This is a special post for quick takes by Sherrinford. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The results of Bob Jacob's LessWrong survey are quite interesting. It's a pity the sample is so small.
The visualized results (link in his post) are univariate, but I would like to highlight some things:
49 out of 56 respondents identifying as "White", 53 out of 59 respondents born male and 46 out of 58 identifying male cisgender 47 of 59 identifying as heterosexual (comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation) 1 out of 55 working in a "blue collar" profession Most people identify as "left of center" in some sense. At the same time, 30 out of 55 identify as "libertarian", but there were multiple answers allowed. 31 of 59 respondents think they are at least "upper middle class"; 22 of 59 think the family they were raised in was "upper middle class". (Background: In social science surveys, wealthy people usually underestimate their position, and poor people overestimate it but to a lesser extent.)
I would not have guessed the left-of-center identification, and I would have slightly underestimated the share of male (cisgender).
The Wikipedia rules are... meaningful, if you interpret them in good faith. But if are using arguments as soldiers, then pretty much in every situation for any side you can find a rule that can be used in its favor. The key is to find it, and express it using words familiar to other admins.
For example, if a person edits an article they are somehow related to, it is either a good thing (we want to encourage experts to edit Wikipedia) or a bad thing (conflict of interest). Depending on whether you agree with the person or not, you choose the relevant rule, a... (read more)
My model is that what is called "left of center" in the USA is "far right, at least economically"* in Europe (and what the USA call "socialism" is "what everyone agrees with".
*"economically" does a fair bit of work here - on issues like immigration for example the left right divide is the same as in the US.
1Sherrinford
I had to sigh when I read "it can be hard to find editors who don't have a strong opinion about the person. But this is very far from that, likely one reason why the NYT actually used David Gerard as a source".