Talk:Equality Ride/Archive 1

September 4, 2006 Revert Rationale
The article was reverted to the August 15th, 2006 revision on September 4th, 2006. Edits on September 1st added uncited criticism of the Equality Ride from an unidentified user whose IP address originated from the College of Saint Catherine, St. Paul MN. It was not written in a neutral voice, nor was any "information" connected to a source.

Because there is some controversey surrounding the Equality Ride, those wishing to include this topic should create a "controversey" section. That section should be written neutrally, and not be a platform to criticize. Any citations of negative controversey should have a legitimate outside source such as a linkable news article, direct quotes, or anything else officially acceptable in Wikipedia. Anything else is heresay and not acceptable according to Wikipedia guidelines.

Neutral and constructive citation of controversey and criticism is welcome. Unregistered users making a stink are not.

September 8, 2006 Revert
Recent edits to this article made uncited claims hostile toward the Equality Ride. Additionally, it used wording to change meanings and restored prior uncited content. This article was reverted to September 4 version, which previously was reverted from the August 15th version.

September 10, 2006 Revert
Most of the content of the article had been removed. I restored it to its prior state. The claim on each removed section said, "This section has been removed pending an honest and accurate revision." In response to that, all information included in this article was written in the neutral voice. Sources include publications such as The Advocate, Sojourners Magazine, The LA Times, The St. Petersburg Times, The Washington Post, Lavender Magazine, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Equality Ride website, MTV News, etc. etc. etc. Need I go on?

All information added recently by one particular user has been misinformation compared to what any of these sources report. These edits were not written in the neutral voice. Words were even changed to alter the meaning of phrases. When opinionated information contradicts legitimate sources, I find it important to "revert."

What we can conclude is that somebody who disapproves of the Equality Ride is changing the article both to remove legitimate content and add criticizing content.

Again, I suggest that if there is a need for a "criticisms" or "controversey" section of this article, that it be added. Then, any information can be attributed to legitmate sources and be written in neutral voice. I would find that perfectly acceptable. Anything else is pure nonsense.

December 5, 2006: Expanding Equality Ride entry to include additional rides
I had originally intended to make an addition to the page regarding the ride scheduled for this spring (Equality Ride 2007), but considering that a 2008 ride is also planned (and potentially others), a major revamp seems to be in order.

The question is, how to organize and structure a Wiki entry to incorporate the original ride, the 2007 ride, and others that may occur? The best solution I can come up with would be to create a main "Equality Ride" page that would summarize the historic creation of the first ride and touch on additional ones. Each ride would have its own Wiki entry linked to from the main page. That way, the current page could remain largely intact with a simple name change to "Equality Ride (original)" or something to that effect. Future rides would also easily fit into this structure with their own respective pages (i.e. "Equality Ride 2007," "Equality Ride 2008," "Equality Ride Planet Mars" etc.).

Considering that this would be a major revision, I wanted to post about it first on the talk page. If people have thoughts, or are willing to contribute to the proposed revision, talk away!

Bluedanger 03:23, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a major overhaul needs to be done in order to accomdate both of the rides (and the rides that will presumably happen in the future). This page "Equality Ride" could have an overview of the purpose and process of the ride, general reactions in support of it, general criticisms of it, and then very brief sections about each of the individual riders, linking to the pages 2006 Equality Ride, 2007 Equality Ride, 2008 Equality Ride, Equality Ride Eastern Europe, etc. I would be happy to help with this process.

20 June 2007

Reason for Removing the word "Homosexual"
Paragraph 2 in the section "Background" was recently edited to include the word "homosexual" and the phrase "homosexual conduct."

Among people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community, the word "homosexual" is widely considered a very negative pejorative term. This is because it has traditionally been used, as it still is by the religious right, to dehumanize and treat sexual orientation like a condition.

Among journalists, it is widely discouraged to even use the phrase "sexual preference," let alone "homosexual." In fact, the newest edition of the AP stylebook speaks very directly about this issue.

As it it not only an issue of political correctness, but a clear violation of established journalistic procedure in several revised style manuals, I am removing references to the word "homosexual" where they're not needed. It ought only to be used when absolutely necessary.

Also, as this is an article about LGBT activists, it is ever-the-more important to stick with established journalistic norms when speaking about them. To use pejorative terms would be against the neutral stance Wikipedia is known for.

Thank you. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.33.31.226 (talk) 10:31, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

March 30, 2008 - Suggestion that the article needs to be rewritten from a neutral POV
virmaior 03:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

This reads like a press release rather than objective information about the equality rides. For instance, there are abundant links to their considerations of why they went to these institutions but no references to the instution's own responses. I've marked the article as not being written from an objective point of view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Virmaior (talk • contribs) 03:26, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Equalityu.gif
Image:Equalityu.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 05:58, 2 January 2008 (UTC)