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With this edit on 23 Jan 2020, Adam9007 added "Cagle identifies as asexual." To support his statement, Adam9007 cited a tweet posted by @cubewatermelon on 3 Mar 2015. However, that is not a verified Twitter account. It's entirely possible that "cubewatermelon" is simply a fan, or group of fans, or even non-fans peddling their own POV under the guise of being a celebrity. For that reason, I dispute this source, and shall revert the contribution with a request that it not be restored unless editors reach consensus to do so after discussion at this Talk page. NedFausa ( talk) 23:23, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@ Oornery: Please be advised that if you continue to restore disputed content without consensus, you will be reported for violating WP:EW. NedFausa ( talk) 01:19, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Statements about someone's sexuality, from wherever sourced, need to meet a few important thresholds. The information needs to be noteworthy in order to be encyclopedic. It is not automatically noteworthy in the first place. One way to establish this would be through multiple high quality reliable sources. One example would be Anderson Cooper - which became of historical interest because of great speculation about it, his longterm silence on the topic, followed by his publicly coming out as gay. This was widely covered in the press and is of interest for multiple perfectly good reasons having to do with the changing of social mores, etc. Another way to establish this would be through a coherent argument as to why it is relevant: I can imagine that if someone is highly active in LGBTQ causes, speaking often on the issue, it could be sensibly interesting to readers in terms of understanding their perspective. Indeed, it might be a case where someone being heterosexual might be of valid interest. In general, though, I would say that some kind of reasonable argument needs to be made: the sexual preferences of a random business executive or news personality where it has had no meaningful interaction with their professional life seems to me to be of little interest, even if some random comment might be used to justify it. Second, social media sourcing can be fine in clear cases, and might or might not be sufficient to establish the noteworthiness of the information. A passing mention of a partner could very well fail that test. An ambiguous statement that could be interpreted in different ways almost certainly fails that test. For everything we must ask ourselves both "Is it true?" and "Is it encyclopedic?" and where we are talking about a BLP we must always consider matters of dignity and take a firm approach to notability - in many cases the expressed wishes of the subject can be relevant.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 20:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
Cagle, who is an artist, has shared artwork of herself imposed over the asexual pride flag-- that's great; do any reliable sources mention it as part of their coverage of Cagle? Because that's the question that you should be asking yourself before you go on turning biographies of individual people into proxy battles about minority groups to which they belong, sexual or otherwise. -- JBL ( talk) 00:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Dispute about the reliability of an unverified twitter account for citing a WP:BLPSELFPUB statement (see Talk:Mary Cagle#Asexuality). 02:22, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. Does anyone have any reason to believe her account or statement is not authentic? Adam9007 ( talk) 20:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources.Editors who have no reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of Cagle's unverified Twitter account nevertheless ought to justify citing it in lieu of independent reliable sources. NedFausa ( talk) 20:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Cagle identifies as asexual.- which is a definitive statement and her tweet is not a definitive statement. And I say that because I don't self-identify as being probably gay. I self-identify as being gay. Period. If the language was tweaked to match the tweet, then I'd be OK with it. I am comfortable though with the twitter account being hers. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:11, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Concession
Having further considered the various points presented here, I concede that we may reliably cite Mary Cagle's Twitter account
@cubewatermelon to restore the
disputed edit "Cagle identifies as
asexual." As
Oornery
has shown, "Every one of her comic websites (see
Mary Cagle#External links) links to this account." I believe that alone sufficiently legitimizes her Twitter account so that we may rely on it.
My other concern was the absence of independent sources that view Cagle's asexuality as important enough to have reported it. Although her tweets about being asexual are often lighthearted, the fact that she has tweeted about this repeatedly over the course of 9½ years demonstrates, as Grayfell (no ping by request)
has indicated, that the artist herself does consider this detail about her life to be significant. So I will not oppose restoration of the disputed edit, and I sincerely thank
Adam9007, Oornery, Grayfell,
WanderingWanda and
165.120.15.119 for contributing to this debate.
NedFausa (
talk)
15:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, a Twitter comment by Ms Cagle (assuming for the moment that it is her) stating that "Over the past year I've discovered that I'm probably asexual, which in retrospect explains a lot about my work and taste in media" [2] is being proposed as one of the sources for an assertion that "Cagle identifies as asexual". Can someone please explain how a suggestion from her that she is 'probably' asexual can be used as a source to assert definitively that she is? If there are other sources which back up the statement, they may possibly be valid, but that isn't a valid source for the statement at all. 165.120.15.119 ( talk) 15:13, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources.(Emphasis added.) NedFausa ( talk) 02:58, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources. WanderingWanda ( talk) 03:13, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Forbidden? Yeah, sure, close enough. We have sources saying something directly. Discussing whether or not to use that source isn't about WP:OR, because OR applies to article content.
Wikipedia is not a subsidiary of Twitter, so verification is not a definitive threshold for reliability. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed any particular reason to doubt the authenticity of this twitter account. Is there some specific reason to think this is wrong? According to archives, she's had a link to that twitter account on her website since at least January 2012, if not earlier. There isn't any specific reason to think that this is hoax account, and speculating that it might be because it's "unverified", without any other reason, is non-productive. Grayfell ( talk) 05:38, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Belatedly, I have restored the content about asexuality. This contend was removed by NedFausa (who has since been site-banned) on the basis that the account was not verified, and that user later conceded that the twitter account is Cagle's. In this case, this phrase "Identifies as" is unnecessary and implies a degree of subjectivity which is not entirely compliant with BLP guidelines, so I've also simplified it. Grayfell ( talk) 21:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
With this edit on 23 Jan 2020, Adam9007 added "Cagle identifies as asexual." To support his statement, Adam9007 cited a tweet posted by @cubewatermelon on 3 Mar 2015. However, that is not a verified Twitter account. It's entirely possible that "cubewatermelon" is simply a fan, or group of fans, or even non-fans peddling their own POV under the guise of being a celebrity. For that reason, I dispute this source, and shall revert the contribution with a request that it not be restored unless editors reach consensus to do so after discussion at this Talk page. NedFausa ( talk) 23:23, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
@ Oornery: Please be advised that if you continue to restore disputed content without consensus, you will be reported for violating WP:EW. NedFausa ( talk) 01:19, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Statements about someone's sexuality, from wherever sourced, need to meet a few important thresholds. The information needs to be noteworthy in order to be encyclopedic. It is not automatically noteworthy in the first place. One way to establish this would be through multiple high quality reliable sources. One example would be Anderson Cooper - which became of historical interest because of great speculation about it, his longterm silence on the topic, followed by his publicly coming out as gay. This was widely covered in the press and is of interest for multiple perfectly good reasons having to do with the changing of social mores, etc. Another way to establish this would be through a coherent argument as to why it is relevant: I can imagine that if someone is highly active in LGBTQ causes, speaking often on the issue, it could be sensibly interesting to readers in terms of understanding their perspective. Indeed, it might be a case where someone being heterosexual might be of valid interest. In general, though, I would say that some kind of reasonable argument needs to be made: the sexual preferences of a random business executive or news personality where it has had no meaningful interaction with their professional life seems to me to be of little interest, even if some random comment might be used to justify it. Second, social media sourcing can be fine in clear cases, and might or might not be sufficient to establish the noteworthiness of the information. A passing mention of a partner could very well fail that test. An ambiguous statement that could be interpreted in different ways almost certainly fails that test. For everything we must ask ourselves both "Is it true?" and "Is it encyclopedic?" and where we are talking about a BLP we must always consider matters of dignity and take a firm approach to notability - in many cases the expressed wishes of the subject can be relevant.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 20:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
Cagle, who is an artist, has shared artwork of herself imposed over the asexual pride flag-- that's great; do any reliable sources mention it as part of their coverage of Cagle? Because that's the question that you should be asking yourself before you go on turning biographies of individual people into proxy battles about minority groups to which they belong, sexual or otherwise. -- JBL ( talk) 00:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Dispute about the reliability of an unverified twitter account for citing a WP:BLPSELFPUB statement (see Talk:Mary Cagle#Asexuality). 02:22, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity. Does anyone have any reason to believe her account or statement is not authentic? Adam9007 ( talk) 20:37, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent reliable sources.Editors who have no reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of Cagle's unverified Twitter account nevertheless ought to justify citing it in lieu of independent reliable sources. NedFausa ( talk) 20:49, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Cagle identifies as asexual.- which is a definitive statement and her tweet is not a definitive statement. And I say that because I don't self-identify as being probably gay. I self-identify as being gay. Period. If the language was tweaked to match the tweet, then I'd be OK with it. I am comfortable though with the twitter account being hers. Isaidnoway (talk) 16:11, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Concession
Having further considered the various points presented here, I concede that we may reliably cite Mary Cagle's Twitter account
@cubewatermelon to restore the
disputed edit "Cagle identifies as
asexual." As
Oornery
has shown, "Every one of her comic websites (see
Mary Cagle#External links) links to this account." I believe that alone sufficiently legitimizes her Twitter account so that we may rely on it.
My other concern was the absence of independent sources that view Cagle's asexuality as important enough to have reported it. Although her tweets about being asexual are often lighthearted, the fact that she has tweeted about this repeatedly over the course of 9½ years demonstrates, as Grayfell (no ping by request)
has indicated, that the artist herself does consider this detail about her life to be significant. So I will not oppose restoration of the disputed edit, and I sincerely thank
Adam9007, Oornery, Grayfell,
WanderingWanda and
165.120.15.119 for contributing to this debate.
NedFausa (
talk)
15:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, a Twitter comment by Ms Cagle (assuming for the moment that it is her) stating that "Over the past year I've discovered that I'm probably asexual, which in retrospect explains a lot about my work and taste in media" [2] is being proposed as one of the sources for an assertion that "Cagle identifies as asexual". Can someone please explain how a suggestion from her that she is 'probably' asexual can be used as a source to assert definitively that she is? If there are other sources which back up the statement, they may possibly be valid, but that isn't a valid source for the statement at all. 165.120.15.119 ( talk) 15:13, 25 January 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. The phrase "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources.(Emphasis added.) NedFausa ( talk) 02:58, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
This policy of no original research does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources. WanderingWanda ( talk) 03:13, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Forbidden? Yeah, sure, close enough. We have sources saying something directly. Discussing whether or not to use that source isn't about WP:OR, because OR applies to article content.
Wikipedia is not a subsidiary of Twitter, so verification is not a definitive threshold for reliability. As far as I can tell, nobody has proposed any particular reason to doubt the authenticity of this twitter account. Is there some specific reason to think this is wrong? According to archives, she's had a link to that twitter account on her website since at least January 2012, if not earlier. There isn't any specific reason to think that this is hoax account, and speculating that it might be because it's "unverified", without any other reason, is non-productive. Grayfell ( talk) 05:38, 26 January 2020 (UTC)
Belatedly, I have restored the content about asexuality. This contend was removed by NedFausa (who has since been site-banned) on the basis that the account was not verified, and that user later conceded that the twitter account is Cagle's. In this case, this phrase "Identifies as" is unnecessary and implies a degree of subjectivity which is not entirely compliant with BLP guidelines, so I've also simplified it. Grayfell ( talk) 21:47, 17 September 2022 (UTC)