User talk:RadicalCopyeditor

Welcome!
Hello, RadicalCopyeditor, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
 * Introduction and Getting started
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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Mathglot (talk) 01:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Self-published book
Why did you remove Template:Self-published inline in this edit? Lulu.com looks like a vanity press, which would make the book a self-published source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 15 January 2022 (UTC)


 * oh no! that was a mistake -- I meant to delete the actual citation, not just the self-published flag. I'm new to Wikipedia editing. Thank you for helping me! Are you able to fix my mistake? RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Welcome to Wikipedia, and thank you for your contributions.
 * I removed two of the three. The third supports a direct quotation, which should always have an inline citation to whatever source that the quotation came from.   If we want to remove the citation, we'd have to remove the sentence, too.
 * There's a small group of editors at WikiProject LGBT studies and another small group at WikiProject Psychology who might be able to give you advice, if you want. If you'd like to improve articles in those subject areas, then it might be a good idea to put those two pages on your watchlist, so you can keep in touch with those groups. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much, @WhatamIdoing! I really appreciate your help and tips! RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 03:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

DSM-related edits and more
Hi, RadicalCopyeditor, and once again, welcome to Wikipedia. It's great to see a new editor getting involved. You clearly know a lot about queer-related topics, as well as DSM history and that's good, and I hope you continue improving articles as you have been. As you go forward, please keep in mind that Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia with a large community and its own set of rules, and in order to maintain orderly development of articles, we ask that all editors learn about the Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and adhere to them. It sounds like you already know about WP:Verifiability via citations, and that's a very important first step, so kudos for that.

I see that you started back in September, went slowly for a while, and then really ramped up on Friday and have a bunch of edits since then to numerous articles, many touching on the connection between ICD or the DSM and queer topics, such as Unitarian Universalism and LGBTQ people, Societal attitudes toward homosexuality, Homosexuality, Normality (behavior), Queer, and especially, Homosexuality in the DSM, which was a complete rewrite, per your edit summary (btw, thanks for providing detailed summaries; that helps).

The one big edit of 18:52, 15 January 2022 added 17,000 characters to Homosexuality in the DSM, and as you said, was a rewrite. That can be a good thing, and WP:BE BOLD is a valid principle and the article does look better now, but that big an edit in one chunk, makes it harder to see how you got from A to B, because instead of 34 edits of 500b with 34 edit summaries, there's just one; also, it inhibits collaboration, imho. Consider adding your updates in smaller chunks, section by section, or paragraph by paragraph, whatever makes sense functionally as you develop the article; that will also makes it easier for other editors to watch the edit summaries as you go, to see how the individual edits improve the article, and also makes it easier in case there's a disagreement, to undo just a very small portion instead of 17kb of text which probably took you hours offline to assemble and then apply all at once.

In the case of the edits to Queer, that also looks like a labor of love, but changes to the WP:LEAD are especially difficult for a new user, and I feel this was too hasty. Please be aware of guidelines like WP:LEAD, WP:LEADFOLLOWSBODY, WP:LEADSENTENCE, and others. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but perhaps *because* it's a labor of love for you, some of your changes come off as a bit arrogant, such as your edit summary in rev. 1065874227 of 22:12, 15 January, where you said, Updated the opening sentences to more accurately describe the dominant use of queer today -- not as an umbrella for all non-straight, non-cis people but as an umbrella for all people who reject heteronormativity, and also as an actual sexual orientation and/or gender identity. That sounds like you might be talking about your personal experience with the term and its usage by those around you, and you might even be right, but that still would have to be sourced by published material. First, you'd have to make that case in the body of the article, with appropriate sourcing, and only after that was added, perhaps with some delay to see how other editors react, should one then proceed to changing the lead to match the new body content. Jumping straight into the WP:LEADSENTENCE and changing it to whatever your impression of it is, is rarely a good idea, without collaboration. The Queer article was started in 2002, and since then 1,500 editors have made 3,000 edits to it, so a decent respect for the opinions of your fellow editors is in order, especially wrt the lead, and even more so, the defining sentence.

I undid your three edits there, but you can raise a discussion at the Talk page and argue in favor of your changes and see what happens. I would have reverted anyway, but in this case, I happen to think at least some of those changes were also inaccurate, as you claimed that the term queer included all people who reject heteronormativity and I seriously doubt that's the case, at least in reliable, published material. Think for starters of all the allies and other sympathizers and probably a large percentage of feminists, straight or not, and I don't think they would self-identify as queer, nor would it be accurate to describe them as such. Not saying the previous version was ideal, and it could stand improvement, but: body first – with sourcing – and buy-in/consensus – then the lead.

You also have two undiscussed moves (that I am aware of), at Homosexuality in the DSM (here) and Unitarian Universalism and LGBTQ people (here). I'm not arguing with your choices, but I'd like to point out that undiscussed moves are reserved for obvious differences, like misspellings, and name changes that "[no one] would reasonably disagree with. Obviously, you agree with the move, or you wouldn't have made it, and you definitely have a good argument, but in each of those cases, do you think that "no person could reasonably disagee with you"? (I hope not; at least in the second case, that would indicate to me a lack of imagination.) Normally in a case like this, I would probably revert the undiscussed move at the second article (UU & LGBGTQ), along with a request for you to follow the procedures at WP:RM, but I'll give you a pass this time, as long as you add a section to the Talk page there, explaining your reasoning, and following the advice at WP:APPNOTE to link the discussion; at a minimum, from WT:LGBT, but you may find other venues. In addition, in the future please do not make any more undiscussed moves, unless it's a typo in the title or something completely obviously wrong; anything else should follow WP:RM. (Always ask yourself: "could at least *one* good-faith editor possibly disagree with this move for any reason, even if I don't agree with it?" If yes, don't move it unilaterally.)

I think it's great that you're getting involved, and you obviously have a lot to contribute, so thank you for what you have done so far, and I hope you continue. Please slow down a little, make your edits in bite-size pieces, pay special attention to changes to the lead, and talk out anything involving major changes or possibly controversial changes on the Talk page first. And feel free to talk to me on my Talk page anytime, with comments, questions, or whatever. Once again, welcome to Wikipedia! Mathglot (talk) 02:28, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much for all your help and tips, Mathglot! I really appreciate you taking the time!


 * Point absolutely taken about my edits to the lead sentences for the Queer page; thanks for helping me know how to better approach those in the future. And thanks also for giving me the proper procedure for page renaming/moves. I did my best to find the right procedure but missed that part. I posted 4 months ago on the talk page for the UU & LGBTQ page to make sure no one objected to the rename, and the rename for Homosexuality & DSM was superficial and I couldn't imagine any objections from anyone familiar with the DSM.


 * Thanks also for the heads-up re: making more frequent updates; I'll definitely do that in the future. RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 02:45, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Stick to the sources, avoid logic
I added the second part of that section header with a twinkle in my eye, kind of to get your attention, because, "whaa..."&mdash;amirite? But there's a serious point behind it. Tl;dr for this (again lengthy) comment, is: WP:STICKTOTHESOURCES.

I admire your enthusiasm and your passion around queer and related topics, and I think you can become a top editor in this field at Wikipedia, and I'm looking forward to working with you on that, but I can see a pattern developing now from your edits, and you're definitely on the wrong track now and in danger of getting into trouble down the road with multiple, repeated violations of policies and guidelines, which could even get you blocked eventually. It will be much easier to nip this in the bud now and get you squared away en route to your top-editorship, and much more painful if we wait till later, or if nobody talks you about it at all. Don't be alarmed; the pattern is very common among new editors, and probably even more common among editors who are very familiar and very knowledgeable&mdash;even passionate&mdash;about a topic, and falling all over themselves eager to get on board at Wikipedia and improve all those articles about my topic! Sound like anybody you know?

The problem is, that the very knowledge, passion, and enthusiasm combined with newness and lack of familiarity with Wikipedia policies and guidelines can get in the way, and is resulting, unbeknownst to you, in repeated violations of policy in the areas of WP:Neutral Point of View (one of the Five Pillars) and its related policy WP:No original research and WP:Verifiability (one of the top guidelines ensuring that our content meets encyclopedic standards). This is serious, but otoh as a new editor, you get a lot of slack because there's a Thesean maze of rules around here and nobody expects you to know them all when you start out; one learns by making mistakes and having it pointed out. But the principles of WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:V stand out, and as they are pointed out to you more and more by me or other editors, you'll get less and less slack about them. So, it's really important to get on board with these, understand what they mean, and follow them. If you haven't yet read WP:NPOV, WP:OR, WP:V, and WP:RS, or not recently, please pause your editing and refresh your memory about them.

So, back to the wrong-track/right-track thing: your passion, eagerness, and enthusiasm are perhaps leading you into adding material based on your own knowledge to articles, or you are using pure reasoning or logic to make changes to articles that make sense to you. Don't do that. An editor's role here in brief, is this: choose a topic; find the most reliable, independent, secondary sources about the article that you can; assess the majority opinion (and significant minority opinions, if any) among these sources; summarize these opinions in proportion to their appearance in the sources in your own words; add your written summary to the article along with a citation to one of your sources for every assertion of fact in your summary (or at least, to every assertion likely to be challenged; more strict rules apply to living persons). That's it; that's what we do here; we follow the sources, summarize, and cite; we don't add what we know into articles. You can be the Professor Emeritus with the Nobel Prize in Queer theory who wrote the definitive text on the topic, and that's still what you do, or you'll end up in trouble or blocked, eventually. (I remember Sonia, the highly knowledgeable Ph.D. asst. prof. specializing in Holocaust Studies; she just couldn't get on board with citing her sources and wrote up her own theories instead; she is indefinitely blocked now.) Sometimes we may desperately want to add something we know backwards and forwards from personal experience, not to mention the experience of everybody around us, but maybe it's too new, or there's no body of published work about it yet: too bad, you can't add it (for now). Go find a journal that will accept your ground-breaking article about this new sub-topic, get it published, then come back and quote your brilliant published monograph (or better: get someone else to) and add it to the article.

I recently reverted your enthusiastic and good faith edit to Queer (Diff), for reasons I explained in the edit summary. Your edit had three parts, and in each part, the change fell afoul of a policy or guideline, either a violation of WP:NPOV, WP:OR, or WP:V, either making an assertion directly contrary to a source already in the article, or betraying your own views on something, or trying to use reason and logic to "improve" the wording when not substantiated by the sources already there, and without backing your logic with a new citation that supported it. Note: it's even possible that your changes are accurate, and the existing source is wrong; but here is where your experience and knowledge is most likely to trip you up: if that is the case, go find the right sources and add them, just make sure you are not writing your summary first based on your own knowledge, and only afterward WP:CHERRYPICKING sources to match; that would be a possible violation of WP:DUE WEIGHT, if the reliable sources you picked represented only a tiny minority of all the reliable sources out there, i.e., contrary to the majority opinion.

So, what to do now? As I said, I really do think you can become a really good editor, or I wouldn't spend all this time explaining this, so I hope I'm not wrong about you, otherwise this has all been a big waste of my time. You are still very new, there's too many policies and guidelines to learn, and its much harder to learn them while editing a topic you are passionate about; for one thing, it's too easy to fall into a pattern of trying to right great wrongs. To avoid that, may I make a radical suggestion for a radical copy editor? Please consider abandoning articles on or related to LGBTQ and queer topics for a while, and edit in another topic area that you are interested in but not very knowledgeable about, in order to better to be able to learn the ropes around here. Have you always enjoyed ragtime or jazz, but never really knew that much about the history, and kinda wish you did? Go read up and find out, and improve one or more of the articles related to it. Love dinosaurs as a kid, and still have a soft spot for it, but no training, not even a college course in paleontology? Great! You are perfectly placed to read up on the current state of affairs, and to improve the articles about dinosaurs, without bringing any personal bias or premade opinions about it. Along the way, you'll still make some mistakes&mdash;we all do&mdash;but they won't feel like a personal affront when someone reverts you, just part of the learning process. Within a few months, you will be back on the right track again, with NPOV, OR, V, RS, CITE, DUE solidly within your repertoire, and much better placed to return to queer-related topics with the proper attitudes and skill set. I hope you seriously consider this proposal, because I think it will really help you become a great editor, and I think the direction you are heading now could impede or even prevent that from happening. If you decide to stick with queer topics, I'll try to help, but I think the road will be tougher, and riskier, for you, unless you really grok everything here quickly, jump the track, and do a complete reset. (Who said mixed metaphors are bad? )

If you think you need it, there's something called WP:MENTORSHIP which you could apply for, but I think if you spent some time away from queer topics, you won't need it, and will pick up everything you need to know on your own. Feel free to reach out to me or other editors at any time, and there's always the WP:Tea house, and the WP:Help desk where you can ask questions, and also the Help me feature, which will bring answers right to your doorstep. I hope this has helped you in some way. Cheers, Mathglot (talk) 21:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I really appreciate you taking all this time with me, User:Mathglot! It really is very kind and helpful. I promise I won't be another Dr. Sonia. I'll do my best to learn the ropes and follow the rules; I have benefited so much from Wikipedia over the years and appreciate it so much.


 * The thing I care the most about is using words for good and avoiding harm in language, which is why I went back to the Queer page one last time -- because that phrase, "homosexuals who identify as queer," is problematic and not something that's even true to the source. I appreciate your help and encouragement to follow protocol and find the right sources and I hope I've done better this time. Citations matter to me! Looking forward to your feedback. RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 22:10, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * You're welcome. I already partly responded at Talk:Queer, but in response to this:
 * Depending how you act on that, that could be potentially problematic at the encyclopedia, due to the possibility of falling into WP:RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS. Wikipedia strives to use accurate and precise terms and does not censor or avoid words just because they might cause offense, if those are the terms generally used by reliable sources. Conversely, we do not engage in gratuitous use of contentious or offensive terms, which can be a form of WP:EDITORIALIZING. If "avoiding harm in language" is one of your principles, you can probably continue to be true to it, as long as you stay within the bounds of WP:DUE-ly appropriate summarization of what sources say on a particular topic. If you find yourself avoiding use of some term because of your principles, even though the majority of sources use the term in a given context, that may be a red flag, and you should either just grit your teeth and write it up in a way that is faithful to the preponderance of reliable published works on the topic, even if you find it personally offensive or believe that others might, or else go work on some other article. Please do not introduce your personal principles about offensive language into the encyclopedia, irrespective how you feel about such language in society. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:49, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Depending how you act on that, that could be potentially problematic at the encyclopedia, due to the possibility of falling into WP:RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS. Wikipedia strives to use accurate and precise terms and does not censor or avoid words just because they might cause offense, if those are the terms generally used by reliable sources. Conversely, we do not engage in gratuitous use of contentious or offensive terms, which can be a form of WP:EDITORIALIZING. If "avoiding harm in language" is one of your principles, you can probably continue to be true to it, as long as you stay within the bounds of WP:DUE-ly appropriate summarization of what sources say on a particular topic. If you find yourself avoiding use of some term because of your principles, even though the majority of sources use the term in a given context, that may be a red flag, and you should either just grit your teeth and write it up in a way that is faithful to the preponderance of reliable published works on the topic, even if you find it personally offensive or believe that others might, or else go work on some other article. Please do not introduce your personal principles about offensive language into the encyclopedia, irrespective how you feel about such language in society. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:49, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks, User:Mathglot. No need to worry: censorship is absolutely not what I'm about, nor is "offensive language" even a concept I personally ascribe to. (I recognize that I said that "homosexual people who identify as queer" might feel offensive to some people, and I apologize for not taking more time to explain the problems with that phrase; looking back, using the word "offensive" was lazy shorthand on my part). I'm about taking care in language via accuracy and clarity. See my comments back over on Talk:Queer for more on that, and thanks again for your guidance. RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 14:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, good; that sounds fine, then. Mathglot (talk) 16:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

January 2022
Please stop your disruptive editing. If you continue to add inappropriate external links to Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing. It is considered spamming and Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising or promotion. Because Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, additions of links to Wikipedia will not alter search engine rankings. Alexf(talk) 10:15, 18 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Hey, I'm a new editor and I'm learning the ropes. I don't think it's fair to accuse me of disruptive editing when my primary contribution to Wikipedia so far has been to rewrite a page that needed help, and I think I did a pretty good job for a newbie. As far as I know I didn't include any inappropriate links on that page; if I'm wrong, the least you can do is tell me what you think I've done to justify this warning, so that I can change what I'm doing. Not giving me any examples of what I've done wrong doesn't give me a chance to understand and change. RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 14:37, 18 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Whoa, @User:Alexf, did you just delete my user page and flag me as a spammer simply because I included a link to a website I manage? I didn't know that was against the rules; I was literally just introducing myself as an editor by including something about myself that is editing-related. I really wish you had just helped me understand the rules; I would happily have edited my user page. There are a lot of rules and it's a little overwhelming as a newbie; I'm doing my best. Can you please tell me what to do to fix this and get un-flagged? RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 14:43, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

RadicalCopyeditor, it was understandable for you to get your feathers ruffled by this overly aggressive, templated, level-3 warning. That said, the central point underlying the impersonal warning above is correct; please read WP:SELFCITE about this topic, as you get on board with this guideline, and so many others at Wikipedia, but please don't let the tone of the warning stop you from continuing to learn the ropes or to edit here; you're doing fine. We all make mistakes starting out (even after years of editing) and getting a (friendly) warning about something can help, so hopefully you'll embrace them and continue to improve. Just shake off the tone of this warning, read and learn the part about WP:PROMO and WP:REFSPAM, and carry on doing what you've been doing. If you have questions, as always, feel free to ask. Mathglot (talk) 19:49, 19 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks so much for your encouragement and support, User:Mathglot! I really appreciate it. I was pretty thrown by this warning largely because I didn't even know why I had gotten it at first, and then once I figured it out I didn't know if creating a new page was even the right next step. I can only imagine how many trolls y'all have to deal with on the regular so I'm grateful there's such a dedicated community helping to keep Wikipedia the awesome resource that it is. Thanks again! RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 20:47, 19 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I was on vacation so I didn't see your message until now. We get hundreds of people spamming their own websites every day, so sometimes things get out of hand. You have to understand the rules, and why the need to keep the place tidy. As I see, you received instructions on what was done wrong, and how you should proceed. If you have any questions about Wikipedia, please ask at the Tea House. -- Alexf(talk) 02:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Barnstar for you!

 * P.S. Please consider joining the WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. It's where all the cool word nerds hang out. ;^) Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 19:35, 21 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thank you so much, User:Markworthen! This warms my heart! I'll definitely check out the Guild of Copy Editors. :D RadicalCopyeditor (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2022 (UTC)