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RationalWiki:Articles for demotion

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There are 2 pages marked for demotion:

Some articles here are good. Like, really good. So good, you want others to know how good they are. Others were once really good, and now... not so much. If you believe an article is worthy or no longer worthy of a Silver or perhaps even Gold brainstar, you can place it on this page, where it will be promptly ignored carefully considered by the Mob.

The only rule we seem to agree upon is "Thou Shalt Use Common Sense", but in general...

  1. Add the {{Article for demotion}} (or just {{afdem}}) template to the top of the article you wish to demote
  2. Click on the relevant redlink at the top of the article's page, add {{subst:Template:Article for demotion discussion starter}} at top.
  3. Add {{RationalWiki:Articles for demotion/"ArticleName"}} to the top of this page
  4. Give the cabal (there isn’t one) enough time to recover from our hangovers come to a consensus.
  5. After the voting is more or less settled, move {{RationalWiki:Articles for demotion/"ArticleName"}} to a proper place in the vault, and add the result to the title.
  6. Remove the template from the article itself. If the article has been approved for demotions, you may have the dishonors.

In addition, keep in mind that for a Gold Brainstar, you will need to have a Cover Story page prepared. This is because pages with a Gold Brainstar are added to the featured article selection on the Main Page. Meanwhile, adding or removing a bronze brainstar can be done unilaterally and you don't need to nominate an article to do so.

And don't forget to subscribe. This will allow you to see when a new article for demotion is added.

To judge whether an article is suitable for demotion, see: Article rating.

2021 U.S. coup attempt | Result: ?[edit]

2021 U.S. coup attempt (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View discussion)

Proposal[edit]

  1. This important article is a bit of a mess. It is also a bit outdated, has some foul language (which arguably counts as snark), direct Twitter links, and even bare links. Unless someone fixes it, I think we should promote it to bronze. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 13:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC)
    Is snark not allowed in high-quality pages? ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 03:07, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  2. Antares (talk) 03:01, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  3. KaDaShOvA (talk) 22:35, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Status quo[edit]

  1. I fixed the links. As far as updating, I see the outline as:
    • Total number of convictions, with date of last known J6 arrest,
    • 2024 election results
    • Threats against J6 committee and prosecutors by Trump and Kash Patel
    • Biden's rather limited scope of pardons for J6 committed and prosecutors
    • Jack Smith's wrapping up of the prosecution against Trump's coup attempt
    • Trump's promise to pardon the "non-violent" convicted coup participants, followed by him pardoning them and all the violent ones.
    • List of coup participants subsequently arrested or killed for doing more violent shit (Tarrio, that asshole in Iowa, others?)
    • Senate Republican rubber stamping of Patel and election deniers during confirmation hearings
    Anything I missed? Bongolian (talk) 18:50, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    Don't forget the assholes arrested for child sexual abuse violations soon after being pardoned. Antares (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    I don't think I had read about them, but worth including. Bongolian (talk) 19:35, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising given the QAnon baseless claims of child sex abuse conspiracies, and the psychologically projective tendencies of the whole MAGA movement ("Given the blanket pardon for his role in the riot, his lawyer may argue that the child pornography the police found cannot be used in court, as it is connected to January 6.").[1] Bongolian (talk) 19:41, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Goat[edit]

Technocracy | Result: ?[edit]

Technocracy (edit|talk|history|protect|delete|links|watch|logs) – (View discussion)

Proposal[edit]

  1. Well-referenced, well-written, missional, detailed without being too long and much different to what WP offers (if I don't say so myself), I think it's a decent example of what a RW main space should look like. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
    So, it currently has no brainstar. You're proposing demotion to silver then? Bongolian (talk) 20:26, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
    I fixed that. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 21:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
  2. I don't have any issue with the article's content and approve this proposal. I'm not quite sure that I like the massive use (overuse?) of single quotes instead of double quotes, though. At least the use is consistent. —cosmikdebris talk stalk 16:33, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
    Article is written in British English, and we use single quote marks as the primary. However, I know I have a tendency to over-quote things and so won't object if anyone does a quick tone-down. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:58, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
  3. It's good. I wish it had more images though. GeeJayKWhere all evil dwells Where every lie is true 16:49, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
    I've quickly hunted Wikimedia and found poster-pics for the other three variants. KarmaPolice (talk) 16:58, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
  4. I like it. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 23:23, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
  5. Antares (talk) 03:00, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
  6. KaDaShOvA (talk) 22:34, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

Status quo[edit]

  1. I've read through the whole article and I've done most of the cleanup work that it needed, but the lengthy Critique section is entirely missing citations. This should be fixed before the article gets demotion. Bongolian (talk) 23:52, 1 March 2025 (UTC)
    Main answer: there isn't that many and the ones which there were are not the sorts which are easily ref-able; the section is a synthesis of an article on the Boston Review (that I linked below) as well as Quillette, https://Foreign Policy and Radicalxchange.org (which I didn't). As well as both mainstream sources (like Investopedia) which I felt would be an insult to the intelligence to cite.
    I will also point out there are other Silver articles where there's gobs of text with zero refs; for example libertarianism. KarmaPolice (talk) 00:40, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    What makes these references difficult to ref? ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 00:50, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    Well for starters, I'd be reffing the same article over a dozen times. Secondly, some of the conclusions are a synthesis of two or more sources where I ended up weighing up their arguments. Thirdly (and most controversial) is that the 'Critique' section is veering closeish to being deemed as original research as I took my own knowledge of the subject-matter (including my studies of New Deal etc back at school) to provide a précis of the most common criticisms/problems. Lastly, the critique section is 'opinion' by everyone involved rather than actual evidence or facts and the points made don't suddenly stronger by a few refs.
    In this case, I feel perhaps the best way to solve this issue would be to add a few more well-written critique links to the 'external links' section at the bottom. KarmaPolice (talk) 01:07, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    I think it's important to note that RationalWiki allows for original research, so I do agree it isn't that big of a deal when combined with your other points about it being a mostly opiniated section. Though I've also seen sources being repeated before in many RW and WP articles, so I don't think the first point is much of a problem. ミ★ LunaAHHHHH 01:29, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    I also explicitly say at the start of that section that below was subjective; though I suppose this Miranda Warning can be made more explicit. As for reffing - while you are right the idea mildly annoys the pedant within me because the arguments made shouldn't instantly become more credible because another essay said similar. I did toy with the idea with reffing the evidence behind the points but they are mainly so bloody obvious I thought they weren't needed to be reffed - like pointing out 'private companies are not democracies' and 'whatever system you have, someone somewhere will have to make subjective decisions'. KarmaPolice (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    Apart from citing in text, if you want to clarify what the writing is derived from or how you've connected the dots in original research, you could add the citations inside one or more little notes you write to explain how the sources relate to the whole. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 15:50, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    It's not unreasonable to cite a single article multiple times (as has been done elsewhere) as can be done with the "name=" option in the ref command. I agree something like a footnote about the synthesis with an important citation or two would do the trick (citations can be embedded in the efn template, so I have changed the ref notes to efn for consistency if you decide to go that route). Bongolian (talk) 18:16, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
    I've been a bit snowed under by RL for a bit. I'll see what I can do to improve [either directly or indirectly] the refs of the Critique section. KarmaPolice (talk) 18:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Goat[edit]

  • Something got borked and this demotion proposal does not appear on the list of articles for demotion page (RationalWiki:Articles_for_demotion). Bongolian (talk) 19:01, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
    I suspect the issue lies between my monitor and seat. I tried but it just didn't seem to work out right... KarmaPolice (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2025 (UTC)
    OK, I purged the page, and it appears now. Might have been my fault too. Bongolian (talk) 20:16, 27 February 2025 (UTC)