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Samuel Breslow Profile
Samuel Breslow

@sdkb42

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Copy Editor @JDForward. Follow for tweets on (mis)info ecosystems: journalism, @Wikipedia, speech, etc. 🚲 Past: @TheProspect, @SPLC, @TSLnews, @PomonaCollege.

Washington, D.C.
Joined April 2013
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
2 months
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
2 months
Chabad Rabbi @shemtovdc, speaking at the scene of the @CapJewishMuseum shooting:
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
3 months
Fascinating @NPCInstitute/@PressClubDC panel featuring @BarentsNews journalists exiled from Russia. "Don't trust anything before the Kremlin denies it," one quips. #worldpressfreedomday
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
6 months
RT @ArnoRosenfeld: Scoop: I obtained a confidential presentation outlining how a major conservative think tanks plans to go after volunteer….
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Update: The deletion nomination of the Wikipedia article on Luigi Mangione has failed, so unless the result is overturned (which appears unlikely) it will be kept.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
I often post about Wikipedia and its role in the information ecosystem, so if you found this interesting, follow for more!. You can also read more about why some Wikipedians support or oppose article deletion in this essay:
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
The "Killing of Brian Thompson" article, meanwhile, has accrued more than 1.5 million pageviews, with nearly 2,500 edits from nearly 500 different editors.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
My guess is that the Mangione article will ultimately survive the deletion attempt. There's a reasonable way to read the rules that allows for it, and given wiggle room Wikipedians generally find a way to arrive at the common-sense result. But they're in no rush.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Some editors interpret this rule to mean that it would be impossible to create a policy-compliant article on Mangione and that there should therefore not be an article.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Another wrinkle — Wikipedia wants to avoid libel, so there's a further rule: For non-public figures, "editors must seriously consider not including material — in any article — that suggests the person has committed or is accused of having committed a crime" without a conviction.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
This, folks, is the bottom of the rabbit hole. There is no consensus on those questions, and different editors have different views. They're going to debate them in the coming weeks, and until that process concludes, the article will be tagged for deletion.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
The policy says the significance "is indicated by how persistent the coverage is". That's both murky (How long is needed to qualify as "persistent"?) and unhelpful for recent events (which haven't yet had a chance to persist).
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Mangione seems to meet (1) and (2). For (3), the assassination was clearly significant if you look only at the current zeitgeist. But from a long-term, world-historical perspective, it's murkier. Will people still care about this in a decade?
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Because of this, someone does not get an article if three criteria are met:.1. Sources cover them only in the context of a single event. 2. They otherwise remain low-profile. 3: The event is not significant or their role was either not substantial or not well documented.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
This rule works remarkably well, but it doesn't work for everything. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia cares about the long term — it wouldn't want an article on every person who's ever committed a major crime, even if it was covered in the news.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
The main solution is called the General Notability Guideline. It states, "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject."
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Wikipedia can't have an article on every topic — if it tried, there wouldn't be enough editors to maintain it. But deciding which topics are important enough to merit an article is a devilish problem. You need criteria applicable to every possible topic, and they can't be gamed.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
A volunteer editor launched an article on him today, but it was promptly nominated for deletion: To understand why, we need to dive into the weeds. .
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
@PepMangione, charged with killing @UHC CEO Brian Thompson, is one of the most talked-about people in the world right now. More than 70,000 people have searched for him on @Wikipedia. Yet until today, there was no bio article on him, just a redirect to the assassination article.
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@sdkb42
Samuel Breslow
7 months
Why doesn't Wikipedia want an article on Luigi Mangione? I'll explain: 🧵
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