Religion and politics in biographies - as sourced to some random dude on Facebook.

[AndyTheGrump]

During one of my occasional forays back into Wikipedia-land (I like to go back occasionally, just to confirm it hasn't changed), I had Rowan Atkinson (T-H-L) come up on my rather-outdated watchlist. Was this another attempt to claim him as a Muslim, I wondered? (Yup, this was really happening a few years back, due to some stupid rumour or another). Anyway, it turned out not to be that. Instead, TheRee1Dog (T-C-L) had added the following:

Politically, Atkinson is a Libertarian.

Now, once you realise that 'Libertarian' is actually linked to Left-libertarianism (T-H-L), that doesn't seem an entirely implausible claim to make. But what was the source for this? It turned out to be The Hollowverse link:

Atkinson might be designated a libertarian. His opinions on free speech have put him at odds with Britain’s politically correct political party, the Labour Party, on more than one occasion.

Two problems then. Firstly, the source says that 'Atkinson might be designated a libertarian' (doesn't say what sort). Which isn't a statement that he is one. And secondly, who or what is The Hollowverse, and why should anyone take their word for anything? Nothing on the webpage remotely suggests that it is any sort of 'reliable source' per Wikipedia's WP:RS (T-H-L) policy, and the author of the Atkinson piece seems to be some random dude with no more identification than a broken link to a Facebook page.

If this was just an isolated example, I'd probably be inclined to ignore it. It appears not to be though. The Hollowverse has been cited in 26 different biographies. link Adam Sandler (T-H-L) cites The Hollowverse for a statement that 'Sandler is a supporter of the Republican Party'. Dakota Fanning (T-H-L) cites The Hollowverse for a statement that she was ' brought up Southern Baptist'. Kevin Costner (T-H-L) cites The Hollowverse for 'Costner was raised in a Baptist home and sang in the church choir. When commenting on his religious beliefs, he says that he has faith in God, but it is tested'. Ben Stiller (T-H-L) cites The Hollowverse for ' Stiller is actively involved in support of animal rights'. And so on...

At this point, I started to notice a pattern. The citations weren't just to The Hollowverse, four of the five citations I'd looked at so far were to articles written by the same random unidentifiable dude - one Tom Kershaw, whoever he is. Now, all of what Kershaw says may possibly be true. In some cases at least, he actually cites sources. Which leads me to ask why Wikipedia is citing random-Facebook-guy, rather than the sources he bases his claims on. Has Kershaw (whoever he is) been engaging in some Frank-Lovece-style self promotion on Wikipedia? Or has The Hollowverse been engaged in link-spamming? Or are Wikipedians that stupid that they can't follow an unreliable source to a reliable one? Whatever it is, this doesn't look good. Biographies need better sourcing than that. And better contributors, if they can't recognise a crap source when they see one. Or maybe they should stop writing 'biographies' cobbled together from web-scrapings entirely. If the only source you have for someone's religion or politics is The Hollowverse, it doesn't belong in a biography at all.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Two problems then. Firstly, the source says that 'Atkinson might be designated a libertarian' (doesn't say what sort). Which isn't a statement that he is one. And secondly, who or what is The Hollowverse, and why should anyone take their word for anything? Nothing on the webpage remotely suggests that it is any sort of 'reliable source' per Wikipedia's WP:RS (T-H-L) policy, and the author of the Atkinson piece seems to be some random dude with no more identification than a broken link to a Facebook page.

The guy behind the site calls himself M. K. Safi. Here's his Twitter. Typical Libertarian and COVID denial stuff. Here's his Facebook. Multiple quotes from Stefan Molyneux (T-H-L). I'm going to guess it's not just an unrelaible source, but an unreliable source with an axe or two to grind with its characterizations of political and religious views.

[AndyTheGrump]

Two problems then. Firstly, the source says that 'Atkinson might be designated a libertarian' (doesn't say what sort). Which isn't a statement that he is one. And secondly, who or what is The Hollowverse, and why should anyone take their word for anything? Nothing on the webpage remotely suggests that it is any sort of 'reliable source' per Wikipedia's WP:RS (T-H-L) policy, and the author of the Atkinson piece seems to be some random dude with no more identification than a broken link to a Facebook page.

The guy behind the site calls himself M. K. Safi. Here's his Twitter. Typical Libertarian and COVID denial stuff. Here's his Facebook. Multiple quotes from Stefan Molyneux (T-H-L). I'm going to guess it's not just an unrelaible source, but an unreliable source with an axe or two to grind with its characterizations of political and religious views.

Yeah, I hadn't really looked into who was behind The Hollowverse. Given that it is clearly a crap source for anything, exactly what sort of crap was behind it didn't seem to matter at the time. Maybe it's worth looking into a bit more closely.

[AndyTheGrump]

Yikes! Giraffe Stapler is right to suggest that the politics of The Hollowverse may be relevant to this discussion. See the article on Jon Bon Jovi (T-H-L), which again cites that website.

From Wikipedia:

In 2008, Jon Bon Jovi supported Barack Obama for president, holding an exclusive private dinner at his home, as a fundraiser for his campaign.

This is cited to The Hollowverse link, which in turn cites 'www.boycottliberalism.com' for the claim. As for what 'boycottliberalism.com' has to say on the subject, I don't know, and don't care, since it will clearly, from the name alone, resemble a Wikipedia 'reliable source' in much the same way a two-week-holiday in Benidorm resembles a HB pencil...

[Poetlister]

This is particularly egregious when dealing with living people. It is probably a clear violation of WP:BLP (T-H-L), which emphasises that "Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion." Assigning political views to people is quite likely to be contentious.

[AndyTheGrump]

More crap from a crap source. From China Anne McClain (T-H-L)

McClain has said that she and her family are Christians

Cited to The Hollowverse again. To a piece written in 2012, when McLain would have been 14 years old. Which seems to cite 'All Star Pics.' as it's own source.

I'm not sure if Wikipedia has a policy on assigning religious affiliations to minors, but if they don't they should have. And should maybe not consider things said by 14-year-olds on the subject to be valid sources for their beliefs as adults. Even when they aren't sourced to random-Kershaw-dude yet again.

[Beeblebrox]

I think you've found a real thing here and will raise it at WP:RSN with an eye to removing all links to it, it is obviously not a reliable source.

EDIT: I decided BLPN is a better venue as I don't see this as being controversial at all, it's obviously not a reliable source. link

[AndyTheGrump]

I think you've found a real thing here and will raise it at [[WP:RSN]] with an eye to removing all links to it, it is obviously not a reliable source.

To my mind, it isn't just a 'real thing'. If a source like that can get cited for such material in so many articles it suggests to me that there is a larger 'thing' involved - to be specific yet further evidence that Wikipedia's own policies regarding biographies of living persons simply aren't being adhered to. Far to many assertions regarding religious belief, political affiliations, sexuality etc are routinely added based on the most dubious of sources - and often in biographies where such matters are of limited relevance to the reason the person involved has a biography at all. Quite simply, a poorly-sourced statement regarding such things is generally an indication that the material shouldn't be included. If it merits inclusion, it will have been discussed in multiple, better, sources.

Wikipedia produces all sorts of crap articles, using crap sources. Most probably don't matter that much. Biographies of living people do. If you can't get them right, don't create them in the first place.

[Beeblebrox]

You're not wrong, but I can't wave a magic wand and fix all BLPs myself, and it isn't really my main area of interest, so I'm pointing this specific issue out to people who focus their energies there.

[Moral Hazard]

You're not wrong, but I can't wave a magic wand and fix all BLPs myself, and it isn't really my main area of interest, so I'm pointing this specific issue out to people who focus their energies there.

GiantSnowman (T-C-L) has helped. Good for him, today.

[AndyTheGrump]

Yeah, the WP:BLPN thread Beeblebrox started seems to have got the immediate problem mostly sorted, thanks to GiantSnowman and Serial Number 54129 (T-C-L) (they've missed Paulo Coelho (T-H-L) - probably because some eejit cited it to 'Hollow Verse, Dot Com', which a search is liable to miss).

And now, since Wikipedia is 'always improving', and since they have no long-term institutional memory (the former only being only remotely plausible proposition if the latter holds true), they can pretend it never happened. So it can't still be happening with similar crappy sources. And everything in the garden is rosy...

Next time I spot such abysmal sourcing being used in a biography, I may keep shtum about it, unless it is being used to support something downright libellous. It would probably be more effective in the long term to wait until I can compile AndyTheGrump's monster list of shitty WP:BLP sources and then write a Wikipediocracy blog about them all. Or rather, write a blog about half of them, with a note that if they want to solve the problem (i.e. not remotely applying their own sourcing policies) they will have to do the donkey-work themselves to find the rest (they'd no doubt find more too, if they did). This isn't a problem with The Hollowverse, it is a problem with Wikipedia. And it won't be fixed by a single post to the noticeboard, and a few editors running a quick search for a known bad website.

[Moral Hazard]

Amen!

[Poetlister]

The trouble is of course that Wikipedia is too big to be monitored adequately. The only foolproof solution would be to have pending changes on all articles, or at least all BLPs, and a large number of competent people to vet each and every edit. There's no way that that could ever happen.