This is the talk page of a redirect that targets the page:  • Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy Because this page is not frequently watched, present and future discussions, edit requests and requested moves should take place at:  • Talk:Rapid-onset gender dysphoria controversy

This article was nominated for deletion on 19 March 2019. The result of the discussion was no consensus (with "merge with ROGD" recommended by the closer).

@ Mathglot: Thanks for your edits; I agree that the piping of PLOS One wasn't necessary. I do have some WP:NPOV concerns about the edit you made to the journal's description. In an effort to maintain NPOV, the brief description as "a peer-reviewed scientific journal" was taken from the first sentence of the lead of WP's PLOS One article. By adding "fee for publication, online-only", your edit appears to give undue weight to negative attributes that aren't similarly emphasized in WP's neutral coverage of PLOS One itself, and Brown University itself hasn't raised those attributes of PLOS One as a problem. It looks like PLOS One has published over 800 other articles by researchers affiliated with Brown (based on search of author affiliations here). PLOS One is also cited in what looks like thousands of WP articles, which seems to show a consensus that it's accepted as a reliable source per WP:MEDRS. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 02:24, 1 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Good point. Adjusted. Mathglot ( talk) 03:39, 1 September 2018 (UTC) reply

An important thing to remember when citing longform articles from Science and Retraction watch is that we must cite all of their major points. It is perfectly reasonable to cite their observation that some think the study is being censored, but at the same time, both articles devote major space to covering alleged methodological flaws in the study. In fact, Reaction Watch mentions in their opening statement "serious concerns about the methodology". We can't pick and chose which parts of an article we report on, we must report all of the key points. The most significant would probably be the statement from PLOSone as to why they decided to investigate the study, which again cites alleged methodological flaws. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:22, 1 September 2018 (UTC) reply

This WP:BLP is perhaps 20% about its nominal subject. It was created about a WP:PROF with stub content to suggest notability. Due to recentism, it quickly became a coatrack for discussing a controversy about one study, without even an NPOV summary of what the study itself says. Administrator review would seem appropriate. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 02:55, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Review sounds very good to me. But keep in mind there is nothing wrong with quoting what PLOSone itself says about says the study or referring to credible records sources like Retraction Watch might keep of the controversy. You helped expand the content and sources covering the controversy so I think it likely we agree on this matter as well. I don't think much can be done about the volume of content regarding the study: nearly all journalistic mention of Littman will involve the controversy, and asides from that, the subject of this article might not meet notability criteria. There are plenty of other assistant professors who publish in far higher impact factor journals like Nature routinely and they remain without a page, likely because they haven't received a flood of journalistic coverage, even if they're more cited. Freepsbane ( talk) 03:22, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Good point. There is also a possible notability issue here, because aside from the controversy, I don't see how Littman passes any one of the nine bullet items for academic notability. The current article content might be notable under a different article title, perhaps; see WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E. Mathglot ( talk) 10:56, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Is there consensus for a page move to Rapid-onset gender dysphoria, with appropriate revisions to the opening sections, and asking the page creator (now a new admin?) an admin to delete the resulting redirect? Otherwise, the redirect from Lisa Littman would cause the new page to become a stealth BLP of her. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 13:37, 2 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 13:43, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Option 2 would be to change the resulting redirect back to an NPOV BLP stub, with WP:BALASP-compliant content linked to the new ROGD page. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 13:50, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

WP:MEDRES would say that's a bad idea. ROGD has zero clinical studies regarding it. A single indirect observation study in a low impact factor journal isn't sufficient to warrant a medical page, especially not when that article according to PLOSone is currently under a cloud and being investigated. If you want an article, wait till/if medical journals and secondary reviews confirm, as of now there certainly isn't sources to meet minimum WP:RSMED criteria. A much better idea is that if this article must be split, then do so the same way Mark Regnerus and his study's article were. Create an article regarding the controversy regarding the PLOSone paper or move and rename this article to a study controversy focused one if Littman doesn't otherwise meet notability criteria. This avoids trouble with WP:MEDRES as the study and it's controversy are well documented. Freepsbane ( talk) 15:06, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

That said, WP:RSMED rules aside, I agree that this seems to be a likely case of WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E. Freepsbane ( talk) 15:13, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Agree that rename to ROGD is a bad idea for reasons stated. The problem with creating an article about the controversy would be the same, i.e., notability: whether there is enough coverage in independent, reliable, secondary sources to justify it. But if coverage continues we may be getting close to that point or perhaps we are already there, in which case the rename to a controversy-based title would be the way to go. Also: you don't need an admin to rename without redirect; I could do it if consensus supports the idea. Mathglot ( talk) 19:34, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

This might help with determining notability of Rapid onset gender dysphoria:

Find medical sources:  Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL

Mathglot ( talk) 21:09, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Wow, looks like there's plenty out there already for a controversy article. In fact, virtually every article about this topic concerns the controversy. My only concern would be that of WP:RECENTISM and WP:NOTNEWS but if those were factored in somehow and handled per guidelines, it looks like the article could be retitled and refactored appropriately. Mathglot ( talk) 21:48, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Please take note that with the exception of the Littman paper, there are no scholarly resources on ROGD. Creating a new page on a medical phenomenon when we are nowhere near satisfying the requirements of WP:RSMED should clearly not be our goal. Any article would have to be treated as a controversy article, not a medical one, and certainly that's what the news revolves around, controversy over the PLOSone study. Asides from that I agree, if this continues, it might be warranted to create an article for the PLOSone study controversy. Freepsbane ( talk) 21:59, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Yes, well aware of that. For another possible approach, see below. Mathglot ( talk) 22:21, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

"Please take note that with the exception of the Littman paper, there are no scholarly resources on ROGD." That's not true. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25612159 Littman, as well as many, many others in the field have pointed to earlier research as clear evidence of a phenomenon that's become prevalent. In fact, footnote number 5 in this very article actually links a popular article where this research was noted, with Ray Blanchard, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto in Canada stating "“and it has been speculated that this subgroup is one reason for the predominance of adolescent females now being seen in North America and elsewhere (Aitken et al., 2015). No one can deny the clinical reality,”. You, literally, just stated a source in this very article was simultaneously valid and not valid. " Any article would have to be treated as a controversy article, not a medical one" What is going on here? Maxxx12345 ( talk) 20:17, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Maxxx12345, does that article mention ROGD? As Wikipedia editors, we would have to be careful about making assumptions about what a paper says about a topic, and not use multiple references to support an assertion in the text that follows from an interpretation of two articles, that wasn't warranted from one of the sources alone. Avoiding WP:SYNTH applies to all articles at WP, and it is even more important in med-related ones, than in others. Mathglot ( talk) 22:49, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: Since Littman introduced the term ROGD (at least for its first appearance in a WP:MEDRS), of course you won't find it in the previous literature. But it isn't WP:SYNTH or WP:OR to look at studies or authorities that Littman cited as relevant antecedents, and see if it makes sense to address them in a ROGD article (or section) together. Not just Blanchard; there's Kenneth Zucker, for instance. One possible place for that might be under Gender dysphoria#Epidemiology, perhaps. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 23:33, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: @ Lwarrenwiki:As an Addenum if we did place this controversy in a medical article such as Gender dysphoria#Epidemiology, I think it would be to prudent immediately ask WP:RSMED to assess and see if the new claims which stem from controversy belong in a medical article, I think it almost certain they don't as they overwhelmingly fall short of the strict criteria we have in WP:RSMED I would suggest reviewing guidelines before planning any medical article. They operate under a much more strict set of guidelines for what is sufficient documentation than our other articles. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:50, 7 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The problem is both those sources are known for being controversial in themselves, Zucker in particular, and it isn't hard to find journals publishing critiques that allege he engaged in data manipulation. WP:RSMED is pretty clear that we can't just rely on a single writer or a small group of controversial writers, unless we can find reliable literature reviews in uncontroversial, high impact journals, you aren't going to meet the criteria set out by WP:MEDRES and it would certainly become the project's concern. As I said, far better to wait for PLOSone and other journals to publish review than rush a medical article that can't meet the guidelines set by the project, and would then likely hurt future attempts at documentation. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:50, 7 September 2018 (UTC) reply

( edit conflict) As an alternative, or a supplement, to a controversy-based article as discussed above, another approach occurs to me: What if we included the controversy concerning this article as a subsection of a new article with larger scope, which would concern the intersection of academic publishing and social or political pressure groups? This is not the only example of this kind. The focus of the new article would be about the pressure publishers may feel, for valid scientific reasons or otherwise, to retract (or to publish) articles about topics that may be controversial in the social or political sphere and for which activist groups on one side of the social issue or another may weigh in and attempt to influence the appearance or retraction of an academic article in their area of concern.

I know I've run across news or opinion articles about other flare-ups in reaction to publishing of scientific articles or books before, and the new article might end up (if there are enough examples of this nature) as a summary style article surveying the whole issue of social or political pressure on academic publishing, with each section of the article describing one controversy, of which ROGD would be one, possibly with a {{ Main article}} link in the section pointing to a stand-alone article with fuller treatment of the issue, if warranted.

If the focus of the proposed new article is still too narrow to develop a full-enough article, we could extend the scope to all controveries about academic publishing. That would then include other, non-sociopolitical reasons for withdrawal of papers, such as ethics, or purely scientific reasons, beyond any activist pressure. For example, an article with this greater scope could contain a section on the Cold fusion controversy, and one on the Sokal affair. But it could also have a section on political or social pressure controversies (corresponding to the narrower scoped article described above) with subsections for each example. Thoughts? Mathglot ( talk) 22:23, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

New Family Structures Study is probably the best model for how this has been handled in the past. A new article, could perhaps be named after the PLOSone paper. I'm not certain what would happen to the content on Littman's article, asides from this single event she likely would not meet notability criteria, just like nearly all of the other Assistant Professors she is peers with. Freepsbane ( talk) 23:12, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

( edit conflict) I've been checking around, and I don't see an article in Wikipedia about social pressure brought to bear on scientific publishing. There doesn't even seem to be one on acacemic publishing controversies, more generally. Here are some related titles that might inform a new article on one level or another:

Mathglot ( talk) 23:20, 2 September 2018 (UTC) updated by Mathglot ( talk) 23:36, 2 September 2018 (UTC) reply

It seems almost like the controversy over the " New Family Structures Study", one side claims political persecution, the other side claims the study is bad because methodological flaws. Regenerus was somewhat further in his career though. Freepsbane ( talk) 02:07, 3 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: This is for your collection of examples for the larger-scope article. It's written by a mathematics professor. It's very new, and certainly too recent to be written up in Wikipedia anytime soon, but I thought you may be particularly interested because of your username.

• Hill, Theodore P. (September 7, 2018). "Academic Activists Send a Published Paper Down the Memory Hole". Quillette. Archived from the original on 2018-09-08. {{ cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) ( help)

Lwarrenwiki ( talk)

Noted. Thanks! Mathglot ( talk) 07:21, 8 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Just keep in mind that if our only sources are commentary, and we don't have the secondary scholarly sources to satisfy WP:RSMED or the criteria needed for pages describing any scientific phenomenon, it can only be a controversy article. Wikipedia has successfully made articles for controversial studies, I think it best to follow their lead and not reinvent the wheel. 2600:1700:8000:1950:19A5:4346:4F5D:6A23 ( talk) 01:21, 9 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: I would support an article about social pressure brought to bear on scientific publishing or academic publishing. You've established that the issue is a great deal larger than this article's particular controversy. It would clearly be worthwhile to have an article that pulls together examples, starting with the ones you've listed. It's a big idea – one that will need to attract editors from many disciplines. That actually strikes me as one of the biggest potential hurdles: how would one even get the attention of editors who might be valuable contributors to an article that doesn't exist yet, one that can't easily be pigeonholed into a category or a WikiProject? Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 19:18, 4 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Lwarrenwiki: Have already started pulling some notes and sources together for a new article. Have to think carefully about a proper title, to satisfy WP:PRECISION and other requirements, so the content will be properly scoped. When I have something worth adding to Drafts, I'll create something there and let you know. Thanks for the encouragement; should have something stubbed in Drafts in a couple of days or so. Mathglot ( talk) 00:25, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Wouldn't this verge on original research? PLOSone in their press release said their investigation was solely concerned with alleged methodological flaws. Should we not wait till their review concludes? Nearly everyone with a controversial article claims social pressure. Freepsbane ( talk) 01:28, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Freepsbane: You're right. I agree, that's a hazard that must be avoided. And in this case, it's easily avoidable by leaving the ROGD controversy out of the larger-scope article, just as you suggest, until the review is published (and probably until reactions to the review are also published). That still leaves dozens of other controversies that are ripe for inclusion in the larger-scope article, which is a worthwhile endeavor in its own right. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 01:57, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

That would make a great deal of sense, the problem is it is impossible to mention the PLOSone paper in her career without also mentioning the controversy, especially after PLOSone announced a review. A second problem I see is that I'm not certain if Littman meets the notability criteria. There are countless assistant professors out there, almost none of them have pages, and Littman doesn't stand out. I don't see publications in high impact journals, or repeated citations. Controversy stemming from a single event notwithstanding, there are measurably many other assistant professors with a higher impact who still don't have pages. What will we do? Do we consider notability criteria? Freepsbane ( talk) 02:11, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Yes, we have to consider notability criteria; we certainly can't ignore them. You and Mathglot have more-or-less persuaded me that an article titled ROGD won't fly, not at this time. Creating a new page about the ROGD controversy may be premature, at least for the reasons you just suggested above. Till then, this article still has WP:BLP1E issues that should be taken seriously. As an interim approach, is there an existing gender-related article where content about the ROGD study & controversy might be an appropriate addition, as a new section or subsection? I'm raising it as a possibility, but I'm also doubtful about pursuing that approach. Merging this content into any existing article would probably require a much shorter version than what we've got now. Even if there were an appropriate article to merge it into, I've got to wonder whether we'd be able to find consensus on a short version that maintains the required balance & NPOV. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 03:00, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I think those are good ideas. But as for merger I don't think there is right now, there are medical articles that could be related but those go by WP:RSMED criteria and wouldn't be something we can merge controversy with. It might be possible to create a new article for this study alone, seeing as how it's more the study than Littman who's gathering notability, but as of right now, I feel the best thing might be to go slow until the review is concluded, then things can be done with much less uncertainty. I don't seem to be as creative as you and our other editor friends when it comes to solutions, so all I can think is taking it slow for now. Freepsbane ( talk) 03:51, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I agree with the go-slow approach insofar as a merge of ROGD content to another article (whether Med, or gender-related) where it could perhaps validly become a subsection, without the same notability requirements as for a standalone article. The reason to go slow, is partly because of WP:RECENTISM, and partly because we are in the middle of a developing story and there is no reason to attempt to keep up with events as they unfold; in fact, WP:NOTNEWS is there precisely to remind us not to do that. Mathglot ( talk) 08:07, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Well, WP:RSMED holds for all material in medical pages. Say we have a page on a drug, and an in vitro suggests a new use, it might not be allowed because it doesn't meet the threshold of resources demanded for a new premise. Before we make a new subsection, we need to ask, are there secondary resources, or even just multiple uncontroversial studies to reinforce the subsection? Freepsbane ( talk) 17:14, 5 September 2018 (UTC) reply

In this edit, which appears utterly uncontroversial to me, I consolidated duplicative content from PLOS One and trimmed repetitive content from the second quote. The trimming was reverted here, with an edit comment saying, “The statement PLOSone gave Retraction watch is newer and completely different.” On the assumption that the edit comment was made in good faith, I’ll lay out the content that struck me as obviously redundant. The content quoting the first statement is on the left, the content quoting the second statement is on the right, and redundancies are highlighted in bold.

Providing near-identical information twice, just because the source said it again, certainly gives it WP:UNDUE weight. To insist on repeating the content gives the appearance of POV-pushing. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 03:37, 3 September 2018 (UTC) reply

It is not undo weight, the statement which you called replicative is PLOSone's most recent, and largest at that, regarding the controversy and what steps they plan to take, it's highly relevant to the study and controversy. I would not delete the last statement, if one of them must be removed then the earlier, shorter statement PLOSone left could be removed. Also, I would like to point out the wp:balance does not consider giving key sources relevant to a topic adequate explanation undo weight, PLOSone is the journal publishing the study in question so you can't get any more pertinent than their official statements. If we can quote a freelance historian who isn't trained in this field then we must certainly also include the quotes from the publishing journal. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Littman's recent study appears to misidentify symptoms of depersonalization disorder as "vague signs and symptoms called signs of GD", and she appears to be unaware of the high prevalence of depersonalization disorder in untreated gender dysphoria (more on this here: https://genderanalysis.net/2018/08/rapid-onset-gender-dysphoria-study-misunderstands-trans-depersonalization-ends-up-blaming-zinnia-jones/). I wanted to see if anyone else considers this to be worth mentioning in the article. -- ZinniaJones ( talk) 03:43, 3 September 2018 (UTC) reply

You could do that if you want, but because this page is recent and was set up after a controversy, the addition of any content touches off controversy in here. There's even controversy over if we should be allowed to quote PLOSone's most recent and longest statement regarding the controversy! So maybe it's best to discuss here and move slowly and cautiously before making any changes. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:55, 3 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I second that. Mathglot ( talk) 06:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: I hope you don't mind that I refactored to move your Notes section upward (to the bottom of their subsection), because a Notes section at the bottom of a talk page looks unusual and appears to block new sections. Template:Notelist-talk was created for just this purpose: "This keeps the footnotes associated with the appropriate section for clarity and to maintain the integrity of the discussion when archived." It can be used multiple times on a talk page, if notes are needed in other subsections. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 22:49, 12 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Lwarrenwiki: Good catch; that was my intention; must've been an oversight. I've used {{ Reflist-talk}}, {{ Notelist-talk}} and others countless times, including adding them for others as you did for me. Thanks for this, and feel free to do this anytime I forget. Mathglot ( talk) 06:21, 13 September 2018 (UTC) reply

FYI, further discussions about this page have been taking place elsewhere:

• the WikiProject Medicine talk page at WT:MED#Proposed Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria medical page lacks references, and
• the WP:BLP administrators' noticeboard at WP:BLPN#Lisa Littman.

Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 02:49, 13 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Jytdog's version

I did a test edit - please see here. This treats this at a much higher level, which is probably more appropriate for biomedical-related "news". I would suggest leaving it there, until the PLoS review is done at least. Jytdog ( talk) 05:14, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: I think you did an excellent job of reducing the length and summarizing at a higher level. I do have concerns with several points that you've expressed as facts in Wikipedia's VOICE, where that reading isn't fully supported by the cited sources. I will write those quibbles up in the near future (probably later today), so you can respond to those points. Until that discussion, let's please keep the WP:STATUSQUO for now. Thank you for your time and efforts to improve this BLP. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 17:12, 14 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 17:14, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: Agreed, thanks very much for that. My preference would be to cut the article back to your version, while waiting for the Rfc to complete, unless policy discourages that. In addition, I'd remove the "Selected publications section", as well. Every professor must publish, that's the rule, not the exception. Her publications are readily available at google scholar, and I'm concerned that including them here smacks a bit of promotion. It's not like any of these publications have much import on their own, at least not according to her scientific colleagues per the citation count (and especially not the ROGD article). To the extent that the publication at the core of the controversy is important to the shortened version, it's already mentioned extensively in the running text of the article, and included as a footnote in the references. This seems enough, to me. The other publications don't seem to add anything to the article, except to fill out her CV. Of the other six assistant professors I linked in the footnote above, only one has a publications section, and he seems considerably more notable than the others, or than Littman.

As far as shortening the article now or keeping the status quo, I'm of two minds about that. Normally, I would be in favor of shortening it for all the MEDRS reasons mentioned in the sections above. OTOH, there is an open Rfc about these issues, and I'm not sure if the Rfc should run its course before making a big cut. My preference would be to cut the article back to Jytdog's version, and remove the publications section, while waiting for the Rfc to complete, unless policy discourages that. All of the material would be retrievable from history, if the Rfc decides that any of it should be kept. Mathglot ( talk) 20:34, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I am happy to have any tweaks; I don't pretend the proposal is perfect. But it should be tight, and the sources should be high quality. I was bummed to not see any coverage (like in the Science News piece) of the discussion of the abstact by the Advocate. :( I would like to see this version implemented ASAP but do not want to force it. Jytdog ( talk) 22:01, 14 September 2018 (UTC) (strike brainfart; this is the ref I was actually following when I generated this. gah Jytdog ( talk) 16:04, 16 September 2018 (UTC)) reply

Mathglot's version

I tweaked Jytdog's version to make this version. A comparison of the two is here. The main differences are: added infobox, dropped list of publications. See edit history for the full change summary. Mathglot Mathglot ( talk) 01:20, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Moved to #A (potentially) nitpicky discussion examining the infobox

 – Moved infobox discussion, per Mathglot's suggestion that it doesn't belong here.

Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 00:37, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Infobox discussion moved below, to #A (potentially) nitpicky discussion examining the infobox. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 00:37, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Discussion of versions

      Discuss the various suggested versions below.

I am going to start work on a third version, which will begin with Mathglot's as its base. It won't be significantly longer, or very much different. I respect Jytdog's conciseness, and I think he did an excellent job on the whole. His admonition that "it should be tight, and the sources should be high quality" is right on target.

I'll note in advance that one of my concerns is that both versions give exclusive preference to the article in The Advocate (which is, as the name implies, an advocacy magazine) as the only cited opinion piece, while not even a footnote was dropped to opinion articles in WP:RS sources such as The Economist and The Wall Street Journal. It also concerns me that the sentence The abstract was picked up and discussed by various socially conservative websites and forums. contains a genuine EASTEREGG in the piped link. It editorializes in Wikipedia's WP:VOICE by associating "socially conservative websites and forums" with politicization, while exculpating The Advocate for the same. And partly because of Jytdog's statement above about being "bummed to not see any coverage (like in the Science News piece) of the discussion of the abstact by the Advocate", I can't help but perceive some POV on Jytdog's part, which I am sure was unintended. It would be better to omit this sentence, with or without the piped link. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 02:54, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Looking forward to your version. Have to agree with you about the sentence you identified, as far the pipled link being a case of violating the principle of least astonishment; it would be better left unpiped (and unlinked). In addition, although some (half?) of the criticism was clearly coming from socially conservative, even transphobic websites (that won't be hard to document), another portion was coming from those concerned more with the freedom of academics to publish unfettered and isolated from outside pressure of whatever stripe. So, I don't think we need to omit the sentence, because there's truth in it, I just think we need to augment it with another clause that speaks to the response of some in the scientific community. I think we'd need to be careful about sourcing, and it might need several citations for the one sentence to get it right. It would certainly be less work just to leave it out, but I think it would miss an important part of the story, because the source and reason for the opposition is crucial to understanding why this issue even became known outside the academic community at all. Mathglot ( talk) 05:40, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Larrenwiki; the advocate piece is independent, secondary coverage of the first publication (the conference abstract) and the intitial reaction to that abstract. That is why it has value. As I noted it would be useful if there were better sources. Please see your talk page. Jytdog ( talk) 21:02, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The most important thing here is to give PLOSone, the journal who published the paper it's due weight. The statements, especially their more recent should be quoted or paraphrased. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:49, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Which should be light WEIGHT; there has not been time for the relevant academic community to react. Jytdog ( talk) 05:42, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• I've gone ahead and implemented mathglot's version as folks generally seem to be in agreement on tightening this down. I expect we will refine this further, for sure. Jytdog ( talk) 05:45, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

  @ Jytdog: That, plus the subsequent edits you made for piping, PLOS, EL, politicization of science, primarys to "Further", all look fine to me. Lwarrenwiki, are you still planning another temp version, or would it be simpler just to move forward based on this, and merge your changes into Jytdog's latest rev?

  At this point, I'd like to see a decent See also section, although tbh I'm not certain what would go in there yet; if nothing comes to mind, then there shouldn't be one. Also, in this form, the article is just about long enough to maybe have a couple of section headings ("Education", "Career", "Publishing controversy" ?) topped by a short intro paragraph as a new lead, summarizing what we have in the body so far. Probably a single, short paragraph of three sentences or so would be plenty. Mathglot ( talk) 06:44, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

  Okay, as a trial, I added section headings, and also a clause in the area of transgender identity among adolescents, to modify "work" in sentence three of what is now the lead. Mathglot ( talk) 07:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Mathglot: I approve of this group of edits and endorse them completely. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 07:16, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Jytdog: I believe that the changeover may have been premature, and if my expression of appreciation for your work was mistaken for a more general assent, then I regret not making my objections clearer. That said, I have no plans to revert it to the previous version. We'll work through BRD in good faith.

I have already identified the prominence of The Advocate's article as perhaps the main area where we have a serious good-faith dispute over how much weight is merited. Tannehill's advocacy takes an extremely contentious tone and she makes serious unproven allegations, which are wisely not repeated in the present article. I appreciate that. I would also remove the Tannehill article, which is already duly cited as a reference, from the prominence that it's accorded by inclusion in "Further reading". Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 07:14, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Lwarrenwiki: Since you wrote, Philafrenzy has made a few edits which have improved it further. One was to move Tannehill out of Further reading, and into Lisa Littman#External links. I don't know if that reduced the prominence adequately for you, but it forced me to think about those two headings, and I think I do give a bit more creedence to what's in "Further reading", rightly or wrongly, which somehow appears to be in Wikipedia's voice, at least more so than "External links" seems like it could be any ol' damn thing. Maybe I'm wrong about those two sections, and I haven't read the policies ( FR, EL) lately but now I'll go refresh my memory on that point now. If we're going to keep Tannehill, I think I prefer it in EL than FR. Mathglot ( talk) 07:27, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• Of course we're going to keep Tannehill as a source. I have removed the EL. The difference between EL and FR exists, but doesn't matter here, in my view. Either way, this reference is being singled out for more attention from the reader than an ordinary reference. The second appearance makes an editorial statement of its importance, and calls it out in body-size type, unlike other references. I believe that matters. And it will matter increasingly more over time, as more sources are added in the natural progression of improving the article. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 12:16, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• The source there is Retraction Watch, and it gives significant weight to the Advocate piece. (I had forgotten about that, when I wrote above, about there not being other refs mentioning it.... (will go strike that now) Jytdog ( talk) 16:02, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply
• I don't care where The Advocate piece is, in the page. I don't think we should use it as a ref, as it is "in the fray". I think it was a key piece and should be an EL or Further reading, like Littman's 2 papers are. Jytdog ( talk) 16:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Jytdog: I definitely agree that The Advocate is "in the fray", and if cited at all, it should be cited with great care. But let's examine the source for this phrase: The abstract was picked up and discussed by various socially conservative websites and forums, .... The structure of the sentence makes it a little unclear whether we are stating the conservative discussion as a fact, or (as with the second half of the sentence) attributing it to The Advocate via a cite to RW. Either way, I believe we need to clearly attribute it to The Advocate inline. That's because RW didn't write it as their own statement – RW put it in a block quote preceded by "According the Advocate". In other words, RW was careful (like us) to take no position of its own on whether what Tannehill wrote about a conservative discussion is factual. When that happens, I think it's permissible (if not preferred) to cite both the secondary and the primary source, and I think best to clarify inline which one actually said it. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 04:01, 17 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 04:14, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• It was bold, sorry if that was overbold. If we are sticking with the big trimming, should we perhaps put a note on the RfC that the page looked like this when the questions were posed? Jytdog ( talk) 16:08, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

  Yah, maybe a note. It was bold, sure, and normally, I'd be opposed to a big change like that as premature in the middle of an Rfc, especially as this was one of the alternatives. However, a lot of that stuff was contentious and I think the cut-back easily falls under the "remove immediately without waiting for discussion" aspect of WP:BLP. Even if we got it wrong in doing that, one errs in the direction of removal at first; it's always there available to be restored if consensus develops to do so. Mathglot ( talk) 05:09, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

  I added a note; feel free to adjust as needed. Mathglot ( talk) 05:54, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Moved from WP:BLPN § Lisa Littman

 – This is the better venue, as suggested by Jytdog ( talk · contribs). Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 17:00, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I'm failing to see why ROGD needs its own article. If it gets one, it needs to be very clear that it lacks scientific validity, just like we do for all other fringe theory articles. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 02:47, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Simply lacking scientific validity doesn't mean it is not an encyclopedic topic, as long as it is discussed in the manner we'd treat other WP:FRINGE topics. People will likely be searching for information on what the ROGD actually is even if we say it is not proven/scientifically sound. Only importance is that we have RSes actually "discussing" it to validate its notability; we don't cover fringe theories that have only been given attention in fringe/non-RSes. -- Masem ( t) 03:09, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Masem, "lacking scientific validity [means] it is not an encyclopedic topic" is not what I argued, though. I stated that "I'm failing to see why ROGD needs its own article." WP:No page is a thing. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 03:33, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Masem and Flyer22 Reborn: On the WP:FRINGE#Spectrum of fringe theories, the tone of the coverage in reliable sources seems to put it squarely in the third category, "Alternative theoretical formulations from within the scientific community". The Lisa Littman article already cites a reasonable number of independent WP:RS, per WP:FRINGESOURCE. There's also this opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, not yet cited. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 04:50, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I'm not understanding how you came to the conclusion of it fitting category 3. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 08:32, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Flyer22 Reborn: On category 3, WP:FRINGE/PS says, "Alternative theoretical formulations generally... deal with strong, puzzling evidence—which is difficult to explain away—in an effort to create a model that better explains reality." I recommend that you take a few moments to scan Littman's study for yourself, since that's exactly what the study says it is doing. This is also supported in Science (journal), particularly by its concluding 2–3 paragraphs here.

As for categories 1 and 2, I haven't seen reliable sources making the assertions identified in WP:FRINGE/PS. The closest, I think, was an accusation of bias and "fake science" made by a non-scientist writing in The Advocate (see politicization of science). The study was published in PLOS One, a peer-reviewed journal that's normally accepted under WP:MEDRS, and that has published hundreds of articles by Littman's peers on the faculty at Brown. So the publication venue is not among the issues. PLOS One is conducting a review of the study, which they say is in response to "reader comments" (some of them anonymous or pseudonymous) about the study's methodology. The study itself acknowledged and addressed many of those questions before they were raised, so they would have been considered before publication. The journal's review hasn't been completed, and its outcome can't be prejudged; but based on the issues under consideration, even the worst-case outcome couldn't rise to the level of category 1. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 17:00, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Flyer22 Reborn: @ Lwarrenwiki: The study was published in PLOSone which says it has a relaxed peer review process. The study is now under investigation by the publishing journal. I don't know if fringe is the appropriate word, but it's pretty easy to say her theory isn't mainstream and her publication is under a cloud. Undue weight must not be given to non mainstream theories. Just as important, PLOSone said their investigation had nothing to do with politics and that they'd uncovered potentially major flaws. The peer reviewed journal in question, what Lwarrenwiki calls a reliable source, refutes this supposed political suppression hypothesis. Freepsbane ( talk) 20:19, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Freepsbane: I'm sorry, where did PLOS One say "that they'd uncovered potentially major flaws"? They said no such thing. Here is their first statement, and they also made statements to Retraction Watch that are quoted here and here. Please read them for yourself, @ Flyer22 Reborn: none of the statements by PLOS One says (or even implies) that they have "uncovered" anything at all yet, much less "uncovered potentially major flaws."

• @ Flyer22 Reborn: @ Lwarrenwiki: They mention in both press releases they might have to make corrections or changes to publication, I don't know if you have a background that would involve getting papers published, but if they're talking about making corrections, or doing something about your publication, those are pretty much the most serious steps they can take in cases of flaws. Certainly not a good sign when they hold open the possibility of forcing Littman to rewrite flaws they consider too serious or retract. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Freepsbane: That's an inference from what they actually wrote; and if PLOS One does retract the publication at the end of its review, your prediction will then be proved right. If corrections or changes are made, then the result will be a corrected publication – one in which the concerns or flaws have been resolved to the journal's satisfaction. Or the review may reach some other outcome. No findings have been announced yet, and therefore the journal has uncovered no flaws yet. That could happen in the future, but Wikipedia should not be prejudging the outcome of the investigation. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 06:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• As I said we don't know how this will end, which is why making a page is premature. However the potential corrective steps they are mentioning are very serious, the same things Nature did with Benveniste. We do not know how the investigation will end but we do know they are investigating and suggested possibly serious actions. That makes it grossly premature to hold a paper under investigation by it's journal as being mainstream just because the now investigating journal published. Freepsbane ( talk) 21:49, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

As for "published in PLOSone which says it has a relaxed peer review process" – well, no, they didn't say that either. They say something different. Looking at PLOS One#Publication concept and the linked statement from the journal: the admitted difference is that PLOS One does not "use the perceived importance of a paper as a criterion for acceptance or rejection". Their peer review process "verifies whether experiments and data analysis were conducted rigorously", and no relaxation of that standard is mentioned. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 00:25, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

And you conveniently ignored that same page is full of high profile retractions they have had to make including the God paper, you also forgot that the same page documents their impact factor has plummeted to bellow 3, very low for a multidisciplinary, check out what Science has. Impact factor in an active field is a measure of how much scientist trust your work. If you make too many mistakes, they stop citing your papers, which is the case here. You don't have to look far to see that biomedical scientists are often skeptical if you'll be able to reproduce everything in PLOSone. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Freepsbane: Re: "page is full of" I see two. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 06:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• In fact, the study had zero human patients, which is something MEDRS considered necessary for making medical claims. Anecdotal evidence from surveying third parties is all the theory has to go by. That seems to be a rather textbook example of "relies on weak evidence such as anecdotal evidence or weak statistical evidence (as for example in parapsychology), or indulges a suspect theoretical premise". Given the investigation and lack of mainstream support I'd say it's a rather clear example of what they classified as "questionable". Perhaps in the future more studies will confirm Littman's theory, or instead PLOSone might determine the whole thing was too flawed to be of any use and retract. We don't know, that's why making a scientific page is grossly premature right now while everything is under a cloud. Freepsbane ( talk) 20:28, 14 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Flyer22 Reborn: One more factor that places it in category 3: I have seen no WP:RS that says Littman isn't "within the scientific community" (quoting WP:FRINGE/PS). She is a physician and a researcher on the faculty of an Ivy League university. She published a study in one of the many peer-reviewed venues where Brown's researchers submit papers – see above at #PLOS One (noting over 800 other articles in PLOS One by Brown researchers, based on search of author affiliations here). Whether or not the study is found (upon review) to be flawed, I can find no support for saying it came from outside the "scientific community". Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 16:21, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Flyer22 Reborn:@ Lwarrenwiki: This is again an improper appeal to authority, yes Littman is a nontenured professor in Brown, and she doesn't have a history of publishing in any high impact journals like JAMA or Nature, true so you could argue she's another middle of the road assistant professor that probably hasn't made enough achievements for notability or tenure. But that is asides from the point, the one journal that accepted her study now has it under investigation for what they say are alegedly serious methodology problems. In their own words and Brown's most senior scientist thought it was suspect, and WPATH as you noted,a medical organization dealing with the topic she covers put a statement doubting the validity of her theories. There is no mainstream acceptance. And just as importantly what PLOSone is investigating is that the study is solely composed of anecdotal evidence from third parties and might have suspect statistics. Exactly what the page lays out as examples of questionable science. Please find some more supporting studies, preferably from high impact journals if you think the study counts as class three and has strong evidence or scholarly support. As is we just have a study under investigation by a journal that's known for having relaxed standards, which really fits the "questionable" definition. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:23, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Flyer22 Reborn:@ Lwarrenwiki: Another important thing to remember when using appeal to authority based on someone's current job is that it doesn't work. Jacques Benveniste was a full professor and a director of a national research institute when he proposed his alternative theory for water memory. He was already famous for many discoveries regarding allergic responses (which were actually genuine seminal discoveries). He even got his controversial water memory paper published in Nature! Obviously he was several orders of magnitude in importance and being established over a nontenured professor who hasn't been able to get published in high impact journals. By that you could mistakenly claim he had broad support from the scientific community, (his theory never did). Of course it ended with Nature publishing corrections and commentaries disavowing his study after an investigation(somehow it wasn't actually retracted). Just that someone has been employed as an assistant professor and published other unrelated work in unremarkable journals does not by proxy mean that their new work on an alternative theory has scholarly support, the only thing we have seen so far is an investigation from the publishing journal. That seems to imply it's questionable science. Freepsbane ( talk) 04:59, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Freepsbane: That is interesting. I didn't know about Benveniste before. You didn't say the word pseudoscience, but I will; his work on water memory was clearly pseudoscience. It should have been caught before publication, despite his standing in the scientific community. It's surprising that Nature printed it, and even more surprising that they didn't retract it. Even PLOS One has retracted two articles. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 06:31, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Benveniste is odd, he was pretty famous beforehand for his previous accomplishments, so Nature threw him soft balls and just checked to make sure his data was generally correct. It was... asides the fact that the Benveniste lab discarded all negative results under the justification that they did the tricky technique wrong, so by unintentional statistical manipulation they only got positive results. I think they really did think they discovered water memory and tricked themselves into rationalizing every negative result. Anyways, it's possible for someone to be famous and have their previous work be seen as a bedrock, but still not have any support for their new theory. They teach him in school as a sort of cautionary tale against falling for something that seems too good, rationalizing and lab group think. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:23, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Not a category three. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 18:29, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Flyer22 Reborn: I respect your opinion, so I'm disappointed that my reasoning didn't convince you. If part of my response was inaccurate, I'd appreciate knowing which facts you think I got wrong, and why. Or what facts and sources you have, that you found more convincing. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 20:54, 15 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The top of the #Publishing controversy section starts off like this:

Littman became interested in the possible role of [[social contagion]] in gender dysphoria among young people, and...

I'm wondering about two things with respect to the use of the term "social contagion" in that sentence:

1. Although I personally agree with the fact that that is what the Littman study is implying, do we really have a source that uses those words, or otherwise sufficiently expounds on her paper in a way so as to justify the use of that term? Otherwise, it seems to be a bit OR or SYNTH.
2. If the term is justified, should it be linked? Even if the source does use the words, are we justified in wikilinking it, especially since it's a redirect to Emotional contagion? Do we know from secondary sources, that what Littman claims to be observing is emotional contagion, rather than, say, a sense of peer group pressure, or some other mechanism which might be going on? Mathglot ( talk) 07:54, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Point 1 is moot; one of the references definitely says "social contagion" (quotes in the original); missed that the first time around. The question about point 2 remains. Mathglot ( talk) 08:09, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• On point 2, I have seen no secondary source calling it "emotional contagion", and the target of the wikilink describes a phenomenon significantly different from the one Littman hypothesized (not claimed). Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 12:22, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

It seems to be a rather blatant MDRES violation, a new theory for a well established disease being held up without adequate evidence. Consider rewording. Freepsbane ( talk) 21:50, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Are people reading the sources cited in the article? "social contagion" or variants thereof are mentioned in both of the sources used (RW and Science News). The content doesn't say that there is social contagion among these kids, but rather that this is what she was studying. Jytdog ( talk) 21:56, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Yes but we can't introduce medical claims and theories if they aren't appropriately sourced per WP:MEDRES. It's also an undue weight violation if we give non mainstream theories the same amount of weight and credibility we do well established science. We should make sure the premise is stated as an unconfirmed opinion, not as a theory with strong evidence. Freepsbane ( talk) 22:11, 16 September 2018 (UTC) reply

a) there is no medical claim in WP's voice. b) again "social contagion" is used only to state her research question, which is not biomedical information; c) it is extremely unlikely that people will accept WP saying nothing about this. Given that (and it is being tested via the RfC above), if we have to say something, the content I have proposed, using Sciences News piece and RW to summarize her findings, attributed to Science and RW, is the best we can do. I have nothing more to say here. Jytdog ( talk) 00:16, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I agree with Jytdog on this. As I said above, the source uses the exact term "social contagion" describing her research question, and so there is no reason we should not. My only concern is with whether to link it to emotional contagion, because that might be seen as SYNTH. I'll remove the link, and see how it goes from there. Another wrinkle on this question: the source uses double quotes around the term in their article, evidently quoting Littman's article. Perhaps we should both unlink the term, and double-quote it as well? Mathglot ( talk) 01:34, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Agreed. It's accurately quoted from the sources, it's not used as biomedical information, and it belongs in quotation marks. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 03:21, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Note: I added this discussion at WT:Manual of Style regarding just the question of double-quoting expressions already double-quoted in the source. Mathglot ( talk) 03:28, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The article cites Science for this passage: Littman ... recruited from three websites where she had seen parents describe sudden transgender transitions in their adolescents...

The phrase "sudden transgender transitions" isn't exactly the wording that appears in Science, which says "sudden gender transitions". The significance, I think, is that "sudden transgender transitions" would mean the physical process of transition (see Transitioning (transgender)), and that's not the same thing as sudden cases of gender dysphoria (a DSM-5 mental condition). The latter is what I believe Science intended to describe; that would be consistent with the primary source. So I'm going to change this to the more exact words that appeared in Science. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 06:02, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

We're citing Retraction Watch for this sentence: The abstract mentioned the name Littman had coined, "rapid onset gender dysphoria", for a provisional condition or syndrome.

RW does note the coinage by Littman, but RW doesn't actually say that it was mentioned in the abstract. Science is clearer: "The paper is the first in the literature to name ROGD..."; the paper, and not the earlier abstract.

When I looked, the phrase "rapid onset gender dysphoria" did not appear in the abstract. It's close, but not quite the same. The actual wording of the abstract is slightly (but significantly) different. The abstract's title begins with "Rapid onset of gender dysphoria", and the abstract consistently includes the word "of". Including on the second page, in the phrase "websites where parents had reported rapid onsets of gender dysphoria" (see p1, p2).

I think this may point the way to an insight: the word of may be genuinely helpful in making a subtle distinction. Without the word "of", ROGD is taken to be an original coinage, a putative "provisional condition or syndrome" (although those words weren't used in RW, Science, or Littman's abstract). But the emphasis is different when the word "of" is there to break up the phrase. I think it becomes noticeably clearer that what's being studied is not a novel condition; it's just a sudden (or rapid) onset of a well-known condition. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 06:02, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

This and the thing above it are fine, as far as I am concerned. I am hopeful that now that we are ~perhaps~ agreed on WEIGHT and mentioning this at all, and just summarizing what happened at a high level, rather than being in the fray per WP:Beware of tigers, these sorts of refinements will be mostly uncontroversial.... Jytdog ( talk) 14:27, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I think they're fine, too; but I'm also starting to think we're all spending too much time on subtle differences in a stub article, and should let it sit at some point and work on more important stuff. That's mostly me talking, to myself; you may or may not agree. Mathglot ( talk) 07:28, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Moved from #Mathglot's version

 – Moved from above. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 00:37, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Mathglot: How would you feel about ditching the infobox? Per WP:INFOBOXUSE, MOS is neutral on whether to have one, and per WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE, its purpose is "to summarize... key facts that appear in the article". I don't believe such a short article really needs an infobox to summarize key facts.

My larger concern is that this entire article is already essentially a summary of the longer article that it used to be, and there are still good faith disputes about the weight that should be given to some facts, and good faith disputes about which facts are "key facts". I hope we're seeing this the same way. I'll go into more detail if you wish, but I imagine that nobody here (definitely including me) actually wants to have a nitpicky discussion examining {{ Infobox scientist}} field-by-field. :) Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 20:31, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Lwarrenwiki: Seems like this ought to go in the section #Tightened version, but since you placed it here, I'll respond here.
I'd prefer to keep the Infobox. It's a question of efficiency and time-saving. We already know that a large percentage, perhaps the majority of page viewers read only the lead of an article. But even that takes time. When I click on a link that takes me to an article, I want to assess, in a short a time as possible, whether I even want to spend time on the lead, let alone read the article. An infobox is perfect for this. It's structured, the information is always in the same place, and I have details about who they are, when they lived (or living), where they're from, what their occupation is, and what they are most known for. A glance of two to three seconds is sufficient to take all that in, and by then, I know if I want to go any further or not. The infobox in this article is quite compact, and gives you all that at a glance.

Do you hae a specific objection to having an infobox, that would satisfy the concerns of people who scan articles the way I do? I've not seen too many nitpicky discussions about infoboxes, and I don't expect one here. (I do remember one, where they tried to decide if a particular battle was "decisive" or not, but with or without that word, the rest of the infobox was still very helpful to assess what the article was about.) Do you find that having an Infobox detracts from the value of the article in some way? Mathglot ( talk) 23:01, 17 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: Infobox discussion moved from #Mathglot's version. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 00:37, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

It seems fairly representative, Littman hasn't published in any high impact journals thus far, nor have any of her academic publications ever been widely cited. I don't see other articles give a lot of weight to middling publications like that. The only thing that meets our notability guidelines is not her scientific career or other publications, but controversy over a single event. Freepsbane ( talk) 03:59, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Mathglot: Just as you say, a lot of readers will look at nothing but the infobox, if one is present. Why facilitate that? We've struggled with the content. We've struggled with the lead. We are likely to continue doing so, all in good faith and with the goal of improving the article. There are complex and conflicting issues involved, and sound arguments to be considered from all sides... because in the bigger picture (i.e., not focused on Littman's work!), every person of good faith wants to promote transgender health, and every person of good faith wants to defend academic freedom.

At best, this infobox is an extreme oversimplification, a summary of a summary. The problem that must be avoided – and it's hard to avoid, wherever there's an infobox! – is making editorial statements by what goes into the infobox, and what is left out of the infobox.

These are some examples of infobox content that I consider problematic. The first two omissions were probably inadvertent; and in all cases, I believe that every editor here is editing in good faith. I don't expect all of us to share identical good faith opinions about anything (and especially not about matters of WP policy). Here goes:

• The infobox omits her degrees from the Education section.
• The infobox lists only two institutions in the Education section, and omits her third. (At Icahn/Mount Sinai School of Medicine, she did a second residency and earned a master's degree in public health.)
• The infobox lists Littman's fields as "Abortion risk, reproductive health". I recognize that space limitations in an infobox make it necessary to exclude some of the professional fields that appear, or can be inferred, from her Brown profile page. And I'm not asking you to defend those particular two choices, but only to consider that by choosing some and omitting others, Wikipedia is making an editorial decision. The omission of other fields (including ones that are actually mentioned in the lead) could be taken as an implicit statement in Wikipedia's WP:VOICE that she has less expertise, or no expertise worth mentioning, in those other fields.
• The phrase "Abortion risk" doesn't appear in her Brown profile in those words. (The closest match is way down in her fifth publication, which has "abortion risks" in the title, with an "s".) The phrase "abortion risk" could be easily misunderstood, especially by some readers who will bring their own biases. Will some readers look at those oversimplified words, and see support for a picture of Littman as a right-winger who wants to stop abortion by calling it risky? That would be an entirely incorrect reading, because the primary sources show years of substantial close work with and in support of abortion providers, e.g., to help some populations of women overcome misinformation about the risks of abortion. But it requires a deep dive to see what is meant by "abortion risks"! I think it's a phrase that is probably better avoided.

And I haven't even gotten to the problematic content of the "Known for" field yet. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 05:32, 18 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 07:08, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

( edit conflict)
You seem to be addressing two separate questions here, but in a fashion which treats them as if they were one. I will try to tease the two apart, and address them separately. The two issues I see you asking about, at a high level, are:

1. This infobox – Are the entries in the infobox the best they can be, or can they be improved? There may be problems of incompleteness (degrees not mentioned, omission of fields of interest), and terms which are loaded in the larger culture which may mislead (abortion risk).
2. Infoboxes, generally – Are infoboxes useful at all in a short article? They're "an extreme oversimplification". They're "a summary of a summary". And deciding what to include or exclude is a problem that's "hard to avoid, wherever there's an infobox!".

I'd like to address the second one, first. Point #2 seems to be questioning the merit of infoboxes in general, whether any infobox can ever surmount the failings you list, rather than discussing particular failings in the infobox in this article. As such, that discussion does not belong here, it belongs at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes. I'll just mention, however, that given that {{ Infobox person}} is transcluded on over 300k pages and {{ Infobox}} on 3.1 million, there is plenty of support for using it. So I won't address the "extreme oversimplfication" issue here, but only add that I agree with you: Infoboxes are an extreme oversimplification. ^[a] If you think that's bad, or doesn't improve the articles in which it appears, you should open a discussion at WT:MOSIBOX about it.

In point #1, I summarized at a high level what I believe to be your opinion of various failings of this particular infobox. (Pardon me if I got it wrong.) Issues about problems in the infobox and how to improve it, are appropriate to discuss here. My first reaction is, SOFIXIT. You're free to address any of those issues, if you wish to; I don't own the article. Or I could do it; or anyone could. I think some, or all, of the issues you pointed out are valid, and the infobox should be changed to deal with the issues you have identified. By their nature, Infoboxes are a compromise between brevity ("extreme" brevity perhaps, in your conception) and having enough information not to mislead. To address some of your specific points:

• I don't see any need to mention lots of degrees; she teaches at an Ivy League University, and advanced degrees will be assumed. I see that "M.D." is right up there at the top on a line of is own, so if you think it's important to add more degrees, they are only a few characters long, I see no harm in adding them there.
• Missing educational institutions: k, let's add them.
• Abbreviated "known for" list. There's really only one thing she's known for; only one thing that might get this bio past an Afd discussion, and we all know what it is. That said, I see nothing wrong with adding another item or two.
• Questionable use of term abortion risk. That term comes straight out of two of her publications, but if you think it's too short and might hook into preexisting culture war battlegrounds, we could say something like "misinformation among patients about abortion and follow-up" or some such. (I believe that what is really meant here, the more precise word to use, would be misconceptions about abortion, but because of the nature of abortion and conception, the author probably felt obliged to avoid use of that word as too loaded in this context. Misinformation is a second-best choice here as far as strict accuracy, imho, but it's what they use—for understandable reasons—and therefore so must we.)

I hope this addresses some of your concerns. Feel free to take a crack at fixing them. I'll probably do so if you don't, since I think you raise some valid issues. Mathglot ( talk) 07:21, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Mathglot: You've summarized my points both well and fairly. And by doing so, you made me see that in #2, I expressed myself with way too much hyperbole when I wrote "wherever there's an infobox!" I'm sorry, I didn't mean what I wrote. I really should have ratcheted that down to "whenever there's an infobox in a controversial article with disputed content". (My hyperbole was a poorly-written attempt to express WP:AGF in terms something like "anyone could make a good faith mistake".)

So I've got no broad complaint that I'd want to take elsewhere. I acknowledge that in the vast majority of articles, infoboxes are harmless and can be helpful. For myself, I tend to ignore them completely when reading, except to look at a picture. That's because they almost never include information I'm looking for (even to make a quick snapshot assessment), while the lead usually does. I know that I'm not like most people in this. :)

SOFIXIT? SOIWILL. I don't think that you're assenting to deletion of the infobox (which I consider the best way to fix it), so okay, I'll try to fix it constructively. That might require me to refer to content that was cut earlier, and to restore support in the body at a later time. I'll see what I can do in small steps. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 15:05, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• ugh infoboxes. I rarely add them or remove them. When I deal with them, it is generally to remove unsourced content that people feel compelled to stick in them.

In general, in my view infoboxes can be helpful:

to present a lot of data that is hard to present or silly to present in a narrative, like in BRCA1 or Aspirin, and

to provide a summary-at-a-glance in a long article like Charles Darwin.

It is hard for me to see how an infobox adds value in a short article like this one. That's all I have to say on this. Jytdog ( talk) 15:23, 18 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: @ Lwarrenwiki: "Notable works" seems to be a misnomer, the PLOSone study was published in a journal with a low impact factor, and is under review by the journal itself. From a scholarly standpoint, exactly what that infobox is, it isn't academically notable. Consider changing or removing the section, every other scientist infobox that uses "Notable works" refers to one or more seminal studies in high impact journals with countless cites. This is giving something that meets none of those criteria the same weight. @ Jytdog: @ Lwarrenwiki:

As a side, I don't even know if an info box is warranted in this case when there was solid consensus that the article subject doesn't meet academic notability guidelines. Should her studies actually be summarized here when they were all published in journals with impact factors ranging between 0.25 and 3.25 and have few cites themselves? We might be giving undue weight to nonotable content, and turning it into a puff piece to direct traffic to studies that didn't meet the criteria for mention. Freepsbane ( talk) 21:27, 19 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Freepsbane: Thanks for checking impact factors. You stated "every other scientist infobox that uses "Notable works" refers to one or more seminal studies in high impact journals with countless cites." That got my attention! You may be right. So I'd be interested in knowing how one might determine that as a fact with such high confidence. I was unable to come up with any Wikipedia search that lists every article that uses the "Notable works" infobox parameter, or any easy way that one could cross-reference the results against the impact numbers of their journals. That seems especially difficult because the "Notable works" parameter isn't supposed to even list the journal, only the title and year.

I looked for the page where "those criteria" were established, but I wasn't able to find it. I also can't find the place where "Notable works" in an infobox is defined in terms of impact factors, or a required minimum impact factor. And I couldn't locate the WP policy that says notable works refers only to "seminal studies". Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 04:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: @ Lwarrenwiki: https://hcr.clarivate.com/ was a good place to start, as expected, Littman isn't in the list. In fact, WP:NPROF gives us clear guidelines for who's supposed to be added under the academic category. As of now, none of the criteria are met. It probably is undue weight that we are giving the same box for notability, especially a section under notable research, as people on the short list for the Nobel prize. Freepsbane ( talk) 16:56, 20 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I've said my piece above. I don't see how the infobox adds value. I'll add that is for sure going to add drama and I don't see the value-add as worth any drama. Jytdog ( talk) 21:51, 19 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog, Lwarrenwiki, and Freepsbane: I've said my piece about the usefulness and scan-economy of Infoboxes at the outset, but it's not an overriding aspect, and my feeling at this point is that we're just spending way too many words on lots of nitpicky aspects of this article, when there are more important issues elsewhere in the article, not to mention wasting a disproportionate amount of time of a number of good and thoughtful editors that I'd prefer to see freed up to work on more important things. I've removed the Infobox. If someone wants to take it up later, be my guest. Mathglot ( talk) 18:11, 20 September 2018 (UTC) reply

• @ Mathglot: I asked if you would consent to deleting the infobox. Rather than assenting, you asked me to fix it. I accommodated that request, thereby "wasting a disproportionate amount of time", just as you say. On that phrase, and that phrase alone, I agree. Your deletion of my good faith response to your request has certainly given me much to think about. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 18:45, 20 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Lwarrenwiki: Be bold. Thanks for you effort in fixing it. Following other responses, although I didn't really change my mind about the usefulness of the Infobox, I saw the balance of opinion shifting more strongly against it and judged that consensus was not in favor. You're free to revert the removal and continue to work on it, leave it as is, or however you prefer it. P.S. Since this is a section that has "nitpicky" in the title, I'm just wondering why you use bullet points in your talk responses where no LIST is involved; it can make following up your comments with the correct indentation level a bit tricky. See WP:THREAD. Mathglot ( talk) 19:03, 20 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Lwarrenwiki, i don't understand your restoration of the infobox. Mathglot added the infobox, you quite appropriately questioned if we needed it. We discussed it, and Mathglot listened to everybody, found the sense was generally against having it, and removed it. I can only say ... wha? Jytdog ( talk) 21:37, 20 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: I understand the cause for confusion, but if you read a couple of levels above, you'll see where Mathglot and I seem to have both surprised each other by reversing our initial positions, perhaps at mutual risk of whiplash. Mathglot added the infobox, and I suggested deleting it. When Mathglot didn't agree, boldly deleting wouldn't have been the WP:CIVIL thing for me to do. So instead I acted on Mathglot's invitation to WP:SOFIXIT, which I took as both a friendly challenge and consent to make some changes. When I was done fixing it, I found (not surprisingly) that I had addressed my own concerns about the infobox, and that the result was more satisfactory and provided value for readers. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 03:58, 21 September 2018 (UTC) reply

ok, then. Jytdog ( talk) 04:26, 21 September 2018 (UTC) reply

The problem is we are now using notable academic's info box when there is solid consensus that the current subject of the article meets none of the required criteria, nor do their publications listed under notable. I believe it would be a good idea to correct this situation but for that I need to see what @ Jytdog: @ Lwarrenwiki: and @ Mathglot: think about the article currently using an info box for notable academics on a subject that doesn't meet the criteria for a stub article. Freepsbane ( talk) 19:20, 22 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I'm basically out of this discussion and don't care whether the Infobox is kept or removed: I'll go with whatever the consensus is. That said, there's no such thing as a "notable academic infobox", it's just an infobox. When listing publications in an article, there's no such thing as "notable publications", there are just "publications". You can't argue for removing content for non-notability, because there is no policy or guideline that calls for that. Only article topics have notability—or don't. If the article is not notable, delete it. See WP:N#Notability guidelines do not apply to content within an article. Mathglot ( talk) 19:56, 22 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I agree with Mathglot about the policy on notability. It's not a basis for excluding content within an article. And there is no consensus here that the subject is non-notable; there is a difference of opinion on that. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 03:07, 23 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: The edit comment "Popular culture cruft" seems off-target, and I plan to revert the deletion. Perhaps you'll consider self-reverting.

I'd be hard-pressed to name any three sources that are more respectable and traditional than The Wall Street Journal, The Times of London, and The Economist. Unless one defines "popular culture" so broadly that it includes every mainstream publication, these publications are close to the polar opposite of "popular culture".

The disparaging term " cruft" was uncalled for. I'll assume, for the sake of argument, that we won't be deleting the sentence that calls out conservative website discussions. That sentence appears in this article because those discussions were criticized by The Advocate. One side of the alleged "politicization" is represented in the article by a named publication (The Advocate) that is respected in its field, and the other side only by "various socially conservative websites and forums". Deletion of the briefest possible mention (and citation) of opinion pieces published by three of the most solidly reliable WP:NEWSORGs is contrary to WP:DUE and WP:BALANCE, because otherwise, the reader is left with a biased and false impression that only unreliable websites have given favorable coverage to Littman's work.

We've agreed by consensus that brevity is a virtue. But I've never yet seen a Start-class article get improved to C-, B-, or A-class exclusively by removing content and removing reliable sources that support the content. If this article continues to exist, it will inevitably continue to get incrementally improved, because improving the encyclopedia is what we're here for. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 05:28, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Lwarrenwiki:I'm not certain why you decided to assume your fellow editors are all acting in bad faith. As you said, there was a unanimous consensus to keep this article brief. And as other editors pointed out, the articles made factual errors in their reports, such as claiming the research had been removed, so it would make more sense to go with more recent sources. Just as confusing to me is that you said citing a pres release from Brown that gave information on the material facts of this article was undue weight and removed it with the justification of brevity. If that is so, I can't see how popular culture material in a science article, that even made factual errors wouldn't be undue weight as well. I agree with the other editors on this matter. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:22, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Also, socially conservative websites isn't a disparaging term, it is descriptive here, Times, WSJ ec are owned by news corp and their editorial content is indeed socially conservative, just take a quick look at their editorial stance on Kavanaugh, or Muller or any other issue of the day. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:29, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Freepsbane: Nothing that I wrote was intended to suggest bad faith by another editor. If that was unclear to you in any way, then I regret the misunderstanding, and I'll say this clearly: I certainly assume good faith on the part of every editor here. Please read WP:CIVIL, and after doing so, I hope you'll strike your statement that I "decided to assume... bad faith", because your personal remark about me is mistaken. Assuming that your error was made in good faith, I suggest that you correct it. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 20:07, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

I would be opposed to reverting. Note that all of these sources say pretty much the same thing, about the same event, quoting the same sources, with little variation. We wouldn't add all those sources in purely as a long series of <ref> tags, for fear of violating the CITEKILL guideline. So I don't see how anything is gained, by instead of including them all as refs, actually writing out all the sources that have all picked up the same event and reported on it in the running text of the article itself. As far as I can see, that would be pretty unprecedented. If you like the Economist, Times, or WSJ sources better than what's there, then by all means pick the one or two that you think are best. We don't need to add a list of all the many publications that reported on the event. Mathglot ( talk) 06:52, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

"X was discussed in Y" is generally just reporting on a media circus or promotion ("in the media" sections are specifically called out in Wikipedia:Identifying_PR#In_the_media, an essay to help editors identify PR editing). We are discussing this in WP at all because it is noteworthy; we don't need to prove it. In addition, popular media reporting on science issues often get facts wrong. Even very simple things. For example, a bunch of the popular media reports said that Brown somehow "took down the research" but all they did was remove the press release. (None of these three made that mistake). Finally, the WSJ and Times of London pieces are classified by those papers as "editorial" and as such would have to be attributed to their authors (not the publisher). The Economist is (in my opinion) surprisingly good and pretty much matches what Science' news piece says. It is nice to be surprised by decent science reporting. But it adds no value with regard to generating actual content and it is not the kind of source we should be using to discuss a science controversy. Jytdog ( talk) 13:58, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Well I can't think of a single other science page where we cite the WSJ and other Murdoch owned papers as a source instead of journals. What's more, as has been pointed out by other editors, the papers make factual errors on asserting what happened, like claiming the research was taken down instead of the pres release. Brown did put out a more recent press release which they say corrects errors in reporting so if we did cite earlier claims, there is no reason why we shouldn't cite the university itself as well. Freepsbane ( talk) 18:18, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

A closer look at the linked Brown article indicates that it was not even a press release; it was a statement that Brown's administration published internally, directed to the Brown community in its campus newspaper. It was not picked up by any third-party independent source. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 20:07, 30 September 2018 (UTC) reply

Regardless it is an official statement by one of the protagonists in this case. It's absurd to argue it isn't relevant when it's the stance one of the groups involved in this controversy has taken. If you did give anonymous claims weight, then there is no way we couldn't cite the response from Brown. Freepsbane ( talk) 05:24, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

@ Jytdog: Thanks for that response. Rather than extend a dispute that nobody wants to have, let me ask instead for your help and advice. (This goes out to all editors, not just Jytdog.)

Hypothetically, suppose for a moment that you agreed with my NPOV-based concern (expressed above) that otherwise, the reader is left with a biased and false impression that only unreliable websites have given favorable coverage to Littman's work. For just a moment, set aside any potential response that it's not a genuine or significant NPOV or BALANCE problem, and let's briefly assume that it is. My proposed solution drew objections. Can you think of an unobjectionable (or less objectionable) way that we could mitigate the perceived problem? Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 02:19, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

I don't see the NPOV concern. Right now we don't know if the scientific community will find the conclusions in the PLoS paper to be valid ones based on the research that was done; they were provisionally found valid as shown by their being already published. More importantly for the science, we don't know if a) the conclusions will turn out to be replicable, and b) what the field will do with them.

If what you are after is content about people "liking" the conclusions in the PLoS One paper... it is difficult for me to understand why we should spend time generating content about conclusions that might not be valid.

No, that really isn't something I care about. To the extent that I am "after" anything, it's the good of the project and service to the reader. If you were indirectly asking me about my editing philosophy (rather than implying any impropriety): to the extent that I've formed a coherent philosophy, it leans inclusionist. I'll be glad to discuss that elsewhere, if you don't see how that applies in the case of this article. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 05:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

If they are found valid (or alternative ones are generated) it would be worth describing what people in the field do with them. How they matter (or don't) in the field. Does that make sense? Jytdog ( talk) 03:15, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

Completely; on that, we have no disagreement. Perhaps one difference we have is that I take the study at face value when it states that it's a descriptive study rather than an analytical study, and when it states that its only conclusion is that more research is needed. Critical sources have instead treated the study's hypotheses as if they are its conclusions. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 05:00, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

Like Jytdog said, the controversy concerns a scientific paper, the most relevant things to a scientific paper are what it's journal says about the investigation. Everything else is up in the air, and popular culture and political commentary isn't terribly relevant or informative to if PLOSone will ok the paper, or instead publish a critical letter akin to the water memory incident, or retract outright. That said, the Author's statements, and also Brown University's statements, might be relevant, but as far as critiquing scientific articles goes, we've never used WSJ as a reliable source. Freepsbane ( talk) 05:29, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

And not to nitpick, but calling it a descriptive study on a syndrome might be misleading, that implies that it was a case series or something of the sort on patients who had ROGD, which isn't the case. That might actually be part of the reason PLOSone investigated to see if the conclusions were appropriately stated. Freepsbane ( talk) 05:32, 1 October 2018 (UTC) reply

[1]Plosone just finished their review and their editor put out a statement. Much like everyone expected the ultimate result was not endorsement or retraction, but instead corrections. PLOS found that while the polling data from the relatives was technically valid, Littman overreached with conclusions. Ergo there have been extensive rewrites to the paper's discussion section. Freepsbane ( talk) 21:06, 19 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Please discuss at Talk:Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria#Redirect. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 17:55, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Following the discussions at

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Littman
• Talk:Lisa Littman #Biography, or article about a controversy?
• Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine #New ROGD Page Claims to Describe Medical Condition but Lacks Adequate Sources

I redirected this page to PLOS One #Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy in line with the consensus that I perceived.

That was reverted as vandalism (no edit summary). It clearly is not vandalism, so I've restored the redirect pending a reasoned reversion.

To save further edit-warring, I propose that this article on a non-notable academic should be a redirect to the appropriate place, PLOS One #Rapid onset gender dysphoria controversy. -- RexxS ( talk) 18:38, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• To avoid having an essentially identical discussion in two places, please continue this discussion at Talk:Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria#Redirect. Thank you. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 18:40, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply

  No, let's not cloud the issues by conflating two distinct discussions in order to hope for another "no consensus". If you think that the reasons for keeping Lisa Littman are the same as those for keeping Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, then make that case. I don't think you can do that. -- RexxS ( talk) 19:13, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• My response to this proposal to blank-and-redirect is at Talk:Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria#Redirect. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 19:48, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• I support RexxS's redirect plan as per WP:1EVENT. I missed the AfD, but would have voiced that position there too. Bondegezou ( talk) 20:10, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Oppose. I don't feel that a Redirect is appropriate post the AfD (which I missed and did not participate in). Would have no problem with this article going back to AfD, however there was no consensus for a Redirect either (or anything else) at the article's AfD. Britishfinance ( talk) 23:52, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Having read the AfD (several times), at least two Deletes stated that "Just because a subject meets GNG", or "As weird as it sounds, it seems her work meets notability yet she doesn’t." Not to judge or position their comments (because they made good points regarding case for delete), but the "strong consensus" of the last AfD and RfC is that there is "no consensus". We should therefore stop trying to "force a consensus" at this stage and step back. Ultimately, the key article is the ROGD article, and that should be worked on. I don't see any harm in an interested reader being able to find out a more details about the source of ROGD in her BLP. WP:NPROF is broad, and NPROF #7 is effectively GNG for an academic's work (i.e. them and their work getting noted in non-academic RS, which this subject has in spades with WSJ, Telegraph and other Tier 1 WP:RS). We should respect the two AfD and RfCs, and "power-down" on this BLP for a period. Britishfinance ( talk) 01:00, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The consensus of the first RfC was to nominate for deletion. The close of the second says no consensus, but to further explore merging the content (and that close and the direction forward is being discussed on the ROGD talk page). To read them both as a strong non-consensus is completely incorrect. As for the actual arguments, I'd send you to that discussion on the ROGD page. Safrolic ( talk) 01:19, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

The RfC did not agree to Redirect the article (as you are doing now). Sending it to AfD was a "no consensus" (because it could not be Redirected), and at AfD, the result was "no consensus". Your comment on the edit summary to your post above "Emphatically not the result of the RfC&AfD" conflicts with this. I don't see the need-consensus-fulfillment in progressing further deletion/redirection actions on this BLP now. Why not take a break, and develop the ROGD article to its best (which is the real article that we want to read and get to the bottom of - at least I do, having spent my evening reading on this area)? Britishfinance ( talk) 01:33, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Further thought having read both articles on a way forward. The "Publishing controversy" in this BLP should be about the impact on her (of which there is a lot of RS about), while the debate on the "science" of her work fits into the ROGD article. I don't need to read about the deeper technical arguments in her BLP, but I am interested in how she became "launched" onto the front pages (and the side issues with Brown etc.). In the ROGD article, I am not interested in the reaction on her, but more the "science" on whether this theory is credible or not. There is an overlap, but in a way, having two articles allows each a focus on the different aspects; and there is plenty of RS on each one. Britishfinance ( talk) 01:15, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

May I suggest you are over-looking WP:1EVENT? "The general rule is to cover the event, not the person." All of Littman's notability derives from the controversy around one paper. Bondegezou ( talk) 10:19, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

You make a sensible point Bondegezou, however so is the point that she probably meets NPROF#7 (especially if RODG turns out to be something real per her revised paper), and probably also a technical pass of GNG (I have seen far worse get through AfD). My point is that there is no blatent COI-UBP-PROMO here (I don't think this woman created this BLP, or actively promotes herself), and neither is there any blatent POV-POV Fork issue (as far as I can read from the two articles, they are fairly constructed); such breaches are rightly harshly treated at AfD. There are a large number of edits to the AfD and Talk Pages by skilled WP editors, and yet the critical ROGD article is still tagged as improperly sourced? Isn't it a better use of all of our time to get the ROGD article up to high standard; it is clearly a very topical area and of value to readers (and I am now interested having NPP'ed it last night). We can alyways come back to this BLP in six months time and put it through AfD again and see if any new refs/outcomes would swing it more decisively? Britishfinance ( talk) 10:44, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

WP:1E overrides WP:GNG (or specific criteria like WP:NPROF). The point of WP:1E is about how to cover things that are notable. If the notability is tied up in one event, we should cover the event, not the individual. Bondegezou ( talk) 10:58, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

But this is not a clear WP:1E as she was not involved in a single "event"; she has created a whole new term in science (potentially) E.g. An Interview With Lisa Littman, Who Coined the Term ‘Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria’. So again, we are at the same impass of no clear consensus (as per AfD), but a lot of wasted editing trying to force one. I don't see the purpose of this? Britishfinance ( talk) 11:20, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I only see one event. She's come up with an idea, but the one paper on that idea created controversy, was retracted and re-written. Classic WP:1E. There's no broader body of research around this idea (yet).

The purpose of discussing this further is precisely that no consensus was reached. In order to achieve consensus at some point in the future, we need to discuss the matter further. Consensus isn't going to occur from everyone not doing anything. Bondegezou ( talk) 11:33, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Anyone can create a whole new term in science. I just coined the term "flabbanabbification", based off my study (peer-reviewed and published in PLOS One), which says that RexxS and Freepsbane both say they saw someone flabbanabbifizing one time. Sure, the journal made me redo the whole paper to emphasize that I don't actually have any first-hand, reproducible evidence, but if someone in the future decides to look for people who are actually flabbanabbifizing, at least with my paper they'll know what to call the hypothesis they're looking for. You can put my article at Safrolic_(thing namer).

The publication of the article is the only actual thing here. That's 1E. "A whole new term in science" happens with every study researching some new or theorized phenomena, but until it's shown in the clinical literature, or reproduced, or whatever to demonstrate that it is in fact real and impactful, it's not notable. Safrolic ( talk) 11:41, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

We have RS that states that she has developed a new theory and coined a new term (rightly or wongly). That is not "classic" WP:1E. The definition of WP1E are "events" and WP:1E notes examples like the Rodney King beating, and shooting of JSK; not developing of new scientific theories (which she is still working on, and continue to get debated in RS). You are not making sense to me, and I feel that perspective has been lost on this issue. Britishfinance ( talk) 17:14, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I'm an academic. I've got a similar job to Dr Littman. We develop theories and coin terms all the time. What matters is peer-reviewed publication. The 1E here is she published a paper and there was a furore around it. The RS are all about that one paper and the reaction to it. Bondegezou ( talk) 18:06, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Are your theories spread all over the national press (and other sites – there was a ton of RS listed at AfD). If they are, then you have a shot at a BLP (not a cert given the no consensus, but a shot). A scientific theory, which is still in development and still being debated widely, is not "classic" WP:1E. It is just not. This is closer to WP:NPROF #7 then WP:1E. Britishfinance ( talk) 18:17, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

I agree with Britishfinance. In that ton of RS, most of the sources discuss multiple overlapping issues that are connected with Littman and/or ROGD, and not all of which are issues of science. The issues covered in journalistic sources included (for example): the results of the study, the data obtained in the study, the perceived shortcomings of the study's methodology and/or conclusions, the review and correction process, trans activism, academic freedom, bioethics and policy issues, and politicization/political issues. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 19:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

Literally all of that (still all related to the single event of publication) would fit in to an article about a publishing controversy, and almost none of it fits into a BLP. You're using Littman as a WP:COATRACK to try to push a completely undemonstrated hypothesis as somehow credible. Safrolic ( talk) 20:17, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply

@ Safrolic: Contrary to your impression, I truly do not expect or want Wikipedia to state that ROGD is "credible". What I do expect and want is that Wikipedia will accurately reflect what MEDRES sources have written about the substance of Littman's study – and do you want something different from that? I also expect and want Wikipedia to accurately reflect what reliable sources have written about Littman herself, and about the controversy. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 00:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC) reply

WP:1E isn't about deleting content. It's about how to present that content. A WP:1E argument is consistent with your desire for Wikipedia to reflect what has been written about the study, but it says we do that within an article about the study and the surrounding brouhaha rather than by having an article about the person. This is for a variety of good reasons, including about balance and about avoiding WP:BLP issues. Bondegezou ( talk) 10:09, 28 March 2019 (UTC) reply

WP:1E isn't about deleting content. I don't think that statement is consistent with a desire to Redirect a BLP, which really is a form of Deletion on WP. I also think the WP:!E argument is just too contrived. A scientific theory, which is still being discussed, debated and being developed by its author, can't really be described as an "event"?. There is loads of RS on or about her on any basic google search that goes well beyond the initial "event" of its publication. I can't see this is a useful path. Britishfinance ( talk) 13:49, 28 March 2019 (UTC) reply

• Support, and agree with RexxS that if this page is going to avoid deletion or a redirect to the topic it's actually about, it should do so on its own merits, even if the eventual solution is undoubtedly going to involve both articles. Safrolic ( talk) 23:56, 26 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• I support keeping this article, for the reasons discussed in my statements at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisa Littman and Talk:Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria. For clarity: I oppose a merge into a section of another article such as PLOS One. However, if a new AfD review results in a consensus to blank-and-redirect this article, I would not oppose a merge into Rapid-onset gender dysphoria. Lwarrenwiki ( talk) 19:31, 27 March 2019 (UTC) reply
• Support merging and/or redirecting per closer's suggestion and my rationale in the AfD. Hopefully that will stop this topic in bouncing from venue to venue. Daß  Wölf 22:08, 6 April 2019 (UTC) reply