Whataboutism was a Language and literature good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones Date Process Result October 22, 2015 Articles for deletion Kept October 30, 2015 Deletion review Endorsed February 4, 2017 WikiProject approved revision Diff to current version June 24, 2017 WikiProject approved revision Diff to current version July 11, 2017 Guild of Copy Editors Copyedited July 19, 2017 Good article nominee Not listed Current status: Former good article nominee

This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to multiple WikiProjects.

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Russian anonynomus reporting in. In Russia, there is a saying, "Всё познаётся в сравнении", literally "everything has to be learnt via comparation (or comparison)". This phrase is rather popular, on par with the phrase for "the thing in itself" ("вещь в себе" in Russian). 81.89.66.133 (talk) 07:47, 17 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks for reading this. Because in Russian culture, people would "drop a whatty" one at another all the time without really implying hypocrisy or stuff like that. 81.89.66.133 (talk) 14:07, 23 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  Logic is purely Russian science. These morons cloned an article on "analogy" and call it propaganda. And yes, analogies do not always work, but its purely moronic to call it propaganda. 78.34.202.171 (talk) 03:16, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  Don't make me tap the sign "not a forum". Also, Wikipedia records what most reliable sources say about a topic, nothing more and nothing less. Does not matter if you or anyone else thinks the stuff they say is somehow wrong, false, problematic, unfair, or harmful. StellarHalo (talk) 05:34, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just a comment, but why in the heck is there a "defense" for this in the lede? It's ridiculous. It's a propaganda technique and much of this article is devoted in defending it. Wikipedia has failed. 47.34.52.39 (talk) 19:36, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What could be added or referred to is a seemingly related defense: To justify speaking bad about someone by adding: though I do that too or: though many do so. By minimizing the seriousness justifying the attack. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A0D:6FC0:98B:400:7CF0:33D4:E508:5CE7 (talk) 09:16, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The China section really needs more information, especially with their annual reports about US human rights and other notable incidents beyond the 2019 tweets. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 01:55, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's ironic that the China section includes a link to "US Human Rights abuses", which itself implements the PRC's "whataboutism" described in that section.

A reader can easily click the "Propaganda in PRC" wikilink to get more relevant detail on how they engage in this, w/o going into an unrelated rabbit hole on US abuses. Like yeah, everyone knows the US does dirt, we don't need to act as catspaws for PRC on Wikipedia

edit: I read the linked article, it started as a neutral source and has since been edited to align with PRC info-ops, with a single bit of criticism of its naked bias buried at the bottom.

I would remove that wikilink but the article is locked 73.202.95.43 (talk) 17:01, 29 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since there's a whole section on Trump, What About Hunter Biden? (get it?)

9 hours worth of Whataboutism on public display:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDahoZdx3KU 83.94.240.45 (talk) 20:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hunter Biden isn't as notable of a political figure as Donald Trump and the article should not be including every possible instance of whataboutism. D1551D3N7 (talk) 17:18, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hunter is notable figure as they seem to have a prominent Wikipedia entry however it appears that there is a bias towards one ideology over another as should it be included.

In my personal opinion the Trump section should be removed unless there are references to both sides of politics in order to remain politically neutral. Throttler (talk) 23:55, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say Hunter Biden lacked notability for a Wikipedia page, I said he was not as notable a political figure as Donald Trump. He didn't hold the highest office in the US political system did he?

There is no reason we would need "references to both sides of politics" for neutrality in this article. What you are asking for is some form of false balance.

If the Democratic Party deployed some logical fallacy heavily and was famous for doing so I wouldn't require that Wikipedia article to have some similar example of the Republican Party deploying the same fallacy if the example lacked notability or relevance just for some false sense of neutrality. D1551D3N7 (talk) 10:53, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

+1. Again: this is not an article about US politics. “Balancing” (falsely so) two “sides” of a local political opposition is just irrelevant (funnily enough, it is itself comparable to a form of whataboutism). The point should be to illustrate the logical/rhetorical concept of whataboutism with a few notable (noted) occurrences, not to keep a repertoire of every occurrence in every country in the world so that every hater is satisfied. Maëlan 11:54, 14 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think Democrats documented whataboutism on the border should be added to this article. Some sources that mention this include:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-was-the-liberal-outrage-when-democratic-presidents-sent-troops-to-the-border/2018/11/06/9323d89e-e1e7-11e8-8f5f-a55347f48762_story.html

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/columnists/michael-smolens/sd-me-smolens-daca-20180111-story.html

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/07/19/dems-now-masters-of-whataboutism/ Loltardo (talk) 16:55, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In those 3 articles I only see Trump using whataboutism defenses? It's not really clear where the Democrats are making a "what about" defense from those articles. Anyway just because there's a section on Trump as an example of Whataboutism doesn't mean there needs to be an equivalent section for Democrats especially if the usage is less clear and or notable. D1551D3N7 (talk) 17:28, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. This article is about a generic notion, not US politics. Please don’t make this article even more US-centric. Maëlan 18:08, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The section in question is titled "Use in political contexts," with subsections for Russia, China, and...Donald Trump. It would be much fairer and more in line with the rest of the article to remove the "Donald Trump" headline and replace it with "United States" and then detail examples in U.S. politics including Donald Trump and the Democrat Party. We could even add in the GOP in general for good measure. Loltardo (talk) 03:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A Democrat is a member of the Democratic Party, not the "Democrat" party, a common error deliberately used to treat the party disrespectfully. Treating one's opponent carelessly and disrespectfully is a common type of tactic used by everyone in politics. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 03:33, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you would take some time to read the content of those sections perhaps you would realize why the titles are appropriate. In the China and Russia ones the state itself is deploying the fallacy, the Donald Trump section is just about Trump using the fallacy, not the US as a state. D1551D3N7 (talk) 12:46, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Footnote 54 was used for claims about living people, which should be avoided per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Closing (archived) RfC: Mondoweiss. I have replaced it with cn, but would prefer a source if someone has one? FortunateSons (talk) 22:00, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]