Talk:Meg-John Barker

Moved back to draftspace
I've moved this back to the draftspace since it needs editing to remove the promotional prose from the article. While it's not "buy this now" sort of promotional, it does contain various buzzwords that make it unacceptable for the mainspace. Also, when it comes to gender pronouns in Wikipedia articles you can't just write "they" and not explain this- it needs to be stated somewhere in the article that this is what Barker prefers to use when it comes to personal gender identification. This is in one of the sources but not in the article so I initially thought that there were several grammatical errors in the article. Sometimes gender pronouns can be easy to understand- the Chelsea Manning article uses the pronoun "she" and it makes sense since the start of the article states that she is a trans woman, but this article doesn't really show explanation so this will need to be added for Barker. I also recommend that you not refer to they by their first name since the standard on Wikipedia is to refer to someone by their last name. The exception for this is if the person is exceptionally well known under one name (Cher, Madonna, Prince, etc) and this is how the majority of coverage refers to them. However this doesn't seem to be the case with Barker and this source gives off the impression that this is how they prefer to be called when people do not use their first name.

This also needs better sourcing for notability. There are a lot of WP:PRIMARY sources in the article. Primary sources are things that have been written by Barker or one of their affiliates, such as their personal/official website, press releases, and the like. For example, since Barker wrote this article (or at least contributed to it), it is considered a primary source regardless of where it was posted. It's also generally unnecessary to link to papers that Barker wrote since they're also considered primary sources and can't show notability. It's expected that academics will write and publish papers in reputable journals, so this isn't entirely something that would show notability. Now if someone wrote about these papers and/or the papers are routinely and heavily cited then that can help show notability but it's easier to prove notabilty via other sources like book reviews and the like. Also, notifications that they spoke or participated in something does not automatically show notability either. Someone writing about Barker speaking at an event may be usable depending on who posted it and where. Be careful about self-published sources since they can seem reliable at first but won't pass muster at WP:RS/N. Stuff like this blog article are considered to be non-usable for notability purposes. I basically try to avoid anything published by blog sites like WordPress or Blogger. Once in a blue moon you can find SPS that are usable, but they have to be blogs that are routinely cited in reliable sources as being reliable, which is fairly rare. You also don't need to link to every website that Barker has been affiliated with- this is probably part of what made the article seem like it was promotional in tone. Ideally you should find 1-2 sources that mention this and if possible, it may be best to say that they are active with various organizations and list one or two as a highlight.

However while I have stated that you can use articles that discuss Barker, be careful about articles that only quote them. For example, this article quotes Barker but the article isn't about them specifically and it doesn't really go into depth about them. It does show that she is considered to be a reliable source, however being a reliable source isn't itself something that gives notability. It can make it more likely, but it isn't a guarantee.

Now there are some usable sources in the article and I'll highlight those so you know what you should be looking for. Book reviews like this one are excellent sources and the listings in the Independent are also usable to help show notability.

As far as the promotional stuff goes, I think that much of it could be solved by just removing various things. For example, remove the sentence "Commitment to activism has also driven Meg John's public engagement through events, social media, and writing for the general audience." It comes across as marketing speak and in general the entire second paragraph under activism should be removed. It's kind of full of original research and by large it's redundant to the first paragraph that does mention the organizations Baker is affiliated with. Not only that, but it does come across as promotion for the book. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)  04:45, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Article updated
Hi there, Thanks for the update. I have removed the second paragraph as suggested, and added an explanation about the non-binary convention. For your information, this appeared yesterday (16.04.15) in the WSJ regarding acceptance of the singular pronoun they, by the American Copy Editor's association http://www.wsj.com/articles/can-they-be-accepted-as-a-singular-pronoun-1428686651. I believe that this is not so uncommon therefore.

I also updated Meg John references with Dr. Barker. May I move it to submission now? (or could you?) Many thanks,

Louisa Leontiades

External links modified (January 2018)
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