Talk:Jordan Peterson/Archive 10

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The interview with Cathy Newman on British TV is a major event in Peterson's arc in Britain - can I propose a new section for it ?

It seems to me that the interview warrants it's own section - In fact, are there any good reasons against that?

The 16 January 2018 Interview on Channel 4 News - has been watched 21.4m times on Youtube, to date. For a 'mere' UK news item, that it is a big audience. No other Channel 4 News piece has been watched more (excluding a comedy / verbal stunt by a weather man): https://www.youtube.com/user/Channel4News/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid

On the entire Channel 4 channel on Youtube - only 3 non-News programs have had more views: https://www.youtube.com/user/Channel4/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid. The publicity from the Interview in the UK, helped raise Peterson's prominence - there was alot of coverage of him in the serious UK newspapers for over a year after that.

E.g. just fire-hosing some examples: these 3 events - none of which are mentioned in the current page: January 2018 - BBC's Radio 5 Live's 'HeadLiners' interview - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p05w1hjw January 2018 - TheGuardian newspaper book review - https://www.theguardian.com/global/2018/jan/21/jordan-peterson-self-help-author-12-steps-interview

And later: May 2018 he was: a) interviewed by Maajid Nawaz, on London's LBC radio - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMBfT38xbhU b) a guest on BBC Radio 4's 'Start the Week' show - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b2gsct c) interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking ptogramme: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fk63

June 2018 -The Guardian 'What the left gets wrong about Jordan Peterson' opinion piece - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/22/what-the-left-gets-wrong-about-jordan-peterson

August 2018 the BBC's HARDtalk weekly TV show interviewed him - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufopNY5PO1U. - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3cswj8s

September 2018 - is included in BBC's 'Morality in the 21st Century' radio series by UK chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks

November 2018 the BBC invited him as a panel member to the weekly political program Question Time: where he commented on knife crime and the Brexit referendum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j13KnahU3U

January 2019 BBC's 'Radio 5 Live' station (youth audience) - interview him with the young members of a Boxing gym in Manchester (North England) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06xlz1l CanterburyUK (talk) 21:49, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Given that this article has a long history of controversy, you were smart to post a question here first. If you have not already done so, I suggest reviewing WP:YOUTUBE regarding YT videos reliability or lack thereof. Here is a pithy summary from Reliable sources/Perennial sources:

Most videos on YouTube are anonymous, self-published, and unverifiable, and should not be used at all. Content uploaded from a verified official account, such as that of a news organization, may be treated as originating from the uploader and therefore inheriting their level of reliability. However, many YouTube videos from unofficial accounts are copyright violations and should not be linked from Wikipedia, according to WP:COPYLINK. See also WP:YOUTUBE and WP:VIDEOLINK.

(See the article—WP:RSP—for the links.). I also suggest reviewing Reliable sources, Biographies of living persons, Contributing to Wikipedia, and Writing better articles. Finally, I suggest composing a draft of what you propose adding, then post it here first for some peer review feedback. All the best   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 00:30, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

What do all of these YouTube videos have to do with the Cathy Newman interview? Is the idea that he wouldn't have gotten all of these other interviews on British TV if it hadn't been for the Newman interview? Korny O'Near (talk) 16:14, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

HI Korny O'Near - yes, or perhaps less fast. As I wrote above 'The publicity from the Interview in the UK, helped raise Peterson's prominence'CanterburyUK (talk) 19:35, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi   - Mark D Worthen PsyD - So -the Youtube content I listed mostly did NOT fall under your categories - Channel 4 is a prominent UK TV channel the 4th started: after BBC1,2 and ITV) - and so a good source, I guess you'd agree?

Yes. :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 02:43, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Content of Proposed new section -- Cathy Newman interview and UK exposure

|------------ Proposed content is: --------------------------

Two years on, an interview with Peterson is the second-most watched item on the 4th-oldest British TV channel Channel 4 News' YouTube channel at 21.4m viewings: their 16th January 2018 interview by long serving Channel 4 journalist Cathy Newman .

Even across the entire Channel Four's Youtube channel, which includes much celebrity and popular programming, only 3 non-news programs have had more than 21m viewings.

The Cathy Newman interview became a viral phenomenon on YouTube, by the 21st January it had been viewed 2 million times and attracted nearly 50,000 comments. Newman's interview contributed to increasing Peterson's prominence in the UK where he was later invited onto various BBC current affairs programs .

Newman herself declared on Twitter that she had “thoroughly enjoyed” the “bout” with Peterson.

But many commenters were critical of Cathy Newman, saying she was a “social justice warrior” with a preconceived and misplaced grasp of Peterson's views.

The New York Times columnist David Brooks said that Newman had "distorted, simplified and restated Peterson's views to make them appear offensive and cartoonish".

Writing for The Guardian, Nosheen Iqbal stated that Peterson had made "broad generalisations on male and female behaviour" and that he denied the existence of the gender pay gap "as a qualitative fact". Channel 4 News editor Ben de Pear said that the station had called in security specialists in response to social-media abuse and threats directed against her. Following the interview, Newman observed that her Wikipedia page had "been rapidly edited back and forth", and that women generally are misrepresented in their Wikipedia biographies because the "internet is being written by men with an agenda."

The widespread commentary on the interview, reached even a British journalist-training company, MediaFirst, who commented that "Cathy Newman’s repeated use of the expression ‘so what you’re saying is...’ (23 times) has been clipped up, mashed up and spat out in various forms all over the internet' and 'a hefty accusation thrown at Newman ... she was ‘straw-manning’ Jordan Peterson: trying to misrepresent what he was saying in order to make it easier to score points against him. ' in their article 'That 'so what you are saying is...' interview and how to avoid it'.

An article about the Interview hit the Top 10 most read article of 2018 in the British magazine The Spectator; an article written by Douglas Murray, title: 'Cathy Newman’s catastrophic interview with Jordan Peterson'.

|------------ End of Proposed content --------------------------CanterburyUK (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@CanterburyUK: I assume you wrote this proposed content. If not, please let me know. And for everyone, please remember to sign your posts on talk pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~. ¶ I agree that Cathy Newman's interview with Peterson merits discussion in the article, although I don't think a separate section is necessary. It would fit in the YouTube channel and podcasts section, although we would probably want to change the section title to YouTube channel, recorded interviews, and podcasts, or similar. ¶ I suggest condensing what you wrote to one paragraph or two at the most. Writing clearly and concisely is hard. I frequently struggle to write prose that is "marked by brevity in expression or by compact statement without elaboration or superfluous detail". These Wikipedia resources have helped me: User:Tony1/How to improve your writing, User:Tony1/Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing, Simplified Manual of Style, and Writing better articles. All the best   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 04:39, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi   - Mark D Worthen PsyD, thanks for your input.

You wrote: ' I don't think a separate section is necessary.' - could you share with us your reasoning that lies behind that opinion? There are several objectively notable things about the interview, so I'm wondering why you discount them? Is there not even 1 thing that is notable, in your view? CanterburyUK (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@CanterburyUK: You wrote: Is there not even 1 thing that is notable, in your view? - You seem to have missed the first half of my sentence: "I agree that Cathy Newman's interview with Peterson merits discussion in the article ...." ¶ Please keep in mind that I am trying to help. If you do not find my suggestions helpful, then go ahead and make the edits to the article you think are warranted.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 21:09, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

@Markworthen: - fair point. Let me rephrase my question - Is there not even 1 thing that is notable enough to warrant having it's own section, in your view?CanterburyUK (talk) 22:38, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe a separate section would be accepted by other editors. It will probably depend on the quality of the content. I'm not necessarily opposed to a separate section. I keep an open mind. However, this is a highly contentious article, therefore my advice is to make modest additions. The more you attempt to change, the more attention your edits will attract, and the more opposition you will face. At least that's my experience.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 00:06, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I suspect that, after some workshopping, this could be delivered in a 1-2 paragraph subsection. I think there are some issues with it as written, included these notes: 1) The first two sections rely entirely on primary sources, and may constitute puffery. 2) There is at least one instance of direct, unmarked quotation from the original article in fifth section. In general, this section if added should try to hew closely to reliable secondary sources, and should probably be careful in considering which opinions to include. To best insert the section initially, it may be useful to start entirely with the secondary sources, following that with opinion if they seem to bolster the content. This looks like a worthwhile thing to note! One important question: do any of these sources come from significantly after the event? with this sort of thing, it's likely that the immediate commentary from the event will be less useful than comments that come 1+ years afterwards in determining what details are important. Jlevi (talk) 01:28, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

@Jlevi: thanks - very useful comments.

You wrote: "One important question: do any of these sources come from significantly after the event?" I can see a very good argument can be made in general on WP for that: to avoid ephemeral events clogging up WP. On the other hand, an equally good opposing argument could often be made in general, that an event very significant, but only in it's time, is noteable. Eg: Why does WP have a whole page for the (lets say) 1958 FIFA world cup: that gets nearly zero mentions on the internet now!CanterburyUK (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

This comparison to an old sports events is not helpful. The 1958 World Cup has its own article, but this one TV interview doesn't have its own article, for many obvious reasons (such as WP:LASTING).

One way of thinking about Wikipedia is that our goal is to provide context. From that, we need to use (independent) sources to explain why something is significant, not merely tell readers that it's significant based on our own understanding. If sources only mentioned this interview at the time, that's a sign of WP:NOTNEWS, and the time-frame is context which needs to be evaluated. It doesn't, of course mean that it should not be mentioned at all, but that does decrease its weight.

This article is in the upper half of the range for acceptable article size, and compared to other academics with similar output, most of this is due to pop culture and social media. Any expansion of this coverage needs to be weighed, and restraint is called for. Grayfell (talk) 22:03, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Peterson's views on benzodiazepines

One editor keeps removing this sentence: "He [Peterson] also said that he wanted to warn people about the dangers of benzodiazepines (the class of drugs that includes clonazepam), calling their use "catastrophic"." This is on the grounds that it violates WP:WEIGHT, apparently. Now, first of all, there's nothing controversial about stating that benzodiazepines are dangerous - there are two (!) articles just about addiction to them: benzodiazepine dependence and benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. Beyond that, though, I don't think "undue weight" applies here anyway: Peterson's views may be undue in an article about benzodiazepines, but in an article about Jordan Peterson they are quite merited. Korny O'Near (talk) 14:23, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

my vote would be to leave the sentence in.CanterburyUK (talk) 19:36, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Although I agree that benzodiazepine addiction is a significant problem, and while I like and respect Jordan Peterson, the quote is not important to the article. We want to stay on topic. If Peterson writes a substantive article or book about benzodiazepine addiction, discussing such a publication would be important. But one quote is not.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 02:56, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

See also encyclopedic content: "Information should not be included in this encyclopedia solely because it is true or useful. A Wikipedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject."   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 05:20, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Really, you think Peterson's views on benzodiazepines, which apparently caused him to be in agony for more than a year, are not important to an article about him? Korny O'Near (talk) 13:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, really. :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 19:36, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

This is nonsense. By that standard, Wikipedia articles about people who have never written an article or book should not include a single opinion of theirs. Korny O'Near (talk) 20:35, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

This misrepresents the issue, and also Wikipedia's policies. This edit is not a neutral summary of the source. Per the cited source, Peterson is specifically warning against long-term use of these drugs, which can be catastrophic. He also implies that this isn't common knowledge among clinical psychologists, which is disputable. Still, this means he is acknowledging that this is outside of his professional expertise. We cannot have it both ways. If this is significant as his opinion, we have to accept his admission that he is not qualified to give this opinion in a professional context. Presenting this as a simplistic desire to warn others is cherry-picking, because it side-steps the source's context.

We should only included opinions if reliable, independent sources can be used to explain why they are significant. This is not a new standard. That means that even if Peterson does write a substantial article about this, it still needs to be summarized as his opinion, ideally contextualized by reliable sources. In context, the current summary is both incomplete and relatively flimsy. Grayfell (talk) 22:33, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

@Korny O'Near: I see that you added back (diff) this sentence: "He also said that he wanted to warn people about the dangers of benzodiazepines (the class of drugs that includes clonazepam), calling their use 'catastrophic'." I'm not going to revert it as this would take us into edit war territory. But if the consensus is to not include the quote, I suggest waiting to see if Peterson gives any lectures or writes about benzodiazepine addiction. (I personally hope he does because it's a big problem and he would prevent—and help people overcome—benzo addiction, given his prominence.) At that point, there would likely be more secondary sources that would bolster inclusion of the material.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 22:55, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Where do you get the idea that someone has to write or give a lecture expressing an opinion for that opinion to be worthy of inclusion? Korny O'Near (talk) 00:07, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I just changed "'catastrophic'" to "potentially 'catastrophic'" in that sentence - "catastrophic" by itself was indeed not a good summary of what Peterson said. Korny O'Near (talk) 00:16, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I should have emphasized secondary sources. ¶ Grayfell provided the best explanations: "We should only included opinions if reliable, independent sources can be used to explain why they are significant. This is not a new standard. That means that even if Peterson does write a substantial article about this, it still needs to be summarized as his opinion, ideally contextualized by reliable sources." And: "One way of thinking about Wikipedia is that our goal is to provide context. From that, we need to use (independent) sources to explain why something is significant, not merely tell readers that it's significant based on our own understanding."   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 06:13, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

The source clearly states long-term usage. I've amended the sentence to match the source [1] --- Pinging:   - Mark D Worthen PsyD, Korny O'Near, Grayfell -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 16:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

The change looks good. Mark D Worthen - sources are needed to back up statements, but I don't think they're needed to back up the importance of statements. That's where our editorial discretion comes in to play. After all, a person's date of birth is important even if there's only one source for it. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:37, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:DOB is fundamentally different from any specific, arbitrarily highlighted opinion. This isn't some new thing that's never been discussed before. As with every other article, we need reliable, independent sources to demonstrate the significance of specific quotes. Editorial discretion must still follow WP:DUE. Your "editorial discretion" that this is important doesn't trump other editors' "discretion" that it isn't. Grayfell (talk) 20:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

That's true - that's why we're talking about it. Here's my view: he has spent over a year in extreme, debilitating pain as a result of a drug he was prescribed. An obvious question is thus: what does he now think of this drug? Korny O'Near (talk) 00:12, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

He was addicted to a benzodiazepine and paid a price when coming off of it. This happens every day. I think the current coverage in the article is sufficient. -- Somedifferentstuff (talk) 09:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Fine - it's an okay compromise. I don't know why this one sentence about his views is so controversial; is there something like BLP but for prescription drugs instead of people? Korny O'Near (talk) 15:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Facebook tracking link in source url

The URL in source No. 144 contains a facebook tracking parameter in the end. I propose to remove this and replace the current url (https://nationalpost.com/news/things-are-not-good-right-now-jordan-peterson-battling-covid-19-u-k-paper-reports?fbclid=IwAR3IKm-mIURlHeeEqg8OwpwD7q4SCqTXvlJm-qI-UnpLmOo9u-Ap59wkLr0) with a shorter and non-tracking url (https://nationalpost.com/news/things-are-not-good-right-now-jordan-peterson-battling-covid-19-u-k-paper-reports). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hleutloff (talk • contribs) 16:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. Esowteric+Talk 16:35, 10 August 2020 (UTC)