User talk:Szmenderowiecki

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Put them in!

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Hi there! The trial of the RfA discussion-only period passed at WP:RFA2024 has concluded, and after open discussion, the RfC is now considering whether to retain, modify, or discontinue it. You are invited to participate at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Discussion-only period. Cheers, and happy editing! MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 09:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I just saw that you closed the JD Vance RfC, concluding that there was no consensus for the couch hoax to be included in the article. You argued this based WP:NOTNEWS, which was only brought up by a single editor, which you gave a lot of weight. You also didn't explain why this would fall under WP:NOTNEWS. You also concluded that the information could be included somewhere else, which is not an argument to exclude information from one article e.g. the Vance article repeats information found in this campaign article, or that on the presidential debates. Lastly, enduring coverage, your third argument, is for articles, not items in articles. I think you should reconsider the closure. Cortador (talk) 14:03, 11 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for raising your concerns. Let's address them one-by-one.

As the summary of sources shows in the second paragraph, there were essentially three events discussed there: AP's botched fact check, Tim Walz roasting JD Vance during a rally on 7 August, and John Oliver picking up on the hoax for comedic effect. From the point of view of enduring importance - which is an argument mentioned by several opppsers and which stems from NOTNEWS - you can make a good argument that it is too trivial. The AP fact check was a catalyst for the hoax's spread, so you could argue that it's kinda important, OK (but it only works if you consider the hoax important enough - which was the whole point of the discussion). But Tim Walz using it during a rally is trivial coverage. So is John Oliver's usage. As I said, you could propose something showing that the meme turned around the campaign or, say, attached a popular nickname to the guy, but the proponents didn't provide much sourcing to that effect. (WP:LASTING is indeed a notability guideline, which applies to articles not to content within them, but one of my jobs as closer is to look beyond WP: abbreviations. Just like people often have WP:BALANCE in mind when saying something is not due, lasting significance would in context mean it's too trivial/tabloid to be warranted in an encyclopedia. I can see where they are coming from and the argument is valid; I did not see good rebuttals demonstrating that the content would belong in an encyclopedia and be of good use to the readers, at least in the article about Vance himself.)

As for your argument that including it elsewhere doesn't prevent from including it in the main article - well, actually WP:ONUS says that Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article, and other policies may indicate that the material is inappropriate. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article. (emphasis mine) You need consensus to include or add certain material, which was not reached for the main JD Vance article (both on argument strength and numbers), but several editors proposed an alternative. These options are kinda independent of each other. Inclusion in one place does not by itself prevent inclusion elsewhere, but neither does it mandate inclusion. The deciding factor is consensus. There may be consensus to include the info everywhere, or they may be consensus to include the info in one location but not others. I see that editors agree that it has to be somewhere (all of include votes + some omit votes arguing it'd be better covered elsewhere), but not in the main article about the senator.

In short, I am yet to see good arguments to overturn my closure. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 01:35, 12 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. I don't recall anyone, or any significant number of editors making the case that these are three separate events. Jumping from that to WP:NOTNEWS - which, again, was brought up by a single person - somehow being a core argument is a stretch. Also, the hoax and Waltz's reaction was still brought up as recently as two weeks ago. Furthermore, none of the source brought up were tabloids, so I don't get why you call the coverage "tabloid". Also, I don't recall anyone arguing that the event "turned around the campaign". Lastly, I don't recall anyone actually making an argument why this but is better-suited for the Hillbilly Elegy - just that the inform should be there instead. In fact, a number of sources (e.g. the Guardian and USA Today articles) don't even name Hillbilly Elegy. Cortador (talk) 20:11, 16 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall anyone, or any significant number of editors making the case that these are three separate events. -> it doesn't matter because that was more of a statement of fact rather than what people were arguing out there. The sourcing that was provided to support the three sentences could basically be sorted into three events. There is no denial that there was ample media interest in those events, but they were basically covering the same stories using the same sources. The question was whether they were important enough and relevant enough to mention, and my closure sums up the positions.

Jumping from that to WP:NOTNEWS - which, again, was brought up by a single person - somehow being a core argument is a stretch. -> You don't have to explicitly state WP: shortcuts to make arguments that can be boiled down to a policy statement. I was looking for where the thrust of the argument was going, and yes, it was ultimately going towards NOTNEWS. It doesn't have to say that out loud.

Also, the hoax and Waltz's reaction was still brought up as recently as two weeks ago. -> I did look into the sources Locke Cole mentioned. All of them were speculations about what the VP debate will look like, and no, we know Walz did not bring up couch-fucking there (see transcript if you want). So if the argument goes that that is some important rumour, the way the real events went kinda undermine that argument.

Furthermore, none of the source brought up were tabloids, so I don't get why you call the coverage "tabloid". -> For starters, it's not like tabloid journalism only appears in select newspapers. Whether something is tabloid depends on the story itself, whether we are speaking of the National Enquirer or The Wall Street Journal. Secondly, I was not saying that the reports were tabloid themselves, I said that I found merit in the argument that the coverage was trivial, which is a bit different from "tabloid journalism".

Also, I don't recall anyone arguing that the event "turned around the campaign" -> that's kinda the point I was making. If you argue that the event is important, demonstrate it. It's not obvious in this case - if it were obvious we wouldn't have had an RfC (or actually two, just one was aborted) to begin with.

Lastly, I don't recall anyone actually making an argument why this but is better-suited for the Hillbilly Elegy - just that the inform should be there instead. In fact, a number of sources (e.g. the Guardian and USA Today articles) don't even name Hillbilly Elegy. -> that's why my closure does not say "put it in Hillbilly Elegy", what it says instead is: "not in JD Vance article, but somewhere else - sure". Szmenderowiecki (talk) 18:58, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody was arguing that, why did you bring this up? As the closer of a RfC, your job is to assess what arguments were actually made, not make them yourself. That goes for "turning around the campaign" as well; you are arguing against a hypothetical here.

Did anyone call this an "important rumour"? Also, it doesn't matter what the articles otherwise covered. What matters is that the couch thing was brought up over a fair amount of time, counter to what you claimed.

What sources constitute as tabloids is something for the reliable source noticeboard, not this RfC. Also, this is again an argument what you made, not something actually brought up during the discussion - unless you want to give any credence to claims that this was supposedly too sensational.

During the RfC, the argument was specifically that this should be in the Hillbilly Elegy article. I'm getting the feeling here that you didn't close this discussion on arguments made, but simply on your own opinion. Cortador (talk) 20:45, 17 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If nobody was arguing that, why did you bring this up? As the closer of a RfC, your job is to assess what arguments were actually made, not make them yourself. -> What is the "that" that you are referring to? I'm a little confused. Because I tink I gave an adequate explanation to every of your arguments where you said I was bringing something up not from the discussion.

That goes for "turning around the campaign" as well; you are arguing against a hypothetical here. -> Note that in the original reply I said "you could propose something showing that the meme turned around the campaign or, say, attached a popular nickname to the guy, but the proponents didn't provide much sourcing to that effect." These are examples of why something could be important enough to mention. I did not say it specifically had to make so much impact as to turn around the campaign. It just had be above the trivia threshold, that's it. Which is the point I was making in the closure and in this discussion here. I don't believe the proponents demonstrated it was non-trivial, and it was up to you to do it. And yes, the whole argument was whether the rumour should be covered at all, including because it was important enough to mention. I didn't make this up, that was the point of the RfC.

Also, it doesn't matter what the articles otherwise covered. -> Well, the content of the source, the type of coverage and the depth of coverage absolutely matters, otherwise you could just insert any random rumour or speculation in the article if cited to a reliable source, even if that is not really the main focus of the article (there are a couple of policies that could be cited to prevent this outcome, and that argument's success would depend on the circumstances at hand). Though, on second thought, you are right after all on that point - it doesn't really matter. What really matters is if there is consensus to include content (WP:ONUS) and that's it. The arguments will rely on the analysis of the type and depth of coverage and what the sources say themselves, which is expected. You may totally believe it's enough, but others - not necessarily so. Which again is why we have RfCs. Again, consensus is the gauge, not necessarily sustained coverage.

What sources constitute as tabloids is something for the reliable source noticeboard, not this RfC. -> Note that my closure doesn't even mention the word "tabloid", or question the reliability of sources. I got down that rabbit hole on my talkpage, it's true, but I looked back and it's really besides the point because that's not what I said in the closure. Basically the whole third paragraph, and parts of the second paragraph of this closure as well were saying "there could be a lot of ways to claim that the hoax is noteworthy enough to mention, but you have failed on all fronts because you didn't really argue that, at least convincingly so". The key word is not "tabloid", it's "trivia". Or "noteworthiness".

During the RfC, the argument was specifically that this should be in the Hillbilly Elegy article. Indeed there was among some Omit/Exclude votes, which is why it's in the closure. In the conclusion, I just decided not to limit specifically to that article because clearly those who wanted to include want it somewhere, preferably in JD Vance article, but they didn't succeed here; but they may also disagree with that particular target and argue for some better place. There wasn't just enough discussion on that front. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:33, 18 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is the three event issue. Nobody argued that, so why bring it up? The "trivia threshold" is something you brought up to override coverage by RS. Now you say that "tabloid" doesn't matter because you originally didn't mention it in the closure; "trivia" doesn't appear there either, so which one is it now? Likewise, you say you are against just "any rumor" being included - the fact that this wasn't about a rumor but about coverage of a rumor explicitly stated to be false was mentioned several times during the discussion. Cortador (talk) 05:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is the three event issue. Nobody argued that, so why bring it up? -> I have to evaluate what kinds of sources were brought up. Again, this is not a line of argument but a summary of facts of what the proponents brought up as sourcing for the fragment proposed. My job is to summarise arguments, and this is an argument (existence of sources), so I really don't get your point.

The "trivia threshold" is something you brought up to override coverage by RS. Now you say that "tabloid" doesn't matter because you originally didn't mention it in the closure; "trivia" doesn't appear there either, so which one is it now? -> So yeah, if you look only using Ctrl+F, then indeed you won't find either word. However, you will not find discussion of reliability of sources, but you will find it is hard to say the hoax is prominent enough in his life to warrant a mention and which would have lent more credence to the idea that it's something with enduring significance, which are discussions of triviality/noteworthiness, just not using these exact two words.

Likewise, you say you are against just "any rumor" being included -> Nowhere did I say that. I don't have a personal opinion on including this particular rumour, and as I mentioned, that argument's success would depend on the circumstances at hand. Editors just couldn't agree whether these were the circumstances that would favour inclusion Szmenderowiecki (talk) 12:00, 25 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]