User talk:JustAPoliticsNerd

Introduction to contentious topics

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Zenomonoz (talk) 06:26, 24 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

jUNE 24

I susgest you rreas wp:bludgeon and wp:dropthestick, if you want to AFD the page do so, if you want to create another article do so, but do not keep on arguing. Slatersteven (talk) 11:25, 25 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

NOte this is now a warning, read wp:tenditious and follow the correct procedure. 09:01, 26 June 2024 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Slatersteven (talk • contribs)

Note: this section apparently about discussions at Talk:Drag panic. Mathglot (talk) 01:40, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a newbie, I don't know why you are allowed to AfD articles, but even if you are allowed, it's nearly always a really bad idea. Get more experience first. Read WP:GNG and WP:PRESERVE, with most weight on PRESERVE. We try to help articles become compliant so we can keep them. If they pass GNG, no matter what other problems, we do not AfD them; instead, we fix them. There are exceptions to every rule, but that's our main approach. It is not a virtue to AfD articles. You won't get brownie points in heaven for doing it. It's better to save them. That helps build the encyclopedia, rather than tear it down. We have unlimited capacity here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:15, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong page?

I removed this comment of yours at Wikipedia talk:Wiki Ed/California State University Fullerton/Gender and Technoculture 320-03 (Spring 2024) because it appeared to be a mistaken destination, that is, your comment has no relation to that list of student assignments at a California university. Feel free to add your comment to whatever page you meant to add it to. Mathglot (talk) 01:38, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The description of Wikipedia talk:Wiki Ed/California State University Fullerton/Gender and Technoculture 320-03 (Spring 2024):

"For this assignment, students will be making contributions to Wikipedia specifically designed to correct the well-documented gender, heterosexual, white, and Western bias in this extremely influential resource."

This is what I am talking about, and I believe that was abundantly self-evident. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 04:20, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not at all appropriate for you to edit there as you aren't affiliated with WIki Ed, and pointless as that project finished months ago. And a terrible idea to post that given the alert above. Doug Weller talk 09:02, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not only not appropriate, this part of the comment (now removed) is quite offensive:

"I would argue, to the contrary, that this entire project is dedicated to the introduction of bias through the use of a left-wing worldview that considers its assertions so self-evident that anything standing in their way is what is biased, instead."

It's a personal attack and assumption of bad faith against editors here. We are not allowed to use an editor's political bias to discount their work. We all have biases.

It's a really bad attitude to have. It possibly reveals a battlefield mentality. Don't edit here with the goal of countering the perceived bias of reliable sources. We document their biases, without neutering them. If right-wing sources are used, we also document their biases. Unfortunately, since Trump came along, most moderate right-wing sources have moved so far to the right that they have lost connection with facts and reality, becoming propaganda outlets that are not reliable sources. That's too bad. The Overton window of political discourse has radically changed.-- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 21:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not arguing bad faith, but rather that such a bias is often so deeply ingrained in a person's worldview that it is not necessarily evident when it is seen within one's own person. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 17:54, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Very, VERY true! Yet, we AGF that an editor's editing is not caused by their political POV, even when the editing harmonizes with it. The more likely assumption (for a left-wing editor) is that they depend more on left-wing sources because there is a paucity of reliable right-wing sources that are moderate enough to maintain connection to facts.

OTOH, when an editor includes (in articles) strongly political content that is unsourced AND is not in harmony with RS (adding to a lead does not always require sourcing), that might be a situation where one could approach the editor, on their own talk page, not the article talk page, and ask, not accuse, them about it. Give them a chance to explain and go back and include sources or reword/remove the content. As you note, we all have deeply ingrained POV, and it's very human to not always be conscious of when it affects our editing. We're all human and benefit more from guidance than criticism. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:35, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree that I was overly aggressive in my language, as I sometimes have a tendency to be. I do apologize for this, as such criticism generally does not lead to a productive outcome. That being said, I do maintain my concern that going into such a project with the assumption of "gender, heterosexual, white, and Western bias" in Wikipedia is going into a project with an assumption that does not have good backing in such a way that seems likely to lead to more bias. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 18:40, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Well-documented gender, heterosexual, white, and Western bias in this extremely influential resource."

If there is any backing for this, I will concede, yet even on the very Wikipedia article about "ideological bias on Wikipedia", every single paper listed that has ever discussed the issue and found bias has results such as ""Wikipedia articles are more slanted towards Democratic views than are Britannica articles, as well as more biased""

This is a statement that is verifiably false. Regardless of who they are affiliated with, I will point that out. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 17:52, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

July 2024

Hi JustAPoliticsNerd! I noticed that you recently marked an edit as minor that may not have been. "Minor edit" has a specific definition on Wikipedia—it refers only to superficial edits that could never be the subject of a dispute, such as typo corrections or reverting obvious vandalism. Any edit that changes the meaning of an article is not a minor edit, even if it only concerns a single word. Thank you. DanielRigal (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I was not very aware of the specific qualifications of a "minor edit," thank you for letting me know. I won't do that in the future, sorry. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 03:51, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Content removal

Please stop using your own personal views of what constitutes a left-wing party to remove the position from party infoboxes. Helper201 (talk) 01:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

And on what basis do you revert these changes and add back "left-wing?" There are no sources, just your personal views.

What I can say for certain is that anyone saying that Marxists and Communists are not far-left have, themselves, extreme views. ~~This likely includes you.~~ JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 15:42, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"What I can say for certain is that anyone saying that Marxists and Communists are not far-left have, themselves, extreme views. This likely includes you."

This is a personal attack. I suggest that you strike it out and apologize. TransOceanic (talk) 16:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, and I apologize. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 16:42, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Don't ever edit my comments again. You may delete them. You may not edit them. TransOceanic (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant to edit my own comment, not yours. That was a total mistake as a result of me using source code editing. I will fix it properly this time. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 18:57, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure how to strikethrough my previous comment, but I did redact it, as I improperly attempted to do last time. Is this acceptable? JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 19:02, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(Talkpage watcher) No, that's not the right way, JustAPoliticsNerd. Don't remove the text that another user has complained about, because that wrongfoots the other person; to a third person reading your talkpage it looks like they're complaining about nothing. Instead, strike out, using this code: <s>This likely includes you</s>. That gives this result: ~~This likely includes you~~. Bishonen | tålk 21:16, 15 July 2024 (UTC).[reply]

Thank you so much, sorry. I am not the best on the technical side. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 21:21, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed your comment "anyone saying that Marxists and Communists are not far-left". Has anyone really said that? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:59, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Red–Green Alliance (Denmark)

Sources are reliably cited, and the party themselves would probably not contest, that they are Marxist, anti-capitalist, and eco-socialist. Yet they are described as left-wing to far-left. In this case, that is somewhat reasonable, as there are reliable sources that describe it as left-wing, and the bias, if any, is on the part of the sources, not of the editors.

Solidarity (Switzerland)

Trotskyist party, described as left-wing to far-left

European Anti-Capitalist Left

The self-described, and reliably described, anti-capitalist left is only described as "left-wing," without any sources to back it.

Workers' Party of Belgium

Finally, until I pointed the extreme (~10-1) excess of sources calling the Workers' Party of Belgium "far-left" compared with those that call it "left-wing," and made the associated edits, this major Marxist and Communist party was called "left-wing to far-left" on very spotty evidence. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 02:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your indentation indicates you are replying to me, but I don't see an answer to my question, so let's start over below:

You wrote: "What I can say for certain is that anyone saying that Marxists and Communists are not far-left have, themselves, extreme views."

Has anyone really said that "Marxists and Communists are not far-left"? Please provide a "yes" or "no" answer, and if "yes", then an exact quote as an example. Thanks. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:33, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Please stop using your own personal views of what constitutes a left-wing party to remove the position from party infoboxes."

This is in reference to a Marxist, anti-capitalist party, specifically the polish labor party, that was being called "left-wing to far-left" in the info-box and "left-wing" in the first line, instead of simply "far-left." No source was cited to either end. This user is thereby saying that my edits to call this a "far-left" party were my "own personal views" in some way that calling a Marxist party "left-wing" was not.

As you will see, both descriptions have now been removed, as neither are sourced. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 20:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so we're dealing with an inference by you. It sounds like the solution was sound. Unsourced claims get removed. We don't edit based on our own understanding of things. We based 99.9% of our edits on cited RS.

I understand what you mean and agree that generally, Marxists and Communists are indeed far-left, unlike Socialists (maybe far-left, depending on the party) and Social Democrats (not far-left). In Scandinavia, they are basically FDR Democrats. But this is my understanding, so is not usable by me for editing purposes. I must use RS.

It gets tricky with some political parties, as they evolve with time, while retaining their original names. That means that just because their name includes "left" or "right" ("venstre" or "højre" in Scandinavia), we cannot automatically assume that means "left-wing" or "right-wing" as understood in American English. Some "left" parties are actually centrist to right, and some "conservative" parties are pretty close to Nazis! Weird shit happens. Therefore, we must always insist on the use of RS that specifically mention the party involved. We tend to be conservative, so if there is even the slightest doubt, we avoid using "far" for either left or right, but if enough sources say "far" whatever, then we do too, and we provide the sources. It's best to err on the side of caution, and always leave your own understandings and beliefs outside the door when editing. BTW, I'm usually a Social Democrat (for local elections in Scandinavia) and a registered Independent who votes Democratic in the USA. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:19, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The only trouble with this is instances such as these when sources are so few and far between that just about anything one can assert about the party does not have a source, and must be inferred from relatively little. I get what you mean, though, and I will be more cautious towards this in the future, JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Original research

Please do not add original research or novel syntheses of published material to articles. Please cite a reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you. Cambial — foliar❧ 22:36, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What are you referring to? JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 22:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm referring, much like the thread immediately above this one, to your numerous changes to infobox "position" parameters that are unsupported by the source and/or contradicted by the source. For example, here you change the position, based on nothing but your belief that the subject is "not "left-wing," they are far-left." Prior to your disruption the article simply agreed with the source. Cambial — foliar❧ 22:57, 15 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I saw the source only on far-left, and thought this "left-wing" assertion was entirely unfounded, as it is in other articles. I should have looked closer into that particular instance, and I am sorry that I did not. JustAPoliticsNerd (talk) 02:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]