Talk:Sleeping Giants

Article protections and BLP claims

Doug Weller removed the name of the group's founder claiming it was a BLP violation and protected the page from further edits by accountless persons saying the individual's identity wasn't confirmed in reliable sources. The group itself has, however, identified him as their leader and spawned a Spartucus type I am Sleeping Giants campaign as well as initiating claims of doxxing. As seen here. It seems reasonable to include info on the founder and the controversy. The group would seem to me to be a reliable source for who their founder is. FloridaArmy (talk) 15:37, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Claim that Matt Rivitz is a jewish communist ?

Is it true, and if yes, is it worth mentioning ? --AliceBzh (talk) 18:59, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the first half of your question, I don't know, but Wikipedia should only mention it if it's stated in reliable, independent, secondary sources. For the second half, this article should only mention it if the same sources say that it's important for Sleeping Giants. See this policy page for rules governing how to write about living people on Wikipedia. Best, Wham2001 (talk) 19:05, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Is a Jewish communist worse than a non-Jewish one? If not, why even ask? Doug Weller talk 14:23, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

co-founder

The article now says that there are two co-founders, Matt Rivitz and Nandini Jammi. I believe that the identification of Nandini Jammi as co-founder may be poorly sourced. The statement "The Daily Caller identified freelance copywriter Nandini Jammi as a co-founder with Matt Rivitz" is false, their article Sleeping Giants’ Anonymous Founder Unmasked; Top Ad Writer Behind Boycott Campaign Targeting Breitbart, Ingraham says "Sleeping Giants was founded by Matt Rivitz, an award-winning ad copywriter based in San Francisco, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation has found." with no mention of Nandini Jammi. The subsequent New York Times article Revealed: The People Behind an Anti-Breitbart Twitter Account does mention her, but not as a co-founder -- it says "Matt Rivitz ... was identified as the account’s creator" and "Shortly after Mr. Rivitz started the account, it caught the attention of Ms. Jammi ...". So the sources we used until this week are clear. Of course we now have a new source showing that Nandini Jammi disputes this, and no reason to believe one rather than the other, but I believe the prevalence of reliable sources points to Mr Rivitz alone, and if they're not good enough then we should avoid the controversy by leaving both "founder" and "co-founder" out of the article. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:00, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I have brought the relevant sentences back to what they were before the incorrect editing as of 10 July 2020 by 198.52.187.132. (I edited this post before there was a reply.) Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:10, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Recent Edits Changed Article Tone

SpecialAgent047 has recently made several additions. For example, saying that "Sleeping Giants is a far-left internet-based social media activism anti-Donald Trump activist group that promotes censorship and aims to completely silence or inflict tremendous financial damage to all mainstream conservative television shows and websites that support Trump." The additions may be true but would fit better in an editorial than in a Wikipedia article. I see from the article history that objections and reverts have happened for individual edits. I propose: revert all edits by anyone so that the article goes back to where it was on 17 July 2020. Does anyone agree or have a better proposal? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:04, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

@Peter Gulutzan: I didn't see your post but I reverted. Serious formatting issues were the least of it, not only was the tone changed, but statements were made that weren't in the citations and there were BLP violations (unsourced). Doug Weller talk 15:47, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Gupta book

@Peter Gulutzan: Greetings! Regarding this revert, the cited chapter is a 20-page profile on Sleeping Giants, which goes into considerably more detail than the article. It seems like one of the best places to learn about the workings of the group. I'm not quite sure what the objection is to including it? -- Beland (talk) 16:22, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

In my edit summary I said "I think that plugging a book needs justification per MOS:FURTHER, perhaps that could happen on the talk page." Anika Gupta is a product manager at Informa Markets, with a masters degree in Comparative Media Studies from MIT. You used her for the article sentence The group also participated in organizing the boycott of The Ingraham Angle and pressured social networks to drop Alex Jones. and those other Wikipedia pages don't mention Sleeping Giants so I'm dubious about that sentence. I don't see that she has expertise and the blurb about the book doesn't indicate that it's about this subject. Whom did she interview? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:22, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

@Peter Gulutzan: I just read the entire book; it's squarely within the field of Comparative Media Studies as taught at MIT [1], as it's all about enforcement of various norms in online conversations, comparing a number of different case studies. Gupta also has a bachelor's degree in journalism, and her LinkedIn profile shows she's worked at several well-known magazines and newspapers. I'm surprised anyone would question this author for lack of journalistic skill or expertise. The title "Chapter 4 - Bringing the Revolution: Sleeping Giants and the Battle over Online Advertising" should make it clear, but that entire chapter is a case study of Sleeping Giants and how it has enforced certain political norms in online advertising. Gupta draws on lots of sources for the chapter; there are 29 footnotes with various citations. She spoke with Nandini Jammi, Matt Rivitz, and "Rachael" (a pseudonym) from Sleeping Giants France, and quotes examples from Twitter. It all seems very well documented. The involvement with the Ingraham Angle [2] and Alex Jones [3] are corroborated by reliable news sources. Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source; those other articles should probably be updated to mention Sleeping Giants. -- Beland (talk) 19:05, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Judging from your description, Anika Gupta spoke with the people who "enforced political norms" but none of their victims. Okay, use it as a cite for the sentence. But my original objection about plugging is reinforced. I don't believe Wikipedia should advertise such a book for further reading. WP:PROMO. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:46, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

@Peter Gulutzan: It sounds like you don't agree with what Sleeping Giants does, and that's fine. How to Handle a Crowd doesn't really take a position on whether what the group does is good or bad. The book just describes how it operates, along with 7 other groups such as Reddit, Make America Dinner Again, YouTube, and MMORPGs. It should be interesting reading both for supporters and enemies of Sleeping Giants. Inclusion of a book in a "Further reading" section is not considered promotional in the sense of WP:PROMO, unless perhaps it was done by the author and the book didn't really qualify as the top handful of books most relevant to that topic. None of those situations seem to apply here. If there are other books that cover Sleeping Giants in more detail or with more context, I'm open to suggestions. -- Beland (talk) 22:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

What I don't agree with is plugging a one-sided book that is not important (I failed to find a review of it in some mainstream publication). And I don't agree with your assertion about what is not considered promotional. However, since you are insisting, and as long as nobody is supporting my opposition, I will not re-revert if the book is put in further reading again. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)