear lack of consensus around the deletion of the majority of these content (compare this to this), as evidenced from the discussion in the Talk page archive (here & here), I believe we need to bring these back (but without their downsides, like being a WP:QUOTEFARM). To that end, over the past two days I painstakingly collected various reliable sources covering the wide range of viewpoints on this topic. You can find them in the following Talk page sections:

- Talk:Call-out_culture#New_reliable_source:_David_Cunningham

- Talk:Call-out_culture#New_reliable_source:_Dianna_Anderson

- Talk:Call-out_culture#Adrienne_Matei

- Talk:Call-out_culture#New_reliable_source:_Meghan_Daum

- Talk:Call-out_culture#Comedians_&_cancel_culture

- Talk:Call-out_culture#Effects_of_call-out_culture - This is a list of various academics and experts talking about how the general population (typically the student body) responds to call-out culture.

- Talk:Call-out_culture#Anita_Bright_(calling-in)

- Talk:Call-out_culture#Anna_Richards

As you may notice, Bacondrum has been the only editor so far to provide comments on these sources. I believe we need a diverse pool of editors on this article, especially the neutral editors. My plan is to use these sources to expand upon the article greatly, which should have the effect of bringing back the bulk of encyclopedic content that had gotten lost in the mass deletion (compare this to this) that happened early this year, but while ensuring that the article sticks to Misplaced Pages policy & guidelines.

I'm curious to know, especially being a new Wikipedian, how exactly you are planning to help mediate this upcoming improvement, @Robert McClenon:?

—Srid 22:59, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Bacondrum

Mostly it was Haidt's book The Coddling of the American Mind, I objected to its use due to the strident bias in the book. I simply want to make sure the article is neutral. I'm willing to compromise, but it felt to me like a particular view was being pushed. The serious edit warring didn't help, there was no real attempt at compromise. You'll see on the talk page we had been discussing possible changes in good faith and we've even found some better sources that we agree on - I thought we were really working towards something, slowly. Unfortunately Another ANI report has been made that genuinely looks like nothing more than an attempt to shut me out of the debate, so I don't know where we go from here. Bacondrum (talk) 02:48, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

The titles of the sources that were put forward is very telling:

• The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure - Greg Lukianoff and Jonathon Haidt
• The Destructiveness of Call-Out Culture on Campus - Conor Friedersdorf (who?)
• Problematic: How Toxic Callout Culture Is Destroying Feminism - Dianna Anderson (who?)
• Academe’s Poisonous Call-Out Culture - Suzanna Danuta Walters (who?)
• Why I’ve Started to Fear My Fellow Social Justice Activists - Frances Lee (who?)

There's heaps more and most are primary sources, opinion from all comers, fashion editors, unpublished/unknown academics, sports writers, partisan media pundits etc - most with a clear and strong bias. Almost every source provided recently has been written by people who are clearly detractors. All of these sources take stridently biased stances (this is a hyper contentious and partisan subject) - not saying they can't be used, but we should use them cautiously and sparingly. We should be using better sources overall secondary and academic such as the ones below. There are some excellent sources that were put forward that are clearly more neutral in tone and the authors are far more qualified:

• Hearing Vocation Differently: Meaning, Purpose, and Identity in the Multi-Faith Academy - sociology professor David Cunningham.
• The Unwanted Labour of Social Media: Women of Colour Call Out Culture As Venture Community Management - Race and Digital Communications Professor Lisa Nakamura
• Feminism: A Fourth Wave? - Sociologist Dr Ealasaid Munro

I just want a fair, objective and neutral article that is intelligible, when I first read this page it was none of these things. Bacondrum (talk) 06:33, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

One more thing: Re Srids claim that "Quillette is a notable online magazine, with a Misplaced Pages entry. I don't see why it cannot be included" Quillette has been rightfully depreciated Bacondrum (talk) 06:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Comment by Moderator

I have been asked how I am planning to try to help mediate the improvement of the article. My view is that the article should be expanded by the inclusion of neutrally written descriptions of views of the call-out culture. The list above is a start for possible added sections. For each candidate section, we (the parties with my assistance) will try to wordsmith a neutral version. If agreement cannot be reached on how to wordsmith a neutral version, then the two proposed versions will be alternatives, and a Request for Comments will be used in which the community will reach a rough consensus. There may be multiple candidate sections, so that the RFC may have to be choose between 1A and 1B, choose between 2A and 2B, and so on. I don't know exactly how much time will be necessary before a possibly multi-part RFC is published. I would of course like to have agreement on neutral versions, so that we can avoid the RFC, but I would rather have an RFC than just leave out the disputed sections (which leaves the article more or less where it is now). That is a rough statement of what my mediation plan is. If someone else has any other ideas, I will be glad to consider them, but that is my plan for now.

Also, if anyone has a suggestion for a way to involve more editors by neutrally inviting more editors via a WikiProject, that may help.

Those are my thoughts for now. I am waiting for input from User:Bacondrum and User:Aquillion. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Sounds great to me. Unfortunately Another ANI has been opened. I'm really keen to do this through moderation. I've not instigated any of these ANI reports and I'm willing to work on mediation 100% Bacondrum (talk) 02:38, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

• I definitely think an RFC is the way to go in the long run; I find it difficult to see the users involved coming completely eye-to-eye at this point, and in a situation like that I think the best way to proceed is to use an RFC to get outside opinions and at least settle the core issues, rather than grinding our gears endlessly over intractable disagreements. --Aquillion (talk) 06:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. Bacondrum (talk) 11:47, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Comment by Srid (re: more editors)

In regards to "a way to involve more editors" may I suggest inviting the top contributors of the article when it used to have substantial content? I will in fact go ahead and ping some, if you do not mind: @DeRossitt:, @FOARP:, @OnBeyondZebrax:, @Psantora:. (If you are a pinged reader reading this, please see my secondary statement above for the editing plan, thanks!)

I do mind, that is canvassing. Make an open request for comment, don't just ping in editors you think will take your side! This makes it very hard to assume good faith. Bacondrum (talk) 02:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

This is not canvassing. These are editors from the Talk page archive who are currently not active participants. —Srid 02:59, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

It's canvasing. The proper forum, especially in the context of moderating a content dispute would be to open an RFC. Bacondrum (talk) 05:59, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm fine with both–either the formerly active users mentioned, or neutral parties from an RFC. —Srid 13:34, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but both are not okay: canvassing is not permitted. Robert McClenon Bacondrum (talk) 23:00, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Status Comment by Moderator

This noticeboard does not handle a case that is also pending in any other forum. Because a thread has been opened at WP:ANI, this case is placed on hold until the WP:ANI dispute is resolved. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:00, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

I will be updating the ground rules to instruct the participants in a case that filing a report at WP:ANI (or any other conduct forum such as Arbitration Enforcement) will cause the case to be failed. Since there was not such a statement in the rules when the report was filed, this case is on hold rather than failed. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:00, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon:So reading the above, there's been canvassing of sympathetic editors and an editor (myself) is being discussed rather than content: "I expect Bacondrum will be self-reverting" and "Bacondrum has been the only editor so far to provide comments on these sources." Canvassing is surely not on, and I thought we were supposed to focus on content only? Bacondrum (talk) 22:56, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

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