Chris Chan

[wizzito]

I was surprised to see that the whole Chris Chan (Christine Weston Chandler) situation on Wikipedia (especially recently) didn't have a thread yet, and I feel as if it deserves one as it strikes me as a great amount of corruption, censorship, and hypocrisy among a certain few admins and users. (I won't go into detail about actions by specific users because I don't want them to "get hit by the Google bus", as they say.)

I think that they are very Wikipedia:BLP1E (T-H-L) right now (in terms of 'mainstream media' coverage) but that doesn't mean an article about her can't exist in draft space with proper sourcing (there are plenty of drafts on non-notable subjects, after all, and drafts aren't checked for notability or sanity)

They may even have notability in the future, we don't know what's going to happen with the incest charges and/or what will happen in the future.

I feel confused about how a bunch of admins and user want to cry that "Every article draft made about them, even if it is NPOV and made by constructive editors, is a personal attack!" When.... no? Arguably, I can't see the deleted drafts as I'm not an oversighter, but the last 2 drafts about them I know of were deleted as an attack page, despite being created and improved by pretty experienced editors, and I doubt those editors would throw away their ECP privileges or editing privileges to make an attack page. (I'm not saying something like that hasn't happened, it's just that I find it very unlikely.)

There's also articles for people noted for their role in harassment campaigns; so saying "Chris Chan shouldn't have an article because they're a private individual who's been harassed" is ridiculous. If we go by that logic, then, for example, the page on Zoë Quinn (T-H-L) should be deleted, because Zoe has been the target of harassment through the Gamergate campaign and could be considered a private individual, if you really think about it. Chris may not be notable under English Wikipedia standards, but they are by no means an unknown individual.

Going as far as to literally scrub their existence off pages like Kiwi Farms (T-H-L), where it's somewhat essential to know who Chris was at least when looking at the history of the site is ridiculous too. The sources cited name Chris directly! Why can't at least their name be included? (because without it, the article looks like it's trying its' hardest not to)

And if you say something about BLP and/or privacy, there's probably countless instances where people without articles were mentioned in other articles as they were named in a reliable source. Should we remove all of those people's names, too?

Those are my thoughts. What are your thoughts on this situation? Do you think that Chris Chan should get a Wikipedia article? Do you feel as if removing their name from all corners of Wikipedia is necessary?

[Hemiauchenia]

This old drum again? Really? On Wikipediocracy, we are always criticizing Wikipedia for its failure to treat BLP subjects with the required sensitivity, but in this case their judgement is spot on. Chris Chan doesn't pass Wikipedia notability guidelines by a long shot, even if they are infamous on certain corners of the internet. They have received extensive harassment for over a decade, the last thing they need is a Wikipedia article that would become an immediate target for vandals.

[wizzito]

They have received extensive harassment for over a decade, the last thing they need is a Wikipedia article that would become an immediate target for vandals.

By your logic here, we should delete Sussy (T-H-L), for example, because it is a frequent vandalism target. Or that we should delete any frequent vandalism target in general. (Also, that's what ECP and semi are for; to help prevent vandalism and disruptive editing.)

I'm not advocating for an article on Chris, I'm just saying that the whole situation reeks of hypocrisy from what consensus and articles I've seen.

[Hemiauchenia]

I'm not advocating for an article on Chris, I'm just saying that the whole situation reeks of hypocrisy from what consensus and articles I've seen.

It is not hypocritical to want to be sensitive regarding a vulnerable individual who has received extensive harassment. It's good judgement. Your point about vandalism is irrelevant because those topics are notable but Chris Chan is not. People can be famous on the internet without being notable, like the hordes of gaming YouTubers who have millions of followers yet have received precisely zero GNG worthy coverage.

[wizzito]

Alright, should we be removing all mentions of Jessi/Damien in Jessi Slaughter cyberbullying case (T-H-L) because they are technically a private individual known for the cyberbullying case? I'm not even advocating for an article, I acknowledge that Chris doesn't have much notability at the moment, I'm just saying that I find it ridiculous that people claim private individual/vandalism/etc. when I have never seen consensus to do what some WP users are doing with Chris on any other article. A plain mention in the Kiwi Farms article, like the article it cites is doing, is just fine.

[Hemiauchenia]

This isn't even comparable. The Jessi Slaughter case received massive press attention. So you're saying it's ridiculous that we treat subjects with widespread press coverage (like the Jessi Slaughter case) differently than subjects that don't (like Chris Chan), Because I'm not seeing how that's ridiculous. Mentioning Chris Chan's name is not relevant to the Kiwi Farms article. Few people outside the "extremely online" know who Chris Chan is, so that detail would be lost on most people. Kiwi Farms has moved way beyond being specifically about discussion of Chris Chan anyway.

[wizzito]

Also, I'm not worried about the whole notability thing. I just think the "censor their name on every corner of Wikipedia" is ridiculous. That's all I really wanted to complain about.

I'm just confused on how just putting in a simple mention of them on the Kiwi Farms article, an extended confirmed locked article, where quite a few sources on said article mention that person, is considered "harassment of a vulnerable individual". A simple mention copying what a reliable source said isn't harassment, especially since it's on an extended confirmed article, which are rarely vandalized. I'm sorry if the way I word things is confusing, but I hope this one got my point across.

[wizzito]

"Mentioning Chris Chan's name is not relevant to the Kiwi Farms article."

It just feels awkward, like the article is trying to not mention it, lest they will be dead. Also, I'm pretty sure that removing material that multiple RS covers is considered censorship.

"Few people outside the "extremely online" know who Chris Chan is, so that detail would be lost on most people."

So Wikipedia should just be about things that most people know about? There are plenty of sourced mentions of and sourced articles of people and things that you or I or most people don't know about, but still pass notability.

"Kiwi Farms has moved way beyond being specifically about discussion of Chris Chan anyway."

Why does this matter now? It's just something to know when looking at the history of the site, and was an important part of how it came to be. That's all.

[Hemiauchenia]

The big question is why do you care so much about this? Is some great injustice really being committed? This is such a strange hill to die on.

[wizzito]

The big question is why do you care so much about this?

I'm not even caring that much, I just feel confused as hell. I also just wanted to criticize what I thought went against what consensus I know of. Because this forum is for Wikipedia criticism.

[Smiley]

https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Wikipedia

On 1 May 2009, for reasons that only GodJesus knows, Christian Weston Chandler registered on Wikipedia as ChrisChanSonichu. He did this almost solely to create a user page that is to record one of the most in-depth autobiographical accounts of his life.

Chris's user page was deleted by a Wikipedia administrator, who believed it to be the work of a troll. Sadly, the details show that this was the real deal.

The only other thing Chris did was add his name to the article on high-functioning autism, under the list of "famous individuals that may have had many different variations of autism along with HFA." The kicker is that he put himself right next to Michelangelo. Again.

To date, the "Christian Weston Chandler" article on Wikipedia has been created by trolls four times and deleted each time: 15 February, 26 March, 28 April and 3 May 2009. It has consequently been "salted" or protected so that it cannot be re-created under that title. Chris's account was also blocked indefinitely; even though it was owned by Chris himself, and not a troll (as the admin believed), he violated many rules on it anyway. The page on Ruckersville, Virginia is also locked to non-autoconfirmed users to prevent people from adding mentions of Chris.

ChrisChanSonichu (T-C-L)'s old userpage: https://sonichu.com/cwcki/Chris%27s_Wikipedia_profile

Chris's talk page before it got locked, complete with gherkins: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?tit ... =287920013

I started my OWN Wikipedia page to hopefully counter that and better the people's General Understand of the Noble Gentleman I truly am. I SPENT HOURS, recalling MEMORY after MEMORY to type up the HONEST-TO-GOD TRUTH.

I DO NOT CARE about the erroneous listings or false information listed on other pages; I ONLY WISH TO TELL THE TRUTH AND SPREAD IT ON THE INTERNET.

UNDO YOUR DELETION, PLEASE.

--Christian Weston Chandler (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2009

"Post-merge" drafts:
Draft:Christian Weston Chandler (T-H-L)
Draft:Chris Chan (T-H-L)

Kiwi Farms discussion: Is Chris Notable Enough For Wikipedia Now? (Is Chris Historically Relevant?)


Chris did have entries in Spanish and Polish, and still does in Russian: Чендлер, Кристин Уэстон (archive)

[watis]

I think CWC is probably notable. I also think IAR is the corest policy. "Should we have an unremittingly and unavoidably awful page that will suck up voids of editor time and public goodwill for no reason?" seems trivially answerable.

[Hemiauchenia]

I also think IAR is the corest policy. "Should we have an unremittingly and unavoidably awful page that will suck up voids of editor time and public goodwill for no reason?" seems trivially answerable.

You can see the arguing that Jessica Yaniv (T-H-L) has caused, for extremely little gain. How many hours were wasted over whether Yaniv's genitals should be described as "male genitalia" or "scrotum"?

[Smiley]

I think CWC is probably notable.

Chris is very notable, certainly more so than Duclod Man (T-H-L) for instance, and probably more famous than 99% of the remaining 1,000,000 or so BLP subjects.


Edit: Duclod Man is no more: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Duclod Man (archive)

[Smiley]

Chris does have a wikidata entry: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q98406706

It was nominated for deletion in August, but had to stay because of the Russian WP article: Wikidata:Requests_for_deletions/Archive/2021/10/21#Q98406706

ru.wikinews ran a story about the "merge" events: Категория:Кристин Уэстон Чендлер

After translation:

[wizzito]

Edit: Duclod Man is no more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... Duclod_Man

I nominated Duclod Man for deletion a few months ago on notability grounds.

[wizzito]

ru.wikinews ran a story about the "merge" events: Категория:Кристин Уэстон Чендлер

After translation:

The categories on that Wikinews article are literally just pure vandalism. Probably needs to be nuked. https://ru.wikinews.org/wiki/Транс-женщ ... _обвинения

[wizzito]

Also the Wikidata deletion is pretty much a perfect example of the attempt at censorship going on, even to other Wikimedia projects where different notability standards exist.

[AndyTheGrump]

I don't think you understand what the word 'censorship' actually means...

[Midsize Jake]

Also the Wikidata deletion is pretty much a perfect example of the attempt at censorship going on, even to other Wikimedia projects where different notability standards exist.

I'm afraid I had to agree with Mr. Grump that the word "censorship" is inappropriate in this case — so much so that I felt compelled to replace this thread's title with something more "neutral-sounding," not to mention more descriptive of what's actually going on there. (Sometimes I do ask for suggestions, but this case seemed a bit more clear-cut than usual.)

Admittedly, there's a fair argument to be made that Ms. Chan(dler) is "notable" enough, at least by WP standards, for a BLP article. The obvious counterpoint is that not everyone who is "notable" enough should be subjected to that treatment, since the right to privacy should (in many, if not most cases) overrule the desires of Wikipedians to publicly document whatever they, as individuals or as a group, deem interesting or even important. Obviously their argument typically involves the public's "need to know," but the idea that Wikipedians should be allowed to arrogate unto themselves the worldwide authority to decide what the public needs to know, or to unilaterally decide any sort of informational standard whatsoever, is hogwash.

So while it's an interesting topic, and who knows, maybe even a "definitional" controversy on some level, I'll just ask that we not refer to it as "censorship" — if only because that implies Wikipedia not only has more power than it really does, but that it also derives whatever power it has from legitimate authorities, whoever they might be.

[Smiley]

The Farmers are upset with GorillaWarfare who pretty much rules the Kiwi Farms (T-H-L) article.

https://xtools.wmflabs.org/articleinfo/ ... Kiwi_Farms

To be fair to the Farmers, that article is hilarious in how it bends over backwards to avoid mentioning Christine Weston Chandler considering the website is named after Christine Weston Chandler and was set up to document the life of Christine Weston Chandler.

Also, the old "Verifiability not Truth" card has been played more than once, much to their annoyance. They are accused of causing the death of "Byuu" by various publications, but the real story is more complex. In fact, there is no hard evidence of this anonymous person's suicide, and the Farmers should know: when they get a bee in their bonnet they dig deep. (After Flyer and Alahverdian, I know how they feel!)

It looks like a classic case of forum warfare, and a highly asymmetric one at that. Still, it's all good fun, and I suspect both sides enjoy their little online battles.

[orangepi]

Honestly, annoying the Kiwifarms folks is reason enough to keep mentions of Chris Chan off enwiki.

Also the fact that anything that could be said is a BLP violation. That's probably a more presentable reason to do so.

[Smiley]

Honestly, annoying the Kiwifarms folks is reason enough to keep mentions of Chris Chan off enwiki.

Also the fact that anything that could be said is a BLP violation. That's probably a more presentable reason to do so.

There aren't any academic historical documents to draw from, there are barely any "reliable" news sources. Even if she desired a Wikipedia article in the past, she may not do so now, and may not be in an appropriate headstate to make a sensible decision either way. There is a book or two waiting to be written about the psychological aspects of the Chris Chan story and the culture surrounding it. Until then, there shouldn't be any biography of Christine in my opinion.

[Vigilant]

Personally, I wish everyone would leave that poor guy alone.

[owl be it]

Personally, I wish everyone would leave that poor guy alone.

I think it's mostly just this, and backlash from GNAA types showing up to write this article sp many times that everyone is unwilling to look at it from another perspective. That, and Chris-chan is not really notable, as far as I can tell.

[wizzito]

Honestly, annoying the Kiwifarms folks is reason enough to keep mentions of Chris Chan off enwiki.

Doesn't mean that a certain enwiki admin/oversighter/checkuser and some other users should go trying to eliminate Chris Chan off of other wikis and projects, though.

[Moral Hazard]

Maybe change the title to

Wikipedia references to Chris Chan, <explanation of his notability>

[The Garbage Scow]

I'm not even advocating for an article...

The more you keep qualifying your statements with this the more it appears you want this article to exist on some level.

[FelinaLavandula]

Why does Christine even have a Wikidata article?
Why do we even have Wikidata at all?
“Archive of Our Own tag”?????

[owl be it]

I will admit it is kind of weird how hostile the reactions to this question tend to be on Wikipedia (since the person is bordering on notability and could easily become notable in the course of about a day). I think I saw someone insist with a straight face that mentioning the person's name should be bannable -- give me a break!

[Smiley]

The wiki-wonks didn't want the article at first because they thought it was created to troll Christine, and they wanted to protect her from what they perceived as bullying. Of course, it was actually written by Christine herself; one of a number of ill-advised self-promotional efforts stretching back a very long time.

Wikipedians resisted any recreation because they don't want to kowtow to the lolcow farmers.

Of course, Wikipedians obsessively document the lives of a non-notable mentally impaired people all the time - often using shoddy sources to boot - with impunity - they even get barnstars for it. They just don't like being dictated to by the hoi-polloi.

[Beeblebrox]

Without commenting on the substance of it, I'd just like to register my displeasure that this thread was not titled "The war on Christ(ine Chan)mas."

[Smiley]

There's a non-public thread on Molly at Kiwi Farms.

— Dyn is one of the very few Farmers with any sense whatsoever.

[wizzito]

An AN discussion about Chris Chan was opened, and then quickly closed. The usual.

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Christine_Weston_Chandler_page_("Chris-chan") (T-H-L)

[Anroth]

And rightly so. Any actual article would just be a shitmagnet and a huge timesink for anyone involved. With no discernible benefit to the encyclopedia and significantly increased chance of enabling harrassment of Chan (despite their past actions).

[Vigilant]

If only there were some way to protect all BLPs......................

[Nemo]

I think that they are very Wikipedia:BLP1E (T-H-L) right now (in terms of 'mainstream media' coverage) but that doesn't mean an article about her can't exist in draft space with proper sourcing (there are plenty of drafts on non-notable subjects, after all, and drafts aren't checked for notability or sanity)

On that note, Wikipedia does state this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... _one_event

Wikipedia is not news, or an indiscriminate collection of information. Being in the news does not in itself mean that someone should be the subject of a Wikipedia article. We generally should avoid having an article on a person when each of three conditions is met:

*If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event.

*If that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual. Biographies in these cases can give undue weight to the event and conflict with neutral point of view. In such cases, it is usually better to merge the information and redirect the person's name to the event article.

*If the event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented. John Hinckley Jr., for example, has a separate article because the single event he was associated with, the Reagan assassination attempt, was significant and his role was both substantial and well documented.

---

Since Chris only received any significant MSM coverage for the recent arrest on incest charges, and since the story itself wasn't particularly notable in the MSM on its own right (and would've been a flash-in-the-pan had it involved anyone other than Chris Chan), there might be a sound case for not including it as an article.

As for the other stories mentioned, I'm not very familiar with them and want to avoid the tendency of "whataboutism".

I also don't care about people whining about or trying to drag in allegations of bias against "right-wing populism" (whatever that is). And I really don't see how a trashy gossip site which has more posts about anime porn than it does about "right-wing populism" would ever be taken as a serious "political voice" to begin with.

[Nemo]

It's also worth noting that a Youtuber named "Geno Samuel" created a documentary featuring clips from the Chris Chan Youtube videos, and it now has an entry on IMDB.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8264568/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

I'm not very familiar with the site, so I'm not sure if it was simply added by site users, or by the site itself, and whether or not it would affect the notability of Chris Chan. (Given that links to IMDB pages on Wikipedia articles seem pretty common).

[Lyallpuri]

If only there existed a shortcut such as WP:IMDB (T-H-L) that led to a blurb answering precisely that question...

The content on IMDb is user-generated, and the site is considered unreliable by a majority of editors. WP:Citing IMDb describes two exceptions, both of which do not require citations because the film itself is implied to be the primary source. Although certain content on the site is reviewed by staff, editors criticize the quality of IMDb's fact-checking. A number of editors have pointed out that IMDb content has been copied from other sites, including Wikipedia, and that there have been a number of notable hoaxes in the past. The use of IMDb as an external link is generally considered appropriate (see WP:IMDB-EL).

[Smiley]

It's also worth noting that a Youtuber named "Geno Samuel" created a documentary featuring clips from the Chris Chan Youtube videos, and it now has an entry on IMDB.

Geno's documentary probably deserves it's own Wikipedia entry. It already has a running time of 1 day, 16 hours, and 34 minutes, and he's only reached 2017...

[owl be it]

I also don't care about people whining about or trying to drag in allegations of bias against "right-wing populism" (whatever that is). And I really don't see how a trashy gossip site which has more posts about anime porn than it does about "right-wing populism" would ever be taken as a serious "political voice" to begin with.

Wikipediocracy is a proud bastion of conservative thought in these unprecedented times.

[Nemo]

I've only briefly followed the case recently since there have been no significant updates for quite a while.

Word is that he's still incarcerated and hadn't been sending any letters for a long time (allegedly because the Youtubers reading his letters decided to wash their hands of him after he sent a letter praying for his mother to die so she couldn't testify against him and so he could move back into the house).

Recently, though, I heard he found someone new to read his letters and they started getting posted to Youtube again. There was also an urban legend started claiming that he had escaped from prison which actually made it to a few news sites, but it was more or less proven to be nonsense.