Wikipedia talk:Mandy Rice-Davies applies/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

How this essay is actually used

Because in the above section, Sideswipe9th claimed it was pretty clear this essay is narrowly limited to denials of accusations only (or mostly) sourced to primary sources like blogs and tweets, I thought it would be helpful to investigate how this essay is actually understood by its supporters. I searched "WP:MANDY" in the Talk namespace sorted by edit date, and here are the usages in the order they appeared in that search (ignoring talk archives, as trying to look at recent uses):

• Talk:Libs of TikTok: Two mentions here; 1) An editor arguing that The Washington Post denying they doxxed the subject of the article should be cut per WP:MANDY. This was sourced to a secondary source (article in The Hill) which discussed that denial in depth. 2) An editor arguing that the subject of the article denying the "inspired" an attack on a drag show should be removed from the article, because including denial go[es] against WP:MANDY. The denial was sourced to a secondary source: Daily Dot.
• Talk:Depp v. Heard: An editor arguing that any mention of the jury denying their decision was influenced by social media should be cut because WP:MANDY (an essay but a meaningful one) obviously applies here. This passage was sourced to two secondary sources: Rolling Stone and Deadline Hollywood.
• Talk:Lauren Southern: Multiple editors arguing that the subject of the article denying they are a white nationalist should be cut because of WP:MANDY. The denial was sourced to two secondary sources: The Atlantic and The Guardian.
• Talk:Charlie Kirk (activist): An editor arguing that we should not include a claim by the subject of the article that they were assaulted, because they are WP:MANDY claims. The claims were sourced to three secondary sources: CNN, The Hill, Fox News.

Etc. So, no, it's not "pretty clear" that this essay is narrowly limited to denials of accusations only/mostly sourced to primary sources. When used, it is understood to mean that denials of accusations should generally not appear in articles. In other words, it is used to contravene policy at WP:BLP#Denial. Endwise (talk) 05:21, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

It looks like you've constructed a straw man version of Sideswipe9th's argument, which includes the possibility that a denial is undue because it's in a minority of reliable sources. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:01, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

The Lauren Southern example raises the key point that MANDY "opponents" frequently presuppose a "right to reply" beyond the scope of the relevant text in WP:BLPPUBLIC, which applies only to an allegation or incident (and only to living people). A reliably sourced, widely used descriptor, like "white nationalist" or "alt right" for Southern, doesn't fall within that provision. (Also, your example concerning the Washington Post doesn't involve the relevant BLP provisoon, either, since the newspaper isn't a person. MANDY as a general principle isn't countered by any other policy, when it comes to companies or other organizations.)

Also, Endwise, I am disappointed to see you describing something in your precis above that did not happen on the current version of the Talk page, or within the recent portion of the search you linked above, namely Multiple editors arguing that the subject of the article denying they are a white nationalist should be cut because of WP:MANDY. As far as I can tell, this never happened. What did actually happen was a discussion in March, in which you and I both participated. This discussion began when an editor proposed to add denials for both "white nationalist" and "alt right" based only on primary sources, I challenged for secondary sources, and when RS were provided for "white nationalist", but not for "alt-right", I - a visible MANDY proponent - added Southern's denial to the lead. I can't find any editors arguing that the subject of the article denying they are a white nationalist should be cut because of WP:MANDY; the example you chose seems to flatly contradict your assumptions about how this essay is actually understood by its supporters, innit? Newimpartial (talk) 17:03, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I wrote that original comment a bit too quickly -- the usages there are people quoting/summarising what occurred in Talk:Lauren_Southern/Archive_8#RfC:_Inclusion_of_alt-right,_white_nationalist,_and_Great_Replacement_details_in_lead, which is where the multiple editors were actually saying that her denial should be cut from the article. Same overall point, but I should've taken my time a bit more. I wasn't talking about the discussion we had ages ago. Endwise (talk) 17:59, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

So now you're citing an RfC from early 2021, in which the Guardian source you referred to above was not mentioned at all (as far as I can tell), and the piece in The Atlantic was only cited by a MANDY proponent, who observed that the WP:MANDY stuff appears to have been covered correctly in this article - none of the MANDY proponents made an argument based on these sources, nor was anyone arguing for the removal of a denial based on these sources (nor was anyone proposing to remove any denial from the article). Perhaps you should have stopped trying to explain yourself before you dug this far... Newimpartial (talk) 18:11, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

• WP:PUBLICFIGURE is very clear: The inclusion of denials is subject to due weight and false balance. If you don't agree that those should be criteria considered when deciding whether a denial should be included, you should start an RFC on BLP to change it, but the policy is clear and every attempt to date to argue that WP:MANDY contradicts it has failed to reach a consensus supporting your interpretation otherwise. And I don't think you'd succeed at that change - WP:DUE, as a core part of WP:NPOV, is a more core policy than BLP; BLP can demand that we adhere to core policies more rigidly and cautiously when potential harm to real-world figures is involved, but it cannot simply override them, hence why WP:PUBLICFIGURE acknowledges that due weight is necessary in the first place. To create a loophole that would allow obviously undue denials to be included in articles, you would need to change WP:NPOV, not merely WP:BLP. --Aquillion (talk) 17:11, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

  PUBLICFIGURE actually says we should be including denials while adhering to DUE/FALSEBALANCE, which when read as given there, does not mean we can opt not to include denials (as MANDY implies), just make sure they are kept terse reflecting the weight given in sources. One sentence or even a half of a sentence to express a denial is nowhere near running into the problems of DUE/FALSEBALANCE, particularly if no RS actually publishes the denial and it comes from an SPS. In contrast, if we have multiple RSes that talk about how the public figure denied it and what they claimed actually happened, we can go into more detail about the denial per DUE. If the sources that cover this denial information in full is just SPS or weak RSes, then we simply acknowledge the denial and that's all we can readily include following PUBLICFIGURE/DUE/FALSEBALANCE. That's why MANDY is problematic is because it encourages editors to simply ignore any denial in favor of what RSes are claiming about the person, which often leads to further problems on that BLP article in regards to keeping an objective, impartial tone while still covering accusations and claims. Masem (t) 18:22, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

  Re: If the sources that cover this denial information in full is just SPS or weak RSes, then we simply acknowledge the denial - I think this is pretty far from the consensus interpretation of PUBLICFIGURE - we don't typically mention denials that are poorly sourced, and your suggestion that we should seems idiosyncratic, at best. Newimpartial (talk) 18:35, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

  Taking the stance that we should only include denials of BLP that appear in sources, and/or ignore denials expressed by the BLP in BLPSPS-type sources is against the principle of neutrality as that means we are writing to only consider one side of a conflict, even if that is a very lopsided coverage in considering weight. In any conflict that has yet to be resolved, we should be briefly expressing the stance if each side before delving into the detail of arguments that would the otherwise follow DUE and FAKSEBALANCE. Masem (t) 18:45, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

  I understand that this is your personal view, but it doesn't reflect community sentiment about the relevant policies (WP:V, NPOV and BLP). Newimpartial (talk) 19:05, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

  Is the following NPOV according to the "stance of each" side standard: Trump says "there are very fine people on both sides" Consensus of mainstream comment says "Trump's remarks were white supremacist". Now, does Trump get a free throw to deny the comment was supremacist? If so do we add commentators' response, saying Trump always deflects and denies the obvious? What should we include in the article? Should we include all the above and then also Republicans saying Trump's being scolded by a horde of socialists? Etc. Anyway, MANDY is not a prescription, it's just shorthand for a due weight argument, I think. NPOV always applies everywhere. SPECIFICO talk 22:49, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

  My opinion here is basically SPECIFICO's last line: MANDY is not a contradiction of WP:PUBLICFIGURE, it's an interpretation of WP:PUBLICFIGURE, and specifically that when WP:PUBLICFIGURE says that it's important to [adhere] to appropriate due weight of all sources covering the subject and [avoid] false balance, that means that if a denial lacks WP:WEIGHT or is obviously overridden by overwhelming sourcing to the contrary, we shouldn't feel the need to mention it just because it comes from the subject. Loki (talk) 04:37, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

  Ultimately, per WP:V and WP:NPOV, what we say about subjects must always be based on what the reliable sources say about them, with weight and focus reflective of those sources. WP:BLP can raise our RS standards and generally push ambiguous situations towards caution, but it cannot completely override core policy; all encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic - that is not subject to consensus. That means that if your argument is that we can include a denial that is completely unrepresented in reliable sources, or can include a denial in a way that would be unambiguously disproportionate, then no, that's impossible (in the sense that it contravenes core policy and cannot be done regardless of consensus.) Of course, there's a lot of asterisks here - there's a huge amount of leeway to argue over what sources are reliable in what contexts, or what and when something is proportionate. You could even try to make the argument that it is always proportionate, though I think that that would be a tall climb and you'd be stuck arguing it again in individual cases. But you cannot argue (as, by my reading, you are here) that we can completely ignore proportionality or the requirement to use a source that is, in some way, reliable, since those are fundamental parts of NPOV - no matter how badly you feel that a subject is being wronged, no matter how fiercely you may personally feel that the mainstream media is biased against them, and no matter how passionately you want to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS to protect them, we are constrained to what the sources actually say. BLP tells us to be extremely cautious when handling sources for such situations, which gives you a great deal of leeway within the constraints of RS and due weight; but it does not say that we can simply substitute them for WP:OR or our personal feelings. That is why DUE/FALSEBALANCE are - and will always be - requirements even for including denials; it means that an argument that a denial is undue or that the sourcing for it does not pass WP:RS will always be a valid argument to exclude. Even if your interpretation of WP:PUBLICFIGURE were correct, a single sentence aside in WP:BLP cannot override the core principle of WP:NPOV. --Aquillion (talk) 22:24, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Endwise's concerns are valid. MANDY is often used to avoid including denials of wrong doing which almost always goes against the BLP idea of erring on the side of caution/giving the subject the benefit of at least a defense. It really is a useless essay other than giving people who want to remove content a vail of justification to do so. The MANDY proponents are correct to claim that it doesn't inherently conflict with PUBLICFIGURE etc but the way it is sometimes/often used can. As editors out own biases might blind us to thinking we are covering a story fairly when we say, "that is the denial of a guilty person" but what if we are wrong? What if circumstances aren't black and white even when presented as so? It never harms the reader to include the denial. It may harm the article subject to deny inclusion. That should be an easy choice. Springee (talk) 20:18, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

It can harm (=misinform) the reader to include a denial for the same reason that false balance can misinform readers. You can't properly depict the relative weight of "these hundred and fifty sources say Richard Spencer is a white supremacist" vs "he says nuh uh" without making the article extremely long and unwieldy. So, WP:NPOV says don't try. For such extreme minority positions, it's less informative to include them at all.

(I agree that MANDY can be and sometimes is used in an incorrect way, and I'd support the existence of a counter-essay. I already fixed the nutshell a long time ago to clarify myths about what this essay actually means or doesn't mean.) Loki (talk) 18:14, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Poor examples?

Aside from the issue of whether this article is necessary or helpful, it strikes me that the examples of white nationalists and "anti-vaxxers"—and perhaps even antisemites—are poor choices for two reasons:

1. Most importantly, what's the evidence that "very few" of either group "are prepared to go on record and own their positions"? Based on the definitions of at least the first two in their respective Wikipedia articles, it would seem the opposite is true. For example: "White nationalists say they seek to ensure the survival of the white race, and the cultures of historically white states." And it certainly appears to me that there are no small number of anti-vaccination types who are outspoken about their beliefs. I'm also unclear on what exactly it means for one to have a "position" that one denies.

2. The terms are politically charged and somewhat nebulous—and given that there is disagreement about the meaning and application of them, whether a given person should be so-characterized is often a subjective question. It would seem more prudent (and perhaps even more NPOV, too) for us to use more obvious, objective examples.

My suggestion would be to use examples similar to that of Lord Astor, who denied an affair—something clearly either true or false, which most people who engage in will deny. And I don't see any reason to extrapolate from an action (having an affair), to a characterization (a bigot)—again, to do so seems unnecessarily subjective. I think the examples of fraud and infidelity are terrific, and if more are needed, I'm sure we can come up with some that are suitably neutral and clear-cut.

Look forward to everyone's input—thanks in advance! ElleTheBelle 21:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Plenty of people admit to infidelity. Plenty of people admit to fraud.--Jack Upland (talk) 00:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@User talk:Jack Upland I agree with User:Ekpyros because most politicians won't (as both are a vote looser in the Anglosphere), and no one working in the financial industry would admit to fraud as they would loose their credibility and probably licence to trade. — PBS (talk) 20:21, 3 September 2022 (UTC)