User talk:William JJ/WPLabel

Purpose of this subpage
This subpage is intended to provide users a place where it is possible to discuss whether or not the "misogynist" language in the opening paragraph of the Men's Rights Movement article is appropriate. As shown in the copied thread below, such discussion is not possible on the article's talk page. One caution to users who are still under topic bans -- the terms of the ban may still prevent you from coming here. That's unfortunate, but I think it's still better to respect policy. At the same time, I hereby request that Administrators not jump to sanction people for posting here. Thank you.William Jockusch (talk) 00:37, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Admin not explaining why he or she believes a passage is consistent with WP:Label
The lede of the Men's Rights Movement article contains a sentence which appears to be in violation of WP:Label. Specifically:

"The men's rights movement's claims and activities have been critiqued by scholars and others, and sectors of the movement have been described as misogynist."

has effectively forbidden further discussion of this issue on the article's talk page. The same admin insists that there is a consensus in favor of the "misogynist" language and has repeatedly sanctioned users who believe the language should be changed, insisting that the arguments for a change are "weak", and saying that people asking for change are "disruptive".. Full disclosure -- I was also the recipient of such a sanction, but that's not my concern here.. In light of all of this, one would expect bbb23 to explain why it is he or she believes it is clear that the passage is not in violation of WP:Label. After all, if the arguments for changing the passage are weak, then the WP:Label argument must be weak, and there would be a reason for that weakness which could be explained. However, bbb23 has not, when requested, provided such an explanation.. Furthermore, the apparent decision that this passage is consistent with WP:Label appears to be in contradiction with other decisions involving the same policy. For example, after a lengthy discussion, the Weather Underground is not described as a terrorist organization in the lede of its article, though the controversy of whether or not the label is appropriate is discussed in the body. That, despite the considerably stronger sourcing for the "terrorist" description of the WU than for the "misogynist" description of the MRM.William Jockusch (talk) 15:30, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know what Bbb has or has not said, but LABEL is quite clear: "...unless widely used by reliable sources to describe the subject, in which case use in-text attribution." That condition is clearly met, judging from and . Drmies (talk) 16:07, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * That depends on what constitutes "widely used". Note that as shown above, the usage of "terrorist" in the Weather Underground case is considerably wider than the usage of "misogynist" in the MRM case.  Indeed,  the "misogynist" sources are both considerably more obscure and less numerous than the "terrorist" sources.William Jockusch (talk) 16:47, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The matter has been discussed plenty of times on the talk page; please check the archives. Drmies (talk) 16:51, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it has, I agree with you. But it is remarkable that until your note above, I can't find anyone addressing the WP:Label issue from the pro-inclusion-of-misogyny-accusation side.  What consitutes wide use?  In the MRM case, we have some scholarly sources, up to seven so far I believe, including the "Gender and Sexuality" and "Women, Men, and Gender" links you provide above.  In the WU case, we have the NYT, the WSJ, and Time magazine, with a total of over 50 references linked here..  Which list of examples better exemplifies "widely used"?William Jockusch (talk) 17:18, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * So you have seven scholarly sources backing up the statement, but you want it removed from the article? Mark Arsten (talk) 17:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Correct, they don't add up to "widely used" as they are relatively obscure. Additionally, per WP:UNDUE, a significant viewpoint should have prominent adherents.  And the whole point of WP:Label is that before you label someone in a certain way, the term should be in wide use.  Seven relatively obscure sources does not constitute "wide use."  Additionally, none of the sources are particularly prominent, which makes it WP:UNDUE.  Note that in the Weather Underground case, 50 sources, including prominent sources like the NYT, the WSJ, and Time Magazine did not amount to sufficiently "widely used" to put it into the lede.  Yet in this case, the list of relatively obscure scholarly sources are apparently enough to put it into the lede.  That's grossly inconsistent.  Additionally, I want admins who are enforcing something to explain themselves in regard to the core issue, which bbb23 is failing to do.William Jockusch (talk) 20:31, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, in some cases (and I don't know if this is the situation here), a proposal has been sufficiently discussed that there is a clear consensus on what to do. At that point, it can be disruptive to keep bring it up over and over again. The best example is the people who want to add conspiracy theories to Barack Obama. They won't even entertain that on the talk page, since the last 9000 discussions came out the same way. So I guess it all depends on how much the issue has been discussed in the past. That's my view, at least. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:36, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm here mainly to address my not responding to William's messages on my talk page. With respect to the first message, I intentionally didn't respond because he didn't ask for a response. He asked for me to "apply the policy the same way it is applied elsewhere on Wikipedia." So, that wasn't a request to explain any action I took. I suppose it was just his generalized disagreement with actions I've taken with respect to the sanctions in place for MRM-related pages. His second post ("It would be polite to explain yourself"), I intended to respond to but forgot. And my response would have been similar to what I just said.

William has been sanctioned twice by me. One was a 36-hour block back on June 6, 2013, for violating WP:1RR, and the other was a 3-month topic ban imposed on June 28, 2013. So, William can't be objecting to either of those because the edit-warring violation is stale and the topic ban has expired. My recollection (I'm not going to dredge up diffs) is that he did object to the topic ban at the time, and his appeal was denied, or at least not granted.--Bbb23 (talk) 23:47, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you Bbb. Drmies (talk) 04:25, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you for responding. Not granted is correct.  But, in the past, you have stated that a consensus is determined by the strength of the arguments on the various sides, not by the number of users.  So if the WP:Label argument is a strong one, the assertion that there is a consensus becomes false, does it not?  Bbb23, would you please address this point specifically.  I'm happy to move this to your talk page if that is preferable.William Jockusch (talk) 19:05, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't have anything more to say that I haven't already said or hasn't been said by others in this topic. I agree with what said about WP:LABEL. I agree with Drmies that this issue has been repeatedly discussed. In the same vein, I agree with  that it "can be disruptive to keep bring[ing] it up over and over again." This is all pretty much a rehash of the same issue. You just refuse to accept that, and you find it frustrating. Not only can I not help you with that, but these kinds of issues are why the probationary sanctions were imposed. Please don't move this to my talk page. The best thing for you to do is to drop the (re)discussion and move on.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:00, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I would accept it if anyone would address the core issue in a convincing way. That hasn't happened.  I understand that you wish the issue would go away.  I would drop it immediately if someone could explain how the relatively thin sourcing for "mysogynist" qualifies as "widely used" while the much stronger sourcing for "terrorist" does not.  I'm afraid you haven't done that.  For now, I will simply note that, for now, bbb23 has, sadly, again failed to address the core issue when asked to.  And Drmies has briefly addressed it (thanks), but in an unconvincing way, and has not come back to deal with the problem in his or her initial statement.  Therefore, the issue is not closed.William Jockusch (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I note that the WU article clearly states "The Weather Underground was referred to in its own time and afterwards as a terrorist group", which was one of the options proposed in that RfC. This is not different from the MRM statement "The men's rights movement's claims and activities have been critiqued by scholars and others, and sectors of the movement have been described as misogynist"--which is, if anything, more specific and less categorical than the WU statement. Drmies (talk) 22:53, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * First of all, thank you for not simply walking away from the issue. I greatly appreciate the respect implied by the fact that you are continuing to respond, and appear to be considering the arguments.  The WU article does make a statement, but not in the lede.  Instead, it is buried in the legacy section.  That's a tremendous difference.  Additionally, the WU article presents both sides of the "terrorist" issue.  The MRM lede does not do this, and an attempt to do so was summarily rejected, and the person who made the attempt was warned.  I could dredge up the diffs if that is important.  Furthermore, the WU says, specifically, who characterized it as a terrorist group [namely, the FBI].  While it also, as you note,  makes a non-specific statement, it does at least present the evidence.  Summing up, the MRM article, base on much weaker sourcing, treats its subject worse in two or three different ways: (1) statement in the lede, not the body; (2) does not attempt to present both sides; (3) failing to identify who, specifically, made the accusation [which I regard as a third way, but you appear not to].William Jockusch (talk) 04:54, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * William, I really think by now this should take place on the talk page: we're into content, and no action is likely to be taken against Bbb (nor, unless I'm mistaken, are you still asking for any). Perhaps you can copy some of the relevant paragraphs to the talk page, where a more interested audience may be found. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 15:37, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You are right of course, this should be on the article talk page. But as William has noted that isn't feasible due to Bbb23.  Arkon (talk) 18:40, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Drmies has now said that I'm welcome to move the discussion to the MRM talk page. But I don't want a special dispensation from anyone. A topic should be either allowed in a certain place or not. Currently, this topic isn't allowed on the MRM talk page. I think that's unfortunate, but until the prohibition is removed in general, I intend to respect it. Therefore, I've moved it to my own talk page, here. I hope people will contribute there. The discussion with Drmies, in particular, shows promise. I also hope that admins will not be quick to sanction anyone for contributing. A fair discussion is really not possible when one side feels under continual threat of sanction.William Jockusch (talk) 00:49, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * As Drmies has stated, the discussion should talk place on the talk page. A user space discussion will have no validity. Bbb23's close of 28 June is, in Wikipedia terms, "ancient history," and he did not impose a sanction on further discussion, as indicated by a lack of entry in the sanction log. Given the fact that the 28 June RFC, although not allowed to run to completion, was running very close to snow keep, due diligence impels me to warn William Jockusch that  should tread very lightly: any and all discussion should be focused on content, not the behavior of other editors and new (not raised previously) arguments backed by reliable sources introduced. NE Ent 12:58, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I agree with you, it should be on the article's talk page, and I wish you were right about the ancient history. But as I note above, Bbb23 has continued to sanction people for alleged policy violations by bringing this up on the MRM page, while simultaneously refusing to engage intellectually with the question of whether or not the WP:Label argument is correct.  Administrators are expected to constructively discuss controversial issues , and I am concerned that Bbb23 does not appear to be meeting that standard.William Jockusch (talk) 01:43, 6 October 2013 (UTC)