When we last left off, The Federalist had written about me being a childless progressive trying to censor things Neil deGrasse Tyson said about George W. Bush. Today, Chicks on the Right is complaining about me nominating their article for deletion.
Again. Here we are with people not understanding how Wikipedia works.
Sounds like The Federalist pegged you pretty well, Zero, but they forgot to mention that you’re a cosplaying burlesque photographer. His bad, I guess.
Let’s get into Zero Serenity’s Wikipedia lesson, shall we?
First, he offers this official definition:
And then he proceeds to explain aaall the ways that we don’t meet that definition:
CotR has failed on all major fronts:
Significant Coverage: The number of articles about the subject I could find was one, from USA Today. This doesn’t pass.
Reliable: Most of the articles citations are their appearances on Conservative media: Fox News, Newsmax, NRATV and soforth. They also have a smattering of appearances on CNN. Reliable news coverage? Also doesn’t pass since these aren’t about them.
Secondary Sourcing: Again, the closest thing is that USA Today article, but its reads like a puff piece. Doesn’t pass.
Independent of the subject: Eh. USA Today is independent and I’m not too interested in trying to find a connection between CotR and Dana Hunsinger Benbow of The Indianapolis Star. The whole thing is an interview though, so, doesn’t pass.
Presumed: In what is probably the hardest sell, this is mostly opinion. Like, are these people as well known as, say, Charlie Kirk (TPUSA has an article, and his section is bigger than the entire CotR article), Ben Shapiro, or Candace Owens? So this one doesn’t pass in my mind.
Zero Serenity is just flat wrong on so much of this, it’s almost mind-blowing that he’s entrusted to make any kind of judgment call about articles being deleted at all.
First of all, USA Today was one NEWSPAPER article. But that still doesn’t negate the fact that we appeared on news television programs to discuss OUR BOOK in 2014 (Fox and Friends, Varney and Company, and CNN Tonight appearances were specifically related to our brand and book). We were on nationally syndicated radio programs as well (Brian Kilmeade’s show, Andrew Wilkow’s show, and others). Of COURSE that coverage was about us and our brand and our book.
No idea what he means about “secondary sourcing” in this case. Must be a feminist atheist cosplay burlesque photography inside secret or something.
The connection between Dana Hunsinger Benbow of the Indianapolis Star and us? Oh, that’s easy. We had never met her until she CONTACTED US TO WRITE A FEATURE ARTICLE ABOUT US. Why did she contact us? Because we’d just been hired as local radio hosts in Indianapolis after an onslaught of media attention resulting from Facebook threatening to take down our page in early 2013 (way before it was an everyday occurrence with conservatives.) It was kind of a big deal that two regular chicks from corporate America created a brand that suddenly exploded in popularity, so the paper decided that we were….um, what’s the word…oh, I know….NOTABLE.
That’s how we were introduced to Dana. Like that. I would have thought that the most basic level of due diligence to “try to find the connection,” would have been a good idea for a Wikipedia editor, but that’s just me.
I can say absolutely positively unequivocally that we are not as popular as Charlie Kirk or Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro. No argument there. But thanks for that blatant lack of objectivity. Either Wiki’s standards make sense without having to compare us to three other specific conservatives, or you should write those three specific names into the definition of how pages are accepted/deleted.
In my original post, I said that one of our followers had let us know our Wiki page had been flagged for deletion. Zero Serenity corrected me on that too:
This isn’t how AFD works. When someone (in this case, it was me) thinks an article doesn’t pass notability for a article or list, they open a discussion called “Article for Deletion”. After discussion and time, an administrator who is not involved typically reads through the discussion and makes an overriding decision based on the discussion and policy on the course of action. If the consensus is overwhelmingly one sided, its typically handled swiftly. Otherwise, the devil is in the details, trying to gain insight into what people are saying.
Ooooo you really got me there, Zero Serenity. HOW DARE I use the phrase “flag for deletion” instead of saying, “open a discussion called ‘Article for Deletion.'”
Imagine being a feminist atheist cosplay burlesque photographer gamer person who spends Actual Time seeking out pages like ours for deletion, and then trying to school people about the difference between “flagging a page for deletion” and “opening a discussion called ‘article for deletion’.” Wow.
Zero Serenity also wrote, “Wikipedia is not a social media platform, no one has any rights to be there. Not even me with my thirteen years of editing” – which would have made sense if I’d ever suggested that it WAS a social media platform, or if I’d ever suggested anyone had a right to be there. I never did that. I called it a platform, which of course it is. And I said that our page was likely to be removed from it, which of course it probably will be.
DYING LOL that he threw in the part about how EVEN HE doesn’t have a right to a Wiki page, EVEN WITH his thirteen years of being a Wiki editor. Maybe I should ask Dana Hunsinger Benbow to give him a call.
In my earlier post, I explained that we gave WIBC copy to use for our bio page on their website. Apparently, that is a HUGE NO-NO:
This is actually a red flag because its not only against policy, but its a copyright violation. Wikipedia doesn’t like that and tends to push delete on that.
OMG. Copyright violation? DUDE. WE WROTE THE COPY. WE OWN THE COPYRIGHT. It’s not violating anything.
But this part? This part was my favorite. In response to me writing that we were Indianapolis Star columnists for over a year, Detective Zero Serenity wrote:
Oh there it is! Remember how I said their USA Today writeup was written by Dana Hunsinger Benbow of the Indianapolis Star? This now even throws the independence of the USA Today article out the window.
Dana didn’t hire us at the Star. And we were hired well AFTER her feature piece on us was published. Holy crap, Zero. Do better.
In response to my earlier post’s question, “I gotta wonder what else we need to do to be considered at least MENTIONABLE on a freaking Wikipedia page?” Zero Serenity writes:
Demonstrable Reliability. Newsguard gave you a score of 47 (comparison: DailyKos is 52 and that’s mostly because of the collaborate blog nature of the site). Media Bias Fact Check (Newsguard: 100) gives you Right/Mixed. That’s just for making you mentionable.
So wait a second. Our site is notable enough to be given reliability scores by independent fact checkers, and you’re using the fact that those fact checkers don’t rate our reliability high enough as evidence that we’re not notable? HA HA HA HA good circular logic there, dude. Either Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that simply catalogs information about people/things or it’s something else entirely. Pick a lane. The “demonstrated reliability” of our website has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that we do, in fact, exist, and are notable as a long-standing, recognizable brand, featured and spotlit in numerous ways across multiple media outlets. Newsguard didn’t fact check our book, or our radio show, or our podcast. We are more than our website. That seems like a fairly important detail to overlook.
Zero doesn’t have a sense of humor, by the way. I made a crack in my earlier post about how many gifs we have, and suggested someone send our gif page to Wiki because shouldn’t that count for something? And he was all:
OMG ZERO GET A PERSONALITY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.
At the end of my original post, I’d written the following: “Anyway, if y’all know any Wikipedia editors, feel free to send them this post. Or don’t. If we lose our page on Wikipedia, our lives will be changed exactly this much..” and then I’d included a gif of a woman saying, “Not in the slightest.” Here was Zero’s response to that:
