Talk:Slate Star Codex

Article

Calvinballing, the old article is in the WayBack Machine: [1]. Benjamin (talk) 06:55, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Resubmission

I don't disagree with theroadislong that many of the references included are passing mentions. However, I think that highlighting that many of the references are passing mentions fails to account for and address the strongest references.  Several are explicitly about Slate Star Codex or responding to Slate Star Codex posts, including:

-"The Scourge of Cost Disease" from the Weekly Standard -"Why the 'Depression Gene' Fiasco Is Bad News for Science" from Mother Jones -the newly added reference: "Notable & Quotable: Academic Groupthink" from the WSJ -"Red tape at the FDA doesn’t explain America’s high drug prices" from Vox

Additionally, the article Why Trump? Why Now? refers to one of the articles as "one of the best things I’ve ever read on the Web, period, and which I’ll quote at length", which hardly seems dismissable as a passing mention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calvinballing (talk • contribs) 22:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Three Best Sources

1292simon rightly points out that many of the references in this article are passing mentions, and asks for the three best sources. I suggest the following three:

1) https://www.vox.com/2016/8/31/12729482/fda-epipen-pharma-regulations This VOX piece is a direct response to an essay that Scott Alexander published at Slate Star Codex

2) https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-scourge-of-cost-disease This Washington Examiner article begins "I frequently point you to the writings of Scott Alexander", and continues to quote Alexander at length throughout the article.

3) https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/05/why-the-depression-gene-fiasco-is-bad-news-for-science/ This Mother Jones article, after introducing the topic and main points, cites, "This all comes via Scott Alexander, a psychiatrist who writes at Slate Star Codex."

Calvinballing (talk) 21:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Calvinballing, Thank you for providing the sources. Sam-2727 (talk) 22:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I was coming here to say, the passing mentions need stripping out - they're just WP:REFBOMBing - David Gerard (talk) 19:56, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

OK - I stripped all the passing mentions, and the many self-sources about things that just haven't been noted. The Washington Examiner piece - as well as being in a yellow-rated source that should be attributed if used at all - was a frankly frothing opinion piece; the NR piece is of similar political leanings, but is a much more sober news article, and fully covers the WE claims. I left the two academic cites, though I haven't checked to see if they're substantive or just passing mentions too - David Gerard (talk) 20:08, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

There are around 100 hits on Google Scholar; some of them may be useful for augmenting the "Reception" section. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:22, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, it's no surprise that the NYT journalist involved is Cade Metz. Now-banned Cla68 used to use him as a channel to factwash his speculative attacks on people here. Guy (help!) 09:04, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Metz wrote a SSC article because he's a fan - he wrote a puff piece! However, there is zero chance you're going to have the NYT profile the founder of a subculture that's newsworthy for being highly influential across the highest echelons of the tech world and increasingly so in politics, and not use the guy's name - that he spread across the internet himself for many years. While it's correct not to use it here until it's RS material, I'd expect it to be soon if SSC fans keep trying to get coverage for this the way they have in the past day - David Gerard (talk) 09:14, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

The SSC article is unpublished, so your assertion that the article would be a puff piece seems entirely speculative, unless you have pre-publishing access to the article in question. Even then, it is an subjective assessment, not objective fact. I'm also doubtful to what extent SSC is highly influential in politics, with AFAIK merely one adviser to one politician being a fan of his writing. I do agree that going from 0 to 1 person in politics is 'increasingly so,' but I'm doubtful whether that makes SSC more than slightly influential in politics. Aapjes (talk) 12:27, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

• Note that Washington Examiner and Mother Jones are the very opposite of good sources. Guy (help!) 09:02, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Specifically, I'm pretty sure we can't rely on yellow-rated sources (WE) as evidence of notability. MJ, however, is a green-rated source on WP:RSP - David Gerard (talk) 09:15, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Removed WE yet again - absolutely unsuitable for a BLP-sensitive topic in particular. Removed UnHerd - this is just a blog post - David Gerard (talk) 09:59, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Last name

The administrators' reverting (and deleting of revision history) of edits including Scott Alexander's last name is not clearly justified.

WP:DOX does not justify the removal of the edit since it addresses conduct between editors while Scott in this case is not an editor but the subject of an article.

WP:BLP may be relevant but clarification is needed on exactly how it applies. It appears WP:BLPNAME is the most relevant section here. It advises that "when the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context".

It is true that Scott does not use his last name on his blog. However, he has used his full name when republishing one of his blog articles as a chapter in a book published by a reputable scholarly imprint (see the book cited in my reverted edit, p. 235 or ch. 14.3). This use of his last name in a published book does not appear consistent with the "intentional concealment of name" and lack of "wide dissemination" that the policy refers to.

Furthermore, Scott's long-term active writing on the blog clearly qualifies him as a high profile individual, and as the author of the blog he is obviously heavily involved with it. This is the opposite of the " loosely involved, otherwise low-profile persons" to which the policy is supposed to apply most strongly.

In light of the above, Scott's full name should be mentioned at the start of the article in accordance with MOS:LEGALNAME. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.32.37.217 (talk) 09:37, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

"WP:DOX does not justify the removal of the edit since it addresses conduct between editors while Scott in this case is not an editor but the subject of an article. "

Yes it does. According to WP:DOX, "This applies to the personal information of both editors and non-editors. ". Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

The book is pretty telling, yes. OTOH, WP:BLP tends to erring on the side of caution. I think that unless and until the NYT piece appears, this blog is of marginal citable notability in any case (and I wouldn't have put this article live myself) - so I think there's no harm in holding off a while - David Gerard (talk) 09:51, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

That said, the book cite should definitely be present in the article as a published work - David Gerard (talk) 09:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

what's the book citation? the edit history got purged... BrokenSegue 14:06, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the book should count as wide dissemination; it's very clear that in the majority of cases where something is attributed to him, his name has been concealed. "Wide dissemination" here means "in the portions of his public presence that reach the most people". The book is not the portion of his public presence that reaches the most people. He fears that his name will be found by his patients and by harassers, and patients and harassers are not going to track down this book, but they are going to Google "Scott Alexander" and find a Wikipedia article. And that's the point, so it counts as being "intentionally concealed".

The rules about revealing names are not supposed to allow you to signal-boost the name from "concealed most of the time" to "the first thing that shows up in a Google search". The fact that "concealed most of the time" is not "concealed literally all of the time" shouldn't change this.

I'd also add that "published by a reputable scholarly imprint" weighs against counting the book as wide dissemination of his name. Being published by a reputable imprint is good if we're discussing whether the book counts as a reliable source, but whether something counts as wide dissemination depends on reach, not quality. A book published by a scholarly imprint has less reach than one published by a popular imprint (even if it has more quality), and vastly less reach than a web source. Ken Arromdee (talk) 15:00, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Also has a pile of medical research publications. Not enough to hit notability, but he's referred to them in SSC previously. - David Gerard (talk) 23:07, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Relevant to decision of whether to publish his full name (assuming this article remains live), I'm sympathetic to the arguments offered by Robby Soave in Reason:

"If Alexander did something that was notable or significant—other than just being a guy with a good blog—a reporter would have to consider naming him. But, by all accounts, the Times story was a puff piece about how great Slate Star Codex was. If that's true, it seems fairly inadvisable to move forward with it despite the subject's vehement objection. [...] Alexander [is] truly anonymous: Amateur internet sleuths can uncover [his] identities fairly quickly. Alexander concedes this point but thinks there's a difference between being relatively (though not completely) anonymous and being named in a New York Times piece."

There is likewise a difference between being cited as an author in a book, and having your full name show up in a Wikipedia article. I have to err on the side of non-disclosure here, given the legitimacy of his concerns about the importance of anonymity to his professional practice. TheBlueCanoe 23:19, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

In terms of whether or not the book (or medical articles for that matter) qualify as noteworthy, I would also note that this article is *not* an article about Scott Alexander, it's an article about Slate Star Codex.The two are obviously heavily inter-related, and relevance to one is obviously at least somewhat relevant to the other, but it is still a relevant distinction.g.j.g (talk) 16:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The article in the scholarly anthology is a reprint of a Slate Star Codex post---the fact that a blog entry has also been published in this context is clearly relevant to the blog. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.32.37.217 (talk) 16:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I concur - it's very much academic notability for the blog, and should be in the academic section of the article - David Gerard (talk) 17:06, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I've added the post, though not the full reference yet - but frankly, it's an academic usage in a book published by Springer, and there's no real excuse for excluding a proper reference to it from the article - David Gerard (talk) 23:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

And now someone's added the cite ... but bowdlerised the name, that is literally right there in the academic RS in question! This is getting silly, and I'm coming to think it stretches reasonable definitions of "private" given it's actually public - David Gerard (talk) 16:44, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Honestly only dropped part of the name out of fear of being hunted down by his fans. BrokenSegue 17:33, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

@BrokenSegue: You may want to review the guidelines about Wikipedia talk pages - they are for coordinating work on the article, not for ranting about its subject. Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:42, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

@HaeB: I ranted about its subject? I was explaining why I omitted some information from an edit I made. That seems relevant to "coordinating work on the article" to me. BrokenSegue 18:53, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, it sounded like you were talking about Scott Alexander's reasons for dropping his surname. Thanks for clarifying! Regards, HaeB (talk) 18:57, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to add my support to Ken Arromdee's point. The fact that it is possible with intentional research to associate Scott Alexander's full name with Slate Star Codex, does not preclude Scott trying to conceal his full name from casual searchers. It's abundantly clear that he is--why else would he have taken down the site and written the post which currently appears there? 96.233.39.220 (talk) 04:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Given WP:BLPPRIVACY and WP:BLPNAME, it seems clear that including Scott Alexander's surname is both against Wikipedia policy and not the right thing to do, given that he has requested it to not be published generally in association with Slate Star Codex and that "When the name of a private individual has not been widely disseminated or has been intentionally concealed, such as in certain court cases or occupations, it is often preferable to omit it, especially when doing so does not result in a significant loss of context." In this case it has been both intentionally concealed and not widely disseminated, and it does not result in a loss of context. Gbear605 (talk) 22:30, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I think that's quite an overstatement of Wikipedia policy and a misstatement of factual reality. His name has literally never been a secret, and this is evidence he's used it professionally. Even stating it's been "intentionally concealed" is highly disputable - David Gerard (talk) 05:28, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Saying "he didn't conceal it" or "never been a secret" is pretty facile. He has expanded great effort to conceal his name. And finding it requires dedicated effort. And please do not do new doxxing by starting to list the methods his name can be found. In common parlance, his name is a secret, even if not as hidden as atomic bomb formulas (which can also be found if the effort is invested!) In common parlance, he did conceal his name. Even if he "did not do a good enough job in keeping it secret" to paraphrase his own words. Jazi Zilber (talk) 11:24, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

None of your factual claims here are in fact true at all, as has been noted above at length. You're just blankly repeating the subject's questionable claims about himself - David Gerard (talk) 12:17, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

This is getting repetitive. I might as well say that "you are repeating your own misleading statements"

I am familiar enough with the case not have my own knowledge. Accusing me of repeating someone else is slightly impolite, I might say Jazi Zilber (talk) 16:59, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

And yet, your claims are still factually incorrect and repetitions of the subject's questionable claims about himself - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Notability

I think the real problem with this article and its subject is: it shouldn't really have been pushed live. The cites in there are thin gruel indeed for notability, and not substantially better than the version that was deleted at AFD.

If it gets the NYT piece, sure ... maybe ... assuming that single piece, plus a pile of chaff, reaches the bar. But it's not clear if that's a happener. This looks like a WP:TOOSOON, and I suggest we should consider shoving it back to draft until notability is actually clear - David Gerard (talk) 23:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

There is now lots of significant coverage in reliable sources, so the only possible reason to discount those sources would be WP:BLP1E and/or WP:NOTNEWS. But the subject is not low-profile (under his pseudonym, at least) by any means. The slew of articles would not have been written if he were just some random nobody. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 23:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I feel Scott Alexander is notable enough to have his own Wikipedia article. I feel the mention in Reason alone establishes notability (and, yes: I didn’t see a compelling argument why Reason wouldn’t establish notability brought up when this was last discussed); I feel the mention in National Review also, in and of itself established notability. I don’t think a source being in a yellow box in WP:RSP means the source can’t be used to establish notability (If I am wrong on this matter, please point me to WP:AfD discussion where a “yellow” source did not establish notability). In addition, there is a 121-word, i.e. non-trivial mention in the American Press Institute. Furthermore, I feel the article in Mother Jones may not in and of itself establish notability, but considering it is a 1,056 word article which has about 600 words based directly on information from a Slate Star Codex blog posting, it definitely cements notability. With those articles, I would vote “keep” in an AfD discussion without hesitation. SkylabField (talk) 00:27, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. The quality and quantity of citations across mainstream media and academia is staggering, making him meet WP:AUTHOR #1 ("widely cited by peers") IMO even before this whole thing blew up. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:45, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep. In terms of the “Is a National Review article enough for something to survive WP:AfD” question, I would say yes based on previous AfDs: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Menace_in_Europe:_Why_the_Continent's_Crisis_Is_America's,_Too (the “Delete” votes completely ignored the National Review article); Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/America-Lite:_How_Imperial_Academia_Dismantled_Our_Culture_(and_Ushered_in_the_Obamacrats) (“It appears the reviews in the National Review and Commentary Magazine are completely legit and in and of themselves are enough to establish notability”); Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Magdalen_Berns (A good discussion about whether National Review, in an of itself, establishes notability, saying biased sources can establish notability. The delete arguments pointed out Ms. Berns was published in the “Corner” [i.e. blog] section of National Review. Slate Star Codex, however, was published in the “News” section of National Review.) Some other National Review related AfD discussions: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jim_geraghty Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Jennifer_Morse Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Gatestone_Institute. I’m not a big fan of a lot of their content, but they do establish notability. SkylabField (talk) 07:53, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Notice that the first two AfDs are about books, and that the references are book reviews. Reviewing a piece is a somewhat different case from using a source as a reference or for quotations. The main issue with a lot of the current sources is that they don't actually cover the site, but rather use some details of what the site said. This may change as additional reporting comes out over the current event. Jlevi (talk) 19:19, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

yes - this article has the sort of references you see when fans of a site are scrabbling for scraps of notability in passing mentions. There are no articles on the site as a site, for example. Perhaps the NYT will publish one soon ... - David Gerard (talk) 12:54, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like the blog author himself wasn't interested in an article (at least 3 years ago): [2]. Kind of funny that fans are trying to get the article made now, at the same time as the doxing thing. Jlevi (talk) 14:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The fans are already doxing the NYT article author, which I submit is not a way to get the press on your side. I expect they'll turn this into a news story in the mainstream press soon enough - David Gerard (talk) 14:39, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Nobody's "doxing" the NYT editor. The NYT editor uses his real name as the chief method of naming himself to the public. Revealing his real name under these circumstances can't be doxing. Ken Arromdee (talk) 14:52, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

No, SSC fans posted a pile of the reporter's personal details - David Gerard (talk) 23:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

The National Review article seems to be about the single event, so it shouldn't count, because of WP:BLP1E. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:09, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The National Review article about Slate Star Codex does not feel that Slate Star Codex is only notable for this single event, e.g. “Slate Star Codex is a popular blog in the “rationalist” subculture with an active community of readers. It began in 2013 and became famous for technical deep-dives into a wide range of subjects, including philosophy, medicine, psychology, politics, and social science”, so WP:BLP1E does not apply here. SkylabField (talk) 00:25, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Section header name

The trouble with naming this section is that nothing has happened yet. The story doesn't exist. All claims about what did happen - and the framing as "doxing" - are coming entirely from Scott Alexander. Even the internal NYT newsroom story from Slate is about SSC fans inside the NYT taking Scott's claims at face value, arguing with journalists about journalistic practice.

So it's not an "NYT incident", it's a Scott incident. "Potential surname outing" has the problem that it literally wouldn't be an outing, that's uncritically repeating a factually incorrect claim by the subject. I suggested "Potential wide surname publication", but it's long and nonspecific.

Is there a snappy section title that correctly characterises what's going on here? - David Gerard (talk) 10:57, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe "Alleged New York Times incident"? (Dropping "The" is OK in attributive form, just like how we talk about Beatles songs and not The Beatles songs.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:32, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

it's not really an incident since nothing has happened yet. maybe "Conflict with New York Times"? BrokenSegue 04:14, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I have changed it to "New York Times controversy". The wording "Claims about The New York Times" should be avoided per WP:CLAIM. Also, while I agree it's important to be aware that there might be another side to the story that we haven't yet heard (I added the New Stateman's comment about that to the article a couple of days ago), the basic information that the NYT has been interviewing people for an article about Slate Star Codex is not "coming entirely from Scott Alexander" - it has has been confirmed by e.g. Scott Aaronson too. So we shouldn't go overboard in suspecting that the NYT was in reality never involved.

(Btw, David, it looks like you keep mixing up Slate and The Daily Beast ... Try "The Daily Codex" next time? ;)

Regards, HaeB (talk) 22:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of "controversy", for the same reason I originally changed it away from "incident". "Controversy" is a vague and charged term (controversial with who? did SSC cause the controversy or did NYT? some other party?). Unfortunately it's also the go-to on Wikipedia for these kinds of sections (I've even written an essay about it). I'm in support of David Gerard's proposal of "Potential wide surname publication" as it actually tells you about the matter. If we want it shorter, maybe "Potential surname dissemination". Opencooper (talk) 23:46, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

yeah, "controversy" is pretty much always a bad section header, particularly for a single thing - what controversy? It's a mystery-meat link - David Gerard (talk) 11:47, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

1) The NYT have intentionally given a non-denial denial. saying "we do not comment, but we strive to publish as many details as possible" which implies the story was very true. Moreover, given the wide attacks on the NYT about it, they would have definitely denied it if false. So the NYT very clearly gave the impressions that it was true.

2) There was clearly an incident. We have multiple people saying they were interviewed or sought to be interviewed. The blog was taken offline for a month. His Patreon was also put on hold. There was a 5,000+ petition against the NYT about it. And cancellations of subscriptions (anecdotal reports in various online sources)

This is definitely an "incident". Are we awaiting some holy man to annoit it as an incident? or what? Jazi Zilber (talk) 19:22, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

The holy men would be reliable sources specifically referring to it as the "NYT incident". We wouldn't take it upon ourselves to coin it "NYT-gate" or "SSCgate" for comparison. Also, as David Gerard clearly explained above, all those things—the blog, Patreon, and petition—were Scott's doing, not the NYT's. Regardless, the whole brouhaha was over his name, and the current header reflects that, as opposed to a vague "incident". Opencooper (talk) 15:01, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

National Review claims

Currently, the National Review is used for two purposes on this page. First, it shows notability of Slate Star Codex, and second, it provides information about specific attributes of the blog. The National Review is a widely read magazine, so an article about Slate Star Codex shows that Slate Star Codex is notable, in the same way that an article about a conspiracy would show that the conspiracy is notable. However, the information about the conspiracy wouldn’t necessarily be truthful.

Similarly, the information about Slate Star Codex might not be truthful. For harmful claims about a living person, I think a more consistently factually accurate source than NR is needed, given the NR’s political biases and previous issues of false information about living people. Whether or not these claims are true (which is very difficult to verify, given the length and size of the blog as well as it currently not being hosted by Scott Alexander), these claims are harmful and thus require a source known for truthful claims about living people. Gbear605 (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't get how that sentence is harmful. It is specifically saying he was commended. You just removed the details about what he was commended for. Either remove the whole sentence or keep the details. Also, demonstrating he said those individual things shouldn't be hard by citing his blog via the way back machine. BrokenSegue 15:12, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

BrokenSegue, I parsed the sentence as having the factual claims as separate from the opinion praising the blog, and left in the opinion to appease the people who wanted the National Review in the article. I'd personally prefer to remove the citation of the National Review entirely for the same reasons, but I think that the opinion of "they think that this blog has these values" is more reasonable to leave in than "they think that this blog said these things that are controversial and not necessarily what the blog said." This is especially true since the controversial claims are claims that could cause harm to the author.

For example, imagine if the National Review said "John Smith is a smart person. See for instance how they have said that racism is good." Wikipedia wouldn't want to add the second sentence to an article about John Smith, unless there was a clear neutral source for it. However, adding the first sentence could potentially be okay.

If you can find sources for those specific claims on the Wayback Machine archive of his blog, feel free to add them. I looked and couldn't find anything. Gbear605 (talk) 15:38, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

The New Yorker article is very comprehensive, and can be used to describe the blog's contents. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 16:49, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I've restored it. It's cited to an RS for this subject - and SSC has the content described in the RS. So it's an RS, and it's accurate. If it was used as a bare source for "SSC contained", it would count. I mean, we could also link the archive.org copies of the posts in question if you're doubting the claims are accurate, as well has having been noted in the RS in question.

This is a Wikipedia article, not a public relations exercise. If you think it looks bad for the subject, take it up with the RS - David Gerard (talk) 22:21, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

What’s the reasoning for Wikipedia considering the National Review an RS? Wikipedia’s page for the National Review lists a number of incidents where they have stated blatantly false information and only later retracted it, and the retractions were only on major issues (eg. U.S. President Obama’s birth certificate). I certainly don’t consider the National Review to be a reliable source for any information, especially information that agrees with them politically. Also, if this is information that was on the blog as you stated in the edit summary, please provide a link instead of stating controversial information as a fact. Gbear605 (talk) 22:29, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

AFAICT, NR is cited to support four sentences. 1) Slate Star Codex was launched in 2013 and taken down by its author [...]. and 2) According to Alexander, the reporter told him that it was newspaper policy to use real names. By now, there are other sources including The New Yorker which could be cited to back up both of those sentences, at least as additional corroboration if not as replacements for NR, so those article-text sentences seem fine. Then there is 3) National Review criticized the Times for applying its anonymity policy inconsistently. Here, NR is cited for its own opinion, which it is reliable for. (It could be debated whether that opinion is due, but we could look for secondary sources discussing NR's criticism, or reliable sources making the same criticism, either of which would help establish that it was due.)
Lastly, a bare URL (which someone should fix...) is cited to support 4) Conservative magazine National Review commended the blog's "emphasis on unbiased empirical analysis", and noted how Alexander argued [..."]certain ethnic groups may have inherently higher IQs than others." In this case, NR's statements are attributed to them and their POV is spelled out, which is good, but three things still jump out. First, the sentence is nonetheless written as if taking the POV (in wikivoice) that NR's comments are correct, which it should not (per WP:NPOV); per WP:SAID, it should read more like Conservative magazine National Review said the blog had an "emphasis on unbiased empirical analysis", and stated that Alexander had argued [...]. Second, there is again the question of whether their view is due weight, and third, as Gbear605 says, NR is attributing potentially unflattering things to Alexander—basically saying he's racist, even though they seem to regard that as positive—and I can see why someone could want a stronger source for that; I don't have time right now to examine either of those two issues, but someone could notify the WP:BLPN if they think it's a problem. (I will fix the NPOV/"noted" issue, though.) -sche (talk) 03:20, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

This sounds like "the NR was a reliable source until it said something that might be bad public relations". If it's an RS for notability of a subject, per the above "Notability" section, then it's an RS for notability of a claim. The claim is not only true (and it is true - is anyone here claiming that NR's claims are not true?), it's a thing that has been noted about the topic - that is, a notable claim - David Gerard (talk) 11:45, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, how is being a "bare URL" in any way a substantive objection to the source? - David Gerard (talk) 11:48, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Restored after removal by single-edit SPA - David Gerard (talk) 11:50, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

If a dozen tabloids talked about an issue, I'd consider that issue notable enough to put that issue on the relevant Wikipedia page, even though I wouldn't trust those tabloids to be accurate in their reporting. Similarly, by virtue of having a wide readership, the National Review's publication would make the topic of an article notable even if everything that it said in that article was false. Regarding the truthfulness of the claim in this article, I legitimately don't know whether it's true. I've looked for articles by Scott Alexander that state those and couldn't find any, but perhaps I was simply bad at searching his blog's archives. I wouldn't trust the National Review to state that the sky is blue, so I certainly don't trust them when they say something that supports them politically. If you can find primary sources (or other secondary sources) that support those claims, then I'd be entirely happy to leave the information on the page, but I hope you'll forgive me for not taking your word for it.

Re: the bare URL, I think that -sche was simply stating that that was something that needed to be fixed, not an objection to the source.

Thanks for reverting the change by that single-edit account, whoever created that account needs to learn how to discuss an issue in the public spaces rather than making unilateral changes on a part of a Wikipedia page that is being debated. Gbear605 (talk) 12:54, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

The article where Scott Alexander which goes over male vs. female preferences and participation in tech is: https://archive.is/sVt04 As for the "certain ethnic groups may have inherently higher IQs than others" claim, look at https://archive.is/nznux. I can't find the British Empire quote. Anyway, the question is this: Is this WP:UNDUE weight to point out these few articles, considering the huge number of subjects Scott Alexander covered in his blog? The point the National Review article was trying to make is that we should be able to have an open rational discussion about such things, but the modern outrage-inducing press shuts down said debate, since they are more interested in ideology than in facts. It was the outrage press, after all, who posted multiple articles about how Alcoholics Anonymous has only a 5% success rate in the mid-2010s, facts be damned, until the 2020 Cochrane Review of AA made it impossible for even the clickbait press to claim that with a straight face. SkylabField (talk) 16:08, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I have trimmed the sentence where we summarize the National Review article. Considering how sensitive and outrage inducing those quotes are in isolation, it’s not fair to Scott Alexander to bring them up out of context. They were hardly the only things Scott talked about, they were only a small part of his entire blog, and we need to make sure to give them due weight. SkylabField (talk) 16:20, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this description of wp:due weight accords with how it is described in policy. By the policy, due weight means that information should be provided "in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources". In contrast, it does not have to do with proportional representation of all the things a given article subject has done. For instance, National Review has published on a wide range of topics. However, a proportionally large percentage of its article goes to describing just a single column written by Ann Coulter. This is not a problem (assuming the article has gotten enough editing attention) because the overall content of NR doesn't matter--rather, it is what has been written in external sources about NR.

All that said, I don't have a problem with the presentation now (though some minor copy-editing might be in order). Better coverage is presented in other sources, and descriptions of SSC contents from other sources should certainly be added, with the NR content description being proportionally represented. Jlevi (talk) 21:17, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Deliberately providing incorrect information to readers

I corrected the author information for the book "The Technological Singularity" which includes a reprint of an SSC blog post. My edit was undone without explanation by @Gbear605: The author was given as "Scott". We all know that is not correct. If the source is going to be included in this article, readers should not be given false information. Either use the source and give readers the right information, or don't use the source. I don't care which, but let's not do our readers a disservice. Mo Billings (talk) 22:09, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Mo Billings, per WP:BLPNAME it is preferable to not include his last name given that it meets all the criteria for privacy. As I said in my discussion in the Last Name section, his last name has been both intentionally concealed and not widely disseminated, and it does not result in a loss of context, which are three criteria listed in BLPNAME, this seems like clear reason to omit the name. I admit that the situation is more complex than the policy provides guidance for, but in this case we need to prioritize minimizing any 'possibility of harm to living subjects' (WP:BLP) Gbear605 (talk) 22:37, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I think that's quite an overstatement of Wikipedia policy and a misstatement of factual reality. His name has literally never been a secret, and this is evidence he's used it professionally. Even stating it's been "intentionally concealed" is highly disputable. It's highly arguable that he broke his own privacy long before - David Gerard (talk) 05:28, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I admit that I'm not a Wikipedia admin, but my reading of that policy is that "intentionally concealed" is referring to the intention of the subject. Seeing as he has said "“Scott Alexander” is my real first and middle name, but I’ve tried to keep my last name secret. I haven’t always done great at this, but I’ve done better than “have it get printed in the New York Times“.", that seems to prove intention even if it hasn't been completely succeeded in the past. Gbear605 (talk) 15:36, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Gbear605 I don't want to get involved in that debate. If the source is used, it should show the author's real name as used in the publication. That is what we are discussing here. I know your thoughts about the name. What are your thoughts on deliberately giving Wikipedia readers incorrect information? Mo Billings (talk) 15:01, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It's my opinion that Wikipedia policy explicitly allows for omitting information that is sensitive, and this seems to be sensitive enough given the risk. Perhaps we could solely leave the author-first=Scott field without having any author-last field? That is surely not incorrect. Gbear605 (talk) 15:36, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Please don't be disingenuous about this. Omitting information is an editorial decision. We can choose not to include Scott Alexander's real name in this article. That is not the same thing as putting incorrect information about an author in a reference. The subject of this article allowed one of his blog posts to be reprinted as an essay in a book. It was credited with his real name. It was not credited to "Scott Alexander". We don't credit authors by first name alone, so please drop that idea entirely. Look, if the name issue is the over-riding concern, why are we including a source that has his real name in it? Either we omit the source entirely because of that or we use it and credit it in the normal, standard, usual, correct way. Mo Billings (talk) 16:34, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It's an RS where he is placing academically peer-reviewed SSC content under his full name. But it turns out academia doesn't run on Reddit rules either, and you're supposed to use your name. Like, he could have not done that. But he did.

Even the claim that he "tried to keep my last name secret" isn't really in accordance with behaviour like this. It reads much more like something he's claiming very late in proceedings to put a genie back into a box that he released.

(Although I don't have a citable source on this, I'm told that people who emailed him as late as last year at the blog email address got back responses from Scott Lastname, not Scott Alexander.)

I appreciate we have a single obscure RS for Scott's surname in connection with Slate Star Codex. But it's one he put out there himself. Pretending he ever maintained security on his name is simply an incorrect statement of factual reality - David Gerard (talk) 16:39, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The reason we do not include Scott Alexander’s real name here is because while WP:BLPNAME is not for this exact circumstance, it’s close enough that we should follow it. Scott Alexander is still a private person. He’s a private person who had a very public blog, but he himself is still private. There’s a difference between having someone’s name show up if we do 30 minutes of research and having someone’s name show up after a 10 second Google search, and we, in the interests of WP:BLP, should err on the side of not including this information. This was discussed at depth above, and the consensus then and now is still the same: Respect his privacy. SkylabField (talk) 16:46, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

That's all fine and good so far as not including the name in the body of the article goes, but I am talking about a reference here that currently has incorrect information in it. If the name issue is such that we can't include it then how do you justify including a reference with his real name in it? (By the way, if I google "scott alexander real name", Google suggest a search which is just his real name, so that's not even 10 seconds of work. Your results may vary, of course.) Mo Billings (talk) 17:15, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with excluding the reference. David Gerard was the one insisting that it be included in the article. Gbear605 (talk) 17:50, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I added the reference. Why would we remove a valid reference to a fact stated in the article without replacing it with an equivalent reference? Either remove the fact (which I disagree with), replace the reference with an equivalent one or keep it as-is. The reference info isn't incorrect it's just incomplete. Just like the entire article is by not including his last name. BrokenSegue 18:32, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It's the subject of the article in use in academia, and there's no way it's not deeply relevant to the topic. Why on earth would you remove it from the article? WP:NPOV surely requires it such that relevant RSes are presented - David Gerard (talk) 19:00, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Notably, this is an article about a blog, not about a person. That said, I agree that the article is also relevant to the blog, seeing as it is sourced from the blog and mentions the blog. Gbear605 (talk) 19:23, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

BrokenSegue How is not incorrect? "Scott" (which is what he have now) is not the name used by the author in the source. It is not even the author's pseudonym. That's not "incomplete". It is incorrect. There is only one correct value for the author fields and it is the name of the author. Anything else is incorrect. How is this even arguable? Mo Billings (talk) 19:40, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Mo Billings It includes his first name and not his last name. That's "incomplete" to me. I mean even if you consider that to be erroneous it's a very minor error and worth preserving for the sake preserving his pseudo-anonymity. BrokenSegue 19:44, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Citing an author by first name only is not the practice of Wikipedia. That argument is a non-starter. Can we skip to the part where we decide what to do about the source? Delete it or cite correctly? Mo Billings (talk) 19:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

To summarize (and not to try to vote, since I'm aware that Wikipedia is not a democracy), currently we have Mo Billings saying that the citation must have the full name if it is included, BrokenSegue saying that it must be included and should not have the full name, David Gerard saying that the citation must be included, and myself and SkylabField who are neutral whether or not the citation should be included but say that it must not have the full name if it does exist.

I believe that WP:NPOV implies that the citation should probably be included (see David Gerard's argument). I also believe that both for the sake of the safety of the Scott Alexander and in keeping with WP:BLPNAME, omitting the name in the citation is both the right thing to do and in keeping with Wikipedia policy. Gbear605 (talk) 20:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

We could alternatively add a note to the existing references indicating that we have omitted some information and cite the author's name as "Scott [Redacted]" (or similar). I would be ok with this since it is maximally upfront with the reader about what is going on here. BrokenSegue 20:18, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Please stop framing this issue as about the name. This about whether or not we deliberately give readers of Wikipedia incorrect information. BrokenSegue, Gbear605, and SkyLabField are arguing that contrary to expectations and normal practice, we should not give a correct author citation. I am not clear on David Gerard's view. Mo Billings (talk) 20:51, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is simply not incorrect information, especially if it is formatted with "[Redacted]" or something similar. Certainly within Wikipedia policy to allow that. Can you provide me a reason for calling omission, which is allowed by Wikipedia in cases relating to living people, "incorrect information"? Gbear605 (talk) 20:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I have already explained this and I am sure you understand. Mo Billings (talk) 21:03, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Mo Billings, my previous comment was a bit rude in tone, and I apologize for that. However, your claims need to have some basis to them beyond simply stating that including a redacting name is incorrect. Providing the name as "Scott" or "Scott [Redacted]" is simply redaction/omission. Omission is a policy that Wikipedia explicitly requires in some circumstances (see numerous places in WP:BLP), so by your logic, Wikipedia requires providing incorrect information. Instead, I would say that omission is not incorrect. You say that "Citing an author by first name only is not the practice of Wikipedia," but you seem to be the only one here who believes that that is what Wikipedia mandates. Can you provide a citation or reference for that? Alternatively, potentially David Gerard as a Wikipedia admin could provide some guidance on the practice of Wikipedia regarding whether Wikipedia allows omission of information relating to living persons. Gbear605 (talk) 21:19, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think David Gerard (or myself) being admins has anything to do with this. If anything (and I say this as someone that basically agrees with him here) David Gerard's public persona/statements should disqualify him from being the authority here. That said I 100% agree with your response to Mo Billings. BrokenSegue 21:51, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Mo Billings: "Please stop framing this issue as about the name." Whatnow? This discussion is primarily about the name. WP:BLPNAME is policy with legal implications and trumps any stylistic concerns with the citation; we are going to follow it. The claim of incorrect information is a red herring. Now that that's established, can you explain to my why we aren't just using the author's pseudonym? Crediting a pseudonym is not "deliberately incorrect information"; noms de plume have been around for a while now. That seems to me to be less distracting than something like "Scott [redacted]" while meeting the requirements of WP:BLP. VQuakr (talk) 22:01, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I support BrokenSegue's suggestion of redacting the last name in the reference. I'm not aware of any policy this violates. Mo Billings Citations are not problem sets to get correct, they're tools that serve a purpose. Citations serve humans, humans do not serve citations. - Scarpy (talk) 22:47, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

VQuakr No, this isn't about the name. I don't care if the name is included in the body of the article or not. I am simply interested in having a citation that correctly cites the information provided by the source. I don't care if the source is used or not. (It seems strange that it would be used since anyone can find out the name we are not using just by looking in that book, but that's not my concern.) I just want it to be correctly cited if it is used. That's all. Not incomplete information, not bastardized information, not a pseudonym. just exactly what the source says. I don't think there's a specific policy about it because it is such a basic assumption that our citations are accurate transcriptions of the facts about the source. Mo Billings (talk) 23:11, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Mo Billings You're inverting the human-citation relationship. - Scarpy (talk) 23:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

There actually is a relevant policy about this, WP:V. Per that policy we must provide enough information about the source that someone can verify it. We can do this while also complying with WP:BLP by using a partial name, omitting his name altogether, or using his pseudonym. Since your specific desire here, to provide what you consider a complete or "correct" citation, is not policy-based, we can safely ignore it per WP:CON. My !vote is for using his chosen pseudonym, Scott Alexander. I don't have a strong opinion against the other BLP-compliant alternatives that have been discussed above, though. Removing the citation altogether isn't a good option, for the reasons discussed at WP:BABY. VQuakr (talk) 02:07, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Your argument about the intent of the verifiability policy is fairly persuasive, but mostly I'm just tried of arguing. It will all be moot soon enough anyway. Mo Billings (talk) 03:05, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd prefer we not make the reference point to the name "Scott Alexander" since that is actually incorrect and makes looking up the citation slightly harder/confusing. I prefer "Scott", "Scott [Redacted]" (or similar), or "Scott S." BrokenSegue 04:24, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to include any form of his name on the citation? It is clear from the later quote that Scott is the author. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 04:35, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Citing it as "Scott Alexander" would actually be misleading - because that's not the name it's published as.

GBear seems to want to protect the author of the article more than said author himself wants to - it's not like someone outed him against his will in the book, he would have published that and okayed the use of his actual name. Because academia doesn't run on Reddit rules either.

Similarly, GBear's previous claim that the NR description of the blog was "harmful", even though as we saw from the source blog posts it was accurate - the author was certainly happy to write those things, and evidently didn't consider it "harmful" at the time. I think the saying "you can't be more royalist than the King" applies here.

I am deeply sceptical that Wkipedia rules somehow require us to fake a citation - and it is faking a citation - or bowdlerise it, when the author literally chose to use his name in the published work, quite recently - David Gerard (talk) 07:30, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Round two: "Scott S"

BrokenSegue has changed the author name to "Scott S". So we won't use the full name, but we will use the first letter of it? I am still of the opinion that the reference should either be accurate or, if that is not possible due to concerns around the name, removed entirely. Mo Billings (talk) 21:23, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Removing an RS reference that's doing work strikes me as being against Wikipedia sourcing rules. Given that some admins seem to be removing all allusion to the name even when it's clearly publicly available in a Wikipedia-quality reliable source (and that seems pretty obviously an abuse of the revision-delete procedures), I'd prefer to see consensus before putting it in the article - but removing an RS reference is a ridiculous move to even propose - David Gerard (talk) 21:59, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Mo Billings I added the last initial to make it more clear it wasn't an "errant "Scott"" as a previous editor thought, but an intentional omission. Removing the reference is a bad idea and until people are ok with the full name this is the best compromise. BrokenSegue 01:11, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Why are these republished articles cited at all? They are not in the 100 most popular articles from the blog. Over at the BLP Noticeboard people claim that they establish the notability and/or credibility of the blog. This is false. No one connects them, let alone claims that academic republishing adds to the credibility of the blog. The blog stands on its own. That the blog has academic credibility is demonstrated by academics citing it, but these are academics in other fields who don't know of these publications.

I propose deleting these citations. 98.114.54.138 (talk) 18:17, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

While I think whether the citation should be included is a worthwhile discussion to have, I would suggest waiting until the BLPN discussion is over. Enterprisey (talk!) 20:32, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

The citations are being used as a roundabout way to include the name, so that's really not possible. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:26, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

And the initials are yet another try to get around the doxxing thing... Jazi Zilber (talk) 11:51, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

you mean, where someone forcibly added his real name to an academic reprint of his work, against his will? Or reality, where that's a thing that didn't happen? I think it's not called doxxing when you consciously publicly reveal your details yourself; and you calling it "the doxxing thing" is assuming your conclusion, hard - David Gerard (talk) 12:45, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Scott himself has written a blogpost "Against Signal Boosting as Doxing" which is about, well, why signal-boosting something like that counts as doxing even though it is technically already "revealed". Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:03, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

"Scott Alexander" interview by CoinDesk

I'm wondering how people would feel about using this interview in CoinDesk as a source. "Scoott Alexander" says a couple of things in the interview that may be relevant to some of the discussion on this page.

I started Slate Star Codex seven years ago. I previously had another blog under my real name, but I had a few bad job interviews where the interviewers hinted that I might not get the job because I was blogging. So I decided to delete it and start over with an anonymous blog.

and

I failed terribly at keeping my identity secret, because everyone who read my last blog knew I was the same person writing the new one.

I'm not sure what this has to do with cryptocurrency, but since it is an interview I don't think the source should be an issue. Any thoughts? Mo Billings (talk) 21:14, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:RSP#CoinDesk marks it as generally unreliable, so unsuitable for a BLP with issues. It's also a puff piece. Not sure adding further claims from the subject from an unreliable source will help the article - David Gerard (talk) 22:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard Unless you are saying that CoinDesk can't be trusted to accurately transcribe "Scot Alexander"'s words I don't see how it is unsuitable. The article currently contains nothing about why SSC was started or how careful "Scott Alexander" was to hide his identity. This article would not exist today if it were not for the identity issue. Mo Billings (talk) 22:50, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:BLPs can't use unreliable sources. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. - David Gerard (talk) 05:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, are you concerned the interview might fabricated or inaccurate? Benjamin (talk) 03:13, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, WP:BLPs can't use unreliable sources. Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. - David Gerard (talk) 08:40, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

You are not clarifying, you are just repeating what you said earlier. Could you please be more specific about why you think this source is unreliable in this context in particular? Specifically, do you doubt that Scott said those words? Benjamin (talk) 09:19, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

It's a Generally Unreliable source that shouldn't be used on Wikipedia in general, and definitely not on a BLP, and that's quite sufficient reason. As I said at the top of this, which is the complete answer to your repeated question: WP:RSP#CoinDesk marks it as generally unreliable, so unsuitable for a BLP with issues. It's also a puff piece. Not sure adding further claims from the subject from an unreliable source will help the article. If you take issue with that as being the complete answer to your repeated question, I would first assume you just didn't like the answer and wanted it to be a different one. See also JzG's similar answers on the issue - David Gerard (talk) 12:01, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

No, that is not the answer to my question. I asked if you thought Scott actually said that, and you simply ignored that. Benjamin (talk) 12:32, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

He may well have, but that's an irrelevant red herring, not an argument of substance - David Gerard (talk) 12:34, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

How is it irrelevant? That is the claim in question here. Reliability depends on context. Benjamin (talk) 12:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

• Um, no. CoinDesk is largely ignored outside the walled garden of cryptobollocks. It's not significant. Guy (help!) 22:59, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Wait, the source isn't "significant" so an interview with the blog's author should be ignored? That definitely doesn't seem right. Mo Billings (talk) 23:07, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the source is significant, the interview isn't significant unless it's published in a reliable source. Even better would be to summarize a reliable independent source about the interview. Wikipedia is not obligated to help a blogger share information about himself, so we need WP:IS to establish this information's significance. Grayfell (talk) 06:50, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

The source is reliable for this particular purpose, since nobody doubts that the words actually come from Scott. Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:05, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

"Reliable" =/= "Significant". Having a reliable source is necessary, but not sufficient, for inclusion.

Additionally, whether or not the words came from Scott Alexander is only part of the problem with reliability. It's a mistake to trust unreliable outlets to fairly transcribe and edit interviews. Grayfell (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

RS coverage of blog going back up?

Has literally an RS anywhere noted the blog going back up? I can't find one - David Gerard (talk) 11:18, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, I agree that there are no RS’s noting it that I’ve seen, but I think that it’s fine to have a primary source citation for that information that you reverted. It doesn’t seem particularly controversial, and the information noted was either WP:BLUE or simply stating a direct quote of Scott’s, which is allowed for uncontroversial information. Gbear605 (talk) 13:27, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure if "back up" is the right term. The URLs are now retrieving the old articles, but there's no comment I'm aware of on it's future. - Scarpy (talk) 01:11, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, including blatantly false and outdated information like "was a blog" is the worse of two evils, so I think a primary source citation is fine per WP:BLUE. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:21, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

Name use discussion

Please see WP:BLPN#Slate Star Codex. Enterprisey (talk!) 20:55, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard's disclosure/warning

David Gerard is the most prolific editor of Slate Star Codex. He recently wrote an article on his site where he discussed (pseudo)anonymity in the context of the recent 'Potential surname dissemination' situation. In the article, he notes that because "Alexander and I know each other a bit, and don’t have a high opinion of each other," people should "read this post with a dash of salt." If his writings on the potential surname dissemination of Scott Alexander on his own site deserve a disclosure/warning, then why not edits on the very same topic on Wikipedia? I've asked David Gerard on his talk page to do so, but since he refused, I decided to notify editors here.

Gerard is also an editor on RationalWiki, where he seems to have the habit of subtly or less subtly injecting opinions into pages. So I suggest that other editors might want to be critical of his edits. Aapjes (talk) 14:10, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah the so called Rational Wiki. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 16:57, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Rational Wiki????? wow. Writing on this site is not a great badge of honor. Jazi Zilber (talk) 17:33, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Meh. RationalWiki is quite upfront about the fact that it is not aiming for the same goals as Wikipedia. There has been a fair bit of historical overlap between active wp editors and active rationalwiki editors. Not sure if that remains as common. Jlevi (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I tried to patiently explain to Aapjes on my talk page that off-wiki opinions on a subject don't prima facie constitute a WP:COI, and precisely how he could file a notice at WP:COIN, if he really was serious about pursuing this claim properly.

Instead, Aapjes appears to be trying to pursue innuendo-based personal attacks, in a persistent violation of WP:AGF and WP:NPA. I urge Aapjes again to go through the existing channels for conflicts of interest, rather than to continue to violate Wikipedia's conduct rules.

You don't get to try to vote other editors off an article because you're a fan of the subject and they aren't - David Gerard (talk) 17:33, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I have to agree with David Gerard here. He definitely has strong opinions about Alexander and LessWrong (there's a quote of him in a RS calling LessWrong a cult), but strong negative opinions aren't inherently a conflict of interest. There are living people out there - Donald Trump for instance - who everyone (or at least every American) has some strong opinion about. We obviously can't ban everyone from editing Donald Trump's page, or it wouldn't exist. The solution isn't to ban people who have strong opinions, but to ensure that the article has a NPOV and relies on reliable sources.

Obviously David Gerard needs to make sure that he uses a NPOV on the page, but he generally has. Similarly, everyone who is a fan of Alexander - which includes me - needs to make sure to use a NPOV as well. Gbear605 (talk) 17:44, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Jlevi (talk) 18:11, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

As long as David and other editors base their edits in Wikipedia policy—which he has—they are welcome to edit this article. Opencooper (talk) 18:19, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

David, my main motive is that you revealed your COI and argued that people should be aware of it, on your own site, when discussing the same subject that you are editing here. I don't see how telling people to "read this post with a dash of salt" because "Alexander and I know each other a bit, and don’t have a high opinion of each other" can be interpreted other than as a COI disclosure. At that point, I don't see my request for disclosure as an application of my standards (aside from the standard of consistency), but of your standards. You keep refusing to address this argument and instead make false claims about my motives, like that I merely judge you to have a COI because of your off-wiki opinions. The reality is that I primarily judge you to have a conflict of interest because you noted that you have a conflict of interest.

My personal opinion is that your own COI disclosure was understating the extent to which you have a dispute with Scott Alexander and the communities that he birthed. For example, you are a regular on a literal 'sneer club' on Reddit that is focused on sneering at the subreddits that are offshoots of the Slate Star Codex blog and you revealed his last name on social media even though that that is seen as rule-breaking behavior by that sneer club as well as undesirable behavior by yourself, in 2015, when you were apparently aware that such a disclosure had already led to workplace harassment. Note that neither of these are about your off-wiki opinions, but about your off-wiki behaviors, which is certainly not the same thing. Yet I believe that the mere fact that you considered your COI sufficient to note it on your own site gives you an obligation to make at least a similar COI here, even if you don't share my opinion that your COI is more extensive than you make it out to be.

Also, on your talk page I argued that the fact that you are a source for the NYT means that you are involved in the story that you are editing. This means that you have insider info, like what you told the reporter and what he told you. A logical risk is that you might (non-maliciously) use such information in your editing, even though it is not independently verifiable information. Furthermore, if the NYT article does get published, there is a definite possibility that your opinions will be part of or will have shaped the story. So at that point, you'll have extensively edited a section of a Wikipedia article which focuses on a controversial NYT article that you helped write. This seems quite undesirable to me. I don't think Wikipedia allows people who make X to edit the page on X. Yet a source can be a co-creator of an article.

As I noted, while my preferred remedy is for you to both disclose your COI and abstain from editing the article directly (although you could then still propose changes through the talk page), I felt that the disclosure was particularly important, especially given how actively you edit this page. It's not uncommon for the most active editor(s) to be seen as an (impartial) authority or get their way very often by 'out-editing/-reverting' others (not necessarily maliciously, but merely due to the effort they put in). According to How to disclose a COI, a COI disclosure may be added for a user by someone else, which is what I did. Ironically, the main concern of the COI pages are not to dox people, but that is fortunately not an issue with regard to your COI. Your allegation that I "try to vote other editors off an article because you're a fan of the subject and they aren't" seems to have little relation with what I did or do. At no point did I call for a vote, ask for people to not allow you to edit, suggest that the page should (only) be edited by fans or that it should be a fan page. Instead, I merely suggested that you take certain remedies, and since you refused and seemed unwilling to address my true objections, I decided to notify people through the talk page. Aapjes (talk) 19:34, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Your personal definition of "conflict of interest" is not consistent with Wikipedia's definition of the term. Having first-hand knowledge of a person or topic is not a conflict of interest by most reasonable definitions, and neither is having a strong opinion. If you continue to use a boutique definition of a term to poison the well against a specific editor, you will be disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point. You have already been advised of the proper channels to go through if you really wish to pursue this, but you should take the comments here as a sign that this could backfire. Regardless, as a courtesy to other volunteers, you should be more succinct from now on. Grayfell (talk) 20:42, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Again, my primary objection is that Gerard has a dispute with Scott Alexander that apparently merits a COI notice when he is debating this matter, which Gerard himself demonstrated on his own website, by giving a COI notice when discussing this matter. Neither Gerard or anyone else has claimed or provided arguments that my conclusion that this is a COI notice is wrong. So given that Gerard seems to have implicitly agreed that he made a COI notice, I have trouble understanding why you don't expect consistency from Gerard? Furthermore, there is actually a rule against importing external disputes into Wikipedia. Gerard has a dispute with Scott Alexander about whether his pseudonymity should be preserved, which is the topic of the section on this page which he has been editing. Of course, you can define away all disputes as differences of opinion. Amber Heard and Johnny Depp don't have a dispute, they have a difference of opinion on who used domestic violence against who.

Also, there is a difference between having first-hand knowledge and being part of a story. Participating in the controversial newspaper investigation/article is not the same as merely having knowledge of the investigation. This is similar to how being present at a riot and burning down a building both provides you with first-hand knowledge of the riot, yet if the rioter is convicted for burning down the building, he is not convicted for having first-hand knowledge. Also, actually burning down the building is not the same as merely having the opinion that a building should be burned down. You and a bunch of people here keep conflating knowledge, opinions and actual acts, as if they are the same.

It's hard to be succinct when my attempts to be succinct result in responses that divulge that the other people in the discussion lack a lot of fundamental understanding. My attempt to educate you on these fundamentals is itself a courtesy. A common alternative response is snark or another hostile response. Aapjes (talk) 10:23, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I'll talk about Scott A's full name on social media because it's never been a secret - I didn't "reveal" anything, and it's assuming your conclusion to claim that.

But you'll notice I don't use the name on the Wikipedia article or talk page, while it's a matter of hot dispute at the level of a BLP issue. I disagree with the state of things - but there's a real issue here, and I can state the case against my own view and acknowledge it needs consideration, and we don't hurt anything by waiting!

So instead I make my case to use it. And I convince some, and don't convince others. And that's how it works - David Gerard (talk) 21:28, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Typical definitions of 'revealing' include giving information to people that is unknown to them or giving them information that has been kept from them. It seems obviously true to me that Scott's real name is unknown to many people and that Scott has kept his name from many people, because if you casually visit his blog, you'll find that his posts are signed with a pseudonym. He has also stated that this is not by accident, but by intent. Your/the examples of him revealing his own identity are rather obscure, like a niche book with low apparent readership. If the book doesn't make the connection explicitly, connecting the two requires a special effort. Yet if someone didn't connect the two in the first place, why would they go through that effort? So does this book actually reveal the connection between his identities or does it corroborate it to those who already know? Also, as a tech savvy person (who also seems rather obsesses with SSC), you may have found it rather easy to discover his real name, but my experience is that very many people have relatively low investigative skills and also, that many people are quite lazy.

Unless you believe that 100% of those that read your social media post already knew the name, you did reveal the name to part of your readership. Furthermore, revealing his name was unnecessary to argue your position, rather than to forcing the issue, as you demonstrated on the aforementioned article on your own site, where you manage to make your argument without giving Scott's full name. That you tried to force the issue on social media seems to me to be relevant input to judging your contributions on Wikipedia. For example, it has been alleged that your inclusion of the references that you also want to include Scott's full name, is intended to force the issue. Your off-wiki forcing of the issue can be seen as relevant evidence to judge this allegation. Aapjes (talk) 10:23, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

You're increasingly behaving like an editor who is WP:NOTHERE to write an encyclopedia - David Gerard (talk) 16:54, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the point in sharing that subjective opinion. If you want to get me banned from WP, use the proper procedures. If not, I suggest abstaining from personal attacks. Aapjes (talk) 16:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

"was never a secret" is a clear POV decision. Presented as fact. You can argue that in your view it is so. But saying it unilaterally, when many do not see it this way, based on the same very facts, is a clear POV pretending to be fact Jazi Zilber (talk) 19:21, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Since it's not on Wikipedia this has almost nothing to do with improving this article. Having a point of view is not a decision. All of us have opinions and biases. This is something which every experienced editor should recognize. Having a point of view doesn't disqualify someone from editing. Again, this is not a conflict of interest by any relevant definition. The inflammatory comment about burning down a building is especially disruptive. Grayfell (talk) 21:50, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I have no issue with Gerard having his view. Absolutely legit to believe in whatever.

repeatedly without qualifying stating very POV as "fact" is not helpful for an unbiased discussion, however. Especially as the doxxing is the biggest question here. Jazi Zilber (talk) 23:23, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

•  Comment: @Aapjes: There are editors in this discussion who are pro- Slate Star Codex and there are editors here who are anti- Slate Star Codex. I am neither. This isn't going to get solved by bickering on this talk page. Please start a discussion at the COI noticeboard or drop it. Thanks. Mo Billings (talk) 17:38, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

This has already been 'solved' by the COI notification on this talk page, which is a resolution per WP:DISCLOSE. Almost all of my responses in this section were not intended to result in any further action, but merely to respond to a bunch of editors who misread my COI notification. I am probably not going to let further misreadings of my statements go without answer. Aapjes (talk) 18:35, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

This situation reminds me of an Arbcom case, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/BLP issues on British politics articles, in which Phillip Cross clashed publicly with George Galloway while also editing content about him. Fences&Windows 12:48, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Might an RfC on this issue be warranted? I think that this dispute falls into an area that isn't well-covered by established BLP policy, and can't realistically be due to its complexity (a frequent and heavy editor of an article, apparently an avowed enemy of its subject, who's also apparently talking to a journalist writing a story about the subject, oh my). Not that Dr. Gerard has done any misfeasance here, but it seems like a bizarre edge case which probably either has or would create precedent. jp×g 13:39, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

The Technological Singularity: Managing the Journey

During the discussions about what the author information should be for the reference to 'The Technological Singularity: Managing the Journey' (TTS:MJ), I noted a lack of agreement about why the book is referenced in the first place (as well as disagreement with the inclusion in the first place). One editor argued that TTS:MJ demonstrates the academic credibility of SSC, while two other editors argued that the academic credibility of SSC has already been established by other sources. Those two editors argued that this book demonstrates that SSC has credibility within the academic LessWrong community. Yet with a bit of searching, I found no evidence that this book has credibility or significant readership in this community (and thus by extension, can extend that credibility to SSC), nor that the book's credibility (in so far that it exists) is limited to this community. TTS:MJ has been published by Springer, which is a generic academic publisher, not a publisher specific to the academic LessWrong community. I'm not sure what Springer's publication standards are and thus what being published by them denotes.

One of these editors went further and argued that this reference shows that the blog is best known for its importance and influence in the rationalist community, which is a rather far reaching claim. I don't understand how the book demonstrates this influence, nor that it demonstrates that this is what the blog is best known for. If there is a book about the childhood years of Karol Józef Wojtyła (Pope John Paul II) in Wadowice, then this doesn't demonstrate that he is best known for being born & raised in Wadowice, rather than having been pope. The claim that the blog is best known for its importance and influence in the rationalist community, also seems to conflict with the examples that are given on Slate Star Codex of two notable people that seem to be influenced by the blog and/or consider it important: Tyler Cowen and Conor Friedersdorf. The Wikipedia pages for these gentlemen don't identify them as being 'rationalists' or part of the LessWrong community. Note that it can both be true that Scott Alexander strongly identifies as a rationalist and/or LessWrong community member, but that he is most notable for other things and/or that most people who read the blog are not rationalists and/or LessWrong community members.

Currently, the reference to TTS:MJ on Slate Star Codex lacks context. When I first read it, it was completely unclear what this mention was supposed to show. My suggestion is to seek consensus on some or all of these things:

- What claim the reference is supposed to be evidence for?

- Whether the reference actually is strong enough evidence for the claim?

- Does the claim merit inclusion on the page?

- Whether there are references/sources that provides better evidence for the same claim?

- Should the sentence or section be rewritten to make the claim much more explicit/clear? Do readers without lots of prior knowledge actually understand what is being claimed? Aapjes (talk) 18:16, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe people would be writing multi-paragraph arguments trying to get the citation/sentence removed if it were not for ... well the obvious reason. BrokenSegue 18:13, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

yeah. It's an academic RS, conferring respectability upon SSC it wouldn't have without it, but it's inconvenient to some of the blog author's later claims, so ... - David Gerard (talk) 19:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

There is no third party source saying that this usage is notable enough to warrant mention inclusion in this article. I do not deny it is a high quality RS and that Scott should be proud of his articles usage, but this just seems like a desperate attempt to link to information that he does not want here. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:45, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

You've been around Wikipedia long enough to know that's not how Wikipedia sourcing works. It's an RS in its own right, and doesn't need other RSes linking it before it can go in an article. Where did you ever get the idea that Wikipedia sourcing works like this?

this just seems like a desperate attempt to include clearly relevant sources in the article - David Gerard (talk) 19:54, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

That is how sourcing has worked on the other articles in my long time here. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 21:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

There will be policies or guidelines to this effect if that's the case. What are you thinking of? I'm specifically asking for the policy or guideline that states that using a Reliable Source - that you acknowledge is a high quality RS - first requires a third party source saying that this usage is notable enough to warrant mention inclusion (emphasis mine) before its inclusion. I'm skeptical there's any such requirement, because that would take out vast swathes of other Wikipedia cites to academic coverage regarded as an RS on the same basis as this cite - David Gerard (talk) 23:11, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I am not saying that I have seen a policy explicitly stating that, just that it is the way I have seen things work here. Otherwise you could just slap on a journalists page that they have written all the articles which are RSs, even though they have not been shown by third-party sources to be notable. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 10:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Right, so you're making a claim about policy and practice, but can't cite any policy and practice? - David Gerard (talk) 15:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

IMO, the practices/policies of Wikipedia are fundamentally broken. In science, academic credibility within a field is not a black/white issue, where publishing a book or paper automatically makes one academically credible, but they have a ranking system based on citations and reputation. Plenty of papers and books have minimal credibility in their scientific fields, being regarded no higher than a blog post. None of this is reflected by how Wikipedia uses academic sources.

I looked a bit more at Springer publishing and there are indications that they don't (always) have (serious) standards, for example, they published a bunch of machine-generated, gibberish papers: https://www.nature.com/news/publishers-withdraw-more-than-120-gibberish-papers-1.14763. Here people are complaining that Springer's standards declined greatly, in particular since they switched to on-demand printing: https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/7ty0eh/is_springer_a_vanity_press/

On-demand printing greatly reduces cost and thus allows for a reduction in standards, as the cost of unsold, but printed books is avoided. Open access also allows for a reduction in standards, as the authors will pay for the publication costs, so it doesn't matter how many people order/read the book. The publisher can profit from a book that has zero sales. It seems that you can get a book like TTS:MJ published for $15.000. So how much academic credibility does SSC have for being published in a book that is potentially paid for entirely by the authors, potentially has zero sales and potentially has no peer review or other content standards?

Your reasoning that having better practices would have consequences that are too vast, is a generic argument against fixing large errors and is rather ironic given your crusade against Daily Mail references. By your own reasoning, you should have accepted the Daily Mail as WP:RS, because not doing so, would "take out vast swathes of other Wikipedia cites". Yet you didn't accept your own logic in that case. So if you don't actually believe your own argument, why should I believe it? Aapjes (talk) 12:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Your argument is incoherent and is unfounded in any detail of how Wikipedia sourcing works.

If you seriously want to impeach the concept of using sources from respected academic publishers in Wikipedia - and you think you can convince others of the validity of your approach - the place to attempt this is the Reliable Sources noticeboard. Entire academic publishers have in fact been impeached there previously - see WP:CITEWATCH for journals that shouldn't be used as sources.

You specifically can't make this broad general argument stick on a single talk page - because this sort of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS cannot override broad general consensus on what constitutes a good source. See also the Arbitration Committee's statement of principles on levels of consensus - David Gerard (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

The incoherence in your mind seems to be due to your inability to understand my argument and seemingly, a lack of understanding of how academic publishing works. I don't want to impeach the concept of using sources from respected academic publications. I question whether Springer merely publishes respected academic publications. The evidence I provided shows that this wasn't true in the recent past. You equivocate between journals published by a publisher and everything a publisher publishes. Yet journals typically don't have credibility because of their publisher, but because the administrators & reviewers of the journal have certain standards. Different journals from the same publisher can have widely different levels of academic credibility, if we look at they citation scores. Some journals and books published by academic publishers have zero peer review or other filtering mechanisms that provide academic credibility.

You don't actually provide any evidence that Springer, rather than some of the journals they publish, has academic credibility that transfers to everything they publish. Your complete lack of apparent understanding of the difference between books and journals makes me doubt your assertion that your statements actually reflect "broad general consensus." Aapjes (talk) 15:16, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I understand that you're attempting to impeach Springer as a source in a discussion on this talk page, and you're failing to understand that you just can't do that. You need to do less arguing from first principles and more assuming that precedent for this sort of thing exists. This is 2020 on Wikipedia, not 2002 - David Gerard (talk) 15:21, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

According to WP:RS: "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable". So my demand for evidence that this book has been vetted by the scholarly community, before it can be considered a scholarly RS, follows official policy described in WP:RS. Do you have any evidence for your claim that anything that is published by Springer should be considered vetted by the scholarly community? For example, by showing that Springer sends out all their books for peer review? My perception is that this is not the case, but an actual standard academic vetting process that is applied to all Springer books has to demonstrated, to regard all books published by Springer as being vetted and thus meeting the vetting standards of WP:RS. You can also provide evidence that the book specifically was vetted. Aapjes (talk) 09:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard and Emir of Wikipedia claim that this is a high quality RS. Yet there is no explanation of why this book should be regarded as a WP:RS, let alone that evidence has been provided. I think that a book can be considered to be a RS because the authors have a good reputation, the publisher has a good reputation or the book itself has a good reputation (for example, by having received certain plaudits). Yet no argument has been provided by those who call the book a RS, that makes it clear by which standard the book is judged to be RS. Unless the mere fact that it is published in the 'academic' realm is sufficient to make it RS. Yet if that is the standard, then the aforementioned machine-generated, gibberish articles would be WP:RS too.

Of course, if it is WP consensus that even machine-generated, gibberish articles and academic books with no peer review are WP:RS, then so be it. Yet I'd like to see people actually make that argument, rather than be extremely vague. Aapjes (talk) 12:06, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Of course, that isn't consensus - and you're now at the stage of making up unfounded hypothetical examples, rather than learning anything about the Wikipedia project. You've literally linked WP:RS there, but don't seem to have read its answers to the questions you raise.

One of the problems the rationalist subculture has is a habit of trying to personally work out ideas from first principles rather than look up existing answers. I strongly suggest that this isn't a good approach to a project like Wikipedia, which is built on past practice and wide consensus - David Gerard (talk) 15:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Even if we somehow agree to remove this citation I would support adding it back as "general reference" or "bibliography" at the end of the article. So if your true goal is simply to remove the reference then maybe don't continue to pursue this line of argument. BrokenSegue 19:03, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't support removing it at all - it's load-bearing in the article - David Gerard (talk) 19:27, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I understand. But I suspect some people here want it removed for the obvious reason but they think this is the line of argument to accomplish that. I am pointing out that even if this line of argument works the reference will likely remain included. BrokenSegue

I can't see any reason to not have it in a bibliography section, other than the obvious issue. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:57, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree that a page about an author could and perhaps should have a bibliography of their most popular works, wherever they may be published. Yet this page is not actually about Scott Alexander, but about the blog. Shouldn't the bibliography then have the most popular posts of the blog? Isn't there also a notability requirement for a bibliography? I see no need to add less popular works, especially if very many have been published. Slate Star Codex published hundreds of posts and I've often seen people recommend SSC posts, yet rarely if ever "No Time Like The Present for AI Safety Work." According to David Gerard, the book reference demonstrates that this post is popular among the LessWrong academic community. So how often did "No Time Like The Present for AI Safety Work" get referenced on LessWrong.com? Once. By Scott Alexander. So I don't see a reason to have it in a bibliography section, other than the obvious issue. Aapjes (talk) 15:16, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

According to David Gerard, the book reference demonstrates that this post is popular among the LessWrong academic community. I'm pretty sure that's not something I've said - David Gerard (talk) 15:25, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Your words: "The academic work is a book from the LessWrong rationalist community, about topics promoted by said rationalist community, and used by said rationalist community to show its importance. If that's what the blog is known for, the reference is direct support for that." There is a theme developing here, where I expect you to remain consistent, but you deny your own words. Aapjes (talk) 09:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

My true goal is to get those who want it to be included to tell me things like:

- how they think a reader of this page should interpret this reference?

- in what way the reference actually supports that interpretation?

- how the reader is guided towards the correct interpretation?

To me, these seem like elementary questions to decide whether and how to include a reference, but seemingly, it is a horrible affront to ask them. My opinion is that the reference is currently almost entirely opaque, being only clear to insiders who already know a lot of details. As it is, the only thing that the reference tells a reader without fairly deep knowledge is that a SSC post was republished in a book, that has probably something to do with AI. Yet I see some people argue elsewhere that this reference is not intended to show that Scott sometimes wrote about AI topics, but that he has academic credibility. Are readers supposed to recognize the book as an academic work, the authors as academics or know that Springer exclusively publishes academic works (if they actually do, which I'm unclear about)? Of course, by now I don't really expect a serious response anymore, but just responses that attack me for supposedly acting in bad faith, while from my perspective, I'm the only person actually focusing on the content.

Note that the bad faith mind reading that led you to insinuate that I am hell bent on removing it, is baseless. I'll agree with keeping it if I agree that the reference shows something notable about the blog and that the way in which the reference is included, conveys that notable information to the reader. At the moment, I'm not convinced of either, especially the latter. Aapjes (talk) 15:16, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I suggest yet again that you try reading up on the considerable precedent here rather than being affronted at the suggestion that you learn about what you're trying to change. from my perspective, I'm the only person actually focusing on the content There's an essay about this: WP:1AM - David Gerard (talk) 15:24, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

My experience is that there are editors that make actual arguments. They make a claim and then provide evidence or give arguments. Others state opinions without telling me why they have this opinion or give supposed evidence without actually telling me what this evidence is supposed to show. The irony is that the latter type of editor often claims that the other person has to learn, even though their own debating style is antithetical to learning (including by themselves.)

I won't just fold because there are a few editors with poor debating styles who try to browbeat away dissent Aapjes (talk) 09:10, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Improving the content section

I feel that the content section can be improved by emphasizing aspects of the blog that are supported by authoritative secondary sources and removing the parts that aren't. For example, that fact that SSC predicted "for 2017 with 60 percent confidence that the United States would not get involved in any major new war where more than 100 US soldiers would die" does not seem to be very important or supported by sources other than the blog. On the other hand, SSC blog posts on Effective Altruism are discussed or mentioned in quite a few peer-reviewed publications, and this isn't reflected in our article.

I attempted to edit the section, trying to rectify this imbalance. The New Yorker article, the book of Chivers and peer reviewed journal articles seem to be the most authoritative sources, so I tried to use them whenever possible. To avoid making the section too long I removed some of the content, especially if it did not seem supported by high quality secondary sources. I apologize if you feel I removed your contribution unfairly, please, feel free to add it back (maybe with better sources).

I am not a very experienced Wikipedia editor and I apologize for citation formatting or style blunders. Hope others will be able to improve on it. Eliokim (talk) 22:04, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Oops, it seems that I accidentally messed up one of the citations. The citation also happens to be the subject of discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons/Noticeboard#Slate_Star_Codex

At the moment the consensus there seems to be to remove the citation. Also, it seems that it would not be adding anything to the content section since we have good sources on AI without it. So, for now, I will remove it from the article. Eliokim (talk) 22:49, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

I disagree the consensus was to delete the reference. The majority of comments were about whether to publish the full name not whether/how to include the reference. Most people who did address that question seemed to be in favor of keeping it while obscuring his full name in the citation. BrokenSegue 03:42, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

BrokenSegue, agreed, I see the consensus as:

• Don't publish the full name
• The citation does not need to be excluded for BLP reasons
• Don't include the full name in the citation
• No consensus on whether the name should be included with the last initial or not.

Of course, that doesn't stop the citation from not being used for non-BLP reasons (see the above comment thread), but then it seems to belong in the bibliography section, as you have moved it to.

I'm personally happy with this consensus, since it achieves the main purpose necessary for the BLP protection (not having both the full name and the name of the blog on the same page) while maintaining all the information that a reader needs. Gbear605 (talk) 04:01, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not happy with this claim of consensus to remove the cite from the article body - there was no such consensus, and it's load bearing in the article text. Removing well-cited content to remove a cite you don't like is not supported in sourcing policy. Restoring cite to RS that does work - David Gerard (talk) 06:52, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

The reason I removed words "he has used his last name in academic publication of Slate Star Codex content" from section "Potential surname dissemination" was because of WP:NOR. Do we have RS where publication in "Singularities" is discussed in the context of potential surname dissemination? Given that we have so many sources for this section it seems strange to include this sentence without support. (In particular, do we have RS confirming that the statement is true? (the surname may be another pseudonym.))Eliokim (talk) 14:35, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree that it is marginal for citation in the body. Some inference needs to be made to write the text it supports, and no reliable source has noted this detail (as far as I know). Jlevi (talk) 15:47, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok then, i'll remove it for WP:NOR reasons. I'll move the reference to the AI section. Eliokim (talk) 03:31, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, you've failed to show that this citation is WP:RS. As I've told you earlier, according to WP policy: "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable." You've not shown that this book has been vetted by the scholarly community in any way. Aapjes (talk) 21:06, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

No, what happened is: you made a pile of completely incorrect statements about Wikipedia sourcing. I corrected you, pointing you at the citations for these, and what you needed to do if you wanted to deprecate Springer as an academic publisher. You repeated your completely incorrect statements, because you seem to be operating on the principle WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Nevertheless, your understanding of Wikipedia sourcing is still completely wrong, and declaring victory because I didn't cut'n'paste the same pointer to actual policies and guidelines and where to go if you want to change things to be your way is not how Wikipedia works. You are still fundamentally incorrect about Wikipedia sourcing, and your claims to have impeached the source don't in any way hold - David Gerard (talk) 21:17, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the onus is on Aapjes to make a better case for wholesale exclusion based more solidly on policy (and less on theoretical possibilities). Aapjes wrote lots and lots of text, but very little of it successfully falls under the guidelines that we generally evaluate here. Jlevi (talk) 00:03, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard argued that this is a reliable academic source, but WP:RS argues "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable." He refused to provide evidence that it has been vetted or alternatively, to admit that it is not an academic RS. The reason why I write walls of text is because people keep refusing to answer my questions at all or in a clear way. Aapjes (talk) 12:01, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT refers to people ignoring consensus, so now you are suddenly claiming to represent the consensus position?? Frankly, you seem to be constantly weaponizing Wikipedia rules, while refusing to answer basic common sense questions. I guess that answering those would undermine your position. Aapjes (talk) 12:04, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Gbear605, the discussion on the BLPN page was explicitly about using the real author's name (of a section in a book), and thus logically would not result in consensus on removing or keeping the cite, as the latter was not the question. Similarly, if you ask someone's opinion on the weather, they are probably going to opine about that and usually not about global warming. This doesn't mean that they don't have an opinion on global warming, but that you didn't ask about it.

One could argue that the BLPN discussion was 'moving past the sale' by taking the use of the citation as a given, even though based on the fact that several people argued for removing the cite, even though this wasn't the question, at least some people recognized this and were against using the citation. Yet this doesn't mean that those who didn't argue this, were necessarily in favor of using it, as they may not considered that question or merely wanted to answer the question that was actually asked. Yet that doesn't mean that editors of this page can't choose to remove the cite, but merely that if they don't, the BLPN consensus should be followed.

PS. Note that the book in question isn't even published under the name of Scott Alexander, but under the name of the editors, which is not atypical for an anthology. So an easy way to have the citation without Scott's real name, is to cite the book, rather than part of the book, which seems like an atypical way to cite books anyway. Aapjes (talk) 21:06, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Toxoplasma of rage

Do we need more sources for Toxoplasma of rage section? I added one [3], there is also a reprint of the essay in Newstatesman [4], but maybe we shouldn't include that for [[5]] reasons. If you have time, please, add more sources! Eliokim (talk) 19:34, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

No, don't just add more sources, summarize what reliable, independent sources are actually saying. Any grouping based on themes still needs to be supported by a reliable, independent source, otherwise it's WP:SYNTH. Further, passing mentions in opinion columns are very poor at demonstrating lasting encyclopedic significance. Merely listing-off examples is inappropriate for several reasons, and tacking-on sources doesn't solve this issue. Instead of this, the article should summarize based on WP:IS. The article should explain to readers why, according to sources, these specific blog posts are encyclopedically significant. Grayfell (talk) 19:54, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Grayfell. To add some feedback specifically about the Guardian article, notice the "commentisfree" section of the URL. That indicates that that article came from the blog/contributor section of The Guardian, which has quite low editorial standards (especially in 2015--it might be somewhat better these days?). This detracts from the probability that we can consider the article a reliable source. In addition, a whole slew of chaff was published in that venue, meaning that it generally doesn't have much wp:weight for inclusion in this article here. See the wp:Perennial Sources page to see the broad consensus on this issue. Jlevi (talk) 20:01, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. I believe that this particular article is in the Opinion section [6] of the Guardian, but not the blog section, which are given different reliability ratings at WP:RSP. I do not object to separating one subsection into two. Eliokim (talk) 21:02, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

This is conflating two separate issues. While The Guardian published blogs with the "commentisfree" URL in the past, now all editorial/opinion content is published with this URL and they no longer publish blogs. This newer content should be treated roughly the same as any other newspaper's opinion section. The Guardian's website is needlessly confusing, but it is what it is. The Guardian article in question was published in 2015, which I believe was after that switch-over, but I could be wrong.

The problem I have with this source is not that it's a blog, it's that it's a single citation by an opinion columnist being used to support a controversial opinion which is never mentioned or contextualized. To be honest, I don't think it's worth mentioning here, so I'm not convinced this source is useful for this article. To attribute an opinion, we would need at least some reason to indicate why this one mention from 2015 by Helen Lewis (journalist) is significant. From that, we would decide how to summarize that opinion. This article is not the place to compile every single vaguely reliable source. The goal is to write a neutral encyclopedia article, which means summarizing sources according to due weight. Not every source is important, just as not every blog post needs to be mentioned here.

I think any attempt to highlight specific blog posts is going to introduce problems like this, because the purpose of the article isn't to provide a "greatest hits" compilation. The purpose is to explain why the blog is encyclopedically significant. If specific examples of this blog serve this purpose, so be it, but this isn't presumed. It is not enough that it gets mentioned positively or is nebulously popular. We need actual context here. Grayfell (talk) 23:51, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Huh. My bad. Thanks for the feedback. And yes, I agree that the real issue here is 1) establishing weight and 2) not just listing/summarizing things, but actually providing content and context. Jlevi (talk) 00:06, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell, you say "it's a single citation by an opinion columnist being used to support a controversial opinion". Can you expand a bit on why the sentence "The blog post "The Toxoplasma Of Rage" discussed how controversial and divisive memes spread in media and social networks" is a controversial opinion? Eliokim (talk) 01:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

That's not what I said, so no, I can't expand on it. My point was that Lewis's opinion column about "dying cats" is controversial. Perhaps "controversial" was the wrong word, but it's certainly controvertable. This article isn't the place to explain why Lewis's claims could be contested, but still, as with all sources, it must be evaluated in context. Lewis's column doesn't mention "memes", nor does it really discuss "social media". Instead, it borrows some specific examples to support Lewis's own position. Your summary of the blog post is therefore not directly supported by the Lewis column. Tacking on a source to your own summary misrepresents what that source actually says, and is WP:OR. In order to cite this source, we would have to attempt to summarize Lewis's point in some way for context, otherwise it's not helpful. I dispute that this five-year-old political column will help readers to understand "Slate Star Codex". To me that it the important part, here. Grayfell (talk) 02:51, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell, thank you for the clarification, I misunderstood you. The way I see it is that there is the following fact: evolution of controversial memes is discussed in blog posts in SSC. I think we all agree that there is nothing controversial about this fact :-) The question is whether it is notable enough to be reflected in the Contents section of Wikipedia article on SSC, and if so, in what detail, and which sources to use to summarize the content of the posts. Let's maybe discuss them one by one. Regarding notability of Toxoplasma of rage: it seems to me that the fact that the blogpost was reprinted in the New Statesman and discussed in opinion column in Guardian establishes enough notability for one sentence mention in the Contents section of our article. What is the other contributors' opinion? Eliokim (talk) 03:20, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Sure, reprints may help establish some notability - the academic reprint, the New Statesman reprint - David Gerard (talk) 18:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

If we have enough notability for one sentence summary, the question is how to paraphrase it from a third party independent source. The Guardian column may be controversial, but its summary of the SSC post isn't. There's no one out there saying "No! This is not what that post is about!".Helen Lewis writes:

In his thought-provoking essay The Toxoplasma of Rage, the American blogger Scott Alexander asked why Peta gets more attention than more sensible animal charities, and why Rolling Stone’s flimsy patchily sourced account of an alleged rape on a college campus became a cause celebre rather than the many, many cast-iron cases that exist...

[+2 paragraphs quoting Toxoplasma]

...In other words, the debate turned into a vivid, polarising row, crowding out discussion of the practical measures, such as police wearing body cameras, that could prevent such an incident happening again. A dying cat had been thrown on to the table. Alexander concluded – and I agree – that such tactics mean “everyone is irresistibly incentivised to ignore the things that unite us, in favour of forever picking at the things that divide us in exactly the way that is most likely to make them more divisive”. Controversy spreads like a virus, but real change happens when activists carefully nurture a cause.

Here's my attempt to summarize Lewis's summary:

Alexander discussed how controversies spread in the media, and argued that journalists and activists often have an incentive to concentrate on the most divisive take on a subject, preventing constructive dialog.

I propose to insert a sentence like this in the beginning of the subsection Shiri's scissor. Since we have independent sources describing both posts as being about viral spread of controversies, it is not WP:OR to mention them in one subsection. Eliokim (talk) 14:28, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I disagree. While I see this was made in good faith, I do not accept that your summary is neutral or appropriate. Again, I dispute that this is helpful to readers. It is OR to mention them in one subsection unless they are connected by a reliable, independent source. Here you are connecting them based on your own interpretation of their themes. This is understandable, but is still original research. If a reliable, independent source explains that the blog frequently discusses X, Y, or Z, summarize that source without adding your own editorializing. For you to use obscure and primary sources to imply this is original research. It is not that you are incorrect, it is that you are using your own interpretation to emphasize something. We need reliable sources to decide what is important and what is not.

Why is this encyclopedically significant? How will this help readers to understand the topic? If the fact that an obscure opinion article cites a blog post as a source is encyclopedically significant, you will need to explain this to readers in a way that indicates this significance. I do not accept this at face value. Without context, it's trivia. If the only IS for this particular blog post is the Guardian opinion, than it is likely trivia.

As for reprints, if reprints suggest significance, then say "The blog's posts have been reprinted by..." If these reprints are significant, use a reliable source to explain why they are significant. Grayfell (talk) 04:58, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

"How will this help readers to understand the topic?" The topic is the content of Slate Star Codex. The sentence "Alexander discussed how controversies spread..." gives the reader information about the content of the blog. 

"Why is this encyclopedically significant?" In my opinion, the fact that the content of the blog post was reprinted in the New Statesman and discussed in the Guardian makes it sufficiently notable to be briefly mentioned in the Content section of the article about SSC (the notability of the blog itself, however, is established from other sources).

Is this OR to put this sentence together with discussion of "Sort by controversial"? I don't think it is. We have 

source S1: blog post B1 (Toxoplasma of rage) of SSC discussed topic X (how controversies spread in media);

source S2: blog post B2 (Sort by controversial) of SSC discussed topic X (how controversies spread in media)

Can we mention these two in one subsection without violating WP:NOR, or do we necessarily need to have 

source S3: blog posts B1 and B2 of SSC discussed topic X?

It doesn't seem that the strict interpretation of WP:NOR that would require S3 is generally practiced in Wikipedia. Take The Guardian article, for example. There is an accusation about a misleading story related to Julian Assange and there is an accusation about a misleading story related to WhatsApp. But there is no source that would list Assange and Whatsapp accusations together, yet they are in the same section. 

It seems that we have a disagreement here. What do we do? Is there a reasonable compromise? Maybe the other contributors can weigh in? Eliokim (talk) 19:52, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Grayfell is basically correct that the previous text was written like a fan essay about SSC content. I too am quite unsure about using passing mentions as scratchings for notability. An essay in the Guardian blog section really doesn't count as noteworthiness. I mean, you could say Helen Lewis likes SSC, but Helen Lewis liking things doens't connote notability for Wikipedia purposes. I'd stick to saying that it had reprints in NS and in an academic text - David Gerard (talk) 20:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your input, David Gerard. Note that opinion section of the Guardian is different from blog section and they have different reliability ratings at WP:RSP. Eliokim (talk) 22:02, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

There is a difference between due weight and reliability. For example, Slate Star Codex is notable, but is not reliable for factual claims and is not useful for due weight about itself. Opinion articles can be cited, but they are not necessarily reliable either, nor do they automatically make something due weight. Lewis's essay is a WP:PRIMARY source for Lewis's opinion. It is not a good source for demonstrating why this blog post is significant.

As for mentioning these both in a single subsection, there is room for editorial disagreement with sources like this, but this would be resolved with better secondary sources. One way of thinking about it is that there are many things which could link these two posts together. Why these? Why is "how controversies spread in media" the only common theme between these two blog posts which is worth mentioning? Why is it worth mentioning? I don't think this is, so we need a reliable source, instead. A neutral summary would use reliable, independent sources to indicate to readers which themes are significant. When individual editors select themes and then present those themes in a certain way, even if those themes seem obvious, this is still editorializing. Grayfell (talk) 01:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that enforcing the strict interpretation of WP:NOR regarding separation into subsections that you describe will improve Wikipedia, nor does it seem to be what is generally practiced in Wikipedia. Take the Accusation of Misleading Stories section example I brought up (I chose the Guardian because we were discussing an article form the Guardian, but you can find such examples everywhere on Wikipedia). The Guardian article about Assange and the article about WhatsApp are put into one subsection, but RS linking them is not provided. The same questions that you are asking can be asked there. Why group them together? Why not mention Assange in a subsection The Guardian and Wikileaks and WhatsApp in subsection The Guardian and Tech companies, or some other way? Putting them both into Accusations of misleading stories was an editorial choice, not supported by RS. Is it OR? Eliokim (talk) 15:23, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is generally not a winning argument on Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 16:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, this doesn't seem like OTHERSTUFFEXISTS but rather pointing out that Grayfell's interpretation of NOR doesn't make sense for most cases and thus probably also shouldn't apply to this article. Gbear605 (talk) 16:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Please also note that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS discourages using it this way: It is important to realize that countering the keep or delete arguments of other people, or dismissing them outright, by simply referring them to this essay by name, and nothing else, is not encouraged... This essay is not a standard reply that can be hurled against anyone you disagree with who has made a reference to how something is done somewhere else. Eliokim (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Other pages have problems too, but those are different articles with different sources. It's easier when we can point to a policy and say "it has to be this way", but this is not one of those cases. As I said, there is room for editorial disagreement for how content is organized. I dispute that these two things belong together, because, as I've tried to explain, in this situation I believe it's a subtle form of editorializing. Therefore, this doesn't have consensus.

Instead, we should use reliable sources to demonstrate that "how controversies spread in media" is a common or important theme of the blog. If sources do not directly support that, we cannot side-step sources to imply it anyway. It is not enough for editors to imply this based on first-hand knowledge. Grayfell (talk) 20:05, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining your position, Grayfell. I'll check if there is a better source for this. Eliokim (talk) 13:13, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

"Toxoplasma of rage" is also discussed in the chapter "Costly signaling" of "This idea is brilliant: lost, overlooked, and underappreciated scientific concepts everyone should know" [7]. Together with the fact that is also appeared [8] in New Satesman and discussed in some newspaper articles ([9],[10]) this makes the blog post a noteworthy part of the content of SSC. Eliokim (talk) 02:45, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

Astral Codex Ten

Today Scott Alexander released the follow up blog to Slate Star Codex, Astral Codex Ten, which is hosted on Substack. In the first post, Still Alive, he discussed his reasons for shutting down the original blog, the steps that he's taken to protect himself (such as leaving his psychiatric practice), and publicly announced his name, Scott Siskind. Given that, I think we can safely add his name to the article. Obviously this new blog should be mentioned in the article, but I'm not sure how we want to cover it. Partially it will depend on how sources cover it, but options will include creating a new article or covering information about both blogs in this article.

Gbear605 (talk) 22:10, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

also we need to get his last name into the article now (but there's an abuse filter against it... which confuses me but whatever). BrokenSegue 05:18, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Including his last name (again)

Directed at User:108.20.0.229 and anyone else concerned. His last name is now publicly available on his own blog. The question of his real name is important to the article given the controversy around it. We cannot justify not including it even if he wished it were not here. Further I don't see evidence he even cares anymore. His own blog post says "Since I'm no longer protecting my anonymity...". But again even if he did care not reporting this fact would be wrong. BrokenSegue 03:26, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Concur - he's officially placed the cat outside the bag - David Gerard (talk) 11:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

The argument for not including it seems to be that he would still prefer that has patients not stumble on his blog by accident, and we should extend him the courtesy. That seems reasonable. Except, at https://lorienpsych.com/about/ he, writes: In his off hours, Dr. Siskind ... blogs about science, technology, and politics. So he's telling his patients that he has a political blog, but is hoping people won't be curious enough to look for it? I really doubt that even he cares. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I'll note again that Siskind's name has literally never been a secret - it just didn't make its way into many RSes. His claims that it ever was are false, and his fans echoing the claims that it ever was are furthering a falsehood. But at least we can cite the academic reprint properly now - David Gerard (talk) 21:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi! I hope it's not improper for very occasional Wikipedia editors like myself to add to this discussions? I've followed all this drama from afar with some interest, although I'm only an occasional reader of SSC, and happened to check out this talk page, basically on a whim.

And I have to say, I do not believe the man himself ever claimed that it was literally a secret. He claimed (accurately) not to have made it public knowledge. There is a stark difference on the Internet between putting one's name about, and having one's name out there somewhere if somebody looks hard enough; perhaps anonymity isn't the right word for what Alexander had cultivated around the name "Siskind", perhaps "obscurity" would be more accurate. But there is certainly a stark difference in the status of his name now and the status of his name a year ago. And in fact, the man himself wrote about what he termed "signal-boosting as doxxing" back in 2017; it's not as though he is applying a weird double-standard to himself.

One can of course think Alexander/Siskind was overdramatic for what was "mere" signal-boosting (I think he kinda was, in wording if not in deed). Or one can disagree with this "signal-boosting as doxxing" proposition as a whole — although this seems anachronistic to me; in this day and age of the Internet, malicious doxxing does seem likely to be performed by online sleuthing rather than going through real-world channels, and that logically implies that the legal name being leaked is somewhere out there to start with. But I do not think it's fair to say Alexander has been propagating a "falsehood" when speaking of being doxxed or of people "revealing" his legal name.

(Some of his self-appointed defenders, now…)

In any case, and again assuming the opinion of a passerby like myself has weight in such a discussion: I do agree that "Siskind" should now unquestionably appear in the article. He might still wish it wouldn't, but has clearly made peace with the fact that it will, hence his putting it in a blog post. However, I think that other than in sentences specifically documenting the controversy, he should still be referred to as "Scott Alexander"; he has stated, and shown that he will keep using the nom de plume regardless of his birth name being known. With actors who operate under a stage name, they're referred to as such throughout the better part of their articles, I believe, even when there isn't a mystery of any kind about what their birth name was. Would I be correct in assuming the same should apply here?

Hope all these ramblings were useful! --Scrooge MacDuck (talk) 00:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

• Glad that's settled. "...I had, not to mince words about it, a really weird year... My name is Scott Siskind..."[11] - Mr. Codex going out on a limb to say that 2020 was not normal. Anyway, he very clearly and theatrically published his full name. His opinions about the definition of doxxing are, for Wikipedia's purposes, only significant to the extent they are supported by reliable, independent sources. This standard also applies to all the rest of his various opinions. His name is public knowledge, with his consent, so it uncontroversially belongs in the article. Grayfell (talk) 01:55, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't under the impression that the "signal-boosting as doxxing" thing was of much relevance to the editing of the article itself; rather, I was replying to @David Gerard's assertion that Mr Codex (I like calling him that, it's a fun joke-compromise, haha) had been lying about being anonymous.

At any rate, how do you feel about my suggestion that most of the article should use "Alexander" even if it mentions "Siskind", for the same reason e.g. David Tennant isn't "David MacDonald" throughout his own page, and certainly not in cast lists on other pages? --Scrooge MacDuck (talk) 11:51, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 13 February 2021

Slate Star Codex → Scott Alexander Siskind – As Mr. Siskind is now known under his official name, and is no longer blogging under Slate Star Codex, it makes sense to re-purpose this as a biography article, rather than an article about a defunct blog. 75.162.124.147 (talk) 20:24, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

• The article isn't really about the blogger, but about the blog. We don't really have any notable information about Siskind, other than that he is a Bay Area psychologist and that he wrote a blog that we have a lot of notable information about. The article currently has three sections, Content, Reception, and Controversy over potential revelation of full name. In an article about Siskind, we'd probably want to remove most of the content category and some of the reception category, since neither of those are really about Siskind. Gbear605 (talk) 20:39, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with User:Gbear605. Slate Star Codex reaches Wikipedia's notability threshold, but it's not clear whether Scott Alexander does. If the situation changes a separate article can be created. Eliokim (talk) 20:49, 13 February 2021 (UTC)
• Although I agree that Scott Alexander isn't notable enough, I think that the article definitely shouldn't be named after a defunct blog. Perhaps the article should be moved to Astral Codex Ten and treat Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten as one continuous blog with two names? Noaht2 (talk) 11:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• "Slate Star Codex" is the most famous name, "Scott Alexander" is next most famous - putting it at the pen-name is quite plausible. "Scott Siskind" and "Astral Codex Ten" are basically not famous as names and "Scott Alexander Siskind" isn't at all really. I would leave it at the most famous name for now, though I concur that it being a now-inactive blog is an issue - David Gerard (talk) 13:12, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose the move for reasons stated by the prior commenters; this is not a biographical article per se, although it shares a number of considerations with BLPs, and is predominantly about the blog. I recognize the SSC/ACX confusion, but Astral Codex Ten is not the common name at this time for "the blog run by Scott Alexander", and there's a tendency still to treat them as continuous. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 13:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. It's not clear that Siskind meets WP:NOTABILITY. The blog itself does. That it is defunct is immaterial. TortillaDePapas (talk) 16:58, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I'd like to add that SSC is online, all comments are accessible and reliable sources citing content from SSC and linking to it keep appearing. So maybe "inactive" is a better description than "defunct". Eliokim (talk) 20:57, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose; the blog is what's notable, while Siskind isn't, comparatively - especially given that the blog was published under a pen name (omitting his last name) and his full name only recently became public. The fact that the blog may become defunct doesn't really matter, since existing coverage won't disappear and is sufficient to make it notable. If things change in the future (eg. Siskind publishes a bunch of other non-blog stuff under his own name and the blog stays defunct) we can always revisit it then, but right now the focus of coverage is more "blog with this author" and not "guy who wrote this blog." --Aquillion (talk) 22:27, 14 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose for reasons similar to most others mentioned here: the "name of note" remains Slate Star Codex. I don't usually do Wikipedia voting, but I just thought it was interesting to consider how I am opposing a move now that I think is more likely than not to be appropriate in one or two years' time. But Wikipedia is a reference of the present, even as it is The Encyclopedia Of The Future, so here the article should stay. 2601:600:9B7F:8AE3:A02B:49BE:222:B9BB (talk) 07:09, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Whoops! I wasn't logged in! Sorry. Kistaro Windrider (talk) 07:11, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. Blog more notable than blogger. Srnec (talk) 19:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. For now. While I think the eventuality is that Siskind have his own page (and this would be the most appropriate page for that). For now it's Slate Star Codex. Give it a few months and it would be more appropriate I think. Just a very mediocre wiki editor / reader putting in my two cents... btw, we all knew who he was, a Google search could confirm it trivially, and this talk page was utterly fascinating with how anyone even mentioning it would have their comments removed, truly a fascinating social media experience. The Times article was much to do about nothing. And while I would not call it 'censorship' I think that the fervent effort to stop people from mentioning his real name (so much that admins would delete comments here) was truly different in how this works. He ceased being anonymous when he wrote his real name and wiki editors should have known better, at least in the comment section here. I know you guys have a lot of work to do but you made more work for yourself disappearing those comments. As a reader it was very unsettling and caused me to go down a rabbit hole I would rather have never gone down. I know, I know, original research and all that jazz, but the talk page should be treated differently. 75.184.9.7 (talk) 10:47, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article is about Slate Star Codex.--Smerus (talk) 12:39, 16 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The author keeps blogging under the name Scott Alexander, so it seems extremely unlikely that his real name will become notable and it certainly isn't now. If Astral Codex Ten or Scott Alexander becomes more notable, a migration to one of those names can be considered. However, at this time, the new blog has only been launched recently and Scott's decision to be a public figure has not resulted in the kind of public persona that is notable in itself. Aapjes (talk) 13:01, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Making clear that Scott chose to become a public figure

David Gerard reverted my addition to the controversy section, which I put back. It is true that this section involves claims by Scott himself, but it is rather crucial information. Scott has consistently said over the years that he worried about certain risks of having his name be too public. He claims to have taken actions to reduce these risks and says that he has decided to no longer try to conceal his identity. In so far that his claims are verifiable, they seem to be true (there is a website for his new solo practice, removing the risk of being fired, which he claimed to fear, and he has published his real name on the new blog). When the controversy is over whether someone's desires should be respected, it is important to the story to describe what those desires are and what justification is given for these desires. Scott's desire for pseudo-anonimity and the reasons he claimed to have for that desire were already part of the Controversy section, at the beginning, and give crucial information to understand what the conflict was about. It's equally important to know that Scott's desires changed and the reasons he gave for them, to understand why Scott published his name himself. I believe that my addition is very neutral and uses language that recognizes the subjective nature of Scott's justification. Readers can then have their own opinion about whether they consider this justification to be credible Aapjes (talk) 13:05, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Aapjes, I agree that it should be included, but note Wikipedia’s Bold-Revert-Delete method where once a change is reverted, it should be discussed first instead of just reinstated. Gbear605 (talk) 15:51, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

BRD is not mandatory, right? Probably good advice in general, but here I agree too that the addition makes sense, so I guess it should stay. Volteer1 (talk) 16:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Only the three-revert rule is mandatory. The Bold-Revert-Delete method is optional. I partially followed it anyway, but decided to undo the revert because I considered the revert of my change to be inconsistent with not also removing already existing content in the same section, which is extremely similar. I don't feel obligated to preserve an edit based on an inconsistent application of the rules. Aapjes (talk) 18:01, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Rules lawyering to claim that explicitly questionable editing, especially when questioned, is not technically against the rules, is not historically the path to a long tenure as a Wikipedia editor - David Gerard (talk) 22:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I strongly disagree that my editing was questionable, unlike yours. You have repeatedly refused to engage with my argument, merely referring to the same rule time again and again, even though I explained that the rule is not applicable. If you are not willing to engage with the arguments of other editors, perhaps it is you who doesn't meet the expected standards of a Wikipedia editor. This is especially the case since you are far more experienced than me, so you have far less of an excuse to make errors. Aapjes (talk) 23:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

This isn't an article on a fan wiki. Find an RS that took note of it - David Gerard (talk) 09:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The entire controversy was about the NYT's alleged intent to violate the desires of Scott. This is why his stated preferences and the reasons for them have to briefly be described, to be able to understand what the controversy is/was about. This was already part of the page with only a statement on Scott's own site as evidence, which was not removed by you even though you seem to feel strong ownership of this article and make many changes to edits of others. This suggest that you approved of describing his initial preferences with a link to his own blog as supporting evidence. You have failed to explain why you have been inconsistent by removing my change, but not an extremely similar section that would violate the same rule, if that rule actually applies, which I dispute.

After all, the only claim that is made on the Wikipedia page is that Scott has stated certain desires and has given certain arguments. The only way in which such a statement can be false is if Scott didn't make that statement. Using his own site as evidence is then actually far stronger evidence than linking to second or third-hand reporting, because it minimizes the possibility that the given evidence is wrong to the rather unlikely possibility that Scott's own blog is controlled by someone else, who writes things that Scott doesn't approve of. I think that we can safely assume that this is not the case.

Again, I want to stress that it is important to clarify that Scott's preferences changed. If these are left off the page, Wikipedia would insinuate that the desires of Scott have not changed and that the published NYT article which contained Scott's real name violated his current desires, even though this is false. I feel rather strongly about Wikipedia not deceiving its readers into believing falsehoods, especially in this situation, where such misconceptions could result in harassment. Aapjes (talk) 13:45, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like a lot of words to say "no, I don't have an RS". Removing until there's evidence anyone cared. This isn't a fan site.

Also, Quillette isn't an RS, it's considered "generally unreliable" and thus almost unusable for BLPish claims - see WP:RSP - David Gerard (talk) 17:50, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Please respond to my arguments. Merely repeating yourself is extremely unhelpful.

Also, I didn't add the Quillette reference, so you should be addressing Eliokim, not me. In general, you seem to be far less sharp that I'm used to, from you. If you are stressed or overworked because you are heavily involved in this controversy, which recently came to its apotheosis, you might want to take a time out. Wikipedia is a communal effort and I'm sure that other editors can pick up your slack. If not, this page will still be here in a little while. Aapjes (talk) 22:48, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Your arguments are not applicable to Wikipedia sourcing policy, and I didn't say you did. Let me ask again: Do you have an RS that anyone cares? This isn't a fan wiki - David Gerard (talk) 23:35, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Self-published sources can be used in a BLP article if it is by the subject of the article. (See WP:BLPSELFPUB.) I think that Alexander's articles on Slate Star Codex and Astral Codex Ten count, since although the article is about the blog, he still is close enough. The content removed in this edit seems to be valid for inclusion. It's not unduly self-serving, there are no claims about third-parties or unrelated events, it's definitely by him, and the article isn't based on it. Gbear605 (talk) 01:41, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

No, that is obviously a self-serving framing of events, which WP:ABOUTSELF sourcing cannot be used for. We would need a secondary source for something like that. --Aquillion (talk) 09:17, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Aquillion, Subsequently, Scott Alexander took measures that made him comfortable with revealing his real name, which he published on Astral Codex Ten. is a self-serving framing of events? How is that not the base factual truth? Gbear605 (talk) 14:45, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I have undone the second revert of my change by David Gerard. No editor backed him on this, so this change was purely unilateral. I believe that he didn't make any real attempt at achieving consensus, violating the Consensus rule, which is one of the most important policies of Wikipedia. Repeating the exact same WP:RS argument that he used to remove the content the first time, without responding to any of the counter-arguments, is not engaging with the community to achieve consensus. Aapjes (talk) 07:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Since you are the one who wishes to make this change the burden is on you to gain consensus, see WP:BRD. As this was non-neutrally worded, and a weak source for a BLP, I have again reverted pending real consensus. Further, calling this change "vandalism" was not appropriate. This article cannot possibly include every opinion from such a prolific blogger, regardless of where it was published. The way to decide which to include should, as is standard with articles about self-publishers, be determined by WP:IS. A brief summary from a primary source can be used to satisfy BLP, but the necessity of this would still have to be either uncontroversial, or clearly demonstrated by reliable, independent sources. Grayfell (talk) 07:45, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

No one argued that the article should include every one of Scott's opinions, so you are rebutting a straw man. The controversy was over the NYT's alleged intent to violate the desire of this blogger to achieve a certain level of pseudo-anonymity. His opinion on the matter, including the later change to that opinion, are thus a crucial part of the controversy. I've explained exactly why I consider this particular opinion to be relevant and have only described it tersely in my edit. Your insinuation that I'm trying to include every one of Scott's opinions seems therefor like a rather extreme overreaction, especially since the article currently already contains a very similar statement about Scott's previous opinion. You, like David Gerard, seem perfectly content with leaving that opinion in the article, while removing a statement explaining that this opinion changed, without ever explaining why the one is acceptable and is sufficiently supported with a reference to Scott's own blog, but not the other. I don't understand this inconsistency, especially since both of you refuse to explain yourself.

You also fail to explain why you think that my addition was not neutrally worded and fail to offer suggestions. Consensus-building to achieve a result that is acceptable to all, requires that people clarify their objections with sufficient detail to work towards consensus, rather than stalemate. I would like to ask you to make more of an effort to achieve consensus.

Despite you making it very hard for me to know what you would consider sufficiently neutral, I will give a suggestion, which you may agree with. If you do not, I would like to ask you to clarify what part you don't consider neutral.

My suggestion with the change in bold: Subsequently, Scott Alexander wrote that he took measures that made him comfortable with revealing his real name, which he published on Astral Codex Ten.

In my opinion, the link to his blog provides sufficient evidence that he wrote this, similar to the provided evidence for the statement on his original opinion.

Aapjes (talk) 10:50, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Nobody's questioning he said it, the question is whether it's of due weight. and fail to offer suggestions I and Grayfell have both suggested you find independent reliable sources that anyone in the world has noticed or cares; you are presently playing WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT - David Gerard (talk) 12:26, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Neither you or Grayfell have said before that the issue was WP:DUE. You removed it while referring to WP:RS, which stands for Reliable Sources, not for Sources That Demonstrate Due Weight. Communication works a lot better if you use the shortcut that actually clarifies your concern. Alternatively, you can use your own words to clarify what you really mean. However, even in the context of this clarification, my earlier rebuttal still stands that you accept that the already existing sentence that describes Scott's initial proclaimed desire to conceal his name, remains in the article, despite also only having a reference to Scott's own blog. Why doesn't that sentence specifically require a reference that proves WP:DUE, but my addition, which is identical in kind, does not? You keep refusing to address this question.

Anyway, what about adding this reference?: https://reason.com/2021/02/15/what-the-new-york-times-hit-piece-on-slate-star-codex-says-about-media-gatekeeping/

The first two paragraphs demonstrate that Alexander decided to out himself and took certain measures due to the conflict/controversy described in this section of the WP page and that this decision is considered important enough to note in the article. Aapjes (talk) 14:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Potential new COI between David Gerard and Slate Star Codex?

On his twitter (archived here), David Gerard said that he sent Metz SO MUCH material for that NYT SlateStarCodex article, i can see the ghosts of what i sent. While previous discussions about his COI with and bias toward the article have resolved negatively, and I have even supported him (see above in the talk page), this seems to be a line too far, where he is currently removing criticism of that NYT article and playing a significant role in the talk page discussion about the response to the NYT article.

There seem to be plenty of eyes on the article, including by people who aren't fans of the article's subject, so his editing is not "needed" in some way to make sure that the article is not biased in favor of the subject.

(To personally disclose, while I have commented on Slate Star Codex, I have no further connection with the blog and do my best to achieve a neutral point of view)

Gbear605 (talk) 15:23, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that this set of tweets is more problematic. David Gerard said that he made an argument to the author of the article in favor of publishing Scott's real name, during their talks. So at that point, David Gerard was not merely acting as a source, answering questions, providing material and such, but he was at the same time trying to convince the author to publish the real name. I don't see how that is compatible with also editing the section on that controversy. Aapjes (talk) 17:41, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Then you are an extremely bad reader: my words right there are do in fact think there was a strong argument for keeping Scott's name quiet, and i made it at rationalwiki no less but there was also an even stronger argument for NOT doing that - which was an accurate description of what a nuanced opinion on the subject looks like - David Gerard (talk) 18:01, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I have to concur that all of this is a highly problematic COI. Overall I've stayed away from the dispute, because sourcing is important, but David Gerard's specific relationship with the subject here goes beyond what can be considered acceptable for unbiased editing. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 17:48, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Then you would need to look at my edits, which generally have reasons attached. If you were writing a complaint for WP:COIN, do you have the diffs to show it? - David Gerard (talk) 18:03, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I've already noted that I was a source for the NYT article, as were many others. I was consulted as an expert on the LessWrong subculture. Expertise is not considered a COI per se. I retain my opinions on Scott Siskind. The Reason article removal was because it was pretty clearly WP:UNDUE, as cautioned in its WP:RSP listing, as I noted in the edit summary. Your section heading falls to Betteridge's law. Perhaps you could find sources where the blog opinions are not explicitly questioned per a previous RFC - David Gerard (talk) 17:57, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

You also bascially called Scott Alexander a Nazi on your Twitter: "why say in a million words what you can say in 14". --Distelfinck (talk) 18:09, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

You have seen the tweet where Siskind explicitly advocated scientific racism and encouraging reactionaries that leaked yesterday, in which he describes his strategy for SSC going forward (this was from 2014) as introducing these ideas gently with lots of words? No-one's denied that email, they've instead piled on the leaker - which seems to verify it. So it's yet to make an RS, but Siskind has literally admitted 14 words in one million was his strategy for SSC - David Gerard (talk) 18:26, 19 February 2021 (UTC)