Talk:Pray the Gay Away?

Youtube video
This youtube video is self-published by Waybe Besen and is an extremely poor source. This derogatory attack on Lisa Ling violates WP:BLP, specifically WP:BLPSPS. Note that 3RR does not apply to removal of BLP violations.– Lionel (talk) 23:58, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Saying that Ling apparently did not do a good job researching this subject is not a "derogatory attack". Wayne Besen is a recognized expert on the subject of the "ex-gay" movement, having published an award-nominated book on the subject. His expertise and experience with the subject are more than ample to justify including his point of view on this subject, whether it's in the form of a YouTube video or an op-ed in The New York Times. Please stop removing this valid information for an invalid reason. Thanks. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 00:47, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Self published is self published. This source is not allowable per WP:BLP. Continue to edir war and you risk blocking.– Lionel (talk) 00:50, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Self-published sources are not categorically forbidden. And even if they were, there are plenty of sources that are not self-published which report Besen's saying the same thing. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 00:54, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

I have now added a non-self published source to the article which supports the statement. This issue is addressed per your own stated requirements. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 00:57, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for admitting that the source was insufficient all along. It takes a big man, or woman, to admit when they're wrong. An apology is not necessary. – Lionel (talk) 01:14, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The source was perfectly adequate to everyone except you. There was no "admission" on my part and your attempt to spin it is ridiculous. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 01:15, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The newly added piece by Besen has a disclaimer from the Advocate "This article is the opinion of the writer and not The Advocate." Since this lacks editorial control it must be removed per WP:BLP. – Lionel (talk) 01:19, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Op-ed pieces are editorially vetted and they perfectly acceptable as sources. Just stop already. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 01:29, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * True. But in this particular case the Advocate explicitly states that this piece is not editorially vetted. Response? – Lionel (talk) 01:56, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * "This isn't our opinion" does not equal "this was not editorially vetted". 76.201.145.83 (talk) 03:06, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

"John"
"John" (no last name provided) is a blogger at AfterElton.com, a news and blogging site. The article says he "took Ling to task..." This falls under WP:BLP. WP:BLPSPS says "Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals." Obviously John is not a professional and this source must be removed. I invite the IP to revert themself to mitigate any further embarassment. – Lionel (talk) 01:12, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You do realize that writers write under pseudonyms all the time, right? Even professional writers?
 * Unless you can cite proof of your assertion that "John" is not a professional writer then your stated reason for wanting the source removed, like every other objection you've raised, is invalid. The reliability of AfterElton.com has been questioned before (see the easily found ) and it appears that it is accepted as reliable. It is not "an online column" hosted by a "news organization". It is a news organization in and of itself. "John" is not listed as the publisher of AfterElton content. The television channel Logo, which is a wholly owned property of Viacom, is, under the editorial direction of one Dennis Ayers. AfterElton is cited as a reliable source in over 300 Wikipedia articles.
 * Further, the idea that a negative review is disallowed under any policy is ludicrous on its face. Interpreting policies in that fashion would require the wholesale removal of any negative criticism of any living actor from every film article, every critical comment about the actions of any living politician, etc. There is no way that your interpretation is reasonable.
 * So, I must decline your invitation to revert. And I'm not at all embarrassed about it. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 01:28, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The policy is clear. He must be a professional. This is not a guessing game. Please read WP:BURDEN and get back to me as soon as you can. – Lionel (talk) 01:57, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * John's article on AfterElton is not a self-published source because John is not the publisher of AfterElton. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 03:09, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You need to cite a policy for inclusion. Your personal feelings on the subject are irrelevant.– Lionel (talk) 05:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * That's hilarious, since you've been operating based on your personal feelings for months, citing policy after policy erroneously in your concerted effort to gut this article. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 12:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Without any policy for inclusion I'm removing it.– Lionel (talk) 03:12, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The policy for inclusion is WP:RS, and if you remove it, your edit will be reverted. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Wayne Besen
Wayne Besen is a noteworthy expert on the "ex-gay" movement. He is mentioned or cited as a reference in over 30 Wikipedia articles. His response to this program merits inclusion. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 17:30, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Your argument has no basis in policy.– Lionel (talk) 05:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Nothing you've done relating to this article has a basis in reality, let alone policy. 76.201.145.83 (talk) 12:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Unbalanced tag
I added an unbalanced tag to the response subsection because it only includes criticism from the homosexual community. We need a wider variation of responses. NYyankees51 (talk) 14:20, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well then why not take the time to find those sources, if they exist? 76.201.145.83 (talk) 02:13, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * There is a paragraph about praise from AfterEllen.com.  When it comes to critical reception, you would need to find more responses praising the show rather than adding an "unbalanced" tag.  If reaction to the show was generally negative (or vice versa), then one would expect the section to reflect that.  This is obvious, if you think about it; we wouldn't have a balanced criticism section for a movie that got generally poor reviews, for example.  Black Kite (t)   01:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Title cards
Title cards are used on pretty much every single article about television series and images from individual episodes are used on pretty much every single article about the individual episodes. Is this particular title card is really a breach of the image policy or is it a furtherance of the efforts of, now, three editors to reduce this article to basically nothing. It seems like every single piece of this article has been deleted at one point or another for extremely spurious reasons. And now the image. Why is there so much invective directed at it? Do none of you have anything better to do? 70.226.167.68 (talk) 15:44, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * A title card is reasonable on an article about a series, but not on a episode (WP:NFCC, overuse]]. Also WP:NFCC and WP:NFCC.  Clearly we don't have anything better to do than enforce Wikipedia policies.  Black Kite (t)   18:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Clearly you don't have anything better to do than pontificate and generally act like a control-freak douche. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.226.167.68 (talk) 19:08, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

RFC regarding "John"
"John" (no last name provided) is a blogger at AfterElton.com, a news and blogging site. The article says he "took Ling to task..." This falls under WP:BLP. From WP:BLPSPS: Without a last name or any other identification it is not possible to determine if "John" is a professional. Do you support/oppose the removal of the "John" source?– Lionel (talk) 05:35, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

 * Support per BLPSPS. This source is nowhere near the quality necessary for commenting on a living person. – Lionel (talk) 05:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Close this, wrong venue. Belongs at WP:BLPN WP:RSN if anywhere.  And I'll say it again, as long as it's not WP:UNDUE, reporting that someone criticised someone else is NOT a violation of BLP in most cases.  Black Kite (t)   07:25, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. This has nothing to do with BLP, it's to do with sourcing. As has been noted earlier in this discussion, AfterElton has been recognised as a reliable source. How that source chooses to attribute authors is up to them. Reliable sources have considerable latitude to handle attribution however they like: The Economist is well-known to not print any bylines. The Spectator has long-published columns from Theodore Dalrymple and Taki. The Guardian and the BBC frequently publish and broadcast Bidisha. In none of these is there any WP:BLPSPS concerns. No "identity" is required here: just simply working out (just by looking at the site) whether the comments that are being used in this article are those of someone who has basically been asked to publish on the site or by a random Internet user. We manage to do this quite frequently in lots of articles: it just requires a little bit of common sense. As John seems to have published 25 columns on the site this year, and those columns themselves have comments on them, I'd say that in the terminology of some newspaper comment websites, he is an "above-the-fold" writer rather than a "below-the-fold" comment poster. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:05, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment. So far (and I appreciate it's early days yet) Tom is the only one who has got it right. Pesky  ( talk  …stalk!) 13:09, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Respectfully oppose, per Tom Morris' comments. AfterElton.com is recognized as a RS; if John has published over two dozen columns there which themselves have comments, I think that makes him a reliable-enough source.--Miniapolis (talk) 03:16, 5 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose, as others have said already AfterElton.com is a reliable source.  J e n o v a  20 16:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose (ie. keep content). It's a reliable source per community consensus, and attributed criticism is not a BLP issue. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 16:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Roscelese. WP:WEIGHT might, conceivably, be an issue, but criticism attributed to a reliable source does not violate BLP. John Carter (talk) 20:06, 9 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I have no idea what "John" has said or who "Ling" is, meaning I'm as neutral as can be. And I'd say that if John can't be established as a professional writer (and with just a single Christian name I don't see how he can be), then he is not a reliable source under WP policy guidelines. PiCo (talk) 08:44, 14 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment The use of a first name only is a non-issue. Whether it is a reliable source or not is based on whether afterelton.com is reliable according to the concensus. (responding to RFC) IRWolfie- (talk) 00:48, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It seems there is concensus that it is reliable and grand to use, take it to WP:RSN if there is further disagreement. IRWolfie- (talk) 21:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Merge tag
The article has been tagged for merger for almost four months and not even the person who tagged it is offering up any rationale beyond "it's small". It's clear that there is no support for merging so there is no need to have a maintenance tag cluttering up the article. 76.201.151.248 (talk) 23:21, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Requested move
Pray the Gay Away? (Our America episode) → Pray the Gay Away? – Article has been at Pray the Gay Away? since it was created. Editor moved it without consensus stating that "Pray the Gay Away?" should redirect to conversion therapy. However, Pray the gay away (which is possibly too slangy to be in an encyclopedia) redirects to conversion therapy already and there is nothing else called "Pray the Gay Away?" with the question mark. In addition to being unnecessary, the disambiguation is improperly formed (if it were needed it should be at Pray the Gay Away? (Our America with Lisa Ling), but again it is not needed). The move should be reversed and not redone without consensus. Buck Winston (talk) 06:33, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually a Template:Db-r3 should do the trick, once deleted then move the page. Insomesia (talk) 07:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm fine with that as well but since the page was moved wasn't sure if the deletion would qualify as non-controversial. Buck Winston (talk) 13:30, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Requested move, part 2

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was moved. --BDD (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

Pray the Gay Away? (Our America episode) → Pray the Gay Away? – (see talk page - early close requested) Buck Winston (talk) 19:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

And here we go. Because one editor takes a ridiculous unilateral action we have to sit around for a week waiting for "consensus" on a move that is the definition of "no-brainer". There is absolutely no reason in the world that "Pray the Gay Away?" with its specific capitalization and punctuation should be a redirect to conversion therapy or anything else, since it is the specific name of a specific television episode and no one looking for "conversion therapy" is going to type in the specific pattern of capitalization and punctuation. The only thing in the known universe that is specifically called "Pray the Gay Away?" with that capitalization and punctuation pattern is this episode of this television series. This disambiguation is completely unnecessary and it is completely malformed. What should have been a two minute decision will now be delayed by a week, with everyone who clicks on a link to "Pray the Gay Away?" expecting more information about the television episode being taken to an unrelated article instead, because the unilateral ridiculous action of one editor somehow makes this deeply common-sensical action "controversial". Please move this page back to where it has been housed uncontroversially for well over a year and a half. Thank you. Buck Winston (talk) 19:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree, this is a no-brainer. I've asked the one who denied the move to rethink their decision. Insomesia (talk) 20:36, 4 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. Logical move.  -- No  unique  names  04:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I fully support the move, but I need consensus before I can use the administrative tools. Otherwise, it's just me taking unilateral action, and the original redirector would complain. Reaper Eternal (talk) 17:55, 5 October 2012 (UTC)
 * And now that has been said it will need to be another admin... Apteva (talk) 03:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Support; no need for parenthetical disambiguation and it's an extremely unlikely search term. bobrayner (talk) 00:08, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Support - It has distinct capitalization. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 12:14, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Support. No brainer. Unreal7 (talk) 19:17, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Hat note
This article's hatnote contains an editorial comment about the subject of the alternate target:


 * For therapies that purport to change sexual orientation, see Conversion therapy.

This is incorrect, per the relevant policy, WP:HATNOTE, which instructs us to limit the verbiage of hatnotes to that which is necessary to help readers to find what they're looking for. See the section on improper usage for more information.

A better hatnote might look something like this:


 * This article is about a television program. For therapies to change sexual orientation, see Conversion therapy.

The word "purport" needs to come out. The hatnote isn't the place to insert petty POV commentary.  Belch fire - TALK 06:07, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * "Intended to change" would avoid "purported" without implying that such "therapies" are successful or healthy. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 06:14, 28 December 2012 (UTC)


 * There are no therapies to change sexual orientation. "Conversion therapy" has no mainstream medical or scientific support (if we go by the sources). Given this fact it is perfectly reasonable to say that these so-called "therapies" purport to do something. I.e., Using "purport" rightly states that they don't do what they say do. There are no reliable sources that say otherwise, nor is there any debate on this issue among those qualified to decide what is and is not a "therapy". — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 07:09, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on Pray the Gay Away?. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110707100008/http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2011/03/lisa-ling-our-america-ex-gay-exodus?page=0,0 to http://www.afterelton.com/TV/2011/03/lisa-ling-our-america-ex-gay-exodus?page=0%2C0
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110811004234/http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2011/03/lisa-lings-our-america-asks-can-you-pray-the-gay-away?page=0%2C0 to http://www.afterellen.com/TV/2011/03/lisa-lings-our-america-asks-can-you-pray-the-gay-away?page=0%2C0

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 21:07, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Comment
I believe that overall, this article was poorly done and proves that the writer has not taken time to do research on this specific topic and also, the writer has a very biased viewpoint which is not allowed on a wikipedia site. In order to improve this article, the writer must change it's article to be a more neutral rather than biased.RouBa1998 (talk) 02:31, 5 September 2019 (UTC)