User talk:Obiwankenobi/Archive 4

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Water under the bridge

I've replied to your comment here explaining why I keep repeating that point. --RA (✍) 21:28, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk:Chelsea Manning/FAQ

I think "has decided not to move it back" was a gross mispresentation. I assume it was based on Talk:Chelsea Manning#Early close. But what User:BD2412 actually said was "To be very clear, the page was moved back and forth several times, and then move-locked prior to my volunteering to oversee the discussion. That was a decision of another administrator, and one that I do not believe I can address without a consensus..." That's not exactly "chose not to" - if anything, it's more like "felt he was unable to". StAnselm (talk) 09:30, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

He stated elsewhere that it didn't make a difference where the page sat during the move request, so he wasn't going to move it. To me, that sounds like a decision. In any case, I reworded again - we need to actually ANSWER the question in the FAQ, and at least give the reader something to chew on, so they know that (a) this isn't normal, but (b) a decision was made, somewhere, to not mess with it. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:49, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

The two statements are hardly incompatible. I don't believe that it would be appropriate for me to move the page after this back and forth, nor do I think it matters in the long run. Another concern for me is that when this issue came to my attention, dozens of editors had weighed in with !votes of "support" or "oppose" premised on a move from the title of the page as it stood at that time. To move the page to another title after so many had weighed in, and as many others were in the process of weighing in, would have only contributed to this chaos, and would certainly make it impossible for me to credibly address the results of the discussion itself. All that being said, since I have the administrative tools to move a page, it is correct that I "decided not to move it back"; however this decision was for the reasons stated, and was not an endorsement of the propriety of any action made before. Wikipedia has spent years developing processes for such things, and these processes are very well thought out. Trouble erupts when they are ignored, or even followed sloppily. bd2412 T 14:11, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. We should have just asked you and saved ourselves time. Feel free to reword the FAQ accordingly, per the above - if necessary to capture that sense of "the closing admin decided for the following reasons to not move it" or whatever. :) --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:14, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

RfC relating to Vietnamese geo article titles

Since you participated in either the previous RfC or in a recent related RM you may wish to be informed of Talk:Gia Bình District#RfC: Should non-exonym Vietnam geo article titles have Vietnamese alphabet spellings?. Thank you. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:40, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Jimbo and Chelsea

Re your comment "I know Jimbo has argued for a bit of "editorializing" on this, and has proposed IAR in order to keep at Chelsea." — Any chance you could direct me to where I can read his conversation on this? Thanks. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:45, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

here User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Transphobia_on_Wikipedia. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:48, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

Talk back

Hello, Obiwankenobi. You have new messages at CaseyPenk's talk page.
You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Hello, Obiwankenobi. You have new messages at April Arcus's talk page.
Message added 15:53, 25 August 2013 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Manning and MOS:IDENTITY

Hello,

I'm addressing this comment to you because I'm completely lost in the talk page for Manning.

Despite the disagreements, there appears to be consensus that MOS:IDENTITY unambiguously dictates that Chelsea Manning should be addressed as "she/her" etc. I am no experienced Wikipedian, but I don't think that this is the case. MOS:IDENTITY says that the person's wishes are to be granted for any person whose gender might be questioned. Can Chelsea's gender be questioned? Not only is there no evidence against the common perception she's male, but in her own statement she says "I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition." This amounts to an admission that she's a man; otherwise why would she need transition to a new state?

In fact, my opinion is that MOS:IDENTITY says, in the Manning case, the exact opposite of what people say it says. MOS:IDENTITY implies that when a person's gender might not be questioned, that unquestioned gender should be used; and Chelsea's statement implies she's still male. Therefore, MOS:IDENTITY dictates that she should be addressed as "he". Yes, I understand you can oppose this with many arguments, however my point is that the notion that MOS:IDENTITY is unambiguous and clear is plainly wrong.

For what is worth, I have donated to the Bradley Manning Support Network, and when I send her a card to thank her for what she's done, I will call her Chelsea. But a WP article is different.

--Antonis Christofides (talk) 08:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)

Hi - I think it's clear from the talk page that there is confusion, both among editors and the world at large, over what "gender" Manning truly is. (Note: this is different from biological sex). So at least from the POV that developed MOS:IDENTITY, as soon as someone "identifies" with another gender, then they *are* that gender, no matter what their body looks like (and no matter how confused everyone else may be). Not everyone agrees with this interpretation, so there is a discussion happening at MOS:IDENTITY which you are welcome to join. Finally, in frankness we have no idea what her biological sex is - I would guess that she is male, but we don't know the makeup of her chromosomes, and don't know if she was born with ambiguous genitals (see Intersex) - so there are lots of edge cases, and there's not just 100% male and 100% female.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:42, 27 August 2013 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest?

In checking recent changes in my watchlist I found that a editor with ~ 40 edits (half in the last two days) has made 20 edits that added scholarly publications he wrote to the 'Further reading' section in 12 biograpies of authors. The username is the same as the credit for the added publications. Should this be of concern? And, if so, how should it be raised? Neonorange (talk) 18:02, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Just in case you were hoping for a subject less fraught. Neonorange (talk) 18:05, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

The relevant policy is Wikipedia:SELFCITE#Citing_yourself. So, it's really a matter of judgement. I'd suggest dropping a note on the editor's page, reminding them of this policy, and suggesting that he consider proposing the additions on the talk page before adding going forward, to avoid perception of COI. If it's obviously relevant and has been left off, it should be fine, but if a reasonable editor thinks it's excessive, then there may be some promotion going on.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:49, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. I will follow you ideas and let you know how it turns out. (Also thanks for your previous two answers - did not want to add thanks earlier as so much was going on for your you (good work, by the way in striving to bring clarity to doing the right thing for the Chelsa Manning article and subsequent flood of comments.)Neonorange (talk) 19:53, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I feel bad for the closers. No matter what they decide, many people will be upset. I hope it doesn't go to move review, that will be a waste of time. We just need to let them decide, and move on.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:03, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

For many, reading a post three times before hitting the save button might alleviate angst for all: once for 'copy proof', once for 'did I say what I meant', and once for 'should I say what I meant'.Neonorange (talk) 20:52, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Thread at AN

You may be interested in this thread at AN:

• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Manning_incident:_sanctions.2Factions_against_parties.3F

--RA (✍) 09:25, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Seen this? Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case#Chelsea_Manning. --RA (✍) 23:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah. Oy. Well, I guess it was inevitable in a way. Not sure I'd have much to add there, seems like they're leaning to taking it on. I'm stunned though that admins would think that behavior which is derided by dozens of experienced other editors/admins is still OK. I see no apologies or recognition from most involved that they might have made mistakes. We *all* make mistakes!--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:27, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

BRD

Re: [1] Remember, BRD. This is now the D phase.

I don't think BRD quite works like that, young padawan  ;-)

On the other hand I shouldn't tug your beard too much; you're obviously trying to calm folks down at least, right? :-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 01:46, 2 September 2013 (UTC) check edit history on WP:BRD O:-)

Hmm. I guess I'm a bit confused. Is this not the 'D' phase? What am I missing? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:49, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, good answer (and question) :-). Don't get any nightmares over not doing it perfectly this time round, but ...

For one thing, (just to get that out of the way) BRD is a cycle, so people are still free to make a bold edit, after they've discussed ... but ...

Let's assume you've correctly identified that we are currently in a discussion phase of the cycle. Now your action was to revert (undo) a previous edit.

And, well, no matter how you read it, if you have a B->R->D->B->R->D cycle, how do you see a revert action fitting into a 'discussion phase' ? O:-)

--Kim Bruning (talk) 04:13, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

ah, yeah, I see your point. I guess the way I read BRD is, you can re-do the "R" part to get back to the status quo during the discussion, esp if it's ongoing.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:25, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I thought you might ;-) A lot of people do seem to have the same idea you do, so I can't blame you for that.

I do find it frustrating though, because the whole idea of BRD is to stop revert-revert-revert cycles and get people back to bold editing. If your first move is to revert, that's not very conducive to *ending* a revert-revert-revert cycle. :-P

Apart from that, it is usually a good idea to stick to WP:1RR (within sane human limits at least). If you find yourself considering reverting a revert, it's usually a good idea to stop and think to be sure you're really improving the encyclopedia (a minimum requirement for any action, even those that Ignore all other rules) . WP:3RR is just the hard limit, not an entitlement.

As always, rules are not hard and fast, and it's always good and important to think about what you're actually doing. :-)

May the source be with you! --Kim Bruning (talk) 05:10, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources referring to C. or B. Manning

Hi Obi-Wan, I noticed you removed sources citing articles attributed to AP. I'm not sure that is fair, the news organisation publishing the AP story has the option of editing the name to follow their own preferences after all. Also it helps show what reach AP has. --Space simian (talk) 12:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think it was more to list FoxNews in the Bradley camp - see their tv broadcasts to understand why. That one AP story was probably a fluke.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I don't have access to Fox News but I'll take your word for it. --Space simian (talk) 13:14, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Their classy coverage continues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFuAMHYNMf0. They may come around though - I think some of Murdoch's UK properties have switched.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:32, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't doubt it. I think everyone will come around eventually question is how soon, but time will tell. --Space simian (talk) 14:22, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

We need another news cycle. 30 days may not be enough. And some sources may never come around... I think by correctly reflecting societal norms, we do a better job than we would as an advocacy site - so people realize that if they want to change wikipedia, they ultimately have to change the world. it's sobering, but ultimately true. If the advocates went after news agencies, they would have much more success than trying to change it here first. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:32, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that is the unfortunate truth about Wikipedia, it is a mirror of society even when society is wrong. Another news cycle would definitely help make the situation clearer. When looking at sources I noticed even the more conservative organisations saying they will change but not until there is a change of appearance (I suspect they want the image to "match" their expectations so to speak). If Manning goes through with it at some point it will seem silly not to, so I am guessing that (almost) everyone will come around eventually, but it might take a while. --Space simian (talk) 15:35, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that's why WP:NPOV is a core policy though. We are not an advocacy organization, and we shouldn't be at the forefront in trans-rights or indigenous rights or gay rights or men's rights or rights of any other group. For example, the vast majority of sources tell the story of the discovery of America through the eyes of the white europeans, but another story could be told through the eyes of the native americans - but until the sources shift to a different way of describing that history, I don't think wikipedia can try to play a normative role. The issue is, when you do play a normative role, you need an editorial direction, and this we don't have - we don't have editors in chief, we don't have an editorial board, we don't (or shouldn't) have a particular pov we want to promote and another we want to discourage. Trying to build consensus towards neutrality is likely the ONLY way we will be able to present the best facts for our readers. If you want to see what a POV encyclopedia looks like, read this horrible bullshit: [[2]]. The liberal version is just as bad: [[3]]. In a way, the neutral middle ground - even if it's not always as progressive as we'd like, is also not as regressive as others might like. In the case of Manning, you'll notice that the pronouns are correct and the "official" name of Chelsea is in bold at the lede of the article, so we have walked the line carefully and settled on a delicate compromise (and it's possible it will eventually be moved). All of those bemoaning this on twitter and calling this violence and hate speech etc truly don't get that wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy, our best role is as neutral documentor of the world. If we did a thought experiment, if every single sourced refused to call him Chelsea, the twitterites would still call on Wikipedia to rename the article, in the name of "not harming" Manning. It's not our place, however.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:51, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we mostly agree. Personally I believe Wikipedia’s biggest problem is its inefficiency in dealing with POV-pushers. However I think it might be worth questioning if WP:COMMONNAME is always the best policy. Perhaps there is another general and still neutral option that can help minimise future problems more effectively, at least when it comes to dealing with peoples names in article titles? --Space simian (talk) 19:12, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, would have been nice if admins were actually patrolling that discussion and doling out bans on both sides. I would have appreciated the fireworks, and it would have taught people (hopefully) a lesson. Many other internet forums, you make one mistake, and you're insta-banned - and the others shape up. I don't think COMMONNAME is the only solution - I've noted elsewhere that if you don't have at least an order of magnitude difference, it's quite hard to determine COMMONNAME especially for a popular subject. Raw google search hits are useless, and mathematical determination of what name is TRULY most common is quite difficult. The other criteria in WP:AT are pretty good too however, and should be considered.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, but at the same time I understand why they don't, it is not something they would be thanked for and it just risk hurting the political side of their admin careers. It seems like many have been giving this problem a great deal of thought over the years and the best wikipedia has come up with so far is the 'arbitration committee'... --Space simian (talk) 09:16, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

archived page

It's generally not appropriate to edit archived pages. This is not intended to stiffle any discussion -- if you feel the discussion should continue I'll request the page be unarchived and unarchive the link to ANI. NE Ent 03:06, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Um, that page is not/should not be archived - there are ongoing discussions. If Arbcom declines to take the case, the discussion on sanctions will continue. It was not set aside for archiving, it was set aside to centralize discussions on this matter. Please unarchive the page for now, I didn't realize your rename was intended to archive, thanks, --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:10, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Reverts to WP:AT

I really don't understand your reverts to WP:AT. The "problems" bit is clearly confusing -- it doesn't specify what a problem is, leaving it up to anyone to guess. If I think Title X is a problem I can just change it? Apparently so! And just because you've "never seen a major dispute on this point" doesn't mean no one is confused. Policy is not valuable or justified simply because no one has challenged it. I have no idea what "problems" would be and I guarantee you that a number of other editors feel the same way. It doesn't hurt anyone to spell out what we mean; intentional vagueness helps no one.

The part about using common sense explicitly duplicated advice we gave elsewhere. We should not duplicate words when the page is already long and complicated; the policy needs to be concise.

The reason for moving the multiple name bit to the bottom was that the bottom of the section already talked about edge cases, such as where there are no good names for a subject. They are similar cases and it makes sense to group them together.

I explained my reasoning in clear, unambiguous terms but you reverted all my changes, saying you didn't agree or didn't think it was necessary. I would appreciate a more elaborate rationale rather than saying "it's not necessary" to change. Yes, no one is dying because of ambiguities in the policy, but it still needs to be correct.

I would also appreciate if you used the revert function so I could be notified. Thank you. CaseyPenk (talk) 23:11, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

What is revert? I think I usually used undo. Happy to explain the changes - but at the end of the day, you were BOLD, and you got reverted. You should not be surprised at such, esp on a policy like WP:COMMONNAME which is at the center of a massive battle.

1) Problems - I think it's better to leave it vague - we don't need to say "go look on this page, or go look at any number of naming guidelines" - instead, we can just say problems. We already give examples of such problems, such as ambiguity, non-neutrality, vulgarity, pedantic, in the preceding text itself - so a vague wave to look elsewhere doesn't help, and in fact I think it only serves to confuse.

2) Yes, the common sense duplicates advice, but sometimes that helps in the flow, even in a complex policy. Many people don't read the whole top part, and just skip to the bottom to the short sentences. More importantly, it is useful to re-emphasize the point about name changes w.r.t to crystal ball. I'd be happy to add another example of commonsense there too, if you can think of one.

3) The multiple name bit is NOT an edge case - in fact, it is the most common case, it happens ALL THE TIME - and the rest of the section is explicitly discussing what to do if a given name is bad, etc. Almost any time people are looking at commonname in the heat of battle, there are at least two "common" names on the table. So from a flow perspective, multiple names fits perfectly where it was.

I don't think I reverted all of your changes, but I'm not sure - I didn't intend to - I just undid the ones I disagreed with.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:18, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

"Yes, the common sense duplicates advice, but sometimes that helps in the flow, even in a complex policy." That's exactly my rationale for explicitly stating where to find problems. To an experienced editor such as yourself it's obvious where the problems are defined -- but please think about the new editor! Or the editor who's not an expert in policy. For those people, they're scratching their head at what "problems" means. I've been here 7 years and I'm not sure. It's not obvious to me -- do you understand that? CaseyPenk (talk) 23:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

"so a vague wave to look elsewhere doesn't help" -- a vague wave to go nowhere is even worse. The current phrasing doesn't tell the uninformed reader anything -- it is precisely useless. CaseyPenk (talk) 23:22, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

By revert I mean the undo button. You did end up undoing all my changes, each of which I made in good faith. I am hoping you actually considered my rationales before undoing. CaseyPenk (talk) 23:24, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, read this sentence: "Editors should also consider the criteria outlined above. Ambiguous[4] or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources. Neutrality is also considered; our policy on neutral titles, and what neutrality in titles is, follows in the next section. Article titles should be neither vulgar nor pedantic. When there are multiple names for a subject, all of them fairly common, and the most common has problems, it is perfectly reasonable to choose one of the others." In the sentence before "problems", we outline several different problems. That's why moving it is a bad idea. If needed, we could have a footnote, and catalogue all of the potential problems with an article title - but I think the vagueness is there on purpose, to allow WP editors to declare "This is a problem!" - and if consensus if with them, then we chuck the most common name. I didn't mean to undo all of your changes, and in some cases the language was tweaked. But, bold is bold - and I did read your rationale and consider it.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:27, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

So, you expect editors to read the entire top part to learn some potential problems, but you expect them to NOT read the entire top part since they'll skip to the bottom of the section? Either we're user friendly and explicit about saying what we mean, or we're not. CaseyPenk (talk) 23:35, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

If you want to propose a "problems" footnote, or even a "problems" section, I think that's currently under discussion - e.g. under what conditions should we eschew a title which is clearly the most common in favor of another one? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:40, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

That proposal's not going anywhere, in particular because as I look the problems are specified elsewhere on WP:AT. I'm asking for something really simple -- an explicit statement so people know where to look. A much less controversial stance than even defining what the problems are. I don't think policy should be vague when there's a very high chance it will lead to confusion, as I think it does in the case of "problems." CaseyPenk (talk) 23:44, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, we're now at the stage of being on the wrong page for this. I suggest bringing your idea on pointing "problem" to "elsewhere on this page" to WP:AT. I just fear there's too much chaos there now, so it's not the time for fiddly edits. It may be better to focus your work on a potential revision to COMMONNAME and the proposal on the table, rather than fracturing and tweaking many different things at once.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:49, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Two more things. 1) I just want to be clear that I AGF on all of your edits to commonname, and I didn't roll them back in bulk, I looked at them one at a time and had to decrypt the what and why. the moving of that one sentence really confused me and IMHO confused the purpose and placement of that sentence and why it was there - but I see what you were doing, I just happen to disagree. As for the problems, proposing your wording would help. 2) Furthermore, rather than editing a draft in talk-space, I'd suggest creating a new draft policy subpage for WP:AT, where you (and others) can iterate boldly on the language - rather than discussing - to get to something more agreed upon - that way when people make edits, they aren't editing the policy, they are editing a new draft policy, and everyone feels free to contribute and edits don't have to be reverted immediately b/c they aren't yet policy.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:03, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Article titles/COMMONNAME sandbox

Thanks for the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Article titles/COMMONNAME sandbox. The wording is clear and the bullet points reflect some common concerns. I am concerned about some of the examples, though. Many of the proposed names seem to go against COMMONNAME because they are not in fact very common. From the article on Ivory Coast, it sounds like Côte d'Ivoire is a very very niche name in RS. The media doesn't really refer to Cat Stevens using any other name. And I've never seen or heard the phrasing "Sḵwx̱wú7mesh" used in reliable sources.. CaseyPenk (talk) 21:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, thanks for transcluding (I think that's what it is) the sandbox. People notoriously don't like to click to a new page, they want everything right there (hence infinity scroll and massive pages on the web =P). CaseyPenk (talk) 21:46, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Casey. Cote d'Ivoire is not niche at all - if you look at the big move discussion, there are thousands of uses of the term. [4]. Yusuf Islam (http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/11/13/idINIndia-43927520091113) (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-10-03-yusuf-islam-main_x.htm) is also used. And Sḵwx̱wú7mesh is used in RS, many of them are offline though. If you can think of a better example, please replace it - I just there was an editor who was super fired up about the fact that Squamish is insulting and disliked by them, but we could probably find an example that is closer.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:02, 5 September 2013 (UTC)

This is a separate topic but I'll keep it in this section for brevity. Do you know all the different pages (or at least many of them) affected by the Manning dispute? So far I can think of WP:AT, MOS:IDENTITY, Template:MOS-TW, Chelsea Manning gender identity media coverage, gender identity disorder, Talk:Jimbo Wales, and WP:ARBCOM. Surely there are others. CaseyPenk (talk) 05:40, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

There have been several ANI threads, gendergap, oodles of talk pages. Classic forest fire.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:02, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Barnstar!

		The Tireless Contributor Barnstar
		For your work on getting people's opinions and putting them into proposals on Wikipedia talk:Article titles, it takes time to do this and helps the community on this heated issue. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:25, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Concur on this one. Fabulous work in organizing different thoughts and responding to comments with meaningful insights. You have a sharp wit and keen observations. CaseyPenk (talk) 05:38, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both kindly. I think if all goes as I think it will, this will be an interesting story to tell - Wikipedia DID move the name, but only after the bulk of sources did. So, ultimately, we did what our policy says we should. It could potentially be a useful learning moment - even if it has been framed in the media as "stupid wikipedia". We just need to find an example from the opposite side to help people understand why we have these processes - some issue where right-wing conservatives would like nothing more than to move X to Y, but liberals oppose because of COMMONNAME. And we may, if lucky, get changes to COMMONNAME that rationalize and break the dominance of COMMONNAME to allow a slightly less commonname. But frankly I'm not that hopeful - but still worth a shot.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:34, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Close of delay request

WP:SNOW is the essay. And how "support" side is not convincing enough, even when majority oppose the delay? If reverting closure is not possible, should I propose a delay again in the next few weeks? --George Ho (talk) 00:21, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I was bold, so if you really think there's a chance it will pass, you can revert, but it's possible someone else will agree with my conclusion. I'd suggest we let sleeping dogs lie - let the RM happen on sep 30, and see what happens.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:32, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Latest sock

added to SPI. Cheers. In ictu oculi (talk) 01:34, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Your draft discussion guidelines at Talk:Bradley Manning/October 2013 move request

Thanks for the draft guidelines you wrote up -- I think they're a great start. But I wanted to point out that in light of this edit by someone else, your words "I'll take a stab below" have become confusing, and should be replaced with "I'll take a stab above" or maybe even "I've taken a stab above". —Steve Summit (talk) 22:00, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

thx - fixed.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 02:04, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Evidence phase open - Manning naming dispute

Dear Obiwankenobi.

This is just a quick courtesy notice. You recently offered a statement in a request for arbitration. The Arbitration Committee has accepted that request for arbitration and an arbitration case has been opened at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Evidence. Please add your evidence by September 19, 2013, which is when the evidence phase closes. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration. For the Arbitration Committee, Seddon ^talk 23:41, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Bradley Manning

While I agree with you that the infobox should have a header I still think feelings are still high and tense on the issue, I don't think there is any harm waiting for after the 2nd move or the arbcom decision to change. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:15, 9 September 2013 (UTC)--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. Its a bit bizarre though - what is the problem with "Chelsea Manning (previously Bradley)" - that was there for a while I think. And I have no idea why SV deleted the birth_name.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:21, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

The phrase "Chelsea Manning (previously Bradley)" was there for a bit, the problem is that people complained and it was removed. I agree on the birth name but the inbox will get a header it is a matter of when. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:35, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, then you can try to add the birthname back at least as a start. Its just odd that it's not there, esp in a case like this one. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:37, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Done =) Thanks for your understanding. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Kristin Beck's military awards

Can you talk with Kristin and ask her to list her military awards? I tried to add them from her ("his") military picture but some are difficult to identify due to similarities with other ribbons and their colors. —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 17:05, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Removal of edit war template

I placed an edit war template on a user's page but that user removed said template in this diff. Any advice? CaseyPenk (talk) 22:33, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

he has been warned, no further action needed. If he continues to revert consensus material you can report him for edit warring but I really think we should focus on discussion. He stated clearly that use of the male pronoun is equivalent to sexual harassment, so his new preferred language would sanction reporting any user who used such pronouns to ANI which will just create a battleground atmosphere, whereas the existing language is in line with WP:NPA and has had several edits besides mine from eds on both sides of the discussion. I really don't think he should be editing that particular guideline at all.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:46, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm away from my computer but consider moving the guidelines to a subpage. They're making the move request page a mess and difficult to follow. CaseyPenk (talk) 23:14, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

CfD

Hey, Obi-Wan Kenobi, I've been busy, busy, busy working on creating male actor categories (going back to the 16th century) to go along with all of the many, many actresses categories that some very industrious person created. Seriously, if there is a female actress in any country in the world, there is an actress category for that country!
But along the way, while I was making what I thought were uncontroversial gender categories, I created some ethnicity-based categories since ones already existed (American with Chinese descent, Puerto Rican, Jewish American, African-American, Hispanic and Latino American, Native American, etc.). I could see that some of the categories had been deleted years ago (like 2008) but I was unaware of the entire recent conversation surrounding this topic. So some, but not all, of these ethnic categories are proposed for deletion (see CfD for September 11). I don't know why all of them weren't proposed for deletion because it's the same argument for them all whether it's Americans actors with Chinese descent or African-American actors.
I've seen you be active in CfD and frankly, I don't know what your take will be (Delete, Merge, Keep) but I'd like a wide range of voices weighing in so these decisions are based on more of the opinions of 3 or 4 CfD regulars.
I have a gut feeling you will agree with the nomination and if that is the "winning" side, I guess all of the "occupation and ethnicity" categories should probably be purged including the large "Jewish people by occupation" parent category, too. Consistency is the watchword, right? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:51, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I will take a look. Consistency is a goal but only through eventualism... eg the wiki will eventually be consistent...--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

@Liz:I saw the discussions they seem to be trending to keep. I don't have strong views on this, I do see JPL's point that division by nationality may not be that useful and it could easily be done with cat intersects anyway. Please go to my homepage and follow the instructions for category intersection prototype at the bottom (you have to add some JavaScript link to a file and refresh your browser) then play with the prototype and let me know your thoughts. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:24, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I think that is often the issue with Categories, there are a variety of ways to interpret the guidelines PLUS I think we have to also consider how Readers use categories, not only how we think they should be used. I'm still working on understanding your category intersection tool (I've visited the page several times) but I'll give it a try. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 16:06, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

ok - let me know if something confuses you - I can explain further.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:27, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Why shouldn't people discuss problems with a given source in advance?

I don't think anyone was advising removal of the source, just noting that it is openly anti-trans, and uses transphobic slurs. Ananiujitha (talk) 02:56, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

that may be the case and i suggest making that point during the discussion but if we start disccussing now the political leanings of all of the sources it will distract us from the work which is to clearly note which term they are using.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:00, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

CfD Notifications

Hello, Obi-Wan Kenobi,
Another question! I was double-checking categories nominated for deletion, renames and mergers and finding in only a few cases were the category creators being notified of the discussion at CfD. Is this an optional step? I found this step being skipped both by newbies and regulars. It's always done at AfD so I'm surprised not to see it a mandatory part of the process at CfD. It really only takes an extra minute to do a notification and I hope it's not being left undone in order to bypass comments from those who might have an opinion on proposals. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:55, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

i always use twinkle which does this automatically. That said for some reason i think it's technically optional. I'd support making it required, or even better having a bot do it, but there are complications doing that - esp with mass noms. I'd suggest watching the cats you care about...

I think always posting notices would prevent a lot of problems that occur in Deletion Review where Editors say they were never notified about the deletion, renaming or merging discussions. What I'm seeing is that there are at least a good dozen Editors who always post a notification with every proposal, they see it as an essential step in the process. Others (some new Editors, some regulars) just either aren't aware of this step or they skip it. I want to AGF but I think it might at times be done to reduce the number of conflicting voices heard in a deletion discussion.

This was a recent problem when there were a lot of award and honors categories that were proposed for deletion but the Wikipedia:WikiProject Orders, Decorations, and Medals group wasn't aware this was going on. While group members might have raised objections, they also could offer a perspective on why some orders were important while others were less important and could reasonably be eliminated.

I'm thinking that the way to go would be to post a RfC on the main CfD Talk Page and invite Editors to comment on whether this notification step should be optional or mandatory (like with AfD). Does this sound like a promising way to approach this? I'm still a little wet-behind-the-ears when it comes to initiating processes like these. Thanks for your support, by the way! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

First read all of the relevant policy pages, and the previous discussions. Is notification *necessary* for AFD? Who does it? A bot? Could a bot do notification for CfD? Do some research into the whys of the issue first - talk to GoF and BrownHairedGirl they may have input for you too.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 19:16, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Such good advice, Obi. I've talked to BrownHairedGirl who thinks notifications are a good idea (although she thinks they can be skipped for mass deletions) and she says that such a proposal has been made before but there wasn't a consensus for it. By GoF, do you mean, Good Olfactory?

I want to move forward since I have the momentum but I don't want to blow it by being disorganized. I did a search for "CfD" on the Help pages to see if this issue came up and discovered some users have a very negative view of the CfD process. But no previous discussions on mandatory notices...any idea where this would be? I also thought that rather than the CfD Talk Page, maybe I should post this at the Village Pump Policy page as that gets a lot of visitors. I don't want to bypass CfD regulars but I think it's also important to hear from people outside the process.

As for AfD and SD, I think notices are mandatory because when I didn't do it in both cases (due to inexperience and doing a bad job reading instructions), I immediately got notices on my Talk Page from Admins and Editors about my failure to contact the article creators. I understand that people who invest the time to create an article probably have more stake in a AfD than someone who creates a category, but WikiProjects often map out organizations of relevant categories that folks at CfD might be completely unaware of. For example, maybe the WikiProject on Actors and Directors should have been notified when the whole actors/actresses/male actors discussion was going on. Just one possible example.

I appreciate your candor and openness to new ideas. It's much appreciated! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 20:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

You may wanna read this: Wikipedia_talk:Categories_for_discussion/Archive_2012#Add_requirement_that_category_creators_be_notified. Tried in 2011, and failed. Ultimately, I'd start a quick poll at CFD talk page to see if you get interest; if there is interest, then you can start an RFC on the subject. Apparently projects can add category pages to project-level watch lists, so forced-notification of "relevant" projects is not enforced; in addition projects don't always bother to label a given category as "theirs".--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 20:56, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Hopwood

You might want to consider giving Hopwood some time to decompress. I don't think you will ever change their mind, and your efforts are better suited at the discussions you have been sheparding. Unless you are getting something out of it that is. Just my observations. Thanks. Two kinds of pork (talk) 03:40, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

fair enough and a good recommendation. thanks. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

ANI-notice

Hello. There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Mark Arsten (talk) 02:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

RFAR:Manning naming dispute - Formally added as party

The drafting arbitrators have requested that you be formally added as a party to the Manning naming dispute case. Evidence that you wish the arbitrators to consider should be added to the evidence subpage, at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Evidence. You can also contribute to the case workshop subpage, Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Manning naming dispute/Workshop. For a guide to the arbitration process, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Guide to arbitration.

For the Arbitration Committee,

--Guerillero | My Talk 03:43, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

WP:VPIL#Talk:Bradley Manning/October 2013 move request

I need your help on incubating a proposal on the upcoming move. Your comments are welcome there. --George Ho (talk) 03:28, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

On process

Hi, I'd like to push my tangent from the village pump here, because I don't think it is relevant enough for a general forum like idea lab. The thing that I'm vehemently opposing is that a move discussion started at requested moves is generally more valid than one without it being listed. Red tape tends to work on me as a red sheet on a bull. There is too much thinking that things need to conform to policy and procedures for something to be done. Or that discussions need !votes to have a valid outcome. I try to fight such reasoning wherever I can. That said, this move discussion is probably the highest profile move discussion we had in a while, and at least some form of formalism is in place. The guidance not to start a new discussion however is misleading in that it seems to imply that without it being listed at requested moves, it wouldn't be a valid move discussion, or it couldn't have an outcome to move. My insistence to stress that too much is probably not the best for this specific situation though, which is riddles with enough problems as it is. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:23, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

In the general case,you're right - a group of eds can come together at a page, have a nice chit chat, and agree to just move a page to X without need for a formal RM. But when a move is contested - and especially HEAVILY contested, the policy is we DO have a formal RM, and in this case, nothing less will suffice. The formalism, while decorative, does help ease everyone's mind that "proper policy" is being followed (which was a big bone of contention in the last move discussion). But it's guaranteed that an ad-hoc move discussion, of which I've shut down probably 5 in the past few weeks, will not lead anywhere - everyone will say "Make a formal RM" - otherwise people won't accept the results.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:27, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

That Reich Move

Sorry to be blunt, but that scored an 11/10 for insensitivity. I get the common-name policy, and I get that you support it, but you have a choice as to how you spend your time. Why would you spontaneously decide to take a previously stable article and see if you can push trans people just a little bit further back, dent their legitimacy just a little bit more? They already take a daily drubbing from the press, their peers and society at large; your help really isn't needed. I really hope your intent wasn't as malign as it looked here. Chris Smowton (talk) 00:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

There was already discussion on the talk page that a) the pronouns didn't make sense (though I'm not taking that up now) and b) that the title was wrong. I came across it haphazardly, and was confused as to who this person was - then when I started looking for sources I was amazed to find that the recent sources did not use or even mention the new name - I couldn't find any sources post 2010 that used the new name. As such, I felt that it was simply a bad title for the article, is likely to confuse the reader more than help, and moving back to the old title reflects better what the sources are doing. My intent was not malign, and I actually believe the attempt of some trans* advocates to impose a special set of rules just for trans* name changes is not neutral and has no place here. I really think a *really* big step would be a shift in perspective, and to see if they might recognize that the title of an article does not reflect the "legitimacy" of a new identity, unless we also accept that Ivory Coast is a slur on the whole nation of Cote d'Ivoire, and all titles going forward should always be at the subjects most up-to-date preference. I don't see the wiki going that way. I'm participating in a discussion at WP:AT to change the rules slightly which would make a move like Manning's possible, and would also address many other "injustices" in current titles where we don't take people's preferences into account, but even if we changed the policy per the discussions on the table, this particular one (and probably Wolfgang_Schmidt_(serial_killer) should be at the old name IMO, simply for reasons of notability and commonname.) In any case, I don't think there's anything wrong with proposing a name change - people have been trying to change Hillary Clinton's name for years, same with Cat Stevens, or many many others. Cheers,--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:40, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

"...to see if they might recognize that the title of an article does not reflect the "legitimacy" of a new identity..." -- they wouldn't, because it does. Every move like this, to derecognise, to push their old ID forwards at the expense of the new, is another paper cut for people that really don't need it. You are in the unusual position that you know Wiki policy in and out, so you see a title change and think "aha, commonname got applied, without bearing on the subject's true identity." Onlookers without that position will note that Wiki put another trans person "back in the closet," to borrow the Signpost's language. The alleged benefits of this move are very thin -- given redirects already existed, readers are in the same position as they always were; as a result you're trading a tenuous benefit for a very real kicking to the subject and your trans readers. Chris Smowton (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

(Broke long comment up to respond more easily, hope you don't mind:)

Well, I disagree - I don't think a title is intended to make ANY claim about the "legitimate" or "true" or "actual" or "real" name of a biography, and we have thousands of examples where the title is exactly none of those things.

We're talking past each other. I know WP titles aren't intended to make claims, I'm saying they are read as such regardless, and that is the root of the harm caused by moves like this.

The alternative to the current situation is, every time a trans* person (or, really, anyone or anything) announces a new name change, we change the title of the article immediately, irregardless of sources. That is being proposed right now at WP:AT. I estimate the chances that passes to be around 0, because it would cap commonname at the knees.

No, you're describing the most extreme position. If you scratch the "really, anyone or anything" clause then you have at worst a very small problem. There aren't many trans people, and "spuriously" coming out of trans is practically unthinkable. I'm familiar with your list of other things you think would have to be self-named for consistency (from the discussion at WP:AT): religious converts, the Ivory Coast and so on; there may well be merit in some of those other classes, I really don't have enough experience to say. But why single out trans people as a special case? Simple: if you say "Ivory Coast," at worst a resident of the Cote d'Ivoire is going to be angry that you were a dick and used the wrong name. If you push trans "old" identities, especially trying to get them more exposure at their expense of their new identity in a publically visible place like this, you join in the day-to-day rejections of their own identities and the identities of their comrades which is the bread and butter of being trans. That stack of small aggressions, often from indifference more than malice, ends disturbingly often in depression, and suicide. That cannot be said of residents of the Cote d'Ivoire. That is why they really don't need this treatment.

If you really believe that is better for the wiki, go to WP:AT and !vote for it and try to bring people around.

Have, did. I like proposal 6, personally: it's a little short of teeth, but it's a definite improvement.

But first answer me this: how many articles have been written about John Mark Karr and the fact that every major news source still refers to him as such? If this was *really* an issue with the trans* community, why aren't they writing letters to CNN and other media to tell them "accept her new name you transphobic bigots" - but they're not, and they probably won't.

The appropriate campaigning group doing exactly this is probably TMW [5].

In fact, as of now, Wikipedia is the *only* source I can find that refers to her as Alexis. That's a pretty bad reliance on WP:RS. Listen, Prince changed his name, but the media didn't buy it, so he eventually went back to his old name. Lisa Bonet changed her name, but we didn't change her article. David Berkowitz wants to be called Son of Hope, but the media doesn't care, and thus, neither do we. And don't get me started on all of the indigenous tribes who are shackled to colonial names. I'm sorry, but the earlier people accept this rather than railing about it, the better things will go - and if you DONT like the way it is now, then fix the damn policy!

Agreed. See above re: relative urgency of different classes of misidentification, but fixing the policy is a very good idea, and I'll continue to check back in with the WP:AT discussion. Seems to have stalled somewhat at the moment, regrettably.

I'm trying, but am meeting opposition, so need help. Wikipedia is based on sources, and if those sources have a systemic bias, we will likely reflect that bias to the extent we don't have good mechanisms to correct it. All of these "onlookers" who supposedly give a fuck about wikipedia article titles should show up and do some work, rather than complaining - I'm sorry but I have no patience for them just standing there throwing rocks.

I'd like to encourage like-minded friends to help out, but I got the impression "recruiting" like that was frowned upon?

If they want to fight a POV battle about TG-rights they are welcome to and I will join them, but they should do it with the media - our sources - not here. This is not a SOAPBOX. If you aren't equally concerned and equally fighting for subjects *other* than trans* people then I have a lot of trouble buying your white knight position here.

Personally I think both avenues are worth exploring -- convincing the media to be well behaved will make even a reluctant WP behave, but in the meantime as you point out with the "fix the policy" argument, there is scope for WP to take an editorial decision to reduce harm. As to equal concerns, big surprise, some injustices cut closer to the bone for me than others. I'll focus my efforts where I see the greatest harm and have the most expertise. That white knight remark though? Just rude.

People have epic wiki battles all the time which have little "tenuous" benefit (although, in all honesty, I do think given the state of current sourcing this title is just simply wrong for this article) - but they happen anyway.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

(this indent level: Chris Smowton (talk) 09:34, 17 September 2013 (UTC))

struck incivility. Chris I understand where you're coming from but I think we need to balance the needs of our users with those of our subjects, and we have to somehow be driven by sources otherwise we risk losing our (hoped for) neutrality. Yes Wikipedia can adopt an editorial policy to treat trans* people differently than everyone else, but I'm not yet convinced this is a good idea - lots of people and things change their names all the time for lots of different reasons, and we can't just say 'well, trans* have higher rates of suicide, therefore they are *more* harmed than everyone else - because I could say, well, Native American tribes and indigenous people the world over have been massacred in the thousands had their land stolen and had their culture destroyed, and giving them a colonial title is just a reminder if centuries of oppression of not only them but their ancestors...- so don't *they* deserve special protection from biased media sources? We need to tackle this all at once rather than piecemeal, and work together not separately - but we also need to be more balanced and accept that not every trans* person who changes their name will necessarily get a new article title, in the same way that anyone /anything else who changes their name isnt guaranteed a new article title. So many of the oppose arguments for Karr are saying 'doesn't she have the right to choose her name?' And my response is 'of course' - but Wikipedia has the right to choose the best article title for our readers - and they aren't always the same thing. People taking up this battle keep on ignoring that crucial point. We might as well say 'don't BLPs have the right to decide what parts of their part are displayed here? Don't BLP subjects have the right to remove (sourced, true) material that hurts them? But that's not where consensus lies. -Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 12:56, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for striking. For my part I apologise for leaping in guns blazing rather; I wrote my initial post whilst still angry, which is always a sign that a cup of tea is in order before typing.

Your point about piecemeal policy vs. monolithic policy is well taken, but we've been over that ground before at WP:AT. On BLP subjects though you draw a false equivalence: getting to choose your primary name doesn't erase factual content because the verifiable facts, "this person was known as X at time Y and Z at time W," remain. By contrast your example about removing hurtful material crosses the line into much more substantial things such as deleting mention of a criminal conviction. Where do we draw the line between stylistic choices and factual manipulations? It's not easy in the general case, but I'm surprised we can't agree that picking your primary name whilst retaining mention of the old one isn't on the correct side of that line.

A specific question: supposing tomorrow, through a mix of skilful debating and a couple of choice assassinations, I manage to get one of these piecemeal policies passed, and it says simply where reliable sources indicate that a person has publically declared a new identity and expressed a desire that their old identity should not be used, their new identity shall determine the title of any biographical article about that person and be used when making direct present-tense reference to the subject. Their old identity may still be referred to and used to name redirects or disambiguation pages pertaining to the subject. Obviously that wording could use some polish, but my point is: what exactly are the negative consequences you forsee, and what would need to be done to forestall them? Bear in mind that "we'd have to move the Ivory Coast" doesn't apply here, because this is a piecemeal policy.

Finally, I don't know if you've noticed Daria responded angrily to this move and Knowledgekid and Pork have reported her to ANI; I'd strongly appreciate it if you could pour a little oil on troubled waters there. Chris Smowton (talk) 23:27, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Tensions are running high, so I'm sorry if I was uncivil before. As to your points:

1) "getting to choose your primary name doesn't erase factual content" - but the title of the article is not just content, it is NAVIGATION,

Just to be clear, you realise I'm not advocating deleting redirects, right? We would simply flip the article/redirect position.

and more importantly, it is used as the primary key in wikiworld for this topic, and the selection of such title is determined by a very special set of rules at WP:AT. Thus, by saying "(only) a BLP gets to choose their article title", no matter what sources say, we are basically saying "Screw the users" - on one of the most popular sites on the internet - all to avoid possibly hurting their feelings?

I'd call that very mild screwing, and in certain cases like this one hurting their feelings extends to a whole community and can have quite some magnitude, so yes I'd weigh the latter heavier than the former.

And remember, if we go a pure commonname route, we aren't hurting their feelings any more than any of the other sources we rely upon for every other fact of their lives. So it doesn't make sense to say "Well, NY times says X is a murderer, let's put that in, but if NY Times says X is best known as Z, ZOMG we can't have that, we may hurt their feelings if Z is in 24 point bold font at the top of the screen, so let's put it in 12 point bold font in the first line - that should be fine!" It's not consistent. Either we trust our sources, or we don't.

True, but this is an argument that the policy might be aesthetically displeasing rather than a negative consequence of that policy. Saying "not all facts are alike" makes our job more complicated, but it isn't an inherently wrong action.

If they don't care about hurting someone's feelings, then we should not either. This may be callous, but it's also somewhat true.

It is callous. Too callous when we have the option to be respectful with minimal consequences (for which, see below).

2) Ok, let's take your example - suppose that passes, WP:AT is updated. Immediately, hundreds or even thousands of articles would move from a commonly known name, to one that is completely NOT commonly known. This would be a massive net NEGATIVE for our users - that's the biggest negative consequence.

Please expand on this -- the only negative for the users you've mentioned is NAVIGATION above, but surely redirects ameliorate the inconvenience to the point of non-existence.

In addition, it would move article titling away from being something that is carefully decided by consensus, to something decided by fiat - If person X says their preferred name is Y, we must move the article, no questions asked, do not pass go, and there is no appeal. WP:AT isn't like that - it is more flexible, it gives direction, but doesn't give orders.

This is true, but again doesn't present an argument against permitting people to determine their primary key, it just uses negative-sounding language to accurately describe the proposal.

For example, take Nikki Minaj - she has an alter ego named Roman, and she stated in 2012 she had changed her name and would only respond to Roman: [6]. Now, you might say, that's just a celebrity being silly, twitter isn't a reliable source (weak excuse), but how the f*** do we know? How are we supposed to judge?

Quite so. If the price for the trans articles being in a respectful place is Nikki Minaj's article being in a somewhat silly place (but with redirects, and first-line-of-body explanation), is that so utterly terrible? If your concern is that users won't see a big enough "Nikki Minaj" when they land on her page btw, feel free to bang up the point size on a "formerly Nikki Minaj" subtitle, equalling the title size if you like. To address this specific case though, if we required an unambiguous declaration of identity change this tweet alone probably wouldn't quite cut it because it's a sufficiently informal communication mechanism that the tone is ambiguous, and a formal query is probably in order to check if she's serious. If she answered in the affirmative, then take it at face value.

These sort of things happen *all* the time - not just with celebrities, but with well known people of all stripes. They get married, they get divorced, they change their first name (but are they still using the old one for "professional" purposes? Or did their agent force them to continue using their old name for professional purposes?).

Note my proposed language wouldn't require us to make that determination, since it goes by a public repudiation of the old identity as well as adopting a new one, not whether we think they like the name they're using. People do not usually repudiate when they get married, or take stage names. Divorced people probably do repudiate, so we probably would be obliged to follow their wishes.

World famous Madonna wanted to be renamed Esther at one point [7], but the world didn't really comply - but your policy would have us moving her article the minute she makes the announcement, confusing the fuck out of readers.

If she went before the world and said "I am no longer Madonna"? Sure, why not. Our job would be very simple if we didn't have to make a value judgement about whether that was a "real" renaming, the users can be de-confused with redirects and prominent subtitling, and we ensure respect to cases where it's a very serious matter, which for all we know includes this one. If the name doesn't stick, the article will end up back at Madonna. And you know how? Because she'll declare herself back at Madonna, quite possibly because her Wiki page is in the "wrong" place.

Think of what we'd do to P. Diddy's name - he was Swag, but only for a week - but it was verifiable in WP:RS. Can you imagine the discussions? "Ok, I just moved article Z to Y and move-protected per BLP because I just read on twitter than Z wants to be referred henceforth as Y" - then in the next hour, tens of thousands of readers are like "WTF??". So we confuse the shit out of potentially thousands of readers, all for the benefit of ... possibly not hurting the feelings of a BLP, that we didn't respect their new name change soon enough? What happens if no media ever respects it, and we are the only source in the known universe that calls them this? That's just wrong.

Confusion has been addressed a few times, but on that last point: if we're the only source to use their declared name, what's the problem exactly? People might think we're silly? Right now people look at our naming policy and think we're crashingly insensitive, and our response would be identical -- point to policy. People say "pfffft, Swag? Really?" then we simply note policy says last-declared-name; want it changed, persuade him to change back. Exactly mirroring how now people say "Bradley? Really?" and we note that policy says most-frequently-used-name; what it changed, persuade the Washington Times to wind their neck in.

We simply aren't in a position to make this editorial judgement - I mentioned elsewhere that Steven New clearly stated a desire to be called Stella Nova before his death, but one of the trans* advocates was questioning whether he was 'just' a cross-dresser or was he 'really' committed to this new name; indeed, it seems his closest collaborator called him Stella but still 'him'. So, he's maybe not fully a trans* woman, does that mean his preferences now don't mean anything? His friends and family feted him with eulogies, calling him Steve. So what the f* are we supposed to call him?

This case is exactly like the Esther one: absent a very good reason, take their word at face value. No editorial judgement required, only assessment of the facts: was an unambiguous declaration made? The underlying position -- yield to chosen name -- is an editorial position, but its enforcement is very simple and requires only objective measurement of the facts, much like...

Ultimately, we just don't have the editorial chops to make a decision on what to call someone, which is why commonname - which is a more or less objective standard, especially in certain cases where there's a clear front-runner like John Mark Karr is so powerful and somewhat wise - because it means article titles, which are so contentious for wikipedians, nonetheless have a WP:NPOV reasoning behind them. Like we do with all other content issues, we put faith in our sources to guide us, and to help us decide what is due/undue. We don't have an editorial board, we don't have a weighing machine that can decide these matters, all we have is NPOV, RS, and CONSENSUS. I used to not appreciate COMMONNAME and it annoyed me greatly when Cote d'Ivoire was moved, but I'm beginning to see the reasoning behind it.

Finally, this obsessiveness with BLP is ridiculous; I think we should chuck most of it and say "We respect humans at wikipedia, no matter where or how we talk about them, and whether they are alive or dead". I also strongly disagree that there is some difference between the title of a BLP and the title of an indigenous tribe with 100 living members - are we really so abstract that we think a BLP title might hurt someone, but the title of an indigenous tribe (one given to them by their oppressors) would not? If you don't believe me, read this: [8], which is all about "self-determination" - especially this line: "22. Urge governments to acknowledge and respect indigenous peoples’ right of self-determination, including their right of self-identification, in the manner that the indigenous peoples have chosen to exercise these rights". We should not go around saving the day just for trans* people when so many others suffer the same consequences - instead you should join forces and make a single solid change. It's fine to put a bit finer point on special protections for BLPs around removing contentious and unsourced material, but saying that just because the article isn't about a person doesn't mean a no-one will have their feelings hurt is ridiculous. I quoted somewhere this guy at Talk:Kiev who was deeply and personally harmed by seeing his Ukrainian city at a Russian title.

Sure enough, but we're back to the monolithic policy / piecemeal policy thing again. I am absolutely sure that there are other categories where we could lay down concrete rules that strictly reduce received dickery compared to our current situation, where probably the strongest of your examples is tribes and colonial naming. However the situation differs in important ways, most significantly how do we determine their collective will, and that is why I think each special case should be delimited and defined independently: it minimises unintended consequences.

All of the above is why I've proposed a modulation to COMMONNAME; we still require sufficient sources, as they provide the necessary editorializing that reflects whether this change of name is real, accepted, and of note; at the same time, when we have evidence that the entity in charge of naming topic X (whatever that entity is) decides that they have a preferred name which happens to be different than ours, and says so in a WP:RS, then, provided the new name is still somewhat commonly used, we switch. This I think strikes a fair balance, between the desire of the subject to be called X, and the need to serve our readers. Moving Madonna (entertainer) to Esther (entertainer) would not do so.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:36, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

(this indent level: Chris Smowton (talk) 09:50, 18 September 2013 (UTC))

An unrelated point: looks like the Alexis Reich move is headed to no consensus like all the rest of these discussions, for basically the same reason that I was so furious when I first showed up here: they think you're using procedural means to stomp on trans people in general. That's also why Daira called you a transphobe -- whilst I now accept that this isn't the case, the original move appeared to be in exceedingly bad faith. As the proposer, do you have the power to call the RM a scratch, or do we have to let the thing run its course at this point? Chris Smowton (talk) 09:54, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Too many people have !voted, so I can't close it. As for the result, I don't know - it depends on the closer. Frankly, I haven't seen many good arguments from the oppose side yet - they are citing BLP or my motives, but which part of BLP? It's rather vague, and they haven't demonstrated well specifically how BLP applies, at least not in a way that is an agreed upon consensus on what is written in that policy. You can disable the whole BLP argument by putting a disclaimer at the top, explaining to readers why this particular title was chosen. And if newspapers don't even feel the need to post such a disclaimer, the fact that we do means we are being exceedingly sensitive, and I don't think anyone could accuse us of willfully causing harm to a BLP - I think people are taking that 'harm' clause WAY too far in any case.

The commonname argument is very strong on this one. Fundamentally, that is why I made this move proposal - not in bad faith, but in the interest of users. Wolfgang Schmidt (serial killer) is another example of a title that is at the "wrong" name but at the "right" place currently for the reader - it's all about whether the reader is likely to have seen this name in another place (You can read oodles of books about Wolfgang Schmidt the serial killer, but you won't read any books about Beate Schmidt the serial killer, because he transitioned many years after he was out of the public eye and had been in prison a long time. And this is where your absolutist logic breaks down, as it makes zero sense to move Wolfgang's article just because a prisoner changed his name long after his crimes were committed.) If the reader hadn't seen the "new" name in other sources, using that name as the title is anti-reader and will confuse them. We could turn your point above around and say "just bump up the size of the "real" name in the lede, or have maybe some sort of dual naming standard like Alexis Reich (previously John Mark Karr).

I also like your idea of a disclaimer, that says "We know this person's legal name is X, but we've titled this article Y in the interest of our users". As for the rest above, if you really think Madonna should have been moved to Esther when she said this [9] then I don't really see how to bring you around. That article was viewed over 700,000 times in the past 90 days; you're suggesting that we risk confusing all 700,000 of those readers with "Esther" in big bold print at the top of the page, a name they have NOT SEEN ANYWHERE ELSE (because it's not yet common), all in the interest of potentially not harming Madonna (and again, how much person X is harmed by wikipedia title Y is pure assertion and yet to be demonstrated by anyone). But just underneath "Esther" we will print every single sourced salacious detail of her life, her birth name, her birth day, her relationships, her arrests, the details of her rape, etc - everything. Are people going around studying the potential harm of all of those little things, in all of our 600k bios? It just doesn't hold up. It's also a slippery slope - if transgender people get to define not only their gender but also their article title, are there other protected groups that get to define *other* things, like categories, or what shows up in the info-box, or the ordering of sections? How far can personal preferences drive content? What about age? Some people just don't feel 40, and may feel that listing their birth year (and thus age) will harm them - should they be able to remove such information? There are so many other aspects of people that define who they are - for example, a "writer" may think "I'm an novelist!" or a film-maker may say "I'm an auteur" - people have all *sorts* of self-definitions, beyond gender/sexuality, but the argument that we add "title" to the list doesn't make sense - the title is for the READER. Finally, I think your definition of "repudiated old identity" doesn't even hold for Manning - Manning said he'd prefer to be called Chelsea, but never said "Please don't call me Bradley any more" AFAIK - and even said "Actually, it's expected that I will be called Bradley in certain cases" - that's why I worded my AT proposal with simply an expression of preference, not requiring repudiation of the old name - but this opens the gates too much, so you have to balance with usage in reliable sources.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:18, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Split my reply into threads, since there's a number of different tangled lines of discussion here:

BLP and trans naming

Yeah I agree there aren't specific provisions, I think most people were resting on the catch all passage about considering the possibility of harm to the subject before publishing. This is tricky because personally I think most of the harm comes from the message conveyed to and about the trans community -- i.e. the harm is not focussed on a particular person (the subject). So I agree BLP is tenuous here, though still worth mentioning as the subject is themself a member of the harmed group. Chris Smowton (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Then that gets back to countries and tribes and all the rest, which you seemed to reject. If the policy is "We should avoid harm to living people, whether or not subjects of specific wikipedia articles", I'm all for that, but it means no special rules for certain classes.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:51, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't reject the countries and tribes, I just (a) defer to people that know more about those problems, and (b) discourage conflating several different problems into a catch-all policy. Each case where group X may warrant concession to civility Y will have unique aspects that will swing the scales. I don't want to get into a detailed discussion since as I say I'd like to leave these matters for another day, but FWIW I'd likely support the tribes example, modulo cooking a way of resolving conflicts about their self-identity when e.g. there are intra-tribal factions.

I don't see how BLP forbids special cases -- it says avoid harm, and the special cases outline what harm meets the BLP bar? Chris Smowton (talk) 23:58, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Merits of the Reich move specifically

Your comments on Daira's page (about the olive branch) suggest you still don't quite get how aggressively this move can and did come across. This sort of move is to the trans community as moving "Black Steve" to "Nigger Steve" would be to the black community: they aren't likely to care about your policy justification, they will find it very difficult indeed to conceive that you acted out of anything but malice. I'm afraid bridge-building is likely to have to come from your side here, even if that means eating some humble pie. Chris Smowton (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I tried, not sure if it will work.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:52, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Heheh, it looks as if you got thinking about trans stuff and wrote a 2,000 word run-on sentence there ;) I'll come back and reply to the serious stuff after work Chris Smowton (talk) 19:59, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Merits of an always-respect-name-changes policy

Let me be clear: it's not that I want Madonna to be at Esther per se, but rather that's the worst-case side-effect of an always-respect-names policy. User confusion can and will result (though I think you continue to overestimate how baffled people would be to read "Esther\nformerly Madonna") but that confusion can be ameliorated by being big and bold (literally, using big and bold text) about what has happened, and that has to be weighed against the harm reduction for cases like trans people where an article has been moved away from a name that is sufficiently wrong as to constitute an epithet (a la Nigger Steve). An always-respect policy has a desirable property in common with the current never-respect policy: they are easy to measure fairly objectively, by sourcing a declaration and popular usage respectively. By contrast I'm worried that a policy that tried to measure harm-to-confusion ratio for Madonna and Manning and hopefully reach different conclusions would be impossible to implement due to the vagueness of the question. Chris Smowton (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I think this is chucking our responsibility as an neutral encyclopedia out the door. Again, I'm not arguing that majority in commonname = winner. But I am arguing that if 1% of sources call her Esther and 99% call her Madonna, it is fundamentally damaging to wikipedia to be leading the pack with a title rename, because we are telling the world "This is what this thing is called" - where as "what this thing is called" is socially negotiated, and not up to us, or Madonna, or Bradley Manning. You can choose your name, but you can't choose what people call you.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:55, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Heh, hang on a minute, I thought our titles didn't do that, they just say what we chose to write at the top of that page? ;) Seriously though, I think the answer here is the same as the answer to COMMONNAME: you'd want to disclaim that you're assigning a true identifier, but rather reflecting subject preference on the privileged matter of self-identity. I daresay the boilerplate there would look something like This article is titled according to Wikipedia's titling policy, which favours a person's stated name over common usage. This does not constitute an implicit or explicit endorsement of any name for the subject.

It's a balance, but I think it's a bad precedent to set. Think about if we applied this to other parts of the article. Let's say, 1% of sources say person X is the best director in the world, while 99% say he's pretty middling. If we apply the "preferences override" rule, then we could say "Well, we're reporting the facts here, but our bio PREFERS that we utilize these 3 sources and our bio PREFERS to be called the best director in the world, if we don't, he will be really really hurt, and said so on his blog." Well, we want to minimize harm, right? And we do have a few sources? So, let's put up the claim. You run into WP:UNDUE here.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:13, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Milder policy changes

I like many of your proposals for amelioration of the current situation: in rough order of preference, starting from most preferred:

• Both names in title
• Bold subtitle with former name (like User:Smowton/sandbox/John_Doe)
• Bold subtitle with current name (opposite of the example above)
• Disclaimer (like User:Smowton/sandbox/Jane_Doe)

What do you think of that disclaimer text? Do you think any of these choices have a snowball's chance?

Then there's the milder COMMONNAME modulations at WP:AT. Given that discussion has died down, is it time to pick out a proposal and bring it to an RfC? Chris Smowton (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, there may be compromise solutions there. Happy to explore any of them. I think the disclaimer, if worded correctly, is our best option - as it would allow us to follow the reasonable and neutral approach of commonname, while making it clear why commonname was chosen.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I'd get behind a dual-pronged approach of (1) modulate COMMONNAME to permit fairly-known more-respectful names, and (2) use boilerplate disclaimer whenever article naming may be misconstrued as person naming. I'll pester you again about the WP:AT discussion's next step though -- no time like the present, eh? Chris Smowton (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

We should talk to blueboar and PBS, and find out what it would take to get them onboard with some change.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:09, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

OK. A robot has awkwardly archived the middle of the discussion including the actual proposals -- is it kosher to fish it from the archive / make a sub-page of WPTalk:AT with those three sections of discussion? Once that's done, I have no idea what I'm asking Blueboar, but I did ping CaseyPenk since they started the whole thing off. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:24, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

just undo the archiving its not big deal. Blueboar is against changes, so the point would be, are there any changes he would be comfortable with? I wouldnt have discussion on a separate page but the proposed text can live there as ive done - makes it easier to see and encourage ppl to edit the proposed text changes.----Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:01, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Copied from archive. Next step: see what Casey says. Only suggested a subpage to prevent the bot from chopping the thread in half again -- maybe there's a better way to achieve that? What is Blueboar / PBS's formal role here -- are they "guardians" of this particular area of policy? Chris Smowton (talk) 22:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

they seem influential and strongly opinionated, so if we could get them on our side, all the better. No formal role as far as I know but I've seen them in lots of article titling discussions.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:17, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Manning and harm

You mentioned that Manning hasn't repudiated Bradley -- fair enough, I'm not opposed to using "preference for new name" rather than "repudiation of old," though it would be good to get some language about strength of feeling or possibility of harm relating to the old name, to differentiate (e.g.) maiden names of married people (which they very likely do not repudiated) from trans names (and indeed, married names of divorced people, which they may well repudiate, and I think we should respect for that reason).

You also cited her statements about Bradley probably seeing use -- personally I think that statement was quite vague (it could mean anything from "I begrudgingly acknowledge the government will use Bradley" to "I regard both names with utter equanimity), and considering the sensitivity of the topic we should be cautious rather than assume she's cool with it. Chris Smowton (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

This gets into harm-o-meter territory. I just think we're not equipped to deal with it - I'd much rather we let the world deal with it, in their own way. We literally have no way of knowing, in a specific case, or comparing, the harm that can come from a name. Madonna seemed to really want to embrace a new name and energy, and who knows how many tears she may have shed seeing "Madonna" still up as the title of her article - we just don't know. There are many words which become considered as slurs (for example, colored was not always a slur, there is even NAACP, but it has become that way over time), while others which start as slurs become embraced by the community and repurposed. These are slow processes of language evolution and societal judgement, and if we take a side, we're violating our essential goal of neutrality. If this encyclopedia was written in the 1700s we would have "Coloured novelists" as a category, for example. Ultimately it is society that decides how much harm a new name can cause - there was a huge pushback on Muhammed Ali, and it took a long while for society to come around and accept his rename, but if wikipedia at the time had been one of the minority sources documenting his life, we would have been amiss to name our article as Ali since he was not referred that way in the bulk of media. By staying in our role as neutral documentarian, we actually can highlight discriminatory practices (our list of sources for Manning for example is the best, anywhere on the web - the other lists are a joke compared to ours), and through the framing of our work expose systemic biases. I think once the dust settles people may be able to write thoughtful pieces on how wikipedia reflected the broader consensus in society at the time, and the reason her article was renamed was because the media changed rather quickly - we were a result, not an instigator - and that's a very important lesson about wikipedia and I hope people will see the deeper importance of our neutral mission as a result. Ivory Coast is another great example of naming issues, where you have a country that BBC and NY Times just outright REFUSE to call by their official and oft-requested name - which is dickwaddery of the highest order IMHO.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:01, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

We've been here before. I just don't think your counsel of despair is quite warranted -- WP does run the harm-o-meter (and must, if it ever hopes to apply policies like BLP, with its exhortation against harm). Look for example at the existing provisions for trans identity in MOS:ID: what is that but policy that stemmed from a successful execution of the harm-o-meter? See also your tribes example, at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ethnicities_and_tribes), where it says Any terms regarded as derogatory by members of the ethnic group in question should be avoided. Harm-o-meter, run, and documented. As you point out, running it per individual is likely to be impractical, and that is why it should be and has been run on a group and that result systematically applied to its members.

Notice also that the MOS:ID and the ethnicity convention both violate the usual sourcing rules, making a recommendation against a particular usage even if a majority of sources do not comply. So it isn't so utterly inconceivable that an editorial judgement should be arrived at, even one that produces a small deviation from WP's usual practices.

I don't have much to say about future history, so I'll skip that bit and note that the BBC are indeed being pricks of the highest order if they can't bring themselves to call a country by its proper name. I shall write a forthright letter to the DG at once, which will ideally be read in the voice of John Cleese. Chris Smowton (talk) 00:26, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point about harm-o-meter. Yes, we can say that putting an unsourced claim of infidelity on a person's bio can cause harm - no problem. We can also say, if you're a woman or a trans* person who identifies as a woman, use "she". But those are GLOBAL applications intended to prevent harm to everyone. But when you start saying "unsourced claim of infidelity on politician's bio = harm; unsourced claim of infidelity on musician's bio = no harm", then you get in trouble. Thats exactly what we do if we create a special case for trans* ppl - Person x claims preferred name Y - shall we move the article? Well, if person X is trans ,they get preferred name Y. If person X isn't trans, well, let's check commonname, shall we? By doing that you're pulling out the harm-o-meter and deciding that certain types of name conversions are less likely to cause harm than others, and you truly have no way to know that, and you get into threshholds and arbitrary things like "ok, well is this just a new stage name, or is it a new legal name, or is it a result of a religious conversion, or ..." - and then you could imagine a table of "types of name change" and you have trans* and cross-dressers and intersex and cisgender and married and ... guess what, you've just built a harm-o-meter for name changes, which is not actually possible to build fairly.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:08, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Let me turn this one around on you -- if it's a problem to say that trans* status bumps the name-change-harm-o-meter up by X points, why is it not a similar problem that names for ethnicities are special-cased? What's special about that particular way of grouping people, as opposed to say professions? For example I suspect if it became clear that a term for a race was drifting into pejorative territory, as they tend to over time, then a move to avoid that term would be lent weight by the desire not to implicitly endorse racism (as codified in convention), even if that was ahead of sources; by contrast prostitution remains where it is, despite the fact that people that voluntarily do that would much prefer a kinder term. Similarly, MOS:ID specifies the subgroup people whose gender may be questioned, but why do they get special deference when people with a preference about other adjectives don't? Basically you already have a bunch of special cases hammered out through consensus, so I don't buy that a judgement that trans* status lends weight to a name change would be as extraordinary as you're making out. You're right that no amount of policy-hammering can arrive at perfect fairness, but that's no argument to throw up our hands and go to the other extreme where no attempt at fairness is made at all. Chris Smowton (talk) 13:16, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

i think the mos is broken on that point, as it conflicts with commonname and more importantly, its not applied in practice. And in any case, those naming conventions do not override titling policies - otherwise lots of articles would be at different spots. So lived consensus is different. Again, i'm for a policy change, but not one that says 'as soon as a trans* person announces a new name the article title must shift immediately' unless we do the same for all other humans, and i think doing the same for all other humans is also wrong. Thus we need a middle ground - and use in sources is it - even if its not majority, at least 30% or more i'd say.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:09, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Importance of titles

You mentioned titles are for the reader -- yes, they are, but whether you like it or not, they will be read as definitive identifiers unless you disclaim that implication strongly. After all, if everyone read a title the way an experienced WP editor like you reads them, there wouldn't be an argument here. 99% of your readers will be approaching with a policy-uninformed, intuitive mindset, so especially on sensitive topics where it is very easy to give a strongly negative impression, you should explain your intent loudly and clearly. Chris Smowton (talk) 10:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is, the same rules are applied everywhere - this is the tyranny of commonname. See this discussion, for example: Talk:Squamish_people#Requested_Move_.28Nov_23.2C_2011.29, where well-meaning wikipedia editors moved from a name preferred by a historically oppressed group of people (but which looks "funny") to the name given them by their oppressors. So if titles are widely viewed as "definitive identifiers" then we've basically said fuck you to large portions of the world - I pointed out elsewhere that Jimmy Wales, figurehead of this project, has opined that using too many accents in personal names is not "english" enough, so we should strip diacritics, esp those weird asian ones - so as to not hurt the poor reader's eyes with complex vietnamese or spanish or icelandic diacritics on top of roman letters - so we're explicitly spelling a person's name WRONG, since many sources don't know how to do accents well for purely technical reasons. But, no blog posts, no drama, no tweets, no accusations of western-centrism or racism or anti-indigenous-rightism, and I don't think anyone even opposed the Squamish move until 2 years later when a (rather grumpy) fellow came around and started trying to fix things. But no-one listened, he found few allies, and certainly we didn't have Slate writing blogs about Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people's right to self-identify being violated by a wikipedia title.

Yup, that sounds like a pretty dickish move. I've no idea how offensive diacritic removal is, but the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh move seems a pretty cut-and-dried fuck you; I imagine the result of that RM would have been very different if some of their own people, or people in a similar situation inclined to sympathy had been around.

Maybe - but the point is, few to none of the people making hay of this Manning affair will see anything wrong with the Squamish move, nor will they do anything about it.

I think that's straight up wrong, but I'm not sure how to convince you of that. Speaking only for myself, I have little or no personal investment in Manning, quite a bit of special interest in trans* rights, and a general thrust of opinion that avoiding needless dickery is good that speaks to the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh case. I would be very, very surprised if 99% of trans* activists weren't somewhat supportive of Sḵwx̱wú7mesh people getting to name themselves, but you'd have to ask Morwen et al to confirm. So why less activity around that particular RM? Again speaking only for myself, I never heard the move was happening because I'm not sufficiently "in" with that particular community to be routinely reading their news. I don't think it's reasonable to expect me or others to pursue all social justice campaigns with equal vigour; for one thing there isn't enough time in the world, and for another, I'm not convinced it's terribly wrong to say I care particularly about X; I will concentrate my effort there. After all, why are you spending so much of your time volunteer editing Wikipedia, instead of volunteering in a national park, or a soup kitchen, or a hundred other equally-worthy causes? I imagine the answer is that you simply care more about improving an edifice of knowledge than maintaining a natural environment or feeding the needy, and I if so I don't think there would be anything wrong with that position at all. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

That's why I mean by POV activism - they are just focused on one particular issue, and once it's solved - once Manning's article is at the right place, they will move on, and most will never care to check in on any other potentially "damaging" article titles ever again. Their claim is all around an individual's right to self-identify, but they will only take action to APPLY that claim to a very narrow set of actors - mostly white trans* people who are in the media.

I don't see any reason to suppose they're racists as well, so I'll pass on that bit. However I expect you're right they (we) will concentrate on trans* people, rather than others with naming issues (Yusuf Islam and so on). Speaking for myself I probably wouldn't put as much effort in for Yusuf, though I sympathise with his directly comparable situation, for two reasons: (1) it doesn't affect me or my friends as much, so there is less personal motivation to fix things, and (2) I know very little about Muslim converts and how they feel about their names, so I am in a poor position to judge whether it's worth trying to fix, or to argue for a fix if it is. By contrast I do know quite a bit about trans* people and their frequent abuse-by-birth-name. I feel like requiring that in order to be taken seriously about trans names I must also campaign for converts' names is a bit like saying I shouldn't try to stop my neighbours from fighting because lots of people are fighting for lots of reasons, and I should be trying to prevent all conflict. It would certainly make me a much more dedicated and worthy person if I really did decide to launch a global campaign against domestic disputes, but saying "nah, my neighbours' situation is more personally important to me" and restricting my efforts to the smaller problem doesn't mean that the smaller problem isn't worth solving. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

as the song goes, everyone's a little bit racist... And probably, a little bit transphobic... I'm not claiming explicit racism here, but for example the category Phil Sandifer created on non-western transsexuals is a classic orientalist framing, which is a (mild) form of othering that can be construed as racism if taken far enough. It's not really about discrimination against peoples of color, it's rather just privileging western/Anglo-Saxon povs (and bios) Think about it this way - do you suppose Phil and Gerard and Sue (and indeed, the rest of the media and trans* advocates) would have made such a public stink if this was an Indian transsexual who had been imprisoned for killing 20 people and then, 10 years later while sitting in prison, came out as a woman and changed his name? It's a lot easier to get people to save cuddly seals than ugly walruses... Ultimately what annoys me, as I've noted before, is the amount that these people actually care about Manning, given Manning doesn't read Wikipedia, is probably quite slim compared to how much they care about the issue, the principle of the thing - this was largely a symbolic fight - admittedly, for both sides. I personally would hope we would treat all bios equally, but the American women novelists fiasco demonstrated to me that people can get very up in arms when its their demographic, but become much less interested as it drifts out of their demographic. If American women novelists was such a scandal, how come there wasn't a similar uproar about African-American directors, or Indian mathmaticians? The principle is the same, but the bloggers and deeply concerned twits haven't been keeping the pressure up.

It's sort of like realizing that some African village has polluted water, so you write articles and tweet and blog and run around yelling at the village elders and sweep in and build a new well and take lots of photos then fly back home, satisfied. But you forgot about all of the other villages and all of the other wells, and what caused this well to be polluted in the first place? There's a difference between doing good and being a do-gooder.

This meshes pretty well (no pun intended) with my example above: ultimately it is my perogative to decide how much of my time I want to spend well-fixing: if I fall into the trap that I must fix all wells or it isn't worth beginning then strictly less good will come of the situation. Similarly the fact that there are other wells out there matters not a jot to the outcome of a specific one: fixing one well is fixing one well, whether it is the first and you bugger off to the beach afterwards or whether it is the hundredth and you summarily die of exhaustion. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

How many people are actively working at WP:AT to support a tweak to commonname? Maybe 3 or 4? We need numbers, and good thinking and drafting! Where the fuck is everyone? Then Daira, bless her heart, blazes in with a multi-part wide-reaching proposal that will never pass and does so with a dose of arrogance that is rather breathtaking - barely bothering to read the existing discussion to measure the current state of consensus.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Daira is pretty hard-line, that we can agree on :) I solemnly promise to keep my position less extreme. About WP:AT: have you tried dropping talk page messages to the relevant parties? Have you tried Morwen, DG, Phil? I strongly suspect they would be very willing to contribute; after all the proposals move in exactly the direction they're interested in. I'd do so myself but I'm afraid recruiting "my side" would be improper? If you're happy for me to do so though, I'll happily do it. For my part I'll stick around for the WP:AT discussion. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

That's what pisses me off most about this whole affair - because it's not, ultimately, about "rights" or "harm" in some abstract fashion, it's about using the media spotlight for activism--

You're way off base here. I, for example, am not an activist; I don't generally initiate or participate in political movements. I got into this whole thing because WP was adopting what I considered an unacceptably dickish position, not because I'm cynically exploiting the media spotlight. Can you name me a single editor that appears to be doing that?

Sue Garner, Morwen, Phil, wadewitz, Phoebe, to name a few, + all of the off-wiki commentary on this affair.

Whoo. Clarity here: you're really saying you think SG, Morwen et al are in it first and foremost for the exposure? Like, to be seen as conspicuously do-gooding? If so obviously it's impossible to prove otherwise, but it would be tremendously anomalous for social justice movements, where usually the primary motivation is either direct improvement of your own situation (for group members) or self-satisfaction (for allies, like me). I mean, who would I boast to? I don't even keep a blog, and my views are unextraordinary for my community. If anything I'd be seen as something of a blowhard if I went on about this to my friends. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

read what i wrote. "Using the media spotlight for activism." I'm sure they all believe what they say - except perhaps Sue who seems maybe new - but the point is, they and many other trans* allies saw this as a moment to highlight in the wider media trans* naming issues - indeed it was a moment made in heaven and they milked it to the 3rd degree - which is fine, if directed at news media outlets - but it is not cool to drag wikipedia through the mud and boast about how we, this small group of enlightened souls, chucked consensus out the window and did what we thought was right,and then bemoan how transphobic wikipedia is after it doesnt go your way. That is activism, and it really has no place on the wiki - and every time activism comes into the wiki esp with lots of media attention the result is worse. The others blogged about it, spoke with media outlets, and tweeted to get attention to their breathess blogs. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 15:21, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Where was Sue on these other renames? I'm not saying everyone involved here is an activist, but with all of the blogs and tweets and so on, everyone is trying to get as many hits to their blogs/twitter streams as possible in an eager rush to be first to opine on the unfairness of it all and breathlessly describing the blow-by-blow of how wikipedia made a booboo.

Same argument as above, so I won't repeat myself, but the idea that this is a sort of "conspicuous caring" thing... I can see where a lot of the divide here comes from if you honestly believe so many of the participants are such disingenuous assholes; that e.g. SG doesn't care about trans* people and is in it for the attention? Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

disingenuous goes too far, but click-activism - eg seeming to care about a given issue as a public performance - is well documented. The record speaks for itself. Sue wrote a nice blog about the women novelists fiasco, and how the wiki came together and did the right thing, but it's not done -far from it. But as far as I can tell, she's not persuing fixing the rampant ghettoization. The biggest argument, through all of this , from the trans* supporters side has *not* been about trans* naming rights - rather it has been about preventing harm to a living person - so we have this incredible, really, amount of wiki-energy devoted to this one issue if an article title that could, in some theoretical world where Manning has access to the internet - harm him upon his reading of it. But the other cases - whether ghettoized categories (which apparently perpetuate racism and sexism), or bios trashed by Qworty, or many other potential things that can 'harm' people, they aren't focusing on and won't. I get your point that you have to pick and choose your battles, but I also think you need to be consistent, and if you're ready to tweet and blog and push your admin tools to the edge for this one bio, please tell me why you won't sign up to help fix all the other harmful things in the wiki that require some elbow grease?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:23, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

It's bullshit frankly, because - as I've given copious examples - analogous things have been happening for years and its only NOW, for this one BIO, that it becomes a media moment. Seriously, if Sue really cared that much about trans* ppl with bad titles, she could have easily trolled through the category of trans-women, and immediately moved all of them with male-sounding names - and done so a few years ago. WMF could have been proactive, and started to study the policy issues and come to the (obvious) conclusion that commonname essentially throws subject's preference out the window, and if we are now a kinder/gentler encyclopedia, we must account for subject's preference. But she didn't - because she didn't care until the spotlight was turned on. I found like 3 in 5 minutes of searching.

Or, maybe she wasn't particularly a trans* supporter before now, and this case brought a matter she hadn't previously given a whole lot of thought to her attention? That's certainly what happened to me: I hadn't considered how WP dealt with trans identity because nothing had brought that very specific thought to mind. Now it has, and I'll see the matter through. I'm not launching mass RM requests because they wouldn't succeed now; policy weights too strongly against it. I'm waiting for the WP:AT RfC that may provide grounds, or possibly favourable findings in the Arbcom decision (e.g. if they lay down the law about how trans names mesh with BLP). Chris Smowton (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Remember my mantra: all bios are created equal, but some bios are more equal than others.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

--of a particular sort that has been, for my taste, far TOO black and white (e.g. if you disagree with how we think the article should be titled on Aug 22, you are a bigoted transphobe),

Look, one, maybe two editors have expressed that view. It is a long way from having been the overriding tone of the pro-Chelsea argument, any more than "he should fuck off and have his balls cut off, eh?!" has been the overriding tone of the pro-Bradley camp.

Josh/Phil/Gerard/Morwen - all of the principal players absolutely believe this - and sportsfan5000, and a half dozen others I don't remember. They all believe that in their bones, and have said basically as much. As well as almost all of the twitter commentary and blog postings - the trans* activists almost exclusively feel that having the article at any title other than Chelsea is outright transphobia as far as I can tell.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmm. I buy that they think it's imperative that it be at Chelsea, but not that they think disagreeing == transphobia. I think they think that supporting Bradley as a title belies a certain amount of trans-ignorance, though -- to them (us) the Bradley title is an obviously offensive term directed at a vulnerable minority, and not clocking that offence is akin to not clocking a racial slur: it doesn't mean that person is a racist, but it does suggest that they're at least inexperienced in the matter, like when your great granddad says "coloured" and then "what? what's wrong with that?", not because he's being hateful, but because he's a bit behind the curve. Chris Smowton (talk) 14:13, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I won't quote them here but just read what Phil or josh wrote - keeping the title at Bradley is hate speech, sexual harassment, libel, and blatant transphobia. They repeated these assertions many many times. This means that any editor supporting the move to Bradley was either outright transphobic and hated trans* people, or simply ignorant like the grandfather - but I totally disagree. There are many reasonable editors, who are familiar with trans* issues or who have become moreso over these last days, and accept that it might be rude or even offensive to refer to a trans* person by their old name, but who still think that the need to build a neutral Wikipedia outweighs the need to avoid offending someone. I don't think these guys are hateful nor ignorant, they are simply balancing differing needs against one another - the problem with Phil and Josh's extreme position is it doesn't provide any accommodation for disagreement. Someone elsewhere has been pointing out that even the issue of whether a pre-op TG* man is a 'woman' upon declaration (or has 'always been') a 'woman' is contested by people within the trans* movement, and the feminist movement, to say nothing of conservatives. Science only can tell us 'x identified with gender z since the age of 6' but science can't tell us whether society hence decides that person is and always was a 'woman', as 'woman' is a social construct, not a scientifically measurable quantity. As such, even the 'scientific' arguments forwarded 'eg scientists have said for years such and such' are weak because they are opining on a sociological phenomenon. The only scientific arguments that may hold weight would be a study of trans* subjects who have Wikipedia biographies and doing some sort of 'harm' measurement wrt what happens if the article doesn't move immediately upon name change, and how much suffering does it cause, and comparing that to other forms of discrimination.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk),

--and I promise you, once the media spotlight dies, all of those concerned souls will move on to other things and leave the remaining thousands of bios and articles that *aren't* in the news to fester - it's a symbolic fight, rather than an earnest effort to fix the problem and consider its scope. The fact that wikipedia is still littered with names that aren't at the subject's "preferred" name means to me NO ONE CARED, or at least they didn't care enough to spend a few minutes trawling through the wiki. Poor Wolfgang Schmidt (serial killer) (now deleted, but I will fix) was sitting there for years, but no-one is going to make the battle to rename him a visible battle because the fellow is a serial killer, so, let's not use him as our poster boy. All bios are equal, but some bios are more equal than others.

I'm very surprised that Wikiproject LGBT hasn't been pushing trans moves as an ordinary line of business. They've certainly been contributing to policy such as MOS:ID. Surely then if they're not currently launching RMs across the board, that indicates a resignation to the standing policy, rather than an indifference to the problem? On the temporary participants: sure, they'll drift off, but so will half the pro-Bradley camp that also hopped into the argument via a blog post.

No - its media spotlight. Just watch. Call me in 2 months, and track all of the editors and bloggers and tweeters who swept down to save the wiki from bias, and see what they've done since. Morwen's tweet stream is instructive here. I don't care if the 'Bradley' crew moves on - they're not the ones claiming hate speech and human rights violations. for those who do make such claims, it's click-activism.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 05:56, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

It was the same thing with the whole "women novelists" mess - before the mess thousands were ghettoized (easily findable), and after the mess thousands remain ghettoized (still easily findable) - people come and opine and act all offended then don't do anything to fix it, once the white american novelists have been fixed.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 17:28, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

(this level: Chris Smowton (talk) 01:01, 20 September 2013 (UTC))

Persistent returning of articles to categories that lack any in-text support

My experience with the article Rubin Carter (American football) illustrates why I chose to try to get a change brought by CfD, but people at CfD seem to want to avoid dealing with the as applied problem, and some seem to be coming very close to claiming I have animus towards African-Americans because I want to scrap the category. I still see nothing in the article on Carter that says he is African-American. I even read the source about him being made a coach at Purdue. Guess what, it never says he is African-American. Yet User:B-Mahine has insisted on returning the African-American categories to the article one. I am not sure why people are so unwilling to revise articles to make mention of a person being African-American. If they do not want to mention it in the article they should not mention in by category. Yet, I have been on multiple occasions attacked for trying to enforce this minimalistic approach to verifiability. Is Carter African-American? I don't know, but until it is verified in the article it should not be categorized as such.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:36, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

personally, my approach would be, try to find sources if you want to do this cleanup. If you cannot, then Post a note to the talk page and ask someone to confirm via RS his ancestry. If no sources pop up, I agree it should be removed. Some may say 'just look at a picture' but that's not much of a technique and is a bit OR.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:42, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I did that on Rubin Carter (American football) and it still lead to belligerent statements. The person did supply a source on the talk page, but in the article itself they restored the categories without adding any sources or any change in the text of the article. This massive ignoring of anything approaching including sources is quite distressing. It goes against the clear statements of BLP rules. I also find the amount people insult me for trying to hold to verifiability rules quite distressing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 22:22, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

I understand and I know you are frequently subject to unjustified attacks. That said, I think this is a rather minor issue that may not need of fixing - have you ever identified someone who was classified as African American who turns out not to be? I think people are touchy and not likely to change, so I'd suggest if you want to clean up such categories, take the time to do deep research on sources, and only eliminate the cats once it's clear.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:35, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, yes, I did. He was a 19th-century Roman Catholic priest, and his article explicitly said he did not identify as being African-American. Another case, on digging I was only able to find indication that the person involved was the child of immigrants from Jamaica, no evidence that the person would self describe as African-American. We categorize by ethnicity, not by race, "African-American" is not a catchall term for every person in the US who has any identifiable African ancestors. Otherwise, we would have to put George Zimmerman in African-American categories.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:23, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

JPL, you might find this http://caafootball.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/celebrating-black-history-towsons-rubin-carter/, which begins with begins with the editorial note "Editor’s Note: In honor of Black History Month, CAA Football will interview a different league coach every week throughout the month of February to get his thoughts on black history as it relates to his life, his career...", a useful start. Sometimes you just have to dig in with shovel, sometimes Google can give you a good start. Sometimes assigning a category when support is missing in the article you may have to add some content to justify the categorization. Neonorange (talk) 02:18, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Considering I had to do 4 edits to find a place where someone would not revert my placing a mention on the article Jay-Z that he is African-American, I think the arguments that I should sit back and let these unsourced category claims stand is very questionable. People let things stand in categories without any in text support. Some seem to want to fight any mention of "race" in an article, but will let it stand in a category. This creates very unbalanced ethnicity. I think my biggest issue is that it is not clear all people should be categorized by their race, so we need to limit it to people who it is at least notable enough to put in the article. The real frustrating thing is no one questions that Jay-Z is African-American, they just seem to have an aversion to mentioning race. Some even claim it should not be placed in leads, which might beg the question, if it can't be in a lead, why do we categorize by it?John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:23, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment I have now been accused of being involved in an edit war on Jay-Z. This seems odd, since each time I have placed the statement that he is African-American in a different place, and no one has claimed that I am wrong to state that he is African-American. They just object to the placement of the fact.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Then there was Jason Chaffetz who was at one point in some Jewish categories, but better sources showed that Chaffetz was never Jewish, and he does not appear to be one of the Mormons who self-identifies as also being a Jew. We had an article on such a person, Daniel Rona, but it was last deleted as a recreation by people who ignored it had significantly changed. Gripe.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:51, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

BM move Oct 2013

Sorry, misread your edit summary - thought you'd removed the ars technica article (the latest addition) rather than the ebony one. My mistake. 7daysahead (talk) 12:25, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

no problem.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 13:12, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

"why the hell is it condescending?"

The statement "I realize some in Latin America do not agree with the use of that term that way" is condescending because it belittles a point of view held by a significant number of Latin Americans (not just "some"). Assuming this was unintentional, I kindly recommend you to please make sure to monitor the tone of your statements.
And, no, I do not agree with either stringent POV and find the duality of the term entertaining.
Cheers.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 22:53, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

once again, how does it belittle? Some is a rather generic term, would you have preferred an exact percentage? It's certainly correct to say, and true, that some don't like that term. But there's nothing belittling or condescending to state that. You are reading a tone that simple isnt there. esp if u personally don't care, I fail to see who exactly I've offended, nor why. I don't think there are two stringent povs here - one POV is that the term is as defined in the dictionary; the other is the same, minus the US citizens.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:58, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Obi-Wan, "some" is a term that undermines a perspective. All that needed to be written was: "I realize there exists a disagreement with the use of that term that way".

The spectrum of perspectives ranges from one end (encompassing the Americas) to the other (narrowed to the USA). That you have not had the displeasure to meet the "America is the USA" group (and honestly hope you never do), does not mean it does not exist.

Anyhow, my recommendation is nothing more than an offer to help. Effectively, since I don't care, the statement bounces-off; however, others will not take it that way. Telling them you "fail to see" the offense will not smooth matters either.

Regards.--MarshalN20 | ^Talk 02:32, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

well I appreciate your attempt but no-one else has complained and if they did I'd ignore their entreaties, especially if they complained about the use and definition of the word 'some'. I've met a lot of people from Latin America and I've not met many who care about that term. Some do. I don't know, nor do you, if that 'some' is 75% or 10% thus some is quite apt.-Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 03:03, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

kww

@Kww:. I'm a little disappointed you didn't stop by and ask me before pulling the trigger, and I'm very sad to have lost my clean block log. (I'll note that there was a warning by fluffernutter, and I didn't do any reverting after that notice I believe). I had actually stopped reverting well before you blocked me, and had opened - yet another - discussion on the talk page to get further input from other editors. You may notice, there were also comments by several editors above on the main talk page, such as BD2412, that we could start the move request, and edit the header DURING the move request (I had hoped to edit it collaboratively before starting the RM, but people got super impatient all of a sudden). Thus, I felt there was consensus that other editors could touch the header.

I was hoping that several editors would contribute, but if you wouldn't mind restoring my particular set of edits - which were not reversions to Josh's, but rather tweaks and additions - it would be appreciated - and then perhaps share your own opinion on whether or not other editors should be able to edit the RM header. I felt, given that we had collaboratively developed the whole RM for a month, including all of the evidence and guidelines for discussion, that Josh coming in and starting the move, and kicking my edits to the header out in a OWNY-way, was obnoxious, though I admit I edit-warred and apologize for same.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:20, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm in the midst of trying to figure out if there is a clear consensus version that I can restore. I understand your feelings about the block, and hope that anyone that reviews the block log will weigh the fact that it was a 3-hour block. Still, I think it's extremely important to nip edit-warring and similar problems in this discussion in the bud. If you aren't aware, Josh was blocked at the same time for the same duration.—Kww(talk) 21:24, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I understand, but I had stopped... after I had reverted 2 or 3 times, I stopped and opened up a discussion on talk, so I had already self-nipped-in-the-bud as it were. I am actually in favor of the move, so Josh's comments are off the mark; I wanted to make a stronger, but more accurate, case in the header. If you'd consider an unblock after 2.5 hours I would consider it a kindness - if you have conditions for same, let me know.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:27, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'll verify that the warring stopped after I issued my warning on the Manning talk page. I'd normally say that Kww should consider unblocking in light of that, but I'm a bit worried by your continuing to insist that your preferred wording be used. While I understand that you worked on your version for longer than Josh worked on his, at the end of the day both of your wordings were extremely similar and neither is likely to make a difference in the way the community !votes. My advice is to be a little offended inside if you can't help it, but let it go on the outside. The world won't stop spinning if the headers are arranged slightly differently than your preference, and I would say it's more useful to maintain a calm, respectful atmosphere among all the editors on the RM than it is to tweak wording or headers. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:30, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Put up an unblock request if you want. I won't raise objections if another admin chooses to unblock, but I'm not going to unblock either party for fear of accusations of favoritism.—Kww(talk) 21:31, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice Fluff; I see your point, and I won't be pushing for "my" version - what I REALLY wanted to happen was to have many different editors put together a strong case at the top of the page, based on the evidence we carefully gathered - whether my particular contributions remain at the end of the day or not is not material...--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:34, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

@Kww: Actually, since you implemented these as discretionary sanction blocks, they can't be lifted by another admin via a normal unblock request. It would be need to be undone by you (or, I think, with your explicit approval), by arbcom, or by a community consensus. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 21:40, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah; interesting. Given that, if I agree to not edit war further (and provided I had already stopped), and seek (rough) consensus for any header changes on the talk page first, would you be willing to consider an unblock? Thanks. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:41, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

You've been unblocked, but if I see you touch that section of text again, the block will be reinstated. Get other people to agree that your changes improve the RM.—Kww(talk) 21:43, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate it. As you can see, it has now been made a labelled section devoted to me (rather odd, but whatever). I've asked for support from the person who did that if I can tweak further - provided my changes are in the named section, is it fair to say you are ok with me tweaking? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:48, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Nope. Tweaking=touching. Your changes are well received, so you shouldn't have any trouble persuading people you are right.—Kww(talk) 21:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough. Thanks again. will keep my grubby hands out of the header.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Barnstar of Diplomacy
		Despite your work being stomped on, hijacked, and mutilated, you spent nearly a month engineering a bi-partisan move discussion. The success of this discussion will be weighed in it's excellent structure, research, and organization. You, and the editors you encouraged to work with you, should be commended for this effort. That it was stolen mere hours or days before it could be properly implemented doesn't reflect at all on your effort. Keep up the great work.v/r - TP 23:56, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Agreed fully, this was not an easy task to do. Thanks for your work =) - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 23:59, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks both, I appreciate it. And I regret that I let my emotions get the better of me and spoil my block log :( Lesson learned, c'est la vie. The discussion is going well thus far, and I expect the commonname argument will hold sway. The interesting question is, how will this impact other articles? --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:01, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The best analogy for what Josh did? Poor sportsmanship. Two kinds of pork (talk) 03:43, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

While I'm thankful for the barnstar, I must acknowledge all of the other editors who worked on that page. I've just awarded barnstars to all of the major contributors - and there were many. It was truly a team effort.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:18, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks

Thank you for the RfC closure at the List of New religious movements, and I apologise for the phrasing of the request. I will be more careful in future. I was not aware of the conventions as this was the first time I had made a closure request, although I suppose I should have read some of the others first. DaveApter (talk) 08:53, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

no worries. I think the header of the page asks that it be neutral but they often aren't so looking at examples doesn't help. The point is, that board is not really a place for partisanship or continuing the arg (though sometimes ppl do) - it is really just a place to notify. There are shades, though, and if it's a very clear consensus but you want a neutral Ed to close for some reason I think it's not an issue to state you feel there's a clear consensus, which may get eyes on it earlier as its easier. But if I recall that particular discussion was nuanced, and while I did find a consensus it wasn't unanimous and there were deeper structural issues around the definition of inclusion criteria - such lists with somewhar subjective criteria are always going to be difficult for exactly that reason, and since it's a list not a category you are welcome to have fuzzy or grey areas - for example, one section on things that are clearly religious movements, and another section of entities which are disputed or not religious but still spoken of in the same breath. That list prob wouldn't work as a category, but lists as prose can be more nuanced and can be more inclusive since you can describe.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 11:09, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2013_October_2#Misinformation_in_the_nomination

I answered your concerns in quite detail. --Niemti (talk) 09:41, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar

	The Working Wikipedian's Barnstar
	I thereby award you with this Working Wikipedian's Barnstar for closing discussions formerly listed at the Requests for closure subpage of the Administrators' noticeboard. Keep up the good work. Armbrust The Homunculus 22:09, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Right back at you! --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:12, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

fwiw, did you see this? User_talk:Obiwankenobi/rfa re RFA? I pinged a bunch of people, but I wonder if the pings didn't work.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 22:15, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I scripted out of pinging, but if you decide to run, than I would support you. Armbrust ^{The Homunculus} 22:24, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

What the...?!?

What the heck?!? First, you removed my !vote, and now when I point out the !voting irregularities, you collapse that, too? Nevermind the irony of helping me prove my point. I am an editor in good standing. You do not have the right to deny my ability to !vote or comment about it. This article is under discretionary sanctions. Any further attempts to exclude me from contributing to the discussion may result in you being sanctioned. Please take a step back. AQFK (talk) 08:39, 7 October 2013 (UTC).

easy there... I wasn't targeting you and you'll note I hatted many comments of many editors in good standing including myself. I hatted those sections becauise they were starting to give instructions to the closers, and it serves no purpose to have a section devoted to opining on how the consensus should be determined - if we let that start, then why not have 200 other people saying 'close as move' or "close as no consensus' - then it just becomes a re!vote. That said you can Unhat the sections but someone else may disagree.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 10:03, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Kwami at it again

This is Skookum1, not logged in due to my need to stay out of Wikipedia (my wiki-addiction cost me my livelihood and led to health problems (a stroke), and it was the "war with Kwami" in particular that did that). He's unrepentant, clearly, and I should know better than to look at my watchlist; his latest inanity isn't the only thing I see that needs correcting/addressing but, given that what he's done is in the same vein and is highly controversial, he needs his pee-pee slapped. See here and note that the wording/link Tsimshian language goes to Tsimshianic languages, i.e. not to a language but to a language group, the other two members of which are the Nisga'a language and Gitxsan language, and which are not dialects of each other, nor are they co-dialects with the Coast Tsimshian language. Ask anyone from any of those there peoples if they share the same language, they will say no. He's previously shown disdain for what peoples prefer to call themselves, saying "Kwami knows best" effectively, and has some book or other on his shelf that he can cherry-pick refs from. "MOSTCOMMON" should apply in all these cases, and in cases like these and e.g. Heilsuk and Oowekyala the most common usage is that they are languages and they are rarely if ever (other than in the Kwami re-edition of Wikipedia) referred to as dialects in common use. Anyways, the deceptive wording, pointing to a language group when there is no separate language article, and the very clear distinction between these peoples and their languages is well-established in the real world. Which is apparently a world that Kwami is not part of, nor cares to acknowledge. So see here, look at me, one small problem created by a maverick linguist and I've wasted time getting pissed off. No real work on content, just name games.49.49.222.186 (talk) 02:09, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

True to form, he made no changes to the text of the article, only to the title....and didn't do the same (yet) to Nisga'a language and Gitxsan language. Consistency is not the man's forte. Nor is picking up after himself. I have bigger fish to fry in the real world but when I go back for reference at certain articles I find Wikipedia is spinning more and more away from reality into a fabrication/simulacra of same.......SYNTH is everywhere, as is OR, and "WP:HALF-BAKED" should have little essay somewhere for things like Salishan oral literature (which is an omnibus title but has mention only of the Montana Salish and the Skwxwu7mesh/Squamish). Also Coast Salish defensive sites and the like, which is just a paraphrase of a single academic paper. It's not just FN/NA material, I see it in general history and geography too.....I could spend my life trying to fix some of this, including quarreling with those who advance this nonsense but know wiki-ese better than I ever will want to.....sorry to dribble this spittle on your talkpage, I'm just stunned that an experienced and long-time Wikipedian like Kwami is unrepentant, and unchastised, and is as sloppy and unjustified as he always is.223.205.110.221 (talk) 03:21, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Bradley Manning move request

I just now read your entire argument at Talk:Bradley Manning/October 2013 move request. It was impressively thorough and logical. If you ever decide to become a lawyer, let me know so I can put you on retainer :) Kaldari (talk) 08:12, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks - but there's zero chance of me becoming a lawyer :) --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 18:44, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Only now that it's all over, I'm happy to say thank you, and very well done. Apart from a speedbump or two, it was very smooth sailing all the way, not in the last place because of your efforts. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 08:05, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Martin, I appreciate the kind feedback. I think much drama could have been averted had the original proponents simply waited a week or two, gathered up all the sources that had switched, and made a clear and crisp move request based on commonname.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 08:39, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, it went how it went. BLP does require quick movement, and when something is perceived as a BLP violation, it should be acted on quickly. I think the greatest problem was poor adminning in the first RM - without wanting to assign blame on any of the admins: sensitive stuff is hard, and it is very difficult to know when lines between expressing opinion and personal attack are crossed, and doubly so when you yourself are on a side of a dispute and don't want to act involved. I'm 100% sure that the preparations, and the instructions helped in maintaining proper form. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 13:11, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Agreed

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Please make a note at AN, that I agree. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

ok, hope this works... --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:26, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

I pulled out of A&M because of these editors and the trolls which act with abusive behavior and malice; it is an intolerable situation and Arbitration is the only way which the problem could be resolved without fully exhausting the communities patience. The viewing parties are likely to condemn everyone's interactions simply because of the manufactured drama - matter of policy and procedure is lost in TLDR and bickering. I hope my avoidance of Lucia works as well; I already filter Erachima out, going to filter Folken de Fanel out as well. Some of the posts made fall under WP:HARASSMENT, but asking for civility fell deaf ears - best to filter their posts. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:41, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry you're frustrated. I haven't followed all of the threads, I just closed one because it came up at requests for closure I think. But yes, sometimes ignoring people is just the best path. I wish we had !plonk like usenet...--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 23:44, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Obiwankenobi. While I understand your close, I think re-opening the thread may be a good course of action, as there was also discussion regarding a possible block for Lucia. I also think that this whole complex situation needs the eyes and minds of ArbCom. Lucia has violated her restrictions dozens of times and has been given far too much rope and with that thinks that violations of restrictions are perfectly fine, which can really end up costing this mediation. Thoughts? WorldTraveller101 (talk) 23:47, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Could you word the closing better? Its not an official interaction ban and we do have a mediation that is ongoing. I'm just going to ignore all Lucia's posts outside of the mediation venue where it is strictly controlled by the mediator. Otherwise, I'm sure we will see my first post about the situation at mediation as a violation and mediation may not even be able to go forward if it is considered, in any form, an interaction ban. I'm simply going to avoid Lucia and her posts outside of mediation, letting other people deal with them. And leave it closed. I mediation can't continue if Lucia is blocked and I don't want more reason for her to say more hurtful words to me because she got punished by someone. She even said that I blocked her last time around. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:53, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Ok I will try to reword. WorldTraveller, I'm willing to give Lucia a pass here, since Chris (perhaps unintentionally) baited her, and she was asking, in her way, of what to do about it. I'd suggest just letting it stand. I will drop a warning on her page nonetheless. If she violates it again in some blatant fashion, bring her before ANI to consider a blockage, but remember there is an ongoing mediation and it may be best to suffer through that so the mediation can complete with all parties present.

She's violated it numerous times; she knows better and has been warned over half a dozen times since the first warnings were made. If someone is abusive at mediation, their edits are not privvy to protection and if she goes back to making personal attacks and refactoring comments than she can be dealt with at such a time. I don't need or want her blocked; and I'm the one who has the most reason to do so. Forgive the past infractions she did to you WT, Wikipedia's content and community have suffered enough, another dramatic incident is just going to exacerbate the problem. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:06, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Oh trust me, my previous interactions with her are old news, I forgive her of course, since I had my faults in that interaction as well. I do know that she is a very good anime contributor, but she really causes disruption with her interactions amongst editors. The issue is that because Lucia has violated her restrictions with a light or in some cases no warning, she finds it perfectly acceptable to do whatever she pleases and that sends the wrong message. IMHO, the restrictions should be indefinite, not just for 3 months. She just gamed her way through this restriction. I hope that maybe extending the restrictions to indefinite and leaving her with less rope might make Lucia change her behavior. Otherwise, I don't know... -- WorldTraveller101 (talk) 00:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Before you go off on Lucia I feel she should have the right to defend herself just saying. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 02:06, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.