"The Wikipedia page titled "Mass Killings Under Communist Regimes" is being considered for deletion"

[Hemiauchenia]

That said, there's no Wikipedia article called "Mass Killings Under Fascist Regimes," so this whole thing is just grossly unfair. In fact, there isn't even an article called "Mass Killings by Wikipedia Administrators."

I see there is also no article titled "Mass Killings Under Totalitarian Regimes" which, let's be honest, is the real thing binding all this horror together, is it not? Why must we identify compound political causes like it is Buckley's Firing Line or something? Can't we, you know, include the lot of them? After all, Idi Amin deserves a spot at the infamous table, I would say.

That's essentially Rudolph Rummel (T-H-L)'s democide (T-H-L) thesis.

[iii]

That said, there's no Wikipedia article called "Mass Killings Under Fascist Regimes," so this whole thing is just grossly unfair. In fact, there isn't even an article called "Mass Killings by Wikipedia Administrators."

I see there is also no article titled "Mass Killings Under Totalitarian Regimes" which, let's be honest, is the real thing binding all this horror together, is it not? Why must we identify compound political causes like it is Buckley's Firing Line or something? Can't we, you know, include the lot of them? After all, Idi Amin deserves a spot at the infamous table, I would say.

That's essentially Rudolph Rummel (T-H-L)'s democide (T-H-L) thesis.

Now, wouldn't that be a novel Delete and redirect? Instead it's all STRONGEST POSSIBLE SOMETHING OR OTHER.

[Smiley]

They are not woke; bogies above (8)

TE(æ)A,ea. 253 edits since: 2017-11-28
DublinDilettante 498 edits since: 2005-07-02
Calum 415 edits since: 2003-06-15
MarioSuperstar77 124 edits since: 2018-11-20
Uranium grenade 946 edits since: 2006-10-29
Ashley Payne 577 edits since: 2004-10-30
Sharpfang 75 edits since: 2014-10-27
Exmartian 38 edits since: 2013-12-02
Gnuthomson 16 edits since: 2005-11-0
SoNic67 92 edits since: 2011-02-23
Noxian16 95 edits since: 2016-12-10
AYCLV 19 edits since: 2021-01-21
Platyna 197 edits since: 2005-07-03
Volatile.memory 4 edits since: 2009-01-23
Smilingbandit 221 edits since: 2011-10-20
Lack of Plethora 71 edits since: 2017-10-20
Levivich 26631 edits since: 2018-11-12
Xenomancer 247 edits since: 2008-09-19
Dsobol0513 80 edits since: 2018-04-11
Nikto 798 edits since: 2009-05-17
RedAlert 007 166 edits since: 2017-03-11
Uiscefada 78 edits since: 2017-05-25
Coulson Lives 70 edits since: 2014-07-23
Raitchison 242 edits since: 2006-06-13
FunkyDuffy 329 edits since: 2007-09-23

[Volunteer Marek]

They are not woke; bogies above (8)

TE(æ)A,ea. 253 edits since: 2017-11-28
DublinDilettante 498 edits since: 2005-07-02
Calum 415 edits since: 2003-06-15
MarioSuperstar77 124 edits since: 2018-11-20
Uranium grenade 946 edits since: 2006-10-29
Ashley Payne 577 edits since: 2004-10-30
Sharpfang 75 edits since: 2014-10-27
Exmartian 38 edits since: 2013-12-02
Gnuthomson 16 edits since: 2005-11-0
SoNic67 92 edits since: 2011-02-23
Noxian16 95 edits since: 2016-12-10
AYCLV 19 edits since: 2021-01-21
Platyna 197 edits since: 2005-07-03
Volatile.memory 4 edits since: 2009-01-23
Smilingbandit 221 edits since: 2011-10-20
Lack of Plethora 71 edits since: 2017-10-20
Levivich 26631 edits since: 2018-11-12
Xenomancer 247 edits since: 2008-09-19
Dsobol0513 80 edits since: 2018-04-11
Nikto 798 edits since: 2009-05-17
RedAlert 007 166 edits since: 2017-03-11
Uiscefada 78 edits since: 2017-05-25
Coulson Lives 70 edits since: 2014-07-23
Raitchison 242 edits since: 2006-06-13
FunkyDuffy 329 edits since: 2007-09-23

I see what you did there

[Captain Occam]

Apologies if somebody else already posted this link, but this AFD is now being covered in The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/1 ... ue-claims/

Arguments that Wikipedia has a left-wing bias seem to be becoming more mainstream. The Telegraph is a right-leaning newspaper, but it's a lot more respectable than something like Fox News or Breitbart.

[Zoloft]

The Telegraph is very right-wing biased. Also paywalled.

[Captain Occam]

The Telegraph is very right-wing biased. Also paywalled.

But it's a lot different than something like Breitbart, isn't it? The Perennial Sources page lists The Telegraph (aka The Daily Telegraph) as a reliable source, while for Fox News reliability depends on the subject, and Breitbart is blacklisted.

[Jim]

Yeah, I was just looking at that. Not only unsourced, but politically incorrect. And where's the 'getting too old to bother shaving' image, with stray hair growing out of the earholes?

Actually, I got a little bored and looked at the other creations of the author of that magnificent image. The facial hair composite is nowhere near his best work - here's:

Battle of Magnesia animated. The Romans are depicted as red, and the Seleucids as cyan



Currently in the article at: Battle of Magnesia (T-H-L) [permalink], which is a Good Article

The animation is stunningly evocative and explanatory - I almost feel like I'm right there, watching it all unfold in real time...

[Jim]

The Telegraph is very right-wing biased. Also paywalled.

But it's a lot different than something like Breitbart, isn't it? The Perennial Sources page lists The Telegraph (aka The Daily Telegraph) as a reliable source, while for Fox News reliability depends on the subject, and Breitbart is blacklisted.

It's not commonly referred to as The Torygraph without reason.

Even google knows that. If you search for "The Torygraph" the top of the results page says:

Including results for The Telegraph

and returns https://www.telegraph.co.uk as the first result.

[FelinaLavandula]

Just because The Telegraph doesn’t literally lie in its articles doesn’t mean it’s not still loony.

[Jim]

Just because The Telegraph doesn’t literally lie in its articles doesn’t mean it’s not still loony.

I don't think it's necessarily "loony". It just has a political bias which is widely known.
Fox could be argued as "loony" when it gives a platform to lunatics like Carlson.
The Torygraph is just a biased rag, like many others.

[Smiley]

The Torygraph is just a biased rag, like many others.

It's the Prime Minister's "real boss" if Cummings is to be believed...

"The Telegraph effect: How Johnson’s real boss influenced the government’s Covid policy" TLE

[ArmasRebane]

"Mass Killings Under Capitalist Regimes" would be a ridiculous article, and it demonstrates that doing the same for communist regimes is just a POV coatrack. You might be able to make a decent one on totalitarian regimes but I'd argue you're still going to end up with a cruddy synthy mess versus better articles specifically focused on each regime.

And this is coming from someone tired of all the Twitter leftists who try and no-true-Scotsman their way out of accepting that the USSR and China were communist regimes and did kill boatloads of people through malice and otherwise, and at least in the short term absolutely did more harm to their people than the—definitely also bad—governments they replaced.

[FelinaLavandula]

Kudos to any admins here who may attempt to close this complete trainwreck of a thread.
Edit: Do we even have any admins here?

[Smiley]

Kudos to any admins here who may attempt to close this complete trainwreck of a thread.
Edit: Do we even have any admins here?

We count at least seven of the !Supreme Court among our number, not to mention a whole host of ex-Arbs, Badmins, Checkyousirs, and assorted wiki-millinerarians.

[Vigilant]

Kudos to any admins here who may attempt to close this complete trainwreck of a thread.
Edit: Do we even have any admins here?

We count at least seven of the !Supreme Court among our number, not to mention a whole host of ex-Arbs, Badmins, Checkyousirs, and assorted wiki-millinerarians.

Sucks has Crow and the GoogleBot.

le sigh.

[Moral Hazard]

Apologies if somebody else already posted this link, but this AFD is now being covered in The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/1 ... ue-claims/

Arguments that Wikipedia has a left-wing bias seem to be becoming more mainstream. The Telegraph is a right-leaning newspaper, but it's a lot more respectable than something like Fox News or Breitbart.

In this case, The Telegraph article is quite good.

Some would like it to be more balanced, e.g., by requesting a comment from Sheila Fitzpatrick, who could explain that killing millions created opportunities and increased social mobility.
Such people usually have the sense not to expect balanced discussion of the lies by the Trump movement about the 2020 Election.

[Smiley]

Sucks has Crow and the GoogleBot.

Crow has a newfound feathered friend; looks like Sucks is officially Home of the Murder.

[Moral Hazard]

The Wikipedia page titled "Mass Killings Under Communist Regimes (T-H-L)" is being considered for deletion. https://notthebee.com/article/wikipedia ... t-regimes-

This story was referenced in high-readership blog Instapundit. https://notthebee.com/article/wikipedia ... t-regimes-

Now, it is closing time at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under communist regimes (4th nomination) (T-H-L). Administrator Joe Roe (T-C-L) closed the discussion. diff

[Smiley]

The proposed deletion of the page of crimes under Communism has been criticised, with Cambridge historian Prof Robert Tombs arguing that downplaying the connection between genocide and ideology would also prevent the teaching of crimes under Facsism [sic] and colonialism

“I have read the Wikipedia page, and it seems to me careful and balanced. Therefore attempts to remove it can only be ideologically motivated – to whitewash Communism."

Well, I have read the Wikipedia page for Prof Robert Tombs, and it says that he is known for writing mad fact-free bollocks on Brexit in various publications. Therefore his comments can only be ideologically motivated.

[FelinaLavandula]

LOL

[Randy from Boise]

In this case, The Telegraph article is quite good.

Ya oughta just pause right there and start some introspection...

t

[L.R. Lee]

For those of you who want to avoid the paywall to read The Daily Telegraph article — "Wikipedia may delete entry on ‘mass killings’ under Communism due to claims of bias" ...

https://archive.md/Xr8j7#selection-1067.1-1067.84

[AndyTheGrump]

AfD closed as no consensus. link

Having looked at the AfD closing statement, I'd have to say that it seems reasonable enough, taking into consideration what Wikipedia policy says about how AfDs are supposed to be closed. The raw count was clearly influenced by canvassing from various right-wing forums etc, and amongst those who actually discussed Wikipedia policy (or at least attempted to, 'policy' as always being contradictory more often than not), rather than just 'voting against commies' or whatever, it was obvious enough that there are fundamental disagreements, not resolved during the trainwreck. And to my mind, that has to be a lesson here: the Wikipedia AfD process sort of works, most of the time, for most articles that get nominated. For something as complex and politicised as this, it takes minimal effort to derail the process, to the extent that nothing good is likely to come of it.

While it might seem possible that the AfD has attracted enough uninvolved people to the discussion for something positive to result, I'm not particularly optimistic over this. Frankly, I'm unconvinced it is within Wikipedia's collective ability to come up with an encyclopaedic article on such subjects. Far too easy for them to end up as perpetual battlegrounds and timesinks, there more as a locus for ideological dispute between 'contributors' than for the enlightenment of readers.

[Hemiauchenia]

Frankly that was a fantastic close. Major props to the closers.

[ArmasRebane]

They did a great job with that introduction and explanation of consensus, but considering the bad-faith and lack of reading comprehension involved that's not going to stop the same news outlets from twisting it as they wish.

AfD closed as no consensus. link

Having looked at the AfD closing statement, I'd have to say that it seems reasonable enough, taking into consideration what Wikipedia policy says about how AfDs are supposed to be closed. The raw count was clearly influenced by canvassing from various right-wing forums etc, and amongst those who actually discussed Wikipedia policy (or at least attempted to, 'policy' as always being contradictory more often than not), rather than just 'voting against commies' or whatever, it was obvious enough that there are fundamental disagreements, not resolved during the trainwreck. And to my mind, that has to be a lesson here: the Wikipedia AfD process sort of works, most of the time, for most articles that get nominated. For something as complex and politicised as this, it takes minimal effort to derail the process, to the extent that nothing good is likely to come of it.

While it might seem possible that the AfD has attracted enough uninvolved people to the discussion for something positive to result, I'm not particularly optimistic over this. Frankly, I'm unconvinced it is within Wikipedia's collective ability to come up with an encyclopaedic article on such subjects. Far too easy for them to end up as perpetual battlegrounds and timesinks, there more as a locus for ideological dispute between 'contributors' than for the enlightenment of readers.

I think in some ways it's better to have fewer battleground articles than spinoff coatrack ones. Heavy battleground pages are never going to be good pages (they're simply shifting too much and picked at too often to be a compelling read that has a clear line of thought) but at least with as much participation as en.wp has, they usually end up okay.

[Beeblebrox]

I think having four people do the close was great idea. That might be the longest AFD closing statement I've ever seen, but it was probably necessary.

I doubt this is really over though, I've refrained from commenting on the merits one way or another because I have a sneaking suspicion this may find its way to ArbCom.

[FelinaLavandula]

So the discussion goes back to DRN now?

[Hemiauchenia]

So the discussion goes back to DRN now?

I hope the close is detailed enough to satisfy everyone, but given that nearly 200 people participated it only takes one to object and open a deletion review.

[Captain Occam]

I hope the close is detailed enough to satisfy everyone, but given that nearly 200 people participated it only takes one to object and open a deletion review.

If the "keep" votes really outnumbered the "delete" votes by a margin of 4 to 1, it ought to be obvious to everyone involved that there's no way the result is going to get overturned, even if there was off-wiki canvassing.

[Hemiauchenia]

I hope the close is detailed enough to satisfy everyone, but given that nearly 200 people participated it only takes one to object and open a deletion review.

If the "keep" votes really outnumbered the "delete" votes by a margin of 4 to 1, it ought to be obvious to everyone involved that there's no way the result is going to get overturned, even if there was off-wiki canvassing.

I was more thinking that someone would try to get it overturned to a keep vote, rather than just no consensus.

[Moral Hazard]

Wikipedia lacks the expertise and staff to produce and maintain good articles on contentious important topics.

Arbcom can stabilize not horrific versions of contentious articles by imposing discretionary sanctions which limit the damage from dumb ideologues.

[Captain Occam]

Wikipedia lacks the expertise and staff to produce and maintain good articles on contentious important topics.

I agree with this, but I'm concerned that even now it might not be well-known. I still regularly hear about people falling for hoaxes and false information in Wikipedia articles.

Here's an example I came across recently, although it isn't really a contentious topic: Glucojasinogen is a fictitious medical condition that originated as a Wikipedia hoax in 2007, which was discovered and removed in 2012. But according to Google scholar the term is still appearing in papers in medical journals, most recently in a papr published just last year. Glucojasinogen now has eight results on Google scholar, including three from after the hoax was uncovered.

I'd like to see more being done to expose Wikipedia's lack of trustworthiness about most topics, especially controversial ones. The AFD for the Mass killings under communist regimes article probably helped, but I doubt it was enough.

[Hemiauchenia]

Wikipedia lacks the expertise and staff to produce and maintain good articles on contentious important topics.

I agree with this, but I'm concerned that even now it might not be well-known. I still regularly hear about people falling for hoaxes and false information in Wikipedia articles.

Here's an example I came across recently, although it isn't really a contentious topic: Glucojasinogen is a fictitious medical condition that originated as a Wikipedia hoax in 2007, which was discovered and removed in 2012. But according to Google scholar the term is still appearing in papers in medical journals, most recently in a papr published just last year. Glucojasinogen now has eight results on Google scholar, including three from after the hoax was uncovered.

I'd like to see more being done to expose Wikipedia's lack of trustworthiness about most topics, especially controversial ones. The AFD for the Mass killings under communist regimes article probably helped, but I doubt it was enough.

As much as Wikipedia is an ocean of garbage, unfortunately, the exact same can be said for much of modern academic literature as well. The explosion in open access publishing has also meant an explosion of publishers who merely take a fee for publishing the paper without giving the paper proper peer review, making them effectively vanity presses. The journal that you are referring to is called the Journal of Pharmacopuncture, which describes itself as "an international, peer-reviewed open-access journal published in English by the Korean Pharmacopuncture Institute" apparently "Pharmacopuncture" is a "new form of acupuncture combining acupuncture with herbal medicine" popular in Korea https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2016/4683121. aka Alternative medicine nonsense. The journal looks like hot garbage.

[owl be it]

It looks like the AFD's talk page is currently the subject of an ANI slapboxing match over whether to include the Signpost article in the "this page has been covered by media outlets" template...on the talk page for the AFD.

[Smiley]

It looks like the AFD's talk page is currently the subject of an ANI slapboxing match over whether to include the Signpost article in the "this page has been covered by media outlets" template...on the talk page for the AFD.

[LargelyRecyclable]

This is my promise to the thread: I will well and truly deep-fry any pics LargelyRecyclable posts of the physical books he owns. I'll watermark that shit, animate it, give it the VIP treatment. That lil fuckin hot dog dj from IG? You know I have that on deck. Jokerman font? Two copies of it. It would only be respectful.

I have a feeling he's just gonna post a bunch of shit he found on sci-hub (after I reminded him it existed) and hasty google searches and pretend he's a scholar, though, and I ain't gonna respond to that garbage. You had a chance when I responded to you genuinely earlier! Please don't waste your time! It's a lesson on posting with honor. Respect merits respect.

edit: the 'daytrip took it to ten' drop will be lost on some of you, but for those who it wont be, I promise you I will include it

Wait, wait. Pardon the necro bump but are you saying that if I post my books you'll treat us all to some photoshop fun? What do you want? All of them or just the "the 20th century was a rough time" part of my library? I'm in the middle of redoing the flooring in my office; if you want them all it's going to be a bit of a pain, so you better deliver.