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on this page and someone will drop by to help. Again, welcome! Rubbish computer Ping me or leave a message on my talk page 04:25, 25 December 2021 (UTC)
Some tips on editing controversial topics
Hello, TheTranarchist, and welcome to Wikipedia! Tl;dr: thanks for your contributions, but you're making some newbie mistakes in the areas of WP:NPOV and WP:DUE especially, and spending too much time changing the WP:LEAD of mature, contentious topics. Also, controversial topics are inherently difficult for anyone to edit, and much more so for new editors. Here are some explanations of what I see going on, and how to get back on track. Now for the gory details:
Thanks very much for your contributions attempting to improve Wikipedia's coverage of trans issues. In particular, thanks for your use of edit summaries to explain your changes; they are invaluable as a method of communicating with other editors, and are something that many new editors only learn later, so kudos for getting on board with this right away, and keep up the good work! Secondly, bravo for responding to another editor at Talk:Conversion therapy to explain in further detail your intentions on improving the article; this is a good example of discussion, which is a core principle of how Wikipedia editors collaborate to improve articles.
I noticed your edit to Conversion therapy, which is on my WP:Watch list (as is pretty much every article you have edited). In my opinion, this edit provided an WP:UNDUE amount of coverage to gender identity conversion in the WP:LEADSENTENCE of the article, and did not reflect the preponderance of reliable sources on the topic, which are more about sexual orientation, so I removed it. I explained my reasoning briefly in the edit summary, and in more detail on the Talk page in the same discussion you previously responded to.
As you are a brand new here and I enjoy helping new editors get on board with the maze of rules and other things to learn here, I checked your contributions and looked at your recent edit to Transgender youth, and found I had to undo it for reasons explained in the summary. I haven't looked at your other contributions. Two edits isn't enough information to see a pattern, but both edits seemed to me to express a point of view based on a desire for fairness and equality towards trans people, issues, or visibility, possibly with a desire to put right some injustices, or promote visibility of trans issues. While highly laudable in the RW, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and for better or worse, is not about fairness, equality, or righting wrongs, but rather is about adding encyclopedic content to notable topics by summarizing the majority (and significant minority) opinion of what reliable sources have to say about a topic. Sometimes this might not accord with the way we view things, or the way we wish things were, but our job as editors here is to reflect what the reliable sources say, and ignore or own opinions and biases.
You seem to already understand what WP:Verifiability and citations are all about, so that's really good, so next step for you, I think, is to take a deep dive into WP:Neutral point of view, paying special attention to WP:DUE WEIGHT, as it is in these two areas where I believe you have tripped up. It's really important to understand these principles, and if there's a problem, nip it in the bud, because if it becomes a bad habit, it can end up causing you problems and becomes more difficult to change later.
It's also kind of a newbie mistake to head straight for the WP:LEAD of an article, or even the WP:FIRSTSENTENCE, without having contributed much to the article body, or even knowing much about the history of it, or what Talk page discussions have already taken place about it. (See also WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY.) For example, Conversion therapy has been edited by over a thousand editors since it was first created in 2001 in the dawn of Wikipedia (shout-out to Ed Poor, whose original version is still essentially accurate), and has 385 editors watching it now. Beyond that, editing any part of a conversial topic is difficult, and heading straight for the lead only more so. (And if that weren't enough, WP:Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions may also apply.)
Speaking of that: as hard as it is to get on board as a new Wikipedia editor, editing controversial topics such as trans-related issues, is even harder, so I urge you to step with caution, and be guided by other editors who can help you. Maybe avoid editing the WP:LEAD of trans topics for a while, until you have gained more experience contributing to the body of articles, know something about how the article got that way, have read through the Talk page archives, and understand what the perennial issues are. There's much more I could say, but this is probably more than enough for right now. Just know that I've been editing articles on gender-related and trans topics for ten years or so, and general topics longer than that, so I'm pretty familiar both with general Wikipedia policies and guidelines, as well as the particularities of editing trans topics. Finally, given your contributions in your short history here, I'm pretty much obliged to leave you the message appearing in the next section; don't be alarmed, everyone gets one of these sooner or later. Feel free to call on me at any time for support or if you have questions about editing at Wikipedia generally, or on trans topics in particular. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 21:31, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Hi again. As promised, here is your message about editing on gender-related topics. Normally, I avoid adding this notice for brand new users, but since virtually all of your edits are to trans topics, it's better you learn about this sooner, rather than later after bumping into some restriction you never heard of, or attracting the wrong kind of attention from an Admin. Don't worry, this is not about doing anything wrong, it's about making sure you are aware of this, so please just read it and follow the links. It's intended to be self-explanatory, but please contact me if there is anything you don't understand. Cheers!
This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.
You have shown interest in gender-related disputes or controversies or in people associated with them. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.
For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor. Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! (R.E.: Gloria Hemingway)
Thank you very much for having my back during the whole Gloria Hemingway debacle! I'm still relatively inexperienced in page editing, & I think a more experienced person like yourself has helped articulate my case in ways I couldn't! Logan Sheppard (talk) 20:10, 4 February 2022 (UTC)
- No problem, thanks for having mine! I'm a newbie myself and only joined a month or so ago. The meta commentary and talk page discussions can often reveal individual biases but luckily Wikipedia's guidelines are overall fair and applying the right arguments and references often leads to the truth coming out. Also, fun life hack especially in cases like these, if someone is stonewalling and accuses you of breaking guidelines most often they're breaking the same ones! While writing all that to prove she was a trans woman was draining I'm glad to see it paying off. If you ever need help applying LGBT-related Wiki rules to an article just tag me! TheTranarchist (talk) 20:24, 4 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist
- I decided to check up on the page again, & seeing that the page has been moved had me literally tearing up. I can't believe it. I thought this was an insurmountable battle, but it happened! Logan Sheppard (talk) 00:45, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
- No problem, thanks for having mine! I'm a newbie myself and only joined a month or so ago. The meta commentary and talk page discussions can often reveal individual biases but luckily Wikipedia's guidelines are overall fair and applying the right arguments and references often leads to the truth coming out. Also, fun life hack especially in cases like these, if someone is stonewalling and accuses you of breaking guidelines most often they're breaking the same ones! While writing all that to prove she was a trans woman was draining I'm glad to see it paying off. If you ever need help applying LGBT-related Wiki rules to an article just tag me! TheTranarchist (talk) 20:24, 4 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist
Just a heads up regarding move reviews, you may want to read Wikipedia:Move review#Commenting in a move review, particularly "Commenters should identify whether or not they were involved or uninvolved in the RM discussion under review." Anyway, it's out of our hands now. StAnselm (talk) 23:46, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- Yeah, I was hoping you would read it. Everything you wrote in this edit is irrelevant to the move review. It is not meant to be a discussion about the article name, but only about whether the close accurately reflected the discussion. Personally, I think your responses are counter-productive to your argument. StAnselm (talk) 02:50, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
- I apologize, I wasn't aware that the discussion of past moves and consensus of an article was entirely irrelevant to a discussion on the validity of the current Move (which referenced past talk on the page) in an article. It's not as if the same (disproven) arguments were being used in the last move request as the current one or anything, or if the key point revolved around which policy applied. Thanks for responding to my extensive citations of relevant WP policy btw... It's really touching how you ignore all the guidelines and policies I posted which are extremely relevant to the review in favor of raising other issues. Personally, I find your dismissal of relevant policy and guidelines to be very counter-productive to your argument, but sure, me pointing out context was the issue.
- Having indeed read what you sent:
- "Do not request a move review simply because you disagree with the outcome of a page move discussion. While the comments in the move discussion may be discussed in order to assess the rough consensus of a close, this is not a forum to re-argue a closed discussion. In particular, if you believe that a close should have been "not moved" instead of "no consensus" (or vice-versa), that is not a sufficient reason to begin a move review." The discussion was whether COMMONNAME trumped GENDERID. You made your repeated point that it should very clear, sadly WP policy and guidelines didn't back that. I also refer you to "Disagreements with Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions (WP:RMCI), WP:Article titles, the Manual of Style, a naming convention or the community norm of consensus should be raised at the appropriate corresponding talk page." If you have an issue with the MOS or naming conventions, this wasn't the place to raise it.
- Having indeed read what you sent:
- "Generally, the rationale should be an analysis of whether the closer properly followed Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions, whether it was within administrator discretion and reasonably interpreted consensus in the discussion, while keeping in mind the spirit of Wikipedia policy, precedent and project goal."
- Spirit of WP policy is a good one (the spirit of respecting trans people hopefully shouldn't immediately dissipate on death because you want to misapply a technicality). Moreover, what I posted was an analysis of previous move requests. Since page name history is indeed considered in these cases, I fail to see how information regarding it was irrelevant.
- "Generally, the rationale should be an analysis of whether the closer properly followed Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions, whether it was within administrator discretion and reasonably interpreted consensus in the discussion, while keeping in mind the spirit of Wikipedia policy, precedent and project goal."
- "Remember that move review is not an opportunity to rehash, expand upon or first offer your opinion on the proper title of the page in question – move review is not a do-over of the WP:RM discussion but is an opportunity to correct errors in the closing process (in the absence of significant new information). Thus, the action specified should be the editor's analysis of whether the close of the discussion was reasonable or unreasonable based on the debate and applicable policy and guidelines. "
- I hardly see how past talk page discussion regarding moves is new information. Debate included past debate on page (especially since arguments have changed little since the last move request), applicable policy and guidelines is something I also provided. Pointing out the discussion has for the most part had two opposing viewpoints, policy vs guideline, and concerns have been raised throughout the page's history about respecting her identity is not unreasonable.
- "Remember that move review is not an opportunity to rehash, expand upon or first offer your opinion on the proper title of the page in question – move review is not a do-over of the WP:RM discussion but is an opportunity to correct errors in the closing process (in the absence of significant new information). Thus, the action specified should be the editor's analysis of whether the close of the discussion was reasonable or unreasonable based on the debate and applicable policy and guidelines. "
- "Providing evidence such as page views, ghits, ngrams, challenging sourcing and naming conventions, etc. to defend a specific title choice is not within the purview of a move review. Evidence should be limited to demonstrating that the RM closer did or did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI in closing the page move discussion. "
- Sources were indeed challenged to object to the original move (I believe taking other people's subjective opinions of whether her being trans was valid is indeed challenging sources). Naming conventions regarding trans people were also ignored for the purpose of this Move Review.
- "Providing evidence such as page views, ghits, ngrams, challenging sourcing and naming conventions, etc. to defend a specific title choice is not within the purview of a move review. Evidence should be limited to demonstrating that the RM closer did or did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI in closing the page move discussion. "
- Building a little for fun: I'll highlight the relevance for you:
- 1) Not notable under Gloria/more notable under Gregory:
- An argument still being used to oppose the move to Gloria.
- 2) We don't know her gender identification/she flip-flopped
- An argument also still being used to oppose the move to Gloria, which also happens to be false (and relies on questioning the validity of her identity based on pathologizing frameworks, discounting her identification, tying respect for her identity to the extent of her transition, and blatantly disregarding the "latest" in "latest self-id")
- 3) Policy-trumps-guideline
- This has been a prominent and become the central question in this discussion and has tied heavily into the history of the page. The other points hinge on assuming we should follow this one. The fact this policy and others say gender guidelines apply is conveniently ignored.
- 1) Not notable under Gloria/more notable under Gregory:
- Building a little for fun: I'll highlight the relevance for you:
- Now, lets look at your original premise for the Move Review:
- "This was a non-admin close (albeit by an experienced editor) that did not seem at all to attempt to determine the consensus of the discussion."
- The decision was split 50-50, what consensus are you referring to? The closer went into explicit detail about why the change was approved based on WP guidelines and noted the current state of consensus. In fact, looking at CONSENSUS: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." That is to say, WP:GENDERID doesn't stop applying just because you say so.
- For funsies, from SUPERVOTE: "It should be noted that consensus discussions (including XfDs and RfCs) are not really polls. For example, if an XfD discussion has more "keeps" than "deletes" but the "deletes" are grounded in policy and the "keeps" are of the WP:ILIKEIT variety (or conversely if the deletes say WP:ITSCRUFT and the "keeps" are grounded in policy), it's not a "supervote" to close in accordance with a significant minority opinion. ... A "non-prejudicial supervote" is when an XfD is closed either against the consensus in the discussion or where there is no clear consensus, though the closer has left a closing rationale that the close is an "editorial decision" and states what the actual consensus is (if there is one)." The moves were based on policy, the keeps were based on very selectively applying policy and ignoring all evidence to the contrary.
- "This was a non-admin close (albeit by an experienced editor) that did not seem at all to attempt to determine the consensus of the discussion."
- Now, lets look at your original premise for the Move Review:
- "The close introduced a lot of new material (such as reference to BLP) that was not in the discussing, making this close a classic example of a supervote."
- Except the relevant guidelines cited heavily linked back and forth with BLP, and the quote from BLP was only a slight variation of what was cited frequently. So, which part exactly was new material? The harms of deadnaming even in death (already raised on the talk page)? The various cited policies and guidelines used in the discussion? This seems like more an excuse to tick off "[Closer] did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI because [explain rationale here] in closing this requested move discussion" than a solid argument.
- "The close introduced a lot of new material (such as reference to BLP) that was not in the discussing, making this close a classic example of a supervote."
- "Finally, the close relies heavily on the dubious claim that MOS:GENDERID (a guideline) trumps WP:COMMONNAME (a policy). "
- So incredibly dubious... It's not as if multiple people have pointed out the inherent flaw in assuming otherwise (completely nullifying MOS:GENDERID). Also not like someone provided extensive citations of WP policy stating look at specific guidelines when applicable and guidelines saying respect trans people.
- "Finally, the close relies heavily on the dubious claim that MOS:GENDERID (a guideline) trumps WP:COMMONNAME (a policy). "
- In short, glass houses, stones. There was more cause for me to raise the history of the talk page and past move requests than there was for you to continue trying to challenge WP policy and guidelines regarding trans people's names. If you have continue to have sincere issues with the policies and guidelines, raise them in the appropriate locations. TheTranarchist (talk) 06:13, 12 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist
Boots theory
Just a heads up, I'm about to approve the draft, but I'm going to rejig it so it talks about the theory first and the index in a section; its notability predates Monroe's index, after all. I was tempted to make the article myself, but that fell by the wayside a little… Sceptre (talk) 22:18, 11 February 2022 (UTC)
- @Sceptre Thanks! Great minds think alike I suppose! Pinging you so you don't miss this one, I missed this message and I'd already added a little to it (added a reception section to contain ONS statements and included info about supermarket responses), I hope that doesn't mess too much with your improvements. TheTranarchist (talk) 22:49, 11 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist
Anarchism
Hi TheTranarchist,
I saw your work on articles related to anarchism and wanted to say hello, as I work in the topic area too. If you haven't already, you might want to watch our noticeboard for Wikipedia's coverage of anarchism, which is a great place to ask questions, collaborate, discuss style/structure precedent, and stay informed about content related to anarchism. Take a look for yourself!
And if you're looking for other juicy places to edit, consider expanding a stub, adopting a cleanup category, or participating in one of our current formal discussions.
Feel free to say hi on my talk page and let me know if these links were helpful (or at least interesting). Hope to see you around. czar 15:37, 13 February 2022 (UTC)
- @Czar Thanks for the warm welcome! I'd already starred it but hadn't taken a good look at the cleanup drive, excited to get involved! TheTranarchist (talk) 21:05, 13 February 2022 (UTC)TheTranarchist
DYK for Boots theory
On 3 April 2022, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Boots theory, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that according to the "boots" theory, poverty is more expensive than being rich? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Boots theory. You are welcome to check how many pageviews the nominated article or articles got while on the front page (here's how, Boots theory), and if they received a combined total of at least 416.7 views per hour (i.e., 5,000 views in 12 hours or 10,000 in 24), the hook may be added to the statistics page. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.