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Given this is C-Class, going to see what I can do to improve it. MaskedSinger (talk) 11:39, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Under no circumstances are over-the-top promotional claims like "Murray has devoted his career to seeking and spreading the truth and because of this, opinions on him are polarised." going to be appropriate to this or any other article. Focus on reliable, independent sources. Do not add WP:SYNTH and do not use flimsy sources to insert trivia, loaded wording, or editorializing. Wikipedia isn't a platform for hagiography, PR, or advocacy. Grayfell (talk) 09:34, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok thanks for that @Grayfell . But couldn't you have just deleted that line instead of everything else? MaskedSinger (talk) 09:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Grayfell so can i try again? MaskedSinger (talk) 09:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For future reference, this is regarding this block of edit, which I have reverted.
To your first question: I used that one line to highlight one of the issues, but it was not the only issue, nor even the only over-the-top line you added. Your additions included far too much editorializing and vague language based on flimsy and opinionated sources which were presented as bland facts. You also moved content which had consensus built over time in the lead, such as Murray's endorsement of far-right conspiracy theories, the body. This all adds up to look like whitewashing the article, but Wikipedia is not a platform for promotion. Your edits had made the article less neutral, not more. I'm sorry, but explaining every single issue here is simple not feasible right now.
I don't know what you mean by "try again". You do not have consensus for these changes, and would need to address a lot of different issues to gain consensus. Grayfell (talk) 09:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Grayfell Ok. Thank you. MaskedSinger (talk) 09:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Far-right" and "Alt-right" labels

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In the Ideology section, the first line currently states:

Academic and journalistic sources have variously described Murray's ideology and political views as ... far-right, alt-right

Six sources are given for the "far-right" label and two are given for the "alt-right" label. However, only one of the six sources actually describes Murray himself as far-right, and neither of the sources describes Murray himself as alt-right:

  • Stewart 2020 (or at least, the part of it that is quoted; I cannot access the full paper as it is behind a paywall) characterises one of Murray's books as a remodelling of an idea that has a history of being used by the far-right, but stops short of describing Murray himself as far-right.
  • Lux & David Jordan 2019 states Murray's ideas are not only entangled with the far-right (working class or otherwise), but with wider social connections. Thus, they are characterising his ideas as not being far-right, or at least not to the exclusion of other political descriptors
  • Busher, Joel (2013). "Grassroots activism in the English Defence League: Discourse and public (dis) order". In Taylor, Max; Holbrook, Donald (eds.). Extreme Right Wing Political Violence and Terrorism. A&C Black. p. 70. ISBN 978-1-4411-4087-6. Retrieved 2 January 2021. says that the author has met EDL activists who admire Douglas Murray, which does not mean that Douglas Murray himself is far-right.
  • Kotch 2018 only says that Prager U is far-right, not Douglas Murray.
  • Hussain 2018 again never characterises Murray as far-right, and says that the far-right is obsessed with his book only in the WP:HEADLINE.

This leaves a single opinion piece from Middle East Eye which also accuses Murray of "shilling for Israel" -- in my opinion including the descriptor of "far-right" for Murray's own ideology based on this single article would not be WP:NPOV.

It would be useful to have information in the article about Murray's relationship to and/or views on the far-right and the alt-right, but we should not mischaracterise the sources as saying that Murray's own ideology is far-right or alt-right when they are making a more nuanced point.

Any thoughts about how this part of the article could be reworded to more accurately reflect the sources, or good sources actually describing Murray as far-right or alt-right, would be appreciated. TWM03 (talk) 02:35, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your ellipsis misrepresents the wording in the article:
Academic and journalistic sources have variously described Murray's ideology and political views as conservative,[60] neoconservative,[19][61][62] far-right,[63] alt-right[64][16] and Islamophobic.[12][13]
The article is not saying that Academic and journalistic sources have variously described Murray's ideology and political views as far-right and alt-right, it is including those ideologies as two of five examples, with sources.
The article also does not say that Murray is far-right as a person. Articles will, sometimes, say that, but this one doesn't. He is a pundit by trade, and ideas are his product. Sources have noted that he promotes far-right ideas. At no point is anyone stating or even implying that all of his ideas are far-right, nor that his ideas are exclusively far-right etc.. With this in mind, the sources seem sufficient for this purpose. Grayfell (talk) 03:15, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Grayfell My use of the ellipsis was not intended to be misrepresentative. You are right that these are only two out of five descriptors used, but I don't think that this changes the argument I was making.
I take your point about the distinction between having far-right ideas and being far-right as a person. Which of the eight sources do you think back up the current wording? All of them, or only some? TWM03 (talk) 16:26, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not going to play that game, but I will give one example, for convenience. Regarding the 2018 Hussain article, the author characterizes Murray's book as far-right multiple times, both directly and indirectly (emphasis added):
  • Like far-right American publications that maintain running lists of crimes specifically committed by black people and Latino immigrants, Murray collapses all these cases together to give the impression of one gigantic, rolling crisis.
  • ...But Murray's narrative of lawlessness is blinkered to the point of being propaganda. While European Union-wide statistics are not readily available, it’s worth noting that Germany, the country that took the most refugees during the peak of the crisis, reported its lowest national crime rate this year since 1992. Similar decreases have been recorded in Italy, one of the front-line states for those arriving from across the Mediterranean. Across the continent, the wave of refugees has already crested, without the breakdown of law and order claimed by far-right polemicists.
  • In retrospect, it’s not so surprising that Orbán decided to promote Murray’s book on his Facebook page this spring. Not only does the book reinforce the Hungarian demagogue’s own ethnonationalist worldview, but Murray also actually writes about Orbán favorably while criticizing his nemesis, the liberal financier and supporter of migrants, George Soros.
A few weeks ago, a Soros-linked university was driven out of Hungary, despite protests by thousands of liberal Hungarians against its closure. As the far right rears its head on the continent once again, leaders like Orbán are once again gaining strength, buttressed by the writings of ideologues like Murray. As the storm clouds gather, the rest of us can only fight to ensure that such people don’t succeed in dragging Europe down the same road of regret that it traveled just a few short generations ago.
A fair summary of this source would acknowledge that Hussain is characterizing Murray's book as a far-right work.
If you have an actionable suggestion, make it. Grayfell (talk) 23:09, 5 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So nowhere in the cited source does Hussain explicitly describe Murray, his ideology or his book(s) as far-right. The above attempt to show that Hussain "indirectly" describes Murray's book as far-right looks like textbook WP:SYNTH: (combining) different parts of one source to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source (my emphasis). And it looks like a similar misuse of sources has occurred with Stewart (2020), Lux & David Jordan (2019), Busher (2013) and Kotch (2018). That leaves Ahmed (2015). I share TWM03's misgivings regarding the quality of this source, but it is probably good enough for the claim the article makes. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:00, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it might work better to remove those two labels from the list, but to add another sentence, something like "He has been described as promoting far-right ideas and as providing emotional support to the alt-right." The connection to the right-wing fringe is clearly an important part of what makes Murray notable, but the ontological claim that he is far-right or alt-right is not the way the best sources describe this connection. Newimpartial (talk) 19:53, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. "Murray has been accused of promoting far right ideas" is probably the most neutral and fair wording. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think that's a good idea. It does a better job of reflecting what is in the sources. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 06:05, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also agreed. Does this just apply to the "Ideology" section or should we use this wording in the lead as well? We currently say he has been linked to far-right political ideologies and the promotion of far-right ideas; this seems unnecessarily vague. Either Newimpartial's or Hemiauchenia's proposed wording would be more accurate and informative. FirstPrimeOfApophis (talk) 18:48, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with has been accused of, in either the lead or the section - "described as" is more faithful to the sources and more neutral, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 21:36, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Profile

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@Hemiauchenia Regarding not believing that his profile has risen considerably since October 7, what is your data for this?? Because from May 1 2022 to October 1 2023, this article has 826,813 views and from 2 October 2023 to today it's had around 1.88 million views. Also if we look at the screenshot of google trends for a search of his name, we can see that there is far more consistent interest in him since October 7

Google search trends for douglas murray, last 5 years

MaskedSinger (talk) 05:52, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean that Murray was already pretty well known prior to Oct 7 and had been so for over a decade at that point. It did raise his profile to a not inconsiderable degree, but the previous phrasing makes it seem like he was previously obscure when he really wasn't. Mentioning the rise in his profile after October 7 is due for the body but I don't really think it adds much to the lead. If it is to be included, it should be part of a paragraph that gives a summary of his career, and the mentions the rise in profile after October 7 at the end. Hemiauchenia (talk) 08:15, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hemiauchenia ok great. would you like to take care of this? MaskedSinger (talk) 09:06, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hemiauchenia Thanks for that but why did you put Centre for Social Cohesion in the lede. Didn't think it had to be there. MaskedSinger (talk) 09:25, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)
This is strictly a subjective impression, but Murray's profile may have broadened since October 7. Certainly in Europe, his views and style were already fairly well known among those who follow such matters. But where are the sources characterising his profile as having risen? Including that info based on Google search trends sounds like almost dictionary definition of WP:OR. The claim may well be true, but (again subjectively) there have been earlier spikes in his profile. Being a controversial pundit inevitably means that his prominence correlates with when his views are thrown into the spotlight by events. Pincrete (talk) 09:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How's this @Pincrete
https://nationalpost.com/news/fierce-zionism-propels-douglas-murray-to-intellectual-superstardom MaskedSinger (talk) 09:39, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Also this @Pincrete
https://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/interviews-and-profiles/how-douglas-murray-became-the-most-persuasive-pro-israel-voice-on-the-planet/2024/10/02/ MaskedSinger (talk) 09:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The second is endorsing that he has become better known by a Jewish audience, the first is more general, but regardless, our text should be supported by refs and should reflect what they are saying. Pincrete (talk) 10:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. Ill add the reference. MaskedSinger (talk) 11:34, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The wording was non-neutral in multiple ways, and the source is flimsy, to put it mildly. Yet again I would remind editors that Wikipedia isn't a platform for promotion or advocacy. Grayfell (talk) 01:02, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Places such as …

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The journalism section is largely dedicated to Murray's war reporting: "Murray has traveled around the world reporting on major conflicts from the front lines in places such as Iraq, North Korea, Northern Nigeria, Ukraine, and Israel. In November 2022, Murray spent a month in Ukraine. All of these, with the exception of Israel are sourced to Murray himself. Again, with the exception of Israel-Gaza, where his reporting itself has got more coverage from sources, he isn't known as a war correspondent AFAIK. Also, on a purely language perspective, what exactly are places like this motley list? Only Israel-Gaza and Ukraine would probably qualify as 'major conflicts' anyway. I would suggest his journalism may be broader, but also less dramatic than the present text suggests. Pincrete (talk) 14:09, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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