Talk:Priyamvada Gopal

"Decolonisation"

The existing article decolonization does not cover the sense of "decolonisation" used in the article to summarise Gopal's view. There is a basic position, that faulty historiography of the British Empire has knock-on effects that should be countered. That, it seems to me, to be the sense that is particularly à propos in explaining Gopal's arguments; without prejudice to other aspects of the post-colonial situation that are live issues at present.

My initial thought is that Historiography of the British Empire#Postmodern and postcolonial approaches should be made more fit for purpose. If there is nothing in that article that can serve to illuminate the underlying debate implied by this article, that is an obvious lack.

The article decolonization itself is the top-level article relating via WP:SUMMARY to many more specialised articles. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:43, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, decolonization should mainly cover actual dismantling of colonies. If there is a better article to cover postcolonial-decolonization then we should link to it. Pikavoom (talk) 05:43, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

That would be a very narrow definition, and there are plenty of sources which discuss decolonisation more broadly as Bruchac, Margaret M. (2014). Smith, Claire (ed.). Decolonization in Archaeological Theory. New York, NY: Springer Science and Business Media. pp. 2069–2077. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |work= ignored (help) Richard Nevell (talk) 08:30, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Goebbels comment

Gopal has been criticised by many people (including Trevor Phillips, Dan Hodges Kemi Badenoch and reportedly a spokesman for Cambridge University for comparing the black educator Tony Sewell to Joseph Goebbels. It will not do to try to suppress this from Wikipedia because people want to shield her from criticism. NBeale (talk) 20:16, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

It was an unwise and excessive response. However, adding a whole section on this issue when the usable sources are limited is undue. Philip Cross (talk) 20:25, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

For me the decision isn’t about how it reflects on the subject or whether it was a good or bad thing to say (WP:NPOV)—only whether we have enough sources to warrant a section. I don’t think basing a whole section on the News-24 source is WP:DUE. Also the university response portion appeared to be unsourced. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:35, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. It's obviously noteworthy and the University's statement is quoted verbatim in the DM article. Atchom (talk) 21:05, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

That source is deprecated: WP:DAILYMAIL. Innisfree987 (talk) 21:19, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

I have removed the Cambridge University spokesman bit, since only the DM quotes it. I have however restored the section (WP:BOLD). There are now three Times pieces (one which described the tweet in its headline) which talk about this and a Telegraph column. That is amply sufficient to establish the notability of the incident. Atchom (talk) 21:29, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Obvious to whom? It looks like a Twitter spat, the kind which makes easy reporting but what is the significance of the incident? Richard Nevell (talk) 22:43, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The alleged significance according to the commentators cited is that it shows the unjustified personal attacks that powerful people will make against Black figures who step out of the line that they are "expected" to take. BTW even the Daily Mirror considers this matter newsworthy [1] NBeale (talk) 05:30, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't really see what a tabloid has to offer in this instance. If we have a reliable source documenting the university's response, that might help weigh up what is worth including, though if it's essentially a canned response it may not be terribly informative. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:43, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Gopal questioned whether Sewell had a doctorate as opposed to an honorary doctorate, accusing him of having "false research credentials". It's in her Twitter feed. Since the entire discussion is about her allegedly inappropriate comments on Twitter, this is a WP:RS. NBeale (talk) 09:59, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Twitter is a self-published source, rather than RS, where mistakes by public figures are quite common. The Daily Mirror isn't deprecated, like the Mail, but hardly ideal. Philip Cross (talk) 10:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Philip Cross, NBeale, Atchom, Innisfree987, Richard Nevell I was thinking about this discussion and it seems at the crux is Gopal's doubt over the education of the chair of the report and its expression - so perhaps "Criticism of Tony Sewell, Chair of ..." would work as a heading? I don't think the phrasing "sustained attack" meets WP:NPOV, so perhaps that could alter? I wonder rather than saying there's wide criticism, more precision should be used - saying that criticism has been published in commentaries in The Times and The Telegraph, perhaps? Lajmmoore (talk) 16:36, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with these changes if we keep the section, but I share Richard Nevell’s question about the obviousness of the significance. Maybe the specificity would make it clearer. Innisfree987 (talk) 17:50, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

If it is to be included, I think it would be useful to frame it within the context of the report and reactions to it rather than the personal aspect. Richard Nevell (talk) 17:53, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Richard Nevell, Lajmmoore, I share your views, though it's still unclear why this is significant or worthy of a section. The tabloids have concocted this furore. Additionally, the wording needs more care. As mentioned, Gopal's tweet pointed out that 'Even Dr Goebbels had a research PhD.' This is a reference to Goebbels, not a comparison. I have updated the section accordingly. (PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC))

Have revised this to make it NPOV. Previous version was almost comically not so: Criticism of Gopal was "in the Times" though in fact it was in many other places including Mail & social media. Whereas criticism of report was "widespread backlash from experts in..." despite only being sourced to Guardian. NBeale (talk) 06:31, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

It might be worth pointing out PostcolonialLitNerd has only edited this article and nothing else since they first began editing Wikipedia in 2019. This might be (I say might) be relevant in relation to their objectivity. Atchom (talk) 20:41, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

To the importance point, very rarely does a single tweet lead to several articles in national newspapers (reference to The Times as a "tabloid" is simply incredible) and condemnation by a minister of the Crown in print. It's certainly more notable than the fact she occasionally writes for The New Humanist, as the lede lovingly states. Atchom (talk) 20:51, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

I have repeatedly searched that phrase and found nothing, but having to search itself goes to the point that this is original research even if the tweet has been deleted—if it’s not discussed in the secondary sources, it’s not appropriate for WP editors to be picking Tweets to formulate a narrative on their own. Innisfree987 (talk) 17:42, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

• I reverted PostcolonialLitNerd's edit as "Gopal's comments followed criticism of the report for downplaying the extent of racism in Britain" is not a connection made by the cited sources, who cover all sorts of other criticism, not Gopal. Pikavoom (talk) 07:16, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

I reverted Pikavoom's edit as there is a clear connection made by the cited sources for downplaying the extent of racism in Britain. See below.

- hundreds of experts on race, education, health and economics joined the criticism of the report for brazenly misrepresenting evidence of racism.

- She said: “It denies the role of racism in racial/ethnic inequalities in Covid, yet goes on to attribute these to deprivation and occupational exposures, which are the very definition of structural racism.

- “The report misrepresents, omits and elides longstanding and nuanced academic debate and evidence about the complex relationship between racism and educational practices, cultures, policies, and systems,” they added.

- The wider 258-page report has been criticised for ignoring or minimising the role of structural factors in disparities between ethnic groups

- said this conclusion missed the point about structural factors.

- Public health experts have condemned an official report on racial disparities in the UK as flawed and misleading for stating there was little evidence of systemic health differences due to ethnicity

- “The introduction’s depiction of the data on ethnic differences in life expectancy is misleading and shows a cherry-picking of studies and sources.”

- Determined to privilege comforting national myths over hard historical truths, they give the impression of being people who would prefer this history to be brushed back under the carpet

- Hakim Adi, professor of the history of Africa and the African diaspora at the University of Chichester, told the Guardian that the report’s foreword failed to make clear that the subjugation of millions of African people was a crime against humanity.

- The British theologian Robert Beckford said it was consistent with the radical and “historical amnesia and vicious historical revisionism” of Caribbean and African history by the far right. Beckford, professor of Black theology at the Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham, said the report had reduced slavery’s racial terror and Britain’s racial capitalism to a simple exchange of cultural ideas.PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

I have tried to engage in good faith with you but this is getting ridiculous. You are a single-purpose account which only edits this article and who only edits this article in a way to make Gopal look like a saint. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a place for hagiographies of your academic heroes. Atchom (talk) 23:49, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

No, Atchom, you have not engaged in good faith, nor have you made any attempts to understand the legitimate objection I have to your edits. Moreover, it's instructive to note that you repeat The Times and Aaronovitch's slurs ("warrior for racial justice or a professional victim with a persecution complex" & "the Torquemada of the New Woke Inquisition") in your latest revision, which was subsequently removed by another user. You have repeatedly made bad faith changes to this article. I have carefully explained my changes in the edit summary. Your responses have been rude and accusatory - "you only edit this article to make Gopal look like a saint". Maybe it's time you start engaging with the substance of my arguments instead.

Perhaps we need some input from other experienced editors to help resolve this dispute. Richard Nevell, Philip Cross, JuleBor, Lajmmoore - see section on Tony Sewell.PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 02:16, 18 April 2021 (UTC)

PostcolonialLitNerd, & hello all. I made a few copy edits to the page, but it seems like we are moving closer to a consensus for the time being. I say that advisedly, since:

• The page now has an increased coverage of criticism of Gopal
• The page includes reference to the Sewell report - which several editors aren't/weren't of the opinion that it warrants inclusion (see above)
• Page contents are summaries of sources, and the fact there's several critical sources that readers can follow if they wish is a positive addition.
• The caste issue has been added and reverted - twice. It needs reliable secondary sourcing - not original research, if it is to be included. If reliable secondary sources haven't discussed it explicitly, then we have to leave it out for now.

Looking forward to working together, further Lajmmoore (talk) 07:46, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you so much for your work on the article and input. I also agree we are closer to achieving a consensus than before. Two further points for discussion:

1) The "BBC Radio 4: Start the Week" doesn't seem to have third-party coverage. I would merge it into the "Empire" subheading insofar this seems to have motivated Gopal to write on the subject, but otherwise it seems a bit transient as a "controversy" for its own section under Undue Weight.

2) I think the lede should have more than one sentence about the controversies, inasmuch the "Controversies" section constitutes a significant part of the article. It will need to be carefully worded, obviously, but I think there is scope for giving the reader a better idea of what's in the article. Atchom (talk) 19:24, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Canvassing. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:06, 18 April 2021 (UTC).

PostcolonialLitNerd, please achieve consensus for your edits on the talk page before making them. Pikavoom (talk) 08:04, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Controversy section

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I'm closing this discussion now, as I believe we've achieved a consensus, where the episodes are embedded into the main body of the text and the Times quote is moved to lead (with reservations outlined below). Lajmmoore (talk) 09:55, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

---

How should the controversy section start? I don't believe that a short summary is necessary, but if it is, describing how she is viewed by "both sides" with

Gopal has been involved in numerous public controversies which have received extensive media coverage, both positive and negative. In 2018, The Times wrote that "Depending on your point of view, Priyamvada Gopal is either a warrior for racial justice or a professional victim with a persecution complex."

is sufficient. I don't see the value Aaronovitch's comment adds, it seems very out of place. Thoughts? 15 (talk) 08:30, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

It's OK. A reliable source (Aaronovitch in the Times) lays the two sides of matter out clearly. Xxanthippe (talk) 09:28, 19 April 2021 (UTC).

I added Aaronovitch because he is 1) very prominent; 2) his statement sets out one of the main views of Gopal's public reputation. Happy to have others add short summaries of views which are positive toward her as well. Before the last flare-up over Dr Sewell, this page was very much non-NPOV. I hope this will begin to redress the skew in the page. Next step is the lede, for which I welcome discussion too. Atchom (talk) 15:15, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm missing something, by the byline appears to attribute the piece in The Times to Rosie Kinchen. I don't have a subscription so can't see the whole piece.

The quote is taken from a 2018 profile, so I don't think it reflects where things stand in 2021. Since then, Gopal has received hate mail and the Daily Mail was forced to apologise for accusing Gopal of inciting a race war. In that context, framing the controversy section with that quote specifically the bit about being a "professional victim with a persecution complex" would be inappropriate. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:34, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Richard Nevell, The framing of the section 'Controversies' is problematic, though. Most of these fake controversies are concocted by tabloid media and juiced for clickbait/outrage. 'White Lives Don't Matter. As White Lives' - which, at its core, is an anti-racist statement - is a case in point. I don't think there's a way around the WP:NPOV issue that calling this section 'Controversies' would create. The most neutral descriptor seems to be 'Media Attention. 'Controversies' is a false framing of the issues at play and loaded with connotations. That's why I reinstated Lajmmoore's title change. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 10:04, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Controversies is a pretty standard Wikipedia biographical sub-heading. Atchom (talk) 16:28, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

PostcolonialLitNerd, "Controversies" is a normal sub-heading. How is it not neutral? You do not have the authority to decide what controversies are "fake" or not. Ultimately, her views, as made evident by numerous articles and opinion pieces' reaction to them, are controversial. What connotations is the term loaded with? That her views are bad? "Controversial: Giving rise or likely to give rise to controversy or public disagreement." (Oxford English Dictionary), not "Controversial: Bad".

Given your insistence on reverting edits made "without consensus", the "controversy" or "controversies" were part of the section header as early as 2019. 15 (talk) 10:31, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

15, It's a loaded word because it has emotional implications. In that context, framing Gopal's views as 'Controversial' attempts to influence attitudes on subjects by appealing to emotion instead of logic and reason. That is not neutral; it's emotive. I don't there is anything controversial about saying 'White Lives Don't Matter. As White Lives'. At its core, it's an anti-racist statement. The most neutral descriptor seems to be Lajmmoore's suggestion - 'Media Attention'. It accurately describes the section, it's impartial, and in line with WP:NPOV policy. Richard Nevell, Philip Cross, Lajmmoore, any thoughts on this?PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 07:28, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

While 'controversies' is a fairly common section title in biographies, I'm not entirely sure it represents best practice as it presents events out of context from the rest of a person's activities and career. Hiving off controversies into their own section gives them greater prominence within the article at the expense of fully integrating them. Weaving them into a well rounded biography is hard and time consuming, and it is far easier to add a new sentence to a controversy section whenever it seems appropriate. Easy, but perhaps not best practice. Richard Nevell (talk) 21:30, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Richard Nevell, that's a great point. I think most parts fit under one of the subsections of "Work" section, e.g. the BBC Radio 4 debate under "Empire" and the tweet under "Race". The racial profiling row I am not sure where to put, ideally into a "personal life" sub-section, but such a section would be undue as of now. 15 (talk) 21:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

15, PostcolonialLitNerd, Atchom, Pikavoom, Xxanthippe (apologies if I've missed anyone active in the discussion - I tagged you as I think various points are getting a bit lost in the threads) what Richard Nevell is suggesting sounds like another sensible compromise - that is to embed the section more fully into the rest of the article. What do people think? Sounds like a positive way forward to me. Lajmmoore (talk) 06:09, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Lajmmoore, Richard Nevell, Philip Cross, I don't object to integrating the 'controversies' section into the rest of the article. The question is, where do the other parts fit? How do we restructure the article to put the information in a logical order? If we embed those subsections into the 'Work' section, is 'Work' an appropriate title? I'm open to suggestions, though it appears we have reached a consensus of sorts. Feel free to have a crack at amending the article if time permits. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 05:35, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

More integration is good. I'm not sure if the Toby Sewell episode really falls under that description, however. There is nothing very academic about calling someone else names on Twitter the way she did; it seems to me it has much more to do with the King's porter row instead. Also, as I said in a previous discussion, the "BBC Radio 4: Start the Week" section probably doesn't deserve its own sub-sub-heading given that it doesn't seem to have been a particularly notable episode and all the sources are primary ones. If there are no objections, I would like to subsume it into the "Empire"/"Decolonization" subheadings. Atchom (talk) 03:44, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Atchom, subsuming the episode seems a good idea - and like you say the racial profiling section is close to it in theme, so perhaps that could move as well? So each main heading would have a subheading with one or two of these episodes under each, which would leave the controversies heading with the three lines underneath including the Aaronovitch quote. I think that bit is something we need consensus on. I propose taking out the Aaronovitch quote, and the introductory sentence, but moving the 2018 Times quote into the lead? What do people think of that as a compromise approach?PostcolonialLitNerd, Richard Nevell, Pikavoom, 15 Lajmmoore (talk) 06:43, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Seems like a sensible course of action to me, Lajmmoore. I'll leave it to you to make the amendment. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:05, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

The proposed distribution text sounds like significant step forward to me, and I'd support it. I still have strong reservations about the 2018 quote – it might have belonged in the article in 2018 but including it now in a different context poses some significant issues. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:08, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

What do you think Pikavoom, 15 ? Lajmmoore (talk) 11:13, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I've already done so three days ago with this edit (and the one following it). People just need to decide whether the parts have been put under the appropriate subsections. 15 (talk) 11:18, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

15, hi Ohnoitsjamie we've been talking about consensus here, if you'd like to join in? What do you think? Lajmmoore (talk) 14:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not opposed to reorganization. I am opposed to removal of sourced critical material. Pikavoom (talk) 05:50, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Pikavoom, Thanks! I've done the reorganisation as above and moved the The Times quote to the lead. Thanks everyone for helping to find consensus on this. Compromise if often difficult to reach, so it's very positive that's we've managed to do so here {{u|PostcolonialLitNerd}] 15 {{u|Richard Nevell}] Atchom Best wishes to all Lajmmoore (talk) 07:08, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

PostcolonialLitNerd, why does it have emotional implications? Apparently there is something controversial about saying "White Lives Don't Matter. As White Lives.", as made evident by the criticism she got for it. Whether or not it is "anti-racist" is completely irrelevant - what matters is that controversy followed her remarks. "Controversial" is a completely neutral term, it's not like the section header is "bad things she has said", but "Controversies". From Controversy Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. -- there was plenty of public debate. 15 (talk) 09:14, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

1. Please don't canvass. You have already been warned against it once and I will not hesitate to escalate this. 2. You don't seem to understand what "controversy" means. The existence of controversy is an objective fact, which is independent of value judgments. Saying "my side is right so there is no controversy" is not an adequate response, and goes against a whole host of Wikipedia policies. Atchom (talk) 17:50, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

No, Atchom, that her views have received media attention is an objective fact and an accurate descriptor of the section. Moreover, it's in with line WP:NPOV policy. Best to avoid using loaded terms in section titles. Describing a section as 'Controversies' suggests there is a problem with her views, and by extension, attempts to influence attitudes on subjects. It's better to maintain an impartial tone. See 'Wikipedia: Manual of Style/Words to watch' article - 'expressions should be used with caution, because they may introduce bias....If a word can be replaced by one with less potential for misunderstanding, it should be.'

Moreover, using these terms can be a sly way for an editor to insert bad faith critiques and slurs into a section, as you have done with Aaronovitch's personal attack (please refrain from doing this. I will continue to revert edits that are malign and foolish.). As Lajmmoore said, there are numerous references and critical sources that readers can follow if they wish. Feel free to initiate an independent review of the article.PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:48, 25 April 2021 (UTC)

PostcolonialLitNerd, Atchom, 15 Hello all.

1) Would a compromise be to use the heading 'Media controversies'? One aspect we all seem to agree on (whether we agree with Gopal or not), is that the media has a huge role in how and where her work is reported. I do think using the word media does help the reader understand the section. (My personal editing preference is not use controversy - just because its frequently used doesn't mean its neutral - BUT I also understand that we need to find a consensus here.)

2) I don't think PostColonialLitNerd is canvassing by pinging people who are already active in the discussion? I imagine all of us have very busy watchlists and I really value reminders about discussions I am active in.

Thanks all, Lajmmoore (talk) 07:28, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Lajmmoore, sorry for the late response. I think 'Media controversies' is palatable, though I share your concerns around the use of the word 'controversies' (see above). I've reworded the Sewell section to add context and bring it in line with WP:V policy. Also, I think there was some consensus on framing the section within the context of the report. I've also removed The Times and Aaronovitch's slurs against Gopal. Someone reinstated that without consensus. Pikavoom, please refrain from reverting this edit. Richard Nevell, Philip Cross, any thoughts on this? PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 04:05, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

This edit will be reverted shortly. It is promotional, in particular including an external link to every site she has written for, and does not accurately capture the controversies Gopal is involved with. Pikavoom (talk) 06:55, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Pikavoom, how are my changes to the section (see below) promotional or not accurately capturing Gopal's so-called controversies? Why do you think my changes do not comply with WP:NPOV and WP:V? Be specific. Furthermore, can you explain why you have not challenged other editors for reintroducing Aaronovitch and The Times personal attacks on Gopal without consensus? I’ll give you a chance to respond intelligently before I revert the current version, which was mindlessly restored by 15.

Here are my recent changes to the lead and 'Controversies' section, which got reverted. References were included.

- Lead: 'Gopal's remarks about race and empire have received extensive media attention' - I removed 'both positive and negative' because it is value-laden and not in line with WP:WORDS. It's for the reader to ascertain and determine what is good, bad, indifferent etc.

- Controversies introduction: 'Gopal has commented publicly on a range of issues and subjects. Her commentary on race and empire has received extensive media attention.' - The Times and Aaronovitch's personal attacks on Gopal were removed and replaced with this sentence. Have edited this to make it NPOV. Again, the current intro to the 'Controversies' section has not achieved consensus, though you seem content to leave it there.

- Sewell section: 'The comparison to Goebbels, a prominent Nazi, attracted criticism from commentators writing for The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Gopal said that her remark was a reference to Goebbels, not a comparison, and she had nothing to apologise for. Her comments followed criticism of the report for downplaying the extent of racism in Britain.' - Reworded to add precision, balance and context. I don't see how this is promotional or in contravention of WP:NPOV and WP:V.

- Regarding external links to Gopal's column archives, yes, I can see how that might get construed as 'promotional', depending on your perspective and degree of cynicism. However, the fact that it contains further information/research that is on-topic (empire, race, feminism etc.) can justify its inclusion.

Feel free to initiate an independent review of the neutrality and veracity of my edits in the Sewell and 'Controversies' sections.

Lajmmoore, Richard Nevell, Philip Cross, let me know if you have any objections or questions to raise about my changes. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 05:40, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Please read WP:VOTESTACK. Atchom (talk) 03:35, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Pikavoom, Hello! One point, since the references 65 - 69 are all to articles from the Times and the Telegraph, I do think it is useful to reference those papers in the sentence that precedes them so that the casual reader is aware of the publications referenced. there's lots more that I believe we can find a compromise on in the article Lajmmoore (talk) 11:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Since then, Gopal has become, if anything, even more controversial, as the growing amount of coverage about her attests. Not many academics have had the dubious honour of being denounced in print by a minister of the Crown for comparing government commissioners to Nazis, for instance. The Times profile is also by no means unsympathetic. Moreover, the date of the piece is given. Atchom (talk) 21:38, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

I am not disputing that Gopal is controversial, but the quote does not help the reader understand that. The first sentence of the introduction to the controversy section is adequate. Richard Nevell (talk) 21:52, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

The quote illustrates the extent of her controversial nature. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:19, 21 April 2021 (UTC).

The quote may have done that without subsequent events, but prominently suggesting that some people view Gopal as a professional victim with a persecution complex before then documenting that she has been harassed for her views primes the reader to disbelieve it. That may not be the intention, but that is the effect and simply including the date as Atchom suggests would not address the issue. Richard Nevell (talk) 07:52, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

As I said, I'm happy for someone to add a quote balancing it out. In any case, without taking a stance of the merits of that appellation, I don't see the contradiction between her being the target of genuine abuse and her being what Aaronvitch describes her as. We shouldn't make editorial judgments either way. Atchom (talk) 16:26, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

The section could be easily balanced out by removing the personal attack and the quote devoid of two year's additional context. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:05, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

I unsuccessfully looked for opinion pieces/commentators viewing her favourably. I'm sure they exist, but given the nature of Gopal's activism, almost every single opinion piece mentioning her is written by her "ideological opponents". We ultimately have to use the material available to us and shouldn't omit the comments of her critics in an attempt to create some false balance.

For me, the ideal description would be a synthesis of Kinchen and Aaronovitch, e.g. Depending on your point of view, Priyamvada Gopal is either a warrior for racial justice or the Torquemada of the New Woke Inquisition, as the second part more accurately than professional victim summarises the other pieces written about her but I don't know if that would be permissible or even possible. 15 (talk) 18:26, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

The reason for giving pride of place to Aaronovitch's personal attack against Gopal is at best unclear. Richard Nevell (talk) 21:09, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Reason is clear: to illustrate the extent of extremes as judged by a highly reliable source (could not be higher). The majority of media commentary is unfavorable to her and that cannot be glossed over. Xxanthippe (talk) 04:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC).

It is impossible to escape the prominence of these controversies, Xxanthippe is right. Pikavoom (talk) 06:54, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Xxanthippe, in what sense is it reliable? The Aaronovitch article is an opinion piece - it is only reliable for reporting Aaronovitch's opinion. I don't understand why you keep stressing reliability, because the piece cannot be used to make any claims about the "extent of extremes" by virtue of being an opinion piece. 15 (talk) 08:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for making that obvious point. Gopal is controversial and this article would not be giving a proper picture of her if it did not refer to the many critical perspectives. Aaronovitch repeated the quote verbatim in a recent piece so this view clearly has some staying value instead of being an one-off fluke. Atchom (talk) 23:00, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

And for future reference, the relevant policy WP:BLPBALANCE says "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone." The Aaronvitch criticism can obviously be sourced to a reliable secondary source, and it was presented in a balanced manner in a disintested tone. In any case, the article as a whole is generally neutral-to-complimentary. Atchom (talk) 23:13, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Atchom, you have already been asked by others not to reintroduce The Times and Aaronvitch's personal abuse. There is no consensus for its inclusion.

Also, as you noted, WP:BLPBALANCE says "Criticism and praise should be included if they can be sourced to reliable secondary sources, so long as the material is presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone."

The material you posted is not presented responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone. 'professional victim with a persecution complex' and 'the Torquemada of the New Woke Inquisition' is abuse.

Re the Sewell section, I reworded it to bring it in line with WP:V policy at your request. The phrasing is balanced, contextual and meets WP:NPOV. STOP edit warring. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:09, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

There is consensus to include Aaronvitch from The Times as a significant viewpoint. User:PostcolonialLitNerd, please do not attack BLP journalists, and I suggest you refrain from editing the article and stick to posting your suggestions on the talk page only. Thank you.--Pikavoom (talk) 06:50, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Pikavoom, there is no consensus to include The Times and Aaronvitch's personal attacks. Multiple editors have objected to its inclusion. Moreover, it appears to be in contravention WP:BLPBALANCE policy. The material is not presented 'responsibly, conservatively, and in a disinterested tone'. It's abusive. I will keep reverting edits that are malign or not in keeping with Wikipedia's policies and standards. I won't dignify your other remarks with any further response. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 10:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Please refrain from inflammatory language on the discussion and reverting when (as is eminently clear) there is no consensus for your edits. Atchom (talk) 16:50, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Atchom, there is no clear consensus for including The Times and Aaronvitch's personal attacks. It stays out until we can achieve consensus -- though if it contravenes standing policies, consensus won't be enough to keep it in, not its current form at least. The matter might have to go to arbitration.

I might also point out that there was no consensus for your changes to the Sewell section. There is a discussion underway to resolve this content dispute: Response of Gopal to "comparison" PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 03:27, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Pikavoom: On the matter of consensus, I'm in favour of removing it, as is PostcolonialLitNerd, and Lajmmoore suggested taking it out. Atchom and Xxanthippe are in favour of including it, and it seems you may be too (unless I misunderstood). 15 suggested adapting part of the Aaronovitch quote. At the least, it seems that the matter was not settled. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:29, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Richard Nevell, if you object to the tone of Aaronovitch's comments, perhaps there is some more moderate part of his article we can quote? I unfortunately don't have access to the full article, but Atchom might be able to help? 15 (talk) 08:56, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Richard, consensus here is clear for inclusion. Furthermore, I am not impressed by arguments made after blatant canvassing by PostcolonialLitNerd. Pikavoom (talk) 05:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Response of Gopal to "comparison"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I have included her response despite it being a primary source without "and that she had nothing to apologise for". I have also removed "Her comments followed criticism [...]", as most people were against this "contextual" part. I have not included "along with a raft of scholars and experts" (PcLN's suggestion), as that was not covered by the sources and people were concerned about backdoor pov-pushing, but added (as it was removed at some point) "[Gopal], along with other academics," (academics instead of commentators ) for context. I think this is appropriate, as most of the criticism in the Guardian article was advanced by academics and not commentators. I would also be happy with "along(side) others", although that would be a bit weasly. This is a very early close, but I want to avoid another protracted discussion as occurred in the section above. 15 (talk) 09:40, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

---

I'm starting a new section because this is a minor, relatively unconnected content dispute. At Priyamvada Gopal § Criticism of Tony Sewell, chair of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, User:PostcolonialLitNerd wants to add

Gopal said that her remark was a reference to Goebbels, not a comparison, and she had nothing to apologise for. Her comments followed criticism of the report for downplaying the extent of racism in Britain.

What do people think about this? The first part seems reasonable: Both WP and newspapers include a response of their subject to whatever has been written about them, so I don't see why we should not include her "denial". I do not believe that we need to include the second part providing context, as that is already done with along with other commentators in the first sentence of the section. Please keep responses brief and on-topic. Best, 15 (talk) 10:07, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Her "denial" (which isn't even much of a denial) is a primary source but for the reasons you give, why not. Against the "context" part which is adequately addressed elsewhere and which adds nothing at all except a POV by the backdoor. Atchom (talk) 16:48, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to Gopal's response saying that it was a reference to Goebbels rather than a comparison. I would consider leaving out the bit which reads and she had nothing to apologise for. My thinking is that it sounds like a response to a request for her to apologise, which isn't mentioned in the article (and I don't particularly think it should be as it wouldn't be particularly illuminating to readers).

I'm not sure we need the second sentence as hopefully enough context is given with the sentence currently prefacing the indicent: Gopal, along with other commentators, criticised the report for allegedly cherry-picking data and minimising and denying structural and institutional racism, asserting that the report read like a propaganda document rather than a piece of research. Richard Nevell (talk) 18:24, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Richard Nevell, 15, if we're going to leave out the second sentence, I think we should use more precision in the sentence currently prefacing the incident. Most of the people who have criticised the report are not op-ed columnists/commentators; they're scholars and experts on race, education, health, economics etc, as noted by the cited sources. I think that's an important distinction to make. For me, the ideal wording would be: Gopal, along with a raft of scholars and experts, criticised the report for allegedly cherry-picking data and minimising and denying structural and institutional racism, asserting that the report read like a propaganda document rather than a piece of research.

I think your other proposed amendment is fine. We keep Gopal said that her remark was a reference to Goebbels, not a comparison, but leave out the bit which reads and she had nothing to apologise for. PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 03:29, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

• A primary statement shouldn't be included. The latter part of the sentence is ORish, redundant, and only serves POV framing here. Pikavoom (talk) 05:51, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

'Anti-Semitism row' section

I'm struggling to think of the best title for this section, but I'm not very keen on 'row': that word is popular among journalists who want to make it sound like academics are shouting at each other, but I don't think it's a very literal description of what we're dealing with, and therefore I don't think it's encyclopaedic in tone. Section titles we've had so far are 'Criticism of David Abulafia and anti-Semitism row', 'Criticism of David Abulafia and claim of anti-Semitism', and 'Anti-Semitism row'. Might 'anti-Semitism dispute' work?

By the way, @JodiMoran, I agreed with your edit comment that my version of this was bloated, especially since the exchange with Abulafia is a minor matter compared with Gopal's actual scholarship and I wouldn't want it to have undue weight in the article. But I found that shorter versions were just too elliptical to make sense (and sometimes weren't crystal clear in showing what really said what), so I feel that if this episode is going to be in this article it ought to be here comprehensibly. Tricky. Alarichall (talk) 21:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Alarichall, yes, I agree. The section in its current form does have undue weight in the article. In my view, there is also no need to quote significant fragments from a source or mention headlines - this contributes to bloat. There already are numerous citations/references that readers can refer to for further clarification or information if needed. Quoting a phrase here and there would be more prudent. I would favour a succinct, accurate, chronological description of events. I think the current version, which I restored, is more suitable, but we can continue to work on it if it's difficult to understand.JodiMoran (talk) 08:30, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Jodi, your continual reverts to your preferred non-neutral version with a wordpress blog and endless repetitions of Gopal's odious viewpoint on Jews is not acceptable.--Artemis Seeker (talk) 10:36, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Artemis Seeker, there is no consensus on your preferred version. "Gopal's odious viewpoint" - this is also pretty revealing. Suggest you sit this one out.

My only concern with Jodi's version is the assertion that Cambridge University Jewish Society and Abulafia condemned Gopal's remarks as anti-Semitic. Neither used that word to describe her comments. It might be implicit, but it was never explicitly stated. Other than that, I think it's fine. I also removed the wordpress citation.PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 12:34, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I've tried to fix the concern raised by PostcolonialLitNerd, and otherwise to make sure that the necessary information is present and properly referenced. I had to fix quite a few formatting errors and points where the references you cited weren't the right ones to support all the information in the text, JodiMoran, and it's the second time I've had to make a lot of those changes. So I'd be grateful if with any future editing you could be really careful to make sure that your sources really do say what you think they do, and generally to be precise about formatting. Thanks! Alarichall (talk) 14:48, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I think your revisions have improved the quality of section, Alarichall. Appreciate your diligence. Thanks.JodiMoran (talk) 01:33, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Alarichall, thank you for your changes. It appears we have reached a consensus of sorts.PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

PostcolonialLitNerd, are you Gopal? You are so uncritical and fawning. Sources spell out the antisemitism concern explicitly.Molave Quinta (talk) 15:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC) sock puppet of banned user strike

@Molave Quinta: I very much doubt that PostcolonialLitNerd is Gopal, and it's not appropriate to be abusive of other editors. I checked the sources, and PostcolonialLitNerd is right: although the journalism uses terms like 'anti-semitism', the quotations from the Cambridge Jewish Society and Abulafia do not actually accuse Gopal of this. We need to be accurate in our representations of events. Alarichall (talk) 16:26, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Thoughts on the title would be appreciated! Alarichall (talk) 21:48, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Alarichall, Gopal also criticised Abulafia's language, so this is not simply an anti-Semitism dispute. I appreciate that the anti-Semitism claim attracted more blowback, but the title should also reflect the main talking points of the article. Does "Criticism of David Abulafia and anti-Semitism dispute" work as a title?PostcolonialLitNerd (talk) 06:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I think your suggestion is a better title myself. When I started this discussion the heading was 'Anti-Semitism row' and I was just trying to improve that, but the title has gone back and forth many times in the last few days! Alarichall (talk) 19:18, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

The Times has: Antisemite claim deepens Cambridge academics row. In my opinion anti-Semitism row is a good summary.--Artemis Seeker (talk) 06:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

But I don't think Wikipedia should take its cues from (potentially inflammatory) newspaper headlines. Is it a 'row' if Gopal tweets something, then various sources characterise it as anti-Semitic, and Gopal then issues a single tweet which does not directly discuss the accusation? I just don't think that 'row' is a very accurate or neutral term for that. 'Dispute' still strikes me as more encyclopaedic in tone. Alarichall (talk) 15:14, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

To add, I think "dispute" is more neutral, and would support that edit, but it would also need to alter the 'row' in the title further up Lajmmoore (talk) 17:22, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree, dispute works. I changed the title accordingly.--Artemis Seeker (talk) 10:37, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Dispute is fine.Molave Quinta (talk) 15:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC) sock puppet of banned user strike

• Note that I struck sockpuppet comments in this section and reverted some of the sockpuppet's edits, there may be need for greater scrutiny of edits in this article in the last several months. On the content, dispute is a tad better than row. Pikavoom ^Talk 17:23, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Massive removal of content

@LumumbaX, this revision removed sections of the article wholesale - a full third of the article. I think best practice if you think the article is overlong or that certain sections are gratuitous or over-emphasised would be to shorten - not delete - them, or at the very least to open a discussion here first. It's not as if one person had added all that in one go, it was months if not years of collective editing evidenced in this very full talk page - so to remove fully a third of the article is a fairly extreme step. I think the sections you removed should be reinstated, I do not agree with your assertion in the edit summary that they are "trivial". Samuelshraga (talk) 06:51, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't link to it (but I think it's clear anyway) - I'm talking about this revision: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Priyamvada_Gopal&oldid=1114012267 Samuelshraga (talk) 05:54, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

This is an academic page, and it's not appropriate to gratuitously saturate it with trivial disputes and manufactured media controversies at the expense of overshadowing Professor Gopal's actual work and scholarship. Those events (she criticised a race report, called out a porter for racial profiling, and criticised a retired academic for his use of 'eloquent') are not significant enough to warrant a section on a Wikipedia page. In any case, the page already contains references to most of those disputes. The 'BBC Radio 4' and 'White lives' controversies were not removed, btw.

If the article has a weakness, it is that the section on her scholarship is underdeveloped, and there's no mention of her work on Indian writing in English.LumumbaX (talk) 02:35, 15 November 2022 (UTC) blocked sock --17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Apologies for not participating in this discussion sooner: it's taken me a while to find the time. I do agree with @Samuelshraga that it would have been neighbourly to ask other editors about these big cuts before making them, @LumumbaX. That said, as someone who put quite a lot of time into editing one of the 'trivial disputes and manufactured media controversies', I agree with LumumbaX's decision and reasoning. One of the problems this article has is that when one person adds breaking news of this or that 'controversy', the report is almost always incomplete or misleading (intentionally or accidentally), leading to an almost inevitable spiral of other editors adding in more nuance, citations, rebuttals, etc. Yet the outcome is an article that make it look like Gopal is noteworthy for twitter comments that get misreported by journalists rather than as a scholar. There may be points of detail that are worth restoring, and part of me wants all the work I did writing an accurate and properly referenced account of a storm in a teacup to remain on display, but overall I would say that LumambaX was WP:BOLD and has overall produced a good outcome. It would indeed be good if we could move on to developing well referenced coverage of Gopal's intellectual achievements (and/or lapses). Alarichall (talk) 17:00, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with that, it is easily to spend a lot of time covering exchanges in detail because those sources are easily accessible, but a summary style helps the reader, and that does mean some things need pruning back. Richard Nevell (talk) 20:35, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alarichall I don't think it would be silly to prune back the various scandals/comments/controversies/disputes (or whatever word the above talk page ended up using) - but I don't agree with deleting them wholesale or that it has produced a good outcome. For one thing, if we had to ask what Gopal is primarily known for, I think it would not be for her academic writings. Even within Cambridge, I never heard of her except as a commentator on race issues both within the university or nationally.

Many academics never get a wikipedia page because their work is not notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia, and I'm not sure what the case is for Gopal's work to have reached this bar. On the other hand, plenty of political commentators have extensive wikipedia entries because their tweets/utterances have caused controversy covered in Wikipedia:Reliable sources such as national newspapers etc. I think a case has to be made that if Gopal's political commentary via Twitter is going to be all but cut out of the article, there's little notable here at all. I also think the current form of the article is not from a Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and that there's been a sustained trend to advertorialise over the last couple of months, but one thing at a time - I propose reinstating the content that was removed and then it could be pruned in a more consensual fashion. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@LumumbaX, this is not an academic page. This is an encyclopedia entry on someone who is an academic. The sections you removed were replete with actual sources (which had been heavily scrutinised to judge by the size of this talk page). The sections on her scholarship such as that on Decolonisation are actually proplematic from a Wikipedia:NPOV standpoint, in that they seem to give undue weight to something without any secondary sources - it's a whole section containing only citations to Gopal's own work.

Gopal is not just an academic, she is also a commentator (or, as the current article would dubiously have it, a public intellectual). I don't understand how it could be that the repeated nationally publicised disputes in which she has been a central actor are not notable enough for her wikipedia entry. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:14, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

A partial response, @Samuelshraga: obviously Gopal does meet the general notability criteria. But, more specifically, the notability criteria for academics (WP:NACADEMIC) do include '7. The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity'. I think that fits Gopal: her media profile and the notability it brings arises because of her academic work and position. The paragraph in Prospect Magazine about why they named Gopal as one of the 'the world’s top 50 thinkers 2021' I think implies a similar analysis:

The Cambridge academic best known for her take-no-prisoners social media presence is an expert on colonial resistance. Her Insurgent Empire reframed the assumption that native liberation movements were inspired solely by European thinking, arguing that the influence ran the other way, with radicals in the colonies resetting the politics in the self-styled “mother countries.” This year she fearlessly set up a series of discussions at her own Churchill College to re-examine Churchill’s legacy. That got her in trouble with the Daily Mail, and the college has apparently cooled on the initiative. But Gopal remains undeterred. Few academics are doing so much, and so boldly, to expose how the legacy of empire continues to warp our thinking and institutions.

Alarichall (talk) 13:44, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alarichall I agree - Gopal does meet the notability criteria. I also agree that it would be weird and wrong to not talk about her academic work in this entry. But as the paragraph you quote from Prospect points out, this is an individual "best known for her take-no-prisoners social media presence".

So two reasons to re-add the sections that were deleted: firstly, they are the most notable things about Gopal, and secondly, I've read some of the talk sections above and there was clearly a hard-fought compromise on whether and how much critical material to include. I don't think it's right and proper for someone to come a couple of months later (when the page is no longer protected) and remove it all because some of the editors who formed part of that consensus aren't looking any more. Then, as now, there were differing views as to what should be considered important and some kind of balance. What has changed that would warrant wholesale deletion of one side of that compromise? Samuelshraga (talk) 14:55, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Samuelshraga, you created a new section on the talk page, proposing to reinstate sections removed from the article. Three editors, Alarichall, Richard Nevell and myself, responded to your post, expressing support for removing the sections while implicitly rejecting your proposal to reinstate them. However, you went ahead and reinstated the sections anyway. Sorry, but that's not how consensus works. LumumbaX (talk) 13:55, 21 November 2022 (UTC) blocked sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

@LumumbaX, I am finding it difficult to assume good faith about your argument here, given you removed about a third of an entry that had been the subject of extended debate and compromise over a long period without any concerns about talk pages or consensus - not to mention the comprehensive re-editing of the article over the last couple of months. My suggestion is this - we reinstate the material you deleted, and return to something approaching the more neutral entry that existed before you started editing it. We can then discuss which issues are given undue weight, which are "non-stories" as you put it, and try and reach consensus.

Ideally, I don't think it should be necessary to tag all the people who participated in the talk page above in favour of these sections, and edited the sections that you deleted or extensively rewrote in order to show that these changes don't have consensus. Their contributions are already preserved here, not to mention the fact that many of these discussions are relatively recent. I understand that your view is that these disputes are "non-stories", "trivial" etc. That view has been represented above in discussions various times which did not reach a consensus at deletion. I don't know why you think that your opinion overrides that. Samuelshraga (talk) 15:55, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Samuelshraga, the mere presence of sources in a section does not justify its inclusion. Editing is a matter of judgment. The disputes in question are, in my view, non-stories, or, as Alarichall put it, a storm in a teacup. Also, your implication that I deleted the various scandals/comments/controversies/disputes wholesale is simply incorrect - I did not remove everything. I agree that her notability stems partly from her social media/legacy media presence, so I kept the 'BBC Radio 4' and 'White lives' sections. Your implication that she is only known for her political commentary on Twitter is also incorrect. She has written opinion pieces for The Guardian and The Observer since 2006, appeared on the BBC and produced content for national daily newspapers in India. Regarding the notability of her academic output, I refer you to this excerpt from a Huff Post article: "Indian academics say her work on Indian writing in English is seminal, and her expertise is acknowledged at universities around the world."

https://www.huffpost.com/archive/in/entry/this-indian-origin-professor-is-on-strike-to-call-out-cambridge-universitys-persistent-racism_in_5c11fc44e4b0508b2136f0b6

LumumbaX (talk) 13:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC) banned sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

I do agree with @LumumbaX here, @Samuelshraga, and I certainly think that your edit summary 'Reinstating material cut out against consensus' misrepresents our discussion here. As I've said, as someone who did a lot of the original editing on one of the removed sections, I don't think that a lot of the material I myself worked on really belongs in the Wikipedia article, and I think that my statements in this discussion should carry more weight than the edits I've made when it comes to deciding what 'consensus' there might be about the appropriate content of this article.

That said, I note that the disputes surrounding Gopal's attempts to organise a conference at Churchill College about Winston Churchill's legacy is prominent in Prospect's nomination of Gopal as one of its 50 most influential people, so I suggest reintroducing a concise version of the ====Churchill, empire and race==== section would be a good idea. I wonder what others think? Alarichall (talk) 17:52, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alarichall Surely your support for part of the removed material is evidence that the removal should not be done wholesale (a full third of the entry in one edit) but on a case-by-case basis, with shortening as an alternative to deletion. I am perfectly willing to reappraise what material is relevant and how to present it. But I am convinced that our starting point should not be from a page totally denuded of critical content by yet another Wikipedia:Single-purpose account actively editing without consensus and reverting others' edits on this page. Samuelshraga (talk) 19:03, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I've already said above that on balance I think that @LumumbaX was WP:BOLD and produced overall a good outcome -- I don't think you're likely to change my mind on this, @Samuelshraga! If other people want to weigh in, I welcome that, though. (I agree with Samuelshraga's point in the page history, though, LumambaX, that you shouldn't edit other people's words in talk page discussions. Samuelshraga makes a fair point that it might be helpful for you to edit more widely on Wikipedia, and maybe on some less contentious pages, and build up your sense of the local etiquette and culture that way.) Alarichall (talk) 22:50, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

@Alarichall I'm not hoping to change your mind, just to find an agreed path forward. I accept that your position is that the current page is overall a good outcome, but my position is opposite - that what has been produced is an extremely unbalanced entry. All I have suggested is reinstating the removed content and then cutting it down in a scrutinised, consensual manner (just as it was written in an extremely highly scrutinised, consensual manner), but I'm getting no engagement on my suggestion. Perhaps mediation is necessary.

As a side note, I don't doubt the boldness of @LumumbaX's edits, but a key point about Wikipedia:BOLDness, is "Do not be upset if your bold edits get reverted". It does not say to boldly stand by your editorial line and undo other editors' reverts. Samuelshraga (talk) 06:25, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Samuelshraga, I've just spent some time looking through the discussion above and it seems to that there are key ways to move forward:

1) the article needs stability, not intermittent reversion, so let's work with the page in its current form

2) as proposed by @Alarichall to reincorporate some of the material that @LumumbaX removed crucially by adding it this version of the article e.g. Churchill conference

3) by expanding the section on Gopal's academic work - I think this is really key and would be a great place for both @LumumbaX and @Samuelshraga to collaborate.

Thanks for donating all this energy and thought to the page, everyone works in good faith, so let's carry that forward to improve the page for the future. Lajmmoore (talk) 08:13, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Lajmmoore, thanks for engaging. In response to your action points:

1) I don't agree that it's the best or fairest way to move forward, but provisionally I'll agree to it if we can get anywhere on point 2.

2) Agree with point 2 wholeheartedly.

3) I'm not sure this is something that I feel is important or lacking in the article. I'm unconvinced that Gopal fulfils the requirements for notability as an academic - I agree with @Alarichall that such a claim would have to rest on criterion 7 in Wikipedia:Notability (academics), but I'm not sure she fulfils that criterion. If somebody brings sources that she "is frequently quoted in conventional media as an academic expert in a particular area", I'll give way. But I think she's mainly quoted in the media as an academic who has written controversial things on Twitter, and not frequently as an academic expert on a particular topic.

If anything, I think Gopal's academic opinions are over-represented in the article, most particularly in the Decolonisation section. If no independent sources have been written about Gopal's views on decolonisation, I'm not sure why wikipedia should be covering them. If there have been independent sources that describe Gopal's views on decolonisation, then they should be included (and we should rely on them rather than citing her work primarily).

In any case. I will reluctantly accede to point 1 if it gets us anywhere on point 2, seeing as any edits I make on my own will doubtless be immediately reverted. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:16, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm surprised that saying there should be more information about Gopal's academic work is a sticking point. There are plenty of reviews to help expand that topic. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:37, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

@Richard Nevell, the debate about whether or how much to expand the sections on Gopal's academic work is not one I want to have in this discussion of the talk page. You can represent my position as sceptical of, rather than objecting to that line of action. However, I do think that perhaps I haven't made clear what this section is about - it's the massive removal of critical material from the entry on Gopal. I do not think replacing the critical material with an expanded representation of Gopal's academic career ameliorates the situation - in fact I think it simply exacerbates the Wikipedia:BALANCE concerns that led me to start this section in the first place.

A separate discussion on whether and how the sections on Gopal's academic work need expansion/changes is welcome, and I would happily weigh in on what I think is Wikipedia:DUE there. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:13, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

@LumumbaX, @Richard Nevell, @Alarichall and @Lajmmoore - after a few days reflecting, I want to summarise and see if we can move forward on this. I think that you all agree that some of the material removed shouldn't have been in the article. I do not think this is the consensus, given the fact that plenty of other editors up this talk page have argued in favour of its inclusion.

Removal of material from an article should be subject to Wikipedia:Content removal guidelines. I think the argument @LumumbaX is making is that specifically the removed material was Wikipedia:INAPPROPRIATE, but I don't see how - plenty of other figures have had controversial quotes/social media activity in their wikipedia pages, if those have been the subject of national media attention. I think therefore based on the content removal guidelines that there needs to be consensus before we accept this change, and until then the default version should include the material in question.

If that's not acceptable, perhaps we should recanvass some of the editors who involved in the material - editing and talk pages - at the time and find out if consensus has changed since then. Samuelshraga (talk) 14:34, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

@Samuelshraga I would suggest starting with new incorporation of the Churchill material, as that seems to be a point upon which most people in this thread agree. Lajmmoore (talk) 10:39, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I have reinstated it as it seems to have tentative consensus. However, I still think we need to address why material removed without consensus needs consensus to be re-added. I think Wikipedia:Content removal suggests the opposite - material removed without consensus should be re-added by default. Unless someone can explain why not, I think we can re-add all the material cut out and then decide on removal - or perhaps making more concise - of some of the material on a case-by-case basis. Samuelshraga (talk) 15:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

@15, @Xxanthippe, @Atchom, @Richard Nevell, @Alarichall, @Pikavoom, @Lajmmoore, @Artemis Seeker, I'm tagging you as the people who engaged in the previous two sections of the talk page, which deal with material subsequently removed from Gopal's entry - largely in this revision. I think the removal needs consensus, leaves a non-Wikipedia:NPOV entry and should be reverted, along with a lot of the editing that has taken place since the page's protected status finished. I'm hoping you can weigh in/involve editors who were involved in editing these sections/help us find a path forward. Samuelshraga (talk) 15:21, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

I've added a brief citation of Prospect to the Churchill section to make its notability clearer. I think, @LumumbaX, if you wanted to shorten the coverage of the Churchill College debate on Gopal's page, you could create an article devoted to the issue itself--it surely has enough coverage to be notable in its own right. If you did that then we could shorten the coverage in Gopal's entry and link to the dedicated article. Just a suggestion! Alarichall (talk) 19:39, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Happy new year all - it's been a while but I want to reiterate the two bases on which I think all the material cut out needs to be re-added. The first is that this article has been massively skewed away from critical material and towards support for the subject.

The largest hint in the lead that she might be considered a controversial figure is that "Her remarks about race and empire have gained media attention and disagreement." It's a bit like if we changed the page on Katie Hopkins to mainly focus on her being a contestant on the Apprentice. There is no hint in this article, that Priyamvada Gopal has:

1. Been banned from speaking at the Home Office.

2. Assumed that the author of the government's race review, a black man, did not have legitimate academic credentials, and when corrected, made what one would have to be quite charitable to suggest wasn't a comparison between him and Josef Goebbels.

3. In response to media coverage of a dispute she had with a fellow academic, accused several Jewish journalists of conspiring to defame her in retaliation for her opposition to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism.

All these things are well documented in multiple reliable sources, which no one has disputed on this thread. They were added collaboratively over the course of time by multiple editors in a closely scrutinised way - clearly because the subject of this portrait is controversial (i.e. divides opinion) and because the above incidents touched on hot-button political issues. Also, clearly, because they were prominent national news stories at the time so editors found their way to this page. I do not see any justification now to claim that they are trivial, and instead to highlight aspects of Gopal's career that have no reliable sources.

The second basis for readding the material is that per Wikipedia:Content Removal, all material cut out without consensus should be re-added. An editor (or some editors) thinking that the material is trivial is not a reason for removal against consensus when there was clearly a consensus on addition and maintenance of the material in some form.

It looks to me like these points, either of which should be sufficient on its own, are being ignored, and I don't know how to proceed, so will be proceeding with dispute resolution avenues. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:34, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samuelshraga, there is widespread agreement in this talk page section that the article is better off without the material I removed (see comments by Alarichall, Richard Nevell, and myself). I'm not going to spend time commenting further on what's already explained at length. And while maintaining a somewhat neutral stance, [[User:Lajmmoore|Lajmmoore] has stated that "the article needs stability, not intermittent reversion, so let's work with the page in its current form". In other words, we should not revert the article to the old version again. Furthermore, some of the material I removed was reincorporated in the spirit of compromise as proposed by Alarichall. While you may disagree, I think we've reached some sort of consensus here. You are free to pursue dispute resolution options if necessary, but in view, we've dealt with the matter on the talk page. LumumbaX (talk) 12:19, 1 January 2023 (UTC) banned sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

@LumumbaX This is the Wikipedia policy on Wikipedia:Consensus. Specifically, "Consensus is ascertained by the quality of the arguments given on the various sides of an issue, as viewed through the lens of Wikipedia policy." I don't think that my points raised above, specifically through the lens of Npov or Wikipedia:Content removal have been addressed at all. I have also noted that @Alarichall and @Richard Nevell agree with you about not re-adding the material. I respect that, and while I kind of wish that they'd address my specific points, we have managed to constructively discuss directions for this article. The ongoing disagreement means there isn't a consensus. Consensus is not decided by votes.

I have not managed to have any such constructive conversation with you. You may be the most dedicated to gatekeeping this page in favour of your preferred version, but that is fundamentally not how Wikipedia is supposed to work. That's why I'm going to dispute resolution - I'm clearly not the only editor who disagrees with the version you have created and are defending, based on @Atchom's edits of yesterday, and beyond that, even if I were the only editor, what's supposed to matter is the content of an argument and not the number of people who start the discussion agreeing/disagreeing with it. Samuelshraga (talk) 14:10, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

I tried very hard to not get involved in this article again. Last time the edit war went on for weeks and weeks and ended up with the gatekeeping editor being banned after much back-and-forth. But there is no consensus on the current version as the stable version. There is no good reason why painstakingly-sourced and fought over content should be removed in this high-handed manner. I am happy to follow this to dispute resolution. Atchom (talk) 20:45, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

@Richard Nevell @Alarichall @Lajmmoore @LumumbaX @Atchom I have opened a request on the dispute resolution noticeboard - I assume you were all notified but I thought I'd put it here in case. [2] Samuelshraga (talk) 06:58, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

On balance, Alarichall, I believe the article is better without the deleted content. However, if you had to reinstate a section, I would tentatively support your proposal to reintroduce ====Churchill, empire and race==== for the reasons you mentioned. But how would you make it more concise without losing essential details? If you reintroduce the section, it should probably be in its current form or as close to it as possible. However, as I previously mentioned, the article's major flaw is the lack of engagement with Gopal's academic output. There's a lot of material (see bibliography) but little engagement with it. LumumbaX (talk) 12:13, 22 November 2022 (UTC) banned sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Expanding the content on her academic work would be a really positive contribution that you could make @LumumbaX (see points above) Lajmmoore (talk) 21:59, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Here from NPV/N. Based on what I gather from the conversation, I don't think this is being approached correctly. A detailed sequence of events about each controversy isn't encyclopedic, even though the controversies themselves are. It falls into the same trap as a WP:PROSELINE, but with added point of view concerns. Instead of debating whether these paragraphs should be added or removed, I would suggest starting with a broader approach that goes into more detail on her thoughts about race in general and why she's controversial, and then deciding how specific examples can support this as needed. Of course, this is easier said than done. Perhaps examples can be found in more developed articles of academics who are most well known for controversies and provocative views. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 08:39, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Thebiguglyalien, thanks for joining in! I would be very open to reappraising how material about controversies is presented. If there is an example of such an academic as you suggest, I think that would be an ideal starting point for seeing about how to distinguish between any notable scholarly work that should be included and a public persona. Mostly though, I agree that the controversies do belong in the article (which is what I understand you to mean by saying that the controversies themselves are encyclopedic). I think the next section of the talk page would be a good place for discussing how to reorganise the article so that there is a bit more structure. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:48, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Criticism might provide one useful example for a briefer discussion of controversies related to an academic. ParticipantObserver (talk) 19:02, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks @Thebiguglyalien & @ParticipantObserver - these are really good points and hinge on expanding the content about Gopal's academic work, which I have previously encouraged editors to do. However it seems that editor capacity is an issue for the expansion of this content, so I'm going to post in a couple of relevant WikiProjects to see if there are others who might be able to contribute. Lajmmoore (talk) 09:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

To add - I've posted at WPs University of Cambridge, Women in Red, Media, Black Lives Matter & British Empire, hopefully this will encourage a wider range of editors to contribute to the page content Lajmmoore (talk) 09:24, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Hii @ParticipantObserver, thanks for the suggestion. I think the difference with Peter Singer is that it is his work product which is incredibly controversial, from what I gather, and the criticism of him is of his philosophical views, not of his behaviour or his style. With much of the controversy around Gopal, her academic work product is not directly at issue (e.g. her attacks on Tony Sewell, David Aboulafia, Jewish student journalists are not related to any particular academic opinion or publication). If all we knew about Gopal came from her books, academic articles, lectures etc., and any coverage or reaction to them in Wikipedia:Reliable sources, there wouldn't be much to write about here. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:52, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

In both cases, the academics appear to be notable and have notable controversies associated with them.

But you are right, one big difference would be the difficulty in discussing those controversies in terms of Gopal's academic works (where Singer's page has many sections describing specific academic conclusions or themes and discussing the controversies within those sections, that will not be possible here). ParticipantObserver (talk) 09:13, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samuelshraga: If all we knew about Gopal came from her books, academic articles, lectures etc., and any coverage or reaction to them in reliable sources, there would be a lot to write about. I'd be really grateful if you'd put your energies into actually covering Gopal's work rather than taking up people's time trying to reinstate unencyclopedic chronicles of Twitterstorms. For example, you could create Wikipedia articles for her books, which I'm sure all have at least two independent reviews and therefore are notable. That would, in turn, help you to contribute to the article about Gopal herself. Alarichall (talk) 09:14, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

@Alarichall, I have no problem with a discussion about whether Gopal meets Wikipedia:Notability (academics). I've never engaged in such a discussion on wikipedia before, and I'm not a subject-area expert, so I don't know for sure whether she meets the criteria laid out there, but I have read the criteria there and I don't think that it's obvious that she does. You may think that the removed content is composed of "unencyclopedic chronicles of Twitterstorms". I encourage you to explain that view in terms of wikipedia policies on the open discussion in the Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Priyamvada_Gopal. Or at the very least explain why reliably sourced, collaboratively edited, well-discussed and longstanding content can be removed without consensus. Public controversies that are notable enough to be covered by multiple reliable sources belong on wikipedia, whether you call them "Twitterstorms" or not. And as for "taking up people's time" - well, if you stand by that, fine for you. I'm not sure it warrants a response. Samuelshraga (talk) 11:44, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

@Samuelshraga, I'm finding it difficult to assume good faith about your argument that Gopal's academic work needs to be more notable to write about or that there are few reliable sources on the topic. A basic search would show you how false that argument is. There are numerous credible sources that provide commentary on her academic work and books. Here are just a few examples:

• The Hindu: "Priyamvada Gopal’s Insurgent Empire is a bold and important work that seeks to take away the throne of conceits on which the ghost of the British Empire still sits, providing aid and comfort to 21st century inheritors of the White Man’s Burden."
• Huff Post: "Indian academics say her work on Indian writing in English is seminal, and her expertise is acknowledged at universities around the world."
• Los Angeles Review of Books: "Gopal has continued to produce important writing: her 2020 book, Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent, is a magisterial volume that complicates and expands our understanding of the histories of dissent during the colonial period." Her recent article “On Decolonisation and the University,” published in the journal Textual Practice, also offers clarity on many of the debates raging at American and European universities today."

Book reviews:

• The Guardian: Insurgent Empire by Priyamvada Gopal review – a superb study of anticolonial resistance
• The Hindu: ‘Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent’ review: Striking back at the Empire
• London Review of Books: A Great Wall to Batter Down
• SAGE Journals: Insurgent Empire: anticolonial resistance and British dissent by Priyamvada Gopal

Like @Alarichall, I'd appreciate it if you focus your efforts on covering Gopal's work rather than trying to resurrect unencyclopedic non-stories. LumumbaX (talk) 13:46, 5 January 2023 (UTC) banned sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

@LumumbaX and @Alarichall, I think we could discuss Gopal's notability as an academic in a separate section and it would be productive for all involved. I don't think I can claim that she is not a notable academic, I'm saying that there are criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (academics), and I don't know which of them you're saying she fulfils. Of the 8 criteria of notability there, as far as I know we can uncontroversially say that she doesn't fulfil Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6, or 8. If I'm wrong about any of those, you should absolutely insert the relevant qualification into the content of her page, at the very least. If she fits criteria 1, 4 or 7, you should make a case for that, but I don't think it's relevant to a discussion about the massive removal of critical material from her page.

As examples of why these discussions could be best separated, if I went to JK Rowling and removed all references to her comments and controversies about trans people because they took place largely (though not totally) on Twitter, and defended it saying that she is primarily an author and the page should focus on that, I would be laughed off the talk page (and probably given a topic ban at the very least if I tried to make the edits). In that case, she is obviously primarily an author and so her page focusses largely on that - but no one suggests removing the media controversies on that basis. If I went to Katie Hopkins' page and removed all of her media controversies and made the dubious argument that the page should focus on her as a former contest of the Apprentice, even if I were right that the page insufficiently covers her time on the TV show (I have no idea if it does or doesn't by the way), it would make no sense to remove the many controversies that she got into, regardless of how she first came to prominence. Samuelshraga (talk) 15:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi @Thebiguglyalien, I agree that a detailed sequence of events about each 'controversy' is not encyclopedic. I also support your approach of detailing her thoughts on race and why she's controversial, with specific examples to back this up. Gopal gave this insight in a 2021 profile piece, which could be a good starting point.

QUESTION: Let’s turn to some of your recent experiences. I know that you are constantly being attacked in the media, on social media, in British newspapers. The Daily Mail wrote such horrible lies about you that they even had to pay you damages. What exactly is going on? There seems to be a small group of public thinkers in the UK who are always under attack, but you more than anyone else.

GOPAL: Well, that’s a relatively easy question to answer. Britain is in the middle of concocted but highly effective culture wars. They’ve been stoked up around empire, nationalism, white supremacism, and Brexit. And just like in the US and other places — in fact, like in India — academics have been targeted and universities have been targeted. Which, in a way, is quite flattering because it does make you think what we do must matter at some level because otherwise why would they bother to attack universities and academics?

I think I function as a very useful abstraction, a bringing-together of a bunch of hate objects. These have nothing to do with me, the person, but all the boxes that I tick. I am an academic: hate object. I’m a woman: hate object. I am not white: hate object. I’m a migrant: hate object. And of course, I’m a lefty, the so-called woke. Someone, a well-known pundit, called me the Torquemada of the Woke Inquisition. So, that’s five for the price of one. Obviously, people like Kehinde Andrews and Corinne Fowler also get their fair share of tabloid attacks for work they do around empire and race.

The other thing that really gets up the tabloid noses is that I sit at the heart of an institution they consider their own. Cambridge is meant to be white. It is certainly not meant to be left-wing. It is certainly not meant to host multiple brown women. And this is the source of real upset. So, I tick a lot of boxes and I’m an easy figure in the ongoing and very false culture wars. I mean, I’ve seen cultural wars literally being invented around me. They took a statement I made about the royal family that no one was particularly bothered by until they turned it into a controversy. The headline read something like: “Controversial Academic Stokes Fury by Saying Royal Family Has Connections to Slavery.” This is not an especially outrageous claim, but the point is there was no controversy. The headline itself created the controversy. I have a ringside view of how culture wars are complete concoctions. They bear no resemblance to what people are actually talking about or care about. LumumbaX (talk) 13:49, 5 January 2023 (UTC) banned sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 17:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

It's generally not appropriate to use the subject's own opinions to describe their controversies. The information should come from what is said by reliable third-party sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:42, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

• Note that I've struck sockpuppet edits Samuelshraga (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Separating "Work" from "Public Profile" - Restoring Balance

The discussion on the "Controversies" section is archived but I would suggest to the participants that we reopen a similar discussion because I think the article could be better arranged. Agreeing that "Controversies" was a problematic framing of the main section of the article, I still think separating out from the "Work" section those topics that don't seem to be part of Gopal's academic work product in a more neutrally framed section may help structure the article more usefully.

For instance, in the current article, I don't think anyone would suggest that the "White lives don't matter" issue forms part of Gopal's work, but I do think it is part of her notability, so should probably find itself in a different section. I propose a "Public profile" section that separates out content not to do with her academic research or work within the university. This could include more information about her activist/op-ed writer side of things.

@15, @Xxanthippe, @Atchom, @Richard Nevell, @Lajmmoore, @Pikavoom, and anyone else, please weigh in. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:59, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for continuing to give the article so much thought Samuelshraga - I think the same issue remains to be honest. The "academic" and the "public" are very closely aligned with Gopal, because of the nature of her research and her practice. Lajmmoore (talk) 12:38, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree that there are some areas that are blurry - but there are also some that are clear-cut. I don't see how things like the "White lives matter" tweet and the anti-Semitism/racism/Aboulafia dispute could be considered part of her work, whereas The Churchill working group in my opinion is an example of her work (and the subsequent controversy can be viewed as flowing out of her work in a very clear way). Perhaps a minimal fix would be to rename the "Work" section because at the moment it doesn't represent the content. I'm open to any ideas that represent the content while sticking to a NPOV. Samuelshraga (talk) 13:16, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree with @Lajmmoore that there's no neat 'work'/'public profile' distinction to be made here. Perhaps we could rename 'Work' to 'Thought'? Alarichall (talk) 17:20, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Renaming the section to better represent the content within it may have merit. But my concern with introducing a "Public profile" section is that it would open the door for needless inclusion of media beat-ups and trivial non-stories, like the sections you wanted to reinstate previously. I share Alarichall's concern that the article may end up portraying Gopal as notable for Twitter comments that get misrepresented by unscrupulous journalists rather than as a scholar. Perhaps renaming the "Work" section, as you suggested, would be more appropriate. But I'm not sure what to call it. LumumbaX (talk) 12:08, 21 December 2022 (UTC) banned sock --Samuelshraga (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

Well, 'work' doesn't seem to have attacted much support, but I'll change 'work' to 'thought' and if people think of something better, all to the good. Alarichall (talk) 06:45, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Thought seems a good catch-all Lajmmoore (talk) 10:29, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I think "Thought" is something of an improvement, thanks @Alarichall. @LumumbaX, since you bring it up, I'm yet to hear why your removal of most of the critical material about the subject of this article doesn't contradict the Wikipedia:Content Removal guidelines, I'd appreciate it if you could explain that to me in the relevant section above. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:43, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

• Note that I've struck sockpuppet edits Samuelshraga (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

While I understand why you struck those comments, Samuelshraga, striking such a substantial part of a long discussion makes it hard to follow especially when some of the participants agreed with the sockpuppets' points. I'm referring to this whole page, not just this section. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 00:30, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I see what you mean @Liz. I think I just followed the practice that I had seen on this page, but it could make it harder for someone who wasn't following the original discussion. Although I think in this section striking the sock's point does no harm, in the previous section, if you'd like to unstrike (or want me to unstrike) the sock's comments I think that would be fine, although it would probably be best in that case to find some other way of marking the sock contributions? I'm open to any suggestion. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:17, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Striking is okay, but removal does create problems. We need to keep our eyes open for editors, new or old, who support the views of these socks, and then scrutinize the situation. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

"Who watches the Wikipedia editors?" article about Gopal

Who watches the Wikipedia editors?

A well-written article. It might be a RS, but the author is anonymous. It describes the problems with whitewashing and sockpuppetry here. It could be a good source for research. Liz, shouldn't Gopal's bio here be permanently semi-protected to limit these problems? Then new editors should be held under close scrutiny. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:44, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Certainly interesting to get a glimpse inside the head of this particular commentator... Characterising Gopal as 'an inexplicably highly-promoted academic with a paper-thin scholarly publication record' isn't what we'd call Neutral Point of View though. It's quite a bilious piece. Alarichall (talk) 16:14, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

We do not expect, or even want, RS to have an NPOV. That makes for boring and rather uninformative content. We document far more than basic facts here. We also document biased opinions and analyses. NPOV only applies to the editing of Wikipedia's editors, who must edit in a neutral manner, and the results do not have to be neutral. Rather, the content here must reflect the often-biased POV of the source. We must not censor or neuter it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:38, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

As one of the first editors to question the bona fides of the banned sockpuppet User:PostcolonialLitNerd, who was continually adding praise of Priyamvada Gopal and deleting criticism of her, I was interested to read the article[3]. This article is mostly unsourced scuttlebutt, but there is one claim in it that needs to be unpacked. I think that the characterisation of Gopal as 'an inexplicably highly-promoted academic with a paper-thin scholarly publication record' is only partially true. Her three books are moderately cited on GS, but compared to previous holders of a professorship in English at Cambridge, like F R Leavis, C S Lewis, Arthur Quiller-Couch or Raymond Williams her achivements have not yet matured. I think that her qualifications would rate a mid-ranking position at a minor university, but a Cambridge professorship? However, she is better known as an activist and a controversialist than as a scholar and I would oppose an attempt to delete the BLP on the grounds that that WP:Prof was not passed. Xxanthippe (talk) 03:46, 1 March 2023 (UTC).

Not that this makes any material difference to Gopal's article, but I think there's some selection bias in your benchmark for the achievements of Cambridge English professors! How many of these people has anyone heard of, for example: King Edward VII Professor of English Literature; Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English (Cambridge)? Alarichall (talk) 16:21, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

@Alarichall, in fairness, anyone of the holders of the positions you mention automatically pass Wikipedia:Notability (academics) as holders of "a named chair appointment or distinguished professor appointment at a major institution of higher education and research, or an equivalent position in countries where named chairs are uncommon". @Xxanthippe, I agree entirely with both the fact that Gopal's academic qualifications for notability are underwhelming and that the article should still remain, focused on her notability as an activist and controversialist. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:58, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

What-kind-of-POV hinted at [4] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:16, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

hello @Valjean & others, I went and looked at WP:Perennial sources to see whether The Critic was listed, and the discussion there suggests that it would not be considered a reliable source. See this discussion and this further one, and here where it is compared to Breitbart. Lajmmoore (talk) 07:17, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

It’s a very different animal to Breitbart. TrottieTrue (talk) 00:32, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

"As it turned out, there are plenty of weirdos — and “weirdo” is an apt description for most regular Wikipedia editors —" It's nice when someone gets us. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:01, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

A hit, a very palpable hit! Xxanthippe (talk) 23:26, 1 March 2023 (UTC).

Definitely some valid criticisms and commentary with regards to Wikipedia and its usage here:

Long-standing errors made on the website are republished by respectable institutions as fact, which then are used by Wikipedia editors to buttress the veracity of the original claim. No institution is immune: I am reliably informed that Buckingham Palace conferred at least one non-existent title on the late Queen on the strength of a Wikipedia article alone. ... [CIRCULARity is definitely quite an issue when it comes to non-prominent topics.]
In 2020, it was discovered that almost every article on Scots Wikipedia was written by an American teenager who did not speak Scots, with potentially catastrophic ramifications for the publicly subsidised pseudo-language’s future. ... [Many small language Wikipedias are definitely operating in a poor condition.]
Articles on Japanese anime series, for example, are often longer and better than those on British prime ministers. Anyone who has played a single match of first-class cricket, no matter how obscure, will have a lovingly-written biography. ...
In practice, Wikipedia editors heavily favour legacy media outlets whose content is freely accessible online (relevant academic literature, paywalled and harder to understand, is often ignored).

Also pretty sure the "Anon" writing [and perhaps reading this Talk page as well] is a Wikipedian herself. Gotitbro (talk) 08:21, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

References

This is User:Smallbones. I write the "Disinformation report" in The Signpost, see e.g. Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2023-02-20/Disinformation report I definitely noticed the article in The Critic and it looks very interesting from the standpoint of there being 2 sides to the commentary there and several different themes. Anything I write on this will probably be shorter than usual - I haven't made a complete inventory of the sock drawer yet - but there seem to be at least 5 from a quick look around. So, the article would have to be mostly about the Critic article, and editors' opinions. If you have anything to say that hasn't been written on this page yet, please contact me by email at Special:EmailUser/Smallbones. Well if you want to repeat in a particularly pithy way what you've said here that might make for a good quote, but mainly what I'm interested in first would be background material just in case I'm missing something. I won't quote your 1st email to me without your permission, and after that we'll talk about what you want attributed. Any help appreciated - from anybody involved here! Smallbones_(smalltalk) 19:18, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Start the Week paragraph - include or exclude?

A couple of weeks ago I removed the subsection about Gopal's 2006 appearance on BBC radio's Start the Week as the only sources were written by Gopal herself. @OmegaPiii has reinstated the section with a new reference to the event - a Times Higher Education supplement piece about Gopal.[5] The section which references her appearance reads thus:

In 2006, however, as she describes in her forthcoming book Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent, she took part in a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week. There she found herself confronted by “the media face of the case for British imperialism, Niall Ferguson” and was a largely lone voice in challenging his “bullish assertions about the greatness of Britain’s imperial project and the benevolence of its legacies”.

I don't think this qualifies as a third-party depiction of events, as all the descriptions are directly quoting from Gopal herself. It is soft evidence for the notability of the incident, but I don't think it justifies the full paragraph devoted to it on this page. In any case, some of the assertions in the paragraph are unsourced and potential BLP issues. I don't think anything suffers if the paragraph is removed. However, if removing the whole paragraph is not a consensus decision, I propose replacing it with a sentence:

"Gopal cites an appearance on BBC Radio 4's Start the Week with motivating her to speak about issues of empire and colonialism.[6]" @OmegaPiii, and anyone else here, please feel free to weigh in if this is or isn't acceptable to you. Samuelshraga (talk) 10:08, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Samuelshraga I think it's important to mention Niall Ferguson, but otherwise a more concise mention seems OK to me Lajmmoore (talk) 12:14, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

@Lajmmoore, I don't want to overdo the Niall Ferguson bit - he obviously is a conservative historian and I can imagine the kind of things he might have said, but:

a. He's not the subject of this article

b. The only person who seems to remember what he said is Priyamvada Gopal, and she is not a secondary source for this.

c. Going to the original broadcast to find out what he said, and verifying/fact-checking Gopal's claim that he triumphally championed Britain's imperial past would be both Wikipedia:OR, and massive over-coverage of an event that only seems to be notable to Priyamvada Gopal herself. Even the 3rd party source (the Times HE piece) only mentions it as something that she talks about as being important to her, it doesn't cover the event itself.

That said, how's this? "Gopal appeared on a 2006 edition of BBC Radio 4's Start the Week. According to Gopal, a disagreement on the program with historian Niall Ferguson about the British Empire motivated her to speak about issues of empire and colonialism.[7]". Samuelshraga (talk) 12:57, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Excessive detail

I've not heard of Priyamvada Gopal until today and I'm scratching my head at the immense amount of detail on a few events from her public life. I think this is an example of when well-intentioned contributions unfortunately leading to disproportionate analysis. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not an exhaustive breakdown of everything. I've going to add the Overly Detailed template and try and edit down this article a bit. Seaweed (talk) 15:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I've done some editing and I think it's a bit better. I've moved the overly detailed template to the last remaining complex bit.Seaweed (talk) 16:56, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Wow @Seaweed - you have done a lot of work! You may be quite right that it was disproportionate analysis. I haven't looked at all the changes, but one thing that jumped out at me is the section on the government's race report. The fact that Gopal criticised its methodology was not covered in the non-paywalled sources, but the Sewell-Goebbels comparison/reference was covered in secondary sources. I think the section should be reframed to focus on what the sources covered. Samuelshraga (talk) 06:04, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

Paywall sources are good sources. The fact they are paywalled has no bearing on their validity. This is basic stuff. Atchom (talk) 17:21, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed that paywalled sources are valid sources @Atchom, I was just saying what information I have access to and I think you've misunderstood my point. I'm saying that in the sources I have access to, what is reported is not that Gopal has a critique of the methodology of the report but that she compared its author to Josef Goebbels. That's what the section should focus on then. (I was making the caveat that this doesn't hold if the paywalled sources show something else). Moot anyway given your revert.

I think @Seaweed was right that the article was bloated, though I think maybe the chainsaw approach to the content was a bit overzealous. Looking at it now (with content restored), I think some aspects of the page are over-covered. The Race and Decolonisation sub-sections are composed entirely of commentary pieces written by Gopal, or podcasts Gopal appeared on. Either these sections need secondary sources that her opinions were actually covered in, or the sections should be removed as Wikipedia:UNDUE. Samuelshraga (talk) 14:17, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree that there should be more sourcing about Gopal's work. For me, the issue with removing those sections is that then there's little context for the further subsections which consider when her opinions have been perhaps over-reported by areas of the press. Primary sources can be used carefully in articles, so yes I agree there should be secondary sourcing, but just because those sections are supported by primary sourcing at the moment doesn't mean they should be entirely removed. Lajmmoore (talk) 15:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

@Lajmmoore, agreed that secondary sourcing would improve the section. I found this interview incidentally [8]. All the sources (so far) though are either Gopal herself in columns or Gopal being interviewed by media. I see that her opinions on decolonisation and empire are important to her, it's not clear to me that they're important for wikipedia to publish. What would be needed to show that they are important are sources referencing her opinions, rather than sources that just confirm that these are Gopal's opinions.

I basically think the only bit of the Decolonisation section worth keeping as it stands is the first line of the fourth paragraph which relates to her support for decolonising the English curriculum at Cambridge. The rest is just Gopal's opinions, as put forth by herself, uncritically repeated. Doesn't seem necessary or helpful. Samuelshraga (talk) 14:05, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

I've returned! Hmm, I see a lot of the things I edited down have gone back in again. I think this article is an example of when a biographical article is edited in good faith whilst a topical issue is emerging about that person. That might go on for months or even years. However, eventually that particular topic is resolved and therefore some perspective be used to edit the while thing down into something concise and readable to the general reader of Wikipedia (which is how I edit Wikipedia). For example, the issue regarding ""White lives don't matter. As white lives" tweet" is actually much more straightforward in hindsight. That's why I reduced it to the substantive issue that Gopal received damages from the Daily Mail. We don't need a blow by blow account - that's what the references are for. And with the greatest respect to Priyamvada Gopal, her relative notability only goes so far. There has to be some proportion to the length and detail of biographical articles on Wikipedia. I'll dare to edit this article again. I honestly have no agenda other than making articles easily digestible for the average visitor.Seaweed (talk) 16:17, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this has overall to be the right approach to this article. Conceivably one or two details that you've removed should go back in, but I wouldn't want to see a wholesale reversion of the trimming you've done. Thanks for your work here! Alarichall (talk) 18:34, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

@Seaweed, leaving aside the general approach (which I think makes sense), in the case of the "White lives don't matter. As white lives" tweet I think you misunderstood. That tweet was the subject of a controversy, and quite separately, the Daily Mail published defamatory material about Gopal as having tweeted incitement to a race war. It wasn't based on the same incident, and the Mail (not a RS of course) and other outlets covered the White Lives tweet independently of the defamation. Samuelshraga (talk) 11:35, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Including Gopal's views based on articles published by Gopal

Hi @OmegaPiii, I see you reverted my changes because the material came from relevant peer-reviewed publications. I don't think this can be a reason to include: Not every published opinion or finding by an academic need be included in the wiki page about them. It would be more relevant to include it in the wiki pages about the subject of the academic article, rather than the author. There must be hundreds of such examples on wikipedia of prolific and noted academics whose views are not reported (or advocated) in the way seen on the Gopal page. Take Timothy Winter as an example - some of his views are included, but only when 3rd party sources have mentioned them. I think including a list of publications as in the Winter example would be a reasonable alternative to a wiki-editor selected summary of Gopal's views as expressed in her published work. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:08, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

The fact that the material is peer-reviewed and cited in academic journals is reason enough to include it. Removing the material and other opinions also strips the article of context. Gopal's published and cited peer-reviewed work is relevant to her public profile because much of her public commentary derives from her academic work. The page does not include all her published work either. Numerous double-blind reviewed journal articles and books are not discussed despite having many journal citations. That some academics don't have published views reported on their wiki page is neither here nor there. OmegaPiii (talk) 06:36, 8 March 2024 (UTC) sock struck by Samuelshraga (talk) 15:17, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

My objection is based on Wikipedia:PROPORTION - "An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight proportional to its treatment in the body of reliable, published material on the subject." The subject here is Priyamvada Gopal. The sources are not sources that address the question: "What are Priyamvada Gopal's views" - they are sources that are written by Gopal from which we have curated a selection of her views. The subject of this wikipedia page has written an awful lot over the years. It looks like she's regularly written columns in the Guardian and Al-Jazeera, and all of those could be used as Reliable Sources for her views.

The question then is on what basis we have selected these views from these articles - the fact that the essay "On Decolonisation and the University" is in a journal rather than the Guardian is not the issue. For example, she's sort of semi-prominently critical of the royal family (also happens to appear in "On Decolonisation and the University") and we don't cover that. Why? Because the sources for it are Gopal's own writings, and in tabloids which are generally not RS. So one is left wondering why a three paragraph summary of these particular aspects of "On Decolonisation and the University" is necessary for this article. I understand that this essay got a relatively high readership, but unless it received coverage in 3rd party sources, I don't see how this isn't over-coverage? Samuelshraga (talk) 07:02, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

This discussion caught my attention because I happened to look at my watchlist and saw that @Samuelshraga had deleted it. Looking back at the edits under discussion, I tend to think that the additional, well-referenced information provided about Gopal's thought was worthwhile and interesting. Readers don't have to read every section of the article if they don't want to. The additions that Samuelshraga deleted were about Gopal's views on race and decolonisation, which are central to her thought and public profile, and detailed coverage of those seems entirely proportionate to me. Alarichall (talk) 14:01, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Alarichall. I deleted the above talk discussion (as I wrote in summary) because it was between me and a sock of @PostcolonialLitNerd. I guess if you want to continue the discussion restoring it would be fine, although a new section without the sock comments might be an alternative?

On the issue itself, the view that her views on race and decolonisation are central to her public profile is a subjective judgement, and I would encourage you to find Reliable Sources to make that point, and/or which summarise her views on race and decolonisation (so that wikipedia editors don't then have to make the independent judgement of which of her writings are salient enough to paraphrase and summarise, or to do what is clearly WP;OR and synthesise her entire corpus). At that point proportionate coverage of her views on these issues on this page will not see objection from me.

For now, given that much of the material was originally added by PLN, and the gatekeeping has been done by PLN socks for years at this point, perhaps we'll leave it off until PLN's next sock re-adds it? Samuelshraga (talk) 15:14, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

“White lives don’t matter” comment, why isn't this notable

In 2020 Gopal commented that “white lives don't matter” and this was heavily covered. This is yet another example of her making controversial and inflammatory statements why hasn't this been included?

It was quite well covered and Cambridge university stood behind her.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/25/cambridge-defends-academic-said-white-lives-dont-matter/

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/cambridge-professor-white-lives-twitter-110355066.html

Helpingtoclarify (talk) 03:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, it is notable. It was removed by @Seaweed here.

I pointed out what I think was Seaweed's misunderstanding in the Excessive Detail section of this talk page but didn't receive a reply. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)