Talk:Kiwi Farms/Archive 5

Latest comment: 1 year ago by JH2903 in topic Lack of evidence on suicides
Archive 1 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6

Typo in lede

"Kiwi Farms was blocked by Cloudflare due to an 'an imminent and emergency threat to human life'"

Can someone fix the dual "an"s? Jenny Death (talk) 15:18, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

done! Licks-rocks (talk) 15:21, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Why are the victims of suicide mentioned, but Chris is not?

A troll, trolling
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

It makes no sense that they get a mention, even if they have died. If they were targets off harassment from Kiwi Farms for years, then it makes no sense to include them as it can be interpreted as allowing the harassment to be immortalized. They will only be notable, at least in concurring media, as people who commited suicide because of harassment. For some reason, Chris is not mentioned despite being a central target of the site since it was created. So then, it only makes sense the names of the victims should be removed in respect of their harassment, since Chris is not mentioned. Or does Chris need to commit suicide in order to be mentioned? I'm very confused. ByteOr (talk) 23:48, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

Have you read farther up this talkpage? Acroterion (talk) 23:50, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
Yes I have, but that's not my question. Why are they mentioned despite being targets of harassment also? They should have their names removed in respect. ByteOr (talk) 23:53, 11 October 2022 (UTC)
What are we saying about them that is in any way disrespectful? What are we saying that could possibly disadvantage them?
The difference with the primary target is that she is still alive and anything we say about her could adversely affect her. I deliberately don't follow her problems in any detail (and I am very suspicious of anybody who is too keen to tell me about them) but my impression is that additional attention could well make things worse for her and those around her. --DanielRigal (talk) 19:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
DanielRigal, User:Acroterion, this is nobody--pay them no mind. Drmies (talk) 01:49, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

RfC on far-right in lede

Another sock/troll
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

It’s owned by a self-avowed anti-Semite, the user base generally holds reactionary views, and is up under services that provide it to these types of websites. It should be included. Brennieor (talk) 15:00, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

@Brennieor: Before starting an RfC, I think it would be more useful if you continued the discussion over at #Far right?, where you can present some more sources that support your point. Isabelle Belato 🏳‍🌈 01:09, 14 October 2022 (UTC)
WP:Sockpuppet investigations/ByteOr is relevant. Magnatyrannus (talk | contribs) 02:15, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Far right?

Is this even a useful descriptor? "Far right" has a bunch of implications to the average reader, few of which as far as I can tell from reliable sources really apply to Kiwi Farms, though I'm open to changing my mind. There's no doubt that Kiwi Farms users engange(d)s in extensive harassment against various individuals and its userbase is (was) virulently transphobic and ableist, but they had threads dedicated to mocking far right figures (as mentioned in Le Monde). There's only been a handful of sources out of dozens covering the recent keffals story describing it as "far right", with most others omitting a political descriptor, and simply describing it as a harassment/stalking forum, which I think is clearer. I would be open to something like "Some sources have described Kiwi Farms as far right", but at the moment I think just describing it in WikiVoice as "far right" is undue. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Having look at some more sources, Gizmodo says Streamer Clara “Keffals” Sorrenti was targeted by the alt-right portions of Kiwi because of the fact she is transgender (which implies that not all of Kiwi Farms is far right) The Spinoff says While members of the forum have different ideologies (they’re not universally “alt-right”) they are all interested in gossiping and posting personal information of the figures they fixate on.. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:54, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
From MSNBC [1] Probably the best way to describe the site’s users is terminally online people from a wide range of political ideologies, from far right and anti-trans feminist types to edgy lefties obsessed with consuming internet drama.. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:14, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
I don't think it's a useful add-on in the lead. To what I know about the forum, The Spinoff is correct and different sections of the forum do tend towards different ideologies and targets. Null himself is probably far-right for what it's worth, just see the original parent company name I added to the article very recently. If RS describe him as such that would be informative to add, though not necessarily in the lead section.
Null has even suggested in the past only making the parts of the forum harassing right-wing individuals publicly visible in an attempt to get liberals off their back. Nick Fuentes & Tim Gionet are an example of right-wing pundits the forum has had long-running feuds with. That has attracted left-wing and liberal people to use the portion of the site dedicated to harassing those specific figures. Chillabit (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Whether there were some less extremist parts of the Kiki Farm ecosystem is like arguing that some Nazis were slightly less bad than other Nazis, in the end it is largely academic. If the far-right antics of some of its members is what gains the most notoriety and the most coverage in reliable sources, then I'm not going to be too concerned with the broad-brush approach of saying "Kiwi Farms is a far-right forum". Zaathras (talk) 22:16, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
What Zaathras said. And after a quick search, I am seeing it in NBC News, Vice, The Guardian, The Daily Dot, Crikey, and Gizmodo Australia. Strikes me as enough for Wikivoice, but reasonable minds may differ. Happy Friday to one and all. Dumuzid (talk) 22:26, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Half of the sources you linked do not say that it is far-right. I imagine you just did a google search for "Kiwi farms far-right" and didn't look at any of the sources you got as results? NBC News didn't say that, The Guardian said it only in the subhead (which is unusable; see WP:HEADLINE), Gizmodo Australia doesn't say it (and is probably a bad source anyway), and Crikey is a small, clickbaity, Australian commentary magazine; I doubt they're usable here. Endwise (talk) 22:37, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
NBC News implied it in the phrase trolls from Kiwi Farms and 4chan — with support from other far-right influencers, which struck me as close enough; The Guardian Gizmodo says Other far-right, often hate and conspiracy-filled websites, have faced similar fates in recent years, too — getting booted from mainstream hosting, only to reemerge elsewhere. Most recently, Kiwi Farms, an offshoot of 4chan and hate speech hotbed.... My apologies for thinking you might look at context. Dumuzid (talk) 22:42, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Are Kiwi Farms and 4chan "influencers"? I don't think that's what NBC News meant. The second quote (which is from Gizmodo Australia btw) is arguable, but to call something or someone "far-right" in Wikipedia's voice I don't think we should be using sources which one could argue imply they are far-right; we should be using sources which state it. Endwise (talk) 22:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
And you are perfectly entitled to your views. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Other options for description: "The forum is most notable for its far-right activity, though the forum is not universally far-right", or "The forum is most notable for its far-right activity" more briefly. I wouldn't dispute that is what they are best known for, but the article below the lead should be as nuanced as the RS covering it. Chillabit (talk) 22:34, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
As I said in my edit summary, we clearly have RS identifying the site as a fae-righr forum. Do any dispute this? Newimpartial (talk) 22:31, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
It's not, as I understand it, an issue as to whether there are reliable sources that call it far-right. The decision is whether it is WP:DUE to call it a far-right forum in the first sentence, given that the far-right descriptor is present only in recent sources (WP:RECENTISM), and that there are other recent sources that do not call it far-right. Somers-all-the-time (talk) 23:01, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
Some sources Hemiauchenia linked above do. But I think the relevant question here should be whether sources generally call them "far-right", not how many sources there are which explicitly dispute it. For some OR context, while most of the userbase and Null himself is far-right, because the forum targets far-right figures like Ethan Ralph and Nick Fuentes, it can attract people who dislike their politics (i.e. people who are to the left of them), some TERF-type people are attracted to the forum because of the anti-trans stuff, and it also has sections for fatphobic harassment, which tends to attract less political fatphobes (e.g. lolcow.farm types). But this is largely besides the point. Endwise (talk) 23:09, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
  • There's clearly sufficient sourcing to say it in the article voice. In addition to the above, [2] says: Joshua Conner Moon operates a neo-Nazi white supremacist hate group and cyberbullying website that targets disabled people, especially people with autism, Jews, Muslims, black people, Hispanics, transgendered, vulnerable people, ... Here is another source describing it as far-right specifically. --Aquillion (talk) 23:00, 16 September 2022 (UTC)
This looks to be self-published and therefore not reliable. "The Crocels Press Limited" is owned and run by the same person who authored this book. - LilySophie (talk) 13:03, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
It's been a while and it seems that enough reliable sources call it far-right here. I've added it back to the article. PBZE (talk) 21:38, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Are they all left-wing sources though? They could be said to have a conflict of interest in the reporting of it, also an opinionated thing. Only if some right-wing sources also call them far-right should it be added. 185.31.96.17 (talk) 03:44, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Edit request: update

The DoS guard server is down. Looks like the farms are gone for good now. Dennis Dartman (talk) 16:05, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Source in Russian newspaper Kommersant (a reliable source per WP:RSP) [3]Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:07, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Added. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
@User:Hemiauchenia @User:Dennis Dartman in accordance with this, I have edited the infobox to say they're defunct and changed their pronouns to was/were. Stephanie921 (talk) 20:11, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
And I've reverted because Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_crystal_ball. Give it like a week or maybe a month and then we'll say whether or not the forum can be called defunct. At the moment it's simply too soon. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:15, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
They're still on the Tor network. It's not defunct. --Chillabit (talk) 20:16, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't trying to be hasty cos I thought the reliable sources like the one linked above say it's defunct. But now that I think about it, I think it's a good idea to wait a bit - although one week seems like it'll probably be too much time and I don't see why we'd need to wait a month at all. Why do you think so? @User:Hemiauchenia Stephanie921 (talk) 20:18, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Because being offline for a few days or weeks isn't necessarily "defunct", there's a good chance that they will come back online, the longer they are offline though the less likely that becomes. If it's still active on Tor then I don't see how we can call it defunct. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:21, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
@User:Hemiauchenia good point, ty. And I didn't know they were still active on Tor Stephanie921 (talk) 20:25, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Didn't the owner of the website himself say something to the effect of, like, "KiwiFarms is going the way of 8chan, and for the foreseeable future it is pretty much dead"?
But the thing is, he said it on the website, so it's currently only accessible using Tor. Does that meet the requisites for a reliable source, or would this have to be published in some external reputable publication (which, by now, it probably already has)? Dennis Dartman (talk) 22:47, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
@User:Dennis Dartman Yes he did say it was dead but it being on the website is an absolutely unreliable source, since it's biased (coming from them) and far-right. Also, we're currently having a discussion over whether the link to Kiwi should be excised, so this would exacerbate that convo. We should wait till a reputable publication says they're dead Stephanie921 (talk) 22:53, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Didn't we already come to a conclusion that KiwiFarms links should be treated as links to other hate speech websites, like 8chan, and not linked here?
If not, I fully support this. Especially after that ex-FBI agent compared KiwiFarms's activity to terrorism.
And yes, of course KiwiFarms is a very unreliable source... but what about direct statements from the people in charge? Wouldn't they still be primary sources? Dennis Dartman (talk) 22:59, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
We didn't come to a consensus, and you can take part in the ongoing RFC here: Talk:Kiwi Farms#URL on the section entitled 'RFC linking to Kiwi Farms'. And, they'd only be reliable if in a reputable other source Stephanie921 (talk) 23:01, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
Well, do you still believe that "there's a good chance that they will come back online"? Did you say that aware of Null's announcement? Do you believe he's being sincere in his announcement, or is he just talking out of his rear end like so many alt-rightists do (idk, to get Keffals to shut up)? Dennis Dartman (talk) 11:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
Yes they are back now on the clearnet on the Chinese domain of .top, and again, being on the darkweb does not mean that your site is 'offline'. - Tweedle (talk) 12:33, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
If it’s on the dark web it means they’re officially so radioactive no mainstream provider wants to touch them, probably because of their hate group and borderline terrorist status, ergo we shouldn’t link to them if that’s the case. Dronebogus (talk) 20:52, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
And now the .top domain has gone down. IDK about Tor. (God bless Keffals and her campaign!) Dennis Dartman (talk) 04:02, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
@User:Dennis Dartman Keffals pronouns are she/her, so please can u correct ur msg? Stephanie921 (talk) 04:09, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
If it’s on tor it’s not down. Dronebogus (talk) 15:57, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
Sorry about that, Hemiauchenia, totally misread the source and didn't see the discussion here until just now. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 23:04, 5 September 2022 (UTC)

Y'all need to stop edit warring about whether Kiwi Farms "is" or "was". Yes, the site's been up and down in various locations the last few days and that may or may not continue, but we can't keep changing the lead every five minutes. Funcrunch (talk) 20:13, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Count me as a voice in favor of present tense for at least the next week or so. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 20:15, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
How about we wait two weeks starting from now to be absolutely sure they're dead - and if they are at that time - we past-tense them? Is everyone okay with that plan? Btw @User:Funcrunch and @User:Firefangledfeathers cheers for tryna mediate, crackin' muckers both of ya Stephanie921 (talk) 20:22, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
https://domainincite.com/28220-kiwi-farms-domain-lands-at-epik heres a source that says that they have moved to a new domain Pyraminxsolver (talk) 02:21, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
Having been following this campaign off-wiki, and the immediate aftermath of having had services removed by Cloudflare, the forum has now gone through three or four domains in as many days. The one linked by Domain Incite appears to be offline at present, redirecting to a standard Nginx error page while returning the HTTP 418 error code due to a misconfiguration. Sideswipe9th (talk) 03:08, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
The article is back to past tense and it hasn't been two weeks. Have we agreed on a consensus? Dennis Dartman (talk) 04:01, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
No we haven't agreed on a consensus but we aven't agreed on a two-week waiting period either. I proposed that but no-one's agreed to it Stephanie921 (talk) 04:12, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
Should we make another RfC just to agree on past or present tense?? (Not entirely kidding...) I'm undecided on the waiting period, which is why I haven't weighed in on that. Funcrunch (talk) 04:35, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
As far as I'm aware, the .top/VanwaTech/Eranet domain has been up and down, and their onion service has still been continuously online (is that correct?), so if the forum is still up and running and people are still posting etc. then I don't see why past tense would make sense. Endwise (talk) 05:02, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
I'm fine with Stephanie921's two week proposal. To be clear, if a stamped of RS come in with "KF down 100%, never coming back we swear" I'm not stuck to the timeline. In the meantime, I intend to revert changes to past tense if I catch them first and link to this talk page section. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 05:16, 7 September 2022 (UTC)
Kiwifarms has been online for the last 2 weeks, and just went down again today. https://archive.ph/aIUSE . I doesn't seem appropriate to refer to the website as dead or gone. Perhaps "flakey" or "intermittently down" would make more sense. I know many of you *wish* it was dead and gone, but that's the case with a lot of things on the internet and dark web. So long as people who want it online have a backup copy and a computer, it's going to exist. Habanero-tan (talk) 17:48, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

Remove mentions of "CWCki" or "CWCki Forums"

When people google CWCki, the first thing they see is Christine's name and everything about him. Per WP:PROPORTION, "CWCki" should be removed as Kiwi Farms is only notable under the current name, and was at the far corners of the Internet when it was dedicated to discussing Christine. Letting a very obvious CWC reference stay up violates WP:HNE, and will only let the eternal harassment of Christine live on forever on Wikipedia, which it has continuously failed to prevent, though "CWCki" is all the serial harassers and related groups need for it to be immortalized on this site indefinitely.

Per an edit suggestion, I would put more focus on Null and his involvement of the site rather than it being dedicated to a "webcomic artist". Chris is not a "webcomic artist", he is a victim of serial trolling that has caused him to develop actual psychosis. I'm tired of knowing every day that Wikipedia does very little to stop the immortalization of serial harassment. 2804:14C:128:2226:B45E:5FE2:51:5758 (talk) 01:53, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Comment: For your first reason, I think that Google is the problem here, not Wikipedia. The 'CWCki' part is there to only show the former name of the Kiwi Farms and also is a part of it's history, and the Wikipedia page put it there for no bad intent. You are probably very familiar with the CWCki, but not everyone doesn't know what the acronym for CWC stands for. WP:NHE is for Wikipedia editors who harass people and not for non-editor who harass people in general, which is the vast majority of people trolling CWC are. Your point about CWC not being a webcomic artist and instead being a victim of serial trolling instead is a bit confused; CWC is a webcomic artist who is a victim of trolling. Pyraminxsolver (talk) 05:26, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
If we keep it in we should at least stop explaining that it's someone's initials. Licks-rocks (talk) 12:07, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
This is unnecessary and over-the-top. We don't need to pretend that Chris Chan doesn't exist or try to hide any possible evidence of their existence. The forum's former name is clearly relevant to the article, and so is its origin. Elli (talk | contribs) 12:24, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
My (and other editors') concern isn't to do with relevance and more with the BLP issues. And per multiple RFC's, it's been pretty clearly established that we shouldn't mention this person if it is at all avoidable. It isn't much of a stretch to assume that includes a person's initials. Licks-rocks (talk) 14:05, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
There isn't any BLP issue with including the old name of the forum. Please point to the part of WP:BLP that says otherwise. Elli (talk | contribs) 17:52, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm pointing to the several different discussions and disputes which are listed in the RFC at the top of this page, all of which clearly explain how this has been a returning BLP issue for the past several years of this page's existence. Not to mention the RFC itself. That should be more than enough. Licks-rocks (talk) 17:59, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
None of those discussions have had a consensus that including the old name of the forum is a BLP issue. Additionally, the last real discussion on this, where people mainly discussed the merits of inclusion, rather than just citing old discussions and saying "there's already a consensus", was the August 2021 ANI, which had consensus against creating an article on her -- not anything else. Even then, that discussion wasn't really thorough.
The quality of discussions around this issue have been significantly disrupted by a lot of SPAs or IPs who seemingly harbor sympathies to Kiwi Farms and continue to bring it up, which leads to people almost instinctively trying to remove this content and close discussions on it as soon as possible. That leads to an illusion of a much stronger consensus against inclusion than actually exists, and using those consensuses to argue for an even stricter prohibition on naming her than what they actually say is not something we should do. Elli (talk | contribs) 18:16, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeah. I thought it was pretty obvious from the other comments in this conversation that the old name of the forum was the new thing that hadn't been brought up before. It's not all that shocking though, it's just the logical follow-through to the pre-existing consensus, which is indeed that the person the forum used to be named after is not E and should not be named per WP:BLP and WP:BLPNAME.
The original name of the forum was the name of the person they were harassing because that's what they dedicated the forum to. That should be an additional reason to take pause when referencing that name. We can easily explain the origins of the name of the website without actually using those initials, it's not some major change that'll have a huge impact on the content or legibility of the article either. We can just say "the forum was originally named after the initials of one of the victims, but was later renamed to kiwifarms" and that'd be the end of that. Licks-rocks (talk) 19:27, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
I agree with you: if we're gonna commit to never having this person's name appear on Wikipedia, I think that pretty obviously extends to their initials, especially since there's not a lot of encyclopedic value in having them. Loki (talk) 08:11, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
Agreed. I see no reason to name this person, even if we include the old name of the forum. Saying it was dedicated to harassment should be enough. I find it difficult to maintain as assumption of good faith in these continued discussions, especially when male pronouns are seemingly pointedly used. Dumuzid (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2022 (UTC)
I disagree. There are reliable sources referring to the forum as such and there has never been a consensus that including it is a violation of WP:BLP. I would also like to remind you of WP:AGF. - LilySophie (talk) 12:55, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
There is no AGF in play when dealing with trolls who come here just to continue the harassment of the person in question. Pay special attention to the closing comment in the related section above, Talk:Kiwi Farms#RfC concerning Chris-chan. Zaathras (talk) 13:02, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Oh lord, here we go again. This obsessive, neurotic need to scrub all mentions of CWC from Wikipedia, despite her proven relevance in Internet culture, not to mention coverage from several mainstream news sources never ceases to amuse me. This person is literally the original namesake for the forum, not to mention an incredibly well-known Internet figure. Maybe if there was any consistency to this rule I would be more understanding But there isn't, seeing as several much less known Internet personalities are mentioned by name in this article, with some of them having entire articles of their own. Whatever "rule" or "principle" that makes CWC in particular off-limits is so poorly thought-out it's almost comical. A Simple Fool (talk) 18:02, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
@A Simple Fool: Even if you might disagree with WP:BLP, our editorial decisions are all determined by consensus. If that isn't consistent then I don't know what is. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 18:21, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Appealing to consensus is circular logic when discussing whether the current consensus is wrong. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:00, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Unless A Simple Fool has after 3 years come up with a new argument in favour of inclusion, there is no point relitigating this. --Pokelova (talk) 19:04, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
They... aren't, though? They're arguing against a further attempt to remove even the slightest mention from them from Wikipedia, which was not brought up in previous discussions, and is even more restrictive than what those discussions established. Elli (talk | contribs) 19:07, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
The post by A Simple Fool seemed more like a rant ("first they want to remove CWC's name, now they want to remove CWCki") than an argument against removing the CWCki mention specifically. Besides, saying that it isn't consistent does not make sense as removing all mentions would at least be more consistent if all we did was to advocate for consistency. Your comments are self contradictory, as evident in discussing whether the current consensus is wrong vs. arguing against a further attempt to remove even the slightest mention from them from Wikipedia, which was not brought up in previous discussions - so are we discussing whether the current consensus is wrong, or are we discussing to form consensus around an extension to the previous discussions? I personally would not want to discuss whether the consensus was wrong, hence my original comment. I believe that CWC inclusionists' only choice is to open an WP:ARBCOM case, but it would be terrifying to see the case even get accepted. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 19:34, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Oops, just read WP:ARBSCOPE - looks like no. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 19:35, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
My comments aren't contradictory here. I was disagreeing with your reply to A Simple Fool in my first comment, and further explaining a different way you have misunderstood the situation in my second comment. Not only is "your argument is wrong because there's a consensus for something" a poor argument to be used when discussing consensus, there is not even a consensus for the position you seem to be arguing for (that we shouldn't include "CWCiki" in this page, because it by extension names Chris Chan).
This is obviously not a discussion intended to re-litigate whether we should discuss Chris Chan in more detail, nor do I think most people, myself included, want to do that at this point. I do think that a discussion should be held in the future to formalize consensus on this subject, once media attention around Kiwi Farms dies down again. That would obviously not be an ArbCom case. The reason another discussion should be held is because the consensus is currently unclear, as evidenced by this discussion, and there isn't a particular discussion that can even be pointed to as establishing a consensus (there's multiple noticeboard threads and other RfCs that people point to, many of which were closed pointing to previous consensus at other threads). The fact that there's so many discussions on this topic, many started in bad-faith and closed in an expedited manner, makes it unclear what the editorial consensus actually is, other than "we shouldn't discuss this person more than necessary or include her name". Elli (talk | contribs) 20:04, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
Yeah I've heard that argument from you before and I'm still not buying the idea that once you clean up the people arguing in bad faith there'll magically be more people arguing for inclusion than there are now. There's too few people arguing for inclusion to get a consensus as it is already. I don't think that will change if you remove a large number of them from the equation. Not to mention the fact that there will never be a time when there are no bad faith actors involved in a discussion about this due to the very nature of the website we are talking about. . Licks-rocks (talk) 21:02, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
This is a total misunderstanding of what I've said. Obviously when a SPA opens up a discussion that's obviously in bad-faith, people will be quick to shut it down. Additionally, said user would probably not make a particularly strong or policy-based argument, and people generally don't want to go to bat for SPAs which are obviously intending on using Wikipedia for the purposes of harassment.
It also seems like you're reading too much into what my position on this whole subject is, which I have not stated anywhere. I'm not arguing that we should mention Chris Chan in any more detail than past discussions have established (nor is that what this talk page section is even about). I simply think that the current status quo, of mentioning the site was originally called "CWCki Forums", is fine. That's not something there is a strong consensus against, and citing the past discussions to argue for that is very flawed reasoning. Elli (talk | contribs) 21:39, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
you seem to be defending A simple fool's position here, given the first comment from you in the thread, which is why people assume you're talking about relitigating the whole thing here. Nonetheless, I intentionally formulated my argument to leave that part ambiguous because I think it applies to both re-litigating the whole thing and the current discussion started by the IP, regardless of which we're actually talking about, you have to make do with the discussions you get. I do not see the amount of bad faith activity on this page as something that should be ignored in favour of letting calmer heads prevail, as you suggest. Rather, I see it as something we should pay attention to because it indicates that some party has a vested interest in getting as much information about that person into the article as possible. Like I have argued before, that should make us more careful. Not because of some knee-jerk reaction, but because it's the rational thing to do when the stakes are higher than usual. Licks-rocks (talk) 09:03, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
You've again misunderstood and misrepresented what I've said. I will not engage further here. Elli (talk | contribs) 09:10, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
It looks like I will never correctly interpret your arguments, so I will mostly focus on A Simple Fool's comment and my response here. But I will have to quote you once. Not only is "your argument is wrong because there's a consensus for something" a poor argument to be used when discussing consensus, there is not even a consensus for the position you seem to be arguing for (that we shouldn't include "CWCiki" in this page, because it by extension names Chris Chan). I wasn't arguing about the discussion as intended by the IP user, but rather focusing on ASF's comment. In my response to the consistency argument, to quote ASF: Maybe if there was any consistency to this rule I would be more understanding But there isn't, seeing as several much less known Internet personalities are mentioned by name in this article, with some of them having entire articles of their own. This seems to be arguing that "since CWC is an Internet figure that is much more known, we should mention CWC by her name and perhaps even have a separate article about her." This is how I interpreted ASF's comment. No matter whether you think this is an incorrect interpretation or not, I responded by saying (perhaps somewhat implicitly, but to me reasonably inferrable from the context) "Because consensus says we should not mention CWC by her name and to not have an article about her, this is consistent." Again, I don't care how you interpreted this response, but the claim that my argument was bad is entirely unfounded. It wasn't even an argument. I was simply defending the fact that CWC is not mentioned by name and does not have a separate article as consistent with other editorial decisions we have made for other figures that are less known.
This is obviously not a discussion intended to re-litigate whether we should discuss Chris Chan in more detail, nor do I think most people, myself included, want to do that at this point. And yet, A Simple Fool's comment seemed much more like a relitigation than an argument about removing "CWCki Forums" from the lead. It is obvious that me, Licks-rocks, and Pokelova all interpreted ASF's comment that way.
I do not want to argue about semantics or who said what, but it seems ironic to me that you don't want to continue this discussion because someone "misunderstood and misrepresented" your argument, while not realizing that you were misunderstanding and misrepresenting my argument as well. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 09:34, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
I'm unwilling to continue discussing with Licks-rocks in particular for multiple reasons. I'm happy to engage with you, though. Your interpretation of ASF's comment is reasonable (and I appreciate you clarifying your comment) though I wouldn't read it in the same way. My interpretation of their comment is that while they seem unhappy with the current consensus, they weren't trying to relitigate it, but rather were saying that we've already gone further than what they view as reasonable, and going even further than that would be absurd. Elli (talk | contribs) 09:41, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Site Down

As of approximately a week ago, the site has been down after its ISP terminated service. How should we go about talking about this and sourcing it in the article? Waterfire (talk) 23:18, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

It's not over until the owner declares defeat; even if access is never restored on the clearnet, my suspicion is that it'll persist on Tor for a very long time. Sourcing is going to be challenging; there's no longer newsworthiness in "it's down again" "it's up again" "it's down again" (when the current state might change on moment's notice before the ink is dry), and thus no published articles since the Buzzfeed article 9 days ago. Take with a pinch of salt, my COI is declared, and I'm well aware original research should not be added to Wikipedia. Lizthegrey (talk) 06:22, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
The site’s in an indefinite flux in terms of availability. Unless it’s been covered in multiple sources, or the owner gives up, or it stays down for at least several months, it’s not “legally dead” as far as we care. Dronebogus (talk) 21:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
Speaking of which, it's back up. Don't count it as over until it's over. Lizthegrey (talk) 03:33, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
Should you be commenting on here when you are actively involved in trying to get it taken down? CaptainPrimo (talk) 02:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
My conflict of interest is disclosed both on my user page as well as literally two comments up. Lizthegrey (talk) 02:27, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Why is the logo file not public domain?

The “Kiwi” logo is just a mix of very flat shapes. The font can’t be copyrighted to my knowledge. Why is it fair use? Alohaidled (talk) 02:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

That's a rather complicated mix of flat shapes. Primefac (talk) 07:53, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
It’s a picture of a Kiwi, not a “mix of shapes”. I don’t see how that is simple geometry. Dronebogus (talk) 08:11, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
The Apple logo is a flat shape of an apple. It consists of flattened polygons and it is public domain under U.S. copyright laws. The Kiwi Farms logo is just three oval-ish shapes conjoined together to look like a kiwi, but it is not original. It’s just a flat shape with a circular eye. Alohaidled (talk) 23:46, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
That's... actually a reasonable point. However, it's not a debate that can be had here, as this page is for discussing Kiwi Farms, not its logo. Discussion of the logo licensing should take place elsewhere. Alternately, someone could upload a PD-simple to Commons and see how long it lasts. Primefac (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
The right place to ask would be commons:Commons:Village_pump/Copyright. 0xDeadbeef→∞ (talk to me) 12:22, 7 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, I figured someone would know. Primefac (talk) 12:23, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Who is "Near"?

Came to the page following a link, looking for information about a subject of which I knew nothing to read:

In 2021, after the suicide of Near, a non-binary software developer...

I was going to add a {{who}} but found the article locked. Who?, What?, When?, Why?, Where?, How? There's a bit more info in the Suicides of harassment targets section lower in the page, but detail is scattered all over rather than usefully combined. ChanceryBlack (talk) 14:52, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Yes, the details are in the "Suicides of harassment targets" section below, that is the point. The lead section of an article introduces the subject and important points broadly, then expanded details are found in the body. Zaathras (talk) 15:30, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Correct me if I am wrong, and I know there are wiki-editors who can quote, without needing to look them up, the style guide references, but isn't the idea of the para(s) above the "contents" to be linked/referenced as necessary so that the ignorant enquirer (as I was) gets all the pertinent info. from that text block?
I (now) grok that to folk involved with this subject, the names and personalities are well known, but as a casual user I don't know if this pseudonymous character is important or not. A link, especially to a wiki page which would trigger a pop-up, would have been informative.
There are a lot of "special interest" words and phrases in that multi para text block, and most of them are indeed linked. ChanceryBlack (talk) 16:15, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Edit Request: My Immortal Section

In the "My Immortal fanfiction authorship controversy section," change "A Kiwi Farms user claiming to be Christo's brother" to "Christo's brother."

Per https://web.archive.org/web/20171005185457/https://moviepilot.com/p/brother-of-my-immortal-author-casts-serious-doubt-on-her-claims/4383046, the user was verified to be her brother. Also, archives of Rose Christo's tumblr posts show she confirmed the user was her brother. I understand first-party sources are normally undesirable, but they're still permissible for claims that aren't scandalous in nature (and the tumblr was verified to be owned and operated by her, per reliable sources associated with the authorship controversy). --My tightness (talk) 20:56, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

The brother's identity is also stated as fact at My_Immortal_(fan_fiction)#2017:_Rose_Christo_co-authorship_claim, so this appears to be a reasonable request. Zaathras (talk) 22:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Dispute over "Harassment" text

@Bluerules and DanielRigal: Will the two of you stop edit warring and instead use the talk page to discuss this change? Isabelle 🏳‍🌈 23:09, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Note: For anybody coming to this fresh, the change in question is this. --DanielRigal (talk) 23:37, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

Sure. I've been trying to persuade Bluerules to bring it here but it doesn't seem to have worked.
As I see it, the version with this coverage is the Status Quo version. It's not a particularly longstanding status quo but the only person trying to remove it is Bluerules and others have reinstated it.
So let's consider the merits of it. Bluerules seems to think that it is duplicative but it... just isn't. It is the only content that states that KF targets trans people. There are examples of it doing so elsewhere but this is the only part that covers it as a general thing. It leads neatly into the examples. Without it, all we have is an article that mentions that several of the victims have been trans almost as if that was a coincidence. While many readers can join those dots they shouldn't need to. We should say what we mean directly. Also, the removal takes out several good references. --DanielRigal (talk) 23:14, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
This is the very definition of duplicative. "It now hosts threads targeting" / "The site targets". Saying this "is the only content that states KF targets trans people" is not true. The article already says the targets include "LGBT people" in the History section. That's precisely the part covering it as a "general thing" and it exists without the repeated content. I'm not opposed to drawing more focus on the targeting of transgender individuals, but that belongs in the History section and immediately following the sentence about who is targeted. To have this information saying the same thing in both the History and Harassment sections is, again, the definition of duplicative. And if there's an issue about references being removed, I have no issue moving them to the History section. Bluerules (talk) 23:35, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
I was in the process of writing a talk page section, but other editors have refused to respect WP:STATUSQUO and allow the older revision to stand before the dispute could be resolved. Anyways, the issue boils down to this:
The History section of this article currently states:
"It now hosts threads targeting many individuals, including minorities, women, LGBT people, neurodivergent people, people considered by Kiwi Farms users to be mentally ill or sexually deviant, feminists, journalists, Internet celebrities, video game or comics hobbyists, and far-right personalities."
On September 16 and September 17, new content was added to the Harassment section, which eventually became:
"The site targets transgender people, people with disabilities, and those its users believe to be non-neurotypical. As well as members of the far-right."
Not only is there a blatant sentence fragment, this is complete repetition. We have already stated who is targeted in the above paragraph.
The other content in dispute, which was added to the History section on Sept. 20 is further repetition. Again, it is already stated who is targeted in the above paragraph. I am open to mentioning the "troon" insult, but that belongs in the upper paragraph, which is dedicated to the individuals targeted. The lower paragraph is about the users and this edit causes the paragraph to lose focus. Bluerules (talk) 23:27, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
There is no urgency that the page must be the preferred version when resolving a dispute. We can change it back if there is consensus to do so. see also meta:The Wrong Version 0xDeadbeef 04:18, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
This isn't about "the preferred version"; this is about the older version, which STATUSQUO supports. If my version was the newer one, I would not have reinstated it in a dispute. Bluerules (talk) 13:00, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
The History section mentions TERFs and others that comprise the user base, then (the part you want removed) notes that trans individuals are a particular target. The Harassments section describes what the victims are subject to, and then (the part you want removed) who the victims are. I don't see an issue with either of these additions.
As well as members of the far-right is problematic though, but for more reasons than just being a fragment. It seems to be trying to claim that the Kiwi users target far-right people too? This is ridiculous, as Kiwi IS the far right. That some users may have taken part in an internecine war within Nick Fuentes' white supremacist circles does not make them anti-far-right. Both this and ...and far-right personalities at the end of the 1st sentence in History should be removed. Zaathras (talk) 13:14, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
I don't understand what you are saying here. The fact that Kiwi Farms does target members of the far right is well sourced (Le Monde and SPLC). Kiwi Farms is not stormfront or /pol/, and it is a disservice to falsely present them as something they're not. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:39, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Why should their targeting of people like Ethan Ralph and Nick Fuentes be hidden from this article? It's still a significant part of the website; those two individuals have an entire section each. Endwise (talk) 13:45, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
The History section already mentions who is targeted by Kiwi Farms ("It now hosts threads targeting"). We don't need to mention the targets twice in consecutive sections. Like I mentioned above, I'm not opposed to noting the particular focus on transgender individuals, but that part is in the wrong paragraph. It should be in the paragraph about the targets, not the paragraph about the users.
And I concur with the other editors here; it's already cited that far-right personalities are also a target. Likewise, one targeted noted the users are all over the place when it comes to ideologies. Bluerules (talk) 13:51, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
This is absolutely daft. That there is far-right infighting does not make Kiwi Farms "anti far-right". Y'all are synthesizing things from sources that aren't actually there. Zaathras (talk) 13:57, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
This article doesn't say that Kiwi Farms is "anti far-right", I'm not sure what that's quoting. Endwise (talk) 14:00, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
It now hosts threads targeting many individuals, including...far-right personalities and the above-mentioned fragment imply that. Zaathras (talk) 00:19, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
So targeting the far-right implies anti-far right, but targeting the LGBTQ doesn't imply anti-LGBTQ? Kiwi Farms is all over the place when it comes to ideologies. This is demonstrated by the sources, with even a transgender target noting that one group is "edgy lefties". Bluerules (talk) 02:24, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
A website can both target far-right people and be far right at the same time. The two are definitely not mutually exclusive. Licks-rocks (talk) 14:53, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
Targeting the far-right doesn't automatically make a website anti-far right. Bluerules (talk) 02:20, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
Mentioning the Kiwi Farms lingo makes sense to me, seems notable. Calling the website itself alt-right or far right seems like an error (would one say that Wikipedia is a far right/left site because people on the far right/left use and edit it? I wouldn't) but saying something along the lines of "some of the site's users are far right" is fine. I think that's already covered by the Burns quote. Joe (talk) 11:37, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
If it's an issue about including lingo, I don't have a problem with that. I have a problem with shifting topics (going from the users to the targets) and mentioning the same information three separate times in the body. Bluerules (talk) 04:24, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
This is redundant and false information. The site harasses everyone that they like no matter of political, ethnic or gender. Should we start adding paragraphs for every gender, ideology or nationality they harassed? Should we add a paragraph about fat people, what about short people? No, it's sufficient to say the site has some ableists, racists, anti trans etc users. The same is true for the alt-right nonsense. Twitter has alt-right users, do we call it alt-right (we probably do now that Elon has taken over, am i right?). REDUNDANT, remove it! Skyrant (talk) 09:34, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

This article is very confusing in certain areas, and I cannot tell if Wikipedia wants it to be perceived as “good”.

I mean, “facilitates” the harassment sounds very off. They just don’t facilitate it, they encourage the users to stalk and harass the people being discussed. The history section barely talks about Null and how he basically built an empire of harassment, yet claims to be an “internet entrepreneur”.

It specifically targets LGBTQ+ individuals and other people that are deemed vulnerable. Not mentioning it in the lede gives the reader a sense of confusion on what the actual point of the site is: to harass people.

Hopefully people here have some sort of journalistic connection, because the site recently employed a decentralized server network in order to evade getting “deleted”. Wikipedia does not want to document this and they are on the same level as 8kun/8chan in terms of rightful censorship.

At the very least, mention how it was rightfully censored from many mainstream providers of internet infrastructure. If readers want to know how disgusting this site is, then it must be made more neutral and not feed their harassment. Alohaidled (talk) 12:04, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia's goal is to be neutral, not to make it clear that particular websites are bad. I don't get what you view as non-neutral about this article, it seems pretty clear to me. If anything, the article is missing content about most of what happens on Kiwi Farms (the particular harassment incidents listed in this article are probably ~1% of the website's content, but take up most of the article -- not that the rest of the website's content is much better, though). This is a lack based on the available sources, though, so it's not really something we can fix. Elli (talk | contribs) 13:37, 1 November 2022 (UTC)
The point of the site is to laugh at eccentric people who do embarassing things online. It actively discourages contacting any of the people as one can see if they actually visited the site and didn't get all their news from slanderous sources - so you have a warped view of what the site is about. CaptainPrimo (talk) 02:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
Now you’re just pushing your own point of view. Dronebogus (talk) 16:55, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Every forum, social media website incl. this one, facilitates "harassment" if by harassment you mean talking and collecting publicly available information about a public figure. In some countries this "harassment" is considered free speech. The lede tries to paint this as something problematic. It is not. kiwifarms has very strict terms of service. We accept them to be enforced on every other website but on Kiwifarms we assume they are not valid (see doxxing). This is ridiculous to say the least. Skyrant (talk) 09:50, 25 December 2022 (UTC)

KiwiFarms is not "blocked in New Zealand"

After the 2019 Christchurch Mosque Shootings, many ISPs in New Zealand (and some in Australia) made the decision on their own accord to block KiwiFarms, 8chan and 4chan(?). It is not illegal to access or provide access to KiwiFarms in New Zealand as far as I am aware of. I have tested it and I can access KiwiFarms from my relatively small, but still reputable ISP, in New Zealand.

If possible could someone with the necessary permissions research this more and adjust the article accordingly. Lia8629 (talk) 08:19, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

"Many" does not mean "all". Zaathras (talk) 14:44, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
"After the Christchurch mosque shootings, the site was blocked in New Zealand."
This is in the introduction paragraph.
What my point was is that while many NZ ISPs have blocked KiwiFarms, not all have - as the article incorrectly states. Lia8629 (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
I've fixed it; it's not what the body of the article said anyway. Also, I'm not sure what Zaathras meant. Endwise (talk) 02:29, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, forgot about this. When the OP wrote After the 2019 Christchurch Mosque Shootings, many ISPs in New Zealand..., I hastily and wrongly assumed that they were quoting text already present in the article. Zaathras (talk) 22:21, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

On a somewhat related note: the article used to contain a sentence noting that this so-called "Kiwi" site has no connection with New Zealand, but an editor who has since been banned for sockpuppetry came along and removed it as "irrelevant". I would have thought a brief explanation was relevant, particularly in view of the NZ mosque shooting controversy (which was the first time many New Zealanders had ever heard of "Kiwi Farms"). The source cited even says so.[4] Muzilon (talk) 10:14, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

A correction in the history section

The webcomic artist who was the basis for the creation of the CWCki and CWCki forums was not initially discovered on 4chan but rather Something Awful forums. Discussions on 4chan rather greatly facilitated the attention given towards said webcomic artist to the wide audience we know of today. Sergei zavorotko (talk) 23:48, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

If you could provide a reliable source to that effect, it would help. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:22, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
Here's a reliable source that mentions it more down in the early days section:
https://www.insider.com/chris-chan-arrested-trending-who-is-mom-twitter-history-sonichu-2021-8
But assuming because of the title, the source should not be included because the source, despite being independently verifiable, violates WP:HNE, even though it is reliable, and verifiable. Therefore, non-factual information should probably be kept because at the end of the day, it is harassment to mention it because of the source title. So including factual information is probably not a good idea because the source title is controversial and contains the name of someone who should probably not be mentioned because they have endured enough. Just a thought! Kronintz (talk) 23:29, 12 December 2022 (UTC)
The easiest way to resolve this would be to change the phrasing to "It was originally launched as a forum website to troll and harass a webcomic artist who was first noticed in 2007". My personal preference would be for Wikipedia to accept that she-who-shall-not-be-named is a public figure who has done interviews and been covered by mainstream media outlets, but I'm not going to fight you all on that. I'm just going to be bold and take my initial suggestion to the article. Also, doesn't BLP also apply to talk pages? I don't know how you can get away with namedropping her here. Koopinator (talk) 19:18, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
I agree that the best way to handle this is to just end the sentence at 2007. No issues with the Insider source, but the added detail has little to do with the subject of this article. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 23:46, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with citing this source, actually. Other sources that mention Chris Chan are cited, particularly Kiwi Farms, the forum that has been linked to 3 suicides, was made to troll Chris Chan years before she was arrested on an incest charge which is by the same publisher. Elli (talk | contribs) 23:38, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
IIRC, previous discussions came to this exact same consensus, partly because not including those sources would strip most of the article. It's only BLP if it's spelled out in the article's text. JungleEntity (talk) 01:49, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
That doesn't seem right to me. WP:BLP explicitly says "BLP applies to all material about living persons anywhere on Wikipedia, including talk pages, edit summaries, user pages, images, categories, lists, article titles and drafts." Koopinator (talk) 15:09, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
From what I remember, the reason for not mentioning Chris Chan by name was more of an IAR "this will cause more trouble than it's worth" thing than a BLP policy thing. I don't really think there's anything spelled out at Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons which would prevent us from mentioning her by name (it's not badly sourced or whatever else). Endwise (talk) 19:46, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
This question comes up every month it seems, the quick answer is that Wikipedia appears to have a borderline neurotic need to keep any mention of CWC off the site, even though said person is well known, and has been both reported on, and been interviewed on, several reputable news sources, even pre-arrest.
From what I can gather, this policy came up because CWC was an active user on Wikipedia many years ago, and caused some drama.
Of course, pretending a notable person doesn't exist because of web drama from the late 2000's is inane, but it appears the people upholding this policy have a very poor grasp on the topic. Or, there is still some amount of bias, given that less notable cases similar to CWC's are not only allowed to be mentioned, but also have entire pages of their own. A Simple Fool (talk) 15:38, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I will just point out that this does not in any way reflect my reasoning on the subject, but I am well beyond borderline neurotic, so there is that. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:00, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
The reason is WP:AVOIDVICTIM. That's the BLP policy issue, there's no creative rules interpretation or grand conspiracy around it. When someone is notable only due to being the target of a harassment campaign, and attempts to insert them seem to come mostly as an ongoing part of that harassment campaign, you get what I understand can _look_ like an attempt to censor, rather than just enforcement of policy. Lizthegrey (talk) 23:15, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
AVOIDVICTIM doesn't say anything nearly as strong as "we can't name the victim of a harassment campaign". Elli (talk | contribs) 13:42, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
That seems a logical conclusion to me when the subject's entire notability is as a result of a harassment campaign, but you are of course entitled to your own views. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:18, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
No, it's not. When writing about a person noteworthy only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems—even when the material is well sourced. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic. The person's name is clearly something that is "completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic". We don't even have a biography of this person, and while BLP applies to content in any article that discusses a living person, this section is clearly meant more for articles about victims, or about events where certain people were victims. Sharing Chris Chan's name does not [amount] to participating in or prolonging the victimization; they have repeatedly sought public attention and clearly do not mind people knowing their name.
Have you actually read AVOIDVICTIM? Your conclusion does not make sense based off of what it says. Elli (talk | contribs) 14:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
The enforcement of these policies is inconsistent at best. For example, there is a full page for the Jessi Slaughter cyberbullying case, another 4Chan trolling campaign. Is this person's entire notability not due to a harassment campaign? If anything, I would say the Slaughter page is a tougher one to justify. The fact that stands is that Chandler is significantly more well-known, has been famous for far longer, and has been reported on in mainstream news on several different occasions, particularly during the 2021 arrest, but not exclusively. It's absolutely ridiculous to have a full page detailing the trolling of an eleven-year old, and a segment on this page about other trolling victims that took their own lives, and still draw some imaginary line at including any mention of CWC, who was the original reason the site was formed, and literally the person the site was originally named after. A Simple Fool (talk) 20:22, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
you've been at this 3 years now. WP:DROPTHESTICK Lizthegrey (talk) 21:01, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Someone caring about an issue for a while doesn't mean their argument about it is wrong. You've also discussed this persistently and have a clear conflict of interest on this subject, so telling someone else to drop the stick isn't really a fair criticism when you could instead discuss the ideas they brought up in their comment. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:44, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
When this was discussed back in September 2022, I included a list of all of the prior discussions on Chandler's name, going back over the last three years. Discussion venues were this talk page, WikiProject Internet Culture, AN, and ANI. If you wish to read the linked discussions, please see the collapsed list within my comment at 18:52, 12 September 2022 (UTC). The consistent and strong community consensus across all of those discussion venues is that content on Chandler cannot be included in any article, be it a stand alone biography, or a sentence/paragraph in an article related to her, because there is no way to write content about her that cannot violate the WP:BLP policy and because any content about her will immediately become a target for vandals and further harassment.
Liz is right in saying that A Simple Fool has been trying to add this content for three years, and Liz is also right to suggest that ASF should let this go, because consensus has very overwhelmingly not changed in that three year time period. ASF has brought no discussion points that have not already been raised in one or more of the past discussions. Sideswipe9th (talk) 18:52, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
I have, in fact, read essentially every one of those discussions. Most of them did not actually establish a policy-based consensus with most people just citing... previous discussions about the topic. I imagine in a few months, you'll include this discussion as well, next time this gets brought up.
Additionally, just because people have discussed something before doesn't mean that the conclusion reached by said discussion was right, and refusing to engage with the facts of the situation and what our policy actually says just because the current consensus is in favor of your position is not constructive. The last discussion that substantively engaged with the facts of the situation and wasn't closed because of "past consensus" was arguably the August 2021 ANI thread.
There should be an RfC held on this topic at a more neutral time that is worded in a neutral way and has actual debate on the policies at play here, because the current consensus clearly is not satisfactory to many editors (as can be seen by this continuing to be brought up) and is not actually clear as to what is/isn't allowed (as can be seen by continued debates as to what level of mention we should include here, among other things). Having one discussion that establishes how we should deal with discussing her and what level of detail we are allowed to include on her would be a clear net positive. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:25, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
I imagine in a few months, you'll include this discussion as well, next time this gets brought up. Seeing as thus far it's a rehash of the points already made and addressed in the previous discussions, you imagine correctly!
just because people have discussed something before doesn't mean that the conclusion reached by said discussion was right Perhaps. However it's also worth keeping in mind that having a different opinion on policy points like WP:AVOIDVICTIM doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong.
There should be an RfC held on this topic at a more neutral time that is worded in a neutral way and has actual debate on the policies at play here I suspect, given the history, and that content relating to Chandler (even tangentially) is an obvious and frequent vandalism magnet, the appetite for such a discussion amongst editors will be low. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:54, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
However it's also worth keeping in mind that having a different opinion on policy points like WP:AVOIDVICTIM doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong. Of course this is true, but that doesn't mean there aren't incorrect interpretations of policy.
content relating to Chandler (even tangentially) is an obvious and frequent vandalism magnet page protection exists; so do blocks. If we were to follow this, we wouldn't have articles about many well-known and controversial things.
the appetite for such a discussion amongst editors will be low That isn't a good case against having such a discussion. It's absurd for a group of editors to decide they have a consensus they like and then repeatedly attempt to shut down any attempt at even having a discussion to consider changing or clarifying that consensus. If they don't want to have such a discussion, then they don't have to participate. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:09, 13 January 2023 (UTC)
You're right; I've never read it. Good luck establishing that consensus. Dumuzid (talk) 20:38, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Sorry, digging up old posts on a talk page isn't a smoking gun, to me it just indicates you're aware that the position you're taking is a weak one. I'm sorry, but this site twisting itself into knots trying to avoid any mentions of CWC while simultaneously having no problems describing the online harassment, trolling and even suicides of other internet users is absolutely ridiculous. A Simple Fool (talk) 22:54, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

URL

Considering the website has been regularly up under the same URL since late September, I would say the URL should be added back into the info box. The only rationales not to add it back in from previous discussions seem to be,

1) The website is constantly shifting URLs. This does not seem to be true anymore. I reviewed archive.is records and it seems to have been consistently up under the .net for 2+ months with little downtime.

2) The website is hate speech. This is not a reason for not linking them. Among other things we have links to

-Stormfront

-4chan

-Encyclopedia Dramatica

I fail to see how this website is any more hateful than the explicit white nationalist ones, or 4chan, which has had at least 5 separate instances of mass shooters posting threats there.

3) The website is spam. This does not seem to be true. I can find no proof of Kiwi Farms ever having malware, cryptocurrency, phishing scandals, etc. If anyone can point me to any reason that this particular site should be on the Wikimedia spam blacklist then please do.

None of these reasons are valid imo. PARAKANYAA (talk) 08:47, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Kiwi Farms#RfC on linking to Kiwi Farms for the relevant RfC on the question, where consensus was achieved to omit the link. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 18:43, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
A lot of the consensus is predicated off things that aren’t true (the domain being unstable and baseless accusations of it being spam/phishing) and the rest is a general it’s too dangerous to link which is absurd given that we link both Stormfront and As-Sahab, the media group of Al-Qaeda, which actively encourages terrorism and Islamic radicalization. We also have links to Pornhub. I see very little academic benefit to the end user from clicking that link, and the ads there often do actually fall under the scam/shady variety.
I would consider Kiwi Farms to be less dangerous than a group that actively plots and executes Islamist terrorist attacks, and has killed well over 2000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack of all time. What’s the benefit of linking to their website? Informational reasons. I fail to see why Kiwi Farms is exempt from this. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:00, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
You're just rehashing the arguments of the RfC. Nothing has shifted in such a short time to change that consensus. -- ferret (talk) 20:16, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
What’s shifted is that now the website is stable under 1 domain and has been for several months. The rest of the arguments are the same, but “the website is unstable” seemed to be the driving force of the past discussion, and that is no longer true. If we had a standard policy on not linking to ‘hate sites’ that would be one thing, but I’ve never heard of that and we link to several sites that actively endorse and promote terrorism so that doesn’t seem to play a part. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
To quote a wise man: cool story, bro. Dumuzid (talk) 20:19, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
I don’t see what’s a cool story about it. We link Al-Qaeda. That’s just true. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:28, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
It's also irrelevant, as different articles have different reasons for inclusion or exclusion. Zaathras (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
Okay then. Whatever you say. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:34, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
It's more about what consensus says. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:36, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
You have a point. Wikipedia links to terrorist organizations, Stormfront (the first internet hate site, connected to plenty of real-life hate crimes and murders), and the Daily Stormer which is a literal Nazi propaganda website. So one might rightly wonder why KiwiFarms gets the black hole treatment. The difference with KiwiFarms is that the RFC occurred at the same time as a widespread Twitter deplatforming campaign against the website. I wonder if the "consensus" would be the same if the RFC was held right now, given that the Twitter campaign has somewhat petered out. I guess the "consensus" holds until then. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 03:15, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
I fail to see what activity levels of external off-wiki movements have to do with whether something is a violation of Wikipedia policy according to Wikipedia contributor consensus, especially given the existing rules against canvassing which should prevent any such campaign's activity or inactivity from impacting the result of an RfC; additionally, I would suggest that it's excessively reductive to call it a "Twitter campaign" and a subjective judgment call to declare it has "somewhat petered out", at least absent external reliable sources. Please note my declared conflict of interest and take with appropriate grain of salt. Lizthegrey (talk) 11:42, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
The original poster raised a good question: why is this article treated so differently compared to others? Wikipedia links to websites that are objectively and indisputably worse than KiwiFarms. What seems to make KiwiFarms special is that there is a coordinated off-wiki campaign to limit access to KiwiFarms that was at its peak at the time of the RfC. It's hard to not take note of the timing of all this, and the special treatment that this topic has received. Rules against canvassing still do not present users with a conflict of interest from participating in the RfC (for example, you voted in the RfC despite a declared conflict of interest.)
If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. I just think this should be revisited once the off-wiki campaign dies down. I find it hard to believe that a massively coordinated campaign to remove KiwiFarms URLs across the internet had absolutely nothing to do with the KiwiFarms URL being removed from this article in a rather unprecedented way. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 22:03, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
For me it's a simple matter that the potential harm of linking outweighs the potential value of including the URL. I don't know about any of the other articles you mean, and I can assure you I was not part of any coordinated campaign, but reasonable minds can certainly differ on this one. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 22:09, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
These are all arguments that were made and rejected during the RFC. Additionally, RFCs aren't decided based on numbers; they're decided based on the strength of the arguments. As the closer said, the crux of it is that the arguments for inclusion were unequivocally weaker. A tiny handful of other sites isn't a clear-cut precedent, especially when they're only connected by a vague handwavy "websites someone might object to for some reason" sense when we have guidelines and policies specifically saying, very clearly, that websites shouldn't be linked if they are focused on harassment. Additionally, your (implicit) speculation that there was canvassing in opposition to including the link isn't borne out by the way arguments broke down in the RFC above; the fact that the topic was trending on social media could have resulted in canvassing for either side, but for the most part, there were more experienced editors opposing inclusion, and more inexperienced editors arguing for inclusion - which is part of the reason the arguments for inclusion were so weak. --Aquillion (talk) 07:03, 6 January 2023 (UTC)
I think you're incorrect when you say that there are guidelines and policies that specifically say that we shouldn't link to websites where harassment takes place. The closest thing is a guideline which says that the practice is discouraged, but that's it. I'm not trying to reargue the RFC. I disagree with the closer, but if I was the closer, I'm sure you'd be the one disagreeing with me instead. I just think it's reasonable to conclude that the off-site deplatforming campaign had something to do with the reason why the URL was removed from this article despite many other much worse websites -- that exist specifically to call for hate crimes against minorities -- remain linked. My only point is that it would be interesting to revisit the RFC when there isn't a campaign to de-list Kiwi Farms from every website it appears on. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 12:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Editors aren't required to make their decisions or form their opinions in a vacuum; if some were influenced by seeing things outside of Wikipedia, that's neither here nor there. As to your last sentence, can opinions change over time? Sure. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:18, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
I think the key difference is whether it is a _non-specific_, general call for hate crimes against minorities, or whether there are _specific_ instances of harassment against _specific_ individuals being specifically conducted through and disseminated via the site that is under discussion for linking. See Wikipedia:Linking_to_external_harassment#Key_guideline_points which specifically says "Wikipedia strongly discourages any links to web sites that routinely harass, due to potential of the material on the site, taken as a whole, to cause distress." and "Privacy violations are especially harmful.". While I profoundly do not agree with the positions taken by the Daily Stormer, for instance, they don't routinely publish the home addresses of individuals they are opposed to. Lizthegrey (talk) 23:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Just a quick nose-count in this discussion shows overwhelming opposition to including the link among longstanding editors. I don't think it's reasonable for you to speculate that rushing to repeat the RFC again would get the result you prefer, no, especially when you're basing your argument on completely evidence-free WP:ASPERSIONs about WP:CANVASSing. As I said, the fact that the topic was being highly-discussed everywhere could just as easily have attracted people eager to include the link as people who wanted to oppose it; given that much of the opposition to including it came heavily from veteran editors, who would know not to participate in discussions they were canvassed to... if you have proof that they were canvassed, you can take it to WP:ANI or WP:AE, but otherwise you should focus on trying to come up with better arguments and not on hoping that just re-running the same RFC will get you a different result. Of course you can wait a year and run another RFC per the usual WP:CCC, but surely you have to recognize that right now, the sharply negative response to your suggestion here suggests that consensus has not, in fact, changed. I will note, in passing, that glancing at your edit history you have almost no edits outside this topic area for the past three years, which strongly suggests that, if anything, you may have ended upon on this article after seeing discussions about it outside of Wikipedia - since you've raised concerns about canvassing yourself, it seems reasonable to ask if you could you explain how and why you ended up here to weigh in on that RFC (and to argue about it after its closure) after such a long absence from editing. --Aquillion (talk) 23:54, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
    Agree very much that I have declared my WP:COI (and thus received some replies/remarks above in this talk page) because of my having been targeted by the site and thus my public opposition to the site; I wish that those who are site members and bringing the perspective of wanting the site to remain online, be linked from elsewhere etc would similarly declare their COIs (and thus neatly avoid the problem of appearing to have CANVASSed, by being clear how they found their way to the article/talk page). Lizthegrey (talk) 10:24, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
    I think you might be seeing my comments as more personal than they really are. We all know that when a topic becomes "hot" online, there are an influx of editors. I'm not saying they are single-purpose accounts or are following only because of a link, but publicity tends to draw certain attention that may result in decisions that wouldn't have otherwise been made had there not been that publicity. I'll definitely be interested in looking into another RFC in a year or so. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 14:14, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
    Consensus can certainly change. But (and I mean this in good faith), by prolonging discussion here you are simply entrenching positions. If you are looking for a truly fresh take on the issue, it can only help to let it drop out of sight for some time. That is, however, just one old guy's opinion. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:25, 12 January 2023 (UTC)
    You're saying the same thing as I am here. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 20:35, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Oppose per the recent RfC, plus Wikipedia:Linking to external harassment, which is a widely accepted behavioral guideline. Cullen328 (talk) 20:37, 10 December 2022 (UTC)
    No need to !vote. We're not reopening that massive RFC two months after it finally closed. That'd be a massive waste of time for everyone involved. Licks-rocks (talk) 14:44, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

Domain name circle back

It’s domain name ([redacted per above RFC and per WP:BLACKLIST]) has been up for months at this point, and the campaign to take it down has sputtered out. I think it’s safe to say we can relist it in the info box.

Original reason given not to list it had nothing to do with “responsible platforming” (not our job) but rather that the domain name was constantly changing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kiwi_Farms#domain_name Goblintear (talk) 12:40, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I recommend we remove the domain from here per the RfC above Egefeyzi (talk) 00:33, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
It already was removed back when the RfC concluded. The guy who started this subsection is trying to get it added back, which will not happen without a new discussion. Zaathras (talk) 01:09, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
I think it would be beneficial to have a new discussion once the Twitter deplatforming campaign is no longer active. May His Shadow Fall Upon You📧 17:59, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm boldly removing the domain from here (the Talk subsection) per the above RFC, and per the WP:BLACKLIST. A new RfC should be opened to re-suggest adding the domain name back in and to remove it from the spam blacklist, though considering how recently the RfC closed, I don't think that would be appropriate. Egefeyzi (talk) 18:55, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

domain name

It’s [removed per WP:BLACKLIST]. That should be included in the box, objectively speaking. Goblintear (talk) 06:36, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Please see the RfC above named "RFC on linking to Kiwi Farms". LightNightLights (talk) 06:42, 3 October 2022 (UTC)
shouldn't we remove the link here too per WP:Problemlinks? Licks-rocks (talk) 11:45, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
It's not actually linked. Zaathras (talk) 13:09, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
Oh I see! Consider my comment retracted. Licks-rocks (talk) 14:31, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
After being online a few weeks, it's offline again today. https://archive.ph/aIUSE . I'm curious what wikipedia policy is regarding "flakey" services. Can't just go around changing "is" to "was" and back again every other day... Habanero-tan (talk) 17:39, 23 October 2022 (UTC)
It is now, someone else might have changed it. Even if it isn't, the RfC above concluded that even a non-clickable link should not be included (also the domain is on the WP:BLACKLIST anyway.) I suggest we remove the domain from the above completely.Egefeyzi (talk) 00:26, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm boldly removing it, working against the blacklist by writing "dot" instead of "." is not allowed anyway Egefeyzi (talk) 18:58, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

A new article in Mother Jones

Is here, for anyone interested. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:19, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM, but people who are not conflict of interested like I am may find it helpful to add additional material/citations using what's there. Lizthegrey (talk) 19:58, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
How is this WP:NOTFORUM? It can be useful for improving the article, like you seem to say in the rest of your reply... JungleEntity (talk) 00:27, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
To be fair, my "for anyone interested" does sound forum-y, but yes, that was just my sloppy way of drawing attention to new reporting in a reliable source. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 00:37, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Lack of evidence on suicides

Pointless rehashing of old arguments.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

There seems to be no actual evidence that "Near" is actually dead, only claims from anonymous sources that an American managed to confirm a recent death over the phone from the Japanese police (not the most convincing story) and a picture of a random urn with a name someone put on it. The US government has no record of any suicides in Japan at the time (misgendering of Near redacted) allegedly died,[5] which they obviously would since it would've happened in Japan, who are known for keeping good records of things like this.

Also a note that Julie Terryberry killed herself because her boyfriend left her, as she said she would do if he did, but any source would likely be deemed "unreliable."

Also Sagal killed (misgendering of Sagal redacted) because (misgendering of Sagal redacted) was homeless and very mentally ill, hence the self-immolation but same thing with the sources.

Main point is that at least the Near one should be stated is alleged, because that's all it is. JH2903 (talk) 23:46, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

  Not done We have been through this several times before. Please read the archived discussions (links are at the top of this page) if you are interested. The quick answer is that the content is adequately referenced and there is no new information to justify reopening this. Also, I am going to redact your misgendering. Please do not do that again as it might make people think that you are trolling. DanielRigal (talk) 00:20, 13 February 2023 (UTC)
redacting pronouns doesn't do wonders for wikipedia's perceived neutrality
neither does keeping content that is blatantly untrue because "reliable source" but ultimately rules are rules JH2903 (talk) 00:53, 13 February 2023 (UTC)