Talk:/pol//Archive 1

Comments
The second paragraph in section "the media" has little to do with that header and largely relies on a single source which does not meet Wikipedia's standards of reliability. I suggest that it ought to be either removed or reworked in its entirety. Cruxador (talk) 00:47, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes it is
/pol/ and the community have been involved in multiple events of historical importance, including the 2016 US presidential race, the HWNDU project, and various other goings-on. I object to /pol/ being classed as a 'low-importance internet subculture'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Prawnpringles (talk • contribs) 20:59, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Pepe the frog is not a /pol/ exclusive meme
Pepe the frog is a meme across all of 4chan and is commonly used on /b/ and /r9k/ among others. Pepe is also popular outside of 4chan, with celebrities like Katy Perry sharing variants of the meme. Calling Pepe a "/pol/ associated meme" is disingenuous. --AwaweWiki (talk) 10:28, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Semi protect
Can somebody semi protect this article? It keeps getting vandalized. 68.0.189.224 (talk) 02:16, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

/pol/ as a political and deceptive organisation
Hello,

I think it can be assumed that this group will attempt to influence and alter the wikipedia description about them to manipulate the perception of the public

What is being done to review this article and other 4chan related subjects and ensure they are not allowed to do this ? 142.183.34.175 (talk) 04:32, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Marking this as under discretionary sanctions since they've been involved in political discussion in recent years. Kirbanzo (userpage - talk - contribs) 21:01, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

/pol/ does not stand for "politically incorrect"
/pol/ stands for "political" or "politics". It's a containment board for all (but mostly fringe) political discussion as to keep other boards free from politics. It was not intended to only house racial nationalism. --AwaweWiki (talk) 10:40, 11 November 2018 (UTC)
 * This is contradicted by reliable sources, including "How did Russian and Iranian trolls' disinformation toward Canadian issues diverge and converge?" from Digital War (a Palgrave Macmillan academic journal), which explicitly defines /pol/ as "4chan's Politically Incorrect board". —  Newslinger  talk   01:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This is entirely OR, but I think /pol/ may have actually started out meaning 'politics' but since it's so politically incorrect, everyone now thinks it means 'politically incorrect,' which is an understandable conflation, and now that so many people believe it, it may actually be more accurate to say that it means 'politically incorrect' (words in living languages mean what people believe they mean, after all). I'll post a source if I ever find one to this effect: not advocating any changes, one way or the other. Joe  (talk) 03:11, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Addendum, my above post is a good example of why Wikipedia should avoid OR where possible. At least since back in 2013, /pol/'s logo has had the words 'politically incorrect.' People do sometimes refer to it as '4chan's politics board' - and I'm sure that's likely where I and user AwaweWiki got the idea, but I'm pretty sure that's wrong. Anyway, to clear up any confusion, I added /pol/'s logo and a screenshot of the homepage, both of which clearly show that the board's name stands for 'politically incorrect.' Joe  (talk) 21:43, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Super straight
Super straight shouldn't be in here. It didn't start on /pol/ or on 4chan at all - and making the only mention of the Superstraight phenomenon be a part of this article, and not its own, puts forth the unfounded lie that it did start on /pol/ as implicit fact.

Wikipedia should stand against misinformation, and should separate out the superstraight stuff from this article into its own. --50.250.235.169 (talk) 21:04, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
 * This article is clear about the origins of "super straight". As for a standalone article, I think some folks are working on it, though I have my doubts around whether it's sufficiently notable for one. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:10, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * The simple fact that the only mention of it on Wikipedia resides on the /pol/ article makes the implication clear that it is a /pol/ operation, when that is simply a lie. Wikipedia should not be hosting misinformation. If it were going to be not a standalone, it would belong on TikTok, not on /pol/. --2601:647:5700:3400:5029:80B5:74B9:839B (talk) 05:13, 13 March 2021 (UTC)


 * It's appropriate for the super straight stuff to be here, /pol/ was involved regardless of the fact that it didn't start on /pol/, and this is not an article of 'events that /pol/ started and nothing else'. /pol/ didn't create Pepe the Frog, but he gets mentioned here, for obvious reasons.
 * , do you think it would do to add an image of the kekistan version of the super straight flag here, compared alongside the kekistan flag and the Nazi war flag? I seem to recall there was a link from snopes with a kekistan version. We could basically copy the image template from the Pepe kekistan section and add the super straight version in. I was thinking about adding the version with the sex symbols, but I'm not actually sure if that originated from 4chan or not, so I don't think it really belongs on this page. Thoughts? Joe  (talk) 02:59, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I don't. As I said in the conversation at the (now deleted, unfortunately) talk page for the ill-fated Super straight page, I've seen at least four different images purporting to be "super straight flags" mentioned in sources, but as far as I can tell there is no single flag that is widely used. The sources tend to just support "here is a flag someone describing themselves as super straight has posted an image of", which does not warrant inclusion IMO. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:05, 8 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm convinced. If we had an actual super straight page, I'd be inclined to just show all the flags, but this isn't the super straight page. Joe  (talk) 21:47, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

8chan?
Many of the 2019 sources are about 8chan due to the Christchurch shooting, El Paso shooting, and Halle shooting (connection to 8chan somewhat more nebulous, shooter mentioned one of 8chan's employees in his manifesto). However, this article doesn't mention it at all. Should it? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) please always ping! 05:16, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
 * It's been a while, but I looked at that and saw the article didn't make too clear that there is more than one iteration of /pol/. Is something else there you still find needs changed? --Chillabit (talk) 08:34, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

/pol/ logo
Is that logo sanctioned by 4chan staff in some way, or is it just a fan/user generated unofficial logo? I'm inclined to think it's the latter, frankly. If it were the latter, should that affect its presence in the article? The screenshot of the actual board itself (the one in the "Overview" section) might be a better image to use in that spot à la the 4chan page if the unofficial logo is just user-generated, what do you all think? --Chillabit (talk) 10:40, 10 April 2021 (UTC)
 * seconded, I would like to see some evidence that the article's main image is officially connected to the topic NO I IN DENIAL (talk) 03:20, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and removed it while we wait for a reply from JoePhin. I couldn't find a single RS using it, though I imagine some RS avoid printing swastikas even as part of official logos, so I suppose it could be attributed to that. I also couldn't find any current usage of it on the board itself, and the Commons info about the file doesn't give many leads—it's evidently from a 2011 thread from /q/, though the thread is long gone from the forum and the provided archive link is also now dead.
 * FWIW, if it turns out that this is just a user-generated image, it might be worth letting it.wiki, ja.wiki, and zh.wiki know (see the file usage of commons:File:4chan -pol- logo.png). GorillaWarfare (talk) 04:41, 11 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I think very well may be unofficial, and just very widely used. Probably good not to represent it as an official logo of /pol/, assuming that's the case. I may add a screen capture of it in use later, or something else that will represent /pol/ well? Something, when time permits! Joe  (talk) 02:16, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I would recommend finding an RS to accompany the image, if you do try to find something. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:42, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I added a cropped screenshot of /pol/'s front page which clearly shows the 'Politically Incorrect' name. Joe  (talk) 04:37, 13 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why you've added this... it's just plain text header, and is really not a logo of any kind. If your goal is just to show that "pol" stands for "politically incorrect", just adding a citation to the pol board would accomplish the same thing without adding unhelpful images. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:21, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

note on nature of source
I've added a short explanatory note on the source used to support "up to 30% are ..." - the source is based on a non-peer reviewed, though probably credible talk given to the AAAI in 2017. There is also an accompanying, shorter paper for the talk. BrxBrx(talk)(please reply with BrxBrx ) 18:17, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
 * And I've removed it -- such "explanatory notes" are not standard; if you think the source is not reliable then that should be discussed, not just noted in the article. But I will note that that is a preprint of a study published elsewhere; since ResearchGate has a freely-available PDF of it I'll just update the cite to link there. GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:06, 27 April 2021 (UTC)

Janitors most definitely are racist
Just personal experience, but the Jannies of pol are definitely neoNazi. I've just been banned for insulting Nazis in one thread, even though their insults to Jews are far more egregious than what is thrown their way, along with their usual racist language. Openly advocating or ridiculing genocide is standard, but not banned.

/Pol/ is basically 4chan's Stormfront - not a bastion of genuine free speech. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.159.144.205 (talk) 22:16, 12 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Is there a specific content change you were looking for? What you've laid out is basically what's considered unsourced "original research", i.e. not something that could be added on its own. If there's something related to this covered in news media or studies of some kind, we can examine that and reflect it in the article. Currently, in this vein, we just have some reporting from Vice News. I don't really have a reason to doubt what they say, and from my (original research) observations, moderator (personal) attitudes appear highly variant. Don't doubt at all that the head moderator is tugging things in a particular direction, but per the reporting sounds like his attitude is more of a laissez faire one with regards to allowing certain content, rather than removing opposing content. It's possible there has been some kind of change in attitude and the reporting is stale, but we would need more recent sources to reflect that.
 * If you choose to respond, or write on a talk page again, I recommend taking a look at WP:SIGNATURE. It makes it easier to see who is saying what. --Chillabit (talk) 23:40, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

neo-nazis?
Calling people with alt-right opinions neo nazis at the begining of the article is intelectually disohnest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snakestraws (talk • contribs) 11:45, 23 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The article is not doing that. The lead does say that the board is home to a significant number of neo-Nazis, which is sourced, but does not say anything about people with alt-right opinions being neo-Nazis. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:20, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

Those sources are sensationalised newspaper articles. You won't find any more neo-nazis on /pol/ than you will on Stormfront. You can't just state that the users are neo-naxis unless they refer to themselves as such. Snakestraws (talk) 08:05, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
 * They are reliable sources. I am not sure what the argument that "You won't find any more neo-nazis on /pol/ than you will on Stormfront" is supposed to mean–Stormfront is a neo-Nazi forum and we also mention the number of neo-Nazis there. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:12, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Introduction is a bit misleading
Introduction is a bit misleading:

Having lurked on /pol a bit, I find the introduction a bit lopsided and selective

"/pol/, short for "politically incorrect", is a political discussion board on 4chan.[1][2][3] The board has been noted for its racist, white supremacist, antisemitic, misogynistic, and transphobic content.[6]"

While it is true that these things have "BEEN NOTED", this is not giving a rounded summary of the content and the discussions:

What is missing in content description:

Jewish supremacist Black supremacist Australian supremacist Anti-Emu hate Gay supremacist Trans anti-feminist hate Pro gay hate Communist-hate Nazi-hate anti-sexworker

The only thing missing is basically women talking shit about men. They probably do that on Reddit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:810B:169F:F880:A9D3:9B68:1FA2:B7E8 (talk) 19:17, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Necessary?
Is this article really necessary? I mean not even /b/ has its own article. Shouldn't /pol/ and information about it just remain on the 4chan article like other boards? TheAstuteObserver (talk) 13:46, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

It seems like the only reasons to keep it are political bias, honestly. 124.169.136.249 (talk) 09:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
 * You're replying to a comment from three years ago. If you think the article should be deleted, see WP:AfD. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:03, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Reversion of well sourced claims
Claims that the website has been called "wildly offensive" is well sourced, as well as claims that the website has announced support for free speech on Twitter. Reversions to this additions are arbitrary and capricious. I will continue to defend these claims and I am well within my rights to do so. I will be mindful of the 3 reversion rule and thus I will wait to readjust the page, but that readjustment will come in the coming days. ~ Gkoogz (talk) 21:02, 15 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you for abiding by the rules, but please remember that something being sourced does not necessarily guarantee inclusion. You need to achieve WP:CONSENSUS for your preferred version.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:08, 15 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Very good. My edits will reappear shortly. Do you have any justification for removing these two particular points? ~ Gkoogz (talk) 21:11, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe the article is better without them. Despite being sourced, the free speech claim especially strikes me as not WP:DUE.  Reasonable minds may differ.  Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:16, 15 May 2022 (UTC)


 * Respectfully, you have not substantiated your beliefs. Free speech is central to the culture of 4chan /pol/ in its moderation policy, its purpose, its intent and the messaging of its administrators and owners, not to mention the expectation of its users. You have not reached a consensus against its inclusion and the inclusion clearly does not violate WP:DUE on account of its centrality to the policy of 4chan. The inclusion is substantial and I will override this belief of yours and make the change shortly. ~ Gkoogz (talk) 21:19, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * This is nice WP:OR, but again, we work here by consensus. The ultimate burden is one of persuasion.  All the best. Dumuzid (talk) 21:30, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The operators of the site posted it. No original research involved. It's pinned on the front page. No original research involed. If you read the message before reverting it, maybe you would have noticed. And a dissent of one does not a consensus make. Careful, quoting a new rule every message to justify arbitrary and capricious WP:WAR may result in a lock to your editing privileges. ~ Gkoogz (talk) 21:37, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * I am generally pretty careful, and you should also be mindful of WP:PRIMARY. Again, perhaps your version will end up being the preferred version.  We shall see. Dumuzid (talk) 21:40, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Very well, all is well. Just please stop instantly reverting my entire edit that I spent a long time writing and sourcing, which contributes positively to the page. It doesn't make any sense why you're doing this. ~ Gkoogz (talk) 23:22, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Part of your edit was completely unsourced, and the other part was only sourced to the site itself. We're not here to report what a website says about itself. We summarize summarize secondary sources. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 23:27, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Please note that repeatedly restoring challenged content without consensus is still edit warring, even if you wait for the 3RR period to elapse. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 01:13, 16 May 2022 (UTC)


 * I cited a second party article that claimed the site was "wildly offensive". Does anyone here care to explain how why that was removed? (Crickets while every nook and cranny is searched for an ex post facto justification to dogpile my good faith positive contributions). Unfortunately, it seems I am not being engaged with in good faith and my entire contribution was reverted due to an inappropriate personal animosity harbored against me for whatever reason, completely detached from the content of my contribution and despite the relevance to the topic. It is highly inappropriate on your parts for this site, and I will be readding that contribution shortly. Reverting vandalism, which most certainly includes the arbitrary deletion of good faith and rule abiding contributions, is most certainly not a violation of 3RR or edit warring. Sad situation. Gkoogz (talk) 10:24, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note to others that it seems Gkoogz has been indefinitely blocked as a result of Special:Permalink/1088394939. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:27, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

On GPT-4chan
> Though Kilcher did not release the source code, the decision to make GPT-4chan's model public was also controversial.

Technically, the only think Kilcher did not release the source code is the bot itself. As far as I know, everything else is available at https://github.com/yk/gpt-4chan-public

I think this claim, as is written, doesn't convey this accurately.

In addition to this, I wonder if it would be possible to link to the available online copies of the model.

This is one of the cases where a primary source would probably be acceptable (since the claim would be that Kilcher is providing that model), but that's not exactly what we have. Instead, Kilcher has published the hashes of the model and it can be easily verified that the hashes are correct. I do not know, however, whether this would count as original research. Mago Mercurio (talk) 03:39, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I cut the sentence shorter to just mention the controversy around releasing the underlying model. I'm not into programming or ML so I don't have a great level of understanding myself, but to my current understanding there may be no need to get so specific in the body text. Actually I wanted to make that whole paragraph shorter, but there's not much to trim without cutting out key details and commentary, to my eye. Linking the model, in my view isn't necessary. --Chillabit (talk) 01:14, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Serious neutrality problems (May 2022).
This article clearly is framed from a left wing or far-left wing perspective. The overabundance of insulting adjcetives "racist sexist antisemitic mysoginistic etc" are statements of opinion. You can mention that content frequently disparages certain groups as a statement of fact. But when you start using harmful, insulting adjectives like "racist sexist antisemitic homophobic", those are adjectives that claim to understand what is occurring inside someone's head which is intrinsically inappropriate for an Encyclopedia. And also just sounds rather nasty, as if the article itself were slandering the website.

I think this entire article needs a substantial and careful rewrite to reframe how we discuss controversial content on /pol/ without resorting to far left name-calling. Gkoogz (talk) 08:31, 6 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Feel free to check the citations which support those statements. If content is overwhelmingly described this way by reliable sources, it's appropriate to do so here as well. Per WP:NPOV: we aim to represent fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:46, 15 May 2022 (UTC)
 * gorilla, given that the website is an anonymous board with no registration required, perhaps the sources aren’t as “reliable“ as they are supposed. Anyone can post on The site. So any studies proposing the study of “users” of the site is based on a flawed axiom and should be ignored. the people building these studies seem to be ignorant of exactly what they’re basing their data on. Using keywords to build profiles of the user base is also a known flawed methodology. Context is important in discussions… 96.240.150.75 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:03, 31 July 2022 (UTC)


 * I am reverting the changes back to my edits. All of my citations are clear and concise. Thank you.4 ~ Gkoogz (talk) 20:20, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

"Western Europe"
In the article the following sentence can be found: "Elevated use of hate speech is seen in Western European countries (e.g., Italy, Spain, Greece, and France)". Only France is categorized as Western European out of all of these. Italy, Spain and Greece are Southern European with Greece even being South-Eastern European. This (3 out of 4 countries mentioned not being Western European) can also be seen in Wikipedia's article on Western Europe, "Modern divisions" section. It could be from the source, but even then, it is geographically inaccurate (according to Wikipedia itself). I thus request a correction of the text as deemed appropriate by the mods. 141.255.92.59 (talk) 17:19, 12 October 2022 (UTC)