Talk:Kelsey Piper

A possible model

As of March 2025, this page seems similar in structure and content to https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/topics/kelsey-piper which also feels self-promotional. Piper is active on social media and at Effective Altruist / rationalist / longtermist events but I'm not sure what other Wikipediable sources write about her. Bookandswordblog (talk) 17:22, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

It is hard to find anyone outside the Effective Altruism, Rationalism, and Libertarian movements who writes about Piper which is probably why this article sounds so self-promotional.

Some other journalists reported on her SBF leak without explaining that SBF was in business with Piper's friend and a major donor not just to her movement but also to her employer (but this is recorded by vox.com, a major news organization so WP:Reliable) https://www.theringer.com/2023/10/26/tech/sam-bankman-fried-trial-testify-caroline-ellison-nishad-singh-what-weve-learned https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-inquiry/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-and-the-question-of-complicity https://newrepublic.com/article/168991/ftx-effective-altruism-bankman-fried-climate

She appears in some sites which create profiles of journalists like Muck Rack https://muckrack.com/kelsey-piper and Intelligent Relations https://intelligentrelations.com/journalist/kelsey-piper/ It seems odd that a journalist basically reports on her subculture and its projects and goals? Bookandswordblog (talk) 17:22, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi. I had created a section "Removal" below to discuss that. The sources you provided here support the fact that she conducted a direct-message interview with Sam Bankman-Fried, and there could be a sentence on this. But we should generally avoid making claims that go beyond what reliable secondary sources say on her, especially on contentious topics, both for notability and verifiability. You can read the guideline on biographies of living persons for more details. Alenoach (talk) 18:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Hi, I see things differently. A Wikipedia page that just paraphrases an active public figure's CV is of negative value, since people could just read the original knowing that it presents the subject's perspective. So one approach would be including some public facts, but another would be to cut the article down, saying that she is an Effective Altruist and journalist who came to prominence for publishing a text-message exchange with Sam Bankman Fried. This section is about option 2.

The SBF story and her attendance at the Manifest conference with the eugenicists are the only things I can find that she has done which were reported on by journalists outside her subculture. If you can find anything else please suggest it!

You are correct that The Guardian did not name her but it did not need to since it quoted a general statement that Manifest connects very controversial figures with more mainstream ones.Bookandswordblog (talk) 20:28, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

"The SBF story and her attendance at the Manifest conference with the eugenicists are the only things I can find that she has done which were reported on by journalists outside her subculture." => if the article from The Guardian doesn't mention her, then it probably can't be used here. It would be problematic to connect it with the primary source showing she was at the conference in order to indirectly imply some kind of misconduct.

"who came to prominence for publishing a text-message exchange with Sam Bankman Fried" => unclear whether she's particularly known for that message exchange. The report on OpenAI's non-disparagement agreements got a lot of coverage. Anyway, adding a sentence on that can be ok, but it remains a fairly standard biography and the tone is rather factual, so I would disagree with mass removal of content. Alenoach (talk) 21:33, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

I guess it depends on what you read, I followed cryptocurrency because it affected the country where I live but do not follow personal politics in Silicon valley. I can definitely find news organizations outside the USA reporting on her SBF story and naming her as their source so I added two sentences on that.Bookandswordblog (talk) 18:27, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Unclear this passes notability

This is puffed-up and is not showing evidence of third-party coverage in independent WP:RSes, to the standard required for a WP:BLP to exist.

WP:NJOURNALIST sets out the following prongs for notability under that guideline:

1. The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by peers or successors.
2. The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory, or technique.
3. The person has created or played a major role in co-creating a significant or well-known work or collective body of work. In addition, such work must have been the primary subject of an independent and notable work (for example, a book, film, or television series, but usually not a single episode of a television series) or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.
4. The person's work (or works) has: (a) become a significant monument, (b) been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) won significant critical attention, or (d) been represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums.

None of these seem to pass. It's not clear the proffered evidence even meets the first criterion in EA.

WP:BEFORE shows almost entirely articles by Piper, but not a word about Piper. This fails to meet general notability guidelines either.

Journalists need to have been written about, not just have stuff written by them. Are the cites in this article absolutely the best to be found about Piper? - David Gerard (talk) 09:37, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Hey -- thanks for stating your concern, @David Gerard. (I'd dispute the 'puffed up promotional' in the edit summary, because I actually think the EA movement is deeply misguided, but I don't think what I personally think about a minor philosophical movement is relevant to Wikipedia except inasmuch as it disclaims the POV/COI issue.) I triple-checked that Piper had the material to pass WP:GNG before I wrote this. The coverage here is independent of the subject, reliable, and significant/non-trivial. Is she the most famous journalist to pass notability standards? No, and I wouldn't claim that. But she's important in a subculture, and I gathered what was discussed in it. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 09:44, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Citing a non-notable podcast as a whole paragraph is pushing it. Zero biographical coverage of Piper in RSes. Claims about her that the sources just don't support. That sort of thing. As I ask above: are the cites in this article absolutely the best to be found about Piper? - David Gerard (talk) 09:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

The podcast in question has its own article of uncontroversial (in the past several years) notability, so I'd say 'non-notable' is itself pushing it. Overall, I don't see any issue with the majority of the article's sources and find the idea of pushing "are these the best to be found about her" confusing. The source I do get where you're coming from is the WANBAM one, which I attempted to describe more as an attribution than a 'fact' (amongst other things, it's not really a statement you can make factual claims about), but the overall image really doesn't seem like a matter of exaggeration or puffery to me. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 09:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 (talk) 20:54, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that journalist Kelsey Piper sees her Vox column as a way to popularize discussion of global catastrophic risk? Source: Can journalists still write about important things?

• Reviewed: N/A, <5 DYKs

Created by Vaticidalprophet (talk). Self-nominated at 08:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC).

Just a comment: Your hook links to a disambiguation page, which is probably not intended. You should pipe the link to the specific vox article you are referring to. --LordPeterII (talk) 10:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that! Fixed. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 10:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems: - see below

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: None required.

Overall: @Vaticidalprophet: Great work on this page. The only issue I can see is that reference 6 has an unreliable-source tag, which should probably be fixed per WP:DYKSG#D6. Once that's resolved, the nomination is good to go. Epicgenius (talk) 19:50, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look, @Epicgenius! It should be good now. Vaticidalprophet (talk) 00:21, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

@Vaticidalprophet: No problem, should be good to go then. Epicgenius (talk) 01:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

Removal

I am removing the added content. The secondary sources don't mention Kelsey Piper, so implying a connection with her is original research. And it looks like the section on Manifest is trying to create a controversy based on her mere participation to a conference. As per WP:BLPRESTORE, if you want to try to restore it, I suggest that you try to get consensus here first.

Please see the biographies of living persons guidelines. Alenoach (talk) 06:49, 3 April 2025 (UTC)