Talk:Jackie Shane

Recent edits

I reverted these edits on the basis that they are unreferenced, and removed text that was referenced. However, they may well be accurate, and if Rbowman13 is prepared to comment here to suggest changes to the article, I'm sure that we can find a compromise on a form of words that is both accurate and supported by references. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:03, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi--I interviewed Jackie for 33 hours. All the information in my edit will be published October 20, 2017 in the liner notes for the Numero Records reissue! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbowman13 (talk • contribs) 16:15, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Your comments raise various policy issues, over biographies of living people, verifiability, and conflict of interest, among others. Wikipedia articles, especially about living people, do need to be accurate, but they also need to be supported by published, reliable sources. I'll raise your concerns at WP:BLP/N, and I'm sure that experienced editors there will contribute to the discussion here so that these issues can be resolved. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:31, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

It's pretty simple: If and when the release occurs, then the edits can be cited to the liner notes and the record company can be cited as the publisher. Until the, @Rbowman13:'s claims cannot be accepted. There is no way to verify @Rbowman13:'s claims until then. "I interviewed her and I know this is true," isn't a valid citation. All citations have to be independently verifiable. Our mandatory policy on biographies of living persons states clearly: All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be supported by an inline citation to a reliable, published source. Contentious material about living persons (or, in some cases, recently deceased) that is unsourced or poorly sourced—whether the material is negative, positive, neutral, or just questionable—should be removed immediately and without waiting for discussion. There isn't any ambiguity here and @Ghmyrtle:'s reversion is fully in compliance with this policy. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 16:45, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

While I generally agree and think that Ghmyrtle was right to revert, are all the changes contentious, questionable, or likely to be challenged? The additions to the background and recording career sections look harmless enough to me, and could be seen as improvements if we assume good faith that Rbowman13 probably is who he says he is. It wouldn't be too problematic to leave them with tags until October, especially as in this case we do have a source that questions the previously given information ("Few facts about Shane have been checked properly") But then again, it wouldn't be a too much of a big deal to hold off until then either.

But while we're here, I do think the lede needs some attention. This part: ...presented at the time as a gay man who usually performed in drag, and has since come out as transgender doesn't appear to be supported by the given source [1] which neither mentions "drag", nor "presenting as a gay man", nor "coming out" as far as I can see. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 17:30, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Jackie never performed in drag and takes great offense to suggestions that she did. That is libelous. I don't want to wait until October 20th when the liner notes are published as articles are already appearing about Jackie as word gets out about the reissue and they are using the incorrect information that is on the Wikipedia page.--Rob Bowman — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbowman13 (talk • contribs) 18:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Rbowman13, I've amended the text to remove mention of "drag". I'm not sure such a claim is actually libelous, however, and you need to be careful here when making quasi-legal threats -- people are often blocked on sight for doing so, it's one of the more strictly enforced rules on Wikipedia. Please read the following link: WP:NLT.

I appreciate that you want the information in her article to be correct, but I'm sure you can understand the reasoning behind not including unpublished material; it would obviously open the floodgates for any old drivel. But if you state here which parts you feel are still inaccurate, we may be able to come to some sort of compromise. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 19:25, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I did not mean to suggest a quasi-legal threat. My apologies. I was just referring to an earlier comment that where living people are concerned, there is a strong desire to avoid statements that are libelous. As to what is incorrect with the article, there are tons of things. She was never a Canadian citizen so the opening statement is simply not true. The single "Money" did not come out in 1962, it came out in 1966, etc.--Rob Bowman — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rbowman13 (talk • contribs) 19:44, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

No apology necessary, Rob. None of us like to see any libelous information in biographies, but on the whole Wikipedia seems to take the issue of editors making legal threats more seriously than the libelous content often found in biographies. Not a good system at all if you ask me, but it is what it is, unfortunately. OK, let's go through one at a time:

• a former American-Canadian soul and rhythm and blues singer

For starters, the text as currently written makes out she was once American-Canadian but it isn't now. I will accept that what you say as there doesn't seem to a decent source making the claim of dual-citizenship, those sites out there that do could well be taken from Wikipedia. Changed. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 19:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

• "Money" did not come out in 1962, it came out in 1966

I can't find a decent source for any date, there does indeed seem to be confusion about it. I gotta shoot now, back later. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 20:06, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Yes, there is confusion - I've seen both 1964 and 1966 quoted. The basis of the existing article (here) was created by Bearcat, who is still active and may be able to help here. Ghmyrtle (talk) 21:05, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

(ec)I've also seen 1962 and that 1964 date given, and I've also seen three different dates for the preceding Stop Records release (ST 103) which really doesn't help. The claim of it being her first single seems to be found only at www.canadianbands.com which I'm not sure is a great source. It seems to hard to untangle without some sort of official record of Stop's releases. For now, perhaps we could add a note that a better source is needed for the claim, and we'll just have to wait it out unless Mr Bowman can point us in the direction of an alternative source for 1966? --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 21:20, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, it's entirely irrelevant whether she was ever a Canadian citizen or not — what matters is that she was a Canadian resident during the entire time that she was doing anything that she would get an encyclopedia article for. And secondly, what you need to understand is that there was no confirmation in any reliable sources that she identifies as transgender until a grand total of less than 90 days ago — before May 19 of this year, not a single source existed to verify that she was a transgender woman, but rather every source that existed at all discussed her as a gay man who performed in drag. So the simple reality is that the context of how her gender gets written about changed just 90 days ago, and as important as it is for us to respect people's gender identities it does not constitute libel for the article to not get instantaneously cleaned up in the space of just two minutes.

There are ways to accommodate her coming out as transgender without entirely misrepresenting the context of how she got notable in the first place — and how she got notable in the first place was predicated on a gay male persona and identity. For starters, the whole thing about the "tell her that I'm gay" line in "Any Other Way" simply doesn't even make sense anymore, if we don't at least acknowledge that she presented and was perceived as a gay man who performed in drag at the time the song came out, and wasn't publicly out as transgender until the 2010s. Being gay is not a reason why a woman would break up with her girlfriend — the line simply doesn't make sense if we don't contextualize it at all. But the cultural reaction to that line is the entire crux of why she's even notable enough to have a Wikipedia article at all, because every piece of reliable source coverage she's ever gotten since was specifically because of that line and the reaction to it — there's simply no basis for an article at all if there's no context for why "tell her that I'm gay" was a shock bomb. Bearcat (talk) 21:34, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how being a resident of Canada for a brief period makes her an American-Canadian. As for the rest, some further editing is required to put everything back in order, I agree, but as the source provided did not use the word "drag" and it seems the term is offensive to the subject, it is surely better to just remove that bit for the time being. I'm sure no-one meant to cause any offence, and as you say, the new sources are only just coming out, but it's best to be cautious, no? I'd rather the article was incomplete, inaccurate and nonsensical than offensive to this wholly innocent subject. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 21:49, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how long she was living in Canada; it matters that she was living in Canada when the thing that makes her notable enough to have a Wikipedia article at all happened. People are not categorized or described solely by their birth nationalities — where the basis for notability occurred counts for at least as much as where they were born does. Bearcat (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow. Being successful while living in Canada surely does not make you Canadian. Would we say that Che Guevara is Argentine-Cuban? or that the winner of the Tour de France is partly French? or that Neil Armstrong is American-Lunan? --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 22:02, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, for what it's worth, the Tour de France isn't a person and la lune isn't a place that people can live in, so they're irrelevant comparisons. And for what it's worth, we do file Che Guevara in both Argentine and Cuban categories. Bearcat (talk) 00:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Gosh, it's really quite simple: Shane is by anyone's standards not an American-Canadian! She is an American citizen, born in the US, and barring a few years in the 1960s, she has lived there all her life. To the best of my knowledge she has never identified as Canadian, nor can I find any reliable source that say as much. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 00:23, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Gosh, it's really quite simple: the be-all and end-all of what makes her notable enough to have a Wikipedia article at all took place in Canada. Which makes Canada essential to her basic notability claim — because without Canada, she wouldn't have an article to argue about at all. We don't describe or categorize Ted Cruz as exclusively Canadian, and not American, just because he was born in Calgary — Texas is the place that's critical to the context of why he has an encyclopedia article at all, and Calgary is entirely irrelevant to it. People are not only categorized as being "from" where they were born — people are categorized as being "from" where they were living when they accomplished the thing that got them an encyclopedia article too. Bearcat (talk) 01:11, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Pure nonsense. Cruz is a naturalized U.S. citizen. Please, could you show me a reliable source that describes Jackie Shane as American-Canadian. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 01:19, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Pure absolute fucking not nonsense. Shane's basic notability claim, her entire eligibility to have an article at all, is completely undetachable from a Toronto-specific cultural context. The question of citizenship is not the sole determinant of what countries we describe or categorize a person as being "from" — I'm neither wrong about how this works on Wikipedia, nor spouting any sort of "nonsense" whatsoever: a person is categorized as "from" where they grew up and "from" where they attained their notability. An American-born actor who lived in Toronto and attained their notability by getting a Canadian Screen Award nomination for a performance in a Canadian-produced film would be considered Canadian for our purposes regardless of whether we could verify that they had taken Canadian citizenship or not, because the context of their notability was dependent on Canadian achievements for Canadian work while resident in Canada. We categorize on WP:DEFINING characteristics, not just citizenship — and Shane is defined entirely by a song that was a hit only in Canada, at a time when she resided in Canada, and the sources discuss her entirely in the specific cultural context of her time in Canada. It matters not a whit whether the sources use the precise construction "American-Canadian" or not — what matters is that the sources all situate her basic notability claim in a specifically and exclusively Canadian context. Bearcat (talk) 02:42, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Wow! I hope you're enjoying all this, Mr Bowman -- welcome to the Wikipedia experience, it's a special kind of crazy and no mistake.

Again, Jackie Shane only lived in Canada for a few years. We have a source, The Globe and Mail, which calls her an American, as well as confirmation from someone who has spent 33 hours interviewing the subject. There seem to be no reliable sources that say otherwise. You, being, an admin an all, surely know that if you want to say she's a Canadian or an American-Canadian we need a reliable source that also says she's a Canadian or an American-Canadian; your seemingly self-invented criteria for establishing a person's nationality will not cut it. --Hillbillyholiday (talk) 03:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

I am inventing no criteria outside of Wikipedia's existing rules at all — you're arguing with a strawman, because I didn't say anything whatsoever about what her nationality was or wasn't. What I said, and was entirely correct about, is that nationality/citizenship is not the only relevant criterion to how we describe or categorize people: if a person resides in Canada and accomplishes a notability claim that is contextually specific to Canada, then they have to be included in Canadian categories regardless of nationality or citizenship status, because the notability claim is dependent on a specifically Canadian context. People are categorized as being "from" where they were born and raised and as "from" where their claim of notability derives: a writer who was born in Cincinnati, but lived in New York when he became notable, is categorized as being "from" both cities. An actor who was born in the United States, but became notable for a Canadian Screen Award nomination received on a Canadian film while he was residing in Canada, is categorized as being "from" both countries. A singer who was born in Korea, but lives in Japan and attained her notability in Japan, is categorized as being "from" both countries. Citizenship is a necessary point of categorization, and I never said otherwise, but "location of the person's notability context" is also a necessary point of categorization. This is how it works, and I neither made anything up nor said anything remotely incorrect about Shane's nationality at all — I didn't say her nationality is Canadian, I said the context of what makes her notable enough to have a Wikipedia article is specific to Canada. And "location of notability context" is a necessary and defining point of categorization and description regardless of whether it corresponds to the person's birth nationality or not. Bearcat (talk) 03:39, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

"Get that kid up here"

Source says "he", not "they", but I wanted to check before editing - is our standard practice something like "he [sic]", or something else? –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:26, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Saphire Tavern

Jackie performed at the Saphire Tavern, not the Sapphire. As evidence I offer the photo at this link: [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by John FitzGerald (talk • contribs) 13:08, August 8, 2018 (UTC)

Date of death

On 22 February, her record company reported her death and in this tweet gave the date of her death as that day, 22 February. That date has been repeated in some other sources, including some that are usually seen as reliable. However, other sources like this and this have published comments from her agent, Douglas McGowan, who said: “I’m devastated to report that our friend and hero Jackie Shane passed away peacefully in her sleep earlier this week...." (my emphasis). Further, in this article, McGowan is quoted as saying that "her body was found at home in Nashville on Thursday [21 February]. He [McGowan] said he did not know when she had died or what the cause had been." Therefore, a death date of 22 February should not be included in the article. Until a death date is confirmed further, and reported, we should simply state February 2019, with no date. Ghmyrtle (talk) 06:12, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

You're entirely correct. Notable people's deaths are not always reported immediately — sometimes it isn't announced to the media for a few days, and sometimes it isn't even clear what day they died on at all because they died alone and their bodies weren't found for a day or two afterward. We ran into the same crap when Leonard Cohen died a couple of years ago: his death wasn't actually publicly announced to the media until three days after it happened, yet the first couple of days after the announcement were marked by a nearly continuous edit war over people trying to reflect him as having died on November 10, the day his death was announced, instead of November 7, the day his death happened.
Jackie did not die on the 22nd, she died on an unconfirmed date before the 22nd and it just wasn't announced until the 22nd. And since people are still trying to change her death date to the 22nd even with this talk page note and a hidden comment inside the article clearly stating that the 22nd is not correct, note that I will apply temporary edit protection to this article if I see one more person change her death date to the 22nd again. Bearcat (talk) 17:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)

The memorial service for Shane gave her date of death as 21 February - here. That should be enough evidence for the article. Ghmyrtle (talk) 09:29, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

It's fine to list that here on the talk page as confirmation, but we can't insert imgur images into the article as sources for content. Bearcat (talk) 16:07, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

That's why I mentioned it here... Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:30, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

@Ghmyrtle: @Bearcat: The 2019 in American music article lists the death as Febuary 22 (but doesn't has a source). If a body was found on Feb. 21, shouldn't the date on that article change to reflect that? Clovermoss (talk) 01:12, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes - I've changed it. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:51, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: History of Sexuality in the U.S.

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2024 and 26 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Scholarlycchistorian (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Scholarlycchistorian (talk) 19:15, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

Mural

I'm wondering if someone can snap a picture of the mural on Yonge Street? I can probably do it myself if no one else offers, but I'm not sure how to get it cleared by Wikimedia. Wellington Bay (talk) 23:46, 7 April 2024 (UTC)