Talk:Controversial Reddit communities

Merger proposal

I propose that Michael Brutsch be merged into Controversial Reddit communities. I think that the content in the Michael Brutsch article can easily be explained in the context of Controversial Reddit Communities.

From the latest Michael Brutsch AFD discussion: "Keep and rename. This should be so obvious, as the article is about an incident, not a person. The incident is notable, and that's what this article is about."

Another said that "I would not be adverse to a separate conversation to rework the page to describe the event that led to the notoriety." One user noted that he is notable for "the controversy about him being doxxed by Gawker, the offensive subreddits he created (especially "jailbait", which got media attention even before he was doxxed), etc - and once he did a voluntary in-depth interview with CNN." All these things are relevant to this article and have been included.

Two others recommended a possible merge, though one specified a merge to the main Gawker and Reddit articles and the other did not specify where.

The main argument I saw against merging is that this article will focus more on the negative aspects of Michael Brutsch. If anything it has less emphasis on Brutsch outside of the circumstances of his outing. Narrowing down the discussion of the controversy surrounding controversial subreddits to the discussion of just one person doesn't make much sense, when you consider that dozens of moderators and tens of thousands of users contributed to the maintenance and content of these communities, and Brutsch hasn't been active in their maintenance for at least six months. Breadblade (talk) 20:21, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

This is just a typical WP:POVFORK and BLP coatrack as most of it is just negative information about Brutsch taken from the original article, cleansed of most of the material that would put him in a more favorable light.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 21:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• Many in the AfD argued for the notability of these controversial communities, and suggested a merge to an article about these communities, or the surrounding controversy. This is following through with that suggestion. Material that was removed in the move was generally non-notable, such as mundane information regarding Brutsch's career history and details about how he found the website. If bias is an issue, WP:COATRACK states that it is inappropriate to "even out the percentage of bias" by adding fluff, such as minute details of a subject's life. I don't see where this article is giving him an editorialized or unfair treatment, but if you see poorly-sourced contentious information about anyone on here or anywhere else it's your right to remove it. Breadblade (talk) 22:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• WP:BLP does not apply solely to unsourced or poorly-sourced contentious information. It is a policy that demands an overall stricter interpretation of our other content policies. You actually removed plenty more than what you mention and generally all of it being material that puts him in a less negative light.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• See WP:WINAC, this person's claim to notability comes directly from involvement in controversial subreddits. I would contend that most of the removed content was fluff, redundant or not particularly notable, the source article is quite long considering the subject matter. If you think there are glaring omissions, they can of course be added back in. Breadblade (talk) 23:07, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• You didn't remove anything that wouldn't be completely suitable in a bio. What you have done is created an article that is basically a pseduo-biography and focuses solely on the negative aspects of the living subject. It is ostensibly about controversial subreddits, but is basically all about him.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:37, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

After perusing Controversial Reddit communities, I would not be opposed to a merger with that page. That may actually be a good compromise. HillbillyGoat (talk) 04:34, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Creating an article that is ostensibly about something else but is really about Brutsch is just abusing BLP1E, which is not even a valid objection in this case, in order to violate BLP by excising any humanizing or positive material about the actual subject. Brutsch is notable in his own right and to diminish him to "jailbait guy" is far worse than having an article about him where we can at least treat him like a human being and not some object in a controversy.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:30, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

• In the event that we can't reach a consensus about what to do, then the status quo should obtain: Brutsch has an article under his own name. Ideally I'd prefer a consensus that saves face all round---but if the Devil's Advocate remains adamantly opposed to any kind of merger, then I would support the the Devil's Advocate's position and endorse the continued existence of the Brutsch article with its current content. For the reasons I stated during the AfD, I think that Brutsch fully deserves his Wikipedia article and I'm not minded to protect him by removing or merging it unless there's a genuine consensus in favour of that.—S Marshall T/C 19:12, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Link from Reddit

I've added a link to this article from Reddit. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:41, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Linked by Reddit

There was a recent influx of new/IP editors to the "Misogyny" section of this page following a post on reddit's /r/mensrights subforum. This page may attract similar bursts of activity over short periods of time if users from mentioned communities feel the need to weigh in on their portrayal on Wikipedia. Although we shouldn't WP:BITE the newcomers, they should be aware of their own biases, avoid WP:OR and ensure that their additions are properly cited. As such I'm not surprised that a lot of these recent changes were reverted, but it's possible that these influxes might lead to good edits in the future. Breadblade (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

We should also be wary not to over-diagnose OR, as often happens when people are simply reflecting what is written in the references and people misinterpret that as personal opinion. Ranze (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

It does beg the question - why do you always show up when wiki pages are linked to that sub? Countered (talk) 22:20, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

"Men's Rights Subforum" subsection

This section needs some changes to remain on topic and neutral. It received a flurry of edits after being posted on the forum it is critical of. Many of these edits misunderstand critical distinctions.

The websites are not called "Misogyny: The Sites" but rather the Southern Poverty Law Center report has that title.

This page and subsection should detail controversy. General information about the unrelated beliefs of the subforum, like what it thinks about child custody, is off topic unless there was a controversy about those beliefs. Additionally, the child custody mention was followed by two references that had no mention of the topic, and links to another that does not mention the subreddit.

It is incorrect to suggest the SPLC retracted its statements about the group. Rather, they clarified that they were not designating it a 'hate group', but did not retract any part of their earlier statements. Perhaps more context about this distinction is warranted, but that does not make the misogyny "previously" alleged, nor does it refute the descriptions in this subsection. This clarification was only to distinguish their misogyny watch list report from their official "hate group" list, the latter of which does not include the subreddit.

Finally, it is absurd and original to pretend that any place where there are examples of misogyny must also be a hate group.

Emarkcd (talk) 21:04, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Your edit was quite right. The material you removed was utterly ridiculous, off-topic, intended to promote the subreddit, and also included prohibited original analysis of reliable sources (clue phrases "without referencing why," "no citation," "there is a contradiction" etc.) Unrelatedly, but also in this section, I'm not sure Manboobz is considered a reliable source and we should perhaps wait until the information gets picked up elsewhere. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:41, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

The fact that you acknowledge in your post about your edits that this page "Is critical of" /r/mensrights is in fact confirmation of a non-neutral POV in the section regarding this subreddit (which was, previously, titled "misogyny", even though the subsection does not describe incidents of misogyny, but rather describes one specific sub-forum of Reddit.

The purpose of this page is, ostensibly at least, to describe controversies on Reddit. Not to make the argument that a certain subreddit is or is not misogynistic by nature. So I have cleaned up the language to make it more factually descriptive of the events/incidents being described, using more non-POV language.

While the section describing a doxing incident might have a place, the only source given is neither authoritative nor reliable, and so for the time being I've removed that section until a more factual and lexicographically inoffensive entry on the subject can replace it. Ironlion45 (talk) 05:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, it is the SPLC analysis (and not this page, which should merely report the controversy around their analysis) that I mean "is critical of" the forum.

Another reason the doxxing event should be removed: that is a controversy for the MensRights subreddit, but was apparently not much of a site-wide controversy, which makes it off topic topic of this page. A list of MensRights controversies would warrant its own page because (like manboobz) that is a more specific topic. Emarkcd (talk) 06:25, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Agreed on that doxxing incident, then. Ironlion45 (talk) 07:39, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The name of the page is "controversial Reddit communities", not "site wide controversy based on reddit communities". By your very definition - this page exists to fill the role of documenting any controversy around specific communities on reddit. The information that has been provided is sourced by multiple sources. I'm fine with the manboobz sources being removed - but I added them because the SPLC sources specifically referenced them. I don't think anyone has an issue with the daily dot being used so far, and they are also used. Countered (talk) 15:40, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Suicide Lawsuit Hoax

Someone added a description of this to the "Men's Rights Subforum" subsection. Since this incident has no clear connection to that topic, I'm going to assume this was done in error, and was intended to be a part of another subheading or a new subheading entirely. For now, I've removed that information, until someone with the ambition to do so (i.e. whoever added that bit in the first place) gets around to properly adding it wherever it should go. Ironlion45 (talk) 07:53, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

"Since this incident has no clear connection to that topic" according to who? Did you even bother to read the sources? Countered (talk) 15:11, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't feel strongly either way right now about removing or keeping it, but I think that this is somewhat less notable than the other two in the section. It was a hoax that took place on the forum, but I'm not sure if it had much of a broad impact based on the limited source material available on the topic. Breadblade (talk) 17:36, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

That's not all. Aside from that the only notable correlation between the hoaxer and the Men's Rights Subforum is that 'she' called herself a "mensrights sister" once (her topics were not from the subreddit at all), it's also hardly controversial at all (the sources all come from the same one site, and the articles' own ever-handy social media indicator prove they're not hot stuff), and the important line "implicating 2 regular users who gave out the information, and a moderator by the username "quanan"" isn't even in the sources! Either the paragraph is just horribly written and it actually is a major and well-reported issue, or it's simply not notable enough to begin with. Either way, I'm removing what we have now. 86.40.226.93 (talk) 19:30, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

You're right, that's my mistake about the moderator. I'm not sure where I read that now. As such, I've removed that part. Countered (talk) 19:43, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The sources are one thing, but the article does not really explain the connection. It seems a stretch to stick it with the men's rights forum topic. I am not familiar with the incident and after reading the section on it, I am still not informed about it as well. Ironlion45 (talk) 19:58, 21 August 2013 (UTC)