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Reading through the article, it seems as if most of the text was imported straight from the group itself. It is generally positive in nature, includes no criticisms of the group, and outlines their publications with the same bylines as the original website. As written right now, it appears more like a promotional / propaganda article more than an objective article.
Some suggestions would be to include criticisms of the group, to remove words loaded with positive connotations, and to add more third person references to the group. If anyone has any other suggestions, please comment below. 128.189.73.93 ( talk) 19:07, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Would "multipartisan" be more accurate than "bipartisan" in the lead sentence? I think that "bipartisan" frames it in terms of the two major US political parties, and I'm under the impression that the group is interested in more than just US politics. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 20:12, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Regarding this revert, I've rewritten the lead to make it unambiguous that it doesn't describe itself as conservative; but we need to rely on secondary sources to describe it, not primary ones, and they're generally pretty clear about what angle it's arguing from. Regarding the rest, no explanation was made for deleting the entire ideology section beyond WP:SYNTH and it not matching the sources -- please be more specific. It seems to summarize the cited sources very closely to me, but I can reword it to be more close if there are specific objections. Sweeping reverts to the entire page, though, aren't very helpful! The current article relies far too heavily on cites to Heterodox Academy itself or to sources that just quote it without describing or analyzing it directly, so we need a section like this and sources like the ones that this revert removed. -- Aquillion ( talk) 21:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
But there is also the more main-stream Heterodox Academy, an online forum dedicated to pushing the academy to the political right because, the group’s members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”-- Aquillion ( talk) 01:25, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
"But there is also the more main-stream Heterodox Academy, an online forum dedicated to pushing the academy to the political right because, the group’s members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”, which I interpreted as reasonably summarizing to that statement. I can reword it slightly if you want (and have a better summary), but to me, "pushing the academy to the political right" parses to advancing conservative viewpoints, and "because, as the group's members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”" parses to a belief in left-wing bias. -- Aquillion ( talk) 01:51, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. Again we also have a question of WP:DUE for using the Fuentes mention (evolutionary biologists are not social scientist) and even if used, it should be attributed to them and stated in the terms they use, not cobbled with 2 other sources into something you think is vaguely similar. -- Netoholic @ 01:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
advancing conservative viewpoints on college campuses by playing into or presenting the argument that such views are suppressed by left-wing bias, and if that part is what you object to then I don't follow at all. By my reading, all of those sources directly and independently state the things they're being cited for, both there and with the Salon piece you're objecting to (both of which describe Heterodox Academy's position as being part of a moral panic.) Edit: Again, please offer some sort of alternative summary, if you think I got it wrong. Aside from "consistently", which I removed, I legitimately do not understand your objection here; if you could offer what you see as a more accurate summary of these sources, I might understand where you feel the disagreement between them is or in what ways you think they fail to support the statements I cited to them. -- Aquillion ( talk) 02:02, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
if we used only the Fuentes/Rouse source, would that sentence in the article it references be written the same way?Yes, absolutely. No question. I believe that that statement is a perfect summary of what it says, and I've now said so several times in several different ways. If you feel that there's an error in it, you will have to be specific - SYNTH is a very specific thing (X + Y = Z), so if you believe there's something in there that's not in the source, you will have to state it, ideally with a preferred summary of your own. But as it is (with the minor correction I made above), I stand by it 100% and feel that it's one of the closest summaries of a source that I've written. Normally, in a dispute like this, I would shrug and rewrite it to be as close of a parsing of the source as possible (since there's no sense in continuing the dispute if it can be easily fixed), but by my reading it's already as close of a summary of the source as it's possible to get without being a direct quote. If your argument is that turning the section into a series of direct quotes would be superior, I strenuously disagree; I don't feel that that sort of quotefarm is useful to readers. We should find prominent viewpoints held by many reliable sources, then condense and summarize them instead in order to give readers a general sense of the available strands of thought on the subject without giving WP:UNDUE weight to any one source. This is standard practice. -- Aquillion ( talk) 18:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
This sentence was removed from the lead: while it identifies itself as non-partisan, some commentators have described it as advancing a conservative argument against what it sees as a left-wing tilt in academia.
Does anyone dispute that this is an accurate summary of what the sources say, both there and in the section it summarizes? Although there are some disagreements, above, over how exactly to phrase the relevant section or which specific sources to include, I do not see any general disagreement on the existence or
WP:DUE nature of the broad existence of such commentators, and the current trend of discussion for that section doesn't seem to be calling into question anything that would change that broad summary of it. --
Aquillion (
talk) 03:36, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter, their main objective lies in challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives, while promoting free speech from a diverse range of thinkers often viewed as marginalized. In this sense, they bear a similar mission to the conservative behemoth Turning Point USA in galvanizing opposition to university liberalism; the shrinkage of the Overton Window, the viewpoints and topics seen as socially mainstream, has clumped together unlikely bedfellows.(Observer)
In the group’s own terms, then, the problem is that American campuses have become a “left-leaning tribal moral community” that suffer from a form of “orthodoxy” — wherein conservative voices are marginalized and shunned — due to a lack of “viewpoint diversity,” meaning a dearth of conservative faculty members on campus.(Vox)
I would assume Heterodox Academy’s core staff are too principled to support such measures. But by working to promote the idea that liberal bias and, yes, political correctness is a crisis, they provide ammunition to supporters of such efforts.(Vox)
""But there is also the more main-stream Heterodox Academy, an online forum dedicated to pushing the academy to the political right because, the group’s members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”"(Rouse)
In the group’s own terms, then, the problem is that American campuses have become a “left-leaning tribal moral community”- this is simply not true. He links and is quoting a member of HxA, but not one speaking for the organization as a whole. His second section you quoted above says
I would assume Heterodox Academy’s core staff are too principled to support such measures. But by working to promote the idea that liberal bias and, yes, political correctness is a crisis, they provide ammunition to supporters of such effortsis kind of obviously snarky and 100% Beauchamp's opinion. Neither of these lead to using this source in the way that you did. Beauchamp's opinion should only be used attributed to him, but then I have to ask why is his opinion worthy for inclusion? Lots of people have opinions - is Beauchamp an expert? Are we forced to now dig up any opinion, positive or negative, and include it? I've already responded above about the Rouse source, which falls into the same problem of "who cares?". The Observer is not as problematic, but I think your interpretation is. You equate the noted similarity to overtly conservative groups as if the author is saying the group is pushing right or conservative, when in fact he does not pass a particular judgement and actually himself puts forth the idea that there a "prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives". So here again, your read on it is the wrong take-away. Now, even after these misinterpretations, you mash all three together in a way which causes the WP:SYNTH issue. -- Netoholic @ 10:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter, their main objective lies in challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives, while promoting free speech from a diverse range of thinkers often viewed as marginalizedinto
"some commentators have described it as pushing back against what it sees as a left-wing tilt in academia"- I think it's fairly indisputable that all of these sources state that, at a bare minimum, and (aside from Heterodox Academy itself, whose disagreement is covered in the article) very few sources that actually address the topic seem to disagree. I'm not 100% happy with that construction (clearly the Vox and Rouse sources go beyond that, and the fact that the Observer describes their goals as aligning with Turning Point USA seems worth noting somewhere in the article, if not in the lead), but it seems like a decent compromise for now that trims things down to the bare, definite bones of what these sources say. -- Aquillion ( talk) 10:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
The examples above are not automatically weasel words. They may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, and the article body or the rest of the paragraph can supply attribution.) We can specify who in the relevant section. You're mistaken in your analysis of how the Vox piece reaches its conclusion; it also cites the very first post on Heterodox Academy and their own mission statement (the argument leads in with
This is a bit of a dodge. Sure, the phrase “political correctness” isn’t all that commonly used in Heterodox Academy pieces, but a fair reading of the group’s concerns would identify political correctness and the imposition of left-wing orthodoxy on campuses as an overriding concern for Heterodox Academy. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s the very first post on Heterodox Academy, from its founder and NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt, defining the then-blog’s founding premise:Also from the first piece,
You’re also involved with Jonathan Haidt’s Heterodox Academy, which tries to fight what it sees as a closed-minded, mostly left-leaning bias in academia.and The Observer piece does unambiguously say that the organization itself has challenging progressive culture as their mission
Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter, their main objective lies in challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives, while promoting free speech from a diverse range of thinkers often viewed as marginalized.The other part you're referring to is only in reference to the 'conservative' aspect, which my compromise would remove. And the Rouse piece is a published academic paper in the field of one of the topics Heterodox Academy focuses on; it passed academic review, and is therefore citable for fact, not just opinion. At this point I think I've answered all your objections. I imagine you still dislike citing Rouse, but you'll have to take that to WP:RSN if you really object. My points on the other two are, I think, indisputable - you simply misread the Vox piece, in particular, and seem to have misread the Observer piece as well without considering how my compromise removes the need to consider the second part (since they indisputably describe it as
challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives.) -- Aquillion ( talk) 11:07, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Regarding
this edit, I object to moving down the lead part of the sentence stating that Heterodox Academy does not formally define itself as conservative or centrist, and describes itself in nonpartisan terms
. We could perhaps refine that a bit, but it's an accurate summary of a key point from the source Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter...
, and is necessary in context to establish their disagreement with the sentence further down. I think that that's a vital summary, since the key point of dispute here is their political outlook (and, of course, whether they have one.) A quote can be useful, but we still need a broad secondary summary of the section, and I think that (while we could find better sources or tweak the wording of that line) the fact that Heterodox Academy presents itself as non-partisan and rejects the label of conservative is uncontroversial. I particularly object to making a quote to Heterodox Academy the lead-in to the section; while we can and should present their view, we should rely on
WP:SECONDARY sources for the summary. --
Aquillion (
talk) 04:50, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
The goal of her group, said Mashek, is not to promote any political agenda — or demand some kind of “affirmative action” for conservatives on campus.That reinforces the idea that the controversy is central (since she felt the need to bring it up early on.) Beyond that, I also strenuously dispute your characterization of the Observer as partisan. The New York Observer is hardly known for a liberal bias (it was, until recently, owned by Jared Kushner), and the author has written for a wide range of outlets with differing views. If your position is "any source that says Heterodox Academy has a conservative POV is by definition biased", then your reasoning is obviously circular. And if you feel it's not the best, provide better ones! It's easier to weigh sources for something like this comparatively. There are a lot of sources that take no position on the subject, definitely, and a lot that take the cautious position of just quoting Heterodox Academy on itself, but the ones that do take a position seem to largely (as far as I can tell) come down as describing Heterodox Academy as favoring conservative or right-wing viewpoints, either intentionally or unintentionally. -- Aquillion ( talk) 07:16, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
As the group says on its website:It's not quoting her in that part. If you want to mention her, we could do it elsewhere, but I don't think the source supports the idea that understanding her is central to understanding the topic or anything like that. And my point is, since it's not the "main pull from the article", it's not suitable to turn it into the lead of the section - the lead of the section should generally summarize the section as a whole, rather than privileging the subject's self-description above how it's described elsewhere. It (or some comparable quote) is clearly worth covering, which is why I left it in the section, but I don't feel it makes sense to lead into the section with it. That said, we could definitely add more to the lead of that section about their mission - I just object to pushing everything else down with an extensive quote directly from their website. -- Aquillion ( talk) 07:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
We need to base our description of them in the lead on what
WP:SECONDARY sources say about them rather than what they say about themselves; a non-profit organization comprised of professors, graduate students and administrators who aspire to promote viewpoint diversity and open inquiry on college campuses
is promotional in tone, treating their viewpoint and self-description as factual when there are actually many sources that express skepticism or disagree. Similarly, the sources generally describe them as an advocacy group, not just as a nonprofit - they're relevant for what they do (ie. advocating changes to how political topics are handled on-campus and pushing for increased exposure for specific points of view that they argue are under-represented), not for being a non-profit. --
Aquillion (
talk) 21:45, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
My objection to this edit is that most (all?) of the added sources don't mention Heterodox Academy. It reads like it's trying to make Heterodox Academy's argument in the text, ie. attempting to convince the reader that their goals are necessary and important or that they're correct in their assessment of academia; it also implicitly argues that these papers back Heterodox Academy's mission. But if we're going to say or imply that, we need sources that state as much specifically (ie. sources that actually mention Heterodox Academy.) -- Aquillion ( talk) 21:49, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
-- Moses102 ( talk) 01:20, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Regarding this expansion:
"Criticism and controversy" sections are generally inappropriate per WP:POV.
Stringing together a bunch of their own publications, then contrasting it against independent sources [1] is also inappropriate per WP:NOT and POV.
This rewrite places their opinions over those of independent sources, violating NOT and POV.
This bit about debates might be salvageable in some form.
This expansion is based upon two primary sources, and is promotional. -- Ronz ( talk) 00:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
If the independent sources our outdated and no independent sources now cover the facts, the best solution may be to trim the section while retaining important historical facts and coverage. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:03, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Like the Membership section, it may be best trim and retain important historical facts and coverage if the independent sources are outdated. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:06, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm not clear if advocacy group belongs in the lede. I don't have access to the Quintana(2018) ref to confirm what it says. Can someone please quote it in enough context to make the meaning clear? Do other refs support it? -- Ronz ( talk) 19:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
The New York-based advocacy group, which was founded in 2015...
Many Australians are counted among more than 2500 academics who have joined the Heterodox Academy, an advocacy group committed to...
The advocacy group he helped found, Heterodox Academy...
Paros is the only remaining Evergreen educator on Heterodox Academy, an advocacy group of professors...
References
While I don't know if we can say it's their mission today, the quote can be found in a number of reliable sources, eg [2] Doug Weller talk 21:17, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Regarding the two attempts to place Heterodox Academy's POV, with a quote, over those of the Star Tribune [3]. While I'd prefer a more up to date source, independent sources are required to prevent WP:SOAP, WP:RECENTISM, and WP:POV problems. -- Ronz ( talk) 21:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Information to be added or removed: Founders should be changed to Jonathan Haidt and Chris C. Martin
Explanation of issue: The people who worked on creating Heterodox Academy as a website and blog were Jonathan Haidt, Chris C. Martin (me), and David Dobolyi. David Dobolyi worked on the Wordpress setup exclusively rather than content and is therefore generally not cited as a founder. It is true that Nicholas Rosencranz and others including Lee Jussim, Jarret Crawford, Charlotta Stern, John Chambers, Judith Curry, Joe Duarte, and Gerard Alexander were involved in email exchanges about starting the organization. In some public talks, people have talked the organization as having three founders: Haidt, Martin, and Rosencranz. However, the major foundational work was done by Haidt and Martin. Therefore, one should (a) just cite Haidt and Martin, or (b) cite the whole set of people involved.
References supporting change: For a published reference citing Haidt and Martin as the founders, see the 2019 book "Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities" by Eric Kaufmann. This excerpt on Google Books shows the relevant page:
Details: Imprint: Abrams Press Publication Date: February 5, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-4683-1697-1 EAN: 9781468316971
I also have private emails but these are not public sources and I do not want to share them publicly.
Chris ( talk) 15:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Together with a number of more senior scholars, Mr. Martin recently founded Heterodox Academy, an organization dedicated to promoting viewpoint diversity in U.S. colleges and universities.-- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 17:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
"I'm pleased to be an early UK-based member"(of the Academy). Owing to that, please provide a neutral, independent source for this claim. Regards, Spintendo 07:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
"After discovering each-other’s essays, the scholars started corresponding [a] and decided: rather than trying to tackle this problem independently in psychology, sociology and law they should pool their resources and efforts to improve the quality and impact of social research more broadly. Heterodox Academy was born."5 other names are mentioned, but not as prominently as these three.
Notes
Over lunch in New York, Haidt and Rosenkranz, who had not previously met, speculated about the situation in other fields. By the end of the meal, they'd agreed to form a faculty group to promote political diversity in academe. They invited Haidt's co-authors from the journal article to join, along with Chris Martin .... To me, this reads as the two men started the (then unnamed) organization... and others being "invited...to join" indicates that the organization was, at least conceptually, already formed. At this point, I don't think there is enough other supporting material at this moment to make any change, but perhaps in the future there will be. I think this edit request should be fully closed, and the COI editor to be reminded that Wikipedia does not get involved or take sides in internal disputes or other matters of organizations we document - we just document what based on the best sources available. The book source that Chrismartin76 based this on is somewhat open to interpretation and by not mentioning Rosenkranz (where many other sources do) may be incomplete and unreliable on this point. -- Netoholic @ 15:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request: |
I removed this entry because a third opinion was given here before it was listed on the third opinion noticeboard. I would normally suggest opening a thread at WP:DRN, but there appears to be some WP:IDHT going on (not to mention WP:COI). Erpert blah, blah, blah... 06:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC) |
While Heterodox certainly wants to be seen as encouraging "diversity" their history and focus is all about finding ways to introduce and amplify conservative political viewpoints. At least that's what I'm seeing from the references, highlighted by the recent changes by @ Grayfell: -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 01:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
The sources you've been using are opinion pieces. Not suitable for factual assertions. Loksmythe ( talk) 15:59, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
The suggestion that Heterodox is about pushing conservative viewpoints mostly seems like Hipal/Ronz's opinion and/or original research. I also point out that the current wording of the contested section is "what they [heterodox] sees as.." which makes it more appropriate to go with what the organization says its goals are. The lead is supposed to summarize the body and simply saying "Conservative" is a tendentious summary of the article. I think the current restored version should stay until we come up with a better consensus version. I also think the soap tag which was just added should be removed. Just because you don't get the wording you want does not mean this is a promotional page. - Pengortm ( talk) 16:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to repeat myself, but we seem to have strayed from the topic and proper talk page usage: I'm following the sources, after seeing Grayfell's recent edits. Anyone want to comment? -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 16:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Other than gossip and routine fluff, sources are pretty clear. This organization is about promoting conservative voices.
Reliable, independent sources should be used to decide what "heterodox" implies, not editors. From sources, it is very, very clearly opposition to the leftist/liberal orthodoxy of academia. In addition to what's already listed:
Per NPR in 2017: "It's a group of academics that's challenged what they see as the leftist political orthodoxy in academia."
[4]
Per The Verge in 2016 (about HA): "In the modern political context, heterodoxy has been adopted by conservative groups concerned about what they view as a suffocating echo chamber in the liberal academy."
[5]
As always, context matters, and we are not obligated to prioritize PR. Grayfell ( talk) 04:20, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
in which he attributed the lack of political conservatives in social psychology to a lack of diversity, and that
Also in 2015, Haidt was contacted by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, who had given a talk to the Federalist Society discussing a similar lack of conservatives in his field. The two formed "Heterodox Academy" to address this issue.In fact, the latter (which very unambiguously states that the purpose of Heterodox Academy is to address what Haidt and Rosenkranz see as, in their view, insufficient conservative voices in academia) should probably be covered more clearly in the lead. -- Aquillion ( talk) 15:42, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Vritually all the sources provided in this section are commentary and not neutral reporting. We cannot use opinion commentary to make a factual assertions, like in the lead that HxA focuses on promoting conservative viewpoints. If included, needs to be noted as a POV position. Loksmythe ( talk) 15:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
All we have is opinion pieces on the matter.Howso? -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 03:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
ArbEnf applies here. Policy, sourcing, and the article itself clearly support the version that you two don't like. -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 15:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
If the policy, sourcing, and state of article are not going to be addressed, then I'll revert. -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 16:10, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Please WP:FOC.
I'm trying to determine if there's any policy-based reason not to change the lede. So far, I'm not seeing it. All my questions are to determine if I'm overlooking something, or if this is a case of preferring the poor sources over the superior ones to promote Heterodox's preferred description in violation of NOT and POV. -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 03:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
Reading through the article, it seems as if most of the text was imported straight from the group itself. It is generally positive in nature, includes no criticisms of the group, and outlines their publications with the same bylines as the original website. As written right now, it appears more like a promotional / propaganda article more than an objective article.
Some suggestions would be to include criticisms of the group, to remove words loaded with positive connotations, and to add more third person references to the group. If anyone has any other suggestions, please comment below. 128.189.73.93 ( talk) 19:07, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
Would "multipartisan" be more accurate than "bipartisan" in the lead sentence? I think that "bipartisan" frames it in terms of the two major US political parties, and I'm under the impression that the group is interested in more than just US politics. -- Tryptofish ( talk) 20:12, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Regarding this revert, I've rewritten the lead to make it unambiguous that it doesn't describe itself as conservative; but we need to rely on secondary sources to describe it, not primary ones, and they're generally pretty clear about what angle it's arguing from. Regarding the rest, no explanation was made for deleting the entire ideology section beyond WP:SYNTH and it not matching the sources -- please be more specific. It seems to summarize the cited sources very closely to me, but I can reword it to be more close if there are specific objections. Sweeping reverts to the entire page, though, aren't very helpful! The current article relies far too heavily on cites to Heterodox Academy itself or to sources that just quote it without describing or analyzing it directly, so we need a section like this and sources like the ones that this revert removed. -- Aquillion ( talk) 21:47, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
But there is also the more main-stream Heterodox Academy, an online forum dedicated to pushing the academy to the political right because, the group’s members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”-- Aquillion ( talk) 01:25, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
"But there is also the more main-stream Heterodox Academy, an online forum dedicated to pushing the academy to the political right because, the group’s members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”, which I interpreted as reasonably summarizing to that statement. I can reword it slightly if you want (and have a better summary), but to me, "pushing the academy to the political right" parses to advancing conservative viewpoints, and "because, as the group's members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”" parses to a belief in left-wing bias. -- Aquillion ( talk) 01:51, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
If one reliable source says A, and another reliable source says B, do not join A and B together to imply a conclusion C that is not mentioned by either of the sources. Again we also have a question of WP:DUE for using the Fuentes mention (evolutionary biologists are not social scientist) and even if used, it should be attributed to them and stated in the terms they use, not cobbled with 2 other sources into something you think is vaguely similar. -- Netoholic @ 01:59, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
advancing conservative viewpoints on college campuses by playing into or presenting the argument that such views are suppressed by left-wing bias, and if that part is what you object to then I don't follow at all. By my reading, all of those sources directly and independently state the things they're being cited for, both there and with the Salon piece you're objecting to (both of which describe Heterodox Academy's position as being part of a moral panic.) Edit: Again, please offer some sort of alternative summary, if you think I got it wrong. Aside from "consistently", which I removed, I legitimately do not understand your objection here; if you could offer what you see as a more accurate summary of these sources, I might understand where you feel the disagreement between them is or in what ways you think they fail to support the statements I cited to them. -- Aquillion ( talk) 02:02, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
if we used only the Fuentes/Rouse source, would that sentence in the article it references be written the same way?Yes, absolutely. No question. I believe that that statement is a perfect summary of what it says, and I've now said so several times in several different ways. If you feel that there's an error in it, you will have to be specific - SYNTH is a very specific thing (X + Y = Z), so if you believe there's something in there that's not in the source, you will have to state it, ideally with a preferred summary of your own. But as it is (with the minor correction I made above), I stand by it 100% and feel that it's one of the closest summaries of a source that I've written. Normally, in a dispute like this, I would shrug and rewrite it to be as close of a parsing of the source as possible (since there's no sense in continuing the dispute if it can be easily fixed), but by my reading it's already as close of a summary of the source as it's possible to get without being a direct quote. If your argument is that turning the section into a series of direct quotes would be superior, I strenuously disagree; I don't feel that that sort of quotefarm is useful to readers. We should find prominent viewpoints held by many reliable sources, then condense and summarize them instead in order to give readers a general sense of the available strands of thought on the subject without giving WP:UNDUE weight to any one source. This is standard practice. -- Aquillion ( talk) 18:36, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
This sentence was removed from the lead: while it identifies itself as non-partisan, some commentators have described it as advancing a conservative argument against what it sees as a left-wing tilt in academia.
Does anyone dispute that this is an accurate summary of what the sources say, both there and in the section it summarizes? Although there are some disagreements, above, over how exactly to phrase the relevant section or which specific sources to include, I do not see any general disagreement on the existence or
WP:DUE nature of the broad existence of such commentators, and the current trend of discussion for that section doesn't seem to be calling into question anything that would change that broad summary of it. --
Aquillion (
talk) 03:36, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter, their main objective lies in challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives, while promoting free speech from a diverse range of thinkers often viewed as marginalized. In this sense, they bear a similar mission to the conservative behemoth Turning Point USA in galvanizing opposition to university liberalism; the shrinkage of the Overton Window, the viewpoints and topics seen as socially mainstream, has clumped together unlikely bedfellows.(Observer)
In the group’s own terms, then, the problem is that American campuses have become a “left-leaning tribal moral community” that suffer from a form of “orthodoxy” — wherein conservative voices are marginalized and shunned — due to a lack of “viewpoint diversity,” meaning a dearth of conservative faculty members on campus.(Vox)
I would assume Heterodox Academy’s core staff are too principled to support such measures. But by working to promote the idea that liberal bias and, yes, political correctness is a crisis, they provide ammunition to supporters of such efforts.(Vox)
""But there is also the more main-stream Heterodox Academy, an online forum dedicated to pushing the academy to the political right because, the group’s members believe, liberal scholars teach orthodox ideas “without any real evidence.”"(Rouse)
In the group’s own terms, then, the problem is that American campuses have become a “left-leaning tribal moral community”- this is simply not true. He links and is quoting a member of HxA, but not one speaking for the organization as a whole. His second section you quoted above says
I would assume Heterodox Academy’s core staff are too principled to support such measures. But by working to promote the idea that liberal bias and, yes, political correctness is a crisis, they provide ammunition to supporters of such effortsis kind of obviously snarky and 100% Beauchamp's opinion. Neither of these lead to using this source in the way that you did. Beauchamp's opinion should only be used attributed to him, but then I have to ask why is his opinion worthy for inclusion? Lots of people have opinions - is Beauchamp an expert? Are we forced to now dig up any opinion, positive or negative, and include it? I've already responded above about the Rouse source, which falls into the same problem of "who cares?". The Observer is not as problematic, but I think your interpretation is. You equate the noted similarity to overtly conservative groups as if the author is saying the group is pushing right or conservative, when in fact he does not pass a particular judgement and actually himself puts forth the idea that there a "prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives". So here again, your read on it is the wrong take-away. Now, even after these misinterpretations, you mash all three together in a way which causes the WP:SYNTH issue. -- Netoholic @ 10:03, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter, their main objective lies in challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives, while promoting free speech from a diverse range of thinkers often viewed as marginalizedinto
"some commentators have described it as pushing back against what it sees as a left-wing tilt in academia"- I think it's fairly indisputable that all of these sources state that, at a bare minimum, and (aside from Heterodox Academy itself, whose disagreement is covered in the article) very few sources that actually address the topic seem to disagree. I'm not 100% happy with that construction (clearly the Vox and Rouse sources go beyond that, and the fact that the Observer describes their goals as aligning with Turning Point USA seems worth noting somewhere in the article, if not in the lead), but it seems like a decent compromise for now that trims things down to the bare, definite bones of what these sources say. -- Aquillion ( talk) 10:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
The examples above are not automatically weasel words. They may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, and the article body or the rest of the paragraph can supply attribution.) We can specify who in the relevant section. You're mistaken in your analysis of how the Vox piece reaches its conclusion; it also cites the very first post on Heterodox Academy and their own mission statement (the argument leads in with
This is a bit of a dodge. Sure, the phrase “political correctness” isn’t all that commonly used in Heterodox Academy pieces, but a fair reading of the group’s concerns would identify political correctness and the imposition of left-wing orthodoxy on campuses as an overriding concern for Heterodox Academy. Don’t take my word for it. Here’s the very first post on Heterodox Academy, from its founder and NYU psychologist Jonathan Haidt, defining the then-blog’s founding premise:Also from the first piece,
You’re also involved with Jonathan Haidt’s Heterodox Academy, which tries to fight what it sees as a closed-minded, mostly left-leaning bias in academia.and The Observer piece does unambiguously say that the organization itself has challenging progressive culture as their mission
Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter, their main objective lies in challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives, while promoting free speech from a diverse range of thinkers often viewed as marginalized.The other part you're referring to is only in reference to the 'conservative' aspect, which my compromise would remove. And the Rouse piece is a published academic paper in the field of one of the topics Heterodox Academy focuses on; it passed academic review, and is therefore citable for fact, not just opinion. At this point I think I've answered all your objections. I imagine you still dislike citing Rouse, but you'll have to take that to WP:RSN if you really object. My points on the other two are, I think, indisputable - you simply misread the Vox piece, in particular, and seem to have misread the Observer piece as well without considering how my compromise removes the need to consider the second part (since they indisputably describe it as
challenging the prevailing culture in academia monopolized by progressives.) -- Aquillion ( talk) 11:07, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
Regarding
this edit, I object to moving down the lead part of the sentence stating that Heterodox Academy does not formally define itself as conservative or centrist, and describes itself in nonpartisan terms
. We could perhaps refine that a bit, but it's an accurate summary of a key point from the source Although institutions like the Heterodox Academy do not directly call themselves conservative, or even centrist for that matter...
, and is necessary in context to establish their disagreement with the sentence further down. I think that that's a vital summary, since the key point of dispute here is their political outlook (and, of course, whether they have one.) A quote can be useful, but we still need a broad secondary summary of the section, and I think that (while we could find better sources or tweak the wording of that line) the fact that Heterodox Academy presents itself as non-partisan and rejects the label of conservative is uncontroversial. I particularly object to making a quote to Heterodox Academy the lead-in to the section; while we can and should present their view, we should rely on
WP:SECONDARY sources for the summary. --
Aquillion (
talk) 04:50, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
The goal of her group, said Mashek, is not to promote any political agenda — or demand some kind of “affirmative action” for conservatives on campus.That reinforces the idea that the controversy is central (since she felt the need to bring it up early on.) Beyond that, I also strenuously dispute your characterization of the Observer as partisan. The New York Observer is hardly known for a liberal bias (it was, until recently, owned by Jared Kushner), and the author has written for a wide range of outlets with differing views. If your position is "any source that says Heterodox Academy has a conservative POV is by definition biased", then your reasoning is obviously circular. And if you feel it's not the best, provide better ones! It's easier to weigh sources for something like this comparatively. There are a lot of sources that take no position on the subject, definitely, and a lot that take the cautious position of just quoting Heterodox Academy on itself, but the ones that do take a position seem to largely (as far as I can tell) come down as describing Heterodox Academy as favoring conservative or right-wing viewpoints, either intentionally or unintentionally. -- Aquillion ( talk) 07:16, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
As the group says on its website:It's not quoting her in that part. If you want to mention her, we could do it elsewhere, but I don't think the source supports the idea that understanding her is central to understanding the topic or anything like that. And my point is, since it's not the "main pull from the article", it's not suitable to turn it into the lead of the section - the lead of the section should generally summarize the section as a whole, rather than privileging the subject's self-description above how it's described elsewhere. It (or some comparable quote) is clearly worth covering, which is why I left it in the section, but I don't feel it makes sense to lead into the section with it. That said, we could definitely add more to the lead of that section about their mission - I just object to pushing everything else down with an extensive quote directly from their website. -- Aquillion ( talk) 07:55, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
We need to base our description of them in the lead on what
WP:SECONDARY sources say about them rather than what they say about themselves; a non-profit organization comprised of professors, graduate students and administrators who aspire to promote viewpoint diversity and open inquiry on college campuses
is promotional in tone, treating their viewpoint and self-description as factual when there are actually many sources that express skepticism or disagree. Similarly, the sources generally describe them as an advocacy group, not just as a nonprofit - they're relevant for what they do (ie. advocating changes to how political topics are handled on-campus and pushing for increased exposure for specific points of view that they argue are under-represented), not for being a non-profit. --
Aquillion (
talk) 21:45, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
My objection to this edit is that most (all?) of the added sources don't mention Heterodox Academy. It reads like it's trying to make Heterodox Academy's argument in the text, ie. attempting to convince the reader that their goals are necessary and important or that they're correct in their assessment of academia; it also implicitly argues that these papers back Heterodox Academy's mission. But if we're going to say or imply that, we need sources that state as much specifically (ie. sources that actually mention Heterodox Academy.) -- Aquillion ( talk) 21:49, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
-- Moses102 ( talk) 01:20, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Regarding this expansion:
"Criticism and controversy" sections are generally inappropriate per WP:POV.
Stringing together a bunch of their own publications, then contrasting it against independent sources [1] is also inappropriate per WP:NOT and POV.
This rewrite places their opinions over those of independent sources, violating NOT and POV.
This bit about debates might be salvageable in some form.
This expansion is based upon two primary sources, and is promotional. -- Ronz ( talk) 00:18, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
If the independent sources our outdated and no independent sources now cover the facts, the best solution may be to trim the section while retaining important historical facts and coverage. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:03, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
Like the Membership section, it may be best trim and retain important historical facts and coverage if the independent sources are outdated. -- Ronz ( talk) 16:06, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
I'm not clear if advocacy group belongs in the lede. I don't have access to the Quintana(2018) ref to confirm what it says. Can someone please quote it in enough context to make the meaning clear? Do other refs support it? -- Ronz ( talk) 19:49, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
The New York-based advocacy group, which was founded in 2015...
Many Australians are counted among more than 2500 academics who have joined the Heterodox Academy, an advocacy group committed to...
The advocacy group he helped found, Heterodox Academy...
Paros is the only remaining Evergreen educator on Heterodox Academy, an advocacy group of professors...
References
While I don't know if we can say it's their mission today, the quote can be found in a number of reliable sources, eg [2] Doug Weller talk 21:17, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
(Edit conflict) Regarding the two attempts to place Heterodox Academy's POV, with a quote, over those of the Star Tribune [3]. While I'd prefer a more up to date source, independent sources are required to prevent WP:SOAP, WP:RECENTISM, and WP:POV problems. -- Ronz ( talk) 21:21, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered. |
Information to be added or removed: Founders should be changed to Jonathan Haidt and Chris C. Martin
Explanation of issue: The people who worked on creating Heterodox Academy as a website and blog were Jonathan Haidt, Chris C. Martin (me), and David Dobolyi. David Dobolyi worked on the Wordpress setup exclusively rather than content and is therefore generally not cited as a founder. It is true that Nicholas Rosencranz and others including Lee Jussim, Jarret Crawford, Charlotta Stern, John Chambers, Judith Curry, Joe Duarte, and Gerard Alexander were involved in email exchanges about starting the organization. In some public talks, people have talked the organization as having three founders: Haidt, Martin, and Rosencranz. However, the major foundational work was done by Haidt and Martin. Therefore, one should (a) just cite Haidt and Martin, or (b) cite the whole set of people involved.
References supporting change: For a published reference citing Haidt and Martin as the founders, see the 2019 book "Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities" by Eric Kaufmann. This excerpt on Google Books shows the relevant page:
Details: Imprint: Abrams Press Publication Date: February 5, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-4683-1697-1 EAN: 9781468316971
I also have private emails but these are not public sources and I do not want to share them publicly.
Chris ( talk) 15:49, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Together with a number of more senior scholars, Mr. Martin recently founded Heterodox Academy, an organization dedicated to promoting viewpoint diversity in U.S. colleges and universities.-- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 17:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
"I'm pleased to be an early UK-based member"(of the Academy). Owing to that, please provide a neutral, independent source for this claim. Regards, Spintendo 07:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
"After discovering each-other’s essays, the scholars started corresponding [a] and decided: rather than trying to tackle this problem independently in psychology, sociology and law they should pool their resources and efforts to improve the quality and impact of social research more broadly. Heterodox Academy was born."5 other names are mentioned, but not as prominently as these three.
Notes
Over lunch in New York, Haidt and Rosenkranz, who had not previously met, speculated about the situation in other fields. By the end of the meal, they'd agreed to form a faculty group to promote political diversity in academe. They invited Haidt's co-authors from the journal article to join, along with Chris Martin .... To me, this reads as the two men started the (then unnamed) organization... and others being "invited...to join" indicates that the organization was, at least conceptually, already formed. At this point, I don't think there is enough other supporting material at this moment to make any change, but perhaps in the future there will be. I think this edit request should be fully closed, and the COI editor to be reminded that Wikipedia does not get involved or take sides in internal disputes or other matters of organizations we document - we just document what based on the best sources available. The book source that Chrismartin76 based this on is somewhat open to interpretation and by not mentioning Rosenkranz (where many other sources do) may be incomplete and unreliable on this point. -- Netoholic @ 15:56, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Response to third opinion request: |
I removed this entry because a third opinion was given here before it was listed on the third opinion noticeboard. I would normally suggest opening a thread at WP:DRN, but there appears to be some WP:IDHT going on (not to mention WP:COI). Erpert blah, blah, blah... 06:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC) |
While Heterodox certainly wants to be seen as encouraging "diversity" their history and focus is all about finding ways to introduce and amplify conservative political viewpoints. At least that's what I'm seeing from the references, highlighted by the recent changes by @ Grayfell: -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 01:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
The sources you've been using are opinion pieces. Not suitable for factual assertions. Loksmythe ( talk) 15:59, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
The suggestion that Heterodox is about pushing conservative viewpoints mostly seems like Hipal/Ronz's opinion and/or original research. I also point out that the current wording of the contested section is "what they [heterodox] sees as.." which makes it more appropriate to go with what the organization says its goals are. The lead is supposed to summarize the body and simply saying "Conservative" is a tendentious summary of the article. I think the current restored version should stay until we come up with a better consensus version. I also think the soap tag which was just added should be removed. Just because you don't get the wording you want does not mean this is a promotional page. - Pengortm ( talk) 16:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to repeat myself, but we seem to have strayed from the topic and proper talk page usage: I'm following the sources, after seeing Grayfell's recent edits. Anyone want to comment? -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 16:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Other than gossip and routine fluff, sources are pretty clear. This organization is about promoting conservative voices.
Reliable, independent sources should be used to decide what "heterodox" implies, not editors. From sources, it is very, very clearly opposition to the leftist/liberal orthodoxy of academia. In addition to what's already listed:
Per NPR in 2017: "It's a group of academics that's challenged what they see as the leftist political orthodoxy in academia."
[4]
Per The Verge in 2016 (about HA): "In the modern political context, heterodoxy has been adopted by conservative groups concerned about what they view as a suffocating echo chamber in the liberal academy."
[5]
As always, context matters, and we are not obligated to prioritize PR. Grayfell ( talk) 04:20, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
in which he attributed the lack of political conservatives in social psychology to a lack of diversity, and that
Also in 2015, Haidt was contacted by Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, who had given a talk to the Federalist Society discussing a similar lack of conservatives in his field. The two formed "Heterodox Academy" to address this issue.In fact, the latter (which very unambiguously states that the purpose of Heterodox Academy is to address what Haidt and Rosenkranz see as, in their view, insufficient conservative voices in academia) should probably be covered more clearly in the lead. -- Aquillion ( talk) 15:42, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Vritually all the sources provided in this section are commentary and not neutral reporting. We cannot use opinion commentary to make a factual assertions, like in the lead that HxA focuses on promoting conservative viewpoints. If included, needs to be noted as a POV position. Loksmythe ( talk) 15:48, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
All we have is opinion pieces on the matter.Howso? -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 03:37, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
ArbEnf applies here. Policy, sourcing, and the article itself clearly support the version that you two don't like. -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 15:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
If the policy, sourcing, and state of article are not going to be addressed, then I'll revert. -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 16:10, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
Please WP:FOC.
I'm trying to determine if there's any policy-based reason not to change the lede. So far, I'm not seeing it. All my questions are to determine if I'm overlooking something, or if this is a case of preferring the poor sources over the superior ones to promote Heterodox's preferred description in violation of NOT and POV. -- Hipal/Ronz ( talk) 03:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC)