Talk:Toby Young

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Tyoung8 (talk · contribs) / Young, Toby Young, Toby

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

Robert Booth (2018-01-05). "Why 'impulsive, vain' Toby Young wants us to take him seriously". The Guardian. Retrieved 2018-01-05. Young cares intensely about his own profile, to the extent he is said to have edited his own Wikipedia profile 282 times [sic] in the last decade, but this week he switched off the Google alert which lets him know when his name pops up online.
Toby Young (2020-10-30). "There's nothing neutral about Wikipedia". The Spectator. Retrieved 2020-10-30. I've tried to set the record straight, but it's a smear that just won't die because it sits right at the top of my Wikipedia page. For lazy journalists, Wikipedia is the only thing they read when 'researching' an article.
Jim Norton (2024-11-27). "'Wikipedia is as biased as the BBC': How the Left took over the platform". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2024-12-01. "My own Wikipedia entry looks like it's been written by [Left-wing commentator] Owen Jones," says Toby Young, the director of the Free Speech Union.

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Lack of neutrality

Whatever your opinion of Young, his politics and his beliefs, it is simply not acceptable to have the first line of a notable person's biography begin with: "Toby worked for The Times until being fired.". No dates are given, nor any details.

This is stated as if this is the most notable thing about him; as if Young was a well regarded writer for the Times and was fired for some egregious breach. But the main article doesn't even include The Times in his journalism career. He was a trainee for a few months who got fired for an idiotic stunt.

Elsewhere we see phrasing like: "In 2019, Young found the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory to appeal to his intellectual proclivities.". That is a ridiculous rhetorical flourish, and it has no place here. If you want to say he wrote an article about a discredited conspiracy theory, then just say that. Why mention his intellectual proclivities?

By all means say that that Young is a controversial writer, perhaps even a notorious writer. By all means say that he has attracted criticism for his views. That would be a completely fair and accurate description. There is no need to garnish this by putting focus on the time he spent at the time, for example.

88.144.3.158 (talk) 17:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to edit articles directly when you feel that they can be improved, but your comments are appreciated nonetheless. I've changed the first sentence of the second paragraph to Young briefly worked for The Times before cofounding the London magazine Modern Review. The dates of Young's Times work would be good details in the body if you can provide a reliable source for them. I think it is relevant in the lead as the start to his journalism career, however. I've changed the next portion you talk about to In 2019, Young promoted conspiracy theories about Cultural Marxism. You're right that the previous wording was very unnecessary. — Bilorv (talk) 19:10, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the stuff about cultural Marxism. He clearly wasn't promoting anything. The supposed link 'in print' to an MP was synthesis. Bilorv, what do you think? Arcturus (talk) 21:12, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely the MP comment was synthesis and the cultural Marxism content is not appropriate to mention based on the strength of the given sourcing. — Bilorv (talk) 21:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Thanks for confirming. I'm never 100% sure about synthesis, but I think that one was fairly straightforward. Arcturus (talk) 21:39, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Controversy within a controversy -- "academic posts"

Nomoskedasticity reverted my removal of the controversy about Young's claimed academic posts, as having it both ways (here). This supposes that if we mention his teaching at uni as due, then we must also accept negative information about his teaching at uni as due, even if that information simply reports that a third party poorly described his teaching at uni. We are very clear that it was the DoE who was responsible for this, rather than Young. The removal of this info will only improve this controversy section which has been marked as failing WP:NPOV since May 2021, by another editor. Solipsism 101 (talk) 22:05, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

General position: encyclopaedia article or a resource for offence archaeology?

Why is this article so heavily focussed on cataloguing in as much detail as possible anything which will make the subject look bad? It isn’t an encyclopaedic article. It reads like a character assassination resource scrapbook.

How much excruciating detail does a general encyclopaedia need to go into about specifically negative things someone is “said to” have done or “described” as doing?

If you think this is OK I invite you to take a step back and look at what you are doing. The subject is a human being.

The contains scores of weasel words like “described as …far right”. The biggest weasel word of all is “Controversy.” It invariably indicates reactionary intolerance It’s the acid test of a one-sided smear piece.

I find it to be very immature.

On the positive side;…as usual, the intolerance tells me the guy is likely to have a lot of interesting opinion to share. I find this article just makes me want to give Mr Young a chance. If someone is willing to go to such lengths to do Offence Archaeology on him, he must be worth listening to.

The right to hear dangerous ideas is something my ancestors, and probably yours, were prepared to give their lives for, twice in the first half of the 20th century. Are you worthy of the inheritance they left us? BabylonXerxes (talk) 14:21, 25 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sources do not exist that have anything good to say about Toby Young because he goes out of his way to get up everybody's nose. Perhaps that's why he resorted to editing his Wikpedia bio himself. Nangaf (talk) 03:43, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Misinformation versus alleged misinformation

The article used to say "The account were closed because of breaches of PayPal's acceptable use policy, thought to be because of alleged misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines." Isi96 removed the word "alleged"today without explanation. I think the word should be restored, the cited source uses it. Any other opinions? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:24, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The source says "But The Times has learnt that one of the reasons the accounts were closed was alleged Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, which breached its policies." So I agreee that the "alleged" should be restored unless new sourcing is provided. Isi96 might perhaps be relying on the headline, but per WP:HEADLINES we should ignore that. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 21:22, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonathan A Jones I restored "alleged". Isi96 (talk) 00:28, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Jonathan A Jones (talk) 09:17, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Does the word "alleged" actually make a difference to the meaning of the sentence? We say "... thought to be because of", which already casts uncertainty. The better improvement to the wording might be to attribute to the source—who is doing the "thinking that" here? For instance: "... breaches of PayPal's acceptable use policy, which The Times reported may have been due to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines". Here it would be the phrase "may have been" that would make "alleged" redundant. — Bilorv (talk) 22:05, 19 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the word does make a difference to the meaning, "because of misinformation" is a wiki-voice clause with no directly-supporting source. The "thought to be because of" wording is uncertainty about why PayPal acted, it is not uncertainty about whether the misinformation was merely alleged. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:21, 20 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]