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What precipitated this fork?

The main page has multiple references to objectivity and neutrality problems with Wikipedia which gave rise to this fork. Which of them specifically provided the impetus? — Maeve (talk) 13:28, 10 September 2023 (AST)

I'm curious about this also. @Justme: which of them was it? — Tetrapteryx (talk) 21:42, 11 September 2023 (AST)

You can start with quite a few articles in Category:Justapedia controversial topic. To that add the mistreatment of editors who expressed a different POV, the blatant POV railroading, the bullying, the dramah boards, and over a decade of watching things happen that so many of us knew was POV pushing but could do nothing about. Some of the controversial articles are so long the crawlers won't index them - they take too much time to load. For a more detailed look at what inspired Justapedia, see the videos here. There are 2 more at the Foundation website. Justme 💬 📧 22:43, 11 September 2023 (AST)

Adding...you might also take a look at JP:What to expect#Understanding the Origin Justme 💬 📧 11:52, 12 September 2023 (AST)

What is different?

What is different here? There are some obvious lessons to learn from the wikipedia...

Are edits from IP addresses allowed here? There would be great inertia to bar IP addresses on the wikipedia, but I think the initial justification for allowing anonymous contributions was based on a mistake, and, in practice, IP contributions often come from embittered blocked contributors. That initial premise? IP contributors would allow oppressed people, behind the Great Firewall of China, to contribute. Nope. Chinese cybersecurity officials know the IP address of every Chinese citizen's modem, so IP contributions provided no real freedom.
One of the biggest security holes on the wikipedia - anyone could edit wikidocuments.
- Around 2010 a very problematic contributor thundered at me, "Don't you know BLP says XYZ?" Well, no, actually, I did not know that. It hadn's said that when the policy was new, and I read the entire thing. Since then I had re-read snippets of the policy, when people specifically cited those sections. But I missed the addition of the clauses he quoted.
- Sure enough, BLP said what he said it said. So, I checked if it had said that 2 years earlier. No, the version of BLP two years earlier hadn't said that. It hadn't contained that passage 1 year ago, either. But, in the past year, about 1000 edits had been made to the policy.
- What! 1000 edits! Had there been some kind of revolution?
- When I checked a random selection of those 1000 edits. Each looked like, either, (1) some good faith person, with a good command of English, was making what they thought was a simple, innocuous improvement to the policy's grammar, spelling, punctuation, or word order; or (2) one of the wikipedia's barely literate contributors was trying to make an innocuous improvement to the policy's wording.
- Even if, for the sake of argument, all of those 1000 edits were made by people innocuously trying to improve the wording, the wikipedia's policies, and justapedia's policies, should not be randomly edited.
- And the hidden danger is that a small clique of tricksters could plot out a series innocuous appearing "improvements" that were really designed to covertly make significant changes to a policy.

Cheers! — Geo Swan (talk) 01:09, 9 March 2024 (AST)

@Geo Swan: Presently the main problem Justapedia face is so many articles are since out of date because too few people are there to update those ever since the fork ings from October 2022. For example, the Argentina page still hasn't said that Javier Milei is the president of that country.— Ron Merkle (talk) 10:56, 9 March 2024 (AST)

To directly answer the question, User:Justme has repeatedly said that IP address editing is not going to be a feature here, mainly because they don't want the time sink associated with fighting vandals which had mutated into scope and mission creeps on Wikipedia. I actually would rather think that editing without accounts should be allowed in a few uncontroversial topics, such as mathematics.— Ron Merkle (talk) 11:17, 9 March 2024 (AST)

fighting bias...

Is the wikipedia being subverted by biased insiders?

Well, I thought I was doing a pretty good job writing unbiased content, and that my challengers included some biased individuals who were lapsing from not only civility, and collegiality, but also basic fundamental intellectual honesty, in their attempts to suppress the unbiased content I contributed.

Is it possible I wasn't doing as good a job at writing unbiased content as I thought? Maybe. We are all fallible. But, to the extent that was the case, my challengers should have been able to say so in a civil and collegial way. They should not have had to resort to intellectually dishonest methods.

One of the arguments that shaped my philosophy for contributing to online encyclopedias revolved around a comment made when I was still a newbie. I'd never participated in an AFD, and was unaware of their existence, when four separate AFD were initiated against four articles I started on individuals being held in Guantanamo. One individual, an adminstrator I later learned, argued that the wikipedia should not provide ANY coverage of Guantanamo, at all, because it could only be a venue for "America-bashing". Besides, she claimed, the topic was "inherently biased".

I was a newbie. I thought about this AFD process - then new to me. And I thought about the idea that a topic could, itself, be "inherently biased".

I concluded that no topic had an inherent bias. I concluded it was only how a topic was presented that could be biased. I concluded that there was no topic, with adequate valid references, that couldn't be covered in a fair, neutral, unbiased manner, if the contributors working on it worked hard enough to keep it unbiased.

I've read several comments to the effect that the Justopedia was forked to counter forces trying to subvert the wikipedia to project a left-wing bias.

Bias == bad

Fair and neutral material == good.

Can we all agree that we will aim to contribute fair and neutral content, and, to the extent we manage to do that, our own personal left-wing or right-wing biases, which we will not put into article space, is irrelevant?

Cheers! — Geo Swan (talk) 08:33, 9 March 2024 (AST)

I agree that it's always the aspect on how a topic was presented which is subject to biases, including systemic. Part of the reason why Justapedia was created is because it wants to be a platform where true knowledge are preserved instead of being a soapbox platform rife of weaponizations of knowledge.

Prominent examples of how Wikipedia has become weaponized include the incident where the Wikipedia article Cyber Anakin get trimmed by suspected state-sponsored editors, especially the section where he had hacked many Chinese industrial systems (including those belonging to a nuclear power plant and a satellite!) as a retaliation of getting infected in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is widely believed to be the result of Chinese government's mishandling of what was then a small epidemic, and the Holocaust distortion scandal which was uncovered by Holocaust researchers Shira Klein and Jan Grabowski last year.— Ron Merkle (talk) 11:27, 9 March 2024 (AST)

How do the Justopedia's policies differ from the Wikipedia's ramshackle set of policies, which can be alarming ambiguous and contradictory...

The Wikipedia's policies, which can be alarming ambiguous and contradictory.

Looking around here I have seen the promise that the Justapedia will have a smaller and more coherent set of policies.

Well, that sounds good. — Geo Swan (talk) 09:45, 9 March 2024 (AST)

What about the Justapedia's policy of biographies of living people...

In my opinion the wikipedia's policiy on biographies of living people, BLP, was its worst policy, in that it was the one with the worst unintended consequences. BLP was the policy that killed off the wikipedia's golden age.

Those who study the wikipedia noted a very alarming drop off in the ratio of how much effort was spent to create new content, in 2007. A very large fraction of the individuals who had specialized in creating new content left the project in 2007. This is often described as mysterious. I haven't seen any discussions that lay the blame firmly where I think it should be laid - at the newly introduced BLP policy.

Prior to the introduction of BLP there was a certain balance between anabolism and catabolism - between the creation of new content, and the work of the wikipedia's quality control volunteers, its immune system, to clean up new content that was crap.

Poorly thought out, and poorly written sections of BLP provided bludgeons for uncivil quality control volunteers to drive away the competent creators of good new content. They were all volunteers, creating good new content in their spare time, because they enjoyed doing so. And the bludgeons that BLP provided to bullying quality control volunteers meant that adding good new content, and defending it, was no longer fun.

BLP1E was one of the sections of BLP used as a bludgeon. Heartbreakingly, those who used it as a bludgeon routinely did so without even reading it properly. It does not bar covering every individual known only for one event. It was only meant to apply to individuals who played a peripheral role in that event. Richard Jewell, for instance, the security guard at the 1996 Olympics, who noticed the suspicious backpack loaded with explosives? It could be argued that he was only known for one event, but he played a central role in that event.

BLP had clauses to protect individual who were not "public figures". And I routinely saw these clauses applied to suppress coverage of people who WERE public figures. An example would be the wife of Derek Chauvin, the racist cop who choked George Floyd with a knee on his throat. Quality control volunteers pointed to the clauses that protected individuals who were not "public figures" to suppress coverage of her. But she was a public figure. A couple of years before his latest killing, Chauvin's wife won the Mrs Minnesota award. The convention on beauty contest winners, on the wikipedia, is that only winning at the National level is sufficient to justify a standalone article, all by itself. But winning at the State level would have provided at least an A7 level of notability. And those people arguing that BLP protected her weren't arguing over whether she merited a standalone article. They were arguing for NO COVERAGE, that her very existence should be suppressed. Why? MeToo. They seem to have assumed that, since her husband was a murderer, she must be a victim of domestic violence, at home. And they wanted the wikipedia to suppress all coverage of her to show its support for victims of domestic violence.

I'll offer one other instance where BLP was preserved. There was a young grandmother, who lived in a US state with very backwards laws on what constituted a sex crime. When her teenage daughter got pregnant, and asked her if her grandchild's sire could move in, so he could save enough money for the pair to get married, put down first and last month's rent, and raise the grandchild together, she agreed. She didn't realize that by allowing the young couple to continue to have sexual relations she could face criminal charges.

Someone called in the child protection authorities, and young grandma was charged. Her public defender promised her if he negotiated a deal for her to plead guilty to a lesser charge, the prosecution would agree to a suspended sentence - she wouldn't end up in prison. She wasn't warned she would be barred from ever seeing her children again, and that she would have to live more than 1000 feet from any household with children. In practice this meant she had to live in a small mobile home that was located in the middle of a farmer's field. She was also listed on her state's public list of known sex offenders.

So far our young grandmother is a non-public figure. But she volunteered to serve as a spokesperson for reform of her state's backward laws on sex offences. That decision didn't make her a public figure, not right away. But, after several years, dozens of sound bites, interviews on National TV and a profile in The Economist, I don't think there was any question she was a public figure.

Nevertheless, the article young grandma was nominated for deletion. Those arguing for deletion claimed she qualified for BLP's protections extended to non-public figures, on the grounds that it was obvious that the wikipedia reporting she had been convicted of a sex offense was damaging to her. The deletion crowd ignored that she easily measured up to GNG, and that she had voluntarily abandoned her privacy over her conviction. Yes, I strongly suspect those claiming they were using BLP to protect her really meant to use BLP to punish her, punish her attempts to restore rationality to who should be considered a sex offender.

One conclusion I reached after this AFD was that an article in an online encyclopedia, like the Wikipedia, should not be regarded, in and of itself, as a reward, or a punishment. She merited coverage because she measured up to GNG. Period. I wanted her article to be written from a neutral point of view, not to promote her cause, because she measured up to GNG.

So...

Shall we learn from the mistakes in the wikipedia's version of BLP, and make sure the Justapedia has a BLP that tries to avoid these mistakes? — Geo Swan (talk) 09:45, 9 March 2024 (AST)

Pinging User:Justme to here in case she hasn't aware yet. She will give good explainers on how Justapedia is different from Wikipedia.— Ron Merkle (talk) 10:54, 9 March 2024 (AST)

There is an obscure essay on how to refine the BLP guidelines on Wikipedia which I think is useful here.

A few thoughts on WP:BLP with little attempt at good organization.

Currently, Wikipedia is experiencing the deletion of articles and removal of content based on the general ethical and moral notions behind BLP. There has now been an RfAr over this issue here. Few editors disagree that there are cases where this should occur even when content is reliably sourced. The issue that seems to be of the most concern is that these deletions are occurring out of process and individuals are being blocked for them. Additionally, admins involved in editing the articles are using their admin tools to block users with whom they disagree .

To be more explicit here are some definitions: A simple BLP violation issue is a violation of BLP that involves unsourced or poorly sourced potentially negative content. A penumbra BLP issue is one in which there is some question based on the general ethics of BLP whether we should include the information.

Observations:

#Simple BLP violations are clear cut. None of the recent discussion and disagreement has been about simple BLP observations, but about penumbra issues.

#Penumbra issues are inherently subjective. There appears to be a continuum with Kent Hovind (notable but almost everything notable is extremely negative), Daniel Brandt, Star wars kid, Seth Finkelstein, and others such as Allison Stokke. Indeed, it isn't even clear who goes in what order on the continuum.

#The current status is that admins can delete without regards to process if they believe there is a penumbra BLP issue and this makes no distinction between penumbra and simple BLP issues. This gives admins much more authority than they originally had where admins are supposed to be merely glorified janitor who act according to community consensus.

# Lack of distinction between penumbra BLP and simple BLP issues can make people take simple BLP issues less seriously than they should.

Conclusions from the above: When dealing with penumbra issues, process should be followed so that we can reach a genuine consensus in the community about whether someone's notability overrides the possible negative nature of their notability, and whether privacy concerns trump various WP policies and guidelines.

Arguments for penumbra-based content removal and deletions

# Wikipedia should not be in the business of furthering invasions of individuals privacy just because the popular media has.

# Such articles are much more likely to be targets of vandalism and trolling.

Arguments against penumbra-based content removal and deletions

# There is a slippery slope from deleting the more internet meme based articles to deleting articles about people that are genuinely notable simply because the vast majority of the information about them is negative. (See for example Kent Hovind).

# Wikipedia loses credibility with the general public if we are not giving information about certain topics based on vague ethical concerns. Since Wikipedia has in general very little credibility we must be careful about how much we have and how what we do alters that.

#: This argument has two rebuttals 1) Wikipedia shouldn't sell its soul for credibility 2) Arguably not having such articles will increase Wikipedia's credibility rather than decrease it.

# Wikipedia is not censored and it is not clear how this is not censorship any less than if we decided to remove the pictures of Mohammed or the Bahá'u'lláh. We simply have more emotional sympathy for individual living people than the deep-seated religious convictions of multitudes.

# For many of these topics, people will likely either go to Wikipedia to search for information or will use Google or another search engine. For many of these topics, Wikipedia will be the first returned result or very near the top if we have an article whereas most of the other sources will be slanted and very likely defamatory and hurtful. Therefore by having well-written, reliably sourced, neutral Wikipedia articles on the topics we are in fact overall helping the publicity situation.

#: However, a neutral description of an invasion of privacy or grotesquely negative information can still be hurtful and add to the general problem.

# There is a lack of clear definition of what constitutes an unfit article. Good contributors may be discouraged from working on worthy articles about controversial or tragic events or individuals if they know this work may be later destroyed.

Various approaches to constructing guidelines for penumbra BLP deletions

1. No penumbra BLP deletions. This used to be the standard but there appears to be a consensus against such an approach and BLP as currently written allows for some penumbra deletions although it is not clear what the standards are. Certain cases such Allison Stokke indicate that there is a strong community consensus for some form of penumbra BLP deletions.

2. The status quo- there is no clear rule what deletions are acceptable. Admins delete if they have a problem and the matter is then thrown to DRV. This leads to inconsistency (for example, Angela Beesley clearly has far fewer sources and over a shorter period of time than Daniel Brandt but one was kept and the other was not).

3. No articles if there is no other online biography of the person and the person has asked for the article to be deleted. This standard would be possibly workable and is unambiguous. However, almost all BLPs that have been deleted based on penumbra issues would be kept.

4. No articles if the person would not be likely to appear in some form of paper encyclopedia and the person asks for deletion. This standard would be close to current practice but suffers from a variety of problems.

Durova pointed out that this standard would make almost anyone who has ever acted on Star Trek be automatically outside the acceptable range of penumbra BLPs. So the standard leads to some results that people might find counterintuitive. Moreover, it is clear from the repeated strong keep results of the Don Murphy article that the general inclusion level desired by the community is is more inclusive than this standard would allow. Furthermore, as paper encyclopedias become less common this standard becomes stricter. A standard that changes over time based due to the partial obsolescence of a specific technology is not a standard that has any strong philosophical grounding.

5. No penumbra BLP deletions for willing public figures. This is the standard that I favor for a variety of reasons: First, the logic of someone being a public figure is that the public then has a direct interest in commentary and criticism of the person. Second, if someone has willingly become a public figure then they should not be able to then pick and choose who writes about them and it is a bit ridiculous that they can claim special privacy rights when they have interjected themselves into the public sphere. Third, if someone is a public figure we owe it to our readers to write an accurate, neutral article about the person.

This standard does suffer from a variety of problems: First, it isn't completely clear what is meant by a person being a "willing" public figure. For example, are Olympic athletes willing public figures? Many of such athletes would likely be just as happy to compete without the publicity. This would mean that anyone towards the top of their field would be unable to request deletion of their Wikipedia biography simply by virtue of their success. And what about someone like Chelsea Clinton? Second, and related to the above remark about Chelsea Clinton, what if Paris Hilton came along and claimed that her being a public figure was unwilling? She's have a good claim to make with much of her publicity being due to her last name rather than her own actions. And if we reject Hilton's claim, what about Allison Stokke who had initially unwilling publicity but was then willing to be interviewed by various newspapers about her situation? And what is sufficient evidence in terms of self-promotion? Running a small blog or a personal website is clearly not enough but would a major blog or a major website devoted to oneself be enough? The line here isn't clear. The line here is less fuzzy than the current application but fuzzier than that of standard 3 above.

As far as I can tell in terms of how many articles would be deleted due to penumbra issues we would have 1 deleting the fewest articles (obviously, since none get deleted), the status quo seems at first glance to delete the most but note that standard 3 would delete Angela Beesley whereas the status quo does not. Of those deleting articles, 2 deletes the least of all although it is logically possible(but unlikely) for an article to be deletable under 2 but not 3. Standard 4 would delete fewer than the status quo, and would sometimes be stricter than 2 and sometimes stricter than 3, but not always. I suspect that standards 3 and 4 would both be close to the status quo in terms of how much is deleted.

— Ron Merkle (talk) 11:11, 9 March 2024 (AST)

Ron Merkle, Geo Swan - see Justapedia:Five_fundamental_principles, especially the 5th. Justme 💬 📧 15:00, 9 March 2024 (AST)

Okay, it has been a couple of weeks. I'd like to respond here, with some further questions and comments. But first, I would like to ask User:Justme and User:Ron Merkle if they minded if, before I responded, if I went and applied the traditional indentation, that shows who is responding to what... — Geo Swan (talk) 01:40, 24 March 2024 (AST)

Problematic BLP and the Houston McCoy example

I've said, in a number of places, that the wikipedia's BLP policy is flawed, and triggered the Wikipedia's auto-immune disorder. It altered the balance between the wikipedia's creators of good content, and its quality control volunteers, by adding ambiguous clauses that gave deletionist sticks to beat up on those creators of good content. It marked a mass defection of content creators, widely described as "unexplained", but which I have no doubt was triggered by the hounding from deletionists making creating content no longer being fun.

How much respect should be given to protecting the privacy and reputation of people on the cusp of notability? How much respect should be given to protecting the privacy and reputation of people who could be considered to be "known for only one event"?

Houston McCoy was one of the police officers who responded to the Texas tower shooting. It was, for many people of my generation, the first mass shooting that entered public consciousness. The sniper took a military assault rifle to the top of an 18 storey tower that overlooked a University in Texas, and started shooting people.

None of the police officers had ever received any training in how to respond to a heavily armed shooter. None of the officers was armed with the right weapons to respond to a heavily armed shooter.

Nevertheless McCoy, and and an officer Ramirez, climbed eighteen flights of stairs to the observation deck where the shooter was, armed only with a handgun and a shotgun.

McCoy and Ramirez decided to charge at the shooter, until they were in the effective range of their inaccurate weapons. I am not a firearms expert, but I believe they knew, if he saw them coming, he could easily have picked them both off with his automatic weapon before they were in the effective range of their weapons.

McCoy says the shooter did see them coming. But he didn't shoot, as if he was waiting for them to shoot him. This phenomenon was unknown then, but is recognized by the name "Suicide by cop" now.

I never saw the first version of the Houston McCoy article. Apparently someone identifying themselves as a relative of McCoy requested its deletion, on Talk:Houston McCoy. The article was deleted, as a courtesy deletion, without going through AFD, or, near as I can tell, CSD or PROD.

I think the deletion of this article was a huge mistake. At the AFD for a subsequent version deletionists argued that McCoy was just another instance of a BLP1E.

Scholars wrote about McCoy as one of the first cops to experience the trauma of being forced to kill someone committing suicide by cop.
McCoy retired from law enforcement shortly after this incident, and scholars wrote about him as an early victim of what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder.
Some scholars say the shock of the lack of training and firepower among officers like McCoy and Ramirez was the trigger for police forces to create SWAT teams, and they particularly mentioned McCoy and Ramirez.
A movie was made based on the incident and McCoy sued the film company.
Decades after his shooting reporters continued to reach out to McCoy for comments about other campus killers.

Wikipedia's BLP says that while people who are genuinely and unambiguously known for only one event don't generally merit a standalone article (unless their role in the event is a central role...) they can still merit some coverage in a section of a related article.

My position is that when anyone merits a mention in multiple articles they almost certainly merit a standalone article. McCoy merited coverage in the articles on suicide by cop, post traumatic stress syndrome, SWAT teams, and the articles on the film and the articles on the shootings where reporters sought out his opinion. So, even if, for the sake of argument, McCoy would not have otherwised met the wikipedia's inclusion criteria, he should have had a standalone article so all the articles that linked to him, could link to Houston McCoy.

I routinely encountered people who would, in an instance like this, insist that a guy like McCoy should be covered in a subsection of an article, and all other articles that linked to him should link to that subsection. So, they would have claimed there should be a Suicide by cop#Houston McCoy, and the wikilinks in Texas Tower shooting, Post traumatic stress disorder, SWAT teams should point to Suicide by cop#Houston McCoy.

These deletionists really frustrated me, because they routinely failed to respond to the obvious flaw in their plan. If all coverage of a person like Houston McCoy is shoehorned into a subsection of one of the articles that they are related to, the coverage of that person will be truncated and incomplete. If all coverage of Houston McCoy is shoehorned into Suicide by cop#Houston McCoy coverage of his comments on other campus shootings, coverage of his role in the development of SWAT teams, coverage of recognition of him as an early victim of PTSD, or coverage of his dispute over the film? It is all off-topic, in Suicide by cop.

Finally, in my opinion, at the time of his final AFD, there were copious references to support his notability. — Geo Swan (talk) 23:31, 25 March 2024 (AST)

Some big events trigger the creation of a bunch of related BLPs

Some big events trigger the creation of a bunch of related BLPs.

Chesley Sullenberger a remarkable and very experienced pilot, was able to land his crippled airliner on the Hudson River, with no deaths and practically no injuries. The wikipedia hadn't had an article on him, prior to the landing. Within hours of the remarkable landing an article was created on the landing itself, and, several other articles were created, including an article on Captain Sullenberger.

During that first 24 hours something like a dozen good faith contributors made attempts to delete the nascent Sullenberger article, on the grounds he was a non-notable person, not a public figure, and they incorrectly thought article lapsed from the advice of BLP1E.

They redirected the article. They made requests for speedy deletion. They prodded the article, and finally someone initiated an AFD. In retrospect it is achingly obvious BLP1E did not apply to the Chesley Sullenberger article.

I started contributing to the wikipedia in the fall of 2004. Standards were a lot looser, in 2004. But they had been even looser in earlier years. I started articles on two individuals who survived the attacks on the WTC on 9-11. Brian Clark (September 11 survivor) and Stanley Praimnath were widely quoted, and profiled, following their remarkable survival from above the zone where the plane crashed.

During the course of debates over whether they met the wikipedia's inclusion criteria I learned that, very early in the wikipedia's history, some good faith contributors had started to write wikipedia articles on victims of 9-11 based solely on obituaries. Apparently these were articles on individuals whose only notability factor was they were good people who died on 9-11. Apparently there was a mass purge of these articles, together with articles on non-notable survivors.

But - experience showed some victims, and some survivors, who had not been notable prior to the attacks, nevertheless, measured up to GNG, and survived AFDs, due to the widespread coverage of them after the attacks. Over the next dozen years or so I started close to a dozen of those articles.

Fast forward to the late 2010s, after one of the more infamous US mass shootings, where there were a number of AFDs over articles on individuals who hadn't been notable prior to the shooting, but who got press coverage after the shooting. After events like this one could usually find people claiming that NO INDIVIDUAL could merit a standalone article solely due to being a victim or survivor of the shooting. One of the surviving students turned out to be very articulate. He received a lot of coverage. He was invited to address Congress. And, on one of those visits, Marjorie Taylor Greene was filmed following him, mocking him, etc. I think he merited coverage in a standalone article. Being invited to address congress, and being mocked by MTG, lift him from BLP1E territory, and there was plenty of reliable sources covering him.

In weighing in at those AFD I argued that people should be guided by the 9-11 example. No, most individuals involved in the event did not mearure up to the inclusion criteria. But over one hundred of the thousands of individuals effected by the attacks had measured up to the inclusion standards.

I recently added information to the article on Alexandria_Ocasio-Cortez. It triggered a discussion at Talk:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez#‎Imbalanced edits.

And that got me thinking about participants at the January 6th US Capitol protests. I think the same general principle should apply to these individuals as applies to individuals who were victims of, or survivors of, the 9-11 attacks. Most will not receive enough coverage to measure up to common sense inclusion standards. But some will, and the individuals who received sufficient coverage in reliable sources should, IMO, be covered in stand alone articles.

The Wikipedia has an article entitled Killing of Ashli Babbitt -- not simply Ashli Babbitt. I have always thought it was a ridiculous outcome of some AFD. First someone argues, incorrectly, that Joe Bloggs shouldn't be covered in a standalone article, because of BLP1E. Then a second person will have the brilliant idea that the article would no longe lapse from BLP1E if it were renamed, Killing of Joe Bloggs, or Arrest of Joe Bloggs, or Humiliation of Joe Bloggs. Typically these articles remain BLPs, just incorrectly named BLPs.

So, are there people here on the Justapedia who oppose all articles on people related to the events of 2020-01-20? Does anyone agree with me that some of those individuals merit stand alone articles? — Geo Swan (talk) 03:24, 24 March 2024 (AST)

The philosophy of the JPF basically aligns with my own as a former WP:NPP tutor. My tutorials all begin with Notability in a nutshell at User:Atsme/NPP training. The method I used appears to have attracted students in comparison to the methods of other tutors as evidenced in the list at List of former/inactive trainers (collapsed). I was sad to deny many others who wanted to take my course after creating Justapedia, but because of WP's branding, and their political garbage showing up in the top of Google searches (because Google is in bed with WP and now also owns YouTube) those new editors believe their contributions are seen more on WP than they would be on JP; they don't know what we are cooking-up in the background.😉 It's only a matter of time before the masses realize the importance of Justapedia and our dedication to preserving true history. When we are ready for en masse editing, we will do the necessary promotion. Those editors who hang with us for the long haul and are knowledgable about PAGs will more than likely end-up being the guardians of Justapedia - keeping in mind that the Feature Showcase articles will be protected and as articles that can be trusted for factual accuracy w/o fear of vandalism. The main difference in what WP prefers as their sources vs what JP accepts is simply that we believe CONTEXT MATTERS, and that any source is usable if the material being cited is accurate, and can be corroborated. If it's an opinion, it must be sourced to the author of that opinion; however, we don't need/want opinions from crazies (see our Justapedia:COMMONSENSE policy and JP:Common sense and decision making guideline/essay. We prefer experts on a topic, not unproven armchair coaches, UNLESS they have received noteworthy attention. Use common sense with a deep understanding that mainstream media does not want any competition, they reject conservative views, and anyone else who threatens their ideology but most of all, their income - and right now, China is the main source of income for many of them and our universities. My philosophy is that a good source is where you find it, and I'm speaking as a retired journalist/TV producer/publisher. A biography or BLP can also have historic significance; see Eva Ring, and also see the articles I created on WP, and actually managed to get accepted. Hopefully, my response will answer your questions. Justme 💬 📧 12:18, 24 March 2024 (AST)

Openness and transparency and noindex

A couple of years ago I read about a controversial police officer Rose Valentino, already a public figure, due to her being featured on a reality TV show Police Women of Cincinnati. Subsequently she was covered when body cam footage emerged where she could be heard uttering racial slurs.

I drafted an article about her, while I looked into the details. It was on another non-WMF wiki. I was the sole author there, and I can port it here, without any specific attribution to another wiki.

But should I? I placed a __NOINDEX__ on it, in the interests of openness and transparency. Ms Valenintino would not, in my opinion, be protected by the protection Wikipedia's BLP provides to non-public people. Starring on a reality TV show makes you a public person. Similarly first starring on the show, and then receiving notable coverable for being fired for racticsm, means she wasn't a BLP1E.

But, if people who have been here longer than me have reasons why articles on topics like this don't belong I will bear that in mind.

Sidenote

It will be interesting to see how long google's search robots take to recognize that the __NOINDEX__ was removed, if there is no consensus to delete, and the __NOINDEX__ is removed. On the wikipedia this would be recognized almost right away. But on some other smaller non-WMF wikis this can take months before an article starts to show up in google searches.

Cheers! — Geo Swan (talk) 18:08, 22 April 2024 (AST)

@Geo Swan: Looking at the article at a glance, I'd say that you can put the article into Justapedia, albeit out of abundance of caution, I'd be mindful and recommend extra precautions such as the use of inline citations and rewriting some passages with your own words or through ChatGPT due to relevant JP:BLP and JP:COPYRIGHT risks.

Pinging User:Justme and User:Tetrapteryx since they could offer more insights than me.— Ron Merkle (talk) 12:26, 26 April 2024 (AST)

Geo Swan, and Ron Merkle...as we all know, racism can be a sensitive topic, and when a racial slur is coupled with the word "hate," it unequivocally becomes hate speech. While some Black individuals may use the "n-word" casually amongst themselves, and terms like "cracker" to describe white people with indications of disdain, it highlights a perceived double standard in the US. This awareness of double standards may be more acute among women, who can also be targets of hate speech, often laced with gender slurs, and that includes all colors of women. Justapedia's focus remains on accuracy, presenting articles in an impartial manner, adhering to neutrality, and ensuring all significant perspectives, including hers, are represented.

It's crucial to recognize that media bubbles hinder the pursuit of objectivity. While there's an evident leftist media bubble, which often mirrors an AP feed, there are fewer sources representing center and center-right perspectives. Both viewpoints carry equal importance, and the weight assigned to each in an article reflects the emphasis given to those perspectives. Happy editing! Justme 💬 📧 13:41, 26 April 2024 (AST)

Racism is a controversial topic. Maybe Racial bias in who gets charged with crimes is a controversial topic, all on its own? Maybe Racial bias, in the severity of sentences imposed, is a controversial topic, all on its own? Abortion? Another controversial topic. Use of torture as an interrogation technique is another controversial topic.
I believe controversial topics can be covered in a neutral way. Way back in September 2004 I encountered my first biased, POV-pushing rogue administrator. I had, over the previous 6 months, started articles about a couple of dozen individuals being held in extrajudial detention, in Guantanamo. One day in September I learned about AFD, and wikipedia administrators, when four of those articles were nominated for deletion.
One contributor, the rogue administrator, asserted the Wikipedia should not cover anything to do with Guantanamo, at all...
Why? The topic of Guantanamo was "inherently biased", and articles related to it could only serve as a place for "America-bashing".
I was a newbie, and thought about these claims for hours. I concluded that topics, themselves, could not be biased. Only how they were written about could be biased. I concluded that there was no topic, that could not be written about, from a neutral point of view, if the people working on the topic made enough effort.
So, Justme, are there any passages in what I have written, so far, that trigger a concern over bias?
With regard to whether women have a greater awareness of double standards in modern language... I am not sure how to relate this to the article on Ms Valentino. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but, Ms Valentino is a woman. So, if she should have a greater awareness of double standards around the use of the "N-word", it seems to have skipped her.
What is a "media bubble"? I suspect I might agree with you, 100%... if I knew what a media bubble was.
With regard to the importance of viewpoints... Wikipedia has WP:DUEWEIGHT. My interpretation of DUEWEIGHT is that it says the importance of different perspectives is linked to how widely they are voiced. So, different perspectives don't merit equal weight, if one of them can be seen to be a fringe position, if it is not widely published.
I looked at the current article, and I thought something was missing. I remember writing material that wasn't there. But the revision history doesn't show anyone excising material I wrote, so I must have failed to save my last revision, not noticing a "loss of session data".
Ms Valentino did claim a defense for using the "N-word". She claimed she was desensitized to N-word's emotional impact due to hearing modern music, and hearing the language of the street. Why hasn't this defense she offered been reported more widely? I suspect that, to most reporters, it sounds like a BS excuse. She doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would be a fan of gangster-rap. — Geo Swan (talk) 16:20, 26 April 2024 (AST)

Happy Saturday, Geo Swan! The decision to port your article from another wiki to Justapedia is entirely yours; we trust your judgment, so you can remove the tags/notices you placed on the article. In essence, Justapedia aims to be the encyclopedia Wikipedia was envisioned to be, and failed to become: featuring pragmatically written articles with balanced perspectives, allowing readers to derive their own informed opinions. On Justapedia, editors are encouraged to engage in discussions and present valid arguments professionally and respectfully. We've moved away from using "collegial discourse" due to shifts in university culture reminiscent of the days of Bill Ayers.

It seems we share agreement on the mentioned controversial topics.
Once again, we concur. Your writing style has been exemplary and appreciated, and it's likely that articles you've created/edited will remain largely unchanged, barring occasional adjustments, updates, or the inclusion of different perspectives by motivated editors. Regarding your experience of resistance on WP, it may be linked to concerns many of us once had, now proven true, relative to the WMF + CIA. Bias is subjective, and achieving objectivity relies on presenting significant views pragmatically for a balanced article. We aim to provide facts, and opinions with inline text attribution based on diverse perspectives. Including opposing views from various sources contributes to an article's objectivity.
Individuals of the same gender often react differently to experiences of abuse/oppression/bias. Bias is what it is, and it doesn't discriminate as to where it shows up, be it gender, race, or politics. It is not unusual for those who have been or perceive themselves as victims of bias to become embittered or defensive. While I cannot excuse Valentino's outburst personally, as encyclopedia editors, we must remain pragmatic, avoiding actions that could be perceived as activism. I strived to represent all significant views, even writing for opposition perspectives. Events like the one in Dallas, TX, in NY, and rising crime incidents such as this one may influence how those in uniform perceive their environment. That doesn't excuse the behavior; rather, it simply helps put things in perspective when trying to achieve the correct balance. While mainstream media often emphasizes one side with an emotional/political slant, Justapedia editors are committed to presenting facts and all significant views in balanced articles. As you are already aware, JP is not about righting great wrongs (just some food for thought).
A media bubble, according to dictionary.com, is defined as an environment in which one’s exposure to news, entertainment, social media, etc., represents only one ideological or cultural perspective and excludes or misrepresents other points of view: college campuses that foster an antiestablishment media bubble.
With reference to your "interpretation of DUEWEIGHT is that it says the importance of different perspectives is linked to how widely they are voiced, that is not quite how we see things on JP. We have long since learned that importance is not determined by widely voiced, and does not/should not give weight to a particular POV to the extent that it justifies the elimination of others. On JP, the intent of WEIGHT refers to the weight of a subject's mention in a source. For example, an article in a medical journal vs a medical journal review, which draws its final conclusion based on widespread research, multiple opinions, numerous trials and efficacy results. The obvious choice to cite and give WEIGHT would be the review's conclusion, which deserves more weight than a single journal article with no trials. That is not how we judge DUE/WEIGHT when it involves mainstream news media's journalistic opinions regarding politics. Russiagate comes to mind when deciding DUE/WEIGHT that involves a particular topic, especially when presumptions, theories, and/or biased journalistic reporting is at play disguised as factual. One AP wire can generate multiple reports throughout the left-leaning media bubble, which outnumbers center and right-wing media. That by itself is not an indication that the left-leaning perspective should get the most weight in an article.

I have been upgrading some of our policies and guidelines when I have time. See JP:NPOV which is not quite the same as WP's. I also recently clarified JP:VALID. WP's version of NPOV is problematic, and leads to the elimination of opposing views. Some globalists may support propagandized State-controlled media, single party democracies, and crowd consensus. On Justapedia, we go by our Five Fundamental Principles. You might also read this brilliant overview by one of WP's own administrators, if you haven't already. Happy editing! Justme 💬 📧 13:39, 27 April 2024 (AST)