Talk:Dinesh D'Souza/Archive 9

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Far-right claim is disputed and biased - should be removed from the lead

The following discussion 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.

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As a leftist, I got quite shocked when I saw we add the label Far-Right To the lead of articles like Dinesh Dsouza article, but we don't have the same approach to the article of an actual far-left, such as Noam Chomsky. Being an anarchist (anarcho-syndicalism), Chomsky is self-evidently a far-left. He approved his ideology, but Dsouza didn't. He rejected the idea of being far-right, argued against it. Also all sources which claim he is far-right, actually are biased as hell toward right-wing activists and lean to far-left (including the Atlantic). These sources aren't by any means valid in this particular situation, as they have political self-interest against Dinesh Dsouza and right-wing politics. According to that logic I will remove, far-right claim from the lead, and will add it to another lower section as claim from his critiques (who are mostly leftist, far-left and anti-right-wing). If this instruction is not allowed, it will be problematic in terms of edit wars, because we have no choice to add such thing like far-right/far-left to the lead of other articles including Noam Chomsky (as being Far-Left is self-evident for him). So far-right claim is biased, defamatory, disputed and consequently should be removed from the lead. Thank you very much. The Stray Dog Talk Page 15:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

@TheStrayDog: If you would like to discuss changes to Noam Chomsky, please do so at Talk:Noam Chomsky. Please see WP:OTHERCONTENT.

If you have reliable sources that refute the descriptor of D'Souza as far-right, please provide them. But the sources that currently describe him as far-right are adequate. I'm not sure why you're pointing to The Atlantic, as that source does not describe him as far right.

As for If this instruction is not allowed, it will be problematic in terms of edit wars, because we have no choice to add such thing like far-right/far-left to the lead of other articles including Noam Chomsky (as being Far-Left is self-evident for him), I would recommend reviewing WP:POINT. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree with @TheStrayDog: there is an inconsistency in presentation of Wikipedia topics. I don't like slapping contentious labels onto article topics, especially in the lead, and especially when the label concerns ideology. All over Wikipedia whenever a label is used in Wikipedia's narrative voice, it stirs up debates on talk pages. The only policy I know of where it's permissible to apply a contentious label in Wikipedia's voice is WP:FRINGE topics (pseudoscience, alternative cures, paranormal stuff). Otherwise, we should use words that attribute the label to sources. We have no policy, not even WP:DUE that requires an article to put a contentious ideological label on a subject just because reliable sources choose to do so. We should be better than that. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

As a political commenter and occasional candidate, I think we have to provide some brief sense of his political leanings in the first sentence, and I don't think we should avoid the widely-used term for him in favor of a less accurate one simply because people complain on the talk page about it more. If the sourcing generally describe him as "conservative" or "right-wing" then that's a reasonable argument for using that term instead, but if the sourcing tends to describe him as far-right then I think we should too. So far TheStrayDog has not shown that, though (and I am not super familiar with the bulk of sourcing on D'Souza; this page is on my watchlist for some reason but I haven't actually contributed to it all that much). GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

"Also all sources which claim he is far-right, actually are biased as hell toward right-wing activists" So what? We don't disqualify opinionated sources. Per Biased_or_opinionated_sources:

• "Wikipedia articles are required to present a neutral point of view. However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject."
• "Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering." Dimadick (talk) 22:20, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Calling him 'far right' seems to be an opinion and suggests a political bias on the part of Wikipedia. Would it be appropriate for Wikipedia to use the term 'far left' in its articles? To suggest something is far to one side or the other would suggest that Wikipedia takes a political position from which to base other viewpoints from. Wikipedia should be neutral and avoid using such terms. With respect to sourcing it seems that using arbitrarily selected media outlets as sources to justify such a subjective label seems arbitrary and subjective.

It should also be noted that the term as defined by its own Wikipedia article states that it is defined as 'various ethnic supremacism'. What sources do you have that Dinesh D'Souza believes any such thing? He is Indian and he married someone that's partly from Venezuela so who exactly does he believe he is ethnically superior to and how? Sources? Throwing around these terms arbitrarily seems to diminish their original meaning and it seems that Wikipedia should be internally consistent with respect to terms that it uses to define someone and how it defines those terms. Perhaps the term itself needs to be redefined based on a more modern usage of the term but it would seem like the intended modern usage would be to associate people that don't meet the originally intended definition with those that do. Mainstream media is often about creating hyperbole and exaggerations because that's what gets more views and so it's not very unexpected when mainstream media sources misuse the term for viewers but Wikipedia should be more neutral and factual even if that is more boring and doesn't generate clicks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.113.121.45 (talk) 04:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles reflect what is published in reliable sources. Would it be appropriate for Wikipedia to use the term 'far left' in its articles? Sure, if reliable sources support it. You'll see that we do use this term in various articles. The sources supporting that D'Souza is far-right are cited inline. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:03, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, only 2 of the 6 cited sources for the initial statement actually say "far right" -- NBC News and Buzzfeed. (The Guardian headline no longer counts because WP:HEADLINES.) If they're biased then the WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV policy isn't being followed. But read above, this has been discussed more than once before. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:42, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

I suspect the lead sentence would benefit from a bundled citation that makes it clearer which source is supporting which statement... let me see about doing that. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:44, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

He is widely described as far-right by reliable sources, and there is absolutely no valid reason to remove that well-sourced descriptor from this article. --Tataral (talk) 01:02, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tataral: Could you specify which? I did look around for additional sourcing describing him as far right and didn't find a whole lot beyond the two sources in this article—mediocre-quality sources or sources referring to D'Souza being popular among the far right, mostly. It didn't seem like a widely-used descriptor to me, particularly when compared to the number of sources describing him as a conservative. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:27, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on the user to provide you more sources. She seems to have a fixation on labeling people/organizations as "far-right" based on flimsy sources: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], etc. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 02:50, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

That's more of an issue for a behavioral noticeboard than here, but they've already provided their sourcing. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

The Guardian described him as a "far-right provocateur and key figure in US culture wars"[7]; Business Insider called him a "far-right author and pundit"[8]; Mother Jones noted that "D'Souza has a long record of promoting far-right, racist conspiracy theories"[9], to name some examples other than the sources already included here. --Tataral (talk) 07:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

@Tataral: Thanks! Regarding The Guardian, there is a (fairly new) point in the RS policy, WP:HEADLINE, which specifies that News headlines are not a reliable source if the information in the headline is not explicitly supported in the body of the source. That is the case with this piece, which describes D'Souza as "far-right" in the headline only, but as "conservative" in the body. As for Business Insider and Mother Jones, they are not the strongest sources. There is no consensus for the reliability of BI (WP:RSP#Business Insider) and while Mother Jones is generally reliable, it is also one of the most left-leaning sources we use. In this case, it is also describing the conspiracy theories he promotes as far-right, rather than D'Souza himself, and while one could make the leap that people who promote far-right conspiracy theories are probably themselves far-right, that is a jump we shouldn't be making for contentious claims. In this case I would be inclined to go with the bulk of the strong RS, which describe him as conservative, and then add the Mother Jones source about his conspiracy theories (probably with attribution) to the article body. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:00, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

"Far-right" is questionable, but he is a very biased conservative and ideologue who seems unlikely to step down from his viewpoints. Btw, I consider myself to be rather leftist in most respects Jasper Heart Baron (talk) 06:44, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

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.