Talk:Roosh V

Alt-right

I have reverted the addition of Roosh to Category:Alt-right. He is not a member or advocate of the alt-right.[1] Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:33, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, his videos indicate he had a schism with the Red Pill. Speaking of which, can we say stuff like, "Roosh claims that his grandfather had four wives and 25 children" and use one of his YouTube videos as a source? St. claires fire (talk) 00:57, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Why do you want to? It seems irrelevant to me. As I've said before, Roosh says lots of wacky things and we can't repeat them all here. Kendall-K1 (talk) 01:44, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

We are left with an article that mostly consists of "Lots of people say this guy is a rapist and misogynist, but he denies it" unless we start using his statements to flesh out the sections on his biography and opinions a bit more. Although there are also a few other commentators like Gavin McGinnes who have attacked or defended him in their videos, so maybe that could be mentioned, if we want to avoid using too many statements by Roosh himself. St. claires fire (talk) 02:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Someone just added "especially of the alt-right variety", sourced to [2]. That source says "And don’t forget all the free publicity, which he needs as he attempts to make his transition from pickup artist (someone who relentlessly practices the 'art' of seduction) to a hero of the 'alternative right' movement." But it also says "Though Roosh says he is not part of the movement". And we have his disclaimer which I linked above. So I'm a bit uncomfortable saying he's alt-right without including his disclaimer. Kendall-K1 (talk) 15:41, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

The good news is that the above link is a Newsweek article dated to 13 October, 2016, which covers Roosh's political activities and beliefs. We could use it to flesh the article a bit. Dimadick (talk) 10:09, 14 February 2017 (UTC)

I misspoke earlier, by the way. Roosh wrote of schism in the alt right, but he was talking about its split with Richard B. Spencer. He did, however, write that the alt right is worse than feminism in attempting to control male sexual behavior. St. claires fire (talk) 01:37, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Part 2

I've reverted this addition: "He is also considered a part of the alt-right movement." What the cited source says is "Valizadeh’s flirtations with the alt-right..." and "This article prompted many in the alt-right to reject Valizadeh...". So it's actually almost saying the opposite. We've already got a reliable source that talks about his flirtation with the alt-right, so I don't think we need to add anything more. Also the hopenothate.com does not appear to be a reliable source, so I don't think we should be using it. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:21, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

References

Part 3

Can someone provide a link to the source that strongly supports his association with the alt-right? The hopenothate citation above seems to be at best an opinion piece on him being part of the alt-right ("flirtations with the alt-right" isn't really a solid line). Keep in mind that WP:BLP has pretty strict requirements for citations on this sort of thing:

Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous.

I believe calling him conservative would be the less-libellous phrasing, rather than alt-right and misogynyst, so without really strong source support for alt-right and mysogynyst association I think the recent revert to "Conservative" should be upheld. Micah71381 (talk) 11:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

This source is given in the article in reference to his ties to the alt-right [3]. There seems to be multiple sources for misogyny in the article. I see zero source for "conservatism". Nil Einne (talk) 15:02, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

If we have an RS for "alt-right" and do not have one for "conservative" then we go with the RS and not our own subjective views on "libellous phrasing". ——SN54129 15:05, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Good find on the alt-right reference. If that is the only one, then I think a reasonable middle-ground would be adding some NPOV wording like, "some believe has ties to the alt-right". If this weren't a BLP I would be a bit more lenient on applying the label directly, but since this is a BLP I think we should be _very_ cautious about applying a label to someone without NPOV wording around it. I would also be fine with removing "conservative" (with the mentioned NPOV wording), or generally just getting rid of any claims of his political affiliation all together. FWIW, I agree with you that this person is probably alt-right and misogynist, but when it comes to BLPs we need to exercise extreme caution against WP:SYNTH and WP:UNDUE weight. A single article asserting "ties to alt-right" and another asserting "flirted with alt-right" isn't, IMO, enough to categorically label a living person "alt-right". Also, I believe that if you were to ask someone like this if they are mysogynist they would tell you that they don't hate women (connotative definition of mysogany) but rather they believe that men and women have different roles in society. Whether you or I agree with this interpretation is not pertinent to the decision of whether to include a label on a person in a BLP article. Micah Zoltu (talk) 15:15, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a "good find". Per WP:Lead, the lead does not always need sources since the info should be covered elsewhere in the article. To be fair, this is somewhat a different case since it was later in the lead, but either way, if you don't find a source, you should first look and see if the info is covered elsewhere in the article and is sourced. Note in a case like this, a simple text search for the term should work. That is what I did and how I found the source. It's what anyone should do before assuming the info is unsourced and removing it. Nil Einne (talk) 15:29, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

A bit of research puts me firmly in the camp that "Conservative" is not the right word to use. Roosh V himself appears to explicitly decline to label himself as Conservative: "Since I know conservatives will not win, I do not identify as one, because I don’t see myself as a loser. I will stay under the radar and live with no label, and let the communists on the left defeat the losers on the right like they have been doing for centuries." https://www.rooshv.com/conservatives-are-losers. It is worth noting that he explicitly says he has "no label", which, since this is a BLP, I think means we need to be even more cautious than I previously thought about applying a label to him with regards to political affiliation. Micah Zoltu (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

footnote 36

"He considers himself a member of the Armenian Apostolic Church and no longer fornicates or encourages casual sex. [36]" a video that is over 2 hours? Is that an acceptable source for this article? It least start the video at the point where he says that.--Richardson mcphillips (talk) 01:08, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Here is a better source: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/rooshv-bans-pickup-artist-talk-after-religious-awakening.html and also (don't use adblock or it won't display properly) here you go: https://www.thedailybeast.com/daryush-valizadeh-the-pick-up-artist-known-as-roosh-says-he-has-found-god 71.3.195.32 (talk) 19:29, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

Overstatement

"His books Bang Estonia, Don't Bang Latvia, and Bang Lithuania were met with a generally negative reaction from media outlets of those countries, where he was described as a "sex tourist"."

Not generally as at least in Estonia it was described only in Delfi, which is enormously biased into left liberal views and sensationalism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.253.101.136 (talk) 15:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Please explain reversion into overstatement! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.253.101.136 (talk) 13:56, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

YouTube

Apparently Roosh's YouTube channel has finally been closed down, according to his Twitter. Guy (help!) 20:52, 15 July 2020 (UTC)