RationalWiki talk:All things in moderation

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Smith/Kane drama
It was my former firm opinion that the Emily Willoughby article should be kept but having seen the amount of disruption, conspiracy theories, user misinformation and nonsense written about the article on and off site, I think it might be worth-wile to delete the Emily Willoughby and Jonathan Kane articles. I ported some information onto the Kane article from the Willoughby article but this Kane person doesn't want his article.

Another issue, is the boar account that created the Emily Willoughby article. Smith has emailed me and told me the account is not him and he has filed a lawsuit against the institute that are claiming he owns that account. I am not convinced that the account was ever him. I don't think that account should be blocked as a Smith sock as there is no evidence who owns it.

My suggestion is to delete the Willoughby/Kane article. Smith and Kane should also be banned from this website if they appear on any other accounts. Johns (talk) 17:52, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * We should not be bullied into deleting our articles. A somebody. (talk) 17:55, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This is an idiotic post that only serves to make the trolls believe they are succeeding in drawing our attention. 18:09, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Didn't this Smith guy get banned in a coop a few years ago? Arcadium Trancefer (talk) 18:38, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, RationalWiki:Chicken coop/Archive110. Bongolian (talk) 19:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I oppose deleting the page on the basis that it's attracting trolls (we've had worse, and we can always protect the page if it gets bad). Deleting the page on that basis will only attract others to get their pages deleted on the threat of long-term trolling. Willoughby is missional based on her being a former YEC who wrote a book opposing, creationism and for racialism. Bongolian (talk) 18:58, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * All this "what others want or don't want" is irrelevant. The article should stand on its own merits or not. It should neither be kept nor deleted based on how happy/unhappy some people or groups are with it.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 19:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The Willougby article probably need a rewrite (too much wiki drama). However, the Kane article is better balanced, it is still too Wikidrama for my taste, but not so bad. I agree with Bongolian, the most notable thing about both is their book criticizing YEC from two people who were former YECs. With this information, I could filter things better (eg there are other better known Jonathan Kanes such as the Swans drummer) and get plenty of references that shows that this book was reasonably notable and certainly mission oriented. The problem is, as long as dueling asshole trolls are engaged in troll battle, this can't be done in good faith - I also agree that bullies should not drive edits. It's not like the Wikidrama isn't notable enough to mention at all, and it's easy to find blog articles by Cain defending IQ and hereditarianism, so these positions are indeed worth mentioning. BobJohnson (talk) 20:02, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree. And this discussion would be better on the talk pages.Bob"Life is short and (insert adjective)" 07:47, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * We have indeed had it much worse in the past from people who didn't like the articles about them. We don't delete them just because they don't like them. We don't bow to trolls. And you can't trust Oliver D. Smith as far as you can throw him. The sockpuppeting little turd loved taking the credit for articles he didn't create when it suited him and denying creating articles he had created when it suited him. Pay no attention to him. Spud (talk) 11:13, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to see there's a consensus here that the articles need to be modified to reduce the emphasis on Wikipedia drama, and to add more detail about our anti-creationism work. However, nobody seems to actually be doing that, so sometime in the near future I'm hoping to make a few of the necessary changes in the article about myself. I would much rather this be done by someone else, but in light of the discussion above indicating that it needs to be done, I think it's better for me to do it than for it to not happen at all.


 * Everyone else, you're welcome to get to this before I do. The Smith ipsocks seem to have gone away now, so there likely won't be any more bickering between him and me to get in the way of improving the article. --Tetrapteryx (talk) 09:20, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I am going to be super honest with you again, I do not give a singular damn about your anti-creationism. A somebody. (talk) 18:17, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * So far, so good. The added part to your article looks fine. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 21:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why we are even entertaining this. We should only care if the articles in question are factually accurate and relevant to our mission. I don't think we should be putting too much effort into keeping things "balanced" to the satisfaction of the article's subjects. I think that sets a bad precedent as it may leave our audience confused about our community's feelings towards people who promote harmful pseudoscience when we present them as if they have both "good" and "bad" sides.  I am much more concerned about the bullshit people peddle then the moments they are a stopped clock. Being "anti-creationist" should not be something we treat as novel and worth as much attention as someone being a promotor of racist pseudoscience. This sets a pretty low bar about the acceptability of someone's views. I wouldn't want us adding to every grifter's ratwiki page how they dunked on flat earthers for a period of time; as if believing in a globe earth is not utterly normal and trivial. You believe in evolution? Congratulations on having basic scientific literacy. - Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 22:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Your point is a bit contradictory, and I think this is a false dilemma. Firstly, allowing mentions of positive stuff relevant to our mission alongside negative stuff relevant to our mission in no way goes against your, "We should only care if the articles in question are factually accurate and relevant to our mission.". Secondly, there is a distinction to be made between balance and inclusion to our own standards (per discussion and consensus) and to the personal standards of the people described in articles; a partial agreement between the two in the midst of a disagreement does not imply having to bend backwards towards a full agreement. Thirdly, mainspace articles do not exist primarily to express one feeling each, and ideally ideas, and straightening out what is, should be cared about more than the people, whether the people are agreeable or disagreeable. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 00:11, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I am trying to say that “moral balance” for the satisfaction of the subjects being written about can undermine our missional aims and mere factual accuracy. Not every “praisable” skeptical thing a person does needs substantial focus. We are about documenting crank ideas, and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement,  with a touch of exploring authoritarianism, fundamentalism, etc. We also communicate science, and topics relevant to critical thinking as all scientifically skeptical communities tend to do. That is something we should do, though not explicit in our 4 main goals. There is a problem though when the pseudoscientific promoters (especially hateful ones) are granted significant influence to how they are presented. We aren’t talking a mere character flaw here, this isn’t pseudoscience as asinine or harmlessly silly as flat earth. We shouldn’t be treating racialism, and hereditarianism as if they mere “controversies” of a man who promotes anti-creationism.  This is pseudoscience we need to refute, that is our main goal, that should be our main focus. This can easily be undermined if the significance of the pseudoscientific claims are downplayed in praise of some relatively minor skeptical virtues. Creationism is a joke, its not particularly praisworthy to reject it, in so much, it is simply absurd to believe in it. Only Sort of Dumb (talk) 00:49, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The argument others were making here and elsewhere is that if it weren't for my anti-creationism work, I simply wouldn't be notable enough for RationalWiki to cover at all. The "Hereditarianism" section of the article includes a quote showing that I argued against calling Rushton a racist on Wikipedia fourteen years ago (the diff is from 2009). That comment isn't even reflective of my current opinions. And as I explained on the article's talk page, the "Quillette" section is based entirely on a misrepresentation of the Wikipediocracy thread that's cited there; nobody in that thread (or anywhere else, aside from on RationalWiki pages) is arguing that I and Shuichi Tezuka are the same person.


 * The one thing that does make me notable is the fact that I'm a former creationist who's become a critic of creationism. That's basically the entire reason the article was allowed to be recreated, despite a previous consensus that it should stay deleted as an attack page created as part of the Smith drama. My understanding of the consensus is that, since my anti-creationism work is what makes me notable enough to be the subject of an article, the contents of the article ought to reflect that. --Tetrapteryx (talk) 02:44, 23 July 2023 (UTC)


 * The thing that makes you notable is inclusion in the Racialism categories. No one gives too much of a shit about the wikipedia drama or whether or not you are Shuichi Tezuka, and certainly, everyone in the fucking universe is tired of the smith drama. The article bearing your name reflects the consensus of the editors here and the sources they use. This will evolve over time, but this is normal. Get used to it. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 04:07, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

UTC)
 * Racialism, “human biodiversity”, “race realism”, or whatever people want to call it is nothing more than retarded pseudoscience that only exists to justify evil. Its proponents are either morons or bad people, and they deserve that to be their primary legacy. 05:20, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

If you're an ex-racist and an ex-creationist without much of a media presence, then there probably shouldn't be a RationalWiki article about you at all. I'll warn you that any attempt to turn that article into a puff piece and use it for self-promotion will not be tolerated. Spud (talk) 08:54, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Just cover Kane's anti-creationist activities in a stopped clock section of his article. Carthage (talk) 11:50, 23 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The Emily Willoughby has been updated and will be kept. I believe the Jonathan Kane article should be deleted. I apologize for re-creating the article from a redirect. It's probably best to flush the article and just redirect it to the Willoughby one. The reason I re-created it was because I was trying to expand on Quillette authors. It's obvious to me that Shuichi Tezuka is Kane (apart from writing in Quillette he's also published an anti-creationist paper citing Emily Willoughby research ) but he doesn't want to be identified under his pseudonyms. Per this conversation, it's likely that Kane was also the Wikipedia user Gardenofaleph because he has been promoting a weird theory on Wikipedia and RationalWiki that an account NightHeron is Emil Kirkegaard. I agree with Cosmikdebris I don't think anyone here cares about this Wikipedia wars drama. In regard to the old consensus about deleting the Kane article it should be discarded because D/EK were the same person and a personal friend of Kane on discord. So there is conflict of interest and socking there. I will open up a new deletion request for Kane's article. Johns (talk) 16:47, 23 July 2023 (UTC)