Talk:Santiago Peña

Controversies section

Hello, I am relatively new to Wikipedia so am open to being educated about handling this topic. I added a translation from the Spanish Wikipedia page for Peña, which included a 'controversies' section. The 'controversies' section has now been removed entirely, with the user citing recentism and stating that many of the controversies didn't appear to have lasting consequences. I can see in fairness that this did apply to some of the points, but I do worry about removing the section in its entirety and not acknowledging what I would say appear to be two regular controversies that seem to follow him, those being accusations of corruption and close ties to Cartes, and his praising of the Stroessner regime. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Walrus World (talk) 07:55, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

The problem with those "controversy" sections is that, as I pointed, they only last for a couple of days at best. That causes a problem with WP:UNDUE weight, as it makes it seem as if those controversies were something really important and noteworthy for this man's biography, when actually they will be less than a footnote in future history books. If it's a long-lived controversy that lasts for years, or there are actual and tangible consequences to it, then it would be worth a mention, but not if it was just a brief flash of news of a couple of days that died out basically as soon as it started.

As for the accusations of corruption, it has to be an accusation that is specifically about him. "He supported X, and X was accused of Y" is just a guilt by association fallacy. Some cyberactivist revealed something, right, but what happened with that? Is there some ongoing judicial case or something? And if you want to write about Stroessner, the right place to do so is the article "Alfredo Stroessner". Stroessner left power in 1989 and by that time Peña was only a 11-year-old kid. He has no ties with him, not even as a contemporary politician. Cambalachero (talk) 14:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Just want to chime in to add that Peña has reaffirmed his views on Stroessner, and personally I think that the views of someone who is going to be president of a country about someone who held such a large influence on said country held enough notability, though whether they should go on Peña's page (perhaps in a section just encompassing his policial views in general) or on Stroessner's page on a section named "Legacy" or something like that are up for debate. That being said, I agree that making a "Controversies" section is unconstructive, especially when it's susceptible to attract just superflous info (yes, if some cyberactivist revealed something, but didn't result in anything notable, it doesn't belong here, and really, who seriously gives a hoot about someone holding an umbrella for him?).--EdgarCabreraFariña (talk) 14:33, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

A section with his political views may be fine, but it would be better if it was kept more abstract. Rather than his opinions about a head of state of decades ago, explain the ideas he believes in, those that may (incidentally) be shared by other people such as Stroessner. Cambalachero (talk) 17:44, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay, you cited WP:UNDUE for why the controversies section needed to be unceremoniously axed, but what exactly is your reasoning for removing what I added just now? "it would be better if it was kept more abstract" according to what guideline, exactly? And I find it very strange to say that we should not talk about his admiration of a 35-years-reigning dictator but only about things they may or may not share in common in terms of ideology: first of all the latter is incredibly more difficulty to define because it is indeed extremely more abstract, and second of all, there are examples of the first all over wikipedia, including stuff like Paraguayan politicians admiring the Axis Powers, even if that did not necessarily translate to them implementing the same policies while in office. The idea that expressing admiration for a major, influential political figure is a "historical opinion" rather than a political one very clearly has no ground in reality as far as I'm concerned, but I'll allow you to overrule me using guidelines... but if the only reason for your removal is how you *personally* think the page should be, then no offense, but I see that as being more than a little unfair. A prospective president expressing admiration for one of the 20th century's most brutal dictators is more than a little on the nose, especially given all kinds of actors have expressed suspicion of the commitment of Paraguayan authorities to democracy, and I don't see how that isn't worth coverage, or is unimportant. --Dynamo128 (talk) 18:52, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, there you have given yourself a better topic for that section. What does Peña think of the current political system of Paraguay? Does he think it works fine, or does he want any reforms? What does he think of the current dictatorship in the Americas, that of Cuba, and the controversial regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela? What does he think of the populist leaders of many other countries? What about the closure of the congresses of Peru and Ecuador? Which are his views about the Congress, the judiciary, and the press? You can easily describe the views of this 2023 politician in the context of 2023 Paraguay, there's hardly any need to extrapolate things from a history topic that is hardly relevant for the world of today, and there's even less need to discuss memes.

By the way, "what I added" makes it sound as if you wrote that bit. That info was added by user Walrus World, you merely copied and restored it, regardless of the discussion here. Cambalachero (talk) 19:40, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Point taken about the "what I added" bit, that was not my intention, but as for the rest, I have no idea why you brought up any of what you said: I asked you to point to a guideline to provide a reasoning for the removal of what was removed, because otherwise, the subjects in question are maybe hardly relevant for *you*, but certainly not for the world, and much less for Paraguay, which today still lives under the shadow of the Stroessner regime. --Dynamo128 (talk) 20:23, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

I would also like to respectfully note that between the one who added the information originally, EdgarCabreraFariña who (I am only just now seeing) expresses the same reasoning as I do for why at least *some* of the information from the controversies section should be put back in, the way I see it, you removed content unilaterally from the page whereas a consensus has formed in the opposite direction here. --Dynamo128 (talk) 20:28, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. We don't report everything the newspapers ever said about Peña, and we do not list his opinions about everything he ever talked about. Face it, Stroessner is old history. He has been out of the government since 1989, and dead since 2006. If some of his policies remained, that's up to the Colorado party, not to Stroessner. And Stroessner may have been a dictator, but the current rulers are not, they have been elected in free elections. Saying that Paraguay "today still lives under the shadow of the Stroessner regime" seem to be just some exaggerated hyperbole.

As a "controversy", the reactions to Peña's opinion were just some people complaining for a couple of days, with no lasting consequences. As a political view, we only have to describe his views, those reactions are out of place. And the memes are out of place no matter which angle we use. Cambalachero (talk) 14:49, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I understand you have the personal opinion that Stroessner is old history, but in my opinion you still ignored the fact the majority of people here think the opposite. Unfortunately unlike with WP:DUE, what you posted is way too general to be applied here the way I see it, and for one thing, I should specify that like you I don't care about whatever internet memes people made about the statement, I care about the statement itself. here's a statement that's used as a source in the Colorado Party page which goes to show how he is not "old history" and his legacy is still present in the country. Since it seems we have come to a stand-still, and I have no intention of initiating an edit war - on that note I should clarify I re-added the content that I did *after* reading this talk page, because from what was written here before my posts, I was under the impression you had an issue with the controversies section and the meme, rather than what we are currently discussing now - I suppose it's best if we request the intervention of a third party to help bring this to a conclusion. I personally think your position on Stroessner and Paraguay specifically comes from a position of superficiality, but that, in itself, is fine and acceptable - I am ignorant on many topics too, and you are an accomplished editor so I have no reason not to assume good faith in that sense. However, what I personally do not agree with here is the fact that there has been a higher number of people voicing support for at least some of these additions, and you have overruled them and unilaterally removed the content, as it probably would have been better to discuss this before doing so. I brought this up here, and we'll see if that can help us narrow it down at the very least. --Dynamo128 (talk) 17:57, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi, I'm here to give a third opinion, although I'm not quite sure this is really a "third opinion" type of discussion considering that there are other participants in this thread. I get that this is a disagreement between Dynamo128 and Cambalachero but other editors have participated and may well continue to weigh in, so it may be already past the point where a third person could settle things.

Anyway, what exactly is under dispute? I read over the thread but there's a lot going on. As far as I can tell, the disagreement is over whether the material in the "Controversies" section is relevant enough to include in the article? Mesocarp (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Well, okay, I've read over it some more and I think I get what's going on. It seems like the most recent object of discussion is this diff with Cambalachero reverting the Stroessner material but also maybe this diff with Cambalachero removing the "Controversies" section? Let me know if there's anything else at issue I'm missing. I'm getting the impression that there is a general difference in perspective between what the two of you feel belongs in this page? Mesocarp (talk) 00:59, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that is correct. I do not actually disagree on principle with Cambalachero's statement that the Controversies section is redundant, I just think some of the information that used to be in that section (in particular the diff you have highlighted) is relevant enough to the page, whereas Cambalachero does not think so. --Dynamo128 (talk) 09:48, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Okay, thanks! @Cambalachero, would you like to summarize your position? Reading over the thread, my understanding is that your opposition to the "Controversies" section is that you feel it will be cluttered with short-lived news stories that "will be less than a footnote in future history books," and your opposition to the Stroessner material is that Stroessner is "old history"? Mesocarp (talk) 00:00, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

There are two distinct proposals here. One proposal is to add the opinion about Stroessner as a controversy. I already gave my detailed opinion in the second post of this thread. "Man says X. others said Y about man saying X" is everyday stuff in this day and age, especially when said man is a president. Such an exchange should need to last in time to be considered a controversy. The other is to add the opinion as a political view. Stroessner, however, is history. That's not an opinion, that's a cold fact, and nobody needs to be completely familiar with Paraguayan politics to realize that. Dynamo128 points out that, although Stroessner is gone, the political movement that he led is still strong in Paraguay. But that can lead to confusion. One thing is Stroessner and his dictatorship, a historical topic, and another is the Colorado party and his management of 2023's Paraguay, a political topic.

Having considered that, what did Peña actually say? He talked about the aftermath of the War of the Triple Alliance, he considered that there was huge political instability for decades, and that when Stroessner came to power Paraguay achieved such stability. He said that Paraguay under Stroessner endured several crises and survived them. He considered that the regime lasted longer than it should had, that there were problems with human rights and education, and refused to openly define it as a dictatorship. All that is what he said. Now, consider this: right or wrong in his assessments, they are all about the 1954-1989 regime. None of them were opinions about Paraguay today. That's why I consider that they are historical opinions, not political ones.

And you may ask, having defined that the underlying political movement survived the end of the "Stronato" and it is still strong, isn't it worth pointing out that Peña has a positive view of Stroessner? Well, that would be kind of redundant. He belongs to the Colorado party, the legal representation of such movement, so of course he does. Cambalachero (talk) 01:28, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

So, okay. Thanks to both of you for summarizing your positions. I feel like I have a better grip on this rather complex discussion now.

I think it's going to be too contentious to try to make decisions about what should go in the article based on what we personally think will be historically significant in the future, redundant or inferrable in the larger political context, etc. We have no objective yardstick to use for sentiments like that since they're inherently speculative and hard to refute or support with RS, so they invite everyone to argue from their own subjective POV, and that tends to lead to endless argument. I think we just have to defer to the sources.

On that basis, I think the Stroessner passage should be returned. It was well-sourced from multiple news sources that appear to be reputable. They thought that material was worth covering and their coverage goes well beyond minimal day-of-the-event "documentary" reporting, so even if we disagree with the journalists about its significance, I think we have to hold our noses and add it.

Likewise, I've looked through the removed material in the "Controversies" section and it all seems notable to me, as long as we trust the sources (which seem to be prominent news outlets). I did have doubts at first about the umbrella thing, but looking at the cited article I think it says there was wide criticism about it from different sectors of society, from memes to periodicals (unless I misunderstand the Spanish). That makes the article a secondary source, so I think that easily shows notability, even if we might think intuitively that it's too minor a story—we have to go with what the sources say.

I don't really like having a section called "Controversies" either, because I think the question of what is or isn't a controversy is also too subjective. There are some other improvements and reorganizations I think we could make as well, but I'm trying to resist the urge to talk about them now since they're not really the issue yet. As long as the question is just about whether the removed material is notable enough to belong in the article somewhere, I think the sourcing shows it is. This article's kind of short for such a big-time politician anyway, so why not focus more on what we're leaving out than what we should remove at this point? Mesocarp (talk) 01:09, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the response, and for taking the time to look at this. I appreciate how you were able to analyze this situation from a very different perspective than I did, as I never really talked about the merit of the sources themselves even though perhaps I should have. I am in agreement that there is no need to have a controversies section, but at least some of the statements that were removed can easily be added to the page itself using its current structure. Beyond his statements on Stroessner, his closeness to Horacio Cartes seems especially pertinent to re-add as well. I'm gonna wait a little in case Cambalachero would want to add anything else, but otherwise, given the overwhelming consensus from multiple users has been that this is stuff worth keeping, I consider the matter settled, and I'll look about re-adding it later. --Dynamo128 (talk) 10:44, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Sure thing, I'm glad. ^^ I think, especially when things become contentious, it really helps to let the sources lead the way—it's easier to frame questions of notability and relevance and such in terms of source material than in terms of each editor's personal views.

I went ahead and made some organizational changes to the article along more chronological and less "topical" lines, which I think will make it easier to reincorporate the removed material (and is more neutral to boot, I would say). Hopefully the changes I made will be uncontroversial to everyone here. The earlier scheme struck me as somewhat narrowly focused, in a way that would make it challenging to include "sundry details" like some of the "Controversies" material. Organizing the material about his career along date ranges like this allows you to include anything that happened within those dates, and has the benefit of giving surrounding context for anything you might add. I think that will help the reader understand why the press might have been reporting on some of the "Controversies" material, in a way that wouldn't have been as feasible when it was a standalone section.

Similarly, regarding the Stroessner material, I understand Cambalachero's reservations about including it under "Political views" because, strictly speaking, it concerns Peña's views about a person instead of his own political positions. You can say it maybe implies things about his political positions, but unless you're quoting a source to that effect it's a bit WP:SYNTH. Instead, since he made those comments during his presidential campaign, I think it might make more sense to include them as part of the narrative of his campaign (which is covered pretty sparsely right now anyway and could use more detail).

I agree that it would be good to wait a few days to see if Cambalachero wants to weigh in any more on this before reintroducing any of the material he took out. Even if it's true that three editors in this thread have spoken clearly in favor of having it in the article and one with measured approval, I'd prefer that everyone who's still interested come to an agreement in full if possible. Mesocarp (talk) 04:12, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

Just because a content can be verified in reliable sources does not mean it has to be included. Newspapers may be reliable but they also need to publish something everyday, and the whole thing "the president says X" and "Someone else says this about what the president said" is a good way to fill some pages. That's why we seek to avoid Recentism. Will Peña's comments about Stroessner stand the test of time in his biography? We can check it out right now: it has been more or less a month since he said that, can you show sources discussing those comments now? Has the controversy lasted even a month? Cambalachero (talk) 19:57, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

I just don't think that's a good yardstick to use. Whatever the current media landscape, we have no idea what will ultimately show up in Peña's biography. He's a living figure and his story is still evolving. (Plus, if anything, his article is too short for a major politician, contemporary or historical—I wouldn't call it in need of decluttering yet.) In any case, avoiding recentism isn't policy in itself, and I think the sources used for that material clearly pass the bar for notability regardless, as I said above. It's not merely that the material comes from reliable newspapers, it's also that they covered it in depth, in a way that goes beyond daily breaking news, often summarizing preexisting commentary in the society, etc. See WP:NTEMP, WP:GNG, and even Recentism itself: "Editors writing today do not have a historical perspective on today's events, and should not pretend to have a crystal ball...Above all else, editors should avoid getting into edit wars or contentious deletion discussions when trying to deal with recentism." (Also, the mainstream reporting on Peña's Stroessner comments goes from at least early March to early May, two months, which I'd say is a long time for the news. But, I think the contents and sources of the reporting cited in the removed material, on Stroessner and otherwise, is enough to show notability, even without these kinds of details.) Mesocarp (talk) 23:59, 21 June 2023 (UTC)