Talk:Finger pinching conspiracy theory

NPOV tag

I tagged the article as NPOV. I want to emphasize this up front: my opinions on the topic itself don't matter, and I don't have many. I am solely trying to follow Wikipedia standards on a contentious topic.

In a significant number of paragraphs in the article, I'm finding language that I feel has issues with presenting allegations and analysis by journalists as fact, WP:WTW, and making subjective claims/analysis in Wikipedia's voice. There are instances of the language being avoidably emotionally charged, with negative language being associated with the theorists.

Examples (not a complete list):

• that feminists are plotting behind the shadows to harm or worsen their lives "plotting behind the shadows" is unnecessarily flowery and seems to be worded with the intent to ridicule. "Planning covertly" is drier.
  • Also, I'm skeptical with the wording of this. Is there really a widespread belief that feminists are attempting to physically harm them? From a quick skim of the source given for that claim I can't find that allegation.
• While inequities towards women are presented, there is no presentation of why men feel they are discriminated against. Of course, we want to avoid WP:UNDUE weight on misandry (will be hard to judge); I suspect (but have no stats) that they're a minority group/opinion, and thus we should avoid significant discussion. However, there's currently virtually no discussion of them at all in the article, which doesn't feel proportionate to me.
  • The closing of Megalia does not mean the total disappearance of misandry in South Korea. The current wording read, at least to me, that the fact that Megalia is gone that concerns of misandry existing in society were completely misplaced.
  • Related: In South Korea, feminists are labelled "man haters", "destroyers of family", and "female supremacists". The wording of this implies the entire country labels all feminists using these terms. The list also feels unnecessarily emotionally charged. Misandrists also use emotionally charged language like this; again we want to avoid UNDUE, but given the other issues I'm alleging in the article, only one side being presented feels like a data point in a pattern of intentionally disparaging anti-feminists.
• Kim Chang-seop announced Nexon would eradicate all visual works created by Ppuri Unless this word is either verbatim or closely translated from the source, "eradicate" is unnecessarily emotionally charged. If it is from the source, put the word in quotes and provide the original Korean per MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE If it's not from the orig text, "remove" is drier.
• Frequent issues with MOS:SAID. Words like "stated", "noted", "showed", and "concluded" are being used to present observations (and even allegations) from individual journalists as settled fact.
• Nexon's support renewed the theorists' interest in the finger hunt. There are a number of statements like these. Subjective analysis being presented as fact; I'm not sure if these allegations of trends are explicitly coming from journalists, but if they are you should attribute it to the specific journalists. People aren't monolithic hiveminds; it's hard to determine, in narrative fashion, that things motivate each other. You can write something like "Journalist x of y argues that this incident renewed..."
  • Related: there are frequent issues with MOS:DESPITE; suggests the presence of editorializing or WP:SYNTH. In other words, presenting events as falling into a sequence of events or narrative. As before, you can present this kind of analysis as coming from a specific analyst, but not as settled fact.
• Issues with WP:NEWSOPED. Some of the sources being used are opinion pieces, but are being used to present analysis as settled fact. Examples include this NYT opinion piece and 이혜미 column. I'm spotting a number of others.

seefooddiet (talk) 15:27, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

@Emiya Mulzomdao tagging primary author of article seefooddiet (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

@seefooddiet, I thought roughly the same thing when I first came across this article, but I couldn't put it into words. I felt like tagging it with something, but my aforementioned inability to explain why made me feel like I'd be at risk of drive-by tagging. For the record, I don't think the creator is writing in bad faith—they seem like a Korean video games fan who may have naturally heard of this controversy. But one has to be really, really careful when writing about hot-button topics like these. Good day, Wuju Daisuki (talk) 17:47, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree; I don't think the writing is in bad faith, but the topic is so contentious that scrutiny is necessary. seefooddiet (talk) 21:07, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm all for improvements. Do you suggest taking this to draft for the moment? Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 12:03, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for being receptive. It doesn't seem like a serious enough case for a draftify to me. The sourcing and content is mostly fine seefooddiet (talk) 18:52, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@Emiya Mulzomdao Ok, I'm going to be honest, I hadn't read the second half of the article in detail until now, and it's much more worrying. This section borders being an opinion piece. This needs to be urgently addressed. If you don't feel like you can address it prompty, we can draftify. I'd try to rewrite it myself, but I'm spotting potential POV in nearly every sentence; it's hard to address. seefooddiet (talk) 19:32, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I find your words ambiguous. Is it that the way the article is written is emotionally charged or the fact that it contains POV? The former is the one I already agreed with before, but if it's the latter, I don't agree. Wikpedia's policy does not forbid the inclusion of properly sourced bias that aren't editorial (WP:POVDELETION). I took care in picking WP:RS and mostly attached "Journalist x of y" to it. I'd listen if you point out what's wrong with the sources, but your reply doesn't seem to be about that.

At any rate, I had taken your advice and am going to update the article by adding people and opinions that advocate the theory, to fill all angles of the topic – not very easy to do, given that they're more uncommon in WP:RS than the opposition, but I find this necessary. Whatever you're referring to right now, I'll also be likely to help, if you clear up what you're trying to say. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 14:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Mmmm 🙁 I'm seeing numerous things that are clearly against WP:NPOV, please give that page a more thorough read. I already gave some of the issues a scrub, but there's more. What particularly worried me was "absurd to the core", which I already removed; that's clearly not ok and goes past the line of POV.

There's a condified pattern subjective analysis presented as definite in Wikipedia's voice. such apologies only emboldened the theorists ditto. caving in to the theorists' demands unnecessarily emotionally charged; "giving in" or "accepting" are more neutral. noted MOS:SAID. Notable WP:NOTABLY fed the pinch-fingering theories "fed" is unnecessarily flowery; it's metaphorical, "enabled" is dryer. fiasco WP:WTW. finger-pinching theorists, who demanded all participants' allegation, and they're not a monolithic group.

The above is not a complete list. But there are common patterns in my feedback that you should now be able to spot, especially if you read the policies I've linked thoroughly. Please do so; this issue is important, we need to be thorough.

I still don't think you understand the point about opinion pieces. Please read WP:NEWSOPED more carefully. You can use opinion pieces, but not to claim facts, especially not facts that are controversial. You need more detatched news articles for that.

A side note, but the second half of the article has significantly more grammar errors than the first half. That'll need to be solved at some point, maybe can focus on the POV for now. seefooddiet (talk) 23:14, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

I'll prioritize clarifying the sources and rewording, but you should know some articles are more than mere opinion-based columns, such as The Hankyoreh article including thorough statistics of real-life internet posts. There's no fallacy in giving a weight to an article when the source is reliable, its claim has verifiable evidences, and it aligns with the majority viewpoint per WP:UNDUE, which is also one of the Wikipeida policies you brought up.

Grammar issues are something I tried to prevent via correction tools but it seems like they didn't work as intended. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 15:00, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say all of the articles are opinion pieces. I meant that some of them are. That's already enough to be an issue.

I'll give the article another revision for POV and prose in the near future. While I appreciate the effort you've made so far, I'm a little disappointed with the pushback to feedback later on. Granted, this comment from me could have been more specific, but considering that all the feedback in all my comments followed the same few themes, I feel like you should have spotted these issues yourself without me needing to point them out.

I can't emphasize enough how important it is that we get this right. Wikipedia gets accused of being biased all the time; if we get neutrality wrong it erodes the credibility of the website and makes our writing a waste of time. seefooddiet (talk) 17:28, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Just want to be clear, I don't oppose what you're trying to accomplish nor do I desire to impede your work. Since you told me to take the matter seriously, I'm doing exactly that and making sure things get done right without having to redo the same parts. I'll re-review the article when I get the time. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 14:55, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the further edits. I made more of my own. It's getting closer, but there's still some significant issues I think.

• There's a good chunk of repetition in the article. I'd argue this is both a style issue and a POV issue; I'd argue that these repeated mentions contribute to WP:UNDUE weight. This will be hard to fix. Examples:
  • Discussions of Nexon throughout the article, with repeated details and opinions about Nexon and its actions.
  • Discussions of various politicians, especially Lee Jun-seok and Lee Sang-heon.
  • I feel there are too many quotes and opinions in the article. A good chunk of these quotes/opinions are near carbon copies of each other and should just be consolidated into statements like "a number of commentators argued that x.[ref 1][ref 2][ref 3] etc".
  • Based on my perception of the article, I'd argue it's possible/desirable to reduce the overall length of the article by to 2/3rds of the original size by consolidating the repetition. I'd try to spell out how to do this, but there's many possible ways to do this and it's not a simple task.
• If you translate a quote yourself, you should provide the original Korean text (probably in a footnote), per MOS:FOREIGNQUOTE. The need for this is arguably higher for controversial articles.

I wish I could make this feedback more specific, but I hope you can understand it's hard to do so. This is a controversial topic and a long article, which makes some of these issues hard to address. seefooddiet (talk) 21:22, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

I understand. I am not certain that the article length would decrease as much as two-thirds, but I'll see where this takes to as I trim down the redundant sentences.

The edits this time are not gonna be obvious from WP:DIFF; the changes include:

• GS25's case in 'List of notable responses' was removed and replaced with a redirect to 'History'.
• Most of Nexon's were merged into 'MapleStory scandal'. Its section in 'List of notable responses' was replace with redirect. The paragraph in 'Criticism' is intact because it strongly correlates to that section.
• The MapleStory scandal was the first of a series of similar events that occurred in the rest of 2023 and continued in the following year, with organizations like POSCO and the Ministry of Health and Welfare subject to similar accusations. This felt unnecessary as it's already covered by 'List of notable responses', so I cut it.
• The theory had support from political figures with a wide range of political views; some did not withdraw their previous statements of support when various allegations were shown to be false. For example, politicians Lee Jun-seok and Lee Sang-heon accused Ppuri of misandry during the 2023 MapleStory scandal. Moved into 'Advocacy'.
• Young Korean men consider themselves victims of woman activism. This is redundant due to a survey about reverse discrimination and its opinion source doesn't add much, so I cut both it and the source.
• The New York Times's Hawon Jung argued most Korean businesses quelled the protests from theorists by removing items accused of misandry and apologizing. Columnist Park Gwon-il wrote on The Hankyoreh that submitting to the theorists' demands has had a side effect of reinforcing their confirmatory bias, repeating the same controversies. Korea National University of Arts lecturer Oh Hye-min argued that such appeasement offers short term relief from controversy, but contributes to repeated issues. She argued that giving attention to the theorists is the cause of misogyny: "By fulfilling their needs, the companies are actually infringing on people's rights to labor and expression, which many artists are actually exposed to". Abridged into one sentence.
• Noh Jimin, of Media Today, was instead critical of the news media that approached the GS25 incidents as a hot button topic and amplified theorists' voices. She later iterated the same points in reaction to the MapleStory scandal, chastising news media that focused on tying the incident to Megalia instead of evaluating Nexon's response. Also abridged into one sentence.

I'll consider adding foreign quotes once they settle down. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 12:35, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the edits. I made more of my own, largely focused on grammar but also minor POV/repetition related items.

• I tagged one sentence with a clarify request (ctrl+f "which?"), because without clarifying which slang was used, allegations like this feel especially like subjective hearsay.
• I tagged another sentence with undue weight (ctrl+f "undue"); it's the one about the employee who allegedly supported stalker-like behavior. I said this in edit comment, but I'm not sure if/how this anecdote should be presented. The current wording "chase after female college students at night" reads POV; the employee supported following, not "chasing" (which evokes images of running after aggressively). Also, every large company will have neurotic employees; we should be cautious about presenting instances like this as part of a trend. Similarly, if there was such a person in an organization you belonged to, you'd dislike if you were lumped in with them.

I still feel that repetition is a significant issue that should be further addressed.

• The discussions of the impact of online communities, Gamergate, flat Earthers, Trumpism, trolling, etc could be consolidated.
• The "advocacy section" and criticisms section should possibly be merged into a "Debate" section; also see WP:CRITICISMSECTION. This would help alleviate the repeated mentions of Lee Jun-seok. Furthermore, the mention of Ryu Ho-jeong is out of place in the advocacy section; Ryu is against the theory, not for it. Her commentary should be in the criticism section, if anything, and her given comments are pretty general and should be merged with other feedback.
• The debate/mentions of politicians should possibly be consolidated into one or two paragraphs that are placed close to each other. Currently they're split up across the article, and their opinions often overlap.

seefooddiet (talk) 15:12, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I went through the items to see what I could do.

• Criticism and advocacy were merged per suggestion.
• The sections about the policitians and online communities were also merged and moved into its own section.
• The [which?] is based on this paragraph in the article (bolded by me)

이준석 국민의힘 전 최고위원(사진)이 나선 것은 2일 오후였다. 그는 자신의 페이스북에 GS의 해당 광고와 사과문을 올리며 “(GS의 한) 점주가 ‘오또케오또케’하는 사람(다급한 상황에서 ‘어떡해’라는 말만 거듭하며 대처하지 못하는 여성을 비하하는 표현)은 아르바이트생으로 사절한다고 해서 (논란이 되자 GS가) 점주를 교육시키고 불이익을 주겠다는 회사가 왜 이 사건에 있어서는 책임자에 대해 어떻게 하겠다는 것인지 밝히지 못하냐”고 적었다.

This part is ultimately a minor detail and could be deleted for that reason.

• The [undue], I don't necessarily agree with that it's against WP:UNDUE, given that this is not a simple allegation from individual, but a claim backed by an identifiable organization (Counter-antifeminism Emergency Response Committee—wish there were a better translation) reported through reliable sources. If you thought it was presenting instances as part of a trend, that's because the organization is arguing that the trend exists. I've added more references to it with WP:RS; they all mention these incidents. And that "if there was such a person in an organization you belonged to, you'd dislike if you were lumped in with them"... My personal feeling if I were put in their shoes doesn't matter. What matters is if this statement was sourced and presented properly. I suggest reviewing the sources to discuss the next course of action.
• I'm afraid you mistook what Ryu Ho-jeong said. She clearly supports the theory, not the other way around. This is pretty obvious if you read the sources: [1] [2]
• A few other overlapped sentences were abridged.

Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 12:23, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the edits.

• I removed the bit relevant to the [which] tag. The article is already really long and I do feel like it's a minor detail.
• For the undue bit, I reworded it to be more NPOV-friendly, per my above comment. If you thought it was presenting instances as part of a trend, that's because the organization is arguing that the trend exists. Considering the employee was fired wouldn't it constitute the company not endorsing the views of this employee? However, if the incident is frequently mentioned in RS then maybe we should keep it in, especially after my edit toning it down.
• I think the "Claims and pattern" section is largely repetitive with the rest of the article. If you want for that section to serve as a summary, that's the job of the lead. The main ideas of this section should be moved to the lead; the details (e.g. "can of starbucks espresso" etc) should be moved into the body somewhere.
• Note that I'm going in and consolidating more information that I think is repetitive, overly lengthy, or has grammatical issues. Please feel free to revert any of the changes if you disagree with them. Normally I'd run each of these changes by you first, but again it's a long article, and discussing all of the edits would be time consuming.
• Several sentences I don't understand what is being said due to grammar. Could you try rephrasing these?
  • Ryu argued that feminism is about the faith that gender equality would contribute to social community
  • The presentation of Yu Seonhui's arguments is pretty lengthy and I don't understand what's being said. For this could you aim for both concision and rephrasing?
  • I put in a clarification request (ctrl+f "Jang's opinion"), also related to grammar and prose, explanation in the template.

seefooddiet (talk) 09:36, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

Your edits are spot on. I did some changes here and there:

• Some hyperlinks to words like "cherry picking" were restored. Cherry picking is something directly mentioned in In's article ('사실의 취사선택') so I figured this is an important detail to keep.
• Getting rid of the quote in MapleStory scandal was a change for the better, but I restored the citation because it can fit in an existing paragraph.
• I fixed some erroneous pronouns - Jang Seonyeong is a she, for example.
• A 2021 The Hankyoreh report argued that (...) I changed "argued" to "found" because this article is not a simple opinion piece but contains a research cooperated with other groups, so I think there's enough credibility to warrant such change. There were also a lot of repeated "argued" in the paragraph.

And the others:

• Considering the employee was fired wouldn't it constitute the company not endorsing the views of this employee? The thing is that it was not the man who advocated stalking that got fired, according to their statement; it was the person who object to the man that got fired. Per KBS News report:

"회사의 대표가 '자신이 대학생 때는 좋아하는 여학생을 밤에 따라다니는 것은 국룰이었다'고 말하자 동조하지 않고 '그분은 좀 놀라셨을 수도 있겠어요'라고 답했습니다."
"그랬더니 대표에게 '사상과 가치관이 맞지 않으니 내일부터 나오지 마라'며 돌연 해고통보를 당했습니다."

This same report also clarifies that the man is a president of the company, which makes sense.

I'm still thinking about how to write about this report, as the articles mention a lot of other incidents as well, and the current state doesn't quite represent the whole source.

• I can see that parts in "Claims and pattern" are repetitive, but I still think the section as a whole is necessary because the reader needs to first learn about the specifics of what the conspiracy theory find suspicious; otherwise the article would be harder to understand because of the unusual topic. I did find that The Hankyoreh report about the pattern largely overlaps with "Internet trolling" and might be WP:UNDUE because of relying on a single source, so I merged it with the latter and knocked it down to just "Claims".
• Ryu argued that feminism is about the faith that gender equality would contribute to social community So what Ryu's saying in the article, essentially, is that there're good feminists and bad feminists. Ryu herself is the good one because she conforms to social order, and the others are the bad one because (she thinks) they put fingers in works and hurt people. Regardless, I think you can simply remove it because it's superficial to the overall sentences.
• The point of Jang's opinion (...) is that Ryu was an elected Justice Party politician at the time of MapleStory incident, and she started switching to New Reform Party since this statement. This is also an irrelevant minor detail that can be removed.

Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 11:12, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Ok, I've removed the templates. Thanks for working with me. Version at time of this post

• I think there are still lingering issues with tone, repetition, wordiness, and grammar.
• I said earlier I think the article's length could have been reduced 1/3rd; I still think the more ideal article would be that. We already went a good way there and I can already see more possible edits.
  • The claims section I'm still skeptical of; its purpose strongly overlaps with the purpose of the lead. It's functionally a second lead at present.
• To reiterate in closing, the reason I care about length and repetition is because it possibly contributes to perceptions of POV. It's the repetition of negative-sounding words in particular that worries me. When I write on controversy, one of my main objectives is to avoid this issue.

That said, I think at present the article doesn't cross over the line of POV. seefooddiet (talk) 08:57, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I can how repetition can lead to WP:UNDUE. I'll review the sources again and see if I can chop it down to avoid overlapping of POV. I think part of the issues in the claim section comes from that the lead isn't concise enough.

I appreciate your effort to bring this article up to standards. The current form is in a far better state than when it started. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 12:16, 11 September 2024 (UTC)