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Removal of "Neoreaction" section

As it currently stands, the primary statement in this section says, "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong". This claim is contradicted by the History section of the Dark Enlightenment page. (Note that the page considers "neo-reactionary movement" and "Dark Enlightenment" to be synonyms.)

Specifically, the History section says that "Steve Sailer is a contemporary forerunner of the ideology", and then "In 2007 and 2008, software engineer Curtis Yarvin... articulated what would develop into Dark Enlightenment thinking." Contrast this with LessWrong, which is currently listed as having launched on February 1, 2009 on its page. The ideology could not have been first articulated on LessWrong.

It is perhaps possible that the claim is no "movement" surrounding Yarvin's ideology formed on his blog, a devoted listserv, or a topic-specific page of a social media site, but one did belatedly form in an unrelated tech hangout years later. If true, no source cited in the Neoreaction section explains the rationale for organizing in a tech hangout. Nor can I trace the claim to a primary source. That is, I can't trace it to any attempt to demonstrate that such a movement existed on LessWrong, or that no movement was organized at a more intuitive place and time.

Notably, sources for the Dark Enlightenment history section do not make this claim about the history of the Dark Enlightenment movement. (To insert personal opinion, I suspect because more in-depth analysis of the ideology does not support it.)

In summary, the central claim of this section can be interpreted as saying that either the ideology or movement of neoreaction began on LessWrong. The first interpretation must be false- the ideology could not have been created on a website that did not exist yet. The second is an extraordinary claim made with no justification, and is not repeated on the movement's page.

If no objection is made in the next few weeks, I plan to remove this section on the basis of its dubious assertion. TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 07:42, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the article cited for the claim (which is in German), it doesn't support the claim. It does say that "Nicht zufällig waren die Keimzellen der sich auf diversen Websites artikulierenden Ideologie Blogs wie „Overcoming Bias“ oder „Less Wrong“" ("It is not coincidental that the seeds of the movement [literally gametes, but it can be used for ideologies], articulated on various websites, were ideological blogs like "Overcoming Bias" or "Less Wrong""), but that seems different from the claim that "The neoreactionary movement first grew on LessWrong". I would maybe say that it claims "The neoreactionary movement took inspiration from some ideas on LessWrong", but that's hardly worth including in the article. Notably, this source only has two sentences about LessWrong, and the second is just a very short explanation of what LessWrong contains. Gbear605 (talk) 14:31, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@TheDefenseProfessor I decided to go ahead with your suggestion and removed the section. Joynohemi (talk) 02:19, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Here are the sources which have been removed:

• Siemons, Mark (2017-04-14). "Neoreaktion im Silicon Valley: Wenn Maschinen denken". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 2019-03-23.
• Keep, Elmo (22 June 2016). "The Strange and Conflicting World Views of Silicon Valley Billionaire Peter Thiel". Fusion. Archived from the original on 13 February 2017. Retrieved 2016-10-05. Thanks to LessWrong's discussions of eugenics and evolutionary psychology, it has attracted some readers and commenters affiliated with the alt-right and neoreaction, that broad cohort of neofascist, white nationalist and misogynist trolls.
• Riggio, Adam (23 September 2016). "The Violence of Pure Reason: Neoreaction: A Basilisk". Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective. 5 (9): 34–41. ISSN 2471-9560. Archived from the original on 5 October 2016. Retrieved 5 October 2016. Land and Yarvin are openly allies with the new reactionary movement, while Yudkowsky counts many reactionaries among his fanbase despite finding their racist politics disgusting.
• Eliezer Yudkowsky (8 April 2016). "Untitled". Optimize Literally Everything (blog). Archived from the original on 26 May 2019. Retrieved 7 October 2016.
• Hermansson, Patrik; Lawrence, David; Mulhall, Joe; Murdoch, Simon (2020). "The Dark Enlightenment: Neoreaction and Silicon Valley". The International Alt-Right. Fascism for the 21st Century?. Abingdon-on-Thames, England, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138363861. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 2 October 2020.

Due weight is decided by reliable sources, not individual editors or WP:OR. I would be very surprised if these are the only sources documenting the site's connection to neoreaction and similar regressive pseudointelelctualism. Grayfell (talk) 06:58, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Joynohemi first deleted the section on behalf of TheDefenseProfessor's suggestion, however there was no further discussion among the editors before such a revision took place whether it was appropriate to do so in stead of revision to just remove the dubious claim. The sources that have been removed provide additional information which makes the article incomplete otherwise. Please discuss here your reasoning for why neoreaction is not relevant to LessWrong before making another hasty reversion. EdenCat (talk) 04:46, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, as user Jlevi mentioned in the first discussion about the removal of Neoreaction. "This could probably be fixed by modest rephrasing, and I'll think about how to do that." - I have made such a revision and hope it is now satisfactory to the other editors. EdenCat (talk) 05:07, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Good edit. XOR'easter (talk) 21:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

There's much more in the Hermansson et al. book about the intersection of LessWrong and neoreaction than just the survey result it's currently being cited for. The book provides a rather in-depth exploration of this fuzzy overlap region, more than enough to warrant the concise mention that the article currently provides on the topic. XOR'easter (talk) 22:08, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the section on neoreactionarism should be removed. The sentence after showed that only 0.92% LessWrong users self-identify as neoreactionaries. It's very rare for polls to come to such a small percentage.

Moreover, there has been some scrutiny over an influent editor trying to aggressively establish a connection between LessWrong and neoreactionarism.[1] While the source is self-published, it nevertheless provides consistent explanations and links to various sources, including Wikipedia diffs. It also reveals efforts to exaggerate the importance of the Roko's Basilisk story and strengthen its association with LessWrong. Let's try to stop misrepresenting this website. Alenoach (talk) 22:28, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The percentage is irrelevant in this context; what matters is the history. And a personal blog is the definition of a useless source for our purposes. The article does not misrepresent LessWrong, even if that fact makes some people upset. XOR'easter (talk) 01:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

So we have a German source which is said to not support the claim, a news article which makes the claim that some users of the site held neo-reactionary views, a review of a self-published book, a blog post, and a book that states a whopping 0.92% of users identified as neo-reactionary. Yep this is clearly adequately sourced. Traumnovelle (talk) 08:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the sources cited above by Grayfell are reliable and mention LessWrong as a forum of interest to many neoreactionaries. However, the article currently says "the forum played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement," and the sources do not say or imply that. If Group A is interested in Group B's ideas, it does not follow that Group B played a role in the development of Group A. And even if true, this observation does not necessarily merit inclusion in Group A's Wikipedia page.

To see the problems with these implications, consider the following analogy. Suppose that a WP:RS stated that neoreactionaries have been attracted to articles about race and genetics in the New York Times, and participated in the comment section. I think people would generally agree that:

1. This would not by itself constitute evidence that the New York Times played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement.
3. Even if it were provably true that the NYT articles significantly influenced the development of NRx, no one would consider this a noteworthy, representative fact about the New York Times that merits inclusion in its Wikipedia article. It would belong in the article about neoreactionaries.

I believe we would agree on this because the NYT publishes influential material of general interest to many audiences, and a focus on how the NYT has influenced NRx in particular would run afoul of WP:UNDUE.

LessWrong's reach is surely less than the NYT, but as the article's lead rightly notes, the community's range of interests is very broad, centers around rationality and cognitive bias more than anything, and has no clear connection to NRx. Thus, a focus on how LW has influenced NRx in particular is as WP:UNDUE as it is in the NYT example.

If there is to be any discussion of the connection between NRx and LessWrong on Wikipedia, I believe that the neoreactionaries page should talk about LessWrong, not the other way around.

I will wait for a bit for further discussion, due to the visibility and controversy, then edit accordingly if there is no objection. Getnormality (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It's due if sources discuss it, which they do, regardless of whether or not the site has also hosted discussions of other topics. XOR'easter (talk) 01:12, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree, considering the NYT example, but I do see that WP:UNDUE says all significant viewpoints should be represented, so I'll table that for now.

There remains the problem that Grayfell's sources don't support the claim in the article. "Discussions of eugenics and evolutionary psychology hosted on LessWrong have attracted the interest of neoreactionaries" would align much better with what the sources say. Getnormality (talk) 01:58, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, I did not cite those sources for any specific claims, I copied them from the article to this talk page to simplify discussion. Some of them are likely reliable, and some are not. They will have to be evaluated on their own merits, as usual. Clearly there already are objections, so announcing plans to edit accordingly is presumptuous, at best.

The comparison to The New York Times is non-productive for multiple reasons. For one, the scale of these two topics is completely out-of-whack here. Just look at Category:The New York Times, List of The New York Times controversies, etc.. For another, many of the Wikipedia articles on the NYT include discussions of the paper's politics spanning its 172 year history. Third, attempting to appeal to what you believe "people would generally agree" for an unrelated topic based on an entirely hypothetical scenario has nothing to do with what reliable sources are saying about this situation.

Our goal is to provide context based on WP:IS. Allowing members of a community to decide which aspects are important and which are not would be indistinguishable from PR.

As an aside, I appreciate that members of the LessWrong community wish to distance themselves from the neoreactionary movement. I mean that sincerely. I find it upsetting when this kind of crap pops up in my communities, and I imagine it's the same for others. I would propose that Wikipedia isn't the platform to do this, however. Blaming the messengers for pointing out the problem doesn't solve the problem, and it makes it appear to others as if your group's motivations are tactical and PR-minded. Grayfell (talk) 02:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi Grayfell. Could we start over? I do not participate in the LessWrong community, and it is not my goal to represent LessWrong from any particular viewpoint here. I respect Wikipedia, I respect its policies, and I want this article to be informative to people by following the policies. I am not interested in doing PR for LessWrong, I am not interested in overriding anyone's objections, and I am open to changing my mind and the way I do things based on input from experienced editors.

As I said here, what I'd like to do now is rephrase the existing text to remove a claim which I find to be unsupported by the cited sources. It seems to me that the sources you've already developed are sufficiently reliable to support that rephrased claim. What do you think? Getnormality (talk) 02:26, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

As a show of good faith: if there is a reliable account of the development of NRx that says it grew faster because of LW, or adopted new ideas based on influence from LW, let's say so and cite it. I have no problem with that at all. But if LW is just a place they've read stuff they're interested in and commented, "played a role in their development" seems like it would be misinterpreted by the average reader. Getnormality (talk) 03:07, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree; don't see a RS on this Secarctangent (talk) 03:36, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Your proposal sets an arbitrary standard that is not based on Wikipedia's norms. Per reliable sources, LessWrong's platform for discussing eugenics and dubious evolutionary psychology had consequences. Anecdotally, I glanced at LessWrong earlier today to perform a quick sanity check that it hadn't completely changed since the last time I looked at it. It hadn't. It is not a fluke that this happened, it was entirely predictable, and we're not doing a disservice to readers by summarizing these sources. Additionally, the article does clearly state that Yudkoswsky rejects neoreaction, and this is an appropriate use of a primary source.

The best way to start over would be with a specific, actionable proposal based on specific, reliable sources. Instead of writing WP:BACKWARDS from how you think the article should explain this based on blog posts or hypothetical scenarios about other topics, look at what reliable sources are actually saying. Grayfell (talk) 04:59, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

The specific statement is: "The forum played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement".

None of the sources cited specifically say this. The fusion article is accurately cited, as it states "Thanks to LessWrong’s discussions of eugenics and evolutionary psychology, it has attracted some readers and commenters affiliated with the alt-right and neoreaction".

However, the specific claim about Lesswrong playing a role in the development of the movement - the citations fail verification.

The quote in citation 15 is the following:

"Ein Hauptideengeber ist der in San Francisco lebende Software-Ingenieur Curtis Yarvin, der unter seinem Blogger-Namen Mencius Moldbug schreibt: „Bei UR“ – gemeint ist sein Blog „Unqualified Reservations“ – „kümmern wir uns nicht um Tradition. Wir akzeptieren nichts Gegebenes, dienen keinem Idol. Im Gegenteil – wir scheißen auf sie.“

Nicht zufällig waren die Keimzellen der sich auf diversen Websites artikulierenden Ideologie Blogs wie „Overcoming Bias“ oder „Less Wrong“, die sich mit künstlicher Intelligenz befassen und mit der Vorstellung, mit Hilfe von Computertechnik ewiges Leben erlangen zu können („Transhumanismus“). Bei der dort geübten „Kampfkunst der Rationalität“ geht es in den Worten des Computerforschers Eliezer Yudkowsky nicht zuerst darum, mit Hilfe des menschlichen Verstandes die Maschinen klüger zu machen, sondern vielmehr darum, mit der antizipierten Maschinenintelligenz die menschliche Vernunft zu verändern: „Wir müssen die Wissenschaft auf unsere Intuitionen anwenden, müssen das abstrakte Wissen dazu nutzen, unsere mentalen Bewegungen zu korrigieren.“"

This Google translates to:

"One of the main sources of ideas is the San Francisco-based software engineer Curtis Yarvin, who writes under his blogger name Mencius Moldbug: “At UR” – meaning his blog “Unqualified Reservations” – “we don’t care about tradition. We don’t accept anything given, we don’t serve any idol. On the contrary – we don’t give a shit about them.”

It is no coincidence that the seeds of the ideology articulated on various websites were blogs such as “Overcoming Bias” or “Less Wrong”, which deal with artificial intelligence and the idea of ​​being able to achieve eternal life with the help of computer technology (“transhumanism”). In the words of computer researcher Eliezer Yudkowsky, the “martial art of rationality” practiced there is not primarily about using the human mind to make machines smarter, but rather about using the anticipated machine intelligence to change human reason: “We must apply science to our intuitions, we must use abstract knowledge to correct our mental movements.”"

The closest quote I can find in citation 16 is the following:

"It is unclear to me how Roko’s malevolent AI found a second life on reddit, after the erasure of the original thread, and came to be popularly known as ‘Roko’s Basilisk’ or simply ‘The Basilisk’. The basilisk is a legendary, crested, snake-like being, able to poison anyone unfortunate enough to chance upon his path. The beast appears in one of the Harry Potter novels – in the Harry Potter version, the basilisk is able to petrify his victims with a gaze similar to the Medusa stare – and in some recent Manga series, but the basilisk is better known as an age-old anti-Semitic trope. In Martin Luther’s On the Jews and Their Lies (1543) the creature is identified with the ‘venomous’ Jewish folk whose pestilence is said to be lethal. Yudkowsky did dissociate himself from the white supremacist creeps in and around his blog – the ethno-nationalist blog MoreRight, run by the neoreactionary ideologue Michael Anissimov, emerged out of LessWrong, after the two men fell out with each other – but given that ‘The Basilisk’ swiftly became a prominent avatar for neoreactionary transhumanism,Footnote19 it is not far-fetched to assume that the anti-Semitic connotations are intentional. These crypto-fascist forums, which, as Philip Sandifer notes, incubated in tech culture and seem to have compromised it beyond redemption, play a major role in the production and dissemination of alt-right idioms and imagery. According to Mother Jones, the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer – named after Der Stürmer, the unofficial propaganda organ of the Nazi party – gets the bulk of its donations from Silicon Valley, and Santa Clara County, home to Apple and Intel, are the site’s largest traffic source."

The most honest solution at this point is to remove the section that states that Lesswrong influenced the development of the neoreaction movement. The reliable sources only state that certain neoreactionary individuals interacted with the founder of this site and that a tiny proportion of site users identify with the movement. Giving it a whole section in History is totally undue weight. It's more appropriate for Yudkowsky's page or the Dark Enlightenment page. 2001:BB6:76BC:2C00:75C9:AC2B:2549:F606 (talk) 11:21, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you so much for this - I was about to develop a similar comment myself. Again restating the text in question,

"The forum played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement" [15][16]

Let's review the supporting citations against the WP:RS standard. I'll rely on 2001's quotes, as I agree that they are the closest to supporting the claim as stated.

Citation 15: FAZ

2001's quote from the FAZ essay [15] can be read as supporting the claim that LW played a role in the development of NRx, and a well-regarded news organization like FAZ is prima facie WP:RS. However, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:CONTEXTFACTS, we need to consider whether this specific text is of the kind that FAZ would have verified with its fact-checking processes. This is especially important today, given that news outlets now often blend factual reporting with more opinion-based analysis [2]. And the passage is clearly not one that would have been subject to fact-checking, because it presents no verifiable facts. A fact-checker cannot check whether LessWrong provided the seeds of the ideology of the neoreactionary movement. What fact-checkers can do is check whether, for example, Curtis Yarvin cited LessWrong as inspiration for an idea.

Verdict: Citation 15 is not a WP:RS for the current article text because it does not contain a verifiable factual claim that supports the article text.

Citation 16: Third Text

In 2001's pull quote I find two specific claims. First, it appears to be speculating that the basilisk was adopted by neoreaction in part for its antisemitic connotations, but I see no explicit assertion that the neoreactionary basilisk is Roko's Basilisk from LessWrong. Second, there is the note about the origin of MoreRight. This is a verifiable claim, and seems almost certain to be true. However, without a source for the prominence of Michael Anissimov in NRx, the inference that LW played a role in the development of NRx at large is somewhere between opinion and WP:OR. The site MoreRight no longer exists, and what little I can find about Anissimov suggests that he was briefly notable within NRx from roughly 2013-2015 [3] [4]. More importantly, it seems that MoreRight was founded because LessWrong was not a hospitable environment for NRx, which led to the need for a separate space.

Verdict: Citation 16 is not a WP:RS for the current article text because the article text does not accurately represent the claim made by the source. The source says that a neoreactionary who participated on LessWrong went on to found a neoreactionary website because he found LessWrong inhospitable. "LessWrong played a role in the development of the neoreactionary movement" does not accurately represent the claim of this source.

Conclusion

To comply with WP:RS, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:CONTEXTFACTS, the FAZ citation should be removed as non-verifiable, and the article text needs to be reworked to align with the actual claim of Third Text. My proposal: "Neoreactionaries have participated as commenters on the LessWrong forum". With the right WP:RS source, this could perhaps be strengthened to prominent or influential neoreactionaries, but doing so without one would be WP:OR.

[15] Siemons, Mark (14 April 2017). "Neoreaktion im Silicon Valley: Wenn Maschinen denken". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). ISSN 0174-4909. Archived from the original on 13 June 2022. Retrieved 23 March 2019.

[16] Pinto, Ana Teixeira (4 May 2019). "Capitalism with a Transhuman Face: The Afterlife of Fascism and the Digital Frontier". Third Text. 33 (3): 315–336. doi:10.1080/09528822.2019.1625638. ISSN 0952-8822. Getnormality (talk) 14:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

That argument for dismissing FAZ is pure speculation. XOR'easter (talk) 15:17, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Dismissing my comment without specific engagement is inappropriate here. Per WP:CONTEXTFACTS, reliable sources must contain factual claims that support the specific claims in the article. Wikipedians cannot shirk the duty of assessing whether this is actually true in a particular situation. To cast doubt on my argument, you need to respond to the specific point I made: "A fact-checker cannot check whether LessWrong provided the seeds of the ideology of the neoreactionary movement." FAZ made no specific factual claims in support of this statement, so it is not fact-checkable.

Here are some fact-checking guides respected institutions of journalism [5][6]. Fact checkers do not verify generalized narratives without specific supporting facts. Per the CUNY guide, they ask questions such as "Who says?" and "How do they know?". FAZ provided no "who" and no "how" for the "seeds" claim, so it is impossible for a fact-checker to verify the claim. In this case, a fact-checker would have to construct an entire body of facts to verify the claim without any of these facts being included in the story. This beggars belief and defeats the entire purpose of journalism, which is to provide the public with verifiable factual information, not vague narrative claims that the public is expected to take on faith in the general reliability of the institution. Getnormality (talk) 15:41, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

We are not in a position to evaluate all the reasons that FAZ had to print what they did. Our job is only to summarize it properly. This is how Wikipedia handles all journalism. XOR'easter (talk) 15:49, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a factually incorrect statement about Wikipedia policy.

Per WP:RSCONTEXT:

"The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content." The mere existence of a statement in a generally reliable source is clearly not sufficient to meet this standard.

Per WP:NEWSORG:

"Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces ... are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."

"Whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis."

These policies require that specific claims made by news organizations be assessed for whether they are factual in nature or editorial/analysis/opinion in nature. If they are not factual claims, they can only be reported in Wikipedia as statements attributed to the author, not as facts.

With this in mind, please attend closely to the heading at the very top of the FAZ article [7], which is "Feature > Debates > The digital debate > Neoreactionaries in Silicon Valley". The subheading "Debates" is a clear indicator that this is an opinion essay, not a news article. Getnormality (talk) 16:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

No, it is not a clear indicator that the article is an opinion column. It's a feature (Feuilleton), providing reporting on a trend. The Debatten section of FAZ's features includes things that are clearly not opinion pieces, such as interviews [8] and eyewitness reporting [9]. It's where FAZ covers Kontroverse Debatten aus Politik & Wirtschaft, controversies from politics and the economy. XOR'easter (talk) 16:31, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate that you have more context than me on this. However, I do not see you making the claim that Feuilleton or Debatten solely contain factual reporting. In English, the term "feature" is a very generic term for a broad range of pieces ranging from opinion essays to factual reporting, typically more toward the subjective "soft news" end (cf. [10]) and "debate" would dispose toward opinion. Unless the usage in German is demonstrably entirely different, the claim that this is more likely to be factual reporting than opinion is untenable.

Furthermore, the content of the FAZ article contains clear indicators of being an opinion essay. For example:

"What is crucial about them is that traditions play no role for them and they consider any kind of 'nature' to be no less a cultural and social construct than the left-wing and liberal theorists who supposedly shape the mainstream they hate so much." (Google Translated)

The claim that some group "hates so much" some other group of people is a highly emotionally charged generalization that does not normally appear in factual reporting. It is not necessarily a wrong thing to say, it may be true in some sense, but it is not within the province of factual reporting to make such emotionally charged generalizations, especially without specific supporting facts.

In light of these facts, the claim that the FAZ article is factual reporting is simply not possible to believe. It contains strong indicators of being primarily an essay of opinion or analysis. Getnormality (talk) 16:50, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Filing an article under "debates" or "controversies" does not weigh in favor of it being an opinion piece. Nor does an appeal to the supposed emotional charge of a description (and I do not think that saying a group of people hates "the mainstream" is all that emotionally charged). Rather than trying to dismiss reporting in one of Germany's major newspapers based on speculation and personal feelings about tone, one should dispute it by finding sources of comparable reliability that explicitly call its reporting into question. XOR'easter (talk) 17:04, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not dismissing the article. Opinion and analysis essays are not bad; I have learned from them on many occasions. What I have done is question the appropriate categorization of this article. In response, you have presuppositionally labelled the article as factual reporting without support from evidence or argument, and against my evidence and argument. This is noncompliant with the policies WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:NEWSORG. Again, these policies state:

"Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content."

"Editorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces ... are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."

"Whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis."

Presuppositional labelling without and against the best available evidence is noncompliant with these policies. There can be no reasonable supposition that a news organization which publishes a mix of reporting and opinion is reporting fact. Per policy, must assess this on a case-by-case basis. Thus, it is not my job to prove to you beyond all reasonable doubt that this is an opinion essay; our duty is to weigh the best available evidence without presuppositional bias.

So far, I am the only one in this conversation who has provided positive evidence regarding the categorization of this FAZ article. You have questioned my evidence, but this does not dispose towards factual reporting, because there is no basis here for a presupposition of factual reporting.

To claim that a group "hates" another group is an emotionally charged claim. This is an objective fact, not my subjective opinion. There is nothing wrong with making such a claim, and it may be true, but it is not within the normal realm of reporting. Getnormality (talk) 17:25, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that we should weigh the best available evidence without presuppositional bias. But asserting that a newspaper feature said something so emotionally charged that it must be disqualified as journalism seems to be bringing in a presuppositional bias of its own.

Also, you don't need to repeatedly quote policies. I've been editing with this account since 2017; I've read them. Excessive quotation just builds up a wall of text that eventually discourages other editors from contributing to the discussion. XOR'easter (talk) 17:40, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Since we agree presupposition is off the table, what is your positive argument for the categorization?

I appreciate the feedback on the wall of text and will try to be more concise. In return, I respectfully ask that my arguments and evidence be engaged with meaningfully and not dismissively. In particular, I respectfully ask for greater caution around the strawmanning and distortion of my statements. I did not say that the essay must be disqualified as journalism. I said that the use of emotionally charged statements was evidence (not irrefutable proof) for its categorization on the opinion or analysis side of journalism rather than the reporting side. Getnormality (talk) 17:44, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

It amazes me that the user you were responding to could say, "with a straight face", as it were, "stop quoting the policies at me! I know what they say!!"--as if the reason for repetition was not that they had gone repeatedly unaddressed: already almost self-parody--and then still not actually address them.

I would almost suspect a Poe, if not for the manifold edits on this topic they've made.

Himaldrmann (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Concur. Secarctangent (talk) 00:28, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I've avoided editing the page recently as I'm frankly too frustrated to do so objectively right now. But perhaps if I speak clearly about why, it will help resolve disagreements here.

This is one of several pages where an admin abused his position with an agenda best described as a blog war, and is consequently banned from editing it. This appears to be common knowledge. Actions included adding prominent discussion of two topics that caused this talk page to be so lengthy: Roko's Basilisk, and the alleged link between NRx and the website. Is this not common knowledge? The actions also included cases of what seem to me clear citation laundering of personal takes on those topics. Is this not also common knowledge?

Does a ban not imply a loss of good faith assumptions?

Because if so, I would have expected editors would subject sources on relevant issues to scrutiny for signs of having been laundered, and to ignore sources where this is plausible.

More broadly, I would have expected editors would be very skeptical of past decisions about what merited inclusion in case the page has been WP:Backwards for multiple years.

Instead I see an assumption that the system was working correctly here despite the need for a topic ban of a major editor.

I don't trust myself to litigate this neutrally right now. I sympathize with editors who suspect the neutrality of anyone proposing sweeping changes. But I hope others see the case for at least suspecting the page is WP:Backwards. TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 08:33, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The whole LessWrong controversy has been seen by many outsiders as a confirmation that you should be skeptical of what is on Wikipedia. It's pretty clear that LessWrong is mainly about rationality and artificial intelligence, and that the content on neoreaction was WP:UNDUE and damaged the website's reputation for years. I think that the best thing to do is to just remove the subsection "Neoreaction" and end the controversy, so that contributors can focus their time and energy elsewhere. Alenoach (talk) 12:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Alenoach I think I disagree. Firstly, the RS coverage influences what is due weight. Secondly, and I may not be articulating this right, but LW purports to be about determining what is rational--it's not a descriptive newspaper with a comment section, for example--so there may be different hazards in that territory. WeyerStudentOfAgrippa (talk) 13:05, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @WeyerStudentOfAgrippa. One issue is that much of the coverage in secondary sources originates from the Wikipedia edits of a contributor that is notorious for his connection and disputes with LessWrong.

That's a subtle point indeed (if I understood correctly), that orienting public perception of rationality could have particular downstream influence.

The current version of the article is fairer in its phrasing, but it still suggests an significant connection between LessWrong and neoreaction, in which case I would expect a significant amount of neoreactionarists on the website defending the ideology. I made a quick search on the LessWrong search bar. No keyword returned 38819 posts. Searching for "rationality" returned 8755 posts, and "artificial intelligence" returned 7217 posts. Searching for "neoreaction" returned barely 8 posts. And these posts don't seem to endorse neoreaction, despite the fact that neoreaction doesn't appear to be a label that proponents actively want to avoid. Wikipedia focuses on relaying what is consensual, and we have no obligation to cover something that was mentioned in a given secondary source, especially when many Wikipedia contributors think it's dubious.

I'm not sure this fully addresses your arguments. But no problem with your disagreement, I appreciate your concern for reliable sources, as well as many of your edits. Alenoach (talk) 15:27, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi Alenoach - I think it is no longer necessary to litigate relatively subjective WP:UNDUE issues. The more serious issues in the previous version related to WP:RS, WP:NPOV, and WP:BLP, and the current version has fixed all these issues. As a side effect, the new version makes WP:UNDUE much less material, as it is no longer derogatory. This means we are now free to focus on what Wikipedia is really about: informing people with objective factual information and letting them form their own views. See my new section below for full context. Getnormality (talk) 16:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that deletion is the best solution.

This section has survived for years with big claims unsupported by the citations. In recent days, the paragraph has been edited to specifically reflect the cited sources: this has resulted in a clear case of the sources not supporting the claims at all. Right now, the paragraph says only the following:

1/ a commentor on a different blog was a neoreactionary

2/ one of the forum founders debated the neoreactionary on a different blog

3/ some neoreactionaries used the forum but they amounted to less than 1% of site users

I cannot see a reason for this forum to still have a whole subsection dedicated to the topic of neoreactionaries who interacted with the founders or previous blogs. 2001:BB6:76BC:2C00:691:39D7:786A:2E5 (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi 2001 -- I think it is time for a fresh start on the Neoreaction section, and I have provided one in a new section below. Please avoid removing this material before hearing me out. Thank you! Getnormality (talk) 16:05, 14 July 2024 (UTC)