Talk:When contact changes minds

proposed deletion
This article is about an important event that has been all over the news. This article meets the Wikipedia Noteworthy criteria. We should keep this article. Preetikapoor0 (talk) 01:05, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
 * No, this article is not about an event, it's about a person, and thus subject to the guidelines we have about people... most specifically, WP:BLP1E. An article about the event might be reasonable, and we could redirect this article name to that article. --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:16, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed move
I propose we move this article to When contact changes minds, with proper forwarding in place. This is in accord with our guidelines on biographies of people noted for only one event and our guidelines in regards to pseudo-biographies ("If the person is notable only in connection with a single event, and little or no other information is available to use in the writing of a balanced biography, that person should be covered in an article regarding the event, with the person's name as a redirect to the event article placing the information in context.") --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:11, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposed deletion
The LaCour page should stay up. LaCour received widespread news coverage for the original study, and then for the retraction. The two are separate events. 173.69.37.234 (talk) 21:56, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
 * If you seek to prevent the deletion, you should take your arguments to this page, where the discussion is currently taking place. --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:27, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Title change
This does not appear to be a common name for the study, given that Googling it only gets 7 hits, while googling the four-word article title plus Lacour (to weed out false positives) gets over 1000. Per WP:COMMONNAME, this should be moved to When contact changes minds. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:11, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think so. Retracted LaCour study is problematic, in part, because the retracted article was by LaCour and Green, not just LaCour. -- Jtneill - Talk 23:40, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
 * And then there's the fact that another LaCour study is at least under question; it could potentially be an ambiguous title. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:34, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Happy to change the title... When contact changes minds was my original suggestion. The full title and every variation of Mike Lacour redirects here. —Мандичка YO 😜 06:27, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Impact
One thing I think we're missing here (and it may be because it doesn't exist) is whether the study had an impact: i.e., whether any organizations changed their procedures or plans in an effort to take advantage of the success that they study showed to exist. I don't have time at the moment to hunt that down, but if anyone comes across such information in their research, it would be of interest and would help demonstrate the import of the whole affair. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:34, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Credit where credit is due
Hello. I added this paper to Donald_Green list of "Selected publications" clearly marked "Retracted", following the article on Andrew_Wakefield as a guide. I removed the Science editor in chief from this article because her biography is a BLP. I hope my redirection will help focus your work. I did these things instead of launching a deletion request at this time. -SusanLesch (talk) 01:36, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

WSJ editorial
has been insisting on adding a long paragraph based on a Wall Street Journal editorial to our article, and has been edit-warring to include it repeatedly (four times already after its initial inclusion). My position is that as an editorial it fails WP:RS, as an editorial from a far-right rag it fails WP:FRINGE, and that it's more than the usual level of stupidity even for the editorials in this particular publication (almost as bad an example of blaming a recent bad event on an unrelated group as the recent Malaysian naked selfie kerfuffle). So needless to say I think it should be kept out of the encyclopedia. But maybe there are other opinions we could hear from here. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:47, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You're actually posting on an article talk page that an editorial issued by the ed page staff of the Wall Street Journal fails RS and is fringe. This is hilarious.  And you've even illustrated your bad attitude towards conservatives—no doubt the prime basis for your delusions about WP sourcing—by dishing out a little extraneous hate. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 23:51, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
 * More specifically I believe that it is highly problematic with respect to WP:BIASED, one of the components of WP:RS. The WSJ is fine for factual information, but this is an editorial, and part of a long line of badly-reasoned editorials of the form "X happened. You don't like X, I don't like Y, and I want you to dislike Y too. Therefore Y caused X." It does not deserve inclusion in our article. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:56, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Hi, I hate to be the guy in the room who actually understands logic, but the reasoning is not even remotely like what you cited. Also, if you would actually bother reading WP:BIASED you would discover it doesn't provide a basis for excluding relevant, well-sourced opinions from WP articles.  This is annoying.  Please familiarize yourself with policies before citing them — or at the very least please skim them. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 00:03, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Revert move?
With emerging evidence of multiple instances of academic fraud, we will likely want to move this article back to LaCour's name. Even now, there's more going on in this article than the single study. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 07:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't support the move, in that I think this study received sufficient attention during its ascendancy that wasn't focused on the authors of the study that it earns an article of its own. That does not mean that there can't also be an article on LaCour (although I'm fuzzy on that; things like claims he inflated his CV are not things that would've gotten attention on their own, but rather that its coverage is more part of covering this paper.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:05, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * One thing sorely lacking in this Wikipedia article is a section about LaCour's motivations. If other papers by him shed light on his motivations in this case, then they could be included in a section about motivations.  The Guardian reports that the co-author is "baffled by the motivation".  On the other hand, the WSJ attributes it to a liberal agenda.  For Wikipedia readers, I'd think the motivation would be the most interesting aspect of the whole kerfuffle.  It appears that this aspect of the thing is being suppressed here at this Wikipedia article on bizarre grounds like the WSJ is fringe, etc.  That line of reasoning is just silly.  The WSJ may be wrong, but they are entitled to their opinion, and it's not in this case "fringe".  The WSJ opinion has already been critiqued by other reliable sources.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:16, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If he doesn't tell us his motivations, anything else is just speculation. We don't need to add more noise to the signal. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:21, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * We're supposed to follow reliable sources, and if they report about opinion or publish opinion, then it's not our job to say "we don't give a shit about those particular opinions". We're supposed to neutrally describe them.  Wikipedia is chock full of such descriptions.Anythingyouwant (talk) 21:48, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposing new section after the "Critique" section
Here's a draft: There has been considerable discussion about why Science published this flawed article by LaCour and Green, and why LaCour falsified the data. According to a piece in New York Magazine, there is no evidence that Science has any liberal bias, and "LaCour and Green’s study was clearly published simply because it ran counter to so much prior research showing that it's really difficult to change people's political views (and it didn't hurt that Green's name was on it, given how respected he is in the field)." In contrast, the conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal says that LaCour's argument originally gained acceptance in the scientific community because it "flattered the ideological sensibilities of liberals, who tend to believe that resistance to gay marriage can only be the artifact of ignorance or prejudice, not moral or religious conviction."

As to what motivated LaCour's dishonesty in the first place, his co-author, Donald Green, has expressed bafflement about any instance of scientific fraud. However, another piece in New York Magazine points to the pressure that social scientists are under to publish scholarly articles, although "profound pressure to publish certainly can’t explain LaCour’s deception on its own". Whether LaCour was also motivated by politics or not, pro-gay-marriage columnist S.E. Cupp writes that, "The doctored study will only encourage the perception that advocates are going too far."

Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:49, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Playing he-said she-said with the WSJ editorial and the NY magazine rebuttal, as if this were some sort of democrat-republican debate rather than a widely-popularized-but-otherwise-standard-and-nonpartisan academic scandal, and leaving in only cherry-picked excerpts that make the NY mag look like it takes the WSJ seriously when actually it calls the WSJ "generally silly" and accuses the WSJ editors of not being "acquainted with even the barest facts about this case", seems fundamentally a dishonest take on this to me. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:12, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If you would like a more honest treatment of these sources, by all means please feel free to propose an alternative text. I personally don't see much possibility that you will do so, nor do I see anything dishonest about the text I wrote.  You may disagree with including anything remotely like this text, but that doesn't make the text dishonest in any way.  Perhaps your objection is pretextual?  The first quote I provided from NY Mag shows that the author believes the WSJ is "clearly" wrong.  This is so obvious that I would not be able to take your comment seriously, David, even if you had not included a personal attack against my honesty.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:39, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * My preference would be to ignore both sources. They are starting from this incident and using it as an excuse to argue about things that don't have much to do with this incident. We are by no means required to include every editorial, no matter how inane, even when someone else publishes another editorial pointing out how inane they are. So no, I am not going to propose a better version of your text, because I think the better version is no text at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:59, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As you can see, there are five sources, not two. The first source gives a reason why the article was published by Science.  Do you disagree that that was a likely reason?  Does the Wikipedia article already give any reason?Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:29, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * What would you accept as a reason? How about: because the referees thought it was surprising and likely to be of wide interest? Why do you think there needs to be anything more than that? —David Eppstein (talk) 05:42, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The Wikipedia article does not currently say anything like that. The first source (NY Mag) in my proposed text remedies that deficiency.  Why would you like to simply brush aside all five sources that I have presented?  You haven't even acknowledged the existence of the last three.Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:46, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Sources [3] and [4] explicitly disavow knowledge of LeCour's motivation. Source [5] appears to be trying to hint that LaCour was motivated by gay-rights advocacy but dances all around instead of actually saying so, presumably because it also has no actual knowledge. They are all useless in mind-probing LaCour. As I said earlier, unless he actually states his motivation we can only guess at it, and all of these are guesses, as uninformed as our own. And your "Whether LaCour was also motivated by politics or not" seems to be made up out of thin air — I don't see any similar reasoning in the source. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:23, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with David's view on this matter. We have persuasive arguments to the effect that the WSJ source is not helpful in this context. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:34, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Since you have arguments somewhere about one source, that means the other four sources are automatically unhelpful too?Anythingyouwant (talk) 05:37, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Let's put this another way. Sources are never absolutely reliable: they're only reliable for subject matter that one could reasonably consider to be in the expertise of the source. There exist experts in the mindset and methodology of scientific frauds (Underwood Dudley or James Randi, for instance) but the editorial writers you are looking to as your sources are not among them and appear not to have even consulted with any such experts. As such, they are not reliable for the direction you are trying to push the article towards, of trying to infer LaCour's mindset. It would be possible to use, say, your WSJ and Seattle Times links to infer something like "editorialists on both the liberal and conservative sides of the US political divide have sought to use this incident as an excuse to push their political agendas", because really that's what those are about, having very little to do with the actual facts of the case. But I think even that would be too much of a synthesis. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:54, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This isn't really science in the first place, and there's no basis for excluding material by notable commentators who are not purported "experts in the field". Nor does your favored source have any particular credentials at all; he appears to be worse situated than the WSJ ed board to comment intelligently.  Your stated position is not supported by Wikipedia policy. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 00:17, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand the relevance of the claim that liberals "tend to believe that resistance to gay marriage can only be the artifact of ignorance or prejudice, not moral or religious conviction." It is not only a red herring, it is a false dichotomy; proposing that opposition to gay rights is ignorant and prejudicial does not imply that such prejudice cannot be rooted in some religious conviction about sexual morality. Speculation that LaCour was motivated by gay rights advocacy is also absurd. How does recommending an ineffective strategy (that you know is based on faked evidence) help a cause? Some partisan author can turn just about any event into an opportunity for a liberal-vs-conservative opinion piece. That doesn't mean we should always pay attention to that author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 09:39, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not a false dichotomy. Try a little close reading, with particular attention to the word "ONLY".  Saying that someone's views on gay marriage are not only rooted in ignorance or prejudice does not imply that their views are not rooted in ignorance or prejudice.  Seeing this, you can begin to understand the point being made: that if someone's opposition to gay marriage is ONLY based on ignorance or prejudice, then they're clearly a much easier target for persuasion via casual conversation than a person whose stance is rooted in a particular religious or moral view.
 * I can also help clear up your confusion about the alleged advocacy motivation. At no time was it suggested that canvassing can't change minds; rather, it's only generally well known that dramatic success is unlikely.  Canvassing will still change minds, almost inevitably.  Moreover, LaCour's results, if credited, would likely lead to increased charitable funding for pro-gay-marriage canvassing, which would lead to more of such canvassing, which would probably lead to favorable changes in attitudes towards gay marriage of the subjects canvassed — just not at the dramatic rates hinted at by LaCour's faked study. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 00:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

People's views are easily changed if they are based on prejudice? Huh??? Where did that come from? Did LaCour claim that his study somehow demonstrated that opposition to gay marriage cannot be rooted in religion? No. The author of the WSJ piece is just pulling bizarre, illogical straw man arguments out of thin air. As for LaCour's motivation, let's stop pretending that it's some big mystery that's hard to wrap our heads around. What he wanted is what he (briefly) got: attention, fame, respect, and career opportunities. It may be surprising that he thought he wouldn't get caught, but it's pretty clear what he stood to gain. Your convoluted alternative theory seems pretty far-fetched in comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 12:16, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

New section
Discussion at RSN here.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:06, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree with this edit. If other info from the popular press is needed, then it would be better to add it than just blank everything.Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:46, 15 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Absent any reply or discussion here or any description of what other kinds of sources are needed, I will revert.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:46, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

WSJ editorial is clearly entitled to far more weight than a single recent college grad with no experience and weak credentials
In this corner, we've got the editorial board of the WSJ, which is composed of veteran journalists who have impeccable academic credentials and a couple of Pulitzer prizes among them.

In the other corner, we've got a recent college grad who writes a video game column for the Boston Globe and is very interested in "social sciences", which he blogs about for New York Magazine.

Is anybody going to seriously argue that the WSJ ed board is not entitled to a whole lot more weight than this lone kiddie? Whatever you do, please don't delay in replying, because this has been the subject of an edit-war for over a week now, with one side mostly reverting without comment, making no more effort at justification than saying "I hate conservatives and the WSJ", which simply doesn't fly. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)  (talk)  (contribs) 23:56, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The reason is that the WSJ editorial is completely fatuous (as the NY Mag piece points out), and the NY Mag piece is the only one to provide an explanation that is actually plausible. (This is not a left-right thing; the Seattle Times editorial is at least as bad as the WSJ one, but in that case we don't have another source saying so.) Relying on reliable sources does not mean we have to degenerate to credentialism, where only the most important publication venues count; we're allowed to use our own brains. My preference (matching some recent anonymous editors it would seem) would be to remove the whole section as mostly consisting of badly-informed bloviating, but in the absence of that we can at least try to cut through the noise with a little signal. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:22, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * All you're doing is insisting that the piece must be included and given the most weight because it expresses the view you prefer, even though the author has no particular qualification to say anything about the WSJ's reasoning, isn't much of a journalist, gave his views in a blog piece, etc.... This is not a position supported by policy. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)  (talk)  (contribs) 00:30, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

FactChecker, at least the WSJ piece is mentioned and footnoted and hyperlinked for anyone who wants to look at it. Perhaps the WSJ would say that the NY Mag piece is fatuous, but basically we present a smorgasbord and people can go look at what they want. Incidentally, if you would write smaller headers then it would be easier to do edit summaries Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:27, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you think the source from a single newbie author with crappy credentials is entitled to 4x more weight than the source from a full ed board of veteran journalists with some pulitzers? If not then we have no disagreement. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 00:32, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, Eppstein might correctly note that the NY Mag piece was specially devoted to the LaCour controversy, whereas the WSJ piece merely mentioned it almost in passing.Anythingyouwant (talk)
 * You're simply mistaken there; LaCour is the focus of the editorial, which discusses his case at length and doesn't talk about much else. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)  (talk)  (contribs) 00:39, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I guess you partially have a point. I count 12 paragraphs in the WSJ piece, and LaCour was only in 3,4,5,6,7,8, and 11.Anythingyouwant (talk) 00:49, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm not arguing for removal of the NY Mag stuff. I don't even have much of a problem with the material that you originally wrote after talking at RSN.  But then David came along and aggressively removed most of the WSJ Ed Board copy while expanding the Jesse Singal to include a lengthy quotation, with the result that there was about 4 times more material for Singal than the whole Ed board.  And this on top of the fact that a goodly chunk of the WSJ copy is devoted to warning the reader that WSJ is conservative, which I only did in the first place to try to quell David's erroneous but strongly felt concerns about RS policy. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 00:56, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * For sure, I preferred what I originally wrote too, because it seemed more neutral and had less signaling from the Wikipedia editorial board. But the main thing is to have the bunch of them mentioned, footnoted, and hyperlinked.  Cheers.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:00, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

David you simply can't insist on removing almost all of the material from a better source, while including lengthy passages from a poor one. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)  (talk)  (contribs) 00:35, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * By better you mean having wealthier backers, right? Because in terms of its actual content in this instance, the NY Mag piece is far better. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:59, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * By better I mean better, according to the standards we use for judging sources, and not just your off-the-cuff political views and ad hominem ranting. And you're acting like Singal's piece isn't rife with weak reasoning and unserious prose.  Please. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 01:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In other words, you can't provide any explanation other than credentialism for saying it's better, so you just keep repeating that it's better hoping that saying it more often will make it less content-free. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:08, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * In FactChecker's defense, the WSJ has a much bigger voice than NY Mag. In other words, it has much greater readership, and we're suppose to take that kind of prominence into consideration.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:15, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't even know how to respond to David's suggestion that journalistic and academic credentials are not of central importance to evaluating sources. Is this a conversation that's taking place?
 * Also note, it's only as a courtesy to David that I'm letting this filibuster play out instead of immediately restoring the additional weight to WSJ. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)  (talk)  (contribs) 01:18, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Per policy, "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered....[W]hen reputable sources contradict one another and are relatively equal in prominence, describe both approaches and work for balance."Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:26, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, let me be specific. The NY Mag piece is less obviously partisan than the WSJ. It is better informed about the case than the WSJ. It presents more believable theories about this case than the WSJ. It sticks to the case more closely than the WSJ instead of using it as a jumping-off point for a generic partisan dig at liberals. It is also signed, and therefore attributable as a specific person's opinion. In all of these respects it is better than the WSJ. In contrast, we have the WSJ, which is...famous for being the WSJ. So why should we give it any weight? —David Eppstein (talk) 02:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Which has greater prominence in the popular press?Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:10, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The greatest prominence in the popular press is taken by rags like the Daily Mail. That doesn't mean we use them as sources. The WSJ editorial pages may be a step up from that in reliability, but only a small step. We have to balance prominence against quality. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:18, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Just out of curiosity, I posted a question here.Anythingyouwant (talk) 02:37, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Enough of this nonsense! The WSJ op-ed provides zero academic insight whatsoever and as others have pointed out, is not really about LaCour's paper anyway; it's a rambling diatribe defending Republicans against being labelled as anti-science. Its only conceivable value would be as an example of the media response to the event, and it is not a very representative example in that regard since most popular press coverage did not include partisan ramblings about liberal sensibilities. What we have here is a single user who is hellbent on referencing the WSJ piece in this article--presumably because it flatters his own "sensibilities"--and even wants to down-weight more substantive sources, on the basis that anonymous WSJ columnists supposedly have "impeccable academic credentials." The only justification for including the WSJ op-ed at all seems to be a single user happening to think the WSJ is awesome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 05:05, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The question about which source is more authoritative here (WSJ vs. NY Mag) has received an excellent answer from David Eppstein (2:05). Even the point about prominence is properly answered.  So it would be advisable to stop turning this talk page (not to mention the article itself) into an ideological battleground.  Nomoskedasticity (talk) 05:29, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
 * All David has done is say that he prefers the NY Mag piece and finds it more persuasive. He thinks the author is better-informed, presents more believable theories, feels it "sticks to the case better" even though the whole premise of the piece is to respond to the WSJ charge.


 * The WSJ, meanwhile, is merely "famous for being the WSJ", which is just one more way of saying he doesn't like it and really badly wants to de-emphasize it improperly, while greatly expanding upon the admittedly uncredentialed view that he just happens to prefer.


 * This is a joke, it's not good WP editing, and I don't understand why the two of you are so desperate to suppress source material that's obviously quite notable and relevant to the subject. Look, if you commit egregrious scientific misconduct that's so bad a premier newspaper in your home country publishes a top-position editorial about how bad it was and arguing that it's partly a result of political bias that your work was accepted in the first place, you just have to accept that commentary (which, mind you, is negative) belongs in a Wikipedia article about you. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 11:43, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Centrify - No one is denying or suppressing the "egregious scientific misconduct"--in fact, that's what the whole article is about. What is in doubt is your assertion that a particular extremely partisan opinion piece is "obviously quite notable and relevant to the subject." Note that the opinion piece in question is not, as you imply, "source material" about the misconduct and provides no information that is not more accurately and more objectively provided by other sources. Thus, the claim that arguing for the opinion piece's irrelevance amounts to "suppression" of source material is absurd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 17:20, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Your comment is absurd and cannot be taken seriously. Opinion source material is source material, and it is quite obviously sourced and relevant.  If you think the WSJ and its editors are not notable, well, there are support groups for that.  It also was being suppressed, i.e. improperly removed via edit-warring to make edits that were not supported via any policy.  Hope that clears things up. Centrify (f / k / a Factchecker_has_annoying_username)   (talk)  (contribs) 03:53, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Your OPINION may be that others' edits were "improper" and yours are "quite obviously" relevant. Not everything anyone has ever said on a subject is automatically worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia article, even if it's from your favorite publication. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 12:28, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Factchecker_atyourservice edits 2017
Factchecker_atyourservice: I've reverted your edit here. As the above discussion from 2015 makes clear, the consensus is against you on this.

Moreover, your citation to WP:FALSEBALANCE is completely wrong. "False balance" would be presented an accepted scholarly opinion with a debunked/disproven/conspiratorial claim. It doesn't apply here, where there two sources are (1) a WSJ editorial and (2) a New York opinion column. The WSJ is not a scholarly outlet; its (lay) opinion is no more authoritative than the (lay) opinion of the New York columnist's, who directly responds to the WSJ. I would not object to either removing both or keeping both, but it strikes me as deeply wrong to just have one.

Tagging, , and , who participated in the 2015 discussion. Neutralitytalk 15:18, 10 March 2017 (UTC)


 * When that discussion was underway, the WSJ material was discussed much more extensively. It has since been sharply reduced, necessitating that the relative weighting be revisited.  There is no basis for affording a blog post by cub reporter more weight than the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal.  I won't revert your restoration, but I am going to restore additional material from the WSJ article so long as Singal is being given a lengthy reading.  Fact checker _ at your service  16:56, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
 * As I said in the edit summary, the WSJ editorial was previously given more space but then subsequently trimmed extensively, and when I took a look, Singal was being given more weight than the editorial, which was absurd. The dual suggestions that the Singal piece is entitled to equal weight, or that the WSJ editorial "no more authoritative", are likewise absurd.


 * More generally, most of the weight policy is written as though it only applied to scientific or other arguably objective fields of discussion/inquiry—yet as a practical matter it applies to everything. For example the policy makes clear that well-known fringe science theories should not be mentioned at all, yet this provision is regularly cited as a reason to exclude opinion commentary that the editor invoking the rule doesn't like.  "False balance" is just a way of rephrasing the policy on Weight itself.  Fact checker _ at your service  17:07, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Odd editing pattern
We've had four brand new editing accounts pop up just to do a single edit on this article over the past couple days, and given that one was reinstating the work of another, it seems likely that it's one editor who is choosing to make a new account for each edit. Be aware of this when judging consensus on changes. --Nat Gertler (talk) 04:38, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Amicus brief
I just deleted the paragraph stating that the study was used in "the" amicus curiae filing for the petitioners in the Obergefell case, which was sourced to WP:PRIMARY. There wasn't a "the" amicus filing, there were seventy-seven for the petitioners, as well as sixty-seven for the respondents and five more going nowhere, just for show. Barring any reliable third-party statement indicating that this one footnote was of particular import or interest, this mention appears to be trivia. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:10, 28 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Someone has restored it. I have edited it to try to give some context, but it would still be better gone. Can I get some concurrence or opposition based in Wikipedia standards? --Nat Gertler (talk) 23:22, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Looking at the context of the citation in the amicus brief, I agree with Nat Gertler. The citation, which is preceded by the phrase "See generally..." is basically an aside buried in a footnote. The footnote itself is about how attitudes about homosexuality can change when a person finds out a friend or relative is gay--a very different phenomenon than proposed in LaCour & Green, making the citation tangental even to the footnote. Thus, it appears that the citation is not particularly notable and to suggest otherwise is misleading. Any implication that the Lacour & Green paper somehow played a part in the ultimate ruling in the case seems pretty silly.
 * Let me note that we seem to have a single editor who is eager for its inclusion, but who is using a new account every time they edit. I don't know if this is being done with the intent of looking like it's a series of people in agreement, or for some other reason, but the edits should be understood with that in mind. I encourage that editor to enter into the discussion and to be clear which accounts they controlled, so that the context of the edits can be better understood. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:32, 2 December 2015 (UTC)

Is the statement that Broockman "lied" justified?
I don't think the following claim is justified: "It was revealed that David Broockman lied about the timeline of disclosure in the critique – writing that his initial questions about the dataset arose on May 15, 2015. However, he later admitted that in fact, he posted a version of the critique anonymously on www.poliscirumors.com, six months earlier than originally claimed on December 20, 2014." The first sentence cites "Irregularities in Lacour" and the second sentence cites the NY Mag interview with Broockman. It is true that the timeline in "Irregularities in Lacour" contains the sentence "Our initial questions about the dataset arose as follows" under the May 15 2015 entry, but that does not explicitly imply that Broockman or his coauthors had no doubts prior to May 15. In fact, the timeline mentions already having "doubts" under the previous (January-April 2015) entry. It appears that the statement about "initial questions" may have been intended as background rather than as an "event" that happened on a particular day (note that the NY Mag interview portrays Broockman's doubts as a gradually developing rather than springing up in a single moment). The notable event in the May 15 entry of the timeline is not Broockman's doubt somehow suddenly popping into existence, but rather Broockman and coauthors directly questioning the survey firm that Lacour had claimed to have used (obviously doubts would have to have existed prior to questioning the survey firm). In any case, the word "lied" does not seem at all appropriate and is a stretch at best. Moreover, why does it matter at all what specific month it was when Broockman's (or his coauthors') "questions" first arose? The issue certainly seems to be given oddly undue weight, as if someone were going out of their way to attack Broockman. I'm tentatively deleting the claim that Broockman lied, pending views from other editors. It seems better to err on the side of not slandering someone. Thoughts?

Michael LaCour is Michael Jules
Another editor (apparently under two different accounts that have been used only for this purpose) has started an edit war to remove the following statement: "LaCour continued to promote his data analysis services under the name Michael Jules." (see: www.michaeljules.xyz/about-1/, http://beautifuldataviz.com/ , https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljules)

The editor has claimed that the statement is irrelevant and "meant to attack a living person." This seems bizarre to me. The wikipedia article is about a discredited scientific paper and the corresponding aftermath. So certainly the identity of the lead author of that paper is relevant, as is what became of the author in the field following his disgrace. It isn't clear whether the editor who has been deleting the information is Michael Jules LaCour himself or merely a sympathizer, but it seems absurd to say a statement of fact is "meant to attack" LaCour/Jules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 03:27, 4 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't see where the beautifuldataviz.com/ citation supports that "Michael LaCour is Michael Jules" BTW: your linked.com link does not go to anyone's linkedin page. Without a wp:rs supports that link explicitly, that should not be on the page per wp:BLP Avoid wp:OR and WP:SYNTH Jim1138 (talk) 03:46, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, the linkedin link above does go to a linkedin page, but it does not establish the claim. Same is true of the .xyz link - no statement to match the claim, and not a reliable source. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:21, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
 * And neither beautifuldataviz.com nor linkedin.com would be considered a reliable source for this material even if they had it, aside from relevancy questions. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:33, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

So Michael Jules LaCour's own website for his own business isn't a reliable source for what Michael Jules LaCour calls himself or what his business is? At the time of this writing, there's even a page on the "Michael Jules" website ( www.michaeljules.xyz/teaching-michael-lacour/ ) that states "I have taught two undergraduate courses on statistical methodology in social science at U.C.L.A." and links to the syllabus for "Michael LaCour." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.242.207.48 (talk) 14:55, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * We don't have a reliable source for who built that website... and again, even if we did, we don't have a source showing it's significant to the topic of this page. Your finding that it has a link to a page that has a different name on it and thus they are the same people is an example of what we call original research here, and it's disallowed. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:06, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Popular press section is not helpful
The Popular Press section, which has been much debated on this talk page--apparently because a single editor has repeatedly insisted on giving a Wall Street Journal opinion piece more weight--is not really very useful. Especially the WSJ piece. Anyone familiar with the WSJ Opinion section knows that on just about any topic, you can count on there being an article in the WSJ Opinion page blaming liberals. Should every wikipedia article on a scandal therefore have a section called "Popular Press" noting that the WSJ opinion page blames liberals? That seems pretty ridiculous. Furthermore, the WSJ quote doesn't even come close to making sense--the study being exposed as fake in no way validates the view that opposition to same-sex marriage is not "the artifact of ignorance or prejudice," but rather "moral or religious conviction." In fact, the study contained no claims or implications whatsoever in that regard. Moreover, are we really supposed to believe that liberals deny that anti-gay sentiments can be based on religion? Can't a view be both ignorant/prejudiced AND rooted in moral/religious conviction?

The bottom line is that this is an article about a case of scientific fraud. The WSJ Opinion piece, like the quote from conservative pundit S.E. Cupp, is not relevant to the issue, is not particularly representative of the "popular press" perspective on the issue, provides no insights, and serves no function in the wiki article other than to satisfy a single editor who likes its POV. I can see how the Andrew Gellman quote might be relevant, as it provides a perspective about the actual issue at hand from an actual academic colleague of Donald Green. But to quote the WSJ opinion section as if it represents the popular press in any meaningful or important way gives it undue weight. 2605:E000:8443:8D00:4937:D95E:7FE8:882F (talk) 02:24, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
 * It may not serve to illuminate what was going on with the study itself, but for many topics we include how the topic is reflected elsewhere. That the WSJ used the matter as a bludgeon on liberals, and that their use in that matter had bounceback, is of interest on that level. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:57, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

Michael LaCour's CV
After reading the article at https://www.thecut.com/2015/05/lacour-made-up-his-biggest-funding-source.html I could not find the referenced CV. Leaving this here where it might be helpful to others: http://polisci.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/lacour_cv.pdf Mark Taylor (talk) 21:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)