Talk:Shipping discourse

The article title: is it too generic, or is there a need for etymology?
This is an interesting article, but the direction it takes surprised me. With a title like "Shipping discourse" I expected an overview of discourse about "shipping" generally (i. e. of how people talk about shipping). However, this seems to be covering the history and academic interpretation of a very specific range of shipping discourse focused around certain kinds of content within certain communities (possibly even at a certain moment in time, i. e. 2010s onward). The redirect of "ship wars" to here is especially surprising, since if I wanted to read about "ship wars" I'd expect to read about the back and forth that happens as people propose and oppose certain fictional romantic pairings (Zutara versus Kataang for instance, to use Avatar: The Last Airbender as an example), rather than about this much more abstract level of discourse that's about the inclusion or exclusion of certain genres/ranges/kinds of content. This article seems to be covering example of discourses people have about shipping, but what I've read about this elsewhere doesn't seem to mean to give the impression that this is the entirety of shipping discourse, or discourse about shipping, or in other words general talking about shipping (i. e. Zutara versus Kataang could be another example of "shipping discourse" even though it's not part of this more abstract conversation).

I think the title of this article would be better if it was more specific (maybe "Pro-shipping and anti-shipping" or ", and I think "ship wars" should redirect to shipping (fandom). Alternatively, if this particular title and term is in fact specifically about this (is this in fact an emic term?), some sort of summarization of the etymology of it would be helpfu. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 06:11, 13 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Thank you for raising this point, it was something I really racked my head against titling this thing. Talking to a lot of people in fandom circles, this was the term that seemed to be the most common to refer to this particular debate. Pro-ship vs anti-ship debate would be an unambiguous title, but I think that "Shipping discourse" works in the sense that there isn't other notable discourses about shipping characters (AFAIK, of course). I'll try to add in some more stuff about the etymology; the specific use of the term discourse in Tumblr circles is very idiosyncratic and inscrutable. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 15:28, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
 * If this is an emic and specific term and not an etic and generic term, an etymology section would help clear this up. I also notice that the term "shipping discourse" itself only appears once in the body paragraph, furthering the impression that it's a generic term invented for the Wikipedia article title rather than an emic term from the discourse itself.
 * "Shipping discourse" works in the sense that there isn't other notable discourses about shipping characters (AFAIK, of course)—I suppose I would say that shipping itself is the most notable of all possible discourses about shipping characters, i. e. the discourse (i. e. talking/conversation) that fans have about the ships themselves (Zuatara or Kataang? Team Gale or Team Peeta? etc.), as opposed to this seemingly Tumblr/AO3-specific abstract-level conversation. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 18:13, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * This is truly one of the peak examples of Wikipedia discussion meeting Internet discussion and I love it. AryKun (talk) 01:33, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with Hydrangeans that the title right now is too vague. "Shipping discourse" can be mostly known as the pro-ship VS anti-ship debate, but there are definitely other types of shipping discourse. I was able to find two sources about shipping discourses seemingly unrelated to pro-shipping 1 2, but there might be more. Spinixster   (trout me!)  07:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm, yeah. This is a good point. I guess the real question is what the best unambiguous title would be? I have no real answers on that front. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 14:19, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * My initial inclination would be to move the article to "pro-shipping and anti-shipping" as the most concise name that's also unambiguous. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 18:58, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * PARAKANYAA (talk) 19:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's a bit lengthy but I agree that's less ambiguous. Should I wait till it's off the front page to move it? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 19:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Potential alternation: "Pro- and anti-shipping"? A bit shorter, though the hanging hyphen may be visually unpleasing for some. MSG17 (talk) 20:31, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Could something like "Taboo shipping discourse" or "Ethical shipping discourse" also work, or is that still too unclear? I don't know if "pro-shipping and anti-shipping" meets with the "Naturalness"/"Consistency"/"Concision" parts of WP:CRITERIA. &#126;~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:54, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
 * An article titled "Ethical shipping discourse" would, at least I think, prime a reader for a general survey of discourse about ethics in shipping; similar for an article titled "Taboo shipping discourse". However, this article isn't a general survey of those but refers specifically to the specific pro-shipping/anti-shipping discourse which uses ethics and taboos as signifiers but is—or at least, according to reliable sources is—a form of community boundary maintenance and a moral panic. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 03:44, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the term "shipping discourse" was being used in large media sites like The Mary Sue as far back as 2020 (note the headline, "Shipping Discourse: Do Ships Need to Be Unproblematic?"), and on blogging sites like Tumblr as far back as 2017 ("i declare shipping discourse as over. let’s all go home"). This blog had a 2016 post with the subject tag "shipping discourse" (plus, the blog's whole name is "Shipping Discource" [sic]).DS (talk) 13:52, 20 April 2024 (UTC) timestamps are wrong because I posted this on April 18 2024 but forgot to sign
 * Drive-by opinion: this article shouldn't exist. There's not much evidence in this article that "shipping discourse", specifically, is independently notable as a topic beyond shipping in general (the term being used in and of itself doesn't mean that it's an actual encyclopedic topic); there's no length considerations (together these articles are less than 30KB prose), and to actually understand this article requires explaining what shipping is, anyhow. It cannot effectively stand alone. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs  talk 18:23, 18 April 2024 (UTC)


 * The presence of multiple academic papers about this subject specifically (as opposed to just shipping in general) clearly indicates, in my opinion, that this subject has notability separate from shipping in general. Di (they-them) (talk) 19:35, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * It would be extremely undue weight for the shipping article itself to cover all this. Second what Di said above; the sources used are specifically about this discourse dynamic, and often have very little to do with actual pairings of characters, and way more to do with analyzing the discourse within the community. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 19:49, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
 * it's evident that this is a drive-by opinion because you didn't read the sources used here. what's the point of this comment? take it to AfD (it was already taken there and speedy kept!) if you think it should be deleted ... sawyer  * he/they *  talk  21:00, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

Here's a pitch: What do you think? Spinixster  (trout me!)  13:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) We create an article on shipping discourses in general, including pro- and anti-shipping as well as other notable debates. As said above, just because it's mostly known for the pro-shipping thing does not mean it doesn't have other meanings.
 * 2) We move this article (on the pro- and anti-shipping debate) to another title. A poll can be conducted to see which title is the best one.


 * Hmm, that could work, but wouldn't the first part be better suited for expanding Shipping (fandom) itself? As far as I can tell, this is the only specific discourse that has received large amounts of academic coverage by itself. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 00:12, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * My inclination is similar to Generalissima's that part one would be better for expanding shipping (fandom) itself. I think an article about all possible shipping discourses would be too much like—WP:COATRACK isn't quite right, but something like that, in the sense of it smooshing a bunch of things that just happen to be plausibly called the same thing together. As if we made a "2024 general election" article and put information about several different nations' elections in that same article. What I think is at issue is not that the article isn't about all possible shipping discourses but that the current article name of "shipping discourse" either is or at least plausibly reads as generic in a way that inhibits immediate recognition of the article topic. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 02:57, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I agree there. This could be solved with a hatnote, but I think when most people think of "shipping discourse" they think of pro- and anti-shippers. We don't need to be overprecise here. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 03:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to agree upon reflection. There's a lot of guys named Joe Smith, but like, people are probably only thinking about one of them when they type in Joseph Smith. We might be able to hatnote Shipping (fandom) for information about ship rivalries outside of the Pro/Anti-ship conflict. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 03:28, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The comparison to names clarifies this a lot. This is, in other words, the primary topic. Sorry to have made such a fuss only to end up here. I'm much more at ease with this article title remaining "Shipping discourse".
 * I do still think "shipping wars" should redirect to shipping (fandom) rather than here. When a reader thinks "ship wars", I think they expect Zutara versus Kataang—shipping (fandom), in other words. Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 03:40, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's a fair point! I mostly had that for the sake of the hatnote, lol. Feel free to change the redirect if you see fit. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 03:42, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Sounds good! Ship wars now directs to shipping (fandom), and I trimmed the hatnote here. (If any user thinks a different hatnote would be fitting, I suspect I'd have no reason to oppose.) Hydrangeans (she/her &#124; talk &#124; edits) 03:51, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Hmm. Just a quick note here, but in my view, all of the content on this page should be merged to Shipping (fandom) in a reduced form of course, as it would be a good addition to that page. I say this because the page itself has some good sources, but primarily draws from two sources: Urbańczyk 2022 (cited twelve times) and Aburime 2022 (cited twelve times), and lesser so for Scodari & Felder 2000 (cited four times), Fazekas 2022 (cited four times), van Monsjou & Mar 2019 (cited once), Jenkins 1992 (cited once), and Burkhardt, Trott & Monaghan 2021 (cited once). That citation overlap should make it easier to shorten it, merging the "Background" page into the "Etymology" and "Notation and terminology" sections of the Shipping (fandom) page (there's already some overlap, but there's also some new content), while merging the existing "viewpoints" and "analysis" sections of the present main page into one, then merging those combined sections into a new section of the Shipping (fandom) page. Additionally, the Bibliography section of the present main page could also be merged into the Shipping (fandom) page as a new section (this could possibly encourage people to add more sources about fandom shipping there).
 * All in all, I think this page is a good start, but I think it would help people more if the two pages were merged together. And we could discuss here whether you think such a merger is a good idea and your other thoughts (like what should be merged and what shouldn't), Historyday01 (talk) 20:49, 29 April 2024 (UTC)
 * @Historyday01 I thought about this and discussed it with other users before writing this. What I ended up feeling is that a merger would be extremely undue weight in comparison to shipping in general. There is a third academic source about this specific discourse im working to incorporate, but it is in Polish, so translation has been needed.

On Shipping itself, I think more than a paragraph or two would be undue weight here. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 21:36, 29 April 2024 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that is a good point. How about merging at least one section to the shipping (fandom) page, perhaps the "background" section? I could see some overlap there with what is presently in the "Etymology" and "Notation and terminology" sections. Historyday01 (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Concerns of bias
All information presented in the article and more than half the sources seem to lean one way rather than there being a completely neutral framing. There is little to no information on this Pro Ship faction, yet most of the information about the Anti Ship group seem to come from members of the Pro Ship. Is this unknown to the editors/Wiki moderators? Or is this because the page is new, and with few neutral sources out on the web to link back to? (Note: This is my first time posting a Talk on Wikipedia, but I have edited a page or two before. Apologies in advance for any unprofessionalism/ unnecessary disturbance caused.) 174.48.92.61 (talk) 09:53, 2 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I really tried to find stuff for the anti-ship position, but there just is not reliable sourcing available that elaborates on anti-ship positions from their own perspective. Pande (2024) offers the critique that "pro-shippers" often label valid criticism of fanfiction as "anti", but it doesn't elaborate on the actual anti-ship vs pro-ship conflict. Alas; it's disappointing. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 14:11, 2 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I was also concerned on this line. The lack of sources leads to a sort of false balance as the IP editor indicates, and one of the main tactics used in tthese arguments is that of false equivalence, which I have seen coming up over and over. Unfortunate that we are treading in waters infrequently studied or written about by established authors, and when it is written about, it's atrocity tourism. Recon  rabbit  21:40, 16 May 2024 (UTC)
 * I think another issue is despite claims to the contrary, "anti-shipping" isn't necessarily a coherent group (I'd argue proshippers aren't either, even.) There's no specific political structure with defined leaders. They're, in practice, very broad terms. It's hard to really study and write about them as you would a political party or similar. 2603:6010:F3F0:A810:2582:679D:2691:DE87 (talk) 08:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Pro-shippers are more of a clear group than anti- as I see it, since the latter group is only defined by their opposition to the former. It is like you say; any analysis would just be looking at criticisms from individuals, most of which would not be considered due weight as a majority opinion. Recon  rabbit  11:05, 8 July 2024 (UTC)