I really find this unbelievable.


Jonny Weir is a skater who has repeatedly refused to comment on his sexuality - describing it as nobody's business.

So, nothing verifiable to say about it, in our factual neutral encyclopaedia? You'd have thought so. Except that they can get this in under "verifiable speculation". Tabloids talk about it, so that just justifies an encyclopedia regurgitating unverified tittle-tattle. There then follows an edit war involving various LGBT project wikipedians to keep even more in.

The same project also bags Weir with a Wikiproject tag labelling him as falling within the scope of project LGBT.

(Remember this is a guy who doesn't want to comment on his sexuality)

There follows a reasonable objection that labelling the guy with such a project banner, when he himself does not want labelled by his sexuality (whatever that sexuality might be - and it could be heterosexual, I suppose) is inappropriate.

Ah no, how can labelling someone as of LGBT interest be objectionable??? Sounds homophobic??

Follows an edit war, and now an RFC poll on the article talk page to decide the fate of the banner.

I mean, how the f*** can wikipedia claim it deals sensitively with its subjects sticking only to verifiable content, when it takes an article of a guy who doesn't want to talk about his sexuality and has a visible inhouse fight on the talk page about whether to smite his article with a LGBT tag, simply because project tags matter to wikipedians?????

I mean what on earth is the benefit of wikiprojects tagging tens of thousands of articles, and how on earth does that benefit outweigh offering any respect whatsoever to the subject, nevermind the time of wikipedians debating this trash?

They call this NPOV and BLP compliant? N

No, this is a pathetically lame ideological war over semantics and sod the subject.

Doc I entirely agree with you, but the last line of your post is unintentionally hilarious.

I think this has been discussed in at least 2 other threads.

I find the title of this thread ("LGBT POV push RFC on BLP") to also be unintentionally hilarious. Sounds like a headline in Variety.

No, it sounds like a new kind of sexual fetish.
(Or sexually-transmitted disease. As if there was a difference.)

In case it has not been said in so many words:
Benjiboi is a slimy, evil little bastard.

So far I see 9 to endorse, 5 to oppose. Endorsees include flakes such as SatyrTN (T-C-L-K-R-D) , The_Wordsmith (T-C-L-K-R-D) , Rivertorch (T-C-L-K-R-D) (Titus Canyon?? Why?), Belovedfreak (T-C-L-K-R-D) and the ever-popular Cyclopia.

How nice. Benji now has a gay/ADD/whatever posse of his very own.

(When are the mods going to give Benji a dedicated subforum? He's done shit of this variety too many times to count, mostly undocumented.)

And apparently, he hates being called "Benji", which I, for some reason, find a bit humorous.

Because it is insulting to the dog to be associated with men like Benjiboi.

He wanted Benjo Boy, but it was occupato …

Jon

If you ever want to mock Rivertorch, tell him this:

There are TWO Titus Canyons. The famous one that WP has a semi-useless article on....

and another one in Utah. (You'll have to go to Google Maps and type in
"Titus Canyon, Moab, UT" to see it.)

Whoopsie!

He didn't make a disambig page. For shame.

Hey, this is serious business, people. We could have a new gay icon in the making here!!! To hell with BLP issues, this is important to MEEE!!!! so I want this person to come under the LGBT flag so I'll have another cool gay person to add to the list. Let's get another on-board!!!

Or something

Seriously, I'm about as queer as it gets but this is just largely boosterism at the expense of the subject. That's my take, at least, and I've seen this happen on WP again and again and again. I've already asked on the talk page for people to at least consider the wishes of the subject and quit the rampant speculation and LGBT tagging ('hey - got another gay one here. Tag 'em!') that's going on.

Urgh!

Oh, c'mon, American gay history is full of impressive role models: Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn, J. Edgar Hoover, Malcolm Forbes, David Dreier, Larry Craig, Charlie Crist, Ken Mehlman, David Shankbone...oh, wait a minute.

I suggest that you admins (Doc, etc) start blocking these guys who are so obviously trampling the BLP rules. Seriously. The blocks may not stick but it will send a message, attract more scrutiny to that page and the antics of those editors, and help move WP culture a little further towards responsible governance.

He is Banjee boy, until he wakes up.

Well, Benji should consider a career in meteorology. He will be following in some famous shoes:

Several of my gay friends are quite embarrassed by the behavior of the gay community on Wikipedia. Benji's over-the-top nonsense almost makes me wonder if he's some kind of plant to make gay people look like buffoons.

You are correct.

Thread removed. Warning issued. Phasers set to block.

And here's a quick summary of how that's working out, now that it's gone to ANI:


Any questions?

Here's the official theme song of this discussion (which goes well with the ANI thread...):



You can mentally change the lyrics to "Johnny are you Weir?" for even more lolz...

Who is SatyrTN?

Article
415 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_P–Q
245 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_T–V
237 - List_of_male_performers_in_gay_porn_films
199 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_M
195 - List_of_National_Public_Radio_stations
154 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_H
119 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_Sa–Sc
103 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_C
103 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_W–Z
93 - List_of_gay,_lesbian_or_bisexual_people:_A


Talk
107 - Matt_Sanchez
47 - James_I_of_England
24 - Nicolo_Giraud
23 - Jodie_Foster
18 - List_of_male_performers_in_gay_porn_films
18 - Sergei_Eisenstein
17 - Sisters_of_Perpetual_Indulgence
16 - Johnny_Weir
14 - Jay_Brannan
12 - List_of_drag_queens

That's the intersection between him and Benji/Pusspuss/Sister KittyCatalyst (that and the Gay porn business).

I'll bet that there a connection there...These people were enabling Haiduc for a long time too...

There's an extremely funny talk page dispute about James I here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=182466410

The long one contributed by the IP is especially good. It all goes on for pages. Is it some scholarly dispute? No, they are arguing whether to put an LBGT tag on King James.

Excellent entertainment.



Is there any possibility that he is Haiduc? I always thought it strange that whenever Haiduc was under pressure on a talk page, up the Satyr would pop, in his defence. See the (equially funny) goings on here

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=246773668

Can anyone explain to me the point of wikiproject tags?

It has always struck me as being like dogs pissing on lampposts to mark out their turf.

...I think that you've got it absolutely right already...

I've said as much on several occasions, though I did have one cat try explaining it to me:

Note that this rationalization doesn't actually make sense.

You forgot to run a charge through the hull.

Make it so.

Jon

speaking of Ash (T-C-L-K-R-D) , I really wonder what this template for "bathhouses" he created is going to be used for...Is Wikipedia turning into the Spartacus guide?

It looks as if our friend Ash is trying to move the goalposts as far as Pornbios are concerned, to allow for sourcing from one of his favorite sources: The Gay Porn Times. (obviously NSFW)

On a related note, an official Wikipedia Pornography Project Crisis has been declared!



I wonder if the Department of Homeland Security is aware of this important event?

Just when I think that I've seen everything: here is Benjiboi on Wikidemon's talkpage explaining why no gay porn studio would EVER even think of doing promo on Wikipedia, because it would be a complete waste of time:



Yeah, right.....Tell me another one!

And here, it has been suggested that Doc is making homophobic statements...



Never mind that other members of the LGBT community both here and there have found that many members of the LGBT Wikiproject are POV-warriors with "obvious agendas". Playing the "homophobic card" just now is rather obvious and does not show a great deal of wanting to find consensus....since the non-LGBT community will obviously have to be involved in that process.

In other words, the name of the game is "leave OUR articles alone, you homophobe!"

He's a fortysomething web developer and radical faerie named Ian Cabell. As a member of the Music City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, he sometimes likes to paint his face white, dress up like a nun and call himself Enya Face.


I guess that's why he relates so well with Benjiboi.

I really shouldn't have started this.

"You have criticised WP:LGBT ergo you are a homophobe. Since you are a homophobe, your criticism is therefore invalid."


Gosh, these LGBT guys seem to pinch all their best arguments from the Israelis.

It's really just the Wikipediot definition of Consensus, you homophobic holocaust denier.

"This Policy is Accepted by all Members In Good Standing (WP:MIGS)."

Jon

Oh, yeah, sure...drag Michael Lucas into this!

Personally, I can think of a couple of Israelis I wouldn't mind pinching, especially this one!

Aaaaaaaaaaaugh! GET. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD!!!

Seriously though, the more I learn about Johnny Weir, the more I can't help but love him. It's not just that he is a superior athlete and a natural entertainer (which does much to explain his fan base), but he is tailor-made to drive wikipediots crazy, without either knowing or caring why. It should be obvious to anyone with a pulse and at least half a functioning brain that this kid is gay. It seems likely that he neither knows nor cares what "straight acting" even means. However, as is his right without regard to orientation, he steadfastly refuses to discuss his personal sex life (a right I wish far more people exercised, quite frankly).

Thus, a dramafest made in Hell for Wikipedia: the pro-gay rights polemicists who want to claim Weir as one of "theirs" (despite being a bit put out by Weir's lack of express acknowledgment of orientation) versus the wiki-policy wonks, crying a lack of sourcing for Weir's gayness, with neither side sensing even the slightest bit of irony.

I love it.

Yup, and they didn't like the "dogs pissing on lampposts" business either...even though that's exactly what it is...

Others are more on the ball with this one :



Yup...

Mods: can we push this thread into the BLP department, plz?

Better yet, put the WikiProject Crime template on Wikimedia Foundation, then hit up Jimmy Wales with the template from WikiProject Sexology and Sexuality!

To protect Johnny Weir? Let me think about that one...

IMO it's important that people be aware that certain Wikipedians are trying to codify, not just introduce (since they've already essentially done that), this ultra-slippery-slope concept of "notable speculation." Right now there seems to be very little Googlepresence for this term whatsoever, and there should be. Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to split the Weir-specific posts out into a separate thread, because nearly all of the posts are related to him in some way... Maybe we need a blog post on this that doesn't mention him by name, i.e., just refers to him as a "famous male figure-skater."

I'll just say this for now, though: If the idea of "notable speculation" is established as policy, allowing inclusion on those grounds, Wikipedia basically gives up any pretense it may have had towards someday becoming a legitimate scholarly resource. They'll probably never hear the end of it from people who care even a little bit about academic or journalistic standards, and for what? So some gay guys could carve a few more notches on their keyboards?

Not good enough, Wikipedia - as usual.

So maybe we don't definitively know his sexual preferences, but either way, it certainly sounds as though he's living the good life: "...it's not part of my sport and it's private. I can sleep with whomever I choose and it doesn't affect what I'm doing on the ice."



...As far as the actual topic goes, I think if there's been a substantial amount of published speculation, it should be discussed in the article, at least briefly. Perhaps along the lines of "Various tabloids (cite examples) speculated at a given time about his sexuality..." To exclude such information amounts to cherry-picking what we think should be notable about him, not what actually is notable. That said, some care should be taken to consider BLP concerns. Regarding the question of the template on the talk page, it seems obvious to me that it shouldn't be there if it's a point of dispute.

Speculation != knowledge. Doesn't matter who is doing it, where, why, how or when. Nor does it matter how widespread the speculation is.

Given an encyclopedia should only contain knowledge, and nothing but knowledge, it's a pretty easy decision to shitcan the speculation.

Well, it should be an easy decision at least...

About the only way I can think speculation can appear in an encyclopedia is as evidence someone or something is a speculator of facts. In the instant case, then, you would decorate the article about the speculating tabloids ... not the subject of the tabloids attention.

Again, EK, your problem here is that you refuse to recognize the nature of Wikipedia itself as a moral/ethical problem in situations like this. You know that this is a slippery slope, maybe one of the worst there is - and you also know that a real encyclopedia with real editorial standards would not stoop to the level of tabloid journalism by including that kind of speculation. Common sense tells us that speculation about someone's sex life should be left out of an encyclopedia that's both publicly editable and has no individual attribution, no matter who else happens to be printing it. And that's true even if speculation about someone's plans to participate in the next Olympics or someone's preference in international cuisine is deemed perfectly acceptable (and therefore might as well be left in).

But because so many Wikipedians are unable to discern these things, or have any sensitivity to personal privacy or cultural mores, we end up arguing over something that would be laughed out the door by any respectable publication. We also end up with absurd "all or nothing" proposals based on an idiotic need for consistency, which in fact is based almost entirely on the need to shut certain people up who want to push the site further down whatever slippery slopes happen to be available.

Admittedly, Wikipedians don't really care about respectability, but privacy is a different matter. If they're going to do this sort of thing to other people, they have no right to be anonymous, nor can they pretend that their little hobby is something that's morally tolerable to society.

Nice summation.

But where is that In-One-Ear-&-Out-The-Other Oticon when I really need it?

I honestly wish Everyking could wake up from his dogmatic dumbers and see how far his mind has veered from the path of Normal Adult Reasoning, but years of repeating this same routine leave me in despair of it.

Seriously, let's just ban this twit and quit wasting our breath —

Jon Awbrey

Bingo. In theory, you could write a totally factual article about a series of rumors. Wikipedia, for example, has a article on Merkle's Boner, and one on Curse of the Billy Goat, all part of an ongoing encyclopedia series of artilces covering various aspects of Chicago Cubs futility theories .

And if would be okay, except an article on rumor on THIS rumorr would harm the reputation pr invade the privacy of a living person who doesn't deserve it. The only people who really deserve this type of thing on WP, IMHO, being those who have gratuitously done it to others, or abetted same, using Wikipedia. Sauce. Goose. Gander. Let the punishment fit the crime.

Richard Gere doesn't deserve a Wiki about the gerbil rumors, either.* Yet there was an extremely lame edit war over exactly that. Wikipedia, thy name is childish amorality.


MR

* If I find that Gere, using a nom de plume, is a BLP-inclusion-supporting WP admin, I may change my mind on this.

It looks as if this is headed to Arbcom, with even some editors suggesting that the LGBT project needs to be disbanded as "against policy". Wikidemon reads the riot act to Scott, who still threatens to block anybody who restarts the RfC on the Weir talkpage, backed up by FuturePerfect :



So, if they decide that it's not a BLP issue, then it's therefore not a BLP issue.

Good luck, Arbs, this isn't going to be fun to sort out....especially since this is not a unique situation.

Benjiboi continues to throw oil on the fire....



Meanwhile, on the notorious homophobe-enabler site Planet Homo, the general message is "let the guy come out when and if he wants to. who cares?"

And what if he's straight? Sometimes the swishiest guys end up being completely hetero. I've seen it before.

Wow, I wrote this in jest, but now look at my talk page.

I've have been accused of engaging in actions that may be perceived as homophobic and , on that basis, asked to withdraw from the matter.

Why is it homophobic to allow a person who may or may not be gay to have the privilege of choicing how he or she presents themselves in public?

I still think that the "dogs pissing on lamp posts" perfectly valid analysis of how most Wikiprojects operate (if you don't believe, look at this mess of discussion about infoboxes at the WP:Composers wikiproject for the umpteenth millionth time...and it's still "they're our articles! Leave the info boxes off!"--note that the final result is that this "Wikiproject" has claimed consensus..so anyone who dares violate this consensus on THEIR articles is going to be for a very rough time indeed!)...and the use of "homophobic" card to try to trump BLP is pretty low...especially given the circumstances.

Take it to Arbcom, Doc...

Yeah, cause you haven't wasted enough of your life already …

Brains Arbcom

Jon

I wouldn't waste arbcom's time asking them to call a moronic bullying comment "moronic and bullying".