Talk:👌

RFV discussion: June 2022–November 2023

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👌

Translingual. Rfv-sense:

1. (alt-right) a dogwhistle for white supremacy.

The hand gesture this represents was promoted as a white supremacist symbol by a massive 4-chan hoax, but has arguably been adopted by at least some actual white supremacists.

This entry, however, is for the Unicode character. Has this been involved in the above?

As a side note: would it be better to describe the hand gesture in the entry as an "alleged" dogwhistle? And, given that this has been sold very hard to the mainstream, as well, does this qualify as a true dogwhistle? Chuck Entz (talk) 23:28, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

I have absolutely seen this used first-hand numerous times as a dogwhistle, and it's also important to note that the real hoax was the pretence that it was always just a joke and never a real dogwhistle. The whole point of that was to prevent people from being taken seriously when they pointed it out (i.e. an elaborate version of the "I was joking" defence).

In any event, it would be good to get this cited. I'll have a look shortly. Theknightwho (talk) 01:05, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

This did start out as a 4chan false-flag campaign intended to paint their ideological opponents as perpetually-offended types. But they've functionally made fetch happen. The OK sign is now listed as a hate symbol by the ADL, although the entry notes there are still many benign usages. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 04:46, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Turkish courts believe the circular hand gesture – somewhat unavoidable when hastily buttoning your jacket – implies any bystanders are made out to be gay.^[1]  --Lambiam 14:02, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz @WordyAndNerdy I have provided 8 cites from Twitter plus three references, including the original 4chan thread and a particularly good article by SPLC which explains usage. I've made sure that all of them are archived at the Internet Archive and so on. Hoping that this can be a good test of the new policy. Theknightwho (talk) 22:05, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Those seem fit for purpose. Thanks for taking the time to dig them up. I'd suggest removing the links from the quotations though per WT:QUOTE. When I cited the crab emoji, I suggested that, of all the social-media platforms, Twitter would be the most valuable addition to our toolbox. It's widely-used, freely viewable for almost everyone, and has advanced and easy-to-use search functionality. Plus it's currently the largest platform I know of that indexes emojis. I cited the crab emoji almost two years ago. The nomination is still open. I can't imagine a better illustration of how Wiktionary's systemic aversion to change is impeding our ability to document language. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 02:45, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

Cited. Theknightwho (talk) 18:59, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

The SPLC and ADL and various other websites say that the specific reason for this symbol is that in addition to looking like the letters "OK" (supposedly), it also looks like the letters "WP" for white power (the spread fingers looking like W and the circle being the loop of the P, with either the index finger or wrist serving as the stem of the P), which would be good to mention in the entry. - -sche (discuss) 18:17, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

CFI-mandated discussion

Ends January 11, 2023, 23:59 (UTC)

Ends January 27, 2023, 23:59 (UTC)

Under discussion: the "alt-right" sense under 👌#rfv-sense-notice-mul-

Citations: on the entry itself

These citations aren't durably archived, so we technically need to have a discussion lasting two weeks to decide whether they are sufficient attestation. Anyone care to comment? 70.172.194.25 22:41, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

• I would not cite this from a single web site, from a dozen or a hundred of the millions or billions of tweets. It's barely above the reliability of quoting something you heard on the subway. (Citing 4chan is like quoting fragments of overheard conversation.) Are there any reputable journal articles by socioligists or linguists on this? Not columns in Slate or lists of things SPLC disapproves of. A reviewed paper by somebody who took a data dump and did the research to find out this is a phenomenon, taking care to distinguish the real life hand gesture from the emoji. Otherwise it is OK if we only document the OK symbol as meaning OK. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:55, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

I think we have to call this RFV-failed. One comment saying current sourcing is insufficient, none saying it's sufficient. The discussion was advertised on WT:BP, and the explicitly set two week time period is up, so that's that for now. If anyone wants to improve the sourcing in the ways proposed by Vox we can reconsider this someday. 70.172.194.25 20:03, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I didn't actually realise this discussion was happening. Can we reopen it? Because I don't think the above critique is particularly fair: 4chan was not the only source provided, and there are numerous other tweets of a very similar nature to be found very easily. Asking for evidence that one knows doesn't exist (and which goes well beyond that which we provide for most terms) does not justify dismissing the evidence provided. In particular, dismissing the SPLC as "disapproving" of it is completely unjustified and, quite frankly, feels politically motivated. Theknightwho (talk) 20:41, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Also, on a procedural note, I don't think this should have been closed as RFV failed without taking into account the initial discussion. Theknightwho (talk) 20:49, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough. How about extending the discussion another two weeks? In my defense, I did publicize the discussion in the most prominent place I could think of, and even posted about it again yesterday to remind anyone who was procrastinating commenting. I assumed there just wasn't any interest. Maybe we need a separate noticeboard for such discussions so people know they're happening?

I'm not sure about counting comments outside of the explicitly set up discussion; that doesn't seem to be the standard applied in WT:Votes and other venues, where you have to show up to the formal discussion to count. But I do see your point. It we were to count the comments above the subsection, then the result would be 2-1, which would pass. 70.172.194.25 21:21, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

To be clear: I'm not blaming you at all; I think there's still quite a lot of confusion of how this policy works, as we've had everything from fully-formalised votes to ordinary discussions. My understanding was that we'd settled on something in the middle. Particularly given the bulk of the above discussion happened quite a while ago, I think it's fair to say that the things said there were said under the assumption that they would be taken into account. Thanks for reopening it, anyway. Theknightwho (talk) 21:32, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: I would certainly agree that the policy is confusing and that it has been applied in very different ways. Thanks for understanding. I've bumped up the closure date for 👌. Btw, do you think the closure of 🦀 was okay, or should that discussion be extended as well for similar reasons (esp. lack of exposure)? 70.172.194.25 21:49, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I think it probably should (though I wouldn't have anything to add to it). Giving it a read, the outcome feels as though it's in line with the prior discussion, but it would be good to get more voices involved in the formal discussion if we're going to use this format. Theknightwho (talk) 21:58, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Getting more people to comment would be ideal. The problem is that I can't force people to comment. I could ping random people (probably annoying, and could be accused of bias if those people are known to be approving or disapproving of online sources) or repost it to BP/TR (arguably spammy given that I've already done that). In going through the RFVN backlog there are likely to be other such cases and it would be good to know how to handle them, though. There are already a couple other such sections on this page, my feeble attempt at resolving ancient discussions that are going nowhere, and in those cases I used {{wgping}} for the language in question. 70.172.194.25 22:07, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Just going to add that the SPLC is on Wikipedia's list of perennial sources here, specifically in relation to the subject of extremism. There have been no less than 19 discussions as to whether it should remain there. As above - it's difficult to take a curt dismissal of it seriously. Theknightwho (talk) 18:06, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Closing this as RFV passed, on balance, taking account of both parts of the discussion. The one comment against fails to understand how primary sources work: 4chan is cited as the origin, not for its (un)reliability as a news source. Theknightwho (talk) 00:30, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

RFV passed. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)