Talk:Bhaskar Sunkara

Due Evidence and Sources for controversy

In the past with this topic, there did not seem to be direct evidence of his tweets. I have found images now of the tweets. Regrettably, the actual tweets were deleted and the WayBack Machine does not have an archive of them. Links below.

https://mobile.twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1312169077557792768/photo/1

https://mobile.twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1312171754954006528/photo/1

https://mobile.twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1312171754954006528/photo/2

These should certainly qualify as due evidence and sufficient to mention this controversy. Considering Sunkara deleted the relevant tweets, it seems he would agree they are controversial. If this is going to be a neutral and unbiased biographical page, this should be included.

These seem to be incontrovertible evidence to me, unless there are suggestions it was doctored -- in which case I would ask what process is used to verify the integrity of such images as sources when they are used on Twitter. For what its worth, it has the checkmark, so we can be certain it is indeed him.

I'm more than happy to go through the WP:BRD process if there is any objection. My understanding is previous additions to this article lacked sufficient evidence, which I believe I have now provided.

I am pinging you @C.J. Griffin: for discussion since you're one of the main editors who has been involved in this discussion previously. If I don't hear any opposition within a fair period of time (a few days?) I will assume Consensus and proceed with the edits. Hoping we can have a good discussion here. AeternusLux (talk) 01:27, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

As discussed below, WP:BLP's require strong secondary sources. These of course do not qualify.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 03:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Please correct my understanding if I'm mistaken, but the policy here seems to mean that if someone makes a controversial statement on Twitter but later deletes it, the controversy cannot go on a page? If the self-published source is deleted, I'm hard pressed to think of how any secondary source could write an article without using images like those I shared.

Perhaps a better question, what would be considered a strong secondary source in this situation, where something controversial was said but the statements were deleted by the subject? If none exist, then the policy effectively forbids mentioning this on pages, correct? AeternusLux (talk) 10:09, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

If this so-called controversy is not mentioned by reliable, secondary sources, then no, it should not be included in a BLP, as it is material that is apparently not-notable. Moreover, given these are tweets by someone other than the subject of the article, they are strictly forbidden to be used as sources in a BLP. Per WP:BLP: "Articles should document in a non-partisan manner what reliable secondary sources have published about the subjects, and in some circumstances what the subjects have published about themselves." This clearly is not one of those circumstances. And more importantly "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article."--C.J. Griffin (talk) 14:10, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Understood. For my own understanding and curiosity, what would be considered a strong secondary source for a BLP, given the high standard for inclusion? What sort of publication or article would we be looking at? AeternusLux (talk) 01:05, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

You can find some examples here: WP:RSP.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 04:24, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Tweeting about Murdering Children

Bhaskar's recent controversy (where he tweeted that he believed it was "justified" when the Romanov children were murdered) has been added and removed from this article multiple times now. It seems there is now a wikipedia controversy about whether this controversy is worth mentioning.

Frankly I find this incredible. It's hard to imagine a more controversial thing for someone to say, and it is well documented that he said it.

Sincerely, Talataash October 6th 2020

It's WP:UNDUE because the sourcing is extremely weak and biased. It was part of a conversation with others, not a stand alone tweet, which of course is omitted in the sourcing, meaning this now deleted tweet is taken out of context. One deleted tweet hardly deserves a mention in a biographical article, let alone an entire section devoted to it. It does not meet the standards for inclusion in a WP:BLP.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 03:01, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Directly quoting the wikipedia article with guidelines for citing reliable sources ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources ) it says: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." Now this tweet about murdering children is a very significant controversy to a lot of people, and it comes up immediately in search results on Bhaskar Sunkara. In my view, his biographical article cannot possibly be called neutral if a controversy like this is being deliberately left out. It is also my view that a proud and committed socialist should carefully consider their own personal bias in this matter. This is no place to push an agenda -- Talataash, October 7th 2020

BLP's are held to a higher standard than most other Wikipedia articles, and therefore require strong sources and adhere to WP:NPOV. As the last editor to revert your changes said in his edit summary, this is controversial information. Per WP:BRD, you will need to find consensus to add such material to the article.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 16:12, 7 October 2020 (UTC)