Reddit can be really hit or miss, but I’m glad subredditdrama and /r/wikipedia aren’t buying TWG’s bullshit. Well, some of the /r/wikipedia assume TWG is merely butthurt over losing edit wars as opposed to a more advanced agenda, but that is fair of them.
I’m noticing that people who criticize him on that subreddit are being downvoted, while he’s being upvoted.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, as part of his prodigious self-promotion of this overlong and tendentious screed, he’s steered some of his more sympathetic followers to some of these forums.
It occurs to me that, intentionally or not, he’s probably steering TESCREAL types to Wikipedia itself as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if accounts were coming out of the woodwork to post multi-kiloword screeds about Wikipedia being soooo unfairrrr…
Trace RTs someone hoping aloud that his nonsense gets laundered by an RS, then breathlessly reports on his literal transparent brigade getting unbanned using a very strained appeal to WP:AGF, so I am starting to get a picture of his end-goal.
Annoying that TWG is also doing the slimy thing which is so common in internet trolling nowadays. The text says ‘im not a reliable source’ the subtext (or well with this retweet, text) says ‘make my post a reliable source and attack David’.
(What makes this even worse is that the weird far rightwingers from themotte see all leftwingers as behaving like this, and the, to them, super leftwing TWG is feeding into their stereotypes. Well done on feeding the far right propaganda machine).
Saw somebody on r/ssc go ‘why do they always focus on roko’s basilisk and never any of the more important things like Yuds lack of qualifications or academic rigor’ and saw them also lol that we here apparently didn’t want to spend the 2hs to read it (and well that woulds also require 4h+ to then respond about all the various weird inaccuracies). Which is was an amusing few posts. Yeah, we don’t have the energy/desire to read all those posts, but neither do you as Yuds lack of qualifications etc comes up quite often.
Yeah mentioned it does come up quite often, but rokos basilisk just is funnier.
E: flannyo (used to post in sneerclub) is in that thread and actually arguing with people and pushing back on the post a bit. Which isn’t going super badly compared to if you tried something like that on themotte vs r/ssc.
Huh. OK, so I boiled away more of my precious time on this plane of reality chasing links and reading old Wikipedia arguments instead of doing something healthy, like discovering a new genre of porn. Anyway, one of TW’s complaints is that “outlets like PinkNews […] are treated as reliable despite long histories of misconduct”. He points to a discussion thread where PinkNews was supposedly deemed to be terrible, horrible, no good and very bad despite David Gerard saying it was basically fine. But the analysis proving that PinkNews is terrible, horrible, etc., is itself weirdly bad. I mean, take a look at this:
Another example of a dodgy source is at is [11]. where the claim “Queer-coding has affected many fictional villains. These evil characters are generally either shown as flamboyant and overly dramatic, like Disney characters Scar and Hades, or written as having a deep fixation on the main character, like Jafar, Kim Possible villain Shego and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. In the past few decades, Disney fans have seen Governor Ratcliffe and Professor Ratigan—as well as Scar, Jafar and Hades—being portrayed as queer characters.” The source for this claim? A Twitter tweet by “Jay, a self-described ‘transmasc enby’ who uses they/he pronouns”.
But the story doesn’t actually use that “Twitter tweet” as the source. It just springboards from a viral tweet to talking about the larger picture. The tweet didn’t say any of the specifics that PinkNews supposedly sourced to it. And the claim that Disney villains have been queer-coded is … not exactly shocking. I mean, just look up any of the authors that James Somerton plagiarized.
Or consider this article,[12] with the breathless headline “Star Trek: Picard season finale sees iconic character finally come out as queer, inspiring a million new fan fictions. The Star Trek: Picard season finale has confirmed a same-sex romance for iconic character Seven of Nine, and fans are thrilled.” The evidence? Two characters holding hands. In a series that already had more than one openly gay couple and thus no real reason to be ambiguous.
Well, actually, Star Trek: Picard did not “already” have “more than one openly gay couple”. Star Trek: Discovery had one, and the Kelvin timeline movies had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it implication of one. The PinkNews article didn’t just go aflutter over two characters holding hands, but also pointed to an interview with showrunner Michael Chabon:
There are hints that both Seven and Raffi are bisexual.
Oh yes. […] With a character like Raffi, to the extend we imagined her history in a fair amount of detail, her history included all kinds of sexual partners. There’s a father of her child, but that was far from her only sexual or life partner. She’s had relationships with all kind of people. If it was ever to come up, it was always going to be organic. […] Same thing with Seven of Nine, having to catch up after such along absence from the human race. If you think about that, it almost seems unnatural that she wouldn’t’ have had partners of other genders. It seems clear she would have. So even if we didn’t see that on Voyager, years have passed. In that time, she’s continued to explore the spectrum of human relationships in a broader way. So in our show, there are echos and implications of that.
I won’t go to bat for PinkNews being good, but this investigation of what’s wrong with it is itself irritatingly flawed and superficial. As, apparently, somebody at Wikipedia has already pointed out.
Moreover, when TW makes the flat statement, “Wikipedia currently treats PinkNews as a Reliable Source”, he conveniently elides the caveats that naturally come when people who LARP at building an encyclopedia try to summarize the results of their own arguments:
There is rough consensus that PinkNews is *generally( reliable for factual reporting, but additional considerations may apply and caution should be used. Most of those who commented on PinkNews’ reliability for statements about a person’s sexuality said that such claims had to be based on direct quotes from the subject.
So, yeah, just because the table puts it in green doesn’t mean that editors will use it uncritically.
Oh, and look, a lie by omission!
Between 2019 and 2020, Gerard repeatedly fought to make the “Known for” box on Eich’s page mention opposition to same-sex marriage and avoid any mention of Eich’s projects beyond JavaScript.<sup>14</sup> After all, Gerard pointed out as he added a PinkNews reference to the claim—it was in a Reliable Source.
I wonder why they take issue specifically with articles about LGBTQ+, has to be a complete coincidence and in no way a reflection of their bigotry, huh
lol @ r/subredditdrama
Reddit can be really hit or miss, but I’m glad subredditdrama and /r/wikipedia aren’t buying TWG’s bullshit. Well, some of the /r/wikipedia assume TWG is merely butthurt over losing edit wars as opposed to a more advanced agenda, but that is fair of them.
I’m noticing that people who criticize him on that subreddit are being downvoted, while he’s being upvoted.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, as part of his prodigious self-promotion of this overlong and tendentious screed, he’s steered some of his more sympathetic followers to some of these forums.
Actually it’s the wikipedia subreddit thread I meant to refer to.
It occurs to me that, intentionally or not, he’s probably steering TESCREAL types to Wikipedia itself as well. I wouldn’t be surprised if accounts were coming out of the woodwork to post multi-kiloword screeds about Wikipedia being soooo unfairrrr…
as, indeed, has started to happen https://xcancel.com/thezahima/status/1811495742894408065
literal brigading
hopefully this gets shut down hard at all the places they try to fuck with. we’ve already had 2 cases too many of jonringer this year
Trace RTs someone hoping aloud that his nonsense gets laundered by an RS, then breathlessly reports on his literal transparent brigade getting unbanned using a very strained appeal to WP:AGF, so I am starting to get a picture of his end-goal.
it’s good the rats can’t help themselves but to brag about what they’re doing – in at least three different public places.
Annoying that TWG is also doing the slimy thing which is so common in internet trolling nowadays. The text says ‘im not a reliable source’ the subtext (or well with this retweet, text) says ‘make my post a reliable source and attack David’.
(What makes this even worse is that the weird far rightwingers from themotte see all leftwingers as behaving like this, and the, to them, super leftwing TWG is feeding into their stereotypes. Well done on feeding the far right propaganda machine).
His replies have gone up in upvotes substantially since yesterday, so it looks like a bit of light brigading is going on.
He is transparently trying very very hard to start a gamergate and it’s pathetic.
It’s like these people are enforcing a facade of polite tone and measuredness as a way to launder literal intellectual terrorism! Dang!
Saw somebody on r/ssc go ‘why do they always focus on roko’s basilisk and never any of the more important things like Yuds lack of qualifications or academic rigor’ and saw them also lol that we here apparently didn’t want to spend the 2hs to read it (and well that woulds also require 4h+ to then respond about all the various weird inaccuracies). Which is was an amusing few posts. Yeah, we don’t have the energy/desire to read all those posts, but neither do you as Yuds lack of qualifications etc comes up quite often.
They want sneers about Yud’s lack of qualifications? Fine:
Noncy prig who never went to high school founded a cult for people who can’t leave it behind! How’s about that, eh?
Yeah mentioned it does come up quite often, but rokos basilisk just is funnier.
E: flannyo (used to post in sneerclub) is in that thread and actually arguing with people and pushing back on the post a bit. Which isn’t going super badly compared to if you tried something like that on themotte vs r/ssc.
Huh. OK, so I boiled away more of my precious time on this plane of reality chasing links and reading old Wikipedia arguments instead of doing something healthy, like discovering a new genre of porn. Anyway, one of TW’s complaints is that “outlets like PinkNews […] are treated as reliable despite long histories of misconduct”. He points to a discussion thread where PinkNews was supposedly deemed to be terrible, horrible, no good and very bad despite David Gerard saying it was basically fine. But the analysis proving that PinkNews is terrible, horrible, etc., is itself weirdly bad. I mean, take a look at this:
But the story doesn’t actually use that “Twitter tweet” as the source. It just springboards from a viral tweet to talking about the larger picture. The tweet didn’t say any of the specifics that PinkNews supposedly sourced to it. And the claim that Disney villains have been queer-coded is … not exactly shocking. I mean, just look up any of the authors that James Somerton plagiarized.
Well, actually, Star Trek: Picard did not “already” have “more than one openly gay couple”. Star Trek: Discovery had one, and the Kelvin timeline movies had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it implication of one. The PinkNews article didn’t just go aflutter over two characters holding hands, but also pointed to an interview with showrunner Michael Chabon:
And it’s not like the article was actually wrong, was it? Jeri Ryan said that Seven is “canonically bi”, and the Seven/Raffi romance went on to become a whole thing.
I won’t go to bat for PinkNews being good, but this investigation of what’s wrong with it is itself irritatingly flawed and superficial. As, apparently, somebody at Wikipedia has already pointed out.
Moreover, when TW makes the flat statement, “Wikipedia currently treats PinkNews as a Reliable Source”, he conveniently elides the caveats that naturally come when people who LARP at building an encyclopedia try to summarize the results of their own arguments:
So, yeah, just because the table puts it in green doesn’t mean that editors will use it uncritically.
Oh, and look, a lie by omission!
He cited Reuters too.
I wonder why they take issue specifically with articles about LGBTQ+, has to be a complete coincidence and in no way a reflection of their bigotry, huh