User talk:Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist/Archive/5

Your GA nomination of Transgender history in Brazil

The article Transgender history in Brazil you nominated as a good article has passed ; see Talk:Transgender history in Brazil for comments about the article, and Talk:Transgender history in Brazil/GA1 for the nomination. Well done! If the article has never appeared on the Main Page as a "Did you know" item, and has not appeared within the last year either as "Today's featured article", or as a bold link under "In the news" or in the "On this day" prose section, you can nominate it within the next seven days to appear at DYK. Bolded names with dates listed at the bottom of the "On this day" column do not affect DYK eligibility. Message delivered by ChristieBot, on behalf of Maddy from Celeste -- Maddy from Celeste (talk) 08:02, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

Congrats on the GA! ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:26, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

First I've seen this; yes, congrats! In response, I've added an empty subsection heading to Transgender history § Brazil awaiting your input, if you're willing. Do you think you could add a paragraph or two there in WP:Summary style based on your new article? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 12:32, 10 February 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot thank you! I just had the time to add a summary, it ended up being 2.5 paragraphs but was as much as I could condense it - I broke it down into the loose timeframes following the article: 1) pre-colonization 2) colonization 3) the 50s until the dictatorship 4) the first half of the dictatorship 5) the second half 6) the post dictatorship period until 2000 and 7) the 2000+ (with a bit of overlap blurring the lines) and think it got to the crux of all of them. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)

That's great. Can you have a look at S2 ("..were imposed upon the indigenous restructuing...") which has a typo, and maybe a missing word or something after indigenous, as I find it confusing. And if you want to rack up another three GA's, you could always spin off the sections there on § Chile, § Colombia, or § Peru into new articles. 😁 Thanks again! Mathglot (talk) 01:26, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

No problem! I just rewrote the sentence to clarify it. And I'm certainly tempted and hopefully will one day, though higher on my list and related to the idea is translating the eswiki article on Trans history in Argentina lol. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 02:32, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Might be able to help with that, if I have time. Did you know you can watchlist items that don't exist? I just watchlisted Transgender history in Argentina (and the Draft) so I'll get notified, when you do. It's a very handy feature, and I've used it in the gender space to watch for articles that might get created (sometimes hoping they won't). It's a good way to stay on top of certain things, and if necessary, be there at the beginning to help guide them properly from the outset and help keep them from going off the rails early on. Mathglot (talk) 08:01, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Notification: Feedback request service is down

Hello, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist/Archive

You may have noticed that you have not received any messages from the Wikipedia:Feedback request service for over a month. Yapperbot appears to have stopped delivering messages. Until that can be resolved, please watch pages that interest you, such as Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines.

This notification has been sent to you as you are subscribed to the Feedback Request Service. - MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 08:11, 28 January 2024 (UTC)

ITN recognition for Cecilia Gentili

On 8 February 2024, In the news was updated with an item that involved the article Cecilia Gentili, which you updated. If you know of another recently created or updated article suitable for inclusion in ITN, please suggest it on the candidates page. Stephen 03:03, 8 February 2024 (UTC)

History/rights table

Lost track of where I first heard of the History/rights table in your sandbox, probably at WP:LGBT, but anyway, I have some feedback for you at its Talk page. Mathglot (talk) 05:09, 12 February 2024 (UTC)

Have a look at */sandbox/Trans articles by region2 and let me know what you think. (Check out the cool interwiki link in the middle cell of the India row.) I still have some more ideas, but I think this is getting close to being useful on the project somewhere; plus I had fun chasing down some templating ideas I've long wanted to explore, but never had the occasion to until now. Mathglot (talk) 11:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Mathglot, sorry the last few days have been a bit hectic and I'm hosting my nesting girlfriend's birthday party tonight so I don't have much time, but I wanted to let you know I think it looks great and I really appreciate the work you've done on it and the other templating work you've done the past few days! I've set aside some time tomorrow to look more in-depth, but I like what I've seen. The only thing that strikes me as a bit odd is the config file - I think that's mostly just a bit of surprise not having seen that format before lol. I feel like parts of the config might be better as just params and the loop may be giving up ease of individual customization, but that may just be personal preference. When we're done with it, I'd definitely like to build Template:LGBT articles in region and abstract some of the code we wrote out. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:19, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

Re odd loop/config: I don't necessarily disagree, the loop and config was a kind of tradeoff against doing the whole thing in Lua (which I'm not capable of at this point) with the config as a Lua hash and the loop being driven off an easily modifiable country list (which the template forloop doesn't permit). However, pushing it all to Lua would mean even less ease of customization, so I ended up in this kind of middling ground, but I'm open to whatever adjustment is needed. The code in the tafr row builder is robust wrt looping iterator, in that you can replace the iterator elements in the main table, which currently use ISO-639-alpha2, with -alpha3 instead (e.g., USA instead of US, etc.) or even with the full country name and it will all work, so maybe we should do that for transparency, and change the loop iterators to have full name and one country per line, and then it will be much more easily modifiable. I guess I went with the alpha-2 iterators because I was worried about the table maybe one day having almost 200 countries (and what about states, provinces, cities even?) some day, and as long as that damn forloop iterator has to be explicitly coded in-line and not transcluded from a list-of-regions config, which was the first thing I did in the config file (see earlier versions if curious) but I could never get the iterators to work unless hard-coded; if you can, that would be a big win for modifiability, because that could just be one config page with a list of countries; no squirrelly template code to scare anyone away.

The config is kind of the same thing, being a workaround for a hash or other kind of Lua structure that would be even less modifiable. The config can even be done with no template conditionals at all, by setting up a config page with header sections containing single data items which are non-scary to non-template editors cuz no template code, but I didn't think it was worth going that far. I did something like that back when Leslie Feinberg was having wars and other problems with pronouns, and ended up with a config for a while, but I ended up userfying it because it was pretty non-standard for mainspace; you can see it at User:Mathglot/Leslie Feinberg/pronouns and it worked just fine in a test at the article, and it's pretty obvious how to modify the config (even though it would be a lot more compact as a #switch statement) but as you pointed out, less user-friendly for non-template editors; so that's a possible approach. Plus, I think the bar is just a lot lower on configs or other creative template (and Module) usage in Wikipedia space than it would be in mainspace; we just have to find the right trade-off between modifiability and power.

There was one other aspect that is only partially developed (see Draft:Aad) that isn't present in the current version (but is in the history of the /col2 template) that uses icons (or icon-like Unicode chars) to decorate the article titles in the tables. This is an extension of the Class/icon thing, and adds on file length, redirects that could possibly be notable articles, and article protection levels. This is still in Draft, but it's basically an abstraction which attempts to leverage the advantages of icons over lots of text. The icons are still too large and obtrusive, but maybe with the right size and placement could be useful.

One thing I forgot to mention: the 'T' abbreviation: I thought of going even shorter ("T hist Argentina", "TRights", etc., to narrow the table down further and make it better for smaller devices. For mobile users, we could use {{ifmobile}} and present them as alpha-3 codes e.g., "TH ARG" and shorten the column headers as well. But that's not my top priority.

About abstracting: although the tripartite division of the columns is probably unique to trans topics, I'm all for abstracting stuff out, and maybe providing a model so that this and other WikiProjects can build useful tables like this. I had one eye out on that the whole time, and even though it was lots of fun developing it, I wouldn't have done it if it were only applicable to this one table, so it was/is kind of a proof of concept and testing the practicality of it all. Would be fun to develop something with you, a set of tools, or building blocks, or conventions or whatever that would aid other projects in better tracking stuff so they could improve their own projects. Go enjoy your party (insert icons birthday cake, hat, noisemaker, clinking champagne flutes, ice cream, here); no hurry, look forward to your ideas when you get back. Mathglot (talk) 23:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

By the way, if you're not using sticky table headers, they're helpful for stuff like this. Go to preferences, and enter "sticky" in the 'search preferences' input box. Mathglot (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC)

That explanation clarifies a lot, thank you! I think in the config is a pretty good solution, it just needs to be linked prominently on the page and have some extra guidance in the noinclude. I also really like the Aad template as I was thinking as I tried to cobble together the original icon display that it should be abstracted out lol. And the party went quite well!

I'll look at passing in the regions from the config because that should theoretically definitely be possible.

On narrowing, I agree, but was thinking more general/abstractable descriptive info about the article's state: Article exists, Article DNE, Redirects, and Draft exists for example (with all the additional bells and whistles we added).

I'd love to work together on that! After trying to fix the regions transclusion, I'll start drafting some templates. I think the basic order to further abstract this is:

• Article info template: {{Article info|Transgender history in Brazil|config=place/config}} - returning the content we currently have per column, possibly with the linked text I proposed above
• Some global config for defaults for regions (fixing region names, linking articles to their region's main language, region lists like states by country, countries by continent, etc)
• Regional article rows:
  • {{Regional article summary/row|Bolivia|Transgender history in REGION|Transgender rights in REGION|Transgender people in REGION|config=place/config}}
  • {{Regional article summary/row|Bolivia|LGBT history in REGION|LGBT rights in REGION|LGBT people in REGION|LGBT culture in REGION|config=place/config}}
  • Pass in a region name then variable number of rows where REGION will be replaced by the first paramter
• Regional article summary: {{Regional article summary|LGBT history in REGION|LGBT rights in REGION|...|config=place/config|regions=<region list name>}}

There will be more parameters to add and tweaks to make, but that's about the basic functionality on top of which it'll be easy for people to specify topics and/or build wrappers!

Also, thanks for the sticky headers info, it's a wonderful tweak! Best, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:43, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Briefly:

I'll look at passing in the regions from the config because that should theoretically definitely be possible.

It is definitely possible (the original config listed all the countries) but I don't think it's possible using forloop, which seems to require an explicit, hard-coded iterator (or the range-type, which doesn't work for us, although you could make it work with a row-builder template that awkwardly numbered its countries, but that would be more opaque than helpful), so you kind of have to roll your own looper if you want to drive it off a ○onfig, something like the 'all' pseudo-type does at Draft:Aad via recursion. I tried a lot of ways to get the iterator to be transcludable and finally gave up. If you can figure out a way, that would be great! More on the rest of it later... Mathglot (talk) 23:34, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

I am pleased to report I got it working! I ended up having to make Template:For loop delimited to do so lol, but it's a handy enough function I'm sure others will find it useful in future. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)

Excellent! Can't look at the moment, but can't wait to do so. Good work! Oh, your mention of Exists/DNE reminded me of a Draft:Aad icon I had planned to add and then forgot; you maybe know the mathematical backwards E and crossed out version for exists/doesn't—and I think I forgot a couple other file attributes I wanted to decorate as well. Mathglot (talk) 00:04, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

More on looping, if you need a comparison, see {{Contentious topics/table}}. There's also these. Mathglot (talk) 20:56, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot, sorry for dropping this, the last few weeks have been very hectic for me lol. Just wanted to give you a heads up I'm planning to find some time to put some more work into the Regional Summary templates and hopefully finish them this weekend! Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:04, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

@Mathglot, hope you've been doing well! I got the groundwork for Template:Regional articles done! Sorry it took me a while, this weekend my wiki-focus was stolen and drained by a certain controversial pseudo-diagnosis lol.

It's in a rough state (as are the helper templates), but I have to meet some friends now so won't have time to fix/document it further until I come home. The linked template includes 2 examples, one passing a list of regions, another passing the name of a preconfigured list of regions.

My next steps are various fixes to make sure you can pass the same # of article titles, extra fixes to the names/prefixed names, handling of categories, updating it to include REGIONAL XYZ people as that's a common title format (it currently handles XYZ in REGION only), and the ability to pass specialized config files for the additional notes per row.

I'm really happy it's beginning to shape up! Lmk any thoughts or input you have. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:41, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Am just starting in on this, and will have more to say later. Am I correct that this template is the generalization of what we've been working on, so that it could be used for more general topics, and that with the appropriate config or params, will generate the same table we have been talking about? First impressions is about the doc: can you add an objective/purpose statement above the ==Usage== section? "This template may be used for/to ... for example, to create a ... at a WikiProject (??) in order to ...". It generates a table of ... configurable by ... ". Second: in the Examples, expose the wikicode that generates the table. See {{tlg}}. When an invocation generates a large amount of text, you can embed the {{tlg}} in a {{cot}} or {{markup}}, such as at {{Reflib#Examples}}, or {{Sfnlink#Examples}}. Third, looking at the doc, it wasn't clear what is configurable. The number of columns? Or is that fixed? Their content? Also, in the last column, I assume all those 'Article DNE' red links are something you are still working on; but if not, what do they mean? More later. Mathglot (talk) 08:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I feel like we're getting close to something really useful. Do you? Mathglot (talk) 09:49, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Am I correct that this template is the generalization of what we've been working on, so that it could be used for more general topics, and that with the appropriate config or params, will generate the same table we have been talking about? Yep! The next big step is the regional notes, but I think I know a way to pass them as params to make the template usage simple (something like {{Regional articles|title|another title|regions=countries|UnitedStatesNotes=Some notes|BrazilNotes=More notes|...}} ), followed by handling languages in a similar fashion. I'll get back to you in the config section below after trying that out, but very brief response I think the current organization is good if needing extension, and if I can get that param passing working then it'll be easy to keep that behind the scenes for handling defaults and let people not bother with it.

I feel like we're getting close to something really useful Me too! I just cleaned up the doc per your notes and hope it better illustrates the current functionality, though it's going to have to grow as I add more features lol. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:58, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks; not sure I've grokked it all yet, but would handling a variable number of positional params (regions) be what you want? Think about how {{sfn}} works, where you say, {{sfn}}, or {{Doe}} where the param is content-defined; i.e., {{{2}}} could be year, or it could be author2, depending what's in there. Arguing against this, is that that approach is pretty rare (but seems to work well for sfn) and you have to make sure your 'content' is definitely identifiable, no grey areas trying to guess what the next one is. Or, just make all the regions positional, and everything non-region named; that's well-defined, and probably simpler. Mathglot (talk) 23:10, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Just realized DNE is ∄ (U+2204). Funny, I just started a VPT topic about something related to that, that fizzled. Mathglot (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of that discussion, you're aware of expensive parser functions and the PP limit report, right? That came up at VPT, and may be relevant here, if we do a lot of exists/DNE testing, multiplied by R rows by C columns. Limit is 500 for expensive calls, doesn't sound like we would hit that, at least not in one table; but if some project page had multiple, or long tables, I can see that happening. Iirc, they don't get expanded if in a collapse section, so one way to protect against exceeding the limit, is by collapsing tables with {{cot}} / {{cob}}, and if there are multiple tables on a page, just open one at a time. Mathglot (talk) 07:13, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Display inline-block issue at Article length bar

123k

Hi, YFNS, I've been working on a related decoration template for article size, because I think the icons emitted by {{alr}} are too opaque. It's at Draft:Article length bar, and it's emitting the right diagram, but it's displaying in block mode, instead of inline mode. The style at Draft:Article length bar/styles.css derives from {{Thermometer/styles.css}}, and may be the source of the problem; in particular, I think the first two divs can be combined. Be that as it may, you seem pretty good at this stuff; do you see how to update the draft template so that it emits the image in inline display mode? Mathglot (talk) 12:05, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

Actually, don't bother. I think I'm going to redo it entirely; I think the three divs inherited from Thermometer are overkill, and it can be done a lot more simply. Mathglot (talk) 19:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

I completely redid the design; lmk what you think. Will respond later to the previous section update (thanks for that). You seem very good at programming; how's your css? Check out the last example for vertical mode; it goes down from the baseline due to the gradient; but if I flip it the other way, I have the opposite problem. Do you know how to make it grow upwards from baseline, with green at the bottom, and yellow/red (if needed, or empty if not) at the top? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:12, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

It looks great! I checked and saw you added vertical mode, so I made a quick fix to bottom align the text since the top-aligned text felt out of sync with the right-to-left and bottom-to-top mapping (feel free to revert if you prefer the previous styling though). Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 05:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

That's fine, thank you for that. Am still looking for a solution that would facilitate the bar growing up from the baseline, i.e., think bar chart, with multiple vertical bars all growing upwards from a common y=0 x-axis. (But maybe there's a better way to do that.) In the meantime, I've beefed up the doc considerably, and added sparkline support, making it easier to do this, in some Talk page discussion:

...comparing the articles for France , Germany , and Italy .

Mathglot (talk) 09:08, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah gotcha, I was a little confused what you meant but bar chart cleared it up lol. I'll look into it this weekend, I don't think I'll have the time tonight and I want to sleep on it since a quick review shows the current code would have to be significantly modified to work with that (gradients won't work, the basic structure will be an inline div with divs of variable height/color for each bar). I think the current vertical display might be useful, so I'll add it as a new mode (bar) instead of rewriting vert if that's ok with you! Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:07, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I wouldn't waste too much time on vert (unless you're just having fun doing it) until we know if anybody even wants it. If the current approach won't work for vertical bar, maybe it's easier/better just to strip out vert and be done with it. The one place I thought it might be possibly interesting, is as an alternative for narrower tables in mobile view, where maybe you would have a skinny column just for vertical length bars. But even there, that probably just eats up a bit more horizontal space that isn't necessary, because if we are going to have article names in the table at all, then the horizontal bar, appropriately sized, can just sit below it. So I don't really see much of a downside in just stripping out the vertical mode. Part of its raison d'etre was to see if it could be done, and I thought perhaps in bar charts or very skinny table columns, but now I'm not so sure we really need it. I'm fine with anything you want to do there: rewrite to keep vert; strip it out; leave as is; I'm leaning toward stripping it, but open.

The other thing I'm thinking about, now that it's basically working, is the colors. They are strong, primary colors, and I'm thinking about your table, and what it would be like with three of them per row for a couple dozen rows: it might be too overwhelming or feel like the inside of a kaleidoscope, so I'm thinking more towards having muted, or pastels. Still based on stoplight colors, which everybody understands so a legend is almost superfluous, but softer so it doesn't dominate or detract. Maybe small as a sparkline, as well, which still conveys the info well enough. As far as the technical end of colors: I don't see a way to get linear gradient colors into the /styles.css file, but it would be easy enough to put them into the config file, and even to add override params, if that was desirable. Mathglot (talk) 22:56, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

By the way, a future flash: I will have a template programming question for you (on a completely separate issue) regarding proper handling of defaults for missing pass-thru params in a template. Don't have the question well-formed yet, but if you want a sneak peak, see {{Smoke test}}, Template:Archives/testcases/Smoke test, Template:Archives/sandbox#Smoke test (not invoking right), Template:Archives/testcases#Smoke test (works, but only because it is not via the {{smoke test}} template, so not a solution), and the wikicode of Template:Archives/doc#Examples (search for '{{smoke test}}'). Something is wrong with the invocation of smoke test from the sandbox in preview mode, when the call to {{smoke test}} has no pass-thru params, is the trigger condition, I think. If you provide pass-thru params in Template:Archives/doc#Examples, then it works. I'll try and get a better statement of what's wrong together, but if I can get this working right, it will be a real productivity booster when developing templates in the sandbox. Mathglot (talk) 23:01, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

config

We talked about the config above, and I was also somewhat leery of using a config as I hadn't seen that kind of thing before here, but having thought over various approaches, decided to go with it. I was still hoping to find other uses of config files to have comfort in numbers and precedent, and now I have some examples: User:MusikBot II/TemplateProtector/config and Module:Footnotes/whitelist. They both look like JSON to me, though I'm not familiar with JSON commenting, so maybe it's some variant, or a plain vanilla Lua hash with Lua comments.

In any case, one is for a bot and the other is for the Footnotes module that deals with Sfn and all that, and it makes me more comfortable that the config approach here is okay; I have a hard time seeing how one could say it's okay for a Module, but not for a template. So I feel we're good to go now with a config, and needn't worry further about that approach; but I wanted to solicit your feedback about that. (I also just found {{Infobox element/symbol-to-term-symbol}} while writing this, which provides even more support; it's harder to find them when they don't have 'config' in the title, so there may be lots more of these.)

Secondarily—and of less concern, but as long as we're talking about configs—there's the issue of what language/style the config should be. I had considered JSON at the outset, because I see it being used in the WP:TemplateData sections in the /doc for many templates to drive the Visual editor users who want to use the template. But in the end, I decided that we write templates in "template language" (so to speak) and it seemed most natural to me to just continue that; after all, if we didn't have a config, that's how that functionality would have to be coded back in the template, and why search around for a JSON-parsing template just to grab config data via transclusion that didn't need any special handling? So just having the config as a big switch seemed like a natural choice to me, just as a Lua array/JSON might be natural for a Module. (I even considered other possibilities; a list of easily matchable key/value pairs; a page with separate sections where each section has one value and you do selective transclusion to grab the value, as in this edit at Leslie Feinberg supported by a subtemplate config, since userfied to here.)

I ended up going with a config also for the {{Article length bar}} (at {{Alb/c}} ) as well, with some override params, the idea being that the config establishes the sitewide defaults but is separate from the template to facilitate adjustment without mucking with the bowels of somewhat intricate template code, while the override params allow any editor who wishes to transclude the template to use different values than the config on a case-by-case basis. (And I know I still owe you a response above on the Alb template, and I'll loop back to that eventually.) Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 08:04, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

aad released

Wrote this comment up and lost it, somehow. Anyway, {{Article attribute decoration}} is released from Draft and is now live. There was a fair bit of housekeeping, if anything is broken, I probably forgot something. I fixed one call in {{Article info}}, so hopefully that propagates, but if something is broken anyway, try purging the page. The 'all' subtemplate will dump several icons (or unicode chars), so you can have {{aad/all|Transgender history in Argentina}} → 19.7k (or the lightweight, character-based version: {{aad/all|Transgender history in Argentina|raw=y}} → ↳19.7kb Ⓝд ). Since I see you are using exists/DNE in the Regions template, should I add something to add for that as well? Mathglot (talk) 19:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! It looks good and nothing seems to be broken lol. I think so, I'm surprised we don't already have an icon for DNE used more commonly across WP. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

continuing

Have been away and mostly inactive for a couple of weeks, as you probably noticed, but would like to pick up on this again. I'd like to see this table development platform (or whatever we want to call it) get used in one place at least (Argentina? Templates that are not used end up at Tfd from an active group scouring for them) where it could then serve as a model for use elsewhere. Am happy to collaborate with you on this, but as you created the initial concept it makes sense for you to take lead on it. Am happy to assist further in whatever way you need. Maybe start with bringing me up to date where things stand now? Mathglot (talk) 22:02, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Likewise for the most part, some heartbreak but I think I'm over it!

Sorry for the late reply, had a lot going on, I won't have time until tonight but then I'll review the template and let you know how it's standing. I'm thinking the LGBT Wikiproject would be the place to debut it. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 14:37, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply, busy few days. I just fixed the last bug (leading commas in the other languages display) so as it stands, it works theoretically perfectly. However, the script is timing out when tested with all countries - later I'll try and split it by continents and see if that helps. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:46, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I have something that might be in your wheelhouse: Draft:New York Community Trust

This was deleted from mainspace as an advertisement, and I have restored it to draft per a WP:RFU request. The organization is clearly notable, but the current presentation of the article is a no-go. Let me know what you think. Cheers! BD2412 T 19:52, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

@BD2412 thanks for passing that on! Yeah the article as it stands reads hagiographical, but I've definitely seen the name before in my research. A quick google scholar search for the name brings back ~5000 results, at a glance a fair bit of those are irrelevant passing mentions and/or cruft but there should be enough. I'm probably going to be too busy to get to it for a few weeks (no rest for the wicked and self-employed lol), but it's definitely on my radar and I'll do some more research when I get the chance! Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:23, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. No rush at all. BD2412 T 20:36, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Israel–Hamas war on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 07:41, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

March 2024 GAN backlog drive

Good article nominations | March 2024 Backlog Drive
March 2024 Backlog Drive: On 1 March, a one-month backlog drive for good article nominations will begin. Barnstars will be awarded. Interested in taking part? You can sign up here or ask questions here.
You're receiving this message because you have reviewed or nominated a good article in the last year.

(t · c) buidhe 02:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Israel Defense Forces on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 21:31, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Asian witchcraft on a "Religion and philosophy" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 11:31, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 19:30, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Economy, trade, and companies request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:2024 United States presidential election on a "Economy, trade, and companies" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 07:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

My apologies

I do try to default-"they" any editor whose gender I've not researched, but I am an oldster and I slip in that from time to time. I shall continue to try to do better. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 23:26, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

No worries, no offense intended none taken! Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:42, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Russo-Ukrainian War on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 08:30, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard on a "Media, the arts, and architecture" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 23:31, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Politics, government, and law request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:1977 anti-Tamil pogrom on a "Politics, government, and law" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 02:30, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

UK

Per your comments at Talk:Puberty blocker#Science based medicine. I've seen this before, where anything concerning trans matters from the UK is dismissed per "TERF Island" prejudicial comments. I strongly advise you stop that right now as that path leads to an Arbcom topic ban. It isn't even like the US is any better, so such an prejudicial attitude is liable to mockery, never mind having no place on Wikipedia. -- Colin°^Talk 15:37, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Hi Colin, thank you for the advice and I hope you're doing well. I do believe you are misinterpreting my argument though.

1) I fully support inclusion of the NICE review.

2) I also support a short RS-backed statement that a FOI request for the authors was denied (a bit of easily verifiable sociopolitical content, not MEDRS content).

3) Some on the page keep arguing we can't use SBM for the latter since it's not a MEDRS source, but by their logic, one now needs a systematic review of puberty blockers saying "this systematic review's authors denied a FOI request" to include it, which is stretching MEDRS past the extreme (and manifestly silly, as that's not how systematic reviews work or what they report on). It also ignores that MEDRS explicitly states that non-MEDRS information in MEDRS article can rely on RS, not MEDRS.

Additionally, with regards to your note on the U.S. v. U.K., you are missing a key bit of context. The U.K. Government has been internationally criticized, even by the Council of Europe for it's demeaning attitudes towards trans people and failure to provide timely care. The U.S. varies state by state. The national organizations all support trans healthcare, and while there's been international criticism (medical and human-rights based) it has been directed towards the states rather than the country as a whole.

• For example, Florida released a report finding there's no evidence transition helps people, which was nationally and internationally medically and ethically panned. It was also made with the involvement of SEGM & co IIRC. We do not use that report, even though it was by a government agency, because of the context.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

You wrote: If we would not treat a review by the Russian equivalent of NICE finding homosexuality to be infectious or etc to be infallible, then we shouldn't give a lot of weight to a review by anonymous authors criticized by leading international professional groups from a country a Council of Europe report found to have a human rights problem due mass vilification of trans people, rising anti-trans sentiment, and rollbacks and attacks on transgender civil liberties due to the rise in power of the gender-critical movement.[20] The United Kingdom's abyssal treatment of trans people is internationally considered WP:FRINGE. is the sort of comment that will make eyes roll and admins reach for sanctions. You might as well have gone full Godwin's Law and compared the UK to Nazi Germany. An all this FOI request stuff is insinuation that is not befitting a medical article on Wikipedia. Save it for a blog. Stop throwing that WP:FRINGE link around too. That's for flat earth stuff, not the medical guidelines from the experts of a country of 60 million. Please go examine some other NICE guidelines, pick a non-controversial topic, like epilepsy treatment in children, say. I think you'll find that NICE routinely report that medical therapies lack evidence. This review would be quite surprising if it did otherwise.

Seriously, if I see the Council of Europe mentioned one more time in a talk page discussion trying to dismiss a source from the UK, and a top-tier source like this, I will take whoever said it to the relevant forum for a topic ban. You cannot dismiss an entire democracy of 60 million people. It is outrageously offensive. I hope that is clear. -- Colin°^Talk 19:50, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Here's a relevant peer-reviewed criticism of these specific NICE reports and the Cass Review in general in the worlds' leading publication on transgender healthcare.[1] Much better source than SBM, and they say who chaired the reports so the FOI point is moot, it was chaired by Cass. Y'know, I hadn't realized they straight up excluded trans people from the experts pool in their initial terms of reference and that they actually ignored the GRADE approach recommendation that low-quality studies can lead to strong recommendations. It's nice they also point out the evidence inequality in that the Cass Review has put a no-evidence non-affirmative approach on par with a low-quality (by GRADE) but evidenced affirmative approach.

not the medical guidelines from the experts of a country of 60 million raises the immediate question to "who chooses the experts?" and "what country". Is the position democratically elected or by appointment? Is the subject a minority group the government is internationally known to mistreat? You repeat the point, You cannot dismiss an entire democracy of 60 million people. It is outrageously offensive, but I am not "dismissing" an "entire democracy" as you put it, I am saying we need to consider all RS, including those saying a country's government and medical institutions have a bad track record with certain human rights. On that last note, I'm somewhat confused, are you arguing 1) that the UK Government and NHS haven't been internationally criticized for their treatment of trans people or 2) that they have but it holds absolutely no weight to the discussion?

On a final note (and any conversation has gone to far off the rails when I'm defending Florida), Florida is a democracy of 23 million people, was it outrageously offensive when I noted their track record and the fact their medical recommendations were political in that specific situation? Or is it only a problem when the UK's government is questioned? Which governmental medical organizations are OK to question as due and when? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

The UN also leveled criticisms of the UK govt for its treatment of trans people. [2] Snokalok (talk) 07:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

_{peanut gallery comment}I don't think mockery is a good solution here, and I don't think an Arbcom case based on the observation that UK politics is notoriously opposed to trans healthcare is warranted either. I think the statement attributed to SBM can be removed, but I think provided there are secondary sources, mentioning the FOI request is fair game, and it looks like SBM might count as a secondary source here. Whether that goes to notability seems like a matter for WP:RSN and not WP:ARBCOM to me. I think Xoreaster's !vote on the New York Post RfC might be helpful in that regard. --Licks-rocks (talk) 16:53, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

peanut gallery comment #2 It's very easily sourceable that the US is in fact better on trans issues than the UK. Admittedly, the US has gotten worse on this issue recently, but it's still the case that there are many places in the US where you can change your legal sex to nonbinary, which is not the case and has never been the case in the UK, as just one illustrative example. It's also, obviously, the case that it's way easier to get puberty blockers if you are a trans kid in the US than in the UK, and that US medical authorities are much more likely to recommend them in the US and the UK. The US press is also way more trans-friendly in the US then in the UK and if you don't believe me compare the coverage of trans issues in the New York Times to the Times of London. There's also plenty of direct sources on this point which have been brought up before; in short there's really no argument on this point.

I also think that taking YFNS to any forum for a topic ban over a bog-standard content dispute is so ridiculously tendentious that I would argue hard for a boomerang. Loki (talk) 22:16, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) Colin, NICE reviews are not beyond reproach. Yes we consider them high on the MEDRS pyramid, but they can also be seriously flawed, and they can be wrong. In 2015 they were criticised for allowing political interference from the Department of Health in Westminster to remove certain references from its Dementia, disability and frailty in later life guideline, and as far as I can tell, no reforms to prevent future political interference took place. In 2017 a coalition of 35 health organisations found that draft guidance on adult depression was "not fit for purpose and, if published, would seriously impede the care of millions of people with depression in the UK". The paper by Cal Horton that YFNS linked in a reply above goes into a reasonable amount of detail about the criticisms made against the 2021 review into puberty blockers.

Threatening an editor with a topic ban because they are making hyperbolic comparisons based on strong reliably sourced criticisms of a country for their woeful human rights track record on a related topic is kinda an overreaction my friend. Now I agree those comparisons are wholly unhelpful and inappropriate to that discussion. YFNS' argument would be significantly stronger if she were instead sticking to the relevant sources and she should reflect upon that. I also think that the repeated invocations of FRINGE are not helpful, because while NICE can make mistakes, can release clinically bad guidance, and can be subject to external political pressure from the sitting government to change their guidance, without high quality sources making those points they are not something that we can really consider when drafting content.

But when it comes to lowering the temperature of that discussion, invoking Godwin as you've done here, or telling editors who are making arguments based on reliable sources that they should write a blog, I don't think is going to have the desired effect. I think everyone here would do well to reflect how they're approaching discussions on that talk page, and how they could change their approach to lower tensions and redirect it back to focusing on the content and directly relevant sources. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:51, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't the editor who compared the UK to Putin's Russia. No process is perfect and any health judgements that affect a population, especially one with a strong activist base is going to receive criticism from someone who is disappointed or disagrees. That's a healthy sign and entirely normal. It's how science and medicine work. And I'm sure there are criticisms of WPATH you just forgot to mention. On Wikipedia we absolutely have to rise above the level of Twitter nonsense where the clinical guidelines of a major liberal democracy are tarnished by xenophobic comments. Particularly not from someone based in the US, glass houses and all that. And no the US really is not better. These poll results are not greatly different to the UK.

It is not, absolutely not, the job of editors here to conduct original research on whether NICE or WPATH or any other consensus guidelines are correct or flawed or whatever. You can, I can see you can, do better, by citing sources that make the case for and against these guidelines. Doing it with xenophobic nonsense about the UK is not acceptable. At all. I really hope that is clear. -- 08:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC) Colin°^Talk 08:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

You really come off as insulted about your national pride here. I hope that's not the intent. But yes we are absolutely required to evaluate a source's reliability critically in any situation! WP:RSN is one of our most heavily trafficked noticeboards for good reason. C'mon man, it's basic knowledge that the place for source quality discussions is the talk page and that those discussions do not count as OR. I'm not doing you the indignity of citing the guideline, since I'm not entirely sure you didn't contribute to writing it.

Also, I think it's pretty well established that most of the UK's alleged transphobia is coming from the establishment there, not the population. [3]

See also: our own articles on the subject --Licks-rocks (talk) 09:02, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Well for a start, I'm Scottish, which hasn't restricted puberty blockers to clinical trials, though does have similar problems to E&W with infinite waiting lists. And I'm not really into national pride and cringe when any politician claims there's such a thing as "British values" when that politician's values ain't mine.

If you read the Puberty blocker article, you'll see other European nations have taken similar approaches. Are you going to start digging up xenophobic dirt on all those countries too. And what are you going to do when the orange bloke gets elected in November? Am I really going to see YFNS saying that now we have to deprecate WPATH as a source because it is based in the US, or will they not do that because they agree with WPATH?

The idea that we might deprecate NICE because it is for E&W is laughable and offensive. I'm well aware of RSN and we can't even deprecate The Telegraph, despite it posting anti-trans stories several times every day, so no. Please take NICE to the RSN and I'll bring popcorn. -- Colin°^Talk 10:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll take it to RSN and accept the ANI case resulting from that WP:POINT edit if you can link me to one instance about which we'll both agree that anyone, either here or in the [discussion on Puberty blocker] has said that NICE should be deprecated prior to 10:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC). That's how confident I am that it did not happen. --Licks-rocks (talk) 10:52, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The green text I quoted above. -- 10:57, 20 March 2024 (UTC) Colin°^Talk 10:57, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't even see where you think the call for deprecation is supposed to be in that segment. --Licks-rocks (talk) 11:02, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

That's convenient for you. -- Colin°^Talk 11:04, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:OR doesn’t apply to talk pages, they say that explicitly. Snokalok (talk) 12:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Snokalok, I didn't say "WP:OR", I said "original research", which was my disparaging opinion of the utterly novel and offensive idea of questioning whether NICE meets MEDRS by comparing the UK to Putin's Russia. -- Colin°^Talk 14:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

::::::::I mean, see point 1) from the second comment in this thread. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ --Licks-rocks (talk) 11:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)_{comment struck (and originally removed!) by --Licks-rocks (talk) 15:17, 20 March 2024 (UTC)}

Yes, they fully support "inclusion" of the NICE review, relegated to the criticism section, where they can, in front of our readers, discredit it with insinuations about the authors. And use the talk page as a forum to disparage the UK's record on trans rights, and thus discredit anything anyone in the UK says about trans issues that they disagree with. And the text I quoted in green was in response to If the purpose of that sentence is to attempt to undermine a MEDRS source because it may have been written by a baddie, that’s even worse. and NICE are specifically named on WP:MEDRS as an example of widely respected governmental and quasi-governmental health authorities. Your attempt to redefine this as WP:FRINGE is misplaced. The whole purpose of that discussion is to discredit NICE as a source for whether puberty blockers are an evidence-based effective/safe therapy. Except, outside of I'm guessing some little twitter bubble, NICE's reputation is intact, as is the UK's reputation for evidence based medicine, which is world leading. Reputation is about the long term and multiple cases. This is what matters on Wikipedia. Editors cannot come here with their own opinions about what is the right or wrong treatment for one particular medical issue, and because they think X is wrong on this one matter, claim X's reputation must be bad, because, you know, Putin. That's not how "reliable sources" works. -- Colin°^Talk 14:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

thus discredit anything anyone in the UK where am I doing this????? A government != every british person... When I said the Florida medical board was politically appointed, was I criticizing a government and it's institutions or literally ever Floridian????

yes, they fully support "inclusion" of the NICE review, relegated to the criticism section - care to strike that? I explicitly supported moving it from the criticism section days ago [4]. I didn't put it in that section, but if you want to blame me for that go ahead I guess...

as is the UK's reputation for evidence based medicine except in trans healthcare, an internationally recognized problem...

Per the greentext you quoted. Florida's board of health said trans healthcare has no evidence. When we mention that, we mention the board was appointed by Ron DeSantis. We don't remove any and all political context sourced to RS because it might make them look less credible. I also think you missed that I removed MEDRS criticism sourced to SBM and have only argued we should use them for non-medical information in the article.[5]

Editors cannot come here with their own opinions about what is the right or wrong treatment for one particular medical issue,... You do realize I oppose the use of puberty blockers for trans youth in all but rare circumstances, right? But there's a difference between my own opinions and the international consensus, which supports them. One flawed review (and that's the opinion of multiple international medical organizations) doesn't change international consensus about whether puberty blockers should be used for trans youth. If I was editing by my opinion and not RS, the article would be a lot more critical of their use for trans minors.

Please friend, this is all shadowboxing. You're blaming me for things I didn't do, attributing opinions to me that are opposite my actual ones, and attributing xenophobia to me as if I'm saying literally all british people are unreliable on trans topics always and not we should consider the UK government's track record on trans rights and healthcare when writing about their recommendations. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 14:39, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Relegated to the "UK" section then. Still relegated. Have you read the Council of Europe report? Don't recall it even mentioning trans healthcare. -- Colin°^Talk 14:42, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Actually it does give a brief mention, wrt some activists claims "Trans healthcare is also being erroneously portrayed as a form of LGB conversion therapy" and delays (though there are delays throughout mental health matters on the NHS). But these are matters for the individuals making such claims, not a report saying UK's healthcare is deliberately anti-trans and puberty blockers are being banned/restricted because hate. It is utterly irrelevant to our discussion as are references to Putin's Russia. -- Colin°^Talk 15:08, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

still relegated There is a separate discussion on how to include them in the lead, and I also supported including it there [6]. The criticism section was a recent addition (please, reflect on the Bipartisan nature of both me and Void agreeing it shouldn't be there), and it makes sense the UK guidelines would go in *checks notes* the section on UK guidelines. Still shadowboxing - I have pushed more for including the NICE report on that talk page than you have and you keep trying to argue I'm deprecating or relegating it...

The report says It is also becoming increasingly difficult for individuals and organisations to publicly affirm young trans people without being subject to hostility and disproportionate questioning from wider society, [the GC campaign] has been instrumental in creating a situation in which legal gender recognition processes still require a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, and remain inaccessible to non-binary people and anyone under 18., There is also a concerning, growing account of parents who (due to difficulties in accessing timely public health care) pursue private health care on behalf of their child, being investigated by State authorities., Trans healthcare is also being erroneously portrayed as a form of LGB conversion therapy. The TLDR, the UK is not respecting the rights of transgender youth, making it difficult for them to access timely care and investigating those who get it through other means, and making ridiculous statements about trans healthcare. It also calls on member states to protect legal gender recognition, the bodily integrity of intersex people, the protection of rainbow families, access to trans-specific healthcare

For kicks, here's the UN report[7] which repeatedly mentions the harmful effects of lack of gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the U.K. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:10, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the problems accessing transgender clinics in the UK. There are problems accessing childhood mental health facilities full stop. A record 1.4 million children and young people sought NHS help for mental health problems last year and 400,000 children are on waiting lists for health treatment. And as for general societal attitudes or statements from the more deranged ministers, the US is awful too. And your likely next president promises to lock up anyone providing gender affirming health care for children, branding it child abuse. Really, this "your liberal democracy is worse than my liberal democracy" stuff is a terrible argument. These kinds of documents are lists of faults and one can make lists of faults for really any country if one looks seriously. And one doesn't have to look hard at all for the US. -- Colin°^Talk 18:52, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I very firmly second Licks-rocks saying You really come off as insulted about your national pride here. I can't see any other point to this sort of whataboutism. Loki (talk) 20:06, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

If you want criticisms of WPATH, I have so many I don't even half RS for half of them (deadass, if you want to know, start a new talk page section and I'll just start listing the reasons I personally dislike them). I've actually been planning to update WPATH to include the reliably sourced ones for weeks. But, they are in no way beholden to the US government so that's a criticism that doesn't make sense. And poll results are immaterial (though they shouldn't be) to the actions of legislators. clinical guidelines of a major liberal democracy are tarnished by xenophobic comments They haven't actually released clinical guidelines. As a friend, I'm telling you you're shadowboxing a point I never made: The idea that we might deprecate NICE. I support inclusion of the report (and, it is a single review that was criticized by leading health organizations for ignoring relevant evidence, not an official guideline as you keep referring to it as). Questioning its weight in relation to other sources does not mean I am calling for removing it from the article, much less deprecating it.

The original thread that brought you here was entirely about can we include "a FOI request was denied". It was never should we include the NICE report because nobody is arguing we shouldn't. You've now left multiple comments on my talk page about the NICE report, and not the actual thing that thread was discussing (the FOI request).

you'll see other European nations have taken similar approaches. Please point me to the other European country saying RCTs are needed for puberty blockers? Only the UK has called for those, which is silly as even every other study in their report explicitly noted how unethical and infeasible those are. I actually had to spent a fair bit of time fixing up the PB article because it was full of misinformation portraying countries as banning care when they hadn't and their national medical organizations fully endorse it. The U.K.s treatment of transgender people continues to be a medical outlier internationally.

* CLARIFICATION (17:51, 20 March 2024 (UTC)): I've already gotten a confused DM about my stance on puberty blockers so I'll explain. International consensus is that puberty blockers are safe and effective for blocking puberty. Not just for trans kids, for kids in general. That's what they do. They work better than placebos. International consensus for the treatment of transgender youth usually recommends they be given puberty blockers after Tanner stage 2, until they're considered old enough to consent to hormones (globally usually ~16 years old). This is because they prevent further dysphoria (and permanent dysphoria) due to the development of secondary sex characteristics. I am opposed to the use of puberty blockers not because I think they're unsafe (they safely block puberty, they're internationally prescribed for that), but because I do not believe it is ethical that cisgender youth can start puberty at their leisure while trans kids, if they're lucky enough to get blockers, will spend the ages of 12-16 being told "yes, cis kids your age are going through puberty, and we believe you're trans, but you might change your mind so just keep waiting to start puberty, but hey this is better than forcing you through the wrong puberty right". Trans kids' puberties are blocked instead of changed because they might be cis, yet it would be self-evidently ridiculous to call for blocking cis kids' puberties in case they might be trans - there is a double standard and categorical denial of autonomy in how they prescribed and ideally I wouldn't want them in trans healthcare except for as requested (by questioning youth) on a short-term basis.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I've already addressed the nuance between "include" and "accept" or even "acknowledge" as one of the significant opinions. Repeated claims that NICE are WP:FRINGE is not conducive to a longterm editing career. Please stop this. You know the rules, you've recovered from a ban already.

You can read the article as well as I can. A view that puberty blockers lack good evidence and should be treated with varying degrees of caution is "typical" in Europe. How to resolve that problem is a matter for clever people, not Wikipedian's or twitterati. -- Colin°^Talk 14:40, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I am not saying NICE is fringe. I am saying the UK Government's treatment of transgender people's healthcare is fringe.

A view that puberty blockers lack [GRADE high-quality evidence] and should be treated with varying degrees of caution is "typical" everywhere. WPATH says the same. Nobody denies that more research is needed. Nobody denies we're basing it on observational studies instead of the normally more rigourous RCTs. But only the UK is calling for RCTs.

How to resolve that problem is a matter for clever people, not Wikipedian's or twitterati - And those clever people, such as those the NICE report reviewed, WPATH, EPATH, etc, have said the way you're proposing to do it is highly unethical. Only the UK has proposed the problem be resolved that way. RCTs are not unethical according to my opinion as a wikipedian, it's scientific consensus from decades of research into the topic (and, notably, they are even considered unethical for precocious puberty). Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 14:49, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Your comments at 18:15, 17 March 2024 (UTC) on Talk:Puberty blocker explicitly say that SBM are relevant on FRINGE matters, and there you are claiming "anti-trans "experts" like SEGM and co" and "the fact they may have been the one to write the [NICE] review".

Please read WP:FRINGE. You are losing me a bit. Is this NICE report with possibly dodgy authors saying PB lack evidence or insisting RCTs as the only means of accessing them? Perhaps you are conflating two arguments.

The healthcare approach of an entire liberal democratic stable country cannot possibly be FRINGE. The UK has approaches towards cancer therapy that are unique and involve trials, research, secret discounts, limitations on cost and so on. Other countries may strongly disagree with some of those. People disagree. The difficulties of organising trials are well discussed. Trans health is not unique in having such problems and believe me they get resolved if there is willing to do so. Scotland decided minimum prices for alcohol was a good approach to reducing health effects in its population and many other countries do not do that. Doesn't make Scotland's approach to alcohol WP:FRINGE.

Can you at least agree that your argument-per-Putin was unacceptable and will not be repeated. -- Colin°^Talk 15:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

1) The NICE report says PBs lack evidence using modified GRADE, they did not use all available evidence, just some of it, placing a premium on an unethical type of evidence (RCTs).

2) The Cass Review called for RCTs based on the NICE report which they commissioned

3) My argument with SBM was thus (please specify which point in my chain of reasoning is flawed)

• 1) GIVEN: MEDRS says the normal RS rules apply to non-medical information even in medical articles
• 2) GIVEN: SBM is considered generally reliable, particularly for reporting on FRINGE groups
• 3) GIVEN: SBM reported the fact that the FOI was denied, and raised concerns SEGM & co (known FRINGE groups) were involved
• 4) THEREFORE: We can use SBM for the following non-medical information

• 1) A FOI request was denied
• 2) SBM raised concerns fake experts may have been consulted

• 5) As can is separate from should, whether or not we include it is based on discussion of weight. Given the UK's track record discussed, and the fact NHS was inviting conversion therapy advocates to speak at panels just about 2 years ago [8], I believe it should be.

4) The healthcare approach of an entire liberal democratic stable country cannot possibly be FRINGE. - And yet, in the case of Florida, The healthcare approach of an entire liberal democratic stable state of 23 million can be WP:FRINGE. The GOP plan is to federally ban trans healthcare in 2025 on this side of the pond, and when they do, it'll still be medically FRINGE. Many liberal democracies require trans people be sterilized to change their ID, this is considered FRINGE from an international human rights and medical consensus. Nowhere, in all of WP:MEDRS, does it say a healthcare approach stops being FRINGE as long as 1 country endorses it. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:01, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I feel like, after this much explanation, we're solidly in aspersions territory with the things you claim were said in that discussion that weren't, Colin. I see you've placed back the comment I removed in order to reply to it. I would ask you not to mess with my comments again going forward, especially not without telling me you've done so! If I remove them, that's my choice. I thought replying to you would lead to more wasted editor time, and I was right. And for the record: No, I do not, in fact, have a twitter account. (addition after edit conflict:) Anyway, you'll be forced to agree that it being placed in a different section from where you'd like it is quite a far cry from being deprecated. --Licks-rocks (talk) 15:17, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

The "aspersions " are per-Putin. That's my primary complaint. -- 15:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC) Colin°^Talk 15:24, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I apologize for the hyperbolic comparison to Russia which obviously inflamed the discussion. I should have noted the Florida example from the beginning as much more relevant and that was my mistake. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:31, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank-you. That really is what provoked this, as though the UK was as bad as Putin's Russia. The UK is bad. The US is bad. Lots of other EU countries are bad too if one bothers to look, plenty with far right or populist governments. Outside of that, is really really really bad. -- Colin°^Talk 18:55, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

No problem. To clarify though, my original use of that comparison (while inadvisably hyperbolic) was not to say they're as bad as each other (and I regret it coming off that way), because the UK is certainly far ahead of Russia in terms of LGBT treatment. It was to highlight that we can and do take political situations into account all the time when weighing medical organizations by pointing to an obvious, if extreme, example. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 19:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I think you need to be much more careful if you are going to go down the approach of "take political situation into account". Firstly, that Council of Europe thing is shite, steaming shite, if you, as an American (I assume from your location) are going to make comments about doctors and healthcare regulators in the UK, and why something from the UK "shouldn't give a lot of weight" simply because it is from the UK. To begin with, it is a document by an LGBTI (I'm using his label choice) activist whose purpose is to demonstrate the existence and increase in hate towards this group.... in Europe. So it is rather convenient, for your purpose that it doesn't analyse the US. If I do a quick Google, I find 53 transgender people were killed last year (2022) and globally 320 trans people killed in 2023 (look at the map on that page, compare US with UK) and I can't find stats for the UK as all the news is dominated by one death, but this factcheck from 2018 has one, on average. And it isn't like the US is 53 times bigger than the UK. And that's just one aspect of hate crime. My point really is if someone asked Fourat Ben Chikha to document the rise of trans (or wider LGBTI) hate in the USA, he'd likely produce something that made the UK look tame, and would be pages long rather than one long paragraph in a big document.

But also, neither such document would be entirely fair. Because they are lists of bad things, and one can produce lists of bad things on almost anything. I'm not saying they aren't real bad things but this approach has problems. I could, for example, produce a list of crimes and threatening behaviour conducted by Muslims in the Greater London area. And such a list could well be used by some right-wing commentator to feed into their conspiracy theories about there being no-go areas in London and having a Muslim mayor means we are all living under Islamic law. There are limitations to "lists of bad things compiled by someone who went specifically looking for those bad things and not other bad things and not any good things". I'm sure you are aware of those hate websites where people make lists of crimes committed by trans women, with the idea of generating fear of all trans women. Such an approach to statistics has big limitations.

But regardless of how one generates an "opinion that a country is bad", doing so in a way that appears to group a set of people into a homogeneous negative characteristic is intrinsically offensive. The obvious examples are all the -isms and phobias. But it can happen for countries too. Many people in the UK look at US and your politics, whether its school shootings, or half the country worshipping Trump, and think you are all completely bonkers. And in a light hearted way that's perhaps ok, but if one started to take that attitude seriously, it's really hateful. Can you imagine if I proposed you be topic banned solely because of what country you were from?

If you have direct RS evidence that the UK government (which is clearly anti-trans and well documented to be) interfered with NICE reports then that is one thing. But a Council of Europe list of woe, which you then use to say we "shouldn't give a lot of weight" to a review "from a country a Council of Europe report found to have a human rights problem" is an offensive way of tackling RS issues. Btw, the "Minister for Equalities" that the CoE document mentions is Liz Truss, which most people in the UK regard in a similar light to Trump. I'm sure most doctors in the US don't think injecting people with bleach or horse medicines is a good treatment for Covid, so why should the fact that Truss believes mad stuff and says offensive stuff have any relevance as to whether medical professionals in the UK are capable of analysing evidence based medicine. Don't group people like that. If there's a direct political link with evidence, then fine, but don't group people into nations as though we are all as bonkers as Truss. -- Colin°^Talk 08:32, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

• I should clarify that "in a similar light to Trump" doesn't mean half the UK worship her. I mean we mock her with comparisons to lettuce and her infamous speech about cheese. She's off the scale, is what I mean. -- Colin°^Talk 09:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Rebuilding the Tower of Babel

@Mathglot I've had a fair bit of time to work on Template:Regional articles in the last few days. I got the notes handled (doc's updated to match)! But, I'm now stuck on a bug I was hoping you could help me with regarding languages (hence the name of this section lol).

If you check out Template:Regional articles, you can see that there's a Template loop error where the languages should be. What this should look like is at Template:Regional articles/row. Template:Article info uses a Template:for nowiki loop (through Template:For loop delimited) to generate the language links (Template:Regional articles/row/col passes the default languages per region as I defined in Template:Regional articles/config). However, this is giving a template loop error as the Regional articles template uses a for nowiki loop to generate the rows for each region. I think there should be a way to get nested for loops working, but idk where to start, I spent a few hours trying to fix it last night without any luck. Any thoughts? (question also open to talk page stalkers good with templating) Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 13:27, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

Quick tip before I even look at this: I was bedeviled by a template loop recently; you can see my struggles with it at {{Aad}} in these 7 edits. I even wrote Draft:RecursionTester trying to understand it. (I'm done with that tester; feel free to play/alter it as you wish.) It turns out some of the doc at WP:TEMPLATELOOPs was misleading or wrong; I rewrote it here. I'll have a look at your issue, but the way I fixed mine was to use a subtemplate instead; the 'show all' feature of {{Aad}} cannot reside in Aad itself, so I just created {{Aad/all}} purely to resolve the recursion issue. Maybe something like that could work for you? I'll have a look. Mathglot (talk) 19:21, 20 March 2024 (UTC) And I forgot about Draft:Recur-A and Draft:Recur-B, too. Mathglot (talk) 19:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

You're aware that even indirect recursion is out, right? A calls B calls C calls A is out. Mathglot (talk) 20:33, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

I was able to fix it! {{For nowiki}} just calls a lua module tied to the page, so I made {{For nowiki2}} which calls the same and thus sidesteps the issue of recursing templates by them technically being different. I was thinking of making it a subtemplate of {{Regional articles}}, but I thought others might find it useful in the same bind. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:44, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

You beat me to it. I was just starting to analyze it, starting from simpler steps (ie., one data column and |region_list=Argentina) but already had it in the back of my mind to suggest exactly what you just did, namely, clone the repeatedly called template. I'd add some kind of note that it should be kept in sync with the original (although, maybe it doesn't have to be, if the cloned piece does what you want, and you don't care about whatever changes happen to the original?). Anyway, glad you managed to fix it! Mathglot (talk) 22:43, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

You've got mail

Hello, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist/Archive. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template. — Sundostund mppria ^{(talk / contribs)} 18:20, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Trouted

You've been trouted! After making some changes to {{Translation request}} some weeks back and discovering that substing was broken due to upstream unsubsted template {{Sitelink}}, I hesitated to change Sitelink because I had never worked on it and only recently seen it for the first time. Eventually, after waiting a while, I did make some changes to subst-protect it so the {{Translation request}} would work properly substed, and all looked good. At least, for a while.

Today, I made some changes to {{Dual fluency}}, and once again, there was a subst problem traceable to {{Sitelink}}. It looked like I had missed subst-protecting one #if statement, so I went ahead and fixed that one, too, feeling rather abashed that I had missed one last time around, thinking I had tested it properly the first time, but apparently not. Upon further reflection, wondering how that one had snuck through, I had another look at {{Sitelink}} again. Turns out, my earlier update to add subst-protection was good, but another editor came along afterward and made an update to the code to add a new parameter, 'shortlinked', and neglected to subst-protect it. My subsequent edit and "Oops" comment blaming myself turns out to have been misplaced. Wh-a-a-a-c-c-c-k! You've been whacked by a wet trout! Mathglot (talk) 08:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard on a "Media, the arts, and architecture" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 04:30, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:Edit warring on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 17:30, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Discussion at ANI (you're not the focus)

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Nat Gertler (talk) 18:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Here, since I had to do a text search to find it. --Licks-rocks (talk) 21:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Email

Hello, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist/Archive. Please check your email; you've got mail!
It may take a few minutes from the time the email is sent for it to show up in your inbox. You can at any time by removing the {{You've got mail}} or {{ygm}} template.

--Licks-rocks (talk) 18:00, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Disambiguation link notification for April 11

Hi. Thank you for your recent edits. An automated process has detected that when you recently edited Cass Review, you added a link pointing to the disambiguation page Stonewall. Such links are usually incorrect, since a disambiguation page is merely a list of unrelated topics with similar titles. (Read the FAQ • Join us at the DPL WikiProject.)

It's OK to remove this message. Also, to stop receiving these messages, follow these opt-out instructions. Thanks, --DPL bot (talk) 18:05, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:International Churches of Christ on a "Religion and philosophy" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 18:31, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

MfD nomination of Wikipedia:No queerphobes

Wikipedia:No queerphobes, a page which you created or substantially contributed to, has been nominated for deletion. Your opinions on the matter are welcome; you may participate in the discussion by adding your comments at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:No queerphobes and please be sure to sign your comments with four tildes (~~~~). You are free to edit the content of Wikipedia:No queerphobes during the discussion but should not remove the miscellany for deletion template from the top of the page; such a removal will not end the deletion discussion. Thank you. Ad Orientem (talk) 01:24, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Line of Duty on a "Media, the arts, and architecture" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 07:30, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

No canvassing occurred

I'm just noting my support for your claim that you did not engage in canvassing in regards to Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:No queerphobes; that the only way in which you did not follow WP:APPNOTE was by pinging people rather than posting to their talk pages, and given that pinging is actually less hidden from the discussion than talk page notes would be, this should not be seen as a violationl. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 18:57, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Squatter leaders in New York City has been nominated for splitting

Category:Squatter leaders in New York City has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Indian squatter leaders has been nominated for splitting

Category:Indian squatter leaders has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 21:59, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Pakistani squatter leaders has been nominated for splitting

Category:Pakistani squatter leaders has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 22:00, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:British squatter leaders has been nominated for splitting

Category:British squatter leaders has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 22:02, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Category:Housing rights organizations in Nashville has been nominated for splitting

Category:Housing rights organizations in Nashville has been nominated for splitting. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Mason (talk) 03:54, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Housing rights organizations in Brazil

A tag has been placed on Category:Housing rights organizations in Brazil indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:03, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Housing rights organizations in Pakistan

A tag has been placed on Category:Housing rights organizations in Pakistan indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:04, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Categories

Hi there! So I wanted to reach out because I stumbled upon a lot of housing rights categories that you've created. I noticed that many of them only had a single page in them, and weren't added to all the relevant parent categories. Please only create categories if you can add several pages to it, otherwise it doesn't help navigation. Please also make sure to add multiple parent categories. For example, Category:Housing rights organizations in Cape Town, should have also been added to Category:Organisations based in Cape Town, while the parent category Category:Housing rights organizations in South Africa should also have Category:Housing in South Africa and Category:Human rights organisations based in South Africa as parents. Thanks, and keep up the good work! Mason (talk) 13:42, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

@Mason Thanks for the advice! And for cleaning up the categories, my apologies for the mess, I went through the parent housing categories trying to organize them a few months ago since they were very disorganized and feel a little silly I swung the pendulum too far back the other way lol. Best, Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:26, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

The nazi troll

I feel very vindicated to have just walked away from the nazi troll considering how fast he got sock-blocked. I guess he can no longer "accept my concession" lol. Simonm223 (talk) 03:24, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Religion and philosophy request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Magical thinking on a "Religion and philosophy" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 15:31, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

May 2024

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents regarding an issue with which you may have been involved. Thank you. Unnamed anon (talk) 23:06, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Your essay

I have moved the no queerphobia essay to your user space. You can see my reasoning in the move summary. Best, v/r - Seawolf35 ^T--C 20:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

I have outlined my objections to this move on the Talk page. In the meantime...

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist, I'd like to thank you for your work on the essay. I think it is important and worthwhile. I hope that it is returned to the WP space sooner rather than later. It would reflect badly on Wikipedia if it is still languishing here when Pride Month rolls around. I appreciate that this has brought you a lot of trouble and I hope that you are OK and that you will take the right lessons from this. You have to be very careful when dealing with people trying to create drama so that it doesn't come back on you. Yes, I know that I sound like the annoying Caterpillar telling Alice to "Keep your temper", and I apologise for that. I wish it wasn't like this. Anyway, please don't get discouraged. You are valued here. --DanielRigal (talk) 21:31, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

@DanielRigal This move is a carte-blanche override of recent consensus against userification at MfD. I can only hope the user who took this inappropriate action promptly self-reverts. Simonm223 (talk) 21:56, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you a lot for the message, I do think it'll be moved back by the end of the day one way or another. I'm doing OK - WP:NONAZIS was controversial, so was WP:No Confederates, so I definitely expected WP:No queerphobes to be. Didn't quite expect an immediate MFD and charges of canvassing lol.

I appreciate the advice and you're right, I ended up only getting 3 hours of sleep due to work and was crabbier than I should have been. I hope admins in future will be more proactive about editors repeatedly saying obviously offensive shit about minorities instead of the editors who get sick of that. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 23:19, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

@Seawolf35 please self-revert the move: as has been noted there was an MFD and DRV where a few editors explicitly argued it should be moved to user space, and consensus among dozens of editors was to keep in Wikipedia: space. WP:BOLD and WP:IAR do not cover supervoting like this. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:59, 18 May 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Talk:Fun in a Chinese Laundry (memoir) on a "Media, the arts, and architecture" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 00:30, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Advice?

Hello! I was checking in on some editors with whom I have had positive interactions in the past, and I am glad to see that the administration has finally withdrawn their disruptive editing restrictions against you! I read that you learned how to pass a show trial with flying colors, and I was wondering if you would be willing to share some advice about how I might proceed with getting my current ban lifted. A recent academic article discusses a lot of the background for my ban, but administrators have been rejecting my unblock requests and ignoring my questions, so I am not sure what I should do next. You seem to have a lot of experience dealing with administrative bias, so I thought that I would ask.  — Freoh 18:34, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

@Freoh Thank you! I've spent the last two hours trying to familiarize myself with your cases to answer the question.

My best advice? Wikipedia suffers from systemic bias - to the extend we have articles on it - but acknowledgement/discussion of those, especially specifics, is prone to get you in trouble. Wikipedia is not a battleground is about it being a negative peace - no matter what's true, no matter how offensive somebody is, as long as they're vaguely polite, there is almost never any excuse for you to be incivil in return or feel/voice upset about it. An unfair double standard, but a reality.

If your long term goal is to reduce systemic bias on WP, keep your head down and play it long. Wikipedia's biases will not be removed overnight and it's a constant work in progress. These actionable behaviors can help:

• Don't say too much, a sentence can tell a thousand words. Max 3 comments per talk page discussion. Preferably less.
• Attempt to read all RS on a topic before writing. Make edits based on adding multiple new RS and avoid talk drama as much as possible. Removing bias is easier if you bring multiple RS to replace it than trying to just remove it.
• If an edit is challenged, discuss and seek compromise. If the talk page is tense and many to one, move on.
• Stay far the fuck away from ANI and AE, almost never willingly go there.
• Quoting a key point from your first ANI: demonstrate an ability to adapt to Wikipedia practices, philosophies and culture (i.e. behave like other people here) - systemic bias / cultural hegemony / etc: you are statistically mostly going to be judged in all actions by random educated white guys. Your behavior must be acceptable to them. Not in general, or abstract, or morally, or etc. Proceed accordingly.

Paradoxically, to counter systemic bias on Wikipedia, you must almost never bring it up in content discussions, or in relation to other users, or etc - you must be incredibly polite, concise as possible, and generally keep your head down, to stick around here. In moderation, I suppose WP:NQP was destined to be controversial lol.

TLDR, what they are looking for specifically in your unblock request is for you to say something along the lines of I am sorry and regret having fallen short of what was expected of me, my comments were too long, I edited without consensus, didn't provide enough RS, didn't back down when I should have, didn't respect dominant viewpoints enough, and should not have been so quick to call out percieved incivility in others. I won't do those things again and will be slow, cautious, and succinct in editing and responding.

• Here is the key part, mean it. If it is the consensus of Wikipedia that 2+2=5, accept it, repeat it, and be sorry for saying 4. You can think its 4, even know its 4, but be definitely sorry for saying 4 instead of 5 if for no other reason you know it's not acceptable and you wouldn't be blocked otherwise. You do not have to believe a law is just to obey it.

• Corollary to that: if you were banned for "drop-kicking toddlers and puppies", despite never doing so, the statement "I was banned for drop-kicking toddlers and puppies, I understand doing so is wrong and I swear I shall never do so in future" is both a valid unban request and a true statement by everyone's book, regardless of how kafkaesque it is.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:11, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Wow, thank you! I did not expect so much help, and I really appreciate your attention. I will mull this over for a bit before attempting another appeal. Part of the problem is that I am not completely sure what is expected of me; my block was for disruption and stirring drama, both of which are subjective and ill-defined. Am I allowed to express disagreement with administrative decisions? Am I allowed to disagree with American nationalists in talk pages? Am I allowed to defend other editors facing harassment? When I ask administrators for clarification, they ignore my questions, so I am not even sure what they want. I worry that if I promise to avoid disruption altogether, then white nationalists will treat any disagreement as a violation because it disrupts their American exceptionalism narrative. (No need to reply; you have helped a lot already and I do not want to get you into trouble for expressing a forbidden viewpoint.)  — Freoh 14:26, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

References

Hatting

Please self-revert your hatting, per WP:COLLAPSENO; I disagree that it is off topic - and generally, it is inappropriate to include an argument against the contents of the collapsed section in the summary, as it denies editors the opportunity to respond to that argument. BilledMammal (talk) 03:27, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal Thank you for asking me, but it is off-topic - we are discussing the telegraph's reliability on trans issues - we are not relitigating "notifying WT:LGBT is canvassing". If an uninvolved editor wants to undo my hat, they can. You are ignoring a decade of consensus on this, and two discussions this month on this, the latter of which was literally opened on the basis "notifying WT:LGBT of LGBT-related discussions of canvassing" and quickly closed with the unanimous consensus "no it isn't". Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 03:33, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

We are conducting an WP:RFCBEFORE. Discussing what notifications are appropriate to send are part of that. BilledMammal (talk) 03:35, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps, but relitigating something that's long been settled is not. I see it's moot as Philomathes, who IIRC also participated in one of those discussions concluding "canvassing" wasn't true and isn't uninvolved, has reverted the hatting. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 03:42, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Wikipedia policies and guidelines request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/2024 review/Phase II/Discussion-only period on a "Wikipedia policies and guidelines" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 00:31, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Appropriate comments

Your comment: "And it would be a lot easier to take the Cass Review seriously if SEGM and Genspect weren't involved at almost every step of the process" is not appropriate for an article talk page. It is the sort of low brow personal attack that works on Twitter and in activists rag opinion columns, but is just the sort of misleading personal attack conspiracy theory bullshit that we expect from the kind of editor who's lifespan on the project is measured in days. We shouldn't have to deal with conspiracy theory crap like this. Control yourself. And no, I don't want to discuss it your opinions on that sentence. Think about it if you were a known activist pushing the "Covid vaccines killed millions" trope. You could try to cite reliable MEDRS sources criticising a report someone wants to write about, or you could make wild personal attacks on the authors of the report and who they might ever has spoken to, citing anti-vax blogs. Just because you think you are on the side of the good guys doesn't mean you can behave like the cranks. Everything about the Cass Review and the systematic reviews it commissioned ticks the boxes for top class sourcing on Wikipedia. When editors attack such sources using stuff like a Mother Jones piece written by someone with a degree in "communication", or an activist opinion column, alarm bells go off. -- Colin°^Talk 08:44, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

SEGM/Genspect were involved. Before you claim WP:MEDRS - "who collaborated on this project" is not a WP:MEDRS piece of information. Comparing "SEGM was involved" and multiple LGBT newspapers reporting that to "COVID vaccines are killing millions" and anti-vax blogs is downright offensive.

Everything about the Cass Review and the systematic reviews it commissioned ticks the boxes for top class sourcing on Wikipedia - For the systematic reviews, you're absolutely right. With Cass's recommendations based on those, criticized by medical organizations worldwide, and human rights groups, WP:DUE comes into play.

Apart from the LA Blade (the LGBT newspaper of southern california's 20 million people)[9] saying:

• Recent investigations revealed that multiple SEGM members and associates were part of advisory groups to the review with secret memberships. One such person was Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a Finnish psychologist who prominently presented at the latest SEGM conference and has been closely associated with SEGM, which denies her membership due to the organization having “no official members.”
• Dr. Kaltiala facilitated a meeting between Dr. Cass and Dr. Patrick Hunter, a DeSantis medical board pick and member of Genspect. Dr. Cass later shared information with the team according a letter obtained exclusively by this publication. Dr. Kaltiala went on to “meet regularly” with the DeSantis appointees and even testified in favor of Florida’s ban on transgender care.

Other sources have picked this up:

• The Florida Review—which was commissioned under Florida governor Ron DeSantis—was quite a clear influence on Cass. As journalist and Xtra contributor Erin Reed reported on Substack, Cass expressed interest in the report, and even met with Patrick Hunter—a member of the anti-trans Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine and the Catholic Medical Association—who is on the Florida Board of Medicine and helped inform the Florida Review.[10]
• Notably, Hilary Cass met with Patrick Hunter, a member of the anti-trans Catholic Medical Association who played a significant role in the development of the Florida Review and Standards of Care under Republican Governor Ron DeSantis[11]
• While Cass may not have been in contact with them following the report’s publication, she did meet with Floridian health officials as recently as September 2022 – something not mentioned in Ghorayshi’s piece. As reported on by Zinnia Jones of GenderAnalysis, Cass met and collaborated with members of the Florida Board of Medicine appointed by the state’s anti-LGBTQ+ Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). In a recently revealed email chain between activist Alejandra Caraballo and Ghorayshi, Ghorayshi denied that this omission is misleading.[12]

just the sort of misleading personal attack conspiracy theory bullshit that we expect from the kind of editor who's lifespan on the project is measured in days. We shouldn't have to deal with conspiracy theory crap like this. Control yourself - I could ask the same of you: stop knee-jerk saying any and all questioning of the weight of the Cass review is somehow akin to vaccine conspiracies. And FFS stop bringing up twitter, I've never used twitter, I've always considered it full of vapid idiots, and I base what I say on RS. It's annoying as hell you bring up twitter every time you disagree with something. Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 20:13, 6 June 2024 (UTC)

You may not use it but the pretend-journalists you are citing above do, to join their dots about person A once spoke to Bad Person B so we now regard person A as bad. Discussing with people who believe The Wrong Thing isn't a crime. You and I do it every time we edit one of these articles. Your so called "the LGBT newspaper of southern california's 20 million people" just reprinted a blog post by Erin Reed. That's not journalism. Nor is it how we deal with medical recommendations. If the recommendations are wrong, then we should have reliable medical sources saying what is wrong about them. Not someone blogging in their bedroom. Instead you have internet-shit making personal attacks. Your post basically suggest SEGM and Genspect wrote the Cass review ("involved at almost every step of the process").The thing about an "independent review" is that you do have to meet with people of varied opinions, people you may strongly disagree with and even dislike. Otherwise, it isn't an independent review but "a stitch up". And such people will exist at both extremes in this culture war. Someone conducting such a review doesn't have to agree with them. Sometimes it is useful just to hear their concerns even if you think some of their ideas are batshit crazy. Cass met with trans activists who push quite the opposite angle. The idea Cass is unable to formulate an independent intelligent thought is typical of the misogynistic nonsense being posted about this. I keep saying this: consider what your comments would look like in another topic. If someone did an "independent review" about how to fund healthcare, say, but only spoke to people who had a certain view and preconceived opinions, it wouldn't be acceptable. And consider how the way you are dealing with medical recommendations would look if you were complaining about vaccines or pushing a weight loss diet/therapy. I'm not interested in the specifics of all your green text above. I'm concerned that you think those sort of trash activist pov-pushing sources are even remotely relevant to our use of medical recommendations. They are no better than the Daily Mail. -- Colin°^Talk 08:40, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

They are no better than the Daily Mail. - RSP/RSN would beg to differ

If the recommendations are wrong, then we should have reliable medical sources saying what is wrong about them.

• WPATH, EPATH, ASIAPTH, PATHA, and etc raised concerns "why are you endorsing GET, it's just conversion therapy" . The debate at talk:conversion therapy that led you to my talk page is about whether the thing the Cass Review saying "is not conversion therapy" outweighs all the people saying "this thing is conversion therapy".
• The Cal Horton piece you dislike so much notes the obvious fact "they did no systematic review of GET yet feel confident to recommend it".

Cass met with trans activists who push quite the opposite angle. - sources for that claim? I've yet to see any (and, no, using trans support groups to interview trans people is not "meeting with activists").

The idea Cass is unable to formulate an independent intelligent thought is typical of the misogynistic nonsense being posted about this. - saying a 20 year old woman who's a community feminist organizer questioning the weight of the Cass Review per RS is spouting "misogynistic nonsense" is 1) offensive and 2) ridiculous. If Cass had been a man, all the criticisms would still hold. "All these trans people and health organizations think she's wrong because of misogyny" is ridiculous (and the kind of shit people would say on twitter).

I keep saying this: consider what your comments would look like in another topic.

• Let's abstract this a little: let's say a government, criticized for it's treatment of a minority population with unique healthcare needs, launches a review of said minorities healthcare. They purposefully choose people who 1) have no experience working with the group and 2) have not received said healthcare themselves to do so. The person meets with organizations known for spouting FRINGE nonsense about the minority group. In their recommendations, they endorse a treatment with no evidence of effectiveness, pushed by aforementioned groups. The review process and methodology the recommendations were generated on were opaque. Health care organizations from around the world criticize this, human rights groups criticize it, and journalists who are part of the minority criticize it. The groups which push GET have a field day announcing how happy they are with the results.
• Now, imagine how it looks if somebody keeps commenting, over and over, that this review is infallible and all these healthcare organizations, journalists who are members of the minority, and human rights groups are biased activists and any mention of sociological criticisms is equivalent to anti-vaxxers.

• And consider how the way you are dealing with medical recommendations would look if you were complaining about vaccines or pushing a weight loss diet/therapy. - The cass review's recommendations on GET, are, according to the prevailing medical consensus, the ones pushing "herd immunity" in your analogy.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 14:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Your "Anti-trans misinformation on Wikipedia" Signpost submission

Hi YFNS,

I know that Signpost articles are not mainspace articles (for example concerning certain BLP requirements). And our little newsletter's internal processes are not Wikipedia policy.

Yet, considering that you remain under various restrictions (after the lifting of your full ban from this topic area), I invite you to reflect on how a hypothetical adaptation of these restrictions to the particular collaboration mode of the Signpost might look like. E.g. the one that says limited to 0RR on articles for organizations/activists who are affiliated with anti-transgender activism or gender-critical feminism, broadly construed - considering that the article you submitted focuses on exactly what you characterize as such an activist. As I explained here, the Signpost's process (which has allowed it to successfully serve information needs of this community for almost two decades) involves the Signpost's editor-in-chief (or a substitute) taking responsibility for the decision to publish any particular text as a Signpost article - quite possibly also a legal one, which you should keep in mind considering the numerous red flags that were raised by several editors (see below). While persistent WP:BLUDGEON efforts to overturn a decision by the editor-in-chief not to publish your submission are not article reverts in the sense of your restrictions, they may well become disruptive to the Signpost's production process. Again, this is not a claim that you are formally in violation of any AEDR (and I sincerely mean what I said here about you clearly having a lot to contribute to Wikipedia), but it is an attempt to help you understand why and how your behavior might come to be seen as disruptive in this specific context.

By now, no less than four different members of the Signpost team (not counting Crossroads) have voiced serious concerns about various aspects of your submission in the discussions here and here. Even taking into account your clarifications that your accusations of pedophilia apologia against the subject of your article were only made on that talk page and not intended to be part of the article itself, and that the allusions in your bolded note at [13] may or may not have been about the use of physical violence, please consider that they may not have fostered the impression that it is worthwhile devoting yet more time to further vetting your text for statements or allegations that might incentivize legal action (or complaints that they violate the UCoC).

May I also remind you that your apparently highly controversial (to the point that a substantial minority of community members thought it should be deleted entirely) essay about a closely related topic is still slated to run in this Signpost issue. So it's not exactly like your views in this topic area are being censored by the Signpost.

Regards, HaeB (talk) 02:19, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@HaeB

• I want to preface this was this statement: I have never said the article is perfect or criticism is not allowed, I've not said the article in it's present state shouldn't have been declined, I've been trying to get criticism to incorporate and improve the article so it meets approval.
• I would ask you don't refer to it as bludgeoning - I asked a question to clarify something, and when the discussion was restarted by somebody else on a different page I tried to summarize the issue. Two comments seeking clarification on how I could improve the article and take in the criticisms are an attempt to collaborate, not insist the decline must be overturned. Additionally, I am still unsure if declined means "hard no for this issue end of discussion" OR "this article has issues that make it unpublishable as-is but it could be improved before publication" (and would appreciate your clarification on that).
• Regarding concerns raised:

• I want to note that Crossroads was 1) involved and hardly neutral and 2) trying to make me present James as somebody with FRINGE views on pedophilia - while Cantor was the one with FRINGE views on that subject. Crossroads defended Cantor in a discussion referenced in the article[14], questioned Cantor's block[15], and had interacted with him for years.[16]
• With regards to any allusions, that was due to Crossroad's bludgeoning and me trying to defend myself pre-emptively from accusations of pedophilia normalization, which as I linked in that discussion was what some tried to charge James with for questioning Cantor. It was not in any way directed at Cantor - I will openly state that from researching this piece I do not have a good impression of his views and advocacy, but he is not a pedophile and I've never claimed otherwise and I wish him no harm.
• Your comment, apart from seeking clarification on whether we're mentioning their interactions at pedophilia, said To be clear, I'm not saying that we should be overly concerned about extreme interpretations of BLP and such, if we are fully sure that we can stand behind every statement and conclusion (or attribute it to other sources at least) - which I took to mean it was publishable as long as we made sure the references were solid.
• Headbomb stated A "Yes X was bad, but at least X wasn't as bad as Y" is not an argument I ever liked because it excuses/justifies bad behaviour because there is worst behaviour. I'll also note the huge BLP implications, not just on IRL people but also on active editors that have steered clear of blocks for years. My main issue was this is James was banned, Cantor wasn't. The injustice is not "she got a ban and was right about everything", it was "ARBCOM scrutinized and sanctioned her more than Cantor". WRT BLP, I took that as akin to your comment, that the sourcing had to be airtight.
• JPxG, as I've stated, devoted considerable space to my "omission" of being "heavily involved" - like I said that seems to be a case of mistaken identity which he has yet to clarify. He also said I think this is too much of an argumentative piece for the Signpost to run - but I'm unsure how that can be addressed. He did not mention whether the references supported the claims.
• Bri thought the article was still being published and raised a concern about the image (as did JPxG), which I agree with, and as such I've been trying to find a better picture (I suggested a picture of CAMH) and am open to suggestions.
• Blueraspberry, who hasn't chimed in at either thread yet, worked with me through the whole piece and supported it.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, the outstanding concerns are:

1. the image needs to be replaced - already working on addressing
2. we need to make sure the references are airtight - I've reviewed it and Bluerasperry has reviewed it and I've sought other editors to review it too (including you lol) because I also want to ensure they're airtight.
3. I was "heavily involved" (based on mistaken identity) - I can't address this until I figure out if JPxG was mixing me up with somebody else like he seemed to
4. It's too critical of Cantors COI editing and sockpuppeting / too argumentative - I'd be happy to try and trim it and tone it down, which would be easier if specific issues were pointed.I noted that I avoided mentioning his COI editing re pedophilia because I thought that would be excessively critical.
5. James should be mentioned/criticized more? I admit, this is the one I'm most confused about, because 1) the article already heavily mentions her - a note from others I incorporated in the second draft of the piece and 2) it doesn't say she was right or wrong or the decision to ban her was correct or incorrect, just that ARBCOM was more pre-occupied with her than Cantor.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 15:17, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm only commenting again here since I was brought up and I should clarify some things.

Regarding this, I was only 4 months into being a regular editor at that point. My views, both in general and about what claims should be on Wikipedia and how, have evolved a lot since then. As for questioning his block, I did so only because he claimed the other account was merely someone he knew IRL; I commented largely to suggest that if he has proof of that, he can email ArbCom with it. I have not argued against his block since then.

while Cantor was the one with FRINGE views on that subject - I believe I showed previously that Jokestress had fringe views on the topic as well. [17]

As a new-ish editor I was not aware of the fringe aspects of Cantor's views on pedophilia ("LGBTP", "sexual orientation", possibly others I'm forgetting, though it's worth noting that Cantor is a gay man himself, so not a case of simple homophobia). What I did know was that he was a proponent of the view that pedophiles have a mental disorder, and that he co-authored a number of studies showing that they indeed had differences in their brain structure and cognition (e.g. [18][19]). This matters because pedophile activists (1) sadly do exist, (2) in the past (largely the late 00s through early 10s) were a major problem on Wikipedia, (3) caused damage that persisted in some cases until 2019 when I nominated it for deletion [20][21] or cleaned it up in other articles, and (4) argue the opposite of what these studies show - they claim that pedophilia is just a normal part of humanity and not a disorder. Countering possible future attempts by pedophile activists was part of the reason I favored Cantor's presence on Wikipedia at the time and I obviously also was a supporter of the studies he did countering the "it's natural" nonsense.

My honest advice for you with regard to the essay is to strip out almost all (if not all) of the content about Jokestress. Having that much in there about her unavoidably makes it a 'contest' about who was worse, but I agree with JPxG when he said the case seems to be a total zoo -- at least according to all of the actual evidence that I see, both Cantor and James were acting very badly, both of them were playing fast and loose with representing their own opinions as expert consensus, and so on. If you make it squarely about Cantor, and don't mention who else was in the case (or only in passing to note they were problematic also) you have a much better chance of getting it published IMO (though I'd give up on trying to get it published this month since I think that could come off as bludgeoning). IIRC other commenters in the ArbCom case were also critical of Cantor, so why not take them into consideration more? I'd also encourage you to soften the language in some spots (diplomacy, as it were) and give more consideration to countering the likely objection that his views weren't considered bad back then. You would want to show that his editing and behavior was problematic even in its time, that it really was tendentious and pro-fringe even by the sourcing available in the early 2010s (when talking about editing from back then).

You'll notice I'm not particularly against the essay getting published eventually - these days I'm very put-off Cantor not only by the incredibly counter-productive ways he has framed pedophilia, but also by how he has repeatedly worked for right-wing organizations and US state governments, when my position is that the government has no business whatsoever interfering in matters between a patient and their doctor, with academic freedom, or with sport policies (which should be up to the relevant schools, sport organizations, and so forth). Or with bathrooms, for that matter. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:39, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

@Crossroads I genuinely appreciate your evolved thoughts on the issue and the clarifications. Sorry for the late reply, busy week.

I simply do not agree that James' views were FRINGE. I do think she was too WP:POINTY stating them and let Cantor get to her too much.

My 2c on those studies: you are conflating "natural" with "good" and "disordered" with "bad". Take murder. Humans naturally murder each other. There are those who fantasize about killing others and carry it out (sometimes they are given jail, sometimes medals, depending on the "why/who"). Sometimes a single person, sometimes a group/demographic, sometimes everybody. If studies showed that those who murdered people were statistically more likely to have enlargened/shrunken portions of the brain responsible for empathy/self-control, I wouldn't be surprised at all. However, if somebody tried to argue that the desire to murder other people was a biologically-rooted mental abnormality and those who wanted to kill a person/group of people were just born that way and threw out all sociological context of "is this societally sanctioned/encouraged" I'd take issue. I'd take greater issue if somebody tried to redefine "murderer" to mean "somebody who has a congenital desire to murder people". His research has shown there are likely biological predispositions, not that such attraction is innate or unalterable.

My 2c on how that effected wikipedia: Any discussion of pedophilia as a practice that can be societally encouraged/condemned was thrown aside to prioritize Cantor's conception of it as a congenital inalterable attraction to the detriment of WP (and to the benefit of his career). I find it interesting you frame Cantor as a defender against those who would call pedophilia normal - seems to me that framing it as an inalterable attraction as opposed to a fucked up behavior/pattern serves much more to normalize it - and his transparent advocacy was to normalize "non-affending pedophiles". I repeat my key point I've mentioned before: A behavior can be immoral, disgusting, objectionable, and objectively harmful to others, without needing to be a mental disorder/abnormality. Chasers/racial fetishists/pedos are much better explained through sociology than "born that way" narratives.

Wrt the essay, I'm already working on cutting out mention of James, though I find this problematic for 2 reasons: 1) the case was explicitly about James and Cantor's interactions so that's necessary context and 2) I personally think it's incredibly noteworthy that not only did ARBCOM let Cantor off easy, it's that they went harder after James and gave them disproportionate punishments. I'll expand more on how his views were FRINGE by the time of the case - but a perhaps better line of exploration is how we define FRINGE in the first place (why I quoted sceptre at the end): trans healthcare was run by a bunch of white cis guys who pathologized the trans community, trans people overwhelmingly called bullshit on this, how do we avoid sticking our head in the sand about cultural hegemony and systemic biases in RS when they exist? Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 21:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

No worries about the late reply.

I think the comparison to murder breaks down a bit, because the proper comparator to murder (an act) is the act of child sexual abuse. If someone had a psychological trait where they were primarily or solely sexually aroused by killing, that would be quite a bit different, and preventing them from committing murder may require a different clinical approach. Thankfully, erotophonophilia is pretty rare even in comparison to pedophilia as far as I know.

I think that as part of preventing child abuse, scientists (biological and social) need to soberly figure out what the different motivations and causal factors are. Nature and nurture. If it is due to faulty brain wiring at least sometimes, that's important to know for prevention and treatment. While it's true that this can be misused to argue that "they can't help it", the is-ought distinction shows it isn't therefore okay, and sociological theories can also be (and are, by pro-pedophilia advocates) misused to minimize harm by claiming harm too is merely socially learned, and that it could be made okay and harmless in our society because some other society didn't see a problem with it. In the past Wikipedia pedo-advocacy editing I've seen and in the sources about the subject I've read, it was invariably the latter tack they took.

Regarding systemic biases and defining FRINGE, I can't say I have the answers. Ultimately as editors we are constrained by whatever time we live in, and the sources that exist at that time. But being too biased relative to the sources that exist even at the time can happen, as can failure to recognize sources that are reliable but come from a marginalized community. These are possible angles to take, perhaps. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:10, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

YFNS, it is very disappointing that you chose to entirely ignore the main point of my comment above: That you should consider whether your actions in context of your Signpost submission are consistent with the spirit of your restrictions regarding articles for organizations/activists who are affiliated with anti-transgender activism or gender-critical feminism, broadly construed. Yes, as I mentioned, Signpost articles are not mainspace articles in the sense of that restriction, etc., so you are formally in the clear. But I can't help noticing that you seem to see the Signpost as medium that will allow you to publish and promote a highly negative characterization (FRINGE! anti-trans! etc.) of this living person in a way that you would not be able in the mainspace article about him - not just because of BLP and NOR policies in general, but quite possibly also due to the restrictions you remain under because of your past problematic behavior.

I would ask you don't refer to it as bludgeoning - I asked a question to clarify something, and when the discussion was restarted by somebody else on a different page I tried to summarize the issue. No, I think WP:BLUDGEON is quite pertinent here and describes your behavior pretty well. Not just in the case I referenced above (where you had insisted on spreading your arguments to a new venue right in response to a comment by myself where I had linked back to the existing discussion in an effort to avoid exactly that kind of duplication). It's also very evident above: Instead of responding to my actual comment that I opened this thread with, and address the suggestion to reflect on problematic patterns in your behavior in light of the previous and remaining sanctions that the community has imposed on you, you throw all kind of comments from other editors at me that 1. were already discussed elsewhere 2. I've mostly had nothing to do with. That is quite well described as making the same argument over and over and to different people in the same discussion or across related discussions (from WP:BLUDGEON). You also failed to ping the several Signpost team members whose concerns about your submission you criticize and try to rebut above (Crossroads appears to have found this thread on their own).

I am not going to honor this tactic by responding on those other people's behalf. But I do want to call out your disingenuous claim that JPxG had fallen victim to a case of mistaken identity which he has yet to clarify. You have not substantiated that accusation and it seems quite clear to me that it is based on a misunderstanding on your side.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, the outstanding concerns are - uh, no, JPxG's decision was a clear rejection. Nowhere did he state "but if you fix these five points, we can run it" or such.

You have since continued such bludgeoning tactics in pursuit of your goal to have the Signpost publicize your highly negative views of the person in question. E.g. by simply re-opening a new thread on the Signpost's submissions page with the misleading summary that your piece was previously discusse while failing to mention that that discussion had already resulted in its rejection. Or by WP:FORUMSHOP-like pinging a different Signpost team member about reviewing and handling your piece, apparently in the hope that his opinion about your piece will differ from JPxG's.

I'll also point out that according to WP:BLUDGEON, this kind of behavior is is most common with someone who feels they have a stake in the outcome, that they own the subject matter, or are here to right great wrongs. Well, your Signpost submission certainly gives me the impression that it was written by someone with an urge to right some great wrongs, and we already discussed your apparently very strong feelings that you referred to in this context it based on your personal history (which, to be clear, can be entirely understandable, as I already said, and don't need to disqualify one from editing Wikipedia per se as long as such problematic behaviors can be avoided). I am not familiar with the previous controversies you have been involved in in this topic area. But I do find it interesting that the admin who imposed that (since appealed) indefinite GENSEX topic ban on you did so based on concerns that are quite reminiscent of the concerns around your Signpost submission: "While I think TheTranarchist was there in good faith, editors pointed out that she was approaching her editing from a WP:RGW perspective. Editors pointed out that her work on Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull [like Cantor, someone accused of being anti-trans] was evidence of her creating near attack articles. WP:SYNTH was also identified as a major issue [...]."

Regards, HaeB (talk) 01:52, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@HaeB "anti-trans" and FRINGE is so supported by RS it's actually a wonder his article doesn't use it already.

I responded at the submissions desk, and don't wish to duplicate anything.

I joined after Cantor had already been banned, and am being called involved because of a snowball deletion for one article he wrote. I disclosed that in the piece, in chronological order like the rest of the piece, do you concur that the piece :::concerns an ongoing dispute that [I am], as [I] admit fairly late in the piece, a heavily involved party to.? Blueraspberry agreed that was reading too much into a single AFD.

JPxG clearly rejected the piece as it was in that state and listed his issues with it. I tried to work on those issues, and have been trying to work on the issues raised by every editor who commented. Perhaps this is a mismatch in communication due my autistic inability to pick up some subtext sometimes, but to me, "we will never publish this" means "we will never publish this", while "I'm worried about publishing it, it has issues XYZ" reads as a "fix issues XYZ", not "we will never publish this". Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 02:56, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Feedback request: Media, the arts, and architecture request for comment

Your feedback is requested at Wikipedia talk:In the news on a "Media, the arts, and architecture" request for comment. Thank you for helping out!
You were randomly selected to receive this invitation from the list of Feedback Request Service subscribers. If you'd like not to receive these messages any more, you can opt out at any time by removing your name.

Message delivered to you with love by Yapperbot :) | Is this wrong? Contact my bot operator. | Sent at 08:30, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Category:Housing rights activists from Detroit has been nominated for merging

Category:Housing rights activists from Detroit has been nominated for merging. A discussion is taking place to decide whether it complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Lost in Quebec (talk) 22:24, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Revert on the no queerphobia essay

Hey! can I ask why you rolled this change of mine back? Did it just get caught up in the edit war behind me or? I know I announced my intent to do this quite a while ago and it got a bit derailed in the whole situation surrounding it. --Licks-rocks (talk) 22:02, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

@Licks-rocks oops, sorry about that lol. I accidentally had two copies of the page open to edit from before and after your additions and submitted the wrong one. I'll fix it right now Your Friendly Neighborhood Sociologist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 22:09, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Figured it was something like that 😁. --Licks-rocks (talk) 22:12, 11 June 2024 (UTC)