Talk:Mom season 5

Re: Reverted edit
I understand that you want the synopsis to be more reflective of what happens in the episode. However, "wheelchair-bound" is still an inappropriate term. Wheelchairs are not prisons. He's far more confined without a wheelchair than with one.

I also felt that there were two problems with both "what it's like to be wheelchair-bound with Adam" and "what it's like to use a wheelchair with Adam." 1. The prepositional phrase "with Adam" makes it sound like they're using the same wheelchair, which I'm assuming isn't happening, and 2. Being in a wheelchair full-time is not the same as being in a wheelchair after a few months (or whatever her period of recovery is). It would be like saying "Bonnie spends six months in Australia and experiences what it's like to be Australian." The show might present things this way, but I'm not sure if there's a way to communicate that this is what is true of the universe of the story/in the mind of the characters, and not actually something the article is representing as true. Maybe that's too ambitious.

I agree that "learning to use a wheelchair" was bad phrasing on my part. What about: "Bonnie's injury requires her to use a wheelchair full-time, which helps her to better understand Adam, and [...]"

Regardless, "wheelchair-bound" is not correct. It could also be: "Because of Bonnie's injury, she experiences what it's like to be a full-time wheelchair user, like Adam is. Meanwhile [...]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Waitalie Nat (talk • contribs) 21:32, 21 May 2018 (UTC)


 * It's not a case of what I want, it's a case of what WP:V and good editing practice requires. You've made a lot of similar edits at other articles, citing a section of the MoS that is targeted specifically at medical articles. It actually says in the very first line of MOS:MED, "This page delineates style guidelines for editing medical articles." This is not a medical article, it's an article about a television work of fiction. However, that part of the MoS does say to use plain language. "Wheelchair bound" dos not mean that a wheelchair is a prison. It merely implies that a person requires a wheelchair for mobility. You have been replacing that with terms like "uses a wheelchair", which grossly misrepresents the use. As I wrote elsewhere, anyone can use a wheelchair. I use one to bring in the groceries after I have transferred my wife from the car to the wheelchair, moved her inside the house, lifted her out of the wheelchair and then placed her into bed. My wife actually found your wording quite offensive because it serves to trivialise what she has to go through just in order to move about.
 * Being in a wheelchair full-time is not the same as being in a wheelchair after a few months (or whatever her period of recovery is). It would be like saying "Bonnie spends six months in Australia and experiences what it's like to be Australian." - That's quite a ridiculous thing to say. Wheelchairs are used differently by different people. Some people rely on them completely but are able to have some or a lot of independence. Adam is an example of the latter. For some people, like my wife, a wheelchair is slightly better than being carried everywhere. You don't need to be in a wheelchair for years to be able to experience what it is like to have to use one. For people who suffer an injury one day that requires them to use a wheelchair for everything the next day, it can be quite traumatic. Having your mobility suddenly ripped away can be earth-shattering, even if it's only a temporary requirement. As for Bonnie spending 6 months in Australia and experiencing what it's like to be an Australian, I don't have a problem with that. Like using a wheelchair, it's different for everyone. Some people could come here and not experience anything other than being a tourist. I've seen people who have been here a week who have completely embraced the lifestyle. A lot of us have experienced it from the first second we arrived. -- Aussie Legend  ( ✉ ) 10:45, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

By "you want," I meant "you intend" - I didn't mean to imply that you reverted the edit on a whim. I meant that I understood where you were coming from with your edit, and I agree that the wording needs to better reflect the plot of the episode.

I checked out the page you linked to, but I didn't find what you meant. I know that the page is only for medical articles. As far as I know, there is no guideline page for language surrounding disability. If you read enough of my editing history, you'll see that I've also taken out language such as "cripple" or "retarded" from other non-medical pages. Technically, there are no guidelines that really prohibit slurs or offensive language against disabled people from being on Wikipedia in a non-medical context (edit: To clarify, I found a guideline that says "[o]ffensive material should be used only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available," but the only place I can find a specification on what constitutes offensive material with regards to disability is the page I used in my original edit summary).

I'm very sorry that I offended your wife. What constitutes offensive language surrounding disability is often highly personal (other people strongly prefer person-first language, I prefer identity first language, and some of my edits have not reflected my own preferences), which makes it difficult to have uniform guidelines that don't offend anyone. I am going by the guidelines on that page, because again, they are the only guidelines that Wikipedia has about disability (that I know of: Feel free to link me if I haven't found them yet). I am doing my best not to treat the guidelines as a hard and fast rule, more as a way to say, "Hey, here's why I'm making this edit, [in this case] because the term 'wheelchair bound' is pretty widely considered offensive."

I think the "experience" edit was probably too nitpicky, to be honest.

The "with Adam" absolutely needs to change. The closest verb to the "with" is "use," not "learning," so it sounds like she's using it with Adam, not learning with Adam. Waitalie Nat (talk) 18:14, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Okay, read the script of the episode, and changed the wording to be similar to the wording you used on the main page for the series. Waitalie Nat (talk) 14:56, 31 May 2018 (UTC)