Talk:Pictures for Sad Children/Archives/2021/January

John Campbell never existed in the first place

Hi, this is Merry Graves again. It looks like you guys "won the information war". You used the information "some additional person came in, claimed they were the author" to justify the result "change the name back to John Campbell". I don't have the email address I used for this account, but I am not trying to trick anyone here, or install art. However, I would like to let you know that "John Campbell" is a stage name. Nobody will ever be able to prove that they are actually John Campbell, because John Campbell never existed. There are probably more accurate ways to rewrite this article, if anyone so cared. If you happen to care about article accuracy, please remove the name John Campbell, or state that it is a stage name. Obviously, John Campbell = J.C. = Jesus Christ. I don't need you to remove the article. I have already removed John Campbell. Itsmerrygraves (talk) 00:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

The name could be anything, we will use what the sources cite as the name, which is John Campbell. As it stands, the article is accurate based on the reliable sources present. -- Dane ^talk 00:46, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually, that's fine right now. I just noticed the new version of this article. I would like for pronouns to be corrected to female, or gender neutral ones. Unless you have a verifiable source that John Campbell is male. In fact, if you want to use the Kickstarter updates as a source, I'm pretty sure I explicitly state the opposite. Itsmerrygraves (talk) 02:58, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Verifiability, not truth Elizium23 (talk) 03:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok. This is a link to a "source" that was seen as "verifiable" in a previous version of this article. http://www.webcitation.org/6Nma8K40N Please look over the section emboldened as "You are a damn idiot, what are you going to change Mr. Internet Man" where I state that I am not a man, and then proceed to cut myself off. I am just talking about gender at this point. I hope the connection I am trying to make here makes sense: already known verifiable source -> information about gender -> pronoun change on the article Itsmerrygraves (talk) 03:24, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

These say otherwise. -- Dane ^talk 03:29, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that those articles are also using the incorrect pronouns, yes, but that should not negate the source that I am mentioning. I believe that When reliable sources disagree, such as the above mentioned sources, maintain a neutral point of view and present what the various sources say, giving each side its due weight. But that's just my belief. Itsmerrygraves (talk) 03:50, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I believe that the majority of sources use the male pronouns vs. one source that says otherwise. As such, verifiability guides us to use the pronouns in the majority of the sources. This is my interpretation of the policy. Other editors will likely give feedback and if consensus is to change it then we will change it. -- Dane ^talk 04:04, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. That seems fair enough to me. Itsmerrygraves (talk) 04:32, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Now that I have looked through all of the sources on my own terms, I actually think we have a good reason to use female pronouns, per WP:IDENTITY and the Kill Screen source. We have no reason to believe that Kill Screen and Jacob Weiss are making this up, and they are sure enough themselves to use feminine pronouns. I'm open for critique and bold reverts, though, but at least we have a secondary source for it. ~Mable (chat) 12:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm reverting. Most sources refer to Campbell as "he", and Campbell even says in the New Yorker interview that people call him "white boy". I'm with Dane on this one. By the way, John Campbell is "obviously" a stage name because he has the same initials as Jesus Christ? That's bad news for John Cleese. And Jimmy Carr. Yintan  13:16, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:IDENTITY, or more specifically, WP:GENDERID, states that "Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns ... that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification." If Kill Screen is a reliable source, then surely the editors there have looked into this and decided for us, haven't they? ~Mable (chat) 13:48, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Personally, i'm inclined to go ignore all rules related to that MoS and use the gender term used the most in the reliable sources due to the obvious attempts at manipulating this article (including its very existence). The level of attempted disruption makes me believe we need to scrutinize these changes better and this would definitely fall under an obvious exception reason. -- Dane ^talk 17:34, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm not fond of actively bending the rules in order to punish a person or group rather than to improve encyclopedic content. Remember also that this is a BLP issue, so it can be best to simply ignore the input of involved individuals. That being said, I'm not one to push too strongly against consensus. ~Mable (chat) 21:28, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Again, I'm with Dane. There've been more than enough attempts to manipulate the article (and its editors) so I'll stick with the majority of the sources. So far we don't even know if ANY of the people who claim to be Campbell actually have anything to do with him. It's not about WP:GENDERID, it's about verification. This could all be one big 4chan or Encyclopedia Dramatica game. For example. Furthermore, I'm not so sure we should go by the editors of Kill Screen. Yintan  23:45, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not about punishing. I don't want to be punitive in this. I simply want to ensure the articles integrity is maintained and I feel like using the term present in multiple sources is the best given the specific circumstances surrounding the intention to disrupt this article. -- Dane ^talk 00:09, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry, what? We have verifiable sources stating that this person no longer identifies as male, we have clear rules surrounding this, and you want to ignore the rules on the basis that there could hypothetically be an elaborate conspiracy run by 4chan to sabotage the article? One of them is a primary source. You might as well speculate that the entire webcomic was fabricated to make Wikipedia look silly at this stage.--MerrySofer (talk) 18:58, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@MugaSofer:I was referring to all the new editors showing up here in the space of a week or two, claiming to be John Campbell. If that doesn't smell fishy, I don't know what does. Yintan  12:53, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree that we should discount the people showing up on the talk page, since none of them have provided evidence (except possibly Itsmerrygraves.) But it's a pretty big leap from "people are claiming to be Campbell on the talk page" to "all the sources pointing in a particular direction, some of which go back almost three years, have been faked". I think we should focus on what the sources say, not get distracted by impersonators on the talk page - it's as likely that they were transphobes trying to prevent the change than 4channers trying to cause it (look at "AntiPFSC" up there.)--MugaSofer (talk) 18:49, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

That would be a pretty big leap indeed. It's also not what I was saying, nor implying. Yintan  20:48, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

My apologies, I guess I misunderstood. I thought you were saying we shouldn't trust the sources because of fishy edits on this talk page? Disregard whatever I was saying.--MugaSofer (talk) 02:52, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm STRONGLY with Mable, here. The uttermost purpose of WP:BLP is "the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment" -- and misgendering someone is KNOWN to cause harm to them. In such a situation, calling WP:IAR is callous, dangerous, and also a flat-out misinterpretation of WP:IAR? From the numerous essays linked to in WP:IAR:

• The original formulation of the rule was "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the Wiki, then ignore them and go about your business." -- this is about your relationship with Wikipedia, only secondarily about the ideal content of articles.
• Even granted that, WP:IAR is repeatedly emphasized to NOT be simply mentioned and dropped:

""Ignore all rules" is not in itself a valid answer if someone asks you why you broke a rule. Most of the rules are derived from a lot of thoughtful experience and exist for pretty good reasons; they should therefore only be broken for good reasons." -- Wikipedia:What_"Ignore_all_rules"_means

"Both those who wish to enforce a rule and those who wish to break it should explain why they feel doing so is the best course of action." -- Wikipedia:Understanding_IAR

"Don't use it out of pure laziness. Ideally, read the relevant policies and cite WP:IAR explaining the reasons why, despite the policy also acknowledging that this isn't always possible due to the sheer breadth of policy, guidelines and bureaucracy." -- Wikipedia:Ignoring_all_rules_–_a_beginner's_guide

You've provided absolutely no reasoning for blatantly ignoring a debated and agreed upon part of the MoS, besides "there's controversy here" -- which usually means there should be MORE debate, and probably MORE focus on following the ideals of BLP rather than individual preferences -- and "I usually ignore it", which seems irrelevant at best here.

Again, this sort of fast-and-loose playing with WP:BLP in general -- as well as WP:GENDERID in particular, cf. Chelsea Manning -- is harmful to the subject, of relatively minimal benefit to the article, and honestly, going by how the issue people took over Chelsea Manning's name turned out, harmful to Wikipedia as a project itself.

At the very least, you could have, instead of firmly opposing this on some weird ideological grounds, instead tried to work with her, and suggest ways that she could provide citations to your satisfaction (Which are what, by the way? Hopefully reasonable -- I think the Kill Screen article is certainly enough evidence for a recent change in gender identity, even by strict standards...).

e.g., I don't know if it is possible, but would contacting The New Yorker and asking them to edit the interview mentioning the name-change be enough of a citation?

Again, this is not the main point of the article, and it is vital to WP:BLP to avoid harm. 86.187.22.78 (talk) 19:36, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The issue I take with this decision is that:

• The Kill Screen article appears to be reliable.
• The Wiki community agrees that it’s reliable enough to be a valid citation.
• The existing Wiki rules regarding names and pronouns seem to endorse using that article as a basis for changing the name/pronouns in the Wiki page.
• The reason being given for not abiding by this rule is that there are people on the talk page making bold claims they can’t back up.

Frankly, that last one isn’t actually a good reason, because it doesn’t negate the trustworthiness of the Kill Screen interview. In order for suspension of rules to be worthwhile in this circumstance, you’d need to prove that the people messing with the talk page also damage the trustworthiness of that interview.

No one has demonstrated this. Instead, they’ve endorsed using as the tiebreaker rule on this “whichever gender has more citations”. This is certainly a possible tiebreaker. There are arguments that could be made for it as a general rule.

However, Wikipedia already has a general rule on this issue. To use this as the tiebreaking rule instead, you’d need to argue that it works better than the existing general rule. No one has done that either.

Frankly, this whole talk page is a mess, but I think the correct conclusion is to follow the existing rules, and no one has given a good reason why this particular deviation from such is a good idea.162.245.152.188 (talk) 20:21, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

The problem is we're claiming a WP:BLP issue that may cause harm based on numerous IP users and accounts that have claimed to be John Campbell (or the person behind that name). When the consensus turns against the disruptive IP editors and accounts, we see things like this pop up and get used as a source for the article. While i'd be willing to concede if this were a clear cut gender identity issue (i.e. Chelsea Manning), this is not comparable to that because up until this point, numerous disruptive editors have claimed different things from gender identity to being the author. The Kill Screen article references a self made post...

"Shortly after the post went up, all of the Pictures for Sad Children comics came down off of Campbell’s website."

- however, this is a circular reference to a primary source (the main website for the web comic) that has had it's domain expired between the original publication of the series and the Kill Screen article. There is no verifiable way to ensure that Campbell was in control of the website - and based on how frequently a new website pops up (as stated earlier), I think we need to question that and not blindly change the article without giving it further consideration. The Kill Screen article further says:

"In the complicated details of the post, John expressed a desire for a diminished internet presence and hinted that she didn’t feel comfortable being identified as a man—she would later tell other people in other places that she preferred female pronouns, but this information trickled down slowly into the forums and the comic-loving subcultures of the web. It was hard to know what was true, and what was slander, and what was part of John’s bizarre sense of humor."

The Kill Screen article was completely based on an unverifiable post which could be more of a WP:BLP violation if we change it than if we don't. -- Dane ^talk 23:44, 31 December 2016 (UTC)