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Smelling pistakes

In addition to bone-deep burn scars on my left hand I now also have C7 radiculopathy, so my typing is particularly erratic right now. I have a spellcheck plugin but it can't handle larger text blocks. You're welcome to fix spelling errors without pinging me, but please don't change British to American spelling or indeed vice-versa.

YGM, if you're awake

A barnstar for you!

	The Civility Barnstar
	For your excellent, calm rebuttal of the Hunter Biden conspiracy theory at Jimbo's talk page. It's much appreciated. Jr8825 • Talk 00:43, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Link insertion audit

Is there a way to run a check on whose been inserting certain links like the "COI" link to evaluate if it's worthy of reporting? It looks like the COI bot link is populated only after the links have been reported Graywalls (talk) 01:17, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

(talk page watcher) Graywalls, COIBot has a "poke" page where you can add a link to request that the link be generated, you'd need to ask Beetstra to add you to the trusted users group for that. There are also IRC channels where you can request the bot generate a report. GeneralNotability (talk) 01:19, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

2020-10 mainstreaming blood libel

Hello,

In Talk:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory#Talk page mention you wrote « it's unclear to me how, for example, something like the blood libel could be transformed by being mainstreamed by grifters into anything other than an antisemitic conspiracy theory. » FYI, according to Richard Landes, Nidra Poller and some other proponents of the Muhammad al-Durrah conspiracy theory, claiming that the israeli army kill children is blood libel. Visite fortuitement prolongée (talk) 10:59, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

NOTHERE?

Am I mistaken, or does this history show a sole focus on pushing BLP violating smears and content? -- Valjean (talk) 15:52, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

This latest one is clearly too far. I have deleted identical sections in two articles and warned two editors, but stronger warnings and measures are needed. Unreliable sources should not appear on talk pages as back-up for BLP vios or content suggestions. -- Valjean (talk) 15:57, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Small note

Hi JzG, I just wanted to let you know I removed two comments that were very much WP:NOTFORUM material from a discussion you closed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AHunter_Biden&type=revision&diff=985389328&oldid=985387677

I also don't think the accounts they came from, User:Krischik and User:Bjorklund21 make a lot of sense, especially the Krischik one. IHateAccounts (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Also this is... interesting... https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User:WisDom-UK&diff=prev&oldid=985331716 IHateAccounts (talk) 18:04, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

“When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings Krischik  21:05, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Krischik, Misplaced Pages is not an experiment in free speech. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion pages are not the same as the article pages. If Misplaced Pages starts to censor the discussion pages then the Misplaced Pages moderators have reached a totally new level of authoritarianism. The Misplaced Pages moderators have been autocrats for years which is the reason I stopped contributing or donating for that matter. I only came here after Misplaced Pages hit the news again for political bias. And to my dismay I saw that now even the discussion pages are full of “discussion closed”. And as I now know: Also deleting criticism of censorship. Krischik  21:28, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is not a soapbox, not an experiment in free speech, not a place to promote conspiracy theories. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:35, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

--Guy Macon (talk) 21:37, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, never truer than it is today. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Possibly Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons violation

Hi JzG,

https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk:Hunter_Biden&diff=prev&oldid=985443845 seems to be a violation of the policy especially since the accusation has been shown false by Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/ukraine-corruption-burisma-biden-trump-giuliani/2020/06/14/9ca28342-adb1-11ea-a43b-be9f6494a87d_story.html IHateAccounts (talk) 02:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@JzG: this seems to be a violation of Misplaced Pages:Biographies of living persons too: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=User_talk:Cpurick&diff=prev&oldid=985543697 IHateAccounts (talk) 22:48, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Gay Frogs United Will Never Be Defeated: Kiss A Gay Frog Today!!

What do you think of this edit (and several similar edits in the user's history)?

I personally don't like the use of "Controversies" when there really is no controversy -- when every source says the subject of the page is bad and zero sources say that it is good. But I am not sure about "public behavior"; it sort of implies something done in public as opposed to, say, on twitter.

The only replacements that I have come up with all involve the word "craptacular"... --Guy Macon (talk) 04:29, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, it’s hard to see the merit of a controversies section in an article on someone as unhinged as Jones. What has he done that isn’t controversial? Guy (help! - typo?) 07:16, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

still October harvest

... you archive fast. Please explain what the idea is behind redirecting talk pages to user pages? (I nominated articles by banned and blocked users for GA, DYK?) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:35, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, if a user is banned (rather than just blocked) we often redirect the talk page to the user page, so people directed to talk by semi-automated tools don't leave messages expecting a reply, and also to flag that they may want to look closer at the content they were there to talk about. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:54, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

What's wrong about leaving a message? (I face "no reply" quite often from users around.) Why make it hard to find information what kind of user that was for us others? - I see many talk pages of users retired or dead when reminding of Precious, and sometimes I clean up a bit. One of the best talk pages I know is by a banned user. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:03, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

ping --Gerda Arendt (talk) 23:23, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

look! - stunning photo by a banned user --Gerda Arendt (talk) 13:03, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Gerda Arendt, I really don't have strong feelings on this. I redirect talk pages if I see what seems to me to be good faith people commenting there who might not otherwise realise that they're not going to get a reply. If anyone wants to undo the redirect I'm not going to object. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:01, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, I had good contact to the user in question, so may be biased and won't interfere. - Beautiful Main page today, don't miss the pic by another banned user (of a 2013 play critical of refugee politics), nor a related video, interviews in German, but music and scene. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:06, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Roy McCoy

Hi JzG, I just thought I should let you know about https://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Killings_of_Aaron_Danielson_and_Michael_Reinoehl#Anti-fascist. He's ranting about David Ray Griffin on that page now. IHateAccounts (talk) 14:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think Roy is here to write an encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Talk%3AKillings_of_Aaron_Danielson_and_Michael_Reinoehl&type=revision&diff=985781162&oldid=985764218 IHateAccounts (talk) 22:49, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

A full list of all the nonsense and conspiracy theories pushed by Trump and believed by his sycophants.

George T. Conway III closes with: "I believe that if the president somehow does lose, he might 'have to leave the country.' I believe he probably should." -- Valjean (talk) 16:43, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Valjean, A full list? Ain't nobody got time for that. Guy (help! - typo?) 16:44, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

LMAO! Good point. -- Valjean (talk) 16:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Just in case I misrepresented you

You made a comment about B2C on 30 Sept/1st Oct (sorry not got exact diff) which led to an attempt to rewrite WP:NPA. I have only just noticed the drama and don't intend to follow it but hope that what I have said on the NPA talk page does not misrepresent you or Calton the other admin/editor. Apologies if what I think you and Calton said was my misreading. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:31, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, you can ignore this as stale, I didn't misrepresent you evidently - and it has already been called by Johnuniq here. So off to the shops. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 09:43, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

In ictu oculi, heh! Thanks for the note, though. Guy (help! - typo?) 10:13, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Hunter Biden

Guy, do better. I know this is a heated argument, but you're talking to a well-intentioned editor who just happens to disagree with you about content and sourcing, not someone who is trolling you, and you've got a a mop in your hands. :) —valereee (talk) 09:48, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, actually that is a statement based on Atsme's involvement in discussions at WP:RSN and elsewhere (see for example Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 303, and see if you can identify who the Fox RfC closers might have thought was "bludgeoning").

Atsme has referred several times to the "Russia hoax", terminology that belongs firmly in the conservative media bubble - use of this phrase is a massive red flag. She has repudiated the existence of the conservative media bubble despite academic sources showing it exists, and she has consistently argued the Sangerite line that we should adopt sourcing standards that draw false equivalence between the conservative and the mainstream, which is a common misunderstanding among conservatives (the opposite of conservative is liberal, the opposite of mainstream is fringe).

To assert, as Atsme did, that the Washington Examiner is "as and as bad as all the other biased media that publishes online clickbait" is to ignore that fact that "there is consensus that it should not be used to substantiate exceptional claims", and to further ignore the very obvious fact that where a WP:BLP is concerned we absolutely should not be drawing on "biased media that publishes online clickbait" at all. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:25, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

JzG, I'm not arguing with your assertion. I agree with it, WE is not a source we should be using for any contentious political article. I'm arguing with your language. Atsme is a well-intentioned editor with whom you are disagreeing, and with whom currently there are multiple other editors disagreeing, some of them in really non-civil ways, at the same article. You need to tell those editors to stop it. When you comment in a post where someone has been uncivil, and you basically are agreeing with that uncivil editor's argument, but you don't also include at least a note that their way of making that argument has strayed into incivility and even PA, you give that behavior an implicit approval. I know it's not what you intended. —valereee (talk) 11:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, didn't mean to ping you to your own talk. —valereee (talk) 11:56, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, Atsme and I are forthright with each other. But you're right: I should not be intemperate. I already refactored the comment anyway. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:06, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Media Bias Chart by Ad Fontes Media

Hey, I just noticed your discussion at your user page. I just recently finished a 10-week volunteer gig for them in which I trained on their rubric, then (along with a cohort of ~40) rated 30 articles a week. It was fascinating. I use their chart as a cheat sheet for sources I'm less familiar with, and while in some cases I disagree with them, in general I've found they usually come down pretty close to where we do. —valereee (talk) 10:35, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, yes, it's a good ready-reckoner IMO. I try to keep to sources in the top-centre. I have bought myself a subscription to the Financial Times at no small expense, because I think it's probably the most reliable right-leaning source in the UK. And I have put money into the IPO crowdfunder for Ad Fontes Media. I don't agree with them 100% (e.g. I think USA Today is distinctly tabloidish) but in general there should be solid consensus for reliability for any site that scores 45 or more for accuracy and the modulo of bias is less than 8. I also find Masem's arguments on pushing back on blow-by-blow reporting to be compelling. Guy (help! - typo?) 11:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I did the same thing with the Wall Street Journal! I also have a subscription to the NYT and WaPo, and most of my news reading is there, but I use the WSJ for a right-leaning reality check. If NYT and WaPo are reporting breathlessly and WSJ is like, yawn, I pay attention.

The rubric Ad Fontes uses is very interesting -- for instance, on the partisanship axis, +/- 6 they consider "neutral". +/-18 are the party platforms. +/- 30 is "most extreme elected officials," and outside of that they term "most extreme". But they also consider language, headlines, main photos, and if those are more extreme than the article itself, analysts push it further out along the spectrum. That's why Wonkette lands where she does -- the site's half-satire, so even though her reporting is more or less factual, her language pushes her rating way left. The reliability axis has a similar set of rubrics. —valereee (talk) 11:46, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, that's interesting. I don't think the methodology is published or peer-reviewed, is it? But it makes obvious good sense to downgrade sites that use clickbait images / captions. Thirst is a disincentive to reliability IMO. Guy (help! - typo?) 12:08, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

There's information about their methodology at https://www.adfontesmedia.com/how-ad-fontes-ranks-news-sources/ , and they do mention that their raw data is available for researchers, but as far as I know there's been no peer review. During the analyst training, Otero emphasized that her own bias almost certainly affected early versions of the chart, and that as the number of people working on the rubric increased, she believed her own bias was affecting it less and less but that it was impossible to account for or even reliably detect any overall right-or-left bias of the group. —valereee (talk) 12:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

There is a simple way of telling whether the chart is based upon reality or opinion (note that an opinion can be very close to reality). Look at Reason Magazine. Any accurate list will list Reason as extremely biased, but not right wing. They are libertarian. No right wing source advocates legalization of prostitution and heroin, zero restrictions on immigration, letting any adult marry any adult they choose including same sex marriages, and zero restriction on any medical procedure, including abortion. No left wing source advocates abolishing the income tax, closing down the department of education, zero restrictions on firearms including machine guns and rocket launchers, letting any adult marry any adult they choose including polygamists, and zero restriction on any medical procedure, including selling one of your kidneys. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:09, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, well, yes and no. The problem is that it's a 2D representation of a 3D landscape. Political Compass was the firsts ite I saw that split libertarian / authoritarian and economic left / right. In this case, a libertarian site will tend to align with fundamentalist free-marketism, opposition to social security and universal healthcare and other policies of the political right, so it would still probably appear right-leaning even if you factored out the difference. Ad Fontes puts Reason at +12 bias, way tot he left of Fox, OANN and the rest, which has truthiness for me. Maybe not for you. Guy (help! - typo?) 13:39, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

It's interesting. I have talked to many US conservatives who are absulutely convinced that libertarians are left-leaning. They see things like "firing everyone in the border patrol and the DEA" as unambiguously leftist. I really think Fontes is doing the equivalent of ranking all sports from small balls (marbles, ping pong, golf) to large balls (basketball, american football, real football) and applying it to wrestling, tic-tak-toe, and Minecraft.

Note that I don't agree with libertarianism (they really don't have a good answer to the problem of environmental pollution, for example), but I would like to see the US elect some greens and libertarians just so that we can be disappointed by someone new. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:14, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, libertarians are certainly left-leaning by comparison with the current GOP (though maybe not the Reagan-era GOP). They are also typically against the war on drugs, in favour of legal weed and such, so there is definitely crossover with some causes of the left, but core leftist values like social safety nets and sound regulatory regimes are anathema to most libertarians I think. I know no leftist who would see Atlas Shrugged as anything other than a dystopian horror story (though that's not to say such people may not exist somewhere). I think Ad Fontes is probably leaning to a more superficial question: does this article fall within the partisan left or the partisan right (as in: is it arguing leftist or rightist rhetoric as fact), and then taking an average - but I don't know. And of course without a peer-reviewed methodology we don't treat Ad Fontes as fact and don't include it as a source, but it gives a fair indication IMO, in that if something doesn't meet both minimum accuracy of 45 and minimum bias of 8, then it can't be taken as reliable without extra checking that we may not be qualified or permitted to do per WP:NOR (but see Misplaced Pages:Trust, but verify and my discussion with Masem and feel free to join the fun). Guy (help! - typo?) 16:18, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I have often heard libertarians described as "racists who like weed" and I think it's a fair assessment. The philosophical underpinnings of libertarianism are horrific, and racist thought leaders like Murray Rothbard who tried to rebrand Jim Crow as "freedom of association" (with school integration and desegregated buses being called "forced association") and portray lunch counter sit-ins as "aggression" under the "non-aggression principle" don't help their case. IHateAccounts (talk) 18:35, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I too donate to Ad Fontes Media, and I'd like to see their chart recommended as one more tool when evaluating sources. They are spot on with Fox, which shows that our failure to more firmly deprecate them demonstrates a notable failure of the RfC consensus process to achieve proper results. -- Valjean (talk) 02:27, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

The chart is like Misplaced Pages; usually right but not a reliable source. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:39, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course. It's just a good tool, and the best chart I know of. Right now some script highlights all references in articles by reliability, opinion, bias, etc., and unfortunately it points to the wrong media bias chart. I wish that could be changed. -- Valjean (talk) 06:20, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, nicely put Guy (help! - typo?) 08:49, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

That's pretty good. :) —valereee (talk) 10:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Mistaken revert

Hi, it looks like you wrongly reverted an edit I just made. The article formerly titled Rod (optics) was recently moved to Rod (ufology) and the redirect was pointed to Rod cell instead. This left a lot of broken links that used to point to the former article, now pointing to the latter. Using the "what links here" page for the redirect I have been fixing links so they point to the correct article (usually the ufology one). Please undo your revert. Thanks, 156.146.63.52 (talk) 23:49, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I subsequently fixed this - the issue was that the move discussion didn't support ufology, but optical phenomenon. Guy (help! - typo?) 08:48, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

How convenient for Trump

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/tucker-carlson-lost-only-copy-of-documents-nailing-biden.html Valjean (talk) 05:28, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

What an amazing coincidence! Looks like losing evidence is everywhere these days! --Guy Macon (talk) 05:51, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Valjean, this the same Tucker Carlson whose defense in law is that nobody takes him seriously? Guy (help! - typo?) 08:47, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

If we didn't have Tucker, we would have to break in a new Bad Example... :) --Guy Macon (talk) 15:13, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Wow, Guy and Guy meet. Emir of Misplaced Pages (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I had evidence that we are not the "Two Wild and Crazy Guys" in this video. However, I sent them from Cardiff to London without making a copy and the evidence was lost in the mail. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 19:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Talk:Julian Assange 1RR notice on its talk page

Hey JzG. Over at WP:AE, people are saying that you are the admin who placed the 1RR on Talk:Julian Assange. It appears you may have given up your admin role to participate on the article. If that is the case, are you willing to post a comment in the AE that you are releasing the article to the jurisdiction of other admins, sanction-wise? (Can I think of any worse way of wording that?) They want to know if the admins who close that case are able to modify the 1RR, and change it into a different kind of 1RR. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 18:13, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

• Wikipedians with red-linked categories on their user talk page