Talk:Same-sex marriage in the United States

Number of Same-Sex Couple Households Exceeded 1 Million in 2021
There were about 1.2 million same-sex couple households in the United States in 2021, according to recently released Census Bureau data. Roughly 710,000 of the same-sex couple households were married and about 500,000 were unmarried.

Two claims to being the "first" with no acknowledgement of the other
It appears that this page and the History of Same Sex Marriage in the United States page disagree on which same sex marriage was the "first," between Michael McConnell and Jack Baker's in 1971 and Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon's in 2004. Clearly either of the two could count as the "first" depending on some nuances, but it makes no sense to make the same claim for two different marriages on two different related pages. Am I missing something here? I can't see a discussion on either page about the discrepancy. Gold Broth (talk) 22:02, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * McConnell & Baker weren't married in San Francisco. — kwami (talk) 23:55, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

errors introduced in January 2015
This edit of 24 January 2015 introduced at least one error which is still present as of the 8 April 2024 version.

By my count, there are at least 4 errors that were introduced by way of deleting content without any apparent reason. One of the 4 data items that was deleted has subsequently been reinstated, in one case, the specific deleted data remains missing from the current revision, and in two cases, the phrase from which the data item was deleted is not present in the current revision, most likely because of the fact that the relevant data had been deleted. Fabrickator (talk) 00:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Are you asking someone to fix it? If so, your count doesn't help us much if you don't tell us what it is. Which errors remain? — kwami (talk) 23:53, 9 April 2024 (UTC)


 * To be clear, you have given up. Evidently you think it's not worth your effort.  Fair enough. Fabrickator (talk) 07:15, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Seems a rather straightforward question. You seem to be deliberately obscuring your concern. Rather than making others redo whatever work you've done to identify errors, either specify them here or, better yet, address them yourself. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:52, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

PAGE ]]) 16:20, 15 April 2024 (UTC) PAGE ]]) 16:36, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * To me, it seems pretty funny that so far, nobody who has noticed this post has felt motivated to even take a look at the diff that I provided. My contribution has been to point out that the problem exists. It's not as though this is a puzzling problem, but I do find it perplexing that other editors would rather complain that I haven't precisely identified the problem than to even take a look.  I guess I shouldn't wonder that fairly blatant errors in WP go uncorrected for lengthy periods of time. Fabrickator (talk) 16:07, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Fabrickator I find it perplexing that you would rather complain about the errors here than to just fix them in the article. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK
 * @Ahecht Hmmmm... perhaps I'm trying to see how many people will object to my pointing out that a problem is present (which includes identifying the area where the problem is present) rather than take a couple of minutes to look at the details that I provided. Fabrickator (talk) 16:34, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Fabrickator We're all volunteers, why should we take a couple of minutes to re-do work that you've already done. WP:NOTMANDATORY. --Ahecht ([[User talk:Ahecht|TALK
 * @Ahecht I'm making a contribution by identifying a bona fide problem.  It's WP:NOTMANDATORY that I actually fix it. I will assure you that the errors I have identified are not subjective, nor what somebody would be likely to consider as inconsequential.
 * Some of the responses seem to find this approach to be vexatious, but I contend that it's constructive. To the extent that it's a "puzzle", it may be viewed as entertaining.  And at the same time, it's a data point that errors such as I have identified are introduced into Wikipedia and yet don't get corrected (at least one of them continues to persist).  But I am amused how other editors would rather object to my pointing out that an error exists (and doing so in the form of a puzzle) than to just take advantage of the opportunity to correct it. Fabrickator (talk) 17:06, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Treating other editors like your toys who must jump through the hoops you construct is not "constructive", it is deeply disrespectful to them. We are not here for your entertainment. If that's what you seek, I suggest there may be better spaces than Wikipedia in which to exercise this urge of yours. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:11, 15 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry you feel that way, though I take exception to your characterization of it as "disrespectful". Fabrickator (talk) 02:26, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * "To be clear, you have given up." Yes, you were disrespecting the people you felt should be dancing for your pleasure for having failed to do so. The disrespect is neither hidden nor subtle. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Ahecht Thank you for your edit! ;-) Fabrickator (talk) 19:48, 15 April 2024‎

Here we are, just about ninety days after this issue was resolved, and i came back across this, with complaints that I had disrespected other editors. I will point out that I provided this link to the diff. The diff showed one change where some content was added as well as 4 places where some numbers were removed. It shouldn't have taken anyone more than a minute or two to be scratching their heads over the removal of those numbers. Of course, one might spend a few more minutes to figure out whether these portions of the text were still present in the article, nine years after the edits were made, without being corrected.

My perspective on this isn't "Hey, look here, we've got some content to fix", it's "Hey, look here, someone can go in and effectively vandalize an article (intentionally or otherwise), and it can be pretty blatant that something's wrong. We have this really massive amount of content, able to be edited by anybody who happens to come along, and either nobody noticed it or people did notice it, but couldn't be bothered to address it.  Of course I understand that it's nobody's responsibility.  Something as blatant as this seems to be a pretty isolated occurrence; on the other hand, with more subtle changes, it's less clear that they're harmful.  Regardless of whether this was intentional vandalism or not, content gets changed in ways which may be harmful and it's just random chance whether harmful changes get reverted.

If my approach bugged people, great! You were free to ignore it if you didn't care for the way the message was presented, but had I presented it in some other way, i.e. explicitly indicated what the problem was, it would just get fixed with no further discussion. If the "puzzle format" bothers you, nobody's forcing you to act on it, but it was effective at calling attention to something that seems to be a systemic problem. So I've made my point, it is hopefully an isolated incident, but it seems like there's really no way to know. Fabrickator (talk) 19:28, 16 July 2024 (UTC)


 * "If my approach bugged people, great!" If your goal is to bug people, hey, there's a great wide Internet for you to do so. You do not have to pick the volunteers at a free knowledge project to target. You made... what point? At what audience? The people on this page who are already fixing material? If you think there's a general problem, you think the talk page of some random page is the way to draw attention to it?? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)