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

Citations are not a majority vote

Come on people. It's 2016 (2017 in a bunch of countries). Haven't you learnt people can change their gender identity? Why are people making this argument that because a 2008 article used a male gender, and a few others worked off that, but the most recent interview used the female gender, we should go with 'what the majority of citations' say? That rule is nuts - try applying it to all the science articles. The folks obsessively reverting this article need to recuse themselves. End this idiotic kafka-esque situation.--Fangz (talk) 23:34, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@Fangz: It wasn't an interview....it was a story based off of a self-made post by someone claiming to be the author after the domain had lapsed and was re-registered. -- Dane ^talk 23:52, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Dane, regardless of whether the Kickstarter post, article, and communication with WP:OTRS were all faked - which frankly I find implausible - the perspectives of conflicting reliable sources should both be represented in the article. No? I don't see any argument for defaulting to male pronouns.

If there's really no consensus regarding whether the sources showing the author of PFSC identifies as female are reliable, let's just use gender-neutral pronouns and note that some sources use "he" and others claim otherwise.

I'm going to implement this for now, although obviously discussion as to whether the sources are reliable should continue.--MerrySofer (talk) 01:48, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

@Mugasofer: As it currently stands with consensus, I would agree that the most appropriate action for the moment is to default to gender neutral terms. -- Dane ^talk 01:59, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh boy, this is a mess. I just put another message over at WT:LGBT... For what it's worth, I strongly oppose having a whole section on Campbell's gender identity, simply per WP:UNDUE. At most, a note could be used to say there is some unclarity of whether Campbell is a man or a woman, though as I've said, I think we could safely just use feminine pronouns and call it a day... ~Mable (chat) 12:44, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Gender Related Changes

Hello,

Today there was a dispute regarding the gender of the author. They attempted to gender the author as a "she", however I preferred maintaining the gender neutral terms since the authors gender identity remains in as much uncertainty as it was in when the terms were changed in January 2017. I wanted to open this discussion per this recommendation. Thoughts on maintaining the gender neutral terms? -- Dane ^talk 03:19, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

"Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources" as per Wikipedia's own manual of style. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.99.230.155 (talk) 06:10, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

It must meet reliable sourcing requirements, which that article did not meet. Gender neutral pronouns are a good compromise in this case as it doesn't identify any gender and simply refers to Campbell by their name. -- Dane ^talk 06:28, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

The most recent relevant source would be this Kill Screen article, which uses feminine pronouns throughout and notes the issue as follows:

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

I would say that we should follow Kill Screen's example and refer to Campbell using feminine pronouns in this article. All other sources in this article were posted before or shortly after the 2014 blog post in which Campbell brought up the issues regarding her gender presentation, so I argue that they are not as relevant to this discussion. Lastly, I believe that we reached the current state because of somekind of backlash against the multiple accounts that claimed to be John Campbell rather than because we were following our sources and guidelines. I hope that, now everyone is less angry about the Campbell copycats, we can reach an up-to-date concensus. ~Mable (chat) 06:51, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I would still argue the Kill Screen article references/uses a self made post that was unverifiable as there was a lapse in ownership on the original domain. In regards to the Kickstarter that states "First of all I’m not a "man” I think" (which I assume is what the Kill Screen article is using as a basis based on their link) that does not necessarily mean the person is female. Furthermore, "She would later tell other people in other places that she preferred female pronouns, but this information trickled down slowly into the forums and the comic-loving subcultures of the web" - it wasn't sourced from an actual interview and it could be against WP:BLP if it were posted here. I have concerns with Kill Screen being a reliable source as well based on their about page where they clearly paint themselves as a marketing company.

Campbell could be non-binary or not identify with a gender which is why I think the article should still remain with gender neutral pronouns. There's just too much uncertainty still and I haven't found any newer reliable sources that definitively could end this debate. -- Dane ^talk 07:08, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

Kill Screen has been discussed and approved of at WP:VG/S. I don't feel that strongly about changing the pronouns to feminine here because I agree that trusting a single source that admits that they don't have all the information either is somewhat troubling. Still, it is clear from this source that a person identifying themselves as John Campbell has remained socially active online for quite some time after the Kickstarter post. I personally believe we have enough evidence. ~Mable (chat) 08:14, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree that the single source is troubling, as outlined above. Unfortunately, due to the level of disruption on-wiki and off related to this, it's hard to say whether or not the person identifying as Campbell has remained online or if these are copycats inspired by the original request for disruption. And based on the POV pushing/IP hopping of the latest vandal, we may be seeing another wave. Until we have a better source with more verifiability, I think we should wait before changing to gender specific pronouns. -- Dane ^talk 14:49, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Dane and Mable here. Gender is uncertain, so word accordingly. Jim1138 (talk) 19:33, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

If no sources were available one way or the other, I imagine the author would be assumed male. Why is this? The author is not non-binary and has never come out as such. Using the correct expressed pronouns for someone is not a matter for academic discussion and the wikipedia manual of style is very clear on this one. Continuing to misgender her is an act of violence against both her, and it continues to demonstrate wikipedia editor's adversarial stance towards the trans community. Consider the example that you are setting, and imagine if the shoe was on the other foot - what if the article discussing yourselves on wikipedia constantly misgendered you? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.99.230.155 (talk) 17:14, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

As it is, multiple sources reported it the author as male and one source using questionable sources ("forums and comic-loving subcultures of the web") claimed otherwise. As discussed above, their gender is uncertain so wording it in gender-neutral terms is the best way to address this rather than potentially misgender a he or a she. Finally, your opinion about this representing an act of violence or some sort of adversarial stance by Wikipedia is simply untrue - we are catering this article hard to not misgender or misrepresent anyone. -- Dane ^talk 18:22, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

I agree strongly with Dane that the singular they is an appropriate pronoun to use for someone who's gender is not known. ~Mable (chat) 21:56, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Her gender is, however, known. Has been clearly stated and published in several places. There's no reason to doubt it other than assuming the default (that she is a man). The only way that she could satisfy the few cisnormative editors here is by reappearing publicly and outing herself - subjecting herself to exactly the kind of disrespect towards trans identities that is evident amongst the other editors on this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.99.230.155 (talk • contribs) 20:39, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

@195.99.230.155: Speaking as a non-binary trans person I'm very sensitive to misgendering myself, but please WP:Assume good faith here; at least one other editor in this discussion publicly identifies as non-binary. I am uncertain what the author's correct pronouns are based on the confusing history here. I think singular they might indeed be safest in this case, and I hardly see a decision to use such pronouns under these circumstances to be "cisnormative". Funcrunch (talk) 20:59, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

She's publicly stated that her pronouns are she/her though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.29.164.136 (talk) 07:08, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a useful source for this that hasn't been mentioned yet in this discussion? ~Mable (chat) 08:02, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Just for the record, not only do we not have a genuinely reliable source for the matter of Campbell's gender identity, we don't even have a reliable source for the claim that this has anything to do with transgender issues either — in this entire matter about Campbell's gender, I have yet to see any source which clarifies at all whether Campbell is a trans woman who simply hadn't come out as such until the emergence of the pronoun debate, or a cis woman who merely worked under a male pen name à la George Eliot or George Sand. So I have to support retaining singular-they for the time being — it's not even that Campbell's gender identity has become unclear, but that it was never actually really established in the first place outside of a name-based assumption. As I noted in the thread when this discussion was brought to the attention of WP:LGBT, singular-they is not only used for people who specifically identify as non-binary, but is also quite regularly used for people whose gender identity as male or female or non-binary or whatever else is merely unknown — for instance, a person referring to me in a Wikipedia discussion, who did not know whether I'm male or female, could quite reasonably and unobjectionably use singular-they to refer to me if they didn't want to assume — so singular-they does not represent misgendering somebody. As well, the article should also make it clearer that John Campbell was a "credit" name and not necessarily the creator's real name. Bearcat (talk) 15:29, 27 September 2017 (UTC)