Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/January 27, 2017
Working class?
[edit]I see that you excluded working class from this brief presentation. What's wrong with it? British headbangers and musicians of the time were definetly coming from working class families and were quite proud of it. Please, explain. Lewismaster (talk) 19:22, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- In the US, "working-class" is fast becoming an exonym, a word used only by non-working-class people, with varying amounts of disdain. The election of Trump coincides with increased sensitivity (and increased anger) around class issues, on all sides. Of course, this article is in British English, but readers generally don't think "I'm not from that country, so I have to be careful not to draw any conclusions from the language". Readers generally aren't careful, and generally do make assumptions about writers if they come across words they find offensive. (FWIW, "working men and women" is a phrase with some currency in the US, sometimes used in place of "working-class".) I did think hard about inviting a conversation about the problem, but then I decided it's not necessary ... it's not like the current wording is wrong. You could even argue that "working-class" would be redundant with heavy metal subculture, and anyone can follow the link and draw conclusions, if they want to, about the socioeconomic structure of the movement. There are also stylistic concerns. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- The words in the article that were disputed in the past were "male" and "white", probably by politically-correct readers who didn't care about sources and historical plausibility. Nobody was doubtful about "working-class" actually. Non-working-class people have often been disdainful of the working-class, but I think that this fact should not restrain us from using the term. In this article it is useful to identify the segment of society involved in the NWOBHM and it should be mentioned. So I can't agree with you about the exclusion. What about the stylistic concerns? Lewismaster (talk) 20:30, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- There's an argument that it's redundant to heavy metal subculture, since that subculture is working-class, and that term is more specific, inoffensive, and linked, all of which are positives. Also, off the top of my head, I don't recall that I've ever piled 4 adjectives in front of one noun before at TFA. It's not a fatal flaw, but it's not great, and not my style. If something more is needed, "blue-collar" isn't usually a pejorative in the US, but there's still the question of where to put it. - Dank (push to talk) 21:32, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Actually, I take that back, I'm not a fan of "blue-collar" now, either. I invited discussion when I made the edit removing "working-class" because it seemed to me there were pros and cons, but now I'm only seeing cons. There are enough "working-class" clues throughout the TFA text that I think readers will get the point. - Dank (push to talk) 21:55, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- Ok, I think. Blue-collar is not also very British. Lewismaster (talk) 22:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)
- The words in the article that were disputed in the past were "male" and "white", probably by politically-correct readers who didn't care about sources and historical plausibility. Nobody was doubtful about "working-class" actually. Non-working-class people have often been disdainful of the working-class, but I think that this fact should not restrain us from using the term. In this article it is useful to identify the segment of society involved in the NWOBHM and it should be mentioned. So I can't agree with you about the exclusion. What about the stylistic concerns? Lewismaster (talk) 20:30, 21 January 2017 (UTC)