Talk:Incel/Archive 11

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Mostly white (again)

This has been discussed before in Talk:Incel#Incels_primarily_white? and Talk:Incel#"Often_white"_is_inappropriate_in_the_lede_of_this_article.

but I have sources not just argument

Looking at demographic variables, profile seemed to emerge—while incels were not more politically right-wing or disproportionately white (see Appendix 2/Tables 10 and 11) as they are often portrayed in popular mainstream media (Bates, 2020; Romano, 2018; Srinivasan, 2021), they were more likely to be living with either a diag-nosed (34%) or undiagnosed (24%) mental health condition (see Appendix 2/Table 6) and more likely to be NEET (not in education employment or training), lower educated, and still living with their parents (see Appendix 2/Tables 7, 8 and 9),which may in turn have deleterious effects on their ability to form romantic relationships.

In fact, the paper says that incels are disproportionality BIPOC ...though not by that much. I feel poetic justice would have us add that to the lede.

A significantly smaller proportion of incels were white (63.58%) compared to the proportion of white non-incels (75.13%), while the proportion of BIPOC (black, indigenous, or people of color) incels was greater than the proportion of BIPOC non-incels

I suspect that what's actually going on parental income during childhood, but obviously that's pretty hard to show.

I'd argue that this is the WP:BESTSOURCE, even though it's a study, because studies are better than newspaper articles, and actually asking asking people is better than analysing their posts for themes (which is what most of the earlier literature did), with all the limitations that come with Qualitative research.

P.S An earlier argument in some of the posts was a pedantic "mostly white" doesn't mean disproportionately white. This seems like a bit of a silly argument given I very much doubt the reader will read it like that. Also incidentaly they are no more right leaning than average according to this paper. Talpedia (talk) 21:52, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

First of all, the phrase "mostly white" is not used anywhere in the article at the moment. The phrase actually used in the lead is "often white", which is significantly less strong than you're making it out to be, and your citation doesn't do anything to change that, since we were already talking about 50-60%, and your paper shows 65%. The pargraph in the demographics section is considerably more nuanced, and includes caveats already.

I'm not super familiar with this journal, but this study is already used in the article, and frankly I'm not personally super convinced by it, though I didn't object strongly enough to remove it from the article at the time it was added. The main author is a grad student, and the research was done as part of their master's dissertation; per WP:SCHOLARSHIP, Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence, and I don't think "significant scholarly influence" has been demonstrated here. Furthermore, it's a primary source, with data drawn from moderators of the Incel.wiki page, who shared a link to our survey on their pages encouraging incels in the community to participate, which honestly doesn't strike me as a particularly representative sample for several reasons. In fact, the author highlights "asking people" as a key limitation of the study, not a benefit. I don't think this study is particularly usable, and hoenstly after looking at it more closely, I'm actually more inclined to remove the sentences attributed to it in the demographics section than use it more extensively. Interested in other opinions, though. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:46, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to do a bit more reading before being pinned down to much - but let's give a provisionally response. Let's leave the specific details of wording for now, because I think questions about sourcing and fields is going to be deciding here.

frankly I'm not personally super convinced by it

I don't disagree but I'm equally unconvinced by everything else. It's basically the only thing we've got given that the earlier research is based on pretty suspicious methodology from qualitative analysis on biased samples of posts using an inductive / abductive mode of analysis to infer race from text, rather than the hypothesis based methods more common in other fields. I would have far preferred if there were more statisical studies before such a strong claim was made by scholars and reporters, and if there was a statistical review. Given this my feeling is kind of "no one knows but there is some white supremacy mixed in". I'd also prefer if people weren't actively using claims about incel radicalization for broad political purposes in my country including suggesting referring people to terrorist prevention organizations such that the accuracy of these claims becomes very important. Not wikipedia's concern of course (WP:RGW), but it makes we very interested in this topic and the need for good scholarship.

I'm not clear what I might want and what ours choices are.

• I don't feel the evidence is strong enough for wikivoice in the lead either way - I think the claim should be removed from the lede given the uncertainity.
• I'd probably like the source included in a section discussing race, caveats and all, that mentions the limitations of the discourse analysis approaches and the (assuming there are sources - one of the psychiatry reviews was moaning about this - but I'm not sure it mentions demographics directly)

It's also worth noting that this review doesn't mention race at all so the absence of comment could be interpreted as this not being WP:DUE and there not being consensus.

The issue of course is the wikipedia dislikes trusting individual's assessment about source reliability preferring more "bibiometric" type arguments (as you have used). In such circumstances I've seen people make arguments based on which fields a topic "belong too". My opinion tends to be that if you have two fields which aren't pseudoscientific both views should be expressed.

Some arguments with decreasing amounts of "subject specific knowledge"

• Statistical claims about belong to psychology not discourse analysis
• Both the views of psychology and sociology / social sciences should be represented in the article because these are distinct fields.
• This claim lies within the domain of psychology or psychiatry.

Direclty, addressing some points

significant scholarly influence

The study gets cited in this review in "sexuality and culture", (no longer a pre-print) it does not however get cited in either of the psychiatry reviews I looked at. I guess we would just cite this review rather than the source directly. My real argument is "everything is terrible" but converting this into bibliometrics this becomes - "the literature on the topic outside of discourse analysis is so small that any publication is massively influential"

particularly representative sample

I don't disagree. But these criticisms apply equally well to the preexisting research.

Talpedia (talk) 20:29, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed with talpedia on the subject of race. 'often white' doesn't mean anything in anglo-forums based out of USA, and it reads unhinged. If the point is to point out white supremacy on the forums (of which there is a lot of, sanctioned by minority staff on the forums), there's sources for that and would be best just to say that explicitly. Also Talpedia your deleting of sourced info involving suicide encouragement is odd. There's plenty of sources on that, even in the last two months, including the recent ISDGlobal report and secondary commentary on it. 2600:4040:4030:5000:3367:6585:CF1F:252C (talk) 22:15, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

> Also Talpedia your deleting of sourced info involving suicide encouragement is odd.

Did I do that? I think this just got moved: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Incel&diff=1141591156&oldid=1141498538&diffmode=source

Think you would get farther just by editing that particular sentence on race in the lede and sourcing it properly, that's like a 5 year old sentence, or a slight variation of one. ie before all the sources you are referencing 2600:4040:4030:5000:98F9:C300:62F7:6D82 (talk) 22:55, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Sure there was a bit of discussion here so I thought I should talk where first. Talpedia (talk) 00:05, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Overall talpedia, I would advocate a rollback of your additions involving violence and suicide, including the implication all violent incels are just wanting notoriety rather than actual violence. The emergence of violent incels from certain blackpill forums (since 2021, eg Davison and Genco) alone is proof against your insinuation. I agree that sources establish the existence of 'peaceful incels', but the worst incels of course have legal and practical reasons to claim they don't desire violence they advocate, and citing their whitewashing as as truth makes no sense..2600:4040:4030:5000:98F9:C300:62F7:6D82 (talk) 23:00, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't know I was making this implication. My addition was that about 1 in 10 incels admired these people https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Incel&diff=1141587595&oldid=1141585708&diffmode=source Talpedia (talk) 00:05, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

"x out of y incels are" isn't an intelligible statement using any of the definitions present in the current article. Incels from a particular forum? Anyone self-identified as incel? As of now this article is written as a proxy for incels.me, although not officially. In that respect, I would consider the vast majority of those in incels.me supportive or sympathetic to violence. They've had over 5-6 years to change that perception with increased media scrutiny so all these academic articles acting like 2018-2020 incels.me never existed isn't very persuasive. 2600:4040:4030:5000:BFD9:4D65:D363:B3EF (talk) 00:20, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

If we're to take the subculture definition seriously, "x out of y incels are" is especially non-sensical as subcultures don't have members. Anyone trying to quantify the beliefs of all punk fans based on surveying two punk forums I'd also consider laughable. How could you possibly quantify that? Soft science academia is a joke and most published research is wrong. 2600:4040:4030:5000:96F8:E747:4BF3:77D1 (talk) 00:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

:shrug: define a condition of membership and analyse members, I'm summarising a review. I don't disagree that identifying membership is methodological dififcult. On the other hand if you go to a punk gig at random and everyone is an anarchist that's pretty different from 1 in 100 so the data is a useful in a sense. Talpedia (talk) 00:34, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Going to a punk gig to make conclusions on the beliefs of a global subculture without memebership would make no sense. Just as these survey articles make no sense with regards to the subculture definition. Back to the subject at hand, if you want to change the race sentences, I'd suggest just editing them and sourcing them correctly. The talk page is a garbage can for stuff people don't want to deal with. 2600:4040:4030:5000:96F8:E747:4BF3:77D1 (talk) 00:40, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I'll give people more time to reply and if people don't respond in a material way make the chagne. Talpedia (talk) 00:53, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I share some of WK's concerns. I also don't think we should be determining the lead based on "poetic justice". I do, however, wonder if we should simply remove the statement about race from the lead, since over the last few years sources have emerged drawing that into question. I think the demographics section does an adequate job of describing the available research and the fact that various sources have come to contradictory conclusions, but it would be tough to reflect that succinctly in the lead. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 02:47, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

References

I also don't think we should be determining the lead based on "poetic justice"

Nor do I. That was mostly a bit of WP:FORUM comment. I was just expressing annoyance at the ease with which peopole were willing to describe incel movement as a "white" movement based of limited evidence, and now limited evidence points the other way. It's sort of a statement of the worlds hypocrisy - but I would propose caution in both cases not poetic justice.

I think we should remove comments about race from the lead given that there seems to be a lack of consensus.

Alos, I think "Researchers from the University of Texas ran a poll of self-reported incels, which found that 63.58% of those who responded identified as white, a smaller percentage than expected" should read "smaller percentage than the general population". Talpedia (talk) 08:31, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

General population of *what*? The study draws no such conclusions, making that statement original research, and even if it did, it's not a reliable source. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 13:17, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

"draws no such conclusions"

Look... I'm not just making things up:

"A significantly smaller proportion of incels were white (63.58%) compared to the proportion of white non-incels (75.13%), while the proportion of BIPOC (black, indigenous, or people of color) incels was greater than the proportion of BIPOC non-incels (36.42% vs 24.87%), X2 (1) = 6.56, p = 0.01"

They got a general set of responders and then compared the incels to the non-incels.

We are already citing the source in the text, but I've address some arguements about about reliability. Namely that it is the only source out of psychology addressing this claim, and the discourse analysis approaches are questionable. Talpedia (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Those are all within the context of the study's sample size; it's "fewer white people than the rest of the sample". The study doesn't generalize that out to mean that the incel subcommunity has fewer white people than the "general population", and saying it does is original research. As I said, how would you even define "general population"? General population of the Internet? The US? The world? The study doesn't indicate anything of the sort, and we shouldn't either. it is the only source out of psychology addressing this claim means absolutely nothing about whether this source is reliable; I know that WP:OTHERSTUFF is about deletion discussions, but the general principle works here, too. You need to prove that this source is reliable, not that there aren't *other* reliable sources. You linked to WP:BESTSOURCE above, but you're misinterpreting it; that talks about how to choose between sources that are already reliable, not how to determine whether a source is reliable in the first place. That's why it's part of the NPOV page, not the RS page. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm using general population to mean "those outside the group in the study" it's fairly standard usage no OR but I'm happy to use more technical language, really the point is that in the study being incel would appear, based on the research makes you less likely to be white. "than expected" -> "than non-incel's within the study"?

"You need to prove that this source is reliable" it's already in the article, I'm just proposing improve the summary. If you wanted to delete the source you could make an argument for that.

Other stuff I could address, but it's moot unless you want to delete the source. Talpedia (talk) 16:17, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

being incel would appear, based on the research makes you less likely to be white -- this is original research; it is an interpretation of the data in the study that the study itself does not say. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:25, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Fine, it's good thing I'm writing it in the talk page then. Are you having with "than non-incel's within the study" versus "than expected"? Talpedia (talk) 16:29, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Not particularly; it's wordier without providing any additional information. I'm not opposed to it super strongly, but it doesn't seem like an improvement. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:34, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I guess "than expected" feels kind of meaningless to me - how are we to know what the researchers expected. How about "than non-incels"? Talpedia (talk) 16:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Hm, that's fair, but we definitely need to avoid saying things that could be misinterpreted as talking about non-incels in general. I'd say "than the control group", but that's not really accurate, since this is a survey and not a true experiment with a real control group. Your earlier formulation of "than non-incels in the study" might be the best compromise. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 16:44, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Ok, sounds good. Talpedia (talk) 16:48, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

@Talpedia: If you are still interested, you may want to take a look at my last reply over here regarding "racism". See: [Aug 7, 2023, 14:08]. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:27, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Original research

This citation basically represents an evidence of pure WP:OR that gathered a bunch of newspapers (amounting to WP:NOTNEWS?) to draw conclusions. It seems like high-profile admin is involved into this article. Is it even safe to put a tag over the top? AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Of course it's "safe"; do you have any reason to think it wouldn't be? But I don't agree or understand why you say it's OR. The reason all the sources are there, broken up into individual words is that people (usually with an agenda) have incessantly challenged each word there, so each word gets a specific citation, and we group them together like that so the sentence^[1] isn't^[2][3][4] an unreadable^[1][5][7] mess^[5][12] of footnotes^{[1][2][6][9][10]}. What original-research conclusion do you think is being made here? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:22, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Rules are rules. You don't make research on Wikipedia to prove some words that generally characterize a movement or set of beliefs by using newspapers. There are folks on wiki who would even argue that news aren't WP:RELIABLE sources. But this is highly contentious topic I guess. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:31, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

...they might argue that, but that would be wildly against the current consensus, which is that newspapers can be/are reliable sources. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:37, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Previously, it was already pointed out that some pieces were WP:OR: see this March 2020 post; didn't go deep into archives though. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 15:25, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

What exactly is OR? The citation is simply a WP:CITEBUNDLE, which is fairly common practice on Wikipedia for reasons Writ Keeper already explained. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:27, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

The issue of the news sources was already raised before: see 14 November 2021 (archive) and as the time passes it's more and more concerning cause many sources are 2018-affixed. Regarding the said bundled citation: it is used in two places and used to support facts that aren't supported in exactly same way that some other sources do (both cited and not cited).

In the second use case the bundled citation it's the sole source, which, by looking at the statement it's used against, is WP:OR. The other citation (i.e. (paywalled, Burton, Anthony (2022)) is NOT used in both places as the first one, but to my surprise down below it's used to support a contradicting (to the intro) statement (regarding endorsement of violence):

Others take the more nihilistic view that nothing will change society, even violent acts, and focus their efforts on constructing a scientific justification for this nihilism.

— 

Therefore I question the way these citations are joggled. The intro makes misleading impression that all "incel"s, inceldom, and incelosphere do is discussing something radical (which is not true and partly explained in the article). This is especially questionable if compared to Feminist and Radical feminist articles, which clearly distinguish non-radical and radical members and their discurs/agenda. This article doesn't enjoy the same treatment. I guess this is result of terrorism-related news coverage and studies with heavy bias and general lack of independent overview on motivation behind incel identity and actions.

There is a bunch of sources that are enlightening on inceldom. The first one is bordering overview.

References

AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 18:28, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

First of all, master's theses are generally not considered reliable sources. Second of all, yet again, this article is about the online subculture that refers to itself as "incels", not the "state" of not-having-sex-despite-wanting-to that could be referred to as "involuntary celibacy". The online subculture is characterized by that list of adjectives supported by the bundled cite. The Wikipedia article doesn't say that those adjectives characterize *anyone* who wants sex and isn't having it; it characterizes the members of the specific online subculture that is the subject of the article. Again, the subject of the article is *not* "anyone who doesn't have sex despite wanting to"; only those people who define and refer to themselves as "incels" as part of the online subculture. Third, I'm still not actually clear on what your problem with the sentence is? You're kind of vaguely waving at the sentence and saying OR, but you're not actually saying *which* concepts in that sentence are OR. Maybe you could give a specific example of a change you'd like to see implemented, so we can understand your point better? Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:59, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Take a look at the above two excerpts taken (August 7, 2023 Permalink). The bundled citation [17] is used to support completely different statements. Somehow "discussions" (most sources discuss discussions and forums that were held back in 2018) turned into "communities". The news from this [17] citation are used to achieve WP:SYNTHesis which is in fact is evidence of WP:OR. This is by intent I'm sure. If you scrutinize sub-sources used inside [17] further you will find even more disparaties. Hope this is clear. AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 04:55, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

It is not clear, as these statements do not conflict with each other. Given that we're talking about online forums, where the actual content is basically 100% discussions, talking about discussions within the communities vs. the communities themselves is drawing a distinction without a difference. And, you understand that the bundled citation is more than one source, right? It's made up of 13 different sources, so there's a lot of ground that group cite can cover. Finally, doing a quick spot check of the sources, I don't see any problem with them: literally the first source I clicked on (source [7]) includes this sentence: The incel community exists in a dark corner of the internet, infamous for its sexist, racist and homophobic language, where cyberbullying and posts normalizing rape are common. So, no, I don't see how that doesn't support the language it's being used to cite, or how anything in here is OR.

What do you want to change these sentences to? If all of your complaints and insinuations about the evil Wikipedia editors conspiring against you boil down to is removing the words "discussions in" from the first sentence, then we can do that. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 12:25, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorry for writing lengthy replies. My concern is that the sources in the intro were lightmindedly cherry-picked to demonize (international?) inceldom meanwhlie omitting all others important circumstances.

The very first source from the bundled citation which is used repetedly says the following:

A small radical fringe believes that violence, especially against women, is an appropriate response — that an “Incel Rebellion” or “Beta [Male] Uprising” will eventually overturn the sexual status quo.

— 

Only a tiny percentage of incels seem willing to turn to violence or terrorism, and the movement isn’t a threat on the level of an al-Qaeda or ISIS.

— 

And then you go back and all of sudden you read that incel community is characterized by ... the endorsement of violence against women and sexually active people which is a bit contradicting to the source. Don't you see a problem here?

...literally the first source I clicked on (source [7]) includes this sentence:... This [7] source is citing some individual called James Ellis from Canadian TSAS. No way this may be considered a WP:RS. The same goes to NYT who cites (must be a joke) sociologist. These just lack factual scrutiny and basis. There are more issues: somehow, the Spiegel source is used to "support" the January 2020 report by the Texas Department of Public Safety. No kidding. Meanwhile being nothing more than first hand report on 4chan and some other incel forums. The racism tha is discussed at length in this article the Spiegel article actually attributed to a minority facebook group which was later deleted, as they admit (possibly) - at their own request, revealing their interest and lack of independence in this topic. Etc. etc.

...What do you want to change these sentences to?... I would suggest overhauling the intro. It would be the first good step. The second would be dropping the most of media reporting and upgrading them to newer and secondary sources keeping intro WP:NPOV and in compliance with MOS:INTRO. If you noticed many news sources are simply outdated as they are dated from 2017 to 2019. The other suggestion would be to get more eyes and hands on this article. Currently a half of the article is basically written by GorillaWarfare (should I say? a very controversial wiki-personality). AXONOV (talk) ⚑ 14:08, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what? What exactly is controversial about GW?

There's a difference between "endorsing" violence and actually perpetrating violence. It's obviously true that only a very small percentage of incels actually do violence, but many more who endorse the violence of others when it happens; the very article you're citing, for example, says of Minassian that he has become a hero to many incels by killing ten people. It does say that the incel community is not monolithic and that Some of these moderate incels actively police the extremists in their midst, which is exactly why we use softening words like "often" and "many" in the Wikipedia article. But it then goes on to say that many incels have a much more sinister, and specific, worldview, and that they are men on various online forums celebrating violence and forming a mutually supportive echo chamber that justifies harming others, especially women, in the name of the incel uprising. So, no. It is more or less fair to say that source 1 doesn't wholeheartedly support the notion that incels often endorse violence, but it certainly doesn't contradict it. If source 1 was being used to cite that claim, then you might have a case--though even then it would be arguable at best--but it's not; instead, there are three other sources supporting that.

If you want to argue that newspapers aren't reliable sources, or that sources older than five years or whatever are no longer reliable, well, WT:RS or WP:VPR are there for that, but, y'know, good luck with changing the long-standing sitewide consensus on the definition of a reliable source. In the meantime, you haven't presented any reliable sources of your own that support the notion that there's anything wrong with the article as is; one isn't reliable, and the other says: We argue that incels’ focus on technology reinforces essentialist views on gender, buttresses male domination, dehumanizes women, and minimizes incels’ own misogyny, which doesn't strike me as in any disagreement with the content of the article. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:48, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

References

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Hello, I come here from the incels.is article. I am creating a discussion following WP:PM, since a merger was decided in the AfD as consensus but the merge instructions were unclear and most importantly I have substantially contributed to the other article after consensus to merge was established, so a merge might not be necessary anymore. (The AfD merge close banner says to discuss the merge on talk page, but I also decided to open WP:PAM based on WP:CCC after substantial article growth.)

Per point 3 of WP:PAM (merge discussion process)

Mergers that are controversial, potentially difficult to carry out, or where at least one is either rated Class B or higher or is over 100K in size will need assistance from uninvolved editor(s) in determining whether to merge the pages.

2001:48F8:3004:FC4:48EA:35CE:A536:B342 (talk) 20:09, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Closing the loop to note that the IP here has discovered that WP:DRV is the place to challenge the outcome of an AfD: Wikipedia:Deletion review#Incels.is. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:08, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clarification of multiple definitions

I think that this article should make note of the fact that "incel" can refer to a life circumstance as well as a subculture, and provide information about both definitions. 205.189.94.8 (talk) 19:13, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Reference idea: "Intervening in Problematic Research Approaches to Incel Violence"

There is a recent reference resource that could help the section on Incel#Of reporting and research. It's called "Intervening in Problematic Research Approaches to Incel Violence" [1]https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1097184X231200825

It is, however, restricted access for the time being and so I'm not sure if it could be used for the article. (But the pdf of the article was sent to User:GorillaWarfare who would know the Wikipedia policy.)

Thebetoof (talk) 08:45, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

@Thebetoof: I've stuck it in the ref ideas template at the top of the page. I don't have a moment to read through it and incorporate it, but perhaps someone else will. As for the paywall, that's no problem: WP:PAYWALL. I believe this source should be accessible through The Wikipedia Library. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:22, 7 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Gender and Culture

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2023 and 18 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Manofthewater (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Vanessaamartinez.

— Assignment last updated by Vanessaamartinez (talk) 21:30, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

"Often white" is inappropriate in the lede of this article.

You could say the same thing for virtually any large group. But we don't. We don't say that doctors or ballet dancers or geeks are "often white," even though it's assuredly true.

It's a weasel phrase. "Often white" - what does that even mean? What numerical threshold does a group have to cross to be considered "often white"? About 17% of professional basketball players are white - are professional basketball players "often white"?

And the sources cited don't particulary support the assertion. For example, source 23 from the Anti-Defamation League, "Online Poll Results Provide New Insights into Incel Community," says the following:

While roughly 55 percent of respondents identify as white or Caucasian, the remaining 45 percent of are equally divided among a range of ethnic and racial groups, including Black, Latino, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern or Other/Not Sure.

Is 55% "often white"? Well, maybe - it's a weasel phrase - but considering that 81% of incels are from North America and Europe, white men actually appear to be *underrepresented* among incels, compared to the general population.

It would only be appropriate to say "often white" if the community was specifically about whiteness in some way - and no sources make any kind of case for that. It's baffling that anyone thought it was appropriate to put in the article.

The actual body of the article goes into detail about the nuances of race in the incel community. It isn't appropriate for the lede. KarakasaObake (talk) 18:59, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The inline source used for that claim goes into significant detail about how the community is "specifically about whiteness"--see section "4.2. Abduction and ethnic identity". I think the discussion of whether this belongs in the lede is fair, but I don't think it's so cut-and-dry that it should be removed beforehand. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:07, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

There is no section 4.2 in the article.

There is, however, a section 2.3, which includes the text "and, among non-white incels, the "just be white" (JBW) theory, which suggests that Caucasians face the fewest obstacles to relationships and sex," explicitly refuting the idea that the community is "specifically about whiteness." KarakasaObake (talk) 19:09, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Not sure which article you're talking about, but I'm talking about this one, which has a 4.2 as I described. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:13, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I thought you were referring to the Wikipedia page itself. But the source you're referencing also explicitly refutes that the community is "specifically about whiteness." From the source:

"data suggest their orientation towards race and ethnicity is complex. Some incels advocate White nationalism, others discuss White privilege and intersectionality, while others still argue that incel-status trumps all other forms of identification"

"incels have (surprisingly) multifaceted discussions of race, ranging from support for White nationalism to critiques of White privilege. While social psychological theories predict that race/ethnic identity should operate as the more salient group identity in this context, we document instances where the opposite is true and incels assert the primacy of their incel identity"

And, again, you could say the exact same for doctors or ballet dancers or geeks: some advocate White nationalism, some discuss White privilege and intersectionality, and some are uninterested in racial identification. KarakasaObake (talk) 19:17, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but doctors don't, as a whole, discuss their race as an inherent part of their being doctors. That paper shows that (presumably) an absolute majority of incels are white, and that self-definition as either white or less-than-white and is a strong trend in incel communities, which is not true of doctors or ballet dancers, so I don't think that's an apt comparison. Yes, the paper does also show that there is a current of inceldom-trumps-ethnicity, but I don't think that goes a long way towards saying that race is irrelevant to the topic. And that's just one source; there are three others in the inline citations to that statement. "Assessing the threat of incel violence" talks about The white supremacist discourse pervasive on incel forums. The WaPo article goes out of its way to say that What makes the incel culture different is that these are primarily heterosexual white men.... The NBC article talks about how “They’re young, frustrated white males in their late teens into their early twenties who are having a hard time adjusting to adulthood. They’re the same kinds of people you find in white supremacy writ large,” Beirich said. “They have grievances about the world they’ve placed onto women and black people.“ If these sources think it's relevant, I don't know why we wouldn't too. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:33, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Incels also don't, as a whole, discuss their race as an inherent part of their being incels. Some do; most don't.

The only academic source we have on the issue is the one we've been discussing: Halpin and Richard's "An invitation to analytic abduction." They actually examined the community and said they were "surprised" by the multifaceted discussions of race taking place there.

Frankly, that is a far better source than WaPo and NBC. And Halpin and Richard specifically discuss how the popular media is misreporting incels:

"Using abduction, we've highlighted surprising findings: not only do incels discuss White privilege and intersectionality, but some members situate “incel” as a master status that unifies men across racial and ethnic groups. This finding reveals that incels are more heterogenous than reported, particularly in the popular media..." KarakasaObake (talk) 19:41, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

"some" =/= "most". "most don't" is unsupported by the current sources. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:43, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

"Most do" is also unsupported by the sources. The sources do say that about 55% of incels are white, so in order for "most" incels to be discussing whiteness as an inherent part of being incels, about 91% of white incels would need to be doing that. There is no claim in any source that this is the reality. KarakasaObake (talk) 19:53, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Agreed (except for the wholly arbitrary 91% threshold), but the sentence in question didn't say "mostly white", it said "often white", which, given the information in the sources, is not realistically disputable. We have thre or four reliable sources that say that race is a relevant subject w/r/t incels, and one reliable source that says it's sometimes relevant and sometimes not, not being definitive either way--that sounds like a convincing reason to keep the sentence to me. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 21:28, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The 91% figure isn't "wholly arbitrary", it's basic math. If 55% of incels are white, then for "most" incels to be discussing whiteness, then 91% of those 55% would be discussing it, that is: $0.91\times 0.55\approx 50.1\%$. ~Anachronist (talk) 12:04, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Injecting unwarranted race hatred against White people, based on an isolated reference in the article look like a subtle hate crime. Please remove that isolated reference in the article, which is unsubstantiated by other quality and diverse references. Now, incel as "unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one" can happen anywhere, any place. Because of studies in white or European ethnicity groups and relative lack of such studies elsewhere is no reason to peddle hate here. 173.72.54.107 (talk) 18:47, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

@173.72.54.107 ...hate crime against white people to report on a source? i think it should be removed because its anglocentric, not because... its... a hate crime? theres no anti white hate crimes commemorative (talk) 15:06, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

The incel "movement" is not about racism. This is lazy thinking. This is much overlap between this group and others, with the common theme of victimization by society, but it is not accurate to characterize incels as white, or "supremacists" of any sort. This is cartoonishly stupid, as if the author(s) think anyone they disagree with is a nazi. 2601:47:477F:F240:6935:9FE1:C756:EC1D (talk) 14:23, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

@2601:47:477F:F240:6935:9FE1:C756:EC1D I dont think calling the authors of the article stupid and putting them in a charicature of your view of their supposed ideology is appropriate for Wikipedia. commemorative (talk) 15:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

How does 'they are described as' count as something factual? I can describe the Presidents of the US as as reptilian aliens from Alpha Centauri, so can I then factually include it on the Wikipedia article as factual? It is 'factually' based on assumption, and even worse, as you noted, to the exclusion of studies that contradict it. 193.119.44.239 (talk) 06:36, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

If you can get that published in reliable sources and journals, perhaps we can talk. I'm not sure which sources you're referring to as being excluded. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:52, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree. It's inappropriate and should be removed. Commemorative1 (talk) 08:34, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. The claim is based on research done in the United States of America by the study of a limited group of people which, for obvious reasons, does not include all U.S. incels. Incidentally, the phenomenon is also present in other regions of the world. It makes no sense to include this globally inaccurate information in the lead. 37.0.81.237 (talk) 21:44, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

If you could provide reliable sources backing up those claims, it would be very helpful. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:12, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

There's a sizeable Japanese incel demographic in Japan, with east asian countries having incel terrorism like the US. I think it's pretty anglo-centric to have often white in the lede. commemorative (talk) 04:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC) commemorative (talk) 04:59, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

@Commemorative1 @Dumuzid The sources in this Wikipedia article specify that the study is done on a sample of 151 self-identified male incels – so by excluding the female sex and with limited numbers of respondents.

The incel-related forums are composed of anonymous users, so precise and necessarily correct demographics are not possible. However, we know for certain from the sources provided (e.g., the study, published in Evolutionary Psychological Science) that these are studies done in the U.S., thus not valid globally.

Apart from Asia, the phenomenon is also present in Europe; ethnics is not uniform there:

https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/publications/incels-first-scan-phenomenon-eu-and-its-relevance-and-challenges-pcve-october-2021_en 37.0.81.238 (talk) 15:46, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

The one source you have provided (thanks for that) does not really address ethnicity beyond incel beliefs, and somewhat obliquely then (e.g., "German girls hate ethnics"). The rest of your argument certainly makes reasonable points, but I am afraid as currently presented it cuts much too close to original research. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 28 November 2023

Change this:

the term rose to prominence in the 2010s as it became _closer_ associated with an online subculture

to this:

the term rose to prominence in the 2010s as it became _more closely_ associated with an online subculture Roxwye (talk) 20:34, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

 Done. Thanks. Grayfell (talk) 08:17, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Incel history

https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/democratic-theory/10/2/dt100207.xml?ArticleBodyColorStyles=pdf-4278

This article would help expand upon the history of the forums and how "incel" evolved over time.

Thebetoof (talk) 05:44, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

What is defined as an "incel attack?"

Nicholas Cruz isn't an incel he had a girlfriend Octalh (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Contested edit

@JusticeAccount3: Regarding this revert, can you please clarify what in that source supports that that individual "worshipped" Elliot Rodger? GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:19, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

maybe I should've said "supported"

why is it such a big deal for you? JusticeAccount3 (talk) 17:01, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Because your source didn't support the statement, and we require all claims in Wikipedia articles be verifiable. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 17:50, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

I swapped in a better source and changed to "praised" per the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:05, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 17:50, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2024

Under History, first sentence: "The first website to use the term "incel" was "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project", founded in 1997 by a university student living in Toronto, and known only by her first name, Alana, to discuss her sexual inactivity with others ..."

Request: REMOVE unfounded claim of studentship in Toronto. Sources do not corroborate this claim.

Further, many sources claim Alana graduated from Carleton University, which is in Ottawa. Eg. From [148] (cited on the page): "In the 1990s, [Alana], then a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, created an all-text website she called "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project.""

Updated sentence (CHANGE TO): "The first website to use the term "incel" was "Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project", founded in 1997 by a student at Carleton University in Ottawa, and known only by her first name, Alana, to discuss her sexual inactivity with others ..." TPana (talk) 17:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

The BBC article cited for that sentence says: She was living in Toronto, Canada, and started the website, Alana's Involuntary Celibacy Project, for those who were struggling to form loving relationships.. I feel that mentioning what university she was attending is a little too much detail, personally, but YMMV. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 18:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Maybe we should just update it to say she was a Canadian university student? I'm not sure it's terribly important for the article to mention whether she was living in Toronto or Ottawa. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:22, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

That sounds reasonable, for sure. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:27, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

 Done GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 19:34, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

"Often White" should be removed

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

"Often white" is false and has no actual reliable source or stats that show this, the only source listed says basically the opposite + its based on the stereotype white = bad oppressors, which is literally racism Avistemp (talk) 12:41, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

There are several sources listed and while the headline of the first one might suggest otherwise that article says "A smaller proportion than would be expected by chance identified as white (63.58%), with 36.42% identifying as BIPOC." Other sources also support the statement.Sjö (talk) 12:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Seems like people come to complain about it constantly. Appears pretty controversial. Looking at elsewhere, according to the Crime in the United States article, the majority of homicide offenders are said to be of a race. Could that similarly be added to very first sentence in the lede of that article, or would that be seen as not Wikiesque? Should such controversial statements about ethnicity be reserved to the body section, not the lede and not the first sentence? Through this example we can see that generalized negative statements about ethnicities are not very Wikiesque in the lede, especially when the sources state it's relatively the opposite. Also, it seems men are relatively overrepresented, and gender appears less protected than ethnicity, so it doesn't seem as controversial. --CoconutTsunami (talk) 08:30, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

"Appears pretty controversial." Reality typically is. You can not apply censorship to it, or fit into convenient narratives. Dimadick (talk) 09:57, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

But that is what happens constantly, double standards. I gave an example of how the flip side would not be feasible. --CoconutTsunami (talk) 18:11, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

We have an entire article on race and crime in the United States; feel free to read there why your example is, at best, misguided. Reliable sources include the descriptor "white" when describing incels, so we do too. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 19:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

But that example works perfectly in my favor too if you actually read the lede of it. It doesn't mention anything demeaning about ethnicity in the lede. In fact it jumps to accuse the system foremost and doesn't even specify any ethnicity until the very end of the lede as a victim of the system. Having a similar sentence as we have here would get removed. And lastly, what reliable source does that in their lede? --CoconutTsunami (talk) 00:41, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the conversation should have been closed with the reasoning being essentially an ad hominem but doesn't seem like anyone would have partaken in honest discussion anyway. You could replace the current sentence "mostly white, male, and heterosexual" with "disproportionately minority, male, and heterosexual". --CoconutTsunami (talk) 20:54, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.