That’s the joke, when a conspiracist calls one a “paid shill”.
David_Gerard
Karma: 16,307
That’s fine :-) It ties in with what I commented above, i.e. conspiracists first assuming that disagreement must be culpable malice.
I already answered #3: the true rejection seems to be not “you are editing about us on Wikipedia to advance RationalWiki at our expense” (which is a complicated and not very plausible claim that would need all its parts demonstrated), but “you are editing about us in a way we don’t like”.
Someone from the IEET tried to seriously claim (COI Noticeboard and all) that I shouldn’t comment on the deletion nomination for their article—I didn’t even nominate it, just commented—on the basis that IEET is a 501(c)3 and RationalWiki is also a 501(c)3 and therefore in sufficiently direct competition that this would be a Wikipedia COI. It’s generally a bad and terrible claim and it’s blitheringly obvious to any experienced Wikipedia editor that it’s stretching for an excuse.
Variations on #3 are a perennial of cranks of all sorts who don’t want a skeptical editor writing about them at Wikipedia, and will first attempt not to engage with the issues and sources, but to stop the editor from writing about them. (My favourite personal example is this Sorcha Faal fan who revealed I was editing as an NSA shill.) So it should really be considered an example of the crackpot offer, and if you find yourself thinking it then it would be worth thinking again.
(No, I don’t know why cranks keep thinking implausible claims of COI are a slam dunk move to neutralise the hated outgroup. I hypothesise a tendency to conspiracist thinking, and first assuming malfeasance as an explanation for disagreement. So if you find yourself doing that, it’s another one to watch out for.)
despite hearing that one a lot at Rationalwiki, it turns out the big Soros bucks are thinner on the ground than many a valiant truthseeker thinks
Or just what words mean in the context in question, keeping in mind that we are indeed speaking in a particular context.
[here, let me do your homework for you]
In particular, expertise does not constitute a Wikipedia conflict of interest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest#External_roles_and_relationships
While editing Wikipedia, an editor’s primary role is to further the interests of the encyclopedia. When an external role or relationship could reasonably be said to undermine that primary role, the editor has a conflict of interest. (Similarly, a judge’s primary role as an impartial adjudicator is undermined if she is married to the defendant.)
Any external relationship—personal, religious, political, academic, financial or legal—can trigger a COI. How close the relationship needs to be before it becomes a concern on Wikipedia is governed by common sense. For example, an article about a band should not be written by the band’s manager, and a biography should not be an autobiography or written by the subject’s spouse.
Subject-matter experts are welcome to contribute within their areas of expertise, subject to the guidance on financial conflict of interest, while making sure that their external roles and relationships in that field do not interfere with their primary role on Wikipedia.
Note “the subject doesn’t think you’re enough of a fan” isn’t listed.
Further down that section:
COI is not simply bias
Determining that someone has a COI is a description of a situation. It is not a judgment about that person’s state of mind or integrity.[5] A COI can exist in the absence of bias, and bias regularly exists in the absence of a COI. Beliefs and desires may lead to biased editing, but they do not constitute a COI. COI emerges from an editor’s roles and relationships, and the tendency to bias that we assume exists when those roles and relationships conflict.[9] COI is like “dirt in a sensitive gauge.”[10]
On experts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors
Expert editors are cautioned to be mindful of the potential conflict of interest that may arise if editing articles which concern an expert’s own research, writings, discoveries, or the article about herself/himself. Wikipedia’s conflict of interest policy does allow an editor to include information from his or her own publications in Wikipedia articles and to cite them. This may only be done when the editors are sure that the Wikipedia article maintains a neutral point of view and their material has been published in a reliable source by a third party. If the neutrality or reliability are questioned, it is Wikipedia consensus, rather than the expert editor, that decides what is to be done. When in doubt, it is good practice for a person who may have a conflict of interest to disclose it on the relevant article’s talk page and to suggest changes there rather than in the article. Transparency is essential to the workings of Wikipedia.
i.e., don’t blatantly promote yourself, run it past others first.
You’re still attempting to use the term “conflict of interest” when what you actually seem to mean is “he disagrees with me therefore should not be saying things.” That particular tool, the term “conflict of interest”, really doesn’t do what you think it does.
The way Wikipedia deals with “he disagrees with me therefore should not be saying things” is to look at the sources used. Also, “You shouldn’t use source X because its argument originally came from Y which is biased” is not generally a winning argument on Wikipedia without a lot more work.
Before you then claim bias as a reason, let me quote again:
Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject.
Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. Editors should also consider whether the bias makes it appropriate to use in-text attribution to the source, as in “Feminist Betty Friedan wrote that...”, “According to the Marxist economist Harry Magdoff...,” or “Conservative Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater believed that...”.
So if, as you note, the Reliable Sources regularly use me, that would indicate my opinions would be worth taking note of—rather than the opposite. As I said, be careful you’re making the argument you think you are.
(I don’t self-label as an “expert”, I do claim to know a thing or two about the area. You’re the one who tried to argue from my opinions being taken seriously by the “reliable sources”.)
The first two would suggest I’m a subject-matter expert, and particularly the second if the “reliable sources” consistently endorse my stuff, as you observe they do. This suggests I’m viewed as knowing what I’m talking about and should continue. (Be careful your argument makes the argument you think it’s making.) The third is that you dislike my opinion, which is fine, but also irrelevant. The final sentence fails to address any WP:RS-related criterion. HTH!
but in the context of Wikipedia, you should after all keep in mind that I am an NSA shill.
(More generally as a Wikipedia editor I find myself perennially amazed at advocates for some minor cause who seem to seriously think that Wikipedia articles on their minor cause should only be edited by advocates, and that all edits by people who aren’t advocates must somehow be wrong and bad and against the rules. Even though the relevant rules are (a) quite simple conceptually (b) say nothing of the sort. You’d almost think they don’t have the slightest understanding of what Wikipedia is about, and only cared about advocating their cause and bugger the encyclopedia.)
This isn’t what “conflict of interest” means at Wikipedia. You probably want to review WP:COI, and I mean “review” it in a manner where you try to understand what it’s getting at rather than looking for loopholes that you think will let you do the antisocial thing you’re contemplating. Your posited approach is the same one that didn’t work for the cryptocurrency advocates either. (And “RationalWiki is a competing website therefore his edits must be COI” has failed for many cranks, because it’s trivially obvious that their true rejection is that I edited at all and disagreed with them, much as that’s your true rejection.) Being an advocate who’s written a post specifically setting out a plan, your comment above would, in any serious Wikipedia dispute on the topic, be prima facie evidence that you were attempting to brigade Wikipedia for the benefit of your own conflict of interest. But, y’know, knock yourself out in the best of faith, we’re writing an encyclopedia here after all and every bit helps. HTH!
If you really want to make the article better, the guideline you want to take to heart is WP:RS, and a whacking dose of WP:NOR. Advocacy editing like you’ve just mapped out a detailed plan for is a good way to get reverted, and blocked if you persist.
This is a frankly boggling rant I have no intention of engaging.
Yes, but if it’s not visible in quality of life, and it’s not visible in technological advancement … what quantity is it detrimental to?
I haven’t really seen much discussion on the intersection of neoreaction and transhumanism.
Is there much other than Michael Anissimov’s essay?
They’re a topic of much past discussion on LW, in fact.
“In the past two months I have inexplicably and very very suddenly become much more conservative. This isn’t the type of conservativism where I agree with any conservative policies, mind you. Those still seem totally wrong-headed to me. It’s the sort of conservativism where, even though conservatives seem to be wrong about everything, often in horrible or hateful ways, they seem like probably mostly decent people deep down, whereas I have to physically restrain myself from going on Glenn Beck style rants about how much I hate leftists and how much they are ruining everything. Even though I mostly agree with the leftists whenever they say something.”
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/22/right-is-the-new-left/
“friends” may be an overstatement. But definitely “people whose ideas he steeps himself in”. Well done, you have a convert in the making.
We have more people living better than ever before in history, and this is because of the Enlightenment.
For a long time, LW was the only place you would read this stuff outside the tiny NRx blogosphere.
The fact that this is “catnip” for LW-ers is a bad thing. We ought to be giving neoreaction about as much credence as we give Creationism: it’s founded on bad ethics, false facts, and bad reasoning, and should be dismissed, not discussed to death.
I note (and others have noted) that SSC, although hosting the definitive NRx takedown, still puts NRx ideas in the sphere of things to be discussed calmly with steelmanning; whereas it reacts with actual disgust and lack of philosophical charity to feminism, social justice, Tumblr, etc. And that Yvain was literally surprised to find himself becoming more right-wing after hanging around neoreactionaries, i.e. that he was picking up his ideas from his friends.
You haven’t advanced a dot of evidence relating to chiropracty, which is the subject of this subthread. You’ve advanced evidence of lobbyists, but not that the lobbyists are destroying a deserved good reputation of chiropracty. Do you have any evidence to this effect? (Both of the lobbying and of the good reputation.)
Villiam started with a proposal to brigade Wikipedia. This was sufficiently prima facie bad faith that I didn’t, and still don’t, feel any obligation to bend over backwards to construct a kernel of value from his post. You certainly don’t have to believe me that his words 100% pattern match to extruded crank product from my perspective, but I feel it’s worth noting that they do.
I feel answering his call for brigade with a couple of detailed link- and quote-heavy comments trying to explain what the rules actually are and how they actually work constituted a reasonable effort to respond sincerely and helpfully on my part, and offer guidance on how not to 100% pattern match to extruded crank product in any prospective editor’s future Wikipedia endeavours.
If you have problems with the Wikipedia article, these are best addressed on the article talk page, and 0% here. (Readers attempting this should be sure to keep to the issues and not attempt to personalise issues as being about other editors.)
Anything further will be repeating ourselves, I think.