User talk:Muckapedia/Archives/2010/August

Category:Publicly homophobic closeted homosexuals
I think it's very unlikely that your proposed category would be accepted. See Categorization of people   Will Beback    talk    21:52, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

There are lots of precedent categories delimited by sexual orientation.&mdash; Muckapedia (talk) 18 e août 2010 17h54 (−4h)
 * Is there a closeted homosexuals category or a homophobes category?   Will Beback    talk    21:57, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

There are categories like “LGBT jews” and “LGBT members of the United States Congress,” both examples of categories using sexual orientation. This new category is just an attempt to group the public figures who have publicly denounced homosexuality while privately practising it. Surprisingly there are a lot of them.&mdash; Muckapedia (talk) 18 e août 2010 18h02 (−4h)
 * Did you read the guideline I linked? Here's a more direct link: Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality. It says:
 * Derogatory terms are not to be tolerated in a category name under any circumstances, and should be considered grounds for speedy deletion.
 * Inclusion must be justifiable by external references. (For example: regardless of whether you have personal knowledge of a notable individual's sexual orientation, they should only be filed in a LGBT-related category after verifiable, reliable sources have been provided in the article that support the assertion.)
 * For living people, there'd have to be a self-identification as a closeted homosexual. Doing otherwise is a violation of WP:BLP. I suggest starting with a list instead, and once that's stable thinking about a category. In the meantime I'm going to remove it from the bios of living people - please don't restore it.   Will Beback    talk    22:08, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * PS: I'd already removed it from Roy Cohn, but if you want a non-BLP test case that'd be the best one to restore. He doesn't have many defenders.   Will Beback    talk    22:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I’m sorry for incorrectly adding names to an inappropriate category &mdash; in your position I guess I’d be forced to delete the changes too. I guess I just felt that there should be a special category for public figures who publicly denounce homosexuality, and then practise it secretly. Don’t you think that would be a good category? It's certainly a very special brand of hypocrisy. If the name I gave to the category is deficient, I welcome your advice. You're obviously more up on the Wikipedia protocols than I am, can you think of a compromise? If LGBT is a precedent, than perhaps the category could be called “Anti-LGBT public figures exposed in homosexual scandals"? I admit, it's a little wordy.&mdash; Muckapedia (talk) 18 e août 2010 18h23 (−4h)
 * I think we can distill this down to two essential issues: verifiability and categorization. First, everything we write must be verifiable. so we'd need to have sources that explicitly refer to these individuals as "Publicly homophobic closeted homosexuals". In at least some cases, we could probably find those. More difficult are the issues around categorization. The purpose of categories is navigation, not definition. So would reader reading about one publicly homophobic closeted homosexual wish to read about others? Possibly. Another issue is that categories should reflect significant aspects of a person's notability. We don't tag every single Catholic for example, just those who are well-known as Catholics. Lastly, we usually limit tags to terms that the subject might use to self-identify. That would be impossible to achieve in most of these cases. (Did Foley ever admit to being publicly homophobic?) Lists are much easier to work with, however the verifiability issue would still come up. Perhaps the best approach would be to find an article about homophobia or closeted politicians and add these names there as examples.   Will Beback    talk    22:43, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
 * PS: Some of them are already included in List of political sex scandals in the United States.   Will Beback    talk    22:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Canadian Lynx
Can you please explain why the page was moved without consenus? We have had this discussion before many times and it was decided to keep it as Canadian Lynx after all we do have Eurasian Lynx I will assume then you will change that to Europe Lynx?? After all it is listed in the Canadian lynx article as just that the Eurasian lynx. Zoo Pro  01:34, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi ZooPro, thanks for reaching out &mdash; I’ve noticed your edits around wikipedia from time to time — you're smart and you clearly have an eye for detail. You’ve probably put a lot of work into this and other articles, and if you’re anything like me you hate these kinds of disagreements. I know we'd both rather be writing articles than quarrelling over titles &mdash; here's the rationale I used for the title change:
 * ‘Canada lynx’ is more common than ‘Canadian lynx’
 * Google search returns 74 900 results for ‘Canada lynx,’ and only 48 200 for ‘Canadian lynx.’ I realize it’s an imprecise gauge, but those are the numbers.


 * ‘Canada lynx’ is more Canadian than ‘Canadian lynx’
 * Because of the range of the animal (and it’s name), the topic is specially relevant to Canada. For this reason, the article must reflect the Canadian dialect of English — much as articles about primarily American topics must reflect the American dialect of English. This is a sensitive issue for many people, but it's an important consideration when editing a multinational website. An American wouldn’t want to read an article about the American badger and read information written in Canadian English, and they shouldn’t have to.


 * ‘Canada lynx’ doesn’t need to relate to ‘Eurasian lynx’
 * I’m not sure the example of ‘Europe/Eurasian lynx’ should apply. We both know that names are oftentimes just names — they don’t necessarily follow a logical pattern — and whether or not a certain rule has decided the name of one animal doesn't necessarily mean the same rule should apply to another — even if the animals in question are similar; “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds” and all that. By that logic I could say that “Canada goose” would then have to be changed to “Canadian goose,” but we both know that wouldn’t be a valid argument. &mdash; Muckapedia (talk) 29 e août 2010 13h39 (−4h)


 * For once I am happy to say that I am wrong, I do agree with your change now having checked what name is used on IUCN Red List they do in fact use Canada Lynx. So for me that is good enough to accept the change. Cheers for the reply Zoo  Pro  23:42, 29 August 2010 (UTC)