Talk:Hypatia transracialism controversy/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Editing for relevancy

It appears that this article needs to be thoroughly edited to remove information that has no utility to the public. There are several points in the article were personal information is rendered which is unrelated to the continuity or the wikipedia article, its progression, or even overreaching theme (ie. Tuval has relatives from the Holocaust).

Moreover, after reading the article I still can't discern what was the critique of the article that came out of the academic community. It offers these brief reductio ad absurbum claims about criticism, and then goes on to defend its author. I find it difficult to believe that these omissions were not deliberate, and stand as a violation of objectivity in reporting this incident.

Will someone more familiar with Wikipedia's standards of content please edit this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.193.233.226 (talk) 19:22, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Did a bit of touching up, but there's still a lot here that violates objectivity in an very pointed attempt to specifically defend Tuvel. - 67.167.207.249 (talk) 04:02, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Rather than removing sourced material, please describe what the problem is. In this diff, for example, your edit summary was "Changed tenses to note events were alleged", and you changed "Oliver writes" to "Oliver wrote". But that doesn't affect the issue of something being alleged. And you also removed three sentences based on the source, including two quotations.

Per NPOV, Wikipedia artices have to reflect the preponderance of reliable sources, in rough proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Articles should not give minority views as detailed a description as more widely held views. There is no question that most sources did not support the action taken against Tuvel. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:10, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Concerns about undue weight

It's a bit jarring to see the level of investment in this article alongside the relative neglect of many other topics related to feminist philosophy on Wikipedia. Perhaps those who have worked so hard to bring this article to its current level can invest some additional time expanding other articles in the field to provide a more accurate (and encyclopedic) picture of the current state of feminist philosophy in the English-language world, which to my understanding is quite robust. Otherwise, it would seem that the disproportionate attention to this issue might stem from a political agenda held by a small group of editors, which would be a real shame. Jazzcowboy (talk) 19:25, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

Jazzcowboy, I'm the main author of this, so please tell me what my political agenda is.

This dispute at a small feminist philosophy journal attracted sustained international coverage, including two articles in The New York Times, and a recent Philosophy Today issue devoted to it. That's why there's a detailed article about it, one that reflects the preponderance of the sources, per WP:DUE. If there are sources we've omitted or under-used, point them out.

As for comparing this to other feminist-philosophy articles, that this article exists doesn't stop you or anyone else from working on others, so please go ahead and, as you suggested, invest that time. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:04, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

I've no doubt this article adheres to all WP policies, since you obviously have a ton of experience. It's a shame more people at your level aren't interested in editing pages about feminist philosophy that reflect the wider range of work taking place in that subfield. (And no, I can't accept your argument that nothing is stopping me or anyone else from solving this problem...Wikipedia is a technocracy, and the demographics and content biases of those with the expertise have been well documented. Where you find most valuable to invest your expert time and effort can have an outsized impact on a field like feminist philosophy, and especially on a journal like Hypatia that has been one of the most influential outlets for feminist philosophy for several decades, even if this is not reflected on its page. There's no avoiding that power and attendant responsibility.)

The only constructive criticism I have for this page, in terms of making it feel less political, is that I recommend cutting back the extensive lists and invocation of names of living people who may or may not (as in the case of the associate editors) be associated with this controversy. Frankly, it reads like a “name and shame” agenda. (Incidentally, this matches a pattern recognizable to those who have followed the Brian Leiter bullying controversies (documented in a blog here), which led to him stepping down from leadership of his rankings. That controversy drew very much less international press attention, but it is odd that it is virtually invisible on Wikipedia.)

My only other request is that this talk page be set to archive less frequently. It seems as though the aggressive pace of archiving is snuffing out discussions that would otherwise be ongoing. Thanks for all the attention you've put to philosophy content on WP! I do appreciate your work and I hope my feedback is read as well-intentioned. Jazzcowboy (talk) 16:23, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

Isn't this the nature of Wikipedia though, everyone chipping away at articles or tasks that interest them? In a decade or two most articles should be at this standard, clearly formatted, well referenced, all the relevant details covered and a few diagrams or pictures to illustrate the topic. I agree that it's great to see Wikipedians like SarahSV weigh in on topics like this and raise the standards.

However I wonder if you're overplaying the 'Undue weight' aspect. Firstly, given the variety of editors and topics, it's inevitable that at this stage in its development some articles on Wikipedia will be better looked after than others. Secondly and more significantly the article itself is about a controversial topic that's relevant to wider discussions in our English-speaking culture about gender and academic freedom. A detailed article will allow readers to draw their own sociological conclusions, but a truncated article or worse no article at all about a controversial topic prevents people from making up their own minds. Not that I think you're saying that but it feels as though you're opening the door to this when you suggest "disproportionate attention".

But all that said, great to see another Wikipedian interested in this topic and I like the way you're gracious in your comments.Knobbly ^talk 08:08, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

It's too clear what side of conflict the article author takes

By reading the first paragraph, I thought it will more neutral if you say "Nkechi Amare Diallo, who was assigned as a white woman but identify as black". הראש (talk) 11:40, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Bad Redirects

I just searched for the philosopher Alexis Shotwell and was automatically redirected to this controversy page. I understand this is common practice when someone is only notable because they are connected to an event (e.g., the victim of a crime), but it seems very odd to do this for someone so marginally connected to this event and potentially notable for other reasons. (Shotwell is an established scholar who has written several widely cited books.) I don't know if there are other redirects that do this, but if whoever set them up reads this, perhaps consider removing those redirects. (Or another good samaritan...deleting redirects is beyond my Wikipedia skills.) If Shotwell is notable, she should be redlinked. If she is not notable, then there should be no redirect. Jazzcowboy (talk) 16:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi, she's probably notable enough to get her own page. I think that would solve the problem. MonsieurD (talk) 17:44, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Removal of Jesse Singal from the article

Hi @Aquillion: I don't understand your rationale from removing all the content coming from Jesse Singal's NY Mag article. Can you cite Wikipedia policy for justification? You claim it's an opinion piece, but alot of the information it provided was factual in nature. I think it impoverishes the article. I'm referring to this edit. MonsieurD (talk) 18:13, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Per WP:RSOPINION, opinion pieces shouldn't be cited for statements of fact. If the information is factual in nature, we should rely news articles (or other non-opinion sources) to cite it, rather than asides in an opinion piece which, ultimately, are only intended to represent the author's opinions or views of the topic rather than its facts. This is especially true when, as in this case, the opinion piece is cited to someone with no academic expertise in the field. And, indeed, in this case most of it is already cited to better sources, so there was no reason to weaken their citations by leave a pretty clearly axe-grindey opinion piece there. --Aquillion (talk) 19:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I've restored the sources and text that were removed. SarahSV ^(talk) 19:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Could you explain the other parts of this revert? Even if you think that Jesse Singal is citable there, we plainly cannot cite an opinion piece from Tuvel's thesis advisor for statements of fact, nor can we characterize the reception as universal when the article text lists disagreement; and Quillette, per WP:RS, remains generally WP:UNDUE in this context, especially when a comparable opinion is already being cited to many better sources. --Aquillion (talk) 20:57, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Aquillion, would you please break your proposed changes down into bits, so they can be discussed? SarahSV ^(talk) 20:58, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I already broke them down into individual edits with explanations in the edit summaries, but to go over them one by one:

• Here, Quillette is listed on WP:RSP as both generally unreliable and generally WP:UNDUE for opinions. There is no reason to cite it here when comparable opinions are cited to better sources.
• Here and here the article and sources list academics both for and against; none of the sources support a sweeping implication that all of academia took Tuvel's side, so we have to be more precise about who took what position.
• Here we are citing an opinion piece, unattributed, for a statement of fact (and unnecessarily so, since we have better sources.)
• Here as well, although it could possibly be left in the list further down. Same general deal; there's no reason to leave an opinion piece there when we have better sources anyway, so this sort of edit is normally uncontroversial.
• Here, as with the overly-broad statement about academia above, it is necessary to make it clear that we are only summarizing some commentators and quoting them rather than making objective statements of fact; ideally we would specify who made that argument, hence the who tag.
• Here, call-out culture is now a redirect to online outrage, which isn't very useful to wikilink in this context.
• Here, this is a more accurate summary of the section, which list academics on both sides, and of the secondary sources, which generally describe the issue as divisive within academia rather than unified.
• Here, the see-alsos are tangential (especially the book?)
• Here, we are citing an opinion piece in Tuval's defense by the chair of Tuval's dissertation committee for statements of fact and for plainly-WP:EXCEPTIONAL characterizations of what happened, the tone of comments on social media, and so on. This is clearly a violation of WP:RSOPINION - we can cite an opinion piece by Oliver for her opinion, with an in-line citation making clear it's her opinion, but since she's both a WP:BIASED source and writing in an opinion piece, we can't cite her for objective statements of fact. The final paragraph removed there goes into WP:UNDUE weight - we can cover Oliver's opinion, but that paragraph turned her opinion into over a third of the section, which is far too much given that she's a biased source. Additionally, again, the wording of that paragraph (while it starts with Oliver's opinion) largely represents her opinions and perspective as objective fact, which we can't do when citing an opinion-piece from a patiently non-neutral party. Likewise, the "attacked" language in the wikivoice (which comes largely from Oliver) needs to be toned down here as well. Note that I didn't remove Oliver's statements from the article (or section) entirely, merely toned down the weight on them and made sure that anything cited that opinion piece was attributed.
• An interview with Tuval likewise cannot be used for controversial statements of fact in the article voice; see WP:INTERVIEW for discussion of the complexities here, but in this case it would clearly, at the very least, require in-line attribution to Tuval for anything remotely controversial. And there's no purpose to including Tuval there because we do have better secondary sources (if we want to include the "Becky" bit at all; see below.)
• In this case I couldn't find any other citations mentioning this characterization, so it seems WP:UNDUE; note that I later added another source that went into much more detail on how it was characterized with more context.
• Here, I added a WP:SECONDARY non-opinion source that wasn't affiliated with Tuval and replaced the characterization with it. Note that many of the key points are still there, just cited and quoted in more depth. I would argue that those parts are more important than the fact that she was called "Becky" and generally received more emphasis across other sources, but we could include both, I suppose. I also shifted it from "facebook and twitter" to "social media" because the commentary / controversy wasn't confined to those two sites.
• And finally, this one is discussed above (it's an opinion-piece from a non-expert, so there's no reason to cite it so extensively when better sources exist.)

Whew! Anyway, let me know which you do / don't object to so at least the unobjectionable changes can be restored; I was genuinely under the impression that only the removal of Singal was contested. --Aquillion (talk) 21:31, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

The academic community by and large did come out in support. People were pretty horrified by what happened. Writing "some people" underestimates the support and is bad writing.

It would be better to deal with each point separately. What is your objection to Singal's article in New York magazine? SarahSV ^(talk) 21:41, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I would rather not have uncontroversial changes bogged down behind the most intractable points (and these are likely to be the most intractable ones), but... do you have (a non-opinion, non-WP:BIASED) source for "academic community by and large did come out in support?" If it is a clearly-obvious point then there should be a secondary source saying so specifically. If not, then we could omit any characterization of the academic community as a whole; but it is a fact (clear from the article itself) that many people in the academic community did, in fact, come out against her, and many sources indicate that it was a divisive conflict within the field. There was a massive extended controversy at the journal itself that led to several resignations. The New York Times described it as a battleground and says that An open letter signed by more than 800 academics, including many from outside philosophy, called for the article to be retracted on the grounds that it “falls short of scholarly standards”. (There is extensive coverage of the academics who raised issues, though the article seems a bit imbalanced in terms of not devoting much focus to them.) Here is a published academic paper describing the furor (from someone involved in it, yes, but in this case in a peer-reviewed paper):

• Many feminist philosophers of color, transgender philosophers, philosophers working in philosophy of race, critical philosophy of race, and philosophy of sex and gender, scholars of women of color feminisms (including scholars of Black feminism), scholars who work in transgender studies and disability studies, and other philosophers and scholars who either are members of marginalized populations, work in areas that address the problems faced by members of marginalized populations, or are sympathetic to such persons were outraged. On April 30, 2017, some of these scholar (approximately 800 of them, in fact) signed an open letter to the journal requesting that the article be retracted, claiming, among other things, that the article “[fell] short of scholarly standards,” and caused harm in that it “[reflected] a lack of engagement beyond white and cisgender privilege”) and In the middle of this mess, Tuvel herself, a junior, untenured, female philosopher was inundated with both criticism and also public support. The philosophical community was divided (into multiple factions) over whether the article should have been published in the first place, whether the article should be retracted, if the article should not have been published who was to blame, and even whether the actions of the approximately 800 signatories to the “open letter” were appropriate or not. It was a discipline-wide controversy

None of this supports the idea that she had universal or overwhelming support within the academic community; and these are secondary sources discussing the broad reception, while the article is currently citing a relatively tiny handful of scholars friendly to Tuval and using it to argue the reception was supportive. I'm not denying that such supportive voices existed, of course, but even the sources already in the article support the fact that plenty of people in academia were horrified that Tuval's article saw publication in the first place - enough that major coverage largely characterized it as a serious split within academia, not as academics lining up in support behind Tuval the way the article currently implies. Look, I'll be blunt, the academic community absolutely did not by and large come out in support - it was severely split, and virtually all the non-opinion coverage reflects this. "800 academics, largely from within the discipline, signed a paper calling for the paper's retraction" is not compatible with the level of support you're trying to imply here; we cannot just cite a handful of opinion-pieces supportive of Tuval and weigh them against eg. direct coverage by the New York Times or peer-reviewed papers that describe it as a sharply divisive controversy that split the discipline down the middle. My reading of the sources that you're trying to use is that they are opinion-pieces written by culture-war types with a specific perspective that leads them to see it as (or to want to portray it as) academics vs. social media. But that's not how non-opinion coverage describes it, so we can, at best, present that as an opinion held by those people, and even then we would have to be cautious not to give it WP:UNDUE weight. At the moment, the same few opinion-pieces - by patiently WP:BIASED people like Oliver and Singal - are cited again and again throughout this article, often for controversial statements of fact with no attribution; we can represent their point of view, but we can't present it as objective fact when it's just cited to opinion-pieces, and we can't cite them to such stifling degrees when voices that differ (like eg. Botts or Winnubst) are cited much more lightly. --Aquillion (talk) 22:17, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I can't respond to an essay. This is why I've asked you several times to deal with one issue at a time. Can we please begin with why you removed Singal's New York magazine article? Your fact/opinion distinction is meaningless to me. You seem to be cherry-picking bits and pieces from a guideline as they suit you (and not interpreting them correctly). Please stick instead to the content policies. What is wrong with the Singal article as a source? ;;SarahSV ^(talk) 23:02, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Personally, I don't see your point at all for rejecting Kelly Oliver's take. She has close knowledge of the topic and was published in a reliable source. If we add stuff like "According to Kelly Oliver", I don't see a problem. I'm also unsure with respect to your justification for purging content from Singal's article. Most of the rest seems fine to me. MonsieurD (talk) 16:09, 17 July 2020 (UTC)