Talk:Genie (feral child)/Archive 3

Verification please
Can someone supply me with Verification for "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented". The only cite that suggest it was written in 2002. MOMENTO 09:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)l
 * I wondered why your signature had a red link, so looked at your contribs. By amazing coincidence I see that you are currently involved in some back-and-forth with the principal author of this article. Are you suggesting that the statement you mentioned is inaccurate? Are you suggesting the article would be improved if that obviously correct statement had a citation? Or something else? By the way, please fix your signature which must have a link to your user or talk page (ask at WP:HELPDESK if unsure). Johnuniq (talk) 09:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

"""Thank you, fixed my signature. Momento (talk) 12:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I concur with Johnuniq. Momento's comment is an obvious if lame attempt at pointiness. EEng (talk) 11:20, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Accuracy isn't the issue, verifiability is. If the statement can't be verified it should be removed. I know you think this is nit picking but several editors have been indefinitely topic banned for less. Momento (talk) 12:39, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Let me be more clear. You have quite obviously come here to give Blade grief over this random minor issue in an article he's been working on, because you are unhappy about his administrative actions elsewhere.  I know you think this is nit picking but several editors have been indefinitely topic banned for less. EEng (talk) 13:05, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Not that I feel this a major issue, but indeed several of the sources in the article make it very clear that this was by far the most extreme case of abuse any of the scientists ever encountered. Just a few are Susan Curtiss' dissertation, Susan Goldin-Meadow's review of said dissertation, Russ Rymer's book (for better or for worse), and Jay Shurley's conference presentation on his sleep studies.  There are extant papers from James Kent and Howard Hansen (two of the very earliest experts on child abuse) which also discuss this, although I don't have direct access to them and can only piece them together from bits that are quoted in other places. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 20:02, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * We got this, Blade. No need to waste your time. Nose back to the grindstone. EEng (talk) 03:37, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Her story documented one of the worst cases of child abuse and neglect.
 * Genie was a feral child whom was locked in a bedroom for 13 years. Her case is one of the worst in terms of abuse and neglect.
 * 
 * David in DC (talk) 02:48, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Two self published articles without peer review and a movie script for a BLP? MOMENTO (talk) 08:01, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It probably would be more accurate to say "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse, neglect, and social isolation ever documented".(e.g.,, ). — Preceding unsigned comment added by I am One of Many (talk • contribs) 08:39, 25 July 2013
 * An interview from 1997 and a cut and paste! MOMENTO (talk) 02:25, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * @Momento: You should make a proposal and engage with the above discussion. Actually, you should find another page requiring your attention because your objective will not be satisfied here. Johnuniq (talk) 09:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I've already made a proposal but, predictably, you and others have spent more time shooting the messenger and ignoring the message. MOMENTO (talk) 02:35, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The wording was here before I was, so I hadn't ever really noticed it all that much; I'll think about I am One of Many's suggestion. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 20:52, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * If the proposal is "...it should be removed" I see no consensus forming around that proposal. Indeed, I see not a soul concurring with it.
 * There is no WP:BLP issue, because being described as the victim of abuse is not derogatory, and the victimizer(s) are dead. Absent the BLP slant, "several editors have been indefinitely topic banned for less" is utter nonsense. Although, per WP:DUCK, it appears pretty damn WP:POINTy.
 * Information that is amply documented in the body of the article need not have a footnote in the lede. See WP:LEADCITE, especially the part about case-by-case consensus decision-making about when a citation in a lede might be appropriate. In my view, it's not needed here because, as Blade correctly summarizes, "several of the sources in the article make it very clear that this was by far the most extreme case of abuse any of the scientists ever encountered. Just a few are Susan Curtiss' dissertation, Susan Goldin-Meadow's review of said dissertation, Russ Rymer's book (for better or for worse), and Jay Shurley's conference presentation on his sleep studies."
 * For these reasons, while I do not think the language needs any changing, I wouldn't block consensus if one formed around One of Many's proposal: "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse, neglect, and social isolation ever documented." David in DC (talk) 03:00, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The reason I suggest adding "social isolation" is that Genie is discusses as a paradigm of the "forbidden experiment" discussed in most of the sources. It is the extreme social isolation that resulted in the extensive documentation of Genie and the abuse and neglect she suffered according to the sources.  It also explains to the reader why the neglect and abuse was so severe.  If I recall correctly, in the Nova documentary, a researcher on social isolation stated that social isolation is one of the most extreme forms of torture.I am One of Many (talk) 05:31, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Curtiss' dissertation is from 1977, Goldin-Meadow's review repeats Curtiss's material, Rymer's book is 20 years old and he was 18 years old when Genie was discovered so who's he quoting, and Shurley's conference presentation only concerns Genie's sleep patterns. You cannot use the phrase "ever documented" when the basis for the claims excludes the last 20 or 30 years of documentation and would seem to be one person's opinion. Perhaps the first para should say "Genie is the pseudonym of a feral child who was discovered in Los Angeles on November 4, 1970 after more than a decade of isolation, abuse and neglect. She spent most of her first thirteen and a half years of life locked inside a bedroom, strapped to a child's toilet or bound inside a crib with her arms and legs immobilized. During this time she was almost never spoken to, and as a result did not acquire a first language". MOMENTO (talk) 07:08, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Please read WP:REFACTOR before inserting talk comments in the future. Thank you.I am One of Many (talk) 07:55, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * And please read WP:CIVIL. MOMENTO (talk) 13:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

OK. I think it's beyond question that had wikipedia existed at the time, the reliable sources, when they were published, would have easily met the strictures of WP:V for supporting the statement that now troubles our instructor in civility. The question on the table, I think, is whether, in the passage of time since then, enough severe cases of abuse and neglect have occurred and been documented (and been reported in reliable sources) to undermine the verifiability of the statement "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented".

I've now spent hours searching websites, news articles and the Amazon database of searchable books. I've been struck by how often searches for "Forbidden Experiment", "Worst Child Abuse", "Victor of Aveyron" and "Feral Child" turn up multiple hits, very high in the results, with references to Genie. Search engine hits are, of course, not a good way to support notability, but notability is not in question. The question is, has a once-verifiable fact's verifiability been degraded over time, because of superseding events. I'm open to persuasion, if someone can supply us with four or five horribler, well-documented, reliably sourced cases of abuse and neglect than Genie's. And yes, I understand that assessing which case is horribler would require an exercise of editorial judgment if any such cases are offered. But I'm pretty sure most of us are capable of exercising such judgment. David in DC (talk) 17:44, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
 * The question on the table is - "Who said "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented". The only person I found is Alyssa Yuvienco and she is not an RS because her opinion is self published. James Kent described it as "by far the most severe case of child abuse he would ever encounter" which isn't the same thing. Curtis focuses on Genie's linguistic progress. MOMENTO (talk) 01:46, 27 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Sad to say, children are killed, tortured, raped, and worse (though I don't want to think what that might mean, I'm sure in the history of human depravity someone has thought of something). Frankly I'm not sure that, in fact, what happened to Genie can be said to be the worst, or almost the worst, ever documented (worldwide, throughout history). And I'm not sure it's important to aspire to being on or near the top of that hierarchy. But how about this? (If there's no cite supporting this somewhere in the article already, there's no harm in its remaining in the lead in the meantime.) EEng (talk) 15:39, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Split infinitives drive me nuts, at least when they're not uttered by James Tiberius Kirk. So I set out to change only that aspect of EEng's work. But reading through all of this contention, and all of the discussion above about splitting, I tried to strike several birds with the same projectile.
 * Replacing "ever" with "on record" is well-supported in the article's plethora of citations and should be enough to satisfy any reasonable WP:V concerns that might be raised by any editor whose interest is in building up wikipedia, according to community norms, wikipedia policies and collaborative editing. I'm sure I cannot satisfy any editor whose interest is in turning wikipedia into a pointy WP:BATTLEGROUND; my inability to do so troubles me not one whit.
 * The more important part of my recent edits is a fairly bold bit of lede re-arrangement. I think it works as the lede for this one article. But I also think it provides a lede constructed in two easily split chunks, should splitting the article actually proceed.
 * If splitting ever came to a !vote (which, of course, would be evil,) I'd cast a very weak oppose. But so weak as to be barely discernable from an assertion of agnosticism on the topic. David in DC (talk) 18:34, 27 July 2013 (UTC)
 * So you're against splitting not only infinitives but articles as well. But what a silly mania -- how could a or an or the be split anyway? EEng (talk) 01:17, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * EENg, not to use this talkpage as a forum, but James Kent spoke in 1992/3 of a hearing child raised in some cult with nothing but sign language and surrounded by ritual murder and prostitution; according to Kent, "that was normal next to Genie". That's the level of severity we're discussing here. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 00:44, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There being not enough drama on this page, let's simultaneously debate split infinitives, and which forms of child abuse are the worst, all at once. EEng (talk) 01:17, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I repeat - Who said "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented". I can't find one person, let alone a consensus of experts. And even that would require a qualifier like "According to The Genie Task Force, Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented". MOMENTO  (talk) 01:26, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm tagging it cn -- somewhere between 10 seconds and 1 year from now someone will add an appropriate cite. In the meantime the assertion can remain -- this is not a BLP issue (and please don't try to argue it is). If in a year there's still no cite please bring the matter up again. In the meantime, remember to turn the lights out when you're done. EEng (talk) 03:06, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I spoke too soon. The cite's already there. Bye now! EEng (talk) 03:08, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Apart from the bad grammar, the removal of "ever documented" from the first sentence solves the issue of absolutism which I objected to. As the author of the cite used is careful to point out about their absolute claim of "unparalleled", it is "unparalleled" SO FAR. However removing the material about the period of isolation and the Genie's age when discovered from the first paragraph to the fifth means that this important info isn't revealed when it is most useful and is out of chronological order with the inserted material. Which is why "Genie is the pseudonym of a feral child who was discovered in Los Angeles on November 4, 1970 after more than a decade of isolation, abuse and neglect. She spent most of her first thirteen and a half years of life locked inside a bedroom, strapped to a child's toilet or bound inside a crib with her arms and legs immobilized. During this time she was almost never spoken to, and as a result did not acquire a first language" is more accurate and informative. The addition of "born 1957" is a sensible addition. MOMENTO (talk) 08:43, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * EEng: As manias go, "silly" beats the heck out of "intermittently incapacitating." I say this as a possessor of both sorts. I hadn't thought about the potential nexus between split infinitives and splitting wikipedia articles. Thanks a lot, now I have something else to obsess about. :)
 * In a slightly more serious vein, my reason for a barely measurable inclination against an article split is rooted in being rubbed the wrong way by the "Tl, dn" thread. The whole idea that the user of an encylopedia would fail to read a comprehensive article on account of it's comprehensiveness is, I think, an insult to our users. Besides, isn't Wikipedia (Simple) supposed to address the issue, without dumbing down our core project? Still, I've edited the lede to facilitate a split, because that seems to be the emerging consensus of editors whose judgment I respect.
 * Your point about dramah is well-taken. I think this particular thread has reached the end of its usefulness. There seems to be no consensus forming around the initial proposal. There seem to be sufficient answers to it to satisfy all but the proposer, most especially One of Many's edits to the article. It's probably a waste of electrons to keep answering the same question over and over in different, but equivalent, words. David in DC (talk) 15:19, 28 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I hate to drag this on further, but on page 198 or 199 of Rymer's book Jay Shurley says that Genie's isolation was still the longest and most extreme by several years. Shurley was and is the preeminent expert on the subject of human isolation (there's a mountain range named after him in Antarctica because he spent four years studying effects of human isolation there), had/has a vast knowledge of all the extant literature on the subject, and since that time has not made any statement to the contrary on Genie.  Anyways, I think the current wording is jut fine, so we can hopefully agree on that. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 02:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree that after the recent changes to the lead, there's nothing to be done on this point (not that I was ever too concerned). EEng (talk) 02:11, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There is nothing on pages 198-199 of Rymer's book quoting Shurley. And are you really satisfied with the bad grammar of the first sentence? MOMENTO (talk) 12:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Blade's mention of Rymer/Shurley relates to a side point not relevant to the question of verification of the lead sentence, which carries an appropriate cite. That sentence reads
 * Genie (born 1957) is the pseudonym of a feral child who was the victim in one of the most severe cases of abuse, neglect and social isolation on record in the medical literature.

What grammar problem do you see, and what new text do you propose? EEng (talk) 12:43, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * ...in THE medical literature"? I suggest a rearrangement of the first para in the lead as it was on15:29, 27 July 2013 that removes the opinion about the severity and documentation but still gives the reader the history/facts of Genie before she was discovered before moving on to the post discovery treatment - "Genie (born 1957) is the pseudonym of a feral child who was discovered in Los Angeles on November 4, 1970 after more than a decade of isolation, abuse and neglect. She spent most of her first thirteen and a half years of life locked inside a bedroom, strapped to a child's toilet or bound inside a crib with her arms and legs immobilized. During this time she was almost never spoken to, and as a result did not acquire a first language". MOMENTO  (talk) 21:37, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

I've created separate threads for the grammatical issue and for the issue of where the BLP grafs and the "case study" grafs stand, temporarily, in the lede. One hopes they will be satisfactory. If not, please address those issues in those threads.

As to the WP:V "issue", it's bogus. It's been resolved to the satisfaction of all but one lone voice. Consensus does not require unanimity. One hopes the lone voice will give it a rest. David in DC (talk) 22:30, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, I am personally satisfied that the "severity" characterization is appropriately covered by the cite given, and that it is appropriate to include up front. The issue has been thoroughly ventilated and I confess to being unable to comprehend Momento's continued concern. EEng (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I fear we comprehend the concern all too well. Be that as it may, if this edit, based on a 2013 academic reference, does not end any further WP:TENDENTIOUSness, it may be time to request assistance from an uninvolved arbiter. David in DC (talk) 15:14, 30 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Unless there's against-consensus editing in future that just feeds the beast. We don't need to have the last word. EEng (talk) 16:15, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Gramatical error? No.
Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review: "Most of the data on guns and violence are available in the criminologic, legal, and social sciences literature, yet such data escape acknowledgment or analysis of the medical literature." Logistic regression in the medical literature: "This article examines use and reporting of LR in the medical literature by comprehensively assessing its use in a selected area of medical study." Humor in Medicine: "Humor and laughter have been a focus of attention in the popular media and in the medical literature."

Actually, it's a fairly common phrase in academia.

But thanks for playing along at home. Next? David in DC (talk) 22:16, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I have to say, Momento, that if you don't understand the idiom in the literature then your ability to interpret the sources on this kind of subject is brought seriously into question. EEng (talk) 23:03, 29 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not that common if you have to go back 1994, 2000 and 2003 to find examples of it. In any case the phrase "the medical literature" as used in your examples refers to "the medical literature" about a specific item - the medical literature about guns, logistic regression and humour. This is clearly illustrated in your first example which uses an extract from the text as the title -  "in the medical literature on guns and violence" and another uses the definite about general literature - "There is support in the literature for the role of humor and laughter in other areas". What you now have in the Genie article is redundant, it now means that the "case of abuse, neglect and social isolation on record in the medical literature (about Genie)". Grouping the pre-discovery history of Genie together is an improvement but if you want to insert the opinion that Genie's case "is one of the most severe cases of abuse, neglect and social isolation on record in the medical literature" you need another source to cite than Susan Curtis's as found in Reynolds & Fletcher-Janzen because she doesn't mention "neglect" or "abuse". MOMENTO  (talk) 23:29, 29 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Momento, I don't know what your background is or what's going on with you right now, but you're making a fool of yourself as well as wasting people's time. I haven't seen the Reynolds&FJ text myself, but I have a choice of relying on your interpretation of it, or Blade's, and since Blade has a long history of solid work here, while you're still going on unintelligibly about how in the literature is some kind of obscure construction, I'm going to rely on Blade.
 * You appeared here with this "concern" immediately after complaining on Blade's talk page about some administrative action of his. Please stop now.
 * EEng (talk) 14:42, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I came to this article out of curiosity since Blade keeps saying he so busy here that he cannot attend to other matters. And the first thing I notice in the first sentence of the first paragraph is the opinion - "Genie.. was the victim of one of the most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented". None of the cites say that. One problem is "ever documented"? That is an absolute that is impossible to claim and none of the cites say that. The closest is Reynolds&FJ who talk of Genie's "social isolation and experiential deprivation" as being "unparalleled SO FAR" in medical literature up until 2002. And nothing about "most severe cases of abuse and neglect ever documented" in 2013. That claim is WP:OR and WP:SYN. I have since asked for and looked for an RS that makes that claim and I can find none. My reasonable suggestion has been to omit the opinion about the severity and let the facts speak for them selves ("Genie (born 1957) is the pseudonym of a feral child who was discovered in Los Angeles on November 4, 1970 after more than a decade of isolation, abuse and neglect. She spent most of her first thirteen and a half years of life locked inside a bedroom, strapped to a child's toilet or bound inside a crib with her arms and legs immobilized. During this time she was almost never spoken to, and as a result did not acquire a first language"). That suggestion was rejected and various versions of an "opinion" inserted. We now have the risible "opinion" that Genie "was the victim of such severe abuse, neglect and social isolation that her case is among the most well-known ever recorded in the literature of abnormal child psychology". This new addition comes with a cite that "quotes" Rymer from 1993 with "Genie's case is one of the best-known in abnormal child psychology" but makes no claim that this was because Genie was "the victim of such severe abuse, neglect and social isolation". This is a medical article as well as a BLP and editors cannot keep inserting their opinions into the article disguised as the considered opinions of the doctors and medical experts they keep citing. MOMENTO (talk) 02:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have a source that would support your hypothesis that there is a new case since "unparalleled SO FAR" that would require the change you propose? If you have no such source, there is no basis for making a change.  If you find a source, we can make a change, but until then, further discussion seems fruitless. I am One of Many (talk) 02:37, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * After this Momento will wave his arms some more. I suggest we let him thus have the last word, and with that allow this and related threads die out. EEng (talk) 02:44, 31 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Time for a RFC. I'll get it together. MOMENTO (talk) 21:32, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

tl;dr - well actually i read it all, but still tl?
I can see you all have worked your tails off to research this and make it an outstanding article. i read it from beginning to end, and it was superb. However. Um. Please don't kill me.

The length, breadth and depth of facts presented exceeds any wikipedia article I've ever seen. it's more like someone's masters' thesis. It's huge. I'm not a hardcore wikipedian so I don't know the code for that. WP:TOOBIG?

Seems to me each paragraph/section should be reduced to a sentence. Additionally, Genie's life events are completely buried in all the dissertation stuff. The sections move back and forth in time; it's very hard to follow chronologically.

I don't by any means want to be a stranger charging through here ripping stuff out - I've been on the receiving end of that from wikipedia vigilantes, and it stinks. Maybe the info could be split out to one or more separate articles, on her language and progress? Or a summary of what, if any, landmark theories arose from the studies?

This article, in its current state, is fantastically detailed and likely worthy of publication. Somewhere else. I'm sharing my opinion that it is excessive for Wikipedia. Tkech (talk) 09:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree it is unique for its level of detail among any WP article I've ever seen, but there's nothing excessive about it. It's just that, being unprecedented, it raises a question not previously seen, at least in this exact form: how to serve readers who want a more general exposition and also readers who want this kind of detail, since we're lucky enough that Blade has chosen to bestow it on the project -- a complicating factor being that a reader may switch from one category to another, maybe several times for different facets of the subject.
 * It seems like we want to offer the reader a "Cliff's notes" [on reflection, Cliff's Notes is the wrong model] summary -- about 1/5 to 1/3 the length -- maybe a 1 - 3 sentences (depending) corresponding to each current paragraph. What has me stumped is that the main-article/sub-article structure see in e.g. World War II probably isn't appropriate, because the "subtopics" for Genie aren't big enough for their own articles.  I would envision something like an extended lead, inserted after the lead and before the "master's thesis" (this extended lead having links to sections of the master's thesis), but I've never seen that before on WP.
 * I'll think this over but I wanted to post these thoughts so far since it would be a shame for Blade to commit suicide. EEng (talk) 12:42, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * In my view, there's nothing wrong with this level of detail. Isn't there a project called something like Wikipedia (simple)? If I'm right about that, an extract from this might be the place for a simpler version.
 * Organizational structure, as opposed to slimming down the article, seems a sensible thing to discuss. I'd suggest that, once Blade is done, we set up two userfied pages for collaboration, one for a simplified version and one for experimenting with different organizational structure that enhances readability.
 * In the past, we've discussed, in the context of WP:HARM, whether making this article more prominent, once it's "completed" - by nominating it for GA or FA. I think such a nomination is a bad idea.  But I think some opinions from GA and FA-savvy editors about whether this article is too long, dense or detailed might be worth soliciting. Not for the purpose of nominating the article, but rather for a sense of whether a BLP like this is off track for the project, or just novel. David in DC (talk) 14:45, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * First of all, Tkech, I have thought a lot about the length of the article myself, so don't worry; I'm happy to hear your thoughts on it. The lede definitely needs some work, it's essentially the same as when I started working on the article because I figured it should come last.  If properly written, it'll provide the summary alluded to above.  Organization has never been my strong point, it normally isn't with my kind, and structural ideas would be good. I've also caught myself adding somewhat excessive detail at times, and over the last couple days I've been trying to whack back what I can on that; anyone who knows me IRL would be thoroughly unsurprised at that, and if you see something go for it.
 * That aside, it's not the longest article out there—the 9/11 conspiracy theories article comes to mind. It is definitely long; however, as noted above it is (thankfully, as Susan Goldin-Meadow noted), a unique article.  With someone like George W. Bush or Dave Mustaine (two random examples) we generally point to another article incorporating that person's career, like pointing readers to the Megadeth article to read about Mustaine's music, or create spinoff articles like "Presidency of George W. Bush", "Controversies about George W. Bush"; normally that approach is great.  That won't work here because the two things about Genie are her biography and her case study, and there's no way to separate the two because they're obviously completely intertwined; if you had to incorporate the article on Megadeth into Dave Mustaine you'd have something fairly similar, that's what I'm up against here.  Compounding it is the lack of images in the article, which definitely makes it seem longer; again, for copyright reasons there's exactly nothing we can do about it.  That we'll even end up with 3 images of Genie will be something of a miracle, as I think I've found a way to justify a 3rd.
 * As to your specific concerns. The dissertation stuff is what prompted the utterly ridiculous lawsuit from her "mother" (sorry, I can't hold all my opinions in), leading to Genie being placed in more abusive foster homes, which led to further regression.  We can't explain how that happened without going into a little detail on what prompted the lawsuit.  It also got Curtiss and the other scientists banned from seeing her, which (aside from generally being horrible; the end of the Body Shock episode is extremely hard to watch) prevented more data from being collected and likely had some hand in inconsistencies in accounts of her speech (at least Geoffrey Sampson suggests as much).  The timeline issue is one I've grappled with since the start; nothing on Genie is in neat chronological order.  I've tried my best, but there are a lot of things which don't have dates and a lot of things which require the jumping around (c.f. the part on possessives; there were two very distinct steps 6 months apart, and one has to go to the next step before resuming the timeline).  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 03:18, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Very briefly, I'll also say Susan Curtiss noted the exact same problems with separating her life and case study in her dissertation. That's how intertwined they are.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 12:46, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think it's funny how about 2 weeks after you posted that, this article surpassed 9/11 conspiracy theories in size. It is now over 30% bigger. It's now the 118th longest article on Wikipedia which already puts it in the top .002 percentile. Excluding lists it is #56 and for articles about individual people it's only the 4th largest on all of Wikipedia. For living people it is the longest, even longer than Barack Obama. I think it's great that you are putting in so much effort into improving a very important article and I know you're trying to be thorough but at some point it just becomes overkill. Empresschild (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * There's been discussion above of how to split the article, or move substantial material into notes, or both, but for whatever reason Blade hasn't done that yet. Shame on him. Oh wait, except he did all the work of producing this high-quality material in the first place -- does he also have to be the one to reorganize it? Properly organized it won't be overkill, and in the meantime we can tolerate the overkill. EEng (talk) 22:41, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Concur Better right than fast. It's not as if there's an electron shortage and concommitant need to conserve electrons. Article_size David in DC (talk) 17:10, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm working on it in my userspace now; it's not quite ready for articlespace yet, it's missing some connective tissue, but it will be in the not-too-distant future. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:16, 30 August 2013 (UTC) One way of dealing with unusually large volume of article content is to move peripheral material into extended notes as seen in these articles: Phineas Gage; Sacred Cod; John Harvard statue. These avoids stunning the casual reader with too much detail, while leaving it available for the more interested reader. Notice that simple source citations are separated from notes, and the reader can tell which is which by letter-vs-number in superscript i.e. superscript number is just a source citation for the skeptical, but superscript letter means there's more to learn in the note.
 * Use extensive Notes?

Also, I've been experimenting recently with the use of "paragraph headings" (not sure what they're really called -- markup is that the line starts with a semicolon) to give the reader some low-level landmarks within a section -- see Sacred Cod. EEng (talk) 11:17, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

[later]... P.S. You'll notice that in Sacred Cod I finally figured out how to have refs inside of Notes. The syntax is sort of creaky, and there might be some better way to do it, but it does work. EEng (talk) 05:06, 12 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Given that one of my favorite Wikipedia articles is on intelligent design, I'm wondering why I didn't think of the extended notes idea myself. As I only have Bickerton's book for a few days and it has some pretty vital information, tonight will be spent working that in, but tomorrow I'll experiment with the notes.  I've got some idea of how to approach it, it'll probably take a couple days to get it the way I want, but I think that'll be hugely helpful in getting this to the point where it satisfies everyone.  Thank you so much for the suggestion.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 16:35, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, yes, you're welcome. Um, a hug? Well, all right. Gee, um... Stop that. Yuck! No kisses! Enough! EEng (talk) 20:58, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... it seems like there must be a more efficient way of transcribing the book citations; I've got the other ones down, just not those. If someone can figure that out, I'd greatly appreciate that; I don't screw around with syntax like that.  Alternatively, someone can find someone who knows.  The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 03:19, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, Blade, I missed this post until now. What is it you're finding hard to understand? EEng (talk) 18:50, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

FYI
After much more work than I was anticipating, I think I'm almost ready to move the split into articlespace. I'm still trying to experiment a little bit with the formatting, as tables and me have a very strained relationship, and I still need to overhaul the first paragraph of the lead there, but there's no way it can possibly take me more than a few days. Upon moving it into articlespace I'm going to remove a massive amount of text (probably on one side or the other of 100k bytes) at this article, and then I'll work on finishing the content in both. There's still some content that I want to add in both places, but I wanted to hold off on this article until I could cut it down to something of more reasonable size. Figured a note on the talkpage would help so people know what's going on. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:12, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * As someone said, "I love work. it fascinates me. I can sit and watch it for hours." EEng (talk) 16:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
 * And the deed is done; would have done it a week ago, but I had to get all four of my wisdom teeth pulled and I thought trying to do something on this scale under the influence of Percocet wasn't a good idea. See Linguistic development of Genie; if anyone has suggestions about things there, please leave them; especially the tables, whether or not they should be expanded/contracted or whether anyone has better ideas on formatting than I have there. There's still content work to be done in both places, I'll keep at that; I finally go a copy of Susan Curtiss' dissertation, and predictably it's opened up the floodgates one last time; I'm probably about 1/5 of the way through adding it all in. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 02:28, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLP and WP:AVOIDVICTIM
I don't see that this article is following WP:AVOIDVICTIM at all. Sentences such as:
 * Doctors were also unable to completely rule out the possibility of Genie's father subjecting her to sexual abuse, although they never uncovered any definite evidence of it.[40][41]

are just wrong, doctors never completely rule out the possibilities. Stuartyeates (talk) 20:26, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * That could use better wording, you're perfectly welcome to do it yourself (I've never met someone who couldn't improve on my writing). It alludes to an aspect of the case which we don't currently discuss in the article, in that Genie masturbated in socially inappropriate contexts and often tried to engage men who were around her in her masturbation. The behavior itself and the fact that she had so much difficulty with it suggested to doctors the possibility of sexual abuse, and their inability to determine whether or not she had been sexually abused complicated their efforts to handle said behavior (it was one of a couple explanations for this behavior, the other being that she had never been inhibited as a child and therefore never developed a sense of inhibition) and was a major hindrance when managing her overall course of psychological treatment (in addition to linguistics, the case specifically focused on behavioral psychology and her responses to different treatment methods).  This is discussed at length in multiple sources, including Curtiss' dissertation and both Rymer's and Newton's books. Therefore, the possibility of sexual abuse did have a substantial impact on several facets of the case; it's not something that's just thrown in for effect. Is there anything besides that sentence which you're concerned about? (It's worth noting there's a lot more detail than I've included in the article, when compared with just what's publicly available this is pretty broad) The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 04:31, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Maybe:
 * Doctors were unable to uncover any definite evidence of sexual abuse.[40][41]

? Stuartyeates (talk) 06:40, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I've tried my hand at rephrasing it, it's similar to what you have above. Comments/improvements are of course welcome. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:24, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * It's certainly better than it was, thanks. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:27, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And thank you for pointing it out, sometimes it's easy to miss the obvious things. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:22, 12 February 2014 (UTC)

Is there privacy law?
Gho2t993 (talk) 18:42, 3 September 2014 (UTC) Is privacy law people with childhood abuse? Names are not allowed to mention on this article otherwise I do not understand why the names cannot mention but other people with child abuse can be mentioned example would be this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Child_abuse_resulting_in_death  and another one  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_in_the_Box_(Vidal,_California)  same state as Genie
 * For extended discussions of this, see the 1st archive of this talkpage. No there's no law, but there's WP:BLPPRIVACY; I'm one of the last people who would ever cite it, but I think this is probably the best example of where it applies. As to your examples; the first is a completely different issue, since Genie is (as far as we know) still alive. In the case of the other one, there are a couple things I can think of. First and foremost, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS applies. In addition, Saul's name is much more widely available than Genie's and no one ever attempted to hide it. Finally, the consensus here was not to mention her name and that hasn't changed. If it's not clear already, I support keeping the real names of her and her family out; I might be talked into allowing her parents' first names, but I have a hard time thinking of why they're particularly relevant since they're not otherwise notable people. The Blade of the Northern Lights  ( 話して下さい ) 19:59, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Parents' names
The parents' names are public information, posted in an article on the ABC News website. I trust ABC's judgment more than I do the judgment of this Wikipedia page's WP:OWNER. For posterity's sake, here is my edit that has been reverted:

When she was a baby her father,, decided she was severely mentally retarded, causing him to dislike her and withhold his care and attention. Genie's mother,, was nearly blind and mentally ill. 50.48.205.73 (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Firstly, this page was not being OWNED. Secondly, read through the archives, and you will see that consensus is against that edit. So stop. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 23:00, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I read the archives. There is consensus for not using Genie's real name.  There is no consensus for not revealing the parents' names.  The horse is out of the barn. 50.48.205.73 (talk) 23:03, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * As is well established on Wikipedia, just because reliable sources say something about a person, doesn't mean that Wikipedia has to contain that information. In sensitive cases such as this, it is common for details like this to be left out. Per WP:BRD, you should've come to the talkpage after being reverted the first time, and attempted to discuss this properly. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 23:05, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That is obvious. What is not obvious is your assertion that the consensus is to not give the parents' names. 50.48.205.73 (talk) 23:09, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * If there is no established consensus for that, then I apologize; however, there is still a two-to-one consensus against including the names right now. Luke no 94  (tell Luke off here) 23:10, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'll give you that 50.48.205.73 (talk) 23:11, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * BTW, just to avoid any future problems, if anyone has the idea to edit my comments on this Talk page, I do NOT give permission. Nothing I have said here falls under WP:PRIVACY because the information is already public knowledge and referenced to the ABC website. Please see this page for details 50.48.205.73 (talk) 23:21, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Firstly, as a style point your addition duplicated references already in the article. More importantly, as to the consensus. The removal of her name, including her surname, is the overwhelming majority of the first archive of this talkpage; I trust you can find it on your own. The discussion on her parents' names is located at Talk:Genie (feral child)/Archive 2. It was years before I found the article, so it's not as if I had anything to do with it, but I tend to think it's the best way to go. Her parents are not notable people, and including their names here makes it easier to get to her name. So basically, there's no gain and some very real harm that could result. I'm one of the absolute last people who cites WP:BLPPRIVACY, but in this case it obviously applies for reasons laid out in the above-mentioned discussions. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 23:39, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:BLPPRIVACY says this: "Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object." Firstly, I do not know if Genie (not her real first name, as you know) has the same last name as her parents; maybe she does, maybe she doesn't.  Secondly, we're not talking about her; we're talking about her parents, who are both dead. Thirdly, both of their names are widely disseminated and widely published, thanks to ABC News, among others. 50.48.205.73 (talk) 23:46, 4 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm well aware of Genie's full real name, as well as those of several of her living and dead relatives. It takes considerable skill to fish out that information, but finding the names of either her parents or her brother makes it easier to do so; I'm not going to divulge exactly how that is per WP:BEANS. Bear in mind that having them in two obscure ABC news articles isn't the same as having it in an article which 3 to 4000, and sometimes as many as 30,000 (even more on some days) people per day are viewing. That said, I'd also like some outside opinions on this. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 00:28, 5 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Do you think it is accurate to describe an ABC News article as "obscure"? 50.48.205.73 (talk) 03:09, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

R*tarded is an ableist slur and should be replaced.
Many descriptions of Genie's possible disability use the r-slur, which is very out of date in describing mental disorders, illnesses, developmental delays, etc. While it's understandable that some time ago, that was an accepted term to use, its increased usage for the purpose of verbal abuse has put an irreversable negative connotation behind it. It's offensive and decreases the credibility of the article from a psychology standpoint. Proposition: replace all instances of the r-slur with "disabled" or "disability", etc. Mentally r******* could be replaced with mentally disabled, while mental r******* could be replaced with "developmental disorders".

http://nypost.com/2009/07/26/retarded-house-bill/

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/rosas-law-asks-senate-kill-slur-mentally-retarded/story?id=9109319&page=2

http://www.r-word.org/r-word-not-acceptable-psa.aspx

Leafstars (talk) 01:36, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * An edit request has to be a proposal for a specific change. While some words in the article might be replaced, the proposed edit is far too broad because it would not be reasonable for this article to change the views stated in reliable sources. Do you have a specific suggestion? Johnuniq (talk) 02:30, 17 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Setting aside my personal distaste for a perfectly valid description falling victim to the euphemism treadmill, the sources without exception use the phrasing "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded". We are supposed to be following sources, not forcing the current linguistic flavor of the moment into contexts to which it is foreign. Not a perfect analogy, but we write that Harry Arundel died of Bright's disease even though it is no longer used as a diagnosis, so this is not unprecedented. And in any event, you cannot simply change "mental retardation" to "developmental disorders" because the latter covers a wide range of things not related to cognitive abilities and therefore not pertinent here. (And if you must know, I'm a full-blooded autistic and thoroughly fail to understand this obsessive need so many others in the disability community have to keep the euphemism treadmill going at an ever faster pace) The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:39, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 March 2015
Section: Impact Paragraph 1, last sentence there is an error.

Original: "Several To date, no one directly involved in Genie's case has responded to this controversy." Suggested edit: "To date, no one directly involved in Genie's case has responded to this controversy."

41.160.184.22 (talk) 12:41, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Cannolis (talk) 13:36, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 May 2015
Under: Relationship with her mother

Missing word: While Genie was living with the Riglers, Genie's usually met with Genie once a week. Should be: While Genie was living with the Riglers, Genie's mother usually met with Genie once a week.

Mikesullakasully (talk) 02:20, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ --I am  k6ka  Talk to me!   See what I have done  03:05, 11 May 2015 (UTC)

Harvard errors
Please can someone familiar with the sources correct the following: Thanks. --Mirokado (talk) 04:29, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * and  do not match the author list for the Curtis et al. 1975 citation provided
 * Pinker 1994 callout does not match Pinker 2007 citation which is unused
 * Goldin-Meadow 1992 citation is missing
 * Mirokado, every error is, of course, a cause for sadness, but why the rush to blame Harvard? EEng (talk) 05:18, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Think I got them all, not sure how a couple of those happened but they should be fixed. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 17:21, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, still a problem with Pinker 1994 or 2007, I'm afraid. You can see these problems much easier if you install User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js. --Mirokado (talk) 18:53, 26 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I think I'll do exactly that, thanks. I got the Pinker situation straightened out, I forgot that I'd updated the reference to the newer edition. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 20:36, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all these are corrected now. --Mirokado (talk) 11:21, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Too long to read and navigate comfortably
I think this article should be given a "too long to read and navigate comfortably" sticker. It's a ridiculously long article with an excessive amount of detail, making it utterly painful to read and digest. 86.137.185.24 (talk) 00:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm working on cutting it down, relax. That said, part of the reason it's long is because there's a lot to cover; this is a very well-known case in psychology, the studies were of high importance in a huge number of fields (e.g. developmental psychology, behavioral psychology, neurobiology and especially neurolinguistics, linguistics; it's a long list), and the manner in which researchers carried out their research was and remains the subject of intense debate. There's not a good way to split off anything besides the language aspect of the study, so it all has to be here. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 05:33, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * It's long, but as Blade said, Genie's case is perhaps the most famous in the above mentioned fields. The article is one of the best on Wikipedia.  In my opinion, better than most featured articles.  Maybe the solution is to create a simple, summary version on simple.wikipedia.org?--I am One of Many (talk) 07:43, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think a better solution is to spin our more sections a la Linguistic development of Genie, leaving behind a much more high-level summary section, with link to the detailed article. EEng (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh, wait, Blade says there's no way to do that -- missed that bit. I don't believe that though. EEng (talk) 01:22, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to try, it could take some time (I'm guessing a week, the article says pretty much all of what it needs to say) but I could presumably try to create something like "Psychological development of Genie". I have an idea of how I'd do that, so that would be fairly simple, but if you have a better title idea please be forthcoming. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 12:54, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not sure what to suggest. Several times I've tried to read the article with the intention of suggesting "threads" that could be teased out into other articles, but each time my concentration waned -- it's so overwhelmingly detailed! But there just has to be some way for the reader to get more detail than the lead offers, but less than "the whole enchilada". Another thought (I suppose I've suggested before) would be to move discursive stuff into footnotes. EEng (talk) 07:46, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I could certainly work on that, and I think creating a separate article on psychological development could work; the two main areas of detail are linguistics and psychology, there's enough there for both. While I do that, I'll see if I can shunt some more into the footnotes. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 21:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Take a look at the "Current" section (permalink) and think about this... except for the first paragraph, almost none of this is about Genie. I would counsel (painful as I know this will be to hear) deleting all of it, except that the info about the mother's death, and a much-reduced sketch on the brother, might be moved to a footnote. I think there must be a lot of opportunities like this. I sense there's a desire to pack in as much as possible to show the ripple effects of this horrifying story on so many people (even backing up to show what went wrong in the father's early life), and wrap up loose ends (like when various of the researches died) but really, does it increase the reader's understanding of Genie? EEng (talk) 03:50, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I've had that in my sights for a while, it's one of a few things that I know is overly long but haven't quite figured out the right balance. I'll have a go at it tomorrow. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 04:07, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Callouts for footnotes
Just a thought re : I finally decided lower-alpha's just fine, and dropped the |group=upper-alpha thing, leaving everything just that much cleaner. EEng (talk) 23:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable, I think I'll try that here. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 22:08, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Respect for readers
Just how dumb are WP readers? The edits on 17 Feb 2016 by The Blade of the Northern Lights add words to the page and nothing to the meaning but merely explicitly restate the subjects introduced in the preceding sentences. How quickly do readers forget the context of what they're reading? Let's have a little regard for readers' ability to maintain their focus and retain subject matter for a few seconds and keep the article more concise as a result. sirlanz Sirlanz 03:36, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Hey, be nice.  E Eng  06:17, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Pithiness was never a virtue of mine, and in any event I've learned that trusting the intelligence of other people almost always leaves me disappointed. Having said that, anyone can edit this article and you're anyone. A quick reminder, though, to remember to write in American English; I know it feels very odd to write in a completely different style than usual, but this article has especially strong ties to American English. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 22:33, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Sirlanz's edits
Some of you copy edits are acceptable, but many are not very good. Most importantly, you are changing content without reading the sources, so you have been incorrectly changing the meaning of the content. The changes are pretty extensive. I think the best thing to do is revert them and discuss the content changes on this talk page. However, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else has anything to say. --I am One of Many (talk) 17:21, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Certainly, if there's anything that departs from the source material in a factual respect, it needs to be reverted. The page is way, way too long.  It is an attempt at distillation of virtually the entirety of the content of two sources (Rymer and Curtiss) which is simply not the function of an encyclopedia page.  Simply paraphrasing in extenso two publications is not what wikipedia is all about.  Yes, I have not gone to the sources; it would be much better if I had/could, but it's one of WP's longest pages (22,000 words, no less!) and the most I can hopt to do is make my contribution to the English and excission of editorial.  I appreciate the page represents years of struggle by The Blade of the Northern Lights and all credit to that editor for the effort but we have to focus.  Up to you guys, though; I think it's just too big of a problem for me to invest all the hours needed.  sirlanzSirlanz 03:00, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
 * The problem is that about 50% of your copy edits are improvements and about half with content removals are bad. There is no absolute limit on the size of articles. There is no need to move through this article like a bull in a china shop.  This is just going to make more work in the future.  If you don't know the content or you don't bother to read the sources, please just copy edit without changing the meaning of the content. --I am One of Many (talk) 05:45, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, actually, I've been through the changes and they all seem OK to me. Almost all of them are local copyedits without change of meaning that I can see. A few cut material that seems excessive, or (in one case) where there's internal contradiction to the text as it stood. If I've missed something then by all means fix that, but mass reversion is absolutely not warranted.  E Eng  06:17, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
 * By and by, most of it looks reasonable. One of them completely changed the meaning, but that's easily fixable and I'll take care of it in a second. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 22:35, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Article too intimate
I think this article is too intimate, and somewhat intrusive, for a WP:BLP. While history ought be recorded, some content seems more suited to a medical encyclopedia than a general one: discussing her incontinence throughout her life, for instance. Sunny Clark (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

That's rich, coming from someone who wants to put in an external link to a site detailing her entire case history (and nearly enough personal information to dox her). Sumanuil (talk) 22:20, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Your comment is inappropriate. And, again, you failed to notice pre-existing links on the page you reference. I also think that a link to details of her personal development is preferred to the existing, overtly personal content. Sunny Clark (talk) 22:03, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
 * You'll have to take that issue up with Susan Curtiss and the research team, not to mention Russ Rymer; they repeatedly emphasized exactly those points for various reasons. Yes, it's an unusual article, but her circumstances are (thank goodness) highly unusual and the source material reflects it. And while it's indeed unusual to entirely omit the name of a subject, it's for what I think are fairly self-evident reasons; the archives have more detailed discussion. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 01:11, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Name
Any reason why her parent's names aren't mentioned? Was her last name ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cd195 (talk • contribs) 17:55, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at the archives it's because Genie's name is supposed to be private (having her parents' names would give half of her name away) and it wouldn't really add much to the article. Are you here because it's 50 years since Genie was discovered? I see this article is on the main page! Abc2def2g (talk) 20:10, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

More names
People who watch this article might like to also watch Mockingbird Don't Sing where there are more attempts to name names. Johnuniq (talk) 00:43, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Good to know. I'll definitely be on the lookout, any help there is appreciated. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 02:20, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Masturbation thing continued
Hi, I just took out the line that said Genie tried to involve older men in masturbating- I haven't seen any account of that and the citation for it does not include that either. Tried to post on the existing topic archive but couldn't figure it out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.6.37.28 (talk) 18:03, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Susan Curtiss said it in her dissertation, it's on the pages I cited, as does Michael Newton's book (which almost certainly cites Curtiss). The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 17:26, 11 October 2021 (UTC)

mother, brother and maternal grandparents' roles in this
Was she apathetic(says later in article) or mentally ill(as I read in another article) herself? Or did she really want to help her children but was unable to do so due to blindness and husband's abuse? I've also read she didn't want children either- is this true? In the article it says she didn't react to Genie's behaviour, and it seems a bit odd that she went to get help for herself but didn't seem to think that Genie - or indeed her brother- really needed help too (chiming with the mention in the article of her being in denial about her role in it, which suggests that part of the reason she allowed it to happen was because she was denying the gravity of it). Later in the article it say she disputed the researchers' account of her husband's conduct, so did they exaggerate it, or had she been minimising the abuse to ease her guilt or repress her own trauma? One also wonders why Genie's brother or the friends he lived with didn't try to call the police about Genie and her mother being held captive, (perhaps he hadn't told the friends because it was too upsetting, or was in some way his idea of 'normal', or felt too upset to call the police?) and why [Genie's mother's] parents didn't try to help Genie (or her brother) get professional help, or bring the father to account once Genie and her mother had escaped. If there are answers to these questions they should be in the article. 92.41.113.190 (talk) 11:17, 16 July 2022 (UTC)


 * For a lot of that, the sources don't say anything. The article mentions that her mother being blind was a major factor, and she did through attorneys dispute some details in Curtiss' dissertation (her disputations have to be seen to be believed...) but never gave a particular motive for doing so. Also, from what the sources say (which I think is reflected well in the article) she didn't so much seek help as accept it when offered. Other than that, there's a lot the source material just doesn't address. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 19:28, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

who looked after her brother?
the article says it was his maternal grandmother, who then returned him to his parents. This would seem a bit odd, since she had serious concerns about his father. One of the links says she died in a road accident, and then he went back to the parents, which makes more sense, since it tallies with the mention of the father's mother dying in a road accident leading him to become more deranged. This seems to indicate it was the paternal grandmother he stayed with. Then, the same link says that [Genie's mother] escaped to live with her parents, presumably both being alive, which further supports that it was the paternal grandmother. Also, one wonders why [Genie's mother's] parents didn't try to help their daughter and grandchildren for thirteen years-or did they? If there's evidence they did it should be mentioned. 92.41.113.190 (talk) 11:06, 16 July 2022 (UTC)


 * Her paternal grandmother did, yes. The timeline, which the article states, is that at age 3 he lived with her for "several months" before being returned to his parents. By the time she was killed in the car crash, he had been living with his parents for a couple years. And none of the sources say anything about what her living grandparents did or didn't do at the time, if anyone finds something that does it would be useful. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 19:31, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 November 2022 (2)
Change "retarded" to "disabled" Katernip (talk) 22:20, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The purpose of the article isn't to be politically correct. We use the same words that the sources uses, which after checking the first source, is "retarded".  We don't put words in their mouths.  Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 22:24, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 4 November 2022
These sentences need a little reworking:

In early January 1978, Genie's mother abruptly forbade all scientific observations and testing of Genie. Little is known about her circumstances since then. Her current whereabouts are uncertain, although she is believed to be living in the care of the state of California.[4][12][13]

Please move citations #4 and #12 to follow "since then", and please change "although she is believed" to "although in 2016 she was believed". Things might have changed in the six years since #13 was written, and because #4 and #12 are from 2008, there's no reason to use them for something that approximates her current status. 175.39.61.121 (talk) 19:49, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ (though I went with "as of 2016" over "in 2016", to leave open the possibility that that's still the case) 3mi1y (talk) 08:55, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Noam Chomsky
Chomsky's theories are mentioned in this article. Did he ever specifically address the Genie case in depth? The only thing I could find online (in a brief bit of searching) was a short three minute clip on YouTube of a 1998 lecture. I think having a bit of Chomsky's direct thoughts on Genie would be useful. I would imagine this level of detail would have to be found in a print source rather than online. Mtminchi08 (talk) 02:07, 8 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I haven't found anything directly from him commenting on her case. All I've seen is Rymer's book, which mentions Chomsky making an extremely oblique reference to the case's existence in an aside, and Sampson's book, which says he only "briefly comments" on her case (and in his estimation was "reasonable" with what he said) but doesn't recount what those comments were or have a citation to said information. If someone can track that down, it would be helpful. Also, in case someone asks, Lenneberg had nothing to say besides what's in the footnote currently in the article (and Peter Jones actually quoted said footnote for his 2015 book!). The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 16:18, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 December 2022
In Section Characteristics and personality, change "Genie's receptive vocabulary vocabulary" to " Genie's receptive vocabulary". 210.181.113.43 (talk) 08:27, 9 December 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ thanks Cannolis (talk) 08:37, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 9 December 2022
Under "Hospital stay", the sentence "Shortly afterwards she showed clear responses to nonverbal signals, and her nonverbal communication skills quickly became exceptional." has three citations, namely 5, 92, 108. The first, [5], is a PBS documentary transcript, which I read in full and does not support this claim (while nonverbal behavior of Genie is touched on at several points in this source, these are mostly quite minimal and specific observations, not aggregated data or a claim by the researchers that they saw a trend in this regard). The second, [92], is a scientific article authored by many of Genie's caretakers/researchers at the time, and also does not support this claim (the article focuses on ear dominance for processing verbal vs. non-verbal input, but it states nowhere that her non-verbal skills were exceptional and by extension neither that they quickly became so). Only the last source, [108], states the following: "Genie was the most powerful nonverbal communicator I've ever come across.", Curtiss told me. "The most extreme example of this that comes to mind: Because of her obsession, she would notice and covet anything plastic that anyone had. One day, we were walking -- I think we were in Hollywood. (...) We reached the corner of this very busy intersection, and the light turned red, and we stopped. Suddenly, I heard the sound (...) of a purse being spilled. A woman in a car that had stopped at the intersection was emptying her purse, and she got out of the car and ran over and gave it to Genie and then ran back to the car. A plastic purse. Genie hadn't said a word." (Rymes, p.93)

This citation also does not support the claim that her skills _quickly_ became exceptional. Second, I would posit that if this is the only source, that the claim should be that Curtiss noted this. Lastly, nonverbal _skills_ suggest something that I think Curtiss might even disagree with, since skills suggest Genie using certain resources (e.g., gestures, gaze, expression, etc.), but on prior to the part of [108] I just cited, one introducing sentence notes: "...that Curtiss became convinced that she was witnessing a preternatural communication -- an explicit, unvoiced understanding -- that her careful notebook analysis was unequipped to explain". (Rymes, p.93). This is a minor point and I don't object to the use of 'skills' per se, but I do think it could be misleading, because even Curtiss was apparantly unable to specify exactly what it was that Genie did. I would argue that Curtiss rather notes that Genie seemingly communicates without speech, which is a bit different from saying she has exceptional nonverbal skills.

Being specific on this point is very relevant, because Genie is regarded as such an important case study within linguistics. Whether her nonverbal skills did quickly improve while her linguistic skills only improved through great effort and to a certain extent, is incredibly relevant. If there are more sources on Genie's nonverbal skill development, I would love to read them (to many of the other sources in this section I do not have immediate access, but I could come back to it at a later point if that is welcome). Lynnteressant (talk) 11:14, 9 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree with your analysis of the quoted source, though I don't have access to it myself. To be clear, are you suggesting that something along the lines of is the best thing to replace the problematic sentence? small jars  23:15, 9 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your swift response. I think it might be better to just remove the whole sentence, because the adjusted claim you proposed (which would indeed be more true to the cited source [108]) is already made in the article at several points (most notably under "Early research": "Curtiss quickly recognized Genie's powerful nonverbal communication abilities, writing that complete strangers would frequently buy something for her because they sensed she wanted it and that these gifts were always the types of objects she most enjoyed.", which I think is also a better claim because it is more specific and thus transparent to the reader).
 * Another reason I think removing the claim is fine is because the sentence following the claim notes the change in Genie's social attachments, which I would say is more relevant to the paragraph "Hospital stay" anyway. Removing the sentence does not break the flow of the paragraph in my opinion. Seeing how other sections already say the same in a more informative way, e.g., the section on "Nonverbal communication" provides sources on the discussion within the linguistic community relating to her nonverbal skills, I would suggest leaving the claim out entirely in this paragraph (if you agree of course). Lynnteressant (talk) 16:34, 10 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ small jars 10:47, 11 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Lynnteressant (talk) 12:18, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Extended-protected edit request
The link to Misophonia in the following sentence violates WP:NOPIPE: Genie's father had an extremely low tolerance for noise, to the point of refusing to have a working television or radio in the house.

Either the link to the misophonia article should be removed, or a citation should be given supporting the idea that Genie's father may have had misophonia. To suggest a connection between him and misophonia, without providing a source, is speculation and a violation of WP:Verifiability. Birdsinthewindow (talk) 22:06, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I removed the wikilink, somehow I never noticed where that went to (I wrote the sentence but didn't pipe the link). None of the sources actually say he had misophonia anyway. Thanks! The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい ) 18:39, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 11 July 2023
Grammar: replace her with she in the sentence "Curtiss submitted that her provided evidence for a weaker variation of the critical period hypothesis." Wpstatus (talk) 18:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ RudolfRed (talk) 00:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)