Talk:Malcolm X

Racism

I'm sure there is plenty of debate on the archived talk pages about this, but as it read right now there is a bit of a logical conflict. If Malcolm X is to be credited (IMO, rightly) for renouncing his previously racist views, then we have to be explicit/clear in stating his early views were racist. This shouldn't be controversial if there is self-admission on his part. As the article reads currently, his position (racist or not) is left ambiguous in the lead. It's like having your cake and eating it too. - E.G. He wasn't really a racist, but in the end he denounced his early racist views. - Doesn't really make sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ProfJustice (talk • contribs) 08:52, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

I believe everything in the lede can be sourced. The reader can always investigate further and read more in the article if they have any logical conflicts. Glennconti (talk) 21:13, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Article quality: Citations needed, who, what, and NPOV (very last few paragraphs) NEEDS ATTENTION!

I am an Aussie, and thus this article has absolutely no relevance to me. Reading it objectively I encountered a lot of qualms with the way it is written, phrased, and most importantly sourced. Or the lack thereof. Initially I came here to state that whilst the policy on the matter is black and white, ie:

If someone tagged your contributions with and you disagree, discuss the matter on the article's discussion page. Controversial, poorly-sourced claims in biographies of living people should be deleted immediately.

That I ought to delete a HEAP of stuff especially controversial poorly sourced claims in biographies. Too much stuff that it's kind of daunting as I dislike removing anything and prefer just tagging up with citation needed, etc, because someone with a vested interest (which is probably a bad thing from a NPOV angle) spent a lot of time and effort putting this together.

Then I read like a hundred years of people saying the same thing. The article quality is poor, unsourced, but they're scared to edit it because they know fucking around with a black (or white, or ANY) supremacists wiki page is prroooobbably a bad move. But fuck. How many times can we call it out as bad quality but "we'll just ignore it this time, please, someone help fix it?" and leave never to check back because we don't want to kick a hornets nest?

So, as an Aussie (American's like us, right? Doesn't matter what color, right? Right? :/) I figure if anyone could wield the editing axe hopefully I could. That said, I am NOT going to remove things, however I will throw up tags, clear tags. Please do not remove those tags unless you are adding citations, or the appropriate who/what/when tag that is used with the appropriate name, thing, or date. If you do, I will set a pack of rabid fucking koalas on you, and those guys are mean. And smell really fucking bad. I mean it. You'll burn whatever pants you're wearing if those pricks climb your leg, that's for sure. That stink never washes off.

One tricky point that has been raised many times is 'black supremacy' and racist views. Having only just read this article, but having extensively examined it's sourcing and quite a few third party articles (I'm stuck in the wiki worm hole of learning about stuff I will never have any use for and it's 6am the morning after I started originally looking up gum boots ... don't ask) I can honestly say from a neutral perspective that the dude was extremely racist, and held some extremist views at some points in his life at least. Whether he recanted these views or not cannot be held to a different standard than other races, all white supremacists on wikipedia have that pretty much within the first ten words of their bio. And whether they are self professed or not is irrelevant.

This is something that HAS to be dealt with with this article. Sources and citations are the second concern here, factual accuracy and NPOV is clearly in breach. I assume that it is merely the error of an editor or two who crafted the lede of the article, but it's nothing that can't be fixed up. I will leave that to the editors who regularly lurk here to fix, but in the interim I will be also tagging this page up as NPOV until that is addressed. Please, again, do not remove a tag unless you are replacing it or fixing the problem in question to the same expectations and standards that are reflected on similar articles of similar figures in American history.

As this is arguably a very important article on a very important figure in American history I feel the fact these points keep getting raised then swiftly die in obscurity as the talk pages keep getting archived is doing it damage. I will touch base every now and then to see if we can kick off some discussion, or to see if any wonderful wiki fairies fix things, but I am still very reluctant to touch this article myself given that I am not even from the US so my understanding is limited to just the facts maam kinda stuff. Which can be a good thing at times insofar as calling problems out, but horrible in allowing me to apply myself for positive change. I hope my tags will help guide you in bettering this page, please do speak freely if you have any ideas of how to fix this article up further! BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 20:14, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

This is worse than I expected. I'm going to take my time marking up problem claims and statements and do this over a longer time frame to prevent the article being littered with blue everywhere. Please do feel free to fix with citations or more information anything NOT marked up you think may be a problem. There are quite a few things that could very well be ref'd from currently known and existing IN ARTICLE references that are being used too! So anyone who owns said ref material and can review it please give it a try! BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 20:38, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Hello BaSH PROMPT. Let me start by saying that I have done very little if any editing of this article. I keep it on my watchlist because I find the topic interesting and it is sometimes vandalized. I say that to let you know that I have no vested interest in the state of the article when you found it. This is an article that contains 284 references, and relies on 21 books other than those written by Malcolm X himself. One of the books, Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention, by Manning Marable, won the Pulitzer Prize for History last year. This widely praised biography is used as a reference dozens of times in the article.

It seems that you have focused on the lead of the article, and the lack of references there. The manual of style says that "editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material." In the case of a lengthy article with hundreds of high quality references, my editorial preference is to leave the references out of the lead, as long as the statements in question are well-referenced in the body of the article.

You make the claim that "The article quality is poor, unsourced" but the article has many sources and is a featured article which has gone through a rigorous review by many editors. Manning Marable's recent biography is 592 pages long and discusses pretty much every claim in the lead of this article in great detail. You also quote "Controversial, poorly-sourced claims in biographies of living people should be deleted immediately." Malcolm X has been dead for 48 years. How does this apply?

What is controversial about the statements in the lead? Nothing that I see. Of course, Malcolm X himself was controversial when he was a living public figure, and perhaps his role in history is somewhat controversial. But his life story has received so much academic study over the decades that I don't see how the the basic facts of his life story can be considered controversial. I think that all the "who" and "why" and "citation needed" tags are not necessary, when all of this information is cited in the body of the article, and especially when describing well-known facts of his life as described by every one of his biographers. And we have a "Further reading" section listing 23 books that aren't even cited in the article.

Both the lead and the body of the article describe Malcolm X's teaching about black superiority and separation of the races while he was associated with the Nation of Islam, and do so accurately, I believe. You claim that there is some problem with how the article deals with these issues. The article is supposed to summarize what the full range of reliable sources say about the topic. So, my challenge to you is to be specific: How does this article fail to accurately summarize the sources? I would have trouble analyzing that myself, because I have only read a few of the sources. But I have read Marable's recent book and have a copy of it sitting next to me now. It seems to me that the article does an excellent job summarizing that source. And as a Pulitzer Prize winner, that book is, in my opinion, the very best source available on the topic. So, I await your specifics. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:51, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

BaSH PROMPT, you need to read articles more carefully before you go stomping through them like a bull in a china shop. Next time, pay attention to WP:LEAD, examine the talkpage for similar discussions, and really try to answer your own questions before you start thrashing around. You're embarrassing yourself and wasting a lot of people's time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.54.90.227 (talk) 02:52, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I fixed the sentence that needed clarification (I hadn't noticed the tag before) and the request for a source in the "Nation of Islam" section. With respect to sources in the opening section, I believe the requirements of WP:LEADCITE are satisfied—all the material in the lead section is sourced later in the article—but if anybody disagrees, I'd be happy to provide sources. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:31, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

And now I see why it stops at one suggestion and no recourse, what an underwhelming and quite frustrating utterly counter-productive response of edits. The tags inserted were specifically at statement points that lacked citation, not just in the lede, but no further clarification within the body of the article. These were removed arbitrarily by User:Jojalozzo, and as much as I love absolutely wasting my time I am reverting it back to the form I left it in pending edits moving forwards not backwards. The way forwards being improving the article, not claiming if it ain't broke and going backwards.

User:Malik Shabazz, you may have perhaps missed the specific element in the tag you removed stating clearly 'Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (May 2013)' Please do not remove tags until disputes are resolved, and as indicated. I have gone into far more length than even warranted to try and explain myself on the talk page here and asked one thing; that there be discussion rather than arbitrary reversal.

Wiki pages don't happen overnight, they are a constantly evolving thing, evolving hopefully for the better and I cannot possibly see how stronger citations could damage this article in any way, shape, or form. Especially when it is an article that has a vast history of derps coming through and defacing stuff which is very often subdued with accurate sourcing and citing of sources. Again, that can't possibly be a bad thing. There is also no rush to do anything. Don't think "Oh there's too much blue text, people will think the article is wrong." as most people are aware that everything here is a work in progress. I have however only tagged up the first few sections so we can improve this a bite sized piece at a time.

I'm not interested in getting into revert wars and thus am going to request a third opinion immediately given I'm quite clearly outnumbered as the only critic of the quality present. I am sure that editors of the article feel that this article is fine, however it is nowhere near as thorough or concise as say the article for MLK, et al. It isn't a case of 'It's good enough.' because no, it isn't, there are improvements that can be made. Do they need to be made? Eh, probably not, I usually trust wiki articles without sources. But is that what Wikipedia is about? Fuck no. It can be improved, and thus will be improved. If this were some random actor or B-celebrity I would probably have resigned seeing this response. But given the importance this figure had in American history, even as an Australian I can see it warrants far better articulation, citation, and development. I am at a loss as to how this could be perceived as a bad thing.

User:Cullen328, it is fantastic you have a copy handy, because I specifically raised a few issues above that could be resolved if you have the time to assist in expanding the citations required for the more controversial statements. Further could you please, please help with the 'black supremacy' issue? Supremacists are labelled so within the opening paragraph in all other cases I have seen online, including ones who have reverted their opinions through life experience, or re-evaluation of their stance on issues. The article does clearly state he is a 'black supremacist,' (something I feel needs more than one source as evidence as it is a very strong statement) and it is implied that for a lot of his life this was a key element he was noted for, and yet it's resigned to the end of the lede and postulated in a submissive way, if it's such a key thing as it implies why is it shoved up the back? I could really use any assistance you could offer given you have access to the sources that would best serve this article. That said, we can't just rely on the bio. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 12:07, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

In addendum, I am more than happy to go through the article and deal with things one by one if you find a tag that may be ill-placed. When I commit to dragging an article kicking and screaming up to par with other articles of a similar nature I commit for the long haul. So please, if you feel any specific one tag is questionable, raise it, I am not infallible, although I am doing my best to keep it to specific statements of import that extend the understanding of the subject matter. I will however not stand for a blanket reverse with "LOL U SUX" or "EXPLAIN ALL THE CITATION REQUESTS" as a next step in article improvement. This is not productive, in fact it's the contrary.

Also, I feel I ought to state for transparency re my 3O'ing--not that my editing history isn't available and I always excuse myself from discussions where it may be stated I have any vested interest--that I have been asked to assist with several complex 3O matters in the past few months given my background, but primarily volunteer my time on the dispute resolution team and feel that my odd assistance with 3O and complete lack of knowledge of who deals with 3O requests at this time mitigates any possibility of influence or what not. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 12:08, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok. I'm at an impasse. Third opinion request doesn't really apply. What am I meant to say? "There is a disagreement needing a third opinion, I would like to improve the article quality and feel that adding sources where unsourced strong statements are made will help this, others disagree and want to leave the article in it's old state indefinitely?" That's kind of the whole point of Wikipedia, improving things with our spare time. So, what I'll do instead is give it a day or two and hope we get some discussion going on. If it just turns to a lame edit war I'll hit up DRN and see whether I can as a volunteer there still ask for DRN assistance without breaking any policies of neutrality (I've never had to 3O an article before, and I've definitely never had to DRN, so even though I'm involved with the process I'm not really up to speed on how -I- can request assistance from them. I'll also discuss this with the organiser of the dispute resolution team for clarity on how to proceed.

Please resist temptations for blanket reverts during this time if at all possible. Because if it can't be dealt with at DRN it'll have to go through the admin board and they tend to not take too kindly to douchebaggery and I sure as fuck don't want someone getting banned over something I've inadvertently caused and I've seen folks banned from editing articles or even the entire site for less and that doesn't help -anyone- IMO. :/ BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 12:21, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

BaSH PR0MPT, I have reverted to the version before you started editing the article. You are the only one currently claiming serious problems with the article. Malik Shabazz clearly agrees with my point about citations in the lead, and EEng was also attempting to revert your changes. I see the need for only one citation in the lead as now written - the quote needs a reference. Can you provide one, Malik?

BaSH PR0MPT, I asked you to be specific about how the article fails to accurately summarize what the reliable sources say. You have not yet provided any specific example. Every sentence does not need a source. If a three or four sentence section describes an incident in his life, with a reference or two at the end of the section, then reasonable people will conclude that source or sources back up that entire description. This is especially true of a featured article that has been gone over with a fine tooth comb by many editors thoroughly familiar with the source material. You have admitted that you are unfamiliar with the source material. That is well and good. You can still participate in collaborative editing. But I don't see how you are justified in making sweeping claims about fundamental problems with a featured article if you are completely unfamiliar with the source material. Please consider reading a recent biography. Marable's is excellent. Then we'll talk. Until you can be very specific about how the article fails to accurately summarize what reliable sources say about the topic, I don't think your tagging is justified. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 14:14, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Citation requests are not an attack on you, other editors, or the article in question. Whilst I concur you have a few current editors with an ongoing history with this article agreeing with you, it is not because using citation templates in an article can be or has been done improperly but I am aware that some articles with editors who are closely related to the topic (and let's face it, if you name yourself after the person the bio is after on Wikipedia, you MIGHT just be a teensy weensy bit too attached to be objective or neutral!) can often see it this way. As I've stated ab initio, every attempt to improve this article has been met with hostility and heel dragging when nothing but good can come from challenging the material ourselves before it is challenged by someone with less honorable intentions. If you feel that this is an insult, or even if I've just said something in a way that rubbed you up the wrong way, please say so. Just don't pretend policy enforces heel dragging, or that I need to explain every challenge of an unsourced statement when trying to get more sourcing going on, or that unless I intrinsically am familiar with his biography my ability to understand application of policy is moot, as that's just nonsense.

I am going to have to retract my prior offer to go over every point, and beg to differ on your statement that 'until you can be very specific about how the article fails,' etc, I do not need to be specific at all. I do not need to explain why I am placing citation requests, at all. The citation request template explains itself quite thoroughly and is being used exactly as it is intended. It is a point that is challenged, or challengeable that has no citation or in the case of a lede; no further explanation. These are the only points I have tagged thus far. If we took the attitude that anyone wanting to challenge a statement has to defend every single request, this entire project would fail. And frankly it is a waste of my time, and your time, which could be spent improving the article.

I have contacted the DRN and am awaiting their reply as to whether they can assist or if it has to be through the ANB. I will update them on the escalation of this dispute to date. I have merged your comments with the appropriate talk page heading as too many headings will make things confusing (as the archives show). I've quite often said in all my years with this project; if you are intrinsically involved in a subject you are probably the least able to judge the quality of a page. This is the entire purpose of 3O and it really is a shame I can't apply it to this because too many editors jumped in. 3O can only be applied editor to editor re a dispute, and blanket reverts should be kept for vandalism not merely because you don't like the citation requests or feel they are somehow 'wrong' or incorrectly applied. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 04:09, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Addendum: I have reapplied the NPOV tag. I have explained (as has the template itself, which everyone viewing the page can see) that NPOV tags are not to be removed until a dispute is resolved. I thus ask once more that you refrain from removing this tag, not only does it detract from any relevant point Cullen may be raising by making it appear as though there is just general enforcement of prior versioning going on (ie: people offended by blue text or tags thinking it somehow invalidates content (?)) but it is a patent breach of Wikipedia policy. You can't get more black and white than when the template itself instructs you not to remove it, especially if something is now in formal dispute. Further removal will be passed immediately to arbitration, as that is a blatant breach. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 04:13, 25 May 2013 (UTC)