Brett Kavanaugh, Wikipedia, and the infamous Devil's Triangle.

If the rest of the Internet is illegal, Wikipedia stands out. Over the past 17 years, the Wikipedia publishing community has put in place a formal framework of policies, guidelines and explanatory supplements to advance the project's goals. Dedicated Wikipedians often refer to one of these rules when they remove something inappropriate from the site. If you "listen to Wikipedia" for a few minutes, you'll find that changes like this happen all the time. What is unusual – and unprecedented until now – is that objectionable content plays a role in a hearing about allegations that a US Supreme Court justice allegedly committed sexual assault. during high school. The subject was touched on Wikipedia after Thursday's Senate hearing, in which Sheldon Whitehouse, a senator from Rhode Island, asked Kavanaugh a series of questions about "The Devil's Triangle," a reference that had raised eyebrows. Kavanaugh claimed that the devil's triangle was a "drinking game" played with "three glasses in a triangle". He stated that "it's a neighborhood game", ie. a drinking game where players bounce 25-cent coins on beer tables. It was an answer that many have described as incredible.

Shortly after Kavanaugh had proposed his definition, an anonymous Wikipedia editor added the following text to the Devil's Triangle disambiguation page, which lists and describes various meanings for a given subject: "Devil's Triangle, popular game popular with friends of the Judge Brett Kavanaugh. The text was quickly removed with this warning for potential editors: "DO NOT ADD the hoax about a" drinking game ", especially as reported by Brett Kavanaugh. We do not deserve such hoaxes. "

Outlets such as CNN and USA Today covered the story of Wikipedia as another anecdote of a weird and disturbing confirmation process. But it may be useful to think about the Wikipedia principles involved in removing this content, and how they apply specifically to the "Devil's Triangle" case.

The policy called What Wikipedia Is Not sets against-example. The list includes "Wikipedia is not a newspaper", "Wikipedia is not a blog", "Wikipedia is not a battleground" and "Wikipedia is not a platform or a means of promotion ", which specifically prohibits political advocacy. At least one of the facts of the incident suggests that the devil triangle modification was of a political nature: the change was made anonymously from a Capitol Hill IP address, as captured by Congress editions, a Twitter box that tracks Wikipedia updates from Congress IP addresses.

Another policy that has been violated in this case is known as the biography of living people. "BLP" was specifically cited by the Wikipedia administrator who removed the devil triangle edition from the public archive. Written after John Seigenthaler's 2005 incident, in which the esteemed journalist was the target of a false article claiming he was a suspect in JFK's assassination, editors must be very careful when they add information to any Wikipedia page, as this could negatively affect topics during their lifetime. BLP also states a presumption in favor of privacy for people alive – one of the many reasons why it was totally inappropriate for an anonymous Wikipedia user to add Senator Lindsey Graham's phone number and home address to his page earlier this week.

Then comes the verifiability policy, which poses an essential question: what is really the devil's triangle? The main entry points to the Bermuda Triangle, where planes and ships would have mysteriously disappeared. Alternative definitions include a sexual trio and an episode of NCIS. Even though Brett Kavanaugh and his high school friends have described their play of neighborhood drinking parties as the Devil's Triangle, this alone would not justify adding this content to Wikipedia. Under the principle of verifiability, reputable third-party sources should also use the same name in their usual coverage.

The change also violated Wikipedia's notability principle. At first, one might think that the standard of notabilities is respected because the confirmation hearing of the Supreme Court is a highly publicized event. But notability on Wikipedia means something slightly different, requiring "meaningful coverage" of topics with long-term meaning. Many members of the Wikipedia community are strongly opposed to a phenomenon known as "recentism", namely the tilt of content compared to recent events. The long-term goal of leading Wikipedians was illustrated by a humorous debate earlier this year on the word tinder. Some editors felt that Tinder should direct users to the popular dating app because that is what most people were looking for, with a margin of about 10 to 1. But the community has finally decided that Tinder should continue to direct the equipment used to light a fire, as this last use had a longer-term meaning.

Most people have the intuitive impression that Wikipedia should not have an entry in the Devil's Triangle describing the "drinking game enjoyed by Judge Brett Kavanaugh's friends" – it's just not true for an encyclopedia. But Why is it wrong? Whether on Wiki or not, we are being asked more and more to defend basic policies and processes.
Although this is sometimes exhausting, it is useful to think about the underlying reasoning. To repel so many arguments of bad faith, we must know the principles and why we have them.